Little Gifts
Listen in as a millennial granddaughter in search of “more” picks her grandmothers brain about everything under the sun (and moon) like dealing with internalized patriarchy, how to work with dreams, finding your creative spark and so so much more. Sue Ellen Parkinson offers Savanna Wonderwheel (and everyone listening) wisdom and guidance through the gift of chat. Every conversation is a little gift and we believe a lot of little things add up. This podcast will give you a weekly dose of love and intimacy along with a little inspiration too.
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Little Gifts
137. What happens when you say “Yes!”
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In this weeks episode we’re exploring what happens when we’ve say YES?
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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.
By saying yes to that, it rewired my nervous system in a way and my brain in a way of like what I was able to say yes to. Saying yes to that made me realize, oh, I actually can figure out a way to say yes to this next thing, and I can figure out a way to make it work to say yes to this next thing, and I can ask for help and be supported in that, and that has just rippled through my life now.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Little Gifts Podcast. 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_01Good morning, grandma. Good morning, Savannah. It's gonna get weird. We're having little audio things happening over here, but hopefully you can hear us just fine. Because we want you to hear us.
SPEAKER_00Is that better? That's great. Okay. I've been having some kind of bug. Some kind of bug in your body, or yeah, like some kind of weird indigestion thing. I fear it's that weird lettuce contamination. Oh no. I know. It's not as terrible as what I I heard, but it's notable. And I think I might go to a doctor today to see because I don't want it on our trip.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that seems like a good idea. Go and get that figured out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, anywho.
SPEAKER_01We don't want any bugs traveling with us.
SPEAKER_00Inside of us. We don't want to be transportation vehicles.
SPEAKER_01No, definitely not.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, man, well, anyways, so we were gonna talk about stepping outside our comfort zones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's kind of funny. So, little known fact about me, potentially, is that I love Survivor, the TV show.
SPEAKER_00Um God, I did not know that, but you are a reality TV person, I'll say.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'm not much of a reality TV person. Survivor's really the main one that I watch.
SPEAKER_00Well, when you were a kid, you were.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. Through when you were a teenager, you were in high school for sure. I was a for reality TV person I loved. I mean, reality TV was also just like so different back then. The reality TV I liked was The Tyra Show and America's Next Submodel and Project Runway and Survivor and more of these like competition-based reality shows. Um, and then of course, you know, I've watched a handful of dating reality shows over the years and that kind of thing. But um, the one that has held strong throughout throughout my life has been Survivor. And I have a really great friend Anna, and she and I love watching Survivor together, and um we work our way through the seasons pretty slowly because neither of us have a ton of space in our life. So we just started watching season 50, which is the most recent season. The whole season's been out for months at this point, but we finally caught up to it and we're like, okay, we're gonna watch it. And season 50 is this really big deal in the survivor world because they're bringing back all of the old fan favorites, all a bunch of old winners. Every contestant on it is somebody who's been on the show before, who's like a really good player. And many of them have been on the show multiple times at this point. And one of the things they were talking about in it is like one of these kind of through lines was they were just like, I don't know why I do this to myself. Like, I get so excited and I want to come. And then I get here and I'm like, oh God, what's this decision that I've made? But then just past that feeling of why have I done this to myself again, is this feeling of because it's a big deal and because it's going to change my life in some way. And when they push through that feeling of like, oh no, what have I gotten myself into? It it changes their whole lives. And they it was it's really sweet. And you know, of course, I know the characters, so I the characters, the people, they're real human people. So I I like them, but like one of them in particular who's on this season, Mike White, he is the man who wrote and created White Lotus on HBO. Yeah, yeah. And so they were talking to him specifically, and they were like, You've got all the money in the world, you've got this fame at this point, you're like really well known. Of all the people here, why would you come back and put yourself through this? There's no need for you to do this to try to win a million dollars. You've already got your millions of dollars. And I mean, he's just hilarious. So for one, he was like, Well, I'll just have FOMO if I don't do it. I just want to know what's going on. He's like, I'm such a drama queen. I have to know what the drama is. But