Not Alone

I was so busy needing my mom that I never stopped to see what she needed as a mother!

It hit me in Paris, in the middle of a Céline Dion concert. She started singing "Because You Loved Me," the song my mom had me sing at my stepdad's birthday when I was 13. And suddenly all I could see was my mom's face. So I FaceTimed her, right there in the arena, and we both cried.

My mom had me at 19. She wasn't always there, and it wasn't perfect. But now, as a mom of three myself, I look at her and I'm in awe of what she carried, with the tools she had, while she was still figuring out who she was. Psychologists call this filial maturity. I call it realizing your mom was just a girl.

Then my son asked to watch his birthday vlog for his 8th birthday, and I found myself watching 28-year-old me through 36-year-old eyes. At the time, I was sure I wasn't doing a good job. Watching it now? I was doing so much more than I knew. Nobody tells you that part.

This one's a voice note, so it goes everywhere. Why I'm officially part of the 6pm dinner club. The psychiatrist making the case for magic. And why I think a soft life could use a little fire.

Tell me in the comments: when did you first see your mom as a woman? And subscribe, it's how more women like you find us.

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PUORI: Third party tested supplements, screened for purity and contaminants. https://www.puori.com/valeria with code: VALERIA for 32% off your first order!

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What we talked about:

0:00 – Trailer
1:22 – Welcome back to a Not Alone voice note
1:48 – Paris, and realizing I'm not 25 anymore
3:38 – My ideal night now: dinner at 6, in bed by 10
5:02 – Why 5:30 is the new 8:006:02 – Has anyone been to a nightclub lately?
6:32 – Céline Dion's comeback, and why every woman should watch her documentary
8:11 – The song that made me FaceTime my mom mid-concert
10:04 – The three chapters of how we see our parents
12:21 – Filial maturity: seeing your mom as a woman
13:51 – What did my mom get right?
15:24 – Watching our old family vlogs with my kids
18:35 – Matrescence: the second puberty nobody tells you about
20:04 – I wish I had footage of my mom
21:05 – Season of the Witch: a psychiatrist making the case for magic
25:43 – The trap of selflessness and the prison of likability
27:19 – Why we need to stop running from anger
29:20 – "You need to channel anger": a lesson from our coach
32:10 – A soft life and a little fire

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"If I give you that, you'll look like an alien. A hot alien, but not you."

That's what Giulianna Romero tells women who walk in with a photo of someone else's face. She's my injector, the one person I trust with my face, and the one who tells me no.

I asked her everything I've wanted to know since I started Botox at 32. Why my feed is full of 32-year-olds getting facelifts, and why she completely disagrees. Why she says "fat is king," and pulling your skin back won't fix what's actually missing. How she can tell what anyone has had done, celebrities included.

The story that stayed with me: in one week, three women sat in her chair, each wanting to look like the next. The last one said her own face was falling. Which is wild, because she was the one everyone wanted to look like.

And the question every woman asks in that chair, whether it's her first time or her third? "When is enough, enough?" Even Giulianna asks it.
Tell me in the comments if you've asked it too. And subscribe so more women like you find us.

Follow Giulianna:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/undetectableinjector/
Skincare by Amy Peterson: https://www.skincarebyamypeterson.com/

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Follow Not Alone:
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Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/8146316
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky

What we talked about:
0:00 – Trailer
1:30 – Meet Giulianna Romero, the injector Valeria trusts
2:50 – The shift from overfilled to natural aesthetics
5:56 – "You'll look like an alien": bringing in a celebrity photo
7:45 – Injector red flags: when to walk out
9:29 – Facial balancing, and why you never "fill a hole"
10:35 – Why a good injector tells you no
12:10 – Is preventative Botox real?
15:00 – Valeria's Botox, Renuva and growth factors
19:47 – Filler migration and dissolving with ultrasound
22:38 – How to know when it's too much filler
29:32 – 12 syringes, and why fat is king
31:17 – Facelifts in your 30s: why she disagrees
35:29 – The two ages your face really changes
39:07 – Skincare, diet and the basics
41:15 – How an injector spots filler and work
43:22 – Filters, camera angles and celebrity faces
47:58 – Celebrity transformations: what really changed
54:50 – Lasers, skin tightening and treatments gone wrong
59:23 – Who has the best work in Hollywood?
1:01:24 – Under-eye filler and what young women are fixing now
1:03:36 – Your 40s, and what won't age well
1:06:39 – Unhinged requests and facial balancing
1:09:06 – "You're not ugly, you're just poor": aesthetics on a budget
1:11:17 – Plastic surgery culture and being honest about work
1:17:46 – When is enough actually enough?

Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You do everything right. The blackout curtains, the tracker, the supplements, the cold room. And you still wake up exhausted, check your sleep score, and somehow feel even worse.

I know, because I started performing sleep instead of actually sleeping. Nobody tells you that part.

I found Lauren Sudellko because a cherry-red box that looked like a pack of cigarettes stopped me mid-scroll. It turned out to be a sleep aid. I took it on a red-eye to Paris, it worked, and Gary and I wrote a check that same afternoon. Full transparency, we're now proud investors in Sleep or Die.

But the reason I wanted her on Not Alone has nothing to do with the box. Lauren grew up watching her mom rely on prescription sleeping pills, which turned into an addiction and a few painful rehab stays. In her mid-20s, after a concussion, her own doctor handed her the very same pill. She looked at it and saw her future.

Here's what I actually think. Women aren't sleeping, and the things we reach for to fix it are quietly making it worse. Every woman Lauren asked was taking something. One had been on Advil PM every night for two years.

Sleep is the only thing you can't white-knuckle your way through. Which is wild, because white-knuckling is the one thing most of us are really good at.

We got into sleepmaxxing and why optimizing your sleep can be the thing that ruins it, the melatonin myth, and whether we've made being tired a personality trait. There's also a strip club story. I did not make the rules.

And then Lauren got emotional, which neither of us saw coming. We talked about chasing her parents' approval all the way to Google, feeling empty once she got there, and the LinkedIn post that ended her corporate self.

This one is for the woman who hasn't slept properly in years and quietly ran out of things to try. And for anyone with an idea she can't stop thinking about.

If this is you, tell me in the comments. And if it helped, subscribe, that's what tells the algorithm to bring more women like you here.

Follow Lauren & Sleep or Die:

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

Substack (Sleep or Die Diaries): https://laurensudeyko.substack.com/

Shop Sleep or Die: https://sleep-or-die.com/



Follow Valeria:

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Follow Not Alone:

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

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod

Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/

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

What we talked about:

0:00 – Trailer

1:33 – Meet Lauren Sudeyko

3:05 – What is sleepmaxxing?

4:12 – How Valeria found Sleep or Die

6:13 – Lauren's mom and sleeping pill addiction

7:36 – Prescribed the same pill 20 years later

8:36 – Growing up with an exhausted mom

10:17 – Building a gentler sleep aid

12:07 – 1 in 3 adults can't sleep

12:51 – Why women struggle with sleep more

14:21 – Performing sleep instead of sleeping

16:41 – The melatonin myth

18:39 – What the sleep aisle gets wrong

25:05 – A world of well-rested women

27:02 – Is being tired a personality trait?

32:32 – Motherhood and sleep

36:06 – Making sleep sexy

37:26 – Sending husbands to the strip club

38:47 – Raising $1M+ as a founder

41:10 – Fear vs. gut instinct

44:35 – The Jay Shetty story

47:03 – Letting go of approval

50:23 – Raising money is like dating

55:54 – The LinkedIn post that changed everything

59:08 – Rapid fire

1:00:23 – What women aren't saying out loud



Disclosure: Valeria and Gary Lipovetsky are investors in Sleep or Die. Some links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

#NotAlonePodcast #ValeriaLipovetsky #Sleepmaxxing #WomensHealth #SleepOrDie
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You learned early that it was all on you, so you worked harder than everyone around you, and it worked. Somewhere along the way you stopped asking what you were actually trying to prove, or who it was ever for.

I know, because I've done it too.

When I started learning Jun Yuh's story, I kept finding my own in it. We were both raised by one parent, and for me, it was my father who wasn't in the picture. For Jun, it was his mom. His parents divorced over the phone, he didn't speak to her for ten years, and at 14 he decided it was up to him to figure it out for his family.

Years later, he became their first millionaire. He didn't touch the money for a year and a half, because he'd watched it break his family apart. When he did, it went to clearing $400K of family debt. Not a single splurge on himself.

And the pain carried him a long way. He chose biomedical engineering because it was the hardest thing he could think of, and did his bachelor's and master's at the same time. In his words, a trauma response is only going to take you so far. He found that out the hard way, close to his first burnout.

Here's what I actually think. We call that kind of drive discipline, and we admire it. But a lot of the time, it's pain that learned how to look productive.

For Jun, what shifted it was his mom. One phone call turned ten years of anger into forgiveness, and a dinner in Korea after graduation finally had his whole family saying everything out loud. The drive didn't go away. It just started coming from love instead.

He has also never done therapy. I'm calling him in ten years.

We got into his faith, and why surrender is what keeps him steady. The girlfriend who calls him out when he isn't showing up at home. His one rule for telling his story: only ever tell your own. And the stretch, months after losing his grandma, that left him disconnected from his own drive.

