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Real, raw, inspiring stories of how people have shifted perspectives through life altering events. This podcast offers opportunities to hear multiple perspectives from various belief systems.
Karen Walker Cohn (00:01)
Heather, when you hear the title of this podcast, Coming Back to Love, inspiring stories on shifting perspectives, what story or experience comes to mind for you?
Heather P Hopkins (00:11)
Thanks for watching!
Yeah. So for myself, what I love about coming back to love, and this may be a little bit different. I have to zoom into the present moment and I want to be honest with myself. I love myself right now. I cannot.
authentically and honestly reflect on a time earlier in my life where I could say that with absolute integrity. And when I think about coming back to love, I can't recall a time where that existed. And I used to hold a lot of shame with that and felt that I needed to put on this armor of maybe education or titles or accolades to almost convince myself.
you know, don't even get into everybody else that I was worthy. And inside, I did not feel that way for so many reasons. And in evolving, as we do as souls, I've come to realize that and it's been a beautiful thing because now I can say, okay, I really want to love myself. Not only for myself, I now have a daughter and I want her to love herself. And if I want that for her,
I need to show her what that looks like. And she's been a great motivation for me in my life. So when I hear, what does coming back to love mean for you? I think, well, I'm actually designing that right now. And so I could probably more authentically tell you about my journey of not having love and learning.
what that feels like and what that's like to experience and how I'm trying to evolve out of that into a space of love and worthiness. And that is where I currently find myself.
Karen Walker Cohn (02:19)
I love it. Yes. And you know what's so interesting to me? And I think you were sharing this in a little way. Well, I thought you were sharing that because that's what hit me is that when you said that I am in love with myself, there was a time where even if I heard that from another woman, that it was like,
Heather P Hopkins (02:21)
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (02:49)
what? Like, what does she think she is? Right? That judgment or whatever it is, it's like, and now I know, like even when I heard that, like I just felt a smile come across my face and just like, oh, it feels so good to hear another woman say that. And that's for me, I can tell the growth in my own life because of that.
Heather P Hopkins (02:50)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Karen Walker Cohn (03:17)
You know, my reaction is completely different. The evolution, the work that it takes to get to a place where you can say, where I can say, I am in love with me. I am pretty freaking awesome. I'm kind of a big deal. And there's no charge on it.
Heather P Hopkins (03:18)
Yes.
Yeah, exactly. It sounds so easy.
Karen Walker Cohn (03:44)
There is no charge on it. Wow. What a beautiful place to be that you sound like you're smack dab in the middle of love. And don't hear that. For those of you listening, when I say, excuse me, smack dab in the middle of love, that doesn't mean that she she's got it all figured out. You know, you're you've got things that's going on in your life. I'm sure.
Heather P Hopkins (03:55)
Yeah. I, yeah.
Mm-mm.
So, thank you. I'm happy to take this.
Karen Walker Cohn (04:16)
Like tell me, tell me about, tell me about that. So I feel like you're, you're smack dab in the middle of love and what's going on in your life circling all around you.
Heather P Hopkins (04:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair. So I will take myself back because I was reflecting on, I was reflecting on your podcast, so great job there, around what does it mean to come back to love? And I did question, have I ever really loved myself? I mean, there's times I've been proud of myself, and there's moments where I...
of course, had love for myself or pride in myself, but when I think about self-love, there were more times I thought about all the disqualifiers than I did think about the qualifiers. And that has been very prominent in my life from a very young age. So you zoom into myself when I was, when I was a young child, I feel whether it was me.
the way I was raised, being a young female. I grew up very quickly realizing, number one, I am a plus-size female. I have always been a plus-size female. I can remember acknowledging that fact from others telling me these things, whether it was jokes in the family or just being brought up in that manner, as early as four years old.
and I very quickly adopted a mentality that I was less worthy because of this weight. I also went through a lot of traumatic experiences where I felt my weight was a protection, and I had also learned that food was a form of love. And you combine all these factors and I can 100% see myself
as a young girl and I look at and I'm gonna talk about myself in a third person because I think this is really healthy when you're doing inner child healing. I can see young Heather so innocent and pure and trying to figure out the world around her and coming at it from a perspective of I'm not worthy. I'm less than because of this physical attribute because of whatever else society has told me.
Karen Walker Cohn (06:39)
right.
Mm-hmm.
