Latest / The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook / Redefining Womanhood: Childless, Not Less with Lana Manikowski

Transcript

Redefining Womanhood: Childless, Not Less with Lana Manikowski · The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook

• 0:01
  I'm Melissa Crook here, hosted the Field Podcast.
• 0:05
  We have a familiar friend back with us this week, our good
• 0:08
  friend Lana Manikowski. You heard from her a couple of
• 0:11
  years ago in spring of I think. Well, I guess it was probably
• 0:15
  about a year and a half ago now, but she's had a lot happen since
• 0:19
  then and we decided to have her back.
• 0:21
  She's got a new book. She's got more to share about
• 0:24
  her in impactful and empowering journey through infertility as
• 0:31
  we listen and get an update today from Lana.
• 0:35
  Redefining womanhood, Childless, not less.
• 0:38
  With Lana Menikowski, the ways to engage are as follows.
• 0:42
  At the end of each day, write down a win for yourself.
• 0:46
  Whether it was completing a difficult project, walking to
• 0:49
  the coffee shop instead of driving, or even just making it
• 0:53
  through a trying day in one piece, recognize and celebrate
• 0:57
  the progress you are making every single day and do the same
• 1:02
  for others as well. We hope you find supportive and
• 1:06
  helpful as you listen and engage with our good friend Lana
• 1:10
  Mankowski. Redefining womanhood.
• 1:13
  Childless, not less than. Thank you so much for being with
• 1:18
  us. Hello and welcome back to the
• 1:38
  Field Podcast. Today.
• 1:39
  I'm Melissa Crook, your host, and I've got a friend back here
• 1:43
  with me that you've heard from before.
• 1:46
  And she was with us in season 6. And then we got to do a sub SEC
• 1:50
  live with her in the spring. And I knew it was time to bring
• 1:56
  her back because a lot has happened since the last time she
• 2:01
  was with us. And I, it's it's always fun.
• 2:04
  I'd like to go back and when I have returned guests and I'm so
• 2:08
  thankful that we've been in operation long enough now that
• 2:10
  we can have return guests. But I love going back and
• 2:13
  listening to our first conversations and because it
• 2:16
  also just reminds me of how great those were and also all
• 2:21
  the things that have happened in those guests life since we had
• 2:23
  those conversations. And I think that that's going to
• 2:27
  be exactly what happens here today with my friend Lana
• 2:31
  Manikowski. And Lana describes herself as a
• 2:34
  Connector, collaborator and passionate.
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  And if you don't remember, the first conversation, I do want to
• 2:43
  put out front because this is a difficult topic for a lot of
• 2:47
  people. But we're going to talk about
• 2:49
  the infertility journey today and the life after that and the
• 2:54
  hope that is possible. And that doesn't mean it's easy.
• 2:58
  I want to be very, very clear about that with a ton of empathy
• 3:03
  and understanding that that is that this is not a road that
• 3:08
  people choose. But Lana has found a way in her
• 3:11
  own journey to not only find her way through it and love herself
• 3:18
  where she's at today, but she helps other women as well in
• 3:22
  even more ways than you heard about the first time.
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  And so she already has amazing resources available at
• 3:29
  embracinglayers.com and our resources page for Season 6.
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  And we get to add to those now because of the things that she
• 3:37
  continues to learn and the way she continues to show up for
• 3:42
  women. Lana, my friend, welcome back to
• 3:44
  the Field Podcast. Oh, I love, always love our
• 3:48
  conversations. And thanks for the beautiful
• 3:50
  introduction. Absolutely.
• 3:52
  Yeah. I'm excited to see what we're
• 3:54
  going to get into today. I know it's always kind of fun
• 3:56
  because I was like, we know each other enough and talk to each
• 3:59
  other enough. I was like, oh, this will be fun
• 4:00
  to see where this leads today. And based on what we've talked
• 4:03
  about before, OK, we're going to start with prioritizing
• 4:07
  self-care in your life. And you know, you're in a busy
• 4:10
  season right now. You are getting ready in just
• 4:16
  just over a week. You have your big event there in
• 4:20
  Chicago that you do called the Others Day brunch, which is such
• 4:24
  a gift. And we're going to talk about
• 4:25
  that more because the expansion and growth that has happened
• 4:30
  with this is really remarkable. And also it's a testament to you
• 4:35
  and your reach. But also I think is maybe a note
• 4:40
  to put out in the world that we need more things like this.
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  What if there were support systems like this in cities
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  across the country? What if women weren't required
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  to? Not that it's not great to bring
• 4:53
  women together from all over the world, but what if women can't
• 4:57
  afford? There's many women that come in
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  from all over for this. What if they can't afford to fly
• 5:01
  to Chicago to be part of this community?
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  So also, you know, women that are out there listening.
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  If you've been down this road or you're thinking about ways to,
• 5:10
  to support in this community, just something to think about.
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  But all that to say, you've got a lot going on, right?
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  You've just have, have brought your book out into the world.
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  You're do you know, you just finished public speaking?
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  You're and you're still doing all the other things you've been
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  doing with the coaching and the podcast and the, and the helping
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  women on this journey. So tell me, my friend, how do
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  you fill your cup these days? And how do you find time for
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  that? Oh, that's that's a loaded
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  question because it is a very busy time and the timing of my
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  book coming out in April, I knew it was going to be close to the
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  others day brunch. But also National Infertility
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  Awareness Week was last week. And it was really important for
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  me to have that book be a resource because I knew that
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  might be the only week that somebody in their life hears
• 6:03
  infertility being talked about. So I got through launching the
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  book and then a couple weeks later was National Infertility
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  Awareness Week. And then this year, the other
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  state brunch is on May 10th. So I've definitely been on, I
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  think a high of just reaching new people.
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  And that's really what keeps me going.
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  And often times the self-care part of it is connecting with
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  someone new or somebody that follows me on Instagram or
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  reaches out because they heard their first episode of the
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  podcast. Or just like I had shared with
• 6:41
  you before, we started recording a woman who randomly came upon a
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  flyer that I left in a local hospital bathroom, women's
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  bathroom in the hopes that somebody who needed to see it
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  saw it. And she did and she bought a
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  ticket to the others day brunch. And those are the moments that
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  allow me to say, you know, I am making a difference in this
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  world. And more so, I get really
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  emotional about it because I remember being that person who
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  was just searching for somebody or something that I could feel
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  connected to because my dream of motherhood was not going to be
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  possible. And I felt like everyone around
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  me was figuring it out and everyone was steps ahead of me.
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  My friends who I thought we were going to raise our kids together
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  and our kids were going to be best friends like we were best
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  friends. And I felt like the world was
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  passing me by. So it fills my cup to know that
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  there are people who are finding what they need through this girl
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  and who grew up in Indiana, who, you know, went to a state
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  school, you know, like, I didn't have anything more exceptional
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  than anybody else besides the story that I wanted to tell.
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  And that's that's the difference.
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  I'm really glad you spoke to that piece of getting that
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  feedback and how that fills you up.
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  That's really, I think that is such a reminder of when your
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  work is in alignment with your soul and with what you're called
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  to do, because when you do those things, it is a form of filling
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  your cup. You and I were talking about
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  before when you get that feedback.
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  When I had an, I had an incident like that myself yesterday where
• 8:23
  I got some feedback from people who had been a guest, a panelist
• 8:28
  with us and they're going to have an episode come out.
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  And we had a very great connection.
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  And something that we talked about as we were preparing the
• 8:37
  first time we met, as we were preparing to bring them on our
• 8:39
  platform, inspired them to write an article about it.
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  And, and they wrote this article and released it in Psychology
• 8:47
  Today and quoted me in it. And it was just like, it, it the
• 8:53
  energy, like I was feeling kind of tired.
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  There's a lot going on right now.
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  And it just filled my whole body with, I was just with Glee.
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  I was like doing a dance party across my room.
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  I all of a sudden was energized through my afternoon workout.
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  And it was just that reminder of like, I'm on the right path.
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  I'm doing, I'm doing the right I'm I'm in alignment.
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  And so when I talk so much in these episodes about you being
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  in alignment, that is part of yourself care.
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  I didn't let that moment go without stopping and recognizing
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  how I was feeling because I think I don't know if it's being
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  women where we're just like, OK, notice and move.
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  Yep, good move. Go what's next?
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  What's here? What's there?
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  My life, I'm used to being at 1,000,000 miles an hour.
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  And I forced myself to sit into my body and feel what was going
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  on in my body. And I was telling my husband I
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  was like, my body just feels like it's buzzing.
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  Like there was just so much energy flowing through my body.
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  And then I also, I stopped to say what brought you here?
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  Like it was a moment to recognize myself because I think
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  we're often taught not to recognize the good things and
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  how we make a difference. And we're taught that's boastful
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  or you'd want to brag about yourself or you can't have a
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  great opinion of yourself because people will think you're
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  stuck on yourself. But who's going to do it,
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  especially as we become adults? And, you know, I was fortunate
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  to be raised in a family where my parents cheered me on and,
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  you know, tell you, tell your kids you're proud of them and
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  recognize what they do. But as you become an adult, you
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  hear less and less of that. So yeah, I tell my husband, I'll
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  text my husband all the time and be like, I love you, I'm so
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  proud of you. Or if he does something because
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  I'm, you know, his mom has passed away and I'm like, who's
• 10:51
  going to tell him as a 55 year old male that they're proud of
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  him? You know, it's weird that you
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  hear that as we get older. So I think it's really important
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  that we stop and tell ourselves how proud we are of ourselves
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  too. Yes, I'd love that you said
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  that. I think that we really, because
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  I mean, we get so many of these narratives as we're growing up
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  to to not make a stir and to show up for everybody else.
