Woman Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts - The Truth About Your Capacity with RaQuel Hopkins

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Sarah Jakes Roberts sits down with licensed therapist and leadership strategist RaQuel Hopkins for a powerful conversation about what it really means to have capacity when life keeps asking more of you. RaQuel breaks down the difference between simply coping and developing the capacity to stay present through uncertainty, change, vulnerability, and the complexities of everyday life. SJR also gets personal about rebuilding trust in herself after her accident, navigating the pressure to show up strong while still feeling unfinished, and learning to embrace vulnerability without seeing it as weakness. Together, Sarah and RaQuel explore self-trust, identity, emotional resilience, conditional self-worth, caregiving, and why growth sometimes requires us to question the stories we’ve accepted about who we have to be. Whether you’re navigating burnout, a major life transition, grief, uncertainty, or simply trying to figure out how to carry what’s on your plate, this conversation is an invitation to stop living on autopilot, get curious about what life is developing in you, and learn how to stay present with yourself along the way. Special Thanks to Our Sponsors: Alloy is the only menopause platform with a scalp-to-lash hair care solution. Visit myalloy.com and use code EVOLVE for $20 off your first order! Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/EVOLVE. Get 40% off select Lola Blankets products at https://Lolablankets.com by using code EVOLVE at checkout. Experience the world’s #1 blanket with Lola Blankets. Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/WOMAN #honeylovepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up family? This is your girl, Sarah Jakes Roberts, and you are tuned in to another episode of the Woman Evolve podcast. What is happening in your world? I am so happy to be alive. You know, there's one thing to have a near-death experience and then recovering from that near-death experience. I am just now getting into like, I don't want to say it's kind of like my memory. message. I don't know if you heard. I got to preach on Sunday, August 9th. I got to preach, which would have been not this last Sunday when you hear the Sunday before that. And it's called the same but different. But, you know, I am able to do things that I haven't been able to do for the last few months. And I'm starting to feel just so much gratitude for little things. Like, I used to just work out and skip stretching, which I always knew wasn't good. But like, just having that ability to move my body and to stretch and to take the dog on a walk and picking the girls up from school. They've started school again. You know, those things, they mean so much to me in a

different way. I feel honestly like I have a new lease on life. I think the joy that like maybe I should have had the moment the accident happened, I didn't get to have because I was still in this stage of like, don't move or you can be paralyzed or you're going to die. And then I had the surgery and there was so much pain connected with the surgery. And I got my x-rays. All of the like plates and screws are in place, which is a crazy sentence. But, you know, I'm grateful that everything is as it was. So I think I'm just now feeling like I can trust my body again. And I know there are so many of you who have had different types of experiences, some like mine where you had a sudden injury, some where your body has been permanently changed in ways that you didn't anticipate. And there is a

this betrayal of your body that takes place when your body doesn't show up in the way that you anticipated. And so I'm starting to trust my body again and to enjoy it and to not feel so concerned about, you know, just, I guess, dying. I've been, that's, I probably should talk to the lady about that. I'll talk to her next week about just like living with this constant threat of like, you could die, you could die, you could be paralyzed. And like, yeah, I'm starting to feel safe in my own skin in a way that was changed when I had the accident. So I'm grateful. And I'm grateful for your patience with me as I have gone through this journey.

If you are connected to the Woman Evolve podcast, then like we, like, I go, like, everything Woman Evolve is like, that's my side chick because my man, my man, my man. but you know like everything woman evolve is like I'm with it if you rocking with this podcast baby you know all my business we have been in it and through it and you have been on this journey with me and so I'm just so grateful for your patience and for your kindness I know some of you have probably you know never been to a woman evolve event and maybe this is literally the way that we stay connected and I just want to say thank you for being a safe space for me when I think about things that I need to share or places where I can take off my cape and just be a woman. This podcast is one of them. And so I hope you continue to feel the same way. If you feel like this is a safe space for women who are on a journey trying to figure things out, discover who they are and learn from other women who are at a similar stage in their life, make sure you share this podcast because we need to be in it together, baby, because isolation, separation. It is a tool of the enemy that we can overcome through connection. So yeah, summer break is over.

The girls are back in school. Ella is in middle school. McKenzie is in her senior year. She is in her senior year of high school. She goes off to university from here. Laura's saying the same. And so I had feelings when I took them to school. As I always have feelings because they begin on my nerves,

I'd be ready for them and go back to school. And then I drive them off, I'm like, I'm going to miss you. Also, here's your bag. So, yeah. You know, it's a lot going on. Womney Evolve. Okay, so let me just give you this update. Womene Evolve conference dates are July 29th through the 31st, 2027.

What we could not do this year, we are going to do next year, and we are going to do it together. I have already made up in my mind. No devil in hell is stopping me from being there. I feel like I passed the test of being willing to, like, be a person over a robot to go rogue and take care of myself. next year I will be in that building. And hopefully you will join me too. So many of the women who were supposed to join us this year are going to roll over with us and they'll be there in 2020. There are a few people who couldn't join us or wanted to wait until we got our stuff together or they needed to get their stuff.

I don't know what the reasons are when people decide to pivot. But what I'm saying is we got a few extra seats. And if you would like to join us, you can visit WOMENEvolveconference.com to get your conference seat. But I will say this, you don't know where we may pop up. We do have conference dates for 2027, but also there is a high key chance I could be popping up in a city near you with some of my girls. We're talking about the rogue route tour. I'm talking about Detroit. I'm talking about Chicago.

I'm talking about St. Louis. I'm talking about Memphis. I'm talking about Nashville. I'm talking about Birmingham. I'm talking about San Antonio. If any of those cities mean anything to you, I want you to make sure that you get plugged into WOMENEvolve.com so that you can learn more about where this tour could be popping up near you. Everything that we couldn't do for 2026, we're going to cram into seven different cities, seven different

lineups, seven different themes, and we are just going to go rogue and do something we've never done before for the WOMONEvolved tour. And so, yeah, we just got all of the things happening. You have minded my business. Now you know what it is. You got to let me mind yours. Let's listen to this week's question. Hi, Sarah.

My name is Karen. I'm 24 years old. I'm from Jersey. I wanted to say thank you because I truly believe that God led me to buy the Women of All books that you made. I honestly feel like the Holy Spirit was nudging me to pick it up. Since I started reading it, it's been opening me up in so many areas of my life. Like, sometimes it's even harder because it makes me confront parts of myself that I've been avoiding for years.

