Latest / Math Therapy / How to trust your intuition w/ Rebecca MacLeod

Transcript

How to trust your intuition w/ Rebecca MacLeod · Math Therapy

• 0:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: The goal is to have an experience.
• 0:05
  Rebecca MacLeod: To be in the experience of the unknown.
• 0:08
  Rebecca MacLeod: Is math really the outcome here or is it learning to trust yourself when you don't know what to do?
• 0:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's okay to listen and to breathe and to ask for help, And what do I learn when I get it wrong?
• 0:22
  Rebecca MacLeod: This isn't who you are.
• 0:24
  Rebecca MacLeod: Your test score is not who you are.
• 0:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: This is a way for you to get to know yourself.
• 0:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Hi, I'm Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru, and you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that explores the root causes of math trauma, and the empowering ways we can heal from it.
• 0:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist.
• 0:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: But the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do.
• 0:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, and don't worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast.
• 0:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 0:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let me ask you something.
• 0:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: What if math didn't have to be just about getting the right answer?
• 1:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: What if it could actually help you connect to something bigger, like your intuition or your creativity, your true essence, or even your soul?
• 1:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, today I am talking to Rebecca McLeod, an artist, intuition expert, and generally magical human being who has one of the coolest perspectives I've ever heard about how we can experience and engage with math.
• 1:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: I met her while I was in Indonesia this winter, and I just had to have her on the pod, the first of two bonus episodes we're sharing with you this month.
• 1:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Today you'll hear us talk about how intuition belongs just as much as logic in the math classroom, what sacred geometry is, and how it can help us connect with math on a spiritual level, and what happens when we stop pressuring students and start inviting curiosity.
• 1:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: We also get into how fear shows up in learning and how to tell the difference between fear and intuition, which is actually so important because most of us have been taught to ignore both.
• 1:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you've ever felt like math just wasn't for you, or you've had like this gut feeling, there's more to it than memorizing formulas, this episode is gonna blow your mind.
• 2:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Also, if you're a longtime listener, you're probably thinking"what is even going on with this podcast?
• 2:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: Episodes are dropping in a random fashion, which I cannot comprehend." And you're right, but I have a surprise for you guys.
• 2:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: We've been working behind the scenes to turn this podcast into something much bigger and more consistent.
• 2:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'll tell you more at the end of this episode.
• 2:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Rebecca, hi.
• 2:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Welcome to the podcast.
• 2:27
  Rebecca MacLeod: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, this is so cool because I have not done an in-person interview since our first season.
• 2:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it's so cool to just talk to someone in person.
• 2:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: And actually, I was just thinking about this today.
• 2:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: I was like, we just met randomly on the steps of a coffee shop in Bali.
• 2:43
  Rebecca MacLeod: Mm-hmm.
• 2:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 2:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: And where are you from?
• 2:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like originally
• 2:45
  Rebecca MacLeod: I'm from Halifax,
• 2:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Another Canadian in our midst, two Canadian girlies in Bali.
• 2:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love that.
• 2:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: For us.
• 2:50
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Rebecca MacLeod: There's a feeling when I meet a Canadian, there's just like a soft feeling of home.
• 2:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, so I wanted to have you on, because I remember you came up to me a few weeks ago and you were like, oh, I hear you do work with math trauma.
• 3:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you said you read Vedic astrology charts, correct?
• 3:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that, you know how to see that in a chart?
• 3:11
  Rebecca MacLeod: I do.
• 3:11
  Rebecca MacLeod: I mean, primarily I was looking at my own experience with math and using the tools that I have to just look back and say, oh, I have a better understanding of what happened with me and math over time, because it definitely changed.
• 3:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Was there a way that math was being taught to you or school was happening for you that didn't align?
• 3:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like was there, were there specific things you could be like, yeah, these were the things in class or the, the way I was being treated as a student that didn't align with my way of being?
• 3:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: For sure.
• 3:43
  Rebecca MacLeod: I would say there's a disconnection from what I was being taught and how this makes sense in a broader way.
• 3:52
  Rebecca MacLeod: Why am I learning this?
• 3:53
  Rebecca MacLeod: And what is it for?
• 3:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: Why do I need to know these formulas?
• 3:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so actually what I did get into was economics.
• 4:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Really?
• 4:01
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 4:01
  Rebecca MacLeod: I, I majored in economics actually.
• 4:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: What?
• 4:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 4:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's a big plot twist I was not expecting.
• 4:06
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 4:07
  Rebecca MacLeod: And because the logic of it appealed to me at that time.
• 4:10
  Rebecca MacLeod: This makes sense.
• 4:11
  Rebecca MacLeod: Now, I, I did all of that and my opinion changed dramatically of it.
• 4:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: But, uh, but what I needed was a broader context for what I was learning.
• 4:23
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so I came back to math quite recently, by studying sacred geometry.
• 4:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 4:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Tell us more.
• 4:31
  Rebecca MacLeod: So I like to embroider things.
• 4:34
  Rebecca MacLeod: Okay.
• 4:34
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so I, one day was in Uluwatu and I embroidered a simple pattern of four circles, and it's uh, sacred geometry pattern, a very basic one.
• 4:43
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I didn't know why I was doing it.
• 4:45
  Rebecca MacLeod: I just did it.
