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Summary

In this conversation, Adrienne Miller and Ayako discuss the complexities of grief, particularly in relation to baby loss and adoption. They explore the societal pressures surrounding grief, the importance of creating safe spaces for bereaved parents, and the need to decolonize our understanding of grief. The discussion also touches on parenting, neurodiversity, and the intersection of grief and activism, emphasizing the importance of community and emotional healing. They highlight the role of ancestral practices and plant medicine in healing, and the necessity of honoring emotions as part of the human experience.

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Read the Transcript:

Adrienne Miller (00:37)
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. I have Ayako here. She is mamasmatters here on Instagram. And this has been a long time coming. You and I have followed each other for a while here in like immediate soul sister connection. Yeah. Yeah.

I felt it too.

Good. And we just both figured out that we both have ADHD and I feel like that’s another.

I feel like I just magnetized to those people.

Yeah. Our like unique brains are like, yes, we need each other. Totally. OK. Tell me why you started your particular page, where that comes from about Momma’s Matter here, where you’re going with it, just like all about what you are right now.

Yeah. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you. So yeah, my name is Ayako, pronouns she her.

I’m a settler on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Kwantlen, and Swanson and other Coast Salish nations. So in Richmond, BC, so pretty close to you. And I started Mama’s Matter here back in 2020 after I had my early stillbirth of my daughter, Emiko. And I felt like

society was telling me I needed to get over my grief, you know, like it had already been six months, like shut up, just go back to work and stop talking about it. And I was like, I am not done talking about it. Like I’m her mom and she’s my daughter. So I created a safe space for myself and others to share about their baby loss grief. And it has now turned into an app called Loss to Love, which holds space. It’s the only comprehensive app in the world that provides like

emotional support for bereaved parents. So,

okay, tell me a little bit about it. Is it courses? Is it meditations? What it is?

Yeah, so there’s a free club and a VIP club, the free club. We wanted to make sure that resources were accessible to anyone enduring grief. So that acute initial grief of like, or acute stage of baby loss, like I’m miscarrying at home, what’s going to happen? So we have all the tools and resources for that.

tools and resources for folks who are miscarrying or stillbirth or infant loss in hospitals. And then it’s a real holistic approach. So there are meditations. We have trauma-informed yoga. We have EFT tapping. And then we also have like AMAs with therapists and child life specialists to help your living children navigate their grief of their sibling. And so we have support groups like live virtual support groups, live workshops.

in the VIP zone and like extended resources there. So it’s like become a really beautiful community.

amazing. I love that because you’re right. It is like not a widely discussed topic. And I just love hearing about like these grassroots like, I don’t have this community. So I’m going to create my own. I am such a big fan of that.

we’re creating the things that like we wish we had when we started.

Yeah, like I remember like searching on the Apple App Store for like miscarriage. there’s literally nothing and it just shows that there’s this gap in support for like long-term grief.

And I know you’ve talked to me a little bit about because I was going to join and then I was like, I actually don’t have that experience, but I did give up my first for adoption. And then you and I were like, absolutely. That is right. The section of grief.

that again, he’s in high school. And so why am I still talking about it? Why is this still like such a big part of this hole in my heart that I feel will just live forever? But yeah, and then moving on to that healing. And you’ve kind of told me about expanding into greater just grief in general, yeah?

Yeah, yeah. Well, first I just want to like acknowledge like you sharing that about.

your son and and I just want to like appreciate and validate like we’re regardless of like what happened when when you gave him up for adoption like Physiologically like you like he is a part of you like you grew him out of yourselves So you will feel that like tethered bond to him and that tethered grief To whatever happened for the rest of your life because you will be his mother for the rest of his life, too, right? So

there’s never an expiry on like when we can start grieving. know like grandmothers that like only told their children about their miscarriage or their stillbirth, like when they were like 70 and then they started like the whole family like then had a funeral and when like the mom was seven years old, like, so it’s like, it’s so beautiful that like it can come whenever we’re ready to like acknowledge it.

Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say you always say that grief is not linear and you always say that there is no one way to grieve. so yeah, let’s for sure get into that. you can keep going. Yeah. mean, like, interrupt each other the whole time. we’re both like ADHD.

I know. And I mean, like, then I was just thinking, you know, like the linear concept of grief is also because of the colonized Western world that we live in, because everything has to be

on a linear scale, we have to get back to work, be good, productive employees. And anyway, that’s another tangent, but expanding, you know, mama’s matter here into a broader space for all types of grief. Yeah, I’ve been trying to change my handle to grief matters here. So hopefully by the time this airs, I will have been able to change it. But Instagram is like, not, can’t do it myself. Because,

I realized my life after loss is not just about Emmy. Yes, she is like the catalyst, but there’s so many other types of grief. There’s this collective world grief that is weighing on all of us right now with the multiple genocides and oppressive systems that we live under. And there is disenfranchised grief that like the types of group you don’t really get to talk about, like your adoption, right? Which is also totally welcomed in Lost to Love. know, we like any abortions,

adoption, fertility loss, that’s all valid there. But yeah, there’s so many layers to grief and so many things that we’re holding on our hearts that I want to expand Momma’s Matter here to talk more about that. And also to give us permission to realize it’s not our fault that we’re feeling griefy. It’s because of these colonial, patriarchal, white supremacist structures that are on top of us making us feel like

our grief is not valid or our feelings are not valid.

