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Interesting discussions aimed at gathering women together to engage as powerful forces for good in their homes, communities, and world.
Episodes
Monday May 13, 2024
Monday May 13, 2024
Andrew Young has worked for XBox, DreamWorks, and other kids entertainment companies. He has seen firsthand how deliberate decisions to insert specific scenes and vocabulary take place. He talks about his experiences with what he found out about social engineering when he worked as an animator at DreamWorks, the effects we see in our society, and what we can do to counteract it as we stand for faith, family, and motherhood.
Quotable quotes from Andrew Young during this discussion on social engineering in media, the devastating results of turning from traditional values, the power of families and audiences, and how to work toward a better future:
“If you are a church listening, if you are a tech company, if you are a media company, if you are a family, you have got to return to your anchored North Star vision of how you provide value.”
“The families have never had the opportunity to be explained, that, ‘By the way, we are providing you a movie… and it is laced with a political, anti-religious, anti-conservative, anti-male message.’”
“The reason I’m doing this is to try to help people understand what is happening.”
“This is why it’s very difficult for a parent to work against a professional storyteller propagandizing… a parent doesn’t know this technique, so let me explain it so you do.”
“If you want your kids to be able to weather everything that is going to hit them like a mountain and the winds just won’t topple it, they have got to know their identity.”
“Let’s do some deprogramming… I took all of these based on things we were socially engineering in movies, and I reversed them: Men and women, not in worth, but in design are not equal, meaning you can’t trade one for the other. They are complimentary. They’re not being told that. Take a man and a woman and join them together in marriage, and they become something greater than either could become alone.”
“A family - A man is designed to lead, provide, protect, and fill the need that a woman has: security. You want men to provide security… I’m talking about physically, I’m talking about emotionally, and I’m talking about financially.”
“So in turn, the woman does what no man can, and what even the world cannot do without her. And it’s not succeeding in an amazing career. It is that she gives life… The world can’t do it without her. And it has been socially engineered to be something that is negative and anyone who does it [is shown to be] someone who is frazzled, or doesn’t have it together. And it is the most rewarding and most consequential and most powerful thing a woman could ever do.”
“We need, children need, to understand this transparently and have the choice to say I don’t agree with that or agree with that. They are getting the opposite, non transparent, and not having the choice whether to agree with it or not.”
“Our culture is not prioritizing childbirth, families, marriages, it’s prioritizing wealth, and everyone’s in debt.”
“Number one: have kids. You can’t train the next generation if you’re not having one. Have kids, take care of them, and make them the priority. You can’t have that successfully without marriage, ok, so you have to get married and you have to commit … You have got to commit to the marriage and then you will be able to commit to the children.”
“One of the social engineering things we have lied to everyone about is that children know best. They do not know best. They do not have experience. They do not have the guidance and they don’t have the maturity that an adult has. An adult has to assume the role as leader and help rear them. In every single media we create, the adults are idiots. The tradition is worthless. The religion is not helpful.”
“If you want to let [your children] go and go on their hero’s journey, prepare them through structure, through those one on one meetings weekly, through those family dinners, through those trips.”
“The next one is time. You have got to be the parent or the person, time, time , time, time, time, time, time, time. So that’s your concrete thing.”
“You have got to start teaching your young boys, your young girls, that rebellion is okay if it’s against something bad. We’ve taught them so well to follow the rules and to do what they’re told, that now they’re being told the wrong thing and they’re doing it.”
“Let me read to you what a man is because most people don’t understand what a man is. ‘Despite being shown as useless idiots, men, at their core, and how you should look at them and treat them, is this,’ so I hope every time you see a man, you’ll say this word: ‘aspiring greatness.’”
“Here’s what a woman is: Even though we photo them, dress them, and package them as a product, a woman is a human that can bring something no other human can bring, life.”
“Men, if you’re listening, every time you see a woman, your brain is literally going to fire off in the tool zone…You’ve got to say in your head to deprogram your mind… ‘human. That is a human. That is not a product.’”
Other interviews with Andrew Young:
Cwic Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvNZRUtqqa8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FFgERZAR_M
The Raising Family Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai0YR5dZ2Ag
Scripture Notes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDvqHbgDeAo&t=2s
Andrew Young, Into the Verse YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVw9kIhcj91SXhnXJMsT-MA
Friday Mar 08, 2024
Friday Mar 08, 2024
Danna Robb, Shelli Spotts, and Gloria Ezeonyeasi discuss being a woman of faith.
