Josh 0:55

Hi

Erin 0:55

everybody. What'd it do, baby Boo? Here

Josh 0:57

we're, wow. That was

Erin 0:59

such a good podcast. I know. I'm very excited to share this one. Holy shit. Lauren is epic. Yeah. So just for the audience, Lauren, I was gonna say Ledbetter, but I'm pretty sure her married name is not Ledbetter. No. McKinley. Yep. Yes. Is a beautiful kind of friend from an another era of ours. Yeah. Which we'll talk about. But we had a mutual friend that said, you guys need to connect. You're on very parallel spiritual paths right now. Which is, was

Josh 1:28

interesting. Yeah. I didn't know what the podcast, like, what this episode was gonna be like. Yeah. Wow. It was awesome. It was a really good one. Yeah. I am for sure going to, Go be with horses. Yeah.

Erin 1:40

10000%. Josh found a new hobby. Yep. Can you tell the people who is Lauren.

Josh 1:44

Yeah. Lauren is, uh, she lives in Nashville and we've been friends for probably about 10 years. She is a designer, a very, very talented designer. Mm-hmm. she mostly does brand design and helps curate to turn brands into really, really successfully designed. Mm-hmm. She makes beautiful things, pieces of art, Yeah, we kind of became friends through mutual friends, we kind of just wore that for a long time. She

Erin 2:11

and you actually both for a while, were kind of like the, I was gonna say she was like the little mayor of Nashville because she just knows everybody. And you were similar earlier on, like when we were college aged. Yeah.

Josh 2:24

You guys just knew everybody really well together. We're very similar personalities. The boy and girl version. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of our personalities to the T our aesthetic is very similar. Our design habits are very similar. Yeah. Our professions are very similar. Our friend groups are very similar, so we crossed paths a ton. Yeah. And then we're both, she's from Seattle. I'm a super big Seahawks fan, so we would watch football games together. Mm-hmm. There were just so many different overlaps. And that relationship kind of just was nurtured through those experiences. Mm-hmm. We never really got on like super deep levels, although we did every now and then, but then kind of our paths went their separate ways. Mm-hmm. She went to Seattle, we came to Columbus, so when somebody reached out to me being like, Hey, you need to have Lauren on the podcast, I was kind of like, okay. Like I haven't been talked to her in forever. And why? but it proved to be an Epic podcast, so I'm excited for everyone to listen to this one.

Erin 3:17

We talked a little bit about this, but I was always not intimidated by Lauren. Like she was never intimidating. I just remember feeling really uncool compared to Lauren, which you'll talk a little bit about on the podcast, which I mean, that's a common story for me and other people in Nashville. Especially in Nashville. Ugh, everybody's so beautiful there. It's like, ugh. it was cool to see her in a completely different light and different perspective we have a, a whole lot in common and she's just

Josh 3:44

freaking blossoming right now. Yeah, she is. Yeah. Yeah. So we're all going through our own things, but coming on the other side, pretty freaking

Erin 3:50

beautiful. If anything, I just kind of hope this podcast is a bit of an encouragement to anyone who's kind of in the thick of it, because it's just good to hear people's stories, you know, agree that it kind of takes a season of. Whatever drought or a season of pain or a season of suffering, whether that's physical, emotional, whatever. It takes those seasons sometimes to really compel us to live the life that we're meant to live. Yeah. And so it's hard to know that in the thick of it, I hope that that is true of

Josh 4:21

this episode for some reason. Yeah. I mean, it was encouraging for me and me too. Also, I hope this is encouragement because. I know we talk a lot about like chronic illness stories and these deep, dark, terrible journeys of plummeting health and things like that. Everyone has their own journeys and it doesn't have to be like Lyme. That yeah. Pulls you into this darkness of this soul that. Blossoms you outta this beautiful butterfly. everyone is going on their own journeys and there's pain and there's not fun things and feelings don't last forever, and a lot of pain doesn't either. And working really hard on yourself and reregulating and prioritizing, fully understanding yourself is going to have positive effects on you. And Lauren is a great example of

Erin 5:05

that. Yep. One day we're gonna talk about how we can learn from like, joy and, love too.

Josh 5:10

But that's, that's the lanes we're picking, babe. Well, it's always gonna be hard. Blatch So get on this train y'all. Yeah, yeah. Pick your own lanes. Find your freedom. Excited for you to hear the podcast.

Erin 5:22

Love you guys.

Josh 5:36

Okay, so before we started the podcast, before we started recording, we were talking about how Laura, my business partner, was like, dude, you need to have Lauren on the podcast. And I was like, why? Because we, okay. Back backstory. We've known each other probably close to 10 years now. That's wild.

Lauren 5:53

Wild Wild.

Josh 5:54

it feels

Lauren 5:55

don't need to talk about the start.

Josh 5:57

Yeah, true. How it started was we'll keep that quite unique, tucked unique, tucked away, but I'm thankful for it. Cause here we are. Yep,

Lauren 6:04

one. Me too. Me too. Me freaking

Josh 6:07

So we've known each other for a while, Erin came along eventually, but we've known each other for about 10 years and that's honestly

Erin 6:13

my relationship to everyone is just like true. A third degree

Josh 6:17

via Josh, via via me.

Lauren 6:19

totally.

Josh 6:19

But we knew each other and we've worked together and we've done some life together. But we were two completely different people when I was in Nashville. So that's how I know you is how we left. And I would imagine up until this podcast is how many people in Nashville knew us unless they listen to this podcast or see us post something that leans into our spirituality or whatever. And Laura was like, no, dude. You need to talk to Lauren cuz she's changed. And not saying that not changing is bad, but you more aligned with the podcast. And so I was like, shit, maybe I should reach out. And then you reached out

Lauren 6:59

Yep.

Josh 7:00

and I was like there it is. Universe dropping some mics. Yep.

Lauren 7:03

Silver Platter.

Josh 7:04

Yeah. But outta nowhere. Laura said it and then outta nowhere. You well, I know you were talking to Laura, but then you popped into my dms and. I was like, shoot, we do need to talk to Larry. We do need to talk. So you can be as transparent as you choose and you could say whatever you want or don't want. Cuz people in Nashville do listen to this podcast now.

Erin 7:24

So Kat's gonna be out of the bag if you say, and

Josh 7:27

I don't, I want you to feel comfortable in whatever, so there's no pressure in whatever you say. Just know that like we're not trying to fish for anything. But are you on this podcast? Give us the deep, we genuinely dunno.

Erin 7:39

Spill the

Lauren 7:39

Great question. I know. Why are you here? I was asking myself the same question. It's funny, I feel, and I was just, we were saying this right before we were starting to catch, or before we hit play, is It's been really hard to evolve in Nashville. To your point about people not knowing or understanding or knowing an outdated version of you I'm still grappling with it and it's like some of the closest people in my life have no idea the, like healing or the, processes in my day in which I'm like really attuned to. And it's weird. I don't even know the right way to put it. It's like evolving into the best version of yourself is sometimes really lonely. And so I think you and everybody else, I think Sean gets a front row seat to it and even some of that, I'll do some of my super weird stuff once he leaves for the day.

Josh 8:27

Yeah. Yep. We get it. That happened a while for me too. There were like, things that I was doing, or, you and I had, dmd back and forth about like a random quantum leap or something, how like Shawn walked in and you, while you were quantum leaping and shower or something. And I would go into the room and be in this moment and be quantum leaping. And I have these out of body experiences, which is interesting because I hear many creatives have similar experiences into that, like designers and things like that. But I'll like go out and I feel like I look like a corpse, laying in my bed or something. So I don't want Erin to be like, what the fuck are you doing?

Lauren 9:03

Literally

Josh 9:04

Yeah, it took about a year before I felt comfortable enough that okay, she's at a place now where I could talk about my. Crazy weird experiences and she's not gonna look at me. Yeah. But then Erin got on board. Yeah. And now she's doing her own thing. But it takes a while, even for your partner to start to see you shift.

Lauren 9:19

Yes, a hundred percent. and maybe that's, maybe the backstory is worth noting too, cuz it didn't start out that way. I feel like it started out a little more simple, but we had all sorts of, or I had all sorts of health stuff That just sent, it like, and I'm such an open book, so if this is too much

Josh 9:38

Nope. Never Never too much. Girl. We talk about pooping out parasites. We talk about ovulation.

Lauren 9:43

Okay.

Josh 9:43

It's good.

