SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, and welcome to Skullport, exploring psycho-spiritual horizons with your hosts, Cedric Speyer and Deanna Magal. Cedric is a master and therapist who developed the interview guidance model and is a pathfinder in the psycho-spiritual realm. Deanna created the essential skull care model, a model suitable for therapists, coaches, and healers. The monthly episodes of Skull Portals feature guests sharing insights on their personal paths and professional practices. Thank you for tuning in for the Skull Talk with all kinds of Twitter-based teachers and guides as Cedric, Deanna, and guests explore new evolutionary landscapes.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I like to do an opening invocation and then an opening quote to set the tone, a brief invocation. Allowing the spirit to flow freely through this conversation and this gathering so that it may be edifying and energizing. And it goes like this the emphasis on telling stories amounts to a new way of defining personality and psychology. Psychology ought to be more concerned with boredom and excitement and less concerned with mental illness and lost and found identity. The disease of the modern psyche is more of a vacuum than a thorn in the flesh. If we are alienated, disgraced, frustrated, and bored, it is because of what hasn't happened, because of the potentialities we have not explored. Few of us know the fantastic characters, emotions, perceptions, and demons that inhabit the theaters that are are our minds. So with that, we introduce our special guest, Gay Edison, who invites us into the theater of the mind and the heart and the spirit.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

So welcome, gay. Thank you, thank you, see Deanna. Thank you, Cedric. Um, and welcome everybody. I was so happy that to watch all your faces popping up and and uh just looking at everyone and and connecting. What a what a beautiful, beautiful uh gathering. And thank you, Deanna and Cedric and and the team for inviting me here today. Um Cedric, you thought yes, dear.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

I just want I, you know, we have your bio. Oh so everybody can read that. But I'm just wondering if you can give us um, in a sentence or two, your definition of how the title of this program matches your vocation.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Like well, I was very interested to see writing as um spiritual guidance. And I was joking with Cedric before, you know, guidance as spirituality. So um they're two sides of the same, you know, the yin and the yang. And you know, the mandorla, you got a Venn diagram, and in the middle is that beautiful. I love that it has its own name, the Mandorla, you know, the spirituality and the writing connect there. You need spirit is creativity, you could say, and writing is um a way, a way into that. And and you can have spirituality without writing, but I don't think you can have creative writing. And I think any of the best kind of writing can come. Uh, I don't think it can come unless it comes from from from from as deep in as you can go. I think that's what that quote was about, Cedric. Like to explore all the little little dark corners.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, and when and we said when we said bridging two worlds as the subtitle, that's basically the inner and outer world. And if you want to get more scientific, the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and that that bridge, that creative bridge between the two. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We could call that the more mandorla, too, between the brain and and the rest of us, and including the ineffable parts, the the the spiritual, mystical, uh that that what the Taoists would call the Wu Wei space, you know, that that magical, mystical, ineffable place.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

And then there's the chakra system. The hearts in the middle, the the rooted security and ego-based chakras are the bottom three, and the enlightened are the upper three. So as above said the left.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

