Your Trauma Is Your Greatest Strength — Generational Healing Through Art & Constellations | Melody Foley | Ep 21

What does it look like when healing happens in community, not just in therapy rooms, but in art spaces, breathwork circles, and family constellation workshops?

In this episode, I sit down with Melody Foley, president of the Hairpin Arts Center in Chicago, artist, educator, and one of the most systemic thinkers I've had the pleasure of talking with. Melody brings over 20 years of teaching, ecological art, yoga, breathwork, and family constellations together under one roof, and this conversation goes deep.

We get into the complexity of hierarchy in constellation work why it doesn't always sit comfortably, and what it means to honor those who came before us without bypassing the pain they passed down. We talk about how societal trauma famine, displacement, exclusion becomes personal trauma, and how that gets handed to our children like an unconscious gift. We explore what it means to heal not just as an individual, but as a system, and why the wound you carry might actually be the source of your greatest strength.

Melody shares her own journey from being the quiet, invisible observer in second grade, to leading a thriving arts and healing community that survived Covid and came out the other side with real roots. We talk about servant leadership, what it means to build without hierarchy, and why collective healing is not optional — it's the only way through.

This one hit differently. I hope it does for you too.

🎙️ About Melody Foley: Melody Foley is the president of the Hairpin Arts Center in Avondale, Chicago — a nonprofit community art center rooted in accessibility, interdisciplinary collaboration, and collective care, spanning six branches including visual arts, performance, tech, and healing arts. An artist and educator with a master's in education from Columbia College, her personal practice centers on upcycled, large-scale works exploring ecological and emotional meaning. She is currently developing a painting series on mother wounds and intergenerational trauma for a gallery exhibition. On the healing side, Melody brings over 25 years of yoga practice, alongside breathwork, meditation, family constellations, and sacred plant medicine — all grounded in the belief that healing happens most powerfully in community.

Connect with Melody: Instagram (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/smallestacorn/

Instagram (Hairpin): https://www.instagram.com/HairpinArtsCenter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melody-foley

Website: https://www.hairpinartscenter.org

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⚠️ Disclaimer: What you hear here is for reflection and learning — listen, take what helps, and seek professional support if needed.

🔔 Upcoming Family Constellation Workshops

📍 Illinois Upcoming Dates:

• April 19th
• May 20th
• June 13th
• August 22nd
• September 20th

Family Constellation Workshop: Breaking Generational Patterns with Alicia Acosta & Cindy Biggs 📍 Where: Hairpin Arts Center, 2810 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60618 ⏰ 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM 💵 Cost: $100 📧 Email: cbiggs@zuluone.org

🔗 Register: https://www.zuluon

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Melody Foley

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the Zoolon Podcast. Today I'm joined by Melody Foley, president of the Hairpin's Art Center in Chicago. She's an artist, educator, and community leader working where art and healing meet. Her background includes education, ecological art, yoga, breath work, and family constellations. All rooted in one belief. Healing happens in community. We'll talk about her journey, her work at the hairpin, and how she thinks about connecting and care. Let's begin.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

In Chicago. So my body is full of goals. My father's father.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Melody, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Wow. I'm well. I'm well. Thank you. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Good. Good. What came up for you on the meditation?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

It's it's strange. And once we get to the great grandparents part, I do feel that warm glow, right? That that embrace and whatnot. And then during the parents and grandparents, I just feel just tumbling and and just wrapping around with it, you know. And it's it's that intrical hierarchy part of the constellations that I honestly wrestle with for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

That's the work, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah. I don't I don't know how I feel about it. Yeah. I just I haven't I haven't landed on a part of me. And I won't say that I haven't landed on it. It ebbs and flows. Okay. You know, it ebbs and flows for me of just just being grateful I'm here and I'm alive.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Is that an awareness that you got to recently, or is that an awareness that you've always kind of had through the modalities that you've done?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Um in particular with the constellations, the hierarchy kind of always is like it it just doesn't sit comfortably for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Oh, I love this conversation. Okay. So what what is we're gonna get into it? Let's do it. Let's do it. I love this. And and Melody, I what one of the things that I really like about talking to you is that you're extraordinarily smart and you have really good takes on things, and you've seen constellations from many different perspectives. So us unpacking this is such a cool place to do that and explore the edges of these conversations. Are you open to doing that?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

I'm open.

