Know Ya Flow
Women in flow, share what they know. Hear women's stories of how they've grown, what they know, and how they are living in flow.
Know Ya Flow
Psychedelics and Transformative Healing w/Brandie Benoit Leonard
Imagine confronting your deepest fears and vulnerabilities, only to transform them into sources of strength and authenticity. New yoga instructor Brandy shares her heartfelt journey of overcoming anxiety and stress, revealing how yoga has become her sanctuary and tool for mental and emotional regulation. In this episode of Know Ya Flow, we explore the transformative power of yoga, the importance of showing up authentically, and the art of managing life's challenges with presence and grace.
Have you ever pondered how balancing masculine and feminine energies can reshape family dynamics? Brandy offers an enlightening perspective on the delicate dance of these energies within her family, especially in parenting her autistic child. She opens up about how mindful practices have brought balance and harmony to her life, fostering a nurturing environment where both paid and unpaid work are equally valued. We delve into the evolving nature of partnerships, shared responsibilities, and the powerful impact of embracing both nurturing and strong qualities in creating a supportive family unit.
Get ready for a profound exploration of healing through plant medicine and psychedelics. Brandy courageously shares her personal experiences with these substances, from battling postpartum depression to finding deep emotional release and connection to the universe. We discuss the life-changing effects of plant medicine ceremonies, the cyclical nature of emotions, and the profound insights gained from these transformative journeys. Join us as we celebrate the beauty of life's uncertainties, the unexpected joys of motherhood, and the emotional and psychological growth that comes from embracing every facet of our human experience.
Welcome to Know your Flow podcast, where women in flow share what they know. I'm your host, lauren Barton. Join me as we talk to women and hear their stories on what they know, how they've grown and living in flow, all right. So today we're here with Brandy Hi. Brandy Hi, you just taught a little yoga class downstairs.
Speaker 2:How's teaching going. It's going well. It's a huge exercise in courage and like moving past the scaries. For me, yeah, it's been like yoga has been such a vital personal practice for me for so long that it feels really vulnerable for me. For so long that it feels really vulnerable, I think, like getting in front of people and sharing something in the way that it's been shared with me that feels so meaningful. So like trying to take those elements and share it with other people. Hoping that they're getting some sort of meaning out of it as well is a little scary. But yeah, it's been an awesome exercise in putting forth effort and then letting it go. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to like teach the class, put my heart into it all the way through namaste and then, when it's like how to go, it's you know, it went, it happened, I did it and now it's done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and the practice of showing up and doing it over and over again and then eventually, hopefully it's not scary anymore. It does.
Speaker 2:I feel that already. I feel you know the, the heaviness, the weight of it and my own personal judgment about how I'm you know, quote unquote performing and trying to shift that more into progress over performance and not even progress, just like showing up, offering over performance or even over progress. You know, just like a showing up and giving something of my heart and myself and just offering it to other people. And it feels really good too, like in a culture of productivity and monetization and what can you do for me? And even though, of course, people are paying for a class, it still feels like a little bit of resistance. Yeah, Just like something good for you.
Speaker 1:Because when for our listeners? When did you get your certification? How long have you been teaching?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, this is all new. I finished my 200 hour teacher training end of March and jumped right in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, like if I didn't, I wouldn't you know like I would retreat back into my coziness of my own little home practice and maintaining these rhythms, and so it's like a conscious effort to push through that discomfort. Yeah, and I just got to keep doing it. You know, it's like one of those you just like put on the blinders and you move ahead because there's so many reasons that I could muster up within myself, like I'm too inexperienced a teacher, like my kids it's really busy time of life right now. I'll just wait, but yeah, you just gotta jump right in.
Speaker 1:Why was it important for you to teach? Why is it important for you to share this?
Speaker 2:I felt called to share a practice that's just been so beneficial.
Speaker 2:You know, like, without yoga, I think that I would probably be on antidepressants, I would probably be on anti-anxiety meds, maybe some like sleeping pills, you know, and all of these practices have really carried me through a lot of adversity in my life, in helping to regulate my nervous system, just offering me an easy tool that doesn't require any accessories, Like, yeah, yoga mat is nice, but like you don't need anything, you just need your body and your awareness of your breath and it, yeah, it can just help to regulate my nervous system.
Speaker 2:You know, I can definitely tend to find myself a little bit reactive in a lot of situations. The feelings can become very overwhelming and, you know, with or without three kids, I think it would be the same. You know, like I would make up big stories in my head and the practice has just been something that has helped to, like a buffer, you know, taking me out of that headspace, bringing me into my body, reminding me that, oh, I have all these tools within myself, and then wanting to just share that with other people, whether they use the yoga for that or whether they use the yoga for flexibility or getting strong. You know it's like all using your own tools, your own power to meet your own challenges.
Speaker 1:Isn't it crazy how we can really tell ourselves quite a few stories in our head, really like go crazy with that spiral. I feel like yoga is such an opportunity to take a break from that and I feel like that is something that we need as humans to get away from our minds, you know, and whether that's with breath or yoga or whatever, what has been like your experience with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially in this society that we live in. You know like pausing and being in your breath, in your body, is true luxury, yeah, when where at least it's framed as a luxury. But I think the reality is, you know, it's just, it's an essential part of of being this human, physiological being. Like we need to slow down, we need to tune into our breath, and it isn't all just the spiraling of thoughts of oh crap, I got to get this kid to this activity, and then my husband's going to be out of town, and then what are we making for dinner? And I didn't go to Costco, and like he didn't help me with this. And what does he mean by that? It's just like the spiral of thoughts.
Speaker 2:The world in our head can oftentimes be a bigger presence in our life to the actual sensations, this input and output of the physical world around us. And and if it takes going into a yoga studio or stepping onto this little rectangle to step out of those thoughts, step out of this productivity cycle, then like yeah have at it, step on the mat, step into your breath, and it's just like an intentional pause from that.
Speaker 2:I think it would be amazing if we all didn't like, necessarily need the intentional pause and we could just find this present embodiment all the time, but like when you're born and raised and live in a society where everyone around you and the systems around you are telling you that this is how you achieve success and these are the things that you've got to do and these are all the activities you've got to enroll your kids in, to make sure you're not missing out on. You know, whatever it is they might be missing out on, you get swept up in the current.
Speaker 1:How has that all unfolded in your life? You know, feeling, oh, this is the way the society says that I'm supposed to do x, y and z, and sort of coming back into no wait, maybe, maybe questioning some of that, or sometimes I feel like it's even experiences. You're not even looking to change your paradigms around certain things. But then life happens and you're like, oh, okay, yeah, never mind, what I thought was supposed to be isn't even real necessarily. Nevermind, what I thought was supposed to be isn't even real necessarily.
