Pull Up A Chair: My Story Starts Here

Pull Up a Chair: My Story Starts Here

What happens when you finally slow down long enough to hear yourself again?

In this first episode of Big Talk at the Table, Joni Leigh shares her personal journey of healing, self-discovery, and personal growth after years of constantly staying busy. From founding a nonprofit to embracing RV life and major life transitions, Joni opens up about identity, emotional healing, mental health, and learning how to reconnect with herself in a more authentic way.

This episode is a heartfelt conversation about self-improvement, women’s empowerment, and the power of authentic conversations that help us feel seen, understood, and less alone. If you’ve been navigating burnout, searching for purpose, or craving deeper connection, this space was created for you.

Big Talk at the Table is a personal growth podcast focused on healing, storytelling, vulnerability, emotional wellness, and meaningful conversations for women who are rediscovering themselves.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

•  Healing and self-discovery after burnout 
•  The connection between busyness and emotional avoidance 
•  Identity shifts during major life transitions 
•  Leaving a long-term nonprofit role 
•  RV life and intentional living 
•  Mental health, emotional wellness, and personal transformation 
•  Why authentic conversations create healing and connection 
•  Building a safe space for women’s stories and self-empowerment 

Favorite Sound Bites

“I was so busy I didn’t have time to feel.”
 “Busy can fool you into thinking you’re okay.”
 “Healing is a layered, ongoing process.”

Chapters

00:00 — Introduction to Big Talk at the Table
02:58 — The Journey of Self-Discovery
05:45 — The Importance of Authentic Conversations
09:02 — Life Transitions and Identity
11:59 — Healing and Growth
14:42 — The Purpose of the Podcast
18:03 — Creating a Safe Space for Women
20:39 — Conclusion and Invitation to Join

Resources & Links

 Visit Joni Leigh online: https://jonileigh.com

Big Talk at the Table Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@JoniLeighOfficial

