March 14, 2024 • 37 mins
This week, Nedra has a conversation with acclaimed author, podcaster, and Jungian analyst, Lisa Marchiano. The two dive deep on envy vs jealousy, motherhood, and assertiveness and share stories of how they've respectively come into their own.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Nedra Glover to WOB and you need to hear this.
Today we have a very exciting guest, Lisa Marciano wrote
a book that changed my motherhood. I was taking a
walk one day and I was just looking for new
audio books to listen to in a season of parenting
(00:24):
where I really needed some support, and your book Motherhood
popped up, and it was so great on audio that
I bought a physical copy. I was like, I have
to highlight this. I have to highlight some of these
things that you said. And about a month ago, you
came out with a new book, The Vital Spark, and
I was reading it and I was telling my team,
(00:46):
I'm like, we have to email her, we have to
have her on the pod. Your way of writing is
very magical. Your storytelling, you know, the client stories, your
personal stories. The way that you weave things together helps
(01:06):
me to understand that it is okay to be an
imperfect parent, and that there is this level of gentleness
that we must have with ourselves as well as a
level of authority. So I just want to say how
much I appreciate you and your writing. One of the
(01:29):
most interesting things is I'm not typically a science fiction
or historical fiction sort of person and a lot of
your stories are rooted in I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
What would you say, Lisa, Well, certainly there's the fairy tales.
So when you said it was magical, I mean, what
a lovely thing to say. But of course fairy tales
are magical, they have so much magic in them, So
there's that element. And then yeah, I mean I did
try to bring in story of real life people, both
both my own stories and my clients obviously, but also
(02:05):
you know, some historical figures, because it just makes it
I don't know, it just makes it clear that these
issues that we grapple with every day are universal, and
that is always so grounding to realize that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, so I want to go book by book. Let's
start with Motherhood. Can you tell everyone what that book
is about? Centrally?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, I'll answer the question by telling the story of
how the book kind of grew in me. So my
kids are two years apart, and my daughter was you know,
two and a half or something, and my son was
like six months old, and that was just a really
really hard time, Like having an infant and a toddler
was just really hard. And so, you know, one day.
(02:49):
It was like seven o'clock in the morning. Everyone had
been awake for two hours. There was nothing planned for
the day. It was reason cold. I live in Philadelphia,
it was December. It was just you know, it was
kind of like hours before the library was open. Even
I was like, Oh my god, how am I going
to get through this day? And I just had this thought.
I was like, got everything about motherhood is so hard,
(03:11):
and then this thought just popped into my head and
the thought was yes, and I'm learning so much as
a result. It was just like that, and I thought, Wow,
that is such an interesting idea. You know that the
way that I'm struggling is actually changing me and helping
me grow. And it was related for me to Jung's
(03:32):
idea of individuation because I'm a Jungian analyst and I
was in Union training at that time, and individuation is
this idea that we continue to grow and change throughout
the whole lifespan. So I thought, well, gosh, I want
to read something about that, Like who has talked about
how motherhood helps you grow? And I couldn't really find
(03:52):
that book. I mean, people have written some stuff that
was close, but I couldn't find it especially not from
a Junian perspective. So I you know, we're so used
to seeing books about how to parent, or there's a
whole lovely bunch of memoirs about what that experience is
like for an individual, But really thinking about motherhood is
a life experience that helps you get to know yourself better.
(04:16):
I just was really interested in that, and that is
what I hoped to explore in the book, is how
does this teach you about yourself?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, I can say, you know, in reading the book,
what I realized is all the ways in which my
life sort of expanded, like my sense of time, my ability,
my body. So many things expanded in this way that
I didn't know was possible, Like the things that I
(04:48):
get done in a day now, my single noe key
at having self I couldn't imagine because I was like
consumed at that point, right. But it's like, I don't
even know how I did this. I remember when I
delivered my first child. I had a rush of adrenaline
(05:08):
right after delivery, and I called so many people and
I found out later like people were telling me, like,
you call me as soon as you because I was
so blown.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Awsh oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I was like, oh my gosh, I just pushed a
baby out and it's like right there. And I got
up and I walked to the bathroom and I'm like
like superhuman, Like I've never felt this level of power before.
And one week later I was very disempowered.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, like the high house in the low lows.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right. One week later, I was like, I've never felt
this tired in my life. But when I delivered, I
was like, oh, let me call this person from elementary school.
(06:11):
Oh my gosh, I was like on cloud nine. And yeah,
there are some highs and lows and lots of days
like right in the middle and the power of motherhood.
Like to think about the ways in which it has
shifted my career and how I work. I think it's
just such a wonderful thing to assess the way that
(06:34):
you can be so protective of this little person. How
encouraging that is for you to take some of that
and be protective with yourself. You know, there was a
moment when I noticed how well my toddler ate and
how terrible I ate.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yes, Like I was like I'm puring you know, the
organic vegetables, and I'm like, nothing sweet potatoes from the
best vines for this baby. And I'm like, girl, you
need to shift your diet. There's room. There's room. So
(07:14):
one of the things that I love about your book
Motherhood is how you invite us to think about the
sort of taboo topics in motherhood, like the envy, the jealousy,
the resentment. Can you tell me how you've seen people
sort of struggle with the role of being a human
(07:36):
being as well as being a mother.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, and of course I talk a lot about anger
in the book, and that is not a coincidence because
I was definitely an angry mommy a lot of the time.
So I was really interested in anger because you know,
I tried everything to like not yell. I tried everything
I really wanted to yell less. And I kept on
(07:59):
trying and and I don't know that I ever cracted nandra.
I never really got that much better, but I certainly
kept trying. But I was interested in, like, so, well,
what does it mean to yell at your kids? What
is that really about? What happens in that kind of
relational moment? And I certainly worked with lots of moms
who were angry at their kids a lot, and yelled
(08:20):
at their kids and would then come into my office
and just kind of be rate themselves for it, like
just flay themselves for the fact that they yelled at
their kid. And so, I mean, I think that what
I talk about in the book is just you know,
that there are some good things about anger. I mean,
it's not like I'm recommending go off and yell at
(08:41):
your kid, but I don't know that it's good to
never get angry at our kids. I think that anger
has a positive purpose and it can definitely be damaging,
but there's a role for repair. And you know, getting
angry at your kids is kind of a universal and
so I was interested in boring that in particular and
(09:02):
some of the other things that you were talking about.
