WEBVTT - A Renaissance of Our Own: The Stories We Tell Ourselves with Rachel Cargle

0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.000
<v Speaker 1>I started to question all the narrative I'd been telling myself,

0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.160
<v Speaker 1>Like what else have I been moving through the world?

0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:07.920
<v Speaker 1>What stories do I usually tell when people ask me

0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.320
<v Speaker 1>about my life? And how true are they? And I

0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:11.920
<v Speaker 1>got the chance to ask my mom a lot of

0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.440
<v Speaker 1>questions about what I understood to be true about myself,

0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.440
<v Speaker 1>about her, about my dad, about my family, and some

0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.880
<v Speaker 1>things just absolutely were not true.

0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.200
<v Speaker 2>This is It's okay that you're not okay, and I'm

0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.680
<v Speaker 2>your host, Megan Divine. This week on the show, The

0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:32.280
<v Speaker 2>Incredible Magical, Rachel Cargle on the time travel portal that

0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.920
<v Speaker 2>grief opens up in your life and the opportunity for healing, growth,

0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.760
<v Speaker 2>and curiosity alongside whatever pain you're in. Settle In, friends,

0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:53.520
<v Speaker 2>Rachel Cargle coming up right after this first break before

0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:55.920
<v Speaker 2>we get started, one quick note. While we cover a

0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.040
<v Speaker 2>lot of emotional relational territory in each and every episode,

0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.640
<v Speaker 2>this show is not a substitute for skilled support with

0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:06.440
<v Speaker 2>a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related

0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:12.399
<v Speaker 2>to your work. Hey, friends, I get to talk with

0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:17.000
<v Speaker 2>the most amazing people because of this show. It is

0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.240
<v Speaker 2>a lot of work to bring these conversations to you.

0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:21.160
<v Speaker 2>But every time I sit down in front of the

0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.400
<v Speaker 2>microphone and get a chance to connect with someone whose work,

0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:30.240
<v Speaker 2>whose being I have loved and admired from afar, It's

0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:35.800
<v Speaker 2>just so special. Rachel Cargle is a writer, entrepreneur, and

0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.840
<v Speaker 2>philanthropic innovator. Her new memoir, A Renaissance of Our Own

0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:45.280
<v Speaker 2>is a reimagining of womanhood, solidarity, and self and explores

0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.040
<v Speaker 2>one of my very favorite topics, how we are in

0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.680
<v Speaker 2>relationship with ourselves and with each other. In twenty eighteen,

0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.480
<v Speaker 2>she founded the Loveland Foundation, a nonprofit offering free therapy

0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:00.120
<v Speaker 2>to Black women and girls. Rachel is also the founder

0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.919
<v Speaker 2>of Elizabeth's Bookshop and Writing Center, a literacy space designed

0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.840
<v Speaker 2>to amplify, celebrate, and honor the work of writers who

0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:12.680
<v Speaker 2>are often excluded from traditional, cultural, social, and academic canons. Honestly,

0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.200
<v Speaker 2>Rachel has created so many things and opened so many

0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.520
<v Speaker 2>important and powerful conversations it would take me most of

0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.120
<v Speaker 2>the show to list them all. I want to get

0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.040
<v Speaker 2>right into this conversation, but some of the top themes

0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.840
<v Speaker 2>in our conversation this week, Rachel and I get into

0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.600
<v Speaker 2>this really nuanced discussion of childhood grief and how it

0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.639
<v Speaker 2>intersects with any new loss in your life. I hear

0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:37.840
<v Speaker 2>this sort of stuff a lot, right, like when your

0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.200
<v Speaker 2>parent dies, or a friend dies, somebody close to you dies,

0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:42.800
<v Speaker 2>and people say, oh, you're only having a hard time

0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.280
<v Speaker 2>now because you have all of this unhealed grief and

0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.200
<v Speaker 2>trauma in your past, right, And it's always said with

0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:53.200
<v Speaker 2>that sort of smarmy, snarky, condescending tone. Right, it's such

0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.480
<v Speaker 2>toxic shaming trash. Rachel and I really get into the

0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:04.000
<v Speaker 2>difference between judgment and curiosity here and how, yes, older

0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.480
<v Speaker 2>grief really can come back around, but it's not wrong

0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.360
<v Speaker 2>that that happens. It's not a sign that you didn't

0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.320
<v Speaker 2>work hard enough to process your life. We get into

0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.639
<v Speaker 2>what Rachel calls her childhood's survival optimism and how that

0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:24.960
<v Speaker 2>relates to a really sort of surface unnuanced idea of resilience.

0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:27.760
<v Speaker 2>We talk about her father's death when she was a

0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.920
<v Speaker 2>child and her mom's recent death and why Rachel says

0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.560
<v Speaker 2>she feels grateful for the chance to understand herself in

0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:38.320
<v Speaker 2>this new time of her life and that it's terrifying

0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.040
<v Speaker 2>at the very same time. We get into a lot

0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.280
<v Speaker 2>of both, and in this conversation, I bet this episode

0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.800
<v Speaker 2>is going to give you a whole lot of aha moments.

0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.240
<v Speaker 2>I want to hear about them, I really do, so

0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.000
<v Speaker 2>be sure to comment on social media posts with clips

0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.160
<v Speaker 2>of the episode and leave a review of the show

0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.880
<v Speaker 2>wherever you get your podcasts. Reviews are a great way

0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:03.920
<v Speaker 2>to tell me how the season's guests are affecting you,

0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.880
<v Speaker 2>and it encourages others to listen. So this is like

0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:11.560
<v Speaker 2>a win win for everybody. All Right, on with the

0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:19.160
<v Speaker 2>show with this week's guest, Rachel Cargle. Rachel, I am

0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.000
<v Speaker 2>so excited to have you here with me today, so

0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:23.799
<v Speaker 2>thank you for making the time.

0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.400
<v Speaker 1>I'm excited to be chatting with you as well.

0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.880
<v Speaker 2>So I've known your work for a while, and one

0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.000
<v Speaker 2>of the things that has drawn me in recently is

0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:37.039
<v Speaker 2>you speaking about your mom's illness, the last few weeks

0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.680
<v Speaker 2>of her life and her death. So if it's okay

0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.360
<v Speaker 2>with you, there are so many places we could start

0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.720
<v Speaker 2>our conversation, but I'd love to start with your mom.

0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:50.960
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, my mom. She passed away on November fourth of

0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:59.599
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty two, and it has surprisingly been such a

0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.560
<v Speaker 1>big heart of my work. You know, obviously it shows

0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.760
<v Speaker 1>up in the day to day, in our bodies, in

0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.320
<v Speaker 1>the way that we can pay attention or not what

0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:15.440
<v Speaker 1>we pay attention to grief and death. Particularly in my experience,

0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.920
<v Speaker 1>the death of a parent just completely gives you a

0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.080
<v Speaker 1>new lens, a new calibration in the world. So since

0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.680
<v Speaker 1>that time, it has been just an unfolding of a

0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.960
<v Speaker 1>new version of myself, that is a woman in the

0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:37.120
<v Speaker 1>world without her mother. And it's been such a particular

0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.440
<v Speaker 1>experience so far.

0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.400
<v Speaker 2>You wrote the way she raised me was an ongoing

0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.279
<v Speaker 2>invitation to see what I was capable of.

0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's very true, and I feel so grateful for

0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.200
<v Speaker 1>that because I see all the ways it shows up

0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:58.120
<v Speaker 1>for me now. I've been talking a lot about the

0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:04.279
<v Speaker 1>gifts of grieving, and there's the obvious devastation and excruciating

0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:10.479
<v Speaker 1>experience of moving through life after loss, but I've also

0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.160
<v Speaker 1>seen so many gifts of it, including seeing all the

0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:20.600
<v Speaker 1>ways that my mother is in me without her being here,

0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:22.479
<v Speaker 1>Because then I'd be like, oh, you know, it's something

0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.120
<v Speaker 1>she just said recently, or something she just reminded me of,

0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.280
<v Speaker 1>Or I noticed that I rest my hands the way

0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.800
<v Speaker 1>my mom rested her hands. I noticed that I make

0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.040
<v Speaker 1>the same noise my mom used to make when she

0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.000
<v Speaker 1>would yawn. When I yawn, sometimes I look in the

0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.960
<v Speaker 1>mirror and I see her face in my face, and

0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.080
<v Speaker 1>it is really cool, particularly the quote you mentioned about

0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.480
<v Speaker 1>how she really always pushed me to see what I

0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.599
<v Speaker 1>was capable of. And I'm seeing now the ways that

0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.560
<v Speaker 1>I do that every day, and that was planted by her.

0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:00.800
<v Speaker 2>So many good structural, foundational self things, it sounds like,

0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.200
<v Speaker 2>really came through your relationship with your mom.

0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:06.839
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you know, my mom had a disability, so she

0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.960
<v Speaker 1>never worked, not that disability means not working, but with

0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:15.040
<v Speaker 1>her particular disability as well as her raising me and

0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.320
<v Speaker 1>many other children who weren't necessarily my siblings, but people

0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.080
<v Speaker 1>she just cared for or she ended up adopting, she

0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.800
<v Speaker 1>stayed home. And that meant I spent a lot of

0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.800
<v Speaker 1>time with my mom. And I'm realizing as I talked

0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.880
<v Speaker 1>to more and more friends that wasn't their experience. I

0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:34.480
<v Speaker 1>don't remember ever having a babysitter. I don't. I can't

0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.080
<v Speaker 1>name or have reference to any one time of being

0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.720
<v Speaker 1>babysat by someone, aside from like spending time with my

0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.960
<v Speaker 1>grandma or my older sisters keeping me for something for

0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.920
<v Speaker 1>my mom to go out for a run. So I

0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.280
<v Speaker 1>really spent a lot of time with my mother, for

0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.560
<v Speaker 1>better and for worse, And some of the for better

0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:56.040
<v Speaker 1>is that we had a lot of time for her

0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.760
<v Speaker 1>to seed into me the things that she found to

0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:03.120
<v Speaker 1>be important, and I really value now getting to see

0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.960
<v Speaker 1>the fruits of that within me, as well as the

0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.440
<v Speaker 1>things that she seated in me that don't resonate with me,

0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.640
<v Speaker 1>and me being able to say, oh, that was mom, Okay,

0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:12.800
<v Speaker 1>I can let that go. That isn't that's not mine

0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:13.240
<v Speaker 1>to carry.

0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:15.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, to see the me and the not me.

0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.560
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Yeah, that's something particular. That's a particular gift that

0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.200
<v Speaker 1>comes with losing someone, because grief is also an identity

0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:27.480
<v Speaker 1>crisis of who am I when I'm not in direct

0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.120
<v Speaker 1>relationship with that person here and now in the same

0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.640
<v Speaker 1>way I've always been. And I think there's some beautiful

0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.679
<v Speaker 1>realizations about who we are to ourselves as well as

0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.079
<v Speaker 1>the celebration of who we were to the person that

0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.120
<v Speaker 1>we lost. And I think that that has been a

0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:49.840
<v Speaker 1>really wonderful unfolding as well to witness how.

0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.240
<v Speaker 2>Was grief model for you growing up?

0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.760
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't. It wasn't at all, And I'm really struggling

0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.440
<v Speaker 1>with it now. I lost my father when I was eleven.

0:08:58.200 --> 0:08:59.680
<v Speaker 1>I was closer to my dad than I was to

0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.200
<v Speaker 1>my mom at that time. And it also is an

0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.560
<v Speaker 1>adulthood where you recognize how much you romanticize things, and

0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:09.880
<v Speaker 1>so I think I romanticized my dad a lot, because

0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:11.280
<v Speaker 1>of course I was with my mom all the time,

0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.360
<v Speaker 1>and I was like, Oh, my dad's so much more fun.

0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.800
<v Speaker 1>And I'm sure he got to be the fun one

0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:17.440
<v Speaker 1>because he wasn't doing all the day to day things

0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.760
<v Speaker 1>with me. But I'll say that after he passed, I

0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.719
<v Speaker 1>just didn't have time to grieve. I remember he was

0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:27.760
<v Speaker 1>sick for a long time before he passed away too.

0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:32.680
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't sudden or anything. And when he passed he

0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.280
<v Speaker 1>was at a hospital and they called the house to

0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.240
<v Speaker 1>say that he had passed away. And I answered the

0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.160
<v Speaker 1>phone and they just told me. They didn't ask for

0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.480
<v Speaker 1>my mom or anything. They were just like, hi, this

0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.240
<v Speaker 1>is the hospital calling to say that Larry Brooks has died.

0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.000
<v Speaker 1>And I was like, okay. I was eleven years old.

0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.600
<v Speaker 1>My mom was upstairs sleeping in the bed. As I said,

0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:54.880
<v Speaker 1>my mom had polio, so she couldn't run downstairs and

0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:56.240
<v Speaker 1>pick up the phone. I was going to be the

0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:58.679
<v Speaker 1>one who was going to pick up the phone regardless.

0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.160
<v Speaker 1>But just thinking of that now as an adult, how

0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:07.520
<v Speaker 1>hard that must have been me. And I remember still

0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.800
<v Speaker 1>going to soccer camp the next day and thinking I

0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:15.080
<v Speaker 1>want to go, and my mom taking me and letting

0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:19.040
<v Speaker 1>me go, and how life just went on after that.

