Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
337. The Sacred Art of Slowing Down: Finding Relief from Rushed Living
Licensed Counselor, A. C. Seiple, author of The Sacred Art of Slowing Down: Find Relief from Rushed Living, Soothe Your Soul, and Restore Wholeness Within, shares a transformative approach to finding relief from rushed living by embracing the sacred art of slowing down and reconnecting with our embodied selves. Through exploring autonomy, nervous system regulation, and ancient contemplative practices, she offers practical wisdom for tending to our forgotten inner worlds.
Pre-order A. C. Seiple's book "The Sacred Art of Slowing Down" wherever books are sold and follow her Substack "All Parts Sacred" for more wisdom on embodied spirituality.
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
- Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online coaching center and meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
- Download the "Overcoming Hurtful Words" Study Guide PDF: BECOMING EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
- Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon
- Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
- Learn more about my books and work: Janell Rardon
- Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme, here on today's Heart Lift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time. Well, welcome, oh my goodness, heartlifters. As you know I've had a recent little atrial fibrillation going on with my heart, so I've got my watch on because my heart is so excited about this time with Anna Christine Seipel, yes, and we're going to call you AC today.
Speaker 1:This new book that you have written, the Sacred Art of Slowing Down, find Relief, and that word relief is what really got me From Rushed Living. Soothe your Soul and Restore Wholeness Within. May God make this happen in my life and in all the lives of those who are listening. Heartlifters, you know we need this. We need this word. Yes, it's a book, but we need these words. I know that you do because I know so so many of you that relief from rushed living is on a cellular level. It's truly something that we feel but don't understand. The extremity to is that the right word Extremity, extremes to which we feel so welcome AC. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You are living in one of the most beautiful places on the planet St Andrews, scotland. It is the golfer's paradise, and my husband got to golf on the old course, won the lottery two days before we left in 2005. What an incredible place. And you're studying at the University of St Andrews. Why are you there? I just am so curious how, god, I know the story but my listeners do not yet, because they probably don't have your book yet or have not been on your beautiful sub stack. All Parts Sacred. Wow. How did you end up in that place and space?
Speaker 2:This place. It is one of the most beautiful places it truly is, and the short answer is I took what felt like a risky, vulnerable step to apply to a program that I had no idea if it would work out for me to get accepted. I had no idea if it would work out for us to, you know, move our lives here, and there's a whole backstory of my husband. I had originally planned to come here back in 2018. We had visited together, both looking at PhD programs, and something I talk about in my book is that he had a traumatic brain injury, and that was a week after we got home from that trip.
Speaker 2:And so it seemed as though the door was just completely closed on us coming here. And then, you know, covid happened and I kind of let that dream of doing a PhD. In a lot of ways it was one of the griefs, one of the things that like died with our lives changing so drastically, that like died with our lives changing so drastically. And when I picked the idea back up about two years ago yeah, it was almost exactly two years ago that I it just kept it came kind of out of nowhere. It was not a slow build of like oh, maybe I'll think about that, it honestly just kind of came back up and so I was toying with the idea of playing with it, looking at programs that would do a distance, and I was like maybe I'll go, you know, once or twice a year. You know, we'll stay in Knoxville, we won't change our lives. And I had a friend, a very sweet friend, who just stared me down and said I know that's not what you want.
Speaker 1:Why are?
Speaker 2:you not applying for the programs there?
Speaker 1:I love her. A girl Female, yeah, I love her already. What is her name? Let's shout her out, her name is Mary.
Speaker 2:Mary, she knows that she is the pinkest of friends and she knew that saying that to me meant the possibility of me leaving the continent. That's right. She knew that was my longing, my desire.
Speaker 1:And so the next day, bravo. We want friends, don't we In our lives like that? Yeah, I'm so thankful for Mary because she helped you not settle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all righty, truly, truly. So I asked my husband. I said, what would you think of? Because you know the plan had always been we would go together for both of us to do PhDs. So I said, are you okay with going just for me? That so spoke to something for this little part of me inside. That was just like, would we really move our lives just for me? You know it felt like, oh, could I really ask him to do that, could me? You know it felt like, oh, could I really ask him to do that, could he do this? And he and I think I knew the answer already, but he just said, of course.
Speaker 1:First before we proceed. I just want heartlifters to know that I told AC before we started. I have like a thousand million questions and notes and that's not possible. So I am going to you have to read the book to get the backstory on Elijah, because I want to proceed and utilize this time with you, ac, efficiently, which is hard for me.