Speaker 1:Because also one more thing to add to that too is our minds also create realities that are true because we believe them. So, like they might not even be, it doesn't matter. You know, they say like, oh, there's this, this, and then there's the truth in the middle, but it doesn't really even matter, because if I believe it's true, then it is true, period, if that's the way that I took it, that's true, which? So it's like creating our own reality, and this is now going on. Another thing but like isn't like a woo-woo belief or isn't like a woo-woo thought, it's like the truth, like that we literally create whatever reality we want. So if we're stuck in, I have to be so busy dah dah, da, da, da, da, da da da, all these things like that is true for us. That is what's happening, but we can change that which is kind of crazy to think about.
Speaker 2:I don't think people realize. You know, right, yeah, well, it's like that self-fulfilling prophecy sort of idea and it makes me think you know just anecdotally of birth, when you there's this idea of you know beforehand, it's how it feels so scary, like oh no, what's it going to be, and you kind of create this, this reality of fear around it and then that fear compounds when you're actually in the experience too, you know. So it's like the, the anticipated fear comes in to the actual discomfort of the moment, compounding the fear and the pain. And, yeah, I think that can really be applied to like all things of life.
Speaker 2:If I look at my life situation and I'm perceiving it like there's a zillion things to do and a zillion places to go, I definitely can create a narrative of like scarcity and oh no, the time. And crap, I forgot this. And just not meeting those expectations when really, like the reality is, the expectations are so above and beyond what is actually like necessary, possible, yeah, or even like what humans can cope with. It's not that we are putting ourselves in unnecessary situations where we're feeling unnecessary stress, but I think more very real, acute stress that is kind of being put on us by these systems that we live in. Escaping them, I think it would be really hard, unless we all want to go move to a commune, and even then it's going to have its own different things going on the birth example.
Speaker 1:what would be the?
Speaker 2:opposite of that, really just kind of accepting that things will unfold as they unfold and instead of a anticipatory reaction it's more like reacting to stimulus or reacting to whatever comes in as it's there. You know, then we're not suffering twice, we're not suffering early on, when we're anticipating fear, anticipating the unknown whatever it is and then, in the moment, having whatever, whatever experience, but then that experience is going to be shaped by what you already thought yeah it's like going into it being okay with uncertainty.
Speaker 2:I think is really hard, also because you know society like we think we are supposed to know, like we, you go to college and you study engineering, you're going to be an engineer, yeah. Or like you study this, you're going to do that.
Speaker 1:But life just doesn't work that way you know, and then we're disappointed and what the hell, and we don't know what to trust and what to do, and because we put all of our faith in society, like norms and structure and all that stuff and I think structure and stuff is great and our brains like, like a black and white and a cause and effect, because it helps us be like organized and feel safe?
Speaker 1:yeah, but like you can expect what's what you think will come, yeah, exactly, but I think you're so right about, for instance, I have a friend who so basically my friend is going to go through a divorce and she has no idea how her husband is going to treat her in this divorce. Okay, so he could say I will give you everything, I'll give you half everything, I'm going to play fair and square, it's all going to be good, and then he could, last minute, fuck her okay, so she has two choices.
Speaker 1:Number one she gets to either be like oh no, I trust this and I'm going to trust that this all goes my way and it's going to be great. Or she could the whole time be like, oh my God, I need to play a game, I need to be safe, I need to do this, I need to do that. And then it almost happens because you put it out there. Your actions then go off of that. So, like in the fear example of birth, the whole time you're thinking this is going to be hard, this is going to be horrible. I'm so afraid it causes all of your actions with that to be out of that place too Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, You're reacting from fear and, like your body physically responds Like I'm thinking of oh no, this is gonna feel like whatever. And your physical body tenses up and then that tenseness exacerbates any discomfort you are feeling. So it's like it is a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of thing. Totally yeah. And man, that example is so hard.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But you can't. I don't know. I find the mental energy, this. It resonates a lot with like thinking of my kids and just like the millions of things that unfold throughout the day and right?
Speaker 2:Oh no, she doesn't. I got to make sure she's got to get a nap here, cause if she doesn't get a nap here then it's going to affect this, which is going to affect this, and it can almost make you feel it's just a huge effort, a huge mental effort, and that energy is very real, like that energy that I'm putting forth in logistic-ing every aspect of my life is sucking energy out of me. Being present with my toddler and seeing her experience life and curiosity on a instantaneous, moment by moment basis, rather than attuning my focus to, I got to get the stuff done. I got to adhere to this mental schedule and make sure everything is just right to try and manage my reality exactly yeah, and I guess we miss out on the alternative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess, just letting it, letting it come and responding from a moment by moment basis yeah, which is exactly like the birth thing that you were saying, like when you go into birth and you're like I'm surrendering to letting this sort of be what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you have to with birth.
Speaker 2:I mean contraction. By contraction it isn't like if you were to be on your first contraction of God knows how many and you knew like, all right, well, I only have a hundred more, okay, 99. Like that would be horrendous. And so you know, like in birth work it is, it's you take each contraction at a time, and so it's like you respond to this one with the tools that you have and then you know it'll be gone and then you just deal with the next one. And I think it's kind of the same with the moments of life, like I'm going to deal with this issue, that's before me, and then we'll deal with the next one, whether it's big or small, because really my mental capacity can't handle predicting and responding to every potential outcome For real, too much damn effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then we miss out on our lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that have joy right in front of us, right, right that have joy right in front of us, right, right, and it's like I'm 37 and like I don't know when.
Speaker 2:Any of it will end, you know, and like you see, which is a whole other thing. You see catastrophe after catastrophe and like sudden death bestows a whole family, like you have no idea when your life will end. And even just holding that fragility of life kind of in one palm of your hand at all times I think helps a more fluid way of being and like holding mortality without also being like oh, don't do that, because you're going to die. Like they're two totally different things.
Speaker 1:Totally yeah. So we don't have control over anything. But what do we have control over?
Speaker 2:I mean, we have control over our breath Exactly. Yep, you know, and so I like. For me that's always an easy thing. Yeah, we really don't have control over much at all, but I can at least try to regulate my own responses and my own nervous system and then, hopefully, if I have a little bit more grounded of a response to my seven-year-old, then, you know, maybe she takes that and responds different. It's just like this fluid dance all the time of these energies. And so if I can control my breath cause I would say I have control over my own thoughts and reactions, but half of the time I'm like wow, Like we do in theory is thinking that, wow, what like.
Speaker 2:that is a very resentful part of me that just said that.
