Chapter One Roundtable: STORY and TRANSFORMATION

Order the book that inspired the podcast, Language of the Soul: How Story Became the Means by which We Transform at dominickdomingo.com/books

When the plot of life breaks, the real story begins. We open Season Three of Language of the Soul Podcast by returning to the book that inspired it, using  Chapter One: STORY and TRANSFORMATION to map the path from crisis to opportunity, from strife to paradigm shift. Conflict resolution is the means by which we transform, individually and collectively. Through the ripple effect, personal transformation always equals cultural evolution. Alongside guest Andrea Slominski, PhD—storyteller, mythologist, and midlife coach—we connect narrative therapy, archetypes and the collective unconscious with the chemical basis of storytelling to show why stories are more than entertainment. They’re the means by which we transform.

Andrea M. Slominski, Ph.D., is a women’s therapeutic midlife and menopause coach, speaker, and author. She went back to school at fifty-five and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in women’s psychology and mythology, focusing on the triple transformation women must navigate in midlife. Her coaching method is based on archetypal and depth psychology. In her Ph.D. research, Andrea identified the new life stage for women over the past 120 years, including perimenopause, midlife, menopause, and post-menopause. She names this new life stage from ages 45-70+ “Regency” and identifies it as women’s new power years.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Season Three: Back To The Book
• 3:15 Why Nuance Beats Platitudes
• 6:30 Biology Of Storytelling Teased
• 9:25 Meet Andrea: Myth And Midlife
• 13:55 Pandemic As Catalyst For The Book
• 18:50 Crisis As Engine Of Transformation
• 25:40 Problem Solving And Narrative
• 30:20 Holding Opposites To Find A Third Way
• 36:05 Mythic Perspective And Meaning
• 42:55 Archetypes, Tropes, And Epigenetics
• 50:05 Why We Tell Stories At All
• 55:25 Heart First: Chemicals And Persuasion
• 1:01:15 Authentic Voice, Purpose, Contribution
• 1:08:05 Regency Stage And Women’s Wisdom
• 1:15:05 Culture Shift: Returning The Feminine
• 1:21:55 New Story: Ushering Out Patriarchy
• 1:28:30 Next Week: The Angel’s And Devil’s Cocktails
• 1:32:25 Sign Off And Green Room Highlights Begin

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul Podcast, where life is story. Thanks for joining us today. Um, those of you that have been tuning in regularly know this new season, season three, is largely about going back to my book. As as much, you know, the book that inspired the podcast. So, as much as I love showcasing and highlighting kindred spirits and self-professed storytellers in the arts and entertainment, I wasn't getting my jollies really imparting my life's work. And it was nothing less than that. So um, we're getting back to it and we're going chapter by chapter. We've talked about the intro with certain guests, and now we're moving on to chapter one. So, hi, Virginia, by the way.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28

Yes, hello. And I'm excited, I'm excited to finally get to we're actually in the book now.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34

Woohoo! Finally, yeah. Well, what I was saying to you earlier is it's a lot of concepts from the book come up because again, our guests tend to be like-minded, and these are very universal things, but then they end up being treated a little um without the nuance. And so they sound like platitudes in a way, or talking points. And I just think they deserve to be talked about with nuance and um done justice, is that English? So diving in a little deeper, I think, is going to be satisfying to me and hopefully to listeners.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

I agree. And I think it's gonna give us an opportunity to really, you know, because we've talked about life as story, and we've, as you said, you know, we've been more on that surface level of the concept, but now really to get into the the guts, right? The meat of what we've been really trying to impart.

SPEAKER_00: 2:21

Yeah, it's I'm looking forward to it. And I have said to you also, I can't be expected to remember every study that I cite, you know, every author of every book that I cite. But um, I am excited to get into specifics like the biochemical level of storytelling and the different neurotransmitters that are, you know, the biology of storytelling. So little specifics like that, we really haven't indulged yet. And uh yeah, without expecting me to be able to cite everything in the bibliography, I think uh we'll get a little more specific than the general ways in which we've addressed some of these topics.

SPEAKER_01: 2:55

No, and and I think it's been great because before we get into these discussions, um, if you haven't, as a listener, um tuned into the episode before, Nick reads um each section before we get into the discussion. So we highly encourage you to go back if you haven't listened to that episode to really put it all together in your mind.

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

This is the only nonfiction book I've ever written, by the way. And it's the only one about which I've heard myself say it's great toilet reading. Like my fiction, I want people to, you know, read start to finish the way it was intended. This one, I would be bored. So I do feel like if you pick, put it on the toilet, you know, the back of what do you call it, the tank, and then just read a section and hopefully it'll inspire you while doing your business. But it's the only one I think can be done in chunks. But it's I would say the same of those episodes, like just listen here and there if you're jogging or taking a long drive. And I wouldn't expect anyone to get all the way through the audio version of these chapters, but there might be a grain of something in there that'll inspire somebody.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

Yeah, I I I agree with you. And I mean, as we've had to go back, you know, to do each episode that we have, you know, the ones the obviously the intro that we've done, this one we're doing right now, and the ones that will follow. Um, you know, it's been good for us to kind of go back through and go like, oh yeah, I totally forgot about that.

unknown: 4:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 4:15

Right. Anyway, well, hopefully um, we'll we'll hit on something that'll be of value to our listeners. But as we've often say, or I do, this serves me as well. And uh the idea of just furthering the dialogue and the dialectic and um, it really it's my church.

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

Yeah. And um, with that as well, we're also bringing back some of our past guests that have come on and have shared their um wisdom and insight throughout seasons one and season two. So that's also going to be a fun aspect is to bring back past guests to talk about the book itself.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

Yep. Yeah, we have our favorites. I I've enjoyed every episode and I regularly say we've had no duds. By the grace of God, we've had no duds. Uh, but yes, of course, people that we invited on because of a long shared history, or we just know they'll have something of value to contribute. Um, that feels good to me. And again, it's my church. So getting back in touch with some people that actually were quite formative in my, you know, in the early 90s has been really satisfying to me. So, yes, today's guest falls into that category. I couldn't adore her more. Do you want to bring her in from the green room?

SPEAKER_01: 5:25

Yes. So we are gonna bring in Andrea Simlesky. I think I just a PhD, so she works in women's therapeutic midlife and menopause coach. She's a speaker and an author. So, Andrea, come on in if there's a little bit more you would like to share, just to kind of remind past listeners.

SPEAKER_03: 5:46

Hi, good morning, good morning. And yeah, I'm really thrilled to be back here with you and Nick both. Um, yeah, my um my background is um as a uh theater producer and director, and then I taught theater for um and produced theater in college for 10 years. And so the telling of stories and the sharing of stories is really my um my my background and my foundation. Then um during my midlife shift at about age 50, I went back and got my master's and PhD in um mythological studies with an emphasis in um depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute up here in Carpenteria. So um yeah, my storytelling, the effect of storytelling, the power of storytelling, um, and the importance of storytelling is um sort of been, I guess, uh what I've done most of my life. So I'm really thrilled to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 6:40

You know, we're glad to have you. And it's it's funny that you mentioned that that you went back, because obviously I went back, finished my master's, and um have gone into mental health. And of course, my background is is also being an author and um and working in marketing, so um, which we'll get into further on as we do this season, but how propaganda works, which marketing's part of that. So it's just it's kind of funny, like how all of our backgrounds tie into we're like a vent, we're a Venn diagram, right? Exactly. We really are, and with that said, too, that we've also gotten to like you know what they consider that midlife crisis time of our lives where we've like where we're where do we go back and and reevaluate and transition, which oh wait, that's another topic we'll be talking about.

SPEAKER_00: 7:26

So and that's narrative, right? We're all kind of rewriting narratives, yeah. The thing is, Andrea, you know, she's she it's not like she's been busy or anything. It's when are when are you gonna get up and do something with your life?

SPEAKER_03: 7:37

I don't know. I I you know it's just I'm just stuck in that like my midlife discovering my personal myth and um helping.

SPEAKER_00: 7:45

No, you both uh you you guys, my hats are off to you, and Renee, by the way, you know, to go back to school later in life and uh is just so impressive to me. So, but I do feel like too, Andre, when I was going back through the chapter in preparation for today, I realized not only are you an expert in a lot of areas and you can bring so much to the table in terms of furthering the conversation, but I was really put in touch with your love of storytelling. I mean, of course, I know your background is in theater. Of course, I remember when you were considering right going back to school for film. And I remember some really kind things you said about my films at the premiere. And I I don't know if you remember, but yeah, very specific things. And I I just was put back in touch with what you really are about fundamentally, and that is storytelling. So it's not a stretch at all to bring you in as an expert. I think that is what is do you identify as a soulful storyteller and you happen to have some expertise as icing on the cake?

