September 20, 2021 • 53 mins
Guest: Jennifer Whetzel, Ladyjane Branding
Contact: jennifer@ladyjanebranding.com
Website: https://ladyjanebranding.com
About Jennifer:
After more than 25 years in the marketing and advertising industry, and after finding significant symptom relief in medical cannabis and emotional support from community members, Jennifer Whetzel was inspired to use her professional expertise to help businesses in the cannabis industry.
In 2018, she founded Ladyjane Branding using the power of Archetypes to help companies develop unique brands that lead to deep connections with consumers. Her background in compliance also led to development of an online course teaching FDA-compliant messaging for CBD and cannabis brands called Sell Joy!
In 2019, Jennifer initiated “The Women in Cannabis Study,” an in-depth multimedia research project to understand the journey of women working in the cannabis industry. Results of the study will be forthcoming in a partnership with Hasty Storytelling and the basis of a book written by award-winning author of The Medicalization of Marijuana, Michelle Newhart.
In 2020, she co-founded Independent Diamond Brokers, which focuses on B2B networking and events for local Maine growers & retailers.
She is also on the Board of Directors for #thisisjaneproject, a non-profit focused on providing education and access to plant medicine for trauma survivors.
A prolific reader and lover of nature, in her spare time Jennifer can be found either with her nose in a book or in the woods on her property in Maine.
Things we mentioned in the episode:
Book: The Hero and the Outlaw by Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen
Book: Goddesses in Everywoman by Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen
Book: Goddesses in Older Women by Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen
Book: Circe by Madeline Miller
Book: The Medicalization of Cannabis by Michelle Newhart
Organization: Independent Diamond Brokers
Organization: Women in Cannabis
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Boston (00:05):
Welcome to mythic a podcast where we explore meaningful
living through the power of myth.
I'm your host fostered blank.
My guest today is Jennifer Wetsel.
(00:25):
I met Jennifer a few yearsago through a mutual.
And after about 30 seconds, sheand I were deep in a conversation
about archetypes and marketing.
Jennifer has been in the marketing andadvertising industry for over 25 years.
She's the founder of lady Jane branding,which uses the power of archetypes to help
companies develop unique brands and deepentheir connections with their customers.
(00:47):
She also initiated the women incannabis study, which seeks to
understand the journey of womenworking in the cannabis industry.
Jennifer is whip smart.
She's insightful.
And in this conversation, we covered a lotof ground, but before we get to it, I want
to let you know that I have a really coolannouncement at the end of this episode.
(01:08):
So please stick around for amoment after the interview.
And I have a great invitation for you now.
Here's Jennifer.
Jennifer (01:24):
So my background is in marketing and advertising and
research and, and business basically.
And in 2017, I lost my job andI moved to Maine so that I could
get a medical card cannabis card.
And when I arrived here and I was.
(01:47):
And spending some time with mycaregiver, who was the one to introduce
me to cannabis, to medical cannabis.
I was able to see the beginnings ofthis new industry here in this state.
And what I realized is that there wereall of these entrepreneurs getting
into the market who really struggledwith something that I knew a lot
(02:09):
about, and that was branding and.
I spent a lot of time working inan advertising agency years ago.
And my favorite thing to do was branding.
I had read the book, the hero and theoutlaw, and I realized that it was
using archetypes as a way to help brandsunderstand how to brand themselves and
(02:31):
maintain consistency in their branding.
It was a really amazing tool.
And so while I was dealing with.
Multiple traumas and PTSD and tryingto heal from all of these things.
I threw myself into this creativeendeavor of trying to define
archetypes that could be used.
For cannabis companies to help brandthemselves for, for those entrepreneurs
(02:53):
who didn't really have a lot of backgroundin something that I knew how to do.
And so for that creativeendeavor, I decided to define 16
archetypes to use, to help theseentrepreneurs with their branding.
What was it that capturedyour attention about cannabis?
(03:13):
You moved to Maine toget your cannabis card.
Where did you move from?
I was living in the Midwest.
I had lived there for about 10 yearsand I was dealing with an auto immune
disorder and an immune disorder.
So I thought, and my symptoms wereoverwhelming and I was chronically
ill and cannabis was not accessibleto me, legally accessible to me.
(03:36):
It was difficult to find it at all, butI knew it was the only thing that helped.
And so when I was going tofind a new place to live.
New that medical cannabis was an option.
I only was looking in states where that,where I could move to get a medical card.
And so that's why I moved to Maineand I was able to find that cannabis.
(03:57):
And therapy and brain retraining helped merelieve all of my physical symptoms from
the auto-immune and the immune disorders.
So physically it made aworld of difference for me.
And one of the things that I learned inthe women in cannabis study that I have
been working on for a couple of yearsis that many women get into the cannabis
(04:17):
industry because of their success inusing cannabis to help with physical
issues or mental health issues or.
The mood and that's what happened to me.
I was looking for a job.
Couldn't find one that I wanted to do.
And I was realizing that as, asa disabled person, I was going to
(04:37):
struggle to work for someone else.
And so I needed to find somethingto do that would make sense for me.
And so building a business, which.
Looking back was very difficult.
It made me more difficult than I knew atthe time was really my only option and
cannabis was a great place because it waswhere I felt welcomed as a cannabis user.
I was not shamed.
(04:58):
There was no stigma.
I could use cannabis during the day,during my work day and not have to hide.
And so it just made sense to me.
And when I was.
Again, meeting all of theseentrepreneurs, it was clear that
I had a skill that would help.
And that was another thing I found inthe, in the women, in cannabis studies.
When I asked, why didyou get into cannabis?
One of the top reasons was touse my skills in a new industry.
(05:22):
So women were looking to give back tobe able to take what they've learned in
other industries and apply it to canvas.
And so it just madesense that that would be.
Where I would bring my new branding,my multiple choice branding
with archetypes to make it easy.
I love what you just said.
What I hear in the background of it isnot just industry, but I hear community.
Boston (05:44):
you found this great way to serve an identity, a culture, and
really bring your gifts to bear.
And then through this language ofarchetypes, which it may not be
unique, but it is certainly unusual.
(06:04):
I still feel like it's this magical toolout there that people just, for whatever
reason they don't want to lean into.
And you read the hero and the outlaw,what journey did that send you on?
It really resonated with youand you identified the 16.
Archetypes of women in cannabis.
(06:25):
What did you learn through that process?
Jennifer (06:28):
Just to be clear when I started the archetypes, this
the 16, it wasn't just for women.
I entered the women in cannabisstudy about a year after that.
But you know, what I foundwhen I worked in branding a
long time ago, is that using.
To help companies understandand personify their brand.
Like it really clicked for people.
(06:48):
And so branding is this weird thingthat no one thinks that they need to do.
They don't want to do it.
It costs extra.
It's so easy.
It's really easy.
It's really about personifyingyour brand understanding.
Who your brand would be in at a party?
Like how would they act?
What would they say?
And it's those qualities understandingtheir values and their personality
(07:09):
that allow you to develop contentand design that is consistent with
the brand and doesn't confuse people.
And what I saw, particularly in may.
Where it was still a baby industry,still an infant at that time was that
there was no branding whatsoever.
Really.
And what was out there was typicallyfocused to like a stoner archetype or a
(07:33):
doctor archetype, which is two choicesto go spa doctor or full-on stoner.
Is that like aupper-middle-class white guy?
And then.
The stoner dude like the bro.
Yes.
And so to me, that's not enoughvariety in a, in a consumer market.
(07:59):
We're talking about a consumerproduct consumer and you certainly
didn't fit either of these models.
Correct.
And at the time in Maine, like therewere no retail stores, it was just
caregivers who were packaging theirstuff in a baggie and handing it to you.
You didn't need.
You didn't really need a brand yet,but it wasn't until stores started to
(08:21):
open and there was competition becauseyou had to give your caregiver, your
medical card and they grew for you.
You didn't have, youdidn't go anywhere else.
You had your guy, but now there'sover 300 retail stores in this state.
And those caregivers haveproducts in multiple stores.
And now brand matters.
If you've got people who are usedto walking into the grocery store
and picking beautiful brandsoff the shelf, it does matter.
(08:42):
To people that they can trust thebrand that they connect with the brand.
Yes.
Some people who just use medical cannabisjust need that thing that works for them.
For some, it's just a noveltyof the fact that you can get it.
But for a lot of people, it is aboutconnecting with a brand that they
really like that shares their values.
What are some of the archetypes thatyou identified in your research?
(09:05):
I've made some veryspecific ones for cannabis.
So for example, I defined a stoner anda rockstar and a healer, an activist,
uh, essentially list a socialite farmer.
Uh, let's see the magician scientists.
So it took a lot of, a lot ofspreadsheet work weirdly to.
(09:30):
Hone their values and theirpersonalities and their, the tone
of voice that they might use in,in developing content so that they
were very distinct and different.
Directions that you could take abrand because once you understand
that your brand is a magician versusa doctor, it's very clear how to
(09:53):
speak, how to act, what to post,what your packaging should look like.
And it's very clear what not to do.
So I actually developed duringthis whole process, a full brand
model using these 16 archetypes.
So it's not just these16 different directions.
They're actually groupedin a very precise way.
(10:15):
I bucketed them into eightdifferent emotional themes.
So for example, action, grounding,innovation, guidance status, for example.
So.
When you're trying to develop your brand,understanding the themes that you're
(10:35):
trying to achieve are you about action?
Are you about status?
Those are very different things.
Are you about guidance orgrounding, different things.
And it really helps to very preciselydefine what your brand is about.
Then I further grouped the archetypesinto visual design categories.
(10:56):
So.
First you understand what your emotionaltheme is for your brand's story.
Then you look at the visualdesign categories to help
make visuals that match.
So for example, the activist is.
An action theme and the visualdesign category is rough and earthy.
(11:20):
I've actually made this into adigital tool to help people see.
So if you're rough and earthy ormodern and minimal or colorful
and simple, or can't rememberthe fourth one now, because it's.
But I basically take peoplethrough this journey.
