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[0:00] Music.
[0:08] I’m Sarah Tacey 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.
[0:27] Music.
[0:38] Hello, and welcome to another Mini Musings. This episode launches on July 4th, which in the US is Independence Day. Today, the play on words is Interdependence Day. This has been a big inquiry for me, especially over the last couple of years, just having a little a more vocabulary around the process of finding oneself, while being in relationship with others.
About a year ago to the day of this recording, my friends celebrated their marriage.
During the ceremony, we formed a circle and people were invited to speak and celebrate the union of these two incredible individuals.
I held in my hand a book called The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, and I marked the page on marriage, which is perfect and therefore also somewhat cliche.
This particular passage encourages space within togetherness, allowing the winds of heaven to dance between partners, which sounds so beautiful.
It suggests loving one another without creating a binding bond and emphasizes the importance of maintaining individuality.
[2:05] As on point as all of this was with what I wanted to share, I couldn’t get myself to read from it.
So I kept the book closed and I trusted that what needed to be said would come to me in right timing.
[2:19] And it did.
I took a breath and I began to recall my morning practice from early parenthood where I could tune in and ask myself about my desired feelings for the day.
And no matter my state, energy level, or goals, one feeling that remained constant, was that I desired the feeling of connection.
I believe that when I was connected, and maybe more specifically, when I was connected to source, I would be connected to myself. I would be connected to inspiration.
I would be connected to nature. I would be in right community.
[3:13] So instead of writing down, I desire to feel love, I desire to feel inspiration, creativity, joy, if I wrote, I desire connection, to feel connected, that would encompass all of that.
Love, inspiration, creativity, joy.
Conscious connection is divine guidance. When we are consciously connected, we are alchemically aligned, which to me means we are aligned with ourselves in a way in which our challenges can be transmuted or transformed into compost, into material for growth and new possibility.
[4:11] Over the years as I faced trials and tribulations and, you know, at the sake of repeating myself exhaustion and, oh man, just some things that really challenged me. My clarity began to dissolve and my connection in some ways began to feel needy and harder to get to the divine.
One morning I woke up and I looked in the mirror. Never, never forget these moments.
And I didn’t know who was looking back at me.
[4:47] Losing oneself can be insidious in that it often happens slowly, over time, in almost imperceptible ways.
[5:00] I’ve given the analogy before of a frog in boiling water.
It sounds quite terrible, but if you were to throw a frog in boiling water, it would know that the water is boiling and it would pop right out.
But if you were to put a frog in water and slowly turn the heat up over time, it doesn’t realize it’s too hot until it’s too late.
[5:30] And so that can happen with burnout, that can happen with losing oneself, that can happen in so many different ways in our life where it’s happening slowly over time.
But I also wanna say this can happen in the reclamation of ourselves, where we take one degree turns.
It may not be quitting our job and leaving a relationship, or it could just be like these one degree turns towards further truth of ourselves.
One time noticing that we have a desire and standing up for that desire.
It can happen in either direction.
In this situation, when my capacity was less and I was heading into the direction of the boiling frog without knowing it, connection for a sense of safety. Oh, I wanna say this like so you really hear it.
[6:25] Connection for a sense of safety kept the big true conversations to a minimum.
[6:34] Connection for a sense of safety kept the big, true conversations to a minimum.
Because big, true conversations often put everything at risk, and I mean this.
And we know it within ourselves, and that is why it can be so hard to be honest.
And this was a conversation that we had earlier on the podcast with Tameka Shielby with Truth Hakes.
But we’ve also heard from Eliza Reynolds in an earlier podcast that Sometimes, and Tamika said this too, sometimes what’s on the other side is much sweeter.
The journey there is unknown, and that, I think, my friends, is what can be so fricking scary.
[7:25] So as a point of mercy and compassion for ourselves, if you’re just holding on right now, Sometimes you do what you need to do just to get by.
You stay non-confrontational. You keep old patterns that keep you safe, but may also be the ones that are making you feel dead inside.
I did this.
I don’t judge myself for wanting or needing to keep things as easy as possible during challenging times.
[8:00] I really get it.