Speaker 1:That is so true. It's a practice, for sure, of our reactions that are this, that and the other, but it's, it's a. I'd say 80, 20,. I'd say 80% of the time I'm doing my best and 20% I'm actually really actually doing the best.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, my God, it's so true and or even like after the fact we're um go into what my poor nine-year-old used to call mean mommy mode, which is it's this kind of reactionary like. I do very much view myself as different phases of motherhood with each child, because your kids are how old they're my oldest is almost 10. And then my middle child, so a boy 10, my middle child, she is seven, and then we have a just turned two year old. So it really, and all of them are so different and like with the 10 year old was very much a selfish in my own mind and everyone was kind of like little suns around me or whatever little planets around me like yeah, it was all about me and, and how the child was affecting me, and how the husband was affecting me, and, and then moving on, you, you grow and you change.
Speaker 2:And seeing that snapshot of that mother, then who's so easily overwhelmed because that transition of autonomous maidenhood or whatever you would want to call it autonomous person to going and then having a child and we lived in Idaho at the time, away from family and everything, kind of very much in victim hood. Everything was kind of a struggle. It was really hard, and so reactions were equally as big. The loneliness that I would feel from missing my family would kind of morph into a despair and could even turn into a depressive period at times. And not saying that those are a result of being self-centered, I just think that it was misplaced emotion, yeah, and it would just kind of grow because I didn't have any tools to help tell me that like, no, you're not your thoughts, like that's not you, or even if you really feel embodied by this emotion right now, like it's not always going to feel this way.
Speaker 2:And I just didn't know that at that point in time. And then having my second child even like, exacerbated it to a point you know she has recently. She's mildly autistic, and so her first couple of years were just so very, very challenging and we didn't know why. And so, having that added pressure and then also the pressure of having an infant and a toddler, a lot of unhealthy habits sink in, and in that journey was actually introduced to some plant medicine and started kind of this plant medicine journey which helped to give me new eyes to see this pain that I was putting myself through, morphing as a mother. Each time it's just wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Different.
Speaker 1:Because did you know that after you had your first that you weren't going to be the same? Because I feel like people always say that very flippantly, like well, once you have a kid, nothing's ever the same. But they say it in a way that's like lucky people somehow come out unscathed.
Speaker 1:yeah like no, it's you know, but you literally move from maiden to mother, right there. You are not the same. You move through a portal and you are a different being and you have a whole different thing going on. And first off, I was thinking when we were talking about like, did you have any like? Did you have any like, did you have a yoga practice? Did you know yourself at all before your first? Because I imagine I feel like if I were to have a baby right now and I know everything I know I'm not saying it would be perfect, but I'd be better off than somebody who had no self Like. I could not imagine not knowing any of this shit that I know because of, like, different trainings and things I've been in a yoga practice and the people I know, and dah, dah, dah, dah dah. So at that point, did you know?
Speaker 2:the depth of how different everything was going to be.
Speaker 2:No, I think with my first, you know cause we had moved across the country for my husband's job and I think you know the urge to have a baby was naturally there.
Speaker 2:But I think in hindsight I can say that a lot of it, too, was born from a loneliness, of being isolated from family and wanting to fill some sort of void. I did not have a yoga practice and I had been to, you know, a handful of like gym yoga classes, but before, when I was pregnant with my first, started dabbling in meditation and just mindfulness and that was my main path there, like seeking different spiritual books and, yeah, meditation, just a more of a mindfulness based situation. And then, after my second was born, just really going through a dark period that I would call now a period of postpartum depression and that's, you know, like we just don't speak enough about the actual physical changes that are going through your body. Like you grow an entire organ, like you grow a placenta from scratch and then you birth this thing that's been regulating all of these extra hormones and it's just gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't die. You birth an organ. An organ leaves your body and you don't die, you don't die.
Speaker 2:And then also like you're going from having your body acclimates to a certain level of hormone fluctuation and then this thing is gone and it's like, oh, I feel very weird.
Speaker 1:Like very fucking weird, yes, and also then you're sleep deprived and you've got a beautiful baby.
Speaker 2:You know nursing If you're lucky and it can be very beautiful, but then also like, like it's a little parasite there on my boob all the time, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think those things lead to a natural feeling of just like gosh, this is so damn hard. And so, being in that place and like my husband was working a very traditional nine to five, he would leave, leave me with these two young kids and then come home and it's like, all right, what are we doing for dinner? And it's like I'm going to actually lose my effing mind for dinner.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, and so after a while, I think he started to notice that things were not improving. Yeah, and he had gotten me a gift card. I mean, like, bless his heart for thinking that a five gift card pass to the yoga studio downtown was going to like fix me.
Speaker 2:But, in a way, you know, like it did definitely start a path, but I started taking aerial yoga there and, like, just doing something, being in my body and feeling feeling good in my body again, like these big stretchy, expansive kind of fluid, dancey motions on this silk, made me feel like a human body that was still possible of creating beauty and being beauty and that was so fulfilling and awesome and I started to feel my own strength.
Speaker 2:And then had a health scare where I was convinced I was dying because of some like nodule that was on my inner thigh, which actually turns out it was from aerial yoga. But so that whole like had a massive panic attack, went to the hospital, went to the ER and from there was like, ok, maybe I should start going to like some of these more breath focused classes Because also, like, during a panic attack you can't breathe, like you lose your breath, and so from there that was about seven years ago started taking vinyasa classes and then, because it was something that I used for my mental health, it was very regular thing, like every day, kind of using this practice of stepping into my body, into my breath. Okay, things aren't so terrible right now, actually, maybe nothing's really wrong.
Speaker 2:So, that really helped to find balance in between the moments of frenetic mental energy after having the second, and as she grew, her autistic characteristics started to become more known and a little bit more challenging to learn how to work with her and to learn what she was trying to communicate to us. You know the yoga practice like having the patience and, yeah, just being able to see things a little bit more clearly, I think, really helped me to show up for her in the best way. And so I mean the parent that she had in the beginning of her, her very young life. Then to later on, you know three, four, it was a totally different, more regulated parent and I think that's like you know, when my son would be like mean mommy mode, what he remembers is a really overwhelmed mother yeah from.
Speaker 2:You know, like a three, four year old just not able to cope, and now it's like awesome, but he doesn't say that anymore. You know, and these, it's a gift that also then our now two-year-old has a much more regulated parent and like, no doubt I lose my shit for sure, but it's just less you know, yeah, and more appropriate times or more Totally More warranted stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it is. And I'm not hammering down on my partner in resentment, and so they see a more loving partnership there too, and like with me being able to communicate my needs on a much more regulated level, my husband can respond to me in a better way. And also the energy Think that the energy of dealing with just like a lot of anxiety and bouts of depression from a partner's perspective can be really hard, because I think for him it was like am I doing this? Am I doing something wrong? Am I not meeting her needs? And it was like no, really, I just think, uh, like Having children is hard and not knowing what is reasonable expectations is really tricky to figure out. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you feel like the men's main role is? When having babies, like when the woman has a baby, what is the man supposed to do?