But it's also helping me heal. It's helping me journal. I pray differently. And I feel like I'm truly becoming the woman's God created me to be. I'm sorry. I'm a little nervous. But right now I'm in a season where, God is rebuilding my life.

I'm going back to school. I'm in therapy. I'm learning to love myself. For the first time, I'm intentionally dating myself instead of looking for someone else to fill the void. After watching your message, trusting God in unfamiliar seasons, two questions I really have.

They stayed on my heart. The first one is, how do you truly leave survival mode behind after years of trauma, heartbreak, disappointment, and grief. I know God has more for me, but sometimes I still find myself expecting the worst instead of believing for the best, I guess. My second question is, how do you honor the relationship that you shaped? How do you honor the relationships that shaped you while also embracing the woman of God

is calling you to become? sometimes I feel guilty for like outgrowing people I love or even when I know like God is leading me in a different direction. I feel guilty for breaking away from like, I guess, things that trauma bonded with or people I've trauma bonded with in a way. But thank you for pouring into a woman like me by creating your books. Your audience, what you portray to your audience is literally changing lives because I can say I'm one of them. Just thank you for everything. Thank you for calling in and leaving me a message. I'm so proud of you.

I'm so proud of the work you're doing, of the walls you are allowing these words to invade and to the yes, to the challenge of becoming that you have accepted. It's my honor and privilege that God would use my story and my journey to serve what he's doing in your life. And I'm so grateful that the Holy Spirit nudge you and that you responded. I can answer that question about survival mode. I mean, whether it's from my teen pregnancy or divorce or even this most recent situation, this idea of moving like from survival mode requires us to be present in the now more than we are anticipatory of what's next. And the thing about survival mode is that it makes you hyper aware.

And so you're always scanning for threats. You're always scanning for danger. And when you come to a place where you're like, I don't want to live my life on the edge anymore. It requires you to be present. And so doing little things throughout your day to remind yourself to like, I am here. This is my life. That was joy. This was anger.

You know, to be really, really present and to allow what that moment represents to really take root into your life. Because after you've been in survival mode for so long, you have to get to a place where you trust yourself. your surroundings again. And in order to do that, it requires you to be very intentional about being present with yourself. And so it's always like when we're worshipping, we're like, you know, God's presence has invaded the room. But if we truly believe that God is omnipresent, it's not that his presence just invaded the room. It's that our awareness of his presence has just become heightened because we have allowed ourselves to focus in intentionally on his presence and to not be distracted. And when we are present in the moment, we get to experience God's

presence as well. In order for us to stay in survival mode, we have to be hyper aware in such a way that we are trying to be like God. We're trying to think ahead, forecast, what could go wrong, how do I prevent it? What are the outcomes going to be? And when we relieve ourselves from the pressure of having to be God and instead seek to acknowledge God, throughout our day, throughout the moments in our lives, there is a presence and a safety that can be formed. Because if I can just think back to the last moment where I really felt God's presence, even when life throws a curveball my way, I pick up the phone and I get some news I didn't anticipate. I go through an accident that I didn't anticipate because I'm able to find God's presence in the moment with me. I know that if God is in any of it, that God can be in all of it.

And so I lean into that presence and ask God, can you comfort me in this moment? I don't know what the end's going to be. I don't know how you're going to change it or if you're going to change it. But God, if you could just be with me in this moment. And so ask God to meet you in the now. Take off your cape, take off your need to protect yourself, which sounds crazy, right? Because like a lot of times we grow up and it's like, if I don't take care of myself, if I don't protect myself, who will? I'm asking you, even if it's just a practice of doing a five minutes, day, 10 minutes a day, to really be present with your God in this moment, to see God in the ray of the suns, to see God in the video that made you laugh as a gift of God giving you joy, to see God in the moments that come and find you, and to be able to see that moment through a lens of gratitude and acknowledgement, that's part of the way that we get out of survival mode.

It's not enough to get out of Survivor mode if you don't know what next mode you want to be in. And if you're no longer in Survivor mode, I was talking to her name, I want to say her name is Brittany. She's got a beautiful voice. And she was on the podcast before. And I asked her, I said, once you get finished doing all of the work, like, what do you do next?

And she goes, you get to live. And so remind yourself that I'm not moving from survival mode into a blank space, that I want to be alive. And I want to acknowledge what each moment carries for me and then practice being alive. Take a walk, be in the sun, breathe in, breathe out, laugh out loud, eat a great meal, move your body, be alive on purpose because you survived for a reason. And in order to figure out why you survived, you're going to have to be alive. The second thing that you asked me had to do with like honoring friendships that, you know, made them built from

that place of trauma or pain as you're continuing to grow. and heal. And I understand this tension very well. What I would say to you is this, as you begin to notice yourself change to introduce that change to those friends, when maybe they're talking about something that no longer interests you, you know, instead of being like, you know, I'm off that now, or like, you know, I'm better than that, or you're too small. You know, maybe to share, like, I actually started feeling convicted about thinking that way. And I think that I want to see people, through the lens of their strength and not their insecurities. That's just an example of maybe talking about people.

Or maybe out, you used to go out in club, you used to go out and drinking. You don't want to do that anymore. And it's kind of like, you know, I used to have fun with that, but I'm really trying to change and discover what joy looks like in healthier ways. Introduce yourself to those people as you are changing. That is the way that we begin to introduce boundaries and relationships where there weren't boundaries before. A lot of times we're afraid of making this 180 degree turn and people be like, oh, she acts and funny. She thinks she better than us and letting them draw their own conclusions.

But as you begin to introduce yourself, they won't be surprised when you say no. They won't be surprised when you don't want to engage in certain things any longer. And they may decide, I'm not going to invite you anymore or I'm going to distance myself. Or they may decide, hey, I kind of have been feeling the same way. I just didn't know whether or not that was okay in the context of our friendship. Don't feel like you have to go from being one way to completely different than next and wonder how their relationship will suffer. Introduce yourself to them along the way and then allow what takes place naturally to determine what the friendship can be and whether or not it can go with you. I have found that to be helpful and painful sometimes because you hit

this moment where you're like, dang, we're not going to make it, huh? You're going to keep thinking that same way. You're going to keep doing those same things. And I'm not going to stop growing in the direction that I'm growing. And then you look up one day and you haven't spoken in two days and three days and you see pictures and you're like, oh, they're living a life that I once was a part of. And there may be grief connected to that, but that's okay. Because my prayer for you is that God will continue to call your people to you. And as God calls your people to you, that you will find safer, healthier places that can be a greenhouse for what God is growing on the inside of you. So thank you for trusting me with this part of your life and for allowing me to take up some space in it.