So if this is your, if this isthe theme of your story, if this
(11:41):
is how your archetype should lookand act, then it provides this
whole comprehensive definition oftheir brand that holds together.
Sometimes I talk to brands like, wait,we want to be exclusive and inclusive.
You can't pick one, butlike separating the themes.
So if you, if you want to beabout status and exclusive.
(12:03):
Great be that, but youcan also be inclusive.
Like you have to go.
I'm thinking of this parallelthat happens when we're talking
about internal archetypes.
And in a moment, I hope we'll getto talk about Jean Shinoda Boland's
work and how you're relating to that.
But that people, individualsare not pure archetypes.
We have all of them inside ofus, but one or two will lead
(12:27):
at any given point in time.
Now, when you're doing a brand.
You're not, you're not trying tocapture everybody who is partly every
thing a brand is more like one of theOlympian gods, it's a pure archetype.
You're going for the distillation.
So that when somebody says, I say Zeusor Athena, and you get the king of
(12:52):
the gods, the goddess of wisdom andthat a brand should have that kind of.
Um, resonance.
So this is very interesting that youbring this up because it's one thing
that I explain as I'm taking peoplethrough the branding process, and I
have to give a little backstory here.
I turned this into a multiple choice quiz.
(13:12):
It's a five question quiz.
So people take this quiz fromthe perspective of their brand.
And then at the end they get there.
And some people are very singularlyminded when they go through the quiz,
whether it's for their own brains or fortheir brands, like activists, activists,
activist, activists, in some peopleall over the place, all over the place.
(13:36):
The way that I explain it is thatas humans we can tap into, we
should be able to tap into any andall of these archetypes to help us
understand how to act in any givensituation, finding to be an activist.
At some point, I know, okay,the activist is like this.
This is how I need to act to be activists.
Like, and then tomorrow Imight need to be a scientist.
And then the next day I mightneed to be a best friend and I
(13:56):
can call on those qualities toknow what to do and how to act.
And I actually did some data analysisto see like how many single-minded
people were there and how manywell-rounded people were there.
How many people were intouch with many archetypes.
And it was kind of, it was very mucha, uh, a bell curve, which was very
(14:17):
interesting and not different by gender.
When you're a brand, you have topick one and you have to define it.
It can, it can be a little bit ofa combination of more than one.
It doesn't have to be one of my 16.
It can be anything you want,but it has to be one thing.
And it has to be well-defined and you haveto stick to it, or people are confused.
But like I said earlier, you're notgoing to act like a scientist in the
(14:37):
morning and a stoner in the afternoon.
People wouldn't understandthat, but as human.
We have the full range of archetypesto tap into, to understand ourselves.
And I've actually been using it.
The archetypes that I designedas a tool for myself and my own
introspection and development.
I want to hear about that.
(14:58):
So I am a newly met post-menopausal.
Yay me.
I have entered my third stageand I just read a book about
goddesses and older women.
Okay.
I also have recently learned aboutsome of my neurological issues.
Like I'm autistic.
I had no idea explains everything.
(15:19):
It even explains how I need toreally understand archetypes, to know
how to act in any given situation.
Cause they don't already know.
Okay, wait a minute.
Okay.
Hold up.
We're now we're in now in territorythat I just don't know much about.
So what is the autistic nature that, uh,That wields archetypes in this way, that,
(15:40):
that creates this relationship with them.
I'm still trying to understand thatmyself, but my hypothesis is, is that
for me in particular, I know this isnot for everyone, but it's difficult
for me to know how to act in socialsituations, what to do, what to say.
I practice, I have to practicebefore I get on the phone because
otherwise I kind of melt down.
I don't know what to do.
(16:02):
As an example, like my typical writingstyle is very direct and to the point,
but lady Gina is the best friend brand.
So I have to be nice in anemail to when like, oh yeah.
What would a best friend say?
Oh yeah.
That's what a best friendwould say in an email.
And then I do that, but how Itypically interact with the world,
like I need scripts, I need guides.
(16:23):
I need.
To know what to do or else I justmelt down in an anxious bull.
What archetype do you think or archetypesdo you think when you're, when you are
alone with yourself in an environmentwhere you do know what to do, what
archetypes are most present for you?
Oh, and it changes for me.
(16:47):
I'm going to answer that question in asecond, but I want to go back to when
I, when I realized that I was autisticand understanding that I have been
autistic masking is, is a big thingwhere you just pretend to be normal to
fit in and it's exhausting to pretend.
Yes, that's exactly the same.
(17:08):
It's exactly the same.
It's it's having to pretend to be someoneyou're not to fit in in the outside world.
And when I realized.
That my entire life was just a seriesof me having different masks on.
And, and now that I'm, I had burnoutand they broke the masks broke, like I
just couldn't couldn't do it anymore.
And I was like, well, wait a second.
(17:29):
If all of these masks that I've beenwearing are archetypes who's under.
Like who's the narrator who is in charge.
And so I pulled out mybig list of archetypes.
I'm like, well, who am I?
Who's who's in charge.
Who do I want to develop?
Who do I want to tap into?
And that's when I looked at thegoddesses and older women, the wise
(17:49):
women archetypes ones that focuson wisdom and transformative wrath.
I love that one becauseI am terrible at anger.
It's frightening for me.
So to understand, okay.
Here's how you use transformativewrap to make a difference.
I'm using the archetypes to understandwhere I need more development or where
I need to practice being in differentsituations that I haven't done before.
(18:14):
And even like entering thethird stage of life, like.
What minors now.
Cause what matters, matteredbefore doesn't really much anymore.
So I needed to sit down andlook like what's my theme.
Is it action.
No, it's not action right now.
Is it introspection maybe?
Is it guidance possibly so that I cantake all of these things that I've
(18:36):
learned and try and give back in some way.
I'm terrible at asking people formoney and charging for my time.
So I'm giving back with all of the.
These tools that I develop and thatare useful for me, but like I'm having
to learn how to, how to be additionalroles that I didn't have to do before.
(18:57):
Oh, what a rich way to work and anamazing path of self exploration.
I also really hear what you say.
I'm I'm 45 and I, the pandemicof course, has given a lot of
us a lot of time to reflect and.
For me, I I'm, I'm in the middleof the second stage of my life.
(19:19):
So I'm also in tune with this idea,this realization that what mattered
before simply doesn't matter now.
Yes.
And, and it's tricky because there'sa habitual tendency to go back to the
things that mattered before, because Ithink they're going to bring me fulfilled.
(19:41):
And they don't.
So the goalposts have all been moved.
The cheese has been moved.
And if I go down the path that used tomake me happy, it doesn't work anymore.
Not just happy, but likefulfilled and joyous.
And this is a really important thing.
And I relate it it's time for me,giving back seems to be the thing.
(20:03):
I've also always been terribleat charging for my time.
Like how to price myself andask for money and all of that.
It's just been, it'snever been my strong suit.
So there's something reallyvalidating in hearing you share.
And this is the trickabout this point in life.
It seems because the world isn'tgetting any less expensive.
(20:28):
I have not really gotten anybetter at asking for money.
And there's a new, they like go get forme, energy has also changed into it's
now about, it's starting to be aboutlegacy and I don't know where it's going.
It's a mystery.
(20:48):
But the last thing I'll share aboutmyself before we get back to you
is I just started working with ayoung Ian analyst and we'll be.
Doing some deep dive intomy own archetypal realm.
And I am both thrilled and terrifiedof, of what's in there of the process.
(21:11):
And so you found a way to do this.
I love that your work led youto this, this inner journey now.
I looked at your air table of thegoddesses in older women, which is
like your women in cannabis cards.
It's a work of art, your ability tofuse data and beauty is just uncanny.
(21:35):
Thank you.
And so looking at this at thisdatabase that you've made, what
has surprised you about thisstudy of goddesses in older women?
Well, what was surprising and yetnot at all surprising is how all
of their stories have been changedor forgotten or, uh, minimized.
(22:01):
Is there one in particular thatis coming to mind right now?
Oh gosh, you can'tremember all their names.
Cause my, my copy paste function in mybrain doesn't work so great all the time,
but I think it's so FIA, uh, perhapswho was the concert of God who remember,
who knows that God had a concert?
No one.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, no.
Mary and that's complicated orlet's see, what was the other one?
(22:25):
It was made us.
Meet us, the, the, uh, the goddess ofcunning and wisdom before, before Athena.
Yeah.
The one who helped Zeus gain his position.
And then he swallowed her.
She was smarter, richer, cooler,and he used her and swallowed her.
(22:45):
And that really resonatedwith me considering I've
been married three times and.
Three men.
You're not talking about menthat came out of you, are you?
Nope.
Not.
And it's raising.
Yes.
Cause I, I read a lot of thesestories and I was like, oh shit, all
(23:05):
of these things have happened to me.
I'm not alone.
Yes.
And these things have beenhappening since the Dawn of time.
And one of the, one ofthe greatest things in.
Jean Shinoda Bullins book was talkingabout how this happens to women
when they, when they get to 50.
And I was like, wait a minute, I'm 50.
I'm right on time.
I'm not behind for once.
(23:26):
Yeah.
I always felt like I was behind,but like, I hadn't accomplished
what I wanted to accomplish in life.
No, I'm right on time.
So in understanding that all ofthese things that have happened to me
happened to a lot of people, but thatthere's, there's ways to move forward.
There, there are ways to.
Activate these older wise womanarchetypes and stand taller to, to have
(23:53):
a different life in that third stage.
Where it's all about me thistime, but you asked earlier,
how are things going for me now?
Well, I've been dealing withburnout, so I've had to do a
whole lot less and actually rest,which doesn't compute in my brain.
Rest is not a thing that I understand.
That's hard when I used to be ableto do all the things and still
(24:16):
not be able to sleep at nightbecause I have too much energy.
And now I'm like, it's.
It's eight.
O'clock too early for bed.
I might make it to eight, but I might not.
And I'm realizing in the thirdstage, it has to be about me.
