You Are Beautifully Made

What does it take to turn a personal healing journey into a community-wide movement? For eight years, Ronieka Burns-Sharpe, founder and CEO of You are Beautifully Made, LLC, has been answering that question by creating transformative spaces for women and girls in Rochester, NY.

In this inspiring conversation, we celebrate her incredible milestone and dive deep into the foundations of building a purpose-driven life and business.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The raw, personal 'why' that ignited a mission to foster holistic wellness and connection.
• Actionable strategies for female entrepreneurs on avoiding burnout and practicing sustainable self-care.
• The power of social entrepreneurship and what it truly means to create a lasting legacy of empowerment.

Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a community leader, or seeking inspiration for your own wellness journey, Ronieka's story is a powerful guide to creating impact and fully living a purpose driven life.

Learn more about the upcoming You are Beautifully Made Women and Girls History Tour on Saturday, September 20th, click here to secure your ticket today! 

Connect with Ronieka Burns-Sharpe, CEO via email at ubeautifullymade@gmail.com and Facebook

Transcript

Dr.C: 0:00

Welcome back to the Life Podcast. I am so thrilled about our guest in the studio today. She is the founder and CEO of You Are Beautifully Made, LLC, Mrs. Ronika Byrne-Sharp. Hello. Fun fact. Hello, my love. Fun fact. She is also my sorority sister that I love dearly. And she has been a mentor and a motivator for me, seeing her out there in the community doing great things and not being afraid to have her dream and her vision come to fruition. So for almost a decade, her organization has been a beacon of light in the Rochester, New York community, creating safe spaces for women and girls to heal and connect and thrive. In this conversation, Ronika will take us behind the scenes of her journey, the challenges, the triumphs, and the why that fuels her work. We'll explore how her personal story became a powerful mission and what it truly means to build a legacy of wellness from the ground up. Eight years ago, a vision was planted in our community, a simple, powerful truth. You are beautifully made. That truth has grown into a movement, a series of trends, Transformative events from mother-daughter conferences to the 360 of me, a wellness retreat with, you know, I am so thrilled to hear. So today we have the immense honor of sitting down with the woman who planted that seed, Mrs. Ronika Byrne-Sharp. Welcome to the Life Podcast. Hello, and thank

Burns-Sharpe: 1:39

you.

Dr.C: 1:39

So glad that you're here because this isn't just a business anniversary. It's a celebration of every woman and girl who has ever found her voice, her strength, and her community. within this incredible initiative. Ronika, welcome to the show and congratulations on eight years of providing women and girls with transformative experiences. The why behind a mission-driven organization is everything. Your work with mothers and daughters is so deeply personal. Can you share with us the moment or the experience that ignited this journey for you? What was the personal why that made you say, I have to create this?

Burns-Sharpe: 2:16

Yes. So You Are Beautifully Made was created, of course, eight years ago, and it was definitely driven by my own personal experience. I have a child who was diagnosed with different mental illnesses that has caused me to look out in the community and look for support and resources to help me navigate the system of mental health. As I was looking around and searching and, you know, just really trying to contact people and organizations, I found that it was very limited resources Resources, right? It was limited spaces for me to even have this conversation or talk to about this struggle, right? Because it was the struggle. And so what I said was, what can I do? What I could take from this experience and put it out there so no other mother and daughter go through the same experience as such as this. And so that's how You Are Beautifully Made came about. I wanted to make sure I had safe spaces for mothers and daughters who especially who experience mental health, right? Who experience things that is not the norm in traditional relationships. And I say that because sometimes people don't put relationships as being important, but in this work, relationships is important because if me and my daughter had a better relationship as she was growing into her teenage years, we probably wouldn't have got so deep down. And so what can we do to be preventable and make sure that people get in a relationship? Thank

Dr.C: 3:50

you

Burns-Sharpe: 3:50

for that.

Dr.C: 3:51

So looking at the incredible range of events you've hosted from health equity, listening sessions to Juneteenth parade and wellness retreats, it's clear your mission has evolved to address the holistic needs of your community. How do you decide which issues to tackle? What is your North Star that guides your decisions? It's the people.

Burns-Sharpe: 4:12

You know, I ask, I really ask women and girls about their, you And what kind of things that we could do that is different that nobody else is doing to make sure that their needs are met. So that's why you're beautifully made. We deviate from the norm. We don't do the traditional things as just having a conference. No, we want to have a conference with the whole 360 of you. We want to make sure that you're getting the providers and the resources in the community. Therefore, when you leave, you have a connection with these people and these organizations that could better help you. And so that's how it's all driven off of You know, as I'm being approached, as I am at different conferences and workshops and things of that nature, people be like, you know, I've been having this problem and what can I do? And I said, you know what? What can you do? And so that's one of the pieces of the puzzle for You Are Beautifully Made is we bring the resources to you. I just don't want to give you a phone number or a website for you to go and look up yourself. No, what can we do to help navigate the system? Because if somebody would have did that for me, it probably wouldn't have took me so far back or took me so long to get the resources we needed.