SPEAKER_03: 8:46

I mean, yeah, I mean I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think everything that um that I do in terms of my my practice in the past 10 years is about helping women um really identify their story, you know, who they are now, where are they in their narrative right now, what's going on, you know, and then then we take the approach of looking back into their story, right? And looking all the way, all the way back and saying, okay, let's look at all your previous chapters and let's see how you got here. And only then, once we understand how we got here, then do we look forward and saying, okay, now where do you want to go? What's your next chapter? Where do you want to write? I mean, I have a huge tattoo on my left forearm that says once upon a time, because every question that you're asking, every answer you're looking for is in your story.

SPEAKER_02: 9:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

I love that. Well, that that gives me a perfect jumping off point to get us going. So all right. So uh again, just remind everybody that we are um going over chapter one of Language of the Soul. And so just to kind of give everybody a bit of a grounding, including us here, um, starting the discussion, this chapter does a lot of heavy lifting. Um, if you haven't listened to it, again, I encourage you guys to go back and listen to um last week's episode. But so for my lens, which is coming from that um mental health counseling lens, uh, the chapter for me, I think, really mirrors what we see in psychology, as Andre just pointed out, that people don't just reauthor their lives and tell um and tell the story that they've been living collapses. And I think the chapter we see it it seems to suggest that culture works in the same way. And so, Nick, what I noticed going back and through this chapter for today, that um it's not just an introduction to what story transformation is, but there's also the argument to it. It answers the question why story matters at all, especially the moments of cultural upheaval. And you open in a very specific time, which was the pandemic and the isolation and the unrest during COVID-19. And you frame story not as entertainment, but as something essential to human survival. So I'd love for you to kind of just touch on that original intention for this chapter.

SPEAKER_00: 11:03

Okay, well, yeah, as most well, the introduction, I think, just told readers who I am, what constitutes my worldview. You know, I was a weird kid, I liked sea monkeys, you know, and it kind of just gave them a snapshot of the world in which I was brought up. And that includes all the hippies at the Creative Arts Center, you know, listening to Puff the Magic Dragon on the radio, and just kind of set the tone for who I am. And then it moved through my career and the different, you know, in my teaching. I learned more than I could have in a book. And so this is all what's informing my worldview, and hence this book. The chap, uh, the top of chapter one, I think what you're referring to is I I talk about how the book came about. And it was really just I was invited to do, I don't want to repeat the whole chapter, but I was invited to do an online uh course on storytelling. I'm part of a huge animation community, and uh uh CTNX is the expo that I've been a part of for 16 years. So the creator of that, Tina, had asked me to do an online course. And again, it was so needed because everybody was isolated, and I think a lot of people were rethinking their paradigms, but more importantly, artists were really experiencing catharsis through you know the creative process. Everybody was on fire creatively with no outlet. So I agreed to do the course, but I thought, you know, we don't need another opinion. I almost said, you know what opinions are like, right? Since when do I have an editing mechanism? We don't need another book about the Western storytelling arc and blah, blah, blah. So I settled on rather than talking about the nuts and bolts of technique or craft, is how I put it. Let's talk about why we tell stories in the first place. So to condense this a little bit in the writing of it, oh my God, more and more I realized not only what I was passionate about imparting, but just how incredibly vast the role of story is. And I sorry to go on and on, but I happen to have been going through, yeah, a lot of changes in my life as well. And I had to reframe a lot of my narratives. So it was almost like the writing of the book mirrored my evolution in real time. And that's, I think those are the things I respond to. If you grow as a result of the creative process, that transcends and speaks to people. So it became more and more about the stories we tell ourselves, whether it's about that woman yanking her dog along on the, you know, that we see across the street, we build a whole story around her on very little information, right? And so I just realized all day, every day, we're literally creating our own realities via the stories we tell and the lenses we wear. So it just became a little more broad and philosophical as I went along. Uh, is that uh what you were asking at all?

SPEAKER_01: 13:52

Yeah, no, absolutely. And and it ties to, and I know Andre, you understand this um as well, because you you touched on this a little bit when you came on. Um, because like in narrative therapy, that's one of the things that, and I know I've talked about that before in past seasons, but it's the stories that we're born into, the stories that are told to us, the stories we tell ourselves, and then of course the stories that that really happened. So um that fulfill those narratives that we function in, right? Um so one thing that I noticed when I was going through this and just kind of getting myself back into okay, we're focusing on chapter one. What exactly, you know, was chapter one again, and went back through it was um what stood out was that in the chapter, the idea that crisis isn't an interruption of human progress, it's actually the engine to it, is how I walked away. So you talked about how both individuals and societies only transform through conflict resolution, that we don't evolve when things are comfortable and in the familiar, it's when the old thought forms stop working. So I'm curious for both of you to to speak about why that feels so important, especially in the opening of chapter one, to start in that place, you know, connecting storytelling directly to those moments of breakdown and the uncertainty that we do experience.

SPEAKER_00: 15:18

Andrea.

SPEAKER_03: 15:19

Oh, okay. Well, I can I thought you were gonna go first.

SPEAKER_00: 15:23

Well, I I will gladly, of course. Um, I do want to say to really start at the beginning, um, all day, every day we go out into the world as organisms, right? And we encounter stimuli. Together, some of those stimuli create events, right? We process or assess all events that we encounter throughout the day as threats or opportunities. It may not seem that way. It may seem like, oh, some things are just neutral, but this is all very right, unconscious. And when an event is accompanied by heightened emotion, it gets mapped on our worldview or value system for our survival, right? And then you could extend that and say arguably so that epigenetics can then step in and make sure uh future generations, when they see a snake, right, have an innate response to the formal properties, or when they see red, which you know, this in the art direction chapter becomes very real. Um, you know, red can signal a lot of things, and none of them are particularly comfortable, they're all alarming. So you get the idea, there's either in the extreme a fight or flight response, and or the opposite. There's an opportunity. I want to mate with that, right? Or I want to get to know that chick, whatever it is. But even on a cell biology level, there's a growth or a protection response in every case. And so maybe that's why we only transform through conflict, is that if you don't have cognitive dissonance, there's nothing to resolve. And so, therefore, there's no new thought form to be created. So, yes, there's a micro and a macro. I I just kind of make the case that on the grand scale, as we were just talking about with the Arab Spring and our this moment, frankly, um, if we're not challenged, we can't evolve. And uh, I hope that makes a little bit of sense. And then I I go on to say, and artists and storytellers are at the forefront of that, in my opinion, and we can go more into that later. Andrea.

SPEAKER_03: 17:28

Yeah, I I had mentioned to you earlier, Nick, that that this idea of that we transform through conflict resolution, I I think is a really fascinating idea because you know people don't like to be uncomfortable. People don't like change, right? We we think we want kind of things to if if things are pretty much okay, we'd rather they continue the way they go. But like you say, you know, if if there's no um if there's no, you know, sticks during the coals, basically, um, the fire's not going to leap up, whether it's the creative fire or the fire of change or whatever it is that we're looking at. I just think that um we see like conflict and we also see, and we had talked about how I also see problem solving as a as a sub chapter of that, in terms of the human condition, right? But looking at conflict resolution, um yeah, I mean, it's it's part of the ultimate form of storytelling, but it's also part part of the ultimate form of living. The two are um I don't it's it's almost like saying you're the fish swimming in the water and you don't see the water. You don't know if you're swimming in the water. Um conflict resolution leads to um creative processes in order to find whatever the desired or even negotiated outcome, right? Because we we don't always get exactly what we want every time we resolve a conflict, right?

SPEAKER_02: 19:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 19:13

Sometimes it it depends on community, sometimes it depends on nations agreeing, sometimes it depends on um on circumstances, you know, around the conflict itself. But yeah, absolutely. You know, it says here in the text um the seeming disparity of these back-to-back world events can be easily explained. Crisis yields opportunity.

SPEAKER_00: 19:35

And I think that's and strife, strife signals change.

SPEAKER_03: 19:40

Yeah, I think it's so true, not only in life, but in the creative process itself.

