Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Sarah Lindgren | Awakening Through Healing

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Interview with Sarah Lindgren | Awakening Through Healing · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kay Eck, and this is where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary lives.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Today in the studio we have a very special guest.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Please welcome Sarah Lindgren.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Sarah.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Kay.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is very exciting.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I uh you and I have known each other for quite a few years now.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you came to teach yoga at my yoga studio.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, back in 2012 already.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And since then we've just become good friends, and I'm so happy to have you in my circle.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the incredible things is that these in some of these long-lasting relationships where people are on a similar journey, I get to watch as you expand and grow and become wiser.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been so much fun for me.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I definitely feel like I was an infant when I first stepped into your studio.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was actually my first um yoga teaching job that was in a studio setting.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So prior to that, I had been in a gym setting, which was interesting and very beneficial in its its own way.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: It taught me a lot as a teacher, but um I remember stepping into your space and the there was like a magnification of ease and openness there.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was very supportive.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite the little incubator that you had there.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was a good place to start your journey that way because um I just feel like it was such a special place and such a special time.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um it was also like such a huge incubator for me, just in terms of life and everything that I learned by doing that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's really incredible.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're gonna talk about you.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that you grew up in Missouri.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So in some parts, yeah, some people might might pronounce it Missouri.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: We call it Missouri.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you grew up in Missouri, which is a separate and distinct from Missouri, I guess.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh maybe you can tell us a little bit about that.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: What was growing up in Missouri like?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so just because it's fun to share with everybody, the town that I grew up in is called peculiar.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Which is yeah, it's super fitting for like I feel like my entire adolescence because I was odd and awkward and I was a peculiar person, you know, in the middle of of uh nowhere, Missouri.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was about an hour away from Kansas City.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it was pretty rural, like people have their their big belt buckles and and their cowboy boots and you know their big mudder trucks, and it was um, it was definitely a very interesting place to to grow up in.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was because it was fairly rural.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um there was a lot of space for us to explore.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: We had like our own children's tribe in the community, and we'd run down to like the creek and get muddy and dirty and go play in the woods, and it was very like um very Winnie the Pooh, 100-acre woods kind of kind of style.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just had had the run of it, um, which was good and bad.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it definitely gave us gave us space to um to learn how to lean on each other, you know, which is is excellent without the assistance of adults.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like um, you know, as a parent now, it's challenging to find time and space for my kids to explore um in a way that they feel safe and secure that also doesn't freak out other parents, you know, letting kids just kind of run scares people these days.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it was definitely nice to be a wild child.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what were the downsides of that?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, because there wasn't a whole lot of um constant parental um uh watching.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the word is I'm looking for.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't they weren't always present.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the children in our neighborhood had a zip line very much like home alone style.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So there was like the handlebars, and you zipped from a platform up in the trees.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: It was higher than like the two-story building of the house across to the other side.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess for boys, it's pretty easy thing to do.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm stubborn and um and I don't like, I've never liked to believe that there's something that somebody else can do that I can't do, um, especially when everybody else is showing me that they can do it.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I climbed this tree, got up on the platform, held on to the handlebars.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's no harness, it's just handlebars.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, like, and I don't remember any of this because the minute that I stepped off of the platform, I fell.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I sustained a concussion.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So my head hit the back of a uh a tree trunk.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: The back of my head hit a tree trunk.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And my uh young teenage friends, in all of their wisdom, when I got up and started, I said, I'm gonna go home and started walking in the wrong direction.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: They decided to help me get home.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I went home, and the next thing I remember is waking up in my bed with a bucket next to my bed and getting sick.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then my mom came in and gave me some medicine because she thought I had the flu.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then about a week later, I went back to school and everybody's asking me if I'm okay.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I have no recollection of the experience whatsoever.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: It took years before I could even recall that we went to the tree and that I went up it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: I still can't remember anything after that, but I do remember climbing up the tree.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be one of the downsides of not having so much parental engagement.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes stupid shit happens.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Stupid shit happens, yeah.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: I also um I also uh participated in car surfing as a teenager.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Not recommended.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: It does hurt when you fall.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like you had a rather adventurous uh nature to you, and I I I can relate so much to those to those stories because I also was such a tomboy.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if I was like, I had two older brothers and there were a lot of boys in the neighborhood, and I was just like bound and determined to not be seen as a girl, you know.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I was tough and I would fight, I would get into physical fights with boys, like wrestling around and you know, stuff like that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, bring it on, I can beat up any boy on the block, which was you know ridiculous.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, so I can relate to that.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what was your sense of yourself as a child and especially like in terms of how you fit into your family?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I've definitely always had that like black sheep kind of sensation.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um as an adult, I can see that there were several of us that were black sheep within our family.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we didn't really, we could see that a little bit within each other, but really didn't have like the language to be able to um to cultivate a relationship around that.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I from a very early age, I was very interested in religion and spirituality as well as like the cosmos and like why why we're here and how on earth that how did that happen?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I don't believe that was something that my siblings or parents um understood or really knew how to respond to.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they would, you know, I I was seeking something and I didn't really know what that was.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to church with my friends, I would do those kinds of things.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um but definitely um while they supported me, there wasn't a whole lot of understanding that and I was very um flamboyant and loud and um I think I would be labeled as a high needs child.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I needed a lot of reassurance, I needed a lot of um stimulation, and uh I like extremes, even as an adult.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I like extreme softness and I like extreme challenge.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I like being in the center is a really hard place for me to be.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's definitely been a lot of my work as an adult, is trying to like find that space where I'm happy in the center.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yes, as a young person, it was very um very extreme oriented on both both edges.