Dr.C: 5:23

You are truly providing such a wonderful opportunity, right? It's called access. You're giving people access to resources. So that's amazing. And then thank you for that because we definitely need that in our community. So let me ask you, you are the CEO, the visionary, the heart of this organization, and you're constantly pouring into others. It's easy for a leader to get burned out. So how do you, Ronika, invest in your own wellness, physically, emotionally, mentally, to ensure that you can continue to serve from a full cup.

Burns-Sharpe: 5:56

Yes. So what I've learned on this journey, because it's always a journey, right? This life that we have is a journey and nothing is perfect or set in stone, is that I have to take personal time to myself. That means without children, without spouse, without work, and I take solo trips. I actually do two big things that is beneficial to me that helps me navigate this thing called life. One is I take my solo trips once a year. I go a place that I've never been, and I really get to learn me. And I say that, and every time I say that, people always look at me like, what do you mean get to know you? I get to know you. I mean, me, you know? And so I get to know like different foods and different experiences. I don't have people saying, try this or do this. No, if I want to try it, I'll try it. And if I want to sleep all day, I can sleep all day. I sleep all day. And take in nature because nature gives me that sense of security and that sense of safety. And so that's why those are the two things that I do personally for my self-care.

Dr.C: 7:32

Wow, a solo trip. So I know we've talked about this before. What is, for anyone listening, that's a solo trip, meaning travel completely by myself, I can't do that. What would you, what advice would you give them? to try it? What barrier did you have to push through to say, yes, I'm going to Thailand, which you went to Thailand a couple years ago, right? I'm going to go to Thailand all by myself. How did you get the courage to say, it's okay, I'm going to

Burns-Sharpe: 8:03

do it? I actually started following solo groups on social media. They have different social media groups that explore different areas. And you know what that did? They gave me a sense of safety. So they'll go and they'll tell you like certain areas that is safe to go to, safe to do while you're by yourself, safety hotels or Airbnbs, you know, things of that nature. So when I started following them, I'm like, you know what, I could do it. And so how I started was I just started going somewhere close. I remember I went to Niagara Falls and I went to the Canada side all by myself, you know, and it was just like, wow, I could do this. And I went to Miami. I slept for three hours on Miami Beach just by myself. And when I woke up, I was burnt like a French fry, but I had a sense of fresh wind and I would never forget that experience. I didn't have nobody saying I'm hungry or let's go do this. It was just all on me. So that's how I started to do the journey and then started to, you know, doing things outside the norm while I'm doing these trips. Like I'll do a concert or, you know, what you call the little, little, you know, I can't even think of one, but just doing something different that I probably wouldn't do.

Dr.C: 9:20

Yeah.

Burns-Sharpe: 9:21

Skydiving and stuff like that,

Dr.C: 9:22

you know? Yes. That's amazing. That's amazing. And I'm still, I'm still working up the nerve. Okay. I'm still working. You could do it. I want to take a solo trip so bad. I'm still working up the nerve because where I want to go is like Australia, right? I want to go to New Zealand, some far away place that I've always heard about, but never experienced myself. So I'm going to get there. I promise you. And you are a great role model because you, you, you do it. And I love watching your Facebook posts, your ventures. I just, I think you're also impacting and influencing others to jump in, right? Jump in for yourself, invest in your own alone time, unplugged, away from everyone and everything. I love the idea of not having to worry about anyone else, but learning yourself, learning what you like, you don't like, how you like to do things. You know, I just think that that's an amazing opportunity. And so thank you for sharing that. So let's talk about your impact and legacy. Eight years is a monumental milestone. So as you look back, what is the most powerful story or the most unexpected outcome you've witnessed? A moment where you saw a woman or a girl truly flourish because of a resource or a connection made at one year of

Burns-Sharpe: 10:37

that? I would say being able to see a struggling mother and daughter going through trials and tribulations. But I was able to connect them to the resources. And I'm talking about like you dealing with the mental health, you get to understand the wait list for services is beyond measure. And so, you know, being able to tap into the people that I know that is doing the work and on the ground and let them be connected so they could get immediate service, right? Not service that you got to wait three months, six months, immediate service And this happened like in the middle of the night, because for some reason, I don't know what it is about mental health. It seemed like it just trigger at night when everything is closed and no, you know, no organization is open to help you and, and to be able to see the help that they was given and the relationship that was built. And every time I talk to them, I just get more and more emotional because I'm like, wow, this is what this is all about. No matter matter what you are going through in life, you are still beautifully made. And so we don't want people to walk away or think that you are not important to get those services and those resources. It doesn't matter the time. And so being able to help navigate the system has been very beneficial for me as well as transforming lives. Wow.