Which is just, that is not a tangent. That is at the core of everything you talk about and everything that I talk about too, like with school. Yeah. That’s the root. really is. And yeah. So this came up a lot in when Roe versus Wade was getting overturned. So whatever year that was just a little bit ago. And I got invited to speak on

adoption because a lot of folks seem to think, well, the alternative is adoption. Like that is the clear solution. You don’t need to go through an abortion because there are tons of people willing to adopt or this way your kid still gets to live and there’s no trauma attached. It’s a blessing. It’s like this.

genuine sacrifice that you get to be a part of and how wonderful and your blessing is other family and its solution to all of your problems. and so I went on to basically say that it 100 % comes with all of its own trauma. And for sure it is different for every birth mom. So this was my birth experience in particular, but it is with me not only to this day, it is also so complex and layered. So I have trauma with

his adoptive parents, let’s say I also have that trauma of looking into his face and seeing his really abusive father. I also have trauma with I’m going to have to deal with his questions at some point about our relationship, about his dad, about why I gave him up all these different things. I also have to deal with the fact that it was 100 % of forced pregnancy.

and that the church and my parents were so heavily involved in really exploiting how hormonal I was, how emotional I was, how desperate I was, how just it was a perfect, I have to grieve the upbringing that I had in the church and with my family and with school to.

brimed me into not advocating for myself, into not making decisions for myself, into being this good little quiet girl who did what I was supposed to. I was primed to believe and told very explicitly that I needed to give up this baby to a righteous Mormon couple to redeem my soul from hell and from what I had done by having, you know, getting pregnant outside of, outside of my, Mormon marriage.

And so there’s, and that’s just very tip of the iceberg, but it comes with all of this trauma that no one thinks of people think of adoption as this like beautiful, beautiful thing, which it can be. And it simultaneously can be like, am so thrilled for that family and I love, you know, them very much. And it’s an open adoption and we have this relationship and I’m watching him grow up and that is amazing. That doesn’t.

negate or take away at all from any part of my experience. And so what I love about what you talk about is one, if we look at decolonizing grief with either a stillborn or with Palestine or with my adoption, it’s all connected in the sense that we all, one, we all need to grieve, two, it is going to

go up and down and be more intense and less intense throughout our lives. We need to do it as part of a community. All the things that are about decolonization, right? And we can see that with capitalism being tied to our productivity and like you said, having to get on with our lives and literally we all have to go back to work and we all have to pay bills and we all are navigating this system of

anxiety and rush and keeping up and all of these things, which prevents us from sitting with that grief. I recently I’m gonna let you talk I promise. it’s great. I recently read or listened to Heal Your Way Forward. And it is a book about basically for white women on like

to be better and check your privilege. It’s from the founder of Check Your Privilege. in it, she talks about how we need those, like white women need to go through their grief and they need to have those white women tears and provide that space. And it’s not just a checklist of being a good ally and listening to the right podcasts and, you know, doing all these things, but grieve.

your like whatever it is that you need to grieve and she just like has this whole chapter on white women tears and I love it so much because it is not gonna apply to every single person but I it’s just about that space of you are also in this system of needing to decolonize. So even though you’re not may not be an immigrant, you may not be queer, you may not be black, you may not be Muslim. We’re all

in this oppressive system. And yes, it all affects us in disproportionate ways, but we all still suffer from it, but every single one of us.

Yeah. Thanks for that. Because that’s what I was talking about in my, decolonizing our grief workshop or webinar that like, we’ve, yeah, we’re all subjugated to these oppressive systems.

I feel like, you know, even the term of whiteness, you know, has homogenized all the beautiful, distinct cultures of European, you know, like Scandinavian background, Irish, Scottish, the Celtic, you know, like all those things. And, you know, I’m half white, I’m Scottish and Irish. You know, we’ve lost that connection to our ancestry, to our like beautiful diverse, like

abilities that our ancestors used to process grief or like being community. And now I think for why folks like I’m a very privileged, visible minority, like I like we’ve, we like, I feel like we’re not allowed to like, be like, like I’ve suffered under this oppressive system too. And like, because it’s like, our feelings can’t matter because like, there are people that are worse off, but our bodies only know our own trauma.

Like you can’t, you can’t like rationalize, internalize like physical like trauma to your body, your body, right? You know, like we only know our own lived experience and we really need to honor that. And one thing I want to point out like that I was hearing through your story about your abortion, sorry, not abortion, adoption is like, no, it didn’t seem like anyone

ask you what you wanted to do.

And I think about that now at the adoption agency and I was like, how was that not a question? Like not a single person was like, is this something you want to do? And are you sure? and also you actually need to go through counseling this whole pregnancy to ensure that you know what I mean? None of that, none of that. There was like, after the adoption, you should probably go to therapy for a little bit, but like,

nothing during the whole pregnancy. it was. Yeah. And like,

the patriarchy that we’re all living under. Women do not have the chance or choice to advocate for themselves or to do what’s best for their bodies. Like my rule is that no government, no religious structure, no one has more authority over our bodies than like the person living in it. That’s right. Yeah.

So whatever the choice is of like why you gave them up for adoption, why people have abortions, I don’t care. If that’s important to you, then that’s justified. yeah, the society has like taken away all of like women’s and birthing people’s like privilege and rights. So, this is so angry.