I pray that God continues to give me wisdom and experiences and knowledge about who he is that serves what's happening in your life. There are some gifts you get and they're cute or whatever. You say, thank you. You appreciate the thought and you keep it moving. Then there are the gifts that keep on giving, the ones you love so much that now you're buying one for everybody in their mama. That was Lola Blanket for me.

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I don't know when capacity became our buzzword, but it has become our buzzword. And I love, my friends even text me now and they're like, if you have capacity, if you have capacity. I love the fact that we are honoring what we are capable of experiencing, what we are capable of processing or taking on. But the question then becomes like, if everyone's taking their capacity, how do we know, know what our capacity is. And sometimes how to is, am I tired? Will I ever have capacity? Because sometimes I don't be having capacity ever. Like, am I

ever going to have capacity to stop eating sugar? I don't know. I don't know. But the thing is, I don't have to know because today I am speaking with Raquel Hopkins. She is a licensed therapist, leadership strategies, and creator of the capacity

framework. We get into what capacity really looks like the difference between coping and thriving and how to navigate those seasons when life just feels like a lot, it's a lot going on. It's too much. There are so many good takeaways in this one. You're going to want to grab a pen, get a plot, something. You don't want to miss anything.

She's dropping gyms. And she, like, she asked me, she was minding my business a little bit. I don't know about it. Let's get into this week's episode. Dr. McCall, I have to tell you, the first time I saw you, it was on it. Nope. No doctor. Doctor. But it felt like a read.

Can I tell you? And we got to be careful with the doctor word because let me tell you something, though. When I first, it felt like a read. Maybe it gave Dr. Energy because when I first saw you, it was a video on Instagram and you were just talking about capacity. but you were saying it with such directness and clarity that like none of the excuses that I usually pull from could work in that moment. And so I first just want to thank you so much for like being on the podcast and just saying yes to answering the call to putting into words and language things that we often make very complex and simple. I'm wondering in a world of like so many different voices and so many different perspectives, what made you? choose this capacity lane?

Yeah, well, thank you. I'll take the doctor. I'll take the doctor because you're speaking into existence where I'm headed to. So I'll take it. Okay. So capacity for me, I don't know how much you know about my background, but I actually started in like corporate HR. And then back in 2019, 2020, I was like, oh my gosh, there has to be more to life.

I was working as VP of HR, and I was actually working for a family member at the time. And I just felt like it just wasn't where I was supposed to be, like, at all. And I kept fighting it because, you know, you hear, like, legacy. And I had stability, a lot of the worries that a lot of other people had, I didn't necessarily have. So I had another set of worries. So I decided I'm going to go back and go to school for what I wanted to do. third degree at this point. I always tell people when I can't figure out my life,

I call it educrastination. Not this time, no, I'm back in school again. It's not eddicrastination. I believe that the Lord has me where he wants me to be. But I go back into school and as I'm learning and reading the textbooks, I always tell people, like, when I was in undergrad, I used to look at the older people that sat in the classrooms

and they would, like, take life so seriously. I'm like, why do you take life so seriously? like just skim the book we can read a little bit. And then I became that older person. I'm like, oh, I'm paying for this. I understand student loans now. And when I started reading a little bit more, I started to understand what mental health meant for myself.

I also, one of the things that really stood out to me was I was like, you've been coping all of your life. And a lot of what we're teaching here is built around coping. Like, I know how to cope will. Like, before I had language for boundaries or learning. in to self-regulate, I was already doing it. I just didn't know that I was doing it. So while I was in this program, I was like, I need more because if I don't feel like what

I'm learning today, while I'm struggling with trying to figure out what's next for me, how do I think I'm going to go into a field and be able to help other people? And I started reading books beyond what the program was offering. And I actually saw capacity in, it was an adult development book. And I was like, I'm going to call myself the capacity expert. No rhyme or reason from it. I was just like I'm going to call myself the capacity expert. And I never forget, I heard Pastor Kian.

I was listening to a sermon that he was doing. And he said capacity 11 times. And I was like, I think I wanted something. I didn't know, really, right? But it just felt right. And I continued to follow that. And the biggest distinction for me was I knew that we all like joke around and say, I don't have the capacity for that.

I don't have the capacity for that, even myself. And in reading those textbooks, what I was learning was capacity was more of a cognitive flexibility. And I was like, well, when I say I don't have the capacity, this is not about time or energy or your bandwidth. So that's where it came from. Okay, I have to ask you because when you said you've been coping your whole life, I feel like so many of us were like present. I know that classroom very well. And I think many of us praise ourselves for our ability to cope and survive whatever comes our way. But the way that you framed it makes it seem like we have to do more than learn how to cope the way that we always have

if we're going to become regulated and balanced in a way that can serve our lives and make us more present. Can you talk a little bit about the transition from coping all of our lives with whatever tools are, available to us generationally, culturally, spiritually, versus the way that you may cope now? Yeah. So the way that I see coping is it's our ability to just manage life day to day. Like we're doing it. We don't realize how we're doing it, but we're doing it. When I think about capacity, I think it's increasing what you can stay present to as life becomes more complex and inevitably as more. of us because it will. Like life is always going to ask for more from us. And I think that when we cope, you don't necessarily have to engage with reality. Let's just say that you're overwhelmed

from your day-to-day responsibilities. Well, you don't necessarily have to slow down and be like, oh my gosh, I'm tired. You just keep on going. And before you know it, like life hits you in a way to where it forces you to slow down. So I think that that's the difference for me. When I say capacity, It's like I'm being honest about all of the realities that sit in front of me and I'm learning how to engage with it emotionally in a way to where I learned to trust who I am. I'm learning how to engage with the uncertainty that may be present in my life. So that's the way that I think of that's the way that I think about it. I really can you say that again? You talked about you coping in our ability to be present.

