To Hell With Aging with Nancy Berggren

A recent health scare has lit a fire, inspiring ninety-year-old Nancy to recommit to the resilience, intellectual curiosity, and brain plasticity that defines her. She has always ministered by example and through her craft, but more and more, that contribution inspires others to live their best lives at any age and remain engaged, productive, and relevant. 

Nancy reflects on her core essence, which she discovered while performing as a child. Onstage, she felt like a vessel— a conduit for something she now recognizes as pure love. Nancy walks us through her acting days, her years as a wife, mother, and grandmother, and this most recent chapter she refers to as Chapter Three. Dominick shares his own brush with death which inspired 'Language of the Soul,' both the book and the podcast.  It has become a meeting place for those seeking to understand life's transformative moments in the context of STORY. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Hi guys and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. I'm your host, author, dominic Domingo, and I'd like to say a quick hello to our producer, virginia Grenier. Hello everyone, woo, thanks for being here. Our listeners probably know this podcast is very much a labor of love and Virginia and I not to put words in her mouth, but I think we feel that it's our contribution, our purposeful contribution, and I know those are strong words. For me it was a no-brainer. Some of you may know, but again, if you're tuning in for the first time, I had a little brush with death just before the pandemic. A lot like today's guest, I think you had a health scare and it really lights a fire. So I'm calling it my pandemic books.

Speaker 1 0:47

A lot of us had a creative fire during COVID so I wrote two books. One was fiction and one was my first nonfiction book. It's called Language of the Soul and of course the podcast is based on that book. It's a 350, so this comes up a lot like it's a 354 page book. So of course I like to impart some of the content of the book here and there, but it's really well thought out in the book and it's kind of hard to condense it here, but anyway, the book itself and the podcast are pretty much about the immense role of storytelling and culture, and, I would add, in all its forms. Sometimes we don't even recognize that we're absorbing stories or internalizing them, but we feel I think Virginia you can tell me if I'm wrong that storytelling is one of the main ways in which we shift our paradigms and our worldviews. So we're passionate about it and this is our way of contributing, just kind of sharing this message that an awareness of story and all its forms goes a long way in both transforming the individual and then, by extension, through the ripple effect one hopes, evolving culture. So please help us spread the word. That's the point here. You can help us grow our platform and get the word out by simply liking or following us or I guess subscribing is another word and it doesn't cost you a thing. But you can like us on Buzzsprout or wherever you listen to your podcast. We publish to all of them by heart radio, apple podcasts, spotify, amazon music, and the list goes on. At the bottom of every episode and on our homepage on Buzzsprout you will see a little support button. If you feel inspired, we would love your support as well.

Speaker 1 2:32

Okay, all of that said, I'm going to introduce a guest who I'm actually seeing her in Zoom land right now. She looks marvelous and she truly, nancy, is an inspiration to me personally. You get me up in the morning. You and Jane Vonda get me up in the morning for a variety of reasons. One you'll hear in the bio she's a real proponent.

Speaker 1 2:57

I cannot if I'm putting words in your mouth, you can set me straight after I read your bio, but I believe she's a proponent of not just staying engaged and active and inspired in life, but maintaining relevancy. I think that's so important. We live in a culture where so quick to take people out to the field and shoot them at a certain point and I'm a big fan of just returning some currency is how I put it to the wisdom that comes with experience, right, and just all that people in later stages of life have to offer. I have a friend that is kind of changing up the wording they used to call the crone stage, right, that has such a negative ring. She's the one who introduced us, by the way, nancy, and I'm going to invite you in just a second. But Andrea Slaminsky, she's branded the crone stage as the stage of regency, and I love that Sounds very regal, anyway. So, nancy, you're a true inspiration to me and here's kind of what Nancy's all about. There's so much more, but I am going to read her bio. She goes by Nancy B, but Nancy Bergen would be, I think, the legal and professional name.

Speaker 1 4:03

Nancy B pours her passion and love of life into everything she does. She's a professional actress, published author, international speaker, ordained minister and proud grandmother of 22 grand and great grandchildren. Wow, I thought we were fertile. I have 22 nieces and nephews, but we're Italian and Mormon. Italian on one side, mormon on the other. So, yeah, we just keep cranking them out in this family. I did not. I guess I forgot that about you. Anyway, reverend Nancy was the senior minister at the fall work center for spiritual living for 10 years. She's currently a staff member at the global truth center in Westlake, california. Her first book, life is a game and you can play it, which I just reread in preparation for this episode, has been translated into Russian and will soon be available in Ukrainian. I love that. At 90 years, young Nancy is blessed to have worked recently opposite Jim Carrey and kidding and shining veil. Ruth or Ford falls by Carly and in the feature film bromades.

Speaker 1 5:06

Before I invite you to, nancy, I'm going to read one more thing from our prompts. We asked them to fill out some prompts about what they're excited to share with our listeners. I am an amazingly and I agree with this and amazingly active senior at 90. I'm here now to model what this third act of life can look like Line dancing, weekly, launch of latest book to hell with aging. We're definitely going to talk about that. On April 21, in time for my 91st birthday, I will travel, teach and speak about the unlimited possibilities when we decide what we really want and declare it allowed to the universe, which always answers yes. Of course, heart and long issues kept me down for almost a year. My cardiologist says my heart is healed and perfect sinus rhythm and I am dancing again. Love that. Welcome, nancy B.

Speaker 2 6:03

Oh, hi, dominic, I just. I'm sitting here gazing at your smiling face on the screen in front of me. It just tickles me, so it gives me such joy to see you so full of life, and so I can just I can see your heart.

Speaker 1 6:18

It just oh, my God.

Speaker 2 6:20

In your eyes.

Speaker 1 6:23

Yeah, and you're a word, Smith, those are strong words. That was actually taken during outpost in which you starred. Yes that was on in Santa Clarita. It was the one that burned down. Sable Ranch that burned down. Oh my yeah, so very fond memories. That's why I'm smiling. I had a blast on that film.

Speaker 2 6:42

Oh, that was so great and that was the first. I had been out of the industry for a long time and that was first film, the first thing that I did not play, not a TV, nothing. Wow. This is my introduction, my welcome back. Right. Into the, into the entertainment industry, and I remember, I remember our audition.

Speaker 1 7:05

Of course.

Speaker 2 7:06

We kept saying even less.

Speaker 1 7:08

Even really, really.

Speaker 2 7:10

I remember it very well.

Speaker 1 7:11

Interesting. Well, you had you read beautifully on screen. You know how it is in theater you have to be much larger and then on film, the blink of an eye, right, a twitch, and I can read. And you had you did deliver the most subtle performance and it read beautifully on screen. So I was surprised to hear that I had to say that to you. That's funny. You definitely delivered. I'm so blessed, and not to mention just having you as an influence in my life. Yeah, thank you, andrea, for hooking us up man.

Speaker 2 7:44

Yes, and it's good that after it you know it's with it, with good friends like we are, like we when you work together in an intimate environment like that Motion and all these things, you develop a connection, a heart connection, a soul connection. So even if it's been five or 10 years, since we've spoken and we have a couple of times in between, but haven't been together. It's just like it was yesterday.

Speaker 1 8:10

Right.

Speaker 2 8:11

Yesterday.

