Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / What Happens When Women Forget Themselves: with Steph Jagger, Writer and Life Coach

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What Happens When Women Forget Themselves: with Steph Jagger, Writer and Life Coach · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Big things happened when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: pretty This is pretty smart. Something interesting happened over the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: last few weeks that I want to tell you about
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: before we jump into today's episode. I've gotten to interview
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: some great people outside of Pretty Smart, and I interviewed
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Winnie Harlowe for the Female Founder's Club and we did
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a live interview for about thirty five minutes in front
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of over three hundred female founders in LA And then separately,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I was at the Women's National Championship for the Final
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: four with AT and T last weekend, and first of all,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: it was amazing because for the first time ever, I
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: felt people in the arena care about women's basketball. I've
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: been going to games for the last few years and
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: covering some things, and I just always felt like it
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: was just lackluster and thinking like when is it going
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to change? Is it going to change? And there were
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: people in the nosebleeds. It was so cool to feel
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that shift. I really think that we're going to see
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: more of that coming in the next few years. But
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: that's not the point of this story. So while I
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: was there, I was interviewing Sweetie, who was I mean,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: not to be so corny, but so sweet, like she
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: was so nice. And in each of those interviews, at
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the end, just the way I do on the pod,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I asked each of them, what's a book that you
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: think everybody should read? And they both named the same book.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And it's a book that Rachel, who came on the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: podcast about a month ago talking about networking, which was
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: such a great episode, sent me after our episode. And
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I always say that books find people when they're meant to,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and so I know that I am supposed to be
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: reading this book. It is The Alchemist, Winnie Harlow said.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant told her to read that, and Sweety had
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the most beautiful answer. She said she was working four
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: jobs and renting rooms on Craigslist and so broke and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: just trying to make it and she read that book
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: three times in a year because it's about this person's
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: this guy's path or dream. Apparently I don't know really
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: what the book is about yet because I haven't started it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But after those two interviews and then Rachel sending me
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the book. I know that this is the book I'm
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: supposed to be reading right now, and if you haven't
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: read it, I just wanted to share it with you
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: because maybe it's a book you need to be reading
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: right now. I sort of feel like a transition is
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: coming in my life. I've been planting so many seeds
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm really hoping that they bloom this year, and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I think that The Alchemist is a story about that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: from what I know. So if you're planting seeds, or
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: if you're a dreamer, maybe this book is the one
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: for you right now too. Okay, into today's episode, which
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you, was a conversation that lit
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: me up. It took turns that I wasn't expecting, So
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: without further ado, one of my favorite scenes of television
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: is from the drama mad Men. If you've seen it,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: you probably remember this moment. Don Draper is pitching the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: film company Kodak and how to advertise its new slideshow device,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and he kills the pitch by explaining the powerful effect
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of nostalgia.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Nostalgia it's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship. It's a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: time machine couch backwards forwards takes us to a place
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: where we ache to go again. Let's us travel the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: way the child travels round and around, back home again
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: to a place where we know we are love.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: The slide show, in this sense, is a metaphor that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: our memories give our lives. Meaning we spend decades building
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: a life and wanting to remember it all. We save photos,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: we take home videos, we write cards, or buy trinkets
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that remind us of a time or a place. Her
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: memories are the evidence of a life well lived. But
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: what's left when our memories are taken from us? My
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: guest today is Steph Jagger, the author of a beautiful
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: new memoir, Everything Left to Remember. Steph is also a
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: life coach and a speaker, so her take on things
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is fascinating. It's simultaneously philosophical and very grounded. The book
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: explores her and her family's journey with degenerative brain diseases,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: mainly her mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis, but also her grandmother's dementia.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: My grandmother had dementia, My mother has Alzheimer's, My godmother
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  Speaker 3: has Alzheimer's. I am a sapling inside of a four
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: that seems hell bent unforgetting. I am full of quaking
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: fear that the phrase as above, so below runs.
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  Speaker 4: Also in the opposite direction.
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  Speaker 3: That the groundwater running through my lineage is working its
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: way through the bloodline, that it runs from our roots
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: all the way into our brains. As below, so above.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: What happens when a lineage of women forgets themselves?
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  Speaker 4: Who will love us wildly?
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Who will hold us?
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: Who will reflect our identities back to us?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: If no one can remember where we came from, where
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: we are, where we're going. I hear a whispering voice,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Mother Nature, it says, the only mother bigger than your own.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: In our interview, we talk about the central theme of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: her work, how through the landscape of legacy and loss
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: do our stories hold a different weight? And how does
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the risk of losing your sense of self impact you
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and the choices you make about how to live? So
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: steph your bio says that your work lies at the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: intersection of loss, the nature of deep remembrance, and the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: personal journey of recreation. Yeah, I kept trying to put
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: those three things together, loss, remembrance and recreation. How did
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you come to define your work through those three lenses?
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I just don't think we can
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: go through life without experiencing loss, And I think loss
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: has a lot of initiation inside of it. If we're
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: able to walk through loss large, small, literal and metaphorical
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: with kind of a state of conscious grieving as opposed
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: to unconscious despair, I really feel like they can be powerful,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: like fiery initiations. So this is loss for me. The
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: nature of deeper remembrance really has a lot to do
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: with the work that I do in the world and
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: have been doing for over a decade, you know, coaching
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: people through various transitions. That was there for me. But
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: when my mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's in
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: about twenty fifteen, the ideas around memory and what it
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: is to remember really became so strong for me, and
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: I felt like I wanted to move from a place
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: of I had just a lived experience with my mom
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: that like does my name matter, Like does the fact
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: that she can remember my name matter? Or like the
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: street that we grew up on, if Dad blew up
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: the you know, barbecue with the hot dog. Hear of
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: remembrance a remembrance of what it is like to really
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: inhabit a human body, A remembrance of what it's like
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: to have, things like love and loss, you know, shape us.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: And so that's really kind of what I mean by
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: that idea of deep remembrance is can we kind of
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: shift away from or maybe even like add to the
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: idea that I think, therefore I am is not the
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: only part of our humanity, like, can it be? I feel?
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Therefore I am I experience. Therefore I am like all
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: of these other parts of ourselves.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Is that what you mean by the recreation aspect?
