Latest / Motherhood Uncut / Solo in Japan: The Beauty of Being Alone | Motherhood Uncut Podcast | Season 5 Episode 10

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Solo in Japan: The Beauty of Being Alone | Motherhood Uncut Podcast | Season 5 Episode 10 · Motherhood Uncut

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's Kate Kripke and welcome to the Motherhood Uncut podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are committed to making sure that nobody ever needs to mother alone.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: We bring to you wherever you are the conversations that we need to have to survive and thrive in motherhood, but so often keep silent about the things that make us laugh, cry, celebrate, rage about, and reflect on, the things that bring tears of sorrow and tears of joy, confusion and wonder, fear and gratitude.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: We want you to feel good about your mothering and to feel supported along the often clunky adventure of life as a mom.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: In motherhood uncut, you can expect eye-opening conversations with experts in parenting, mental health, and women's health, as well as moving and inspiring conversations with moms who are out there paving the way for their children.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: You'll likely agree with some of what you hear and also disagree with some of what you hear.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: All we ask is this that you come with an open mind and boatloads of compassion for yourself and mothers everywhere.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of wine or a cup of tea, put on your walking or running shoes, turn up the volume in your car during your commute or the pickup line at school.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just show up and mother with us.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have got you.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is a bit different and a bit longer than our typical episodes.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm taking you on a journey with me, like a literal journey.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of weeks ago, I ventured by myself to the south of Japan for a six-day walk on the Kumano Kodo.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I recorded myself through this adventure, and so this episode today is a peek into my inner thoughts, my experiences along the trail, and interactions with people who I met along the way.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is me sharing me when I'm mostly all alone.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: The Kumato Kodo is a series of ancient pilgrimage routes that crisscross the Key Peninsula, the largest peninsula of Japan.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: These mountainous trails are used by pilgrims to the Kumano Sanzen, the three grand Shinto shrines of Kumano.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Shinto, which is translated as the way of the gods, is Japan's native belief system and predates historical records.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: It overlaps in part with Buddhism, but is in itself its own religious faith.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: The focus of Shinto is nature and the way that it supports us, which for me is an easy place to put my spiritual self.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: The walk that I did took me over mountain passes through dense forests and in and out of small Japanese villages along the way.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I am hopeful that you get, if even just a little bit, an experience of this place, its beauty and its magic, and the way in which nature reminds us all to simply be exactly who we are.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: This walk got me out of my comfort zone and required me to quite frankly, literally, walk my talk.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I did indeed pull up my brave pants.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So now pull up a chair and join me.
• 3:06
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• 3:09
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• 3:16
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• 3:19
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• 3:23
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• 3:35
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• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Day one.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: There were like six people getting off the bus with me this afternoon.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I felt myself fall into that sort of like frenetic state of mind that happens when you don't want to be left behind.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a combination of FOMO and desperation and fear.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I caught myself like rushing, rushing to go to the bathroom before starting the walk.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And sort of being slightly afraid that if I didn't stay with them, I wouldn't know where the trail started.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: All those weird limiting beliefs that show up when we're in a place of comparison.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so funny because not only do I actually trust my capacity to get from A to B on a trail, I do it all the time at home in Boulder.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I also have this entire route mapped out for me.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: But just like that, I fell into this quick what-if scenario.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I uh started my walk today by visiting the shrine at the start of the Kamanakota.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this shrine that begins the trail.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um interesting thing to know about Shinto shrines, which I learned recently from my new friend John, is that they're not actually a place to ask for anything, to pray for anything.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: At the shrines themselves, you're actually just meant to share gratitude towards the whatever God or spirit is represented in that shrine.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And all the spirits and guides have to do with nature.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Something I've really been practicing in my life is trying to express as much gratitude as possible for the things that I feel, well, grateful for and sometimes take advantage of.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this religion, Shinto, this belief system, just pays so much attention to nature and the natural world, and I can buy into that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm off.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: As you can hear it, my breath, I've just walked up the first very steep piece of this walk.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, there's a small cave that you actually have to crawl through, and it's called the Womb W-O-M-B.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And historically, you know, this route, this pilgrimage has been walked by pilgrims for thousands of years.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And historically, that rock formation has been known to bring good fortune to birthing mothers when they move through that womb for safe births.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: So ironic, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll see, we'll see what I learn or grow into as I'm birthed through this journey.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, I'm catching myself like rushing.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm in some kind of a race.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to prove to myself that I can hike this trail really fast, but I'm all alone.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's nowhere to go except straight ahead.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I got plenty of time, but it's like this habitual nature.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's still there in me, of course.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Of faster, more trying to prove myself to myself.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh fascinating to watch it come forward.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I arrived at my first destination and um I am like blown away.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I am in this uh mountain town, mountain village, and um I literally have never seen anything like it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Rice patties, the sun is just setting.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just got to my little Ryokan, which is a very traditional Japanese inn, and I'm the only one here, and I have this place all to myself, and it is peaceful and quiet and so beautiful.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: I am going to sit here and drink a beer at sunset and come back and report a few things about my day today.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I've just had like one of the most amazing meals I've ever had.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sitting in my little traditional Japanese inn.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually here all by myself.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the silence is glorious.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Listen.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's a sound of rice patty tree frogs and uh a river and nothing else.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, I'm sort of resisting the urge to uh be on my phone and do that stuff that we want to do when things are quiet.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when things get too quiet and we get too still, we just wanna do something.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm fighting that urge here tonight.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really committed to yeah, I know I'm on my phone right now recording this, but not to be looking at screens or surfing the web.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: But just practicing quiet.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, it's not easy, but man, it feels real important.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, day one's a wrap.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Met some great people, spent a lot of time walking alone.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm this incredible, incredible mountain village, and um I'm gonna sit in the quiet for a little while, maybe read my book, and uh call it a night.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you tomorrow.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I woke up this morning to um a crystal clear blue sky.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And all of these sounds that you're hearing.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: This place is so alive.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I of course slept amazing.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: The uh futon system here in Japan is like, why aren't we all sleeping on futons?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: So comfortable.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sitting outside on this beautiful ledge overlooking these incredible mountains, and I'm just listening.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think doing this podcast over these six days is helping my urgent desire to share this with people because um there is something so obvious about me, and I notice it all the time.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when I learn something or do something that moves me in some way, I just want to tell someone about it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I like want to explain in detail to people what it is that I'm experiencing.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I am uh doing that here, and I'll tell you, I woke up this morning thinking about girlfriends.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Girlfriends.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: That is what is on my mind this morning is girlfriends.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um I'm certain that a lot of my girlfriends in my life, you obviously know who you are, uh, are listening to this episode right now, but I really do not know who I would be without the women in my life.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about having women to celebrate life with, to celebrate you, to hold you up, to share the ups and downs.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but those women who you can do the same for them, because while it feels so important and good to be held and accepted and cherished and loved and celebrated for who you are, it also feels so freaking good to do that for other people.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, that is one thing that's been missing for me in Japan over these six months, and I've met some incredible women for sure.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to get to know someone well when you're only seeing them for a very, not very often for such a short amount of time.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it's really made me realize how important women are in my life.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: In Boulder, I um I'm something I do regularly that I I don't know, to say I'm known for that is probably an annoying egotistical narcissist statement, but it is certainly something that people know that I love to do, which is to host these ladies' nights.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um I'm doing that actually before we leave Tokyo.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have some of the women who I've met over for an evening for a patluck.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um but here is something I'd love to just put out there to you all this morning.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Find your women.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Find your women.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're listening to this and you're like, yeah, easier said than done, I don't have those people in my life.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Just know that the other women in your community, whatever that community is, they also need their women.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes it just takes an extra step of vulnerability.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Remember Brene Brown's work?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Vulnerability breeds connection.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: So if you feel like you don't have a community, you might want to take a moment and ask yourself how vulnerable you're you've been willing to be with people.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you may find that as you're as you're willing to be more vulnerable, people will lean in.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, transparency and authenticity are not necessarily the same thing.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't need to be transparent, you don't have to give details all the time, you don't have to spill the beans all the time, but just being really authentic with who you are.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a lot of close women friends in your life, it might be because you haven't been totally authentic.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: It is um, it is something that will shift.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Finding community is something that will shift everything.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's nine o'clock in the morning on day two, and it's so interesting to watch myself.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like noticing this sense of urgency.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Urgency.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm watching the clock.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, gotta get going, gotta get moving.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you that my walk today is probably gonna take me about four hours.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's nine ten.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: No one's waiting for me on the other side.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's like nothing I have to do when I get there.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: No one really gives a shit, literally, what time I leave to get on the trail and how long it takes me.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, inside my body, I feel a pull.