I'm back! ...with a new vision...

After a long break, the podcast is back—with a reset and a new co-host. In this reboot episode, we share what’s changed, why the pause was necessary, and why we’re now centering the conversation on matriarchy and matriarchal productivity: building systems that sustain life, protect the vulnerable, and don’t borrow from our future. We contrast the “triangle of domination” with a “circle of care,” talk about sustainable productivity as a matriarchal relationship to the self, and sketch the vision for what this show is becoming. 

Find me on IG @thejoyfulmatriarch

Transcript

BRIELLE: Hello, welcome to this podcast. You may have noticed that this is something of a reset today on the podcast. I've taken a break from the podcast for quite a while. And in that time, a lot of things have been going on in my life. And a lot of changes have been taking place in my life. And I decided instead of trying to force the content, I wanted to just take a step back and just let life kind of guide me and lead me in the last couple of years. And there was a lot of growth that I needed to do. There were a lot of things that I needed to learn, lessons that I needed to learn. And so I just kind of was in this place of trusting the process. 

I kept the podcast up because I knew that I wanted to return to it. But there was something in me that just knew that there was something, there was a piece that was missing for me. There was something that I needed to learn before I could keep going on it, and I didn't know what it was
yet. Over the past couple of weeks, I feel like it's all become really,
really clear. And it's become that kind of, you know, that clarity where,
you know, people talk about this clarity, and I've experienced it a few times in life, where When you get to a certain point, you look back of the journey and you think it could not have been any other way. Like, that was exactly how it needed to be. Even though in the moment it maybe feels like a roller coaster or maybe it feels really confusing or frustrating or it makes you angry or whatever it is about the journey that is annoying or hard, when you reach a certain point, sometimes you look back and you're like, oh, that was why I had to be that way. And everything suddenly makes sense. 

So that's kind of how I feel about the last three weeks is that I've reached a point, obviously by no means the end of my growth journey. Like that, that continues always. But particularly in relationship to this podcast, that I've reached a place where now I can look back and see why I had to stop when I did stop, why there was kind of some starts and stops along the way and why things didn't completely feel aligned always, but why it had to be that way to lead me to where I am now. So I'm going to be co -hosting this podcast from now on with my husband, with my husband Brad. So, and Brad, you're here. You can say hello. 

BRAD: Hey, everybody. I'm Brad.

BRIELLE: And that's that. So Brad is going to be co -hosting this with me.
The reason why I think it's really important for me to have Brad on this podcast is that I am from now on going to be talking a lot about matriarchy and about matriarchy and about matriarchal productivity in particular.

And I'll explain a lot more about the journey to this and why this is what I'm going to be doing from now on. But first, I just want to talk about why it's really important for me to have Brad, who's obviously a man, on this podcast that is about matriarchy. And the reason is that I feel like social media is really trying to divide men and women right now. We know the red pill content that has been like really widely researched. I don't know. I haven't heard about like content geared toward women being extremely divisive and trying to divide men and women, but I'm sure it exists. Or if it doesn't yet exist, I'm sure that they're trying to make it exist. Because having us divided is exactly what the billionaire class wants. It's what the top 1% wants is to keep all of us divided, to keep us hating each other, to keep us in war with one another so that we don't see what the real threat is so that we don't join together. And, you know, we see this in politics, the right versus the left. We see this in in so many areas of life. But I think it also comes down to gender. That being said, I fully, fully believe that we need to tear down patriarchal structures because they are not helpful to men or women. They are oppressive to men and women. And we need to
build matriarchal systems in every facet, every area of life, because that is what is going to benefit both men and women. 

And when I've been, you know, listening to a lot of content on matriarchy, it is like 99.9 % women that are talking about this, which is really, really important. However, I wanted to include my husband in on this conversation because he's a really good man who really understands this stuff. And I want his voice involved as well. Because matriarchy is not something that is only exclusively good for women and children. Matriarchy is something that is good for men as well. And so I wanted to
include his voice. So Brad, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts in response to that little preamble. 

BRAD: Hi.

BRIELLE: You should have seen his face while he said that. It was very, very cute. 

BRAD: That's my voice. 

BRIELLE: That's not your voice at all. 

BRAD: No, yeah, it's, um, yeah, I don't know exactly where to start. The thing that keeps coming to my mind is, like, I'm sort of in a weird transitional phase in my life or old certainties, old things I really clung tare kind of dissolving, decomposing.

