277 - Embracing the Beauty of Impermanence

Change is inevitable in life and so is death. Of relationships, loved ones, dreams, versions of ourselves. Today I reflect on some of what I've been navigating the last several months and share some of what I've been learning along the way--about letting go, holding grief and joy together, and the urgency of living.  

As my friend Joy Sullivan writes in one of her poems, "There's only time to leap."

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The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:01.71)
Mmm, hello. Welcome.

Today, I wanna share something that's been on my mind, something that's been in my heart, and something that I have found that I'm repeating in conversations over and over right now. And that is that everything dies. So welcome to the podcast. Everything dies, like everything dies.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:37.966)
And you know, there's a poetry book called The Poetry of Mindfulness and Permanence and Joy, edited by John Brehm, believe. And in the introduction, there's a lot of conversation around impermanence and that knowing that everything changes, changes everything. And how that loosens our grasp and how

death and birth beget each other, right? Something dies, something else is born because of it. And because of this moment that I'm in, and even I have spent a fair amount of time in this past week thinking about when I was 20 and I'm 41, I will be 42 this year. And

thinking about me being 20 and right before I turned 21, I got married. So, you know, as I'm thinking like, like if I had just turned 20, I was, you know, barely 20 and entering my sophomore year of college and what was gonna happen and the life that was gonna be between that version of myself and this version of myself and how that Bonnie

when I was 20 would see this Bonnie that is now. And I've decided that she would think that this version of Bonnie was cool as fuck and also be really intimidated. Also like, why do you have tattoos and why do you swear? And what you got married and you've gotten divorced and you've left the church and like a billion, like literally a billion things. But also there's such an energy difference and

I am the type of person now that my 20 year old self would look up to and want to be like. And that feels good. Because I know that for me, even currently, I can see people who are maybe a couple of steps ahead in different ways. And it does not dissuade me. It empowers me. says, ooh, there's something there that makes me pay attention. Maybe there's something in that that I want or that I would like to develop in myself to become.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (02:58.376)
and that the journey of seeing others pave a way makes me realize that it's possible for me. And I love that 20 year old version of myself and her sweetness and her naivety and the things that she was going to learn. boy, I'm excited for her and everything dies.

Like truly.

Truly everything dies. And I say that with so much care and so much heart.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (03:40.162)
but it feels really important to say. Because it changes the way that we show up. It changes what we create with our life. And I'm really interested in creative leadership and creative living and what the hell does that even mean? And how owning ourselves matters in that. And that means owning the shitty things and the things that are really beautiful.

like owning all of it and standing in it and not apologizing for who we are and how we are and apologizing when we need to apologize, right? There's a difference between apologizing for being yourself and then apology when there's harm, right?

And in my own life right now, I am having the opportunity to really look at the way that a death of things paves a new opening and specifically how it opens me and how I feel like a deep reclamation of myself and how I want to arrive in the world of my sensuality of

my entrepreneurship, of my motherhood, of standing the fuck up. And I feel all of that and everything will die.

And that goes to every relationship will die. Every relationship with every person, right? Be it a lover, a child, parent, like a friend, every relationship will die. It will die by a decision to part ways. It will die by a person passing. It will die by just a slow trickle of distance, whether that's physical or emotional, right?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (05:42.606)
that everything will die and that those relationships will and that business will, right? Maybe we will switch gears. Maybe this podcast will die someday, right? I don't know, or am I gonna be like 75 and still podcasting? Y'all, actually, I love this idea now. Now I'm here. Maybe I'll be 75 and we'll be replaying this podcast and be like, well, Bonnie, kept on. Y'all, if I'm 41, like.

I've so many more years of podcasting. That's like 34 more years. I don't know, this makes me laugh right now. So if Yoga Strong is still going in 34 years, wow, wow. So, you know, but who knows? And the things that we are doing right now, perhaps that they will change, right? And perhaps my work will change and I will do something different and the trees.