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  And it's OK to celebrate the wins and that and the, and how
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  we got on the journey and sitting in that, that again, is
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  it goes into that self-care and that recognition, the path we've
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  been on, the journey we've been on and where it's LED us to and
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  taking that time to reflect. I'm so glad you mentioned that.
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  So important. And I think again, and this is
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  something I've had to work on. I'm very like, get to the next,
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  get to this thing. OK, great.
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  What's next? And my therapist really
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  challenged me a couple minutes ago.
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  She was like, I want you to write down your wins every day.
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  And I was like, she's like, I want and I'm like, I tell you
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  what that is a form of self-care.
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  Like being able to pull out something from each day was
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  like, OK, amongst all of this, there were there was still some
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  wins in the day. And that doesn't mean you ignore
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  the stuff that's hard, but it also gets you to focus on the,
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  you know, what you're doing, how you're showing up in the world
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  in the winds and how it's impacting yourself but other
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  people. My coach has me do, it's called
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  a courage jar. So every time I make a
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  courageous act or do something that puts me out of my comfort
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  zone or something that, you know, maybe doesn't come as
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  easily to me as other things, I put a Jelly Bean in.
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  It's funny. I don't know if you know the
• 12:43
  good seasons dressing dressing that comes with it and it has
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  the the glass jar that you like shake it up in.
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  I use my glass jar and I put Jelly beans in there.
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  Every time I make a courageous act, there's an opportunity to
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  recognize me for doing something.
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  So that's been really helpful for me too.
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  Oh. I love that.
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  So good. All right, this next one as I
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  was listening back to our last episode, I really your answer on
• 13:09
  this was so interesting, but just again pointed to the
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  importance of the work you have done with you before you really
• 13:19
  started pouring into others. And I think that sometimes we
• 13:22
  are so busy pouring into others. It's like, have you stopped and
• 13:25
  taken care of yourself and made sure you were feeling healthy
• 13:28
  and well so that you can show up in a healthy and well place for
• 13:33
  others? So when I asked you last time
• 13:35
  about confidently setting boundaries, you're like, you
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  know, honestly, I don't have a lot of those because I've done
• 13:41
  the work. I know my value, but and so
• 13:44
  because of that, I make decisions out of that.
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  And so that kind of naturally creates spaces where they're
• 13:51
  already naturally in place in your life.
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  You don't have to like buy new ones, but you really also help
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  the women you work with get to a place where they can do that
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  too. Where, and we talked about that,
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  that common thing that we see all the time of people walking
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  in a room. If you're a certain age, they're
• 14:09
  automatically asking you, so do you have children or how many
• 14:13
  children do you have? And, and you are really, you
• 14:17
  really help women get to a point and that it started with you
• 14:20
  doing the work first where that doesn't have to be an
• 14:22
  uncomfortable question. You really work with women to
• 14:28
  help them have that foundation in their value.
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  So when people ask questions, and I again, as I say this,
• 14:35
  people think about what you're asking people before you ask it.
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  I think we need to get rid of the assumption and idea that
• 14:43
  some of these traditional patterns are still in play.
• 14:47
  I think we need to do, we need to quit assuming everyone has
• 14:51
  children. We need to quit assuming
• 14:53
  everyone wants to be married. We need to quit assuming that,
• 14:57
  you know, if you see someone and you think they're pregnant, let
• 15:02
  them tell you. Don't just assume that they are.
• 15:05
  I mean, there's so many of these things that people will ask and
• 15:09
  I'll just be like, Oh my God, that's so inappropriate.
• 15:12
  But but to that point, it happens, it happens.
• 15:16
  It's going to, it's going to be, you know, especially if it's
• 15:19
  people you know and you haven't seen in a while.
• 15:22
  So all that to say, you help women really get to a point
• 15:26
  where this doesn't have to be like, I don't talk about this or
• 15:29
  I don't have an aunt, you know, or I have this padded answer.
• 15:32
  I'm going to get just, you know, steadfast enough and knowing my
• 15:35
  own value. My value isn't determined by my
• 15:37
  roles and my titles. And that includes mom.
• 15:40
  Talk to me about your own journey with that and how you
• 15:44
  now help other women with that. Yeah.
• 15:47
  So just like you said, for a long time I'd go to a networking
• 15:51
  event for work or I'd meet someone for the first time.
• 15:54
  And there was this assumption of, you know, how many kids do
• 15:58
  you have? It wasn't even do you have kids?
• 16:00
  It was so how many kids do you have?
• 16:01
  And so right off the bat, you feel like an outsider.
• 16:05
  And it's, it's complex because the person that is asking you
• 16:11
  that question, clearly he has no idea about your story.
• 16:16
  And when you've gone through infertility or you are at a in a
• 16:21
  circumstance where you know you're not going to be a mom,
• 16:23
  maybe you never met the right partner.
• 16:25
  Maybe single motherhood wasn't the right answer for you.
• 16:28
  Maybe you have a health condition and you can't have
• 16:31
  children. Those are really personal things
• 16:35
  that it's hard to open up to tell a stranger about that.
• 16:40
  And then you also have this fear of, oh, am I going to come off
• 16:44
  as flippant or angry if I respond in a way that startles
• 16:51
  the person who asked the question?
• 16:53
  So we often times put ourselves in a place where we feel really
• 16:56
  uncomfortable for fear of making somebody else fear feel
• 17:01
  uncomfortable. And it becomes this thing where
• 17:05
  you don't see who you are like some the way someone else feels,
• 17:09
  of course is important. You know, we're we're humans.
• 17:11
  We don't want to purposely cause anyone, you know, to feel
• 17:15
  uncomfortable, but at whose expense?
• 17:18
  And so I created something called the top 27 things people
• 17:22
  Say when You're Childless and how to respond because I found
• 17:26
  I, well, there, there were so many things as I was working
• 17:29
  with my clients that they would come to me and be like, you
• 17:32
  know, this person said this or I ran into so and so from high
• 17:34
  school at the grocery store. And right away, you know, she's
• 17:37
  asking about kids. And I found that so many women
• 17:41
  feel paralyzed in how to respond to that.
• 17:45
  And it's important to get get a story together not only about
• 17:51
  how do you want to respond, but more so when somebody asks that
• 17:55
  question to you, how do you see yourself?
• 17:57
  And for a long time, I saw myself as an outsider.
• 18:01
  I saw myself as somebody who was not normal because I didn't have
• 18:06
  kids. And it seemed like heading off a
• 18:09
  conversation with that question was just a magnifying glass on
• 18:12
  me. So understanding when somebody
• 18:15
  brings a question like that to you or gives you advice like,
• 18:19
  oh, pray on it, it'll happen or relax.
• 18:22
  And you know, my cousin's sisters best friends, little so
• 18:26
  and so got pregnant at 62. And you know, all these stories,
• 18:31
  you know. You used to be pregnant at 60.
• 18:34
  2:00 And you're just like, OK, you know, like people just want
• 18:37
  to give you help. And I, and I do believe like
• 18:41
  really in my heart of hearts, people want to make us feel
• 18:45
  better and that's their way of consoling us.
• 18:49
  But it's hard to be somebody who looks at yourself as somebody
• 18:53
  that other people see as needing of consolation.
• 18:57
  You know, it's very that feeling of pity was so hard for me
• 19:02
  because I was used to always being this like vibrant
• 19:06
  together, easy to figure it out type of person.
• 19:10
  And when somebody found out I wasn't a mom to automatically be
• 19:14
  put in this category of a sympathy card or a pity, it was
• 19:19
  really hard for me. So getting your story together
• 19:22
  and being like, OK, yes, this is something you wanted.
• 19:26
  Yes, you wish that you could say I have 3, but you can't.
• 19:30
  So because of that, how do you want to view yourself in this
• 19:34
  conversation and getting this back story together of realizing
• 19:39
  that you are still worth having a conversation with even if you
• 19:43
  don't have that common element of kids?
• 19:45
  Oh man, I love how you've helped reframe that, how you see
• 19:51
  yourself answering these questions.
• 19:54
  Man, that's really powerful because.
• 19:57
  So much of ours, the way that we show up in the world, is based
• 20:01
  on the reflection we see in the mirror.
• 20:04
  And if you see yourself as somebody who's the oddball or
• 20:09
  somebody you know who isn't confident what whatever it is,
• 20:13
  that's the way you're going to show up.
• 20:15
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that's what you're going to
• 20:17
  reflect back to the people around you.
• 20:20
  And I think that's just such a, and I love how you came up with
• 20:22
  that list of 27. I mean the fact that there's 20.
• 20:26
  7 is like, geez, at least we've got actually, there's someone
• 20:29
  else came to me with something new, the other name on my
• 20:31
  coaching calls and I was like, oh shoot, now I got a rebrand.
• 20:36
  It's an in process growing list. It's alive and growing.
• 20:40
  I'll send the link to it. Yes.
• 20:43
  You know, so if someone who's listening, if you want to put it
• 20:46
  in the show notes or whatever, I'll, I'll send it to you
• 20:48
  because it, and it also gives you ideas for how to respond.
• 20:51
  Because if you're not working with a coach or a therapist or
• 20:54
  somebody that can help you process it, maybe you'll take
• 20:57
  away from it some ideas of, you know, ways that you can
• 21:00
  represent yourself in those type of conversations.
• 21:03
  I love that. That's so good and that's really
• 21:04
  a great way. And if and if you're in a space
• 21:07
  where you feel like you still need to have some healthy
• 21:10
  boundaries around things you're working through, this is going
• 21:12
  to give you a great guide to help you do that.
