087 – Lola L’Amour: The Myth of Alignment

Sarah Tacy [00:00:06]:
Hello. Welcome. I’m Sarah Tacy, and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown, and the pull feels real. Together, we share our grief, laughter, love, and life saving tools. Join us. Hello, and welcome to Threshold Moments today. I have the distinct pleasure of introducing you to my friend, Lola L’amour.

Sarah Tacy [00:00:47]:
Lola is one or was one of the guides for the Scotland journey I went on last year, along with Ginny Muir, who you can hear her podcast. It was broadcast in August. Lola is a deep soul. She is a woman who brings beauty and artistry wherever she goes. At the end of our podcast, we were in a state of laughter and we were in a place of really enjoying the way that our bodies often know what they need. And I was saying to her that as she was telling one of her stories of this journey she’s been on over the last 3 years, I was moved to tears. And there was a part of me that wanted to be behind her and be holding her in my arms or having her body lean against mine, not to soothe her or try to fix her, but to be in with her in a way that I think humans used to be with one another. And I was saying that so often, we’re so removed from the ways that we, as animals and people and people who used to be a part of villages and tribes, would grieve as community and less in isolated places and that we had more body contact and more song and more dance to process feeds journeys we go through.

Sarah Tacy [00:02:18]:
So I didn’t say that here, or I didn’t say that on the recording. We had this beautiful conversation after the recording too. And so I wanna say that here. And I wanna say that you are going to hear deep wisdom and a person who’s able to put words to things that some of us experience and don’t have words for. You will also hear about really tough rock bottom places. And so this is a trigger warning for anybody who is in a place where they can’t hear about that right now. And the purpose of this podcast is accompaniment. And so for some people, it may be exactly what they need to hear to know like, oh, I’m not alone.

Sarah Tacy [00:02:59]:
That’s really wise, this really beautiful, this really talented, this really deep, this really well resourced woman also went through here as you’ll actually hear on so many of my podcasts, that there is a stage and a place in which part of the cycle of being alive is to fall, is to have parts of us die away. And I will say here and now that what was so refreshing to me that I needed to hear was taking the shame away from that and taking away the, I must have a lesson. I must have a silver lining now in order to feel successful at the stage of falling, of the stage of dismantling, and the theme of patience and not yet comes through. And I will then just say, I am feeling deep gratitude for anyone who is willing to come on my podcast with such honesty, because I think that’s where we meet each other is in our vulnerability. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lila. Thank you for your wisdom.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:14]:
Thank you for your journeying and thank you for your love and beauty. And lastly, I’ll say I made a lot of funny sounds as I was listening to her because my body was so moved and it would be like, yes, or like cackle or, like, like, some of these, like, sounds. And that later, she said, I know I do my work when I make bodies elicit sounds of emotion and resonance that are beyond words. So that is what you have in store for you if you are to choose to continue to listen. And I highly recommend it. Without further ado, Lola Lamore. Welcome to Threshold Moment. Today we have with us Lola Lamour.

Sarah Tacy [00:05:09]:
That just rolls off, so it feels so good to say your name. And I generally start off with a bio. It helps me to feel like we’re kind of all orienting from a similar starting place. And as my listeners know, I generally really love pulling people’s bios from a variety of sources and weaving them together. And so here I have from Lola’s website and from pieces of, her previous newsletter, a woven together bio, and it says, I create spaces where humans come home to themselves to reactivate their wild aliveness, to reclaim their belonging, to touch into something both ordinary and extraordinary, to facilitate healing, to catalyze transformation, to be the medicine. A stripper is exactly who I am. I am a woman disrobing from delusions, a woman dancing with desire, a woman in pursuit of delight. I am a woman stripped bare by hard years and betrayal.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:27]:
I release my beloveds into their breath, into their choices, into their consequences, into their journey again and again, unclenching my fingers from the wheel of control. I feel the cage around my heart, unknitting, Stripped from my defenses, I am alive. I am here to uncloak. Here to strip my stories, the bones, until all that remains is beauty. Open. I’m open to life again. Stripped. A hard on legs, walking.

Sarah Tacy [00:07:10]:
Stripped. Welcome, Vela. God, you’re such an artist. And Thanks. Also, I was looking through your website and maybe websites, and I went to Ginny’s house recently and just the beauty that you bring. I was thinking about Kelly Rich, who I’ll interview tomorrow and you and Sarah Jenks and how there are certain people who really incorporate beauty as an expression. And it can be through writing. It can be through movement.

Sarah Tacy [00:07:46]:
It can be through adornment, through how your house feels. But the essence of you, I feel like from the inside out just keeps getting expressed and it’s such a gift to be around.

Lola Lamour [00:07:59]:
Oh, thank you so much. It is a challenging process at times to be clear enough to transmit that beauty without stories about it either from my own habituation in my own mind or from the judgment of other people, which we all get. And it’s not so beautiful.

Sarah Tacy [00:08:21]:
Yeah. I hear that. I’m like, I think I get that. But can you say more about, did you say about being able to create it without the stories?

