April 16, 2025 • 41 mins
Psychotherapist, filmmaker, and podcast host Stephanie James joins Kelly to talk about her heart-expanding new book, Your Big Fat Juicy Life (and Everything After)—a soulful guide to living with more purpose, passion, and zero fear. Drawing from her own healing journey and deep conversations with spiritual thought leaders, Stephanie shares how shifting our relationship with fear—especially the fear of death—can unlock a life that’s more vibrant, meaningful, and alive than ever.
This episode explores how grief, loss, and uncertainty can actually be doorways into deeper joy, how we can move through emotional heaviness instead of avoiding it, and why our soul is always craving expansion. If you’ve ever felt afraid of the unknown, stuck in a cycle of self-doubt, or unsure how to fully live while holding the weight of the world—this one’s for you.
Website: stephaniejames.world
Socials: @stephaniethespark
Podcast: Igniting The Spark
Book: My Big Fat Juicy Life (and everything after)
HOST: Kelly Henderson // @velvetsedge // velvetsedge.com
Follow Velvet's Edge on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/velvetsedge/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Conversations on life, style, beauty and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Psychotherapist, filmmaker, host of Igniting the Spark an author of
Your Big, Fat, Juicy Life and Everything After That comes
out today the day we are recording, April fifteenth. Stephanie
James is here his Stephanie.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hi, Kelly, so good to see you.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you so much for being here. I know today
we were just talking before the podcast is a massive
day for you. The book came out today and you
were telling me there's been all sorts of interesting transitions
that have happened in your life to get you to
this point, which we'll get into a lot of those
coming up. But you just moved to Santa Fe and
I'm wondering if you would share a little bit about
that with the listeners, because you said it was a
(00:50):
very guided move for you, or you almost felt like
there was no choice in the matter, it was just
something you had to do.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah. Absolutely, it was so wild. I haven't had this
experience in thirty two years, okay, and so you have
to know that it wasn't just like, oh, it was
a whim and I say it wasn't a decision, it
was a directive. Yeah, because I was literally in the
middle of a therapy session and it was just like boom,
(01:18):
it just came in and it was just like, you're
moving to Santa Fe. And now the reason that that
is so powerful for me, And like I said thirty
two years ago, I'll share really briefly because what happened
is so significant that that's why I listened to this.
So at that time, I was living in Colorado. I
was living in Denver working on an adolescent psych unit,
(01:41):
a lockdown adolescent psych unit. But I worked with four
of my favorite girlfriends and there were literally fourteen of
us up at my aunt. My aunt had a second
home up in Vail, Colorado, and so we were all
up there for this big ski weekend and having the
best time, you know, skiing all day. We'd ride dondola
to the top of the mountain and have margarita at
(02:03):
night and you know, so it's this great time. So
it made no sense that the last night we're there,
Saturday night, I'm brushing my teeth and all of a sudden,
I start crying and the voice comes in and it's
like you need to move back to Fort Collins, and
it was like this very strong yeah. And my friend
I was sharing the room with, she's like, why would
(02:23):
you want to do that? Like at the time, I
hadn't gone to grad school yet, and she's like, you're
the only non mastered person on the therapy team, you
work with all of us, why would you want to move?
And I said, I don't know, but it's that strong.
So I'm not one for remembering dates, but I'll always
remember this one because the next day, Sunday was January fourteenth,
(02:46):
and my lease on my apartment was up February first.
I was a single mom with a four year old,
and so I call my mom, who lived in Fort
Collins the next day and I'm like, Mom, I'm moving home.
I don't have a job, but I know I have
to go. And she's like, well, that's interesting because our
(03:06):
renter isn't going to renew his lease, so we have
a place for you to move into February first.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
What Okay?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
So that was the first like serendipity and I'm like, great,
so I don't resign my lease. I moved my daughter
and I back to Fort Collins and literally within a
few days, I had a job. And not only was
it just a job, I was working at Foothills Gateway
with my favorite aunt, which was so great. Her office
was like caddy corner to mine. And I mean, it's
(03:34):
just some of the like sweet things. But Kelly, I'll
tell you the biggest thing. Three weeks to the day
after I moved back to Fort Collins, I get a
call from one of my girlfriends in Denver and they
said the adolescent unit had closed and everyone was laid off,
and the front page of the Rocky Mountain newspaper said
(03:56):
psychiatric abuses charged.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
And so unbeknownst to us, we had scouts that would
go out around the nation finding kids to bring into treatment.
And this was before managed care, so we would keep
them and tell their insurance ran out, so seven to
nine months, and these scouts were getting a five thousand
dollars kickback per kid. Of course, all illegal. I would
(04:23):
have been out of a job, just signed a lease,
and as a single mom, I would have panicked. I
mean it would have been such a high stress, super
difficult time for me. And instead, instead it was just seamless, right.
And so when this Colleen came in to come to
(04:43):
Santa Fe and it was so strong in my heart
and literally at that moment, Kelly, it was like time
just kind of stopped. I kind of pride myself on
being able to be completely present with my clients, and
I was like, Okay, come back, come back. But then
I knew the same kind of serendipity started happening, you know.
(05:03):
The first one with a call in to my property
manager for my office because I had a lease until
the end of June, and I said, hey, I'm moving
to Santa Fe. And the first thing out of Robin's
mouth is, I'm so excited for you. Okay, we'll just
consider this your thirty days and then March tenth, I'll
(05:26):
just send you your deposit back. I mean like unheard of.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Right, totally unheard of. Yes, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
So that was just one of many many things. The
place I ended up renting. I'm renting this beautiful casita
on five acres and one of my dearest friends and
her husband, I send her the text of my address
and she's like, oh my god, you are five minutes
down the road from us gee. So you know, Kelly,
it's just been phenomenal, and I know I'm meant to
(05:56):
be here, and I've already met so many incredible people
in five weeks eat six weeks, now, I guess I've
been here. Yeah. Plus you know the community of friends
I already had here's and I never wanted to live here.
I think that's important to say. I sit here all
the time, but I didn't want to live here. I
left all my friends, my family, my parents, my daughters,
(06:17):
my grandsons, like it was that strong. And every day
and every night I feel like, you know, I go
to sleep and I wake up in the deepest sense
of gratitude where it feels like it's just like vibrating
through my cells. Yeah, so I know I'm at the
right place.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah. And TVD on What's to come. I feel very
excited for you.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So much of your work is tied to really getting
in touch with yourself and listening to your own inner knowing,
which is kind of what we're talking about. And I
mentioned you had written You've written multiple books, The Spark,
Igniting your Best Life and Becoming Fears for your first
two books. So what made you want to write this
book right now, Big Fat, Juicy Life. What was the
(07:02):
inner knowing of this moment in time with this connection
for this book.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Well, a year ago in March, I had Neil Donald
Walsh on my podcast, and for people that don't know
who that is, he wrote the Conversation with God Books.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Oh yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Know, back in the nineties and they sold like five
million copies the first one. It's printed in like eighty
excuse me, thirty eight different languages. So I had him
on my show and a little bit kind of like Kelly,
when you and I just jumped on the screen together.
It was like there was this immediate heart connection. Yeah,
(07:40):
And he and I didn't even get to the interview
for half an hour. We were just talking and laughing
and sharing. And at one point he just stops and
looks at me and you can just see because I
have the video of it, so you see the download
coming through him. And he's like, Stephanie, you're going to
write your next book, and you're going to start tomorrow morning.
(08:02):
And the original title, he said, the title is going
to be I'm Dying to tell you about Death. And
he's like, it's going to have a global impact and
I'm going to endorse this book, okay. And again it's
like when that call comes, I answered, I show up
the next day at the keyboard. And I think this
is so interesting because my first two books they were
like just dating a baby. It was like a pregnancy, right.
(08:25):
They each took nine months. This book was written in
a little under six weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Geez, I can't even process. I know, it was just
flowing out of you.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's just flowing out of me. I mean it was.