Can you talk, can you break that down a little bit? Because I feel like for me, when I think about coping, I get into this autopilot, almost robotic way where I'm not feeling. I'm not having to be emotional, but I am getting things done and I am checking the boxes. But when you talk about being emotionally present and available in the moment, sometimes it feels like I can't afford to do that and get things done at the same time. Yeah. So right before you, right before you and I jump. on I was telling your producer, I was like, I wonder if, like, you, for example, if every time that you get on stage, are you nervous or do you have anxiety? Because this visibility is new to me,

like, within the last, a little over the last year. So much so that I've told my husband, I'm like, can we find another way to like get opportunities rather than doing this people because they stress me out. Like, I get like so worked up and then it's over. And then it's like, oh, like I'm good. So, and I think the present, if I were to use that as an example, is being present with the anxiety. Like, it's like, well, you're not going to die. Like, you're going to be just fine.

Like, I'm talking about sometimes I feel sick stomach. Like, nobody else knows, but it's like not trying to not be honest about it. It's like, okay, this really forces you out of your comfort zone in a way to where you just want to disengage completely. And rather than you just focusing on doing well, just be honest about how nervous you are. And sometimes for me that means like, I'm not going to look at those notes like 20 times,

20, 30 times to figure out. What's the best way to say it? Because to be present is to be present with what's actually happening in the moment, which is I feel like I'm getting ready to throw up. Yes. And that's the present. And I feel like that helps me out a whole lot.

And it's the same thing that I do when I'm helping other people. Like you have to be honest about where you are. And when I talk about the capacity to be able to stay present when things are so uncertain, like when you get ready to go on a stage, you don't know how it's going to go. You don't know if it's about to be your next viral video or the one where they eat you alive because you didn't say something. Right? Right.

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please support our show and tell them we sent you. Experience the new standard in comfort and support with honey love. I totally agree a line and to answer your question. I still get nervous. I've been down for three months now and I'm beginning to like peek my head out from behind this veil that I've been in. And I have no problem at all like not speaking, not being in front of people. not putting content out. Like, I'm fine with that.

And yet, so much of what God is entrusting me to do requires me to get over myself and to show up in spaces that often make me uncomfortable. And so I totally get the nerves and anxiety. And I pray right from that place. I think that I am more anxious, the more that I try to pretend that I'm not anxious. Like, the whole fake it till you, make it think it doesn't work for me. Like, more power to you, if that's your thing, but it don't work for me. Now I'm trying to trick myself in the room.

Somebody got to be honest here. So I'm just like, you know what? I'm nervous. I feel like I could throw up in my mouth a little bit. Holy Spirit meet me here. And like God, give me power, give me grace, give me strength. And then I think that that honesty with at least me and God, even if I'm not able to share it with my kids or my husband or the room, that honesty between me and God, I believe, is the access way, the gateway in which he settles my nerves. brings things to my remembrance and then I'm able to show up in that moment. I'm about to speak for the

first time since all of this stuff has happened and like there have been so many messages where people are like that first time she come back she going to preach the pain off the wall. She's going she go is she? She might we don't know we don't manufacture it to your point. You know to your point it's like I'm going to show up I'm going to be available for what God wants to do and then we're going to see what happens from there. The ability to be present with where we are, even if where we are isn't where maybe we should be or where maybe people would expect us to be. I feel like that's permission for women to be honest about where they are in hard moments. It's easy, especially in the day of social media, for us to be present in the exciting moments,

for us to be present in the prideful moments, but to be present in those heartbreaking moments in those moments where we're having a difficult time trusting or feeling secure, that feels like betraying our pride and ego in a way that I think makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Even sometimes betraying our generational, you got to be strong messaging. Can you talk a little bit about like the vulnerability required to be present in tough moments? Oh, I think it certainly starts with what you're talking about. it's being honest with yourself. Like the people to me that have a higher or greater deal of capacity for life, it's honesty.

And then follow with the honesty is this self-awareness. And self-awareness is learning to be with yourself in the moment. It's not like after I've done the thing, I go back and I reflect on it. Like I always told me, like, that's self-knowledge. Like, what does it mean to really be self-aware? So I think that when it comes to vulnerability, I always ask like, what is life asking me to develop in this season or in this moment? And when you speak about vulnerability is asking you to be confronted with fear, with rejection, people misunderstanding you. I know that for me, prior to ever going viral, I didn't have the capacity for that. like whatsoever. I was like, I'm not doing it whatsoever.

You not even, I was like, you're not, because I'm honest with myself. I was like, you knew in this industry, like, who the heck do you think you are to come out here and be talking about mental health? And these people have been doing it for so many years. And I kept bordering down the message. And then what, it was December 20, 25, I, um, uh, 20204. And I felt like I was like, stop bordering down my message. And I was like, all right, I'm going to do it in January. And then I would, January went, I mean, came and went, and then February came, and I was like, I'm going to do it now.

And then February 15th or 16 came. And then that's when I finally just put the messaging out. And, but it took a lot to get there, though. Like, I was honest with myself about what I was afraid of in terms of rejection and the fear of being misunderstood. The fear of being misunderstood. I was just talking to a friend the other day. And we were having this conversation around just like childhood and maybe if we had different childhoods maybe I would become a better I would have been a different person

and I was like I don't know about that like biblical I don't know that you would have been a different person maybe you would have been a different version of who you are today and that would have been expressed differently because if we think about what the word tells us is like God says I knew you before

right and if I knew you before that means that anything that shapes you today still doesn't change the very essence of what was always there. And for me, I mean, I'll say it now. You're the first person that I have outwardly said this to. But growing up and even into like adulthood, I would say that I was like a judgey, didn't have a lot of empathy, not a lot of restraint. Like I got praise for telling it like it is or I was the kid that the adults would always tell me, you need to thing in a child's place. I'm like, but y'all don't know what y'all doing. So somebody need to be the adult. Like, that's the type of kid that I was. And I think that what God had to do for me was

strip me of a lot of things to show me that my stuff stinks in some ways as an adult, as a mom, as a wife. And when he done that, what I ended up developing was I went back to the very core essence of who I am, which is I am a very direct person. I am a very honest person. But today, I have that empathy. I have restraint. I have compassion for people, but I also had to learn to develop all of those things for myself.

