Speaker 1: Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Welcome my friends to this very special episode
Speaker 1: of Holy Human. I mean they are all very special
Speaker 1: to me, but this one is one of my favorites,
Speaker 1: and I say that with every new episode. Writer Steph
Speaker 1: Jagger burst onto the literary scene with her adventurous two
Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen memoir Unbound, a story of snow and
Speaker 1: self discovery. In her latest work, Everything Left to Remember
Speaker 1: My Mother, Our Memories and a Journey through the Rocky Mountains,
Speaker 1: she navigates the emotionally rocky landscape of her mother's battle
Speaker 1: with Alzheimer's disease. Today, Steph joins me for a wide ranging,
Speaker 1: intimate and vulnerable conversation about her mother, mother, Earth, female archetypes,
Speaker 1: and so much more on this very special episode of
Speaker 1: Holy Humane. Now, before we start, always just reading it
Speaker 1: on your website, just about you, and I love that
Speaker 1: you said I'm scared often I do we get comfortable?
Speaker 1: They're right, I don't know. I'm still trying to figure
Speaker 1: that out. I'm always scared going into interviews, and especially
Speaker 1: with your book, because there's so many things that are
Speaker 1: very specific that I wanted to touch on and things
Speaker 1: that you've written that were so incredibly poetic and stunning.
Speaker 1: It's such a beautiful book. So thank you for joining
Speaker 1: me on this podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm really deeply honored to kind of co create something. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I love that both of your books, Everything Left to
Speaker 1: Remember and Unbound are both about the adventurous journey. You know,
Speaker 1: I travel all the time, of course, and I just wondered,
Speaker 1: what do you think it is about travel that helps
Speaker 1: us discover ourselves? I think for me, starting with a
Speaker 1: very early travel that I did kind of right out
Speaker 1: of university, really, um, I discovered that I was no
Speaker 1: one but me. There was no role to play other
Speaker 1: than me. You know when you travel, and a lot
Speaker 1: of traveling I did was traveling on my own. And
Speaker 1: so I wasn't someone's sister. I wasn't someone's daughter. I
Speaker 1: wasn't I mean, I grew up in a place that
Speaker 1: my grandparents went to the same high school that my
Speaker 1: parents went to that I went to. So so I
Speaker 1: wasn't anyone granddaughter or little sister, etcetera, which allowed me
Speaker 1: to then I think, practice showing up as me as
Speaker 1: as authentically me without having to fulfill those roles, and
Speaker 1: I think I was. You know, some of the people
Speaker 1: that I've met on my travels have been people that
Speaker 1: have had sustained relationships with over time because I think
Speaker 1: they probably had a clearer sense of who I was,
Speaker 1: just based on me being made, me feeling the freedom
Speaker 1: to show up as you know, a naive traveler in
Speaker 1: the world. I love that I have never had that
Speaker 1: experience of travel. My travel has been very, very different.
Speaker 1: When you say that you get to basically be more
Speaker 1: of yourself and you could be whoever you want to be, really,
Speaker 1: you know, and for me it's been so interesting because
Speaker 1: I'm showing up as me or what people it's probably
Speaker 1: it's probably completely so interesting. I love hearing that, though
Speaker 1: maybe I just need to put on a wig and
Speaker 1: completely different. I think some of it is is maybe
Speaker 1: there's a broader question of travel or not. Where is
Speaker 1: it that I feel I have the deepest access to
Speaker 1: my own internal world and can kind of like pull
Speaker 1: that forward, and and that maybe travel for some people
Speaker 1: that maybe inside of their families, for other people that
Speaker 1: maybe in in kind of more private inner sanctums for others,
Speaker 1: And I think that's the kind of largest question is
Speaker 1: where did I feel as though I was encouraged to
Speaker 1: access a larger internal landscape and kind of bring that forward. Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely for me, that is for me, that's nature. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: And I know you talk a lot about nature. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'm going to just jump to this question because I
Speaker 1: one of the things that I um, one of the
Speaker 1: things that I've been exploring is more nature and being
Speaker 1: in tune with animals and just exploring what that brings
Speaker 1: out in me. But I find myself so resistant to it. Um.
Speaker 1: And in your book you said the truth meets you
Speaker 1: in nature, which is why it's sometimes hardest to go,
Speaker 1: which like brings me to tears. I I just wondered
Speaker 1: if you had any words of wisdom on the resistance
Speaker 1: to her, because I feel like there's some resistance there
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, I think, um, certainly that line, like
Speaker 1: the truth meets either there's there's probably a couple of
Speaker 1: things I would think about. Number one would be I
Speaker 1: think it is hard sometimes for us to go because
Speaker 1: nature can't be anything other than it is. A cedar
Speaker 1: tree can't one day wake up and be like you
Speaker 1: know what, I feel like I need to like put
Speaker 1: on a bit of a mask this morning and like
Speaker 1: play the role of an alder like it just can't
Speaker 1: do that. Um. Really the only you know, raven or
Speaker 1: maybe the only exception they can throw their voice, um.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, you know, I think I think
Speaker 1: one of the most confronting things is we're not used
Speaker 1: to that as humans, as as walking up to another
Speaker 1: human being and kind of going, this is exactly the
Speaker 1: essence of who this person is, and they can't change it,
Speaker 1: and they can't mask it, and they can't be something
Speaker 1: they're not, and they can't pretend and they can't. So
Speaker 1: I think it's really confronting sometimes to go into nature,
Speaker 1: to go it is going to show me its rawest,
Speaker 1: truest identity and essence, and it's going to ask me
Speaker 1: to do the same. And there's very very few places
Speaker 1: that were asked to do that. In fact, most often
Speaker 1: were asked to do the opposite, Like most often were like,
Speaker 1: could you just play this role for me? You know,
Speaker 1: I'd really prefer that if you just play this role
Speaker 1: for me. So I think that's confronting. I think the
Speaker 1: other part of nature and wilderness that is confronting, and
Speaker 1: I think especially so for women, is you know, we've
Speaker 1: been taught that nature is a wild, scary, dark place,
Speaker 1: and and that things there are feral and untamed, and
Speaker 1: there's beasts in the woods, etcetera, and so we shouldn't
Speaker 1: go there. And I think that's just a direct example
Speaker 1: of what we've been told about our own bodies. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I was thinking our nature, our nature is that's exactly
Speaker 1: what it's been, that's right. And so I think actually
Speaker 1: what we're more scared of is meeting the kind of internal, feral, messy, wild,
Speaker 1: kind of howling parts of ourselves that we've been told
Speaker 1: we have to tame. And so when we go into
Speaker 1: nature and again we're kind of confronted by that, I
Speaker 1: think it's easy for us to mask and say that's
Speaker 1: the scary thing, that external thing, when in fact, I
Speaker 1: think it's our own interiority that we haven't been encouraged
Speaker 1: to explore and trespassed. Like it feels like trespassing, which
Speaker 1: is ridiculous, right, because it's our own bodies and our
Speaker 1: own selves. And I think that's you know, one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that nature has been so so so powerful
Speaker 1: for me is kind of to go am I scared
Speaker 1: of that noise or am I scared of the feeling
Speaker 1: it brings up inside of my body that I am
Speaker 1: so deeply uncomfortable? Why and why is it that I'm
Speaker 1: so deeply uncomfortable with feelings in my body? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I go into nature, even if it's just during
Speaker 1: the daytime, like out in our backyard, I find that
Speaker 1: that's where I'm not with my phone, I'm not with anything,
Speaker 1: and it's I think it is. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: It brings up whatever comes up at that moment in time.
Speaker 1: Um can be really confronting and uncomfortable because I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just being with nature and and my own nature, and
Speaker 1: that can be Yeah. Sometimes I just sometimes we all
Speaker 1: want to run away from that, but it is, it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a beautiful dance. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1: That really jumped out at me, because I know sometimes
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to just get myself outside and
Speaker 1: just be with ultimately me. Yes, that that's exactly it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, are we scared of a nature
Speaker 1: out there? Are we scared of our human nature? You know,
Speaker 1: that's a big that's always been, you know, a big
Speaker 1: question for me, and I think you know, to use
Speaker 1: nature as a guide, a guide for that you know.
Speaker 1: You also referred to um, you know in your question
Speaker 1: like what is it about her? Right as in mother nature?
