135. You Are So Precious

This week, Savanna and Sue Ellen are reflecting on their last two interviews with each other. Observing the places of commonality in two very different fields of work and how their ethos is same same but different. Encouraging people to come back home to themselves and remember that at our core we are all precious. 

We also want to shout out our amazing and incredibly talented friend Nico Nelson, who is a fantastic artist and photographer and we want to encourage you to go and book a session with her or hire her to help you with your social media or business presence. You can find her Instagram @seeingsacred or her website https://niconelson.com/. 

If you are interested in learning from Savanna, you can still enroll for her three week series power to the pelvises online at her website wwwsavannawonderwheel.com.

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Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and leave us some stars over on Spotify. You can email us at littlegiftspodcast@gmail.com or find us on isntagram @littlegiftspodcast. 

Find Sue Ellens artwork at www.sueellenparkinson.com or connect with her on instagram @sue.ellen.parkinson. And the same goes for Savanna! Find more about her practice at www.savannawonderwheel.com or connect on instagram @savannabeing. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

I think that's what always underneath everything is you are lovable just as you are here. And not just lovable, but magnificent, really.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Precious is the word that comes up for me a lot with people coming back to their self in some way. It just comes back to this feeling of like you are so precious. Welcome to the Little Gifts Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

This is Sue Ellen Parkinson. And I'm her granddaughter, Savannah Wonderwheel. And we're on a journey together to find deeper meaning and magic in the day-to-day. We're so happy to have you join us.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Good morning. Good morning, Savannah.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Oh, good morning. I'm tired today.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Well, you were at a triathlon. You were just witnessing, but still.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

It's exhausting work to watch people run and bike and swim. I really, I truly was working the hardest out of everybody. No, not at all. No, you were cheering them. You were really cheering them on. I was cheering them on so hard. It was really, it was fun to watch and it was exhausting. And I can only imagine how exhausted my mom and my boyfriend are who actually did the triathlon. But it's just a big day of, you know, you have to get up early, get out there early. It's a lot of energy, all the stuff. And then it was a really sweet day, but it was very full. We had the triathlon and then got mom home. She had a wedding to go to. We had a baby shower to go to. It was Winnie's grandma's 83rd birthday. So we had a birthday party to go to. It was just a big, big, full day.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Oh my goodness gracious. That's sign that you are young. You know, when you get older, you just go, I will do one of those things. And wait, they it won't be a triathlon for sure. Although it might, I remember my friend Roberta Valdez. She she did triathlons in her 70s, at least 60s, late 60s.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

It was very inspiring. There was a number of people in their 70s who did it. There was like an MC who was calling out names as people kind of came through, and it seemed like anybody who was over the age of 70, he gave a special shout-out to.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

As well, you should.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Exactly. So that was really amazing. And then the other thing I saw, which I haven't really seen at many races before, was they had a whole segment of blind folks who were doing the race. So they would have a guide with them and they would have someone to help with the vision. But there's a whole number of blind folks who did the whole thing and like did it with really good time. And it was really, really inspiring to see that. I was I was kind of blown away. Well, that's awesome. That's cool to just see people doing something challenging just to kind of see what they're capable of. And it's neat.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

It wasn't so much a competition. It was more just at least from your mom's point of view, I know it was just more doing it, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

There definitely were people there that were competing. There was people who like clearly this is their thing and they're trying to get good time and they have all the techniques down, and the transition techniques are where it seemed like there is people who clearly knew what they were doing. And I'd say that was maybe like 10, maybe 15% of the race population was like those people. And then the rest, everybody else seemed to just be kind of doing it just to do it.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

So just chugging along. Oh well, so we were gonna talk about our interviewing each other.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah, we were gonna talk about us talking about each other.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

It was interesting to me because when I I re-listened to both interviews yesterday in preparation for this, and I'm just kind of discovering where our perspectives are similar in that we want to help people become who they truly are and be at peace with themselves and find their strength and not about fixing people, but about just revealing that essential person.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