Speaker 1 8:13

Oh my God, I feel the same way, and even especially in theater, when you literally sweat together like I have high school friends from. We were both. I was vocal music association president and we did the. Actually, Glee was based off my little program. I do show choir competitions around and they're my best friends to this day. You know, I think as adults you don't have as many opportunities to bond, but I agree with you collaborating creatively is a real gift that we have. Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:41

It really is. Yeah, that's it's a bond that go away. Well, yeah, you just look so amazing.

Speaker 1 8:48

as I said, back, I'm just sitting here, looking at your face Just because I'm looking at the freckles and the lines, I guess the freckles are turning to age spots. That's what happens when you start connecting. I guess you have to call them age spots. But anyway, thank you for saying that.

Speaker 2 9:09

How about love, dots, love.

Speaker 1 9:12

Yeah, you have probably all the right. I got all that you can. I better get started. Yeah, you can, you know, whip me into shape, kind of read. That's what our podcast is about is reframing everything. Yeah, so you can teach me how to reframe an age spot. Yeah, I look forward to that we can.

Speaker 1 9:31

So, nancy, one way I wanted to start and you actually said the perfect thing that I'm going to use as a segue you hinted at the introduction of your book, the one that I read titled Life is a Game and you Can Play it Too.

Speaker 1 9:46

You said something a moment ago that harkened back to maybe why you became an actress in the first place, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say storyteller yes, and it bears out something that I actually had a hunch about years ago. I was going to do a documentary about creatives in general, but storytellers specifically, and so many of them said it's. It's my mode of expression. Of course, but a lot of my students I was surprised at the tender age of whatever they are in college 2021 said it's my way of loving, it was connecting right, Not just engaging, it wasn't a surrogate for connection. They literally said my craft is my way of loving.

Speaker 1 10:26

So, anyway, I remember vividly I don't expect you to necessarily remember what you wrote, but you kind of started at the beginning and said here was my childhood and again, I don't want to say too much, I want to hear you say it but you definitely needed that craft at one point and then you were taught to mistrust it later in life. Do you mind telling our listeners that story, basically the introduction to that book, if you remember it?

Childhood Acting and Love Story

Speaker 2 10:50

The introduction of that book. I don't remember that. Oh, yes, I do. Yes, I do, but you know it was. It was interesting because as a child actress it was just natural for me. My mother took me to an acting teacher at two and a half. So I mean Wow, wow, and by four years old I was performing everywhere.

Speaker 1 11:12

Wow, yeah, I joke, I came out of. I came out of the womb with a pencil in my hand, but that's pretty much the equivalent. She brought you as a toddler to acting class. Yeah. Were you going to be the cash cow for the family, or was it more than no?

Speaker 2 11:25

no, no, no. She said that I popped out with a southern actor and her sister, who basically raised her, was 10 years older, said well, you have to bring her to my son's acting coach because we have to. We have to get rid of that, we get rid of whatever. She said. I don't know, but anyway I arrived at the studio and it at her teaching and it was fascinating because whatever was handed me in the year, in the early years to come, it was just, it all felt so natural, it was just like like smiling, it just it was effortless, absolutely effortless, and and and I loved it and I felt, I felt I don't know, it felt made me feel good inside.

Speaker 2 12:09

I decided I was a born entertainer and I asked myself the other day, before I started all this new, my new adventure here If you're a born performer, why don't you, if you're born entertainer, excuse me, why aren't you entertaining? And when I'm not fulfilling that creative urge, when I'm not paying attention to it and listening to it and going, what is it that wants to come through me right now? Then I'm not a very happy camper, thank you. And my husband's been gone for many, many years. We were together for almost 50 years, met him at MGM. As a matter of fact, he was an actor and so was I.

Speaker 1 12:51

Wow. I want to picture like old school MGM. What year are we talking about?

Speaker 2 12:57

Let's see, would have been probably 1951,.

Speaker 1 13:01

I think Wow Perfect.

Speaker 2 13:04

And the day that we met he went and told me. Later, the day that we met, he said he went home and told his mother I just met the girl I'm going to marry.

Speaker 1 13:11

Holy Well can we say that, virginia, on our podcast we drop F-bombs. I can definitely say holy shit. Yeah, we see a lot on here.

Speaker 1 13:21

All right, I don't know why I got sheepish all of a sudden. Nancy, that's awesome. My grandfather married my grandmother after two weeks, but he wrote home and said I think exactly that Not only, but his was more like a found a woman. That makes me want to be a better man. And she's strong as a horse. She's like mm. That's marriage material Strong as a horse. I love that. So it was love. Is that love at first sight? Now, was it mutual, by the way?

Speaker 2 13:51

You know, it took me a little longer to. I was younger. He was seven years older than I. I was 19 at the time.

Speaker 1 13:58

Oh that's nothing.

Speaker 2 14:00

So to be longer, to accept that this was the natural next step, I think I think I needed a little growing up time at that time. Yeah, I think that's.

Speaker 1 14:12

Yeah, I don't think it's a huge age gap, but I do think one. Yes, he was probably at the age where it made sense, right, and then you, yes, probably had a little more growing up to do.

Speaker 2 14:23

I think so. I think that was it. Yeah, he had already been in the service. He had enlisted he and his best boyfriend enlisted the day that, the day they graduated from high school. So he had served in Japan as part of the occupation forces and he just fell in love with the country. So one of my goals was to take him back to Japan, which we did.

Speaker 1 14:48

Oh, beautiful that was a great trip. Beautiful. Yeah, so he served during, obviously, world War II, and then you met in the 50s.

Speaker 2 14:58

But in the occupation forces, not in the actual combat. He went Right right by the time he got through basic training and all, but he fell in love with the people and the culture. He just fell in love with it. So I was happy that we were able to return before he passed, a couple of years before he passed, and that was a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 15:19

Yes, that's awesome. Well, there's a whole podcast right there. I would love to hear more about your relationship at some point, but I want to hear. I seem to remember that, although it kind of speaks to, we have this core essence right, and then sometimes that core essence is in alignment with collective consciousness, so you're serving by being that vessel. But I again don't want to put words in your mouth, but I remember in the book you said yes, it was so natural to me, and yet I was also product of your era. You were told to be sight right, only speak when spoken to. And what is it with children? Be seen, not heard.

Speaker 2 15:59

Yeah.

Embracing Creativity and Spiritual Growth

Speaker 1 16:00

Right, which is pretty typical, but in my case I felt like, oh, it wasn't safe to express myself. I think dysfunction and alcoholism can definitely make you, terrorize you into being silent and invisible. So I think there's a lot of versions of that, if that makes sense. But how interesting to feel that when you were performing, you were.

Speaker 2 16:20

Yeah, yeah, Totally uninhibited. And the bigger and whatever. The bigger, more outrageous, more emotional, more whatever. That was just better and better and better. But then, offstage, I felt that I needed to be silent. I needed to always sit in the back of the class. I just, I was really. It's like this dichotomy of being outgoing and then just so insecure in my being when I was young.

Speaker 1 16:55

Just to the point, yeah, I would love to tie that in, like that's your core essence. And then I don't know how you define chapters in your life, but I want to get to the point of how you were reinvigorated in this third chapter after your health scare. But in between, what did that look like? What did your relationship with your craft look like? I know there's a lot of years there, but how did your craft serve you and I'm calling it storytelling I know you're a minister. I know you have a spiritual practice as well. What was your relationship with your creativity all those years?

Speaker 2 17:28

You know I can. When I'm in, when I'm in the flow, I can feel the energy of the life force if I would call it that, if I can call it that that just wells up in me and needs to come out. It calls me, it demands to be heard, but it feels, it feels like something pours through me that that then pours out to others to connect me with others in a way that that something that I say or do or be can lift them up and encourage them and inspire them in their own lives to be willing to step out beyond your comfort zone.