Speaker 2:I mean that's such a tricky question because from the very beginning, well, it first brings to mind when I hear people that are like oh, joe and Sarah are having a baby, and it's like no Sarah, sarah is having a baby. Joe is not having a baby. Joe will be there.
Speaker 1:Joe is supporting.
Speaker 2:Sarah and doing whatever Sarah says to make her calm and chill to have a baby. So like there's a different you know the different phases of bringing a child into the world and then even in labor, 100% supportive, a partner, your person that can read the room, figure out what you might need, before you say that you need it, because you're not in your mind like you are in your body. So it's really that it's like looking to see how can I be of support. And I think it's the same when you have a newborn. You know it isn't like, well, I'm gonna sleep because I can't nurse the baby, so you just get up. No, we've got to be in this together. I'll be up nursing the baby and you're going to do something, because otherwise what you have?
Speaker 2:One parent that's totally rested and then not understanding why this other exhausted parent is losing their cool. But yeah, right now, like my husband is a totally active partner. We view the work and it's been an evolution. He works from home now and the work that he does at his computer in his office is equally valuable to me driving carpool, dropping off the kids at different schools, going and getting groceries and then coming home and unloading the dishwasher. So, moving away from this idea of invisible work that happens at home, that is the same weight as the stuff that he is doing, and the stuff that he's doing grants him a paycheck that pays for our house and the stuff that I'm doing grants us sustainable living.
Speaker 2:Like you know, it's they're equal and I it's really tricky when you live in a capitalist society, when it's but the paycheck is the value, the paycheck is the prize, and it's like no, the paycheck for us is, it's a tool to help us live in the most graceful way. In the same way that, like, whatever I'm doing is a tool, and if that's going to teacher training and learning about embodiment and breath and movement, then he benefits from that too, and our children benefit from that too. So it's like we're just not holding one as any more valuable or important and knowing that, as long as we're serving our family, we're both working Right and so like, at the end of the day isn't well, I've been working all day, it's all right, you got it yeah, like we come together and it's like all right, well, what are we gonna do for dinner?
Speaker 2:we just maintain kind of this constant communication partnership and it's in a really sweet spot now where we're managing things and we both feel like equally worked and equally. We both feel like equally worked and equally providing value. Yeah, but it wasn't always like that. There were resentments still bubble up.
Speaker 1:Totally yeah. How do feminine and masculine energy show up in your relationship or in your, even, or maybe in your life or any of that stuff?
Speaker 2:You know like early on I would say we would definitely embody the characteristics of our assigned sex way more. You know, like he was very much fiery productivity. What can I offer? Strong strength. Don't show emotion Like have to be your rock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was very much in a.
Speaker 1:Oh, the feelings everything feels so much have to nurture, full of tears and also a side note yeah, you're a four on the enneagram right and a scorpio. Yeah, yeah, okay so yeah, exactly, but yeah, no, I think I love the enneagram and I love putting that language to stuff, because if you're a four, yeah, you love feeling yeah, it's so fun like it's everything all consuming like artistic beauty blah blah, blah, all of it, and like the connection is, you know, it's like, that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2:Like can we just talk forever and tell all of our secrets and feel, yes, right, exactly but yeah um, yeah, but now I think for him it's been amazing to see and like through plant medicine has really bubbled that up Like the divine feminine in him come through is amazing, where you see that softness and the introspection and just feeling more deeply and seeing how nurturing he is with all of our kids is really, really beautiful. And I think just now for me, with this whole endeavor of teaching, is kind of bubbling up a little more like fiery masculine energy in me where, yeah, I can kind of stand in my own power and autonomy a little bit more and be like, no, I can't do that, no, I can't make this work, like you can't go on this work trip because I'm not going to run myself dry doing all these things, because I, you know, have to look out for my own energy here or taking initiative and starting new projects, and so I think we're starting to find a little bit more balance in that now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's really cool though, yeah, cause too much of anything ends up being a bad thing you know, and not being able to sort of switch in and out.
Speaker 1:Of. You know, I go outside for a walk and I'd be able to look around and I'm my feminine. And then the next second I'm for a walk and I'm able to look around and I'm in my feminine. And then the next second I'm planning a thing and I'm in my masculine and sort of going in and out of that throughout your days and both people doing that causes so much balance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's just so awesome and so important for the men in our society and I think it's great that my husband models this and he's such a big man, he's like six, seven, so he has a force and he like is a works in steel. So like it's, you know, very masculine energy, masculine vibes. And then to see him communicate to people in our peer group with this softness it just like gives men permission, and I think it's so important we can raise little people from boyhood to manhood holding the softness of femininity in their hearts equally with masculinity. Like where my son can come to me and be like that I didn't like the way that you said that to me like the other day he told my husband he was like can you just let me be myself? Like, on the one hand, like Paul and I look at each other and are dying laughing inside like.
Speaker 2:But then, on the other hand, we're like this is what we wanted. It's hilarious as it is to hear him say it, it's also equally beautiful, because that's all you want is for your children to be able to communicate what's happening on their insides to their outsides.
Speaker 2:Totally, Instead of just I'm going to harbor this in my dad doesn't want me to be who I am. I need to shift and mold to be whatever he thinks I need to be. It feels like, oh okay, maybe we're doing some things right If he can at least express something like that to another man and like to his father which I know, you know that's not the role that my husband had with his father or like the role that I had with my parents.
Speaker 1:It's like you kind of you ship up or shape out, sort of vibes, totally yeah, and I feel like in our society we have, I mean, obviously a lot of imbalance in general, but with men I feel like it is there. Men are either super masculine to where it's, you know, patriarchal, or they're too feminine to where they're not working, they're into like video games, laying around lazy kind of like in a feminine energy, maybe because of so it's cool to be able to. I mean, the goal is balanced about both, you know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, and I think too like will help to create a more balanced society if, yeah, men can hold that nurturing energy too, where you are being a more supportive role in your children's lives, and then maybe that frees up a little energy for the feminine to gain a little bit more power.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Because it also happens with women too. We have sort of shifted from being stuck in this oh feminine, you know, damsel in distress, kind of like, oh man, like we just can't do anything, to then we took a whole other path of no, I'm going to work and I can do anything a man can do, and that can be unbalanced too Totally, because it's like I, to be honest, I don't really want to go to work 24, seven and be in charge and be like hyper-masculine all the time, you know, and like the society is like, oh, good job, girlfriend, you're doing it all yourself, and it's like, eh, but I don't really, maybe I don't want to, though Can I have both the duality like this?