Wrestling With Constellation Hierarchy

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Okay, cool. Let's do it. So, all right, let's talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the hierarchy part.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

The good, the bad, the ugly. I feel that when I got to that great grandparents' part, I don't know, I don't know why like too much information about them. Yeah, right? I don't know everything. Um, I've studied my own ancestry, and that is how Elise and I actually bonded to begin with because I was on this ancestry path for 10 plus years beforehand. My aunt and I we meet regularly. It's our it's our way to stay connected, and we do just research. I am an intensely curious human being, and I just want to know all of their stories. How did they get here to America? Um, seven out of eight of my great-grandparents are from Ireland, right? And so a lot of those records are a little wishy-washy. Um, so it's an arduous task, right? Um, my mom was also adopted. Um, so I went on a quest to find her biological parents. It took me three years because I had no information, and and your genetics is kind of measured in Sentimorgans. So I I just narrowed it down and narrowed it down and narrowed it down over the course of a couple years, and I was able to find her biological parents to find out a little bit more of where I come from and what are their stories. And when I think about family constellations, you do them systemically, you do them shamanically, you do them personally, but then you also do them like as a society, yeah. Right. And and and how that affects them. So then it it makes me wonder how did my great grandparents, you know, what was, you know, what was happening in Ireland, right? Of course, obviously, and that's why they came here. What were the the original traumas that started to be passed down and passed down and passed out, and you know, the non-inclusion, the suffering, the famine, the the all of these things, and how the societal constellations kind of impact the personal ones, and then we take that all on and then give them as gifts to our children.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

It just takes you down a path that leads in so many different directions that sometimes you don't even remember what your original question was. But as far as the hierarchy is eh, sometimes people just don't have great parents sometimes.

Ancestry Research And Adoption Threads

SPEAKER_04 4:57

That is that that is that is accurate. Sometimes we have challenging relationships with our parents. The beauty of the work with constellations is that sometimes that's our story. You know, that we have that we come from sometimes two systems, right? That we come from two s the biological system and then a adoptive system. So that creates dynamics, right? And I love this about how you how you how I've seen you look at this is like your curiosity is like you're uncovering this like tough stuff, right? And you you kind of peel back the onion and you're like, okay, all right, the next thing that I then you see this, like I I almost can see you wrestling live with these concepts, right? You're like, ah, okay. And then you you like your curiosity kind of beats you in a little bit, and then you like take it in, and it's just really cool to see from you know your your perspective and how you look at that. And and what you were talking about, the ancestry gives a lot of information, right? It's like you're you started this journey of figuring out where you come from 10 years ago, right? And that's what constellations is another iteration of what that looks like. And in the word hierarchy, the simplest way that I can put it, it's a hierarchy of time. There's people that came before us, and there's people that came before them, and there's people that came before them, and there's people that came before them, right? So on and so on and so on, until you know, the original however your belief system is, if uh a kind of uh fish slash uh reptilian thing crawled out of the ocean, or you know, we cracked out of an egg or came from a different dimension or whatever your belief system, you know, that is that is the the path that that hierarchy really speaks about the people that came before us, right? And that that the hierarchy is of time rather than a hierarchy of structure or or a hierarchy of a social hierarchy. Let's just does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

It does. And in for in some ways, you're really tapped into my brain right now for some reason. Because that's the other issue, is is the time component, right? Because the work we do as parents um helps heal our children, right? And the work we do as as just regular humans in a family system or societal system helps heal the whole system. But when we talk about time, if what we're doing right now is healing our our our children, right? That's not now, right? And so like the future is now, the past is now, everything is now, right? So when you talk about hierarchy of it being time, if everything affects everything systematically all at the same time, how could it be a hierarchy of I was born first, she was born second, she was born third? That is a same time.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

That is a great question because it is all the above. And how I look at it is it's all the above, right? Because there is a constraint of us in time where we are now, right? That we are here in the here and now, but there's the superposition that happens in systemic work, right? And systemic work is we kind of collapse all those things into one and deal with the resonant, right? And we deal with that that entanglement that's happening cross-generationally. Because in constellations, you see um in one way the hierarchy of time of there were people that were before us, and there will be people that are after us, right? In in some in most cases, right? Also, that we can when you assign a role to somebody, even if it's the time and distance are are completely irrelevant. So we've done constellations online, and then somebody that's in Australia, you give them the you give them the role, like you you ask them, will you please represent my mother, and suddenly they start sobbing. It's like this person is it's not like it's like light speed, it's not like it took some time to travel that distance for us to send the quantum message over, you know, whatever, whatever we want to call that thing, right? But immediately you have this feeling, and then it it it does collapse to this resonant piece, which is which is really interesting. But we do also operate in the here and now, and the here and now does have a time factor, right? Is that we all are governed by the same laws of physics that say, if I was born in 1983, I am 42 years old, right? And nothing's gonna change about that. And my mom was born in 56, right? So, and then her grandparents were born and their grandparents were born in time, and I come from a lineage line that has that. The constellation portion gives me a modality to navigate through those passages to untangle, give back, and do all that stuff and then come back to the present.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

