Latest / The Observatory | Discovery of Consciousness & Awareness / What Makes You Feel Alive? | Dr. Stormy Hill on Intimacy, Pleasure, Tantra & Midlife Reinvention

Transcript

What Makes You Feel Alive? | Dr. Stormy Hill on Intimacy, Pleasure, Tantra & Midlife Reinvention · The Observatory | Discovery of Consciousness & Awareness

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Observatory Podcast.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: With your hosts, Scott and LaRae Wright.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Join us each week as we explore living life from
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the inside out. Welcome back to the Observatory Podcast. Today,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Rae and I are going to sit down with our
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: good friend, Dr. Stormy Hill. This is a great conversation.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: She is a practitioner that helps people feel more alive,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: alive in their bodies, alive in everything that they do.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: She just returned from a trip to Europe where she
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: climbed in the mountains, and she's going to talk about
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that experience and how beautiful that was. Her name being Stormy,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: it was beautiful because during the episode, a storm rolled in,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you could hear the thunder, you could hear the rain,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and And it was just amazing. So sit back, relax,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and enjoy this conversation with Dr. Stormy Hill. Welcome back
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to the Observatory Podcast. Ray and I are sitting here
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in our living room today with our guest, Dr. Stormy Hill. Welcome.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. So nice to be here.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: We're so excited to have you here. You and Ray
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: have known each other now for quite some time.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, we have.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, I know. And it's been... it's been fun because
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: just recently we've started spending more time together and I've
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: just really enjoyed it.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Same.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: So we're in a different season now.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, aren't we?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I've kind of watched that and you know, I've, I've
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: kind of watched Ray and how she really values some
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of the things that she's learned and the spaces that
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you've been in. And, uh, it's been wonderful to watch
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that to her, her kind of blossoming and opening up
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to new ideas and, and, uh, looking at things from
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: other perspectives, right?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Right. And one of the things that I love about
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Stormy is, you know, when you meet you and you
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: know you're a doctor and all of that, and then
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: you're like, oh, can I share a poem that I
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: wrote last night? And I'm like, oh, yes, yes, you
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: can share a poem. So I love that part that
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: is just so authentic and who you are.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And just gives me so much permission to be that myself.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: It's been the same, like with getting to know you
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: and seeing your evolution, where you're putting yourself out there
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: and our hesitancies to putting ourselves out there and just
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: being able to cheerlead deeply for each other has been
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: really special.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love having you as a cheerleader. That's awesome.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: You were just saying that you two met through Tessa
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Arneson and the work that she does with MAVEN.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Well, and we'll get into this, but Stormy is an
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: intimacy coach. And so she had done a workshop. Oh
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: my goodness. It's been now eight or nine, maybe even
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: 10 years ago. And I went to Tessa's workshop and
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: that's when I first met her. And I loved how
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: you talked about intimacy because it's a place where there's
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: such reluctance for people to go because of the way
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: they have built either a barrier or a definition around
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: what intimacy is. And I just remember that night, it
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: was a whole different concept for me to understand that
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: intimacy was more about feelings and perspective and not just,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: you know, the bedroom.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: And thanks for bringing that to light. I think that
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: one of the things I feel really passionate about is
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: how myopic we tend to be about how we define intimacy,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: how we define pleasure, how we define sensuality and helping
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: like myself in my own practice and my clients to like,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: to expand that, right. To have that be so much
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: more broad. It's not just the bedroom. I mean, that
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: part's great or can be great, but what is that?
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: What is, how do we live life more intimately, more sensually,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: more pleasurably? you know, throughout our day. So I would
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: say from the boardroom to the bedroom, but whatever that
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: might be for you.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, there's more things about intimacy than just
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the physical relationship between you and a partner. So many things,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: what you share, what the emotions are, what you hide. Yeah.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Just as importantly, what you hide. Yeah, for sure.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Well, in the act of just acknowledging pleasure. So I
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: know you, we were chatting before and you said, you know,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: as you were doing your sort of your medical path,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: you started leaning more into Eastern wisdom and, you know,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: they have a lot of walking meditations where people will
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: take an orange or an apple and they'll walk and
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: they'll really take in their senses as they're, you know,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: eating and just being fully alive in that moment.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: And, you know, we don't do that.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Right. And I think there's something about, I mean, if
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: you think about it's, it's interesting to look like if
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: I look at my, my path, so to speak, maybe
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: it's very fresh for me as I come up on
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: my 50th birthday in a few weeks, but the, you know,
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: I guess if I look back at, I, I was
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: struggling a bit. I know I shared this with you, right?
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: When we were having tea, but that the, um, my
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: path seemed a little bit disconnected, like my professional path
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: from medicine, occupational therapy to entrepreneurship, to public speaking, to
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: sex and intimacy coaching. And I was, um, really like,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: I wasn't struggling with that. I was just trying to
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: understand it, kind of zoom out and take a little
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: bit of a 30,000 foot view. And like, what has, like,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: what have I always been studying? And I really realized
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: that what I've been excited about and studying in my
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: own life and in all these different careers has been
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: what helps people feel most alive. And why are we
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: struggling with aliveness so much as a culture? And in
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: all these different areas, that's the common thread is how
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: do we, what makes us feel alive? What keeps us
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: from feeling alive? And I believe that sensuality and pleasure
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: is a big part of that. And sensuality simply means
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: to like my capacity to sense. And to your point
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: where you just were saying, right, like that takes a
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: moment of pause. That takes some savoring. Because you could
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: be like drenched in sensation and not take it in,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: not notice it. So that just kind of like I
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: started really thinking, and that's just what I've just been
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: chewing on for the last six months, really writing about
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: and writing poetry about and studying and journaling about is
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: this idea of aliveness and how do we participate more
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: in this one beautiful life that we have for all
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: of its aches and glories and joy and bliss and
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: pain and everything in between.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Wow. Well, maybe what we should do is kind of
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: zoom in. I love how you said zoom out and look.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: You know, how does a young girl suddenly become so
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: passionate about this? Like, what's the story of Stormy? Like,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: to kind of take us on that journey that, you know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: where your own awakening started to prompt you to connect
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: dots that, you know, a lot of people don't.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a really beautiful question.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, I've always felt like a little
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: bit like an alien, like I didn't quite fit in.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: I love I just I love depth.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I love like deep connection, even when, you know, I
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: was an awkward, you know, pimple faced teenager. And that
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: didn't like lead to popularity. Let's just say that it
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: was like, you know, a little bit of an outlier
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: on that one. but I wanted to be a doctor
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: since I was five. I just, you know, I have
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: a big family and they'd say that when it was
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: about what was I going to do when I grew up,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm going to be a doctor. It
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: wasn't like, I want to be a doctor. It's like,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: I am going to be a doctor. So I did,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I became that and worked hard towards that. Um, and
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: loved my training and, um, you know, love med, I
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: still love medicine. Uh, I love the brain. I love