Like if you ever walked by like a huge tree or you have a tree that is close to you, if you're a tree person and you're like, I love this tree. Like that tree too will die and it might not die till after you're gone, depending on the tree. But it will also go and your sweet dog will go. And I am always amazed. There's a small airport by me and there was a hotel right across the street from it and the hotel got

demolished and there's it's kind of like a situation there's a big grassy field there and they just planted seed over it and now it's just part of the rest of the grass and I drive by it and so constantly think like there was a hotel there there were so many stories and people stayed there and things happened there that people will remember their whole lives and it's gone and nobody if you were to come and visit and drive by that you would never know it and that too died.

And how that changes everything, knowing that nothing remains brings a sort of beauty to all of the things that we might touch.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (08:01.56)
Yeah.

I'm gonna read a poem for you. This poem is called Leap and it is written by my friend Joy Sullivan and she has a book of poetry I highly recommend. Find her on Instagram, all the things. Hey, Joy Sullivan, Leap. Nothing my friends tell me shocks me anymore. No wild dream or unadvisable plan or moonshot idea. Recently, my friend told me she wants to move to Wyoming to be closer to horses.

She tells me horses can hear your heartbeat from four feet away. That's enough for me right there. Another friend is relocating to Peru, another to Alaska in search of his true north. Another is adopting a child. Another is turning down a killer job so she can finish the book she's been trying to write for years. Another is leaving the man of her dreams for a woman. Look, America's awful, and the earth is too hot, and the truth of the matter is that we're all up against the clocks.

It makes everything simple and urgent. There's only time to turn toward what you truly love. There's only time to leap.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (09:19.086)
you

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (09:24.332)
I think that this podcast today feels important to share because of, you know, like that poem, right? And because of...

my own experience right now of feeling the reclaiming of my life and how September feels around the corner for me. And in September of last year was when

was when my mom died unexpectedly, the day before I dropped off my oldest kid who was going to college. So I had a rebirth as in a way because my mom's passing and then also a rebirth in my change in motherhood and what that looks like and.

You know, I have two other kids that still living at home. My oldest can be home for the summer. So like, there's still like this fluctuation of, of parenting. And I still very much identify as a mother and love all the things, right? Like in teenagers are amazing. So, but there's just like a different iteration of self. And then I've also been in the midst of a relationship change. And that has felt like right on top of it, right? At the same time of all this navigating and to then.

go through a heartbreak and a breakup and...

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (11:02.93)
It was a lot. It is a lot.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (11:10.474)
and it's layered in so much love.

and in the reminder that everything dies.

And I truly say that phrase with so much generosity that at the same time that there is the death of a thing, there's also the birth of another. And that if you look for it, if you look for some beauty there, you will find it. I will find beauty here too, was a phrase that I found myself saying when a tree was cut down next to me, was really sad about. It's kind of in this forest area next to my house and I, I, I

I found that phrase in me, right? I will find beauty here too. And so at the same time to be losing my mom, who I miss dearly, who I think constantly of things I want to ask her about and become part mad and part sad and part like, ow, like, ow, how can it be this long and how could it have gone so fast? you know, she is 61 and like, you know, so I can have those feelings and then I can...

be like, my gosh, in four years, my youngest will graduate high school and all of my kids will be gone. like, care of my kids is like so much of my adult life. Like I had my first baby when I was 22.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (12:39.542)
And then to have gotten divorced and then to have been with my lover for the past four years and then to navigate a relationship change with him and the heartbreak of that. And this is the first time that I have said anything like this and sharing it here so it feels big and honest.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (13:07.88)
and I have really felt like.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (13:13.28)
I wanted to be able to hold myself and feel really grounded before I have shared anything. And it's been a thing that's, I've gone through the dark part. I've gone through the dark part and the part that I didn't really want to go through, you know? And to hold all of these things.

And then at the same time to have there be so much beauty and so much love and so much compassion and like everything all at once and everything dies but it births something new. And if you're listening to this, if you're a teacher or if you're not, doesn't really matter because if you're listening to this, you're a human and you know what it is to go through loss.

you know what it is to watch parts of yourself die so other parts of you can be born and hopefully in bigger bolder braver more curious more compassionate ways and where a shift between people between experiences between what you're doing with your life and the death of perhaps one thing is creating space for something else because

is all about opening. You cannot open, you cannot make room, you let go.

