On this episode, I am joined by Portia Chambers. In February 2022, Portia launched The WE Experience. A place where women can land softly and fully embrace who they are; the good, the bad and the ugly. Portia turned to healing, meditation and manifested a business where women from all walks of life would be celebrated, come back to themselves, and embrace themselves as they are. Portia’s mission is to bring women together from all walks of life to celebrate one another and to help women feel seen, heard and supported throughout their business and life journey.
We talk about her journey with motherhood as a younger mom and feeling like she had something to prove and growing up with her daughter. We also talk about the experience of finding out she was pregnant unexpectantly
TW: Miscarriage, pregnancy loss
ABOUT — The WE Experience
speaker + podcast host (@chambers_portia) • Instagram photos and videos
On this episode, I am joined by Portia Chambers. In February 2022, Portia launched The WE Experience. A place where women can land softly and fully embrace who they are; the good, the bad and the ugly. Portia turned to healing, meditation and manifested a business where women from all walks of life would be celebrated, come back to themselves, and embrace themselves as they are. Portia’s mission is to bring women together from all walks of life to celebrate one another and to help women feel seen, heard and supported throughout their business and life journey.
We talk about her journey with motherhood as a younger mom and feeling like she had something to prove and growing up with her daughter. We also talk about the experience of finding out she was pregnant unexpectantly
TW: Miscarriage, pregnancy loss
ABOUT — The WE Experience
speaker + podcast host (@chambers_portia) • Instagram photos and videos
Welcome to the Filled Up Cup podcast. We are a different kind of self care resource, one that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks, and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences, and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.
Ashley:I am very excited today. I have Portia Chambers joining me. She is the host of This Is We podcast and the founder of This Is We Experience. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Portia:Oh, I'm so happy to be here. I'm really excited.
Ashley:Can you tell everybody what the This Is We Experience is, if they're unfamiliar?
Portia:Sure. So the We Experience if you land on our Instagram page, it's basically a platform for women to gather and celebrate with one another. It's all about women's empowerment. Whether you are a business owner, you have a nine to five or a mother. It doesn't really matter, we're all there kind of on this personal journey and the WE experience is all about doing it together and cheering one another on as we move through different phases of our lives and different versions of who we are. We host women's events we have a podcast of course, and then we also have a blog.
Ashley:Oh, that's awesome. What inspired you to want to start all of the WE channels that you have?
Portia:It's kind of a long story, but I'll give you the Coles Notes version of it. So at the end of 2021, I used to be a social media agency owner. I had a small boutique agency and it started about 2019. And that really took off and propelled, and it was absolutely amazing. And I learned so much, but through all of that, I kind of lost myself a little bit. I found myself burning out and just kind of not really enjoying life as much as I did prior to that. So with that being said, I decided at the end of 2021, I believe that I was going to take a step back from that and start rediscovering who I was and what fills up my cup and really start nurturing. Me I started a meditation practice at the beginning of December of 2001. That ultimately led me to the, we experienced, I started meditating every single day. I started with 30 days and grew from there. I wanted to do something so women could feel connected because I was feeling so alone and isolated. And shortly before that, I announced that I was doing a women's event because I was feeling so alone and isolated. But I really didn't know what it was about. I was just like, I'm doing this event. It's a year from now. This is the location. Be right back. I'm going to go figure this out later. In about February of 2022 is when I was meditating and the WE experience basically just kind of downloaded in a sense. The name was there, the feeling, the vibe, everything that I wanted to put out into the universe in regards to that kind of all came to me at once. It really came at a time where I was lost feeling not like myself but knew that Being around other women around other people was really going to help me get to where I wanted to be,
Ashley:which I think is so needed because there is a big disconnect, whether it was sort of us being isolated for three years or whether it really is that our connection has been mostly through a cell phone. It's like we get busy with our day to day lives and either don't want to bother people or maybe just don't have that strong friendship or family support system. Where it's like, I would really like to talk to somebody who maybe understands what I'm going through or maybe has had a similar experience. Not always feeling comfortable to reach out. So I think it's so great when there are connection events that you can meet people that you maybe never would have had the opportunity to meet before.
