68: Breaking Rules, Finding Freedom, and Building Bridges, Together (Anniversary Episode!) -- Lauren & Amy

It’s our anniversary! It’s been two whole years since Soul Path Parenting launched and one year since Lauren joined us as our brilliant, insightful, and overall spectacular co-host! In this episode, we're going to talk about our partnership and transformation, because, as the last year has highlighted, it's through relationships and partnerships that we all learn and grow.  

We'll talk about how our partnership got started, some bumps in the road, and how we challenged each other. We’ll talk about breaking the rules, forgetting to break the rules, and how we came together to ultimately create more consciously -- all while giving you a behind the scenes look at how the podcast is made. 

We also want to give a big thank you to our audience! This has been an amazing journey and we are so honored that you choose to spend your time with us. We appreciate you so much and we’re looking forward to another year of co-creation, learning, transforming, and journeying towards wholeness. Until next time, be well!

Links so you can explore more:

If you’d like to look at how we’ve changed and grown along the way, check out last year’s Anniversary Episode and our First Episode! Thank you to our audience, we love you and we’d love to hear from you at [e-mail] or [e-mail]! 

Episode Transcript

Amy (00:04):
We believe life can be a journey toward wholeness, toward
reconnecting with who we areauthentically meant to be. We
walk this path of growth anddiscovery with our children,
with our partners withinourselves. These are the stories
of what's possible. These arethe conversations that light the

(00:28):
way. Welcome to soul pathparenting. Hello, welcome. This
is Amy Brees. Cooper, thank youso much for joining us today.
This episode's an exciting onefor me. It marks two years of
podcast episodes for soul pathparenting, and a year with my

(00:50):
beloved co host and soul sister,Lauren colonies CAC. And you
probably know if you've listenedto before, we're both certified
conscious parenting coaches. Andwe're passionately committed to
conversations abouttransformation, and how we move
in the direction of our ownwholeness and create space for

(01:13):
our children to be whole andauthentic. And so in this
episode, we're going to talkabout our own partnership, and
transformation, not so much togive you the behind the scenes
of a podcast, but because it'sthrough relationships and
partnerships that we all learnand grow. And so today, we're

(01:34):
going to highlight ours. We'lltalk about how our partnership
got started, some bumps in theroad, how we challenged each
other why it's ironic that I'meven doing this very intro. Yes,
you will find out intros werewere a question actually, for a
moment there will talk aboutbreaking the rules, forgetting

(01:58):
to break the rules, and how wecame together to ultimately
create more consciously. And weare not done yet. This is a
journey. So we're only one yearinto this together. And then one
of my favorite themes is intoday's conversation is really
transforming how how I relate towant to lose versus have to lose

(02:22):
in life, I used to live insideof everything I did was driven
by have to I have to I have to.
So personally I've transformed alot in that area. And and so
we're just excited to share withyou how this partnership has
helped each of us in thisjourney towards wholeness. So

(02:42):
when we started recording thisconversation right before we
started recording, I askedLauren a question as we were
preparing. And she sat for asecond and then said, okay, just
hit record, we'll see whathappens. And so that's where
we'll begin. Here's theconversation.

Lauren (03:07):
When you were like what if we start out with me asking
you how has this past year beenfor you? And I was like, Ooh,
that's a big question, becausewe've been talking a little bit
in preparation for thisconversation about some of the
specific things that we want toinclude in this episode. But the
big question, I hadn't sat withthat, and I hadn't allowed the

(03:28):
different things that would comeup for me to come up and then
prioritized them, which is oneof the things that I've learned
this year, because when westarted when I started this
journey with you, My strongpreference was to just be alive
in the moment and see whatevercame up and trust that that was

(03:49):
what was meant to come up andlike love it. And I've had
multiple experiences where thatworked beautifully. And then
I've also had experiences whereit didn't. And I learned the
value of thinking about thingsplanning, prioritizing,

(04:12):
distilling. And so I think it'sa sign of some of my growth and
transformation over this pastyear. That because when we first
started working together, youwould be like, how should we
start this one? And I'd be like,why are we talking about this?
Let's just start just started.
And now I'm like, oh wait,pause. How do I want to start?

(04:34):
How do I want to begin? How do Iwant to frame what this past
year has been? And I I know thateven if we made this a three
hour episode, don't worry,y'all. I don't think that's what
we're going to do here. But evenif we did, it wouldn't include
everything. And so I need tochoose and prioritize. And so I

(04:55):
was like Let me take a moment.
What how do I want to frame thisyear and I think the way I want
to frame it. And I think thething I'm the most excited to
talk with you about today ispartnership. And I think it's
going to be the intertwining ofour two journeys, because you

(05:17):
did this for a year without apartner. And now, I've been
doing this for a year with youas partners, and that partnering
with you has been the mostvaluable, most transformative
part of this experience for me.

Amy (05:35):
Ditto. So, maybe we should introduce this episode a little
bit. Sure. Yeah. So it's reallykind of an exciting moment.
Because if you rewind the clock,a little over a year, at this

(05:56):
point, we had a conversationthat looks something like this,
Hey, probably it was a text. CanI talk to you about podcasting,
because I'd love to pick yourbrain, I want to start a
podcast. And at the same timesimultaneously, for a few months
prior to that, I had beenthinking I'd really love to have
a co host. And I really hadn'teven gotten into what I would

(06:22):
consider to be like full gear onlike manifesting my co host.
Like, let's get clear. And whatis this person gonna? How is
this partnership gonna look? Andwho Who am I looking for? And
then of course, you got to letthat go. And people know how to
manifest can tell you all thespecifics. But that's basically
how I understand manifesting,you get really clear, and then
you have to not be too attached.
I haven't even really done anyof that. I was just like, cause

(06:42):
that would be great. Universewas like, oh, yeah, you don't
need to do the hard work ofthinking it through. We got this
this person for you, becausethen we get on a call. And I
said, Well, I could tell youabout making a podcast. Or you
could be my partner on mine.

Lauren (07:04):
Yeah, yeah. And I was like, that sounds so much easier
and faster, sign me upimmediately.

Amy (07:09):
Yes. And then I was like, Girl ease, choose ease every
time. But a lot of the time, wedon't choose ease as much as
maybe is offered to us. Becausesometimes we have it that work
has to be hard. And life ishard. And then we choose hard by
accident, because we have astory about hard being the way
that things are. So yeah,everything was all set up. I had

(07:33):
done it for a year. And I was soexcited that you wanted to join
me. And it has been verydifferent in a way that I don't
even know what I expected.
Because like I said I hadn'tgiven it a whole lot of thought,
other than the intention ofhaving a co host. And but I will
say is that it has beenmassively transformational on a

(07:57):
personal level to get to partnerwith you. Yes. So that's what
we're here to talk about todayis partnership, what we've
learned working together overthe last year, but not just a
walk down memory lane for thetwo of us, the the the stories
and experiences that we thinkare relevant to human experience
and the journey that we're allon to become more whole and

(08:23):
authentic. So where should webegin?