I feel like again it was so downloaded, like I
always feel like, I just showed up and whatever we're
supposed to come through came through. And then the other
wild part are the people that started showing up within
that six week period to be a part of it,
like Wayne Dyer's daughter Sagedyer and his wife Marceline. They
(09:00):
both are interviewed and in the book, Stephen Simon, who's
an Academy Award winning producer of the film What Dreams
May Come, with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding, Junior, Suzanne Geeseman,
aril Fod. I mean, all these incredible contributors who have
had their own story that were just beautiful and perfect
(09:21):
fits to weave into this book, which which really is
my own story and other people's story and research that
validate that death isn't the end for us. You know
that it's it's just the next chapter in our book
of eternity. And that's really what came through.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I love that alternate title that he started with that
really sparked this for you and for the listeners. Could
you just give an overall summary of the book before
I dive into more of the questions. It's my big, fat,
juicy life and everything after. So death being one of
the undertone or overtones of the book, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Kelly, it's really about how we can befriend death. And
it's not about just everything being joyful all the time.
I mean, that's definitely not my message anywhere. It's about
being with our real experience. And there is a chapter
on growing through grief. I mean that we really have
to experience loss in our life. It's part in our journey.
(10:17):
And the book really though, is about life and when
we befriend that death is a part of it. We
can let go of some of this like desperateness and clinginess,
and there really is an anxiety. You know, the biggest
fear people have is the fear of death. That's the
number one fear. So if we are able to let
go of it and understand it in a different way,
(10:39):
then this moment can become more sacred. We're not living
in anxiety, we're not living in fear. We can just
be right here, and it really does inform this moment.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Why do you think we're so scared of death? Is
it the unknown?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
I think it is. I think because our brains, the
way our brains work, they love familiarity. Our brain, you know,
thrives on familiarity, and so when we don't have a
frame of reference, it can kick us into anxiety. And
the people you know, experience that just going to a
new school, or they get into a new relationship, or
(11:15):
they move someplace. I mean, that can all be very
anxiety provoking for people, or when they get divorced because
they have no idea what the other side looks like. Yeah,
well so the same is true for this. And yeah,
we have people that have near death experiences. I think
there's a lot of things in the book that really
validate that death isn't the end because when I was
(11:35):
doing research, seventy three percent of the people that were
tolled have had these kind of experiences where they've had
someone that passed that, then they you know, had to
encounter where they heard them, whether it's internally or a
friend of mine, John Shinnerer, who was also a psychologist,
his twenty four year old son died a year ago
(11:58):
and he was sharing with me. It's not book, but
he was sharing with me personally that you know, like
a week later, he's sitting there and he thought he
heard a cupboard open and turned around and nobody was there.
And the next thing he knows, he feels like a
bump against his chair and he's just like, okay, son,
you know. And so yeah, and so what's interesting. People
(12:19):
are so afraid to talk about this stuff. People are afraid,
as we were just saying, to talk about death because
they don't know about it. And I think that's one
of the things that's important about this is that opens
it up. You know. One of my good friends was
telling me about these death dinners that they're doing, and
I know that sounds so morbid. What it's about, though,
(12:42):
is like literally getting dressed up going for a gourmet
meal and the topic is death. It's like exploring it,
talking about it, you know. Again, it's like befriending it
instead of it being oh my gosh, you know what
we what we suppress continue use. Right, it's like you
to think about, you know, like what we resist persists.
(13:05):
So instead of being afraid, what if we brought that
out into the light and we just talked about it
and we had a different understanding. Right. And so then
these people that have had these experiences, they don't feel
so marginalized, right, They don't have that fear of like,
oh my gosh, I can't talk about this, or people
think I'm crazy. No, it's like everybody's you know, having
(13:28):
these experiences.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Well, and you mentioned the near death experience or people
who have had those moments and they've even maybe died
and been brought back to life. It is a consistent
theme amongst those types of people that I've known in
my life or just the stories that I've heard to
where when that something like that happens, it completely changes
the way they live their life, or the way they
(13:52):
view life, the purpose of their life, any of those things.
So are you finding that the more we normalize the
death conversation, the more we changed the way we look
at our current life setup, our just life in general.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think that that's really the key what we're going
to do is we dispel fear by speaking it, not
by shoving it down and pretending like it doesn't exist,
or I have to be strong, or I have to
show up a certain way. And I think that was
one of the important things about the Grief Chapter two.
It's like embracing what's here. Yeah, you know, Rumy has
(14:30):
that great poem the guest House, and it really speaks
to that. And Lord knows, I'm not going to paraphrase
the entire poem. I wish I had it memorized, but
I don't. But one of the beautiful things about that
poem is it says, you know, this journey of being
human is a guesthouse. So every day a new visitor arrives,
(14:50):
some meanness, a depression, sadness comes. He says, welcome them
all at the door, laughing, and invite them in because
each has been sent as a guide from the office.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
In my life, grief and pain have been the biggest
catalyst for change. So do you think that grief can
be the gateway for the most massive transformation in our lives?
And it's one of those things that a lot of
people like you said, suppress and we don't want to feel.
But instead of we're almost like inhibiting ourselves from actually
(15:32):
living by doing that, by not fully feeling it and
processing it or going through it or allowing it to
be the catalyst.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I do feel like
if we allowed ourselves that level of grief I speak about,
Like in Ireland, you know, they have this procession through
the streets when someone dies and people are wailing through
the streets. It's a community expression, you know, same thing
with the Lakota tribes where you know when the person
(16:02):
lost someone, they'd cut their hair and it was again
very a communal experience where it was okay to be
sad Dia delos muertos, where they absolutely celebrate people that
have died. It's where they feel like the veil has thinned.
And so you know, these offerings of food and it's
okay to cry and to wail. And I think so
(16:25):
many of us, you know, we were taught when we
were kids, Oh, if you're going to cry, go to
your room. Yeah, you know, and it's this very private
and so I think part of this transformation for us
is not only learning to have these conversations, but learning
to allow ourselves to be with our full experience. And
so when you talk about the healing that comes from that,
(16:49):
there's a part of me that says, oh, I want
to change the archaic narrative that we have to suffer
in order to heal, that we have to suffer in
order to grow. Yeah, and you're right. I'm telling you
my own grief journeys have been for sure, what's cracked
my heart open, what's allowed me to look at the
parts of myself maybe I didn't want to look at.
(17:11):
And so I do think it can be phenomenally transformative.
But it's not that we're welcoming pain into our lives.
It's saying, if you're having a loss, and if you
have a grief experience, there's a different way to hold it,
and there's a different way to be with it. So
there's actually this alchemical change that happens within you where
you're not doing the spiritual bypass, you're not shoving it down,
(17:35):
you're being with it. And that's the most incredible medicine
I think there is.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well, and I'm going to butcher this quote, but what's
the quote that says something about grief is only a
sign of how much you loved essentially, Like and you
mentioned the heart cracking open. Every time I've allowed myself
to fully fill the depth of my grief, and I'm
a very comfortable with feelings person, so I think I
go there a little easier than some others. But anytime
(18:02):
I've allowed myself to do that, the amount of love
that I can feel on the other side of that
is exponentially greater. Like it is so much bigger the
depth that I can go to, and love only thrives
from how far I let myself go into the grief.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, I think that's so beautiful and that's really it
when we allow ourselves to be fully in our hearts. Yeah,
you know, it's like it actually expands. Yeah, it feels
like maybe it's cracking and breaking open, but it's actually
I feel like it's growing pains because it's extending.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, I agree, And I think that that is a
really for me at least, that's been a really good
switch of how to change the narrative around grief, because
I'm like, it's not like you want to tell people
go sit in your suffering or just go suffer and
be pain and pain all the time. No one wants
to do that, but I think it's for me. The
reason I feel comfortable doing it is because I know
what's on the other side. Yeah, you call the book
(19:00):
a passport to enter freedom, which I loved. Tell us
a little bit more about that. Why is this book
the passport to inner freedom?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Because I think we have so much programming and again,
so many and I call them archaic narratives, but they're
also how we've been enculturated. It's how we've grown up
around grief, around loss, and again these aren't conversations that
few people are comfortable having. I think it's freedom because
(19:33):
when you let go of the fear of death being
the end, Yeah, it truly does ignite something in you.