Portia:I 100 percent agree. Yeah. And I really like, especially with the events and really anything that I do with the, we experiences. I want everybody to kind of, whether they land on our Instagram account, walk into one of our events, listen to one of our podcasts is to really feel at home. And to feel seen and heard as if I'm talking right to them. And so that's a big component with the We experience, is to feel less alone in this world.
Ashley:Which is so important. One thing that you touched on is also something that a lot of people maybe experiences that needing to discover ourselves. I don't know whether it's like a seven year itch or something like that, but it's like we really shed our skin and we really do become different people that it's trying to figure out. In this new journey, who am I or now that like, say for me, my daughter is going to be 17 next year. So it's like, okay, well, now that she's not in this little bubble and I have to be watching over and protecting her. And now that I've switched to basically being a mom taxi and like a wallet, what does that look like for me? So I think it's really. And realizing in this new season, it's okay to be somebody different. It's okay to say, Hey, I'm not going to do this anymore. Cause I just don't find joy in it and I'm burnt out. And I really want to experience X, Y, Z, and trying to figure out where your joy is.
Portia:Yeah, I agree. My daughter's 16. So I can relate to the taxi. But I feel like I'm driving you everywhere all the time. But yeah, I agree. And I think there's a lot of, I'm a Scorpio, so I am always. shedding a skin and becoming somebody else. I feel like I've lived like short life, I guess overall, but have done so many different things in this life that I have lived. I'm very privileged that I'm able to do that. But. I think it's so important to kind of shed the skin and to let go of some of the I want to like insecurity or shame and guilt around it. Like, I no longer want to be this person and everybody around me expects me to be this person, but I can't do this anymore. That's kind of how I felt is like, I became this variation of Portia that I didn't even know really existed. It took a little bit of time for me to be like, okay, this is not who I want to continue walking around as anymore. I want to go back to who I was, but I want to do it in a way that feels even better. I had the conversation with my husband, like I looked him straight in the eyes and was like, I'm happy, but I've been happier and I'm ready to live happier. And that was kind of that moment where I was like, I'm done trying to be what other people think I should be. Social media is there such an interesting place? There's so many opportunities to meet people and find inspiration and empowerment. And there's so many amazing parts of it, but at the same time, it can be very dark and crippling and hard to even see yourself. in that light. And so I found this, very weird dynamic with social media before I was even a social media agency owner showing up online. Like, I never did that before. So I kind of entered this whole new world that I didn't really know what to expect, and it kind of beat me up a little bit and kind of reshaped me in a way that I just didn't love the person that I was looking at every day in the mirror.
Ashley:Well, I think, like you said, social media can be great for building connections, but it's also hard when you're feeling like you're in a place where you're not 100 percent secure, you're looking for something else, and here you're scanning everybody's highlight reel and thinking, why can't I have XYZ or why does my life look like that? So I think it's really hard when you get into that comparison game. Where it really is like if you were to step inside that room, like they could have dishes piled up in their sink, they could have, laundry in the corner, they could have, you know, a kid that they don't have a good relationship with that they're constantly fighting, or like, they'll talk about the longer the caption when it comes to marriages where it's like, The most unhealthy relationships will be the ones that are like, darling, I love you. And 400 characters later, they're still going. So I think it's also that, that it's like, you really have to tell yourself, even though it's not just as easy as being like, okay, it's fake, but really having that conversation and looking within yourself to be like, I have to create my perfect here. I can't create my perfect based off their highlight reel.
Portia:Yeah, I agree. I hundred percent agree. I think that's what I got caught up in that a little bit. Was looking at everybody's highlight reel. And when I first went on social media, I was very strict with myself. Like I'm not sharing my family. I'm not sharing different parts of my life. Not with all these people that I have no idea who they are. I'm such a person, like if you're right in front of me, I'd be more than happy to share all elements of who I am and my life and everything in between. But online, I was just like, I just. I don't want to do that and I just kind of want to almost showcase the highlight reel but very much be very authentic and who I am like who you are seeing online showing up in the stories or in a post is exactly the person that you're going to see outside of that as well.
Ashley:I think is really important. I think it's important that we all show our weirdness and show our ourselves, instead of it having to be. You know, this perfect curated image of it I do think that there is authenticity on the internet. I just feel like more often than not. And again, being like moms of teenagers, if our teenagers are busy, you know, telling us they don't want to go to school or that they're going out for the weekend. We're not necessarily like, Hey, let's discuss what's going on at that party on a live or hopefully not.
