Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Christine Howard | Awakening and Conscious Healing

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Interview with Christine Howard | Awakening and Conscious Healing · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Kay Eck, and welcome to my podcast, Alive and Kicking: Stories of Waking Up.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the podcast, everybody.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have with me today my good friend, Christine Howard.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Christine.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, thanks for me to join you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy to have you with me today because you've been on my um target list for the podcast for a long time, because um I think you have a really interesting story to tell, and we have some common um experiences that I'm hoping that we can get into today.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So to begin with, you know, the subject of the podcast is kind of stories of waking up.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that concept, awakening or um embodiment, has really changed a lot over the years when I was um when I started on this journey and my awareness of being on the journey.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering how it was, it how it has been for you.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: How have you defined it in the past and how do you define it now?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's completely different.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's night and day, right?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think, you know, I've been doing this work really since childhood.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it of course looked very different then, right?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Then we were calling it, you know, psychic phenomena and you know, things like that.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was trying to see if I could remember once laying in the bathtub and thinking, I wonder if I can make the blinds on the window move with my mind, right?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I started by like doing trying to do stuff like that.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, so it's been um it's changed so much over the years.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's just been all these cycles and everything, and to me now it's about letting go, it's about letting go of everything, right?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Every thought, every belief, every experience, and and just redefining it all or not defining it all, right?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a um, I think it's a lifetime of work, and I don't know that you ever get there, you know.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do I consider myself awake?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I would, yeah, I guess I would say, yes.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, do I want to continue to awaken?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, you know, I still get triggered, I still have, you know, stuff that I'm working on.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's about, I guess, it's just about paying attention and and being willing to re-examine everything, being willing to go wherever you need to go to find out what your truth is.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, yeah.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so much of that resonates with me.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want to roll back to what you said in the very beginning, obviously, because you said your journey began as a child with kind of psychic phenomena.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering, like, how old were you and how did that affect you?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I kind of just like grew up with it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, like elementary school, maybe, you know, my mom was just kind of into that sort of thing.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was talked about in my house, you know.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it was never foreign.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I was um like I read my first like spiritual book that I read was uh some of the Seth material.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Remember from Jane Roberts?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I was like 15 when I read that.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was when I was 16, I went to I went to Est.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Remember Est?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I went to I spent my 16th birthday at an Est seminar.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, is that the one that later became landmark?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And there was all sorts of like accusations about him, like years later, and everything.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was bizarre.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: When I think now about the kind of things that they did, it was it was really bizarre.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I went in San Francisco at 16 years old, you know, by myself.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you're making it sound like the path has been sort of interesting and easy, but I'm guessing that that's not exactly the case.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So did that sort of early awakening cause any um challenges for you?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was yes, very much so, but it was more about trying to overcome challenges already, you know, because my childhood was so challenging for me, and I was desperately seeking relief.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just drawn to that sort of work, right?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it was really, I feel like I was I was desperate for help.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: What what were the challenges of your childhood?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you mind sharing that?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, um just a lot of um, wow, just basically abuse of every kind, you know, sexual, emotional, physical, you know, um there was alcoholism and you know, divorce and violence and fighting, and you know, um without like telling any detailed stories.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just you know that sort of thing, poverty, um, kind of the whole gamut.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So where did that exploration lead you?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think and and did it wasn't able to help you in the early years.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: How did it help you?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: It did help in the early years.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: It gave me an outlet, it let me know to some degree that I wasn't crazy, right?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: That there that the feelings that I had, because I was so, you know, sensitive, and it kind of validated that for me, you know, and and let me know that that was um normal, you know, to be to be that sensitive, that it wasn't the only one.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Did so it's curious to me that um you were experiencing the trauma that you experienced and simultaneously trying to understand it or to receive relief from it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas, you know, the typical, well, I don't know if there is a typical template, but you would I, you know, from my experience, it's like there's a number of years where the trauma just goes either down in hiding, goes into hiding, or um, it just you're just living in it and you're not seeking relief because as a kid or a young person, you don't even know that there is relief.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you find your way out of that?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or well, I think all of that was happening happening simultaneously, you know.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was in the depths of despair, I was incredibly depressed, I was very angry, right?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I would lash out.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at school and high school, I would get in fights, you know, I got into drugs, you know, I would sleep with someone just for the, you know, sake of it, you know, I mean, so it um, so all of that was happening all at the same time.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost like I could separate myself to some degree and observe my behavior and observe what was going on around me and know and see it sort of from a higher perspective, and yet I was still in it and still going through the motions.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, that's kind of like that's how consciousness is now, too.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not different.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not different.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You are at one time at once going through your experience and at the same time observing yourself going through your experiences, yeah.