May Nothing That is Human be Foreign to Me with Jodi Strock

In this episode, depth + somatic psychotherapist, and The Whole Paradox Host, Molly Mitchell-Hardt welcomes psychotherapist, yogi, and mindfulness teacher, Jodi Strock LMFT for the third time (they love talking to each other!).  They talk about:

• ways to support ourselves in times of turmoil and upheaval
• bridge building in times of division
• the relief in the unveiling, even when it is painful
• projection and personal responsibility as practice
• internalized patriarchy
• the dehumanization inherent in US capitalism
• visions of the future
• grief work
• and much more...

Molly's Offerings:
To inquire about 1:1 work or about 1 x per month Cycle-Synced Deep Tide Sessions, schedule a free consultation or email mollymitchellhardt@gmail.com

Find Jodi Strock:
Follow Jodi on instagram
Reach out to Jodi for details on her workshops and Retreats: JodiStrockLMFT@gmail.com

Follow us @mollymitchellhardt and @thewholeparadox

This podcast was produced in association with Channel the Sun by Kevin Joseph Grossmann.  Musical stylings by Kevin Joseph Grossmann.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Whole Paradox Podcast, where we explore timeless wisdom in the modern age to cultivate a greater sense of meaning and belonging to ourselves, our world, and one another.
We will integrate the sacred, mythic, somatic, creative, and poetic to expand our meaning of truth and our capacity for complexity and nuance.
Hello and welcome. I'm excited to have dear friend and colleague Jodi Strock back on the podcast today. This is our third episode, which is really fun. And we thought it would be perhaps supportive to delve into how we're digesting and relating to all the upheaval that's going on in the world right now. And I think a good reminder is that the word apocalypse means unveiling, not destruction.
What if what's happening is not a collapse, but a revelation? What has always been here is now visible. The question isn't how do we fix it? It's what is being asked of us as witnesses.
So that's sort of maybe the pool we're going to swim in today a little bit.
But before we dive into the deep end, maybe we just take a moment to talk about how we've been inviting joy and laughter and lightness into our lives despite everything.
Yeah, what a great place to start. And thank you for having me back. I love being here.
So good to have you. 

Thank you. Yeah, well, I'm wondering what comes up for you around it. How have you been touching into the full spectrum in the midst of the challenges?

I mean, I think a big part of it has been orienting to what's closest to me.
And, you know, sometimes that's just my own breath and my own body. And sometimes that's my family. our day-to-day lives and you know the seasons and the weather and the you know the walks I take with my dog um to just remember when i sometimes it's like when i open my scope to the global it can just be so daunting and overwhelming and almost you know it hijacks all my survival physiology and um all of a sudden it's like it's happening you know to me right now and just this reorientation to beauty actually I think that's a huge huge thing for me is reorienting to beauty and to what's here right now because I'm yeah I'm useless to anybody if I'm completely overwhelmed and taken over so yeah that's been sort of how I've been trying to It's not necessarily how I'm digesting it. There's also a lot of like engaging and like engaging what's going on and moving it through my system as well. But that is how I'm kind of balancing that out with finding my feet on the ground somehow.

Yeah, thank you. I can relate to that. And as I was listening to you, what
I realized is that Yes, there's orienting to the beauty. And really, what I hear you saying is landing in the present moment. I just got back from the annual women's retreat that I facilitate, co-facilitate. And we were talking about rest. And for me, that's a big part of this is rest. And part of the conversation was in our lives, there's this way in which things have become so full for so many of us wearing the different hats and playing the different roles that rest can feel like some like kind of the finish line that we get to and how that can be very depleting in and of itself and then we pile on top of that all of these things that we are consuming you know through media through our algorithms on whatever it is
that we're on, just walking around in the world and meeting the energies of other beings who are just like us going through and trying to manage it all. And we really,
on the retreat, landed in this practice of resting in presence. And so instead of thinking, I can rest when the dishes are done. It's I will rest as I'm doing the
dishes. If I just wash the dishes, I will rest as I'm doing the dishes. And it's not to negate the value of a seated practice or really laying down and rest.
It's not to justify maintaining busyness, but it's a way to incorporate
that rest is actually available in every moment. And so that's been important to me through this is remembering to rest. And really, even as anyone's listening to this right now, and you and I are listening to each other, just dropping into our bodies, feeling our feet on the ground or sits bones on whatever we're seated on, and just coming back to that place. of the always existing stillness has been such an anchor for me. And I'm reminded also that just like you, I find turning to my kiddos or, you know, dancing with them or when they're goofy and silly, like letting myself get swept up in it. There's so much joy in that. Or yesterday I went out and I just, I was feeling super grumpy. really agitated and I realized I just needed time to myself and I laid down for a minute and realized oh I actually need to move so I went out into the yard and decided to plant some things and getting hands in the soil and smelling it and seeing the little spiders and worms and all of it there was something so grounding in that and I want to touch on there's like this is a moment in time where on the home front for me, things feel somewhat stable after a period of it not feeling stable. So there's a way in which what's going on out in the larger collective home can feel a bit like a refuge at this moment. And I want to just acknowledge that there's likely people listening. And I know for myself, just a
short few months ago, we went through a pretty intense family situation where Home was actually a really big part. of the stress and the overwhelm and the intensity on top of what else is going on in the world. And so in those moments, right, it's these questions we can really ask ourselves, like Molly and I are giving our experience, but it's not to offer something outside of you to try on necessarily. But my hope is that it's for anyone listening to look within and ask, huh, yeah, where is... joy and beauty in my day-to-day, even when my internal world, my immediate personal life, and the collective feels like it's all up in the air and there's this overwhelm. And for me personally, I have found my meditation practice, my spiritual practice, turning to books from mentors and teachers to be really grounding for me. In addition to just kind of going outside and looking up at the sky and watching the clouds and the birds and just kind of remembering that wider view of this feels so big right now. And I'm just watching all of watching through the sky, these really big clouds pass through. So it's like holding this bigger image.

