Latest / To All the Men I've Tolerated Before / Patriarchy Stress Disorder
Transcript
- 0:21Speaker 1: Hey, tolerators, listens to all the men I've tolerated before
- 0:25Speaker 1: with niam lu Patona, your weekly look at everyday misogyny.
- 0:29Speaker 1: Our guest today is doctor Valerie Ryan, the author of
- 0:32Speaker 1: the book Patriarchy, Stress Disorder, The Invisible inner Barrier to
- 0:36Speaker 1: Women's happiness and fulfillment. Doctor Valerie has been using her
- 0:40Speaker 1: background as a psychologist to explore all the ways we
- 0:43Speaker 1: can begin to heal from the stress and trauma caused
- 0:46Speaker 1: to us living in a patriarchal society, which is right
- 0:51Speaker 1: up our Alli. Thank you so much for being here today.
- 0:55Speaker 2: I am so happy to sit down.
- 0:57Speaker 1: With you all and die in How why don't you
- 1:01Speaker 1: go ahead and just give the tolerators, since you're one
- 1:05Speaker 1: of our new guests, a little bit of background of
- 1:07Speaker 1: how one becomes a studier of patriarchy Struss disorder. Did
- 1:14Speaker 1: you coin that term? I did? Did you? There was
- 1:20Speaker 1: a friend DM me today and coined the term capitalistic
- 1:25Speaker 1: christiandom or something along those lines, and I was like, you,
- 1:29Speaker 1: I go get that term on the internet. So I
- 1:34Speaker 1: love when we come up with terms that explain the
- 1:37Speaker 1: hell that we're currently going through. But go ahead and
- 1:40Speaker 1: give them your background. Yeah, thank you.
- 1:44Speaker 2: I think it helps to name things, all right, whatever
- 1:47Speaker 2: the term is, but it makes something intangible tangible. And
- 1:52Speaker 2: one of my favorite feedback that I've gotten from women
- 1:57Speaker 2: reading the book really women, although it is for people
- 2:02Speaker 2: across the gender spectrum, but I've been having more resonance
- 2:07Speaker 2: with my audience of which I'm a member myself, and
- 2:13Speaker 2: so my favorite feedback has been, thank you for naming
- 2:16Speaker 2: something I've known my entire life, I've felt my entire life,
- 2:21Speaker 2: and now I have words for it. It is no
- 2:25Speaker 2: longer invisible. That is actually I start my book with
- 2:30Speaker 2: this quote by anonymous. I couldn't track there the source
- 2:35Speaker 2: of the quote. When we can see the invisible, we
- 2:39Speaker 2: can do the impossible. And that has been a big
- 2:42Speaker 2: mission behind really having this conversation far and wide about
- 2:49Speaker 2: how the imprints of living on the patriarchy for millennia
- 2:56Speaker 2: have been impacting us as a society and each individual.
- 3:01Speaker 2: And that's society and depending where we land, both on
- 3:04Speaker 2: the gender spectrum and other factors and intersecting layers of
- 3:10Speaker 2: our identity and how it fits and meets with patriarchal
- 3:17Speaker 2: approval or does not, and with parts of us we've
- 3:20Speaker 2: been compelled to cut off because you know, they didn't fit,
- 3:25Speaker 2: they were not safe, and that has been going on
- 3:27Speaker 2: with generations and collectively, so that's kind of how it
- 3:32Speaker 2: all comes together. I lost the beginning of that sentence
- 3:35Speaker 2: a long time ago, so you know, we're at the
- 3:41Speaker 2: very end of twenty twenty five and I feel like
- 3:47Speaker 2: every day I voice memo a dear friend to feel like,
- 3:53Speaker 2: I don't understand how today is a day that I
- 3:57Speaker 2: have to live through and so much is going on
- 4:00Speaker 2: on all at once that has nothing to do with
- 4:03Speaker 2: anything I would have power over.
- 4:06Speaker 1: But yeah, so cut do you like? I just have
- 4:10Speaker 1: thoughts that dangle out of my mouth and then I go,
- 4:14Speaker 1: I don't know it's gone.
- 4:15Speaker 2: And I think that's part of the stress of it
- 4:17Speaker 2: all that is, that is part. It's definitely part of
- 4:22Speaker 2: how it impacts us, you know. Back to your question,
- 4:27Speaker 2: My journey began when I was aware of myself just
- 4:32Speaker 2: as a being, as a little human, old girl in
- 4:36Speaker 2: a society, and I was getting all these messages early
- 4:42Speaker 2: on that I needed to fix myself somehow, that was
- 4:45Speaker 2: something wrong with me, and I was a pretty compliant child.
- 4:53Speaker 2: I did my best to kind of keep up and
- 4:56Speaker 2: you know, fix it up, but I could quite figure
- 5:00Speaker 2: out what it was that was wrong with me, apparently
- 5:03Speaker 2: like a lot of things, but really, as I was
- 5:06Speaker 2: growing up, I became a seeker, and I read tons
- 5:11Speaker 2: of books philosophy, personal development, and studied psychology because what
- 5:19Speaker 2: else would I study to explain once and for all
- 5:22Speaker 2: what was wrong with me? And so two graduate degrees later,
- 5:27Speaker 2: I was no closer to an answer because I had many,
- 5:32Speaker 2: many answers, like as many as would fit into the
- 5:35Speaker 2: DSM Diagnostic Manual of all possible mental health quote unquote disorders.
- 5:45Speaker 2: But somehow that was not satisfying. That was like, none
- 5:50Speaker 2: of that, although I followed a lot of rabbit holes,
- 5:54Speaker 2: none of that actually was tangibly improving how I was heeling.
- 5:59Speaker 2: And lots of therapy both on the receiving hand, and
- 6:02Speaker 2: later became a therapist. And then finally, somehow the dots
- 6:09Speaker 2: connected for me, and I was forty years old, and
- 6:16Speaker 2: you know, who knows, Maybe it is that this grace
- 6:20Speaker 2: had something to do with hormones shifting and being impairment
- 6:23Speaker 2: of pause, and as estrogen levels were going down, so
- 6:28Speaker 2: was you know, some clarity was coming in, and so
- 6:33Speaker 2: the veil thinned out and I was able to recognize,
- 6:37Speaker 2: oh my gosh, what if this trauma I had been
- 6:41Speaker 2: trying to figure out my entire life that had been
- 6:43Speaker 2: holding me back is not something personal? What if it
- 6:47Speaker 2: is collect What it is if it is intergenerational? Because
- 6:50Speaker 2: we now know from epigenetics that traumatic experiences are transmitted
- 6:58Speaker 2: to epigenetic generation, to gene and women have been receiving
- 7:04Speaker 2: these traumas on a daily basis by just existing on
- 7:08Speaker 2: the patriarchy. And some of them have been you know,
- 7:11Speaker 2: a thousand paper cuts, and some of them have been
- 7:14Speaker 2: a really like capital T traumas, and all of that
- 7:19Speaker 2: we've inherited and all that has been in the collective
- 7:22Speaker 2: field with us. So I am so grateful for this
- 7:28Speaker 2: download that came through, that awareness came through, that been
- 7:31Speaker 2: expressed as a book, and being able to have these
- 7:34Speaker 2: conversations with women. Does it changed everything for me from
- 7:40Speaker 2: just trying to fix myself incessantly going to therapy, digging
- 7:45Speaker 2: to self help, to recognizing, wait a minute, what if
- 7:49Speaker 2: there's not something wrong with me, but there are other
- 7:55Speaker 2: conditions that have been hostile and the adaptations that my
- 7:59Speaker 2: system created and inherited from so many generations, These adaptations
- 8:07Speaker 2: they are now folding you back, preventing me from poorly
- 8:11Speaker 2: shining my light in the world, preventing me from poorly happy,
- 8:15Speaker 2: feeling happy, feeling relaxed, fulfilled, all my colors being online. Yeah,
- 8:24Speaker 2: so that's been the exploration of.
