Episode 17: Tom Owens

In this episode of Woven, Sara sits down with Tom — the first male guest on the podcast — for a deeply human conversation about grief, body culture, masculinity, healing, and the longing for community in an increasingly isolated world.

Tom shares his experience navigating a body shaped by decades of travel, physical wear and tear, and the slow process of learning to care for himself differently. Together, they explore what it means to move from treating the body as a utility toward relating to it as a partner.

The conversation expands into grief and loss as Tom reflects on losing both parents, including his biological parents from Colombia whom he never had the chance to know. He speaks candidly about therapy, Reiki, mentorship, and the importance of human connection in processing life’s hardest experiences.

Sara and Tom also examine the differences between independent and interdependent cultures, drawing from Tom’s travels through Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. They discuss parenting, public behavior, community accountability, and the ways American culture often leaves people — especially parents, grieving people, and those outside the “norm” — to navigate life alone.

This episode is a reflection on:
 — healing beyond individualism
 — grief and emotional processing
 — masculinity and deconstructing patriarchy
 — parenting and communal care
 — body awareness and aging
 — human connection and belonging
 — the importance of community support systems

If this conversation resonates with you, please consider:
 • subscribing to the channel
 • sharing the episode with someone you love
 • leaving a review on Apple Podcasts
 • commenting on Spotify or Patreon
 • joining the Woven Patreon community for deeper conversations and reflections

Thank you for being part of Woven.

To contact Tom, IG - Tompo27777 or HRVirtualGuide

#WovenPodcast #SomaticHealing #Grief #CommunityCare #Masculinity #HealingJourney #BodyWisdom #Parenting #Embodiment #MentalHealth

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hello and welcome to the Woven Podcast. This is Sarah Newberry, where we talk about all kinds of things that include bodies, culture, and transformation. I'm really excited today to introduce you to the first man I've had on the podcast, by the way. And his name is Tom, and I'll let him tell you all a little bit about himself. Go ahead. Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Oh, hello, Sarah. I am so honored to be the first male on the podcast. I will I will be honest, and I think I've mentioned this before in our other conversations. Um I have had the honor of being the first male in a few spaces in my life. Um, so it's uh it's an interesting experience, and hopefully I set a good precedent for those that follow.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Well, uh you know, you know what that signals to me is that one of the good ones. So could be a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

That's don't don't hype me up too much here, Sarah. We got a whole podcast to get through. I can't, I hey, I'm still a man. I I was literally talking to a friend yesterday about uh, you know, I'm still on that journey of like deconstructing patriarchy and just all of the toxic things that were just in my presence since I was young. And uh uh I feel like I'm at a at a point in my life that I'm much better now. Um but I'm still gonna have blind spots, like things are still gonna pop up. It's just it's that ingrained in our society that I was like, hey, I need you to call me on it, I need you to like wave that flag in front of be like, oh hey, can you tell me more about what you just said? So um, but yeah, my name's uh Tom Owens. I uh we we got introduced through uh our therapist. Um I used to go to Amy Miller, and she referred to you when I was looking for you know more body work, and uh this body has just been trashed and beaten up uh for this first 30 years, and so now in my early 40s, having to take everything down a notch again, and on that healing journey, and a big part of that is getting uh my body right, and you've been helping with that phenomenon, and everything that we've been working on has just been opening up a lot more areas of like exploration and discovery, and uh now you referred me to uh a Reiki master because now I'm curious about that and learning more about that. Um while all that's going on, I'm still looking for uh a therapist on top of that. Um but that that's uh that's kind of where I'm at these days. Um, but it's been it's been a wild ride. I mean, over 40 years round and around this country.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

I think, well, there's there's already so much that comes up for me with what you just said, because I think that it's really um important that we're all doing our own deconstruction work of whatever kind, whether it's like gender, race, American, small town, big town, you know, like there's so much to um move through as an individual that I think that what makes someone one of the good ones is someone who's who's like doing that deconstruction work, you know, like why do I think and believe what I think and believe? You know, and yeah. Um the the other thing that I heard you say that was interesting, like my body has been trashed, and it's like, or we can take that and say, wow, your body has taken you on a lot of adventures. And that's not to like bypass or dismiss those things, but it's like, you know, I was sharing with you before we hit record, like I um I really injured my foot this weekend, and the f I I like fell, I was in so much pain, I like fell to my knees and I was like crying right away. And I turned so I I like fell on all fours, like you know, on my knees, and I turned around, and the first thing I felt was like compassion for my foot. I was like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. You know, I felt like I felt compassion for my foot, where I was like, it was it was like bordering on gratitude, right? Like, thank you for catching me. Thank you for catching my body as it as it like held pain. But that's a huge like step for me because you know, it just like many of us, we've learned to like hate our body or learn to like see it as a utility rather than like a friend. And I I that just was very noteworthy for me that that was like my instinct was to be like, oh my foot, like I'm so sorry. Are you okay? Thank you so much for taking the weight of this stool that fell on my foot, you know. So that's that's why I say it's not to bypass or like you know, because that's that's easy to do. That's easy to be like, oh, let's just love our bodies or whatever. No, this is like after many years of work of like healing journey, my own relationship with my body through somatics, through birth, through all that stuff, you know. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah, I that's a great perspective. I uh we we've talked a little bit about the whole uh mind-body, you know, what meditation does for you, the connection between the two. And I think another part of this journey for me is getting a greater understanding of where that exists for me. Um, and like you just calling me out on that, saying, Hey, what if what about this perspective on trashing your body? And it's like, yeah, that's that's uh a perfect uh uh pivot into, you know, yeah, I trashed my body. Um, but I really respected my body through all that trashing. Like I just put it through the ringer, asked it to do a lot of very hard things consistently, and it survived and thrived through all of it. Um, and it's showing the wear of that, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