Lola Lamour [00:08:30]:
Yeah. To be a clear transmission means that the only story left is the truth. And that means that there’s so much to release. It’s interesting because we have had these fires in my area for the last few days and in the process of watching evacuation zones closer and closer to my home, I’ve been in this inquiry around what actually matters. Mhmm. What do I take with me? And what does that say? What is that story of who I am and what matters to me? And it’s been very interesting to notice the things that make the short list and what does not. And the things that make the short list for me right now, I think are indicative of my approach to life and why beauty matters so much. I have rare pieces of art that could never be replicated.

Lola Lamour [00:09:35]:
Small, portable. I have the perfect pair of denim worn in after years of riding my ass. I have combat boots in case I need to sip through the ashes, and sandals will not do. I have a book of poetry. My husband and I wrote to each other when we were a long distance and first got together. I have the last two editions of the tarot deck that I made and published that are the last two editions in existence other than those that are in other people’s hands. I have beautiful deer skin rattle that my mother gifted me for my birthday. My cat, of course, all of her accoutrement, but that’s it.

Lola Lamour [00:10:22]:
That’s the theme is it’s not about bottles of water, although those are in the firebox. It’s about how my being is truly nourished. And now at age 44, I’m starting to really embrace and take ownership of what actually nourishes me. And it is not what I was told or sold by our culture, by my family, by my ancestors. It is what brings my soul to life. And that is what matters to me while I’m here. And I’ve spent the last 3 years, especially really unshackling myself from the identities, the roles, the burnout, the pressures that I had worn like badges of honor for so long in my life. And that is why I wrote that piece called Stripped because I really do feel like this is a time in my life where I get to stand naked and proud and be the flag I stick in that mountain.

Lola Lamour [00:11:37]:
You know? That’s the thing I stand for is is me. Because without me being here or me being fully present, me being fully alive, what do I have to bring to my children? What do I have to feed my family with? What do I bring to my marriage? What do I bring to my community? And so I’ve had to empty myself out of everything. That’s not me over and over and over again. And this most recent physical fire is just the latest inquiry into what’s left and what matters.

Sarah Tacy [00:12:17]:
As I hear you saying that, and you gave us specifics around your house that you would take with you, and you say the words, as I empty myself out. And sometimes I know that when I’m speaking about the fertile void or about the times of being lost, it’s so different than when I’m actually in it. And I’m like, oh, that was cute. Like, it sounded really cute and spiritual when I was teaching about it. But now that I’m in it, this really fucking sucks. It’s really hard. And so I hear you in this beautiful voice talking about emptying yourself out and stripping. And I’m wondering if in any more detail, whether it’s in business, in life, in family, if you’re able to help us understand what it means to empty oneself out or to strip away.

Sarah Tacy [00:13:14]:
Also, because part of the podcast is accompaniment. It is for somebody to listen and, like, find themselves in your story and go, okay, I’m not alone in this. Like, this isn’t just me. I’m not just isolated and nobody has an idea. Like, it’s just like, oh, you just put words to something that I’ve been feeling I couldn’t put words to. That might be a lot of pressure on you. But if you can give us some more texture to what that means.

Lola Lamour [00:13:43]:
I love texture, so I’m happy to oblige. Just the right texture really brings it all together, doesn’t it? Yeah. Let me paint a picture of what it means to me to have stripped away what is no longer the truth. When 2021 came to a close, I was at the helm of a very, very successful online business. I had 100, if not thousands of clients all around the world wanting every single thing I put out into the ethers. And I had a team of 7 or 8 people that I was supporting in addition to my family. My husband was my CFO and my COO. Every bit of stability in my life was based on me and my business and my financial acumen and my ability to consistently bring in more.

Lola Lamour [00:14:44]:
And I was so burned out that I felt like every day, even going into my own beautiful home office that I designed with this online program that I build out of deeply, deeply aligned place at one time, I felt like I was dragging my ankles through solidifying concrete to get into my coaching calls, to get into whatever marketing bullshit I had to do that day. Some Instagram live, some launch strategy that was slowly and if not thoroughly killing me. And I remember after my 3rd repurposed podcast into Facebook live, into whatever the fuck that I was doing. I remember like shutting my laptop screen and this is no shuttered through my system so loudly. And it is not a convenient no when your entire life is fully dependent on your production. What I realized was that I had let me turn myself into a product. I had commodified myself. I’m really good at it, but it also kills me.

Lola Lamour [00:16:09]:
And I just couldn’t do it any. The the first wake up call had come a few months earlier when my heart started pounding out of my chest, out of the blue. I thought maybe it was a reaction to getting a booster for the COVID vaccine, which it may have been related to, but it may not have been. And ultimately, I don’t think that the source of some of these messages matter so much is that we just listen to what they’re telling us. And mine was heart palpitations, tachycardia, resting heart rate of a 130, a feeling like I am dying. My husband put his head on my chest and said, oh my God. That’s what’s going on in there. Because my heart was palpitating so erratically, almost like it couldn’t keep up with itself.

