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Walking through Loss with Author and Hiker Cara Benson · Mind Over Mountain

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, Welcome to Mind Over Mountain with me Cheryl Strade.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: This week, my guest is hiker, mountaineer, and writer Kara Benson.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Kara's the author of the new memoir and Arms Full
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of Birds. She has hiked many peaks, including all forty
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: six of the Adirondack Peaks, and she's found healing and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: solace in the wilderness. I didn't ask Kara to be
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: on the show only because she's done great things on
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: hiking trails and mountains, but also because her book really
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: spoke to my heart, especially right now. Sadly, a month ago,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I lost my husband, Brian Linstrom, and this is the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: first episode that I've recorded since his death. Kara wrote
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: deeply in her book about her own grief over the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: loss of her partner, John, and about the ways that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: venturing into the wilderness has healed her. One thing we
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: both came to is the only way to make it
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  Speaker 1: through deep suffering is to keep putting one foot in
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  Speaker 1: front of the other. And in my conversation with Karra,
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  Speaker 1: she reminded me how I might go about doing just that.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Let's listen, Kara Benson. Welcome to Mind Over Mountain. Cheryl Strad.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me on Mind over Mountain. I'm
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  Speaker 1: really honored that you said yes to this. Obviously, this
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: is a really kind of big episode for me. It's
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the first I'm recording since my husband died, and Kara
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: one of the things that I did over these last
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  Speaker 1: few weeks as I've been in just this deep, deep,
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  Speaker 1: deep grief, as I read your beautiful memoir and Arms
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  Speaker 1: Full of Birds, a personal field Guide to love, loss
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  Speaker 1: and commitment, and it's all about well, I mean, obviously
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  Speaker 1: we have so much in common. It's about the ways
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: that you have suffered through recovering from addiction and dealing
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  Speaker 1: with the grief and loss of your beloved partner, John,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and the solace that you found walking and hiking in
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the wilderness. So obviously we have something in common. I've
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: written about that in my book wild and about my
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  Speaker 1: grief over the death of my mother.
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  Speaker 2: So thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for writing such a powerful book that spoke
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  Speaker 1: a lot of truth to my heart.
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  Speaker 3: That is that means so much to me. Your book
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  Speaker 3: meant so much to me and has meant so much
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  Speaker 3: to so many of us out here, So to have
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  Speaker 3: that reflected back from you is such an incredible honor
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: one of the I've been asked who are the people
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  Speaker 3: that I was reading when I was writing my book,
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  Speaker 3: and there were three. There are three writers that I
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  Speaker 3: considered who were my comps, even though I wouldn't necessarily
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  Speaker 3: put that in a proposal because the comps are not
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  Speaker 3: supposed to be the pine.
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  Speaker 1: Oh.
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  Speaker 3: I compare myself to Leo Tolstoy. We don't put the
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  Speaker 3: pine in sky authors. But it's Shrilled Straights, wild anything
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  Speaker 3: by An Lamott and Terry Tempest Williams, When Women were Birds.
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  Speaker 3: Those are the writers that I really feel if the
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  Speaker 3: three of you got together and wrote a book, I
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  Speaker 3: feel like that would be an arms full of birds.
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  Speaker 3: So it's unbelievably incredible to hear you respond to it
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  Speaker 3: so movingly, So thank you.
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  Speaker 2: Oh wonderful well.
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  Speaker 1: I love al Lamott and Terry Tempest Williams as well,
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  Speaker 1: So I'm with you, sister, and I'm going to put
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  Speaker 1: you among them too.
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  Speaker 2: I love your work and I want.
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  Speaker 1: To just begin with this thing that we have in common,
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  Speaker 1: finding that power, that solace, that salvation, that healing, and
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  Speaker 1: putting one foot in front of the other, and specifically
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  Speaker 1: in the wilderness.
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  Speaker 2: When is the first time.
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  Speaker 1: Take us back to that first time you ventured out
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  Speaker 1: onto a trail and went hiking.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the one of.
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  Speaker 3: The first times that I write about in the book
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  Speaker 3: was early in my sobriety and I was really raw.
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  Speaker 2: We talk about being stark, raving sober, and I was.
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  Speaker 3: I was out of my mind and nerve endings raw,
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  Speaker 3: and my best friend alcohol and drugs were gone, and
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  Speaker 3: I just didn't know what to do with myself. And
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  Speaker 3: I got asked to go on a backpacking trip. I
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  Speaker 3: was woefully unprepared for what this might be. And I
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  Speaker 3: got a wool blanket, a gym bag that I strapped
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  Speaker 3: my arms into and proceeded out into the woods and
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  Speaker 3: sneakers and cotton clothing and mud and really thought, Actually,
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  Speaker 3: when we first got to the site in the backcountry
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  Speaker 3: where we were going to set up for the first night,
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  Speaker 3: I nearly actually had a panic attack. So initially it
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  Speaker 3: wasn't this love at first sight relationship with being out
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  Speaker 3: in the woods. I panicked, what do you mean we're
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  Speaker 3: just going to be here for the night. There's no out,
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  Speaker 3: there's nowhere to go. There's uh, there's the bathroom, where's
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  Speaker 3: the bathroom? Where are the other people. Where Yeah, where's
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  Speaker 3: my where's my out? Where's my out? Not realizing that
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  Speaker 3: the out was always me. I needed to get out
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  Speaker 3: of me and be distracted and from myself. But that night,
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  Speaker 3: and as I write about in the book, that that night,
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  Speaker 3: laying out on the rocks in the middle of this stream,
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  Speaker 3: there were these rocks protruding up out of the stream
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  Speaker 3: that were high enough for us to lie on as
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  Speaker 3: the water rushed on either side of us, and we
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  Speaker 3: laid down and looked up at the stars. Something clicked,
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  Speaker 3: something changed. I finally felt like I was right where
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  Speaker 3: I was supposed to be and who I was supposed
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  Speaker 3: to be.
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  Speaker 2: I wasn't supposed to.
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  Speaker 3: Be anybody else, doing anything else, anywhere else. And those
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  Speaker 3: moments were few and hard to come by, especially in
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  Speaker 3: early recovery. And it was all because of laying on
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  Speaker 3: those rocks in the middle of the woods, out in
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  Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere. And so that was something that
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  Speaker 3: has stayed with me since then. I realized that that
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  Speaker 3: is always available to me, especially for me when I
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  Speaker 3: go out in the woods, that I can just click
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  Speaker 3: in and suddenly if I take that moment to really
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  Speaker 3: look around and really let the woods play on me.
