Latest / The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook / Healing After Pregnancy Loss: Grief, Stillbirth Awareness, and Journaling with Vallen Webb

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Healing After Pregnancy Loss: Grief, Stillbirth Awareness, and Journaling with Vallen Webb · The FEEL Podcast: Women’s Empowerment, Emotional Wellness and Self-Leadership with Melissa Crook

• 0:00
  So just, I've learned that just as human beings, we wanted, we
• 0:06
  want our pain to be witnessed by somebody.
• 0:10
  Like that is why you know, that, you know, our our ancestors and
• 0:14
  all other cultures. Like when a grown adult dies,
• 0:19
  you know, it's like some people you know, happens in funeral
• 0:22
  homes, like you have a wake or whatever it is when they get to
• 0:24
  see you, get to come spend time with you.
• 0:26
  But families in the world, other parts of the world have these
• 0:30
  have their loved ones bodies in their home for days and possibly
• 0:36
  weeks for and connection and all these things.
• 0:40
  And when a baby dies, it's like medical waste or sent to, you
• 0:46
  know, a funeral parlor. And it's like quick, quick
• 0:49
  burial, quick cremation. Like things have to happen fast.
• 0:52
  And it's so it's just we need to be seen.
• 0:56
  We need our babies, we need people to know that this has
• 1:00
  happened and that happens to so many of us.
• 1:03
  Hello, I'm Melissa Crook, your host here on the Field podcast.
• 1:07
  Good to be back here with you this week.
• 1:09
  I've got my friend Valen Webb here with me today, and Valen
• 1:12
  and I have connected in 2025. I feel like I've known her
• 1:16
  longer than that. Her journey is such a incredible
• 1:21
  example of the complexities of life and how you can take the
• 1:26
  most difficult things and make them the most resource filled
• 1:30
  opportunities. How you can learn to live in all
• 1:33
  the nuances of emotion at one time because of these life
• 1:38
  experiences. And Valen has done this in in,
• 1:42
  in such a enriching, powerful way.
• 1:48
  That's the best way to know how to describe it.
• 1:51
  She's got multiple resources that she's built out on this
• 1:54
  website with where she's created these collaborations.
• 1:57
  She has her own podcast. I had the great honor of getting
• 2:00
  to record with her a couple months ago.
• 2:03
  She's been on panels with me. And you're going to understand
• 2:07
  as I unfold her story today with her through our talking points,
• 2:10
  why? And feel so compelled to share
• 2:13
  her voice with our listeners because she's offering resources
• 2:19
  to women. Too many women go through these
• 2:22
  experiences and feel isolated and alone even this day and age,
• 2:27
  even with as many advances as we've had in medicine and
• 2:30
  technology. And we're going to get into all
• 2:32
  of that here shortly. But before doing that, Valen
• 2:36
  describes herself as resilient, joyful, courageous, funny and
• 2:42
  griefy. And we're going to get into what
• 2:45
  griefy means as we get into this.
• 2:47
  And, and the ability to hold the nuance of all of those character
• 2:51
  traits she described. Val and Webb, welcome to the
• 2:54
  field. Podcast, thanks for having me,
• 2:57
  Melissa. I love that.
• 2:58
  I love your intro and the way that you do that.
• 3:01
  Thank you so much. I'm, I'm so glad to have you
• 3:03
  here. Let's start with self-care.
• 3:06
  This is you're a busy mom. You've got a partner and a
• 3:11
  family. You're, you're doing this work,
• 3:13
  you've got your own podcast. You're in a very busy season of
• 3:16
  life. So and this is something you've
• 3:18
  had to learn through these difficult different experiences
• 3:22
  you went to. But the importance of taking
• 3:24
  care of yourself well and making that that time each day to fill
• 3:29
  your cup and and really work on yourself care.
• 3:35
  Well self-care looks different for me every single day and
• 3:40
  actually I I realized lately how much I haven't been doing it.
• 3:44
  I just had the my residency for my Graduate School last week,
• 3:51
  and we're practicing our counseling sessions, right?
• 3:54
  Yeah, counseling. And she was like, well, she's
• 3:59
  like, it sounds like, you know, you haven't been doing these
• 4:02
  things and maybe we should start practicing with intention.
• 4:05
  And I was like, it's so funny that we know how to do these
• 4:08
  things, but sometimes it just falls off and we don't even
• 4:13
  recognize. So it was just a really good
• 4:16
  reminder for me that it doesn't matter what we're doing as long
• 4:20
  as we can do it with intention. And people may see like hear
• 4:25
  that word and feel like, you know, that's like so hard.
• 4:29
  Like what does that even mean? It just means doing it on
• 4:32
  purpose, doing it on purpose for yourself.
• 4:36
  You know, it's so easy. Like I'll just go through the
• 4:38
  drive through or somewhere and grab coffee, but there's no
• 4:41
  intention. And so it's not special for me
• 4:44
  and it doesn't bring me. Yeah.
• 4:47
  So she reminded me just by using that word.
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  And and even though I know that the intention of what we do is
• 4:54
  more important than what we're doing, it makes me realize it
• 4:57
  wasn't doing that. So self-care lately, it's just
• 5:02
  it. It's just honestly doing the
• 5:04
  things that I do normally, like showering and brushing my hair
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  and. Just.
• 5:13
  Just taking a few minutes to myself or even working because I
• 5:16
  enjoy it so much. Like it just feels special when
• 5:19
  I do it. But the extension behind it, so
• 5:22
  like it's, you know, it's just thinking to myself like, no, I
• 5:27
  need to brush my hair, my beautiful hair.
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  I love my hair. And I've been wanting to do it
• 5:31
  this way. I've been wanting to take care
• 5:33
  of it and stop wearing it in my mom bun, which I've been wearing
• 5:36
  since I was probably like 8 years old when I, you know,
• 5:39
  started playing basketball. My hair has been up and I'm
• 5:45
  really in this place where I'm like, no, I like the me that
• 5:48
  I'm, I'm working towards. Like I, I'm, I'm trying to build
• 5:53
  is like, I want my hair down and I want it to be pretty and I
• 5:56
  don't want it to be like broken, you know, from all the elastics
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  behind brushing my hair and actually doing my hair everyday
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  has been important for me. It makes me feel so much better.
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  There was like a Dec. There's a 10 year span where I
• 6:13
  stopped doing even brushing. It's easy just to throw it up
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  days on end, like 3-4 days in a row just throwing it up,
• 6:20
  throwing some dry shampoo in there.
• 6:22
  Right. Sorry.
• 6:24
  This isn't all about hair, but the intention behind it.
• 6:27
  Yeah. Yeah.
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  So like when I'm doing a podcast episode or if I'm creating
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  something, I'm like, OK, I really want this.
• 6:36
  I really want this to hit for the women who need it.
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  I really love to feel supportive for anybody who listens to it.
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  So just setting an intention and whatever I do and that makes it
• 6:48
  special and that makes it feel like there's a purpose there.
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  So self-care for me lately is less of what I do and more of
• 6:57
  how I'm doing it in the yeah. I love that.
• 7:01
  I think that's such a great scope to look at it with because
• 7:06
  our self-care can start feeling a lot like a checklist if we
• 7:10
  stop approaching it with intention.
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  And it's just another thing to check off the list.
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  And so you check off the list and I'm a big list checking up
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  the list band like, Oh yeah, I did it.
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  Yeah, I did it. But did I get anything?
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  And for years that my self-care was definitely, oh, I went for
• 7:24
  my run today. Check.
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  Yeah. But what did I get out of my run
• 7:27
  today? Was my head just scrambling the
• 7:29
  whole time? Or did I take in the scenery
• 7:31
  around me? Did I stop to breathe in the
• 7:33
  fresh air more? So you know, or was I just
• 7:36
  rehearsing my next to do thing in my head?
• 7:39
  So it's yeah, just that stopping and pausing and taking a moment.
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  I have to laugh. I think the dry shampoo was the
• 7:46
  best and worst thing that has happened because it can be so
• 7:51
  like my daughter, my oldest daughter discovered it when she
• 7:54
  was in college. She was a college athlete, so it
• 7:56
  and she's very long hair. And so it became like, Oh my
• 8:01
  gosh, it's the best thing ever. She used to summon high school
• 8:04
  really hitting college. But then it was also this
• 8:06
  realization of like, I still have to wash my hair sometimes.
• 8:09
  Like I. Hate those little things and
• 8:13
  sometimes we need them and there's sometimes it's
• 8:15
  important, but we lose sight. Of.
• 8:18
  These simple things that are part of who we are that I, I
• 8:22
  can, I've had more people throughout my life tell me, Oh
• 8:26
  my gosh, you can do and we're again, we're not making this
• 8:30
  about hair, but. It.
• 8:31
  For my you have the best hair. It will do anything, whatever.
• 8:34
  And I'm like, I do have the best hair.
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  I need to like honor that and wear it in a way that is like,
• 8:42
  yeah, I am fortunate that way. My hair will pretty much curl
• 8:46
  and adapt. And do you have enough of it?
• 8:48
  But not too much. So I get it's like just pausing
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  and just sometimes take somebody to remind you of.
• 8:55
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:56
  I think that's so. It's so easy to get caught up in
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  all that checklist. Thank you so much for sharing
• 9:00
  that. I love that scope on self-care,
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  and this goes nicely into setting healthy boundaries in
• 9:06
  that in terms of making the time and space for those things that
• 9:11
  you need. I mean, you and I had a
• 9:12
  conversation back and forth where you needed to move your
• 9:15
  time of recording with me because it just wasn't going to
• 9:18
  fit, you know, with the time your kiddos might wake up and
• 9:22
  coming and going and not having your husband home yet.
• 9:25
  It's like, OK, we need to ship this so Valen can show up in a
• 9:29
  way that feels honoring to her, that she can really sit down and
• 9:33
  present. Because it's that sitting down
• 9:35
  and being present and doing these things that we enjoy,
• 9:38
  whether it's creating the way we do or just so simple, basic
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  things we do when we look in the mirror and are excited about
• 9:45
  them. But yeah, I love that so much.
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  Talk to me about how you, I mean, you are so busy.
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  So tell me, what guides what guides your boundaries?
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  Well, me, yeah, yeah, when I'm when I'm paying attention.
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  But honestly, it depends. It depends on what kind of day
• 10:13
  it is. I mean, I let me think about
• 10:17
  boundaries for a second. How do I want to come out this?
• 10:20
  Come out this Lately we've been in a transition, so things are
• 10:27
  changing. I'm trying to learn what, you
• 10:32
  know, what our new schedules are and what kind of boundaries we
• 10:35
  have to set around that this, this point in our life.
• 10:42
  Financially, things have changed.
• 10:44
  So we had to take a step back from like, you know, letting you
• 10:48
  know one of our kids do like travel, basketball and things
• 10:51
  because it's it, it's a cost, right?