SPEAKER_00: 19:45

You know, I just sorry to interrupt you, I just made a connection, and uh I have to be transparent at this point to our listeners. We started chatting in the green room, and some of it was not that we're changing the world here. I hope we are, but uh, we don't take it too seriously. But we got into some good territory, so I'm gonna cut that in later. So this might be a little bit out of order, but I just figured out the answer to your earlier, I guess, question or prompt. What is, you know, I you seem to be pushing back a little bit on the idea that storytelling is the main means by which we transform. And you said, well, what about problem solving? And yes, of course, innovation is the outcome of the creative process. And I was saying, well, maybe story is just one aspect of the creative process, and they're they can be synonymous. But what I realized is if you look at the creative process, whether it's the Wallace model or any of the seven accepted models, quote unquote accepted in academia, one of them is all always identifying the problem to be solved. Then you have lateral exploration or brainstorming, and then you have inspiration and all these steps. And they can be in different orders. But maybe the parallel here is that even cognitive dissonance, you know, forget about the micro and the macro for a minute. But even in your own little noodle, if you have two thought forms that aren't synthesized, that's called cognitive dissonance. Even if it's subconscious, you identify that as the problem to be solved. It's the same creative process, right? And so you solve the problem by synthesizing the thought forms into a new novel one. And that's what you're doing when you partake in story. You are following that protagonist who has a goal, but you know what? Something's standing in the way of that goal, and it's called the antagonistic force. Therein lies the conflict. And you could just say the parallel is that is the problem to be solved in the creative process. So when you resolve that conflict, the outcome is the main theme. The way in which the conflict resolves is the takeaway. And so that's the new thought former paradigm. Are you seeing the parallel? It's literally the same thing. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 21:54

Yeah, absolutely. It's in it's interesting to me, and um and and and Virginia, this kind of overlaps in into what we do is looking at um holding the tension of opposites, right? Which is the conflict, right? We've got we're holding the tension of opposites, and by holding the tension of opposites and wrestling with it, right, a third way appears, which is the transcendent function, right? Which is the which is the transcendent function, which is the middle way, right? You're holding, you're holding one side, you're holding the other, and through the tension of holding both sides and trying to resolve these oppositions, right? Then through the creative process of the tension comes the third or the new way or the resolution or the solution, or what could be called the transcendent function.

SPEAKER_01: 22:41

And and and I want to I want to go into from us, I'm gonna twist the angle a little bit for everybody. The other thing, too, you know, talking about conflict resolution and and and the transformation that comes with that, you know, when we talk about um staying in the comfortable, right? Being basically complacent, right, in the familiar. And so growth not happening in there, I feel like when we what happens too is it stifles the curiosity. Or when we're in a conflict, the curiosity comes like, well, why we start asking those questions, why is this happening? What does this mean? And so I think that's that's an important piece. And and I think Andre, you'll you'll agree with me. Um when we sit in you know, in the therapeutic space, we're constantly turning those lenses to look for those questions to as we're holding, you know, those two opposites that are that are in conflict with each other, like so we can help form or get get that perspective shift. And I think that's one thing that I think as artists, you know, storytellers do is you guys are constantly turning that lens, like, well, what else does it mean if I turn it this way? Or if I look at it through this light and you're laughing because you know exactly what I'm talking about, right?

SPEAKER_03: 23:53

Yeah, I think that you know, the whole idea of of changing the perspective, or or as I say to my clients, like just put on a different pair of glasses, right? And and the idea of storytelling, which um is is so powerful to me, is it allows us to build what I call a mythic perspective, where we look at whatever's happening from the top down and we see the larger arc of transformation or of the human condition of where this this conflict, where this chapter fits in the human human narrative, as opposed to sitting with the problem and feeling like we're under it, that we're being smothered by it, that we're being that we're being extinguished by it, right? To build a mythic perspective, it it demands a storyteller's perspective to be able to look at it from the top down and see how it began, where it's at, where it might go, what the choices are, what what is the what are the essentials of the particular narrative that we're living through? It it demands that perspective.

SPEAKER_00: 25:01

And and it is just a question, is the mythic perspective is that synonymous with kind of a meta view or a maybe universal view or a an objective view or not?

SPEAKER_03: 25:12

I I think you you could say similar to a meta view, but looking at it in terms of um meaning. I'm sorry, yeah, but tying it, tying it very uh, at least I do, I tie it very um strongly to the archetypal, the subconscious, the experiential aspect of of of living a life as a human being, as opposed to sort of an abstracted meta view.

SPEAKER_00: 25:43

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03: 25:44

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 25:45

Yeah, yeah. And so to me, to me, everyone is is living their their own myth. Everyone is living their mythic narrative, whether whether they're conscious to it or not, right? And so we can look, we can look at all of the mythologies and the stories told since the beginning of time, right? And we can see them as examples of how to navigate issues and problems of living a human life, of ways of thinking about ourselves, our lives, in relationship to community, in relationship to nature, in relationship to the greater cosmos. So I think I mean, storytelling is it from the moment we we're born and we're suckling at our mother's breast, that is our first story, right? The the the the the desire, the need, and and hopefully if we have a caring parental situation, right? When we cry, we're fed or we're changed or whatever, and then eventually we get enough consciousness to realize that mother and I are not the same being, that we are then actually two different beings, and then that begins really, in a sense, our story, our our of of of self and other, and all of the relationships that come in between. So sorry, I'm getting kind of off track here, but it's it's all awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 27:09

Um, Virginia, I'm I'm sure you have somewhere you want to take this, but I I do want to jump in a few things you said. Everything you said made me want to jump in. I get exc I get excited, but I think some concepts in the book are related to the way you just laid that out because I offer the suggestion that you know Jungian terminology doesn't always fly. People are more apt nowadays to talk about tropes that you internalize through social conditioning than archetypes that live in our cellular memory or our collective psyche or the you know, yeah, the the reservoir of the collective unconscious. Some of that's uncomfortable now because of changes in academia. And I don't know what you subscribe to and what you don't, but a really empirical way to look at it might be, you know, and it also speaks to the connection between the micro and the macro. You know, we all live our personal narratives, as you said, and our own myths. I've long wanted to do a workshop where you tell the story of your life using whichever archetypes, you know, bringing the unicorns, bring in the mermaids, whatever. And it's I've done it in a few cases in weekend workshops, but I want to keep you know exploring it. But it's fascinating what comes out of people and what they tap into. Uh, it comes through them for sure. And so we can speculate till the cows come home about how we come into or how we have access to this collective unconscious with all these archetypes living in it. We could, I have, I've written entire chapters on it, and there's opposing thought forms, but on a really empirical level, as I said, all organisms create growth or protection responses to the threats or opportunities they experience all day, every day. Some things get mapped, and epigenetics is really learning about the mechanics by which this happens. And um, without getting too woo-woo about cellular memory or anything or consciousness, we are the only organism that not only can augment what's in our DNA through life experience, and that does become encoded in the ways that I gently offered earlier, that we're also the only organism that can vicariously learn and grow, right? Our brains don't know the difference between the suggestion we're being burned by an iron in hypnosis and actually being burned by an iron. In the same way, when you engage in a story or, you know, indulge a story in a theater or by reading a book, your brain does not know the difference between, you know, actual life experience and the suggestion of it. So we are transformed when we hang in there and get the redemption or the you know resolution of the conflict. So I don't know if that makes sense, but maybe some of these archetypes are ingrained through the act of vicarious suggestion. We're the only think about that, the only organism that can listen to gossip and internalize an expectation.

SPEAKER_01: 30:03

Yeah, and and I love where you where you just took that, Nick, because that actually leads to where I was gonna direct us next, which is um moving on to what I felt was the heart of the the chapter, which is the question of why we tell stories in the first place. And so I was gonna listen to what you're talking about, and even what you put in the chapter, you lay out the core human motivations, um, you know, passing of knowledge, entertainment, exploring uh nature, imparting wisdom. And, you know, within that, of course, are those archetypes and going back to the whole epigenetics part of it too. I mean, as we progress and we digest story and and go through our lens that we see life through, I mean, that's how we highlight certain markers within our DNA strand. And so what's what's what really sticks struck out to me though is um you're not just treating this as like a separate function, it's it's basically an expression of the same instinct within all of us. Um, and and you also talked about in the chapter too about being born storytellers. Um to me, it feels less metaphorical, but it can be kind of literal to a degree too. Um and so what I mean by that is so like what resonated with me is the idea that story isn't something we just learn to do, it's something that we remember how to do. We're born into stories, like I said, we're shaped by stories, and eventually we're asked to decide which ones are gonna keep us going. So I would just really love to see how you guys tie that into um what we've already been discussing.