• 9:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So do you first of all, I want to ask about the black sheep um syndrome, because uh I remember one of my children saying in a conversation that they were considered themselves to be the black sheep of the family.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, come again?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, if you're if you were a black sheep, you were the like the most loved, respected, honored, adored, and cherished black sheep that I've ever seen in my life.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I just think it's it's interesting.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did your family see you as a black sheep, or was this sort of self, was this a self-evaluation that you didn't fit in?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that it that it's both.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we all grew up with like the stories of our childhood, and a lot of the stories that um I got to hear on repeat were about um my extremes.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that was a big part of of my adolescence, knowing that my what was normal for me was extreme for everybody else.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: But as you said, there was there was a lot of adoration.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was so um I'm from a blended family.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Both of my parents had a single child coming into their marriage, and I'm the child that united our family.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have a younger sister as well.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So there's four of us that all grew up in the same household together.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um my older sister was pretty much like the stereotypical popular girl.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: My brother was kind of um the stereotypical little genius, you know, blowing things up in the basement, you know, exploring scientific experiments and things like that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was, I was just set aflame.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so being that person that kind of unified the family, I I did receive a lot of love all the way around.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which is probably why as an adult, I look at my family and I um my siblings and I don't agree on this.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that we were all like in it together and supporting each other, and and that we had um this great, beautiful unit.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit of a romantic too, so I might be romanticizing that a little bit, but um my older siblings definitely felt like there was more like sibling rivalry.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's also very interesting.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And my younger sister felt like everybody was enamored with me, and uh she had a lot of resentment for me.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it is interesting that black sheep syndrome, because I while I didn't feel like I fit because of stories and and you know many other factors, um I also uh did receive a massive amount of love.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's interesting that this that you you're talking about your sense of yourself being influenced by other people's perceptions of you, that that what they were considering that you were about was these extremes, and then you kind of took that on.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, that's not normal, that's extreme.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I think of like how much of us is actually formed by our parents' reactions to us, our siblings' feelings about us and stuff like that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of crazy, really interesting, also.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is, and I think that that um while I embrace being um a sensationalist is what I choose to call it now.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I embrace it fully.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have definitely had, you know, a lifetime to undo all of this this work, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: All of all of these labels.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes I like to wear those hats, sometimes it's kind of fun to wear those those hats, but uh recognizing that the time and place where these things were happening um were somebody else's experience, not necessarily my own, and trying to figure out where in that flow is is my authenticity and allowing um and giving grace to my parents and my siblings for for them voicing their perceptions.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um because without it, I wouldn't be where I am today.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Such a dichotomy.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So in this in this sensationalist lifestyle that you like to lead, what is it about those extremes that you enjoy?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is it like do you feel more alive in those situations?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then also, what is it about the middle that's uncomfortable for you?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really beautiful question.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I so I think the middle is uncomfortable for me because I haven't spent as much time there.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say that the the sensationalist experience of um it tends to be I'm a very emotional person.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm all like water and fire.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when you start looking at at lots of different modalities, whether it's yoga or astrological or whatever, it's I'm just that's where I'm at.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm uh very very fluid with my emotions.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So those can tend to be to be quite extreme in one way or another.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I while I embrace that, I recognize that it can frighten some other people, right?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: When I was young, I was very um aggressive and angry a lot.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and even as an adult, I do, you know, like with my yoga practice, for instance, I enjoy the slowest, softest experiences, like the restorative and the yoga nidra.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I like the things that are challenging that make me feel like um I'm strong or I can overcome something.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost like I have to have this experience of um intensity in the challenging realm, and then the healing happens on the other side and the softness.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I guess I just kind of pass through the middle.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it isn't even a middle.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just, I just feel like you know, we put all these labels on our experiences, like the word extreme.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, maybe it's just like that's where you that's where your sweet spot is, like, you know.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's where I do my best work.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's also like so many of us, I've um experienced, you know, trauma in my life.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was 13, I experienced two um two, I had two experiences of of date rape, if you will.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so at that point, um, that fire really took off.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of fire, a lot of anger.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the healing process for that really didn't start until after I had had my second child.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: It had been a I had repressed those memories and I had been acting out, doing all of these things that people would consider to be crazy.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um just so I could find, you know, something I could make contact with.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's part of that extremism is trying to find a place where I can land, right?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that is also like safe and secure.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's really profound.