But it's interesting to me that when we start talking about things like matriarchy, which sort of just, like you said in the last three weeks, it just sort of started to be the thing that we talked about. There was no like programmed plan where it's like now we start talking about matriarchy. it just sort of started coming up as the obvious thing. Mm -hmm. And that's why I'm curious first almost to hear.
I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about what the podcast kind of used to
mean to you, like what it was about and why this shift to more of a matriarchy
focus is completely in line with all the good things that it used to be.
Yeah. So in in my conception,
obviously people experience things how they experience it, but the way that I
personally experienced making the podcast in the past was this is,
it was a podcast that I wanted to be about, um, productivity. And I wanted it to
be about sustainable productivity. And I wanted it to be about living joyfully.
And, um, you know, reaching your fullest potential, your unique fullest potential,
like all of these things. Those were, that's what I really wanted to help people
with is manage the stuff of life so that life could be peaceful and beautiful and
the way that uniquely makes sense to them. Right. It was, you know,
your encounter as a person living in the 21st century, just bombarded with never
-ending inputs, constant things to deal with and deal with and deal with.
And so many of us are just kind of putting out fires and that's what our life is
and you know you would talk about discovering that true purpose that thing that you
were that you really wanted instead of just miming other people and you talk about
through you know very specific ways how to actually get a clear mind so that you
can you could handle your life and see clearly what you were what you wanted and
what you were all about all that stuff still seems to be highly relevant absolutely
yes and those are still things that I think are really important to talk about and
those are still things that I will talk about for sure. The thing that I think was
missing for me was that it's this question that Seth Godin always poses.
And he poses this in so many of his books and he kind of keeps this question at
the forefront of many of his teachings. And that is Who do you seek to serve?
And I think that that was where I felt very disjointed.
And I felt like, you know, I want to serve people that are really creative and
artistic. But then I'd be like, but why? Because some people are creative and
artistic and they're kind of narcissistic about it. And is that who I'm wanting to
serve? Well, not really. And then I was like, I really want to serve people that
are like healers and caregivers. But there's a whole lot of bullshit in that world.
And so then I was like, is that really the world that like, I want to serve a
lot of people that are in that world, but is that really the world that I want to
immerse myself in? And then I was like, I really want to serve mothers, you know,
and this, this people that are like caring for children who, like these women that
are so overburdened by everything that is expected of them as mothers and often
working mothers and inequitable division of labor within the house and all of these
things that that are problems that are unique to women and particularly mothers.
They're particularly acute for mothers. But then I was like, but it's not just
mothers. Like it's the antis of the world that I want to serve. And then I was
like, but it's also the good men who I want to like understand these things too. I
don't want to be exclusively creating content for women because this is also,
these conversations are really important for men, and particularly the best men really
need to be hearing this stuff because the best men actually care about this stuff.
And so in all of these, like, as I was wrestling, I literally have been wrestling
with this question for two years. And you know this because you've seen this
wrestling. And of course, the other major group that you have wanted to serve were
musicians. Yes. And you thought, I remember, I don't know if it was, was it last
year? Last summer. Thinking like just retooling the whole program focused on working
musicians. Because you seem to believe, no, you not seem to, you believe that that
music is, not only is it like a wonderful, beautiful thing that deserves,
you know, support and focus. It's also a valid career that you have that people
should be able to make a good living from. And a lot of musicians seem,
a lot of musicians, from what I have seen just from the outside have a lot of
very, like, abusive views of their lowliness that either they're like egotistical and
think they're better than everyone else or they just have the lowest view of
themselves. Usually those kind of mix, don't they? And I just thought it was so.
And this is a good spot to interject and be like, not all musicians. Not all
anything ever. That's a good thing to say. Let's just like encompass this whole
podcast by saying not all everything ever. Maybe that's what the podcast should be
called. That's going to be the next movie that comes out after everything everywhere
all at once. Not anything always, all ever. I'm going to keep adding words to it.
But yeah, you you wanted to serve musicians. And I remember thinking that makes a
lot of sense you you're a successful musician yourself clear mind discovering purpose
like changing even what success means but you're at something was missing still
because i was like i really i was fired up because i was like i feel like she's
finally got it with the musician thing but it was like missing that piece of a
better world. Yes, exactly. That's exactly it. The phrase that we have said to each
other and I've said on this podcast many times is the worlds we imagine are the
worlds we build, right? And that piece of like empowering people to live out their