Speaker 1:polarity of life, whether it's like masculine or feminine or republican.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, boy girl, you know it's like, yeah, you want it. We've got to put ourselves into these boxes. And maybe is that just we assume that this polarizing way of thinking is easier.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I don't know yeah, why don't we like the middle?
Speaker 2:Just be in the middle here somewhere. I don't know, or can we hold them both to be true at all the times. Right, I am an embodiment of masculine energy and simultaneously an embodiment of female energy, and I don't know when the gauge or the levels of each will shift. When the gauge or the levels of each will shift, but I think that's kind of just is speaking to a more fluid way of being in the world where you can react to changes as they come. You don't have to put yourself in a box. You know whether it's your roles as a mother or a wife or not wanting to have children, or a career person or this, like we really do kind of feel. I think that we have to pigeonhole ourselves in order to to feel successful or to make progress or to even just hit ourselves against whatever the opposite polarity is. It's like just a little bit more fluid mushiness of it all coming together. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And back to what you were saying too, about like society, standards of like. It always has to be this like upward trajectory and sometimes, no, it can come up and down and back up and back down. It's kind of thinking you have to, every single year, make more money and if you don't make more money than the last year, even if it's by like two to $3,000, that you're somehow like failing. And you know, like that's an example, you know, and it's like you could have a year where you didn't work that much that year and really enjoyed yourself. Then you can have another year where you're really working your ass off and making more money, so the next year you can chill. It can all sort of be whatever, and that's with all kinds of things, accomplishments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think of that too in terms of a spiritual journey.
Speaker 2:You're on any sort of spiritual path, whether it's like Buddhism or yoga or you know whatever it is. I think there's always or at least I certainly had in my mind like I'm gonna reach the point and then I'm not going to react anymore and I will be this perfect embodiment of chill, or you know whatever. Whatever you're hoping to achieve, and I think, through hardships in life, really, I believe it to be true that it's just not an upward trajectory. It's just this constant up and down, constant being pulled away from yourself, being pulled away from your true nature, feeling scattered and disconnected, and then a coming back and finding clarity and feeling inspired and feeling connected to source and divinity and like, oh, it's all about love. You know the coming, the pulling together, coming apart and trusting that when you feel separate from yourself, that it won't last forever, there will be a reconverging of all your parts and that when you're in that space of clarity, knowing that like, oh, this is beautiful and also it will not last forever, it's fleeting yeah yeah, totally so.
Speaker 2:I think that that is, uh, yeah, just like a super important idea that my husband and I have really had to hone in on, especially through, like adversity getting that autism diagnosis for our daughter and feeling like, what does this mean? What will? Projecting a gazillion years into the future and also just being in a really hard time then Really challenging and feeling like, is it, will she ever be able to do this or that? And then now, seeing that she's amazing and she's thriving and she's right there with her peers and you know, had we thought that we would be there forever, gosh, like the suffering that we would have put ourselves through and potentially holding her back too.
Speaker 2:Instead of, we're going to react with the things as they come and it's hard now, it won't always be this way, and then, even like, when it's really good, let's suck it in now while we can, let's like bolster our relationship, solidify that foundation of love and connection, because one of us is going to. You know, something will happen, someone will have a hard time, something will shift the dynamics of our family, separating our hearts a little bit, creating disconnection, but knowing in that time that, like, we will come back together. Yeah, and just being okay with it. The heart, I don't know like life is. It's about the hardness, it's about the hard times just as much as the good. The suffering comes with the beauty and the death comes with the life.
Speaker 1:It's just, I mean, that's why I love cycles so much, and that's why I think that it's kind of like what we're saying, too, is that you're going to feel really, really happy and then you're going to not, maybe, and then you're going to let something go. Just the feelings in your body are going to change throughout a cycle, and having that correlation, okay, and then I bleed, and then, hey, a couple of days later I'm, I'm kind of fresh again.
Speaker 1:Cool, all right, here I am like over and, over and over again, and I mean that in itself is a spiritual practice as well, that's so true, and I only recently I think I've had maybe three cycles since having my now two-year-old, because she nursed, she's still nursing.
Speaker 2:So even just going from not like being pregnant and then nursing and not having a cycle for, you know, almost three years and feeling kind of a nice steady baseline and now having a cycle, it is, I feel it, so much and it is a hard practice yeah, do you like being chill with the baseline, like the constant versus? I don't know that I like one more than the other, but I'm certainly experiencing the challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because how does the other feel?
Speaker 2:well, I think the other one was a little bit um, I guess I could compare it to like more of the idea of a steady upward trajectory where I knew what how I would feel pretty much all the time, and so there just wasn't this added variable.
Speaker 2:Ooh, really, yeah, and now. But also it's new, you know, yeah. So like now I'm feeling so much the energy of a week or so after a cycle and really super hard feeling the week before and I had never really felt that just this dip in like vivaciousness where I'm just like nothing really feels as good, I don't feel as inspired, and I find that to be really tricky with teaching yoga and trying to write these classes that have a touch of inspiration in them or like messaging in them and being like but this, this, my body feels icky and like I want the whole class to just be in child's play around and like we just all cry for an hour yeah, yeah, exactly yeah, I think it's, it's positive and that it's touching me back into these natural rhythms of life that like I have to be accustomed with, and then also hard, because I just don't like feeling like mentally not my best self exactly for a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's annoying, yeah, yeah, it's really annoying, yeah and then I also don't it like feels like a cop-out sometimes to be like, well, you know, it's the week before my period. Or if, like my husband were to ask, yeah, if it's the week before or it almost, well I'm gonna kind of just write off everything that's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like still very much want to be taken very seriously because everything in me, feels it because it is real, like it is real, I am the realist actually, yeah, if you really think about it, because it's the bullshit meter I had two weeks ago is no more. So this feel. So it's like yeah, this is the real me Like this is actually kind of what I'm thinking here and why I need to go through this.
Speaker 2:I've never really thought of it like that, which is true. Yeah, it's just the buffer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like little sweetness buffer that I had before yeah, it's gone. So it really annoys me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, which is so funny. Yeah, these things are. It's not like it's not part of me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not like the scary period monsters coming and like turning me into someone that I'm not.