Speaker 1:My heart lifters know and I am on a mandate to be calm, so, secondary to that, I have to be calm. So I am really working diligently at the sacred art of slowing down my heart. Probably my vagal nervous system, as we're going to talk about. Probably my vagal nervous system, as we're going to talk about. How is Elijah doing and was he well enough to make this move? Obviously yes, but how's he doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's doing a lot better. And you know to even consider making this move. You know that Medically, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know to even consider making this move. You know that that, medically, um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And really, to be very candid, you know, someone asked me last week, um, and someone else who had written a book in this last year about something, and he was saying, you know, do you ever feel a disconnect between what the thing that we're writing, but then how true or not true that is? You know, kind of in our own lives, and but we moved here for both of us. After a couple of months we just really noticed, you know, our stress levels in our bodies have been higher than usual. You know, no matter how hard we did all the things that we knew to care for our bodies, it just the move did bring about stress. And it was very humbling to see, like, okay, of course, you know, through a massive move, stress is going to go higher. Yeah, and what does it look like to kind of get reacquainted with these practices that, okay, had worked really well in our life, the way life had been going, but this was a big disruption to our regular life.
Speaker 1:Very big and a grand test of your work, which I think is good. That's not.
Speaker 2:That's a positive Right I had to practice what I preach and learn new ways to explore and play with continuing to be a student of that. You know that lifelong learning, lifelong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lifelong. Oh my gosh, like I told you before we started, I really started this at age 28 and the nervous breakdown you know, and it's like I'm 65 and it's so difficult. So you have this huge move. Please tell everyone what you're studying, cause I find it intriguing. Not only did you do two masters side by side, so you are really a lover of learning.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am who puts themselves through.
Speaker 1:that I understand. So you decide University of St Andrews has what you want. What is that program?
Speaker 2:So I wanted to do a UK-based PhD and I wanted to do something interdisciplinary. So I wanted to be somewhere that would support me bringing together really backgrounds from both of my master's degrees so being a clinical mental health counselor, also having a second degree in biblical studies, where I was not only working with biblical languages but theology, church history, things like that and so what I'm getting to do here is I'm getting to bring in conversation with each other ancient contemplative practices so early Christian contemplative practices and present-day mindfulness interventions and just wanting to have a really informed, you know, critically engaged conversation. That requires slowing down right To not haphazardly integrate them, but to really slow down and chew on. You know what does this look like? What is an ethically responsible way to do this? What is a theologically responsible way to do this?
Speaker 2:And so much of what I do in my clinical work and in retreats and things like that. You know this is what I'm doing and so for me there's this sense of when I really think this is what my life's work is going to be. To slow down for a couple years and really critically engage, that, really step into what does this look like, into what does this look like, and go way back to the Desert Fathers. You know, from a very long time ago and you know, read those works and yeah, so it's for me it's really fun, it's things I would like to do even if I wasn't doing a PhD, and just kind of, you know, icing on the cake and the cherry on top, to move to Scotland and St Andrews to get to work on it At the end of this journey, which probably is I don't know how long, how long do they give you in the UK?
Speaker 2:So they give you three years to write your dissertation. And so you come in and they expect you to start dissertation day one. So your first six months you have to write a 10 to 12,000 word chapter and if they don't deem it doctoral level research, they say you can't do a PhD, you have to do a master's instead.
Speaker 2:Wow, the first six months were stressful getting through that, but I got through it, good girl, and they approved it. It might be yeah, and it might be four years. A lot of people do extend to four. It just kind of depends on what your life balance looks like and what a sustainable pace, which for each person, is a bit different.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:And right now I'm actually trying to decide. There's a couple directions I could go of where I most want to narrow, and that's what I'm deciding right now. So you'll have to wait.
Speaker 1:Oh God, you're hanging on threat. I love it. I just want to read this work. I know the dissertation will become a book. I just know it will. So I'll be patient, I will take care of my heart so I live a long time and I can read it and have you back. So there were two main thoughts that came out initially. So one is very practical why the UK? Why did you want to do your PhD program there? I think that's very fascinating for me. I'm very curious about it, obviously, and we have a lot of learners that probably will want to know why the UK? Why not here in the state?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a couple reasons. One of them was very practical in terms of I had done two very rigorous master's degrees, which I loved. But I also know, from all the therapeutic work I've been doing, not just as the therapist, as the professional, but as a person, yes, noticing what increases my stress, how do I carry that stress? And knowing if I was going to step into a program that was going to span something like seven years Seven to 10, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, could I do that? Yes, but will I give that much of myself to it? And the answer was just no that. I'm not willing to the toll that that will take and that's not the answer for everyone, right, but's not the answer for everyone, right? That was the answer for me, especially after what my husband and I had walked through. I have several autoimmune diseases and disorders that stress just has a really big impact on my body. So I really have to selectively pick and choose where I give that where I give that essay.
Speaker 2:So that was one thing that if you can be ready to go into dissertation, the UK is a great place for that because you get to go right in. I had great professors in my grad program who prepared me well to be able to do that, and so I'm very grateful for them and for what they did. They went above and beyond outside of normal coursework to do that.
Speaker 2:And the second thing, honestly and this is of normal coursework to do that. And the second thing honestly and this is really more of the that's kind of the head level answer, the you know doing functional answer. The heart level answer is I had lived in the Netherlands when I was younger and for me. When I left that place I was heartbroken.