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way to describe that is that my brain, like, I have this impression or this in this instinctive thinking around urgency.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is that because I grew up in New York City and life was always urgent and people were moving fast?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because that was modeled to me as a kid?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely don't need to over-analyze this, but it's interesting to think about like where does that body sensation, where does that instinct to move, to get up and get going, where does that come from?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm gonna tell you something.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm experiencing sitting here in this beautiful spot in this tiny mountain village in Japan, is peacefulness and this little sense of urgency is creeping in.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like if I weren't paying attention, I would just get up and go.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh what I really want to do right now, and what I think my body needs and my spirit needs is just to stay, to just sit.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I'm gonna do.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Holy moly people.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: My walk today is starting with a very steep uphill.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Woo! It's taking me out of this sweet mountain village town and up into the mountains.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um I'm going up and up and up, passing some rice fields, I'm passing these adorable homes that overlook just vast landscape.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And all along this little trail is this little creek.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's so alive here.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: There is a sutra, the heart sutra, as it's known in Buddhism.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the summary of that sutra is this form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I woke up thinking about that today.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what if what if when we really got down to it, all those things that we were trying to make tangible, trying to make it so we could touch them, that they actually were empty, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: They were not tangible.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if the things that we can't touch, the things that we can't attach to, the things that we can't make solid, that those things are really what life is all about.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be thinking about that today on this walk.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: For a long time, when I was really struggling most when my girls were little, just struggling and sort of like, oof, the catastrophic thinking we can get into.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not just when we're parents, actually.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of people can get really sucked into that what if catastrophic thinking.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I realized at one point that the chatter in my head pretty regularly was some form of I'm not okay.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not okay, I'm not okay.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, man, I suffered from a lot of panic attacks when I was younger.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I had they're so visceral for me to remember.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, when I started to really take ownership of my own mental health, focus inward instead of outward, I came up with this habit of when I was walking with every footstep to chant inside my own mind this mantra.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I am okay.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I am okay.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when I was strolling and walking slowly, it would sound like this.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: I am okay.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: I am okay.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I was going for a jog, which I did a lot of, it would be like I am okay, I am okay.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: You get the point.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that the rhythm of my footsteps would match the rhythm of this mantra.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you what I mean by I am okay.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is different than the desperation.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm okay, I'm okay, right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes when our kids are young and they fall and they're freaking out, and we want to be like, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe we were raised in a family where, you know, when we were struggling, our parents might have said, You're fine, you're fine.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that is not what I mean by this mantra.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am okay.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: One of my therapists slash mentors slash spiritual teachers, Bruce Tift, explained once to me that the opposite of fear is not safety, it's confidence.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: That the opposite of fear is not safety, it's confidence.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he was a Buddhist teacher.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um spiritual faith religion that I don't claim to be a Buddhist, but I will tell you a lot of that philosophy really aligns for me.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I began to really talk with him about this.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what does that mean?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it means that we can never guarantee safety, right?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, if we spend our lives trying to guarantee safety, we're gonna create some sort of a bubble, right, because of all the unpredictability that happens in life.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: But we can get ourselves to a place where we can trust that in this moment I'm okay.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: While I'm scared, anxious, emotionally uncomfortable, sad, disappointed, worried, angry.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can also be okay.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And by okay, I mean alive, breathing, capable, steady.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I had a client once say to me when I was trying to teach her this concept saying, that is a low baseline.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think to myself, maybe, maybe it's a low baseline, but it's also evidence.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's the evidence that we can.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Be okay even when that we can keep breathing even when that we can stay steady even when these things happen in our life that lead to discomfort.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that mantra for me, it's funny.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was just walking and I realized I was saying it in my head, and I've I've practiced for so long that I don't even realize that I'm chanting it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's just in the background.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you, it is one of the things that has really shifted my perspective of myself.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have I spent years in the earlier part of my life saying to people, I'm really anxious.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just an anxious person.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I have anxiety.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I realize that that's only true if I'm walking around in my head thinking scary, anxious thoughts, like I'm not okay, I can't do this.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: But when I change that radio station, when I change the background music to I am okay, I'm okay.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: In this moment, I'm okay.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about at 1027 as I walk through this cedar forest, which I gotta say is pretty mind-blowing.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am okay.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Try it.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just had this experience where I bumped into a really sweet couple that I met yesterday.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: They are nomads, they are from, you know, originally from partly from Seattle, New Jersey, uh, Colorado.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: They basically live in their camber van, travel around.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: They said that they spend their lives house sitting for people and going on adventures, and they're really smart.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was funny, I had this sort of feeling of like, oh shit.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Not oh shit, because they're people I don't enjoy.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I walked with them for quite a while yesterday, but sort of oh shit, like, you know, at this point in my life, anyone who knows me knows that I am not afraid to ask for what I need.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: I maybe it's the New Yorker in me.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I've always been quite direct, but you know, I took a moment and I said my greetings and I asked them about their night and did a little small talk about the beauty of the scenery, and then I said, I'm gonna walk ahead.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Really looking forward to a little bit of solo walking time today.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I am so grateful to have met you.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hopeful I see you on the other end of this trail.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't apologize, we didn't make excuses.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just said hi and bye.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, because of my confidence in that, they totally understood.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: No problem.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm reminded of how easy, oh sorry, how difficult it can be to ask for what we need, to claim what we need and want, to feel well, and how there would have been a time in my life where I would have walked with them for longer than I wanted to because I felt bad about saying to them that I wanted to do something different.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, can you relate to that?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I bet you can.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think we can all relate to that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: But here I am once again, walking by myself on this unbelievably beautiful trail.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yesterday, in my kind of frenetic desperation to keep up, I was shoving shit into my backpack.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm carrying like a day pack, very, very few things, only the necessities I have with me.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I was like shoving things in there, and my back was hard to zip, and I was like a little bit of a crazy lady, like desperately trying to shove stuff in there.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: When I got back, when I got to my sorry, when I got to my uh little Ryokan last night where I was staying, I unpacked my backpack.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And today, I very intentionally and thoughtfully rolled up the clothing that I had brought, organized my pens and my journal and my books and my maps and my snacks and my water bottle, and I placed it all very methodically in this backpack.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And man, it fit just right.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I had a little extra room.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, this is the thing that probably drives my husband the most crazy about me, is that I tend to just shove shit away.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like so metaphorical, isn't it?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like we can do this with our thinking and our experiences and our emotions too.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: We just shove it away, shove it all in there, and then it's like feels full, feels like there's no more room.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we unpack it and intentionally look at it and decide if things are worth carrying or not, and gently lay it all out in a very organized way.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Things just fit.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't fit, then we decide whether or not it's worth keeping.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, Jamie, you'd be very proud of me.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have a very organized backpack today.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a belief in these, this part of Japan in this wilderness, an old belief that maybe it's not just a belief, maybe it's a fact.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: That if you listen closely enough, you can tell what kind of trees are in the forest based on what they sound like when the wind blows.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how poetic is that?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's just that reminder of like how how infrequently we actually pause and listen.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: We make assumptions, right?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm standing in this forest right now.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, based on my small amount of knowledge, these trees all look like pine trees to me.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I have no doubt that there are a ton of different kinds of trees in here.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably more diversity than I can see and that I understand.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when I get quiet and listen, it just sounds like wind in the trees.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: As you probably gathered by this point, I am becoming, I'm kind of in a very philosophical mode as I walk by myself in the south of Japan.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the things I was looking forward to on this walk, is like, what comes up?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do I notice come up for me in my mind?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just remembering this uh theory, this I don't know, statement that there, if you listen closely enough, the wind and the trees will tell you what kind of trees are there based on how what you hear.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess I'm just recognizing how in life we often don't actually pause and really listen.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: We just make assumptions and we think we know when we don't really know.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's my thought for the moment.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is totally random, but I recently noticed that when I walk, I'm holding my hands and fists.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like a tight fist, but it's definitely a fist.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like my forefingers are wrapped around my thumb and both hands.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I brought this up to my husband Jamie recently, and I was like, I just noticed this thing, and he's like, uh yeah, you've been that's how you walk.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of blown away that I'd never noticed it before, and so I've been trying to pay attention, right?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what would it be like if I just walked with my hands relaxed by my sides rather than holding on to my thumb?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of cute actually when I think about it.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like like the image I have is almost like a child holding on to her parents' finger, her mother's finger.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm reading too deep into it with that, but anyway, I just caught myself doing it again.