So that's the territory we're in. And the the magical thing about writing is that uh it's done on your own, like you're there doing it in a solitary way, but you're connecting with others at the same time. And that's how it's a perfect uh bridge between self and other when you're when you're really tuning in.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Yes, yes. And when you're working together with someone, either in a group or or one-on-one, if if I can be as the coach, can be in the place where I am true to my own innate sense of uh of the power, the creativity, um, and can bridge to the other person and draw that out, then you put that together with language, and that's where you get, you know, beautiful writing. And you know, frankly, even academic writing doesn't have to be as stiff and wonky. Um you know, you gotta say things the way you gotta say things, but but and and the it's gotta come from the root, Deanna. And the power of that is you know, one hand washes the other, so to speak. Um when someone, when I work with someone and whatever it takes to draw out their deepest uh spirituality, you could say their most innate uh and educated part, then then the quality not only of their work, but of their presence and life um uh improves. And in fact, um I have clients who almost get to giggling because they know that I'm gonna push them. Oh, here comes gay's gonna push us to the uh the go deeper moment. You've got to be in the feeling while you write it, especially with with poetry and fiction and and creative writing. Um and the more fully present you are, um the more authentic the writing is, and the more present people can be, you know, with mindfulness or that kind of thing. Um the more unique their work can be. You know, one of the important things w with writing is a lot of people want to hold back, they're afraid. They think other people have done it or they can't do it well, a lot of need for remediation for the damages done by bad teaching, bad teachers. But when they when I say to them, you know, you've all everybody's got a story, and everyone's story is unique, and you can show up and tell it, and then you take someone to a place and and you know, where they can access their own still small voice, let's say. Um, that's when the good stuff comes. And there are a lot of ways I do that. Um, Deanna, uh, you and I were talking at some point recently about um we got to a spiritual place and the client didn't even know it, kind of. It was just, you know, what is your deepest voice saying? And I have one-on-one clients in classes. I will start them with a guided meditation that is a progressive relaxation. Um, didn't think to invoke the chakras as much as I could, Deanna. Thanks for pointing that out. Um, but but just that that uh experience of being in the body. And in fact, um, I've recently adopted Kristen Neff's compassion practice, where you name whatever's hurting you and you um remember that you're not the only one who suffers that, and then put your hand on your chest and just offer yourself, may I receive joy in the roots of joy. And that's that's one of the tools I use. And you gotta suss out what people are are into, and it might be a little too woo-woo. Um, it's very powerful to uh invite people to take a pause. In my own spiritual journey, among other things, I'm a member of the Quaker um movement. And there's a famous um notorious Quaker t-shirt that says, uh, I'm a Quaker in case of emergency, please be quiet. Um so I can call, call for a moment of silence, invite people. You know what? Let's just take a minute to think about this. And by the way, if you're gonna do this, I found it you almost have to tell people I will time you, I will time us for a minute because they'll say okay, and then they'll just keep talking. So it's a question of slowing people down. And it's uh interesting. I I you know, I don't when working with writing clients, it's always um moving back and forth between creating space for for the um for the client or or students, and if it's a uh a small, I do small groups, um to develop and and then challenging them. And it depends on who the person is and where they're coming from. There are people who I had a client um who in one of my writing groups years ago, who when she was in ninth grade, um she wrote a poem and her teacher said, You didn't write that, it's too good. She didn't she didn't write again for 25 years. So she needed some, she I wouldn't have called it this to her, but she needed some inner child work. She needed a soft voice, she needed slowing down. Another client likes to be challenged. You know, would you think of recasting that? You know, that that kind of thing, even even in the same same group. And even with the guided meditation, inviting people to feel their feet on the floor, their their bottom in the chair, these are all ways of of making things, things embodied that can then come out, come out through the fingers. And um, yeah, gay.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Uh you know, sometimes they ask songwriters which came first, the music or the lyrics. So with with writing and spirituality, I'm guessing you can go either way, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:31

Yeah, and and and I'm hard pressed, uh, the title of the talk, notwithstanding, to think of them separately. Now, that's not a function, that's not a criticism. That's that's not our writing criticism, Cedric. Uh, it's more a function of uh how long I've been doing this and how how integrated it is to um, you know, in the years when I was a magazine editor, which I did for mass market uh women's magazines mostly here in the States, which most of which are now gone. But um in many cases, most cases, they needed to be coddled, they needed to be supported, and they also needed to be challenged and they needed to be drawn out. And and you do that with how you talk and how you um how you suss out what is it that lights them up. You know, if you're brainstorming ideas to write about, suss them out. What you know what lights you what lights you up? Ask them about their kids or something, and and you know, work off something um that warms them up and makes them makes them come alive and feel alive and then point it out to them.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

So can I do you mind if I share a personal um com part of a conversation you and I had about a an introduction I was attempting to write? I would love it if you would do that. Dia and I go way back. Yeah, so I was um writing the introduction to a textbook I was editing on spiritual coaching, and I absolutely yeah, that one, I absolutely hit a wall with just getting the introduction out, even though I'd been working on this book for over a year at the time, and I simply had a conversation with gay, and the writer's block broke open. There was nothing specific or that I could tag as spiritual, and yet it was a spiritual process. Um for me it was very it was a very covert um example of me waking up the next day and going, Oh, okay, I got it. I've got this now. So that's my experience of working with gay. Um and having the spirit, so to speak, stirred in me so that I could put pen to paper.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