Lola Lamour [00:17:00]:
And that is kind of what my life had become. I had built a life that I couldn’t keep up with anymore. And more importantly, I didn’t want to, even though it was quote unquote aligned. And I think that that’s one of these toxic paradigms in our spiritual community. Let me say it in a yoga voice, which I actually naturally have

Sarah Tacy [00:17:27]:
a kind of a yoga voice.

Lola Lamour [00:17:29]:
But we have this idea of alignment. And once we get there, everything’s gonna be in flow. Everything’s gonna manifest. Everything’s gonna attract to us. It’s all gonna be easeful. And what we don’t recognize is that alignment is one more trap that we build for ourselves. It isn’t about finding some point of alignment in our life and then fill in the blank. Everything is perfect because there is no alignment.

Lola Lamour [00:18:01]:
If you look at a map, we have this hard line between the ocean and the land, but when you go to the shoreline, what is happening? The water is coming in and going out. It is misbehaving. It is bringing up to Tritus from the deeps. It is eating away at the shoreline. It is making for a blissful Sunday afternoon. It is all of those things and anything but a hard line Alignment isn’t truth. So I had wedded myself and I have done this before with marriages and identities and jobs. And I’m sure we all have.

Lola Lamour [00:18:42]:
I had wedded myself to this idea of alignment just because I had created this thing that at one time felt like the thing. And so letting it go meant not only firing my husband from his job and having him immediately have to find something else to start providing for our family. It meant no longer running on the hamster wheel I had built myself in my career. It meant, yes, no longer working, you know, 16 hour days in my super aligned entrepreneurial life. It meant looking at my kids like a ghost because I didn’t know who I was anymore. It meant I don’t know what to do for dinner tonight, except mac and cheese again. I’m sorry. It meant maybe if I just get super fit again, maybe if I just get super physically strong, maybe if I build this container up, maybe then I can hold whatever it is that is happening to me.

Lola Lamour [00:19:48]:
So let me obsess about that now. Let me find my alignment with that now. Let me do Tracy Anderson and then 2 hours of Pilates and see where that takes me. Ugh, my head tingles. Just remembering this time in my life. It’s like, oh, the pressure cooker was so real. And so my husband went off and started to fly planes, which is ironically, like one of my deepest, most traumatic fears in my body because that’s what he knew how to do. And I not only lost my business partner in this like, decision to stop the machine, which I did stopped the machine.

Lola Lamour [00:20:34]:
I also lost my physical partner for a large chunk of time. And we had been the people who never really wanted to be a part. And our relationship wasn’t one that was like, you know what, honey? It’s better if we have our own rooms. Bye bye. It was more like, how much can I lick the salt off of your skin by your presence being close to me, you know, which has its own level of toxicities I’m discovering? So so everything about my identity, about my providership, about my role as the breadwinner quote unquote in my family, my financial stability, my relationship, my capacity to be present as a mother. When I said no to the no longer aligned thing I had been doing and spending so much of my life blood creating, all of that crumpled all of it. The only thing I didn’t lose was my house and the fires that I walked through that are more like alchemical fires, not literal ones from that point forward really did strip me away from the things that I claimed to The things that I identified as the way that I saw myself. I am a creative.

Lola Lamour [00:22:07]:
I am an artist. I am a purveyor of beauty. I am a transmission. And for about 3 years, I lost touch with all of it. I felt nothing. I could not have an orgasm despite having the hottest husband alive, who is a great lover and a beautiful human, imperfect as he is. I lost touch with the ability to write what felt like something meaningful. I lost the ability to market.

Lola Lamour [00:22:36]:
I lost the ability to participate on social media other than just doom scrolling myself to death. I lost touch with everything that I knew myself to be. And I was starved and I didn’t wanna eat. That’s what that felt like.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:09]:
We don’t often take this long of a pause after someone shares and I’m just really letting it sink in. And if it’s okay for me to ask a further question around it.

Lola Lamour [00:23:22]:
Yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:23]:
So there is this part of me that anticipated that when you said, and so when I said no and I let it all go, the anticipatory part was like, oh, then relationship with children, relationship with husband, like all the parts that maybe were, you know, when you talked about making the mac and cheese, because all of your energy was going to your business, When your energy stopped going to your business, I imagined what you were gonna say is like, the other parts took off and flourished, but that in fact, that there was an even deeper crumbling. And I’m so curious about this without any answers or clear questions even. I think about when Steve and I had a role reversal of breadwinner and I think about actually how alive I felt when I was in New York teaching the teacher training and all of the private and the classes and feeling like all along the way of the creation of that form of me, I never had a single teacher I never had. So it was like, I constantly finding my way and not feeling like I necessarily belonged in any form. And, and there was such like and when it was over, I just knew, oh, this is over. So I essentially threw myself I don’t know. Would it have been like a funeral? It was like I said it was a gratitude party for my clients. Like, thank you so much for having me.

