Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with BakeR Gendron | Awakening Without Labels

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Interview with BakeR Gendron | Awakening Without Labels · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kay Eck, and this is where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary lives.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Alive and Kicking Podcast, everybody.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who are watching either on the website or on YouTube, you can see that my guest tonight, Baker.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You say it really good.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Gendron are here in the studio together in Arizona.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of new for us.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm delighted to have you here.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm delighted to be here.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for agreeing to be my guest, our guest.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you and I became acquainted because you manage a healing center here in Sedona.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it was one of those synchronistic meetings that happen all the time for us when we're really paying attention.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just kind of became fast friends and have been through some interesting experiences together already, even though we haven't known each other that long.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll go into that later.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But um so welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to have you here today.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So your history is so interesting to me because it um it kind of is to me an example of what a life without limits is kind of like when you're not limiting yourself by some sort of external definition.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so let's get into that a little bit.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about your childhood.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're a Midwestern girl like me.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in a very small town in southwest Michigan, um, pretty redneck, uh, about 1700 people.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: There was a paper mill that you know spewed ugly fumes all day and put ugly garbage in the rivers.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and most of the people in the town worked in the paper mill.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: That was sort of what you were gonna do when you grew up was work in the paper mill.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was just a really, it was a pretty nasty place to grow up.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I have no idea where I got.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I let me rephrase that.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: My mother was very ambitious, and my mother did teach me that you can do anything you want to do.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she really gave me, she instilled that in me, that you can do anything.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So she she always wanted to be educated and she always gave us that, and I was the smart one.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm the middle child, I'm the only girl, I have two brothers, and she always gave me that because she always wanted that.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: She always wanted to, she had wanted to go to college and you know, she wanted to do all that, and she didn't, but um, she really instilled that in me.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So there was that hope, like she gave me that hope, but most of the people in that small town didn't, they didn't have it, you know.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: They you were gonna stay there, you were gonna live there, you're gonna have kids, you were gonna have a family, that kind of thing.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I always had this little radical sense of I don't have to stay here.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: There, there's gotta be more out there.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: This can't be all there is.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, I think it's almost more painful to grow up being aware of that living in a small town where a lot of people don't have that desire or that need or the knowing that there might be something else.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're comfortable in their lane, and that's where where they're going.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So was that it's was that um something that informed you as uh as a young child?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Informed maybe.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like informed who you became.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, I would also say that I was always a voracious reader.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I was reading when I was probably three and a half, four years old.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was already reading.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I read everything I could get my hands on.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: When I was probably eight or nine, I asked for the world book encyclopedias.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I wanted for Christmas, and so they got me like the whole set.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, um I I just knew that there was um that there was this whole world out there, you know, that didn't exist where I was.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And this was a time when girls were still very limited, so we couldn't even wear pants to school.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't um forget jeans, pants, regular pants.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's 35 below zero.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're waiting for a bus in a skirt, and I mean you couldn't wear pants under your skirt, you it, you know, ridiculous.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember once on the playground.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now I grew up out in the country with all boys, so I had learned to be pretty tough.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um this kid jumped off the monkey bars on my back and knocks me to the ground, and I flip him over and I'm beating the crap out of him.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And this teacher runs over, little girls don't do that.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, well, why is it okay for him to beat me up?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but I'm supposed to, and and there was this, so that's when I became a feminist with second grade.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: I remember having this sense of like, what is that about?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like it's okay for him to knock me over into the dirt, but I'm supposed to be, you know, the sweet little thing now, and yeah, whatever.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know if that's where you're going with that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think I got off track, but no, but I I love that because it's like, you know, you're challenged, you're already challenging gender expectations.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I always had that sense uh there I I just never got that whole thing about like I'm supposed to be this sweet little girl who's supposed to do these things.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And again, remember I had a very ambitious mother who really that was a really great gift she gave me was that I could do and be anything I wanted.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she didn't have any of that, like, you know, I can't do that.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: If she saw something she wanted to do, she put together a um uh an organ, a organ.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: She worked at Heath Company and they had those kits, you know, those great big kits that you could make things.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: She made an organ.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, play play the organ kind of thing, that kind of thing.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it sounds like she wasn't like the type of person who would be was resentful of the what she wasn't able to do.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, she just should go do it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: She just would go do it.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was your father like that?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was like so.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: My father was not real educated, he worked as a laborer at a place called Auto Specialties that made um brakes and car parts.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Michigan is, you know, very car-centric.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's about cars.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was a master mechanic.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: He could take apart any engine and put it back together.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he um was a very wounded, very, very wounded man.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: He had been horribly, horrifically abused by his father.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I found out much, much later in my life.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as a result, was very abusive to my brothers, beat them severely, sexually abused me.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I didn't remember any of that until I was almost 40 years old.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't remember the part about me, knew about my brothers.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I remembered that.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um he but but then on the outside, he would do anything for anybody.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So he was very beloved in town because he would help, you know, the neighbors would come and they needed help with a car, they needed help with, he would go do that.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: He was always helping people with their cars.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they didn't see that, you know.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And even in our family, um, my parents were the best of the cousin.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my my mom had uh three brothers and sisters.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: My grandparents were migrant workers on my mother's side.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I never knew my father's parents, so um, but they were all from Arkansas and they were all poor and uneducated, and so everyone escaped to Michigan to work in the factories because that was a much better life.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that character of your father, is it was it was it that he was hiding his true self from the from the people on the outside, or was that just a reflection of his conflicted character?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did those two aspects live in him both as true in some way?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I would say he was hiding that.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And actually years later, I worked with a one of my mentors who's a psychic gun phoenix, and he came in and talked to us.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: He also died when I was 16.