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in this forest by myself, and I noticed that my hands were in fists, so I'm relaxing them.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Practicing that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I just uh came about past about 12 people.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, can't take the girl out of New York, can't take the uh high achieving attitude out of the high achiever, but I just skipped a shrine so that I could get ahead of them.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lovely, lovely people, and I'd rather walk up here by myself than behind a big group.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: So there you have it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm walking on this part of the trail where there are all these fallen leaves left over from last fall, probably.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a rocky trail, and I'm zipped back to my childhood summers in Kent, Connecticut at Lake Warmog.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh really truly one of my happiest places on earth.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a hike right sort of on the side of the lake called the Pinnacle.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hike that takes you up to something called the Pinnacle, and the Pinnacle is this rock sort of plateau that overlooks the whole lake.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um growing up, this is actually a place that teenagers would go and party.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was also just a place that we would go for a hike when we were kids, and it's funny, I try to get back to the lake every summer.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: I brought my daughters there.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've spent time with my oldest childhood friends there.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I go and walk the pinnacle, I'm reminded of how short it is.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: It literally takes like 20 minutes to get to the top.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I know this is a phenomenon that you know people talk about all the time about how when we're little, things seem so big.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we actually become big, we realize how little they actually were.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And as I'm walking this part of this trail, I'm flooded with all of these memories of Lake Warmog, Kent, Connecticut, the pinnacle, my family, and certainly my biological family, but also my um chosen family, right?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: The people who have known me the longest since I was little, since the days that I was called Katie.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Katie Shaw, actually, is what I was referred to, or Kate Shaw is what I was referred to by a lot of my childhood friends.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just like so amazed by how even back then, when I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, New York, how my nervous system longed for the community.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Time with my girlfriends, Doc Talk, Kate and Amy.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you're listening, I'm thinking about Doc Talk.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: D-O-C-K-T-A-L-K.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Katie and Amy and I would gather at the end of this fishing dock for what we would call Doc Talk.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it was literally just girls talking about anything and everything that mattered.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I know just a little while ago I was talking about women friends and community, and it's just so interesting to really reflect that, gosh, even when I was little, I was craving that.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Even when I was little, I was craving nature, time outdoors, the pinnacle, the perspective from the top of that view.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny when we kind of get older and look back, those things that seem so insignificant at the time suddenly begin to all fall into place.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: They all begin to make sense.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, of course, I'm on this walk in the forest.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I've always loved walking and trails and views and nature, and of course I've created a life for myself where gathering amidst women is the core of what both keeps me afloat and also from my perspective leads to true, deep mental health and well-being.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have Alzheimer's on both sides of my family and got tested a couple years ago and have both of the Alzheimer's Alzheimer's genes.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: That does not mean that I will definitely get Alzheimer's, but it certainly does mean that I am at risk.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the reality is I can't remember names of things.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that the names of these sweet areas and villages don't stick in my mind is pretty distressing for me.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, for my 14-year-old daughter, oh, 15, she just turned 15.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that the language is so hard for me to remember is incredibly aggravating for her.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of annoying for me.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the question for me to consider is: is it important for me?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Does it feel important to me that I remember all the names of these towns or villages or that I remember words in Japanese?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not really doing anything to help me remember.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of coming in one ear and out the other.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if it was really important to me, I could definitely spend more time learning and writing them down and doing those things that would help my brain remember.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just not that important to me.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just came to the bottom of a trail where I had to cross over a road, and there was this Japanese man sitting there.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: He told me he was 83.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Did not look 83.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: But that's one thing I'm noticing about folks here in Japan.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're either 33 or 103, and you don't really know.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh anyway, he was surprised to see me on my own and was very um kind and respectful of my being on this journey by myself.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's a local man.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: He said he was training to climb a big mountain in Hokkaido.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, he gave me a gift.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: He pulled out of his bag this, it's probably three inches long.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's made out of a chopstick, he said, and it has these wings and these blue eyes, and it's on a sort of chain, and it's a dragonfly, big dragonfly.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, his English was quite good.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: He said he was giving it to me as a very practical gift, because in the summertime there are horseflies, and if I have this with me, it will scare the horseflies away.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Gift giving in Japan is a big part of the culture here, and um, I have to say, I'm always touched when someone gives me a gift, but I also have realized since I've been here how good it feels to give gifts.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I brought a couple of things to the dry cleaners, laundry is what they're called here, and there was this couple, older couple, who clearly were the owners of the laundry, and I just had this impulse to give her a gift.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I had brought these little change purses that Alkie, a friend of mine from Boulder, by Elkie, B-Y-E-L-K-E, is her business, and she handmakes these bags out of leather.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I brought a bunch of them as gifts here.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't what I don't know what came over me, but I felt this impulse to give this woman a gift.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I ran home and came back to the laundry and I gave her the gift, and they spoke no English.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I pulled out my Google Translate and I tried to explain to her that a friend had made it and I wanted her to have it, and she kind of looked at me like she wasn't quite sure what to do with me.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: However, it really felt good to give her the gift.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Gift giving.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of amazing.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: And now I have protection from horse flies.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Today I walked from Takahara to Chikitsu.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Chikitsuyu.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Chikatsuyu.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I came down off the trail to this really sweet little village.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually quite big.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, this is one of the places where a long time ago pilgrims would meet here and they would bathe in the river in Chikutsuyu because they believed that the river was purifying.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I crossed the river over this bridge and I looked to the left and it was like, ah.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sign said beer garden.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: Beer garden.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I came back here and I'm sitting in this gorgeous, very simple but gorgeous grassy area, looking out at a mountain.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: And there is an Italian guy who has been living here for 12 years.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like he's married to a local woman, and they have a goat farm, and they make all their own goat cheese, and he owns this little cafe.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I am drinking a draft beer and eating chocolate covered almonds.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I gotta say, I think I might be in heaven.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I made it.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: I made it to the town for the night.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Are you noticing that I'm not saying the names of the towns in these recordings?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's because when I'm picking up my phone to record, I'm not remembering the name of the town, but I will have it all laid out for you so that you can see exactly where I walked.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um that those bells you heard, it's really amazing.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Across Japan, the whole country, these bells chime at 5 p.m.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: wherever you are.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my understanding is that they're different in each region of Japan.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: But at five, they're called the five o'clock bells, and they go off to tell the children to come home for dinner.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I just love it.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: So communal.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, just spent a little while sitting down by the river, drinking a beer.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's very peaceful here, very different from last night.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: This place is sort of in a valley, so not way up high, but down in a valley.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it's gorgeous.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: The sun went down, it's a little chilly.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: I have a big walk tomorrow, about 15 miles.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna I'm gonna call it a day soon.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go back to my Rokon and staying in a very traditional inn, wacky and perfect in all the ways.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna eat some dinner and uh take a bath and head to bed early.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm gonna get up really early tomorrow and do it all again.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think I have a pretty big day of winding through some mountain villages, so I will uh catch up with you all tomorrow.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Peace.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's about 6 45 and I'm off.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Day three.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Holy moly.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Last night was a trip, I gotta say.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think there were six of us staying at this traditional Japanese inn, this Ryo Khan, and cast of characters, man.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them were Australian and over 60, which is so interesting to me, the life that people can live.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of that second half of their lives filled with adventure.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Really inspiring.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, we all sat around the dinner table.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Naomi and her husband, who grew up in Japan, run this inn, and we all sat around the dinner table last night in our kimono.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm gonna post a picture somewhere so you all can see if you want to check it out, but entertaining conversation, of course.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Conversation ended up in politics, which is never something that I'm super psyched about as an American.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: All throughout Japan, when people ask where I'm from, and I say the United States, the conversation so quickly moves to what's happening in our political system in our country, and it's just it's um man.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is something to uh notice for me what happens when I begin to have these conversations with people.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I got to bed early last night, woke up at the crack of dawn this morning, had the most amazing cup of coffee.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing, beautiful breakfast, and now I'm off.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this town was alive with pilgrims, alive with people who are doing this walk.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was sort of sweet.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I am finding again that I'm wanting to walk in solitude today, so I imagine this will be a day where I need to gracefully do that both and between being kind and meeting people, which I love, while also giving myself permission to honor the solo journey I'm on.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Japanese forest in the morning.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Something really cool to know about Japan and Tokyo.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually assuming this is true of all the big cities in Japan, but and all the train stations and all the subways, they have the sounds of birds chirping piped in to loudspeakers.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: So even deep underground, you hear the sound that you're hearing right now in the forests.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Forest bathing is something that originated in Japan, and it is really amazing what nature will do to our nervous systems.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've thought about this a lot in my life and a lot on the trail.