You can't have a great uh great life, you can't live a lot of life without your body showing it at the end, without you know, barring any uh you know medical uh interventions to uh to reverse that, but that's a great perspective too, because I feel like we are meant to move and push and like live in these bodies. We can't like be living in a dainty little bubble, you know. That's right, and and that means that you're gonna have like wear and tear and experience and wisdom and pain.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yes, yes. We've talked a lot about pain and what that's been teaching us, right? Absolutely and just the journeys, you know, and even outside of our bodies, you know, what life's uh the environment uh of life is is putting around us to survive. But even uh when I would as you're saying those things uh about what you put your body through, even even if you're not throwing it around and like for me, sports and you know, the gym all the time, and uh just really grueling physical tasks, um even just going uh traveling, right? Traveling is is very strenuous on the body. Um, but it's wonderful to do. Like you get out there, you might not be, you know, uh snowboarding in the Alps or uh you know doing wild runs over through the desert or something like that. You might not be putting your body through extreme situations, but just traveling the world and adjusting the time zones and you know, learning new things, putting your brain under the mental stress of you know, gaining wisdom and doing all those things and putting yourself in vulnerable new situations is still just that stress on the body. And you do that for a few decades, right? It just shows up in different ways, you know, whether it's in your eyes, or you start feeling it in your joints, whether you know you're getting more gray hair than you prefer uh quicker. Um, you know, your body just is going to show that wear. And honestly, one of the things that I find very interesting, um, just a little nook and cranny of it all, is with you know women versus men in America, is that for men, you know, chick stick scars, you know, as we get older and wrinkly, we get weathered. And, you know, the whole cowboy aesthetic type of you know, heavy smoker, gray hair, that has been in our culture very uh romanticized, you know, for men, aging, right? And for women, it's like, oh no, color your hair, blah blah and uh makeup and all this stuff. And I've the more I've seen women with their natural hair color, graying hair, um, with you know, less makeup on, and just opposite of what is thrown in front of us, the more I'm just like, oh my god, like women are aging much better than men. Even I would even say the the women that are uh also having kids and things like that, um, just again, that strain and stress on the body, both and emotionally and from hormones flipping all over the place during that time.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

It's just like, good lord, like a man could never yeah, isn't it something to be in awe of, you know? Like it is. I I also believe that the season of the bog witch is is among us, you know, where I do feel like women are really like allowing themselves to feel to like present however they show up with like less makeup, less um changing of like their natural being. Um and that is I feel very uh lucky that I am at this stage of my life as that's becoming more like of the norm versus try to be something that you're not, and that's not to say that like women who change their looks, that doesn't mean anything about them either. It's like we all should have freedom to like come as we are and express ourselves, how we feel the most comfortable in our bodies expressing, right? So that means like either maybe I dye my hair green or something, and like that should be a place of expression, not a place of like covering up something that I am.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Um yeah, I feel that too with like body is an art, like your your body is also a canvas, too. Like you can get tattoos, you can get piercings, all those things to express your journey as well. And I I mean, I love that just as much. I wish I could do tattoos, I wish I was that decisive, um, and sure or you know, okay with being unsure of what that looks like. Um uh yeah, all those things I think are are from my perspective very beautiful. And you know, I've I've told you before, like I've just always described myself as ravenously curious. And when I see folks that have made those choices, immediately I'm just like, oh, I have I have a million questions. I want to just like learn more about what has brought to you, like what in your life you've experienced, what you've done, where you have done it, who you've talked to, who you've experienced, who's influenced you. Like, I could just pour out a ton of questions. Yeah when I see that.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

I mean, I think that's I think that's why we connect so well because I too am ravenously curious about people and about um our world that we live within, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Yeah, yeah. This world is so huge, and the more I've I've gotten the uh privilege and luxury of exploring other cultures and countries and whatnot, um, the more I'm just amazed, even this day and time. Like I've I've I'm very curious about anthropological looks of history in different spaces, whether it's industry or religion or spirituality and uh uh imperialism and stuff like that. Um in current times, in other parts of the world, the things that I've seen communities accomplish I if for America being a first world quote unquote first world country, we're so just uh there's no way we could accomplish the things other cultures and countries can accomplish. Um some of them are very simple things uh that we can't do here. Which is just I don't know. I don't know. I feel a little backwards sometimes when I'm here.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you have an example of that, like of something that we can't accomplish here?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah. So uh I was recently at the beginning of the year, uh was able to take a great uh uh trip to Japan. Uh well, it started in Austria, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, right? So I got to see several different cultures in different versions of you know uh Eastern culture. So in Japan, for example, we were only there for a couple of days, but apparently just before we got there, there was uh a domestic terrorist attack. Um multiple bombs laid in trash cans throughout the city. The city, after that happened, the city immediately pulled out like all of its trash cans um for the public. And then they asked the public, hey, from now on, can you just carry a little plastic bag with you and put your trash in it? And when you get home, just put it in your trash bag at home. Everybody did it within like a week. It was just the norm. I mean, I was seeing people with these little plastic bags, they would just pull out and toss their trash in it. And I was like, when you're talking about a city that large and that complex and that heavy foot traffic commuter pedestrian lifestyle, you you couldn't get the city of St. Louis to do that in a week, in a month.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Absolutely, yeah. I was you know when you said that uh like my face changed because I I immediately thought of the American culture of like how that would never fly.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