Speaker 2 18:10

We can all get stuck, I don't care where that level is. Like one, it could be 10, it could be a thousand, it doesn't matter. We all have those levels and we but, but something in us, in each one of us, in whatever our field, calls us to be more.

Speaker 1 18:29

Oh, I love that Yep.

Speaker 2 18:32

I feel like, as long as I'm here, there's more for me to give and more for me to do, and so I want to be what you said earlier I want to be a vessel and want to be an opening.

Speaker 2 18:46

I want to be and, and and I have to be careful and be honest and say watch where ego and pride can come in, because particularly in the entertainment industry it's it's it's a subtle kind of sneaky thing, and for me I I've just come into contact with some of that in the last month or so and I went, oh, in yourself and myself.

Speaker 1 19:11

Interesting. Wow, I guess it never ends, right, we never arrived. The battle with ego and mind and pride never ends.

Speaker 2 19:19

Yeah, and there's always more to learn.

Speaker 1 19:22

Do you want to tell me about that impasse? What did that look like for you? Was it in your creative process or just in daily life.

Speaker 2 19:30

No, it was in the creative process. I enrolled in an enormous project, an enormous production project, and two weeks in I was all in, two weeks in. My body was going crazy. My blood pressure was 157 and I couldn't bring it down. I couldn't sleep at night and I was so stressed out because the individuals in the group were like in the 40s and 50s and 60s in the prime of physical well-being as well as the mental and creative and productive well-being, and I realized how out of my depth I was.

Speaker 2 20:14

I had to sit with that for a bit and then I called the gentleman in charge of it and I just poured my heart out and I said I asked myself could this be pride in me, that wants to show off, that wants to be like woohoo, I can do it 90 years? Old. I'm like, yeah, that's a little bit like that. Some of that got in there and I didn't like it, Dominic. I did not like it.

Speaker 1 20:45

I think you can't beat yourself up about that. Well, yeah, I mean, I think it works together, right. Sometimes you pull in pride and ego to get shit done. You know, even if it's inspired by the universe, it has its role. If you think of ego, let's equate that with sort of our. Well, fear and ego are synonymous, right. When you act out of fear, it's your ego protecting you. So throughout our day, we're encountering all kinds of things that could be threats or opportunities. I think we're wired to have a sort of protection response when something comes along that could be a predator, right? So I actually think it has its place. We demonize ego all the time, but it's survival, really.

Speaker 2 21:29

That's what I was going to say.

Speaker 1 21:31

Sorry.

Speaker 2 21:32

It's the old reptilian brain, exactly. Here comes a bear Better run it better, run and hide Right.

Speaker 1 21:40

Yeah, I just think it's, you know, whatever. I think we can demonize some instincts, but not all of them. And I do think even in the creative process, if something is inspired by the universe and you honor it sometimes and I'm kind of being facetious and kind of not but to get shit done you'll always catch yourself pulling an ego, I think. Can I say something about? This Go ahead please.

Speaker 4 22:04

Because I know this has come up so many times. You know podcasts that we've done already, dominic, where you've mentioned the ego, but one of the things that I have come across, because, yeah, people do talk about how, you know, our ego can sometimes get in our way, but there's also what's called the ego integrity, which means, basically, it's our sense of fulfillment about life and accepting it as we live it.

Speaker 1 22:27

Well, is there dopamine attached to that? I know like accomplishment, is it dopamine? Yeah, it gives you a dopamine rush.

Speaker 4 22:36

Exactly so. It's kind of when we come to a stage in our life where we accept our successes and our failures and realize that that's what the purpose of meaning in life is and what makes it so significant.

Speaker 1 22:49

Well, I love that. Yeah, Abraham Hicks talks about do you know, abraham Esther? She talks about like not beating her, she calls it stage one, right? So the contrast I use different words than she does, but the contrasts in life, yes, are there to either be a crisis, slash, opportunity or crucible, however you want to put it, for growth. But, yeah, when you think, the minute you think you've arrived, in fact you regress and you have a moment right, she calls it a stage one, moment where that contrast rears its ugly head and you realize you haven't arrived but you also cherish it because it means more growth.

Speaker 2 23:28

That's right. Yeah, and I will say, if I may, that after having that really heartfelt conversation with this gentleman who is just golden in my estimation because of how he received it he thanked me so much for my vulnerability, my honesty, not hiding anything, and it was during our conversation that this idea about pride popped into my head and I said it out loud to him.

Speaker 2 24:03

That was the first time that I had recognized it. And yeah, we're learning and growing all the time and we bump up against individuals or situations that give us an opportunity. Like you said, we can grow from it or we can let it dominate us and go the other way.

Speaker 1 24:23

Well, that's why I said fear, because every moment you get to choose fear or love, and that does correlate. Speaking of the lizard brain that you mentioned, that correlates with a growth response or a protective response.

Speaker 1 24:37

And the fear is cortisol and adrenaline, and then the other is all those euphoric brain chemicals. Right, yeah, I love that every moment. Well, I guess what I'm hung up on a little bit, Nancy, is you are such a beautiful example again of continued relevance, of staying engaged, like you said, as long as you're here, continuing to contribute, continuing to give. So I'm sitting here going. Well, okay, if she feels like she's, you know, pride was compelling her to show off her abilities at such an advanced age, I'm like but, but, but we get to benefit. So isn't it okay if you had a prideful moment, if we all get to benefit from your inspiration? I mean, I don't want you keeling over or anything.

Speaker 2 25:16

but Well, I have to. I have to recognize, I was brought to recognize that this, my spirit feels so young, and why I have this indelible energy in me, I've never really understood. It's just always been there.

Speaker 1 25:36

Do you think it's an innate chip Like, is it part of your temperament and disposition, or is it something people can learn and grow?

Speaker 2 25:43

I think it came with me, it was part of my package. Beautiful that part. Yeah, it was part of my package. But then how do I use it, dominic? I mean, it doesn't do us any good to know stuff if we don't use it, if we don't practice it. Right.

Speaker 2 26:00

And I'm not interested anymore. While I am, I'm always interested in growing, definitely spiritually in my heart and soul and being right inside, but it's also for me. Now. I feel like this time is so important because I mentioned, I think, when we talked on the phone earlier, that in 2022, somewhat similar to you, although not that to that degree I was in the hospital four times with heart and lung issues and finally, the fourth time, I said I got to figure this thing out, or this XX thing is going to kill me, and that's what it felt like.

Speaker 2 26:44

And if that was like I mean, I wouldn't call it a dark night of the soul, but coming up against your humanity, divinity, soul, heart, mind, spirit, what you believe, what you don't believe, I don't know what to call it. Whatever you want to call it that, if I couldn't learn from that, it's like life was saying look, we're trying to get your attention.

Speaker 1 27:07

Absolutely, it's so funny.

Themes of Resilience and Creativity

Speaker 2 27:09

And you're not listening.

Speaker 1 27:10

Nancy, you're reading straight out of my book. I mean, yes, my, anyway, the seeker is largely a parable for my entire life. But of course the stakes got really upped when you have a brush with death, and that's not an exaggeration. It very much felt like you know what I'm not done here yet and you don't shake your fist at God but you assert your free will for sure, and in my parlance, in the book anyway. Then you decide to co-create with destiny, right.