Speaker 1: And and I think there are so many of us
Speaker 1: that when we think about mother, that can be a complex, scary, negative,
Speaker 1: um kind of fraud relationship. And so if that's been
Speaker 1: the relationship with our own mother, why on earth would
Speaker 1: we want to have a relationship with the mother who? Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you put it that way, UM right, I mean
Speaker 1: this this is what you know if you if you
Speaker 1: flip this quite often if you think about this in
Speaker 1: a religious context. This is why many people, many men,
Speaker 1: I think, have have deep issues in religious because because
Speaker 1: you know, priests are called father. So if you've had
Speaker 1: a negative relationship with father, why why am I How
Speaker 1: on earth am I going to get to a place
Speaker 1: where I could trust the Big Father? Oh yeah, so
Speaker 1: these are questions I asked myself. Yeah. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: think that's a that's a learning and a you know
Speaker 1: for me, really the question is whether it's whether it's
Speaker 1: remothering or continued mothering. There is a question thereof how
Speaker 1: do I if there wasn't trust inside of my own
Speaker 1: relationship with my mother or inside of my own relationship
Speaker 1: with my own mothering of self. How do I get
Speaker 1: to the place with nature where there can be trust
Speaker 1: between her and I? Wow, that's you just broke that
Speaker 1: down for me. Really, I feel so seen because I
Speaker 1: I've been going through that with my own self. Of like,
Speaker 1: I did some work the other day where I was
Speaker 1: revisiting my my inner child, and and what came out
Speaker 1: was that I don't that peace of me, didn't trust me,
Speaker 1: and and so yeah, and then tying nature into that,
Speaker 1: and then trying my own mother's the relationship with my
Speaker 1: mother into that where I don't I don't run to
Speaker 1: my mother for solace and comfort and so yeah, And
Speaker 1: and I think I've had a lack of trust around
Speaker 1: mother nature of like you know when people say, you know,
Speaker 1: let the earth hold you like it it could hold
Speaker 1: every I'm like and so but I recognize that I
Speaker 1: so deeply desire that, And I think sometimes sometimes I
Speaker 1: think what's coming up for me around nature is grief
Speaker 1: because I recognizing that I so deeply desire to be
Speaker 1: held by the mother and and starting to starting to
Speaker 1: hold my own child, starting to be able to be
Speaker 1: held by nature is a journey. Yeah, you know, there's
Speaker 1: something coming up for me just as we're talking about this,
Speaker 1: which is um and I don't necessarily want to get
Speaker 1: into like like individual pathology, but um, you know, there's
Speaker 1: something to be said for visiting nature being in kind
Speaker 1: of wild spaces in broad daylight, which which feels to
Speaker 1: me intuitively like very confronting as opposed to night. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of people would say, well, like nighttime is
Speaker 1: when you're like, are in a tent and you hear
Speaker 1: all the noises and you're like, you know, there there's
Speaker 1: a there's a more visceral like fear with that, right,
Speaker 1: But you know there's a thought when you ask, like
Speaker 1: what is advice about getting into nature? Like you know,
Speaker 1: for me where I live, I could open a window
Speaker 1: at night and it could be pitch black, but and
Speaker 1: I could hear frogs, and that might be the first step.
Speaker 1: Like there's an intuitive hit here for me. That's like
Speaker 1: I wonder if the first step is actually kind of
Speaker 1: in darkness, if that might feel more comforting and less
Speaker 1: confronting than kind of broad daylight. Like what if there
Speaker 1: wasn't as much light so that I couldn't see at all,
Speaker 1: Like if it was just a little bit more sense
Speaker 1: based as in, what am I hearing, what am I smelling?
Speaker 1: What am I feeling myself touch, you know, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And and i'd be I'd be curious about that as
Speaker 1: a as an entry way and for people that it's
Speaker 1: also really reminiscent then of what is the womb like
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Yeah, that feels very would Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I get up fairly early in the morning and
Speaker 1: I let the dog outside, and that's my favorite time
Speaker 1: because there is something very womblike about it. And I
Speaker 1: love hearing the owls of owls that come visit, and
Speaker 1: it's my favorite. So, yeah, there is something about the
Speaker 1: darkness that feels very womblike. I love that, you know.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk about your latest book,
Speaker 1: Everything to Remember, which is so stunning. It chronicles this
Speaker 1: epic camping trip that you took with your mom after
Speaker 1: her Alzheimer's diagnosis, And I just wanted to know a
Speaker 1: bit about your mother and how you would describe your
Speaker 1: relationship with her before her diagnosis. Yeah, Um, my mother
Speaker 1: is a wonderful woman. Um she My relationship with my
Speaker 1: mom was was good. That we weren't like best friend
Speaker 1: mother daughter. We didn't have that kind of tightness um,
Speaker 1: but we also didn't have kind of a palpable kind
Speaker 1: of tension that a lot of mothers and daughters have.
Speaker 1: And I didn't feel really kind of pressured by her
Speaker 1: to fulfill any of her dreams and hopes, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that of her life that went on fulfilled, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I had from my mother. She was, she was and
Speaker 1: still is demonstratively warm. That was her primary mode of
Speaker 1: mothering was too. Like I have countless memories of just
Speaker 1: her body like a hug, a hand, a touch of
Speaker 1: petting on the head, like all through my life. So
Speaker 1: there was this kind of physical availability and demonstrative warmth
Speaker 1: through my life. And there was a lot of consistency
Speaker 1: and a lot of a lot of safety woven into that.
Speaker 1: And I think what that gave me right from the
Speaker 1: get go was maybe what I'd call like nervous system
Speaker 1: privilege in a lot of ways. Yeah, that that being said,
Speaker 1: there was I was a little one, and this is
Speaker 1: this is really in the book, that that felt a
Speaker 1: lot of emotion in rooms and felt a lot of
Speaker 1: energy in rooms, and no one, including my mother, especially
Speaker 1: my mother, was able to help me create language for that,
Speaker 1: and that there's a lot of confusion for me, and
Speaker 1: why am I feeling all of these things and nobody's
Speaker 1: talking about it, and nobody's helping me name it, and
Speaker 1: nobody else is feeling it, you know. So there was
Speaker 1: a lot of shutting down of of different physical feelings
Speaker 1: for myself, energetic feelings, emotional feelings, etcetera, in order to
Speaker 1: kind of fit that mold. And and I think that
Speaker 1: created over time, Um, why aren't you blaming a bunch
Speaker 1: of things to me with words? Uh? That created over
Speaker 1: time a large kind of gap for us. I think
Speaker 1: there's two other things. Is that just in general, what
Speaker 1: I was seeing in society and certainly inside of my
Speaker 1: parents marriage, which was quite a traditional masculine feminine roles
Speaker 1: inside of marriage, was a devaluation of the feminine. And
Speaker 1: so I simultaneously like devalued her um because I saw
Speaker 1: everybody else kind of doing that with the feminine, and
Speaker 1: and so it kind of pushed me in the direction
Speaker 1: of the masculine, which is a lot of what the
Speaker 1: first book is about. Um. And then everything left remember
Speaker 1: is like kind of coming back to that feminine. And
Speaker 1: so I think there was a large devaluation and really
Speaker 1: are not seeing her now. That was kind of no
Speaker 1: fault of her own. That's more societal kind of systemic
Speaker 1: um view um. And I think the final piece with
Speaker 1: that is that there were and this has kind of
Speaker 1: talked about in the book, there was her own lived
Speaker 1: experience that that created deep, deep shame for her all
Speaker 1: around the feminine. And so she didn't have access to that,
Speaker 1: Like she didn't give me access to that, but she
Speaker 1: also didn't have access to that, so there was an
Speaker 1: even further kind of pull for me to move away
Speaker 1: from her, like to separate from her like a maiden
Speaker 1: does we we we do that archetypeally we we have
Speaker 1: to separate from our mother's But there was there was
Speaker 1: a real kind of devaluation, and I think I think
Speaker 1: she also was taught to devalue and carried a lot
Speaker 1: of shame around around the feminine, and so that that
Speaker 1: created a kind of chasm for us that that eventually
Speaker 1: through the book there was a much deeper exploration of.
Speaker 1: But that was you know, there was a demonstrative warmth,
Speaker 1: steadiness and safety on a multitude of different levels, and
Speaker 1: a deep, generation long rejection of the feminine. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: don't you think we're the first generation that's actually even
Speaker 1: recognizing that that shut down and the Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: when you talked about you also kind of pushing that
Speaker 1: part of your mother away and turning towards the masculine.