You know, the thing about Jung's psychology that's so helpful
to me is I really think it encourages us to
understand that all parts of us belong. It really encourages
a kind of self acceptance. And again, not that we
can't always try to do better, but if we can
(09:26):
be you know, gentle, gentle with ourselves. That's a word
that I used it before, and that is a word
that I come back to a lot in my clinical practice,
and even when we're not, you know, kind of winning
mother of the year that day, and because maybe we're
maybe we're tired, and maybe we've lost our temper, or
maybe we you know, feel resentment or envy of another
(09:51):
parent and her relationship with her husband or something like that.
You know, can can we be curious about it? Can
we turn toward ourselves with curiosity and acceptance and see
what we might be able to find out about any
of those experiences, because all of those feelings are teachers.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
There are two things you said that I'd love for
us to expand on a bit. One is, can you
share with the listener's young psychology just some basic things
about that approach. We're clearly both therapists, so we have
some understanding for but for the folks who are listening
(10:36):
and might not be aware of that approach, I think
there are some other things that are you know, pretty
general cognitive behavioral. You know, so if people have therapy experience,
there are some things you may understand. But I would
like to dig a little deeper into this approach.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist. He was born
in eighteen seventy five. So he was a contemporary of Freuds,
and he was a colleague of Freuds the beginning, and
he was kind of a there at the beginning of
the founding of psychoanalysis, but he and Freud eventually really
parted ways. And you know, Jung very much developed his
own thinking about the unconscious and how it relates to
(11:14):
consciousness and some of the words that you might know
of that he kind of coined our archetype, collective, unconscious, synchronicity, shadow, introvert, extrovert.
So some of his ideas have really kind of found
their way into the mainstream. But I think where Young
differs a little bit from other kind of psychodynamic schools
(11:38):
approaches to therapy that uh, psychodynamic means that you believe
there's an unconscious and that we're influenced by the unconscious. Okay,
and there's a bunch of different psychodynamic schools, but you know,
Jung's big message is that we're all growing toward wholeness,
and sometimes we get blocked in that growth toward wholeness
and that's when symptoms occur. But ultimately our being wants
(12:05):
to grow and wants to self actualize. So it's a
very kind of optimistic view of the psyche, and it's
also a view that has a lot of room for
spirituality in it, and there's a real emphasis on meaning.
Jung felt that we couldn't be psychologically well, most of
us unless we had a sense of meaning and purpose,
(12:26):
and I think that's mostly.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
True, So thank you for that. And the other thing
is envy. You know, I see envy as a very
important emotion, but it's also one that is very hard
for many people to acknowledge experiencing, whether it's with their children,
with their friend, with their partner, with their neighbor who
(12:49):
has a family, it can be hard to acknowledge it,
but we often unconsciously act it out.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, it is, so it's such a powerful and uncomfortable emotion.
And I do make a distinction between envy and jealousy,
which is it's kind of hard to distinguish, and probably
different people define those two words differently, But I think
if envy is that sense that you really it's darker,
I think than jealousy. You know, envy is that you
(13:19):
want to kind of that you wish the person ill
because they have something that you don't have, whereas jealousy
is more like you want the thing they have. I'll
tell you a little personal story about jealousy. I have
a friend, a wonderful close friend. We've known each other
for years and years. She's really important to me, but
she is kind of a charmed life. She is very wealthy,
(13:42):
she does all kinds of fabulous things, lots of travel,
She's got a beautiful house, she has a fancy car.
Years ago now we were talking and she was mentioning
some fabulous things she was up to, and then she said,
you know, oh, I'm and I'm going to be writing
a book. And I notice that I really wasn't jealous
(14:02):
of the trip to Europe. I really wasn't jealous of
the new car. But when she said that about writing
a book, oh, this hot jealousy ran through me because
I really wanted to write a book. And it was
so clarifying because it's like, yeah, it would be nice
to have a really, I don't know, a new German
sports car, but I don't really care about that. You know,
(14:26):
we're only jealous of things we actually care about. So
jealousy can be such a helpful emotion because it shows
you what you really want something. Yes, sometimes I think,
especially women, it can be hard for us to even
know what we want sometimes. So I think that jealousy,
as painful as it can be, it can be a friend.
(14:47):
Envy is it's a dark feeling to feel, and it's
a dangerous feeling to be on the other end of,
because you know, it really does inspire people to hurt
other people. And I think that there was a time
in my life when I was kind of naive about that.
I was like, well, who would ever feel envy of me?
(15:07):
First of all, and secondly, like, no one would really
actually wish me ill simply because but actually they will.
They will wish you ill, and they might act on it.
So you can't be naive about envy.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You tell a story in the Vital Spark around the
emotion of envy, where the character and the fairy tale
is just not aware of the ways in which she
is envied by her mother. Is this the story of
snow White?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, well there's yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yes, it's the story of snow I had never understood
a snow white now way until I read it in
your book.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Oh that's great, I did.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, Okay, I had to dig back into my second
grade mind. I'm like, is this the story of There's
No why my kids watch this movie. It was very dark, yes, well,
a very good story around how she just could not
believe that her mother would envy her and go to
such extents to poison her, to you know, have her
(16:19):
keeled and all of these things, and she just kept
trusting and trusting. And you spoke about the dangers of
us being so trusting, and how there are times where
we need to really tap into our power to be
courageous and confront people because the trusting that we have
(16:39):
sometimes can be unearned, and we should have a little
bit of cautiousness and sometimes a little bit of leariness
around you know, certain people and in certain situations, and
that can be to our benefit.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, I mean, we all have things we want to
believe about the world, and we have to be careful
that we're seeing the world as it is, not as
we wish it were. So Snow White is such a
great story for that, because, of course, in the original Grims,
it's not her stepmother, it's her mother who's envious of her.
And you know, it is true that sometimes we might
(17:16):
feel jealousy or even envy of our children. I mean,
that's such a taboo thing to admit. But I think
it's a normal experience to feel some of that. But
snow White, you know, she's so innocent because she keeps
on opening the door. The witch disguised as a beggar
comes and offers her something and tries to kill her,
and the door of say don't open the door, and
(17:39):
then there she is the next day, like opening the door.
It's like, what are you thinking? I find myself getting
irritated at her, you know, it's like, come on, wake up, chicky,
don't ye be this beautiful, little flimsy, you know, naive
thing grow a spine.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It reminds me of a friendship I used to have
of where a person was very likely displaying some envy
and I just couldn't believe it. Ye, yes, I just
I could not believe it because from my perspective, like
you stated, envy me, like you know my personal story,
(18:18):
you know the things I've been through, like you've seen that.
Like I just thought that because this person knew of
certain things from my history and you know, they've experienced
certain things with me that they could never be envious
of the situation going well for me or me having
(18:40):
this thing like I felt like, hey, this is like
a comeback story, like everyone should be rooting for the underdog.
