December 20, 2023 • 53 mins
As the primary caretaker for her dying parents, Nita Baum was not only aware of her grief, but also how she was being transformed. Jenn talks with Nita about what true well-being looks like, and how pain and trauma can be a portal to wholeness, choice, and freedom – as well as connect us to the capacity and unawakened potential that already exists within ourselves.
Guest Bio: Read more about Nita here
Guest Location: Vancouver, Canada - by way of New York City, US
Resource from Nita’s Journey:
- b*free– Nita’s consultancy; transforming "Workplaces to Healingspaces"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hi everyone, it's Jen Nguyen here.
Welcome to this episode of theHigh Note Healing Inspirations
from Life, where today we talkto Nita Baum about well-being
caregiving and how healingleadership happens from the
inside out.
Nita is one of the brightestlights I know.
She is the founder of Be Free,a consultancy that helps
(00:41):
mission-driven organizationstransform workplaces into
healing spaces.
Nita is also a leadership coach, the founding board president
of a renewable energy nonprofitand, despite having just met her
during the pandemic, she isundeniably one of my soul
friends.
You can read Nita's full bio inthe show notes and I'll just
(01:03):
say this conversation with Nitais deep.
There are levels to it.
You'll hear stories aboutNita's experiences caregiving
for both of her parents beforethey passed away, nita's take on
love and gratitude and herframework for healing leadership
in today's complex andchallenging world.
(01:24):
So this conversation is notonly deep, it's expansive and
hopeful.
Let's get started.
Hi, I'm so excited for today'sguest.
I'll let you introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Thank you, jen, for having me.
My name is Nita Baume and I amthe founder of an organization
called Be Free.
Our vision is transformingworkplaces to healing spaces and
I would say the organizationencapsulates my own purpose in
(02:05):
the world.
Our body of work is healingleadership and I'd say my
purpose is to be an embodyhealing leadership in every
moment, in every interaction, inevery place that I'm in.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I have experienced that with you, nita many times,
thank you.
What is a deeply held value ofyours, and when did you first
learn about it or realize itmattered to you?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The value that comes to the fore is well-being, which
feels deeply connected to thepurpose that I shared, and it's
interesting, like I think aboutvalues as what we actually live
and practice and embody, and Ifind myself inclusive of this
(03:03):
space, just walking into everyspace I walk into with this kind
of invocation which is to leaveeach space I've entered more
well than when I entered it,when did you first realize, as
far as you can remember, howmuch that mattered to you?
(03:23):
It definitely feels like it's anongoing realization and I'll
start with now and then trackback.
But this year, throughout theadventurousness of this year,
it's really been atransformative year of many
initiations and in the form ofencounterances with new people,
(03:47):
new cultures, new perspectiveson existing cultures.
And as I've been dancingthrough that experience, it
occurred to me at some pointthat to embody what I espouse
meant focusing on one thing.
And it occurred to me I don'tthink about things as much in
(04:09):
terms of outcomes or goals ormetrics.
But this year I was like I'mgoing to use all of that
language.
I have one goal, one outcomeI'm seeking and one measure, one
metric by which I'm assessingthat.
And it's all well-being and, asI say that about myself, the
experience of myself as being avehicle of interconnectedness to
(04:34):
all that is connected.
That's the experience I have ofmyself.
As I say that, while it isfocused on what we think of as
the self, it is very much aboutcommitting to and embodying that
experience of well-beingthrough and in the connectedness
to all things.
And when I go back, I definitelygo back to my childhood, from
(05:00):
quite a young age, aconsciousness, I think, this
really deep appreciation for therelationship between our
well-being and our potential.
It was like the culture of ourhouse, our home, the place I
grew up in in New York, and itwas very much.
I would say it was connected toboth of my parents.
(05:21):
It was like my mom articulatedit.
My mom communicated it and oneof the forms she communicated it
in was there was a simple formof what you take in is what you
become and what you take insources, what you put out in the
world, aka what you create,like food that you take in.
(05:43):
She meant it in all ways.
So it was this deep practice ofmindfulness.
In what music are you listeningto?
What people are you friendswith and in relationship with?
What are you saying to yourself?
What are you studying?
What are you eating?
Where are you and what are youtaking in from where you are?
(06:05):
Yeah, the profundity of thatlesson has continued to be
generative and blossom andmushroom in ways that I could
not have imagined as I waslearning those lessons and
gaining that perspective asquite a young child three, four,
five.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, because I was going to ask did you think it
was cool when she was sayingthat, or were you like, get off
my back, give me some space whenshe?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
was like eat some squash because you know it's
going to give you an amino acidyou need.
I was like no, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Thanks mom.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
But it's a really interesting question because
when I tune into that moment,the resistance I felt to the
squash specifically, what Iremember actually was this is so
interesting there were ways Ihad resistance to what she was
sharing in a material sense,like in what I was actually
(07:09):
going to do, but I think therewere so many ways in which who I
was, my being, my spiritualself, my soul self, just was
really absorbing what she wassaying and finding it resonance.
It's like making it my own,yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Because I was going to ask were you tucking it away?
Was there a metamorphosis thatwas happening within you?
You were doing something withit to receive it or live it out
more fully?
Or did it just stay off to theside and then come back to you
in the form of a oneness andinterconnectedness that I hear
so deeply and feel so deeply inall that you are now?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I think what I was doing with it, as you know, even
at a young age I had a strongsense of self, which what I mean
by that is the orientation tobe introspective and to have a
deep relationship with my innerworld was very alive.
For me, it was a place of bothsanctuary and discovery.
Right, I could travel to placesI had never been, in my inner
(08:18):
world and was like deep space,and it was deep, you know.
And so what I feel was happeningwas I was being resourced by
her wisdom and her guidance,which I then took into my inner
space.
But the resistance was like I'mnot going to express this in
your way, I'm going to find mine.
(08:40):
I'm going to find my uniqueexpression of how to take that
wisdom, that guidance and what Ithink of today as filter it
through my own spine, which isboth this for me it's about my
actual embodiment, like I feelmy spine, and it's a reference
to psychosomatics and some ofthe science and the disciplines
(09:03):
I've drawn like the spine asthis channel that is really
receptive and sensitive towhat's coming in.
But I also think of it as thislike you can stack your spine,
you can straighten your spine,which to me feels like
connecting to yourself moredeeply, like.
Sometimes I think of it as likecan I lean against my own spine
(09:25):
?
If I can't lean againstsomething else, can I lean
against my own spine?
An alignment right With myself,right, and so it's this way of
working with wisdom and guidance.
It's freedom.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Ooh, how so?
Because someone might hearspine and think rigidity, and
maybe I'm just revealing somethings about where I am in my
healing journey that I'm likegotta be ready, gotta be
hyper-vigilant, gotta be, youknow.
Clearly, fighter flights takenover at various points in my
(10:00):
life, but you know, my mindcould go to rigidity.
And then I hear you say freedom, and I wonder how it connects
to trust in self.
Being aligned with self invitesa liberation that I might not
otherwise have had access to.
So yeah, why freedom from thespine?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Okay, I'll go material first.
I'll say so.
The spine, like what's sobeautiful to me about it as a
feature of our bodies, is itstensile Right.
When you align your spinethere's so much mobility in it.
Part of its strength comes fromits mobility and its
(10:43):
flexibility and to honor thewisdom of a state of rigidity as
an integral part of ourexperience.
So when I say it's tensile,it's tensile and it's mobile,
but part of what it can hold isrigidity Right.
So it's this dynamic spectrumof like, rigidity or softness,
but it's the dynamism acrossthat spectrum that makes it
(11:07):
tensile Right, as opposed tobrittle.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It's an option that I can choose.
It's not the only option.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Absolutely, and that, just what you said, connects to
that sense of freedom.
Which is to say I think therehave been times in my own life,
and particularly leadershipjourney, like I was reflecting
on this today.
I was in positions ofleadership from a very young age
(11:37):
, like sixth grade, when I gotelected class president and
didn't run.
I went home to my dad and I waslike what's up with democracy?
Because I wasn't even on theballot.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
But it's it's funny to remember.
That's bad ass, Nita.
The people wanted you thatbadly.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Oh, the people.
I love the 12 year old people.
So my leadership journey wasone of finding myself like
having this experience of peoplerecognizing in me something
about my leadership, but alsofeeling like I was in positions
(12:20):
of leadership and was underresourced for so long that made
me want to not be responsible,like not be accountable.
It's like it didn't feel likethe support matched the mandate
of what it was I was responsiblefor or going to deliver on.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It's like in math, balance both sides of the
equation.
Well, this equation ain'tbalanced.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
No, I'm not up for the leadership formula that
y'all wrote Totally, totally andI think for a long time, like I
was oriented to see, I lookedoutside of myself right as I was
making that assessment, and Ithink the value of that was
being able to see the complexityof systems Like there's there's
(13:09):
merit to looking, or it made meastute about where there were
gaps in systems.