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: the science behind it. I think the human body is,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: is amazing and so capable and astounding. And then life, life, life,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: continued lifing, I said, I guess I would say. My son,
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: who I had in medical school, not particularly advisable to
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: have a kid in medical school, but I did. And
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: he has a really rare and serious heart disease. So they, science, medicine,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: said he wasn't going to make it to his first birthday.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: And so as much as I wanted to be a
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: doctor since I was five, I wanted to be a
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: mom much more. And so I stopped practicing medicine. I
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: stopped my training. Um, with, I was focusing on psychiatry
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: at the time, um, but to take care of him and,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: you know, I mean, what did I say? Man plans
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: and God laughs. Let's just say I got the name Stormy.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: The nickname for a reason.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Like I, like, I really like this illusion of control.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So I thought I was in control. And so I thought,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: you know, he'll pass away and I'll go back to
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: my training and finish. And do my triple boarding and
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: all the things I was working towards. And, um, he's
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: 22 now and he has defied all the medical odds.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: He's my, definitely my greatest teacher on this earth. Um,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: and through that process of the first five years of
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: his life, he was in and out of heart failure.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: It was very, uh, he was very sick. It was
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: very traumatic, uh, for all of us. It was not
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: easy on my marriage and, All these things. But my
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: sister asked me an interesting question one time. She said, Stormy,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: who's been most instrumental in his life, in keeping Mason
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: alive in his life? And I said, well, that's easy.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: His occupational therapist. And she had become a friend of mine.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: She was in our home from the time he was
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: three months old until he was four.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: And.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: She's like, Stormy, you should be an OT. You'd be
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: so good. It's so creative. And I'm like, I'm not creative.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: I'm a scientist. But I started really loving. And she
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: was the first to say, hey, I think your son
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: might have autism. I think we should look at that.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: She was just a part of our life holistically and
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: a part of my son's life. And so fast forward,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I said, I'm never going back to graduate school.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: Are you crazy?
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I'd just taken my licensing exams and my boards. And
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: I went back to graduate school and became an occupational therapist.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: And I have done that since 2008. And I still
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: love medicine. I don't have any angst about medicine. It
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: just felt a little prescriptive for me to go back
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: to where occupational therapy opened up this whole idea of
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: holistically working with someone. creatively working with someone, having a
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: lot more time with someone. I was allowed to like
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: kind of determine my own schedule as far as, you know,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: minutes of service. Um, yeah. And so that, but it
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: was an interesting, that was the beginning of the progression
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: into like really focusing on sensory processing and autism and
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: the brain, um, moving from psychiatry to occupational therapy.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Wow. And your son lives a very independent life and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: what's his life like now?
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: He's 22.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: I laugh because, you know, he's, he's just, he's my
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: favorite person on the planet for sure. And he, his
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: name is Mason. And he says, I said to him
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: the other day, he was just visiting Utah and we
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: were backpacking. And, and I said, Mason, you know, you,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: you are a miracle. Like you, science said you should
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: be dead. I said, you are a miracle. And he
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: looks at me, he goes, mom, that's like a lot
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: of pressure.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: I said, true, but it is also true. So yeah, he's, uh, he's,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: he lives on his own. He graduated college.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: I'm actually heading down next week to go help him
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: move into his first apartment.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So where is he at?
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: St.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: Petersburg, Florida.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And he, he studies the ocean, so he's not
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: moving back to Utah anytime soon.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Wow. That's wonderful though. So, You said it was hard
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: on your marriage. At what point did the marriage shift
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: and change?
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we separated when my son was four, so a
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: long time ago, and we divorced a few years later.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: And it's so interesting. I think we were young. I mean,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: I was 23 when we got married, and I didn't
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: have any of the skills that I have now that
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: I've learned through my own years of marriage. hopefully wisdom
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: on this earth and being on this earth and also
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: my training. And like, we didn't, we really, the death
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: or serious illness of a child is incredibly traumatic, you know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: challenging for a relationship. We didn't have a solid foundation
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: going into that, into my son getting sick and being sick.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: And so it, we didn't have the tools to navigate it.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: And I look back at my role in that. I
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: very much judged how he handled my son's illness. He
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: judged how I handled my son's illness. both thought that
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: each of us was right and the other one was
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: wrong you know and now I look back and I'm
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: like you know no shoulda coulda wouldas but more of
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: like wow could we have had a difference where we
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: were curious about each other's how we handled each other's
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: illness how we handled his illness because he was the
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: only my ex-husband's only person on this planet who knows
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: what that was like to go through right so we
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: missed an opportunity to have like back to intimacy deep
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, sacred intimacy of having navigating this incredibly challenging
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: traumatic experience. And instead, we judged each other so deeply.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: And that was sort of the nail in the coffin
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: for us with for our marriage. And so I think
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: it's you know, I look back and I think about, wow,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: like if you have the tools or you're willing to
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: commit to that experience. And you have the capacity, the resources.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: When my son was sick, I didn't really care what
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: happened to my marriage, so to speak, because I only
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: had so much bandwidth. But we really missed an opportunity
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: to have deep intimacy, and instead we found judgment with
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: each other.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: That's powerful.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: So as you're going through this experience of your life
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and raising your son, there was some transition or two
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: or three along the way where you kind of woke
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: up to a different kind of reality as to who
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: you are.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Was there, was there something besides just the experience of
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: raising your son that guided you in that direction? Were
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: there other, other things in addition to that?
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's, that's a beautiful question. I think, you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: finding Tantra and sacred sexuality for me was a big,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: you know, I struggled, my ex-husband and I struggled a
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: lot with sex and intimacy in our, in our relationship.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: It was one of our deepest struggles.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: He would, know, agree.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: And, and, you know, you don't know, you don't know.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: So when I first discovered, which would have been, I guess,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: 2008 now, so a long time ago, Tantra on this
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: more sacred sexuality, especially because I had grown up Catholic,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, sacred, what?
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Like, what do you mean you're gonna.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Put sacredness and sexuality together? And it kind of turned
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: me upside down in my head. But you know, I
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: don't know, I'm sure you have, but you have these
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: experiences where something's brand new to you. but it feels
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: like deeply familiar. Um, so that's how I felt about, um,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: sacred sexuality. And I started, uh, again, kind of my
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: stormy personality. I was like, read everything I could read
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: about it, took every course I could take about it
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: and really decided that that was, um, I wanted that
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: to be a part of my own personal life, but
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: also the work I was doing with individuals and couples. Um,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: so that started, you know, through my own experience, I just,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: and really saying, wow, like we, the divine and sexuality
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: are so entirely not separate. They're actually very beautifully.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: Put together, right?
