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Have a Cup of Johanny
Johanny Ortega
172 episodes
8 hours ago
Send us a text Perfectionism loves to lie to us—it says, “If it’s flawless, you’ll finally be safe from criticism.” But the truth is, perfectionism doesn’t protect you—it prevents you. In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share what letting go of perfectionism has taught me as a writer, soldier, and creative woman. From the late-night rewrites that nearly drained the joy out of The Ordinary Bruja to learning that my worth isn’t measured by polish, this conversation is for anyone who’s ...
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Self-Improvement
Education,
How To
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Send us a text Perfectionism loves to lie to us—it says, “If it’s flawless, you’ll finally be safe from criticism.” But the truth is, perfectionism doesn’t protect you—it prevents you. In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share what letting go of perfectionism has taught me as a writer, soldier, and creative woman. From the late-night rewrites that nearly drained the joy out of The Ordinary Bruja to learning that my worth isn’t measured by polish, this conversation is for anyone who’s ...
Show more...
Self-Improvement
Education,
How To
Episodes (20/172)
Have a Cup of Johanny
Lessons in Letting Go: Perfectionism Isn’t Protection
Send us a text Perfectionism loves to lie to us—it says, “If it’s flawless, you’ll finally be safe from criticism.” But the truth is, perfectionism doesn’t protect you—it prevents you. In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share what letting go of perfectionism has taught me as a writer, soldier, and creative woman. From the late-night rewrites that nearly drained the joy out of The Ordinary Bruja to learning that my worth isn’t measured by polish, this conversation is for anyone who’s ...
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8 hours ago
35 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Lessons in Self-Doubt: Escaping the Comparison Trap
Send us a text Some days, self-doubt doesn’t shout—it whispers. It sounds like “You should be further along by now.” It looks like scrolling through someone else’s success and wondering why you’re not there yet. In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I open up about how easily I fall into the comparison trap—especially as an indie author juggling a military career, family life, and creative dreams. I talk about the “should haves,” the guilt that comes with them, and how I’ve learned to bri...
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1 week ago
30 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Lessons in Self-Doubt: Proving Myself Wrong
Send us a text This weekend, self-doubt tried to take the wheel. While creating all the preorder goodies for The Ordinary Bruja, I caught myself thinking, “My creativity only goes as far as writing.” My husband’s quick, “No, it doesn’t,” stopped me. He was right. I’ve taught myself Canva, Photoshop, Affinity Publisher, podcast editing, marketing copy—so much more than I gave myself credit for. In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share how focusing on what I lacked gave self-doubt powe...
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2 weeks ago
32 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Lessons in Self-Doubt: The Mother I Feared I Couldn’t Be
Send us a text When I first found out I was pregnant, fear was the loudest emotion I felt. Not because I didn’t want my baby, but because I was terrified I’d mess it all up. Growing up in an unconventional household, raised by my grandmother after my parents’ divorce, I had no blueprint for what a “normal” family looked like. I doubted everything about myself as a soon-to-be single mom. So I did what I always do when I’m scared: I went to the library. 📚 I read every parenting book Fayettevill...
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4 weeks ago
22 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Lessons in Self-Doubt: What My First Feedback as a Writer Taught Me
Send us a text In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I open up about one of the hardest lessons I learned as a new writer: how self-doubt shaped the way I received my very first feedback. Like many new writers, I just wanted people to love me and love my project. But instead of pausing and filtering through the feedback, I took it all to heart. I changed everything. And in the process, I lost the story I wanted to tell—and almost lost my voice as a writer altogether. Here’s what this expe...
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1 month ago
38 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
If I’m Not Good, Let Me Get Good: Choosing the MFA
Send us a text After a painful experience at a writer’s conference, I stopped writing for a whole year. Doubt crept in, and I convinced myself maybe I just wasn’t cut out to write fiction. But the thing about silencing something you love? It never really leaves you. It nags. It whispers. It refuses to let you go. In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share how that season of doubt led me to ask new questions: What about me? What if I’m not good? How can I get better? With the Army Serge...
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1 month ago
23 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
What About Me? Choosing Joy Over Practicality in Higher Education
Send us a text By the time I was nearing retirement, I had climbed as far as I could in the Army. I no longer needed points, promotions, or another degree to advance. And that’s when the question hit me: What about me? What have I done for me? In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I open up about how I finally admitted that nursing would never be my path, why business administration left me uninspired, and how I made the “selfish” decision to chase joy instead of practicality. But how try...
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1 month ago
25 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
The Military, Motivation, and Doing College All Over Again
Send us a text After dropping out of college the first time, I figured higher education just wasn’t for me. Then I joined the Army—and suddenly, there I was, back at it again. Only this time, the motivation was completely different. Providing for my son lit a fire under me. I went from “College? Again?” to “Let’s go. Earn the promotion. Get the paycheck. Buy the diapers.” Back then, online education carried a heavy stigma, but I made a pact with myself: if I was going to do this, I’d do it al...
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1 month ago
21 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
When Your First Steps into Higher Education Become Life Lessons
Send us a text In this first episode of my September series on higher education, I open up about the tug-of-war I felt as a teenager—caring for my grandmother while craving freedom, being accepted to UMass Amherst but landing at community college instead, and realizing I wasn’t ready the first time around. This is a story about leaving and staying, guilt and grace, and the small seeds that stay with us—like the moment a professor told me, “You have a talent.” It’s proof that even when we thin...