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I can relate to a lot of what you shared and there are some podcasts I listen to in times like these that I feel are able to hold that bigger view and bigger picture because it takes us out of the sort of temporal and into the like sort of eternal in a way arcs of creation and apocalypse and that this is not new and this is not you know there are aspects that are new and novel but you know archetypally the underpinnings are are all the same um and it just helps me relate to it in a completely different way kind of like calms my whole system down to feel like we are we're actually so connected in our you know in the archetypal underpinnings of psyche that pervades everything anyway yes yeah Yeah.

That place of we. Yeah. That inter-being. 

No, I really appreciate you also saying that sometimes, you know, when we're in moments where we're lacking stability, even stability or, you know, sometimes joy that maybe something even easier to reach for perhaps so just be neutral you know I feel like neutral can be really underrated and neutral can feel freaking amazing you know especially when our system's really hijacked for a time you know it's like being able to feel neutral like oh wow I'm not super collapsed and I'm also not super revved or charged or hyper vigilant I just feel kind of okay yeah.

Yeah, and I think that's an important point because my sense is that many are quick to identify neutral as almost like a deficit. You know, the messages I've received in the world is that it's really important to be happy and successful and up, right? Like stimulants,
you know, it kind of feels like the stimulant mentality, which I bought into for a really long
time.
And yeah, the relief of neutrality, right?
And savoring, like it's really savoring that.
Yeah, the practice of savoring has been one too that's been an incredible support in difficult moments, right? 

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think the savoring,
I like to think of it too as like collecting little glimmers. It's like, you know,
And I really like to think about the like almost beauty as a path, you know, because this idea that we're constantly surrounded by beauty, but sometimes you don't have the eyes to see it, you know. And so I always find that when I when I'm surrounded by beauty that I am not able to see, I'm kind of like checking in with myself like, OK, what's going on that like this isn't. penetrating that this isn't landing anywhere um because I always find it's it's due to some something's a little kind of ungrounded inside or um or yeah I've
just been really um out of myself in some way um and it's like this sort of signal that I need tosort of return home in whatever way I can.

Can I ask you a question about that?

Yeah. For you, when you find, and I so know that space of like, you're in maybe a place that usually you really can find the beauty in quickly and you just feel maybe turned off or not, you know, not turned off in the sense of not turned on, but just kind of, it's not accessible. Yeah. What is the very first thing? Like, how do you meet yourself in that moment between recognizing that and feeling maybe the desire of moving towards seeing beauty, but not being there yet? What's the very first step for you when you recognize it?

Yeah, I think it's always turning my attention back to my body in some capacity you know because I think it's always some way of having left my body um not being like fully inhabited for whatever reason you know it could be that I've just been you know checking off to-do list items all day and I've been really analytical into my head you know um so sometimes I think it's just bringing my attention to where I feel a sense of gravity in my body, whether that's my feet or my seat or anywhere else really, you know, or a lack of the sense of gravity. Like sometimes I feel a little floaty, you know, and it's like, okay, then I'm looking for, or trying to turn my attention to where there's just a sense of presence inside. Like, okay, that's there. It doesn't have to feel grounded, but. I can feel that it's there, you know, and sometimes that's just like feeling that, you know, my hands on my thighs and okay, I can feel that that's, my hands are touching my thighs, you know, and it can be that small, you know, to kind of start from that place and then just see, you know, not try to make anything happen, but just see what unfolds if anything wants to unfold.
And then often I get like other information. you know like oh yeah now that i'm noticing now I'm back in my body a little bit i'm noticing all the static in my chest and that wants something else you know might want some sound or some size or some groans you know yeah thank you 

Yeah, because I know with people that I work with and even, I mean, and in my own life for sure, like that piece that you're talking about, my languaging for it is like that's compassion practice of being able to really meet it, really meet it exactly as it is and letting go of agenda to get somewhere else. So thank you for articulating that.
My experience of what's happening collectively in response to what's happening collectively is actually this is at the root of it, right? Like this piece of not really learning or being encouraged, and this is we, to stay with something that might not register as good.
or pleasant or pleasurable. And so I find that when that's the case, many of us have learned to then label it as a problem or as something we need to get really far away from or as something we need to fix or solve or change. And that to me is when we create
internally the duality that we're struggling with externally and then we perpetuate it.
while we're struggling with really wanting to see it heal in the collective.
And that's the place where I think there's actually immense opportunity that we overlook because we can get so caught up in the kind of the tangle of that. 

I really love that. That sort of just brought up a lot for me. And I'm wondering,
I love that image of sort of how it's landing internally and how it gets perpetuated externally. And I'm wondering if you could pull like an example that could really like ground that experience.

