Latest / The Body Pod / Midlife Awakening & Soul Work: Breaking Patterns, Healing Trauma, and Finding Your True Self with Vanessa Bennett

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Midlife Awakening & Soul Work: Breaking Patterns, Healing Trauma, and Finding Your True Self with Vanessa Bennett · The Body Pod

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're all born with the ability to pay attention and
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: to be still, and to intuit what's happening in our
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: lives and what works and doesn't work, and what's fulfilling
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and not fulfilling. It's just that we live in a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: society that kind of squashes that, because those of us
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: who are connected to self and connected to intuition are
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: actually pretty dangerous to systems who kind of function on
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the backs of those of us who look outside of
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: ourselves for validation.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Everyone, my name is Haley and this is Lara, and
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: welcome to the Body Pod. Welcome Vanessa Bennett. As I
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: was just stating offline, I am so excited to have
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: you here. Welcome to the Body Pod.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: So I just want to dive in write at first,
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: as I mentioned, I had no clue that I've never
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: even heard of half of these terms that I'm reading
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: your bio and your books. So what is depth psychology?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a question I get a lot, actually,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: So part of the reason why I wrote the book.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Dep psychology is really an umbrella term that we use
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: for Jungian psychology, analytical psychology, and archetypal psychology. So dep
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: psychology is known as the psychology of the soul, and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: it is more of again being union. In practice, it's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: a lot more interested in the collective and the individual
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: as kind of an inseparable entity. Right, you cannot look
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: at the individual without the collective and vice versa. We
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: also work with a lot of unconscious materials. So this
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is where the archetypes and the dreams and the image
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and the metaphor come into play, because the unconscious actually
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: speaks to us through those languages. They don't, it doesn't
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: speak through what we would know as language. So a
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: lot of times I'm working with kind of what's not
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: being said, like the undercurrent, if you will, And it
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: really has this one driving force, which is this idea
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of individuation. It's the soul's path kind of you in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: this embodiment and really helping that person move forward on
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that soul's journey, on that soul's path, like whatever is
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: best for the soul.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: So what does a session look like when somebody comes
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: to you, I mean, are they looking as let me
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: just read this because this really caught my attention in
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: your bio where you say before I became a therapist.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I spent over a decade in the fast paced world
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: of corporate New York. On paper I had made it.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: I cannot tell you. Let me just pause there. I
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: cannot tell you how many women I know that this
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: resonates with. I only work with midlife women, obviously in
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: the fitness realm, so I'm not going into this emotional
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: psychological realm. But it all plays into this connected, all
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: connected in this life. And by saying but underneath, I
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: felt disconnected, anxious and numb and like I was living
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: someone else's life. How did you get to I mean,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: clearly you got to that point, and how did you
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: have the courage to kind of transition there? Because this
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: speaks to midlife women like I've nothing I've ever heard.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: A lot of us are coming into the space where
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: we're like, great, now we have perimenopause and menopause, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: our bodies are changing, and our kids. You know, I
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: have struggled with just troubled teens, we have aging parents,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: we have all of these things, and then now we're
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: like questioning. I don't even think I would love your
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: take on this too. I don't even think it's necessarily
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: a midlife crisis. It's like a midnight midlife awaken awake,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: and like, where do I want to spend the rest
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: of my like half of my life is over? Where
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: do I go from here in the next portion? And
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: I'm assuming all of that comes into your practice. So
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: that was a lot of questions involved in there. So
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: I'm going to let you just.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Let's pull some threads up. I'll pull some threads. I
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: can do this, okay, So first off, I would say,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: for me the idea of like when did this happen
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: for me? There's this moment too around what we would
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: call like the quarter life crisis. And the thing that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of people don't understand is that the concept
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: of the midlife crisis is actually a Junian concept. You'll
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: actually coined that term, and it really was more of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: an awakening to use your work, which I think is
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: so brilliant. But there's also more than just the one.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: There's also a quarter life that we see happen too,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and so this could be what we would call saturn
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: return if you're talking about it astrologically, right, some people
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: know that term, but it's that moment where you start
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: to go something doesn't feel right. I've been checking the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: boxes and I still don't feel like I'm you know,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: happy or satisfy with my life. And for me, it
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: was around that time when I started being like, huh.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And I talk a lot in my sessions with my
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: clients about this concept of bread crumbs, and so what
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I started doing was just following my bread crumbs. I
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: just started leaning into what brings me a sense of
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a liveness, not questioning it, just into it and then
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: allowing one bread crumb to lead to another to lead
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to another. And so that was really what ended up
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: putting me in my Depth psychology program, coming from advertising
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: and switching my career entirely was the breadcrumbs that just
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: started like lending themselves to me being fascinated by all
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of this stuff. And now here I am also midlife, right,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And the next awakening I had, whether we call a
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: midlike crisis or not, was around becoming a mom. It's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: really these moments in our lives where I would say
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: it's an ego explosion, it's an ego death. Everything you
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: think you were, everything you thought you knew suddenly like implodes, right.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: All the tools that you thought were working suddenly don't work. Anymore,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and you're like, what the hell is going on? That's
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that moment, that's that threshold.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Holy cow, Okay, hold on, let's just back up really quick.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: And then Lara has something to say because she's a
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: new mom as a two year old, you know, ling
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: later part of the forties, so this is all new