 Angels of Action Nonprofit: https://angelsofaction.org

If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another woman who may need encouragement on her healing and personal growth journey.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If I'm going to be completely honest with you, this might be one of the hardest episodes for me to record. And it feels a little ridiculous even saying that out loud because it's just me sitting here talking to you. And maybe that's why it feels so different, so hard, is because I don't have a guest to lean into, I don't have a guest to turn to. It's just me and my story that I'm gonna sit here and talk to you about today. Well, it's me and my diet coke and my microphone and the truth of why I'm even here. So welcome to Big Talk at the table. I'm Joni Lee. And before I bring guests to this table, I think it's only fair that I let you know who's sitting behind the microphone here, sitting every day in the RB with the podcast Who I Am. I am a mom. I am a sister. I am a daughter. I'm a friend. I'm a storyteller. I'm a former nonprofit founder. And I'm also a woman who has spent a lot of years serving other people. For a long time, I guess people knew me by what I did. They saw me coming. They knew who I was based on what I did, based on a title that I had. And they knew that I was a woman who I showed up. I figured stuff out. I carried lots of heavy loads, and I just kept moving. And I'm proud of that part of my story. I really am. That part of my story shaped me and shaped so much of what is becoming now into the season that I'm in. But I'm also learning that I am bigger than what I built. I am bigger than the rules and the titles that I carried. I am bigger than any of the seasons that I ever survived. And it took me a really long time to come to that conclusion. It took me a lot of life. It came from years of carrying things that I didn't always know to talk about, or I didn't want to talk about them actually. It came from walking through seasons where from the outside I looked like I was completely fine. I really did. Um, and I always acted like I was fine because the more that life kind of kept piling on me, I just kept kind of pushing it down. It would come and pile on me, I would push it down, and I would just keep moving. I was so busy that one of the things that I would constantly say is somebody would say, Hey, how are you? And I would say, I'm just so busy. I just got to get through this. And whatever this was, then it became, I would get through that, but then the next thing would come, and I kept repeating and on repeat that same story, that same mindset is that it would come, I would be busy, I would push it down, and I would repeat the busyness cycle. So I looked fine from the outside, but I had a whole storage unit of emotions packed away on the inside. And trust me, I know a thing or two about storage units, but we're not going to get into that today's podcast. That's for the next episode. Trust me. That deserves its own podcast just on itself. But I wanted to talk today about conversations, the ones that kind of make you feel a little less alone. I wanted to talk about Big Talk, right? That's the name of my title of my podcast, so why not start there? So when people ask me who I am, I always think that's such a loaded question because there's an easy answer, right? Who I am could be, I could tell you everything that I've done over the course of my 50s. You didn't catch that, did you? I could tell you all the roles that I've had. I could tell you all the work that I've done. I could tell you all the titles that I've carried and the rooms that I've sat in, the people that I've networked with. I've spent a lot of my life in sales and marketing, leadership and nonprofit work, and I founded a nonprofit that became a huge part of who I was for a really long time, and people saw me as that. But that's not what I'm here today to do. I saw a mission almost the same as the one that I'm in right now. I have been in community events, donor meetings, women's gatherings, board conversations, and plenty of spaces where you walk in, you put a smile on your face, you shake hands, you introduce yourself over and over again, right? You know exactly what I'm talking about. And you talk about what? You talk about the weather, you talk about sports, you talk about local sports, you talk about what's going on, maybe events in the community. And it's fluff, right? It is speed dating for people, and so you're kind of trying to figure out in a short amount of time do I like this person? Can I connect with this person? And then you're moving on. And so I've spent most of my life in small talk game. And I have to tell you, there is one thing I love people. I really do. I love hearing what makes someone who they are. I love the moment when you ask a question to someone and their face completely changes because you they stopped giving you a polished answer, which is small talk, and they actually start telling you the real one. I love when a conversation goes from, so what do you do? To let me tell you what changed me. That is where I absolutely come alive. And somewhere along the way, I started noticing many conversations, never really got there. I was stuck in the fluff. I was stuck in the small talk. I was stuck in, I would meet someone, I was trying to figure out if I had a connection with them. And before I knew it, I was moving on. And I never really got to like kind of sit and have those big conversations with people who I generally were interested in. And I wanted to know more about them. I wanted to know more about their story, not so much what they did for their job or their title or what their role was at the moment. I remember I would be sitting around some tables and you would get just little bits and pieces of people. Sometimes I couldn't hear, which many of you know about that. So I didn't even get the bits and pieces of the stories. I was just nodding and smiling because it was so loud wherever I was. I was trying to hear, but I couldn't. And I didn't want people to repeat themselves. So they got this. I didn't even get the bits and pieces of their fluff story. But I want more of the, I want more than what's on the surface, right? I'm looking for what goes deeper. I'm looking what gets interrupted and what causes them to sit and hit think about their answer before they actually can talk. And I craved that. I craved that more than anything. And I always wanted to sit across from someone one-on-one and just be like, hey, tell me who you really