Women Like Me Stories & Business

Embracing the Woman Within

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 148

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The moment we begin giving away all our energy, attention, and care to others without replenishing ourselves, we start dwelling in an empty vessel. Stacey Collins knows this reality intimately.

Stacey, a writer, coach, and musician,shares her profound journey from trauma and loss to rediscovering herself. With raw honesty, Stacey reveals how contributing to the "Beautiful, Broken, Becoming" anthology became a pivotal step in her healing process.

"I had to stop worrying about everyone else and take care of me," Stacey explains, addressing the guilt many women feel when prioritizing their own needs. She compares neglecting self-care to maintaining a pool - without proper cleaning, we accumulate emotional "gunk" that affects our overall wellbeing. 

Perhaps most moving is Stacey's candid discussion about forgiveness, describing how she released herself from an "unforgiveness prison" she had created. 

She tells us about how she refused to surrender her "ashes" of pain, Stacey illuminates the complex journey of letting go.

For anyone feeling broken or lost, Stacey offers this gentle encouragement: "Remember that little girl that played at the park, that sang little songs... Remember those moments because they are key to coming back, to becoming, to resurrecting."

Instagram: @themommacollins

Free Song: bit.ly/letmeloveyousong

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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst – Speaker, Author, and Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a champion for women’s empowerment and the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program. Since 2019, she has published 30 books and 300+ true-life stories—at no cost to the writers—giving women a platform to heal, inspire, and reclaim their power. Dedicated to breaking generational trauma one story at a time, Julie’s mission is to uplift women emotionally and financially, helping them create better lives for themselves and their families.

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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst – Speaker, Author, and Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a champion for women’s empowerment and the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program. Since 2019, she has published 30 books and 300+ true-life stories—at no cost to the writers—giving women a platform to heal, inspire, and reclaim their power. Dedicated to breaking generational trauma one story at a time, Julie’s mission is to uplift women emotionally and financially, helping them create better lives for themselves and their families.


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Speaker 1:

Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Women Like Me Stories in Business. I'm your host, julie Fairhurst, and I'm so excited today. I'm so excited I have the beautiful, amazing Stacey Collins with us today and she is one of our newest writers in beautiful, broken becoming I just her story is amazing. I just can't wait to jump in. So, stacey, welcome.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you, Julie. I'm honored to be here.

Speaker 1:

Stacey, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2:

That's a huge question. I will say about family. Well, number one, I love God that is a very important aspect of who I am and everything that I walk in and next my family, my wonderful husband of 32 years, john, and then I have five children, four adults and a six-year-old busy boy, and I am a coach, writer and musician worshiper, and many other you know, you know how, over the years, you gather these things about yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

You know just different variants of things. I love life.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, you can tell that in your, in your story, and, and, and talking to you as well. So let me start with our first question what inspired you to want to write in the book?

Speaker 2:

Well, I heard you speak at she Speaks. I think it is. Yes, she Speaks. I just felt like this is it because I've been working on my own stories and memoir and just feeling a little unsure of where to move forward and I had written in other compilations but I really loved the focus of women like me? That sounds like that's me. I'm sure lots of women say that and I felt I could do this, and this is the first time I've written as many words in a story for a compilation, so it was a big task to look at.

Speaker 2:

But I thought I'm pushing myself, I'm expanding myself to be prepared for my own book.

Speaker 1:

yeah, yes, yeah, and that's the wonderful thing about about you know, a chapter is that you can build on it if you want to. Yes, yeah, you can. Yeah, it just it helps writers to get started to you know further their story. For sure Was there anything that you almost didn't put in your story, that you did, but you were thinking, oh, maybe I shouldn't put that in there. I think.

Speaker 2:

I probably didn't go as deep on some of the stories for the reason of protecting relationships and other people. I think I went really in as much as I was able to in the season. I actually feel I felt really good about that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and I it's, it's. I get a lot of ladies who want to write and I love what you just said, because they worry sometimes about, oh, my family or my friends or this or that. But we have to remember that it's our story, we can put in what we want and we can work around those issues so that we're that's not going to be, excuse me, be a problem down the road. Yes, so true, yeah, so what was your? What part of your story was the hardest to?

Speaker 2:

I think the part about um forgiveness and cause I I feel forgiveness keeps coming back, like I even had to deal with something the last two weeks, um, that hit in those deep places and I was like, oh wow, like I was even saying yesterday, oh well, some more healing needed.