Lauren 9:44

I love it. I love it. So in 2021 we had an ectopic pregnancy, which was physically so taxing. emotionally, it was fine, or fine, I say fine, we knew for about 24 hours before we knew something went sideways. So I don't feel like we had all of that. We were still in shock. But it was so physically taxing. And it was the first time in my life that I felt so clued into not trusting my body. It was equal parts. Something is wrong or something isn't, didn't go right. And then also my body knows exactly what to do. And so it was this holding this duality of this is like pretty horrifying. And also my body knows exactly what to do to heal. And then the short version of it is, I had fibroids and dermoid cysts and all this stuff that they found. And I'm so thankful it happened cuz it really did save my life in a lot of ways. And save, our fertility journey moving forward. But then it was the following summer, it was a huge, massive open surgery under, for six hours. And same thing. It's like I'm in both hands. In one hand, I'm watching my body, there'd be something wrong. And then in the other I'm watching scars heal and like my body knows what to do. And so that was the catalyst for. Healing in so many ways where I was like, internally, I need this too. I think I need to acknowledge where things have fallen apart or need healing or need surgery. And I also know that my body knows what to do. And so I think I kind of went off the, um, not off the deep end, but it was one of those seasons of just I'm gonna try everything. I don't care if it's weird or out there, I'm going to go all in. And why would I not, what would be the hold up? And I found this newfound freedom in attempting to heal both physically and emotionally and mentally and all the things. And then it was like, oh shit, I kinda love this.

Josh 11:45

Yeah,

Lauren 11:45

So it started off it started off slow, and then it was like, I'll try anything. Who am I to say,

Josh 11:52

yeah.

Lauren 11:52

So that's the, that's the short of it. Happy to go into more

Josh 11:56

No, that's great. It seems like in so many ways, especially in the realm that we all were in before we shifted and evolved, there had to be like this wake up call. And I hesitate to say wake up call because people that are still in the places that we may have been before in so many cases are thriving and they are awake in their own ways. But for us, It wasn't where we were meant to be. And so in order for us to shift and evolve, we were so complacent blindly that there had to be this crazy shake. maybe we were just talking about on a walk, I can't remember if I've said it on the podcast before, but I have this theory that types of illness, like for me, the chronic illness with all of my journey similar, just your story that you shared. I feel like it's the universe shaking us and being like, wake the fuck up. You have a greater purpose here, and you're not playing the cards that you need to be playing. And I can go into the idea of I think there's ancestral things that play into that where I think Past mes, whoever I was also needed to be waking up and there were multiple attempts and it didn't happen, and so I had to get laid up on my ass and almost die because that was the only way I was gonna recognize that I was doing something different. Do you feel that similar experience in your journey?

Lauren 13:18

A million percent. Yeah. And I think it started long before anything physical. That was just the last two years, let's see, in 2017, I feel like that was, my life got shaken up in a way where I made some bad business decisions and found myself moving out of my perfect little house in Sylvan Park, and one of my dogs had passed. I was just like, I gotta get outta here. I put all my stuff in storage. Shaken up is the only way I can put it. It was like, and that's when I ended up going back to Seattle and I meant to just go for the summer. And the intention was just like, I've got to be able to breathe. I can't breathe in Nashville. It feels like a Petri dish. I, bump into this person. Then I turn around and I bump into the other person and it's I gotta get outta here. I have a crazy story from Seattle. I've, only ever been able to like, retell it, but I moved back to Seattle. I just need a breath of fresh air. I had no idea what I was doing. I woke up one day and I'm in like a rental condo. My dogs are gone. My stuff is in storage. it was so traumatic and it was like I have been stripped of everything that made me impressive. Everything that made me complacent, everything that made me the Nashville, me, the one that was so fun and always going out and always doing the things and at everything. And. Successful and cute and fun, and the house was perfect and all the things, the dinner parties and

Erin 14:40

yep. That was definitely my perception of you, Lauren, for sure. Yeah. You had it all together, girl. In my, yeah. My perception. Yeah.

Lauren 14:48

I really think that needed to be burned to the ground and it was so uncomfortable. And so I, I oddly think that set me up for the last couple years the physical version of that, where it's like I know that I can be knocked down and get back up, and it's meant to be in a way that's outside of my understanding.

Erin 15:08

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I've been really inspired recently by people with these types of stories because I think it's, first of all it's so easy to look at your life circumstances and feel like I'm missing something. I'm so behind, or whatever it is. Whether you don't have a partner and wanna partner, don't have kids, and want kids like we are, we're all looking at somebody else and comparing. But I've just been paying attention recently to like the people that I admire in life. One example is I just really love his podcast, but Rich Role and when you hear his life story and he at the age of 40 By all accounts, his life was like in the gutter. he was an addict and he had nothing and he lost his job and he was in jail. And like all these things happened, at a point in his life where he was older than I am even now. But how those parts of life are like the most fertile soil for us to really like, put down roots that matter and that will, sustain us for decades to come because they force us to look at these hard things and really figure out who we are, not just, how we're, perceived by others, but like, who am I? no job, no resume, no, looks none of this. Who am I? Like when I'm just me here sitting with my thoughts? And that's terrifying. And also I think Eckhart says this and the power of now, but. How it's so much easier in some sense to wake up from a nightmare than it is to wake up from a normal, average dream. Or even like a good dream, like you were saying, like from outsiders looking in, your life appeared and our life appeared great. Like you've got it all together. You've got the cool jobs, you've got the cool house, you've got the cool friends, all these things. Who wants to wake up from that? Nobody wants to wake up from that, but dish up some hard shit and some nightmarish sort of things. And that's when a person's soul, I think it's this little crack in there, right? And we're able to see a little bit of like openness, open-mindedness. Oh, maybe there's some things they need to look at from a different perspective. And then that crack opens up to a whole new world, and that's when we're like,

Josh 17:16

oh, AKA the dark Night of the soul. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. There's the definition.

Lauren 17:21

The chasm.

Josh 17:22

Yeah.

Erin 17:23

Yeah. What were like some of the,

Josh 17:25

I don't know. Hold on. I wanna hear. So what happened when you woke up in Seattle? Oh yeah. Yeah. Like where did that go?

Lauren 17:31

My mom lives up on Woodby Island and so I spend a ton of time up there. Water is like my happy place. spent some time just out in the middle of nowhere, which was really helpful. It was like, nobody knows me, nobody knows anything about me. I can do whatever I want. And I was so uncomfortable. And then, six months, so let's see, I was there in May. I meant to just stay for the summer, and then one of my other dog passed really suddenly, really dramatically. And it was like, truly, you're waking up and you're like, oh, where, how did this happen? So I ended up staying through the fall, and then I met Shawn and it was the weirdest, most perfect thing because that was not, I had nothing about me that looked impressive. I had nothing about me that it was so raw. And the more you know, short version of the story is we ended up back here. I was kinda like you do need to know my life in Nashville. You do need to know me as an adult. My whole adult life was built in Nashville and so we came back here, he fell in love and by, eight months into dating, we had moved back here. And I got to move back with a different perspective cuz I left going I'm so claustrophobic, I've gotta get outta here. I've gotta be able to breathe. And he was coming from the perspective of he'd never known community, he'd never known anybody knowing his business. And he's but this is incredible for people to know your story and know your pain and know your, and step into it for him that was everything. And so I got to kinda step back into Nasheville and show him that through a fresh kind of lens, if you will. And yeah. I don't know if I like total, I'm trying to tell a very long story in a very short, like short breath, but it's, it was really powerful.

Josh 19:20

Yeah. and you inevitably were changing. There had to be evolution in the silence for sure. But moving back to Nashville, was it a little bit of a culture shock and you've shifted even slightly and everyone else was going about their lives? That's what we noticed back when we moved back to Nashville. It was we just fell back into it. Was it difficult inside of that?

Lauren 19:41

I will say that it started an interesting chain reaction a bit in that everyone that, I wouldn't say everyone, but so many people expected me to be exactly who I was when I left. And I think I've been fighting that since. getting married, COVID, and then all of this physical stuff, emotional, healing, trauma, committing to healing my nervous system and rewiring neural pathways and I think some of my people are like, but can't you just be the fun one? Do we have to do all this?

Josh 20:13

totally.

Lauren 20:14

It's tough. and I said this before we hit play, that evolving into the best version of yourself is sometimes really lonely.

Josh 20:21

Totally.

