Not Alone

I think I'm a little over the mental health conversation. I know how that sounds, so stay with me. I believe in therapy. It has helped me more than I can say, and I'll keep doing the work. This isn't about anxiety, or burnout, or real trauma. Those are their own conversations, and they matter. This is about something else, something that started out helpful and quietly turned into something I'm not sure is helping us anymore.

Here's what I keep noticing. Every uncomfortable feeling has become a red flag. Every hard week has to mean something. We've built this whole vocabulary, attachment style, nervous system, activated, aligned, not aligned, and we've started reaching for it to describe a bad Wednesday. Somewhere in there we forgot the difference between something being hard and something being wrong. They feel almost the same in the body. They are not the same thing.

So I get into how you actually tell them apart, because that's the muscle I think we've lost. Hard gets quieter when you sit with it. Wrong gets louder. Hard makes you bigger. Wrong makes you smaller. Hard moves through and ends. Wrong feels the same today as it did three months ago. And then I get honest about my own life, the modeling shoot at fourteen where I froze, the year I moved to Canada and was depressed the whole time and stayed anyway, marrying Gary at twenty-one through all the judgment, filming my first videos alone and cringing the entire time. If I'd read any of that as a sign to stop, I wouldn't have the life I have now.

I'm not saying this from the other side of it. I'm in it this week, still catching myself calling something "not aligned" when the truth is I was just scared. But I'd rather be the woman who tried the thing and complained the whole way than the one who protected her peace so carefully she never learned anything about herself. There's a difference between protecting your peace and protecting your potential. This one's a developing conversation, and I want to keep having it with you.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Follow Valeria:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog

Follow Not Alone:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod
Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/

Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/collections/6814030
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky

What we talked about:

(1:03) I think I'm ready to say some truths
(1:23) I'm a little over the mental health conversation
(1:49) What I actually mean, and what I believe in
(2:11) The stuff I'm not talking about: anxiety, burnout, real trauma
(2:46) Every uncomfortable feeling has become a red flag
(3:04) The whole vocabulary we've built
(3:46) Borrowing that language for things that are just hard
(4:46) We're making ourselves scared of our own lives
(5:02) The difference between hard and wrong
(6:26) If they feel the same in the body, how do you tell?
(7:19) One: hard gets quieter, wrong gets louder
(7:56) Two: hard makes you bigger, wrong makes you smaller
(8:41) Three: hard moves, wrong stays
(9:18) Every version of me I'm proud of came from discomfort
(9:48) Fourteen, and frozen at the modeling shoot
(10:25) Moving to Canada at twenty, depressed for a year, and staying
(11:03) Marrying Gary at twenty-one, and the judgment
(11:36) Filming alone, cringing, wanting to quit
(12:34) My mom, the loudest voice in my head
(12:46) Her story: a single mother starting over with nothing
(13:23) She had to trust herself because there was nothing else
(14:20) The millennial load, and the muscle we lost
(15:25) I'm not speaking from the other side. I'm in it this week
(16:05) The cage of overhealing
(16:21) Feeling a hard thing without naming it
(16:51) The difference between rest and avoidance
(17:12) Catching myself using the language to avoid
(17:52) The version of me who feels ready is never coming
(18:35) To the woman who's quietly tired of all of it
(19:00) You're allowed to feel things without diagnosing them
(19:49) Protecting your peace vs protecting your potential
(20:14) I'd rather be the woman who tried the thing
(20:18) A developing conversation. Tell me where you stand

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A billion views. Twelve million women. All of it started on a living room floor, postpartum, in lockdown, with a phone and no plan. Jo had gained fifty pounds, she was in the middle of postpartum depression, and she has said her body was nothing she recognized. She almost didn't press record. She thought if she showed up looking like that, people would look away.

She showed up anyway. Not for an audience, not for the algorithm, not even for the woman she used to be. And that quiet decision, made on a bad day when nothing felt possible, is the whole reason twelve million women found her.

We got into the girl before all of it. One of eleven kids, a family band, university at sixteen. Why she gave up training athletes to train regular women. The husband she met on a shoot, the one who never pulls her down. The woman in China who told her that her smile through a screen was the only thing that got her through the pandemic. The first stage she ever walked onto turned out to be an arena of forty thousand.