And you know, it occurs to me, thank you, Deanna, and it occurs to me now that the skills that come with being uh a good therapist or social worker or coach, um active listening. Um the uh really, really listening, follow-up questions. Um being, you know, not pushing the river, not not rushing the process uh is is is is very, very powerful. And also, you know, not not being afraid of the unknown. Some of my most uh exciting clients were people that there was no way to prepare for it because I didn't know where we were gonna go. So you you you know, and that what that does, and it's it's way cool, is it says, I gotta do my work, Miss Kochi. Miss Kochi's gotta do her meditation, I gotta do my yoga, I gotta sing my songs, I gotta have my jokes. I didn't bring my Metsat, but I could have. I've got to play and have fun. And um, and when I do that, uh and I'm deeply centered, then I can be deeply centered. And the natural thing can happen. You know, it's so interesting, Cedric, to be talking about this in um moderately academic-ish way, because it's it's much more an organic process that probably started with my passion for reading. In third grade, we had a contest to see who read the most books, and guess who did? Woohoo! And uh two things, two courses I took in high school: grammar, seventh grade grammar, Miss Woolhouse. Boy, was she, she was tough and she was good. And I learned to type. Remember typing? Key. I learned to key, got a job at good housekeeping, and right away knew that what I loved was was psychology and spirituality and uh relationships and um stories about people overcoming adversity. So I got to study all of those things, and that's and along the way, when you travel in um, you know, in circles where people want to write, and everybody who who talks and reads could and wants to be a writer. So everybody was picking my brain, picking my brain. And I thought, you know what, I'm gonna turn this into a profession, um, and and work with people. And the process, even as a staff editor, of drawing people out, you know, back when there were expense accounts and taking people out to lunch, like just drawing out their their story and brainstorming ideas. And there's even um a felt sense, I'm getting it now, a felt sense of I get a chill when when things are spot on. And that's you know, being really in touch and really embodied. And uh in a parallel way, um would would you like a little bit about the the spiritual background of all?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Well, it's gonna ask you about your personal journey and if there was a watershed moment when you realized the true nature of your vocation.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

Oh, Cedric, if only there were a watershed moment, it's more like an evolution, although maybe maybe we'll work our way up to one. Um, so I started out going to Baptist Sunday school, but not real churchy in my family. When I was 13 on Easter Sunday, I thought this place is so full and they're all wearing fancy hats. I don't like it here. I'm not they're hypocrites. That was my 13-year-old self. And then I just wandered for a while and got to college in the 60s in the US and marched on Washington, social activism, became a a pretty uh avid atheist. Um, and that was okay for a while. And then I became a mom. And I was like, I just love babies, and it's like this must have come from somewhere. And um, and being a mom was hard work. It's not hard work anymore because they're they're in their 30s and 40s, but uh the stress, I began to stress eat and I became very obese. So the door is open because motherhood has said, like, there must be some kind of miracle happening, something, something going on here, kind of cool. And uh I started doing uh 12-step work, the uh food food programs based on the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, which says that I had to stop having food be my higher power and develop something else, and the the energy of the group, the spirit, and so on, um, of the gathering was was my first higher power. And it it sort of has evolved and evolved and um had a spiritual director, uh, began to get an ever-deepening general kind of faith, uh, Goddess, universe, uh, you know, uh just just just that that that creator life life itself. And uh along the way, um stumbled into a Quaker meeting, and um and the the the the the section of Quaker Dom I hang out in, you know, that there's it's very simple and uh not surprisingly, and there's get that of God, you know, or good. There's that of good in everyone, and that's pretty simple, and that's pretty basic, and it covers everything. I mean, if there's that of good in in in everyone, then I I got no business hating on anybody, right? Not that I would, but you know how people roll. So um, and then I began to study Buddhism and Taoism. I took karate for a while and talk about integrating body and mind. Along the way, I'm doing magazine editing stuff and some freelancing and writing articles for for all the magazines uh that I had worked for and and spiritual magazines. I I wrote a lot for a magazine called Spirituality and Health. And along the way, I had developed, um, because everybody was wanting to pick my brain anyway anyway, I might as well charge for it, right? Got invited to do a writing group and uh and began began to do that. And it all came very naturally. I have teacher genes. My my mom and my big sister were were teachers, um, and I come from a really bossy, know it all family. That helps. Um and uh uh I I just be Began to, you know, these two things blended. So there was no watershed moment. Um, but I I couldn't, you know, when you're fully present to your client, isn't that spiritual? I don't know. What do y'all think?