“Our faith tenet with Big Ocean really focuses on the fact that through our faith, we feel inspired to act in our communities and to be involved.” - Shelli Spotts
“That’s how we grew up . . . knowing that our faith is everything that we have; God is everything. [My mother] taught us to depend on God completely.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“I can’t imagine a life without faith. Because when you’re faced with a challenge, where do you go for that … peace of mind?” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“I’m convinced that there’s nothing better than my faith, so it’s a treasure. It’s something that I treasure so much.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“Faith should unify us, and not divide us really.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“I think God has a very wonderful way of leading us down the path that he wants us to go.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“I do think we grapple with those kinds of questions, of what are you willing to give up for your faith? … As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve decided I actually think living with your faith is almost more of an ask for me as an adult, right? How am I living my faith in my everyday, and dedicating myself every day to this faith and to changing the world around me and trying to make it better and looking at the world with hope?” - Shelli Spotts
“If I’m a good mom and a good wife it is because of my faith, because my faith will remind me to forgive, to love without any reservation. So again, everything I am and I’m able to do in this relationship with my husband, with my children, is all deeply rooted in my faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“The faith aspect of the Big Ocean Women stood out, and I liked how that was wrapped in with motherhood and family life and how with your faith as a woman, how you can actually challenge some of the thing that you see in your society, in your community and how you can stand in solidarity with other women of faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“Whenever I talk about the Big Ocean Women, the first I say to people that I’m trying to get to join, I say to them, this is a group about faith. It’s a group about faith, about women and our faith. And the fact that it’s not just the Christian faith is also very liberating. So I don’t have to worry about somebody saying to me, ‘Oh, I want to join, but I don’t, I’m not a Christian.’ I’m free to say, ‘Oh, yes, of course you can join us. You don’t have to be a Catholic or a Christian to be part of us.’ But you need to be authentic in your faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“We may not have exactly the same faith, and we may practice our faith differently, but we are all drawn together by the fact that our faith tells us that we can act to strengthen our families, and we can act to strengthen our communities, and that globally we can change things by acting together, and that we make real change happen.” Shelli Spotts
“Let’s use our faith to unite us and to work together. We can accomplish so much more when we are united. Even if we have differences, we find those commonalities and we work together.” - Dana Robb
Gloria Ezeonyeasi is 51 years old and married with daughters aged 23, 21, 20 and a 17 years old son. She has lived in London, UK since 1993. She has a Masters degree and presently works as a Social Worker with Children and Families.
She is an active member of her Church and has the privilege of serving in different groups in the parish. She has an unwavering passion for education and lifelong learning. She has a special love for young people and the whole family.
Her mission as a Big Ocean Women WAVE leader, is to empower women and girls to live their fullest potential as women. Her vision is to start a WAVE wherever she goes.
Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women’s issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.
Shelli Spotts is an advocacy writer and creative writing teacher. She loves to spend time with her husband (usually in the garden) and their four almost adult children. She also loves to sew, to read, to write, and to drag her family outside to look at the sky. Shelli is passionate about poetry, Broadway show tunes, and telling stories—of ourselves, our families, and our communities.
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
In this archive episode from 2020, Carolina Allen and Shelli Spotts discuss the origin and roots of the gift economy, and the way maternal feminism rests on an alternative structure, a way of living that does not depend on getting ahead but the responsibility to lift everyone up.
"We are born into a gift economy, one that starts with our own mothers. It is a far more natural way of living that does not depend on the economy of exchange, but on trust and generosity." Genevieve Vaughn
Genevieve Vaughan was born in Texas in 1939. She is an independent researcher. After finishing college in Pennsylvania in 1963 she married philosopher and semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi and moved with him to Italy where they had three daughters. The couple participated in the beginnings of the Semiotics movement in Italy as well as in the Italian Left, where Genevieve got her political consciousness raised.
After her divorce in 1978 Vaughan became a feminist, participating in the Italian and international feminist movements. She began to see the fact of women’s free labor in the home as a gift economy, the unacknowledged free economy of women from which communication and community derive. Her two early essays ‘Communication and exchange’ (Semiotica 1980) and ‘Saussure and Vigotsky via Marx’(1981) deal with language and economics, a theme introduced by her husband but which she elaborated in alternative directions, and which she has been working on throughout the rest of her life. In 1983, Vaughan returned to Texas where she started the Foundation for a Compassionate Society, a multicultural all-women activist foundation which initiated many innovative projects for social change based on the political use of ‘women’s gifting values’. The Foundation closed its doors in 2005 after two final international conferences: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible: The Gift Economy Inside and Outside Patriarchal Capitalism, 2004 and Societies of Peace: the Second Congress of Matriarchal Studies (under the guidance of Heide Goettner Abendroth), 2005. Several other conferences have been held including one in Toronto in 2011 called A (M)otherworld is Possible in collaboration with Goettner-Abendroth and in conjunction with the Association for Research on Mothering.
Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.
ShelliRae Spotts is an essayist, advocacy writer, screenwriter, and sometime poet who teaches creative writing and composition at Brigham Young University. She is passionate about exploring the ways we use stories to build bridges within our communities and her essays delve into the connections we discover through languaging our lived experiences. Shelli has attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an advocacy writer for the last several years, and is dedicated to social justice and environmental causes. She was the co-director and writing mentor for "Words for Water: Dancing the Stories of our Home Waters," a collaborative writing/dance advocacy project focusing attention on the challenges facing our rural river watersheds. She is the author of a forthcoming essay collection, "Radical Creativity: On a New Economy of Care." When she is not teaching, writing, or reading, Shelli loves to spend time with her husband and four adult children watching great movies, attending live theatre, or dragging everyone outside to “look at the sky.”
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
As Big Ocean women, we value our identities as women of faith. We represent 83% of women who identify with a faith tradition. This figure is considerably higher in women than in men, which might suggest that many of us are intrinsically connected with religion and naturally experience the world through a faith-filled lens. Of the many women of the world who carry children, families, communities, and nations upon their shoulders– and with such strength, courage, and grace– it can be said that they are each women of faith.
The language of faith is intuitive to women. It’s how we communicate and lift each other up. The faith-filled and religious voice is our voice. It is imperative then, that as women, we advocate for our freedom to live and worship as we see fit. Not only within the walls of our homes, but also in the public square. The freedom of conscience is inseparably connected to many other freedoms that will improve the lives of women, their families, and communities. Therefore, we must organize, speak up, and lead out on this critical social issue.
"Faith is integral to he way we seek to get involved in our communities and our neighborhoods, the way we serve our families." Shelli Spotts
"Without faith we do not recognize our own power and our own sense of worth." Carolina Allen
Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.
ShelliRae Spotts is an essayist, advocacy writer, screenwriter, and sometime poet who teaches creative writing and composition at Brigham Young University. She is passionate about exploring the ways we use stories to build bridges within our communities and her essays delve into the connections we discover through languaging our lived experiences. Shelli has attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an advocacy writer for the last several years, and is dedicated to social justice and environmental causes. She was the co-director and writing mentor for "Words for Water: Dancing the Stories of our Home Waters," a collaborative writing/dance advocacy project focusing attention on the challenges facing our rural river watersheds. She is the author of a forthcoming essay collection, "Radical Creativity: On a New Economy of Care." When she is not teaching, writing, or reading, Shelli loves to spend time with her husband and four adult children watching great movies, attending live theatre, or dragging everyone outside to “look at the sky.”
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
“Epicurus said that it’s not what we have, but what we enjoy constitutes abundance. And I really love that because it takes it out of the material realm. We're not talking about an abundance of money or an abundance of possessions or properties. We're talking about the things that make our life fulfilling and joyful and purposeful and bring light to us.” -Martha.
“If we can find a way to focus on what we can do and what we can control in our life right now, then that's where we can find that joy. So for me, last year during the holidays, I decided to stop using social media. Because I was feeling a lot of jealousy and contention in my life because of that. And so I cut it out for a year. And for me, that was one solution that fit really well with my needs so that I wasn't constantly bombarding myself with jealousy for things that other people had, but choosing to focus instead on my own family and the people around me and what I do have in my life right now.” -Vanessa
“Find meaningful things to do with the people I've got right here. That is what is going to help me feel abundance and what God has blessed me with and give me that sense of gratitude and joy and what he's given me.” -Vanessa
“The idea of abundance has to come within…it starts with yourself and then it extends to our families, whatever your family culture looks like, and then it extends to our communities and in doing that, we do have power to change the world. So many people in the world think they don't have the power to make a difference. But if you start with yourself, you can.” -Shannon
“Sometimes it's counterintuitive and we think that until we feel enough abundance in ourselves, then we can't go out and either help out, serve other people or encourage other people or anything, but in my life, most often, even when I feel like I am not enough, if I can look outward, there just seems to be abundance that flows back and forth from the people that I am associating with in my community back to me. So it becomes this multiplying effect that increases to everybody.” -Angela
“My mom when we were kids, if we were unhappy in some way, she would say, well, you need to serve someone else. So you can serve me and do the dishes, which sounds ridiculous, but it invariably changed our mindsets. It made us look outward and also affected how we felt inside.” -Angela
“For me being open to revelation that says something needs to change and following that did bring me greater abundance, even though it meant giving up something that I had really prized or enjoyed.” -Martha
“The culture of abundance is like that. It's something we foster within ourselves, but it never stays there. It is meant to radiate out to those around us, and then the idea for them to then radiate and the radiation to keep going so that we become bright and help one another in a way that is pleasing to our Higher Power.” -Shannon
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
“It's one of my son's birthdays today. And I was saying to my husband, I have never given him a present he actually likes. I don't know how to do that. And I felt kind of discouraged by that because I just can't figure it out.