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  Speaker 1: Something's gonna shift sooner or later. I mean, what do
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  Speaker 1: you think that is? Is it the magnificent beauty of nature?
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  Speaker 2: Is it the kind of silence?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I almost said disconnectedness, because in this day
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  Speaker 1: and age, we're always, like, you know, we think of
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  Speaker 1: connectedness as like being on the internet or being on
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  Speaker 1: your phone or talking to somebody, and I always thought
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  Speaker 1: to be in nature, especially really in deep wilderness, you're
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  Speaker 1: more connected than ever. You're disconnected to the stuff. That
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of the stuff that you know kind of makes
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  Speaker 1: our brains crazy, and connected to all the living things.
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  Speaker 1: I'm curious, like, when you relying on those rocks, what
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  Speaker 1: do you think it was exactly.
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  Speaker 2: That gave you that sense of peace or wholeness. That's
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  Speaker 2: a great question. I love the idea of drilling down
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  Speaker 2: into that.
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  Speaker 3: Bill mckibbon wrote a book called The Age of Missing Information.
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  Speaker 3: I was just talking about this the other day, and
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  Speaker 3: he took twenty four hours of recordings from a particular
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  Speaker 3: television station in not just the one station, but it
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  Speaker 3: was a satellite system, so there were I don't know,
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  Speaker 3: one hundred and something different stations that he recorded. One
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  Speaker 3: twenty four hour stretch of all the information that could
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  Speaker 3: be gleaned from watching TV, every different channel in that
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  Speaker 3: one twenty four hour period, and he watched it all, obviously,
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  Speaker 3: not one twenty four hour stretch, over the course of time,
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  Speaker 3: and then he compared that with one twenty four hour
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  Speaker 3: stretch of time out in the woods the Adirondex and
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  Speaker 3: the The rhythms of media, the rhythms of technology are
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  Speaker 3: are I don't think they're natural.
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  Speaker 2: You know, they're not organic to They're not organic to
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  Speaker 2: my heart.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, there's some media certainly that works with heartbeat
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  Speaker 3: and works with but it's really just mimicking the heartbeat.
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  Speaker 3: It's mimicking the ocean, it's mimicking the waves, it's mimicking
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  Speaker 3: the wind through the trees, it's mimicking the rhythms of
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  Speaker 3: the earth and so that. But the rhythms of the
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  Speaker 3: earth actually being with them. I think that it's it's
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  Speaker 3: visceral it my body. It helps me to be in
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  Speaker 3: the rhythms of my own body in a way that
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  Speaker 3: media can never do, except by trying to replicate something
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  Speaker 3: that it can never be. So I think I think
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  Speaker 3: it's something about being in the body, something about connecting
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  Speaker 3: to my animal self, the animal nature of my myself
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  Speaker 3: that reminds me who I am and gets me out
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  Speaker 3: of thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I completely agree and I think too, And
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  Speaker 1: you write about this powerfully in your book. Is it's
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  Speaker 1: not just getting to the pretty place in the wilderness
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  Speaker 1: and absorbing it all, which which.
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  Speaker 2: Is worth you know, the price has been mentioned.
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  Speaker 1: It's beautiful to do that, but it's also about doing
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  Speaker 1: something physical to get there, and often actually suffering to
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  Speaker 1: get there. Right, both of us and our books have
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  Speaker 1: written about like this hurts or this is you know,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if I can keep going, but I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to keep going. And I'm curious about your experience again,
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  Speaker 1: Let's go back to that first hike and then those
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  Speaker 1: that came after that first one. You know, what was
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  Speaker 1: your experience of the physical rigors and demands of hiking.
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  Speaker 2: It's brutal, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: We both lost toenails, My back broke out, scabs and
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  Speaker 3: bruises digging to that place where I just don't think
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  Speaker 3: I can take one more step.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to take more step.
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  Speaker 1: I have pine needles in my eyes and leaves stuck
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  Speaker 1: to my hair and sweat rolling down my butt and
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  Speaker 1: it's just miserable and uncomfortable. And yet I'm I write
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  Speaker 1: about it as an exorcizing something.
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  Speaker 2: I'm it's Catharsis.
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  Speaker 3: Working something out of me that I've often said that
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  Speaker 3: I take all the angst that I hold, all the
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  Speaker 3: you know, the discomfort, the pain, the grief, the anger,
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  Speaker 3: the rage, the hurt. I sometimes I feel like I
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  Speaker 3: take it all out of me and I throw it
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  Speaker 3: into the mountain and then I can go.
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  Speaker 2: Climb it, and I can.
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  Speaker 3: I can have victory over it, you know, for lack
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  Speaker 3: of a better word, I have victory over it.
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  Speaker 2: I summon it.
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  Speaker 3: I have that, and it bring and there's something that
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  Speaker 3: it expels that which was.
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  Speaker 2: Holding on to me, that.
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  Speaker 1: Gur that I need, the grit that I need to
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  Speaker 1: get to the summit. It works it out, and I
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  Speaker 1: feel like I have this very physical manifestation of what
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  Speaker 1: I just did. It's not like I was sitting in
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  Speaker 1: meditation and oh it just clicked for me.
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  Speaker 3: It's like, I there's that mountain. I climbed it. It's
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  Speaker 3: so it's so prominent. It's such a manifestation of the victory.
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  Speaker 2: Explained this to me and our listeners.
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  Speaker 1: So there are these forty six peaks high peaks in
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  Speaker 1: the Adirondacks where you live in that near?
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  Speaker 2: Do you live in the Adirondack Mountain Range? Actually I don't.
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  Speaker 2: I live south of it. I'm closer to.
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  Speaker 3: I do live up on a small mountain, the Renstler
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  Speaker 3: Plateau we call it.
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  Speaker 1: On my neck of the woods. I have a USGS survey.
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  Speaker 1: I'm at about fifteen hundred feet, which is kind of cool.
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  Speaker 1: I'm south of the Adirondack Mountains, but I'm there probably
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  Speaker 1: almost every weekend.
