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Samantha Ray

@heysamantharay

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lover of words, big thoughts, & sucking out all the marrow of life 🌳 mom 💛
writer ✍🏼 podcaster (Let’s Talk Life podcast) 🎧 songwriter (on Spotify!) 🎶

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Hi! 👋🏼 I’m Sam. Samantha Whitfield Crowder Ray to be exact. I kept all of my names. They’re all a part of me, even if some of them have some band-aids attached.

Sometimes I think about all the people that had to survive for me to be here, now. Generations of holding on.

We all have a rich legacy of generations of grit and survival behind us, every single one of us.

So, you & I, we have this life to LIVE, really live. And that’s what I aim to do. That’s what I share here. Welcome!

I’m a creative located in central NC. I’m a mother, a writer, & a purveyor of thoughts through writing (I have a Substack!) & music (I’m on the stuff just look up my name!) & a podcast (it’s called Let’s Talk Life!)

You might be here for any of those, or because you know me from some part of our timeline, or you know me IRL 🫶 or you might just not know why you keep following me. Love that! Hi for all of those reasons! And if I know you from any time 5 years ago or longer, know that I don’t judge you based on what I know of you from then, that’s a long time ago. I hope you’ll do the same for me 💛

I’m glad you’re here.

I view the places I share here like my home. It’s a little lived in, mismatched, & there are kids here, but I promise to make us some beverages & we’ll take a BIG exhale together. We’ll talk about the real stuff of life. It’s ALL going on, and it’s a lot. And I love you. And I’m with you.

And as it is life, there is much to celebrate & take delight in!

I got these little art marks in springtime in the North Carolina mountains. I wanted a way to honor the absolutely wreckingly beautiful season of becoming over the last 6 years, and a way to embody my hope for the future.

For my past & all I’ve been through to be here (grit & grace, baby!) I *wanted my flowers* so to speak; so I got them with some permanence 💐

For the future & all I dream of & am excited for, for all of who I want to become, I got my horseshoe 🐎 Strength, freedom, connection, stamina, fierceness. There’s so much to look forward to!!

Thanks for being here. Love you.

What icons would immortalize the season you’re enduring or closing, and the one you’re entering or looking forward to? by @heysamantharay

About two years ago, I started to wonder what it might be like to share some of my deeper thoughts on a podcast platform. There were 100 reasons I made up about why that would not be for me right now, but when God invites you to do something, he usually makes the invitation soft, warm, and gentle. I’ve been having so much fun in my little office in my house sharing my heart like I’m talking to a friend over coffee & snacks. That’s what I want the Let’s Talk Life podcast to feel like — like a friend’s cozy home where you can come as you are, relax, share your heart, and get fed. It’s not the most perfectly clean or curated house ever, but it’s loved and well lived in and you are welcome! I’m in this thing with you, & I’m cheering you on. I love you! by @heysamantharay

✨✨I wanna rise up and protect the victory, cause WE’VE GOT THE MILK WE’VE GOT THE HONEY ✨✨

Milk & Honey is my favorite track off my new album MATRIARCH. It just felt right to give it a visualizer. ⚡️📽🎞⚡️It’s my current, the stuff I still tell myself every day as i walk out becoming a matriarch — to rise up, to own my promised land, to speak life, to fight for the good stuff⚡️💪🏼

So happy to share this beautiful video from @wonderfilmco with you!! Thanks for taking our home videos & making something special for this song.

It’s a peek into our real, normal life. I am decidedly uncool but I’m owning even that - these are my MOTHER years, not my maiden years. And aren’t my mother years exactly what I longed for, hoped for, & prayed for for years?? Negative test after negative test, fertility doctors & grim reports, until God said “let there be…” & then there was life. What an honor to carry the testimony EVERY DAY, in every piece of laundry folded, every meal made, every hug given when the tantrums go off the handle (theirs, mine, samesame) 🤍

Love you. Be sure to listen to my new record MATRIARCH today & think of how you’re walking in your promised land now. Keep going!!!

#singersongwriter #songwriter #indiemusic #ttc #ttccommunity #songsforyou #musicvideo #visualizer by @heysamantharay

it’s November, friends! Let’s take a big deep breath in, & a BIG exhale out 💛 I have some reminders for us.

it’s called RANGE and you’re allowed it have it! You are a WHOLE complex person with stories and lore and hope and challenges that few see. Own it. Grow. Expand.

I’ve wasted a lot of time & heartache trying to get people to see me more clearly, to love me, choose me, believe me, understand me, whatever. The holidays can churn all of that up like a nice little life blender. If you can relate, I’m with you! 🫶

🎤

listening to your body is a practice, meaning it TAKES practice. A 2-minute check-in a day is a great place to start, & a simple way to slow your roll on busy days 👀 I’m talking to meee too!

It hurts and that’s ok. Keep going, keep growing, & ENJOY your life because living is a gift!!