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: where I had my kid kits in my twenties and thirties.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: But I just want to go back. You weren't advertising, it.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Was I was. I was a creative producer for like
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: twelve years before I changed careers, So something about like
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: storytelling and image and archetype and metaphor was obviously already
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: alive in me. But I think I was maybe just
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: like putting it through another channel.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I love it. I just have to say that because
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: my husband's in advertising and we were in New York
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and so we've done this whole thing and it's just
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: it is. I mean, it happens in men as well,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: but specifically since we're a female audience, this transition, How
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: did you even have the courage? Because I'm sure that
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: you had this back and forth. I can't leave this
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: super crusty, secure job that I'm good at, and maybe
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go start this and hope for the best.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot I'm imagining that this was
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: not just an overnight I'm going to do this bye.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: No, absolutely not. And I didn't just leave a career.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I left a fiance, I left a life, I left
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: my family, I left everything, and I packed up in
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: across the country on my own.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was after to your point, it wasn't
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: an overnight thing. Right. This is why I say breadcrumbs
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: because I'm sure, like you all, somebody comes in and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: they're like, I want to change everything right now, and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: you're like, all right, well, whoha, whoa back up? Right,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Let's kind of do this in increments. And that was
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: really what I did. And I was still working full
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: time when I was in grad school, so I didn't
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: have any kind of financial backing. I don't come from money,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: so I was like, I got to work as long
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: as possible. So I was doing both full time, and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it was it was a slow but then rewarding process.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: When I actually finally did make the leap, I think
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I kind of already had. I felt like I had
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: my feet underneath me. Although it was still big risk
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: to finally leave the job, and let's be real, I
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: went back to like the broke college student in like
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: my early to mid thirties, and I had to take
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit of like a leap of faith. You know.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well there's ego in that too. One part of
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: your side is everyone has something to say about where
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: you are in your life and to have to go
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: back it's it's it's humbling.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: It is humbling. It's a great word.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Wow. Okay, So so you come here, you get into
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: this depth psychology. I'm so curious what a session looks
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: like when someone comes in. It's not like a life coach.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: So someone comes in to see you, and what are
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: they seeking? What are you helping? Because I love like
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: the inner child, the trauma, all of that. So when
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: I read the definition, I was like, I've got to dive.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: I've got to dive into this with her because yeah,
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: now I'm like I need a session, but I don't
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: even know, Like what.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Do I I think I need something, but what do
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I need?
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: For sure? I'll need something?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So what I like to say, you know I
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: mentioned is like it's the psychology of the soul. Right,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So oftentimes when people come in What I find happens
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: pretty regularly is somebody will come in and they'll say,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I'm unhappy at work. I'm I'm feeling like I'm in
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: this transition of my life, you know, I'm I feel
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: just like unmotivated and I don't really know what's wrong.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: And then within like maybe three sessions, we're deeply into
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: my twenty year marriage is completely unfulfilling, and that's actually
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: why I'm here. But I didn't even know that that's
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: was why I was here until we were talking for
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: like multiple sessions. That happens all the time, or like, oh,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I just feel this like general sense of malaise, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: then like come to find out, you know, there's a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: lot of trauma, there's a lot of abuse in the relationships.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Like whatever that is, it's usually some kind of almost
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like a flag, right, And so the psyche starts telling
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you in ways that most of us don't know how
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to listen to it that it is ready to change,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that it is ready to face something, that it's ready
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to unpack something that you kind of had stored away
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: for a long time. And oftentimes it will show up
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: again as like some anxiety, some discomfort and You'll come
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: into a session and we start pulling threads and we're like, oh,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: there it is. So a lot of it still looks
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: like what most of us would consider like air quote
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: traditional you know thing therapy. But I like to talk
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: about the fact that there's a difference between ego work
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and soul work. So ego work, I would say, is
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: kind of the base that most therapy is kind of
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: established on in this country, which is most of us
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: know about like CBT for example, that's the one that
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: everybody knows about, right, and what is that? It's behavioral techniques,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: behavioral changes and tweaks to help you, you know, live
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: your best life if you will. And so it might
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: be thought stopping techniques, it might be breathing, it might
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: be right great, important, foundational However, I would say that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that kind of stops at ego. Now we need to
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: do the ego work. We have to have a strong
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: foundation of self in order to go deeper and do
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: some more soul based, more spiritually based work. If we
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: don't have a foundation of functioning, it's almost impossible to
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: go beneath. Right. So if I have a client that
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: comes in and they're like, I'm having panic attacks three
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: times a week. I can barely get out of bed. Well,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: we have to address that first before I can start
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: unraveling and going into like what is your soul longing for? Right?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: So it's important, but it's just that a lot of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: therapy stops there. A lot of therapy. Western psychology in particular,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: has really been established to say, how can I get
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you back up and functioning in the systems that, by
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: the way, are the reason why you're not functioning to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: begin with? So how do I just get you right
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: back out there to be a good little soldier right
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: for capitalism, a good little soldier for Major Herkeey, a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: good little soldier. But it doesn't really go deeper than that.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And so this is where I think the depth component
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: comes in, because it's like, okay, cool, you can be functioning,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: but what else?