Speaker 1: I mean, I relate to that so much, and it
Speaker 1: it made me very sad. Your book is so beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's really brought me to questioning so many things and
Speaker 1: so much grief with it myself. But I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can see where I've done that with my mother
Speaker 1: and how I've I've definitely been more masculine driven in
Speaker 1: my life, and it's it's now for the first time,
Speaker 1: I think I'm recognizing how much I've denied my own
Speaker 1: feminine and how much the world, especially right now, is
Speaker 1: denying and has denied the feminine. And it's enraging. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely. This was such a huge part of
Speaker 1: the journey for me, and this is like was a
Speaker 1: real kick off. There was I was therapist I was
Speaker 1: working with who said straight up to me, you know,
Speaker 1: you think you're bigger than your mother, And I didn't
Speaker 1: know what that really meant. Cognitively, I was like, what
Speaker 1: is it? Do I think I'm smarter. Do I think
Speaker 1: I'm more important? Like what does that even mean? But
Speaker 1: but my body clear, I mean it was like my
Speaker 1: entire physicality was like uh huh. So I had to
Speaker 1: really reckon with that and a lot of this for me.
Speaker 1: I think about this with my mother. I think about
Speaker 1: this with archetypal mother, and I think about this with
Speaker 1: mother nature, this kind of right sizing of she came first,
Speaker 1: and there were burdens that that generation had to carry
Speaker 1: that I think sometimes our generation doesn't always see. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that there weren't hurts, that there weren't
Speaker 1: things that were mistakes made, that there weren't um there
Speaker 1: wasn't pain caused. But you know, I often think about
Speaker 1: it when I think about my mom's generation and her
Speaker 1: mom as well, what they had to bury just straight
Speaker 1: up barry to make it through and and what our
Speaker 1: generation now has to unearth to kind of bring that
Speaker 1: back to life. Now, when I think about that in
Speaker 1: regards to just my individual mother daughter relationship, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of anger, right, Like, as you said, like I
Speaker 1: just I get enraged at that, and I get enraged
Speaker 1: a society now. But when I pull that out in
Speaker 1: a time frame, and look at that from a lineage
Speaker 1: standpoint long term, I actually think there might be kind
Speaker 1: of like a mystic technique of Okay, this generation is
Speaker 1: going to bury the treasure, and that is their job,
Speaker 1: and they're kind of sacred contract and it is going
Speaker 1: to be painful, and their daughters are going to be
Speaker 1: very mad at them for that, and their daughters have
Speaker 1: a sacred contract of unearthing that, and that's going to
Speaker 1: anger some of the previous generation who had to kind
Speaker 1: of keep their mouth shut for a long time. What
Speaker 1: what do you mean You're the generation that can now
Speaker 1: talk about this and what you know? I mean, that's terrifying. Mhm. Alright,
Speaker 1: on that intense note, we're going to cut away for
Speaker 1: a brief break, but we'll be right back with more.
Speaker 1: Step Jacker, Welcome back, my friends. Steph was just breaking
Speaker 1: down the multigenerational, multifaceted and multi layered concept of the
Speaker 1: mother daughter bond. But when I think about it from
Speaker 1: that lineage kind of what am I looking at over
Speaker 1: two d and fifty three hundred years, I actually think, gosh,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of gratitude for the generations before
Speaker 1: for what they buried in a kind of mystical, unconscious
Speaker 1: attempt to keep safe. I love that. I love that perspective.
Speaker 1: I've never thought of it in that way. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely have been able to find the gratitude for
Speaker 1: for my mother and for everything you just said of
Speaker 1: the burying. Um, but it's sometimes along with the anger,
Speaker 1: it's sometimes really hard to rest in that gratitude. Of course,
Speaker 1: of course it's like a both. And this is where
Speaker 1: all this nuance comes over, right, Like there's lived experience
Speaker 1: and then there's like, you know, the mytho poetic version, right,
Speaker 1: and it's like, Okay, some days I'm if I've had
Speaker 1: too much coffee, I'm probably in the lived experience version.
Speaker 1: And if I'm like, you know, have meditated all morning,
Speaker 1: I'm the mytho poetic and you know we dance, We
Speaker 1: dance in those spaces. Yeah, totally. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about your mother's Alzheimer's for you know, people out there
Speaker 1: who may have relatives that may be experiencing this, Um,
Speaker 1: maybe they might be experiencing some things themselves. What are
Speaker 1: what were some of the signs the signpost I guess
Speaker 1: along the way. Yeah, yeah, there, Um, there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot and they're very different. You know, there's there's there's
Speaker 1: Dementia is kind of the larger umbrella. Alzheimer's is one
Speaker 1: of the um kind of spokes underneath it, and there's
Speaker 1: multiple other forms of cognitive decline. And you know, for
Speaker 1: for my mother, there was a lot of early things
Speaker 1: missing names, um, you know, for just general forgetfulness about
Speaker 1: certain things, etcetera. But the real you know, when you
Speaker 1: walk across the street and there's a there's a hand
Speaker 1: flashing that says if it's like green, you can walk,
Speaker 1: and there's a person walking and then it starts to
Speaker 1: flash a hand like she started to get confused about
Speaker 1: those types of things, which is, you know, we know
Speaker 1: this stuff from when we're preschoolers. So there was there
Speaker 1: was a general confusion general forgetfulness, really forgetful with names
Speaker 1: and dates and places, that type of thing. The main
Speaker 1: tip off for me. I remember I was driving with
Speaker 1: her in a car one day and we were having
Speaker 1: a conversation and I asked her a question and she
Speaker 1: said something that immediately enraged me. Like I was kind
Speaker 1: of like I cannot but I was so mad, and
Speaker 1: I got into the car. She was dropping me off
Speaker 1: at a friend's place and I got into the car
Speaker 1: and it was my best friend and I immediately start
Speaker 1: launching into this story about how awful my mother is,
Speaker 1: right like, I'm just like I can't believe my mother
Speaker 1: just said that about And part way through the story,
Speaker 1: I stopped and I was like, wait, that's not my mother,
Speaker 1: Like that's not something she would normally do or say,
Speaker 1: Like that is so far outside of the realm. Like
Speaker 1: my mom was a very like if you don't have
Speaker 1: anything nice to say, you don't say anything at all.
Speaker 1: And she was quite silent. She wouldn't really express kind
Speaker 1: of an opinion, especially an opinion that it was harsh
Speaker 1: or blunt. You know, that was just her. So when
Speaker 1: she said that, I I just remember thinking and I
Speaker 1: turned to my friend and I said, something's wrong with
Speaker 1: my mom. And in that moment, just all of the
Speaker 1: puzzle pieces, the forgetting, the names, the general forgetfulness, all
Speaker 1: the things that I mentioned before just kind of click
Speaker 1: click click click click click click, and I went, Okay,
Speaker 1: what was something's wrong? I think that shifting in personality
Speaker 1: is a very interesting sign, and it's this is it's
Speaker 1: often confusing because this is we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the two thirds of the people diagnosed with Alzheimers or women,
Speaker 1: And so we're talking about a lot of women who are,
Speaker 1: you know, in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, which is
Speaker 1: also you know, menopause. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: shifts in our personalities and in our moods and in
Speaker 1: our you know, and so sometimes it's really tough to decipher,
Speaker 1: Like am I am I feeling brain foggy and forgetful
Speaker 1: and a little bit off and more moody because I'm
Speaker 1: going through a massive hormonal change And how am I
Speaker 1: talking to my doctor about that or you know, something
Speaker 1: going on with my brain? I mean, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a tricky kind of thing. So those shifts in personality
Speaker 1: in general, forgetfulness, I think are really really important in
Speaker 1: that age to pay attention to that. I mean, to
Speaker 1: be honest, Like, I'll be forty in August and I
Speaker 1: have I have a lot of those symptoms because my
Speaker 1: hormones are changing and having to learn to work with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's have a lot of brain fog and a lot
Speaker 1: of like I'll walk into a room and forget why
Speaker 1: I walked into the room. And so when I was
Speaker 1: reading about this, and I have had concern until I
Speaker 1: started to recognize that these are these can be hormonal
Speaker 1: changes and this is what happens. Um I I did
Speaker 1: have concern. I was like, what's happening to my mind?