Portia:Hopefully not.
Ashley:Going back to your events, are they all in person or are they a combination of online and in person?
Portia:So right now, all of the events are in person. We have been doing events for just over a year. So our first event was last October in 2022. And we just had our 3rd event and so they're all in person. I think the reason why there's not a lot online is because I was really trying to pull away from that, I think, because I was so much online for, you know, three years of my life, I really wanted to go back into the in person connections and really meeting people face to face and, and I always say, when you meet somebody face to face, it's just like this energetic dance between two people and you can really, see the person as they are like zoom is great but there's nothing can beat an in person experience ever and oddly enough no one has requested Online like I feel like if I get more people that are interested and that are like, you know I'd love to be a part of it. But you know, is there an online option? I think I would start leaning more towards that but Everyone seems to really enjoy the in person. Ultimately my goal is to, step outside of my area and start doing it more in other areas. I'm in Ontario, Canada. So ideally, my goal is to, get to some other provinces and to, having events kind of all over Canada rather than just central to where I
Ashley:am. Which would be awesome as well. Sorry not to go back a teensy bit more. When you were talking about being burnt out and what that looked like for you. If there was somebody else that was maybe feeling similar. Can you talk a little bit about what your symptoms were or how you really noticed that you just weren't fully yourself?
Portia:I think my body told me first, so to take a step back and like all the things that I've done I am a yoga teacher, and I started that in my 20s, and I really learned how to connect with my body and be very self aware as to what was happening within me. During that course of being online, and I was, you know, in my early 30s at that point I kind of lost that connection with myself. And so what really was my aha moment was that conversation that I had mentioned before with my husband of just not being as happy as I was before. I feel like in that moment, a lot of things started to kind of come to the surface. So I had some actual physical problems. My heart rate was really, really low. So my beats per minute were like Barely alive. Like it was bad. It was really, really low. It would get really, really low at night. I had an Apple Watch at the time, so it would ping me every morning. So that was kind of a little bit concerning, but I really didn't, put two and two together. I was light headed a lot. I was exhausted. A big thing that happened to me, I became very angry with my body. At that time of burnout, Outside looking in, I was doing all of the right things. I was working out three to five days a week. I was getting outside every single day. I was eating healthy, nutritious, clean food every single day. Minimal sugar, all of the things that should contribute to having a very healthy body lifestyle was not necessarily working. I was dealing with a lot of unresolved grief that was just harboring in my body. And so all of the symptoms started to kind of pile up. And once I started to kind of admit to myself that something wasn't right, I felt like it all just kind of fell on me. And so those were kind of the physical symptoms. Some of the mental symptoms that I noticed was that I just wasn't into a lot of things anymore. I was pulling away. I was doing a lot of social media at the time. My creativity was pretty much gone. I was very irritable, frustrated very quickly and couldn't come out with that. I could not regulate my emotions at that point. I felt like it was. kind of hindering my family as well. And so that was kind of what I really started noticing. But it was difficult because it's overwhelming. I think that was a big misconception. Some people were like, Oh, just go do this and just read this book. It was overwhelming to find a self help book. I knew exactly the steps that I needed to do. I knew that I needed to deal with a lot of unresolved grief and trauma that had happened in my life. I knew I needed to go see a therapist, but it was so overwhelming to open a laptop. Google it in my town, like therapists in my town, because you would have all this information. You're not feeling great. You're angry at yourself. You're like, I can't believe I have to do this. How did I even get myself here? And so it was very, very hard to come out of that. And it took months to actually start feeling less like bogged down, like weighed down from everything. But. Meditation changed my life. The first thing I did was gratitude. I started a gratitude journal and did gratitude every day and started to write down how I was feeling that day, like physically and mentally so I could go back and be like, I did have some good days last week. Why am I feeling like I didn't have any good days at all this month, type of thing. So I had something that could show, some accountability for myself. And then the second thing I did was meditation. I started a meditation practice and that, Truly, truly, truly changed my life and really gave me the space mentally, physically, emotionally to start doing all of the other things, seeing a naturopath, seeing a therapist, getting support from other people that really helped me significantly.
Ashley:Would you mind talking about some of the grief that you had experienced or sort of what that looked like and maybe how that got bottled up?