purpose. And I was at last summer, I was really thinking I wanted to help musicians
with this. Just because of my own expertise and my own, my own journey from
becoming like a self -doubting musician full of limiting beliefs to actually
understanding how I could best serve people and uniquely serve people. And then the
opportunities that that and the um the the abundance that that brought into our
lives and uh just just the the the wonderful sense of like living out uh your your
best as in your career um and so i was really fired up about that because i was
like there are so many musicians that i want to let go of their limiting beliefs
of what's possible and actually understand that it is possible to make uh to make a
very good living doing the thing that you're here to do, right? And that that
possibility is there, but especially as we harness and understand the things that
make us unique in the space of whatever space it is that we're in.
And, of course, last summer I was thinking particularly music. So, like, that was a
piece of the puzzle as well. And so because I believe that a piece of the puzzle
is that we there's enough for everybody and that we can all experience that
provision of having enough. So this is where like it all started coming together
that I was given the language that the thing,
the thread that ties all of these things together that I've been wanting and longing
to help build in the world. And I've been longing to figure out what it is and
who it is that I'm speaking to, who it is that I'm serving. This thread that ties
it all together is the matriarchy is people that want to build a world that in
which the conditions for life and for sustaining life are prioritized.
And they are,
that is what we are doing. We are, we are creating systems that sustain life. And
so when it comes to productivity, it's like matriarchal productivity, productivity that
sustains life, that doesn't borrow from our own future energy reserves,
but that takes into account what we have to give right now in this moment without
borrowing from our future and leaving us burned out tomorrow. So how can we have
systems of productivity that are matriarchal in that sense that they're carrying for
the sustaining of life into the future. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
It's like you were missing some kind of a larger vision for society,
you know? Yeah. It's like it was operating implicitly, but now with matriarchy and
all the things that means which we're going to talk about a lot I'm assuming and
because it you know it's that's one of those words that's full of misunderstanding.
But that all the people you're wanting to serve are all invested in that kind of
project Doing their part in the construction,
the building of a society that centers life and vulnerable,
vulnerable pieces. Yeah. The vulnerable people as well. And this is why it's for
women and men, because there are women who are not doing this work and there are
women who are. There are men who are not doing this work and there are men who
are. And so really, when it comes down to who do you seek to serve that question,
now I know that who I seek to serve is anyone who is invested in the project of
creating a world that's based on the poles of sustaining life for now and for the
future. So for me, that is people who are invested in building a matriarchal world
instead of a patriarchal world. So building something better that's based on these
principles of life and protection of life.
Interesting too is that, You know, this doesn't always get analyzed carefully enough,
which is built into the word productivity is produce. Exactly. And that is not,
produces a verb. It doesn't, it, it doesn't hold any implicit,
like, content. You could produce, you know, a garden or you could produce a gun you
know you're constructing or creating or facilitating and cultivating so then the
question is if you're if you're engaged with the the notion of productivity it's
like you can hack your productivity and learn how to make weapons efficiently
actually that's kind of what the western world has done And what you can do.
And this is what I think I actually did for a little while. I was really excited
about this hacking your productivity. And I actually hacked my productivity so well
that I borrowed from my future. And I did get really tired. But I was so,
so streamlined and so productive. But because I didn't have this vision of like
restfulness in the present and I did I did have that to a certain extent it just
wasn't fully in fleshed and so I was doing like this is something that we've talked
about before that I was doing I I had such good systems for taking care of our
home that I was literally able to do it single handedly And I did not have the
language or the ability to have conversations with you about equitable division of
labor. All I did was hack my own system so that I could work harder. And things
didn't start to get better until I learned how to have those conversations with you
and how to actually talk about that stuff, and how important it is that I not do
everything myself. How important it was that I like ask you to do these things and
not and ask you to not have to ask you to do these things,
you know, so that you would do them on your own. And it was you were happy to do
them. It's just that, like, we just didn't have these, you know, you were raised in
the patriarchy. I was raised in the patriarchy. We were, like, we were working off
of these systems of productivity that certain things were my responsibility and they
didn't have to be. Because this is, this is a system that disenfranchises women and
gives them too much, too much labor and too much responsibility in certain areas and
not enough responsibility in other areas. Anyway, that's a whole conversation. I think
we can do a whole podcast on that.
That sounds like what I'd love to do. You'd love to talk about it.
No, but really, yeah.