It allows you to get rid of these layers of conditioning.
And there are definitely ways in the book, like at
the end of every chapter there are these tapping in
places so that there's specific exercises and things you can
(19:53):
do to like start shedding some of those layers. Because
like my brand and my first book, The Spark, the
Spark is that essence that is truly us, and so
circumstances and situations can feel like it covers that up,
but it's never doused. So our work is how do
(20:14):
we excavate that? And the more that we excavate that,
the more we experience inner freedom.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So the more we excavate the spark within amongst all
of the grief, the more freedom we feel. It's hitting
me because of you know, the way our world is
right now, I feel like there's a lot, there's just
a lot, and so a lot of us might be
living in that moment that we're not able to tap
(20:42):
into the beauty, the spark, the fully lived life, and
so I don't know, that's just hitting me, like, as
we're talking right now of how beautiful that kind of
freedom is amongst all the chaos, amongst all the inner
turmoil that we're kind of all navigating right now.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
It reminds me, as you said that what came up
for me was Victor Frankel, who was a survivor of Auschwitz,
who wrote man Search for Meaning. Yeah, and his famous quote,
Again this isn't going to be exactly his quote, but
it's something about like basically like in the end, the
one thing we can choose is our own attitude. We
(21:21):
can choose our own way, you know. And here's someone
who had like the worst of circumstances, and so he
had to go within to say, Okay, I'm going to
make meaning out of this situation. I want to share
what's happened here when I leave so that other people
can be aware. So hopefully this kind of situation never
(21:41):
happens again. So I feel like, even with everything so
crazy right now in our world and all the chaos
that's going on in our nation right now, this is
imperative where we can come back to these still points
within us, that we can resource ourselves beyond the media,
beyond what's on the news. And it's not about negating
(22:04):
that or putting your head in the sand. It is, though,
about when we touch that spark. There is something there
that is bigger than everything going on right It's that
eternal spark that goes on. And I speak about this
in the beginning of the book, you know, being this
little girl who was very very aware that like, oh,
like we're never really born and we never die like
(22:26):
that that is us and I think we're so in
touch with it when we're little. It's just who we are.
We are that essence, we are that spark until as
you know, Don Miguel Ruez says in the Four Agreements,
we become domesticated. So before we become domesticated, we are that,
and so so much of this is really a return
(22:48):
to that place within us. That's where our strength, our beauty,
our resiliency lies. It's not outside.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Right. Well, I'm so glad you're talking about this because
saying that, I kept thinking of something that really frustrates
me when I see this in culture, and I've not
been able to really name it. I don't even think
I've ever said this out loud, but when I hear
people go, you get this one life, I'm like, no,
you don't like that? Is always my response in my head.
(23:18):
And I don't know where I've gotten that knowing from either,
but I've always known it like it's not as simple
as that, and I don't believe that, And now I
can verbalize that more. I talk about a lot on
this podcast what I believe our soul is here to do.
But I think what's interesting is all of the focus
in our world is about this world in this moment.
(23:39):
What we do in a tangible day to day way,
like what is our job? Whatever happens to us in
work is basically like, oh, we're successful or we're not,
and you know all these like tangible materialistic things and
those matter of course, Like I want to live a
great life. I know you want to live a great life,
But what is the deeper calling of our soul? And
(24:02):
I think talking about death is such an interesting gateway
into discovering that because we talk about sole purpose all
the time, but we don't talk about the afterlife and
then what's next and all of that stuff. So you
can get comfortable with that, then it's like maybe you
would change the way you're living your life here? Does
(24:22):
that make sense? I know, I just got all the
way around. It really does.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
So what I'm hearing from you and what I get
is like this whole thing of like it's not just
about defining ourselves by our careers or what we do
or how much money is in our bank account, Like
there's not really who we are, no, no, and so
and what it reminds me of. I'll share this really
quick story. It's in my film One Sparks Ig Nights. Yeah,
(24:49):
And I share this in that film because it was
such a powerful, poignant thing that really speaks to what
you were just saying and so again this is you know,
I keep dating myself, but this has probably been twenty
five years ago. And I went to a Sufi school
in San Francisco for a week, okay, And as I
(25:09):
met the presenter, doctor Jaffy, on the way and he
shook my hand and it was one of those moments
where I'm like, okay, he's holding my hand too long
and he's looking into my soul.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
You know, I was how you felt it I felt.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I was like okay. And so we go on and
I was there with a friend and we sit down
and there's about forty people there. He goes up on
stage and starts talking and I don't know three fourths
of the way through, he looks out in the audience
and he says, hey, you in the blue coat, I
have a message for you. And I'm looking around and
I'm looking around at me, no one in the bratt
(25:46):
And he says, this is what you need to hear.
And he says it and I can't hear him.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
What do you mean?
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I could not actually hear him, and I look at
my you know, my girlfriend said to beside me, and
I'm like, what did he say? And she's like kind
of looking at me shrugging your shoulders, and he kind
of laughs, and he goes, my dear, what I said
was he says it again, and I still can't hear him,
and by then people are starting to laugh, and he's like,
(26:15):
you are really resistant to this, and he said, my dear,
what I'm trying to say is and Kelly, he goes
to say it a third time, and all the air
conditioning units and the place go on and nobody can
hear him. Why so then everybody is laughing, you know,
and he's like, Okay, come up here. And so I
(26:36):
walk up there, and I said, on these steps beside him,
and he says, my dear, what is so difficult for
you to hear and what you are so resistant to
is stop trying. Stop trying. And he said, you know
you've been trying to be perfect. You were trying to
be perfect your whole life for your father, and now
(26:56):
you're trying to do it for your husband. Stop trying.
And it was the biggest, you know, just awakening within
me of like I had been trying to do everything externally,
just as you were saying, if I could just be
sustful enough, if I could just have the right job,
have the right flows, have the right body, have the
right relationship, then I would be okay, I would feel
(27:17):
lovable or happy inside. But I never did. And it
was like, oh, yeah, that's right because it's an insight.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
We were talking about this a little bit before the podcast,
that you do a lot of different things the way
that I do a lot of different things, and your
day job, I would say, is a psychotherapist. So it's
interesting because in that part of your career, I would
imagine there's a lot of deep diving into the why
we do what we do, you know, from a brain
perspective or the nervous system, what's driving us. And you
(27:57):
have a story of childhood where you thought everything was
great in your life and then out of nowhere, your
dad just leaves the family. So I would imagine that
that happening really structured a lot of your journey. And
like you're saying, the trying we repeat that in relationships,
and so you've analyzed all of that, then you get
to this place where now this new part of your
(28:18):
career is yes, Okay, that's why I did it all.
But what am I here? What's the deeper stuff that
I'm here to do from a soul place and you
don't have to try to do that stuff. That's the
stuff that we don't even know why we know how
to do it. We're just driven to do it. We're
driven to move to Santa Fe for whatever reason. Like
our job is just to listen to the inner knowing.
(28:40):
So what an interesting kind of dichotomy between the two
careers you have even.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, and I love that, I mean to me kind
of like you, like we were talking about before, It
just we have so many parts to who we are,
and so instead of just saying I have to have
all that fit in one little box, it's like, no,
there's so many different parts of what and how I
guess I want to contribute, you know, I mean, yeah,
(29:07):
there's a through line you know, on my film poster
it says your period healing period matters period, because I
truly believe that, you know, each one of us are
like these golden threads and the fabric of humanity, like
it does matter how we show up and how we
contribute matters, and so I think that's in all my work.