That's such a good way of putting it. Revealing that essential person. I love that. After we did your interview, we were talking quite a bit about how it felt like to you, we kind of got into things that you don't always get into when you are being interviewed by people or being asked questions about your backstory or your your why. And I thought that was a really interesting perspective that you had on it. And maybe you'd want to talk about that a little bit here.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Usually what people want to know is um what compels me and sort of historical facts about these images that I've painted and things like that. But what you were asking me about was more my own process of oh, of you know, dialoguing with the images and what that's meant to me. I I just thought it seemed like it went deeper on some level that I hadn't gone on before. It was important to me. And I'm realizing that it's not just the painting, it's like what you do with that painting, what you do with that process, why these images are important. But back to what I was saying about the commonality between your work, although coming at it from a really different direction, it's like we're both have this question, brewing, like, um, what would the world be if we were truly allowed to be ourselves?

SPEAKER_02 5:41

And to me, it's like the underlying question of like, what would the world be? And how easy could it be? Everything is made so difficult because we're trying to go outside ourselves or make some other, it could be anything, some other thing outside ourselves happy or satiated, or we're trying to live up to the standard or the value of some other thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Which creates this crazy world. Uh-huh. That's the insanity is people aren't just allowed to tap into their own inner peace, to rest in who they are. I think that's what always underneath everything is you are lovable just as you are here. And not just lovable, but magnificent, really.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Precious is the word that comes up for me a lot with people where I'm just like, You are so precious. Like these people who either are on my table or who I'm working with and helping guiding them through movement or through coming back to their self in some way. It's like it just comes back to this feeling of like, you are so precious. And that's something that I don't know if I would have been able to fully articulate. I mean, maybe I would have got there on my own. But one of my teachers, Ami Opal, in one of the trainings I was in with her, she said something so simple that was just like our only goal in sessions with people is to remind them of how precious they are. Any opportunity we can take when we're interacting with another body to remind them of how precious they are is the whole point of why we're doing this. Because if you can have that remembrance in yourself, it really does change the way you move through the world. And I remember being in a session with her at one point prior to when I when she said this. And I think she even said at some point while I was on the table, she she like said the words, you're precious, or you are so precious. And I just, it was so impactful in that moment. Because I was like, I don't know. I mean, maybe people said that to me as like a baby. That's probably when you say that to people. But I was like, I have no recollection of hearing those words said to me as an adult, right? And how impactful that was in that moment to just have another person who doesn't fully know me, but is just saying this such such a simple line of like, you are so precious. And like, even hearing that sometimes I think there's this cultural tendency to diminish that or to be like, oh, that's cringy, or oh, that's so cheesy, or oh, oh, I can never have someone say that to me and feel comfortable, like I'd be so uncomfortable if somebody said that. And even that alone, I think, just goes to show how much we need to hear it, right? And how much we need to be reminded of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Exactly. We are taught and sort of trained to constantly be something else, you know, fit into a different mold. And when you get that bombardment non-stop, this is what is gonna make you okay, is if you fit into this picture. You're spending a lot of energy. Yeah, seriously, not living up to your own true potential. But if you can relax and just accept yourself as being precious as you are, or even just accept yourself as you are, start there. You can use all your energy towards creating something beautiful in this world, doing some meaningful work. Yeah, it just seemed so important, so important.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