Sarah Tacy [00:24:52]:
And my dad did clambakes for most of my life, and so he brought up, like, lobsters, and we did it at my client’s house that was out on the water. And my brother’s like, did you just throw yourself a mini wedding? I was like, it’s for my clients? But, yes. And I just knew it was, like, the end of a phase of life for me, but I had no idea what was on the other side of giving that up. I had no idea what motherhood would bring. I had no idea what my physiology would do when I stopped sleeping every night. But also to not have anybody I didn’t have a real outlet for my gifts. And so I feel like there is something to that, whether we’re saying we’re commodifying it or having, like, a path for it. And because my physiology was so burnt, I had no vision.

Sarah Tacy [00:25:39]:
So I had no inspiration. So I wouldn’t even know what path to take because my whole body was like, no. Nothing. Nothing’s available to you. And then, yeah, identity around, like, when I feel not shiny, when I feel who would wanna be around me, when I like this, when I feel like I don’t even know what I have to offer the world anymore. And so the spiritual side could say, Oh, this is me getting to lose my identity and find my worth outside of other people’s ideas of self worth. And I almost felt like I failed that stage because I didn’t learn how to enjoy it. You know, as if, like, the win, as if, like, the win would be when people talk about Nelson Mandela being in jail for 27 years and, like, his spiritual outlook.

Sarah Tacy [00:26:38]:
I’m like, man, I fucking failed that time in life because I did not find peace and awakening necessarily in the stripping of identity and inspiration and clarity, like being in the

Lola Lamour [00:26:54]:
That Nelson Mandela bullshit. That is so much pressure. I did the same thing to myself. I I had a moment. I remember this so clearly. I can relate to everything you’re saying. I’m just like nodding my head over here that listeners cannot see. But there have been a number of breakdowns in this process where I thought, oh, now I’ve hit rock bottom.

Lola Lamour [00:27:16]:
Now we’re gonna start the climb up. Oh, that was cute. Nope. There’s another level. One of my most intense rock bottom moments actually happened around New Year’s this year. It’s last year. And I remember it so clearly. My husband was cleaning our oven in the kitchen and I was on my knees on our tile kitchen floor screening about how much I hated myself because all I could do when I saw him clean our oven was how much of a failure I was.

Lola Lamour [00:27:53]:
And I realized I was in such a toxic narcissistic self hate loop. It was all about me and my failings and I I could see it for what it was and it made me hate myself even more. And I didn’t know how to get out of it. I did not know how to get out of it. I thought this is it. This is what my life has become. I, here is me, Lola, the inspiration for 1,000 crying and screaming on her kitchen floor while her husband cleans her oven because she’s so fucking useless. And I was desperate to get out of my body because it was such a horrifically uncomfortable place to be in.

Lola Lamour [00:28:40]:
The emotions were so strong. I remember he had just cleaned the sink. God bless him. And I had my coffee cup. And I did restrain myself from throwing the entire ceramic mug into the sink and shattering it, which I really wanted to do because the impulses and the sensations and feelings of my body were so strong in that moment. But I didn’t. I just threw the coffee into the sink, set the mug down as hardly but gently as I possibly could. And I went into this room that I’m in right now, and I sat in my chair and I just cried.

Lola Lamour [00:29:20]:
And he came in after finishing the oven. It had been a number of times now that something to this degree had happened. This was maybe the worst. And he sat down and he said, I love you. And I said, why? Why would you love me? Look at me. I hate you because you’re helping us. What kind of a person does that? How can you love me? He said, I love you because this isn’t you. This is whatever is happening.

Lola Lamour [00:30:00]:
This isn’t who you are. And there were a number of things that started to change after that conversation, because what I recognized was just as much as I had identified with the overachiever, the perfectionist, the entrepreneur, the spiritual badass, my tendency towards identification led me right into identifying with rock bottom. That became new, but none of it’s true. And it took a lot. It took a very deep journey that night with medicine, a journey that was filled with so much desperation that I surely thought it be fraught with terror, but instead was the most blissful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life because I had reached the end of my limits. It took me getting to that point a number of times before I had any sort of inkling what it might possibly be like to have a Mandela mindset in jail. I told that to my husband either that day or one of my prior breakdowns. It’s It’s like, why can’t I just be like Nelson Mandela? He

Sarah Tacy [00:31:22]:
makes so much

Lola Lamour [00:31:24]:
medicine from his time in jail. And my husband was like, are you fucking kidding me right now? Why are you putting that kind of pressure on yourself? Why do you feel like you have to immediately turn your pain into something that somebody else’s medicine? Can it not just be your pain? Is that not enough for you? I’m like, oh, there’s me being a materialistic bitch again. That’s amazing. I’m very happy

Sarah Tacy [00:31:52]:
that you hosted the Nelson Mandela comparison.

Lola Lamour [00:31:55]:
I did. I was like, oh my god. I remember this.