So, you know, we're using these words, patriarchy and matriarchy. And I'm not, don't
want to get stuck in a define your terms like precisely that we're going to use
forever. Like that's not what I'm talking about. But I'm interested in when you when
you say the patriarchy or patriarchy, what are some of the main sort of images and
dynamics that you're talking about? So I see the matriarchy as a circle of care.
That's kind of, if I'm ever saying matriarchy, the picture that is in my head is
this circle of care. And whenever I see, say, patriarchy, what I see in my mind is
a triangle of domination. And so in, I think almost every structure that we
participate in in our society is a triangle right now. And that is absolutely
heartbreaking. because in the
Everybody is scrambling to get up as high as they can in this,
like in this triangle, this pyramid of patriarchy. And so the way that you get
higher, the way that you scramble higher is clawing, you know, clawing your way to
the top and stepping on people, seeing who is vulnerable just like a little weaker
than you are so you can step on them and and go a little higher who is higher
than you that you can maybe grab their grab their arm and pull yourself up a
little further aspire to be like the guy up a little higher yeah and then and he
said the guy which i think is very telling well i was going to ask in you know
in this pyramid of patriarchy Like,
this is what I'm, what I kind of am wondering. Mm -hmm. It seems like in the
pyramid of patriarchy, there really is a concrete value placed on men,
males, as males should occupy the higher levels at each level.
Mm -hmm. But it Sort of seems like when you're talking about matriarchy and the
circle of care, that isn't necessarily, that isn't like the female mere image of the
patriarchy, where it's like now in the matriarchy, we center women's dominance.
It seems like they're not patriarchy and matriarchy are not they are not like twin
concepts they're in some ways totally not even opposites they're they're completely
different shapes mm -hmm different paradigms for understanding like social organization
yeah absolutely absolutely in uh In the patriarchy,
it's kind of like, it's understood that the top, the people in the top,
0 .0001 % are all men, you know, the very,
very tip of this little triangle, they're all men.
And as you go down the triangle, more and more women can infiltrate,
right? And then the children are at the very, very bottom, unless they're children
who might grow up to be one of the men who's on the highest.
And then they might be able to rise in rank, or they might be a little bit higher
in this triangle to start with. But it's men,
then women, than children. And I think we see it in our family structures, how a
lot of women were told for so many years that their empire,
their domain was the home. And so many mothers,
hopefully this is changing now, and I really do have seen it changing quite a bit
in a lot of the generations of mothers that are mothering now and have mothered in
the last several decades. But there was this like expectation that women were like
the empress of their home, you know? And the children had to obey without
questioning. The subjects. They were the subjects, yeah.
And all of these things were just disenfranchising to children, but made women feel
like they had a little bit of power because as soon as their husband got home,
they had no power, right? So, like, there's, there is a lot of, like, gendered
aspects to patriarchal structures. But the idea in matriarchal structures is that,
um, that if it's a circle of care, absolutely every person at some point in their
life will be in the center, and absolutely every human at some point will be on
the outer side of the circle of care doing the protecting. And so every single
human begins as a baby who's completely vulnerable, in complete need of protection,
has no ability to care for themselves. We all start at the center. We all start at
the center. And every single one of us will almost, well, maybe not every single
one, but I think almost all of us will end our lives at the circle for some
amount of time where we are, you know, ideally we're dying when we're old and frail
and have lived our lives, you know, and we are now back in the center of the
circle of care. So at the center, you have children, you have the elderly, you have
people, you know, who are at various times of vulnerability in their lives.
Which will come no matter what. No matter what. Some people might be luckier than
others and have less. But from what I've seen and experienced,
those moments of vulnerability, of disaster, of being lost,
of, of losing something, you know, come.
And they, they will come. And we should stop with the fantasy that we can somehow
make it through life without ever getting to that point.
Yeah. Or that you've done something wrong if you end up in a place where you need
care from other people. You haven't done anything wrong. Just life is shitty.
Life is really, really, really hard. Yeah. And the only way that we get through it
is together because life isn't always shitty. Life isn't always hard going back to
the like not all not all men whatever life isn't always shitty it's not all hard
there's a lot of joy in it too and and so in this matriarchal um matriarchal
structure it's like there's constant moving back and forth because we are all more
or less vulnerable in different times of our lives And sometimes you might be
vulnerable in a certain area of life. Like you might have really poor mental health,
but you might be like not vulnerable financially or something like that.
And so in those moments, you can be closer to the center of the circle where
you're being cared for as as you're learning how to, you know,
finding how you're going to take care of your own mental health, but you can also
be caring for others because you are not in a place of financial stress.
And so you can be giving in that way to the community. So not all people who are