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: So there we go in recreation. I mean for me,
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: I love words, and I love play on words, and
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: I love the idea that recreation and recreation are essentially
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: the same thing. And almost all of my journeys, especially
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: you know, the ones that I've written about in books,
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: are really set in a backdrop of nature and adventure
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: and you know, getting outside and recreating. And I think
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of initiation and recreation available for us
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: there as well.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So your newest book is called Everything Left to Remember,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and in many ways it's about your mother's journey with
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Alzheimer's early onset. As you say, yeah, what was the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: first reaction you had after learning about her diagnosis.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: The first real I had personally or or with other
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: people personally personally. You know, it's interesting and I write
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: about this a little bit in the book. The first
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: reaction that I had was kind of like, uh huh,
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: like I knew, you know, she had been showing signs
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: for almost two years, I want to say, And I
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: was kind of one of myself. And I'm going to
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: say my sister as well, Like I remember having a
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: conversation with her well before diagnosis, kind of saying like,
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: are you seeing the same things I'm seeing? And She's
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: like yes, And everyone else in the family was like, no,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: there's a denial. There's maybe they were seeing it, you know,
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: maybe there was denal to it. These are the kind
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: of things you want to add up and see. And
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: so my sister and I kind of made a bit
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: of a deal, like a pact. I was like, you're
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: with Mom more often because they lived in closer proximity.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: I'm more willing to have harder conversations or conflictual conversations.
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  Speaker 4: So will you tell me everything you see? That's number
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  Speaker 4: one part of the deal, and I will bring it
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: to the surface. That's number two. Part of the deal,
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  Speaker 4: And so we did that and had many conversations with
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: my mom and dad, and specifically with my dad, and
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: then eventually she did go and receive a diagnosis of
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: cognitive decline, and for me, it was kind of, like,
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: to be honest, like almost a bit of a relief,
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: because then other people kind of had to see what
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: I was seeing, and it felt like there was like
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: the gas lighting all went away.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Will you paint such a clear picture of what you
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: were seeing in the book for people who haven't read
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: it yet, can you share some of the changes that
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: you saw in your mom?
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  Speaker 4: Some of the initial changes are as simple as one
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: or two word loss, like inability to pull up a
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: word in a particular setting or a name, etc. Like
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: just slight changes in how she might pull words up
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: when she was speaking, just like you and I are. Now,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: that's pretty congruent with a lot of people's experience and perimenoplause,
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: which happens in people's you know, sometimes thirties, but forties
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: and fifties, and so when you're dealing with early on
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: it's at Alzheimer, some of those things can become a
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: little bit confusing. So there was word loss there was
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: a little bit of short term memory loss that was happening.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: She'd already kind of developed really interesting coping strategies, like
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: she would she would forget something and then you would
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: remind her and she'd go, oh, that's what I thought.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Oh that's what I had remembered, like those kinds of things.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: So I was hearing a lot of that repeated over
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: and over again. I thinks the biggest thing that I
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: noticed that was the piece that really was the tie
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: for it all to come together was I was I
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: was in the car with her, and I was talking
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: with her about something that I was doing, and I
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: asked for her opinion, and she gave it to me.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: And the way that she gave me her opinion was
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: just totally unexpected, like not like her at all. At first,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: it like really enraged me, like she dropped me off.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: I got to the car, I was visiting a friend,
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: and I immediately went into like a BFF rant like
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: I can't believe my mother. I can't believe her reaction
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: with this. And I paused myself part way through and
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, my gosh, that's not my mother,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: Like that's in no way, shape or form, how she
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: would react. I mean, I've known her for forty years.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: I know the cycle she moved through. I know moods
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: that you move through like you know your parent. And
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: so I remember stopping with my friend and going, oh
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: my gosh, that's not and it just felt like all
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: the other little instances, it was like click click click
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: click click, there's something wrong with and I didn't know
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: what it was. I was like, there's something wrong with
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: her brain.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I just knew you felt it that part. Yeah, I
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: thought it was so interesting that after her diagnosis, you
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: proposed a camping trip through national parks, And now that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I'm talking to you, I kind of understand the metaphor
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: of mother nature and your own mother.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But I think, very interestingly, there's a few women who
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: helped me with the podcast, and two of them have
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: mothers who are dealing with some sort of cognitive decline.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: And I think it's something that only someone who's been
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: through it can really understand. Even if we ask questions,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: it just seems like it's such a unique pain. What
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: do you think is something that only you or someone
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: who has experienced this could really understand.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: I think there's a couple of things I think it is.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: It is a really really and I'll use the word
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: wild because it could be both excruciating and I also
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: think there's kind of doorways through that pain as well
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: that can create other experiences, like besides just excruciation, I
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: think it's really really wild thing to be with a
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: person that you know you're going to lose and you
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: are number one watching it happen. Now, that could be
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: similar to other diseases. So say someone with terminal cancer,
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: right like you're watching them go. You're watching them go
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: in a different way, like losing the body function as
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: opposed to the mind function first, which is a little
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: bit disorienting. You're also because they're losing you, like that
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: is the biggest differentiator is there's not many other diseases,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: There are some, but anything that's interacting with memory in
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: this way and cognition and brain in this way. Is
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: you're simultaneously watching you lose them and you're watching them
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: lose you. And so that's a especially you know for anybody,
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: but I think especially children and loved ones of folks,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: that's a fare like so disorienting, like who even are
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: we anymore? Like who am I still a daughter? Like
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: what who what is my identity?
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Then you have to grapple with the confrontation of like who,
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: And this is a big part of the book. You know,
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: who am I If she's not reflecting my identity back
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: to me?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Ever thought about that? And in turn you feel a
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: loss of identity in some way?
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I think so, I think so. Yeah.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So you said that tapping into your inner mystic allows
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you to witness your mother's journey in awe. Yeah, I
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: need to understand what you mean. Has there been something
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: profound that you've witnessed through her journey?