Heather P Hopkins (06:44)
uh because I have glasses I remember first getting glasses being like I can't have I can't be the fat girl and have glasses like Oh, man, I'm having the weight of the world against me and I can look at that now and be like wow What a what a journey but then I believed it And I believed it Up until this year and when you believe In that unworthiness, it is amazing
Karen Walker Cohn (06:50)
Oh my gosh, yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (07:13)
how it will be reflected to you in life. How I thought about myself, even if I wasn't externally saying it, is exactly how I allowed society to treat me. And there's a Green Day song that's called She, and it's a funny song, but there's a lyric in there that says, she's figured out that all of her self doubts are someone else's point of view. And when I say, I am now learning to love myself,
Karen Walker Cohn (07:14)
Mm-hmm.
Heather P Hopkins (07:41)
I have figured out that all of my self doubts were someone else's point of view and that someone else could have been previous Heather. But I am at a point in my life now where I recognize I don't have to accept that. It's not true. And I am allowed to take off that weight. I am allowed to take off all of the reasons that I thought disqualified me from being worthy of love only made me human.
And if I embrace it and I learn to find my inner light, then I am good just as I am and I am okay with exactly who I am today. And that was a really big revelation and I want to be completely transparent. I have had to learn a lot of hard lessons to get here. And I'll share a couple of them, but I say this because
I feel now that I look on my life and I fully recognize I spent my entire life dimming my light because I didn't believe I was worthy enough to shine. I was afraid of people really seeing me because I didn't like what I saw or felt and because of that not only did I dim my light, I felt I had to make up for it.
Karen Walker Cohn (09:00)
Right.
Heather P Hopkins (09:10)
with other things, titles, money, image, and that was a way in and of itself. And it was a spiral. It just it trapped me and I got to a point where I couldn't breathe anymore. It was within the last year where I just said, on paper, I'm achieving so many great things in my career, and I have a loving husband and a beautiful daughter, and on paper, I have a beautiful life. And yet...
Karen Walker Cohn (09:18)
Yes.
Heather P Hopkins (09:39)
My health is out of control. My mental health is not where I'd like it to be. My marriage isn't where I want it to be. What is connecting all this? Oh, yeah, it's me. It starts with me. Um I'm the common denominator and oh by the way, um, can I look myself in the mirror and you know what Karen? I couldn't literally I try to look myself in the mirror and I couldn't And that's when I really knew oh
Karen Walker Cohn (09:52)
I'm the common denominator.
Heather P Hopkins (10:09)
I've got something to do. And like Gandhi says, you want to see a change in the world, you better start with you. And I felt such a calling to go, okay, time out. I need to start with me and I need to understand where is this unworthy coming from and how do I create love for myself?
Karen Walker Cohn (10:10)
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (10:31)
so that I can shine independent of anything external, so that I may shine so bright that I can give back to those I love and then it be reciprocated. Because I had lived a life I now recognize of expectation of, I do this, I get this, and it gives to me, and I became dependent on it. And in the last 12 months, I'll shift gears.
everything I ever worked for came to fruition. Meaning, I worked hard on myself educationally. I got three degrees, I got these certificates, I worked hard on myself professionally, I was climbing that ladder, I was working hard on myself financially, and I thought I was designing a good life. And as I was achieving these mile markers, I started realizing I...
I felt like I was dying, literally. And I went to go get help. Started going to therapy. I started seeing a physical doctor. I was getting sick all the time. I felt that there were.
I feel like I was trying to be communicated to and I was just shut down. I was on a mission, a very myopic mission. I was so driven going after something, I can't even tell you today what it was I was going after. I don't know, but I know what it was costing me. It was costing me my health. I broke down. What are my biggest fears in life?
Karen Walker Cohn (12:15)
Yeah, absolutely.
Heather P Hopkins (12:21)
And my biggest fear in life, I got real basic. Biggest fear would be to die.
That comes from losing my father as a teenager on very unexpectedly. He was 39. I was 16. No one saw coming, went to bed, never woke up. Um, here I am turning 37 terrified. Is 39 going to be my number, even though logically that may not make sense. It was a reality I had been dealt and was terrified of that happening to me. Number one, number two, um, terrified of not.
Karen Walker Cohn (12:49)
Right, right.
Heather P Hopkins (12:59)
having the greatest relationship with the people that love me the most, my husband and my daughter. And number three was just not loving myself. And I went through an experience where I started consulting doctors and I wanted to go about it in a very fact-based manner. And this was about two years ago. And I said, you know what? Something doesn't feel right. I keep getting sick, having these premonitions.