• 21:14
  But thank you so much for that. I love that framing that you put
• 21:17
  around that. All right, you and I have talked
• 21:20
  about this before in terms of this work you do is important.
• 21:26
  You've done the work on yourself.
• 21:27
  You know your value it still had there's still an emotional toll
• 21:33
  to it because you're continuing the talking about this this hard
• 21:37
  season you had to move through heal from.
• 21:41
  I don't know if heal I I hesitate to use the word heal.
• 21:44
  I think it's move. Forward grow.
• 21:47
  You know, move forward from continues to know that you could
• 21:50
  have a thriving, full, happy life, but that that does, but it
• 21:55
  also keeps you in kind of this space of always a reminder of
• 21:59
  this season that you went through.
• 22:01
  So talk to me about in terms of the emotional, mental, physical
• 22:05
  health, the things that help you so that that doesn't like keep
• 22:11
  you stuck in that season. Yeah, well, I'm glad you brought
• 22:15
  this up because a lot of people asked me that, like, how do you,
• 22:21
  how do you relive this thing that was so traumatic for you
• 22:25
  day after day? And I think what's really
• 22:27
  important is being able to look at myself.
• 22:30
  And I have compassion for how I showed up at that time in my
• 22:35
  life. And when I have moments that
• 22:38
  take me back to, you know, getting bad news or getting a
• 22:43
  call from my reproductive endocrinologist with, you know,
• 22:47
  the fact that nothing fertilized or I, you know, the whole cycle
• 22:51
  that I had just done the last month was for nothing because
• 22:55
  there was no result of anything. And the ways that I responded, I
• 22:59
  look back at myself and I remind myself, like, I did the best
• 23:02
  that I could with where I was at that time.
• 23:05
  And now I'm at a different level in my resources, the things that
• 23:10
  I have worked through, the connections to people that I
• 23:14
  have made. Because when you're going
• 23:16
  through fertility treatments, many people might be surprised
• 23:20
  to learn there are very few people that are out there
• 23:24
  offering you help. And it's what really gets me
• 23:27
  jazzed about amplifying my message.
• 23:30
  Because when you're going through those times, like to not
• 23:33
  have a therapist offered to you or to not have any type of
• 23:38
  mental health resources, not even a Facebook group or a book.
• 23:42
  Like those are some of the most trying times in your life and
• 23:47
  you don't know what to do except to be in survival mode.
• 23:50
  So if I can look back at the way that I responded to some people
• 23:54
  or even in my relationship with my husband and how I, I often,
• 24:00
  you know, how carry a lot of guilt for I'm like, God, I never
• 24:03
  checked in on him because I was so working to keep myself
• 24:07
  breathing and existing every day.
• 24:10
  And I have to look back at myself and say, you know, you
• 24:12
  did the best that you could. Yeah, and.
• 24:15
  You have these resources, then it would have been different.
• 24:18
  Yeah. But you know, it's like when a
• 24:21
  baby starts to crawl and they fall, like, are you yelling at
• 24:24
  them because they can't walk yet?
• 24:27
  You know, or when they're crawling, they're they're trying
• 24:29
  to walk. You can't You can't shame
• 24:34
  someone for something that they did not have access to.
• 24:37
  And so this constant reminder when memories are triggered by
• 24:42
  somebody else's experience and that parallel, right?
• 24:44
  The thing that you thought you're the only one who you went
• 24:48
  through that or have that emotion or responded in a
• 24:51
  certain way during heartbreaking times in your life to be like,
• 24:55
  you know, I just, that was all I had available to me.
• 24:59
  And I'm proud of me for being here and moving through that to
• 25:03
  get to a point where I prioritized myself at this point
• 25:07
  in my journey too. Thank you for that.
• 25:10
  I love that so much. And that really goes into your
• 25:13
  ability to not only show up unapologetically yourself, but
• 25:18
  supporting other women in doing so.
• 25:20
  That's really a key component. Like we need to not feel like we
• 25:24
  have to apologize because this didn't happen.
• 25:27
  But there is so much because of the societal pressures, the
• 25:31
  cultural pressures, our own wishes and dreams, all these
• 25:34
  things. There is that really that
• 25:36
  ability to just feel like you're in continue apologizing mode.
• 25:40
  And you and I talked about this the first time you recorded how
• 25:43
  you felt, you know, felt sad about your husband not being
• 25:47
  your father. You felt sad about your in laws
• 25:49
  not being grandparents and your father-in-law was just sent you
• 25:55
  this simple message one day after listening to one of your
• 25:58
  podcast episodes that I think it's some it doesn't have to
• 26:02
  always be the big grandiose things.
• 26:03
  It's just those reminders from those we love.
• 26:06
  And, and he just said, I we would never be disappointed in
• 26:09
  you and, and the lift that that gave you, but also just a
• 26:12
  reminder too of like life is complex and nuanced.
• 26:17
  And we as women tend to feel like we've got to apologize for
• 26:21
  the person across the street that fell down because we think
• 26:24
  we looked at them cross eyed. They didn't even know we were
• 26:26
  there. So I mean, that's a big serving,
• 26:29
  but we are very prone to this culturally anyway.
• 26:33
  So your ability now to show up unapologetically and help other
• 26:38
  women in doing so is so key. And you, like I said, you do
• 26:41
  this in so many ways. And now you've added to that
• 26:46
  with the others day brunch with your new book.
• 26:49
  It's just more resources, more ways to help women navigate
• 26:53
  this. And we've talked about before
• 26:56
  how and I'm still shocked by this.
• 26:58
  And so if you are someone who works with women trying in the
• 27:04
  fertility journey and they have resources available, get Lana's
• 27:10
  book, have let them know about the others day brunch.
• 27:14
  Let them know there's a community out there that exists
• 27:18
  that knows what's understands, can relate to, can connect with
• 27:23
  what's happening. Provide therapist, make this a
• 27:27
  holistic experience. We have to do better by women
• 27:33
  and their and their partners in this arena.
• 27:36
  And so like so many women, you're like, there's a missing
• 27:40
  element here. By golly, I'm going to do my own
• 27:42
  work and I'm going to fix that and I'm going to be a resource
• 27:46
  for that. And and so you've done that, but
• 27:48
  talk to me about this next step with the book.
• 27:53
  But also, First off, I want to give a huge shout out to the
• 27:56
  others Day brunch as we're recording.
• 27:58
  That's going to come up 9 days from today, I believe if I'm
• 28:04
  doing the math right. And, and you now have women that
• 28:10
  are traveling from across the country to be present for this.
• 28:16
  This is such an invitation for women to be in community and
• 28:21
  show up and apologetically with each other.
• 28:23
  But you're providing a safe space for them to start that
• 28:26
  maybe they haven't had anyone before that they could connect
• 28:30
  with in this way. And you're celebrating them the
• 28:34
  day before. You always do this on Saturday
• 28:36
  so that on Sunday you can still, if your mother's still alive,
• 28:39
  your grandmother, whatever your sister, you can still celebrate
• 28:43
  those other mothers, but that you get to feel celebrated to
• 28:47
  for being who you are in the world with people who understand
• 28:51
  your journey. This didn't start out being and
• 28:54
  you know, a nationwide event. This started be out and this was
• 28:58
  birthed out of kind of, you know, if I remember correctly,
• 29:02
  the first time you did it was a pretty quick, we're going to
• 29:05
  throw this together and do this kind of thing.
• 29:07
  So talk to me about this journey with this.
• 29:10
  Yeah, so it was. I remember.
• 29:12
  Well, I'll tell you why I know now.
• 29:14
  But I remember it was like sometimes in late April, I'd
• 29:18
  gone to Target and the aisles had, you know, the Mother's Day
• 29:21
  banners. And I have a mother that I have
• 29:25
  a beautiful relationship with and a sister who I love.
• 29:28
  And I always host the Mother's Day brunch, you know, for them
• 29:31
  at my house on, on Sunday. And I remember coming home from
• 29:36
  Target and I was like, my gosh, like, what's going to happen in
• 29:39
  the days when they're not around to, to do those things, like to
• 29:44
  have that connection to Mother's Day.
• 29:46
  So I went on and I started a meet up group.
• 29:49
  I went on meet up, which is free, you know, so this is my
• 29:51
  encouragement to anyone who wants to do the same thing, like
• 29:55
  love it. I started a group called
• 29:57
  childless and child free women. So women without kids.
• 30:01
  And that I just got my reminder that four years years ago I had
• 30:06
  just started that group, you know, meet up.
• 30:09
  Something like. Congratulations.
• 30:10
  Your group's four years old. And it was on the 22nd of April,
• 30:14
  so it was just a few weeks before Mother's Day.
• 30:18
  And I, that was the only way I really knew how to find other
• 30:22
  people who maybe had wanted to come because sure, I really
• 30:25
  wasn't connecting with many women in the Chicagoland area
• 30:29
  where I live. And there was, I want to say
• 30:32
  like 18 women showed up and my, my group is now my meet up group
• 30:38
  has 670 some members. So that's in four years, 670
• 30:45
  some members. That doesn't mean all of them
• 30:46
  come to everything, but that's, that's how many people felt
• 30:51
  connected enough to join this group.
• 30:53
  So again, if you're listening, do one in your town.
• 30:56
  I encourage you. There's probably people out
• 30:58
  there that are wishing you would.
• 31:00
  So the other state brunch, the first one was in 2022.
• 31:04
  We're now coming on our 4th 1. And yes, women have come
• 31:08
  throughout the years. The second year is when I
• 31:12
  started having people come in from out of town.