Portia:Sure. So, I have to say, I have to preface by saying I never really experienced grief in my entire life. It was such a new emotion for me. And so at the end of 2019, I had a, how do I describe it? I was pregnant. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was a DNC. I'm like dancing around the conversation. my baby wasn't healthy. There was a lot of underlying issues. I probably would never have been able to carry to full term. There was a lot of things that went around that too. So we had an assisted miscarriage and so that was something that I had never experienced before I got pregnant very early on. I was pregnant just after I turned 20 and had my daughter when I was 20. And so never really expected to have any more children in my life because I was a child with a child. When we found out that we were pregnant again, and I was 33 at the time, it was shocking. It was every emotion to say brought me back to when I was 20 and felt every emotion then. But it was a lot of excitement because my husband and I were completely different people and we were going to be able to bring this child into this world as two very different versions of ourselves. It was very exciting. And so when we found out. About all of our complications with our pregnancy or my pregnancy it was really, really hard to bear because it was something that we never expected and then we were like, fully into it and then we had to be fully out of it in the matter of months. I think when that was happening, I felt like I was very much like on top of it. I don't want to carry this for my whole life. I want to make sure that I get the support that I need. And I felt very in control at the moment. And then I basically gave myself two weeks to heal and then jumped back into my social media business and it never came up again. We went to some support groups and I realized that, you know, like the support groups really weren't for me. I wanted to move forward in my life and not stay in the same place. A lot of the people that were in the support groups were staying in the same place and had stayed there for several years. And I just could not do that. Sure enough, I did do that. But without knowing, so it kind of just bottled up and I think. It was never addressed. I think there was a lot of blame because the pregnancy was something that was very shocking and to anybody that is listening that has had a surprise pregnancy, you know, all of the emotions, you know, like, how is this going to affect my life, the good emotions and the bad emotions. I don't want to say bad emotions, just the other end right the ones that make you feel guilty for feeling them, even though that's completely natural. It was very interesting experience to deal with grief and going through all the stages of anger and sadness because it was a lot of sadness. And at the same time, it was relatively a secret. And I think that was a really hard thing. Some people knew that I was pregnant because we hit the 12 week mark. We were announcing it to people and some people did it. And so this was all at Christmas time and I had to put on this front. I think If it happened at a little bit of a different time where I could actually take a step back and sit with myself and give myself like, what happened in the middle of the summer where you don't really need to see anybody, but it's like at Christmas time, you have to see everybody and it's like, you don't show up for the family dinner. Everyone's like, why aren't you showing up for the family dinner? And they didn't know. It was easier to kind of put the front on than it was dealing with the pain of all of it. I just thought, if this is easier, I'm just going to do this for now. it caught up to me. It's wild because I never thought when I was burning out, I had a dear friend of mine. She's super holistic. And she's like, Portia, your heart chakra is sad. Like, your heart chakra is not moving. That is what is happening to your body. Like, it's not what you think it is. Like, it's your heart. And I'm like, no, it's not. You're ridiculous. This is so silly. I'm like knee deep in that stuff. And I was like, no, that's not me. That was exactly what it was. I was just putting it in, bottling it up. And felt a lot of shame around it and almost alone in it because it's a hard story to tell because it's sad I never loved when people looked at me with sad eyes. I say that all the time, I'm still the same person I was when that happened. There's a little bit different emotions that I've experienced, like I never experienced that before and it really allowed me to relate to a lot of people allowed me to relate to my husband who has experienced a lot of grief in his life, I really didn't even know how I could support him. It was interesting how it all kind of came up and how I thought I was dealing with it and I wasn't and, it wasn't until I met with a therapist and really started to talk through and understand that there was no blame for me, you know, it was a hard decision. And because. There was a decision that had to be made. I think that is what was the hardest part about it. At the end of the day,
Ashley:that sliding doors moment where it could be, which am I going to choose and sort of that. What if I'm really sorry that you had to go through that. And it's 1 of those things that. Miscarriage or the other side of it of having to make that choice when there just isn't the healthy cells that need to be there to create like a full person. Unfortunately, it is so common. So many women would have the same experience. So as hard as it is for you to share, there can be that good of people knowing that, hey, this person shared their story. Maybe I can share mine because there is with any sort of miscarriage. There is a lot of shame of like, did I do this? Especially when you aren't initially like stoked to have a second baby or that you're not like a planned pregnancy. I was 21 when I had my daughter, that it's almost that when situations come up, it almost unmasks other trauma or other feelings that you maybe didn't know is there. Like almost grief for your 20s or grief for this loss of control with a child raising a child. All of those kind of things are so valid and I feel like there's this societal pressure to feel like just don't talk about it. Just smile. Pretend everything is fine. And I think we did that for so long. And then we realized, no, we're not fine. There's a reason why there's a mental health epidemic especially for women that it's like, Okay. It's okay to say, Hey, it kind of sucked, you know, giving up my twenties are kind of sucked feeling this loss of control at this point. It doesn't mean that we don't love our children or that we're not so happy to be mothers. It's just two things can be true at the same time.