(29:29):
But it's so fun to get to use all these differents,
you know, right, you.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Can't really get so one without the other. Like for me,
at least, I've needed to understand how my childhood impacted
the decisions I was making as an adult to then
be able to get in touch with who am I
as a soul, not as like this external version of myself,
you know, like I needed all the steps. They all matter,
like you said, But it's just interesting to me. I
(29:57):
don't know just all the different pieces. I find that
really fascinating. What does a big, fat, juicy life mean
to you today?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I love that because I really believe living a big, fat,
juicy life is living a full life, and what that
means is living a life with the least amount of
fear possible. Yes, we're gonna feel fear. Yes we're hardwired
for fear. It's not about negating that, but it's about
having the full experience. I mean, part of the juice
(30:25):
is actually when we go into pain. Yeah, you know,
it's not negating those parts of us. And again, I
think though, when we embrace those parts, then the good
stuff is even more rich. You know, the joy feels
at an even deeper, achred level because we're not just
skimming the surface of our experience. And you know, I
(30:48):
found it interesting. My dear friend George Capanelli when he
read the book, and he's one of the people that
endorsed the book, you know, he said, this is really
a love story. You know, this book really is a
love story, and it's a love story about loving our
lives and loving this experience. And also I do think
it's important. You know, you brought up the thing with
(31:09):
my father leaving, and I think one of the things
that is incredible is our relationship totally fell apart. You know,
I was forever in my life trying to earn that
man's love and approval after he left when I was
sixteen and never felt like I could. And so six
(31:32):
years before he passed, and almost three years since he's passed.
Six years before he did, I ended my relationship with
he and my stepmother because it had been so painful
throughout my life, and I did so I talk about
this and becoming fierce how we can detach with love
where you can acknowledge like thank you for all these gifts.
(31:52):
And at the same time, I say, my dad has
been one of the greatest loves of my life and
the greatest pain. And so the beautiful piece though Kelly
and for readers of the book, they'll see this progressive journey.
Once my father passed, my relationship with him has been phenomenal.
I never would have thought of having a relationship with
(32:14):
my dad afterwards, right, but I am telling you right now,
the way that he has shown up over and over
again has been mind blowing. If I did not believe
it in an afterlife, I'm telling you I do now.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
It's almost like amens from the other side.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Yeah, you know, it was very wild because my dad
had passed in December, and in January I had the
wonderful Marla Freeze on my show. And Marla's a Hollywood actress.
Her book is American Psychic. She's helped the FBI in
La solve all these cold case murders and just she's
(32:57):
a phenomenal contributor. And I write about our experience in
the book because as I'm interviewing her in January, she says, oh,
your dad's here. At minute twenty six, you can see
this in the video. She says that, and then you
see literally this orb of light, not go straight up,
(33:18):
not go diagonally, literally go like this in the frame.
And she starts laughing. She's like, did you see that, like,
I couldn't miss it, right, you know, there's no way
I could have missed that. And she said, you know,
your dad has a lot of cleanup to do, but
let's get together in the middle of February and connect.
(33:39):
And when we did, she was telling me things there's
no way she could have known about my father. She said,
you know, your dad is so sad that he chose
to filter all his love to you through his wife,
the woman he left my mom for, and some things
that were just so poignant. But the bigger thing was,
(34:00):
you know, she said, well, you know your dad's going
to keep showing up. And the truth was I mean,
and I write about it in the book, it really
began again. Here I am in a therapy session and
I'm doing EMDR, which is a protocol where the client
actually has their eyes closed. It's a trauma protocol. And
as I'm sitting there, you know, you're intently watching this person.
(34:23):
They do ninety seconds of eyes closed being with the trauma,
and then they come out every ninety seconds and you say, okay,
what did you notice what happened? Well, as this woman
is doing that, this huge bird, which I think is
an owl when I first see it. This is just
a few days after my father had passed. And mind you,
(34:46):
right when he was sick, and then until he died.
For twelve nights, every single night, I dreamt of him,
and it was things like some of them are so benign.
We were like playing cribbage. He had taught me cribbage
as a child. But they were just these sweet dreams
where we were just together having conversations. Well, in that time,
I'm sitting there, I didn't even realize in the alley
(35:07):
that the window that I looked at at this alley
there was a telephone pole. I'd never noticed that telephone
pole before. But here this huge bird lands on it,
and then it's just staring at me through the window.
Oh my god, I realize. I realize, oh my god,
that's not an owl. It was a hawk. And I'm living.
(35:29):
I mean, at the time, I'm not living. I'm working
in downtown Port Collins. Not a lot of hawks there, no,
And I stay to my client, excuse me for one
moment because I'm using my phone as a timer, and
I take a picture of the bird because I'm like,
no one's gonna believe this. Yeah, because it was so big,
and I actually did get a picture of it, which
(35:49):
is so awesome. And then it was a few days
later I was looking for Christmas ornaments for my partner
at the time. I pull up an Etsy website and
the first ornament is this big hawk with the inscription
I will always be with you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Oh my gosh, you know.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
And you know, we're like, you can't make this stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Cannot no, you know.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
And so when Marla said, you know, your dad's going
to keep appairing to you, she said, you know he's
he's gonna appear at your wedding. And it was only
by total Again. I'm driving with one of my girlfriends,
getting ready to go to our outdoor wedding and she
has a big escalade with a big sun roof, and
we have to stop on the road because we've got
(36:40):
to make sure all the groom and the groom's men
are all in the house. And so while we're sitting
there and she knew the story with the hawk, we
look up and this hawk is circling the car. I mean,
we are. I mean I have full body chills right
now just recalling it. You know, it was just like
so again, you know these and there are so many
(37:01):
more with my father, but I won't spend time talking
about them. But the hawk thing was just one that's happened, this.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Reoccurring camp miss it. Yeah, no, and.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Other people have experienced it too, so it's it's like, yeah,
this is really happening, this is really real.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
If you had to say one thing that you would
hope readers would walk away from reading this book with,
what would that be.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I think it would really be that despite what's happening
in their life right now, despite what's going on, or
how much fear they have, if they can pause, you know,
I would say, there's power in the pause.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
For sure, Yeah, you know, and put down.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Our devices and put down the distraction and just breathe
into their hearts. You know, there's exercises in here where
I'm guiding people through, like how you can just put
your hands on your heart and get in touch with
that spark that is within you. I think my hope
is people walk away with the message that they are
a part of the divine, that the Divine is in
(38:02):
them as them and comes through them, and that divine spark.
You know, Quantum physics and just regular physics tells us
that energy is never born, energies, it never dies, it
just changes shape. Yeah, and so when we know that
we are that eternal spark, I think we can shine
(38:22):
more brightly in the world and really help to lift
up one another as we let go of fear we
move into love.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
The book is called My Big, Fat, Juicy Life and
Everything After. It is out now you guys can go
get it, and I will put it in the description
of this podcast. But we did mention there's some other
books that you've written, and also you have a podcast
called Ignite the Spark, which is also the name of
your other book, The Spark. So will you tell us
a little bit about what people could find on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Yeah, so it's Igniting the Spark. So Igniting the Spark,
it's conversations with thought leaders, change makers, luminaries in the
areas of psychology, science, spirituality, all to really help us
truly to ignite that spark within us. And so if
people go to my website, which is Stephanie James dot world,
(39:15):
they can find the podcast, my books, a trailer for
the film, and a link to the film that's playing
on Humanity Streams Plus right now and just events. And
I love if they go there, there's a free It's
a chakra guided meditation that I do, and I had
so many clients that would say, can you record that
for me? I love that, so guide them through it
(39:37):
in session, and so I put that on the website
as a free gift to everybody.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Oh amazing. I'll put the website as well in the
description of this podcast. If people want to keep up
with you on social media, can you tell us where
to find you?
Speaker 3 (39:49):
It's Stephanie the Spark on Instagram and Stephanie James on Facebook.
So I would love you know. I'm always one of
those people. And in the well, there's a place where
you can go to your big fat juicylife dot org
and share your own story. That's great, and those are
always confidential, but I think it's so important that we
(40:10):
start having the conversation. Yea, So we're opening this up
and just saying yeah, me too, Yeah I had that
experience too.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I always say to my listeners, the reason I even
want to do this podcast is for that connection, the
me sharing part of my story and then hearing back
from listeners the story of theirs that resonated because of
what I shared, or you know, what their experience was
at that exact thing. That's the stuff that fuels my
heart and so I'm hearing a lot of that with
you too. But if you are listening and you feel
(40:41):
inspired to do that, definitely go do it. It matters
more than you know, is what I always tell people.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I love the stories. I mean, that's my life, right.