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: What is it about nature that slows everything down internally?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, it's this like right, it's sort of the simplicity of the natural rhythm of things.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: Nature is sort of a it's a reminder to us that when we stop trying to be something other than we are, things work.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: These birds, these trees, the sunlight, the breeze, the bugs, everything I'm seeing on the trail here, it's just being itself.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that sounds sort of cliche and you know, woo, but that is what nature reminds us.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: When we just let ourselves be us without trying to be or do anything different, it all works in a rhythm of congruence, it all works together.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: When that happens, everything's just so beautiful.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: My ego got pumped up this morning.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was leaving, and again, I think probably at 51, I was definitely the youngest person at this Ryucon last night.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: They're probably all mid-60s.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, Where are your bags?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because on this pilgrimage, you can get luggage shuttle service.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to, you can have a van or a car or a shuttle service, bring your bags to the next spot that you're staying in.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm carrying my bag on my back.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Colorado girl.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: We backpack.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, what?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're kidding! You're so strong.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, yeah, I am.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't say that, but ah so funny to watch ourselves crave praise and respect by other people.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was a moment and I kind of loved it.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking so much about my mom on this trip, when I was little, not little, teenager, young adult, she and I would go on these really incredible adventures together, like to a remote yoga retreat somewhere, or cycling in Italy, or trekking in Peru.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: We'd go on these really amazing trips and she would be here with me.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: This would be the kind of trip, the kind of adventure she would go on.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: My mom passed away suddenly, uh eight years ago.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um she did of early Alzheimer's, and so I think her sudden death was more of a gift than a tragedy.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I have really, it's like I can feel her in my bones.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: I can feel her in my psyche.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like her essence is inside of me, which it's funny, it's a blessing and a curse.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you the things I am so proud of that I inherited from my mom.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely inherited her grit.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was someone who had this immense tolerance for pain.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here's a story for you.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was, gosh, it was a couple of years before she died.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: So she died at 71, so she was probably 69, maybe 70.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want you to know about my mom.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, she never stopped.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: She actually never stopped to slow down.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something I inherited that I'm working on this in my life that she never worked on.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'll come back to that, but she exercised every single morning her entire life until she died.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the day she died, she had regretfully canceled a Pilates class because she wasn't feeling well.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: At about age 69 or 70, my mom ended up having a toe amputated because it had been broken for decades.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Her toe had been broken for decades.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember her feet hurting as she got older, and she was like, ah, I don't want the recovery time.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna keep walking on these feet because I don't want to take the time to not be able to walk while I'm recovering.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: And her toe, her broken toe, had actually begun to grow across the other four toes on her foot.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: So picture what that looks like.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Icky.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: And this was how my mom functioned.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: She never stopped.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, she went to visit my brother once for a weekend.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: She had packed two left running shoes.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: And guess what she did?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: She put them on and ran, went for a jog with two left shoes.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you're getting the point here.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: This grit was a blessing and a curse.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: What I am so proud of is that I moved through my life really believing that I can do anything I want to do, that nothing necessarily needs to stop me.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, that ends up meaning that sometimes I don't slow down when I should.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: But her grit.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've got that grit.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've just got that grit.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, I'm gonna walk a six days by myself on this walk.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Of course I am.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: I get that from my mom.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually love that part of me.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love the part of me that isn't afraid to do hard things.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: What else did I get from my mom?
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my mom was a curious wonderer.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: She wondered about people.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if you spent time with my mom, you would feel like the most important person in her life in that moment.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't because she was faking it, like you literally were.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: You literally were, and I think I get my deep curiosity for humans from her.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely have inherited her mothering style.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: My mom taught me so much about empathy and steadiness and love.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: I felt so loved by her.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think her ability to love me so well is what led me to learn how to love myself so well.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is, well, see, it's always both hand, right?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: So my mom would drop anything for me.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not actually so sure that dropping anything for me necessarily really served me.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: What do I mean by that?
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my mom worked.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: She was a powerhouse in the legal profession.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: She broke glass ceilings.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: And anyone who met my mom, who was trained by her, who saw her at work in her professional life, would attest to that.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: She was a powerhouse.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: She was one of the pioneers in the field of mediation and arbitration, and she was so well respected and so good at her work.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: My brother and I got a little annoyed when we were having a typical sibling rivalry or fight, and she would sit us down and be like, now, let's hear from both sides.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now that I say that, I actually think I do that with my girls, and no wonder they're annoyed with me because that was really annoying when I was a kid.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that said, she was good at it.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, where was I going with this?
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, right, she worked all the time.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: My memory is my mom was never around, right?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like we didn't have family dinners growing up, and it's funny because when she was around, I was the only thing, me and my brother, I'm sure he would say the same thing, but I'll just speak for myself, the only thing she was focused on, which was amazing, right?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: As a cat as a child, as a kid, that was my mom's way to do it all, was that when she was at work, she was just pounding out the work stuff.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then when she was home, she would really put everything aside for me.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time, I developed this expectation in my relationships that when someone loves me, they're gonna put all their other needs aside.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: That when someone loves me, they're gonna, I'm gonna be the focus of their attention.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, thankfully, I've done a lot of work on this, and thanks to my work, I'm still married.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you something, for a lot of time in my life, if I was sitting in the same room as Jamie and he wasn't focusing on me, I'd think he was mad at me.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Something was wrong.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like sitting in a room being quiet together was challenging for me.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had this expectation that he was gonna be focused on me and want to engage in conversations and ask me how my day was and go on fun adventures and you know, all that stuff that of course we hope to have parts of that in our relationships, but my expectation is that that was gonna be the foundation of everything in my relationship with my husband.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's not sustainable, right?
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I also happen to, for better or for worse, probably for better when I really think about it.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it really served my ultimate work on this lifetime.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to marry someone who is an introvert.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: One might say an island.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so the more I craved his attention and his focus and his desire to know me and know about me and have fun with me and play with me, the more I needed that from him, the more inside he went because it was too much for him, understandably.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then the more he pulled away, the more anxious I got.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: See this dynamic?
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very common dynamic in relationships when you have a wave in an island, or someone who's anxiously attached and someone who's avoidant, has an avoidant attachment style.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if this is you.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're out there.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting to think about where that would have taken us because you know, life happens, you become a mother, you have children, things feel hard.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: For me, when I experienced those things, I looked to him to drop everything to cater to me the way my mom did.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had to learn to tend to myself.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: I had to learn to, yes, of course, want those things from him, but not need those things from him.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of learned from my mom that loving relationships mean that someone is going to either be gone and not available, or be there and only see you.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: That is not how secure relationships work.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta pause for a minute because I just came upon the shrine way up these steps that are covered in moss, and um, it's one of the oldest shrines on this route.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean thousands of years ago.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think this one was built in 11 something, 1100 something.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's in the middle of these cypress trees, and the cypress trees are I don't know, I'm not good with feet, but huge.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a shrine here with these statues, and it's so quiet.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no one here.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um I gotta take a moment and sit before I finish my story about my mom.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so anyway, as much as my mom was doing her best, I fully, fully believe that.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that she ever really figured out how to do the both and, how to both pursue her dreams and provide what I would call a secure attachment base for me.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: She was anxious, she was worried that I would think she was abandoning me.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: Rightfully so.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: I understand where that worry came from, especially now that I'm a mom myself.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: But her anxiety led her to overcompensate when she was home with me.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: I actually learned to believe, or learned to understand, and sure it is a belief, so I don't know.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I learned to understand that really because she was so worried that she was abandoning me, because she was so anxious about whether or not she could do her work well and do mothering well, she needed me to feel to believe that she was a good mom.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's like she it's it's not even like she needed me to feel and believe that.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like we all want our children to feel and believe that, but she needed to hear it from me.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I inadvertently, you know, I didn't ask to take on this role, but somehow I found myself in this role of wanting to make sure my mom knew that she was doing a good job.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like it suddenly became my job to remind her that she was a good mom.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Which is an interesting role for a child to play.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Not a role that I believe is a child's duty or a child's job, a child's responsibility, but I for sure found myself in that role.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: So did my mom love me?