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  Speaker 2: I drive up there. I also love going up.
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  Speaker 3: To the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Green
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  Speaker 3: Mountains in Vermont.
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  Speaker 2: I'll go anywhere. You know I'm you know, you know
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  Speaker 2: have boots.
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  Speaker 1: Will hike me too. We got to get together and
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  Speaker 1: hike sometimes. But in your love I would love that too.
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  Speaker 1: In your book you write about fairly early on in
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  Speaker 1: your love of hiking, you set this goal this, you know,
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  Speaker 1: do these forty six Is it peaks in the out
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  Speaker 1: aroundecks you summited each of those or is it just
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  Speaker 1: hike on forty six of these peaks?
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  Speaker 3: Now it's it's summoning these specific peaks. Forty six peaks,
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  Speaker 3: and they have specifications for what classified them as these
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  Speaker 3: original forty six. They had to be over four thousand feet,
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  Speaker 3: They had to be a certain amount of distance from
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  Speaker 3: from the other the next highest prominence. So some of
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  Speaker 3: the ones they originally surveyed that made the original forty six,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: this was back in the early nineteen hundreds, don't classify anymore.
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  Speaker 3: Some of them aren't aren't quite four thousand. But because
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  Speaker 3: it's this long historical tradition now and people have patches
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  Speaker 3: and there's correspondences, they've just stayed with the original forty six. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: it became an obsession of mine, you know. It was
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  Speaker 3: something to think about and perseparate on how am I
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  Speaker 3: going to How am I going to get these three
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  Speaker 3: mountains in?
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  Speaker 1: How am I going to get to that one? And
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  Speaker 1: how am I going to get these five in a day?
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  Speaker 1: And then and then once I did all of them,
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  Speaker 1: I had.
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  Speaker 3: To you know, I got to do them in winter. Now,
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  Speaker 3: So I did them all in winter. And in fact,
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  Speaker 3: one of my claims to fame is that I'm in
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  Speaker 3: the first one hundred women of winter forty six ers
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  Speaker 3: in the Adirondacks.
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  Speaker 2: So I love it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes I pull that out as I'm, you know,
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  Speaker 3: ol og on the trail. When I run into younger
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: women on the trail, I'm like, well, you know what
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: number are you? Well, they don't actually give numbers for
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: the winter. They give numbers for the all season. And
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  Speaker 3: I'm like, h five thousand something in the all season,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: and then they just put w next to you when
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: you get the winter. And I but I went and
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  Speaker 3: counted and looked through the I just was curious.
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  Speaker 1: How many other women were there. And when I realized
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  Speaker 1: I was in the first one hundred and in the winter,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to assume you snowshoe to the summit.
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  Speaker 3: Snowshoe crampons ice as it really depends on the approach.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: It depends on the conditions.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: You know, with.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Climate change, we have a lot more freeze thawt freeze
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: thaw cycle in the in the Adirondacks, so that they
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: the climbs can be a lot icier than they used
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: to be. So being obviously being prepared as crucial, we
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: just we lost. Sadly, a young woman perished on Mount
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Marcy this last winter from exposure on a peak that
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: I She was out with her dog and she was
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: on a She was on Mount Marcy, which is the
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: highest peak in the range. I speak in New York State,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: and I had just been solo hiking that very same
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  Speaker 3: peak six days before she perished.
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  Speaker 1: It.
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  Speaker 3: You know, Marci is an exposed you know, you're breaking tree,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: it's a breaking tree line. So it's an exposed summit dome.
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  Speaker 3: It was, it was completely iced over. I was able
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: to navigate it. I know Marcia really well. I hiker
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: every winter. It's kind of a you know, it's a
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: tradition for me. And but I also always have compass
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: bearings and have my map and I follow you know,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: I turned around times all the things.
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  Speaker 2: But even then, we know it's.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: A risk, right, Yeah, absolutely, and sadly six you know,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I I knew how I see the summit dome was,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and I had and I switched to micro spikes.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I was able to navigate up and back with microspikes.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: But she apparently had fallen off the trail and radioed
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: for help and they made a heroic effort but just
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: couldn't get to our time and she perished.
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  Speaker 2: So sad how terrible.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's we were or the whole community was shook, right,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: we were really shaken. You know all the uh we
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: were really shaken. The whole community was shaken all winter,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: and it affected everybody's climbing. It affected everybody's climbing all winter.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: When you think about doing those you know somebody in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: those peaks, As you just explained quite vividly, it's you know,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it's dangerous and you are taking risks. How is it
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: that you, especially as a woman alone hiking often alone,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: not always alone, but often I.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Get asked this question as well. How do you assess risk?
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: How do you decide to do something or not do something,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: or you know, when do you decide, like this is
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: too dangerous, I'm going to turn back, and when do
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you decide to push yourself.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: That's a great question, and some of it is is.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: By intuition and experience.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: I would say early on I took probably risks that
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't have, And now I'm much more cautious and
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: have a lot more experience in assessing the risk. I will,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: especially in winter, I will I will be following the
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: trip reports to see if the trail is broken out.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: I have strict turnaround times, which I don't always honor, right,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a hard thing.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: To do because but I mean, as you know, people
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: get hurt and die because of that, right, You're like, okay,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I said I would turn around at you know, two thirty,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and here it is.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: But we're you know, we're so close. I'm going to
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: keep going. And that is very tricky, a very tricky.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: It's very tricky.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I had it was two winters ago, some
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: friends of mine.