• 4:46
  Rebecca MacLeod: I was like, oh, that's interesting.
• 4:48
  Rebecca MacLeod: And then I went to a bookshop and there was a book and it had the Flower of Life on it.
• 4:53
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I said, oh, perhaps that's for me.
• 4:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I flipped it open to a page and the first word that I saw was the word"coptic".
• 5:02
  Rebecca MacLeod: Okay.
• 5:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: It doesn't matter what the word is about, but the word coptic had been repeating in my head for about three months prior.
• 5:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you didn't even had never heard that word?
• 5:12
  Rebecca MacLeod: No, I had no association with it at all.
• 5:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: Wow.
• 5:14
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I was curious because, uh, when things come in this way, there's, it usually is like a little wink, a flag, something to pay attention to.
• 5:25
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so I knew when I saw this word like that is the association, that was the intuitive association.
• 5:31
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I knew the book was for me.
• 5:32
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so the Flower of Life, uh, is probably the first book to bring sacred geometry to humanity again.
• 5:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 5:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I wanna hear like, what is Sacred Geometry?
• 5:46
  Rebecca MacLeod: So, sacred geometry is what underlies our experience of reality.
• 5:52
  Rebecca MacLeod: The Flower of Life pattern is said to hold every possibility of experience within it.
• 5:59
  Rebecca MacLeod: And you can derive any geometry from the flower of life.
• 6:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so this was kind of, for me, a reentry into the world of mathematics because I said, oh, this is something that makes sense to me.
• 6:11
  Rebecca MacLeod: I wanna know how math relates to experience.
• 6:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: Who, I'm getting like, such goosebumps.
• 6:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: There's so much exploding in my mind.
• 6:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Keep going.
• 6:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Sorry to interrupt.
• 6:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Go, go, go.
• 6:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: I think that's, that's it really.
• 6:23
  Rebecca MacLeod: Well, I mean,
• 6:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love it.
• 6:24
  Rebecca MacLeod: Something about, there's, so relating to geometry in an intuitive way, you can learn so much by drawing sacred geometry figures, and you don't need anything to do it.
• 6:37
  Rebecca MacLeod: You make a straight line and if you can make a circle, you're away to the races.
• 6:40
  Rebecca MacLeod: You don't need anything else.
• 6:41
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's obvious what to do.
• 6:43
  Rebecca MacLeod: And in the doing of it, I find my energy becomes very elevated.
• 6:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
• 6:48
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's alm, it's, it's meditating, but it's tuning into a greater field because this is what creates our experience.
• 6:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm having a moment of going back to your younger self being like I need to learn the context.
• 7:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like why am I learning this stuff?
• 7:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: I need to learn the context.
• 7:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: And actually, we talk about this a lot in math education of being like, students need to know why they're doing something and how to apply things to real life.
• 7:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: But what I'm kind of hearing now, and I don't wanna project, so let me know if this is what I'm hearing, is it wasn't necessarily that you need to needed to know, like, I need to use this formula when I calculate like the distance between blah, blah, blah.
• 7:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: You more wanted like a purpose of the math, like a deeper meaning.
• 7:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like it didn't have to be like, I can apply this formula to something.
• 7:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: It sounds like you're like, I wanted this connected to my human experience, Yeah.
• 7:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: which is so fucking mind blowing because it's like, I do think we miss the boat a bit when we're like, all we need to do is create a math problem like with watermelons or like, you know, we're calculating like how many TV shows this kid watches that's relevant.
• 7:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Whereas I've always believed that kids, even though they're kids, or.
• 7:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: they you know, when, when we look at the blue zones and what gives people meaning, often it is purpose, it is meaning, it is like a deeper, more intangible thing, like a connection to our real lived human experience on the planet.
• 8:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that doesn't always come in the material, you know, sometimes it does come in the spiritual realm.
• 8:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: So you kind of like, I, I kind of even wanna know a little more when you're kind of talking about sacred geometry and how that spoke to you so much.
• 8:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: How, because I also think the word spirituality gets a bit of a bad rep.
• 8:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, we're kind of like, oh, spirituality woo woo.
• 8:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: But what I'm hearing from you is spirituality is connected to my lived experience as a human, and its deeper meaning.
• 8:33
  Rebecca MacLeod: Absolutely.
• 8:34
  Rebecca MacLeod: And for me, it's, it's simply an exploration.
• 8:39
  Rebecca MacLeod: Spirituality is me connecting to parts of me that are unseen.
• 8:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm.
• 8:46
  Rebecca MacLeod: But incredibly potent.
• 8:48
  Rebecca MacLeod: What said the word Coptic to me and led me to that book?
• 8:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
• 8:52
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's an interesting question.
• 8:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
• 8:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
• 8:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I love that, like that curiosity that wonder that awe, which is so ironically what we're always wanting our students to feel in math class, but then we're delivering the content to them in a way that shuts that down.
• 9:09
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 9:09
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's, it's true.
• 9:10
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's, when you have a room full of 12 students though, it'll be interesting to see what lights one child up versus another.
• 9:19
  Rebecca MacLeod: And somebody may be really interested in sacred geometry, but someone else might really wanna know how this relates to how many watermelons to buy.
• 9:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Totally.
• 9:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 9:28
  Rebecca MacLeod: What's happening in the stock market and what have you.