Speaker 2:

So, like forgiveness is a journey. Yes, you know, when we write a story, there's a completion in a way of that chapter or that choices to choose life, to choose love, to choose forgiveness, to choose hope, peace, you know, and sometimes we do it, and sometimes we need someone to lift our arms, you know, lift us up, and so I think putting that in the book was, I felt exposed, um, you know, someone could read it in the wrong way. I almost added in the chapter at the end if you're reading this and and you feel pain, I'm sorry, you know, like, know to the people who know me, you know that's them. I'm like it might be. Yeah, it's okay, like I'm choosing to release, and something I said to someone the other day is I had to stop worrying about everyone else and take care of me. It's like putting your oxygen mask on.

Speaker 2:

You said this to me in our pre-interview, you know, really I forget how you titled it, but it was basically like don't worry about everyone else, take care of yourself. And it seems selfish, but we, if we don't, if we have an empty well or if we have a, you know, I cleaned out the pool the other day and there's ecosystem in there that's disgusting and I was thinking, man, this is how, if we don't clean out things, we end up with this yucky ecosystem that's, you know, gunk and bugs and you know frogs and yuckyucky, and that's going to be inside of me. I don't want. I want to have fresh, clean water.

Speaker 2:

So I have to be reminded of it yeah sometimes I have to say to someone um, a lady said to me today are you going to believe this or that way? You know, uh, are you? Do you have faith in this situation? And I just met her when I was leaving. I was like thanks for slapping me across the face. No one else had the courage to say call me out and say are you going to believe this? So sometimes I can't choose that, but I can be reminded of it and writing this story helped me with that.

Speaker 1:

You know I and I'm not exaggerating, I can tell you that your story I've done 353 so far, true life stories Yours hit me and it hit me personally and I had to read it a couple of times Because I saw myself throughout your story. Oh, I'm getting shivers and I thought, wow, it's. We're so connected and we all we don't realize that so many of us feel the same way, so many of us experience the same experiences, and it's. I just hope that I hope everyone reads your story, because I do. I think that, no matter who they are, they're going to get something out of that.

Speaker 1:

And so, going back to what we were talking you were talking about a second ago about about feeling like it's selfish to take care of ourselves. Your whole story is about learning to take care of yourself and we, as women, are so bad. We're just so bad at that Because you know, I was. I was talking to someone the other day and she said Well, in different cultures, you know, the women eat last, and the women and then I started paying attention to me. I'm cooking breakfast, but I'm eating last, you know. And then you start to pay attention and we do. We put ourselves, we put ourselves last. What's bad about that is just what you said. If we're, if, if our cup is empty, if we're, if we don't have it inside of us, we can't give it to others, and then we get burnt out, and then we get tired, and then we're useless.

Speaker 2:

And then other people have to fill in and carry for us. You know, when I titled the story Becoming Me, the Woman I Never Knew, the journey actually started back in 22 in January. I never knew. The journey actually started back in 22 in January, where I reached out and asked people to tell me one thing about my book, one to three things about me that they saw, so I could come back into identity, because I I actually had been through so much trauma, I couldn't know me.

Speaker 2:

I it's hard to explain I'd lost a huge chunk of myself and all these last few years I kept saying um to my children and my husband I'm coming back, I'm coming back. And they said to me you're, you're never going to be back, you're not the same. You've been through so much. And that's where the title becoming me, woman I never knew came from, because this is the word that came to me a few months ago was a new, and I looked it up, and new is something you've never seen or done before, but anew is putting new focus, perspective and purpose behind you. And so I'm anew, becoming yeah, and that helped me because you know, when you've climbed mountains or you've done things in your life, you want everybody to know you in that aspect and when you're not there anymore and you will never go back up that same mountain, you never will.

Speaker 2:

One of my friends said you're going up the other side. I'm like I don't even want to climb that mountain. You know, like I heard Scooter Braun say the other day he doesn't want to be a manager ever again and he worked with the greats, you know Justin Bieber, all the and, and I thought, wow, because he's discovered me and he's content, he loves his life the way it is, his family, and I think I I was wrestling for relationships, for positioning, for roles, for acknowledgement, for, you know, community, whatever it was. I was trying to get there again, but those are my memories and those are the treasures. I can go back and say, oh, that's, that's my life, yeah, and I don't have to redo where I've already been. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Wow, so reflective. That was yeah. So Stacy, guys got to read Stacey's story. I'm telling you I'm not, I'm not joking around here, okay. So if you had a message in one sentence, what would your message be about your story? If you had to say you know that, quick elevator. What is elevator speech? What's my story about?