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  Speaker 2: We weren't.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: I wasn't hiking solo, which doesn't mean that you can't
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: perish it course, but I always And we were in deep,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: thigh high snow, just brutal trying to to We were
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: in the Dicks Range, and it was a winter of
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: just massive amounts of very heavy snow, and people were
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: experienced hikers were struggling with orientation, with navigation, the usual.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And we were on.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: A trail that doesn't have trail markers. It's one of
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: the herd paths or the trailers peaks and the Adirondecks.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: And I knew when we decided to go for this
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: second peak. I knew right then and there we're coming
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: out late, we're coming out well after dark.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And uh, and I was okay with that.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I never had a sense that we weren't going to
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: be okay.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I just had that. I just knew it was going
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: to be late and hard and a lot of work.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: And we got out at one in the morning, you know,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: in the in the middle of a snow storm. And
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: yet it was magical, you know, the snow was glistening
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: like little diamonds in my headlamp, and it was I
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: was I was so amped. I mean, I drove home.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I drove home and I couldn't fall asleep right away.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: I was so excited by the hike. My adrenaline certainly
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: was up to to get me through it.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: So but back to the idea of assessing.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Risk, I think because of having a tremendous amount of
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: experience in those situations, that I had a really good sense,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: like I've never had a sense yet, oh I'm not
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: going to make this hike, meaning I'm not going to
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: get myself out.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: You know, I have turned back.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I talked I write about that in the book I've
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: turned back from from big hikes down in Mexico, on Orisaba,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Monte Rosa, in in Switzerland.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I turned back on big hikes.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: And so because I knew, I knew I didn't have
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: it in well, the one with John, he didn't have
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: it in him. But the one in Mexico, I didn't
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: have it in me, and I knew it and I
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: honored that, and I think that is that's the thing
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: that has been most important, is really tuning into myself
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: and with all the experience that I've had, having done
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: all the research ahead of time on on trail conditions,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: on weather conditions. I bring a little mini satellite device
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: with me so I can get up to up to
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: the date weather, you know, up to the minute weather
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: right right, you know that hangs from my pack, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: then just tuning in with myself, can I make this hike?
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Can I not make this hike? And honoring that, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: that's yeah for me so far.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that that's probably in itself quite
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: a healing experience. I'm thinking about how it is that
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you came to hiking when you were you know, you
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: were in recovery by the time you went on those
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: first hikes and said about the mission of you know,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: somebody in those forty six peaks in the et Aironducks,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: but it was still fresh enough that I'm going to
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: guess you also had that vivid memory of that time
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: in your life when you were putting yourself at real
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: risk with your drug addiction and the whole lifestyle that
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: you were living. Then how how has hiking specifically helped
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: you in your recovery, especially early on.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Well, it gave me something to obsess on, you know,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: to obsess about something else, to be addicted to, something else, absolutely,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: something else to be addicted to. I absolutely became addicted
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: to hiking and all the things that go with it,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: you know, needing what gear to get, who was hiking when?
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: What mountains did I want to get to? So it
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: gave me something.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: To feed my obsessive mind that wasn't And it also
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: gave me a sense of accomplishment. You know that each
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: each hike that I that I achieved, each summit that
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I achieved, I started feeling stronger about myself, not only
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: physically but psychologically.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Like I'm kind of badass.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Right, you know, like this and you're and you're showing up,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: like you're getting your get, You're showing up to that trail,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: You're doing what you said you were going to do.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's such a powerful thing that sport and
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: any kind of sport whether it be hiking or you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: going to the gym, or you know, achieving, you know
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the dreams that you have as an olympian or fill
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: in the blank, for any of us. I think that
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the power of that physical experience is almost all in
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the showing up and doing it.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Showing up is huge. I was not.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: That's a great point. I was not a person who could.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I was not a person of my word. Prior to recovery,
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: I was you could not you could count on me,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: to not count on me.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I was a liar. I was a cheat. I was
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: a thief. I could not.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: You know, I showed up late, if I showed up
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: at all, I was. Yeah, I was pretty raw and ravaged.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: And when I got to recovery and started started moving
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: into living with integrity, I had to do that to
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: save my ass. You know, I needed to be honest.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: That was the first thing. Is I needed to tell people.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I needed to let people in and tell them who
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I was, and say when I was suffering, and say
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: if I was hurting, and say if I wanted to
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: drink or use or if I wanted to act out
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: in some inappropriate manner, tell them when I didn't want
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: to show up, tell them that I hated them because
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I was so mad at them for making me show up.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: But I knew that in order that this was the
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: only way that I was going to survive. I knew
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: where I came from. I knew that this was the
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: only way that I could stay sober. Let me put
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: it that way. This was the only way that I
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: could stay sober. I had tried, you know, try like
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: every addict or alcohol I'm.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Not doing that again.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: I'm not doing that again, waking up and having done
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: it again. And this was the only way that I
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: found that I could wake up having.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Not done it again.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: And they were telling me the way that you do
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: that is you you show up, and you show up early,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: and you put you know, you put out the materials,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: you get a coffee make musician, you get, you get
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: honest with people, you let them in. And so I
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: started learning that I could show up and learning that
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I could show up on time, and learning that I
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: could be a person of my word and learning that
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I could and then I started developing some self esteem
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: and and a view of myself as.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Someone who does who has some honor.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: And so it's the same thing with showing up to
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: hiking and showing up to working out, and that you know,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: I I'm I'm typically the person who's you know, about
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: ten minutes early.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: If we're meaning for a heike, I'm there. It's really
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: rare that I'm.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: The one that anybody's waiting on, because I just I
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: honor my time now in a way that I didn't
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: used to, and I like to honor other people's time
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: in a way that I didn't used to.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And following through on all of that, uh, you know,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: it gives me self esteem.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I love the way you talked earlier too about those summits,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: because you didn't say, like and then the view is amazing,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you know. And of course the view is amazing. You
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: look outward and you're like, oh, it's so pretty. But
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the way you spoke of it, I know that it
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: was it was all about, honestly, about looking inward like
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: that here here you are. You get to see yourself
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: at the top of something, and at the top of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: something where you earned your place there, right, You carried
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: yourself there on your own strength and courage and heart
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and spirit. And I do think I love I love
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that idea of you know, even the name of this podcast,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: like Minded remount these metaphorical mountains that we think about
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the summit being a place of outwardness, but it's really
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a place of profound inwardness, isn't it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: And I think there's also something for me about feeling
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: like I'm supposed to feel something right, like I should
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: see the enormity of this view, and I'm supposed to
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: feel something specific about the view when I get there,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: that you know, the majesty of the range. And and
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: as you know, as someone you know as a as
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: a recovery adnect, as someone who's treated for depression, as
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: someone who's treated for anxiety, has you know, PTSD, body dysmorphic,
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: as someone who has all sorts of what I want
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: to almost say, barriers, internal barriers to the moment, internal
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: barriers to to my surroundings. That I've always felt pressure