Portia:Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it did bring up like, I remember seeing the test. I remember thinking to myself, during it, I was like, oh my gosh, here we go again. I felt like I was just getting my footing again, just starting. And because when I had my daughter, I really committed to being a stay at home mom. I did that for a long time. I had a part time job and did my yoga teachings and all these different things, but really worked around my daughter and helped her. Being a mother and a stay at home mother was like the first job. And I was just like, I don't know if I want to go back to this. I lost like 10 years and here I am just starting again. I'm 33. I feel like I'm like getting my momentum again. It brought up a lot. I don't know if you felt the same way having your daughter at 21, but I felt like at 20, I had a lot to prove. That I was mature enough to care for this being and I'm just now realizing this, that there was a lot that I had to prove to everybody around me that I wasn't just a baby having a baby. I just felt like all of that was coming back up again. I was like, here we go. And I have to prove to everybody that I can do this this time. I it's very interesting. When you start to become more self aware and tap into, what's harboring in your body, you know, little traumas, big traumas different variations of grief how it all comes up and is lived throughout your life. And I'm really learning that a lot right now about myself and how these different things that I do go back to being 20 and having a baby, which I really didn't think it affected me at all, but it clearly did.
Ashley:I think so much of that, like stuff that happened in childhood or in our teens or something like going through such a big experience like that, it is so mind boggling how all roads lead back to that, they talk about how trauma isn't necessarily the incident that happens. It's how we perceive the incident or how the thoughts and feelings that come up after it. So it's so funny in a not funny way that when we experience something later on, it automatically sucks us back to that moment. And somehow like that, Part of us is still deep inside, and it's like, here, let me come out and deal with this for you. And it just throws everything out of whack.
Portia:I think that that was the hardest part about all of it is, and I was having a conversation with somebody earlier this week about that, of like, when it does come up, it's like, oh no, not now, that was not a good time. Things are going really well, and I really don't want to. And I think that's what, Was happening to me. It was like, everything was going so well, my business was booming, outside looking in, it just looked like my life was just radiating light, but really it was really dark and scary at times. At the same time, I was like, no, not now. Like, I don't want to kind of face this right now. It's really, really good. And I know when I start to face this, I won't be able to do everything that I was doing before. I really need to take a step back and hold space for myself. Because that's who I am. Like, I'm not a go go go person and I couldn't be go go go and work on myself and go to therapy. That's just not who I am.
Ashley:It's also one of those things where it's like, we have this idea that we're in control. And that we can just make sure everything is going the way that we want. And so it can be really hard when we're like tunnel vision. This is the control, this is what I want. And then life is like, oh honey. And then switches it all up on you. That it's like really being able and willing to let go. And sort of just see what happens. And that's so hard for so many people.
Portia:It was really hard for me. I think after the miscarriage, I started to kind of hold on real tight. To everything and I was so regimented with what I ate. I was so regimented on how I worked out. And maybe even almost to a scary point in a way. But I needed that control because that was something that I was completely out of control of and it was probably the first time in a long time other than having my daughter that I experienced something that was so out of my control and yet in my control at the same time. Like I had to make these decisions. I had to do all of these things, but at the same time you're making these decisions to me. I feel like my hands are not on the wheel. Like it's on cruise control and I'm just kind of letting it go. And I really, really had to learn to let go of the control and loosen the grip a little bit on life. That's where meditation came into play, where it really allowed me to look at the things that were happening in my life and understanding, like, is this fully in my control or is this completely out of my control and not worth? Spending that extra bandwidth on or arguing about it or putting negative energy or even positive energy into it. I really, really had to learn that. And I feel like it took a long time. Like it did. It wasn't something that happened overnight and it wasn't something that happened in months. I feel like it took a good year to, let go a little bit and understand that not everything is going to be in my control and I can only control myself. And that's okay. And I feel like my daughter has taught me a lot. Like, I don't know, teenagers are funny. They're a little bit of a roller coaster ride of doom sometimes. And it really allowed me to kind of take a step back and being like, I don't need to control that aspect of her life, or I don't need to do that. I really noticed that I'm holding tight onto this and she doesn't even notice that I'm doing that. It really allowed me to kind of realize where I was still holding onto control in my life. And where I wasn't, and I'm far happier now, but it loosening the grip.