The thing I have coming up is I feel like sometimes there's this kind of like divide between that idea of like accept yourself as you are, and then the world in which I'm working in, you know, maybe not as much in body work, but more so in the movement world and the Pilates world, especially like the perceived idea of what the Pilates world is, and even what the somatic world is. People go to those worlds because they do want to fix something, they do want to change something about themselves. And I think, I mean, I'm always just like, yes, and or no, and so I think there is this dichotomy between you are perfect, just how you are, and like let's accept ourselves just how our we are, and can we hold that and also go into spaces where we're going into them because we do want some kind of change? Can we hold ourselves lovingly through wanting some kind of change? And I think it comes down to that difference of like accepting who you are as your essential self and still feeling okay with the fact that, you know, maybe I do want my physical form to be shifted in some way because it's gonna help me get out of pain or because it's gonna help me more easily do the things that I know I'm supposed to be doing and just holding that with a lot of tenderness too. And I think that's like one of the things that I really try to work with people in that realm. Obviously, people come in being like, I want to lose weight, I want to look better, I want this or that. And like I just try to be really upfront with people when that's their why coming to me at least of being like, that's a super valid why, but I might not be the right instructor for you. Because yes, that might happen by doing these things. And the reality is it's gonna be a side effect of whatever the main thing that happens is, but it's not at all gonna be the driving force or the primary thing that's coming, the primary change that's coming about because of the work that we're gonna do together. And I know that's how many, many Pilates instructors feel. And I think on the flip side of that, when it comes to more of the emotional spiritual aspects within doing any kinds of somatic work, there's also often this drive to be like, well, there's something wrong with me. I need to fix this or fix that. And really the work is getting to a place where you can hold those things that are quote unquote wrong with you and see them, witness the pattern and understand why it's happening. You know, that will affect the pattern or shift the pattern, but we're not necessarily gonna be able to fix anything. You know, your symptoms might reduce, your symptoms might change, your way of expressing might change. But yeah, it's a tricky, it's a tricky line to walk in an industry where people come to me because they want a fix.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

I imagine that just working with somebody like you and hearing your perspective might be helpful along the journey, though. I just I just remember this friend of mine who was really got pretty heavy at one point in her life. And then she just kind of shifted and she said for herself she had to let the fat girl grow before she could let the fat girl go. Oh she had to get to the point of loving that fat girl before she could let her go and peacefully.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

That's such a great perspective, yeah. Really sweet.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

But I was also thinking about this commonality we have about creating spaces where people can be honest, and that's really important to me. And in and in the soul collage work, which is once again dialoguing with images, that's what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

I think that's part of why I like the industries that I'm into, is because I was even talking to somebody about Pilates yesterday. It just came up and we were chatting about it. And I was like, Yeah, I mean, I love it because there isn't anywhere to hide. You come in and you want to try to work your way around something, or like our bodies are so good at adapting and just doing the easiest version of something or doing something the easiest way possible. And in Pilates, you really can't do that. You just get exposed to where things are trying to cheat their way through. That exposure is why I like doing it so much for myself because it shows me where I'm trying to just skirt around the edge or something. But it's like that truth aspect. I haven't thought of it from that perspective, but that truth aspect I really like working with people in where they're like, oh my God, I can't hide from myself, right? I can't cheat my way through this. And then in body work, it's not the same, but somewhat similar of like there's less words happening about it, but people will just you have what you have come up when you're not distracted and not looking at things or doing things when you're just laying still and having someone tend to you. Things have the opportunity to bubble to the surface. And I even earlier this week had a woman who had a pretty big emotional processing on the table. And afterwards, she was like walking in here today, and I absolutely would not have thought that I was gonna cry during our session. She was like, I just felt like I was fine, everything was good and all the stuff. And she's like, and I still don't even fully know what those tears were about, but I know that they had to, they were clearly there and wanting to move and had to move. And she said something along the lines of like it made me kind of come to have a little come to moment with myself of like, oh, I I have something that I'm I need to look at or need to move through in a way. And I know that happens with your work too, with people when they see your paintings and interact with your paintings. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah, it's wild. And you know, what's coming up for me is what happens when we create enough safety and allow for enough curiosity and love that the real person can emerge, you know? It's it's really transformational. But yeah, I I mean, I've done when I did the healing circle. I mean, I've had so many people just start crying when they looked at that image. And what is it an image of? It's an image of an older woman being loved and cared for, really. How odd that that would be something that's completely absent in the culture, right? Oh my god. That would evoke so much emotion. I mean, it's not just the thing that we want, it's also what we want to do, I think. Yeah. We want to wash each other's feet, we want to treat each other with that kind of love, we want to experience that kind of loving connection.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it feels as someone who is in a space where I do get to give that to people, you know, it feels really good. It's not just like a selfless thing, or you know, it's obviously not selfless because people are paying me in this instance, but it feels really good to take care of people and to be able to give that care to people. And when they experience a deeper level of ease in their body or a deeper, a deeper level of relaxation, or a deeper level of some kind of letting go or system change, I can feel that too. And it it impacts me when other people have that, and it feels really great in my system when it happens to someone else. It's this ripple effect.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