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there's a whole lot to this story.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we could spend hours on my dad.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: But he came back, he came to me and you know, we're just sobbing and apologizing and for what he had done to me.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I often wonder if he even knew what he was doing.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there is, and I've done years of therapy around all this.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a point I think that my therapist told me where they actually don't even see you as their daughter.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're like um, I forget how she described it, a subject, uh, you know, you're just a like a thing.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're they don't that doesn't even exist.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when I finally told my mother about all this, she would, she said, but your father adored you.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't doubt me, but she just said, your father adored you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, he did.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So there was that whole wow, it's crazy.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So confusing.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a it's so you basically put this package outside of your awareness for a long time.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: You went to high school, you survived high school, and then you went to college.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't go to college, I went, I went very briefly to college.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was never my thing.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Never your thing.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, what did you do then?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I got married young, 21.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: That was awful, lasted for two years, got divorced.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: When what compelled you to get married?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think I got married because everybody else was getting married.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew it was the wrong thing to do.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I knew the day I was, it was a church with a basement where I got uh ready in the basement, and I'm walking up the stairs, you know, to go walk down the aisle.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And my stepfather was with me, who I adored, by the way, wonderful gift.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, what the hell am I doing?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just like, oh my god, this is a huge mistake, but I'm in the dress and the church is full.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and by the way, this was my mother's wedding.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: This was a wedding my mother always wanted, that my mother never had, right?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, she got married pretty young and they were all poor, so they just had this little, you know, bought some flowers, went to a judge, probably.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So this was my mother's wedding.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: 250 people, the whole thing.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted 50 people at the beach, you know, yeah, yeah.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I'm you know, I felt like I was stuck.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't, I could not walk out.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you stayed in Michigan then, yeah.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Which is what you said you wouldn't do.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you were not doing what you want to do, and you were marrying somebody, tying yourself to Michigan against them.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So so you that ended in divorce after a couple of years.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And how did your family take that?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: The divorce?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my mom said my mom really thought he was a good guy.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody thought he was a good guy because again, he looked like a really good guy.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: He would work double shifts all the time.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: He was all about money.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm 21 years old.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're already not having sex.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 21, right?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like what?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um he, gosh, we're really talking about some deep stuff here.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he had what's called a Madonna whore complex.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard of that?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So before you get married, you're the whore.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: So anything goes.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as you get married, you're the Madonna.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the way, I also said I never want children.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: We aren't married two months, and he's going, When are we gonna have kids?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what part of this did you not understand?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: I never ever wanted kids.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was very clear I didn't want kids, I just knew I didn't want kids.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I I was just dumbfounded.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was so clear about this, there was no doubt that I talked to you about this very clearly.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just constantly like, when are you gonna go off birth control?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta have kids, blah blah blah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a huge deal breaker right there.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're not having sex, so that's kind of hard because if I'm not gonna have kids, he's not gonna have sex.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh was this religiously motivated or just no, not at all.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is way of he's he it's you're the Madonna.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So your sole purpose is to have my children.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's and and then anyway, it's that's a whole nother, you know, you could again spend hours on that.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I looked, oh, and then I thought, and his mother hated me, you know, it was the typical his father was a jewel, we got along great, but his mother absolutely detested me.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we had to go there every Sunday for dinner.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was just, you name it, it was horrible.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he got a job offer in Chicago.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, maybe if we go to Chicago, you know, we'll get away from them and maybe things will get better.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we moved, he took the job, we went to Chicago, and of course, that was worse because now I have no support system, and none of my friends, my my family is back in Michigan too.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm really lost and I'm crying myself to sleep every night.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's horrible.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I just have nothing.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: So he says, well, join join the country club, because he's this rising star, right?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: In the in the whatever corporate thing he was in, and join the country club.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I joined the country club.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's shocking.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, picture you in the country club, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't belong in the country club.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: There, the women are starting on martinis at 10 a.m.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, first you go play tennis, then you come in to have lunch at 10, 10:30, 11, whatever it was.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're drinking, and I mean drinking, and I've never been a drinker.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm just and we're in St.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Charles, Illinois.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know St.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Charles.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, very nice place, right?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of listeners um in St.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Charles.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we do, yeah.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we we have a house on is it the Fox River?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Fox River, you know, all of stuff.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you're in the country club, I hope I'm not offending you, but anyway, whatever that thing was called.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is a lot to happen in the course of two years.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, and and I have I want to circle back to that your desire not to have children, because you know, that could have very easily um, you know, you could have given in on that just to keep the peace or to you know fulfill some obligation.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So what was it about that decision for you that was that you felt so resolute in?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even explain it.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just always knew I was not gonna have kids.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I just now by the way, I love kids.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: I love your kids, I love anybody else's kids.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: You see me at a party if there's kids, I'm hanging out with the kids.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: I would much rather be with kids.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: But 24-7, that responsibility, have no desire.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um part of it, I always say it's because you have to cook, you have to make them three meals a day because I don't cook.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't even imagine.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's hard.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: How do you even do that?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's why I only eat really one meal a day anymore.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just, it's just too much.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the idea of that, um I'm a really good person in emergency.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you uh have a uh where to go experience and I have to take you to that hospital, I'm gonna be great.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: But once you're done with that, if you needed long-term nursing, I'm not a great nurse.