Speaker 1:You can feel it on the pages, heartlifters. When you read it, I mean I'm so weepy, I'm right on the cusp of just weeping because I was like. My daughter lives in Belgium and I love Europe. Love Europe Always have Want to be Italian, don't know what it is. Leaving those places is heart-wrenching. Tell us why it was for you.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I mean, that was a place for me. The only way I can describe it is it's where I fully came alive.
Speaker 1:You were 14.
Speaker 2:You lived 14 years there. So not 14 years, but I left at 14. Okay, yeah, yeah, and it just for me, it was a place of spiritual awakening. It was a place of, like, holistic awakening. And to leave. It was the first time that a move really felt like leaving home in a way that's hard for me to put to words, and it just felt like this plant being ripped out of this place where these roots had, like, found their soil, and I didn't have a say in it, right.
Speaker 1:You did not. No autonomy.
Speaker 2:And yeah, yeah. And in the same way that I didn't have a say, when we moved there and it was one of the greatest things, you know, that ever happened in my life or for my family, I mean, we treasured our time there and I really made this inner vow that I would go back. Right and over and over again, I thought I'll go back for college, but then I wanted a traditional American university experience and I thought, well, I'll go back after that. And it was all these things kept happening where I kept not going back. Yes, dang it.
Speaker 2:Right. So for me, there was this sense of really making good on that inner vow, on that inner knowing that.
Speaker 1:An inner knowing Love. Yes, I see, oh, ok, sorry.
Speaker 2:No, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:That inner knowing. Yeah, I'm sorry if I interrupted.
Speaker 2:Did you finish? No, you're good. I mean, that's really it. There was the sense of this is a beautiful opportunity to go back to this corner of the world Obviously a different country, different culture, but this corner of the world it's like my body knows that I'm just this tiny little flight away from the netherlands and we started there when we moved here. We went there for 10 days and I got to take my husband where I used to live and walk in these fields that are just the most sacred place in the world to me, and anchoring there before coming up here, it gives me chills everywhere.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy for you. Yeah, I know that feeling, yeah, and you know it's really important to God. It really is. He writes so much and the psalmist writes and David writes. There's just so much about land and you know strategic placement. You know Genesis 12, abraham, I'm going to send you to a place you don't, you're not going to know. So I think it is very much a part of God's heart.
Speaker 1:And when I was telling my husband last night I was reading again and he goes what are you reading? And I'm like I'm reading ACC I didn't know how to say your last name at the time Cyples book, but it's she moved, they just recently moved back and dah, dah, dah. And he's like he knows how much I want to move, I really want to move, I've got the itch and he's like you really need to lean into that. I was like so the second part that came really came out and I have your beautiful essay that you wrote here. You'll see it on YouTube. Guys, on autonomy or lack thereof, reflections on the perfect conditions of spiritual harm, which is on your sub stack, all parts sacred. You must. Perfect Conditions of Spiritual Harm, which is on your Substack, all Parts Sacred. You must, must become a follower of AC's Substack. It is rich and I have a Substack and I don't subscribe to many, but I love yours, thank you.
Speaker 1:It is that question that, like when you asked Elijah, or even when you before you asked him, I felt it in your heart. Like, could this be all about me? Is that fair? Like, could this be all of? Like? That is a question I am wrestling with right now, at age 65. Like, could something be all about me? Well, I have been well-trained. Yes, I mean, I go way back, way before you weren't even born, you know, and it was even. You know. It was just. That's what I was reared in after I became a follower at age 21. That, to me, is the core of autonomy. Could something be about me? Is that fair? Am I deciphering that right? And then for Elijah to say yeah, to support you, I can't even fathom. Like it's just not some part of my age group, my generations. You know I have a very awesome husband who was way ahead of the game as far as a yes man.
Speaker 1:He was never a yes man, which made me not a yes woman, even though I was a yes woman, he would always say no, no, no, no, no. So talk to me a little bit about autonomy and about this article, particularly this essay. Is that okay if I ask you that? Oh yeah, absolutely. I don't think it's in the book as much I didn't catch that but I feel like it's super important because to me it's part of my slowing down. That makes any sense.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah sense?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Because I feel a compulsion, still a pressure, to help the voice of women be heard and I can't slow that down until I really completely heal spiritual harm and spiritual trauma in my life. I think I think what you're talking about is multilayered.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:And so I will say that it's something I'm still very much.
Speaker 2:I'm very much chewing on and processing and that's where when I put that essay on there almost all of it I wrote last October and you know I've been I finished the book, I've been working on my PhD, I was preparing for the retreat, so you know it's something that just kind of sat on a shelf for a bit, even though I did want to return to it. And there was something recently that happened that for me it was just this other example of people not respecting autonomy of adults in a faith space and just being like this is bonkers to me that this is so normal. Most people don't even think about it. And it brought me back to that article that I wanted to write and just thought you know, I want to share this now. It's a little more raw than I might like. I know that it's not as fine-tuned as I might want, but I just I'm still chewing on it and just being authentic of this is where I am.