Lauren 20:22

And I did not expect that. Yeah.

Josh 20:24

nobody else knows, right? Only you know, there can be levels of encouragement that exists inside of close relationships. I guess though, inside of that, the one healing has to choose to be transparent enough and feel safe enough to even share those experiences with the people around you. And in many cases, when you're evolving and changing, As drastically as maybe we all did. It may not feel as safe. I even remember with family members, they'd come see us once and then three months later they'd come see us and we would be like talking about some other crazy woowoo shit. And it, you could feel distant happening more and more because

Lauren 20:59

yeah,

Josh 20:59

they're comfortable where they're at. And we were uncomfortable being there. And so we're constantly quickly shifting and that causes friction. Not necessarily in a bad way, but relationships have to change because of it.

Lauren 21:11

Yeah. It's been really interesting.

Erin 21:13

I bet. It's a good reminder. I feel like to bring as much as possible. Because I'm very much guilty of this is just assuming a person is who they were last time you chatted or caught up. bringing fresh eyes open perspective, like anytime, even if it's like micro interactions with people out and about. I don't like, we just, we don't know the whole story. I don't even know my whole story. So like why are we expected to know each other's? And some of these conversations too are just so nuanced, but also like vague. There are no words for a lot of these experiences that we've been having. So how do you even open that door and let somebody in when you don't even really know exactly what's happening? I don't know. That's been my experience at least.

Lauren 21:57

Totally. Or you can't quite articulate it. I mentioned we were talking about I've been riding horses. It's like the most incredible nervous system alignment, getting grounded before you are met with a massive animal. gotta get right. You've got cuz

Josh 22:14

Who only feels energy.

Lauren 22:16

They read right through you. Or see right through you. And I even that experience of this is my intention in going to ride horses and this is this. And I think. Even that has been like, how do I say this? I constantly think of, right now I'm trying to explain myself and there aren't words. I can't quite articulate exactly how it's so

Josh 22:35

especially like this is new. I have found that the podcast as a whole has helped me ground myself and the foundation I never knew I needed in myself. to be able to express that is, in some cases impossible. But once I find even a minute word that I feel like resonates with me on a cellular level, I feel like it's another root in my foundation that helps me identify myself as me. Does that make sense? So I have

Lauren 23:06

totally.

Josh 23:06

when this isn't the first time, this has happened, like in interviews or even people expressing themselves for the first time verbally, in a context like this, it's almost like therapeutic. Mm-hmm. Where, there are cracks that happen inside of it where you're like, I am fucking this. Not that sounded bad. I am, I don't know. There's a blossoming that happens when you begin to verbalize who you are and who you wanna be and. Inside of like the Kundalini awakenings or the Dark Night of the Souls. when you go from one thing and co come out completely different and that hasn't been verbalized, there's a piece that's missing because you have yet to fully identify yourself with that person that you've decided to be.

Lauren 23:53

A million percent.

Josh 23:54

all that to say you're doing great. it's difficult. It is. It's not easy to, and. Your experiences are your own. And even people that experienced it with you experienced it different than you did. And so to be able to describe your experience into words, like how do you describe getting a download from the universe and a breathwork session and feel like my third eye opened you have to be okay to sound kooky. Yeah. And not give a shit about what anybody else feels but me. Verbalizing those experiences made it that much more real for me. And not only made it more real for me, but accelerated my experience with energy and spirit and source. only because I feel like I admitted it to myself. Yeah. That it happened. Gave it some traction because there's like pieces of you, sorry, I'm going on a rant. There's pieces of you.

Lauren 24:42

love it.

Josh 24:43

There's pieces of you that are still the past to you. In some ways that will always be the case because that's how it's meant to be. But in some cases it's finally integrated thoughts and opinions that were drilled into you for 30 years and those are gonna take a while to be broken. And in order for some of those to be broken, at least for me, I couldn't just keep it in here. I couldn't like make the decision that, oh yeah, I don't believe that anymore. I am this. No, you gotta integrate it. I had to integrate it and part of that integration was verbalizing it for me.

Lauren 25:17

absolutely.

Josh 25:19

Thanks for coming to my TED

Lauren 25:20

No, you're spot on. And as you're talking I'm realizing that my version, I think of making sense of evolving into this next generation version of whatever I'm becoming. I actually think metaphor has been the tool that I've.

Josh 25:34

Incredible.

Lauren 25:35

So I see this guy, his name is Steve and he is Epic. My friend Kula,

Josh 25:40

Oh, I was like, you see him for real? Or you see him in your meditations?

Lauren 25:44

No, He's No, no, I

Josh 25:46

Yeah. Is he like chilling with you right now?

Lauren 25:47

is, yeah, he's right here in this tiny room. Um, He is a somatic therapist, so he does equal parts talk therapy and then he'll do table work, body work, where I, we've all read, body Keeps the score. This is an inaction based on whatever you just spoke about, get on like essentially a massage table. And it's this, he works with this meditative, uses a ton of metaphor, and then is also releasing through acupressure, releasing the physical trauma at the same time. It's the most fascinating thing I've ever done, and I think as you were talking is the realization that. I won't have the words. I can't really fully explain it, but I think being able to have this metaphorical, like the, my favorite one that I use all the time, which is a bit of a diversion, from, I guess it's a protective mechanism at this point. But we were doing this whole kind of not necessarily inner child work, but talking a lot about the age that I was when I had my first trauma. And he was like, picture you standing across the counter from yourself and your childhood home and you're 13 years old. And he walked me through this, meditation and this whole thing. And the whole intention was, we talked about when I was 13, I went through my fir my dad got sick with cancer and he ended up passing when I was 14. And we were talking about this 13 age and all of, what I was holding onto from being that age and walking through something so horrifying. And he had me in this meditative state standing across the counter from the 13 year old version of myself in my childhood home. And I was like, I can't do this because what's coming up is so much criticism. I'm like, girl, if you did not wear your eyeliner that way, you would save yourself some time. Let's fix some things. And she's looking at me going girl, you looking a little puffy? Let's not wear our hair that way. Is that cool these days? And he said, is there a way that you could. Suck all of that energy out of both of you and it like suck it into and make it another entity in the room.

Josh 27:54

Ooh.

Lauren 27:54

It's okay. So we kinda walked through this whole process and he eventually, short version of the story. He's like, where would you feel safe as you're imagining your childhood home? Where would you feel safe that this critical being was? I said, let's just put 'em outside. Let's just put it, we'll close the doors. They're French doors. I can see it, but I just want it away. And we worked through this whole meditation and we went through this whole thing and at the end of it he was like, is there a world in which you would feel safe bringing that person back in? And I, or that entity or whatever it, that orb blurb, whatever it is back in the room. And he said, you could use. Two 800 pound gorillas that are restraining it. You could have a glass box where you only, you had the button. And I literally started like crying, laughing and I was like, no, I I think I need a SP gun. I was like, what? I was like no. Hear me out. And this is in like a meditative place and I can't help but just laugh. And I was like, it's the kind of thing where if it comes at me with criticism, I know that I've got this metaphorical splatter gun of Nope, that's on you. That has nothing to do with me. And it's funny that like these metaphorical tools have actually been the kind of guiding principle that's moved me through so much healing where now I'm like using that with clients. I use that with friendships where I'm like, you got a lot of paint on you right now and I know where to put you accordingly to feel safe. And it's,

Josh 29:19

That's fascinating.

Lauren 29:20

think. As you were talking, I was like, all of these metaphors have become really humorous. They're my own kind of personality and coping mechanism. Putting words to something. I literally can't put words

Josh 29:32

yeah.

Erin 29:33

That's awesome. I went to

Lauren 29:35

feel free to take a splatter gun,

Erin 29:36

there

Josh 29:36

you go. I was about to say, noted, I got a couple client calls this week. I may be bringing that to the table. Ladder

Erin 29:41

gun. I love it. I went to a vasovagal, theory like workshop a couple week weekends ago, and it was super interesting and they gave an exercise that reminds me so much of that, and it was powerful. But you essentially draw, which I think for people with, you don't even have to be gifted, with drawing or art or anything like that, but she had you draw a scene, That represented any sort of trauma or whatever in childhood or any point along your life, just a time that you find yourself going back to subconsciously. So I think her example was, she was at a, the dinner table and her dad was screaming at her mom about something. I can't remember. So you draw that scene exactly how you just picture it and you can, write little conversation bubbles, whatever. And then next you flip to the next page and draw the scene with different tools that you wished you had, tools that you wished maybe your mom or dad had, and like just you add different variations with every subsequent drawing. But it feels silly or childish that's not changing anything. Your dad still screamed at your mom or whatever. The traumatic thing still happened, but it is changing the. Narratives, the stories that your nervous system is holding onto. Even just having a conversation with that 13 year old you whatever you were able to infuse into that memory or that, whatever is stored within the nervous system is so healing. Like it does matter and it does completely change the trajectory of things. I think people underestimate, that type of work. So that's super cool. I want your guys' name. Next time I'm in Nashville, I want to go.