And this person was like, ugh, I will seem to
be excited for you, but I will secretly not be excited.
I will plant see of you know, decharacterizing you. I
(19:02):
will make little comments. I will try to caution you
not to do these things that are actually showing themselves
to be promising. I will, you know, like all of
those things. And it took me years to see that
that is, in fact what was happening, because I didn't
want to believe it. I have this story of this
(19:23):
person could not think this way because they know me.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah. Yeah, And I'm so glad you brought that up
because you were describing the little ways that envy can act.
I mean, you know, they're the dramatic stories that maybe
we see in movies or something like that, but interpersonally,
it's more likely to be those little seeds of doubt
or like you said, maybe you know someone who's encouraging
(19:49):
you not to do something that might actually be good
for you, or or someone who just makes a little
comment that kind of devalues. I'll tell you. I'll tell
on myself personal story when I was envious. My kids
were little. I had a friend with little kids. We
were we were, you know, trying to save money and
always being very cautious with finances and so we were not,
(20:11):
you know, taking any vacations. And you know, I guess
they had a different financial philosophy or more money or
who knows. But she was like, yeah, yeah, we're going
to I don't know, name some fabulous tropical place next week.
You know, we're going to the pomics six case. Okay,
Turks and caicos. And what I said to her, I'm
embarrassed about this. It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I like, you'll wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I said, well, I mean, aren't aren't you just going
to be following the same like nap and feeding routine
in a strange place or something like that. I said
something like that, and I, you know, twenty seconds after
I said it, I realized what I'd done, and it
was envy. I had devalued this wonderful thing that she
(20:53):
was about to do. I had, in the hopes of
I had, I had tried to strip it of value,
like you're going to go and you're just going to
have to put the baby down for a nap, Like why,
you know, why go.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Put them down for a nap and then go sit
on the beach. What a waste of your tak to
go sit and look at this clear water with the
sand benisia. What a waste of time. Who would ever
want to do that? Who would want to feed their
baby by turtles?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
But that's what we do when we feel envy. So
and you know, any of us can be in that position,
and we can also be on the receiving end of it.
And like you said, it's so important to let ourselves
know if that's what's happening, so that we can protect ourselves.
Because if once you saw that was happening, then you
put up a little wall with that friend. Maybe you
(21:44):
don't share the good news with her or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I think that's a wise person would be cautious
about what they share with you because they don't want
to be deflated right in that way. And so it
does the relationship as to you being the person now
that they can't share things with. I remember I had
a we're just going back and forth with our stories, but.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Stories are great.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I remember I had a friend and I was able
to travel and she wasn't able to travel, and she
would make it a point to ask me about my trip,
how was your trip? But then she would get immediately
busy and could not listen, so it would be like,
how was your trip? No, put that down? Stop, Oh
my gosh, I call you back. The sky just fell in.
It's like it was like so she could never say
(22:37):
I didn't ask you. I asked you about your trip,
but it's like, you don't actually listen to me up,
so it's like never, I hope you're having a good time, Like, oh,
how was your time? Oh my gosh, what's that on TV?
It's like what just happened?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, that's really interesting, right, because she knew she should.
I mean, at least she at least she was than
I was.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I hope you have a terrible time in Turks and
Geicos because I'm not going. Yeah, but yeah, Unconsciously, she
was kind of sending the message that she couldn't tolerate it.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
What should a person do in a situation when they
realize that they have displayed some unproductive behaviors as a
result of feeling envying a relationship? How do we repair well?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I mean, I think recognizing it and apologizing for it
if the relationship will tolerate that saying, you know, I
think I've been, you know, saying little barp things or
I said that about you know, nap time, and I
wish I hadn't said that, And I think, honestly, I
think I'm just jealous and I hope you have a
great time. You know, I think that would go a
super long way. But it is a call to consciousness,
(23:53):
right because I mean, and I was aware of what
I'd done, and I did some work with it. But
you know, I think nowadays, if that happened to me,
I do even more work with it, because the truth
is that that could have led me into a kind
of query about how I felt about decisions that we
were making in our marriage, you know, And was I
really down with this program up? We're not going to
(24:15):
take a vacation until the kids are self sufficient? You know,
Maybe I maybe I hadn't let that part of me
get a fear hearing, and so my envy with my
friend could have encouraged me to explore something that I
wasn't really letting into consciousness because maybe I wanted to
(24:36):
avoid conflict with my husband or whatever, and sort of
making it up at this point because it was so
long ago.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
But yeah, I'm hearing in that story this idea that
when we put off things that were actually not okay with,
we have a level of resentment for the person who
is bold enough to do it, because, let's face it,
traveling with little kids should be a paid job, right,
(25:08):
Oh my gosh, the compassion I have. My kids are
older now, so you know, they're like upper elementary school,
and so when I see people with little toddlers, I'm like, oh,
please don't give this, Please, don't give this dat a
hard time. Please don't give this pawbar tibe like they're
getting it handed to them. We think this crying is outrageous,
(25:30):
but they're over they're in their hair, like, oh my gosh,
this baby keep crying. Everybody's on a plane, like all
of these things are happening. It's such a tough experience
for them. So for a person to be bold enough
and say, you know what, We're going to the islands
despite this baby disliking flights, it's like, you deserve the
(25:57):
umbrella in your drink. I will send one your way,
you know, as it courtesy for the boldness of what
you did. But yet when we exclude our sales from that,
oh I can't, Oh I can't do these things. Oh
I have so many projects at home. I can't do this.
