Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Why Women Are Burnt Out: Gender Roles, Stillness & Nervous System Healing with Julianna Sloane

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Why Women Are Burnt Out: Gender Roles, Stillness & Nervous System Healing with Julianna Sloane · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

1:39
SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Today I am delighted to be with a guest today.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: We have a guest episode for our episode today.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Now it's been a while since I've done one.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited to have this guest on, as many of the guests on the show.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: It was quite um synchronistic in the way that we connected.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited to share a little bit more about how that happened.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: It was about a few months ago.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: It was my birthday weekend.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: I went to the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: It's about three hours from where I live here in Sacramento.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: And I had never been there before.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: I went to go see one of my favorite musicians, East Forest.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful program.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: And I forget the teacher.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: I think it was Jace Jason who was opening for us and guided us through a lovely meditation, incredible experience, and was just really impressed with uh with the with the program, with the establishment, and just uh with the work that's happening there.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And then in the coming weeks, I had had um some tension with my partner.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we've been together for about 10 years, um, married for about three now.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And a a hot spot for us is always uh housework.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: And as as I've continued to do my work of just empowering myself, I've become more aware of the gender roles and our house and you know what things work for me and where I feel things could be a bit more balanced.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, um, I was speaking with my supervisor and we had talked about gender roles and just how challenging it can be to deal with them.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so anyway, I had this thought of man, I would love for someone to come on and speak about gender.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I've studied it in my women in psychology class, but it's definitely not my area of expertise.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: I still have a lot to learn here.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: And so it was just quite funny a few weeks later to receive this email introducing this woman to me.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Juliana.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Juliana has worked at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Juliana also has a bachelor's in gender studies.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: And then to top it off, I also uh found out that you're based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I'm applying to a master's program right now, which is in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: So whenever I see little breadcrumbs like that, I'm like, okay, there's gonna be something here for us.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm really delighted to have Juliana on the show today.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Juliana is a hypnotherapist, transformational coach, and Buddhist teacher whose work weaves together ancient wisdom traditions with modern psychology.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: She's trained in depth hypnosis, excuse me, hypnosis, applied shamanic counseling, positive psychology coaching, and coaching for the unconscious mind, and she supports people in moving beyond the limits of talk therapy into the deeper terrain of the unconscious.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: A longtime Buddhist practitioner, Juliana brings years of Dharma study, extensive silent retreat experience, and training in Buddhist chaplaincy into both her teaching and client work.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Through hypnosis, trance work, meditation, and mindfulness practices, she creates spaces where people can access a deep sense of embodied safety, clarity, and inner wisdom, often leading to lasting insight and transformation.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Juliana has supported hundreds of people through experiences such as trauma, anxiety, spiritual emergence, chronic illness, relationship challenges, self-esteem work, and major life transitions.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Her writing on meditation, healing, and altered states has been featured in Tricycle Magazine and Spirituality and Health.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Juliana teaches meditation retreats and classes throughout the Southwest and works with clients around the world.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm especially excited to have her here to explore gender roles, caretaking, mindfulness, and how contemplative practices can help us to come home to ourselves with compassion and clarity.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Juliana, welcome to the show.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Reva.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: And um, funnily enough, I actually think the synchronicities may be continuing as you mentioned um looking into a program, uh a master's program here in Santa Fe.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: Um is that a Southwestern that you're looking at?
6:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm in Sweden.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: Um I am speaking on a panel there in February.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: So um apparently we have a lot of overlap.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: We do, we do.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like I've got these um little tingles all up and down my arms right now.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, it sounds like maybe our paths will cross in person.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: I hope so.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, if you if you're in town, let me know and we'll get we'll get coffee.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, great.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited for this conversation, Juliana.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, our first question that we always ask here on the show is um can you tell us about your story, um, about your path and what drew you to Buddhism, hypnosis, and working with the unconscious mind.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, I love the focus actually here on talking about gender as well, because all of that is intertwined for me.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: Um I have had a long road to this path.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, I was one of those um spiritual, artistic, imaginative, kind of in my own world, sometimes kids.
7:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so some of my earliest experience of meditation and actually dropping into these profound concentrated states were actually as a quite a young child.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I have a memory of running to my mother telling her that I have been sitting there with my eyes closed and I learned about where thoughts came from, and I was so excited about it.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh, flash forward to, you know, 20 years later uh discovering that this was actually meditation that I had been doing.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: And um, so you know, of course, there were seeds all along.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: But really, so the path kind of went like this.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: I discovered spiritual practice actually as a teenager.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, the uh teacher that I had been introduced to, uh, a guru in an Eastern tradition, but not a Buddhist tradition, not the most ethical person, was interested in me for more than my spiritual capacity.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: I got out quite safely, although psychologically harmed.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: It was a painful experience to see that as a young woman there would be people like this who would be much more interested in me f as a young, attractive woman than someone who actually had spiritual capacity.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: So, really, this intersection of spirituality and gender for me, it started as young as 15.