Lauren (08:30):
Yeah, more what you were just saying more whole, more
authentic, more conscious. Soone of the places I want to
start is reflecting back on whatI started this journey with you
wholly unconscious of and howpartnering with you and
interacting with you and gettingfeedback from you. And I don't

(08:54):
just means specific feedback,like let me give you some
feedback on how you're showingup right now, though, we had a
little bit of that which wasreally important and valuable.
But also just the concept ofinteracting with someone and
seeing what happens everythingwe experience is a form of
feedback because we're cocreating with the universe with

(09:14):
each other all the time. And soone of the things that's really
coming to my mind right now isthinking about the the first
time we ever met and thatepisode that we recorded
together before I was your cohost when I was just a conscious
parenting coach who was a guestas part of your conscious

(09:35):
parenting series, the you know,the myths of I forget what it
was called. Now what was theseries called? Like,
understanding myths? Yeah,parenting myths. And I so my
conscious experience at the timewas you were doing this series

(09:57):
and you invited consciousconscious parenting coaches. to
volunteer, and to choose whichmyth they would be interested in
volunteering for. And I waslike, Oh, definitely the myth of
good and bad children. There areno good and bad children. I love
that one. I know I want tovolunteer for that one. So I
volunteered for it. And then yousent us all these lovely emails
with like, here are somequestions to get you thinking

(10:19):
and, you know, to help usprepare for the episode, and I
glanced at the questions, and Iwas like, yeah, those are great
questions. I'm so excited forthis topic. I love these
questions. Perfect, great, thiswill be fun. And we recorded the
episode together. And it wasjust such a fun experience. For
me. I felt like you askedwonderful questions. I had

(10:42):
answers, not answers. I knoweverything. But like I had
things that were so alive for methat I wanted to share. And I
didn't even realize at the timethat the stories I shared in
that initial experience with youhad been living inside me and
being like, naturally andorganically revised and refined

(11:06):
for years, because they had justbeen such integral parts of my
parenting journey. So Iexperienced myself just showing
up chatting with you. It wasgreat. And then when I started
thinking, you know, that was sofun. And maybe I want to make a
podcast. And so I reached out toyou, like you said, and asked

(11:27):
you, what do I need to do tomake a podcast? And you said,
Well, I can answer that for you.
And I can share resources. Andyou can make one if you want, or
I've been kind of thinking Iwant to co host Shall we explore
this? And so, you know, weexplored it. And it was like,
Yeah, that sounds so wonderful,more of this more of this
amazingness. And it wasn't untilwe started trying to work
together and like plan episodesand get, the more I was

(11:52):
experiencing the actual process.
Repeatedly, the more I learned,and the more I realized that I
didn't know and that I you know,that first experience had been
so magical and so easy. And itfelt so organic. I hadn't
planned anything that I said,during that time, I had no

(12:13):
notes, I had no plan I had, butI didn't realize how much
thinking about those questionsand thinking about the topic had
informed and helped me. And sowhen we started, I just wanted
to be like alive and in themoment, and no planning. And
then you're like, Okay, let'splan this. And I was like, what,
why? Why are we planning things,I thought I thought we were just

(12:34):
showing up and having fun. Butthen it took a while for me to
become conscious of what I wasunconscious of at the beginning,
which was how that first episodepart of what had contributed to
it going as well, as it did wasplanning that I didn't even

(12:54):
realize I had participated.

Amy (12:56):
Yeah, and likewise, and there's a lot of examples of
this, which is the beautifulpart of a co creation
partnership, where the yin andthe yang come together, I
learned from you that the magicis when you're present in the
moment. And so I have done overthe last year a lot more

(13:21):
allowing. Because sometimes themoment is just magical and
things come forth. This is whywe joke like we should just we
need to record all the planningconversation, right? Yes,
there's, there's planning butbut there's also just trusting
the moment. And I don't think Idid that very much before. It

(13:44):
was all planned.

Lauren (13:46):
Yeah, well, and I think that's so beautiful, how we came
together. And we representedkind of the Yin and Yang in a
couple of different ways and howpart of the beauty of this
journey has been moving from aneither or two or both and
together as people in asindividual people. We've talked
and joked a lot over this pastyear about my tendency to throw

(14:09):
the babies out with thebathwater. And that saying is so
weird. I looked it up with mykids, because they were like,
where did that ever reallyhappen where people like bathing
babies in the past? And theytried to dump the water and the
baby went with the what we don'teven get it? I'm like, I don't
understand. And it's like, yeah,that doesn't make sense, does
it? Let's look it up. And itturns out from my research,

(14:33):
which may or may not beaccurate, but so it goes. It
wasn't a real thing that reallyhappened. It was this saying
that God created in an effort tobe a metaphor for this idea of
be careful when you're gettingrid of the things that don't
serve you anymore that you don'twant anymore that you don't
accidentally get rid of one ofthe things that you really want

(14:55):
to keep because hype if weimagine bathing a baby and then
dumping the water And oops, welost the baby with the water.
That's that wasn't the goal, wedidn't really want that. And so
that has been one of my mantrasthis year of noticing. So one of
the one of the things you and Ihave talked a lot about, that
I'm so grateful for is howspiritual partnership growth

(15:19):
oriented partnership helps youbecome more consciously aware of
yourself and the things thatyou're unconscious of. So before
we partnered, my tendency tothrow babies out with bathwater,
was unconscious for me, I wasunconsciously throwing away all
these babies, not real babies,but throwing away all these

(15:40):
babies, and then being like, whyare you bringing that to this
conversation? I've got rid ofthat. And it's like, um, why are
you sure about that you reallywant to get rid of that you
really want that to be gone,like planning, spanning, I don't
want to plan Let's never plan.
And then I'm like, wait, oh,shoot, that's a baby. It's a
baby. I actually sometimesplanning has so much value. And

(16:01):
yet at the same time, I reflectback and honor what you're
saying, which is not planningalso sometimes has immense
value, you know, over planningcan suck the life out of things.
And if it's too over planned, itfeels dead. If it's too under
planned, I have this infinitygirl tendency to like ramble in

(16:26):
all these different directionsand never land the planes. Like
I've set like 17 planes flying,and then I land none of them.
And so you know, we've kind ofcalibrated.

Unknown (16:40):
I'm just envisioning, with these seven. Oh, my

Lauren (16:43):
God, on the plane.
Throwing boy or drivingcontroller.

Unknown (16:48):
Maybe I'm the air traffic controller. And I'm
like, at least one or two orthree feet up on the ground by
the end of this conversationland one of them. give people
something to take away. Yeah,that can be meaningful in their
life. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not reallyI'm not really doing that. But

Lauren (17:05):
yeah, no, that's such a great, it's no, this is perfect.
Because it was I'd be like,let's just launch 17 planes and
people will take whatever theytake. And you would say, Okay,
interesting. Let me center that.
Because that's not what my 20years in marketing suggested.
And so what if people getoverwhelmed by this 17 planes

(17:26):
that haven't been landed? Andthey don't know what to think
about this? And I'm like, Yeah,and that's a growth opportunity
for them. It's great.

Unknown (17:39):
I'm, like 17 planes. I, I'm confused.

Lauren (17:43):
You're like, where did we start? And where are we now?
And how did we get here? I'mlike, who cares? It's infinity.
Yeah.

Amy (17:50):
I mean, it's always a fun journey. I give you that. Yeah.
So yeah,

Lauren (17:56):
yes. But I've learned from you the value of
prioritizing a few planes andlanding them, and seeing what
that feels like and seeing wherethat takes us. And it's been so
beautiful. And I think anotherthing we've talked about this
year, a lot is my rebelliousstreak. I don't know how much

(18:17):
that's come through this year,as people have been listening to
me, talk, but I have this reallyfierce, rebellious streak that I
personally believe is a reactionto my 30 plus years of
obedience, addiction. And Ijust, I will just rebel against

(18:43):
anything and everything now toremind myself that I'm free. And
that's another area where I'mlearning to calibrate it and
moderate it. And notice whenI'm, you know, one of the things
about rebellion, it's a lot likeresistance, we talk in spiritual

(19:03):
terms about acceptance,resistance, when you're in
resistance to something you'renot actually free. I have this
false belief, still this falsestory, that when I'm rebelling
against things, I'm asserting myautonomy and my freedom. And
then the next step for me isremembering that true freedom

(19:29):
means I have access to all thechoices I'm not only for certain
things, and I'm also not againstcertain things. I actually have
access to all the choices and Ican honor what is true in the
moment. And so you know, anexample of that would be like

(19:50):
with this planning conversationwe've been having sometimes
showing up alive with noplanning is the choice that I
want to make depends on theTopic and how long it's been
living in me and been beingrevised and refined in my life.
And in my being if it's one ofthose, I don't need to plan. And

(20:13):
when I'm exploring somethingnew, there's immense value for
me in planning and researchingand preparing to get myself to a
place where I want to come fromwhen I'm engaging with that
topic, or like some of thepeople that we've interviewed.
And so that's like access to allthe choices is one of my goals.