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So those experiences were you were quite young, really young.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was 13.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: With both of them.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And did your parents know about it?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did you tell your parents?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, they did not find out until until you know a decade later, a little more than that.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you not tell them?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um initially there was definitely shame, you know.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I like so many people who have been in those experiences, I thought that it was something that I asked for, something that that I brought on by something that maybe I did, you know, I was a 13-year-old little girl.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: There was nothing I could have done that would have made that okay.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, and so and then after that first experience, um that definitely uh made my the ground very uneven, very shaky.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, like most children who don't feel secure, um, I acted out a lot, and um those extreme behaviors became um unhealthy extremes.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I found myself sneaking out, going to parties, and then putting myself in a position where another unsafe experience took place.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that was um, well, those two were definitely the most violating, there were tons of like little micro violations between that point and the point where I was sitting on the couch with my husband, and I looked at him and I said, I was raped.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: It just hit me like a ton of bricks, and the tears came, and all of the things, you know, all of the emotions came to the surface.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you know, I sought out um therapeutic help from from a local women's shelter in Aurora Mutual Ground, which I absolutely adore.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um they've been a big part of of my my healing and transformation as well.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: So after that after the initial experience and then being coupled with um unhealthy behaviors, drugs, alcohol, sex, all of those things, um, it like locked it in a box and was put back so far that I didn't even I had completely forgotten that it had existed.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was just talking with a guest um yesterday who grew up in Colombia in the 80s and had an extremely violent um childhood in every way.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she had absolutely no memories of her childhood whatsoever until she did, and much, much later.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that is, I think, a common experience when you're very young and you have no tools to cope with that, and of course, um, when you're 13, like that's not a conversation that 13-year-olds are having with each other.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no peer support, there's no not even any awareness that that could actually happen.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, very, very difficult.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did um, you know, other than the fact that your the extreme behavior went from adventure to, you know, danger, I guess you could say, or um unhealthy as as you put it, how did those did that sort of background influence the decisions you made moving into adulthood?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were react, it was all reactionary.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, very few of the decisions I made moving into adulthood were um were planned.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or well thought out.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up dropping out of high school, didn't explore college at all, found myself in an abusive relationship where I was again just reacting, not not responding, but just reacting to what was happening.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that that was um in and of itself another set of traumatic years.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was um he very effectively uh cut the cord between me and my family.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: He was very um skilled in that.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um having the the wide lens, I can can see that I was not the first of his um the first experience that he had had um manipulated in that way.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and even at the end of our relationship, I was able to recognize that that his patterning was going to continue and I had a choice to make, and I stayed with him longer than I should have in that space of knowing because I was worried that it was going to happen to another person.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it was falling on, I was doing that martyrdom piece where at least it can stop with me.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So wow.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what were your parents experiencing as you watching you on your life path?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were grasping at straws, most definitely.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So um I remember in middle school after I had kind of like imploded, um, they showed up one day to take me to counseling, which was just another explosion.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know it was coming.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: They just showed up at the school to like whisk me away and take me to see somebody, um, which definitely sent, you know, as at that point I was 15.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely sending signals that something was wrong with me, you know, that I needed to be fixed.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and at that point everything had been kind of like locked away.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I, while if I would have had maybe a an opportunity to explore with the counselor that I felt supported by or any kind of energy worker, um, it could have been a different outcome.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I walked into there with all of my barriers up, you know.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that was not necessarily a very fruitful experience.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were they were grasping at straws, definitely trying to like figure out what was going on.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they wanted to help me, but didn't really know how.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because they didn't know what either.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because right.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's kind of an impossible situation, you know, as a parent to try to be trying to figure out what's going on, and also knowing that a lot is not in under your control, and it's obviously a strong-willed person is gonna do what they want to do, you know, which it sounds like you were.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So um then what okay, so after you, how do were you finally able to leave that relationship?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: So let's see, I moved out of my parents' house when I was 16.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's when I met this person who was uh 15 years my senior.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: So they were not thrilled about that and they looked at legal actions that they could take.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: In Missouri at the age of 17, you can essentially, there's nothing else my parents could do.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: They couldn't force the cops to come pick me up and take me home.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just a few months away from my from my birthday.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So they felt like that might do more harm than good by creating that force.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I was in that relationship until um what 2001?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when we moved up here to Chicago.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So let's see, that would have been about six, five, six years.