And we see someone maybe with the same level of
(26:19):
something doing it. Yes, yeah, it does invite some uncomfortable
feelings and it is a moment where perhaps we need
to evaluate what we're prioritizing and deprioritize.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
And what are we allowing ourselves. I mean, that's such
a great example because I think that when we deny
ourselves something, then we're really setting ourselves up to feel envy,
because I mean, sometimes you just can't, you just don't
have the money or whatever. But a lot of times
we tell ourselves we can't do something, and then that
sets us up to feel really envious when we see
(26:55):
someone else, like you said, in a similar situation, allowing
them selves to to do something that we've denied ourselves.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So there, and there's something too about that. You know
the dad on the plane that the word that comes
up for me is open hearted, and you just kind
of gave this invitation for us to embrace the world
in an open hearted way, like go out there and
you know, have the vacation, even if it seems silly,
you know, to take your kids somewhere, or you know,
(27:27):
any number of other less superficial examples. Perhaps, but when
we do that, we can be so filled with life
and hopefully sometimes some joy, that we're less likely to
feel envy of other people. And and we just we
bring that into encounters and and if other people feel
(27:51):
envious of us because we have that, maybe we have
this shrewdness to protect ourselves, shrewdness.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I love how you talked about shrewdness and the vital spark,
you know. I think of this episode of the Oprah Show,
which I have revisited on her podcast, where there is
this I don't know if he's a detective, a crime
reporter or someone, and he talks about people not listening
(28:23):
to their feelings or bypassing their gut instinct about something
like someone being dangerous because they don't want to be
perceived as mean, and how when women in situations did this,
they were harmed that he shared a story of a woman,
you know, she lives off this like back road and
(28:43):
not a lot of traffic type thing in a rural area,
and she notices this truck in her driveway and she's like,
the guy looks weird, but I'm gonna go to his
truck and I'm gonna be really nice to him. And
then he ends up trying to attack her. And it's
just story after story of people feeling uncomfortable, h feeling
(29:04):
uncomfortable in a situation and saying, mm, but I have
to be nice.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yes, well, especially women feel that way, right. So one
of the stories that I mentioned, I think in that
chapter is this young woman that I worked with who
was in a public park and this man came over
to her and was talking to her and trying to
engage her in conversation, and it started escalating and he
(29:32):
was asking her for her phone number, and she would
get up and move and he would follow her, and
it went on for a while. She's telling me the
story and he said, and any boy, did you just
look at him said leave me the fuck alone, and
she said, well, I didn't want to be rude.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And you know what, the the pursuing in dating situations
is a really interesting that some women have a lot
of anxiety around like being rude. I remember I was
in high school. I'm from Detroit and when I was
in high school. I caught the public bus to school
(30:11):
and there was a girl who she was catching a
bus to school. She wasn't on my bus, but she
was on a different bus. Did not give this guy
her phone number and he hit her.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Ooh god, she had a.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Knot on her forehead. We were like in ten or
eleventh grade, and I'm often on the bus. They're like
guys hitting on you and stuff like that. So from
then on, I was like, oh, you can't tell some
like you literally can't tell someone no if they're trying
to pursue you, and you better be very careful about
(30:44):
what fake number you give them. Well see, I went
to fake phone numbers. There was no Instagram dming at
this time. But you know, it's like, oh my gosh,
it must be even worse now if somebody could just
look you up on their phone and they're like, this
isn't you? You know, at least I had the opportunity
to give them the number to movie.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Phone or the.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Local theater or something. It's like, what number do I
know about her? Uh? Three one, three, three seven seven is?
But how unfortunate to think that I have to give
this person my information or I have to be kind
to this person because they can overpower me. It would
be seen as rude, like all of these sort of
(31:31):
things that we come up with. And it's true, you know,
in some instances it is true, and in some instances
is not true. People, you know, they take it well,
but we as women have a really hard time figuring
out when we are safe and when we can be
safe yep, with a stranger.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, And actually, you know the other part of the
story from my client in the park is that he
had like an empty bottle, and so there was fear too,
And it's both of those things, right. You don't want
to be rude, but then you also don't want to
incite violence against you. But what's great about your story
is that you then employ tricks or energy by giving
a fake number. Yes, So there is something about assessing
(32:13):
a situation, believing yourself, like letting yourself know what you know,
like this guy is not, this is not I don't
want him to call I don't want him to call me,
and then deciding in a split second that maybe you
can't be really direct because that's a discernment process, right,
Like sometimes it's good to be really direct and and
other times you're going to have to employ a trick,
(32:37):
you know, to set your boundaries or you know, protect
yourself or or even get something that you want.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yes, is there anything that you like to speak about
that we didn't bring up? I feel like I can
go on and on, Like both of your books are
so amazing. The new book, The Vital Spark. If you
all haven't grabbed it, please get a copy. Is there
anything that you would like to speak to that maybe
we haven't spoke about yet.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, maybe I'll just talk for a second about kind
of how I framed the ideas and The Vital Spark,
because you know, it's a it's a really personal book.
I mean, I guess every book is kind of a confession.
But these are very much things that I had have
and continue to deal with in my life in terms
(33:26):
of kind of finding my authority and agency and what
I realized as I was writing, and then this kind
of became, you know, the thesis sentence in a way
is there are there are qualities like nurturance and warmth
and connection and kindness that help us get and stay
(33:47):
connected with other people, and those are really really important.
But then there are qualities like assertiveness and aggression and
ruthlessness and shrewdness and trickster energy that help us get
and stay connected to ourselves and most, but not by
no means all women have an easier time with that
(34:09):
first set of qualities than the second set of qualities.
So I wanted to really explore those qualities and talk
about different ways that we can incorporate them. Not that
we should suddenly become ruthless, but that we have the
capacity to be ruthless if the situation calls for it.
So this book is not a call to abandon morality
(34:32):
and decency, but just to widen our kind of behavioral repertoire.
And one of the ways that I talk about that
this metaphor that just kind of came to me through
a source. It's not an original idea, but I was.
Someone mentioned it to me when I was writing it,
and I was like, that's perfect. Is that we have
(34:54):
to learn to become a worthy opponent. So we can't
be naive like snow white and expect that the world
is going to take care of us. We have to
figure out where in the situation agency exists. Where can
we exert our influence on the situation, Where can we
put our finger on the scale so that the outcome
(35:16):
maybe turns in our favor, whether it's that there's a
strange truck in our driveway or any number of other situations,
so that we can kind of take responsibility both for
protecting ourselves but even more so for looking after our
own unfolding. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That was so beautiful. Thank you for that. This has
been amazing, and I hope that people get something from
this conversation. I know that they will. I think the
points that you presented in your work is it's so
helpful and empowering to know that from a therapist's perspective,
(36:02):
that there is a level of caring that we should
have for ourselves, and that we should embody not just
those nice qualities. It's also important to embody some wise qualities.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
M I like that. I like calling them Why's qualities.
That feels right. Yeah, thank you for that Why's qualities?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Lisa? Can you tell my listeners where they can find
you and your work?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Sure? My website is Lisamarchiano dot com and you can
find out about my books there, and I run women's
retreats and I also have an online fairytale community for women.
And that's all there at that website. And then I
also have a podcast called This Jungian Life, and that
website is www dot This yungionlife dot com. Jungion is
(36:52):
j U N G I A N Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Thank you. This was a lot of Funndra.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
You need to hear This is an iHeart production. Host
it by me Ndra Glover towob Our executive producer is
Joe L. Bonique. Our senior producer and editor is Mia
Don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions
about boundaries and relationships at You need to hear this
at iHeartMedia dot com. Please be sure to rate our
(37:26):
show wherever you listen to it, and share this episode
with someone who needs to hear this. Talk to you
next time.