0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.280
<v Speaker 1>Really I didn't have time or space to grieve. There

0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.000
<v Speaker 1>were so many other fires that my mom had to

0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.840
<v Speaker 1>be putting out. I was always the most functional of

0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:29.920
<v Speaker 1>anyone else in our home, and so I was either

0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.839
<v Speaker 1>being a involuntary co parent to a lot of the

0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.120
<v Speaker 1>kids she was raising, or I just wasn't getting the

0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.239
<v Speaker 1>support that I needed because I was the most functioning,

0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.360
<v Speaker 1>so I was the least to be concerned about, and

0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:45.080
<v Speaker 1>so I really didn't have the guidance that was necessary

0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:50.400
<v Speaker 1>as a child to acknowledge feelings, feel the feelings, and

0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.480
<v Speaker 1>ultimately grieve. And so right now at thirty four, with

0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:59.240
<v Speaker 1>my mother passing, I'm invested in this also being a

0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.760
<v Speaker 1>space to be in relationship with the feelings that never

0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.520
<v Speaker 1>got to have a voice or a space during my

0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.880
<v Speaker 1>father's passing as well. So that lack of that lack

0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:15.559
<v Speaker 1>of model of grieving, I am now redefining or I

0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.280
<v Speaker 1>should say, defining what grief will look like for me

0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:20.600
<v Speaker 1>in my life and in my body and in my

0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.719
<v Speaker 1>world and in my work. And I feel very, very

0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.160
<v Speaker 1>very grateful to have the time and space and intention

0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:30.040
<v Speaker 1>to that, because I know so many of us who

0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:31.840
<v Speaker 1>are grieving don't.

0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. As I was sort of reading through your collected

0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.439
<v Speaker 2>works and articles and listening to you speak getting ready

0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.000
<v Speaker 2>for our time here together, you said something about that

0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.400
<v Speaker 2>you're only now starting to look at the pain points

0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.960
<v Speaker 2>of your childhood. And this is true, right, like new

0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:54.480
<v Speaker 2>fresh loss intersects with older losses, and I like, as

0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.760
<v Speaker 2>a therapist, I mean think sometimes the language can be

0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.440
<v Speaker 2>really shaming and punitive. We're like, oh, that's coming up

0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.280
<v Speaker 2>because you didn't deal with it, instead of Wow, that's interesting.

0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.240
<v Speaker 2>Like all of these channels of love and relatedness, they

0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.079
<v Speaker 2>go back and forth in us, like curiosity instead of

0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.640
<v Speaker 2>condemnation for the things that we had to survive and

0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:15.800
<v Speaker 2>the models that we saw. But I love what you

0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.520
<v Speaker 2>said about this, this childhood loss and childhood grief coming

0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.880
<v Speaker 2>back and intersecting. You said, the consciousness of this in

0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.560
<v Speaker 2>the midst of grief has thrust me into an unexpected

0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.800
<v Speaker 2>era of reckoning and healing. I'm honored and grateful for

0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.679
<v Speaker 2>the chance to understand myself and it's terrifying all at

0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:33.360
<v Speaker 2>the same time.

0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:35.960
<v Speaker 1>You know, we have so many moments like this in

0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:37.960
<v Speaker 1>our world. Imagine how we must have felt learning how

0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:38.360
<v Speaker 1>to walk.

0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.559
<v Speaker 2>Imagine terrifying and exciting to school for.

0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.720
<v Speaker 1>The first time. You know, we don't always remember those feelings,

0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.280
<v Speaker 1>but it's things that we've had to come up against.

0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.400
<v Speaker 1>And when we're younger, the exciting part of it gets

0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.559
<v Speaker 1>more attention, Like you're going to school for the first time,

0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.520
<v Speaker 1>you're walking, and it's celebrated. But as you get older

0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:01.320
<v Speaker 1>and there's less celebration of firsts or the less we

0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.440
<v Speaker 1>often give us ourselves less room to grow or develop,

0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:10.920
<v Speaker 1>to be new, to learn something new. It becomes this judgment,

0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.800
<v Speaker 1>like you said, this lack of curiosity, this condemnation for

0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:15.960
<v Speaker 1>how come you didn't know? How come you haven't figured

0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:20.320
<v Speaker 1>it out? And so I really started having a consciousness

0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:22.960
<v Speaker 1>about how my childhood might have played into things, maybe

0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.960
<v Speaker 1>about a year before my mom passed, so I was

0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.240
<v Speaker 1>able to ask her a few questions that gave me,

0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.760
<v Speaker 1>you know, gave me some tools to continue to build

0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.960
<v Speaker 1>my pathway towards my healing, which I'm certainly still in

0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.920
<v Speaker 1>the beginning phases and in the midst of now. But

0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.040
<v Speaker 1>I've been thinking about a quote that says, you know,

0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.319
<v Speaker 1>death isn't an end of life, It's a part of life.

0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:51.280
<v Speaker 1>And so this cycle, this moving towards another part of

0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.079
<v Speaker 1>life and it not just being this end date also

0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.559
<v Speaker 1>is making me think about obviously the visual of it

0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:04.120
<v Speaker 1>seeing my mother actually away, but also the journey towards healing,

0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:05.559
<v Speaker 1>and how much I would have loved for my mom

0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:07.680
<v Speaker 1>to continue healing up until the very moment. It's worth

0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.560
<v Speaker 1>it up until the very moment for you to have clarity,

0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:15.240
<v Speaker 1>for you to have consideration. And I'm grateful for being

0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.440
<v Speaker 1>ushered into this journey. I'm grateful for what my mom

0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.600
<v Speaker 1>was able to add. I'm grateful for going through her

0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.960
<v Speaker 1>stuff and finding small things that you know, just this

0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.640
<v Speaker 1>morning I was going through I'm back in Ohio in

0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.360
<v Speaker 1>my hometown. This is my first time back since my

0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.120
<v Speaker 1>mom passed, and this is my first time going through

0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.480
<v Speaker 1>a lot of the documents, and I found a college

0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.360
<v Speaker 1>transcript from my mom when she was in college. And

0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.200
<v Speaker 1>what I found was and my mom didn't graduate She

0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:47.400
<v Speaker 1>only did one semester and her grade in early child development,

0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:48.760
<v Speaker 1>which is what she was studying. But it was like

0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.040
<v Speaker 1>an early child development course, and it's what my mom loved.

0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.480
<v Speaker 1>Like my mom loved kids. If you were under the

0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.960
<v Speaker 1>age of seven, you were her favorite person, regardless of

0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:58.960
<v Speaker 1>who you are, where you were. And even in the

0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.240
<v Speaker 1>week of her passing, she kept going in and out

0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.080
<v Speaker 1>of consciousness, and whenever she'd come out, she'd say, where's

0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.040
<v Speaker 1>that room with all the kids? Like, I really think

0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.200
<v Speaker 1>her heaven is just a room full of kids, because

0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.880
<v Speaker 1>she kept mentioning that, and I think she was kind

0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:13.960
<v Speaker 1>of going in and out of it or like previewing it,

0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.040
<v Speaker 1>and so I really think that that was her thing.

0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.120
<v Speaker 1>But anyways, on her transcript, she got an F in

0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:24.920
<v Speaker 1>early childhood Development. And what I love about that is

0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.880
<v Speaker 1>that my mom still stayed true to the thing that

0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.360
<v Speaker 1>she loved even if the authority that be didn't give

0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.040
<v Speaker 1>her a good grade in it, and it also or

0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:36.480
<v Speaker 1>she didn't do the work to get a good grade

0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.000
<v Speaker 1>in it. But also how hard she pushed me about

0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.760
<v Speaker 1>grades and things and how I want to be like,

0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.120
<v Speaker 1>we have some things to talk about. You actually got

0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.840
<v Speaker 1>an F. You and you like, were fine and you

0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:55.239
<v Speaker 1>moved on. And so these this healing comes from knowledge.

0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.000
<v Speaker 1>It's a framework that I use in my anti racism work. Knowledge, empathy,

0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.080
<v Speaker 1>and action equals all. That's what I use that formula

0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.960
<v Speaker 1>a lot. But also this knowledge of who my mom

0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.400
<v Speaker 1>might have been at this younger time is pouring into

0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.120
<v Speaker 1>my empathy towards her, because lately it's been a lot

0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.840
<v Speaker 1>of anger, a lot of the grief anger, a lot

0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.480
<v Speaker 1>of just anger from things that I'm learning that happened

0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.960
<v Speaker 1>or didn't happen for me in my childhood. And it

0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:24.760
<v Speaker 1>offers me this level of intimacy that is a material

0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.280
<v Speaker 1>of my healing, and it's necessary and I could only

0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.760
<v Speaker 1>touch that once she passed away. These are things that

0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.400
<v Speaker 1>she would that my mom's privacy wouldn't have allowed her

0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:39.040
<v Speaker 1>to necessarily share with me. But that as I know this,

0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.800
<v Speaker 1>I understand my mother more, which allows me to understand

0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.600
<v Speaker 1>myself more, which allows me to heal. And so that's

0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.880
<v Speaker 1>again one of the some of the goodness of grief

0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:48.720
<v Speaker 1>is that you have access to this person in a

0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:50.960
<v Speaker 1>way that you might not have ever had before, and

0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.800
<v Speaker 1>it gives you I feel closer than ever to my mother,

0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:54.400
<v Speaker 1>I really do.

0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.880
<v Speaker 2>There's that thread of both and yep that I've been

0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.280
<v Speaker 2>watching unfold as you been talking about this and listening

0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.520
<v Speaker 2>to you now talk about this, that like all of

0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.080
<v Speaker 2>these things get to be true at the same time.

0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:08.520
<v Speaker 1>Hmm, yeah, they have to be.

0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:10.880
<v Speaker 2>They have to they have to be because they are

0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.880
<v Speaker 2>right like this, this is enough for like discussion, like exactly,

0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.359
<v Speaker 2>there's this allowing that this is actually the way that

0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.000
<v Speaker 2>things are, that both and is the state of existence.

0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:21.959
<v Speaker 1>It's a place for us to be kind to ourselves.

0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.359
<v Speaker 1>It's an opportunity for us to be gentle with ourselves.

0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.960
<v Speaker 1>And when we condemn ourselves to say, but it's this,

0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.040
<v Speaker 1>we can say, and what else is it? And where

0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.600
<v Speaker 1>else is their goodness? And where else is their relief?

0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.520
<v Speaker 1>And where else is their possibility? It's it's really a

0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.840
<v Speaker 1>practice of kindness to ourselves when we give enough nuance

0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.920
<v Speaker 1>and breath to a conversation to be both and and

0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.160
<v Speaker 1>that also allows us to lean into one or another

0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.080
<v Speaker 1>whenever we want, knowing that there's the ebb and flow

0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.639
<v Speaker 1>that you'll go to the other side at some point.

0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.480
<v Speaker 1>So when I feel, you know, whatever shame I feel

0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:58.680
<v Speaker 1>about the relief, I feel because I no longer have

0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.520
<v Speaker 1>this sick mother to have to worry about and have

0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.119
<v Speaker 1>a loop of concern in my head at all times.

0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.840
<v Speaker 1>I can like actually rest with that relief because I

0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.560
<v Speaker 1>know that probably in about two point five days, I'm

0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:13.840
<v Speaker 1>going to be on the floor crying about the fact

0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.679
<v Speaker 1>that she's not here. So yes, it gives a bit

0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:18.800
<v Speaker 1>of kindness to ourselves to be able to move through

0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.040
<v Speaker 1>what grief is when we acknowledge and lean into the both.

0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:26.280
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, I feel like so many people their first

0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:31.760
<v Speaker 2>experience of allowing the both andness of life comes through

0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:37.080
<v Speaker 2>an experience of loss. I feel like your kindness to

0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:42.200
<v Speaker 2>self and your choosing of yourself predates your mom's loss. Though,

0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:43.560
<v Speaker 2>Is that? Does that feel accurate?

0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:48.800
<v Speaker 1>I think so. It's so funny. I'm happy that I'm

0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.159
<v Speaker 1>here during this conversation with you because it gives so

0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.800
<v Speaker 1>many touch points for my childhood and for my grief

0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.400
<v Speaker 1>in particular. And I was just going through a journal

0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.240
<v Speaker 1>from college from two thousand and seven of mine, and

0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:03.399
<v Speaker 1>I was like, oh, what was I thinking about? I

0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.320
<v Speaker 1>kept a note of how I was feeling when I'd

0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.199
<v Speaker 1>wake up in the morning, and I'm like, oh, I

0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.719
<v Speaker 1>feel so sad today, Oh, I feel really good today,

0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:15.160
<v Speaker 1>And so there seemed to be intention there around not

0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.760
<v Speaker 1>just acknowledging the feeling, but recalibrating me towards something that

0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.160
<v Speaker 1>might put me at a more comfortable, content easeful space.

0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.159
<v Speaker 1>I wouldn't have had that language then, but I have

0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:28.040
<v Speaker 1>it now, and I think that I did as a

0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.760
<v Speaker 1>mode of survival, as a mode of survival, being hyper

0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.840
<v Speaker 1>self aware in order to know what I need to

0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:37.800
<v Speaker 1>meet my needs.