Lauren 31:15

Oh, he's amazing. He is awesome. I've had more breakthroughs with that kind of work than I have in 10 years of therapy. There's just no way. And I've probably seen him six times and it's like, lightning rod to the system or like, oh, oh, that was it. Okay, now I have the splatter gone and we're good.

Erin 31:36

Yeah. Right. Totally. Because just like we were talking about, words are insufficient. They just are. Yeah. Like our language is not developed to a point to even talk about some of these things, and that's why the somatic piece is so important. And I wish people would understand that, especially people are dealing with any sort of like physical ailment or whatever, even just emotional distress, like all these things. If you can find a somatic practice, There's truly hundreds that are out there and available to people. A lot of them are free. Like you don't have to, pay big bucks all the time. But these somatic practices where we're integrating these kind of like vague things that we don't even really know how to conceptualize, but we're able to move them through our bodies like we are energy, like of course these sematic practices help and things like horses too. Like I wanna hear more about that. What kind of things are you, I don't know, healing with horses.

Lauren 32:30

it's wild. So I worked with a coach. It's is a story that could go two ways. I worked with this coach and essentially talking about the way that we spend our time and like how we spend our time socially, how we spend, and Im such a curious person, but I don't have any adult hobbies. And I, through working with him, I was like, I need to have a, an adult hobby that I do alone. That is not for social clout. It's not to go visit with people. It's not something I do with somebody. I go alone and it's for me and started riding horses, which I is, I can't, again, can't put into words the way that those things just look into the depths of your soul. You're like, okay, well I thought I could fool you. I grew up riding just a little bit. But not in a serious way. I went into it knowing that I was going to be really bad, which is way outside of my comfort zone, and knowing that I couldn't fool anybody. I couldn't put on any sort of mask. You're on a massive creature that knows if you're bullshitting them because they don't feel safe and they want you off. And so it's equal parts. The place that I'm riding at now is more like an equine therapy place. And so it's a lot of getting yourself really grounded. You have to gain their respect. So there's like even groundwork where you're just using your body to get them to move in a way around you. And they won't do that until your nervous system is calm. And it's been really powerful. It's been like the gut check of all gut checks. You should, you absolutely should.

Erin 34:14

do you ever watch Queer Eye?

Lauren 34:16

Yes.

Erin 34:16

They did an episode for this woman who has like an animal place.

Josh 34:21

what to call. It's like a farm for special needs. It's so cute animals. She, But she then brings in kids with special needs to be a therapy.

Erin 34:28

It's precious anyway. Yeah, it's awesome. She was like super burned out. Completely very dysregulated. Dysregulated, yeah. But so they flipped the script on her and took her to a like, equine therapy place. And I, I mean, it, it just made me sob. Like I had no idea that these animals are so capable of, like you said, they just, they don't speak English or language, they speak energy. And watching her kind of process her stuff through this horse was just wild. Yeah. Now I want you to do that for sure, babe. I

Josh 35:01

know I feel like yesterday or when we ever watched it, I was like, oh man, I need to try that. And then you talking about it, it is like the universe being like, try it. Yeah. Go ride a horse. Yeah,

Lauren 35:10

do it. Do it. You got nothing to lose.

Josh 35:12

out of that, what are your findings in yourself? The horse is obviously teaching you so many things, and obviously regulating your nervous system exists inside of that. But how has that evolved you?

Lauren 35:22

That is a really good question. my immediate answer goes to I have turned everything in my life, or I am attempting to turn everything in my life into a ritual. I've been using that word a lot. So going out to the farm and driving out there and rolling the windows down, I'm really attempting to make everything in my life feel very meditative and present. And I definitely was not that person in the past. There's this woman, I'm gonna back it up a little bit. There's this woman named Alexander Stoddard. She's like the eighties queen of mindfulness and making things beautiful. And she has she wrote this book called living a Beautiful Life

Josh 36:05

Yeah.

Lauren 36:06

and I'm obsessed and I think that's like the, this evolution of who I've been and the fabric of where I've been and what I've built and what I've lost and how it tr projects into this next version of, or next like season of my life

Josh 36:22

Yeah.

Lauren 36:23

the evolution is if I have a sit and have a glass of wine with my husband and here's the like, birds tripping, I'm so present in the backyard or if I'm driving out to the farm and I have this moment with the horse, I'm like, I wanna remember this forever. Like taking a million mental snapshots and being really grounded in I'm never gonna get this moment back. tr I'm trying to make it more of a, like a meditative practice. And I do think that. May feel like what may be jarring for friendships right now is I really am attempting that at all times, and I think that just is so different than who I was. And I'm not sure the way that people are interpreting that

Josh 37:00

you're under. It's all, it's a hard line to balance. It

Erin 37:03

is we talk about this constantly too because it sometimes it feels like Josh is 10 steps ahead of me and like spirituality and all these other things. So that's an interesting dynamic between us where I often feel insecure or like he is in some way, like therapizing me it's so important for us all to understand it's not a hierarchy. it's not someone is further or better that's never what we're insinuating when we talk about these things. But it is just a truth, a hard truth that when a person changes in any way, that relationships are going to also change.

Josh 37:39

And I just wish so much that could be celebrated. Yeah. Instead of felt like a thorn in a relationship. kind of like the fine line balance that I was talking about is What you're saying, is when you are evolving and maybe that friend in the relationship. Isn't evolving in the same direction cuz we're always evolving. It's just whether or not we're in parallel evolution

Erin 38:03

or we're intentional with the evolution, right?

Josh 38:06

It can cause huge hurdles in the relationship and that's just inevitable. There's time and places for those friendships and relationships. And for me, some of those were perfect for the seasons that I was in, but they're not anymore for the season that I'm in now. And there was for sure mourning that happened in that and honestly hurt that happened in it too, where you wished it was different, but it's not. But the balance that's difficult is you're not talking shit about anybody. You're just talking about the very true reality that hey, I'm evolving and going in this direction and I am celebrating that just as much as I'm celebrating whichever direction you're going in. I wish that not digging on Nashville. It's just cuz where we were at. I wish that our friends in Nashville, it was safe enough to have those conversations. Oh no. That never happened. Yeah. So what I'm saying, what I'm saying in inside of that is the balance is really difficult cause you're not intentionally talking shit about anybody or talking down about wherever they're at. It's just acknowledging the reality that I'm different. I'm different. Yeah. And so are you.

Lauren 39:14

I'm different. My friend Anne-Marie has a really good metaphor for this and she is so eloquent with the way that she said it, but it's essentially that everyone is climbing a mountain and there are people who see the cloud cover as the top of the mountain. That's as far as I can see. You said That's as far as I know, and she and I are on a similar path and talk a lot about how it's like, but then you do that one switchback and you're up over the clouds and it's not that the journey right before the clouds is a bad one, but I think I found myself with certain people trying to reach below the clouds and pull 'em up. There's so much to see up here and it's scary. Evolving and going past what you know is really scary. And so we talk about the mountain a lot. We're like above the cloud. There's a bunch of people up here.

Josh 40:02

Yeah.

Erin 40:02

Yeah. That is a great analogy.

Josh 40:04

How has that moving above the clouds changed the relationships that existed when you first moved to Nashville?

Lauren 40:11

I think there's just more distance now. And I feel like the people who are spiritually in a box Are really afraid of anything above the class, cuz it's not within that box

Erin 40:23

Yeah. When you said spiritually in a box, that like struck a chord in me for sure, because I feel like that was, I don't know the better part of my entire life, but just feeling like anything that strayed. Outside of this very specific framework, like when you think about it, it's almost humorous. and it always felt, at least it felt like it flowed from a place of love and, never felt like I used it for harm or even the people around me, I don't feel like harmed me per se with it. But it just is almost humorous when you think about how small that box is that I stayed in for 30 years or 27, whatever.