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: So it's like exploring the unconscious of getting in there deeper.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: You got it? You got it? What is the unconscious
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: actually attempting to say through symptom which again is a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: very different way of looking at symptoms. Usually Western psychology
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: looks at symptoms as things that need to be fixed, right, solved.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Take a pill, put a band aid on, it whatever
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: that is. Dep psychology would actually say what is the symptom?
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Trying to say the symptom is actually here to communicate something,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: So rather than trying to squash it, we have to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: engage with it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I'm blown away.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: If you went to traditional therapy, let's just call it that,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: it's going so much deeper to try to like change
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the patterns and the subconscious. Do we even know half
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: the time what it is?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: No? I think most of the time we don't. And
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: again this is not to like poop poo traditional psychology,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: because it can be wildly effective and very helpful. Right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I just find that a lot of people come to
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: me after they've already done therapy and they're like something
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: is missing, like what else? Right? And then oftentimes where
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the conversations lead to once I kind of step in,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: is really this deeper misalignment that we're having again culturally, right, sociologically,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: because you can't separate the individual from the culture, and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: it starts to be more of an unpacking of like
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: ancestral trauma for example, cultural trauma, social trauma, right, and
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: these things that we it's not about again just slapping
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: a band aid and side can get it. Back out there.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: It's about understanding that you live within a structure that's
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: meant to keep you sick.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Right, Okay, I'm sure I speak for a lot of
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: women here. Do you know how many therapists I've started
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: with and then like, after like six or you know,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: six or eight sessions, I'm like, I don't want someone
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: to just some people need this, yeh, at different stages.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: But I don't want someone to just say, I understand,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I hear you. This must be really hard, yes, what
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: a terrible thing that you had to experience or whatever.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I'm like, give me the knowledge I wantreat I want
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: to solve, and I want someone to hold me accountable
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: and problem solve. And I feel like a lot of
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: at least the therapy that I've done, has been a
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: lot of just understanding hearing me, which again maybe is important,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: but for me, I'm like, I want to get to
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the root of it because I don't want to keep
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: repeating these same patterns.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you're actually touching on something, which is
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: again it's not that that's not important, right, but it's
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: like what else, And what I would argue is we
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: are human beings are inherently meaning making creatures. So again,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: this is even this idea of the symptom as a story.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's there to tell us something. Right if I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: just say, that's really hard, I see your symptom, or here,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: let me give you some thought stopping techniques to stop
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the symptom. Right, your psyche that deeper layer, right, psyche
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: means soul. Your psyche is not actually feeling heard in
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: some essence, it's actually feeling dismissed because it's not you're
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: not really listening to me by just saying, oh, I
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: hear you, that sounds really hard. The psyche is saying no,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: help me understand, Help me make meaning of this, Help
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: me make this bigger than just my individual suffering, because
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: it is it always is. And so if a lot
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: of therapists, again, I don't blame them, because I think
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: this is actually a problem with a lot of the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: therapeutic kind of training and schooling that we get in
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the West. It stops there. You know, we're taught to
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: be blank slates. We're taught not to give personal anecdotes.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: We're taught not to be too close with our clients.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: You know, we're taught to just be empathic and not
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: give like tips or advice or whatever. And I understand
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: kind of why that is, but I do think it's
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it leads to like a loss of humanity because if
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in the room with your friend, you're not
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: going to just be like, I'm really sorry, that sounds hard,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and you're going to leave it at that. Right now,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: you might say, hey, do you want my advice? Do
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: you want me to give you some feedback? Right, you
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: might not, just let's not push it on them, But
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: if they say yes, that's why I'm here, then like, okay,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: then that's why you're here. Let's have a real human
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to human conversation.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: This is a conversation probably that we could have a
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: whole different conversation. For people that grew up with religion,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: soul is tied to religion and so that is the
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: identity of it. But for those that didn't grow up
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: in a religious background, or maybe have moved away from
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: a religious background, soul can be a totally different path
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: or maybe a different definition. Is that true than like
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: what you have aligned it with with a religion.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Sure well it has like connotation, right, it's got like
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the meaning is kind of connected in a different way.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: So Jung actually would say, I remember Jung was alive
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: in the thirties and the forties, right, And Jung actually
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: people don't A lot of people don't know this, but
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: his father was actually a Baptist minister, and so he
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: was brought up very Christian. However, he was also highly
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: spiritual and was very well researched and kind of well
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: involved in a lot of other spiritual communities all over
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the world. But Jung actually used to say that human
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: beings are naturally we have a religious function of our psyche.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Now here's where I would say, if Young were alive today,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: with our language today, I think he would call that
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a spiritual function of the psyche. I think that's just
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: based on when he was around, and what he meant
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: by that was, as beings, we are driven to make
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: larger meaning, like I said, and to also be connected
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: to and in relationship with something larger than ourselves. Right.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: This is why humans question things like why am I here?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: What's the purpose of all this? Right, it's because we
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: have a function in our psyche that's actually devoted to spirit,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: spirituality larger you know, whatever that is, and we're in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: question all the time. So I think it's really that