• 31:14
  So someone came from Puerto Rico, Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama.
• 31:19
  So this year we've got people coming from Massachusetts all
• 31:24
  the way to Seattle, so literally coast to coast, Colorado, New
• 31:28
  Jersey. I mean, it's just, it blows my
• 31:32
  mind, but it doesn't that women are willing to get on an
• 31:36
  airplane and walk into a room where they know nobody.
• 31:40
  Like maybe they've seen me on social media, maybe, you know,
• 31:44
  they've heard my podcast, whatever it is.
• 31:46
  But the courage it takes to walk into a room that is unfamiliar,
• 31:52
  but the fact that you were settled knowing that when you
• 31:55
  walk in, you don't have to feel like an outsider.
• 31:58
  I think that's really what gets people gravitating to go is that
• 32:02
  they know that they're going to be accepted.
• 32:04
  They know that they don't have to worry about dodging the
• 32:07
  questions or using one of the top 27 things or an answer.
• 32:11
  You know that they're not going to encounter any of that.
• 32:14
  They're going to just walk into a room that is embracing of them
• 32:17
  and the the vibe of the environment is in.
• 32:21
  The brunch is very high energy. And I tell people if you want to
• 32:26
  talk about why you're here, you are welcome to, but it is not a
• 32:29
  requirement. Like for me, I want women to not
• 32:32
  have to come in leading with a story that makes them feel sad.
• 32:36
  And I want them to walk in and feeling like, OK, like you're
• 32:41
  awesome. I'm awesome.
• 32:42
  Like one girl started a book club, a lot of people she met
• 32:46
  last year. And I was like, you know, that's
• 32:48
  what this is all about is me not always having to hold the keys
• 32:52
  to the castle. Like I want everyone to be a key
• 32:55
  holder, you know, like, I want everyone to feel like they have
• 32:58
  a part in my community that I'm just the founder of.
• 33:02
  And I, you talked about earlier in the show that people don't
• 33:07
  always have access to travel in. Well, I also have ambassadors.
• 33:10
  So it's been kind of a, you know, litmus test to see, like,
• 33:14
  do people want to go in their own local communities?
• 33:18
  Yeah, So I love this idea of the ambassadorship and letting a
• 33:21
  youth, this is women showing up unapologetically defined where
• 33:26
  it's like I'm here, I'm the founder.
• 33:29
  But let's, let's, let's give everybody license to, to create
• 33:34
  and expand beyond on beyond the Chicago borders.
• 33:40
  Yeah, so the ambassador program is still kind of in its testing
• 33:44
  phase. I've done it in a couple cities
• 33:46
  in years past. And it's just finding the person
• 33:50
  who's willing to do the heavy lift because, you know, I'll be
• 33:53
  honest, it's a lot of work, you know, to the location, get
• 33:57
  people there, keep people in communication.
• 33:59
  I always do in my in person in Chicago, I do beautiful gift
• 34:04
  bags and swag bags. So people can leave with some,
• 34:10
  some treats for me and some local businesses.
• 34:13
  So it's, it's a heavy lift, I'll be honest.
• 34:17
  But if somebody is willing to to do those things and create
• 34:21
  community and their community, like, I'm all for it.
• 34:23
  Yeah, and I think it's such an example to these women that come
• 34:26
  from out of town that don't know anyone to know.
• 34:29
  They can walk in the room and just be who they are.
• 34:32
  No explanation required. They don't even have to mention
• 34:36
  that season in their life if they don't want to.
• 34:39
  Or they can and know that someone's understood.
• 34:42
  They just get to be them. Like there's not this overlying
• 34:45
  umbrella of expectation. Yeah, the the thing about others
• 34:52
  day, I don't know if we talked about this before, is yes, it's
• 34:55
  primarily women who don't have children, but I also opened it
• 34:58
  up to women who've lost their mom or have an estranged
• 35:02
  relationship with their mom. And actually someone came last
• 35:06
  year who's daughter has chosen not to have her in her life.
• 35:11
  And it's really an expanded event.
• 35:15
  And I make it clear to everybody.
• 35:17
  I send a lot of emails out like warning people this is not a
• 35:21
  place to ask questions because that person who doesn't have
• 35:24
  their daughter in their life might want to talk about the
• 35:28
  fact, you know, that she has children.
• 35:30
  And I just, we've got to park those things at the door and in
• 35:33
  order to facilitate conversation because often times people don't
• 35:37
  know what to talk about. If it's not about your family or
• 35:40
  if somebody who's there, who's childless, don't ask somebody,
• 35:44
  you know, oh, what are you doing tomorrow?
• 35:46
  Are you going to see your mom tomorrow?
• 35:47
  You can't, we can't lead with those type of assumptive
• 35:49
  questions. I'd love this idea of including
• 35:55
  women who are in a variety of chapters and seasons in their
• 36:00
  life where others day applies to them.
• 36:03
  And and you started to show us a, A, A something that you have
• 36:07
  that you help women in these like, OK, there's some things
• 36:12
  we're just not going to ask about today.
• 36:14
  There's some things that we've got to keep off the table and
• 36:16
  assumption. So talk a little bit more about
• 36:18
  how you help women with that going into it.
• 36:21
  So it's really important to me when people come to the others
• 36:25
  day brunch, obviously that it's not a triggering event for them.
• 36:28
  So that people who might be coming there who have children,
• 36:32
  but having a strange relationship with the child or
• 36:35
  they have a strange relationship with their mother and they feel
• 36:39
  called to come to the brunch. That they don't ask those of us
• 36:43
  who are childless questions and vice versa, that one of us who
• 36:48
  don't have children don't ask like, oh, are you going to see
• 36:50
  your mom tomorrow? So what I decided to do is I
• 36:53
  created this sheet that everyone gets when they come in and it
• 37:00
  says, would she rather? And you get to know people like,
• 37:03
  oh, go out or stay home, stay up late, wake up early, you know,
• 37:08
  and kind of ask questions that then lead to other
• 37:12
  conversations. So oh, you wake up early, you
• 37:15
  know, oh, you go to the gym. Oh, what gym?
• 37:17
  You know, whatever the case might be.
• 37:19
  So there's a whole host of questions, dance floor or hit
• 37:23
  the couch, like how fun is that one?
• 37:26
  And then there the goal is to connect with women and learn
• 37:30
  about them and their preferences and things that they like to do
• 37:35
  and connect to the different level.
• 37:37
  And then once you complete a whole sheet with someone, you
• 37:43
  know, it could be like one person that you do it with.
• 37:45
  Then I have this raffle that I do with items and then people
• 37:49
  can drop their completed sheets in there and then be entered to
• 37:52
  when things like Versace perfume, Versace donated full
• 37:58
  size bottles of perfume. Then I've got like Yeti clubs,
• 38:01
  I've got free coaching classes with me, different things.
• 38:05
  So it really encourages people to get to know one another on a
• 38:07
  different level. I love that, and it really it
• 38:11
  reminds me of why we decided to introduce guests by their
• 38:15
  character traits rather than what they do.
• 38:17
  It's like, get, let's get to know these women as people, not
• 38:20
  these roles and titles. Especially around Mother's Day,
• 38:24
  where there's so much of A cultural expectation of what
• 38:27
  motherhood is, looks like, what it means, you know, in terms of
• 38:32
  your life story, all of those things to get to know the people
• 38:36
  and the, you know, the, you know, I mean, and this is such
• 38:38
  a, this is, I mean, you, you've described yourself as a
• 38:41
  connector, collaborator and passionate.
• 38:44
  And this is all of that. This is all of that in this, in
• 38:48
  this nutshell, I think that this is just, I love this.
• 38:52
  It allows women to come in as who they are and and feel safe
• 38:57
  and and you know, and when you can go in and feel safe as you
• 39:02
  are right where you are, it opens the door to like, wait a
• 39:06
  minute. There is a whole group of us
• 39:09
  that are valuable and and have so much to offer the world.
• 39:15
  And this one season doesn't take away from that and doesn't make
• 39:20
  minimize anything about us, but it takes that community.
• 39:25
  And I think the craving that these women have for these
• 39:30
  connections is modeled by the fact that they will travel in
• 39:34
  from out of town to be part of something like this.
• 39:38
  So I think that's amazing and I'm excited to see to where the
• 39:42
  ambassadorship piece comes from. I think you've I think you've
• 39:45
  tapped into something without even maybe fully realizing it
• 39:49
  four years ago. That's going to be so important
• 39:51
  for women. To be able to.
• 39:54
  Connect. Because I'm not going to let
• 39:56
  Hallmark get any royalties. No, they're going to hear about
• 39:59
  this and we're like, oh, we're going to start other state
• 40:01
  cards. A lot of Manikowski and.
• 40:04
  Then no for. The trademarks.
• 40:05
  So don't you even think about? It nice.
• 40:07
  I love it. Let us know when that that goes.
• 40:10
  That's you know, but you've got that patented insane.
• 40:13
  I think that's so important. I'm so glad you pointed that
• 40:15
  out. This takes a lot of your
• 40:18
  resources and energy, but you talk about sponsorships.
• 40:21
  It sounds like the community, Chicago community itself, has
• 40:24
  really embraced this event. They have and even to the space
• 40:28
  where I'm holding it this year, I for, for the last three years,
• 40:32
  I've held it in a different location and there was a
• 40:35
  conflict this year and the space wasn't going to be available.
• 40:38
  And I was in this panic because I'm like, Oh my gosh, like, what
• 40:41
  if it's not as beautiful da da, da, da, da.
• 40:43
  And then I had to self-care tip one O 1, slow myself down and
• 40:47
  tell myself things always have a way of working out.
