Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Joan Advent -- Pain, Personal Cosmology & Desire

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Joan Advent -- Pain, Personal Cosmology & Desire · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's like this is the key, this is the answer.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We all get our own personal cosmology, and my experience of it is based on you know teachings I've worked with, it's it's like we are all in our own little universe, and our cosmology is what's true.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it's like unlocking these keys of really how to be in this world, but not of this world, and to operate from the deepest level of my soul, the highest level of my wisdom and my spirit.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Alive and Kicking Podcast, everybody.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: We have as our guest today, Joan Advent.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Joan.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Kay.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be here.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to yeah, it's great to be here with you.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've been looking forward to this for, I don't know, it feels like it's been months since we've had this scheduled.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to just go ahead and get started.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: And wondering if you can tell me if you've always been a Virginian or if your human journey began elsewhere.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, my journey did begin elsewhere.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was born and raised in Ohio, actually in the Cleveland area.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And part of my young adult journey uh brought me to Virginia.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I would be here briefly, and then I was gonna move to the Chicago area, which I know you spent some time in.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But life had other plans, my spirit had other plans, and so I've been in Virginia.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be 40 years next year.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we're so you begin in in the did you say Cleveland or since yeah, Cleveland, Ohio.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what was that like?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: What was your family situation?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: What was your what was the vibe of your family?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when I considered that question, so there was my nuclear family, of course, but we were intimately embedded in both the larger um family.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: My both my mother um was very tight with her two sisters and her family.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And my father had six brothers and two sisters.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I think about family and what's the vibe of my family, it's it's hard to name that without recognizing those um pillars and those like tribes, so to speak.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So my mom's family was very playful and gregarious and boisterous and loud and um, yeah, a lot, a lot to handle.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad's family was um, well, both were like salt of the earth, you know, immigrant families, um and working class families, a lot of uh pride and a lot of um loyalty, and we have each other's back.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was a first child, and my brother didn't come along for a number of years.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll just say that in that context of both my nuclear and the larger family, trying to have a sense of like where do I fit in or what's my place in in the midst of all of this.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of um, we'll say pain and intensity um that that came with not with my birth, but in, you know, in my parents' relationship and pain from their past that that was like a crucible.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So my household was a bit like a crucible, and then there was this larger context of of both love and loyalty and connection, like with cousins.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have um almost 40 cousins that you know I would see regularly, and we grew up together and and we were all, I guess, like the the rise of the baby boomers.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the at the very tail end of that.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a whole herd of us.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I I would say, where is my place or how do I fit in this was a big piece of my family experience.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that I there's such a particular experience of growing up in a large family.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I didn't grow up in a large family, but my children did because my ex-husband had six, seven siblings.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, um it's it's it has its uh definitely has its advantages.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's always company, there's always fun, there's always gatherings.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it also, you know, an individual can get kind of lost in the in the shuffle there.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that a lot of times when there's a lot of like activity, a lot of busyness, it doesn't afford you the opportunity to have any kind of slowness or stillness to settle into a quiet and and figure out you know, some of those deeper questions.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the the depth can be sacrificed to the you know, to the busyness.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is that was that your experience as well?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would say within the context of family, yes.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: There were there were ways that I would find that on my own, um, separate and apart, or within the midst, but um, yeah, I I think that's probably pretty adept, what you're saying, pretty accurate.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So what kind of a child were you?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: You were you were an only child for a bit of a time, but you know, what was your sensibility?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was what might be called a sensitive child.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I had I had like both sides of the equation.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was, I don't know that I was shy per se, but I was more introverted and quiet and interestingly um grew up in my early years having to go to other people's homes because my mother worked outside the home.