No, no, not at all. We couldn't inconvenience our own individual life with a plastic bag, god forbid. But it's just that's just a uh uh a feature of their culture because they're already at their core, an incredibly clean society. Their their streets are immaculate. I mean, the amount of trash that I've seen, even in my subdivision on any given day, is like multiple square miles of trash in Japan. Uh and well, I should say in Tokyo, where I was specifically. Um I would love to go back and visit their more rural areas. I heard that's also uh quite eye-opening.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

Yeah, there's there's like five things I could say about this because um you know uh this recently the city of St. Louis changed their recycling. Did you hear about this? I'm not in the city of I'm not in the city of St. Louis, but I did hear about this. That that like they took away recycling options. So you have to like the idea was is that it cost too much money. So you have to take your recycling to the recycling center or just throw it in the trash can. And people were really upset about this. And I just think about what you said there, where it's like this was an easily implemented thing within a week, where it's like just bring your own trash can and take it home and and dispose of it properly. I've also heard of this place in Japan, I don't know where it was exactly, but where they changed their their recycling rules or something like that, where they could basically recycle almost everything. And it it only took like minimal education to understand how the recycling system went, you know, or like how the recycling how it was like education on recycling, essentially, and and immediately everyone implemented it so much so that they like barely had any trash like the following year, and a whole entire community. And I just same thing, I thought that would never fly here.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Well, and my uh so we went to Taipei in Taiwan. Uh, we were there for multiple weeks, and my friend teaches there. Uh, she's an American uh that teaches uh English and a couple other classes over there, and we toured her school on the weekend, and it was it was a very cool experience to see one of their campuses uh for a grade school. Um, but when we were walking through, she was telling us how um at one point of each day it is the kids' responsibility to clean the dishes, clean the bathrooms, clean up the grounds. And I mean, and these grounds were covered in like gorgeous plants and trees and all this stuff. So there's a lot of leaves and other stuff. And I'm like, oh, well, you know, do you have a grounds crew that takes care of all this uh flora? And she's like, oh, yeah, but most of it's done by the kids. Like we have a group that goes around and they water all the plants and the pots and stuff like that. And I was like, yeah, that that's why this society can function with uh hygiene as a priority, is because it's in the school systems, it's being taught to them very early on. Now you might walk by the bathrooms, you might you know use the cafeteria or whatever, but at the end of the day, we're all pulling up our sleeves and cleaning those areas. I never did that. I doubt you ever did that.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Those are like life skills, you know, those are not like math and science skills, those are just life skills that should be folded into our everyday situation.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, and I I would I would take it a step further for them, is that it's not just for their personal lives, it's community and culture building. It's like, hey, this is the expectation for you everywhere you go. Right? It's not just like, oh, you're gonna do this at school. Like they're gonna do that at home. The parents are gonna have that as part of their uh family culture. When they go out into society, they are extremely respectful of you know, walking around with food and drinking or eating while walking, because again, uh pedestrian-heavy communities. And you know, you don't drink when you're in the main streets or anything. There's only certain areas. When you go to the public transit system past the gate that you go into, you do not have food or drink out. Period. You know, you don't have it on the train, right? But it's just that collective understanding, and uh, I wouldn't even call it like we would say like respect, but it's not respect, it's just honoring the spaces that we're all using as our own spaces collectively.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Yeah, that's so interesting because well, two things. Um, I talked, you know, I take I have four kids, so I take them to the grocery store, and I'm always like trying to bring their awareness to the fact that there's other people in the grocery store. And I'm like you cannot be running in the grocery store or you cannot be wrestling. My two boys love to wrestle everywhere they go, and it's like you're disrupting the their shopping experience by what you're doing right now and we just can't have that because it's that whole honoring of like other people is other people are in the space, you know? And there's a lot more places that that could happen too or you know, but that's just one thing that I've learned as a parent over the years is like we have to respect other people's experience. And you can contain yourself because containment I believe is one of the things that we're lacking a lot in this culture is um places to places to wrestle, places not to wrestle. Right. It seems so simple whenever I say it, but it's really not whenever you whenever you're bringing children in public places. The other thing I was going to say is that when I was in um college, I took an entire semester on uh independent and dependent cultures. So it was like cultural psychology. And so we really looked at independent cultures places like the West or the United States. And then we looked at dependent cultures places like the East and Japan, China. And that was really really eye-opening for me. And I mean in in many many ways uh what has carried with me through all of my days that that class was so pivotal to me because it it allowed me to see how one what independent cultures like just the fact that we have like independent and dependent is something that's worth like identifying right but then then the next layer was like how one is not necessarily better than the other because there's problems, cons to like dependent cultures and independent cultures. And so it was really eye-opening to see how just like the cultural landscape at large is like working within us individually every single day.