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Oh, there's been like a million. The singer are you
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: familiar with Brandy Carlisle? Yeah, of course, Okay, amazing, amazing songwriter.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: I heard her on an interview a while back and
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: she said something that just like really blew my mind.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: But it's something like, mysticism is the most practical thing
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: in the world. The only thing about it is that
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: it's found a smack in the middle of grief. So
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: I like pause when she said that, I was like, Oh,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: my gosh, that's so confirming for me, because again, this
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: goes back to like conscious grieving versus unconscious despair. If
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: I'm able to be in conscious grieving, like connected to myself,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: actively processing things like not bypassing my emotions, actively processing things,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: being kind of like awake and aware and present to
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: myself and my needs, to my mother and her needs
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: as we walk through this, which by the way, does
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: not happen perfectly or linearly, right, And I'm able to
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: kind of walk with my eyes wide open, like what
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: will I see as opposed to if I don't want
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: to make eye contact, if I'm trying to distract myself,
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: if I really can't stand being in the same room
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: as my emotions, never mind my mother, Like that's going
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: to be a wildly different experience. And so for me,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm trying to like be like, Okay, what
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: of the thousand examples do I give? But I think
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: on a broad level, I really do a lot in
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: my life and my work with kind of archetypes. So
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: we've talked about like the feminine initiation archetypes, but there's
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: a pretty big archetype known that that is the shape
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: shifter women who run with the wolves. If you could
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: read you know, more spiritual texts, etc. To talk about,
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: you know, the shape shifter and how that's played out
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: through various cultures. But for me, when I look at
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: my mom, I kind of I just look at it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: I'm like, holy shit, I've been curious about shape shifting
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: for a long time and I'm getting to watch one
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: in slow motion?
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: In what way? Because I'm actually not so familiar with archetypes?
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Is this part of mysticism?
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I really think that, like the combination of
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: our humanity and divinity is mysticism. Okay, I think intuition
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: could be called mysticism.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily like a field of study that I'm
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: not tapped into.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Certainly, it could be. Certainly, it could be like the
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: mystics of you know, the Eastern religions of Art, an
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: area of study. But for me, when I think of
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: like the easiest way and the most approachable way is
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: like when we use the word mystique, when someone has
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: mystique mysterious, there's something unknown, Like there's something behind what
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: we're actually seeing.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Hmmm.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: It's interesting when you say that, you like, I can
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: think of a certain person right right, I'm like, oh,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: that person has mystique. Yeah, I've always wanted mystique. I'm
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: so like, what you see is what you get, So
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: And you can go from this that that could leads
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: you down a particular path, and I think to go
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: to shape shifters. There's you won't watch any vampire movie,
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: and that's what that's what it is that they're there,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: the shape shifting from one form to another, and very
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: particularly in a lot of those movies, there's a character
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: who is like an even bigger shape shifter than just
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: the human vampire side. And so these are people that
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: change forms to present one way in one situation and
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: another way in another situation. Now metaphorically, you can think
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: about that all over the place. Now, any archetype has
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: a shadow side like not so good, and light side
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: like us all and lots of the nuance in between.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: So in the TV shows with the vampires, you can
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: often see the shape shifters that are like ooh, they're
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: putting on a mask and tricking people and that's not
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: so good, and you know, and you can sometimes see
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: the shape shifters of like, oh, they're like solving problems
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: and showing up in a different form to provide relief
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: for different things. So that's like shape shifter one on one, and.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. So you were seeing your mom transition
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: from one archetype to another is what you're saying in.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: One form, I mean, I go on one day, she's
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: like presenting as like a five year old kid, right,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: and then the next day I've come in to visit
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: her and she's presenting like she has some wisdom, like
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: an old chrone like. And then the next day I
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: come in and she's more just kind of blank, like
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: nothing there. It's just it's a really really well And
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: then you know, in regards to the master initiation of
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: life death life, I mean, she's slowly moving towards a
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: loss of life. And so that's our biggest shape shift
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: is from human form to spirit form and spirit form
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: to human form. Right.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think though, there is a sort of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: mysticism as you're saying it about if you want to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: embrace all these different people that she's showing up as
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: in the process instead of shaming them or condemning them.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: There is a mysticism to it, like what can I
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: learn from this five year old version of my mom? Today?
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: Totally it's like if I was well, I mean, in
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: some ways I have like if you're to write it
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: all down, like today I went in and saw her
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: and she was a five year old and we talked
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: about candies and I learned you know X, Y Z.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: And then the next it. If I was to say, oh,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: I had these five series of dreams, and in each
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: one of them, my mother was a different form and
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: she gave me these different lessons, you'd be like, Oh,
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: that's pretty mystical. Totally, that's a mystical shit.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: You're kind of blowing my mind. I've never thought about
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it that way. I think there's like a version of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: this that exists within mental health as well.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so I'm going to quote you back to
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you because this, I might cry. This gets me every
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: time I read it. I was so scared that I'd
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: miss my chance to really know my mother, to see
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and understand her. I was afraid I would never have
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to use that information to unlock parts of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: myself to see and understand me. I was fearful that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: both of us would somehow be lost. That Like, every
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: time I read it, it obliterates me, because the book is
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: about this journey that you take with your mom. But
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the way I interpret it was that there was this
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: larger theme about what we learn of our own stories
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: through our family stories, and I think a lot of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: times that's overlooked because so much of it feels assumed
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: or assigned, And really there's like so much to interrogate there.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: What were some of the fears that you have about
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: what you were losing as your mom and your grandmother
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: lost some other memories.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: First of all, it's just really touching, like I'm glad
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: you brought that quote up, so thank you. I mean,
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: you know, there's obvious ones, like I'm going to lose her.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: One of the things that's so interesting about grief in general,
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: not just the experience of Alzheimer's and dementia, is kind
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: of like the collateral grief that one doesn't often know
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: about in advance. So I had fears about losing her,
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: and I had awarenesses burgeoning kind of awarenesses, which then
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: became quite clear to me as I was writing the
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: book about the parts of me. I felt like I
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: would lose or be denied access to or something with
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: the loss of her. So those were pretty apparent. One
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: of the things that I didn't really know specifically about
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: this disease, but also you could apply to many other diseases.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: And the experiences inside of families. Is the loss of
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: one parent with the other one consumed with caregiving is
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: kind of like the loss of both at least temporarily.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: And the loss of the family dynamic you once knew
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: totally totally.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: So that was the next thing that I was gonna say,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: was like, Okay, so if my mom is the keystone
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: inside of like the wheel or the hub and the
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: wheel of our family, you remove that, it's like, oh,