And so one of the things that I didrecently, and maybe a little too quickly
was I bought 40 acres of land in the woodsso that I could go build myself, uh, a
(24:42):
place for myself and also build some.
I really want to make it into aretreat space for women who need.
To get away from people and theyneed solitude and they need nature
because since the pandemic started,I moved out of downtown Portland,
Maine in a high rise to two house.
(25:03):
It's surrounded by nature.
And I've been spending my time in thewoods and kayaking in the snow and
really getting in touch with and in tunewith the trees and the, the animals.
And there's a Groundhog right outsidethe, the, the birds, everything, and that.
Has allowed me to do what itis that I really want to do.
(25:24):
One of those archetypes is hermit.
Like I'm ready for hermetic ready?
I did not really get enoughof that during the pandemic.
And, and it's okay for meto want to, to do that.
Like I have to give myself permission towithdraw because I'm tired and I need it.
And is that pressure, is that internalpressure not to hermit or do you
(25:45):
have signals coming from the outsidesaying it's not okay to hermit or.
Oh, well, the signals from everywhere,everywhere, including my own
internalized, ableism, everythingthat's been projected onto me,
capitalism, patriarchy, all of it.
It's like, Nope, youhave to be productive.
You have to work.
You have to be out.
You have to be with people.
I don't want to bearound people right now.
I need some space I need to, I want togo create and I go hang out in the woods.
(26:08):
And I play when I sit and I listenand I watch and I make art and
it's healing and it's necessaryand we don't get enough of that.
When I saw this land come forsale and I bought it like three
days later, it's like, this is it.
My end goal.
My vision is to be able toprovide space for women, to be
(26:29):
able to do that in a safe way.
Those who need nature,Butterfree are of it.
Those who need nature, but are afraid ofit because everything is mythology to me.
Or in this case, just ancient Greecein general, if you were in ancient
Athens, The city was the safe place.
Everything beyond the walls of the citywas dangerous and spooky and scary.
(26:53):
And there's the story of, of Actaeongoing out into the woods and coming
upon Artemis bathing or Diana bathing.
And he looked on her and maybe he lookeda little too long or maybe he just
caught a glimpse and turned his head.
But in any case, she caught him.
(27:16):
And turns him into a deer.
And then he was tornapart by his own dogs.
There's a whole lot in that myth,but your first mistake is leaving
the confines of the city, leaving thecity norms, leaving the structures
and the laws that the nature iswild and scary and unpredictable.
(27:41):
It's bigger than we are.
And so we've lost touch with.
I'm from Oklahoma where theweather is trying to kill you
about nine months out of the year.
I mean, if it's not scorching heator freezing cold, it's a tornado.
And because that wasn't enough, theystarted making their own earthquakes.
So the nature I get and I needit being in California, we have
(28:03):
the beaches and the mountains.
And as I get older, I needit more, more time in it.
Uh, it's never, it hasn't been frighteningto me since I was a really, really little.
But there's something in how yousaid that, uh, you said women who
need nature, but are afraid of it.
(28:24):
And how do you, you're makingthis adjustment very organically.
As you tune into yourself,your recognizing your own
needs, your recognizing thearchetypes, getting their needs.
Within you.
And at one of those is Artemis.
Even in this conversation, you havetons of energy because you're you,
(28:47):
but there is a, there's a groundednessthat I haven't felt from you before.
Thank you.
I've been developing that.
And my experience with naturethroughout my life, I've always, let's
call it over exercise to deal withmy abundant energy, to wear myself
out, to sleep, but that involves.
(29:07):
Yeah, let's bike really fast forthree hours, but let's hike this
mountain and get back in four hours.
So there was no, let'sjust sit and look at stuff.
And when I moved to this house,that's on a saltmarsh and
has some woods right nearby.
Like the first day I went outand I scared myself in the woods.
(29:28):
I was just like, it's too much.
But I saw evidence of humans and itterrified me that it was old evidence,
but every day, And I spent more timeand they walked a little bit further and
then they built myself a shelter, a tworoom shelter that I slept in overnight.
I built a trail.
I.
I spent every day for like six monthsoutside every day in the winter in
(29:51):
Maine bundled up because that's whenit's fun, exploring more and like
watching the tide change, watchingthe ice freeze and melt, watching
the birds, just sitting and givingmy brain time to just rest and think.
And I started taking picturesof the little faces I would
(30:12):
see in trees as loss and.
Being out there by myself now, I didn'tknow that nothing was going to hurt me
out there because there's nothing inthe main woods that'll hurt you really?
So there was a littlebit of sense of security.
Also.
I can basically see my house where Iwas, so I wasn't far, it wasn't scary,
but it took me time every single day togo out there before I got so comfortable
(30:36):
that I could spend the night by myself.
And then I bought land.
I needed to have that comfort there,knowing that there are people nearby.
There's not a grizzly, that's goingto eat me, but it's been so powerful
and healing for me that I want tobe able to give that opportunity to
other people, to just know that I'mjust across the way and you're safe.
(30:57):
Here's a nice little cabin, but gospend time in nature by yourself.
Cause it's, it's important to justsit and be and not do anything.
And it's hard to learnreally hard to learn.
Yeah.
We have an entire socioeconomicstructure built around.
Don't allow that to have.
(31:18):
Yeah, then it screws the whole economy up.
Yep.
And you mentioned Artemis.
I just finished reading the book Searcy.
Oh, it's so good.
Madeline Miller.
Yes.
What'd you think?
Loved it.
Loved it.
I mean, the thought of having myown island that no one can get
to and didn't really like that.
(31:39):
I'd like to turn visitorsto pigs if I need to.
So yes, reading that story helped mefeel better about just wanting to, to
be a hermit for a while and that's okay.
That's okay.
My therapist referred to myapartment that I, I love, I live
(32:00):
alone for the first time in well,over a decade could not be happier.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
My, my therapist referred to itas my 10 minutes, 10 minutes.
Do you know this word?
I had, I had never heard it, Iguess it was coined by Cicero
and it refers to a container.
It was an island cut off from the restof the land, and it specifically refers
(32:25):
to a place where healing can happen.
It's like an Al chemicalcontainer or a magic circle.
And it's a place where yourpsyche can just unfold and
unfurl and you can do whatever.
The work is to be done and it hasa, it now has a sort of mystical
connotation, but I just, I just love that.
(32:48):
And I that's Searcy's island andshe has another book called the
song of Achilles, which I loved.
And have you read that by chance?
It's it also takes place inthe backdrop of the Iliad.
All right.
Let's see.
So.
Yeah.
So Searcy takes place mostly inthe backdrop of the Odyssey and
(33:09):
song of Achilles takes placein the backdrop of the Iliad.
And it's the love story betweenpatrol clus and Achilles.
And they also have time on theirisland with, with Kyron, the Sentara,
where they're protected from theeyes of the prying world, and their
love is able to emerge and flourish.
(33:31):
And it's just.
Madeline Miller man.
She's brilliant.
And this idea of a sacred space,you're cultivating that in
your relationship with nature.
And if you're interested in sharing that.
Other women in the futureand helping them do the same.
And I just want to tip my hat to you fortaking something like that on it's just
(33:57):
a beautiful, beautiful gift to the world.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I hope I can make it all happen.
I tend to think bigger than I can execute.
Most of the time.
My long-term goal is actually.
Uh, land trust.
I want to call it the wise women landtrust, where women in their third
stage donate money, so we can buymore land to maintain it, but also to
(34:21):
have more spaces specifically for, forolder women, but it's not a population
that most land trusts or nature-basedorganizations typically target.
And I think that it would be.
Just really amazing to be able todedicate resources to helping women heal.
(34:43):
Cause you know, I mean a week, acouple of weeks in nature's a solitude.
I can't tell you how many women I talk to.
Like I just need sometime away to do nothing.
And so we'll see, we'll see how that goes.
That's my long-term plan.
W more immediately, I heard you sayearlier, That you need to step back that
(35:04):
you were, you had taken on too much.
And so there's a slowing down is a reallyimportant part of this step of your life.
Are there things that you are.
Engaged in that are really satisfyingto you right now, or missions that
you are a part of that you aren'tputting down what's front and center.
(35:25):
Yep.
So right now I'm on the board of directorsfor this is Jane project and that's an
organization that's focused on helpingtrauma survivors access to medical care.
And so obviously based onmy stories, that's something
that's really important to me.
So I'm really thrilled to beable to participate in that.
My partner and I actually havea business here in Maine called
(35:46):
independent diamond brokers.
And we put on events called the,the main growers marketplace.
They're B2B networking events for growersand retailers and processors licensed
in Maine, really small events outside.
Cause the pandemic.
It's a way to build community here.
That's one of the thingsthat I've worked on.
(36:06):
I'm working on a book with anauthor named Michelle new heart.
She wrote the book called themedicalization of cannabis.
Uh, highly recommend that book.
It's enlightening includedin the show notes.
We're taking the women in cannabisstudy data and turning that into a
book to talk about all the thingswe explored in this study, including
(36:27):
things like shame and stigma around.
Not just using cannabis,but working in cannabis.
Let's see what else, if she seems to bea lot, that's going on still, this, this
is you stepping back and taking it easy.
Yes.
I've been reading a lot.
So that's my, that is what I liketo do most is just power through
books and then see which books thatit recommends and go read them.
(36:52):
So that has been my sit downand rest time I realized I, I.
Stopped breathing as much.
And that is that's my pleasure.
So yeah, I've been doing a lot of that.
So when you were growing up, whatwere some of your favorite stories?
(37:13):
Nursery rhymes, or children'sbooks or cartoons or comics?
Any medium really?
What popped into my head when you askedthat question was when I was a little
kid and I did not like cartoons and Iliked live action mystery type thing.
And that didn't existwhen I was kid on TV.
(37:35):
Like there was one show and it was at sixo'clock in the morning, on a Saturday.
And I would get up early and watchthat and go back to bed while
everybody else watched cartoons.
Do you remember?
I don't remember the name of it, butit was about a little girl, I think who
solved mysteries and her best friend.
His name was Matt.