Sarah Tacy [00:31:57]:
It’s not just me. But, also, I heard somebody so I was I told you I was preparing for the East Forest conversation I had before this, and somebody was talking to him about Ram Dass and how he turned into a saint in the last years of his life and how, with his stroke and with his body falling away, how he actually lightened and lightened and lightened. And the perspective this man had was that, almost like Ram Dass didn’t suffer, he just got lighter. But my understanding of, actually, there was so much coming to terms with ego and his ability to speak so eloquently. And there was so much suffering that came along with that path. And I imagine that we have no idea the cycles that Nelson Mandela went through when he was in prison. Like, we heard his speeches. We heard what he gleaned from that time.

Sarah Tacy [00:32:57]:
We saw what he became. But to assume that he didn’t feel the pain of desperation or the pain of rock bottom. And I know that when I read a book on Mother Teresa too, that they found files where she was writing about not wanting to be in her body, but the pain was just too great. And in this moment, it’s just helpful for me to hear that. And it’s helpful for me, like, as you’re speaking to me and to the listeners to recognize my own way when I think like, oh, I identify as this teacher or but these skills to also recognize, oh, also identifying. I mean, I wasn’t I was I still had the same identity. Right? So if I am this teacher with these skills as I’m in a hard point, then I should be doing it better than others. Then I should, like as opposed to just

Lola Lamour [00:33:53]:
I should be good at this breakdown stuff.

Sarah Tacy [00:33:55]:
You should be really good at this breakdown. I should have the tools and know the skills as opposed of yeah.

Lola Lamour [00:34:02]:
My husband, in one of his last perfect moments in supporting me through the process, one time suggested I use my tools. And I looked at him and I said, I do not need you to tell me what to do right now. I know what to do. I am not doing it. The problem is not that I have the tools. It is that I do not want to use them. And it was maybe in that voice. I don’t need you to tell me and remind me that I know what to do here.

Lola Lamour [00:34:41]:
I already know that I’m already eviscerating myself over the fact that I know exactly what to do here. What I need is someone to remind me that I’m still worthy of love, that I’m valid as a human being, even when I’m not producing a paycheck, even if it’s a paycheck of my own creation, especially then that this is important, whatever this is, and it’s not the end.

Sarah Tacy [00:35:17]:
So I’m gonna switch just slightly, although I think it’s on the same thread, which is in another newsletter of yours, you said, what I really want I could pull up the quote, but it’s something what I really wanna talk about right now is that 15 year period between mother and crone, that place of no woman’s land, as you called it, and perimenopause. And I think that one of my first guests to talk about perimenopause, she was on last year, February 2nd, around that time because she was talking about in bulk and like the first yawn of the year. But she also was like, you know, when I was 43, I had all of these circles I was leading and I could fill anything that I put out. And, and I haven’t known her in this capacity either. And then they had a big catastrophe that happened in their family at 44. And she said, sometimes when really big things happen, it can set off perimenopause at the same time. So it resets the timing of the track. And she said, then everything felt like fire.

Sarah Tacy [00:36:30]:
And she was talking about the fires that maybe weren’t even burned through in maiden mother, like, anything that was left to be burnt down that hadn’t been burnt was, like, there for the burning. And she was I think she was talking about, like, the rage and the fire. And I was like, Oh, were you so glad you created all these circles ahead of time? And she’s like, I didn’t want the circles. And she was like, This was the process for me to go through. And as she was telling the story, she was on the other side. She’s like fully in menopause now and she’s at a new beginning and at a new stage with her husband and in a new home. And she’s like, now it’s almost like this maiden energy at the beginning of my crone. Mhmm.

Sarah Tacy [00:37:16]:
But I hadn’t quite heard anybody speak about perimenopause like this before or this phase. And I’ve been noticing in myself this access to anger and rage that I haven’t had before. And so I thought I was, like, doing the work and unfreezing my fight outlet. You know, a teacher said to me, like, what do you do for a fight outlet? I was like, I don’t have any I don’t have any impulses towards that. And I was like, oh my god. Maybe my fight is frozen. And so I thought maybe I was unfreezing it. But as I’ve listened to more women, I was like, oh, maybe this is also the becoming.

Sarah Tacy [00:37:52]:
Like, maybe this is also I’m 42 now, so maybe this is also part of my biology. Maybe it doesn’t matter the source, but noticing that fire and along with the fire, this might also tie into your story, which is, like, all the inspiration to create things and to be out in the world. So the fire almost switched from, like, production to a fire that burns away.

Lola Lamour [00:38:21]:
Yeah. Creation to destruction. Mhmm.

Sarah Tacy [00:38:24]:
And what happens when we are used to having that energy to create, create, create, and then that’s not there. And I know that’s not the same for everybody. I know that Ginny right now is having a chorus called Ripe about, like, midlife and its juiciness. And I’m wondering where these things dance with each other or don’t dance with each other. And if you have any thoughts on all

Lola Lamour [00:38:49]:
of that. I didn’t really correlate what was happening in my life, which started at about age 41. This phase, the burning times in my life, I did not correlate it with perimenopause until this year. And all of a sudden, there was this meme. Of course, the memes have it. Right? This is the meme generation. There was a meme that I came across when I was still on Instagram, and it was something like, you know, you find yourself having lost the will to do the things that used to let you up. You feel depressed.

