Alexis Jones, JOY HUNTER: Messy Faceplants, Radical Love, and the Journey That Changed Everything
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Alexis Jones is the author of Joy Hunter, messy faceplants, radical love, and the journey
[1:07]that changed everything.
[1:09]Alexis is an internationally recognized speaker, media personality activist, and the author
[1:13]of the New York Times best-selling book, I Am That Girl, which she named after the nonprofit
[1:18]organization she founded.
[1:19]I Am That Girl grew to more than 1 million members with chapters all over the world and
[1:23]attracted the support of a wide range of celebrities including Kristen Bell, Sophia Bush,
[1:28]and many others.
[1:29]Alexis created protector, an educational program for male athletes on the importance
[1:34]of respecting women, which grew in popularity and demand during the Me Too era.
[1:38]Prior to her speaking, activism and literary careers, Alexis appeared as an honor personality
[1:43]as a cast member on Survivor and later on a lead 11 for ESPN.
[1:48]The recipient of the Jefferson Award, the Oscar of activism, she has been featured on
[1:52]Oprah's Super Soul 100, ALL's Makers, Dell's Inspire 100 list, Fast Company's female
[1:57]trail of blazers, ESPN's pop culture's top 10, Girl Scouts Woman of Distinction, and
[2:03]she was highlighted as one of the five most influential women in Texas as a profile in
[2:07]power winner.
[2:08]Gosh, this whole bio just makes me feel bad about myself, no I'm kidding.
[2:12]Kind of.
[2:13]Alexis has been invited to speak at the White House, the United Nations, Harvard, Stanford,
[2:16]West Point, the Naval Academy, Nike, Google, Facebook, the NFL, and Division 1 locker rooms
[2:21]all over the country.
[2:22]She and her husband live in Bozeman, Montana with their French Bulldog, Gussie, and their
[2:26]son, Bridger.
[2:27]Like how Gussie came before their son, but that's okay.
[2:30]Hi, Alexis.
[2:31]Thank you so much for coming on, mom.
[2:33]Don't have time to read books.
[2:35]Of course, you kidding, like best, like title of any podcast I've ever heard in my life.
[2:40]It was no break.
[2:41]And it's so true.
[2:43]Speaking of good titles, Joy Hunter, Joy Hunter, messy faceplants, radical love and the journey
[2:48]that changed everything.
[2:50]Pretty amazing.
[2:51]Thank you.
[2:52]Thank you.
[2:53]I feel like, I mean, I'm sure people say this all the time.
[2:56]I feel like I know you now that I've read your book, but I feel so like close to you
[3:00]and all the things you've gone through and I'm like, you know, just so rooting for you.
[3:05]I like couldn't put your book down.
[3:06]I was just like, what's going to happen next?
[3:08]And I feel so bad for this going on and that going anyway, I don't know.
[3:12]It was very emotional ride.
[3:13]The whole thing was an emotional ride.
[3:15]Oh, thank you.
[3:16]It is funny because I have like really dear friends who were like, I didn't know that
[3:20]happened.
[3:21]Like it is funny with like people who don't know you and people who know you really
[3:24]well, who then read your book and they're like, I didn't know X, Y, and Z.
[3:28]So it is kind of the definition of vulnerability of like putting all your guts out into
[3:33]the world for people to have, you know, to hopefully feel something.
[3:38]So tell everybody, why did you decide to write this book?
[3:42]Oh gosh.
[3:44]That's the first time I've been asked that question.
[3:46]That's a really good question.
[3:49]I think it was because like fundamentally the backbone and the through line of everything
[3:54]I've ever done professionally and the things that like really make me take our connection.
[3:58]And I think like we've never lived in a world in which we ironically feel so connected
[4:04]like through technology and through social media, but we're actually living in a pandemic
[4:08]of loneliness.
[4:10]And so for me, it was like, yes, I've gone through this kind of like crazy as you know,
[4:14]this like crazy journey and their aspects of it that are relatable and aspects that are utterly
[4:18]unrelatable about it.
[4:20]But mainly it was just if I can offer parts of myself out into the world, the hope was
[4:26]that people wouldn't feel so alone on their own journeys.