- 8:29Speaker 1: Late. What a great and yet also terrifying way to
- 8:33Speaker 1: get to know yourself, to be like, I actually think
- 8:37Speaker 1: that millennia of men creating patriarchal systems that truly only
- 8:43Speaker 1: benefit them has turned me into the person who has
- 8:47Speaker 1: these feelings about myself, or discourages myself, or has these
- 8:53Speaker 1: like inherent fears. A very lighthearted way that this manifest
- 8:58Speaker 1: for me is I was reading a book last night,
- 9:02Speaker 1: a fiction book, and I got to the big twist,
- 9:05Speaker 1: and I picked up my phone to text a friend
- 9:07Speaker 1: who had recommended the book to be like, oh my gosh,
- 9:11Speaker 1: I can't believe. I looked at the clock and it
- 9:14Speaker 1: was midnight, and I was like, Oh, you can't be
- 9:16Speaker 1: texting friends at midnight. Other people's sleep. And when I
- 9:21Speaker 1: told her, she was like, you could have texted me.
- 9:23Speaker 1: I have my notifications turned off, and I was like,
- 9:25Speaker 1: that's good to know, because I don't sleep. I thrive
- 9:30Speaker 1: very very late. At night, and she was like, why
- 9:34Speaker 1: I love sleep? I go, I love sleep too, but
- 9:37Speaker 1: my body enjoys a mid day sleep. But I go.
- 9:42Speaker 1: When I was growing up, I was a little girl
- 9:47Speaker 1: who saw her mother and her aunts and her grandmother
- 9:52Speaker 1: finally obtain peace when it was dark and everyone else
- 9:56Speaker 1: was in bed, including the entire world. So my body
- 9:59Speaker 1: feels the most at peace. And I call it like
- 10:02Speaker 1: some people call it the witching hour, some like I go, no,
- 10:05Speaker 1: the nighttime is for women, it's for us.
- 10:09Speaker 2: Oh chills, Nalie. You know, I actually I never thought
- 10:12Speaker 2: about it this way, but I too feel peace in
- 10:16Speaker 2: those hours. And I love sleep too, so sometimes you
- 10:21Speaker 2: know have to you know, wait, wait await, And also
- 10:26Speaker 2: connecting this to symptoms that so many women experience, particularly
- 10:33Speaker 2: in midlife, but it can come up at any age
- 10:37Speaker 2: that it's challenging. Getting to sleep is challenging, steing is
- 10:41Speaker 2: sleep is challenging. So I haven't actually considered this through
- 10:46Speaker 2: this lands of oh wow, like we even inherited. It's
- 10:50Speaker 2: that sense that we can actually be at peace when
- 10:53Speaker 2: everybody else goes to sleep. We've finally left alone. We
- 10:57Speaker 2: can practice up witch craft, said nobody. You know nobody's
- 11:04Speaker 2: there to stop us. It's fascinating. And of course another
- 11:08Speaker 2: aspect is that so much stress in our bodies, that
- 11:12Speaker 2: is our baseline. It's not like a black and white
- 11:15Speaker 2: answer to everyone everybody's you know, situation is different. But
- 11:21Speaker 2: these are fun stones to upturn.
- 11:25Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish if I had it my way, I
- 11:29Speaker 1: wish I was at a place where I felt safer
- 11:32Speaker 1: walking at night, because I think I would enjoy it more.
- 11:35Speaker 1: There's less cars to deal with, there's less of a
- 11:38Speaker 1: chance to have to give your emotional and mental energy
- 11:41Speaker 1: over to a neighbor or a kid that's played out
- 11:45Speaker 1: in the yard or anything. Because when I'm walking, I'm
- 11:49Speaker 1: truly usually trying to solve the world's problems in my
- 11:52Speaker 1: forty five minute walk and clear my head so I
- 11:55Speaker 1: can sit down to write for the rest of my
- 11:57Speaker 1: day or plan for the podcast after anything. And it's
- 12:02Speaker 1: amazing how one of the first things I'll think about
- 12:05Speaker 1: when it comes to like getting up and getting ready
- 12:07Speaker 1: to go on my walk, is I really just hope
- 12:09Speaker 1: I don't run into anybody, you like, could I just
- 12:13Speaker 1: sneak out and hopefully everyone else is locked up so
- 12:17Speaker 1: I can just enjoy this for thirty minutes.
- 12:23Speaker 2: I love how beneficial your walks are out to the world.
- 12:27Speaker 2: You are contemplating a big questions.
- 12:30Speaker 1: I'm just just saying they're stressing myself out to be like,
- 12:33Speaker 1: how do I make people understand that the Denver season
- 12:39Speaker 1: of Love Is Blind was in fact patriarchy propaganda and
- 12:42Speaker 1: that's why by the finale you hated all of the women.
- 12:46Speaker 1: They were all demonized for heavy hopes and dreams and
- 12:50Speaker 1: personalities and Love is Blind and Netflix convinced you that
- 12:54Speaker 1: that was bad and you hookline and syncred it because
- 12:59Speaker 1: they wepon nic therapy language against us.
- 13:03Speaker 2: Oh shit, and it's everywhere, right, Natalie. Once you begin
- 13:09Speaker 2: to see if you really can't find of see it,
- 13:11Speaker 2: you can, and you would just see it, and you
- 13:13Speaker 2: want to share with people, Let's see it together.
- 13:16Speaker 1: And I think too, I personally need a community. That
- 13:24Speaker 1: is because I was just editing an episode with another
- 13:28Speaker 1: friend who advocates for reproductive healthcare in her state, Wyoming,
- 13:34Speaker 1: during election season and all year round, and when I
- 13:38Speaker 1: was telling her all of the things that I wish
- 13:41Speaker 1: people understood, she kept reiterating, well, you're on step twenty
- 13:46Speaker 1: and I'm working with people who are still at step one,
- 13:49Speaker 1: and it's lonely being at step twenty because when you're
- 13:55Speaker 1: at step twenty, you're looking around at twenty twenty five, going,
- 13:59Speaker 1: I don't understand how everyone in my social life doesn't
- 14:03Speaker 1: understand that we didn't just wake up one day and
- 14:07Speaker 1: we were living in a country ran by a fascist.
- 14:10Speaker 1: We are literally millennias of decisions heading towards this, and
- 14:16Speaker 1: there's always been a route to that problem, and it's
- 14:18Speaker 1: always been patriarchy and colonialism. And I don't understand how
- 14:24Speaker 1: in twenty eight twenty five we're not ready for those
- 14:27Speaker 1: conversations because we're seeing the ramifications of that all the time,
- 14:32Speaker 1: most recently with the snap benefits going away on November first,
- 14:38Speaker 1: and it takes a lot of patients to remember, well,
- 14:41Speaker 1: some people are still grappling with the fact that, you know,
- 14:45Speaker 1: they're in a marriage that is very patriarchy heavy, or
- 14:50Speaker 1: their hosts divorce in the middle of a glow up
- 14:54Speaker 1: and they're just trying to like enjoy that, or you know,
- 14:59Speaker 1: or they're worried about their freaking staff benefits and I'm
- 15:02Speaker 1: over here just be like, can someone please just affirm
- 15:06Speaker 1: me that we didn't just wake up and this was
- 15:10Speaker 1: all happening, like it was a very well rolled out
- 15:13Speaker 1: plan by men who benefit from misogyny and patriarchy.
- 15:19Speaker 2: Yeah, and the women who bought into it, because also
- 15:26Speaker 2: it's bringing this compassionate view right of how whether or
- 15:32Speaker 2: not one is brought into it, participating it, even creating it,
- 15:38Speaker 2: one is still harmed by it, just in different ways.