It does make sense, it does make sense that time is just you know revolutions around the sun, right? It's just it's not it's just a change, right? Um everything that's moving, everything that's changing is alive. And if we stop moving, if we're stagnant, we're yeah, we're not live. It does make sense, and and and we need that context to make sense of things, for sure. It it you know, it just becomes chaos then, and we you could lose your mind. Yeah, yeah, and and you need a system.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

Uh you need a system, exactly. And that's that's the part that we interpret these phenomenons across well, everybody inter has phenomenon. Before constellations, I was like, you know, I don't like that person's, you know, whatever that is, right? And the like you felt the vibe of a room. It's like, oh, you know, and then my I remember going out, and if I had kind of this rule, it's like if my mom said she had a bad feeling, I wouldn't go out. You know, like whatever that I don't know what that is, right? And then now in constellations we have a language to it. There's like probably sometime in the past, during that time when she was a teenager, something happened, you know, during that time, and that I could, out of loyalty to the family system, be repeating a pattern that I'm subconsciously entangled with, right? Those vibes now we have some structure to and some some language to, and some phenomenological understanding of, right? So it's like uncover that. So you you bring up a really good point. Like this is an aspect of constellation that I haven't explored yet. So I'm I'm fascinated by your take. It's it's a really good one.

Time, Resonance, And Quantum Weirdness

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, I agree. And those little voices that you speak to are phenomenally important in our life. And I feel that um when we experience trauma, when we experience a life of um anxiety, and even the people that that move frantically or the people that that kind of implode on themselves and shut down and move very stoically, right? It's still it's still a form of anxiety. Yep. Uh, we stop listening to those voices because we question it, because we don't trust ourselves, we don't trust our experiences, or or we just turned it off in some regard.

Trauma, Intuition, And Nervous System

SPEAKER_04 11:56

Like it's a great observation because the our we come with this this intuition that as children we have, right? And that trauma cuts off and blocks us off from that that intuition. And that's that's the work that we we we come back to this remembering of who we really are, right? It's like and and religious aspects have one understanding of what that is, and a spiritual have a different definition of that, and then you know, new age energy has a different way of it. Like, so all we're talking about the same phenomenon, right? We're all talking about the same kind of coming back to bringing back to the whole, bringing back to the one, bringing going back to the creator, whatever you want to call that thing, that we all interpret the same phenomenon in the same different language. And one of the things I I I wanted to ask you is like, how how have you seen with the work that you've done? And I and I was I was going through and you've done a lot of modalities, what have you seen shifts and like what have you seen where the most shifts have happened, or what what what brought you to constellations and how did you get into that world?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Um, I think originally, like I said, I just am really interested in the whys of everything, why does everything work in a certain way? I just study everybody and everything all of the time. And I'm just vastly interested in why people act the way that they do, why do they make decisions the way they do, and understanding yourself better is understanding your patterns, your behaviors better. And I'm completely dedicated to always, as you say, in uh Zulu One, working on your shit.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Yeah, um this is kind of the number one principle. It's like our guiding champ.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah. So I think that's kind of where it stems. Um, I lived most of my early life. I was very quiet. I was very I know it maybe seems shocking now, but I was very quiet. I was a very quiet observer. I was almost invisible. In fact, oh wow, I don't know why this story popped in my head. But when I was in second grade, my teacher put an apple in my mouth in class. And she said, you need to learn how to enunciate and say your thoughts out loud because I wouldn't talk. I was so quiet. Um, but I was just observing everything. And um, that's not valued in American culture. For sure, it's not valued. Um, there's this uh there's like this indigenous poem about um when I first started teaching, I I um used to read it all the time about, you know, my child is not slow, my child is not behind, my child is observing the world and taking in all of this information to do with it something later, right? And and you're learning, you know, you're you don't have to be loud all the time to be taking information and formulating your thoughts um to have a deeper understanding of what's going on. Um, so with that said, your question, where have I gone? Where am I now? I think I'm in the phase of my progress of just, you know, being a person. Um it's in my body, right? The things that you have to let go. You know, your body stores. Your body stores your experiences, your parents' experiences, your great-grandparents' experiences. Um, and that's where you gotta let it go because you can't solve any everything in your brain and in your head. And I'm a logical thinker, and I think that there's always a solution to everything, and I can solve any problem. Um, but sometimes that's not what you need to do. You need to move your body, you need to release, and you just need to enjoy your life and hum and sing and you know, take a walk in the forest or on the beach, and that's that's life. That's enjoying your life.