Josh 41:02

but even those boxes, I'm not playing devil's advocate on this or angel's advocate on this of that small box may be somebody's truest freedom. And that still needs to be celebrated. Yeah, for sure. It just didn't fit

Erin 41:13

for us. Totally. I, no, and I appreciate that. I think though for me, this is when it clicked for me, somebody sent us a very thoughtful gift for our daughter and it was a book and it had to do with Christianity's faith. And I always like proofread these things before I read them to my child because I'm very just sensitive to messages that she receives. Not that I'll be able to control that for her whole life, whatever, but I just know that there were certain ones for me that were a little bit damaging or just hard to replace. But this book in particular was a story about this small village of people and it was like very obvious God character. Of course, he's like a big white man with a beard, whatever. But he, he is teaching these children that he literally built a wall around the village of stones, tall enough so that the children could not see out of the village. And it was just the most obvious metaphor to me. But he was like don't look past this wall. It's not safe. I built this wall to keep you safe. All that you need is within this wall. One little boy who is curious heaven forbid, yikes, he's curious. He takes a rock out of the wall, he peers through to see what's beyond. And it's like this, I don't, and it, and then he's, comes back to the God figure who embraces him, of course, but what did we learn from this scenario? And I was like, is this what we're teaching our children like that? It's so unsafe out here to look under any rock that we're not, you know, and I get that it's all in this effort to keep us safe and to keep our kids safe. And, but it's just keeping us small. Like it's just keeping us locked in a cage. And like, when we're able to just be curious, like when we can lead with love and curiosity and open-mindedness, like that's when the magic happens. At least it did in my life. But that's tough. There's Erin's

Josh 43:06

dead talk,

Erin 43:07

there's Ted talk, but it's tough when you're still in communities because that was our entire community for the majority of our life. Like then what do you do? I don't, you just feel like a complete, honestly, outsider,

Josh 43:21

honestly. You need something that shakes you up. Yeah. Big enough that you're willing to detach from all that you've identified with. To go find what you need to get to the other side. It wasn't, I've talked about this on the podcast. I would ask certain questions or I definitely was curious about so many things, but it wasn't until I got sick where I was like, okay, I gotta go inward and figure out what the hell's going on. And I'll come out on the other side. However, I'll come out on the other side. It's not until those moments, and not saying that everyone has to go through that, but odds are really high that somebody around you has gone through it. If you have shifted that drastically. So there is probably a connection to somebody that's gone through a pretty horrible dark night of the soul for you to be influenced enough to shift your trajectory exponentially. Yeah, I like

Erin 44:13

how you said, and there's people up here, like there's a lot of people up here. Like we can, it does feel lonely, but like I, although

Lauren 44:20

never guess.

Josh 44:21

and maybe this is just because of the environments that we've been in, that doesn't feel to be true. It doesn't feel like there's so many people above the clouds. I know you look around and you're like, where the fuck is everybody? I thought this was gonna be like a party. And you look around and you have to realize that you're on your own journey and that whether the people around you or not are going to get places that you are or have been is fairly irrelevant to the equation to like the greater story, completely irrelevant. It all is. Do you feel confident in yourself? Do you know yourself authentically? Which I would've said yes five

Josh & Erin PP Edit 45:00

years

Josh 45:00

ago, and little did I know It was a facade, like what you're saying. then can you confidently say that you're living your most authentic self? and I still can't fully say that, but I'm on a journey to strive for it. Can't say that they're living authentically to themselves.

Lauren 45:17

Yeah, I have a really good friend who yesterday sent me a voice memo and we grew up in church together. We grew up in the same kind of mental, we'll call it framework for all intents and purposes. And she sent me a voicemail yesterday or a voice memo and said, I'm having, my own kind of spiritual unraveling and I'm really curious about what your morning routine is like cuz you feel like you're really grounded and my prayer lives look, looks really different, but I don't know how to be grounded. And she's she's the, I mean she's yoga Pilates, she teaches and she was talking about her own so she can help other people, but she was like how do I get to my own inner peace or whatever that looks like. And. She said, I was driving on the freeway and I was raging on some guy in traffic and it's okay, something's got, we gotta find some tether to that like core principle of peace and love and whatever it looks like externally. But she was like, what's your morning routine look like? Cuz I think I need, I think I need to up my game a little bit. If it's not this prayer life that you leaned on for the majority of your life, what does it look like to build new practices or add in new practices for people who, and so I think that's the, where that Nashville tension is I think there's a lot of people who are exploring that. Or like the four walls of church doesn't really feel like me anymore, but I don't know what the other thing is. And I'm like, do you wanna ride horses?

Erin 46:46

Yeah, seriously. Yeah, I definitely felt very untethered for a good, I don't know, three years or so when I was shedding this old skin. But like you said, didn't have any new PR practices to replace it. What does it even look like a while it almost feels like oil and water. I like to pray to read scripture like, woo. I just, like, I couldn't, and now I'm at this point where I'm like, it looks completely different and probably to, 10 year ago, me, I would say, you've got a watered down faith. Or this is whatever you heathen. But now I'm like, I feel so deeply connected to God in ways that I did not even know was possible. God has just taken on a completely different form. Yeah. And so much of it has to do with, like you were saying, making your life sort of a meditation practice of sorts. Like you can do this stuff. I feel like this is what Eckhart totally does, just all day. He's just meditating somehow. I don't know, but just, you can infuse this stuff into your day. But yeah, it does require a little bit of open-mindedness and curiosity. Like, huh, maybe I'll see what it feels like to light sage and think about what I'm grateful about. That could be it, yeah.

Lauren 47:54

That's kind of this Alexandra Stoddard. Uh, My, I, my practice is, I, there's like a, and now it's, the list is long. I was telling this friend yesterday who we were going back and forth. I was like, there's like a whole hour process when I wake up in the morning. It's like I get outside first thing, get in the sunlight, little circadian rhythm, reset. I have a little garden and it's not, large by any means, but like watering that garden first thing feels really nourishing, and kinda set a little bit of an intention for the day. I have a a truth statement that I read to myself every morning, read out loud. That's a very much like who I am in community, who I am in business, who I am in my marriage, who I am physically, who I am spiritually. And it's just like the perfect, it's evolved for sure over time. But I read that every morning and I really am this Alexander Sard thing. Everybody should pick up that book and it's outdated for sure. But her whole thing is everything that ignites your senses is a meditation and she's super into. Mindset and gratitude, but it's like the eighties version of it, it's the like prim and proper Martha Stewart version of what we're talking about now. And her whole thing is to your point about sage, it's yeah, but also pay attention to the way the light hits the wall and the way that the sound of whatever you're cooking make everything special, make everything a ritual, make everything a little bit more magical. And our whole, it's 500 ways. Again, some of them are very outdated, but 500 ways to make your life more beautiful. And I think, and I am, that's the goal, is that like really grounded. Really centered, really I can infuse a little bit of magic into this moment. And that is bringing me joy, that's bringing me groundedness, that's bringing me a sense of purpose almost. So she's become my new spirit animal, for sure.

Erin 49:49

that. It all comes back to this radical presence I feel like is really the bottom line. If you can radically be so present with all your senses, That's where it's at. I don't know. That's what I've learned. That's what I'm learning over and over again. our physiology suggests. That we are meant to experience things on a sensual level. Like why do we have so many nerve endings everywhere? It's we can feel things, we can smell things, we can see things, we can hear things. And we are never present for 90% of it. I don't feel the wind on my face. I do feel it, but I'm not conscious of that. Yeah. like you were saying, the way the light hits the wall, Yeah. These are all just so again, free and not necessarily easy. It requires intention, but like I think we overcomplicate a lot of things in the healing space. You know, like really go outside, feel the sun on your skin, listen to the birds, nourish yourself. if you do those things, you will see improvements in your health and your wellness. but we overcomplicate it.

Lauren 50:52

We really do.

Josh 50:53

So talk to me a little bit about your, how your spirituality has evolved. It's a never ending journey, but you talk a lot about grounding yourself and those practices help a ton, but spirituality has to exist in this mindfulness space. I know the word spirituality may mean something different to the next person. So I'd be curious to hear, cuz the last time we saw each other was probably in church. Probably was. I'm serious. Yeah. So that was the last time we knew each other, on that level, at least in this vulnerable way. So I'd be

Lauren 51:25

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah,

Erin 51:27

I know that's a loaded, loaded

Lauren 51:29

no, No, it's good. so right. Pre covid some really good girlfriends. And I all got really into Richard Roar, which again, the 10 years ago me would've been like, you did?