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: I didn't realize that we functioned this way because of
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: her and her energy, or I didn't realize that my relationship,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: you know, say with one of with with my brother
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: this is a random example, but with my brother would
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: shift in this way. And I didn't realize my relationship
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: with my sister would shift in this way. Like those
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: were kind of unknown. Something that I didn't write about
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: in the book that I've just become more and more
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: aware of is the loss of one parent and then
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: the other as caregiver is really the loss of both.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: And so there's been a you know, questions for myself
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: of like, Okay, even if it's temporary, it feels like
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: the loss of both parents and who do I lean
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: on for that? Like, thank goodness, I've got some amazing friends,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: and my sister has been amazing, my aunts have been unbelievable.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: And also this brings up the concept of reparenting, and
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: so for you know, especially for anybody who's listening who
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: maybe they never had access to their parents, and maybe
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: they've never had access to lineage, you know, or the
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: stories that are like where they've come from. And I
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: think it's really really a wonderful thing to talk about, Oh,
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: how do we like reparent ourselves if we haven't had
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: access to either good parenting or our parents are gone
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: or we don't have that kind of lineage based access.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that you say reparenting because I was thinking
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: about our interview all day, and I've been obsessed with
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the word mothering recently. I think it's because I kind
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of realized that it's a verb. It doesn't really have
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: anything to do necessarily with your own mother, Like you
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: can mother yourself, your friends can mother you. So what
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: does that mean to you and the idea of reparenting
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: or remothering in some ways, because it's it's about in
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: so many ways.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know, again, i I'm
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: just me, so I always go like to archetypes, like, yeah,
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: well I think about archetype of mother, right, and so
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: this doesn't necessarily need to be a person who has children.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: This can be anyone. So archetypal mother the quintessential question.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: So we talked about maiden right, the job of like
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: rejecting and rebelling a Carboe identity, So archetypal mother. The
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: quintessential question is what shall be created through me? Like
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: what energies am I going to dance with to use
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: myself as a vessel my physical body as a vessel
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: which could mean my hand painting something which could mean
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: my hands like making pasta, et cetera. What is going
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: to be created through me? And the aspect of archetypal mother,
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: that's nurturing is kind of a process in my mind
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: of ongoing co creation, Like how am I going to
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: in a continuous way have an infant and create them
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: into a toddler, have a toddler, or have a tiny
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: little business and created into an empire or you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: any of those things. So that's a really really important
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: question for me of mother, and very specifically for women
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: who have kids but also don't have kids, is what
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: will I allow to be created through me?
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: What will I allow to be created through me? Because
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in Latin maternal means to bring forth, So I see
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: what you're saying through me, to bring forth through me?
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: Yes, And it's a very you know, in this day
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: and age, it's really really easy to slide out of
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: that creation part. What will I allow to be created
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: through me? And slide into production? I'm just making things.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: I'm just doing things. Like my success is based on
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: how much I do and how much I produced and
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: all this. You know that that's totally different. For mother.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: The value and worth is like I can create, Like
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: I can take this energy and like move it through
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: my body and I can sing, and I can make
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: pasta sauce, and I can make children, and I can
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: make businesses like I can take this inspiration run it
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: through me and like type up a book.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Hello, you need to rebrand this because I feel that
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: people would respect it so much more.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: What did you mother today? Right exactly exactly? So to
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: take it to take you back to like the reparenting,
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: it's like, oh, I'm working with the inner child, the
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: thing in me, and we're going to like, you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: work with that energy and play with that energy, and
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: we're going to we're going to create more and more wholeness.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: So as we refer back to that beautiful quote that
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: made me cry in in wanting to understand your mom
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: so that you could understand and see yourself. Is there
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: anything that you wish you would have asked your mom
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: before her diagnosis?
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: My inner child wants to answer, though, which is like
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: I want to ask her if she loved me. You know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: I know the answer to that, but like there's a
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: little girl inside of me, a little daughter. I wanted
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: to hear it. What like I like, Stephie Steppy, I
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: love you, you know, like, yeah, I would have liked
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: to have that.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: And this goes back to the idea of like mysticism
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: and energy, Like energy doesn't just disappear, it changes into
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: something else. And so if if we think of ourselves,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: like in a very kind of mystical or spiritual way,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: as just I'm just energy that's dense enough to show
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: up as a human body, then that means that the
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: energy that is my mother isn't going to just disappear,
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: It's going to turn into something else. So I think
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: about this with her father, my grandfather, who I was,
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: maybe eighteen when he passed away, Like I feel him
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: around all the time, and I can't explain that. I
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: don't know anybody who can explain that. I sometimes feel
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: like the answer that question, you know, do you wish
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: you could have asked her something?
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I feel like in many ways I'm in like a
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: silent conversation with her a fair bit and like more
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: and more and more.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Now, that's that's awesome to hear.
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And like maybe that's just in my imagination that
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: I'm like asking my mom questions and she's responding in
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: my imagination and I don't care.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on what you believe. Yeah, yeah, okay,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: quick little story time. When birthdays or holidays came around,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: my mom would always say, don't buy me anything, save
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: your money. But I wanted to get her something, and
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I knew the one thing that she would ultimately smile
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: about and love was a brand new, fresh, matching set
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of pajamas. I saw how she felt when she put
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: them on, and since then, pajamas have always been a
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: go to gift for a woman in my life that
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I love, and honestly sometimes myself because I feel like
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: we all need a little pajama refresher every once in
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: a while. It just feels so good. I have been
• 31:03
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• 31:08
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• 31:13
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• 31:17
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• 31:19
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• 31:24
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• 31:27
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• 31:30
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• 31:38
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• 31:44
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• 31:47
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• 31:48
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• 31:51
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• 31:55
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• 32:01
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• 32:38
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if you know your specific genetic risk,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: but I read an interview recently with Chris Hemsworth, the actor,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and he was filming a show about longevity, and he
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: learned that he was at a higher genetic risk for
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Alzheimer's and he wanted to kind of make He took
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: a step back from work and wanted to make some
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: changes in his lifestyle. And he said, most of us
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: we like to avoid speaking about death in the hope
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that will somehow avoid it. We all have this belief
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that will figure it out. Then to all of a
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: sudden be told some big indicators that are actually pointing
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: to this as the route which is going to happen.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: The reality of it sinks in you own your mortality
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: with this legacy of forgetfulness as you call it, with
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: your grandmother and your mother, What has their diagnosis made
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you confront about your own place in the world and
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: your own stories.