then his more sincere answer was while he's been filming and creating White Lotus, he was like, you know, I'd be on the set of White Lotus. We have these hundred-day shoots, and I'd be in the midst of it, and I'd be like, This is the hardest thing I've ever done. This is so grueling. Why am I putting myself through this? How am I ever gonna get through this? He's like, and then I would remind myself, you were on Survivor. If I could do that, of course I can do this. And it just had me thinking about these things that we decide to put ourselves through and these things that we feel called to do that sometimes we get ourselves into, and we're like, oh my God, why did I ever think this was a good idea to do this? And then if we just kind of stick through it and work through it, then we get to that nugget on the other side. And then the way that that can kind of impact the rest of our lives, and we find ourselves in these situations and then can have that moment of thinking back where it's like, well, if I was able to do that, of course I can do this, or if I was able to get through this, of course I'll be able to get through this. And these things that, you know, there's those experiences that happen involuntarily, just to us death and hardship and all these things, but then there's these things that very voluntarily happen to us because we say yes. So yeah, I floated that idea to you as a conversation topic, and I'm curious to hear what's come up for you with it.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, having never watched one episode of Survivor or any reality TV show, I can only go to my own life experience. And what immediately came up for me was this podcast. Oh, sweet. Oh my goodness. When you presented the idea to me, I thought, well, of course I'm gonna do it because this is with my granddaughter, and you know, it's like a dream bonding experience to share your, you know, your life stories and whatnot with a with a grandchild is just like everything. But my so this is what's come up for me when I was thinking about this is that we we have this arc of kind of having a story we tell ourselves about who we are, right? And we've defined ourselves. And my definition when we started this was sort of like that I'm an artist and I'm a recluse. And you know, I was going out and doing public speaking a bit, but it it wasn't something that I that I ever enjoyed or or looked forward to. And then doing a weekly program where we're basically talking about our inner our our most inner feelings. It's been really profound for me. And I remember, I don't know if you remember this, but when we started this, what was it two or three years ago?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think two and a half. I'm like, oh my gosh, it might be three years this November.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's three years. I for about three months I felt a little sick to my stomach, almost nauseous, like, and then I realized, oh, it's because I'm putting myself out there. It was this golden shadow thing, you know. But what I think, you know, like what is that thing that makes you say yes to some kind of proposition like this? And I really do think it's about um some essential inner calling. When I look back on all the different things, and I have different examples too, of where I pushed myself outside my area of so-called expertise. You know, I was doing something that I didn't feel necessarily qualified for, but it was something that I wanted to do. Or just, I don't know, some things made me say yes. And I think it goes back to this idea that Carl Jung had about your seed self. And in that concept, you're not inventing yourself, you're discovering some essential person, being soul within yourself.
SPEAKER_01And I love that that idea of not inventing but discovering.
SPEAKER_00And it does have that feeling. It's like these experiences where we put ourselves outside our you know, outside our comfort zone, often have that sort of feeling, like something is calling you that you're gonna answer it's sort of like Bilbo baggins, you know. When Gandalf comes and and invites him on his journey and Bilbo's, no, no, no, no, I like my cakes and my my little brandy and whatever it is, you know, and my little comfortable, comfortable little hobbit hole. Yeah, that's not me. And yet something inside him was like, Oh, I gotta go. I'm gonna go. Totally. And then his whole life changes, and his whole definition of who he is to himself expands. I'm almost starting to think that definitions don't serve us, you know, that we define ourselves in this way or that way. These uh concepts of who or what my identity is. I don't know that they serve us. I think it's better just to be open.
SPEAKER_01That's a tricky it's very tricky. My first thought is like in some ways, there are spaces where identity does really serve us when it comes to finding community potentially, or finding support, or finding different ways to do activism and that kind of thing. But then on the flip side, it does it does segment us off from other people and it does put us into a box, and not even from other people, but just from parts of ourselves. I think the thing that's easier that I'll say is it's really easy to say I'm not this, this, this, and this. It's a lot easier to say what you're not than it is to say what you are, I think a lot of the time. And so that that label of I'm not this or I'm not that, I think is what keeps us smaller versus stepping into an identity and being like, I am this and I am this and I am this.