I really have mercy for myself.
I have mercy for my family or my friends or my partner or my kids.
We are doing the best with what we have in any given moment.
And here’s the thing, for me in this time and in this patterning, Desperate connection can lead to codependency.
Connection, and I said this in the wedding speech, Connection without clarity can lead to self-abandonment.
[8:48] So that my next step from thinking that it was all about connection to then seeing how I could lose myself even within connection, was to take the pendulum swing over to sovereignty.
[9:09] So come January 2021, sovereignty would be my word for the year, my North Star on my journey back to myself.
And the journey home, almost like the reverse frog in water analogy, a journey home is often slower than we want.
And I’m pretty sure like the cycle of awareness described in episode two, the finding and losing of oneself is something that we’ll continuously do throughout life if we’re dedicated to our own awakening.
I know that I’ve been in the lost and found phase before We’re at 19, 25, 32, and there it was again, 39, 40.
Can be a daily process too, like an everyday thing. Moment to moment thing.
[10:07] So in this case of turning towards sovereignty, of going from losing myself slowly to saying, I’m gonna gather myself.
I’m gonna remember who I am and I’m gonna remind others of who I am as well.
In this process of reclamation, there is pattern breaking.
The process of reclamation, there is pattern breaking, not just for ourselves, but for those with whom we’ve been weaving tapestry of life with.
With those who we’ve been in the pattern making for some time.
Practicing boundary repair in pursuit of sovereignty can feel like building a brick wall, before constructing the bridge.
[11:03] For me, that feeling of a brick wall…, ooooh, that’s a hard one.
Sovereignty relates to being an independent state and having a sense of personal power.
In the word sovereignty, there is the word reign, R-E-I-G-N, like to reign over the reign of a king or queen.
There’s a solo nature about it.
And I’ll say this, the reclamation of self-power.
[11:43] And it comes up against the comfort of being accepted, welcomed, loved.
We’re social beings that have depended upon belonging for our survival.
Brene Brown says that true belonging means belonging to ourselves first. Ah, it’s so tricky.
It’s so tricky.
So sovereignty is an invitation to return to ourselves. And this is why I call my one-on-one sessions returning.
In my work, we track sensations in the body and stay with them, if possible, sometimes from right distance, and then give them support.
We listen closely to the desires and we respond appropriately.
It’s a great way to start noticing that we have feelings, needs that want to be met, boundaries that need to be held, and so on.
[12:57] Another way to gain information on this journey home to ourselves on this returning is tracking our own timeline.
For instance, I could track back to some early on conversations with my now-husband in which I deferred my preference, for the sake of our relationship.
This is probably pretty normal, but is it necessary? I am often so interested in my friend, Sarah Jenks, and her work, because I think she lives into the possibility that it’s possible for both people to be sovereign and come together.
And this was actually the end of the wedding speech too, which I’ll get to in a little bit, this possibility, that we could both be honest with our true north and coexist and be relational.
But for now, where we’re at right now in the timeline is that as we begin to come back to ourselves, it can feel like a brick wall before a bridge.
So as we’re doing that pendulum swing over to who am I, the reclamation, kind of separating ourselves, Unweaving the things that have been woven.
[14:15] We can look back on the timeline as well. So yeah, early conversation.
So in the beginning of my relationship with my husband, back in that time in my life, I perceived myself to be the most independent woman. And this was before I had the word sovereignty, right?
So independent woman. I could give you a hundred examples to prove this to be true.
Many different times in which I could tell you that I stood up for my dream before giving myself away, for a relationship or for circumstances that didn’t fit it.
I could tell you the risks that I took. I could tell you the things that I left behind to stay true, which would make me think that it’s impossible that I could ever be codependent, which again was not in my vocabulary back then.
Here’s the thing. When the definition of codependency expands to include hyper-social nature of when you’re okay, then I’m okay, when you’re okay, then I’m okay.
[15:30] Codependency expands to include when you’re okay, then I’m okay, I begin to step one foot into the codependency category as well.
And thank you, Bridgette Vixens, it does not have to be all or nothing.