Karen Walker Cohn (13:03)
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (13:28)
I'm an engineering background. I'd like to take a fact-based approach. Can you please help me sort through fact versus fiction and make a game plan to get better help? And in doing that, my doctor had revealed to me that there were quite a few anomalies going on with my health. And we believed a lot of that centered at, at the time, me being a term that I was terrified of, morbidly obese.
Karen Walker Cohn (13:38)
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (13:57)
And so as a woman, I always knew I was plus size and I had always battled it my entire life, right? But the doctor said, you know, Heather, you, there's help. We can help you. And here's some ideas. And one of them was weight loss surgery. And I thought to myself, Ooh, I don't know if that's for me. There's a lot of shame, embarrassment. What if people find out? Will they judge me? Will I lose my job? What will people think of me?
Karen Walker Cohn (14:20)
Yeah.
right.
Heather P Hopkins (14:26)
all these things going on in the head. And at the same time, he tells me, you know, yes, and let me paint a picture that if we don't get this under control in 10 years, what your life is gonna be like if you're living. And that just struck a chord. I went, okay, in that moment, the decision was done. I'm going to do this because that's my greatest fear in life. And so you fast forward
I work for a year, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally to get prepared for this. And I have the surgery with the full intent and effort of I want to have a better quality of life. I want to show up as a better person. And I, I've never been able to achieve this on my own. And I'm at a point where I'm willing to accept help to what felt like to save my life. And Karen, wouldn't you know it. I go into surgery.
Karen Walker Cohn (15:21)
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (15:26)
And I won't get into all the details, but within 24 hours, I have one surgery and then I have an emergency surgery and I die on the table. And they have to bring me back. And I have a long recovery process where I have to learn to eat and walk and shower again with my mother helping me along the way with my family supporting me. And
You fast forward, I'm going, you know, attempting to go back to work, not fully healed. There's another surgery that's bound to happen. And I find myself in a situation where I become unemployed. And I remember sitting down, and now I'm going into surgery number three. And I go, wow.
What a blessing that my biggest fears of life just came true.
Karen Walker Cohn (16:14)
Mm.
Heather P Hopkins (16:22)
How else am I supposed to look at this? Everything I worked for felt taken. I just died and came back to life. Okay, check that box. What do you do when you lose everything? I decided, okay, I lost everything. All my greatest fears came true. Now what? Oh my god, I get to start over. Who's Heather? Who am I? And I promise God, if you give me this chance to heal and to come back,
Karen Walker Cohn (16:35)
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (16:51)
I will be coming from a place of gratitude to say thank you. Thank you for allowing me a second chance. Thank you for allowing me to not take for granted this opportunity. And I am now going to come from a place of love and fulfillment. I am going to shine just as I am exactly where I am. And I am thankful for the darkness that I went through because light can only be light with the presence of darkness. And because I experienced that,
I can now be light and I can embrace myself. And so when I tell you, I haven't loved myself my whole life, that is true. I've loved parts of myself, grit, determination, et cetera, but I didn't love myself, but I do now. And that was my commitment to God. And I feel like I am in a place for the first time in my entire life where I can authentically say, I love myself. Defects, imperfections, and all.
And I am so excited to be here and I am so excited and grateful for my life and the people I have in it. And I am most grateful for the people who loved me on this journey more than I loved myself because I wouldn't be here without them. And I hope I now feel called to be that light for others because I needed it so often in my life and I feel called to do it now.
Karen Walker Cohn (17:59)
Wow.
Heather P Hopkins (18:11)
to help illuminate others' pathways and lights and help them out of the darkness. For me, my weight was my darkness, but darkness can come in many forms for different people. And I'll stop there, because I've talked a lot, but I'm very passionate about it, because I feel like I truly have been given another chance.
Karen Walker Cohn (18:32)
Yeah, I mean, I'm listening to your story and I'm in awe. I'm going, okay.
Heather P Hopkins (18:35)
Thank you.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (18:44)
gonna ask you to hold one because I think there must be somebody here like I'm not sure why they're going nuts just one second.
Heather P Hopkins (18:49)
No worries. Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (20:02)
Apologize for the interruption. My goodness. This is yeah this Well, what is really cool is that? I've only had one other podcast that was like Interruption power outages. So I'm like and Those two people were some very powerful Spirit led people and So I'm like, hmm
Heather P Hopkins (20:06)
No, don't and hey, I'm flexible.
Yeah.