I know, I know. Well, and then, yeah, and it just like really speaks to that disconnect of

us feeling at, we can’t advocate for ourselves from the beginning. And that is something, you know, from my page that I speak so passionately about that it always starts at home, because what is the point if we’re out here being like, women need more choice or like people, know, freedom of religion and blah, blah. But then at home, we’re just policing our kids and oppressing our kids, right? And Akilah Richards is always like, you cannot use.

tools of oppression and expect to raise free people, right? Like that’s her very, very famous quote about that. And so just diving into that, cause you and I have talked about this a little bit, but your son is autistic. Yes. Yeah. And so that navigating that additionally to of like, have someone who is neurodiverse to at five will be expected to enter into this neuro-typical system and have to navigate that and mostly either mass.

or be like severely under supported or what have you. And so let’s talk about decolonizing at home a little bit with children and what that looks like and how it is even feasible. Cause I think a lot of people look at it, they hear that they hear I’m schooling and they heal child liberation. And they’re just like, well, that’s chaos and anarchy. your kids cannot run the home.

they can’t decide for themselves. Their brains aren’t developed as much. They don’t know as well as parents do. We have experience, we have wisdom. They can’t just be making decisions willy-nilly. So how do you look at that? How do you look at decolonization at home with children in parenting specifically?

Yeah. I think that our household and our families are a micro system, a microcosm.

spotlight on like how we want the world to be. So like, you know, like, for instance, it kind of like, when you said the word policing, I’m like, yes, it’s exactly that. Like, so we can say like, defund the police. And we’re not saying it’s going to be all anarchy and a lawless society, we’re saying defund them. And instead, reinvest that money into mental health systems, social services, education, community led care. And so that’s the same thing as like,

in our household? Are we gonna be policing our children or are we gonna be investing in our kids through supporting their mental health, through educating them in a decolonial, like non-hierarchical kind of like policing way? Are we going to lead with the care and love and empathy that we want them to exhibit when they become adults or when they’re kids? And so many people, like they don’t give their kids enough credit, like,

They’re brilliant humans. if we can, like they can handle way more than we can. And they have not been jaded by the societal rules of like, you know, learning to mask or learning to like keep their opinions in because they’re supposed to be a good, quiet, you know, girl or something. They can handle it as, you know, if we can talk to them in age appropriate language and, you know, give them space to ask the hard questions.

And for us to get uncomfortable with our own biases and be vulnerable in saying like, you know, I used to think this way and now I’ve learned this or, you know, like, mommy made a mistake and let’s do a go over showing them like what it’s like to just be like a decent human being. I don’t think it’s that hard. And I think it’s, we’re made to think that it’s hard. We’re made to think we can’t handle it. We’re made to think like colonial.

school structures are the best thing for kids and they’re not. And because of my autistic son, I’m learning more and more like, man, he really is just having to conform to fit these neurotypical, you know, learning styles that doesn’t fit him. Yeah, so like I’m becoming more and more interested in this unschooling and liberation of children too.

Well, and it really speaks to one.

As you said, like if we invested from the time that they were young in, here’s how to set and maintain boundaries. Here’s how to regulate your nervous system. Here are red flags and green flags in relationships. They then grow up to be adults who are connected with themselves, who know what it’s like to listen to their intuition, who take…

emotions as messages from their bodies communicating to them about things who will grow up not in this rat race and not tying their productivity to their self-worth to productivity and stuff. And so we’re of that generation where I feel like we’re finally everyone in our forties is just like, yeah, we don’t like how we were parented.

by the baby boomer generation, we are gonna start going to therapy as we, most of us are, we’re gonna start talking about conscious parenting and mindful parenting and we’re gonna start breaking these generational cycles. So we’re at the cusp, I feel like this massive movement of both carrying and shouldering the trauma and burden from generations past because usually, you know, that type of parenting isn’t just

inflicted out of nowhere. It generally means they were parented the same or they have their own trauma or what have you. Yeah. So we’re shouldering all that trying to parent and trying to heal ourselves and break these generational cycles all at the same time while working.

know. And that’s the thing, like people, like we cannot do it alone. I know. Yes. We’re supposed to do it alone. Like we’re supposed to be in community. Like the whole idea of even like a nuclear family is a capitalist

ideal. Like it’s not even what our ancestors lived like. Yeah. It’s normal. This is only like a tiny blip in like human history that has like shifted this whole idea of family, of community. Yeah.

And why did it happen? Like if you look back, it’s because you have these white colonizers who came back to Britain and were like,

Ew, you know who sleeps together like rats? These savages that I saw over here. Like it’s written. We have this written. It’s documented, right? And then they go back to Britain and then they invent nurseries and then they invent strollers and then they invent wet nurses, right? Like all of these things. Because people

to become employees because industrial revolution, everybody needed more workers. it’s like, okay, you cannot, know, like before people would be like,

breastfeeding until there are still societies that still breastfeed their kids until like three, four, six years old. And so the mothers can stay at home and that’s their job. But now it’s like, no, no, no, no, moms have to work. Come on,

we all need to Which like, again, I am all for women making choices for whatever needs to suit their bodies. But yeah, it can’t go unrecognized of

What is colonial? What is a racist structure? Why we got to where we are? OK. And then I want to shift a little bit because we’ve taken this idea of liberating our children, allowing them to live authentically from the beginning, allowing them to advocate for themselves from the beginning to us even, who adults are so often.