Amy (20:37):
I love that. And I have so enjoyed playing with that with
you actually, I want to plugplay for a minute, because I am
a recovering perfectionist. Andone of the things that I
committed to when I started thispodcast, and by the way, like

(20:58):
both voices are very present inme still, but I committed play
is my hack to overcome, myperfectionist is one of my hacks
to overcome my perfectionistictendencies. So I started the
podcast a year before youjoined. And I would just remind
myself every time I would getattached to the outcome and be

(21:20):
like, is this good? And that's areally heavy question. By the
way, I feel compelled to say itin that dramatic voice, right.
And it's like, pushing down bythe shoulders. Yeah. And then I
just remind myself, like, oh,no, show up and play. And so for
a year, I was playing with themedium, if you will, and editing

(21:40):
everything myself and doingeverything picking up the music
from the, you know, music thewhat do you call that? The music
house? You know, all thedifferent musics and what you
have to buy. There's a word forit. That is escaping right right
now, and it's really notimportant. But I was doing
everything. Now. We have anamazing Podcast Producer.

(22:02):
Olivia, shout out to you. Hey,thanks, Olivia. You don't edit
this out. Normally, when shehears her name, she like marks
that Yeah, cuz it's like,Olivia, we messed up, take this
out.

Lauren (22:14):
And Mama, you earn all of this. And

Amy (22:16):
she's amazing. She's also a master's student in social work.
And she's just, we love her somuch. Anyway, so I was doing
everything. And I was playing inthe sandbox of podcast. And I
was, on the one hand being like,is it good enough, and on the
other hand, being like try notto care or, and sometimes
actually not caring. And so itwas all the experiences. And

(22:37):
then you came and it was like,Oh, my gosh, I have a playmate
in the sand buss. And I guessI'm curious how you related to
this idea of play? Because Ithink there were times where
even talked about it in thatway.

Lauren (22:53):
Yeah, no, it was so so wonderful for me. So that first
recording that I spoke aboutearlier, I was playing, it was
play, and it was wonderful. AndI feel like you know, we were
just aligned. And then when Idecided to officially become
your co host. And we startedhaving meetings and planning

(23:15):
things, and we were gettingready to record my first episode
where I would be introduced asthe co host. My perfectionism
kicked back in, like my fearskicked back in, I started. So
the first time we attempted torecord because when I agreed to
be interviewed by you and be aguest on your podcast, that felt

(23:40):
light and fun to me. And thenwhen I agreed to become the co
host, and that sense ofresponsibility was evoked. For
me. It took me back into some ofmy survival patterns, which
include performing andperfectionism and stuff like

(24:00):
that. The first time weattempted to record with me
being an official co host, and Ikeep using the word official.
It's like, No, we're justplaying here we're playing. But
that's that was the story. Thatwas the story in my in my head.
And so my throat closed up, andit was scratchy. And I was like,
I need hot tea. I can't recordwithout hot tea anymore. So then

(24:21):
I started my like, comfortritual of having hot tea
whenever we were going to recordwhich was like a comfort item
for me. And it, it was a processfor me and you were wonderful.
Because you you had been likeyou said you had been playing
for a year. And you werecommitted to play and you're
committed to ease. And so whenthose stories kicked in for me

(24:43):
and I started freaking out andstruggling you would remind me
we're just playing we're justplaying. It's perfectly in
perfect. You know, it's it'sgreat. And so yeah, that was
very helpful and I've come along way. Like I've become more
relaxed and I don't even havetea today. Excited felt like I
didn't need it. That's a sign Istill enjoy hot tea. And

(25:04):
sometimes if my throat scratchy,I'll have it. But I don't need
it every time anymore. I'velike, built resilience around.

Amy (25:12):
I remember even saying to you, I was feeling this exact
same way a year ago, it'sperfectly normal to feel that
way doing new things. And I willalso share that for a long time
in my life, I let that stop mefrom doing new things like I
couldn't access play, becauseplay seemed risky. It seemed fun

(25:35):
and things were supposed to behard. So attached to life is
hard and work hard work is themy worth and all of that. But
yeah, so then I had to talkmyself into doing this
differently. And I was alreadyhad been doing that for so long
that it but it you showed up tome as like, oh my gosh, yes,

(25:56):
this is exactly how it is tostart operating in this way.
Because it's not necessarily ourdefault pattern. And yeah, and
also when things are new,sometimes they are kind of
awkward or weird, and then youjust keep doing it. And whereas
my previous versions of myselfthat it's funny that you have

(26:18):
been talking about what you gotfrom me, because I normally am
like and Lauren taught me this,and Lauren taught me that and
we're gonna get into it. We getin all that, but a past version
of me. So one of the things Ilearned from my dear friend,
Lauren, is that there are manyversions of myself, I and we
have a whole episode on thisconcept because I used to relate
to myself as Amy Amy BreesCooper, there's one of me and

(26:41):
then Lauren showed up. And shewas like a past version of me.
And an A current version of melike this and a different ones
like that. And there's all theseversions past present future.
And in the current moment,there's many versions, and I was
just like, Wow, all thosethings. And sometimes they can
be in direct conflict. That isso much more speaking to my

(27:03):
experience than this onecollapsed version of myself. So
I forgot what I was going tosay. But I just want to also
encourage everybody to, youknow, just relate to yourself.
You have given me permission torelate to my multifaceted pneus.
And we'll talk about facets alittle bit later because this
will come back up. But you'vegiven me permission and a living

(27:25):
example of relating to myself asas many me's that are sometimes
in direct conflict. And I usedto be like, Okay, so one of them
is right, and one of them iswrong. We got to figure this
out. And I would go to that headplace of Okay, so if I'm feeling
conflicting things, or thinkingconflicting things, yeah, let's

(27:47):
judge them. Now. We're justgoing to put them up and we're
going to evaluate them. All thiscomes from like a very head
place, right? And I don't haveto do that anymore. Like I have
so much more access to myself,because I no longer have to pick
winners. Among my multipleselves. Does that make sense? I
really hadn't thought of thatuntil this very bad.

Lauren (28:09):
No, it makes beautiful sense to me. Not that I believe
in being straitjacketed bysense. But I also it does, it
makes perfect sense to me. And Iwanted to say I love sharing
what I'm learning. And so when Ihear you say, Oh, I learned this
from you. I'm like, I'm stilllearning that too. And I shared

(28:31):
it. I'm sharing what I'mlearning. And say, I feel like
you've been sharing with me somany things that you've learned
and that you're still learning,and you're in process, learning
them, and you can speak to them.
And you know, we do that foreach other. I think that's part
of the beautiful thing about ourpartnership. But yeah, I still
have that old default story. Andwe talked about this in our

(28:54):
either or both. And episode, Istill have that old default
story that I've got to pick onethat one wins and one loses.
We've We've laughed about it.
We've joked about it, when Ihave two parts of me to present
parts that are activated and inconflict with each other. I have
this whole internal family, andthey're loud, and we're half

(29:17):
Italian. And like it's just it'scrazy in here. And I love Dr.
Richard Schwartz created ahealing modality called internal
family systems. And he speaks toso I learned some of this from
him. But he speaks to the idea.
I think he quotes the poem inhis book that says we contain

(29:40):
multitudes. And then the way hetalks about those multitudes
that we contain is they're kindof like, members have an often
dysfunctional family that livesinside of us. That if we become
consciously in relationship withall the different parts of us We
can feel more whole and havemore access to the things that

(30:04):
we push away or cut ourselvesoff from for the sake of
efficiency, simplicity, like thebinary idea that we that's been
imposed on us. And so I'mactively breaking free from
that. And I love that. I'vebecause one of the things we

(30:27):
talked about early in our earlymonths together, was I'm
learning out loud. That's how Ifunction I am, I am a lifelong
learner. And I learn out loud.
And when people are around me,and sometimes what I'm learning
interests them, they're like,Oh, that's interesting to me,

(30:47):
too. I want to learn that too. Iwant to practice that too. I
want to do that too. And this isjust been such a transformation
for me. Because in addition tofeeling like an obedience addict
for my first three plus decades,and just a person who was trying

(31:11):
to get things, right, check theboxes, who was believing and not
questioning the stories as muchas I do. Now, the stories that
were being handed to me thatwere incomplete. I, it's feels
so freeing and exciting to menow to be able to allow space
for conflicting parts of myself,to coexist and me to not impose

(31:34):
on them, the one of you has tolose, and one of you has to win
or like that's a battle to thedeath. That's how I used to talk
about like, they'll fight to thedeath, and one of the murders
the other one, and then weproceed. And that's not healthy,
y'all. That is no, that is notgood.