SPEAKER_00: 31:43

I guess I'm always going first. Is that it? You you said so much there, but I I think um one it sounds a little bit like logotherapy, right? We we retain the narratives or we reframe the past. We did a that whole episode about what are the five words that you know characterize the 50s? What about the 60s? What so we do it culturally and we do it for time periods. Um, which narratives serve us the best in moving forward? Which narratives, right, contribute to our growth and everything else falls away. So I don't know if that's related. Um yeah or nay.

SPEAKER_01: 32:23

Yeah, no, it it is. Um, and with that, it's also, you know, you can go into that whole um one one of the famous uh quotes from Victor Frankel is you know, when the when the situation can no longer change, then we are forced to look to ourselves for the change. And so I think that ties into that whole how how do narrative service and when when do we, you know, as storytellers go back and do that editing, go back into that introspective, which is what I feel like happens when we're in that conflict resolution, right? Where you are forced to look internally, like, well, I can't change the situation I'm in, so where does the change need to happen?

SPEAKER_00: 33:06

I have so much I always have something to say, trust me.

SPEAKER_03: 33:10

I'm just taking I'm taking the the journey of your thought forms, and I'm like, I'm I'm I'm with you. I you know, I think that um this for me, this always comes back to the idea, um, and it's the age-old academic argument of which came first first, myth or ritual, right? And and and without getting into that dialectic, um from there uh that developing then into um into religion, right? It's at some point. Um and so storytelling, I think initially if we can imagine, because we can't know, if we can imagine, you know, early Neolithic man, you know, around the fire and stelling telling the stories of survival of where they found the game or where they didn't find the game or where the bear lives and what to stay away from and whatever that kind of thing, you know, certainly initially for survival, for community survival, but then as we as we move forward like through human history, um we look at it just brings to mind for me the whole the whole reason for storytelling, the reason for personal narrative, the whole four Campbell's four functions of myth, right? And so that the the fourth the fourth being you know how to live a life, right? How do you how do you live a life in your culture? How do you move from being an infant through childhood to adolescence to becoming independent, maturing, moving through your life, making sense of your life, and then heading on out the door, right? And so story um is is the literal and literary and metaphoric guide, right? Of living. I mean, I look at the example you give of the Lion King, and I, you know, I mean, talk about uh a story about how to live one's life.

SPEAKER_00: 35:13

I mean Yeah, I I've I say in the book, you know, arguably, story teaches us how to live in the world, and then I'm the weirdo who will go on to say, you know, most people talk about the human condition, and it's got to be a relatable, right? Protagonist uh with a conflict that speaks to the human condition. And I'm the level I always experience the stories that affect me on are what does it say about literally the expression of consciousness in the physical realm? Like I go to the metaphysical, it doesn't just speak to the human condition, but what does it say about you know whether you're an amoeba or a human, the nature of consciousness in the physical realm? But I don't expect anyone to come along for that one. But a few times, I'm gonna take this opportunity to use a few times when you were speaking and Virginia, I wanted to jump in and say, you're talking exactly about why the book is called Language of the Soul, because pre-language, the reason we're wired for metaphor is the way I'd put it. And I think you hinted at this too, that uh we have an innate understanding of the fact that parable, metaphor, myth, you know, folk tale, we're wired for it. I kind of make a case in the book that pre-language we dreamt in images, we didn't have the conceptual interim of language, which is arguably ineffective at communicating the ineffable anyway, right? The true the truth, the ultimate truth.

SPEAKER_03: 36:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:41

So we dreamt in uh images, and that could be argued in one of the reasons you know things speak to us profoundly despite language, and it could account for the archetypes in, you know, in general.

SPEAKER_03: 36:55

Yeah, absolutely. I was just listening to uh, you know, um uh synchronistically, I was listening to an old uh Joseph Campbell lecture just recently, and um, you know, he was talking about dream and and and dreams being the um the image and the images and symbols created by the different organ systems in our body in contrast with each other and and what their needs are, right? And that then image and symbol then come out in terms of dream uh being the um the the the tools, the the paint, the the paintbrushes, the the um the tools that that psyche uses to actually create story, right? All those images, metaphors, symbols that relate to the deep collective unconscious. And so from that place, why, in a sense, we all relate to story. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00: 38:05

Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's kind of what I was hinting at. That's why we're wired for it fundamentally, but I also you're prompting another story. I I've have a long history of some somehow being surrounded by staunch empiricists who just think I'm a whack job. And so I had one roommate who would just conveniently leave, and I tell this story in the book, leave out, you know, the latest uh the latest issue of popular science, or you name it, but they were always very empirical. And um, you know, I remember the God Gene article way back in the 90s, and I remember another article he left splayed on the kitchen table about how dreams are literally just the random firing of neurons, it's the cleaning of the pipes, it's a necessary function of the brain. And I my reaction was, well, why can't it be both? Why can't it literally be just taking the events of the day or the year or a lifetime and juxtaposing them in a way that conveys meaning? But you know, that's not wacky. It could just be what you need to do next for your survival, it could be very survival-based. So I don't know why we throw out the baby with the bathwater. Why can't we be wired for a very important neurological function while we sleep, but also attribute meaning to it because it it's not random. I think it can be both. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 39:23

Yeah, exactly. And I I think I think I think you and I are both adherents to the both and way of thinking.

SPEAKER_02: 39:30

Right. Right?

SPEAKER_03: 39:31

To the both and way of thinking. Because to me, a lot of the empiricist um ideas about consciousness and and and the things that we're talking about, about collective unconscious myth, archetypes, those sorts of things, the idea that that that that there's no ghost in the machine, that it's a machine.

SPEAKER_00: 39:50

It's so popular, it's so in vogue, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03: 39:53

Yeah, that the it's a machine all the way down. It's all the all the way down to to the most minute chemical um bonding or breaking, and that it can all be explained in that sense. And to me, um there are so many aspects of the human experience, and I we could we could you can just throw a few out there, like a synchronicity, right? Um the um uh dreams that are precognition, right? Um people who have uh visitations or dreams or um experiences of um others who have passed on, or the experience of things like um you know, I don't know, anything that you could think of in terms of the meta what would be considered the metaphysical experience of I think there physics is is is coming back around.

SPEAKER_00: 40:52

Oh, it's so catching up.

SPEAKER_03: 40:55

It's coming back around to the idea that that everything happens in and emits from a unified field of consciousness.

SPEAKER_00: 41:03

Right, right. It's too much for us to grasp, though. That's the thing. People are more comfortable just poo-pooing ideas they're not comfortable with. But when you have cell biology, quantum mechanics, and pretty much every field of science agreeing that we move through this field and we reify the information. And as observers, if you know about the observer effect, like that's the only definition of reality that even can be remotely quantified. So I think science has already caught up. It's just too much to grasp. Even me, I can step into that space and begin to grasp it with a lot of missing information. But the bottom line is, I'm pointing out we're wired to understand the metaphysical nature of the universe. So I go a little bit into conceptual interims. Like we are wired for language, period. You cannot convey a concept without having a subject and a predicate. That's every language, even if the form and the structure and the syntax is different. So in the same way, I just make the case in the book that we're wired for metaphor. So again, quick example. I foolishly chose to learn French as an adult. And I blame that on the Burbank Unified School District. I somehow graduated without ever having taken a language. But at Disney, as an adult, I it was right down the hall. I could learn French, and I just thought I'm being a writer, I might be inclined toward language. So in French, of course, you have no masculine and feminine uh concept. And I being a gay man, I never really understood gender to begin with. So she the best advice my teacher gave me is like, you got it. It's not going to be memorization because purse is feminine and penis other way around, penis is feminine and purse is masculine. So I'm like, okay, it's going to be memorization. And she said, maybe when you think la table, la table, just picture long, sensuous legs of a woman, and there you go. And that is the key. When we learn vocabulary, it's not just utilizing the word in a sentence, it's utilizing the word in a sentence that means something to you, something that's going on that day. And so, anyway, I go on and on about literally perceptual interims, image associations, and they're crucial to learning and memorization. So then I say, hence the literary metaphor that makes story the most effective teacher of all. So when you started talking about um problem solving, I'm like, well, I can't disagree. But then I realize, oh, it's the same creative process. But I will dig my heels in on the fact that we do change minds by touching hearts. When you are didactic or try to use persuasion, people dig in their heels, fall back on cherry picking and identity politics and you know confirmation bias and all these ego-driven things. The thing is, if you use the chemicals that we go into a little bit later, the chemicals, and it can be very calculated and for the almighty dollar, as you were hinting at Virginia, for advertising for all kinds of less than respectable outcomes. But um, if you're using it to transform people for the betterment of our march toward human potential, I'm on board. But uh I guess the point is if you understand the mechanics by which you can shift paradigms by opening hearts, and it's chemical, yes, then um I think that's what that's what we're wired for.