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I think that the dogma and some of the the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: external structure that's put on those words by let's say religion,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: unfortunately take some of the real deep meaning out of it.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Where when you hear somebody say soul or spirit right,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: it's more about like I remember, there's a twelve step saying. Actually,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine once said, a friend of hers
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: struggled in twelve step because of the spiritual component, right,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: And the person who was leading the twelve step group said,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: totally cool. You can believe whatever you want right. However,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: what I want you to do tomorrow is I want
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you to go out into the ocean and I want
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you to stop the waves. That's what I want you
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: to do. And then I want you to come back
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: tomorrow and tell me that there's nothing greater than you
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: out there. That's what I mean when I say spirituality,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: soul right. It doesn't have to be this idea that
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: we've already got constructed. It can just mean I know
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that there is something energetically bigger than me, and I'm connected.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: So how many people? Then, I'm assuming you work with
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: all sorts of ages, male and female. Do you see
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: more of a population in midlife or is it kind
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: of equal around the board.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: It is more midlife for sure. I think there's a
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: point in our lives where we actually do start questioning
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: these things, and we start waking up a little bit
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: to kind of the spell of like the blueprints that
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: we're all given, like this is what a good life
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: looks like. Get the job, get the man, get the marriage,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: get the kid, get the car, get the dogs, you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And there's this point where a lot of us wake
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: up and look around and go, h, this ain't doing
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it right. It's not enough, Like I'm not fulfilled. I
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: was promised fulfillment. I'm not. But I do also get
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of people around that like quarter life crisis too,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that are asking questions a lot younger, And I do
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: think generationally people are asking these questions younger.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Do you think that, like when someone starts questioning this,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: are there usually I've just seen this in my own
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: This I could be a one off. I don't know,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: but do you think that there were signs? And there
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: were like your body has been trying to tell you
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: something for a long time, but you just it's easy
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: to suppress and go on autopilot. And keep like, we're
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: all busy, we're raising kids, we're trying to advance our careers.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: You know, it's easy to just be like they're there,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I'll deal with this later.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, exactly. And that's why a lot of
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: us it does take something big to actually wake us up.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So oftentimes I will use this analogy we're all say.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Frequently people come in there's the I call it the feather,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the brick or the truck. So psyche soul, whatever word
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you want to use, is like tickling a feather for
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a long time, like hello, hellou, something's wrong, something doesn't
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: fit whatever that is right, this relationship's not right for you,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: this job, whatever, and we just kind of, like you said,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: rush it off, whatever, keep being busy. Usually then psyche
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: throws a brick. And even at the brick stage, most
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: people don't listen, right, it's usually the mac truck where
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: we can't not listen. So, you know, an injury, a death,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: losing of a job, a complete life transformation, having a kid, right,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: an ego death, something like that where you're like incapable
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of not paying attention anymore. And I would say a
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: lot of times that's that point too, where people come
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to therapy. I'm like, oh, this makes sense.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I know I've had this subconscious thought of you know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: something's not right or whether they know what it is
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: or not. Look, what advice would you give to kind
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: of speed up so they don't have to waste time
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: to get to that Matt truck.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Or don't get hit by a Mack truck don't get.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Hit which is probably better.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the way that I would answer that is,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I say that everybody gets tickled with the feathers.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is, you know, a one off situation.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: We're all born with the ability to pay attention and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to be still and to into it what's happening in
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: our lives and what works and doesn't work, and what's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: fulfilling and not fulfilling. It's just that we live in
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a society that kind of squashes that, because those of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: us who are connected to self and connected to intuition
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: are actually pretty dangerous to systems who kind of function
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: on the backs of those of us who look outside
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: of ourselves for validation. Right, So for those of us
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: who buy the next fanciest car because we think it
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: makes us look a certain way, you know that capitalistic
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: drive to keep us looking outside of ourselves would be
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: really hard to push on people who were connected to themselves, right,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: who knew that that actually didn't matter when it came
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to like a sense of worthiness or a sense of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: loveability and all these things. So I guess to go
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: back to your question, I would suggest getting into a
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: practice of conversation with that part of yourself, of conversation
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: with the turned down voice. It's been turned down, it's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: not gone. And sometimes that looks like you know, people
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: might say, like journaling, people might say, it's contemplative, contemplative.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: There we go contemplative practice, which is stillness, which is quiet,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: which is taking a beat right now. I know you
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: have a two year old, I have an almost six
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: year old. Finding that time is really difficult. But if
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: we don't make that time a priority. And I'm not
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: saying it's got to be hours a day, but if
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: we don't make time to be with ourselves in stillness
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and in quiet, the mac truck's kind of inevitable.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: What are some other symptoms of how it shows up
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: in our body? Can it be physical like my shoulders,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: my lower back or whatever?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, for sure, there's there's a lot of
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: conversations currently right now. Gabar Mate has been talking a
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: lot about how women make up a disproportionate amount out
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: of autoimmune disease holders, right, And what he's talking about
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: is actually how women in our society are what we
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: would call like the shock absorbers. So we're the ones
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: that process everything for everybody. We're the ones that make
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: sure everybody's okay. We're the ones that are making sure