SPEAKER_00I think it's it's this and it's a lot of this and yeah. I'm I'm like turning a corner, and I just feel like I can't even say I'm not that or I am this or I'm just trying to just let myself feel it and be with what is. And that's hard, but I actually feel like I'm turning this corner, which is interesting to me. That's another thing that I wouldn't have anticipated.
SPEAKER_01And it's so inspiring to me that you're saying all this at the vivacious age of 73.
SPEAKER_0074.
SPEAKER_0174. It's just so amazing to me the way that you continue to try to find do that discovery that you were talking about.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I'm I'm just thinking about what happens when we stop requiring ourselves to be experts or competent in something before we begin something. I mean, that is that falls under that whole perfectionist banner. We just we need to get rid of it. We need to just try stuff. You know, Martin Prechtel used to talk about fail beautifully. Yeah. But give yourself wholeheartedly to whatever you do. That's so good. And that's okay. That's okay. You can fall on yourself, fall on your face and get up again, jump up and live again, is he would say.
SPEAKER_01You said that idea that we need to have everything figured out before we do it is really like a big, like one of the big constructs of modernity in our society and the way we live and in this world of the ladder of success, right? First you have to know what you want to do, then you have to go to school for it, then you have to get the degree in it, then you have to get another degree in it, then you have to get the good job in it, then you have to get the better job in it, and you just have to keep climbing that ladder versus just going out and kind of playing and exploring and being like, well, I'm curious about this, so let me try it and figure out if I enjoy doing it or not. And then I think the other misconception that people get is that if they're not automatically good at something, that it means that it's not for them. You know, someone picks up a paintbrush, for example, and they paint something and they're like, oh, well, it's not a good painting, so I must not be good at painting, or anything going for a hike and being like, oh, well, I'm exhausted and I maybe I rolled my ankle or something, so hiking's never gonna be for me. It could be anything, right? Going and I mean, even doing some kind of like going and cooking, being like, oh, well, I I don't know how to cook, so that must not be something that I'm good at or that I'll enjoy doing. And I think that the acknowledgement of the fact that it takes a long time sometimes to get good at stuff isn't addressed very often, and that there is this big gap sometimes between starting to do the thing and being any sort of good at it, and that if you can just get a little bit through that gap, then a whole world will open up on the other side of that. It's really interesting. There's in motor learning, in the world of motor learning, there's these different cognitive stages, and the first stage is unconscious incompetence, right? So you go to do something, you don't really know what you're doing, maybe you don't really realize you're bad at it. And then the next stage is conscious incompetence, and the leap from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence is very, very small, right? So sometimes people will bypass that first stage altogether if you're further along cognitively. But then we go from conscious incompetence to conscious competence, so where you go from knowing that you're bad at it and not knowing how to be better at it, being like, oh, I know I'm doing this, but I know I'm not doing it right, to then knowing how to do it, but really having to think about it. So that's a pretty big step.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I just want to make insert here that that stage of recognizing that you aren't doing it right is part of learning how to do it right.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, right? And you can't get the conscious competence without conscious incompetence, right? And then the final step is from conscious competence to unconscious competence, where you're just able to do the thing, it happens beautifully, you don't have to think about it, you're in what we would call that flow state, right? It's just happening, you're not having to put forth a lot of mental effort, it's unconsciously coming from you.
SPEAKER_00I'm listening to this. I'm thinking the word competence in itself is a problem, and it's sounds like it comes from the word compete. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. That isn't that isn't the way you approach this stuff.
SPEAKER_01Totally. I think that's a great point.