Speaker 2:It's just like no this still lives in me. But yeah, like letting that, letting it be okay, yeah. Because it is letting that, letting it be okay because yeah, it is, and also really important, I think too, to have a partner and male children kind of witness it. Yeah, and to be like, oh well, you know she's cycling. Or like I use a cup and sometimes I forget to flush after I've dumped.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, oh yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. And so my son will be like oh mom, what's in? What did you lose? Yeah, and I was like no mommy's bleeding, it's just, you know, it's the time I'm having my period, yeah. And so, like he has that understanding which then he'll take like into all of his relationships and be a more compassionate partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause, think about if they didn't know that that would be. I don't know like just because of how involved everything is, I feel like in my life and my like cycle and how yeah like it's just crazy to think about the opposite of that of going through the world not knowing that this woman is just going to be cycling through. It just is what it is.
Speaker 2:Probably more, that this woman is just going to be cycling through. Yeah, it just is what. It is probably more often the case, right than not. Because what? Like how you'd have to consider how you would introduce a child to it and like, yeah, at least when I I don't often hear from my peers that they're inviting the kid in to watch what mommy does or at least like even being in the bathroom, but there's there's so much curiosity in our home about it, especially like explaining it to our middle child where she's like.
Speaker 2:But does it hurt? Oh?
Speaker 2:yeah, right, yeah, yeah there's so much blood, and blood means injury in the right mind. Yeah, yeah. So just, it's really fascinating to see their reaction to something that is so part of life, so normal, and yet we really do keep it kind of under lock and key until until you're 13. And then it's like throw a box of tampons in the room and run away and figure it out, cause that is, I mean, that's how it was for me. There was no, really no understanding of cycling, even until I wanted to get pregnant. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1:Like it's. I say isn't that crazy? Like just because, yeah, it is, it is, it is crazy, it is.
Speaker 2:And it is also crazy because, like it is still, I think the norm with a great majority of people.
Speaker 1:But it's so funny when you learn something and you think everyone knows it. Yeah, like you're, like everybody oh oh, yeah, right. Which makes it so much more because also, too, like the ovulation feeling. Like you know, we talk a lot about, like the low feeling, but the ovulation feeling, the happy, the vivacious the. I'm so hot, I'm ready to do anything.
Speaker 1:I'm doing all this shit. I I'm so hot, I'm ready to do anything. I'm doing all this shit. I want that to last forever. You know, and everybody wants that to last forever, just like we want good emotions to last forever and like you were saying, like they're fleeting, that I feel like when I'm taking plant medicine of any type, like if I'm on having a great trip, I'm like I want to feel like this forever.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:But like you're going to come back down, unfortunately, you know, and that's reintegrate. So yeah, I wanted to touch a little bit on that, like what is your experience with plant medicine and how did that help everything we just talked about? How did you get the new eyes from that?
Speaker 2:How did that help and was it overnight?
Speaker 1:Was it gradual? Was there an integration period? Walk us through that, maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Well, like a little background. You know, in college never, never, experimented with anything.
Speaker 1:Like, did you? When did you first like smoke pot?
Speaker 2:Well, I first smoked pot when I was much like 15, experimenting with my little brother, and then I think we got caught and so it was like, oh no, this is bad, bad, bad, bad. Didn't touch it again until after college. Oh, wow, okay. So like nothing through college was the fear was instilled very appropriately. Didn't touch it and then got out of college.
Speaker 1:Did you drink really?
Speaker 2:Did you like drinking? Yeah, yeah, I did, but that was it. So I mean, and then occasionally Adderall to help with a test.
Speaker 2:But, really that was it. And then, after college, you know, met my now husband and the first time even him, the first time that the both of us so the first time I had smoked pot in a very many, many years, and him also many, many years was with his parents. They had come to visit and it was, I think, the perfect opportunity where I could be with people in a role where they were very successful. They were loving parents to their son, who was right there in front of them and like no judgment, and so it really was kind of a awesome way to jump back in and be like wow, this doesn't feel scary, I don't feel like I'm like dirty freaking out like everyone's always talking about this just feels kind of fun.
Speaker 2:So Paul and I would, you know, occasionally dabble in some cannabis, but very much the same as like drinking, where maybe we would go to a hike or a party or something and would use it to enhance social connection, stuff like that. Nothing, nothing, crazy cannabis, beginning to use it a little bit more regularly as we, you know, like the year before I had like our first year of marriage, would start to use it for sleep. You know, instead of like cutting out, I used to take like Benadryl and melatonin and all all the things to help me fall asleep, and just started replacing it with cannabis and that was really helpful. And then we had our second child and just being in that place of like postpartum depression, not understanding why she wasn't developing in the same way as her brother.
Speaker 1:We had an opportunity because again society just just so too. Oh, totally, yeah, a little.
Speaker 2:Well then, and even like in the opposite hand of things, we were trying to be very like well, you know, everyone's different and like she's gonna develop differently and there was almost like a little bit of kind of passiveness in that too.
Speaker 2:But Paul's sisters had traveled and met an awesome shaman and she. They became friends and she came to Cooperstown, she came to upstate New York where they live, and we had the opportunity to participate in a ceremony and, like never, had ever experienced any psychedelics, no mushrooms, any LSD, like nothing. It was cannabis, alcohol. And then like boom, we're. We're trying ayahuasca. And you know, I had had some traumatic experiences that I had hoped to process, like things you know there. There are big things in our lives that we think, that we have processed, or that when we think of them, maybe they don't drum up the same amount of pain, but like I knew that that trauma still lived in my body and just trying to cope with the way that I was meeting motherhood, you know it just felt like is it this hard for everyone?
Speaker 2:like, am I? Am I just not built for this? Yeah, o Oof. What a hard feeling, I know, especially when it's like what is my choice?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, babe, you're here. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:But, like I mean, I think that many people feel that way. I just don't think our society lets it be okay. Yeah, because you know you've had the baby, baby, the ultimate role, your ultimate like what you should always have wanted, and it's like no one. You know, we don't not all women want to procreate. And two, when it happens, even if you wanted it so much, shit is hard. Yeah, it's just so demanding. But yeah, after having her, so we go and we do this ayahuasca ceremony and it just like cracked me open.
Speaker 1:Did you? What were your expectations before?
Speaker 2:I had done as much research as I could possibly do because, yeah, I'd never experienced a psychedelic Right. So I and I didn't. And I knew through birth that if I was harboring fear, that I was going to take that fear into the experience and I was going to shape my experience based on that fear and I didn't want this experience to be about that. I wanted it to be healing and I knew, just like with birth, that I would likely survive.
Speaker 1:Right Like odds are.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go in and maybe I will likely experience discomfort, but it will be discomfort with a purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I wanted and I had experienced that through birth. So I knew that, like I, I can put myself through something that's very uncomfortable if I know that on the other end there's like a fruit of some kind. And so, yeah, like the prep work going into it, cutting out coffee, cutting out cannabis for a while, what else?