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: And that's that you can find the divine through sexuality
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: or sensuality through pleasure. And that it's not something that is,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: you know, relegated to a church space on Sunday or
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: whatever it might be. So that was, you know, again,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: I think growing up Catholic, that was like very novel
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: for me and a little deconstructive, but in a really
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: beautiful way of like, huh, And then, and for me,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Tantra has, again, has so much more to do than
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: people think of Tantra. They think of sex, but that
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: is one little teeny like sliver of Tantra. For me,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Tantra is, is being engaged and sensual and pleasure filled
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: with life itself.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: And from, from everything from the gut wrenching to the
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: bliss inducing and everything in between. And how do you
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: engage with life? And so, you know, it, it started
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: taking me down this road of looking at more somatic,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: looking at, I really liked the, I kind of over
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: liked this thing that rests between our ears. I really,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: really identified with my brain. I identified as being intelligent. Um,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: I like to study and learn, but it, oh man,
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: this thing that rests between our ears can really trip.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Us up, you know?
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: So getting more into the body was like, that was
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: my first experience into that. I mean, I've always been
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: into fitness and I feel like also that's a beautiful
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: way for me to find my way back to my
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: body is movement, whether it's rigorous or gentle and everything
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: in between. And so, you know, those, again, if I
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: like zoom out, it's like my whole life was pointing
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: me towards embodiment, towards somatic practices, towards sensuality, towards how
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: do we just drink in the pleasure in this life,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: even when it's hard. But I didn't like, you know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I couldn't see it until I started to, well, totally,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: apparently until I, almost turned 50 and I got to
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: like look at it differently.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: We're always trying to figure things out, right? The brain
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: wants to solve the equation. It's like, why, what, why, how,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: always wanting to know the answers. And for me in
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: my own journey, it didn't make sense to me that
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I could just sit still and answers would just come
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: or I could sit in stillness of, of creativity and,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And creativity would just come. That didn't make sense.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: And creativity would take you to that place.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: That place that you felt embodied.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Beginning of playing music or beginning of a painting or
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: worthy inspiration and all that comes from. It didn't make
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: sense to me either. So I discovered it late in
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: my life. Yeah. Probably. It was actually around 50 when
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: that all started coming about. So 2011 was when I
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: went to my first drum circle.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And I was 50.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: That's amazing.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: So it's the same time. And timid. And super timid.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. I, I, I felt like I was going
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to embarrass myself by being part of this circle. And
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: then as time went on, I just realized that I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: was the one limiting that. And it was all between
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: my ears that was limiting it.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Old stories.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: All that. Yeah.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: You know, and that just, I'm so grateful you just
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: share that. Cause one of the things I've really just
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: been chewing on in this, in this way I'm trying
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: to organize my thinking and this work that I'm doing
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: is that you hear that we're wired for growth. And
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: I believe that that's partially true. I believe that that's
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: incomplete to say that because, yes, humans and our spirit
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: are wired for curiosity and growth and development and exploration.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: But our nervous system, including our brain, is very much different.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: like about pattern recognition, about noticing familiarity, about leaning towards familiarity, about, safety.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: And so it's- Resistance to change. So those are not,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: they're not opposites, but there certainly can be an opposition
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: of each other. And so, right, and I've been kind
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: of like toying with this term that I'm calling right now,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: calling adaptive inertia, which is that we, like inertia, right?
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: We're gonna stay on the same path. But that path
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: based on our nervous system is gonna be what's familiar.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: It might not be what brings us to, aliveness, to flourishing,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: to thriving. It might be very counter to that, right?
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Like your limiting belief about your drum circle was, imagine
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: if you had given into that and look at the
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: joy and bliss that music brings you now, right? So
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: it's just kind of interesting to think about like, yeah,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: I do believe we are wired for growth, but we
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: are also wired for pattern recognition.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: I agree with that.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: We were talking before we got started here about cold plunging.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: For me, cold plunging was the thing One of the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: first things that helped me recognize what we're talking about here,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: because I would go up and get in the tub
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of super cold water. And my voice in my head
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: is screaming, don't do it. Don't do it. Danger, danger. Danger, danger.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Do the sauna instead.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do the sauna instead. And I started to recognize
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that it was that voice in my head. That's the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: same one that wants to solve all the problems and
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: wants to be in charge and wants to remain safe,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't like change, wants to get its next fix of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: addictive behavior. All of those things, it's the same voice.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And when I would get in the water, I had
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: this super powerful shift in recognition that that's not in
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: charge anymore. I get to be in charge, the observer.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: That's why we call this the observatory, this podcast.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love that.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Because you're observing now your life from almost a different place,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: but it's not a different place. It's a different perspective
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: of being able to... I've said this many times, you
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: observing you being you in all the different ways, whether
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: it's high or low or in between, whatever it is.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: But being able to observe yourself, I think, is key.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: To continued growth.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I agree.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: But I think that's where, you know, when you said inertia,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I think that's where we hit bumps because we don't
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: feel safe doing that. And there's something, you know, that says, oh,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I know what could be there. You know, whether that's
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: the shadow side or whether it's something that we have
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: felt fearful of so we don't want to look at
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: it or address it. But it is everything. We've been
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: the architect. But we resist going back into that. And
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I look at myself and I can think of so
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: many times I've found a million ways to get around
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: something until I just sat down and said, I'm just
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: going to hold this in my hand and see it.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: For what it is.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: And it's only by doing that then you can actually
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: change Take away the power that you've given that.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Then you have a choice.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Now you have a choice. And you have a choice.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: And it's so liberating.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And, you know, when you're doing it, you're like, oh,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I just wish if someone would just tell me what
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I should do. But that can't happen.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: And I would tell Scott.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: It would be nice sometimes, though.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, and I would tell Scott, you need to help
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: me find this and this.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: You did it today.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: And he'd look at me and just kind of laugh
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: and say, no. I have no idea how to help
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: you find that because I'm the one that's left the breadcrumbs, right?
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: In my own resistance. And I have to kind of
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: go back over that and say, you know, I've been
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: here once before. So it's not that unfamiliar. It's just
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: that it's really uncomfortable.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: It's really uncomfortable.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: That's, that's so great. And I think there's, you know,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: so yeah, we were wired for growth, but we're all,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: but I, I kind of like, I've been like, I
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: think we're really, really wired for adaptation. Like, so, but
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: we can, so you will adapt. What is it you're
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: adapting to?