And there's also this added little piece of the importance of being witnessed, importance of being seen, and and when somebody really sees you, which is what I think people get when also when they look at my paintings, they feel very seen. Obviously, the models, but but yeah, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

I mean, that's one of the big things that I've noticed when I've helped you run a booth or at a sale or anything. People are seeing themselves in your images over and over and over again. They're seeing some part of I think that essential self that we were talking about a little bit. They're seeing that spark of familiarity, of remembrance in themselves when they look at your images.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

And honoring people as they are. And then also there's this little message, you don't have to hide from me. You don't have to hide from me. Yeah. Anyway, I thought that was interesting. That is really interesting. When I saw that, when I started feeling that similarity between us, even though we're coming at it from very different directions, it's similar.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

I love that you kind of tugged on that, that you saw that thread and kind of tugged on it. Because I don't think I quite got there myself. But one of the things that stood out to me of kind of the similarity between us, and you mentioned it a little bit earlier, was kind of our our shared interest in the process more than the outcome.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Obviously, you want to have a good painting at the end of the day when we're all said and done. You like want it to be aesthetically appealing and you want it to look finished and all the things. And obviously, I want people to feel better after they're done with our session, and I want them to feel like they have some kind of change. But I don't think either of us are really all that interested in what that outcome actually is.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Well, we're interested, but the the joy is in the exploration. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

And that interest isn't driving the the process, that process piece that you mentioned. I the word process kind of pinged that for me, where it was like, yeah, again, like you said, we're we're interested in what the outcome is. We want the outcome to be all these things, it'd be great, but it's also like that's not the driving factor of doing any of the work. It's the driving factor is that process and what emerges through the process and what comes up through the act of doing and through the act of creating and through the I'm like wiggling my fingers for the people who can't see and like spinning my hands, or it's like that's what it is. It's that that tangible felt practice of doing something with your hands and and seeing what comes out on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

In my case, and I'm just thinking this is one of the reasons why I feel like I can't teach this, because I I will start off with my basic sketch and have this idea of what I'm gonna do. But then I would say there's so many twists and turns along. I mean, I really don't know what I'm gonna do, and I'm changing stuff all the time. It's a process of just kind of listening and looking and seeing what wants to come through. I don't know how to teach that to somebody. It's not like you do step A, B, and C. I'm listening for it. I don't know if I'm explaining that, but it's a lot of changes happen throughout the period of my painting. I mean, the whole color scheme will completely change often.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Well, and we've talked about that a little bit about how often different teachers of art and different people who teach their painting styles or techniques or process or whatever it is, their students end up creating art that looks really similar to theirs, right? Which is, I mean, to be expected. If somebody's like, this is my work, this is how I get here, odds are that people who are learning from them and doing that, it's gonna look, you know, the same or similar. And so we've talked about that with your work before, where you're essentially like a fine artist, right? But you're doing it in a way that's so outside the norm of how people get to having that skill. If people were to come learn from you, you wouldn't be teaching them how to paint fine art, right? You would be teaching them how you'd be teaching them how to dialogue with the universe, how to like be a channel, and then they theoretically would make something happen from that. But that's I we've just that's interesting. We've talked about that little like glitch in the in the steps of like, okay, well, this is what I do, this is how I do it, and they're a little bit at odds with each other in terms of like how you teach somebody a skill.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah, I can't. I and I I don't know, I don't think I'd feel very successful, you know, given everything else I've said in this past whatever half hour, 40 minutes of if everybody just ended up painting like me, I would that is not what I want. I uh I do want people to have the joy. I would love people to have the joy of painting icons. That would be wonderful, amazing. But you know, I had this woman send me um when I was painting Mary Magdalene initially, she sent me, she said, I I did a drawing of Mary Magdalene, and um she said I dialogue with it all the time also, and she sent me the picture in the mail, she mailed it to me a Xerox copy, and it looked like a little drawing, it was just a pen and ink drawing that maybe um a nine year old would do. Oh. But I realized, you know, it just really struck me that's all that's necessary. Yeah. This was an image that came to her that she was dialoguing with, and there you go. That's all you need. She drew her own doorway. Yeah. And then she stepped through it. That's that's the interesting part to me.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