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Of course.

SPEAKER_04 22:16

Isn't that spiritual? And when you feel like there's that of good in both of us, and I just happen to know a little bit more, Cedric, about organizing articles, and you know a little bit more about psychology, you know, we meet in the middle and we have some fun, right? So that's kind of kind of how it how it happened. Now, something that you also probably would want to know about is using writing as a tool of of uh uh coaching and personal growth and so on. I did that. I did morning pages based on the work of Julia Cameron, the artist's way. She says, write three pages freehand, meaning you start writing and you don't stop until you're done longhand in a notebook, um, to clear your head first thing in the morning. And I did that for years and years. I used to do it on the train while I was schlepping to New York uh on my way to work. And um I wrote a book. I wrote a book about my hundred-pound weight loss. Uh I forgot that part. Being spiritual, me lose weight.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Go figure. Yeah, that was bringing it to very um concrete, you know. Here's my story, like here it is. And so would you tell, say the name of the book so people can?

SPEAKER_04 23:45

I'll not only say the name, but I'll hold it up like I did with our our other one, which is called The Hungry Ghost. Uh with a coffee stain, forget the coffee stain. How I ditched a hundred pounds and came fully alive. And it says a practical spiritual program for women craving permanent late weight loss and complete freedom from food uh obsession, but it's for anybody, and it has um lots of spiritual-ish tips in it. It's not a writing book, but but writing can be a tool of healing, and there's so many ways for writing to be a tool of healing healing.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Um and that's what's interesting to me about that. That was your the book you wrote, and it was not about straight out about being a writing coach or spirituality, it was your story, exactly and how all of that was integrated.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And and not only was it integrated so that you know, pick a food plan and stick with it. And oh, by the way, you know, radical self-care, extreme self-love, meditation, and so on. Um, but the only way I could write it would be to be very rooted. So we know we're role models, all of us, right? We're all we can be role models. We model, you know, peaceful uh ways of being and listening and and so on. Oh, thank you. And um I had to let, you know, I had to let the process happen naturally, but not too naturally. I have a yoga teacher who says, be neither too aggressive, no, nor neither aggressive nor lethargic. And at a certain point, I got kind of stuck, couldn't, couldn't figure out this certain chapter, a lot of chapter, a lot of it because I'd lived it so much, came kind of naturally. And of course, I was writing all the time for work. And I thought I was procrastinating. Well, don't you know? When I finally pulled it together, I had to live it some more before I could write about it. And and that's really important. And these are you know, doing and living and believing the things that I'm teaching is very powerful because I can speak from first person experience to to my to my students and clients.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Somebody mentioned in the chat that beautiful word attunement. And when you're doing it yourself, it's the the attunement follows.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

I love that word. Plus, it reminds me that I also incorporate Reiki into my writing practice. Uh depending on people's wishes and inclinations, um, I might offer to uh send Reiki too, uh which is a form of uh energy healing that only comes through the person, it's not of the person, and um can only help, can't hurt, and can help help your manuscripts, and it's very spiritual.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

I knew a counselor who told every client, you know, to start meditating, and he never meditated in his whole life.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