Erin 51:42

Ugh. Yeah. I love Richard

Lauren 51:43

how dare you. We started a club called Roaring for Richard. True story. True story. It lasted two times because then Covid hit and we, that was like our version of this Bible study. And my, family, When I was a kid, my parents went to a Unitarian church in Seattle, which is very believe what you wanna believe. Can I, and at the time as a kid, when all my friends were in, going to church on Sunday and it felt like they were part of something. But there's this sense of like you were saying, Erin, I feel so much more connected to the universe, to God, to feeling. I guess the best way I would say it is for a really long time, it was like God is in control. God is in control, and I have no control. I think hitting a, proverbial rock bottom and then learning a ton about mindset and manifestation and what I actually am in control of reframed everything for me, where it's like, this can be something that we do in tandem. Of course there are things that are outside of my control. Of course there is this higher power and this God that is, I really do believe that. But I also believe that the way that I think on a day-to-day basis and the words that I speak to myself, to my husband, to my people, to my friends, to my, that has power I'm in a place where both can be true. And I think as we said before, there are so many people who. Can't see that to be true, that that's really scary. That this is safe and this is scary. And I think even, I like the way that I view, God through people and God through nature everything is so different, but so much more palpable and more powerful now. And I don't need to call it God anymore.

Josh 53:29

I was almost about to say I can't use God.

Erin 53:33

Yeah, it's a loaded word for Josh, which I

Josh 53:35

get, I call it divine source or just source because God has such a connotation of what was for me and still is for so many, which is great, but not for me anymore. I see source in everyone sure, like God in us, what we were taught, like source is beaming throughout us all at all times, and we can tap into that energy anytime we want. We just have to be in tune with

Lauren 54:02

yeah, absolutely.

Erin 54:04

I feel like recently I keep having these full circle moments where A lot of these, whether it's like a verse or a concept or whatever, I learned in church that again for a while was like oil and water with me. I like don't want anything to do with it. But now they're coming around where I'm like, oh, I think maybe that's actually what it meant. So I'm trying to think of an example, but when you were saying like, yeah, God is in all things and in all beings, and it's like that meant something completely different to me 10 years ago than it does now, But anyway.

Lauren 54:34

and, there's something to what Steve would say, I think I've mentioned Steve like eight times, but Steve would say that you need the spirituality piece of it and whatever framework, whatever you need to say, you cannot do the healing process without that spiritual piece. And his whole thing was like, figure out what it means to you. I'm not gonna tell you what it looks like. And I think there's something really empowering to be like, oh, I can explore this on my own. And it doesn't have to be within this very tight, specific structure. I can explore what that means to me and not be afraid of how curiosity or how it might offend people, or if I said the wrong thing, or if I didn't know enough of a very specific scripture, or if I didn't, wasn't raised this way, or I wasn't X, y, z. It's, there's something way more powerful about finding it for yourself and then having it resonate and be so true in your life, and then you're, I don't know, that's the magic for

Josh 55:34

Mm-hmm. Agreed. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. My experience is, and I think I've said this before on the podcast, but it feels like for the majority, if not all, there's a chronological order to get there, and it's body, mind, spirit my body was so compromised that my mental state was whack, which means my spiritual state didn't exist. Once my body got to a place where I felt like I had not necessarily control over it, but it was stable, my mindfulness skyrocketed, and I went into the deep depths of things that I didn't even know could exist. once I got locked in on my mindfulness, my spirituality, I was e like easily able to tap into it. I even was like calling myself atheist for a minute. Where I was like, I don't believe in anything. This is all just fake. We're in like a simulation here, just like in this complete nothingness. When we die, nothing happens. Like we're here, we're not, but once I tapped into my mindfulness, when my body was in a safe place to move onto my mind mm-hmm. The next thing happened. Does that sound familiar to you?

Lauren 56:40

a hundred percent. And I think that's why I'm in this phase. I don't, I wouldn't call it a phase, we'll call it a lifestyle of this for everything being a ritual, and that's, I'm stealing the Alexander I'm ripping her off completely. But when you start to be mindful about every little thing and paying attention to your senses and your mindfulness and your body, that connection turns on. You can't help but see how everything comes from this very spiritual place. Everything feels so special. Beyond. I don't even know the words for it, but yes, absolutely. It's all alive And like I've been working on this project that's just the passion project, that's this idea of this intersection of design and food. And

Josh 57:26

Ooh,

Lauren 57:26

food to me has become that ritual where it's nourishing. There's like that spirituality of nourishing your soul and nourishing your spirit. And then you make this beautiful, you get it from the earth and you make, and you put intention and love and then you nourish other people and there's connection and I'm like, oh, is this it? Is this the whole thing? We got it. We nailed it.

Josh 57:48

Yeah. You guys need to connect.

Lauren 57:51

I know. Can we, we need to do like a little weekend

Erin 57:54

Yes, please. Oh my gosh. I would love that. But yeah, food is for sure a spiritual experience for me. I just feel like why would we have evolved with all of, again, like the nerve endings, the taste buds. There is a reason, like we're just here to experience, like that's the point, is to just be and feel it all, taste it all, smell it all. And so it makes me sad when I, even myself, like whether I'm rushing in the car and I'm like, scarfing down a power bar or something, or a protein bar, it's that's not the point. Like the point is for me to sit my ass down and savor every fucking bite. that's just not how our lives are constructed. Yeah. We're not taught that like we are just told. That productivity or like all these other things are more important because they keep our world running, but they don't keep our souls running. I don't know. Yeah.

Lauren 58:42

a million percent. I had not ever had anybody like give me the framework so I wrote this book about this whole thing and it's like experiential and it's all about food and connection and thinking outside the box and go make breakfast in the backyard over fire. Take 30 minutes and do find that primal instinct. Get outside the box, get outta your own head. It doesn't matter if you think you're a good cook, go explore. Go find that, that spirituality, that sensory, that whatever it looks like for you, go create like that. There's a creativeness to it. And I think that's where that spirituality element comes into is like I'm wired in a very specific way to create. And have this like tangible experience. so I finished the book and then I found this Alexander Stoddard, and I'm like, am I the new Alexander Stoddard,

Erin 59:32

Here she go. She's in the

Lauren 59:34

the 2023 version?

Josh 59:36

Hey,

Lauren 59:37

her whole thing is that is, it's really powerful. And I think Erin, you would be obsessed because it's, a lot of it is about cooking too.

Erin 59:45

Ugh, I love it

Josh 59:46

so much. It's so funny because recently, so in my morning meditations, I have been asking divine source and my spirit guides come into this space and I'll just sit there and wait until I feel the presence of that energy. what I've been doing recently is I have just been allowing my thoughts to go where they need to go. I give complete control to my conscious and say bring up what needs to be brought up. that wasn't the case for me in meditation before I was having a little bit more intentionality and I still think that this is intentionality, but it's more lenient with curiosity. I haven't even us to Erin yet. The past couple weeks, like I would say three or four times a week for maybe the past month, I've been really navigating through this experience of Erin and food and we're trying to do a couple things with food for her just because it's a passion of hers and it totally aligns with Ruti there's so much healing that can be done with food and with Ruti. Sensitivities are one of the sections of Ruti that comes back and it shares what. You should stay away from and what you can eat and things like that. And a lot of times that causes a lot of fear for people because it feels like a life sentence of like, you mean I can't eat pecans or whatever. you kind of have to like reframe that, that your body is working really hard and Anyways, something that keeps coming up is this name food as a spiritual practice.

Erin 1:01:13

That is my main spiritual practice. But

Josh 1:01:15

so, I'm kind of ripping this because I don't know if you know this, but Erin is a body piercer. She's a certified body piercer

Erin 1:01:21

only in the state of

Josh 1:01:22

Tennessee.

Lauren 1:01:23

I did. I remember. I.