I'm Nedra Glover to WOB and you need to hear this.
Today we have a very exciting guest, Lisa Marciano wrote
a book that changed my motherhood. I was taking a
walk one day and I was just looking for new
audio books to listen to in a season of parenting
(00:24):
where I really needed some support, and your book Motherhood
popped up, and it was so great on audio that
I bought a physical copy. I was like, I have
to highlight this. I have to highlight some of these
things that you said. And about a month ago, you
came out with a new book, The Vital Spark, and
I was reading it and I was telling my team,
(00:46):
I'm like, we have to email her, we have to
have her on the pod. Your way of writing is
very magical. Your storytelling, you know, the client stories, your
personal stories. The way that you weave things together helps
(01:06):
me to understand that it is okay to be an
imperfect parent, and that there is this level of gentleness
that we must have with ourselves as well as a
level of authority. So I just want to say how
much I appreciate you and your writing. One of the
(01:29):
most interesting things is I'm not typically a science fiction
or historical fiction sort of person and a lot of
your stories are rooted in I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
What would you say, Lisa, Well, certainly there's the fairy tales.
So when you said it was magical, I mean, what
a lovely thing to say. But of course fairy tales
are magical, they have so much magic in them, So
there's that element. And then yeah, I mean I did
try to bring in story of real life people, both
both my own stories and my clients obviously, but also
(02:05):
you know, some historical figures, because it just makes it
I don't know, it just makes it clear that these
issues that we grapple with every day are universal, and
that is always so grounding to realize that.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, so I want to go book by book. Let's
start with Motherhood. Can you tell everyone what that book
is about? Centrally?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, I'll answer the question by telling the story of
how the book kind of grew in me. So my
kids are two years apart, and my daughter was you know,
two and a half or something, and my son was
like six months old, and that was just a really
really hard time, Like having an infant and a toddler
was just really hard. And so, you know, one day.
(02:49):
It was like seven o'clock in the morning. Everyone had
been awake for two hours. There was nothing planned for
the day. It was reason cold. I live in Philadelphia,
it was December. It was just you know, it was
kind of like hours before the library was open. Even
I was like, Oh my god, how am I going
to get through this day? And I just had this thought.
I was like, got everything about motherhood is so hard,
(03:11):
and then this thought just popped into my head and
the thought was yes, and I'm learning so much as
a result. It was just like that, and I thought, Wow,
that is such an interesting idea. You know that the
way that I'm struggling is actually changing me and helping
me grow. And it was related for me to Jung's
(03:32):
idea of individuation because I'm a Jungian analyst and I
was in Union training at that time, and individuation is
this idea that we continue to grow and change throughout
the whole lifespan. So I thought, well, gosh, I want
to read something about that, Like who has talked about
how motherhood helps you grow? And I couldn't really find
(03:52):
that book. I mean, people have written some stuff that
was close, but I couldn't find it especially not from
a Junian perspective. So I you know, we're so used
to seeing books about how to parent, or there's a
whole lovely bunch of memoirs about what that experience is
like for an individual, But really thinking about motherhood is
a life experience that helps you get to know yourself better.
(04:16):
I just was really interested in that, and that is
what I hoped to explore in the book, is how
does this teach you about yourself?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, I can say, you know, in reading the book,
what I realized is all the ways in which my
life sort of expanded, like my sense of time, my ability,
my body. So many things expanded in this way that
I didn't know was possible, Like the things that I
(04:48):
get done in a day now, my single noe key
at having self I couldn't imagine because I was like
consumed at that point, right. But it's like, I don't
even know how I did this. I remember when I
delivered my first child. I had a rush of adrenaline
(05:08):
right after delivery, and I called so many people and
I found out later like people were telling me, like,
you call me as soon as you because I was
so blown.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Awsh oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I was like, oh my gosh, I just pushed a
baby out and it's like right there. And I got
up and I walked to the bathroom and I'm like
like superhuman, Like I've never felt this level of power before.
And one week later I was very disempowered.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, like the high house in the low lows.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right. One week later, I was like, I've never felt
this tired in my life. But when I delivered, I
was like, oh, let me call this person from elementary school.
(06:11):
Oh my gosh, I was like on cloud nine. And yeah,
there are some highs and lows and lots of days
like right in the middle and the power of motherhood.
Like to think about the ways in which it has
shifted my career and how I work. I think it's
just such a wonderful thing to assess the way that
(06:34):
you can be so protective of this little person. How
encouraging that is for you to take some of that
and be protective with yourself. You know, there was a
moment when I noticed how well my toddler ate and
how terrible I ate.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yes, Like I was like I'm puring you know, the
organic vegetables, and I'm like, nothing sweet potatoes from the
best vines for this baby. And I'm like, girl, you
need to shift your diet. There's room. There's room. So
(07:14):
one of the things that I love about your book
Motherhood is how you invite us to think about the
sort of taboo topics in motherhood, like the envy, the jealousy,
the resentment. Can you tell me how you've seen people
sort of struggle with the role of being a human
(07:36):
being as well as being a mother.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, and of course I talk a lot about anger
in the book, and that is not a coincidence because
I was definitely an angry mommy a lot of the time.
So I was really interested in anger because you know,
I tried everything to like not yell. I tried everything
I really wanted to yell less. And I kept on
(07:59):
trying and and I don't know that I ever cracted nandra.
I never really got that much better, but I certainly
kept trying. But I was interested in, like, so, well,
what does it mean to yell at your kids? What
is that really about? What happens in that kind of
relational moment? And I certainly worked with lots of moms
who were angry at their kids a lot, and yelled
(08:20):
at their kids and would then come into my office
and just kind of be rate themselves for it, like
just flay themselves for the fact that they yelled at
their kid. And so, I mean, I think that what
I talk about in the book is just you know,
that there are some good things about anger. I mean,
it's not like I'm recommending go off and yell at
(08:41):
your kid, but I don't know that it's good to
never get angry at our kids. I think that anger
has a positive purpose and it can definitely be damaging,
but there's a role for repair. And you know, getting
angry at your kids is kind of a universal and
so I was interested in boring that in particular and
(09:02):
some of the other things that you were talking about.
You know, the thing about Jung's psychology that's so helpful
to me is I really think it encourages us to
understand that all parts of us belong. It really encourages
a kind of self acceptance. And again, not that we
can't always try to do better, but if we can
(09:26):
be you know, gentle, gentle with ourselves. That's a word
that I used it before, and that is a word
that I come back to a lot in my clinical practice,
and even when we're not, you know, kind of winning
mother of the year that day, and because maybe we're
maybe we're tired, and maybe we've lost our temper, or
maybe we you know, feel resentment or envy of another
(09:51):
parent and her relationship with her husband or something like that.