• 9:31
  Rebecca MacLeod: So, I think though, not having math as an abstraction is important.
• 9:38
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's how it felt to me.
• 9:39
  Rebecca MacLeod: It felt disconnected from everything when I was presented with it.
• 9:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
• 9:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 9:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: And okay, so, so thinking about it in that way, it's so, also so funny that you set a room of 12 students because now teachers have literally 35 to 40 students in a classroom.
• 9:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's so wild.
• 9:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 9:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: I was like 12 students.
• 9:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: That sounds like a dream.
• 9:56
  Rebecca MacLeod: Totally.
• 9:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: totally.
• 9:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it, I think that's really important is that idea of student centeredness of being like, what?
• 10:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're not all the same.
• 10:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: The things that give us purpose and meaning are actually very different.
• 10:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know?
• 10:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Again, it doesn't always have to be connected to this very deep spiritual thing, but this idea of what gives us meaning and purpose and how, because you're, the way you're talking about it math already is that we don't have to force it to be that it is a deeper thing.
• 10:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: It does connect to everything that's important to us and to our experience, but we need to find a way to present it that way to the people we're teaching.
• 10:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
• 10:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: And we need to find a way for students to, to feel that.
• 10:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I wonder, like a lot of this, again, ties into what I'm hearing from you is intuition, you know, when you saw that word, Coptic, you intuitively picked up that book.
• 10:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, you started drawing those circles.
• 10:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Someone wasn't like, Hey Rebecca, here's an assignment.
• 10:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Draw these circles.
• 10:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: You were just exploring and playing.
• 10:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I wonder how could we empower teachers to tap into their intuition when they're teaching something?
• 10:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: And then the second part I'm just gonna ask you both at once is like, is there a tool or something they could teach their students in terms of how to tap into their intuition when they're learning math?
• 11:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like how does intuition come to play in the classroom?
• 11:07
  Rebecca MacLeod: I think intuition serves on a moment to moment basis.
• 11:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Love.
• 11:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 11:12
  Rebecca MacLeod: And in it purest sense, it's a yes or a no.
• 11:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Woo.
• 11:18
  Rebecca MacLeod: And it, it comes not from evaluating which math that we're evaluating, but it's, it's, it's a, coming from another place.
• 11:27
  Rebecca MacLeod: I focus, I, I literally will ask my heart if I'm curious about which path to take.
• 11:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: So let's, can we like play out a scenario like you're solving a math problem.
• 11:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let's say like you're given a math problem and you, for most students, what happens is they see the math problem and they don't know how to do it.
• 11:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: They can't remember the formula.
• 11:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're like, I don't remember learning this.
• 11:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: And because so many students do have a deep math trauma and have, are coming from a fear space.
• 11:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, that's the end of it.
• 11:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 11:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: So how could we guide a student with math anxiety, using intuition through just approaching that problem with, intuitive curiosity.
• 12:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: So like, I'm giving you a math problem and you have no idea how to solve it.
• 12:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: What would you do?
• 12:14
  Rebecca MacLeod: I think that I would encourage students to remember that it, it is not only logic that solves problems.
• 12:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, I love it.
• 12:25
  Rebecca MacLeod: It is not the data processing that you have done so far in life that you can exclusively rely on, first of all.
• 12:33
  Rebecca MacLeod: There is a higher knowing that you have access to.
• 12:36
  Rebecca MacLeod: There's a part of yourself that already knows the answer.
• 12:41
  Rebecca MacLeod: Now, going into a, a public school in Canada and saying this kind of thing would be an interesting experience, but why not?
• 12:47
  Rebecca MacLeod: Are we
• 12:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 12:48
  Rebecca MacLeod: Do we want to change what we're doing or not?
• 12:50
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 12:50
  Rebecca MacLeod: So perhaps it could be an, an exploration.
• 12:53
  Rebecca MacLeod: Um,
• 12:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: And and I think too, like, I, I don't think you're like saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're not like, I could give a grade four kid a calculus problem, and they they know how to solve the problem and they know the answer.
• 13:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: But like, are you more kind of saying like, there's a higher knowing there's a part of themselves that might very, really have a gut instinct of at least the next question to ask?
• 13:14
  Rebecca MacLeod: Absolutely.
• 13:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: And how do you listen to it?
• 13:17
  Rebecca MacLeod: Well, then you need to be quiet.
• 13:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Hmm.
• 13:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: Close your eyes.
• 13:22
  Rebecca MacLeod: Perhaps give the child a or, you know, the, the teenager, a breathing exercise.
• 13:28
  Rebecca MacLeod: Something simple, something that calms.
• 13:30
  Rebecca MacLeod: What is, what is going to be calming?
• 13:33
  Rebecca MacLeod: And ask them to listen.
• 13:36
  Rebecca MacLeod: Just listen.
• 13:37
  Rebecca MacLeod: And they may get a, a nudge of some kind, however, it'll work for them.
• 13:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: It could be a word, it could be remembrance, it could be an image.
• 13:46
  Rebecca MacLeod: And then they can follow that and say, ah, yeah, wait.
• 13:49
  Rebecca MacLeod: Ah, okay.
• 13:50
  Rebecca MacLeod: And then proceed in this way.
• 13:52
  Rebecca MacLeod: What would happen with me in high school is that I would be so nervous.