9:06
unknown: Yeah.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it led me to in college, I studied religious studies and women's studies.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: I went on to get a master's degree in gender studies.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: I really wanted to understand deeply the ways that all of these cultural assumptions, conditioning, containers, restrictions were impacting my experience in the world as a woman who had a lot to offer, but truly in so many spaces felt consistently undermined and unseen.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: And so that in many ways was a route.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: I went into my early career was in the nonprofit sector.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: I was working in human rights, I was working for arts and education organizations, you know.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: I really wanted to be doing good and meaningful work in the world.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: I encountered a trauma that was quite significant for me when I was in my uh mid-late 20s and went back to spiritual practice after that.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: So I had really dipped in for a number of years in my teens and early 20s, distanced for a while and came back.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: And when I came back, it was with a much more mature standpoint and also a sense of determination that, you know, I came close to having this life that was dedicated to spirituality and healing and the magic that's available in this universe.
10:49
SPEAKER_02: And at that time it felt like it was taken away from me.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: So part of my path has been saying, no, this is mine.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: This is mine, and it's available to all people.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: And so from there, I deep dive into meditation.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, many, many weeks and months of silent retreat over the years, really as much as I possibly could do, then discovered shamanic counseling, hypnosis, all of these other techniques to also support some of the same really visionary, expansive, powerful states of consciousness that can happen in meditation, but that can help them be directed in a certain way, be supported, be contained, so that, you know, I work with clients who they want a real depth of experience.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: But they may not have 10 days to go on a long silent retreat or a month to take a leave of absence from work and be steeped in that silence.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: So part of my real commitment and my work is to make this kind of transformation available to people, even if, and especially thinking about all the moms in my life, even if they don't have a lot of time.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:15
unknown: Yeah.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: What a rich story we've had and you shared here today.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's really um, yeah, interesting to hear that intersection of of gender and spirituality really, really coming to a head in your story.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that we're having this conversation.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I think it's really important.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: And too often I hear these stories of you know, men in these positions of power really playing into this guru complex and and taking advantage of of women.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm sure there are other um humans included in that as well, but it seems like women especially are are really taking advantage of these spaces.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I really feel like this is an important conversation.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for your courage, yeah, to continue walking this path and doing the work that we're doing.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it feels even more important in some ways to uh be a little more open about it because I think part of what as a culture we're coming to terms with in this particular moment, you right here and now, as we're reaching the end of 2025, when we're recording this, just thinking about the national news landscape and the realities of young women being groomed for all kinds of purposes.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: That, you know, this happens to women all over the country, all over the world, in a huge spectrum.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: And it's impactful.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, a lot of the clients that I see have uh experienced some kind of harm in spiritual community or simply grown up in a tradition that said women were less than men.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean that's that's part of the work here on the show is really um educating women, empowering women, um, you know, putting the power back in women's hands the way the way I see it, although our society has not really built it in this way.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I see women as a source of infinite power.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, we literally create life and have created the entire world.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And so if that's not power, then I don't know what is.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, absolutely.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what is it?
14:37
SPEAKER_02: They say that uh we're the only species where women live far beyond menopause that isn't a matriarchy.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you should probably get on that.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Probably, yeah, that'd be a great question.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, I always dream of this world, like what would a world look like where women are um really empowered to to be in in their full power, yeah, and how different the world might be if more women had power and if more women were um were unafraid to really harness that power and use it for change.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's let's continue.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm curious.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: I know your work weaves together ancient traditions as well as modern psychology.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And what feels most important about holding both in today's world, would you say?
15:34
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's a great question.
15:36
SPEAKER_02: And I think there's a lot of different answers that I could give you.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: I think at the foundational level, part of what matters to me about holding both is that we are in a culture where both are actually not held very well.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, either we are saying gonna be very scientific, here are the brain scans, here is all of the research and the evidence, and I am going to discount the millennia of anecdotal, personal experience often held by women.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: Or we're gonna go in the other direction and say the only thing that matters is this, and I don't care about the science.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: I think both of those views are imbalanced.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: And so what I really get excited about are the places where there's overlap, the places where we can point to, which come up over and over and over again, that say, Oh, these traditions that uh people have been holding for thousands of years.
16:47
SPEAKER_02: When we look at what's actually happening in the brain, well, guess what?
16:51
SPEAKER_02: Those people that we talk about as being less advanced than us or less educated or whatever, they had some idea of what was going on.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: They knew how to shift consciousness, they knew how to bring healing, they had access to tools that I think in modern society were only just rediscovering.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, we see the way that if you put a Buddhist meditator who is a longtime meditator into an M FMRI machine, that there's something different happening in the brain, especially when they're in meditation.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, Tibetan monastics could have told us that without having to have the MRI.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, there there is this holding of both and.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: And part of that for me is the understanding that part of the holding of this is about holding the feminine and holding the things that have been traditionally relegated to quiet conversations behind closed doors among women.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: Those are often the anecdotal passed on generation to generation, the different craft, the different experience, the advice, the memories that isn't canonized in scientific research.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: And so I think it is very important that we respect both of them.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, one place that this lies for me, especially right now, is in story and storytelling and understanding that actually within archetype and metaphor and story passed down, maybe by the fireside, maybe by the hearth, maybe at night putting children to bed, that there's often great teachings and wisdom, even in that, that we have relegated to a lesser status because it's more feminine.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm I'm so happy that you've made that connection because I I see it in that way too, as far as seeing this balance of both the masculine and the feminine, and and connecting the scientific, more analytical, logical side to the masculine, and this more, like you said, subtle, anecdotal, storytelling, um, more kind of like gentle way of the feminine um being part of that conversation too.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: So so thank you so much for making that connection.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's important too.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I think I know when I first kind of started on this path, it was more about um outdoing the masculine and like getting getting rid of it.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And as I've gone deeper with the work, it's it's not about that at all.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: It's about integrating uh both.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I think there is a bit more work to do on the feminine side because we live in such a masculine patriarchal world, but it's about bringing both into balance because we really do need both.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: And we have both within us, you know.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: I think this is one of these places.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: I uh one of the places that concerns me most these days is seeing some of the more essentialized conversation of, you know, quote, being in my feminine, where they're saying, Oh, well, if you're in your feminine, you shouldn't drive, you shouldn't work, you should just be receiving.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, what are you talking about?