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm you know, to take care of a child who's sick for like a week or two or you know, throwing up all the time.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, that whole thing.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to babysit, and I was a great babysitter.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I enjoyed that, but I just I don't know, I just knew I was so clear that I was not, I just didn't want kids that was not in your okay.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So how did so you I can imagine at 23 it's very difficult to go through a divorce like in 1970, what was that?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 23.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that was 73.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: So did that did you feel like a failure?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Did you, yeah?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, I did not.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what happened.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: He he was also, I I think he's I think he was very mentally imbalanced.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I would try to leave, I tried to leave a few times.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: He would try to commit suicide.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: He would do some kind of crazy thing.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then he started accusing me of having affairs.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, I go to the grocery store, I'd come home with six bags of groceries, and he'd say, Where have you been?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I, you know, I've gone an hour.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean, where have I been?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was just insanity.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: He was working 16 hours a day.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, long story short, um, I I went, I said, I want to go home.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: My friend was getting married, I want to go home for this wedding, and he said, I can't, I have to work, but we'll go home next weekend, I promise.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm going to this wedding.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I went home and I saw an old boyfriend at the wedding.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I slept with him because I all of a sudden I realized this is the only way I'm going to be able to leave.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I came back, drove back to Chicago, I walked in the door, and he said, You went out on me.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, I did.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he went upstairs and started throwing on my clothes down the thing, and that was it.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I left and um and then he, oh, it's a crazy, it's so crazy, it's unbelievable, but I'll just tell you the end.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I come up there to get all my stuff, my furniture at the end, and he walks out and he says, if you'll just come back, you can screw anybody you want.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I only did that because I knew that would be the final break, right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that would be what would do it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, but that's how imbalanced he is.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the here's the shocking, shocking into the whole thing is that at um during the then divorce process, at one point I had asked him if I things got a little more amicable.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he had gotten an apartment or whatever.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, there was a really great concert in Chicago.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Can I come up for the weekend and go to this concert?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Oh, sure.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: I come up and there's women's clothes in the closet.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Um, and I knew I kind of had this suspicion he was dating this secretary from work, but he would always say, No, well, she was living with him.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Not only was she living with him, but then I find out she's six months pregnant, and two weeks after we are doing the divorce is final, they were married.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's interesting.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You should always pay attention when someone's accusing you of cheating.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened then?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so then I moved back to Michigan for about a year.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew I was leaving.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was, oh, wait.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: The story of the divorce.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you asked if it was hard to get a divorce.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, very hard to get a divorce in 1974, three, whatever that was.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the night before the divorce was going to be final.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm living in Michigan.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had dated this guy on and off.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And at one point, he had um given me a hickey on my neck.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the next time I was at his place, he falls asleep.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I give him one, right?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Ha ha.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: He shows up at my house that night with a friend.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're drinking.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really think anything of it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: I let them in.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: This part I blocked out too.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the two of them beat me up really badly, raped me with a gun.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: They had a gun too.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I forgot the whole rape part.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I mean, they literally bit through my neck, they just did horrific things to me.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: I get up the next morning, I don't see any of this.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: I get ready, I go to, I go get meet my attorney, I walk into his office, I remember he's like, are you okay?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Yeah, let's go get the divorce done, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he had already coached me on, you know, we're gonna go to court and they're gonna ask you all these questions because it's very difficult back then.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so he had put me through all that.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: We go to the courthouse, we get on the elevator, and at that time I knew a lot of the um cops in town because I used to manage a Howard Johnson's and they would come and use rooms to um meet with their what do you call those people?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Informants.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Informants, thank you.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um so one of the narcs uh gets on the elevator and he does the same thing.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Oh my god, are you okay?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Yeah, I'm getting my divorce finalized today.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: I literally have absolutely no cognizance of this, any of this that's happened to me.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: My I have bite marks on my neck.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they're all just, I mean, the the narc that he was a pretty good friend of mine, he turns white.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's just looking at me and I'm and I'm looking at and I'm all I'm sort of like, what's wrong with all these guys?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're acting so weird.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we go to court, the judge asked me two questions.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: They must have all thought my husband had done this.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: So he asked like two questions, done, dwarf spinal, out the door.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I go, my friend, we were even going celebrate afterwards.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, she had been my roommate up until that afternoon, the day before she had moved out because she was gonna go stay at her parents' place for a while to help them out.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she gets in the car and she says, and I said, What are you talking about?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And she takes the mirror and just goes like this look at yourself.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I finally recognized it.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: But even then, I only thought they had done this.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: I still didn't remember the rate because I never remembered the rate until I remembered what my dad had done.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that was until I was, like I said, almost 40.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So our minds are so good.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we just can bury all that.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just had a um another guest who had a similar experience where she was in a situation where she blacked out and thought she had been right, but that was enough to trigger her memories that she had completely forgotten about was just like the understanding.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, the mind is like, I mean, that's a protection mechanism protecting you from something that's too much.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're just talking about um your life and how it's unfolded and the the mysteries of the mind.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to talk about you know how this all came to life for you, but what do we need to know between that time and you were 40 when this happens?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then um after that, that same year, about that was in February.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: So in I think it was September, I sold everything I owned, bought a van, packed up everything, you know, everything I wanted to take with my little black cat, and hit the road for California.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: With my mother standing at the end of the driveway, you can't go cross-country by yourself.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I can.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And hadn't left.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I knew I was done.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was so done, you know, because I was still back in that little town.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew there was more.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: I knew there was something out there that was bigger, better.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted um, I wanted people like me.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted people that thought about things, that experienced things at a deeper level.