And I went off tangent, Sarah. I don't know where I was going. And you're going. I love it, though, because our personalities are organically very different. I feel like I can be direct, but I don't sugarcoat it. I just think,

so much about how the other person on the other end is going to feel that I don't feel like I am as clear. And it's funny to know that like you being direct at your core is a part of who you are because it was immediately obvious to me when I saw your video. I'm like she is telling it like it is. But it didn't make me feel judged and shamed in the process, which I think is necessary because if you're going to cut through our excuses, if you're going to cut through the stories that we've been telling ourselves about our capacity, about who we have to be or who we can't be, we need something that's sharp, but also loving enough to make us feel like we can come out of those caves. And so I think your superpower is the fact that you can be direct, and the grace of God is that he's taught you how to aim it accurately.

And I feel like that's such a word for people who feel like if I'm rough around the edges and the way that I speak, then I can never change or people just have to accept it. You are demonstrating that you have shown the capacity to be all of who you are and sensitive to how that can be received by others and to show up anyway in a way that leaves room for them. I think that's really great. And I think that's probably good for our listeners to hear because I'm not necessarily the tell it like it is direct slice you kind of person, but to know that there are people who have had those experiences and have had to evolve into people who learned how to be more comforting and still directing their approach, I think is great. Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

I want to talk a little bit about capacity after tragedy. I, like I mentioned, I'm beginning to emerge and I'm trying to pace myself after you go through any experience, whether it's an injury like I've gone through or a heartbreak or just any sudden shift in your life, it feels like so much of me has been forgotten or lost. I feel I keep using the word disoriented. I don't know who I am anymore and I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the injury that I had. it restricted me in ways where I couldn't trust my body fully. I couldn't do the things that I was used to doing. And now that I'm trying to emerge again,

it doesn't necessarily feel right to go back full throttle to who I used to be. I feel more cautious, more protective, more uncertain about myself. But also, I can feel like the embers of who I used to be still burning on the inside. How do we recover after life has shifted our capacity without punishing ourselves for not being able to show up the way we used to? You said a whole lot, dear. I want to know if I can ask you a question based off of everything that you said. Yeah. What do you think was being asked of you during this season?

I think that God was asking me. to trust him in a way that I've never had to trust him. I think that God was asking me to be okay with being fragile, not just for a season, but as a necessary requirement for me to do this for the long call to stop looking for strength that is unrealistic because what I really want is to be strong enough to take whatever comes my way and to not feel so vulnerable in this world and under public scrutiny. I think sometimes I long for a level of armor and thick skin that.

that will make me feel like I can show up in this call and purpose. And I feel like God was asking me, can you respect that, can you respect your fragility and honor it and trust it and believe that it doesn't take away from your strength at the same time? Did that answer your question? Yeah, I have another question. No. prior to your injury what do you believe you contributed to

people to the world your followers your family I want to say that I made them feel safe in their unfinished parts I think that that's for my family and for the world I want to say

a safe space so if we were to stay there just based off of what you said, I've made people feel safe in their unfinishedness. When we transition from, and I just talking to you, I'm enjoying this conversation just because your level of vulnerability is insane, and you don't usually get that from people. What might this season be trying to develop in me? Like if we believe that growth only happens, like when we're giving, we'll resist when we're receiving it. So to hear you say like making other people feel safe,

I would imagine that that has reflected right back into you because what you didn't say in that question was, like I've been contributing like the word of God, like keeping people inspired or doing the things that most people think from a, as a public figure, it's like, no, it's making people feel safe when they are still building, when there's still time trying to look like or figure out what it looks like to look whole. And then I guess I would ask you, do you believe that you receive the same thing in return? Because my question then will become, if you have received that same thing in return,

have you started adopting a lot of these narratives about this like mental health and how people, people tell us we should be shake. Because you sound very self-aware, very in tune with yourself, very in tune with the word. And I think that that is anonymously for a lot of people. And that doesn't seem to be your story in any type of way. Like, it doesn't, Sarah. Like, you know, I think the scariest part of my life and my calling. is like I feel safe with myself. I feel safe with my family. I feel safe in the presence of God.

I don't feel safe being unfinished with an audience. And I think that I don't know how to show up finished. You know what I mean? So if I'm going through a hard time, I'm going to say it. And I'm going to share with you what I'm learning about God in that process. But I just don't feel capable. of putting on. And I feel like what I feel as tension and what I do is like this expectation to show up as someone who knows and who is on the other side. But I'm on the journey too.

And I feel like if people were to be honest, no matter how long you've been in ministry, how long you've been walking with the Lord, like we're still on this journey. But I can't, I guess lose out of my mind this expectation that like God has chosen literally the most raw unfinished but hungry and passionate person to show up in a space with a lot of influence and people tear apart people who are unfinished and I feel I have to trust God to protect me in this space instead of me finding ways to protect myself by hiding. This episode of Woman Evolve is brought to you by Alloy Health. Let's talk about the relationship many of us have with our hair for a minute.

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what you sell and then on the reason I say that because tell me I mean I hear you I really do I really really do but I think that for what you everything that you just see it is exactly what God wants from us like I resonate with everything that you see it because I'm not a given example so I'm in this doctoral program right and um it is challenging everything well in the beginning I started to in June and the first week that I get into the program, they're like, you have to back up with research and a citation, like, everything you say. And I'm like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like, I mean, I know this to be true because I feel it in my gut. And they were like, well, you got a citation for it. Yeah, fine.

I was like, I can't create content. I was like, I don't even know how to create content anymore. Like, how do you do that without having a citation? Like, I'm not a researcher. Like, I'm not a researcher. Like, are you? turn into that overnight. And then I was like, you know what, I have to place that down because what I will not allow is, for one, for God to put me in this program, because I don't even know how it is even possible to like be doing it. But the other thing is for the people on the outside, it does not change that I could be learning at the same time while also contributing. And I think that That is the unfinished part. And once that like clicked in my head, I was like, here I go again with my declarative statements. And you find the citations because I'm not.

I'm going to allow myself to get there. And I think that that is what you're speaking to. But it's like being okay truly with that process. Like so many people struggle with exactly what you're talking about. And here you are. You continue to get on stage. you continue to show up unfinished, you'll give people the raw truth

in terms of what you're navigating. And to me, like that is a whole person. In fact, it speaks to, in psychology, they have this term called self-complexity. And the difference between like low versus high complexity is healthier identities aren't built in a single role. So when I think of roles, I don't just think of, right, like you're your pastor, your mom, your wife. Like, no, I'm also an unfinished person.