20:14
SPEAKER_02: Women are powerful, women create, women can do.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: That is, you know, it's neither feminine nor masculine in that sense, because these are energies that we have both within us when they're off balance.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: If we're two in one direction or two in another direction, or just not in a direction that feels like us, we will suffer.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: And so it really is, yeah, what are the things that we have uh marginalized because we don't associate them with, you know, this sort of upper middle class, wealthy, you know, masculine whiteness, you know, all of these different things that that's this tiny little bucket of experience over here.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: And yet it has this ridiculous influence over every other person in the world.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it it really does.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it's yeah, I I yeah, I it it really leaves me speechless how incredibly um imbalanced it is, and that's why we're having this conversation today.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: So I know you um you are, I would say, an expert in gender studies, and I'd love to explore that a little bit more deeply.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I want to start before we get into the conversation about um with distinguishing the difference between biological sex and gender, because I think this is something that people get mixed up.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: And I even talk to like adults who are smart and intelligent people, and I'm like, no, no, there's a difference between sex and gender.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, there is?
21:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yes.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: So can you please break it down for us, Julia?
21:59
SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, so important for us to understand.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: I think, especially these days, where um, yeah, different gender expression is so under threat.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, sex really is referring to biological assigned at birth, you know, the certain reproductive organs you have, which hormones are more abundant, all of that.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: It really is truly what is the the physical body that you are born in.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: Um full stop.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: Um gender is actually really where it gets, I think, uh exciting, interesting, challenging, because gender is so much of identity, of culture, the way we perform ourselves and our identities and the way we want to be seen in the world, the ways of expression that feel most authentic to us.
23:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that is an incredible spectrum that we are, I mean, thankfully, discovering that we don't actually have to fit into any particular rigid container, that there's so much more available to us, and there's so many more possibilities for people to be a more authentic version of themselves as we get farther and farther along that path.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: But of course, within this construct of Gender, because it is a construct.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: It's something that's culturally and socially mediated.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: We also have rules and systems and norms and all kinds of things that are built around a certain conception of what gender is good and normal and what is not.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: And we're breaking down a lot of those barriers, but I think we're also seeing a huge backlash.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for making that um, yeah, for making that so clear.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, because yeah, that was really surprising to me when I first started studying a little bit more about sex and gender, that gender is, like you said, a construct in the sense that it's it's made up by our society.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: And we have all of these rules that are sometimes even unspoken.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: They're just steeped in the culture and in the way that we're raised and then the things that we tell little ones when they're still developing, and and it really does shape our personalities and our roles in our society, and really seeing that as something, like you said, that can go outside of these two boxes that our society has created.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what really helped me to understand um different gender expressions a little bit more because while it's not the same thing at all, um I'm an artist and I identify as an interdisciplinary artist because I didn't want to be put in a box of like being a dancer, being a musician, or a painter.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: It's like I just I just make art and I don't want to be in a box.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, it's not the same thing at all, but that did help me to understand.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: So just the same way that I don't want to be put in a box, like I'm a very multidimensional person.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I can understand why other folks wouldn't want to be put in a box either.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: I love that analogy, actually, because I think all of us to an extent can relate to it of, you know, we as a culture have this tendency to say, oh, you're one thing and that's it, and we're gonna put you in this category.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: And whether you're a dancer that wants to also paint, or you're a writer that also wants to act, or any of these things, you know, I was reading a book recently by Graham Norton, who's a British television host.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: And it's a fi, it's a novel.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: It was a like a mystery novel or something.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: And I remember having this immediate reaction at first of I thought he was a television host.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: How can he be a novelist, also?
26:20
SPEAKER_02: And in that moment, it was just this funny, like, ooh, wow, yeah, there's the way we put people into boxes.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: You can't be both a television host and a novelist.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: Well, why not?
26:32
unknown: Yeah.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: It's another perfect example of just how kind of silly it can be to think that we need to just be one thing.
26:43
unknown: Yeah.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And especially for women too.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: I know myself with the menstrual cycle, like we our hormones change over the course of, you know, 28, sometimes up to you know, 30 longer, depending on your menstrual cycle.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And so there are these different, I have found these sort of different versions of myself as well, um, that have different interests and roles.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And so absolutely.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really helped me kind of embrace all sides of myself a little bit more too.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely, definitely.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: From your perspective, how do gender roles get internalized over time?