Like how do we, how do wedevelop leaders, like people
find themselves in positions ofauthority right With with
enormous I was, you know, 27overseeing a massive portfolio
of projects that were going toimpact many students and
(13:32):
families lives and I had a lotof leadership capability, but
I've also felt I was like I feltthe weight of that
responsibility.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And and this, this was as a consultant to education
systems departments ofeducation.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
This was at the New York City Department of
Education where I worked, sothat was after consulting to
them.
I worked, I worked there and sobeing able to look externally
helped me make this calculus onthe complexity of systems where
there were gaps.
How do we equip people to lead?
How do we unleash people'screative potential and
(14:11):
capacitate them to be thefullness of who they need to be,
when, when they're in positionsthat impact many people?
And as I progressed through mycareer, and particularly after I
left institutions, the work,the work of leaving institutions
, was incredibly transformativefor me.
It was like, okay, I'm free ofthe institutions.
(14:34):
That was.
That was like an earlydefinition of freedoms.
Like I'm out, drop the mic, I'mout.
But once I was out, what I foundmyself in was an deep
encounterance with myself.
I was like, okay, well, I'm nolonger looking at institutions
and being like we're doing thatcalculus about the complexity
(14:57):
and where the gaps are andwhat's needed and the
misalignment To the clear pointabout resources to mandate
Completely.
Then it was like, oh, this workis an inner game, like I'm now
responsible for.
I started a consulting practice.
I was like I'm now responsiblefor this and the place I need to
look as I understand andnavigate my own learning and
(15:18):
growth and leadership is within,and that was really
illuminating because it alsocast an understanding for me
about what I will describe aslike that responsibility theme I
was describing.
What does it look like to beself-responsible, to be
accountable and to source powerand authority in anything else
(15:42):
you want to call it from within?
And once I found myselflocating much of that external
understanding within the systemand the complexity of myself my
body is complex, adaptive systemRight Is how I see it.
It's like once I was doing thatfrom within, I started finding
(16:04):
the blocks to my own freedom andliberation and the pathways
simultaneously.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Okay, I'm hearing.
Leadership happens from theinside out.
Healing happens from the insideout.
Maybe connected to healing isremoving the blockages, filling
the gaps, achieving thewholeness and the alignment
happens from the inside out.
So that makes me curious aboutmoments when you healed yourself
(16:37):
, when you got closer to thewholeness that we all have
access to.
Is there a moment in yourhealing journey that was a
catalyst?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
So, just as I was founding Be Free and Be Free was
coming to life, my parents wereleaving it In response to was
there a moment?
There were so many moments inmy journey of being a caregiver
to both of my parents as theywere dying.
(17:12):
I source from it today.
There were so many moments thatI keep sourcing from it today
and anew.
It was one of the mostpowerfully whole system
transformations, transformativeexperiences I've ever had in my
(17:33):
life.
It casts time in a reallyinteresting construct because
I'm like, am I still having thatexperience?
In many ways, what I will sayis and as you were reflecting
back to me some of the languageI used just a couple minutes ago
, it was illuminating for meabout the narratives we have
(17:57):
about wounds, trauma and healingand the language that we use
today and, I think, the ongoingdevelopment of language that we
can all be in the co-creation of, to deepen our understanding
and our capability around thiswhole body of healing.
(18:21):
The quick story I'll tell isjust at the inception of the
process.
It was 2013 that I founded BeFree and that was also when my
parents I would describe it asthis last phase of their lives
began.
I went home one day because mymom called me and my dad had I
(18:46):
think he had been having manyseizures so he had fallen off
the bed.
I went home and he was lying onthe ground and my dad was about
six feet tall, weighs 170pounds I'm like five-four and
(19:06):
probably about 102 pounds.
So get home and my dad's lyingon the floor and I ask him I'm
like, dad, do you think you'reable to stand up?
He's kind of coming too.
Do you think you can make itback to the bed?
(19:27):
He looks at me and he says,yeah, I think so.
I'm looking at him and I'mthinking I don't think so.
But I so appreciated his agencyin that moment I felt so
conscious of it and I was like,let's do this.
So he starts to try to get upand he can't.
(19:47):
I had this moment where Ilooked at him and I lifted him
up and put him on the bed.
In that moment it was like thisglass shattered and any
resistance I had to being thecaregiver or switching roles.
(20:08):
In a sense I was the independentkid who went off to live in
other countries and be free fora reason, but with that I had
the experience, of course, of myparents taking care of me, but
I had that sense of independenceconcurrently.
But in this moment where therewas that kind of glass
(20:30):
shattering of resistance, therewas this instantaneous awareness
of a new sense of purpose andmeaning in my life.
I was like I am here for this.
And I think now, as I see thatmoment, what it illuminates for
me is how quickly our facultiesand capacities come online in
(20:53):
response to what we describe ascrisis, trauma or wounds, what
we describe as bad things, asbad things, what we judge as bad
things, and yet right, andthat's exactly the point about
language.
And yet I discovered a kind ofstrength, a potential and a
(21:16):
sense of purpose in that moment,as quickly as a glass shatters.
So how do we judge the wound,the difficulty as the problem?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
When it produces such generative, positive, almost I
was going to say capacities, butit's almost a connection to the
capacities that were there andwe just weren't breaking through
the glass to reach out and grabthem.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yes, so that is my take on what healing is and what
wholeness is.
It exists already.
And that inner work I wasdescribing and the whole period,
the whole evolution with myparents, just felt like one
encounterance after another withmy own orientation to judge, to
(22:03):
make myself small, to fear, toidentify and over identify with
pain, with loss, with what wasbad, and most of it was like
seeing that in myself, justseeing what came up.
And I had this moment, aboutthree months into that
experience, where I think I hadsnapped at someone.
And it's not really my way, notthese days.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Sometimes the New Yorker comes out.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Sometimes it comes out for sure it's definitely in
there.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
But only on the subway.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Oh man, the subway has a big playground of humanity
.
It's like when you listen tobartenders talk about what they
observe.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Who walked into the bar Totally, it's like that who
walked onto my five trainCompletely D train Seven train.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Oh, what a joy to dance with this life.
So that day when I snapped atsomeone, it woke me up.
It's like again, this encounteris in myself.
I was like, oh, I just did that.
I said that and the firstperson who I snapped at I was
like that's not fair.
And it made me pause and askmyself the question of who do I
want to be?
(23:21):
And when I was asking it it waslike a present moment question,
but it occurred to me that thatwas like this portal to
actually what I'm saying is whodo I want to be, with what I
already understand to be a verysignificant process in my life?
That's just beginning and Icould almost I could feel its
(23:43):
length.
I could feel the journeyalready and the response to that
question was I don't want to bean asshole, but part two came
right Like part two came, and Ikept asking myself that question
who do I want to be?
And it was a really powerfulinquiry.
I think it was also part of mydiscovery of my own purpose.
(24:05):
One of the responses in thatphase was what if I could hold
space for this to be the bestphase of my parents' life?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I'm blown away by the bigness of love in that
question.
To me it's another shatteringof a ceiling.
Talk about love conquers all.
I mean that just engulfedeverything that could have been
negative.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I was such a blessing , jen, it was such an invitation
to be present every day withthe opportunity of this
incredibly potent phase, thisincredibly potent transmission
that was happening every time Iheld my dad 's hand or looked at
my mom's eyes or sang to her,listened to her.
It left me with this experienceof appreciation and
(24:57):
friendliness and trust in thevicissitudes and the crazy waves
of the difficulties, thechallenges, the discomforts, the
pains and what we consider tobe the flip side of that the joy
of the high moments, thediscovery, the launching pad,
(25:20):
the fulfillment of purpose, theawareness of how vast your
capacities are.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I'm so struck by how it's all one which I guess goes
back to what you told us aboutwell-being that you had one goal
, one metric for success, onedesired outcome, that it is all
one your well-being is the otherperson's well-being is my
(25:48):
well-being.
And I'm hearing that your painand your loss which I, when you
first started speaking, I wasgoing to say I'm sorry for, but
the words didn't come out andit's because they were
incomplete.
What I think I'm hearing yousay, nita, is that your pain and
your loss and your challengewhen your parents transitioned
(26:09):
from this life was also yourportal to your purpose and so
many other powerful things.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yes, and in this moment I'm just.
I'm feeling deep gratitude forthe community of people and
caregivers who were galvanizedaround and encircling my parents
through that process, asanother expression of how we
encounter our collectivewholeness in the face of what we
(26:40):
experience as difficult andthis is not to diminish or
dishonor that as humans we willexperience it as difficult and
the possibility of how we cantap into our freedom, our
potential to choose how weengage with what we encounter.
