Transforming Pain into Reslience and Drive with Tone it Up Co-founder Karena Dawn
Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder
PodcastOne
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Karena Dawn shares her deeply personal journey of healing from childhood trauma, mental illness in her family, and her transformative path through forgiveness, acceptance, and self-love. This episode explores the power of vulnerability, emotional resilience, and holistic wellness.
Chapters
00:00 The Journey of Writing 'The Big Silence'
02:57 Mother-Child Relationships and Acceptance
06:07 Transforming Trauma into Strength
08:54 Navigating Abandonment and Trust in Relationships
11:59 Healing Through Therapy and Self-Discovery
14:49 Building Healthy Family Dynamics
17:45 Redefining Motherhood and Personal Choices
20:29 The Influence of Family on Fitness Journey
22:58 Building a Fitness Brand: Tone It Up
25:32 Authenticity and Sharing Personal Stories
28:53 Navigating Fear and Anxiety
30:49 Establishing a Healthy Routine
34:07 Healing Relationships and Personal Growth
37:21 A Message of Hope and Healing
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Karena Dawn Resources:
Book: The Big Silence: A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing (July 25th, 2025)
Website: karenadawn.com
Social: IG: @kerenadawn (204k)
Bio: Karena Dawn is a co-founder of Tone It Up, the leading women’s fitness community, the founder of The Big Silence, the mental health nonprofit foundation, and host of The Big Silence Podcast, a leading mental health and self-development podcast.
Karena has authored several books focused on fitness, wellness, and personal growth including New York Times bestseller Tone It Up: 28 Days to Fit Fierce, and Fabulous, Balanced and Beautiful: 5-Day Reset for Your Body, Mind, and Spirit, and The Big Silence: A Daughter’s Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing. In her memoir, Karena shares her personal story of growing up with a mother suffering from severe mental health issues and schizophrenia, her own struggles with depression and addiction, and her path to healing and self-discovery.
Karena has been featured on Good Morning America and Tamron Hall, and in People, Shape, Oprah, Parade, Business Insider, E!, and in Forbes for creating a “fitness empire.” She was also named on the Create & Cultivate 100 list honoring women who are masters in their field. She has also headlined the POPSUGAR Play/Ground Festival, has been a keynote speaker at the PoWer Up Women’s Conference, is a regularly featured speaker and instructor for TED Women, and is a mindful meditation coach for Chopra Global.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Feel Good podcast, which is all about heart-led living and wellness. |
| 0:07.8 | When we awaken the power of our hearts and let that guide us through our daily choices and decisions, through our four cornerstones, food, body, emotional well-being, and spiritual growth, we will experience the most incredible |
| 0:22.8 | results and create more vitality, health, strength, peace, abundance, and love in our lives. |
| 0:32.0 | I am your host, Kimberly Snyder, New York Times best-selling author, founder of Saluna, |
| 0:39.3 | creator of the research-based heart-aligned meditation, wellness expert, nutritionist, and international speaker. |
| 0:45.0 | I am passionate about supporting you on your unique heart and wellness journey. |
| 0:51.4 | Let's get started. |
| 1:02.1 | Hi, everyone. Welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am very excited to share my deep conversation with Karina Dawn, who has a book out called The Big Silence, |
| 1:10.2 | A Daughter's Memoir of Mental Illness and Healing. Now, we don't do a lot of Don, who has a book out called The Big Silence, a daughter's memoir of mental illness and |
| 1:12.5 | healing. Now, we don't do a lot of memoirs on the show, but when one comes across my desk that I feel |
| 1:19.7 | has a lot of incredible teachings and experiences that really share a story that I think would inspire all of us, |
| 1:31.1 | then I definitely want to share that with our whole community. And Karina embodies resilience. |
| 1:38.7 | She embodies transmuting pain and using that as a really driving force to help support others. |
| 1:47.3 | If you aren't familiar with Karina, she is one of the co-founders of Tone It Up, which is |
| 1:53.6 | really a whole fitness empire. There's an app. There's a community. She's been featured in Forbes and |
| 2:00.5 | many other outlets. She co-founded it with |
| 2:03.9 | another person, but last year in 2025 gained back full control over the tone it up community. |
| 2:12.6 | We talk about how she has survived a lot in her childhood, upbringing, everything from abandonment. |
| 2:21.2 | Her mother had schizophrenia. She went through a major drug phase and skipping out on school |
| 2:28.4 | and attempted suicide and so many different things. So to come from that place and to really turn to wellness and fitness and embody that |
| 2:38.6 | healing in herself and then use that to create an enormous community is a really powerful |
| 2:44.2 | story. |
... |
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