Ashley:It does make a huge difference. Cause it's like, we do think that we have to do all of the things that it is kind of amazing that once you step back and you're like, Oh, Hey, I did the good work here. So now this is operating with me. Basically not having to do anything with it. And the teenagers, anybody with young kids just know that, like, I hate to say terrible two's, but like how people define that time, but that phase comes back. I want to say it's about 12 to 15. It does get a little bit better, but it's like when you try to be so tunnel vision and like, hold on so tight to them, they're like, this is gross. Like leave me alone. And even though it's like. Big toddlers that feel like they can do all of the things. It's like you really do kind of have to step back and make sure that the tools that you've put in place to kind of work for them so that they learn to mess up and that they do the stupid things while they're young enough that they don't necessarily have consequence to them. But I think it can be really hard from that transition to be like, I have to control everything. I have to be on top of this. I have to know where you're going. I have to know who's going to be there and all of these things. To then be like, okay, you can just do this, text me, and have that trust in them, I think that letting go is so hard for so many parents.
Portia:Yeah, it's, yeah, it's really, really difficult. And my daughter doesn't do a lot. So I'm like always being tested, but I think it's even in other things. I think when she first entered high school, it was very important for me to teach her how to advocate for herself. So I'm like, I can't advocate for you anymore. You're going into high school. I don't think they appreciate the mom calling and being like, or whatever it may be. I'm like, you have to learn to advocate for yourself because. Once you step out of high school, it's on you. Like I can't go in to wherever you are next and your employer and say, well, I don't like the way that you're treating my daughter or anything like you have to stand up for yourself and advocate for yourself. That's so important. I had to learn to let go of that control because there were times where I was like, I really want to do this. I really want to write that email. I really want to make that phone call or whatever it may be and be like, no, let's just see where it goes. It could get messy. That's okay. We're allowed to get messy. But I know that a lesson will be learned in here for both of us, whether it's her or me or both. But yeah, it's very interesting teenagers And everything I have tons of friends that have young children and they're like, Oh, I just can't wait till they get older. And I was like, it's different, like, it's great. And they don't rely on you as much. And you don't have to like bathe them in the tub anymore, but it's a very interesting and different time. And I feel like that's when it really started to test me as an adult, because I was so young and raising her that the maturity was we were growing together. And so I really had to, kind of. Learn a little bit about myself along the way and, how I was doing things and, as every mother, I'm pretty sure we all have an idea when we have our children that this is the mother I want to be. And so it's coming back to that sometimes and being like, am I being the person that I wanted to be from the get go? Am I, turning into somebody else or whatever it may be? And so it's, it's coming back. I really like to nurture and love and hold. It was really, really hard to be like, I don't need to fix this. This is not my responsibility to fix. And the biggest thing I say to my daughter, my therapist, is like, I love this, but when she gets angry, and it's a situation that's out of her control, has nothing to do with me, but she's like lashing it out on me, I always look at her and I'm like, I'm not the enemy in this, I'm here to support you and help you, but you can't come at me, I am not your enemy. Just remember that, and usually it stops.
Ashley:Well, it's like, it's so easy for them to freak out on us because it's like, we're also the safe place. So it's like, I can do all of the things because, you're not going anywhere. Even though it can be hard when they're like that, when they're like energy vampires and they just like suck the air out of the room.
Portia:Yeah, yeah, they are.