And he is old enough now. He has his own career. He doesn't really need something from me. But I realized as I was driving other kids around today that he gives him actually his love language. And so once I put that together, I realized, oh, I can give him the things that he needs or wants in some ways. There are other ways to give. He loves hearing how awesome he is. He calls us every week. And I make time for that. And so where I could focus on the scarcity mentality of I am never enough in this one area, I then, if I switch it around and think, Oh, there's another way to have abundance with him.” -Angela
“When I was a kid my [parents] had four of us and they quickly had another child in about nine months. And two years in, my dad was getting his PhD and my mom was getting her bachelor's degree. So there really wasn't any money. And we all talk about this one Christmas where our presents were, I got a jar of pickles, two of my siblings got ketchup, and one sibling got some cereal. It was all our own. And that is one of our favorite, favorite Christmases. We always talk about that. So out of this time when I'm sure my parents felt like we have nothing to give these kids. They actually turned it into this abundant experience that has lasted. Those memories have lasted almost 40 years now.” -Angela
“That's what abundance is. It's about expanding what you believe is possible. Right. And so when you're living in a constant state of scarcity, and we all get there sometimes, I feel like that's a natural feeling you've all expressed and maybe some doubts or thoughts or concerns you've had specifically during these holidays.
And I think that's appropriate and normal. And there's nothing that makes you different from anyone else in that respect, but believing what is possible is a difference. If you're staying in that lane of I can't, I don't, I won't, I should not mentality versus shifting to what is possible, anything is possible if I believe it to be so.” -Shannon
“Many years ago, we were having kind of a rough time in our family, and I was praying a lot, so fervently, to know what our family needed, and specifically, specific children in my family needed. And I feel like I received very clear inspiration that our family should get involved in refugee work here in the United States. And so that is something that is really important in our family culture and that we've been doing over the years.” -Vanessa
“Last year we were having Christmas and I'm [had] the mindset: I'm going to completely rethink Christmas, like from the bottom up, what's really important for our family for Christmas this year. And I felt inspired that first we should do homemade Christmas. So everyone in the family was making, making gifts for everyone else in the family. I am not a crafty person. So this was like a huge goal for me to help all five of my children, 15 and under make crafts for each other, but we can do it. We can do it. And that was a really beautiful part of our Christmas.” -Vanessa
“The other idea that I felt that our family should do is we did a giving tree in years past, I've been involved in helping resettle refugees into apartments in our community. And when we, when they move into their apartment, there's so many things that they need. They need beds and pillows and blankets and pans and bowls and plates and deodorant and razors and just everything, everything. They need everything.
We got a Christmas tree and we got all these little ornaments and on every ornament, these little dollar tree ornaments, we wrote one thing that a refugee family would need to set up an apartment. A rice cooker or a rug or A vacuum, things like that.
And we put them on a tree and we took them to our neighborhood party. We were supposed to bring a snack or a crust, but instead we brought the giving tree and we set up our lousy little Walmart Christmas tree there in the neighborhood intersection and we invited people to take stuff off the tree. And we are very blessed to live in the most wonderful neighborhood full of the best people. And over the course of that day, we gave away all of our giving tree ornaments…
over the next two weeks we had a big bin on our front porch and it was like, Santa came every single day to our house because every time the kids would walk outside, there'd be something new in the bin on the porch. And so my kids were running out there checking like 400 times a day to see if something new was in the giving tree box. And then we bring it inside. And at first we started stacking it next to the door, but then the stack got so big that we couldn't fit it.