Yeah. You know, I think, for example, where something really relatable is we're listening or we see something come through the news either because we're listening to it or we walk down the street and someone says, oh, did you hear this thing happen today? Even if we've really tried to protect ourselves and whatever that means for us that day. And all of a sudden it brings up maybe anxiety or fear, right? Or grief. And yet here we are walking around in the world and that arises and maybe whatever that is, let's just say for the sake of this example, it's fear. Because I think a lot of people are feeling that right now.
That's very vulnerable. And so when that arises and we're walking around the world,
we are quick to either kind of attach to that as our identity, now I'm afraid, and act from that place. Or we try to push it away. and act like we're fine and then it gets stuck and we're feeling in our body we're carrying it or we're trying to suppress it but what's happening in that moment is that we are um we either become fully we believe we're identified with the fear or we're rejecting the fear we haven't yet often learned how to be with the fear and care for ourselves so then what happens is that we that are walking around in the world for whatever period of time with that there.
And there's that split. That's the duality. And that then perpetuates in the world.
So maybe we then from that place say something in response to the person that brought it up of like, I'm really trying not to hear that stuff right now. I'd rather you not talk to me about it. Or yeah, it's so scary. And did you hear about this? Did you hear about this? Or we just kind of suppress it and walk away and then feel it festering inside, but do our best to push it away or, or, or, or. I mean, there's so many examples, right? Maybe everyone right now, we can all pause and just imagine the last time we heard something and we felt fear, what happened? And I know that for myself, I remember an engagement with somebody who has different views than I have politically and they said something and my fear was actually in response to feeling like I couldn't reach them right and so my habit like I could feel a part of me that actually wanted to grapple with them which would have because I you know I've taken that path many times I've learned leads to
the very polarization that I feel committed to healing the So in that moment,
I chose, I'm just going to sit really close with this fear and this grief, because what was
underneath the fear was grief of, I want to connect with this being, and I don't know how yet, because I feel that any of my ways of doing that are going to create more distance.
And so then that becomes the practice. So to me, this is the concrete.
How often are we sitting with these parts versus just overriding them or identifying and reacting from them? 

Yeah, I mean, that's, I really appreciate those examples because I think it really helps it feel deeply relatable inside our own lived and daily experience of this and a path of how to maybe turn toward what's happening inside in a little bit of a different way.

Yeah. Yeah. And I know we've talked about that in more depth in our past conversations on this podcast, but it's, it's such valuable work. And again, I think that when it comes to this question of how can, how do we meet these times? Like how, how I think first grounding ourself in intention is you know it's easy to overlook that part but just like I was saying in the example with that difficult conversation it was so grounding to be like oh yeah my intention is to build like be a bridge builder right yeah and so it was just remembering that intention allowed a pause and that's that I think is helpful to pause when we're feeling whatever we're feeling. And then noticing what lens is it that I'm looking through right now, right? Because when we're caught, we're kind of viewing through a very specific lens when we're gripped by human emotion that can feel intense. And not to make that lens wrong or bad, but we are just coming to know ourselves more intimately so that we can feel the freedom of choice as we take care of ourselves when that's coming up. 

Yeah, the freedom of choice, that's huge. And it's interesting too, like as you're talking, I'm present to the fact that doing what you're sharing takes presence of mind and practice.
And I don't know that it always feels quite as satisfying as throwing the punch or, you know, just... and projecting, you know? I think there is something. And like, even in that example of like, oh my gosh, it's so scary. And did you hear about this? There's something like, it's like scratching an itch, but it's like you've scratched it so much that there's now like a wound there and it's not able to heal, you know? And so nothing's really happening when you're, it's like this neurotic suffering, you know, like you're not actually suffering in a way that is generative and transformative.It's sort of this like surface level, like scratching. 

Yeah. Yeah. And so much understanding for it too, because it's like, we just want to feel a sense of connection and belonging. I think it comes from a place of, please tell me I'm not alone in this. Yeah. Right. And how quickly the, the feathers ruffle when we come from that place and then someone has a different view than us. And all of a sudden, then we're like, right. And so, so really seeing the innocence of it is, is a key part of the practice,
even if that's as far as we get. But also asking ourselves, and this is, I think we struggle with this largely here in the U S for sure of really lovingly asking ourselves to look at impact, right? We come from compassion when we look at our intention, but we take fierce responsibility when we start seeing impact. And I know for myself, if I choose the moment that I'm most heated and feel most intense to engage in a discussion with someone that has different views than me, the impact will not be what my heart is really wanting for our world, right? Whereas if I pause, there's again that freedom of choice to be able to ask myself, well, how is it that I'm really wanting to engage in this conversation?
Because this is a golden opportunity on behalf of all beings, on behalf of all of us. me and this being over here being that can we can build a bridge together right this person who I think is so different from me right now or maybe we don't but we can we can say we tried right 

Yeah it kind of um is reminding me of distinguishing um the need to fix versus what sort of being asked of us to be witness to you know and I think there's there's something really big in the collective sort of earning right now about being able to hold complexity and not flatten things yeah and that um that is it's not always easy to do and it's not always satisfying to do I think for for like a deeper part of self it can feel deeply satisfying But for some, you know, maybe I can relate to some younger, scrappier parts of myself that would love to make somebody else the enemy and myself righteous and the other wrong,
you know, and that that could feel really good, you know, and to feel like defeat somebody or whatever. But like you said before, it's sort of enacting upon the external something that is happening in the collective that, you know could be addressed internally first and foremost. 