Lola Lamour [00:39:29]:
You don’t know why. You’ve lost any sense of creative drive. You feel disheartened. You feel alone. You feel like you should feel differently than you do based on, you know, your journey. And there were a number of other things that were maybe more physical symptomology. And it was like, if this is you, you may be in perimenopause. And I was like, what the fuck? How did I not put these 2 together? You know? Like, here I am working with women around their nervous systems and self awareness and the spiritual and as I used to call it, the shamanic.

Lola Lamour [00:40:11]:
And this never crossed my mind that I could be going through this process myself, that part of what I’m feeling could be enhanced by the changes that my my body’s experiencing, my brain chemistry never occurred to me, not once. And then that hit me like a ton of bricks. And while I have and now do feel flashes of that juiciness and that creative impulse. The only way that the maiden crone can be born is if everything that came before her dies. And this 15 year, for some it’s shorter, for some it’s longer period of leaving behind the phase of the mother, which is not about physical motherhood necessarily. It’s about creating in the world, putting forth life, putting forth vision, working, contributing, kicking ass, you know, whatever, being an artist, being a maven. You know, if it’s not mother, maybe it’s maven. And when you let go of what that means to you about who you are and you have no drive to mother anything or anyone, This is the part that I find a whole lot of silence around is how that actually feels, how confusing it is.

Lola Lamour [00:41:44]:
Because you’re not old, you’re not wrinkled, you’re not a crone. I still look the same as I basically did at 32. Thanks, genetics.

Sarah Tacy [00:41:54]:
You really do. It’s amazing.

Lola Lamour [00:41:58]:
It is not Botox friends. It is just dying over and over again. And of my case, genetics. It’s such a horribly bereft place where I did not understand what it meant to really grieve even though I have lost beloveds, I have lost relationships. I have killed relationships and and rebirth them. I have lost so much in my life, but it wasn’t until I really, really and truly lost myself that I came home to grief. And there was a moment where I was sitting out on this little bench that we have in our front garden area and it overlooks our river and mountains and the sunrise to the east. And there was this one lone yellow Daisy fluttering in the wind while I felt like an absolute shell of a human.

Lola Lamour [00:42:57]:
And I was sitting on this bench contemplating whether or not to jump in front of a bus. Also not taking myself seriously and being like, that would make a mess for my children and actually somebody to clean up, so I’m not going to do that. But the impulse was there because everything else had already died, And I did not know what to do with myself. I did not know how to be with myself. And so I sat on that bench and I watched that yellow Daisy being buffeted by the breeze. And I thought, I wonder how many countless humans have sat on the ground empty, done, confused, hopeless, wrecked, and seen a flower just like this doing its thing. Isn’t that interesting? And it was those little moments where even though I felt so lost, I had no, no ability to create medicine from the mess.

Sarah Tacy [00:44:09]:
It’s

Lola Lamour [00:44:10]:
just a mess. I felt like this happens. This happens to us over and over and over again. And just when we think we’re through it, it hits us again. And what I now believe it means to navigate that it’s no woman’s land is that we are asked to learn how to be transparent, to be clear. And the only way to be clear is to get cleared.

Sarah Tacy [00:44:56]:
I’m hoping I didn’t make that loud voice too loud when you said that. Because I’m like, I really hope that message talked through. She’s moaning over here and some, like, animal downs. We like animal sounds.

Lola Lamour [00:45:14]:
The only way to get clear is to be cleared. And that is not a romantic process. That is not the stuff of a blog post or an inspiring meme. It is brutalizing. Maybe there’s a blog post or an inspiring meme that results, but it is not immediate. And I think that was the pressure that I put on myself because I am a content creator. I am a marketer. I am an artist.

Lola Lamour [00:45:49]:
And I also realized is no longer my truth to immediately turn around and monetize my everything the moment it happens to me. I can no longer use monetization as a justification for me to do the things I want to in my life. I have to do the things I want to in my life, fill myself up, and let it become something whether or not it wants to be monetized at all. And that’s been my last 3 years is between the breakdowns, really getting curious about what actually feels good to this body. This body that’s been burned a 1000 times, this identity that keeps getting shed over and over again. This human, this woman, this partner, this wife, this mother, this artist, what actually brings joy to this heart? And I didn’t have an answer for a long time. I’m starting to get little glimmers now, but the amount of patience and kindness that must be held toward ourselves is so much faster than what I have practiced in

Sarah Tacy [00:47:23]:
the past. I have an episode and maybe I don’t even have to say it like that. I have, maybe I’ll say I have maple trees outside my window and that every February when those of us in the Northeast have been deprived of sun for many months and our vitamin D stores are way down and any glimmer of hope, it’s really easy to hold on to. Like, oh my god. It’s above 40. So in order for the maple water to flow, it has to be above 40 degrees. And on those days, people are like, isn’t it beautiful? And, like, the sense of, like, hope restores to humans, and then, like, it has to freeze at night. And then the next day, you don’t actually know if it’s gonna be 40 again.