You know, can can we be curious about it? Can
we turn toward ourselves with curiosity and acceptance and see
what we might be able to find out about any
of those experiences, because all of those feelings are teachers.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
There are two things you said that I'd love for
us to expand on a bit. One is, can you
share with the listener's young psychology just some basic things
about that approach. We're clearly both therapists, so we have
some understanding for but for the folks who are listening
(10:36):
and might not be aware of that approach, I think
there are some other things that are you know, pretty
general cognitive behavioral. You know, so if people have therapy experience,
there are some things you may understand. But I would
like to dig a little deeper into this approach.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist. He was born
in eighteen seventy five. So he was a contemporary of Freuds,
and he was a colleague of Freuds the beginning, and
he was kind of a there at the beginning of
the founding of psychoanalysis, but he and Freud eventually really
parted ways. And you know, Jung very much developed his
own thinking about the unconscious and how it relates to
(11:14):
consciousness and some of the words that you might know
of that he kind of coined our archetype, collective, unconscious, synchronicity, shadow, introvert, extrovert.
So some of his ideas have really kind of found
their way into the mainstream. But I think where Young
differs a little bit from other kind of psychodynamic schools
(11:38):
approaches to therapy that uh, psychodynamic means that you believe
there's an unconscious and that we're influenced by the unconscious. Okay,
and there's a bunch of different psychodynamic schools, but you know,
Jung's big message is that we're all growing toward wholeness,
and sometimes we get blocked in that growth toward wholeness
and that's when symptoms occur. But ultimately our being wants
(12:05):
to grow and wants to self actualize. So it's a
very kind of optimistic view of the psyche, and it's
also a view that has a lot of room for
spirituality in it, and there's a real emphasis on meaning.
Jung felt that we couldn't be psychologically well, most of
us unless we had a sense of meaning and purpose,
(12:26):
and I think that's mostly.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
True, So thank you for that. And the other thing
is envy. You know, I see envy as a very
important emotion, but it's also one that is very hard
for many people to acknowledge experiencing, whether it's with their children,
with their friend, with their partner, with their neighbor who
(12:49):
has a family, it can be hard to acknowledge it,
but we often unconsciously act it out.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, it is, so it's such a powerful and uncomfortable emotion.
And I do make a distinction between envy and jealousy,
which is it's kind of hard to distinguish, and probably
different people define those two words differently, But I think
if envy is that sense that you really it's darker,
I think than jealousy. You know, envy is that you
(13:19):
want to kind of that you wish the person ill
because they have something that you don't have, whereas jealousy
is more like you want the thing they have. I'll
tell you a little personal story about jealousy. I have
a friend, a wonderful close friend. We've known each other
for years and years. She's really important to me, but
she is kind of a charmed life. She is very wealthy,
(13:42):
she does all kinds of fabulous things, lots of travel,
She's got a beautiful house, she has a fancy car.
Years ago now we were talking and she was mentioning
some fabulous things she was up to, and then she said,
you know, oh, I'm and I'm going to be writing
a book. And I notice that I really wasn't jealous
(14:02):
of the trip to Europe. I really wasn't jealous of
the new car. But when she said that about writing
a book, oh, this hot jealousy ran through me because
I really wanted to write a book. And it was
so clarifying because it's like, yeah, it would be nice
to have a really, I don't know, a new German
sports car, but I don't really care about that. You know,
(14:26):
we're only jealous of things we actually care about. So
jealousy can be such a helpful emotion because it shows
you what you really want something. Yes, sometimes I think,
especially women, it can be hard for us to even
know what we want sometimes. So I think that jealousy,
as painful as it can be, it can be a friend.
(14:47):
Envy is it's a dark feeling to feel, and it's
a dangerous feeling to be on the other end of,
because you know, it really does inspire people to hurt
other people. And I think that there was a time
in my life when I was kind of naive about that.
I was like, well, who would ever feel envy of me?
(15:07):
First of all, and secondly, like, no one would really
actually wish me ill simply because but actually they will.
They will wish you ill, and they might act on it.
So you can't be naive about envy.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You tell a story in the Vital Spark around the
emotion of envy, where the character and the fairy tale
is just not aware of the ways in which she
is envied by her mother. Is this the story of
snow White?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, well there's yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yes, it's the story of snow I had never understood
a snow white now way until I read it in
your book.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Oh that's great, I did.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, Okay, I had to dig back into my second
grade mind. I'm like, is this the story of There's
No why my kids watch this movie. It was very dark, yes, well,
a very good story around how she just could not
believe that her mother would envy her and go to
such extents to poison her, to you know, have her
(16:19):
keeled and all of these things, and she just kept
trusting and trusting. And you spoke about the dangers of
us being so trusting, and how there are times where
we need to really tap into our power to be
courageous and confront people because the trusting that we have
(16:39):
sometimes can be unearned, and we should have a little
bit of cautiousness and sometimes a little bit of leariness
around you know, certain people and in certain situations, and
that can be to our benefit.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, I mean, we all have things we want to
believe about the world, and we have to be careful
that we're seeing the world as it is, not as
we wish it were. So Snow White is such a
great story for that, because, of course, in the original Grims,
it's not her stepmother, it's her mother who's envious of her.
And you know, it is true that sometimes we might
(17:16):
feel jealousy or even envy of our children. I mean,
that's such a taboo thing to admit. But I think
it's a normal experience to feel some of that. But
snow White, you know, she's so innocent because she keeps
on opening the door. The witch disguised as a beggar
comes and offers her something and tries to kill her,
and the door of say don't open the door, and
(17:39):
then there she is the next day, like opening the door.
It's like, what are you thinking? I find myself getting
irritated at her, you know, it's like, come on, wake up, chicky,
don't ye be this beautiful, little flimsy, you know, naive
thing grow a spine.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It reminds me of a friendship I used to have
of where a person was very likely displaying some envy
and I just couldn't believe it. Ye, yes, I just
I could not believe it because from my perspective, like
you stated, envy me, like you know my personal story,
(18:18):
you know the things I've been through, like you've seen that.
Like I just thought that because this person knew of
certain things from my history and you know, they've experienced
certain things with me that they could never be envious
of the situation going well for me or me having
(18:40):
this thing like I felt like, hey, this is like
a comeback story, like everyone should be rooting for the underdog.
And this person was like, ugh, I will seem to
be excited for you, but I will secretly not be excited.