are. Tell me what you walked through. Tell me what broke your heart. Tell me what rebuilt you. Tell me now what you couldn't tell me back then. And that is the kind of conversation that I want to have. That is truly why this table exists. Big talk the table is not about polished people giving you perfect answers. I'm in a really small RV and I am not polished by any means. I have bad internet. I have days where it's raining and I can't record because the rain is so loud it's hitting the top of the roof that you wouldn't even be able to hear any of the conversations of the guests that I would be bringing to you. But you know what? It's not about that. This RV journey, sure, it's a part of the season, but it's not the whole reason why I'm out here doing what I'm doing. This table matters because a table has always felt like a place to me where people gather. It doesn't matter if I'm in an RV, it doesn't matter if I was in a studio. It's just setting a place and setting a space for people to come together and really talk about who they are and why they're doing what they're doing. And I think there's many of you who care about that also. You care about really learning about somebody more than just surface level. How are they really doing? How can we connect with them? That is what I want the space to feel like. I really want this space to feel honest. I want it to feel warm. I want it to feel inviting. I want it to feel like we are having a conversation over coffee. And I hope that you're joining us for coffee at the table. Because I believe that one woman is brave enough to tell the truth. Another woman finally takes a deep breath and says, My gosh, that is so me, and I'm okay. And you know what? It's not just you. We all feel this. I've been talking to so many women so far, even in my eight months on this adventure. And I'm going to tell you, we all have the same thing in common. We're all looking for that connection. RV life is no different than regular life. We're all looking for that connection. Now, I'm sure you're sitting there wondering to yourself, why am I doing this from an RV? She keeps talking about an RV. Why am I doing this from an RV? Well, honestly, the RV is part of the story too. It really is. This season of my life, it has been become one big question of who am I? So I left a nonprofit, which I helped and built for almost 15 years. And that became the identity of who I was. I stepped out of a season of a marriage of almost 20 years, leaving my nonprofit of almost 15 years, and a community where I was engrossed in everything that was going on there. Everyone knew me, though, when they saw my face by my nonprofit Angels of Action. And that wasn't a bad thing at all. It was a season that deeply shaped me and basically showed me that when God lays something on your heart, He builds it and He builds it to His plan and you follow along. And that's really what Angels of Action, how it was birthed, how it came to life, and how I was able to give something to a community that I deeply loved. But it wasn't my end-all be all season. And I think that's so hard for us as women to understand. We become mothers, and once we become a mother, that's like our title, right? You don't even know who you are other than being a mother sometimes because you are so involved in driving to sports and doing all the things and the cooking and the cleaning and getting the kids to school and all the after-school activities that you kind of lose track of who you are. The same thing kind of happened to me with my nonprofit. It kind of I lost track of who I was. I was so deeply into serving others, which was one of the greatest joys of my life. But I needed to find out who I was after I left that title. I was somebody in that title and in that role that I had to be strong, I had to be capable, I had to put my fire hat on and put out the fires all the time. I had to be available and I had to be okay and fine. But now who am I? Who am I? The kids are gone, they're grown, life has changed, my titles shift. And when familiar started kind of fading away, I looked around and I realized that maybe I had spent a whole lot of years pushing stuff down and never really dealing with the things that had been coming at me and never really sitting long enough to ask God, who did you make me to be? And that's kind of where this journey started for me. So this RV is not about travel, although I am. I'm getting to go to some amazing places, meet some amazing people, but it was about kind of pulling over in my life and stopping for a moment. And it's about healing. And I have to tell you the RV story really quick. Because when God laid this on my heart, I actually like looked around and was like, are you talking to me? Like, you can't be talking to me because you know I don't like to even camp. So that's a great one. You have a great sense of humor, God, but I know you're not talking to me. And as I kept wrestling and kind of fighting him, I did not go willingly, let me tell you. The idea of what he was telling me to do was coming at me fast and furious. And that was over a year and a half ago, almost going on two years, when I remember um my sister was up at my place in Michigan, and I came outside with coffee and I sat down and I said, I have something really kind of crazy to tell you. And I told her what God had kind of put on my heart, and that I thought I was supposed to get an RV. I thought I was supposed to sell everything I own, and I thought I was supposed to go on this travel around the United States. And I remember her looking at me, and it wasn't like I was crazy and I had three heads, and what was I talking about? She just kind of looked at me and went to look down on her phone and she immediately started researching RVs to buy. I was, what are you doing? And she's like, We have to find you an RV. And I think it's that piece that when God puts something in your life, I know we try to question it. I know we try to not have so much faith that we step into that calling. But when you do, and I have to tell you, I did not see the whole road before me. The life that I thought I was going to be leading on the RV life I thought I was going to be leading is not the life that I have led the last eight months, I can tell you. God has something so much better in store for me. And it's kind of showing up and becoming true to the person who I was instead of performing to the version of me that everybody else was used to, right? I was busy. I was so busy all the time. I'm not in busy mode anymore. I was busy serving, I was busy