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: things are still running and moving and functioning. We're the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: ones that are hearing the news and then being like,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: how do we have a conversation about this. We're the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: ones that are walking into a room, feeling the vibe
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and then deciding how we're going to approach the person
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: to have a conversation. That feels hard, Right, What does
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that do to the body after long, a long period
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of time. Well, it doesn't, it doesn't. It doesn't feel
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: surprising to me to his point that women make up
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the larger percentage of people who have autoimmune disorders. You know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: your body is literally attacking itself from the inside. So
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: it can be something as extreme as that, or it
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: can be Yeah, to your point, I mean it could
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: be I have this like pain in my neck and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: it won't go away right or for me very physically.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: It showed up around thirty eight, kind of out of nowhere.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I started having really bad heart palpitations and I thought
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: it was dying. I mean, I went did all the things,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: all the cardiologists appointments, all the things, and I'm healthy
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and I work out and I take care of myself,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and was very dismissed by the cardiologists who just said,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I think you just need more sleep. And I was like, bitch,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I that is not what I came here for, right,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I want my money back, Like, yes, shocker, I have
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a three year old at the time. I need more sleep,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you know. And so I actually went on a bit
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: of a rabbit hole around HRT and around very about
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a pause and how our palpitations are one of the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: biggest symptoms that go on diagnosed right, got myself on
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: HRT started to minimize the heart palpitations. I was like, oh,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: there it is check like I solved it myself. Right
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: about six months or eight months, they really minimized, and
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: then they started ratcheting back up again. Hadn't changed anything.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Cut two, we lost everything in the fire last year
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: in laugh and so I'm so sorry, thank you. So
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: six months of chaos, figuring out what the hell our
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: life is going to look like all the things. We
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: actually decided in June, so about six months after the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: fire to pack up and move to Costa Rica indefinitely
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: until we just figure out what the hell's going on.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I was here for about a month and I had
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a revelation where I looked around and I was like,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: holy shit, I don't think I've had a heart palpitation
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: since I've been here. And so one could argue the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: stress and the pace of my life in Los Angeles
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: could have very well been trying to tell me something somatically.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying maybe perimenopause also isn't a part
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: of it, but it wasn't just that, right, And so y'all,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I literally have I've taken myself off the hart to
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: see what happens. I have like one every couple days now,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I was having multiple a day. Oh that could be
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: an example of it.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: What's the Costa Rica? I just I'm going there next
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: week and I was just there in November for the
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: first time. You came during rainy season, girl, Yeah, what
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: what's like the theme like the there's like a theme there,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: or like pureveta puavita. Yeah, your life, you're like manifesto,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: you're living that.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's slower and it's more community oriented,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and you know, you just do less here. There's just
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: not this constant drive and pace that I think most
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: of us are used to in the States or in
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the West.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, I mean the States. It really is. I call
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: it the land of abundance because there's just everything is
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: available and then it that you this badge is like
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: how hard can you work? Oh, you didn't sleep for
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: a week?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Awesome?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: All of these things that it's just like more and
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: more and more and more and more and more and
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: more until it's not.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Until it's not, until it's not.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: You work with archetypes as well, correct, I do. So
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: for anyone who's not familiar with that, can you explain
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: what an archetype is?
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah? So an archetype, you know, again another kind of
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: asset or facet of Yung's work. Archetypes are really kind
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of innate patterns, images, ways of being that are shared
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: collectively and what Young called the collective unconscious. So I'll
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: give you an example. In grad school, actually I did
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: a project around the archetype of the virgin mother and child.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: And what happens when you actually do research around this
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: image is that the image that we all know in
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the West of Mary with Jesus sitting on her lap
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: is an exact image. I mean even down to like
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: body posture format, et cetera. That goes back as far
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: actually as we have the ability to track images statues,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: cave drawings, et cetera. It is an image that shows up.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: The archetypal image of mother and child is a shared
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: image across every human psyche on the planet, right, and
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: it literally shows up in the same way. So that
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: would be an example, right, Or there could be an
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: archetype could also be like a I don't want to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: say persona necessarily because we're kind of confusing too, but
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: maybe like a role. So there's like the archetype of
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the trickster. Let's use that one. So we all probably
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: know of somebody who falls into the archetype of the trickster, right.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: They're the one that's constantly, you know, making light of things,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: poking fun of things. They're a little silly, but they're
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: also a little mischievous. Right. We all can embody that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: archetype at some point in our lives. Right. It's an
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: archetype that again is kind of shared amongst human beings.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: The mother, the mother archetype, right, the maiden archetype, the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: crone archetype. These are archetypes that really again and it's
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: an image or or kind of an embodiment that everybody
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: across the world can tap into.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: For our listeners, I mean, there's probably the caregiver HM
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: is probably a huge one. But how does archetype play
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: into your therapy or healing or do we get stuck
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: into because really is it? It's kind of how you
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: show up? Right, You could almost explain an archetype is
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: this is how I show up like the hero, the caregiver,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: the lover, the I mean, you know people that are
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: a victim, Like, no matter what happens, they're a victim. Yeah,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: So is your work also help like break that pattern
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: of your archetype if you will, like how it is
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: that you show up?