And she said the smartest thing about consistency I've heard anyone say out loud. It isn't a daily workout. It's knowing what season you're actually in and showing up for that one. Two fifteen-minute workouts a week after a baby counts. So does a workout every day when life lets you. Neither one is failing.

We talk about transformation like the point is the after photo. I don't think it is. The real story is the woman who got on the floor when nothing felt possible and chose herself anyway. Coming home to yourself isn't a transformation. It's a decision. Quiet, daily, usually made when no one is watching.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Follow Jo:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growwithjo
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@growwithjo
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@growwithjo

Follow Valeria:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog

Follow Not Alone:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod
Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/

Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/collections/6634193
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky

What we talked about:
3:00 The girl before Grow With Jo
3:41 One of eleven kids, and a family band
8:52 University at sixteen
11:04 A new school, and learning to adapt
14:03 Why she left training athletes for regular women
17:26 The moment she knew she could reach more people
19:46 This is what I actually look like now
21:50 The first baby, and the lockdown
22:57 The weight, and the out-of-body feeling
24:19 It gave me purpose instead of feeling sorry for myself
24:44 The first step was the living room floor
25:19 Too embarrassed to film at first
26:01 I didn't want to do my therapy in public
26:56 Moving to Florida, four months postpartum
28:19 Posting it on YouTube, and I guess that's what I do now
28:41 Meeting her husband on a shoot
32:33 China, and the woman whose day her smile got through
35:47 Her first stage was forty thousand people
38:30 Consistency is not a daily workout
40:13 Stay consistent to stay confident
41:04 Faith, and crying through a workout
44:10 Coming home to yourself is not a transformation
45:21 Larry, the husband who never pulls her down
46:44 The loneliness of building alone
48:34 Why she sought out Creator Method
50:58 London, and the power of the right environment
52:41 Where Grow With Jo goes next
54:53 Not alone, and women meeting in person
55:21 Keeping the team small and the culture intact
56:45 One thing she'd tell the woman on her couch
58:14 Rapid fire
1:01:52 Close

Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a book every woman I know is reading right now. It's called Strangers, Belle Burden's memoir, and Gwyneth Paltrow just bought the rights to turn it into a film. I picked it up expecting to join the bandwagon. I did not expect it to hold up a mirror. It's about a woman whose husband leaves, and in the rubble of that she realizes she doesn't know a single real thing about her own financial life. What they own, whether her name is on anything, where she stands. He walks out
the door and takes the whole map of her life with him, because she never once looked at it herself.

Here's the part I couldn't shake. Her marriage looked exactly like mine. Fifteen years in, three boys, my name on everything we've built, my own money since I was a teenager. I always thought that was what independence meant, making your own money. It took me fifteen years to realize independence is actually knowing what your own money is doing, and I closed that book and realized I didn't. Her husband had to leave for her to find out. Mine is sitting right here with me, and I still didn't know

So I brought it to Gary, in the least graceful way possible, in the car on the way to dinner, and it did not go how I planned. We get into the prenup I signed at 21 and why the math has since flipped to protect me, the fight that followed, why he heard my questions and thought I was about to end our marriage, and the difference between trusting someone and actually knowing your own life. We only ever teach women this after a marriage is already over. I think that's backwards. I think a good marriage is the best place in the world to have this conversation, so I brought him here to have the rest of it with you.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Follow Gary:

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

Follow Valeria:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog

Follow Not Alone:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod
Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/

Shop my look from this episode:

https://shopmy.us/collections/6367477

Amazon Storefront:

https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky

What we talked about:

0:00 The book that scared me
1:02 How I brought it to Gary
2:23 My money, and watching my mom
5:09 Gary's parents and the scarcity mindset
7:12 The day you said yes, everything became ours
10:50 Beyond the prenup
11:56 Signing it 15 years ago
13:54 The prenup was protecting me too
14:44 Re-examining it now that the math has flipped
16:05 If a friend asked for a prenup and she said no
17:19 Bringing it to the present
28:42 I keep myself in the dark
35:01 You thought I wanted a divorce
35:21 Not in the car on the way to dinner
43:21 I trusted him, so I thought I didn't need to know
45:32 Knowing the balance now, and estate planning
47:50 The way I think finances should work in a marriage
52:12 Making money and raising kids is not the whole marriage
55:16 What I'd tell other women
58:25 Did you learn anything about yourself?

Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I posted a video in my car saying I stopped getting my nails done and my life got better. That was it. One less appointment, one less thing to manage. I thought I had cracked the code, and the code was nails.
Then the internet lost it. Twice.

The first time, women were relieved, like nobody had told them opting out was allowed. A year later, it came back and turned into something else entirely. First, I was broke for not doing my nails. Then, I was rich for not doing my nails. My little video ended up next to Carolyn Bessette in think pieces, and I am over here just trying not to drive to a salon.

So I called Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton, who built Chillhouse from one SoHo salon into the brand that created the press-on category.

She said the part I had not thought about at all: when I skip my nails, it gets called quiet luxury. When a woman of color skips hers, it can read like she is not keeping up. Same bare nail, completely different verdict.

I had become the poster child of a trend I never signed up for, and I had not once considered whose hand it was on.

We stayed there for a while. Why we go after each other so hard over our own faces. Whether we quietly judge other women, which she answered honestly instead of pretending she does not. What her mother's spa in Queens had—a room full of women talking for hours—that we do not really have anymore. Why she builds loudly and improves quietly. And what it is actually like to build a company with the man you are married to, which is its own thing entirely.

At the end, I asked her what women are not saying out loud right now. She said she wishes we could fully own being who we want to be and not feel bad about it. We can change, we can stay the same, and we can do whatever we want.

I think a lot of women need to hear that right now.

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton is the founder and CEO of Chillhouse, the self-care brand she built from a single SoHo salon into one of the most influential beauty companies of her generation.

She is the woman behind Chill Tips, the press-on line that helped redefine what nail care even is. An Inc. Female Founders honoree and one of WWD's 40 of Tomorrow, she partnered with Kiss Beauty Group in a deal that keeps Chillhouse independent, staying on as CEO with her team and her SoHo flagship intact.

She is a wife, a mother, and a proud Colombian-American—the daughter of an esthetician who started with a single chair in Jackson Heights and grew it into four stores. The Queen of Chill.

Cyndi's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/cyndiramirez

Chillhouse Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/chillhouse

Valeria's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky

Valeria's TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky

Not Alone's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod

Not Alone's TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod

Shop my look from this episode:
https://shopmy.us/collections/6367477

WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT:
0:00 – I posted one video about my nails
2:16 – Why she called the Queen of Nails
3:37 – The year it came back and changed shape
5:37 – Becoming the poster child she never signed up for
6:39 – The part that did not sit right with her
7:52 – Are we bored, or is everything a trend?
8:57 – Who actually wears bare nails
10:06 – The question nobody wanted to ask out loud
11:01 – Valeria pushes back: status or race?
12:23 – Why beauty is so loaded
12:41 – Burgundy hair, black eyeliner, and needing a flag to carry
14:15 – So I'm trending now?
15:29 – Wait, I have a choice
15:36 – Russian mother, Colombian mother, same rules
17:10 – Her mother's chair in Jackson Heights
17:38 – What those rooms full of women had
19:18 – Building Chillhouse and self-care as a necessity
21:04 – Why people still crave the salon
25:59 – Holding two truths: organic and Botox
28:08 – The Botox conversation she was scared to have
29:18 – Why she talks about what she gets done
30:33 – The magazine where Valeria did not recognize her own face
31:15 – Cyndi's teenage modeling years
31:56 – Do you judge other women? Be honest
33:44 – Judging as a mirror, not a verdict
33:54 – Each other's greatest critics, each other's greatest teachers
34:46 – The real takeaway from the bare-nail discourse
35:07 – Recession indicator to status symbol
36:42 – The poster child of having fun with beauty
37:45 – Finding a personal style and dressing like a chameleon
38:29 – Being the face of the brand
40:09 – 2020: putting nails in women's hands at home
41:21 – The pivot, the pandemic, and making payroll
43:12 – The intuition she never second-guessed
43:43 – Why intuition is the business skill
47:28 – Build loudly, improve quietly
50:35 – When vulnerability goes too far
52:34 – Leaving New York to find solid ground
53:51 – Building a company with the person you married
57:06 – The real version of building with your husband
59:02 – The coach they needed and the next version of themselves
1:00:34 – Rapid fire
1:02:28 – What women aren't saying out loud

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I posted a video in my car saying I stopped getting my nails done and my life got better. That was it. One less appointment, one less thing to manage. I thought I had cracked the code, and the code was nails.
Then the internet lost it. Twice.