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Right. Right. Yeah I so addressing the culture thing real quick and then I want to jump back to discussion about the family right in in uh society our US society the uh dynamics of you know uh masses of people right uh whether you're looking at uh uh political perspective societal religion uh industry right any any of those kind of subcategories of how people function in groups and then having kind of like you're saying with you know really putting language to it like a taxonomy of like independent versus dependent and seeing what that looks like and what's the differentiation and what does that actually like live and breathe and move like in those spaces for those groups of people um we've talked about this a lot too is just you know in the last like since COVID I feel like our the the Western society has built better language around how we live and breathe within our spaces both independently within our family units in our communities you know our nation at large right and what those culture dynamics look like and how a lot of people have identified oh I'm feeling out of place I felt this in my body before and I I know I've experienced this around me but I couldn't put a finger on it or I I had a feeling or an emotion about it but I couldn't put a word that captured it. And part of I think our journey in these bodies as we're trying to self-improve right always that progress forward concept that the US loves so much. And the what we sacrifice for that is language a lot of times. And you know we use a lot of colloquialisms a lot of like shorthand terms for like you know oh uh you know I got the ick for that without needing without having to put a name to it a finger on it to differentiate myself in my experience to this whatever this is and really claiming that and understanding that that is something for me not necessarily oh it's an ick it's everybody looks and feels this way about it it's like no I mean that's that's not entirely true maybe a group you know but it having that language having that understanding looking at those dynamics taking a deeper dive you know taking that extra step to look a little bit further or to ask another question to someone or to ourselves and find the language to bring those conversations to light is what I believe uh wisdom is all about. Like that's that's where wisdom lives is in the curiosity is it within the places that our larger influences sometimes don't allow us to go as an individual. Now what you were saying about the family and I know we've talked about this a lot and I've been bringing it up to my friends as well is that the uh family unit and I'll preface this right by saying uh you know I lost my mother unexpectedly two winters ago uh my father back in 2016 due to cancer and they were my second set of parents that I lost um and dealing with that loss the first set were my biological parents um from Bogota Colombia and I never knew who they were I never had a name and I you know I was uh abandoned at a very young age and that shaped my entire life right and having lost all my parents at this point and feeling very untethered in life which isn't horrible you know I feel freedom with that and I also feel a little bit of lack of foundation you know there's like you were saying before there's kind of like a an ebb and flow of balance to these things as we pursue them and experience them in life. And I've been taking deeper dives for myself into the family experience particularly also I have a lot of friends who have kids who are married um who are divorced who are single with kids uh trying to co-parent and things like that and as an outsider looking into a lot of that and with my own unique experience from the family unit the lack of community and social support for our nuclear family dynamic in this country and our huge emphasis for generations of mother father two and a half kids and one breadwinner a house you know just these concepts that we've stated and you know now believe are just how what success and and happiness and love looks like in America. And I've I'm looking back on it seeing how it exists today with my friends especially with this healthcare system that we have and the lack of uh adequate daycare support for kids and education just getting stripped like crazy there's less and less spaces for this these generations and the new generation coming in to have peace of mind to learn about self to learn about how to function in larger society as it exists today which is not easy or fun and it's very painful and grueling um if you don't already have you know your genetic lottery ticket um the fact that when you're talking about your kids in a store and their behavior that you are the only person in that store essentially that is supporting the education of their behavior in that communal space that that social space and in other countries I'm gonna bring up Japan and Taiwan again it is the exact opposite I mean it's not only you know better family integration and support it's also just the people around like I like I was saying my friend that lives there when she first lived there for a while and was walking around and she'd forget that she can't drink while walking around on some streets and public streets she would have people looking at her like not admonishing her but like looking at her like what is what is happening what's going on like kind of surprise and shock. Right? And that's the subtle cue you know that the community gives to the individual of hey that's out of the ordinary here you know the ordinary is that we see this as a communal space and by respecting that we just don't drink or eat. That's just a particular that we have right yeah and it's not like running up being like what are you doing like shaming you and being aggressive and all those things because I've seen that happen with some people you know with their kids in the store that are running amok you know somebody will come up and be like you need to respect your mother blah blah and it's just like that's a way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Is it the greatest experience for the child and for them to really understand the purpose of this space no it's just fear and all these other things and I I really feel for all the the mother I'll be honest just mostly the mothers because the fathers typically have very little hand in participating in the raising of their kids more men are stepping up which is great I are what I've seen around me but having being a mom of one plus kids in this society trying to figure it out is just uh uh it's incredible how successful it is um I mean you're doing a lot of the labor as usual a lot of the unpaid labor to keep this society um standing yeah you so eloquently uh painted such a beautiful picture of what it is for so many families first of all I just want to say loud and proud death to the nuclear family so and what I mean by that is like just the way that you described like being in the store being me solo parent being the only one supporting my child and how that is a relatively new thing in all of our experiences and it's getting like that divide is getting bigger because even like when I was a child my grandma did a lot with raising me and we would like go to the store together my grandma my mom and and me or the cousins or whatever so I I think there's something really and also I have this belief as a mother that I mother my children of course but all children are my children so like when I'm at the store I feel that support that you're talking about and I've seen that that response where like there will be shame to a child who's acting out but there's also a way to just be another grown up that like holds the space for the child that's like you know like for example one time we were at a clothing store and my kids were like running through the clothing racks you know and there was there was uh the person who worked there was like hey you guys can't play in my in my clothing racks you know like she owned them because she worked there and I it was so supportive to me as a mom because I'd already said like five times you guys gotta stop doing this right so it was it was that like I felt so supported now what I've also seen is there's this like I said growing divide between like parents who really don't want anyone's un unsolicited opinion and I I get that feeling I understand that right but if you what I'm gonna say is gonna sound harsh okay but like if if you're if you are strong enough in your sense of self you can take that unsolicited advice and it just goes right over you. Do you know what I mean? It's you don't have to take that unsolicited advice on and um I think that's like where a lot of people struggle right is because they kind of like intermingle or they collapse if you want to use nervous system terms like they collapse into like what another person is saying and it's like wait should I be doing this like can't like should I be teaching them this should I be doing this should I be going there?