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a long relationship.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yes, and it was incredibly um emotionally abusive.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um so many things happened in that experience.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, but that is ultimately what brought me to Illinois.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: So again, there's that piece where all of this muck that I've gone through, all of this challenge and turmoil that I would not wish upon anybody, there's now this other side.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have this beautiful life now, and I wouldn't be where I am today if I wouldn't have had all of these other pieces.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you're this person that you were in the relationship with moved the both of you to Illinois.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: You moved together.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: We did move together.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, his cousin had a job offer in Chicago.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, like a week before Christmas, um, his cousin had had asked um both of us if we'd want to move with him because he couldn't afford the rent in Chicago on his own.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I jumped at the chance when I was in eighth grade, actually, um our school took a trip to Chicago and my mother came with me.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember looking up at the skyscrapers and saying, I'm gonna live here someday.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Okay, honey, you you do that.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: So when I actually did, I think she was a little surprised, not to mention heartbroken, because it was I just I disappeared right before you know all of these these holidays that mean so much in our in our culture.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and plus you were moving with this person that you didn't approve of, and they could probably see more than you could about how damaging that relationship really was for you.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, most definitely.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know that my mom did without a doubt, both she and my father, their first relationships that they both had their their first children with, um, were not healthy relationships.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of drug and alcohol abuse in those.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So they could definitely see all the flags.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, that must have been torture for them.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So when did you start to uh what happened after that relationship ended?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: How did you start to come aware of what was the happening for you?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to be honest, it was still several years before I started to um to wake up.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was still very much on like a path of self-destruction.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in that initial relationship, um he very cleverly crafted this desire for me to be a sex object, right?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and started having me as soon as I was old enough, and in Missouri, you're old enough to start um dancing, well, um, exotic dancing, when you're 18.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the moment that I was old enough to do that, he essentially had had um convinced me that was something that that I should be doing, that that would be good for me.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that was my path um to financial freedom, right?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so after I uh was no longer in relationship with him, that was how I was continuing to pay my bills.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and while I was in a in a very unhealthy work environment, um I was able to see the spectrum, right?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: The spectrum of the people who were coming in to work to go to college, the people who were who were very much like where I was, just kind of um on that path of self-destruction, but maybe not quite at um as rapid of a pace as some people.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then there were you know, the people who were severe drug addicts um that uh were engaging in every unhealthy behavior, you know, for their soul, their spirit that you can that you can imagine.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that that went on for a while, um until I met um my, I guess I'm in the process of divorce.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So my um the person I'm uncoupling from.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that, you know, it was just us, it's just been a string of unhealthy relationships.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, while that relationship had initially started in a space of nurturing, you know, I I had like princess syndrome, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was my knight in shining armor coming to save me and take me away from all of this um chaos and turmoil in my life.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and it was it was a reprieve.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: There was a sweet spot there where um I was on my own and starting to dismantle some of the destructive behaviors that that I had been engaging in and starting to look at what are my options.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was finally able to start to see value in myself, which was a beautiful gift, and I'll always be grateful um to my ex for that.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um but as we all know, when you are when you're not well, you continue in those patterns of of kind of like find uh seek and uh and find, you know, you you pacify one thing and then another thing comes up, and you're often not at the source or at the root of of that um trauma or problem.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, we we had two beautiful children together.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when my youngest was um about two years old is when I I recognized that I had like this massive sack of trauma.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I was aware of like the relationship trauma and the idea, you know, um of being in that verbally and mentally abusive relationship and all of the work that I needed to do to note it to become aware of my own strength and value, but I still hadn't noticed that underlying cause or root of it.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I went through the therapies at mutual ground, which was absolutely beautiful.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I learned a lot of how to to pull myself out of a triggered response.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that way, you know, if I was having a flashback, which happens a lot with people who have the repressed memories, they just kind of come back at random times, it can be triggered by a sound, an experience, a word, um, or nothing at all.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned how to count planks in in the floor or tiles in the ceiling or whatever there was multiples of because that would that would help me ground.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then once that treatment um was over, because it was offered um by a student who was in a therapy program, so it's completely free.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, getting back to the value, I didn't feel that I had the ability to pay right for these services that I needed.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: There was there was that that guilt piece.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when that was over, I was kind of floundering for a little bit.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um my first experience with yoga was when I was pregnant with Hannah, my oldest daughter.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't really realize all of the trauma that I had been carrying, but I remember leaving that practice, having it be the first time that I felt like I was inhabiting my body for a really long time.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to breathe and I didn't realize how profound that was.