Speaker 1:It's authentic and I'm telling you I don't want any more crap. I'm sorry, I'm going to say the word. I could really say the bad word, but I won't. You know, it's just I've got chills. I'm just constantly having chills with your work because it's so authentic. It is raw and if we don't put raw, if we keep guarding that, I'm still guarding it because I want to be ethical, I want to be, you know, polite, I guess I don't know. I'm reading a book the Courage to be Disliked. So what does that say about me? You know, I'm just it's such a good book on, you know, having the willingness to be a Deborah, a woman with a voice.
Speaker 1:That's not afraid, and so yeah, it's raw and that's why it spoke to my heart. So you wrote it and what you're saying in there. And I love Hilary McBride you referenced her in the beginning. The crux of the matter is let me just read this. Can I Do you mind if I read this a little? Oh, it's completely fine, peace. Let's see here One of the most foundational stages of development in this model. Oh, I didn't switch model, are we talking about?
Speaker 2:the model Eric.
Speaker 1:Erickson. Yeah, eric Erickson. Human development Includes a task of navigating between shame and autonomy. In its most simple form, you can think of this as a child who is about two or three-year-olds. I have two three-year-old, almost a three-year-old, two three-year-old boy and girl, granddaughter, grandson, and I'm seeing it in action like the next generation where my children are doing a better job of developing attachment, secure attachment, and I'm developing emotional intelligence. It's just, it's so bonkers to watch my children doing this.
Speaker 1:And I'm so grateful, so grateful. So, in its most simple form, you can think of this as a child who's about two or three years old, starting to pick out the clothing they like to wear, learning to use the toilet or reaching for the kinds of toys they most enjoy playing with. And it's the elements of control and will that seem most threatening to Christians here, that seem most threatening to Christians here, fearful that if we allow ourselves to embrace and assert our own will or control, we're making an either-or choice, not leaving room to ultimately yield to God's will. But what if this is your question if this either-or mindset that shames autonomy out of us in church space is the very thing that grows narcissistic systems? Thank you, you know. Yes, so why is autonomy such a problem within faith journey? It certainly wasn't a problem for Jesus. That's all he did. All he did was help people become autonomous and then help them come together and be a group. It's like it's nothing new.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I think it's really fascinating, and even what you were saying initially of you know, kind of this question of, is this a matter of? Can it be all about me using the word autonomy? The way that that's viewed in faith spaces it just gets put in kind of this black and white either, or of like you're being selfish or you're making it about you, or you're you know, it's almost like there's not this room for well, maybe it's not necessarily that I'm making it all about me, maybe I'm just making a decision right now, which we do all day long, right, you know. So it's kind of funny where it's like we have to make decisions, we have to make choices, right, but then there are so many spaces where that gets questioned. Right, it gets questioned of well, are you following God's will? Are you doing what God would most want? You know, are you doing what? And I and I of course don't want to say this, giving license to harm people or things, that you know that that's not at all.
Speaker 1:We're very healthy here. We are grounded women in the faith. I know that for a fact. We are not trying to create a ruckus in all the wrong ways, trying to create a ruckus in all the right ways. But yes, but what you even said was even in my private practice, when I would, and because I definitely worked with mostly Christian women, seasoned Christian women, 30, 40 years in the faith, seasoned that are the pillars of the churches. I know they're in, in and yet under the surface. So when I would even say the word autonomy, they were like I'd have no idea what that word means. Yeah, to this day I can still say it and they're like what, what does that mean? So I just made it a huge emphasis to speak that word Like I didn't know what it meant either. So it's like let's understand what autonomy means. Can you explain that in your beautiful way, that you explain that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, autonomy. We just most simply think about it in terms of as we navigate life, right, Kind of we're walking through life, we're navigating life and we're making decisions in the same way that a young child might learn okay, I'm going to put this clothing on, I like this toy, so I'm going to play with this toy. Or, you know, I'm learning how to use the bathroom and take care of myself in that way, you know, be autonomous in that way. And I think what's so sad is when we're young, and this is why thinking about it when we're young is helpful. What so often happens is when we use our autonomy in ways that adults like they encourage that autonomy. Right, you know, be autonomous, be independent, do the things that make my life easier.
Speaker 1:But when we?
Speaker 2:do things that use our autonomy and people don't like it, right? Our caregivers, our adults don't like it and it's a problem. Then, right, there's this sense of well, you're not as easily controllable, right, depending on how you're an autonomous being Correct.
Speaker 1:It's control right the way I like to explain it. Tell me please, correct me. I can. This is where I pound my table. I can think for myself, me, I can. This is where I pound my table. I can think for myself, yeah, I can think for myself and I can speak for myself because in my theological standpoint, christ says we're one. So if I'm a follower of Christ and I'm listening to him, I'm following his words, I'm doing my very best to discern, imperfectly as I will, you can't extract Christ in me Like we're one. Christ is in me. I love how you said that.