• 40:51
  And one day I'm going to have a solution presented to me And it
• 40:54
  is just going to be like, oh, wow, that wasn't as hard as I
• 40:57
  thought. So as life unfolds that way for
• 41:00
  me, I always try to remind myself that I'm resourceful.
• 41:04
  And I always figured out I was introduced to a woman who works
• 41:09
  at a building. I live, like I said, in downtown
• 41:12
  Chicago, so in the, in the land of high rises.
• 41:16
  And the building she works at has an event space.
• 41:21
  And somebody connected us, a childless woman connected us and
• 41:27
  told her about my event. And I went to see the space.
• 41:31
  And while I was there, I was like, this is beautiful.
• 41:34
  Like, Oh my gosh, like, I can't even believe this is available.
• 41:37
  You know, what's the rental price?
• 41:40
  Come to find out she's childless and she was touched by the
• 41:46
  message and the connection point of the others day brunch that
• 41:50
  she was able to negotiate a deal for me to have it in that room
• 41:56
  in this building called the Aqua, which is an award-winning
• 42:00
  building in Chicago. If someone's listening, just
• 42:03
  Google the Aqua in Chicago and you'll see it's like a gorgeous
• 42:06
  high rise. And I was like, my gosh, like,
• 42:09
  and now she's coming to the brunch.
• 42:10
  You know, it's like she never wore a brunch.
• 42:13
  And now not only did she help me create a place to have the
• 42:17
  brunch, she felt called to the message and she's going to be
• 42:21
  part of the brunch. And I'm like, this is, Oh my
• 42:23
  gosh, part of you never know who is out there with a story that
• 42:28
  you haven't heard yet. Yeah, Oh my gosh, again, this is
• 42:33
  living unapologetically and supporting other women in doing
• 42:37
  so and being able to one O 1. Thank you so much, so good.
• 42:41
  OK, we're going to get into more that you have out there, but and
• 42:45
  within that we're going to talk about coming back to your why
• 42:49
  and your values and everything you do.
• 42:50
  These are very tightly, very woven into the fabric of
• 42:55
  everything you're doing now. And now we have a book.
• 42:59
  So talk to me about how that you knew that was the natural next
• 43:03
  step and and and how that ties into the wine values of your.
• 43:07
  Work well, when I left my seven-year journey through
• 43:12
  fertility treatments, my last conversation with my
• 43:16
  reproductive endocrinologist, which is basically an they
• 43:19
  trained to be an OBGYN and then they go on to do another
• 43:22
  three-year training to help become a fertility Dr.
• 43:27
  essentially, but it's called a reproductive endocrinologist.
• 43:31
  So that's a mouthful there. But he offered me some solutions
• 43:37
  if I wanted to continue on with fertility or if I want to
• 43:40
  continue on with fertility treatments.
• 43:42
  He said, you know, I'll help you with that, but I'll be honest,
• 43:45
  you know, with the yield that you've been getting out of the
• 43:47
  treatments, I just don't think it's going to bring you to a
• 43:50
  different point. But if you want to adopt or if
• 43:53
  you want to do donor conception like a donor egg, we can help
• 43:57
  you with that. It's a big decision.
• 44:00
  Think about it, Let us know. So we left that conversation
• 44:03
  with thinking about it. And then when we decided that
• 44:07
  none of those answers were right for us, we had no reason to call
• 44:10
  the clinic back. You know, the doctor never
• 44:12
  called, called us or no one followed up with us to say, hey,
• 44:16
  where are you? Are you, you know, where are you
• 44:19
  in the decision process? Do you need some help?
• 44:21
  Do you need some assistance? So that was where the
• 44:24
  conversation ended. And I had to figure all of this
• 44:29
  out on my own because there was not even a referral for a
• 44:32
  therapist and. That still blows my mind.
• 44:36
  Doesn't it? I know.
• 44:37
  And I'm just like, yeah. Women are you were in such a
• 44:40
  vulnerable state at that point, it feels dangerous that they
• 44:45
  don't offer other resources leaving the leaving that day.
• 44:50
  And I thought, you know, maybe it was just my clinic, Like,
• 44:53
  maybe he saw me as someone who seemed strong, you know, like, I
• 44:57
  don't know, I had all these, like, thoughts in my head of,
• 44:59
  like, making excuses for them not doing more for me because,
• 45:04
  you know, that's what we do as women, you know, Or like, you
• 45:08
  know, maybe it was me. So I decided to write a book in
• 45:14
  the hopes that it will give the physicians and the fertility
• 45:19
  clinics a resource that might not exist.
• 45:21
  Because I'm like, OK, I learned that early on my one of my first
• 45:26
  bosses, I was living in Washington.
• 45:27
  DCI remember going to him with, you know, I guess a complaint or
• 45:32
  like something that I didn't think was was going well.
• 45:35
  And he said, I love that you're telling me this now leave and
• 45:38
  come back with some solutions. And that always stuck with me.
• 45:42
  It was like, OK, And he told me it doesn't have to be the
• 45:45
  perfect solution, but it trained me to say, OK, if things aren't
• 45:49
  going the way that I want to see, like what would I do?
• 45:52
  How could I make an impact on that situation?
• 45:55
  So that's really the basis of the foundation of why I even
• 45:57
  started all that I did. But the book I thought, OK,
• 46:00
  well, if they don't have a resource, if there is nobody out
• 46:03
  there that they can send a patient to when they get to that
• 46:07
  point of deciding to leave treatment, maybe they can
• 46:11
  include being childless is an OK thing too.
• 46:15
  Like it doesn't have to be just adoption or just continuing a
• 46:19
  path to some form of motherhood. I think the conversation needs
• 46:23
  to include you can remain childless and we have resources
• 46:28
  to support you there too. So that's why we're looking for.
• 46:31
  So now what? I love it.
• 46:35
  And my goal is to get it in the hands of as many doctors to then
• 46:41
  put it on a resource list. And you know, my podcast hasn't
• 46:44
  been around since 2021. Maybe it's a reminder too, that
• 46:48
  there's a podcast that somebody can listen to.
• 46:50
  And I purposely will get so now what because my podcast is also
• 46:54
  the so now what podcast. But because so many times in
• 46:58
  this journey, I've wondered like, so now what am I going to
• 47:01
  do? You know, life is coming out so
• 47:04
  different, like, like now what's going to come at me?
• 47:07
  Like how am I going to figure this one out?
• 47:09
  So it's it's really the guy that I wish somebody had given me
• 47:13
  when I left my treatment path without a baby.
• 47:19
  Well, I, yeah, we're going to, we're going to have, we've
• 47:23
  taught, we had a sub stack live a few weeks ago.
• 47:26
  We've shared that, we're going to share.
• 47:28
  It was fun. It was fun.
• 47:29
  And it's a way I love to bring our authors on and talk about
• 47:33
  their books and, and we're going to have book club opportunities
• 47:36
  through that over time too. So pay attention listeners, if
• 47:39
  you don't follow our sub stack, jump onto our ad Embracing
• 47:42
  layers, sub stack, follow that. We're at the field podcast Sub
• 47:46
  stacks. The Embracing Layers network is
• 47:49
  what it's called anyway. You look up the embracing layers
• 47:51
  network, you'll find it. But it's it is such doctors,
• 47:58
  practitioners, nurses, people that are tell people tell these
• 48:03
  clinics, these places about this book, about this resource.
• 48:08
  It's so important that and maybe they won't be ready to face that
• 48:13
  yet or read that yet when they walk out the door, but they have
• 48:16
  it when they are. And you know, because I think
• 48:20
  that's so, so important to not wait until you're in crisis mode
• 48:24
  to have resources, but have resources upfront that are ready
• 48:29
  for you when you're ready for them.
• 48:32
  I think that's such an important piece of being able to have that
• 48:37
  part of it and then remind you them, listen, we've got all
• 48:39
  these other resources and you can work with me as a coach.
• 48:42
  If you need one-on-one attention, you can listen to the
• 48:45
  podcast so that you can get more resources, more voices, realize
• 48:49
  you're not alone in this journey.
• 48:51
  We've got this great Other's day branch.
• 48:53
  I mean, there's so it's such an invitation into all of these
• 48:57
  pieces that so many times when we're first starting out, we're
• 49:00
  not ready necessarily to be with other people and talk about it
• 49:03
  when we go through hard things. And so a book is a great way to
• 49:07
  kind of introduce yourself to the conversation, to the thought
• 49:12
  process and gives you something tangible.
• 49:15
  And then you can listening to some podcast episodes and, you
• 49:20
  know, get I I think it's just such a a great door into your
• 49:25
  community. This this additional.
• 49:27
  Piece yeah, and I wrote it in a way that you don't have to read
• 49:31
  it cover to cover. The way the chapters are
• 49:35
  formatted, you could just, you know, look through the the table
• 49:39
  of contents and be like, I have a baby shower coming up and I'm
• 49:43
  really not sure how to handle going to it or if I wanna go to
• 49:47
  it or if I'm gonna decline. And you can read the chapter on
• 49:50
  baby showers. They're very small, palatable
• 49:54
  chapters. And I purposely wrote that
• 49:58
  because I'm not somebody who would pick up a book and read it
• 50:01
  cover to cover on a Saturday. Like I'll, I'll go back to it
• 50:05
  here and here and here. And the chapters are maybe four
• 50:08
  or five pages long. There's 20 some chapters like,
• 50:11
  and I purposely did that. So that is just very digestible.
• 50:14
  And yeah, my story, it's not necessarily about me.