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: Heck yes.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: She adored me.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: Adored me.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Did she fully trust her capacity to be enough?
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, she didn't, which leads me to my mom's need to be perfect and her own anxiety.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: One of the last things my mom said to me before she died, her last visit to Colorado, I was taking her to the airport.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: She'd have these moments of lucidity.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the time I was with my mom, she was clearly lost in some strange cognitive decline.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: But she'd have these moments of lucidity.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: And in the car ride on the way to the airport, she got too very tearful.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: And she talked about, well, at first she said the thing that I'd heard her say many times, which is I've been running for class president every day of my life.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've been running for class president every day of my life.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: And here's something you need to know about Margaret Shaw.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: She was always voted class president.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if there was ever an opportunity to run for class president, she would do it and she would win.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: People loved her.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: But metaphorically, this was also true about my mom.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: She was always trying to please people and make sure that she was uh the good girl, right?
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: She would talk about that, her need to be the good girl.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: Starting in her family of origin, youngest of three kids, um, really played that role, being the good kid.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, although my mom pushed against the patriarchy and she pushed against all these people who didn't believe it was possible for women to be leaders professionally and also be mothers.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like she broke those glass ceilings, she did it.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but she also was really needing people to love her and like her.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, she really struggled when people didn't.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: She said to me on that car ride to the airport very tearfully that she wished she had been around more for our life, our lives, me and my brother, that you know, she didn't necessarily show up for games or events, or uh, you know, she wasn't the mom in the pickup line.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't bake homemade cookies, which again is fine.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that you have to do those things to quote unquote be a good mom.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_01: They certainly are a reflection of something.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom wasn't around for those things, she didn't do those things.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think she had a lot of regret about that towards the end of her life.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I think my mom's forever need to be doing the right thing and to be the good girl and to, you know, get accolades and to get good grades and to pursue amazing things and achieve them.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, talk about high achiever.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is Margaret Shaw, she flippin' did it.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned to I learned later on that likely what was motivating all that was a feeling of not being enough and not being good enough.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I inherited some of that.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we all have our own version of this, right?
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I know that a lot of my desire for achievement and my needing to be bigger and better and doing more and all of that thing, I know that underneath that is still a seed of if I don't do this thing, I'm not good enough.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to be my mom.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: I really did.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the pride I would feel in saying that my mom was my best friend growing up.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: And for another topic, another podcast episode, but I have some strong feelings about whether or not it's helpful to our children to have them think of us as their best friends.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I did.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to please her and I wanted her to feel good about herself because when she felt good about herself, she uh was more fun to be around.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that because I wanted to be her, just like her, I embodied a lot of the traits that she held.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: Would I be struggling with my own sense of not feeling good enough deep down at my core if I hadn't been raised by her and her temperament and her feelings of not good enough?
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: Possibly.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a blame or shame game, but it is very Clear to me with enough perspective, especially after she's died, to see where I followed in her footsteps.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: And quite frankly, this is why I do the maternal mental health work I do.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think in many ways I was bearing the burden of her unresolved anxiety.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say it thousands of times.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: If I can continue to learn about and manage and understand my own anxiety and insecurities and resolve them myself, you know, through support from others, but rather than projecting them and needing something from my daughters to make me feel better.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: If I can take care of my own anxieties so that they have room to just manage their own, you know, their own natural valid worries and anxieties about the world.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_01: If I can manage my own so that they can just manage their own and not bear the burden of mine as well, then I have succeeded in this thing called motherhood.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that is of course why I moved into the field of maternal mental health, because I'm doing this for myself daily, and I really want to help other women, other mothers out there, do it as well, so that their children can also be free of the burden of their mother's anxiety.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: So as I near the end of this walk today, um it's about 15 miles today.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm at a point where, as you can see, there's a lot of people here and it's been so quiet for so long today.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just walked the last hour with this lovely 24-year-old woman.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: Maya, if you are listening, what a gift it was to spend a little bit of this time in the forest with you today.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reminded of how much pressure we can put in ourselves when I was talking with Maya, who has no doubt is gonna do amazing things in her life.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: But like so many of us is inherently so self-critical.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: That self-criticism that comes with the need to achieve amazing things, the pressure to always try so hard and to not be lazy and all the stuff.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: We all know those feelings, and and even at age 24, there's this beautiful young woman who's putting all this pressure on herself.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, Maya, you be you girl, you be you, feel all the things that make sense that you are going to feel and trust, trust that you are enough and that you will do great things, even amidst all of the disappointments and mistakes that you make along the way.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: So many of us, it is just in our DNA to expect sometimes herokulin, herculin, her you know the word of doing amazing things.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and sometimes we just need to give ourselves permission to be enough.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm at the Grand Shrine of Hongu, very end of my hike today, and there's a whole ceremony happening here.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, day four.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is raining today.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like pouring, pouring rain.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm on a trail and it is muddy and wet.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe a little TMI, but I'm gonna say it anyway because all my ladies out there, I know you can relate.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I uh got my period this morning, and I'm definitely in that weird perimenopausal stage because uh I was not expecting it.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Really have gone months without getting it.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Got it today, which is you know a joy because there are no shops here, and I am totally unprepared when it comes to supplies.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we're just rolling with it, people.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're rolling with it.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I am blocking up this muddy trail, feeling 14 again, not having the supplies I need when I'm bleeding, and just gonna make it work because it's all one big adventure.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I do have to say the rain here in the south of Japan on the Kamona Koda, Kumano Koda, Kodo, is uh really majestical, which is the word I think I made up, but I love it's like the um mist and the rain, and I've crossed like four frogs already on the path.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm literally here all alone because I think most people were like, nope, not gonna go out walking today.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So this little leg I have this morning is only about an hour and a half.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually going back towards the Grand Shrine where I was yesterday.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm gonna spend a little time there today actually exploring and I imagine the crowds might be smaller tomorrow, so that's where I am.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Holy shit.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just walked through a humongous spider web.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, holy shit.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm pretty sure my face walked through right the center of it, and I think that there might be a giant spider at me somewhere.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I like literally I think it must have gone been across between two trees in this trail, and I'm like, where's the where's the spider?
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Spiderweb's like up my nose.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Alright.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, um, we're in upward.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_01: All the incredible chanting that you are hearing is from the Honga Shrine.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is the fire ceremony.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Although, of course, there's such deeper meaning, the uh background of the fire ceremony is to cleanse body, mind, and spirit and to remove negative energies and to bring on a positive vibe.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And all I have to say is that this vibe here is very, very positive.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I love so, so, so much about being in Japan is how welcoming the Japanese are to foreign tourists, to foreign people.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I've just been walking along here at the Hongo Shrine and been invited into this tent, and I stumbled upon this.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I stumbled upon this, and it is so beautiful.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at dinner and I just drank a beer after going to the onsen, which is basically a hot tub.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had a sake, and I think I might be a little bit bussed.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know, I'm all by myself, and here I am.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I I mean, I'm just got to dinner, and this meal in front of me, I'm the only one here.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're all the people.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the only one here.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_00: But this meal in front of me, gorgeous.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Are you guys gazamas?
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Last night when I was here at dinner, I didn't record, but they served me a I mean, the meal here is incredible.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_00: All the I'll have to post a picture in the show notes, but a whole rhythm to the meal, but they had um sashimi horsemeat.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just take that in for a minute.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sashimi horsemeat.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you, I pride myself in being someone who's gonna try new things, but I couldn't do it.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't do it.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Combination, I don't know if I could have cooked it, eat it, even if it was cooked, but the combo of horse meat and raw, yeah, couldn't do it.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_01: P.S.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_01: I have more sake at my dinner, so who knows what I'm gonna come up with for you in the next hour or two.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm back in my room, and I've had a delicious meal and some sake, and it's 8:15.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm ready for bed.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm ready for bed.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_01: It has been a good day.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a good day.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is still raining, like downpouring, and I still have this crazy rash on my legs.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I've had plenty of moments today where I felt like maybe not so comfortable.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, moments today, like at the fire ceremony, where I just felt so gifted to so fortunate to be there, right place at the right time.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Really extraordinary, actually, today.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what else can I say?