I will plant see of you know, decharacterizing you. I
(19:02):
will make little comments. I will try to caution you
not to do these things that are actually showing themselves
to be promising. I will, you know, like all of
those things. And it took me years to see that
that is, in fact what was happening, because I didn't
want to believe it. I have this story of this
(19:23):
person could not think this way because they know me.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah. Yeah, And I'm so glad you brought that up
because you were describing the little ways that envy can act.
I mean, you know, they're the dramatic stories that maybe
we see in movies or something like that, but interpersonally,
it's more likely to be those little seeds of doubt
or like you said, maybe you know someone who's encouraging
(19:49):
you not to do something that might actually be good
for you, or or someone who just makes a little
comment that kind of devalues. I'll tell you. I'll tell
on myself personal story when I was envious. My kids
were little. I had a friend with little kids. We
were we were, you know, trying to save money and
always being very cautious with finances and so we were not,
(20:11):
you know, taking any vacations. And you know, I guess
they had a different financial philosophy or more money or
who knows. But she was like, yeah, yeah, we're going
to I don't know, name some fabulous tropical place next week.
You know, we're going to the pomics six case. Okay,
Turks and caicos. And what I said to her, I'm
embarrassed about this. It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I like, you'll wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I said, well, I mean, aren't aren't you just going
to be following the same like nap and feeding routine
in a strange place or something like that. I said
something like that, and I, you know, twenty seconds after
I said it, I realized what I'd done, and it
was envy. I had devalued this wonderful thing that she
(20:53):
was about to do. I had, in the hopes of
I had, I had tried to strip it of value,
like you're going to go and you're just going to
have to put the baby down for a nap, Like why,
you know, why go.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Put them down for a nap and then go sit
on the beach. What a waste of your tak to
go sit and look at this clear water with the
sand benisia. What a waste of time. Who would ever
want to do that? Who would want to feed their
baby by turtles?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
But that's what we do when we feel envy. So
and you know, any of us can be in that position,
and we can also be on the receiving end of it.
And like you said, it's so important to let ourselves
know if that's what's happening, so that we can protect ourselves.
Because if once you saw that was happening, then you
put up a little wall with that friend. Maybe you
(21:44):
don't share the good news with her or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I think that's a wise person would be cautious
about what they share with you because they don't want
to be deflated right in that way. And so it
does the relationship as to you being the person now
that they can't share things with. I remember I had
a we're just going back and forth with our stories, but.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Stories are great.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I remember I had a friend and I was able
to travel and she wasn't able to travel, and she
would make it a point to ask me about my trip,
how was your trip? But then she would get immediately
busy and could not listen, so it would be like,
how was your trip? No, put that down? Stop, Oh
my gosh, I call you back. The sky just fell in.
It's like it was like so she could never say
(22:37):
I didn't ask you. I asked you about your trip,
but it's like, you don't actually listen to me up,
so it's like never, I hope you're having a good time, Like, oh,
how was your time? Oh my gosh, what's that on TV?
It's like what just happened?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, that's really interesting, right, because she knew she should.
I mean, at least she at least she was than
I was.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I hope you have a terrible time in Turks and
Geicos because I'm not going. Yeah, but yeah, Unconsciously, she
was kind of sending the message that she couldn't tolerate it.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
What should a person do in a situation when they
realize that they have displayed some unproductive behaviors as a
result of feeling envying a relationship? How do we repair well?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I mean, I think recognizing it and apologizing for it
if the relationship will tolerate that saying, you know, I
think I've been, you know, saying little barp things or
I said that about you know, nap time, and I
wish I hadn't said that, And I think, honestly, I
think I'm just jealous and I hope you have a
great time. You know, I think that would go a
super long way. But it is a call to consciousness,
(23:53):
right because I mean, and I was aware of what
I'd done, and I did some work with it. But
you know, I think nowadays, if that happened to me,
I do even more work with it, because the truth
is that that could have led me into a kind
of query about how I felt about decisions that we
were making in our marriage, you know, And was I
really down with this program up? We're not going to
(24:15):
take a vacation until the kids are self sufficient? You know,
Maybe I maybe I hadn't let that part of me
get a fear hearing, and so my envy with my
friend could have encouraged me to explore something that I
wasn't really letting into consciousness because maybe I wanted to
(24:36):
avoid conflict with my husband or whatever, and sort of
making it up at this point because it was so
long ago.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
But yeah, I'm hearing in that story this idea that
when we put off things that were actually not okay with,
we have a level of resentment for the person who
is bold enough to do it, because, let's face it,
traveling with little kids should be a paid job, right,
(25:08):
Oh my gosh, the compassion I have. My kids are
older now, so you know, they're like upper elementary school,
and so when I see people with little toddlers, I'm like, oh,
please don't give this, Please, don't give this dat a
hard time. Please don't give this pawbar tibe like they're
getting it handed to them. We think this crying is outrageous,
(25:30):
but they're over they're in their hair, like, oh my gosh,
this baby keep crying. Everybody's on a plane, like all
of these things are happening. It's such a tough experience
for them. So for a person to be bold enough
and say, you know what, We're going to the islands
despite this baby disliking flights, it's like, you deserve the
(25:57):
umbrella in your drink. I will send one your way,
you know, as it courtesy for the boldness of what
you did. But yet when we exclude our sales from that,
oh I can't, Oh I can't do these things. Oh
I have so many projects at home. I can't do this.