Yeah. And I'm just, I'm laughing because I'm right there with you. And I like, and I think it's worth naming that for me, this comes up most often in my most intimate relationships, right? Like, you know, and it might be different for other people, but I know, for example, that like righteous scrappy one. you know, my partner definitely sees her more than anyone else in my life. She really likes to find music that can passive aggressively state what it is. She's so wanting to say out loud, but righteously isn't, you know, we all have these parts and, you know, it's like, no, I pop in headphones and let her rock out. And instead of just like blasting it through the house, you know, So, you know, hearts, they all belong. But, you know, we're just learning.
We're all learning together how to integrate it, not just in our relationship with ourselves,
but in relationships with all. 

Yeah. And, you know, in a strange way, you know, at least, I mean, I'm getting very specific now, but for me. with the all this sort of unveiling around the Epstein files has actually been I mean it's both deeply disturbing but also in a strange way comforting because it's almost like this spidey sense I've had forever that's just finally being like confirmed it's like okay cool I don't need to sort of have these little kind of antenna out feeling for something in the dark it's like yep yeah moving on I'm really aware of this have been forever and now it's just been named and that feels relieving on one level yeah thank you so much for for naming that out loud that's very much been my experience too of just kind of like a it
almost feels like all of the chronic gas lighting has finally been turned off and we're just seeing things as they are now 

Yes. And like you were saying in the beginning, that is the apocalypse, right? The great unveiling. It's not that anything new is happening. That was Joanna Macy, I believe, who said like when the veil is lifted, we see what's always been there. We're just not seeing it through the veil anymore. And it can feel intense and it can feel overwhelming, but it's also this opportunity where we can feel really relieved because now truth is being seen and named. 

I just got chills all over. 

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's been really big for me, for sure. Just feeling that relief and feeling.
And I feel like this has been happening so much over the last decade, just unveiling after
unveiling and each time similar feeling of, OK, now at least we can be in conscious relationship with this rather than um yeah just having like some sense of something
but not quite being able to or or if there are people who are putting language to it they're maybe still on the margins or not being really fully heard or listened to and where some voices get to you know be heard in a way that were silenced before it's just really powerful yeah 

Yeah, it is. It's like a naming and a seeing clearly of a collective shadow. It's like we've all been told to work really hard to not fully let ourselves turn towards. And some of us have. haven't had the choice because of what life has, you know, thrown our way. So we've known for a long time, but this is, it's big. And, you know, I think that this is part of that big piece of how do we meet these times? Because again, there is so much opportunity for us to go into othering around this of like, finally, the big jerks are getting called out. Finally, the, really perverse misogynistic people over there are getting what's coming and I think there's an opportunity here for us to look at our own internal dialogue around what's going on and feel the anger feel what's coming up feel the relief but also stay in relationship with Where is it that I go into believing that there's this category of people over there?
And where do I stand in that? And that's usually a sign that we've cut off from being able to see our own internalized patriarchy, right? And taking responsibility for how the system just like with them has impacted us personally and where our own work is to do, to remember every being on this planet belongs. right and it doesn't mean that harmful violent behaviors are then just okay 

yeah right yes yeah yeah it always I always come back to this I've probably said it a million times but I love this quote it's like some sort of like ancient Roman quote I can't remember who exactly said it um but it's um may nothing that is human be foreign to me it always brings me back to that just this like I am that too, you know? And I mean,
what a humbling sort of thing to consider, you know? 

Yeah.
Because again, like so satisfying to have them, the evil people sequestered over there and we can point at them and we can see them and we can, you know, dissect them,
you know? And we can separate ourselves from them and convince ourselves that,
that we're somehow safe inside our own, inside our own internal experience and outside in the world. And, and I think that that belief system is what perpetuates massive anxiety because there's some part of us that knows it's bullshit. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, you know, there's such a big part of this too, that I've been sitting with. For a long time, but this is just another iteration where it feels like a lot of what went down is so inextricably linked with power and money. And what I've been really grieving and sitting with is this sort of profit as highest priority that pervades so much of our culture and it just breaks my heart every time you know because I just see it strip people of their humanity in so many different ways and and even just like as a
consumer you know um it can hurt people you know it does hurt people it hurts the people it hurts people and Maybe even more so, and I mean, that doesn't even really make sense to say because we're all part of the earth and one with the earth, but, and the earth too, you know, that it's sort of at the expense of the earth. And I've just been grieving that, you know, I was driving to the airport and going by all of these like farms and fields and just looking out and thinking like, man, how much of the earth, sort of in its um biodiversity like true capacity for biodiversity is even left you know because
we've just done so much kind of agriculture and mining and um extracting you know um and I think about old growth forests that are just like dwindling but also um incredibly biodiverse and um I can just, I don't, I've never, I don't never been to an old growth forest, but I can imagine it would be an incredibly powerful place to be. Yeah.
You know? Yeah. And looking out and instead seeing like monocrop after monocrop,
you know? 