This is very enlivening to me.
(27:01):
Can I say something there?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Please Thank you for saying that, because while you
were speaking in the last fewminutes, I was hearing duality
of both and so I wasn't hearingyou.
Diminish the pain, thedifficulty.
I was hearing honor both, as Ihear you speak more.
I'm hearing that when I allowmyself to feel all of the things
(27:27):
.
There is a complexity there andit's not two dimensional, it's
probably not even threedimensional, and that, in that
complexity, is the choice, ismore than one option, many more
options than we could know, andthat's where the freedom is.
Thank you, jen.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I think you're an embodiment about what you just
described, so hold up mutualgratitude.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
You're thanking me for summarizing the knowledge
that you just dropped.
Tell that worth, nita, why I'mchecking for my understanding of
the immense wisdom you justdropped and you're thanking me,
(28:14):
yes, and Thank you forhighlighting that this is an
example of the many things youteach me, down to the embodiment
that you're claiming I am.
My foray into somatics andembodiment practices and
learning came from aconversation with you a few
(28:36):
years ago, and, in fact, Istarted taking Pilates this year
as another dimension to add tomy understanding around
embodiment, and my amazingPilates instructor, jay, is on
this podcast this season.
Wow, hey, jay, thank you, and Ilearned so much with him and
(28:58):
through my embodiment work, andso I want to put a pin in a poem
that came through me quitefrankly, I wouldn't even say it
came from me after a particularPilates session that I had with
Jay, and that has been avirtuous cycle that you set in
motion years ago.
So all of this is to sayimmense gratitude for you, and
(29:22):
I'll come back to the poem thatcame through me as a result of
the embodiment work that youmade me curious to start.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I feel this immense potential in how we can use joy
and a sense of possibility, play, expansion, fun, adventure, awe
right as catalysts fortransformation.
(29:53):
Like that challenging period Iwent through with my parents
that awakened me to capacitiesand faculties that I didn't even
know existed in the universeperiod in people, in potential,
much less in myself.
I have deep gratitude to what Iexperienced, this challenge and
it's not the only way RightLike once we become conscious of
(30:16):
our own creative potential,which I think is very connected
to our well-being.
The more well we are, the morewe're accessing our creative
potential and wellness.
To honor the diversity of whowe are is defined by each of us.
I can't tell you what being wellmeans to you.
I can just tell you what thatis to me.
So, honoring that relationshipbetween well-being and creative
(30:38):
potential and how theypotentially each other is like
this is also where I thinkthere's this expansive
possibility for us to open ourminds cross-culturally and to
look at people who we have,they've just been left out of
our awareness or who areinvisible because they're in the
Amazon or they're in placesthat feel remote to us, based on
(31:02):
our perspective, and that,through the development of our
cultures, we have learned tocreate a hierarchy of human
value right, Someone's lesserbecause ABC, and what would it
look like as we do that internalhealing to create greater
wholeness and greaterinclusivity internally, which is
(31:24):
why let's do it with joy andfun and dance and play, which is
also what many of the cultureswe've excluded from our sense of
who a leader is actually do andhave been sourcing from.
And just for context, you'retalking about how we define
leadership here in the UnitedStates In the United States In
mainland In mainland, what wecall the Western world and I
(31:47):
think there are probably manythreads of that that also are
global right, Whether they wereinfluenced by the States or are
inherent in what I think is anatural human proclivity to
create hierarchy between us,hierarchies of value.
I think that's a shared thingand I think it's actually been
(32:08):
expressed in particular ways.
So that's like part one on thehealing leadership.
Part two is leaders need to behealed.
Leaders need to be well.
That statement is just likeperiod Leaders needs to be well.
Humans need to be well andleaders are humans, so leaders
(32:30):
need to be well and you knowthere's that added
dimensionality of like at workthat work and wellbeing can be
mutually reinforcing and we'vebuilt ourselves on a premise
where we've got to sacrifice orconsume wellbeing in order to
work.
But that feels verycounterintuitive to me when I
think the whole, a whole way wecould understand why we work, is
(32:52):
to be well financially, withour friends and our family, is
like holistically in our lives.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like a sustainable strategy to
have work, consume our capacityto work.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It's like a cannibalizing strategy.
It eats itself up a little bitand then there is in the vein of
our evolution together,collectively, leaders need to be
able to hold space for thehealing and wellbeing of their
people, the people we are incommunity with.
(33:31):
We are leading, we areimpacting.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Anyone who's orchestrating, inviting,
catalyzing that togetherness,that wholesome communion, has to
be sourcing from anincreasingly whole place within
themselves to create theenvironment, the conditions, the
space that would enable us todo that together.
(33:54):
And how virtuous that cycle iswhen it happens.
I'm thinking of the bell hooksquote healing is an act of
communion.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And there are two frames we use in our work.
One is that you were speakingto earlier when you were talking
about your embodiment.
One is how do we capture thewholeness of a person and the
idea of body-mind as ecosystemin some way that's accessible
and usable and pragmatic?
Because, though I love to dancein philosophy and spiritual
(34:26):
realm and big picture thinking,I also feel that small is big,
which is another way of sayinglike let's get real and
pragmatic about how we translatethe immense and vast potential
of our own healing intosomething livable day to day,
that we can do so.
With that we have a frame thatwe use, which is we are beings
(34:49):
who think, sense and feel, sowe're not over-indexing on the
Cartesian view of I think.
Therefore I am, but actuallyit's all of those dimensions
that contain within them anintelligence that, once tapped,
can connect us to a more wholepotential within us.
(35:09):
So the embodiment piece as youwere describing your experience
of Pilates and as I've been inrelationship with you, jen, like
the experience I've had of youthinking, sensing and feeling,
and how online those dimensionsof you are and the ways they
(35:30):
dance together, and also myinvitation to people as you're
listening to that frame is like.
Use it in your decision making.
Use it to check where yoursensing may have intelligence
for you, where you're thinkingmay not right, or where you're
feeling may offer you a windowinto another way of knowing than
(35:51):
you are typically used toknowing and in so doing, expand
the versatility of your tool setto navigate your life and the
complexity of your life.
So that's that's think, sense,feel.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
And I get an example of how the think, sense, feel
framework impacted a decision ofyours for the better.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Oh yeah, that's a great question.
I want to go back.
I want to go back to thatperiod with my, with my parents.
That's what's most present.
So I'll do that.
I'll.
I'll share my response in theform of a of a story.
But there was a day I wassitting between my parents.
They were both in their beds.
It was a few months after mydad had a stroke, so he wasn't,
(36:37):
he couldn't speak much.
So we were communicating inother ways and I was sitting
between them opening the mail.
Because I had so manyresponsibilities, I had like
taken over their lives, right.
So I was.
I was in this space where I wastrying to manage all these
different aspects of their livesand just like bring it and do
it well.
So I was sitting there as astack of mail, going through
(36:58):
each piece of mail, and then allof a sudden I kind of like
tuned into.
So I was thinking, right, likeI was thinking about what I was
reading and what bill needed tobe paid and so on.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
And then all of a sudden can be all consuming.
I say this as a a long distancecaregiver.
Damian and I together.
Once you take on theresponsibility of keeping
someone's life together, alldimensions of it, it really can
consume you.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And you experienced that as a parent too, I imagine
In many ways, yup, yeah.
And then I had this sense and Ideveloped more of a
relationship to my, to myability to sense things at that
point, I think, very muchthrough the experience.
So.
So I kind of paused for asecond and I was like, what is
(37:46):
this sense?
And then I just checked in withmyself and almost before I
could pinpoint the feeling I washaving, which was starting to
come as like wow, like thismoment is really precious.
What arose was this reallyclear and loud inner voice that
said put down the mail and holdyour dad's hand.
(38:08):
Whoa.
From inside of you, from fromaround me, I don't know.
I just know it was very loud,very potent.
It like landed its mark and Iliterally dropped the mail and I
held my dad's hand and a monthlater he passed and I held his
hand every day for the next 30days the wisdom in that voice,
(38:36):
the connection in that voice,the oneness and the love in you
to listen and act upon thatvoice, even when you couldn't
fully understand it for your dad.
And it makes me think it waspattern disruption.
Right, my pattern was to try tothink my way through the
(39:01):
challenge Ain't gonna work, notgonna work, not gonna work right
, and certainly not incomplexity either.
And to pull the lens back uplike take the eagle eye view on
this moment and what we'reliving through and the great
changes, the great uncertaintythat many of us feel, again with
(39:24):
that view of like how is all ofthat an opportunity to get in
touch with thinking, sensing andfeeling and I'm not dissing
thinking, like thinking has aplace right, it's a matter of
we've indexed on it, we've builtit many of us, and it's
different for everybody, butjust recognize the thing like we
(39:44):
have access to all of them.
What happens when we tune inand tap into them?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I'm struck by the alignment that you're proposing.