Our parents are so often their child’s first bullies, the first people to reward them, the first people to threaten them, the first people to punish them, belittle them, gaslight them, all of these things that no one wants to admit. I’m always like so unpopular when I say that, but it’s absolutely true. If you actually look at what emotional abuse is and psychological abuses and mental abuse is.

And if you also like are okay to be really introspective and really honest with yourself and look at how you were also raised, because we were all children. We all know there was a point in our lives where our voices were not listened to or our consent wasn’t honored or we were violated in some way. So I know if you reach back, you can find that somewhere in your life experience. And

So you have these kids who are, we are trying to do that for our kids now while simultaneously healing from the fact that we didn’t get to do that growing up. And so I think that ADHD diagnosis, you and I both have talked about, you have a lot of these parents who are getting diagnosed because maybe their child is getting diagnosed and they’re looking at these symptoms and just like, my God, that’s exactly me. Or all these people in their forties who you and I have talked about like,

We masked all growing up. We thought there was something wrong with us all growing up into our thirties and now like 40. And let’s talk about that a little bit, getting that late diagnosis you posted about it today. And so I just kind of want to go through your slides of what you talked about. The first one I want to really address is that gas lighting from our mothers specifically, which I think is probably a pretty common theme.

Yeah. Yeah. my gosh. There’s like so much I want to talk about. Okay. So I, so on the ADHD diagnosis, yeah, like I found out last week that I was diagnosed and I’ve been learning that a lot of, you know, everyone’s like the gaslighting of like everyone’s getting diagnosed now. Yes. Yeah. yeah. And it’s like, you know, why do you know why a lot of women, especially women are getting diagnosed later in life?

is because earlier on, you know, we’ve been misdiagnosed with anxiety, whereas that anxiety actually stemmed from the ADHD. But my whole life, you know, I I lived a very, I was a very loose person, you know, I’m always like, I’m always messy. I’m always like, unorganized but it only affected me. So I was like, whatever, that’s just me. I just suck it like, and that’s it. And it didn’t matter and I could manage it and I could mask it. However, now we are getting diagnosed later because

It’s not just about me. It’s about me screwing up my kids’ schedules and not missing appointments. It’s about keeping a household, not just my own little apartment, but a house of four people. And I can’t keep it clean because I’m just too scattered. And it’s about being a wife and a partner. And then so we are not only managing our own stress and our own disorganization, but it’s like now my disorganization and my ADHD traits are stemming out.

affecting four other people, three other people. And that’s when it becomes like, my gosh, this is getting too much. Something’s not right and I can’t do it. And that’s why it’s not like ADHD like happened now. I had all the symptoms and all the traits my whole life, but just now it’s really become more apparent because there’s so much more on my shoulders.

And

usual, we only studied ADHD in boys forever. so we were like, well, it’s hyperactive. And because this woman isn’t hyperactive or this girl, she doesn’t have ADHD. And so as usual, women’s health comes second. And now we know how it actually shows up in girls and in women and all these different things. And two, you know how people use this argument all the time, like, there’s more gay people now. Well, there was also

more left-handed people as soon as we told them they were allowed to be left-handed and didn’t beat them for being left-handed. And the whole right hand of God, that’s where it comes from, right? This ridiculous notion, but same thing. And so, they’re more trans people now? yeah, it’s actually just because they’re now allowed to say it, know, upon, without, well, I mean, it still exists, all the stigma and whatever, but it’s-

They’re feeling little safer too. It’s more acceptable. Yeah, that’s right. And so I feel the same with these diagnoses as like, sure, there are more diagnoses coming out, but is it just because we have greater mental health services now? Is it because we’re talking about it more? Is it because we’re all going to therapy more? Like, is it because we’re more free to say, actually I have a really hard time managing time, or I have a really hard time hyper-focusing. What is that exactly?

Yeah.

There’s a meme that or post that I like love and it says, it’s like when people say autism like didn’t exist so many years ago. like, like basically saying like it doesn’t, shouldn’t like, why is it all like proliferating now? And it’s like, well, Pluto also didn’t exist before like,

1930, but I’m pretty fucking sure it existed. It’s

still there. And now we’ve decided it’s not a planet. We’ve labeled it as something else. that’s funny. Well, and like how unfortunate is that? Right. Because all, all I think is I’m not like, my gosh, it’s so sad. There’s so many diagnoses. I’m usually for stuff like this. I’m usually like how wonderful it is that we now I can now explain.

all this pain that I’ve been feeling or why I feel so different from everyone else or find community like between. I’m just like, we relate in that way. And our brains think the same way. we understand each other. Like, it’s so healing for me.

Yeah. And it’s also so interesting how, again, like the

knowing like the inner knowing of like my my body my brain works differently isn’t good enough in our society. It has to be pathologized. It has to be diagnosed. It has to we have to be labeled the other look we have to be labeled different for us to feel like validated and it’s so like internalized too because I was like I’m so happy I have the diagnosis but it’s like dude I knew I was different why wasn’t I?