Yeah. I really appreciate you going there. Right.
And it's, yeah, my heart is heavy with that, that piece of all of this as well. It's really at the center of it. And maybe just tying into what we've been talking about, maybe what facilitates that ultimately, and I don't know, but I'm spitballing here, is our capacity,
all of us, our capacity to numb and to turn away from. Because there's just no way that if you are... You cannot do that unless you have turned away from some part of yourself or you've numbed yourself to some part of yourself. You've closed a room inside that you're never going to open or look at. That's right. And it's tricky because it's like,
I don't think, maybe I'm wrong, but I think we touched on this a little last time,
but I don't think there's somebody sitting somewhere saying like, ha ha ha, it's working.
We've numbed them all out and now we can destroy the planet, right?
I really believe that it's this system that we point to, part of the struggle of addressing it is because we all project and have this idea in our head.
I'm sure if we asked 100 people, you'd get 100 different responses as to who the top 10 people they see is central to the system. um depending on where you are in the world or you know a time in history but there's this systematic piece of like slowly prioritizing profit over really that the natural world right and actually have you read the book serviceberry it's beautiful but um But she has a quote in there, which I don't remember word for word, but just talking about if we can imagine a world where instead of it being central to the success and profit of something, if instead we could just see and appreciate the unique and individual gifts of each being and that being prioritized and celebrated. right this kind of service community where we because all of us every single one of us has gifts that we bring that are needed desperately right now, right? And yet we learn as we separate from ourselves, like how you're talking about and separate from our relationship then with the natural world and the planet, we actually diminish our gifts and we get into this mindset of like feeling like if I'm not this in the world, if I'm not that in the world, if I haven't accomplished these things, then I don't have value. And we miss in that the
direct relationship of how we, as we deny our bodies, as we deny our gifts,
we're cutting off from ourselves, but also from the natural world and we're denying the world. And that's the place when we go into that place of the mind of separation,
when we go into feeling like interbeing is not a real thing, right? And we forget that's where we create harm. Because all of a sudden it's not, yeah, we've just cut off from it. 

Yeah, and you're reminding me like this, or just what came through was when we separate from ourself, that may result in us separating and also denigrating the natural world,
which then... denigrates us you know it's like this loop it's like okay the the first sort of um
wound is the separating from self the turning away from self and then there's all this you know external destruction that can happen as a result which ends up destroying our very selves you know like i don't know one person that doesn't have like gut issues or you know some some impact from just all the destruction that we've caused. 

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's true. I know we've talked about this privately before, but I don't remember if we've talked about it on anything we've recorded. But even going back to
our childhood and how we treated our own bodies through our own personal stories of disconnecting man, the level of abuse that I, it was so violent and it was such a form of abuse and it was never framed that way. It was framed as like, we've talked about being coachable or being, you know, a really great athlete or being an honor student. But what did that take? You know, endless amounts of caffeine for me. You know, I think there was even at the time, like, the over-the-counter stimulants that were popular in like the late 80s early 90s you know and just exhaustion exhaustion and that it took a long time for me to see that what I was doing to this physical body and what so many of us do like this isn't a unique story to me it's it's a we story is exactly what we're doing to the earth body like you know to the planet um it's like just exhausting and unsustainable and harmful and violent and aggressive in the name of this idea of progress and success.

Yeah and and it's sort of like the brine we're pickled in it's like that is um that is just what one does you know I'm thinking about it going all the way back to sort of the Puritan ethos of early settlers you know that you know hard work is that's where you you know earn
your merit and um and if you work hard you can have a good life and you know it's this it's a it's a myth it's a complete myth um but how that just continues to be the underpinning that you know holds up yep at first 

Yeah, and there's actually a really beautiful book called Rest is Resistance, and it goes more deeply into this, but how, yeah, for you and I as white-skinned people in the
United States, there was this idea that if you work hard, you know, things go well,
but there are many people of color that, you know, you work hard, and it wasn't even a guarantee that you would get to live. It was like there was... promise was nothing more than survival, but our entire country was built on this idea of completely
depleting and demeaning human beings for profit. And even before that, there's, you know, with colonization and the way we've treated indigenous people and continue to. in our country. I mean, this is a much bigger conversation. And what we really wanted to go into today when we had the idea for this is, like, I think so many of us are becoming more aware of the nuance and the depth and the layers on a larger scale than before.
And it's... It is so much for our nervous systems to be able to hold all of this history and all of this current happenings and everything coming up moment by moment in addition to our private and personal lives. And so this question of, so how do we meet this?
Like, how do we meet this right now? How do we take care of ourselves and each other?
So yeah, just want to circle back to it. 

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. The coming back and just some of the things, I mean, you know, I'm kind of going back in there, but I think it's still relevant to how we meet it. It's just this idea that I also love that your dog gave you like a full bath. 

Yeah. A full lick down, you know? I needed one, so somebody's got to do it, yeah.

Just this idea that uninitiated grief becomes violence, addiction, fragmentation, and that we privatize grief, pathologize it, medicate it, rather than gathering around it. And this question of what haunts a culture that has never mourned its own violence, you know, and I just think about this country and how much horrendous violence it is founded upon fundamentally, you know, and that I can feel the grief in the land, you know, I mean, it's just really potent and powerful. you know, ungrieved loss turns into violence, addiction, fragmentation, you know? And so at least that gives me somewhere to orient to,
you know, grief work. 