SPEAKER_00 36:25

And it's like if you had that sense of self there would be so much more clear of like oh that's someone else's opinion that's mine this is the advice I can take that's what I don't want and that's something that even though we are very individualist and kind of an entitled culture we don't have deeply um deeply a deep understanding of a sense of self like by and large you know yeah I I hear that I'm gonna uh I to address what you were saying like this might sound harsh I get what you're saying because you know there are a lot of parents that just receive that unsolicited it's advice probably from their parents um that they're like you didn't do great with me I don't agree with what you did or strangers or friends. Yeah right or you know you got the baby shower coming up and everybody's like oh hey by the way blah blah um I and I think there are a lot of parents out there that are like I don't need another person giving me some half-ass advice that worked for them decades ago when you know there's a lot more support. I get that like it's the exhaustion type of response. Absolutely yep so I think there's tons of that out there because you know Americans always loved also love to be armchair psychologists the same time for other folks rather than for themselves like you're talking about. And I think leading into the sense of self one of the things in my journey that has really helped me from a language perspective to help kind of reshape my perspective and view of how I'm maneuvering through life is that you know uh and concept you know this and rather than the but rather because in American culture we have this really innate uh from from an individualistic competitive society we have this really zero sum concept zero sum concept that is ingrained in our head that permeates through all areas of our life and applying it to the kind of situation that you're talking about where somebody is giving uh unsolicited support right even if we don't totally understand it or agree with it it exists in and of itself outside of what we do as an individual and like that having that strong sense of self really asking ourselves those questions having the language for how we think and feel and behave having knowing what our boundaries are knowing what our values are knowing how we maneuver and support each of those things individually for ourselves within ourself with our the connections that we have in our life with our friends family partners uh uh in the work environment right and really standing on those you know 10 toes down having that sense of self again is not in our culture I believe people think about that and they're just like oh well then that's just independence and it's like it is it's independence within the greater system and environment that you're in that if somebody else as a whole individual is interacting with that somehow it's not this or that it's not you know you but this it's both like it all exists right and we need to be able to hold space for that as well that that can exist and we know how to address that we know how to even show appreciation for it. Like you're saying it's like man I really appreciate that woman being able to step in and say hey by the way this is my store right please treat it this way rather than what you are deciding to do and counter to what you know your mother is saying I'm gonna come in I've told you this before like working in HR is another thing that helped me understand that dynamic that third party dynamic in HR in industry we are this third space in business that it should be a space and uh anybody out there that is hearing me talk about my career in HR and cursing out HR right now or all the bad experiences in your head come to mind about HR, I'm sorry. I apologize. It is an abomination HR is not what it's supposed to be it is far is falling far uh from what it was supposed to be just addressing that uh elephant in the room but as third HR as a third space should be a space for employees to be able to communicate when they have no option to communicate to their direct supervisors when they can't directly communicate to their coworkers effectively anymore. They should be able to come to HR leadership once they've not been not been able to figure out how their systems work and their people work and all that management and leadership stuff doesn't work for them anymore they should be able to come to HR you know with problems so we can help them find a solution you know or even just listen get them a space to just process right and then when things get hard and there are challenging things we're a great space that if there are two parties that are in conflict we're there we can come into that conflict as like a pressure valve right direct some of that my way like stop directing at each other direct some of that my way it'll come at me differently than it does between you two different words will be used different conversations will be had some of the ideas might change right but if you only have a parent and a child right interacting with each other and the sole education and understanding and perspective of their life and society around them is from that one dynamic. They are missing out on infinite ways that they can be as a child be seen and heard and experienced because I feel like and with a lot of folks that I've spoken to and I speak to a lot of uh adopted folks too about this experience it seems most of the time no matter what the dynamic is if it's just that one or two way street with between those two parties a parent and a child a lot of times kids just don't align like they're they're having to shed a lot of themselves to fit into that parent's perspective right and I think a part of my journey right now in life is shedding off a lot of those things that I've just been packing onto my shoulders so that way I can just operate in life and really trying to find out what's in there. Like what is that individual that's in there? How do they actually maneuver? How do they want to maneuver what is that natural path for me And I'm finding out more about that through talking with folks like yourself, talking to my friends, you know, talking to strangers about their experiences and whatnot, gaining all these different perspectives and viewpoints and ways individuals and societies coexist. Right. I'm I'm gaining more wisdom and maturity through that than I would sitting down with just one therapist, which again is why I'm looking for a therapist. Going back to what I said in the beginning, I've still not found a great therapist. And I think a lot of people, or just our society in general, we we have forgotten the value of that shared experience, of that interactive experience. And even I'm gonna acknowledge the folks out there like myself, introverts, right? Um, folks, you know, with autism, things like that, they still maneuver through life. Everybody still maneuvers through life and has their own experience. And we haven't done enough as a society to connect with them, to communicate with them, to help them understand what their individual experience is and how to communicate that with others around them. All right, to give them that space. We we really pigeonholed a lot of people that, well, if you're not an extrovert or if you're not you know very business oriented, you know, if you don't fit these other things that easily fit into our society, we're not you it's gonna be a hard road for you. All right, so either shed all that stuff and come build the skills to survive in this society, right?

