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129. Grieving Through the Space of Forgiveness- with Phoebe Leona
73 Plays3 years ago
Phoebe Leona is a dancer, speaker, author, yoga teacher, and transformational guide who helps us feel more embodied through somatic, movement, and expanded awareness practices to become more empowered in who we are, who we are becoming, and our having a greater sense of belonging. She has been a teacher and guide for most of her life, but it was after a year of extreme loss in 2013 when she found herself in the vast open space in between her old life and a new life, that she dove deeply into her practices and began her company, nOMad to help others through their own transition and the spaces in between. Throughout that time, Phoebe also developed her movement/somatic practice, Mvt109™ for students to fully embrace the freedom of moving in their bodies, transforming old patterns and reclaiming the vibrations & stories they want to bring to life. Phoebe also finds joy in sharing her story to help others in their healing. Phoebe tells her story on her TEDx Talk, her podcast The Space in Between, and her multi-author international bestseller Caged No More. Her newest book, Dear Radiant One, partners with GracePoint Publishing.
https://www.phoebeleona.com/
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching:
https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
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Transcript
Forgiving Oneself and Others After Loss
00:00:01
Speaker
So that past nine years after my father died and I went through the divorce has been really this path of grieving through the space of forgiveness of myself, of not saying, why did I choose that person or why did this happen, right? Having that shame and guilt.
00:00:18
Speaker
but really acceptance of even that, even this beautiful relationship I have for 15 years, I did learn a lot. And it's also, I won't repeat that again, right? Because there was a lot of love in that relationship too. And so I don't want it to be pointing the finger at him or pointing the finger at me, but it was really a space of forgiveness of everyone involved, including myself.
Podcast Introduction: Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between
00:00:47
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:10
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Introducing Phoebe Leona: Dancer and Transformational Guide
00:01:32
Speaker
Thank you for joining us in today's episode. Today I am having the honor of talking to Phoebe Leona. Phoebe is a dancer, speaker, author, yoga teacher, and transformational guide.
00:01:47
Speaker
who helps us feel more embodied through somatic movement and expanded awareness practices to become more empowered in who we are, who we are becoming, and are having a great sense of belonging.
00:02:02
Speaker
We just even started our interview here prior to recording with some breath work to get ourselves centered, and I'm excited to have her.
Phoebe's Book and TEDx Talk: Dance as a Medium
00:02:12
Speaker
She is also the author of Dear Radiant One, which is the book we'll be talking about primarily today.
00:02:19
Speaker
She also was a multi-author in a book called Cage No More, which was an international bestseller. And you can also find her story in TEDx Talk, which is beautiful, by the way. Anybody listening, it combines dance. I've never seen a TED Talk done that way. We'll talk about that. And more about her story in her podcast called The Space in Between, which has a similarity to this Grief Gratitude and The Gray in Between. You and I, same page here.
00:02:49
Speaker
Phoebe so welcome Phoebe.
Nomadic Lifestyle and Transformational Retreats
00:02:51
Speaker
Thank you so much Kendra. I really appreciate it and love being here with you
00:02:56
Speaker
I hope that was it. It's like it's always odd when I have to read all the accolades or the intro. I can do a shorter version, too. I can I can, you know, whatever it is meant to to be. But yeah, it's odd when you're hearing all your things, right? Yeah. And this and this and she's a biz. It's like, OK, you told everybody that I'm done. Here we are. Here we are. Well, welcome. So let's start with where do you live right now?
00:03:27
Speaker
Ooh, where do I live right now? Well, I'm currently in Beacon, New York, but I float between here and West Virginia where my grandmother is. I kind of ended up down there during the pandemic. I was truly a nomad for about a year before the pandemic happened. I was in Bali.
00:03:44
Speaker
And as things were locking down, I decided to come back home and be close with my family and be with her. So I've been between West Virginia and where my home was before in Beacon, New York. Since you said that you were a nomad, let's talk about Nomad, your company. And of course, we'll tie in all this at the end so people know how it is. You ended up having this. But tell us about Nomad.