As the challenges in our livesand the world we live in become
more complex, we need to listenmore complexly.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
I don't even know if that's a word Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
We need to see more nuance, we need to feel sense.
Think I probably said that inthe wrong order excuse me, it's
perfect, it's perfect.
In a way that matches thechallenge at hand.
If the challenge isthree-dimensional, we can't be
(40:27):
two-dimensional.
If the challenges feel beyondthree-dimensional, so all around
us, that three dimensions can'teven capture it, then the way
we take in information andunderstand it and relate to it
and wrap our head, hearts andbeing around it so that we can
do something and move forwardhas to have at least that much
(40:47):
complexity too.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
And not only do we need to, but this is the
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Oh, I see what you did there.
This is my thing, yes, andRight.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
This is my thing about healing.
It's like what becomesaccessible to us in what we
describe as our most challengingand difficult moments is that
potential.
It's the unawakened potentialand it's the same thing that
becomes most available to uswhen we're most joyful.
It's not actually different.
(41:20):
It's like the most qualityright.
The superlative quality of ithas a lot to do with the
accessibility that it's like.
It's right there when I'mfeeling overwhelmed, like I
can't, and I feel disempoweredor ashamed.
Shame as this very powerful rootemotion.
(41:40):
There's an invitation there to.
It's like the shame is present,it's visible, it's palpable in
a way that it's not usually so.
What is that?
That's an opportunity.
It's an opportunity to workwith it and our systems have
that capacity our body, mindsystems and we need each other
right.
We need support, we need care,we need coaching, we need
(42:02):
therapy, we need all of the waysthat we resource ourselves
externally to help facilitateand awareness of that capacity
within.
But the capacity's within andit is so ripe for showing itself
or for doing its thing in thatvery moment.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Wow so, in the height of our most of our hardest
moments, whether that's shame,whether that's overwhelm, fear,
et cetera, there's an invitationto get curious about how much
more I'm capable of than Icurrently or previously knew, to
get curious about anotherperspective.
(42:43):
I could take on this veryexperience, and if I can do that
with others or in community orin communion, it will amplify,
enable, maybe even accelerate myability to shift perspective
see what I couldn't see before,feel what I couldn't feel before
(43:04):
.
Sense, think, do be what Iwasn't previously accessing.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
That is right and trust right.
Like the other really key facetof this for me is trust.
It's like having a practice.
For me, the way it shows up isa practice of trust and I
articulate it as like whatevercomes my way, whatever the
(43:32):
unfolding is, I trust that it isfor me, it is for us all, it is
an opportunity to learn andgrow and work with the
intelligence of that.
And as I share that, like Ishare all of this with great
humility, I leave in thevastness of the unknown and I
(43:52):
stand very humble in the face ofit.
These are invitations toexperiment right With what
resonates, or perhaps even withwhat doesn't resonate, and try
it on.
And to your point aboutcuriosity, like, see what opens
up for you.
But I will say personally, thepractice of trust and in my work
with people it's a reallypowerful one for that alignment
(44:17):
we were talking about Yep.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
you're making the spine come back to mind for me.
Absolutely.
Why do you want to heal Nita?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
It's the most joyful thing I could think of.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Because it's fun.
It's fun.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
It's fun, healing is fun, it's learning, it's
demanding.
In the ways that feel like, areresponsive for me to the
question of like, what do I wantto do with this one precious
life?
It's invigorating and I lovepeople, I love nature, I love
(45:02):
the opportunity of being alive,I'm, like, profoundly grateful
for it and love and gratitudefeel very intertwined for me and
I love our potential, like Ialways describe.
You know, seven years old in1984, watching the Olympics,
just like glued to our littlebusted television set where the
(45:23):
antenna is.
We were always moving theantenna to try to get the signal
.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
And the cord didn't quite reach far enough.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Absolutely Totally.
You're doing the dance with it,right, and that was like an
early seeing, in an embodiedform, what was possible.
Right, every Olympics is likesomebody's exceeding the next
limit, but what I took from itand there's that material
distinction I made when I wastalking about my mom, like the
material and the spiritual, andI think what it was, what I was
(45:55):
seeing, was like who are we, whocan we be Like, especially
right now, right, the differencebetween quote unquote, like
winning and not the Olympics, islike it's a moment, it's
exactly this moment.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
The trust that must be present in every single one
of those competitors,participants of the game, of the
Olympic game, of the life welive, the trust that it must
take, that, though it'll be hard, it'll be worth it.
And in embarking on thisjourney and this attempt to
(46:35):
reach the highest and bestversion of myself physically,
materially, spiritually, etc.
I might blow my mind and yours.
I might reach heights we didn'tknow was possible.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
You reminded me.
You know I grew up with a lotof discipline and conversations
about, like, how do you use yourtime?
You know, don't squander yourtime.
Your time is precious.
And sometimes my parents wouldbe disparaging about play versus
study, right, and I rememberthis experience.
I had some point.
I was, I was invited to dosomething adventurous.
(47:16):
I don't remember exactly whatit was.
Might have been like cliffjumping or something.
It was good.
It was going to be like a wholeday, you know, whole journey of
adventuring.
And I and so I was coming withthis narrative, this judgment in
my head of, like, well, there's, you know, there's productive,
good things to do in the world,right.
And then there's, like, thisplay and I could see it.
(47:36):
I could see it operating in me.
But as I was on that journey,like I said, yes, I want to go
do the thing.
And as I was on the journey, Irealized I had this flashback to
, to working and to rememberinghow much I would work, from this
like intense place in myselfthat was striving and driving
(47:57):
and often fear driven andfeeling under resourced, and how
willing I was to like, really,let all of me Just drop
everything I had into thatexperience and as I was on my
way to this adventure, I waslike, hmm, so interesting how I
was willing to give so muchenergy to that.
Why can't I do it for this?
(48:18):
And that's to all my missiondriven people.
That's, that's my, that's myinvocation to your wellbeing.
Like you can bring, you canbring your energy and you will
and you do, and you can trustyourself that you're bringing it
to all the impact you'reseeking to create, to all the
healing, all the all the good,all all of what you're
(48:41):
generating.
And you are part of that andit's your choice.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
The movement for healing needs to pour into its
own healing all that it poursinto others.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
And to recognize the oneness of that and also to
bring patients and care andhonor the complexity of that
exercise.
Like as someone who works withorganizations on wellbeing, I I
honor what it's like to hold thespectrum of views that we hold
about our wellbeing, to feellike we should sacrifice, you
(49:15):
know, and we should give up ourown wellbeing, and so it's for
each of us to self lead andhonor and define how we view our
relationship to wellbeing.
But I also challenge andencourage people to mix it up,
to disrupt our own patterns.
Right, like that, that momentof like hold your dad's hand.
I'm just like patterndisruption.
(49:36):
What a teaching to me about myown patterns, about my own
habits, habitual ways of beingcollectively, like our
polarization, our habitualleanings.
They, they're singing to us,they're dancing to us for for
something really simple, right,and I'm just like do it
different.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
What different thing do you wish for others?
Different thing Do you wish foryourself as you continue your
healing journey?
Speaker 2 (50:07):
It's likely the same thing.
It is about remembering that wecome with love as much as we
come with karma, challenge,trauma, difficulty and, in my
view, the love, love is ineverything.
It's vast.
And if love, what love rightnow looks like to me joy, play,
(50:30):
adventure, music, creating it toreally embrace that as a
possibility, as an expansivepossibility and opportunity for
our growth and evolution, toreally allow that invite it, be
receptive to it.
Small ways and big, that periodfor me of learning how to dance
(50:54):
with challenge and and loss andgrief and pain made me
appreciate, like I it.
It evoked a deep appreciationfor it and it's been a process
to recognize that it was timefor evolution.
It seemed to be attached tothat to receive its gifts, to
work with what it had to offer.
(51:14):
And so the opportunity forsomething fresh and new and a
different approach, right rootedin joy and play, as accessible
and as palpable, right as as ourdifficulties will be like.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
They're both present, so using both Not easy, that's
why we got each other Not easy,but doable with each other and
worth it.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
This one precious life.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
That's why you heal.
Love is why I heal.
Oh, you know, I love me somelove.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
So much love.
Thank you, Jen.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Thank you, nita, for the opportunity.
Wow, wow, wow.
Thanks for sticking around formy love and learning reflection.
Here's the thing, though.
What am I loving and learningabout this conversation with
Nita?
Everything Talking to Nita islike the ocean Deep, expansive,
(52:19):
healing, beautiful andenergizing.
I just have to name it.
It is so hard to summarize thisvery big conversation with Nita
.
There's just so much in it andin fact, there's more.
The full recording was twohours long.
We even considered releasingtwo Nita episodes.
(52:40):
So instead of me sharing a loveand learning outro, I'm going
to do something different thistime.