closer to the center are closer to the center in every way, right? You even think
of like people that have like maybe mental disabilities,
where you'd think that they're close to the center of the circle because of
different mental disabilities that they might have. But they actually are caring for
other people in the community, like in really beautiful ways. I think of my second
cousin who had Down syndrome, who just always had the most beautiful, encouraging,
lovely things to say to all of us. And I remember being a kid and being cared for
by her in some really beautiful ways where she would just like, she would stroke
our hair and just say the most loving things to us. And even as I grew up,
I would look forward to seeing her because I loved her and because I felt cared
for by her. You know, she was always older than me. She was always, you know,
I always saw her as somebody to look up to, even though she had Down syndrome. So
there are, like, just because somebody is vulnerable in a certain way doesn't mean
that they're like not vulnerable, not contributing to and not protecting in some way.
Or it doesn't mean, it just sounds like we're trying to describe a shape that
actually has more dimensions than two or even three.
Oh, yeah, I like that. So it gets complicated as an image. But what I'm hearing is
when
you protect, quote, the vulnerable, and by that I'm meaning those dimensions of a
Yes. That are vulnerable. Yes, that's the way to put it, isn't it? Then they,
interestingly, are also, then their power is also able to shine or activate or be
used. If they're not being protected, then they can't protect.
Exactly. And all of us are vulnerable in certain ways and strong in certain ways
and all of us over the course of our lives will in certain dimensions become
vulnerable and become strong and all of these things right and i love that way of
saying it's like it's a circle but it's like not even like a three d circle it's
like a five d circle or something like yeah yeah where it's like we don't always
have with our, with our, like, typical senses, the ability to perceive all the
dimensions in which an object is operating, right? So sometimes we have to just,
uh, sometimes it's like things are more complex than we can perceive easily. Mm -hmm.
And that's just, that's what this circle is like or this sphere.
Mm sphere. You know, maybe a sphere is actually a better image because a sphere is
almost, a sphere is so many different, so is a circle,
though, so many different levels of interior.
Mm -hmm. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but what I love about the sphere is that
you could be like
close to the interior from one angle, but like far from another angle.
Is that true if you're in a sphere? But you know what I'm saying? That might not
actually be true. I'm a mathematician. I have trouble visualizing things in my head,
so I can't actually like visualize this shape. A sphere is like a ball.
That I know, but can I picture a ball in my head? Maybe not.
Yeah. So, okay, so all of this is leading to this.
So I now know the world that I want to build. You know,
the worlds we imagine are the worlds we build. I know the world that I want to
imagine in great detail and the world that I want to build. And so with my unique
expertise on sustainable productivity, what I really want to do is use this to serve
the people that I want to serve, which are people that share this vision, people
that also want to build a world with systems that are based on Circle of Care as
their primary model for how we create this system. So that means that the people
who, you know, would probably vibe with what you're talking about really could do
nearly nearly any kind of work, be involved in sort of any kind of work.
Potentially, there's probably a few industries that are really just designed for the,
they are designed to perpetuate dominant structures. Those people probably not going
to love this. But Musicians, artists,
you know, gardeners, even just trade, average trade workers,
mothers, stay -at -home dads, intellectuals, right? Like, there's kind of room in this
for anyone. It's about a shared vision. Yes, exactly. And less about, yeah,
it's like a shared vision about what we should produce at all. Yes, exactly.
And this is, I think,
the way that my brain works, I can't do the puzzle.
Even if all the pieces are in front of me, I can't do a puzzle unless I have the
picture in front of me of what the puzzle is going to be. Not because I couldn't
figure it out, but because, like, quite simply, I don't know if I want to do the
puzzle. Because, like, my motivation to do a puzzle is very much on,
like, what is this puzzle going to look like when it's done? So if this is like
an all -white puzzle, wild horses couldn't drag me to do an all -white puzzle
because, like, that just sounds like the worst thing in the world to create, right?
The old classic saying, Wild horses couldn't drag me. Isn't that a saying wild
horses couldn't drag me to it? I think it may be a saying. I think it's probably
from like the 1880s, but a lot of your sayings do come from that era.
Well, when I was in high school, I remember somebody, no, I don't think I was
quite in high school yet. I think it was great school. But I was homeschooled. And
so I had a lot of old -timey sayings, but I didn't know they were old -timey
sayings. I just thought that they were like the sayings that people said. But the
hip youth said. And I remember getting to know this girl who went to school and we
got along really, really well. And she was like, one of the things I love about
Ebrel is that you're just like, you're always talking like in this old -timey way.
And You're always throwing out these old -timey sayings, and I was like, ha, ha,
ha, ha, ha, because I hadn't realized it up until that point that I was,
like, talking like I was from the 1880s. You just thought she thought you were