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I might be with other families' children's if if they were looking after me.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this thread of I was quiet and thoughtful, but I also had this like leadership streak that came out later on.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that again, that whole piece about where do I fit here?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm actually inclined to mention I have an aunt or I grew up with an aunt who was from Japan.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: She had married my uncle uh who had been stationed overseas, and they lived next door for a time, and she was very quiet and gentle and um practiced her, you know, her cultural faith.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so she was one of the we'll say sanctuaries, a place where the more sensitive, quiet me could could revel, feel at home, um, feel at peace.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when did you first start feeling that sort of leadership quality come out in you?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Probably, probably when I started in school and when I was with peers, I do know by the time I was in what they would call middle school or late elementary school, that I was already exhibiting that um leadership quality.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I did have a cousin.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: My my mother is a twin, so I grew up with her daughters and sons, and my oldest cousin, Christine, was like the leader, the leader of our little tribe.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So my leadership might have come up sooner, except for that role was taken by Christine.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um it but it showed up like with peers one once I started going to school.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think just seeing like seeing what was needed and and how maybe we could um do things better or like achieve something higher.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so I'm gonna speak up about that.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, not everybody's interested in hearing that, especially from a child, right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: So your this aunt, I think you said that she was culturally um true to her upbringing.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Was she also spiritually um in tuned?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So did that sort of play into how your spirit developed?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: What was the spirituality of your childhood other than other than that, or in addition to that?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I will say I just found recently an excerpt from a letter my mother had written to me, and in it she says that when I was born, she dedicated me to God, like the saints.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so it doesn't what does that mean?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um what did it mean to her?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: What it meant to her was as I understand it, was um just saying to her version of God the divine that this child is here like on on your behalf, or um wow.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that was um that was how it all began.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you you only found out about that as an adult?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: She I think she had she must have written to me.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, part of my spiritual journey story is uh when I was a teenager, I had gotten involved and I was raised as a Catholic.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Both sides of the family were Eastern European Catholic and went to Catholic school for a number of years.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was a teenager, uh there was a program called Teen Renewal, which was like the youth group where they would do this um weekend retreat, renewal, transformational process.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the process of that is on the last day, you would receive letters from family and loved ones and people that were putting on the retreat just as kind of an affirmation or you know, letting you know they were praying for you.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think I believe it probably came in one of those letters that my mother um had written that to me.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't until I was a teenager um that I learned that it's such a strange concept.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can I can imagine, you know, devoting yourself to God, but I didn't know that it was possible to devote someone else, uh, your child.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here you go, God.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's such an interesting.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a sense of who she was?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: That that what was she thinking?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: What was the need for that?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: What was well she was very devout in her beliefs and and was very devout in her uh faith and her religion, and I think she had read stories perhaps in the Bible about saints who had done such things.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she said, I I actually have the note here because it's it's on my I have a little altar for my child self.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It says, I dedicated you to God, I was copying the saints and the blessed mother, which is what she calls Mary.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, they were my examples and my models.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what how did that register with you when you read that?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know how it registered.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't recall when I was a teenager how it registered, but I I kept it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it registered enough to uh for me to do that, for me to keep it.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I I will say that my journey, the arc of my journey, and much of my childhood was this kind of interweaving of um the dark and the light, like spirituality and uh the pain of the human experience.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a way in which it, because I am someone that has my own deep devotion uh to what I would call God, or you know, that which moves through all things, all life.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it was in a way like a call back to that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like there, I I do believe that I as a soul chose a mother who would do that uh upon my birth, and not not that it was always easy in terms of her perception perhaps of what that would mean, and my own soul's journey of what it would mean to um be dedicated or devoted to God.