Hmm Yeah, I was gonna say something earlier when you're like my technology isn't working and was like oh I should tell her this has been happening to me every time I go to speak about my story about my near-death. It is fascinating Technology goes out around me. I see lights looker. I Am no longer living in shame to speak about this. I used to hide my spirituality I used to hide my connection. I don't any longer and I really
Karen Walker Cohn (20:33)
Interesting.
that, yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (21:02)
and going to embrace that light, period. So I think you're spot on.
Karen Walker Cohn (21:08)
Yeah. So, and you know, I never, I don't believe in coincidences either. So, you know, I'm like, okay, maybe somebody's at the door or something. There's no one there. I don't know why these dogs are, I don't know why they're barking and carrying on and they're, this is the time that they're usually sleeping. So yeah, it's, there's something powerful happening here. And it's one thing when you're talking and they're barking, cause I can easily edit that out.
Heather P Hopkins (21:13)
Bye.
No way.
Ha ha
It's been chillz.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (21:36)
because it's not on your side, it's on my side. That's why I decided to let me hold on because when I start talking, there's no way to edit what's going on in the background. Yeah, so.
Heather P Hopkins (21:39)
Oh, okay, okay. Yeah.
Ah, okay, perfect. And I know you're hopefully gonna edit some of this, like I know I can be long-winded. I'm still getting used to how to tell this story. No. Okay. Well, thank you, actually thank you. Oh.
Karen Walker Cohn (21:56)
Mm-mm.
Mm-hmm. Don't do that. Don't do that. You are saying I asked you to say what's on your heart. Do that. And like, like I said, your story has me in awe. And this is something that it's still a practice, right? You just came, you know, like you just came out of learning
Heather P Hopkins (22:19)
Yes, ma'am.
Karen Walker Cohn (22:26)
you just came out of practicing what it feels like to be not enough. So this thing of apologizing and being long-winded and whatever, that comes from that place. And so, yeah, you get to keep practicing. And so the minute I catch myself, and for me, because...
Heather P Hopkins (22:32)
Yeah.
Hmm?
Thank you. It does.
Karen Walker Cohn (22:53)
I hold you in high esteem and what love does is calls people on those things when they're not being kind to themselves, when they're coming from. This is what I say to my husband and I, and this is how the podcast, the title for the podcast came back. So if I'm saying something about myself because I too came from a place of not enough, then
Heather P Hopkins (23:01)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Karen Walker Cohn (23:22)
worthy and everything else that goes with it, the perfectionism, the working hard for the titles and, you know, and I wanted to tell you, like the things you accomplish from a place of force and from a place of not enough, you are ready to burst out in a way, Heather, that
I don't know, like this world, but if they ain't ready, they better get ready. So could just imagine all the things. And I think that I say that to myself too, look at all the things that I've created from a place of unworthy. It's unfathomable right now in my mind of what's gonna be created from a place of more than enough. And, you know, it's scarcity versus that abundant mindset.
Heather P Hopkins (24:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (24:21)
And when that abundant mindset shifts and doesn't mean that it always stays there, sometimes we go into, you know, scarcity. And to have somebody pull us back out of that ditch onto the road is priceless to have in your life. And yeah, so I'm kind of going all kind of going all over and not, I see I do the same thing. And
Heather P Hopkins (24:47)
Thanks for watching!
Karen Walker Cohn (24:48)
I do the same thing and it's just where I've got, sometimes I've got so much that I want to say and because it's like you just found your voice, it's like and blah, you know?
Heather P Hopkins (25:01)
Yes, yeah it is. I feel, you know what, that's, so my background is in engineering and I allow myself to acquire certain stereotypes such as I'm smart but I'm not a great communicator, I'm not really a great writer, I can do math well but I can't do this well and
That was all BS. That was a belief system that I allowed myself to believe because it was a stereotype that I wanted to be associated with because it felt like it had worthiness to it. And I wanted to have that love, right? And now that I am doing my best to understand what are...
What do I think are all the things? And thank you to, if I let, I love his work. And he said, you know, write down all the things that you believe make you unqualified for whatever it is you're going through in life. And as I started writing that down, it was so relieving because he said, all the things that you think make you unqualified are the exact reasons that you are qualified. To be you, to be helpful.
to radiate and I thought wow there was such beauty I remember making the list and I just started crying and to your point it unleashed something inside where I said okay if these are actually my strengths then let me pivot I'm a great communicator I am worthy all the things that I went through
are valuable and I learned from them. So I started finding myself writing and I'm working on a blog because I'm navigating what's the best way to get this out in the world. So I just started, I have like three different notebooks and post it and I'm a little disorganized, rapid prototyping, having some fun with it. But to your point, it is amazing how when you embrace yourself, how you start to shine and I wish I could give this to everybody.
because I didn't understand. I had no idea what it could look or feel like to feel self-love and worthy. You hear about it, I tried to meditate, I do affirmations, but the real work was, I love Louise Hay, and I followed her work, and for me, I had to start with very basic.
