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2026 Spring Symposium · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Welcome to System Speak, a podcast about complex trauma and dissociation. It's our story, our learning, and the ideas we've been working with as they've unfolded over time. Earlier episodes give context for where we are now, and current episodes may engage more advanced material, harder content, or reference earlier conversations. A few things to remember as you listen. The podcast is education, reflection, and storytelling.
• 0:41
  It's not therapy, and listening doesn't create a relationship. Although I am a therapist, I am not in that role here, and nothing that I share is individualized clinical advice. Every system, every internal world, all of your own stories are all different and you take up your own shape. What we share
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: about ours won't translate directly to yours.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: It isn't meant to. We're all different, and all of our stories matter. As always, take care of yourself during and after listening, and we are so glad you're here.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the System Speaks Symposium. We did it. We did it again. Someone just did it for the first time. Thoughts and feelings.
• 1:37
  Yes. Yes. There were some thoughts
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: and There were some thoughts and feelings. Many, in fact.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It comes up, does it? There's a lot. There's so much. Do you want to go through the sessions or do you want to share what's just already surfacing? Is it helpful if it's more structured?
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: I like structured. I mean, I find it helpful as a departure point.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: We did codependency first, bringing in sort of what we see from the outside that brings us to therapy. And with that, we did the SAND project. What did you think and feel about that session or learn or surprised by or annoyed by? Do you remember that you were here for that session?
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I was gonna say it feels like that was a long time ago already.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It does feel like a long time ago. The words that stood out for me
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: were seeing ourselves taking shape. Yes. I heard you say that and I am new to experiencing the inner world as a shape. So, that touched me, and it was fun picking the colors, it was fun comparatively. Looking back now from here, I found some of the other art less fun, so it is a nice thing to look back on and to remember the gentleness of the touch of the supplies, remembering the last art experience that we just ended with by comparison, that was a lot harder and a lot more fine motor skill.
• 3:29
  And sharper, literally. Dangerous.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: We can't take shape until we fill ourselves up. And we need to fill ourselves up as part of taking shape.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Well, they depend on each other. Right? Because you can you can't fill something that doesn't have any shape, and you can't have a shape if you're not filling. So they they're in they co create each other.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Well, we see that with physics, right? Like, light is different when it's witnessed. We are different when we are witnessed, when we are in presence with each other. For ourselves. And you're right, there are lots of feelings.
• 4:25
  We did do a lot of laughing, but we also did a lot of crying and a lot of groaning and a lot of this is really hard. The stakes seemed a lot lower with the sand project. Like, it wasn't a big problem if you spilled some of your sand. It's okay to be messy. Yes.
• 4:44
  We're still developing. We're not finished yet.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Something I had a recollection I had to share about the SAM project isn't about the project itself, but rather what I've learned between then and now is that I was not quite here yet in that first activity. So I arrived late. Right? So that was my very the very first thing I did. And by comparison, I can feel now remembering it that in that first activity, I was still thinking, am I doing it right?
• 5:15
  Am I getting it right? I was going through all the trauma responses, just because new place, new people, I'm scared, I don't want to feel. And so I didn't have really any access during that project. And so by comparison, oh my goodness, project to project, the access just went up and up and up until by the end. And I won't do any spoilers because we're not there yet, But the access was so complete that it was including others.
• 5:43
  Outside others.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. And deeper, the things that we are willing to tolerate and sit with and feel and see in ourselves. Those walls start to come down. We also take a lot of breaks.
• 5:59
  We can give a shout out to taking breaks, not just to care for our bodies, although that's also important, but for pacing. And we didn't have to be rigid with what the schedule was. When we needed a break, we could take a break. And you all were amazing about that, of being able to say that you needed a break or could we pause for a minute? Or there were a couple times we all went outside together, maybe several times.
• 6:25
  What did you think about the new location? Thumbs up? I liked having access to the ocean. Was profoundly helpful. The literal fresh air, the waves, the soothing of the waves, the rhythm of the waves.