Unknown (31:51):
We do not have murder in the inner family

Lauren (31:54):
and Enter. And it doesn't work. You can't actually
successfully murder the peoplein there. Like the parts, they
come back to life. And thenthey're bitter that you tried to
murder them like it's not. Yeah,so

Amy (32:08):
yeah, my my favorite one is to have my adult self try to
this is not the adult self beingan adult, by the way. So I don't
really know where the story isgoing exactly. Because my adult
self will tell my inner child tojust shut

Unknown (32:25):
up shouldn't feel that way. Which you know, from the
should in that sentence. That'sactually not even my adult self.
Maybe that's Judge Judy, like mycritic voice actually, now that
I'm thinking aloud, y'all.
Thanks for coming along on thejourney.

Amy (32:41):
Yes, so that's, it's the recognition of my own anger,
let's say, and then theinvalidation of the anger of you
shouldn't feel that way. Soyeah, I think that's another
thing you've taught me is,oftentimes our anger is here.
For us. I used to try to snuffmy anger. I used to try to just

(33:05):
be like that, for me. My idealwas to just never be angry. Like
my perfect version of myselfthat I aspired to one day get to
had no anger. And seriously,like, this is what I thought a
year ago.

Unknown (33:21):
I had a, I wonder where I am in my journey. I have a lot
of work left to do. But

Lauren (33:26):
well, but this Yeah, awareness is the key, though.
Yeah, like being aware of it.
Like sometimes we don't giveourselves enough credit for the
things that we're aware of now.
And sometimes, the awarenessjourney, at first, it can be
really jarring, like, oh, shit,I thought anger was bad. And my
goal was to get rid of it. Andnow I'm awakening to the reality

(33:48):
that that's not only impossible,but it's also not actually ideal
because our anger is tied to ourpassion. And if I want to get
rid of my anger, I got to getrid of my passion. And I don't
want to get rid of my passion.
So I guess I need to figure outhow to welcome and befriend the
anger and listen to what it'shere to tell me it makes me

(34:09):
think of I think it's a Rumipoem, the guest house. Like all
the feelings and emotions thatwe experience are like visiting
our body, which is the guesthouse and the goal is to welcome
them all. It's a beautiful home.
And it's hard, it's hard towelcome them all. I also have

(34:32):
the old story inside me thattruly good, kind, compassionate,
evolved transcendent spiritualpeople don't get angry anymore.
Their anger is gone. And that'sa sign that they've arrived and
that they have done all thethings that they were supposed
to do. And so I either want tobe that or pretend I'm that

(34:52):
we'll just pretend we'll pretendI'll hide the anger. Great plan.
So the anger all rejected inInside me hate it, it will
fester. And then when I want,when I want this to happen the
least, which means when I'm withthe people I love the most and
are the closest to me, it willjust come out at them like

(35:15):
daggers, like my words aredaggers. And you know, but I'll
try to keep that hidden in myprivate life and at least
publicly, I can still present asthis like awakened. You know, I
like to switch my languagearound. Now I don't like to say
awakened. I like to sayawakening. But I would have said
like this awakened wisdomteacher who you know, because

(35:37):
that's, that's such a commonstory. Matt Locata talks about
this in his book, The path iseverywhere. So Matt Licata is
one of my favorite authors. Andhe has partnered and supported a
lot of spiritual teachers. Andhe has helped them write and

(35:58):
publish books. And he's gottento know them on a more personal
level than the masses ofaudience members that look up to
these spiritual teachers. And inhis book, one of the things he
talks about is how often peoplewould ask him what so and so
really like? And his joke is, helooks for the nearest window to
try to jump out of so that hedoesn't have to answer that

(36:20):
question, because he's so awareof the typical gap between our
public personas that we'retrying to present. And I'm going
to talk about myself now, ratherthan try to throw some of these
other spiritual teachers underthe bus, which is tempting for
my ego, like, let's, let's judgethem, so I can avoid thinking
about myself. But I'll bring itback to me. That's one of my

(36:43):
practices. When I notice myself,talking extensively about other
people, I tried to bring it backto myself. And, you know, I, I'm
totally aware of that desire topresent myself publicly as more
evolved, and less angry, andmore transcendent than I really

(37:06):
am. And I, that's one of thethings I'm working on and
learning and I want to practicebeing more real and authentic
and vulnerable and doing it morepublicly. Yeah.

Amy (37:22):
I love that. And I wonder if we could segue into a topic
I'm equally excited to shareabout which is have to use and
want to use Yes, because I havehad a massive transformation in
this year of working with you inthe way I relate to have tattoos

(37:44):
and want to use. And there's afunny story early on in our
working together, that where Iwas blindly living inside of a
lot of have tattoos, and mybeautifully rebellious partner
was like, why are you putting Ialmost imagine trying to like
constrain a wild horse like withthese tethers? And she's like,

(38:09):
trying to cast them off. And Iwonder, would you like to tell
how this occurred to you?

Lauren (38:17):
Yeah, I'm, there's so there's a part of me right now,
that is aware that I absolutelyknow the essence of what you're
talking about. And my mind istrying to pull the specific
details, but I'm just gonna gofor it and share what I can
access. Right now. I believe wewere having a conversation about

(38:38):
how to organize an episode, Ibelieve it was related to you
sharing kind of an outline withme of well, we need to begin the
episode this way. And then thisneeds to be in the middle. And
then this is how we need to endit. Like there has a an intro
outro, the outro. There's what'sin between, and we set it up and

(39:01):
we want the listeners to havetakeaways that we kind of
highlight towards the end andall this stuff. And I was just
like, Okay, well, if that's yourpreferred way to do all of the
episodes, then I can acceptthat. But like, that's not the
only way to do an episode. And Ifeel like initially you were

(39:23):
like, No, I took a class onthis. This is how you do an
episode. And I was right. Okay.
But also there are other.

Amy (39:34):
Yeah, which uncovered for me this pattern that I see now
everywhere. So I'm gonna mentionthis in case this might be
familiar to anyone else, where Iwas like, no, no, that's not my
preferred way. That's the wayYeah, because some expert taught
me some expert in podcastingtaught me the way. I took the

(39:56):
course I do it the way andyou're like except that that's
not the only way. Like it couldbe a different way. So I was,
you know, my head exploded. Andthen I realized, oh, my gosh,
the freedom of that

Lauren (40:12):
well in the invitation to ask yourself, because I feel
like once we, you know, I feellike part of the process of the
conversations that followed wasan invitation to you to get
clear on what you actuallypreferred? Yes, when you take a
class like that, and especially,I mean, a lot of these classes

(40:33):
are designed to say, not only isthis the way, it's the best way,
it's the right way we can proveit to you. This is why you
should always do it this way.
Here's the statistics that saythe best podcasts do it this
way. And I understand wherethey're coming from. I really
do. And I can see some evenbenefits to that. And, you know,
if I want to create somethingthat's different than that,

(40:59):
because I want to because Iwould prefer it, or because I'm
curious to try it. That's wherekind of I was coming from this
place of what if all of ourepisodes aren't the same? What
if this one doesn't feel like itneeds an intro? What if we just
launch right into it? What ifthis what if that, and you know,

(41:22):
I think that there's there'svalue in both sides. And some
people talk about learning therules before you break them. And
I will admit, like one of myweaknesses is all just show up
on the scene, and know nothing.
I don't even know the rules. AndI'm like, what rules? I don't

(41:42):
know. I don't think so. I thinkwe could do this, I think we
could do that. And then peopleare like, you don't even know
what you're talking about. I'mlike, Yeah, I don't need to
that's not of high value to me.
I don't need to know what I'mtalking about. I'm still gonna
talk about it. Yeah,

Amy (41:55):
yeah. And my way of doing things before you kind of
snapped in front of my face, andwe're like, wake up, wake up, is
doing learning the rules, andthen forgetting I can break
them, like never breaking them.
So the sandbox that I wasplaying in was pretty tiny. And
then you were like, or, we couldjust do these other things. And

(42:16):
this other way, and it wasreally freeing for me, I also
want to put an exclamation pointon the word preference. I use
that so much more now. And, forme preference, and acknowledging
my preferences, has done acouple of things. So you've been
really clear, you're very clearabout what your preferences are.