I'm going to share with you mypoem that I shared with Nita in
our extended conversation.
To hear me read my poem to Nita, check out the next and last
episode of this season and ifanything resonated with you,
(53:02):
please do share this episode orany episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
Much love everyone.
Hi everyone, it's Jen Nguyen here.
Welcome to this episode of theHigh Note Healing Inspirations
from Life, where today we talkto Nita Baum about well-being
caregiving and how healingleadership happens from the
inside out.
Nita is one of the brightestlights I know.
She is the founder of Be Free,a consultancy that helps
(00:41):
mission-driven organizationstransform workplaces into
healing spaces.
Nita is also a leadership coach, the founding board president
of a renewable energy nonprofitand, despite having just met her
during the pandemic, she isundeniably one of my soul
friends.
You can read Nita's full bio inthe show notes and I'll just
(01:03):
say this conversation with Nitais deep.
There are levels to it.
You'll hear stories aboutNita's experiences caregiving
for both of her parents beforethey passed away, nita's take on
love and gratitude and herframework for healing leadership
in today's complex andchallenging world.
(01:24):
So this conversation is notonly deep, it's expansive and
hopeful.
Let's get started.
Hi, I'm so excited for today'sguest.
I'll let you introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Thank you, jen, for having me.
My name is Nita Baume and I amthe founder of an organization
called Be Free.
Our vision is transformingworkplaces to healing spaces and
I would say the organizationencapsulates my own purpose in
(02:05):
the world.
Our body of work is healingleadership and I'd say my
purpose is to be an embodyhealing leadership in every
moment, in every interaction, inevery place that I'm in.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I have experienced that with you, nita many times,
thank you.
What is a deeply held value ofyours, and when did you first
learn about it or realize itmattered to you?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The value that comes to the fore is well-being, which
feels deeply connected to thepurpose that I shared, and it's
interesting, like I think aboutvalues as what we actually live
and practice and embody, and Ifind myself inclusive of this
(03:03):
space, just walking into everyspace I walk into with this kind
of invocation which is to leaveeach space I've entered more
well than when I entered it,when did you first realize, as
far as you can remember, howmuch that mattered to you?
(03:23):
It definitely feels like it's anongoing realization and I'll
start with now and then trackback.
But this year, throughout theadventurousness of this year,
it's really been atransformative year of many
initiations and in the form ofencounterances with new people,
(03:47):
new cultures, new perspectiveson existing cultures.
And as I've been dancingthrough that experience, it
occurred to me at some pointthat to embody what I espouse
meant focusing on one thing.
And it occurred to me I don'tthink about things as much in
(04:09):
terms of outcomes or goals ormetrics.
But this year I was like I'mgoing to use all of that
language.
I have one goal, one outcomeI'm seeking and one measure, one
metric by which I'm assessingthat.
And it's all well-being and, asI say that about myself, the
experience of myself as being avehicle of interconnectedness to
(04:34):
all that is connected.
That's the experience I have ofmyself.
As I say that, while it isfocused on what we think of as
the self, it is very much aboutcommitting to and embodying that
experience of well-beingthrough and in the connectedness
to all things.
And when I go back, I definitelygo back to my childhood, from
(05:00):
quite a young age, aconsciousness, I think, this
really deep appreciation for therelationship between our
well-being and our potential.
It was like the culture of ourhouse, our home, the place I
grew up in in New York, and itwas very much.
I would say it was connected toboth of my parents.
(05:21):
It was like my mom articulatedit.
My mom communicated it and oneof the forms she communicated it
in was there was a simple formof what you take in is what you
become and what you take insources, what you put out in the
world, aka what you create,like food that you take in.
(05:43):
She meant it in all ways.
So it was this deep practice ofmindfulness.
In what music are you listeningto?
What people are you friendswith and in relationship with?
What are you saying to yourself?
What are you studying?
What are you eating?
Where are you and what are youtaking in from where you are?
(06:05):
Yeah, the profundity of thatlesson has continued to be
generative and blossom andmushroom in ways that I could
not have imagined as I waslearning those lessons and
gaining that perspective asquite a young child three, four,
five.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, because I was going to ask did you think it
was cool when she was sayingthat, or were you like, get off
my back, give me some space whenshe?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
was like eat some squash because you know it's
going to give you an amino acidyou need.
I was like no, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Thanks mom.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
But it's a really interesting question because
when I tune into that moment,the resistance I felt to the
squash specifically, what Iremember actually was this is so
interesting there were ways Ihad resistance to what she was
sharing in a material sense,like in what I was actually
(07:09):
going to do, but I think therewere so many ways in which who I
was, my being, my spiritualself, my soul self, just was
really absorbing what she wassaying and finding it resonance.
It's like making it my own,yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Because I was going to ask were you tucking it away?
Was there a metamorphosis thatwas happening within you?
You were doing something withit to receive it or live it out
more fully?
Or did it just stay off to theside and then come back to you
in the form of a oneness andinterconnectedness that I hear
so deeply and feel so deeply inall that you are now?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I think what I was doing with it, as you know, even
at a young age I had a strongsense of self, which what I mean
by that is the orientation tobe introspective and to have a
deep relationship with my innerworld was very alive.
For me, it was a place of bothsanctuary and discovery.
Right, I could travel to placesI had never been, in my inner
(08:18):
world and was like deep space,and it was deep, you know.
And so what I feel was happeningwas I was being resourced by
her wisdom and her guidance,which I then took into my inner
space.
But the resistance was like I'mnot going to express this in
your way, I'm going to find mine.
(08:40):
I'm going to find my uniqueexpression of how to take that
wisdom, that guidance and what Ithink of today as filter it
through my own spine, which isboth this for me it's about my
actual embodiment, like I feelmy spine, and it's a reference
to psychosomatics and some ofthe science and the disciplines
(09:03):
I've drawn like the spine asthis channel that is really
receptive and sensitive towhat's coming in.
But I also think of it as thislike you can stack your spine,
you can straighten your spine,which to me feels like
connecting to yourself moredeeply, like.
Sometimes I think of it as likecan I lean against my own spine
(09:25):
?
If I can't lean againstsomething else, can I lean
against my own spine?
An alignment right With myself,right, and so it's this way of
working with wisdom and guidance.
It's freedom.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Ooh, how so?
Because someone might hearspine and think rigidity, and
maybe I'm just revealing somethings about where I am in my
healing journey that I'm likegotta be ready, gotta be
hyper-vigilant, gotta be, youknow.
Clearly, fighter flights takenover at various points in my
(10:00):
life, but you know, my mindcould go to rigidity.
And then I hear you say freedom, and I wonder how it connects
to trust in self.
Being aligned with self invitesa liberation that I might not
otherwise have had access to.
So yeah, why freedom from thespine?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Okay, I'll go material first.
I'll say so.
The spine, like what's sobeautiful to me about it as a
feature of our bodies, is itstensile Right.
When you align your spinethere's so much mobility in it.
Part of its strength comes fromits mobility and its
(10:43):
flexibility and to honor thewisdom of a state of rigidity as
an integral part of ourexperience.
So when I say it's tensile,it's tensile and it's mobile,
but part of what it can hold isrigidity Right.
So it's this dynamic spectrumof like, rigidity or softness,
but it's the dynamism acrossthat spectrum that makes it
(11:07):
tensile Right, as opposed tobrittle.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It's an option that I can choose.
It's not the only option.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Absolutely, and that, just what you said, connects to
that sense of freedom.
Which is to say I think therehave been times in my own life,
and particularly leadershipjourney, like I was reflecting
on this today.
I was in positions ofleadership from a very young age
(11:37):
, like sixth grade, when I gotelected class president and
didn't run.
I went home to my dad and I waslike what's up with democracy?
Because I wasn't even on theballot.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
But it's it's funny to remember.
That's bad ass, Nita.
The people wanted you thatbadly.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Oh, the people.
I love the 12 year old people.
So my leadership journey wasone of finding myself like
having this experience of peoplerecognizing in me something
about my leadership, but alsofeeling like I was in positions
(12:20):
of leadership and was underresourced for so long that made
me want to not be responsible,like not be accountable.
It's like it didn't feel likethe support matched the mandate
of what it was I was responsiblefor or going to deliver on.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It's like in math, balance both sides of the
equation.
Well, this equation ain'tbalanced.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
No, I'm not up for the leadership formula that
y'all wrote Totally, totally andI think for a long time, like I
was oriented to see, I lookedoutside of myself right as I was
making that assessment, and Ithink the value of that was
being able to see the complexityof systems Like there's there's
(13:09):
merit to looking, or it made meastute about where there were
gaps in systems.