- 15:42Speaker 2: So women who are bought into the patriarchal agenda. And
- 15:49Speaker 2: there's a spectrum, right, a wide spectrum. It may be subtle,
- 15:53Speaker 2: which I think would probably all need at some level
- 15:56Speaker 2: of subtle, myself included, because there are some layers of
- 16:01Speaker 2: my subconscious that is still brought into that that I
- 16:04Speaker 2: haven't yet gotten to, right, And then they come up
- 16:08Speaker 2: in my thoughts and my emotions and my behavior and
- 16:11Speaker 2: my behaviors and choices, and they surprise me. I'm like,
- 16:14Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I didn't realize it was there. And
- 16:16Speaker 2: I'm the mother of patriarchists sort of and I didn't
- 16:20Speaker 2: see it. And then of course that there are more.
- 16:23Speaker 3: Overts that we can recognize, like, oh my gosh, these
- 16:29Speaker 3: women I really like soldiering patriarchy, like promoting that agenda
- 16:34Speaker 3: with everything that they say, everything that they do, right,
- 16:39Speaker 3: but why?
- 16:40Speaker 2: The question is why? And in my view, it all
- 16:44Speaker 2: comes down to a very human feature that we're or
- 16:49Speaker 2: even animal future if you will, we're all seeking safety. Yeah,
- 16:53Speaker 2: all beings want to be safe and we want to
- 16:58Speaker 2: belong and it's just simple as that. It's just you know,
- 17:02Speaker 2: for some safety is in aligning with patriarchal power, and
- 17:09Speaker 2: that's how they think about it. That's what makes sense
- 17:13Speaker 2: to them, right know. And there's belonging in the benefits
- 17:19Speaker 2: in that, and there is harm that they also we see,
- 17:24Speaker 2: So it's very complicated. As a matter of fact, when
- 17:28Speaker 2: I look at patriarchy and when I think about it,
- 17:31Speaker 2: I also don't think about it as something that is
- 17:35Speaker 2: exclusive to men. It's men's creation and men's you know,
- 17:40Speaker 2: men are the ones who are perpetrating it and perpetuating it.
- 17:46Speaker 2: I feel we're all implicated in that in different ways.
- 17:52Speaker 2: Right Obviously for some maybe like a full time job
- 17:55Speaker 2: and for this more a hobby, very very part time,
- 18:00Speaker 2: but you know, it still stands. So it's it stands
- 18:05Speaker 2: on many many anchors. There are many founders parts to
- 18:09Speaker 2: that foundation and for men, the cost of belonging in
- 18:18Speaker 2: that club. Patriarchy is really high because men have to,
- 18:24Speaker 2: according to patriarchy, really cut off and a fragment their humanity.
- 18:33Speaker 4: Yeah, and the only emotions that men are allowed to
- 18:38Speaker 4: have and correct me if it or like, please offer
- 18:43Speaker 4: your your your take on that, because any authority on
- 18:47Speaker 4: the final final word on any of that.
- 18:50Speaker 2: But in my experience, it's anger. It's the emotion that
- 18:54Speaker 2: is allowed to men, primarily being competitive, being strong, you know,
- 19:02Speaker 2: all these things, but being nurturing and being soft, being
- 19:09Speaker 2: you know, feeling of the feelings, sadness and even joy
- 19:16Speaker 2: and et cetera, et cetera, that is prohibited. And so
- 19:20Speaker 2: men also struggle. The men's mental health is going through
- 19:26Speaker 2: a huge crisis right now as well. And part of
- 19:31Speaker 2: it is that small man box that people people are
- 19:39Speaker 2: locked in, and patriarchy says that you know, you can
- 19:42Speaker 2: only be accepted and you can only have those benefits
- 19:47Speaker 2: from club patriarchy when you're in it. Yeah, right, And
- 19:53Speaker 2: and for for women and people across the gender spectrum,
- 19:56Speaker 2: everybody has well patriarchy only he recognizes the binary, right,
- 20:03Speaker 2: so we you know, there's not a place for the spectrum.
- 20:08Speaker 2: So for women there's a different box. And again, if
- 20:11Speaker 2: we don't fit. Then there are consequences right in belonging
- 20:17Speaker 2: and in safety. So all of that it lives in
- 20:20Speaker 2: our subconscious and our collective subconscious and our individuals subconscious.
- 20:24Speaker 2: And even if we don't believe that crap, that's really
- 20:29Speaker 2: the punchline for us more, you know, folks who are
- 20:33Speaker 2: more like or think about ourselves as more maybe awake
- 20:38Speaker 2: and aware and doing the work right, We're doing the
- 20:41Speaker 2: work to be more awake and aware, and all that
- 20:45Speaker 2: that shit still lives in our subconscious, which is maddening,
- 20:50Speaker 2: but that's part of how PSD patriarchy Strauszoro operates. Right Consciously,
- 20:55Speaker 2: we don't believe it. Subconsciously, the wiring that tells where
- 21:00Speaker 2: we're safe, where we're on stage, were still pret be there.
- 21:04Speaker 1: You know, while you were talking, I was thinking about
- 21:07Speaker 1: teenage Namiley or early twenties Nampile and how different she
- 21:13Speaker 1: was from the woman who ended up with a podcast
- 21:16Speaker 1: about everyday misogyny and is trying her hand at screenwriting.
- 21:20Speaker 1: Some more women's stories get told. And I'm sitting now
- 21:26Speaker 1: as a thirty six year old woman who has done
- 21:29Speaker 1: all of the decentering work that I have done. I
- 21:33Speaker 1: have rewritten parts of my past where I'm like, yeah,
- 21:38Speaker 1: you know, my two grandmas, they were single and they
- 21:41Speaker 1: made it work and that was empowering and that was
- 21:45Speaker 1: celebrated in this at and the other, And now that
- 21:48Speaker 1: I'm actually thinking about it, I'm like, no, you grew
- 21:52Speaker 1: up knowing that your grandmother's, through death and other reasons,
- 21:57Speaker 1: were women who raised their families on their own. But
- 22:01Speaker 1: you also were told at every turn that that life
- 22:04Speaker 1: was a life of struggle, and it led you to
- 22:08Speaker 1: be a girl who was constantly worried that no one
- 22:11Speaker 1: was going to pick her so she wouldn't have to
- 22:15Speaker 1: struggle chills. Yeah, Whereas my grandmothers were strong for everything
- 22:21Speaker 1: that they had to endure, and I do when I
- 22:24Speaker 1: honor my ancestors and my spiritual practices and all that,
- 22:28Speaker 1: I always call on that kind of strength. But to
- 22:31Speaker 1: be sixteen years old and losing your grandmother and hearing
- 22:36Speaker 1: about all of the things that she went through to
- 22:40Speaker 1: be your grandmother, it does imprint in your mind that
- 22:44Speaker 1: it's like, well, if you don't buy into a marriage,
- 22:46Speaker 1: or if a man doesn't pick you to make you
- 22:48Speaker 1: safe or whatever, then is it's a life of struggle
- 22:52Speaker 1: and no one wants to have a life of struggle.
- 22:55Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these are such soul brain realization. So I
- 23:00Speaker 2: celebrate your courage. It takes a lot of courage to
- 23:04Speaker 2: get to clarity.
- 23:06Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I am so grateful to have
- 23:11Speaker 1: a new way to talk about this phenomenon in my
- 23:14Speaker 1: brain and my heart and my soul and my communities
- 23:17Speaker 1: of patriarchy stress disorder, because again, I do think naming
- 23:21Speaker 1: it actually gives it a power. And luckily you have
- 23:25Speaker 1: named it like it is a medical mental condition, and
- 23:30Speaker 1: it very much is. Who knows what my brain would
- 23:33Speaker 1: have been able to accomplish had I been allowed to
- 23:36Speaker 1: believe in myself, or enjoy my body, or not have
- 23:40Speaker 1: to rely on the work and the kindness of men
- 23:45Speaker 1: when men aren't very often conditioned to be kind or
- 23:50Speaker 1: empathetic or things like that.