Ashley:But that being said, there is also Really great things like I like the fact that say, I haven't had to see a movie with a cartoon in like 10 years, so I appreciate the fact that now we can watch the same shows, or, if we're in a movie theater she can go to the potty, all by herself, or things like that were like, I don't have to be the one to, take you to the mall if you want to go shopping I do have to wire you the cash but like that independence and that freedom of, Like we're not at the place where we're friends per se yet because she still is obviously like has rules and all of the other things but it's like getting to see glimmers of that I think is kind of fantastic and as much as the moods are hit and miss I really do think that once they're kind of like in the 16, 17, 18 mark it does get easier or it has gotten easier in my household anyways that there is There's pros and cons of every age, but I do love the phase that we're in.
Portia:Yeah, I agree. I really like it. You see them more as... Individuals. I know you still see your children as individuals, but they're still very much like attached to you. They're just a part of you in a way, but you start to see them as individuals with their own lives and sparking their own conversations with you and bringing up topics that you're like, Oh, I never even really thought of that before, or just different discussions. I like that. It makes me think. I couldn't imagine it. Having a child, like a lot of my friends have young children, they're in their thirties. And I'm like, I couldn't even imagine because I like being this close in age. I feel like there's a lot of things that I can relate to with her and, just the different conversations. I still feel very relevant as a parent because I feel like after a while you feel like you're not. And you're like, oh my gosh, what are they saying? Like, I don't even know what that slang means.
Ashley:I have to get her almost to explain her English to me.
Portia:Yeah. I'm like, I don't know. This is what we said. It kind of makes you feel like you're not hip or current anymore, but at the same time, I think I still feel like. She still wants to be around me and wants to hang out with me and we're going on a road trip. I'm really excited about that because it's a different way to bond I appreciate this age. I really love the younger age of the exploration and where everything was new and they're experiencing the world for the first time. I loved that because I felt like I was reliving the world through their eyes at that point. And then it kind of weird limbo period. And then now they emerge as these beings and it's very cool as their personality shapes and their friendships change and their wardrobe changes and all of these different things. I love watching my daughter evolve into who she is slowly becoming.
Ashley:And it's kind of like a pat on the back for us too, of like, you're actually a cool person. Like I raised you to be nice and functional and you're not a jerk to other people just being able to kind of see that I agree with you watching the evolution of them turning into a real human, because I just don't think like 10 and under, obviously they're real but they're not they're still like jello in the sense that they're being formed that they don't really have the ability to say this is what I strongly believe in at that age they get just their brain doesn't exist that way.
Portia:Yeah, they start to really understand what their values are and,, it's nice. Like we get to have conversations. I should be like, this person texts me and I don't understand what they mean by it. Is this sarcasm? Is this to be hurtful to me? Is this supposed to be playful to me? And I was like, okay, like what was the circumstance, like what was going on? And reminding them to set boundaries, you don't have to people please all the time. It's interesting because. I really appreciate that, especially my own daughter is that she just. is striving to be, the best person that she can be. I wasn't like that when I was 16, like she was telling me about a scenario that was happening in her class. They had a supply teacher and she's like, Oh my God, she's going on about it. And afterwards, I said to my husband, I said, well, unfortunately, like I was the other kid. I was the kid that was causing the problem, not the kid that wanted the problems to stop. And I said, it's just, it's so interesting how we're very different people. And yet, we're very similar at the same time. I just love seeing it.
Ashley:I think also with our generation, like I was born in the 80s, raised in the 90s. We weren't told to talk about mental health. We weren't really. Necessarily told about positive and negative situations in the same like I feel like the message was just like be pretty or even just watching like some old 90 shows like Beverly Hills 90210 is on Paramount right now. So I'm going back and binging it and the stuff that was on that show is so cringy like there was a situation where this girl was almost date raped and her friends come in and go. I told you not to wear that to the party. Like I couldn't even imagine, but that, I think is why we were the way that we were. And I feel like now the conversations with our kids with just being more open and having real discussions with them, having mental health be put as such an importance and talked about in schools and really be more accessible than I think it ever was. I think that's one of the great shifts in our kids that they don't have to be hot mess expresses like we were.