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So did you ever have a period in your life where there was, you know, you you had to kind of detach from the religion or from the from the paradigms, from the expectations.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Catholicism is a is a hand, it's a big assignment.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Was that your experience?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, yes, uh, very much so.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say it's been a defining through line for a number of years because it was such this strong presence, very, I mean, very strong presence and expectation, um almost demand to fall in line or capitulate with that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it there was a lot of unwinding, there was a lot of um need for detachment, there was a lot of how do I come into the truth of who I who I am in my relationship to the divine as opposed to uh what was true for my mother or for anybody else in my opinion.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of hard to uh for people who didn't grow up Catholic to understand how heavy the influence is and how widespread the expectations and demands are, even though almost no one follows them.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like you can you can raise a child to be, you know, strictly Catholic without actually even being strict Catholic.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like there's something else that is going on there, like the collective expectations or the collective experience really, really is quite strong and quite hard to break free from.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and thread that through being from families that were, excuse me, like Eastern Europe, European immigrant families, working class families, where the church in many ways is a defining the religion, the faith, the church is a defining uh dictate of how you function in life.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know my father had his oldest brother uh married someone outside the faith, and that was like as big a deal as someone, you know, people think about interracial marriage, and the there were times when that was such a big deal.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, interfaith marriage at that point in time was you know groundbreaking and something that you could lose your family over.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened ultimately, but it really shook the foundation of things to even consider going outside the faith.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's almost like I mean, this is a whole discussion of not necessarily where we're going, but it's almost as though the the faith uh exists to show you how you're not measuring up, as opposed to actually guiding you in a in a in a certain way.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like always playing in the background about and this and it creates kind of this um you know, this real inner struggle of being insufficient in in the face of of God.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in particular growing up as uh a girl, as as a woman, as a female.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, that's a whole other aspect of of the faith.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and we could we could probably have hours-long discussions about the all the many pieces, the way it's rooted in the robe, you know, the Roman Catholic as opposed to uh perhaps other versions of Catholicism and whatnot.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, that was a key component of it as well, was the whole patriarchy and the misogyny that I not only experienced within my family, but within the faith.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're you're kind of even doubly down.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was my experience growing up Catholic as a girl.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: So was there a point in time when you started to feel that you know you you had to make some kind of a break?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: When when did that occur for you?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Or how did it occur?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, part of my story, part of our family story uh is there there was family alcoholism.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my my father very early in my life when I was about three had chosen to get sober, which was wonderful.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it of course didn't solve everything, but part of my own story is really it started in my teenage years, but then into college, um, I started drinking alcoholically, and at a pretty young age, I was in my early 20s because of my father's experience, and actually because of um another family member's experience who had gotten sober.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I knew what the issue was, and I knew I was getting further and further away from who I knew myself to be and who I aspired to be.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I did uh get sober at 23, and that started a whole journey of finding, as they say in the 12 steps, um, the God of your understanding.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it it really catapulted me into that exploration, and part of that was very consciously walking away from Catholicism and um making peace with that, and and it there.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's been incremental throughout really the decades in different ways to completely will say decondition myself from all of the ways that I felt conditioned by it.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not that everyone does, but for me, I certainly did.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really curious about this journey to sobriety because at 23, I mean, that is really young to one be already recognizing a problem because that age is so saturated with alcohol and drugs.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um, especially in the area, era that you that you grew up in, you know.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so this it seems very astute of you to recognize that pattern within yourself because you you could almost just say that you hadn't even really gotten started.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that how could you call yourself an alcoholic if you're if you were just 23 and hadn't even experienced life and hadn't ruined your life, and you know, so I'm curious how that that qualification of yourself both hurt you and helped you.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, I don't, I I really did not feel hurt by it at all.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll say that my drinking um and drug use, which was pretty brief at the end, was really all to mitigate pain.