I got to go find it, but I love to read Ias a kid, I always had my nose in a book.
(37:55):
I think.
A big person book.
I read, I was 10 and it wasa tree grows in Brooklyn.
And I always weirdly likedpost-apocalyptic fiction, even as a,
like a young, as a teenager and youngadult I'm over that now experiencing it.
It was way better as fiction way better.
(38:17):
But reading all those books, I'm like,oh my God, I see where this is going.
I don't like it.
I know how this story ends.
So then I had, so recently I've hadto start reading like utopian fiction.
What's what's what's the next one.
That's something that you believeto be true that you cannot
prove, or that cannot be proven.
(38:39):
This is what popped intomy head immediately.
I believe that when we die, there's.
And then it ends up being kindof these holes in the clouds
and that's where you go.
I don't, I can't prove that, but I sawit in a vision and I think it's true.
So I'm just going to hold onto that one.
That every time I see big, beautifulclouds in a nice hole in the middle.
That's the portal.
(38:59):
Beautiful.
Thank you.
In what ways are you the same nowas you were, when you were a little
kid in so many ways, I am still.
Introverted quiet bookish.
Thank you.
(39:21):
Have you ever encountered a phenomenonthat you just cannot explain and how
do you think that happening or nothappening has affected your worldview?
A lot of time in the woodslately, I've been experiencing
what I would call messages from.
(39:43):
Stuff that I'm not sure came from mybrain, cause I don't know why it would
have or where it would have come from.
And some of these messages have beenfelt life-changing in, in ways that
are defining my purpose in life orunderstanding nature in a broader
scale, like in a really broader scale.
(40:05):
And I don't know where those comefrom, but I trust that they are.
True.
And I feel like they come from thesame place where the archetypes
live in the collective unconscious.
So I feel like I've tapped into thatunconscious when I'm out in nature.
And that happens really outthere, less so than in here.
(40:27):
Oh, that's so powerful.
Yes.
And.
My last question is when wasa time in your life that you
have experienced ecstasy?
One of those times was one of the messagesfrom the trees I had to call people.
I was like, you will not believewhat I just heard from the trees.
(40:48):
And I was like, wait a second.
Am I going to get committed?
But it was beautiful.
What I heard, I was trying to understandhow a tree would view a human.
And the reason I was thinkingabout that as I was watching
this show on Netflix, it's calledmoving art and the cinematographer
plays with perspective and time.
(41:11):
And one of the episodes was aboutflowers and they were sped up and the
flowers would bloom and move and duck.
And they looked like little peoplebecause we were seeing it in flower.
Not in human time.
And so I was trying to understand whatwould it look like if I saw a time-lapse
of what trees life like with the tree, beducking out of the way from other trees?
(41:35):
What a human just be aspeck in their time line.
Are they watching?
Are they taught?
I don't know.
I was trying to think what.
For example, what is so insignificant tous that we pay no attention to it, like
a fly or the bacteria in our gut, right.
(41:58):
Pay no attention, but for all weknow, flies and bacteria in our gut
could live in their own society.
They could have a full life,a full lifetime politics.
We don't know, we don't know treescould have the same, but it's
the timescale that's different.
And I was like, are weinsignificant to trees?
And then I thought, what is sobig that we are as insignificant
(42:23):
as the bacteria in our gut?
Like, is it the planet?
Yes, I think, and the answerwas it's all the same.
It's just a matter of.
It's all the same.
And so if we're talking aboutthe earth, we just inhabit
the Earth's lungs basically.
(42:43):
And we do our job to clean.
We eat, we.
So pollute, I actually use what we do,but we're just part of the bigger system.
We are insignificant in a part of agiant system, just like the bacteria
in our gut is insignificant, but animportant part of the entire system.
But it led me to the quantum theoryand all of the stuff that basically
(43:05):
just says, we're all the same.
We're all the same.
We're made of the same buildingblocks from Quanta to uniform.
It's all the same.
And the next message was, soit doesn't matter do the best
you can, nothing matters.
And it felt so freeingthat I started to cry.
I was like, oh, thank God.
(43:25):
I'm just playing my parts.
I'm just playing my part in, in the end.
It does not matter because Iam insignificant in a good way.
Oh, I love that.
So, so very much.
And I completely agree with you this.
This was a message I got from mushroomsa really, really long time ago.
(43:49):
And I forget like holding it isalmost impossible because life
is so significant to Boston.
Yes.
Everything matters so much.
My, my hurts and my joys andmy wants and living a good life
and whatever my values are.
And.
(44:10):
And from this point of view, I am inthe process of doing what, everything
that has ever been either did, oris it in the process of doing, and
that is rising and falling away.
Like we grow from, we grow,we decay universal truth.
(44:31):
There's no exception toit that we are aware of.
And I also find that so freeing.
And it also doesn't detract fromeverything that we say is important
right now, because it is to us.
And that's part of it too.
Our feelings also riseand fall away there.
They're just like living things inthat they come and they go, they rise
(44:53):
and they fall more quickly than we do.
They're there and they're gone.
So maybe that's the scale.
Maybe the flower, if an emotionhas a life cycle of 90 seconds.
Unless you want to keep spinning it.
And then you can like keep iton life support for a long time.
And then whatever our role ison the planet, whatever that
is, that we compost things.
(45:16):
And maybe we needed to heatthe planet up for a while.
Like it was our job to cook itfor a bit, raise the temperature
we were created to do just that.
I don't know.
And I have my own ethics.
I have what I believe is right.
But I believe it's right,because I believe it's right.
It's not like the truth, but what'sso wonderful is I could also be wrong.
(45:46):
We could be totally wrong.
So just enjoy life.
I mean, do your best live by yourvalues because it makes everything
better from your point of view.
It's not like, becauseGod said so, but before.
Your life will be more enjoyable ifyou're living by your own values.
Right.
And the other message I gotwas was about my purpose.
(46:07):
Cause I kept asking andasking like, why am I here?
What am I supposed to be doing?
Because all the messages I get fromthe outside, I don't like, I don't
want to be more productive at work.
Like that's not.
Hello.
They want it for me on your death bed.
I'm so glad I was more productive at work.
(46:28):
Yeah.
And the message was care fornature, care for yourself and
take your part in the food chain.
So I bought the land like daysafter that, cause I was like, oh,
I, I have to care for this nature.
I'm going to take this piece.
And I was like, oh, there's allthis, these animals on my land.
Is that what I'm saying?
Am I supposed to eat them?
Is that the point?
And I learned late.
Well, I think I interpret.
(46:50):
Differently later to understandthat as a woman, I'm not less,
I'm still at the top of the foodchain and I am not less than a man.
And if I want to buy land, I don'thave to ask anybody's permission.
I can just make the choice and do thatthing because I've struggled to give
myself permission to do anything like no.
(47:10):
You get to do the things becauseof where you are in nature.
And I had to take that to heart.
We may hunt and fish on the land, butthat wasn't the point up for yourself.
You are, you are where you belong.
And so that was comforting as well.
The other thing I'll say is that.
Being autistic.
I experience my emotions are huge, huge,lots of joy, lots of bliss and ecstasy for
(47:41):
things like watching the wind blow on apond and seeing the ripples go or watching
the ice melt or watching little thingsthat people don't notice to me can be.
Unbelievably gorgeous and amazing.
And, and that also comes with reallybig down emotions, but the fact
(48:02):
that I can tap into those things andsee them when others can't, I think
is one of the joys in my life isthat I can experience those things.
So bank that's beautifuland cheers to big feelings.
And they're really getting toexperience this world, this
mystery, as weird as it is.
(48:26):
Is there anything while we're together?
Is there anything, any topicyou really want to touch on
something you want to share?
Yeah.
One of the things that I forgot totalk about when we were talking about
creating the archetypes or defining the16 archetypes that I use for branding,
because one of the was actuallygoing through therapy at the time.
(48:48):
And we were a therapist was using amodality called internal family systems.
Are you familiar with this one?
Okay.
So.
I know, I know what it is.
I don't know a lot about it.
And I, I probably can't explain it aswell as I should, but the best way to
explain it is when you're thinking, well,this part of me wants to do this, but
this part of me, doesn't, it's reallyunderstanding who are those parts?
(49:12):
Why do they want to do whatthey want to do or not?
And how can, how can I support them?
So there are, there are, um,Parts that are protectors.
There are parts that are damaged, childrenwho have been abused, whatever it is,
but how do you navigate and understandwho's in charge in any given moment,
(49:36):
which is very similar to archetypes.
And so I think that the.
Therapy, because again, I pulled outthe spreadsheets, I named the parts.
I, I like, I, I listed outwhat's important to them.
The questions they ask, I really hadto get in touch with who was in my head
(50:00):
and the feelings that I was having.
And I think that really led me tounderstanding how developed the different
archetypes, how to define them and.
Use them for not just branding, but forintrospection as well, because they are
well-defined and you can look at themand go, oh, I'm, I'm being that person.
(50:23):
And maybe that's not whatI need to be right now.
So who do I need to be right now?
Oh, I need to be that person orhow to calm myself down or how to
identify who's protecting and why.
So it allowed me to get reallydeep into that archetype work.
So I was really pleasedwith being able to.
To use therapy to build,oh, that's just so cool.
(50:45):
You go do this inner work andthere's this outer application.
And while yes, it existsin a business context.
This is ultimately about peopleunderstanding themselves and each other
and what motivates us and other people.
It's a pathway to empathy.
And if you're doing the work in thisway, instead of coming from an archetype
(51:09):
that saying, how do I get this from them?
If you're just trying to get somethingand you're stuck in one mode versus how
do I understand somebody that, that istransformational branding or branding
as a transformational experience?
And so the process becomes the thing.
(51:30):
More than the product, right?
Jennifer, this has been fantastic.
I, I really appreciate youtaking the time out to come and
have this conversation with.
Thank you.
I don't get to talkabout archetypes enough.
It's obviously one of my favorite topics.
(51:52):
How can people learn moreabout you and the work you do?
Website is lady Jane branding.com.
And my email isjennifer@ladyjanebranding.com.