Speaker 1: I used to be so clear and so yes, um
Speaker 1: I totally. When I was reading this book, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, And sometimes I wonder if that feels like
Speaker 1: a precursor to something that could be going or it
Speaker 1: could happen in the future. So it's definitely something as
Speaker 1: we go through these years to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: big time. Yes, absolutely, And you know our hormones play.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of research coming out that are that
Speaker 1: hormonal uh support and you know through the ages of
Speaker 1: forty and fifty can make a can make a big
Speaker 1: difference on our long term brain health. So that's an
Speaker 1: important um I just really think like I've thought that
Speaker 1: a lot this year. I turned forty last year, and
Speaker 1: I it's it is top of mind. You know what
Speaker 1: can I do now for any inflammation, for cognitive health,
Speaker 1: for hormonal health, etcetera. As I look it, really what
Speaker 1: is a lineage Because you know my grandmother had dementia
Speaker 1: as well, lived lived well into her nineties. But um,
Speaker 1: you know this is this is inside of our our
Speaker 1: family for sure. Howld your mom? Now, my mom is
Speaker 1: going to be seventy this uh this August? Okay, I
Speaker 1: love that August birthday. Um, so you did just mention
Speaker 1: your your mother's mother had dementia, and so what was
Speaker 1: what was your mom's role in taking care of her?
Speaker 1: And did she did your mom ever look at her
Speaker 1: and think this could be me? Ever? I, you know,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, my my mom was a woman
Speaker 1: of few words, and so there was not a time
Speaker 1: where I ever heard her say, oh shit, this this
Speaker 1: is I'm feeling these similar things. But as I look
Speaker 1: back at the timelines, I just think how absolutely excruciating.
Speaker 1: So my grandmother had, as I said, old age dementia.
Speaker 1: She lived on her own, um, you know, well into
Speaker 1: her eighties and was then moved into a care facility
Speaker 1: in her nineties. My my mom and her sister's um
Speaker 1: played kind of rotating roles of care. They would go
Speaker 1: and visit her. You know, there was one sister in
Speaker 1: basically daily you know, one helped more with groceries, one
Speaker 1: helped with walking her beloved dog, one helped with you know,
Speaker 1: balancing the checkbook, you know, various different things. And my
Speaker 1: grandmother died uh six months after my mother's diagnosis, So
Speaker 1: there was most definitely a year or two year period
Speaker 1: of time where my mother was showing signs and knew
Speaker 1: she was showing signs. We were having active conversations about
Speaker 1: it while her mother was in a steep decline. And
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I mean again, these weren't spoken. But
Speaker 1: I look back and I think, no wonder there was
Speaker 1: such a huge resistance to go to the doctor to
Speaker 1: get any sort of diagnosis because you're just you're just watching.
Speaker 1: It just would have been excruciating. And I think also
Speaker 1: for her sisters um to kind of you know, to
Speaker 1: see them, to see the two of them at the
Speaker 1: end of my grandmother's life, you know, in those six
Speaker 1: months to a year before my grandmother passed, to see
Speaker 1: the two of them together was just it was awful.
Speaker 1: They just their conversations were just nothing, they were it was.
Speaker 1: It was really excruciated. So I can only imagine that
Speaker 1: my mom uh found that to be difficult, and I
Speaker 1: know my mom used to get um very frustrated. I
Speaker 1: do remember one time we went I went with her
Speaker 1: to help balance my my grandmother's checkbook. My mom started
Speaker 1: to get very frustrated, very bossy, very domineering, kind of
Speaker 1: like just kind of shut up and do this, you know,
Speaker 1: And and my grandmother turned to me and and said
Speaker 1: she doesn't like taking care of me. And my mom
Speaker 1: was kind of like, it's not that mom, it's you know.
Speaker 1: But there a lot of moments of high frustration in
Speaker 1: that relationship. And I that also wasn't my mom. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can only assume that was because she was also
Speaker 1: a kind of looking locking eyes with what was going
Speaker 1: on in her own body. Yeah. Yeah, And when there's
Speaker 1: no words spoken about that, that's got to be a
Speaker 1: deep internal experience, very very confusing. You know. It's so
Speaker 1: interesting when you started to talk about the change in
Speaker 1: your mother's personality. One of the things you talk about
Speaker 1: in the book though, was the picture that you took
Speaker 1: of your mother by the horse, And there was this
Speaker 1: like beautiful change in her personality too, where she was
Speaker 1: standing in a different way that she would have never stood,
Speaker 1: and I just found it. It started to bring up
Speaker 1: a question to me of like does does also do
Speaker 1: you think Alzheimer's actually gives or brings out some of
Speaker 1: the shadowy or pieces of things that we've repressed and
Speaker 1: actually gives it an opportunity to speak in some way.
Speaker 1: That's what That's what came to me when I when
Speaker 1: I read that, it's just interesting. Yes, absolutely, I think
Speaker 1: for better or worse. I mean, there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stories of people who maybe have spent a life
Speaker 1: repressing anger where where Alzheimers there's a period of time
Speaker 1: where then there's you know, really large outburst of anger. Um,
Speaker 1: I think, you know when I think about Alzheimer's and again,
Speaker 1: you know, I I moved from the lived experience of
Speaker 1: the excruciating you know, day to day and the grief
Speaker 1: and the loss, and then I moved to a lens
Speaker 1: of kind of something that is more that I try
Speaker 1: to do this more expansive and kind of lineage based
Speaker 1: in maybe mytho poetic is to kind of think, this
Speaker 1: is a disease that is allowing this person's or changing
Speaker 1: this person's time space reality constantly, and so in one
Speaker 1: moment she might be a hundred and seven and in
Speaker 1: one moment she might be seven or seventeen or you know,
Speaker 1: and and if I can actively grieve and move like,
Speaker 1: move into the center of grief, move into the kind
Speaker 1: of eye of the hurricane, and allow her reality to
Speaker 1: her time space, reality to shift instead of trying to
Speaker 1: force her to share mine, like to correct her and
Speaker 1: say no, mom. It says that's going to cause frustration.
Speaker 1: And this is for anybody with any sort of neurodiversity,
Speaker 1: by the way, that then if you're allowing that person
Speaker 1: to have that reality and you're doing your own grief
Speaker 1: work to kind of meet them there, I think what
Speaker 1: you're shown in that place is nothing short of of magic.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a quote this isn't an interview I
Speaker 1: heard with Brandy Carlyle. She said, mysticism is the most
Speaker 1: practical thing in the world. The only thing about is
Speaker 1: is it found smack in the middle of grief. And
Speaker 1: I think, gosh, if we if we can summon the
Speaker 1: courage to grieve what we're losing, to say, she is
Speaker 1: losing the reality of her being able to recognize me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to grieve that, and I'm going to walk
Speaker 1: further in and then what I'm going to see in
Speaker 1: that place is this woman in this coquettish stance, with
Speaker 1: this horse like, with this this grace that I had
Speaker 1: never seen her have before, all those times that I
Speaker 1: would have said, like I wish I knew my mom
Speaker 1: as a sixteen year old. Okay, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: willing to move past your own grief and you're own
Speaker 1: ego and your own identity, you will get a glimpse
Speaker 1: of that. And so there are a lot of I
Speaker 1: think gifts. I mean, I've seen more of my mother
Speaker 1: in her disappearance, and again it's it's the relinquishing of
Speaker 1: the roles, right, Like, she doesn't have to be my mother,
Speaker 1: she doesn't have to play the role as my mother.
Speaker 1: So who will I get to see. I'll get to
Speaker 1: see a friend, I'll get to see a sixteen year old.
Speaker 1: I'll get to see a flirtatious woman standing in the
Speaker 1: horse pasture. I'll get to see, you know, all of
Speaker 1: these different things which inside of the mother daughter role
Speaker 1: there's a constriction there. Yeah, I mean when I hear that, like,
Speaker 1: I wish that for every woman, not that the Alzheimer's piece,
Speaker 1: but the wish that every woman could experience the presence
Speaker 1: of themselves and the playfulness of being all of these
Speaker 1: complexities and that we are because we are such complex
Speaker 1: creatures that do carry around um, such a one dimensional
Speaker 1: version of ourselves that we think we have to present.