• 10:54
  But also, even though we made that decision financially, we
• 11:01
  realized that our kids don't always have to do everything.
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  And then it's actually a disservice like for our family
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  as a unit when we are constantly on the go and don't have any
• 11:17
  time together because, I mean, I have four children.
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  So, you know, some days it's like one of our kids has to go
• 11:25
  to stays after school, does basketball practice.
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  And if she was, you know, playing travel, she'd go right
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  to her next practice. And my other child plays piano.
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  And so like, we're splitting off every day after my husband would
• 11:39
  get now get home from work. Yeah.
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  And we're not getting home till like, 7:00 at night.
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  And we have a 2 year old and a five year old.
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  So boundaries this, this season of life, It was like, we have to
• 11:51
  let go of some things. Yeah.
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  And actually, I just did that a couple days ago, 2 days ago
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  yesterday, I had a bit of a mental breakdown.
• 11:59
  Truly, yeah, I think it was a it was, it was like I couldn't
• 12:03
  function yesterday and I realized like one, I'm not
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  resting 2. I just got off that long, the
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  four day residency of like counseling and it's a lot and
• 12:19
  plus everything. So, you know, Graduate School,
• 12:21
  podcasts, online business, husbands working for kids,
• 12:25
  They're like, it's just a lot. And so I've had to, like, let
• 12:29
  go. I'd let go of a volunteer
• 12:30
  position a couple days ago for PSI and what else?
• 12:36
  I put one of my, you know, my contractors on pause because I
• 12:42
  just don't even have it in me to delegate my social media needs.
• 12:47
  Like, I don't have it in me. And so I've been forcing.
• 12:53
  Yeah, the season where I've been trying to force things because I
• 12:57
  want them to be a certain way. I'm very patient and I see the
• 13:01
  vision and I have the vision and I'm trying to hold the vision
• 13:04
  and things aren't moving and I'm like, F it.
• 13:08
  Like maybe I'm just going to quit everything.
• 13:10
  Like, yes, Sir. I'm like, I don't even know why
• 13:12
  we try like what, you know, what's the point?
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  You know, I was like having this existential crisis, but so
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  boundaries, boundaries right now is letting things go that are
• 13:25
  not supporting our goals as a family right now.
• 13:31
  We are just really focused. We we like with the way things
• 13:36
  are right now in the world and you know, just thinking about
• 13:40
  our futures for our children, spending time with them is like
• 13:45
  the most important thing. Like, you know, I've I've there
• 13:48
  was something I read or listen to that was like the first ten
• 13:51
  years of their life or 18 years of their life.
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  You've spent like 75% of the time that you'll ever spend with
• 13:59
  them. Like it was like a really weird,
• 14:02
  like, I wish I could, I'm, I'm slaughtering this right now.
• 14:05
  But a majority of the time we spend with our kids isn't that
• 14:08
  first 18 years. And that's so and that, you
• 14:14
  know, it just says I get older, it hits me probably, you know,
• 14:16
  'cause I'm getting older. So our, you know, we're, we're
• 14:19
  really focused on making sure that we're together more often
• 14:24
  and distracted by all these things.
• 14:26
  And our kids aren't being, you know, pushed to go do a million
• 14:29
  things cause kids are getting raped.
• 14:31
  They do. So that's kind of where I'm at
• 14:33
  right now for boundaries, yeah. That's so good.
• 14:36
  Thank you so much for sharing that.
• 14:38
  I will. Look, I mean, I've got three
• 14:40
  grown daughters now and I can, I can really relate to that.
• 14:44
  That time you spend with them, they're all over.
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  I've got them in multiple States and in multiple places.
• 14:50
  And one of them is going to be moving in the spring.
• 14:53
  So she's only going to be two hour and a half hours away from
• 14:55
  us. And I'm elated because it's the
• 14:58
  closest we've had one living to, you know, to us.
• 15:02
  And we've lived all over the country.
• 15:03
  We're not your typical family who has a home base.
• 15:06
  That everybody can come back to. We've lived everywhere.
• 15:09
  And so, which has been great. It's been a great adventure.
• 15:11
  And it's part of the reason our kids are all over, because
• 15:13
  they've embraced out as well. But also, yeah, that time.
• 15:15
  But I was fiercely protective of Thanksgiving break.
• 15:19
  And our kids played AAU basketball, club volleyball,
• 15:25
  soccer, took piano lessons. One was in theater and school.
• 15:30
  I mean, I fight, I look back now and I'm like, I think we had
• 15:34
  them in too many things and I would do, I'd do some of that
• 15:36
  over again. But the one thing I did get
• 15:39
  right and I, I fought for it. You don't get Thanksgiving
• 15:42
  break, no basketball tournament, no volleyball practice, nothing.
• 15:47
  You don't get we and I, we had one AU coached.
• 15:50
  It was, he coached two of our three girls teams at one point.
• 15:54
  He coached all three of them. He was great, wonderful guy,
• 15:56
  still friends with him to this day and but he I was always
• 16:01
  there was a Turkey trap tournament and he's always
• 16:03
  wanting to put like you guys can go, that's fine, you can be in
• 16:07
  it, but my kiddos not going to be there and my husband was the
• 16:10
  assistant coach and I'm like, I am not giving that up.
• 16:13
  We give them so much already. No, and our kids always looked
• 16:17
  forward to it. The other thing I protected was
• 16:21
  the first three weeks of August, no camps, no summer league, this
• 16:25
  that or the other three weeks of summer, no schedules, no
• 16:30
  bedtimes, nothing. And it's not very much, but boy,
• 16:34
  but it felt like, I mean, we would like, Oh my gosh, it's
• 16:37
  coming and I mean it. And it was like, and usually we
• 16:41
  left like, oh, we wish we had a little more of this.
• 16:44
  But you have to communicate those boundaries and be very
• 16:47
  clear with them because they people will continue to push
• 16:50
  back on those. And you have to fight for that
• 16:53
  because that time is special and it doesn't last forever.
• 16:57
  So I just wanted to add on to that.
• 16:59
  I hear you and boy, yeah, so important.
• 17:03
  I love that you did that. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:06
  I was just like, no, no, because we decorate for Christmas the
• 17:10
  day after Thanksgiving. At that point in life, in that
• 17:13
  season, we were hosting Thanksgiving most of the time.
• 17:16
  And so I, no, you don't get that weekend.
• 17:19
  I do not. I don't want to go anywhere.
• 17:21
  I don't want them to have to go anywhere.
• 17:23
  No. So yeah, I think it's so
• 17:27
  important that we need to get very clear on those values.
• 17:30
  And you're going to, like I said, you're going to get
• 17:32
  pushback, but you have to just know that it's temporary.
• 17:36
  And the things that we thought were such a big deal for our
• 17:39
  kids to be in and this now it's like that was just really so
• 17:43
  nothing Like I cannot believe how excited or irritated or
• 17:49
  turned up I would get about some of these things.
• 17:52
  So yeah, be protect that with all your good for you.
• 17:56
  Keep doing that. The next part we're going to
• 18:00
  talk about, and this really comes off of what you're doing
• 18:02
  right now and the boundaries you're setting and the clarity
• 18:04
  you're having. You realized yesterday you had
• 18:07
  like this, you hit the wall, your mental, emotional, fiscal
• 18:13
  health are all impacted by these decisions you make when you're
• 18:18
  overtapped or you know, I I'm can be guilty of chasing things
• 18:25
  like I have a vision. I want everybody to get it and I
• 18:28
  want it now. I'm I can totally relate to your
• 18:31
  impatience. And so I will start chasing and
• 18:34
  I can feel it when I'm chasing because I'm also very
• 18:38
  competitive. And so I, and I'm in, I'm in a
• 18:42
  season right now where I've created all this stuff and I so
• 18:46
  desperately want people to know the value of it and how it can
• 18:50
  help in and get it in their hands and start bringing in some
• 18:53
  resources and bringing in some income.
• 18:55
  But I also, you can't chase those things.
• 18:58
  And I, I was in a webinar today that reminded me about that.
• 19:01
  But in the meantime, it doesn't number when you're trying to
• 19:04
  balance all of it. It can do a number on your
• 19:07
  mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health.
• 19:10
  You hit that wall yesterday, you responded to it.
• 19:13
  How long is it taking you to? It's like I used to hit those
• 19:16
  walls and I would just get up and keep going.
• 19:18
  I missed, I missed the the morning until farther down the
• 19:24
  road. Do you feel like you're you
• 19:26
  sense it more now than you used? To I feel like all my answers
• 19:33
  are going to be like, it depends.
• 19:34
  Yeah. It's it's so weird.
• 19:37
  Like typically when I, when I have when something like that
• 19:41
  happens, it's because of grief, because of my daughter.
• 19:47
  Yesterday was just weird. Like I woke up in this hopeless
• 19:53
  state. Like, it was like depressed,
• 19:56
  like a deep depression. And I can't believe that I'm
• 20:01
  feeling better now. I'm pressing all this.
• 20:07
  It literally it would take me months to get out of the hole.
• 20:12
  Like, yes, it was. It was so bad.
• 20:15
  Like my my 11 year old came home from school.
• 20:17
  I'm like, you need to sit with your brothers right now.
• 20:19
  I have to go upstairs. Like I was crying all day.
• 20:22
  Yeah, like, like just I everything felt hopeless.
• 20:28
  Like I have to think it's ever gonna get better.
• 20:31
  And I'm not sure where it came from.
• 20:33
  It came out of nowhere to me. Yeah, typically I can pinpoint
• 20:37
  like sure, this thing or whatever, but yeah, this for me,
• 20:44
  I don't know. Well, and I think when you get
• 20:47
  tired and over ran you, you become more vulnerable to those
• 20:51
  things. And grief is a tricky sister.
• 20:54
  She will show up unexpectedly without knocking on the door and
• 20:59
  also needs to be acknowledged and felt and given the attention
• 21:03
  she needs at which I mean, you had.
• 21:07
  And this really goes to where your work comes in.
• 21:10
  And I'm curious too, how doing the work you do, how much that
• 21:14
  plays a role in the grief coming and going.
• 21:17
  Because when? And I'll let you tell the story
• 21:21
  because you, you do have four children now, but you've lost a
• 21:25
  baby during delivery and no one's prepared for that.
• 21:31
  No one goes into having a baby thinking about those
• 21:37
  consequences. And consequently it over the
• 21:41
  years there hasn't been a lot of we went through some very good
• 21:46
  friends of ours. It's been 12 or 13 years ago
• 21:49
  now. And I and you and I have talked
• 21:51
  about this where they had a stillborn baby and the lack of
• 21:56
  prepared. She's a nurse at the this
• 21:58
  hospital where this happened. Like so she knows the people
• 22:01
  there. She knows what's available
• 22:03
  there. But what they were left to
• 22:04
  figure out on their own when this was over, You know, for all
• 22:11
  the logistical pieces 2 weeks later.