I sit in the interior of people's hearts all day
long listening to story.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I'm so honored, you know, literally, it's it's the greatest
part of this journey is that we get to show
up for each other like that and witness each other's stories.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Stephanie, thank you so much for being here. I love
this chat.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
I do too. Kelly, thank you so much. What a
joy to be with you.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Thanks for listening to The Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson,
where we believe everyone has a little velvet in a
little edge. Subscribe for more conversations on life, style, beauty,
and relationships. Search Velvet's Edge wherever you get your podcasts.
Conversations on life, style, beauty and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Psychotherapist, filmmaker, host of Igniting the Spark an author of
Your Big, Fat, Juicy Life and Everything After That comes
out today the day we are recording, April fifteenth. Stephanie
James is here his Stephanie.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hi, Kelly, so good to see you.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you so much for being here. I know today
we were just talking before the podcast is a massive
day for you. The book came out today and you
were telling me there's been all sorts of interesting transitions
that have happened in your life to get you to
this point, which we'll get into a lot of those
coming up. But you just moved to Santa Fe and
I'm wondering if you would share a little bit about
that with the listeners, because you said it was a
(00:50):
very guided move for you, or you almost felt like
there was no choice in the matter, it was just
something you had to do.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah. Absolutely, it was so wild. I haven't had this
experience in thirty two years, okay, and so you have
to know that it wasn't just like, oh, it was
a whim and I say it wasn't a decision, it
was a directive. Yeah, because I was literally in the
middle of a therapy session and it was just like boom,
(01:18):
it just came in and it was just like, you're
moving to Santa Fe. And now the reason that that
is so powerful for me, And like I said thirty
two years ago, I'll share really briefly because what happened
is so significant that that's why I listened to this.
So at that time, I was living in Colorado. I
was living in Denver working on an adolescent psych unit,
(01:41):
a lockdown adolescent psych unit. But I worked with four
of my favorite girlfriends and there were literally fourteen of
us up at my aunt. My aunt had a second
home up in Vail, Colorado, and so we were all
up there for this big ski weekend and having the
best time, you know, skiing all day. We'd ride dondola
to the top of the mountain and have margarita at
(02:03):
night and you know, so it's this great time. So
it made no sense that the last night we're there,
Saturday night, I'm brushing my teeth and all of a sudden,
I start crying and the voice comes in and it's
like you need to move back to Fort Collins, and
it was like this very strong yeah. And my friend
I was sharing the room with, she's like, why would
(02:23):
you want to do that? Like at the time, I
hadn't gone to grad school yet, and she's like, you're
the only non mastered person on the therapy team, you
work with all of us, why would you want to move?
And I said, I don't know, but it's that strong.
So I'm not one for remembering dates, but I'll always
remember this one because the next day, Sunday was January fourteenth,
(02:46):
and my lease on my apartment was up February first.
I was a single mom with a four year old,
and so I call my mom, who lived in Fort
Collins the next day and I'm like, Mom, I'm moving home.
I don't have a job, but I know I have
to go. And she's like, well, that's interesting because our
(03:06):
renter isn't going to renew his lease, so we have
a place for you to move into February first.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
What Okay?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
So that was the first like serendipity and I'm like, great,
so I don't resign my lease. I moved my daughter
and I back to Fort Collins and literally within a
few days, I had a job. And not only was
it just a job, I was working at Foothills Gateway
with my favorite aunt, which was so great. Her office
was like caddy corner to mine. And I mean, it's
(03:34):
just some of the like sweet things. But Kelly, I'll
tell you the biggest thing. Three weeks to the day
after I moved back to Fort Collins, I get a
call from one of my girlfriends in Denver and they
said the adolescent unit had closed and everyone was laid off,
and the front page of the Rocky Mountain newspaper said
(03:56):
psychiatric abuses charged.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
And so unbeknownst to us, we had scouts that would
go out around the nation finding kids to bring into treatment.
And this was before managed care, so we would keep
them and tell their insurance ran out, so seven to
nine months, and these scouts were getting a five thousand
dollars kickback per kid. Of course, all illegal. I would
(04:23):
have been out of a job, just signed a lease,
and as a single mom, I would have panicked. I
mean it would have been such a high stress, super
difficult time for me. And instead, instead it was just seamless, right.
And so when this Colleen came in to come to
(04:43):
Santa Fe and it was so strong in my heart
and literally at that moment, Kelly, it was like time
just kind of stopped. I kind of pride myself on
being able to be completely present with my clients, and
I was like, Okay, come back, come back. But then
I knew the same kind of serendipity started happening, you know.
(05:03):
The first one with a call in to my property
manager for my office because I had a lease until
the end of June, and I said, hey, I'm moving
to Santa Fe. And the first thing out of Robin's
mouth is, I'm so excited for you. Okay, we'll just
consider this your thirty days and then March tenth, I'll
(05:26):
just send you your deposit back. I mean like unheard of.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Right, totally unheard of. Yes, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
So that was just one of many many things. The
place I ended up renting. I'm renting this beautiful casita
on five acres and one of my dearest friends and
her husband, I send her the text of my address
and she's like, oh my god, you are five minutes
down the road from us gee. So you know, Kelly,
it's just been phenomenal, and I know I'm meant to
(05:56):
be here, and I've already met so many incredible people
in five weeks eat six weeks, now, I guess I've
been here. Yeah. Plus you know the community of friends
I already had here's and I never wanted to live here.
I think that's important to say. I sit here all
the time, but I didn't want to live here. I
left all my friends, my family, my parents, my daughters,
(06:17):
my grandsons, like it was that strong. And every day
and every night I feel like, you know, I go
to sleep and I wake up in the deepest sense
of gratitude where it feels like it's just like vibrating
through my cells. Yeah, so I know I'm at the
right place.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah. And TVD on What's to come. I feel very
excited for you.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So much of your work is tied to really getting
in touch with yourself and listening to your own inner knowing,
which is kind of what we're talking about. And I
mentioned you had written You've written multiple books, The Spark,
Igniting your Best Life and Becoming Fears for your first
two books. So what made you want to write this
book right now, Big Fat, Juicy Life. What was the
(07:02):
inner knowing of this moment in time with this connection
for this book.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Well, a year ago in March, I had Neil Donald
Walsh on my podcast, and for people that don't know
who that is, he wrote the Conversation with God Books.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Oh yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Know, back in the nineties and they sold like five
million copies the first one. It's printed in like eighty
excuse me, thirty eight different languages. So I had him
on my show and a little bit kind of like Kelly,
when you and I just jumped on the screen together.
It was like there was this immediate heart connection. Yeah,
(07:40):
And he and I didn't even get to the interview
for half an hour. We were just talking and laughing
and sharing. And at one point he just stops and
looks at me and you can just see because I
have the video of it, so you see the download
coming through him. And he's like, Stephanie, you're going to
write your next book, and you're going to start tomorrow morning.
(08:02):
And the original title, he said, the title is going
to be I'm Dying to tell you about Death. And
he's like, it's going to have a global impact and
I'm going to endorse this book, okay. And again it's
like when that call comes, I answered, I show up
the next day at the keyboard. And I think this
is so interesting because my first two books they were
like just dating a baby. It was like a pregnancy, right.
(08:25):
They each took nine months. This book was written in
a little under six weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Geez, I can't even process. I know, it was just
flowing out of you.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's just flowing out of me. I mean it was.
I feel like again it was so downloaded, like I
always feel like, I just showed up and whatever we're
supposed to come through came through. And then the other
wild part are the people that started showing up within
that six week period to be a part of it,
like Wayne Dyer's daughter Sagedyer and his wife Marceline. They
(09:00):
both are interviewed and in the book, Stephen Simon, who's
an Academy Award winning producer of the film What Dreams
May Come, with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding, Junior, Suzanne Geeseman,
aril Fod. I mean, all these incredible contributors who have
had their own story that were just beautiful and perfect
(09:21):
fits to weave into this book, which which really is
my own story and other people's story and research that
validate that death isn't the end for us. You know
that it's it's just the next chapter in our book
of eternity. And that's really what came through.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I love that alternate title that he started with that
really sparked this for you and for the listeners. Could
you just give an overall summary of the book before
I dive into more of the questions. It's my big, fat,
juicy life and everything after. So death being one of
the undertone or overtones of the book, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Kelly, it's really about how we can befriend death. And
it's not about just everything being joyful all the time.