[4:30]Because life is crazy and messy and wonderful and complicated and confusing.
[4:34]And I think sometimes when we're brave enough to share stories with people that hopefully
[4:39]it inspires them to be brave enough to to follow suit.
[4:42]I love that.
[4:44]Yes, opening up is the quickest way to get other people to open up, right?
[4:49]Exactly.
[4:49]Well, there are so many different things to address.
[4:52]One is when you were full steam ahead doing so, so much, which I obviously relate to,
[4:59]I shouldn't say obviously, you don't know me, but I relate to a lot because you know,
[5:02]like many women and perhaps men, whatever, we get into those traps where we have to do
[5:07]this and we say yes to that and you ignore your health or your body or whatever because
[5:12]you're so like focused.
[5:14]Tell me about that and when you, and I know you write about this, like shift gears and
[5:20]kind of realize and hit bottom if you will.
[5:23]Yeah.
[5:24]I think for me exactly to your point, we see so many women who are like not only are
[5:28]they leaning in, they're like clanking in their lives.
[5:32]And I think witnessing my mom's work ethic growing up because she was a single mom.
[5:37]She got pregnant really young, I was 16, she was working two jobs, going to night school,
[5:42]raising five kids, like it was just like being sanity of her work ethic.
[5:47]It was just by osmosis, like I just thought that was normal and, you know, starting in fourth
[5:52]grade, we would go back to the bar that she would bartend at night to help clean seven
[5:56]days a week to make extra money for the family.
[5:58]So before rolling up, you know, to like fourth grade elementary school, like I would have
[6:03]already been up two hours and already cleaned an entire bar and, you know, cleaned urinals
[6:07]and stocked beer.
[6:08]So I think part of the work ethic was like, I just didn't know any other way.
[6:12]So I was like grits, resilience, grind, repeat.
[6:16]And I think there were aspects of that that are certainly, you know, there's like two sides
[6:19]of every coin.
[6:20]So there were aspects of that that were really helpful, you know, as far as like getting
[6:24]this scholarship and going to undergrad and masters and starting companies and all these
[6:27]things.
[6:28]But I think the reality was unchecked.
[6:31]It became my identity was I am someone who gets shit done.
[6:36]And I think that at a certain point and I was using that analogy, they talked about with
[6:40]the frog, where it's like it just they keep increasing the water, like one degree, one
[6:44]degree, one degree, one.
[6:45]And then before you know what the frog is like, boy, Lee, and I think that's what ended
[6:49]up happening was very unintentional, but it was just like one more event, one more, you
[6:54]know, two more days on the road, three more days on the road, four or five.
[6:57]And then before I know it, I'm traveling 250 days a year and kind of woke up and was like,
[7:03]how did I get here?
[7:05]And to answer the second part of that question, how did I kind of have maybe the epiphany
[7:10]to slow down?
[7:11]I think if left of my own devices, I would have never slowed down.
[7:14]So I think it was a divine intervention of like multiple things.
[7:19]What I refer to is like everything going wrong all at the same time.
[7:24]That was the only way like my bullet train was going to get shut down.
[7:28]And so for me, it was COVID happening.
[7:31]It immediately shut my entire career down.
[7:33]I had 150 events on the calendar already for 2020.
[7:37]Every single event was canceled.
[7:40]My income went to zero and growing up like a kid without any money and having created
[7:45]a huge ego around like, I have a badass, like boss lady and I, you know, so all of a sudden
[7:51]it was like my identity of, you know, ascribing a sense of self, like directly commensurate
[7:56]to how much money I was making, I immediately go on unemployment.
[8:00]So it's like my worst nightmare and paradigm of scarcity is like massively triggered.
[8:05]We had been trying to get pregnant for years.
[8:08]We did IVF.
[8:09]We finally got pregnant.
[8:10]We lost the baby.
[8:12]I found out my dad wasn't my biological father on Ancestry.com, which is like revealing
[8:19]this huge family secret.
[8:21]So it was just like, and I think there's a reason it's cliche.
[8:24]And for any of your listeners, like, you know, you start nodding when you're like, it's
[8:27]cliche for a reason that when it rains it pours.