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: First of all, I think dementia, and it's various different types,
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: including Alzheimer's, really has a threat of removing the past.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: So there may be a time when I don't remember
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: the past, and it also threatens to remove the future,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: as in, there may be a time in the future
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: that I don't remember the past. And so if the
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: future and the past for me are both at risk,
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: there's a singular thing that feels like the anecdote.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: For that, which is the present the healthiest place to live.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: All therapists will tell us that, Yeah, so.
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: There's kind of like a refusal in me to not
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: I do think about the past, I do think about
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: the future and process those things, but kind of refuse
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: to have this disease like take that too, Like I
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: could be consumed with worry, and I could be consumed
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: with a lot of different like what ifs than we
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: should and as opposed to like really letting life like
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: drench me in the present and like living in that way.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: So first of all, I'll say that from a tangible standpoint,
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: like I am a daughter inside of a lineage of
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: this disease. I haven't gone and done any of the testing,
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: and I probably won't only because I know myself like
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: I think if there was a positive, then I think
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: it would consume more of the present than the way
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: in which I live right now. With that, I do
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: take things into consideration. I'm constantly reading I'm at the
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: age where perimenopause is a really important thing in my
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: life and happening in my life. So I'm kind of
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: constantly looking at what about perimenopause and hormone replacement therapy
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: and estrogen? What does that tell us about the brain?
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: I stopped drinking a couple of years ago, I cut
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: out refined sugar a couple of years ago. So there's
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: like active. I'm active and physically fit, and so there's
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: things that I can do to take care of my body,
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: just like anyone could. I think what you said in
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: the quote from Hemsworth that is so important and again
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: takes me back to like initiation, which is we've talked
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: about some of the feminine initiations, but there's a master
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: initiation that's life death life. So we see this in seasons, right.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: We see spring is springing right now, and then the
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: fruits are going to get ripe, and then there's going
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: to be a harvest in the fall, and the leaves
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: will start to fall, and then there'll be a dormancy
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: and then spring will come again. Like life death life.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: This happens in our own lives quite literally and metaphorically
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: in many ways, and in our society we have this
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: kind of like allergy. And I think this is changed
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: through the last ten ful of years a little bit,
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: but it's still there. And what we think, which goes
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: back to the quote you just read from him, what
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: we think is if we don't look at it, if
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: we don't talk about it, if we push it all away,
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: the death part, and it will just prolong our living.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: But like spring can't be prolonged for that long. So
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: what it actually does is it suspends the initiation. It
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: like takes the initiation out of a rite of passage order,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: and we think it's going to lead to more living.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: What it actually leads to is suspended a living death.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: This is denial. This is I don't want to take
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: ownership of my own insecurities. This is I'm walking around fearful.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: I can't go visit my family because I can't have
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: this conversation. You know, all of these things. These things
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: are hard things. But I think the more that we
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: can what was the last part of that quote, he
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: said we can take ownership.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Of Yeah, he said you own mortality.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, so if we can take ownership of that sense
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: of mortality, and I think that just for me has
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: like kicked me into more of the present.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, have you done any of the things that people
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: think of that would be like quintessential living, like take
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: big trips, eat certain food? You know, Like what is
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: like the bucket listcket What have those been for you
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: if you're at all considering them?
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Yes? Like this takes me back to my first book,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: which that was my life, Like I lived a bucket list.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: Like do I want to ski around the world?
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Like do we want to like eat this much faster? Yes?
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: Like all this stuff and you know, part of that journey,
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: that first journey completely reshaped my bucket list is like
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: I don't necessarily have a whole bunch of things that
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: I want to achieve an experience because I think they'll
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: be a peak thing or I think they'll give me something.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: And it really only left me with two things on
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: my bucket list, which are, am I listening for the
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: COVID adventure? Am I listening for what I'm being kind
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: of told to do intuitively? Life? And the second thing
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: on my bucket list is if I hear that or
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: feel that in some way? Do I have the courage
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: to say yes?
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I love that so much? Yeah?
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: If I like intuitively was like, Oohoo, I'm feeling it,
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: I'm supposed to do a trip to Ireland and it
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: just keeps popping up, and it just keeps popping then
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna be like again in Ireland.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is there anything on you to answer the call? Wow?
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I like that so much. Thank you for sharing that.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: You include this quote in your book from Stephie Wagner.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Pain travels through families until somebody is ready to feel it.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: Can we even like.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Everybody in their own way can feel that so deeply,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And it's oftentimes the person that is willing to feel
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: it that I think is a little bit chastised from
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: their family.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: Ding ding dang ding ding. Yes, they are the overly sensitive,
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: they are the hysterical, they are the making a big
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: deal out of nothing. Yes, absolutely absolutely.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I feel called out. So what pain were you willing
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: to feel? If you're willing to share, I know it's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: very personal, but pain that best if your family wasn't.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: So I have been on a journey with this, Okay,
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: So I have come to a place in my own
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: work that as best as possible, like, I'm a human.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: So I don't do this in perfectly boundaried ways or
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: executed amazingly every single time, but I am a human,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: and so I want to with the people in my
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: life have a lot of compassion for where they're at
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: and their own capacity to process their own let's just
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: call it like general bucket like pain. If those people
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: are living, that is their responsibility. And so I've done
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: a lot of work and gone on a lot of
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: journey to be like that's yours.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's the first part of the journey of.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Being Oh no, that's I think. I hit perimenopause and
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: I was like, OK, I know, I'm just not doing
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: this anymore. I'm just not doing this anymore.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: You can want your sister, I'm just throwing it out there.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: You can want your sister to go to therapy, go
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: to therapy, go to therapy, and she doesn't want to.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: It's on her totally.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, I think there was a lot
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: of a lot of shame, a lot of not enoughness
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: that a lot of folks in my family like overcome
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: with overachieving, which is like that's a pretty good way
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: of overcoming it as opposed to like drug addiction. Right
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: that being said, I think I did carry a lot
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: of that around, and especially over the last year of
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: kind of just being like I'm just gonna like, I'm
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: sorry about that. I took your luggage. I'm just gonna
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: put it right back here in the kitchen and I'm
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: gonna go my marry way.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: It's taken me a lot of work. So but to
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: kind of wrap that, like if these people inside of
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: the lineage, pain travels through families until somebody is ready
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: to feel it, if they are still living, I'm going
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: to be committed to doing my work and feeling my stuff.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: And I'm also at a stage in my own life
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: where I'm like i am committed to setting energetic emotional
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: boundaries to be like, no, that's you. So here's the example.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: I might have a cousin or an answer or something
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: who always kind of says like sarcastic things and cloaked,
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: like you didn't do a good enough job, and she
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: or he might say something like that to me, and
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: in the past I might be like, Aha, all right,
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: I'm such an idiot with the gifts or whatever. Now
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: when that sarcasm comes.