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I there was I had a brother who was chronically ill, or my brother is chronic was chronically ill, and there was a lot of conflict in my home, and it was there was a lot of suffering in my house, and I was the one that could feel it all.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um started using alcohol to to numb that out.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is that the extent to which I drank created more pain.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: There were a number of incidences that occurred to me with me that were deeply painful and traumatic as a result of my drinking.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I found the retreats, uh, the teen renewal, and and that was a way to kind of pull myself out of that, because I was more of what would be called a binge drinker as opposed to a daily drinker.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I could go for long stretches without it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then when I went to college, I'll just say I was I went to a Catholic college, which if you looked at the behavior of the population of the Catholic college I went to, it was, you know, it would not fit in the the parameters of the faith.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um interestingly, it's this is we're recording this over Labor Day weekend, Labor Day weekend of my freshman year, I was sexually assaulted.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there are lots of complications related to that, and I had had some of those experiences earlier, but it flipped the switch in me that um because I think there at that point in my time in my development, I was either good and doing it like the prescribed way, or I was bad.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happened, and it it just flipped something, and my drinking took off, and then even more things happened, which I'm not necessarily gonna pull all of them out, but um suffice to say, by 23, I I mean I was clear that I had gotten so far away from the light and the the joy that I knew when I was will say spiritually connected that I I just couldn't continue to live that way.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I can relate to that so much.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't have the same um experience, but I remember being in college and you know it's hard to um it's hard to know whether the feeling I mean that I had of being completely out of control of my life led to the drinking or the drinking was causing me to be out of control, you know, but it definitely in retrospect just looks like a complete disconnection from from yourself and and from the light, as you say, which is really the only place that we can find safety, right?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like is in the knowing of who we are and our, you know, our the safety of of the spiritual experience, really, you know.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, it's such a potent time.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I wouldn't stop drinking till decades later, but um, you know, and I just think it's I it's just so beautiful that you were able to recognize that early on.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Did you did you go through a formal 12-step program at that time?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I actually came in what as they say through the back door.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I started in adult children of alcoholics, which is uh a 12-step program for children of alcohol, adult children of alcoholics, and then and was also doing some Al-Anon at that time, but was continuing to drink for a while and seeing how when I drank things got really out of hand and out of control, and start I this was after I moved to Virginia, so I got sober in Virginia.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I knew there was no way I could get sober in Ohio, even though things had had gotten pretty bad.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I went to uh school there, but I started to have peers or friends that were in uh AA as well, and women in particular, and it was the thing that closed the deal for me is I found this women's meeting that met um every Friday morning.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so for a number of years, and the the average age was probably like 65, because it was a daytime meeting.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and these old elderly women with these like huge, huge rings and you know, dressed to the nines, because Richmond has a lot of old money and old society, and these women um who were were living a program of recovery.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I had grown up, my my mother had started Al Anon before my father ever got sober, and so the 12 steps were one of my foundational spiritual paths, and so that women's meeting brought me in, and through you know, through many stages of my life, I would say I grew up in many ways there.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was a supportive, guiding presence.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful, amazing.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've never been to any of those meetings.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I've heard some of the, you know, the tenants.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I probably I mean, I think everybody could benefit from because sobriety, I want to, I want to do a uh a podcast on this subject, but sobriety is about more than substances, like you know, the drinks and the the drugs.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's like you said, it's this condition of accepting, seeing and accepting life as it is, as you are, and accepting you as you are in the accepting of the reality, you know, it's and anything that keeps you from doing that habitually is an addiction, right?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how you would frame that?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would I I think anything can reach the point of addiction, for sure.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's you know, there are ways that we're self-medicating, um, and it might not reach full full-blown addiction in a way, but yes, there are there are addictions to so many things in so many ways that we numb.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I I do want to say, in some ways, like the major religions uh in the world, the 12 steps, like they hold profound spiritual wisdom, like profound, that I I keep coming back to.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: It it is like the first shadow work really is through the 12 steps.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there is there is so much truth um in that and having people like it's the most successful spiritual movement ever on the planet, um, because it takes people.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I could go off on lots of tangents about that, but um, there's so much wisdom there, and it is people who are, for lack of a better word, you know, feeling broken or feeling disconnected from themselves, coming together through this greater purpose and greater good, and growing into or uncovering or shedding what whatever form you want to call it, um, those things that keep them from being the essence of who they came here to be and who they really are.