SPEAKER_03: 44:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I I I completely embrace the the science behind, you know, how story that touches the heart, right? That that opens the emotional um gateways, right? It's is transformative. And and and it's a powerful way that we, like you said, that we reach into teaching people new ways to perceive the other, new ways to perceive ourselves, to break down barriers. Um and I think for me it's both and for me, there's also the deep work of the psyche, the deep work of of um of the of dream work, of the field of consciousness, of of archetypes that have obviously been created by our experiences through, you know, you could call it the the the the soul epigenetics, right? But um I just don't prescribe to the machine all the way down because I think that's I think that's missing um missing a key aspect of what it means to be human, right?

SPEAKER_00: 45:46

Yeah, people that say consciousness arises in the brain, right? If they the ghost in the machine thing, it just doesn't even jive with quantum mechanics or uh cell biology in any way.

SPEAKER_03: 45:59

I mean, if if humans were the only ones to have consciousness, maybe that might be arguable.

SPEAKER_02: 46:06

Yeah, so go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 46:07

I was gonna jump in here to kind of go on the empirical side, and not because I'm pushing back and using it, but to show that empirically they are noticing this. So the other another way to think about it is story and how implicit memory are companions. And what I mean by that is that they walk together and have been walking together through our hippocampus and our prefrontal cortex long before we started, you know, especially like in the medical field, right? With looking at um, you know, the empirical side of like what does it mean of the conscious, right? And so if you think about it, implicit memory is is what we use that helps us remember like what happened on Tuesday. And it's those story patterns, the sensations, that emotional weather that we feel within our body, that somatic experience, it helps us remember how it felt um to be small and safe, desired, rejected, smooth and unseen. Um, we don't just recall right our memories through just like very logical fact. It's usually a sensational feeling, like when we hear a song on the radio that brings us back. It goes back to that whole uh episode we did on nostalgia, Nick. You know, that that really shifts us, right? And and or the voice we hear, it awakens our desires and it helps our body decide before our mind even takes that vote on what is and isn't. And so I think sometimes when we get into that empirical argument of, you know, where does the story really play? And does it does it have where we can break it down into that, you know, scientific method? I think that's where we forget, like there is this, you know, maybe it's not the the conscious of like awareness, but it's in that subconscious and below the subconscious where it really works and does does does the thing in the primal brain that is always below that that conscious level surface.

SPEAKER_00: 48:06

Yeah, I I think it's your background in improv, Andrea. The yes and always adding, I don't think any of this is mutually exclusive. And frankly, it it um stimulates me to look at the empirical evidence supporting what we often call intuition or instinct. And I I love these conversations, but I would say what you just described, you know, you could also almost equate our sophisticated limbic system with sentience, you know, and it evolved our you know. I in the book I do go a little bit into how, you know, in terms of entanglement and interconnectivity, how single-celled organisms long before they became tissues or organs or organisms, still formed villages. And non-locally, they would communicate chemical threats in the environment to one another for a growth response. I love that idea. We were already depending on one another as single-celled organisms, and um now does that make a little bit of sense? So this, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, no, no, so stuff like that excites me because I'm so into our interconnectivity, and um, but I just think uh I do slowly make a case for what you're hinting at, which is a, they're not mutually exclusive. I kind of lost my train of thought, but yeah, how we're wired to perceive the metaphysical nature of existence for our survival, yes, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with projecting the meaning onto it in the ways that you know Victor Frankel and logo therapy would say is synonymous with being human.

SPEAKER_01: 49:43

Yeah, well, and that goes into where I'm gonna take us next, which is the authentic voice and purpose, right? So there's that moment in the chapter where you start to talk about voice and not as a stylistic or technique, but as a way that something emerges when an artist connects to their true craft and actually you know drives them to contribute, right? And you say that once that voice is honored, it naturally connects to purpose and then to contribution. So to me that feels really important because for the audience, you know, that's learning about this book, I feel like we're speaking to them every week that we put out an episode on that level.

SPEAKER_00: 50:27

I kind of forgot I know there's a whole chapter devoted to voice. I kind of forgot that I bring that up. It's got to be toward the very end where I issue that call to action. Is it toward the end where I talk about voice?

SPEAKER_01: 50:39

Um, it is, but you do touch on it in chapter one about you know that that authenticity of voice and and it's not finding meaning, it's making meaning and therefore defining what the purpose is into our contribution.

SPEAKER_00: 50:55

Yeah, I mean, I could preach, and I guess I have been, but I think the call to action near the end of chapter one was I do go way more into style and voice later, but I think you would agree almost every one of our guests has we didn't plan it, but it just kind of happened. They're kindred spirits in a good way. But they all say, Oh, yeah, I had that come to Jesus moment or that brush with death that put purpose on the front burner. And I finally took my really well mature, well-developed, mature voice and separate milestone, applied it to a sense of purpose. So I will say, in an empirical sense, we are wired to grow and to propagate and proliferate. Yeah, we die eventually. Maybe once we no longer have something to contribute to the tribe or to the collective, you know, once we've done our work. But I do think for the most part, we have homeostasis, we have all these built-in things that mean we're actually meant to realize our potential as organisms and then contribute it back. And that's how it kind of works collectively. We're wired, I don't know if it sounds cheesy, but to be our best selves because that's what we pass pass on epigenetically to our offspring. So that's the call to action for me is like maybe some people will never figure out why they've chosen a given craft, you know. Why am I playing the violin or why am I um experiencing my personal catharsis? They'll never be in touch with what it contributes on the macro level to the collective. But some people do. And sometimes it takes that brush with death to really, you know, open your eyes to what it's what it is contributing on the macro level. But I would say my call to action is you know, you can just have a craft and you can be a cog in an enormous machine or an in-betweener on production and animation and just put a roof over heads and put food on the table, and that's beautiful. Your life is about, you know, the village in another way. But a lot of people, especially when their kids are out of the house and they experience empty nest syndrome, are called, you know, to re-embrace their gifts and figure out what they now have to, and you can probably speak to that, Andrea, in the um regency stage. Yeah. Aren't a lot of women rediscovering what's my purpose now?

SPEAKER_03: 53:16

Yeah, well, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, going back to and and you know, Jung was a man of his time. He's not perfect. A lot of great things have come out since since since his work, right? That you know, found it foundated on some of his work and ideas and concepts. But, you know, saying that midlife, whether for a man or a woman, you know, is the time of life where we, you know, turn away from the field of accomplishment and and inward to the field of uh meaning, purpose, and belonging. And so I think it there comes a time when you've, you know, and this is what I talk about in the Regency Life Stage for women in the householder years, you know, women are you know doing a million things and keeping everything running and biology and culture encourage her to do so. And so then when the biology shifts with the perimenopause menopause shift, and then midlife comes along at the same time, right? Then we get a lot of women who are saying, Okay, who am I now? What do I want to do? What what is how can I live my most authentic and fulfilled life, right? And and that is in essence kind of what you're talking about in the sense at the end of chapter one, where you say, you know, the evolution of consciousness is the more prescient conversation when it comes to potential, right? And the awakening, in a sense, if you if you just want to take this as one example, it's not the only time, but if you want to take the midlife awakening for men or for women, right? Where we say, okay, what now? Who am I now? You know, not sure where I am or if this is where I wanted to be or or what's happening, but what's next, right? I love what you write here. Intelligence is creativity in motion. All change comes from imagination and visualization. Creation is the very manifestation of concept as percept. Therefore, if we can imagine it, we can create it. Right. Finding your voice and your unique contribution to our collective evolution is a process that can't be rushed. And I can't, I you know, I I find so by 2030, there will be over 87 million women in the US over 45. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 55:33

And that's a new new milestone, or yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 55:35

Well, it's you know, the the women who who are aging into this transitory period that I call regency from 45 to 70, I mean, starting with boomer women, we're the first women in the history of humanity to live past menopause as a cohort. Now, individual women have always lived past menopause. And I've I've talked to you about this before, you know, since the time of Plato, but having entire generations of women, I mean, in 1900, statistically, most women were dead in the US by 51.

SPEAKER_00: 56:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 56:08

So we've got, you know, another 20 to 30 years.

SPEAKER_00: 56:12

But it's almost we talk about getting your hands in the clay on this podcast almost every week, right? Get your hands in the clay, and we can tell our own story. Isn't it an exciting thing that we get to now write this chapter?