So finally we decided that we were just going to put all the refugee stuff under our Christmas tree, and our Christmas tree was completely subsumed under refugee donations, and it was the most magical Christmas we've ever had. And five days before Christmas, we got to take all of our donations... down to the warehouse where they collect refugee supplies. And when we came home, there was nothing under the Christmas tree. But it was the best Christmas ever. And pretty soon we had little tiny homemade crafts under the Christmas tree. And that was great too.
But having that perspective of all of a sudden my kids were no longer thinking about what am I getting for Christmas and all the things I want for Christmas but oh my gosh it's so exciting we're getting something else for someone for Christmas completely reframed our Christmas experience…And I just love that that is the focus of our Christmas now. The joy of giving.. So I just feel so blessed by that opportunity that we had last year.” -Vanessa
“We have listeners from all over the world who have different challenges than we do. Each of our situations are different in life. But the one thing that we all have in common is that we all need to have the hope that all things are possible if we have enough faith in [the concept of abundance.]” -Shannon
“If you can tap into that love, and if you can have the outlook of love, meaning I'm going to give good for good and good for evil in every area of my life. And that even has to do with my thinking. And so maybe I have not been as good at managing my money or whatever it is. I'm not going to say, Oh no, I'm not going to freak out and think I deserve what happens to me.This is going to be so bad. I'm going to think no. It's all going to work out as long as I'm tapping into that love. And as long as I'm willing to love others, no matter what, and to give of what I have, it's all going to manifest in every aspect of my life. One of my favorite scriptures in my book of beliefs is that God had not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” -Martha
“I can't be in Gaza and help all of the people that are suffering there, but I can be there for my child who I'm too busy for right now. I can choose to stop and be there for them. I can help. I can take hot bread to the neighbor across the street. And even though I can't help the people across the world, as long as I'm doing that, as long as all of us are doing that, abundance and love will abound no matter what. Because we choose to give love for love and love for evil. We break all the cycles of war and hate. And even the small things like depression and the feeling of not being worthy, I'm not enough, I'm ruining my children, you know, all those things that mothers feel, we break those cycles as well, all of it. It's all broken by this feeling of love and abundance. That's what I've been learning this year and hopefully will carry me through” -Martha
“We feel like there's not enough of us to go around. There's not enough. We are not enough. And I realized maybe just a few years ago, it took me a long time to learn this. But one of the miracles that we read about in the New Testament is, the fishes and the loaves, right? There's a few fish and a few loaves, and we feed, and he feeds 5, 000, and And when we were reading about that at Christmas time I realized that there was a new level to that miracle that I had not considered for myself. And that was that I could be made more through serving and loving other people, that what the gifts I had or even the lack that I had could be multiplied. And I think we see that especially when we talk about how we love other people. My ability to love other people actually gets multiplied as I love them.” -Angela
“I believe that God wants us to be happy, and He wants us to have abundant meaning and purpose in our lives. And I truly think that if we ask Him, And tell him we want to have an abundant life, he will reveal to us what we need individually. [Our] answers of what we need to see and do in our lives so that we can have joy and purpose pressed down overflowing in our lives, that he is intimately aware of us, and that he can answer our prayers and help us to find what we need.” -Vanessa
“Scarcity mentality limits our belief of joy and love, whatever success might look like whatever opportunities. It limits our ability to grow in our spiritual capacity. And sometimes it's hard to get out of that mindset. Everyone's situations are different.
And some are dealing with much more complicated issues than others in the moment. And for some reason, at this time of year, it kind of can put a microscope on it. But whether you're a mother or a caretaker, or whatever your capacity of leadership is in your community, if you're a woman, you're an influencer in some way.” -Shannon
“Having an abundance mentality doesn't mean that you'll never feel sad or that things are going to always go your way, but that you will overcome whatever it is that's standing in your way to fill that joy, to receive that inspiration from your higher power.” -Shannon
My name is Vanessa Stanfill. I’m a noisy person who likes to have fun and eat good food. I homeschool my five kids. I am an avid cyclist, reader, Asian drama watcher, and socializer. I am an enthusiastic member of the Church of Jesus a Christ of Latter-day Saints. I volunteer teaching English through ENGin Ukraine and support a local humanitarian aid organization, Lifting Hands International. I lead a homeschool group for mothers, and teach geography, geopolitics and current events classes for high school kids. I enlist my darling husband Michael into all sorts of harebrained schemes that make him roll his eyes in love and adoration. We have a great life here in Orem, Utah
Martha Levie
Martha Levie lives in Salem Utah, she co-owns and operates a sourdough bakery called Abigail’s Oven with her husband Allen. They have been married for 24 years and have 10 children and 1 grandson. Martha was homeschooled in the 80’s and 90’s by a public school teacher and my stay-at-home mom. She homeschools her children who range from 23-4 years old. She has a BA in Literature and Statesmanship from GWC.