Speaker 1 27:40

So the way I put it in the book, I just, you know, symbolically, the gods had it in for the protagonist. They were done with them. They chewed them up and spit them out, and they were done with them. And he said exactly that I am not done here, I'm going to dig my heels in. You've gifted me, the gods have gifted me free will, so we're going to co-create here. So I love that. That moment when people decide to dovetail. If every particle of the universe seems conspiring to do you in, you actually get to dovetail with that. It sounds like that's pretty much what you went through. Why don't you call it a dark night of the soul?

Speaker 2 28:16

Because it was physical To me for me a dark night of the soul is mental, spiritual and emotional. This, while it certainly encompassed all of that, may have been created by all of that at some point. That I don't know, but this was in the physical.

Speaker 1 28:39

I got it, but surely you're a proponent of the mind-body-spirit connection Absolutely and you take a holistic approach to life. Your body the way I put it is the universe does speak louder and louder to get your attention. You were being told by your body to pay attention, but it seems like it resulted in more conviction about offering what you have left to give.

Speaker 2 29:01

It did. But I also have come to this in this last month or two I've come to respect my body, it's the vehicle, it's my driver, it's my car, it's my method, my modus upper of getting around in, and it's been a pretty darn good job for years.

Speaker 2 29:23

And I need to listen and pay attention when it's trying to tell me something. So, as an example, if I can give you an example, I have a patio that I love. I can see it out my bedroom window. I love planting flowers in my patio, I love tending them, I love talking to them, I love welcoming the new buds and all this kind of stuff. So when I get into it and so it was the new planting time and I'm planting, planting and I'm carrying stuff and I'm digging up and I'm up and down and I'm up and downstairs and getting a ladder and doing this, and I was exhausted by the time I finished getting all the plants in the ground, but I went. But now you have to clean up. You can't leave the dirt on the ground.

Speaker 2 30:08

You can't leave these leaves and all these empty containers around, because that wouldn't be perfect. Oh yag me with a dirt. So I forced myself. I don't want to use that word because at the time it didn't feel like that it felt. I felt like I was compelled to clean up. By the time I finished, I really hurt myself. So I'm learning, I'm learning.

Speaker 1 30:35

Well, but it's almost like the drudgery just doesn't have a place right. Inspired action keeps you young and in drudgery taxes everyone.

Speaker 2 30:45

Yeah, it does, but for me. So I had another planting season and I got it. It was recent this year, no less, not maybe early this year, early this year and I got all the. I got all the little flowers in their places and everybody's watered and everybody's happy and all that. And all this gobbledy greek, this sea stuff is laying around on the ground and all the dirt and it's a mess and I just said, okay, I'm done for today. This kid, this can wait till tomorrow.

Speaker 2 31:16

I turned around and I walked to the house, probably made myself a cup of tea and maybe sat down and read a book or had a nap. That's the difference for me.

Speaker 1 31:26

Right and well, virginia and I this has come up a little bit just letting go, right, it sounds a little bit like just letting go and embracing imperfection in life. Yeah. I'm only saying these things, Nancy. You've got a hell of a lot more wisdom than I could have accrued at this point, but I just know we're like minded on some of this stuff. That's why I'm spouting platitudes. Yes, Awesome.

Speaker 1 31:48

But yeah, no, I think it is an ongoing theme that we all struggle with and probably will until we're in the ground Is this idea of just letting things be what they are and accept accept them for what they have to offer. Eckhart Tolle talks about how most human suffering is mind created. Back to ego, right. Most suffering is other than severing a limb. You know there is physical pain, but within reason it's our mind created suffering by wishing things were other than what they are.

Speaker 2 32:18

Exactly.

Speaker 1 32:19

Right. So if you just embrace it for what it has to offer and it's the same with meditation you actually can't hold a positive, loving thought and feel pain at the same moment. It's really interesting wherever your object of attention is. I'm putting this in extremes. Physical pain has degrees but within reason. If you fix it, your attention on something loving, it's really hard to feel pain.

Speaker 2 32:48

It is. And so how much of that is mental? Because, as a performer in my teams, I belong to a dance troupe and sometimes, as a young woman, I would have cramps and I would just be in agony off stage and I didn't know what was happening at the time, but when I stepped on the stage it was gone. Right.

Speaker 2 33:13

It wasn't just better or bearable or anything like that, it just didn't exist While I was giving, and what I was doing was out of love. That's what you said. Yes, I was in that love, that place of giving joy. Joy is like I don't know, food for me, I guess, and I'd step off stage and, oh, perhaps again. Right, I didn't put it together.

Speaker 1 33:38

No, no, no, that's everything Again. Now you're describing a story I wrote about a little girl who had a stage mom and you know it's based on my friend Luanne Maybe you'll relate as an actress, but kind of the same thing. She had a really over, not that you did, but she had a very overbearing stage mother and she was one of the first Annie's off Broadway. But it was the type of thing where if she didn't belt loud enough or if she fussed with her knickers on stage, she got a swat on the behind the minute she oh, my goodness, so no, it goes way beyond. There was major abuse. Her mom slept with her boyfriend at 14. She literally had to get emancipated and was out on her own at 14. Best thing she ever did for herself.

Speaker 1 34:19

But anyway, it's a metaphor, for we all have this surrogate, this mode of expression that allows for connection, but it can be a surrogate. And then a lot of artists, yeah, learn to have healthy relationships and engage, including romantic relationships, but then they have this relationship with their craft and I equated it with like carrying around wings. You know that myth that if you touch a moth, they'll never fly again.

Power of Mind-Body Connection

Speaker 1 34:45

So the metaphor was you know, if you touch them off, they'll never fly again. But then they have to drag these wings around. So anyway, I just made it where she wasn't going to give up a relationship with her craft. That's her first love. It's actually you found out about the operas about exactly that the muse is the first love. And then you have this earthly calling for connection and the two can be at odds. So, but anyway, what you said, this idea of you being a channel for pure love and feeling no pain while you're doing it, that's the power right of our love of craft.

Speaker 2 35:17

Is the power of our love of craft and it's that mind-body connection that you spoke of earlier, yep.

Speaker 1 35:23

Mind over matter.

Speaker 2 35:25

Well, you can call it whatever we want to call it, but there's something there that we can't explain with our rational mind. I can't explain it with my rational mind. I just happened to have experienced it more than once in my life, so I know it.

Speaker 1 35:42

I used to joke, I had two. It's a horrible parallel, but I had two classes back to back and you know teaching wasn't the same as you know, performing or painting it was, but I did feel like it was a contribution at that time. So I could do two classes back to back with a splitting headache. It did not feel it while I was teaching, but the minute I'm done it comes back with a vengeance. Yeah, or even this podcast. Virginia and I both were deathly ill a few weeks ago and we got through the podcast feeling no pain and then you realize like, oh yeah, I'm pretty sick.

Speaker 2 36:19

It's really amazing, the power of the mind, if you believe that that there's in quantum science, you know there's one, this one thing, and we're all part of it and it's all part of us, and I think that's why we can, we can we affect each? I think that's why we can affect each other in ways that might not make sense to us in our logical mind, because it's a connection, there's a soul connection or a heart connection.