Yeah. And why do I have to have this like white male doctor write it down on a piece of paper and say like, were you actually diagnosed? Yeah. Yeah. It’s so,

you know what, that like goes right into like what I was wanting to say about like the mother wound of like, you know, everything that we’re going through. And it’s funny, the, when I got diagnosed last week and she was going through everything and then she’s like, do you have any questions about your diagnosis? And you know, there could have been lots of questions

that I should have asked right away, like how is this gonna interact with my other medication? Like, blah, blah. No, the first thing I asked was, okay, my mom isn’t gonna believe me. I’m 40, right? Like I’m 40. And it’s like, my mom isn’t gonna believe me. Can you like give me the actual, like my like numbers and ratings on the test that you just did so I can validate to her? Like, she’s not gonna believe me. I’m gonna need to like have a piece of paper that I can show her that shows like,

I actually am like a severe case or whatever. Like, that? And then I was like, my gosh, what? How ridiculous that that, like my inner child already knows and is anxious and afraid of what my mother’s, how she’s gonna gaslight me. And I mean, it also came from a few days prior from that, my mom stopped by my house and I was like, she’s like, I haven’t heard from you for a while at What’s Up? And I was like, yeah, I’m actually having a pretty hard time. gonna, I think I’m gonna get diagnosed.

or get assessed for ADHD. And she just laughed. She like literally stood in my door and like laughed in my face and was like, my God, what? No. Okay. If you have ADHD, then everyone has ADHD. Like you’re not hyper. You’re not hyper. Like what are you talking about? I was like, cool, mom. This is why we don’t talk that much. Cool. Yeah.

I’m actually going go tell her like right, I’m going to her house. I’m going to tell her right after this. So that’s going to be interesting. I am holding space for you. Thank you. But yeah, it’s, it’s hard because, you know, dealing with like narcissistic parents, it’s not, it doesn’t become about me and my diagnosis. It’s then becomes like an attack on their parenting style. It’s like, I tried my best. was all about, I’m like, dude, this has nothing to do.

And it’s not an insult. Like, can we just

talk about that, to be like, it looks like they carry like autistic traits, or maybe they should get an assessment is automatically like, how dare you? That means you’re calling me crazy. That means you’re calling me like a terrible human. That, right. And so I must have given it to you through. That’s right. Yeah. And I’m so insulted because you’re, yeah, it’s an attack. Whereas like the rest of us of this generation, I feel like are just like, thank God. Like,

There’s some clarity here. There’s a whole other community of people who understand and I feel seen and it’s relatable. And so, yeah, I just, that generation is just so wild to me.

So wild. Yeah, it’s a shame and it’s, so it’s like this, so going through like back to like my posting and like the slides of like,

nine things that I’ve experienced or noticed in the last week of me being diagnosed. Like one of the things is like the, you know, realizing like the what ifs, like what if I had been diagnosed when I was a kid? Like what could have happened? Like kind of giving myself space to grieve like how much easier would my life have been? Or like if I had started medication back then or.

If like mental, my mental health would have been like validated by my parents and like not laughed at my whole life. Like when I was laughed at when I was 16 saying like, I think I’m depressed like and shaming medication like.

Which we’re not allowed to do, right? We’re not allowed, why go into the what ifs? Like you, that’s victim, victimizing yourself, playing the victim card. Like why, why go into that? And then we don’t give people that space to grieve.

All of that. think about that all the time. What if I wasn’t raised Mormon? What if I wasn’t bullied in school? What if, yeah, all the time, which we can’t stay there and no one is suggesting that. Like I never understand why people go there because I’m not staying in that space. No one wants to be in a state of grief for the rest of their life. But the fact that they are in that state of grief means something.

Right? It means our bodies need to do that. And that also goes back to this idea of this Western colonial idea of there are good emotions and bad emotions. And so we only feel the good ones growing up Mormon. Absolutely. Like you don’t feel angry. You don’t feel jealous. You don’t feel envious. don’t feel embarrassment, shame, guilt. Those are all bad and like Satan’s emotions. And two,

So one, emotions are all neutral. We need to feel them all. We’re all human. But two, we need to actually feel them, not suppress them. And so that goes back to, think, like, well, why are you thinking about those what ifs? That doesn’t do you any good. Don’t sit there. You need to look forward. And this colonial idea of always like, we don’t look back. We’re not looking back at history. This happened a long time ago.

We, you know, slavery was so long ago, indigenous, you know, colonization, blah, blah, so long ago. We go forward and we don’t rest and we don’t take the time to sit and that’s being lazy and that’s not helping anyone. It’s not being productive. We need to write, like, get up. We’re all going to the gym every single day and we’re all eating our salads and there’s no time for foreign comfort food. they’re like, it’s all, it’s all so related, right? Like it’s related to diet and freaking like looking at

colonial Western foods as being better. And know, what’s bad is rice and carbs and beans and what most of the world eats. that’s, know, if that’s, I’ve like gone off on so many tangents, but, but that whole colonization idea that it infiltrates every single part of us of how we eat, how we dress, how we genderly express ourselves, like all of it.