cool. Exactly. I thought we were just vibing. And we were. But she was also,
like, really taking a lot of delight in my old fashioned way of speaking.
Well, I do like it, too. Sometimes you'll drop words and as if they're just normal
parts of your vocabulary. Like the word cantankerous. That's a word you say a lot.
And I don't think I had heard that word used in my entire life.
I knew what it meant, but it sounds like it's from another time. It does. Yeah.
Yeah. And then I say words completely wrong sometimes, too, like, curricature.
Curricature, yeah. But apparently it's caricature. I think it's caricature. Yeah,
I think it is caricature. But it just sounds completely wrong because I grew up
saying curricature. You've done a lot of reading as a quote. A lot of reading and
not a lot of time talking to people. No.
But what were we talking about? Wild horses could drag me, Oh, yeah, to doing an
all -white puzzle, right? Because that's a boring vision. And so for me,
at Christmas time, if the family is doing a puzzle, the extended family, I'll walk
into the room and be like, I have no interest in this puzzle whatsoever because I
just don't like the picture. But sometimes I'll walk in and I'll just be like, oh,
this is so beautiful. I love this. And I'll just get right to work for hours and
hours and hours. And so this is how my brain works where, like, I can't just,
like, have puzzle pieces in front of me and I start putting them together. I have
to know what the overarching thing is. What are we doing here, people? Yeah.
What are we doing here people? This is why I hate meetings. Because so many
meetings, I'm just, like, asking that question through the whole meeting, like, what
are we doing here, guys? And if that answer is not immediate and apparent,
then I get a little frustrated. Although sometimes that, you know, not always.
Because I'm like, sometimes I really like those brainstorming meetings where we don't
quite know what we're doing, but we're just being weird together and like thinking
weird. I love that. Let's have a brainstorming meeting where this is what we're
doing. Yes, that's right. And I like that knowing that purpose, that there is no
purpose to this one. This one is just play. Because isn't, if I'm remembering right
from your sort of systems thinking in your course,
don't, isn't brainstorming a pretty critical component of figuring out anything?
Absolutely, yeah. I think my problem tended to be that I love,
I associate brainstorming with creativity and can get stuck there where it's just all
a brainstorm of ideas. And then nothing's actually created.
Creativity seems like it would imply something being produced.
Right. Productivity again. But sometimes people like me who are a little bit live in
our minds can think we're doing things. Right. When we're actually just doing one
phase. Which is a really important phase. And I think that we don't always know how
long that phase lasts. Right. And so we can sometimes feel pressure. Like I think
of even my own journey with this podcast where like that It took years for me to
figure out what it was that I was even doing this for,
right? And now that I've landed there, it all makes sense, right? But that's, it's
kind of like that ideation, ideation stage. Yeah. Ideation?
I don't know. I don't know. I've only read that word before. It's like that stage
of having the idea or like knowing that you're circling something and you just have
to let that take the time that it takes because it eventually will become clear and
so we don't have to rush that brainstorming stage either but okay so this is this
is another thing that I wanted to just say you brought up um the course that I
made right and I realized that so this is this is a course just about um
sustainable productivity that that I now really want to rework from a matriarchal
structure point of view. But I was already circling that because this sustainable
productivity, I was working in the images of circles. And it was like a matriarchal
approach to ourselves and our own productivity. Because I was like you have to have
the center, uh, of your productivity has to be knowing without a doubt who you are
and what you're here to do, right? And that doesn't have to be anything bigger
fancy. It's just like, what is it that you're here to do? And for me, I said this
before on the on the podcast, I think my, uh, my statement of purpose for my life.
It has to be something that can undergird any of the whats that life brings you,
right? So it's not like my purpose isn't to play the violin so that people cry
because what if something happens to my fingers, right? So then I can't play my
violence, then I can't live out my purpose, right? And so my my, my,
like, why purpose statement is to dance in the bright light of freedom so that
anyone who sees those movements of grace is led one step closer to the thin places
where the divine awaits. So that's my purpose statement. That's what I live to be
in the world. And so that means being committed to freeing myself of any chain that
holds me back, that holds me down, that holds me from being the truest version of
who I am, right? And so that's ongoing work always. And so it kind of sounds like
one of the, one of the places of your growth is in your understanding of what,
like, what it looks like, what the place where the divine awaits looks like and it
sounds like that is this sense that this circle of care yeah yeah maybe i i don't
think i was necessarily drawing that i would have to think about that to see if
that's what if that's what what it is that i'm actually thinking because i hadn't
conceived of it that way um but it the part of the work of living out that
purpose statement is like figuring out what does the divine even mean to me right
what is it that is the divine that awaits right and what is my relationship to the
divine that awaits and where are the thin places so the thin places for me are
creativity right anywhere where we're we're being vulnerable and honest. And so