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: That, that might be just a familiar pattern, which like
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: you were saying may no longer serve me anymore.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Maybe it does.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe it doesn't.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: I need to get curious. I need to become an observer, see,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: because then I have choice because otherwise, I mean, we
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: are incredibly adaptive that for sure. Right. So, And so
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I just think about, I've been yesterday or two days ago,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: I wrote my journal, like what am I adapting to?
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: And does that serve me where I, does that serve
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: the life I want to create and how I wanted
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: to participate in it? And just kind of getting, you know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: like you said, letting it be uncomfortable looking at it.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, I say it with relationships. I say like,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I'm the one common denominator in all my failed relationships.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: And I have to own that, right?
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, wow, that is humbling, but also really liberating,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: like you said, because I can look at that and say,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: what is it I choose to create in life and love?
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: And I don't know, there is something, you know, I
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: had all these women say like.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: You're going to need therapy, you're turning 50.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: And I'm not having that experience around it, but I
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: am having this like, wow, okay, second half of my life,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: what is the life I want to create? What's the
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: love I want to create? What's the legacy I want
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: to create? And where have I adapted in my life
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: that's not bringing me in that direction?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. We were talking about that this morning since
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: we're celebrating our anniversary today.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Happy anniversary.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: And we were talking and it's like, You realize, okay,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: I am the one that's preventing. So what has each
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: relationship taken me up to the edge of what? That
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I need to say, this time I'm going to go
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: past that edge. And maybe it's not been with the
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: right partner to go past that edge. Scott and I
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: talked about that. But it's definitely, for me, I look
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: and I knew... that for me to go past that point,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I needed to be in relationship. It wasn't something that
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I was going to be able to do by myself
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: because I needed that witness and I needed that fellow
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: traveler with me to go past that point, to go
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: past those points and really understand myself and to feel safe.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Because I love how Ghebormate says, talks about adaptation and,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: you know, it starts super early and that's why we're
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: so good at it. It starts before language.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: And, um, you know, when we're three and four, we,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: we immediately see and through sight and more through feelings,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: we start to adapt.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I think that I love what
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: you said about being in partnership for growth. And I
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: think that's, just really tender with my heart right now
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: and just where I am in my life because I think, right,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: if you look at Imago work or Harville Hendricks work, right,
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm going to paraphrase it, but that has
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: to be worked out in partnership, right, according to Imago. Like, and,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: not but, I was going to say, but and, you
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: have said that might, you might not be with the
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: right part, like that might not be the right partner
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: for you to, it might be more of a trauma
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: bond rather than a growth opportunity, right? So you get
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: to look at who you're choosing, I love what you said,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: a traveler, who you're choosing to travel with. And can
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: they travel with you? Do they desire to travel with you?
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Do they have the current capacity to travel with you?
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: And yeah, that's just, it's tricky.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Relationships are tricky.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: It was interesting. We belong to a women's group together.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And I came off the women's call the other night
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: and I told Scott, I said, I had a major
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: aha moment. And he's like, oh, what's that? And he's
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: a Virgo. And so on the call, and I've talked
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: about this, but I'll repeat myself because it's so worth repeating.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: I used to tell people when I had a brother-in-law
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: that would say to me, Ray, you're just picky. Or
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I'd have friends that say, you know, you're just choosing
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: to be single. And I would say, no, no, no,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I want someone whose waters run deep. And I wasn't
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: even sure what that meant, but I knew how that
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: felt when I said it. And then on the call
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the other day, they said, you know, welcome to the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: season of Virgo, where the inner landscape, where people go deep.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, my Virgo, Scott. And we have laughed
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: because I've told him, I've said, man, not only did
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I get in the deep end with you, but I'm
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: sometimes up to my neck going, I'm on my tippy
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: toes here. Help me, help me. And, um, but you're
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: right that fit and that fit to know, like we
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: were going to face each other's unfinished business and we
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: had to, you know, we had the choice to be
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: committed to that without knowing what it was. And, um,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: that has been, not only some of the best work
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: we've done, but some of the greatest adventures.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: And to see just where fear shows up. up and
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: we move through it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so beautiful.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It's been really powerful. So let's talk about fear for
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: a minute. You said you're having a big milestone birthday.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And so to celebrate that, You took on a rather
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: adventurous experience.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. I'm talking about aliveness and sensuality, which
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: I think part of it is not chasing peak experiences.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: But then I'm like, screw it. For my 50th, I'm
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: going to chase a peak experience.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: And was any of that fear-based or was it all adrenaline?
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Was it more the adrenaline and peak and I can
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: do it? What kind of knocked and said, I'm what
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: is waiting for you?
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. So I've always felt most
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: connected to my aliveness, most connected to source, for me, God,
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: to my higher power in the mountains, moving my body.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: It's been that way since I was little. I grew
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: up mostly in Colorado. And so there's always been that.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: I never felt closest to God in a church. That's
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: just not been my expression.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: So there was for sure that, that I just, I just,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, the mountains moved me to tears. I feel
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: so small and insignificant in them, which I love that feeling.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: I also feel like held by them different for me
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: than like the expansiveness of the ocean. I just feel
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: really cradled by the mountains. So that's always been there,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: but I've, would totally be bullshitting you if I said
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: that that was it. Cause there was also this like,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, I'm 50. I'm going to do something really
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: hard that like, maybe I shouldn't.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: Be doing a 50. So there was also that kind
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: of adrenaline piece.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Um, I think I wanted to feel, uh, strong and
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: fit and also like leaning in, but I was like,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: how can I lean into resilience without like gritting my
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: way through it? Can I like find grace and playfulness and,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: which is why I hiked in a tutu two of
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: the days.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I love that. I told Scott, Oh my gosh, look,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Stormy's got this pink tutu on with her hiking boots.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: Needless to say, I don't recommend hiking that many miles
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: in a tutu. There's a lot of shaping going on,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: but it's a, it was, I was like, you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: I'm going to bring like, can I, can I do
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: it with, um, I guess right now for me, like,
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: can I do it with my divine feminine rather than my,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: from like my overblown masculine, which like from in my life,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: as you know, I've been a single mom since my
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: son's been four. I just, I got the nickname Stormy
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: for a reason. Um, you know, it's been really easy
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: for me to run my masculine. Um, and I do
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: it well and I, and I love my masculine, but
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: I was like, how really want to coming up on 50,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: can I go do something really hard and do it
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: like full on in my feminine? And so that was
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: kind of this, I guess, gauntlet challenge for me. And,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: So in the middle of the night, I was like,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: if I was going to do it, what would it be?