Yeah. yeah, so

and I feel like it’s unless like, so I feel like so grief will always remain in our body. I feel like it’s like with the smoke that like just move around and it will stay in our body or that trauma will stay in our body. And it’s going to come out one way or the other, whether we are in like, you know, sort of control of it.

and we give ourselves these safe spaces or containers to grieve in and to work through it and honor that. Or it’s gonna just like explode and like spew out of us and it’s, you know, that becomes panic attacks, know, like heavy anxiety or, know, chronic health issues. Yeah. Chronic health issues. Yes. It shows up physically in physical manifestations of illnesses and things like that. So,

It’s swirling around us no matter what. And when we feel like those times of like, I need to sit in this or like, I’m starting to cry. That is our body telling us like there it’s still inside of us and we need to like let it move through us. And that’s why like embodiment practices are so getting so much more popular now. Cause we’re realizing that mind body connection has been severed through core realism, through this like forward thinking. And I think also like there’s so much

like utilities still in that abstract grieving because I can then look at how am I going to parent my children differently? What can I learn from this? And how can I parent myself now? Like how can I honor that inner child and take care of myself? And it’s super empowering to sit in the grief. Yeah.

Well, and it all goes back to being connected with your body, right? Which colonialism

disconnects us from ourselves, from our children, from our culture, from our community that’s at the core of everything that they do is this hyper individualistic way of life and way of thinking and this mindset, right? And so it always, always, always goes back to how connected are we to our bodies?

to our ancestors, to our healing, our, yeah, that mind body piece too. Because I did talk therapy for years and I’m pretty sure it was far more detrimental than helpful because I just felt like I was reliving everything all the time and then finishing my one hour and just like completely distraught.

Totally, they’d be like, open, you know, like, I’m going to go back to grief and they’d be like, all right, hours up, bye. And it’s like, no, no, no, that’s not, yeah.

Yeah, totally. not how it works. I have in a couple of weeks, have an MDMA session. So there’s this therapist that I work with in Victoria. so I’ve done a DMT session before where it’s like psychedelic assisted therapy. And so you go in with two therapists. So I have an MDMA coming, one coming up that I haven’t. I haven’t done MDMA yet, but it’s supposed to quiet that amygdala so that you just feel.

less fearful to have things come out. And you get to feel a lot of like that. Yeah, that just like good feeling about stuff. And it’s like eight hours long. So we’ll do a whole podcast episode about it, but I brought it up.

so they like, they stay with you as you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of like an iOS like guided. yeah, absolutely. But it’s, that’s so cool. I’ve only done MDMA when I’m like,

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. Well, and it’s because like I’ve done these somatic sessions and all of those are helpful, but I just feel like very, this is so dumb because, no, sorry, that’s a bliss. This is so wild because growing up Mormon, when anyone talks about things like feeling called to do something, I get so triggered because it was always like, that’s God, that’s God calling you. And that’s like, whatever. And so I…

But I do feel called, I will say that word, to this very indigenous practice of using plant medicine. know MDMA is chemically based, that’s not my best example. But the psychedelic assisted therapy in general, just this idea of using these original medicines that are not alternative, they were like the OGs from the beginning and like,

colonialism has illegalized them. alternative to the pharmaceutical. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Anyway, so this idea of using that altered state to then heal forward and heal with my body as I’m doing this. So I’m so, excited about that. hold on. I’m ADHD because I brought that up for a reason about feeling connected to our body.

Can I say something about all you think about? Like perhaps instead of like,

I know what you mean about like the word calling, but I feel like what that might be is that ancestral inner knowing. That is like pulling you back to like, this is how we used to heal ourselves. know, like this is what like your lineage is like, that’s why it feels safe for you. Cause you’re like, this feels more rooted in my ancestral knowing than taking a fucking pill, like taking like pharmaceutical, you know, thing.

So maybe instead of calling it’s like your inner knowing. Your ancestral knowing. It’s not coming from the outside. It’s not coming from God. If you want to think it’s God, then that’s fine. Or if you don’t want to think it’s God, like I don’t, I feel like it’s coming up from literally the earth, like literally from my ancestors. But

that’s what we’re disconnected from, right? Is that idea that anything’s coming from within.

raised very explicitly to not trust my own instincts and that humans are carnal, right? And savage and we can’t be trusted. We have to put our trust in pretty much anything outside of ourselves. And so you put your trust in the scriptures, you put your trust in church leaders, in your teachers, in God. And now we even do that.

as parents, right? Like trust me, I know what’s best for you. And this very slippery slope of teaching our kids to not trust their own voice and their own body. Because one, we need to acknowledge and admit that not all parents are well-intentioned. So I really, really hate the blanket statements of like, parents are doing their best. They’re just doing their best. Cause my parents certainly were not. And

I feel comfortable saying that as a child of abuse. I like that is so, triggering to people in that scenario. And that we need to trust and honor our parents as a blanket statement. You obey authority, you obey your parents, you obey your teachers, you obey your coach. All that that does is primes you to not trust to bear yourself, to bury those instincts, bury those.

warnings of like, this doesn’t feel right. don’t, I saw, my God, I saw this reel the other day and I’m not going to say who it was because I actually love her account apart from this, but she was saying that our kids go to school in this fight or flight state. And our job as parents is to teach them that school is safe and to teach them that how to calm their nervous systems and regulate their nervous systems at school.