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know what that meant then.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wouldn't have said the word deeper.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't have known that's what I meant.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I had taken I had gone to school enough and I was self-educated enough.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, I still I still would read everything I could get my hands on.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had read, I bet you, honest to God, I swear to you, probably two-thirds of the books in the library in that small town.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because it it was a very limited library, obviously.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I would read my world books, you know.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: I would just, so I was hungry for knowledge.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was hungry for people that wanted to know things, that wanted to talk about things, that wanted to, you know, live that, and I wanted diversity too.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to know, um, I knew there was this whole world out there.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I wanted to meet someone from Australia or England or wherever, didn't matter, just somewhere.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that was going to Chicago because I'd go to Chicago a lot.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: We'd go to the airport and we'd just sit in the airport and we'd watch people come off the planes.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I spent a lot of time in Chicago.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime I could, I'd go there.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I would see that.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: The first time I went to a deli in Chicago, I remember feeling like I was home.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I had that same experience.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or just like feeling like, wow, I've been missing a lot right now.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like a really good Jewish or Italian deli.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: The first time I went to a Jewish deli, Kruplok soup.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of awesome.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, just yeah.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew there were these people out there, you know, other people that had ideas, and and even if they didn't believe the same way I did, I didn't care.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to know them, I wanted to talk about that, I wanted to explore that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what happened.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and so California was it, right?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: California was gonna be that.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I I left, but friends of mine had landed in Arizona and had partied in Arizona.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was also pretty much, I loved psychedelics.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I liked drugs a lot.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, I never liked cocaine because I would probably be dead, but they had land, they had been in Phoenix, and so they had told me great drugs in Phoenix, so I had to come to Phoenix.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I landed in Phoenix November 18th, 1976.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was barefooted, it was 85 degrees.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: I jumped out of my van and I landed on a cactus storm.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the first thing that went through my home was I my head was I am home.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I remember just like because I fell in love with the desert instantly.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was I just remember feeling like wow.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: And about two days later, my van broke down and I didn't have the money to get it fixed because I left it with practically nothing.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was too proud to call my mom and say, send me money, even though I'd love some back there.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, uh, so I eventually got a job.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I stayed here about a year.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: I eventually moved to California.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: My best friend was now living out there, so I moved to California.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: I cried every single day.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, the clouds, I mean, the the fog didn't roll out until two o'clock in the afternoon.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was so miserable.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely detested California.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: I lasted a week and I moved back to Phoenix and I lived down there for 30 years, so Scottsdale mostly.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I have that experience in California recently.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was there for, I don't know, I was there for like a week and a half, different locations, and I was like, yeah, it's beautiful, but not till two o'clock.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, exactly.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a morning person, like that's a long part of the day to be in that heavy, foggy, chilly.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I agree with you.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like in Arizona it's sunny even when it's cloudy.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so weird.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what was your life like in Phoenix?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that was interesting because so I um I got a job working at a place called Under Three in downtown Phoenix.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: So no one would hire me because I came here in November.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And back then there was really the concept that you were a snowbird.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: So anyone coming in the winter, they believed you were just going to work a few months and then leave.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: So no one would hire me.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hit the pavement.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was my job.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Every day I hit the pavement, and work was a lot tighter then.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I was, and I had been, I was running um hotels back in Michigan.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was, I was, they had um promoted me to like kind of like a general manager.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was over three Howard Johnsons in Michigan City and St.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph, two, two down in the Michigan City area, and then one in so and I was like 20 years old, and they had already promoted me to that because I was so I loved it.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: I loved the hotel industry, and I was really, really good with accounting and math.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just, you know, but no one, I mean, you could set me down in accounting, I could do any accounting.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so finally I got this job at this bar and restaurant, and it was um judges, lawyers, business people, it was right downtown Phoenix, um, bankers, all that.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the place to go, one of the places to go.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: They also had a Playboy Club, and you know, it was the 70s, it was all that wild, lots of liquor, cigarettes, you know, everybody smoked all day long, cigars, all that.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: We had to wear.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now you heard me say I was a feminist in second grade.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: We had to wear an outfit that looked like kind of like a bunny outfit.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh little short short, I mean like panty kind of things with a halter top and a skirt.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even believe I did it.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I I by then I was down to my somebody had stolen my last$20.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: They broke into my little studio apartment.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't by I loved Phoenix so much, I didn't you couldn't have thrown me out with anything.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have done anything, right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, it was actually a fabulous job.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Other than that, the very first night, some guy tries to grab me, and I just backed up and made it very clear that I wasn't there for that, and no one bothered me after that.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: I never had another chance.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe once, but it pretty much I just set my boundaries.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, your how did your feminism work or feminist work start to become a more central part of your life?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: In 1979, I had a wonderful partner that I was living with.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: I had um just had a complete hysterectomy, and I was home recovering, and there was something in the newspaper about this march that was going to happen.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was always talking feminism.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um during high school, and then the little bit of college that I went to, um, let me back up a little bit.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Where I grew up, this small town, we started to do some.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: There were a few of us that were doing some like civil rights stuff in high school, peace marches, you know, sit-ins and the halls and stuff like that, because the Vietnam War was going on.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then the civil rights movement was just beginning to start to happen.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Benton Harbor, uh, Michigan, there were race riots happening.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we were right on the outskirts of that.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's about 15 miles away, maybe.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they were burning stores and burning things in in Benton Harbor.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of a fearful time, you know.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't know how far that was gonna go.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I really supported them.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure about the whole burning things, but I knew that justice had to happen.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I don't know where I got that because my parents were from Arkansas, where you know it was still very segregated.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, fast forward now, I but I had always had this feminist, and then I just I just was like this natural little feminist, like girls' rights.