Dr.C: 12:10

So I couldn't imagine seeing a mother-daughter relationship that's not doing well, a child that needs resources and a mom that's over Yes, sort of.

Burns-Sharpe: 12:47

have more resources, right? More funding come into like organizations like You Are Beautifully Made, where you have, I consider ourselves to have a grassroots, you know, organization and we focus in from the groundwork up, you know, how many more families we could actually help.

Dr.C: 13:04

Yeah. I mean, you are a grassroots. I would agree with that. But the resources that you're providing, I mean, you're constantly looking for someone to partner with on Facebook, right? Social media, you're reaching out. I have book bags. I have I have, you know, items for children. I have opportunities for women and children. And I know that you're constantly posting about resources in the community as well. So that's an amazing thing that you continue to do, that you continue to provide our community. So finally, let's look forward. You've built an incredible foundation. What is the vision for the next eight years of You Are Beautiful? And how can our listeners be a part of that journey?

Burns-Sharpe: 13:45

I would love in the next eight years, for You Are Beliefly Made to have chapters throughout the United States where other women and girls is taking this initiative and branching off to their own chapters. You know, one family at a time, one mother at a time, one child at a time. And what can we do to really transform the relationships between mothers and daughters? And it's something that I should point out that a lot of people that I talk to, say that they didn't get a relationship with their mother and daughter until they were grown. And why is that? Why did it take for you to be in your 30s and 40s for you to want to go to the mall with your mother or your child? What can we do to mend that relationship and bond better and quicker? So, of course, I want it to be nationally recognized, right? One of the goals within the next three, I say three years, is to be on the Today Show or, you know, be on, you know, MSN, you know, just to really be pushing it of the importance of mothers and daughters in their relationships. Because when something comes up, because life is not perfect, when something pop out of the sky, because that's usually what happens, we have that relationship already okay. So when it pop off, we'll be okay. You know, so being able to think from a bigger lens instead of a local lens will always be the goal for You Are Beautifully Made.

Dr.C: 15:15

Beautiful. So you're on the Life podcast. And I don't know if you know, I know we're new, but India has picked us up. Japan has picked us up. South Wales has picked us up. So you're getting there. You're getting there. I'm not the Today Show, but that's my goal, right? I say we're going to go worldwide. We're going worldwide because wellness information is critical. And we know that wellness is not just working out. We know that it encompasses all of your life, all of our messiness in our life. So we're We're going to claim it. You're going to be on the Today Show, and you're going to be on MSNBC and CNN and all those wonderful things, and you will be national because you are beautifully made, and everyone is beautifully made in this world of ours, right? All right, Rochester, listen up. Drop what you're doing and mark your calendars for Saturday, September 20th, next Saturday, because you do not want to miss the You Are Beautifully Made Women and Girls History Tour at the Susan B. Anthony Square Park. Forget about a boring lecture. This is high-energy adventure. We're talking a full day of celebrating the game-changing people who built the city of Rochester, packed with fun, connection, and great food. Yes, lunch is included and snacks. So one thing that Ronika knows, she always feeds us. When she has an event and it's always amazing food, a great time to learn, educate yourselves, and also to network. There's so many relationships that are built, and you can expand your social network. And we know that social... Wellness is critical to our longevity and our quality of life. This event is for women and girls of all ages. Grab your tickets before they're gone. Just search You Are Beautifully Made History Tour on Eventbrite to reserve your spot today. Ronika, is there anything else you'd like to say before we end our show? I

Burns-Sharpe: 17:09

want to say thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm so excited. I'm so excited for your podcast. I can't wait to see it. arriving. But also, I just want to point out there, no matter what you go through in life, you are still beautifully made. Yes. Thank you so

Dr.C: 17:25

much. What an incredible conversation. Ronika's story is a powerful reminder that our personal healing can become a legacy of hope for an entire community. Her work shows that when you create a space for one person to feel seen and heard, you create a ripple effect that changes the lives of many. To learn more about your beautiful As we wrap up today's show, I want to thank you for tuning in and being a part of our circle. We'll see you next time. We'll be back with a brand new episode next week. But until then, keep learning, stay inspired, continue to flourish, and never stop evolving. I'm your host, Dr. C, and this is The Life Podcast.