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the epitome of the both hand today.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: For all you women out there who are worried about me on the trail today, I did find myself a box of tampons, so that is a relief.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've got one and a half more days of walking.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: One and a half more days of walking.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, I wish I could let you into my brain because there's so much more happening for me along the trail that I'm reporting to you on, but I hope we're getting the gist of it.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read my book.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading a great book.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read my book and um I'll check in with you all in the morning.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_01: All about love by Bell Hooks.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a New York Times bestseller, and it is really, really good.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_01: In case you're looking for a new book.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on the trail.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit before nine.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've been walking for about an hour.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe 45 minutes.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like rainforest in these in this forest today because of all the rain yesterday, and the sun is out, the birds are out.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's quite a beautiful morning.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I did not sleep well last night, so I'm feeling a little sluggish this morning, but this is my last big leg of this walk.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm walking to Nachi, which is one of the most historic shrines here in the south of Japan on this walk, this pilgrimage.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um I'm feeling a bit of a desire to go quiet today.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'll be popping in here and there, planet by ear, with how much I report on this audio.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's that push pill.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm wanting to, I'm wanting to quote unquote work.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm wanting to produce a really great podcast episode, but I'm also wanting to be very quiet today.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see how it goes.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just arrived at Etches and Toge Pass, elevation 870 meters, highest point on the Nakahchi route.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's believed that there was a tea house there here, but the exact location is unknown.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading something.
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_01: The village of Kaguchi, elevation 65 meters, is located approximately five kilometers to the north in the river valley far below.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: For hundreds of years, pilgrims have labored up and down the seemingly endless slope, and even the famous poet Fujiwara Kika, 1162 to 1241, was at a loss of words after walking this section, stating in his pilgrimage diary from 1201 that this route is very rough and difficult.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_01: It is impossible to describe precisely how tough it is.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Seven kilometers into my walk today.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I'm thinking about.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Where do we learn to look forward to the future?
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean look forward like, oh, I'm looking forward to that vacation.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean that.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean like literally looking forward.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like eyes ahead versus eyes right here.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was a kid and I went to Sleepway Camp and I was like the homesick kid.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was really that kid.
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I cried every day for multiple years.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually a funny story.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I started going to Sleepway Camp when I think my first year at Sleepyway Camp, I was in third grade, and I went to a week-long gymnastics camp.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Went home after three days, cried so hard that my parents came to pick me up.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started going to tennis camps.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nick Balteri was one of those tennis camps I went to.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was a competitive tennis player as a kid.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Was on like the USTA circuit.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I when I would go to these tennis camps, I would be so homesick I would make myself sick.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_01: My parents would come and pick me up.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I did this year after year after year.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I can only imagine now that I'm a mom, what that must have been like for my parents to get those tearful phone calls.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_01: There were no rules at these camps about how often I could and couldn't call home, and so I was just calling home all the time, begging my parents to come pick me up, and they would.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I understand why.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, their heart, their heart must have been breaking.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was one summer that I was at Sleepaway Camp in Vermont.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_01: This one was a month.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, really, the fact that my parents kept sending me back to camp, even though I kept coming home and I chose this camp for a month, and it was a tennis camp, but it was a camp in the mountains of Vermont, and kind of an all-around camp.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_01: We were gonna be sleeping in cabins, and they said to me, You can go, but we're not gonna come get you.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Okay, no problem, I'm ready.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_01: This was probably eighth grade, seventh grade.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sure enough, a weekend.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_01: I got homesick, cried and cried and cried, and they said no.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_01: They said, no, we are not gonna come pick you up.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_01: We had this conversation.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be okay, you're safe, we love you.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they didn't come and get me.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you, I think that probably must have been one of the hardest things my parents ever did.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sure enough, I ended up loving that camp and cried my eyes out when it was time to leave, and then went back to be a camp counselor and made friends for life there, and uh then went on to travel the world by myself and instruct for outward bound and all these things that that homesick kid never could have imagined herself doing.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, during my homesick years, I remember saying things in my mind like, tomorrow I can say that tomorrow, I can say that tomorrow is the day before I'm going home.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let me say that to you again.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Tomorrow, I can say that tomorrow, I can say that tomorrow is the day before I'm going home, or something like that.
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I would literally look so far ahead into my future that I didn't have to be where I was in the moment with respect to time.
• 1:22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I sort of, that's kind of brilliant for a kid that's just dying to get home, but also kind of sad, right?
• 1:22:59
  SPEAKER_01: We can be so uncomfortable that we just, in order to stay sane, we are living in the future.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because of course there's gonna be plenty of times where that kind of thinking is important, and like anything, I think we develop these skills when we're young for survival because our little brains actually can't hold that we don't have the capacity with respect to brain development to hold a whole lot of big emotion by ourselves, so we'll come up with all kinds of incredible tricks, clever tools to get through hard times.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, hear that walking by a beautiful waterfall.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me the thing that really started to shift my tendency towards a lot of anxiety and fear was as soon as I began to practice my willingness to be uncomfortable, right?
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the message my parents were sending me at camp that final year was we hear you, we see you, we know how uncomfortable you are, and you're gonna be okay.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to save you from your discomfort.
• 1:24:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think about that all the time in my life now, that concept.
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think about that when I'm hiking up a hard trail.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think about that when I'm in a tricky mothering stage, I think about that when I'm having some form of conflict with my husband.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think about that when I'm at the dentist.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not kidding.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think about this concept all the time.
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that until we're really willing to be uncomfortable, we can't fully, well, I was gonna say we can't fully be comfortable, but I think what I'm really trying to say is as long as we can't tolerate discomfort, we'll be living in the future.
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're living in the future, because we gotta get away from the discomfort, we're gonna miss all of the depths of opportunity that's right here.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Alright.
• 1:25:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's my thought for the moment.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm having a moment where I feel like I may have missed the trail.
• 1:25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So here we are.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't this funny?
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Just one of those moments where I'm like, what do I do?
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do I turn back?
• 1:25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do I keep walking along this road?
• 1:25:58
  SPEAKER_01: With the hope that I will come across that sign that says trill to the right.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
• 1:26:07
  unknown: Ha!
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is just really the first moment in this whole walk where I've been all by myself and wish that there was another person hiking right near me.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, I'll be back.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'll let you know what I learned.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, good news.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw a sign that says I'm on the same, I'm on the right trail.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still on a road.
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was literally about to turn around.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I just saw a sign.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And look, I see it up ahead.
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, okay, back on track.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_01: So funny, this idea of being lost, this fear of being lost.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_01: It goes back to when we were kids, doesn't it?
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Of like getting lost in the mall, or losing our parents in the woods somewhere, or just that feeling of losing a child or losing your parents.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a pit in the stomach feeling.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually think that so many of us have that feeling just in life, right?
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Where we can we can feel so lost.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_01: What are we lost from?
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Our path, our way, our sense of well-being, our purpose-driven work.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to feel lost?
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of brings me back.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I ever actually finished what I was saying about my mom and all the things that I've learned from her.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_01: In a relationship, there's plenty of room for both disconnection and connection.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, let me say it differently, separation and connection.
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because the idea is that in a secure relationship, even when you're separate, right, you're still connected.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Separate, like if you're a working mom, when my mom was working, when I'm working and my and I'm not with my girls, there's still a trust in the connection that we have.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that separation, our relationship can tolerate it, right?
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's connection, there's coming back.
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the connection is something we trust too.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there doesn't have to be extremes of disconnection or separateness and connection.
• 1:28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I might be not making a whole lot of sense right now, but it is a really interesting concept to think about what really real healthy relationships look like, right?
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Where we can tolerate being together and we can tolerate being apart.
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the times we're apart, there's no problem.
• 1:29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the times we're connected, there's no problem.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's no desperation involved.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of a simple ebb and flow.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I wonder if this feeling of being lost or feeling lost is what happens when we lose the trust and the stability of something, right?
• 1:29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like our sense of self or our relationships or people.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_01: I might have to delete this part from this podcast episode because I'm not sure I'm making any sense at all.