Getting Out Of The Head

SPEAKER_04 15:50

And I know that you've expressed like that release in like an artistic form, correct? Like you do paintings and you do creations from upcycled materials and and and the the and we'll get into this and I I love this part, right? It's like the art the Hair Pens Art Center is kind of a manifestation of that creative brain of of seeing and doing and connecting with healing and art and movement, and it's just such a such a cool place to do that. Tell me a little bit about when did that activate? How did that come out? How did that what did that process start?

Reviving The Hairpin After COVID

SPEAKER_01 16:22

So I, you know, I've been teaching for over 20 years now. And um my teaching style has always been very, very creative. And any opportunity that I have to run an after-school program or connect with students on a deeply artistic level, creative level, understanding who they are as people, more so than doers and producers of material, I do so. And I I worked for this organization in Chicago called CAPE for a very long time, um running after-school programs where we worked with working artists. And um I enjoyed it thoroughly. And my, you know, my boss there uh said, you know what, you're you're a really good problem solver. Um, would you like to join the board that I'm on um um called the hair, you know, hairpin art center? I said, sure, absolutely, I'd love to. Then COVID hit, right? Not too many, you know, a year or so after, no two years maybe after um I joined. And so we are completely closed. We had nothing going on for that whole time, nothing. Then when we reconvened after COVID, you know, we had a meeting, uh, reusing word meetings, um, and I became president. Um, and I made the decision to open it uh that September, right at the tail end of COVID. And it's grown and grown and grown. And it's it's a place where people can express themselves, commune with themselves, or commune with the with other artists. And we have right now six branches. We have uh the tech arts, the visual arts, uh, performing arts, functional arts, cultural arts, and of course the healing arts.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

Wow. Yeah. You know what, and this this and I I got uh I got some information, right? And it's like it was almost like, you know, the hairpin represented the community It was like empty and cold for that time during COVID. It's like it was like a represent like a visual community represent and I I man, I I I can't believe I missed this, but that as you guys started putting attention into it and pulling it apart and doing the stuff like it had all this from all this time that during COVID that things like literally kind of went into like death mode, right? It's like everybody was trying to figure out if the world was gonna continue, if everything was gonna happen. And then to see where the hairpin was when you guys were there to where it is now, it's like it's a completely different place, and it's thriving, and it has all this energy, and it has this beautiful movement in it, and it has, you know, there's events constantly happening, and you know, the uh local government uh gets involved, and they and then you guys doing the breath work and then arts, you know, you have uh art expos, and you just I mean it's like really cool to see that it went from it almost has this hero's journey. It's like there was like this place, and then it went through like the dark period, right? It's like in the wandering in the dark forest, and then came out emerging as this beautiful this this just beautiful creation that is it's just really incredible to see. It's I can't, and I I want to just commend you on how I know how much work you guys put into this place because um people that that listen to the podcast, my sister's intimately involved with the organization, right? So it's just been really cool to see the trials and tribulations and the victors and then the you know victory and the win and the all the stuff that you guys have gone through. It's it's just really cool to see that that process unfold and how and how you guys have like it really taken in and and done the work.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Thank you for that. Yeah, feels good. Yeah, feels really good. Um, I would say if we are resurrecting something that was, you know, dead, if you will, right? If we're going back to uh movement and change is life and non-movement and stagnicity is death, um, we're probably in our toddler, toddler era, you know. We have so much to grow, we have so much to move, and it all comes down to systems and slowly, organically in implementing systems. I don't ever want, um, as long as I'm a part of it, it to be run like a corporation or, you know, this uh I'm the head of this. Oh, here we go, back to hierarchy. I'm the head, I'm the boss, right? Um, I I very much want things to grow organically. I want us to be able to listen to community. I want people to join all of these committees. Um, because if it's just one person's ideas, it it will go stagnant very quickly, right? And so it has to grow organically always. And we have to listen and we have to be open and accessible. And that's our that is our our guiding principle right now is just how to increase accessibility like all the time with with having systems in place so we protect ourselves, right? Having boundaries and systems and things. We're just not open to everything. Just do what you will with me, universe, right? But doing it in a way that's um careful and thoughtful and with integrity.