Karen Walker Cohn (27:15)
Absolutely.
Yeah, me too.
Heather P Hopkins (27:34)
things like mirror work and I couldn't even start there, Karen. I had to start five steps before that and me being a nerd, I would put together value stream maps and process it out of like and that was my way of like how to teach myself how to do it. That was my work if that resonates.
Karen Walker Cohn (27:49)
Right. Yeah. And there's so many tools. Like for me, I just started thinking going, I read The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer and that book changed everything for me. It was the start of, you know, I was already on this. I was learning how to be a coach and taking that training. And when I read in that book that...
you can open and close and opening and closing are choices. Because I used to think, no, somebody said something and triggered me and I would feel this tightness in my chest that, you know, like it would just tighten. And, you know, depending on who it was, I might lash out verbally. And most of the time I found myself more shutting down in the in the way like while stuffing it.
Heather P Hopkins (28:34)
Yes.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (28:48)
I'm stuffing it and not dealing with the emotion of it. And when I realized, oh, this feeling, this tightness in my chest, this opening and closing, just stop closing, choose open. And I'm like, I know it sounds easy and I wanna say it is easy. I know people will say it's easier said than done. Well, yeah, everything is easier said than done.
That saying is easier said than done. So it is really a choice to go, oh wait, in this moment, I can actually choose to open? What does that mean? Okay. And if that didn't trigger me, so I got to start asking myself questions. And for me, it was going through the coaching training and realizing I'm asking the coachee questions that, oh wait, I can ask myself those questions too.
And what is the answer? And from a place of an observer, I just wanna learn about who I am. If you're in a place of judgment, you'll never be able to do this work. Blame, shame, and guilt, again, another reason why this podcast is called Coming Back to Love. Love is an above the line emotion. Blame, shame, guilt, judgment, all below the line. So that's...
Heather P Hopkins (29:59)
Yeah, I agree.
Mm-hmm.
Karen Walker Cohn (30:14)
I didn't finish that. That's what I was saying with my husband. I would be in blame, shame, guilt. I'd be in some below the line and he'd hear it and he'd be, okay, honey, come back to love, come back to love. Like, oh yeah, let's choose that. And I would say that to him as well. And we still say it to each other. So it's just, I get to come back to love. What would love do? I trained myself just like you.
from a place of unworthiness. And we lived in blame, shame, guilt, and we chose, made choices from that place. And so when you switch to love and you go, and all those other above, like love, abundance, joy, you know, I've heard everything chases joy. So you get to choose, just like I chose to open, I get to step into joy.
Heather P Hopkins (30:54)
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (31:12)
I'm choosing to step into joy. Even though maybe what you said did triggered me, it's not a stuffing like what it was. It is me understanding that whatever you said or did, that's because of who you are and has nothing to do with me. And I get to check if anything,
Heather P Hopkins (31:19)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Karen Walker Cohn (31:41)
that was said or done to me triggered something on the inside, I get to investigate what that is. Because there is some emotion there. There is something that I think is truth and it really isn't. It's actually a lie. But because we have been practicing that lie for so long, it feels like truth, right? So you start gathering the evidence when like
Heather P Hopkins (32:01)
Yes.
Yes.
Karen Walker Cohn (32:10)
from a place of not enough, I gathered evidence to prove that I was not enough. Yet on the other side, like you, I'm going for this degree, I'm going for that certificate, I'm going for... It was a way to prove to myself that I was enough. See, I've got this certificate. It is like this crazy eight.
Heather P Hopkins (32:30)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yup. 100.
Karen Walker Cohn (32:38)
I call it, it's like a crazy eight, crazy figure eight. And it's just back, it was loop. So, gosh, you, I'm like, now I'm going on. Ha ha ha.
Heather P Hopkins (32:41)
Thanks.
No, it's beautiful because it was bringing tears to my eyes and the reason that I'm saying that was bringing tears to my eyes is I do want to give a shout out that I feel so blessed that I have people in my life who have loved me more than I've loved myself and that is so powerful to have.