The first time, women were relieved, like nobody had told them opting out was allowed. A year later, it came back and turned into something else entirely. First, I was broke for not doing my nails. Then, I was rich for not doing my nails. My little video ended up next to Carolyn Bessette in think pieces, and I am over here just trying not to drive to a salon.

So I called Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton, who built Chillhouse from one SoHo salon into the brand that created the press-on category.

She said the part I had not thought about at all: when I skip my nails, it gets called quiet luxury. When a woman of color skips hers, it can read like she is not keeping up. Same bare nail, completely different verdict.

I had become the poster child of a trend I never signed up for, and I had not once considered whose hand it was on.

We stayed there for a while. Why we go after each other so hard over our own faces. Whether we quietly judge other women, which she answered honestly instead of pretending she does not. What her mother's spa in Queens had—a room full of women talking for hours—that we do not really have anymore. Why she builds loudly and improves quietly. And what it is actually like to build a company with the man you are married to, which is its own thing entirely.

At the end, I asked her what women are not saying out loud right now. She said she wishes we could fully own being who we want to be and not feel bad about it. We can change, we can stay the same, and we can do whatever we want.

I think a lot of women need to hear that right now.

Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton is the founder and CEO of Chillhouse, the self-care brand she built from a single SoHo salon into one of the most influential beauty companies of her generation.

She is the woman behind Chill Tips, the press-on line that helped redefine what nail care even is. An Inc. Female Founders honoree and one of WWD's 40 of Tomorrow, she partnered with Kiss Beauty Group in a deal that keeps Chillhouse independent, staying on as CEO with her team and her SoHo flagship intact.

She is a wife, a mother, and a proud Colombian-American—the daughter of an esthetician who started with a single chair in Jackson Heights and grew it into four stores. The Queen of Chill.

Cyndi's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/cyndiramirez

Chillhouse Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/chillhouse

Valeria's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky

Valeria's TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky

Not Alone's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod

Not Alone's TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod

Shop my look from this episode:
https://shopmy.us/collections/6367477

WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT:
0:00 – I posted one video about my nails
2:16 – Why she called the Queen of Nails
3:37 – The year it came back and changed shape
5:37 – Becoming the poster child she never signed up for
6:39 – The part that did not sit right with her
7:52 – Are we bored, or is everything a trend?
8:57 – Who actually wears bare nails
10:06 – The question nobody wanted to ask out loud
11:01 – Valeria pushes back: status or race?
12:23 – Why beauty is so loaded
12:41 – Burgundy hair, black eyeliner, and needing a flag to carry
14:15 – So I'm trending now?
15:29 – Wait, I have a choice
15:36 – Russian mother, Colombian mother, same rules
17:10 – Her mother's chair in Jackson Heights
17:38 – What those rooms full of women had
19:18 – Building Chillhouse and self-care as a necessity
21:04 – Why people still crave the salon
25:59 – Holding two truths: organic and Botox
28:08 – The Botox conversation she was scared to have
29:18 – Why she talks about what she gets done
30:33 – The magazine where Valeria did not recognize her own face
31:15 – Cyndi's teenage modeling years
31:56 – Do you judge other women? Be honest
33:44 – Judging as a mirror, not a verdict
33:54 – Each other's greatest critics, each other's greatest teachers
34:46 – The real takeaway from the bare-nail discourse
35:07 – Recession indicator to status symbol
36:42 – The poster child of having fun with beauty
37:45 – Finding a personal style and dressing like a chameleon
38:29 – Being the face of the brand
40:09 – 2020: putting nails in women's hands at home
41:21 – The pivot, the pandemic, and making payroll
43:12 – The intuition she never second-guessed
43:43 – Why intuition is the business skill
47:28 – Build loudly, improve quietly
50:35 – When vulnerability goes too far
52:34 – Leaving New York to find solid ground
53:51 – Building a company with the person you married
57:06 – The real version of building with your husband
59:02 – The coach they needed and the next version of themselves
1:00:34 – Rapid fire
1:02:28 – What women aren't saying out loud

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices