Steph Jagger, EVERYTHING LEFT TO REMEMBER: My Mother, Our Memories, and a Journey Through the Rocky Mountains
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.
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[0:59]Steph Jagger is the author of Everything Left to Remember,
[1:02]my mother, our memories, and a journey through the Rocky Mountains.
[1:05]Steph is a sought-after mentor and coach whose offerings guide people toward a deeper understanding of themselves and their stories.
[1:11]Her work, including speaking and facilitating, lies at the intersection of love and loss,
[1:16]the nature of deeper membranes, and the personal journey of recreation.
[1:20]Steph grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and currently lives and works on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
[1:24]Everything Left to Remember is Steph's second book.
[1:26]Her first unbound was published in 2017.
[1:30]Welcome, Steph. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books,
[1:33]to discuss everything left to remember, my mother, our memories, and a journey through the Rocky Mountains.
[1:39]Well, thanks for having me, Zivi. I'm so pleased and honored to be here.
[1:44]Your book is beautiful. Your relationship with your mom, the way you wrote about it,
[1:50]the ambition of going hiking and not hiking, but camping rather, and going on this big trip with
[1:56]your mom, who was at all time. I mean, it's just, it was really beautiful, really, really beautiful.
[2:03]Thank you. Maybe you can tell everyone a little more about why you decided to write this memoir,
[2:09]and yeah, just start with that.
[2:11]Gosh, in a lot of ways, I feel like the memoir decided to write me.
[2:14]You know, yeah, the book itself is about a journey that I took. I mean, the backbone of it
[2:20]is a journey I took with my mom about 10 months after her diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer's.
[2:27]And I took her camping. We did a road trip and we traveled through a handful of different
[2:32]national parks to the west. And we're camping, as you said. We did do a little bit of hiking.
[2:37]We did some horseback riding and some white water rafting. And I really, at the time, thought,
[2:43]before her memory goes like in entirety, I wanted to kind of like mine her for her story,
[2:50]you know, and kind of get her to tell me all of the things that she hadn't told me,
[2:57]you know, through her life. And I think as I went on the trip itself with her, it was such a
[3:03]realization that really what I was looking for was me, it was my story. And to let my mom,
[3:10]to let our moms have their life and their stories. And that even if we don't end up knowing the
[3:18]entirety of them doesn't mean we can't, you know, learn the entirety of our own interiority.
[3:24]So when I did the trip with her, I didn't go anticipating that I would write about it.
[3:30]And then when I was on the way home quite literally, like on the flight home,
[3:35]my mom was settled into the seat in the plane, the seat next to me on the plane and coloring
[3:40]in her coloring book. And I started madly like writing in the notes app on my phone. And by the
[3:46]time we landed, I was like, oh, I think it's probably a book. So I sat down to start writing it
[3:54]shortly after that. And it really felt more like calling like I had to then, oh, I think this
[4:02]would make a great story. And I'd really love to, you know, write about it in that, in that kind
[4:07]of way. So I do feel like in many ways it, it wrote me. And I also love, you know, a lot, I get
[4:13]that a lot people are like, oh my gosh, the undertaking of someone with Alzheimer's on a road trip
[4:17]like that. And I think it's really important. Like a lot of us have this view of Alzheimer's
[4:22]and dementia. The image we have is late stage, often old age and late stage combined. And I think
[4:30]it's really important to start giving a view of Alzheimer's and dementia that happens to younger
[4:35]people and the early stages. Usually in the early stages, people are still trying to like hide or
[4:39]cover up or there's a lot of shame. And so actually, my mom was very, I mean, she was
[4:45]Jane Fonda fit for this of all going into this thing. And she was, you know, pretty with it. And so
[4:53]it wasn't like I have a lot of videos of her on that trip. And it wasn't, I think, what people
[4:59]imagine in their heads like, wait a second, you took an Alzheimer's patient who we usually think of
[5:03]as like 80 or 90, like, and in many ways, like maybe not able to move, etc. You took them
[5:11]whitewater rafting. It's like, no, no, I took a, you know, woman in her late 60s who was very fit
[5:16]at the very beginning stages of her journey. Yeah. So it was, it was wonderful. And I did learn a lot
[5:22]about her, but I learned so much more about me. Amazing. And you're such a good advocate for her.
[5:28]I mean, in the whitewater rafting that you were talking about, like, you know, you're just like,
[5:32]quietly like, okay, so she's not going to remember any of these instructions. And let me just like
[5:38]set the stage for you. You say to the guide and it's like, all right, can she paddle? You know,
[5:42]here, I'll just keep her right behind me. So I feel like you so nicely like took her along
[5:48]in everything and just made the combinations you needed without making it like a huge deal everywhere
[5:52]you went. Yeah. I mean, that that was important. And that was, that was a journey for me actually.
[5:57]I mean, the first, I remember the first interaction I took her horseback riding. And at that stage,
[6:04]it was a little bit taboo, even inside of my family to say outright she had all time.
[6:09]And so even that was a journey, like I started off by saying, you know, she has some memory issues,
[6:15]etc. And then by the end of the trip, it was like, oh, I should just tell people like that. Like,
[6:19]there's no, there's nothing bad about this. This is just like saying somebody has diabetes or
[6:25]this is just like, you know, so I became more and more, you know, really to be honest, like,
[6:30]more and more honest through the whole journey with with her, with the actual situation that was
[6:36]going on, but also with myself, which is I think the sign of any good, what is going to turn into
[6:42]memoir is like, oh, you are becoming more truthful even with yourself. And even as you travel
[6:50]through this, so that was, that was a beautiful part of it. But yeah, it was important that
[6:54]some of the guys, as they're going through all of the like safety issues that are that they know,
[6:59]she's not going to remember your name, she's not going to remember the name of the horse,
[7:02]she's not going to remember anything. Yeah. Yeah. And why did your family not want to call it
[7:07]what it was? Was it like denial or what do you think it was about? No, I think there's a couple of
[7:14]of different things, you know, Alzheimer's and dementia. And I think various different degenerative
[7:20]brain diseases starting to change. But certainly, you know, in the past, they've, they've
[7:27]for whatever different reasons come with it, it seems like a bit more shame of our brain isn't
[7:34]functioning or, you know, the person is right there and they know, they know you, but they can't
[7:42]remember. And I think they, they sometimes have shame about that. And so I think this is a specific
[7:49]category of diseases that people carry a lot. There's a lot more of it that is hidden not to say
[7:55]that there are other diseases that people kind of hide and don't want to talk about. I think that's
[7:59]a second thing is that, you know, our, our private health journeys, there's a lot of people that
[8:05]don't want to make those public. I think there's another component within families that, you know,
[8:11]there's such a deep grappling with what is going to happen. What am I going to lose the anticipatory
[8:17]grief involved that it kind of feels like, well, if I could just prolong talking about it, maybe
[8:23]I won't hit the grief so soon. And so I think there's a lot of hesitancy to even say the words,
[8:30]because that means you've got to start dealing with any sort of grief and loss that comes up.
[8:36]And I'm, you know, I'm a memoir writer. I, I'm and a coach like I'm okay saying the words,
[8:43]you know, I think it's, you know, my journey through grief has been like most people
[8:49]pretty excruciating, but there's also been some gifts. I think it was Brandi Carlisle that said,
[8:54]you know, mysticism is the most practical thing in the world. The only thing about is it's found
[8:59]smack in the middle of grief. And so I feel like, you know, that that conscious grieving as opposed
[9:07]to like unconscious denial of it has been a big part of my journey that I do my best to embrace.
[9:14]So I honor everybody else's journey. Like it is excruciating, but I think that's one of the big
[9:20]reasons that people don't like to talk about it is like, oh, the more I talk about it, the more
[9:23]I've got to face it. So tell me your whole journey into writing to begin with, like how you got
[9:29]into everything, like take me back. Okay, way back. I've always, always loved writing. Like I was
[9:36]a little girl in my closet making up stories, you know, I was, I always journaled. I always
[9:42]loved storytelling and writing. I never went to school for it. I didn't do an MFA. I didn't do
[9:47]any of that. So when I started to travel a lot in my 20s, I just noticed myself writing more and
[9:55]more and more and more and more just in my journals. Eventually, I, when I did one of my big trips,
[10:00]started in a little, like, update newsletter
[10:02]for like my family and three best friends.
[10:05]And that actually turned into my first book,
[10:08]Unbound, which is about a ski journey that I took.
[10:10]So for me, I noticed that the combination
[10:12]of travel specifically, travel its nature focused
[10:16]was just an upspilling out of me.
[10:18]And so when I got back from that first ski journey,
[10:23]which was what the first book was about,
[10:25]I actually found, you know, this is a great story.
[10:29]Before I left on that trip,
[10:31]I fell down a rabbit hole on the internet.
[10:34]I was not a writer.
[10:35]I thought you were going to see.
[10:36]I felt down.
[10:37]I was like, oh no, that's great.
[10:38]I was like, I stumbled down a rabbit hole
[10:40]on the internet and I landed on for whatever reason.
[10:44]I was from Vancouver.
[10:45]So I think it must have been through Danielle LaPorte.
[10:47]But I landed on Linda Sebertsen's web page,
[10:51]the Book Mama.
[10:52]And I like fell in love.
[10:53]And I was like, well, it's too bad that I'm not a writer.
[10:55]Otherwise, I would do one of these retreats.
[10:58]And then I just, you know, shut it down
[11:01]and went on with my life.
[11:02]And I went on my ski trip and I moved to the States.
[11:05]I originally was from Canada and from Canada.
[11:08]And I just kept getting an off on the door
[11:11]to like right and right.
[11:12]So I started in earnest to write my first book.
[11:15]And then that summer, I similarly fell down a rabbit hole
[11:19]and landed on Linda Sebertsen's page.
[11:21]And I was like, I recognize this.
[11:25]And I had this flashback to like, oh my gosh,
[11:28]this was a web page I'd seen years ago.
[11:30]Like, I need to know this woman.
[11:33]And a week later, she had started the beautiful writers group,
[11:36]the online portion of the writers group.
[11:39]And I signed up for that.
[11:40]And I had was well into writing my first memoir.
[11:44]And then it was quite honestly that first book.
[11:47]This is a rare story, but it was like a magic carpet ride.
[11:50]It was like, I did a proposal in a month.
[11:53]I got an agent, the book sold the next month.
[11:55]It was very quick.
[11:56]And so there was, I do feel like Linda has been an angel
[12:00]for me in that way.
[12:01]We have been in context since early days
[12:03]of me being in that writing group.
[12:05]So, you know that for me, it's just writing pores out of me
[12:09]when I travel.
[12:10]And I now can get a pretty quick sense
[12:14]of when something wants to become kind of a larger story.
[12:18]And it's just, I don't know.
[12:20]That's the way of expressing my own interiority.
[12:25]And when I go out into the natural world and I'm surrounded
[12:27]by an exterior awe and beauty and like a larger,
[12:33]unspoken story, it just seems to be like,
[12:36]okay, that's a match for what I feel like my insides are like.
[12:40]Now, how do I translate that experience?
[12:42]So yeah, all wild and not quote unquote trained
[12:47]and not MFA and I don't know how to use grammar
[12:50]and all of that stuff.
[12:52]Thank God for editors.
[12:53]Grammarly is there for you.
[12:55]I feel like the streamer is not sponsored by Grammarly.
[12:58]Although I should call them, but anyway.
[12:59]I mean, I should go back and figure out like what percent
[13:02]of people I've had on this podcast actually have MFA's
[13:05]because I don't think it's that high.
[13:07]I really don't.
[13:08]I think there's like a certain,
[13:11]I mean, I can't imagine more than 10 percent
[13:14]if I had to guess.
[13:14]Maybe five to 10 percent.
[13:16]I don't know.
[13:17]I don't think it's, I don't think the formal training
[13:19]is what makes you a writer.
[13:20]It's, that's what makes you, you know,
[13:23]that's mostly crashed, right?
[13:25]It's the end story is inside.
[13:27]Exactly, exactly.
[13:29]Not to minimize, but you know, absolutely.
[13:32]I mean, that's what I've always thought of is myself
[13:34]as more of a storyteller.
[13:36]I do have a note, a screenshot of a note.
[13:38]It's on my computer, a screenshot of a note
[13:40]from one of my high school English teachers saying
[13:43]like never stop writing.
[13:44]So this was a storyteller.
[13:47]Like I used to turn every assignment no matter what
[13:51]the subject was into a creative writing assignment.
[13:54]I remember being in university and get receiving
[13:57]like a C mark and being like the only reason
[13:59]I passed you is because you know,
[14:01]you did not do the assignment,
[14:03]but this is beautiful writing.
[14:05]Absolutely.
[14:06]I did, I did that too in a history class.
[14:08]I did like like a historical fiction something.
[14:12]I didn't like it.
[14:13]I said it, yeah.
[14:14]And I was like, let me, let me make this into something
[14:16]I want to do.
[14:19]Linda was on this podcast.
[14:21]Very recently and she had me on her podcast.
[14:23]And yeah, I have her book.
[14:25]It's beautiful writers.
[14:27]She's great.
[14:28]Yeah, it's gorgeous.
[14:29]It's a beautiful braiding of a multitude of stories.
[14:32]I don't know how she managed to do it in one book.
[14:34]It was amazing.
[14:35]Yeah.
[14:36]So have you found that percolating feeling
[14:39]for your next project yet?
[14:41]Yes, you know, this book was supposed to come out in 2021.
[14:48]Hello, COVID.
[14:49]I think my pages were due March 2020.
[14:53]Okay.
[14:54]I handed them in and was about to like take myself on
[14:56]and a little like congratulations.
[14:57]You completed your second book retreat.
[15:00]And the retreat got canceled.
[15:01]I thought, oh, okay.
[15:02]And then of course, everything got pushed out.
[15:04]So there was a big gap between when I handed pages in
[15:07]and the book coming out.
[15:08]And I did start writing in that time.
[15:11]So there is, there's definitely more, you know,
[15:13]what I'm working on now is similarly, it's memoir,
[15:17]but we were, you know, it wasn't travel.
[15:18]Like what I said before to you, oh my gosh,
[15:20]now it's right when I travel.
[15:22]You know, we were always, we were landlocked.
[15:24]We were here at our houses.
[15:25]And so this feels to me a little bit more like the potential
[15:29]of a memoir of my imagination, like everything is true,
[15:33]but it all happened inside of my head.
[15:35]Like is that an memoir that not, is it fiction, is it not?
[15:38]So there is some, what I would call like
[15:40]pretty experimental stuff going on.
[15:42]And I feel no, I just feel no rush around it.
[15:47]I think after my experience, after publishing both books
[15:51]is like six months after publication,
[15:53]I get this, this itch of like, oh my gosh,
[15:56]I have to know what's next.
[15:58]And I've really tried to resist that, this go round of like,
[16:02]you know, just let the divine timing of it
[16:05]be the divine timing of it.
[16:07]You don't need to rush.
[16:08]You don't need to like, we've all been through a fair bit.
[16:12]And it's been moving in these weird kaleidoscopic,
[16:16]like sometimes it feels like life is moving very slow
[16:18]over the last three years.
[16:19]Sometimes it like feels like it's moving at lightning speed.
[16:22]So I've just been trying to pay attention to the,
[16:26]like what the book wants to be
[16:28]and how quickly it wants to move.
[16:31]So we will see, but there is some experimental writing
[16:34]going on in the background.
[16:35]Interesting.
[16:36]All right.
[16:38]Going back to your journey and this book,
[16:41]everything left to remember,
[16:43]when you say you've learned more about yourself
[16:45]than anything else, when you have like,
[16:47]when you reflect back on sort of the takeaways
[16:50]and how you changed as a person
[16:51]or how you, all of that,
[16:53]what are some of the main things that you got out of that?
[16:58]I think the biggest thing,
[16:59]if I was to kind of sum it up would be this journey
[17:05]and the writing of it felt to me,
[17:08]like the completion of initiation into archetypal mother.
[17:14]And so what I mean by that is,
[17:19]it felt to me when I was moving through that,
[17:22]like a very kind of,
[17:24]if I'm speaking archetypal,
[17:25]like a very maiden thing to demand more from my mom,
[17:32]especially at that time.
[17:34]Like, oh, you've just received this diagnosis.
[17:36]Now give me everything that feels to me
[17:39]as I look back, like a very maiden request.
[17:43]And also how human,
[17:45]like a request out of like desperation and grief
[17:49]and fear of loss.
[17:52]And I feel the journey that I went on
[17:55]really moved me into archetypal mother,
[17:58]which to me, the quintessential question is,
[18:01]what will you allow to be created through you?
[18:04]That could be businesses that could be children,
[18:06]that could be, you know,
[18:07]love, that could be words,
[18:09]that could be, you know, there's so many different ways
[18:11]that we as women get to answer that question
[18:15]and answer that call.
[18:17]But that really felt like, you know,
[18:19]turn the lens inward for a moment,
[18:24]like deer maiden, put down your swords that you're carrying,
[18:30]and kind of marking the external world up
[18:33]and turn internally and quest for,
[18:36]what is it truly that you would like to be created through you?
[18:40]And what kind of energy do you want?
[18:42]And what is the story that wants to come through you?
[18:46]And then, you know,
[18:47]of course that moves into, you know,
[18:49]how do you nurture that into actual being?