I had it in my husband. He has been my biggest supporter. He has believed in me more than I believed in myself and still does. That unconditional love and support for him to say it was never your, you know, Heather, you're beautiful no matter your size. Heather, you're smart no matter the title. Heather, you're wonderful no matter your income. I love you. Whoa! It gave me permission to love myself. What a beautiful gift.
to give somebody. I couldn't be more thankful for him. I have my mother. And I have these, I have wonderful friends who were checking in on me saying, are you okay? You know, becoming unemployed was a really big deal. A lot of people knew I over-identified with that. Instead of placing judgment, I had the deepest friends connect with me and say, are you all right? Do you need me? Should I fly to you? How can I support you?
Um, you know, you're loved and worthy, right? Oh my God. Thank you. Because you know what? For a moment, I was navigating it all. And so I look now at some of the things I've had to do to your point, trying to separate fact from fiction. I'll zoom into my journey and it'll be a story for another time when
Karen Walker Cohn (34:13)
that question.
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (34:36)
When I had my near death experience, I did get visions and communications with angels and I'm not shy about that anymore. And I feel really blessed to have had that experience. So there's a couple of things I'd like to share with your audience. Number one, I believe fully that this was my soul's journey.
I believe that I had that near-death experience because there were messages meant for me that I was not receiving an understanding and it took that to fully get the message and I am thankful for it. Number one, I say this because for me having weight loss surgery was the greatest tool I ever had in my life because it empowered me and my health. It gave me an opportunity to overcome something.
And it also gave me the opportunity to fully understand that the scale never mattered in the first place. And being able to go through that journey has been such a learning experience and so beautiful that I would never want to scare anyone off from considering it. So to anyone considering it, please don't let my story scare you. I had the best care I was taken care of when there was an issue, they identified it. I got beautiful messages from it.
Karen Walker Cohn (35:32)
Mm.
Heather P Hopkins (35:54)
And I have had a wonderful experience post-op, and I am so grateful for that journey. So if anyone's considering it and you have questions, I'd love to make myself available. I'm a big supporter and advocate of it. And again, my journey was my soul's journey, and I have no shame or regret in having that journey. So please don't let my journey be a predictor or assumption that your journey will be that way. Everyone has their own path in life. And then the second thing that I would like to share
I think you said it earlier, Karen, you're like, you're in the middle of it. Yes, that I'm not through it. I'm not in the beginning anymore, but I haven't fully evolved. And so one, I love your podcast. I love I'm learning new tools and techniques. I've been writing down the books that you've been recommending throughout. So thank you for sharing knowledge. And if this helps anyone, I could be a bit nerdy and I had to kind of organize my thoughts of where, where do I start?
And I had to start when I lost everything, you know, my health, my life, you know, this was all going into Christmas last year. And I'm thinking, you know, where do I begin? What do I do? I have a great mentor in my life who has always recommended journaling. And I started a journaling podcast that I had heard through a different podcast to say, talk about yourself in the third person. And.
Karen Walker Cohn (37:02)
Mm-hmm.
Heather P Hopkins (37:24)
It's okay to not just talk gratitude. It's okay to not just start off with, oh, I'm grateful for ABC. Because sometimes when you're going through it, it can be really hard to be grateful. And I felt shame in sometimes not feeling grateful, but just feeling like that's what I had to put down in my journal. So I allowed myself to say, I'm actually pretty angry right now, or I'm upset.
Karen Walker Cohn (37:51)
Mm-hmm.
Heather P Hopkins (37:52)
and I'm going to journal about that. But there was a key, doing it from a third person perspective. And looking at it from an out-of-body experience, I would allow myself a timer. I won't put five minutes to just jot down. And sometimes it'd be pictures or art journaling. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. And I translate that to Heather is really frustrated. That frustration is stemming from a lack of self-worth. That frustration is this, that, and the other.
Karen Walker Cohn (37:58)
Yes, absolutely.
Heather P Hopkins (38:21)
Heather's behaviors and actions in the last few months have not been her authentic self, and it has led to regrettable behavior. And I was honest with myself, Heather, you got some stuff to own in this. And Heather, you are allowed to feel that way. And it was such a release. Because then at the end, when it was done, no more than 15 minutes, I didn't want the spiral. Then I could say, wow, I'm really grateful for that experience. Look at everything I've been able to learn.
Karen Walker Cohn (38:34)
Yeah.
Heather P Hopkins (38:51)
And if that helps anyone, that journaling exercise I do pretty frequent now, third party, okay to embrace the frustration, that darkness, because that is where you can find light. And so if that helps anyone, it helped me and it was really powerful.