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: So there was now back in 1979, there was this article in the newspaper about the National Organization for Women was gonna do a uh a rally and march at the Mormon Temple in Mesa.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And my um guy at the time said, You should go to this thing, you're always talking about women's rights, and you know, why don't you go?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Okay, I think I will.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I just went.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know these people, and I went and that was it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was hooked.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and yeah, I dove right in, and within six months I was doing it 24-7 and became the I was president of Phoenix Now, I was the state coordinator, I ran for the national board.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: I literally did it 24-7 for 10 years after that politics.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, women's rights.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Women's movement, yeah.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that took you, you were did that take, were you doing that work when you were 40 around the time when you had this experience?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: So at this time in your life, did you were you having what you would consider to be spiritual experiences?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, nothing.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just living the life, chugging along.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what um did you end up staying with the the guy that you were with?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, oh, what happened?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're gonna ask me that question.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I got into the National Organization for Women, and one night this woman drove up on this Harley Davidson, and she was the most gorgeous thing I think I've ever seen in my life.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: She was this little tiny, beautiful Italian woman, long black hair, didn't look like anything you'd expect to see on a Harley Davidson at all.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And she walked in the room, and I just was like, Whoa, what is that?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: And why am I feeling like this?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know this part, no.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: So um she came in and sat down, and I just remember being mesmerized.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, um, after the meeting, she came over to talk to me, and we started talking to each other after these meetings, and she was married at the time, she was living with him, I was living with him, and anyway, we began an affair.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she left her husband, I left him.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: We never lived together, but um, oh, and that the poor guy that I was currently that I was living with, his wife had left him for a woman.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's a shame.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: He by the way, he was an absolutely wonderful man.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: He he yeah, I would probably still be with him if I haven't, he really was, he was a great guy.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but oh well.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was not the love of my life.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: She was it was definitely um it was a great experience.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: She was a great person, but she did not have um, she it just wasn't the whole package.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're still I still know her and you know, we see each other on Facebook kind of thing.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was then with women for the next 20 years or so, whatever that was.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: And men, women doesn't matter.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing that's different is the equipment, you know, that relationships are relationships.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I never knew I was gonna go in that direction, had no idea.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that was a real surprise to me, but it was it was great.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then and there must have been just something in your makeup that that opens you up to lots of different experiences because you know, like for that not to throw you into any kind of turmoil, and you're just like, yeah, okay, I'm doing this now, like what's in the parts.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any, yeah, it was really interesting to me because I didn't have any, I didn't have any fear about it.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any, I never worried about my family accepting me.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: But remember, I had also been doing um that was pretty early on in NOW.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I wasn't, I wasn't a leader at that point.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I it was so funny, I didn't have any any uh worry that my family wasn't gonna accept me.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I have no idea why I didn't.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, I had a little bit of trepidation about it, but I didn't have a big, huge like, oh, my mother's never gonna speak to me again.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, when I told my mother, it was hysterical.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: She goes, I knew you'd have to try that.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to try everything.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: She's saying it kind of the same way I did.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: I said, of course.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, mom, I don't think it's just a trial, but okay, whatever, you know.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: I knew you'd have to try that.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's funny.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, um, yeah, so so that was a long line.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I really think that a big part of it was.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: The the fear of men and the the abuse that I had had first you know from men from my father raped by those two guys.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: My very first sexual experience with a male outside of my dad was also was date rape.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I never realized that until you know I started doing all the therapy around the whole thing.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a lot, yeah, with men.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the absence of that must have felt wonderful, you know, like no threat to your safety, just understanding and exactly yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a that would be a potent formula.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was huge, yeah, yeah.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move to this period of your life when you were 40 and you had this awareness of what had happened to you.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um my partner at the time, woman, who was the other love of my life, besides my husband now, got lung cancer and she was dying, and all of a sudden I started having flashbacks.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was in therapy because I was in therapy dealing with you know her dying.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever been through cancer with anybody, but it's a horrible roller coaster.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: You you have so um and I was a brand new realtor, you know, we're trying to pay the I mean it was just yeah, everything.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I started having flashbacks, and the first flashbacks that I had was let's see, did I remember?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I remembered the guys first.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then, and so my therapist had me reading um Courage to Heal, which is a great book about anyone that's been raped or sexually abused.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was reading the book, I kept hearing, your father, your father, and I would be like, What?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I called my therapist one day and I said, Are you having me read this book because you think my father sexually abused me?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, No, but what makes you think that, right?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, Okay, fine.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, We'll talk at your next session.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, it just it just started coming out.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: And just all the memories came, and you know, and at first you think you're going crazy, like, oh, I'm making this up, or this cannot be, and then there's just too many things that yeah.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God you were in therapy at the time, so there was a container to hold all of this, because I think a lot of people who do go through this aren't, yeah, and they are you know suddenly swimming in this trauma, yeah, you know, they're revisiting the trauma.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, how what was your process like then with 10 years of therapy?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Every imaginable psycho drama, breath work, you name it.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: I did it.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because remember, I said I my dad adored me, I adored him.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: When he died, he died when I was 16.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I had killed him, but I never understood why I thought I killed him.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I just had this thing like I killed him, and then I would be like, Why do I think I killed my dad?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now I know why, you know, after the memories all came, because somewhere I hated him.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: So there was, I mean, it was so twisted, and but I didn't know, right?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was just this like really weird, crazy dichotomy of like, what?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I think I killed my dad?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was crazy.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: When he died, I went nuts.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was three days before Christmas.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: We were on Christmas break.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I just, I just, I lost it completely at the funeral, just completely lost it.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um really, really strange thing.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: He had never in his life bought us Christmas presents, you know, like mom would, you know, mom always bought the presents, all that.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: So finally, I don't know what day it was, we finally opened the presents um because they didn't have the funeral till after Christmas.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: So every night we'd go up there and uh sit.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, is this the process that opened you up to other healing modalities?