Speaker 2:

The first thing that comes to my mind is resurrecting from the death but that's so true. Yeah, absolutely my name means resurrection too.

Speaker 1:

Stacy means resurrection oh, oh, so a pattern of life. Wow, wow, huh, so deep, oh my goodness. Okay. So how has your life changed since you've written this, or has it changed?

Speaker 2:

well, yeah, I. We had a deadline for June 16th and May 25th my husband had a stroke and we didn't even realize how serious it was and he went back to riding his bike eight miles and doing his thing and then on June 12th, in the middle of the night, he had another serious stroke and we were in the hospital for two weeks. So if I hadn't have written my story in the middle of before he had a second, second stroke, it would not have been in this book. There was no way everything stopped. Yeah, I moved into a new home. Um, all my kids have come from you know far to be with dad, and my whole journey is sitting here, going again, like something again. But at the same time I saw miracles. My husband had no feeling on the left side of his body. I didn't know. You know I'm sitting there going. Is he going to walk in, like you're just in the middle of all this, and I really feel God did huge miracles and it's still a journey. But a lot has changed since I submitted this story. But I felt like, um, a chapter had closed too. Like it's interesting.

Speaker 2:

As I read this chapter, it was like I needed to do this and I even did an hour speech that was about something totally different than my chapter. The day of my husband's second stroke that morning I will I gave an hour um speech and it was about uh, choosing, uh, life overcoming in Hollywood it was. It was a whole different story. It was. It was resurrection in another way and I felt closing in those in this chapter and in that speech I felt closure. Yeah, it become like to let go of past and because I'm holding all those stories inside. That's why I say to every woman that you're questioning to write there's healing. You say this yes, what you embody, there's healing in releasing stories so you can tell more, so you can impact more. That's where I'm at right now yeah, yeah, so much healing.

Speaker 1:

I've seen it time and time again. Yeah, it's um, it's amazing what releasing can do and there's lots of ways for releasing and lots of ways for healing. This just happens to be where I am and a lot of the women that I work with and you know you're I remember those messages coming in about your husband and thinking oh like about your husband, and thinking oh like. But I mean, it was just your story was meant to be and and I think it brings it even more powerful because you were going through what you were going through while you were writing it it was just quite, quite the journey. So how do you find your strength during the most difficult parts of your life?

Speaker 2:

god, yeah you know, my son was asking me yesterday how do you know and experience that it's god, you know, speaking to you? It was quite a profound question. He was having a discussion with his dad and I happened to step into the space and I really feel it's like when I'm not carrying it anymore, it's like I can trust, I'm not alone, and I just feel like there's this flow, like I wrote a song on the piano two nights ago and I wrote a song a few weeks ago too, like I have that's another creative outlet and it's like it's it's not mine, it's like it's it's given to me, just like this, our stories, you know we live them, but in the telling and the releasing of the creative, it's like it has an entity of its own, like, and I feel like God give, god is create. You know, god is create, create, creation. Like God is um, he said I am, that I am, and so that is creative.

Speaker 2:

And so whenever I'm going through something, I go through the first thing like why not this again? Like I said and you know I'm angry I've had situations that you never want to go through, and yet every one of them are, this young man said to me the other day a gift you know, like for who you're becoming, and are we going to embrace life like, oh, just every day, the same, the same. Are we going to take the gold and embrace everything that we have and make an impact? And it's our world, not the whole world sometimes, but just in our world. Yes, your spouse, your family, you know all of that, like your friends, the community you're in.

Speaker 2:

That's what I see God does in me and he usually brings someone, like in a text and a call, and my children in the voice of others. He brings something Even when I'm not thinking about him, because you need other people to hold you up. When I was at the hospital with my husband, it was like people were holding me up. I don't know how many people were praying, like I know so many people and their groups were praying and it was just expansive and my husband felt it, you know, and so you don't always have to be like, oh God, like you know, like it's just, it's in the being we're created in his image, it's just, it's just embracing life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he is life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what about me? Yes, yeah. So becoming me is actually becoming. I am like I always say, I am colin, and here yes I say that that was my journey into becoming me, because I had to have identity in something or someone, and that, for me, is God yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think that and I really appreciated what you said about you know seeing things as gifts and I know not every. You know it's very difficult for people and you've been through some severe trauma, but you're working and you're seeing those as gifts. My life has not been the best. I see my life as well as gifts. But there's other people who are either in fear or they're blinded to it, and they spend the same 30 days, the same six months, the same year after year, going through that, just circling. So, and I believe that spirit talks to everyone. So, but is there anything you could think of that you could say to those folks that might be spinning in that circle of life and not expanding? Just, you know, living it day after day after day after day, and how can they hear those whispers, how can they hear those messages that that you, that you pick up on?