0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:43.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you once describe your younger self as having survival optimism.

0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.920
<v Speaker 1>I absolutely did. I grew up in what I now

0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.840
<v Speaker 1>am seeing as a fairly tumultuous place. I had gone

0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:56.800
<v Speaker 1>through my teenage years, in my early adulthood, certainly with

0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:01.280
<v Speaker 1>a narrative in my head that woven survival optimism. Of

0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.960
<v Speaker 1>it was fine, I was fine, Things were good, Things

0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.680
<v Speaker 1>weren't that bad. I did this, and that my mother

0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:08.680
<v Speaker 1>was able to do this, my father was able to

0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.159
<v Speaker 1>do that. And while many of the things that I

0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.520
<v Speaker 1>was mentioning were true, there was a lot of it

0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:19.399
<v Speaker 1>that I had discarded in order to, as we said,

0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:23.840
<v Speaker 1>survive all the negatives. There was a survival survival optimism

0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.720
<v Speaker 1>to say, things aren't that bad. I have what I need,

0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.760
<v Speaker 1>I can keep going. And part of healing for me,

0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:36.280
<v Speaker 1>I found is sitting down with those narratives. Particularly I

0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.080
<v Speaker 1>had one around grief and it's and I used to

0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.600
<v Speaker 1>say all the time that, you know, my dad really

0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:44.879
<v Speaker 1>was obsessed with me in all the best ways that

0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.960
<v Speaker 1>dads can be obsessed with third children, and he was

0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:53.040
<v Speaker 1>so loving and so considerate, and so I just thought

0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.240
<v Speaker 1>I was the most interesting, beautiful thing because my father

0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.880
<v Speaker 1>made me feel that way. And so when he passed

0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.760
<v Speaker 1>when I was eleven, all of these years later, I

0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.200
<v Speaker 1>was still saying the narrative like, oh, yeah, my dad passed,

0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.679
<v Speaker 1>but I was fine because he loved me so well,

0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.680
<v Speaker 1>and you know, I didn't have to grieve that much

0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.600
<v Speaker 1>because it was all so good before he passed. And

0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.199
<v Speaker 1>that was a narrative I like not only said, but

0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:20.840
<v Speaker 1>believed myself. And then someone said to me, Rachel, that

0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.119
<v Speaker 1>can't be true. It can't be true that he was

0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.679
<v Speaker 1>both the most important person in your world and you

0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.879
<v Speaker 1>weren't affected when he passed like that, that's impossible for

0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.040
<v Speaker 1>it to be true. And I thought about it. I

0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.400
<v Speaker 1>was like, Okay, that does sound rational.

0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.320
<v Speaker 2>So it was like, oh, oh, let me be curious about.

0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.080
<v Speaker 1>That about that so I my mom was alive at

0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:42.320
<v Speaker 1>the time, so I reached out to my mom and

0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.159
<v Speaker 1>I was like, Mom, what was I like in the

0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.919
<v Speaker 1>weeks after Dad passed? And she said, Rachel, I had

0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.080
<v Speaker 1>to take you to the hospital so many times because

0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.000
<v Speaker 1>you kept complaining about stomach pain and no one knew

0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.199
<v Speaker 1>what it was. And I was like what. One I

0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.280
<v Speaker 1>could not believe I didn't remember that. Two, I can't

0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.439
<v Speaker 1>believe me and my mother had never talked about it before.

0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:06.520
<v Speaker 1>And three I was floored because as an adult, I

0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.480
<v Speaker 1>know that my stomach is the number one place where

0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.040
<v Speaker 1>I have a reaction to something. When I'm falling in love,

0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.400
<v Speaker 1>when I'm scared of something, when I'm anxious about something,

0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:17.960
<v Speaker 1>it all shows up in my stomach. And I work

0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.920
<v Speaker 1>with my stomach now to process those emotions. It's something

0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.679
<v Speaker 1>I learned as an adult. But thinking about how that

0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.280
<v Speaker 1>eleven year old me was working with my body in

0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.040
<v Speaker 1>the same way, my stomach was the thing where all

0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.800
<v Speaker 1>of that grief was being held, and my mom didn't

0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:33.679
<v Speaker 1>think of it either. You know, my mom didn't have

0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:39.000
<v Speaker 1>enough understanding around grief, around the body, around somatics, understand, oh,

0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:41.479
<v Speaker 1>this might be something related to the grief, instead of

0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.480
<v Speaker 1>rushing me to the hospital every you know, every other week.

0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:50.280
<v Speaker 1>And so these narratives that I had of survival optimism

0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:53.840
<v Speaker 1>that made me believe that I've done hard things, I

0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.359
<v Speaker 1>can continue to do hard things, and that I will

0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:58.800
<v Speaker 1>just get through it. While it did indeed help me

0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:01.119
<v Speaker 1>get through things, there comes a time where you have

0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.680
<v Speaker 1>to address them because these narratives just begin to peel away.

0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.040
<v Speaker 1>It's like this old paint. It's like, wait, there's something

0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.159
<v Speaker 1>behind there that's not true. And so with that, I

0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:12.679
<v Speaker 1>started to question all the narrative I'd been telling myself,

0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.440
<v Speaker 1>like what else, what else have I been moving through

0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.240
<v Speaker 1>the world? What stories do I usually tell when people

0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.400
<v Speaker 1>ask me about my life? And how true are they?

0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:21.359
<v Speaker 1>And I got the chance to ask my mom a

0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:23.359
<v Speaker 1>lot of questions about what I understood to be true

0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.480
<v Speaker 1>about myself, about her, about my dad, about my family,

0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:29.880
<v Speaker 1>and some things just absolutely were not true. Some things

0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:33.000
<v Speaker 1>just absolutely were not true. But I had created a narrative.

0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.439
<v Speaker 1>And so while I'm grateful for how that tool served

0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:38.480
<v Speaker 1>me as a child, because it really did get me

0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:42.480
<v Speaker 1>through some really difficult truths about myself, that might have

0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:47.240
<v Speaker 1>drowned me in whatever depression or emotion would have negatively

0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:50.040
<v Speaker 1>impacted me. It's something that I feel grateful to have

0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:51.359
<v Speaker 1>the chance to unravel. Now.

0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:54.359
<v Speaker 2>There's so much in there, right, because that how you

0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:57.199
<v Speaker 2>describe that survival optimism and the stories you needed to

0:23:57.200 --> 0:23:59.400
<v Speaker 2>tell in order to survive what you needed to survive.

0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:04.320
<v Speaker 2>Like that's the cultural narrative, right, like resilience and optimism

0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:06.600
<v Speaker 2>and you got this and you're strong and you can

0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:12.760
<v Speaker 2>survive this, like all of that singular trash right, sort

0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:17.080
<v Speaker 2>of singular trash as set apart or set in opposition

0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:19.720
<v Speaker 2>to the both and right singular trash versus it's the both,

0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:24.640
<v Speaker 2>and like, we do what we need to do to survive,

0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:29.760
<v Speaker 2>and that doesn't make it necessarily a good thing. It

0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:32.399
<v Speaker 2>makes us something that we read the room and we

0:24:32.440 --> 0:24:34.000
<v Speaker 2>knew what we needed and we did what we needed

0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:35.520
<v Speaker 2>to do to survive. And it's just like there's so

0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:38.240
<v Speaker 2>many interesting intersections there, I guess is where I'm going.

0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:41.520
<v Speaker 2>One that you look back now and you see that

0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:44.840
<v Speaker 2>as something you had to do to survive, but it's

0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:51.040
<v Speaker 2>something to heal from now, that story and how much

0:24:51.240 --> 0:24:55.240
<v Speaker 2>that survival optimism matches with what we tell people they're

0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:57.399
<v Speaker 2>supposed to do in the face of adversity, which is

0:24:57.440 --> 0:24:59.240
<v Speaker 2>look on the bright side, suck it up, be strong,

0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:03.399
<v Speaker 2>be powerful, draw on your own strengths. It's one of

0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:04.479
<v Speaker 2>many things I love about you.

0:25:05.320 --> 0:25:05.720
<v Speaker 1>Thank you.

0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:08.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the both and is a hard thing to nail.

0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:12.720
<v Speaker 2>I think when we're talking about any kind of difficulty, right,

0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:16.760
<v Speaker 2>that we can lean into our strengths and celebrate our

0:25:16.800 --> 0:25:19.359
<v Speaker 2>strengths and at the same time be on the floor

0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:23.000
<v Speaker 2>crying so much we vomit. Right, Like, these things are

0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:27.320
<v Speaker 2>all true, and we get to invite that totality of self.

0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:31.280
<v Speaker 1>Interested in knowing our whole selves are right about who

0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:36.120
<v Speaker 1>our whole selves might be. I'm I'm intrigued by that

0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:39.560
<v Speaker 1>person might be who gets to process these things, who

0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.720
<v Speaker 1>gets to know the truth about myself, even the hard truths.

0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:46.040
<v Speaker 1>And the thing about being adults, now, you know a

0:25:46.040 --> 0:25:48.040
<v Speaker 1>lot of that survivals in childhood where we have no

0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:50.560
<v Speaker 1>control over our environment, where we have no control over

0:25:50.600 --> 0:25:53.600
<v Speaker 1>our ability to get through something. But as adults, we

0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:58.000
<v Speaker 1>have this opportunity to be in relationship with our younger

0:25:58.040 --> 0:26:01.840
<v Speaker 1>self to say, you're now, let's talk about this. You

0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:04.680
<v Speaker 1>know you have tools to get through this, let's talk

0:26:04.720 --> 0:26:09.000
<v Speaker 1>about this, let's feel this. And I've noticed that as

0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:14.439
<v Speaker 1>I do more healing of my psyche, my emotions, my body,

0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:17.840
<v Speaker 1>which are all inner related. You know, when I'm caring

0:26:17.840 --> 0:26:20.240
<v Speaker 1>for my body, I see that my psyche is better.

0:26:20.240 --> 0:26:22.040
<v Speaker 1>When I care for my psyche, I see that I can,

0:26:22.760 --> 0:26:25.679
<v Speaker 1>you know, care for my body better. And one thing

0:26:25.680 --> 0:26:29.399
<v Speaker 1>I've really been enjoying is that I have become more

0:26:29.600 --> 0:26:34.440
<v Speaker 1>and more able to touch base with things that gave

0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.480
<v Speaker 1>me joy as a child because I've dusted off a

0:26:37.480 --> 0:26:39.639
<v Speaker 1>bit of my childhood and I can see some of it,

0:26:39.720 --> 0:26:42.360
<v Speaker 1>I can access some of it. And I mean, I'm

0:26:42.359 --> 0:26:44.120
<v Speaker 1>not a therapist at all, but what I've learned from

0:26:44.119 --> 0:26:47.840
<v Speaker 1>my own personal journey is that as I really look

0:26:47.880 --> 0:26:50.280
<v Speaker 1>at my childhood and have to dust some things off,

0:26:50.560 --> 0:26:53.800
<v Speaker 1>you're also cleaning off the spaces where good things are.

0:26:54.440 --> 0:26:56.879
<v Speaker 1>You know, you're not just going to this box of

0:26:56.920 --> 0:26:59.520
<v Speaker 1>bones and figuring out all the hard, terrible things that

0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:03.840
<v Speaker 1>happen in your childhood. You're also remembering that childhood rhyme

0:27:03.880 --> 0:27:07.439
<v Speaker 1>that you used to say. And you're also you know,

0:27:08.000 --> 0:27:12.120
<v Speaker 1>finding I don't know stories you used to write. And

0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:16.639
<v Speaker 1>I have a really I've been feeling very grateful for

0:27:17.720 --> 0:27:21.080
<v Speaker 1>how I'm able to tend to my inner child. You know,

0:27:21.160 --> 0:27:22.679
<v Speaker 1>one of the things that it makes me think of

0:27:22.760 --> 0:27:26.360
<v Speaker 1>is my mom was a poor, black, disabled woman who

0:27:26.359 --> 0:27:28.360
<v Speaker 1>had many children to care for, and so I certainly

0:27:28.359 --> 0:27:32.640
<v Speaker 1>didn't get the type of care that would have been

0:27:32.680 --> 0:27:36.080
<v Speaker 1>as full as if she had more resources. And so

0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:38.880
<v Speaker 1>what that means is that, you know, some of the

0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:41.160
<v Speaker 1>activities that I did, I couldn't do all the activities

0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:44.320
<v Speaker 1>that I wanted, or we couldn't afford some things, or

0:27:44.359 --> 0:27:46.680
<v Speaker 1>my mom just did what she thought was best without

0:27:46.720 --> 0:27:49.840
<v Speaker 1>taking much consideration in what I wanted per se. So

0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:52.439
<v Speaker 1>I really wanted to dance when I was younger, like

0:27:52.560 --> 0:27:54.600
<v Speaker 1>do dance classes, and I really wanted to play a

0:27:54.640 --> 0:27:58.520
<v Speaker 1>stringed instrument, and they just weren't options. So now I

0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:01.760
<v Speaker 1>have been going to tell practice and I found adult