Speaker 1 36:50

Well, I do think quantum mechanics supports that, right, not just entanglement of every particle of the universe, but everything is just energy vibrating at different speeds. Right, our bodies are super highways for non-local energy. So I'm gonna argue with a little bit and just say my whole book a big portion of it anyway, and it's 350 something pages is about, you know, we live in a divisive moment, right, that's the word of the day divisive, divisive. So I spent a lot of the book saying, no, slow down, and let's not dismiss this as fringe or new agey or through. Let's actually find where quantum mechanics intersects with cell biology, which, right, intersects with psychology, with and actually you can back everything up that we just said about the mind, body, spirit connection, right, if somebody is under hypnosis, you can suggest that they're being burned by an iron and their body will produce the burn. That kind of says it all.

Speaker 1 37:46

The placebo effect, right, yeah, the thing that blows my mind is like Western medicine loves treating things chemically, right, and so you're just putting chemicals in your body that are gonna penetrate the cell wall from one cell to the next and, you know, hope it kills off the right thing but doesn't kill the whole person. I'm being a little facetious, but you know, chinese medicine or Eastern medicine will say no, we have these energetic super highways right, and it's absolutely backed by science that there's non-local energetic signaling all day, every day, in every cell of your body, not just within an organ or a system, but in your entire body. So people just don't take time to really understand it. They just dismiss it as fringe right, deep back. Choper is a quack, you know, and even Bruce Lipton gets called a quack. Well, take the time to research it and you'll find it's just a different vocabulary for the same thing. Does that make any sense to you at?

Speaker 2 38:45

all Different words. Yes, we're using different words to describe the same thing. It's the elephant, with everybody holding a tail or a trunk or a leg, and they're going. No, it's like a tree, no, it's not, it's like, no, it's like. And then making everybody wrong. But everybody was right actually.

Speaker 1 39:01

Exactly yeah.

Speaker 2 39:03

We all experience life through our own lenses, through our own perceptions.

Speaker 2 39:10

I have you said something a minute ago. I wanna read this, if I may. I have this. I've colored it in blue and red because it's by Alan Cohen in Daily Inspiration and I have it on top of my computer. It's just a quote. Peace, yeah, I mean. It says this when you delightfully fantasize about something that you want, you set in motion a wave of energy that calls that situation into reality, dislightfully fantasizing. So that's not worrying about it, that's not planning about it, that's not researching about it, that's like going inside and feeling that. And I'm all about the feeling in my creativity, and you are too. It's all about the feeling. And I used to say at the Fallbook Church I don't want you to learn something, I don't want you to think something, I want you to feel something.

Speaker 1 40:04

Beautiful yep, well, to go back to connect. That's a really beautiful wording, by the way. What was it? Lightly fantasizing?

Speaker 2 40:12

Delightfully.

Speaker 1 40:13

Delightfully fantasizing. I'll send it to you, right, but I'm just gonna take the opportunity to connect it back to the idea of these energetic superhighways in every cell of our body. They say DNA is just the blueprint, right, just the blueprint. Our cells self-create all day, every day. They shuttle around tiny particles to make proteins right or hormones on an as needed basis. Well, what is shuttling them around? It's energy. Why is it a leap to say thoughts and feelings are also energetic impulses?

Speaker 2 40:46

They are.

Speaker 1 40:48

Right. So it's a no-brainer that our physical health will be taxed if thoughts and feelings result in cortisol and adrenaline. So we like to talk about the cortisol and adrenaline because it's chemical. But what about the thoughts and feelings that created it in the first place? So Bruce Lipton will say the body will always create a growth response before it will protective response. So the body will always try to look out for you. But then if that fails, then the cortisol and adrenaline comes in. Anyway, I like, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2 41:22

It's looking out for itself.

Speaker 1 41:25

Right persistence, yeah it wants.

Speaker 2 41:27

the body wants to be healthy. And I've read and I've never been able to remember who it was who wrote it, but it said the one conversation of the cells in our body is how can I help? What do? You mean and that they are, and you just spoke they are in continuously. I wish I had a bigger word sharing chemicals and nutrients and hormones, whatever it may be.

Speaker 1 41:55

Well, homeostasis right With each other. Yes, yes, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 41:59

The body in the harmony and stasis, and I just wanna say that for you to be where you are today, in comparison to where you were a year or two years ago, it could not have happened in my mind, unless you had some connection to something larger than yourself. Beautiful, because the medical field didn't have the answer.

Speaker 1 42:22

Oh, trust me, it's been a learning curve. I learned it from square one, you know, and I did. I don't wanna make it about me, but I did have to fight for everything during a pandemic, right? That's why I wasn't too happy with my anti-masker friends, because I slipped through the cracks. They literally looked at me at LAC USC and said you are slipping through the cracks because we're over impacted due to COVID.

Speaker 1 42:46

So I had to get every MRI, every X-ray, to rule out certain things, you know, to figure out what was going on with my body. I had to travel far and wide to get to some of these specialists because the hotbed was right here in LA and it happened to be where I was getting my care so many times I will just keep it short but so many times I knew better and it did come back to. I have a friend that works for the Dalai Lama and she has a lot of connections and she said just tell me what you need. So I wrote a really long letter, like three page letter, about everything I'd been through and I was in it, man, I was in it. And she just wrote back like meditate. That's what a defect choper says. His answer to everything is meditate. She was just saying it's all within and, frankly, that's what I had to come to.

Speaker 1 43:37

Everything came to a screeching halt. There was nothing more I could do to squeeze blood out of a turnip, so I put my spiritual practice on the front burner. Does that make sense? Meditated every day, did not drop the ball, and here I am. I even adopted a dog for the cortisol and not the cortisol, the dopamine and the oxytocin, and it sounds horrible. I am in love with him, but I did it to up my CD4 count and anyway. So yeah, I was at 18, cd4. The average human has 500. I've shot from 18 to now being a normal human with a healthy immune system.

Speaker 2 44:16

Yeah, and that can't be explained in medical terms. It can't be.

Speaker 1 44:23

Well, I do thank the Lord, you know, for all the researchers, especially with HIV, and everyone that died in the name of the research. I am truly only alive because of the one drug that's keeping me alive. Everything else is in my court, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 44:38

Yeah, christian Sorensen. Reverend Christian Sorensen wrote a book called Living From the Mountaintop and at one point in that he says with due respect, just shut up.

Speaker 1 44:52

I love that.

Speaker 2 44:55

I mean the universe is trying to talk to us all the time. All right.

Speaker 2 44:59

We're getting. I'm getting guidance, direction, protection. I can't even tell you the multitude of times that I've been saved by paying it, by being tuned in and listening. One time I was leaving and I was always in a rush. See, that's what I have to change, because I said I named myself a type A squared. So when I'm, when I'm rushing, there's a sense of kind of an anxiety, kind of a panicky feeling in me that I thought was just like a rush of energy and I'm racing here and racing there. So I was running out of the house and I got the car and I had turned the stove off as I ran through the and I've electric stove, which I that's what I have. So I left the switch and ran out the door like the car and it said go back in and and pick up a sweater, get to water. I don't know what it was, I had nothing to do with it. I walked in and instead of turning the stove off, I had turned it on under an empty tea kettle.

Speaker 1 46:03

Oh, my God. That's fire, Nancy don't, don't start worrying me. I feel like I'm talking to my parents right now.

Speaker 2 46:09

That's. But no, it's not that, it's the guidance direction. Oh, right, right, right. That told me to get, and it has happened again and again, and again and again all through my life. So I'm I recognize it. I don't listen as much as I would like to. Sometimes I hear it and don't pay attention, and that doesn't usually work out as what I'd like.

Speaker 1 46:33

Well, that comes up on here a lot too, right, it never goes well when you don't listen to your intuition. That comes up every week.