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: I just kind of go like, okay, neutrality, it's not neutrality, neutrality,
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: nervous system regulation, like okay, Like that has nothing to
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: do with me anymore.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: So that's what I probably say about like the living
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: and some like beloveds, you work through this together, like
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: if you've got close enough relationships with people in your life,
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: like maybe you have a sister you actually talk about
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: this with, like oh my gosh, are you sensing this
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: and what's going on? You know, those that can be
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: available too, which is lovely. The other thing Payne travels
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: through families until somebody is ready to feel it is
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: the lineage based stuff. So there's I won't I want
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: to a spoiler alert, But inside of the book, there's
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: a situation that happened when my mom was in her teens,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: and there was decisions made, and you can read all
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: about that in the book. When you think about it,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: there's like, okay, there's four sets of parents, there's two
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: sets of people. There's one, two, three, four, five, six
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: siblings who were all kind of in on the secret,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: like and and we all to protect her, have got
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: to like keep our mouths shut because this is a shame,
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: and so we're all going to do that on behalf
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: of her. Like how it's that is a hard job
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: to like, Okay, we're all gonna button our lips about shame,
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: and we're going to become kind of we're going to
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: carry some of that too, and then this next generation
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: comes along. It's just like talking about it. That's a
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: very hard thing. So I think for me it really
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: felt like, especially with my grandparents who are not living anymore,
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: that I really felt like they were president all the time.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: Like we need to go back to this moment in time,
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: Like you need to time travel with us to go
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: back to this moment in time when this wound happened,
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: and we need to open it back up. And you
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: might need to like feel things and like translate them
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: on the page for us, because like we kind of
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: fucked up. We were the parents, we were the adults
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: in the room. And then we can like set the
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: story straight and then we could like sew it all
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: back up and we'll be fine, and it'll like correct
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: the lineage, and then you can go back to your
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: own timeline and live in your own life. And in
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: the process you're gonna have to feel some of that.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Well, how about for people who don't know stories of
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: their lineage in that way?
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: This is a great question, and it's one I use
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: even though I know stories in my lineage. As an example,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: before the book came out, I was in my own
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: somatic therapy stuff and I was feeling a ton of shame,
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: Like I could feel it physically, like I felt like
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: my face. I was like, why does my face always
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: feel like this? I was like, this feels like shame. Wow,
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: And my therapist this is the question, whose is that?
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: Is that yours? So if you are a person who's
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: experiencing hysteria, who's this sensitive person in the family, who's
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: experiencing an overwhelm of emotions, who's got anxiety, who all
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: of a sudden is like having a panic attack, Who's
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: you know? All of these different things. I think one
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: of the most valuable questions is is that yours? And
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: for us to slow down enough in our bodies to go, oh,
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: my gosh no. And of course some of it is
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: because our bodies are the ones that are feeling it,
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: so we need to take some ownership of or like
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: processing some of that. But it's astounding. I've worked with
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: people in many situations. I've had this myself in many situations,
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: and at first when you hear that, you kind of
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: go like, I don't know if my body be able
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: to tell, you'd be shocked how quickly people are able
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: to be like, oh, yeah, this is mine, I can
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: feel it.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Arapists will sometimes ask me where in my body I
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: feel yes, yes, And if you really sit with yourself,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: usually mine is in my chest for some reason, but
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: everybody has different places. You do feel it, You just
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: have to sit with yourself for a minute, yes.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: And eat from there to kind of go is this yours?
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: Has this always been yours? Like? How long has it
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: been there? Did just come in yesterday after the conversation
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: you had with your dad?
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Maybe that's his? And because you think you're supposed to
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: do the emotional labor of your whole family. Maybe you
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: were like, hey, dad, here, i'll take it. I'll feel
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: it for you. You're too busy.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Are the pots and pants you're cooking with toxic? It's
• 45:59
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• 46:03
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• 46:07
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• 46:10
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  Speaker 1: realization of your mother's condition, and that realization actually leads
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: you to a whole nother one, and that is the
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: women in your family have been forgetting themselves. And I
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: get chills when I read that part of the book.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: So you ask, did all of the women in my
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: family keep things inside of themselves away from others? What
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: else did we know? And not say? What else did
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: we feel and not give voice to talk about?
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Where?
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: I feel that that hits me in my chest. Can
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: you unpack those feelings a bit and what you discovered
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: about the women and your family at that moment.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: Speaking, you know, just for myself and my own experience
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: within that, I feel like many of us in the lineage,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: both living and well beyond, we're highly highly sensitive people.
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: And I mean that kind of like energetically as well
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: as mentally and emotionally. Yeah, And I feel like we
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: sense energy and we attempt to kind of soue it,
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: fix it, take ownership of it silently, diligently so that
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: the men can keep being men. And I think what
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: that has led to is a real forgetting of the
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: totality of us. And like, wait a second, If I
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: have these energetic, sensitive, emotional mental feelers like sensitivities, like
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: what do I want to put them to work doing? Like,
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: what do I want to create through me? Do I
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: want to create an easy path for him? And then
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: there's lineage based reasons why they did like that are
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: obvious or maybe not obvious but just survival.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Well, as you're talking, it makes me think about shape
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: shifting once again, which is kind of full circle because
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I think is and I don't want to stereotype, but
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I maybe I'm just speaking for myself. I think women
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: in general are really good at shape shifting and sometimes
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: it's important to not Yeah, you know, for.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Me, could be broken down with like a basic definition
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: of intimacy and where I think we have that wrong.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: So intimacy and connection is our ability to be in
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: proximity to something close to something right and be in
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: neutrality in nervous system regulation right. So it's kind of
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: like I can feel myself feeling you. I can feel
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: myself sitting in this chair, feeling warm, feeling full, feeling
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: kind of satiated, energetically and excited to have this conversation
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: with you. And I can also feel you like curious, intrigued,
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: leaning in like all this stuff. I can feel me
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: feeling you. That creates some kind of connection. Yeah, what
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: we have been told and demonstrated that intimacy is much
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: you know, in large part for our own protection, is
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: not my ability to feel myself feeling you, but in fact,
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: my ability to feel you first and decide are you
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: nice today? Are you dangerous today? Are you excited today?