Josh 1:01:25

yep. Okay. So she went to this school in San Francisco. It was literally the number one body piercing school in the world. These people, body pierced on a whole different level, but the course was called. Body piercing as a spiritual practice. It was, yeah. it came up in my meditation like four weeks ago, and as we're navigating through this, her passion for food continues to grow, but it's evolving in a way where it is spiritual and you can see it. Y'all need to do something together. Let's go. Let's go. Lauren. Identifying food as a spiritual practice, because we get the idea that there's a communal piece to it, but I don't think people understand. The end to end experience can be spiritual from literally picking the herbs in the garden to chopping them up, to putting them in a sauce. Yes. But then serving that on a table of people and the conversations that happened there. It feels like if you combined both of your. Kind of passions inside of food. Something really magical could come out. And I'm just tossing this out into the universe that in my meditations for the past four weeks, I've had this food as a spiritual practice thought that has just been evolving and I am now 10000% confident that it was meant for this moment right now. I love this So there it is. Let's go. There it is. I love it. Take it however you two want.

Lauren 1:02:46

it. That'd be really cool to do like a weekend that was around healing. Because I think there's something too, and I don't know if you've tapped into this with people in food sensitivities and things like that, but especially for women, there's such a fear. There's so many food fears and there's so much disconnect on my own journey. I think the initial, I have to go back to the mind body thing is so important to me right now that I had to go back to all the ways that it was disconnected in the past. Finding all those places, and I think surgery, of course, the like really traumatic things, but then you go back to. The way that I approached food or I was a runner in college. I ran, I wouldn't say I was a runner, but I like ran a couple marathons and really, I pushed my body past. I had six stress fractures because I wasn't listening to my body and I just wanted to run and I wanted to hit the time and my body was breaking and my mind and my, so I've been trying to in this healing process, go back to all the places that I created disconnect or leaned into disconnect or, fostered disconnect even. And I think food is a huge part of that for women. I know people who just eat their macros. They just eat what they're supposed to eat. They eat the same thing every day and they found what works. And that's, I'm like, but Where's the life?

Erin 1:04:05

Yeah. Where's the

Lauren 1:04:06

no? Where's the yeah. Seriously. So anyway, I think there could be something really powerful to some retreat or weekend that was just around food and beauty and oh my

Erin 1:04:18

Yes. Oh, man, I have,

Lauren 1:04:21

Did we just come up with the idea of

Josh 1:04:23

Let's

Erin 1:04:24

have fun. Do it. I have a couple other people in mind to invite. Oh my gosh, that would be so fun.

Josh 1:04:29

There's an entire reframing that can exist inside of that too, like sensitivities as an example. We all have them and that's okay. There are so many ways to cook great food without the things that you can't eat. that almost becomes a creative process and a spiritual practice of even like identifying what you can eat and that nourishing on a cellular level instead of it just being a consumption to fill my stomach.

Erin 1:04:57

I don't know, I think we probably all have experienced this, the truth that like, creativity is born out of limitations, right? I don't have X, Y, and Z solution. I need to create a new one. That's just how creativity works. And so that's totally what happened for us. It was like, okay, I can't cook with, for a while there it was like gluten, dairy, soy, corn, what else? And everything processed sugar. It was just like a lot of things. Oh, legumes was another one. So that was really challenging. It just forced me to get creative in the kitchen and what can we eat that's still delicious and nourishing to our bodies. Yeah, I just think overall, again, like our lives are not set up to take time really is like the bottom line. That's why people, I think don't choose

Lauren 1:05:39

Yeah.

Erin 1:05:39

to do these things and food is just one avenue, right? If that's not your avenue, that's fine, but we have to start reorganizing our lives to make space to have these intentional practices. Because if we're just always running on the hamster wheel, of course you're not gonna wanna spend 30 minutes preparing a beautiful, gorgeous breakfast full of flavor and nutrients. That's just not on your radar. Have fun guys. Yeah, I'm excited about that.

Josh 1:06:06

Here we go. I can now stop thinking about that in my meditation. Yeah, you're going, guides are like, go on, think about something else. Yeah, I ha I had the chills. I know. This is exactly why I was thinking of it. Yeah. Great. Can't wait. So don't let me down. No, just kidding. I love it. Don't let my guides down. No. Yeah.

Erin 1:06:22

Speaking of passion projects, before we have to come to a close here, I really wanna hear about your book that you're working on.

Lauren 1:06:29

Yeah. There's always passion, but I feel like I, it's like never ending. But this one actually has some legs and like we were talking about before, to back up when I had I'm certain it was the hormonal imbalances from that ectopic and, you have to take like low dose chemo and it sent my hormones into a, still reeling from some of that. And with that came this like huge surge in my cortisol levels, which makes sense. But I would wake up and have all these food aversions, I was gagging in the morning, like nauseous from this massive surge of cortisol and I. Had to figure out a way to fall back in love with food or, I was really worried that those aversions were gonna take over. And I've, dabbled in disordered eating, in my early twenties and things like that. And so it's called Dovetail and it's this idea, this concept or exploration of design and art. I was like, I just need to take all of this creative energy that I'm expending to other people and funnel that inward. And if I don't, I really think I'll regret it. And it came at a time where I needed to play with my food. Literally just think outside the box. And it turned into this thing that like, I can't even really describe it. It just came out of me. So naturally it was the most insane creative process I've ever been through. It was just like, oh, here. Once I tapped into it, it flowed out of me so quickly, and Beautifully. And so let's see, 15 chapters. Each one is five morning, five afternoon, and five evening, and they're all different themes and recipes and short stories. And there's all of the ways that art and creating the life that you want to live kind of dovetails in to. Like we were saying before, the rituals of food. And it really is just about making your life really beautiful and thinking outside the box and having food be a vehicle for creativity. And it's been so freaking fun. It's like all I wanna do now, clients are great, but can we just play Seriously,

Erin 1:08:39

Ugh. I have goosebumps like head to toe when you're talking about it. Yeah, I could tell it's From you, but also not, like when you get that creative sort of, whatever you wanna call it, download or whatever. I don't know if you've read Liz, is it Liz Gilbert's The Big Magic. She talks about how creativity, it's just gonna find you and it's gonna work itself through you if you let it. But yeah, I'm very excited to read this book. When does it

Lauren 1:09:00

know it's in conversation with publishers right now, which is insane. It's insane. I, again, I'm like, I love it. But, to have other people be like, yeah, that's really cool. I'm like, it is really cool. Yeah.

Josh 1:09:13

Yeah.

Lauren 1:09:14

I'm really excited about it.

Josh 1:09:16

how did the creative process come to light in that, because you're a designer, specifically working mostly with brand design, and curating something from maybe like mom and pop to actually becoming a full off fledge brand. With a book. There's a lot of writing involved, there's a lot of organization. copywriting in general is different than design. How did you transition yourself into that and, find creative flow through it?

Lauren 1:09:40

that is a really good question. And I was just saying last night that I, the creative process to just be present and pay attention as you're meant to create something that with no real end goal. It's been fascinating because I have these surges of download exactly what you're saying and then I have these lulls and there's no expectation. It's just, it's been a year and a half now of working on this thing I just try to pay attention when those downloads come. It started with kind of high level concepts and playing Sean, my husband is, A total foodie, actually probably a better chef than I am. And he's a sommelier. And so we'd play a lot in general. And then it was like, Ooh, what if it became this structure and what if it looked like this? And then slowly it started to be this Google doc that actually made a lot of sense and was beautiful and had story and narrative that kind of dovetailed in with, the recipes. And it, honestly, I can't tell you, it was a little bit out of body. Like it just kind of download is the perfect word. Cause it, it really just came to me. And then the rest has been really fun. My dear friend Maddie, she's shot the whole book. So we've done a lot of editorial, beautiful visuals that kind of tap into my own, natural, creative bent. it's been really fun.

Josh 1:10:57

Oh, that's so awesome.

Lauren 1:10:59

I know we did a a ceramics line with my friend Emily, all these people are gravitating toward it and I'm like, I it does feel a little out of body where it's I could put this out into the world, but other people are jumping on board and in the boat with me. It's been awesome.

Josh 1:11:15

as soon as people get on board with your idea, you're like, okay, this is outside of me. This is way more than just a quote unquote passion project. This is divine and I have to fulfill this in order and just let it be what it's gonna be, and people will gravitate towards it naturally.

Erin 1:11:31

I love it when projects that start as just like a personal healing journey. Yeah. Like really, it sounds like you were just needing to do this for yourself. Yeah. But it never stops there if you're open to it to sharing it. And that's not always maybe the, that's not always maybe necessary. But so often when we have these kind of, what feels like very intimate personal healing journeys for ourselves, then when we do open it up and kind let the cat out of the bag a little bit, people resonate. Because nothing is new here. Like we're all, yeah, working through a lot of the same things, just in our own little, way. But yeah. That's

Lauren 1:12:06

totally. Yeah, it's been really

Josh 1:12:08

incredible. I'm really excited for this to come out. I

Erin 1:12:10

know. Me too.