Karen Walker Cohn (39:07)
Yeah.
That is a beautiful practice. And thank you for sharing those tools. That means a lot to me personally. And I know everyone listening and watching too. It's a beautiful tool to practice journaling in the third person. And I also like, when I create intentions in my journal as well, I create them as if they've already happened. So, and I create like,
Heather P Hopkins (39:38)
Mmm.
Karen Walker Cohn (39:40)
the words that I choose to use as if they have already happened, and again, in third person. So yeah, that is powerful. I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, that's definitely a tool I utilize as well. What was coming up for me when you were sharing that is around, oh gosh, let me think back to...
Heather P Hopkins (39:47)
Yeah.
Thank you.
Karen Walker Cohn (40:15)
you, you're for your, when you were first talking about, you know, the weight, your weight loss journey. Um, and I know that there's going to be so many men and well, so many women and men that are going to relate to that. I also relate to it. And I want to share that it wasn't my weight for me. I
Heather P Hopkins (40:21)
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (40:44)
had people telling me how tall I was. And from a place of unworthy, not enough, you know, when people are going, oh, you're so tall, I didn't make it mean. Oh, wow, thank you, yes. Like it was, oh, I'm taking up too much space, I'm not worthy. So I would slouch.
Heather P Hopkins (40:47)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (41:12)
And I would have like my shoulders would and I've talked about this before on reels and stuff like that. Just the pop my posture Was suffering as a result of me hearing I made tall mean less than You know you made your weight mean less than because there's some beautiful people that
Heather P Hopkins (41:29)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Karen Walker Cohn (41:39)
are technically overweight. They step on the scale, you know, you Google it and you said, you need to be from here to here. This means you're overweight from this weight to this means you're more and they're living their most incredible life and never thinking that I'm not enough. You know, and so I just, yeah, I just wanted to share that for the listener that
Heather P Hopkins (42:01)
Oh, yes.
Karen Walker Cohn (42:07)
It was weight for you, it was my height for me, and it could be something for you. It doesn't matter what the thing is, if it's rooted in unworthiness and not enough, you're going to have some thoughts, some feelings, some choices that you will make from that place. So we all, yeah, we all get it, we all get an opportunity to come back to love.
Heather P Hopkins (42:18)
Yes.
100%
Absolutely. There's people I know in my life where it may not be physical for them. It may be intellectual. Maybe everyone around me has a certain degree and I don't. Everyone, for some, it's age. I mean, you look at discrimination now and I think the laws that are written in around age say discrimination practices are around 44 years old because of technology and people being discriminated against that. And so for some people...
I know that, right? Women, we have all the makeup and we have the hair dye, but I see a lot of people these days being very mindful about what they're posting on their resumes or how they're coming off because they wanna make sure that they're not going to be judged against that factor. And so to your point, you're right. There's a whole spectrum of what we hold onto as disqualifiers and unworthiness. And for everyone, it's going to be different or a combination of things.
And it's.
It's so meaningful to work through it and it could be so lonely because oftentimes, like for myself, it wasn't something I ever openly talked about. It was like, I'm taking this to the grave. Obviously you can see on plus size, but the fact that it bothers me and influences my life this much, I have so much shame to it that it wasn't on public display. And so in the bariatric community.
It is filled with so much shame and everything is in private groups and a lot of people don't like talking about it. And you know what? I haven't either. I have these different segments in my life of people who really know and then there's everyone else. And so for me getting to talk with you, Karen, and others, this is my coming out to say I am no longer going to be ashamed of who I am. And I genuinely hope
that for my plus size community, I hope you all aren't ashamed either. And if you are in the bariatric community or you're considering being part of it, welcome. There should be no shame here. If we went in for surgery, Karen, and we had a heart attack, and we had to have a surgery for that, people would be sending flowers and asking if you're okay and what can we do for you.
You have this surgery as a proactive means and there's so much shame and guilt and keyboard warriors coming after you. It's astonishing and I just go back to that segment of I can't live in the darkness. I can't do it. I can't do it to my previous self. I can't do it to other men and women who are considering this. I need to shine on through this and I need to fully embrace this part of myself and I want to shed some light and love.
on the plus size community and the bariatric community. I was them, I will always be them. I have a deep love for this community and I feel a strong calling to help support and be my authentic self in saying, there's no shame in this. And I'm so happy and proud to be part of this community. And I hope that others can feel the same worthiness if they're in that boat.