[8:30]And it's not if, but when like everything where like you have those moments, it was
[8:35]my moment of there is not one more thing in my life that can possibly go wrong.
[8:41]It would be like, oh, but there is.
[8:43]So it was a very, very humbling moment of just like an atomic blast in my life.
[8:49]And I think it was the first time ever that I like hit pause on everything because I was
[8:54]like nothing that's working.
[8:57]So hopped in an RV and yeah, went on a went to go chase and adventure with no intention
[9:03]of like healing parts inside of me that I'd really been running away from my whole
[9:08]life.
[9:09]But isn't it crazy that that was only a couple of years ago?
[9:12]I mean, it's like, this is not something that happened to you 20 years ago and it took
[9:15]you a while, but you got back in your feet like, that just happened already you've
[9:20]regrouped.
[9:21]And by the end of the book event, you're like in a new state and you have a whole new
[9:24]frame of mind and now you like have a baby and you know, a book and all this stuff.
[9:31]So you know, 2020 and hitting bottom, that was a pretty quick reversal.
[9:35]I have, you know, it all is considered not that it makes it any better.
[9:39]Yeah.
[9:40]Yeah.
[9:41]I mean, I think that and I'm so glad you're saying that because it's easy to glaze over
[9:45]the face plants.
[9:46]Like it's easy to be like, that was so hard 2020, I've been doing it wrong, but look
[9:50]at my life now.
[9:51]So you know, and you're just like, oh, God, because when you're in that like really
[9:56]dark place in your life where like you don't see the light at the end.
[10:00]the tunnel and whether that is like someone that you love who is sick and especially that
[10:04]intersection of like the unknowable and the uncontrollable circumstances which for us we had five
[10:10]years of our infertility journey of just like roadblock after roadblock after roadblock and I think
[10:17]it's easy to look back and say like oh that was only three years ago like look at how different
[10:23]my life looks but there were days that felt like infinity and there were months that felt like
[10:30]infinity times infinity where I was just like I don't know if I'm ever going to like do I have a
[10:37]career anymore like how do I make money moving forward and will we ever get pregnant and like there
[10:43]were so many unanswered questions so yes and I probably like any parent who's like you know the
[10:50]years are short but the days are long I think that when you're you know really in your own unique
[10:58]life storm that those days can feel like forever so yes looking back I'm like that is kind of crazy
[11:04]it's only been three years but my goodness you know there were moments several I mean
[11:09]endless moments throughout that time where the darkness felt like it was never going to lift
[11:16]and you really wrote about that really well I mean the section when you would see the slippers
[11:22]and you know all of that like how you felt in the aftermath of your miscarriage was one of the most
[11:28]raw depictions of that feeling and of loss in general frankly of just like you felt like you had
[11:35]some line like you just didn't even really feel like a soul anymore or something like you were barely
[11:40]living you were just like yeah anyway it was you know you wrote it in a really I mean it was
[11:46]to be the reader we felt it you know I felt it and I'm so sorry you went through that thank you
[11:54]yeah it's interesting how like our curtain our pain is quite literally like the glue that holds
[11:59]our humanity together for you know it's polarized it feels like the country is and people like
[12:05]you know focusing on all the things that make us different like the one unique thing that no matter
[12:11]what where you are like the metrics of diversity is that you and I can come together over the pieces
[12:18]of our lives that are our greatest heartbreaks like no matter what like we hurt maybe differently
[12:24]like maybe there's a different label to it but that was something that I was trying to capture
[12:30]in sharing and even you know at the time my editor was like wow you're really going there
[12:35]you know when it came to certain parts of the book and I said listen like I don't want to put
[12:41]out another fluff like I think that's harmful actually like with the like highlight reels on
[12:47]social media of people's lives like I think it's actually harmful if we aren't being like really
[12:52]authentic and honest because you know it's human nature to compare ourselves and so I'm really
[12:58]happy that I don't want to say that resonated but I'm really happy that you felt that because that
[13:04]was my intention my intention was like no bars hold like we're gonna go there yeah because I
[13:10]think that no matter what like we all have that in common and whether it's a miscarriage or a loss