Speaker 2:Animal protein, coffee, cutting out cannabis for a while. What else you read? Animal protein. Yeah, it was like the day I think you do some fasting beforehand because it can make you feel very nauseous and often vomit. But no, for me, I like I didn't there was no vomiting, it was just a really, really wild experience.
Speaker 2:And I just remember coming to after experiencing a really serious healing and just feeling cracked open, like just sobbing and sobbing about things that I had been holding in for years, and the amazing part was that it really did feel like just a draining and like these ways of thinking when it came to motherhood that I always kind of um, I love the metaphor of like a ski hill where you're skiing down the slopes and like you create these divots in the snow and if you're going down, it's really easy to kind of glide your skis into these already formed divots, these like pathways of thinking, and that some, like these plant medicine ceremonies, can be kind of a blanket of fresh powder to then allow you to create new pathways of thinking.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, it was. It was super, super powerful and just felt more more connected, I think, to the ultimate. It kind of acted, I think, as like a zooming out for me, where it was like zoom out in the context of your whole life. It's not. These things aren't that important really. And you know the cliche it's all about love 're all connected, we're all alive, it's all alive, yeah but it really is.
Speaker 1:There's a difference between saying it and hearing it and then feeling it, which I feel like happens with like psychedelics really allow you to actually fucking believe it.
Speaker 2:Oh, you just feel it in your heart and it was. I was so lucky because my in-laws, where we were doing the ceremony, near their property, they own a greenhouse and so, like the day after where it actually had snowed that night, so there's snow on the ground and then you go into the greenhouse and there's tropical plants everywhere and it was just being in communion with these other living things on a very tangible, real level, not like a BS sort of it's all alive, but like no, I can. I can feel like the energy of these other living things and, yeah, kind of taking me out of this me mindset to like, wow, I'm like I'm no more important than that plant and really ultimately like we're both just going to turn to dust and get recycled into something new.
Speaker 2:So I think it helped to put to put that context of my place in the grand scheme of things, to put it more into focus, and not in a scary way but just like, in a way that let me take a breath and like yeah, like it's like.
Speaker 1:Get real, yes, get real. Like it's not that deep dude, like it is again, duality, it is the deepest thing, and it's not that deep, yeah, yeah, and that it's that.
Speaker 2:It's like I mean, if you're, if you're giving love and you're, you're showing love and you're doing the best you can, most of the time like it's, it's it really be fine in the end, or well, you know in the end, well, it'll be what it's going to be anyway, yeah, like so, yeah, it really puts everything back into perspective.
Speaker 2:We only did one ceremony that time and it was really interesting because my husband had no effect at all, really, yeah. So it was me and his two sisters were in this ceremony, and so I think, like these plants can really have an intelligence, and so like the way that the plant medicine worked within his body was like no, you got to be present, for you're feeling a little too much anxiety about these women in this space. So like he kind of just laid and held space for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then, like we think, maybe two or three years later went and did a three night ceremony you did yeah, and that was just a totally different experience. You know like doing three nights in a row can almost feel like peeling back layers of an onion, where you're just kind of getting deeper and deeper, and for him that was a super powerful experience, and so it's. It just kind of shows you what you need to see in the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, what did you think of the three night scene? Was it a lot or was it no?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's always good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, like if you're, if you're open to healing, you're open to insight, you're open to just hearing what a different intelligence has to offer you. It's hugely powerful and, like any retreat setting, is powerful.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Where you're in a setting of we're all circling up, we're sharing intention, like why we're here and things that we've been meditating on and thinking about for months before. So there's just so much intention Totally. But yeah, that ceremony was really cool, like one night, cause I went in more open-minded with this. I felt like I had processed like the big traumas, right.
Speaker 1:So you're like I'm moving, whatever happens, happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was. It was really cool. There was like a moment of, you know, laying there and feeling very much like watching my body kind of disintegrate and roots coming from the backside of me into the earth and trees like growing up out of me. So it's like I almost became the dirt which you know I will become, which you know I will become, and seeing these trees, like seeing this life grow up and out of me, was, yeah, just continues to solidify my place in the grand scheme of things right, exactly kind of be recycled in, but then we through that.
Speaker 2:I was like this mean, like we have to go to the red woods, yeah, yeah yeah and so then we went on like pilgrimage to the redwoods and through that experience then, you know, conceived our daughter.
Speaker 1:Oh really yeah, it was why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and even at that ceremony, the shaman she was like so are you done here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was like this is uh not a conversation I like to have.
Speaker 2:Sure, in ceremony I was like, oh no, we're like two, because we we're dealing with a neurodivergent child, and bringing another kid into the world was like a hard, hard, no, um. And she's like, well, you know, I like I just see three for you and but yeah, then I guess five years later, really yeah, where we finally get to the Redwoods and then we do, did you, were you?
Speaker 1:intentional on that Like. Were you like?
Speaker 2:OK it's a tricky story because she we were intentional with her, but we there was a very unintentional pregnancy that had happened maybe a year, year before conceiving her, where we reacted to this pregnancy with like a cancer diagnosis is the only way that I can really like, yeah, I didn't feel.
Speaker 2:It felt like I was I would be taking something away from that middle child that that needed so much of my attention. So we just reacted really poorly and it was really sad to see how fear, and really just fear and control, took over and changed something that could have been so beautiful into something that, yeah, was, was a scary, fear-based thing.
Speaker 2:But we ended up losing that pregnancy and it was like something that I wanted, yeah, which was a real mind fuck yeah, of like and like a relief and almost like like you kind of made it happen yeah and like I, I feel like I and I don't even want to use the word pray, but like it was, it was almost like, please, god, like I don't want to do this.
Speaker 1:Please don't do this to me. Yes, like, please, like. Why did you do this?
Speaker 2:I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't totally, and so like in losing that pregnancy was, I think, like by the time I was bleeding, my body had finally processed what was happening yeah, it was like oh shit, yeah, it was just a huge, huge mind fuck it kind of shows how much our minds and our wombs are connected.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I see that a lot of times with people and it's like a hard thing to believe and it's hard to explain, but it's like delaying periods or starting periods or having like fertility challenges because of some sort of mindset or old paradigm, or like not getting a bleed because you think that you are. You have like a bad feeling about it all or vice versa, like it's interesting how that can be a thing.
Speaker 2:They're so connected, yeah, which may I mean it's like in your body, Like it's interesting how that can be a thing. They're so connected, yeah, which may I mean it's like in your body Like, it's like duh Right, but we yeah, but it's funny that we don't think With all things. Like oh no, I'm having headaches. Well or like, are you stressed out?