Servant Leadership With Real Boundaries

SPEAKER_04 21:36

Yeah, that's a that's a hard balance. That is 100% a hard balance to be because what what I hear kind of in your words is like it's it's emerging a new style of leadership that's more systemic leadership, more emergent mute leadership, more like custodial leadership, that servant leadership that that that we have, that there's another way of doing it, right? That we can say. We can say these are the agreements that we're all going to agree on, but I'm going to serve you and you becoming the best version of yourself, and you're going to serve me and becoming the best version of myself. But at the end of the day, somebody has to make the decisions and be the kind of the the Sherpa of this thing and then move forward with what that looks like. Not from a events, please check the description below. We'll provide details and registration information for event near you. If you're enjoying this conversation, please like, subscribe, and share with your friends. It truly helps us with the algorithm and this allows this message to reach more people. No noise, just clarity and real transformation. Thank you. Authoritarian kind of process. And and it brings me back to constellations, is like the facilitator is not the leader of the constellation. They're not the one saying, top down, this is how it's going to happen, this is what we're going to do. This is, you know, it it is very much that we do this together with the person as the facilitator. So we are side by side with the person and we take them as far as they're ready to go. And that is that service, that that servant leadership. And I think that that's what we're talking about because the old paradigm structures that we used to go through, right, is talking about this kind of emergent movement of servant leadership that's really systemic because you can see that understanding the forces that had, we're not necessarily rejecting them. We're integrating those old patterns into a new curiosity and a new way of doing things so we can move forward as uh in a new paradigm. And I'm so excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Absolutely. And the facilitator, your, you know, your energy, your nervous system, your, you know, how the way that you're moving into the field obviously directly, directly affects the the sit the the system, right? The constellation that you're having. Um because that's just that's just the way it is. So, but you do also have a responsibility as like the facilitator, you know, as I do with maybe a facilitator, right? Is uh I need to protect those that are that that are in the system, right? Not to control them. You know, sometimes everybody has different boundaries, everybody has different expectations of what is typical or what is okay, or you know, how we interact with each other and okay and everything. So um we need to make sure that things progress in a certain way, but that everybody in our system is protected and we're and we're looking out for them.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Yeah, for sure. Much like parenting, right? It was like I became a better leader when I became a parent, right? So, because you understand fundamental human systems, you say within the bounds of these things, you can do whatever you want, or you can explore and have the play in a safe capacity. And sometimes that safety can become oppressive, right? That's like I'm gonna constraint this to not do that, or it can become irresponsible on the openness of it, to be like, oh, well, just you know, free range, whatever, and then suddenly it's you know, Lord of the Flies, right? Um, type of situation. Or then it's like this dictatorial, like very strict, doesn't have anything, and it doesn't leave any place for curiosity or exploration. So it's like it's that fine line of like great boundaries, right? Great frame, and that you can explore and do the stuff within this. And you just see people and kids and human beings thrive when there's some structure around this stuff. And it's and that's what I think what's happened the most with the airpin is like there's been some structure that's been in place and direction, and I've seen you work through this in such an incredible way. It's like it was really cool to do that because I at my core am a rebel. I want to rage against the machine, right? And I want to be like, uh, you know, um, I have that core wound of rebelliousness, right? It was because I am uh, you know, what was that? I'm a middle child, right? I'm I'm 100% I am the the concept of a middle child. And so I I like, oh, I'm curious about that. And oh, I don't like to do that. And I'm like, why is this wrong? And then I get and then I'm like, you know, fighting the system, right? And and and through this work of my that I've done personally on my own, my own shit, is that I found that I can be both, right? I can be the one that uncovers the dynamics that are not aligned, the highest version of what this can potentially be, and also maintain my my facilitation and my service and and lead from that place. Because I if you look at my life, you can say, Oh, he's the CEO of this company and he does this stuff and he's facilitating and he's very masculine, and I was in the military and I was a mechanic, and I was but also I have this side that is I create art and I'm a musician and I I paint, right? And that happened after some some deep healing work that I started doing. So you can see uh right above that's my that that art is mine, right? I I created that. It's like the chaos and order, and I and I it's conceptual designs and it was really cool to see that, but that's I think that's the dichotomy that lives in all of us.