[13:14]of a dream or a loss of a person or a loss of a job I mean there's so many ways that humans
[13:20]experience loss and no matter what it's painful so sure I was actually just reading another book
[13:26]recently it was a novel and in the novel the author was talking about a loss I mean even in the
[13:33]best case scenario in COVID I mean the days were like a hundred years long and to pile on especially
[13:37]the lack of support right you talk about how you went to that oh my god I'm the scene with your
[13:43]friend driving up oh my gosh I have to text you the video because I posted it on social media when
[13:48]it happened and yeah it was like one of the most profound displays of like radical love that I've
[13:56]ever experienced in my entire life like every time I watch the video I cry every single time
[14:01]because I didn't even know that my husband was filming it like he came out behind me and was
[14:05]filming us dancing because she had driven you know three hours four hours round trip just to like
[14:11]dance with me for one song oh it was it was such a beautiful moment yeah I guess it gives
[14:17]bumps oh my gosh so meanwhile in the depths of your you know coping with that loss and that journey
[14:25]and all of that journey such a cliche word that you know experience essentially you're also
[14:30]and you take us into this from the beginning this some search for who you are really who is your
[14:35]dad what is your mom hiding trying to peel the information from her I like hate to give anything
[14:41]away but the ways you finally the way it finally comes out and what you learn and even your dad I
[14:48]mean I don't know like oh I can say but your dad's response anyway oh my gosh yeah it is appropriate
[14:55]to say like it is a journey we're all on these wild journeys you know and I think that for me
[15:00]through that experience of finding out my dad was not my biological father and like you it's like not
[15:05]giving too much away but I think that it was very apropos that I would end up eventually having
[15:12]a conversation with my dad who raised me who is my real life Superman who is you know as I mentioned
[15:17]who coached everything I ever played who you know is just like bigger than life and the conversation
[15:24]the fact that like what parenthood really is is like a relentless love and a relentless choice
[15:30]and a relentless commitment and you know that would be a year to I don't I'm like lost in all
[15:37]the timelines of everything but before I would find out that I we'd have to bring in an egg donor
[15:41]for me to eventually get pregnant and so it was like this beautiful planting of seeds that
[15:47]would eventually allow me to accept I think which with far less resistance and less grieving
[15:55]that I wouldn't be able to participate in my child's life biologically because I had been the
[16:00]recipient of such a radical love that I had complete confidence that even if I am not my son's
[16:08]biological mother that it is like are you kidding me it's like that is not the thing that is not
[16:14]what makes me a mother what makes me mother is the fact that like yet again he woke me up at
[16:18]you know to a clock in the morning screaming and like and there's nothing I would rather do
[16:23]in that moment you know well let's be honest let's be honest I would rather sleep okay I would
[16:27]much rather sleep however the compulsion to love him is actually bigger than any desire that I have
[16:35]for myself so yeah it was a big lesson wait I want wait first of all that's like amazing
[16:42]and such a full circle thing like a lesson you learned just at the right time right it's like one
[16:46]of those universe things can you tell me what happened after the book like now I went to yeah of course
[16:52]of course absolutely so and which is really interesting because in writing books usually the editing
[16:58]process is about a year like and can be longer than that but like on average is about a year so I
[17:04]spend about a year writing the book and then a whole another year editing it and then you like pick
[17:09]out the cover and like there's all these steps that have to happen so the book actually hits the
[17:13]shelves so two weeks after I submitted my final manuscript as you read we still didn't know how
[17:20]we were going to get pregnant and we kind of were like back to square one and two weeks after
[17:26]submitting it and because a whole another year happens so there was a lot more heartbreak and you
[17:31]know and I think that's part of it too is I'm really cautious that when people like read the book
[17:36]and then like they go to my social media and they're like wait but now she's a kid like okay
[17:39]her rainbow happened like it all worked out and I'm like oh girl not only did it not all work out
[17:45]but we would still yet find out that we would have to get a biological earn egg donor so that
[17:50]was a whole another journey that took almost nine months to court an egg donor and I always joke
[17:56]that because it was still on you know on the tailands of covid so and I like a wicked inappropriate
[18:01]dark sense of humor and that's just like how I cope with hard things in life and so my girlfriends
[18:05]would talk about how hard it was you know having to like online date during covid and I would
[18:09]be like you know what's harder is having to online date for baby mama for your husband to
[18:14]reproduce with so we ended up finding an egg donor a hiring an egg donor and then we would hit
[18:20]another huge roadblock where I was having a lot of complications with the hormones so then we
[18:24]the doctors say that we're gonna have to hire a surrogate so then I was heartbroken again at the
[18:31]thought of not being able to carry we would eventually get a second opinion and we only had two
[18:36]embryos which anyone in the like fertility infertility space like know it's how sacred and precious
[18:42]these little embryos are we only had two so we ended up doing the transfer two weeks after I
[18:48]submitted my final manuscript and I told my husband I was like don't even make eye contact with me
[18:52]for 10 days like I don't want that face of like oh dude what if it works out because we've been trying
[18:57]this for five years and I was like there's no way the transfer was to a surrogate or to you
[19:02]to me so we got yep yep so we got a second opinion in that our second opinion doctors that I
[19:07]actually think that you can carry and I remember telling him like the next phrase out of my mouth
[19:12]was you need to be very careful with the words coming out of your mouth because we've been doing this
[19:17]for five years and like and I wrote about it in the book but for people who are on that kind of
[19:22]journey not just infertility journey but as we talked about any dream any dream you've been fighting
[19:28]for for years to have someone give you a glimmer of hope you're like you got to be real cautious
[19:34]with your words because hope can feel so dangerous we were like I'm just so afraid to hold on to
[19:40]hope because what if I'm disappointed again and what if like my heart is it's physically ripped
[19:45]out of my chest again and so when we did the embryo transfer we didn't tell anyone like we flew
[19:51]from Montana to Houston didn't tell our parents didn't tell any friends and like I said I told
[19:57]my husband don't even make eye contact with me because I don't even want to see
[20:00]They're a little hopeful eyes being like,
[20:02]what if this works?
[20:03]What if this time?
[20:04]And then sure enough, 10 days later,
[20:06]they called me sick and congratulations.
[20:08]You're pregnant in my husband,
[20:09]which anyone who knows them.
[20:11]He's a six, nine poster boy of feminism.
[20:14]And he just starts weeping.
[20:15]And I'm like stone cold killer.
[20:18]And I was like, it's probably an IV in work.
[20:19]Like we're not telling you, we didn't tell anyone for months
[20:23]because I was just like, I didn't want to jinx it.
[20:25]I didn't want to hold the weight
[20:30]of other people's expectations.
[20:31]So by like eight, like the eighth month,
[20:34]I was like, okay, now we can tell people that.
[20:36]And it was like, kind of obvious.
[20:37]Like, bro, you're pregnant.
[20:39]Eight months?
[20:40]Yeah, yeah, by the eighth month.
[20:43]And we had told like our closest friends and families
[20:45]like three, four months in.
[20:47]And then by like the eighth month,
[20:48]we were more open about it.
[20:50]And at that point, I think I felt like I deserved
[20:53]an easy pregnancy.
[20:55]And I deserved like an easy labor
[20:57]because things had been so hard.
[20:58]And then my husband hops on a plane to Cabo.
[21:01]So first like last for all,
[21:02]he's going on a golf trip.
[21:04]My water break seven weeks early,
[21:06]which was like the worst, most terrifying nightmare
[21:09]being in a hospital by myself.
[21:11]Thank you.
[21:11]And I was gonna go into labor at any moment.
[21:13]And my husband once again, it's bawling,
[21:15]trying to get the first flight back.
[21:17]And I end up living in the hospital for two and a half weeks
[21:21]as we're, you know, keep him baking in his little oven.
[21:24]And, but he ended up coming five weeks early.
[21:27]He was, his lungs were really compromised.
[21:29]So he was whisked off to the NICU
[21:32]ended up having an emergency C-section.
[21:34]And so the interesting thing,
[21:35]the reason I share all that
[21:36]and then he ended up coming home on oxygen for two
[21:39]and a half weeks.
[21:40]So, you know, that was almost five weeks
[21:41]between the NICU and him being home on oxygen.
[21:44]And I felt like, I'll be honest,
[21:47]I felt like I just written this book, right?
[21:49]It's just like, if this book about like,
[21:50]when things get really hard,
[21:52]this is how you hunt for joy.
[21:54]And this is how you find joy regardless of your circumstances.
[21:58]And I'd certainly communicated my thoughts
[22:02]about there's always purpose to our pain
[22:05]and that time is the only revealer.
[22:07]And that was like a huge lesson for me.
[22:10]And so the interesting thing was
[22:12]it's one thing to write about this stuff, right?
[22:14]It's like, it's one thing to like talk the talk,
[22:17]but then his entire like,
[22:18]what I refer to as his grand entrance into the world,
[22:22]I always say that that was my invitation to walk it.
[22:25]Like, again, it's one thing to talk about, you know,
[22:28]like finding the perfect, tiny moments that exist
[22:33]every single day in the midst of like
[22:35]challenging, terrifying circumstances.
[22:38]And there were real moments where my life was in question
[22:42]where my son's life was in question when he was born.
[22:45]And I remember like laying on the OR table being like,
[22:47]I don't actually think I survived, like losing him
[22:52]at that point.
[22:53]And so like these really haunting, you know,
[22:55]and then that proceeded for the next several weeks
[22:59]where every day I was like, is he gonna be okay?
[23:01]Like, are his lungs gonna develop?
[23:03]And the reason that like I share how hard that is
[23:06]is that life is relentless.
[23:09]Like it's not like, oh, thank God 2020, that was hard.
[23:12]Moving on, like life has been rainbows and ponies
[23:17]sunshine ever since.
[23:18]It actually got a lot harder.
[23:20]And I think the difference is I'd had all this practice,
[23:25]like this spiritual practice, this emotional,
[23:28]this mental practice of hunting for,
[23:32]and that is literally why I use that word is,
[23:34]because growing up, I was super competitive
[23:36]with my four older brothers of hunting for Easter eggs.
[23:39]And it was the idea that there are these like brightly colored,
[23:43]you know, like little eggs of joy that had chocolate,
[23:47]like all around, but you had to like train yourself
[23:50]to find them, you know, in the backyard and stuff.
[23:53]And that is what it felt like for me was I went into training
[23:58]so that every single day, and I'm saying sometimes
[24:00]it was like 30 seconds in a day.
[24:03]And I'd be like, that was it.
[24:04]Okay, there was one perfect moment of joy.
[24:06]And maybe it was walking outside to get the mail
[24:09]and like the sunshine hitting me in the face
[24:11]and like feeling the warmth of that sunshine
[24:13]and being like, okay, there it was.
[24:16]I got it, I got it today.
[24:18]And I think when we train ourselves
[24:20]like where are those perfect tiny moments
[24:22]that we often miss, but like if we can start collecting those
[24:26]and then what I found is that as any new mom knows,
[24:30]I mean, it's brutal, like those first couple of months.
[24:33]And I think that while it's wonderful to see like photos
[24:35]of like me holding my thumb and he is perfect and huge
[24:39]and chubby and healthy now.
[24:40]But motherhood parenthood is really hard.
[24:44]And I don't think we've enough conversations
[24:46]about how really hard it is.
[24:49]And so that practice continues in my life
[24:54]because again, it wasn't like life stopped being hard.
[24:56]It just continues to be hard in different ways.
[24:59]And I remember telling Brad even with our infertility stuff
[25:01]I said, you know, this is our thing right now.
[25:05]This is the thing that hurts for us.
[25:07]But if it's not this, it's gonna be something else.
[25:10]So let's choose like the suffering.
[25:12]Let's choose the pain that we have in our life.
[25:14]And we're choosing the pain of really, really wanting
[25:17]to become parents.
[25:19]And a couple of weeks after Bridger was born,
[25:23]we ended up finding it and I was like,
[25:24]oh my God, our journey, like now we have a kid
[25:27]and now our pain point isn't infertility.
[25:30]And like weeks later, we found out Brad's dad has cancer.
[25:33]And I was like, it's just something else.
[25:35]You know, but like that's real talk.