SPEAKER_03: 56:24

It's it's an it's a gift, it's an amazing gift. I mean, all the women in my matriarchal line, going back thousands of years, are standing behind me cheering, saying, Go, go, go. I mean, I'm looking into into a life stage that they never had the opportunity to experience, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 56:45

I love that. Um, so doing good work. Well, because we are no, we are creating, and again, in this mess that we're in. Yeah. You know, we all feel helpless. What can I do policy-wise? Yeah, nothing really. But if we all communed like we're doing now and brought thought forms, you know, maybe new novel thought forms that have never been synthesized before, that is the movement, and we are creating a future. So that includes, you know, regency. It's a new phenomenon. I just think ideological shift is where it's at, and social reform only comes from ideological shift on a again, the small scale. Maybe you have one charismatic individual and they form a movement, and then other people get on board and it becomes a critical mass. That is as important as anything you could do, you know, writing a letter to your congressperson.

SPEAKER_03: 57:35

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we're sort of in this, it's interesting, we're in this shift period where um, you know, we have women, you know, living longer, men living longer, everyone at midlife reassessing what's happening and trying to um think about what what do we want to do, what is the potential, what is our legacy, and and contributing to the fact that something new's coming.

SPEAKER_00: 58:10

And I hope so.

SPEAKER_03: 58:13

Each person well, each person living living their authenticity to to the best of their ability in their circum in their circumstances, because not everyone is living in the same circumstances, right? Yeah, is going to to work towards moving us um to some sort of conflict resolution, and that that doesn't mean that it's not gonna that the conflict itself may not be difficult and um and um heart-rending and um uncomfortable at best, uncomfortable, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:46

You know, in the book I quote Gandhi, of course. You just go straight to the source, why not? I quote a lot of people, uh Maya Angelou, people you just can't argue with, yeah. Um, but you know, be the wish be the change you wish to see in the world. I was saying that during the pandemic, during that moment where I think we were all being called upon to look inward, right? Because you couldn't really go out. But I think a lot of people missed the opportunity. And somewhere in there, I I won't throw any under the bus, but I said, you know, we all need to maybe just do some inner work and then be the wish you oh my god, be the change you wish to see in the world. And I was told that's pretty Pollyanna. And I thought, okay, but that's the only way, actually. It's the only way.

SPEAKER_02: 59:33

Well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 59:34

It's the only way we're gonna get out of this mess is if everybody does their work and then there's a shift on the macro scale. Sorry, I'm I'm preaching. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 59:44

No, I no, and I agree with you, and I think that goes um, it was just making me think about the the theory that I've been working on, the concept of a theory, but um how it's you know, looking at ourselves, you know, ourselves individually, right? And understanding who we are on the individual scale, but then how we apply it to the system. And it goes back to what you're just saying, Andre, about you know, these women, that we have like a whole cohort of women who are you know in that past the very many and and menopausal phase of life and you know, moving into not just a few, but like a bigger group of women into this, you know, older wisdom age era. And if you think about it, that ties right back to our storytelling, right? Because it's that wisdom, it's that audio storytelling, even if it's just through the generations. Um, I think back that I'm really lucky that I have women in my family that typically until late have always lived to be in their 90s to um 110 years old. And if they have of late meeting my mom, because she died. In her 70s, and her mother who died in her 80s, which is very out of the norm. But I have a picture when I was born, and it was maternal maternal line, mother to daughter, six generations in the photo, which is so rare, which is so rare. I mean, I'm like an infant baby. This isn't 75. So, you know, I don't know. Yeah, but that's awesome. But it's amazing. But the fact that we're that we have more of that now. So we have where you have direct, which goes back to, you know, the stories that did happen. So direct, you know, storytelling of people who live those experiences still around to share that story so we can learn from it. So now it's the stories that we're being told, right? For us, but they're also the stories that did happen. And then from there, the story that we tell ourselves based off what we're, you know, from all of that, I think helps us find our authentic voice, helps us find our purpose, and therefore helps us understand who we are individually and then how we fit into that collective, right, into that system and and gives us that purpose and helps us assign that meaning. Where before, I think because people died so early on that they tried to impart that, but you didn't have it so generation generationally that we do now.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:02

Yeah, I think I I I that's that's a huge, huge part of the gift of but and and at the same time, it's simultaneously a challenge because in this culture, you know, old women are reviled or tolerated at best. And so as we age out of you know, our um our uh our fecundity, our fertility, our sexual attractiveness, um our our culture, our heavily patriarchal culture, right? You know, rejects that sort of older women, women woman, which is interesting because it sort of allows us to evolve into our authentic space, uh leaving sort of the world of male, the male gaze behind, but it also sort of isolates us in terms of you know the different aspects of what it means, you know, culturally to age. But one of the things I wanted to say that that both of you had sort of jogged in my mind is that looking at like storytelling and talking about conflict resolution and looking at the long, you know, from the mythic perspective, right, from the top down, this whole shift um from about 1900 with the birth of what we'd call modern psychology around that time, with the birth of the women's movement, which is you know, through um through um suffrage, the suffrage movement, all the way up till now. Um we have this um along with the rise of consciousness, the understanding of, let's just say, looking at it from the storytelling perspective, the understanding of of the physiology of storytelling, the understanding of the psychology of storytelling. But we also have the return of these ideas directly, the return of the feminine, the sacred feminine, the goddess directly in culture as movements, but uh but subconsciously also in the aging of entire generations of women into, like you said, um Virginia, into this new wisdom, this this new we always had the crone age, but now the crone age is like post-regency, right? And so this rise and return of the feminine to me speaks of a conflict resolution um to patriarchy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:34

Yeah, it's like an identity crisis. That well, that there's if we all have masculine and feminine in us, it's an identity crisis.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:42

Right. But that there's a there's a looming possibility, let's put it that way. There's a looming possibility of the balancing of the the feminine and the masculine, if we want to talk about it in archetypal terms, not necessarily gendered expressions of those, right? Right, right. Um, because I think we we're evolving beyond that, which I think is thrilling. Um so that when we're talking about ultimately conflict resolution in the story that we're living right now, with what we were saying before we started of the the last swipe of the cornered animal that is that is that is patriarchy bearing its T's, you know, sharpening its claws, um this potential um in the return of the feminine since and the rise of the feminine since 1900. I mean, if you if you do any of the reading, you know, of the early uh psychology up through, you know, I don't know, you get a to to Marion Woodman and Carol Christ and all the matriarchs of of of feminism and and and archetypal feminine understanding, I think there's a huge potential to rewrite this story. No, not rewrite the story, but write the next chapter.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:08

I was gonna say, yeah, that's really beautiful. And that is the question we need to be asking always. What story should we be telling? What story do we need to tell next in this march toward human potential? So that's really beautiful. And uh, we're coming up on an hour and a half. So I want to include what we said in the green room because I think it was some good stuff, but I just total transparency. I'm gonna attack that on the end as um just I don't know, an extra feature. Uh it'll be our extra. So I'm gonna attack that on the end, but in the interest of coming to a close, I love what you said. And I do think that's the story we're telling is the ushering out of unsustainable uh things we've outgrown, like patriarchy and all that stems from it. So uh that is the new story that we need to be telling. Um, and yeah, when you talk about people digging in their heels or the cornered animal, it's like it couldn't have been clearer that we just weren't ready to elect a female president. Anyway, but uh I I do want to bring it to a close, Virginia, but I think that we could do a whole episode, and we kind of have on what we're talking about here. There's a reason that, and I just wanted to say this too: like, I think returning wisdom as a cultural value is behind embracing our crones. No, or um, you know, instead of taking women out to the field and shooting them at a certain age because they can't produce children, like we just as a culture need to be less youth-oriented across the board and start seeing our senior citizens as relevant with a hell of a lot of wisdom. There's no cultural value on wisdom, the wisdom from experience at this moment. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:52

Yeah, there's no there's no seeing it as a resource, right? Right, yeah, at least in at least in in in the global north, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:01

Yeah, yeah. I think I think that's kind of where I would put my focus, not being a woman. I would just say, let's put some value back on what we all have to offer to the village, and I'm gonna mix metaphors as one thread in the tapestry.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:17

Yeah, well, I was gonna say it goes right to one of the things that you say a lot in a lot of our episodes and even in the book, which is that story doesn't hand us meaning, it creates the conditions where meaning can emerge.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:29

I like that. Thanks for tying it back to story in general. Okay, how do you see this coming to a close? Okay, well, so there's plenty in chapter one we didn't get to, and maybe that's what we'll talk about next week. I are you joining Renee and us?