Origins and Evolution of Nomad
00:04:11
Speaker
Nomad is my baby. It's my business. I founded it. Gosh, we're approaching. It's so crazy. I think we're approaching eight years or nine years. Oh gosh. What year is this? 2022. Okay. Eight years. Eight years.
00:04:31
Speaker
It came from where we're going to go today and the story of mine for after a year of great loss. I decided when I was going through all that, that I got to really live the life that I wanted for myself rather than for other people.
00:04:51
Speaker
And when I looked at what is it that brings me joy? Well, I was teaching yoga at the time. That was my primary source of teaching and income. And I wanted to travel more. So I had this intention to start a retreat business where I bring yoga retreats. Now it's transitioned into transformational retreats because I have so many other modalities and other
00:05:14
Speaker
practitioners and facilitators that hold space under Nomad. So that's where it started and then it went into yoga teacher trainings and now my movement practice, which is an embodiment practice, Movement 109, and I host ceremonies there and facilitator trainings. So Nomad is always traveling around. It's always taking me on these different journeys and I just follow the breadcrumbs and see where it wants to go and one being my book.
00:05:43
Speaker
sharing my story and using that as a tool to teach as well.
00:05:48
Speaker
I love the following the breadcrumbs visual that you just said. It's just kind of just following what path lies ahead, not being so fixated on what we think life should look like. Because as we know, all these curveballs, we are thrown in life. It is necessary to be flexible. And you've kind of learned that the hard way in your story.
Growing Up with a Father with PTSD
00:06:15
Speaker
Right? That you just had to be flexible. So let's start with your story and upbringing in terms of the kind of chaotic life you grew up in with your parents. And of course, people will read more in detail when they read your book. It starts with your upbringing. So tell us about this upbringing.
00:06:41
Speaker
So my father was my primary caregiver for most of my childhood. My parents were together until I was about eight years old, and then they separated, divorced, and I was living with my father until I was about 15 years old.
00:06:55
Speaker
And he, at the time, we did not have this terminology of trauma or PTSD, but that's ultimately what he was dealing with, was having this very severe PTSD from doing two tours of Vietnam. So that ended up having a very traumatic effect on my own childhood because he had all of the symptoms of PTSD. He had flashbacks, he went into severe depression, rage,
00:07:23
Speaker
A lot of drug abuse. Although he was this beautiful, charming, loving man, he could churn on a dime whenever he got triggered. It was very confusing, as you said, chaotic childhood. Basically, when I was 15 years old, I said, okay, I can't take this anymore.
00:07:44
Speaker
Because at the time, again, we didn't have this terminology. It just looked like my father was crazy and he was a drug addict. And here I was basically being the caretaker for him.
00:07:55
Speaker
And I said, I made the choice to say, OK, I need to survive here and somehow figure out a way to thrive as I enter into my next chapter as a teenager, an adult. So I left. I left my father. I went to go live with my grandmother for a few months in Texas. I was living in Maryland outside of DC at the time. That's where I grew up. So I took that time. And then when I came back, my father was gone.
Reunion and Healing with Father
00:08:22
Speaker
So I moved back in with my mother and my stepfather.
00:08:25
Speaker
And he just disappeared and went off the chart, like off the grid for a very long time. Like I would get some updates from my, his parents every once in a while. I had not a great relationship with them, but I would get like letters about he's alive or, oh, he was in the hospital. And then he showed up on my phone, I was going to say doorstep, but
00:08:50
Speaker
more on my phone on Father's Day in 2009. It was about, I think it was like 18 years that he was gone and showed up. When he showed up, he was rehabilitated. He had been pretty much everything. He was arrested. He was homeless.
00:09:10
Speaker
he had a drug overdose and they almost called him dead because he had lithium poisoning, drugs from being taken care of. He probably almost had a heroin overdose too a couple of times, but he had all of these moments where he almost died and he finally
00:09:33
Speaker
a fog lifted and he said, I want to reconnect with my daughter. And so that's what he did. He took a few months to get out of the hospital and get healthy again. And he reached out to me on that Father's Day.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, and there's very movie-like scenes that you share in the book that it would be like, what? This is really like out of a movie. The part of your name. Your name, Phoebe Leona, was asking you before we started recording if Leona was your given name or if you had added it to your life based on the fact that your dad had what?