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, I go hike the Mont Blanc.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: So I did it.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: I booked it that night.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Hike the Mont Blanc. And that is now the mountains of,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: you said France, Italy, and Switzerland.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: So we did 85 miles around the Mont Blanc and
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: it's this absolutely beautiful, massive, covered in multiple glaciers, always
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: covered in snow. And it's just, I mean, multiple times
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: per day on the trail, I just had tears running
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: down my face. It's just, achingly beautiful, 360 degrees of sun.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And you sleep in tents.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: No, we actually, you can sleep in, some people sleep
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: in tents, but most people, even the backpackers sleep in like,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: they call it refugios, like little lodges, like, but they're
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: 20 people and in a room. And I'm like, I
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: am definitely feeling too old.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: For that, you know?
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: And so I actually did the like bougier version where
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: we actually stayed in chalets, but we hiked through the refugios.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: And then we went down into the little village and
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: stayed in like little chalets.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So you're like hiking from town to town each day.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Like we hiked from, you know, France into
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Italy and Italy into Switzerland and Switzerland back into France.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: And it was so cool.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: There was at the top there with the, at the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: top of the pass that you were going to a
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: different country, there was gorgeous rock cairns. And one side
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: would say I, and the other side would say F,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: you know, Italy and France. And so I have these
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: pictures of I said, now you can really say I
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: actually can be in two places at once. And I
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: was like straddling, straddling the two countries. And so that
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: was kind of fun and playful. And so I had
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: everyone in my group getting pictures like that.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: And this was a group you didn't know.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: So you went and joined this group of how many? Ten? Eight?
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: There was eight guys, including the guide, who is also
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: a gentleman. And then me and a woman that I
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: didn't know. So two women, eight men. And I didn't know.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Any of them.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: And you're gone for two weeks.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was 12 days total, yeah.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was amazing. It was great.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: It took me a minute to recover my body. That's
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: one thing I'll say. At almost 50, you don't recover
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: like you did when you were 20.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: It takes a little longer.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: It takes a little longer, but yeah.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: And what do you think are, you know, what's one
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: of the things you went looking for and you found?
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: And then what is a surprise that you found?
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Think I went looking for and found well definitely beauty
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: I mean I just oh my gosh they're just they're
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: just achingly beautiful is the best term I have come
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: up with for it um so I I was I
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: found that I found how strong we actually are when
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: we can get again our mind out of the way
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: because it was my mind that was tripping me up
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: and seven days of hiking 30,000 feet of climbing I
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: was like man that's like Everest you know I was
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: kind of psyching myself out and then I was like
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: this is what I'm here to do. We're just going
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: to do it. So again, like the power of the
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: human spirit, particularly when you can add in like playfulness
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: and belief and everyone was cheering each other on. So
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: that was really beautiful to find. And I think the
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: most surprising thing I found was the group actually, like
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: I am a total extrovert, but I also really like
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: my alone time. I actually asked the guide, do we
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: hike in silence? And he's like, no, that's not really
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: a thing we do. But I was able to find
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: that I really delighted and enjoyed. And the gentlemen that
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: were on the group, it felt like this beautiful, like
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: divine masculine. They were really chivalrous. They were really generous.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: They were really interesting people. and just kind of keeping
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: their eye on me to make sure I was, you know,
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: okay in my tutu.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love that.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I ended up, so I, and then I think the
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: other surprise is I ended up gifting my tutu at
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: the finish line to this little girl. Um, she's maybe,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: it was maybe four, this little British girl. And she
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: looked at me and I was in the tutu. The
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: last day was the hardest day. And she said, mama,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: I love her tutu. And the mom's like, sorry, she's
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: kind of obsessed with tutus. And you know, in my mind,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm going to keep this tutu forever.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: I just hiked 85 miles, you know, in three countries.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: And she, this little girl's craning her neck, craning her neck,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: wouldn't stop looking at the tutu. And, and then she
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: like waved at me and I was like, Oh, it
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: just was this like strike of lightning. I just literally
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: took it off over my muddy boots and gave it
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: to her. And, I was so, I love kids because
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: the mom was like, no, no, no, you know, and
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: you keep it. And the little girl was like, oh,
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: heck yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: Like grabbed it and she put it right on. And
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: it was, it was, it just was so delightful. She
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: was so adorable.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: The passing on the, the energy of it all. That's
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: really lovely.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: It was cute.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: So as we go into, you know, so now you're
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: coming into 50 and you look at what lies ahead
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: of you. and you're doing this work of, you know,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: coaching and intimacy and, and what are the turns that
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: you feel coming or that you're ready for?
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's, you know, it's interesting.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: That's, I think that's what probably led to this musing
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: that I've been chewing on for the last six months
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: of what, what is this path? And, um, and I
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: really feel deeply committed to my own. I hope I'm
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: always practicing along with my clients, right? Like it's, I
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: hope I never quote unquote arrive.
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: That sounds so boring.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: But, you know, so my own practice, but also with
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: the individuals and couples I work with and the speaking
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: events I'm doing is about helping people feel more alive.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: I feel like it feels heartbreaking to me. Hard to
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: say without tears coming that like we give this one
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: long blink of an eye of a life if we're
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: lucky and And how do we bring aliveness and pleasure
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: and joy to it? And that doesn't, not in a Pollyanna,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: like I'm going to bypass all the hard parts. Cause
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: I actually think the hard parts are sometimes the most
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: stunningly beautiful, but how do we, how do I, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: how do I help others to find more aliveness and
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: to find more sensuality and pleasure in this life that
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: we have? And so that's what I, you know, for
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: me right now, I'm writing poetry a lot and, speaking.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: A lot and, you know, doing my own work and, you.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: Know, in an interesting transition out of a relationship and
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: a long-term relationship, this kind of uncoupling process. And, um, yeah,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: so I just trying to like, it's interesting, you know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: walk the walk and talk the talk. So I feel
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: really deep conviction on that right now and just practicing.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Finding more awe. I think awe is so cool and
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: the science of awe is so cool. And so how
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: do we bring, how do I bring more awe into
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: like my cup of tea in the morning, you know, or,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: and everything, the mundane to the peak experiences. And that's
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: what I feel most lit up about right now, for sure.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love that. That speaks to me.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: So, in your life, you got to this certain point
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that you started to be drawn to that. Was there
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: anything in your life that were you just innately, you know,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: seeking that kind of thing in your life? Or, you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: what drew you towards going down the pathway of, helping
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: others find that as well. You had to find it
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: for yourself first. And what was the thing or things
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that pushed you towards finding it for yourself first?