You cannot open unless you let go. And truly, I think of my hands in front of me. And if you were to do this right now and make fists with your hands, as if, you know, with your palms up towards the ceiling in both hands. And then if you squeeze your hands really tight together, so much that maybe you feel your fingernails digging into your palms and squeeze that. And now very slowly and softly unfurl your hands and open them up.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (15:23.342)
Do not force your fingers to go straight. Let everything be curved and rounded.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (15:31.084)
Soften in your elbows.

Relax through your fingertips. Open, open. This is a palms open sort of life.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (15:45.415)
and have to let go. And there is

nothing that will call us into ourselves more than these experiences of death and birth and the beauty, fucking beauty of it, you know?

There's nothing like having my mom die and thinking that things are both more important and less important in life where nothing matters and everything matters. And where like I can feel myself on the edge of tears as I think about my kids, like being with them and watching them evolve and witnessing their coolness and their weirdness and the gift it is to watch

people in there becoming so intimately and like the change that will be coming in my life and I can foresee myself having this. Okay, if we're not gonna, I don't know if the podcast will be here for 34 years and I'll be podcasting, but my guess is pretty strong that I'll be here in four. And so I'll be podcasting and my youngest will be about to graduate high school. mean, y'all, this is gonna be wild. You're gonna be witnessing like so much as we move through this podcast together, but.

then that will happen. And then a new version of me will be birthed and they will be birthed in a new way. And that's beautiful.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (17:16.63)
and the space that opens allows for something else and that in navigating relationship change and the fucking love of all of it.

and care and there's, you know, there's big story in it all. There's big story in it all. I do not love small. I do not love small. And to navigate a breakup and the season with all the other things. Friends, I, you know, I have, I have still shown up and if there's, I mean, we can have whole conversations about how is it to show up.

especially in a business like mine where there's a lot of forward-facing and my face literally being part of my business and where I got to show up in the room and that's when shifts happen. Like if we could be in the room together, if we could be face to face, if we could be live time, y'all that's where the magic is. That's like part of my gift of showing up with you is like and the gift that I get to give is this experience together, right? My voice and my presence and my deep.

my deep desire to see you in your beauty and to see you in your own heart led life that's creative and real and honest. It's all of that and I can show up in those places because I know what it is to live a life that's real and to know the nuance of it all.

and the beauty and the hard parts too when you feel buried and filleted open and like how do we move from here?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (19:18.75)
I know that. I know that. And we do it. And we do it. Everything dies.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (19:35.7)
And before we die, there is still like all the other things and people that might leave us, all of them in a way will. And it always is us with ourselves is me with me and you with you as attending to this self, tending to the self is so much where it is. And to walk with people.

who help us feel free to help us, that help us feel like we get to stand in our own feet. That our voice is important, that we can create in a way that brings meaning and impact in the world and our community and the people around us.

It is not a small thing to live so awake and to lead from integrity and honesty in who you are and how you show up in the world.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (20:45.558)
And so this is how I'm showing up now and sharing.

sharing pieces of my personal life which don't always go everywhere. And there's of course a lot of different story and depth in it and holding in the most transformatively kind ways. And.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (21:16.883)
Gosh, there's like a billion things I want to say right now.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (21:27.21)
Yeah, I am grateful. I swung a say.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (21:40.661)
Mm, so good, hey.

Well, of course, I was just going to come on here and cry. I just, I think if I'm going to...

really sure about breaking up with this deep love in my life. I'm going to do it with like so much gratitude.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (22:09.194)
and so much love and

that we never know where we're going. We never know the time that we have and

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (22:24.446)
I have been thinking about now, now that I have been a parent for a good chunk of time and I feel like you get to this point in parenting where you're like, now I know how to do it. Like I know how to meet these kids. I know how to show up. I know how to find myself and make room and also show up with them. And just when you feel like you got a handle on it and you might know some things, then they leave. And I was like, maybe, maybe that's the same when we live. Maybe we get to...

