EPISODE 006 | Claire Barron-Sluga on Being Seen, Heard, and Valued

In this warm, wise, and deeply affirming episode, Lee sits down with facilitator and community-builder Claire Barron-Sluga for a conversation about connection, aging, and the value of being seen. From the fatigue of Zoom life to the gentle rebellion of choosing presence over productivity, Claire offers a clear and courageous call to remember our worth — and to see it in others. This is a conversation about self-deprecation and social diversity, kindness and courage, and the quiet power of showing up anyway.

Key Topics Covered:

• Invisibility vs. irrelevance
• Social connection across difference
• Technology fatigue and Zoom culture
• Community-building in rural life
• The relief of releasing societal expectations
• The metaphor of the “inner archeologist”
• Support groups and safe vulnerability

After you listen to the podcast, answer this: What small action can you take today to feel seen, or to help someone else feel seen? 

Come share it with me on Instagram @crone.rising.official — or better yet, share it in person with someone in your world.

Crone Rising is for every woman who’s done being quiet and done being small. We’re not here to fade. We’re here to rise — unapologetic, unmuted, and unmissable.

Connect with Lee Currie

Subscribe, share, and leave a review if Crone Rising resonates. Your voice matters. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey Lee. Good morning. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Great. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I'm doing well. Thank you for doing this. What do you do to maintain your relevance in a society that wants to keep you invisible?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Well, I have a question for you. Okay. What does it mean to be invisible? Like tell me what you're thinking of with that.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Okay, I had an example the other day. Um, woman sitting in a bar, older, our age, young Chickie Pooh sitting over there, getting all the attention from all the bartenders. You know, drinking crappy whatever. And my girlfriend says, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, and then orders herself a bottle of champagne because she was celebrating something for herself. And spent probably four or five hundred dollars on that bottle of champagne, but spent 15 minutes trying to get the attention, and she left a decent tip. They were crabbing about how the cute Chickie Pooh and her friends left no tip. So it's kind of that they don't see, and there's no logic. So that's what I mean by invisible. I went to um Modern Elder Academy in Santa Fe and uh sat and had a whole week with them. And apparently women feel that they become invisible because there's no longer really part of a community or family, and men are afraid that they're gonna become irrelevant because they're no longer working and being and and providing.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

So that's what I mean invisible as in people just don't see you anymore.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Well, I have to tell you, I I don't ever really feel that experience out in the world with with people. Um it's probably maybe it's one of two things. Maybe it's just ingrained in me that it just happens and and I'm I'm unaware of it. Um, but the other thing is that uh they really consciously choose to make connections with people.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

And so if I'm listening I'm not going out into bars and ordering champagne, but um but I know it's the only example I could come off at the top of my head.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um but if that was the case, I think I'd when he was talking to me or the she, the whoever the bartender was, uh, I'd work really hard at making a connection to to make sure they understood who I am as a person and not just face, a body, an age, or whatever that is. So um, and I it's not necessarily a conscious thing, it's just just what I consistently do. But I do recognize that there are times that I try to make a connection with someone and it's and it's not there. They still are dismissive of me, in which case I don't ever think poor me I'm invisible. I think poor them that they can't see me or they can't see other people. So so I I think I I look at it a little bit differently with with strangers, I I guess. Um but I will say that um certainly in the workplace it's less about invisibility and more about um value, feeling feeling valued for what I bring to the table. Um and and I I do think there is a bit of a shift as you get older. And I think part of it comes because uh women are have a tendency to be much more self-deprecating and uh as a defense mechanism and as a way to find humor in it. And certainly, you know, I work with a lot of young people and I will, you know, say, no, the technology is not for me, or it's not working, or I, you know, uh it doesn't interest me. And yes, I could make a bigger effort to learn some of these things for sure. As a result, I you know, I am a little bit dismissed in that regard, but I don't care because I am on a mission to make people connect with each other without technology.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So how do you do that? Given given how enmeshed it is.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a real advocate for in meetings to not use shared screens. I'm I'm always saying if that shared screen needs to be up, put it up, let people read it, and then take it down and talk and have a discussion. And so you all can see one another, you can talk to one another. And but it is it is really tricky, and and certainly these Zoom meetings uh wear you down in a way that is different than in person. Yeah, again, energized by being with people, I think you do as well, even though you have an introvert side to you. I think you get energized by people. Um, Zoom meetings will wear you down. There is this tendency to feel like you've always got to be on in a Zoom meeting. So you you can be sitting, you know, drinking your tea, thinking, Oh God's sake, I gotta get onto this meeting, and then you click that button and you go, Hey. And you have to speak more loudly on Zoom, you have to be more animated on Zoom, and then it's over, and you push that button, you're like, see you later, everybody, bye-bye. Click, and you go, Oh.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