SPEAKER_03 45:51

But sorry, yeah, it takes it takes a bit of tenacity, doesn't it? Like to really feel feel feel um into all the support that you need. Because I as you were talking, I was also thinking, like, you know, both my parents are dead, and you're but you're talking about like you've had two sets of parents to grieve. And so it's like that has we both have had big experiences, but like we're both gonna have different experiences through that. And when we come together and we talk about that experience, like I'm gonna learn from you, you're gonna learn from me in different ways because of the same but different experience, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Right, right. Yeah, and I've even been going to a grief group with one of my really close friends. Uh, unfortunately, I do have uh another friend that she is also, she has also lost both of her parents at this point. Um, her father just passed this year. Um, and she invited me to a grief group that she found. And even that, and it's not my typical group, I probably wouldn't have done it myself or anything like that. But again, a friend invited me. I stayed with, you know, and continued to go because she was there, and we were kind of hearing these things, having conversations, we would drive there together, carpool there together, um, and have the conversation afterwards, just kind of processing everything. Um we we we just need even through grief, it there because there are a few of those things, those kind of uh um what's the word I'm looking for? They are the thing, they are the definite things that you will experience in your life. And it connects us all. It is is is a unifying experience, right? Um death is definitely gonna be the one that connects us all, and processing that grief and being able to talk about it and understanding it in the context and the dynamic that it's hitting us. Um, we can't do that alone.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

And the conversation's trying.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Yeah, and I I'm in that situation right now. I had to uh drop everything. I had a business that I stopped when my mom passed away in Charlotte, North Carolina to move back here. It's a very isolating experience coming back home from that. And then, you know, again, it was sudden and unexpected. Uh, so it was you know, scrambling to get, you know, the funeral and everybody notified, and you know, uh uh that deed to the house and all the uh her car, and you know, it's just that process, it's that bureaucratic process on top of it, and the legal process on top of it, and all the federal things you need to do at the state level. I was so inundated with all of that that it was very isolating. It it I sat in this house by myself, um, and it took me a while to reconnect with all my friends that you know, we we've been staying in touch over the phone, but it was different trying to catch up with them, you know, if they're going out to a concert or something, and I'm in this heavy stage of loss, right? Um but grief that that loss, that death, grief, um, that unifying experience. And I think we've talked about this before, where uh again, American society, we're so adverse to processing loss. Like, again, we're that win culture, that competition culture. Like even the loss of a competition, we don't discuss. We just discuss about how to get better at winning, right? And that translates and it permeates everywhere else. We're very reluctant to talk about and be open about our grief and loss when it comes to something really important like death.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

Yeah, there's sort of a like competition to see who can um survive grief faster.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yeah, when you said tenacity, I was like, oh, you mean like American grit. That's what you know, that's how we survive it here. Just keep cushioned. It's like, oh god.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

Well, you know, I like I have a kiddo who's we're trying to figure out where he's at on the spectrum of things. And as I've navigated that for himself, it brings up a lot of stuff for my own childhood, my own experience, his dad too. And um, you know, I had this conversation recently where it was like a lot of us in this age group are realizing that we didn't get the support we needed as kids for like neurodivergence, mental health, all that stuff. Because it either wasn't accessible, it was taboo, or there was that like grit thing that was like pull yourself up and figure it out, you know. And that's what I was I was talking to this with somebody, and we were saying, like, you know, in some ways, we had to figure this out. We had to figure out how to take notes in class, how to pass the test, how to mask in a way that like socially we could be accepted and um how to get a job and things like that. We had to, we had to develop these coping skills. And now that the parents are both like triggered by this and navigating it with their children all at the same time. There's been times where I'm like, am I giving him enough space to figure out his own coping skills while feeling supported? And I think that that's to that like tenacity piece where it's like, you know, you can be soft and you can you can like retreat to mom. I'm here to support you. And also I'm gonna like have to still push you out a little bit to figure it out because and like walking that line is really hard, you know. It's like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know that space very well. I'm I'm trying to figure it out as we go along. But I think that that is also to your point about the third space, or even if we had more community-based like um families versus the nuclear family, having my son having other people to um bounce ideas off of or even like test boundaries with that he feels not as comfortable with me, but like not uncomfortable with to test boundaries with. And it's like if we lived more communally, if we lived more in close proximity to each other, even though like my neighbor's house is right over there, we don't live close, you know, we're not um trying to help each other. And it's it's like you in because of my own experience with grief, I feel like I've been humbled and like kind of put on my knees several times, um, to use a colloquialism, right? To be put on your knees. Um, I've been humbled so many times to need help that I've had to like learn how to ask for help. Um that I've really seen how like trying to do all of this alone, whether it's grieving, parenting, living in America with this healthcare system, like it's we're we have to learn to like lean on each other if we're gonna live a life that doesn't that's not terrible.

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Man, so let's talk about kids. I I love kids, like they their view on life un uh affected, unfiltered by adults, right? And by the education system, they're just it's amazing just to watch how they interact, like it, like the uh imagination and things like that. Um even the kids that are very uh, you know, that aren't very social and things like that. If you're able to get them to talk or show you something that they're working on, whether it's something they've written or drawn, you know, or they're they're making or creating, you know, or something that they're doing, reading a book or something, the way they talk about the energy they have, and you know, just the oh man, it's just it's hard to describe that. And then when there's something like uh a problem they run into, right, that kind of throws all that in the air for them, and they're kind of just lost, they're not sure what to do, they're so vulnerable, and they don't have the skills, right? And you were talking about you know, being an independent parent, a woman in this society, and not necessarily knowing what to do or what to say, having those skills. Uh, when you're talking about because another thing that I learned in HR, when you're talking about people in systems, right, you want to have this perfect system all set up, you want to see that just brought to its knees, introduce a person in that system, it will wreck it. Right. And what the difference is if you can train and build and develop the skills and abilities of an individual or groups that help them maneuver and uh really do well in those systems, right? That's that's the that's the goal, that's the trick, right, for these for societies um to progress and uh uh improve. We didn't learn those skills. Our parents didn't learn those skills. They quote unquote, right? Uh, are the term we're using now is they did their best, right? Great, that's fine, but it doesn't negate the experience of the child. We still needed our parents to help us learn the skill, to help us identify the feelings, to go through this that process, like you're we talked about, and we've talked many times about you know, just the body scan, quick body check, right? Uming where it lives, where it exists, can you put a word to it? You know, can you communicate it even to yourself, if not to your parent, right? We didn't learn those skills, we had to cope, right? And coping is nothing but a way to avoid pain, right? And we're talking about addressing grief and loss. Coping's not gonna help you with that, right? Because all that is is pain, right? And life through loss is just living life with pain, which is again, we keep we we try so hard in our American society to rip those things apart, as in like, well, we just need to keep living life. How do we do it without the pain? It's like, well, the the flip that on its head, you actually just need to live the rest of your life with the pain and loss, and it it's experienced the way it's that it's experienced versus the way that it's lived are two operable distinctions. Right? Because immediately it's a lot of pain, it's a lot of loss, a lot of isolation. And if you can get to a point to where you can start living, stepping back into society, living your life, going back to work, you know, picking up your hobbies again, things like that, no matter what you do, you're still gonna have those moments of pain and loss. You're gonna feel it, you're gonna experience it. But then what's the pro how do you process it? Like, what are you gonna do to process it? What are you gonna do to acknowledge it? Right. And to what I really love about the concept of endings and death and loss is that it is uh we're very fortunate that we're able to start new from there, right? That loss is just of an individual, what they taught us, what we learned from them, the feelings, the emotions, the memories, what their legacy, right, was can live within us. The whole concept of you know, somebody doesn't die until you know their name is spoken for the last time.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