- 23:53Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and that's just it. It's so I opened to
- 24:02Speaker 5: consider as far as our imagination can take it. And
- 24:07Speaker 5: mine is not all.
- 24:09Speaker 2: That, you know, Mine doesn't have a lot of mileage
- 24:12Speaker 2: inet regard when I try to imagine not only what
- 24:15Speaker 2: my life could could have been like, well, I can
- 24:19Speaker 2: tell you that I would not have had some traumatic
- 24:23Speaker 2: experiences that I had unwanted sexual experiences, other traumatic experiences.
- 24:31Speaker 2: Had I not been conditioned through PSD two, you know,
- 24:37Speaker 2: to think of myself, to have the feelings, to make
- 24:43Speaker 2: the choices that I was making. You know, how I
- 24:46Speaker 2: was relating to myself, my worth, my body. I was
- 24:51Speaker 2: very different. So I know that those experiences would have
- 24:56Speaker 2: been very, very different. But also what's even more important
- 25:02Speaker 2: right now is like what can our life be like? Now?
- 25:08Speaker 2: That's why how good can it get? Is the battle
- 25:11Speaker 2: cry of this movement of healing PC and talk about
- 25:17Speaker 2: it in the book. I know it resonates with a
- 25:19Speaker 2: lot of readers. How good can it get? And that's
- 25:23Speaker 2: a constant process of discovery because in this territory of
- 25:32Speaker 2: how we can it get, a lies outside of the
- 25:36Speaker 2: patriarchally approved perimeter of where we are allowed to exist
- 25:43Speaker 2: and be saved and be sort of approved of, sort
- 25:47Speaker 2: of conditionally conditionally sometimes yes, sometimes not so much, but
- 25:54Speaker 2: we keep trying read earning that conditional approval by you know,
- 25:59Speaker 2: working a lot and you know, just checking off off
- 26:04Speaker 2: the boxes what will make me more approved of, which
- 26:09Speaker 2: also translates to safety, which also translates to belonging. Right,
- 26:13Speaker 2: So all of this is why you're so so deeply
- 26:18Speaker 2: into our theory survival, and that's why just changing how
- 26:23Speaker 2: we think about things, yes, it is an important step,
- 26:28Speaker 2: but it doesn't untie those knobs. It doesn't create that
- 26:32Speaker 2: liberation as we need to create that deep embodied safety
- 26:37Speaker 2: working through those experiences, and then the imagination too goes, oh,
- 26:43Speaker 2: maybe this can be possible for me, and then I'll
- 26:46Speaker 2: take this risk there is of Mabe not belonging or
- 26:52Speaker 2: being rejected, and I will actually follow my dream and
- 26:55Speaker 2: i will reach out and I'll make that contact and
- 26:59Speaker 2: I'll put myself out there and i will have this
- 27:04Speaker 2: experience right and all of that, It's like we have
- 27:10Speaker 2: paced creates a certain limit on our capacity. It puts
- 27:16Speaker 2: the ceiling of our capacity pretty pretty low. And here
- 27:20Speaker 2: is a paradox. On the one hand, women are tremendously resilient,
- 27:26Speaker 2: very very strong, and on the other hand, the capacity
- 27:30Speaker 2: is very limited to put ourselves out there until risks.
- 27:34Speaker 2: So I've been actually sitting with this paradox. And I
- 27:37Speaker 2: love that you use the word tolerate in your show,
- 27:42Speaker 2: because that's exactly the word I've been pondering the last
- 27:45Speaker 2: two days. It's like there are at least two different
- 27:48Speaker 2: kinds of tolerating that I'm in touch with. On the
- 27:51Speaker 2: one hand, like all the things we've tolerated right that
- 27:54Speaker 2: we don't no longer wish to tolerate, And that's a
- 27:56Speaker 2: big wake up moment, Oh, I've been tolerating this. I
- 28:00Speaker 2: don't want to tolerate you in what and so again
- 28:02Speaker 2: on this journey. And then there's a different kind of
- 28:06Speaker 2: tolerance that is being able to actually tolerate our own
- 28:11Speaker 2: emotions and the intensity of our own experience when we're
- 28:17Speaker 2: reaching towards something we want the desire reveal that authentic
- 28:23Speaker 2: poll towards something and it's just intense, right, And that
- 28:30Speaker 2: tolerance piece, do you really cramples that? Really? What's the
- 28:38Speaker 2: word I'm looking for? It inhibits, just really squashes it.
- 28:44Speaker 2: And part of the work of healing is creating more
- 28:49Speaker 2: capacity to tolerate our own expansion see the same word,
- 28:54Speaker 2: completely different things.
- 28:57Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, a lot of it is doubt and fear.
- 29:02Speaker 1: A lot of the things that I had to tolerate
- 29:04Speaker 1: when I made a career change from teaching to storytelling
- 29:08Speaker 1: being a professional storyteller is I was told by adult
- 29:14Speaker 1: authority figures that like, don't you know that's hard, like
- 29:18Speaker 1: it's hard making maybes, and it's hard being a writer,
- 29:21Speaker 1: and you'll be broke and there are no safety nuts
- 29:28Speaker 1: or anything. And then you know, my liberal ass agenda goes, well,
- 29:33Speaker 1: do you think that maybe we should live in a
- 29:37Speaker 1: society where if I want to tell children stories for
- 29:40Speaker 1: the rest of my life, I should also be able
- 29:43Speaker 1: to eat because children need stories in order to have
- 29:47Speaker 1: functioning brains. But we don't value things like that. And
- 29:52Speaker 1: I think when confronted with the idea of it's going
- 29:59Speaker 1: to be so hard, you know, part of my experience
- 30:04Speaker 1: with decentery men and patriarchy and seeing a life outside
- 30:08Speaker 1: of that was a queer awakening within myself to be like,
- 30:13Speaker 1: I've always been attracted to women's spiritually, mentally, emotionally and
- 30:18Speaker 1: probably physically. Who would even like, whenever someone asks me
- 30:22Speaker 1: who's the most beautiful person in the world is, I
- 30:25Speaker 1: always say Navle Dormer. It ever occurs to me to
- 30:28Speaker 1: say Pedro Pascal, but it's But when I was growing up,
- 30:35Speaker 1: part of my patriarchal conditioning was knowing that a queer
- 30:38Speaker 1: life was a life of struggle. Again, you're going to
- 30:41Speaker 1: be ostracized, you won't have a community. Unfortunately, we've made
- 30:47Speaker 1: red pill communities and content so alluring and seductive to
- 30:55Speaker 1: young boys, but no one wants to talk about that.
- 30:59Speaker 2: Even my system, it has a little too disturbing to
- 31:06Speaker 2: like it really looked at that, because you're absolutely right,
- 31:09Speaker 2: it has been made so awuing. There is so much
- 31:12Speaker 2: belonging in, so much safety, and so much propping up
- 31:16Speaker 2: of the ego, and as a radicalized communities, Cey, you
- 31:22Speaker 2: have a lot of the unknown who are gravitating toward
- 31:27Speaker 2: that because again, like we all have the those basic
- 31:32Speaker 2: human needs we want to belong and want to be safe,
- 31:36Speaker 2: and our egos also want to be propped up, like
- 31:40Speaker 2: I mander and my identity like it, it matters right
- 31:45Speaker 2: others recognize me for something and those needs. Unfortunately, like
- 31:52Speaker 2: there are agenas that you will exploit those basically needs
- 31:59Speaker 2: and it's just goes to me too far, it goes yeah,
- 32:05Speaker 2: it's just yeah, it gets dark. And we've seen that
- 32:09Speaker 2: throughout history so many times, and we would think we
- 32:13Speaker 2: would wear anything doing we stop taking the beat and
- 32:18Speaker 2: recognize where there's authentic connection and belonging and where it
- 32:25Speaker 2: is just being reacognized essentially, and it's sometimes it's not. Yeah, yeah,
- 32:37Speaker 2: it's not that easy. I guess not that straightforward. Sometimes
- 32:42Speaker 2: a person is unprepared to recognize.