Yes. Yeah. And can you say more about what that means to you as it relates to meeting the world right now? Grief is so funny because it's almost like this fungal network,
you know? And it's also... to every other little pocket of grief both personal but also collective it's like personal little g grief and then like collective archetypal big g grief and I think you know I'm thinking about the loss of my brother and how I think experiences of grief can open you or they can really shut you down you know and it's sort of like a path you can choose to some extent you know And I think because of the path that I've walked so far, you know, losing my brother then caused me to choose the path of like, it's sort of like one path is close all the doors, batten down the hatches, like shut it down, like, you know, clamp down around this. And I think had I not walked the path that I've walked.
That could have been an absolutely viable option. You know, it just would have been more of the same, basically, like my musculature, my fascia, just all, you know, clamping down around big charge versus what actually happened and how I turned toward
everything really is actually opening the doors and like airing things out and looking at what's in there. and letting myself see it all you know not not always all at once i mean i think with my brother it was um i lost him suddenly and tragically and so it was like the doors were flung open I had really no control over titrating any of that but um but i do it's like opening that really scary closet that's you know stacked full of stuff you know and so there's that and that's been sort of just my my I suppose, personal way of turning toward it is just not not closing the doors, not locking them up and throwing away the key, you know, really letting the grief like shudder all the way through my system over and over as many times as it needed to, you know, and continues to need to. And I think that's and, you know, it leads me to. kind of one of the points I wanted to get to,
too, which is how you can remain permeable, you know, and like take in and let things land inside and feel them without being completely destroyed and flat out, you know,
due to that. And I think a big part is like what we said before is like true suffering versus
neurotic suffering. And I feel in my body the difference between the two, you know,
and I think. When you truly are suffering, you know, there's something that's deeply transformative about it. Even if in it, it feels like there's nothing good about this.
There's nothing good that's going to come of this. This is just all dark and bad and it's never going to end. And I think what I'd, my aspiration would be to do this more.
you know, gather more around this, you know, and I think they're really beautiful, you know, groups of people who do lead ceremony and, and things around grief.
And yeah, I think gathering and sharing our grief is, is a really potent and powerful way to land.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It really is. And I, and So few of us, and again, when I say that I'm speaking mostly because we're in the United States, I'm speaking mostly to our culture here. But I think it's also in a lot of developed countries, there's this way that we've lost touch with ritual. And when I hear you talking about gathering and coming together in community to process and hold grief, it goes right up against what we were talking about earlier of being at a time and in a world where we kind of separate from these things and feel like we have to either process it privately or medicate it or override it. And so this idea of coming together, that level of vulnerability, That's like where the how comes in, in my opinion. It's what inspires me for the work that I've dedicated so much of my life to and then offer the people that I work with is the value of learning to use our own individual experience as a microcosm. and recognizing that it is a microcosm for how we meet the world around us so turning towards our own grief initially in ourselves often is what is the catalyst for us to recognize the signs of needing to call in support right and if as far as one person gets is turning towards and being able to shift the conversation internally from I'm just not getting over this. Why is it taking so long? I think I'm depressed. Like I hear that a lot with people that have experienced loss that once a month goes by or six months or a year, there's like a narrative that they're not just getting in their own internal world, but from the world around them that they should, that maybe you're depressed. Maybe there's something wrong because you're still, and instead like having the, the compassion and the wisdom to recognize this is grief and this is when you know an entire community used to come and surround someone and meet them there and we would hold it together and we're still holding it together but because we live in such an individualistic society we really buy this narrative that we're not just holding it alone, but that we have to continue to hold it alone. So I think part of the how of how we meet these times is, and it goes into that, the next Buddha is Sangha, which essentially means like the next big teaching of truth lies in how we meet this as a collective and as a community and moving away
from this idea of individualism. And so how do we call in support and community?
Um, so I love, I'm so grateful for what you're saying. Cause I think that this is a key piece of
how we remember our, our place with each other.

And remember how to grieve, you know, I mean, this is, I feel like honestly, the,
at least for me and my own cosmology, like the grief and loss are the central teachings of. being an alive person you know because none of us are gonna live life without experiencing those things and they're so painful and it's such a challenging
lesson and I mean you know eventually we have to grieve our own sort of you know not necessarily death because We don't know what will happen after, but, but our loss
of ego function, loss of body function, you know, it's like, we're just not getting out of this
alive, you know, that's a fact. I know that much. Pretty much all I know.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and just reflecting too on something that you said.
I think I've landed in such a place, you know, not necessarily with every diagnosis in the DSM, but most, and especially with mood, you know, most mood disorders, which is like,
they belong. And they're telling you a story. They're not telling you something is wrong with you. They are signposts back into some deeper layer of self that's not being acknowledged, not being looked at. And being pathologized, being called wrong. And then sometimes, I mean, I know my experience, if it's called wrong or bad,
then it just makes it that much worse versus looking at it as communication.
This is telling me something. This is trying to get my attention. This is trying to get me to look, you know, because we're so busy out here and trying to keep our sort of productive machines going that, oh, well, this is just like an impediment. I'm anxious or I'm depressed. And it's like, We need to slow down and listen to what's being told to us through what we call symptoms.

Yes. Yeah. We really need to slow down and then bring a question to this thing that we're calling symptoms. 