And I immediately was like, but what if school isn’t a safe space for them? What if they feel very much like a lot of anxiety there or whatever. the whole, I get what she means. Like you have all these kids going to school. It’s a new environment. They’re anxious, blah, blah, blah. And she’s just trying to help parents. But can we just unplug for a second and think like, what if at home, what if at church, what if at school, what if at their cousins, what if

with this particular coach, it’s not actually safe because they can’t eat when they want to, they can’t go outside when they want to, they can’t, they’re masking, they can’t talk to their friend when they want to, they can’t freaking pee when they want to. So like, how about instead we honor how our children are feeling and stop forcing them into these systems that feel unsafe to them because

It probably is unsafe then and all that we’re doing and let’s say it’s not, let’s say it is a safe space. We still need to honor them saying, I don’t feel safe. I feel anxious. I feel scared. Cause cause the only alternative to that is no, you don’t invalidating how you’re feeling, dismissing how you’re feeling, suppressing how you’re feeling. here, let’s let’s like, did you see inside out two? No.

so good. You should watch it. Anyway, one of the emotions is anxiety and they, okay. She’s seen as kind of this villain the whole time because she’s causing all these problems in the main character’s brain. But at the end, it’s like, let’s do what we can to honor that anxiety. Let her be, let her be in our brain and very much give a place to sadness.

to anger, to joy, to all the things. You should totally watch it. You would love it. Yeah, I am. My son wants to stay. yeah, okay. Cool. Anyway, but yeah, that honoring our feelings for all of us, for parents, for kids, but anytime we’re trying to say like, no, you don’t feel that way. No, that’s not accurate. Totally. Any of that, even if it is inaccurate, because you and I both know we get intrusive thoughts that aren’t true.

Yeah. So even if we’re not saying like, Ayako you need to listen to the voice that’s telling you you’re a shit parent, but giving space to that voice and saying, I hear you. Thank you for trying to protect me. I don’t need that. Or do you know what I mean?

And yeah. Okay. So, my gosh, I want to jump in because this is, this is so important for like parenting our kids and honoring our children because,

If it’s a big deal in their brain, then it’s a big deal. That’s right. Like if they, like, so my son will have a meltdown because he can’t find the exact color of melting bead that he needs to put into his, right? And my husband’s like, he’s like, my gosh, why is he crying? And you know, I’m holding him. I’m like, okay, you’re safe, you’re safe. And then my husband’s like, why is he crying? I’m like, he can’t find the right melting bead. And then my husband was like, that’s it. Yeah. then.

Even though my son didn’t even see my husband’s face, because my dad, his dad didn’t respond to like, I’m sorry to Keo and walk away or like, he’s like, daddy doesn’t love me, daddy doesn’t love me. I don’t feel safe with him. And I’m like, even if it’s like an untrue intrusive thought, like whatever, we can find something else. Kids can’t think through that the way that we can be like, that’s an untrue thought.

Like they need us to be like, okay, like for the school example, like why doesn’t it feel safe? Like they need us to talk them through it, to give them the clarity to realize like, either they are safe or to empower them to realize that their opinion matters and that they don’t feel safe. And how are we going to help fix that? know, like,

especially in a dysregulated state, like you cannot have a logical conversation in its regulated state. you’re,

your options there are you either co-regulate with them or you try and have this ridiculous conversation with them that you’re trying to have with your adult, neurotypical, fully developed, non-disregulated brain. Yeah. Which is- They’re not gonna get Futile. And the only message they’ll get is, I’m not safe. No one’s listening to me. No one’s holding space for me. And what is the bigger lesson? Is the bigger lesson that-

melting bead doesn’t matter or is the bigger lesson that someone is here with you and safe with you and on your side and all those things?

right. Because that’s what happened in that situation. It shifted from like, you know, a melting bead thing that we could have worked through. That’s right. holy shit, my dad doesn’t even fucking care about me. I’m crying because I think it’s a big deal. Sorry, I’m swearing a lot. No, that’s okay. I think it’s a big deal and my dad is invalidating my feelings.

So now I don’t feel love for my dad. And now this is like this whole bigger thing. So

Way bigger and deeper and like long lasting, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Okay. Let’s wrap up. So there’s been an hour, but I could talk to you for days and days and days. oh my God. I know. Okay. But the last thing, the last thing I want to do is cause you and I both have talked about the Congo and Sudan and Palestine and

How do we as humans who need to work and humans who need to parent and humans who need to be human, how do we deal with that, the grief, the activism, the rage, the anger, the wanting to enact social change with the very limited capacity that we already have as

worn out parents and mothers and exploited humans, like just the reality of it all. So what do you do? What are some things that we can offer up?

Yeah. It’s a lot that we’re grappling right now, right? Like we’re living within a capitalist system. It’s not like we can just quit our jobs and protest every day, right? I think

Again, starting small, starting in your living room. You know, we can realize that yes, we live under a capitalist system, but we can engage in ethical commerce. You know, building people like investing in businesses that align with our values, rather than just, you know, spending money. The Amazon, can go with like a small business or, know, instead of going with Indigo Books, which is like helping promote like the genocide.

Starbucks. from Starbucks. We can go to local bookstores. We can go to local coffee shops. That is important work that we all need to be doing. think also, I think this idea that is made by the empire to make us feel helpless is like, well, you have to be doing everything for all the causes or you’re not. But I really feel like if

If you, if we all just focus on the one issue that touches our heart, whether it’s Palestine, whether it’s a Congo, you know, whether it’s just like one, like break it down smaller into like one little thing, dolphins, whatever sea turtles. If you just focus on that one little thing and everyone is focusing on their one little thing, it’s like, we’re all just like pulling at our own threads, but it’s all part of this greater, you know,

oppressive system, it will all start dismantling and getting pulled apart. So realizing like we don’t have to do it all. know, we activism comes in so many forms resistance comes in so many forms. It can be through art, it can be through, you know, music, it can be through direct action and you know, shutting down rail lines, it can be through signing petitions. Whatever you’re comfortable with.