Portia:So true. We watched Legally Blonde over the weekend and it was kind of the same thing where there was some pretty cringy moments where I was like, Ooh, I can't believe I watched this, but I never picked up on it though. Yeah. Watching it. But I was like, Oh my gosh, there was another one. Like bring it on. I've watched again. And that was like a very interesting, it was nineties. It was huge. And I'm like, Oh my God, some of the things that they said. And I'm like, Oh, but I was like, but once again, like I didn't really pick up on those things when I was watching it, when I was 15, 16, it was so normalized. Yeah. I was like looking at their dance moves, like, I don't know. And their outfits, that's what I was paying attention to, but it's very interesting when I had my daughter, it was very important for me to be open with her and not hide anything from her and obviously doing it at a rating dependent on her age, of course. spilling the beans all the time, but being very honest, and especially when I had the DNC, it was very apparent that I needed to be honest. We kept her in the dark the entire time. She thought I was sick. She thought I was dying. And so that was really scary. And that was only over a month and a half. And for her feeling this way, not saying anything to us, and we said nothing to her because we really didn't know what was going on until, a week and a half before. And at that point, I think you're just trying to wrap your head around what's happening and you just don't have the capacity to explain it to your 12 year old. But I remember talking to her about it after and really. Having to kind of walk the walk and talk the talk and being like, okay, I'm going to be open about my emotions. So if I'm standing here crying, I'm going to tell you why I'm crying. I'm not going to go hide into the bathroom in shame because I don't want you to see me in this way. I'm like, this is natural. Something terrible just happened to us, to all of us. We were all excited about this and it's okay to feel sad at random moments. Thank you. There's no right time to feel sad. I still feel sad. All the time, but, grief is one of those things that. Sometimes it hits you way later. And there's so many stages of it and it can easily come back up and you can easily be triggered by something you see by a conversation that was had I did an event on the weekend and the speaker talked about miscarriage and it felt like I was reliving that whole experience all over again, but feeling so. Grateful that she was talking about it at the same time, because I felt seen and heard in that moment because I'm like, wow, I can relate to what she's feeling right now in this moment. But yeah, having the openness with my daughter was so important for me as a mother, I didn't want to keep her in the dark.
Ashley:Well, that openness can be so hard, but it is really, really important because especially if we want them. To come to us for things. It's like we have to be okay, answering the questions we don't want to answer, talking about topics that we wish that they weren't asking about, and just really kind of biting the bullet and being like, okay, let's dive into this. Let's make this something where, you know, if they are Drunk at a party that they'll call us, or if they've gotten into a situation with their friends and there's, texting or bullying going on that they'll come and trust that we won't freak out on them and that it can be this like conversation versus the fear of punishment, which I think is why a lot of people will hide things or. lie about things. So I think it's really commendable that you see that within your child and want to create that relationship where she is going to be open. And grief is one of those things that in some way, it's a blessing that it shows us that we loved that person or that situation so much that we will mourn it for the rest of our lives. And then the downside is that it never ever goes away. And that it's okay if it's Five years later on some random Tuesday and you see a commercial and then all of a sudden you're bawling your eyes out. It's important to give yourself grace that it's okay to feel whatever you're gonna feel for however long you're gonna feel about it.
Portia:Yeah, I hundred percent agree. I just sit here and I'm like nodding like yeah, yeah, yeah. And I always say that we had like a very hard beginning of our year. I have chickens. And I lost my chickens and I had to like my pets. And then our dog just died. We don't know why she was young and we had to grieve that. It was hard. The whole time I'm grieving all of this and talking to my therapist and trying to figure out how it feels in my body and everything. I just remind myself that grief is the price you pay for love. I loved. My chickens wholeheartedly and I love my dog wholeheartedly and that's what I have to do and I would never change it for the world because I got six years of endless love with my dog and learned so much about myself and dogs in general and I would never change that for the world and a lot of people were like, would you do it again? Yeah, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'll do it again my entire life because I want to love I want to love endlessly and with my whole entire heart and if that's the price I have to pay, then I will pay that price every single time,
Ashley:which is so beautiful to stay open like that., can you tell everybody if they're looking for the WE podcast or the WE experience where they would find you online.
Portia:Sure. So you can find us on Instagram, of course. The.WE.experience and it's quite happen in place to be there for our podcast. You can find it on Spotify and Apple and it's under, this is We, and our second season is coming soon, so I'm excited for that.
Ashley:Well, thank you so much, Portia, for having this conversation with me today. Thank you. Oh, it was amazing.
Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the filled up cup podcast. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review. If you like what you hear, you can also connect with us at filledupcup.Com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.