I'm also someone that feels fragile right now. And if you can hold all of that complexity, it says a lot about not necessarily being fragile. Because when life inevitably asks for you to step out of it, it's like I have all of these other things that I can fall back on. And so when I really do feel finished, I'm good. And when I don't feel unfinished, I'm good, too, because I'm not defaulting to one identity or been so engulfed in, like, one role. And that's what I hear when I'm talking to you. So I hear what you're saying, but I'm like, nah, she's like well-rounded. Like, he's well-rounded.

Well, okay, you know, this is a word for the people. I am the people because. I do think that there's this idea that like when I, that confidence is going to feel a certain way and that arriving is going to feel a certain way. But maybe it's just finally being comfortable with the discomfort, with the tension, and accepting that like this is a part of life and this is a part of the human experience. And once I feel like I've mastered one thing, you know, the season changes and I'm not necessarily at ground zero because I'm armed with what I had in the

past but this is a new experience that can change me as well and like I am okay constantly spinning on the potter's wheel and yes sometimes I'm dizzy and sometimes I feel like I know what I'm becoming and other times it feels like I'm being broken but I'm okay because I really trust who I'm in partnership with and I do feel like and and you know maybe it's the culture maybe it's the idea of what we're constantly seeing on social media of like these people who are like you know strong bad selves and they're just like you know I don't take anything I'm strong I'm this I'm that like nothing gets under my skin nothing bothers me like I think sometimes I feel like that's who I'm supposed to be those are the most fragile people because you're not really open

And I think one of the habits that prevents us from expanding our capacity is not being curious. And when I say curious, it's not like I'm questioning things for the sake of it. But we should be questioning things in different seasons. And I think that that's exactly what you're doing because it goes back to the human experience. You know, as I was listening to you, I'm like, this season feels harder, right? but I'm sure you have said that before in another season. And at some point, it becomes less about whether a season is harder and more about what is our expectation of life. Because I don't expect life to be easy anymore.

That doesn't mean that, how do I want to communicate this? So it's not so much that this season is a harder season than last season. It's just another season for me. And I think that just as humans, we like to default to those labels. And I understand because it gives us language, but language is also the very thing that can trap us from a psychological standpoint. And that's why whenever I'm creating my content, I'm really big on language because I don't think that people realize, like, the impact that it has, like, on you as an individual.

Like, it really shapes how you experience the world and how you just experience your overall experiences as a whole. I'm like, Sarah's been through hard seasons before. Like, and, you know, when we're not mindful or conscious of that, we start ranking the seasons, rather than you looking at, like, how I have actually come out of each season. So whenever I'm, like, working with clients or just myself in general, it's not so much that I want to appear confident. I just want to know that I can trust that. I will be okay with whatever consequences. This guy, he always says that life does not offer us any,

offer any solutions, only tradeoffs. And there are always tradeoffs in this life that we live. So I was going to sit here and try and listen to you, but then I wouldn't been authentic to myself. I'm like, mm-mm, because that might be somebody else's story, but I just don't, I just don't hear it in yours. I think that you hear a lot of truth in the sense that, social media can be like rough and challenging even today like when I first went viral

this was new to me and I was like oh they think I'm that kind of thing oh you think I know I'm not like I'm from the streets like that's what I really was thinking in my head right and I and I went off like in comments and then I immediately felt that conviction because God has had his hand on me for like for the last five, six years, like really working on me. And I was like, oh my gosh, I feel so bad. I even went back and apologized to people that I, that was talking to me crazy. But that's not how I want to show up in the world.

So I say that to say, once I accept it, meaning so we were talking about coping and capacity earlier on, the coping component of it would have been, I've gone viral. let's just keep going with this because like you're hot right now people are watching you got a lot of eyes on you I slow down to ask myself before I quit my full-time job or do anything is this what you want because if this is what you want what comes with this is this and are you ready for that and what I went viral in February of 2025 I quit my job in May of 2026 because I didn't know.

Didn't know if this was what I really wanted. I was like, I can just make some extra money on this. I can make some extra money. Because I don't know. And then once I've chosen to lean into this completely, I don't really pay attention to what comes from social media because I am exercising my capacity for responsibility and choice. Like, I'm choosing this.

and I'm continuing to choose this. And when I need to go back and reevaluate it, I'll go back and revaluate it. I think oftentimes we don't go back to continually re-engage with the choices that we've made or that we're making. Y'all know I love to throw down in the kitchen. But with school starting back and everybody's schedule picking up again, I need dinner to make sense. My family and I want to eat well and actually enjoy what we're eating, but I don't always have the time. or energy to overthink dinner. So if it takes too much effort just to figure out what we're making, dinner might be coming to us instead. When I have good ingredients within reach, though,

I feel like I'm just better set up. It makes eating well feel a whole lot more doable when I'm not starting from scratch every night. And listen, in this season, I'm learning to appreciate anything that helps me make room for what matters without adding more to my plate. That's one of the reasons Wild Alaskan Company has become such a good find for me. They make it easy to keep high-quality seafood on hand. You get wild-caught seafood delivered straight to your door on your schedule, and every box comes with individually portioned vacuum-sealed fillets that are ready to cook. Their seafood is quick-frozen right after being caught in Alaskan waters,

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So you can try your first box risk-free. If you're ready to make eating well a little easier, go to wild-alaskan.com slash evolve for $35 off your first order of premium wild-caught seafood. That's wild-alaskan.com slash evolve for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. That's like the perfect segue. Because I wanted to ask you for people who need to exercise the capacity to not just be the caretaker or the caregiver, but to be someone who is the care receiver, what choices do they need to revisit about how they show up in the world, whether it's like as the strong friend or the resilient person? What choices do they need to revisit in order to make a different choice?

choice? I don't know that it's so much choices. I think a lot of it is just the questions that we ask ourselves because when life is changing, as we know that it always will, I think what it tends to expose is like this conditional self-worth that we have. And when I say like this conditional self-worth where our values starts to become tied to being useful or being the strong one or being the caretaker. And whenever we have that conditional self-worth, it's kind of hard to detach from disappointing the current identity that you have today. So I don't know if it's so much about a choice because you can end up making a choice that's still not in alignment with the direction that you need to move in. So I always go back to like, what are the questions that we're asking ourselves during these seasons? I feel like we have to unpack that a little bit more.