You know, that that mentality towards loss is the other parts of loss. And it's not the experience of it, it's the living with, right? And us doing that work right now with our you know, all our loss, um, it's gonna help you be able to translate those skills and abilities and your understanding of that to him when he experiences it, to your other kids, right? And to the kids around you, like and the other adults, because we're we're kind of parenting each other now as a social, as a society. We are seeing improvement in the mental health space, not because of the mental health space, not because of the medical mental health space, but because of you know, a lot of Instagram and TikTok therapists are getting out there and talking about things that they can't talk about with clients, right? And they're communicating these things to the broader audience and in different ways, different ways, and we're having access to it, right? And it's giving us language, it's giving us verbiage, and it's helping us understand that we're not alone, like many people, you know, not only experience this, but live this many different ways. Here's some of those ways. One of these might connect with you. And I I mentor kids. Uh, that's one of my passions. It's one of my you know ways of giving back to my community, is I've found that I want to do that with uh young adults in uh or kids and young adults in the in their academic career, right? So there's two kids right now that I'm mentoring, they're amazing kids. Uh one I've been mentoring for uh six years. He's now going to be starting his sophomore year at Wash U as an engineer, and the other one, um, he's brand new. We've only gotten one year in, and he's in seventh grade, right? Both of them have lost their father. The sixth grader just lost his father in a horrible way, um, taken from him. Uh and he's you know in seventh grade, and I'm watching it, and he's not ready to have the conversation with it about it with me, right? But I'm still very new building that connection with him. Um, but I'm watching him process and I'm I'm waiting for the time that he wants to talk about it because I've gone through it. I'm willing, I've done the work and been curious enough and willing and had enough time and space, very fortunate in those areas too, to really figure that out for myself and to learn from my friends that have also gone through it. And I'm waiting for him to be ready to talk about it when he is, when he feels comfortable and safe to talk about it. My the older one, um, when that happened, you know, I'd already been working with him for several years, and we built that connection and that trust with one another that when we did start talking about it, um, it was in a different dynamic. It wasn't necessarily just about the loss, but it was also like, hey, uh, your your grade is slipping in this one area. Can you tell me a little bit more about what happened in the last week that it slipped? I couldn't sleep. Um, been thinking of a lot about, you know, I saw my dad's camera, or I was listening to a song and it just hit me and it was hard for me to focus and all this kind of stuff. And he he's incredibly intelligent, right? I get that. And it's like, dude, you know what? That grade slipping, I don't want you to think about that as you're not losing, you're not failing, or anything like that. He's phenomenal at bouncing back with his grades whenever they drop. What I want you to understand is that right now, the things that set you up for success, your support structures that you have built around you over the years, a big one is gone. Right. This isn't about getting your grade back up. This is about you understanding and acknowledging that loss of a large part of your support that is was there to help you maneuver through this in life, and it's not there. And once you've your body's gone through this process, the next step of that is us talking about what ways can we go about trying to build that support back in your life somehow? You know, where can we find other areas in your life, in society, um, in resources, you know, that this nonprofit can pull for you? Um, you know, because you can't replace a father, right? And you can't replace what they represented to you or what they provided for you. But if you want to be able to maneuver and be successful in life, too, what are those things that you might be able to find out there around you, you know, that can kind of bring some of that back for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

You know, I that is such a beautiful, beautiful offering that you are giving to the world because I no doubt believe that you are changing the trajectory of these young kids' lives. And I, like I said, as a mother and as a mother to all children, I am incredibly grateful that you're doing that. And I hope that other people can feel um moved to provide that kind of support for kids. Because here's the thing you may not like all of our kids need support like that because we we are stuck in this like nuclear, only your mom and dad support kind of places. And then if you don't have a parent or whatever the situation is, like I can just guarantee you that whatever kid it is, they need more support than what they have right now. That's just period how it is. And every parent out there needs more support than they currently have right now. That is just pretty much across the board. And I also feel like there are more and more people who are um thirsty for that. They they actually do want more support than they will admit to themselves because there is this notion of like I can do it on my own. I'll just I'll trailblaze something new or whatever. And I think that I think that there are people out there that are actually like, you know, I I joke about this, but I say that I'm taking applications for new moms because I need a mom, you know, and I'm like like I I don't have a mom anymore. I mean, I do, she's just on the other side of things or whatever, but um and I speak her name every single Day because I don't want her to die completely. But I'm like, I still need the support of a mom. I'm taking applications for many of them because I need more than one, too, you know? And so it's like we all need more of that, you know, all of us.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:18