Yeah. I can't tell you like what a relief it was for me. And then the relief I get to
witness when other people start to hear exactly what you just said, like this idea that. What if your anxiety was actually a really healthy response to the environment that you grew up in? Because it was, right? Or what if this depression that you're feeling was the really healthy survival strategy, meeting what life dealt you? And yes, it became a pattern. Yes,
it became habit. But that was not from a place of something being wrong. The circumstances being such that your system was so wise, so intelligent, so incredible that it adapted. And now you're feeling a sense of wanting to look at it because you have a hunch that maybe there's another way that might be more supportive now moving forward, right? So it's the both and, right? And I think that's so important.
And I want to go back because I had a question for you and you said like all the doors opened for you and your experience of the loss of your brother.
And I'm wondering, like, because I know the depth and the amount of work you've done in your life. It's just like, it's so inspiring. It's amazing. I don't know if anyone listening really
understands how dedicated you've been to like your internal work.
Yeah, it's really beautiful. And my dog is barking in the background.
I don't know if you can hear it. But, you know, I'm wondering, like what we can maybe discuss and offer as an invitation to those who may not have had access to that kind of.
And I'll just say before we move forward with that, like I've just started working with a somatic therapist and I've been in therapy since I was 13 and it was talk therapy and, you know, a treatment center that I went to, like there was all of these really amazing types of therapy, but like real deep somatic work is an additional powerful gift, unlike anything I've ever experienced. And I know that's a big part of your world.
So I'm wondering, like when someone hasn't had those practices or that support,
what does it look like to come back into the body? And what do we do when the body doesn't feel like a safe place to come back to? I get that question a lot. So I thought it would be helpful for us to just look at that together.

Oh, that is such, I'm so glad you. you brought us back there because I think it's really important question. And I mean, I think that's many people's experiences that the body is not necessarily the safest place to exist within. And I think I always, when that's in the space, sort of like our first, what we're going to be up to first is. creating relative pockets of safety you know whether that's might not be in the body first but it might be um like with a dog oh my god you're so cute I can't stand it i'm just gonna devour you yeah hi bitsy and yeah so sometimes it's just like can be as simple as knowing that you have locks on your doors in your house, you know, or looking around your space and not just conceptually.
Like this is, I think, the big thing for me with somatic work is really trying to get people out of their thoughts because the physiology doesn't really care. You know, it's like,
well, I don't need to look around. I already know like there's not a bear in here. It's like your
physiology literally doesn't care. What your physiology needs is for you to look around with your eyeballs, And make sure there's not a bear in here because your physiology is not convinced that that is accurate and true. And so I think just those,
that was really big for me, you know, to begin with was, yeah, finding those relative pockets of safety and then, you know, through building relational safety.
And a lot of that was letting my practitioner know, like, I am. feeling a lot just sitting here
looking at you you know like I and then sharing like all the you know the big charge that was there because I think what's really confronting about somatic work is you can't really hide behind anything like I was the client that would talk wall to wall I'm like I am holding this whole session like I am not gonna give you a moment to be you know um to be involved here yeah yeah Because it felt way too vulnerable. And the beauty of somatic work, and I think the fear for me in that was that I wasn't going to actually get attunement. And then it was just going to be the same pattern I've experienced my whole life that's like, so is sort of the central wound. But luckily with somatic work as well, especially with maybe somatic experiencing, that's just what I'm most experienced with. is that they are so well trained in attunement and so it's like yeah you you're kind of naked but you're also being so like so exquisitely attuned to maybe for the first time in your life that you can start to build that relational safety like okay so i'm going to give you something really big and tender and you know can you can you handle that you know um and slowly slowly okay yeah and and i think for me slowly slowly it was um feeling the relative pocket of safety externally Noticing how that translates internally. How do I know I feel
safe inside? And then, you know, the relational safety that builds, it builds really slowly.
And then at least for my process, it was like, I always call it soul retrieval because it felt like
going back to these experiences that sort of got crystallized in some way in my.
being in my psyche and um it was often what kind of started to like unravel a lot of those stories that were both physiologic and you know had images and stories attached to um being able to sort of unravel those and then it's almost like i can actually look back and see a truer story arc because i don't know like you know in quotes how true all of those things were, they just got kind of crystallized that way. And it's almost like by softening them up and making them a little bit more pliable, the story itself got to like grow up with the whole organism. It's like, okay, now here we are. I feel like this is a really long-winded answer to your question. 

Oh, it's so beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, so Building really slowly that kind of capacity to register safety.

Yeah, I think that that's so important. And for us to, as our own quote,
I'm using air quotes, individual beings, to trust the timeline. Like whatever your personal
timeline is, you know, for those of us that are fortunate or privileged enough to be able to have a practitioner or be able to afford that kind of support. Wonderful.
It's such a great resource. And for those of us that don't or not yet or can't right now.
Right. I want to offer that there's. that it's not something that's only possible when there's someone outside of you offering it, although it's certainly helpful. There's also a way that simply turning towards, at least my experience has been, and I have had a lot of support, but also learning to be with very slowly what's arising in the body, even if it's just like you were kind of saying, like touching the edges. And so I know for myself with my trauma history, I'm using that as an example because it's probably the most blown out of my body I've ever been. So if somebody were to say to me, what are you feeling in your body? There was a period of time where just them asking me that sent me back to the trauma and I was actually floating above my body. So I could tell them what I thought they wanted to hear, but I wasn't actually in my body. And so it was more of me learning. okay well what I'm present to right now is bearing witness right and that's not necessarily in the body but it's also not in the head it's naming what's really happening in the moment and then learning over time like I remember the first time I stopped turning to my habitual pattern of going and burning myself out through exercise so that I could
finally rest. I remember the first time on my own, sitting in my house with nobody else around, on my floor, feeling this rush of overwhelm come into my body, feeling myself want to dissociate and go burn out through exercise and choosing to stay.
And I swore, the belief I had, and I knew it wasn't true, but it felt so real, was that my entire body was going to explode. I felt like if I sat with the level of intensity that was somatically moving through my body, it was going to explode. And I really believed that if I didn't do something to make that somehow different, I was not going to fundamentally be okay. And in that, sitting there, it's like what came through was this huge relief of just heaving tears, right? And I just cried for about an hour straight, and then I got a bit of a migraine.
I also didn't go into my old habit, and I noticed for the first time that, oh, I didn't go and run myself into the ground through miles and miles of exercise. I'm still
really tired, just like I would have been afterwards, because I let this feeling move through. But something integrated through that, which I didn't even realize at the time. And then the urgency to turn to that old habit was not as strong ever again. It still came up, but it never felt that intense ever again because something integrated. So I want to offer that too as like, it takes time. It's not like we say, I'm going to sit down with this really intense feeling so that I get through it and integrate it. These little slow moments of turning towards, turning towards what's here. And then sometimes that release occurs that way.
So I want to offer that too. 