Speaker 1: And that's what I heard. For me. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there seemed to be a beautiful gift if we can
Speaker 1: find the gifts in these horrible situations of she got
Speaker 1: to be whoever she wanted to be, because it was
Speaker 1: in that moment. It's just very present. Absolutely. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things I've been fascinated by before all
Speaker 1: of this, before my mother was diagnosed, as I was
Speaker 1: fascinated by shape shifting, you know, the idea of of
Speaker 1: shape shifters within mythology, et cetera. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden she's diagnosed, and I'm like, I've got a
Speaker 1: slow motion shape shifting. It's like I can watch a
Speaker 1: hummingbird's wings move slowly, Like I have this gift of
Speaker 1: being able to watch this. Now, there's going to be
Speaker 1: parts of it that are absolutely excruciating that I do
Speaker 1: not want to endure, that I do not want to see.
Speaker 1: But there's also other parts of it that I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: you were fascinated by shape shifting, Well here you are
Speaker 1: you if you want to if you are able to
Speaker 1: say yes to this. You can witness kind of a
Speaker 1: slow motion shape shifting and that takes some courage to do.
Speaker 1: But there are gifts inside of that. Yeah, that seems
Speaker 1: like a life lesson of like where do we place
Speaker 1: our focus because that seems like, you know, that seems
Speaker 1: like that could be in any kind of situation of
Speaker 1: the rough parts of things, and then there's all of
Speaker 1: these beautiful gifts that we will miss if we're completely
Speaker 1: stuck in the negativity of the situation. And when I
Speaker 1: hear you talk about that, that's like, that's a big
Speaker 1: life lesson of where you're placing your focus. That's exactly it,
Speaker 1: and we usually place it where there's pain or something
Speaker 1: pinched exactly. Yeah, and this is exactly what We're gonna
Speaker 1: pause for a brief break, but we'll be read back. Hello,
Speaker 1: Agan loves Steph was just breaking down the profound and
Speaker 1: beautiful lessons that come from painful and uncomfortable situations. I
Speaker 1: think we we actually do need to place it there
Speaker 1: to kind of get through. But but can you as
Speaker 1: you're focusing on the initial pain or pinched area, can
Speaker 1: you add in a curiosity what else is here? Why
Speaker 1: is this pinched? How can I how, how does this
Speaker 1: need to be loved or tended to or nurtured so
Speaker 1: that I can move into the center of it, as
Speaker 1: opposed to kind of walking around it and saying you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be here, I hate you for being here, you know,
Speaker 1: and and never kind of touching it. You know that
Speaker 1: there has to be that there's gonna be a kind
Speaker 1: of a curiosity that's including that which is which is hard.
Speaker 1: That's a hard thing. Yeah, it is a hard thing.
Speaker 1: I find myself walking around things often until I until
Speaker 1: I finally do land in the middle of it. And
Speaker 1: when you do, it's like, oh, the finally not resisting
Speaker 1: it is what allows things to move, as allows things
Speaker 1: to open up. And you know, you mentioned grief because
Speaker 1: grief is It's funny. We've been touching upon grief on
Speaker 1: every episode of this podcast the season, and of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't be alive, I think right now
Speaker 1: without feeling some level of grief. And for those of
Speaker 1: us who feel so deeply, I feel like I wake
Speaker 1: up every day with it so heavy on my heart
Speaker 1: and try to find ways to be able to not
Speaker 1: ignore it, like to allow it to move because it's there,
Speaker 1: you know, like with your grief around this, like, how
Speaker 1: is how is your understanding of grief change through your
Speaker 1: mother's diagnosis. Yeah, that's a it's a beautiful question. I
Speaker 1: think of grief as a suite of emotions. It's not
Speaker 1: a singular emotion. It feels to me like a many
Speaker 1: of them at once. There might be pain, There might
Speaker 1: be sorrow, there might be sadness, rage. There also might
Speaker 1: be relief and gratitude and hopefulness and love inside of it.
Speaker 1: I think, um, this might sound stranger, I you know,
Speaker 1: maybe even like unattainable, and certainly can feel that way
Speaker 1: a little bit to me, But to be quite frank,
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most beautiful things in
Speaker 1: the in the human experience because there's yeah, because there's
Speaker 1: a there's an ache to grief that is not unlike
Speaker 1: a thaw. And you know when you when your fingertips
Speaker 1: are frozen and they there's this just a searing pain.
Speaker 1: There's like a searing kind of thumping pain in the
Speaker 1: in the in your fingertips and it's not it feels
Speaker 1: not dissimilar to that for me, that that that there's
Speaker 1: this great thaw happening. And when I think of something thawing,
Speaker 1: and I think of it moving from a state of
Speaker 1: firmness into fluidity. I am hopeful. And so if we
Speaker 1: are able to actually step into grief and surrender kind
Speaker 1: of to it, then I think we're capable of of
Speaker 1: the whole range of all of the other human emotions
Speaker 1: involved in the human experience, which means we can live
Speaker 1: life in a state of kind of aliveness. And I
Speaker 1: think you know, when we when we think about grief,
Speaker 1: I think we we often we we mostly pair it
Speaker 1: with death, right, and it is paired with death, but
Speaker 1: it could be death metaphorical, all different kinds of loss
Speaker 1: of a job or loss of a parent, for example.
Speaker 1: And I think inside of our society we that that's
Speaker 1: that's the master initiation is life, death, life right. So
Speaker 1: in our society we try to push grief and death off,
Speaker 1: thinking we will just have increased, ever increased, capitalistic kind
Speaker 1: of life, moving in a linear direction, more and more
Speaker 1: and more life. Now that doesn't happen. What that does
Speaker 1: is it suspends the initiation and it moves us into
Speaker 1: living death, which is the freeze. Oh well, we'll wait
Speaker 1: to say that again. Right, So if we push death
Speaker 1: and grief off and say, we don't have time for that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to feel that. We think it's going
Speaker 1: to lead to more living, but what it does is
Speaker 1: it suspends an initiation and causes living death. That's the
Speaker 1: freeze state. I'm concretized. I'm frozen. There's metastasization that happens
Speaker 1: in that place, and we think it's more life, but
Speaker 1: it is not. And so for us to kind of go, okay,
Speaker 1: let's look at nature like that's like saying, okay, fall, winter,
Speaker 1: you can't exist exactly, not allowed, and so things would die,
Speaker 1: things would actually die. And so we've I think we've
Speaker 1: got to get more and more comfortable. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the I mean, obviously the relationship with grief,
Speaker 1: like ongoing with my mom um. But I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that's been most helpful for me with
Speaker 1: this is Um. I believe his name is pronounced Martin
Speaker 1: pratchell Um, and he wrote a book called Rain on
Speaker 1: Dust and it is about grief and praise and really
Speaker 1: how so many cultures outside of the Western world have
Speaker 1: an element of grieving that is that is praise. Is
Speaker 1: how we sing hallelujah, you know, how we wail and
Speaker 1: chant and there's quite a sound to it, actually, and
Speaker 1: you know, you you know this as a singer. There's
Speaker 1: times where you're singing, right, there's times that you're singing
Speaker 1: about love, but there's this pain that's that's parallel, you know,
Speaker 1: in a voice, and and to me, that's grief. It's
Speaker 1: not just love. It's the combination of grief and praise,
Speaker 1: like thank God, I felt this person had this person
Speaker 1: had this thing, and you know, maybe they're gone, but
Speaker 1: there's there's something so beautiful there. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a quintessential human experience that we we really try and
Speaker 1: push away. UM and I and I think it's it's
Speaker 1: time for us to start. And as you said, it's
Speaker 1: it's wonderful. I love you know that that all of
Speaker 1: the conversations this year have been around grief. We're seeing
Speaker 1: this in the literary world. We're seeing this in so
Speaker 1: many different places that it's really time for us to go.
Speaker 1: Like this is you know, Catherine May's book Wintering. You know,
Speaker 1: I think this is why it's been so successful, because
Speaker 1: it's like, right, when do we rest, When do we
Speaker 1: go dormant? When do we say goodbye? When do we
Speaker 1: you know, gather and sing and be in ceremony and
Speaker 1: really honor uh and be in awe of what we
Speaker 1: were able to have in this season of our life
Speaker 1: so as to allow it to come to a conclution
Speaker 1: and then you know, move into a stage of of
Speaker 1: renewed life of rebirth. Yeah. Wow, Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: beautiful app Is there anything that any practice or anything
Speaker 1: that you have felt has supported you in your grief
Speaker 1: and to be able to get in touch with that
Speaker 1: piece of you more absolutely? Um I would say that
Speaker 1: ceremony and ritual are a really really important part of
Speaker 1: my grieving process, and I want to make this as
Speaker 1: accessible as possible. This is not some formal thing where
Speaker 1: there's a you must do it this way. I think
Speaker 1: when people hear about ceremony, which they're like okay, like
Speaker 1: what are the ten rules, and it's like, no, this
Speaker 1: is this has been a very um uh free, kind
Speaker 1: of made up process for me. So so, as an example,
Speaker 1: my mother was moved into a care facility in the
Speaker 1: summer of in Canada. I live in the US. I
Speaker 1: couldn't go, and in fact nobody could go because of COVID.