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I would come back to yoga through those couple years while the girls were pretty small before I realized that that was the key for me to be able to take everything that I learned in therapy and counseling and put it into my body and to make it work for me to stop actually having those flashbacks and extreme triggers.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until I coupled both the wisdom and the knowledge of how to manage the physical or the mental emotional piece and putting it into the physical body and letting myself move through it that I was able to start to promote healing.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm thinking about your movement through these relationships and um how how there's multiple ways of looking at it and multiple sort of levels that it that these relationships are working on.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think of it as that you were moving unconsciously, like there were there were unconscious belief systems and traumas that were propelling your behavior that you were not aware of in connecting with different people.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: But also, as you say, like there is sometimes these relationships do serve a higher purpose of providing that reprieve, as you say, or um giving you the financial wherewithal to do something or to just take a breather.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you gain more self-awareness, then a new aspect of the relationship comes in that that also serves your growth.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's there, they're these relationships, even if they end up not working out, they have so many beautiful benefits and gifts to them.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the gifts is that sometimes we outgrow them, you know, like it's um, yeah, it's kind of a crazy ride.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And but for me, it really helps to it, you know, if I can see the totality of all of my experiences, then no one experience can is defines me one or is the um is the mistake, they're always catalysts for some greater growth, you know.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the cumulative experience of my lifetime to this point, I I'm I'm grateful for because I for the first time in my life, and I've been saying that really since I um started teaching yoga, that was a very empowering practice for me.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um because of the way it's helped me heal heal my trauma.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've had this strong desire to give back and to share that with people.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so each step that I've taken in that space has um definitely helped me be feel like I'm living my best life each day.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely um gives me purpose.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I while I'm not one that believes that necessarily our paths are written out for us, I do believe that our souls come here for an experience.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I believe that my soul knew more, of course, than like my physical human, my skin suit um knew how to manage and to traverse this.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the more that I am able to anchor into that experience of like soul space, the more I feel guided in the fact that all of these things that I've had to endure are really in service of what my soul came here to do, which is to help people heal, to help people know love and to know self-love.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way I can do that is by knowing what self-love is not, right?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: I need to have that, I needed to have that experience of wanting it all to be over, of having no self-worth, no self-value to be able to be in a space where I can see my vibrancy and radiate from my heart space, even though it's horrifyingly scary for me, right?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: To show up with that vulnerability.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I know it's necessary and that that's what my soul, that's what I'm here to do.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, does like emboldens you, you know, to go through these experiences that we have.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I also feel that uh from my own path, I could say that the more experience you have trusting the soul's wisdom on this path, the easier the transmutation of these difficulties becomes.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's almost like as soon as you recognize what's happening, what's at play, you acknowledge it, show appreciation for it, learn from it, it's like gone.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's definitely in my experience getting easier.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, never say never.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, I would definitely agree with that.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, that's also one of the things that's really beautiful about time is we have this opportunity to look back, and I can see these moments when I was really young before any of my trauma cycles began.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, connection to um ancestors that had passed.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And again, not being able to necessarily understand.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I'm blessed to have a mom that's a little bit like on the fringes, if you will.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: She nothing is out of the ordinary.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there was a lot of acceptance for me to say, well, I feel like I'm getting these messages from grandma.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm getting this, I feel like, you know, I've had these experiences, these thoughts, these recurring dreams.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I look back at those now with everything that I've had to walk through, and I recognize that I had that connection so I could make my way through these experiences and not necessarily be alone.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: They're definitely like my guardian angels.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason I had all these experiences, but didn't go all the way, you know, into becoming a heroin addict and having a drug overdose.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason why the times that I tried to commit suicide, they failed.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I and I I do believe that they've been in support, you know, it's like I got my my squad behind me and I'm the only one that can see them.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so happy you do have your squad there for you.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: So how would you um what would you have to to offer people who are experiencing for the first time um a recollection or memory that they had suppressed that was difficult?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can't do it by yourself.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think is the first thing that comes to mind.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, once you start to trust yourself again, because when you come into that space of that repressed memory, you don't know if it's real.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have so much doubt that it ever even happened, but it feels it, you feel it in your body.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: You start to get sweaty, you start to get shaky, you see all of these things.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can tell you what was on the TV, what color the carpet was, you know, I all the I can tell you all of the all of the little details, but there was still that part of me that was that thought, I don't know if this is real, right?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because it had been so long, and why did it disappear, you know?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so knowing that you can't do it alone, for me, seeking out the support of a of a woman shelter, women's group and therapy that was available, um felt like a safe step.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I couldn't trust myself.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then once you start to establish that trust in yourself, then I would really encourage people to do the hard work, the work that like none of us want to do, whether that's you know, meditations or maybe um utilizing other services to access um deeper parts of yourself, maybe you know, um your Akashic records or just going on the journey and seeing what unfolds for you.