that's, again, that's part of the reason why I wanted to work with musicians and
artists and creative people is because that is one of those places. Another place
that's a thin place, I think, is motherhood because you just understand so many
things about the world. And so that's why I wanted to work with mothers. And so
all of these things, yeah, I would have to, I have to chew on what you were
saying a little bit more before I think I respond to it. But it's just interesting
how there all the various things you just said are all the same dynamics and pieces
that you're talking about with matriarchy. You talked about vulnerability and you
talked about mothers, mothering, right? Mothering,
you encounter the joys and shittiness of life very greatly,
right, on like a daily basis. So I don't know, it's just... That's really
interesting because I think a place where I imagine the divine awaiting is always a
community. Like, the image that I think of is like a party happening in a forest,
right? Like around a campfire kind of thing. And there's always many people there.
And so that's where the divine is waiting is in this, in nature, in,
in, like, right relationship with nature, in, like, good community that is really
there to just be joyful and celebrate and live together. But it really sounds like
this vision of a matriarchal world matches that.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I think I understand what you're saying a little bit more.
So going back to this, like, the sustainable productivity was a,
was like a version of a matriarchal relationship to oneself,
right? So going back to that, at the center is this purpose, right? And the purpose
is the thing that we protect. That's the thing that is the most vulnerable to being
forgotten or being abused or whatever it is. So your purpose is like this vulnerable
thing at the center of you that is so beautiful and so precious and needs to be
protected. And then the outer circle is that that kind of surrounds that in my
sustainable productivity vision. So is, is like the systems that you create in your
life to best support those, that purpose, right? And so that's like an outer layer,
but it's still very, very in relationship with your purpose. Always, always,
every system that you create is always coming back to the center of like, is this
system supporting my purpose. And then the very outer layer, the outer circle in
this, like, I guess, matriarchal relationship to oneself and one's own productivity
and what you do. The outer circle is what you actually do in the world. And that
part is, uh, is like very, um,
peaceful, right? It's peaceful because it's targeted and you're,
you're doing the thing that needs to be done through the system for the purpose,
right? And so it's not like this, like, chaotic, chaotic outer circle of putting out
fires constantly. Exactly. It's like these are measured.
You don't have to be being productive all the time in all the ways. You just can
act as you need to act. So it's like this outer, it's like almost like this outer
circle of protection is like the one that inter, uh,
interacts the most with your world. But it can be like calm and very protective of
the inner layers. Does that make sense? And this is like a, this is a conception
that, or sorry, a parallel to matriarchy that I've just kind of realized.
I think I, I instinctively knew that this is the way to be sustainable in life and
sustainably productive in life is like honoring these things about you. But I didn't
fully make the connection to matriarchy into that, like,
wider vision that, like, each of us have to have that, um, matriarchal, uh,
relationship to solve. Exactly. Exactly. That's the way to put it. Matriarchal
relationship to yourself. That's how you put it. I'm just saying what you said.
Well, thank you for putting it in those words. Yeah. Um, to yourself so that you
can so that you can be that in the wider system of matriarchy.
It actually, I mean, what this episode, this reboot episode is doing is I'm hoping
inspiring like a lot of future conversations because that's what it's doing for me.
Yeah. Because right now you know you know how important um the therapy internal
family systems has been to me to both of us to both of us and that's been really
essential in my like paradigm shifts but i'm realizing as you're talking that i the
reason it probably is so resonant why iFS is so resonant is because it is a
matriarchal relationship with the self that's what it is
Because nothing that you're saying is like a shock to me. You know,
you discovering that matriarchy as a sort of conceptual framework or vision just kind
of fit all the pieces. It made, it was the puzzle you wanted to contribute to.
But it always was. You just didn't know it was that. You had,
you said you had an innate sense, right? And so what I'm wondering is,
because it was so important for you years ago to get back in touch with your
instincts or your innate sense,
what I'm wondering is you have very effectively described how matriarchy is for men
and women and everyone. But I'm wondering, specifically,
is there something about women that makes sense for women to be not dominating the
pyramid? Because that's patriarchy, but setting the vision for the community.
Yeah. This is a really good question. And I feel like this could take us into a
whole other episode. And maybe this is something that I would love to think really
deeply about and maybe talk about in the future. My initial reaction to that is
that women are biologically wired for the care of the future.
When, with children, because we bear children, we have the ability to bear children
in our bodies. And there's like, when we carry a child,
we are also carrying, if we have a female child, we're also carrying our
grandchildren in there with us, right? Because the eggs are fully, fully formed
inside that baby as you're carrying her. And so we are literally carrying our