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Did you find that um, you know, this was obviously, well, maybe not obviously, but was it more of a journey than a moment?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Do you mean what of sobriety?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like how were did you find that after you'd given up alcohol and and drugs, you know, were there then other things that came into your purview that were keeping you from where you wanted to be?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, certainly from where I wanted to be, yes, but probably in the more traditional sense, uh beyond the alcohol and the drugs, which I was able, as I would say, through through grace, to walk away from and not need to go back to, because it can be very challenging for people.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but for me, what is commonly termed codependency or the relational aspect has always been as significant a piece that needs attention as the alcohol and the drugs, like the that um that whole syndrome for lack of better word.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't really like the word codependency because I think it reduces things um in a way, and there's it's so judgment laden, but it it is a shorthand that people use related to giving our power away or doing things to please other people in order to feel safe or um to feel valuable or worthwhile or whatever the case may be.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is your relationship with relationships?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: You you're you're married, but I think you might did you get married later in life?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, I was 28.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's not that's not no, that's not later in life.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: My husband was 40, I was 28, and we did meet in the rooms of AA.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we had that that common bond, and it's been my greatest teacher, really.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And for me specifically, I I always point to not not that I haven't learned from all my relationships, but my relationship with my mother, and then later my relationship with my daughter.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have one daughter, she's a limited edition, no, no other children, um that has shaped me.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you think about the way the water shapes the rocks, those two have shaped me probably more than any other in my life.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: So how would you describe how your spiritual understanding comes into play within relationships?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like how how is it how does it affect your relationships?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: How do you use it?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: What is the that relationship?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have recently come into this uh term, which for me is my my new guiding North Star, which is uh was created by a former Catholic priest uh named Sean O'Laire, and he speaks about our personal cosmology and how really we're all meant to develop our own personal cosmology.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he's looking at four things in particular: who God is, who we are, who others, who our neighbors are, so who other people are, and then what our purpose is.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when I consider that question, it it has to be with within that context, in a way.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I believe that we're brought here, or I came here in part to remember the truth of of who I am, and and that is my understanding and my cosmology of of what we're we're each doing here to some extent, to a greater or lesser extent, to remember the truth of who we are as spiritual beings.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And other people within relationships provide us opportunities, whether as a foil or an antagonist or as a support uh to come to recognize that for ourselves.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the the pain we experience in relationship, the powerlessness we might experience in relationship, can offer us, offer me a reflection of, for example, like where am I giving my power away?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I forgetting that I am, you know, as an aspect of the divine, that I have power and agency in this life, or where am I feeling like a victim, or you know, all of these things that relationship provide us an opportunity to examine, as well as the people that are providing loving reflections or compassionate support or um cheerlead, you know, cheerleading efforts or or anything like that.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: So relationship is always, in my experience, calling us back more fully to who we really are and to our relationship with the divine.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: That paradigm shift uh to seeing everything as a clue to who you are and what your next evolutionary uh stage or step is, it's huge, isn't it?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: It changes everything.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, it does, and uh not everyone is uh ready or wanting that change and what comes with it.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what comes with it?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us well, it really in my experience is it's about taking the helm of your own ship, so to speak.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it is about the responsibility piece that um it's ultimately me in union with the divine that is both crafting or creating this life, calling in uh what's coming to me to be a support or a guidance.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we don't get to be the victims in the same way, or you know, we don't get to rely on um any external pillar that says this is how you do it, this is what you're meant to do, this is this is the way.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not to say that we can't have mentorship support guidance where people offer us like maybe this is the way for you, or this way worked for me.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: How does it fit for you?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it does come back to I am needing to be at the helm of my own ship and guiding my own life.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, responsibility and accountability, it it's hard enough in relationship with someone who understands that, but to be in relationship with, as you said, someone who's not there yet, it is that a greater struggle, or how do how do you do that?