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it was through the yoga practice, right?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which then led me to a deeper understanding of self and source that kind of validated all of the feelings that I was having before.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, seeking out others, not letting yourself be an island, because you really don't have to do it alone, whatever it is, whatever the trauma is or the repressed memory.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's so important because.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: People can go a long time with this struggle of doubting reality and not really knowing what's real and what's not.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: That was something that my my guest yesterday was also describing.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: And her story is very different from yours, but that is a common denominator, that lack of trust and why you would have forgotten such a terrible thing.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I also, in addition to all of the tools that we that we have available to help, I think like just having the courage to not look away from your experience and what your what what your body is telling you that it you need to look at.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: And because these things, although they seem momentous at the time, they can be broken down, they can be worked through, there is help available.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's so important.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for bringing that to our attention.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: So what's next for you on your healing journey?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I definitely heal through action.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um as I mentioned before, I'm a sensationalist.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: I like to to feel it, but then I have to assimilate it.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that process can take it can take some time.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I am definitely called to help others in this space um of self-love and self-acceptance.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that um women in general in our society have we showed on ourselves a lot, right?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: We we have been told um in a variety of different ways that we need to be something other than what we are, um, or that we need to appear in a certain way.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I've definitely, I think, I've definitely tried on a lot of different hats, a lot of different suits, trying to find myself.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and the only place I could find myself was turning inward and not being afraid of what that looked like.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's another thing that I think is really prevalent in our society is using fear as a tool of suppression.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that needs to be dismantled.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be dismantled in every facet, every relationship that I can possibly think of in our current um in our current time.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the o the only way we can get there is through through self-exploration and self-trust.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to get past the fear.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I want I want to be available to to essentially like hold your hand, you know, and and know that you're let everyone know that they're not alone.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's the time that we're living in is incredibly challenging, it's incredibly stressful.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we don't have a lot of community is broken right now, and and I think we need a return to community.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we need to be able to have multi-generational experiences so we can heal collectively.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to do the individual work, but we also have to do the collective work.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we can all come to a space where we can be validated in our own experience, where we can be vulnerable without shame or without fear.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's that's what I've been working on for quite some time.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely you know a long journey, it's a long experience.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's also where I feel called to put my energy.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to roll back just to something that you said earlier in that response about the importance of this integration time.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you kind of break that down for us and tell us like what your process is and what what that really requires?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I think sometimes it for me it feels like I move through things almost at hyper speed.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that probably a lot of other moms have this experience where you've got X, Y, and Z that you need to do, and not just moms, anyone who feels a lot of responsibility.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a list of things that you have to check off for others before you necessarily put yourself first.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: So working in self-care and time for pause is um a requirement for me.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: If I don't have time for me, it's specifically in the morning.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: I get up um as early as I possibly can to still feel like I can sustain um throughout all of my motherly duties through the end of the evening, um, which usually looks like 5 or 5:30, and having a breathing practice to help myself anchor sets my day off on the right start.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it moves into meditation, sometimes not.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on where I'm at um in my physical body and how well I'm able to uh to transfer into more of that cellular space where I feel like I'm able to connect to that deeper self and soul.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it happens spontaneously, sometimes it requires more effort.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's where I'm able to um gather the information and um transform it into wisdom in my body.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of just knowledge that I've accumulated, it's through that process that I'm able to hold it in my cellular system.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's the the process of sharing it, which is is um its own practice um that also you know has has uh a scope to it.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I tend to share in nuggets.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of it comes through in my my teaching, my yoga teaching.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um anytime I'm on the mat, there's definitely like that connect to physical self, that connect to source, and that connect uh connection to to love.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: I like to bring in a lot of poetry as well that helps um make a lot of the experiences and sensations that I'm feeling in my physical body feel more grounded and real.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I would say it's multifaceted, it's multi-layered in the way that I um process and assimilate.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for instance, I mentioned earlier that I'm uncoupling from my uh my spouse.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've been together for 18 years, so it's it's a pretty long time.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's lots of different facets for that.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: And just the process of being able to say to him, This is no longer working for me, took six months of me knowing that I needed that this is what my heart, my soul was called to do, and then having to process what that was going to look like for other people, how I was going to move through it.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then, so right now, you know, it's it's autumn.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was this spring that I that I filed for divorce and started moving through that process, and it has literally been this week.