[18:52]So that really feels like the journey,
[18:57]I mean, my first book is in arguably a maiden voyage.
[19:02]And I love that book and I love that younger version of me
[19:05]that was so kind of fierce in the world.
[19:07]And this feels like a real movement into, you know,
[19:11]including that ferocity,
[19:13]but kind of a softening into creation.
[19:18]Do you have memoirs that you are obsessed with
[19:22]or that you love or that you want to be a memoirist
[19:25]or any of that?
[19:26]Oh, my gosh.
[19:27]I mean, I feel like anything Terry Tempest Williams
[19:31]and Sue Monk Kid and Robin Wallcomer,
[19:34]I could go on in that kind of category.
[19:36]There's a blending of philosophy and spirituality
[19:40]and ecology and nature that I'm absolutely obsessed with.
[19:45]I just read Chen Julie Wang's book,
[19:48]the full country that is unbelievable,
[19:50]how she carried the voice of the child through
[19:53]was just unbelievable.
[19:56]E.J. Koh, who lives in Seattle here, she wrote a book.
[20:00]called the magical language of others which I read just after finishing this my book and I was like
[20:06]I was like finished my book I'm like all proud of my evolution of as a writer and I read her book
[20:11]and I'm like oh so those are a handful for sure but I would say like Annie Dillard you know
[20:22]these are writers that writers that are blending especially mother daughter the story of female
[20:30]initiation it doesn't always have to be mother daughter but and nature and ecology and their
[20:36]surroundings is I'm fairly obsessed I think that's a go-to for me yeah you're making me want to read
[20:43]all these books you know like like getting back into like the outdoors even and you know here I am
[20:50]in New York City I don't know you're at your reverence for nature is is like infectious really
[20:57]that's the other you know that's the other point of the book as you said like what was what was
[21:01]what was the journey that you came into what did you learn I mean you know if my mother is gonna go
[21:06]what mother will hold us you know and that is that to me is mother nature and and that's been a long
[21:13]time relationship that I feel like anytime I feel unward unmothered or unmoored in the world that's
[21:20]the place I go so I feel there is a there is a reverence you are right that is the correct word
[21:25]for it for sure I'm so sorry for your the lost the way it has happened and you know I know
[21:34]mother nature can be there but as a substitute and I'm sorry you know yeah easy you know right
[21:40]it's both end that that lost my dear my mom I do get to she is still here I do get to visit her next
[21:46]week she's up in Canada and so I'm I am excited to be able to see her next week I said
[21:53]lot I mean when you talk about the loss the grief I don't know I felt like you had used those terms
[22:00]even though she is alive which is why I said that yeah okay oh absolutely absolutely yeah I mean
[22:06]this is especially with degenerative disease this is the landscape right there's there's a
[22:11]cute loss and grief happening day-to-day there's anticipatory grief happening all the time
[22:17]and those are ever present even though the person is still living so absolutely those are the
[22:22]right terms yeah and what is how often what is your relationship now like how often do you see here
[22:28]like what is the well geez COVID and borders have thrown a wedge in in how often I was able to
[22:36]visit from 2020 through to about 2021 I was able to go visit so really the long story is you know
[22:43]over the last three years two and a half three years I've really you know only been able to see
[22:48]her about three or four times which has been you know excruciating and you know maybe the like
[22:57]spiritual mystic mythologist archetypal person in me is is attempting in some way to prepare
[23:06]for I mean this might be part of the anticipatory grief but is attempting to prepare for having
[23:12]a more spiritual relationship with her and so I've been doing my best you know to feel the grief
[23:19]of not being able to see her as often as I would like but also to move into a place where
[23:26]I'm beginning to develop a new and different relationship with her so I feel like there's like a
[23:31]transition happening yeah I feel like you also wrote so beautifully about your dad and his caretaking
[23:37]oh my gosh he's a prince he is a gem yeah I mean there it's to be quite frank I feel like it's
[23:45]a living breathing notebook the notebook like their high school sweetheart their love story is
[23:53]is epic I mean I don't I don't get into the like to the degree it in the book about their
[23:59]love story but it's really really unbelievable and he tells me still to this day that like he's
[24:07]he's and I've watched it you know especially the beginning stages of her Alzheimer's like
[24:13]I watched them fall more in love with each other during that time and and even to this day whenever I
[24:20]see him go in and visit her with him he is just still so in love with the babe that's what he
[24:30]calls for yeah and if that is that has been one of the greatest gifts of my life to point blank
[24:39]to see their love story and to grow up you know in that and then to see its evolution and it's
[24:47]deepening through this this journey with Alzheimer's and dementia is just I mean I can't think of a