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it is an interesting thing to think about.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Your healthiest relationships.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Are they ones where there's a feeling of tension, claustrophobia, tightness when you're together, or fear, anxiety, lack of confidence when you're apart?
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if you notice that you may be in a relationship that doesn't have a secure attachment as its foundation, where it's symbolized by an anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment.
• 1:30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe, like my marriage, you might have one of each and you're coming together and trying to meet in the middle.
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_01: All the way into what looks like late age.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hiking and walking and oftentimes in Japan you see very elderly women really hunched over almost at a 90-degree angle.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they're still out walking.
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, some of them have walkers, but they're out.
• 1:31:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's really quite amazing.
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_01: That was just a group, a large group of people, men and women, Japanese folks who are walking this pilgrimage in the opposite direction of me.
• 1:32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:32:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's just something about the women here physically so strong.
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_01: When I first thought about recording some of this walk, turning into a podcast episode, I thought I would have a lot to say.
• 1:32:26
  SPEAKER_01: On this walk.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, from time to time I do, but for the most part, I'm really not thinking.
• 1:32:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually pretty aware of that being a relatively new state for me in my life.
• 1:32:46
  SPEAKER_01: One where I'm just noticing and not thinking.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_01: I am sure that that comes with my meditation practice.
• 1:32:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's essentially what I'm practicing every morning.
• 1:33:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's really interesting to watch myself on this walk.
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really have a whole lot to say.
• 1:33:09
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to describe everything I'm seeing to you because it is incredibly beautiful.
• 1:33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like this bamboo, early bamboo pasture.
• 1:33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that's not the right word, but low growing bamboo along the side of this river, and all of the rocks and all of the trees are covered in this bright green moss.
• 1:33:36
  SPEAKER_01: When I get up close and look at the moss, it's like it's like it almost has the appearance of snowflakes like that.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Those kinds of almost like each little leaf is unique.
• 1:33:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it is thick and bright green.
• 1:34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Not a lot of thoughts.
• 1:34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm back in Kyoto and it's funny, I didn't record for the last day or two.
• 1:34:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure why, except that I just wanted to keep it to myself.
• 1:34:24
  SPEAKER_01: So weird.
• 1:34:25
  SPEAKER_01: I went through these uh days on the trail where I just needed to share it.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And having this podcast as a place to do that felt really um, really good.
• 1:34:38
  SPEAKER_01: It gave me a place to bring all my awe.
• 1:34:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then towards the end of the trip, I just didn't want to work.
• 1:34:47
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to be doing anything other than anything for myself.
• 1:34:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna take just a few minutes to summarize the end of this incredible adventure.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_01: As it's clear now, I left the original spot at the start of this walk.
• 1:35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Day one, going from Takagiri to Takahara.
• 1:35:15
  SPEAKER_01: That was that short day where I ended up in that incredible mountain village with all the rice patties and the frogs and that little space, that that tiny little that tiny little house all to myself.
• 1:35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible way to start this journey.
• 1:35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Super peaceful.
• 1:35:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, I don't really know that there are words to describe how I felt that first day, except alive and in awe.
• 1:35:49
  SPEAKER_01: The sounds along this trail have been amazing.
• 1:35:53
  SPEAKER_01: The next day I walked from Takahara to Chikatsuyu, to that village, that little town on the river, and stayed in that wackadoo Ryokan.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was so wonderful.
• 1:36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Traditional, traditional Japanese inn.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think the family that lived there had two rooms that they opened up to people walking the pilgrimage.
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we had this actually, there must have been three rooms because I think there were six of us at dinner, all sitting in our kimono robes at dinner together.
• 1:36:37
  SPEAKER_01: They were, I think all of them were from Australia.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hilarious conversation with sake and amazing food.
• 1:36:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was a trip.
• 1:36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I slept great that night.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the next morning I woke up and was off on my incredibly long day.
• 1:36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Walking from Chikatsuyu to Hongu.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that day was about 15 miles.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, lots of steep with some valleys.
• 1:37:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, as I think back now, I can't even really remember what that day was, except that I met several people along the way of who you've heard from, some.
• 1:37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have chosen to not share my conversations with all of them because for all I know, some of you are listening to this podcast.
• 1:37:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's interesting, the conversations you have along the I have along the journey are short and sweet.
• 1:37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the people you meet on a walk like this are really incredible.
• 1:37:42
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to believe that you we cross paths with the right people at the right times.
• 1:37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like the incredible couple I met who were on their honeymoon.
• 1:37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Such, such an incredible joy to meet them, just starting their lives together.
• 1:37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Man, so much ahead in life, you know.
• 1:38:03
  SPEAKER_01: From the Hangu Shrine, I spent two nights in Yunomine Onsen, where I had that rainy, rainy, rainy day.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so interesting what rain will do.
• 1:38:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's so it's it's interesting here in Japan.
• 1:38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Rain is actually, it does something to the colors here.
• 1:38:25
  SPEAKER_01: It sort of dulls the colors that are not vibrant and brightens the colors that are.
• 1:38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And being up in the mountains on a rainy day is like walking through a cloud.
• 1:38:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was wet that day, a little grumpy, definitely hormonal.
• 1:38:44
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the day I happened upon the fire burning ceremony at the Hangu Shrine.
• 1:38:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you, there's one thing I've learned in life, and certainly along this journey, is that when I just allow whatever's happening to happen and go with it, incredible things end up crossing my path.
• 1:39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or it's probably more likely to say I cross the path of incredible things.
• 1:39:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the day that I walked into the fire burning ceremony at the Hangu Shrine, which was really incredible.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Really incredible.
• 1:39:21
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I love most about Japan and about Buddhism in Shinto is the ceremonies.
• 1:39:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're so powerful and deep.
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_01: And again, when I think about how this whole belief system is around celebrating nature, fire, sun, water, air, wind, earth, all the things that have been around for since the start of time, since the start of the earth time.
• 1:39:55
  SPEAKER_01: It makes sense to me that we would be worshiping or sharing our gratitude or celebrating those things.
• 1:40:01
  SPEAKER_01: I stood in awe in the rain watching that ceremony for a couple of hours.
• 1:40:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I kind of didn't move.
• 1:40:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was really profound.
• 1:40:10
  SPEAKER_01: They burned this huge pile of cedar.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can go and look in the photos that I'll attach to this podcast episode and see some of the pictures of that.
• 1:40:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have included some sound bites here, but yeah, it was really extraordinary and special.
• 1:40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Two nights at the onsen, and then I was on my way again and walked from Yunamine Onsen to Nachi, to the Nachi Shrine and the Natchi Waterfall, which, if you've ever looked through photographs of Japan, you've most certainly seen pictures of this incredible area.
• 1:40:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's just um magic.
• 1:40:53
  SPEAKER_01: The Nachi waterfall is known to be one of the most spiritual places in Japan.
• 1:40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I spent some time there, met a few people, but really stood right at the base of the waterfall where you can literally feel the water from the waterfall splattering you in the mist in the air.
• 1:41:16
  SPEAKER_01: I will say, having that be the end of my hike, I was so tired and grateful and in awe of the whole thing that I actually couldn't do much except stand there for quite a bit.
• 1:41:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was a really beautiful day.
• 1:41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I met some people.
• 1:41:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not sure words can really explain what that felt like to be at the end of that walk in that magical place.
• 1:41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, I have included some sound bites here.
• 1:41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead over to my photo album to see some pictures.
• 1:41:48
  SPEAKER_01: From Nachi, I took a bus into Kikatsura, and that's a port town right on the coast.
• 1:41:56
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, I walked from the east coast to the west coast of southern Japan across this Kumano Koto pilgrimage trail.
• 1:42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Ended up in this port town where I spent a night at one of the weirdest hotels I've ever been to.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is a I had to take a boat, a little ferry boat, over to the hotel.
• 1:42:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I swear to you, the hotel must have had like 10,000 rooms.
• 1:42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Am I exaggerating?
• 1:42:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my room was 8863, if that tells you anything.
• 1:42:34
  SPEAKER_01: The hotel was at the base of this cave, and the onsen was inside a cave.
• 1:42:41
  SPEAKER_01: Really profound, actually.
• 1:42:43
  SPEAKER_01: The onsen water was milky white with all the minerals.
• 1:42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Onssen water has been known to treat and cure all kinds of illnesses and diseases.
• 1:42:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you something.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_01: That crazy rash I had on my legs, gone.