It's not having some gas or that's the interesting part to me with my work too, is isn't you know, the muscle is fixed, the muscle is healed, whatever it is, the issue is fixed, the issue is healed. The interesting part to me is all the other stuff that comes up along the way for people.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah, what is the feeling trying to tell me?

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Yeah. And again, a lot of the time I don't even need to know. Like it's just the fact that they're thinking about it in some way or mentioning that they're thinking about it in some way. Like, you know, sometimes there's the people who are sharers and just say everything, but often there's people who don't who don't tell me what that answer is. You know, they just tell me that they had the inquiry come up. And to me, that alone is so satisfying. And yeah, and the fact that that's their body communicating to them, that's them having this dialogue, that's them having the body, having the experience of being with the body as an oracle, having the experience of being with the body as their own teacher, as their own well source of information, and getting to that point where, yeah, the doorway has opened between them and their body as a as a teacher.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah, I love that body is doorway. And I just want to do a little uh acknowledgement that Sophie Strand wrote a book under that title.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Yes, The Body is a doorway, absolutely. It's a genius book name and is so accurate.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

What you're doing, what I'm doing, this constant invitation to put down the mask and be met as we actually are.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Yeah, yeah. I think that's a great place to end this conversation. I didn't quite know where this conversation was gonna go when we got on the call today. I I hadn't done much homework of re-listening to our things or anything. So I'm glad you did. And I think it was really it was really helpful for me to get to have this opportunity to kind of dissect it a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

And so thanks. Helpful for me too.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Well, do you have a little gift?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

I do have a little gift. I think my little gift is Nico Nelson. Oh, she's uh a friend, a very creative, artistic young woman, and I just she's struggling a bit financially, but she is holding on to her dream with every ounce of strength she has, and I can feel it. And uh, even though there's ups and downs, I'm really celebrating her ups.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Oh, yeah, Nico, Nico Nelson, we love you. And Nico is an incredible photographer, and she can also help people with creating very soulful branding for their business and imagery for their business. And if you are in need of either of those things, you should absolutely work with her. We'll put her information in the show notes. Yeah, she just changed her name. What? It's on Instagram, she's seeing sacred, seeing sacred, yeah. Yeah, okay. I loved her name before, the little handle, but I think this one is even kind of more to the point of what she's doing.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Uh-huh. And she, as you might guess, would fit in very well with our little friend group here. With our family. We're we're adopting her. Yeah. Anyway, how about you? You got a little gift?