[25:38]Like that's life is that, you know,
[25:40]there's nothing perfect about it.
[25:43]And it's not when it's if.
[25:44]And it's if over and over and over again
[25:47]that we have heartbreak and disappointment.
[25:49]And that's why I felt like this message was timely.
[25:53]Not just for my own life, it continues, you know,
[25:56]to be awesome and really hard.
[25:58]But hopefully that maybe, you know,
[26:01]through this story that other people could extrapolate
[26:03]their own Easter eggs and their own lives.
[26:06]Not only when things are hard,
[26:07]but even just in everyday life.
[26:10]Oh my gosh.
[26:11]First of all, you are so amazing.
[26:12]You are so inspiring.
[26:14]And it's true.
[26:16]I mean, everything of course that you're saying is true.
[26:19]And life doesn't necessarily line up the timelines
[26:21]of the pain.
[26:22]It's not, it doesn't always work
[26:24]like we got through infertility
[26:25]and now here comes the cancer.
[26:27]Like often they're all bundled up together
[26:29]or you're like, seriously,
[26:30]all these people at the same time are dying
[26:32]or whatever it is in your life, you know, exactly.
[26:35]I feel like personally any day
[26:39]where something is not really,
[26:41]like I don't want to say that loud.
[26:42]Yeah, yeah, I know.
[26:43]I'm like, no, I don't want to say that loud.
[26:46]You know, totally.
[26:48]Okay, things like, okay.
[26:50]I know what that terrible pain is like,
[26:53]I know it will come back.
[26:54]I'm not a moron or either I will go,
[26:56]or either I'll just,
[26:57]or it'll be happen to me.
[26:59]But so how do you live that like tentative,
[27:03]you know, tentatively enjoying the joy of the present?
[27:06]Always knowing what's hovering.
[27:08]Yeah.
[27:09]Yeah.
[27:10]And I mean, I think what's uniquely human is
[27:12]via, you know, so many people think
[27:14]that we shouldn't have problems.
[27:16]So if there's problems or if there's pain
[27:18]or if they're suffering and like something is wrong,
[27:21]as opposed to being like, no, that is not like,
[27:24]they are entire, you know, like,
[27:25]like Buddhism is all about like suffering is the point.
[27:28]You know, like that is where we learn things.
[27:30]That is where we grow.
[27:31]That is where we, you know,
[27:32]it's like there's entire religions that, you know,
[27:35]are talking about pain and suffering,
[27:36]not as something to be avoided or sidesteped
[27:39]or, you know, when it happens immediately solved,
[27:42]it is just something to experience.
[27:45]And I think that that was the dream and conversation
[27:48]full circle, like when I was like on my bullet train,
[27:52]you know, like checking off boxes and hiking
[27:54]the world's biggest mountains and running
[27:56]for the biggest offices and standing on the biggest stages.
[27:59]And like I always had this very external display of bravery
[28:04]of like, I'm gonna jump out of planes
[28:06]and I'm gonna swim with sharks.
[28:07]And I'm gonna, you know, do all these things
[28:09]that I think we perceive as brave.
[28:11]And now what I found is like the bravest thing
[28:14]that I do every day is I sit silently with myself.
[28:20]And like that was something I'd been running away
[28:22]from my whole life was like sitting with myself
[28:26]and like really listening to that internal voice.
[28:29]Cause I think when we're young, we do it so effortlessly.
[28:32]Like we know exactly who we are when we're young.
[28:35]Like before the world gets its hands on us.
[28:37]And then we get tied up and not, you know,
[28:39]and I just saw that Barbie movie.
[28:40]And there's like this monologue in there
[28:42]that I was like, bawly, it feels like it's so hard
[28:46]to be a woman, it is so hard to be a woman.
[28:49]And it's so hard to be a mom and it's such confusing messaging.
[28:53]And so the bravest, most beautiful,
[28:56]most loving thing that we can do is like,
[28:58]and I'm saying like five minutes,
[28:59]if you don't have five minutes for yourself,
[29:01]you don't have a life.
[29:02]But like sitting down for five minutes saying like,
[29:05]I love you and I accept you exactly as you are today.