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um in 90, let's see, 92.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: She passed in 92, I think it was.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: A friend of mine said, you know what, because she she was a good friend of mine during that whole, you know, um Betty passing.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Have you ever heard of religious science church, science of mine?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think you would really, really relate to this and like it, and might be a great support system for you.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I I went to one that she liked and it didn't resonate with me, but then somebody else told me about another one.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I went to that, walked in the door, it was that same sense of like I'm home, and just instantly fell in love with the principles and everything there, and it was my complete support system.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and by the way, I changed therapists a couple of times too during that whole process.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it wasn't the same person, but that was the beginning of my awakening, my spiritual path.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was the first time that something made sense for me, that I I really got it.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't God is a white guy in the sky, and you know, all the crap that we get from Southern Methodists, which is what I was kind of raised.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I just I loved it.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that really, really helped a lot too.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then all the years of therapy and work that I did, and then in 2006, wow, I went to Peru and worked with shamans down there for a month.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I really think that was the last piece of my healing around my dad and all that with men.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um the ayahuasca medicine that I did and Wachuma really just blew open the rest of that.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know if you know anything about, okay.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um you you know, I just purged and purged, and all that ugly ness came out.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I came back from that, and then Wachuma just felt like it put me all back together.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then in that same time, oh, there was a group of men there.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one of my very close friends was on that trip as well, and she said to the guys, just surround her and like hold her standing up.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to freak out, and they just kind of came around me and and stood, and it was like rocking me, and I just let go.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just, you know, everything just melted, like you're not gonna, you know, no no male is gonna hurt me again.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: I just got this whole sense of like this is never gonna happen again.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was the most beautiful, amazing healing that anyone could have ever.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: And how she even thought of that, I have no idea, you know, just that magic that happens.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, and then Mama Sita, who's my guide, said to me right then, um, something like, You're you're never gonna be heard again, or they will never harm you.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then she also said to me, um, at another point in that trip, we were at a temple called Shaveen, and there's a there's a black pillar and there's a white pillar, and she told me to go.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: The the black pillar was the male side, and she said, Go towards that side.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: All the women were going over here and all the men were going over here, and she said, Go towards that side, and I was sort of this hesitation, and she said, You're worried that you will become like them, like abusers.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, You will never be them, you could never do that.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is not who you are, and that was a real healing moment, and that might have been part of why I didn't want kids.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure, but that certainly could be part of it, you know, that there are like a subconscious sphere that so what do you think?
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, it's obvious.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've I was I just answered you already answered my question, but I was gonna ask how how can these alternative therapies or modalities help people like you?
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um where traditional therapy maybe brings you so far, and then what is what is that combination or what was that combination for you?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: The last therapist I worked with was phenomenal.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Nancy Hay, by the way, in Mesa, Arizona.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: She, I mean, I had some good ones along the way, but she again I walked into her office and I was like, oh my god, this woman's got my number.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she she she knows what she's doing.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: But there were other things I did along the way, like breath work, I think is one of the best things ever to help you get to that really raw place.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how to explain what it does.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: It well, it trances you out.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: You you go into this alternative reality almost where you can access that deeper emotion that were almost for me, I would have been too afraid to access in a normal space.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I did it with a group of people that I didn't know, but they make it so safe, you know.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: They they create that that you said container, that's a great word.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: They create that safe container for you, and you can scream, you can do whatever you need to do.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: Psychodrama was the same way you we could really do that.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: So these people are trained to help you access those raw places, that core that you can't get to on your own, and and traditional therapy, they're not even trained to do that.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are there.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say that they all aren't.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um Nancy was using um uh what's that thing called?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: E uh E M?
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Emotional Freedom Technique?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was amazing for me.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody's really good and they've you know they've done the extra training and they really know what they're doing, they can get you through a lot of that.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: But there are just certain techniques that that alternative practitioners know that have gotten special training in that can really help you to access deeper levels that traditional therapists and with all the limitations on them now, and what you know whoever controls them says they can and cannot do, they just they can't go there.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, how how did you move from student to teacher?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: In religious science, um, again, I'm one of those people that I kind of dive in.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: So within about three years of being in religious science, I took the practitioner training there and became a religious science practitioner.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's a four-year study program.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you basically become a spiritual counselor.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: Then you can teach classes, you can do um, we call it uh treatment work, so that's like prayer work that you're working with people on, you know, emotional healing, physical healing, any kind of healing work that they want to do.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I was already doing that before I moved up here.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was a realtor, but I was teaching and you know, doing counseling for people and working with people.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: When I moved in, I came back from Peru.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: When I came back from Peru, there was a voice in my head, Mamacita, my guide.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I'd lost my mind for a while.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, there's this voice in my head, why is she still here?
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I told a few friends that I knew I could trust that were woo-woo, and they would say, Well, let's talk to her.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's ask her questions.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I started just kind of, you know, doing little readings for people.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then one night uh this friend called me who had little spiritual groups at her house, and she said, person who's supposed to talk tonight can't be here.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: We were having a big storm.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do?