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:43

Uh yeah, yes, I would love to. That would be awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:46

Yeah, I would love to get into the chemical, literally break down the chemical uh outcomes when you partake in story, whether it's around the campfire, right? Or yeah, uh Shakespearean template or a Greek tragedy or the latest, greatest effects-driven franchise, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:03

What community community catharsis through story?

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:06

Yeah, well, there's there's chemical we go chemical by chemical. Yeah, in the same way we talked about why do we tell stories? Well, to impart wisdom, right? Uh to leave a mark, all those there are lists we could go to, and maybe that's next week.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:19

That that is. We will be diving into that into the next episode that will be wrapping up all of chapter one and not saying that we haven't covered a lot because we have. But um, just really quickly, I just want to, you know, zoom us back out. So, chapter one doesn't just teach us how to tell stories, what we basically have, I thought, come across is that it's established why story is inseparable from being um human. And I also feel like you know, chapter one really frames how storytelling is meaning making as transformation and cultural evolution.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:51

Um that's the title of the chapter.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:54

Yeah, which is and so going back to what you said, so next chapter uh next conversation, we're gonna we are gonna dive deeper into those mechanics, or we are gonna get into the chemistry, the structure, the responsibility that storytelling has, what that outcome of its power can be.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:10

Yeah, the angel's cocktail and the devil's cocktail.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:13

Yeah, I love those next week. Next week. That'll be next week. So I I would love for either one of you or both of you to just share one last and party message and we'll wrap it up from there. Till next time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:25

Why do I always have to go first, Andrea?

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:27

Oh, I'll go first if you want to go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:29

I'm stumped. Yeah, give me a minute to think.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:31

You know, um one of the things that I've I always felt was um fascinating about storytelling and creativity historically, um, or at least this is this is my my theory or my idea, I guess, is that when there's a conflict that needs to be resolved culturally, like when we see big, huge uh shifts um throughout human history, what I've seen to be true is that um the resolution or the shift of consciousness into the next stage or into the next development always comes through the arts. Yes, thank you through the arts and it starts with the individual artist, it starts with the writer who works alone, it starts with the painter who works alone, it starts with the sculptor who works alone, it starts with the composer who works alone. And somehow the the the the zeitgeist, the the birth of the new idea or or the the pushing into the new concept or style or consciousness or way of thinking starts there, and from there it goes to more of the collective art forms, so from there it goes into theater, right? Where it takes more than one person to create the art, right? Or it goes into uh symphony or opera or whatever, and then once these collective art forms grab onto what the solo artist has started, then cult more people in culture become exposed to these art forms by the very nature of the performance, right? Or not everyone could read, or not everyone could, you know could get to a concert or whatever. And so when you get to these larger cultural shared experiences, then those shift the consciousness and drag everyone with them over the precipice into the new.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:44

Beautiful. Wow that well, and also the very first, you know, if you believe the cave painting with all the hands was one of the earlier ones, it was communal from the get-go.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:55

So anyway, I love what you said. I'm just gonna do a quick sound bite, I guess, as my sign-off, but I also didn't expect my brain to go this direction. Uh it's kind of the nature of the moment. I guess I feel like um it's easy to be discouraged for me, anyway, when I watch too much news. I just don't want to get out of bed, let alone give a shit about the future. Or, you know, I don't have children, so I don't care. I'm sorry, Virginia, I said this. Like, I don't really care about leaving a better planet to my children. I I do think this is worth sustaining democracy, um, humanity. So, on a good day, you know, if I've listened to enough Jane Fonda, I can contribute, and this really helps. You know, I have to get some wind in my sails to even do something like this because I feel pretty futile and pretty lost. So I know everybody can fall victim to despair. But maybe if we all start to see this as an exciting moment, where, like we've said 20 times today, to I guess put a kind of apocalyptic spin on it, to create from the ashes, right? To create the phoenix, then that's exciting. We get to tell the next chapter, but also maybe also take a step back and see there is no rubble, there's an arc that's been in motion, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:14

That's the that's the the mythic perspective. I I just want to say, just to tantalize for next week, but also to I'm sorry to add another thing onto your thing. But what you're saying is that we are all becoming victims of the devil's cocktail, which is which is the stories that are being told in the media, the stories that are being told everywhere we look about what is happening and whose perspective.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:39

And that's what I was that's where I was headed, to be honest. We've really got to wrap this up, but that's where I was headed. I just wanted to say I late just a couple days ago thought now and then I'll propagate a news story like the truth, the one video that's most indicative of what happened, you know, in Minneapolis. And I I even said it's not like me, but I'm I think it's important that we combat the false narrative with the truth. And I I did propagate it, but for the most part, I feel like propagating the negativity, even if venting feels good, even if identity politics feels good, banding together, there is some value to it. But there is also this idea that you don't beat the drum of a grievance, you just create, right? That's how manifestation works. If you propagate a narrative, you're asking for more of the same. If you just focus on the goal and start telling that new story and create, that's actually the only way anything ever gets manifested. So I'm I that's that's what I want to end on. We just need to be creating, maybe not lamenting, maybe not, you know, grieving, maybe not putting energy on that. Put energy on the future.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:53

Yeah, I love it. Absolutely. If you can imagine it, right? You can create right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:58

That's where it begins. Okay, that's my platitude for the day.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:03

Okay. Well, I think that was a beautiful place to end.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:06

All right then. Thank you so much. This is so fun for me. Thank you so much. I feel blessed that you guys were willing to talk about my book. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:14

I'm more than willing to talk about your book. I I I wish that all the creatives out there would would read it and use it as a little bit of a touch base manifesto for those dark times, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:28

Well, it was just a conversation starter here. You brought so much to the table. So thank you. Okay, and yeah. And to our listeners, remember we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can write a news story. See you next time. Don't go anywhere just yet. We have some highlights from the green room. As often happens, some good stuff comes up when we're just kind of shooting the breeze in the green room. And we thought we'd include it. Enjoy. We're gonna be so fine, and this is gonna be awesome. I'm not worried.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:58

Is anyone worried?

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:59

No, no, I have no worries. I'm I'm excited actually. I'm excited. I have to just share one thing with you, Nick. Um, you know, I I'm going through some interesting family stuff. I'm in the middle of a trial separation, Victoria. My husband asked for after what 33 years of marriage and 33 years of tumultuous um, I hate you, I love you. I'm not like you anymore marriage. So it's not a bad thing, it's just a different thing. And so I've just been in this really strange sort of in-between what's next, headspace, um, exhausted from the holidays. And I have to say, Nick, that going back and rereading this chapter pulled me completely out of that headspace and was like, that's right. This is why I'm here. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is what I'm supposed to be talking about. This is the whole sort of mythic approach, right? So it was it was it was divine timing in terms of the timing of my life to jump back into these thought forms. So I'm very grateful that there are no synchronous, there are no uh coincidences, the synchronicity of this for me is a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:16

Oh my god. It we means the world to me, by the way, to hear that because I don't know that my writing has the power to do that, but um, it's it's wonderful to hear that it can, right? And um, I that's sort of my life. One day you're putting out fires and you're very much in crisis mode, and it's not about the big picture, right? Or priorities or thinking about your calling or why you're here, you know. But then when you get into that mind space, it's everything, you know, purpose and contributing, and it becomes everything. And you're like, all that ego stuff is it doesn't matter in the big picture, but it's we vacillate back and forth. So I think we're in alignment because just this morning, too, I was meditating as I often do, just to you know, settle in settle into this space. Yeah, and uh Michael Beckwith was playing in the background, and I just had this vision of what is communion? Well, communion is each of us tapping into consciousness or it's really just information, intelligence, right? Everything that's shuttling around our little molecules in our body, whatever that is, right? That you're tapping into it and communing with it. But then when as much as I fucking hate church, when people come together, we're all vibrating and doing the same thing, and we're communing by right channeling intelligence. So I just feel like what we do here, it can be silly and superficial, but it can also be quite profound just because we're communing. We're furthering the conversation and we're engaging in the dialectic. And isn't that everything?