[29:09]Like those tiny little intentions,
[29:13]that is so much more brave than anything I used to do,
[29:17]although I still do all those things.
[29:19]I still hike big mountains and swim with sharks
[29:22]and jump out of planes, but it's a different part of me
[29:25]that's being exercised.
[29:26]And now there's the stillness within
[29:28]that I didn't have access to before
[29:30]when I was on a bullet train going 2000 miles an hour.
[29:35]Wow.
[29:36]Oh my gosh.
[29:37]So there must be another book about this part too.
[29:40]You ready to get an hour, is that?
[29:42]It's funny you say that.
[29:43]So when my water broke, which is a total phenomenon,
[29:46]very rarely happens less than 3% of pregnancies,
[29:48]and the hospital here in Bozeman, Montana,
[29:51]where I live, they say usually happens maybe once every two years.
[29:54]And it happened to three of us, three different women
[29:58]within a week of each other are water broke.
[30:00]and we all came in early.
[30:02]And we lived in the hospital together.
[30:04]And I just wrote an op-ed about it,
[30:06]saying that basically it's the start of an inappropriate joke.
[30:11]But these three women walk into a hospital
[30:13]and we ended up living together
[30:14]and then we all of our babies were in the NICU together.
[30:17]And now we hike these big beautiful Montana mountains together.
[30:21]But of course, my book agents and everyone was like,
[30:25]oh my God, this is gonna be an amazing next book.
[30:28]And I was like, yo, we gotta like, give me a second.
[30:31]I need a need a deep breath.
[30:33]But of course, I mean, and that's the beautiful thing.
[30:36]And my story is no more unique than anyone else's.
[30:39]And that's what I love the most
[30:40]is that every single human being has a story
[30:44]to tell and a story to share.
[30:46]And as honored as I am to share my own,
[30:48]I think the thing that makes me tick the most
[30:51]is when people reach out to me and they're like,
[30:54]this happened to me.
[30:54]And I'm like, tell me your story.
[30:56]Like we had so much to learn from each other.
[30:58]I don't think anyone's story is more important
[31:01]or more profound than anyone else's.
[31:03]But yeah, I'm sure that I will continue to tell stories
[31:08]hopefully for the rest of my life.
[31:10]Oh my gosh.
[31:11]Well, Alexis, you're like sensational.
[31:14]I'm so, I feel like it's got like a private session
[31:18]with like, you know, I don't know some sort of guru.
[31:21]Something really special about you.
[31:23]And I hope I get to meet you in person.
[31:25]And I want to go see you.
[31:26]I know.
[31:26]Now I understand why you had another,
[31:29]I didn't understand, but like even speaking to you,
[31:30]like yes, of course, everybody wants you to get up
[31:32]and speak in front of their audience.
[31:34]So yeah, you're amazing.
[31:37]Come to Montana.
[31:38]Come to Montana.
[31:39]Come visit me.
[31:40]I mean, I have any further.
[31:42]I was there in 2020, actually.
[31:44]Was my last year, you're due for another visit.
[31:47]Any time I'm telling you, I'm like the beacon
[31:50]of every all the local despise me
[31:52]because I'm like, come to Montana.
[31:54]I'm like a collection of incredible people.
[31:57]So I would love to hug you in person.
[31:59]And I have to warn you, I am a really intense hugger.
[32:03]I love to hug.
[32:04]So consider yourself, consider yourself warned.
[32:06]Yeah, I hug everybody and it was, it's amazing.
[32:10]Okay. All right.
[32:11]Well, I'm so glad we connected.
[32:12]Thank you so much for your time.
[32:13]Thank you so much for your time.
[32:13]Thank you so much.
[32:14]Thank you.
[32:15]Thank you so much.
[32:16]I really appreciate it.
[32:17]And I hope to hang out some at some point.
[32:19]You too, for sure.
[32:20]Okay, bye bye.
[32:22]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[32:25]Don't have time to read books.
[32:27]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibbowens
[32:30]and at Moms Don't have time to read books.
[32:32]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbowens.com
[32:34]and sign up for my virtual book club
[32:36]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[32:39]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[32:40]In fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[32:43]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[32:44]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.