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And believe me, very caught up in it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to like sugarcoat this or make it seem all, you know, rainbows and unicorns, because it absolutely wasn't.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I got very caught up in the pain for a really long time.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was the turning point for you?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: How did you finally come to a place where you thought you were gonna make it or you were gonna be okay?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that has been fairly recent.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: That has really just been in the last couple of years that I've really known that, right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I got glimpses of it, you know.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of just up and down and all over the place.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I would get a glimpse of something like that and then and then fall back in and not believe it and come back, you know.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, I was really all over the place.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say it's just been in the last couple of years that I that I know and I and I truly know I'm gonna be okay.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be okay.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: It is okay.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is, yeah.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel that um part of that was you know, that there was a reason that you went through this long journey?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like that was the energy on the planet was supportive of that kind of path, and now the energy on the planet is supportive of a much faster trajectory.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can, you know, get through it much faster.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It might feel more like a a bulldozer, even hit by a bulldozer, but the possibility is that you can you can get through it quicker.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So do you feel that that was kind of at play for you, that it just wasn't the right time?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was all very purposeful.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure that I can really articulate what the purpose of it was, except for maybe to say that um I'm very relatable to a lot of people and I can relate to others in their struggle, right?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say I know how you feel, it's the truth, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: When I see somebody in incredible pain, what emotional, physical, mental, whatever that I really do know what that's like.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of want to just say, you know, look at me, not that like not that I have it all figured out by any stretch of the imagination, but as we just said, I know now that it's okay.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I can reflect that onto these people that are, you know, starting to wake up now and just starting the process.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And even though I I I agree with you, it can happen so much faster now.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there's times I'm like, what was I thinking?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Why didn't I just wait another 40 years or something?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: If I can be of assistance to those people, because even though it's quick, I don't necessarily think that means it's going to be easy.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And in some ways it may even be more difficult.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, well, I guess depending on the depth that and the height that we're talking about, sort of so if we're kind of comparing those things, if you wake up really fast, I mean, I think that could be a shock to the system.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so obviously it's very individual, but I do think, you know, I can imagine cases where that would be incredibly shocking to live you're living this life and you're thinking, this is me, right?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is who I am.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly it's like, whoa, wait a minute.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: This doesn't fit me.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't want this job.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, you know, this is not right for me.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that can be really um frightening.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah and discouraging.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So take us back to your path after you were 16 and attending est workshops on your own in San Francisco, which sounds like I know.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a California thing, isn't it?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened after that?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what happened after that?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, again, there was just um there's a lot of trauma in my life.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of really traumatic things went on.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And through it all, I had a little bit of an anchor, you know, because I kept doing the work.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: I kept, and at that time that meant, you know, reading the books.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that meant finding a bookstore that actually carried them, right?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's no Amazon, you know, Barnes and Noble didn't carry Seth material, you know.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it was finding some metaphysical bookstore, trying to find community was incredibly challenging.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I did, I'm very fortunate in that I did have a mentor, and um, and so she really guided me for you know, from my teenage years really into my 40s.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible, what a gift.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, an amazing gift.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I had her to lean on and I had her to help, you know, um sort of bring me along, you know, as she was doing her work at the same time, but we had each other.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how did you find her?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she married my father, she was my stepmother.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know your stepmother too.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you do.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you do.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot about that.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I how so I think it's really interesting that because when I well, I wrote about this in my book, that when you're going through something difficult like this, this healing from trauma, or opening your eyes to the truth of what is actually happening here, um, that the the assistance is is there.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It comes in the form of the people who have gone, traveled the road before you, like you and like me, and all you know, a lot of the people that we hang out with now.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um, the only thing that I can I can say is as I tell people to just call it in, just call in the assistance, and then you know, watch for it to show up because there's like no directory of flight workers so far.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I thought about creating one, but you totally should.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big job though, you know.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there is so much support, it's so much more readily available now, right?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: We can get on a Zoom call together, we can do a course over the internet with you know a dozen other people and really get to know each other over the six weeks or whatever it is, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Make connections there, take that, you know, out on our own.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's so much easier now to connect.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um tell us the story about how you ended up in the military, um, because it's it's kind of an amazing story.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I um was living with my dad and stepmom and um kind of going nowhere fast, you know, like I was going to school and I was working, but you know, I was working at a as a hostess in a restaurant, and I was going and I wasn't showing up for class half the time, and you know, I was partying way too much, right?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew that I needed to do something different.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that I needed to kind of gain control, you know, over my life.