Sarah Tacy [00:48:08]:
And if it rains, then people, like, go right back into, like, a really gray space. And we can be so dependent on the weather and the temperature. I’m I can speak for myself, but I’m just saying I notice on a collective. And as that was happening and as I was is in a course called Alchemical, I’m in as I was tapping trees and I was burning the fire to distill the water. And I was like, oh, this is how I’ve been feeling the last couple of years where I would get these glimmers of hope. And mine might come in, like, my child woke up twice that night, and it’s such a glimmer of hope of what it might feel like to get sleep. And then the next night, maybe I’m up, every 45 minutes, and I’m like, I’m never and it might be actually like a week where I’m like, oh, and I might have like a little thought of like, I could offer this service. I could maybe start my business and like a little part of me that loves that stuff.

Sarah Tacy [00:49:10]:
And then it’s immediately like, I’ll never have that much energy again. So to see it in nature, and maybe it also goes back to the idea of tides, how they go in and out and in and out as they’re moving in a direction. As the season’s moving in a direction, it, like, it unthawed and then it freezes again. And and I could just really see that process in myself and I could see how I might hold on a bit to the glimmer of hope. And then the pain of going back to where I was was more. And so I maybe an over spiritualizing it, maybe in over trying to make something of it, I was like, okay, nature does this. Nature does like, it doesn’t go from winter to summer. It doesn’t even go winter to spring.

Sarah Tacy [00:49:52]:
There’s this whole period in between where it’s fluctuating back and forth. And for some reason, that was so helpful to me to not rush the process. And I was like, it’s okay if my February to April takes 3 years. Like, I’m not exactly on nature’s schedule, but it was helpful for me to see it in the wild.

Lola Lamour [00:50:14]:
Yeah. I don’t think that’s spiritualizing it. I think that’s making it into meaningful poetry for yourself. Yeah. Thank you. That’s my opinion.

Sarah Tacy [00:50:25]:
I’ll take it. Just need spiritual poetry. No. Wait. Is that what you guys said? Meaningful poetry. I just made meaningful poetry. And this part, I as I’m saying it, I’m like, I might take away from the essence of here. And you said the phrase, isn’t that interesting? And so Don Stapleton had been in my awareness and that was his phrase that he would always say, as he’s teaching us or as things would come up, aware of sensations as is.

Sarah Tacy [00:50:54]:
And then to just, oh, isn’t that interesting? And he was the one who first brought the freeze fertile void to my awareness and the cycle of awareness that I often recite with podcasts because it’s so helpful for me is that we have our normal way of being. Something happens. There’s like friction where it’s like, I don’t wanna go to those client sessions. I feel like my heels are dragging and drying cement. I you know, that like and it can it can be something big where someone gets sick or someone gets injured where there’s a diagnosis, or it can be that like, you know, know of the thing closing. And then the next step after interruption of norm is chaos and confusion. And this is where one would think that they have the tools. And so they try the things that they know and they don’t fucking work anymore.

Sarah Tacy [00:51:48]:
And once we stop trying or thinking that we’ll be able to fix it, like kind of what you said, like I have the tools. I don’t want to use them. He would say is like, then that’s when we’re entering the fertile void. This is where I say, isn’t it fun to talk about the fertile void first, The actual being in it because and then, like, my idea of, like, maybe still learn how to enjoy the fertile void. And then every time I don’t, I’m like, I failed this test. So thank you for helping me come a little bit more to peace with that. And yeah, on the other side is a possibility. And we know that nothing’s linear.

Sarah Tacy [00:52:21]:
Just like you said, the coastline is not a line is the possibility of like glimmers of inspiration. And like, who am I now that I’ve clarified this vessel? And so there’s inspiration. The next stage would be integration and then evolved state of being, but then you’ve that evolved state of being becomes the norm and

Lola Lamour [00:52:40]:
Yep. Alchemy. We don’t ever get to be done.

Sarah Tacy [00:52:44]:
We just get But they’ll get

Lola Lamour [00:52:46]:
to be a little bit more skillful at navigating it. And that that’s what I’ve come to as of now is that it’s not about learning to enjoy the dissolutions when they happen. Because it’s not a dissolution if it didn’t mean something to you and it left. It’s only a dissolution in your journey. If you have to let go of something that mattered. And how is that ever gonna be something you enjoy ever, unless you are a true sadist or masochist? Right? Like, if that is your existential kink, rock on with your bad self. It’s not mine. My kink is feathers and leathers and delight and texture and fur.

Lola Lamour [00:53:38]:
It is not thorns. And so it isn’t about for me, at least at this moment in time, feeling like I have to put pressure on myself to enjoy every part of the journey because I should be able to, because I should be able to see it for what it is. I should be able to receive the nourishment of the torment. It’s about being agile, being skillful, being patient, trusting myself. And when all of those things fail, letting it fail.