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Sure? Or it can also be again like what is
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: this archetype attempting to tell us teach us through the
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: embodiment that you're giving it? Right? So if you're embodying
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: the victim or the martyr archetype. Let's talk about what
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that purpose is, like, what need is it attempting to meet?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Because it's showing up for a reason, right, And so
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: oftentimes when we can dialogue with the archetype or we
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: can kind of personify or understand why it's coming through us,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: it helps us loosen the kind of air quote negative
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: behaviors that go along with it. Because there's going to
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: be a golden and a shadow to every archetype, to
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: every pattern, and so if we can look at both
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of those, we can also say what is the golden
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: side of Like let's say the victim, Well, I would
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: say the victim archetype is really strong and those that
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: are desiring to be seen and be held and be rescued. Right, Okay, well,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: let's talk about that in relationship to your life. Where
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: can you attempt to come in and be your own
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: rescuer or be your own savior? Right? Do we need
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to talk about the relationship in your life and how
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: they're not fulfilling and you don't feel seen or heard?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Why is that? Right? So they become a gateway in
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of and a lot of therapeutic tools. I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: find it's a gateway to a deeper conversation or understanding.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: How many people do you think would I know this
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: could vary greatly, but for someone that's like, oh, I
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: would love to get some help from a therapist this
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: kind of therapy. Are you long term? Like you've got
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: to commit to six months to a year? Is it?
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm guessing you can't just do a few sessions.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I think it depends on the person. I think it
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: depends on what they're working with. I think it depends
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: on maybe what their experiences with self, like this idea
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of like being introspective, right. I think it takes it
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: probably tends to take a little bit more time if
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: somebody is coming completely green and has never really done
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: any introspective work before. But I've worked with people, yeah,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: in more of almost like a coaching capacity. We're four
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to six weeks and they've really had some big aha
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and some shifts, and then we'll touch base a couple
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: times a year. And then I've had people that I've
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: been working with for years regularly, right, because they're kind
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: of on this journey of like continued evolution, if you will,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and are just really fascinated by and love and love
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the work. Right. And then a lot of times what
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: happens too is you'll come during like one phase of
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: your life or you're kind of embodying an archetype, right,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: we together kind of move through usher you over this threshold.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: You go back out into the world until the next
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: time you're standing on another threshold or you're embodying another
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: kind of tricky archetype and you come back. And so
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: that happens a lot as well.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: What does your practice look like? Do you have like
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: a journaling, meditation, you know, daily daily habits, daily practice
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: that you do.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's changed a lot. I think since coming to
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Costa Rica, I think what I used to do. Then
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you before I had a kid. And I
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: actually think I wrote about this in the book. I think,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: how the West it's kind of actually what you were
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: saying about, how we've got this constant drive, right, the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: West really commodifies wellness in some way, right, Like buy
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: this fancy journal, buy this you know, expensive meditation app,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: buy this fancy elixir, right, and then you'll be kind
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: of healed or better or good enough. And so I
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: was an avid meditator you know, I do a lot
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of yoga, a lot of introspection, journaling, I would go
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: on retreats, all these things. When I had my daughter,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I felt so much guilt and shame. I would say
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: around how all of the practices I used to have
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: that were so important to me, I could not make
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: my way back to incorporating them on a daily basis.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And I really struggled with that. And I would say
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I struggled with that for probably a year, and then
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: it dawned on me through some more reading and some
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: more work, and again kind of the work that went
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: into writing this book that once you become a mother,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of at least in early motherhood, a lot
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: of the contemplative time that you had prior or that
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: work that I would consider meditative is actually done mothering. So,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: for example, like my seated meditation of twenty minutes every
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: single day went out the frickin window, because when you're
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: a mom of a young kid, your mornings don't belong
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: to you anymore, right, And so what I found was
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: that my meditation was done in the process of bathing
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and dressing my daughter. My meditation was done in the
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: process of breastfeeding my meditation was done in the process
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: of washing her clothes or doing the dishes or tidying up,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and I started realizing, I'm missing it. There's actually moments
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: and opportunities everywhere to be doing this practice embodied. It
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: just looks different right now. But it doesn't mean that
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: it's better or worse. It just looks different. And that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: was a huge revelation for me. And so I guess,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: you know, go back and answer your question. It looks
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: different now, I think for me, now you know, she's
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit older, she's going to be six, I've
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: got a little bit more space. Still don't have my
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: morning's back, But now it might look like surfing. You know,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of times for me, it's it's active work.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It's still my yoga, it's still my pilates, it's getting
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: in the water, it's floating in the ocean for twenty minutes.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, these these are the times and I get
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: to be with myself.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: How did it feel losing everything?
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Not good? To make it like as simple as possible,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: not great, it was.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: That's a profound experience.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, it's been a very it's been a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: very interesting year, you know, because I could I could
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: talk about how hard it was to lose your things,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: your home. You know, my grandmother's rings, her skilled silk
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: scarf collection she gave me before she died, you know,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: my year books, like all of the things that you
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: absolutely can never replace. And so there's a grief that
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: goes along with that. And unlike people who might lose
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and this not to maybe do some comparative suffering, but
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: unlike somebody who might say, like have an electrical fire
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: in their home and they lose their home, what happens
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: when you have a wildfire is we lost our entire community.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Our whole town is gone. So we were on the
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: east side right in Altadena, and there were there ten
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: thousand structures burnt. There's nothing left. So it wasn't just
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the physical personal items. I mean, it was our community.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: It was our neighbors, it was our restaurants, it was
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: our schools, it was our everything, right, and so it's
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it's been a I think a practice of finding home again.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: What does home look like if you don't have a
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: physical home, you know, finding home within, finding home within
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: your family, keeping your friends as close as you can.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Once you've actually physically had to disband not taking it
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: for granted that you used to be able to see
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: your people often and now you can't, so you have
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to change and do more work to maintain those those structures. Yeah,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: it's been really destabilizing. I think it's coming probably the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: best word. And I'll tell you one of my my
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: therapists actually said to me talk about the shock absorber
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: thing I was talking about with Gobormante. It was probably
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: like eight months after the fire when I first started
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: really going into it in therapy. Up until then, I
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: was in like mom mode or like I we got
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: to get a house, we got to figure it out.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I was taking care of my friends. Are you good? Insurance?