• 50:18
  My story is woven in there to just create these common
• 50:21
  connection points. And you don't need to read the
• 50:25
  chapters in order because there's not like a storyline
• 50:28
  that's going with it. So I think it's it's very easy
• 50:31
  for the reader to take from it what they're looking for.
• 50:35
  And yeah, I tell people all the time, even if you haven't gone
• 50:38
  through fertility treatments, maybe you're childless by
• 50:40
  circumstance. And yeah, the parts about
• 50:45
  fertility clinics are not relevant to you.
• 50:47
  That's cool, too. You know, you can read other
• 50:49
  things. Then I had a girlfriend from
• 50:51
  college who I posted on my Facebook page that wrote a book.
• 50:55
  And she's like, oh, I ordered your book just to support you.
• 50:58
  And I turned out reading. I read it.
• 51:00
  And she has a son who's in his 20s who's got severe autism.
• 51:06
  And she's like, it related so much to me because my life
• 51:09
  didn't turn out like I thought like my motherhood journey and
• 51:13
  the way that I thought my children were going to be able
• 51:16
  to interact with society is different.
• 51:18
  And I love that people who never went through fertility
• 51:22
  treatments and people who have kids can even find something
• 51:26
  through it. So it, it really, I wasn't
• 51:28
  expecting that part of it. So that was definitely a bonus
• 51:31
  for me. Yeah, I think so too.
• 51:34
  And that really goes nicely into to living out of our own
• 51:37
  expectations versus others. This this expectation of like,
• 51:41
  oh, this is in this aisle at the bookstore.
• 51:43
  So it must only be for that, that you spoke to a group at a
• 51:47
  college last week that you're like, I don't know if anybody
• 51:51
  out here in this university audience has my experience, but
• 51:55
  I know what I have to say is going to serve them because
• 51:57
  these tools and resources that I have found really cross into
• 52:02
  different areas and subject matters.
• 52:05
  Yeah. My title of my talk is
• 52:08
  Infertility, Identity and the Fight to Be Seen.
• 52:11
  And what I really talked about was how do you see yourself?
• 52:17
  And the identity that you have and that you create for yourself
• 52:23
  is what other people are going to take from you.
• 52:27
  And you can't wait for somebody to see you in the lens that you
• 52:30
  want to be seen. You have to see yourself in that
• 52:33
  lens first. Like we, we touched on that at
• 52:36
  the beginning of this episode, right?
• 52:39
  You can't expect someone to see you and see your story if you're
• 52:45
  not seeing it yourself in the way that you want to see it.
• 52:47
  So it was really powerful. I wasn't sure how people would
• 52:50
  take it because I'm so used to talking in communities where
• 52:53
  people have navigated fertility or infertility in in some way,
• 52:57
  shape or form. But I've gotten really good
• 52:59
  feedback on it, so it makes me want to do more keynote speaking
• 53:03
  and find opportunities to make a connection.
• 53:06
  Like my story just happens to be infertility.
• 53:08
  And for somebody else, it could be getting divorced.
• 53:11
  They never thought that they would, you know, and they carry
• 53:13
  shame about divorcing. Maybe it's, you know, having a
• 53:17
  kid who's an addict. And people look at you like
• 53:19
  you're a bad mom because if you were a better mom, you would
• 53:23
  have, you know, done better raising your kids.
• 53:25
  There's so many stories that you can just kind of insert into
• 53:30
  this and realize that your identity is what you create for
• 53:35
  yourself and you identify it for yourself.
• 53:38
  I love that so much, and I said it the first time you said it,
• 53:41
  but I think it's such a great and healthy way of we get to
• 53:46
  decide and then also the way we show up communicating that.
• 53:51
  And if someone tries to impose a different identity or
• 53:55
  expectation on us, you're like, no, no, no, no.
• 53:59
  This is this is how I see myself.
• 54:03
  This is how I view my life and my value and how I show up in
• 54:07
  the world and and communicating that piece as well.
• 54:11
  But so much people feel when you are know your value, when you
• 54:16
  have that that contentment within who you are, people can
• 54:21
  sense it when you walk in a room.
• 54:23
  I maybe really can't. Body language has so much more
• 54:26
  power than sometimes I think that we realize in terms of and
• 54:31
  people deciding what they think we are versus what we know we
• 54:35
  are. And of course, those things can
• 54:36
  be misunderstood at times and miss identified.
• 54:40
  Surely that's true. But also there is people can
• 54:43
  feel your energy. Do you walk tall?
• 54:46
  Do you have your head up? Are you looking people in the
• 54:48
  eye? Are you are you not afraid to
• 54:50
  say what you have said? Are you talking quietly?
• 54:54
  Are you talking, you know, engagingly?
• 54:55
  I mean, all those little things. And it starts with you in that
• 55:00
  identity piece. And that identity piece is
• 55:02
  knowing who you are, defining who you are, believing who you
• 55:07
  are becoming who you want to be, defining that for yourself and
• 55:10
  not allowing others around you to do that.
• 55:14
  And, and that it takes, you know, that takes some concerted
• 55:18
  effort and energy, especially when you've gone through a
• 55:21
  really difficult season where you come out of it not where you
• 55:24
  thought you were going to be. But it's so important in order
• 55:28
  for you to move forward in a solid, healthy way and look at
• 55:32
  the impact you're making right now, like you are helping
• 55:37
  thousands of women and not the IT, I so it.
• 55:42
  And that really goes nicely into that.
• 55:43
  Accepting the layered aspects of yourself.
• 55:46
  No, this is not how I saw my journey going.
• 55:50
  These are not the dreams I had when I was a girl growing up.
• 55:53
  But boy, it's different. But it is beautiful and the
• 56:00
  impact I'm able to. Have.
• 56:03
  Is something I could have never imagined.
• 56:07
  Yeah. Well, I think a lot of us, you
• 56:08
  know, we have these belief systems and we often are taking
• 56:14
  belief systems handed down to us maybe from our, you know, family
• 56:18
  values, maybe from religious values, educational values.
• 56:23
  And we think that there's a right way and a wrong way.
• 56:28
  And it's hard when you have always been taught to think the
• 56:33
  people without kids are like sad, like, or they probably, you
• 56:37
  know, who's going to take care of them when they get older or,
• 56:40
  you know, do they have anywhere to go for Christmas?
• 56:43
  Do they? You know, there's there's this
• 56:45
  vision that you think of people without kids, like fitting into
• 56:49
  this box. And so when you become that
• 56:51
  person, it's no wonder that you look at yourself and being like,
• 56:55
  I am somebody that probably people pity or my life does feel
• 57:00
  really incomplete, or I do worry about getting older because I
• 57:05
  might die old and alone in a nursing home.
• 57:08
  And you have to challenge that belief system and whether it's
• 57:13
  about infertility and being childless or whatever
• 57:17
  circumstance is giving you angst and decide, are those outdated
• 57:22
  beliefs? Are those the ones that I want
• 57:25
  to take forward? And you can create your own
• 57:28
  belief system, but no one ever tells us that that we can.
• 57:32
  And it's like if you if you believe in God, like you don't
• 57:37
  see God, you just believe that God is with you.
• 57:40
  So yeah, who to say that that is the thing that you know, without
• 57:46
  seeing it. So many of us believe in God, so
• 57:50
  how can you not say that you can't create another belief for
• 57:53
  yourself without physically having to see, feel, touch,
• 57:57
  taste, whatever that thing that you're wanting in your life?
• 58:01
  So for me, it was really a powerful awareness and something
• 58:06
  that I teach in my community is you can believe whatever you
• 58:10
  want about your story. And when you tell your story, do
• 58:14
  you feel energized by the way you describe yourself and you
• 58:18
  describe your life, or do you feel disempowered?
• 58:21
  Yeah. And people don't tell us that we
• 58:24
  can tell a story that sounds different than what most people
• 58:28
  are used to hearing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 58:31
  That was so good. Thank you for that.
• 58:33
  That is I, I think it's just that realization, that
• 58:36
  realization that we have choice, that we that we have a choice.
• 58:40
  We don't have to be stuck in a narrative when we realize this
• 58:44
  is no longer serving me or this really was never true for me.
• 58:48
  We can, we can change that. We have the power to do that
• 58:51
  within us. And I think when we, when you go
• 58:55
  through these hard things, you learn a lot about the power you
• 58:58
  have within yourself that you're able to tap into.
• 59:02
  And I see that through and through.
• 59:04
  How did, how talk to me about how that felt when you were able
• 59:09
  to tap into that. And I, I, I don't and, and
• 59:14
  reframe the idea you had about what you thought your life was
• 59:19
  going to be versus what it turned out to be.
• 59:22
  Well, I never knew what life coaching was, you know, until
• 59:27
  2020. And I stumbled upon it honestly,
• 59:32
  by chance. I had gained a lot of weight
• 59:34
  from the fertility medications and my last round of IVF was in
• 59:39
  2017. I had kind of given up on my
• 59:42
  body because I was like, well, hell, it doesn't work anyway, so
• 59:45
  why should I care for it? You know, I was, I felt like, I
• 59:49
  remember I wouldn't take any supplements.
• 59:51
  I wouldn't do calcium, like none of these vitamins, nothing.
• 59:55
  I felt like I was totally on a picket line against my body and
• 1:00:01
  I gained a ton of weight because of the medications and then
• 1:00:05
  just, you know, sort of compounded from there.
• 1:00:08
  And I had found this woman's podcast, her name is Corinne
• 1:00:11
  Crabtree, and her podcast was called Losing 100 lbs with
• 1:00:14
  Corinne. And she tells her story about
• 1:00:17
  weight loss. And it just resonated with me.
• 1:00:19
  Like the way she talked about weight loss felt so.