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so my dad and stepmom, they had a uh sailboat, right?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So they decided that they were going to sell the house and everything in it, and they were gonna go like sail the world.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So basically it's like, well, Chris, you you know, you can either come with us, like what 18-year-old wants to go live on a 36-foot sailboat with their father and stepmother, or you can find something else to do.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: But that was it.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was basically cut off.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: No help paying for school, no nothing.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're on your own.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And did they did they know at this time that you were um you know partying a lot and not I think they were doing enough of their own partying that they might not have noticed to do that.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: What year was this?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, this is the early 80s, 81 or 82.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So this was the early.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I had actually thought, believe it or not, about joining the military just because I knew that I needed some structure and some discipline.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that I had incredible potential, and then I was just sort of throwing it away, right?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted someone to kind of kick my ass.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I I had gone to talk to a recruiter, and at that time, believe it or not, there was a two-year waiting list to get into the military.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:53
  unknown: Yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they were basically like, great, you know, I took all the tests, did all the stuff that I need to do, and they're like, sorry, you know, it's it could be two years.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So one night I'm out, you know, partying with my friends, of course, and kind of like stayed out all night.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I come in in the morning, and my dad's, no, I had been out all night, and then most of the day, I came in late in the day, and my dad says, your recruiter called.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, really?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yeah, somebody who's supposed to leave at five o'clock tomorrow morning just canceled, and he wants to know if you want the slot.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to decide like right then.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I took, you know, a few minutes or an hour or whatever it was.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess, you know, my dad and his wife had like bets on whether I was gonna say yes or no.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um I said yes.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent the rest of that evening packing a bag, and you know, uh, and at 5 a.m., my dad drove me over to the recruiting station and put me on a bus.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, you know, so yeah, and so like next thing I know, I kind of like then it's the next day, and I sort of like wake up and I'm in basic training, and I'm like, what the F happened?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right 48 hours ago, I'm at a party with my friends, and and now I woke up and you know, I'm wearing fatigues and they're yelling at me.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Did you even have time to let your friends know?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, as a matter of fact, when it's funny, I had a date for that night.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was supposed to have a date.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, you know, the guy like came over.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: My dad had to say, Does she join the Air Force?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, she's not here, she joined the military.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, that's so funny.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, crazy, right?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, none of your friends knew.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think I called my best friend, you know, and told her, but but no, I mean, and again, we didn't have cell phones and computers and all that stuff, and not even answering machines.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, we didn't have answering machines, right?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, but that was we, you know, talk about a huge turning point.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Huge, yeah.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what was that what was that like when you when you were in basic and you're just like, well, I guess I'm doing this now.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, the funny thing is I'm a little bit um particular about things, you know, just like um my house, my whatever, you know.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's so funny, like you get there, right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're and you know, part of this discipline training, you know, you they have to make sure that you're gonna follow orders, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, like one of the things, like you get to basic and you have this closet and you have, you know, whatever, three long sleeve shirts and three short sleeve shirts, and you have the blue ones and the green, and and you have to hang stuff up like exactly right.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, like thinking, doesn't everybody do that?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't everybody hang up their stuff?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, make your bed nice and tight.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, yeah, I mean wow their way.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So my gosh, so crazy.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened after basic?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I they sent me to technical school, they trained me to be a pharmacy tech, and uh so that was in Texas, and then uh I got stationed in Mississippi, so I went from Manhattan Beach, California to uh northern Mississippi.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it was um it was shocking to say the least.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what how how did the military fit into like your healing journey?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: What was what was going on for you during that time?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think during the time that I was actually on active duty, you know, I have a whole long history because then I married someone in the military and he was in for 26 years.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a very long history with that.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: But for the time that I was active duty, I think it gave me exactly what I was looking for.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: It gave me some training, it gave me a way to support myself, it gave me structure and discipline and a sense of belonging, which is exactly what I needed.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So then you got married and stayed.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, then I got out and did some other stuff, and yeah, and and then I got married.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what would you say like throughout that that you know, kind of youth and um early adulthood, what were some of like the pivotal turning points for you?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember any of them?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um if if you mean like just like like life events, or you mean like as far as like lights go on or some kind of you know, aha moment or a pivotal point like