00:10:13
Speaker
A lion, not only one, but two. A lion? So how did your dad come with owning lions? I'm just so curious.
Symbolism of Lions in Phoebe's Life
00:10:27
Speaker
This is the kind of stuff that doesn't specify how he can't lie and just mentions the lions.
00:10:34
Speaker
Honestly, this was my father in a nutshell. He just acquired things. He acquired lions and he acquired cars, and then he would also lose them. We had pets that would come in and out of our house all the time. Sorry, I'm just thinking of the losing the lion part. I'm thinking like nowadays in Nextdoor. Where did I get that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. In that Nextdoor app.
00:10:59
Speaker
um lion is like you know lion it's like i found a lion it doesn't have a chip like i you know like who's like it doesn't have a name tag doesn't have a name tag yeah sorry go ahead well basically
00:11:15
Speaker
He had these two lions. I'm not quite sure how he got them. But the why was because he was a drug dealer who also had this cover business of a waterbed store. And so what he did was he acquired these two lions with his business partner. And he had them on the roof as protection. So that's why he got them. And I don't know how he accumulated these two lions.
00:11:41
Speaker
But then at some point, I guess he changed his business. He took a different path and he decided to take these lions to like a farm sanctuary. So he didn't just lose them. Yeah. This one he did just give them.
00:11:57
Speaker
So that just gives a little bit. Yeah, even when I was reading, you know, it just outlined like those statues of lions standing in the front of homes, you know, or the gargoyles. So when I was reading that first, that's what I thought it said, the two lions. But then I was like, no, wait, these are real lions. Yeah, he was walking them. He was walking one of them, Simba of all names.
00:12:20
Speaker
when he met my mother. So that's where you're asking me about my name was he was out there and also just to paint a picture, he looked like Jesus, like hippie, long hair, beard, and he's like totally just walking down the street in York, Pennsylvania with this lion on a leash. And my mom, who was a lot younger, she was 10 years younger and she was in college and she was like, who is this?
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, who's this gentleman who's walking a lion? Yes, so they flirted and that was my whole story. What you were asking me about my name was, it was
00:13:03
Speaker
I had been married and I took my person's name, like my partner's name, and then when I went through the divorce, my father had died at the same time, so I wanted to claim his name back in honor of him. But then as I've been going through my healing journey for the past nine years, I was starting to really claim my own self, and I felt like
00:13:27
Speaker
especially since you'll know in the book, I share a lot about my relationship with my father, also how I chose my ex-husband because of a pattern that was embedded in me. And so when I was really starting to go through my healing journey, I said, I really want to claim
00:13:45
Speaker
my own name in a sense. And I loved Phoebe already, so I didn't want to claim my own first name. So I thought, well, let me take over my last name and really claim it. And I loved that the lion was this beautiful symbol of how my parents came together, but I love animal totems and archetypes.
00:14:05
Speaker
And so I just loved what a lioness stood for and I wanted to grow into her and embody her. And so is my initiation into that. And I was telling you before, I would love to like embody more of like the life of like being, like living in the Spanish
00:14:23
Speaker
life and embody like Leona. So I wanted to initiate and I'm also going to learn Spanish. And yeah, because of the fact that you do travel to Costa Rica to do some of your retreats so you have that connection there. So as we're talking then, you already mentioned then your father and his passing. So let's talk about that year.
Experiencing Grief: Death of Father and End of Marriage
00:14:48
Speaker
Gabby, your father, your divorce,
00:14:51
Speaker
That was like a big time period in your life of grief. Gabby was your best friend. Do we want first talk about how that because that was the first major death in your life was Gabby's?