This is where actually I think it’s most tricky and it’s easiest to lose track is that I don’t identify as codependent and yet I do actually have those tendencies too so I could be both and therefore totally miss those little places in which I gave myself away.
[16:08] I want to bring up this other point which is in maidenhood, this is my experience, in maidenhood being independent, let’s take these two words, being independent and being good is an easy combination.
One is celebrated for having tenacity and following one’s dreams.
In motherhood and marriage, being independent and good is a tricky combination.
We become such a part of an ecosystem that the independence feels a little murky.
We have a phrase, mama guilt.
Like, ooh, you went and did that thing for yourself, but you had to take time away from your kids, take time away from your household, take time away from your partner if there’s a partner.
Being good no longer relates to your solo success as much as it might relate to being dependable for others.
So all the things I was celebrated for in my early years, when I put that into becoming a mother and a wife, that all becomes challenged. the rules become different.
[17:26] Here’s the beautiful news. It’s rarely too late to reclaim what we’ve left behind.
And as we realign misalignment within relationships, even if it’s innocent misalignment where we didn’t even know we were self-abandoning.
[17:52] We don’t know how our partners will receive it because it’s not a one person thing.
It’s not a solo endeavor if you’re in relationship to others, which even I’m clearly talking about, mostly here, like my relationship with my husband, right?
This constant process we have because I’m less interested now in how many years somebody has been married, and more interested in, is it a relationship where the couple ask of each other for continuous growth?
They help on each other’s growth, as opposed to a couple in which both of you have to die just enough that you can withstand a long time together.
So I’m talking so much here about long-term partnership. However, if you are listening and you’re not in a long-term partnership, as you reclaim yourself, then you know it’s a new relationship with your parents.
It’s a new way that your brother or sister-in-law relate to you.
It’s a new relationship with your nieces and your nephews. It’s a new relationship within work.
It affects all of our relationships because people know us in one certain way.
And when we start to say, oh, I’m not gonna play that role anymore, It can come up against other people’s wounds.
[19:14] Music.
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[20:29] I’ve also taken it myself. When I first launched it, I took it myself, and each day I thought, man, this is an awesome reminder and so useful today.
And I would even say, as you take it, if it’s serving you, you could do it on repeat because again, it’s free and it’s digestible and it’s highly useful.
So check out the show notes at the bottom and go ahead and sign up if it feels like it’s calling to you in any way.
[20:59] Music.
[21:07] There’s a part of me that wants to share a story of something that recently happened between Steve and I, and I want to share it because it’s not so small that I am saying like, here’s our most raw moment for the world to see, but it’s actually really small and you might listen and actually go, oh, Sarah, you were in the wrong.
I feel like it’s the tiny moments that stack in which we get lost.
I also feel like it’s a good example, the example I wanna give, because one could see how me picking myself here, one could say, oh, but you already made, you already made a commitment to him.
I don’t think you did the right thing. And so it’s good to hear how sometimes it’s not actually that clear, it’s not always that clear.
[22:00] So the story goes that my husband and I had plans together.
He has a dental networking party that’s thrown every year.
His company is not throwing it, somebody else’s company is throwing it, and it’s on the water, and they have great food, and we get to get dressed up, and it’s an opportunity for me to meet the people he’s in relationship with all year.
And it was on the calendar.
And I think in general, if a friend who I see often or we could make different arrangements with had reached out and said, hey, can we do something this night? I’d say, yeah, I would love to, but I have this thing with Steve. But Sarah Jenks, who I mentioned earlier, reached out and said, hey, do you want to have a sexy night in Boston? Which means to me.
[22:49] Do you want to go out to the city, meet a bunch of other amazing entrepreneurial women who are are soul-based, who have beautiful spirits, and let’s get dressed up and go out to a fancy restaurant.
And so my immediate response is like, oh my God, yeah, 100%, that’s what I wanna do.
And I have a history, I’d even say like Steve and I, I have a history where I might say like, oh, I can’t, I have this thing with Steve, oh, I can’t.
And so this is something like, oh, yes, I want to so bad.
And I grew up, and I wouldn’t even say this is wrong, but just with the understanding of like, you don’t just go for the best option. When you make a commitment, you follow through.