• 1:00:24
  Normal instead of pounding, keto calorie.
• 1:00:28
  Yeah. All this stuff.
• 1:00:29
  I had done Weight Watchers for so many times.
• 1:00:31
  And I knew that 28 chips was three points.
• 1:00:35
  Like I had done all, you know, I knew all the calculations for
• 1:00:38
  what food weight was, and I had my Weight Watchers scale.
• 1:00:43
  And the way she talked about it was understanding, like, why are
• 1:00:47
  you not showing up for yourself the way that you want to feel
• 1:00:51
  like realizing that I had I had something to do with it, you
• 1:00:56
  know, the food. Had nothing to do with.
• 1:00:58
  It it was me and it was just like this light bulb went off.
• 1:01:03
  And that's really the first person that told me that I could
• 1:01:05
  believe something different about my life.
• 1:01:09
  And I found out later she was a life coach.
• 1:01:14
  I was listening to something on her podcast and she said
• 1:01:16
  something about being a life coach.
• 1:01:17
  And I like have to Google. I'm like, OK, what, what, you
• 1:01:19
  know, what is life coaching? And then this light bulb went
• 1:01:22
  off and I was like, you know, I need to do this for women who
• 1:01:26
  are childless after infertility. Like there's no one who's
• 1:01:29
  teaching these kind of things. And it's like, once you learn
• 1:01:31
  this stuff, you don't forget it and it's replicable.
• 1:01:35
  And, you know, you can replicate it in so many different places
• 1:01:38
  in your life. And I remember literally
• 1:01:43
  Melissa, like people would come to me and be like, Oh my gosh,
• 1:01:46
  like you're glowing like multiple people in multiple
• 1:01:50
  settings. Like it wasn't like it just
• 1:01:52
  happened all in one week. And it it brought me to the
• 1:01:55
  place of when you hear someone's glowing, it's usually let this
• 1:01:59
  pregnancy glow, right? Yeah, when you're glowing, like,
• 1:02:03
  and I thought to myself, how amazing is it that this
• 1:02:08
  reference of glowing is something that is happening for
• 1:02:12
  me and my body has never ever been pregnant.
• 1:02:14
  Like the fact that people are seeing that on me and describing
• 1:02:19
  me in that way. It was just like this mind
• 1:02:22
  blowing thing of like energy that I need to help other women
• 1:02:27
  understand how great it feels to know who you are and to be an
• 1:02:32
  ownership of your story and to stop looking at yourself like a
• 1:02:36
  victim after what you've been through.
• 1:02:38
  Like can you have compassion? There's a chapter in my book
• 1:02:42
  that talks about self compassion versus self pity because there
• 1:02:46
  is such a distinctive line between looking at your life as
• 1:02:50
  with pity instead of compassion. So that's really, that's the
• 1:02:57
  energy that propelled me forward when I started hearing like,
• 1:03:02
  you're glowing what's going on with you?
• 1:03:04
  And that's when I was working with Corinne and, and she I was
• 1:03:08
  learning all the tools from her that really motivated me to go
• 1:03:11
  get my life coaching certification and create that
• 1:03:13
  for other women like me. I love the glowing story so much
• 1:03:20
  because it shows that there's multiple ways we can glow and
• 1:03:25
  when we are living true to ourselves and tapped into who we
• 1:03:30
  are and accepting the layered aspects of ourselves and meeting
• 1:03:34
  it with compassion, meeting it with curiosity rather than
• 1:03:38
  judgment. But that's possible.
• 1:03:40
  There's multiple ways we can glow and shine and show up in
• 1:03:44
  the world. And thank you so much for that.
• 1:03:46
  That was so good. All right, in living out feel,
• 1:03:49
  which you do beautifully, finding empowerment, embracing
• 1:03:53
  layers. Talk to me.
• 1:03:55
  And because I know, you know, a lot of times this journey takes
• 1:03:59
  a toll on relationships and, and not, and your relationship with
• 1:04:03
  yourself, which you've talked about already and what the kind
• 1:04:06
  of what you had to go through to get to the other side of that.
• 1:04:09
  No longer seeing your body as being against you and recreating
• 1:04:14
  that relationship with your body and yourself.
• 1:04:18
  That also has a, you know, impact on other relationships,
• 1:04:21
  whether it's your husband, your parents, your friends.
• 1:04:24
  So talk to me about this, this embracing this field journey
• 1:04:30
  that you have, how that is reshaped and framed through your
• 1:04:33
  relationship with yourself as well as your relationship with
• 1:04:36
  other people in your life. And you've talked about this a
• 1:04:39
  lot in other ways that I want to really get honed in on this
• 1:04:42
  point for a minute. Yeah, well it's one of the three
• 1:04:45
  pillars in my coaching program called Thrive.
• 1:04:47
  After infertility, the body image is 1.
• 1:04:50
  Owning your time. Like what do you do when you
• 1:04:53
  thought your rest of your life was going to be milestoned by
• 1:04:57
  having a child and all of a sudden you're the one in charge
• 1:05:00
  of filling your time? And then the third one's
• 1:05:02
  relationships and relationships inclusive of your marriage,
• 1:05:07
  People at work, in the workplace and showing up to work where we
• 1:05:10
  spend, you know, at least 40 hours of our week.
• 1:05:13
  And you can't necessarily always escape the baby announcements,
• 1:05:18
  the shower, you know, baby showers in the office, the
• 1:05:21
  pictures of people's kids, the morning water cooler talk about,
• 1:05:25
  you know, who did what with their kids the night before.
• 1:05:27
  And you're showing up and you're like, don't feel like a, a
• 1:05:31
  connected part in your workplace, but then also in your
• 1:05:34
  family. You know, I recently my I call
• 1:05:37
  her my little cousin because she's in her 30s, but she just
• 1:05:40
  had her first baby and I met her baby for the first time this
• 1:05:44
  past weekend. And I was a little nervous going
• 1:05:47
  into it, not because I wasn't sure how I would handle it, but
• 1:05:52
  more so I felt like everyone was waiting to see my reaction.
• 1:05:56
  And it was a really interesting place to be because I think, you
• 1:06:01
  know, I remember when she got pregnant, people didn't tell me
• 1:06:03
  right away. And there was this like yin and
• 1:06:07
  Yang of like being upset that people would think I was not
• 1:06:11
  strong enough to hear it, but also seeing that they hear about
• 1:06:15
  me and they maybe weren't sure how I would handle the news.
• 1:06:19
  So the relationships are multifaceted.
• 1:06:23
  And I think a lot of it is really the coaching aspect and
• 1:06:29
  the work that I do with my clients is understanding how do
• 1:06:32
  you want your relationship to look?
• 1:06:35
  How do you want, how do you want it to?
• 1:06:37
  Because unless you know what you're looking for or have this
• 1:06:42
  framework of some sort put into place, you're chasing something
• 1:06:47
  in the wind. You know you because you don't
• 1:06:49
  exactly know what you're looking for.
• 1:06:51
  So nothing is ever going to kind of match up to it.
• 1:06:54
  So I think it's really important to decide you what do you want
• 1:06:57
  your marriage to be like? You know what, what do you want
• 1:07:01
  Christmas morning with your family or at your mom's house or
• 1:07:05
  when you go to your cousin's? Like, what do you, what do you
• 1:07:08
  want that interaction to be like?
• 1:07:09
  How do you create a plan for yourself when you don't know
• 1:07:13
  what success looks like for you? Yeah.
• 1:07:17
  Yeah. So yeah, that's really, I think
• 1:07:19
  with the relationships part is understanding what are you
• 1:07:23
  looking for and does that already maybe exist in a
• 1:07:27
  different form and you haven't even identified it.
• 1:07:30
  And then the other part is communicating what you need.
• 1:07:34
  I think we have this expectation that people should act a certain
• 1:07:39
  way, but if you haven't given them the opportunity to know
• 1:07:43
  what you're looking for, it's hard.
• 1:07:45
  It's hard to know like how I should pull up.
• 1:07:48
  There's a the concept that I teach in my coaching program
• 1:07:52
  called the instruction manual and how we haven't we have this
• 1:07:55
  instruction manual for how people are supposed to show up.
• 1:07:59
  But if they haven't read the instruction manual, they they
• 1:08:01
  don't know how the how it works. Yeah.
• 1:08:04
  And being able to share that with someone, that doesn't mean
• 1:08:07
  that they have to say, OK, like I'll show up that way.
• 1:08:11
  Like they have the entitlement to say, yeah, that works with me
• 1:08:14
  or no, it doesn't. But often times when you don't
• 1:08:18
  tell someone in a relationship with you or in communion with
• 1:08:22
  you how you want things to go or how you would feel more
• 1:08:25
  comfortable being, then it's a losing battle for them because
• 1:08:29
  they're always going to be a person who doesn't understand or
• 1:08:32
  the person who says the wrong thing or the person who's
• 1:08:35
  selfish. And you know, there's, there's
• 1:08:37
  so many things that become disappointing when you're not
• 1:08:42
  able to structure out what you're looking for or for
• 1:08:45
  yourself. Yeah, that communication piece
• 1:08:49
  is huge. We operate under a lot of
• 1:08:51
  assumptions sometimes and to the point of like people are not
• 1:08:55
  mind readers and we forget that some we're like, well, and they
• 1:08:59
  we feel like, well, I'm putting off this energy.
• 1:09:01
  They must know. No, assume they know nothing and
• 1:09:05
  operate from there. And and I just we just talked
• 1:09:08
  about this in an episode that dropped a couple of days ago
• 1:09:11
  here. Communication is kind.