Speaker 1:I just think I can't Like if I say I'm choosing this, I'm choosing it because God and I are choosing it, or because the Spirit is leading me, or because Jesus is telling me. I can't take the Trinity out of my being. That's at least how I have qualified it in my brain. That's at least how I have qualified it in my brain. It's like I really don't think I can make a decision without it being led by Christ or led by God, because I've been walking with him a very long time and he's just in me.
Speaker 1:Therefore, I can't be selfish. I mean, I'm just talking out loud? Certainly I can be, but if I'm yielding, hungering, thirsting, following, he's going to check me. He'll check me, or those closest to me will check me, those that are also walking beside me. So I feel deeply, ac, that that is such a critical aspect of being able to slow down, because if I can't think for myself and I can't talk for myself, and if I can't make wise decisions by myself, how the heck am I ever going to slow down? Because I'm going to be driven by everyone telling me what I need to be doing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and I think what's so fun for me, even listening to you and this conversation here where you said you know this isn't necessarily explicitly in the book, I'm realizing how much that autonomy piece really is implicitly in the book, even if I'm not making it explicit. Right, the sense of we have this muscle memory inside that kind of moves us through life, and so much of the book is the sense of okay, let's slow down and tap into that muscle memory really, so that we are making these informed decisions where we're like we're giving consent basically to how we want to move through our days, how we want to live our lives, but we're like we're giving consent basically to how we want to move through our days, how we want to live our lives, how we want to be connected to our bodies, inviting God to tend to the depths of our soul, and in doing that, all of that is autonomy. Right, we do that out of making autonomous decisions, yes, and connecting with our autonomy, rather than just being kind of coasted through life on this autopilot.
Speaker 2:That we might not even want to choose, but it's just what's happening.
Speaker 1:Because you talk so much about autopilot and it's I mean we do move through our days on autopilot and you have explained implicit and explicit memory, which is so important to this conversation and so much of our life. Is that neuroplasticity right? The work of rewiring is very difficult. Book a deeper conversation that I have seen in others. Page 11 for sure I'm going to read. In fact, ac writes 80% of communication is through our vagus nerve. I have not known that fact. How do I not know 80% of communication is through our vagus nerve? Tell us what our vagus nerve is, real quick, and then you're just gonna have to read about the rest, because I said we're going to stay very efficient here and why that's so important to the core of slowing down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our vagus nerve is one of our cranial nerves, so we have different pairs of cranial nerves, and so that pair of our cranial nerve, it actually goes the whole way from our brainstem all the way down into our abdomen. And so that pair of our cranial nerve, it actually goes the whole way from our brainstem all the way down into our abdomen. And so that's why vagus is from the Latin word for wandering, because it kind of wanders down. And so that thing that I kind of nerd out about a little bit in the book just to frame where we're going, is that 80% of communication through this vagus nerve goes from the body to the brain rather than the brain to the body. And the reason this is important is our vagus nerve has to do with our autonomic nervous system. So that's what regulates our breathing, our heart rate, our blood pressure, these things that literally keep us alive and have to do with how safe do we feel?
Speaker 2:How stressed do we feel? Are we overwhelmed? Are we going into shutdown? Can we rest? Can we take a deep breath? How connected do we feel to other people, all of these things that have to do with so much of life. And so if we're not working with that flow of communication, that with this significant cranial nerve, 80% of that communication going from the body to the brain, if we're not working with that flow of how we're created, we're likely to end up feeling pretty frustrated and stuck and like we're working against our own self.
Speaker 2:And that's where I've spent a lot of my life, right. So I don't write this from a place that's detached, that just kind of does this with clients. I write this from a place of this is something that I have battled through for years and that, with the help of some really wise women and mentors and they're referenced in the book God has just stitched together this really beautiful, holistic, formative journey that I know I'm only starting right, it's not like I've been through it and I wrote about it, but things that have been profound enough in the first years of that journey that I wanted to share, these sacred spaces where you know that nerdy fact about our nervous system and this cranial nerve that doesn't have to be detached from the depths of our soul, from you know really deep healing work and like, what does it look like to find those intersections of what's going on with my body beneath the awareness you know of, like my thinking brain? And what does it look like to connect with God in those spaces?
Speaker 1:I don't know. We need you. I need you, yeah, Because if you do avoid paying attention to it, you will end up in the ER. You just will. You will end up with a heart problem, whether it's metaphorical or literal or both. And I'm just saying it because I want you to help us understand even more. How do we? I mean, obviously, we will read your book with highlighter in hand and take it apart. I am not letting go of this book until I get it, especially chapter nine, tending to what's been forgotten. We may not get there in this conversation, but I'll get there and add some things later. How do I make that shift? Number one I wrote down we have to understand. We're an embodied being. You go into such depths to help us understand.