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you don't know, maybe you've never been in a relationship with someone who I don't know.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: So let me see if I'm understanding the question.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you're asking me if I'm operating from being at the helm of my own ship, but I'm relating to people who aren't.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Are you asking me how to how to how do we do that?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I have had that experience, and so part of what I know to be true, and again, it's a work in progress, it's not like I'm perfect at this, because in some ways that's part of even the parenting journey or the mothering journey, you know, our our children don't innately know that, even if they come in very spiritually adept, they may not fully know or appreciate that.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's on the one hand, recognizing that that is true for someone, and not not joining them in the in the belief of their limits or their limitations, while also giving them the grace and the compassion to be in the confines that they they find themselves in.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: I it's this this idea of personal power, it can be really tricky because first of all, we have been everybody has been trained to basically not be at the helm of their personal power.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: It you know, like that's a paradigm that we live in.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and this when you initially begin to know that there is a personal power and you are seeking to inhabit it, it can it can be presented in a number of ways that maybe aren't very productive.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like you think that your way is the correct way because you have this idea, but that that isn't really how it works at all, is it?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's that end of the spectrum of the I know everything, I am all powerful.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's the opposite end, which is this like the self-blame, the ways that it can uh be corrosive in terms of like if I don't like the way things look in my life, or if certain things are happening to me, it must all be my fault because I'm the one creating this.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so it's so nuanced.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I I do also want to just name you.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: As someone who spent many years working through abuse and trauma and mistreatment at the hands of others, there are stages in the journey and there are times when we do need to fully embody the um the part of our consciousness that didn't choose it.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I wouldn't have chosen this consciously.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that may be a part of my soul's story.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have choose, you know, just look around the world.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much going on where you can't say someone in the Gaza Strip is is, you know what I mean.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or people being trafficked.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's things like that where we need to both address the level where people are being victimized, and there is another level, a soul level, where the the soul is understanding and agreeing.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just in my cosmology, that's how it works.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets to decide what's true for them.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's, I mean, there's definitely, you know, we we we are definitely abused by the system under which we are governed, I will say.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um that path of understanding, you know, where the power is within that dynamic that you can that you can live holy.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a very complicated process and tricky also.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm interested in how this cosmology that you have come to embrace, how has it shifted your path?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: What was your path before you had that understanding and where are you headed now?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I do believe in part, the biggest way it's liberated me is I no longer need to defend or explain what is true for me in terms of my cosmology.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can share with you, but because frankly, because of my upbringing and the super strong presence of which they say in the church, there is one way.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is the one way, and living an experience that sees so much bigger than that.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how can there be just one way where somehow I I had to make it all fit or I needed to reconcile something in order to just be free to be myself, and and it's taken low these many years to to really just be uh it just brings me so much peace.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh my god, for me, it's like this is the key, this is the answer.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: We all get our own personal cosmology, and my experience of it is based on you know teachings I've worked with, it's like we are all in our own little universe, and our cosmology is what's true.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're living in alignment with that, you are free to do so many things that if you're you know, if you're thinking or pretending that you're in somebody else's universe, I know this is kind of like um abstract, but I I can feel the truth of it.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's to me, it's like unlocking these keys of really how to be in this world, but not of this world, and to operate from the deepest level of my soul, the highest level of my wisdom and my spirit by embracing my own personal cosmology and giving everyone else permission and excitedly like you get to do it, you get to find that for yourself.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to convince you, I don't need to be on the bandwagon, anybody's bandwagon.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there may be threads or aspects of what's true for you that that I want to incorporate or take with me, but it's it's like so liberating.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I I was just gonna say it's like so freeing not to have to defend yourself um and your your beliefs.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I feel like once when you get to that point, people have people stop asking you to defend yourself, even if they believe you can't, you know that that's the reason you're not right um defending yourself is because you can't.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter because you're no longer having to defend yourself, which is feels amazing.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and like you said, it's it's like the most giving place to be, the most accepting place to be, that your way is not the right way.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you have no and you lose that desire to convince anyone.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's no there's no tension, there's no pushback, there's just there's just freedom for everybody.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's really, really beautiful, isn't it?