So, as you were saying before, the importance of the practitioner being grounded in their own practice, you know, in that subject, in my uh newest uh I would say eclectic spirituality. Um, I have joined an online uh mindfulness group uh founded by Jack Cornfield and Tara Brock called Banyan. And I've just done their mentor training as well. And one of the things that I just love about what they do is they keep bringing back to that. What is what is my practice? Even if I'm in a group and things are going sideways, it's like bring it back. What do I know? How can I believe? And that's a lot of what happens in I do spiritual life coaching also, which may or may not include writing. It's like bring it back, bring it back, slow it down, take it easy, but stay present, stay with it. Um, and you know, that's what what mindfulness is. Um, but there's so much of that um being in tune, being in touch with your body. Um it's also also very powerful. Where do you see it? You know, where do you feel it in your body? You know, and and I mean, just because of how we're doing this course and what it's gonna mean to people, um, always, always, you know, always learning new things, but with with some care and mindfulness, um, because I don't want to get into shiny object syndrome where, you know, the next fun thing comes along and I grab it and and run with it. On the other hand, you know, discern is this is this useful? Might this be useful? And you know, I've worked with people, I've worked with atheists. How do you teach an atheist to pray? Well, first of all, you don't use the P word, and you invite them to sit and be quiet and count their breaths. Which is I've done that. I I did that with a woman who had just been through a really big crisis and she sat in my office. I was supposed to be editing articles, but I was doing spiritual life coaching instead. And I just had her sit and and breathe, and then she went back and probably wrote something because she was another editor. I have a client who is um was a member of a cult and was shunned at 14. Don't use the P word with her either, but we can be mindful. She's had her level one Reiki training. Um don't use a lot of writing, but could um and with if if if she were well, let's talk about another client. Um women who've come up the the hard side of the mountain, which is a lot of us, creating a gentle environment where they can write a memoir. I tend to attract people who are writing memoirs. I have somebody now that she's working on a memoir about an abusive relationship she stayed in for five years as a young woman, and she was embarrassed about it. And we are exploring, she went back into therapy on account of because I said to her, What is it that's keeping you from writing about these incidents? And she felt into a little bit. And of course, you don't let them go too far if it's gonna freak them out. And she realized she needed to go back into therapy, brings it back to writing coaching, and we're writing a little bit more about that. There's a whole another whole dimension that involves her parents that we're not gonna touch yet because it's too hot to handle, but uh it's on it's on the radar. So, you know, for somebody, you know, you you want people to be well resourced. For years I did an incest survivors group, and one of the requirements was that people had to have been in therapy for at least a year. Because I'm not a therapist, I'm a coach, I'm a writing coach. You know, but it's almost impossible to do uh the kind of writing that I'm uh working with without if you're really showing up for it, you almost can't not have a grounded experience, um, a spiritual experience. But you know, by spiritual experience, we're not talking about, well, not necessarily talking about, you know, law and the white light coming and all of that. That could happen. But you know that felt true sense, this is it, this is right, I know who I am, and that's what happens, for example, when I write haiku, I am completely smitten with haiku, have been. I bore everybody to death. And uh, I'm together putting together a book of haiku with my son, the graphic designer. Um, and that haiku moment, you know, that that there's only one way to get there, and the only way to get there is to stop trying so hard, but don't give up, but just breathe and be present. That's that's how it is.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Can you tell us a bit about Project Right Now? Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 32:41

Yes, Project Right Now is uh uh nationwide, and and there are chapters in India too, so a worldwide uh writing organization, a nonprofit. I do um online and in person if you're in Redbank, New Jersey, uh workshops, uh, get on stuck, uh all kinds of fun stuff like that. I'm gonna do a haiku workshop, not online. I'm also doing, I work um with uh Quaker organization and next, actually next Wednesday, 3 to 5 Eastern US, I'm doing a workshop called uh Poetry as Spiritual Practice. It's through Friends General Conference. Um, and that's where we'll read and ponder and uh and write uh poems. Um back to Project Right Now. Uh, they also do a lot of wonderful work, and I think it's really important to know this. They go into schools and underserve populations. Um they do work at a day day stay place for people with mental illness, and it's amazing watching people come alive when they get the opportunity and are held with respect um to to put some words on paper. Um it's it just just blossoms, these kids. It's it's amazing. I've I don't work with young people, I don't have that kind of energy anymore. But um, but I've seen it happen. And and in fact, you know, they have their interns be just just become these these beautiful little beams of youth and light and so on. And uh, and it's an organization that is run like Banyan also on the basis of compassion, loving kindness, uh, not either or mentality, um, but uh both and non-binary, non-bifurcated. And that's so essential. And I think one of the things that's missing is people don't realize that loving kindness can also be strong.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Okay, so we have a couple of questions. One is um can can we say something about haiku itself? Um we both do it, so we love it.