Lauren 1:12:12

Me too.

Erin 1:12:12

so it's called Dovetail, right?

Lauren 1:12:15

Yeah, it's called Dovetail. Sean actually helped me with, come up with the name. I was like, what's like the word for how things fit together and intersect. And he's like, well, what about Dovetail? It's got like kinda a masculine visual of a dovetail joint, but this really beautiful almost feminine and it feels like it's both ends of the spectrum, that it could be so many different things. And how, and it turned into this really eloquent, beautiful conversation around how flavors fit together. And even if you look up dovetail, the meaning of dovetail on Google, is like how the beautiful sun, the sunshine or the weather for the day dovetails really nicely with the picnic. So the kind of structure of the book and how it played out is this equal parts menus and thinking outside the box, and then also paired with this dovetail the art of X, y, Z. And so the art of cooking over fire, go make breakfast in your backyard. It doesn't have to be complicated or like the art of hosting. It doesn't have to be complicated if there's beauty to it. It can be beautiful and not, overcomplicated. It can be beautiful and not pretentious. And then there's the concept of really thinking about the things that you own in this, like more, owning art in a way that's like the bowls that you go find and the things that you eat off and making that feel more like a ritual. And one of my favorite chapters is about Japanese knives, and it comes from folklore of knife smiths who would make swords for samurai swords, what have you. They were Japanese samurais were buried with their swords, like they were, it, they have shrines to this extension of themself and they view Japanese cooking knives in the same way. So a lot of chefs see them as this extension of themself. It's like it truly is an art. So like the chapters all dovetail together in a way that tells a broader story, but it's been really sweet. It's just been like the sweetest extension of myself and the two things I love most. And it's been really, it's been a really wonder, I would encourage anybody who's gonna do the thing to just start to put pen to paper. Cause it might become something. There's

Erin 1:14:30

And I,

Lauren 1:14:30

like

Erin 1:14:31

I love too, when I feel like the most beautiful, most quote, successful, I don't even really wanna use that word cuz it is the antithesis to actually what I'm saying. But those projects are the ones that were not so attached to the outcome. Like you were saying, like this just started as whatever, a personal little thing that you were working through and you weren't attached to exactly how it was gonna look. Because I feel like what happens is we're working with minds that are limited. Like we only know what we know. The only thing we have. Have are our experiences that we've already had. And so when we're open to being surprised and delighted by the universe, that's when cool stuff can really happen. It's cuz we're not just I don't know, rigid and structured and yeah, only using what we've got. So you've tapped into something bigger and now you've got this thing that you couldn't even have dreamed of, which is so cool.

Josh 1:15:19

It's incredible.

Lauren 1:15:20

To your point about like success, I was saying creativity to me is like leaving a legacy and I'm helping all these other people build and leave a legacy and what they're meant to do. And if this was my legacy, if we had a grandchild who had this like janky book on a shelf and that was the only person who ever treasured it to me, that's a win. It's just like a legacy. And it's like,

Josh 1:15:43

Yeah. It's when you know you're onto something that's more divine, like I was saying it, this isn't just a passion project, this is your soul's purpose and one of them probably one of many. Yeah. There are many in our lifetime, but identifying that of look, if this impacts one person Yeah. I am a hundred percent content. We said that about Ruti. Yeah. When we were first starting this, if we could help one person get better, this is a win. All of this work is meant to happen. that's exciting to hear you say something like that because you're feeling it on a cellular level that. You have more of a purpose in this than a passion. Passion has to exist in order to fulfill a purpose, but without that feeling of purpose, like you divinely need to do this, sometimes it can fall short in various ways. I see it, I hear it, and that's really exciting.

Lauren 1:16:34

Ah, thanks. Thanks for letting me refine my elevator pitch about it.

Josh 1:16:38

I love it.

Lauren 1:16:39

Every time anybody asks me about it, I'm like, oh, it's, but it's everything that I am.

Josh 1:16:45

Okay, so if people are interested in this, how can they find it?

Lauren 1:16:48

So the book will eventually be a physical living, breathing thing. It is digital at this point. So it's dovetail gatherings.com is the place where I'm playing in the digital realm of inspiration. We're gonna do a pre-order on the ceramics in the next month or so, and start to really tell the story of how this all came to be. So that's, right now it's just a digital kind of, it's living in the digital space, but

Josh 1:17:17

You can go onto the site and sign up for the wait list though, right? To get notified.

Lauren 1:17:21

Yes, that's

Josh 1:17:22

yeah, if y'all wanna do that, get on it. You should. Yeah, I'm on it.

Lauren 1:17:26

Thanks guys. Oh, I really appreciate

Josh 1:17:29

yeah. Hell yeah. Sweet.

Erin 1:17:31

we have to ask you the question. We ask all the people, which is, what is freedom to you? I know we've talked about it a bit here and there along the way, but if you could boil it down, what does that look like in your life?

Lauren 1:17:43

So this was the only prompt you gave me. Of what was to come, and two things came up. The first one was trusting your truth. One of the big things that I've been working on is like finding my intuition and really trusting it again, and trusting my body and trusting that it knows how to heal. And, but I think intuition has been a huge piece of that puzzle in the healing process is like trusting your gut and paying attention. And the other one, and I'm just saying these out loud and realizing it's like trusting your truth and prioritizing your peace. Like I'm realizing it sounds really cheesy, but those were the two things that came up was like, that is freedom to me. Is that like I really trust my core. I trust that I know what is right and wrong. I trust my yeses and nos. and I have the spiritual practice to trust that those things are coming from a really authentic place and it's not selfish and it's not,

Josh 1:18:33

Amen.

Lauren 1:18:33

those were the two that came up.

Josh 1:18:35

That's fucking

Erin 1:18:35

free. Yeah. It is free. Yeah. Trusting yourself. Holy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Easier said than done, Yeah, especially with all the messages we probably received along the way.

Josh 1:18:45

Lauren, thank you so much for being on. Seriously. I know. Even asking you I know nerves can come into that and I know that you could have easily said no, and we haven't seen each other literally in years, so this could have been an easy way out. But I appreciate you being vulnerable Yeah. And authentic. And I am celebrating you in more ways than you'll ever know. Yeah. You're killing it. You are. You are killing it. Yeah. So thank you so much.

Lauren 1:19:12

This was an honor. I really do appreciate it. I love that, that you guys are having this conversation so boldly and I am in awe of your ability to do it with a lot of grace and kindness. I think there's a way to do it and it's this is the right way and you guys are absolutely crushing the conversation and leaving room for confusion or questions, or I'm right below the clouds, but I think I wanna poke my head right up above them, and I, there aren't spaces like that right now. And so you guys are

Josh 1:19:46

Yay. Yeah. We called it pick a lane cuz we genuinely just wanna celebrate whatever lane people choose to be in. Yeah. And ultimately just find their freedom. And there is no playbook for that. We are all bio-individual, we have our own ways of doing things, our own ways of finding things. We just, it really encourage living a curious and open-minded lifestyle. And out of that, I think you're eventually gonna find what makes you free. And we are seeing that in you. Yeah. And so that's so fun to see. It's incredible. So I'm proud of you for doing a lot of hard work and hopping on some horses. I'm sorry you had to go through a lot, but in a way it's such a gift and it always will be and I think the ripple effect of that is going to be huge. So don't get discouraged when you hit roadblocks or there's friction in relationships or things not working the way you intended them to be. It's all divinely working out and sources Got your back. That's true.

Lauren 1:20:42

Gosh.

Erin 1:20:42

Mic drop.

Lauren 1:20:43

What a way to, yeah, mic drop. What a way to go about the rest of my Tuesday.

Erin 1:20:47

you go. There

Josh 1:20:47

you go. We

Erin 1:20:49

should start every

Josh 1:20:50

weekday like this. Now. I know Tuesdays can kind of be weird cuz they're like that awkward, cousin, that's not hump day, but not the start of the week, so That's true. There you go.

Lauren 1:20:58

Yeah. Right.

Josh 1:21:00

Well y'all, thank you so much for listening. This was a sweet podcast. I know. I'm paying for this one to go

Erin 1:21:05

live. Me too.

Josh 1:21:07

have a great rest of your day. Bye bye.

Lauren 1:21:09

You too.