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: to feel a certain way in response to something like, oh,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I'm supposed to be really taking in this view. So
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: I have found it's like that roomy couplet that I
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: reference in the in the book I saw the Beloved
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: with ten thousand hands. He reached out and grabbed me
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: by the feet, And that idea that I'm like looking
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: for something in the view. I'm looking for something somewhere.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Like I don't if I feel like I'm supposed to
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: be feeling something or experiencing something. But if I put
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: myself in that position and I do that footwork and
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: I do that searching, then the moment's going to catch me.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: The view is going to catch me.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: I don't like I'm I'm not going to get it
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: by by making myself see it a certain way. I
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: have to like put myself in a position for it
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: to grab me. I don't know if that makes sense.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's that's howerful and beautiful and true. Yeah, thank
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you for sharing that. And I want to talk. I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: want to talk about another thing. I mean, you've talked
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: about the ways that hiking and reating those summits helped
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: you in your recovery, but of course and your depression
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and your anxiety and your BDD and all of the difficulties, barriers,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: traumas that you've experienced.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: But of course you've.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Also lost your partner John in twenty eighteen, and I'm
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: wondering if you could take us back. How was it
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: that you met John? You were both in recovery and met,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I believe in a meeting.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Is that right? We did meet in a meeting. I was.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: It was his voice that got me. I heard him
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: before I saw him, And I'm not typically one to
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: use this word, but I really thought that his voice
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: and what he was talking about were sexy, and you
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: know he was talking about and it was really he
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: was talking about drinking more water as a means of
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: taking care of himself.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, that's sexy, and You're like,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: that's that sounds like a hiker to me. But it
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: turned out on a hiker, he wasn't much a hiker, right,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Like you were like, but but you know, it's so
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: funny you say that because I met my husband Brian,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: nine days after I finished my hike on the Pacific
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: christ Trail, and I always joked with him that, like,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you know that it wasn't you know, the hot bot
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: or the sparkling personality or whatever. It was, like he
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: found out I had gone on this really long walk
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and I soon learned that he was like obsessed with walking,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Like that is a man who got you know, twenty
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: twenty five thousand stuffs a day, every day, no matter
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: what and so my you know, I that's what really
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I think drew him to me. So but it turned
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: out he was right that I like to walk. It
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: turned out you and John weren't so compatible on the hiking.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Is not on the hiking, No, we were.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: We were not compatible on the hiking, and he gave
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: it a really good try. You know, he did quite
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: a bit of it with me initially. But I also
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: think that he struggled with, you know, saying no to
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: me and having boundaries.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: And my job wasn't to set the boundaries for him.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: My job, right, My job was to advocate for myself
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: and ask for what I wanted, and his job, you know,
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: and and his job was to say what he did
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: or didn't want to do. So initially I think that
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: he went on hikes that he wasn't sure if he
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: wanted to say no yet I'll say that he wasn't sure.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: And then when he learned that he wanted to say no,
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: he was done. When it was done, he was done.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: It's a wonderful quality to be game.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: And obviously there were so many ways that you were
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: truly compatible. I was really moved in your book about
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: You by your portrait of.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Your relationship with John.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: You know that you had, even though like we all
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: do have some differences in tastes or preferences, so much
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: love for each other and so much like belief for
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: each other. It seems like you were always rooting for
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: each other, which I think is such a foundational thing
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: in a relationship.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: He I'm a better person for him having been in
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: my life.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: The ways that we were different in the woods really
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: really are a way that you know, and I bring
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: that forward in the book that you know, I was
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: the person that really, yeah needed to get to the summit.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: He he I was what he called an aggressive hiker,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and he really he learned that that was not for him,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and that he but he would sit and stare at
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: striders across the surface of the water for hours. He
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: could he could sit and watch the birds for hours.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: He was really interested in the way things moved or
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: sounded or interconnected, and.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: He was voracious.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: He had a voracious appetite for understanding how things work,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: both organically or mechanically, and.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: So his attention to the natural world really influenced my
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: attention to it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: So while initially I was this aggressive hiker, just you know,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: slamming my way through the woods, because that's how I
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: did everything.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I slammed my way through everything.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: It replicated the relationship I had inside was just like
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: banging around.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I banged around in.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: The woods to get to the top and to exhaust
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: myself right and then feel that relief and then take
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: some of it in, let it catch me by the feet.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: He could stop.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And look and focus in and bring his attention in
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and really see and receive what was in front of him.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: That that got me, That got me, that really influenced me.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I started, and that's that's when I started.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: It was living with him and his attention to you know,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: one of the big themes of the book obviously is birds.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: His attention to birds.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: You know, he I started learning who the birds were
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: around our house because he would call out their names
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: over time. And so when he died, I couldn't walk
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: in the world in the same way that I was
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: walking in it before that, everything changed.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: I was in the grief dream, you know, which I know,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: you know, how did you walk differently?
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: I was lost and I let myself be lost. I
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: I couldn't, I couldn't power myself through it. I was
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: catching my breath all the time. I was out of breath,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: all the time I was gasping. You know, the slightest
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: thing could could take my breath away in grief, you know,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: the slightest thing could have me bent over sobbing, and
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: I just couldn't power forward. I had to let myself
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: be slow, stumbling, stuttering, wandering and lost, literally lost.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: In the woods. I would I would let.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Myself just fumble around and not know where I was headed,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: because that was the most honest way that I could.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Be in the world, was to to just be kind
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: of you know, I would say adrift, but that's mixing
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: that enformance, right, but lost in the woods, I mean
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: I think that.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I think it makes sense in a literal, literal and
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: metaphorical sense.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Because you know, this this impulse you had to like
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: summit things and achieve things and set the goal and
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: get the forty six peaks. Did you get a patch
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: by the way, for your forty six peaks both for
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: winter and summer? Yeah? Okay, you got that path, you know,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: And then and that is about a certain kind of recovery,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: like a certain kind of healing, and like you said,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: learning how to show up and learning how to be
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: not just on time but early. And that's about and
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I think so much about sport and athleticism and physical
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: endeavor is about toughing it out right and saying like,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I have to do this even though it hurts. And
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: then the other side of it that I think is
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: present in all of our lives, whether we're like professional athletes,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: are just hobbyists or you know, is gentleness and learning
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: how to like physically amble in a lost way or
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: stagger as you as you said. One thing I wrote
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: in Wild my pack was so actually heavy that I
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that I literally, you know, I was hunched in a
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: remotely upright position, which was both an actual literal, you know, fact,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and also a figurative one, a metaphorical And that's how
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I felt in my life. It's how I feel in
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: my life right now. I'm not even hunched in a
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: remotely upright position right now. I'm actually like, I mean,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting in this chair, but I'm down on the floor,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: you know. And I just wonder if you can share
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: with me those early days for you, like how did
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: you find your way through the woods?