the end of our life, whatever the end of our life is, and we're like, oh, this is what it was really about. And as I have sat with that and been like, what is it? And I really truly think it is deep presence with wherever we are, which makes me think about when I was married and I lived in Northern California when my husband at the time,

was going to school and we were only going to live there for four years. And, you know, there were some people that wouldn't make very many friends. They're like, well, we're just going to be leaving. And I remember we talked about this conversation in a conversation. like, you know, what if we lived as if as if we were going to live here forever? And I've been thinking about this.

in regards to all this conversation at large, right? Like this, you know, everything dies kind of conversation. you're like, you know, if I'm going to get to the end and be like, this is what it's really about. It's going to be the, did I live as if in the current moment with whoever I was that like, as if this interaction with this person was going to be impactful for them, as if like my presence can give them something

that encourages them and supports them. Can I live as if I am going to live in this house forever and build the community as if I'm gonna live here forever, even if it's only for a short time, how can I do that? How can I treat the relationship in I'm in as if I am going to be with this person, whoever it is, for 30 years? How would I treat them? How can you live in your life and be present enough and to live as if

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (24:46.56)
It was deeply impactful and important to show up really in your feet, right here, right now, exactly where you are, exactly how you are. I think it changes things. I think that's really what it's about, is this deep presence because things will change. Knowing that everything changes, changes everything.

It it more beautiful. It makes it less serious and both serious at the same time.

It's where we really do hold grief and joy hand in hand. It's where we can create deep meaning and also be like, it doesn't really matter, does it? Right? We hold both. That's always an and, always, always. And as Joy Sullivan's poem says, right, it makes everything simple and urgent.

There's only time to turn toward what you truly love. There's only time to leap.

And maybe that looks small for you right now and maybe that looks big and maybe there's a part of you you need to own. And what do you need to be honest about? friends, if there's anything I've learned in this past year, like what do you need to be honest about? And can you just be honest about it with yourself? Can you be honest about it with yourself? Write it out. Nobody has to see it. What do you want with your life and what needs to die?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (26:26.85)
what you need to let go of in order to open because you cannot feel something that is already full. If you want to do something different, right, then there has to be space for that. If you want something different, you got to do something different and it's not going to be easy. It is not. I'm not sure it's easy either way, right, to like ignore a thing.

whatever the thing is, the thing you want to build, the thing you don't want to build, the thing that doesn't even matter. Like you could apply this to everything. It's not going to be easy, but we're not here for it to be easy. We're here for it to be real. Fucking real. We want to be real humans and real humans together. We want to create meaning. We want to create beauty. We want to make art and we want to live lives that people talk about us when we're not there. And it's the things that are beautiful.

Right? The people are in community with us and that we really share love together. That we're not afraid of what we have to give and we're willing to stand up and give it even if it's not perfect and even if somebody else can give it to you and even if we're scared and it's messy because then it's real. We have to start that way.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (27:54.977)
I wish for you a life of deep presence, of leaping, of trusting yourself. And, oh, I really think part of yoga, part of the practice of paying attention, part of like all of this is what we're doing here. Like here in this moment, in this podcast is truly about trust. How do you trust yourself? How do you put a hand to your own heart and be like this?

How do you talk to your pain? How do you let yourself get angry and let that be a tool for you? Not something you're stuck in. How do you recognize when you're stuck and give yourself permission to change, to do something different? How do you sit with yourself when you're deep and buried in a heartbreak and you do not know how you will get out or where the path will be? What do you do? So I wish for you deep.

and knowing that everything changes and let that be a point of beauty.

And knowing that you are not the only one that has to walk the road of everything dying so everything else can open.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (29:14.954)
And I think to this 20 year old version of Bonnie and the sweetness and.

this version of myself now and think, wow, if 20 years could give me all of that and this next 20 years, if I'm lucky to have the opportunity to enjoy it, then that will also be transformative.

and the deep joy it is right now to stand in myself, to see myself, to be with the and of the things that are hard and the things that are not hard.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (30:05.07)
Mm.

You are not alone. You are not alone.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (30:14.526)
This is the practice of paying attention. This is being awake to it all.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (30:23.158)
This is choosing the path that you can't not choose.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (30:30.196)
saying the things even when they're really hard to unowning it.

