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This Is How Your Favorite Vegan Chef Tabitha Brown Lets Go of Stress

Allie Flinn

April 12, 2021

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Photo: Getty / W+G Creative

If you're anywhere in the Venn diagram of people who find vegan chef Tabitha Brown's voice incredibly soothing, people who think the best part of the day is getting into bed, and people who are somewhat (if not very) anxious, you may want to brace yourselves. It was recently announced that Brown co-authored and voiced a sleep story, "Slowing Down with Tabitha Brown," which is now available to fall asleep to on the Calm app. Brown is the latest in a series of stars—that has included Harry Styles, Lebron James, and Lucy Liu—to collaborate with the app to create original content that subscribers can access on the app.

As most of us know, Brown became TikTok famous last year, after posting on vegan cooking videos that wove in motivational speaking, dance moves, and her kind sense of humor. "I don't apologize for being me," Brown tells us. This freedom is why she thinks audiences have so intensely connected with her. "I love and I tell the truth. And I think people can relate to that. It also gives people courage, and it makes them feel good when you see somebody's free...every day it's like they're gonna be able to be more okay with [themselves]," she says.

Watch any of her videos, and it's easy to see how she has gotten the nickname "America's Mom," and how the partnership with Calm was a natural fit. (Seriously, go watch this recent video of hers because it is statistically impossible not to feel more calm after watching.) So how does she do it? She checks in with herself throughout the day, a practice she also did before the pandemic. She says that this self-talk is something she's become even better at in the past year. "I can have a full-on conversation with myself and pull myself together," she says.

"Girl, you're enough. God created you, literally, just as you are. Right? This is who you're supposed to be," is something Brown says to herself during one of these check-ins. "Even when you have doubts, you have to cancel those out with who you are, and staying grounded and rooted knowing yourself is enough… Really looking in my eyes and asking myself, 'are you okay?' You know, and responding back to myself." She does these reminders even if she's not feeling bad or stressed, to check in and make sure she's being honest with herself.

She also has built a "foundation"—her family. When she is anxious, this helps her be able to stop, acknowledge that stress doesn't serve us, and let it go. "Family is my foundation, and I say this very often. You know, my daddy always told me, he said listen, when you build a house, you have to lay the foundation first. If you don't lay the foundation, the house will fall," she says. "Everything that I have going on in my life, career and all that stuff, that's the house. But my family is the foundation. Without them, it's crumbling."

"If it's gonna work out, it'll work out. If it ain't, it ain't. There ain't nothing you can do about it," Brown says. "Things are gonna always happen that you didn't plan for, and you got to be okay with it."

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