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: I let myself fall to the ground a lot I
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: let myself be flat out a lot and curled into
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: myself in a fetal position, sobbing a lot, heaving, sobbing.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I hugged this.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Into trees, which sounds so clear shade, but not just
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: even the tree trunks, you know, I would hug into
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: white pines in particular, are so soft, the long soft
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: needles of white pines. I would have like hug into
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: the the the limbs of the trees with the leaves
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: or with the needles, just to to to feel them,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: because they didn't. You know, certainly people were hugging me,
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: But there was something there's something different about the more
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: than human world that didn't that I didn't feel like
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: it required anything back for me. You know that I
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: could that I could just fully receive from it in
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: a way that didn't you know that I didn't feel like, uh,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: that disarmed me in a way that I don't that
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: that's just different from being with people. I had needed
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: people too, Don't get me wrong. People slept on my
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: couch for the first month straight.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: I didn't sleep at my home alone once, but.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Allowing myself to stop completely everything anything and drop and
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: feel what was grabbing me, to feel and wouldn't let
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: go at any given moment.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: I think that is.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: I almost I want to say, that's how I got
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: through because there wasn't even intentional well, I had no choice,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: It came and got me. And yeah, I mean that's it.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Like when people are ever like, oh I I could
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: never live through that.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I was like, you know, we didn't sign up for this,
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I I think that is something that's always so important
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: to remember. When we talked to people who were in
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: deep grief, is like, you know, the bad thing happened
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: without their permission or agreement, you know. And I think
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: healing is so much just about continuing on.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: And because you have to.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And I love what you say, this tree hugging thing,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: because earlier I had talked about this feeling of true
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: connectedness that I feel in nature that I know I'm
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: not alone and feeling and I think.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: That that that's maybe it.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's such a difference between loneliness and solitude,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and I when I am in the wild places, I
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: never feel lonely. I feel like I'm in deep solitude,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: which is you know. I think the difference between those is,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you know, loneliness. You can be in a crowded room, right,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: and you can be connected to all the people around
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you talking and buzzing around, and you're alone inside yourself.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Solitude is is having that contempt contemplative posture while feeling
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: connected to the living universe, you know, whether it to
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: be other people or other animals, or the beautiful trees
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that hold us up when we embrace them, right, And so,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I mean I think that that to me has always
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: been powerful medicine.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: It's medicine I'm certainly seeking right now in my.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Life as well. How has it changed over time for you, Kara?
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Like you're it's been now eight years since John died,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: You've been in recovery for like thirty two years. Congratulations,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: By the way, that's amazing. You know, how has your
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: relationship to hiking, mountaineering, you know, going on these adventures
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that you go on.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: How's it changed?
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: What do you do now?
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Do you do you still feel that those things are
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: like really important to your healing and recovery and survival
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: or are they just fun things you like to do?
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: Both they're fun things I like to do, and there's
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: they're crucial for my well being. I I want to
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: go back though to something that you said about solitude
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: and connection, and I.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Feel like it's also it's all I love that.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: The idea of the difference between loneliness and solitude. I
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: don't feel lonely in the woods at all. I feel
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: like they're my friends.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really do.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: I feel like when the wind blows through the leaves
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: of a tree, I.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Feel like they're waving to me.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: They are they are right exactly. I mean, it's not
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: just it's not we're just not making this up. It's real,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: like they're living beings and they they are your friends.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: They are my friends.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: They are the rocks everybody plus obvious see all the critters,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: and and seeing so seeing myself in relationship to all
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: of this alive around me, I feel in great company,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: in great company.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: So how has it changed? How is it now? I
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: think now it's really interesting.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I have this beautiful blend of I can be grinding
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: up a peak and identifying flowers and bird song along
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: the way, which.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Isn't something that I used to be able to do.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about what the flowers were or
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: who the birds were.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: And now I'm somehow like taking I'm absorbing more of
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: it as I moved through it, whether I'm moving through
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: slowly and or moving through in my aggressive way. I mean,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: I still like to grind up peaks. I just did
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: it this last weekend with friends, and I'm going again
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: next you.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Know, I just it. I need I need to sweat.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: I need to sweat in the woods to feel to
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: feel okay, you know, to feel okay in myself. Right.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: But it's really fun, and it's super fun.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: It's so much fun, at least at least in retrospect.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever heard me talk about
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: my retrospective fun theory of no tell me that basically
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: like backpacking and hiking. At least for me, it's like
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I always describe it as it's more in the camp
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: of like retrospective fun. Like while you're doing it, you're
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: often like thinking, I cannot wait to stop doing this, Like,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: you know, when are we going to get to the destination?
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: When are we going to get to the mountaintop? When
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: are we going to get back to the cars?
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: We can go have you know, burgers, you know, and
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: and sit in the shade or you know, when can
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: this be done? But then when it's done, you look
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: back on it, You're like, that was so fun. And
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: so I think my theory of almost and this is true.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: And all the different things I do, you know, weightlifting
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: or running or getting on my peloton or doing yoga,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: it's like it's I sometimes enjoy it while I'm doing it,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: but I enjoy it far more when I'm done with it.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, there's something to Uh, there's something to be
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: getting back to your car, slipping off the you know,
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: the disgusting clothes and you know what what snacks are
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: we going to get? Exactly what are we what are
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: we going to get to you stuff our faces with?
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: And and also knowing that, knowing that that's true for me,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: that I'm going to look back on this and really
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: be glad about it.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: And really I.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: I do try to stop and call attention to oh,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: this is the thing that I love doing. This is
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the thing that I'm going to look back on and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: be happy about that I did.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: What what even as you know what is it?
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: You know like, can I you know, what can I
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: smell in this moment that that fills me up, that
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: feels good? What can I see or take in in
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: this moment? Can I shift my perspective, so that I
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: take in this moment and I'm present to it as
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: I'm as I'm uh, you know, knowing in fact that
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm going to to love it at some point
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: in future.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: You know, what is it?