Okay. Because I know there are so many women. One, life has gone rogue for a lot of us in a lot of ways. But when I think about the majority of what the stats tell us about our audience, it represents a demographic. of women who have experienced the brunt of the economic instability. They are the primary caregivers in their household. This idea of coping becoming a lifestyle because you just got to show up like that is who they are. And they're tired and they have lost themselves and they have purpose and passion and creativity

and they're wondering whether or not it will ever be fulfilled. And I'm just wondering, like, for that woman who all of her capacity is going towards surviving and being strong, that whatever strength, whatever that definition of strength means for her, like, how does that woman begin to let in a version of herself that is vulnerable, that is home? hopeful again, even after she's experienced grief? Like, I'm trying to articulate the question properly. No, I know what you're saying. I quoted when you were saying when all of our capacity is going to say it things and life is shifting and pivoting. So when I think about the way that I define capacity, again, it is increasing what you can stay present with, right? The realities of life.

to the book that I'm writing that comes out next year. It's five capacities. Clock it. Come on somebody. When does it come out? Do we know yet? April of 27. I think it's going to shock people that the capacities are not like in the way that we normally think.

Like you have to have the capacity for uncertainty. Because so much of life is uncertain. You have to have the capacity for like identity integration. And when I say identity integration, it's like similar to what you and I were just talking about earlier in the episode is now that life has shift or offer a new experience, rather than me focusing on what am I contributing, like how has this shaped me for the better? Self-trust is another one, the capacity for self-trust. it's can I handle when things don't go the way that I intended for those things to go? Like, life has pros and cons. There are always consequences to the choices that we make and even some of the choices that we don't make.

And so I think about capacity different in that sense. It's, I think about it from a developmental standpoint, right? like we don't ask ourselves like we don't just say oh I develop my capacity for uncertainty or untrust or identity or the capacity to choose one time like you have to continue to revisit every time life presses on you like it's not a one and done because the demands they start to become a little bit more complex in a sense and I think that that's the piece that we tend to miss like yes you've gotten comfortable and used to navigating your day-to-day life, but have you really slowed down enough to figure out what makes your situation so complex? A lot of the issues that we think that

we're actually trying to navigate and figure out is not the thing that's right there on the surface. It's what's the complexity that you're actually trying to navigate. And if you can pinpoint the complexity of a situation, it makes it much easier for you to understand, like, what choices do I need to make. And I, that is also hard because as humans, we naturally want to like reduce things and be like, oh, well, what I'm navigating is when I grew up, I lost my mom to an overdose. No, you're not. That's not what you're navigating. What you're navigating is, I mean, I'm thinking of I just used myself as an example. I lost my mom to an overdose when I was 11 years old. I wasn't navigating losing my mom at 11 years.

Oh, I mean, of course, an 11-year-old doesn't understand that, but what I was really navigating was the complexity of your mom really loved you, but she had her own battles in a, she had her own struggles in her own battles. That was the real complexity, and I didn't have the ability to hold, like she loved me while she was also struggling with something else. And then you end up spending X amount of years in therapy addressing a problem that wasn't even the problem because life continues to ask us to address the complexity that it presents to us. And then when I become a mom, I'm like, oh, so you ain't no better than your mom. You may not do drugs, but you found other drugs to support you.

And what would your son say about you? So that is the level of complexity that I'm referring to. but a lot of us don't see it that way because we just see what we're struggling with on the surface and what makes it hard for us. If someone's wondering, like, how do I begin to honor that complexity or discover that complexity,

what would be some of the first steps? I think the first step is going back to that curiosity, like, do not try and make sense. Do not take the first thing that your mind uses to make sense of your situation because it feels like it's resolved. I think that that's the easiest way to rob ourselves of complexity. Like, we don't create enough space for other answers to evolve.

That's so good to me because, well, for a lot of reasons. For a lot of reasons. I'm going to use that tonight in my journal. I want to thank you for minding my business day. Can I ask you, our theme for the year is rogue. And it's the word that God gave me about our need to respond. differently to a world that's always changing and being willing to break some of our rules and to not settle for rhythms that maybe served us in the past but can't serve us to

serve us where we are now. What does it mean to you to go rogue? So today I think that going rogue for me cannot be rooted in defiance or rebellion. I think that that's easy. It is my ability to trust my discernment and convictions that I have, despite any consensus that I may not be receiving or any validation that I'm not receiving. I spent a lot of time thinking about what going rogue means for me. And I think I've only done that within the last five, six years of my. life. If you had to ask me this, what, five or six years ago, it would have been rooted in, like, rebellion and defiance, like doing what I need to do for me. And that just takes so much

energy. It just takes a lot of energy versus learning to slow down and really hear what's for you. So I think that that's it for me. That's a sound bite worth the whole podcast. Yeah, rooted. I love the idea of what it's rooted in. And I think we tried to be really intentional and unpacking it because it does have that rebellious connotation to it. But I really do think there's something to be said about

if Rogue is going to produce forward movement, then it's got to be connected to something that is bigger than us and rooted in, to your point, a discernment. I love that you use the word, I love words. Like language is just so good to me. So I love that you use consensus. Can I ask you, it's August, you know, we're coming towards the end of the year. Like we can see it at the end of the tunnel. Some of us have accomplished goals that we are excited about. Some of us are behind and we want to reset and maybe in the year stronger than it started or to take whatever's left after this year and throw it towards something that feels. productive. What does it look like for us to reset our capacity? Reset our capacity. I don't know if you have to reset it, right? Because it's always present to you. I don't know. I don't even know if I know. I don't know how to answer that question to her.

Well, change it. You know what I mean? Because what I want to know. and you know and words matter to you and you're our doctor in training words matter to you so I'm going to change the words I want to know how we

make the best of what we have left for the rest of the year that's a good question yeah that's a really good question. How do we make the best of what we have left? And I think where my mind goes to is appreciation for today rather than focusing on what's left. Like, I think that there's something to be said about stewarding exactly what you have today, rather than trying to focus on

tomorrow. Like, and I'm in that season in, in a lot of ways. When I quit my job, and this, I was definitely out of alignment with God and I'm being fully transparent. I wasn't out of alignment when I quit my job, but some of the reasons where I felt like I was in control, I'm like, I got all these followers. I'm going to start membership community. I'm going to start this.