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want to name that in my experience, I I would consider myself kind of in the Gnostic school of um expression, in that it has my spiritual connection and knowing has also come has always come through direct experience.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so the having to explain that or feeling like it needs to be legitimized in order for it to be true, like this whole thing about what's true or what's real, or there's so much material out these days, for example, in the new age movement, writings, etc., channeled materials.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: And part of me would be wrestling over, well, what's true?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, what's the like what's the ultimate truth and what's the deepest truth?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was oriented to there's one way for so long, and now it gets to be well, that's what is in there true for their cosmology, and maybe pieces of that fit for me, or maybe they don't.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's so freeing, yeah.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always so easy to be tempted, it's easy to be tempted to feel like, oh, now you understand it all.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that the things that you understood previously are wrong, but but they actually were true in your experience, and these are steps that we take.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the steps never end.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't the journey never ends, does it?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, like I can't wait to see what I discover tomorrow.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: I want to address one more area before we kind of move into our lightning round, and and that is how has this journey for you affected your professional life?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: What did you start out doing and how has that evolved?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I will say that the roots for my professional life were in part those teen renewal uh experiences, because I was I was mentored by um a priest actually who saw my spiritual gifts and went and talked to my mother about what he saw in me in terms of my depth and leadership and and whatnot.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: And while that was not paid, uh it was like the beginning of the cultivation of my spiritual work and work with groups and work with people to welcome them into remembering not only who they are but who they are in the larger context of uh the whole.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I am trained as a clinical social worker and have a master's in that.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: But when I finished college, and what brought me to Virginia in the first place was doing political work.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had thought I have a degree in political science, my undergrad, and had thought, uh, and I did have family.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: My uncle, uh, the one who married the Protestant, uh, was a lobbyist in Ohio at the Ohio House.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did a little bit of work there in the Ohio House for the speaker one summer, and then um worked on a political campaign here for the the first black elected congressman since Reconstruction brought me to Virginia, and pretty early on I recognized the warts of the system, of the political system.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in my early sobriety and and doing starting my healing journey and recognized that I I was always wanted to be a proponent of change and like calling us all to the highest best version of what we can be experiencing, living, being in ourselves.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that doing that one-on-one was going to be more effective.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: Change was going to be more effective, transformation was going to be more effective than on the political macro level.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's how I had gotten into my social work degree, and then I had been part of another spiritual community in my early 20s that looked at a lot of shadow work as well as uh coming into our higher self.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I did some intensive training there to do spiritual development, spiritual leadership and guidance work.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so since then, I've been doing some version of I had a clinical license for 20 years or so, which I have since retired that.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I was doing quite a bit of psychotherapy and then doing spiritual development work through various channels and means, and and that continues to this day.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not doing the uh licensed clinical work anymore, but I'm doing um spiritual and transformational coaching and mentorship and leadership development work with people.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: We'll put all of your information in the show notes in case people want to check out what you're doing, because you also have a podcast called the Crone Codes, and that's very exciting.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we'll put all that for people to check out.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but let's switch to our lightning round.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, I'm ready.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right, number one.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what is the best habit you've formed?
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, like the one that has benefited you most in my whole life.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's remembering my connection with nature and the natural world.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right when I asked you the question, I felt like I was gonna say drinking water.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that is up there, but it that's part of my connection with nature and the natural world, which because we are mostly water, and I am I'm a I'm a big water mystic fan.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I know I know people who don't drink any water.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how they're surviving, but they are.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: That makes me sad, except for coffee.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: Does that count?
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh okay.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not gonna say what's true for them, but that wouldn't work for me.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, who's to say it's not just fine.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, number two.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: What is your favorite place that you've traveled to?
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can I have two?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: Chat.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: So for 30 years or so, uh, my husband, daughter, family, we would go to Okra Coke Island, which is uh one of the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's below Cape Hatteras, and I would go there.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: We would go there annually, often for my birthday, which is in August.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it really brought me back to my connection with nature, and it would provide a reset in that way annually.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but the other place I would name is Iceland, uh, which I know you have been there as well.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in part for the same reason, the raw, like I'm a, I'm a, I'm just crazy for raw natural beauty and the you know, the vastness and the um the aliveness and the vitality.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I've yeah, that's always what comes to mind is there's something special there.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely, definitely.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can vouch for that for sure.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: To me, I used to describe it as a 24-7 nature immersion because you you're never you're never far from it.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like every minute of every day you are immersed in nature, right?
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the way they hold it, yes.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: The water is life-giving.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's what real water is supposed to taste like and feel like.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't even need coffee.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, number three, what are you working on changing in yourself?