• 22:14
  Holy cow. So talk to me about your journey
• 22:20
  and how you know this is such a huge part of your mental,
• 22:23
  emotional, physical health, but also birthed, for lack of a
• 22:27
  better ironically word, this whole level of beautiful,
• 22:33
  resource filled work you do for women and families now.
• 22:41
  It's a lot and the first thing you asked was how my work
• 22:47
  effects how I experienced my grief and how it comes out.
• 22:52
  Just to answer that, it's one of the reasons I only do like my
• 22:58
  training 4 * a year, like in emotionally taxing and I need
• 23:04
  weeks to recover from that. And it does, it does trigger the
• 23:11
  grief and it and it, it happens differently every single time.
• 23:15
  And it you know, it can be the same story, it can be different
• 23:19
  story. It can just be like thinking
• 23:21
  about it, like all over the map, truly.
• 23:26
  And so, yeah, losing my daughter Evelyn, you know, went in to
• 23:30
  have her. We found out she was, she was,
• 23:33
  she died. And just going through all of
• 23:36
  that. Bree, tell me the question
• 23:43
  again. How that has, you know, when
• 23:46
  you're now using what you've learned and all the training you
• 23:49
  said to help other people navigate this space.
• 23:53
  How does that impact because sometimes you have these
• 23:56
  experiences and you and you go through the healing and it's
• 23:59
  always with you, but you're not working in this space all the
• 24:01
  time. You go on and work in other
• 24:03
  areas where as you are talking to and in contact with moms and
• 24:08
  women and families on a continual basis.
• 24:11
  So do you think that so I'm I'm how you navigate have filling
• 24:16
  your cup enough that the because that's an emotional labor.
• 24:22
  And so how that has, it's both helped you, but it's also I
• 24:26
  would think maybe sometimes can be a challenge or or have you
• 24:29
  figured out a way to navigate So it's not as much.
• 24:34
  Yeah. OK.
• 24:35
  All right. I think I got it.
• 24:39
  It's funny. Grief is funny, and it's
• 24:42
  terribly not funny. Yeah, honestly, I after, right
• 24:48
  after Evelyn died, I started a journal and I literally, that's
• 24:54
  probably one of the only things that made me feel better in the
• 25:00
  early days. And I mean, it's, it's right
• 25:02
  here. I literally just, you know, look
• 25:04
  at it and I, I know what it is, but the only thing that I could
• 25:11
  think to do is help somebody else.
• 25:13
  Like, that's the only thing that I could think about that would
• 25:16
  make me feel better. Yeah.
• 25:19
  Make it feel less hurt, painful, I guess.
• 25:25
  And so immediately, like pretty immediately after she died, I
• 25:30
  actually just taken my, you know, postpartum training like a
• 25:34
  few months before. Oh wow, that's.
• 25:37
  The type of work that I had wanted to be in anyways.
• 25:40
  So this was so once she died, I like just was like, I'm just
• 25:45
  going to start doing this. And I also then started talking
• 25:51
  to hospitals locally and was just like, hey, you know, I lost
• 25:55
  my daughter and I want to help other families who are, you
• 25:58
  know, going through this. And so I got my first call to
• 26:03
  come support a family not not long after a few months out
• 26:08
  maybe Evelyn died. And, you know, I just went and
• 26:12
  sat in the room with them, watched, you know, all these
• 26:16
  meaning making rituals and, you know, prayers and, you know,
• 26:21
  it's their worst day, you know, and the people who come and
• 26:26
  visit and are in and out, it's like a normal day every other
• 26:30
  day. And these families, they're just
• 26:32
  sitting in this time bubble, you know, it feels like it's moving.
• 26:38
  And so just being with them and being able to sit with them has
• 26:41
  helped me tremendously. I also found that, you know,
• 26:48
  kind of like you were saying, we don't talk about this as loudly
• 26:52
  as we should. I often relate it to SIDS
• 26:57
  because we've all heard about SIDS and it is way lower than
• 27:03
  the babies were lost from stillbirth.
• 27:05
  Oh wow. And it's also stillbirth is also
• 27:09
  it's the leading cause of baby death in the US.
• 27:15
  So even children who have, you know, get diagnosed with cancer
• 27:19
  and things like that. I think there's like around
• 27:22
  roughly 3400 kids a year who die from like a, a cancer child
• 27:27
  related disease. It's 2000 babies a year die in
• 27:31
  the US alone from stools. So it's, it's one of those
• 27:36
  things where I'm, I don't understand it and the only
• 27:40
  thing, the only way I can make sense of why it's not talked
• 27:43
  about is because when babies and not that any of these babies
• 27:47
  don't matter sounds right. Anybody who feels a certain way
• 27:51
  but me trying to make sense of this as a mom.
• 27:55
  Babies who die from SIDS are older.
• 27:57
  They're born. They're already here.
• 27:59
  They've already helped. And the babies who die at birth
• 28:03
  or in the womb are not considered babies, right?
• 28:07
  They're not whole little people. They're, you know, they weren't
• 28:10
  ever out in the world and alive, so they don't count.
• 28:13
  That's how it feels, yeah. Just from just from everything
• 28:19
  that I've learned and everything that I do, kind of how it feels
• 28:23
  as a lost mom, like the ladies don't matter as much as these
• 28:27
  other babies because they were older, that type of thing.
• 28:30
  And that doesn't mean that that's.
• 28:32
  Correct. Or that right that I'm making
• 28:34
  from everything that I know and that I but so just, I've learned
• 28:41
  that and just as human beings, we want to, we want our pain to
• 28:46
  be witnessed by somebody like that is why you know, that, you
• 28:51
  know, our our ancestors and all other cultures.
• 28:54
  Like when a grown adult dies, you know, it's like some people
• 29:00
  you know, happen to the funeral homes, like you have a wake or
• 29:02
  whatever it is when they get to see you, get to come spend time
• 29:05
  with you. But families in the world, other
• 29:08
  parts of the world have these have their loved ones bodies in
• 29:11
  their home for days and possibly weeks for and connection and all
• 29:18
  these things. And when a baby dies, it's like
• 29:22
  medical waste or sent to, you know, a funeral parlor and it's
• 29:26
  like quick, quick burial, quick cremation.
• 29:29
  Like things have to happen fast. And it's so it's just we need to
• 29:34
  be seen. We need our babies, need people
• 29:37
  to know that this has happened and that it happens to so many
• 29:41
  of us. Yes.
• 29:43
  And statistics that you see one in four women will experience
• 29:50
  pregnancy loss, but that's only of known pregnancies who don't
• 29:55
  know they're pregnant and have miscarried.
• 29:57
  You know, people who don't go to medical facilities because
• 30:00
  they're not safe for them. But you know, it doesn't have
• 30:03
  count all these other numbers and we know that they're higher.
• 30:07
  So if you look around your group of friends, guaranteed somebody,
• 30:12
  you know, has gone through this, even if you don't know it, it's
• 30:16
  prevalent. It's every.
• 30:17
  Yeah, yeah. So I just, you know, I, it's
• 30:24
  really hard to be in brief work. It's very to witness other
• 30:29
  people's pain all the time, especially when it's like, you
• 30:32
  know, you become, you know, in all these Facebook groups and
• 30:37
  everybody shares their pictures of their babies, which are
• 30:40
  lovely, beautiful. And I love them all.
• 30:42
  And I just want to, you know, message on all of them.
• 30:44
  But it's like there comes a point every year where I'm like,
• 30:48
  that's all I'm seeing. Yeah.
• 30:51
  Babies that have gone too soon. Yeah.
• 30:54
  And I have to like unfollow or like mute for 30 days or
• 30:57
  whatever. Sure.
• 30:59
  Because it gets to a point like, just I can't do this.
• 31:03
  Yeah, like, just cry in every, you know, every picture, every,
• 31:07
  every story that's shared. It compounds and it just becomes
• 31:12
  much. So I have to like, again,
• 31:15
  boundaries. I have boundaries for myself.
• 31:18
  I have to get off social media typically.
• 31:21
  Like Evelyn's birthday is in July so I know the entire month
• 31:26
  of July is shot for me. My body starts feeling it before
• 31:31
  my brain even remembers. So like the the last half of
• 31:36
  June even like I just I feel different.
• 31:39
  My body feels heavy. It just I start feeling sad and
• 31:43
  I'm like what is going on? Like I got all the vitamin DI
• 31:47
  need. Like I know that I'm just
• 31:49
  perfectly happy right now. Like, and I don't think of it
• 31:53
  until like, I'm like, wait, tomorrow's July.
• 31:56
  That's fine, OK. You know, that that body, the
• 32:01
  mind body connection cause grief attaches to our bodies.
• 32:08
  It's physically, I don't want to say hearts or hurts or harms,
• 32:14
  but it impacts our bodies significantly.
• 32:18
  Yeah. So, yeah, I hope that answered
• 32:22
  your question. I'm like that.
• 32:24
  Well, I think you brought up something important.
• 32:25
  You know, when you've got a, a kind of a, a tap out point where
• 32:30
  it's like, Nope, I got to take a break.
• 32:32
  Now I, I've taken in all I can take in and for my own health
• 32:36
  and well-being and my ability to show up healthy and well in
• 32:39
  these different spaces, not just in this work for my own family,
• 32:43
  for my own self and for my, you know, friends, other things that
• 32:46
  bring me joy. I've got to do that.
• 32:48
  I think that's such an important piece.
• 32:49
  So thank you so much for sharing that.
• 32:51
  I, I thank you so much for bringing up this is another one
• 32:54
  of those stigmas. And I think what can be so
• 32:57
  difficult is as the woman who's carrying the baby, you still
• 33:02
  carry that life. That life was very much alive in
• 33:06
  you. You were very much aware.
• 33:08
  You've heard the heartbeat, you felt the kick you you know,
• 33:12
  depending on how far along you got in the whole process, your
• 33:16
  body still processes and moves through hormones wise as if you
• 33:22
  gave birth to a live baby. So your body carried attached to
• 33:27
  created a connection with and I think that's something that's
• 33:31
  only a woman who's gone through that can fully understand with
• 33:35
  other women. And so this idea, this, I, I
• 33:40
  think this inappropriate way we treat that life versus the life
• 33:47
  of a baby that's born. And you see the smile and the
• 33:50
  personality and they, and they, you know, Googling and giggling
• 33:54
  and all those things. And every loss is tragic.
• 33:57
  But let's make sure we're allowing space and safety for
• 34:02
  all the grief, for all the different kinds of losses to be
• 34:05
  felt and seen and and honored in the ways that need to be and not
• 34:13
  elevate one as being more qualifiable than another.
• 34:20
  I was trying to take a think of the right word.
• 34:22
  I think that's such an important piece of this.
• 34:24
  And this is, you know so much where your work comes in.
• 34:26
  You have a podcast, you have this beautiful website.
• 34:30
  You have so many resources. I'm going to read from your
• 34:32
  website. I think this really does a great
• 34:35
  job. It doesn't.