Rebels, Patterns, And Culture Swings

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Absolutely, absolutely, and nurturing that it makes it so much better. Yeah, I think that's where we are for sure. In in those that want to, as you say, rage against the machine, right? It was very easy when obviously there's you know patterns in family, there's patterns in in society and all of the great the greats who were able to tell the future and then Nostradamus and the da da da. They studied patterns. All they did was study patterns of what society does, the ebbs and the flows. You can clearly see when you have um, you know, society that's very, very conservative, right? Then there's a rage against the machine, there's a rally against it, and then it becomes very, very loose and then very liberal, and then it has da-da-da, and then it goes back and then it goes forth. Now in this era, 2026, with the advent of just the world being so global in in society being so just um accessible, right? As far as like knowing what everybody is doing all of the time, um, sometimes it's hard to even know what is the counterculture, right? What is the well, who are the rebels? Who are the people um saying things? Who are the people that are railing against the machine, right? And it's hard to know what you're even fighting against or fighting for right now because we're in such a flux.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

Yeah. Right. Yeah. The part that I really encouraged by is the raging against the machine, is the the loving of our own wound, right? It's the like, oh, my rage against the machine is actually the rage that I feel against the unexpressed emotions that I have. And that like that real that switch that it's like I can't rage against the machine. It's like I have to look inside of me and find where my wound is, and I've got to deal with that stuff. And my rage really is the unex ungrieved sadness that I had as a child. You're like, uh, okay, fine, I gotta deal with this crap again. You know, it's like that's the the that responsibility, the radical responsibility, that's like the hero's journey. This whole thing that we do is like it's like we're we're transforming, and I think we have this great opportunity as a society is that we can no longer hide from the fact that we have a womb. The only way out of it is through it. And that if we that we deal with our stuff and we work on our things, however, you do that through yoga meditation, kung fu, uh breath work, constellations, traditional talk therapy, spirituality, religion, however, you get to that place of finding deep alignment and and finding and finding peace, that that's kind of everybody's challenge is to say, the more you heal, the more I heal, the more we heal as a society. And that's the piece that we can take that we can take in our hearts, right? To say, I can't, there's some things that I can't change, and there's some things that I can. That serenity prayer, right? And the wisdom to know the difference is like there's such and it it should pops up, you know, you see this pop up everywhere. It's like it pops up in N-A-A-A-A Al-Anon, right? It's like it pops up in that world, it pops up in scripture, it pops up in medicine work, it pops up in breath work, and it all pops up in constellations. And it's like there's these universal reality, like truths that we see that that kind of connect all these, that weave these chaos things together, as you know, in constellations, like it gets harder before it it before it heals, right? It's like we're we're going through as a collective society that part of like our car didn't start, you know, the the systemic resistance, right? Our car didn't start, we got there late, we have whatever the things the the system is throwing our in our way to prevent us from moving to the next level. I think this is what we're we're in the thick of it right now, to say we have this opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I agree. And I feel that when we get to that edge, that precipice of like the edge of the hard, the hard part before it reaches over to to the next to the next hill, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The second mountain, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

The second mountain, right? It's so it's so important. Um, and when you said uh when when I heal, when you heal, when we heal, da da da da, all of this, um the collective healing is is necessary. It's necessary for the world. And there's so much, anybody who who is who is interested in working on themselves, improving themselves, trying to be their truest, highest form of themselves, right? Um, it's not uh it's not something that you can take lightly, right? It's not something that is is for the the the timid, right? Um you have to be bold with it. And it doesn't matter what you do, right? It's not this is not an ad for this modality. This is not a, oh, you should do this, right? The shoulds need to go away, right? It's whatever aligns with you. And and and there is every I don't know of any other culture or that says you're gonna be the greatest form of yourself by running into the woods and never seeing a human again. It's it's all collective. When when you have one or more people, that's we bounce our nervous system off of each other. We are all vibrating at whatever frequency we are. And healers, great healers, don't have a magic superpower. We are borrowing from them their their amazing regulation and seeing how it feels. And our body gets to relax for a second and say, wow, that feels better. I'm gonna try that.

Choosing Healing Over Loyalty

SPEAKER_04 32:33

Yeah, and I think that that is that's an act of responsibility. Like what you just mentioned, there's like that act of like, because this factor of like loyalty is such a it's such a complex factor. It's like I am so loyal to my system that I'm gonna carry this wound. And healing feels like betrayal to a broken system, to a wounded system. And so, like you see in society now, people are like carrying that wound so tightly and then using that wound as a weapon, and to say, like, they're playing their part, I'm playing my part. What if somebody has to stand up and say, enough, I choose to heal. And you start breaking those patterns, and you now you see it in society. You know, as a as we speak right now, somewhere or someplace, one person's bombing the crap out of another. Like, what if what if somebody says, I'm I'm done? Said, I'm gonna choose to heal. I'm gonna I'm gonna choose to break the cycle of the victim and the perpetrator. And I know in Chicago there's a lot of that that that that cycle is just amplified, and you amplify the victims and you amplify the perpetrators, and it goes and it creates this chaos and it creates this stuff and it creates more stuff. And it's like, huh, what if what if we can bring the victim and the perpetrator both into the circle? Do we have the courage to do that?