working, I was busy building, I was busy helping. I was just busy showing up for everyone else, but I was not busy showing up for me. And so busy can fool you, right? Busy can make you think that you are healed because you don't have time to feel anything. Busy can make you look successful while your heart is really asking for attention in the background. Busy can make you move so fast that you never sit still long enough to admit that you're hurting or to admit that you need to work on something. I thought I was just okay and I just kept going. But when I sit out here and God put me in RV life to be alone, to sit in the stillness, to sit in the quietness, and to start healing. I really didn't even know what healing meant at all before I was on this RV journey. I am healing from years of stuffing stuff down that I just smiled through, that I just prayed through, that I just kind of survived through and convinced myself that I was okay. But now I'm in a season of telling the truth. I'm out here healing, I'm out here becoming, I'm out here asking God, okay, who am I now? What is my calling? What am I supposed to do now that I've lived through all of this trauma? What am I supposed to give back? And the answer kept coming back to me. And it kept coming back to one thing. I want you here to serve women. I want you to hear to serve others. I want you to create a space where their stories deserve to be heard. And I want it to be a safe space. And I don't think healing is something that just ends one day. I feel like you don't just wake up and you're like, okay, well, I'm officially healed. Someone bring me some, you know, bring me a medal, bring me an honor, bring me a certificate. I'm done. I think healing is a process. I think it's becoming, and I think it happens in layers. And I don't think you ever kind of stop healing. I think things you you run into things or you take, you take something from somebody that you've met and you realize that maybe that's another piece of healing for you in a spot maybe you had never looked at in your heart. And that's the whole point, right? I'm still out there out here healing. And we don't have to have it all figured out. I don't have it all figured out. I have to tell you, when I started this podcast, remember me telling you this was going to be the hardest one recording that I've done? I don't have it figured out. This isn't going to be perfect by any means. But you know what? I hope you'll sit with me long enough so we can get through the muck and we get to the good stuff because you just have to take action. I know it's fearful. I know you're scared. I know it gives you anxiety, maybe to step out of your comfort zone. But you know what? When you do that and you trust God, that's where the beauty comes. That's where the magic happens. And that's really what this podcast is gonna be. We're gonna talk about real life. We're gonna talk about identity. We're gonna talk about purpose. We're gonna talk about faith. We're gonna talk about ADHD. Yep. We're gonna talk about adoption. That's another piece of my story that a lot of you may not know. We're gonna talk about divorce. We're gonna talk about who you are as a woman and where you are in your stage of life. We're gonna talk about starting over. We're gonna talk about serving others, losing yourself, finding yourself, and all the ordinary things, messy or not, we're gonna talk about those two. You know, I know that people out there have stories to tell, and not because their lives are perfect, actually. It's because they've lived through something and they have a story that might help somebody else. And that's why I made this table. Every guest that's going to sit here with me is going to bring something different to you. Some conversations might be deep, some conversations will be funny, some will make you cry, and some are gonna make you laugh. And it's just hard to so hard we forget we're supposed to be professional. Well, supposed to be. I don't know that I've ever I've ever mastered that, so I'm just gonna be me. I hope that there's a little bit of all of that in every episode for you, because to me, that's real life. My hope is that when you listen to Big Talk at the table, you feel like you're not just listening to a podcast. I hope you feel like you pulled up a chair and you're sitting with us having coffee and you're really like you belong. You belong here. I hope you feel seen. I hope you feel heard. I I hope something in these conversations gives you permission to ask your own questions deeper. I hope you remember that your story matters. Even the parts that you're still working through, even the messy, even the chapters you don't fully understand yet, that's part of the journey. There'll be places that you're still there'll be places that you're still healing, because that matters too. I hope you remember you are worthy. I hope you remember that you're enough. I hope that you remember that you're not alone, and I hope that you remember you are loved. I wanted you to know why I'm here, why this matters to me, why this is such a piece of my heart and my soul, and why I believe these conversations matters. Because we as women, we need to do better with other women. We need to start uplifting each other. We need to start building a community where we feel safe and protected and not afraid to put ourselves out there because somebody's gonna judge us and somebody's gonna look at something that they don't like about what we're wearing, how we did our makeup, how we did our hair. We need to start being real and honest with each other and having these deep conversations. So, welcome to Big Talk at the table. I am so glad you're here. Pull up a chair, my friend, because every single episode, there will always be a seat waiting for you. And that's what this table is all about: real conversations, honest moments, and really being and showing up and reminding each other that we're not alone in any of this. So if something in this episode hit you, it resonated with you, if you found your think self thinking, me too, I hope you'll keep coming back. Make sure you hit subscribe, follow along, and share this with somebody who might need to hear it too. Because there's always a seat waiting for you at this table. And when we show up and we're real and we're wrong. And we're honest and we're open. You know what? That's where the magic happens. And so until next time, you are worthy. You are enough. You are loved. And remember, you can do hard things. Keep being real and keep having the conversations that matter.