• 6:42
  And when things that surfaced or trauma that surfaced or deprivation that surfaced felt so big, I could go outside and look and the water was bigger and the sky was bigger. And I wasn't just alone in that. There were boats and there were seagulls and we found the turtle rock and all the different creatures that you all were bird
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: finding. I'm
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: gonna call it that now. Not bird watching, I'm bird finding.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. After codependency, we did boundaries and we made some clay trees. That's quite a face. I don't know how to interpret it for the podcast.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: It's me trying not to make vomiting noises. What surprised you about boundaries? That I didn't know a boundary from a hole in the wall before about two years ago. Yeah, it's finding out what you didn't have is amazing, wonderful, and full of grief and freeing all at the same time. And that's a lot.
• 8:03
  And you use the word tolerate. Is that gonna go on? Like that because my my ability, my capacity to tolerate activation has gone so significantly up. It's practice. It takes lots of practice and it was so safe every time.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I think boundaries is also a good one for realizing there's so much we know. Like there's not any content that's new necessarily as far as topics. But when we feel it and it lands inside, it's so different than just knowing the thing.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, felt knowledge, felt understanding. That particular art exercise gave me a chance to depict a current conflict that's happening on the outside of my life and to look for what can I learn about what's happening inside me because I included my phone in clay object and I was really working with what can others see when they look at me versus what can I see when I look at me? And I think where I am in our community is very much driven by my relationship with my phone because I listen to the podcast on my phone, I connect to that app where we write to each other, and I even go to Zooms in the community on the phone. And I
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: think
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: what was starting to happen for me when I was looking at it was when do I put my phone down? And do I put my phone down and turn away from my phone as a way of honoring the impact I make on others when I'm holding my phone between me and other people, as well as acknowledging I did hear the reflection that what I call the death grip on my phone is an expression of a catch cry, which I've heard you say is a combination of submit and what's the other one? Fawne,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: which is really hard
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: to hear and really hard to work with.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: So being able to make an art piece about it was, I think, good for me in order to not just carry around my own stuff about it for the rest of the time. When you said that about your phone between you and other people, I thought, or felt, I mean thought, yes, but felt in my body, my painting with a shield and learning not just the boundaries of I don't have to stay to be treated badly. I can defend myself or advocate for myself or respond in ways that help keep me safe. And the trust building that happens with littles when I'm able to do that or learn how to do that. And the coping piece of that, of when am I putting a shield between me and my system and not just protecting them, but also the avoidance side and sometimes having to navigate who is the shield for?
• 11:24
  Or is it my shield? Is it someone else's shield they've just left me holding? Or like, why is there a shield? And everything that we had insight about then brought up a thousand more questions It's part of what happens with the art projects, I think, sometimes. After Boundaries, we had your very favorite of Mother Hunger, always a favorite at the symposiums.
• 11:48
  Everyone looks like they could be sick right now. What makes mother hunger so hard as a topic, as part of the symposium?
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: The intensity and rawness, it feels like.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: The intensity and rawness. It's absolutely at the core of everything.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: There's no performing your way out of mother hunger. Yeah. There's no achieving or working your way out of mother under. It has to be reckoned with. It has you have to be with it.
• 12:22
  There's no other way. I think that's why everyone looks so ill. It's like, there's no way around, but that's why we're here because we want to learn to go through, not around or above or under or away. And we're learning it, and that is very uncomfortable. And it's also crucial.
• 12:48
  It's necessary.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's hard when seeing that clearly, like the undissociating also has the implication of knowing the things we're not supposed to know, seeing the things we're not supposed to see, saying the things we're not supposed to, like all of that is breaking social contracts. So it feels life threatening, even though what has happened already was life threatening a long time ago. I think I've really learned from the mother hunger pieces how much we continue to play by the same rules, even when we are not around our parents or have moved beyond or even those of us whose parents have already passed of realizing, oh, we're really good at fulfilling that training we had. So to see it, the terror has to do with the breaking of the rules, the changing that social contract.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: And then you look up and you're still here, and everybody else is still here. So it's another layer in learning that the world doesn't explode when you break the contract. In fact, there's relief on the other side. Eventually, in
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: some cases. Can you say what the medium was for that art piece? Was that watercolors?
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: For Mother Hunger? Construction paper. There were a lot of structures this time. More taking shape. I think that was part of it becoming a theme.
• 14:32
  There were literal shapes happening in the room.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: That's so cool that the for the mother hunger. Like I said, you can't get around it. You can't perform your way around it or achieve your way around it or think your way around it. And there were no tools. It was just you and the material.