Speaker 1: She was just kind of dropped off outside and then
Speaker 1: one could go in with her, you know, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't be there, and I thought, this is a this
Speaker 1: is a this is a day full of grief. What
Speaker 1: do I do? And so I said, I'm going to
Speaker 1: cancel everything. I'm gonna move into ceremony. And I just
Speaker 1: I walked around my property. I grabbed a big branch.
Speaker 1: I had a couple of raven feathers that a friend
Speaker 1: gave me. I poured some tea. I you know, I
Speaker 1: basically kind of used nature all around me and had
Speaker 1: music playing, had candled like any ceremony and ritual to
Speaker 1: me is like all of my senses. You know, how
Speaker 1: am I? How am I? How am I embodying this?
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to do is I could try
Speaker 1: and think my way through this, but that's that's not
Speaker 1: what my brands made for. That's my BRAINDS made for taxes.
Speaker 1: That's about it. I need to I need to feel
Speaker 1: my way through this, and so I need to recruit
Speaker 1: all of my different senses and have them be present
Speaker 1: and let me make something, let me create something, let
Speaker 1: me offer something. And it's made up it who knows,
Speaker 1: you know. And I love to talk about that because
Speaker 1: it's I want to make that kind of process really
Speaker 1: accessible for people to be. Like a ceremony could be
Speaker 1: you lighting a candle, jumping up and down ten times
Speaker 1: and lying on the ground right, could be whatever I think,
Speaker 1: which I think is really interesting. I love that you
Speaker 1: just brought this up because this has been something that
Speaker 1: I've been playing with, is this sense of play in
Speaker 1: my life because I didn't have it as a child
Speaker 1: very much. I was forced into working and so play
Speaker 1: for me, and when I was really young, like ceremony
Speaker 1: and being with nature and that was such a huge
Speaker 1: part of of my world. I was an only child.
Speaker 1: I made up stories all the time like it was
Speaker 1: just such a massive part of my world. And I've
Speaker 1: been starting to find a return to that in some
Speaker 1: way once again, that resistance to nature and and and ceremony. Actually,
Speaker 1: I love ceremony. And it's like you just said, I
Speaker 1: want someone get to give me the ten steps. I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to make things up because it's
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm quote unquote doing and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it really is this form. I know that
Speaker 1: it's asking me to play. Yeah. I mean most of
Speaker 1: us know if we do know of ceremony and ritual.
Speaker 1: We know about it in religious contexts, and first of all,
Speaker 1: most women weren't allowed to be in those types of ceremonies.
Speaker 1: If they were, there was a way to do it,
Speaker 1: and you could mess it up and get it wrong.
Speaker 1: And so to really remove it from that and say
Speaker 1: like no, you can't play, and I love I love
Speaker 1: that you've said play because this this kind of ties
Speaker 1: back to the nervous system, This really embodied kind of
Speaker 1: way of processing grief or processing a moment in our lives.
Speaker 1: Play is a kind of nervous system blend of fear
Speaker 1: and curiosity. Oh right, Like there's how do you why
Speaker 1: fear in play? Because because you're doing something unknown, risky,
Speaker 1: there's excitement, you know, there's that pendulum of excitement through fear.
Speaker 1: We're kind of right on, Like I've never gone on
Speaker 1: a swing that high before. I've never I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've never like jumped into pool and done a cannonball.
Speaker 1: I've never played in a sandbox before. Am I going
Speaker 1: to get it in my underwear? Like you just don't know?
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of like it's it involves a vulnerability,
Speaker 1: and anytime there's a vulnerability, there's these little elements of
Speaker 1: fear and so adding it, making it and moving it
Speaker 1: to play is let's get curious about this, right, so
Speaker 1: as little kids, you know, you imagine a little kid
Speaker 1: maybe nervous to what I mean, you read about this
Speaker 1: in the book nervous to walk into school, right, nervous
Speaker 1: too nervous to be the one to do the sports
Speaker 1: day race, or to sing a song, or to paint
Speaker 1: the picture or whatever. There's nervousness. There's a little element
Speaker 1: of vulnerability and fear. And often times, you know, our
Speaker 1: nervous system doesn't know what you know, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a scary day. I could shut down, I could freeze,
Speaker 1: I could you know, a whole bunch of different things.
Speaker 1: But the minute I add in wonder, awe, curiosity, what's
Speaker 1: going to happen here? Et cetera? Is is a really
Speaker 1: really beautiful state for for nervous systems to find safety
Speaker 1: within some of those bordering on fear moments. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that that. I'm just about to embark on a tour,
Speaker 1: a new tour, and I've had so much anxiety around
Speaker 1: it because there's so much unknown. We're still putting everything
Speaker 1: together and it doesn't really come together tilast step, but
Speaker 1: you know we all on stage. Yeah, And so there
Speaker 1: is this I've been really trying to because there's you know,
Speaker 1: it's the both end. It's like, I know, I trust
Speaker 1: and know myself so well and I know that everything
Speaker 1: will work out for its highest good, and I also
Speaker 1: have this complete fear and anxiety around it. And you
Speaker 1: just described that so perfectly for me. I'm like, that
Speaker 1: is my nervous system, not know we want to do
Speaker 1: with it exactly? And where's the slip stream between those
Speaker 1: two places? Right? Absolutely? Yeah. I would love for you,
Speaker 1: you know, to discuss you know, losing losing your mother
Speaker 1: while she's still alive, Like, how is that? How has
Speaker 1: that affected your relationship with her? And when I look
Speaker 1: at my own parents, you know, I went through a
Speaker 1: lot with my parents have been through and we don't
Speaker 1: have very close relationships. And I've often think of how
Speaker 1: much grief I've had around them already, um, and how
Speaker 1: I don't look forward to them passing away because it's
Speaker 1: like the second round of grief. Yes, And so when
Speaker 1: I think of your situation, I relate in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, not that you know, I don't have the
Speaker 1: daily death and grief with with them, but I totally
Speaker 1: relate to that feeling of the grieving before the grieving.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. And before we explore that thought any further,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick pause, but we'll be
Speaker 1: at back Welcome back leaves. Steph and I were just
Speaker 1: diving into the multiple layers of grief that come with
Speaker 1: our parental relationships as we age. There's current grief, there's
Speaker 1: anticipatory grief, um and I think also for a lot
Speaker 1: of us with our parents, especially if relationships have been
Speaker 1: fraught or tense, is then when we think about them dying,
Speaker 1: there's there's there's a there's a grief of the actual loss,
Speaker 1: but there's also a grief of I think if parents
Speaker 1: are still living and there's been attention in the relationship,
Speaker 1: there's always some internal part of us that's hoping it
Speaker 1: might change, like one day they might be able to
Speaker 1: do this, one day I might be able to have
Speaker 1: this relation. And then and then if and when they go,
Speaker 1: there's a grief of like, oh, I actually never I
Speaker 1: am going to get that. I'm gonna grieve this person
Speaker 1: and I'm going to grieve the fact that I was
Speaker 1: holding out hope maybe in some way shape and form,
Speaker 1: so um for me, you know, the the experience has
Speaker 1: been again, how do I, I think maybe this is
Speaker 1: all of us, like, how do I allow myself to
Speaker 1: move through and mature through life? You know, Maiden, mother, Autumn,
Speaker 1: queen Krone? How do I? How do I move through
Speaker 1: those things with some sort of like grace? And if
Speaker 1: I am going to move through those things and come
Speaker 1: into mother and kind of ask the quintessential question of
Speaker 1: archetypal mother for me is what will I allow to
Speaker 1: be created through me? And that could be human lives,
Speaker 1: so that could be creative projects, or that could you know,
Speaker 1: lots of different things, But what will I allow to
Speaker 1: be created through me? Now? I also have to understand
Speaker 1: it as I move into that role, I have to
Speaker 1: release her from archetypal mother so she can move into
Speaker 1: her next stage of life. I think what we try
Speaker 1: and do is demand that they stay there, and especially
Speaker 1: if there's been things that are incomplete or we feel
Speaker 1: are incomplete. Instead of saying I'm going to move into mother,
Speaker 1: I'm going to mother myself. I'm going to mother my
Speaker 1: creative projects, I'm going to mother children, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to allow her to move into Autumn queen
Speaker 1: Krone and that may take different shapes and forms. And
Speaker 1: so for me with my mother, there's really been a
Speaker 1: question of how do I allow her to go on
Speaker 1: this journey which is going to be the disappearance, slow
Speaker 1: disappearance of her, and and what will my relationship to myself?