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many, you know, because I continued my journey after that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I continued with it.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I think it it picked up steam, you know, after I got out of the military.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Initially, I went back to LA and kind of started falling into some of the same habits.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I needed to remove myself from that once again, right?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but I continued the journey, and at the time, mostly that meant reading and just paying attention to my life, right?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Paying attention to um the internal as opposed to the external, because I was so externally focused so much of the time.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I say that almost tongue-in-cheek because I'm such an internally focused person, but for me, that I considered it externally focused, right?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Looking at what's going on in my life and and what all the players and all of that.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it was so gradual.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my awakening has been so incredibly gradual.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, there was pivotal moments.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think more the pivotal moments were more about things that happened in my life that really like snapped my.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, I'm talking like, you know, tragic things or you know, just kind of big ticket items that happened that would grab my attention and show me I had sort of been drifting again.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: I had been getting getting caught up in what's going on around me and the external world and not as much internally, which is really my natural state.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a number of things over the years, again, that would just kind of bring me back to myself.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I can relate to that so much because um I uh the things that um I had two two episodes in my life where I went through really severe panic attacks.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the um what what I understood was happening is that I had ign I had started to ignore my spirit, my spirit.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um for me, it it just like you say, like it was course correction.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I because there's like having panic attacks will it just takes your life completely.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and these weren't like occasional panic attacks, they were like continuous.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um there, there's no there's no way that I couldn't pay attention to it, you know.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had to pay attention.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was able to bring my life back to its essential spiritual core, then I was able to find sort of the the grounding and the anchoring and the calm that I was you know seeking.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, and then I had another time where I was I had like really dramatic things happen to me.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was hit by a car and thrown off the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Chicago, and then um that was a big wake-up call and changed my life, and then the other thing was that I had a um a cyst on my ovary that ruptured an artery, and so I was, you know, I couldn't feel the the event occurring, but I was basically bleeding to death.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was walking through my house, and I happened to walk by the bathroom, and I turned to look at the mirror, and I was I wasn't feeling well.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had like this bad stomach ache, and I look in the mirror and I'm like white as a ghost, and I was like, oh, something's really wrong.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was like, you know, just like these like incredibly like dramatic moments that I had that were like you have to wake the F up now, you know.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have anything like that?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, yes.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, when you started talking about panic attacks, I'm I'm getting a little teary-eyed, having gone through that myself.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, when I first started having them, I didn't know what was happening.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I didn't know what they were.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that, you know, I would get um one of the ways it showed up for me is it would give me a stomachache.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I would feel really nauseous, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't, I couldn't eat, right?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: I oh my gosh, I was so skinny, I was down to like nothing, right?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was just, and I knew that I was depressed and you know, um, and actually I was going to all these different doctors and you know, of course, running these tests and what's wrong with her.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And some like jerk doctor that I was seeing at this one point, he's like, Okay, all right, don't panic about it.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when he said that, I'm like, oh my God, that's what it is, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so then I thought I need to learn about this, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: I need to know.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as I started reading, I'm like, oh my God, like, how did somebody not pick up on this that that's what it was?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, like you said, it's such a huge wake-up call.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, because we really you can't live, like no, you can't.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, you really can't.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I spent there was a one uh period of time, a few weeks where I never left my house because I was afraid to leave the house.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I would go like at one point when I was starting to, okay, I know I'd try, I'm gonna try to go to the grocery store, right?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was terrified that I would see somebody that I knew or that something would happen that I couldn't handle, you know.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it I ended up we were living actually on an island at the time, and um, I ended up leaving there.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't find the help that I needed on the island, so I ended up going um and staying with my dad for a few months, had my little daughter with me, and I stayed there and got and went, did some really intensive therapy, you know.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that was a um wow, that was a huge way.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no ignoring it after that, right?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, there's no ignoring that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: So after you, I mean, in addition to therapy, what else had to happen in order for that to shift for you?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: I had to process a lot of pain, I had to process a lot of trauma, you know, the things that had happened throughout my childhood and then just even just a couple years before the panic attacks, I had to process that.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: I had to go deep into the energy of all of that and be willing to express it.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and I remember at that time thinking, if I go there, I'm never coming back, right?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like thinking, I can't handle it, I can't go to those depths of despair and come back.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I won't be able to come back.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I really had the men in white coats are gonna come take me away, right?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't have any choice.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was the only way out was to go in.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was the only, and that sounds so cliche, but it's really true.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: How did you know that?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: How did you know that that was what was necessary?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the therapist really helped me a lot.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: She was super cool, she was awesome and very good at her job.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so she helped me, you know, to sort of like kickstart that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then the process of doing it took, you know, years.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: It took years to kind of, you know, weed through and um and find those pieces that I had sort of buried within myself, right?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: That I wasn't able to look at sooner.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, remember I'm like flashing and remembering this one time as I'm you know doing this work and just, and this is a few years after, you know, having the panic attacks, and in a bad depression and not wanting to be, you know, in a in this world anymore.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I start crying, you know, and I and I was kind of like suck it up.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was like just this reaction to like, no, no, no, you got stuff to do, right?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can't, and it was like, no, no, here we go.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: So so I just took a minute and said, okay, let it come, let it come.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so for whatever reason, I decided, you know, I'm gonna go upstairs and like lay on the bed.