Speaker 2:What does it completely mean to embrace my embodied beingness? Yeah, I think initially it's uncomfortable when we're not used to it. I just want to name that. It's so awful. I'm sorry, and that's the hard thing, right? Yes, is where it's like we have been living disconnected from our bodies, generally for a reason, and so that's where it can be really hard, where it's like I don't want to do this. I don't want to be connected in this way. I don't want to feel bad.
Speaker 1:This doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, even just slowing down, like I don't want to slow down and have time to think the thoughts I don't want to think and feel the things I don't want to feel.
Speaker 1:I'm going to keep busy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the vision is definitely on the long game there. I think that's something that really needs to be named right. Yes, ma'am, and that it's a relationship like our relationship with our bodies, with ourselves.
Speaker 2:I love how Hilary McBride will just so simply say it's not just that we have a body, we are our body. So it's not just that we have a body, we are our body right. So it's not just a relationship with our body, it's a relationship with ourselves. And again, that can feel uncomfortable. Right, there can be these christian messages of is that selfish, is that self-focused? And when we frame it as we, like any other person, are a creation created by god, created in god's image, as some of my favorite hebrew scholars would say, as god's image, not just bearing god's image, as some of my favorite Hebrew scholars would say as God's image, not just bearing God's image, but as God's image, god's representational presence Into us.
Speaker 1:We live with his breath. I mean everything about him is in us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's like we don't get to decide right, if there's this inherent dignity and value there to embrace holistically, it's like that's already been determined.
Speaker 2:So I think in the day-to-day, in your question, I think initially it's like fostering this relationship, and a metaphor I once used with someone that I think is so helpful, especially if you like cats, is you know, if you bring two cats into the same space together and they don't know each other yet, the way that you're like the recommended way to do that is to have them in separate parts of the house for like a while I think it's for weeks. Even so, they can smell each other, they can hear each other, but they don't actually see or interact for a very long time. And it's this very slow process, this weeks-long process, sometimes even months-long process. They get accustomed to knowing like, okay, they're there but we're not interacting and it moves so slowly to where. Okay, then maybe they might be in a room closer, they can smell each other more, hear each other more. Then maybe they're on separate sides of the room.
Speaker 1:And kind of thinking about that with, like our body and different parts of us of moving that slowly right, knowing like good word lean in this.
Speaker 2:I mean ac. This is it. Thank you say it again slow, yeah, and honoring that. Honoring that, there's reason it takes a long time, there's reason that this is risky and scary and vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Like honoring that vulnerability, yes, so the flow here, in summary, is to understand the power of being embodied being an embodied being, and then to understand that it's really a bottom-up approach. So how do we then make that shift to listen to the signals coming from bottom-up or, you know, gut-up? How do we do that? Is there some simple ways that you are giving us in the book? Maybe some simple ways to start?
Speaker 2:Go slow.
Speaker 1:Go slow.
Speaker 2:Yes, go slow, create that space with slowing down. Curiosity is a core ingredient, right? Because it's so easy that we come to ourselves with frustration, with shame, with impatience and something I wish I could remember who I first heard say this, so that this is not original to me. But in a training many years ago, I heard someone say you know, and slowing down and just noticing things for the first time, really basically trying to encourage people what does it look like to get curious when we don't even know what it means to get curious, especially with our own selves or other people, to just have this phrase of oh, that's interesting, yeah. So if we don't know how to not respond with a judgment, just responding with oh that's interesting, that's so interesting, I'm so curious, yeah, yeah. And even if it doesn't feel authentic, just kind of playing with that of like, what would it be like to say right now? Oh, that's interesting, you know, and sometimes you laugh at yourself initially because you're just like this is not my muscle memory response. This is so far.
Speaker 1:No, I love, I don't want to pass by. Something so important that you keep bringing us to attune to is our muscle memory, and so our muscle memory is just what we have learned to do, and it's that implicit. It's just we just do it without even thinking. So that's why when we learn a new process or practice because I call this book a spiritual practice it is learning to live my life in pace with the spirit is a spiritual practice. So it's going to feel uncomfortable, it's going to make me come out of my skin, as what I say in disembodying I'm going to come out of my skin. I used to say it all the time and I didn't understand what it meant. And as a dancer, my whole life and I know you're a dancer I mean I danced, all I still would and do swirl and twirl and move my body. I felt embodied when I moved, but then, when I was off stage, I became disembodied again. So those words that we're throwing around being embodied means fully occupying your being. You can feel yourself in your body.
Speaker 2:Yes. I feel that to the autopilot thing of the muscle memory that runs when we're on autopilot I think it's exactly what you're saying where we feel and we're connected to that muscle memory. So, rather than it going on autopilot and we're disconnected from it, we're actually tuning in with what's happening down there, what's happening in this muscle memory right now.
Speaker 1:Right? Why is my left hand tingling or my left foot tingling, or why is my you?