• 14:46
  That was brutal. No scissors. Yeah. No stenciling. Nothing happening.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a messy thing. The next morning, we did mapping and more mapping in the afternoon. Those were hard pieces because we, you know, every symposium, even though the topics are generally the same, each group tackles it differently. Each group wrestles with it differently because everyone's stories are different.
• 15:18
  And this one, we really wrestled with the developmental pieces. Not just, oh, there's littles in there somewhere, middles in there somewhere, but how old are we right now? How old was that? What the clues about what is happening developmentally, you are really dug deep with that. And that is also, think of your word raw again, it's so vulnerable The morning one was acrylic and the afternoon was watercolor.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: The example that I give about what makes this so unusual for me as compared with therapy is that I have the pieces of art afterwards and then I look at them and I cannot remember what was paired with that image even though we just did it. Going through it and talking about the topic and then making that art, and then moving to the next topic and making another piece of art, I have yet to be able to retain which was which, which I'm guessing is part
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: of the point is that we're going from left brain to right brain again and again Yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: With pacing. Yes.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: That really helped keep me in the bee. Like, of being on another planet or just checking out or whatever leaving my body, coming back to the the art. It was just a different crime or permission. So I would come to the end of the road with what my left brain could do and just get full up with thoughts and the mysterious charts no one could remember. Chart after chart after chart!
• 17:00
  And my brain would be full to exploding and then it's like here art. And yeah, I don't want to say palate cleanser, it's not that simple at all. But it does provide not only a break but a contrast so that it's sort of like working muscle sets. Like you can only work your bicep for so long and you're going to get better at working your bicep if you also work your tricep because it gives it not just a rest but an active rest. Rest.
• 17:23
  Purposeful Purposeful rest. A paired and supported rest. Yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: And using our whole brain to access our whole selves. We talked about how the more that we increase our capacity, the more access we have to ourselves. Capacity and being able to realize we do have muscles. And also that in part those muscles are supported by connection and community, that relational piece that we've been talking about on the podcast. It makes so much of a difference.
• 18:04
  We failing or bad or wrong because we couldn't do it before. It's that we literally need this so much support to be able to do the things. And also, when we have that much support, we did the things. The evening, we talked about spirituality and sexuality, and not spirituality in a churchy sense, but developmentally, just covering that part of development. And really in some ways it could be about philosophy or epistemology, like more how do we learn?
• 18:37
  How do we know things? I talking with my kids last night after, or the night after we had done that about how do we know when the dishwasher needs to be unloaded? How do we know when we fill the dishwasher back up? How do we know? Like all those, how do we know questions came and I was seeing in my head sort of the map of the development of how did we learn these things of what our values are.
• 19:04
  When Chuck Benencosa says that we get confusion when something has come between us and our values, that spirituality piece, in a churchy way, but in a how do we know what our values are, which I know we dig into more with the ADVANCE Symposium. But how do we know what our values are if I'm trying to be congruent with that? And then the sexuality topic and all things with that are so, so difficult to feel safe to talk about at all with everything that's happening and feeling very protective of, is anyone safe to even approach the topic? And so it felt like a good practice or application of some of the things we learned in Boundaries, right, as much as anything.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: So, one of the things that I was just reflecting on about mapping, because the mapping comes first, right? Some of my mapping was about how I knew myself in the home where I grew up, Some of it was about birth, and I didn't know that when I was creating the art, but now looking back at it with the perspective of talking about spirituality and gender and sexuality, I can really see how I was touching into more of my Jewish heritage and my expression of ethnicity. I don't think I touched into any of my wounding around Christianity, and I'm noticing that this time as a contrast. And I also noticed I didn't talk about having lost both my fathers this year, one being Catholic, one being Jewish. I think my grief was showing up, And so I was in touch with feeling like I can be a griever in this community.
• 21:16
  I can feel like I described it, like a water tornado. I didn't even know the name for that. Learned a few things about what a water spout is. And I really think that shows my connection with my body because I wasn't thinking in terms of theology or ritual or practice or any of the things that have felt like they're tearing me apart in my head. So I found that
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: soothing. I think that's especially challenging those of us who are at the place of losing our parents. There's such complicated grief and so many hard layers to that. And when there are those last minute betrayals, those after the fact betrayals that play out, I mean, didn't go into details of that just because we have good boundaries in the symposium, but also that being part of the grief of thank you for one more hurt on the way out of this is what that looks like or how it played out for me or how it played out for you or what that looks like. And also different relief that you're released from some contracts.