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's um that everything that I have been working through through the spring and the summer has been present for me.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's been like a multi-layer cake um that I feel like I'm currently like slicing into so I can see each of the layers how over the past six months it's been um informing my physical experience, my mental and my emotional experience.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost like I take where I move through all of these things where I've got a lot of little tasks to do.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then I take without really knowing, it's it's like the universe kind of brings it to me and says, Okay, it's time for processing.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I get handed like this stack of information that I need to go through.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh that for me is a lot of pulling back, so a lot of self-care right now, extra long meditations.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, later I've got uh uh a UV treatment that I'm doing, just more time for grounding for self-care, so I can process more deeply everything that I've I've been moving through.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: That that that feels really important to share with people that you certainly can rush through these experiences, but they're there you'll find that they just keep coming up if you don't really fully integrate them and give yourself that gift of time to let it settle into your body and sort of work its way into you and then out of you.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much that happens in that those those periods, and we really should encourage each other to take those that time that's required.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, this week I've um I heard this a while ago.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: It may have been when I first started um teaching yoga, it was such a such a cute little slogan: stop the glorification of busy.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like a lot of us get caught there, and when we're caught there, there is no time for process.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so even though I have like my daily routine of minimal processing, if I don't take time to process the big chunk, the big stack, um it's my world will halt.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Something outside of me stops everything else from happening because it because I need to process.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like a pandemic.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly like a pandemic.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: Stay home for two weeks, feel all the feels and the fear.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, that is such, I feel like that's really such good information for people.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's move on to our lightning round.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: You ready?
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: So ready, not really, but we'll go with it.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right, number one.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: What in your life have you not taken seriously enough?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: What have I not taken seriously enough?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: Laughter.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've not taken laughter seriously enough.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I tend to take life too seriously.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I will often breeze past those those simple, like I love the simple pleasure, but I don't I find the serious side of the simple pleasure.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: So giving myself opportunity to enjoy just the the cultivation of laughter and how profoundly healing it is.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna my second question is what what do you take too seriously?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I I find, oh my gosh, that I think that's pretty common for you know people who consider themselves to be on some sort of seeking journey, is that life is so incredibly loaded to the gills with meaning that you can really kind of get lost in in the esoteric nature of everything that's happening and the sort of mundane things that occur just sort of happen and you're not even really paying attention to them.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I've been discovering lately is when I'm actually I wrote a blog about it, and I'm about to put it on my website, that this has been a big, huge surprise to me that when I started like really engaging with life, with people uh as myself and allowing them to be themselves, I found a lot of sanctuary in that, a lot of that stillness that I had that I had within me, but I didn't have externally out in the world.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to see that it's now planting itself right in my daily life.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's been an incredible experience.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, so that like becoming more human, you know, like there's a lot there that we haven't really explored.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, that's been me too.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: More that and I've been asking for that too.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want more joy, more fun, more more um adventure.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so bring it on.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number three.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a cloud gazer?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, cloud and lights.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um yes, clouds are amazing.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely I'm a dreamy kind of person.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: I like to, I like to live in dreamland a little bit.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I don't even, I wouldn't even consider it a fan a fantasy to me.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's all very real.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like the dreams are more real than sometimes real life is real.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget the first time I felt like the big squeeze, that moment where you feel like everything's at peace and life is perfect and and you got your squad behind you, you know.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was, I don't know, I was I was in elementary school and I was walking home from my aunt's house, and I look up at the sky, and there's these big beautiful clouds, and there's those sunbeams, those light beams like peering through the clouds, and I just felt like um there's something bigger than me.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was my first experience with source and being able to connect to it, and it was absolutely beautiful.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been smitten with all clouds.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I am like obsessed with clouds.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I spend every single day looking at clouds.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I every single one has some sort of meaning for me, and it's funny.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's funny.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a question I actually didn't make up myself.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: I found it somewhere and I was like, wow, that's a really like I need that one.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, uh, number four, would you like to be famous?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Did you ever?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, when I was a kid, I definitely wanted to be famous.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: I even had a stage name.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna be Lisa Fina Seesaw because Seesaws were the most amazing thing that I could think of.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I was I was gonna be a famous ballerina.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that was my name.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: But no, absolutely not now.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why not?