matril. What's the word I'm looking for? Maternal. I can,
because Matt is different than matriarchal, Matt, so I couldn't find the word.
We're carrying our maternal line with us. Like I was literally in the womb of my
mother's mother.
And so in her loving this child that was inside of her and then caring for this
child as she grew up, my mother, she was literally caring for me inside of my
mother, you know, or a huge part of what would become me. And same thing with my
mother. She literally carried my two girls in her body.
And there's something really, really beautiful and cool about that. And if my girls
have girls, then, or any children, right? If they have any children,
I carried them inside of me, you know.
And that's just really cool. There's something about that that I think. And we know
that children like cells from a baby or fetus end up in the brain of the mother,
right? Yeah, remember you saying that. I'm not a scientist. I don't know about all
of these things but that is so incredibly beautiful that that then alters the brain
chemistry of a mother and I think that women just biologically are wired to have
wisdom for the future like there's a reason why evolution has women living a very
long time past the ability to bear children, right? And men,
they, evolution has decided that men don't live as long, generally, right? I think
there's a reason for this because the elderly grandmothers are such a valuable
resource for the thriving of humanity, you know, and,
and so. And healthy, Healthy societies, the ones we read about,
whether in history or today, that the ones that are really beautiful and inspiring
and sustainable, really do treasure and center grandmothers,
elderly women. I'm thinking of a lot of the indigenous societies of North America,
which I studied quite a bit in my doctoral program, but
a number of them really centered the wisdom of the elderly women.
And that set the vision for society, the answer to the question,
like, what do we do in here, people? That question was answered by the grandmothers.
And, I mean, Western society, which has been extraordinarily patriarchal on a whole,
is,
you know, I don't think there's people who would, you know, fight tooth and nail
about all, like, the benefits of Western society, and we could talk about those
things all day, but I think it's safe to say it's very unsustainable.
You can argue about the merits or demerits of it,
but it is not a sustainable vision, even just straight up concretely.
We don't have enough earths to
continue on this way, right? And that's got to have some connection to the vision
of society sets. And when it's about domination,
sustainability goes out the window. Like when the focus becomes on conquest and
domination. Conquest and domination, Yeah, see how many topics there are. I know.
There's so many. Wasteful.
Astoundingly wasteful projects.
Just conquest and war. Think about how much waste is involved in that. And I don't
just mean the waste of human lives, that too. But I mean just like resources,
fields, like cultural produce,
you know, buildings. It's just, it lays waste to things in this desperate crawling
up the pyramid. You know,
if we just, we can't keep going that way.
We all know that,
I think what you might be offering is some empowerment that we can actually form
circles. Yes. If we want to. Yes. And I think that that's what I'm so glad you
brought it back to this place because this is what I want to be talking about from
now on is is that it,
we can do it. We can do it and we can do it sustainably.
Like we can build a better future for the next generations.
We can do it. But we need to uproot the patriarchal systems and ways of
conceptualizing the world and ways of relating to people and relating to ourselves.
We need to like uproot this at every single level for anybody that wants to
participate in this work of creating a more sustainable future for a,
in a world that sustains the conditions for life, right, that prioritizes that
conditions for sustaining life.
We need to feel hopeful that this is possible because it is.
It is. We built the world that we have now. We built it. We can tear it down.
We can build a new one. We can build a new way of being and relating to ourselves
and relating to other people. And that is what I want to inspire in all of us and
in myself and everybody. And it's what I want to help us all create. So I'll be
talking a lot about matriarchal productivity and a lot of things kind of surrounding
this matriarchy kind of thing. Because as I see different patriarchal systems and
ways of being and ways and relating in my own life and in my world, I want to
just be sharing them and talking about what I'm seeing and what I'm learning as we
go on this. Because this is a long -term, long -haul project.
So it's rather than getting ahead, which is the crawling up the pyramid sort of
image. It's more of a getting on with it. Yeah.
Yeah. And I've got a lot of questions that I'm going to bring here.
A lot of questions and I'm in.
I love it. I love it. So I'm looking forward to so many more conversations with
you about all of this. And, yeah, thank you to everybody who's listening right now
because I know that I have not been present on this platform for a couple of
years. And so thank you for your patience and for trusting me to listen to this
episode, even after so much time away. It wasn't that I didn't care. It's that I
care so much that I had to go on this journey that I've gone on that has led me
here to a place where hopefully I can offer some valuable and interesting
insight and conversations and questions and things that we can begin working through
together because This is possible. It is possible to create a better world,
but we got to do it together because the worlds we imagine are the worlds we
build. And when we imagine together, it's even more powerful.
True, true. All right.
Thanks for listening. And I'll see you next time on the podcast.