• 1:43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Gone after a day of being in that onsen.
• 1:43:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of have to make the connection between the onsen water and my leg, which no longer has that rash on it.
• 1:43:12
  SPEAKER_01: One of the most profound experiences I've had on this walk happened at this inn yesterday morning, actually.
• 1:43:20
  SPEAKER_01: I woke up, had breakfast a little late.
• 1:43:23
  SPEAKER_01: I woke up late, let myself sleep in, and I had breakfast right as the restaurant was closing, and I found this little table in the corner, and I noticed this other single woman, traveler, a white woman.
• 1:43:39
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed her immediately in the dining hall.
• 1:43:43
  SPEAKER_01: She was wearing a beautiful dress, really incredible pixie haircut, lovely looking woman.
• 1:43:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I just happened to be sitting at a table next to her unintentionally.
• 1:43:55
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was finishing my meal, I looked up and she was standing at the end of my table.
• 1:44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And she said hello and asked me some questions about being a single woman traveling alone.
• 1:44:08
  SPEAKER_01: She then became very tearful.
• 1:44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I invited her to sit down and she explained to me about how she had been in Japan and her life had dramatically and drastically changed.
• 1:44:23
  SPEAKER_01: The rug had been pulled out from underneath her.
• 1:44:26
  SPEAKER_01: I won't go into details of her story here just to protect anonymity and also to cherish the conversation we had.
• 1:44:33
  SPEAKER_01: But needless to say, her life had taken a serious 180-degree turn.
• 1:44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And this woman was very tearful and understandably frightened about what that meant for her, and was really inspired to walk the Kamonakota trail, but terrified to do it alone.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so we sat and talked for a while, and I ended up getting her my maps that I was now done with and my booklet of instructions that I was done with.
• 1:45:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I talked with her for a while about her life and her journey.
• 1:45:12
  SPEAKER_01: She's in her 60s, two daughters.
• 1:45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like quite a difficult life up to this point where her life was taking yet another difficult turn.
• 1:45:25
  SPEAKER_01: I had along the trail, as you know, been given this handmade, what's it called?
• 1:45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Dragonfly on a chain by that elderly man, Japanese man who I'd met along the journey, and he had given it to me for protection on the trail.
• 1:45:41
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason, when I was up getting my maps, I grabbed that and I grabbed the Bell Hooks book that I'm reading right now.
• 1:45:50
  SPEAKER_01: Her book is titled All About Love.
• 1:45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't read it yet, pick it up.
• 1:45:54
  SPEAKER_01: It is a gorgeous exploration of love.
• 1:45:58
  SPEAKER_01: For some reason, I grabbed both of those things when I went downstairs to chat more with this woman, and I handed her the dragonfly, and she became really tearful again.
• 1:46:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Do you know what this is?
• 1:46:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, it's a dragonfly.
• 1:46:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, My mother died when I was young, and she told me she would always come back to me in the form of a dragonfly.
• 1:46:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's these moments where I'm reminded that there's something divine and bigger than us happening in this world.
• 1:46:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like we cross paths with the right people at the right time.
• 1:46:41
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason she needed to cross paths with me, but I'll tell you something.
• 1:46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to cross paths cross paths with her because this woman, she kept calling me darling.
• 1:46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Darling.
• 1:46:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's something so tender about the term darling.
• 1:47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Darling.
• 1:47:07
  SPEAKER_01: I thought so much about my mom on this walk.
• 1:47:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that I was crossing paths with this woman, and we were sharing a moment with a dragonfly and reflecting on our mothers who had both passed was very meaningful to me.
• 1:47:23
  SPEAKER_01: It makes me feel a little tearful recalling that exchange with her.
• 1:47:27
  SPEAKER_01: I gave her the book.
• 1:47:30
  SPEAKER_01: She took it, she received it with such gratitude, and then I was on my way.
• 1:47:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you, that was one of the most meaningful interactions I've had on this whole journey.
• 1:47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Truly.
• 1:47:41
  SPEAKER_01: I spent the day after I left that wackadoo hotel, and I found myself walking through Kikutsuda, which is this really sweet little port town right on the water.
• 1:47:52
  SPEAKER_01: I found a shrine that you is on this little island that you can only get to on low tide.
• 1:47:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I walked out to the shrine, happened to be there at low tide.
• 1:48:03
  SPEAKER_01: See?
• 1:48:04
  SPEAKER_01: Timing.
• 1:48:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 1:48:06
  SPEAKER_01: I spent about an hour out there.
• 1:48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Again, pictures, you can find them in my photo album.
• 1:48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Walked along, walked about 40 minutes to the beach, spent some time on the beach, and then caught a train.
• 1:48:18
  SPEAKER_01: Back here to Kyoto, where I've just spent an evening and a night at a really funny little restaurant.
• 1:48:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was a craft beer and food restaurant.
• 1:48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly catered to tourists, but quite frankly, it was just the right place for me to be last night.
• 1:48:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm finding myself a little overwhelmed by the city now that I'm back in a city after being on this trail in the middle of nature for six days.
• 1:48:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it was funny.
• 1:48:50
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of walked in a city with my backpack.
• 1:48:53
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like an outward-bound instructor again.
• 1:48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who knows what outward bound is is gonna know what I mean.
• 1:48:57
  SPEAKER_01: But my grungy clothes and my backpack and my sneakers and the city, it was such a blending of these two parts of me.
• 1:49:05
  SPEAKER_01: The city girl who loves to dress up and engage in fashion with this mountain girl who just wants to be on a trail with my backpack.
• 1:49:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I just woke up in this sweet little inn, and I'm gonna spend my day walking through Kyoto and then catching a train later back to Tokyo, and I think I'll end this episode here recognizing that I've made it back to a big city and have done this walk.
• 1:49:40
  SPEAKER_01: There really are no words to describe what that was like.
• 1:49:45
  SPEAKER_01: I do think one of the biggest takeaways for me in reflecting on these days is that I I really didn't think about that much.
• 1:49:53
  SPEAKER_01: I found myself so immersed in the forest without really thinking.
• 1:49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just being there.
• 1:50:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's made me feel so grateful for my life for the both and nature and quiet and space and the vibrance of people and energy and city life, all the things in between.
• 1:50:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you, listener, ever get an opportunity to go take off by yourself for a night or two somewhere beautiful.
• 1:50:27
  SPEAKER_01: I really encourage you to do it.
• 1:50:29
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be six days, doesn't have to be in the south of Japan.
• 1:50:34
  SPEAKER_01: But spending time alone is a really important, important thing to do.
• 1:50:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was listening to a podcast on the train ride here yesterday, and I was reminded of this truth, which is that we can't fully ever trust ourselves until we fully know ourselves.
• 1:51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't possibly fully know ourselves until we fully slow down and stop and listen and feel.
• 1:51:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so many of us go through life not wanting to do that because when we slow down and stop and feel, we feel all those things inside of us that are challenging to feel.
• 1:51:21
  SPEAKER_01: We might realize things about ourselves that are challenging to realize, but we really can't trust ourselves completely until we know all of our parts.
• 1:51:31
  SPEAKER_01: The good, the bad, the ugly, the messy, the clumsy, all of it.
• 1:51:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there's something so magnificent and full and alive when we learn to love all of our parts.
• 1:51:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I know this might sound cliche or woo, but it's also deeply true.
• 1:51:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where deep maternal mental health comes in, right?
• 1:52:00
  SPEAKER_01: We want our children to fully trust us, and they can't possibly fully trust us until we know how to fully trust ourselves.
• 1:52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, we're the blind guiding the blind.
• 1:52:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, I want my daughters to be able to really trust me.
• 1:52:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so therefore, I am committed to doing whatever I need to and whatever I can to fully trust myself.
• 1:52:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's gonna require some retreat and slowing down and feeling and listening and hearing and exploring.
• 1:52:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I really hope that you get the opportunity to do that someday.
• 1:52:37
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be hard at first, perhaps even painful, but eye-opening and freeing.
• 1:52:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when you can fully trust yourself, the world is your oyster.
• 1:52:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sending love.
• 1:52:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you loved this episode and enjoy this podcast, please just take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review, and send it to one mom out there who you think might benefit.
• 1:53:09
  SPEAKER_01: When you do that, you help to make sure that no woman out there ever feels like they have to mother alone.
• 1:53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.