(42:38):
Or if something's a preference,which has given me a way of
realizing, oh, it's not aboutright or wrong. It's just about
preferences. And now I use thatlanguage with my family with my
employees. I came from a familywhere I have a grandma who knew
the right way to do everything.

(43:01):
This is the way you put hospitalcorners on a bed. She had been a
military nurse, by the way. Imean, there's a million
examples. That's the first onethat jumps to mind. And so, you
know, I was teaching my kids howto put hospital corners on the
bed. And I was very aware thatit's like, this is just a way,

(43:24):
this is not the way this couldbe a preference. I'll be honest
with you, I don't put hospitalcorners on my bread. Usually, I

Unknown (43:31):
just shoved the sheets.

Amy (43:33):
Right. But um, I just have so much more access now to
communicating with other peoplethat it's not that I'm telling
them the right way that it'sthat I'm telling them a way.

Lauren (43:46):
And I appreciate that.
Me too. I appreciate that somuch too. And that's something
I've also been learning it wasvery freeing for me. You know,
my awakening journey hasdefinitely largely been a
journey towards more and morefreedom for myself, because I
did not feel free before. Likeif I think of my before, before

(44:09):
I started awakening, and then myafter I started awakening
because I'll continue to beawakening forever. And in our
second year together, I can'twait to see what I learn that I
was unconscious of about myselfthat I become conscious of
because there's infinitepossibilities there. But I I
really embraced this idea ofpreference and part of that

(44:34):
awakening for me was realizingwas waking up to the fact that
all of the half twos I had beenhanded were in my current belief
system. At some point someone'spreference. Somebody some time
in the past, you know, even withthe hospital corners on the bed,

(44:55):
somebody decided that was theway It should be. And I imagine
whether I'm right or wrong, Iimagine it's because that's what
they liked best. That's whatthey thought worked best. That
was their preference. And thenthey passed it on, and they pass
it on, and they passed it on,and they passed it on. And I had
been handed all thesepreferences from other people,

(45:18):
but they had been presented tome as the right way, the best
way, the way. And part of mywaking up journey included going
wait a second, what if it's notthe best for me? What if it's
not the right way? For me? Whatif I have a different
preference? What if I likesomething else better? And what

(45:39):
if that's okay. And so that'syeah, definitely one of the
things that I love sharing withpeople, clients, you know, I try
to empower parents to createauthentic families where they
honor their family members,preferences, which can look very

(46:01):
different than being given thisidea of what good families are
supposed to be like, and thentrying to become that. And so
it's a, it's an invitation toreturn home, to what arises
organically from within me andtreat it with the same value, if

(46:24):
not more value for me, becauseit's all arising organically for
me, then it's been very specificto me, different than what arose
organically for someone elsesome time ago, and then became
the the thing.

Amy (46:44):
Yeah, you've inspired me to challenge a lot of have to say
that I hadn't examined, and backto the making the bed example
because why not? I've now beenchallenging since we did an
episode about kids and theirbedrooms, whether making their
beds is a half, two. And nowwe're having a conversation

(47:08):
about what their preferences arefor how their rooms are. So
that's one tiny example. Youknow, we're about to have a
conversation. I'm not sure whereI'm landing on vaccination of
children. As we record this,there's now an emergency
authorization for COVIDvaccination for kids, five and

(47:29):
up, or five to 11, I suppose.
And there's not a full FDAauthorization yet. And as I
think about vaccination, I mean,my kids had zero say, in any
vaccination decision up untilnow. And you've also brought
awareness to me around that ofgiving them some say, and not

(47:50):
having it be a you have to, buthaving it be a conversation. I
mean, one of my children has hadCOVID, because she got it from
me. And so now I'm imagining,and she also was hospitalized
for when she was a two year oldfor an illness for two weeks. So
she's got a fear of a deep fearof needles and, and being

(48:15):
physically hurt in ways that areoutside of her control. And so
you've really opened my mind tohow we think about and talk
about half twos, with our kids.
How I do with my kids.

Lauren (48:33):
Mm hmm. Yeah, me too, that's been such a huge part of
my journey, because when, whenmy children were little, I
imposed all kinds of half dueson them, because I was still by
default, imposing a bunch ofhalf dues on myself. And so I
was just doing that with them.
Like I was doing it with myself,and then I awakened to some of
the half dues I was imposing onmyself weren't actually have to

(48:55):
use they were just these learnedbehaviors that I kept repeating.
And so that I startedquestioning, and just once, once
you open up to questioning thesewill, why do we have to you
know, one of the conversations Ihave with parents and clients a
lot about half to us is, well,they have to brush their teeth.
So if they don't brush theirteeth, then we have to make them

(49:16):
brush their teeth, right? Andall say, Well, have you
considered because when mychildren were, you know,
relatively young, um, I startedtalking to them about why we
brush our teeth, becausesometimes as adults, we've been
given these things, and thenwe're just passing them on. And

(49:37):
we're not creating space for ourchildren to be given the
information and given anopportunity to autonomously make
their own choice and trustingthem and so, you know, with my
own specific children, and a lotof the children of clients that
I've worked with, if somethingis really important, like teeth
brushing or sleep Deep, or thethings that we worry about that

(50:01):
we feel like we have to force onthem, if we relax a little, and
we say, well, you know, if thekids like, I don't want to brush
my teeth, no, no more brushingteeth, we can say, okay, that is
an available choice, here arethe potential consequences.
Here's, here's what you'rerisking. Here's why we say brush
your teeth here, you know, and Ialso have a child who has a fear

(50:22):
of needles, like you were sayingabout your daughter. And so once
that child realized, like, Oh,if I choose not to brush my
teeth, I'm increasing my risk ofcavities. And then if I want the
cavity addressed, that couldinvolve like, Novocaine, and a
needle in my mouth, or my toothwill fall out, and I won't have

(50:42):
that tooth anymore. A lot oftimes, we can really trust
children to actually make a gooddecision when they feel free. We
co create resistance when we sayyou have to you have to, you
have to, you have to, and wedon't create space, even eating
healthy too. I mean, I had thiswith healthy eating with one of
my children, what if I don'twant to be healthy? And I was

(51:04):
like, Oh, my gosh, I had neverthought of that. I had never
thought of the fact that by mebeing like, you have to be
healthy, healthy choices,healthy food, this is what we
have to do. That might be like,why get off my back? Maybe I
don't want to be healthy,healthy. Sounds terrible the way
you're talking about it? Andthen I realized, oh, okay, well,
here's why here are the reasonsto be healthy. Here's what your

(51:25):
body needs. Here's, and if youdon't want to listen to me,
here's books, here's YouTubevideos, here's all this stuff.
What kind of diet do you thinkwould be best for your body, and
then I have empowered andcreated space for my children to
make choices that might beslightly different than the ones
that I would have imposed onthem, but largely, are

(51:45):
ultimately in their own well,beings interest. And so it's
just such a different way. Imean, that's part of our
conscious parenting journey,right. So as conscious parenting
coaches, we have become aware ofthe unconscious patterns that
we're just repeating, and theshadow side of those patterns,

(52:06):
and the benefits to us and ourchildren of questioning those
patterns, stepping outside ofthose patterns, creating space
and autonomy. And so yeah, it'sbeen a beautiful, it's a
beautiful journey. I was amexcited to continue it with my
14 and 12 year old to you know,I'm having new struggles. Every
stage has new things. So like weit's, we're still struggling,

(52:27):
because that's the that's life.

Amy (52:30):
I'm so glad you're ahead of me on this. My oldest is 11. I'm
grateful for that. You can sortof chart the course inside of
have to this conversation abouthave to. I had been struggling
recently with this idea. Thisquestion I was getting from my

(52:53):
daughter of do I have to go toschool? And then you would come
to mind? And I was like, Ah,well, Lauren unschoolers are
kids like, how do I answer this?
Do you remember what you said tome the other day about that?