Martha loves to climb trees and read, the first book she remembers reading on her own was Mrs Pigglewiggle and she read it at the top of her grandmother's golden rain tree. Poetry and good books make her life feel rich. She is a girl of the mountains and loves flowers. Her children are her besties, most of the time. She loves to study the theology of her LDS religion. Martha is an extrovert and expresses her opinions freely, and she is working on listening and valuing all opinions. She loves mint and chocolate, preferably together. She can’t stop reading about women's issues and The Barbie Movie is her current favorite. Feeding people nourishing food is an art that she wants to perfect. Martha loves to travel and have adventures. She has discovered that the greatest adventure is learning to love others.
Saturday Dec 30, 2023
Saturday Dec 30, 2023
Dana Robb and Carolina Allen are joined by Sharon Slater to discuss the Model of Powerful Impact.
“If you have a willing heart, somehow God puts you at the right place at the right time with the right tools.” - Carolina Allen
“Just one individual can make such a difference when you … take opportunities and just think, ‘What if my gifts and my talents and my willingness were to be used for a greater purpose?’” - Carolina Allen
Stop Comprehensive Sexuality Education
“We’ve got to immunize our children against this by helping them understand the threats, understand who’s behind it, understand where this goes.” - Sharon Slater
“The number one defense is to find out what is happening at your school. And if you find something offensive, go to the Stop CSE website and go through the tools and start with a Stop CSE action plan. It will take you step by step. It even gives you talking points to use at a board meeting, at your school, or wherever you need to be.” - Sharon Slater
“Just be aware. Become aware. Educate yourself. Find all the information you can.” - Sharon Slater
“We can reframe those challenges, and we can use that knowledge and information to have heart to heart conversations in the sanctity and safety of our homes with our children. We can talk to them about their value that they have as [future] mothers and fathers. And we can talk about reproduction; we can talk about sex. We can talk about all of these things that other people would have us outsource to more professional people, but that we can share those things in a very personal way and in a way that really honors our value system, and that we can strengthen our children to be able to understand and then also stand for their values when they are faced with challenges.” - Carolina Allen
“There’s a lot of things - just spending time with our children - that can immunize them, just our influence and our power and our love, like you said, which can continue through the generations.” - Sharon Slater
“It’s worth it. Our children need us, they need our time, and that’s my message.” - Sharon Slater
Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women’s issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.
Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.
Sharon Slater is the president of Family Watch International (FamilyWatch.org), a nonprofit organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. She also chairs the UN Family Rights Caucus (UNFamilyRightsCaucus.org) and is a consultant to multiple UN Member States.
Sharon writes a regular column for “The Family Watch,” an online publication read in over 170 countries, and she has authored numerous policy briefs on family issues. She also chairs the Global Family Policy Forum for UN ambassadors and delegates held annually.
She her husband Greg are the parents of seven children, including three siblings from Mozambique orphaned by HIV/AIDS whom they adopted, and they have five grandchildren.