• 13:56
  Rebecca MacLeod: It was performative.
• 13:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
• 13:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Mm-hmm.
• 14:00
  Rebecca MacLeod: Who am I if I get it wrong?
• 14:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right, right.
• 14:02
  Rebecca MacLeod: And that gets in the way of remembering anything.
• 14:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: A hundred percent.
• 14:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, so many students actually do know the answer.
• 14:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: They do know, you know, I used to be like this when I, my math anxiety would pop up in tests, where I'd intuitively start doing something and then my brain would kind of get in the way and be like,"no, no, no, erase that".
• 14:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, wait, like, maybe it would, you know, it would go into this really cerebral place.
• 14:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it would turn out that my intuitive answer was the right one.
• 14:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know?
• 14:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: But I had ignored it to be like, I should be doing this and, and this kind of thing.
• 14:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: So how, what's also interesting, I think, and I've been working a lot on, with my therapist, is like, how do we know the difference?
• 14:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, we have these students who are coming from a fear space, they are anxious around math.
• 14:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: These questions are popping up.
• 14:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Who am I if I get it wrong?
• 14:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: And that shuts them down.
• 14:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: How do we discern the difference?
• 14:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is a big question right?
• 14:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: but how do we, what's a tip to discern the difference between fear and intuition?
• 14:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: So a student who's, for example, like my intuition is telling me not to try this because like something horrible is gonna happen.
• 15:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Uh, versus being able to be like, that's just fear.
• 15:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's not like a deep inner knowing.
• 15:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's like a, or I don't know if I'm wording that correctly, but you know what I mean, like how, how could, how do we do that?
• 15:13
  Rebecca MacLeod: Mm-hmm.
• 15:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: So this is something I've been exploring, I, would, I would say for 10 years.
• 15:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: That shows like it takes work, right?
• 15:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: 'cause we're not conditioned that way.
• 15:25
  Rebecca MacLeod: Mm-hmm.
• 15:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: It is what, what is, am I in a picture right now?
• 15:30
  Rebecca MacLeod: A picture being, uh, a moment in time where I had a negative experience and I'm trying to protect myself again from that experience.
• 15:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, I love that.
• 15:41
  Rebecca MacLeod: Or am I connected to something else?
• 15:47
  Rebecca MacLeod: And normally if you are in a space of fear as you're speaking, oh my God, I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do this.
• 15:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's not to your intuition speaking.
• 15:58
  Rebecca MacLeod: That is you doing your best to protect yourself from having, a negative experience again.
• 16:05
  Rebecca MacLeod: And intuition often is direct, clear, soft, and it's very often the first thing comes in your mind Before you evaluate it.
• 16:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's the drop in, it's the thing you receive.
• 16:18
  Rebecca MacLeod: And then you know that part of us that says, well, yes, no, maybe pros and cons and historical experiences.
• 16:24
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's not intuition, that's mechanical.
• 16:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: I really love this because I think, one of the things that kind of comes up.
• 16:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: In the a a broader cultural sense is this idea that certain of us have math ability and certain don't.
• 16:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: But again, we are all born with, you know, there, there really is no scientific studies to, to back that up.
• 16:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like there's no like brain scans being like, some people have these, brain, you know, whatever.
• 16:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: And the idea that I really think intuition could be a tool into like actually allowing everyone to tap into their natural curiosity, their natural sense of like question asking and creative thinking and, and you know, our recognizing that so much of what we do in life is tied to this beautiful math is just not necessarily evaluated in the classroom, which to me is just proof and evidence that we have mathematical intuition.
• 17:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I think maybe'cause I love the idea of being like, here's a problem, you know, you put this in front of a student, here's a problem.
• 17:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: You have no idea to solve.
• 17:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: First instinct.
• 17:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: What would you do?
• 17:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, just like, you know what I mean?
• 17:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Don't even think about it too much.
• 17:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: What would you do?
• 17:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now the likelihood is a lot of times that will happen and it will be the quote unquote wrong thing to do, let's say.
• 17:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 17:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like some, you know, sometimes it won't lead to the, the intended outcome that the teacher has or the answer.
• 17:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I actually think that's a really good exercise to be like, even if it doesn't lead you there, that that's okay and that's part of the process.
• 17:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: But how would you frame that for a student who's, you know, we're constantly told in math class that the goal is to get a right answer.
• 17:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 17:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: What's a good like, reframe of, of this?
• 17:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because I really like your, this idea.
• 18:02
  Rebecca MacLeod: The goal is to have an experience.
• 18:05
  Rebecca MacLeod: How about that?
• 18:06
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's, it's to be in the experience of the unknown.
• 18:10
  Rebecca MacLeod: So is math really the outcome here or is it learning to trust yourself when you don't know what to do?
• 18:18
  Rebecca MacLeod: Getting a right answer, sure, that's a nice outcome.
• 18:22
  Rebecca MacLeod: But if that is immediately the concern, then it's restrictive.
• 18:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: You've put a boundary around the situation, so if you can make the focus as well on it's okay to not know and to listen and to breathe and to ask for help, then there's a different energy around it.
• 18:48
  Rebecca MacLeod: And what do I learn when I get it wrong?
• 18:51
  Rebecca MacLeod: Does it matter?