SPEAKER_04 35:08

Do you want me to you want me to? Are you good? Okay. Haiku is a form of poetry that comes down through the oral tradition in Japan. In the 17th century, a guy named Basho began to make these three little lines. Um, there's a thing in English-speaking world at least, where it's five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Um, but that's that's that's that can be fun and meditative. So you try to say something worthwhile with five syllables, English, seven syllables, five. That's a good game. But the fact of the matter is, um Japanese uh symbols, um syllables are very different. So it's kind of not not the uh not not absolutely necessary. And it is capturing that moment in time. I'm trying to see if I have a haiku book around here. Um, they're all upstairs. Oh, wait, here's one. Captures a moment in time. Um okay, often has a reference to nature and season. Okay, this one is it's probably another another famous uh haiku person, but the cuckoo sings to me. To the mountain, to me, to the mountain. The fat priest edging out while he reads the last prayer. The holes in the wall play the flute this autumn evening. And if you can feel it, if you can hear it, it captures a moment in time. Um, one of my favorite of my own is, and I can remember the moment when this haiku came to me, and it was probably 40 years ago, and the words only came recently, but I grew up on a farm in upstate New York, beautiful, beautiful hundred-acre farm. And I'm standing in the field, and the words, the feeling, the sensation comes. I don't know whose field this is, but oh, the light. And I hope that answers your question about haiku. It's yes, it's H A I K-U. Uh, that's also the plural. If you had to like uh you just if you Google it, a whole lot of fun stuff will come up.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Yeah, a lot of the power in it is what's left unsaid.

SPEAKER_04 37:48

Yeah. And there's a turn, there's usually often a little twist.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Uh but there doesn't have one of the ways I use it with people is if they have a journal entry that was, you know, they did some contemplative writing and it was put pen to paper, don't stop for five minutes, see what comes up. We talk about it, and then if they know haiku, I ask them to create a haiku from what they wrote. Beautiful. Because it's a really good way to summarize that moment.

SPEAKER_04 38:21

Well, and bring them down into the soul event because you can't get that succinct without really getting kind of serious with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:31

And and other tools uh of writing. Uh the free writing.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

Oh, go ahead. Oh, are you answering? Because I see that question. Yeah. There's a question: what tools do you use with clients to help them bypass deep defensive mechanisms?

SPEAKER_04 38:53

Thank God for loving kindness.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Like things like, I will be shamed if I write, or I'm not a good enough writer.

SPEAKER_04 39:04

Well, one thing I would do is sometimes, depending on who it is and if they can handle it, have them write every negative thing that that inner critic has to say to them. And I used to do this with myself. And by the time I'd written a half a page, I think, oh my God, did I start a war or something? Not. So, you know, it can't be that bad. Um, almost inevitably, in a case with someone who has uh deep defense mechanisms, uh, worries about being shamed, like the student whose whose teacher said, you know, you know, right, that is too good. Um is um lost my train of thought. Is have them be in touch with that inner critic voice and then invite the inner critic to go sit in the corner and knit a sweater. Dialogue with the inner critic first, maybe to say what are you trying to do here? And you know what? I know from personal experience, and I've seen other people discovering this, the critic is trying to protect you. What is she trying to what is it trying to protect me from? And a lot of permission for uh really shitty first draft and the motte. Um, a lot of um talking about about draft and um doing things a little at a time, don't edit too soon. Um, I actually have a handout, Deanna and Cedric. I have a handout for Get Unstuck that I would be happy to uh send it along people to use. Yeah, okay. Somebody remind me because I'll probably forget. Um and what is a good enough rider? That's what I might say. We could role play say, well, Deanna, what's a good enough rider? You know, how do we know we're good enough? You know, we're gorgeous, we are gods and goddesses, we are writing our words, we are powerful. Maybe sometimes it's talk to that little inner child and takes time, takes a lot of time. The story that goes in the uh case studies and spiritual coaching, the the chapter that I did, it took three years of meeting regularly with a client before she got in touch deeply, emotionally in touch with that moment in fourth grade when she came back from having had an illness, and they put her back in the lesser reading group. And she was so humiliated it took a lifetime, but she got back to that moment. Up until that moment, we didn't know every time she read, and it was a very safe environment. Um, she cried. And by the way, especially with groups, but with individuals, I guess it goes without saying, too, it's got to be a safe environment. You know, you don't have to share. Um, if you want feedback, say specifically what uh feedback responses have to be um, you know, have to be uh positive. Um and a lot of affirming statements like everybody has something important to say. Everybody, because it's true. You know, do you believe that's true? Do you believe it's true everybody has something important to say? I do. I bet y'all do. You know, that's that's what you that's what you do. You just take them, meet them where they're at, and and challenge. And sometimes lately what I've been doing is reframing things. So so I'll say, how's your writing practices? Well, well, I said I was gonna only write three times, I was gonna write three times, and I only wrote one time. And I say, would you be open to my reframing that? And they say, Yes, and I say, I plan to write three times, and I actually showed up and did it once, and just reframe it. That's all that's all now. I did that recently with someone I didn't know very well. It was a class at Project Right Now, it was too soon for her, she was too young, and she thought she'd done it wrong because I reframed it for her. So, you know, live and learn. And then, of course, I quickly cleaned that up. Oh, I didn't, I didn't mean you did it wrong. I just want you to know that exactly how you are is exactly the way that it's great to be. Nobody, nobody started out being Mary Oliver, you know. Mary Oliver is a little girl walk through the woods to get away from her nasty family.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Somebody was asking about vitality. Um how you tune that or transmit it? Or maybe it's just contagious with your clients?