00:15:06
Speaker
No, actually Gabby was after. Oh, after the order was the other way around. Okay. So my father died in January. So to go back a little bit, so he stepped into my life in 2009. We had four beautiful years of healing together to a certain extent because he was, even though he was rehabilitated, he still
00:15:28
Speaker
was very severely traumatized and doing his best. We got to heal for about four years and then he just had a heart attack and died in 2013, quite unexpectedly.
00:15:43
Speaker
And two months after that, my husband who I had been with for 15 years since college, he sat me down and he said, I can't do this. I need to let you go and be free. And it was absolutely devastating having those two people in my life just no longer in my life. Even though my dad hadn't been in my life for so many years and I had grieved
00:16:07
Speaker
him from 15 to about 30 something and then I had to start the whole grieving process again. It was in such a different way because I felt like the first time I had to grieve him, I really had to come to terms with whether he shows up or not.
00:16:27
Speaker
I have to have some sort of resolution within myself. And when somebody dies, that's it. They're not coming back. So there's more of that finality of them. Finito, yeah. Finito, yeah. Finito, exactly. That's done. But there was always this, he could step back into my life. There was always that. And I had to really sit with, if he did, what would that look like? What would that feel like if he didn't?
00:16:52
Speaker
What would that look like? What would that feel like? And so I really did get to process in a way that was in a space of forgiveness during those years.
00:17:02
Speaker
during the years before that. Now let me ask you, was yoga part of your practice? So at what point from the age of 15 then to 30 something when he showed up, had yoga already been part of your life? And was that one of the tools that you had used in meditation to start healing then in that journey of grieving your dad being away? And how was that grief journey different
00:17:27
Speaker
when he died, grieving him leaving and then grieving him dying. How was that different, the tools you used? I was a professional dancer.
Healing Through Yoga and Forgiveness
00:17:41
Speaker
In the book, I share a lot about my journey of being a dancer. When I was living in New York City as a dancer,
00:17:49
Speaker
I found my way to the yoga mat more as a physical rehab for myself, dealing with injuries. But then I found all of these other doors were opening up for myself, helping my emotional well-being, my mental well-being, my spiritual well-being. So it was filling up my cup in so many ways. And it was intuitively, I was starting this healing process through the practice of yoga. And then I started to teach yoga.
00:18:16
Speaker
I entered into that early 2000s. I've been teaching yoga all up until the point that when my father entered back into my life, I had that as a practice and I was also teaching it. It was extremely helpful and it was a huge tool in my healing. It really brought me to this space of forgiveness of him and a space of gratitude.
00:18:40
Speaker
Of all of the hardships that I had gone through because of his story, they were gifts for me. And I was able to use that as a teaching tool. So when he passed away in 2013, that journey was really about forgiveness of myself. Because when he passed away, we had already made amends.
00:19:08
Speaker
we were able to have those four years together. But then having my ex-husband two months after say, it's time for me to let you go, now it unfolds in the story that he also had some sort of
00:19:23
Speaker
patterns that, as I said before, that I chose him for a reason. He had a bit of a drug and alcohol abuse. And he saw that he needed to free me because he was continuing a path in other ways that was basically that I could no longer go with him. So that past nine years after my father died and I went through the divorce has been really this path of grieving through the space of forgiveness of myself.
00:19:52
Speaker
of not saying, why did I choose that person or why did this happen, right? Having that shame and guilt.
00:19:59
Speaker
but really acceptance of even that, even this beautiful relationship I have for 15 years, I did learn a lot. And it's also, I won't repeat that again, right? Because there was a lot of love in that relationship too. And so I don't want it to be pointing the finger at him or pointing the finger at me, but it was really a space of forgiveness of everyone involved, including myself.
00:20:23
Speaker
And it's so beautiful that you say that because in the book you go through, after you've shared your story, then you share about your dad and reconnecting with your dad. Then at the end, all these letters that you write to the different emotions that come up, one of them being grief, some being forgiveness, guilt, all these different emotions. So, well, I wanna dive into that a little. How was it for you in this process of writing
00:20:52
Speaker
What kind of led you to write it in this format of these letters to these different aspects of yourself and your healing journey?