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I start moving and I'd get to and I'm like on the third step, and it just overwhelmed me.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I curled up in a ball on the staircase and screamed like an animal.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just screamed and wailed, and and I just stayed there until there was nothing left, you know, and and there's other times where I've had to do that, where I've been on my knees going, okay, I'm not getting up until until this is, you know, until I've run through this.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when you had to do that for the first time, and I I can't, I don't want to underestimate or hurry through the um, you know, the acknowledgement of how much courage it takes to do that.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because as humans, our inclination is to run from that, like push it down, distract yourself, go do something else, just like you said, like I can get busy, I can get real busy real quick, you know, like your mother, you've got a job, whatever, you know, there's a million ways.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: But um, to sit there, because I think the courage of it is that you don't know how long it's gonna take, like you said, and you didn't know if you were gonna come back from it.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: But but once you do know, did that having gotten through the first one inform how you handled the experiences after that?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I gained more and more confidence over the years.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, each time I had more confidence that I could do this, I can go there, wherever there happened to be at that time, and come and still be okay and come back and actually be better than ever, right?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: When I when I look at it now, you know, I'm so grateful for that because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can handle all of it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that every time it makes me a better me, you know, it it makes me stronger, it makes me more open-hearted, it makes me softer, it, you know, it just enhances my life every time that I can that I can relieve myself of whatever burden I've been carrying.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's so important because it's not really what you think about when you think, oh, I'm gonna have to go through something terrible, and that's gonna change me forever.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'm just gonna be a sad person.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is that you've already been through the hard part, and this is just the feeling of it that's moving out of you, right?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, there's the relief and the growth and the expansion and the lightness, you know, yeah, the lightness, yeah, the lightness, absolutely, yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know, you know, I um my sister passed away in um we were in our early 30s, she's a year older than me.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I was 30 and she was 31, and it was a very tragic sudden death.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I was there, you know, I saw her, and then of course was there in the hospital when um when they let her go.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um that night after she died, I was outside and just kind of looking up at the stars, and I said to myself, I am going to make sure that this makes me a better person.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I just like I'm gonna make sure I am not gonna let this destroy me.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna let it open me up.
• 33:57
  unknown: Wow.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it took a long time for that to happen.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was a year later that I started having the panic attack.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it was, you know, I think her death is the most difficult thing I've ever experienced.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I knew, right, that that that same night, this is going to be a gift to me someday.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna make sure that it is.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is so incredibly powerful and courageous.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even imagine that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: My um a similar experience that I had was the the very first time I feel like I allowed myself to feel my feelings fully at the time I was going through something.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was a grown-ass woman.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And my son's 15-year-old best friend passed away from cancer very suddenly.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um he this kid was like a son to me.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he would occasionally call me mom, and you know, he was important to our whole family, and um I just let myself feel everything that I was feeling, and as I was going through it, I was watching how that was healing me at the same time.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was like my heart was breaking, and I also had this realization like, oh, now I can really love.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was like wow, it it made no sense, but it was so true, you know.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was like you said, it was breaking my heart open, and um so that that was sort of like the big turning point for me that where I started because sometimes, like, you know, you're going through this journey and you're actually catching up on all the stuff that you've been through that you haven't dealt with.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the most intense part, but eventually you get to this point where you're processing as you're going through the experiences, and it's not as bad.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not as bad, and it doesn't last as long, right?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like now, if I get into a funk, there's something going on and I get funky or whatever, it might last a couple hours, it might last a day, it might, and I don't, it doesn't matter anymore because I know that this too shall pass.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know this is a true thing, but you're right, it just moves through quicker and um yeah, well, okay, so one of the things obviously that you and I have in common is you know our divorce stories.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, when we met, you were uh in the thick of it and I was just getting warmed up.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and I think you know, it's a perfect example of doing a feeling in the moment because that is such an incredibly difficult thing to do, and but to do it consciously, right?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: This conscious uncoupling, you know, that's groundbreaking stuff right there.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that takes an incredible amount of courage and obviously just self-awareness and willingness to feel whatever comes up because oh boy, is stuff gonna come up.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I say that um divorce brought up every issue I had, every single issue I had.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like whatever was left.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about that because um it's not just I think it's like our particular um similar journey is it's not just like um you know the ending of a relationship, but it's a long, long, long, long marriage that we, you know, entered into when we were very young or you know, relatively young, and then um, you know, were a different, a completely different person by the time that ended up happening.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to hear from your perspective how you sort of got to the place where you felt that it was possible that you might not be able to be married anymore.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: I had been thinking in it for quite a while.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: I had seen it for quite a while, and I didn't want to see it, right?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because I adore him to this day.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: I love and adore him, and I, you know, it's been just over a year now.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I miss him, you know, I really do.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: I miss having him in my life.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um I didn't want to see what I was seeing.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I was able to not deny it, but I kept putting it on a shelf, right?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just didn't want it to be true.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I'll do whatever I have to, I'll take whatever course and whatever counseling and and whatever I can do, right?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then at some point I couldn't ignore it anymore, no matter how much I wanted to.