SPEAKER_03 44:17

How do you connect with it in the person?

SPEAKER_04 44:19

Like oh, oh Anne, I so wish you and I could have a conversation. Ann, what makes you feel alive? What what lights you up? I would say.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah, we we have a question we ask guests, what uplifts your spirit and allows you to lose track of time? That's the can opener question.

SPEAKER_04 44:44

Hi, coo. That's a great question. Um, nature, nature, you know, radical self-care, extreme self-love, self-nurture. The first time I learned about self-nurture, I was pregnant with my third kid. Um, I was getting too grumpy with my kids. Um, and I went to a therapist and she said, this was 35 years ago. She said, you need to take care of yourself. And I had literally no idea what she was talking about. I had a client once who, very similarly, only this was maybe 10 years ago. She didn't know what I was talking about. And she she was open and she got it. And you know what she was able to do? She put up a do not disturb sign on her writing room. And when her husband yelled, Mama Cita, she didn't answer. Pretty radical. That's step one. You got to meet them where they're at. Does she have a writing place? Is she willing to tell her husband to take a hike for a little while? Maybe not like that, but you know, to take a chill, uh, so that she can have some writing time. So often it starts with giving people um a writing space. And is there gonna be a way for people to be in touch? Because Ann says she wants to be in touch. I guess you could like call it it.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

If if you want your email in the chat, we can do that. I could do that. All right.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Look at me doing it all by myself. And just put just put um, I don't know, something about this. Put Cedric and Deanna or something like that in the uh in the subject heading so I don't think you're spamming me because I another here's here's another cute question for you, Gabe.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

What's that? That you can uh you're welcome to up level. That when you help or guide people, are you like a lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder? You're gonna say all three, depending, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Cedric, did you make that question up all by yourself? Am I a lamp, a boat, or what?

SPEAKER_01 46:50

A lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder in your mouth.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

Yes, yes. I'm a I'm a I'm a ladder in a lifeboat carrying a carrying a lamp.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

Yeah, I think that would be the answer.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

Oh I don't know that I'm any of those things, or maybe you know, it was a joke, but now I'm thinking all of those things.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

Yeah, I don't carry anybody, but I well, lifeboat is when they're drowning, right? And you pull them out in your lifeboat.

SPEAKER_04 47:24

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 47:26

So it could be different circumstances or different clients.

SPEAKER_04 47:30

Yes, definitely different circumstances. Um, the woman who um who had to have permission to put a do not disturb sign up on her writing space. Um, she got halfway through a young adult novel and disappeared. And so maybe she'll be back. Sometimes it can take that long. You know this, especially if you're over like 40. I mean, do you ever have that moment where oh my god, that's what they meant when I was 20. Same thing when you're 40 and 60.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

So, but gay, I see that you are a ladder when you're challenging people in your writing workshops. Okay, and I see that you are a lifeboat when, as you've described, somebody feels shamed and you refrain. That's offering a lifeboat, and you're the lamp because you shine your light.