Lauren (53:06):
Yeah. I said, what if you want your children to go to
school? And what if you tell herI want you to go to school? And
it's and own it authentically?
It's not? You know, because ifit's not accurate, like if the
trial is saying, Do I have to?
And you're not sure how torespond? Because you're not

(53:26):
comfortable? saying no, ofcourse not. You don't want to go
anymore. Stay home, you know,like, that's if that's not
authentic for you, becausethat's the thing. When I when I
coach parents, a big theme isauthenticity, we have themes of
authenticity and sustainability.
What's authentic for you? What'ssustainable for you? What are
the available options? When mykids were little, and I dropped

(53:48):
them off at school, I had apreschooler who didn't want to
go to school anymore. And hesaid, Mommy, do I have to and on
those days, sometimes I was ableto authentically say, Yes, I'm
sorry, you have to because Ihave to go teach the class that
I'm being paid to teach at thecommunity college. And I have
nowhere else safe to put a threeyear old like I can't leave you
home alone. Like, yes, you haveto your three. I can't be with

(54:12):
you. They won't let me bring youto class. I am dropping you off
at preschool. I hear you thatyou don't want to go and you
don't like it. And I'm sorry.
Yes, you have to. And that wasauthentic for me in that moment.
That was that was my reason forstill dropping him off that day.
And if I wasn't teaching, and hesaid I don't want to go to
preschool today. There were dayswhen I said Well, today you

(54:34):
don't have to because I don'thave to teach so. Okay. And that
was what it was. But if if mytruth in that moment had been I
want this for you today. I amchoosing this for you. So that's
why

Amy (54:52):
Yeah. Yeah. And we're in now we're in the process, thanks
to our reimagining educationseries, my eyes have been open
to new possibilities for my kidseducation. And we're navigating
that because to your point, youmake a choice for your three
year old. But now I have, youknow, my kids are older than

(55:16):
that the youngest is almostfive. And we're figuring out how
to partner with them on thedecision of where they can go to
school. Now I have done a lot ofresearch and have narrowed
things down, they're not goingto have. And they know because
we've talked to them that it's apartnership, we're not they
don't get the one and only votein this. But we're gonna

(55:36):
collaborate on exploring andmaking choices. So

Lauren (55:41):
absolutely. And another thing that I have said very
authentically to my children attimes has been, I'm not
comfortable with that, whateverthat is, you know, so if they,
because once we moved past theresistance of you have to, but I
won't. Once we once I let go ofthat energy, and I got better at

(56:06):
practicing a different kind ofenergy and an authenticity with
my children. They might ask me aquestion about something. Well,
I don't feel like brushing myteeth tonight. Is it okay? If I
skip it tonight? And I'll behonest, occasionally, I've said,
you know, what, if you skipbrushing your teeth once in a
while, it's not the end of theworld. So you know, I'm okay
with you. You're very tired. Youwant to skip it? Okay. I'm okay

(56:27):
with that tonight. But thenthere could be another time. And
I'm trying to think of a realexample, because that they
haven't resisted brushing theirteeth that much, actually, but I
feel like, oh, food is anothergood one. So the health food
struggle with especially one ofmy two children, who was the one
who was more like, what if Idon't want to be healthy. And so
we had conversations, and Iopened up some more choice and

(56:49):
some freedom. And there werestill times when my child wanted
to make food choices that justwent beyond what I was
comfortable allowing. And sothen I would say, I'm sorry, I'm
just not comfortable with that,which is different than you have
to do this. Because they whoeverthey are decided that we all

(57:11):
have to. And that's the truth,because my kids see right
through that shit. So you know,but if I could own personally,
you know what, unfortunately foryou, I'm your mama. And I am
just not comfortable with that.
And I'm owning that this isabout me, this is not about
like, you're a quote, bad kid,because there are no bad
children. You're a bad kid forwanting it or whatever. I'm just

(57:32):
not comfortable with it. Andthat's a legitimate thing for a
parent to say. So, yeah.

Amy (57:40):
I love it. Mm hmm.

Lauren (57:42):
Yeah. And because we're building these two sided
bridges, like, just in the sameway that you and I have built
this beautiful two sided bridgeof our partnership, where we've
both moved towards each other. Imean, part of our stories here
today that we're sharing areabout how I started this
journey, going planning spanningand you started it going, I took

(58:04):
this amazing podcasting classthat told me not only like that
planning is necessary, but howto do it. And we've built this
bridge together, like we've metin the middle, and I've gone Oh,
wow, now I can see the value ofplanning and you've gone Oh,
wow. Now I can see the value ofnot planning sometimes. And the
bridge includes both. And that'swhat I that's what I teach, for

(58:31):
all relationships really, thatwe start where we are. And we
build. Ideally, we build thistwo sided bridge where we meet
in the middle and we comeauthentically, like how can I
get to the middle authentically?
How can I get to the middleauthentically? You know if
there's a moment, like if therewas a particular episode where
you said, You know what, it'sreally important to me that we
have a clear outline for thisepisode. And then I say, Yeah,

(58:53):
I'll meet you there. Great.
Let's have a clear outline forthis episode. Like and if I can
do it authentically, you know,like if I'm like, Okay, let me
check in with myself. Am I coolwith that? Yep. Cool. But if I
wasn't, if if you said it'sreally important to me that we
have a clear outline for thisepisode, and I said, Oh crap, oh
luck because it's reallyimportant to me that we show up

(59:16):
just alive and ready foranything for that episode. Then
we have a conversation wenegotiate we see what we can
build that takes both of us intoconsideration and that could
look like a compromise where weland on a looser outline that
what then what you ideallywanted with more flexibility and

(59:39):
freedom. So I'm being taken intointo consideration you are too
and we do the same thing withour children.

Amy (59:46):
I'm laughing because we have an outline for this
episode. We're not at all y'allon the outline because sometimes
we think of what to say and thenjust other stuff comes up. See,
I am learning to trust themoment Yeah, I'm not that attach
to the outline, I just like tohave an idea going in. And one
of the ideas actually cominginto this where there was

(01:00:08):
another bridge to be built,because I kind of want to point
out like, there's a lot of joyand love in our relationship.
And there have been a couple ofplaces were building that bridge
wasn't sort of harmonious littleconfronting. And we have a story
about that, that we had wantedto share that has to do with the

(01:00:30):
audience. And I wonder if youwant to talk about that. And
then I can share my my, sort ofthe second piece of it.

Lauren (01:00:39):
Sure. I love this story.
I love it so much. And again,I'm shaky on the very specific
details that preceded it. But Iremember that we were having a
conversation about the audience.
And that we, you know, we reallyneed to make sure we do XY and Z

(01:01:01):
for the sake of the audience orwith the audience in mind. And
in that particular moment, I wastransported back to my MFA and
poetry program, where I wassitting in the audience. And we
had this incredible visitingpoet who was up on stage talking

(01:01:21):
about his best selling book ofpoetry. And his name is ocean
Vaughn. He's amazinglyfantastic. And he got a question
he's on stage taking, he hadread some of his gorgeous poetry
to the audience, the audiencethat was there, I'm laughing,
because I see the both sidesnow. But at the time, at the

(01:01:42):
time, it was totally lost on metotally lie, I was only in one
part at the time. So oceanVaughn's on stage, and he gets a
question that so many authorsget, how, how are you writing
for your audience? Was the theessence of the question. It was
something like, you know, youconnect so well with your
audience? How do you do it? Howare you thinking about your

(01:02:05):
audience when you're writingyour poetry? And his response
was, when I'm alone, in my room,writing a poem, there is no
audience, they don't exist, yet.
I am not taking them intoconsideration because I don't
even know who they like, howcould I even do that? My poems
are my soul's fingerprints, likeI am expressing my unique

(01:02:30):
individual soul through the poemis that's what I'm doing when I
write. And I remember being inthat audience and just being
awed by his answer. And feelinglike yes, that is how I want to
create, I want to create mysoul's fingerprints, without any

(01:02:53):
sort of care, or concern, orworry about the supposed
audience that my creativewriting classes tell me I'm
supposed to be thinking about.
And so, you know, as I'mtransported internally, back to
that moment, but alsoexternally, I'm with you talking
about the audience of ourpodcast, which clearly y'all

(01:03:15):
exist, right? That's why we madea podcast to share with an
audience. But in that moment,I'm like, what, there is no
audience, there is no audience,I That's not how I create. And,
you know, I tell you about thispoet and his idea and how it
resonates with me. And that'show I was like, I'm just, I'm
just sharing my soul. And maybepeople will listen, and maybe

(01:03:36):
they won't, but I, you can't askme to think about an audience.
They don't even exist for me.
And maybe I'll let you take itfrom there.