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that for my own growth and for his as well.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: That as painful as it would be, that eventually we would both just bloom, right?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: We would blossom in our own way.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think when you've been married that long and you've taken on some roles and you can try as much as you can to change like within the system, but it's so difficult to do.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many subtle ways that you've, you know, created like the relationship has a life of its own.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: So so I felt like I needed to get out of it to really know what I needed for me, you know, and I was so committed to for so many years, committed to creating this family and being, you know, sort of the the rock that that held it together, you know, emotionally or you know, whatever, like moms do.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, just the way that that moms do that.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was really hard to give that up, you know.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yet it didn't fit me anymore.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: It just didn't fit.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to, not that I didn't want to be a mom, that's a whole different thing.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to be a you know, housewife.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, you know, I didn't want those responsibilities anymore.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't fit me anymore.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, on his on, you know, to give my um ex a lot of credit, he would have allowed he never tried to keep me from being whoever I wanted to be, ever, ever, ever.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: But at some point you were keeping yourself.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I shouldn't say you were, but that certainly was my experience because I had the same, the same experience.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: One, I did not want to give up on the idea of family, yeah.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not for me, but for my kids.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: For them, yeah.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was willing to sacrifice, I was like, hey, you know, I I'm 50 or I'm you know 48 or whatever it was.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: I this is like it wasn't a bad situation.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I could certainly say, like, I could stick this out for another 30 years.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've already made it this far, you know, like I can make it another 30 years.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I I thought about, you know, like that is a tragic thing.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that you're gonna stick it out for 30 years.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to have to stick out my life.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to live my life fully and completely.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this, I don't know, like the for me it was about you know, disappointing people, and like I couldn't bear the thought of breaking my kids' hearts.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Me too, yeah.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's for moms, that is the tough part.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I did break her heart.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I did.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I did, and um, whoo, yeah, that was just those are the facts.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I I it's I don't there's I certainly have been through nothing more difficult than that.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so and I I I don't know if you experienced this, but I what I want people to understand is that it's okay to not know and to go back and forth and vacillate and not be sure for however long it takes.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and not to beat yourself up for either staying too long or leaving too early or you know, any any of that stuff because it's just the way it goes.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: So true, yeah, yeah.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: It'll happen at exactly the right time.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people say, Oh, you'll know, right?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time I'm thinking there were so many years when I'm like, Yeah, well, I do know, right?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: And yet there's all this other stuff that I'm considering, so I'm not ready, right?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: But then you get to the place where it's like, oh, now I know what they mean about when you know you know, yeah, and you know that you have to even know it's gonna hurt someone that you love, you know.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, still you have to do it, yeah.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because it for me, it was like I don't want to like sound dramatic, but it was truly like I was dying.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to release myself, and it was self-imposed because, like you, I um I had a great husband, and also you know, never kept me from doing anything I wanted to do or and was was always.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Encouraging and supportive, so but I couldn't be myself in that relationship, I just couldn't, and so because I wasn't being myself, I was just like it was like a death of sorts, you know.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't happen to think of that as being dramatic because I have actually said that, and I, you know, I'm dying.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like I will die if I don't if I stay, you know, yeah, and and it doesn't have to be a reflection of the other person, it's not, right?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so um and talk a little bit about why it's more difficult to go through it in a conscious manner than not, and and how do you how does it look?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: How does going through it consciously look to you?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it looks like um taking responsibility for whatever it is that you're feeling.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like not allowing yourself to point fingers and blame, and not that I didn't slip into that a few times because I absolutely did, right?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it was about taking responsibility.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: So so we did this interesting thing, you know, we talked about how, you know, before we got married, right, we had an engagement, right?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: So during the engagement period, you start making plans and you gradually bring your lives together, right?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we said, let's have a disengagement, let's spend some time still here in the same house, and let's gradually separate our lives so that we gradually, you know, have our own, you know, finances and our own this and our own, you know, and I'm gonna start going and doing this stuff without you, and you're gonna do that, and we're not gonna check in with each other, you know, quite as much, or whatever it looked like.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: It looked like a lot of different things, right?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we were very wise to do that, and that takes an incredible amount of courage because if you're not pointing fingers and blaming and being angry, and and you know, that's that's just a uh diversion, you know, that's just a way of not looking at what's going on, right?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's both easier and harder to consciously, you know, drift apart, pull apart.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's easier because you're supported.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: We supported each other through that.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be a support system through for each other.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's harder because you have to take responsibility and you have to look at it, right?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: You have to know this is all mine, all of it.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: All this anger that I feel, all the sadness that I feel, whatever it is that's going on 100%, this is mine.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's mine to deal with.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that um, like for me, that the um I had to take responsibility for not doing the work of looking at myself and figuring out what my issues were, which caused the problems in the relationship.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, that was like heartbreaking because it's not really what I wanted.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: I did I wanted to have a successful relationship forever, of course.