SPEAKER_00It's an intrinsic part is this falling on our face, messing up, making you know, so-called mistakes. They aren't really mistakes, they're we're learning.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, I love language, so that thought that like competence and competition is right there is really interesting to me. But just knowing that simple, like motor learning journey or skill learning journey really changed my life in a lot of ways because it just made everything so much lighter in a way, where it wasn't my fault that I wasn't good at it, or if I wasn't good at it, it didn't mean that I shouldn't be doing it. It just meant that I was in that consciously incompetent stage. I just knew where I was at. And I was like, okay, if I can just work at this a little longer, I'm gonna eventually I am bound to make that leap because that's just how how we develop. And you and it's just in that space of having to stick with it through that uncomfortable time of being like, oh, I know this isn't what it's supposed to be, but I I I can see where I'm going, but I'm not there yet. And having, at least for me, having that language and having that little theory kind of floating around in the back of my brain is just really helpful for making it not so personal in ways when I'm not doing something in a way that I want to, or something in a way that I feel like I could be better at. I'm like, well, it's not, it's not about me, it's just the fact that I haven't gotten there yet.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. And I think that part of having a vision is really the important piece. You sort of have this little light you're heading for at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, I feel like, you know, so much of my life has just been learning that what I imagine is possible can change what what's been going on. Just being able to imagine the possible, a possibility. It's really all that there is. Just imagine it, just see it, and then just start heading in that direction. Kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_01Well, then that's why. I mean, not to go too far down the rabbit hole with this. To me, I'm like, then that's why doing this self-inquiry work and doing some kind of investigation of our patterns and our responses and potentially the traumas, you know, big T or little T traumas that have affected us and affect our patterning, because from a somatic lens, trauma robs us of our ability to imagine. Trauma robs us of that imaginative spark because the event happens and then it puts our body into some kind of state of stasis if we're not able to process it in the moment, which so many of us aren't. And then if we're not given space to process it after the moment, which again so many of us aren't, or we don't take the time to do, or it just feels too intense to do. But it it really clouds that imaginative space for us. It really gets us into this black and white thinking of like, well, this happens, this is the outcome, this is the way it goes. It's really hard to imagine different realms when we've been in that trauma loop or stuck in that kind of trauma vortex. And I think that's at least for me one of the reasons that I really started wanting to do some of this like deeper investigation of my inner self and start to take those little perfectly hidden away boxes out of my unconscious closet to be like, okay, what's loaded up in here? Because I wanted more of that imaginative possibility, not and not just in a creative way of like, oh, I'm working on projects and trying to use my imagination, but literally just in a way of like imagining a future that's different than maybe what's what I'm being told it has to be or it's gonna be if I don't follow XYZ steps or I don't climb that ladder that I was talking about earlier. I needed some way to imagine something else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or just to be free to feel free to be, to experiment, to do what you want to do. It's you know, you really can't do it otherwise. And you know, it kind of shocks me the um even at this age, even with my very bohemian friends said and some family members the um that when I present an idea that seems out of the so-called norm, you know, it's amazing how people will try to shut you down. And there's a whole raft of ways that they do it. It's interesting. And yet it's so gratifying for me. I mean, it's I mean, I can think of a lot of things that I've done actually that have um been outside my comfort zone and it's totally changed my life. I don't think I'd have the life, all the good things in my life, I don't think that I would have without having done that. And I was thinking about what you were telling me about the the butterflies when they're in their goose state in the imaginal cells.
SPEAKER_01I love that name so much.