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And what do you commonly see people carrying that don't actually belong to them?
27:24
SPEAKER_02: Oh, so much that we're carrying that doesn't belong to us.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, obviously a lot of the clients that I work with are women.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I I kind of feel like I work with uh really amazing women and these incredi every every male I work with is this just absolute unicorn of a person who is so um so deeply invested in their growth in ways that, you know, this is one of those things that we all carry that doesn't belong to us, the way that patriarchy forces men into a particular position, that they don't get to feel as much, they don't get to embrace their tenderness, they don't get to explore their inner life as easily, you know.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: So I think on that side, that is very much this incredible burden that's being carried.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, with the women that I work with, I think over and over, I see repeated patterns that are related to the gender constructs in our culture.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of that is around feeling like they have to have it all handled.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: They have to take care of everything, they have to be really organized, they have to have it all, the career, the family, the relationships, you know, and I think all of this ends up feeling like, you know, you you hear about the duck on the pond that looks like it's just gliding over the water, but underneath the surface, those little duck legs are wildly paddling to try and get it through.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I had a conversation actually with a good friend of mine the other day, and she joked that she, you know, she's a mom of two kids, you know, working, keeping a household together, you know, really, really big weight on her shoulders.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: And she was joking that she was at the dentist, and she told the dentist that lying in the chair getting her cleaning felt like a vacation because she got to lie down.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, this is really part of what we're carrying and part of what we often don't even realize because it's the water that we're swimming in.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: That's sort of, well, of course I'm the one who manages gifts for the extended family.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: And of course I'm going to remind, you know, the people in my orbit about the birthday is coming up or gather people or whatever it is.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of invisible labor that I see my the women I work with taking on because they just think it's their responsibility.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: And and it's not to say that some of that doesn't bring a lot of joy and meaning.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: But if we don't have clarity around the fact that there is kind of an unconscious thing happening, then that's going to control who we think we are and what we think is possible.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes, 100%.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: And I can even see a little bit of myself and some of the things that you shared, even with the awareness that I have around it.
30:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, me too.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's totally great.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Because like you said, it's it's this the sea that we're swimming in.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: And there has slowly been this um unraveling over the years, and it has shifted things in my household a bit as I became more aware of like, I remember when I was first um, like in the early years of my relationship with my partner, my husband, I would do um, I do meal prepping, and I felt like I had to cook um like meal prepping, like I made it for myself, but then I also just started making it for him.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: He didn't ask, uh, he wasn't even necessarily like um super excited that I was doing it, but I like put that responsibility on myself and it was like so stressful and I would like stress out about it all the time.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think we finally had a conversation about it.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You don't have to do that.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh my, why am I doing this?
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, why do I feel like I need to be the only one carrying this load?
31:38
SPEAKER_00: And so um, now he's a lot more involved in that process.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: And while I still kind of, you know, I call myself the visionary, if you will, and I think it's because I am a little bit more um conscious of like what foods I'm eating, and and it kind of all kind of goes around my menstrual cycle.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of just goes along with what I, you know, what was working for me, but he does help more now, and he will help me cook.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, he'll go to the store and you know, he'll go to the market with me, and he's a lot more involved in that process now.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: It it is really amazing the things that we think, well, no, I just have to do it.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I I've had a similar, I remember when my partner and I were first living together, actually.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, we had this really, we continue to have this very sweet ritual in the morning, you know, we'll make coffee as long as there's time.
32:30
SPEAKER_02: Usually we'll sit in bed and we'll drink our coffee, we'll talk about the dreams we had the night before, you know, all of that.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: And it's really um yeah, one one of the most sweet connecting parts of uh starting the day.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: And when we were first living together, I just, yeah, by virtue of the conditioning and, you know, all the many layers of that, in my mind, it was like, I have to get up and make the coffee.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: I have to go bring it.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: And he stopped at one point and was just like, What well, let me do it sometimes.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: And it was hard for me at first.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: It was hard for me at first because I had this idea that I think very much was sort of tied to my worth and the, you know, what I should be doing to be like a good quote unquote partner.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, there was this undue pressure that I was putting on myself.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: And I think being in relationship is a constant navigation of those aspects of our conditioning that we don't even realize is going on and finding ways to be more free.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that part.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Finding ways to be more free.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's, I mean, sure, like like you said, some of these things are meaningful to us.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Like I genuinely love planning my meals each week, and you know, it's a way for me to express my creativity as well.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, and also there was, like you said, the a degree of that pressure that just didn't really need um to be there.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, somewhere in there.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm wondering um, how do you see gender roles shaping the way women take responsibility, caretaking, and self-sacrifice?
34:19
SPEAKER_00: We've already kind of touched on that a little, but is there anything else you'd like to add to that?
34:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, one of the things that I think is very interesting and what I see in my work a lot, you know, part of what I'm doing with folks in hypnosis and shamanic counseling, we are going into these deeper trance-like, creative states where we're able to move beyond the conscious mind and the restrictions of that.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, as they do, things come up.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: And part of what often comes up are people who are actually carrying not just the pressures from their own life, but they're carrying uh a weight that's passed down from their ancestors.