0:28:01.840 --> 0:28:06.080
<v Speaker 1>ballet classes and things that used to be anger points

0:28:06.119 --> 0:28:07.840
<v Speaker 1>for me, like, oh, I'm so mad that I didn't

0:28:07.840 --> 0:28:11.040
<v Speaker 1>I had this type of childhood. I'm so enraged that

0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:13.639
<v Speaker 1>my mother didn't have the emotional capacity to do X

0:28:13.760 --> 0:28:17.840
<v Speaker 1>Y Z. Now with this type of knowledge and empathy,

0:28:17.840 --> 0:28:19.720
<v Speaker 1>as I mentioned, that's coming into me, I can say,

0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:22.359
<v Speaker 1>you know what I'm gonna let that anger go because

0:28:22.359 --> 0:28:24.520
<v Speaker 1>I can see that she really did her best. And

0:28:24.560 --> 0:28:26.720
<v Speaker 1>now I'm an adult and I can provide myself with

0:28:26.800 --> 0:28:28.840
<v Speaker 1>some of those things. How can I do that? And

0:28:29.119 --> 0:28:31.000
<v Speaker 1>it feels like I'm in relationship with my mom for

0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:34.159
<v Speaker 1>that too. I played soccer a lot when I was younger,

0:28:34.200 --> 0:28:37.800
<v Speaker 1>and my mom she she came to watch me, Like

0:28:37.800 --> 0:28:39.480
<v Speaker 1>I said, she had polio so she couldn't run, so

0:28:39.520 --> 0:28:41.760
<v Speaker 1>her watching me run was something for her. She loved

0:28:41.760 --> 0:28:43.240
<v Speaker 1>to watch me run up and down the field. She

0:28:43.240 --> 0:28:46.400
<v Speaker 1>would say that often, and since she had crutches on

0:28:46.520 --> 0:28:48.760
<v Speaker 1>rainy days or early mornings when it was dewey, she

0:28:48.800 --> 0:28:52.160
<v Speaker 1>couldn't get to the field. And my mom position petitioned

0:28:52.320 --> 0:28:54.640
<v Speaker 1>for the city to build a sidewalk from the parking

0:28:54.680 --> 0:28:57.000
<v Speaker 1>lot to the soccer field so that she could watch

0:28:57.080 --> 0:29:01.200
<v Speaker 1>me play. And they did. And I recently ran into

0:29:01.200 --> 0:29:03.479
<v Speaker 1>an old friend who's like, Oh, I'm coaching a women's

0:29:03.520 --> 0:29:06.160
<v Speaker 1>extracurricular soccer team in the city. You should join. It's like, oh,

0:29:06.160 --> 0:29:09.240
<v Speaker 1>my gosh, I would love to join. And that has

0:29:09.320 --> 0:29:12.400
<v Speaker 1>now become something between me and my mom, Like I

0:29:12.400 --> 0:29:14.520
<v Speaker 1>feel like my mom is on the sidelines with her

0:29:14.560 --> 0:29:16.800
<v Speaker 1>sign the way that she used to the way that

0:29:16.840 --> 0:29:23.080
<v Speaker 1>she couldn't always. And it's nice to carry myself and

0:29:23.200 --> 0:29:25.760
<v Speaker 1>be in relationship with my mother in a way that

0:29:25.880 --> 0:29:28.400
<v Speaker 1>just couldn't have happened when she was here.

0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:32.240
<v Speaker 2>There's such continuity in the way that you talk about

0:29:32.240 --> 0:29:37.040
<v Speaker 2>all of this. I also remember reading that you said

0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:38.840
<v Speaker 2>when you were when you were a kid, sort of

0:29:38.880 --> 0:29:42.880
<v Speaker 2>writing was your power, right, your ability to tell stories

0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:46.000
<v Speaker 2>and to be a writer was your power. And I

0:29:46.040 --> 0:29:49.240
<v Speaker 2>feel like there's there's so much weaving through what we're

0:29:49.280 --> 0:29:54.520
<v Speaker 2>talking about around storytelling and narrative and voice and the

0:29:54.560 --> 0:29:56.840
<v Speaker 2>stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell each other,

0:29:56.880 --> 0:30:06.600
<v Speaker 2>and how much authority right, authority, all their ship right, sovereignty, sovereignty, authority,

0:30:06.640 --> 0:30:09.200
<v Speaker 2>author who gets to write the story of your life?

0:30:09.960 --> 0:30:14.840
<v Speaker 2>And which voice is speaking at any time? Like it's

0:30:14.920 --> 0:30:17.960
<v Speaker 2>just like, as as a fellow writer, I just I

0:30:18.000 --> 0:30:22.640
<v Speaker 2>think that's such fascinating and beautiful territory when you allow

0:30:22.680 --> 0:30:27.680
<v Speaker 2>the entire story to show up and then it's terrifying,

0:30:27.920 --> 0:30:31.200
<v Speaker 2>it's terrifying and it's terrible and honestly, like, what else

0:30:31.280 --> 0:30:35.480
<v Speaker 2>is there? Right? Because if you're not telling your own story,

0:30:35.480 --> 0:30:36.560
<v Speaker 2>whose story are you telling?

0:30:38.320 --> 0:30:41.200
<v Speaker 1>Yes? While you were speaking earlier about the way that

0:30:41.240 --> 0:30:44.600
<v Speaker 1>society insists that we just move past it, get through it.

0:30:45.400 --> 0:30:47.400
<v Speaker 1>While you were saying that, I was I was thinking

0:30:47.400 --> 0:30:51.880
<v Speaker 1>to myself, like, to who's end and does that benefit?

0:30:52.160 --> 0:30:55.320
<v Speaker 1>It benefits capitalism because we're getting back to work, And

0:30:55.320 --> 0:30:58.160
<v Speaker 1>benefits patriarchy because we're getting back to taking care of

0:30:58.360 --> 0:31:02.840
<v Speaker 1>our homes and our children. It benefits, you know, just

0:31:03.000 --> 0:31:07.360
<v Speaker 1>every standard that is meant to benefit other entities besides

0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:11.560
<v Speaker 1>ourselves and certainly besides our own healing. And so I

0:31:11.600 --> 0:31:16.560
<v Speaker 1>think it's really wonderful to take a pause and when

0:31:16.600 --> 0:31:19.680
<v Speaker 1>we're moving through a hard thing, to ask ourselves to

0:31:19.800 --> 0:31:23.440
<v Speaker 1>what ends does this? Who does this benefit? How does

0:31:23.440 --> 0:31:26.440
<v Speaker 1>it benefit them? And what of myself do I have

0:31:26.560 --> 0:31:30.600
<v Speaker 1>to quiet in order to meet that need or in

0:31:30.680 --> 0:31:33.600
<v Speaker 1>order to meet that expectation. It makes me think of

0:31:33.600 --> 0:31:36.240
<v Speaker 1>a friend. A thing my friend Dana Sue Cow used

0:31:36.240 --> 0:31:40.840
<v Speaker 1>to always say, is who's benefiting from the insecurities you have?

0:31:41.120 --> 0:31:43.000
<v Speaker 1>You know a lot of things like oh, I'm so

0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:45.440
<v Speaker 1>insecure that by that I have hair on my legs.

0:31:45.440 --> 0:31:48.040
<v Speaker 1>And so now there's some razor company making millions of

0:31:48.080 --> 0:31:50.760
<v Speaker 1>dollars off of something that really isn't a concern.

0:31:50.760 --> 0:31:54.240
<v Speaker 2>Or Yeah, these manufactured insecurities.

0:31:54.840 --> 0:31:58.080
<v Speaker 1>Factured insecurity, and I think I'm seeing that play into

0:31:58.120 --> 0:32:01.840
<v Speaker 1>my grief of who benefits from the way that I

0:32:01.880 --> 0:32:05.160
<v Speaker 1>show up in this space, the way that I engage

0:32:05.200 --> 0:32:08.720
<v Speaker 1>with this feeling, and what role has this feeling had

0:32:08.760 --> 0:32:14.440
<v Speaker 1>in other spaces, in indigenous spaces, spaces from places on

0:32:14.480 --> 0:32:16.920
<v Speaker 1>the continent of Africa where I know my ancestors come from.

0:32:16.920 --> 0:32:21.080
<v Speaker 1>What does the ancestral connection with this particular experience that

0:32:21.120 --> 0:32:24.040
<v Speaker 1>I could be in relationship with. Yeah, like you say,

0:32:24.160 --> 0:32:27.080
<v Speaker 1>being curious and asking questions that invite us to know

0:32:27.200 --> 0:32:28.400
<v Speaker 1>ourselves better.

0:32:37.200 --> 0:32:39.719
<v Speaker 2>Hey, before we get back to my conversation with Rachel Kargle,

0:32:39.800 --> 0:32:42.040
<v Speaker 2>I want to talk with you about that both and

0:32:42.240 --> 0:32:46.800
<v Speaker 2>we've been getting into. Grief can cause such like emotional whiplash. Right,

0:32:47.240 --> 0:32:49.960
<v Speaker 2>you feel relieved, and then you feel guilty for being relieved,

0:32:50.000 --> 0:32:52.760
<v Speaker 2>and then you're not sure how you feel. It's really

0:32:53.160 --> 0:32:56.680
<v Speaker 2>tough stuff to navigate. If you've got questions about how

0:32:56.720 --> 0:32:59.720
<v Speaker 2>that both and works in your own grief, come talk

0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:01.960
<v Speaker 2>to me about it. Once a month, I hold a

0:33:02.040 --> 0:33:05.960
<v Speaker 2>live video Q and A for patrons. Visit patreon dot com.

0:33:06.000 --> 0:33:10.120
<v Speaker 2>Backslash Megan Divine to get your questions answered once a

0:33:10.160 --> 0:33:13.880
<v Speaker 2>month every month. Link is in the show Notes Friends.

0:33:14.160 --> 0:33:18.600
<v Speaker 2>All right, back to my conversation with Rachel Cargle. There's

0:33:18.600 --> 0:33:22.080
<v Speaker 2>so much picking to be done at the institutionalized structure

0:33:22.120 --> 0:33:25.800
<v Speaker 2>around emotional reality, which is a big mouthful, but like

0:33:25.960 --> 0:33:30.760
<v Speaker 2>who benefits from us pushing through grief faster, pushing through

0:33:30.800 --> 0:33:36.440
<v Speaker 2>discomfort faster? Like why I spent so much of the

0:33:36.600 --> 0:33:39.160
<v Speaker 2>you know, the first ten years of my career doing

0:33:39.240 --> 0:33:41.800
<v Speaker 2>this grief work, talking about individual grief, and like, you

0:33:41.840 --> 0:33:44.600
<v Speaker 2>don't care about the bigger stuff when your kid dies

0:33:44.720 --> 0:33:49.840
<v Speaker 2>or your sister gets sick. And I remember when my

0:33:49.920 --> 0:33:53.080
<v Speaker 2>partner first died. I mean I had been doing social

0:33:53.080 --> 0:33:55.920
<v Speaker 2>action stuff and working in sexual violence and questioning some

0:33:55.960 --> 0:33:58.320
<v Speaker 2>of these things, and then Matt drowned, and I was like,

0:33:58.360 --> 0:34:01.280
<v Speaker 2>I don't give a fuck. I don't care about the

0:34:01.320 --> 0:34:07.760
<v Speaker 2>systems right now. And it took years before I cared

0:34:07.920 --> 0:34:10.960
<v Speaker 2>about that, or or before I cared enough to come

0:34:11.000 --> 0:34:17.400
<v Speaker 2>back to my suspicious, questioning nature of the underlying systems

0:34:17.440 --> 0:34:20.040
<v Speaker 2>around everything. And it is true that I think sometimes

0:34:20.280 --> 0:34:24.360
<v Speaker 2>in really fresh grief, the structures that impact you in

0:34:24.400 --> 0:34:28.400
<v Speaker 2>your grieving or in your healing aren't super relevant it

0:34:28.440 --> 0:34:30.920
<v Speaker 2>doesn't mean we aren't being impacted by them though, Like

0:34:31.000 --> 0:34:33.240
<v Speaker 2>this push to get better faster and to be strong

0:34:33.239 --> 0:34:36.000
<v Speaker 2>and to be resilient. I love flipping that around the

0:34:36.040 --> 0:34:38.000
<v Speaker 2>way that you just did to say, like, who benefits

0:34:38.000 --> 0:34:41.440
<v Speaker 2>from me getting quote unquote better faster? Who is served?

0:34:41.520 --> 0:34:44.560
<v Speaker 2>Who gets their needs met? If I repress mine?

0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:50.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that exactly. I really like what you said about

0:34:51.200 --> 0:34:53.400
<v Speaker 1>how long it took you to get back to that.