Speaker 1 46:40

But, you know it's about, I think in part, yes, slowing down and listening, but it's also just trusting and recognizing those signs. And you kind of hinted at miracles of prevention, that idea that if you're in traffic and you're kind of punching the steering wheel because you have somewhere to be and right and you wish things were other than what they are, like we were just saying a cartel would say you know, you might be avoiding a huge accident because the particles of the universe are actually conspiring in your favor.

Speaker 2 47:12

That's right that we're not aware of Yep Faith Yep, right on target.

Speaker 1 47:19

Well, Nancy, I know you brought an excerpt from your upcoming book, so I want to slowly start steering in the direction of what's the name of the upcoming book.

Speaker 2 47:28

Hell with aging.

Speaker 1 47:31

I love it.

Speaker 2 47:31

Eight less is the living and ageless life.

Speaker 1 47:34

Oh, I love it. So I know your recent health trials inspired the book. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that process and how? Again, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but your health trials led to the book and then, hopefully, the excerpt is from that book.

Speaker 2 47:50

Yeah, you know, I don't even know. I don't even know, you know, it's the universe calling us to attention to something, as I said earlier, that I obviously was missing and I don't know, I don't know how to, I don't know how to say that, but I will say this when I was in the hospital, the end of the first time, which is about four or five days, I said at one point, I said when I found out what was going on, I guess, when they told me what was going on, that my heart was freaked out, my lungs were doing what they were doing and it wasn't good. And I heard, well, and I said out loud well, obviously I'm not acting anymore because this body can't do it. And it was a but, it was, it was almost. It's like it was a telegram from the universe, because when it was spoken through me, I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel any attachment, I wasn't upset by it.

Speaker 2 48:46

It was just a fact. It was just a simple fact that I couldn't do it anymore and that, and that was, that was OK, but I kept having to go back in. So every time I get out, I think I think my inner, I think I wanted to go back into that rush, rush, rush, do, do, do, ebb, good, good, good, perfect, perfect. And every time I would like boom back. Well, here we go again, here we go, again, here we go, and finally, as I said before we, before we start I think I might have said it again I got to figure this damn thing out. It's going to kill me. So that was you know.

Speaker 1 49:24

And finally, the book helped you figure that out.

Speaker 2 49:27

In other words, or I think the figuring it out became the impetus for the book to be written.

Speaker 1 49:34

Right, ok, so again from the outside, I'm hearing again some people just curl up on the couch, as we talked about earlier. I have limitations, my body is limiting me and it's a very real thing Aging sucks. I'm watching, you know, I'm going through it, believe it or not, at 56. And then I've watched my parents go through it and my grant. You know, I just think it is what it is, but I think a lot of people I think you might have said this kind of use it as an excuse not to engage and not to be involved.

Speaker 1 50:06

Maybe that wasn't you, but I think it's beautiful to watch you get up again and do something new and different and I call it brain plasticity and intellectual curiosity. When you said, it is just your essence. It may not be a chip per se, it may not be something you can learn or grow, but I clearly see it. This person has an eternal intellectually curiosity and that's going to go a long way in life. Or they always recognize I need adventure in the form of, you know, novelty and brain plasticity. And some people just don't have that chip, you know, and they fall victim to gravity, maybe futility, the elements. So when I hear you say I got up again and again. I'm like but that's the beautiful part, so it sounds like for you it's balance. Right, recognizing your body's limitation, you're obeying inspiration, If it's truly inspired, and that's why you're getting up, not the pride part you mentioned. Right, I'm going to show off my abilities. Is that part of what you worked through? Like the balance?

Speaker 2 51:05

of that. Yes, that's where I'm at now and it's I have to say, dominic, it's still scary. You know, when we take on or I take on a new project, when I put myself out there, let's say it's still scary to me. There's that part of me, whether it's reptility, whatever it is, survival, whatever it is, but it's still scary to expose yourself, your soul, to put your soul out there and lay it out there for everyone to look at, read at, look at, have an idea about or a perspective about or an opinion about, and maybe they'll like it, maybe they won't. And there's something in me that's still a struggle about. So it's about the balance.

Speaker 2 51:51

And I needed to write this book because of what you just said, which is it's Okay, I just remembered. I just remembered. This is the important part. This is what I got. I was fighting it, what my body was doing. I didn't like sitting on the couch all day. I didn't like. I couldn't sing, I couldn't audition, I couldn't dance, I couldn't go to my kid's house, I couldn't travel, I couldn't do anything. My body kept going. Nope, you're gonna sit on the couch and in the morning I would get up and go.

Rediscovering Love and Healing Through Connection

Speaker 2 52:24

Oh, now I can go again and by noon I'd be back on the couch again it's fighting and I finally, after a long, long time, I finally realized that my fighting it, as long as I kept fighting it, it would never be able to leave me, because what we put our attention on, we're pouring our energy into that. I had to make peace with that. I had to. I had to appreciate my body. I had to love this body and know that it was doing the very best that it knew how. And.

Speaker 2 53:01

I also believe to the bottom of my toes that my body does know how to heal itself. And it will if I get out of the way All right.

Speaker 1 53:11

So I just there's so much there. There's a lot there, you know.

Speaker 2 53:15

Yeah, yep, about the level and our bodies are gonna do, our vehicles are gonna do what they do, you might. Sometimes we need a new battery, sometimes, with the tire, we get a blowout on the tires, sometimes we gotta have, you know, the oil change or whatever. And I always used to say when I was in the church we take better care of our cars than we do of ourselves. Right, because if it says, oh, 4.5, oh, oh, you need to go get your. Oh, I'll go get the oil.

Speaker 1 53:44

So okay, I'll be right there, all right, but we don't listen to our guidance system, right, if our body tells us. I think pain is like pay attention. Pain is usually a red flag to pay attention to something, and sometimes that is not necessarily licking your wounds or curling up in the fetal position, but it does mean loving yourself, right, and loving your body. And again, I would trace it back to just accepting the good, the bad and the ugly and not putting value judgments on it. Right? Not everything has to be negative or positive.

Speaker 1 54:14

If you're nurturing and again, I would say my two years of meditation were largely, again, not licking wounds but saying, yes, my body is telling me to slow down, accept this. And actually, in my case I don't know if it's true and yours, but I had to, absolutely I was a deer in the headlights when the stakes were that high and it's life or death you actually come to a screeching halt and go what the hell just happened? The past 56 years? All right, that time it was 52 years, right, yeah, and you take stock and you do what needs to be done.

Speaker 2 54:45

That's right or not?

Speaker 1 54:48

Right or not or not Yep.

Speaker 2 54:54

So for me, it was so important to me to write about those things in this book, because you and I are not the only ones who've experienced these things the disappointments, the failures, the successes, whatever you wanna call it. But I would say about 80% of the women that I know, 70 or above, are alone, either widows or divorced, and it's so easy to fall into that depression.

Speaker 1 55:25

It really is Well also again back to the crone or regency thing. I think there's a loss of identity too right Once your kids are out of the house and you're no longer serving that purpose and right.

Speaker 2 55:36

What's life about? I have to have a reason to get up in the morning. I have to have something in my life that I can contribute to to make me wanna get up and get dressed and get out there and do whatever. It is that thing that I need to do today.

Speaker 1 55:55

Yes, and our art? I don't know about writing like my nonfiction book, but I know art actually is a cleansing of sorts. Right, you're making a lemonade of lemons and reframing things and, hopefully, renewing hope. You're renewing hope every day through your craft, I think.