Speaker 1: Like she's going to kind of drop the mirror of
Speaker 1: my own identity that she's reflecting back to me. Some
Speaker 1: people had that mirror dropped when they were fourteen years
Speaker 1: old and their mother is still around, right, But then
Speaker 1: there becomes a question of am I going to pick
Speaker 1: it up? Who am I going to ask to hold it?
Speaker 1: How do I hold it for myself? How do I
Speaker 1: use nature to hold it with me? And so that's
Speaker 1: an ongoing question for me of how am I actively
Speaker 1: mothering remothering self and how am I actively surrendering and
Speaker 1: allowing her, you know, to move into different roles. I
Speaker 1: think there's also something really interesting, you know, as we
Speaker 1: talk archetypically kind of about made mother Autumn Queen Crone,
Speaker 1: I talked to a lot of women in their forties, fifties, sixties,
Speaker 1: etcetera that have you know, pretty big mama wound right,
Speaker 1: And I always like to reflect back, like I'll ask
Speaker 1: them like, so, how it's okay you're talking about the
Speaker 1: situation when you were ten. How old was your mom
Speaker 1: when she had you? Okay, she was twenties, so she
Speaker 1: was thirty five at the time. Like here we care,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe like everyone like yeah, yeah, we're kind
Speaker 1: of going like, oh, I'm a I'm a forty fifty
Speaker 1: sixty seven year old woman, and I I really have
Speaker 1: got to learn how to step into remothering because I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the wounds that happened and occurred with me
Speaker 1: when she was twenty to thirty five, like younger than
Speaker 1: I am now. Like I don't I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I don't feel like a fully formed human yet. No, no,
Speaker 1: fort Like I can't believe that I'm going to be
Speaker 1: forty soon. And it's like wait, I don't. And then
Speaker 1: what's really interesting about age is like I remember being
Speaker 1: really young and forty years old, and now like at forty,
Speaker 1: I'm like forty is so young and sixties not even old.
Speaker 1: Like we're still making mistakes, we're still learning how to apologize,
Speaker 1: we're still learning where our egos are at we're still
Speaker 1: like all of these things. And so I often reflect
Speaker 1: back and I'm like, oh, my gosh, right, like my
Speaker 1: mom was only thirty two then, or she was only
Speaker 1: thirty four then, like or she was twenty eight, like
Speaker 1: when she made that horrible mistake that impacted me. Okay, again,
Speaker 1: we've got to have people take responsibility, and we've got
Speaker 1: to have boundaries, you know, appropriate boundaries for ourselves inside
Speaker 1: of those relationships. But but there is this kind of
Speaker 1: perspective of, oh, we've got to we've got to really
Speaker 1: let women and move also into these autumn queen and
Speaker 1: kind of crone archetypes um and and I mean I
Speaker 1: could go I could talk a lot about archetypes. I
Speaker 1: won't go into it, but I think that's a that's
Speaker 1: been one of the ways, as you ask about, like
Speaker 1: what's my own grieving processes I moved through this is
Speaker 1: to allow myself to fully fully land inside of the
Speaker 1: archetype of mother, so that as I lose her, I
Speaker 1: gain my own mothering of self. Yeah. Wow, that what
Speaker 1: a journey. That's a that's a definite journey. And I
Speaker 1: know I'm I'm definitely stepping into mother more for it
Speaker 1: for myself. Um. You know, I don't have children of
Speaker 1: my own, I have two stepsons. But I have learned
Speaker 1: that the more and more I step into mother myself, like,
Speaker 1: the more I am feeling like the wholeness of womanhood. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: which is really beautiful. Um. And it is such a jernie,
Speaker 1: such a journey. You talk a lot about in this
Speaker 1: book about the splitting off of self, which I mean
Speaker 1: I think every woman, I think everybody can can you
Speaker 1: can relate to that, but every woman especially you know,
Speaker 1: your mother's lack of emotional, lack of words around that, uh,
Speaker 1: really played a huge part in that piece for you
Speaker 1: as a child, Like how how has finding your own words?
Speaker 1: Like how has that changed your life? And how has
Speaker 1: that created more wholeness for you? Yeah? The main way
Speaker 1: I would answer that is that it's helped me remember.
Speaker 1: And I often like to use the word remember spelled
Speaker 1: r E dash member as in remember oh wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like if we moved through our lives and we split
Speaker 1: off from ourselves, we we reject say the feminine, or
Speaker 1: we we reject our the personality that's too much or
Speaker 1: part of us that might be direct that as little
Speaker 1: girls were told that's bossy and rude. Okay, that's got
Speaker 1: to be rejected and split off from we we dismember ourselves.
Speaker 1: And so I think for me there's always been this
Speaker 1: is just part of who I am, a real thirst
Speaker 1: for a translation of of those experiences in a translation
Speaker 1: through felt sense and words. And that's I think having
Speaker 1: those words and having an ability to kind of like
Speaker 1: walk into those wordless spaces an attempt to translate something
Speaker 1: there has kind of helped me move through that process
Speaker 1: of remembering, of bringing those dismembered parts kind of back
Speaker 1: to self. And this is this is I mean, I
Speaker 1: could talk about um, you know, mythological examples. This is
Speaker 1: the story of original creation, the myth of isis and
Speaker 1: osiris um. This dismembering and remembering of self, and it's
Speaker 1: a divinely, divinely feminine act to go and gather the
Speaker 1: dismembered parts and say they belong back together, and to
Speaker 1: create this is womb like to create a spaciousness even
Speaker 1: though it might be dark or chaotic or confusing m hm.
Speaker 1: And to kind of create that spaciousness and a translation
Speaker 1: for that remembering of self. Yeah, I mean I love
Speaker 1: that you said, even though it may be dark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a messiness to it that can Yeah, that we
Speaker 1: have to be able. It's like I think about, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at grief and then looking at our own mess
Speaker 1: and how we have. Both of those seem very similar
Speaker 1: to me in that we have to go into the
Speaker 1: darkness in order to bring those pieces back into wholeness.
Speaker 1: And I think it's not pretty sometimes exactly. I think
Speaker 1: this is a feminine gift. I think one of the
Speaker 1: most harmful things, I think from a patriarchal standpoint, is
Speaker 1: to tell women to be neat and tidy, like you
Speaker 1: have to be this way, you have to look this way,
Speaker 1: you have to be this way, you have to behave
Speaker 1: this way this you have to be clean and neat,
Speaker 1: tidy and perfect because there is a very natural this
Speaker 1: is the womb, a natural um kind of place of
Speaker 1: pure potential that is only sense based. It's dark and
Speaker 1: all you can hear is a you know, heartbeat is
Speaker 1: a drumbeat. And so where is the dark cavern that
Speaker 1: I can descend into? Where am I allowed to descend
Speaker 1: and get messy? And you know, all of these things,
Speaker 1: but that's you know, there's so much inside of that
Speaker 1: that We're often told we should be afraid of that,
Speaker 1: we should be afraid of that kind of woman. That
Speaker 1: kind of woman is evil, that kind of woman, you know,
Speaker 1: all of this type of stuff. So to to a
Speaker 1: this is where it kind of circles, does a full
Speaker 1: circle into nature. It's like, ah, that's where I'm mirrored
Speaker 1: the frality. You know, that the wilderness of my own interior,
Speaker 1: of the messiness of the parts of me, that howell,
Speaker 1: of the part you know, all of those parts that
Speaker 1: society kind of deems is not an acceptable woman. M
Speaker 1: uh is really actually our gift that we've been kept
Speaker 1: from and and the people who can who can descend
Speaker 1: into that place and who can surrender to that glorious
Speaker 1: mess are often the people that come out with a
Speaker 1: new creation, with new life. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think the new life is possible without that, right,
Speaker 1: I would think, what is what is this journey with
Speaker 1: your mother? You talk about surrender? What is it taught
Speaker 1: you about surrender? Like, what is it? What is it
Speaker 1: look and feel like to you to be fully surrendered
Speaker 1: into something? Mm hmm. It feels very out of control.