Speaker 1:Right, you know like duh, but yet again society and Western medicine has made it like no, it's because of something else. It's never your emotions manifesting into disease, but anyway. Well, yeah and like the medical system.
Speaker 2:We've got a pill for that, we've got tests for that, that, that, that, that and it's like, but anyway, totally, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:So it was after that. Do you think really quick, though? Do you think that her spirit was trying to come in?
Speaker 2:like do you think it was the same? I don't know. And that's when I, because she's so magic, yeah, baby that we have now. And I think the meaning making part of me wants to think that. But I think the reality is that no, it was just, it was a totally separate thing, being that my heart wasn't open to parenting, and it's like it's really hard to accept that because I think it puts a lot of the onus on me, but I think that it's important to accept it because you can have that duality of feeling like I don't deserve this. And then also the realization that, like we did eventually decide that no, like we can't now we can't really envision our family without this, and we always thought, well, this supposed third child is going to make things exponentially harder for this kid that we already have. And the reality is now, like we see her interacting, ellie and fiona interacting with each other, and it's like unbelievable, what?
Speaker 1:like she needed to be yes in the family, for her and for you all.
Speaker 2:Right and to think that we almost allowed the fear. You know the poor way that we responded to that first pregnancy, almost like we needed to be punished. We almost let that hold us back from like manifesting what could be really amazing. And then also taking this huge step without knowing what was going to happen and that was part of it was. I'm really terrified. This could be, will be really hard and it could backfire.
Speaker 2:The shows that are going to arise because of it, but like holding all of that uncertainty and just doing it anyways. And that was part of the process because, yeah, that it was the fear and the control that was, like the, the root of us reacting so poorly. Fear and the conversations between my husband and I in those early days was just but they were honest.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's how, that's what it was, totally, but that was how you were really feeling. That was the actual.
Speaker 2:And it's a huge. It's like a super important snapshot in time for me to to look back and see the reality of a third child now and I see the joy and the creativity and the interaction with the other children and it just it would.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't have been there. So yeah, like this idea of courage and trust and kind of following like your heart's inkling, it's like my heart wasn't like I need a baby. My heart was very much like, no, this is scary and terrifying, but also I feel like it's you know, it's part of our path. I feel like it's like we're really being called to this, not saying that if anyone feels a remote tingling, inkling, that they call for a baby that could happen, but yeah, yeah, but I think it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so cool though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it feels like it brings a lot of reverence to to her, her being here and just kind of witnessing it all you know, and being very different parents than we were when we were riding the the train of society's success path of like.
Speaker 2:You get married, you have the babies, you have a boy, and now you have a girl, and that's it all done, yeah, easy peasy, but yeah, when you're like doing anything that isn't necessarily what society would reward you for, then yeah, you, you do, I guess, have to really tap into that intuition and feel grounded in what decision you're making and, yeah, grounded in courage.
Speaker 1:Totally, and that's cool too, because it's like she really wanted to be here. She really wanted to come earth side and be with you guys. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really cool, I do feel, and it's so magical. And I'll tell you this story because she did just have her birthday last friday and so her middle name is magdalene, for mary magdalene. And you know I'm not like a very religious person but I had read this book before conceiving any of those pregnancies and just about like the divine feminine and Jesus's and Mary's very personal relationship, like almost kind of. You know I hope I don't get in trouble with any actual religious people but that their partnership was very much kind of an equal spiritual partnership, like that is so interesting, yeah, some even believe, like that they were married, kind of yeah
Speaker 2:but just so, being really inspired by this divine feminine and this like a system that really has gone to shape all of society that's so patriarchal, and that, seeing that actually what, maybe even from the very beginning, that a divine feminine role was equal and interplaying with all of this, I thought was amazing. So that's her middle name, and you know, mary Magdalene is also really associated with the color red. And so Fiona's born and we don't have her name for like a week. She's just this no name baby for a week. She's just this no-name baby for a week. And then we finally name her Fiona Magdalene. And there is a type of birthmark that appears after you've been born, and so she has this big patch of red on her neck, these like three chunks of red on her neck, which felt like very much, this like auspicious sort of yes, this is connecting to your divine feminine.
Speaker 2:And so then recently I was rereading this book because Mary Magdalene's name had come up in a different conversation with a different woman. I was like, oh, maybe I should reread this book. And so I was rereading it and they were talking about one of the like this feast day of a saint was May 24th, which is her birthday. And on her birthday I was like man, oh, who are they saying? Who was that?
Speaker 2:That was May 24th, was the feast day, and so I went on my computer on her birthday and like looked it up and it was Mother Mary, jesus's mother. It was her feast day, which my grandmother had this unbelievable devout relationship with the Mother Mary, almost to the point where you may not be able to connect with her as a grandmother, but you could connect with her through stories about like the blessed mother and like she would take you to the cathedral and, you know, show you. So this divine feminine had a strong role in her life and I felt that when I saw that like that was her feast day, I mean my whole body was just like warm and tingly.
Speaker 2:It was like this is my grant, like just this genealogy, this connection of all of these women and this divine feminine and like for sure, very woo, woo, but also very I believe it.
Speaker 1:It's real as hell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like, yeah, it's just like, oh, this is it felt redemptive and it also felt like a wink from beyond, like this, almost a little like a gift. This is it felt redemptive and it also felt like a wink from beyond, like this, almost a little like a gift, a hug, a blessing from my grandmother, just like an acknowledgement that she was pleased that I had found the courage to meet this challenge of having another child, of having another child and, and that she was just like that. She saw that divine divinity in her and me and my mom and, yeah, just feeling connected to that female lineage was super cool. So I basically think Fiona is oh my gosh that is so awesome yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that. I just think it's so cool. And apparently these birthmarks they like fade over time and hers is starting to get a little faded and I'm like, wow, she's still powerful, yeah, yeah, oh, my God, if anything she like gets more powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No shortage of power. Yeah, awesome, yeah, awesome. Well, I could keep going, but you know, we have things to you know get to in life but, man. Thank you so much, brandy. There was so many wisdom and nuggets and what a good combo thanks for for chatting yeah it's fun. Yeah, if people want to find you, where can they find you? Do you have? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Where could they find me? Do they want to do you want them to find me? I?
Speaker 1:mean they could. Do you want to be found? They could find me on the interwebs. Are you on the interwebs?
Speaker 2:But I am not very active on the interwebs. The best place to find me is at Shine every third.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, check her out on the schedule. She exists there.
Speaker 2:I know what, uh what the names are. I like on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:Whenever you have anything, you know they find me, they'll find me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all meant to be Brandy. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks, thank you.