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2 months ago
27 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Resistance Is the Road: What I Don’t Want to Do Is Exactly What I Need
Send us a text Why is it that the thing we resist most… is usually the thing we need most? In this episode, I reflect on Day 9 of my 75-Day Soft Challenge and the moment I almost hit pause, just because I was “off” from work. That tiny urge to delay revealed something much deeper: the way my brain associates postponement with protection. Through years of journaling and self-observation, I’ve learned that my resistance often points to the exact path I need to walk. And it’s not about hustle. I...
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2 months ago
19 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Mind Your Mask, Mind Your Business
Send us a text Five comments in one day—just because I wore a mask. In this episode, I share a fresh, real-time reflection on what happened when I returned to work after recovering from both COVID and the flu. Spoiler: it wasn’t the illness that hit hardest. It was the unsolicited opinions. Why does someone else’s choice to take precautions trigger so much discomfort in others? Why do people feel entitled to comment on a boundary that doesn’t involve them? This episode unpacks resistance, aut...
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2 months ago
13 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
She Whispers Before She Screams
Send us a text Have you ever ignored the quiet signs your body was sending until it had to scream to get your attention? In this raw and reflective episode, I share what getting hit with both COVID and the flu taught me about self-trust, resistance, and listening to the whispers before they become breakdowns. From tracking my symptoms to unlearning the lie that pushing through is strength, I open up about the ways we gaslight our own bodies, and what it looks like to stop. This is an invitati...
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2 months ago
15 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
The Art of Returning to Self
Send us a text What if the key to moving forward was actually going back—to the routines, the rituals, the habits that once grounded you? In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share how 43 taught me the power of structure, and why “winging it” wasn’t the freedom I thought it was. From journaling to morning rituals, from tracking my water intake to honoring my body's needs, I relearned the importance of showing up for myself on purpose. This is a love letter to anyone who’s ever felt los...
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3 months ago
12 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
The Good Immigrant Myth: How Respectability Politics Divide Us
Send us a text What makes someone "deserving" of citizenship? A perfect GPA? Military service? Paying taxes and never making a mistake? In this episode, we unpack the myth of the “Good Immigrant,” the notion that only exceptional, obedient, and productive immigrants are worthy of staying. We examine the origins of this narrative, its impact on our communities, and why it ultimately serves the interests of systems that profit from our silence and suffering. From veterans being deported after s...
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3 months ago
21 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
The Immigration Line Myth
Send us a text “Why don’t they just do it the right way?”That question often arises in conversations about immigration, and this episode breaks it down. Because the truth is: there is no single immigration “line,” just a maze of inconsistent rules, long wait times, and constantly shifting policies that leave millions in limbo. From family visas that take decades to asylum systems that have been digitally locked behind broken apps, this episode walks you through the hard truth of what “followi...
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3 months ago
15 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Invisible Prisons: How We Let This Happen
Send us a text Immigration detention is supposed to be civil not punishment. But across the U.S., immigrants are being held in jail-like conditions under a patchwork of outdated and inconsistent standards, many without ever being charged with a crime. In this episode, Joa pulls back the curtain on a system designed to look like bureaucracy but feel like incarceration. We explore how ICE contracts with private prisons and local jails, how per-bed payments create financial incentives to d...
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3 months ago
18 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
The Myth of Anchor Babies
Send us a text The phrase "anchor baby" slices through political discourse with cruel efficiency. You've heard it—perhaps on news channels, debate stages, or even from the mouths of those who share our heritage. It transforms a newborn child into a tactic, a weapon, a calculated move in some imagined immigration chess game. But what if everything you've been told about birthright citizenship is fundamentally wrong? While the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born on American so...
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3 months ago
17 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Beyond Papers: The Human Cost of Immigration Policy
Send us a text "They knew what they were doing" - five words that cloak inhumanity in the disguise of justice. Every time I hear this phrase used to dismiss the suffering of immigrants caught in our broken system, something inside me recoils. Not just because it's callous, but because it's incomplete. Today's episode cuts through the rhetoric to expose one of the most persistent and harmful myths about immigration. Drawing from my personal journey through the labyrinthine process of "legal" ...
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4 months ago
22 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Disassociation is Complicity: Breaking the Cycle of Ignorance
Send us a text The smoke is already in your lungs, even if your house isn't on fire yet. This powerful metaphor frames our deep dive into disassociation—that subtle, pervasive mindset that whispers "if it's not happening to me, I don't care." While our brains naturally create psychological distance from suffering as a protective mechanism, this episode challenges us to recognize how this distancing doesn't actually make us safer—it makes us complicit. Through personal storytelling and psycho...
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4 months ago
18 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Self-Hating Latinos & the Internalized Logic of Borders
Send us a text The words we speak reveal the fears we carry. When fellow Latinos say "I did it the legal way" or "they're not like us," what's really happening beneath these statements? This raw, unflinching exploration of internalized anti-immigrant attitudes within Latino communities pulls back the curtain on our community's most uncomfortable truth: sometimes we become the very border patrol we claim to resist. Drawing from my personal immigration journey that spanned nearly a decade, I s...
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4 months ago
30 minutes

Have a Cup of Johanny
Send us a text Perfectionism loves to lie to us—it says, “If it’s flawless, you’ll finally be safe from criticism.” But the truth is, perfectionism doesn’t protect you—it prevents you. In this episode of Have a Cup of Johanny, I share what letting go of perfectionism has taught me as a writer, soldier, and creative woman. From the late-night rewrites that nearly drained the joy out of The Ordinary Bruja to learning that my worth isn’t measured by polish, this conversation is for anyone who’s ...