SPEAKER_01 33:45

We do. We do. We have to. We have to. 100% you have to. They're both included because perpetrators most often started as victims. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

I mean, people who who perpetrate against other people who dominate other people were victims, or not that they use it as uh um like weapons, but well, there's two things, you know, you're using this as maybe not a weapon, but also if you stay in the victimhood of if if I let this go, right, if I don't ruminate about this thing, these things that hurt me so deeply, number one, who am I now? Right? Because who am I now? Who is my identity without without having this identity so so tightly wrapped around who I am? But then number two, when you meet someone new or a new group or a new job or a new neighbor, whatever it is, um if they don't know, right, your your your harms and your hurt, and if you stop moving as a as a hurt person, right, how will they know my pain? Right?

unknown 34:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

How will they know my pain?

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

If I just move so freely in the world and I move boldly and confidently, and I make all the decisions that are not rooted in self-sabotage, and they're not rooted in in holding me back and letting me shine, how will they know I'm so hurt?

SPEAKER_04 35:16

That is one of the most profound statements I've heard in a while. Because it's like none of you have suffered as much as I have. That meta-narrative of like the the person that is going to that I think that's the transformation from the victim to the perpetrator. Sleeping beauty, when like the the the the queen becomes the dragon, right? It's like that that that narrative is like they're gonna come after you. It's like it just really explodes into that righteousness. Tell me what's in store in the future of of of the hairpin. I know you guys are are doing some some really cool things. Like, are you I know breath work's happening at the hairpin, I know family constellations, art expo. How is that how is that evolving? And what is the future and what's the magic wand in seven years that you see the hairpin? And what does that community look like?

SPEAKER_01 36:04

I would say the magic wand is our directors who we have had kind of starting to lead the branches, they are starting to bloom. And there's always this kind of default setting that I find that people have my way of leading is not um always typical, right? Um, because I want people to shine and I want to support people, and I'm okay with not being on stage with the with the mic in my hand. And and oftentimes, gosh, we just keep going back to hierarchy here. People want somebody to tell them what to do. And it's so ingrained of people in their uncomfortability with, and I don't even want to use the power, but autonomy, maybe agency, and saying, um, I want to support what you want to do. I want to support what your group and your community wants to do, right? You've um you've been invited here, right? Um, you have my full and complete and utter trust. Um, and nobody is perfect, but I I will be by you and I will nurture your your creative, your creativity, I will nurture your leadership, I will be here because I'm strong enough for you to lean on me. And I just want to see that continue to grow and grow and grow. And I'm going to say I am confident enough to not know where that's gonna go and be really happy about it.

SPEAKER_04 37:45

That's great. What came up when you were saying that, it's almost like you're uh you're like a teacher leader. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Maybe you meet people where they are and you cre foster an environment where they can grow into the leader that they that they they can be. So it's like there's a very big um like teacher component to the leadership style that you have. So it's like there's great effectiveness about it because you can bring everybody up from where they are to be that that that teacher that they can become, but also you have to go down to meet people where where where they are in that kind of hierarchy of their leadership style, right? To say they're like a baby leader and then getting into, you know, a middle schooler leader, and then they'll be a high school leader and they'll be a university PhD type leader, right? To say how you grow that aspect and their leadership blossoming, that they have those innate skills, but then you give them the structure to do that in that like from um educational aspect, maybe an interesting aspect to see what that looks like.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Yeah, I think that you're right. I think you're right. And I and I heavily, heavily rely on um one of my greatest gifts is I'm I'm always thinking it's a grift and a gift and a curse at the same time, right? Um I'm always thinking, I'm always trying to look, I look at everything at every angle all of the time. Um, and it's like I'm playing chess with everything. And so um I'm a great connector. Um, and when I meet somebody, I said, you know what? I'm gonna introduce you to blah blah blah, right? Because um, when people that are that have the same thinking or they have similar goals or whatever it may be, sometimes it's contrasting things, um, and they unite, the the dreams become bigger, the goals become bigger, and everything becomes bigger. And I think that's where we are at of just thinking bigger and dreaming bigger. And what do we what we have a real opportunity here? And what with the real opportunity, we have a real responsibility, you know. It's a responsibility like we could do more all the time.