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: Are you available today? Like I'm going to feel you,
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: and then I'm going to decide who to be, to satisfy,
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: to satiate, to calm you down, to manage you in
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: your state. Right, that's not intimacy and connection. That's a punishment,
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: that's enablement.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: That is manipulation.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: That's manipulation, that's hierarchies at work. That's many things.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: This is tangential. But go with me for a second,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: if you will, I'll go What you just said is
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: in so many ways, like in business, especially in Hollywood, right,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Like if I feel somebody who has kind of like
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: bully energy, I know that if I don't puff up,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: we're never going to find it good place. So I
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: feel them and in turn change who I am and
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes go really far outside of who I am, and
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: it never feels good. You're right, it's not intimacy and connection,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: but it is sort of a valuable skill in the world.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so exactly is one has been valuable and
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: necessary for survival. There's some people who need to tap
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: into that still to this day for survival, right right,
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: And then you can take it from there and kind
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: of go, oh, if I learned that as a kid
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: and learned that and it transferred into a skill, and
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: it transferred into my personality, then I can actually use
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: that to create like kind of a kick ass career
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: inside of these you know, kind of capitalist patriarchal hierarchies.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Like all right, sure, let me roll. It's all good.
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: The place that it gets tricky is number one, what
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: we act actually feel and have a capability for connection
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: wise inside of our nervous systems. Inside of that, neutrality
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: begins to disappear and disappear in like our window of
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: fortilance kind of closes, and that begins to disappear. Number two,
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: exactly exactly what you just said, Like, oh, and I
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: can go way over here and I get really big,
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: but it doesn't feel good. It feels awful, right, And
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: so for me, there's a question inside of that which is, okay,
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: so bully, really big energy coming at me, how do
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: I stay in integrity, feeling myself. Maybe I feel a
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: little bit scared, maybe I feel a little bit threatened,
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: maybe I feel a little bit pissed off or angry.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: And how do I get big without recruiting necessarily their energy,
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: like the bully energy. This is a very hard thing
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: to do. I've had situations like this where somebody comes
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: at me with a lot of anger and they're expecting
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: anger back because that means actually that there doesn't have
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: to be connection. They're going, I don't want I'm gonna
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna come in you with anger. You're gonna come
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: back at me with anger. We won't connect. We'll go
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: this way peof peof everyone's.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Safe, and then they can write me off. Right, Oh
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: my god, Steph, you are so brilliant.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: So instead having someone I've had experiences we comes at
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: me with anger and I'm not saying, like, take ownership
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: of it if you didn't actually do something, but in
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: this instance, I did. And so my response instead of
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: being like no I didn't, You're an asshole, blah blah blah,
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: it was kind of like shit, dude, like you're right,
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: I really fucked that up. And they were like whoa.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: And then you did. I was like, you're totally right.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: I can't go back in time. I'm so sorry. And
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: I remember their response was kind of like, well, okay,
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: and then it's like, okay, now we can connect. Now
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: you can actually receive my apology now that I'm in
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: the big miss of vulnerability. Now, this doesn't work in
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: all situations, but I think there's lots to practice inside
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: of that definition of intimacy and connection. And then going
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: back to the idea of like, how does that work
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: with the women and my family? I think from a
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: survival standpoint, going back a multitude of generations, we learn
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: to be like, okay, sweetheart. So it's it's our job
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: as girls and women to feel into what's going on here,
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: because our physical safety, our mental safety, our emotional safety,
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: like maybe even access access to spirituality. Hello, men who
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: run the churches, Like, we really need to tune into
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: that and satisfy that first in order to get our
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: needs met.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: So you've talked about the desire not to forget when
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: it comes to your memories. How have your experiences made
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: you reflect on how you preserve and honor your stories
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: and your family's stories. Now you keep using the word
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: container I feel like in many ways, you and your
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: sister and you said your brother are containers of these stories.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: So how or is there a specific way that you'd
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: like to preserve of your life experiences other than these
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: beautiful memoirs that you've written, You.
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: Know, I don't. I mean, I've written the books. They're
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: like documented on paper with ink, and in some strange way,
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: there's also there'd be a common sense thing to be like, well,
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: I'd like to preserve them in writing and in storytelling.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: And I do really really love writing and storytelling. But
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: I almost am at a point now where I'm like,
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: that's not the most important thing, the preservation of I
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: think the most important thing, going back maybe to archetypal
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: mother and maybe even beyond that into like the mystical realm,
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: is like we're here to dance with energy, and maybe
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: that gets preserved and contained, maybe that just swirls over
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: to someone else and becomes positive energy for them to
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: dance with.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I think preservation was the wrong word. You're right, it's
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: about because you're living in the present.
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And like you know, maybe a different word would
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: be like, what do you wish to continue to contribute?
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: Because that for me is like, Okay, energetically, I might
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: contribute by way of preservation, like here's a story on
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: piece of paper, but it's also really interesting.
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: The thing that is coming into my mind when you
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: said that is ink. The very very all my stuff
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: is ink. I have like pens all over my desk.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: I'm constantly writing. I've written two books. There will be
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: more like and I think about ink and the very
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: very first ink was created with lamp black, which is
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: basically they would burn oil and there would be a
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: smoke that was that came off the oil being burnt,
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: and then the smoke would get caught on like metal surfaces,
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: that's lamp black, and then it would get put in
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: water and diluted and created it. So for me, it's
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: like even ink, even the process of writing something in
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: ink is like we're just working with smoke.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: And water and water.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: There's something about like, for me, what is the energy
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: I would like to continue to contribute to this world
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: in a very like broad stroke way, like it's love
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: and hope And that might be too like cliche, but
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: it's a really like when I tune into that with
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: the totality of myself present, with my mental body here,
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: my physical body, my emotional body, my like somatic energetic body,
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: all of me in the same place at the same time.