• 18:53
  Rebecca MacLeod: Maybe I've learned something.
• 18:54
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 18:54
  Rebecca MacLeod: Maybe I've had the experience of seeing myself be in fear and then get it wrong and then I'm okay on the other side of it.
• 19:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
• 19:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, I love the way you're, you're putting this because I do, you know, that's such a big part of my work through math therapy is this idea of even like, you know, practicing doing things that you're probably not gonna get the intended outcome, like getting into that space.
• 19:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I really love the tie in that you're making between intuition, it's that, you know, if you have an intuitive gut instinct, which is so hard for, for us to listen to, just listening to it more, and I'm just even imagining like, because I'm imagining someone being like, okay, I keep listening to my gut, but it's always like, you know, it's never leading me to the answer.
• 19:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: But that there, there is learning in that, you know, and that learning of being able to tune into your gut, being able to tune into your intuition is always going to get you closer to action.
• 19:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: And action is better than the stagnant place of fear and freeze.
• 19:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right?
• 19:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, am I onto something?
• 19:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: I think you definitely are, because what creates the stagnation is the fear of failure.
• 20:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 20:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: But why does it matter?
• 20:06
  Rebecca MacLeod: Like, okay, well I've gotta get a B or an A to get into college.
• 20:10
  Rebecca MacLeod: Well, that matters.
• 20:11
  Rebecca MacLeod: Okay.
• 20:12
  Rebecca MacLeod: But are we, are we in a learning process right now?
• 20:18
  Rebecca MacLeod: The, the future oriented concerns, that's what creates the anxiety.
• 20:23
  Rebecca MacLeod: And that's what will constrict the moment.
• 20:27
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so the learning process being more spacious, I think is crucial.
• 20:35
  Rebecca MacLeod: So to move into a situation with curiosity, I think is everything.
• 20:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: I, I like to paint and make art, and sometimes I get caught up in thinking, well, what do people want?
• 20:52
  Rebecca MacLeod: What will sell, what will they be interested in?
• 20:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: And immediately my creativity has walls around it.
• 21:00
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's a future concern.
• 21:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Could not be more relatable to me as a musician.
• 21:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Keep going.
• 21:05
  Rebecca MacLeod: Sure.
• 21:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: I need, I need this talk.
• 21:06
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 21:06
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so do you make something novel and of you, of your essence?
• 21:11
  Rebecca MacLeod: in that moment?
• 21:12
  Rebecca MacLeod: Or are you making something that's probably going to be similar to what's already been made because that feels safe?
• 21:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, this could not be more applicable to math.
• 21:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, could not be more.
• 21:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because again, when we're in school, we're not doing it for ourselves.
• 21:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Often we're doing it for the teacher in the room or for the adult or for the grade.
• 21:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: And we're trying to be like, how are other, we say a lot in math, that up till now most students are taught how to mimic, like you're taught how to mimic not how to think.
• 21:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, do it this way.
• 21:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's called like"I do, you do" from the teacher.
• 21:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Um, and you're right.
• 21:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like there's, there are immediately walls around that.
• 21:49
  Rebecca MacLeod: For sure.
• 21:49
  Rebecca MacLeod: And it stifles the, the creativity of problem solving.
• 21:53
  Rebecca MacLeod: I mimicked my way through college.
• 21:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: I got an economics degree.
• 21:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: And, you know, I would go to stats class and be like, what the hell is this?
• 22:01
  Rebecca MacLeod: And memorize the formulas, do it in a test and be like, this is bullshit.
• 22:04
  Rebecca MacLeod: This isn't anything.
• 22:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 22:06
  Rebecca MacLeod: You can fudge, you can fudge any statistics.
• 22:08
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Rebecca MacLeod: But some, some students may not take the questioning that far.
• 22:13
  Rebecca MacLeod: They may just mimic their way through and then at some point wonder, well, where, where am I?
• 22:18
  Rebecca MacLeod: Where am I in any of this?
• 22:20
  Rebecca MacLeod: So if, if at an earlier point it can be beyond the rote memorization of something, then I think you're going to unlock more in a student.
• 22:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, this is beautiful.
• 22:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Did you, at any point, you know, when you were, uh, going through your own school experience, did you feel like you were incapable of doing math?
• 22:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like did you For sure.
• 22:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 22:41
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:41
  Rebecca MacLeod: I did.
• 22:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: I would look at something and I would feel like a, a, crunch in my mind or a confusion or a reaching for what's the right thing, what did I do last time?
• 22:53
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I don't quite remember it.
• 22:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I would be so nervous that I would be cut off from even my, my, my access to what we learned in class.
• 23:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I would be frustrated, therefore I wouldn't study, and therefore I would keep showing up in a a, a way that was not, not fulfilling at all.
• 23:13
  Rebecca MacLeod: It was, it was totally fear based.
• 23:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so had my learning been in a different environment, things could have been very different.
• 23:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: Not only, you know, math as a concept, what is this, but am I approaching it from fear or am I approaching it with curiosity?
• 23:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, a couple more.
• 23:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're, we're reaching, I mean, I could talk to you for a thousand hours.
• 23:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is so fascinating.
• 23:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 23:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: There's another big thing I wanna talk about and I know this is gonna seem kind of in the weeds for some of our listeners, but everyone listening to this knows how much I love astrology.