Like how do we, how do wedevelop leaders, like people
find themselves in positions ofauthority right With with
enormous I was, you know, 27overseeing a massive portfolio
of projects that were going toimpact many students and
(13:32):
families lives and I had a lotof leadership capability, but
I've also felt I was like I feltthe weight of that
responsibility.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And and this, this was as a consultant to education
systems departments ofeducation.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
This was at the New York City Department of
Education where I worked, sothat was after consulting to
them.
I worked, I worked there and sobeing able to look externally
helped me make this calculus onthe complexity of systems where
there were gaps.
How do we equip people to lead?
How do we unleash people'screative potential and
(14:11):
capacitate them to be thefullness of who they need to be,
when, when they're in positionsthat impact many people?
And as I progressed through mycareer, and particularly after I
left institutions, the work,the work of leaving institutions
, was incredibly transformativefor me.
It was like, okay, I'm free ofthe institutions.
(14:34):
That was.
That was like an earlydefinition of freedoms.
Like I'm out, drop the mic, I'mout.
But once I was out, what I foundmyself in was an deep
encounterance with myself.
I was like, okay, well, I'm nolonger looking at institutions
and being like we're doing thatcalculus about the complexity
(14:57):
and where the gaps are andwhat's needed and the
misalignment To the clear pointabout resources to mandate
Completely.
Then it was like, oh, this workis an inner game, like I'm now
responsible for.
I started a consulting practice.
I was like I'm now responsiblefor this and the place I need to
look as I understand andnavigate my own learning and
(15:18):
growth and leadership is within,and that was really
illuminating because it alsocast an understanding for me
about what I will describe aslike that responsibility theme I
was describing.
What does it look like to beself-responsible, to be
accountable and to source powerand authority in anything else
(15:42):
you want to call it from within?
And once I found myselflocating much of that external
understanding within the systemand the complexity of myself my
body is complex, adaptive systemRight Is how I see it.
It's like once I was doing thatfrom within, I started finding
(16:04):
the blocks to my own freedom andliberation and the pathways
simultaneously.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Okay, I'm hearing.
Leadership happens from theinside out.
Healing happens from the insideout.
Maybe connected to healing isremoving the blockages, filling
the gaps, achieving thewholeness and the alignment
happens from the inside out.
So that makes me curious aboutmoments when you healed yourself
(16:37):
, when you got closer to thewholeness that we all have
access to.
Is there a moment in yourhealing journey that was a
catalyst?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
So, just as I was founding Be Free and Be Free was
coming to life, my parents wereleaving it In response to was
there a moment?
There were so many moments inmy journey of being a caregiver
to both of my parents as theywere dying.
(17:12):
I source from it today.
There were so many moments thatI keep sourcing from it today
and anew.
It was one of the mostpowerfully whole system
transformations, transformativeexperiences I've ever had in my
(17:33):
life.
It casts time in a reallyinteresting construct because
I'm like, am I still having thatexperience?
In many ways, what I will sayis and as you were reflecting
back to me some of the languageI used just a couple minutes ago
, it was illuminating for meabout the narratives we have
(17:57):
about wounds, trauma and healingand the language that we use
today and, I think, the ongoingdevelopment of language that we
can all be in the co-creation of, to deepen our understanding
and our capability around thiswhole body of healing.
(18:21):
The quick story I'll tell isjust at the inception of the
process.
It was 2013 that I founded BeFree and that was also when my
parents I would describe it asthis last phase of their lives
began.
I went home one day because mymom called me and my dad had I
(18:46):
think he had been having manyseizures so he had fallen off
the bed.
I went home and he was lying onthe ground and my dad was about
six feet tall, weighs 170pounds I'm like five-four and
(19:06):
probably about 102 pounds.
So get home and my dad's lyingon the floor and I ask him I'm
like, dad, do you think you'reable to stand up?
He's kind of coming too.
Do you think you can make itback to the bed?
(19:27):
He looks at me and he says,yeah, I think so.
I'm looking at him and I'mthinking I don't think so.
But I so appreciated his agencyin that moment I felt so
conscious of it and I was like,let's do this.
So he starts to try to get upand he can't.
(19:47):
I had this moment where Ilooked at him and I lifted him
up and put him on the bed.
In that moment it was like thisglass shattered and any
resistance I had to being thecaregiver or switching roles.
(20:08):
In a sense I was the independentkid who went off to live in
other countries and be free fora reason, but with that I had
the experience, of course, of myparents taking care of me, but
I had that sense of independenceconcurrently.
But in this moment where therewas that kind of glass
(20:30):
shattering of resistance, therewas this instantaneous awareness
of a new sense of purpose andmeaning in my life.
I was like I am here for this.
And I think now, as I see thatmoment, what it illuminates for
me is how quickly our facultiesand capacities come online in
(20:53):
response to what we describe ascrisis, trauma or wounds, what
we describe as bad things, asbad things, what we judge as bad
things, and yet right, andthat's exactly the point about
language.
And yet I discovered a kind ofstrength, a potential and a
(21:16):
sense of purpose in that moment,as quickly as a glass shatters.
So how do we judge the wound,the difficulty as the problem?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
When it produces such generative, positive, almost I
was going to say capacities, butit's almost a connection to the
capacities that were there andwe just weren't breaking through
the glass to reach out and grabthem.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yes, so that is my take on what healing is and what
wholeness is.
It exists already.
And that inner work I wasdescribing and the whole period,
the whole evolution with myparents, just felt like one
encounterance after another withmy own orientation to judge, to
(22:03):
make myself small, to fear, toidentify and over identify with
pain, with loss, with what wasbad, and most of it was like
seeing that in myself, justseeing what came up.
And I had this moment, aboutthree months into that
experience, where I think I hadsnapped at someone.
And it's not really my way, notthese days.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Sometimes the New Yorker comes out.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Sometimes it comes out for sure it's definitely in
there.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
But only on the subway.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Oh man, the subway has a big playground of humanity
.
It's like when you listen tobartenders talk about what they
observe.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Who walked into the bar Totally, it's like that who
walked onto my five trainCompletely D train Seven train.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Oh, what a joy to dance with this life.
So that day when I snapped atsomeone, it woke me up.
It's like again, this encounteris in myself.
I was like, oh, I just did that.
I said that and the firstperson who I snapped at I was
like that's not fair.
And it made me pause and askmyself the question of who do I
want to be?
(23:21):
And when I was asking it it waslike a present moment question,
but it occurred to me that thatwas like this portal to
actually what I'm saying is whodo I want to be, with what I
already understand to be a verysignificant process in my life?
That's just beginning and Icould almost I could feel its
(23:43):
length.
I could feel the journeyalready and the response to that
question was I don't want to bean asshole, but part two came
right Like part two came, and Ikept asking myself that question
who do I want to be?
And it was a really powerfulinquiry.
I think it was also part of mydiscovery of my own purpose.
(24:05):
One of the responses in thatphase was what if I could hold
space for this to be the bestphase of my parents' life?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I'm blown away by the bigness of love in that
question.
To me it's another shatteringof a ceiling.
Talk about love conquers all.
I mean that just engulfedeverything that could have been
negative.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I was such a blessing , jen, it was such an invitation
to be present every day withthe opportunity of this
incredibly potent phase, thisincredibly potent transmission
that was happening every time Iheld my dad 's hand or looked at
my mom's eyes or sang to her,listened to her.
It left me with this experienceof appreciation and
(24:57):
friendliness and trust in thevicissitudes and the crazy waves
of the difficulties, thechallenges, the discomforts, the
pains and what we consider tobe the flip side of that the joy
of the high moments, thediscovery, the launching pad,
(25:20):
the fulfillment of purpose, theawareness of how vast your
capacities are.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
I'm so struck by how it's all one which I guess goes
back to what you told us aboutwell-being that you had one goal
, one metric for success, onedesired outcome, that it is all
one your well-being is the otherperson's well-being is my
(25:48):
well-being.
And I'm hearing that your painand your loss which I, when you
first started speaking, I wasgoing to say I'm sorry for, but
the words didn't come out andit's because they were
incomplete.
What I think I'm hearing yousay, nita, is that your pain and
your loss and your challengewhen your parents transitioned
(26:09):
from this life was also yourportal to your purpose and so
many other powerful things.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yes, and in this moment I'm just.
I'm feeling deep gratitude forthe community of people and
caregivers who were galvanizedaround and encircling my parents
through that process, asanother expression of how we
encounter our collectivewholeness in the face of what we
(26:40):
experience as difficult andthis is not to diminish or
dishonor that as humans we willexperience it as difficult and
the possibility of how we cantap into our freedom, our
potential to choose how weengage with what we encounter.
This is very enlivening to me.
(27:01):
Can I say something there?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Please Thank you for saying that, because while you
were speaking in the last fewminutes, I was hearing duality
of both and so I wasn't hearingyou.
Diminish the pain, thedifficulty.
I was hearing honor both, as Ihear you speak more.