- 32:44Speaker 1: That another term that I kind of keep in my
- 32:47Speaker 1: full bell along with tolerating is purposeful. So when someone
- 32:52Speaker 1: wants to talk to me about the inherent struggles of
- 32:55Speaker 1: single women or the inherent struggles of the queer community,
- 33:00Speaker 1: these struggles that you sign up for. Even when I
- 33:03Speaker 1: was teaching, the base assumption was going to be that
- 33:07Speaker 1: I would never make enough money to support myself because
- 33:11Speaker 1: we don't pay teachers enough money to support themselves, because
- 33:15Speaker 1: they're doing an act of service to our communities, and
- 33:18Speaker 1: are you know, it's one step up from volunteer work
- 33:21Speaker 1: in our culture's eyes. And I tell people, I'm like,
- 33:26Speaker 1: you don't find that odd that just because you're born female,
- 33:32Speaker 1: or you're born queer, or you're you end up not
- 33:36Speaker 1: meaning the right guy that sweeps you along and treats
- 33:39Speaker 1: you nice enough that you walk down an aisle that
- 33:43Speaker 1: you were destined to a life of struggle. You think
- 33:46Speaker 1: that that's that just happens. Because it happens, it's still
- 33:50Speaker 1: very much part of a purposeful system to keep us
- 33:54Speaker 1: traumatized and in a state of fear. So we towed
- 33:57Speaker 1: the line so that when and do seek out marriages
- 34:02Speaker 1: that will make them safe and make them feel like
- 34:04Speaker 1: they have a little bit of power in their home.
- 34:07Speaker 1: Or some women don't feel like they have any power
- 34:10Speaker 1: in their home, but they at least know that they'll
- 34:13Speaker 1: be fed and clothed. And we're in such a scarcity
- 34:16Speaker 1: mindset that that's fine for right now. And when I
- 34:21Speaker 1: gon't know it's you know, it's not because I made
- 34:25Speaker 1: a bunch of wrong choices that I ended up single
- 34:28Speaker 1: and a broke podcaster. It's because there was a system
- 34:31Speaker 1: put into place millennia ago when you started rampaging through
- 34:38Speaker 1: areas of the world where communities were by women, both spiritually, physically,
- 34:45Speaker 1: and community wise, and you took away their power and
- 34:50Speaker 1: you eradicated all religions that wherever ran by women, and
- 34:55Speaker 1: then those cultures died off and now they're ancient cultures
- 34:59Speaker 1: that I have a book of about eight hundred pages
- 35:01Speaker 1: long about how colonialism and colonization destroyed that that was purposeful.
- 35:08Speaker 1: Women were seeing as a threat because of all of
- 35:11Speaker 1: the things that we could accomplish spiritually and in our communities,
- 35:15Speaker 1: and therefore we were eradicated. It's something called the Salem
- 35:20Speaker 1: witch Trials. Actually, if we want to go a little
- 35:24Speaker 1: bit more modern with that, it was so.
- 35:27Speaker 2: Much purposeful, agenda driven, just layers and layers and layers
- 35:39Speaker 2: of these constructs, systems, decisions, trends, et cetera, et cetera,
- 35:47Speaker 2: that our whole culture they just interwoven into our culture.
- 35:52Speaker 2: Much of our culture is actually constructed of that. And
- 35:59Speaker 2: how to begin to see through that, to see through that,
- 36:05Speaker 2: like fish and water, when when we begin to recognize,
- 36:08Speaker 2: like this is water and it's it's it's the environment,
- 36:18Speaker 2: and well, this is what happens to be toxic and
- 36:24Speaker 2: has has been polluted and it has been making us
- 36:26Speaker 2: in for a very long time.
- 36:30Speaker 1: And I we've said the words struggle about one hundred
- 36:34Speaker 1: times this episode. But another theme of your book and
- 36:39Speaker 1: what you bring up is how these we reframe struggle
- 36:44Speaker 1: in our mind to understand how we've been made to
- 36:48Speaker 1: associate guilt with our feelings and making sure that we
- 36:51Speaker 1: are taking care of ourselves. So would you like to
- 36:55Speaker 1: talk a little bit about guilt and reframing struggle from
- 36:59Speaker 1: that lens.
- 37:00Speaker 2: Guilt is a signal guilt and shame. So I use
- 37:05Speaker 2: this metaphor or in the booklike in me ps D
- 37:11Speaker 2: to an invisible in prison, it is invisible, and how
- 37:18Speaker 2: you can tell it's there whenever you approach the perimeter.
- 37:24Speaker 2: It's like there's that invisible electric pense and it gets activated.
- 37:29Speaker 2: And one of those signals is shame or guild and
- 37:33Speaker 2: not authentic guild, like oh, I harmed you, and I
- 37:36Speaker 2: take accountability in our relationship, right, I feel guilty and
- 37:41Speaker 2: that's appropriate. That's an appropriate signal because if I, you know,
- 37:46Speaker 2: I did something that crossed harm and prepare it. But
- 37:50Speaker 2: the guilt that comes with patriarchal conditioning is not that
- 37:57Speaker 2: it is in the category of where women can't when,
- 38:00Speaker 2: for example, mom guilt. Right, let's let's go with the obvious.
- 38:05Speaker 2: And we've all experienced that. We've seen even our mothers
- 38:09Speaker 2: and grandmothers and so many women have all around us. Yeah,
- 38:15Speaker 2: it's and and how women also relate to one another
- 38:21Speaker 2: through the patriarchal lens of judging each other's choices, like
- 38:26Speaker 2: is she choosing to have children, she's choosing to not
- 38:29Speaker 2: have children and what that means? And okay, okay, so
- 38:34Speaker 2: she has children, but how is she raising them? This
- 38:37Speaker 2: is wrong, This is wrong, This is wrong. If she
- 38:40Speaker 2: has children and she works, then she's abandoning her children.
- 38:44Speaker 2: If she is a stay at home mom, then what
- 38:47Speaker 2: is she doing in the while she's not contributed into society.
- 38:52Speaker 2: And that is again, there's such a fabric of our
- 38:56Speaker 2: own cultural this web, and we're caught in this web,
- 39:02Speaker 2: and we just feel the stressed from all these signals
- 39:06Speaker 2: of guilt and shame and can't win no matter what
- 39:10Speaker 2: I do. Right and especially right right now. We were
- 39:15Speaker 2: living in a very particular time when anybody's judgment, anybody's
- 39:21Speaker 2: thought about anyone can be instantly broadcast through social media,
- 39:28Speaker 2: like through comments, et cetera, and like all oh my,
- 39:36Speaker 2: So the activation of this invisible electric fence of guilt
- 39:41Speaker 2: and shame is very very strong. Again, it's there to
- 39:45Speaker 2: keep us, keep us in check. And how do we
- 39:51Speaker 2: how do we begin to break out that? That is
- 39:54Speaker 2: that is the question I've been exploring for uh for
- 39:59Speaker 2: years now and happy to report with some success.
- 40:07Speaker 1: Well, I know because when I'm confronted with, you know,
- 40:11Speaker 1: the guilt and shame of the woman, and you know,
- 40:14Speaker 1: I have women in my lives who in my life
- 40:17Speaker 1: who are mothers. And again and the job thing comes
- 40:20Speaker 1: up where it's like, well, you know, daycare again is
- 40:24Speaker 1: not free in this country very often.