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I I will say I've been late to the party, uh, in part because of my conditioning, in freely wanting and longing for things and and desiring things in my life, because part of how I embraced my Catholicism and my experience in my family was not wanting was the path to holiness and was the path to goodness.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the and really the path to getting anything was through not wanting anything.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: So today, just today, I was looking at the ways that I limit my wanting based on how like figuring out maybe how it's gonna work or how it's gonna impact others.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so here I am publicly declaring that I am freeing myself to to just want what I want.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's um like the Mary Oliver poem that talks about like we don't have to cross the desert on our knees repenting for you know a hundred miles.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: We can just let the soft animal of our body want what it wants.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm working on changing.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think so many of us have that conditioning.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I I definitely have, I still I still feel remnants of it uh within me.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we're also taught we don't even understand what there is to want, you know, that that it isn't about necessarily things, but about wanting more joy or more understanding or more expansion or more connection or more creativity or more insight, you know.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it goes on and on and on, but how how how rich our lives could be if we knew that that's what God wanted for us, like that's what God intended for us, you know.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Unlimited nature, right?
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, yeah, that's an ongoing, ongoing challenge for me for sure.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, number four, what chore do you least like to perform and why?
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Dishwashing, which I've hated since I was a girl.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the way it feels on my hands.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I just don't like it.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember as a girl I had to do the dishes before I whatever got dessert or you know, could go to bed or whatever.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I remember myself draped over the sink, going with my hands in the water, just like, oh, just refusing to do it.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just hated it so much.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: And my daughter is the same way, she hates doing the dishes too.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: Same.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that funny?
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: We passed that along to them.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, my last question for you is what are you hopeful for?
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what am I hopeful for?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: I guess like I guess that could be asked two ways.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: One is what what are you hopeful for?
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what are you hopeful about?
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I I'm meaning to ask you, what are you hopeful about?
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or what gives you a hopeful feeling?
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what gives me a hopeful feeling is that so I'm staring around me and I'm surrounded by trees uh because I have glass all around me.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and I used to tell my daughter, because we live in a wooded area and the wild just takes over, and I used to tell her, Lila, Mother Nature always wins.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something about like the power of the life force always prevails.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_00: It always prevails, and that is what I am hopeful about that the the life force, the sacred, the divine within us, it it always prevails, and it it may take quite a long time for it, but it's like those flowers that sprout out of the parking lot.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's nothing that will keep it down, yeah.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: Living in the woods definitely teaches you that uh whatever you're concerned about rectifying, don't worry, mother nature will take it over.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like right, right, or trying to control, yeah, trying to tame it.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right, hold back, hold it back.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when it's constantly encroaching.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I I know that I know that well.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: The encroachment.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: So did you bring a question for me today?
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: My question for you is something about your heart.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is on your heart these days?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I have noticed an acceleration of this desire to have a personal, real connection with God, like a tangible feeling in my body that I can recognize 100% of the time as the divine.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I feel like it's always kind of amazing to me that this once you commit to the spiritual path, or the spiritual path commits to you in some way, um, that how this ever expanding state of awareness and experience.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, I wish I could tell and share that with people, uh, how uplifting that that really is and how heart expanding it is.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think yeah, maybe I'm saying it right now, like it's it's just been so I'm entering into a new era of expansion, I feel like, and it's very quiet.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's very quiet and it's very personal, and it isn't as service forward as my spiritual path has been in the past.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: This maybe is just an aspect of it that precedes a different level of service or a different type of service.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't know.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: But it feels it just feels very, very like intimate relationship building.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's that's really on my heart.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I am struck by the the potency in terms of service that you engaging in that deeply intimate personal relationship does ripple out into the whole in a way that is less about external actions or efforts.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not to say that won't come, as you said, but there is also a deep medicine that comes from anyone that engaged in that sort of practice, yeah.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: It and it's um it's very much a I'm I don't know whether this is an age-related thing, but you know, I've watched myself spiritually striving since I was, you know, six years old.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: And this feels very much like stepping off of that treadmill and onto, you know, just a path of complete surrender and just like take over.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so disinterested in this, you know, how it how it looks anymore, and and and that.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's been pretty awesome.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, Joan, I just want to thank you so much for being with us today.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: I always enjoy being in your company and your wisdom and your eloquence.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much and sharing that with the Alive and Kicking podcast.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and thank you to your listeners for being here with us today.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank my sponsor.