SPEAKER_00Thinking this totally dovetails with the idea of the imaginal cells, you know, they are there, uh-huh, and they're doing something. It's whether or not you want to answer that call. Do you want to answer the call to the imaginal cells or do you want to just stay in your cocoon?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean, I think it's also like there's no right or wrong answer, right? It's perfectly acceptable to want to stay in the cocoon and just to stay with the comfort. I mean, this world is really fucking uncomfortable. So that's what you need to keep going is to stay in that comfort zone and to stay in that lovely cocoon that you've made for yourself. Have at it, you know. I think that's a completely respectable option. But I think there are those of us that hear that call from the imaginal cells or feel the cocoon. And while it feels comfortable, it also starts to feel kind of suffocating. And we we feel those little inklings of that imagination and are like, I need, I need to know more. I need to go off an adventure. And it's just interesting thinking about human history as well, you know, the different roles that people could have played and the different ways that that could. Of shaped out and shaken out. Just thinking about this pilgrimage that we're going to be going on soon here. And back in the day when people were living in societies that did ritual work and worshipped bigger gods. Pilgrimage was a regular part of those societies for different people. And it was this idea that it it wasn't expected that everybody would do it, nor was it going to be possible for everybody to do it. They would choose the person in the village who was most called, and the whole village would come around them and give them supplies for their journey and help support them. And they would say, You're going off to do this for us. You go off, get this information, make this connection, make these offerings for us, and then come back and teach us what you've learned and tell us of your journey and share your experience with the divine. And how that was a not only like an acceptable role for someone in society, but it was a role that was appreciated and given some credibility. And it was, it was something that was celebrated in people and how different that is from the way society is now. And how I think people will be like, oh, well, you can do that, but that'd never be for me. And it's like, that's okay. It's not supposed to be for everybody. It's not supposed to be for everybody. But at the same time, even though it's not for you, can you still potentially see some value in it?
SPEAKER_00Or support that it's what's right for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Thinking about this question. One of the bigger things that came up for me in terms of like whether those places that you've put yourself outside your comfort zone, and I really do think it it has been saying yes to doing these types of things, to going on the journey, going on the pilgrimage, going on the they're so often called quote unquote retreats. But at least any of the things I've done that are in this realm, it's like they're definitely not retreats. Like we're not we're not going and just like relaxing on a beach for a week, which I know is a thing people do, and they have that name for a reason because you are going and just getting cared for intended to. You know, maybe one day I'll I'll get to do one of those ones. But it seems so far. The ones I've been called to do are a lot of work, inner work and like creative work. And I don't mean work in a bad way, I just mean it in like a way that we're like we're really working ourselves and our systems and we're we're getting in and like needing something. It's like a an active participation and an active inquiry. And especially I'm thinking back to the first thing I ever said yes to like this, which was a it was a quarter life gathering with Satya Doyle Bayak, and she's just an amazing Youngian therapist, and she's an incredible author and is just a really great teacher. And it was one of those things where I didn't have the money, I didn't really have the time, I didn't I didn't feel like I did. It was all this stuff. I was like, this seems like a crazy thing to do. I don't know any of these people. I haven't really ever even worked with Satya. I've just been reading her stuff and I've taken a couple of her online lecture courses and that kind of thing. But I just felt so lost in that cocoon. Like I was in the goo and I didn't know how to form enough to get out. And it felt like I was lost and also kind of being suffocated by myself at the same time. And I was just like, I gotta try. I have to try something. And this thing that's coming up, it really scares me to say yes to it because it feels like it's gonna really change things, but I also don't feel like I can say no, and that really did open up a whole new realm of what I thought was possible for myself, and a whole new realm of what I could ever think I was able to say yes to.
SPEAKER_00They say that when the student is ready, the teacher comes, and I'm just thinking about in terms of a lot in a lot of these myths where the individual, it's always the individual, is going off and they enter the forest at the deepest point, and then they go into the forest, and then that's when these little elves and fairies and guides appear to us, and you've got Satya, which was such a gift.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I really do think, like, if I'm gonna zoom out, and I could zoom out forever and ever, but I'm gonna zoom out in terms of just like this thing that we're about to do, this pilgrimage we're about to go on in France. I really do think I don't know if I would have gotten to this point if it hadn't been saying yes to that initial thing with her, that initial gathering with her.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I think you know, probably what brought me to yes was actually painting all this painting of Magdalene. And and that I had entered that at a time where I didn't really know it at the time, but my world was no longer big enough to hold me. Yeah. And I had to paint the world that would hold me. I think that that's what we do as as creative beings. We literally have to create the world we want to enter.