- 40:27Speaker 2: So it's like, well, I need childcare.
- 40:30Speaker 1: Childcare is over half of my take home pay every month,
- 40:35Speaker 1: but then also I need to be And a friend
- 40:39Speaker 1: put it very bluntly for me, where it's like, well, yeah,
- 40:41Speaker 1: but when I took those five years off because I
- 40:43Speaker 1: couldn't afford daycare and working, it also means that I
- 40:47Speaker 1: took off five years of my four oh one pay.
- 40:50Speaker 1: And then so there's a financial stability for your future
- 40:54Speaker 1: self with that too, And you're juggling all of this,
- 40:58Speaker 1: and then you know, single flipp it me comes in
- 41:01Speaker 1: and I go, oh, just close your eyes and like
- 41:03Speaker 1: ground yourself and what would make the most sense to you,
- 41:07Speaker 1: not even what makes you the happiest, but like what
- 41:10Speaker 1: brings you the most calm. When you think of this
- 41:14Speaker 1: as the miss is the decision to make, and it's
- 41:17Speaker 1: a foreign concept to people to just make the choice
- 41:20Speaker 1: that would make you feel the best in the day
- 41:24Speaker 1: to day. And it's like, well, I'm not supposed to
- 41:26Speaker 1: feel the best in my day to day. I'm supposed
- 41:29Speaker 1: to agonize over this choice. Yeah, that is also wired
- 41:34Speaker 1: so deeply in us, is that or like we perceive
- 41:38Speaker 1: as normal, is some kind of a state of unease, stress,
- 41:43Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, So when I'm beginning unwinding that in
- 41:51Speaker 1: my system and encountering areas.
- 41:55Speaker 2: Of ease, like, oh, my gosh, I can relax in
- 41:57Speaker 2: the ease, I would start having episodes of panic, like
- 42:03Speaker 2: other parts of my system would go like, what's wrong.
- 42:05Speaker 2: What's wrong? You know, you can't relax because you have
- 42:09Speaker 2: to be vigilant. You have to be on a high
- 42:11Speaker 2: alert or you're not allowed. Patriarchy police is going to
- 42:15Speaker 2: come up to you. And you know, even when we
- 42:21Speaker 2: are in a place of relative in stability and even
- 42:25Speaker 2: success and things that there's ruf our heads and we
- 42:31Speaker 2: have food and you know, stability in our household and
- 42:35Speaker 2: everything is kind of taken care of, and yet we're
- 42:40Speaker 2: not able to fully enjoy our lives. We're not able
- 42:43Speaker 2: to fully be in a state of relaxation, deep connection,
- 42:48Speaker 2: pleasure and playfulness and hear the voice of our own
- 42:55Speaker 2: intuition and authentic guidance, know who we are and show
- 42:59Speaker 2: up as who we are, and that is still impacted.
- 43:04Speaker 2: There is still a level of stress that goes not
- 43:07Speaker 2: regod keep it all together, and your other shoe may
- 43:10Speaker 2: still drop and that's exhausting. Hearing now is exhausting. And
- 43:17Speaker 2: then we have all these health expressions are chronic betem
- 43:21Speaker 2: and our thyroids are impacted, and our sleep is impacted
- 43:27Speaker 2: and the hormones auto wagon cetero, etcetera, etcetera. Is chronic
- 43:33Speaker 2: stress a component and all of that. Absolutely, there are
- 43:37Speaker 2: lots of studies that show the role of stress and
- 43:41Speaker 2: pretty much across every aspect of all well being, putting
- 43:45Speaker 2: out physical health. And is it a far leap? Is
- 43:51Speaker 2: it far fetched to suppose that you know there are
- 43:56Speaker 2: aspects of the stress that are rooted in never feeling
- 44:00Speaker 2: safe as a woman for many, many generations. How much
- 44:06Speaker 2: about constant stresses you would get there? Even when our
- 44:09Speaker 2: lives are good good like were good enough or safe
- 44:14Speaker 2: enough right where we don't have to be vigilant, And
- 44:18Speaker 2: yet that the vigilance is a survival mechanism, that being inherited.
- 44:24Speaker 2: And I so I have this very controversial belief, based
- 44:32Speaker 2: on my experiences working stone women, that there are deep
- 44:38Speaker 2: players of safety that we don't even know what they
- 44:41Speaker 2: feel like, we've never experienced them. Being an arm Nobody
- 44:45Speaker 2: in this life done as kind of from concerning to
- 44:50Speaker 2: say the least, that we don't.
- 44:53Speaker 1: It's been something that I've been really focused on in
- 44:57Speaker 1: my current life circumstances. I'm like, I can't remember the
- 45:02Speaker 1: last day that I felt mentally, emotionally or physically safe
- 45:08Speaker 1: all at the same time grimily yeah, where it's like,
- 45:12Speaker 1: I'm doing great today, I'm fine and without something peaking
- 45:17Speaker 1: even on good days. It could be a day and
- 45:19Speaker 1: I've just been at the zoo all day with my nephew,
- 45:22Speaker 1: and my zoo is the favorite place for me to
- 45:25Speaker 1: be ever, and I'm and at any moment, I could
- 45:29Speaker 1: be like, okay, but you know it's getting dusk. We
- 45:32Speaker 1: gotta be careful in those parking lot like threats be
- 45:35Speaker 1: lingering all the time. Someone could snatch me or you know,
- 45:40Speaker 1: I'm one something that people are trying to drive home
- 45:45Speaker 1: to the people who don't believe in SNAP benefits and
- 45:49Speaker 1: other forms of welfare are well, you're about three paychecks
- 45:53Speaker 1: closer for being on SNAP benefits than you are to
- 45:56Speaker 1: being a billionaire. And how easy it is to find yourself.
- 46:02Speaker 1: I was laid off during the COVID pandemic and it
- 46:05Speaker 1: was one day I was an employed, happy person, and
- 46:08Speaker 1: the next day I was laid off with an uncertain
- 46:13Speaker 1: dystopian future, loomy and grappling with that. And I'm like,
- 46:20Speaker 1: when was the last time that I was like, I'm
- 46:22Speaker 1: physically safe, I'm mentally safe, and I'm emoe and no
- 46:27Speaker 1: one's going to come for me today.
- 46:29Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, there are all these realities that you can
- 46:33Speaker 2: pointing out the all you that are baked into an
- 46:37Speaker 2: experience of being warming, and they are real, real, very present,
- 46:48Speaker 2: and that create that feeling off waiting for the other
- 46:52Speaker 2: SHO could drop something, something may happen, something you go down,
- 46:55Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not too far away from being unsafe,
- 47:00Speaker 2: even when I have this relative safety right now. And
- 47:04Speaker 2: so our nervous system never stops running on a higher arch,
- 47:10Speaker 2: and it becomes a vicious cycle because the more stressed
- 47:14Speaker 2: way are, the more stressed way are made, and the
- 47:17Speaker 2: less safe we feel. And at some point it also
- 47:21Speaker 2: becomes in a way that all those self preservation strategies
- 47:26Speaker 2: also become a limitter because we are less like they
- 47:31Speaker 2: could put ourselves out there to take risks that may
- 47:33Speaker 2: advance us in pretty much every area of our authentic desires.
- 47:41Speaker 1: Literally, women have to carry that idea with them at
- 47:44Speaker 1: all times that even what feels like a right move
- 47:47Speaker 1: could be a wrong move and then you're unsafe immediately.