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I realized I was keeping score with
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: the wrong scorecard. I really was all about achievement, accolades, degrees,
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: resume builders, like without, without intentionally, that was just the
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: way I was brought up. It was how I oriented
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: most of us. Right. Yeah. Like, and I think, um,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: and then I was like looking at my, like the hardest,
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: most transformative parts of my life had nothing to do
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: with my resume or my achievements. It actually was like internal,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: my capacity, my curiosity about myself. But like you mentioned Ray,
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: like my willingness to like confront my blind spots and
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: my shadows to be held in that, maybe held in
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: community or held in medicine in that, really like that,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: noticing that the things that made me feel most alive
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: had nothing to do with my achievements and actually aren't
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: measurable to the outside eye, you know? And so that,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: I think that was the beginning of the shift for
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: me and saying, you know, I, not that I don't
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: care about the achievements. I mean, I, you know, I'm
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: grateful for the things I've achieved, but those are not
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: the benchmarks for me moving forward. And you know, I, again,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: that like adaptation, like I, if I think about the
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: couples I have the privilege of working with, like you can,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: they can, couples and myself included in relationship, you adapt
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: to being smaller, you adapt to less intimacy, you adapt
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: to less depth or connection, you adapt to over stress
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: or over, you know.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Over busyness.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: Um, and, and then that becomes your life that it
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: becomes familiar. And so I don't know, like, you know,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: it's interesting. I was talking with, uh, a partner and
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: he was like, well, when, when is like, when, when
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: is enough enough with growth? And I was like, I
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: hope never, you know, I hope I like slide into
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: my death, like, you know, messy, sweaty, breathy, and still learning,
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: you know, but I don't think that I think everyone
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: is oriented that way. I think we've really adapted to
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: not being that way. And so that's where I think,
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: you know, just noticing that my life was going one
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: direction and yet my heartbeat was really, you know, like
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: with you with music, Scott, you're like.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I can do this.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: And then your whole life has become that way. So
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I love that we can hear the hail. I know.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: I'm like, can you hear how hard it is raining
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: right now?
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: And it's hailing. Be quiet for a second. Just listen.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: There was thunder a minute ago. I wonder if that
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: came through. That's cool.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: It's so great.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: But I kind of smile because I remember.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Really specifically one day when Scott said to me, when
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: is enough enough? And mine was more around my ambition.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: And I looked at him because it was the first
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: time I had ever heard that because I had been
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: programmed that more is better. Always, always. And I think
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I even looked at him and said like, more is
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: always better. And he said, is that true? And I
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: had just never even thought it. And then with that invitation,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: you know, and I think we're very similar this way,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: in the world that I had been living in, I
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: had lived so much in my masculine expression and energy.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: And suddenly that quiet, that rest, was almost an invitation
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: to step back to a more feminine aspect of myself.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: And it frightened me.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Because I didn't know who she was. And yet I
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: had all this memory of this young, really free young
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: woman and girl and her hair flying in the wind.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: And I just thought, I don't think I know my
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: way back to that. And that's where there were some
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: really tender, hard parts for me. And Scott was super
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: gentle and, you know, encouraging me. And I remember being
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: in Sedona on the airport.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Vortex. Vortex.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: Very cool.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: And Scott walks out to the edge and just throws
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: his arms up and he just like drinks it in,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: you know, just. energetically and with his eyes and everything
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: he's feeling and it was sunset and i walked over
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: and he said you know throw your arms up feel
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: feel how good this feels and i could not lift
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: my arms i physically couldn't send a message from my
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: head to my hands to lift it was too dangerous
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: yeah My arms.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Had to be... Too vulnerable.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Too vulnerable. Vulnerable was the danger. I had to stay protected.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. Noticing.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: He took my arms and stood behind me and just
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: lifted them and I sobbed.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: So sweet.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: It's so powerful.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: And so intimate, right? Such a beautiful expression.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: So intimate. And a part of me just.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Feeling safe enough with him to do that. Um, and
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: not knowing what it was going to bring to me. Right.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: You know, but knowing that it was, I was really
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: embarking on, um, a path that was going to bring
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: me back into balance between, you know, like you said,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: hiking to find the divine feminine. You know, I, I
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: suddenly started to become aware that I, that I lived
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: in the masculine nature of my life. You know, my mind,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: my problem solving, all of the part that was intellectual,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: you know, and nothing that was somatic.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Right. But I also love that you said I missed,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: like I could envision her and I missed her with
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: like your hair flying in the wind, kind of carefree,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: because I think that longing, that ache that when we
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: get quiet, I think that ache that we have does
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: point us in the direction of our aliveness. That you
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: wanted to find her, bring her back, to feel safe,
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: to create safety in a relationship, to be with a
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: divine masculine partner who can hold you in that so
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: that you bring her back. So I think there's something
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: about paying attention to our longings that I'm just.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: You're ready for.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: I'm just in it right now.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: And the interesting thing is... When she started really feeling that,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: you know, going back to this little girl with her
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: wind blowing in the hair, with the wind blowing through
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: her hair and running in the field. I mean, I
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: could just picture it. The alfalfa fields in Bern, running
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: around and playing. And when she started going through that
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: was when she was going through that training for Gabor Mate. And,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you know, the first three months of that were amazing.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: deep inward journey for her. And every week they're doing
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: multiple calls for like three months and all of it
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: is turning inward. And you know, what, what, what is
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: there in my life? Where am I holding myself back?
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: And as she's going through that, boom, I get to
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: go through it too.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Totally. Which is another beautiful gift.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: It really was. It really was. It really was. And
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: it led me to this place of, um, about Christmas time.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I think you must've started in the fall.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: I started in May.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, in May. So you'd gone through the whole summer.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: And so she'd gone through that. And about the time
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Christmas time came, I had an experience of going back
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to this really traumatic experience I had of singing in church.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: And in the experience that we had together with a
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: couple of our friends, I was able to come to
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the realization and kind of let that go.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: The year before.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: It was the year before.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: But then the year, this past year, you actually reconciled that.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: This past year, I sang the song again.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: And recorded the song again. Made it my own. It
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: wasn't the old version.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Came full circle.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: The song was Away in a Manger. And it was
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: way less about the message of the song Away in
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: a Manger, which was a religious one, and more about
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: I am that. I don't need... the message that that
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: song holds to be something outside of myself. It's me. Right.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, beautiful.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: It's me. It's you. It's everyone. When we talk about
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Christ or Buddha or any of those ascended masters that
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: walked on the planet, that's who we all are. They're
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: the way showers. They're the ones that say, this is
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: how you can find yourself. Quiet your mind. Let go
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: of all that. Become present and love each other. The simplest.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: It helped lead me deeper to that place as she
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: was going through it.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: It was beautiful. Well, I'm excited for that to be
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: part of what comes for you.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: What comes next. It's going to be so fun to watch.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm ready.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: And I think there's an interesting thing, you know, about,
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: like I'm literally asking everyone on the trail.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: I asked all these people in Europe and.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: About like, when do you feel most alive and what
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: keeps you from feeling alive? And it's so interesting to
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: see the variety of, I think if you have 50 people,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: you have 50, answers. But noticing some of the common threads,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: and that's what made me think of it, Scott, is
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: for sure is like pause, like a slowing down, a presence.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: There tends to be something about movement, like moving your
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: body rather than, you can also be sitting, but like
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: there's something about savoring, about pause, seems to be something
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: about movement. And I don't think there's an answer. I
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: think the question is the important thing. Like when What
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: makes you feel most alive? What keeps you from feeling alive?