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's how you go into it, and that's what you want.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was just really, really tough, that owning that part of it.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I also um said, like in the in my first book that I wrote, that I I would not want to go through a divorce alone.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: And my number one helper was my ex, you know, like we like you said, like we were able to get through it together because we chose not to blame each other and not to, you know.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you can only be responsible for what you're responsible for, you can't be responsible for the other person, and sometimes people don't have the benefit of cooperative spouse, and sometimes you need to just make a clean break, and there's all different scenarios, but um, for us, I think like the situation um was that we were able to create that for ourselves, yeah, and you you create your divorce the same way you create your relationship, you know, if you're absolutely but I was thinking the same thing, not everybody has that opportunity because not everybody has a partner who's willing, you know, to do that, yeah.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: But you can still do it yourself, you can, yeah, yeah, you definitely can.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I I um I think like it would have been a whole lot easier if somebody had like behaved badly and it was so obvious.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I used to say that all the time.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: So a year out, um, yeah, what do you feel you um what are you proudest of?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you feel like maybe you could have done differently?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm really proud of exactly what it is that we were just talking about, that we did it in the way that we did, that I can still call him or text him or vice versa, and we get along and we, you know, send each other, you know, funny things, you know, via text or whatever.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm proud that that we did that, not just for each other, but for our child, you know.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, um, our daughter moved a few months ago and we both went and helped her.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the two of us unloaded the truck, you know, together.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I'm very proud of that.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's so important for her to see that her parents still care about each other, they still respect each other, you know, they can get along.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I'm suit, I'm super proud of that because that's not, you know, it's not an easy thing to do, you know.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like we talked about it, it could have gotten really ugly.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then what was your other question?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: You had what do you think you could have done better?
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: I could have lived my marriage better.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think I could have, I think I gave too much of myself away without anybody but me knowing that I was doing that.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: No one asking.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no one asked me to, no one had the expectation.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: I did that.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if I wouldn't have done that, I mean, I don't know.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I don't have a crystal ball, but um so I have some regrets there that you know, or well, not regrets.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: If I had it to do over, I would do that differently.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like my communication skills have improved, like my ability to voice my feelings and my opinions and my desires is it's not it's still not perfect.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm still working through that.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, like, since I haven't really had a relationship, I don't know if I'm gonna be any good at that.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: But haven't you noticed, like with setting boundaries, like that's something that really, you know, over the last year is coming up more and more, and I'm getting better and better at it.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that it's okay for me to say, no, you know what, that doesn't work for me.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, at first I want to like justify it, you know.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, I got this other stuff going on, and so you know, and then I'm just like, no, like they say, no is a complete sentence.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's not right for me.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't work for me, right?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something that's come out of it that um that I'm very pleased with, you know.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a it's a process.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're like I in some ways I feel like I'm still the ramifications of the relationship, the way I was in the relationship, the way I came out of the relationship, it's still working through me.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it's been three and a half years.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely still working through.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, obviously, I mean, I'm not dating or you know, doing anything like that, so I don't know.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, do I have new skills to put into a new relationship?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would imagine so.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: Fingers crossed.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, Christine, what do you think about moving on to our lightning round?
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we have a lightning round.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's do it.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so question number one.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: What was your favorite TV show as a child?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, like a young child, I liked um oh my god, the flying nun.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I totally forgot about the flying nun.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: When I was a little kid, and people, you know, people ask little kids, what do you want to be when you grow up?
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: I used to say the flying nun.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, she was so sweet.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot all about the she was mischievous.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: She was.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I liked her.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: That reminds me of you, mischievous.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do you define happiness?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like that should be a really simple question.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, I don't even know how to answer it.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's such an in-the-moment thing because it can mean so many different things.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's truly just like being present, you know, like right now.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel really joyful and happy right now because we're just present and we're just having this nice little chat.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I'm not sure I can give it like a broad definition.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a feeling of freedom and um authenticity.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: For me, happiness is sort of like there's way more um contentment in it.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's so it's it's quiet.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a quiet concept.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like a you know, celebratory, like, you know.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's fun.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's like that's really fun.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there's like this just quiet contentment to it.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a roundness, it's a fullness, it's a nothing else is needed here and now type of.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I love that.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very good.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, did you go to camp as a kid?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: I went to I was a brownie.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: Remember brownies, you know, like before Girl Scouts?