0:34:54.880 --> 0:34:58.760
<v Speaker 1>One of the things that I have been leaning into

0:34:59.000 --> 0:35:01.879
<v Speaker 1>is that I am grieving. So I'm going to use

0:35:01.880 --> 0:35:04.920
<v Speaker 1>it as a platform to be as thoughtful as I

0:35:05.000 --> 0:35:11.759
<v Speaker 1>need to in this moment because death, loss, change causes

0:35:11.840 --> 0:35:16.480
<v Speaker 1>us to question reality again, and we don't get that

0:35:16.560 --> 0:35:18.960
<v Speaker 1>often because usually we're in the you know, in the

0:35:19.080 --> 0:35:21.560
<v Speaker 1>run of it. We got to go to work, pay

0:35:21.600 --> 0:35:24.160
<v Speaker 1>our bills, take care of our kids, move through. We're

0:35:24.160 --> 0:35:28.239
<v Speaker 1>on this life escalator that really isn't much space to

0:35:28.280 --> 0:35:31.360
<v Speaker 1>get off, and grief is a stop. Grief is a

0:35:31.440 --> 0:35:34.359
<v Speaker 1>large halt to that. And so it's an opportunity in

0:35:34.400 --> 0:35:36.640
<v Speaker 1>that it's a moment where we really do get to

0:35:36.680 --> 0:35:40.680
<v Speaker 1>ask questions and take a pause to things that we

0:35:40.760 --> 0:35:44.640
<v Speaker 1>usually don't get to to do. So and it's certainly

0:35:44.719 --> 0:35:49.759
<v Speaker 1>been that for me, around work, around relationships, around friendships,

0:35:49.880 --> 0:35:53.560
<v Speaker 1>around space. What I understand is home. You know, all

0:35:53.600 --> 0:35:57.719
<v Speaker 1>of these things. And I really find that as one

0:35:57.760 --> 0:36:01.239
<v Speaker 1>of the gifts of grief as well, that it put

0:36:01.360 --> 0:36:05.600
<v Speaker 1>a halt to this trajectory that I might have forever

0:36:05.680 --> 0:36:09.520
<v Speaker 1>been on if there wasn't this jolting to say, wait,

0:36:09.560 --> 0:36:11.760
<v Speaker 1>what really matters? How do I really want to spend

0:36:11.760 --> 0:36:13.960
<v Speaker 1>my time? How do I want to die? How do

0:36:14.160 --> 0:36:17.359
<v Speaker 1>I want to be surrounded or not surrounded in hard

0:36:17.440 --> 0:36:22.320
<v Speaker 1>times like these? And I have been making shifts based

0:36:22.400 --> 0:36:26.600
<v Speaker 1>on what that pause required me to consider, required me

0:36:26.719 --> 0:36:29.400
<v Speaker 1>to question. And I hope that all of us who

0:36:29.440 --> 0:36:34.200
<v Speaker 1>are grieving can alchemize some of those feelings we have

0:36:34.760 --> 0:36:38.799
<v Speaker 1>to turn into some answers to questions we've either been

0:36:38.840 --> 0:36:41.520
<v Speaker 1>asking ourselves quietly in the back of our mind, never

0:36:41.560 --> 0:36:45.279
<v Speaker 1>got to ask ourselves, or are recognizing, like, wow, this

0:36:45.360 --> 0:36:47.120
<v Speaker 1>is something I really need to consider before I hop

0:36:47.200 --> 0:36:48.320
<v Speaker 1>back on this escalator.

0:36:49.200 --> 0:36:52.120
<v Speaker 2>There's a line that I read of yours who I

0:36:52.160 --> 0:36:55.160
<v Speaker 2>am right now can be home for me. It's actually

0:36:55.239 --> 0:36:57.920
<v Speaker 2>a much longer passage. And of course I'll link to

0:36:57.920 --> 0:37:00.120
<v Speaker 2>the Instagram post where you talk about that. But that's

0:37:00.160 --> 0:37:02.239
<v Speaker 2>what I'm reminded of as you speak about this, like

0:37:03.120 --> 0:37:06.600
<v Speaker 2>it's not that you needed air quotes here for everybody,

0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:09.400
<v Speaker 2>Like it's not that you needed your mom's death to

0:37:09.480 --> 0:37:12.480
<v Speaker 2>wake you up to other things that you wanted or

0:37:12.520 --> 0:37:14.720
<v Speaker 2>needed for your own pacing or your own concepts of home.

0:37:15.960 --> 0:37:20.240
<v Speaker 2>And at the same time, your mom's death has shifted

0:37:20.239 --> 0:37:22.759
<v Speaker 2>your focus and shifted things. So it's not like I

0:37:22.760 --> 0:37:25.600
<v Speaker 2>think again we get gain like it gets sort of

0:37:25.640 --> 0:37:28.520
<v Speaker 2>flattened in the outside world around. Oh see, you needed it.

0:37:28.719 --> 0:37:30.520
<v Speaker 2>You needed it as a wake up call to know

0:37:30.560 --> 0:37:35.880
<v Speaker 2>what was important, which is like, oh, but I really

0:37:36.080 --> 0:37:39.680
<v Speaker 2>appreciate how you speak about it as this, Like here

0:37:39.800 --> 0:37:44.799
<v Speaker 2>is this thing, this event that happened, and I can

0:37:44.920 --> 0:37:50.480
<v Speaker 2>bring my skills of curiosity and reflection and self inquiry

0:37:50.800 --> 0:37:55.600
<v Speaker 2>from a place of kindness into even this, especially this,

0:37:56.520 --> 0:38:00.960
<v Speaker 2>especially this, and find out who I am now as

0:38:01.000 --> 0:38:03.600
<v Speaker 2>a person whose mom is no longer physically present in

0:38:03.640 --> 0:38:06.920
<v Speaker 2>this way, how does home change? What does home look like?

0:38:06.960 --> 0:38:11.560
<v Speaker 2>For me? Like? These are such fantastic questions. There are

0:38:11.600 --> 0:38:14.000
<v Speaker 2>such fun quest questions, and I'm so thankful to you

0:38:14.120 --> 0:38:17.960
<v Speaker 2>for asking them and asking them publicly and encouraging other

0:38:18.000 --> 0:38:22.080
<v Speaker 2>people to ask them because we just don't. We don't

0:38:22.160 --> 0:38:25.960
<v Speaker 2>have enough spaces where we are encouraged to have that

0:38:26.040 --> 0:38:31.080
<v Speaker 2>both and and to ask ourselves those questions, especially kindly. Right,

0:38:31.160 --> 0:38:34.000
<v Speaker 2>I think it's like easy to like flip into interrogation. Look,

0:38:34.080 --> 0:38:38.160
<v Speaker 2>murder was a little budget Like, No, everything you do

0:38:38.280 --> 0:38:41.160
<v Speaker 2>is just steeped in so much kindness.

0:38:41.680 --> 0:38:45.600
<v Speaker 1>Thank you. I appreciate that. I think that might rebuttal

0:38:45.800 --> 0:38:48.719
<v Speaker 1>to what you said about what people might say, like, oh,

0:38:48.800 --> 0:38:51.239
<v Speaker 1>you need this thing. It reminds me of what we

0:38:51.239 --> 0:38:53.160
<v Speaker 1>do about the pandemic, and people say like, oh, because

0:38:53.200 --> 0:38:55.560
<v Speaker 1>of the pandemic, I was able to do this, which

0:38:55.600 --> 0:38:57.759
<v Speaker 1>I understand. It's hard, especially with people who lost someone

0:38:57.800 --> 0:39:00.920
<v Speaker 1>during the pandemic. Of course, there's no desire to hear

0:39:01.000 --> 0:39:03.839
<v Speaker 1>any good that could have Yeah no good, Yeah, no good.

0:39:03.840 --> 0:39:05.800
<v Speaker 1>And I get it, and I honor that. I honor

0:39:05.840 --> 0:39:10.920
<v Speaker 1>that feeling. And when we have a loss, we are

0:39:11.000 --> 0:39:15.120
<v Speaker 1>a different person. So there have to be new answers,

0:39:15.280 --> 0:39:17.919
<v Speaker 1>there have to be new questions, there have to be

0:39:18.800 --> 0:39:23.400
<v Speaker 1>new some things. And throughout our lives, mostly other people

0:39:23.440 --> 0:39:26.000
<v Speaker 1>have decided that, and sometimes it's the person who passed

0:39:26.000 --> 0:39:28.799
<v Speaker 1>who decided. In my case, my mother who decided so

0:39:28.920 --> 0:39:32.279
<v Speaker 1>much about what I understand about myself. You know, when

0:39:32.280 --> 0:39:37.040
<v Speaker 1>my mom first got her diagnosis, I remember wailing and wailing,

0:39:38.040 --> 0:39:39.719
<v Speaker 1>laying in the lap of a woman, the woman I

0:39:39.719 --> 0:39:42.680
<v Speaker 1>was dating at the time, and saying, how will I

0:39:42.760 --> 0:39:44.880
<v Speaker 1>ever read if the person who taught me how to

0:39:44.920 --> 0:39:47.319
<v Speaker 1>read is dying? How will I ever walk if the

0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:48.960
<v Speaker 1>person who taught me how to walk is dying? It

0:39:49.000 --> 0:39:54.000
<v Speaker 1>felt like her leaving took away everything I understood about

0:39:54.040 --> 0:40:01.400
<v Speaker 1>myself and the world, and in her passing this pause

0:40:01.560 --> 0:40:05.640
<v Speaker 1>to say who am I to me is profound and

0:40:05.800 --> 0:40:09.560
<v Speaker 1>terrifying as well, both profound and terrifying to say, who

0:40:09.600 --> 0:40:13.000
<v Speaker 1>am I? With everything she gave me and with everything

0:40:13.040 --> 0:40:16.320
<v Speaker 1>she couldn't, Who am I with everything I know about

0:40:16.320 --> 0:40:20.200
<v Speaker 1>myself now and everything she reminds me about myself? And

0:40:20.520 --> 0:40:25.920
<v Speaker 1>there is this newness emerging that requires questions, and I

0:40:26.000 --> 0:40:30.000
<v Speaker 1>hope that we don't shy away from those questions because

0:40:30.680 --> 0:40:33.560
<v Speaker 1>they offer us some calibration towards where we're going next.

0:40:33.560 --> 0:40:36.439
<v Speaker 1>And So, while you didn't need a loss to make

0:40:36.520 --> 0:40:39.200
<v Speaker 1>you think you're a new person, and that makes you

0:40:39.239 --> 0:40:41.600
<v Speaker 1>think not necessarily the loss itself, but the fact that

0:40:41.640 --> 0:40:45.360
<v Speaker 1>you are different, because that person is no longer physically

0:40:45.400 --> 0:40:48.600
<v Speaker 1>there with you. It's a call to make new considerations.

0:40:48.920 --> 0:40:51.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I love that you just used to the word call,

0:40:51.120 --> 0:40:53.120
<v Speaker 2>because I was going to go with call and response, right,

0:40:53.520 --> 0:40:59.319
<v Speaker 2>like that sort of external structure of this linear healing model, right,

0:40:59.840 --> 0:41:03.319
<v Speaker 2>the future self, the highest self, the healed self, like

0:41:03.400 --> 0:41:05.320
<v Speaker 2>that destination point.

0:41:05.920 --> 0:41:08.400
<v Speaker 1>And I am so happy that you brought this up

0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:12.359
<v Speaker 1>because I've been evangelizing this so much, this idea of

0:41:13.440 --> 0:41:17.440
<v Speaker 1>your chosen self, that it's not this higher, better self.

0:41:17.800 --> 0:41:21.279
<v Speaker 1>You weren't previously a lower, worse self. It's just the

0:41:21.440 --> 0:41:25.600
<v Speaker 1>you that you continue to choose. And so every day

0:41:25.600 --> 0:41:29.759
<v Speaker 1>that can be either reinforced, it can be changed, it

0:41:29.800 --> 0:41:31.600
<v Speaker 1>can be shape shifted a little bit, it can be

0:41:31.760 --> 0:41:34.879
<v Speaker 1>edited a bit. Because you're getting new information every day,

0:41:35.160 --> 0:41:38.040
<v Speaker 1>You're having new understandings about yourself every day, so that

0:41:38.080 --> 0:41:40.880
<v Speaker 1>should and will continue to change. But the only self

0:41:40.920 --> 0:41:43.959
<v Speaker 1>that needs to be that energy needs to be put

0:41:44.000 --> 0:41:47.040
<v Speaker 1>towards is your chosen self, who you choose to be.

0:41:47.520 --> 0:41:49.919
<v Speaker 1>And maybe in your grief, your chosen self is someone

0:41:49.960 --> 0:41:52.040
<v Speaker 1>who's a little more reserved and spending a little bit

0:41:52.040 --> 0:41:55.080
<v Speaker 1>more time to yourself, and maybe it's someone who's all

0:41:55.080 --> 0:41:57.480
<v Speaker 1>of a sudden becoming a bit more community centered since

0:41:57.480 --> 0:41:59.759
<v Speaker 1>you have had a loss. Whatever it is across the

0:41:59.760 --> 0:42:03.160
<v Speaker 1>spectrum of possibilities, the fact that you chose it is

0:42:03.200 --> 0:42:04.560
<v Speaker 1>what makes it the best self.

0:42:06.400 --> 0:42:10.480
<v Speaker 2>Sovereignty, authority over your own life, being the author of

0:42:10.520 --> 0:42:12.360
<v Speaker 2>your own life, and choosing.

0:42:12.760 --> 0:42:15.680
<v Speaker 1>And I say your best self is your highest service.