Letter Writing as a Healing Tool
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for that question.
00:21:07
Speaker
I've always written in my journal from a very young age, that was something that I used as, and I didn't even know, it was just intuitively a practice that I did. And also to go back to what your question was about yoga, when I started to practice yoga and I was seeing how dance
00:21:26
Speaker
was also this healing practice for myself during my childhood, because when I would go through, you know, my father having a flashback or he was angry, I would just go into my room, turn the music on and dance. And I just thought, oh, I just want to, like, avoid him. But it was actually- Or you would perform for him, too. I was like, yeah, he'd sit down. Yeah. My performance, yeah, but you're not paying attention. Yes, exactly. But so these two practices of dancing and writing were such a gift.
00:21:55
Speaker
from the get-go that I didn't know. I just thought, oh, they bring me joy. But it was just this intuitive practice, intuitive practices that helped me so I wasn't carrying along severe trauma. If I didn't have those, I don't know if I would have been alive. I don't know if I would have been following the path of my father as a drug addict or not being who I am right now. So when I started to think about, it's time to write this book. I really want to write this book.
00:22:24
Speaker
And I started to write down sort of chronologically, okay, this is my story. And going into really deep, vulnerable moments, it was really challenging to go there.
00:22:36
Speaker
So when I said, OK, how am I going to go there? Because it's necessary. That was also the first question I asked myself. Is this necessary? What I'm about to say, is this necessary? And when I heard the answer, yes, because it's going to help other people, I said, OK, well then, if we're going to go there, I need to deeply go there. I can't just tell people the surface of it. I have to go deep into it. So how am I going to feel safe to get there? So I went back to this idea of writing in my journal.
00:23:06
Speaker
And then I had done an exercise with Elizabeth Gilbert. I got to study with her, I don't remember, a handful of years ago and she had us writing. I think it was 2016, yeah. It was right after the election. And so we wrote letter to fear.
00:23:23
Speaker
It was so eye-opening to see, because we did a letter back and forth, so fear wrote a letter back to us. It was so eye-opening to see who the voice of fear was, because it wasn't mine.
00:23:39
Speaker
and to recognize that fear just wants to be seen and heard and felt. Because that's what happens is if we're not listening to fear or any of the, specifically the shadow emotions, like fear or grief or anger, they just get louder.
00:23:57
Speaker
I use that tool to write letters to the emotions in Dear Radiant One because it was like I was writing in my journal and it could be really vulnerable and have this conversation with grief and anger and also joy and gratitude, those lighter emotions too, and say, hey, what is it that I'm not seeing here?
00:24:17
Speaker
And so it was my way into the story and kind of you witness, the reader witnessing me through that process. But it was also this way of telling the story in a nonlinear way, because I also thought that was really important too, was not to just say, here's my story from childhood to where I am now, because I wanted to layer in
00:24:39
Speaker
Like this moment that happened as a child is why I'm here right now or why I did that thing in my adulthood. So I wanted to be able to kind of mirror that throughout and not have people get super lost. So as more abstract in this letter, it felt like that's how we can do this.
00:24:58
Speaker
And it's true because within that, you're talking about it and then sharing those aspects in your life in which fear showed up or in which grief showed up. So we're getting to know more about the story in that as well. Now, at the end of these letters, then you do the check-in. Let's check. And this part is the part that for the reader is to know that you're going to go into this book
00:25:23
Speaker
learning about Phoebe's story, but you're going to go also into this book, learning about yourself. Because after you read these letters to the different emotions, in the check-in part, there are prompt questions for yourself, like readers to then sit down and journal. So in the one about grief, is it okay if I read a little bit? Absolutely, yeah. Okay.
00:25:50
Speaker
So in the one about grief, you then mentioned that some of the prompt journals is asking ourselves, what does this person or situation that is no longer in my life represent for me, meaning the person that's died or the person that's left, if it's a divorce, and is there something I can release with her or him, them or it, the situation, the person or the...
00:26:18
Speaker
And then just going on deeper. So with you in this process of your own grief, what are these steps that you took, for example, after your separation, after your divorce, did you do these things in order to allow you to release in those different life transitions as well? And how did that look?