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:44

Well, absolutely. I mean, I think the whole thing is that living in the tension of opposites between those kind of daily struggles and then and then the the the entry back into a different level of consciousness in terms of of thinking and you know, and of of what it is that uh that it means to live an embodied life and how you how you balance those two things of you know being in that meditative communal um uh space. You know, it's like the idea of, you know, like you talk about in the the book, you know, the drum circle, you know. Not only do do mental and and vibrations and brain vibrations come together, but hearts beat and synchronicity and and you know, the body moves and beat to synchronicity and it just the coming together of it all, and just I don't know, it's like Joseph Campbell says, it's like to two. To live in the idea of the higher consciousness and have the experience of being alive, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:52

To really be and isn't that so needed right now? I have I had that thought this morning too that, like, okay, a bunch of people can get together and commune, but if they're kind of the the shared territory is cortisol and adrenaline and uh aggression, then you get a Hitler rally or a soccer, you know, riot. And yeah, so everybody, everybody thinks what they're doing, you know, ideologically is a movement and it's important. But uh what I came to is like, okay, but when you take all the spiritual traditions and the wisdom traditions and you put them all together, and I settled on platonic values, like it's it's pretty agreeable that what's going to get out of get us out of this authoritarian kleptocracy mess is yes, movements, individuals that are charismatic, that you know, maybe form a movement, but it's the critical mass. I like that idea too. It's not the majority, it's a critical mass that can make a difference. So I feel like everybody thinks, you know, uh Charlie Kirk's following. They probably felt they were communing and uh, I don't know, fueling what was needed. We all feel that way. But I settled on like platonic values that are pretty inarguable in every wisdom tradition and every spiritual tradition. What do you think of that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:11

I yeah, I mean, Jesus, we should be doing the podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:16

I almost said that. I will be cutting some of this in. Do not worry.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:19

Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing, it's it's it's it's all about that idea of the tipping point, right? It's it's just that idea of that when consciousness comes together and and you have enough people moving the the the consciousness energy towards towards a transition point. Like um, one of the things I find so interesting that I keep thinking about that you write about in this chapter, in chapter one, is the idea that humanity transforms best due to conflict resolution.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:53

It's hard to remember that, isn't it? It's and and but that's what gets you through times like this. Sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:58

Yeah, no, exactly. And then I thought, well, what about problem solving? And I thought, well, yeah, problem solving is good, but problem solving is like is like the microcosm of of of you know the actual conflict resolution, right? You know, the you know, the the problem for ancient uh, you know, Neolithic newly agrarian man might have been, you know, how do we how do we you know grow enough grain and how do we you know make sure that that everyone is fed? And so you get your own you know village squared away, and then you get invaded by the next village that's starving, right? So you know, so it'd be so once again, conflict resolution then, you know, basically trumps the idea of the problem solving. So I well, I guess leading thought for me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:49

I don't know if this is related or if this explains my thinking in writing the book, but you know, it was almost impossible to talk about the role of story without just generalizing about the creative process and like you're saying, innovation solving a problem. So I think, you know, and then there's also the catharsis that results in a movement, but there's this shift in ideology too, thought forms, paradigms, policies that affect social reform. Yeah, so I do kind of parse between, you know, the Noah sphere we talk about, yeah, the conceptual realm that's as important, it's as important that evolve as our biology. But I just found in the writing of the book and in all the other chapters too, by the way, this chapter one's a sampler platter. But I always thought, oh, well, the same could be said of creativity in general or creative efforts in general or the creative process in general. It's all about new novel thought forms and innovative thought forms. And story is one aspect of that, maybe.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:47

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I just think about like, oh my God, look at everything that's going on in the I just think about like right now what's happening like in Iran, like that's not really being covered very much by the by the news because of what's going on here. And um talk about something developing, you know, out of the thought forms of of wanting freedom and freedom from you know, um from really uh restrictive Islamic uh culture. And um and that that then you know their story for so long is being under this this you know oppressive realm and this oppressive rule, religious rule, conservative religious rule. And then now you have you know this conflict resolution. I mean, they're in the middle of the conflict. I mean, they're trying, they're they're they're actively hopefully writing the revolutionary chapter of of their story and looking at you know, that's I mean, I don't know, we just live it, we just live it every day, and people don't really think about it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:59

People don't know it's it's hard to take a step back and see the full arc, right? I mean, I was in sixth grade when the Shah was exiled and Khomeini took over. And it's it's all just one arc, in my opinion. And your beautiful essay that you shared on here about the I always say it wrong, the warrior goddess.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:17

No, the oh yeah, yeah, the uh sage and the you know yeah, yeah, right. The idea of of of the embodiment of of within what I saw within Kamala Harris as the warrior, yeah, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:31

I think we all saw it that way. Yeah, and I think what we talked about, I think what we agreed on is that patriarchy is on its way out. And so when you take a step back and you look at the progression, even the Arab Spring is part of this one arc we're talking about. But the idea of doing away with really oppressive, again, platonic values, oppressive values, whether it's through Islam or whatever, yeah, uh take away your personal liberty, your equanimity, all those things that women are being robbed of. Yeah, it's no different than our movement against patriarchy, exploitation, colonization, all of that. So it's one movement. And I think you know, it's it can become problematic when you look at it this way. But one school of thought is there's an overriding philosophy on the planet at any given time, regardless of Eastern, Western, you name it. And I think it's problematic, but I see it. When you look at our revolution and the French Revolution, they happened at a moment when Sofism was at the forefront ideologically, and that was literally again about personal liberty, equanimity. Uh, and that was new to think about one's personal liberty and freedom was a rather new concept. So I kind of see it happening all over, and that's exciting to me. And then tell me if you see this, there's always a backlash. You know, those waspy, privileged white men are digging in their heels and digging up old tired tropes because they're desperate. They sense and they feel that certain things are on their way out. What do you think of that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:06

Yeah, I I think what we're though we may not live to see the new paradigm, we are like planting the seeds for those who follow us, and we are in these tumultuous times of change, and this is what happens, I think, is is is patriarchy is like is like a wild cornered beast. And we are and we are seeing the last swipes, right? Right, the last razor-clawed swipes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:35

And the manosphere, do you know that term? I don't think about this stuff much, but I'm like, I when you put the JD Vance, when you put them all together and the incels and the manosphere and all these podcasters, and they're talking about how tanning beds reduce your sperm count, like something is wrong. That's the cornered beast we're talking about, right? And then all this, you know, as a gay man, I see it clear as day. Like, why not talk about how all humans can be their best selves? Why are we talking? It's like redefining masculinity. I kind of get it in a way, because in the same way women are asked to be all things to all people and have been for a long time. Men are also, if they're too sensitive, they're pussies. So, like, we're being asked to be a lot of things too. And so the conversation is logical, but I feel like let's not fantasize about this imagined lost masculinity that they're obsessing on. You know, why aren't we protectors and warriors anymore? Something's been taken from us. No, no, let's talk about what'll make all humans better. Am I making it?

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:35

Yeah, and I think there's a I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding or or or just non-awareness in some ways. If you look at this from an archetypal psychology point of view, and I know Victoria, you may have some some thoughts on this too, but is that um understanding like what is masculine and what is feminine has nothing to do with and what's between your relationships. Yes, beyond the bounds of and and limits of any particular culture, but looking at where do we have to go for both men and women in order to achieve, I guess, what you know we would call in um in alchemy the hyros gamos or or the sacred marriage or the balance between the two, like the yin and the yang, so that life can be lived sustainably on the planet. Because if we can't figure that out, if we can't figure that out, then we're headed down this really terrifying road of the next hundred to two hundred years.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:42

Yeah, I think sustainable is the key word that's because we're not just talking about climate change and right exploiting our resources, but just in every way, I think it's clear patriarchy is run its course and everything that stems from it, like capitalist greed, right? And yeah, exploitation and slave labor, and yes, exploitation of the planet itself. Like it's pretty clear that they it's run its course and was not sustainable for a thousand years.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:10

Yeah, or longer, arguably. Yeah, I it's um we're in the midst of a great of a great story. We are we are writing one chapter of the great story, and the question becomes you know, are we going to add to the chaos or are we gonna add to moving forward in some way that's gonna lead towards um towards um honor and understanding and community and uh commiseration and working together and um trying to create something new, and maybe interconnectivity is part of that too, because absolutely there's a lot of talk about how oh, we live in a smaller world than ever, but yet we're more isolated than ever.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:55

I think it is a new growing pain that we have to think about nationalism versus globalism more than ever. And what does that look like? You know, I mean anyway. The irony too is in meditating this morning, I was like, we're not gonna talk about the news. I'm sorry, I keep it. It's too much. Like, I can't talk about Iran, and I'm not even up to speed on the latest. You you tune out for one day and you miss all these crazy things that went down. So I just thought, oh, we can't talk about the news. And here we are because how can you not?

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:24

I this is the big story.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:26

This is the big story we're telling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:28

You mean you can't drink water from a fire hose?