• 22:41
  That happens too. I know that's a lot in Laura Brown's book about caring for parents when there has been childhood stuff or adoption issues or different trauma and deprivation. There's that too of being released in a different way. And so those last minute betrayals feel extra betrayal y, if that makes sense. Those are hard things.
• 23:11
  This morning, we talked about memory time. Also not a favorite. Also not a favorite. We we used crayons for that art activity and did a lot of applying all the other things and the charts for that section. What charts?
• 23:41
  And then all of a sudden everybody understood all the charts like it all fell into place all of a sudden.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: That was pretty funny too.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Anything else about memory time or we already flighted right out of that?
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: I do want to say something, which is that that moment when you just asked me if I was needing to take a break, that was that feeling of knowing that you see me, you see each of us, you are reflecting to us, that you can see us leaving the room, even where our bodies are sitting here and we start to leave. That's one of the things that is so reassuring, that it isn't just each of us here attending a lecture. And what was just coming up was exactly why I stopped and had therapy yesterday, is that there is stuff that comes up that is too big to bring out loud here. And what keeps me in my seat is being able to stop and go to therapy and then come back to this session. Yeah.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: It's a really key component of being able to check-in or talk to someone outside of session and that fine line between we're exploring difficult topics and also doing the therapy with our therapist. And I think that outside of America, there is a lot more exposure to experiential learning and the kind of expressive activities we do with the art. It's just a more Eastern approach than what we have as much in America with more lecture based teaching. In some places, in ways, that's changing, I think, because we've seen how that plays out. But that's even where the trees came from when I was working with, war zones and refugee camps and things with those NGOs and the emergency agencies.
• 25:52
  I talked about that all the way back, 2018, 2019 on the podcast. That is one of the things that we did with the trees was just this metaphor because it is a universal metaphor. So even though we all may have different traumas or different deprivations or different histories or cultures or religions we're in now or religions we got out of or whatever those kinds of sociocultural contexts are, trees are so universal to so many different kinds of people. We could use them safely in those places of conflict in the world. And that's where the trees came from.
• 26:31
  And so when we would go to a place, I just had a suitcase full of these supplies and we would bring in the parents or bring in the children and just talk through what happened because the research really found that even when really terrible things happen in the world, in now time, if people have support and connection and can express, they do not store the trauma in the same way. So when we come together in Symposium and trying to apply what I learned there and sharing that here, it's not that we can undo the past of memory time, but in now time we aren't alone in the same way, even though also there are lots of ways we are alone or yes, memory time, we were alone in it or these different things. But when we have connection, can maintain. And sometimes that's creative. Like we don't all live in the same place.
• 27:30
  We are spread out. And that is really, really hard being far away and trying to maintain that when object permanence is one of the biggest issues with trauma and deprivation. But to come up for air for just a minute and breathe because we are trees with our roots underground and can stay connected. That is life giving, life saving. That is aligning ourselves parallel to each other.
• 28:00
  When we got to now time, we did the four questions again. Some of you may have been new, some of you, I'm growly face. Some of you may have heard it on the podcast and some of you have done it before. What was that like in any of those combinations? Have you heard it before?
• 28:21
  I had. It might have been an episode that got taken down that's not back yet.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: I feel like I had been exposed to that in some way. It was in there somewhere but I wasn't expecting. I mean I knew there would be a thing at the end where you're like this is what this is and this is what this is but I didn't know what they would be. So I was a little bit prepared, not too shocked. That's part of the quality of all of this is, I keep coming back to the concept of unconcealing.