SPEAKER_04 48:28

Yes, and I'm always open to learning because thank you, Deanna. She explained that. Didn't she explain that real nice?

unknown 48:41

Good job.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Yeah, other questions, and the ladder when you pick up that people are really interested in evolution and being on that path, and you know, then the next step up, you know, next step up, and you give them the ladder, yes, or I think in terms of spaciousness, an up and down, but spaciousness, but yeah, yeah, the healing, the opening up.

SPEAKER_04 49:10

You know, um, I'm a big fan of Carl Jung and going to the shadow. I have a shadow book. You want to see my shadow book? This is my book of my shadow stuff. Eat the shadow in therapy starting a million years ago, you know, eat the shadow, eat the shadow. And you I don't necessarily use this, um, but um yeah, eat eat eat the shadow, you know, inviting people into the dark space spaces, holding their hands. I'm a hand holder, I'm a hand holder.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

You know that book owning your own shadow by Robert Johnson.

SPEAKER_04 49:46

Oh, Robert Johnson, yeah you know, and and and my other favorite thing, this is this is gonna get a little dark, but uh Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankel. You know, when people can feel their own importance, they can move into uh expressing their importance. And it's really powerful, it's really, really powerful.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

So gay, um Jenny says for me, gay is a lamp because she has illuminated my learning and thinking about writing as a spiritual as spiritual guidance.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

Oh, I love it. Did we even talk about enough writing tools?

SPEAKER_03 50:37

Well, and Ann says maybe something about different styles of facilitation or being a catalyst, perhaps. Can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_04 50:48

Um I don't know that I have different I have the gay Norton Edelman style of facilitation. And a lot of it is intuitive. And I tend my my lesson plans tend to be very similar in that I start with a guided meditation. Uh well, not with Quakers, because you then we have a moment of silence. Um I think it's you know, having certain community assumptions about writing. I don't know. I don't frankly, I don't know that I know enough about different styles of facilitation other other than my own. It's a lot of you know, I I plan the plan but not the results. So I make a lesson plan and then I may I may chuck it out the window halfway through because everybody's so besotted with haiku because I converted them that they want to spend half the two-hour workshop doing haiku instead of just you know 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

So do you do you have uh favorite authors either as a child or now author, author, or about right? Like no author is author, like authority, author, author, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:07

I was crazy for William Faulkner as a young, young person, Hemingway, believe it or not. Um, I love Ann Lamotte now. I am a big fan of um what's his name? Sidaris. David, David Sidaris. I have not yet been able to write humor. How about this? To write humor, you got believe it or not, I think you have to feel really safe and really bold and really brave. And I think haiku may take me to humor. Um, I tend to read a lot of spiritual memoir. Um, right now, the poetry I'm looking at, I don't have any have oh, yes, I do. Um Jane Hirschfield is a wonderful poet, but she also did this book, Women in Praise of the Sacred. And she talks about she she has collected poetry going back to you know before the com way before the common era. Um, and and I love I love what she does and how she does, and she's also a Zen Buddhist and um and a professor.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

So yes, we can put any of those resources in in uh along with the recording.

SPEAKER_04 53:22

Okay. Sounds like a plan.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

We're up to one, three minutes out.

SPEAKER_04 53:30

Tick tock, tick tock. Everybody take a deep breath, get your continuing education credits. And promise me you'll write something today. Oh, Amanda Haiku. Good job, Amanda. Excellent, excellent. Yeah, and we didn't talk at all about you know publishing or getting it out in the world, but that's a that's a subject for another another profession, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

You offer that privately to anyone, right? Oh sure, oh sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:07

The handout will be on the um read the page that's about this episode once it's recorded. So it'll either be on online events or you can go to the um Soul Portals page, either way, but it'll all the resources will be listed there.

SPEAKER_04 54:26

And I want to thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Yeah, it was a real treat to have you.

SPEAKER_04 54:32

It was a real treat to be here. And I want to, I'm sorry I couldn't see everybody, but they had to do it this way. Um, but um I'm I'm sending you all good writing, instructor writing, writing vibes. Just put that pen on the paper, those hands on the keyboard, and you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

So the closing blessing is may we live in openness to what will emerge next in the evolutionary pageant.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

And in our next podcast next month.

SPEAKER_04 55:04

Now a stay, y'all.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

Thank you, Greg.

SPEAKER_04 55:09

Thank you.