And I guess, I guess that's part of what this podcast is for me today. And, know, sometimes I speak in, in stories that feel like allegory of how we're teaching and speaking directly to teachers and teaching, teaching topics. And then like right now I'm just like, we're just, we're just fucking here.

and

knowing that I was gonna say the words of a breakup and now being here in this moment, I mean like, okay now I can do that. I can say it because I've been like, I can't say it yet. I can't say it yet. But now that it's been so many months, so many months that I can say it and I can hold it and that the way that I instruct teachers in telling stories is

You gotta be able to hold it and not ask other people to hold the emotion of it for you. You gotta share things that are already processed. And for me, I'm like, how can I share something and then stand in it? That if you were to message me and to share anything about this podcast that's lit you up, that I can hold that and be like, I am in myself. I am grounded. I am calm. And so now to be sharing this and knowing that I would some point in time.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (32:00.33)
And this is very surface level in a way too, but also real.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (32:09.568)
Yeah, so my mom died. My oldest left to college. I went through a breakup and it was all stacked together and

I am finding myself in it and reclaiming who I am and I feel delighted in who I am.

even and maybe especially with all the hard I am exactly where I'm supposed to be as hard as that is to say and in some ways

but also it's really beautiful. Like it's so beautiful to be where I am.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (33:01.135)
and

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (33:04.782)
Yeah, it can be more than one thing at the same time. You know, I could sit here and we could, if you and I were in the room, we could sit here and have a conversation and be deep tears. I didn't like wear mascara for like six months. So like, I'm just going to cry some more, right? I lost 20 pounds in like four months. Cause I, like, I couldn't eat, I couldn't process. couldn't do, I couldn't do shit. I was buried. I was like, how do I walk out of this? What do I do? How is this where I'm at?

I have, like all of the things. And so to be here and be like, okay, the crown is under my feet. This is where I want to go. And if you are a business owner, if you are building a business, your personal life, your emotional life, your relationship life, it is part of who you are. It's part of how you show up. And again, that could be a whole conversation of how we show up in our business when shit gets real for our lives. And I have continued to do that.

And also it has been hella hard and it has had an effect on how things have run over the past, I'll take you when my mom died, right? Like eight months, like is different. And so now to be here, I'd be like, okay, this is where I'm going. This is where I am. This is, I'm here, I'm here and I'm ready.

and.

and it can be nuanced.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (34:33.262)
Mm.

Yeah. I wish you all such, such deep love in your lives as I am and have been lucky to have.

Like, yeah, so much. It is hard to have words to say at much. I hope that for you and how much that has been for me. How transformative to be so seen by people who love me and intimate relationships. So.

It's all different things friends and everything dies. So whatever it is that you want

Name it.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (35:33.71)
Name it. Like truly, what do you want? Even if it's an inkling of a thing and there could be different categories for that, right? Like what do you want for your business? What do you want for your personal life? What do you want for your health? What do you want for your relationships? Like what are the things that feel taboo to say? I you to especially say those. The things that you're like, I might get in trouble if anybody knows this. I want you especially to say that. those are the most important things to say. What are the things that feel taboo?

that feel like they push against the grain, that feel like you might get in trouble for, that will anybody in my life accept me, love me, or encourage me if I were to say these things out loud that I want? I want you to name those things.

This is it. This is what we got. This our life. And there is only time to leap because tomorrow we fucking die, right? Everything dies. So this is it. And we want to live a life full of deep presence and that requires us to be in it. I am so here to hear your thoughts and

there will be more, there will be more shared about all of the things, like there just will, but as a first step and as a beginning place, a place that feels like honest, integral, and a soft sort of landing and intro to what my season has been, this winter season and this time for me that has been so much, but also this.

deep grounding and knowing I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. And I know where I'm going in some ways, and I have also no idea where I'm going ever. So there's a lot of openness there, but also being like, oh, I know what I want to build. I know what I want to create. I I know how I want to show up and that feels really good. So I am here for your responses. I'm here for you to share this podcast. can email me hello at bonnieweeks, reach out to me on the gram, carrot underscore bowl underscore bonnie.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (37:40.85)
and I'm glad to hear from you. Thanks for being a real human. Thanks for leaping. Thanks for leaping and being willing to find beauty here too. We'll talk soon.