SPEAKER_01And I think that feels really similar to like for me going off and doing these group things and these, you know, bigger somatic inquiries and everything. And it really felt like by saying yes to that, it like rewired my nervous system in a way and my brain in a way of like what I was able to say yes to. And saying yes to that made me realize, oh, I actually can figure out a way to say yes to this next thing, and I can figure out a way to make it work to say yes to this next thing, and I can ask for help and be supported in that. And I can be interested in doing something, but say, I don't have the money to do it. How can we figure out how can we figure it out? What can I do to be able to be here? Because I feel like I need to be here, but what can we work out? And and that has just rippled through my life now to the point of saying yes to going to France for the first time, where there's so many times in my life when I would have been like, no way would you be going and doing that? What are you crazy? You'll never be able to go do that. And just that initial like yes really did allow me to realize how much more I had capacity to say yes to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think what I'm hearing you say, and what I'm feeling that I'm saying, is something like saying yes to these difficult, challenging, and yet seductive experiences, you're actually continually opening the door to yourself. It seems like an outward thing, but it's actually a very inward thing, too.
SPEAKER_01It just makes you realize how big it all is, and how big you are, exactly, how big you are, and really what you are capable of doing, which is pretty limitless.
SPEAKER_00You know, I can definitely speak to my own limited energy, but but within the context of my life, I can really do a lot. Kind of blows my mind. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I know. I think that's the flip side of it, is sometimes it's so mind-blowing where you're like, there's so much I could do. It feels like that's even a place that causes some paralysis too, because you can get stuck in, or at least I can get stuck in that loop of being like, the world is limitless, the options are limitless, there's so many things I could do, and so many things I could spend my time on. That then I'm just like, well, I'm just gonna spend my time thinking about all the things instead of actually doing all the things.
SPEAKER_00What I'm realizing is as I follow my own true inclination, that all these things are somehow interlaced. Absolutely, and so one thing is supporting the other thing, and the other thing is supporting this, you know, it's like really like a net is being woven. Absolutely. If you can just take that big risk and follow your own imagination, and maybe imagination isn't quite the right word, but yeah, maybe it is. I'm I'm pretty big on imagination right now. I think it's very important. And I I do feel like within imagination it are all those seeds of guidance that lead you back to your truest self.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think that seems like a great little statement to end on.
SPEAKER_00Oh, dot on the eye.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So before we close, we want to just give you all of our little gifters an update on some things that are gonna be going on in little gifts HQ over the next month. We're gonna be going on this pilgrimage. And one thing I want to say too, just in regards to that pilgrimage, is doing this podcast, like we really were hoping that it would be a place for community and a place we could help build community. And we didn't really know what that would look like. And we've tried doing some different things, and we've done our community care circles, which we've taken a little summer break on, but we will get back to doing those in some form come fall. And we've tried seeing if people would write in for stuff that didn't really happen. We've tried just throwing spaghetti at the wall in different ways to kind of see what's stuck, and then we had this pilgrimage idea come up, and I'm so, so just above the moon to say that four of the six women who are coming are all from this community who found us through the podcast, who listened to the podcast. And it's really kind of opened my eyes as to the way that that that can be a way that we build community too, and that maybe this is also a vehicle for bringing people together in that sense that we'll be able to have people meet in person. And I just know, again, from having gone on things like this, that when you come into these small circles and do these really intimate things together, those connections are formed and can be lifelong lasting. And that's just been a really beautiful thing to me to start to realize that that is one of the ways that this community is being fostered as well. So we're gonna be going on this pilgrimage and we're gonna be going to Italy before that on a family vacation, and we're gonna be gone essentially for the month of September. And while we were on that journey, we really want to be able to be totally present in that. We want to be able to take some space and really drop in and then not having to manage computers and technology and all the things. So we're gonna take a little hiatus from putting out new episodes. We're gonna do a little gift summer vacation for the month of September. So you'll hear from us again next week. The last Monday of August will be our last new episode for a little while. And then we'll be back in October. And hopefully we'll be brighter-eyed and bushier tailed, and we'll have some really wonderful stories to share with you. We'll have some amazing stories. We'll still probably do some recording while we're gone while stuff is fresh for us, and and we're just gonna kind of rework some stuff on the on the back end of things, and you're potentially gonna hear more of us, more from us through Substack as a way of kind of building more of that community. And and yeah, we're just we're excited to be able to take some space and kind of refine how we wanna offer things to the world and and then come back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're really looking forward to it. I'm so excited, and we're gonna go on a refresh. We're gonna refresh.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's always good to refresh. And maybe that's something we can talk about in our next episode of how hard it can be to step away from things.