Speaker 1: It feels I mean, you know, I think about my
Speaker 1: mom should should five children in total? That's a lot
Speaker 1: of creation, and there's a lot of creation. And I
Speaker 1: think about, um, you know, I've been thinking about this
Speaker 1: a lot. This this I just for this beautiful essay
Speaker 1: about about mother or type of mother is really kind
Speaker 1: of an annihilation of self that you have to You
Speaker 1: have to be both visible and invisible at once as
Speaker 1: a mother. And I think about that again. I don't
Speaker 1: have children, so I think about that in the creative process.
Speaker 1: How am I both visible? So so for you, for example,
Speaker 1: you are you, and you're standing on a stage and
Speaker 1: it's your name, and and there you are. You're visible,
Speaker 1: all eyes on you, and and you're embodied and you're there.
Speaker 1: And what part of you is invisible enough to allow
Speaker 1: something else to come through you? What part of you
Speaker 1: have you been able to kind of get spacious about
Speaker 1: and move. It's like a flute, you know that that
Speaker 1: you can turn yourself into that that you're like, I
Speaker 1: am here. I can feel my button, this seat, I
Speaker 1: can feel a guitar in my hand. I can feel,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm typing something out as a writer. And
Speaker 1: I can also feel there's like an invisibility of me
Speaker 1: that that something else is pouring through m and you
Speaker 1: could call that a flow state. Sure. Um, to me
Speaker 1: that is that is a surrendered act of creation and
Speaker 1: it's archetypal mother. Wow. Yeah, I never have thought about
Speaker 1: how much surrender I guess it takes to allow for
Speaker 1: creativity to flow through, to be that, to be on
Speaker 1: the receiving end, to be penetrated by, to be a vessel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it it feels like, yeah, there are so many
Speaker 1: pieces of myself that I have to move slightly out
Speaker 1: of the way right in order for that to come through.
Speaker 1: That's the question. And if you move, if you move
Speaker 1: too much of yourself out of the way, then it
Speaker 1: could be a kind of disembodied or um, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not there. You annihilate too much of yourself and
Speaker 1: then it's like, you know, that's that's a tough thing.
Speaker 1: And so how do we continue to grow the capacity
Speaker 1: from a nervous system standpoint, from an audiment somatic standpoint,
Speaker 1: to be in our flesh, to occupy our bodies at
Speaker 1: the same time as disappear ourselves and perhaps I mean
Speaker 1: mostly like the mental self enough to have to actually
Speaker 1: use the instrument, the human instrument to run enough energy
Speaker 1: to create things. I love it. I just have a
Speaker 1: couple more quick questions I wondered. I just wonder, what
Speaker 1: do you want people to take away from your book
Speaker 1: and your story? M hmm. It's it's a tough you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I have any specific like I
Speaker 1: want you to get this. I want people to find
Speaker 1: something for themselves inside of it, I suppose without it
Speaker 1: being dictated by me. I mean, I think that's a
Speaker 1: quintessential mother like. I want you to have your experience
Speaker 1: and I don't want to put my hopes and dreams
Speaker 1: over top of it. I'm gonna I'm gonna hold those
Speaker 1: for me and that feels complete within the creative process,
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to release you to go in
Speaker 1: the book, to go and be what you are going
Speaker 1: to be. Um. I do know that my mom's energy
Speaker 1: is in this book, and so there there is I
Speaker 1: think for some people they're going to feel that as
Speaker 1: a kind of her demonstrative warmth comes through. I think
Speaker 1: there's a like, how is it that you break something
Speaker 1: apart so much but I still feel held? You know?
Speaker 1: That's I think that energy is inside of the book.
Speaker 1: I also think, you know, our world right now is
Speaker 1: pretty hell bent on on talking about all the things
Speaker 1: that are falling apart. Our political systems, are environmental systems
Speaker 1: or business systems. You know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that we're watching crumble. It is terrifying. It's really it's
Speaker 1: very scary. All of the things that we thought, this
Speaker 1: is the thing that's going to hold me, that's going
Speaker 1: to keep me safe. This financial system, this job, that's
Speaker 1: all the stuff. And I think as we watch things crumble,
Speaker 1: including the natural world, and this is for me with
Speaker 1: my mom, I'm watching her fall apart. This is the
Speaker 1: person I thought, you know, hold me safe and be there.
Speaker 1: I think it's important for us to point that out,
Speaker 1: those things out, this is happening, was just going on,
Speaker 1: and for us to create plans and actions and all
Speaker 1: of these different things. But I also think we need
Speaker 1: to be held. I think we need to be told
Speaker 1: and whispered to and sung songs to that that say
Speaker 1: we're gonna be okay, you know, even when we're not.
Speaker 1: And I feel that in this book. Um yeah, And
Speaker 1: that's that's very much for my mother, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: very much her. I love that. I love that you
Speaker 1: honor her in this book and her energy and then
Speaker 1: it comes through. It's so stunning. I have one last
Speaker 1: question about music, because of course, yes, I I asked
Speaker 1: you every guest what they're holy five songs are? They
Speaker 1: can be from It could be from right now in
Speaker 1: your life, where it could be from forever, whatever moves you.
Speaker 1: I would love to know, you know, we And I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this because I know you're gonna I
Speaker 1: know it's so hard. It's so hard, I you know.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm gonna make this. And you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm a Canadian. I'm a Canadian, true and true,
Speaker 1: and so my list is Canadian. My my five songs are.
Speaker 1: They're both Canadian. But Katie Lang's version of Hallelujah, especially
Speaker 1: live Hallelujah, Hallelujah, hallelu that's quite something. Joni Mitchell Both
Speaker 1: Sides Now is a big one. That song breaks my
Speaker 1: heart's glove Illusion Hill breaks my heart in the best way. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sarah McLaughlin Angel is a big that's and that's like
Speaker 1: high school. I don't know from this stopcossness that total
Speaker 1: high school, right. I could not have a list of
Speaker 1: Canadian music if I didn't have the tragically hips, so
Speaker 1: Boots are Hearts is a big one for me. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. Oh my gosh, I have to go
Speaker 1: look it up. But even Babies is by Wolves and
Speaker 1: no exactly when they big Shee when it's part man
Speaker 1: really Ba. There's a lot of amazing hip songs, but
Speaker 1: that's a big one Um and a more current one
Speaker 1: um Lee Fullback into the Ether. I love that song.
Speaker 1: They're the fans something you can dance to it, hold
Speaker 1: on to something, your nose, you slip into the h
Speaker 1: I love that song. Yeah, it's so that's like heaven. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for sharing, Thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: your heart. Thank you. It was so nice to finally
Speaker 1: see your face and me right, I know, And thank
Speaker 1: you for just traveling on this journey with me for
Speaker 1: this last hour so eloquently. It was stunning. I learned
Speaker 1: so much from you, So thank you for being here. Well,
Speaker 1: you were very good at this and it is my
Speaker 1: honor and privilege to be witnessed too and participate in.
Speaker 1: Thank you, And that wraps up this episode of Holy Human.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Steph Jaggers so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: It was such a beautiful conversation, and I highly recommend
Speaker 1: her hauntingly beautiful and moving it new memoir, Everything Left
Speaker 1: to Remember. I found it profoundly moving, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you all will do, especially after this conversation. And please
Speaker 1: leave me your thoughts about today's episode or anything else
Speaker 1: in the comments where you're listening, because I love connecting
Speaker 1: and hearing from you all, so send me a thought.
Speaker 1: On our next Holy Human, I will be joined by
Speaker 1: Brie Malayson, a spiritual facilitator with a surprisingly practical approach
Speaker 1: to tapping into the transformative power of your true potential
Speaker 1: by tuning into your intuition, into your soul. I think
Speaker 1: you'll find her way of viewing our spirituality and purpose
Speaker 1: really unique and refreshing and very insightful. So until then,
Speaker 1: please take care of yourself and each other, and I
Speaker 1: love you. Holy Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. You'll find Holy Human with
Speaker 1: land Rhymes on the I Heart app, Apple podcast, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get the podcast that matter most to you.