And we see someone maybe with the same level of
(26:19):
something doing it. Yes, yeah, it does invite some uncomfortable
feelings and it is a moment where perhaps we need
to evaluate what we're prioritizing and deprioritize.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
And what are we allowing ourselves. I mean, that's such
a great example because I think that when we deny
ourselves something, then we're really setting ourselves up to feel envy,
because I mean, sometimes you just can't, you just don't
have the money or whatever. But a lot of times
we tell ourselves we can't do something, and then that
sets us up to feel really envious when we see
(26:55):
someone else, like you said, in a similar situation, allowing
them selves to to do something that we've denied ourselves.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So there, and there's something too about that. You know
the dad on the plane that the word that comes
up for me is open hearted, and you just kind
of gave this invitation for us to embrace the world
in an open hearted way, like go out there and
you know, have the vacation, even if it seems silly,
you know, to take your kids somewhere, or you know,
(27:27):
any number of other less superficial examples. Perhaps, but when
we do that, we can be so filled with life
and hopefully sometimes some joy, that we're less likely to
feel envy of other people. And and we just we
bring that into encounters and and if other people feel
(27:51):
envious of us because we have that, maybe we have
this shrewdness to protect ourselves, shrewdness.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I love how you talked about shrewdness and the vital spark,
you know. I think of this episode of the Oprah Show,
which I have revisited on her podcast, where there is
this I don't know if he's a detective, a crime
reporter or someone, and he talks about people not listening
(28:23):
to their feelings or bypassing their gut instinct about something
like someone being dangerous because they don't want to be
perceived as mean, and how when women in situations did this,
they were harmed that he shared a story of a woman,
you know, she lives off this like back road and
(28:43):
not a lot of traffic type thing in a rural area,
and she notices this truck in her driveway and she's like,
the guy looks weird, but I'm gonna go to his
truck and I'm gonna be really nice to him. And
then he ends up trying to attack her. And it's
just story after story of people feeling uncomfortable, h feeling
(29:04):
uncomfortable in a situation and saying, mm, but I have
to be nice.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yes, well, especially women feel that way, right. So one
of the stories that I mentioned, I think in that
chapter is this young woman that I worked with who
was in a public park and this man came over
to her and was talking to her and trying to
engage her in conversation, and it started escalating and he
(29:32):
was asking her for her phone number, and she would
get up and move and he would follow her, and
it went on for a while. She's telling me the
story and he said, and any boy, did you just
look at him said leave me the fuck alone, and
she said, well, I didn't want to be rude.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And you know what, the the pursuing in dating situations
is a really interesting that some women have a lot
of anxiety around like being rude. I remember I was
in high school. I'm from Detroit and when I was
in high school. I caught the public bus to school
(30:11):
and there was a girl who she was catching a
bus to school. She wasn't on my bus, but she
was on a different bus. Did not give this guy
her phone number and he hit her.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Ooh god, she had a.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Knot on her forehead. We were like in ten or
eleventh grade, and I'm often on the bus. They're like
guys hitting on you and stuff like that. So from
then on, I was like, oh, you can't tell some
like you literally can't tell someone no if they're trying
to pursue you, and you better be very careful about
(30:44):
what fake number you give them. Well see, I went
to fake phone numbers. There was no Instagram dming at
this time. But you know, it's like, oh my gosh,
it must be even worse now if somebody could just
look you up on their phone and they're like, this
isn't you? You know, at least I had the opportunity
to give them the number to movie.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Phone or the.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Local theater or something. It's like, what number do I
know about her? Uh? Three one, three, three seven seven is?
But how unfortunate to think that I have to give
this person my information or I have to be kind
to this person because they can overpower me. It would
be seen as rude, like all of these sort of
(31:31):
things that we come up with. And it's true, you know,
in some instances it is true, and in some instances
is not true. People, you know, they take it well,
but we as women have a really hard time figuring
out when we are safe and when we can be
safe yep, with a stranger.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, And actually, you know the other part of the
story from my client in the park is that he
had like an empty bottle, and so there was fear too,
And it's both of those things, right. You don't want
to be rude, but then you also don't want to
incite violence against you. But what's great about your story
is that you then employ tricks or energy by giving
a fake number. Yes, So there is something about assessing
(32:13):
a situation, believing yourself, like letting yourself know what you know,
like this guy is not, this is not I don't
want him to call I don't want him to call me,
and then deciding in a split second that maybe you
can't be really direct because that's a discernment process, right,
Like sometimes it's good to be really direct and and
other times you're going to have to employ a trick,
(32:37):
you know, to set your boundaries or you know, protect
yourself or or even get something that you want.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yes, is there anything that you like to speak about
that we didn't bring up? I feel like I can
go on and on, Like both of your books are
so amazing. The new book, The Vital Spark. If you
all haven't grabbed it, please get a copy. Is there
anything that you would like to speak to that maybe
we haven't spoke about yet.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, maybe I'll just talk for a second about kind
of how I framed the ideas and The Vital Spark,
because you know, it's a it's a really personal book.
I mean, I guess every book is kind of a confession.
But these are very much things that I had have
and continue to deal with in my life in terms
(33:26):
of kind of finding my authority and agency and what
I realized as I was writing, and then this kind
of became, you know, the thesis sentence in a way
is there are there are qualities like nurturance and warmth
and connection and kindness that help us get and stay
(33:47):
connected with other people, and those are really really important.
But then there are qualities like assertiveness and aggression and
ruthlessness and shrewdness and trickster energy that help us get
and stay connected to ourselves and most, but not by
no means all women have an easier time with that
(34:09):
first set of qualities than the second set of qualities.
So I wanted to really explore those qualities and talk
about different ways that we can incorporate them. Not that
we should suddenly become ruthless, but that we have the
capacity to be ruthless if the situation calls for it.
So this book is not a call to abandon morality
(34:32):
and decency, but just to widen our kind of behavioral repertoire.
And one of the ways that I talk about that
this metaphor that just kind of came to me through
a source. It's not an original idea, but I was.
Someone mentioned it to me when I was writing it,
and I was like, that's perfect. Is that we have
(34:54):
to learn to become a worthy opponent. So we can't
be naive like snow white and expect that the world
is going to take care of us. We have to
figure out where in the situation agency exists. Where can
we exert our influence on the situation, Where can we
put our finger on the scale so that the outcome
(35:16):
maybe turns in our favor, whether it's that there's a
strange truck in our driveway or any number of other situations,
so that we can kind of take responsibility both for
protecting ourselves but even more so for looking after our
own unfolding. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That was so beautiful. Thank you for that. This has
been amazing, and I hope that people get something from
this conversation. I know that they will. I think the
points that you presented in your work is it's so
helpful and empowering to know that from a therapist's perspective,
(36:02):
that there is a level of caring that we should
have for ourselves, and that we should embody not just
those nice qualities. It's also important to embody some wise qualities.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
M I like that. I like calling them Why's qualities.
That feels right. Yeah, thank you for that Why's qualities?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Lisa? Can you tell my listeners where they can find
you and your work?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Sure? My website is Lisamarchiano dot com and you can
find out about my books there, and I run women's
retreats and I also have an online fairytale community for women.
And that's all there at that website. And then I
also have a podcast called This Jungian Life, and that
website is www dot This yungionlife dot com. Jungion is
(36:52):
j U N G I A N Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Thank you. This was a lot of Funndra.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
You need to hear This is an iHeart production. Host
it by me Ndra Glover towob Our executive producer is
Joe L. Bonique. Our senior producer and editor is Mia
Don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions
about boundaries and relationships at You need to hear this
at iHeartMedia dot com. Please be sure to rate our
(37:26):
show wherever you listen to it, and share this episode
with someone who needs to hear this. Talk to you
next time.
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