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Like all of this stuff right very compartmentalized because I
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: didn't have time to feel that much really, and you're
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'm somebody who obviously has a lot
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: of practice around this, but I was very aware that
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: there's a time and a place, and right now is
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: actually not the time. And so once I felt like
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I had landed a little bit and I could breathe
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and I was in my own therapy again, we started
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: kind of pulling the threads a bit, and you know,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: she was very quick to say, you what was the
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: word she used the other day, Actually, this concept of
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: being a metabolizer. She's like, you were the metabolizer for everybody.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: You were taking everything that everybody else was experiencing, and
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: you were metabolizing it into bite size, understandable, tolerable experiences.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, what happens when you're constantly metabolizing, so at
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: some point you tap out right like you're not getting filed.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: And I think that was kind of the wall that
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I had hit about eight months post where I was like, Okay,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: it's time to take a beat, you know.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: And to fill it and probably grieve it for yourself.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And that's what it's been. You know, it's been waves,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and it's just the practice of letting it, letting it
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: come up, even when it feels weird and inconvenient, and
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: why is that happening right now? And I mean, you
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: both know with the work that you do. But for me, actually,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of my grief has been in like movement,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: so not necessarily like let's say lifting weights, but if
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I'm doing like an ecstatic dance practice where it's actually
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: unorganized movement, so I'm kind of crossing that right and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: left hemisphere and I'm tapping a little bit more into
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the unconscious realm in my movement. That's when I find
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: the tears come. So I've been trying to make sure
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: that I'm incorporating some movement or like surfing, incorporating some
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: movement that doesn't have a specific structure to it, because
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I find that that's what's doing some of the releasing.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: And coastorika it sounds like that is a healing that's
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: been part of the healing journey as well.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's been a forced slowdown, you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: whether I like it or not, it's been a force slowdown.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Do you think you'll be there for a long time?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think we just recently decided that. I mean,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: our alternative is to go back to la right now
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and you know, rent a house while we rebuild. That
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: is probably four times jacked up in rent than what
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: it would be because everybody jacked up the rent after
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: the fire because you know, lovely, And I was like,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: why why would we do that? Why wouldn't we just
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: stay here and we can do the rebuilding from here.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: We love the schools, we love the community, and so yeah,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: we've just decided we don't know what the timing is,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: but it feels good right now, and so that's all
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: we know. That's all we can lean into.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: If we look at your books. So you have two books,
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: I do. Both of the titles are pretty intriguing, the
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: motherhood myth, so that's one category. And then I love
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: this and I have to say it multiple times because
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: we always say it backwards. But it's not me, it's you.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: I was like, dang, okay, break the blame cycle.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the book that I actually I co
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: authored with my now husband wasn't husband at the time.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: And that was an interesting experience because as you're writing
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: and you're really in it and again you're things are
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: coming up and you're kind of processing and working through things.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: We had this like shared Google doc where we both
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: be writing our parts and so to have to read
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the other person's perspective on the thing. There was a
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: lot of moments where we would have to be like,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I think we're gonna have to have another conversation about this. Yeah,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I thought this was a different I thought we had
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: kind of squashed this. Apparently we hadn't you know or whatever.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: This point were so funny.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that one is really just like, we're both
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: both therapists, relational therapists. We do a lot of couples
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: work as well. And I think it was just our
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: way of saying, hey, you guys, you're not broken. We're
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the same as you, even though we're therapists, doesn't matter.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: You know, these top let's say ten issues that you
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: guys all struggle with, we do too, and so here's
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: what that looks like. Here's some ways that we work
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: with it. Here's some tools. And we've gotten a lot
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of feedback where people are like, Oh, I'm so glad
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: it's not just it's not just me. You know, this
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: is attachment differences and you know, sex drive differences and
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: just all of these things that we hear so frequently
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: as couple therapists. It's like, yeah, we get it, and
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: here's some ways to look at it.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: If someone's listening to this, and what book would you recommend?
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: You have two books. If someone's not going to go
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: to therapy right now and they're they're just tapped out,
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: they don't have the resources or the time, or maybe
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: they're just not ready to deal with that, what do
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: your books promote and what would be appropriate for different women?