Monday Dec 18, 2023
Monday Dec 18, 2023
Dana and Gloria discuss the Model of Powerful Impact
“We do live in difficult times, and there’s so much conflict in the world and there’s a lot of divisiveness… there’s never been a greater opportunity to do good, to influence others in a positive way across the globe.” - Dana Robb
“You think, well, there's 7 billion people. And who are you? You're just one little dust mote among that 7 billion. So it doesn't really matter what you do or don't do, but that's simply not the case. It's the wrong model because you're at the center of a network. You're a node in a network. Of course, that's even more true now that we have social media, you'll know 1000 people, at least over the course of your life, and they'll know 1000 people each, and that puts you one person away from a million. And two persons away from a billion. That's how you're connected. And the things you do, they're like dropping a stone in a pond. The ripples move outward and they affect things in ways that you can't fully comprehend. And it means that the things that you do and that you don't do are far more important than you think.” - Jordan Peterson
“I know that I've been a huge influence in the lives of my children because I see my role as a mother as a huge vocation and responsibility that I actually take quite seriously, but with a lot of joy, a lot of hope, um, a lot of dedication and consistency.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“When I see a person, I think of a family, I think of what they can bring to their family or even to the larger community, because even the community itself, we’re one family, so that's who I am, really.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“And you strengthen a family and that will strengthen the community.” - Dana Robb
“We all have different time frames when we have the time and the ability to serve. And I think that's a beautiful thing [to] just present it and make it available. And I think that also plays into our impact that sometimes it takes time for our impact to be seen.” - Dana Robb
“I don't like the idea of holding everything onto myself and, and just think I can be the one and only source. No, I can actually fill up and make somebody else the reservoir and that person can fill up.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“You empower somebody else to be a leader in their community, and as they grow as a leader, then they're going to empower somebody else to be a leader. And that just ripples out, and the effect really becomes so much greater than if you tried to do it all yourself.” - Dana Robb
“Each one, teach one.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“Sometimes you might think you can't do something, but if somebody is there to sort of hold your hand, encourage you, and you can see other women and look up to them [and think] that they've done it. You'll be propelled, you'll be motivated and empowered to also step out and do something that you thought you could never do before.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“I find creating the time to do things for other people as a ‘me’ time is a refreshing time. And I can only say that that's how I create the time; you have to create time for, for others.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“I don't want to ever be indispensable, and that's why I like empowering others. Any group I am in, and I see somebody trying to make themselves indispensable, I tell them, I tell them upfront, you know, you cannot be indispensable. Nobody should make anybody else less capable of doing things. Let's empower each other. Let's encourage each other…Empower each other, equip each other, encourage each other, so that if I'm not there, somebody else can step in and do even better than I could have done.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
“I think there's a huge need, and it's crucial, crucially important that we empower each other, we equip each other so that we're all able and ready and available to serve the community really, you know, to serve wherever we are.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi
Gloria Ezeonyeasi is 51 years old and married with daughters aged 23, 21, 20 and a 17 year old son. She has lived in London, UK since 1993. She has a Masters degree and presently works as a Social Worker with Children and Families. She is an active member of her Church and has the privilege of serving in different groups in the parish. She has an unwavering passion for education and lifelong learning as well as a special love for young people and the whole family. Her mission as a Big Ocean Women WAVE leader, is to empower women and girls to live their fullest potential as women. Her vision is to start a WAVE wherever she goes.
Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women’s issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.
Monday Dec 04, 2023
Monday Dec 04, 2023
Dana Robb and Carolina Allen discuss the Model of Powerful Impact with Karen Ashton.
“I really have a perspective that maybe a lot of people don’t have, and the longer I live, the more I understand how rich our life is when we take care of that which is most important, which is our relationships within our very own families.” - Karen Ashton
“It is so difficult for us to make the changes that [coming into motherhood] requires that sometimes we can be a little bit resentful over that kind of sacrifice. I think it’s an honest thing to openly say that. Because suddenly your life is not your own. Your body is not your own, and that’s a significant thing, and someone else is depending on you totally and absolutely for their nourishment and for every blessing that they can have. So you really need the perspective that comes from somebody really old, the old woman in the tribe, the one that’s sitting in her tent far away all by herself. She might have something really wonderful to tell you, mostly what I think she would tell you is, ‘Give some time, take some time to look at what you are really doing, and value it, because it is so glorious and so beautiful to welcome the soul, a soul from God into your home, and to watch the unfolding of a human soul is really a remarkable experience.’” - Karen Ashton
“I try to tell young women that this change from being a single woman to a kind of shared intimacy in marriage and then this shared intimacy with a child is a sacred and a holy thing. It might feel oppressive to you, but it’s such a blessing in the end.” - Karen Ashton
“I decided every morning when I got up, and you do have to decide, that I was going to love someone that day. And I think when we express our love openly to our children, it gives them wings.” - Karen Ashton
“Don’t ever give out participation awards for your children, because they know what participation awards are. What they want is for you to have noticed something beautiful and unique about them.” - Karen Ashton