[24:52]bigger gift in my life yeah yeah in the midst of not a gift right yeah and what what is your day-to-day
[25:00]life like now like what do you do when you're not we're doing your experimental new book
[25:05]and I wouldn't I didn't well so I still do writing you know obviously there's still you know tending
[25:11]to do with you know this I'm tending to do with book publication and promotion and all of that
[25:20]on on the other side of things you know for about 10 years now I've been doing private practice
[25:26]coaching and I run retreats that are really about exactly what I was talking about before that kind
[25:31]of you know women I feel moved through or have an opportunity to move through like four master
[25:36]initiations there's maiden there's mother there's automatically in this crown and so we tend to
[25:42]the business over the last handful of years has has tended to work with people who are moving through
[25:47]those types of initiations and transformations in their own life so that's been happening for 10
[25:52]years so a lot of my day-to-day looks like private practice inside of coaching or I'm not a therapist
[25:57]but but to give people an insight like that's what it looks like I'm on zoom having an hour-long
[26:02]conversation usually with a variety of different clients and then we do different retreats which
[26:07]which have just restarted again this year and have been just such a joy I mean you know this
[26:13]you've been doing so many events it's such a joy to be back with people and connecting on that
[26:20]kind of energetic level I've missed that so much so that's that's also what life looks like sometimes
[26:26]I'm doing like three-day weekends or four-day weekends and you know usually in some sort of nature-based
[26:32]with a handful of different women really looking at the stories of our lives and it's not necessarily
[26:37]some are writing retreats some are not but it really is looking at you know what is the narrative
[26:42]that we're that we're living in you know the root word of narrative comes from knowing so it's
[26:49]how do we sink into our lives in a in a deeper and richer way to kind of understand or hear
[26:57]live and breathe into the aliveness of those of those narratives and those knowing so yeah I love that
[27:02]side of the work too and I feel so grateful because listening to you know hundreds if not thousands
[27:09]now of stories of women in their own lives has created a richness I think in my own storytelling
[27:19]that I I am eternally grateful for yeah so what advice last question what advice would
[27:26]you give for to aspiring authors or to the clients that you see or to keep them going or all of
[27:32]that well I think to aspiring authors my advice would be don't look too far ahead I remember being
[27:43]asked as soon as I told people I was you know gonna start writing a book they would that people
[27:47]would always ask like oh like where are you publishing it it's like uh that's to you know my advice
[27:54]is to just say I'm writing it I'm writing I'm writing I'm writing and to sit down and write
[27:59]and there will come a time where you might have to think about should I get an agent should I get
[28:04]a publisher etc but I think there's a lot of people that get help back from the actual writing
[28:10]because they think oh I don't have those things yet so I guess I can't or shouldn't write and I'd say
[28:16]hold up right that would be my main advice is just to get into that and do that you know my my
[28:23]as you said in in in the other realm in the coaching realm my advice for women I really feel like
[28:30]all wellness is being right with time which which really to me means is my physical body my mental
[28:38]body my emotional body my energetic and spiritual body like all four of those are they in the same
[28:44]place at the same time so often our emotional body is in the past our mental body is shooting forward
[28:52]to worry about XYZ our physical body is like we are disassociated from that you know so that is my
[28:58]main advice is what can we do to bring all of those bodies to the same place at the same time that
[29:05]feels to me like my definition of thriving and flourishing in this world and it's a little bit different
[29:10]than kind of just what we've come to know as mindfulness this is a more you know no pun intended
[29:18]embodied kind of way of getting there but that would be that that's maybe that that's not just
[29:24]my advice for other people that's my advice for me like when I wake up in the morning
[29:27]and my all the best kind of advice it's like what do you live by that I mean that is the best
[29:33]this has been so interesting I'm so inspired by you and you know again your book was absolutely
[29:38]beautiful and poignant and just really soulful and I'm not surprised that you are that way
[29:45]to chat with this so so thanks for coming on well thank you Zibi that this has been a lovely
[29:52]conversation thanks for waking up so early all right take care I hope I see you
[30:00]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:06]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans, and at Moms Don't Have Time to
[30:10]Read Books.
[30:11]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[30:16]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[30:18]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texturesound for the Sound Editing.
[30:22]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.