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's not me, it's you. It's definitely
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: a book where I've had people who have read it
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: who are not actually currently partnered, and they've seen themselves
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a lot, and you know, in their history and their
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: past relationships that relationship. I think is really important to
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: look at your patterns relationally and start to see how
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: do you show up because often very common we tend
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to be drawn to the opposite of us, right, So
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: let's just use attachment. It's like, if I'm a little
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: bit more avoidantly attached, I'm going to be drawn to
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the more anxiously attached, right, and vice versa. And so
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: what that helps you do is because John and I
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: my husband, usually embody the opposites. You get to read
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: these two perspectives and say, oh that's me, Oh that's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: my partner. Right, You see yourself in it, and then
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: you can start to understand it, be empathetic, break it down,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: where is that coming from? And then there's actual tools
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: in there.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: So it's a real like relationship based book. The Motherhood
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Myth for sure is a bit of a departure because
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: this is where I let like my depth kind of
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: nerd go wild. This book was really coming on the
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: heels of my kind of ego explosion, coming in a
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: motherhood where I looked around and I was like, this
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: is bullshit, Like anybody else think this is bull Like
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: why is this so hard? This is not what I
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: was promised it would be, And no one's talking about this,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: you know. And so it's a bit of it. There's
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit of like an anthropological background in there.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of like how did we get here?
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Deep diving helping us understand like why are we pair
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: alone in a house with one, maybe two adults when
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: we were supposed to be parenting in a village of
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: twenty adults that were capable of helping with our children, Right,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: how did we get here? And it also helps us
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: really understand I think, in particular in the West, a
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: lot of the relational struggles that couples have once a
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: child enters the picture. So the book is broken up
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: into three sections. It's motherhood, sex, and relationships. So but
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it's through the lens of parenting, right. But also, I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's just from others. I've had a lot
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: of men actually come to me and say, I'm really
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: grateful I read your book. It's been really eye opening
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: for me, not only to see my partner or like
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: you know, my wife differently, but also to see my
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: role in it and how I'm you know, needing to
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: show up differently.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: So in closing, as we wrap this up and we
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: look at some take home points for women, where do
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: you start and what would you recommend to wrap up
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: this conversation If there's clearly going to be questions, any
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: advice that you would give to women that are that
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: are maybe feeling like we we mentioned the first of
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: the podcasts that something maybe is off or something's been
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: feathering and you're you're you're coming around to it slowly,
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: what advice would you give for those women?
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Pay attention you know again, do your best to involve
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: some contemplative time again, even if that's you know, doing
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the dishes, like I don't care where it is, but
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: be with yourself, right, carve out some very important time
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: to be with yourself, to listen, to write, to journal,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to just make sure that you are hearing yourself like
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: is that me or is that out there right? And
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: starting to get clear on whose voice it is. And
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: then I would say, you know, I mentioned this in
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the beginning, and it was a practice that I did,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: but I've used with many clients as follow the breadcrumbs.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: So just start to pay attention to what brings you
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: a sense of a liveness and lean into that. It
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't have to make sense, right, So if this book,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: or if this topic, or if this workshop, or if
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: this person suddenly or just invigorating something in you amazing,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: lean into that. Let yourself kind of indulge in whatever
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: that energy is without having to kind of put logic
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: or reasoning on it, and allow that to open that
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: space in you, that a liveness space. And then that
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: breadcrumb will inevitably always does lead to another breadcrumb, which
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: leads to another bread crumb. And this is kind of
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: what I find almost like the path that starts to
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: unfold back to ourselves is through connecting to that feeling
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: of a liveness. And you know, that might be oh
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: my god, it's this book, like I should read this book,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: or it could be like oh wow, I should check
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: this author out or whatever, but whatever it is, don't
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: question it. Just kind of allow it to have space.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Love that I do too, and it is can trolling
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: our self talk an important part of the internal work
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: to the negative self talk.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I would say be mindful even of
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: using the word controlling it. Wow, because when you just
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: said controlling our negative self talk, I had this image
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: of like what we might say to a child, like
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: cut it out right, don't talk like that. And you
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: know what we were talking about about, this idea of
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: like what is the symptom or quote symptom trying to say,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: I think there's actually an invitation in our self talk
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: to pay attention rather than try to like squash it
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: or push it away.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: I feel like we just barely got into.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: To be continued.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: We can do this again, don't recontinued. So, Vanessa, where
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: can women find you to learn more about your therapy
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: as well as as your books.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everything's on my website Vanessa Bennett dot com. I'm
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: mostly on Instagram, although I think like most people, I've
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: got a love hate relationship with social these days. So
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Instagram Vanessa S. Bennett. And then yeah, on my website
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: you'll see all the things. So the book is there.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I have a community. I have a coaching
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: academy actually where I train in depth and spiritual psychology
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: and all that jazz it's all there, and.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: You take clients.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Still, I don't take that many. I do have a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: few in my practice. I find now it's more groups
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: actually I run in my private community. I run weekly
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: groups around this exact topic and codependency recovery and a
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: bunch of other things. So I'm more focused in the
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: group realm right now. But I do take some clients,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and I actually have a group of depth oriented coaches
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: as well as therapists that I've trained who work underneath
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: me and I kind of oversee, and so I always
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: tell people to reach out and kind of put an
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: application in for coaching, as I can always pair you
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: up with somebody who I know is going to be
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: amazing and helpful.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for your expertise and for
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: opening my eyes for sure to this incredible conversation that
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: I didn't even really know existed, maybe in different terminology,
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: but such a deeper understanding. I'm really curious to keep
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: learning more about it. So thank you so much Vanessa
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: for your time today.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you, ladies, appreciate it.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening everyone.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: five star rating and sharing the body Pod with your friends,