Grieving the Loss of Best Friend Gabby
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah. I think that when I was going through it, it wasn't just me sort of having the ceremony of writing in my journal specifically. It took me a really long time for that one. But, and to go back to an earlier question about Gabby. So Gabby was my best friend that I grew up with. We knew each other since like six years old and
00:27:01
Speaker
We lived on the same street and we had this really beautiful relationship where we were walking along each other's path, but we weren't always in each other's lives. So at any point in our lives, we could pick up the phone and call each other and pick up where we left off. I mean, it was that beautiful friendship. And we also lived in New York City at the same time, but she had a very different life than I did, but we could catch up and
00:27:27
Speaker
So when I was writing this book in 2021, just a year ago, I was planning out how to set aside time. I was creating this structure for the book and like, okay, when am I going to write about anger? Like I was scheduling it. Like I'm going to write about anger here and I'm going to write about fear here. So I had it on my calendar. And as it was going through in writing,
00:27:53
Speaker
I was experiencing them like life, like my present day life was bringing me a situation in for me to really feel anger. I don't remember what happened, but there was something there that I really had to deal with it. So I was getting closer and closer to this weekend of grief and I was starting to get nervous.
00:28:14
Speaker
Because I was thinking, OK, life keeps bringing me a situation, a scenario for me to truly feel it in my body, in my life. And so I was thinking, what is grief going to bring me? Who am I going to have to grieve? And honestly, I thought it might be my grandmother, because I was living near her at that time. And she's 90 now. She's still alive. And I thought, I really am not wanting to write this.
00:28:45
Speaker
Were you nervous that you were calling it into your life? Is that what was holding you back? Yeah. I mean, and you hear in my book too how I have this very strong intuition and I actually even kind of pushed it away because I thought that I was creating the scenarios. So when I was sitting here and I was watching myself experience these emotions, I was like, am I calling this in?
00:29:11
Speaker
So, I had it on the calendar to write for Easter weekends, the first weekend of April and that, I think it was that Thursday, her brother called me and out of nowhere, yeah, Gabby's brother called me and said that she passed away in her sleep. She had an autoimmune disease that we all knew she was dealing with some sort of mysterious illness for the last handful of years, but it was never properly diagnosed.
00:29:37
Speaker
And so ultimately like two weeks before she passed, she was living in Morocco and they said that she had these two autoimmune diseases that could have been, you know, she could have been fine if they caught it early on, but they didn't. And so she had a stroke. I think that's what they think happened. She had a stroke in her sleep and died.
00:29:58
Speaker
So I was there grieving my best friend. So the letter of grief, I thought it was going to be this letter about my grieving my father and my ex-husband, but it turned into this letter of grieving Gabby in that present experience. And so that's where really that specific exercise that you were talking about came because I said, all right, I have to kind of like
00:30:22
Speaker
Buck up right now and grieve her and honor her and also write my book and have something useful to pass on to the reader. And so I did. I created this little ceremony for her because I wasn't near her. Her whole family's all over the world. It was still COVID.
00:30:41
Speaker
like they didn't have a service for her. So I had my own little ceremony that I think it was on Easter essentially. And I wrote a letter. It's not in the book. This was just for me. And I asked those questions like what does Gabby represent to me?
00:30:57
Speaker
What am I taking? The lessons that I had, my friendship that I had, what am I taking with me? What will I continue to honor? What also am I ready to release? Was there something that she represented that I'm also, it's here for me to release. So I went through all of those questions that are in the book for myself and so I could honor her. So I did a little burn ceremony and then I danced because that's what we did when we were kids and it was really, really beautiful.
00:31:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing that. And yes, my apologies that I was like, I got those all messed up in terms of the time like that. She was in her early 40s, right, when she passed away. Yeah. So the part of you saying of what does she represent in your life, friendships, you know, sometimes people really, let me just say this.