• 34:36
  You got to go check out the website people.
• 34:38
  But this, this, this statement really brings it all together
• 34:43
  for me. We're creating a new standard of
• 34:45
  care for pregnancy and infant loss, one that extends beyond
• 34:50
  the hospital through our new pilot program.
• 34:53
  Using evidence based training, education and family support,
• 34:57
  Evelyn James and Company is building continuity of care for
• 35:02
  grieving families from hospital to home and through the first
• 35:07
  years after loss. Our program equips.
• 35:10
  Hospitals, doulas and professionals to work together
• 35:14
  through a comprehensive support model that ensures no family
• 35:19
  faces life after loss alone. I mean, that so beautifully
• 35:25
  encapsulates what you do and all that's there and the love and
• 35:30
  intention that has gone into this.
• 35:32
  And to me, this is just such a prime example of how you show up
• 35:37
  unapologetically for yourself and for others, and how you've
• 35:41
  taken this experience and allowed it to allow you to
• 35:45
  stretch and reach into all these people's lives and make a
• 35:48
  difference for them and create these collaborations and in
• 35:53
  connections. And so one thank you for for how
• 35:57
  you show up in the world. You know how much I I admire
• 36:00
  you. I've talked, I've talked to you
• 36:02
  about this all the time because this isn't just something just
• 36:05
  anyone can do. And so was that time that you
• 36:11
  got called a couple of months after you lost of Linda to be a
• 36:15
  resource to this family. Was that kind of where this
• 36:17
  whole idea of what was possible was birthed out of in terms of
• 36:22
  Evelyn and James and then also you or Evelyn James and company?
• 36:27
  Sorry, I said that wrong. Also, through the podcast,
• 36:30
  you're creating safe places to come to have these conversations
• 36:34
  where both ideas kind of birth at the same time.
• 36:36
  Or did one kind of come before the other?
• 36:41
  She has such good questions and it makes me think myself like
• 36:45
  have I have I have I have I thought about this.
• 36:47
  But yeah, the experience with that first family, I just I
• 36:54
  realized like that was that was that was the one of the moments
• 36:58
  where I was like my training that I just took for postpartum,
• 37:02
  right, for postpartum doula, the workshop, we had maybe a twenty
• 37:07
  3030 minute talk about bereavement.
• 37:11
  OK, It was literally we watched maybe a video like a family that
• 37:16
  discussed their experience and you know, the grandparents and
• 37:21
  things like that. But it and this was months
• 37:24
  before I experienced my own. So I didn't think anything of
• 37:28
  it, right? It wouldn't have been a big deal
• 37:30
  to me if Evelyn would be here, right?
• 37:31
  I wouldn't give AI wouldn't care about the fact that there wasn't
• 37:35
  a really a bereavement module. But I was like, I wasn't even
• 37:39
  trained for this. And there were just points in my
• 37:42
  story, you know, like just the nurses.
• 37:46
  You got really great nurses and then you have nurses who have no
• 37:49
  idea what to do. You know, they don't know that
• 37:54
  they should be looking you in the eye.
• 37:55
  They should, they should be making eye contact and just
• 37:58
  letting you that they're there And they instead of avoiding you
• 38:00
  and like, you know, moving about the room like you're not there
• 38:03
  or like not looking at the baby. And so just all these things,
• 38:08
  especially with that, that first that experience, I was like, I
• 38:13
  just, I, I love like teaching this.
• 38:19
  And I didn't know that obviously before I started the training,
• 38:22
  something like I need to create my own training and I want to
• 38:26
  take other people's trainings and then do my own.
• 38:29
  I was like, sure, I want to create this, like completely on
• 38:33
  my own because I also didn't know that there was many people
• 38:36
  who did it. I knew, like two or three people
• 38:38
  have these types of trainings. OK.
• 38:41
  But they also didn't feel right for me.
• 38:44
  Right. So, you know, I didn't, I didn't
• 38:46
  connect with the copy that was used, you know, their landing
• 38:50
  pages or I just didn't. It didn't feel like me.
• 38:54
  Yeah. And I think I have a very
• 38:56
  special way of training and it's just, it's not anything that I
• 39:00
  teach. It's me.
• 39:05
  It's taken me a lot of time to, you know, allow myself to even
• 39:11
  acknowledge that I'm good at something and to, to say it out
• 39:16
  loud. So that's very hard to do.
• 39:19
  But so I, I was like, no, I'm going to create my own training.
• 39:23
  And it took me a year, you know, from, you know, creating an
• 39:27
  outline. And this is like, at this point
• 39:29
  2022, like AI was not a thing, you know, I, I didn't have that
• 39:35
  to utilize. So I'm just here like, what,
• 39:37
  what, what, what do I need to know?
• 39:39
  Like, what did I have? And so I started outlining it
• 39:43
  and, you know, I had to do a bunch of research and get like
• 39:45
  the actual peer reviewed articles and all this stuff and
• 39:49
  make sure that it could be called evidence based, right?
• 39:53
  Then I was reading books, you know, all these books on grief
• 39:56
  and trying to figure this out. And then I launched it.
• 40:01
  We've trained almost 100 doulas and therapists and nurses.
• 40:05
  So I'm very proud of. And so yeah, that whole
• 40:12
  experience. And then the podcast.
• 40:16
  I mean, honestly, I started becoming obsessed with podcasts
• 40:20
  probably. When did I launch my podcast?
• 40:24
  2023? No, Oh my God.
• 40:29
  My 3rd year. So October 22nd was my third
• 40:34
  year. OK 2022, October 22.
• 40:39
  Oh my God. Well, I started my training the
• 40:43
  year before in 2021. Sorry.
• 40:45
  Yeah. But yeah, I, I was listening to
• 40:47
  like Jenna Kutcher's podcast right here podcast.
• 40:49
  And who else was I listening to at that time?
• 40:56
  There was a few of them, but I was like, I love this.
• 41:01
  And I'm like, OK, let's just do this.
• 41:03
  And so it's called the Pregnancy Loss Motherhood Podcast.
• 41:07
  I've changed it a few times because I'm like, I want to talk
• 41:09
  about these other things too. But then I'm like, I changed it
• 41:12
  and I'm like, Nope, got to go back.
• 41:14
  I did that about three times. I'm staying with this one.
• 41:17
  Yeah, it's besides the pregnancy loss part.
• 41:21
  Motherhood is broad and I can talk about and all these things
• 41:25
  and personal development that I just love.
• 41:27
  Yeah. So I just, yeah, I'm like I and
• 41:31
  again, there were a few other podcasts out at the time, but
• 41:34
  nothing that I liked. Yeah.
• 41:36
  Nothing that spoke to me. Yeah.
• 41:39
  And I I would start things in the 1st place, right.
• 41:41
  We absolutely, that resonates with us and know that there are
• 41:46
  people who probably feel the same.
• 41:49
  So yeah, that's how, yeah. Well, and I, I love how you,
• 41:54
  you've spoken to several things. Your why and values are so
• 41:58
  intertwined. The expanders you've set for
• 42:00
  your family time, the decision to go into this work and create
• 42:04
  these offerings, the ability to know when you're tapped out and
• 42:07
  you need to take a break. All of these, your value and why
• 42:10
  are just so intertwined. Have you always had a strong
• 42:14
  concept of your values and why behind the things you approach
• 42:19
  or did this over the just having a sometimes having a family and
• 42:22
  having like this is the thing I need to do kind of helps round
• 42:26
  that out. So talk to me about the kind of
• 42:29
  the growth and development of your values and why and
• 42:31
  continuing to honor those. Yeah, honestly, the first part
• 42:36
  of my life, I was a mess that I had no idea what values were.
• 42:40
  I would consider myself a good person, you know, values wise,
• 42:45
  but I didn't grow up in a, in a values driven home.
• 42:49
  I grew up in a chaotic, volatile home and I didn't have good role
• 42:55
  models. So honestly, my journey started
• 42:59
  in 2016 when my husband left on his first deployment with the
• 43:03
  Navy. I was alone.
• 43:05
  We had just moved two months earlier to Washington state, and
• 43:10
  I had two little girls under 2 and I was alone and I, I felt
• 43:17
  like I wanted to die, like I, I didn't know what to do.
• 43:22
  We did not have, you know, strong family support, like my
• 43:27
  dad came to visit, you know, and he would he would, you know, sit
• 43:30
  with the girls, like go take a shower and things like that.
• 43:33
  But other than that, we've done pretty much every fucking thing
• 43:37
  alone. Sorry, no, you are just flying
• 43:41
  here. So I just I found this book.
• 43:47
  I don't know, probably in my drawer.
• 43:50
  I keep it by me, but it's You are a Bad Ass by by Jennifer.
• 43:58
  And it's the first personal development book that I ever
• 44:00
  picked up. And I picked it up as it swore
• 44:03
  in the title and it was bright yellow.
• 44:05
  And I was like, you know what? I have to do something.
• 44:08
  I'm just pressed and reading that book changed my life.
• 44:15
  Like she, she just has a way of like, wake the fuck up.
• 44:19
  Like you. Like it's the first time that I
• 44:22
  realized that I had to take responsibility for everything in
• 44:25
  my life, even if it was not my fault, even if I didn't do those
• 44:31
  things that made me the way that I was.
• 44:33
  Sure. I had a very deep, deep.
• 44:39
  I still do, you know, wounding, like you could call it the
• 44:44
  mother wound or I, I guess I don't know how to explain.
• 44:50
  It was just, I'm just wounded. And I was in a victimality
• 44:54
  because, you know, everybody I knew had these great families or
• 44:58
  it seemed like they had a great family and a great life with all
• 45:01
  these things and they could get what they wanted.
• 45:03
  And we just sucked like nothing would get better.
• 45:07
  This is where I was. Yeah.
• 45:09
  Yeah, it scared me. You know, it's like all this
• 45:14
  work, decade of work, and this is where we're going back to
• 45:17
  Valen. But that was like my
• 45:20
  introduction into personal development.
• 45:22
  And from there, literally I've, I've read probably well over
• 45:26
  like 100 personal development book books.
• 45:30
  You know, I have like, it's so funny.
• 45:31
  Like I was looking at my podcast thing the other day and it told
• 45:34
  me how many hours that I've listened to podcasts and was
• 45:38
  like 146 hours of podcasting that I've listened to.
• 45:43
  And that's not all of it because I've used different, you know, I
• 45:48
  am obsessed with it, but I also know it can be.
• 45:52
  It can if, if you're not in a place to hear a message, you
• 45:58
  know, that you're reading or that you're listening to.
• 46:01
  Yeah. And you take it to heart.
• 46:03
  And, you know, for me, it's those things.
• 46:05
  It's like you can, you know, you can quit your nine to five in
• 46:10
  like 3 months, you know, just quit and you'll, you'll figure
• 46:14
  it out. Like they make it seem so easy.