I mean, that's definitely not my message anywhere. It's about
being with our real experience. And there is a chapter
on growing through grief. I mean that we really have
to experience loss in our life. It's part in our journey.
(10:17):
And the book really though, is about life and when
we befriend that death is a part of it. We
can let go of some of this like desperateness and clinginess,
and there really is an anxiety. You know, the biggest
fear people have is the fear of death. That's the
number one fear. So if we are able to let
go of it and understand it in a different way,
(10:39):
then this moment can become more sacred. We're not living
in anxiety, we're not living in fear. We can just
be right here, and it really does inform this moment.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Why do you think we're so scared of death? Is
it the unknown?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
I think it is. I think because our brains, the
way our brains work, they love familiarity. Our brain, you know,
thrives on familiarity, and so when we don't have a
frame of reference, it can kick us into anxiety. And
the people you know, experience that just going to a
new school, or they get into a new relationship, or
(11:15):
they move someplace. I mean, that can all be very
anxiety provoking for people, or when they get divorced because
they have no idea what the other side looks like. Yeah,
well so the same is true for this. And yeah,
we have people that have near death experiences. I think
there's a lot of things in the book that really
validate that death isn't the end because when I was
(11:35):
doing research, seventy three percent of the people that were
tolled have had these kind of experiences where they've had
someone that passed that, then they you know, had to
encounter where they heard them, whether it's internally or a
friend of mine, John Shinnerer, who was also a psychologist,
his twenty four year old son died a year ago
(11:58):
and he was sharing with me. It's not book, but
he was sharing with me personally that you know, like
a week later, he's sitting there and he thought he
heard a cupboard open and turned around and nobody was there.
And the next thing he knows, he feels like a
bump against his chair and he's just like, okay, son,
you know. And so yeah, and so what's interesting. People
(12:19):
are so afraid to talk about this stuff. People are afraid,
as we were just saying, to talk about death because
they don't know about it. And I think that's one
of the things that's important about this is that opens
it up. You know. One of my good friends was
telling me about these death dinners that they're doing, and
I know that sounds so morbid. What it's about, though,
(12:42):
is like literally getting dressed up going for a gourmet
meal and the topic is death. It's like exploring it,
talking about it, you know. Again, it's like befriending it
instead of it being oh my gosh, you know what
we what we suppress continue use. Right, it's like you
to think about, you know, like what we resist persists.
(13:05):
So instead of being afraid, what if we brought that
out into the light and we just talked about it
and we had a different understanding. Right. And so then
these people that have had these experiences, they don't feel
so marginalized, right, They don't have that fear of like,
oh my gosh, I can't talk about this, or people
think I'm crazy. No, it's like everybody's you know, having
(13:28):
these experiences.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Well, and you mentioned the near death experience or people
who have had those moments and they've even maybe died
and been brought back to life. It is a consistent
theme amongst those types of people that I've known in
my life or just the stories that I've heard to
where when that something like that happens, it completely changes
the way they live their life, or the way they
(13:52):
view life, the purpose of their life, any of those things.
So are you finding that the more we normalize the
death conversation, the more we changed the way we look
at our current life setup, our just life in general.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think that that's really the key what we're going
to do is we dispel fear by speaking it, not
by shoving it down and pretending like it doesn't exist,
or I have to be strong, or I have to
show up a certain way. And I think that was
one of the important things about the Grief Chapter two.
It's like embracing what's here. Yeah, you know, Rumy has
(14:30):
that great poem the guest House, and it really speaks
to that. And Lord knows, I'm not going to paraphrase
the entire poem. I wish I had it memorized, but
I don't. But one of the beautiful things about that
poem is it says, you know, this journey of being
human is a guesthouse. So every day a new visitor arrives,
(14:50):
some meanness, a depression, sadness comes. He says, welcome them
all at the door, laughing, and invite them in because
each has been sent as a guide from the office.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
In my life, grief and pain have been the biggest
catalyst for change. So do you think that grief can
be the gateway for the most massive transformation in our lives?
And it's one of those things that a lot of
people like you said, suppress and we don't want to feel.
But instead of we're almost like inhibiting ourselves from actually
(15:32):
living by doing that, by not fully feeling it and
processing it or going through it or allowing it to
be the catalyst.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I do feel like
if we allowed ourselves that level of grief I speak about,
Like in Ireland, you know, they have this procession through
the streets when someone dies and people are wailing through
the streets. It's a community expression, you know, same thing
with the Lakota tribes where you know when the person
(16:02):
lost someone, they'd cut their hair and it was again
very a communal experience where it was okay to be
sad Dia delos muertos, where they absolutely celebrate people that
have died. It's where they feel like the veil has thinned.
And so you know, these offerings of food and it's
okay to cry and to wail. And I think so
(16:25):
many of us, you know, we were taught when we
were kids, Oh, if you're going to cry, go to
your room. Yeah, you know, and it's this very private
and so I think part of this transformation for us
is not only learning to have these conversations, but learning
to allow ourselves to be with our full experience. And
so when you talk about the healing that comes from that,
(16:49):
there's a part of me that says, oh, I want
to change the archaic narrative that we have to suffer
in order to heal, that we have to suffer in
order to grow. Yeah, and you're right. I'm telling you
my own grief journeys have been for sure, what's cracked
my heart open, what's allowed me to look at the
parts of myself maybe I didn't want to look at.
(17:11):
And so I do think it can be phenomenally transformative.
But it's not that we're welcoming pain into our lives.
It's saying, if you're having a loss, and if you
have a grief experience, there's a different way to hold it,
and there's a different way to be with it. So
there's actually this alchemical change that happens within you where
you're not doing the spiritual bypass, you're not shoving it down,
(17:35):
you're being with it. And that's the most incredible medicine
I think there is.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well, and I'm going to butcher this quote, but what's
the quote that says something about grief is only a
sign of how much you loved essentially, Like and you
mentioned the heart cracking open. Every time I've allowed myself
to fully fill the depth of my grief, and I'm
a very comfortable with feelings person, so I think I
go there a little easier than some others. But anytime
(18:02):
I've allowed myself to do that, the amount of love
that I can feel on the other side of that
is exponentially greater. Like it is so much bigger the
depth that I can go to, and love only thrives
from how far I let myself go into the grief.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, I think that's so beautiful and that's really it
when we allow ourselves to be fully in our hearts. Yeah,
you know, it's like it actually expands. Yeah, it feels
like maybe it's cracking and breaking open, but it's actually
I feel like it's growing pains because it's extending.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, I agree, And I think that that is a
really for me at least, that's been a really good
switch of how to change the narrative around grief, because
I'm like, it's not like you want to tell people
go sit in your suffering or just go suffer and
be pain and pain all the time. No one wants
to do that, but I think it's for me. The
reason I feel comfortable doing it is because I know
what's on the other side. Yeah, you call the book
(19:00):
a passport to enter freedom, which I loved. Tell us
a little bit more about that. Why is this book
the passport to inner freedom?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Because I think we have so much programming and again,
so many and I call them archaic narratives, but they're
also how we've been enculturated. It's how we've grown up
around grief, around loss, and again these aren't conversations that
few people are comfortable having. I think it's freedom because
(19:33):
when you let go of the fear of death being
the end, Yeah, it truly does ignite something in you.
It allows you to get rid of these layers of conditioning.