Belonging, Inclusion, And Seeing Everyone

SPEAKER_04 39:51

What you describe right there as systemic leadership is like to look at problems from a bunch of different angles, to look at it and and and to connect the people to connect the dots is like you, and I've seen you do this, like you almost manage in systems, like you're you're like you're looking at the whole, but also have a capacity to go into the individual and connect the dots and then go back out to the whole and look at the whole piece from different angles, and you say, hey, this is what the ecosystem looks like, and then like you're leading the ecosystem itself, and that's that's systemic leadership in in in a nutshell. How you approach these problems is like like an ecosystem, right? And you can see the the you can see the forest for the trees. And I I see that in your in your process, and that's really what you're describing is systemic leadership.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Absolutely. It's important, it's critical. It's critical when you just you really at your core care about people and you want uh people to be involved. People's greatest strength sometimes are their core wounds through family constellations and other other containers and things that I've been through. I just want to be included. I just want to be included. And so I always notice when somebody is not included. And I don't want them to feel sad. I don't want to feel that I don't want to feel them be lonely or outcast or you know, it really, it really is a great pain for me when I see somebody who is not cared for or included or accepted into the tribe or the community or whatever setting it is. And it's it's a driving force and I know it so intimately. It's like when you think about um, you know, people will say, um, people who are who are racist, they know everything about the culture, the community that they're racist against, right? Because they've studied it, they've done this, you know, it's like kind of a horrible thing, right? And they're obsessed with it, you know, and this was my this is my wound, and I studied it and I and I and I dissected it and I did all these things, right? Um but at the end of the day, it's one of my greatest strengths.

SPEAKER_04 41:54

Well, though those pieces is also like the wound is the clue, you know. It's like if somebody's, you know, uh, there's this guy, his name is I can't remember his name, African-American jazz musician, right? Or he plays blues or jazz, and he's collected over 250 or some ungodly number of um KKK robes just by simply seeing the other person. And he was like in a bar, he was like he's saying he's like, he was in a bar playing music, and suddenly uh the grand wizard, master, whatever, you know, I don't know what they're they're necessarily called, but came and he started having a conversation. And he's like, Well, I don't, I don't, I don't connect with your kind or said something of that. It's like why not? And it wasn't uh Bob, you you're raised, you know, like just that exclusion of it, but brought the that perpetrator energy in and closer.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

And it was like, tell me okay, let's let's have the let's have the conversation.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

And then he like one over one guy that was like, What my my ideology is so comes from such a wound, comes from such a a place of exclusion, comes from some a place of not understanding and not having connection. And then he did that with another person, and then did it with another person, and then another another person, and then he speaks on a national level on creating connection with people that you have a great opposition with. And that's like it's such a beautiful thing. And and what you're saying is like we can we can include with the alchemy of healing, right? Because if we include with the wound, it creates chaos. But if we include with the alchemy of healing, it creates connection. And you truly see somebody with their wounds, and like you see con family constellations in prison, you see family constellations in and community systems, you see family constellations in broken, broken, broken families, and some of the most uh difficult, painful human dynamics that we've all seen in constellations. You see all that stuff. What it is is creating connection between all the pieces that are supposed to belong. That first principle of constellations is the principle of belonging that everybody, regardless of Regardless of the circumstances, has a right to the belong to God.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, that's a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Man.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Every every person that is it's the it's the perpetrators, right?

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Who are ultimately victims, you know, and that's systemically, you know, white supremacy and all of these things. It's it's bound by uh wounds and you know frailty and fear. They're fear. It's fear, you know, and it's power and it's all these things.

SPEAKER_04 44:31

And like it's I'm one to be like, I want to do family constellations with white supremacists because the lines of victims and perpetrators run through every human heart. It's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

It is.

How To Find Melody And Closing

SPEAKER_04 44:42

Yeah. So, Melody, how do people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Well, you can contact me through the Hairpin Art Center. Um, you can also um I'm the smallest acorn on every platform. Uh, you can go to my website, smallestacorn.com. Um, it's just a it's my core principle is that um every every tiny little idea that you have can grow into um the biggest, strongest thing, the mightiest oak, right? Small acorns to mighty oaks. That's how you get a hold of me.

SPEAKER_04 45:16

I love that. I love that, I love that. And Melody, I know we've been planning on doing this for a while. Thank you so much for coming. It's been such a cool conversation, and I know it's gonna be one of many. So as things come up and shift, and you know, that seven-year plan of what things are gonna look like, um, those directors blossom. I I would love to have you back and continue this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

I would love it as well. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 45:40

Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Zula One Podcast. If you found value in today's podcast, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. Your support means everything to us. And thank you for being part of this journey.