Speaker 1:know or my left foot tingling or why is my? You know that's how I, and so I always start by just come, come home, janelle. Like put my hand on my heart a lot lately, but more it's just I can be in a grocery line, a doctor's office, in a conversation, and I'll just, I'll just do this and go. That's my sign for Janelle to come home, come home. It's safe in here, it is safe now and I really like being in my home now.
Speaker 2:I feel good in my home and that's the most important home I'll ever have is inside of my body, and so it's critical.
Speaker 1:So, my wise new friend AC, we have not gotten very far, but my eye is on the clock I have to have you talk to us about. Really, I think it's like the thesis of your book 1314 on this woven together, this beautiful nuclei of DNA that it looks like in the illustration on page 14. I mean, look at my book, it's just so good. May you please help us understand these strands that we are to weave into the fabric of our being in a very slow process. You have helped me recover my understanding of gracing myself to be slow. I almost feel like my life depends on it. I don't feel I know my life depends on it. I don't feel I know my life depends on it right now. If I don't get this lesson, it's not going to be good. So, woven together, you're talking about the mysterious complexity of our internal world, all of our parts, and you give us these five strands. Is it five or?
Speaker 2:six. I think it's five. I think that's right, it's five.
Speaker 1:I remind you because you wrote this a long time ago and you're already writing other things, deep things, the cognitive strands of our mind. Deep things, the cognitive strands of our mind. Just give me a quick little overview. So we have a cognitive strand in our mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's, you know, like our thoughts, what we often think of. No pun intended. You know, even when we think of like put mind over matter, kind of where we assume like the central core of who we are is, we often put that seat in our mind of it's what I think, it's what I do, it's what I can figure out, it's um, yeah, the thinking all part of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then, the emotional strands of our heart yeah, so the reality is we are deeply feeling people, and I love how we see in scripture like Christ was so moved by compassion. The Greek verb there is that his innards, like his entrails, like this visceral, this embodiment of God's compassion. And you know God's compassion being located so, exodus 34, moses, mount Sinai, god passes before proclaiming, you know, the Lord, the Lord Compassionate, gracious. You know we translate this in different ways, but that first word, the root noun of that Hebrew word, is womb, right, and so it's not just the sense of feeling things deeply like compassion, but even the location of that in the body. The Bible Project podcast has a really great episode on this, called the Womb of God.
Speaker 1:Okay, I will put it out yes, w-o-m-b, just in case you're hearing wound, it's womb.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, yes, Womb, yes, womb, but yeah, so not just that we feel, but that that is intricately connected in us.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's our gut. Yeah, the somatic strands of our body. Somatic is a new word to all of us. In this podcast, we're really trying to help come into a somatic understanding. Okay, so the somatic strands of our body.
Speaker 2:Yes, so soma, coming from the Greek for body, so the sense of we are not as much as we try to separate who we are from our body. That's just not how we're created. And so, and you know, whether it's the body keeps the score, whether it's, hilary McBride's, the wisdom of your body, like we, like research, research is showing us what's always been true about how we were created, what's reflected in the psalmist's cries, of how they are intersecting all these strands in this ancient poetry that's been preserved as sacred scripture. And we're just now kind of catching up to something we've forgotten. Yes, yes, or we've forgotten, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Or chosen to forget, yeah, or been told to forget. Or been told, that's probably more accurate. Yeah, yeah, new day. The fourth the spiritual strands of our soul. You talk a lot about tending to the depths of our soul. So what would that mean? You do have a whole podcast. I'm going to put your beautiful podcast out if you want to know what is a soul. But in this, what we're talking about today the spiritual strands of our soul that are woven into this beautiful new fabric that we're trying to live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm looking at our relationship with God. You know these spaces of not just us coming before the holy, but the sense of the sacredness that is woven in us, that there is again in the way that we can't disconnect ourselves from our body, we can't disconnect ourselves from being created in God's image and God living in us. Yeah, it's just the threads, it is already all woven together.
Speaker 1:It is John 17,. It's Ephesians 1,. It's Psalm 139. You cannot deny, you cannot separate. I mean Romans 8,. Right, we are. Christ is living in us. I really want that to be a fresh word for today you know that nothing can separate. Nothing can separate us from that deep love. Last strand is the narrative strands of our story.
Speaker 2:That's the latter part of the book, which is I'll just briefly say, you know, in a way that's puzzling, no matter how old we are, we are the same person who was once one day old and one year old and 10 years old, and we carry those versions of ourselves Like, again, there's no separating that when, yes, we are a different age, yes, we are in a different developmental stage, but we are the same person we are and we carry that, we carry what we have lived through with us. And so, again, it's just these things, that they are already woven together and connected, and it's just tracing those strands that are intact and, in a way, getting comfortable, because initially it can feel uncomfortable and it's like what does it feel like to get comfortable with? Like, oh yeah, this is woven together, oh yeah, all this is all this is here. It can feel again, it can feel like a lot. It sometimes doesn't feel safe initially. That's why the book goes so slow to cultivate as much safety to respect autonomy of you go at your own pace.