00:31:48
Speaker
Just like with friendships and pets, for example, I would give this example, are some of those that when we have a pet or a friend die, society doesn't probably give it the weight that should be given.
00:32:04
Speaker
And these people have probably been in your life longer in people or animals, for example, sometimes and in more intimate situations than probably anybody else in our life. Our friends are those people that we confide in that have traveled through us, like in your case with Gabby and all these different life changes that
00:32:29
Speaker
that nobody else has. They're the ones we maybe say when the spouse left or was mad, when you had an situation. So what they represent in our lives is huge. And I love that you shared her with us and for the reader that's reading this as well when they read this book.
00:32:52
Speaker
that has had someone close to them die, that they will feel kind of represented and heard and that their grief is valid. It is a heavy one to go through. So thank you. I want to touch into the part of emotions and our body and our health, because that's something that you are very passionate about. So let's talk about that part. Yeah.
Releasing Emotions to Prevent Illness
00:33:19
Speaker
So you'll, you'll, you'll see in the book that I was coming to terms with how my emotions specifically anger
00:33:28
Speaker
how I was not feeling safe. I never felt safe to deal with anger because my father had so much rage and he would just turn on a dime when I was a child. And so when I saw that, I was scared of it. And so I pushed it down. And so I remember after my dad died and I was going through my divorce and I had a therapist and every week she was like, Phoebe, you know, you can be angry. This is a situation you should be angry about, right? Anger is definitely
00:33:58
Speaker
in grief. I just kept saying, no, I'm fine. Honestly, I just felt so tired. I was more in that depressive state and I didn't have the energy to be angry, but what happened was I didn't give anger an outlet anyway, so I was actually manifesting it in my body. It came out as urinary tract infections later on. It came out
00:34:20
Speaker
through fibroids in my reproductive system. So I had to get a DNC. So when we are not, like I said earlier about writing the letters to the emotions, if the emotions are not feeling seen and heard and given an outlet and felt, like truly felt, that energy is going somewhere. Emotions are just energy and motion.
00:34:44
Speaker
So if we're just bottling it up and putting it down in our body, it's going to manifest into something else. It's going to manifest into an injury. It's going to manifest into a cold. It's going to manifest into disease. It could manifest into cancer or anything else if we just continue to just pretend that it's not there. So that's a lot of what I offer in my spaces of teaching and mentoring now is
00:35:12
Speaker
recognizing the body, right? Because we've done a really beautiful job the last, I would say like 15, 20 years on the mindset, but it's still just like, you can't think your way out of anger. You can't think your way out of grief. You actually have to acknowledge how your body has been carrying these stories.
00:35:35
Speaker
There's a lot of great information out there now about how our fascia, our connective tissue, is actually like the cells of our being are actually carrying our stories. Our nervous system is responding to these old stories all the time. And so when we really lean into it and start to listen, just like the emotion of seeing and feeling and hearing it,
00:35:59
Speaker
then we can really begin to release it. We can begin that truly begin the process of grieving and releasing it, that space of acceptance.
00:36:09
Speaker
As you're saying all this, as you're talking about the fascia, that's why sometimes people when they go and get a massage or it was like all of a sudden all these emotions start coming up and tears and they have no clue what's happening, but it's stored emotions in your body and it is so true. I want to read a part of the part when you were talking about the different emotions within grief.
00:36:35
Speaker
The part in your, when you talk about grief, grief, what I know of you is you hold everything in the experience of you. Depression, numbness, joy, laughter, anger, guilt, gratitude, fear, acceptance, all of it.
00:37:02
Speaker
And I love this so much because in that aspect of the, especially, especially reading the part of joy and laughter, because it, there are so intertwined. I look back to even after my mom passed away, some of like, I would do little YouTube, like not, yeah, like little videos of funny things. And so I noticed how much humor came out of me.
00:37:29
Speaker
in moments of hardship, even during the pandemic. I did this little like video jokingly like, oh, this is I drew myself like a mustache and like a unibrow and kind of saying like, this is what I'm going to look like, you know, by the end of the pandemic, you know, kind of thing, you know, but really it was a way of dealing with the situation of the fact that we are now here in the house. I can't go do the regular stuff I used to do.