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: Can I, in this moment be present to and take
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: in I do try to make a.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Practice of that.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Before we say goodbye, which we need to do soon.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: I realized we need to answer a dear Sugar letter.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: And you talking about filling yourself up, and me talking
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: about the things I do to fill myself up too.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: We have a letter from a woman who is basically
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: exactly our age.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: She's fifty eight? Are you fifty eight? I'm fifty eight.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I'm fifty seven, So okay, I'm the baby of this
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: group officially, but she.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Needs some filling up. So can I read you the letter?
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Kara?
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, please, Dear Sugar.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I'm a fifty eight year old American woman, A typical
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: common person, usually looked over, nothing shiny, just average, the
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: youngest of three girls, who kept herself hidden in her
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: closet when her parents really her father started yelling over
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: something as simple as leaving a dish in the sink
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: or a tissue on the bathroom counter. I would hide
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: from the yelling, hide from the crying, cover my ears
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: and sing to myself to not hear the explosive curse
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: words coming out of his mouth. They say, you marry
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: what you know, and that's exactly what I did. Although
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: if you would have asked me at nineteen if the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: man I married was anything like my father, I would
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: have protested and screamed nothing at all like him. How
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: wrong I was. He never matured really past the age
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: of eighteen. What started out is slight pushing and gaslighting
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: became throwing things, then throwing things at me, and.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: You know the rest. I just wanted to be a
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: wife and mother and live in a cute house. I
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: had all that.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: But after twenty four years, when he told me he
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: fell in love with someone else, it was my out.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: I finally had a ticket to freedom. What I thought
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: was the toughest time of my life because I had
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: no money and nowhere to live, turned out to be
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: a blessing. After being single and alone for a while,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I learned more about myself than ever before. It was
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: a rough few years, but with help from my family,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I got through it. At this stage in the game,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you can say, I really do have everything I dreamed of.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Both of my children are happy, married in good relationships.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I have grandchildren. I have a really nice place to
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: live in a good steady job. I have someone who
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I dore and is a wonderful human being. But I'm
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: still searching for something. I feel lost. Well, I should
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: feel joy about my life and where I am, I
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: feel nothing. Nothing brings me happiness. Lately, I'm not even
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: sure what happiness is. I'm not sure what love is.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm lying about everything, even to myself.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Think positive.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: They say go for a walk, They say I do.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: These things, but I feel my insides cringing, tightening. My
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: heart is happy. I long for a place where there's
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: a soft breeze and I'm alone. I feel drawn to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: be alone, but when I'm alone, I feel lonely. I
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: visit my sisters, but after thirty minutes I'm ready to
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: go home. All these pictures on social media about parents
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: with their children and how it's great spending family time together.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I do see my children, who are now adults, but
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure I enjoy that. I go through
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the motions doing the right thing, pleasing to everyone. Then
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: I sit home and go over everything I said. Was
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I kind enough, funny enough, good enough? I'm still searching
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: for what exactly. I'm fifty eight years old and I
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm drowning inn air. Thank you, Sugar for
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: all you do. Sincerely, still searching, hard letter. I feel
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: like before we even begin offering some advice, you know,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I just want to right off the top, address the
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: thing that really we you and I can't do, which is.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: You know I do still searching.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: I want to first encourage you, you know, to see
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: a doctor because, you know, because this could be depression.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: And so I think, Kara, what you and I can
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: address are you know, anecdotally from times in our own
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: lives where we felt like we're lost or or we're
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: not enough for all of those those empty feelings you
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: describe so vividly. But I do want to also first
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: counsel you still searching too. You know, sometimes it's a
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: matter of really needing professional help that you are in
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: a depression that maybe medication could help with, or professional counseling.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: And what we're offering here today is sisterhood and a
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: sense of like some conversation from two women who have
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: been in some of these places that's still searching us describing.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad that you say that I can say that,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: and that in my experience, I needed what we call
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: in the rooms.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: I needed that outside help.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: I I avail myself of uh, psychiatric support, and it
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: saved my life. So I definitely want to echo what
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: you just said, Cheryl, so eloquently, that we're here to
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: offer you know, as I would say, my my experience,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: strength and hope is what I can offer, and that uh,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: and that my experience is that I did need that
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: kind of additional help. And but but what I want
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: to also think about is something that I heard in
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: the letter about I can really identify with growing up
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: in trauma and growing up in a loud household, a
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: violent household that I that you know, in my formative
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: years really impacted me.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: And I believe as I.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Evolved into being in also a violently an abusive relationship
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: that the healing that I've done and been doing and
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: am still doing that happened in those formative years. A
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: lot of that work, I'll say, the additional work to
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: counseling and to psychiatric support is I've been doing reparenting
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: work where I am comforting that little girl that hid
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: in the closet. I am comforting that little girl that
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: was afraid to leave her room because she didn't know who,
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: what the mood.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Was in the rest of the house, was it safe?
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: And so I because that happened at a formative time
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: in my growth, and that you know, we've learned that
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: this changes our brain chemistry, changes our body chemistry.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: To go through this kind of trauma early on.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: That I have really needed to learn way to comfort
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: and soothe that traumatized girl that is you know that
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: is still with me, so and to encourage her and
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: love her and support her and let and let her
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: know that I'm here for her in a way that
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: I couldn't be here for her, and and that I'm
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: going to go to the ends of the earth to
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: take care of her. And that's included getting that additional help.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: So those are some things that first come to mind
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: when I hear the letter that I wanted.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: To shah Yeah, And I think that's such wonderful counsel
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: care because I think it goes back to those early traumas.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: That's the letter starts there for a reason, right that's
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the foundation. But also I want to say, what I
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: was struck by is what a good life still searching,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: managed to build. Okay, you know that had these you know,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: finally got that freedom from that marriage that was abusive
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and awful. Did did find love with, as she says,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: a wonderful human, did raise two children who are thriving.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: You know, did achieve those dreams that at least for
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: a time she embraced. And what I would say is
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: what's happening right now is kind of a gift, this
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: kind of reckoning where you know, she sort of says
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: a few times that these things were all like the shoulds.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: You know, she fulfilled the shoulds.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: And maybe one of the most powerful things about being
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: fifty eight or being the ages that we are in
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: our in middle age, is we get to be now
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: in that next era of our lives where it's like, Okay,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: I jumped through all those hoops I lived, you know,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: I responded to my trauma in these ways, and then
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: I did I met the societal expectations in these other ways, and.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Now what is it that I want?