But this was kind of like, do I go to his networking thing or my networking thing?
Something that would be possibly in the future good for my business, but also just really good for my soul.
Really good for my soul to meet other incredible women who are also taking risk in entrepreneurial world.
And then I stayed over at her house And the next morning we did a cold plunge in the pond and worked out and took a sauna and had really beautiful conversations that fed my soul in such a deep and important way.
It was so nourishing.
I know I made the right choice and he was disappointed.
[24:17] I would have loved if his response to me was like, Oh my God, of course go do that thing. Of course.
But he felt disappointed and he’s not wrong to feel disappointed.
[24:29] I had made a plan with him and then my thing had to be, can I be okay when he’s not okay, especially if it feels as if it’s my fault, can feel really cold.
I don’t want a coldness between myself and the man I love.
But if I over time continue to choose something that isn’t Really, my North Star.
[25:03] Then I start to lose myself so slowly. So it’s like these small tiny moments, of making choices that may not actually be super clear, usually aren’t super clear.
[25:18] And I just want to say like it doesn’t feel good up front, doesn’t feel good to me.
[25:25] But my hell yes, my 100% hell yes, was to that night, and it was incredible.
And the next day was incredible.
My system had to learn how to survive his disappointment. And by the way, his disappointment didn’t go on forever.
He didn’t shame me.
And he gets to have his feelings. Ooh, and this is something we’re just learning.
Can we both have our feelings even if they aren’t completely accepting of the other just yet?
[25:59] Glennon Doyle in her book Untamed tells her daughter disappoint everyone else before you disappoint yourself. That makes me want to cry, Disappoint everyone else before you disappoint herself and her daughter says back to her even you and, She says especially me, So beautiful Alison Armstrong, who is a prominent relationship expert, author and speaker, specializing in teaching and coaching both men and women about understanding and improving their relationships, recently suggestively asked on the My Tantric Life podcast, can you ask for what you need when you care more about honoring yourself than you care about them going away.
[26:48] When you care more about honoring yourself than them going away, is that the point in which you can ask for what you need?
[27:00] In alchemical alignment, we talk about the tension field.
[27:05] And the tension field is essentially this. I think I’ve named it on the podcast before.
Or it’s that time where instead of immediately comforting the thing that feels uncomfortable.
[27:18] Can we hang out in that place of tension? I often like do the thing where you clap your hands, rub them together, kind of circulate them around each other and then slowly pull them apart, slow, slow, slow, slow, so that you can feel the energy between your hands and it starts to feel like taffy and you get a little further, a little further, it just gives me a kinesthetic field of attention field, and something I can kind of visualize of like holding something in that tension field.
And the way I understand it, whether the tension field is like the analogy of compost, if you can leave those stinky things in there long enough and then stir them up a little bit, that eventually the nutrition comes out of them, nourishment comes out of them, they begin to feed things or sauerkraut, where you have to leave it for weeks in the dark, and then the magic is happening, right, in that tension field, in that place where you say, I’m gonna sit with this, I’m not gonna try to fix it yet, I’m not gonna try to become overly controlling.
[28:35] So this brings us to this idea of interdependence when two people can withstand the tension field, in which all safety structures are being tested, allowing for new patterns to arise, knowing that mistakes may be made.
And here is where I finally am coming back to this wedding ceremony I talked about at the beginning.
I named, I literally, this speech took me three minutes, so it was like three to four minutes.
Connection, sovereignty, the isolation of sovereignty, and then this middle ground, in which I could cheer on my friends for coming to this marriage in their own way, which they really did, in their own rushed time, and celebrating it in a way that was true to them.
I celebrated them for coming together as two people who are dedicated to pursuing the returning to themselves, while also holding up a mirror to each other.
[29:44] And that mirror being the reminder of the other one’s sovereignty.
So say one person loses their way and they start to doubt themselves and they start to forget, their true north, that the partner wouldn’t hook onto that and be like, like, oh, God, this feels safer.
It would say, uh-uh, I know who you are.
Let me remind you.