And the part I keep coming back to. He posted every day for two years before any of it was good. What stops most of us isn't the fear of failing, it's the fear of being seen. The art is in trying.

This one's for anyone who grew up believing no one else was coming, and for anyone who has gotten really good at pushing themselves and doesn't know how to stop.

If this is you, tell me in the comments. And if it helped, subscribe, that's what tells the algorithm to bring more people like you here.

Follow Jun:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jun_yuh/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jun_yuh
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jun_yuh
Creator Unplugged (podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@creatorunplugged

Follow Valeria:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog

Follow Not Alone:

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

Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/7904912

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

What we talked about:

0:00 – Trailer
4:29 – Jun Yuh on being raised by a single parent
6:10 – His parents divorced over the phone
8:50 – At 14, his mom wasn't coming back
9:47 – Has Jun Yuh done therapy?
10:25 – Reconnecting with his mom
13:02 – Family dinner in Korea and forgiveness
15:10 – Why content became his therapy
17:57 – Becoming his family's first millionaire
18:40 – Money mindset and scarcity
20:07 – $17M in 17 months
22:58 – Where Jun Yuh's drive comes from
24:08 – Surrender and discipline
28:44 – Outgrowing survival mode
31:01 – His why: taking care of his dad
34:12 – Faith and contentment
37:10 – Cringe early content
39:26 – The art is in trying
40:43 – The $49K business mistake
43:14 – Disconnected from his drive
47:25 – His girlfriend's accountability
52:01 – Storytelling boundaries
57:45 – The fear of being seen
59:54 – The three whys
1:08:56 – Jun Yuh's four daily wins
1:11:56 – Rapid fire
1:16:02 – Why we need more empathy

❤️ Subscribe for more videos https://www.youtube.com/ValeriaLipovetskychannel?sub_confirmation=1

❤️ Where else you can find me:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/valerialipovetsky/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog/
Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky

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

#JunYuh #NotAlonePodcast #FirstMillionaire #SingleParent #ValeriaLipovetsky
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It's just me today. No guest, no questions. Just me and everything that's been sitting in my head since my birthday.

Here's the thing about turning 36. I thought I didn't want anything. No plans, no production, phone off, in my robe by 9pm. Then a small part of me panicked that maybe I was supposed to want more.

And then the day fell apart on its own, nothing went the way it was meant to, and it landed as exactly what I needed. Which caught me off guard, because a year ago I would have planned the whole thing down to the minute and called that self-care.

And that turned out to be the theme of the whole year, not just the day. I don't want every year of my life to be preparation for a better one that's always a little further up ahead.

So in this one I get into the rest of it. The work summit where I walked into a room full of people who knew more than me, and for the first time the what-am-I-doing-here voice just didn't show up.

The morning I realized I'd been checking an app to find out how I slept, when I was the one who slept.

The strange freedom of not totally knowing who I am right now, and being more okay with that than I expected to be.

And the three words I'm carrying into this year, which are very much not the ones I would have picked five years ago, back when my only word was more.

Nobody tells you that the thing that got you here isn't always the thing that gets you where you're going next. That's the part I'm still in.

This one's for the woman who did everything right and still feels like her real life is somewhere up ahead. You're not behind. You might just be allowed to enjoy the one you're already in.

If that's you, tell me in the comments. And subscribe if you want more of these. It's the thing that tells the algorithm to send more women like you my way.

FOLLOW VALERIA

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TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky

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FOLLOW NOT ALONE

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TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod

Podcast:https://www.notalonepod.com/

SHOP MY LOOK FROM THIS EPISODE

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AMAZON STOREFRONT

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WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT

0:00 - Just me today, no guest1:00 - What I thought I wanted for my birthday2:30 - The day fell apart and became exactly what I needed4:00 - Don't celebrate me, but also celebrate me5:30 - Nobody can read your mind, not even a man in a chef costume7:00 - I can buy my own flowers, I just don't want to8:30 - Your partner needs the update10:00 - The investing panel, and the room full of people who knew more12:00 - The what-am-I-doing-here voice that finally went quiet14:00 - Qualified and a beginner in the same room15:30 - The opposite of a thought leader17:30 - Less sure of myself, and happier for it19:00 - The energy healer and the Oura ring21:00 - When taking care of myself turned into grading myself23:00 - My easygoing era was a performance25:00 - No is a complete sentence26:30 - The nails post, and what do you mean I have a choice28:00 - Rosh Hashanah, and the word around the table29:30 - The men said business, the women said play31:00 - Taking the permission to play, and booking Paris32:30 - The three words I'm carrying into this year34:00 - The thing that got you here isn't what gets you there next35:30 - You might just be allowed to enjoy the life you're in

DISCLAIMER

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

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