SPEAKER_00Oh, because I feel so much like I've got these friends out there I want to feed every week. I know exactly. But I still wanna I still wanna be have that connection. But you know, we've got this whole backload of episodes. Some of them are really worth re-listening to, also.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we are so grateful for all of you who are along on this ride with us, and we are gonna be back next week, and then we'll be back in a month. Yeah, yeah. All right, I want to know what your little gift is.
SPEAKER_00Oh, my little gift is my friend Judy Burtis.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00Judy's somebody that I don't get to see that often. Um, she's kind of amazing. She used to be a physical therapist, and she would go out to people's homes and help them. And she, this is just one example of her amazingness, is that she was going out to this woman's home, and the woman had an elderly daughter who lived with her who was a little disabled. You know, she'd never been out in the world working, she'd always lived with her mother, and the mother passed away, and Judy went back and said, Well, what are you what are you gonna do to the daughter? And the daughter said, Well, I got I got 600 bucks, I'm gonna go live in Humboldt. Oh my gosh, I know, I know. And Judy said, I think you better come home with me. Oh I mean, Judy's like everybody else, she likes her space, she likes her autonomy and all that, but she brought this woman home with her, and the woman ended up living with her till she passed away. Oh my gosh, yeah. Just I mean, at one point Judy said, Well, you need to get a job, and so she got her a job working at a volunteer sort of a situation here in town where she could help seniors and stuff. So anyway, it's an interesting story, but she's just got a very good heart, doesn't talk about her stuff that she does, but she's she's good anyway. So I haven't seen her in I don't know, about a year, and we just reconnected and I brought a bunch of my stuff that I'm afraid might burn down while I'm gone. So um, she also very generously gave me a closet to store stuff, so it's nice. Judy, yay, Judy, yay, for the little gifts in our community.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was also gonna do friend love for my little gift. I got to spend last weekend with my two besties, Bella and Anna. At we went to beautiful tide water together, and we played in the water, and we had movie nights, and we did face masks, and we went and had a really delicious, fancy dinner and yahats, and it was just so sweet. You know, it's like we've been friends for so long, and as your circles widen, it's really great, right? We've gotten more and more people in our circle, but you go and do these things, and it's just it's everybody's there, right? And you don't get to connect as much individually, or you don't get to have as much time one-on-one. And we wanted to go out and have a little getaway, just the three of us, so we could really actually drop in together, and it was really, really sweet. And it's just such a good reminder to do that kind of thing because it's so easy to get into the whirl of everything, and everybody's busy and all the things, and you know, it is great to get together and have the whole gang there and have everybody be in the mix, and that's really precious too. But it's it's I think important to try to find time for the individuals also, and so it was just a good reminder, and it was so fun, and it was great.
SPEAKER_00I just love them. Well, those are really your old bet. I mean, you've probably known them longer than how long have you known them? More than half your life. Well, Bella, definitely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Anna and I we decided we must have started hanging out in 2012. It's been 14 years, so not quite half my life with Anna yet, but getting there. And then Bella, we've been we've been hanging tight since three years old.
SPEAKER_00So that's that's so awesome.
SPEAKER_01That's a long time.
SPEAKER_00I love the besties. Those are that's so good. Yeah, that was great. Anywho, I love you, Savannah.
SPEAKER_01I love you too, Grandma. I love you, little gifters. 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 podcasts, 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.