Speaker 2 56:13

So in the book I do tips and tools at the end of every chapter. So here's what happened, and I think this and that about it, and here's some ideas about how you could apply it to your life. Where are you at right now? What are you believing right now? What's your dream right now? What are you scared of right now? What are you lo Are you lo-ing about right now? What can we do about that? Are there things that we? Yes, there's all kinds of things that we can do, but we have to be willing. We have to be willing to change, and that's a biggie.

Speaker 1 56:48

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 56:49

It's huge, whatever that looks like for each of us.

Speaker 1 56:52

Even if it's you look at like recovery. Right, they say there's a couple of different views on it, but they say you have to want it for yourself. It can't be court ordered. You can't have to. You have to not want to get sober for your partner. You have to want it for yourself.

Speaker 2 57:07

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 57:09

So, for you well, for you well.

Speaker 2 57:11

What I had to, what I wanted to share in the book. And it's a short book, it'll only be maybe 40, 50 pages long but what is about how to get engaged back in life, how to find purpose, how to find how to reconnect with that joy, because what you were saying earlier about the creative process and different things you say, and I talked about the feeling that pours through me and out to inspire other people, it's love.

Speaker 1 57:41

That's what you called it. It's love.

Speaker 2 57:43

That's what it is In its purest essence. That's what it is and it manifests or demonstrates or shows up differently in everybody, like when I left the. It said in my book when I left the therapy, the physical therapy I'd been there maybe I don't know six or eight months, a long time, and I had to say goodbye. They said you don't need us anymore, you're out of here. Bye, they had become like friends and I wanted to say thank you in a way. I mean, you walk up the door it's a medical thing and you're there. So I went. What can I do? And I went, I can bake a lemon cake, my mother's famous boulangerie lemon cake, and I did that. And I knew that Fridays all the people that I knew and worked with would be there on Friday.

Speaker 2 58:35

So, I baked it in the morning and I took it warm at like 1130 because I knew they'd be going into lunch and they were so tickled to be recognized, to be appreciated in a more than just a thank you, and I don't know what that could look like anything for anybody, but that was what I wanted to do. And then when I left hospital, the final time and the nurses were fabulous. They finally gave me a hug when I left the final time.

Speaker 1 59:07

Well, they were everything to me.

Speaker 3 59:09

I call their angels Renee calls them the salt of the earth.

Speaker 1 59:13

Because Renee's taken care of our bed ridden mom, and she says those nurses are the salt of the earth, and I think we talked about this before. But my nurses said exactly that For me I don't know if you're very independent as well, so for me to allow myself to be cared for it was a huge hurdle in and of itself, but I did see them as angels. And one of the nurses said to me I know I shared this with you before, but doctors treat nurses, heal, right. Yeah, so I didn't bake a lemon cake, but I gave flowers to my nurse one time.

Speaker 2 59:46

Yes, that's it. That's the love wanting to express, in whatever way it looks like for each of us.

Speaker 1 59:57

Well, when you talk about love as your craft, when you're performing, that is your vessel for love. I agree with that. But I guess I wanted to say when I first learned yo quiero. Love and want are the same in Spanish Pretty much. Well, I'm sure there's other words for love, but like amor or amore or whatever. But yo quiero, I want Taco Bell. Yo quiero, I love it. And want as well.

Speaker 2 1:00:26

Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 1:00:29

So to me that is connection If you desire and I'm not big on desire, unfortunately I don't have a doesn't mean much to me. I don't go around wanting things. I feel pretty complete. But I actually think I don't recognize my own desire. So desire for connectedness right Desire for interconnectivity, desire to engage and express yourself, it's all. Those are just words for love. They are To be connected is right, to be connected with collective consciousness, and it's all love at the core, I think.

Speaker 2 1:01:04

Yeah, we're not tribal. We are tribal people. We're not meant to live in isolated caves. We need each other, and I learned that in COVID because we came back together in the isolation. The isolation was an illness of itself.

Speaker 1 1:01:19

I just don't know, oh, my God, yes, yes of course, and, being sedentary, you and I both know that that's the worst thing for you.

Speaker 2 1:01:27

It's horrible. And to come back together and be able to hug people, to look in their eyes, to express your appreciation for them, to just share and be together and create community, oh my gosh, well that's.

Speaker 1 1:01:42

Bowie, when I mentioned adopting a dog, that was one of the biggest truly outcomes was I'm sorry. He heals people every day. He heals zero in on people that need their dog love every time and he heals people every day.

Speaker 1 1:01:58

So it was beautiful to have this, yes, surrogate. So people lost their social skills in my neighborhood during COVID. I don't know about you, but we all lost their social skills. But, yeah, the dog was a surrogate so I found people were dying to connect and even if it had to be through the dog, I'm like there are worse things. So I really saw this beautiful receptivity in my neighborhood and you know now we've weaned ourself off the surrogate of the dog and we're actually saying hello to our neighbors that we might not otherwise have done without COVID. So there is always a good outcome if you look for it. Anyway, let's have you read that excerpt if you would.

Speaker 2 1:02:33

Sure. So this this is from chapter seven, called Want More Intimacy, love and Sex, and this is this is about halfway through the article- Well, I would say yes to the last one, because I would say yes to the last one on there.

Speaker 1 1:02:50

I think it was sex.

Speaker 2 1:02:51

Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 1:02:52

Because, just for the record, I've been a monk for the five years since my diagnosis. I've been a monk, uh huh. Never thought that would happen.

Speaker 2 1:03:00

Well we're when you're willing to listen and you're willing to change whatever that looks like, and it will be different for everybody, but we have to be willing. If we're not willing to listen, I mean, how can I go about correcting something if I'm not willing to see it, if I can't, if I can't be aware, I have to be aware of it before. And this whole thing about pride was wasn't comfortable. I didn't like it, but I'm grateful that I saw it because it could. It could. It could cause me harm, it could affect my physical body.

Speaker 1 1:03:34

So that that leads to the question like self love is pretty important. Yes. How do you look at the hard truths about yourself and to maintain self love right, if the world is out there to make you feel lesser than do you have any feelings about how you maintain self love while really looking at yourself and taking in feedback, if?

Speaker 2 1:03:55

that makes sense. Sure, uh, I love myself more because I'm willing to be humble, I'm willing to surrender, I'm willing to cast, show me, show me, and everything else is just false.

Speaker 1 1:04:10

Self love, right, ego, and, I guess, con, like the word, confidence. People seem to love confidence, right, like the dating, oh, dating sites especially. You know, men just have to be confident. I'm like that is the biggest turnoff to me. I want somebody who throws his hands in the air and says I don't have all the answers. I think we call it humility. So maybe there's full confidence, right, and I guess sometimes, like a narcissist would have some kind of self esteem, but it's not intrinsic. It's not intrinsic, so that's not true.

Speaker 2 1:04:42

So I am. I am a believer that we are all spiritual, we're all. I did not make this body and I will tell you that. When you look at, when you, when you really notice how, what it takes for us to be able to see something and cognize what it is that we're looking at, or here's something, and how the brain works and the whole physicality works to allow us to do what we can do, it's a miracle. It's an absolute miracle, and our ability to communicate with each other and to express the creativity within us. There is a power greater than we are for good in the universe and we can use it, but I have to consciously choose that.