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't want the response, I don't want that responsibility.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I want to I want to hold people and support people, but not through any kind of like false lens.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be somebody else's puppet.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like a lot of times with fame, you you end up being somebody's puppet.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there and I want to do it again.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can relate to that.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um awesome, I don't want to be famous either.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I um did I I I sort of knew that I think everybody on the planet has a brief infatuation with fame.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I I knew that like I had to resolve that before I could actually begin any kind of public life.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's why, even though I've always known that I was going to write a book from the time I was seven years old, I um it wasn't until I was whatever 59 or 58 that I actually did because I knew I couldn't do it before I had resolved the fame issue.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, um, number five, what activities make you lose track of time?
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: Any time I spend with my children, um, that it's easeful, okay.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: When we're talking about like picking up your shoes and doing your laundry, those moments drag on forever.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: But those moments of ease, um, where you just kind of like drop into that bliss state, you know, it feels like you could push pause and allow those moments to last forever.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I also find it in in my meditation practice, I actually and my breathing practice, um, I have to set a timer if I have somewhere I need to be, because I can very easily lose track of time.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I also lose track of time in the woods anytime I'm communing with nature.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's a very that's a very sacred space for me.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's definitely where I feel like I do so much of my healing is being able to ground into the earth, like literally take your shoes off, lay on the earth, get naked and go in the ocean or whatever it is.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's like any kind of like art.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, one more question.
• 1:01:52
  unknown: Okay, thank you.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, no, actually, skip.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't have one more question.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you did you bring a question for me today?
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I had mentioned to you that the first time that I felt like I had communed with my soul was when I felt that that experience of like light and transmission move through me.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just curious, when was the first experience that you felt that connection of soul and source?
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I um I think it's it's interesting because I think as children, we probably like our lives are filled with those as really young, young, young people, but that's all we know.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're so close to source at that point, like everything seems, you know, amazing.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I also was a child, and it was also I was sitting under a weeping willow tree in a park in my hometown, and it was the summer day, and we I used to go to this uh all day camp program where it was very unstructured.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you would just go there at eight in the morning, and um they would have you know some cracks or some a softball game or all kinds of things going on.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was sitting under this weeping willow tree, and the it was like a hot, humid day, grew up in the Midwest too, um, and the the humidity is just rising off the grass and that smell, you know, that really earthy, grassy smell.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I just was like transformed in that moment, like huge.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, like now it's you know that the it's so common to have those experiences.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have them experiences I have them all the time, especially cloud gazing.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: How about you?
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, yes, I so my first experience was also like outside in in nature, as I I mentioned before with the light moving through.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I also definitely feel like um now that I know how to name it and experience it, I I am able to see it more.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that it ever went away.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that I wasn't ever able to access it.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't know what I was accessing.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's given me enough, that's given me some empowerment to be able to set in that space and and uh kind of like steep in it.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's because it's not something that happens to you, it's something that you notice that is that is happening all the time.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so just the more you notice it, the more you can experience it.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's magical and amazing, but we forget, you know, because we got you know shit to do and all that.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: So right.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but that's you know, people talk about home, you know, home, sweet home.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's that's home.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's that's where I like to commune and and I like to get close to home.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Sarah, thank you so much for being with me today.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you and I appreciate your messages and your story, and thank you for sharing your story.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Kay.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate coming on your show and your podcast.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: I love listening to them all.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I it's such a pleasure.