Speaker 2:

Because the ache is so great, like I've had that heart pain where I've gone up to be prayed for and said, please, just pray that this pain will go away. And so I know that feeling. I know when I couldn't get out of bed. I know when I had to push myself just to get up to go get a cup of tea and then go back to bed. And every journey is different other day. On my speech is sometimes you choose and sometimes you're chosen, not meaning just from God, but somebody reaches out and so to pay attention. It's not about being all spiritual and you know I'm close to God and it's actually just listening and sensing, like opening up and embracing. Yeah, this hurts, this is excruciating and going. Okay, god, how, whatever you cry out to, you know for me it's like God, how do I deal with this pain?

Speaker 2:

I actually had a vision a few years ago when I was in the middle of really deep grief and Jesus showed up and he said daughter, I want you to give me your ashes. Because at church on Sunday the speaker he said put your ashes out, put your hands out and give your ashes to Jesus. Right, and I was not going to like, I was angry about that. I and I, after church, I said to my husband and friends I don't, I didn't want to do that, like everybody else is putting their hands on. I'm like no, and no one actually caught that this was, this was not a good thing that I said that. And on Tuesday I was texting some friends and then, all of a sudden, I had this experience with Jesus. I've actually made a video about it, um, because, uh, it was so profound and I shared it. It was so scary to share it, but it's impacted other people because they feel the same way. But he said he said daughter, I love you, give me your ashes. And I said no, and I said this is, this is, these are mine, and my, mine are like a pregnant, mine were like hold this and I have more, I have more losses after this. Okay, like the list is long, yes, but, um, I said no, these are my ashes, that I've paid a price for these. I lost these people. I did this and I was like, no, these are my ashes and you know I couldn't give them. And Jesus stepped forward and he put his arms around me and the ashes and my tears were falling and the ashes were going with the tears in the wind, and it was a journey. Didn't all happen in that moment, but it was a. It was an opening of something. I can't make this stuff up, you know, like this right an experience. Yeah, actually I held on to when it got even harder, and every season I shared this on a speech the other day. But every season prepared me for what was to come.

Speaker 2:

And even the day I did the speech and wrote the chapter for the you know women like me I actually was preparing, even not knowing my husband's going to go through this, right my whole life has. I don't like to leave the house and have to drive. All the time I got to do the grocery shopping and take pictures of food, I don't know. My husband likes health, health, health, and so all these things changed. And I don't think I could go through this if I hadn't learned the pattern of listening and getting up. Like I say, get up, show up and don't give up. And that might mean getting up to go get tea. That might mean from laying down on your bed to sitting up and making a choice. Today I'm going to do one thing If that's just sitting up or if that's opening up my phone and looking up something of hope, listening to a song, grabbing a book, that's inspirational.

Speaker 2:

One time when I lost someone close to me that it's 26 years now I went to the Christian bookstore and I bought, you know, a CD and I sat up on the hill and played it and my healing began. That was a 10-year journey of healing. Uh, you know, I couldn't let go. And so everyone has their timing. And when you have multi-complex losses, like I've had multiple at the same time within my family um, you, you can't just grieve one. You're, you're, you're here, you're. It's like you're juggling balls of grief. Either I choose life or I choose death. And so, even that, I want to encourage you. Do you want to live? And so that's the question to ask yourself, because sometimes we were chosen in that someone reaches out and says, hey, I want to come bring you coffee or I want to.

Speaker 2:

And if we feel alone, many of us have isolated ourselves like I cut people out, I literally nobody cares about me, you know, in these deep, dark places. But the truth is I didn't care about me and so I isolated everyone and I made it that I was alone and I had to make a choice, but at the same time, I was chosen because there were things that came that I tried to reject. Well, no one likes me. But that person just said they just sent me a paragraph, you know, in a text. And I'm like, no, that's not true, you know, and I played this mind game, so I think it's coming.