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I got to go to camp.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think I only went one summer, but I I did go to camp.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually was a campfire girl.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even think they exist anymore.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they do.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was a cult classic back then, but you know, completely different uniform.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to a couple, I went to a um, I think I went two or three years, a camp called Camp Takabachi.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even it was so fun, and I don't even remember where it was, but it seemed like it was really far away.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it was fun.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what is the most courageous thing you've ever done?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: I wow, the most I've done so many courageous things, really.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just look at the conversation that we just had, you know.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I have really um have done a lot of courageous things.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think this work and the willingness to look at me, to look at what's inside of what I've been carrying around, to be um to be willing to redefine myself, or like I said earlier, or stop defining myself, I think that takes incredible courage to not just um continue to follow along with society's idea of who we're supposed to be and how we're supposed to do things.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it funny how you know the traditional understanding of the word courage requires some external act of bravery or something, something outside of yourself.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: When really the most courageous things are the internal work, the being vulnerable, the being honest.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the yeah, wow.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's necessarily like an age or generational thing.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, maybe it is, but I don't know.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: I we wouldn't know if it was.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's courage to me now is the willingness to really look and really be.
• 57:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Still, it still requires courage.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's never you're never done.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_02: Every day.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: Every day, it's like getting naked every day.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, yeah.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how would you describe yourself in three words?
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: Man, how long did you spend coming up with these questions?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: These are seriously in-depth questions.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: You could have warned me before we got on.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're not appropriate for the lightning round, but this is my version.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're really not.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, three words to describe myself.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm just gonna go with two.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Can I use two?
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: Always evolving.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I would if I would were to use two, I would say simple and complex.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: And confused.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, final, final lightning round question.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: What is your idea of heaven?
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: What is my idea of heaven?
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that um that happiness that we were talking about, the way that you described it, I really love just that super gentle in the moment, like nothing else is needed.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that's like surrender, I guess.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's my idea of heaven.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just surrender.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that gives me goosebumps.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to come up with one like that.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take, I'm gonna use that one too.
• 59:00
  unknown: Okay.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, Christine, did you bring a question for me today?
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have one.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's sort of twofold.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: How is it that you see yourself influencing the world, influencing the people around you?
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and what what influence do you think you've had up to this point?
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you see going forward?
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want to influence the world?
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what impact do you want to have?
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't bring an answer for that one.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now you know how I've been feeling the last 10 minutes.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I this is something that it's not something that I've known all along, but something that I have discovered kind of like in retrospect, that I have always had the capacity to be loving and accepting of people who were not finding that.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I had kind of I I I kind of described myself as a child as a bit of a wallflower, and I could move between groups, and I always felt like that really strong connection that I was in the places that I was to be there for people, certain people who were sort of like discarded by the general population.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: And later in life, so I so looking back, I can see how that was a recurring uh pattern in my life.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that I understand it now, which I think I've talked about before, but I have come to know that my field has a certain stability to it that um people benefit from.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like loving and stable.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's and it's in a way like loving and stable is very neutral.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I think that really just being that is enough.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's enough for one lifetime, but I really feel called to walk this journey of authenticity in a very visible way, and that is, I can't tell you how hard that has been for me because I'm I'm naturally like a person who doesn't like it when people are upset with me, um, or who think badly of me, or you know, any of that, that's really hard for me.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so knowing that I'm gonna make a lot of mistakes along the way, and to to to live visibly and out loud, like I have tried to do, um, that's that's challenging.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel that that's why I came.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: You are a beautiful example of living that way.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I question whether or not you have made any mistakes or will make any mistakes.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a list of people to call.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, well, that's their thing, you know.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe we have to redefine what mistake is.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Christine, I have loved talking to you.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I just know that I just know that this conversation is going to be really helpful to people.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that you were able to come on with me.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I really want to dive more into this um the topic of relationships with you.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm hoping that you'll come on and do a Facebook Live with me on Still Kicking, and we can kind of talk about that in the in the near future.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: That would be lovely.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would yeah, I would really enjoy that.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: That would be great.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: I feel very honored that you asked me.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a big fan of yours in so many different ways.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big fan of yours too.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we definitely have that connection for sure.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you again so much for coming on and for for being so honest and open and vulnerable and real.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: Love you too.