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: And how about we do more of what makes us
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: feel more alive?
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: And invite that into everything that we do.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: You know, so that it isn't just this destination that
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: we visit once in a while. It really becomes integrated
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: into who we are.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: How we move in the world.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right. And I think it's, I love this idea,
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: and that really came a lot from Tantra for me,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: but it's like of a practice. So like, I'm kind
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: of playing with this, like a liveness experiment. How do
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: we do in liveness practice where we, you know, choose
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: intentional participation, even just like 10% more, right? So let's
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: say I'm, I don't know, making dinner. Like, how can
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: I be, how can I have 10% more like participation
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: in making a dinner, which will help me be more sensual,
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: more present, have experienced more pleasure and be more alive.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: And so I think there's something about participation, like intentional participation.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: I just keep coming back to the, like those two
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: words and like, how do we, you know, engage in
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: this life that, you know, and I get, I also
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: like understand, like, especially because I experienced it when my
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: son was sick, like when you're in crisis mode, like
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not really like thinking about intentional participation. I'm thinking
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: about just getting through, you know, but most of us
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: are not in the crisis mode in the moment. And
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: yet we still struggle with aliveness in our life. And
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: so Yeah, I guess it's just thinking about if you're
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: not in crisis, how do I participate in my life more?
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: So I would like to delve into something I've heard
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: you say a couple of times today. You've mentioned poetry,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: and you've mentioned it a couple of times. So for me,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: with music and other avenues, when I started to go
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: into my own way of expressing through my own creative,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever, you know, coming into the space of creativity. Um,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the poetry part for you. And if
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: there's anything else beyond poetry that you feel like you
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: is your way of expressing your way of, you know,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: bringing something that doesn't exist right now, anywhere into a
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: form that comes through stormy.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Hmm. Yeah, that's so great.
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: So I've had this fun dance with poetry.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: I wrote poetry, I mean, from the time I can remember.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, so I'm going to say like eight or nine.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: Like I have this vivid memory around 10 getting, I
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: don't even remember the name of the artist. His name
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: was Paul Kusemeyer. But my dad got me like little cards.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: He had watercolor painted wildflowers on them. And I wrote
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: poetry on them. I mean, from the time I was,
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: you know, like I said, to eight, 10. all the
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: way up until my son got sick. And that was,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: I didn't do journaling. I wrote poetry. Poetry was my journaling,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: you know? Um, and I wrote a lot when my
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: parents got divorced and, um, and then when my son
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: got sick, I couldn't find it. I like, I remember
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: sitting down trying to write, like even when he was
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: in the hospital and I don't know what that was,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: but it was like, just like a brick wall there.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: I couldn't, I mean, it wasn't writer's block. I just
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: I couldn't, I mean, I think in hindsight, I guess
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: I've never really thought of it. I think I was
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: so dancing with the pain that I like couldn't let
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: it come through. Like I couldn't.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: You didn't really want to look at it.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: Because I felt like it was going to undo me,
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Too raw.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Like, and I just, I mean, I remember
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: being pissed at God and arguing with God and saying, take,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: give me the bum heart and give my son my heart.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, all the, all the stages of grief, right?
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: So anyway, that was, I was 25 when I had
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: my son. And so I didn't touch, I didn't even
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: try to write poetry from the age of 25 into 49.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: Not once.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Not once. So in January. Wow, stormy. So then, but
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: this is the part I like, I like, the universe
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: has such a sense of humor. So I start writing
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: again in January. So just a few months ago. And
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: I think I've written like 70 some poems since January.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Because when we met for tea, you read one
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: that like brought me to tears. And I was like,
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: will you share that? I mean, they're just so beautiful
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: and relatable.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: And you know, it's, so that feels like, uh, so
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: I write, I mean, most mornings I write one or
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: I start to write one. Um, and it's an interesting expression,
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: like it's really messy, but it's so, so one thing
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: I'm coming up against with it, and because it is
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: my creative expression right now, is as I share that,
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: which is great, you know, people are like, you should
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: publish them. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I have
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: this aversion to it.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: And I know, you know, you can relate to this, right?
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Because I'm like, that's just one more thing.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: And I'd have to be in my masculine to do that.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: And, you know, so for now.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: They are very much, uh, for me and those who
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: I choose to share them with, you know, and, um,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: but it's interesting how like, all of a sudden I
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: was like, wait, should I publish them? And would I
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: self publish what I do? You know, like all of
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: a sudden I'm, but then that for me is take,
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: takes right now takes me out of my creative expression.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: So yeah, poetry for me right now is just, uh,
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: it's how I understand, the hard things. It's also how
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: I express the things that move me to tears.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Your emotions.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: And all good creativity comes through an experience of some kind.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: And that gets expressed in some way. I mean, I've
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: been learning that more, especially since now I've given myself
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: permission to actually use my voice when I create music.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Because that was never part of what I was doing.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: It was like, I can play a flute. I can
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: bang a drum. I can play a Dan Moy. I
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: can play any musical instrument. But my voice, ooh, that
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: was the place it was like, no, not doing that.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: Until it was time.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: That's changed.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: And do you think that singing the manger song helped
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: you to find your voice?
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was the event.
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so cool.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: That helped it.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Because it was just like, I don't know. The energy
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I feel is like I was giving a middle finger
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: to myself and that voice that said, don't do this.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Why for so long have I used that excuse of
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: some traumatic experience that happened when I was seven years
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: old to tell myself that I don't ever want to
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: feel embarrassed again? Hell, I'm playing music in front of
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: people all the time.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: And that seven-year-old, six-year-old that that sang had nothing but,
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: you know, willingness.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, my grandma asked me to sing
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: in church. What am I going to say to my grandma?