[30:16] Then also being brave enough to stand beside the other if the true North Star desire tests the boundary, tests their own desire, it comes up against it with their own wound.
So I suggested that we’re here for conscious connection, interdependence.
Conscious connection is loaded with choice, hard conversations, honesty at the sake of safety.
It is here that we find interdependence. An ecosystem that thrives on each individual part being fully what it is here to be with an awareness of a healthy relational dynamic, a balance between autonomy and togetherness where both partners feel seen, heard, and respected.
It requires us to continually learn and grow, to communicate openly and honestly, and to cultivate trust and support.
[31:19] As we embrace interdependence, we create deep, fulfilling connection that nourishes our soul and helps us to thrive as individuals as part of a greater whole.
I just want to say this is a process. As I say these things out loud it’s not because I’ve mastered them. The stories I share are an example of me not mastering but giving it a try.
Story of losing myself and trying to find my way and just that it’s continuous.
Thank you so much for joining me on this mini musing and as always I encourage you to explore these concepts further in your own life and relationships. And I would love to end with some open-ended dreaming prompts for the sake of our reticular formation, which I think was episode four. And this means for the sake of our brain, so that I could open up to seeing, new possibilities and for the universe hearing these possibilities as well.
I wonder what it is I desire? I wonder if I can withstand disappointing another?
[32:40] I wonder what it would feel like to be honestly me in a relationship with another or others, plural, who are honestly themselves, and in support of me being myself.
I wonder if I listen to my partner’s desires and the desires of those around me.
I wonder if I can withstand a desire that comes up against my own beliefs or boundaries, and find right distance and deep honor.
[33:25] I wonder what right relationship feels like with deep trust and mutual support.
[33:35] Show me a healthy empathy in which I am included and my wellness is included.
Show me healthy ecosystems, first within myself, then in my closest relationships, than at work and with larger communities and nature herself.
May I become accustomed to what’s possible?
Show me relationships that are powerful, relationships in which each individual is boosting the other forward in this experiment called life.
Let me see that over and over and over again within my own relationships.
Cheers to encouraging and empowering one another’s inquiry and unique journey while remaining committed to our communal vision even as that grows and shifts as we do.
May we see ourselves as part of the collective web, where our actions and choices ripple out and impact others.
May our actions contribute to the wellbeing of the whole truth of the whole.
[35:00] Let us embrace interdependence, however scary and rebellious, as it may sometimes feel, So we may create the fulfilling connection that nourishes our souls and helps us to thrive as individuals and on a whole.
Again, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me on this episode of Mini Museums and Interdependence Day.
[35:26] Music.
[35:37] 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 sarahtacy.com.
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I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.
[36:17] Music.
Welcome, friends. Today on the podcast, I’m joined by the incredible Cait Scudder.
Cait is a renowned coach, speaker, entrepreneur and homesteading mother. Her podcast The Millionaire Mother is a resource and a space for entrepreneurial mothers to share what goes on behind the scenes as our family constellations change and business values evolve.
In this conversation, Cait shares the importance of embracing the mystery and transformation that comes with taking wild leaps in the direction of our intuition. And together we unpack the archetype of the Millionaire Mother through the threshold of birth and receiving support.
Join us to learn about:
Welcome, dear ones. For this episode, I spoke with my beloved friend Tracy Levy while she was in the middle of a dark night of the soul.
Tracy is a teacher, a writer, and a guide. She shares personal experiences of finding grounding and support in the aftermath of a heartbreaking, unexpected divorce.
Together, we explore the ways that we abandon ourselves to make things work, as well as ways of finding joy in unexpected career changes and the process of self-discovery.
Tune in to hear more about:
Hello, dear ones! Today we’re talking with Elena Brower, a woman who has profoundly impacted my life due to the integrity with which she lives her own.
Elena is a mother, mentor, artist, teacher, bestselling author and host of the Practice You podcast. Her first poetry collection, Softening Time, comes out today!! Please do yourself a favor and grab a copy or two!
Together, we discuss the powerful nature of weaving self-care into our daily lives, respecting and honoring our children, choosing solid partners, end of life reflections, and love. Join us.
Join us to learn about:
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