• 1:09:14
  Communication doesn't leave people guessing.
• 1:09:18
  And we talked about comfort Woods and I talked about that a
• 1:09:21
  lot in our episode. And I think that's just another
• 1:09:24
  example of that manifesting. And, and, and again goes back to
• 1:09:28
  that choice piece. We have choices.
• 1:09:31
  Tap into what it is you want. Tap into it is what you're
• 1:09:35
  hoping for and then communicate that so it it's possible, so it
• 1:09:39
  can happen. And you're not just left with
• 1:09:42
  everybody being frustrated trying to figure out and, and
• 1:09:45
  walking on egg shells too. I mean, take away all of those
• 1:09:48
  things and, and be clear, clear and communication is kind.
• 1:09:52
  I love that so much. Thank you.
• 1:09:53
  And the last thing I I like to always do an addendum to this
• 1:09:56
  that that doesn't mean that you can't have boundaries.
• 1:09:59
  So if somebody does not meet you where you want them to be or
• 1:10:04
  where you feel comfortable meeting them, it's OK for you to
• 1:10:09
  to say like, I'm going to step away from this or this does not
• 1:10:14
  work for me anymore. And I think the boundary piece,
• 1:10:17
  whenever you feel as though something does not feel good in
• 1:10:22
  your body or good to you, it's important to know that you don't
• 1:10:25
  always have to be the one to compromise and you don't have to
• 1:10:29
  worry if you're the one who's disappointing somebody because
• 1:10:33
  disappointing yourself is a lot, much.
• 1:10:36
  It takes such a larger toll on you to continually show up
• 1:10:40
  disappointing yourself for fear of not disappointing others.
• 1:10:43
  Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I think the first really first
• 1:10:48
  agreement you need to make with yourself when you're doing this
• 1:10:53
  work of wanting to live out your most authentic, healthy life
• 1:10:58
  true to you in alignment is making an agreement with
• 1:11:02
  yourself that you weren't. You will not knowingly abandoned
• 1:11:05
  yourself anymore. Sometimes it happens out of and
• 1:11:08
  you got to give yourself grace. You're used to showing up
• 1:11:10
  certain ways. People are used to you showing
• 1:11:12
  up in certain ways. It takes time to shift those
• 1:11:15
  narratives and get them in alignment with where you want
• 1:11:17
  them to be that making that commitment.
• 1:11:20
  Write it down somewhere. You put it in your journal, put
• 1:11:23
  it in a prominent place. Record it something that really,
• 1:11:26
  because it's really starts with OK, I need to am I, am I
• 1:11:31
  abandoning myself in any way here?
• 1:11:34
  I think that's such an important piece.
• 1:11:36
  Thank you for for bringing that up.
• 1:11:37
  That's so good. All right, we are down to the
• 1:11:41
  rapid fire named 5 Activities That Nourish You.
• 1:11:47
  Five activities that nourish me. Walking my dog, going on random
• 1:11:52
  weekend trips to with my hubby, that's a lot of times we'll get
• 1:11:56
  in the car on Saturday and just kind of run off together.
• 1:12:00
  Nourish me. I think creating community for
• 1:12:03
  others. So that connection piece really
• 1:12:06
  nourishes me. My physical activity not doesn't
• 1:12:12
  have to be like a workout class, but just getting out and about
• 1:12:15
  and just feeling like I'm part of the the city around me.
• 1:12:20
  Like living in a big city is important to me.
• 1:12:23
  And then I think also just connecting with myself and
• 1:12:27
  seeing myself because for so long I felt invisible in my own
• 1:12:32
  life and in my story. So the opportunity to to see
• 1:12:36
  myself and recognize me for who I am.
• 1:12:40
  I love that so much, so good. All right.
• 1:12:42
  And five words on how you want to feel the next six months. 05
• 1:12:46
  words the next six months. I want to feel meaningful.
• 1:12:51
  I want to feel, let's see, at peace.
• 1:12:57
  I think that's another one at peace.
• 1:12:59
  I want to feel successful. I want to feel proud and I want
• 1:13:10
  to. I want to be peaceful, feel
• 1:13:12
  peaceful at peace. Lana so good, so much good, so
• 1:13:17
  much good content here today. I'm so excited to for our ladies
• 1:13:22
  and our listeners to have access to this.
• 1:13:24
  This will all be on our resources page and many of these
• 1:13:27
  resources already are. We will update with this new new
• 1:13:31
  even more wonderful resources that Lana has when this episode
• 1:13:35
  drops. But you can go to
• 1:13:36
  embracinglayers.com to find that on the resources page.
• 1:13:39
  But tell people right now where they can find you follow you get
• 1:13:44
  access to all the the things that you.
• 1:13:45
  Offer Yeah, well, probably the most comprehensive places on my
• 1:13:49
  website, lanamanikowski.com and I'm on sub stack and I'm on
• 1:13:56
  YouTube and on TikTok, but most actively on Instagram.
• 1:14:02
  So my handles are all I try to keep them same Lana dot
• 1:14:05
  Manikowski so it's easy for everyone to find me there.
• 1:14:08
  So, yeah, that's pretty great. Awesome.
• 1:14:11
  Thank you my friend for how you show up in the world.
• 1:14:14
  You are a beacon of light and you are a beacon of light in a
• 1:14:17
  way you didn't see coming. And I think that's there's some
• 1:14:21
  beauty in that in the complexity and nuance of life.
• 1:14:25
  And it's also a reminder to ladies you're listening.
• 1:14:28
  Life is going to throw us fur balls and sometimes they are
• 1:14:31
  really tough ones that are hard to get up off the mat, but you
• 1:14:36
  can. And if even if you're thing that
• 1:14:40
  you feel like you out is different than infertility.
• 1:14:43
  Lana's have got some great resources like we talked about
• 1:14:47
  earlier in the episode that really transfer across life and
• 1:14:51
  they're really applicable in multiple ways.
• 1:14:54
  So if you heard anything from her today that resonated, reach
• 1:14:58
  out to her because these resources really do cross into
• 1:15:02
  many different areas of life. But I I want really to take away
• 1:15:07
  from this week. Make a commitment to you tonight
• 1:15:11
  that abandoned yourself whenever you're making decisions for your
• 1:15:14
  life. And that's going to help you to,
• 1:15:17
  to make decisions that are aligned and healthy for you.
• 1:15:20
  And know that you're valuable and worthy, not because of your
• 1:15:24
  roles and titles, but because of who you are.
• 1:15:28
  And there you have a purpose. You have and, and, and you may
• 1:15:33
  not even know what that is right now, if that's OK, you still
• 1:15:36
  have value. You're still so important in
• 1:15:39
  this world. And so that's really the take
• 1:15:42
  away that I hope you can bring from this today.
• 1:15:45
  Thank you, my friend, for joining me.
• 1:15:47
  I'm so excited to hear about how this next Other's Day brunch
• 1:15:50
  goes here in nine days and you know, and to have you back and
• 1:15:56
  do a book club with your book on our sub stacks.
• 1:15:58
  I think that's going to be a really great opportunity as
• 1:16:01
  well. So stay tuned.
• 1:16:01
  There's more from this wonderful woman coming.
• 1:16:04
  We've got panels coming up later in the year that are going to be
• 1:16:07
  talking about the infertility journey that I'm going to be
• 1:16:10
  inviting Lana back on. She might be hearing that for
• 1:16:12
  the first time right now. I can't remember if I told.
• 1:16:15
  Her. I'll be there.
• 1:16:17
  Say more. More.
• 1:16:18
  Yes, yes. But I but yes, she will continue
• 1:16:21
  to be a resource and a light here on our network.
• 1:16:24
  And I'm so thankful to know you and so thankful that you reached
• 1:16:28
  out to me, you know, on Adm on Instagram a couple of years ago
• 1:16:32
  and what that's created. And you just never know where
• 1:16:35
  these things are going to lead. So thanks so much ladies for
• 1:16:38
  listening and all those that are listening this week.
• 1:16:40
  You don't have to be ladies. Yes, this is for women.
• 1:16:43
  There's content applies across the board.
• 1:16:45
  Thanks so much for giving us some of your time.
• 1:16:47
  Take good care and have a great rest of your day.
• 1:16:54
  Hello, Melissa Crook here. Thank you so much for joining us
• 1:16:57
  on the field podcast today. Finding empowerment, Embracing
• 1:17:02
  Layers. I hope you found today's
• 1:17:04
  framework and resources supportive and informative.
• 1:17:08
  To learn more about all that we offer here at the Embracing
• 1:17:12
  Layers network, visit embracinglayers.com.
• 1:17:16
  You can go to our contact form to schedule me as a speaker for
• 1:17:20
  your next conference, workshop or seminar.
• 1:17:23
  You can go to our book page to order our book, The Jessica
• 1:17:27
  Garrison, our wonderful and talented writer and author
• 1:17:31
  authored with my support and engage with this framework in
• 1:17:35
  written form, with your journal or in a book club with other
• 1:17:39
  women inviting them on this journey with you.
• 1:17:42
  You can look at our resources page for all of the helpful and
• 1:17:46
  insightful resources our guests offer and share.
• 1:17:49
  You can find the schedule for our weekly Together We Feel
• 1:17:53
  Women's panel conversations that we're holding each Monday on our
• 1:17:57
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• 1:18:01
  places. You can then follow engage with
• 1:18:03
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• 1:18:08
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• 1:18:13
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• 1:18:16
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• 1:18:20
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• 1:18:23
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• 1:18:26
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• 1:18:29
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• 1:18:33
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• 1:18:37
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• 1:18:40
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• 1:18:43
  We truly appreciate you so deeply.