That's usually the best way to reach.
I'll add that to the show notes as well.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Uh,
(52:12):
thank you so much, Jennifer, for takingthe time out to talk with me and being so
generous with sharing your story and thankyou to all my listeners for listening.
And as I mentioned at the beginning,I have an invitation for you.
As part of my initiative to fostera conversation around mythology,
(52:33):
around stories and folklore,I founded the mythic network.
The mythic network is hosted onthe mighty networks platform.
It's a private online space.
It's a way from Facebook andthe other social media monsters.
I want to hear about yourfavorite stories, the myths
and legends that you love.
(52:53):
And what do you think about modern myths?
What do you think about Loki, Lucifer?
Supernatural.
And you can request to join byvisiting mythic-network.com.
Again, that's mythic-network.com.
Membership is free.
I would love to see you thereand until next time journey on
Welcome to mythic a podcast where we explore meaningful
living through the power of myth.
I'm your host fostered blank.
My guest today is Jennifer Wetsel.
(00:25):
I met Jennifer a few yearsago through a mutual.
And after about 30 seconds, sheand I were deep in a conversation
about archetypes and marketing.
Jennifer has been in the marketing andadvertising industry for over 25 years.
She's the founder of lady Jane branding,which uses the power of archetypes to help
companies develop unique brands and deepentheir connections with their customers.
(00:47):
She also initiated the women incannabis study, which seeks to
understand the journey of womenworking in the cannabis industry.
Jennifer is whip smart.
She's insightful.
And in this conversation, we covered a lotof ground, but before we get to it, I want
to let you know that I have a really coolannouncement at the end of this episode.
(01:08):
So please stick around for amoment after the interview.
And I have a great invitation for you now.
Here's Jennifer.
Jennifer (01:24):
So my background is in marketing and advertising and
research and, and business basically.
And in 2017, I lost my job andI moved to Maine so that I could
get a medical card cannabis card.
And when I arrived here and I was.
(01:47):
And spending some time with mycaregiver, who was the one to introduce
me to cannabis, to medical cannabis.
I was able to see the beginnings ofthis new industry here in this state.
And what I realized is that there wereall of these entrepreneurs getting
into the market who really struggledwith something that I knew a lot
(02:09):
about, and that was branding and.
I spent a lot of time working inan advertising agency years ago.
And my favorite thing to do was branding.
I had read the book, the hero and theoutlaw, and I realized that it was
using archetypes as a way to help brandsunderstand how to brand themselves and
(02:31):
maintain consistency in their branding.
It was a really amazing tool.
And so while I was dealing with.
Multiple traumas and PTSD and tryingto heal from all of these things.
I threw myself into this creativeendeavor of trying to define
archetypes that could be used.
For cannabis companies to help brandthemselves for, for those entrepreneurs
(02:53):
who didn't really have a lot of backgroundin something that I knew how to do.
And so for that creativeendeavor, I decided to define 16
archetypes to use, to help theseentrepreneurs with their branding.
What was it that capturedyour attention about cannabis?
(03:13):
You moved to Maine toget your cannabis card.
Where did you move from?
I was living in the Midwest.
I had lived there for about 10 yearsand I was dealing with an auto immune
disorder and an immune disorder.
So I thought, and my symptoms wereoverwhelming and I was chronically
ill and cannabis was not accessibleto me, legally accessible to me.
(03:36):
It was difficult to find it at all, butI knew it was the only thing that helped.
And so when I was going tofind a new place to live.
New that medical cannabis was an option.
I only was looking in states where that,where I could move to get a medical card.
And so that's why I moved to Maineand I was able to find that cannabis.
(03:57):
And therapy and brain retraining helped merelieve all of my physical symptoms from
the auto-immune and the immune disorders.
So physically it made aworld of difference for me.
And one of the things that I learned inthe women in cannabis study that I have
been working on for a couple of yearsis that many women get into the cannabis
(04:17):
industry because of their success inusing cannabis to help with physical
issues or mental health issues or.
The mood and that's what happened to me.
I was looking for a job.
Couldn't find one that I wanted to do.
And I was realizing that as, asa disabled person, I was going to
(04:37):
struggle to work for someone else.
And so I needed to find somethingto do that would make sense for me.
And so building a business, which.
Looking back was very difficult.
It made me more difficult than I knew atthe time was really my only option and
cannabis was a great place because it waswhere I felt welcomed as a cannabis user.
I was not shamed.
(04:58):
There was no stigma.
I could use cannabis during the day,during my work day and not have to hide.
And so it just made sense to me.
And when I was.
Again, meeting all of theseentrepreneurs, it was clear that
I had a skill that would help.
And that was another thing I found inthe, in the women, in cannabis studies.
When I asked, why didyou get into cannabis?
One of the top reasons was touse my skills in a new industry.
(05:22):
So women were looking to give back tobe able to take what they've learned in
other industries and apply it to canvas.
And so it just madesense that that would be.
Where I would bring my new branding,my multiple choice branding
with archetypes to make it easy.
I love what you just said.
What I hear in the background of it isnot just industry, but I hear community.
Boston (05:44):
you found this great way to serve an identity, a culture, and
really bring your gifts to bear.
And then through this language ofarchetypes, which it may not be
unique, but it is certainly unusual.
(06:04):
I still feel like it's this magical toolout there that people just, for whatever
reason they don't want to lean into.
And you read the hero and the outlaw,what journey did that send you on?
It really resonated with youand you identified the 16.
Archetypes of women in cannabis.
(06:25):
What did you learn through that process?
Jennifer (06:28):
Just to be clear when I started the archetypes, this
the 16, it wasn't just for women.
I entered the women in cannabisstudy about a year after that.
But you know, what I foundwhen I worked in branding a
long time ago, is that using.
To help companies understandand personify their brand.
Like it really clicked for people.
(06:48):
And so branding is this weird thingthat no one thinks that they need to do.
They don't want to do it.
It costs extra.
It's so easy.
It's really easy.
It's really about personifyingyour brand understanding.
Who your brand would be in at a party?
Like how would they act?
What would they say?
And it's those qualities understandingtheir values and their personality
(07:09):
that allow you to develop contentand design that is consistent with
the brand and doesn't confuse people.
And what I saw, particularly in may.
Where it was still a baby industry,still an infant at that time was that
there was no branding whatsoever.
Really.
And what was out there was typicallyfocused to like a stoner archetype or a
(07:33):
doctor archetype, which is two choicesto go spa doctor or full-on stoner.
Is that like aupper-middle-class white guy?
And then.
The stoner dude like the bro.
Yes.
And so to me, that's not enoughvariety in a, in a consumer market.
(07:59):
We're talking about a consumerproduct consumer and you certainly
didn't fit either of these models.
Correct.
And at the time in Maine, like therewere no retail stores, it was just
caregivers who were packaging theirstuff in a baggie and handing it to you.
You didn't need.
You didn't really need a brand yet,but it wasn't until stores started to
(08:21):
open and there was competition becauseyou had to give your caregiver, your
medical card and they grew for you.
You didn't have, youdidn't go anywhere else.
You had your guy, but now there'sover 300 retail stores in this state.
And those caregivers haveproducts in multiple stores.
And now brand matters.
If you've got people who are usedto walking into the grocery store
and picking beautiful brandsoff the shelf, it does matter.
(08:42):
To people that they can trust thebrand that they connect with the brand.
Yes.
Some people who just use medical cannabisjust need that thing that works for them.
For some, it's just a noveltyof the fact that you can get it.
But for a lot of people, it is aboutconnecting with a brand that they
really like that shares their values.
What are some of the archetypes thatyou identified in your research?
(09:05):
I've made some veryspecific ones for cannabis.
So for example, I defined a stoner anda rockstar and a healer, an activist,
uh, essentially list a socialite farmer.
Uh, let's see the magician scientists.
So it took a lot of, a lot ofspreadsheet work weirdly to.
(09:30):
Hone their values and theirpersonalities and their, the tone
of voice that they might use in,in developing content so that they
were very distinct and different.
Directions that you could take abrand because once you understand
that your brand is a magician versusa doctor, it's very clear how to
(09:53):
speak, how to act, what to post,what your packaging should look like.
And it's very clear what not to do.
So I actually developed duringthis whole process, a full brand
model using these 16 archetypes.
So it's not just these16 different directions.
They're actually groupedin a very precise way.
(10:15):
I bucketed them into eightdifferent emotional themes.
So for example, action, grounding,innovation, guidance status, for example.
So.
When you're trying to develop your brand,understanding the themes that you're
(10:35):
trying to achieve are you about action?
Are you about status?
Those are very different things.
Are you about guidance orgrounding, different things.
And it really helps to very preciselydefine what your brand is about.
Then I further grouped the archetypesinto visual design categories.
(10:56):
So.
First you understand what your emotionaltheme is for your brand's story.
Then you look at the visualdesign categories to help
make visuals that match.
So for example, the activist is.
An action theme and the visualdesign category is rough and earthy.
(11:20):
I've actually made this into adigital tool to help people see.
So if you're rough and earthy ormodern and minimal or colorful
and simple, or can't rememberthe fourth one now, because it's.
But I basically take peoplethrough this journey.
So if this is your, if this isthe theme of your story, if this
(11:41):
is how your archetype should lookand act, then it provides this
whole comprehensive definition oftheir brand that holds together.
Sometimes I talk to brands like, wait,we want to be exclusive and inclusive.
You can't pick one, butlike separating the themes.
So if you, if you want to beabout status and exclusive.
(12:03):
Great be that, but youcan also be inclusive.
Like you have to go.
I'm thinking of this parallelthat happens when we're talking
about internal archetypes.
And in a moment, I hope we'll getto talk about Jean Shinoda Boland's
work and how you're relating to that.
But that people, individualsare not pure archetypes.
We have all of them inside ofus, but one or two will lead
(12:27):
at any given point in time.
Now, when you're doing a brand.
You're not, you're not trying tocapture everybody who is partly every
thing a brand is more like one of theOlympian gods, it's a pure archetype.