- 47:51Speaker 2: Yeah, it's back to that can't win concept as a woman,
- 47:57Speaker 2: you just can't win on the patriarch is Sometimes I
- 48:00Speaker 2: use this metaphor of the patriarchy casino, where so we're
- 48:06Speaker 2: all like at this gambling table. We have some chips,
- 48:09Speaker 2: and they're conditional worth chips. Sometimes we'll ruin some Okay,
- 48:13Speaker 2: you did a good job babysitting, you get a couple
- 48:16Speaker 2: of chips for that. Oh, but then you were focusing
- 48:19Speaker 2: on yourself, so we take the chips back. The house
- 48:22Speaker 2: always wins at the end of the day. The house
- 48:25Speaker 2: always wins. But it is so addictive again, because we
- 48:31Speaker 2: want to belong, we want to be approved off, we
- 48:35Speaker 2: want to be loved, we want to be safe, and
- 48:38Speaker 2: because we're not given in this society, we're not given
- 48:43Speaker 2: unconditional love, we are not given unconditional worth. That's not
- 48:48Speaker 2: how the society operates. Everything is conditional. We get stuck.
- 48:54Speaker 2: We get stuck just gambling right and always and always
- 49:01Speaker 2: trying so hard, and it's just it's just pain not
- 49:08Speaker 2: not being able to forward win right. No matter what
- 49:11Speaker 2: choices you need, you think you're making good choices with them. Again,
- 49:15Speaker 2: something that like catches up with you and makes you
- 49:18Speaker 2: feel unsafe and like you wrong, making you wrong.
- 49:21Speaker 1: Yeah. It used to having a lot in my career
- 49:25Speaker 1: before COVID, when I was working in theater or as
- 49:28Speaker 1: a teacher, where it's like I already live away from
- 49:32Speaker 1: my family. No man has chosen me, so I don't
- 49:35Speaker 1: have a support system, and you know, just fail failure
- 49:40Speaker 1: of dating and whatnot, and I would make one choice
- 49:46Speaker 1: at work and everything would work out, and I feel like,
- 49:50Speaker 1: but John Manley, you did work today, And then someone
- 49:53Speaker 1: would have to come in and do to their own insecurity,
- 49:57Speaker 1: for their own prejudice or bullshit or whatever, would have
- 50:01Speaker 1: to tell me, well, actually you're a huge fuck up,
- 50:03Speaker 1: and then the immediate wash over you of like I'm
- 50:07Speaker 1: a woman who lives on my own. My insurance is
- 50:09Speaker 1: something that I have to carry, my paycheck is something
- 50:12Speaker 1: that I need to feed myself, and the cat that
- 50:15Speaker 1: I adopted out of the street, and it's that constantly
- 50:19Speaker 1: everything worked out, and yet at the end of the
- 50:22Speaker 1: day I was still on fire and no one was
- 50:26Speaker 1: coming to put out the fire.
- 50:29Speaker 2: It's ridiculous that we will have to rebuild ourselves daily. Yeah,
- 50:36Speaker 2: living in this toxic environment. They have to like do
- 50:40Speaker 2: our own decals, do all the means that we can
- 50:43Speaker 2: figure out the all the healing technique and whatever we can,
- 50:49Speaker 2: you know, hands on and hopefully a good supportive community
- 50:54Speaker 2: and hudios for leaned that leaning into your own self
- 51:03Speaker 2: worth and doing that reality check who you actually are
- 51:09Speaker 2: and how it actually is and it's not what the
- 51:12Speaker 2: person is projecting onto you. There's just so much violence
- 51:16Speaker 2: in our society that again stems from people feeling not
- 51:22Speaker 2: enough in themselves. People feel not okay, not approved of,
- 51:28Speaker 2: and because of that, all of these distortions arise. That
- 51:32Speaker 2: we have to compete with each other or if I'm
- 51:35Speaker 2: better than you, that it gives me more chips at
- 51:40Speaker 2: the casino, conditional worth, you know, I can get some
- 51:45Speaker 2: on you know, at your expense, and entire communities operate
- 51:52Speaker 2: like that right right right now, it's like, oh, we
- 51:56Speaker 2: are better than them. It's just it is just such
- 52:04Speaker 2: a cool, painful mess. And to me, the healing begins
- 52:10Speaker 2: with like we have to deconstruct conditional worth. We have
- 52:15Speaker 2: to get to the root of this traumatic conditioning. I
- 52:20Speaker 2: use this word worth or less in my book that
- 52:25Speaker 2: women have been imprinted for many generations with this notion
- 52:30Speaker 2: that we are worth or lesson. Yeah, and it's so
- 52:36Speaker 2: so present and so powerful, and it is just coded
- 52:42Speaker 2: in the fabric of our society. We have to restore
- 52:45Speaker 2: our full readiness, not that were better than somebody else.
- 52:50Speaker 2: All these distortions only exist because there is this concept
- 52:56Speaker 2: to that lived philosophy of conditional worth. If there is
- 53:00Speaker 2: no conditional word, there's unconditional worthiness of everyone and not
- 53:07Speaker 2: only humans, all everything, then it all falls apart. There
- 53:13Speaker 2: is no system of oppression that can even exist right
- 53:18Speaker 2: every everyone is worthy and everyone belongs and everyone is loved.
- 53:22Speaker 2: I know it sounds very utopian, like, oh, like, how
- 53:25Speaker 2: do we get there?
- 53:27Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 53:28Speaker 2: And we maybe why is away from the looks of
- 53:31Speaker 2: it right now, But we can get to a piece
- 53:36Speaker 2: of feeling it within ourselves and creating this feeling for
- 53:41Speaker 2: one another, supporting one another, including the FeelA. I find
- 53:45Speaker 2: that collective trauma requires collective feeling, and that's a huge
- 53:50Speaker 2: emphasis in our communities. Call them drivers, people who work
- 53:56Speaker 2: with us in this in this paradigm where we can
- 54:01Speaker 2: help each other bay reflecting our unfoundational work to each other,
- 54:05Speaker 2: and it also melts our projections, that melts our own
- 54:10Speaker 2: internalized self hate. We healed together, we held together, and
- 54:17Speaker 2: then the small community of safety becomes a baby community,
- 54:21Speaker 2: right like the ripple ef that go out into the world.
- 54:25Speaker 2: We're seeing this transformation happen with one person in the
- 54:28Speaker 2: family unit, and then the family also transforms, and the
- 54:34Speaker 2: organization transforms, and the people that are working with also
- 54:39Speaker 2: feel this change. So that is my angle of optimism
- 54:43Speaker 2: right now, because I am experiencing that, I'm seeing that
- 54:47Speaker 2: as a possibility, and in the world that is such
- 54:50Speaker 2: a mess right now, everything is so up right now,
- 54:56Speaker 2: which in a way I feel the silvi I knowing
- 55:00Speaker 2: that is that we're tolerating less right We're less tolerant
- 55:05Speaker 2: of the shit we used to tolerate. All this is activated
- 55:11Speaker 2: in us, all this conditions, all the traumas and activity.
- 55:14Speaker 2: That means we're no longer asleep to it. We are
- 55:18Speaker 2: no longer just sleep walking, and we can do something
- 55:22Speaker 2: about healing it. We can activate that agency and that motivation.
- 55:29Speaker 2: I know sometimes people feel very helpless right now. Because like,
- 55:34Speaker 2: what can I do? This is the world we live in,
- 55:38Speaker 2: but actually feel that there's a lot that we can
- 55:41Speaker 2: do starting with our own liberation. It's not an isolation
- 55:47Speaker 2: like my liberation and more liberation connective and we can
- 55:54Speaker 2: help each other like we have that experience of safety
- 55:58Speaker 2: belonging and I'm additional.
- 56:00Speaker 1: Way well, I think that this is a great time
- 56:04Speaker 1: to move us into our closing out portion of the episode,
- 56:08Speaker 1: where we offer the listeners a lesson. If you had
- 56:13Speaker 1: to tell people what the first step of healing would
- 56:16Speaker 1: be or the first mindset change that you could make
- 56:20Speaker 1: when it comes to patriarchy, stress disorder, what would be
- 56:23Speaker 1: a lesson that you would like to leave the audience with.