0:42:16.520 --> 0:42:19.319
<v Speaker 1>When you step into your best self, you are now

0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:24.080
<v Speaker 1>primed to be kinder, to be gentler, to have more capacity,

0:42:24.480 --> 0:42:27.960
<v Speaker 1>to be more honest, to be more grounded, and so

0:42:28.320 --> 0:42:30.960
<v Speaker 1>trying to be all of those things in little pockets

0:42:30.960 --> 0:42:34.520
<v Speaker 1>to people please will never be as effective as just

0:42:34.640 --> 0:42:38.960
<v Speaker 1>settling with yourself, considering what your values are, moving with

0:42:39.000 --> 0:42:43.440
<v Speaker 1>your intentions, and you will certainly show up better for

0:42:43.520 --> 0:42:48.880
<v Speaker 1>the world when you have really settled with your chosen self.

0:42:49.880 --> 0:42:52.399
<v Speaker 2>And that's so counter to the messaging that we get

0:42:52.520 --> 0:42:55.200
<v Speaker 2>right of like, serve others, serve others, serve others, And

0:42:55.680 --> 0:42:58.880
<v Speaker 2>you really do need to choose yourself in order to

0:42:58.920 --> 0:43:02.760
<v Speaker 2>be of the most service to the world and creating

0:43:02.760 --> 0:43:05.200
<v Speaker 2>the world that can also serve you. Right, both and

0:43:05.920 --> 0:43:10.719
<v Speaker 2>both and all over the place. I want to make

0:43:10.719 --> 0:43:12.280
<v Speaker 2>sure we have a little bit of time to talk

0:43:12.320 --> 0:43:14.759
<v Speaker 2>about your new book and I think the both and

0:43:14.920 --> 0:43:19.880
<v Speaker 2>is actually a really great transition here, because writing writing

0:43:19.920 --> 0:43:23.480
<v Speaker 2>a book is a really long process. So I'm guessing

0:43:24.360 --> 0:43:28.600
<v Speaker 2>that the creation, the writing, the editing, all of the

0:43:29.440 --> 0:43:34.320
<v Speaker 2>before launch stuff with a book like that came during

0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:37.000
<v Speaker 2>your mom's illness. I don't know how it intersected with

0:43:37.040 --> 0:43:42.040
<v Speaker 2>her death, but how has this grief experienced, this loss

0:43:42.040 --> 0:43:45.160
<v Speaker 2>experience And I'm saying that rather than only the death

0:43:45.160 --> 0:43:47.960
<v Speaker 2>of your mom, because so much has fed into that

0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:53.200
<v Speaker 2>and mixed with that, how has that both ended with

0:43:53.440 --> 0:43:55.440
<v Speaker 2>the birth of your new book.

0:43:56.400 --> 0:43:59.719
<v Speaker 1>I signed this book deal in twenty eighteen. It's been

0:43:59.719 --> 0:44:03.719
<v Speaker 1>a lot time of me working on this book, and

0:44:03.760 --> 0:44:05.840
<v Speaker 1>it was in the midst of the book that I

0:44:05.920 --> 0:44:09.520
<v Speaker 1>had that first moment of I want to call it consciousness,

0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:11.360
<v Speaker 1>but I don't really like that word because it seems

0:44:11.400 --> 0:44:15.200
<v Speaker 1>so inaccessible or something. But my first moment of deeper

0:44:15.239 --> 0:44:18.640
<v Speaker 1>consideration about who I'd been, who I was, and who

0:44:18.680 --> 0:44:22.160
<v Speaker 1>I want to choose to be. And so in the

0:44:22.360 --> 0:44:26.320
<v Speaker 1>original manuscript where a lot of those survival optimism narratives

0:44:26.320 --> 0:44:28.480
<v Speaker 1>that I had written, so I had to go back

0:44:28.680 --> 0:44:36.960
<v Speaker 1>and change them, and I also engaged with the topics

0:44:37.000 --> 0:44:41.160
<v Speaker 1>a bit different. So the book is arranged in various

0:44:41.239 --> 0:44:45.319
<v Speaker 1>chapters that speak to different ways of reimagining. The book

0:44:45.360 --> 0:44:49.360
<v Speaker 1>is a memoir and a manifesto talking about reimagining, and

0:44:49.360 --> 0:44:53.640
<v Speaker 1>it's reimagining love, reimagining education, reimagining feminism, and looking at

0:44:53.680 --> 0:44:58.560
<v Speaker 1>all of the ways that I approached these aspects of

0:44:58.600 --> 0:45:03.160
<v Speaker 1>life a little different with my own values and intentions,

0:45:03.800 --> 0:45:07.960
<v Speaker 1>and every single one of those were so informed by

0:45:07.960 --> 0:45:10.520
<v Speaker 1>what my mom either told me about myself or told

0:45:10.520 --> 0:45:13.239
<v Speaker 1>me was right in the world based on her own

0:45:13.680 --> 0:45:17.759
<v Speaker 1>religion of Christianity, and so there was a lot of

0:45:17.800 --> 0:45:21.880
<v Speaker 1>having to comb through the narrative and see what I

0:45:21.960 --> 0:45:25.520
<v Speaker 1>had come up with myself out of survival and what

0:45:25.640 --> 0:45:29.799
<v Speaker 1>was actually true. Another thing that was particularly related to

0:45:29.840 --> 0:45:33.480
<v Speaker 1>my mother and the book is that in coming to

0:45:33.680 --> 0:45:37.400
<v Speaker 1>a lot of these conclusions and understandings about myself, there

0:45:37.440 --> 0:45:40.080
<v Speaker 1>were some things in the book that I knew my

0:45:40.200 --> 0:45:44.200
<v Speaker 1>mom might feel shame about. Particularly, I have two older

0:45:44.239 --> 0:45:48.200
<v Speaker 1>sisters who both still since when I was in high

0:45:48.239 --> 0:45:52.120
<v Speaker 1>school to this day, have been their whole lives have

0:45:52.280 --> 0:45:58.439
<v Speaker 1>been ravished by addiction, and my mom always was very

0:45:58.680 --> 0:46:01.600
<v Speaker 1>disheartened by the distance I had to take from my

0:46:01.680 --> 0:46:05.680
<v Speaker 1>sisters in order to be okay, and so I think

0:46:06.040 --> 0:46:08.960
<v Speaker 1>I also had a lot of anxiety about how she

0:46:09.040 --> 0:46:12.200
<v Speaker 1>might feel about reading what I felt about my sisters,

0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:17.080
<v Speaker 1>her children, her children. And a few weeks before my

0:46:17.120 --> 0:46:20.239
<v Speaker 1>mother passed, I sat by her bed in the hospice

0:46:20.640 --> 0:46:24.040
<v Speaker 1>center she was in and I read her a little

0:46:24.120 --> 0:46:26.759
<v Speaker 1>chunk of the book that was clear enough for me

0:46:27.000 --> 0:46:30.200
<v Speaker 1>that was like, there wouldn't be too much tension in

0:46:30.239 --> 0:46:33.040
<v Speaker 1>what I read to her. And the one thing I

0:46:33.040 --> 0:46:34.600
<v Speaker 1>will say is I read it to my mom, and

0:46:34.640 --> 0:46:37.319
<v Speaker 1>my mom says, wow, that was so much better than

0:46:37.320 --> 0:46:39.520
<v Speaker 1>I thought it would be, Like, Okay, thanks, Mom, I'm

0:46:39.520 --> 0:46:40.840
<v Speaker 1>actually a writer and I do.

0:46:42.800 --> 0:46:43.279
<v Speaker 2>So one.

0:46:43.360 --> 0:46:46.279
<v Speaker 1>It was that funny aspect of her really still not

0:46:46.440 --> 0:46:48.400
<v Speaker 1>having any clue what I do in the world or

0:46:48.440 --> 0:46:52.279
<v Speaker 1>how I do my work, but also the fact that

0:46:52.320 --> 0:46:55.960
<v Speaker 1>she passed just a few weeks after it and just

0:46:56.000 --> 0:46:58.920
<v Speaker 1>a few months before the book's published date. They talk

0:46:59.000 --> 0:47:02.120
<v Speaker 1>a lot about authors who usually can't get the book

0:47:02.200 --> 0:47:05.799
<v Speaker 1>out until the person who they're really addressing in the

0:47:05.800 --> 0:47:08.800
<v Speaker 1>book has passed because there's all of these anxieties about

0:47:09.320 --> 0:47:11.200
<v Speaker 1>if they read it, how they'll feel. So I think

0:47:11.239 --> 0:47:14.560
<v Speaker 1>that definitely came into play. That was a truth for me.

0:47:14.760 --> 0:47:17.800
<v Speaker 1>For sure, because I don't know if I could move

0:47:17.960 --> 0:47:19.799
<v Speaker 1>with the confidence that I do with the book if

0:47:19.800 --> 0:47:22.359
<v Speaker 1>I knew that my mom would have to read it

0:47:22.400 --> 0:47:25.719
<v Speaker 1>but also deal with however other people feel about it

0:47:25.760 --> 0:47:28.440
<v Speaker 1>is written in the book. So I'm grateful that I

0:47:28.480 --> 0:47:30.239
<v Speaker 1>don't have to have that experience that was giving me

0:47:30.280 --> 0:47:32.560
<v Speaker 1>a lot of anxiety. But I also wish that she

0:47:32.600 --> 0:47:35.480
<v Speaker 1>could be here for the excitement of the book coming out.

0:47:35.520 --> 0:47:39.400
<v Speaker 1>There's that both and as well. But I will say

0:47:40.440 --> 0:47:43.160
<v Speaker 1>going back to that first story about her still not

0:47:43.200 --> 0:47:46.320
<v Speaker 1>really knowing about the work that I do, the fact

0:47:46.360 --> 0:47:51.560
<v Speaker 1>that I have the desire and the capacity to write

0:47:51.600 --> 0:47:54.120
<v Speaker 1>about grief in the way that I do, to share

0:47:54.120 --> 0:47:56.800
<v Speaker 1>it with my readers, to be in conversation with my readers.

0:47:57.160 --> 0:47:58.719
<v Speaker 1>This is the first time it feels like my mom

0:47:58.800 --> 0:48:02.560
<v Speaker 1>is in my work, knows she's she is my work

0:48:02.600 --> 0:48:05.319
<v Speaker 1>right now for the first time in a way that

0:48:06.080 --> 0:48:08.719
<v Speaker 1>she never was. She's in it how me and her

0:48:08.800 --> 0:48:14.880
<v Speaker 1>engage in my dreams, in my body, in the seemingly

0:48:14.920 --> 0:48:17.480
<v Speaker 1>supernatural things that go on in my world that seem

0:48:17.719 --> 0:48:20.400
<v Speaker 1>in relation to her. This is the first time that

0:48:20.440 --> 0:48:23.440
<v Speaker 1>I feel like my mom is deeply engaged with my

0:48:23.520 --> 0:48:25.399
<v Speaker 1>work and I love that.

0:48:25.400 --> 0:48:28.920
<v Speaker 2>That's really cool. I hadn't thought about that. I really

0:48:28.920 --> 0:48:30.839
<v Speaker 2>dig that, you know, as somebody who will probably not

0:48:30.880 --> 0:48:33.200
<v Speaker 2>publish a lot of things until after my parents die

0:48:33.239 --> 0:48:36.360
<v Speaker 2>for those those same reasons. I love that though, that

0:48:36.440 --> 0:48:40.200
<v Speaker 2>there is a way now that you can be seen,

0:48:41.640 --> 0:48:43.399
<v Speaker 2>you know. I think sometimes we think that like death

0:48:43.480 --> 0:48:46.000
<v Speaker 2>ends a relationship, and what you're describing is like new

0:48:46.080 --> 0:48:48.520
<v Speaker 2>rooms in that relationship open up all the time.

0:48:48.880 --> 0:48:51.839
<v Speaker 1>All the time, and it's to shape shifts. And that's

0:48:51.880 --> 0:48:54.600
<v Speaker 1>also why grieving has to be done, because that's where

0:48:54.600 --> 0:48:58.000
<v Speaker 1>the relationship continues. If you skip that, you're missing out

0:48:58.000 --> 0:49:02.120
<v Speaker 1>on opportunities to continue to build that relationship. You know.

0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:06.680
<v Speaker 1>I had like a deep breakdown moment the other day

0:49:07.280 --> 0:49:10.759
<v Speaker 1>because I was thinking about so many things about my

0:49:10.920 --> 0:49:13.759
<v Speaker 1>mom that came up and could only have come up

0:49:14.120 --> 0:49:18.799
<v Speaker 1>during her passing. And one thing that I was just

0:49:18.920 --> 0:49:22.200
<v Speaker 1>like crying and crying and crying about is that my

0:49:22.239 --> 0:49:24.960
<v Speaker 1>mother didn't really like to travel. She didn't travel much.