• 23:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: And one of the things that drew me to you is that you study Vedic astrology.
• 23:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you mentioned that, you really believe that astrology played a role in your own math experience and in, in your, in the way you were relating to math when you were long younger.
• 24:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Can you just tell us a little bit about that?
• 24:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: So,
• 24:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: and tell us what vedic astrology is first, a little brief snippet.
• 24:07
  Rebecca MacLeod: Sure.
• 24:07
  Rebecca MacLeod: Vedic astrology is a system of astrology.
• 24:10
  Rebecca MacLeod: It came from India and it can help us to understand ourselves in any given moment.
• 24:17
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's.
• 24:17
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's like understanding what's happening with the weather, but your internal weather.
• 24:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love that.
• 24:24
  Rebecca MacLeod: And there's something called the hermetic principle:"as above, so below"
• 24:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: I have that tattooed to my arm.
• 24:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 24:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my god.
• 24:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: TANC, stop.
• 24:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 24:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 24:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
• 24:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Love, love.
• 24:36
  Rebecca MacLeod: So I think that's the, the basis of astrology.
• 24:38
  Rebecca MacLeod: You're like, what the hell does Jupiter have to do with anything?
• 24:41
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's over there.
• 24:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: Mm.
• 24:43
  Rebecca MacLeod: Well, maybe Jupiter is also inside.
• 24:47
  Rebecca MacLeod: In, in the realm of science, there's increasingly an understanding that life is coming from us.
• 24:54
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's not happening out here, it's coming from us.
• 24:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: So astrology is a way to get inside.
• 25:00
  Rebecca MacLeod: Okay.
• 25:00
  Rebecca MacLeod: And say what's happening outside is also what's happening inside.
• 25:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: I'm related to the cosmos.
• 25:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love that.
• 25:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: And so tell me a bit about, looking back now, you know, we've heard about your journey through math and what was happening in school.
• 25:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: How you've kind of been able to reflect on that from that perspective?
• 25:19
  Rebecca MacLeod: Right.
• 25:19
  Rebecca MacLeod: So in Vedic astrology, you can look at different parts of your life and see dominant energies taking place at different times in your life.
• 25:32
  Rebecca MacLeod: And you can look at your chart to see this.
• 25:35
  Rebecca MacLeod: And as I was learning Vedic astrology, I looked back and I saw these different chapters of my life and how different strengths or challenges emerged over time.
• 25:45
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so during a certain phase, I was very, very strong in math.
• 25:49
  Rebecca MacLeod: And then it changed to another phase, which was more challenging my life.
• 25:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I could see how math became utterly difficult for me, confusing.
• 26:01
  Rebecca MacLeod: essentially the self-confidence changed.
• 26:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like literally your relationship with it.
• 26:08
  Rebecca MacLeod: It did.
• 26:08
  Rebecca MacLeod: I, I, I was no longer confident in math.
• 26:12
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I didn't understand why I was learning it.
• 26:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: I questioned it and I struggled to connect with it.
• 26:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I could see through looking at my chart why that was.
• 26:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: Which is an interesting thing to do.
• 26:28
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's an interesting part of astrology is you under get to understand this system.
• 26:32
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's actually called a Vedic mathematics.
• 26:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's right.
• 26:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
• 26:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 26:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 26:37
  Rebecca MacLeod: So it's, it's a system of probabilities, essentially.
• 26:39
  Rebecca MacLeod: Based on an understanding of different energies, what is more likely to occur during a, a period of time or not.
• 26:45
  Rebecca MacLeod: Now, we have free will within that, but, we can say that there are certain impressions that happen on the mind at a certain period of time, and that will impact how you live out your life.
• 26:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so I, I saw my math journey in, in what I have learned so far.
• 27:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Wow.
• 27:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you, and not to get into the nitty gritty, even though, you know, I want to, um, you, this particular thing just had to do with the moon phase you were in and the Mars phase you were in.
• 27:11
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's right.
• 27:12
  Rebecca MacLeod: So the moon in my chart is very happy.
• 27:14
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's in a good position.
• 27:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: It likes where it is.
• 27:16
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's exalted.
• 27:17
  Rebecca MacLeod: The moon is the mind also, it's, it represents the mind.
• 27:20
  Rebecca MacLeod: Okay.
• 27:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so I was excelling in school.
• 27:23
  Rebecca MacLeod: Very, very good at math.
• 27:24
  Rebecca MacLeod: Very good at everything.
• 27:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: Good.
• 27:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: You know?
• 27:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 27:27
  Rebecca MacLeod: Good.
• 27:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: She's using air quotes, everyone.
• 27:29
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 27:29
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 27:30
  Rebecca MacLeod: You know what I mean?
• 27:31
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 27:31
  Rebecca MacLeod: Like from, from this, this way that we like to judge children.
• 27:34
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 27:36
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 27:36
  Rebecca MacLeod: And uh, and then the, the chapter, it was a new chapter and this one was ruled by, by Mars, which in my chart Mars is challenged.
• 27:45
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's not in a place that is particularly comfortable.
• 27:49
  Rebecca MacLeod: In my particular chart, Mars is also associated with the mind.
• 27:52
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so, things became less clear to me.
• 27:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, it's, it's so interesting'cause I know we're talking about astrology and we love it, and, and we all have different belief systems and different tools of reflection or religions or spiritual manifestations.