I'm hearing that when I allowmyself to feel all of the things
(27:27):
.
There is a complexity there andit's not two dimensional, it's
probably not even threedimensional, and that, in that
complexity, is the choice, ismore than one option, many more
options than we could know, andthat's where the freedom is.
Thank you, jen.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I think you're an embodiment about what you just
described, so hold up mutualgratitude.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
You're thanking me for summarizing the knowledge
that you just dropped.
Tell that worth, nita, why I'mchecking for my understanding of
the immense wisdom you justdropped and you're thanking me,
(28:14):
yes, and Thank you forhighlighting that this is an
example of the many things youteach me, down to the embodiment
that you're claiming I am.
My foray into somatics andembodiment practices and
learning came from aconversation with you a few
(28:36):
years ago, and, in fact, Istarted taking Pilates this year
as another dimension to add tomy understanding around
embodiment, and my amazingPilates instructor, jay, is on
this podcast this season.
Wow, hey, jay, thank you, and Ilearned so much with him and
(28:58):
through my embodiment work, andso I want to put a pin in a poem
that came through me quitefrankly, I wouldn't even say it
came from me after a particularPilates session that I had with
Jay, and that has been avirtuous cycle that you set in
motion years ago.
So all of this is to sayimmense gratitude for you, and
(29:22):
I'll come back to the poem thatcame through me as a result of
the embodiment work that youmade me curious to start.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I feel this immense potential in how we can use joy
and a sense of possibility, play, expansion, fun, adventure, awe
right as catalysts fortransformation.
(29:53):
Like that challenging period Iwent through with my parents
that awakened me to capacitiesand faculties that I didn't even
know existed in the universeperiod in people, in potential,
much less in myself.
I have deep gratitude to what Iexperienced, this challenge and
it's not the only way RightLike once we become conscious of
(30:16):
our own creative potential,which I think is very connected
to our well-being.
The more well we are, the morewe're accessing our creative
potential and wellness.
To honor the diversity of whowe are is defined by each of us.
I can't tell you what being wellmeans to you.
I can just tell you what thatis to me.
So, honoring that relationshipbetween well-being and creative
(30:38):
potential and how theypotentially each other is like
this is also where I thinkthere's this expansive
possibility for us to open ourminds cross-culturally and to
look at people who we have,they've just been left out of
our awareness or who areinvisible because they're in the
Amazon or they're in placesthat feel remote to us, based on
(31:02):
our perspective, and that,through the development of our
cultures, we have learned tocreate a hierarchy of human
value right, Someone's lesserbecause ABC, and what would it
look like as we do that internalhealing to create greater
wholeness and greaterinclusivity internally, which is
(31:24):
why let's do it with joy andfun and dance and play, which is
also what many of the cultureswe've excluded from our sense of
who a leader is actually do andhave been sourcing from.
And just for context, you'retalking about how we define
leadership here in the UnitedStates In the United States In
mainland In mainland, what wecall the Western world and I
(31:47):
think there are probably manythreads of that that also are
global right, Whether they wereinfluenced by the States or are
inherent in what I think is anatural human proclivity to
create hierarchy between us,hierarchies of value.
I think that's a shared thingand I think it's actually been
(32:08):
expressed in particular ways.
So that's like part one on thehealing leadership.
Part two is leaders need to behealed.
Leaders need to be well.
That statement is just likeperiod Leaders needs to be well.
Humans need to be well andleaders are humans, so leaders
(32:30):
need to be well and you knowthere's that added
dimensionality of like at workthat work and wellbeing can be
mutually reinforcing and we'vebuilt ourselves on a premise
where we've got to sacrifice orconsume wellbeing in order to
work.
But that feels verycounterintuitive to me when I
think the whole, a whole way wecould understand why we work, is
(32:52):
to be well financially, withour friends and our family, is
like holistically in our lives.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like a sustainable strategy to
have work, consume our capacityto work.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It's like a cannibalizing strategy.
It eats itself up a little bitand then there is in the vein of
our evolution together,collectively, leaders need to be
able to hold space for thehealing and wellbeing of their
people, the people we are incommunity with.
(33:31):
We are leading, we areimpacting.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Anyone who's orchestrating, inviting,
catalyzing that togetherness,that wholesome communion, has to
be sourcing from anincreasingly whole place within
themselves to create theenvironment, the conditions, the
space that would enable us todo that together.
(33:54):
And how virtuous that cycle iswhen it happens.
I'm thinking of the bell hooksquote healing is an act of
communion.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And there are two frames we use in our work.
One is that you were speakingto earlier when you were talking
about your embodiment.
One is how do we capture thewholeness of a person and the
idea of body-mind as ecosystemin some way that's accessible
and usable and pragmatic?
Because, though I love to dancein philosophy and spiritual
(34:26):
realm and big picture thinking,I also feel that small is big,
which is another way of sayinglike let's get real and
pragmatic about how we translatethe immense and vast potential
of our own healing intosomething livable day to day,
that we can do so.
With that we have a frame thatwe use, which is we are beings
(34:49):
who think, sense and feel, sowe're not over-indexing on the
Cartesian view of I think.
Therefore I am, but actuallyit's all of those dimensions
that contain within them anintelligence that, once tapped,
can connect us to a more wholepotential within us.
(35:09):
So the embodiment piece as youwere describing your experience
of Pilates and as I've been inrelationship with you, jen, like
the experience I've had of youthinking, sensing and feeling,
and how online those dimensionsof you are and the ways they
(35:30):
dance together, and also myinvitation to people as you're
listening to that frame is like.
Use it in your decision making.
Use it to check where yoursensing may have intelligence
for you, where you're thinkingmay not right, or where you're
feeling may offer you a windowinto another way of knowing than
(35:51):
you are typically used toknowing and in so doing, expand
the versatility of your tool setto navigate your life and the
complexity of your life.
So that's that's think, sense,feel.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
And I get an example of how the think, sense, feel
framework impacted a decision ofyours for the better.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Oh yeah, that's a great question.
I want to go back.
I want to go back to thatperiod with my, with my parents.
That's what's most present.
So I'll do that.
I'll.
I'll share my response in theform of a of a story.
But there was a day I wassitting between my parents.
They were both in their beds.
It was a few months after mydad had a stroke, so he wasn't,
(36:37):
he couldn't speak much.
So we were communicating inother ways and I was sitting
between them opening the mail.
Because I had so manyresponsibilities, I had like
taken over their lives, right.
So I was.
I was in this space where I wastrying to manage all these
different aspects of their livesand just like bring it and do
it well.
So I was sitting there as astack of mail, going through
(36:58):
each piece of mail, and then allof a sudden I kind of like
tuned into.
So I was thinking, right, likeI was thinking about what I was
reading and what bill needed tobe paid and so on.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
And then all of a sudden can be all consuming.
I say this as a a long distancecaregiver.
Damian and I together.
Once you take on theresponsibility of keeping
someone's life together, alldimensions of it, it really can
consume you.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And you experienced that as a parent too, I imagine
In many ways, yup, yeah.
And then I had this sense and Ideveloped more of a
relationship to my, to myability to sense things at that
point, I think, very muchthrough the experience.
So.
So I kind of paused for asecond and I was like, what is
(37:46):
this sense?
And then I just checked in withmyself and almost before I
could pinpoint the feeling I washaving, which was starting to
come as like wow, like thismoment is really precious.
What arose was this reallyclear and loud inner voice that
said put down the mail and holdyour dad's hand.
(38:08):
Whoa.
From inside of you, from fromaround me, I don't know.
I just know it was very loud,very potent.
It like landed its mark and Iliterally dropped the mail and I
held my dad's hand and a monthlater he passed and I held his
hand every day for the next 30days the wisdom in that voice,
(38:36):
the connection in that voice,the oneness and the love in you
to listen and act upon thatvoice, even when you couldn't
fully understand it for your dad.
And it makes me think it waspattern disruption.
Right, my pattern was to try tothink my way through the
(39:01):
challenge Ain't gonna work, notgonna work, not gonna work right
, and certainly not incomplexity either.
And to pull the lens back uplike take the eagle eye view on
this moment and what we'reliving through and the great
changes, the great uncertaintythat many of us feel, again with
(39:24):
that view of like how is all ofthat an opportunity to get in
touch with thinking, sensing andfeeling and I'm not dissing
thinking, like thinking has aplace right, it's a matter of
we've indexed on it, we've builtit many of us, and it's
different for everybody, butjust recognize the thing like we
(39:44):
have access to all of them.
What happens when we tune inand tap into them?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I'm struck by the alignment that you're proposing.
As the challenges in our livesand the world we live in become
more complex, we need to listenmore complexly.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
I don't even know if that's a word Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
We need to see more nuance, we need to feel sense.
Think I probably said that inthe wrong order excuse me, it's
perfect, it's perfect.