Yeah, I really appreciate you bringing that in. Just the way that we can do that with our own, you know, like you said, if you don't have access to or just aren't in a place to receive, you know. support in the ways that maybe would be supportive.

And I think if you can just identify one being in your life, what I didn't mention in that story,
my dog who had passed away a while ago, but my dog Ella was there with me, right?
So it wasn't even a human being, but it was a lovely, beautiful animal being that actually held it with me. And I say that because, you know, we can ask people or other animal beings or tree beings. I have many people that go into the forest and weep, right? It holds grief and everything else that comes up, right? But just being able to go to a being in addition to ourselves and saying, can we hold this together? I don't want any feedback. I don't want any advice. Can you please just hold this with me? And that's powerful.

That is so powerful. I'm so glad you brought in that piece about allowing ourselves to be and feel the accompaniment of some type of being, you know, whether it's a person or a tree or the ocean or a pet.

Yeah.

So, so important, I think, to really viscerally feel that we actually aren't alone.

Yeah. even when sometimes you can feel really alone especially maybe in you know i'm just bringing it back to our topic of you know receiving headlines in our inbox you know and we're between you know i'm thinking about myself like between sessions and or  something you know it's like okay I just saw that i can't unsee that and you know i can feel very alone um to kind of be hit with those things and yet um Remembering that we're not kind of makes me think about the very first thing we were talking about, like how we bring joy and lightness into our lives in the day to day, despite everything that's going on. 

It's like, yeah, orienting to the beings that are here. I want to just name one of the rituals that I learned from Nina Simons that I offer on retreat sometimes is I build a bridge for. And it's this beautiful thing that we all stand in a circle and somebody steps in and we say, like, I build a bridge for, and it can be anything, like, I build a bridge for people who enjoy drinking matcha. But one of the things that often comes up is someone will step in and say, I build a bridge. I build a bridge for anybody who's ever felt alone.
100% of the time, everybody in the circle steps into the circle. And I find that to be such a
helpful container anytime I feel alone to remember that we can feel alone together.
That there's not a single person on the planet right now that isn't feeling alone at some point in time. And so we are not, we're fundamentally not alone when we're feeling alone. And that's really relieving. Yes, it is. It really is.
Well, thank you so much. Just to finish, if it's okay, to ask you the question that I sort of answered earlier, which is, you know, what's helping you
remain permeable to this moment without being destroyed by it? I mean,
the simplest answer is my practice, you know,
and, you know, what does that really mean? I am very dedicated to,
I come and my teacher is Zen Buddhist and I have a meditation practice every day.
But what that really means to me is actually the practice of showing up on behalf of all beings,
right? Like the Bodhisattva vows.
And it really anchors me.
There's something about taking it out of the I, me. And remembering that everything is with and on
behalf of we that has become really grounding,
but it has been through repetition and through practice. It didn't start out that way.
And using my individual life, like my independent individual experience as a reminder of what we're
all going through. I remember I was sharing a story and it just occurred to me.
I told the story many, many times about what happened to me in my life. And as I was sharing it, I
remember the moment occurred to me, I wasn't telling my story. I was telling our story because the
details were unique to my experience, but actually the story itself.
anybody could have been sharing because we all can relate to it and so that really helps like when
i see you know for example what's going on in um iran right now right letting letting my heart
break letting myself stay really curious about the views of people that might be hearing different
perspectives and feel very differently than i do like that Turning towards that place in me that
wants to kind of defend and separate and see anyone who thinks differently than me as kind of over
there. Like turning towards it with more curiosity instead of judgment and opening.
So that's all part of what's helping me ground. And just
seeing if there's anything else. Yeah, I would say remembering like really seeing every moment as
seed planting. I like the idea that, you know, there's, I think it's like olive farmers,
but I might be getting this wrong. Often plant an olive tree and they will never actually see a
fruit, but their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will. And I kind of think of our,
how we're showing up in this time.
we're planting these seeds that we might not ever see the fruit of, but it's still fruiting and
it's really important and really valuable. And the internal work that we do is healing family lines
and that that ripples out into the collective. And I just find that incredibly inspiring.
That was just gorgeous. Thank you so much for sharing that and for being here with me today and
sharing your... presence and all your beautiful wisdom it's just always such a gift to be with you
you too i love this time thank
you for listening to the whole paradox podcast follow us on instagram at molly mitchell heart and
join us for our next episode as we continue to remember who we are together try
that all
right let's go into the cloud let's hope Fingers crossed.