You're going for the distillation.
So that when somebody says, I say Zeusor Athena, and you get the king of
(12:52):
the gods, the goddess of wisdom andthat a brand should have that kind of.
Um, resonance.
So this is very interesting that youbring this up because it's one thing
that I explain as I'm taking peoplethrough the branding process, and I
have to give a little backstory here.
I turned this into a multiple choice quiz.
(13:12):
It's a five question quiz.
So people take this quiz fromthe perspective of their brand.
And then at the end they get there.
And some people are very singularlyminded when they go through the quiz,
whether it's for their own brains or fortheir brands, like activists, activists,
activist, activists, in some peopleall over the place, all over the place.
(13:36):
The way that I explain it is thatas humans we can tap into, we
should be able to tap into any andall of these archetypes to help us
understand how to act in any givensituation, finding to be an activist.
At some point, I know, okay,the activist is like this.
This is how I need to act to be activists.
Like, and then tomorrow Imight need to be a scientist.
And then the next day I mightneed to be a best friend and I
(13:56):
can call on those qualities toknow what to do and how to act.
And I actually did some data analysisto see like how many single-minded
people were there and how manywell-rounded people were there.
How many people were intouch with many archetypes.
And it was kind of, it was very mucha, uh, a bell curve, which was very
(14:17):
interesting and not different by gender.
When you're a brand, you have topick one and you have to define it.
It can, it can be a little bit ofa combination of more than one.
It doesn't have to be one of my 16.
It can be anything you want,but it has to be one thing.
And it has to be well-defined and you haveto stick to it, or people are confused.
But like I said earlier, you're notgoing to act like a scientist in the
(14:37):
morning and a stoner in the afternoon.
People wouldn't understandthat, but as human.
We have the full range of archetypesto tap into, to understand ourselves.
And I've actually been using it.
The archetypes that I designedas a tool for myself and my own
introspection and development.
I want to hear about that.
(14:58):
So I am a newly met post-menopausal.
Yay me.
I have entered my third stageand I just read a book about
goddesses and older women.
Okay.
I also have recently learned aboutsome of my neurological issues.
Like I'm autistic.
I had no idea explains everything.
(15:19):
It even explains how I need toreally understand archetypes, to know
how to act in any given situation.
Cause they don't already know.
Okay, wait a minute.
Okay.
Hold up.
We're now we're in now in territorythat I just don't know much about.
So what is the autistic nature that, uh,That wields archetypes in this way, that,
(15:40):
that creates this relationship with them.
I'm still trying to understand thatmyself, but my hypothesis is, is that
for me in particular, I know this isnot for everyone, but it's difficult
for me to know how to act in socialsituations, what to do, what to say.
I practice, I have to practicebefore I get on the phone because
otherwise I kind of melt down.
I don't know what to do.
(16:02):
As an example, like my typical writingstyle is very direct and to the point,
but lady Gina is the best friend brand.
So I have to be nice in anemail to when like, oh yeah.
What would a best friend say?
Oh yeah.
That's what a best friendwould say in an email.
And then I do that, but how Itypically interact with the world,
like I need scripts, I need guides.
(16:23):
I need.
To know what to do or else I justmelt down in an anxious bull.
What archetype do you think or archetypesdo you think when you're, when you are
alone with yourself in an environmentwhere you do know what to do, what
archetypes are most present for you?
Oh, and it changes for me.
(16:47):
I'm going to answer that question in asecond, but I want to go back to when
I, when I realized that I was autisticand understanding that I have been
autistic masking is, is a big thingwhere you just pretend to be normal to
fit in and it's exhausting to pretend.
Yes, that's exactly the same.
(17:08):
It's exactly the same.
It's it's having to pretend to be someoneyou're not to fit in in the outside world.
And when I realized.
That my entire life was just a seriesof me having different masks on.
And, and now that I'm, I had burnoutand they broke the masks broke, like I
just couldn't couldn't do it anymore.
And I was like, well, wait a second.
(17:29):
If all of these masks that I've beenwearing are archetypes who's under.
Like who's the narrator who is in charge.
And so I pulled out mybig list of archetypes.
I'm like, well, who am I?
Who's who's in charge.
Who do I want to develop?
Who do I want to tap into?
And that's when I looked at thegoddesses and older women, the wise
(17:49):
women archetypes ones that focuson wisdom and transformative wrath.
I love that one becauseI am terrible at anger.
It's frightening for me.
So to understand, okay.
Here's how you use transformativewrap to make a difference.
I'm using the archetypes to understandwhere I need more development or where
I need to practice being in differentsituations that I haven't done before.
(18:14):
And even like entering thethird stage of life, like.
What minors now.
Cause what matters, matteredbefore doesn't really much anymore.
So I needed to sit down andlook like what's my theme.
Is it action.
No, it's not action right now.
Is it introspection maybe?
Is it guidance possibly so that I cantake all of these things that I've
(18:36):
learned and try and give back in some way.
I'm terrible at asking people formoney and charging for my time.
So I'm giving back with all of the.
These tools that I develop and thatare useful for me, but like I'm having
to learn how to, how to be additionalroles that I didn't have to do before.
(18:57):
Oh, what a rich way to work and anamazing path of self exploration.
I also really hear what you say.
I'm I'm 45 and I, the pandemicof course, has given a lot of
us a lot of time to reflect and.
For me, I I'm, I'm in the middleof the second stage of my life.
(19:19):
So I'm also in tune with this idea,this realization that what mattered
before simply doesn't matter now.
Yes.
And, and it's tricky because there'sa habitual tendency to go back to the
things that mattered before, because Ithink they're going to bring me fulfilled.
(19:41):
And they don't.
So the goalposts have all been moved.
The cheese has been moved.
And if I go down the path that used tomake me happy, it doesn't work anymore.
Not just happy, but likefulfilled and joyous.
And this is a really important thing.
And I relate it it's time for me,giving back seems to be the thing.
(20:03):
I've also always been terribleat charging for my time.
Like how to price myself andask for money and all of that.
It's just been, it'snever been my strong suit.
So there's something reallyvalidating in hearing you share.
And this is the trickabout this point in life.
It seems because the world isn'tgetting any less expensive.
(20:28):
I have not really gotten anybetter at asking for money.
And there's a new, they like go get forme, energy has also changed into it's
now about, it's starting to be aboutlegacy and I don't know where it's going.
It's a mystery.
(20:48):
But the last thing I'll share aboutmyself before we get back to you
is I just started working with ayoung Ian analyst and we'll be.
Doing some deep dive intomy own archetypal realm.
And I am both thrilled and terrifiedof, of what's in there of the process.
(21:11):
And so you found a way to do this.
I love that your work led youto this, this inner journey now.
I looked at your air table of thegoddesses in older women, which is
like your women in cannabis cards.
It's a work of art, your ability tofuse data and beauty is just uncanny.
(21:35):
Thank you.
And so looking at this at thisdatabase that you've made, what
has surprised you about thisstudy of goddesses in older women?
Well, what was surprising and yetnot at all surprising is how all
of their stories have been changedor forgotten or, uh, minimized.
(22:01):
Is there one in particular thatis coming to mind right now?
Oh gosh, you can'tremember all their names.
Cause my, my copy paste function in mybrain doesn't work so great all the time,
but I think it's so FIA, uh, perhapswho was the concert of God who remember,
who knows that God had a concert?
No one.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, no.
Mary and that's complicated orlet's see, what was the other one?
(22:25):
It was made us.
Meet us, the, the, uh, the goddess ofcunning and wisdom before, before Athena.
Yeah.
The one who helped Zeus gain his position.
And then he swallowed her.
She was smarter, richer, cooler,and he used her and swallowed her.
(22:45):
And that really resonatedwith me considering I've
been married three times and.
Three men.
You're not talking about menthat came out of you, are you?
Nope.
Not.
And it's raising.
Yes.
Cause I, I read a lot of thesestories and I was like, oh shit, all
(23:05):
of these things have happened to me.
I'm not alone.
Yes.
And these things have beenhappening since the Dawn of time.
And one of the, one ofthe greatest things in.
Jean Shinoda Bullins book was talkingabout how this happens to women
when they, when they get to 50.
And I was like, wait a minute, I'm 50.
I'm right on time.
I'm not behind for once.
(23:26):
Yeah.
I always felt like I was behind,but like, I hadn't accomplished
what I wanted to accomplish in life.
No, I'm right on time.
So in understanding that all ofthese things that have happened to me
happened to a lot of people, but thatthere's, there's ways to move forward.
There, there are ways to.
Activate these older wise womanarchetypes and stand taller to, to have
(23:53):
a different life in that third stage.
Where it's all about me thistime, but you asked earlier,
how are things going for me now?
Well, I've been dealing withburnout, so I've had to do a
whole lot less and actually rest,which doesn't compute in my brain.
Rest is not a thing that I understand.
That's hard when I used to be ableto do all the things and still
(24:16):
not be able to sleep at nightbecause I have too much energy.
And now I'm like, it's.
It's eight.
O'clock too early for bed.
I might make it to eight, but I might not.
And I'm realizing in the thirdstage, it has to be about me.
And so one of the things that I didrecently, and maybe a little too quickly
was I bought 40 acres of land in the woodsso that I could go build myself, uh, a
(24:42):
place for myself and also build some.
I really want to make it into aretreat space for women who need.
To get away from people and theyneed solitude and they need nature
because since the pandemic started,I moved out of downtown Portland,
Maine in a high rise to two house.
(25:03):
It's surrounded by nature.
And I've been spending my time in thewoods and kayaking in the snow and
really getting in touch with and in tunewith the trees and the, the animals.
And there's a Groundhog right outsidethe, the, the birds, everything, and that.
Has allowed me to do what itis that I really want to do.
(25:24):
One of those archetypes is hermit.
Like I'm ready for hermetic ready?
I did not really get enoughof that during the pandemic.
And, and it's okay for meto want to, to do that.
Like I have to give myself permission towithdraw because I'm tired and I need it.