I think just go and do it. But change is not gonna happen while we sit comfortably on our couch eating popcorn. Change is uncomfortable. Resistance takes work. so like being empowered to be like, if I wanna see a difference in the world, like I have to start making it. And what do I have the capacity today to do?

So not

especially, especially when you’re in that demographic of like, I would say.

My demographic of like suburban white, straight women who spend thousands of dollars and hours and the energy on scoring Taylor Swift tickets. you you just spent how much money on your hair and your nails and lashes, and then tell me that you don’t know how to help.

or you don’t have the capacity to help. And so I think breaking away from that system of one, trying to keep up with the Joneses, trying to stay up on trends and like constantly buying the materialistic whatever in place of mutual aid, in place of donations, in place of your time. Like I think far more people have the time, energy and resources that

want to admit that they have. And again, I’m not talking to the demographic working three jobs and living paycheck to paycheck. I’m talking about the people who are vastly living outside their means. So then they keep upping their, I have to work more, right? And getting trapped again in this colonial capitalistic structure. So also being able to embrace that minimalism with

your calendar with your finances with your capacity to then build up more time, energy and resources to enact change. Cause I think that’s where we so often get caught is it’s always the poorest doing all the activist work. It’s always the most marginalized communities. That’s right. It’s always BIPOC. And so we, and I assume most people

on in my audience are in my similar demographic of having the privilege to do so, but feel I can’t do this. Like I’m already so burned out. Okay. We’ll do whatever you can first and foremost to divest away from all the things that you can draining your energy, right? Drain. It’s the same thing with, I can’t gentle parent. Like I’m just too impatient or I’m just too overwhelmed. Okay.

but let’s look at the system that’s causing you to be this way and doing everything that’s in our control first to enact that change. If that’s your finances, if that’s how busy you’re making yourself with your calendar and putting your kids in all these classes that no one’s actually, you don’t actually need to do that. don’t actually, you know?

And it’s like, nobody is shaming.

anyone for being white or anyone for making money. Like, that’s right. Yeah. Also like, man, amazing. You are white that you have had a privileged life or amazing. You’re making a lot of money. Cool. But you don’t have time to show up to the protest or you’re not comfortable doing that. That’s cool. You can donate $15 a month and give like e-Sims to people in Gaza or for the journalists to be able to get that stuff. Literally save lives. Literally saving lives. Yeah. And

you know, and then that’s using your privilege, that’s using, you know, their privileges, the finances, great, then just use it. And then you don’t have to spend any time. You don’t have to do things that you don’t have the capacity for. But it’s like, again, leaning into, you know, or our skillset. It’s like, I like making graphics on Canva. like I’ve, but I like can always show up to protests. So I help make graphics for organizations in Vancouver.

So like doing things that like we have, know, if you’re a lawyer, like offer like an hour free service or something, for bail funds or bail assistance, what are our, I think it’s like empowering ourselves, like what’s our talent and like how can we share it?

I love that. Okay. Let’s end on that because I just think there are so many.

so many ways we can help and yeah, convincing people that they are just one person, how can they make a difference or it’s overseas, it’s way over there, like it’s not affecting me, but there are just endless, endless ways to care and make a difference. And we’re human, like it really doesn’t matter that they’re brown or of a different religion or live across the ocean, like that is so, so irrelevant. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I love you so much.

I love you too. Thank you so much for all the work that you do and all the highlighting of issues and stuff. it’s, it’s super, I love seeing your stuff pop up on my feed and I’m excited to learn more about like the homeschooling and unschooling stuff.

Thank you. What is your program going on right now? Like how tell me about, you told me about the app, which is great. And people can work with you that way. You often have pop-up like workshops and webinars. That’s great too. But do have anything going on?

Right now?

now. next week I’m starting a six week cohort of it’s a grief and loss support circle for bereaved parents with like weekly topics. We can be in community and I guide it along with my assistant director who’s more of like somatic embodiment practitioner. And then I also have my decolonial or decolonizing our grief webinar that you came to. The recording is up.

on my website, losttolove.app and you can download the recording and watch it and get a whole bunch of extras with it. Okay. That was so lovely. Yeah. I’m going to do like, I’m right now like in the works of creating like a deep dive, like multi-part workshop for decolonizing our grief. Okay. would be interactive and really look into like our ancestral estrangement and like try to shift ourselves into like more of an ancestral belonging.

Okay. I love that. And then how often are you running your cohort in case this episode airs after next week?

yeah, for sure. So I’ll be running it probably every quarter. Every quarter. And I like a pregnancy after loss cohort as well for those who are pregnant and after loss that need support. Cause that’s just another thing.

Yeah. That’s right. Okay. I love that. Okay. So I will drop all those in the show notes and people can click there. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for chatting and meeting you virtually. We live so close, so I know we’ll meet in person very, very soon. Totally. Okay. Bye. Have awesome day. Bye. Thank you.