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, sweet.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: And, you know, going in it, you know, we're all
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: born very innocent.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: And then we have these experiences that kind of remove
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: that innocence from us.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: So true.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: It's just part of life.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: And I finally got to a place where it was
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: like I stopped feeling bad about the fact that I
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: had lost my innocence and recognized that every human being
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: loses their innocence in some way. That's the pattern of
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: living a life. You arrive in innocence. You lose your innocence.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: And then at a certain point in life, you realize
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: that you've been innocent all along. You've just been telling
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: yourself you're not. And then you can come back into
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: innocence again. And curiosity and creativity and all of those things.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: And for some of us like you and like me,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: we had to wait until we were 50. But the
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: thing of it is, that doesn't really matter. You can
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: be 85, you can be 90, it doesn't matter. We
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: can go into that place at any time. And it
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: really gives this taste to life, a gusto, you know,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: the word taste. That's still a good word.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Well, in the letting go, you know, you've said a
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: couple of times that, um, you are in a season
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: of letting go. Um, and ending, you said a relationship
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: that sounded like it had been for a long, a
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: long time. And it is in the letting go that
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: you create the room for what's coming next.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: And so I think the season of letting go is
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: while there's a lot of, um, heartache in that as
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: you navigate the letting go there's also a very quick
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: window of receiving that comes because you've just created this
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: beautiful space for yourself this allowance right right for something
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: else to come to you that perhaps has been waiting
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: for a while or the what you the word you
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: use the longing that you've been longing for and so
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: all of that is very exciting for you as you
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: head into the birthday.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: Well, I might need some cheerleading for receiving cause it's
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: not my strong suit.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: So yeah. And I think there's something really beautiful. I
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: think if I think in.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: A lot of the work I do with myself and,
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: and then Tantra and Taoist practices is about divine masculine,
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: divine feminine. And I think receptivity is something a lot
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: of strong women struggle with. I definitely have struggled with.
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: It's like, I'm like, wait, what? I'm supposed to just receive?
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: This is a thing? People do this?
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: Instead of create, orchestrate, execute.
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: Which is putting me more in my masculine. And it's
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: really been cool to not lambaste either part of me
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: that's showing up, but bringing curiosity and grace. And what
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: parts is it that as I go into the second
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: half of my life, I desire to cultivate, and receptivity
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: is definitely one of them. It's not a comfortable space
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Well, it's fascinating. I'm just having this moment, this memory
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: of a dear friend of ours, Amira, who talked about
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: the Mayan calendar, right?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: And how there's this shift in people's lives that happened... 52.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Somewhere between 50 and 52.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, interesting.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: And if I remember right, she said it is the
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: exact same time that the Mayan calendar and the calendar
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: that we live in are in sync in your life
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: oh interesting and so she said without fail every person
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: that she had met has a life shift somewhere between
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: 50 and 52 and it was interesting because it was
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: 50 for you and it was 52 for me and
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: our lives came together.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: That's so great. It's so cool.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: And it was like such a pivotal shift. I mean,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: it shifted the rest of our lives.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: I love, and I also feel like how counterculture, beautifully counterculture,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: because there's something so toxic in our culture that like 50,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: I somehow am like, I'm entering the second half of
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: my life where I'm like irrelevant or, or, you know,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: invisible or not desirable or, you know, insert bullshit story.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: All you have to do is look at social media
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: to see that. And I'm like, how fast, how like
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: turn that upside down its head. that now there's something
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: powerful that happens. I wouldn't go back to my 20s
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: if you paid me.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, heck no.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, maybe how my joints feel after exercising, I'd
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: go back to for a minute. But otherwise, I'm like,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: this is, I feel more who I am and who
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: I desire to be and having the, like you mentioned,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: the courage, the grace, the curiosity, not always, but often
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: with myself to go that direction, even if it feels like,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: you know, wildly uncomfortable at times, which it does. I mean,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: sometimes it feels like aching and longing and exciting, and
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: other times it feels wildly uncomfortable.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: I go back to my 20s as long as I
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: can take the wisdom that I have now with me
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: and not do all the things that I.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: Was doing then.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: That's true. That's a good way to put it, for sure.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: And, you know, I watch my son at 22, and
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: I just am like, you know, one of his things
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: right now is like, oh, I'm an adult. And, you know,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: I'm like.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, yes, yes, by age, yes, but he's great.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: But it's not like all of a sudden you switch this.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: You have a flip of a switch and all of
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: a sudden you're an adult. But I do feel more.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: Committed to this journey.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: That this life is and not wanting to– a lot
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: of these men I was on this– trip with, they
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: were in their sixties and they had worked until like late,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: you know, mid sixties and, and retired. And I, almost
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: all of them at some point shared, like, why did
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: I do that? Like, you know, I could have done
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: it at 55 and been fine financially or whatever, and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: like enjoyed my life more. And I'm not feeling like
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: I'm desiring to retire or anything like that. It's more
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: of like, this is just, like I said, this is
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: a long blink of an eye for lucky. And I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: don't want to feel like I Nobody on their deathbed
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: says they wish they worked more.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: So it's on my mind for sure, but in a
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: really sweet way.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: Well, Stormy, this has been delightful. I'm so happy that
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: you agreed to come and to join us for this
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: because this has been absolutely delightful.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: Same for me. Thank you for having me.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: And... we just invited you to join us for an
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: event coming up.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a music circle. And part of that,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: at least three or four different people, part of that,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: that one of the things that they do is share poetry.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: So I read that.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: If you feel.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: That that's something that you want to do in front
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: of others, that's the vulnerable place. That's the hard place. But, um,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: We're going to encourage.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: You to do that.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, amazing.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: When I read it, I was like, oh, I felt
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: this little butterfly pitter-patter. I'm like, all right, all right,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: I'll pay attention.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: That's so cool.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: That'll be great.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Now, people that want to reach out to you and
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: get to know you, we'll put all of that in
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: the show notes, the social media, and how to get
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: to you at You're just amazing. Everyone needs a little
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: bit of stormy in their lives.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: Oh, same for both of you.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: And it stormed.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: And it stormed while you were here.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: I know. You can't make this shit up.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: It's so good.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: It like full on hailstormed while we're sitting here.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: It did.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: Well, and it was fascinating because the room darkened.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I kept thinking like we're almost in the dark.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: And now we're completely in the sunlight again.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: Well, isn't that an interesting metaphor?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: It's bright and shiny.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: Fascinating metaphor.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Nature is listening.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: All right. So you feel complete?
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: All right. Do you feel complete, honey?
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Great. So again, thank you, Stormy, for being here. It's
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: been a pleasure to meet you and be with you
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: as much. Ray has had an opportunity to do that
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: much more than I have. So it's been great to
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: get to know.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: You a little bit better.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: I look forward to a lot more fun things.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed. All right. So until next time. Bye. If
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: you're enjoying the Observatory Podcast, please consider subscribing, sharing us,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: and if you have time to write a review about
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: something that may have affected your life or helped you
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: in some way, please do so. That helps us to
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: get the word out and get this information out to
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: more and more people so that it can be shared
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: and we can help ripple out this energy that's emanating
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: in the world today. There's been so much separation and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: we want to find a way to create conversations where
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: we can come together not divide so much as we
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: have been to learn to come together in unity. Thank you.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to the Observatory Podcast.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: of our future episodes.