• 28:46
  It's like it's most of it is stuff that's already in there somewhere. It's just that you're learning to contact it in a more useful, nurturing way and see it more clearly and see it from new angles so you get a better sense of what reality can be.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I think you just said something really important because I can facilitate this, but this stuff isn't coming from me. It's coming from inside you, and you're sitting with that of what is already there. I love how you add those words for it.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: And I think that's why there was so much laughter. Right? Because of recognition. That's why we burst out giggling maniacally when people do funny things. Like, you know, do a
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: two part blurt at the
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: fish and chips shop and we're just like delighted by the recognition of that behavior that is so both specific to this diagnosis and completely universal to being human. And it's just a lovely way of
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: not being alone.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: What was it like for anyone who, you don't have to talk if you don't want to, but what was it like for those of you who had done it before that particular exercise or any of them? Like, there any activities that you could really be like, Oh, wow, this is different than six months ago or a year ago. Or did you notice any of that at all?
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, this year felt and I experienced it completely differently when we answered those questions from the year before. I remember just feeling resistance or I was grouchy about it, crabby about the answers that I came up with and then when the reveal about what they actually mean and how we can apply them. But this year, completely different experience, actually. I felt calm about it. It made sense.
• 31:01
  Maybe that's because I already, part of me, already knew where we were going with it, but I didn't struggle to come up with the answers to anything. That really different from from last year to now. And I hope that means that we're healing, growing, doing better than we were a year ago.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: It's a wild thing to see your own progress. That's part of what we're doing, not just witnessing with each other, but witnessing ourselves.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: This time, answering those questions is an example, and so I was looking at the art. I had a definite increased access to perceiving insiders from different perspectives and I heard differently that the I perspective comes with each of the internal perspectives so that I may be answering a question differently than I did last time or I may be answering from a different perspective. It was a lot less scary this time, like who's answering, how does this apply, less shame. I was very surprised by my own answers to the feelings question, as I recall, on the bottom of my page, how
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: quickly I
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: knew the answer, what those feelings were, that came I mean, just things like that where I didn't know I knew that, I didn't know I could access that so quickly, And my guard being down. I think being able to look around the room.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: That's the healing, awareness of ourselves and access to ourselves. It really is that simple. Much harder to do. But when you feel it, it becomes exponential and profound.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: My access went through the roof. Amazing. I'm already pre grieving. The recoil or the you know? But I also know that I can make it through that too.
• 33:23
  And thanks to all your lovely object permanence items, I have an allergy to stuff because my kids are seven. And so my first response is like, too much stuff. And now, at the end of this, I understand how important it is to have a tactile, like, physically perceivable way to connect with capacity, access, connection, narrative memory, feelings. So thank you for that because I'm new to that. Object permanence is a real doozy for me.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: When we joke about the Prezi bags or talk about the Prezi bags, part of it is that there are so many of us that didn't have that experience growing up. I know my kids didn't have that before adoption in the same way, some of them. Or there's also the question sometimes I've heard you all ask, why do we get this every time? Or if it's not there, where is this thing that wasn't there that was there last time? Or why are we getting this thing different this time?
• 34:34
  Or sometimes there's a little theme or things. And part of that is in response to the parts you all are bringing, the part of who you're showing up in as in community and what we've been talking about collectively anyway, and just deepening that of, I see you, I'm paying attention, I hear you, and here's this thing to tell you because there's so many different parts and there's so many different needs. And also, if it's not your thing, that's okay too. So we always have the table of, if you don't want it or it's not your thing, put it over here and we can share. And also, I mean, I saw stuffies in shirts and in arms and in hands and on heads and cuddled every which way, worn in pockets, attached to bags.
• 35:23
  It's a lot. It's hard to want to give all of that healing to all of the parts when we're still discovering who we are. And also, we joke about that too, even just how hard it is to pack to get here. And then it's also hard to pack to get home.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: With all the things.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: We finished now time. We finished now time with the mirrors that we make and those new contracts and being able to see ourselves and sit with ourselves and our systems, what was that like?
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: Well, this is where my contrast from the first time I've done this exercise to this most recent one was most obvious to me. Because the very first one I did, I was frightened by the art I made, and then very quickly after that symposium, which was the retreat, I lost it because it broke. I was relieved it broke. So I've been on a journey with what does it mean to look at myself see reflected back to me something that I don't know how to tolerate and I don't want. It's been a big journey.