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: I have all these people coming, and I said, Hmm, well, maybe Mama Sita is supposed to come out of the closet tonight.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I went over that.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: I said, It's gotta be safe.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'll come over and I'll do a reading for everybody.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I did, and Mamasita loved it.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: She loves groups, so we did like 11 people that night, and it was phenomenal.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so then in 2008, she told me to move to Sedona.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was a very successful realtor in Scottsdale.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had all the trappings, all the stuff, you know, and I was like, oh, and I'm single.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Move to Sedona.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love Sedona.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: I had been, I I vacationed up here.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: I would usually spend at least a week up here every year and come up on the weekends and rent cabins.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I was up here a lot.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Move to Sedona?
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was pretty sure I wasn't doing real estate anymore, but I didn't think I was gonna move to Sedona.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, What do you want me to do in Sedona?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: And she just kept saying, move to Sedona, and I knew it was right.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: She had told me before, she had tested me before that on some other things, and I had said no, and we had been to that little game.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: But this time I knew it was right.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: Five months later, I was in Sedona.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had sold my business, sold my house, everything, and I was here.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't sell everything, you know, I moved my furniture, but I was here.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then she told me to date men.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, and my friends in Sgasta were like, what Kool-Aid did you drink?
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: You went to the jungle, you worked with these whatever, and you what did you drink down there?
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're you're you're moving to Sedona, you've sold your business, you know, what the hell's going on, and now you're gonna date men?
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and I was kind of feeling the same way.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, really?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: Four months later, I met Andre, who is now the love of my life.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: We met him briefly, but he's amazing.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: And 11 weeks later we were married, and I asked him to marry me.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, and I have never been happier in my life.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent about a year meditating, asking, praying, what do you want me to do?
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew I would still do spiritual counseling, I was very clear on that.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I wanted to do women's retreats, but I didn't think I was gonna start hanging out of a shingle and do readings.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't think I would do that professionally, um, but I did.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: She said, go do readings, and I I just trusted.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just trusted the process, you know.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just really gave it all over and trusted everything.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: And do I make as much money as I used to make?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Does it matter?
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do I miss any of that?
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, not one thing.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, when we Andre loves to go to Scottsdale.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: I get down there, I'm like, can we go home?
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he loves to shop, he's the shopper in the family.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: I could care less.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's so funny now.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that way too, right?
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I lived in Scottsdale for a little while, just you know, like temporarily.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, so it feels totally different up here.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I I although I don't know Andre at all, I have only seen you and him together once, and it was, you know, kind of a situation that warranted it.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: But um the what really struck me was um how because you're a very strong person, and but what I witnessed was you like how much he holds you and how how you allow yourself to just kind of melt into his support.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was like even in the five minutes that I was with the two of you, I did I could see that, and that is that is incredible that the one that he is the kind of person that is that trustworthy.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then two, that you have healed so much that you can melt into.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and that was the key.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I spent I specifically spent those two years after Peru.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a relationship when I went to Peru, but that ended very quickly after I came back with a woman.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with the woman, and I knew that you know that would that was clearly done.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then I intentionally stayed single because I knew I had to do my work.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because all of a sudden I went, what's the common denominator here?
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oops, here, right here.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because it was always about them, you know.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this one's a drugie, this one's this, this one abused me this way.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was always something about them, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh well, who chose them?
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I married myself, that's this ring.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did a whole ceremony around it, and I knew that I really had to love me, that I had to love me so completely that I didn't need anybody for anything.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: That if somebody was there, that was wonderful, but that there was no need for anything.
• 1:04:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you get the idea to have a ceremony mirroring yourself?
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's so genius.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's it's elevating it to where it really deserves to be.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right, you know, how did you have get that?
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just I don't know, just came.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just came.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then what was really funny was my best friend at the time told me that she had done the same thing, but she had never told me.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: She had never ever told me.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I mentioned it and nobody ever just I wanted you guys to come and be with me, but nobody ever.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, You never said that to me.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: She I did, and I was like, Wow, I never heard that because I would have been there for you.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: She was married to my other good friend, but she anyway, yeah.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have so maybe she she I did partly hear it.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, I I don't know.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just I I just I knew that I had to do that, and somehow I knew that I had to give it that sort of what did you say, elevation?
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that it had to be that.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what I think this is my final question, but um who knows?
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: So what given that you got to that level of healing where you married yourself and loved yourself enough to commit to yourself in that way forever, how how does that enable you to be in uh this relationship?
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: And how does that differ from relationships where you didn't have that level of self-love?
