Coming Home By Speaking Our Truths

We begin with positive listener feedback: The podcast has given courage to speak up at work.  And for one listener, every episode has been a joygasm! Thank you! 

How speaking things out load with those you trust, in a space space, brings on healing and a coming home to ourselves. 

Deneen asks Deli to talk more about how she says each episode has set her up for what happens in her life after the recording. Saying things out loud in conversation with someone you trust helps her speak things into being before fear and mental gymnastics stop her. She shares a recent example. Deneen shares an example of a conversation with her husband which helped dispel fear and anxiety. Again, speaking things out loud. What would happen if we just allow ourselves to be and say what needs to be said in the moment. 

Conversation Prompt provided by poet and writing coach, Jena Schwartz. Visit www.JenaSchwartz. We choose & respond to each prompt in the moment, impromptu. 

Prompt: "I was (age)..."
Deneen shares moments from age 12 during one of her hardest years in school when she was heavily bullied. She describes a photo of herself in which she disparaged herself and shared that with her now 13 year old daughter.  She thinks of how that 12 year old had no idea to love herself or even articulate out loud what she was going through. And that now, she speaks her love, embracing that 12 year old, reclaiming all of who she is. Deli was 6, the first grandchild of her maternal grandparents 12 kids, the 3rd of her paternal grandparents' 10 kids, when she moved to the US from Iran, leaving a large extended family that raised her. She talks about how that milestone departure shaped her and her parents, the initial isolation and displacement. Deli starting writing at 6 to stay connected with her thoughts and feelings. Deli speaks of the unforgettable day when her dad presented her with the first poem she wrote at 6, Little Bird, during a painful time in her adult life and how in that act she felt seen, understood, reclaimed. It's was a life-giving act that helped heal a complicated relationship.

We talk about the purpose of our podcast, rediscovering our unstoried selves and loving and embracing and reclaiming ALL the hurt parts within us --  reclaiming our wholeness.

Our Joygasms!
We share our recent joygasms. Reconnecting with old friends and screaming our hearts out in unison at a baseball game and a beautiful example of lqbtqia+ advocacy at a University graduation which gives hope for the future.  https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR6624wY/?k=1 Tune in to find out what they are and share yours!

If our podcast speaks to you, please subscribe and share our podcast. Leave us a review, it helps us a ton! Thank you for listening.

Original Music by Penny Fischer & Kyle Smith

Full Writing Prompt by Jena Schwartz: 
I Was…(age) 

“I had no choice. That may well be the first, the most enduring
characteristic of influence. What's more, I knew nothing. One
morning I was woken before dawn, dressed in a pink cardigan
and skirt, put in a car, taken to an airport. I was five.” – Eavan
Boland

There’s a photo of sixteen-year-old me that my daughter loves. It
must convey to her that there was this other me, one who was
around her age once. One who holds memories she doesn't know
about. One who looked off to the side, outside of the frame, and saw
things she may or may not have spoken of then.

Who was that girl? What was she thinking? What happened
on either side of the shutter click of the old-fashioned camera? I see
her now and begin to wonder. Is there a story there? A memoir of
that moment in time? What is a memoir anyway, if not a collection
of memories—literally from the French word mémoire and the
Latin memoria: memory, reminiscence?