Amy (01:03:44):
Yeah, I will happily take it from there. Because being the
good I put that in quotesstudent that I am that I was. I
wrote the quote down from oceanvibe. I was like, no audience
don't audience okay, like truthcomes from outside of me, that
must be better and more truethan what I've been doing, which

(01:04:09):
must be in authentic, like Ihave been creating for an
audience. Oh, my gosh, this mustnot be an authentic expression.
And by the way, I was amarketer, as you said earlier,
for 20 years, and so clearlyspent a lot of time thinking
about the audience, the targetmarket, the people buying the

(01:04:31):
things I'm selling. And so Ireally went away from that
feeling like okay, I have all Ihave it all wrong. And then, and
I felt very confronted by this,I felt like oh my gosh, how are
we going to do this withoutthinking about the audience, but
this must be true, this must bethe better way. And I sat with
it for about a day. And I justrealized, like, the audience

(01:04:55):
brings me joy. Imagining theaudience is In my heart, like I,
I came back to you and I waslike, I totally acknowledge the
embrace that that is a way. Iguess this is where I started to
get a way versus the way evenmore clear. But I like to play
tennis, I imagine that I'mhitting a ball over the net, and

(01:05:18):
that someone is hitting it back.
Like, I don't want to just whacka ball against the wall, which
by the way you do when youpractice tennis by yourself, but
it's not nearly as fun as likevolleying a ball back and forth.
I want to imagine an audiencethat's having a thought or a
feeling or a reaction, orthey're taking something away,
like, it makes me happy, itgives me purpose. And you're

(01:05:39):
like, okay, then you can have anaudience. I don't remember
exactly what you said, you couldyou could fill fill that part
in, but I felt seen andacknowledged and that you were
like, yes. Also, also, that isvery valid. And if that is true
for you, then then you mustcreate from that place. I don't
know what you said, My takeawaywas something super loving and

(01:05:59):
validating like that. And welike kind of wrestle this issue
to the ground. And and I thinkit's kind of a good segue to
this kind of duality, that wehave some in so many ways, where
you have taught me that we can,I love imagining creating a

(01:06:20):
podcast, both from audience, noaudience, like you guys are so
important to us, and we love youand what we do, we want it to
resonate and make a differencefor you or else. Like you said,
we wouldn't be recording this,we just which we do a fair bit
of the time, you'll just have aconversation between the two of

(01:06:40):
us that doesn't get recorded.
But also I love the idea ofcreating from no audience, which
to me makes it a place of nofear of No, like, of its that
whatever is going to show up Ican trust. So yeah,

Lauren (01:06:58):
well, and I feel like the follow up conversations we
had for me were so beautiful,too. Because when you came back
and shared how you had wrestledwith the idea that maybe you had
been doing it, quote wrong, andmaybe I was telling you the
right way to create and to be anartist or whatever it was, and

(01:07:21):
what what I woke up to what Ibecame conscious of that I was
unconscious of until youreflected back to me what your
experience had been, was, Ihadn't even realized that by
quoting ocean Vaughn and tellingyou know, I, this is how I show
up. This is how I create, I amgiving myself all the permission

(01:07:45):
to express myself and people canlisten or not. There's there's
no audience for me until thereis one. But there may be there
may not. I'm not because I was Iwas trying to like ocean Vaughn
helped me break free from thehalf two, that I have to somehow
like prioritize my audience orwrite what they want. You know,

(01:08:09):
I had a professor in the MFAprogram, who told me my poems
weren't poems, I was doing themwrong. This is how poems are
supposed to be. That's not apoem. Who cares? That's not even
important. You know, he was theolder white male professor and
I, I named those things forcontext purposes, because I
wrote a poem about myfrustration with having been

(01:08:33):
taught to be disgusted by hairon my legs, because I'm a woman.
And I was taught that women aresupposed to remove any and all
hair from their legs and hairylegs on a woman is disgusting.
And I was I was waking up to thefact that that wasn't natural.
For me. That wasn't my truth.
Like, I remember, I rememberwhen I first started dating my
husband. And somehow the topicof I don't know how many months

(01:08:56):
into our relationship, it wasthat the topic of leg shaving
came up. And I don't rememberexactly what was said, but it
went something to the tune oflike, me complaining about like,
oh, I have to shave my legs or Idon't feel like shaving my legs
or something. And him saying,Oh, I thought you just wanted to
like I thought all women justpreferred their legs without
hair. Like, he hadn't eventhought about the possibility

(01:09:20):
that it would feel like a burdento anyone. And so I remember
being like, Well, no, sometimesI don't want to but I feel like
I have to and I don't like it,you know, but then I was still
young. And I was I stillbelieved that I had to and I
believed that hair on my legswere disgusting. And I was
disgusted by actually iteventually got to a point.

(01:09:41):
Again, I don't remember wherethis was in our relationship,
but I couldn't have sex if mylegs had hair on them. Like I
couldn't feel sexy orparticipate in sex if I hadn't
shaved my legs. And that pissedme off. I got mad about that.
And I wrote a poem about it andmy old male white professors
said nobody cares if you shaveyour legs or not. This is not a

(01:10:03):
poem like this is stupid. And,um, and so my desire to validate
myself to release myself frombecause he was, he was a PhD in
poetry who had best sellingpoetry books, and he had been
teaching poetry for decades. Andhe presented as the authority on

(01:10:25):
poetry. And when he told me, mypoem about my frustration over
being taught to hate hair on myown legs, was stupid and
pointless, and not a poem, therewas a part of me that had been
taught and conditioned tobelieve him. And then there was
another part of me saying, No,this matters to me. And why do

(01:10:46):
you get to decide what's a poemand what's not. And by the way,
everyone, just, you know, for myown sake, and because this was
my preference, I, I, in the lastcouple of years, changed my
relationship with hair on mylegs, and I allowed my legs to
go full, natural, hairy for anextended period of time. And at

(01:11:09):
first, I was very uncomfortable,like, I didn't like how I felt
about them, but I wanted tochange it. And so I chose, like
my own version of exposuretherapy, where I allowed them to
be hairy, and I present myselfwith them, and I learned to love
them. And that has been reallyhealing for me. Like that has

(01:11:33):
been a really positiveexperience for me that I chose,
that I'm happy about. And mydeepest truth is, I wouldn't say
so then every woman should dothat. I wouldn't say, you know,
so that's the right way tohandle legs now, like I what I
really want is full permissionto share my soul's fingerprints,

(01:11:57):
and to honor everyone else'spermission to share their souls
fingerprint. So to take thisback to our audience, no
audience conversation, once Irealized that the way you had
experienced me in that moment,was just like how I had
experienced that professor, youexperienced me as saying, no,
there is no audience. It doesn'texist. That's wrong. That

(01:12:20):
doesn't make sense, which wasn'tmy intention. But I then became
conscious of how, Oh, I couldtotally see how it was
experienced that way. Oh, mygoodness, that is something I
want to be aware of. And I wantto be careful about and so in
the follow up conversation, forone, I laughed, and I said, of
course there's an audience likeeven talking about they don't

(01:12:43):
exist? Of course they do. Andalso if you love tennis, and
that's how you create so yes, Iwhat you were just saying, I was
like yes to that. And 10, we cocreate together in a way that
honors us both and, and sees thelight and the shadow side of
both things. Because there's athere's an element of freedom,

(01:13:03):
when I'm just expressing mysoul's fingerprints. And I'm not
asking myself will my audiencelike this or not, I'm not like
censoring myself based on what Ithink the audience may or may
not be okay with or what theywould prefer. I'm just giving
myself permission to be me,embody me, express me share me,

(01:13:24):
and then I'm trusting thatpeople who want to be my
audience will, like they willchoose to become part of my
audience, because what I'msharing resonates with them in
some way, whether somebodylistening is like, you know

(01:13:44):
what, I want to fall in lovewith my hairy legs too. Or if
they're like, yucky, I wouldnever want to do that. But that
inspires me about this otherthing that I kind of wish I felt
differently about. And now I canimagine a path forward to
intentionally changing that formyself if I want to. And so
that's, that's where I'm comingfrom.