• 46:17
  Yeah, yeah. They don't talk about the
• 46:19
  mortgage that needs to be paid and the amounts that need to be
• 46:21
  fed. And, yeah, all the things that
• 46:23
  go with that, yeah. But what we don't know is that,
• 46:26
  you know, the amount of privilege that they already
• 46:28
  have. Sure, right.
• 46:30
  And so we're comparing ourselves to these people who do have a
• 46:34
  support system, who did grow up with money or who grew up with
• 46:38
  financial literacy already and already had great jobs like.
• 46:41
  Yeah. There's so much comparing that
• 46:44
  goes into it, and we can start feeling really bad.
• 46:46
  But I didn't learn that more recently, you know, in the last.
• 46:49
  Yeah, I'm doing everything that you know, and it's still not
• 46:54
  working. So there's, there's a double
• 46:57
  edged sword of personal development, but, well, you
• 46:59
  know, starting with that book and just my values, I've worked
• 47:04
  with a few coaches like, and they're they're kind of the ones
• 47:08
  who were like, OK, I'm going to send you this values list and I
• 47:10
  want you to pay 5. I'm like 5.
• 47:13
  There's like 200 on here. So I had to keep like going over
• 47:18
  and over until I can really nail it down.
• 47:21
  Yeah. I mean, eventually I realized,
• 47:24
  you know, freedom, you know, time freedom.
• 47:29
  Yeah, financial freedom, you know, it's all these freedoms
• 47:33
  that I want, you know, family, traveling, health, all these
• 47:40
  things that we like, we care about, you know?
• 47:43
  So that's only been recent, like in the last two or three years
• 47:47
  where it's like, OK, our health is important.
• 47:50
  You know, for me, one of the things that has always been with
• 47:55
  me is I'm, I'm overweight and no matter what I've done, I've
• 47:59
  tried every diet. I've you know, the only thing
• 48:02
  that's helped me lose weight in college was a doctor prescribing
• 48:05
  fasting or phentermine and it's basically speed.
• 48:10
  So and you don't anything. And I'm taking, you know, I'm
• 48:13
  taking fasting and I'm drinking, you know, I'm a college student.
• 48:17
  I'm 1819, you know, I lose like 30 lbs great.
• 48:21
  And then I gain it all back once I stop taking it, you know, And
• 48:25
  it's just so health, health for me, you know, I've went and got
• 48:30
  my panels done again. And there's a bunch of nuance,
• 48:34
  though, that I'm learning in your panels where between one in
• 48:39
  particular is your hormone levels for your thyroid.
• 48:44
  So doctors and psychiatrists look at the number slightly
• 48:52
  differently. So if you're like, I'm at a I'm
• 48:55
  at a four, OK, OK. And doctors are like 4 is good,
• 49:01
  psychiatrist over 2 is not good. And something's in these things
• 49:07
  that I'm starting to work with, you know, trying to figure out
• 49:11
  if what's going on. Why my whole life I was told I'm
• 49:15
  big boned. Like what the fuck is that?
• 49:18
  What is bone exactly? That's what that's what, you
• 49:22
  know, my family did to make it better that they we're unhealthy
• 49:26
  and we're overeating. The bad thing, you know, like,
• 49:29
  yeah, yeah. My family, my dad was in the
• 49:31
  military. We grew up on Guam like the
• 49:34
  first five or six years of my life.
• 49:35
  And we ate McDonald's like every single day.
• 49:38
  Like that was the only fast food on the on the island.
• 49:43
  So it's like I didn't grow up with good habits.
• 49:45
  So now health is our value. So like we are working out and
• 49:49
  trying to again, we, you know, again life happened.
• 49:54
  So it's like we do great for a month or two and then we fall
• 49:57
  off for a few months and then we start like, but as long as you
• 50:02
  keep going, yeah, at some point like you will get there.
• 50:06
  We're in a very busy season. So it's like we do the best we
• 50:09
  can. Yeah, we are starting.
• 50:12
  So I don't. I can't go on my walks.
• 50:14
  OK. So I could go out in the snow
• 50:16
  and walk. But I agree with you.
• 50:18
  Yeah. That's a big.
• 50:20
  Treadmill we have to bring inside.
• 50:23
  I hate being on the treadmill. I love walking outside.
• 50:25
  So it's really hard for me, right?
• 50:27
  But I have to do these things. Yeah.
• 50:30
  Time freedom. So again, that's why I'm
• 50:32
  building an online business. And I'm trying, you know, I want
• 50:35
  to make money for my podcasts. And I was until 71 of the people
• 50:39
  that I had for an affiliate stopped their program.
• 50:43
  I literally made like $500 in a month by just putting one ad on
• 50:47
  these bags, like these favorite ads, right?
• 50:50
  But now they're like, they don't need other people affiliates
• 50:53
  anymore because they're so big now.
• 50:54
  So jeez, like those types of things and right, that whole
• 51:01
  scam, nothing is massive. No, like people are like,
• 51:06
  podcasting is easy. No, it's not.
• 51:08
  No, it's not So many layers to it.
• 51:11
  Yeah, Holy. Like, so all of these things
• 51:15
  like it's just I'm trying to decide what I can do.
• 51:20
  Yeah, in the time that I have, which is next to nothing.
• 51:24
  Yeah. And so those are the things that
• 51:28
  I'm balancing. Those are my best family time,
• 51:31
  you know, health and financial and traveling like.
• 51:38
  So anything that doesn't fit in these pillars, we've been
• 51:41
  letting love. I mean, there's some caveat to
• 51:46
  that just because like my friend had, my best friend got married
• 51:49
  this year. So it was like, OK, do I want to
• 51:52
  spend all this money in this dress and blah, blah, blah.
• 51:55
  Yes, it I have to, it's for her, right?
• 51:58
  But anything else like, and again, like with the travel
• 52:01
  basketball that is that does that fit in with our financial
• 52:04
  goals and paying off debt and family time?
• 52:07
  No, it takes away, it subtracts. So we stop doing those at least
• 52:12
  right now. Sure.
• 52:15
  Yeah, it's kind of how I developed values, yeah.
• 52:18
  Thank you for that. I think I, yeah, I think that
• 52:21
  you did such a good job of explaining that.
• 52:23
  I think that's so important to remember is, you know, we we
• 52:26
  grew up in these households and I my household was very
• 52:30
  emotionally and stimulating. And yeah.
• 52:36
  And so I had to unlearn so many things and what I and really
• 52:42
  realizing what I thought was normal actually wasn't.
• 52:44
  I mean, there's a whole unlearning and relearning and
• 52:47
  then choosing. And you said something so
• 52:49
  important. The pillars I operate by off of
• 52:52
  when I'm working with women, especially, you know, whether
• 52:55
  it's one-on-one or in groups or as we're having conversations on
• 52:59
  the podcast, are you are worthy, you are valuable, and you get to
• 53:04
  choose. And I think sometimes we lose
• 53:07
  sight of the get to choose. And that doesn't mean it's easy.
• 53:11
  That doesn't mean you can stop the unexpected things from
• 53:15
  happening, but you get to choose how you respond to them.
• 53:20
  You get to choose how you heal or not.
• 53:23
  You get to choose if you're going to stay stuck or not.
• 53:27
  You get to choose if you're going to move some
• 53:31
  extracurriculars out of your life because it's not aligning
• 53:36
  with your values. So I think remembering in this
• 53:40
  and that's, you know, when I work with women, I, I, you know,
• 53:42
  I, I introduce people by their character traits on purpose.
• 53:45
  And I do this when I'm working with women one-on-one and in
• 53:48
  groups too. We do this exercise.
• 53:50
  I want you to be based in who you are as a person, not what
• 53:54
  you're doing, not your titles, your roles, your work.
• 53:57
  I want you to be grounded that that's that's important for you.
• 54:01
  I want you to know what kind of activities nourish you and fill
• 54:04
  you up and fit into yourself care and you know, like you
• 54:07
  said, the intention behind that. I want you to be able to
• 54:10
  identify how you want to feel the next six months.
• 54:13
  And I want you to be able to see, OK, if I want to have all
• 54:17
  these experiences and, and am I looking at my calendar?
• 54:21
  Does any of, do any of these things align with that?
• 54:23
  That's what you've done. You've taken that, you've got
• 54:26
  that compass and it's so valuable.
• 54:29
  And that leads nicely into living out of your own
• 54:31
  expectations versus others. You have set that up by making
• 54:35
  these decisions and taking these steps.
• 54:37
  Does it feel like that for you? Yeah.
• 54:44
  I mean, I like the thing that comes to mind is like, it's
• 54:50
  lonely. Yeah.
• 54:53
  It's really hard to find people who understand what you're doing
• 54:57
  and why you're doing it because a lot of people live on
• 55:01
  autopilot or subconsciously and don't even know that like this
• 55:08
  is your one life. This is all you got.
• 55:10
  And, and it's not anybody's fault.
• 55:13
  Like this is how we were indoctrinated into this world
• 55:16
  like this. Absolutely.
• 55:18
  They want us to be numb and following, you know, following
• 55:25
  the, the whatever fucking thing they want us to follow.
• 55:28
  Go to school and then work until you die.
• 55:30
  Paying for our lifestyle like that is what it is.
• 55:34
  Yeah. That's why I have a big fucking
• 55:37
  problem with schools, because schools are training our
• 55:39
  children to do the same. Oh yeah.
• 55:41
  The whole capitalistic do, do, do more, more, more.
• 55:45
  It's headed everything. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:49
  And it's devastating when you and people don't want to see
• 55:53
  that or hear that. They don't want to, they don't
• 55:56
  want to feel like they're cog, right.
• 55:58
  They don't want to feel like they were that they they're just
• 56:02
  living this life for other people because that's what's
• 56:05
  happening. So living intentionally.
• 56:11
  Yeah. Is lonely.
• 56:13
  Yeah. I, you know, I'm still find
• 56:16
  trying to find my people. Yeah.
• 56:17
  Because when I like when like for instance, my my girls,
• 56:21
  they're the oldest. They're 1011 and 10, and when
• 56:26
  they have friends over and I can tell what their parents value
• 56:30
  systems systems are. And I'm like, these are not the
• 56:33
  people or children that I want my kids around.
• 56:36
  Yeah. And you know what?
• 56:38
  It what's the what's something that comes to mind when you hear
• 56:40
  a woman say that you're judgmental.
• 56:42
  That's awful. Like, why would you judge?
• 56:44
  Can't like Yep, I get to choose yeah, and I have to keep friends
• 56:50
  with that because I also feel bad for feeling that way about
• 56:54
  how I don't know sure because maybe I'm wrong, but mostly I'm
• 56:59
  not because you know you. I've, I've been around 30 years
• 57:07
  here. I've, I've met lots of people.
• 57:09
  I know how, you know, just from how they talk and how they treat
• 57:13
  themselves and what they talk about.
• 57:15
  Yeah. So it's very hard to curate your
• 57:19
  life in a way that holds your values because a lot of people
• 57:28
  don't necessarily have them. Yeah, like, thought about them.
• 57:32
  Like really. Right, you know what I mean.
• 57:35
  I do because we live so disassociated and we get these
• 57:39
  scripts starting when we're very young of how we're supposed to
• 57:42
  show up in the world. Go, you know, go to high school,
• 57:45
  get the diploma, go to college or in the military or trade
• 57:48
  school or whatever it is. Go get that advanced degree, go
• 57:51
  get that job. Meet your partner.
• 57:53
  Have the kids. Buy the house, go on the
• 57:55
  vacation, get the car, all these things will make you happy and
• 58:00
  life will be perfect. And that's just not how it goes.
• 58:02
  And in the process, we don't stop.
• 58:06
  If I've said this a lot lately, it keeps coming up.
• 58:09
  If we let kids be kids and like, yes, we want them to be kind.
• 58:16
  We want them to be, you know, thoughtful.
• 58:20
  We want them to be empathetic. So we teach, you know, and and
• 58:24
  we model that by doing that ourselves.
• 58:26
  And it could teach it and model it.
• 58:28
  But why don't other than that, let's let them be.
• 58:32
  Let's let them play and like what they like and of course you
• 58:37
  can come in and sit like, OK, we're only going to do this.
• 58:40
  And when it gets dark, you have to come in and we're when it's
• 58:42
  time to eat a meal or it's time to rest and go to bed, it's time
• 58:45
  to take a bath. Yes, there's all these
• 58:47
  boundaries and, and things that create a scope that need to be
• 58:50
  in place, but let them have these experiences and also have
• 58:54
  experiences with them. And if they're having a hard
• 58:56
  emotion, walk them through the hard emotion.
• 58:59
  Don't tell them it's not OK to have it.
• 59:01
  And we don't, you know, we don't outwardly say it's not OK for
• 59:03
  you to have that. But all the time we're like,
• 59:07
  we're telling kids not to cry, we're telling kids not to have
• 59:10
  emotions and feelings. And so then they learn very
• 59:13
  early on, it's not OK to show up how I'm feeling.
• 59:16
  That's going to be, you know, that's not going to be received
• 59:20
  well. And so by the time we get out of
• 59:22
  the house and off to college, maybe we can find ourselves,
• 59:27
  maybe we don't, maybe it's more scripting.
• 59:29
  And so it leads to this level of disassociation because we're
• 59:34
  just doing the things we've been told to do, but no one's ever
• 59:37
  asked, or maybe we've never asked ourselves.
• 59:40
  Most importantly, is that what I really want?
• 59:42
  And I feel like at some point, everybody in their life hits a
• 59:45
  wall where they're reckoned with that question, and they either
• 59:48
  choose to answer it and make some hard decisions so they can
• 59:52
  start living authentically, or they choose to stay comfortable
• 59:55
  and they just live like you're talking about disassociated,
• 1:00:00
  following the scripts and just being OK.
• 1:00:03
  But that's just what my life is. And, and limiting themselves,
• 1:00:08
  but limiting everybody in their circle by living in that way.
• 1:00:13
  And when I first really started living, not disassociated from
• 1:00:17
  all the emotions and trauma I was storing.
• 1:00:20
  And this has come up a lot the last few days either.
• 1:00:23
  There's lots of funny how these things come up in, in ways.
• 1:00:26
  I all of a sudden I'm with my therapist and I'm like my body,
• 1:00:31
  I feel what is happening here. They're like, she's like, you've
• 1:00:34
  been feeling that all along. You were just so disassociated
• 1:00:39
  you didn't notice it. And it's like, and she goes and
• 1:00:43
  also your nervous system has feels comfortable now, feels
• 1:00:48
  safe now. Comfortable is not the right
• 1:00:49
  word there. Feel safe now.
• 1:00:51
  So it's also allowing things to come up because you're finally
• 1:00:55
  giving it the safe space to do so.
• 1:00:58
  So I think that is it's really tricky because we can't make
• 1:01:02
  people be the way we think they should be.
• 1:01:06
  And I have bought that for years.
• 1:01:08
  I bought it for years. I just knew if I can over
• 1:01:11
  explain enough to you why you should do something, then by God
• 1:01:14
  you were going to come around. And what I had to learn is I
• 1:01:19
  that's just not true. That's codependent, that's
• 1:01:22
  trauma bonding, All the things that I learned growing up.
• 1:01:25
  That's how relationships were wound and created.
• 1:01:28
  And having to realize that that's not how it works.
• 1:01:32
  And in that process, you may have to make some decisions
• 1:01:36
  based on your values, your health, what is healthiest for
• 1:01:40
  you. There may be some relationships
• 1:01:42
  that have to change. There may be some spaces you
• 1:01:44
  just can't inhabit or give much of your time to because of
• 1:01:49
  disruption that happens in your body you talked about earlier.
• 1:01:52
  You. Know your body knows before your
• 1:01:54
  mind knows that July is coming. We carry these things with this.
• 1:02:01
  I drove through about a month ago the area where I grew up
• 1:02:05
  where a lot of this trauma happened and I hadn't had a
• 1:02:09
  visceral reaction. I've been through there a few
• 1:02:12
  times over the years, at over the last five or six years,
• 1:02:15
  hadn't had that, but I had a really visceral reaction this
• 1:02:17
  time. Like I, my body seized up the
• 1:02:20
  whole night. I'm like to a point where I was,
• 1:02:22
  we were going to stop at my favorite food place there that I
• 1:02:25
  grew up with. And I told my husband, no, I
• 1:02:27
  don't want to stop. I just need to get through and
• 1:02:29
  keep going. And I realized, you know what,
• 1:02:32
  I've done some work in this specific area lately.
• 1:02:35
  And that's what I was able to make the connection later that
• 1:02:38
  week. I'm like, why now?
• 1:02:40
  So all that to say, that was a lot of words from me, but I
• 1:02:44
  think it's just really important that we're able to come back to
• 1:02:47
  those why and those values get real clear on our expectations,
• 1:02:51
  communicate them and also own. That doesn't mean it's easy.
• 1:02:56
  Just because we have clarity doesn't mean it's easy.
• 1:03:01
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:03:03
  Oftentimes I find that the more clarity we have, the harder
• 1:03:07
  because we actually, we, we have to really do it.
• 1:03:13
  We have to really go there. We have to, you know, there's no
• 1:03:18
  going back once you've seen the light.
• 1:03:20
  Exactly that's it that's just it and this goes, you know, nicely
• 1:03:23
  into embracing our layers. You have you have done that you
• 1:03:27
  continue to do that. It's an evolution.
• 1:03:29
  You talked about you said the word griefy earlier.
• 1:03:32
  You talked about how grief will come up at different times.
• 1:03:35
  It doesn't mean that you don't also feel joyful and that you
• 1:03:39
  also can't be funny. I mean and that and resilient
• 1:03:42
  and courageous. All these things can coexist.
• 1:03:45
  That's all part of it. I think understanding and
• 1:03:47
  embracing our layers, talk to me about your layers journey
• 1:03:51
  though, because boy, when you go through what you went through
• 1:03:54
  and at the caveat your husband was deployed at the time you
• 1:03:59
  went, where you lost your baby during birth, he was not there
• 1:04:02
  with you. And and so to have to not only
• 1:04:06
  go through that, but then go through that alone and then be
• 1:04:11
  able to whenever we go through such tremendous losses, we have
• 1:04:15
  to figure out how to live with those losses and, and how to
• 1:04:18
  move forward from that. And that be, you know, that's
• 1:04:21
  not a layer we love, but it's a layer we have to figure out.
• 1:04:25
  So. So talk to me about that in the
• 1:04:27
  context of your embracing layers journey.
• 1:04:36
  I've never, and I don't know, embracing any part of me has
• 1:04:42
  never been easy from, you know, messages that I grew up with.
• 1:04:49
  You know, I had to be productive to be loved.
• 1:04:52
  I had to be, you know, I had to be doing something for somebody
• 1:04:56
  to be, you know, everything was conditional.
• 1:04:59
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:00
  So it was always very hard for me to just accept any part of me
• 1:05:07
  that was less than what others thought should be good or, you
• 1:05:12
  know, perfect or whatever. Yeah.
• 1:05:13
  I'm trying to say, yeah, that experience was terrible.
• 1:05:20
  Don't recommend it. Thankfully, my husband is not in
• 1:05:24
  the military anymore, so we we don't have to go through
• 1:05:28
  deployments anymore. I think.
• 1:05:30
  Yeah, honestly, it's not something that I ever thought I
• 1:05:35
  would experience. I thought as most women do, if
• 1:05:40
  you have other children and you don't have high risk anything,
• 1:05:46
  you don't have any. You know, the only health risk I
• 1:05:49
  ever have on my paperwork, it's obesity.
• 1:05:52
  That's the only thing it ever says.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah. And although that is, you know,
• 1:05:57
  technically a what? What would it be called?
• 1:06:04
  One of the factors for birth or losing a baby.
• 1:06:10
  Honestly, I didn't want to embrace any of this.
• 1:06:13
  Yeah, I was angry. I was really fucking angry.
• 1:06:20
  There's still parts of me that are angry.
• 1:06:22
  They're still parts of me. There's still many parts of me
• 1:06:28
  that I don't think I've accepted.
• 1:06:29
  They're still part like, you know, yesterday felt like 16
• 1:06:35
  year old me when I would get overwhelmed with my feelings
• 1:06:41
  that had no idea what to do with them and nobody to show me or
• 1:06:46
  explain to me what was going on with me telling my daughter that
• 1:06:51
  today because I'm like, isn't it weird that I'm just OK now?
• 1:06:55
  You know, I have conversations with them because and not to
• 1:07:00
  make them feel like they're responsible or like they're, you
• 1:07:03
  know, my friend and I'm, I'm, you know.
• 1:07:07
  Yeah. But in the sense that I'm always
• 1:07:11
  trying to help them understand their feelings and letting them
• 1:07:17
  know like mental health does. Like I, I was diagnosed with
• 1:07:21
  depression when I was 16. So living with that.
• 1:07:27
  Yeah. It can be triggered at any time.
• 1:07:30
  You may not even know it can you know.
• 1:07:33
  So explaining those things to them so that they know and like,
• 1:07:38
  it's really important that they see like, wow.
• 1:07:42
  Yeah. Because no.
• 1:07:44
  And, and they were worried yesterday.
• 1:07:45
  They're like mom, like what's they thought something was
• 1:07:49
  wrong? And what I tell them I'm like,
• 1:07:52
  there's actually nothing that I can pinpoint that's wrong.
• 1:07:56
  But I am feeling so sad that I'm just crying, right?
• 1:08:00
  Like there's nothing physically wrong with me.
• 1:08:02
  I'm not dying. It's just my mental state today
• 1:08:07
  and I I can't explain why. And so just trying to give them
• 1:08:11
  verbiage for that. But yeah, there's just like
• 1:08:15
  yesterday was like 16 year old me, like not understanding why
• 1:08:20
  life was so hard and, you know, it just felt and hopeless and
• 1:08:24
  what's the point? I don't think the whole Evelyn
• 1:08:30
  thing and the grief from losing her, that is something that I've
• 1:08:37
  embraced more over time. It's, I mean, embracing parts of
• 1:08:44
  yourself is not a normal thing that we talk about.
• 1:08:46
  No, not something that literally we don't talk about this.
• 1:08:51
  So it's like, OK, how am I supposed to embrace me?
• 1:08:55
  Or what does that even mean? Yeah.
• 1:08:58
  Really it just means looking at those parts of you and being
• 1:09:02
  like, OK, this is who I am. This is I am overly sensitive.
• 1:09:07
  I am empathic. I feel people's pain like I but
• 1:09:12
  I'm also, you know, I can sit with that and not die or want to
• 1:09:19
  get hurt by it. Is it emotionally taxing?
• 1:09:22
  Yes. But these parts of me help other
• 1:09:27
  people and that's all I find that I can embrace it.
• 1:09:34
  The parts of me that I am very loud and obnoxious at times, but
• 1:09:42
  not everybody knows this. Most people know me
• 1:09:44
  professionally. They know that I use humor when
• 1:09:50
  I'm talking about this heavy stuff because we have to have.
• 1:09:54
  We. Have to have the duality of that
• 1:09:56
  in there, otherwise nobody's going to want to do this.
• 1:10:00
  Nobody wants to talk about dead children.
• 1:10:03
  Yeah, no, it's probably the most devastating thing, you know,
• 1:10:08
  losing anybody is devastating, so.
• 1:10:11
  But yeah, I just everything I do for my business, for my family,
• 1:10:17
  for my children, I feel like, I don't know, the older I get, the
• 1:10:24
  more I'm embracing different times, right?
• 1:10:27
  Yeah. Right now, honestly, I'm working
• 1:10:31
  on like as a theme in my life. I was never taught about money,
• 1:10:37
  so I'm having to embrace that. I don't know anything about
• 1:10:45
  money. And I'm 36, so there's like that
• 1:10:49
  shame. But I, I'm also like, no, like
• 1:10:51
  there's, I don't have to feel that way because I didn't have
• 1:10:56
  any type of financial literacy education.
• 1:10:59
  Yeah. I didn't have access to money,
• 1:11:02
  you know, anything that I didn't work for or, you know, I didn't,
• 1:11:05
  I didn't have a trust fund. I don't have anything like that.
• 1:11:09
  So embracing the fact that I don't know is also empowering
• 1:11:13
  because now I can be like, OK, I may not be good at it yet, but I
• 1:11:19
  can become that. Yeah, right.
• 1:11:21
  So being able to embrace just the the things that maybe you're
• 1:11:24
  not so proud of, right. I feel like as a 36 year old
• 1:11:27
  woman, it's like, OK, you should know how to handle money.
• 1:11:30
  Yeah. You know, at least budget and
• 1:11:32
  things like that. But it's hard for me because I'm
• 1:11:35
  also my ADHD. My lovely thing that goes with
• 1:11:40
  that is impulsivity. So.
• 1:11:41
  Yeah. And the dopamine, right?
• 1:11:44
  So what makes me feel really good is buying stuff.
• 1:11:48
  Yeah, it's that instant dopamine.
• 1:11:52
  And I'm like, oh, this is going to be lovely.
• 1:11:53
  And I'm sweeping my new pajamas because that's basically all I
• 1:11:56
  buy is new pajamas. Thanks.
• 1:12:00
  And blankets and new comforters, like those are the things that
• 1:12:03
  bring me joy. So although these things aren't
• 1:12:07
  great and like, you know, the impulsivity there, that's like a
• 1:12:11
  layer of me that is very hard to connect with because I feel
• 1:12:16
  shame around her, you know, 'cause, you know, we have debt.
• 1:12:20
  Because I'm impulsive. Yeah.
• 1:12:23
  And it's, you know, it's, I don't know if they're layers,
• 1:12:27
  right? Yeah.
• 1:12:28
  I feel like every feeling, every, every, like, you know,
• 1:12:34
  every topic, there's a layer. But yeah, every day, yeah.
• 1:12:41
  Well, I think the way you've talked about is so important.
• 1:12:43
  This is what I always, when I work with, when I'm like,
• 1:12:45
  listen, this isn't about loving every part of your life or every
• 1:12:49
  characteristic or everything. It's about meeting it where it
• 1:12:52
  is. And you said you such such a
• 1:12:54
  good example of like this was modeled to me.
• 1:12:57
  This is what I saw. Therefore, this is what I know
• 1:12:59
  or don't know. This is a decision I made based
• 1:13:02
  on that. So yeah, it that.
• 1:13:04
  Makes sense that we. Get there, but I don't love it,
• 1:13:06
  but I can wrap my head around how I got there.
• 1:13:09
  I mean, and I think the first thing that came to mind when you
• 1:13:12
  talked about the things you tend to buy, those things are all
• 1:13:15
  very comforting and cozy and make you feel warm and safe,
• 1:13:21
  which I, I connect you because it goes to that deeper need of
• 1:13:25
  that emotional safety that I lacked growing up that it sounds
• 1:13:31
  like you did as well. So even being able to make
• 1:13:34
  connect points to those things. So it's, it's, I don't like,
• 1:13:37
  listen, I'm not telling, telling you to fall in love with every
• 1:13:39
  terrible thing that happened to you.
• 1:13:41
  I'm, I'm asking you to become curious rather than judgmental
• 1:13:45
  about it and be able to create a relationship with it where you
• 1:13:48
  can see how it unfolded and where it came from and, and be
• 1:13:52
  informed on how it both works for you and against you.
• 1:13:56
  And it's so, you know, and kind of, but yeah, the curiosity over
• 1:13:59
  judgement has been such a key component for me.
• 1:14:01
  But thank you so much for sharing that.
• 1:14:03
  I think that's so helpful. The way you've laid that out for
• 1:14:05
  people is so relatable and this really goes into you've had to
• 1:14:11
  learn through this layers journey and what I call living
• 1:14:14
  out feel, finding empowerment, embracing layers when you grow
• 1:14:18
  up with not healthy relationships.
• 1:14:21
  I really had to learn the difference between codependent
• 1:14:25
  and healthy relationships, trauma bonding versus actual
• 1:14:29
  authentic emotional connection, feeling my emotions versus
• 1:14:33
  expressing emotions but not processing them.
• 1:14:37
  I mean, I had to and the kinds of people that I would surround
• 1:14:41
  myself with that both ignited this and also gave me comfort
• 1:14:45
  and peace. I had to like make some hard
• 1:14:48
  decision. At some point.
• 1:14:49
  I'm like this energy I cannot do.
• 1:14:51
  I'm going to have to love them from afar.
• 1:14:53
  It's not working for me. Has that been something you've
• 1:14:56
  had to learn as well if with the on the relationship side?
• 1:15:02
  Unfortunately, yes. Yeah.
• 1:15:05
  My mother and I are estranged. She had to be completely cut out
• 1:15:10
  for my life. And I mean, I I did it once and
• 1:15:14
  then let her back and Nope, it didn't change.
• 1:15:18
  Yeah, sure. I don't even know.
• 1:15:24
  Yeah, It's just I can't be the person I am with her around.
• 1:15:32
  I'm not sure if that makes sense.
• 1:15:34
  Like when I'm near her or with her, I want to please her.
• 1:15:39
  Yeah. Or I act differently.
• 1:15:41
  I revert back to who I was. Yeah.
• 1:15:45
  Like teenager self, right? Always looking for the approval.
• 1:15:50
  Always looking for her to love me.
• 1:15:53
  Just to love me. Not because I did something for
• 1:15:56
  her, you know? And like my I, I always say my
• 1:16:03
  therapist told me she's a narcissist so that people aren't
• 1:16:05
  like she, you know, I'm just like diagnosing.
• 1:16:07
  Yeah, yeah, true. But she had, I mean, she and I,
• 1:16:14
  I know now as a as as I get older, that her life and the
• 1:16:20
  things that happened to her were not fair.
• 1:16:22
  And there are things that she never took, like she didn't she.
• 1:16:26
  Yeah. She thinks mental health is a
• 1:16:28
  joke, right? And so, you know, she will never
• 1:16:34
  get help. Yeah.
• 1:16:35
  We will never accept or admit responsibility for anything she
• 1:16:41
  did wrong. It's always somebody else.
• 1:16:44
  So having that and, you know, they're.
• 1:16:49
  I was like, I can't let my children be around her.
• 1:16:52
  Yeah. Like, I don't even trust my own
• 1:16:54
  mom to be around me. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:59
  And so it just, you know, she she refuses to accept and
• 1:17:03
  acknowledge boundaries that I set.
• 1:17:05
  That was the first time that I cut her off right before Evelyn
• 1:17:08
  was born because she was trying to force what she was going to
• 1:17:12
  do and show up, even though I said don't show up.
• 1:17:14
  Like I want time to myself with just my girls, you know, that
• 1:17:17
  type of thing. Sure.
• 1:17:19
  I wasn't allowed to have boundaries because she's my
• 1:17:21
  mother. She gave birth to me, she gave
• 1:17:22
  life to me. She owns me as where we where we
• 1:17:26
  were. So yeah, I mean, thankfully.
• 1:17:33
  I mean, I'm it's sad. Everybody wants their mom, I
• 1:17:38
  feel. If.
• 1:17:38
  They had a mom, right? Or even if they just dream of
• 1:17:42
  having a mom. But yeah, so I mean, that's been
• 1:17:47
  difficult because of all the things that I've gone through, I
• 1:17:50
  could have really used a mom. Yeah.
• 1:17:54
  And yeah, unfortunately, if you, if you go down this values path,
• 1:18:01
  which I, I hope everybody right. Yeah.
• 1:18:04
  Like there these are the things that you live for.
• 1:18:07
  These are the things that make your life better.
• 1:18:12
  It's just you're, you're going to lose people.
• 1:18:15
  You're you're, you're going to realize that you do have to have
• 1:18:21
  arms length with people. You do have to have states in
• 1:18:26
  between you, you know, you're going to, you're going to
• 1:18:29
  realize you can't just go home anymore because, you know, like
• 1:18:34
  where you're from or wherever you're from.
• 1:18:36
  Yeah, it's very hard for me because my friends that are
• 1:18:41
  still home, you know, are the people that they always have
• 1:18:45
  been. And for me that's hard because
• 1:18:47
  I'm not. And times they expect that of me
• 1:18:52
  to like revert back and to be the party girl and to, you know,
• 1:18:57
  do all the things. But yeah, it's hard.
• 1:19:02
  Yeah, it's a choice. It is.
• 1:19:06
  It's a choice. I think that's such an important
• 1:19:08
  piece to remember is at some point when you're doing, when
• 1:19:12
  you're really embracing your layers and getting to know who
• 1:19:15
  you are, you have to make a choice on for the betterment of
• 1:19:19
  you and your health and your family and all those you love to
• 1:19:22
  quit abandoning yourself. And sometimes when you that
• 1:19:26
  comes with a cost with some relationships.
• 1:19:29
  I have a similar story in my life and I just got to a point
• 1:19:35
  where it was like no amount of explaining is going to make them
• 1:19:39
  do the things that I feel and if experience is healthy.
• 1:19:45
  And so I have to quit banging my head against a wall here.
• 1:19:49
  And I know I don't owe them anything.
• 1:19:51
  I don't have to put myself in these situations that I know
• 1:19:55
  that are going to fire up my nervous system, that I know are
• 1:19:59
  going to put me in conversations and situations and interactions
• 1:20:03
  that I don't. Think are valu valuing or honor
• 1:20:07
  my values or honor with you know, and so you do have to make
• 1:20:10
  some hard choices sometimes, but it's also you also find out who
• 1:20:15
  is for you and you find out who will show up for you no matter
• 1:20:19
  what. And you you find out.
• 1:20:20
  And some of those times those people surprise you and, and and
• 1:20:24
  that that can bring a lot of joy as well.
• 1:20:26
  So I think it's just that, you know, at the end of the day,
• 1:20:30
  getting to a point where it's like I will honor myself and I
• 1:20:32
  will no longer abandoned myself. And I will be open with my
• 1:20:36
  family about that because I want to my kids to see that I'm
• 1:20:40
  honoring myself and no longer abandoning myself.
• 1:20:43
  Especially as a woman with girls, I think it's even more
• 1:20:46
  important that they get that message.
• 1:20:48
  So thank you so much for all of this and and your vulnerability
• 1:20:52
  and sharing this. We are winding down here.
• 1:20:56
  Share with me 5 activities that nourish you.
• 1:21:04
  Five activities that nourish me. I love watercolor painting
• 1:21:12
  flowers, so that's something I do walking when there's sunshine
• 1:21:19
  and it's warm, cold. I love sitting by the water.
• 1:21:29
  I, I'm not a, I'm a lake girl, not an ocean girl.
• 1:21:34
  So I'm terrified of the ocean sitting by the water and
• 1:21:40
  listening, just listening and closing your eyes, you know, and
• 1:21:43
  just taking in all the senses and the sounds and the sand and
• 1:21:49
  what else. I mean, I love my red light.
• 1:21:55
  Yeah. I sit in bed with that while I'm
• 1:21:57
  reading. I'm being with my family, of
• 1:22:04
  course. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:09
  Yeah, I left that. All right, 5 words on how you
• 1:22:13
  want to heal the next six months.
• 1:22:16
  Oh, my God. Rejuvenated, reenergized.
• 1:22:21
  Right. Like I'm feeling it's the end of
• 1:22:23
  the year or two, though. This is like, you know, looking
• 1:22:26
  at it, it's typical. It's exhausting.
• 1:22:28
  It is. Wow.
• 1:22:38
  That's a hard rejuvenated. Reenergized or energized, I
• 1:22:45
  guess. Yeah, Yeah, excited.
• 1:22:52
  Like I want to be excited about something.
• 1:22:58
  This is a really hard. Oh my God, what do other people
• 1:23:09
  say? I don't know.
• 1:23:11
  Well, that's, I know it's, that's, well, that's the whole
• 1:23:14
  point. I'd love to get people thinking
• 1:23:16
  about it. And because we don't think about
• 1:23:19
  it, which is like, which is kind of, you know, the point with the
• 1:23:23
  questions. When I, when we came up with
• 1:23:25
  these talking points, these are the things that challenged me.
• 1:23:27
  These are the questions that through my therapy, through a
• 1:23:31
  lot of work our family did, through work I did with a mentee
• 1:23:35
  of mine, kind of collectively came up with these points to
• 1:23:40
  what I call a freight, the fuel framework now to live by, to ask
• 1:23:43
  ourselves on a regular basis to make sure we're living in
• 1:23:48
  alignment, in connection. But they're hard.
• 1:23:51
  They require and especially the season you're in, like you've
• 1:23:55
  got so many irons in the fire, but I think also you were able
• 1:24:01
  to come up with three really powerful.
• 1:24:03
  Ones. And so I think it's, if
• 1:24:06
  anything, it's just that reminder of that intention of
• 1:24:09
  let me think about this every so often and then let me examine
• 1:24:12
  how, how, what am I doing to contribute to that?
• 1:24:15
  It goes about that to that choice piece, that
• 1:24:18
  accountability piece that that I think sometimes it's really
• 1:24:23
  hard. And I'm sure you find this when
• 1:24:24
  you're working with families and women.
• 1:24:26
  If I can, I've got some resources and I can support you
• 1:24:30
  and help you, but you're going to have to participate.
• 1:24:32
  In this. Like I can't fix it all for you
• 1:24:36
  and I, I don't have this. This is a magical thing that's
• 1:24:39
  going to make all of your problems go away.
• 1:24:42
  It is going to help you get to know you.
• 1:24:44
  It is going to help you get in touch with who you are, but it's
• 1:24:47
  going to require your participation and I think.
• 1:24:50
  That can be hard. Totally.
• 1:24:53
  I thought of another one, now fulfilled.
• 1:24:55
  I want to feel. Feel some sort of fulfillment,
• 1:24:58
  Like I've been working so hard and feels like I'm getting
• 1:25:02
  nowhere. Yeah, validated.
• 1:25:05
  I want to feel. Validated there you go.
• 1:25:07
  See, we got we talked through that, but I think so much too.
• 1:25:12
  But I'm glad we did that though, because I think it's just that
• 1:25:16
  it goes back to the intention piece you talked about.
• 1:25:18
  It's like, OK, if I've got this, if I I know, if I know, if I can
• 1:25:23
  ask myself these things or check in with myself on these things,
• 1:25:27
  then I'm going to, this is going to help me stay in alignment
• 1:25:30
  with who I am because also values and whys and what we care
• 1:25:36
  about changes in different seasons.
• 1:25:38
  And so it's also that like if you start feeling a little
• 1:25:41
  angsty, it's like, let me review these things because, you know,
• 1:25:46
  something shifted here. So yeah, it's just there to to
• 1:25:49
  kind of make us think and, and keep us present and keep us
• 1:25:52
  intentional, you know, bringing it back to what we talked about
• 1:25:55
  in the beginning, Valen, share with people where they can find
• 1:25:59
  you and follow you. And I will also have all of this
• 1:26:02
  in the show notes and on our website at embracinglayers.com
• 1:26:06
  on the resources page. Yeah, I'm terrible with social
• 1:26:10
  media. I do have an Instagram page at
• 1:26:14
  Evelyn James and Co. It's not the greatest thing.
• 1:26:20
  But your website's wonderful my. Website, I mean we have our
• 1:26:24
  website, evelynjamesandco.com and then Evelyn James dot shop
• 1:26:27
  is our, you know, our grief marketplace thing.
• 1:26:32
  And I say thing because it's still like it's being built out.
• 1:26:35
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the podcast, Yeah,
• 1:26:40
  the podcast is. Yeah, it's on all the platforms.
• 1:26:43
  Yeah, and it is, yeah. And so take a listen to that.
• 1:26:46
  All those links, like I said, will be at embracinglayers.com
• 1:26:49
  on our resources page as well as in our show notes.
• 1:26:52
  Any last thought you'd like to leave with our listeners today?
• 1:27:00
  I feel like personal development is, you know, like that lifelong
• 1:27:05
  journey. Yeah.
• 1:27:07
  But most people don't realize, like, I don't want to say they
• 1:27:12
  should do it or need to do it or have to do it.
• 1:27:15
  But at the end of the day, you know, this whole life journey,
• 1:27:21
  if what I'm, what I'm seeing, what I realized for myself is
• 1:27:26
  that it's, it's the biggest journey is like just figuring
• 1:27:29
  out who we are in this, in this body, in this life.
• 1:27:33
  I mean, because I believe, you know, our spirit goes on.
• 1:27:36
  So it's just learn more about yourself and this is a great way
• 1:27:42
  listen to those podcasts embracing the layers, cuz we're
• 1:27:45
  all made-up of millions of layers.
• 1:27:48
  I mean, we don't even touch on yeah, next to any of you know,
• 1:27:52
  it's just there's so many and there's so we're so
• 1:27:55
  multifaceted. We're just yeah.
• 1:27:58
  And finding somebody you can talk to about it, that that's
• 1:28:02
  the harder part. Like when you're asking me and
• 1:28:03
  you were, you said something about the the five words.
• 1:28:07
  It's like, OK, we're talking about it.
• 1:28:09
  And I was able to process and be like, Oh no, this, this, this.
• 1:28:13
  Some people don't have. That.
• 1:28:14
  So finding somebody who wants to be on that journey or you know
• 1:28:19
  something, you need a community. Yeah, community and curiosity.
• 1:28:23
  I always say curiosity and comfort cannot coexist together.
• 1:28:27
  If you can stay curious, it will keep you from getting
• 1:28:31
  comfortable. And and because comfort doesn't
• 1:28:35
  make space to continue to evolve and learn and grow.
• 1:28:38
  And I'm with you. We are evolving and learning and
• 1:28:40
  growing and discovering layers and retiring old layers
• 1:28:45
  throughout our whole life. And so staying curious about
• 1:28:48
  that exploration and what's possible in connecting with
• 1:28:50
  other people that do that. Valin, thank you so much for
• 1:28:53
  your time. I appreciate so much how you
• 1:28:55
  show up in the world and all that you offer listeners so much
• 1:29:00
  here, so much good gold here. Go back, listen, take a look at
• 1:29:05
  Valin's resources and remember just to to continue to develop
• 1:29:10
  and learn about you. You are worthy, you are
• 1:29:13
  valuable, and you get to choose. Take good care of yourselves and
• 1:29:17
  have a great week. We will see you next time here
• 1:29:20
  on The Field Podcast. Hello and thank you so much for
• 1:29:24
  being with us today on this episode of the Field Podcast.
• 1:29:29
  If you would like more information on how you can apply
• 1:29:33
  these talking points that I share with our guests in each
• 1:29:36
  episode to your own life, really utilize this feel framework, go
• 1:29:42
  to embracinglayers.com, fill out our contact form, and let's set
• 1:29:47
  up a free 30 minute consultation to talk about how you can start
• 1:29:52
  living your most authentic, organic, healthy, feel fueled
• 1:29:58
  life. Thanks again for being with us
• 1:30:00
  today. We'll be back to you soon with
• 1:30:02
  another episode here on the Feel Podcast.