0:49:25.000 --> 0:49:27.480
<v Speaker 1>The only stamp in her but she got her passport

0:49:28.160 --> 0:49:30.480
<v Speaker 1>a year before she passed, and that's because I invited

0:49:30.520 --> 0:49:33.120
<v Speaker 1>her to come visit me in Jamaica. And she has

0:49:33.200 --> 0:49:36.000
<v Speaker 1>one stamp in that passport, which was her visiting me

0:49:36.400 --> 0:49:38.080
<v Speaker 1>in Jamaica, and my mom had never been out of

0:49:38.120 --> 0:49:42.600
<v Speaker 1>the country before. So I remember during her dying, I

0:49:42.760 --> 0:49:47.040
<v Speaker 1>was so stressed because I'm like, this woman doesn't even

0:49:47.080 --> 0:49:50.879
<v Speaker 1>like to leave the city. She must be terrified to die.

0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:54.080
<v Speaker 1>Like it's rib like, just think, just think about how

0:49:54.440 --> 0:49:58.480
<v Speaker 1>excruciatingly scary that must have been for her to sit

0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:00.799
<v Speaker 1>on that bed and be like, I have no clue

0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:04.440
<v Speaker 1>where I'm going. Yeah, that's in the sentence. I have

0:50:04.480 --> 0:50:08.000
<v Speaker 1>no clue where I'm going outside of her beliefs and

0:50:08.040 --> 0:50:10.560
<v Speaker 1>where she hoped she was going, but we just don't know.

0:50:12.080 --> 0:50:16.320
<v Speaker 1>And so you know, I had this deep wailing cry

0:50:17.239 --> 0:50:20.560
<v Speaker 1>of sadness for her, and then I had this moment

0:50:20.560 --> 0:50:22.440
<v Speaker 1>of like, oh my gosh, I'm so proud of her.

0:50:22.520 --> 0:50:25.399
<v Speaker 1>She did the one thing we are all terrified to do,

0:50:25.680 --> 0:50:29.080
<v Speaker 1>we are all terrified to die, and my mom did

0:50:29.080 --> 0:50:33.000
<v Speaker 1>this badass thing of like doing it. I know my

0:50:33.080 --> 0:50:35.520
<v Speaker 1>mother and well enough to know that she literally had

0:50:35.520 --> 0:50:37.839
<v Speaker 1>a moment to be like, you know what, I'm just

0:50:37.840 --> 0:50:39.799
<v Speaker 1>gonna go, like I gotta let this. Like she had

0:50:39.840 --> 0:50:43.600
<v Speaker 1>been fighting it so hard over her last few weeks

0:50:44.040 --> 0:50:46.120
<v Speaker 1>to the point where I was like, Mom, just go.

0:50:46.640 --> 0:50:50.440
<v Speaker 1>You are hating every moment of this. We are hating

0:50:50.440 --> 0:50:52.799
<v Speaker 1>every moment of this. We're so proud of everything that

0:50:52.840 --> 0:50:56.400
<v Speaker 1>you've done. Just go. Like many people, she passed the

0:50:56.440 --> 0:50:58.439
<v Speaker 1>one night I decided to stay the night at home

0:50:58.600 --> 0:51:00.600
<v Speaker 1>instead of stay the night on the floor of the

0:51:00.600 --> 0:51:04.399
<v Speaker 1>hospice like I had been doing. And I remember I

0:51:04.440 --> 0:51:07.640
<v Speaker 1>was here at my house that evening with a lover

0:51:07.760 --> 0:51:11.200
<v Speaker 1>of mine and I remember holding on to her torso

0:51:12.000 --> 0:51:13.360
<v Speaker 1>we were like kind of sitting on the couch and

0:51:13.360 --> 0:51:14.920
<v Speaker 1>I was like kind of hugging her, and I remember

0:51:14.960 --> 0:51:17.600
<v Speaker 1>just feeling so dizzy. I felt like I was in

0:51:17.640 --> 0:51:21.520
<v Speaker 1>some sort of wild vortex. And I'm like, it could

0:51:21.560 --> 0:51:23.080
<v Speaker 1>have been anything. It could have been the exhaustion, it

0:51:23.120 --> 0:51:26.120
<v Speaker 1>could have been the grief. But I think my mom

0:51:26.200 --> 0:51:28.799
<v Speaker 1>was dying in that moment like that if we look

0:51:28.840 --> 0:51:32.120
<v Speaker 1>at the timeline that was about the time, and I

0:51:32.200 --> 0:51:34.759
<v Speaker 1>just feel like she was. There was some part of

0:51:34.800 --> 0:51:37.000
<v Speaker 1>her that was still like sticky to me, kind of

0:51:37.040 --> 0:51:39.919
<v Speaker 1>sticky on me, that was keeping me. Like I feel

0:51:39.960 --> 0:51:41.839
<v Speaker 1>like I went into this like the spin of it

0:51:41.920 --> 0:51:46.719
<v Speaker 1>with her, and just the depths of both of the feelings,

0:51:46.760 --> 0:51:49.680
<v Speaker 1>the depth of grief that she was terrified of it,

0:51:49.719 --> 0:51:51.560
<v Speaker 1>and the depth of pride that I have for her

0:51:52.000 --> 0:51:55.480
<v Speaker 1>to do that, and her having died, and you know,

0:51:55.640 --> 0:51:58.359
<v Speaker 1>now she doesn't have a body that she can't walk with.

0:51:58.480 --> 0:52:01.440
<v Speaker 1>I hope my mom is doing cart wheel and running

0:52:01.880 --> 0:52:04.040
<v Speaker 1>and doing all of these things that she never got

0:52:04.120 --> 0:52:07.040
<v Speaker 1>to do. And I'm so happy for her, Like I'm

0:52:07.080 --> 0:52:09.560
<v Speaker 1>so happy for her that she's not dealing with the

0:52:09.600 --> 0:52:12.440
<v Speaker 1>things that she was dealing with here, and you know,

0:52:12.760 --> 0:52:16.200
<v Speaker 1>the things about the living that constrain us. You know,

0:52:16.280 --> 0:52:18.560
<v Speaker 1>how she might have felt about having a queer daughter,

0:52:19.000 --> 0:52:23.040
<v Speaker 1>how she might have related to me based on whatever

0:52:23.080 --> 0:52:25.080
<v Speaker 1>are the rules of the world she didn't want to

0:52:25.120 --> 0:52:27.080
<v Speaker 1>break or she didn't want me to break. Those no

0:52:27.160 --> 0:52:30.520
<v Speaker 1>longer apply. So that means that I can have a

0:52:30.560 --> 0:52:34.080
<v Speaker 1>particular joy in my relationships. I can have a particular

0:52:34.600 --> 0:52:37.920
<v Speaker 1>conversation with her that if I had it with her before,

0:52:38.040 --> 0:52:39.640
<v Speaker 1>she would have felt so much shame about what her

0:52:39.680 --> 0:52:42.080
<v Speaker 1>sister might have felt or what her mother might have felt.

0:52:42.120 --> 0:52:47.920
<v Speaker 1>And I feel like this is such a beautiful, excruciating

0:52:49.480 --> 0:52:53.319
<v Speaker 1>shape of us that I don't take for granted and

0:52:53.360 --> 0:52:56.520
<v Speaker 1>that I actively participate in because it is something different

0:52:56.760 --> 0:52:59.400
<v Speaker 1>and it's something new, and it's something that I'm grateful for,

0:53:00.080 --> 0:53:02.720
<v Speaker 1>the shapeshift of a relationship from her being here physically

0:53:02.760 --> 0:53:03.080
<v Speaker 1>to not.

0:53:04.600 --> 0:53:09.640
<v Speaker 2>You get to have a totality of relatedness. Right. As

0:53:09.680 --> 0:53:13.600
<v Speaker 2>devastating as this is, there is the end of that

0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:19.399
<v Speaker 2>sounds so like such a blessing, like such a liberation. Right,

0:53:19.800 --> 0:53:25.239
<v Speaker 2>And to come back to your book like that's a renaissance, right,

0:53:25.360 --> 0:53:31.719
<v Speaker 2>that is a relationship renaissance, yes, for me and thriving exactly. Yeah.

0:53:32.160 --> 0:53:34.640
<v Speaker 1>Yes, the title of the book is a renaissance of

0:53:34.680 --> 0:53:39.719
<v Speaker 1>our own memoir and manifesto on reimagining. And if the

0:53:39.719 --> 0:53:42.279
<v Speaker 1>book hadn't been on the deadline that it was, I

0:53:42.280 --> 0:53:45.200
<v Speaker 1>think I would have had a chapter called Reimagining Grief

0:53:45.760 --> 0:53:48.840
<v Speaker 1>because there is such a difference in how I have

0:53:49.360 --> 0:53:53.200
<v Speaker 1>been able to approach it that seems to not follow

0:53:53.239 --> 0:53:58.719
<v Speaker 1>the guidelines of society of science. Even that invites me

0:53:58.880 --> 0:54:02.120
<v Speaker 1>to have a different reallylationship to my grief and my mother.

0:54:02.600 --> 0:54:06.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that through line right of curiosity for self,

0:54:06.880 --> 0:54:10.640
<v Speaker 2>the chosen self, authoring your own life, inquiring with kindness

0:54:10.640 --> 0:54:14.759
<v Speaker 2>but also with like, with your own narratives. Like all

0:54:14.840 --> 0:54:19.000
<v Speaker 2>of this is that arc of coming closer and closer

0:54:19.040 --> 0:54:22.880
<v Speaker 2>to that chosen self by being curious about the stories

0:54:22.880 --> 0:54:25.680
<v Speaker 2>of ourselves and others, and ourselves in relationship with others,

0:54:25.680 --> 0:54:31.560
<v Speaker 2>and that that is what's possible. Right in the promotion

0:54:31.719 --> 0:54:34.759
<v Speaker 2>for your book, you have written, I stand as living

0:54:34.800 --> 0:54:37.440
<v Speaker 2>proof that a life reimagined is possible, proof that with

0:54:37.560 --> 0:54:39.640
<v Speaker 2>a willingness to do the work, to make peace with

0:54:39.680 --> 0:54:42.280
<v Speaker 2>the unknown, and to believe that we are worth the effort,

0:54:42.719 --> 0:54:49.840
<v Speaker 2>there is a renaissance that awaits. Yeah, I think this.

0:54:49.840 --> 0:54:53.520
<v Speaker 2>This feels like such a hopeful a hopeful place in

0:54:53.520 --> 0:54:57.240
<v Speaker 2>this both and like devastation and renaissance and choosing yourself.

0:54:57.239 --> 0:54:58.759
<v Speaker 2>So I think I think it's set s. It's up

0:54:58.840 --> 0:55:02.080
<v Speaker 2>pretty well for my asked question for us here together,

0:55:02.719 --> 0:55:06.439
<v Speaker 2>which is knowing what you know and living what you've

0:55:06.440 --> 0:55:09.600
<v Speaker 2>lived in all of the stories of your life. What

0:55:09.640 --> 0:55:11.520
<v Speaker 2>does hope look like for you right now?

0:55:15.920 --> 0:55:22.160
<v Speaker 1>For me, hope is really rooted in the same things

0:55:22.200 --> 0:55:27.680
<v Speaker 1>we've been talking about, hope that I have and will

0:55:27.880 --> 0:55:32.440
<v Speaker 1>continue to have the opportunity to cultivate tools to be

0:55:32.560 --> 0:55:36.359
<v Speaker 1>well with myself and with the rest of the world

0:55:36.400 --> 0:55:40.640
<v Speaker 1>that I live in the land, my community, my oppressors,

0:55:41.120 --> 0:55:47.879
<v Speaker 1>my joys, space place. I think as we lean into

0:55:47.920 --> 0:55:51.880
<v Speaker 1>our healing. We all have what me and my peers,

0:55:51.880 --> 0:55:55.600
<v Speaker 1>we've been sitting around eating pasta together talking about what

0:55:55.640 --> 0:55:59.000
<v Speaker 1>our squishy thing is. When we talk about what we

0:55:59.080 --> 0:56:02.799
<v Speaker 1>build about building up walls. Those walls are to protect

0:56:03.160 --> 0:56:07.800
<v Speaker 1>some squishy thing, and that squishy thing usually was created

0:56:07.800 --> 0:56:11.680
<v Speaker 1>in childhood. And for me, my squishy thing is autonomy.

0:56:11.880 --> 0:56:13.520
<v Speaker 1>I didn't have a lot of it as a child,

0:56:13.600 --> 0:56:16.799
<v Speaker 1>and so now that is the that's my squishy thing

0:56:16.800 --> 0:56:21.560
<v Speaker 1>that I'm constantly trying to protect. And in both I

0:56:21.600 --> 0:56:24.080
<v Speaker 1>think I'll say psychology because I feel like I've heard

0:56:24.120 --> 0:56:27.439
<v Speaker 1>it a lot in more scientific academic text, but also

0:56:27.520 --> 0:56:30.680
<v Speaker 1>in mainstream conversation. It's always like, break your walls down,

0:56:30.719 --> 0:56:33.760
<v Speaker 1>break your walls down, figure out how to not have walls.

0:56:34.200 --> 0:56:38.960
<v Speaker 1>And I am now feeling more hopeful than ever for

0:56:39.080 --> 0:56:41.719
<v Speaker 1>my own goodness and wellness and for my ability to

0:56:41.800 --> 0:56:44.120
<v Speaker 1>show up in the world, because I no longer feel

0:56:44.120 --> 0:56:46.319
<v Speaker 1>like I have to break those walls down. I just

0:56:46.400 --> 0:56:48.239
<v Speaker 1>have to know them. I have to honor them, and

0:56:48.280 --> 0:56:50.400
<v Speaker 1>I have to maintain them because they were there to

0:56:50.440 --> 0:56:52.520
<v Speaker 1>protect something and I want to still protect that thing.