Karen Walker Cohn (45:53)
Wow. Well, I was going to ask you my last question, which is, what message would you, if you could leave any message, what would it be? That was a pretty darn good message. That was a pretty darn good message.
Heather P Hopkins (46:08)
Oh good, it really is that. It's that if you, my litmus test was from Louise Hayes' mirror work where she would say words of affirmations to herself in the mirror and there was a statistic that said 70 to 80 percent of people don't and can't look at themselves in the mirror and so they might do it real quick when they're brushing their teeth or brushing their hair but just to look at yourself and say, hi Heather you look good today you look great.
was so uncomfortable for me. That was my litmus test to say, I don't think I have self-love. Let's be a little bit more honest here. So if you're someone who's found yourself in that position, the greatest advice I can give is that's okay and please don't go through it alone. I think the worst position you can be in is alone. If you have a network of individuals who love you, embrace them.
Uh, if you don't or feel you need more, embrace support services like therapy. There are wonderful tools and communities out there that can specialize in this to help you on that journey. And number three would be. It's. There are a lot of self-help tools. I think Karen, your podcast being one of them, I think it's a form of self-love to listen to these types of conversations and hear that a lot of people are struggling with this. So.
My biggest call to action is please don't feel alone and if you do, don't stay alone and find your tribe or buy your tribe through these help and support services because life is too precious to waste feeling unworthy, feeling disqualified and there's just so many ways to go about it and I know I couldn't do it on my own so I just hope no one feels that they have to.
Karen Walker Cohn (48:02)
Yeah, yeah. And quite frankly, my heart is we were created for community. And, you know, I use the word community a lot. And I tend to like in my graphic arts and I tend to...
Heather P Hopkins (48:13)
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (48:25)
highlight the word unity. And that to me when I hear the word community, it is unity is that brings us together. And I'm all about this is why I have one of the reasons I have this podcast is to share perspectives, give people a platform to share their perspective.
Heather P Hopkins (48:27)
Nice.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (48:53)
I may have a different perspective, but doesn't mean that you're not a part of my community because you don't have that perspective. I want to get to a place where we can openly have the conversations, whatever that conversation is, and not have it be a shutdown of the other person or a cancellation of the other person. Or, you know, like, let's just listen to the perspective and learn.
Heather P Hopkins (49:01)
Right.
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (49:20)
When I step into a conversation from the place of, I know, I know everything, what is there to learn? How can I learn from you, Heather? How can you learn from me? And I can now step into this, and I say this on the intro all the time, it is how you can best listen to this conversation and any other conversation is from a place of beginner's mindset and from a place.
Heather P Hopkins (49:21)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Karen Walker Cohn (49:50)
of the observer.
Heather P Hopkins (49:52)
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (49:54)
Thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you for this, your points so well thought out. Heather, I have such a...
Heather P Hopkins (50:09)
Thanks.
Karen Walker Cohn (50:10)
prophetic thing, knowingness. You are well on your way. And we actually share the exact same purpose. It's about illuminating, using my light to illuminate the path for others. And that's how I word it. You had it a little bit different, but it feels like the same purpose. And I'm so glad. I wanna thank Taylor.
Heather P Hopkins (50:26)
Yeah.
Karen Walker Cohn (50:38)
who has a beautiful podcast as well called Courage in the Calling. And she had the privilege of interviewing you. And she got off that interview, called me and said, Karen, oh my gosh, talk to this girl right away. She's going to be perfect for your podcast. And I feel like such a kindred spirit with you from the first time.
Heather P Hopkins (50:44)
Yeah.
Thank you.
Karen Walker Cohn (51:04)
You know, and we haven't even known each other a month yet. And so I just want to, listening to your voice and your energy, your aura is so beautiful. I cannot wait to see how you blow this thing up.
Heather P Hopkins (51:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you. And your podcast has been so inspiring. I it's so authentic and so raw. And that can be so hard to find these days. So thank you for creating a safe space. And I'm really excited to see where you're going with your work because I think it will naturally I can feel like energy is going naturally coming to you. And it's really exciting to see because you're in a place where you can thrive in it and sorry, these
I channel and sometimes it comes through so strong and I can see you're in a place where you are able to channel it all and take it all on because of the journey that you've had and that's really beautiful. So thank you for this time and this opportunity and this safe space to...
to just be myself. I really appreciate it.
Karen Walker Cohn (52:15)
You are so welcome. And thank you, you all. So we create this space together. Thank you.
Heather P Hopkins (52:21)
Thank you.