SPEAKER_02 25:26

I guess mine will also, we're just gonna have a little Nico love hour here. Oh my gosh! When we went to when I went to Santa Fe about um maybe two months ago, we did just all these wild rituals and artwork, art create creative artworks and all this stuff. And what was a ritual embodiment theater, not retreat, a ritual embodiment theater experience. And we did this one ritual where one of our community members, Ali Kaw, who is an amazing singer-songwriter, and voice alchemist, had written a song, and we were gonna really work with that song and like do some expressive exercises around that song and kind of use that song to help us get into this ritual theater, headspace, body space, spirit space. And one of what we ended up doing is we kind of recorded, you know, I don't want to call it a music video, but we did a ritual with the song and Nico recorded it, and I was one of the primary people in the video that was expressing. And I just got to see it a couple days ago for the first time, see the edited footage all put together. And it it really blew me away in a way that like watching it, I was like, oh my God, I'm like, I'm doing that. Like I'm an I'm an actor and I'm a channel and I'm just getting to watch myself express in a way that I had never seen myself express before was incredibly moving and powerful. And she filmed and edited it all on her own. And my teacher, Adriana Razzolo, she's the one who she's the one who had the artistic direction, artistic, you know, the creative direction vision of it and everything. And Ali Ka had written it, sung it, and just like having all these people come together to make something, it just really was a collaborative experience in a way that I don't get to experience that often because my work is so one-on-one. It was just really, really beautiful to be in the experience and then really beautiful to see it on the other end. And it's not fully finished yet, it's not out publicly yet or anything. But we're gonna do a viewing party on the full blood moon, which is on August 26th. That's Wednesday, August 26th. Then I believe it's gonna be from 10 a.m. to noon Pacific time, and it's we're calling it Inana's Initiation Ritual Film Witnessing Party. So if you are interested, keep an eye out on that. It's gonna be free for everybody to attend who wants to. And we have a community member who's just an amazing woman. She lives in Nigeria, she has a little baby, and she hasn't gotten to do any in-person work with anybody in our community yet. And we're raising funds for her to be able to go to Spain in a couple months for this teacher training that Adriana is leading and for her to get to be with everybody and be nourished and get to have the experience of like what it's like to be person to person and do ritual work and all this stuff. Cause she's just been, you know, I mean, just she's been doing it on her own in a way that's really amazing. But so, in that uh witnessing party, we're going to encourage people who want to support in some way to send to send her some money. And she's got to go fund me and everything. So it'll be a fundraising party and also just to get it out there so and to celebrate all of us and so keep an eye out for that if you're curious about it. Yay.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Yeah. I'm curious. I'm wondering if when you saw that, if you felt like you were watching a dream or something.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, we could talk, we'll we can talk more about it too. I think that could be like a whole other conversation of just like what it's like to be a participant in ritual work and then to actually see it back because that doesn't happen very often. Um, it was it was pretty wild. It is pretty wild. And then one other thing I'll just throw out there, one more little plug, is that I still have my class happening. It's a three-week class, Power to the Pelvis. And if you're curious about working with me in a um less one-on-one capacity, it's an online group that we're meeting. We had our first meeting this last Wednesday. We'll be meeting again this coming Wednesday and the following. And I'm keeping registration open. So if people want to join late, they can. It's $100 for the three class series, three 90-minute classes. And it's been really great so far. So come on in if you're curious. That can change your life, right? Yeah, it can. It can and it will.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Okay, grandma. I love you. I love you, Savannah. See you next week, little gifters, or hear you next week, or you'll hear us next week.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

You'll hear us next week. And we love you too. Woo! Bye-bye. If you're a lover of the Little Gifts podcast, please share that love with the world. Leave us a review or give us some stars wherever you listen to your podcast. And while you're at it, you could send this episode to someone in your life that you know could use some TLC. Word of mouth recommendations are the best marketing a podcast could ask for, and every recommendation means the world to us. To keep in touch, you can find us on Substack or Instagram at LittleGifts Podcast. And we host a monthly community care circle on the last Sunday of every month that can be found through our Substack. You can also send us an email at LittleGiftspodcast at gmail.com, and as always, all of this info and more can be found in the show notes. And we want to give a special thanks to Robin O'Brien for gifting us her music to use for this show. Thanks for being on this journey with us.