Speaker 2:

I think really, truly, it's listening, um, because we can't make hope, we can't make life. It's there for us and sometimes it's other people bringing it to us, or I. That's what I want to be In my story, in what I do in my life. I want to be able to bring the hope in life for other people, and that helps me too. When I give to someone else, I hope. I answered I went around in a circle, but it actually goes somewhere.

Speaker 1:

No, Stacey, it was beautiful just listening to it and, as I said, your story hit me and now you just hit me with what you said. You're just so inspirational and I appreciate you so much for you know, being willing to be open and and it's not easy to share your, your wounds and your griefs. And you know, and I just really love that about the ashes and that you were just so angry and you thought, no, I'm keeping these. It's like an honor almost of pain, yeah, but but it's so true that unless we release release what's burdening us and and hurting us and harming us, we're not going to live a good. Well, I shouldn't say we're not going to live a good life, but we're gonna. We're gonna have a lot of struggles mentally and within ourselves exactly.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, I was okay. Um, I I was released from unforgiveness prison. Yeah, wow, that was um. That's a thing I wrote last year and I thought it's so true. Yeah, I put myself in prison yes not them? Yep, not any of them. I love them. Yes, did I hurt them? I hurt people. Yeah, we hurt each other. Yes, if we just think someone hurt us, we have a part in it. I have relationships. I don't know if I'll ever get them back yeah.

Speaker 2:

More painful in some ways than someone dying. They're like the walking dead, you know, like they're literally existing, yes, and you can't relate, communicate, you're not the same person. There's been rejection, abandonment, and even when you try to reach out and you think you're good, it's not the same. But just learn to say I love you, I love you and I'm not perfect in that. Guys, that's for me, that's selfish, okay, that's actually. That doesn't put me on a pedestal. It's like because I have God's love. But when I say I love you, you know, when you know we speak words out, they, they continue on, yes, yes.

Speaker 2:

And so when we sit and talk negative about people and when we put them up for breakfast, lunch, supper, we actually are affecting their lives and our life.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And our whole selves are. So for my own healing, I've had to say I love you. And there's a verse in the Bible that I put on my wall. I think it's Psalm 18, one or Psalm 118, one but it says I love you, god. You make me strong. And when I was in hollywood, that was my um verse on the wall because of what I was going through there with relationships and stuff and that was all I could say. That encouragement to some of you too is I took that verse on the wall.

Speaker 2:

I love you, god yeah be strong and I didn't it all.

Speaker 1:

I always, I didn't believe it always, but saying those words yes, healing to so important to pay attention to what's coming out of our mouths and rolling around in our brains? Yeah, because it's not always good for us. Yeah, wow, stacy, yeah, wow, stacey, wow. Well, I could continue to listen to you all day, but unfortunately our time is almost up. What would you like to say to all of the women out there who are struggling right now? If you could whisper something in their ear, what would you say?

Speaker 2:

Wow, it's hard to put that into a little nugget, but I would say you're not alone and life is just beginning, as you are a creative being and there's more to release and give. And I just want to encourage you to remember that little girl that played at the park, that sang the little songs that you know, sat and read books and played with your dogs, or if you did sports. Remember those moments and look at them, like I shared in my story when I was dusting my mom's china. Remember those moments because they are key to coming back, to becoming, to resurrecting and coming into who you are. And you're not done. You are not done as long as you have breath and you need you. We need you to, yeah, exist and be and release. And I have so much excitement that's like I'm working on stuff for women in in this aspect of helping you unpack and and see and believe.

Speaker 2:

I think my biggest thing is God gave me years ago, 30 years ago dream, imagine, believe and, um, I really feel that's what I'm called to walk in. Yeah, wow, that's what I want you to do. Dream, yeah, imagine that you can wow, beautiful.

Speaker 1:

I want everyone to know that if they would write like to reach out to Stacey, we will have her details in the detail section of the podcast and also the video. And the other thing is Stacey, you, you, uh, gave us a free song. I've listened to it twice so far. It's's beautiful. So I'm going to make sure that that link is in the podcast and also in the YouTube videos. So I want you all to listen to that. It's a beautiful song, just beautiful. But it'll be there for you. So we'll have lots of ways you can reach out to Stacey and you can also listen to her beautiful song, because she has a lovely voice as well as a lovely heart. So thank you again, stacey, for being here, thank you for writing in the book, thank you for being so inspirational and encouraging so many women out there. I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome. You're welcome. Okay, take care, bye, bye.

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