And is that pressure, is that internalpressure not to hermit or do you
(25:45):
have signals coming from the outsidesaying it's not okay to hermit or.
Oh, well, the signals from everywhere,everywhere, including my own
internalized, ableism, everythingthat's been projected onto me,
capitalism, patriarchy, all of it.
It's like, Nope, youhave to be productive.
You have to work.
You have to be out.
You have to be with people.
I don't want to bearound people right now.
I need some space I need to, I want togo create and I go hang out in the woods.
(26:08):
And I play when I sit and I listenand I watch and I make art and
it's healing and it's necessaryand we don't get enough of that.
When I saw this land come forsale and I bought it like three
days later, it's like, this is it.
My end goal.
My vision is to be able toprovide space for women, to be
(26:29):
able to do that in a safe way.
Those who need nature,Butterfree are of it.
Those who need nature, but are afraid ofit because everything is mythology to me.
Or in this case, just ancient Greecein general, if you were in ancient
Athens, The city was the safe place.
Everything beyond the walls of the citywas dangerous and spooky and scary.
(26:53):
And there's the story of, of Actaeongoing out into the woods and coming
upon Artemis bathing or Diana bathing.
And he looked on her and maybe he lookeda little too long or maybe he just
caught a glimpse and turned his head.
But in any case, she caught him.
(27:16):
And turns him into a deer.
And then he was tornapart by his own dogs.
There's a whole lot in that myth,but your first mistake is leaving
the confines of the city, leaving thecity norms, leaving the structures
and the laws that the nature iswild and scary and unpredictable.
(27:41):
It's bigger than we are.
And so we've lost touch with.
I'm from Oklahoma where theweather is trying to kill you
about nine months out of the year.
I mean, if it's not scorching heator freezing cold, it's a tornado.
And because that wasn't enough, theystarted making their own earthquakes.
So the nature I get and I needit being in California, we have
(28:03):
the beaches and the mountains.
And as I get older, I needit more, more time in it.
Uh, it's never, it hasn't been frighteningto me since I was a really, really little.
But there's something in how yousaid that, uh, you said women who
need nature, but are afraid of it.
(28:24):
And how do you, you're makingthis adjustment very organically.
As you tune into yourself,your recognizing your own
needs, your recognizing thearchetypes, getting their needs.
Within you.
And at one of those is Artemis.
Even in this conversation, you havetons of energy because you're you,
(28:47):
but there is a, there's a groundednessthat I haven't felt from you before.
Thank you.
I've been developing that.
And my experience with naturethroughout my life, I've always, let's
call it over exercise to deal withmy abundant energy, to wear myself
out, to sleep, but that involves.
(29:07):
Yeah, let's bike really fast forthree hours, but let's hike this
mountain and get back in four hours.
So there was no, let'sjust sit and look at stuff.
And when I moved to this house,that's on a saltmarsh and
has some woods right nearby.
Like the first day I went outand I scared myself in the woods.
(29:28):
I was just like, it's too much.
But I saw evidence of humans and itterrified me that it was old evidence,
but every day, And I spent more timeand they walked a little bit further and
then they built myself a shelter, a tworoom shelter that I slept in overnight.
I built a trail.
I.
I spent every day for like six monthsoutside every day in the winter in
(29:51):
Maine bundled up because that's whenit's fun, exploring more and like
watching the tide change, watchingthe ice freeze and melt, watching
the birds, just sitting and givingmy brain time to just rest and think.
And I started taking picturesof the little faces I would
(30:12):
see in trees as loss and.
Being out there by myself now, I didn'tknow that nothing was going to hurt me
out there because there's nothing inthe main woods that'll hurt you really?
So there was a littlebit of sense of security.
Also.
I can basically see my house where Iwas, so I wasn't far, it wasn't scary,
but it took me time every single day togo out there before I got so comfortable
(30:36):
that I could spend the night by myself.
And then I bought land.
I needed to have that comfort there,knowing that there are people nearby.
There's not a grizzly, that's goingto eat me, but it's been so powerful
and healing for me that I want tobe able to give that opportunity to
other people, to just know that I'mjust across the way and you're safe.
(30:57):
Here's a nice little cabin, but gospend time in nature by yourself.
Cause it's, it's important to justsit and be and not do anything.
And it's hard to learnreally hard to learn.
Yeah.
We have an entire socioeconomicstructure built around.
Don't allow that to have.
(31:18):
Yeah, then it screws the whole economy up.
Yep.
And you mentioned Artemis.
I just finished reading the book Searcy.
Oh, it's so good.
Madeline Miller.
Yes.
What'd you think?
Loved it.
Loved it.
I mean, the thought of having myown island that no one can get
to and didn't really like that.
(31:39):
I'd like to turn visitorsto pigs if I need to.
So yes, reading that story helped mefeel better about just wanting to, to
be a hermit for a while and that's okay.
That's okay.
My therapist referred to myapartment that I, I love, I live
(32:00):
alone for the first time in well,over a decade could not be happier.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
My, my therapist referred to itas my 10 minutes, 10 minutes.
Do you know this word?
I had, I had never heard it, Iguess it was coined by Cicero
and it refers to a container.
It was an island cut off from the restof the land, and it specifically refers
(32:25):
to a place where healing can happen.
It's like an Al chemicalcontainer or a magic circle.
And it's a place where yourpsyche can just unfold and
unfurl and you can do whatever.
The work is to be done and it hasa, it now has a sort of mystical
connotation, but I just, I just love that.
(32:48):
And I that's Searcy's island andshe has another book called the
song of Achilles, which I loved.
And have you read that by chance?
It's it also takes place inthe backdrop of the Iliad.
All right.
Let's see.
So.
Yeah.
So Searcy takes place mostly inthe backdrop of the Odyssey and
(33:09):
song of Achilles takes placein the backdrop of the Iliad.
And it's the love story betweenpatrol clus and Achilles.
And they also have time on theirisland with, with Kyron, the Sentara,
where they're protected from theeyes of the prying world, and their
love is able to emerge and flourish.
(33:31):
And it's just.
Madeline Miller man.
She's brilliant.
And this idea of a sacred space,you're cultivating that in
your relationship with nature.
And if you're interested in sharing that.
Other women in the futureand helping them do the same.
And I just want to tip my hat to you fortaking something like that on it's just
(33:57):
a beautiful, beautiful gift to the world.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I hope I can make it all happen.
I tend to think bigger than I can execute.
Most of the time.
My long-term goal is actually.
Uh, land trust.
I want to call it the wise women landtrust, where women in their third
stage donate money, so we can buymore land to maintain it, but also to
(34:21):
have more spaces specifically for, forolder women, but it's not a population
that most land trusts or nature-basedorganizations typically target.
And I think that it would be.
Just really amazing to be able todedicate resources to helping women heal.
(34:43):
Cause you know, I mean a week, acouple of weeks in nature's a solitude.
I can't tell you how many women I talk to.
Like I just need sometime away to do nothing.
And so we'll see, we'll see how that goes.
That's my long-term plan.
W more immediately, I heard you sayearlier, That you need to step back that
(35:04):
you were, you had taken on too much.
And so there's a slowing down is a reallyimportant part of this step of your life.
Are there things that you are.
Engaged in that are really satisfyingto you right now, or missions that
you are a part of that you aren'tputting down what's front and center.
(35:25):
Yep.
So right now I'm on the board of directorsfor this is Jane project and that's an
organization that's focused on helpingtrauma survivors access to medical care.
And so obviously based onmy stories, that's something
that's really important to me.
So I'm really thrilled to beable to participate in that.
My partner and I actually havea business here in Maine called
(35:46):
independent diamond brokers.
And we put on events called the,the main growers marketplace.
They're B2B networking events for growersand retailers and processors licensed
in Maine, really small events outside.
Cause the pandemic.
It's a way to build community here.
That's one of the thingsthat I've worked on.
(36:06):
I'm working on a book with anauthor named Michelle new heart.
She wrote the book called themedicalization of cannabis.
Uh, highly recommend that book.
It's enlightening includedin the show notes.
We're taking the women in cannabisstudy data and turning that into a
book to talk about all the thingswe explored in this study, including
(36:27):
things like shame and stigma around.
Not just using cannabis,but working in cannabis.
Let's see what else, if she seems to bea lot, that's going on still, this, this
is you stepping back and taking it easy.
Yes.
I've been reading a lot.
So that's my, that is what I liketo do most is just power through
books and then see which books thatit recommends and go read them.
(36:52):
So that has been my sit downand rest time I realized I, I.
Stopped breathing as much.
And that is that's my pleasure.
So yeah, I've been doing a lot of that.
So when you were growing up, whatwere some of your favorite stories?
(37:13):
Nursery rhymes, or children'sbooks or cartoons or comics?
Any medium really?
What popped into my head when you askedthat question was when I was a little
kid and I did not like cartoons and Iliked live action mystery type thing.
And that didn't existwhen I was kid on TV.
(37:35):
Like there was one show and it was at sixo'clock in the morning, on a Saturday.
And I would get up early and watchthat and go back to bed while
everybody else watched cartoons.
Do you remember?
I don't remember the name of it, butit was about a little girl, I think who
solved mysteries and her best friend.
His name was Matt.
I got to go find it, but I love to read Ias a kid, I always had my nose in a book.
(37:55):
I think.
A big person book.
I read, I was 10 and it wasa tree grows in Brooklyn.
And I always weirdly likedpost-apocalyptic fiction, even as a,
like a young, as a teenager and youngadult I'm over that now experiencing it.
It was way better as fiction way better.
(38:17):
But reading all those books, I'm like,oh my God, I see where this is going.
I don't like it.
I know how this story ends.
So then I had, so recently I've hadto start reading like utopian fiction.
What's what's what's the next one.
That's something that you believeto be true that you cannot
prove, or that cannot be proven.
(38:39):
This is what popped intomy head immediately.
I believe that when we die, there's.
And then it ends up being kindof these holes in the clouds
and that's where you go.
I don't, I can't prove that, but I sawit in a vision and I think it's true.
So I'm just going to hold onto that one.