And there are definitely ways in the book, like at
the end of every chapter there are these tapping in
places so that there's specific exercises and things you can
(19:53):
do to like start shedding some of those layers. Because
like my brand and my first book, The Spark, the
Spark is that essence that is truly us, and so
circumstances and situations can feel like it covers that up,
but it's never doused. So our work is how do
(20:14):
we excavate that? And the more that we excavate that,
the more we experience inner freedom.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So the more we excavate the spark within amongst all
of the grief, the more freedom we feel. It's hitting
me because of you know, the way our world is
right now, I feel like there's a lot, there's just
a lot, and so a lot of us might be
living in that moment that we're not able to tap
(20:42):
into the beauty, the spark, the fully lived life, and
so I don't know, that's just hitting me, like, as
we're talking right now of how beautiful that kind of
freedom is amongst all the chaos, amongst all the inner
turmoil that we're kind of all navigating right now.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
It reminds me, as you said that what came up
for me was Victor Frankel, who was a survivor of Auschwitz,
who wrote man Search for Meaning. Yeah, and his famous quote,
Again this isn't going to be exactly his quote, but
it's something about like basically like in the end, the
one thing we can choose is our own attitude. We
(21:21):
can choose our own way, you know. And here's someone
who had like the worst of circumstances, and so he
had to go within to say, Okay, I'm going to
make meaning out of this situation. I want to share
what's happened here when I leave so that other people
can be aware. So hopefully this kind of situation never
(21:41):
happens again. So I feel like, even with everything so
crazy right now in our world and all the chaos
that's going on in our nation right now, this is
imperative where we can come back to these still points
within us, that we can resource ourselves beyond the media,
beyond what's on the news. And it's not about negating
(22:04):
that or putting your head in the sand. It is, though,
about when we touch that spark. There is something there
that is bigger than everything going on right It's that
eternal spark that goes on. And I speak about this
in the beginning of the book, you know, being this
little girl who was very very aware that like, oh,
like we're never really born and we never die like
(22:26):
that that is us and I think we're so in
touch with it when we're little. It's just who we are.
We are that essence, we are that spark until as
you know, Don Miguel Ruez says in the Four Agreements,
we become domesticated. So before we become domesticated, we are that,
and so so much of this is really a return
(22:48):
to that place within us. That's where our strength, our beauty,
our resiliency lies. It's not outside.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Right. Well, I'm so glad you're talking about this because
saying that, I kept thinking of something that really frustrates
me when I see this in culture, and I've not
been able to really name it. I don't even think
I've ever said this out loud, but when I hear
people go, you get this one life, I'm like, no,
you don't like that? Is always my response in my head.
(23:18):
And I don't know where I've gotten that knowing from either,
but I've always known it like it's not as simple
as that, and I don't believe that, And now I
can verbalize that more. I talk about a lot on
this podcast what I believe our soul is here to do.
But I think what's interesting is all of the focus
in our world is about this world in this moment.
(23:39):
What we do in a tangible day to day way,
like what is our job? Whatever happens to us in
work is basically like, oh, we're successful or we're not,
and you know all these like tangible materialistic things and
those matter of course, Like I want to live a
great life. I know you want to live a great life,
But what is the deeper calling of our soul? And
(24:02):
I think talking about death is such an interesting gateway
into discovering that because we talk about sole purpose all
the time, but we don't talk about the afterlife and
then what's next and all of that stuff. So you
can get comfortable with that, then it's like maybe you
would change the way you're living your life here? Does
(24:22):
that make sense? I know, I just got all the
way around. It really does.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
So what I'm hearing from you and what I get
is like this whole thing of like it's not just
about defining ourselves by our careers or what we do
or how much money is in our bank account, Like
there's not really who we are, no, no, and so
and what it reminds me of. I'll share this really
quick story. It's in my film One Sparks Ig Nights. Yeah,
(24:49):
And I share this in that film because it was
such a powerful, poignant thing that really speaks to what
you were just saying and so again this is you know,
I keep dating myself, but this has probably been twenty
five years ago. And I went to a Sufi school
in San Francisco for a week, okay, And as I
(25:09):
met the presenter, doctor Jaffy, on the way and he
shook my hand and it was one of those moments
where I'm like, okay, he's holding my hand too long
and he's looking into my soul.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
You know, I was how you felt it I felt.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I was like okay. And so we go on and
I was there with a friend and we sit down
and there's about forty people there. He goes up on
stage and starts talking and I don't know three fourths
of the way through, he looks out in the audience
and he says, hey, you in the blue coat, I
have a message for you. And I'm looking around and
I'm looking around at me, no one in the bratt
(25:46):
And he says, this is what you need to hear.
And he says it and I can't hear him.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
What do you mean?
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I could not actually hear him, and I look at
my you know, my girlfriend said to beside me, and
I'm like, what did he say? And she's like kind
of looking at me shrugging your shoulders, and he kind
of laughs, and he goes, my dear, what I said
was he says it again, and I still can't hear him,
and by then people are starting to laugh, and he's like,
(26:15):
you are really resistant to this, and he said, my dear,
what I'm trying to say is and Kelly, he goes
to say it a third time, and all the air
conditioning units and the place go on and nobody can
hear him. Why so then everybody is laughing, you know,
and he's like, Okay, come up here. And so I
(26:36):
walk up there, and I said, on these steps beside him,
and he says, my dear, what is so difficult for
you to hear and what you are so resistant to
is stop trying. Stop trying. And he said, you know
you've been trying to be perfect. You were trying to
be perfect your whole life for your father, and now
(26:56):
you're trying to do it for your husband. Stop trying.
And it was the biggest, you know, just awakening within
me of like I had been trying to do everything externally,
just as you were saying, if I could just be
sustful enough, if I could just have the right job,
have the right flows, have the right body, have the
right relationship, then I would be okay, I would feel
(27:17):
lovable or happy inside. But I never did. And it
was like, oh, yeah, that's right because it's an insight.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
We were talking about this a little bit before the podcast,
that you do a lot of different things the way
that I do a lot of different things, and your
day job, I would say, is a psychotherapist. So it's
interesting because in that part of your career, I would
imagine there's a lot of deep diving into the why
we do what we do, you know, from a brain
perspective or the nervous system, what's driving us. And you
(27:57):
have a story of childhood where you thought everything was
great in your life and then out of nowhere, your
dad just leaves the family. So I would imagine that
that happening really structured a lot of your journey. And
like you're saying, the trying we repeat that in relationships,
and so you've analyzed all of that, then you get
to this place where now this new part of your
(28:18):
career is yes, Okay, that's why I did it all.
But what am I here? What's the deeper stuff that
I'm here to do from a soul place and you
don't have to try to do that stuff. That's the
stuff that we don't even know why we know how
to do it. We're just driven to do it. We're
driven to move to Santa Fe for whatever reason. Like
our job is just to listen to the inner knowing.
(28:40):
So what an interesting kind of dichotomy between the two
careers you have even.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, and I love that, I mean to me kind
of like you, like we were talking about before, It
just we have so many parts to who we are,
and so instead of just saying I have to have
all that fit in one little box, it's like, no,
there's so many different parts of what and how I
guess I want to contribute, you know, I mean, yeah,
(29:07):
there's a through line you know, on my film poster
it says your period healing period matters period, because I
truly believe that, you know, each one of us are
like these golden threads and the fabric of humanity, like
it does matter how we show up and how we
contribute matters, and so I think that's in all my work.
(29:29):
But it's so fun to get to use all these differents,
you know, right, you.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Can't really get so one without the other. Like for me,
at least, I've needed to understand how my childhood impacted
the decisions I was making as an adult to then
be able to get in touch with who am I
as a soul, not as like this external version of myself,
you know, like I needed all the steps. They all matter,
like you said, But it's just interesting to me. I
(29:57):
don't know just all the different pieces. I find that
really fascinating. What does a big, fat, juicy life mean
to you today?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I love that because I really believe living a big, fat,
juicy life is living a full life, and what that
means is living a life with the least amount of
fear possible. Yes, we're gonna feel fear. Yes we're hardwired
for fear. It's not about negating that, but it's about
having the full experience. I mean, part of the juice
(30:25):
is actually when we go into pain. Yeah, you know,
it's not negating those parts of us. And again, I
think though, when we embrace those parts, then the good
stuff is even more rich. You know, the joy feels
at an even deeper, achred level because we're not just
skimming the surface of our experience. And you know, I
(30:48):
found it interesting. My dear friend George Capanelli when he
read the book, and he's one of the people that
endorsed the book, you know, he said, this is really
a love story. You know, this book really is a
love story, and it's a love story about loving our
lives and loving this experience. And also I do think
it's important. You know, you brought up the thing with
(31:09):
my father leaving, and I think one of the things
that is incredible is our relationship totally fell apart. You know,
I was forever in my life trying to earn that
man's love and approval after he left when I was
sixteen and never felt like I could. And so six
(31:32):
years before he passed, and almost three years since he's passed.