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, so different there is a complete independence.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: Trust is trust is probably the absolute best word, actually.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: Trust is um
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: and and i i actually know what love is now i never knew what love was i always thought i knew what love was but it was it was addiction yeah it it was addiction to pain actually wow i mean that's like a big uh can of worms there yeah that that relationships can be that place where you are addicted to suffering and yeah i'm sure a lot of people can relate to that who have been on that particular treadmill yeah i think i think many of us oh yeah i think 70 80 percent of americans i don't know about the rest of the world but are addicted to pain yeah and it it doesn't really have anything to do with the other person you know it has nothing to do with with that it has to do with how you honor yourself and how you care for yourself thank you so much for sharing all of that oh you're welcome this really beautiful gift to people thank you for asking how do you define happiness how do i define happiness oh gosh it's my whole life um how do I define happiness what do you mean it's your whole life well I'm just happy uh freedom happiness is freedom I am so free now this is one of the things I love the most about Andre um the very first time that I went out hiking I love to hike alone because it's my meditation and and running a wellness center and being with people all week and so it's it's just my alone time.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_01: We both need a lot of alone time which is a real gift but I came home and I you know I said I'll be gone a couple of hours and it was four hours later and I walked in and he was doing whatever and I said were you worried about me and he said no why would I be worried about you I had never been with anybody in my life that would not have been worried about me so we we are not now if it had been nine o'clock at night obviously he would have been you know okay it's now it's dark and but he doesn't we don't worry you know we don't do that like um so for me I have to be free to exist as myself I have to be I have to be able to be autonomous in whatever I'm doing.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the the worrying is an interesting thing because I think what's actually inside of that worry in a in an unhealthy situation is that the other person is not worried necessarily about you they're worried about what's going to happen to them without you exactly or if something happens to you what they're gonna go through.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly and the only reason I know this is because I have children right and I know that this is what is behind the worry.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like because I trust that their path is is directed by their highest self in collusion with God and it's all good.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's been what they agree to so I'm not worried about them.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right I'm worried about me.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah what's gonna happen to me if something and that is like the definition of codependency.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely yeah so I've really been working with that and I'm getting lots of opportunities yeah but but that yeah and that's exactly what happens when you marry yourself then you don't have to have that worry anymore because it's not that because you're gonna be okay exactly that if if he died tomorrow I I'd yeah I'd hurt and my heart would be hurting and aching but I would be okay you know I'm gonna live right yeah yeah anyway yeah that's big um okay so number two how tech savvy are you um oh gosh maybe I'm okay I'm not great um you know what's that program I can do most things I just learned Excel I've been doing payroll on paper for 20 people um but but I love it actually it it's it's so funny because people are like she's doing payroll stay away from her I actually love it don't tell them um it's it's fun math is fun for me I don't mind it at all but um I know I could do it a lot faster on Excel so I started doing that on Excel but I really hate it but um there's a couple of like design programs oh I just they just fight me I just don't get the whole design programs those layers and I don't know if you're a design person.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah not a computer design person I can't do yeah the way I feel about it is that I know I can do it if I if I relax into it and I don't like get all agitated about it and like have the mental loop running that I can't do it.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_00: What do you feel ties all human beings together?
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Energy we're all energy I was not expecting that okay so can you tell me a little bit more about that how does that work or how it ties us all together?
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're all one we're all the same thing we're the same as everything this is a basic religious science principle by the way everything is just energy so this is the same as us the molecules just go together differently um I can bend a spoon like that like a pigtail interesting yeah because it's just energy so if we could really get that we are all the same that there is no difference between us there wouldn't be any of these issues but we all are trained again everyone is trained that they're over the you know them and us they're different and they're not okay separation yeah yeah that's like the original wound to me of course separation all right who has influenced your life the most probably my dad um you know because if he hadn't done what he did I wouldn't be who I am as as bad as that was it was also good because I came out of that helping other people so and then once I found out what had happened to him and understood that it's gotta stop here.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_00: But my mom too because she was you know she was so fucking do it but yeah I would say him um yeah yeah and and so and somebody I forget if it was um my there a therapist or who it was that said this to me I think it might have been Ann Elbers my mentor anyway they said imagine the courage that it took for him to come and be your father and do that to you that was so huge yeah because remember I said he adored me because he did so how do you do that yeah catalysts the catalysts I know I thought that way too um that that would be a far darker role than the one I chose you know and and and I also believe that I've had lifetimes where I was a dark so I and I have memories of that so it's very easy for me not to be in judgment of people because I need that for myself you know so um yeah that's that's incredible that's really incredible teaching um okay final question what are you feeling hopeful about um okay I'll just make this fun number one that my husband outlives me and my cat too that's probably not gonna happen but please let Spencer outlive me I have the best cat in the whole world right now and that the aliens will save us what am I feeling most hopeful about I am feeling most hopeful about that's my question oh that's she um I'm feeling most hopeful about humanity really honestly that it that it its purpose has been has been so beautiful and I'm talking about all of it you know that we have come to this beautiful planet to to do something amazing that is often beyond our grasp um but here we are doing it like the amount of courage that it takes to be a human is yeah yeah and I feel like we can accomplish anything so those are my questions for you did you bring a question for me um I'm gonna make one up right now okay you know I was I actually started to say humanity first that would and then I said I'll just make this fun I really believe that I really believe that at the core most people are good and I think that even when you know we look at people and we think oh that's evil or whatever somewhere there is still a core a a light that's never been harmed and if we can get to that that you know that's redeemable there there's I don't know I I just I and maybe it's just naivety I just want to believe that we're good yeah so we we're on that same path what's my question to you okay what's your favorite color and why well right now I'm like going crazy over green ah I have like there's so much green in my life right now and everything that I just painted my kitchen green I've painted the walls green I've been buying plants like Matt I bought a green car and um I'm just all about green right now it feels so good to me.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_00: What is the green I have been told that it's because you're not getting enough greens in your diet but but I actually do it's an easy fix.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can eat greens so I don't know there I think it it possibly has something to do with the plants because I'm like now I'm plant crazy and I I think that um you know I'm a I'm a nurturer by nature and so now that my children are grown I think I just like I don't have a pet right now so it's like I just transferred the love to the plants and I really love my plants and so um maybe it has something to do with that but the green feels so life affirming to me.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it means life to me and I'm just like in that stage where I'm just like embracing this wild and crazy ride.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well thank you so much for sharing your beautiful story with us and for spending the time with me today