That every time I see big, beautifulclouds in a nice hole in the middle.
That's the portal.
(38:59):
Beautiful.
Thank you.
In what ways are you the same nowas you were, when you were a little
kid in so many ways, I am still.
Introverted quiet bookish.
Thank you.
(39:21):
Have you ever encountered a phenomenonthat you just cannot explain and how
do you think that happening or nothappening has affected your worldview?
A lot of time in the woodslately, I've been experiencing
what I would call messages from.
(39:43):
Stuff that I'm not sure came from mybrain, cause I don't know why it would
have or where it would have come from.
And some of these messages have beenfelt life-changing in, in ways that
are defining my purpose in life orunderstanding nature in a broader
scale, like in a really broader scale.
(40:05):
And I don't know where those comefrom, but I trust that they are.
True.
And I feel like they come from thesame place where the archetypes
live in the collective unconscious.
So I feel like I've tapped into thatunconscious when I'm out in nature.
And that happens really outthere, less so than in here.
(40:27):
Oh, that's so powerful.
Yes.
And.
My last question is when wasa time in your life that you
have experienced ecstasy?
One of those times was one of the messagesfrom the trees I had to call people.
I was like, you will not believewhat I just heard from the trees.
(40:48):
And I was like, wait a second.
Am I going to get committed?
But it was beautiful.
What I heard, I was trying to understandhow a tree would view a human.
And the reason I was thinkingabout that as I was watching
this show on Netflix, it's calledmoving art and the cinematographer
plays with perspective and time.
(41:11):
And one of the episodes was aboutflowers and they were sped up and the
flowers would bloom and move and duck.
And they looked like little peoplebecause we were seeing it in flower.
Not in human time.
And so I was trying to understand whatwould it look like if I saw a time-lapse
of what trees life like with the tree, beducking out of the way from other trees?
(41:35):
What a human just be aspeck in their time line.
Are they watching?
Are they taught?
I don't know.
I was trying to think what.
For example, what is so insignificant tous that we pay no attention to it, like
a fly or the bacteria in our gut, right.
(41:58):
Pay no attention, but for all weknow, flies and bacteria in our gut
could live in their own society.
They could have a full life,a full lifetime politics.
We don't know, we don't know treescould have the same, but it's
the timescale that's different.
And I was like, are weinsignificant to trees?
And then I thought, what is sobig that we are as insignificant
(42:23):
as the bacteria in our gut?
Like, is it the planet?
Yes, I think, and the answerwas it's all the same.
It's just a matter of.
It's all the same.
And so if we're talking aboutthe earth, we just inhabit
the Earth's lungs basically.
(42:43):
And we do our job to clean.
We eat, we.
So pollute, I actually use what we do,but we're just part of the bigger system.
We are insignificant in a part of agiant system, just like the bacteria
in our gut is insignificant, but animportant part of the entire system.
But it led me to the quantum theoryand all of the stuff that basically
(43:05):
just says, we're all the same.
We're all the same.
We're made of the same buildingblocks from Quanta to uniform.
It's all the same.
And the next message was, soit doesn't matter do the best
you can, nothing matters.
And it felt so freeingthat I started to cry.
I was like, oh, thank God.
(43:25):
I'm just playing my parts.
I'm just playing my part in, in the end.
It does not matter because Iam insignificant in a good way.
Oh, I love that.
So, so very much.
And I completely agree with you this.
This was a message I got from mushroomsa really, really long time ago.
(43:49):
And I forget like holding it isalmost impossible because life
is so significant to Boston.
Yes.
Everything matters so much.
My, my hurts and my joys andmy wants and living a good life
and whatever my values are.
And.
(44:10):
And from this point of view, I am inthe process of doing what, everything
that has ever been either did, oris it in the process of doing, and
that is rising and falling away.
Like we grow from, we grow,we decay universal truth.
(44:31):
There's no exception toit that we are aware of.
And I also find that so freeing.
And it also doesn't detract fromeverything that we say is important
right now, because it is to us.
And that's part of it too.
Our feelings also riseand fall away there.
They're just like living things inthat they come and they go, they rise
(44:53):
and they fall more quickly than we do.
They're there and they're gone.
So maybe that's the scale.
Maybe the flower, if an emotionhas a life cycle of 90 seconds.
Unless you want to keep spinning it.
And then you can like keep iton life support for a long time.
And then whatever our role ison the planet, whatever that
is, that we compost things.
(45:16):
And maybe we needed to heatthe planet up for a while.
Like it was our job to cook itfor a bit, raise the temperature
we were created to do just that.
I don't know.
And I have my own ethics.
I have what I believe is right.
But I believe it's right,because I believe it's right.
It's not like the truth, but what'sso wonderful is I could also be wrong.
(45:46):
We could be totally wrong.
So just enjoy life.
I mean, do your best live by yourvalues because it makes everything
better from your point of view.
It's not like, becauseGod said so, but before.
Your life will be more enjoyable ifyou're living by your own values.
Right.
And the other message I gotwas was about my purpose.
(46:07):
Cause I kept asking andasking like, why am I here?
What am I supposed to be doing?
Because all the messages I get fromthe outside, I don't like, I don't
want to be more productive at work.
Like that's not.
Hello.
They want it for me on your death bed.
I'm so glad I was more productive at work.
(46:28):
Yeah.
And the message was care fornature, care for yourself and
take your part in the food chain.
So I bought the land like daysafter that, cause I was like, oh,
I, I have to care for this nature.
I'm going to take this piece.
And I was like, oh, there's allthis, these animals on my land.
Is that what I'm saying?
Am I supposed to eat them?
Is that the point?
And I learned late.
Well, I think I interpret.
(46:50):
Differently later to understandthat as a woman, I'm not less,
I'm still at the top of the foodchain and I am not less than a man.
And if I want to buy land, I don'thave to ask anybody's permission.
I can just make the choice and do thatthing because I've struggled to give
myself permission to do anything like no.
(47:10):
You get to do the things becauseof where you are in nature.
And I had to take that to heart.
We may hunt and fish on the land, butthat wasn't the point up for yourself.
You are, you are where you belong.
And so that was comforting as well.
The other thing I'll say is that.
Being autistic.
I experience my emotions are huge, huge,lots of joy, lots of bliss and ecstasy for
(47:41):
things like watching the wind blow on apond and seeing the ripples go or watching
the ice melt or watching little thingsthat people don't notice to me can be.
Unbelievably gorgeous and amazing.
And, and that also comes with reallybig down emotions, but the fact
(48:02):
that I can tap into those things andsee them when others can't, I think
is one of the joys in my life isthat I can experience those things.
So bank that's beautifuland cheers to big feelings.
And they're really getting toexperience this world, this
mystery, as weird as it is.
(48:26):
Is there anything while we're together?
Is there anything, any topicyou really want to touch on
something you want to share?
Yeah.
One of the things that I forgot totalk about when we were talking about
creating the archetypes or defining the16 archetypes that I use for branding,
because one of the was actuallygoing through therapy at the time.
(48:48):
And we were a therapist was using amodality called internal family systems.
Are you familiar with this one?
Okay.
So.
I know, I know what it is.
I don't know a lot about it.
And I, I probably can't explain it aswell as I should, but the best way to
explain it is when you're thinking, well,this part of me wants to do this, but
this part of me, doesn't, it's reallyunderstanding who are those parts?
(49:12):
Why do they want to do whatthey want to do or not?
And how can, how can I support them?
So there are, there are, um,Parts that are protectors.
There are parts that are damaged, childrenwho have been abused, whatever it is,
but how do you navigate and understandwho's in charge in any given moment,
(49:36):
which is very similar to archetypes.
And so I think that the.
Therapy, because again, I pulled outthe spreadsheets, I named the parts.
I, I like, I, I listed outwhat's important to them.
The questions they ask, I really hadto get in touch with who was in my head
(50:00):
and the feelings that I was having.
And I think that really led me tounderstanding how developed the different
archetypes, how to define them and.
Use them for not just branding, but forintrospection as well, because they are
well-defined and you can look at themand go, oh, I'm, I'm being that person.
(50:23):
And maybe that's not whatI need to be right now.
So who do I need to be right now?
Oh, I need to be that person orhow to calm myself down or how to
identify who's protecting and why.
So it allowed me to get reallydeep into that archetype work.
So I was really pleasedwith being able to.
To use therapy to build,oh, that's just so cool.
(50:45):
You go do this inner work andthere's this outer application.
And while yes, it existsin a business context.
This is ultimately about peopleunderstanding themselves and each other
and what motivates us and other people.
It's a pathway to empathy.
And if you're doing the work in thisway, instead of coming from an archetype
(51:09):
that saying, how do I get this from them?
If you're just trying to get somethingand you're stuck in one mode versus how
do I understand somebody that, that istransformational branding or branding
as a transformational experience?
And so the process becomes the thing.
(51:30):
More than the product, right?
Jennifer, this has been fantastic.
I, I really appreciate youtaking the time out to come and
have this conversation with.
Thank you.
I don't get to talkabout archetypes enough.
It's obviously one of my favorite topics.
(51:52):
How can people learn moreabout you and the work you do?
Website is lady Jane branding.com.
And my email isjennifer@ladyjanebranding.com.
That's usually the best way to reach.
I'll add that to the show notes as well.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Uh,
(52:12):
thank you so much, Jennifer, for takingthe time out to talk with me and being so
generous with sharing your story and thankyou to all my listeners for listening.
And as I mentioned at the beginning,I have an invitation for you.
As part of my initiative to fostera conversation around mythology,
(52:33):
around stories and folklore,I founded the mythic network.
The mythic network is hosted onthe mighty networks platform.
It's a private online space.
It's a way from Facebook andthe other social media monsters.
I want to hear about yourfavorite stories, the myths
and legends that you love.
(52:53):
And what do you think about modern myths?
What do you think about Loki, Lucifer?
Supernatural.
And you can request to join byvisiting mythic-network.com.
Again, that's mythic-network.com.
Membership is free.
I would love to see you thereand until next time journey on
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