You're talking, yeah. I and I have one of my really close friends, her mom uh is like a mother to me. Um, love her to death, but she's like that cook, baker, feed you type of mother, right? My mom wasn't like that, but that motherly expression, you know, of of love uh to another, to one of her kids' friends, you know, it's like, hey, come on over to the house. You know, it's one of those like, I can't just walk in and you know, I'll have to knock. But um, every time I could come in any time of the day, you know, and they'd receive me and you know, we sit down and chat. I've taken her out for coffee and stuff like that. I have a neighbor, my he's my old basketball coach, uh, lives in the same neighborhood that I grew up in, um, where I live now. And uh he's got a uh luckily he's got a dog, um, and our dogs get along, we get to play in his yard and everything whenever we're on a walk and I pass his house, and we've just started catching up. And and having him is like he's not a father figure to me, but having that older male presence that we've sat down. Um uh we ended up going to the driving range one day, and he started talking to me about you know the challenge he's had with his son. And uh uh he's got a lot of uh uh psychological challenges in his life, uh, or son's life, you know, that you know, now he lives with him um uh full time. And uh he's not a young guy. I mean, his son is just he's a little younger than us, you know, in his mid-30s. And uh we can talk to each other in a way that you know I can't talk with my friends sometimes, you know. And he's giving me perspective from a time, right, and his journey that I'm not gonna get from any of my friends.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

You know, it is it is that trickle down, it's it's that older generation passing down knowledge, whether it's applicable or not, the perspective itself is what's uh uh valuable and significant because it's informing.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:26

And and it's so wise that you're able to like take that on, right? And yeah, you're good. Um you're it's so wise that you're able to like take that on and and like you know, accept that wisdom, accept the um, you know, willingness to see perspectives from all different sides and all different places. I think um the thing I was saying there was that um I just think it's really wise that you're open and willing to take on lots of different perspectives, and that's just something that all of us could use more of with the understanding of like some perspectives aren't necessarily yours to take forever, they're just there for the day, they're there for the the season or whatever for you to kind of even orient or like feel the tension of like orientation of um oh yes, I agree with this, or like sometimes someone brings a perspective and I'm like, nope, that is not for me. And understanding like all those the wide range of that, you know, um, I think that's really really valuable. I also oh go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

No, I was just gonna say you put such a great point on the uh uh what's the word sometimes the use of perspective is finite, right? It you know, people coming into our lives or just the experience of people in our lives coming in and leaving, you know, coming and going. We find new friends, those friends you know move away, or you know, we just don't agree on things anymore, things change. Uh, that interconnectedness that we have in juxtaposition and in addition to it coming and going is is also just such a you you went over it real quick, but it is such an important and I think significant aspect of life that we don't acknowledge enough. Yeah, I agree. Because it it is just sometimes that fleeting experience with somebody that makes that experience so memorable and significant in our lives, um, and sometimes even a part of our lives moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:07

I think in you know, just in efforts to sort of wrap this up, too, is like what we're essentially saying here is like we're human beings and we are connecting human beings, like we have to have connections with other human beings in order to like thrive beyond survive, you know? And um I think that what we're both really saying here is like we have to have an a relationship with ourselves and our community, and both of those um, and probably there's other things in there too, right? All of those things require tending and require um special support and love and care and nurturing in order to like grow and see ourselves within the process.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

I uh 100%. Yeah, and it's not even that they require it, it's that they're worth it. Like the value that you get out of it, not just immediately, but long term, and the value that you get of sharing it, right, and and communicating the process and the value of that to others, that's what you know creates the society, creates the culture. And we've done we've we you know we've just not acknowledged the power of that individually. We need to give it. And that's the only way that we can give it to others, and that's the only way that others can we can we can build this together. And if we we acknowledge that that is the uh the end game at the end of the day, right? It's our community that's gonna help us through everything. It's those around us, and though, and those, whether that's electronically, you know, we're doing this all over Zoom, or whether that's people that we can physically go out and hug or cunt or talk to, right, or just be present with. Right. Right? All of those things matter. Us as a human being, whatever that connection is, we need to invest in it and we need to invest in ourselves if we want to be able to sustain that connection.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:33

Absolutely. Well said, well said. I I um I just want to say this was really fun, and I think that having um you as the first man on the podcast is is glorious, it's beautiful. Um I also just want to say, like, we touched on so many things that if anyone listening wants us to expand upon something, like we can do that too, because there's still so much further we could go with all of the things that we've just discussed today, and I wouldn't be mindful of our time.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:11

Um yeah, I I would love that. I mean, there's like you know, I'm an open book, uh I will talk about a lot of aspects of life, my own.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:19

So yeah. Same. And I mean, I think that that's you know, all within reason, of course, we have to have containment and boundaries, but I do believe that's part of like the whole thing we're talking about is connection, and that's how we connect with people is by sharing and also receiving, listening and and sharing, or I mean, receiving what other people are sharing. So this was just really, really fun. And um, I look forward to talking to you more. And again, if anybody sees or hears anything that they want us to expand on, we're happy to um talk more about that. And as always, we start with maybe one topic that we want to talk about, and we end up all over the place in other ways, and that's that's cool too. So um thanks again, Tom, for joining me today. And um, until next time, I'll see you later.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:11

See ya, Sarah. It was a pleasure.