Six years before he did, I ended my relationship with
he and my stepmother because it had been so painful
throughout my life, and I did so I talk about
this and becoming fierce how we can detach with love
where you can acknowledge like thank you for all these gifts.
(31:52):
And at the same time, I say, my dad has
been one of the greatest loves of my life and
the greatest pain. And so the beautiful piece though Kelly
and for readers of the book, they'll see this progressive journey.
Once my father passed, my relationship with him has been phenomenal.
I never would have thought of having a relationship with
(32:14):
my dad afterwards, right, but I am telling you right now,
the way that he has shown up over and over
again has been mind blowing. If I did not believe
it in an afterlife, I'm telling you I do now.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
It's almost like amens from the other side.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Yeah, you know, it was very wild because my dad
had passed in December, and in January I had the
wonderful Marla Freeze on my show. And Marla's a Hollywood actress.
Her book is American Psychic. She's helped the FBI in
La solve all these cold case murders and just she's
(32:57):
a phenomenal contributor. And I write about our experience in
the book because as I'm interviewing her in January, she says, oh,
your dad's here. At minute twenty six, you can see
this in the video. She says that, and then you
see literally this orb of light, not go straight up,
(33:18):
not go diagonally, literally go like this in the frame.
And she starts laughing. She's like, did you see that, like,
I couldn't miss it, right, you know, there's no way
I could have missed that. And she said, you know,
your dad has a lot of cleanup to do, but
let's get together in the middle of February and connect.
(33:39):
And when we did, she was telling me things there's
no way she could have known about my father. She said,
you know, your dad is so sad that he chose
to filter all his love to you through his wife,
the woman he left my mom for, and some things
that were just so poignant. But the bigger thing was,
(34:00):
you know, she said, well, you know your dad's going
to keep showing up. And the truth was I mean,
and I write about it in the book, it really
began again. Here I am in a therapy session and
I'm doing EMDR, which is a protocol where the client
actually has their eyes closed. It's a trauma protocol. And
as I'm sitting there, you know, you're intently watching this person.
(34:23):
They do ninety seconds of eyes closed being with the trauma,
and then they come out every ninety seconds and you say, okay,
what did you notice what happened? Well, as this woman
is doing that, this huge bird, which I think is
an owl when I first see it. This is just
a few days after my father had passed. And mind you,
(34:46):
right when he was sick, and then until he died.
For twelve nights, every single night, I dreamt of him,
and it was things like some of them are so benign.
We were like playing cribbage. He had taught me cribbage
as a child. But they were just these sweet dreams
where we were just together having conversations. Well, in that time,
I'm sitting there, I didn't even realize in the alley
(35:07):
that the window that I looked at at this alley
there was a telephone pole. I'd never noticed that telephone
pole before. But here this huge bird lands on it,
and then it's just staring at me through the window.
Oh my god, I realize. I realize, oh my god,
that's not an owl. It was a hawk. And I'm living.
(35:29):
I mean, at the time, I'm not living. I'm working
in downtown Port Collins. Not a lot of hawks there, no,
And I stay to my client, excuse me for one
moment because I'm using my phone as a timer, and
I take a picture of the bird because I'm like,
no one's gonna believe this. Yeah, because it was so big,
and I actually did get a picture of it, which
(35:49):
is so awesome. And then it was a few days
later I was looking for Christmas ornaments for my partner
at the time. I pull up an Etsy website and
the first ornament is this big hawk with the inscription
I will always be with you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Oh my gosh, you know.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
And you know, we're like, you can't make this stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Cannot no, you know.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
And so when Marla said, you know, your dad's going
to keep appairing to you, she said, you know he's
he's gonna appear at your wedding. And it was only
by total Again. I'm driving with one of my girlfriends,
getting ready to go to our outdoor wedding and she
has a big escalade with a big sun roof, and
we have to stop on the road because we've got
(36:40):
to make sure all the groom and the groom's men
are all in the house. And so while we're sitting
there and she knew the story with the hawk, we
look up and this hawk is circling the car. I mean,
we are. I mean I have full body chills right
now just recalling it. You know, it was just like
so again, you know these and there are so many
(37:01):
more with my father, but I won't spend time talking
about them. But the hawk thing was just one that's happened, this.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Reoccurring camp miss it. Yeah, no, and.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Other people have experienced it too, so it's it's like, yeah,
this is really happening, this is really real.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
If you had to say one thing that you would
hope readers would walk away from reading this book with,
what would that be.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I think it would really be that despite what's happening
in their life right now, despite what's going on, or
how much fear they have, if they can pause, you know,
I would say, there's power in the pause.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
For sure, Yeah, you know, and put down.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Our devices and put down the distraction and just breathe
into their hearts. You know, there's exercises in here where
I'm guiding people through, like how you can just put
your hands on your heart and get in touch with
that spark that is within you. I think my hope
is people walk away with the message that they are
a part of the divine, that the Divine is in
(38:02):
them as them and comes through them, and that divine spark.
You know, Quantum physics and just regular physics tells us
that energy is never born, energies, it never dies, it
just changes shape. Yeah, and so when we know that
we are that eternal spark, I think we can shine
(38:22):
more brightly in the world and really help to lift
up one another as we let go of fear we
move into love.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
The book is called My Big, Fat, Juicy Life and
Everything After. It is out now you guys can go
get it, and I will put it in the description
of this podcast. But we did mention there's some other
books that you've written, and also you have a podcast
called Ignite the Spark, which is also the name of
your other book, The Spark. So will you tell us
a little bit about what people could find on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Yeah, so it's Igniting the Spark. So Igniting the Spark,
it's conversations with thought leaders, change makers, luminaries in the
areas of psychology, science, spirituality, all to really help us
truly to ignite that spark within us. And so if
people go to my website, which is Stephanie James dot world,
(39:15):
they can find the podcast, my books, a trailer for
the film, and a link to the film that's playing
on Humanity Streams Plus right now and just events. And
I love if they go there, there's a free It's
a chakra guided meditation that I do, and I had
so many clients that would say, can you record that
for me? I love that, so guide them through it
(39:37):
in session, and so I put that on the website
as a free gift to everybody.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Oh amazing. I'll put the website as well in the
description of this podcast. If people want to keep up
with you on social media, can you tell us where
to find you?
Speaker 3 (39:49):
It's Stephanie the Spark on Instagram and Stephanie James on Facebook.
So I would love you know. I'm always one of
those people. And in the well, there's a place where
you can go to your big fat juicylife dot org
and share your own story. That's great, and those are
always confidential, but I think it's so important that we
(40:10):
start having the conversation. Yea, So we're opening this up
and just saying yeah, me too, Yeah I had that
experience too.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I always say to my listeners, the reason I even
want to do this podcast is for that connection, the
me sharing part of my story and then hearing back
from listeners the story of theirs that resonated because of
what I shared, or you know, what their experience was
at that exact thing. That's the stuff that fuels my
heart and so I'm hearing a lot of that with
you too. But if you are listening and you feel
(40:41):
inspired to do that, definitely go do it. It matters
more than you know, is what I always tell people.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I love the stories. I mean, that's my life, right.
I sit in the interior of people's hearts all day
long listening to story.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I'm so honored, you know, literally, it's it's the greatest
part of this journey is that we get to show
up for each other like that and witness each other's stories.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Stephanie, thank you so much for being here. I love
this chat.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
I do too. Kelly, thank you so much. What a
joy to be with you.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Thanks for listening to The Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson,
where we believe everyone has a little velvet in a
little edge. Subscribe for more conversations on life, style, beauty,
and relationships. Search Velvet's Edge wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Kelly Henderson
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