*I can’t control them* 😮‍💨🧘‍♀️🥳

PLEASE. Ask yourself “what do I want?” “How do I want to feel this holiday season?” And then think of things. And write them in. And make arrangements for your fun and joy. You are allowed 💛 and I promise the people you love will benefit from it too. by @heysamantharay

for all my late bloomers 💐 you’re right on time by @heysamantharay

A whirlwind & cut-short trip but so glad we could do it 🛣️ 🍁 🍏 ⛰️ last slide for 6 years & 3 kids ago! by @heysamantharay

happy fall 🍁 farmers markets & taking refuge in friends houses & dance parties & bonfires & books & tea times & ordinary home & baseball nights & growing babies by @heysamantharay

🤲🏻 celebrating the small wins because we know they add up & make all the difference ✨ take a sec. how have you been held this week? how did you hold others?

needing help doesn’t make you weak. asking for help doesn’t make you inconvenient. receiving help doesn’t make you greedy.

be held & hold a hand out for others too.

love you! 💛 by @heysamantharay

it simply means you’re done assigning “good” or “bad” to your self value based on your body’s shape or size. It’s looking at your health holistically, within the context of your DNA, your season of life, your hormones, and over the long-haul.

It is celebrating & supporting the delicate dance of our mental, spiritual, emotional, relational, & physiological well-being, how they all intertwine and interact!

It’s not punishing yourself for being human.

It’s when you look in the mirror, you say “Hello!” or “thank you” instead of “ew, gross” or ingesting a wave of shame and self condemnation.

I grew up in the 90’s and early aughts, when every magazine article & public commentary mentioned something about women’s bodies, typically about how they lost weight (yay!!) or gained weight (what a slob!!) Women perfectly, beautifully sized for their frame, doing the best work of their career, were drastically criticized for their size, curves, and fluctuations (hello? Kate Winslet, Drew Barrymore, & literally any pop star) We heard our moms, sisters, grandmas, & the women in our communities talk about themselves & others less than graciously.

“Skinny” became a synonym for successful, disciplined, & healthy (regardless of how you got there), while “fat” became the worst possible thing you could be called, synonymous with lazy, sloppy, unqualified, & undesirable.

What resulted was horrific relationships with our bodies, food, & our worth and value as women. Thankfully, I was spared the rougher roads (though I had many friends struggle with disordered eating) but have always had to actively fight against attaching moral value to my body size.

You may not get it, & that’s fine.

But I’m here to say, if you want to do something, do it in the body you have NOW. If you want to wear something or as @fashionveggie says “pull something off” JUST DO IT LIKE YOU ARE NOW. Heal. Work out. Dance. Have fun. Laugh huge. Rest. Make friends. Post whatever!!!! Throw the party. Make the project. Eat the freakin delicious meal (best enjoyed with pals!!)

JUST GET OUT THERE & live your one amazing beautiful life as you, with room to grow ✌🏻❤️ by @heysamantharay

Shout it with me like William Wallace…. FREEEEEDOMMMMMM!!! ⚡️🫁💕💥

No but frfr, being alive for 39 years, getting hurt, learning things the hard way, making mistakes…. it all has its perks!! by @heysamantharay

a little last hoorah ❤️ by @heysamantharay

We’ve become so disconnected with what bodies actually look like. We moreso hold the image of what a good body *should* look like. We equate size with health, size being the primary indicator of fit vs. sloppy, strong vs. weak, disciplined vs. lazy, beautiful vs. ugly, or worse, right vs. wrong.

Here’s a gentle reminder that what you see here on ye olde internet is the tiniest sliver of someone’s whole self, whole life, whole internal and external world. And thank goodness for that! 👏🏻✨

Our brains have been trained to make the quickest judgements and categorizations of people here. If she posts a thrift haul shes trying to be an influencer. If she tells the story of her body she’s trying to preach the false gospel of body positivity. If she mentions this or that part of the story or her life, she’s has a heavenly or demonic assignment, is prophetic or deceived.

Wooaaaah, guys 😮‍💨 That is just too much to put on someone, & too much to put on yourself!

🦋 This tiny sliver of my life that I’m sharing is that my baby is almost one. I’m slowly emerging out of the cocoon of postpartum, that holy, sacred, intense, precious time in which my every day is surrender, and my life is being shaped like clay, again and again, and 4 tiny little lives depend on ME.

🏋️‍♀️I’ve so been enjoying moving my body more now that we’re almost a year postpartum. No fancy home gyms or memberships as of yet. Just free YouTube videos and a mat under a mountain of clean laundry, and praising God for my able body (and John for taking the kids out this morning!)

I’m not trying to be a body influencer or anything in particular except an honest version of me. And I’m a writer, and a purveyor of thought and ideas. I share those on a podcast called Let’s Talk Life, and sometimes via music. So hi 👋 that’s me. Here’s me 1 year pp moving my bod & praising God. by @heysamantharay