Speaker 2:You only do what feels safe to you right now, and you get to determine that.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Which is big.
Speaker 1:Yes, our beautiful Andi Colbert was on and she talked a lot about titration, which you know. All these words are really big words, but I love how God has brought all of these beautiful souls to write different books that have different pieces at different times, and this you're helping the titration is the way to slowly come into the different parts of ourselves. Okay, I'm not quite ready for that yet. You know, to be patient with our friends and our family, with me, with my adult children, with my adult, my grandchildren. To go, oh, it's, it's, it may be, it may be today's not the day. Being very aware of timing in our relationships as well. So I think this is such a beautiful picture that you're painting for us to also extend outward once we have done the work ourselves. Not everybody's ready to hear the truth about themselves right now. You have to be really aware of timing, and so I think going slow is a really good word in relationships as well. Okay, you write, a tapestry is one unified entity with many different strands that are all connected together. Even though this can't clearly be seen on the surface. In one corner of a tapestry, a specific thread or a combination of two or three threads might be most visible. I love that you write this because it was in Scotland, at Stirling Castle, when I was there in 2005. That's a little ways out from St Andrews, but they were restoring the tapestries from the castle and I've written about that. So, heartlifters, I will put that on so you can read about that. And they work from the back. It just was awe-inspiring. They can't even see what they're trying. You know they have a pattern over here, but then they work from the back. It's like what? So they're just following specifically and strategically the numbers on those grids that are on their pattern. Well, isn't that how the Father works with us? Oh, my goodness, ac, I have to let you go, but I would like to just ask one final, if you would give us one final parting.
Speaker 1:Part three is tending to the depths of our soul, tending to what's been forgotten. Where do we begin there? Where do we begin to tend to what's been forgotten? You've already given us the beautiful background and principles and the idea of slow, slow. So what's a good place to start today? By your book of 10? To the end of each chapter that you give us, and even on the insides of the chapters, you give us time to stop and slow down. Where would you like us to start today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, listening in. I think it's a pretty rare thing that we listen to what's happening inside, and again, for good reason, because it can sometimes feel overwhelming. And so that word titration that you used earlier of you know, maybe we start by I have 20 seconds that I can tolerate listening in today, or I have 10 seconds I can tolerate listening in today. That's all I can really handle or manage. And starting the air knowing that's okay and seeing okay. Maybe tomorrow or the next day maybe I listen for 30 seconds, maybe I go down to five seconds. Yes, but just fostering that relationship of just listening in and, I think, sometimes being honest with ourselves, with our body, with all the parts within of I don't know how to do this yet.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I don't know what this is going to look like. This is scary, you know. And just being right where we are, if that's our starting point, yep, starting there.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:And going and growing from that place, yeah, so in the ancient contemplatives that you're studying, is there some thread there that you're already beginning to see, woven through all the different people that you're studying the desert monks, anything, the desert monks, anything, so, um, yeah, so I'm focusing on one main person, um, john Cassian, and something that I've really enjoyed, um is there's a lot of talk around the recesses of the heart, the recesses of the soul, the recesses of the mind, really like this, the depths right, and this um wanting to go into those depths. While they are physically so, that's internally, but then physically and externally they're going to these recesses of the desert and these depths of the desert and I think there's something, yeah, really beautiful about that for and for me that resonates really deeply of I love externally doing that Right, and for me, that matches that internal work, that those things fit for me, and those are places where God meets me and, yeah, spaces of sweetness and that are sacred, and so that's something I've specifically enjoyed.
Speaker 1:So I'm hearing you say be strategic in getting away movement, away from the ordinary rush and all of that.
Speaker 1:Like taking screens our phones, our emails, yeah, the busyness. A retreat, if you can, one of yours, I would love. Yeah, making movement away, even if it might be for a great length of time you know, now I'm talking, I know people have children and all of those things. But even making it a part of your family value, perhaps for the mother and the father to give one another a time away every year perhaps, or maybe every six months, to disconnect from mothering, whiffery, husbandry, all of the things, okay, I love that. So that's something different that I've not challenged my heart lifters with, or myself, to put that on the calendar to get away by yourself. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:I would also say, sometimes what our life has margin for is stepping outside and putting our feet in the grass and looking at the sky for five minutes and just stepping away from our screens, the busyness, you know, when it's safe and okay for everyone in the house for looking at the sky for five minutes and just stepping away from our screens, the busyness, you know, when it's safe and okay for everyone in the house for us to do that, because maybe getting childcare is just not a thing that's going to happen for a night or a weekend or whatever it is. And so seeing, okay, what is it like to do that physical action of kind of stepping away from my mountain to-do list and in the space where what I have margin for taking one of those exhales, I love it and being.
Speaker 1:Being. Yeah, I love it. Thank you, ac. Thank you for having me. The recesses of my heart, thank you.