Amy (01:14:07):
I love that. And I have to just insert into the
conversation, because we are yinand yang on many things. My legs
have been laser hair removal,

Unknown (01:14:18):
which of course they have been, because you are
embracing hairy legs. So whywould I not embrace the exact
opposite and totally valid path?

Lauren (01:14:29):
Exactly. Well, and if you if you if, if we imagine if
I had been 20 something and myhusband had said, Oh, I thought
you preferred your legs withouthair. And if I had been like,
you know what I do? I preferthem without hair. Let's laser
remove the hair, and then I canhave what I want all the time.
That could have me, you know,yeah, but in that that was the

(01:14:51):
beginning of me being like, Idon't think this is my deepest
truth, actually.

Amy (01:14:57):
Well, and if I have to look at it, if I live to more deeply.
I will say that I have notchallenged the paradigm of women
being hairy or not being hairy.
There's cultural judgment. AndI'm operating within that
indoctrination for sure. Well,it's funny.

Lauren (01:15:16):
Yeah. to I want to say I want to make it very clear that
there's a very strong me too,because armpit hair, I feel like
either I am naturally disgustedby it, or I'm so conditioned and
so indoctrinated about my armpithair, that I'm not even in a
place where I desire, like adifferent option for that. So

(01:15:40):
like I'm not and there, thereare women who've embraced all of
their body hair. And I thinkthat's fantastic. There are
women who prefer themselveshairless, or have embraced
hairlessness or all thedifferent things. And my
intention in sharing my specifictruth is to honor and validate

(01:16:04):
all specific truths by treatingmine as equally valid as
everyone else's. That's myintention. But sometimes it
doesn't come across that way.
And that's one of the thingsthat I learned from interacting
with you. And when you wouldgive me the feedback that would
awaken me to the fact that inthat moment, I was speaking as
if the actual truth for everyoneis my truth. And I would be

(01:16:26):
like, Oh, crap, that's the thingthat I'm trying to learn how to
not do you know?

Amy (01:16:34):
Yeah, well, and it's interesting, the theme of have
to versus want to comes up yetagain. Because what you are
inviting us to do is to justlook at why we're doing
something. And if we're doing itfrom a half to place, because we
have, because we have it thatculture says society says norms,

(01:16:57):
say, versus whether we're intouch with our own preference
about it, when we're coming froma half two place, that's not a
powerful place. That's not anaware place. But as we as I go
through my life now, and I'msure there's a million that I
haven't unpacked yet, but littleby little I'm awakening to the
have tos and the indoctrinationand the beliefs that I collapsed

(01:17:21):
with truths, and getting freedomand choice, which that is what
we want for people like thewhole point of, and for
ourselves, by the way, like, Iwant it, you got to start with
yourself. This is one of thething I was just talking with my
sister who also doestransformational work. And,
gosh, you got to be doing it foryourself, too. So we're

(01:17:43):
awakening, inviting other peopleinto a conversation about
awakening. And a big part of itis me waking up to all of the
half twos and where they camefrom and making free or choices
about those things.

Lauren (01:17:59):
Yeah, absolutely. And me too. And you know, if we want to
land to this plane for now,because of time, and maybe
consider a part two, whetherthat happens in a year or in the
near future, because I knowthere are things on our outline
that we didn't get to.

Amy (01:18:15):
And it's all perfect, right? Not the things that
wanted to raise their hand andget a hold on today.

Lauren (01:18:20):
They didn't come up today, but and I just feel like
this is such a beautiful placeto possibly close. Because what
I want, what I feel called toname in this moment is my
tendency to hear someone saysomething, and to interpret it a

(01:18:41):
certain way. So for example, ifI heard someone else say, I was
mad that I had been taught todislike the hair on my legs, and
I changed my relationship withmy hairy legs, I would
automatically imagine that thesame would go for their armpit
hair, that's what I would have,I would be like, Oh, they have

(01:19:04):
obviously made peace with all oftheir body hair, because that's
what they're sent talking aboutin this moment. And one of the
things that's so beautiful forme about you then saying, Wow, I
love your leg hair story,Lauren, and here I am to share
something different. I had myleg hair laser hair removed. And
then that reminds me and yousaid, you know, I'm still either

(01:19:28):
subscribing to this paradigm, ormaybe that was my preference, or
maybe I'm not sure because Ihaven't fully explored that
specific thing in that way. Butit reminds me to say, Oh, and by
the way, everyone I still am,you know, pretty disgusted by my
own armpit hair. And so I removethat on a regular basis. And I
haven't chosen to change that.
And I could choose to believe inthis moment. It's because I

(01:19:52):
preferred to put that time andeffort in with my legs and not
with me. My armpits or I likehair on my legs. I don't like it
on my armpits or I don't know, Idon't even know I'm not even
here to say I know for sure. I'mjust here to share what I'm
experiencing. And I like tryingto do it in a balanced way and

(01:20:13):
trying to disrupt the tendencythat I have, and that I imagine
other people also have here I amimagining an audience. Like I
imagine other people might makean assumption if they hear one
part of someone's story. And soone of my desires in sharing
contradictory seeming parts ofmyself contradictory seeming

(01:20:38):
parts of my story, is to disruptthat assumption that if I'm this
way, then I'm this way in everycategory, because it's just not
true for me.

Amy (01:20:52):
Beautiful, I love it. I love co creating with you, we
have to do a whole separateepisode on spiritual
partnerships, because that isthe thing that is just jumping
out from the list of topics wecontemplated sharing today. That
could be its whole, I mean, girllike it will could be more than

(01:21:14):
an episode, Gary Zhukov wrote awhole book about it. And so we
will, I would love to preparethat with you and bring more
unspiritual partnerships to toour audience, because this is
one of the most meaningfulspiritual partnerships I've ever
had. And I am just so gratefulfor you.

Lauren (01:21:36):
And I'm so so grateful for you and every time you
because one of the things aboutyou, Amy that I love. By the
way, I think we shared this in aprevious episode, but my
nickname for Amy is Amy zing,because I think he's amazing.
But I always that's what Istarted saying in my head, and I
started typing it out. Amy zing,amazing. And I you know, one of

(01:21:59):
the amazing things about you,Amy is you're so kind and so
generous. And you see the beautyin other people and you
articulate it you share. I mean,this year partnering with Amy
all this is what partnering withAmy is like partnering with Amy
is like partnering with someonewho's going to see all of your
beauty and amazingness and tellyou about it all the time. Tell

(01:22:19):
the audience about it all thetime, like and I learned this
from Lauren. And isn't Lauren soamazing. Let's listen to her
talk about this. And I'm like,Amy, you are so amazing. Do you
not know how amazing you are?
Maybe they should listen to youtalk some more. And but I you
know, I'm at a point where I waslike, I'm gonna embrace this
rather than push it away. Right?

(01:22:41):
So there's a part of me going,stop saying how amazing I am
people are gonna expect thingsfor me, this is scary, you know.
But also, I want to point out toyou that like, you're like,
whatever you see in otherpeople, you recognize it because
it also exists in you. So allthe amazingness that you see and

(01:23:02):
others and that you name andshare and reflect back to them
also exists in you, which is whyyou're a amazing to me. And I
just love getting to like COcreate with you and reflect that
to each other. So thank you.

Amy (01:23:23):
And thank you dear listeners, we do have an
audience. Appreciate you somuch. This has been an amazing
two year journey and a year withLauren and we love you guys.
We're just honored that youspend your time with us. And
we're looking forward to anotheryear of of co creation,

(01:23:47):
including talking aboutspiritual partnerships at some
point soon.

Lauren (01:23:50):
Yay. I can't wait.

Amy (01:23:53):
Thank you guys.

Lauren (01:23:54):
Thanks