• 28:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like whatever.
• 28:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's, you know, we have what the things that help us feel anchored in the world.
• 28:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: But what I, what I honestly think is so interesting is like, you're literally just talking about phases of your life, you know, and you're using astrology to understand them.
• 28:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: For, but for every, for all of us, we've gotta recognize that the students that we are teaching are all in different phases of their lives.
• 28:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Whether it's astrologically or like more rooted in the material world, or like hormonally or mentally or emotionally.
• 28:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, they're all in these different phases.
• 28:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: And when I'm really hearing too is that like, we've gotta honor that, you know, we have to honor that and.
• 28:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: I wonder if there is a piece, because it's so hard for a teacher with, you know, for however many students in a room to tap into what every single student is going through and what they need.
• 28:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, like how your teacher could have been like Rebecca's in Mars phase.
• 28:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, you know what I mean?
• 28:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, but I'm actually wondering as kind of a final question.
• 29:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: We're talking so much about student intuition.
• 29:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Is there a way teachers might be able to use their intuition to tap into what a student needs?
• 29:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, so often we're frustrated because a student, we can tell they're in anxiety.
• 29:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: We, we can tell they're not feeling good.
• 29:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: They have an unhealthy relationship with math, and we don't know how to, you know, we've used all our tools and we don't know how to navigate that.
• 29:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Would you have any like tip for teachers of how to, how to quickly, or not quickly, how to even begin to tap into a gut feeling of what a student might need?
• 29:33
  Rebecca MacLeod: Well, we're talking about pressure and performance, both for the teacher and the student.
• 29:37
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 29:37
  Rebecca MacLeod: I gotta get this done.
• 29:38
  Rebecca MacLeod: Shit, I gotta learn this versus, versus peace.
• 29:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so can a teacher with 30 to 40 students in the class, I know there's a lot going on.
• 29:50
  Rebecca MacLeod: Can they show up in a way that is loving in a moment?
• 29:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: And create a space that's coming a little more from, from the heart.
• 30:03
  Rebecca MacLeod: And literally just, just picture the heart or take a few moments to do that before starting.
• 30:10
  Rebecca MacLeod: Is it possible to take a few moments to breathe with the students,
• 30:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: With the class, yeah.
• 30:15
  Rebecca MacLeod: And, and say, this is, this is an exploration we're going on together.
• 30:19
  Rebecca MacLeod: This isn't who you are.
• 30:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yes.
• 30:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: Your test score is not who you are.
• 30:23
  Rebecca MacLeod: This is a way for you to get to know yourself and to get to know the world.
• 30:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Clapping over here, everyone.
• 30:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes.
• 30:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love that.
• 30:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I also can't help but think, you know, so many, I love how you said pressure to perform for the teacher as well.
• 30:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I, I know that so, so many incredible teachers are just, they just wanna be doing their best.
• 30:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: They want students to feel good.
• 30:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I actually really think that what you're saying, coming at it from a place of love for themselves as well.
• 30:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, like giving themselves that self-compassion to say, say, I'm just getting up here, I'm gonna do my best.
• 30:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm gonna tap into my heart center and teach from that place.
• 30:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: will probably be really healing and peaceful for them as well.
• 31:01
  Rebecca MacLeod: For sure.
• 31:02
  Rebecca MacLeod: And I think remembering that not everything is up to them and not everything is meant to go perfectly for every individual.
• 31:10
  Rebecca MacLeod: There's lots to be learned through failure.
• 31:12
  Rebecca MacLeod: that may be what someone is choosing to experience at that time and there's a greater, broader reason for it that has an impact later in life.
• 31:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: I believe that.
• 31:22
  Rebecca MacLeod: And so it's, it's not all up to you as a teacher at all.
• 31:26
  Rebecca MacLeod: But, to, to create an environment where people can have the experience that they're meant to have
• 31:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: In like a loving way.
• 31:33
  Rebecca MacLeod: Exactly.
• 31:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, I I love that.
• 31:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 31:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think that's so important.
• 31:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: My mantra for Bali has been,"as I let go of the need to control my life, abundance flows easily and effortlessly to me and those around me".
• 31:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: And it's, it's funny, I've even started realizing how much I'm trying to control things that like I can't, you know, and that I shouldn't.
• 31:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: And, and I really love that.
• 31:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: 'cause I think teachers really, they're, they're so, they want to give so much and, to really recognize we can't control everything.
• 32:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know, we can give and receive.
• 32:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: But that's, that's it.
• 32:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay.
• 32:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: So before we wrap up, this has been just an incredible interview.
• 32:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: So different from the ones I've had, but a conversation I really always wanted to have.
• 32:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you're just so wise and coming from a place that I think is really useful.
• 32:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: So many of us don't get to hear that perspective.
• 32:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: It was really healing for me, even to just kind of feel like we do have an inner knowing and curiosity and wonder are the goal for students, but also for teachers and for us as humans.
• 32:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: So there are two questions I always ask all my guests, so I'm gonna fire them at you.
• 32:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Ready?
• 32:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: All right.
• 32:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Question number one.
• 32:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: If there was one thing you could change about the way math is taught in schools, what would it be?
• 32:40
  Rebecca MacLeod: Love.