I'm going to start that. And it's like, girl, you got two people. Are you not on them? Girl, go get your job back. And so when you say, when you ask that question, it's like, what I've spent the last week on is, I don't care if I have two people, 50 people in that community, like, I'm going to give all that I have to that community. And that's the stewardship without me knowing what it's going to be.

It goes back to all of those other capacities that I was speaking to. like you have to be willing to steward what you have today and what you have been able to do. I think that's great. And to see that, see value in that. Sometimes we don't see value in what we have left because it's not what we had or it's not what someone else has. But to really see and honor the value in that and act accordingly, that feels very aligned. You have such a palming spirit. it. I enjoy you. This was a great. I wish I could have met you this weekend. What part of the DMV are you from? You got to be from the DMV. I am. How do you know you hear it's an accent? I love, first of all, I love the DMV down. Like, so much of like the worst part of my life happened in the DMV. And then so many of the most powerful moments I have experienced at Woman Evolve have also happened in the DMV. And so it really represents for me, like God takes.

those moments and really transforming them for glory. So one, I just, I live there for a few years and I just, I love the DMV down. So like what part are you from? I'm from the Norfolk, Virginia Beach area. Okay, okay, yeah. I didn't know that we had an accent until I moved to Houston. So I'm here in Houston now, though. Do you enjoy Houston?

I do like Houston. I don't like the heat, but I like Houston. Like it's just a much bigger city. I feel like I'm more of like a, like, a country. country girl. So I do like the bigger city. Mm-hmm. Well, I love it. I love the work that you're doing. I didn't even get to. I tried to get to as many of the questions as we had. Okay, can I do a lightning round with you?

And then I'll let you go. I think we're overtime. Okay. I'm in no rush. So I'm telling you, I'm following your lead. I'm resetting for all kids. Okay. So lightning round, rest or hustle? You got to pick one. Yeah, that's what they tell us. I'm a pass. I'm not picking these. Okay.

No, because one, I can't pick. You can't, but if I had to pick, I would pick rest. Now, nothing would get done. Oh, yeah, I like to go to bed. I'm going to go with rest too. Because when you said I like to go to bed, I'm like, yeah, I do too. I go to bed by 9 o'clock, 9.30. like just about everything.

Oh, I love these kids about to be back in school, and that means that bedtime going to be read. This house going to be shut down about 9 o'clock, baby. I'm going to be a good person. What is one thing that you are currently unlearning in this season? Unlearning. I don't think there's anything that I'm unlearning. I don't know that I want to unlearn anything either, Sarah.

And the only reason I say that is because I really believe in my power to choose. So I don't necessarily have to unlearn. anything. What's one thing you think women apologize for too much? For being a woman. Period.

Yeah. I want you to unpack that. There are things about being a woman, whether it's being nurturing or empathetic or in tune with other people's feelings. And when you talk about, like,

ambitious woman. It's, you know, I feel like sometimes we try to silence those parts of us. And like, I want to be all that it means to be a woman. And that means like living in my soft area while also chasing my dreams as, as well. So, yeah, I'm not, I don't need permission to, to be a woman and that means I have a voice and all the other things. What's one boundary you think every woman should know

or should have? I think it's marching and walking to the own beat of your drums. I think it's so easy to lose yourself, given all the responsibility. So you, that boundary has to be like I'm willing

to walk alone. Yeah. that's so good. Well, thanks to this conversation, we're not walking along. I appreciate this almost hour of being able to just glean from your wisdom and hear your heart. It's really, really blessed me. I can't wait to do some of my own personal journaling and work tonight. So thank you for your time and for your heart.

No, thank you for the opportunity. I really enjoyed the conversation. And I'm glad that I got an opportunity to meet Sierra, like, meet Sierra, like, meet Sierra. I think it's a true reflection of what you see on social media. And I look forward to you coming back and blessing all of us with that sense of safeness, saithiness while we're all in the journey or on the journey. So thank you. My pleasure. Yes. I cannot tell you how much I love this conversation. It's such a good reminder that having capacity doesn't mean having it all. and sometimes it's simply just being honest about where you are, staying present, and giving yourself room to grow through it. I want to thank you so much, Raquel Hopkins, for sharing

your wisdom and your perspective with us today. I hope this conversation gave you something to think about and maybe even a new way to look at what you're carrying in your own life. Before we go, there are five questions that life asks from us that Raquel wanted to make sure that you have. The first one is this. Will you stay with yourself? This is self-trust. Will you take responsibility? This is about choice. Will you keep going without answers? That is when we're at a moment of uncertainty. Who will you be when life changes that comes down to identity? And will you stay open to others and yourself? this comes down to vulnerability. Now, I need you to know that I did a terrible job at unpacking these questions, and that's why

you need to make sure that you keep your eye out for Raquel's book. It is not everything is trauma, and you want to make sure that you keep an eye out for it. It's coming out next year. Follow her on all the social so that you can keep up to date with all of the things that she has going on. Okay, before we go, I feel like we need to pray about being present between. the mind your business question and my conversation with Raquel and it's just talking about what it means to have capacity. Maybe that is the prayer for, I was going to say midweek,

because our episode drops on Wednesday, but I don't know when you're going to be listening to this. My prayer is that it'll find you right when you need it the most. Holy Spirit, we need you. We need your guidance. We need your wisdom. We need you to teach us. We need you to advocate for us. in ways that we don't always advocate for ourselves. All of these are things that the word promises that you'll do on our behalf. And so Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, we invite you into our hearts, into our minds, into our souls. May the peace, may the love, may the weight of your spirit settle us in seasons where nothing makes sense but you. God, we welcome your presence to lead us and to guide us, to give us.

capacity to say yes, capacity to say no, capacity to open our eyes, our heart, our mind, our soul, to all that is taking place in us and around us, that we may become better servants of your kingdom. I thank you, God, for Raquel and for every woman who's listening, and the fellas, too, because the fellas be listening. God, I pray that you would give them a special weight, a special weight of glory for this season that they're in, that they would see your presence manifested in ways that they could have never anticipated. Thank you for leading us. Thank you for guiding us. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. I'll see you next week.