35:08
SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of the time there is this investigation of, well, okay, so your mother held it like this, your grandmother held it like that, your great-grandmother held it like that.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: And how do we actually free up a little bit of space so that you can relate to giving care or being creative or taking responsibility for what is your responsibility versus what's not in a way that is uniquely yours and not a part of a lineage line that was maybe choices people made out of necessity and survival.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of the time what we end up working with are some of these pieces that are much farther reaching than just our life right here, right now.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing that because yeah, you're right, it's it's generational and it's not just what we're dealing with, it's what our mothers had to deal with, it's what our grandmothers had to deal with.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I always like to share with people, I'm sure you're already aware of this, but for any listeners who um haven't heard me talk about this on the show before, there are studies that for certain prove that we carry up to three generations in our body.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, and now there are studies that are showing we carry up to eight generations um in our body and in our DNA.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: And all of those things really do impact the way that we come into the world.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: And this is another one of those great places.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: I love that you're bringing that up because it's like, oh yeah, epigenetics and our new understanding of that, meeting this understanding of, oh yeah, look, you make the same gesture as your grand your grandmother and you never even met her.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you have the same perspective on this as your great aunt, who you, you know, spent three weeks with once in your life.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's important.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think I know for a lot of my work, that's once I kind of got through um my own stuff, not to say I'm I'm done because there's always more work to be do uh be done.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I did find as I got deeper and deeper, as as you've named, I was had this new awareness, like ah, like some of this isn't even mine.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: Um that that comes up in the work that I do with folks a lot.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: We really start to discover the weight that we are carrying that does not belong to us.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: And fortunately, we can release a lot of it.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Could you could you talk a little bit more about how we kind of work through that?
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Because I know it can be hard once you come to understand that a lot of it isn't even yours.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And then I think sometimes there can be this weight as well that comes with that because now you might put this new pressure on yourself to to heal all of the generations of women that came before you.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: And I I appreciate you naming that because you're right, it is a pressure, and the way that I work with folks tends to be with the understanding that we really can heal what needs healing within ourselves.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: But while it may ripple out beyond us, may why it may ripple back in time towards our ancestors, you know, we don't explicitly have their consent to heal their stuff.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of the time when we're doing this more, you know, lineage-line work where we're realizing there's something I'm carrying from my family that I don't actually think is needed anymore.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: A lot of it is reckoning within ourselves of, okay, how do I separate out the desire to be loved and belong to my family lineage?
39:09
unknown: Yeah.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: And then need to step out of a pattern that's particularly painful.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: Um because truly I think our ancestors would like us to step out of the painful patterns.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: That is, that is, I think, pretty clear to me.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, they would like us to be happy.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: And so part of it is that, you know, when I'm working with folks, I do tend to work in two different ways.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: One is uh a particular style of hypnosis and shamanic counseling that is very spiritually oriented, very energy work-oriented.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: And so there may be processes in that kind of work where we literally are going into trance and seeing, okay, where in your body and your energy system do you feel the things that are not yours, that you shouldn't be carrying, that are causing distress or harm or suffering, and finding ways to actually work in the altered state to allow them to release and move on.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, on the other side of things, I am working with folks more in a neuroplasticity coaching way.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: And so the perspective there, um, all of this kind of combines and weaves together very well that complement each other, because the understanding there is that our brains are capable of tremendous change and growth.
40:47
SPEAKER_02: And if we've been repeating that same pattern over and over, if we wake up in the morning and we think to ourselves, ooh, I better go make breakfast and coffee for you know the kids and my partner, because if I don't, I will be bad.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: Then we get to actually work with rewiring that trigger, that part that says, I better do this or I'll be bad, into something new, something more adaptive, something more supportive.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: So that maybe the next time after working on it a little bit and reshaping those worn neural pathways, we wake up and we say, Oh, I think I'm gonna ask my partner to make breakfast today.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: Or, oh, I'm gonna go make breakfast.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: But it's just because I want to.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, whatever that is.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, the truth is, is that when there is a strong trigger like that, even if it's something subtle like, ooh, I have to do this and I don't want to, we can learn a lot about what we need.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: And we can also find ways to support shaping um the way that we respond so we have a lot more choice and a lot more well-being.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like a really integrative, um, holistic approach, which I think is important.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: And your work, what happens when someone begins to soften the roles they've been conditioned to play?
42:21
SPEAKER_02: That's a really great question.
42:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think I see over and over again, for the most part there's just a greater sense of trust of oneself.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Really, I would say fundamentally, uh, if I speak with a lot of my clients and I ask them, you know, okay, what what really happened for you?
42:48
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of a lot of responses that I get, but underlying all of it, a couple common themes really come up.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: One is I can trust myself, I can trust my intuition, I can trust what I want to need.
43:05
SPEAKER_02: And from that, good things flow.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, another thing that I hear a lot is getting to embody and viscerally feel the safety, the strength, the courage, the well-being, the creativity, whatever it is that someone might need to support their process.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: Getting to feel that in a trance state and really experience it helps them remember that they have that within them, that they always have that within them.
43:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, I actually um had a client uh I recently concluded work with.
43:45
SPEAKER_02: And it was it was funny and so sweet because, you know, we'd had a number of sessions together, and she'd had these beautiful, very um powerful experiences.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: And she came to me and she said, uh a little bit, I think, uh apologetic that she was choosing to end things.
44:08
SPEAKER_02: But she looked at me and she said, Well, you know, in the time since our last session, part of what has been realizing uh and the sense that I've had coming to me, the energy, the power that has sort of been with me over the last week, part of what I'm realizing is I'm not a problem to fix.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm I don't think that for now I need to keep going.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: And it was like, well, yes, this is this is exactly why we're doing this.
44:39
SPEAKER_02: Because you're not a problem to fix.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: You may need insight, you may need support, you may need to diffuse and disarm some of those triggers a little bit, but you're not a problem to fix.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: And I think to come to that realization, I I wish that for all the people that I work with, that ultimately they are able to say, Oh yeah, I'm actually okay.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's the goal, right?
45:12
SPEAKER_00: As a practitioner, to get people back to that remembering that there is uh nothing wrong with them, that they are in fact not broken, and that all these things that we experience are not necessarily problems to solve, especially for for women.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: I think of the things that I see a lot of my clients struggle with anxiety, overwhelm, um, childhood issues still kind of.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Like ruling behaviors and perspectives of the world.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, there is this sort of um unraveling that happens, and we do get closer to the essence of who we really are without all of the constructs and without um all of the pressure.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: And there's something so so beautiful about that.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: It's like a more of a homecoming.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what we're, you're right.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: It's this is really what we're aiming for, actually, is that knowing of our wholeness.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's uh shift years a little bit.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: We're slowly beginning to approach the hour.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: And as I just kind of segueed us here naturally, I do want to kind of talk a little bit more about caretaking and burnout and the cost of holding it all or having it all.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: And I know many women listening um are doing a lot of unseen emotional, relational, and logistical labor.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious how do you feel this chronic caretaking shows up in the nervous system or in the unconscious mind?
46:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's a big one.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think that there is a lot of stress, there's a lot of exhaustion, there's a nervous system that doesn't get to very gently regulate up and down in a smooth way because of that level of pressure.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, um, I have in some ways experienced this myself.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: I also work with a lot of clients who part of what this results in is chronic illness.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: And so what I have found through my own journey with chronic illness and also working with a lot of women who are living through Lyme disease, long COVID, um, you know, chronic fatigue, uh, mold biotoxin illnesses like SERS, it is often the one moment where all of a sudden we reach a point we've been doing it all, we've been hunks functioning at an incredibly high capacity, and then that one thing happens that suddenly we can't hold it together anymore.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: And that might be illness, that might be raising young children for a lot of us these days with this periamenopause and menopause, suddenly like, oh, this is I I need to change the way I live my life.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: And you know, that is a place where I feel very interested, very curious, and very focused on my work with clients because I think, especially as women, there is this phase change when we reach midlife where it's like, oh I cannot sustainably do it the way that I did it before.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: And the process of moving from the old way to the new way can take time.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: But I feel really committed to supporting people in finding, well, what does that new way look like specifically for you?
49:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because the level at which we're all operating at, I mean, in general as a society, I I think we're all doing way too much.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think this is part of our culture conditioning.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: And especially as as women doing more of that unseen labor, it's it's not sustainable.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: And even in our younger years, I mean, I think of the things that I did, and obviously I, you know, I was I was younger, so I was able to handle them more.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: But even at what I was doing then was was not sustainable either.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: And I look back and I do see little ways in which um, you know, I was not maybe suffering, but ways in which, you know, my system was sort of calling out to me.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, and for a long time I I ignored it until I upset it eventually gets to a point where it's like, okay, this is not working anymore.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: And I and I can't carry on about this.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: I've talked about this on the show before, but in my early 20s, I relied heavily on Adderall to keep up with everything.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: I was working in the fitness industry at the time.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: And so it was all about um, you know, I I loved what I do.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: I still love fitness, and you know, I just had the gym yesterday.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: It's different energy now in which I approach it because for many years it was just about being thin and being skinny.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: And the amount that I had to work out to sustain being at that size was unreasonable.
50:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, my eyes would would twitch and I would have all these weird things going on with my body that yeah, I just wouldn't ignore uh would ignore.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: And eventually during COVID, like like many people, when the whole world stopped, I was forced to contend with these things inside of me.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: Um and it became clear that I I needed to make changes.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: So obviously getting off of the adderall and then slowly starting to reshape my life in a way um that is more sustainable.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: And I think to an extent, I most of us are in some element of that process.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:07
SPEAKER_02: Knowing that it's not sustainable, knowing that, you know, late-stage capitalism doesn't work for us well.
51:14
SPEAKER_02: This does not serve us.
51:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: And also knowing we have to function somewhat in these systems.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: So, how are we going to arrange things so that we are as vibrant and nourished and sustained as possible so that we can help ourselves and also help others?
51:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for saying that because it's not just personal, right?