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: When I tune into love and hope, Like, this is
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: the most expansive thing I can feel. That's what I
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: want to dance with. That's what I want to put out.
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: That's what I want to dance like. I want to
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: create like a sustainable energy.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: You just want to dance. I hear you girls to
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: dance with somebody. So you say in the beginning of
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: the book for my Mother, the way you reveal yourself
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: in the midst of your disappearance has taught me more
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: than the sun and the moon and the swing of
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: the ocean between them. Yeah, before we go into rapid fire, Yeah,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I want to know the peace of your mother's story
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: that was revealed to you, that made your own life
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: life make more sense.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: The peace that was revealed to me was the power
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: in surrender and silence. Like I always used to look
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: at science like I'm a person who loves words, I
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: love conversations, and I always used to look at people
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: who were like just sitting there and not saying anything,
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: like what the hell? And now I'm like, oh, there
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: can be a really really colossal energy like that foundation
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: of silent warmth and love. That was you know what
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: I got to like put my head down and sleep
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: on every night. You know, I felt it obviously when
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: I was little, but I just didn't feel it in
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: a way that I do now. And I look at that,
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: I'm like, that's what was revealed, Like just the gift
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: of that kind of spaciousness, Like you don't have to
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: just fill the world with words and words like you
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: could just you just hold the world.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Who that's pretty revelatory. Okay, so rapid fire before you
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: leave me, because honestly, if you'd let me, I'd probably
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: talked to you for two hours. What has been the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: greatest tool that you found in uncovering the truths and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: having hard conversations with your family? You said at the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: beginning of this that you were the designated person if
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: you were to give somebody a piece of advice, how
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: do you go and broach those topics?
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: My biggest piece of advice is that usually those conversations
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: stem from a pain point, that is that could be
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: described as our own internal anger a ridge. And there's
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: a difference between, first of all, between anger and aggression.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: And so when I go to talk to people about
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: something that I'm angry about, I number one have to
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: wait until the anger soppens and can be communicated in
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: like a boundary setting like connective spirit of generosity. And
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: that usually means if there's a feeling of like this
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: needs some aggression, like I need to work that out
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: with myself before because I don't want to just be
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: aggressive towards people. I want to use my anger as
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: a way to connect.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, so a smoke signal into yeah.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: So I've got to process the aggression part of it
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: on my own. First.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: What national park will you recommend for a first time visitor? Also,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I love that this is the most excited you've gotten.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: Well, how do you pay?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: Well?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: Everyone could see your face. Okay, I feel like Olympic
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: National Park might be the one I would pick. And
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: it's actually probably one of the least visited. And I'll
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: tell you why.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: I don't even know where it is.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: Great, So it's on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. It's
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: very close to where I live. I'll tell you why.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: And I won't actually go into the imitation of Stefan
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: from SNL, but like it has that right then the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: reason I genuinely the reason I say this because it
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: does have everything. If you're a person who loves water,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: there's a huge stretch of the National Park along that
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: west coast of the peninsula, like right on the ocean,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: it's gorgeous. If you're a person who loves forests, it's
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: got old growth forests that are beautiful and moss colored
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: and cedar trees. And maybe it's unbelievable if you're a
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: person who likes mountains, it's got very dramatic mountains. Doesn't
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: have desert. That would be the one that, okay, some
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: people might not get, but it has so much to
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: offer in that. There's another thing and maybe this ties
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: back to what you asked me earlier about what's the
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: lesson from my mom. Inside of Olympic National Park, there's
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: something called the one square inch of Silence, and it
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: is being studied by sound ecologists and it's known to
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: be through research, the quietest least amount of noise pollution
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: in the United States.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: That's very cool.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: Very cool, and it's like a secret little like you know,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: there's a map to it and stuff that you have
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: to like, you know, it's people. I went out there
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: last year on my mom's birthday.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. A cheat code
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: about life that you wish you knew sooner.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: Eat as much macaroni and cheese as you want to.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I was unexpected.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: A book that changed your life, something you think everybody
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: should read.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: Okay. The book that changed my life was one that
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: my husband gave me when I was on the first trip,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: and that was suemunk Kid, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: I think that was just I don't know. It was
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: a real awakening for me. And I've given more copies
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: of that book to people than any other book.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, never read any of hers. And I think books
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: come to you when they're supposed and they're supposed to do.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: And I think I'm almost there. Yeah, so thank you.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Question everything.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: I usually when I'm in person, I have you pick
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: a card book because we're virtual. You just let me
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: know when to stop.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: Okay, you can stop.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Oh this is really nice. What do you need help
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: with most right now?
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: I need help most with as I begin to move
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: at a quicker qui or pace in my life and
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: my career. I see like technological revolution, I see ai.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: I see so many changes there, and I think I
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: need help reminding, like, okay, your superpowers, your way to
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: balance those things is going to be a continued retirement
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: of like the emotional, energetic, and spiritual bodies.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Got it? Okay, what is the smartest decision you've ever made?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: Marry and my husband? That's so nice.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: How long have you been married?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: It'll be twelve years in about a month.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Has there been a best year? Are they?
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: That's so interesting? I was just there's been a lot
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: of the worst years. Yeah, he's been a lot of
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: really hard years, but even it's funny. I think the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: last couple of years. I feel like when we hit
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: ten years, I kind of like I remember walking into
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: his office and being like I get it, Like I
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: get it now, Like I get this marriage thing. What
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: an unbelievable fucking thing that I get to witness this
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: human beings there and even in all of the like
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: don't necessarily want to witness that, And then vice versa.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: So maybe I'll say your ten that's been a good one.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: I'm just so grateful that you shared your time with me.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: And if you couldn't tell I loved your book, so
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: everybody should go read this book. It's beautiful and there's
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: something in there for everybody, regardless of their personal experience.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: I want to thank the people that make the show possible.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Colleen O'Neil, Jill Salama, Karrie O'Keefe, and Phil Speed Tech. Okay,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: you know what time it is. Today's a good day
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: to have a good day. I'll see you next week.