0:56:52.840 --> 0:56:57.080
<v Speaker 1>But I can do it by this self study, this

0:56:57.239 --> 0:57:01.400
<v Speaker 1>self understanding, this intention of being my chosen self, and

0:57:01.480 --> 0:57:05.279
<v Speaker 1>so I feel very hopeful by this being broken, the

0:57:05.280 --> 0:57:10.239
<v Speaker 1>brokenness that came from and continues to exist because of

0:57:10.280 --> 0:57:13.879
<v Speaker 1>losing my mother. There's only up to go. It's one

0:57:13.880 --> 0:57:15.799
<v Speaker 1>of those like I feel. I feel like right now

0:57:15.800 --> 0:57:17.840
<v Speaker 1>I'm in the worst part of my life. I keep

0:57:17.840 --> 0:57:20.160
<v Speaker 1>telling my friends, if this isn't the worst, I swear

0:57:20.560 --> 0:57:27.400
<v Speaker 1>I've missed, this better be the worst, or I'm going

0:57:27.440 --> 0:57:31.560
<v Speaker 1>to be livid. And so, you know, for all the

0:57:31.640 --> 0:57:33.640
<v Speaker 1>days I wake up in the morning crying, for all

0:57:33.640 --> 0:57:35.640
<v Speaker 1>the times I fallen to the floor in the kitchen

0:57:35.680 --> 0:57:37.680
<v Speaker 1>in the middle of cooking a meal because a memory

0:57:37.800 --> 0:57:40.160
<v Speaker 1>came up, and all of the times that I've pushed

0:57:40.160 --> 0:57:42.280
<v Speaker 1>people away because I just didn't know how to grieve

0:57:42.320 --> 0:57:47.200
<v Speaker 1>in community, and all the times that I have, you know,

0:57:47.560 --> 0:57:53.200
<v Speaker 1>just been undone in the way that life happens. I

0:57:53.240 --> 0:57:56.600
<v Speaker 1>am tending to my squishy part, and that's the only

0:57:56.640 --> 0:57:59.280
<v Speaker 1>thing I can control. Nothing else. Really. I can't control

0:57:59.280 --> 0:58:03.000
<v Speaker 1>what the governments do. I can't control what racism, capitalism,

0:58:03.120 --> 0:58:05.080
<v Speaker 1>all of these things, how these ways are showing up.

0:58:05.080 --> 0:58:08.120
<v Speaker 1>I can't control how my neighbor, my lover, my family

0:58:08.160 --> 0:58:10.720
<v Speaker 1>remember what they do, or how they feel. But I

0:58:11.080 --> 0:58:14.280
<v Speaker 1>feel very hopeful about the work that I'm doing on

0:58:14.840 --> 0:58:19.520
<v Speaker 1>supporting and leaning into myself, and there's there's some hope there.

0:58:20.480 --> 0:58:21.960
<v Speaker 2>There are so many ways that I want to go

0:58:22.000 --> 0:58:23.760
<v Speaker 2>with that, but I also want to respect your time,

0:58:23.800 --> 0:58:25.600
<v Speaker 2>So I'm not going to dive into all of those things,

0:58:25.600 --> 0:58:29.160
<v Speaker 2>but I so much look forward to listening to you

0:58:29.280 --> 0:58:32.120
<v Speaker 2>explore those things and share them with the world.

0:58:32.240 --> 0:58:34.440
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I will be doing I learned that I also

0:58:34.600 --> 0:58:37.720
<v Speaker 1>do these things out loud. It feels true for me

0:58:37.800 --> 0:58:41.040
<v Speaker 1>and natural for me to do that. And that's another

0:58:41.080 --> 0:58:43.480
<v Speaker 1>thing with healing. You just you accept what's true for you,

0:58:43.560 --> 0:58:45.520
<v Speaker 1>and you no longer get stressed about how other people

0:58:45.520 --> 0:58:47.800
<v Speaker 1>feel about them. You just can answer like, oh, yeah,

0:58:47.800 --> 0:58:49.560
<v Speaker 1>that's my truth. I've really looked into it and I

0:58:49.560 --> 0:58:51.080
<v Speaker 1>know it's true for me. So I'm just going to

0:58:51.200 --> 0:58:53.600
<v Speaker 1>keep going this way. And so I think that might

0:58:53.640 --> 0:58:55.080
<v Speaker 1>be a little bit of hope too, that when you

0:58:55.120 --> 0:58:57.840
<v Speaker 1>know yourself, when you continue to look into yourself, you

0:58:57.840 --> 0:58:59.800
<v Speaker 1>can have a truth that you can kind of stand

0:58:59.840 --> 0:59:00.640
<v Speaker 1>more firmly with.

0:59:01.120 --> 0:59:04.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I love all these things. Okay, it has been

0:59:04.400 --> 0:59:06.520
<v Speaker 2>such a joy and such an honor to talk with you.

0:59:06.520 --> 0:59:09.240
<v Speaker 2>Now we're going to link to your website, the Loveland Foundation,

0:59:09.240 --> 0:59:11.000
<v Speaker 2>which we didn't get to talk about today, but we'll

0:59:11.040 --> 0:59:13.520
<v Speaker 2>be in the show notes, and obviously to your new

0:59:13.560 --> 0:59:15.960
<v Speaker 2>book and your bookstore and all of the things. But

0:59:16.040 --> 0:59:17.760
<v Speaker 2>is there anything else you want people to know about

0:59:17.800 --> 0:59:19.480
<v Speaker 2>where to find you or what's coming up.

0:59:19.680 --> 0:59:22.400
<v Speaker 1>No, I'm just working on a lot of opportunities to gather.

0:59:22.880 --> 0:59:25.400
<v Speaker 1>So I hope people continue to follow and look for

0:59:25.440 --> 0:59:28.560
<v Speaker 1>ways that we can get together virtually and in person

0:59:28.600 --> 0:59:34.959
<v Speaker 1>around grief, around generational conversations, around knowing ourselves. I'm looking

0:59:34.960 --> 0:59:38.800
<v Speaker 1>forward to being and more conversation with people virtually and

0:59:39.320 --> 0:59:41.400
<v Speaker 1>sharing space in the same room.

0:59:41.840 --> 0:59:46.320
<v Speaker 2>Excellent. I cannot wait to see what happens next. All right, everybody,

0:59:46.400 --> 0:59:48.320
<v Speaker 2>stay tuned. We will be back with your questions to

0:59:48.360 --> 1:00:00.600
<v Speaker 2>carry with you right after this break. I leave you

1:00:00.640 --> 1:00:04.400
<v Speaker 2>with some questions to carry with you until we meet again. Now,

1:00:04.520 --> 1:00:07.000
<v Speaker 2>Rachel said something, Okay, she said a lot of things,

1:00:07.040 --> 1:00:09.800
<v Speaker 2>but something that really stuck with me about how we

1:00:09.840 --> 1:00:15.680
<v Speaker 2>revisit our past, Like usually it's this excavation of awfulness, right,

1:00:15.800 --> 1:00:18.120
<v Speaker 2>like searching for the places that you didn't get enough

1:00:18.240 --> 1:00:22.000
<v Speaker 2>or things were terrible. Rachel said, I look at my childhood,

1:00:22.000 --> 1:00:24.880
<v Speaker 2>and I have to dust some things off. When you

1:00:24.960 --> 1:00:26.800
<v Speaker 2>do that, you're not just going to the box of

1:00:26.800 --> 1:00:29.240
<v Speaker 2>bones and figuring out all the hard, terrible things that

1:00:29.320 --> 1:00:32.960
<v Speaker 2>happened in your childhood. You're also clearing off the spaces

1:00:33.120 --> 1:00:37.760
<v Speaker 2>where good things are. I love that. It's part of

1:00:37.760 --> 1:00:40.520
<v Speaker 2>that curiosity we talked about so much together, coming to

1:00:40.600 --> 1:00:45.360
<v Speaker 2>your own personal story with like not with this like

1:00:46.120 --> 1:00:49.479
<v Speaker 2>rabid bloodhound approach of rooting out the ways that things

1:00:49.480 --> 1:00:53.760
<v Speaker 2>shaped you in a negative way, but with a gentleness,

1:00:54.080 --> 1:00:57.200
<v Speaker 2>an openness, and a kindness and a curiosity about how

1:00:57.240 --> 1:01:02.000
<v Speaker 2>the story of your life has shaped you. It's such

1:01:02.040 --> 1:01:06.400
<v Speaker 2>a gentler way of being with yourself, right. I love it.

1:01:07.320 --> 1:01:10.160
<v Speaker 2>You don't have to be a bloodhound excavating terrible things.

1:01:10.200 --> 1:01:17.960
<v Speaker 2>You can be a curious, gentle explorer of your own life.

1:01:18.160 --> 1:01:21.640
<v Speaker 2>How about you? What stuck with you from this conversation.

1:01:22.440 --> 1:01:24.400
<v Speaker 2>Everybody's going to take something different from the show, but

1:01:24.440 --> 1:01:27.240
<v Speaker 2>I do hope you found something to hold on too.

1:01:28.800 --> 1:01:30.600
<v Speaker 2>If you want to tell me how today's show felt

1:01:30.680 --> 1:01:32.440
<v Speaker 2>for you, or you have thoughts on what we covered,

1:01:32.600 --> 1:01:35.480
<v Speaker 2>let me know. Tag at Refuge and Grief on all

1:01:35.480 --> 1:01:37.640
<v Speaker 2>the social platforms so I can hear how this episode

1:01:37.640 --> 1:01:40.400
<v Speaker 2>affected you, and remember to leave a review too.

1:01:40.480 --> 1:01:40.840
<v Speaker 1>Please.

1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:45.959
<v Speaker 2>This season's guests are incredible and reviews are a great

1:01:46.000 --> 1:01:50.720
<v Speaker 2>way to let me know how this season feels to you.

1:01:50.760 --> 1:01:53.320
<v Speaker 2>Follow the show at its Okay pod on TikTok and

1:01:53.560 --> 1:01:56.360
<v Speaker 2>Refuge and Grief Everywhere else. To see video clips from

1:01:56.360 --> 1:02:00.000
<v Speaker 2>the show, use the hashtag It's Okay pod on all

1:02:00.040 --> 1:02:02.640
<v Speaker 2>all the platforms, so not only can I find you,

1:02:03.120 --> 1:02:08.160
<v Speaker 2>but others can too. Conversations are important. None of us

1:02:08.200 --> 1:02:10.800
<v Speaker 2>are entirely okay right now, and it's time we start

1:02:10.800 --> 1:02:17.120
<v Speaker 2>talking about that together. Yeah, it's okay that you're not okay.

1:02:18.120 --> 1:02:22.200
<v Speaker 2>You're in good company. That's it for this week. Remember

1:02:22.200 --> 1:02:23.840
<v Speaker 2>to subscribe to the show and share it with the

1:02:23.840 --> 1:02:28.520
<v Speaker 2>people you love. Coming up next week, everybody the original

1:02:28.920 --> 1:02:34.480
<v Speaker 2>climate activist author Bill mckibbon. Follow the show on your

1:02:34.480 --> 1:02:40.720
<v Speaker 2>favorite platforms so you do not miss an episode. Want

1:02:40.760 --> 1:02:43.520
<v Speaker 2>more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As my

1:02:43.600 --> 1:02:46.080
<v Speaker 2>dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief that

1:02:46.160 --> 1:02:49.000
<v Speaker 2>we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about all

1:02:49.040 --> 1:02:54.040
<v Speaker 2>that without accidentally grief, gaslighting somebody or gaslighting yourself, that

1:02:54.200 --> 1:02:58.800
<v Speaker 2>is an important skill for everyone. It helped to have

1:02:58.880 --> 1:03:02.560
<v Speaker 2>those conversations with trainings, professional resources, and my best selling book,

1:03:02.840 --> 1:03:06.000
<v Speaker 2>It's Okay that You're Not Okay. At Megandivine dot Co.

1:03:08.240 --> 1:03:10.440
<v Speaker 2>It's Okay that You're Not Okay. The podcast is written

1:03:10.440 --> 1:03:15.280
<v Speaker 2>and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown,

1:03:15.600 --> 1:03:19.320
<v Speaker 2>co produced by Elizabeth Fozzio. Logistical and social media support

1:03:19.320 --> 1:03:23.160
<v Speaker 2>from Micah, Post production and editing by Houston Tilley. Show

1:03:23.160 --> 1:03:26.840
<v Speaker 2>notes and research support from our fabulous intern Hannah Goldman.

1:03:27.680 --> 1:03:31.000
<v Speaker 2>Music provided by Wave Crush and background noise this time

1:03:31.120 --> 1:03:34.600
<v Speaker 2>provided by The Big Crows tap dancing on the metal,

1:03:34.640 --> 1:03:38.360
<v Speaker 2>awning outside my window. Hi Crows,