You have just described my Zoom experience. I tend to do, I prefer like a one-on-one if we can't get together in person. And the reason I have to use Zoom is because it gets recorded in order to do a podcast, which is not exactly how I was thinking I was going to be spending my 60s, but but I do understand because I do a lot of uh courses where I live. So I live in the middle of nowhere, yeah. I know, and it's lovely, but you have to make an effort to connect with people. It's not like living in Toronto where it's done for you. Like, here's the play, here's the movie, here's the restaurant, here's the like here. It's like the first time I told my kids I was going to the Legion Hall for entertainment purposes, yeah. They thought I'd lost my mind. And then it was like, oh, do we even have one of those in Toronto? And I think, I think you probably do, but it's not your source. Or playing Euchre, you know, or even like games night at a friend's house on a Friday.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

But there's and it's kind of nice because there's a true effort being made to connect and to it's not just a true effort, but it's you're living in a place where you see uh diversity, not necessarily ethnic diversity, but social, socioeconomic diversity, uh, people with completely different jobs. And I found that when I lived in Toronto, I you know, the people I saw all did the same kind of work, lived in the same kind of houses, and uh and the things that you did introduced you to more people like that. And um I tell this story all the time about moving to Guelph and taking my kids to kindergarten, and there was a woman who son whose son was in one of Jack's classes, I guess, and she lived down the road from the school, and every day she would arrive and she had a rat on her shoulder. It was her pet rat. I was fascinated by it, and so intrigued by her that I wanted to know who she was.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

I think it's the pace. Yes, it's the you know, I literally live like a hundred meters from the water. You walk down to Scubby's Point, and yeah, I don't have to be anywhere. I don't like so I don't know if it's like retirement or if it's like I just don't, you know, and I wave to my neighbors, you know, like when I was in the suburbs, it was like who could get into their garage faster, close the door, and could never go out the front door.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

It's that human connection that we need, and not just human connection with people that we know, but it's human connection is so important with strangers. Certainly, COVID really took away a lot of that, uh, but also the world that we live in. But when you are out there, Lee, you're out there making connections with people. Oh, absolutely. No, I I like people. And also, uh, just going back to the original question here, because I feel like we can we're gonna we're gonna really far away from that, but oh yeah, going back to the idea of being invisible, you're making yourself see you're not invisible. You're making as soon as you make a connection with someone and they see you and understand you and you understand them, you're no longer invisible. The the three things that people crave most is to be seen, heard, and valued. Yes. And if you can go into every interaction with someone, whether it's a stranger, you know, whether it's someone in your knitting group, and and you just do any of those things or all three of those things, you are going to develop a connection and it's going to be so healthy for you, and you will not feel invisible.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Getting back to it's a choice. I I made a conscious choice to not play small, to grow into who I am, to, and I've been studying, I figure all this study between the Jungian studies and the Joseph Campbell studies, and the you know, the hero and heroines journeys and all these kind of things, you know. So this is what it's culminated to be.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Going back to that idea of invisibility is is what I'm hearing from you is that it is a relief not to have all those expectations placed on you by other people about who you should be, what you should be, how you should act, what you what where you're gonna go, what you're gonna do. And and um and while we could call that invisibility, it for me it's it's a release. People can only expand in the way that feels comfortable for them and grow in the way that feels comfortable for them for a lot of people. They're not they're not comfortable with that growth. So it goes to you for tech.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

I keep knocking up against okay, what's the next hard thing? So far, the hard thing is the tech part of this particular exercise. I do know that I get great rewards when I go out of my comfort zone, but it's this dance. You go out, you come back in, you go out, but but the boundary keeps getting pushed. So the comfort part grows.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

I lead all these support groups, as you know, with Talk Listen Connect. And it's an organization that I started with some friends. And uh I've been leading support groups since the 90s. I started at Up Canada Colleges where I first trained to uh be a facilitator. And um, you know, we've had some really successful groups.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

I do have the ability to regulate my vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Like I like I can go out and do scary things, but again, that's the value of that invisibility cloak that we get right now. Is there is less scrutiny.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

I was supposed to go to Ryerson for journalism. And I was sent to Mount Allison for English because it was a better way forward. It's like, okay, so I'm coming back to, it's so funny because I'm basically becoming my 17-year-old self all over again, just in a different way with a little bit more intelligence and fearlessness, and I I understand where I feel safe and comfortable, and you know, while I'm still like getting bigger and better.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

And uh, we had a team meeting the other day that was a training session. We decided to end our group with thank yous. And she um she said, you know, Claire, you're like an archaeologist. You know, what other people don't see underneath the ground with someone, you see and you want to nurture it and you want to dust it away and polish it and and help them grow to see that they have real value and they're not just something that's under the ground. And and I was so grateful for this analogy because it allowed me to see it in a visual format rather than it allowed me to understand myself better because I think I've always known that about myself that you know I'm much more interested in the the underdog, I'm much more interested in nurturing and helping someone who's who's still struggling a little bit when people are fine and doing great. They're great, happy to see them, but I'm much more interested in the other. And so her using that as the term as an archaeologist was just this beautiful visual metaphor for me that made me feel like, yeah, what I do has value.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Our time is up. Oh, this is we have to do this in person.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yes, we're gonna be able to do it.