Speaker 1 1:05:30

Exactly Well. Mary Ann Williamson calls a miracle a shift from fear to love. So yeah so yeah, in every moment we have the option of swapping out that lens like, like we said, quieting the voices of mind and ego, or even pride, and just choosing love. But I love that definition of miracle, a shift from fear to love. But also you hinted earlier about just seeing, I think, seeing the signs around us and being willing to, being willing to look and see what's actually going on.

Recognizing the Miracles of Life

Speaker 1 1:06:00

Well, but you also mentioned just being in tune with your guidance system and, like you said, when you had to rush back in and the stove happened to be so like seeing those. That's it To me. There are miracles around us all day, every day, but we just don't call them that. Life is a miracle Every day. Look at how many human beings, right, you pass on the screen. Those were all babies at one point, right. The conception and germination of a human being is a f-ing miracle.

Speaker 2 1:06:28

I know I have two more great grand babies due this year, so I'll be. I'll be at 24 in 24.

Speaker 1 1:06:38

I love it, isn't?

Speaker 2 1:06:39

that funny. Awesome, it's fabulous, it's fabulous. I love it.

Speaker 1 1:06:43

I just think we need to start recognizing miracles. Instead of expecting somebody to walk on water or break bread, let's recognize the ones all around us. I don't know why I went off on that, I think.

Speaker 2 1:06:52

I agree.

Speaker 1 1:06:53

I think that's pretty good at seeing the beauty and even the melancholy and the decay and all that when I walk.

Speaker 2 1:06:59

I went for a walk in the park and I stopped two or three times. I stopped and I saw the flowers and I really just stood there and took in the beauty, the color, the depth, the, you know how they I mean in animals and certain kinds of like sunflowers how they turn and follow the sun.

Speaker 1 1:07:22

They are the most intelligent beings. To me, sunflowers are like aliens. They emit intelligence. Yeah, they, they emit intelligence in my work.

Speaker 2 1:07:31

Maybe they are, Maybe they are. Well there's a reason.

Speaker 1 1:07:33

Van Gogh. Do you know? Van Gogh is the sunflowers. It's one of my, it's maybe the only Van Gogh I really love, because they just seem like they're alive and they are.

Speaker 2 1:07:43

They are and and and everything. All, all of our plants and trees and grass. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. They make life possible for us here.

Speaker 1 1:07:53

Circle of life.

Speaker 2 1:07:56

Oxygen and food, all those things.

Speaker 1 1:07:59

That's what I mean. Let's recognize the miracle that life even exists, right, everything is in. The ecosystem is in perfect sync. It didn't, well, that's why intelligent design is taught in schools, now, yeah, because imagine if it was all just randomness, random variations, oh no, so how long would this have taken it really? You know, there's definitely intelligence behind the expression of consciousness in the physical realm. No way around it. Okay, now I'm just preaching. Let's, let's get to the excerpt.

Speaker 2 1:08:29

Yeah, Okay, I'm going to read this to you now. So this is about halfway through the chapter. That which you are seeking is seeking you. There's someone out there seeking exactly what you have to offer. The steps you're taking are creating a welcome space for that particular person to fill. They're not a waste of time or an excuse for not getting out there and looking for what you really want. You are preparing yourself to welcome your new beloved.

Speaker 2 1:08:59

Going to the gym, working out to get your body in better shape, is fine, but the real work is done on the inside, in your heart and mind. If you're single and ready to explore the possibility of finding a new partner, a new relationship, there are things that you can do in the physical world to help prepare the way. So then we go into the tips. This is tip number two have you completely released your previous relationship with love? You will not be free to accept a new one until you do. Write a letter to that person, which you will not mail. Write about the good times you shared as well as your sadness, disappointment or break, or whatever that is over.

Speaker 2 1:09:42

Tip number three acknowledge your part in the breakup. It takes two to tango and two to disagree. Accepting your part allows you to heal and release it, therefore not carrying it into the next relationship. Your ego hates this part, but do it honestly, asking to be shown what you could do better next time. Release it all with love and with gratitude for all the things you learned while you were together. Then set them free with your blessing, wishing them the best, since we are all one in consciousness.

Speaker 2 1:10:19

You can't want something for yourself that you deny to another. So in your heart, just want the best for all. And then this finally, little tip five another person can't complete you. You're not half of anything. You are already whole and complete, a vibrant expression of the divine, ready to share your heart, soul and possibly your home with another. If you hear yourself say I'll only be happy when we're heading down the wrong road, detour. Actually, the reverse is true. When you are truly happy first, truly grateful and open to life's adventures, your energy will be so attracting you won't be able to keep your dream partner away.

Speaker 1 1:11:08

I love it. Yeah, I love the tone of the writing too. I feel like that could go a long way towards helping people, especially if people aren't necessarily accustomed to really looking. We're all busy, right, we're rushing around and really not necessarily having a lot of lucidity or clarity about ourselves. So I can see that being really helpful to people. And it's never sorry. We could all work harder on ourselves anyway. No matter how enlightened we think we are, there's always work to be done.

Speaker 2 1:11:42

Our world, particularly advertising, focuses everything on the outer, and so that's why it's important for us to learn about the inner, because, like I said, going to the gym is fine, but if you really want to heal what didn't work in your last two or three relationships, and if the same thing keeps happening over and over, and all these people out there, maybe it's something over here, yes, but we're not there.

Speaker 1 1:12:12

But again it kind of goes back to that question I mentioned a minute ago where how do you maintain true self-love while accepting your responsibility and all that manifests? And I do think I got the answer you love yourself more because you empower yourself by realizing I did manifest, that Thank God for that challenge or that crisis. But I think what I heard in there a little bit is like we're all acting out of pride and ego when we experience fear, right. So when we don't feel safe, that's a trigger. And then, of course, we're not our best selves, right.

Speaker 1 1:12:48

So in a relationship, I think, if you can say, yes, here was my part in the breakup and here was their part in the breakup, and we're all just doing the best we can, right. That's where you want to come out, I think is like, okay, well, there are no mistakes and we weren't a match and or maybe the timing wasn't right, but I also could love myself and realize I was doing the best I could in that moment, or I had a trigger and I was protecting myself, and then surely you can forgive them for being triggered and feeling unsafe and therefore acting on fear, which is ego, right? I think it always comes down to that, like we're all just children, right, trying to feel safe.

Speaker 2 1:13:27

There's a book called the Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie McKessie.

Speaker 1 1:13:35

Sounds like a party.

Speaker 2 1:13:36

I think it's the horse that says most folks are a little scared, but we're less scared together. So, I'm grateful, Dominic, that you have shown up in my life once again, and I sit here looking into those eyes that you just don't have to open your mouth, you just ooze love. It's who you are.

Speaker 1 1:14:00

Holy crap, that is an endorsement right there. I'm gonna put that on my dating app once I start dating again. It's the truth, that's very sweet Thank you.

Speaker 2 1:14:09

You can't hide who you really are. They're gonna find out.

Speaker 1 1:14:15

I told you, you are a constant inspiration. Thank you for that. Thank you so much. And there is always more to talk about. So let's keep in touch. I always say let's do a part B, but I mean it if you're ever up for it again.

Speaker 2 1:14:27

Of course, I so loved it. Thank you so much, and thank you Dominic, thank you both of you. This has been just a wonderful afternoon. Thank you so much. Blessings.

Speaker 1 1:14:38

Thank you, love you too. Love you Bye, nancy. And to our listeners remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay, individually and collectively. We can write our own story. See you next time.