Sarah Tacy [00:54:29]:
Thank you. I’m noticing we’re at the top of the hour, and we are not beholden to the top of the hour. As I say, thank you. I feeling the relief and the permission of the imperfection of life. And I know that I know in every, every spiritual context, it could be like, and life is perfect and it’s imperfection. So like, I understand the duality and I just want to say thank you because I do get turned on about this idea of us being like our juiciest, most powerful selves at this phase. And, and I’m not saying that’s an opposition to what you’re saying either, but I like filling out the spectrum so that if any human, thinking in particular, like those who identify as female at this stage in life are feeling a really broad and wide, or maybe even they are feeling on one area of the spectrum to really hear that this is part of life. And I know it’s helpful for me.

Sarah Tacy [00:55:46]:
It’s really helpful for me if I really find myself in your story and just really honor you for your honesty and your bravery. And even the last sentence of letting it fail, because I heard when you said being agile, being skillful, being patient, I hear that. I’m like, yes. And then I almost like self judge was I agile? Was I skilled? And then like, and when it fails, let it fail or when it fails, sometimes it’s not even like we let it fail. It’s like when it fails, it fails. And when I look back at, you know, the last maybe cave of, of my life, I, when I think of like, what did I learn from that? And did I get the medicine I was supposed to from it? Part of what I’ve come to is just like also like, oh, and I survived. And I can look back. Like, now I can look back and actually, like, see the many layers, and I can see why it was so hard.

Sarah Tacy [00:56:39]:
And I can now I can look back and, like, offer myself that hug and, like, oh, man, you were so hard on yourself for wanting to, like, make it better than it was. And it was just hard. And there were layers and layers of hard stacked together. And so, yeah, just singing the praise of the times in which we survived the hard.

Lola Lamour [00:57:05]:
Mhmm. So much so that has been my friend at this time has been to remember as each of my worst fears manifests in my life that I have been here before. And this is just another next worst fear come knocking at my door. And until I cannot anymore, I will keep answering and I will find myself in the process of answering. And because I am who I am, I will get the medicine. I am that person. I do not need to get it the moment I look for the people and see my worst fear standing on the other side.

Sarah Tacy [00:58:01]:
Over here making animal noises, as you say, really beautiful, profound things. That’s just my job over here.

Lola Lamour [00:58:07]:
My job is to incite animal noises in all humans, so consider it done.

Sarah Tacy [00:58:14]:
So beautiful. I am really looking forward to listening back to this podcast. As I listen to you, I can feel my body responding and I can also watch my brain go like, Oh my God, remember that. And then it floats away. And I feel like this will be one of those things that I could listen back to time and time again, and find myself and find some relief and find some gratitude and find some love and find some one liners that I’m like, yes. And I’ll just keep moaning and making weird sounds

Lola Lamour [00:58:49]:
too. The best part about letting it fly away and not being able to hold on to whatever it was that gave you that sensation is that next time it comes around, it does it again just the first time.

Sarah Tacy [00:59:02]:
Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing your life. I know. Okay. So I know that you’re off Instagram. You do have a newsletter that you put out, I assume, when you want to. Correct.

Lola Lamour [00:59:20]:
Luminality on some stack.

Sarah Tacy [00:59:22]:
Yeah. So Lola is a beautiful writer. As many of you can hear, you’re an artist through and through. As I say anything, I’m like, Oh no, am I throwing an identity at her? So I’ll say, as I perceive and experience you, and I don’t have words for it. I’m thinking about your website. I’m thinking about the homes I’ve seen you design. I’ve been looking at you and the incredible human that you are and feeling you, then the woman who makes me make all these funny sounds and your leather and feathers. You’re like, I like leather and feathers and your earrings are leather with feathers and gold on your neck and snakes.

Sarah Tacy [01:00:04]:
And there’s yeah, there’s so much texture to you and I it’s good for my body. So thank you for being you and for sharing with my people or the people who tune in.

Lola Lamour [01:00:19]:
Having me on, it means so much to be here and to be in a place where I feel like I’m coming out of hibernation. I am enjoying the thought with you.

Sarah Tacy [01:00:38]:
So I often end with a please show me. And I have no idea what I am generally gonna say until it comes out. So here we go. Please allow me to see and know, and feel that when I’m in the phase of falling, burning, dying in parts of myself, that it’s part of the cycle that it’s not necessarily supposed to be fixed. And may I find stories of others who have been there and have made it to the other side? May I not rush to the other side? May I find just enough strength, the flower, a breeze, a sunset, a warm hand, an ancestor to help guide me in the moments in which I need it most? May I see, feel no sisters who have gone before me or behind me who are right there with me? I understand that although the journey is solo, it’s also collective. And although I am alone, I am also always in company. Yeah. I remember my inhale and my exhale and not compare myself in ways that cause injury and what I do? May I let that fail and fall? Again, I find my inhale and my exhale.

Sarah Tacy [01:02:28]:
Blessings.

Lola Lamour [01:02:32]:
Thank you.

Sarah Tacy [01:02:46]:
Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 days of untapped support. It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at sarahtasey dotcom. And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like.

Sarah Tacy [01:03:10]:
Apparently, it’s wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom. Subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or 2. If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.