“As mothers, we need to know how influential we are, and that maybe there’s somebody at home who needs to know that we are cheering for them. It’s such a powerful position to be in life, and you will give them the wings that they will carry with them, and use all of their life.” - Karen Ashton
“There have been many moments where I have healed myself by being generous to my children.” - Carolina Allen
“What is it that you would have wished someone had done for you as a child? Make sure it doesn’t go undone for your children.” - Karen Ashton
“When we talk about creating a home, it really has nothing to do with the sofas or the furniture we put in our house. A home is this feeling of safety some place, or encouragement, or praise.” - Karen Ashton
“Love is an amazing thing. The more you express it, the more you give it away, the more it grows inside the walls of your own home.” - Karen Ashton
“You’re a wise woman if you know what replenishes you yourself, what gives you back, but you’ve got to be so careful, because if you spend so much time with your friends away from home, you’re going to start feeling worse, not better.” - Karen Ashton
“We need to trust that giving up something doesn’t mean letting go, but it’s actually opening the door for something different that might even be better than what we’re currently experiencing.” - Dana Robb
“It is your intentional development of an atmosphere, that’s what a home is.” - Karen Ashton
“The little child who can call out, “Mom!” and she answers, is the richest kid on the block.” - Karen Ashton
https://www.youtube.com/@MakingHomeWithGrammie
Instagram: makinghomewithgrammie
Books by Karen Ashton:
The Christmas That Changed Everything
Karen Ashton was born and raised in Salt Lake City. She met her future husband, Alan, on a blind date and they were married on March 15, 1968, in the Salt Lake City Temple. Karen is the mother of 11 children and the proud grandmother of 60 grandchildren. In 1997, Karen was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Utah Valley State College. In 1998, she was recognized with Alan by the BYU Marriott School of Management as Utahns of the Year and, in 2012, they were recognized by the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce as the Pillars of the Valley. Karen has also received the Senator Arthur B. Watkins Award for Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Arts. Karen has spent many hours serving her community and church. In 1990, Karen accepted the challenge from the Orem City Council to raise funds to build a children’s library. To help accomplish this goal, she established the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. This fundraiser made it possible for the Friends of the Orem Public Library to achieve their goal, and the children’s library was successfully completed in 1995. The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival continues to be a successful annual fund raiser. It provides additional books, a storytelling theater, and many other educational resources for children throughout the Utah County area.
In 1995, Karen and Alan founded Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah as an expression of gratitude for all that they had received through the years with WordPerfect, the company that Alan co-founded.
Despite her busy agenda, Karen makes sure that her husband and their children come first. According to Karen, family is her most important asset. Karen also enjoys quilting, knitting, photography, and working on her family history.
Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women’s issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.
Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.
Friday Dec 01, 2023
Friday Dec 01, 2023
Carol and Kim discuss the Model of Powerful Impact.
Powerful Impact is the idea that we can make the greatest impact when we prioritize and allow for a natural flow of energy to do its thing, essentially. We have outlined three very key ways that we can do that and will discuss it through the month, “…but the very first one, the greatest and deepest and most profound kind of impact we can make is when we are filled, when we are impacted ourselves, by the source of all energy itself, which is God. So it’s the idea that when we can reach out to God, or allow God to influence us, that that creates the very impetus for all other ways that we can impact.” - Carolina Allen
“...Mahatma Gandhi said you’ve got to be the change you want to see in the world, but it supersedes that … it’s not just the individual and the power of the individual, which, it’s clearly important, but it’s the ability of the divine source to work within humanity on an individual level that then impacts the greater community…” - Kim Landeen
“When your family knows that you’re prioritizing them, you have this inner confidence that things are in order, even though they’re imperfect.” - Carolina Allen
“Things don’t have to be perfect to be awesome.” - Carolina Allen
“When you prioritize that first impact that you have, everything else ripples out in a very orderly way - that’s this energy flow - it is productive, and that’s where the influence comes from.” - Carolina Allen
“It is important that people stand up. It is important that people that are centered are standing up. People that are centered in faith and family, and motherhood.” - Kim Landeen
“God wants to give me all within His power to allow me to succeed. And so even if I’m in a moment of drought or a moment of distance from God, God still loves me and wants me to succeed.” - Carolina Allen
“As Big Ocean Women, we are women of faith, and that needs to be more than just a statement. That needs to be more than just a tenet that’s on our walls. That needs to be the very core of who we are.” - Kim Landeen
“The big thing I think that we need to recognize in the world today that I see that could change everything is if women stepped into this power and because of who we are, we know the price of life. We know intimately how sacred it is, and we would move mountains to preserve peace on earth for all of our children.” Carolina Allen
“You don’t need to feel worthy of your calling. In fact, it’s often those that feel least worthy that are the most powerful in the way they interact.” - Kim Landeen
If you are interested in being part of a WAVE, please reach out! www.BigOceanWomen.org
“I think Kim and I speak from just every fiber of our being that when we can align ourselves with this natural flow of energy, with the impact we have, it may take a little while for us to recognize the impact, but it transcends space and time. …there’s no greater influence you can have than generational impact.” - Carolina Allen
Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.
Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact.