Latest / The Resilience Project / Why Milestones Hit Different for Adoptees (And the App That Gets It) with Zoe & Ellie of Unfolding

Transcript

Why Milestones Hit Different for Adoptees (And the App That Gets It) with Zoe & Ellie of Unfolding · The Resilience Project

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Hi y'all, I'm Julie.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm a trauma-informed adoptee coach and somatic healing guide.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: After overcoming deep abandonment wounds, I now help adult adoptees move from feeling lost and disconnected to experiencing profound self-belonging.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: I know what it is like to carry the weight of abandonment, to feel stuck in patterns of longing, adapting, and searching for belonging.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: To have tried every healing modality available and come up empty.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: My own healing has taught me this.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: The answers aren't out there.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: They're buried within me.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here to guide you home to yourself.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: The Resilience Project podcast brings voice, visibility, and validation to the parts of adoption society rarely names, but all of us feel.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: Through an trauma-informed somatic lens, I explore the lived experiences of the entire adoption constellation with a tender emphasis on the adoptee experience.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: This podcast goes beyond storytelling into soul telling.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: It offers embodied insight, compassionate education, and a path towards awareness, hope, and strength.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: Each episode invites listeners to understand adoption more deeply, not just with the mind, but with the nervous system.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: And to reconnect with the truth, identity, and belonging that were always yours to come home to.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: So let me introduce them.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: We have Zoe Hanson de Bello.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: She is the founder and CEO of Adoptee Identity.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: She was adopted at 11 days old and raised in Providence, Rhode Island.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: And like so many of us, her adoption story didn't stay quietly in the background of her life.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: It re-emerged loudly when she became a mother.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Happens to many of us, like I said, because for many adoptees, when you have that first child, you're meeting your first biological relative.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: So sit with that for a second if you are not an adopted person and you're listening to this and think about that.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: Ellie Robinson is her co-founder.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Ellie was adopted at 10 days old in a closed adoption, no information, no story, no thread to follow.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: She later reunited with her biological family, and in the middle of digesting everything that reunion stirred up, she realized that what she was actually craving was other adoptees.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: She went on to lead Adoptees Connect in Providence, which is where her path crossed Zoe's.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: One coffee later, and I love this part, there was a spark, alignment, and a shared vision.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: So out of that partnership comes something I'm so excited.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: You guys, I don't even know how to describe it.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: My whole body is buzzing.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited for you to hear about today.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: It's called Unfolding.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: It's an app that is built by adoptees for adoptees.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: It's a digital space for well-being, reflection, storytelling, and community.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: And it's launching this month, y'all, this July.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to talk all about it.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: But first, we're going to talk about the stuff underneath it, that adult adoptee life, the milestones that carry layers other people never see, birthdays, medical forms, school assignments, becoming parents, endings, beginnings.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: Zoe and Ellie, welcome to the podcast.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I am so glad that you are here.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Julie.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: We're happy to be here too.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: So excited to be here.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: So encouraged to have you.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: So, Zoe, I shared a little of your story in the intro, but I'd love for you to tell it in your own words.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: What was the moment that adoption stopped being background noise and became foreground for you?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is such a good question.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Where to begin?
5:31
SPEAKER_00: I feel like you said it uh best uh describing the lifelong experience in layers.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: So adoption for me has always been part of my story and part of my origin.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: So I was, like you mentioned, adopted at 11 days old by a single mom, my mom Carla.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And so she adopted me as a single mom, met my other mom, Gigi, when I was three and a half.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Gigi and Carla were 15 years apart.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: So Gigi was very much wanting to be a mother through birth.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And so they used a donor to have my little sister Francesca.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And then they became the first queer couple, same-sex couple in the state of Rhode Island to cross-adopt each other's children.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: So adoption for me was forefront.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: It was something that was very much, you know, I didn't have a mom and a dad.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: So there was no hiding that there was an adoption story, even though we were the same race.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Kids always were kind of like, wait, what's going on?
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Not to mention I had red hair.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: So that was just an indicator of there's something going on here.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And so I learned early to tell my story and was very proud of my family.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: I am very proud of my family.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: I cannot imagine not being part of my unit of four women.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And then when I was 30, I became a mom myself.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: And that really brought up so many emotions that parenthood, no matter how you come to the journey, is a big moment.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And for me, it sparked an empathy for my birth mother that I did not anticipate and had not previously felt.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Adoption was kind of factual for me.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: It was like, these are the things that happened, but I am completely who raised me.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: That's that's who I am and what I bring forth to the world.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And when I looked at my daughter, it was, oh, there's something to biology.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: There's this primal instinct, this primal bond that you just can't even describe until you're experiencing it.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I looked at her and simultaneously felt this really deep primal connection of love.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And then also felt this grief that I was recognizing what I didn't have my whole life.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: And that was really big.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And so I felt so privileged and lucky that I grew up with my friends who are also adoptees and ironically became social workers.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: So I immediately went to my friends and were like, okay, I'm someone, I'm a type A.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: I go and do the thing.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: I put feelings in boxes.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: That's my control is the name of my game.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: So I immediately went and went, what is happening?
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Why am I what it was?
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, well, Zoe, trauma, like adoption separation is a primal wound.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: It is a trauma.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: And I sat back and went, I'm not traumatized.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And my friend looked at me, like, how dare you?
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Look, look, I'm I'm functioning in all the ways.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm performing.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And my friend sat back and gave me that therapist tilt of the head and went, okay.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And that was really my my moment, Julie.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: That was when I was like, all right, I gotta go down the rabbit hole.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: I gotta do my homework.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: I am missing something here.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling something big.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And that was really the the moment I I started to connect, almost loving parts of myself that I hadn't given myself permission to welcome or love.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Felt more grounded and authentic when I allowed myself to be nature and nurture and to acknowledge the interplay.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned when we talked that it was your daughter in a way complicated the narrative for you and how that complication, you talked about it just now.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious from the work that I do, where did that complication show up in your body?
9:03
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned grief.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious if you noticed anything in your body.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: So uh earlier I mentioned that I I grew up in a family of four women.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: One of my moms, Carla, the one who adopted me at 11 days old, passed away from pancreatic cancer 12 years ago.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: When she passed away, I broke out in chronic hives for two years.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: My body went like red alert.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Abandonment is happening again.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: You've been through this before.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: But of course, at that point in time, my brain was, I went back to work three days later.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, I will grieve, I will cry, but I got this.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm moving forward.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: But my body was like, what is happening?
9:39
SPEAKER_00: So I had chronic hive.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: When I was pregnant, when I gave birth to Rowan, who by the way was 10 and a half pounds when she was born, it was no easy feat there.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: That was body trauma.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: You want to talk about body trauma?
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And of course, being again, type A control.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: I was no drugs, midwife, I was the whole, the whole thing.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: But when I gave birth, my hives went away.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: So it was very interesting.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: I had this primal, this, this grief resurface of a mom leaving my life.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: And then I became a mom and my body cleared whatever was going on.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even gonna pretend to know what or how.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: I just something clipped where Rowan healed a part of me biologically, spiritually, all the ways.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: And I I wasn't even conscious it was happening.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so cool because I got the chills when you shared that.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: That's just amazing.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think you shared it with me when we talked originally, and it's just so powerful.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: Ellie, you had a closed adoption, as did I.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: So I know what that's like.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: And then a reunion.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: What did you expect reunion to resolve if you did?
10:54
SPEAKER_01: And what did it actually open?
10:57
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: So I was in my senior year of undergrad.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: I was applying for graduate schools, and I thought finally I might actually leave the state of Rhode Island, which is a thing that Rhode Islanders do not do.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: But I was maybe I really will this time.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: And if I do, I'm going to grad school, you get an internship and then a job, and you probably stay where you go to school.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: That's what this was the rationale I grew up with.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: And then I was, if I do that, leaving Rhode Island, and then I decide I want to meet my biological family, who I know is from Rhode Island.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: That was had part of my non-identifying information.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: I knew that I was born in Rhode Island and my birth mother was living with her parents and had two siblings, and that they were all in Rhode Island.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: And so I assumed they were true Rhode Islanders and also were not leaving and were probably still here.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: And I should just try to find her.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: This is a good time to do it because I might be leaving and it's just easier if we're all in the same little state.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: I went into it, which I know I'm gonna sound probably like a broken record to many people listening to this, but I went into it very much like I want to know my medical history and I want to know what she looks like, and if I have any siblings.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: The fun stuff, the easy stuff.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: I need to know.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: And that's all that I'll find out too, right?
12:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: So I will spare the whole back and forth, but it was actually a very fast turnaround.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: I went to the adoption agency that I was adopted through that was still open and functioning in Providence.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think the social worker had to vet me before she would send uh a letter to my birth mother letting her know that I was looking for her.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: Um but she did.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: And within, I think it was four weeks, I met with the social worker.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: And by four or five weeks later, I was in person at the adoption agency with my birth mother.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: So it was like speed round, and the only reason it even took that long is because Thanksgiving happened in between my first uh meeting with the social worker and us getting to meet in person.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: So, like I said, I went into it not uh not knowing really anything.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: I had no I was 21.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I had no idea what was about to unravel.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: I didn't even for a second question that anything other than love had facilitated my adoption.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: I I too did not feel traumatized, I did not feel anything bad about it.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: I've looked back at my parents still have homework assignments I did in elementary school.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: I talked about how much I love being adopted.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: It was all rainbows and butterflies.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: And then I met my breath mom and I learned things, her perspective, her story, which is a thing.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: There's a story there always.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: And it was so different than what I was told and also created in my mind, right?
13:50
SPEAKER_02: A lot of it I know was my own imagination and my own sort of coming to terms with it, I guess, and trying to make sense of it.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: Both in childhood and then as I I mean, I'm saying as I got older, I was 21 when I did this.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: So I didn't have much adult life before going into the journey.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: So that I would say was that when I started to really recognize that not only, yes, love was part of it, but there was also a lot of other things going on.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: And I had the story that I told myself, the story, the little bits of information.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't say a story, because I don't think anyone was intentionally, it wasn't there's no malice here.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: No one was intentionally hiding anything.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like that.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: There was the very limited information we had, was what I took and ran with.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: And I started to work through what it felt like to be around biological family.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: So I met her just it was just her and I and two social workers the first time.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: And then we stayed in contact.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: And a few weeks later, I met my biological brothers who she uh kept, and her husband.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: And then within maybe like six months, I met my aunt, my uncle, my grandparents, my great aunts and uncles and cousins, and the whole family.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: And at the time, the adoption agency could not find my birth father.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: And it was, I was that's okay.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: This is plenty for right now.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: This is enough.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: Do this, and then we'll come back to it.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: So it was this really interesting unraveling of I think one of the most critical parts of my story is that no one except for my grandparents knew that I existed.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: So my the my extended family and my siblings, I was a surprise relative.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: And so it was really interesting to get to know everybody, see them work through their own kind of digesting of me and what it means that they have this person who is biologically related to them and their definition of family, their how they feel together, all of this, right?
15:49
SPEAKER_02: So worked through that for quite some time.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: I have different sort of degrees of connection and relationship with everyone on that side of my biological family.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: It's complicated to say the very least, but ultimately everyone was extremely welcoming and willing to meet me.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: And I see them every holiday.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: I talk to them pretty frequently, it's all the things.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: Um and then fast forward four years after this.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: So I'm 25 now, and uh And your your frontal lobe is fully developed at this point, FYI.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, full grown adult, okay?
16:22
SPEAKER_02: I still thought like a 15-year-old.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: I still feel like 15-year-old.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: But four years later, I was 25.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: I got a call from my birth mother that she found my birth father and that he overdosed and died, and that I had uh 10 years prior, and that I have a half-sister who grew up and lived in the same town that I grew up and lived in.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: Whoa.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all that.
16:47
SPEAKER_02: And it happened to be news that I received in a very difficult time in my life for other reasons.
16:53
SPEAKER_02: So it was one of those stack it all on and feel it, and it's okay, what else?
16:58
SPEAKER_02: Let's go, universe.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: Let's it's so this is where I really will fast forward and spare you all of the details.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: But the very long story short is that my birth mother ended up being uh I learned that she was wrong about who my birth father was.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: So the man who she said she found who had passed away and who had a daughter was the man who did sign over his parental rights thinking I was his biological child when she was pregnant and made the decision to put me up for adoption, but he was not my biological father.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: So I think this moment speaks to what Zoe was getting to, right?
17:31
SPEAKER_02: This primal connection that you feel.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: So at this point, I met biological family.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: I met siblings, my birth mother, grandparents, everybody.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: I knew what that felt like.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know that I would have been able to even describe the feeling in the moment, and I still probably can't.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: But I can tell you when I met who was supposed to be my half-sister, I hugged her and I was like, I am absolutely not related to you.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: If I could tell I was hugging a stranger, and she was surely it felt like a stranger.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: I didn't feel this ease in my body when I hugged her.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: And it took a long time for me to tell her that and work through all of that.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but that was how I even knew to question who was actually my birth father.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: I could just feel it.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: So, some DNA tests and phone calls and Facebook messages and all kinds of things later, I found uh my actual biological father who did not know I existed at all.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: So, of course, his whole extended family did not know either.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: I met him and his whole extended family.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: Everyone, this was much more of a DNA reunion in a lot of ways because there was no decision of my adoption related to this family.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: And again, everyone super welcoming.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: I am very much still in touch with all my cousins, aunts, uncles, everybody.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: That moment was where I my grief took me to the floor.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: I literally fell down in my bedroom the day that I learned that I was not biologically related to this young lady who was supposed to be my half-sister.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: And I started Googling.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I needed some support, and I started Googling random things that were not really coherent.
19:16
SPEAKER_02: Within a few months, I finally found the organization Adoptees Connect, and that's when I created the Providence group because I so desperately need something.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: I need to talk to somebody.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: Somebody's gotta understand what I'm feeling.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: And it it really was a rock my world situation, I would say.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: I think there was some identity crisis stuff going on.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: There was a lot of responsibility and questioning responsibility.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Who is responsible for any of this?
19:45
SPEAKER_02: And does blame live anywhere?
19:47
SPEAKER_02: Does it not?
19:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and navigating all of the impact that my adoption, my birth, and then what happened after impacted so many people in so many different ways.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good, bad, and everything in between.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: And so that I think was the biggest thing that I gathered from all of my reunion experience that decisions we make and how we navigate the world has an insane ripple effect with everyone around us, whether we realize it or not.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it truly does.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think with your courage and bravery to create a space for Adoptees Connect, I think that's awesome that you started your own.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: That is actually where you met Zoe and had the telltale coffee that we've just talked about.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: So I would love to know about that moment and what did that recognition between the two of you feel like.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, even more.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, even more serendipitous and even more Rhode Island.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So Ellie and I um I found Adoptees Connect Providence maybe a year before Ellie and I actually met.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: And we had message exchanges, but we never actually connected.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: I accidentally ghosted her, I completely ghosted her by total accident.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Being, I was being really lovely.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: I was, I won't share that piece.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that and then I, of course, in very adopte fashion was like, oh, ghosted me.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not responding.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm done.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Moving on.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: But I went to my we have a mutual friend.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this friend has been my friend since we were in preschool together.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting at her house and I'm telling her about Adoptee identity and the card decks I'm creating, and she's another social worker.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Do you say Adoptee's Connect?
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: She goes, Zoe, I know who runs Adoptee's Connect.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: That's Ellie.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: And she's really awesome.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: You should really meet her.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, okay.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: So I sent another message out to Ellie and we met within a week.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: It was right before I went to Italy for two weeks.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: And we got, uh, we sat together at the Blue Kangaroo in Barrington, Rhode Island.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And we have in our calendars Julie Blue Kangaroo anniversary.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Anniversaries are really important to us in rituals.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: So uh we just I just remember Ellie sat down and I just had words.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: I was let me tell you everything I'm doing.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And and Ellie, you can share for yourself.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: But it felt like Ellie just took it in and immediately, without skipping a beat, was like, I get it.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Do you want a partner in this?
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And I was, yes, I do.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And literally that night, Ellie was organizing Google Drive folders and sharing them with me.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's such a beautiful kindered spirits for sure, alignment, quick to go to a big vision.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: As visionaries, sometimes you meet people and they're they just don't go there.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Ellie and I go there brilliantly together.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: And she also just sat back and went, Well, let me tell you who I am and what I do.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: And these are my sets, and this is my education and my experience.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: And it is just so complimentary to what I bring to the it just felt like, well, obviously we have to do this together.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: So Ellie, I don't know if you want to add anything to I yeah, I I would describe it exactly the same way.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: And I'm so grateful that Zoe was receptive to me being absolutely yes, this is incredible, and I'm so here for it.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because it's been just over two years now of us doing that together.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: And it every single moment has been really I I you know, I don't know that there's even one word that I could use to describe it actually, but so impactful and powerful on every level, really.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: And there's so much power to finding a good partner, especially in the business world.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: But I think us both being adopted and there's this sort of innate understanding and sense of is when we're together that you don't get with everybody else you're around or working with.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: And there's something really special about that.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I totally agree.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: I felt something similar when I met with Zoe, and I didn't even realize that you guys were partnered.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: But once she told me about your whole story, I was okay, I don't want to take over the kindred spot, but I feel this.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: I feel what's happening here, and I want to be a part of it, and I want people to know about it.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: So we shared coffee too.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: It just wasn't a We did.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: You're totally right.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: I just had my afternoon coffee.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, look at that.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: I brought it full circle.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, before we get into the app, I actually want to talk about some things that I feel like are kind of the heart of what we deal with as adopted people.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: You've already talked about a lot, but you both talk about life moments that carry additional layers.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: Everything is layered for us.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people don't understand that, but let's talk about some of them out loud because I think that there are listeners who have maybe never heard this or need some explanation to why it's difficult for us.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: And I think somebody needs to speak these things out loud.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: So the first one is birthdays.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: Now, what is a birthday for an adoptee?
24:58
SPEAKER_01: And why does that seem hard for some?
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great question.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: And I will say Ellie and I are always acknowledging it's a spectrum.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And every, while there are through lines to a lot of adoptees sharing similar doctors' visits are never fun for an adoptee.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: I can pretty much that across the board.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't have never met an adoptee who says, I love it when they ask that medical question.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: But I do want to acknowledge like it's a spectrum.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'm probably an in-between on my birthday.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: I am an October baby.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: I happen to love October.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: October is also when I was, I left this part out of my story.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, but part of my journey is my birth father also didn't know I was placed for adoption and fought for custody for the first year of my life.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: And while he um relinquished his rights, he and my biological grandmother got um visitation once a year.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And so they would actually be in town in October and I would see them probably.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: That happened the first eight years of my life routinely.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: So my birthday was also fall is evocative for me for so many reasons.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: But I'll just give an example.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: I was sitting with an adopted man who's probably in his um early 50s, and he said to me, People always expecting me to be happy on my birthday, but my birthday was the worst day of my life.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: My birthday was the day that the person who mattered most to me, my primary figure in my life, lost me or or placed me or relinquished me or abandoned me or whatever.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: How can I possibly feel good on that day?
26:27
SPEAKER_00: It's an anniversary of that.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like for me, it it has always had there's always been beautiful traditions in my family that my mom's created magic in the ways that felt very much in tuned with who I am.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: My birthday parties were very much let's go to the woods, let's eat carrot cake, let's do things that are so Zoey, that that felt really honoring of my authentic self.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like there were always moments where I don't know the story of rushing to the hospital or how many hours my mom was in labor or what that day was like in a way that I feel like every other person takes for granted that they have the details, right?
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And that then came alive again when I was preparing to give birth.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, well, what was your birth mother's journey of pregnancy and and birth?
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And you have to go, I don't know, I'm adopted.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, so so I think that that birthdays are nuanced and sometimes our body's keeping the score, right?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: This speaks to your work.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: I often have said to adoptive parents that what I hope our app can do in some ways is create a preview roadmap of allowing people to have insight into the ways that adoptees might experience their birthdays differently and in some ways not be conscious of the way their birthdays impact them, but their body keeps the score.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: So maybe you're irritable, maybe you're not being very nice, and or maybe something's just amiss.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: And rather than judgment, rather than feeling like, oh, I just threw you this birthday party, gave you all these presents, why are you so ungrateful?
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Because that could really do some damage there.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Rather see the adopted person in the context of the big feeling day.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we call a framework.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: It's a big feeling day.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: I so funny.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: I was just talking to a couple that is going to be fostering their nephew because of some situations that is going on.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: And she called me because she wanted some insight.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the things I said.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: You need to be prepared for big feelings, and big feelings are okay.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: Whether they seem like they are proportionate to what's happening doesn't matter.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: You just need to be prepared for them.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: So I love that you say that.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: The other thing I wanted to highlight of what you said was birthdays as anniversaries that live in our body, they're anniversaries of a loss.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's the whole, it's a celebration and a loss.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: It's that both and that we hold as adopted people, right?
28:37
SPEAKER_01: So I really appreciate you sharing that.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: I want the next one to go to you, Ellie.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to move to this next one that Zoe actually already alluded to.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: It's that whole medical visit thing.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: So that clipboard that we get that we're handed when they're like, okay, list your family history.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And all we can say is, we don't know.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: We have no idea.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: So, what happened for you in the waiting room when that occurred when you were growing up?
29:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, I actually don't have any recollection when I was younger.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: I do not remember before I was taking myself to my own doctor's appointments.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: I cannot tell you how that went or what that felt like.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: I I think that my mom, in a lot of ways, tried to, she's she's a pretty private person, I would say, the opposite of Zoe's mom, right?
29:25
SPEAKER_02: Like very public and sharing everything, every chance she got from a visibility, the power of visibility perspective, right?
29:32
SPEAKER_02: My mom is a very much like I hug my husband, my kids, and my dog, and no one else, and that's that, and it's none of your business, why or anything else.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: And also very loving, amazing human.
29:44
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
29:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: But she, I think somebody asked, this is different different from a doctor, but I'll bring it back.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: Somebody asked one time, I was a freshman in high school, and someone met, we were introducing ourselves to another family at orientation weekend or night, whatever, and they were like, Oh, I have you can't tell right now, but I have very curly hair, it's blonde, I have blue eyes.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: My parents are first generation Russian Jews.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: They do not look like me, I do not look like them.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: And a woman was, oh, where did your hair and eyes come from?
30:17
SPEAKER_02: And my mom said, nature, and walked away.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: And I was okay, that's nature it is.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: Uh and in her mind, that woman had no business asking that question, had no business knowing I'm adopted.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: It just didn't need to be shared.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't that it was a secret or shame or anything like that.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: But I have a feeling doctor's visits when I was younger might have been a similar don't go there.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: Just leave that alone.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: As I've gotten older and taken, I I now have to take myself to the doctor and fill out my own forms.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: Really?
30:48
SPEAKER_02: Didn't know that that whole adult thing that we have to do.
30:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Um I do this weird dance now that I'm in reunion where I actually didn't ask about medical history at all for the first three years of knowing my birth mother.
31:05
SPEAKER_02: That didn't, I didn't of I thought that was the first thing I was gonna ask.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: I never asked that question.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: And so I was in reunion and I had access to it in some ways, but I didn't feel comfortable.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: It was not top of mind.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: And so I still would go to the doctor, and then I'd feel like sometimes I would explain, well, I have met my biological family, but I still don't have the information.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: And then over the years I've gotten bits and pieces of information.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes when I find out something new, I recently learned that my paternal grandmother passed away from colon cancer, and so I told my doctor, and she was, well, it's good information, but it doesn't change anything from a testing perspective for you yet.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: Yet, depending upon how old you are.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: When you hit 50, it's gonna matter.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: So it's the funny dance of like I've told you I'm adopted, and also my doctors that I see every year, they almost apologize when they ask every time.
32:04
SPEAKER_02: And I'm I know, and Zoe did some digging.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: Many electronic health records actually have a box where you can indicate in the record that the patient is adopted and people just are not using it.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: But it's there, they aren't capable is there.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: And so something as simple as checking that box, and it could, it doesn't mean that you have to pretend that you don't ask that question and medical history isn't a factor, but it might be like I know that you're adopted.
32:30
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to check if you have any changes in any medical history or if you've got any right.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean that you can't ask the question, and in fact, you should just do any form exactly how you ask is so important, and it's making that identity feel seen in that moment.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: That is a really totally reminder, yeah.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: It's a validation.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: And I remember for years for me, my mom would it's almost as if she was protecting me from having to deal with it.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if she knew she was doing that, but I think she was.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: And then when I started being an adult and going myself, I felt this weight every time I'd look at family history.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, my shoulders just dropped.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I have, I don't, it was the weirdest.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: I didn't like it.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: I did not like it at all.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: And then interestingly, I'm now living in my biological father's basement.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm two and a half years from divorce, so I'm still trying to start over.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: And luckily, I get to be here.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: And his doctor, you guys, this is the craziest thing.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: This has never happened to me before.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: So luckily, my insurance covers her.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: So I went to her and she goes, I know your entire family history.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to tell me anything.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: What a cool thing to experience for an adopted person.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Because I never I got the chills when I was sitting there.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh gosh, I didn't even think about that.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: You do know everything.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: You know every member of this family because she's y'all, that's something right there.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't happen very often.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, I I want to bring that up because quite honestly, we've talked about two things that are non-adopted privilege.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: That's what I call it.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I got that from Susan Ito.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: She's an author and adoptee herself.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: But there's so many things that non-adopted people experience that we don't.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: Things like what you just talked about having a birth story.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: They don't have to worry about medical stuff.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: We do.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: There's certain things that need to be understood that contribute to and exacerbate the trauma, the loss, the grief that we experience.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's important to talk about.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna say what's fascinating for me is the way that people own parts of that throughout their life.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: So medical history when I was younger did not bother me.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: I took it as, because Ellie mentioned uh my mom, Carla, literally, it was a joke in our family.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: She would tell everyone she was a lesbian.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Carla, I'm a lesbian, here's my family.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: And she used it as this like social activism tool.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And so I very much was, I am Zoe, I'm adopted.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: If you're asking about family medical history, let me school you.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: And I took it and reclaimed it as an educational thing that I could do in the moment that gave me power, right?
35:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm in any, I'm looking for control and power in case you didn't pick that up thus far in this podcast.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: But I was looking till before I feel hurt, I'm gonna assert myself and I'm gonna educate.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm adopted, here's what I know, blah, blah, blah.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until, again, undoing the layers and peeling back and unfolding a bit that I was, oh, Zoe, that was a defense mechanism.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: That did hurt you, but you couldn't say out loud that that hurt.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: I had to just take control and disclose and educate and then close the box.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, and everyone around me was fooled to say, look at what a competent, old soul, articulate Zoe is, rather than saying that's an adopted child masking some vulnerabilities about feeling othered, and then is is responding in a way to assert and and not feel at a loss.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: But of course it's loss.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's both.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, just wanted to name that because I do feel like it's it's the the long view is interesting for any adoptee to say, wow, how I responded or or dealt with the traumas ripple, how positive early childhood experiences then mitigated, right?
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like there are there is research now around you could have trauma.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: If you also have positive early childhood experiences, it can mitigate some of the long-term impact of trauma.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't mean it goes away.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: And so it's yeah, yeah, it's so important.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think uh there's a couple of other things I want to try and touch on, but I want to be mindful of time.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I'm bringing these up with you guys is because your app, the whole purpose of your app, I just feel like this is I is important for people to understand.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: So I think of things like school assignments, family trees, baby photos, the genetic connection, the mirroring.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: What do you guys believe in?
36:51
SPEAKER_01: Maybe Ellie, you can start here, that those moments teach us about belonging before we actually had words.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: Zoe and I were having a conversation recently, actually, and we were talking about it, wasn't exclusively adoptee related.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it there was an impact on an adoptee, but it was connected to uh a cultural history and roots and spirits examination that someone was doing.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's interesting how this shows up also in our adult life.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: But if I was to think about this is a holiday-related assignment, but similar to Zoe's defense mechanism in the doctor's office, when I was in that first grade, there was something happened.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: It was my first time really understanding.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: I was raised Jewish.
37:33
SPEAKER_02: It was my first time really understanding that I was the only Jew for like miles, literal miles, besides my parents and sister.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: And I felt even more othered.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: I already had this subconscious stuff going on as an adoptee.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: But being Jewish, I felt even in first grade, mind you, everybody.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: First grade.
37:53
SPEAKER_02: First grade.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: So my defense, and people are talking about Santa.
37:57
SPEAKER_02: I also accidentally ruined it for everyone because I went home and I was like, mom, who is Santa?
38:03
SPEAKER_02: And what are these kids talking about?
38:05
SPEAKER_02: And she was like, Oh, it's the silly pretend thing they do.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: It's he's not real.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: I went to school and I was like, I know he's not real.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: You guys are so silly.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: My mom was getting phone calls from other parents.
38:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it was a whole thing.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: But again, I had to go tell everyone, I'm in on your secret, you can't fool me.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: And they I instead broke their hearts.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: But I took it upon myself to, I literally had one of those white paper flip chart things, and I made a whole lesson about Hanukkah.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: And we, my mom has supported this endeavor, and I taught, I stood up in front of my first grade class and taught everyone about Hanukkah and how to make a dreidel with a toothpick, a marshmallow, and a Hershey kiss, because obviously Candy had to be involved.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: And look back at that, and I'm like, that was such a moment where I was feeling so othered.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: And I I am certain that similar to Zoe, I too love control and power and not uh authoritative power, but I like to feel like I am in control of what is happening around me.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: And when I don't know what everyone else is talking about, I'm gonna bring you all into what I know about, and we're all gonna talk about Hanukkah and Dradles.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: And that is, I think religion is a thing for sure, but I I'm positive that a lot of that was rooted in the way that there was Christmas decorations all over the classroom and nothing about Hanukkah.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: And I felt really out of it and absolutely trying to understand what it meant to be Jewish anyway at that age, right?
39:34
SPEAKER_02: So, all of that to say, I think there's moments where though it's not that we can't acknowledge and celebrate all the things, it's not that we can't talk about our family trees or our baby photos or whatever, but making room for the fact that not everyone has that same experience.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: And that could be true.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: There might be someone in the classroom who is a descendant of immigrants and they don't have access to any family photos or childhood photos or had a house fire and their everything is gone.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: There, there are so many things.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: We are, I think, so fortunate to live in such a diverse place, especially here in the US, and everyone around us is going through something, right?
40:15
SPEAKER_02: How we shape the questions we're asking, the assignments we're giving in school, whatever it is, to make space for all the variants and nuances of identity and learning from the adoptee experience to help us navigate.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally agree with that.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so good.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: I want to summarize one other thing that Zoe actually alluded to earlier.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: It's that whole idea of becoming parents and how elusive it feels to us initially when we look at that face that looks like us for the first time.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: It and then you did such an eloquent description of the ending with losing your mom, and then two years later, the beginning with your daughter.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: There, it's just it's important to understand again, that's a non-adopted privilege.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: We as parents don't have the ability to understand what it feels like to be biologically connected until we do.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: So, or in reunion, like you talked about, being able to do that at 21, being able to feel, and I know exactly what you were talking about when you described it, that energetic connection is it's sometimes overwhelming.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: It can feel like you're drinking from a fire hose because we don't experience that.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: So to build a somatic bridge here, which somatic just means body, those listeners who haven't maybe listened to me until now.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: And where have you been?
41:39
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, for everyone listening, if any of these things landed somewhere in your body right now, maybe there was a tightness, maybe your your throat got tight, maybe you felt an ache or a recognition.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do anything with it, just notice it because that is part of the work, is being able to notice that this impacted us and then begin to explore that.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: So I want to reframe this whole idea of I think we can, as adopted people, sometimes just feel like something is wrong with us when we're going through all of this.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: But it's more about what is happening in us when this stuff is happening that I believe is our job to get in touch with, to, to heal.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's a part of what your app, I believe, is going to do.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: So I would really like to get into that for our last time together.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: So I would like whomever feels comfortable to talk about it, tell everybody about unfolding and what it is, who is it for?
42:43
SPEAKER_01: I think it's pretty clear who it's for, and what you hope it becomes.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: Take it, Zoe.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: So, okay.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: So unfolding.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: So when you open unfolding, and this is the first release of unfolding, right?
42:56
SPEAKER_00: Unfolding will unfold.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of ideas for unfolding as you unfold.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: But what unfolding will provide right now is a daily flow and a short daily practice of providing you with a daily card that is a reflection, a message, high level, meant to be open-ended, meant to kind of either resonate or not, just for leaning into curiosity, right?
43:23
SPEAKER_00: Then there's a breath work grounding exercise.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: So connect with your body.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's so when you said where does it show up?
43:31
SPEAKER_00: The throat is always for me where it should be.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't mind public step, public speaking doesn't do it.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Feelings do it.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: So a grounding exercise that will that will evolve, and we have many visions for, but for right now, it's breath work.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: Then there's a unfold journaling prompt that is connected to the daily card.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: And the daily card you can share with someone.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Someone in your life via text, you could upload it to your social media.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: It's meant, this is an application.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a platform, it's an app, but it's really meant to spark a connection in real life, to start conversations, to give a starting point.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need a prompt.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: You need you need a prompt to start the conversation so it doesn't feel so loaded and heavy on you.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: I actually today, Ellie, I sent because we have, we're doing the test flight right now.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: I sent the card to my sister because it was about roots and my sister's donor conceived, and I knew that it would resonate immediately with her.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: And she just sent me back a heart emoji.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: These are the ways that we can just start the unfolding is for yourself.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: It's also to unfold in community and to feel that belonging at your own pace.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: There's just the name itself unfolding is very somatic.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: It's not forced.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: At least I don't feel like that.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: There's I don't feel like there's a forced part of it.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: There's no rushing.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: It's just beautiful.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, what's behind the name?
45:01
SPEAKER_01: How did you guys come up with that name?
45:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are so many names, Julie.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: There's so many names.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because then today everyone's going to AI, come up with all these names here.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: I am so proud to say that I came up with unfolding on my own.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: I was, it was a shower moment.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Ellie, unfolding.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: And Ellie was like, unfolding.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: And that it it just felt like it, it, it, it did all the things, right?
45:25
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have an ending.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: It feels ongoing.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: It lends itself to conversation.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: So I find when I'm telling people about unfolding, they start to say, Oh yeah, an unfolding moment.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, the other day I feel like I unfolded with and it's it just flows.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: And then also sometimes you need to hold that back up, put it on the shelf and take it out next week.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need to unfold, refold, revisit.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Ellie, what speak to it.
45:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I nothing else to add on the name.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: I think the only other piece that I would say is as much as it's sparking connection, doing everything to community, it's also really, we hope will serve as a place for adoptees to like sit with the thing, start to unfold or refold or whatever you need to do, and then be able to ask yourself and have an answer for then what?
46:14
SPEAKER_01: Like at the next step.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: We have this big feeling, we have this moment, we do this unfolding, this act of unfolding, whatever that looks like for you, and then what?
46:25
SPEAKER_02: Because they're I Zoe and I firmly believe adoptees deserve to thrive in this world.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: And right now, statistically, they are not.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: We are not.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: And we want to change that.
46:37
SPEAKER_02: And I think the the then what and what happens when you have a framework, when you have language, when you have a day something as simple as a daily flow where you feel a little bit more seen, the people in your life might see you a little better because you have language to talk to them.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: They could use the app and have language to read themselves and unfold their own identity and relationship with you as an adoptee.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: I there is so much power in that.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: And I think the the then what, once we, once we get into this unfolding flow together, that will be so beautiful and not AI like Zoe mentioned.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I I think the the then what will really start to show.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's so rooted in just real, real life.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's every day there's an example or a moment where it's if if my mom had unfolding, she would have had a different perspective on what it meant for me to become a mom.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: If my husband had unfolding, he would have seen me more fully in my me becoming a mom.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: There's there's all and on big feeling days, right?
47:42
SPEAKER_00: I think we have a completely different.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: My husband this year was so Mother's Day's coming up.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: And how are you feeling?
47:48
SPEAKER_00: I know it can be a big feeling day.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: How do you and Ellie's husband also has shown up in some remark?
47:53
SPEAKER_00: There's an ice cream, you share Ellie.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: That was just best.
47:57
SPEAKER_02: There's uh an ice cream place that's been open for I think about a year now.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: It's pretty, it's relatively new in Providence.
48:04
SPEAKER_02: And my husband and I just moved to Providence, and the ice cream place is only a three-minute drive, which is so problematic because we love ice cream so much.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: But it is called Big Feeling.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: And my adoption day was coming up, and my husband was in between jobs and errands and stopped by our house very quickly, dropped off two pints of ice cream from Big Feeling with a card that said something like, I know today is a really big feeling day for you.
48:32
SPEAKER_02: Big feeling as you work through it.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: And he had that language because of Adopt Y Identity and Unfolding, right?
48:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: Before that, he did not have that language.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: He he was totally open to talking about it and learning about it.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: But something as simple and sweet as that, sweet, literally sweet, was monumental.
48:50
SPEAKER_02: I immediately took a picture and sent it to Zoe, which I wouldn't typically send pictures that my husband gives me, send cards that it was so powerful, and I'm like, it's working.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: The framework is working in real life.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's really cool.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: In ice cream.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: It's so, so cool.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: So I you brought up the numbers, and it's one of the episodes I've done in in my podcast too, is statistics.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: And even when I they've changed since I did it back in, I think it was November when I recorded that episode.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: And they already have changed some of the things that I've seen.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: So there is there is a truth that a lot of people do not understand in society that we are at higher risk for so many things as adopted people: jail, uh, suicide attempts, uh, substance abuse, it mental health.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we know all of this.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's important to call it what it is.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: In a lot of ways, I think it's a public health crisis hiding in plain sight.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: And so this app will provide something that maybe other things haven't.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: And that's the reason why you guys created it, is my guess.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: Now, you can add to that any way that you want.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: Clearly, you were not finding this anywhere else.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: So that's the reason why you decided to create it.
50:09
SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to hear about that.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't anywhere else.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: It really started with a conversation card deck, looking for, like Ellie said, that common language.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: After I spoke to my friends who were social workers and they told me that, in fact, it is a trauma.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: And I learned the statistics you just named, my mind exploded.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: I was, wait, hold up.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: Why do we?
50:30
SPEAKER_00: And so I went and listened to all the things and read the things, and I still was at a loss for a framework, a common language that was not overly clinical, that was not academic, and that just met us in our everyday life so that we could have better conversations with the people who love us or with a therapeutic provider who maybe didn't know what the lived experience of an adoptee was like.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: And so that was the first thing that Ellie and I brought to fruition is a physical conversation card deck.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: We then went to a conference where we experienced people, we had a had a thought beforehand, oh, I think this might need to be an app.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: But that conference really confirmed it for us.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: People were crying at our table.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: We joked that we every time we go to a conference, we have to have ladville and tissues because then we were crying, right?
51:12
SPEAKER_00: If someone was coming up our table crying, then we were crying, then we were hugging.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure the other exhibitors thought we were wild.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: But it really showed us that this needed to go to scale, that this was much bigger than we had previously thought.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: And literally everywhere I go, obviously, I'm talking about this, and people are overhearing my conversation and saying, wait, my daughter's adopted, my husband's adopted, my the the it, my kids are don't or conceive.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: My it is a massive ripple.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: I think we don't have good data on how many adult adoptees are everything's about kind of and let's put more effort and into transforming and reviving making child welfare what it needs to be to give justice to the kids and families involved.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we forget that we grow up.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: And so this this really, this app, this this conversation deck, this whole framework is we grow up and we don't stop being adopted.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: And we need tools.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: And so we're starting with adoptees, but we do have aspirations for other iterations of uh the NPE community, the donor-conceived community that has found through lines to our lived experiences as well.
52:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's why the village, because we don't do this in this isolation, but no, it's it's I mean, to our knowledge, a first to market.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: There isn't.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get that.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: That's the reason why I think you and I connected because when I was talking to you about what I do, I'm like, nobody's doing what I'm doing.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: And so it feels very lonely over here.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: I need people to support just the the idea of what I'm doing because it just can feel hard.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: So I totally get that.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I wanted to say, so that listeners and viewers, I've said this before, but I just I want you guys to hear this.
52:53
SPEAKER_01: That's just the statistics that are out there on adopted people are there's no solid number.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: It's like between five and seven million of us in the United States, which is between two and five percent of the population, which is about maybe one in 10 people are connected to adoption.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no solid numbers, but that's a lot.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: Even just that is a lot.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: When you hear the statistics of what we just described, and I didn't even get into them all.
53:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying we are overrepresented in all those populations.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: And I don't need to get into it.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: It's we need to realize that this is an issue and it needs to be addressed, and what a beautiful way to do it.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: Then have it in your hand that this is the thing that everybody is so addicted to these days, dang it, that we actually have something that will help us and support us.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: I just am so looking forward to that.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: So the one other thing I I wanted to say to this was that community piece that you talked about.
53:50
SPEAKER_01: You funded this through Kickstarter.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: And it was backed by adoptees and the people who loved them.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: And what did that support speak to you, Ellie?
54:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I at one, I forget at what point we said this, but like Zoe mentioned, adoptees are literally everywhere, right?
54:10
SPEAKER_02: Everyone and if adoptees are doing better, everyone is doing better.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: This is how the world works, right?
54:16
SPEAKER_02: We if everyone is thriving, we are all thriving.
54:20
SPEAKER_02: And it it just says so much that people a can so whether they are adopted or not, can so deepen when Zoe tells her story about meeting her first biolog well, she had met biological family, the profound experience of giving birth and seeing so intimately close to you and feeling what that feels like.
54:44
SPEAKER_02: I I have not I am not a mom yet, but I can imagine, and not a soul hears that story and can't understand what Zoe is talking about.
54:52
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
54:53
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
54:54
SPEAKER_02: Nothing that is not relatable.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's so much to like you mentioned, the just organic support we got through Kickstarter and what that what that felt like, what that looked like, what it meant, that it it speaks volumes, I think, to how much we really can learn from the Adoptee experience and how much a work there is to be done, and that it's doable, right?
55:17
SPEAKER_02: We can do it.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: People believe in it, and it's because it will benefit them, everyone around them, and it is something that it simply has to happen.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: It has to yeah.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: No, I I agree with you.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: So where can people find it, follow it, join the wait list?
55:35
SPEAKER_01: Zoe, tell me where can people find it, follow it, join the wait list.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: So you can find us on Instagram at unfolding app, you can find us on Facebook, Unfolding App, you can find us on the world wide web, unfolding-app.com.
55:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you could join the wait list there.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: You'll be notified as soon as we launch.
55:52
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, if you follow us on social media, uh, we're also on LinkedIn as well.
55:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you can follow us and we are kind of unfolding live.
56:01
SPEAKER_01: You sure are.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: And I will make sure, as always, to put all of this in the show notes for sure, so everybody can access them.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, staying with the curious theme here.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: Your work centers, this is it.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna be our last question.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:15
SPEAKER_01: Your work centers on well-being, belonging, and staying curious.
56:19
SPEAKER_01: So I want to know what each of you are personally curious about right now in your own unfolding.
56:26
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to go first?
56:27
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to just like absolutely that?
56:31
SPEAKER_02: Let you stumble and fumble and give me a minute to think.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: Um I just moved.
56:38
SPEAKER_02: I think I mentioned that already.
56:39
SPEAKER_02: I did, I definitely did.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: I just moved.
56:42
SPEAKER_02: And moving for me has I did not move at all up until I left home permanently.
56:49
SPEAKER_02: So I lived in the same house my entire childhood.
56:52
SPEAKER_02: And then I've moved 10 times, it feels like, in the last five years, probably five times in the last five years, or ten years, whatever.
57:00
SPEAKER_02: I've learned moving is incredible.
57:03
SPEAKER_02: I don't know anyone who loves moving.
57:05
SPEAKER_02: Actually, oh Zoe kind of likes it, but she's not moving.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't know anyone else who likes moving, okay?
57:11
SPEAKER_02: I and I have learned that moving is one of the most disorienting things that I can do.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot of uh lack of control that happens when you're moving.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Your stuff is everywhere and to each their own, but that is not my style.
57:28
SPEAKER_02: I want to know exactly where everything is, even if it's a little messy, I know where it is, right?
57:33
SPEAKER_02: As soon as that is shifting, as soon as there's an ounce of negative impact on the peace that I have created in my home, I absolutely lose my mind.
57:44
SPEAKER_02: Worst version of me comes to the surface in every direction.
57:49
SPEAKER_02: So two weeks before our move, I sat down with my husband and I was, I don't know if you've gathered at this point, but moving is really hard for me and I don't do well with it.
57:57
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, I noticed it, but I never made the connection that it could be an adopte-e thing.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: Probably everything that I do is an adopte-e thing.
58:06
SPEAKER_01: Sadly.
58:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:08
SPEAKER_02: Um But it was I was really working through the then what, right?
58:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay, I'm sitting down, I'm having this conversation with you, I'm giving you the heads up that I'm probably not gonna be the best me in the next three weeks or so.
58:20
SPEAKER_02: While the move is happening, I I was in real time doing this, okay, they just broke my washing machine, but it's okay.
58:29
SPEAKER_02: My friends who were with me were ready to freak out, and I was nope, we're gonna, we're just gonna take a deep breath, we're gonna focus on unpacking all of these plates and picking the cabinet they go in because that's what we can control right now.
58:39
SPEAKER_02: And I don't care that the washing machine is broken and the dryer's in the driveway.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: I had to and I was saying these things out loud, just like that.
58:47
SPEAKER_02: And it I by the time I laid down and could barely feel my feet, I sat back and I was, I want to really reflect on this experience and how my willingness to be curious, I think it is rooted in curiosity, my willingness to be curious about why I am such an asshole when I'm going through a move, seriously, and what I can do about that.
59:10
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know that I was any better necessarily, but I was really aware of it and I gave the heads up and I was working through not I didn't cry.
59:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
59:21
SPEAKER_02: It was my first move where I did not cry over stupid things usually, but and even if you would have, Ellie, who cares?
59:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, right.
59:29
SPEAKER_02: Totally all good.
59:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
59:31
SPEAKER_02: But I let myself sit with and feel it and acknowledge it and talk it through and whatever.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: And so, all of this to say, I think what I'm most curious about is how I can continue using our framework to really prepare and navigate because the big feelings will always be there and they should be there.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to suppress the big feelings at all.
59:52
SPEAKER_02: It's like be okay with them and still be okay.
59:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
59:56
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: Good job.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: So did that give you enough time, Zoe, to figure out what you're curious about right now and what's unfolding.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: Pretty long.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_02: I talked more than I thought.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: So my I'm like, how did this just not jump out at me?
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's a big, huge feeling.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: So my unfolding moment that I am anticipating and already gearing up and working through is I turned 40 this October.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: And 40 is a big number, but 40 is also when my mom, who passed away, adopted me.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: 40, it was she brought me home on her 40th birthday.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: So I there, so my challenge to myself in unfolding will be opposite of Ellie.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: I like to pretend that I don't have big feelings.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: I like to just so my role will be to unfold and embrace vulnerability and the feelings that come up like they should, and allow the people in my life to bear witness to them.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: That's my I can unfold in private, but allowing my village to actually be there for unfolding in and hold me in that space has been something I've always struggled with.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like as 40 is a milestone in and of itself, and then my my mom's kind of history with what 40 means in my adoption story, I will challenge myself to um unfold in.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: That is beautiful, Zoe.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: I'll need our app.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: I'll need my app actively.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: You will definitely need your app.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I know you don't know me well, but I will say this.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: I could be here for you if you need it.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_01: But you got Ellie too.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm 52, so I've been there done that.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_01: I've got on the other side of that.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: So I get it.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't have the attachment to the mom in the situation.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy, but how cool it is that you are aware and allowing that to unfold.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: See what I did there.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: It's brief, but it's also it's also serendipity and beautiful.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: So much as.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, guys, thank you so much, Zoe and Ellie, for being here.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: This conversation has truly been everything I'd hoped it would be.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_01: And I have a feeling our paths are going to keep crossing because kindreds usually do.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_01: And friends that are listening, that are watching, if this episode landed somewhere with you, please go find Unfolding.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_01: Follow all the different links you're gonna see that I put in the show notes.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_01: Follow along, join them, be a part of what they're building because more spaces made by adoptees for adoptees, the more belonging for all of us.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: So, as always, if something came up for you today, a question, a reaction, something that stirred, you can DM me.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_01: And I'm almost certain that the two of these women would be happy to receive any of your questions as well.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: They're shaking their heads if you're not watching, so that you know those that are listening.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: Any of us on the socials, just DM us and you can even schedule a conversation with me if you want to ask me questions.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: And I would love to hear where and how I can personally support you.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: And if this podcast has meant something to you, I would love a five-star review or even a few words written, because that goes a long way in helping this work reach more adoptees and more people who love them.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_01: So remember, you aren't alone in this because you aren't.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: You are never alone.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_01: And one more thing before we go, I want to leave you with something because it's a phrase I've been holding on to and one you're going to be hearing from me from now on, because everything that we've talked about today, the app, the community, the practices, the noticing, all of it points to the same truth that belonging was never something that you were supposed to go out and find in someone else's approval, someone else's family, someone else's definition of you.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_01: So here it is.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_01: Stop outsourcing belonging.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: Insource it.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_01: And I'll see you next week.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: Peace.