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: And you know, still searching the fact that when you
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: when you turn back to yourself and you feel that
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: sense of nothingness you know can be in so many
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: ways the beginning of a journey where you really undertake
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: to find out what it is you want, find find
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: out what it is you love, find out what it
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: is you need, and you know, rewrite that script. You
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: know that you've in some ways, you know, lived a
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: life of a story that was written by others for you,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: and now you get to write it for yourself. And
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: you know, when we are at that bottom moment where
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: you're like at a place where you write a letter
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: like this to me and say like there's nothing there.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: You know, that is from where it's for so many
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of the best things, the most powerful evolutions and gross
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: opportunities begin.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so well said, and I would I would
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: just add to that that piece around. One of the
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: parts of me that has fun is my little girl.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: So you know that little girl, So.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: That comforting her and asking because again, when we grow
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: up in trauma, we often have a distorted relationship with
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: fun and joy and finding out what we like to do,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: and that's when we become comported into that people pleasing
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: that she spoke about.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: You know, I need to read the room and.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: So saying then turning to my myself, myself as a
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: woman certainly, but also.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: The the you know, the little girl inside me, and
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: say what would feel good? What would you like to do?
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: And and and trying trying things out without and I
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: you know, with without that idea of like you said,
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: without that idea of should like, oh well I should
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: like this or I should should feel a certain way
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: about something, you know, like well, walking in the woods
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: should make me feel better. Being with my sisters shouldn't
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: make me feel better that that still Searching wrote about, well,
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: it's you know, you know she's saying that it's not
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: so keep asking, keep asking, and I would say that
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: little girl who maybe wants to play and find some fun,
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: what would what might be fun?
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: And try a bunch of dumb stuff out? Yeah, and
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: let everything be on the list. I mean.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: So to sum it up, I think, you know, still Searching.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Our homework for you is see a doctor. I think
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: that's important, or a therapist, somebody who can help you
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: assess like what's happening to you psychologically and emotionally, and
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: you know, like do nothing that you're doing, because you
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: should do and find out what's fun and it can
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: be anything I mean, and I think it's totally okay.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Like I love when you were talking about those early
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: days of grief. One thing that came to mind, you know,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: is for myself too, is you were describing like you
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: were in such a state of sorrow and trauma that
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: you just simply had to let yourself do do whatever
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: you needed to do.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: And I'm there too.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: I started doing jigsaw puzzles and I haven't you know,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I haven't done puzzles for years because I don't have time.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I always think like, oh, i'd like to I'd like
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: to do a jigsaw puzzle. And I've been doing jigsaw
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: puzzles and I don't even know why, but it's like,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: so it is so comforting to me because my mind
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: is focused on putting these stupid things together, and it's
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: it gives me some pleasure during a time in my
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: life when I'm an absolute agony and I've just decided
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: I don't have to know why I'm doing it, it's.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: What I need to do.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: And so still searching, I think that that that's it too,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Like get rid of those stories like oh, if you walk,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: you're going to feel better now. Of course, I tell
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: people that all the time, go for a walk, I
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: promise you'll feel better. But that's a kind of arrogance
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: and misinformation, I guess, because if you're not feeling better
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: when you walk, go find something else that does make
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: you feel better. And the piece of this that I
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: want to really empower you with still searching, is it
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: is up to you to save yourself.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: It is up to you to find meaning in your life.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: It is up to you to replace that sense of
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: nothingness with that place of with you know, that sense
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: of nothingness with wonder or or meaning or satisfaction or.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Whatever that is.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Nobody's going to swoop in and do it for you.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I know that for certain.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: Same here, But kudos for reaching out and speaking honestly
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: to where you're at, and that is the beginning of
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: the journey.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: We wish you well. Okay, So Kara, you're you're a
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: really good dear sugar. Thank you. What's your next? What's
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: your next?
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Literal mountain to climb and metaphorical mountain to climb?
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: Still figuring out the literal mountain? We're looking at. A
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: friend of mine and I are.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Looking at Tucumsa in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: It's one of the four thousand footers over there, So
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at that for Sunday, depending upon.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Depending upon weather.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: And the metaphorical mountain is still well. I'm out doing
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: events for the book, you know, I'm doing events in
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: the Northeast. I'm coming out to the West coast in
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: the fall, so yeah, I'll be up in San Francisco
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: and hoping to come up to Portland.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: So just the metaphorical mountain is is supporting the book
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: in the world. You know, I went through I know
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: where I'll just say that I went through exquisite grief,
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: not only in living those experiences, but then in revisiting
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: them to write about it that and I was compelled
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: to do that. So it feels important to me to
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: really advocate for this story out in the world. Is
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: as much as sometimes i'd really rather just be, you know,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: under the covers with my cats, it's it's really important
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: for me to I feel compelled to be out there
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: to make sure that you know that the story that I.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Wrote of John and Me.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: Gets uh gets it's it's it's time, guess it's time
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: out there. And then you've been a great You're You've
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: been a great part of that. I'm really really grateful
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: and appreciative. Thank you, Cheryl.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. And it's a beautiful book. Congratulations. And
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: everyone can find out about your events in your book
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: at is it Kara Benson dot com or Karen Benson
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Writer dot.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: Com Kara Benson Writer dot com.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, all right, well Kara, thank you for being
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: on mind of her Mountain. This was a really wonderful
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: special conversation and I appreciate you being my guest.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: I appreciate you having me share a many, many, many
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: blessings in this time.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for listening.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to write me a letter seeking advice,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: please email it to me at Deardearsugar at.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Gmail dot com.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: And don't forget to rate, review and subscribe wherever you
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Happy trails, and I'll see you next week.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Minover Mountain with Cheryl Strade is an iHeart women's sports
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: production produced by Britney Brown and Rodney Brown of Barbara
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Jean Productions. Supervising producer is Kaylin West at Realm. Associate
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: producer Amaya Brathwaite. Our executive producers are Molly Barton, Jerry Carreta,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Grace Views and Jesse Katz. Our theme song is composed
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: by Gramoscope Music. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, Happy trails, and I'll see
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: you next week.