51:38
SPEAKER_00: It's it's collective.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Collectively, we are seeing that um the ways in which we are operating are not sustainable.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:47
SPEAKER_00: Systems are are literally crumbling before our eyes, and we do have a really beautiful opportunity here to um to reshape our lives and to create something new and and hopefully better.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, may it be some.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, what do you notice happens when hair is constantly flowing outward but not inward?
52:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:17
SPEAKER_02: So much, so much suffering.
52:21
SPEAKER_02: So much suffering.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, much of the work that I do with folks actually often starts with just learning to receive that support and that care.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: Because that frequently is one of the barriers.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, we might not think we're worthy of care, or we might not think we've done enough to get the care, or there might be these things we're carrying that make us feel like we can only receive the care once we've taken care of everyone else first.
52:56
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, this is really, I think, one of the fundamental places where um yeah, cultural conditioning really lets us down.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, I think sometimes remembering that it's that conditioning is there also to serve a specific function of power stratification, that if we are too busy taking care of everyone else around us, then we don't have the power to do much else.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, for me, I would say I see the suffering that comes from that and the burnout that comes from that, and the ways that people find themselves in a place of feeling like, I just don't feel like myself anymore.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: And so much of it is okay, how do we call, how do we call you back into yourself?
53:51
SPEAKER_02: How do we bring that lost power, that you know, lost energy back in and turn it back inwards for a time instead of exclusively outwards?
54:01
SPEAKER_02: I think it's essential.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's important.
54:05
SPEAKER_00: I I think um I think that there's so much more that um everyone can benefit from when we prioritize ourselves and put ourselves um first, you know, taking care of ourselves before we take care of other people.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we've all heard the the teacup analogy, uh, you know, you can't pour from an empty cup, and it's a little cliche.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think we've all heard it plenty of times, but it's it's true.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: We really want to give from the overflow uh rather than tipping our cup over to fill someone else's.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: And that can be tricky to to um yeah, to um settle into if you have things inside influencing you.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
54:48
SPEAKER_02: I think it it takes a lot of work.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: It does.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: It takes a lot of work and a lot of you know, kind of deconditioning of how how do I change my mindset around this?
54:58
SPEAKER_02: What are the beliefs and the values uh or my interpretation of the beliefs and the values that are no longer serving me?
55:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, as we're slowly approaching um towards the end of our conversation, I always like to get more into practical things that that women and other folks listening can maybe explore if all of this is resonating and you hear all these things and you're like, okay, well, what the hell am I supposed to do about it?
55:26
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps we could uh move towards that now and talk a little bit more about mindfulness and meditation.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: And meditation is often talked about as a stress reduction, but you teach it as something much deeper.
55:39
SPEAKER_00: So can you tell us a little bit about how mindfulness can help us become clearer about who we actually are beneath our roles?
55:46
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, the way that I hold meditation and mindfulness practice really is as a doorway into coming home to ourselves, but also witnessing, yeah, where are the places where the mind is racing and it can't let go of a certain thing?
56:07
SPEAKER_02: Where are the places where we notice there's stress held in the body?
56:12
SPEAKER_02: And how can we actually relate to them with kindness, with compassion, with a witnessing and a holding that's spacious and equanimous, uh, so that we have more and more and more capacity to handle things.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: So, of course, there is a stress reduction component.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: It's been found for mindfulness uh over and over and over again.
56:39
SPEAKER_02: But also, you know, part of that too is when we do set forth on this path of meditation and practice, part of what we start to see are the cause and effect, is the way that I am living my life actually supporting my well-being.
56:59
SPEAKER_02: Because I'll tell you what, if you are living a life that is deeply out of alignment with what you need and what you value, you're gonna go sit down and try to meditate and it's gonna be really, really hard.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: And so it does shine a light on those things.
57:14
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes before it's uh stress relieving, it can be a little painful because we start to see the places where we aren't in alignment.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I do think it's a really, really good starting point if we don't have any kind of existing contemplative practice just to get still.
57:34
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I'm being practical here.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: I would love everybody to be meditating every day, going on retreat, getting this really expansive time to explore.
57:47
SPEAKER_02: But also if you're spending five or ten minutes, you know, sitting in the car after dropping the kids off to school or whatever it is, and you're just staying with your breath, or you're doing a short body scan and you're giving yourself even five minutes.
58:06
SPEAKER_02: What that does is, you know, if if it's like our experience is this big wall, it's just opening up a little crack in the wall so we can let a little more light through and let a little bit more insight in, you know, and then that can open up into more and more.
58:23
SPEAKER_02: But uh, for people who feel overwhelmed, I really recommend you don't think you have to do this perfectly.
58:30
SPEAKER_02: Don't think that you have to go meditate for an hour or become some, you know, great yogi on a mountaintop.
58:37
SPEAKER_02: This is this is something you can take in really small bites as you get started.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wonderful.
58:43
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that.
58:45
SPEAKER_00: Because I always take to tell my clients, you know, something is always better than nothing.
58:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
58:50
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, that little there's so much we can gain from even just that that five minute session.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: And I really try to include these sort of like micro moments um throughout my day.
59:01
SPEAKER_00: Because I I work a pretty, you know, full schedule.
59:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm, you know, very ambitious and I love the nature of my work.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think that inherently sometimes comes with um it being really easy to overdo it.
59:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I I know that about myself and I'm aware of it.
59:15
SPEAKER_00: And so I I force myself to have these micro moments throughout the day.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: Or I'm just sitting um listening to uh music, or I go on a walk, or um the other day I just I started a meditation and I kind of dozed off for like five minutes, but I clearly really needed it.
59:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
59:34
SPEAKER_00: I actually had a lot more energy to get through the afternoon, and I didn't need a coffee or you know, another hit of caffeine or dopamine or anything.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: I just got some stillness and some rest.
59:46
SPEAKER_00: And that gave me so much more to get through the day.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:49
unknown: Yeah.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, um, I'm curious, how does a regular meditation practice help people listen to themselves more honestly, especially if they spent years prioritizing others?
1:00:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a great question.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think first and foremost getting quiet lets us have the space to get still and listen to what's truly going on.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think part of what we've alluded to a little bit earlier in the conversation is often when we're so busy and we're doing so much, there can be, you know, a numbing that happens as part of just the the need to cope.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, part of when we are incredibly busy and we are in this place of overfunctioning, just getting still and listening and noticing and being with, you know, part of what it does is also this is a symbolic act of saying to uh ourselves, this being, not other beings out there, that, oh, I'm here for you.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of the time, you know, I'll I'll recommend to folks in that five or 10 minute meditation in the midst of your busy time as you're getting started, you might even put a hand on the cheek or a hand on the heart, because it actually signals to your nervous system that you're being supported, that you're held, that you're not alone.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, a lot of the hypnotic techniques that I I work with and teach to my clients also are techniques for greater relaxation, for uh activating the vagus nerve a little bit so that there can be more ease and safety communicated throughout the body, things like that to make it a little easier.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for bringing that in because touch is um, yeah, I I think it's a very powerful tool.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't always have to be the touch of someone else.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_00: It's something that we can provide to ourselves almost at any time.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's something that I like to do, and I I noticed myself doing it.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: I sort of will like rub my thighs sometimes.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_00: And I used to stop myself from doing it, and as I've studied more about the female nervous system, I I've learned that oxytocin is actually the regulating hormone of the female nervous system, and so we really need that touch.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: And so now I just I just let myself do it, even if that looks kind of silly.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, it's very, very soothing.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just that natural regulation.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: Your body knew what to do.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes, right.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_00: And I think our body does know what to do.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_00: We just have to get it out of the way sometimes to do it.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm curious, what feels most alive for you right now in your teaching or practice?
1:02:49
SPEAKER_02: It's a great question.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I find myself right now standing at this intersection of um really exploring, like I've mentioned before, I'm actually about to be teaching a class on story in Buddhist teachings and the way that these stories and archetypes can guide us towards deeper practice.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: So there is this big element right now of, you know, myth and story, and how how do we relate to that element of experience that's just innately creative and imaginative.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: And then also, you know, really supporting people in this sense of well-being and ease, even in the midst of a world that feels very chaotic.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I think if if there was going to be one kind of underlying theme that I feel like over this last year, a lot of my work with people have entailed, it's been, you know, how do we find calm in the storm?
1:04:01
SPEAKER_02: How do we feel like even when things are hard and even when things are overwhelming, that we can trust our path forward?
1:04:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's um an important thing to really cultivate within ourselves in the times that we're in.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything you wish women understood more about themselves, their capacity or their worth?
1:04:33
SPEAKER_02: I think only just that your capacity and your worth is probably so much more than people have been telling you your whole life.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: It's possible to see more.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and thank you for being that um, yeah, that beacon of hope and light in this world.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: And you know, go on.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was just gonna ask where can listeners learn more about um your work or practice with you.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, my website is pretty simple.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_02: It's Julianasloan.com, um, J-U-L-I-A-N-A-S L-O-A-N-E dot com.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh, there is a link there for all of my meditation teaching.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_02: There's also a link for a free uh one-on-one consultation if it feels like doing some hypnotherapeutic or shamanic counseling work, um, sparks your interest.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one thing also that would probably be of interest to your people, I'm leading a women's meditation retreat in nature in Northern California.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: And so that's this spring, um, April 30th to May 3rd.
1:05:51
unknown: Okay.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's information on my website about that.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_02: It's a glamping retreat.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_02: So um big, beautiful glamping tents with cots and little mattresses instead of uh sleeping on the ground.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: Um there's there's indoor plumbing, um, but there's also a lot of time immersed in the beauty of nature and being in community with other women, uh, both meditating and spending time doing some nature-based mindfulness practices, some relational mindfulness practices, um, so that we can all really get deeply, deeply nourished.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's perfect because yeah, a lot of my audience is here in Northern California currently.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, that sounds like a lovely spring offering.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_00: So I'll definitely include that in the show notes as well as your website.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're welcome, Juliana.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for your time today.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_00: So lovely to have this conversation with you.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's still so much more we we could have gotten into, um, especially on the whole um intersectional gender and spirituality.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this this could have been a week long conversation, easy.
1:07:01
unknown: Yeah, wonderful.
1:07:03
unknown: Well, thank you, Juliana.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Riva.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: So great to be with you.