In a way that matches thechallenge at hand.
If the challenge isthree-dimensional, we can't be
(40:27):
two-dimensional.
If the challenges feel beyondthree-dimensional, so all around
us, that three dimensions can'teven capture it, then the way
we take in information andunderstand it and relate to it
and wrap our head, hearts andbeing around it so that we can
do something and move forwardhas to have at least that much
(40:47):
complexity too.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
And not only do we need to, but this is the
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Oh, I see what you did there.
This is my thing, yes, andRight.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
This is my thing about healing.
It's like what becomesaccessible to us in what we
describe as our most challengingand difficult moments is that
potential.
It's the unawakened potentialand it's the same thing that
becomes most available to uswhen we're most joyful.
It's not actually different.
(41:20):
It's like the most qualityright.
The superlative quality of ithas a lot to do with the
accessibility that it's like.
It's right there when I'mfeeling overwhelmed, like I
can't, and I feel disempoweredor ashamed.
Shame as this very powerful rootemotion.
(41:40):
There's an invitation there to.
It's like the shame is present,it's visible, it's palpable in
a way that it's not usually so.
What is that?
That's an opportunity.
It's an opportunity to workwith it and our systems have
that capacity our body, mindsystems and we need each other
right.
We need support, we need care,we need coaching, we need
(42:02):
therapy, we need all of the waysthat we resource ourselves
externally to help facilitateand awareness of that capacity
within.
But the capacity's within andit is so ripe for showing itself
or for doing its thing in thatvery moment.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Wow so, in the height of our most of our hardest
moments, whether that's shame,whether that's overwhelm, fear,
et cetera, there's an invitationto get curious about how much
more I'm capable of than Icurrently or previously knew, to
get curious about anotherperspective.
(42:43):
I could take on this veryexperience, and if I can do that
with others or in community orin communion, it will amplify,
enable, maybe even accelerate myability to shift perspective
see what I couldn't see before,feel what I couldn't feel before
(43:04):
.
Sense, think, do be what Iwasn't previously accessing.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
That is right and trust right.
Like the other really key facetof this for me is trust.
It's like having a practice.
For me, the way it shows up isa practice of trust and I
articulate it as like whatevercomes my way, whatever the
(43:32):
unfolding is, I trust that it isfor me, it is for us all, it is
an opportunity to learn andgrow and work with the
intelligence of that.
And as I share that, like Ishare all of this with great
humility, I leave in thevastness of the unknown and I
(43:52):
stand very humble in the face ofit.
These are invitations toexperiment right With what
resonates, or perhaps even withwhat doesn't resonate, and try
it on.
And to your point aboutcuriosity, like, see what opens
up for you.
But I will say personally, thepractice of trust and in my work
with people it's a reallypowerful one for that alignment
(44:17):
we were talking about Yep.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
you're making the spine come back to mind for me.
Absolutely.
Why do you want to heal Nita?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
It's the most joyful thing I could think of.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Because it's fun.
It's fun.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
It's fun, healing is fun, it's learning, it's
demanding.
In the ways that feel like, areresponsive for me to the
question of like, what do I wantto do with this one precious
life?
It's invigorating and I lovepeople, I love nature, I love
(45:02):
the opportunity of being alive,I'm, like, profoundly grateful
for it and love and gratitudefeel very intertwined for me and
I love our potential, like Ialways describe.
You know, seven years old in1984, watching the Olympics,
just like glued to our littlebusted television set where the
(45:23):
antenna is.
We were always moving theantenna to try to get the signal
.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
And the cord didn't quite reach far enough.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Absolutely Totally.
You're doing the dance with it,right, and that was like an
early seeing, in an embodiedform, what was possible.
Right, every Olympics is likesomebody's exceeding the next
limit, but what I took from itand there's that material
distinction I made when I wastalking about my mom, like the
material and the spiritual, andI think what it was, what I was
(45:55):
seeing, was like who are we, whocan we be Like, especially
right now, right, the differencebetween quote unquote, like
winning and not the Olympics, islike it's a moment, it's
exactly this moment.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
The trust that must be present in every single one
of those competitors,participants of the game, of the
Olympic game, of the life welive, the trust that it must
take, that, though it'll be hard, it'll be worth it.
And in embarking on thisjourney and this attempt to
(46:35):
reach the highest and bestversion of myself physically,
materially, spiritually, etc.
I might blow my mind and yours.
I might reach heights we didn'tknow was possible.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
You reminded me.
You know I grew up with a lotof discipline and conversations
about, like, how do you use yourtime?
You know, don't squander yourtime.
Your time is precious.
And sometimes my parents wouldbe disparaging about play versus
study, right, and I rememberthis experience.
I had some point.
I was, I was invited to dosomething adventurous.
(47:16):
I don't remember exactly whatit was.
Might have been like cliffjumping or something.
It was good.
It was going to be like a wholeday, you know, whole journey of
adventuring.
And I and so I was coming withthis narrative, this judgment in
my head of, like, well, there's, you know, there's productive,
good things to do in the world,right.
And then there's, like, thisplay and I could see it.
(47:36):
I could see it operating in me.
But as I was on that journey,like I said, yes, I want to go
do the thing.
And as I was on the journey, Irealized I had this flashback to
, to working and to rememberinghow much I would work, from this
like intense place in myselfthat was striving and driving
(47:57):
and often fear driven andfeeling under resourced, and how
willing I was to like, really,let all of me Just drop
everything I had into thatexperience and as I was on my
way to this adventure, I waslike, hmm, so interesting how I
was willing to give so muchenergy to that.
Why can't I do it for this?
(48:18):
And that's to all my missiondriven people.
That's, that's my, that's myinvocation to your wellbeing.
Like you can bring, you canbring your energy and you will
and you do, and you can trustyourself that you're bringing it
to all the impact you'reseeking to create, to all the
healing, all the all the good,all all of what you're
(48:41):
generating.
And you are part of that andit's your choice.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
The movement for healing needs to pour into its
own healing all that it poursinto others.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
And to recognize the oneness of that and also to
bring patients and care andhonor the complexity of that
exercise.
Like as someone who works withorganizations on wellbeing, I I
honor what it's like to hold thespectrum of views that we hold
about our wellbeing, to feellike we should sacrifice, you
(49:15):
know, and we should give up ourown wellbeing, and so it's for
each of us to self lead andhonor and define how we view our
relationship to wellbeing.
But I also challenge andencourage people to mix it up,
to disrupt our own patterns.
Right, like that, that momentof like hold your dad's hand.
I'm just like patterndisruption.
(49:36):
What a teaching to me about myown patterns, about my own
habits, habitual ways of beingcollectively, like our
polarization, our habitualleanings.
They, they're singing to us,they're dancing to us for for
something really simple, right,and I'm just like do it
different.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
What different thing do you wish for others?
Different thing Do you wish foryourself as you continue your
healing journey?
Speaker 2 (50:07):
It's likely the same thing.
It is about remembering that wecome with love as much as we
come with karma, challenge,trauma, difficulty and, in my
view, the love, love is ineverything.
It's vast.
And if love, what love rightnow looks like to me joy, play,
(50:30):
adventure, music, creating it toreally embrace that as a
possibility, as an expansivepossibility and opportunity for
our growth and evolution, toreally allow that invite it, be
receptive to it.
Small ways and big, that periodfor me of learning how to dance
(50:54):
with challenge and and loss andgrief and pain made me
appreciate, like I it.
It evoked a deep appreciationfor it and it's been a process
to recognize that it was timefor evolution.
It seemed to be attached tothat to receive its gifts, to
work with what it had to offer.
(51:14):
And so the opportunity forsomething fresh and new and a
different approach, right rootedin joy and play, as accessible
and as palpable, right as as ourdifficulties will be like.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
They're both present, so using both Not easy, that's
why we got each other Not easy,but doable with each other and
worth it.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
This one precious life.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
That's why you heal.
Love is why I heal.
Oh, you know, I love me somelove.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
So much love.
Thank you, Jen.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Thank you, nita, for the opportunity.
Wow, wow, wow.
Thanks for sticking around formy love and learning reflection.
Here's the thing, though.
What am I loving and learningabout this conversation with
Nita?
Everything Talking to Nita islike the ocean Deep, expansive,
(52:19):
healing, beautiful andenergizing.
I just have to name it.
It is so hard to summarize thisvery big conversation with Nita
.
There's just so much in it andin fact, there's more.
The full recording was twohours long.
We even considered releasingtwo Nita episodes.
(52:40):
So instead of me sharing a loveand learning outro, I'm going
to do something different thistime.
I'm going to share with you mypoem that I shared with Nita in
our extended conversation.
To hear me read my poem to Nita, check out the next and last
episode of this season and ifanything resonated with you,
(53:02):
please do share this episode orany episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
Much love everyone.
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