• 36:54
  So, today I noticed that I was coming up with something that had similar themes to previous ones and at the same time super different because I was so much more relaxed and curious. There's that overused word, I think, sometimes, but I was able to investigate while I was doing it what else might be there and what's new and different, and it's a lot different.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: We've come a long way since the retreat and learned so much. I think it was January 2024. Does that sound right? So this is our fourth symposium plus one advanced symposium. And seeing how we've grown over time, what we've learned.
• 37:45
  Some of you are here for the first time. Some of you have come back and said to me, I wanna come back again because I'm still learning this or I'm still learning that. Others have said, I wanna come back again because so and so didn't get to come yet or so and so wants to attend. And so feeling that shift too of how, again, it's not about the content, it's about how we experience the content together. So it's different every time.
• 38:12
  Anything else you want to share or say or add?
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: I think just to build on that different every time, I had the thought like I could come back to this for the rest of my life because it's not about getting answers. It's about learning a disposition to help you alive. Yeah. And that's ongoing. That that never ends.
• 38:36
  That's everything. Yeah. So it's a process, not a product, and I'm learning how to be in that process and have that disposition that I need to stay in the game and live as fully as I can. That's really beautiful. Thank you.
• 38:53
  Thank you. Anything else? Just making sure. I would just add that being in person It's different. There's a lot of unconscious communication.
• 39:06
  There's a lot of subtle, preconscious, whatever you want to call it. It's all the layers of communication and not all
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: of it's verbal and not
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: all of it's intellectual and you can't have it unless you're in the room. And although we approximate things gorgeously on Zoom, we all work really hard to do that, and I get a wonderful sense of presence. In fact, I was not at all surprised by meeting a newold bestie in person. Not surprised one bit, because it was so accurate. However, and also, there is nothing like being in
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: a room. It's so true. There's something that's so different. Know, part of liberation framework therapy or feminist psychology is about disseminating as much as we can, that there's no reason to have power over by withholding information. And so we work really, really hard to open up any of our trainings we can to anyone can come if you want to come to have dress rehearsals or run throughs of presentations I'm going to do elsewhere.
• 40:22
  And we like, come listen and learn if you want, and also I'm practicing. Or just opening up, sharing books, sharing, having guests come. We just had Laura Brown come to visit the Not the Price group. And just sharing access in all the ways that we can. And people have asked, why can't we do the symposium online?
• 40:48
  And it's not that we can't go through the content, but it is so experiential and so neurobiological. We cannot do the same thing online that we're doing in person. We could have little classes and we could walk through the content, but it is not the same. And so it's really hard because I know there are people who want to come and it hasn't been their turn yet or they haven't been able to for whatever reasons, and also making it as accessible as possible, as easy to get here. And also, it is a big commitment for you all to come.
• 41:21
  And I'm so glad. I'm so glad you were able to come and join us in person. It's really so, so different. And that's hard to explain when people ask. It's hard to explain why it's so different.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: The degree to which it feels terrifying and impossible is mirrored in the other direction by the degree to which it is invaluable.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for being here. I'm really glad it is the attached cry part. I don't even want to end the podcast because I don't want to end the weekend, right? And also we have ways to stay connected.
• 42:02
  And we have reminders that we are connected. And we share a sky and we have the ocean and we have the wind. That's not everybody's favorite. And also we share the air in beautiful ways and good ways. And no matter how hard it gets out there, politics or anything else, like we walk on the same earth and we share that.
• 42:27
  And there are these pieces that we really are connected in more ways than we realize, I think. And it's certainly embodied when we're here in person, but there are pieces we can take with us.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Well, then maybe when you hit the button on your recording, just think of it it's the pause button, not the stop. That face. Yes.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: So many feelings. Thank you so much. Truly, this has been a wild ride with y'all. This was a very, every group is so different and this was different than any experience and really was so, so good. And I think for me, that was also still healing.
• 43:18
  Even when you all asked about, are we doing a podcast? I was like, oh, okay, so we're keeping it? We still want the podcast. That's still going to be a thing. Okay, so I guess we still have a podcast that answers that.
• 43:32
  We'll get back to doing episodes. Thanks a lot. You learn something every day. Who knew? Who knew?
• 43:42
  And also just, it was a beautiful weekend and I learned so much. I needed it. I'm grateful that it was helpful in some way. And we get to take our art with us too. I'm Oh, just seeing the treasure trove of our forest.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing and healing brings hope.