- 56:27Speaker 2: The first step. It's going to be different for everyone,
- 56:31Speaker 2: but let me start here because they think this one
- 56:34Speaker 2: is universal. I'm going to describe a process that is
- 56:40Speaker 2: available as a download on my website. Everybody can grab
- 56:44Speaker 2: it free doctor Dality dot Com on the resources. And
- 56:49Speaker 2: this process is connecting through the senses with the actual
- 56:56Speaker 2: safety in the present. From the reason I want to
- 57:00Speaker 2: introduced to it as the first step is because you
- 57:06Speaker 2: do on this journey want to connect with our authentic state,
- 57:13Speaker 2: our inner guidance, our own thoughts, our own intuition, and
- 57:19Speaker 2: when we're constantly feeling unsafe, this is just not available.
- 57:24Speaker 2: There are other voices that are up in our minds,
- 57:27Speaker 2: the in the critic, external voices. We're looking outside of
- 57:32Speaker 2: ourselves to establish that safety or to orient What should
- 57:35Speaker 2: I do? What should I do? I don't know?
- 57:36Speaker 1: What is my friend doing?
- 57:39Speaker 2: What can I read online? What am I supposed to
- 57:41Speaker 2: do in this situation? And I feel now, especially now
- 57:46Speaker 2: when everything is kind of upside down and it's so
- 57:48Speaker 2: chaotic and so messy, we need to hear our own
- 57:51Speaker 2: authentic voice. And so there's simple practice. I call it
- 57:55Speaker 2: the repower tool. And we're just gonna take a moment
- 58:03Speaker 2: and connect you this moment through the five senses, look
- 58:08Speaker 2: and really register what you are seeing. You may move
- 58:13Speaker 2: your eyes around and really register what's around you are,
- 58:17Speaker 2: looking left, looking right, looking up, looking down, looking behind you,
- 58:21Speaker 2: over your right, children. You may let children and actually
- 58:25Speaker 2: registering slowing down enough so about your brain registers what
- 58:29Speaker 2: you've see and registers that there's actually no threat that
- 58:34Speaker 2: you can see. Now, we're going to listen for the
- 58:39Speaker 2: sounds and the quiet in the in this way we're
- 58:44Speaker 2: registering throughout hearing. There's no threat that we can perceive. Now,
- 58:49Speaker 2: how about the smell, the sense of smell, everything checks
- 58:56Speaker 2: out of taste, Yeah, very good. And I know the
- 59:04Speaker 2: sense of touch you don't need to go in this
- 59:06Speaker 2: particular sequence. And the sense of touch. You may touch
- 59:12Speaker 2: something another like an object, pleasu and something a registrative texture.
- 59:19Speaker 2: And I also like to bring the skin to skin
- 59:21Speaker 2: contact to my own precious body. You may arrest one
- 59:27Speaker 2: hand with another or touching other areas of where you
- 59:32Speaker 2: can access to skin and the rest then and what
- 59:37Speaker 2: it's really wonderful about this, there's an additional benefit or
- 59:43Speaker 2: I'm getting so relaxed and I'm kind of getting bussed out,
- 59:49Speaker 2: the additional benefit of stimulating oxytocin production that creates that
- 59:55Speaker 2: relaxation and a state of connection with this, So with others,
- 1:00:01Speaker 2: it improve your learning. It's at et cetera. Yeah, it's
- 1:00:05Speaker 2: just a feel with hormone. You may not feel it
- 1:00:08Speaker 2: right away the first time you're doing it, but the
- 1:00:10Speaker 2: more you practice, the faster you get to that place
- 1:00:14Speaker 2: because your system will learn like, okay, this is the drill,
- 1:00:18Speaker 2: and we'll allow you to get into the deepest date
- 1:00:20Speaker 2: of relaxation. So don't give up if you do it
- 1:00:23Speaker 2: once a long I didn't really feel much like dirt again.
- 1:00:27Speaker 2: Dirt again, And it doesn't take a long time. You
- 1:00:31Speaker 2: can do it like in under a minute. Yeah, well,
- 1:00:34Speaker 2: I love that. I love a grounding activity. It's so helpful.
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: When I was in my high stress theater job, where
- 1:00:43Speaker 1: at any moment my brain or my heart could be
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: attacked for doing a good job, I would come home
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: every day and ground and meditate and just like take
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: those first ten minutes in my home to be like, hey,
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: I'm home. I would say, I'm going to turn my
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: phone on do dot just he cannot and will not
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: talk to me tonight. And then we also like to
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: end with a manifestation that we can add into the
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: general collective and energy. So what would you like to
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: manifest for us all?
- 1:01:16Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm ah. I can drop in to that space
- 1:01:23Speaker 2: of manifestation. I will manifest relief of suffering. I want
- 1:01:31Speaker 2: to manifest the reality we're all beings a fee from
- 1:01:35Speaker 2: suffering and any kind of bondage where all beings are happy,
- 1:01:43Speaker 2: healthy and have the experience of abundance, lacking for nothing,
- 1:01:50Speaker 2: being able to enjoy their relations and being able to
- 1:01:56Speaker 2: contributefully in this life. Don't enjoy that and know who
- 1:02:06Speaker 2: they ustanically are being awake to the true nature, the true.
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: Nature, Ali, that was gorgeous. This was a gorgeous conversation.
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: I'm so glad that the Internet, of all of the
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: things that it does, brought us together and that we
- 1:02:25Speaker 1: were able to find one another. Sometimes the algorithms work out,
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: Doctor Valerie. Please let everyone know where they can connect
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: with you, and I will link it in the show
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: notes so it's easy, but please plug all of your
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: work in how to find it.
- 1:02:40Speaker 2: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Nanali has been such a
- 1:02:44Speaker 2: delight to connected and wanted a delicious conversation. Doctor Valerie
- 1:02:50Speaker 2: dot com d R V A L E r I
- 1:02:53Speaker 2: e dot com is where you can get your hands
- 1:02:58Speaker 2: on the first chapter off my book, Patriotic Stress Disorders.
- 1:03:03Speaker 2: You can instantly download it and PDF and audio book format,
- 1:03:08Speaker 2: which I love very much. I amilt it myself. It
- 1:03:12Speaker 2: wasn't easy, but it was worth it a and yeah,
- 1:03:17Speaker 2: and if it resonates, you can purchase the book there
- 1:03:20Speaker 2: as well. And that way we are connected. You will
- 1:03:26Speaker 2: hear from me your email about our community healing opportunities
- 1:03:31Speaker 2: that we have coming up. We like having something for
- 1:03:34Speaker 2: the community in a regular basis. That is, it does
- 1:03:40Speaker 2: not involve a monetary exchange in some place for people
- 1:03:44Speaker 2: to come and experience their work beyond the information in
- 1:03:49Speaker 2: the book yet on that journey of how good can
- 1:03:52Speaker 2: it get with us, and we have paid programs as
- 1:03:56Speaker 2: well that sponsor all the free stuff that we do.
- 1:04:01Speaker 2: So if you're interested in your mom finding out about
- 1:04:05Speaker 2: those opportunities, you can Valerie at doctor Valerie dot com. Well,
- 1:04:11Speaker 2: thank you so much, and tolerators, thanks for sitting with
- 1:04:15Speaker 2: us today.
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: You know the drill. It's men I've tolerated. Pod on Instagram,
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: Nadley K one two four if you're interested in my
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: personal socials and that's how you get to tech talk,
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: YouTube to all the men I've tolerated before, Pinterest, Patreon
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: if it's a social media app, type in my name,
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: see what happens, Go for fun little scavenger hunt, and remember, tolerators,
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: you don't have to smile through anything you're tolerating, including
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: carrying the weight of our mothers, our grandmothers, and all
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: of the mothers and grandmothers who came before us. Smiles
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: are for joy,