• 32:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: That's, that's it.
• 32:44
  Rebecca MacLeod: To, to make it not a space of, of performance, but a space of love, which is fundamentally going to lead to a better outcome.
• 32:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: Can we be in wonder and sweetness with this?
• 32:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Sweetness.
• 33:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love this.
• 33:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love you.
• 33:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, amazing.
• 33:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: And then my final question is, if someone was chatting with you and they were like, yeah, I get everything you're saying about intuition and we know, but I'm just not a math person, what would you say?
• 33:16
  Rebecca MacLeod: I would be curious to know what a math person means to them.
• 33:19
  Rebecca MacLeod: What does it mean to be a math person?
• 33:21
  Rebecca MacLeod: To be really good at memorizing formulas, to be good at acing tests, to be good at adding up your, your grocery bill.
• 33:29
  Rebecca MacLeod: Like what does, what does that mean?
• 33:31
  Rebecca MacLeod: Does the people think you're good at math?
• 33:34
  Rebecca MacLeod: Because it's, it's what is this goal in, in mind that would be interesting and to say there may be some way that you can experience math that feels really cool and fun to you.
• 33:48
  Rebecca MacLeod: And maybe you can find out what that is.
• 33:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, I love it.
• 33:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: So, such a you answer to, to respond to that question with a question about the person.
• 33:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Right.
• 33:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, I think it's great and sometimes that asking instead of telling.
• 34:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Is what brings out of that person, what their deep mouth trauma is and how it can be healed.
• 34:04
  Rebecca MacLeod: What do they believe about themselves?
• 34:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: What they, yeah.
• 34:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God, this has been amazing, amazing.
• 34:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Our first interview ever in Bali, like, honestly, you're such a treat.
• 34:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you for taking the time.
• 34:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: Is there, do you want people to find you anywhere?
• 34:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like do you have Instagram?
• 34:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Do you like, should they, do you have social media?
• 34:22
  Rebecca MacLeod: I do, um, where I post highly irregularly, so I dunno how interesting it would be for them.
• 34:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so, no problem.
• 34:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yeah.
• 34:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: We'll just leave you as this mysterious, intuitive woman on the podcast.
• 34:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Perfect.
• 34:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Find, find Rebecca in the cosmos.
• 34:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Everyone, Yeah.
• 34:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: thank you so much for being here.
• 34:39
  Rebecca MacLeod: Thanks for having me.
• 34:40
  Rebecca MacLeod: And you're doing incredible work.
• 34:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: Truly.
• 34:42
  Rebecca MacLeod: It's, it's a gift to make a space where people can talk about this and so that people can have a more honest experience of math and themselves.
• 34:55
  Rebecca MacLeod: Thank you.
• 34:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: You're welcome.
• 34:57
  Rebecca MacLeod: Should we hug?
• 34:58
  Rebecca MacLeod: Yeah.
• 34:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh God, We've never, all thank you so much.
• 35:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh my God.
• 35:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: Oh, I'm not saying bye.
• 35:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: No need.
• 35:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: She's right here.
• 35:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: I mean, can we just take a second to breathe that all in?
• 35:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: If this episode sparked something for you, I mean, maybe it reminded you that your intuition matters, or maybe it made you think about your own math journey in a new way.
• 35:23
  Vanessa Vakharia: Share it.
• 35:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: I guarantee that someone, you know needs.
• 35:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: To hear this message today as much as you did, so send it to a friend, post it to your story, or just DM me and let me know what resonated.
• 35:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm on Instagram at the Math guru, and I'm always up for a chat about sacred geometry, student joy, or what it means to be a math person.
• 35:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: And hey, if you're loving the pod, a quick five star review helps me reach more people and keep these convos going.
• 35:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now for next week, I have something truly special for you guys.
• 35:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: When I was in Bali, I was doing yoga like every day, searching for meaning, blah, blah, blah, as one does.
• 35:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: And one day my yoga teacher pulled me aside and said, Hey, I know you do this math therapy stuff.
• 36:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: My girlfriend Charizma is terrified of math.
• 36:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, you know, she cries at the sight of numbers kind of thing.
• 36:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: Can you help her?
• 36:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, for the next couple of weeks, charisma and I went through some intense math therapy and she was brave enough to sit down with me on the mic to share her experience.
• 36:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know I exaggerate a lot, but I'm actually serious that my time getting to know Charizma was one of the most absolute highlights of my work in math education, and I learned as much from her as she did from me.
• 36:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I can't wait to share her story with you next week.
• 36:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now, one more thing before you go.
• 36:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: As I said at the start of this episode, we have big things in store.
• 36:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Are you ready?
• 36:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm actually so excited.
• 36:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: As of this fall, we will officially be a weekly podcast.
• 36:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: That means new episodes every week, guys.
• 36:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I wanna hear from you.
• 36:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: If there's anyone you want me to interview, any episode ideas you have, any topics you want me to explore, dm me on Instagram, email me at vanessa@themathguru.ca.
• 37:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: I wanna hear from you because this podcast is for you guys.
• 37:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Math Therapy is produced and edited by David Kochberg, and that lovely music you're hearing is by my band, Goodnight Sunrise, See you guys next week and until then, go be curious, go be kind, and go be your best math therapist self, for a friend, student, colleague, or even just for you because you deserve it.