00:37:57
Speaker
So let's talk about all of these different emotions. And you talked about it, shadow emotions, lighter emotions. In reality, they're emotions. So that's who we are. We're these human beings with a beautiful array of emotions. Can we talk about that, please? Yeah. Well, first of all, I love that you touched on how the pandemic was
Complexity of Grief Beyond Linear Models
00:38:19
Speaker
a space of grieving our old life. We have been collectively grieving the last two or three years now. What I feel with grief, as I said in the book, is it holds everything.
00:38:37
Speaker
I get really frustrated when I see the seven steps or the blah, blah, blah steps of grief and it's like you just have to go- Add me to that list. Yeah, just like- Add me to that list, I'm frustrated. There is no checklist. Yeah, no checklist. It's not linear.
00:38:52
Speaker
When you look at, if you look at something like anger, anger has an arc, right? Like most emotions, they have this arc. There's some sort of trigger that makes you quote unquote angry. You get to that peak of it, you release it in some way, right? You come to that peak of that emotion and then it dissipates and it goes back down.
00:39:11
Speaker
But for grief, it holds everything. I remember when I was grieving my father, I was all over the map. I was laughing about a memory that I had of him one moment. And then I was going into crying because he wasn't there anymore. And then I would continue on with my life. And then I would feel guilty and go, oh my god, my dad's not here. And I would feel bad that I was moving on with my life. So it was all over the map.
00:39:37
Speaker
We have to really honor that. And I think, especially in our Western culture, we don't, what you were just speaking of, of the joy and the laughter, is we actually, we're in this weird place in Western culture where it's like, we have to be sad, but not that sad. We have to somehow just button up and continue on. But also, don't be really happy, because that's weird. And people are going to question you.
00:40:03
Speaker
I'm getting myself as I'm laughing here just because I'm like, I don't want to interrupt the thing, but yeah, it is so true. Go ahead. It's just so weird. It's so weird how we respond to grief and we respond to loss, particularly loss of a loved one. And so I'm really that invitation into the book of grieving is like all of the emotions.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yes, I have to organize it to a way so I'm not all over the map in my book. So I do structure it as shadow emotions and lighter emotions just to show like the hero's journey in a sense, right? These obstacles being the quote unquote, the shadow emotions, the lighter emotions are like that space of overcoming it into the space of joy, but they're all here all the time.
00:40:49
Speaker
It's all mixed up, whether it is you call it grief or you just call it life. Emotions are with us. Meditation's a really helpful tool to witness that. Meditation doesn't necessarily need to be sitting still in one place. It could just be out on a walk. How many times have I been on a hike?
00:41:12
Speaker
I feel so many things like, oh, look at the squirrel, or look at that little thing, and oh, nature. And then I go back into my woes me, and I feel whatever I'm feeling. And I remember that I was angry about something. Our emotions change every, it's not just our thoughts, but it's our feelings too. So really acknowledging that and understanding it, and not trying to control them, but just be with them. Really hold this space of
00:41:41
Speaker
A space of acceptance. And it's so beautiful what happens with that space of acceptance and in that, in not judging our emotions as they come and go. And you're right. We do judge ourselves in these emotions, especially when it comes to grief, like, wait, I shouldn't be happy. Or like, you know, why would I be happy right now if my person's not here?
00:42:05
Speaker
put on then the sad face whatever it is either it's expected either by society or just ourselves our own ideas of what grief should look like that then we judge ourselves as we're living through it. I want you to talk about your TEDx talk and how you prepared that because I honestly I had never
00:42:26
Speaker
I've seen a lot of TED Talks. I have never seen somebody dance as they're giving their TED Talk. You've really embodied what you're all about and the movement being part of that journey. So how did you come to decide that this was going to be the way that you were going to present your TED Talk?
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah. It's funny.
TEDx Talk: Storytelling and Dance
00:42:50
Speaker
Everybody thinks, oh, that was so bold. That was so courageous. But honestly, for me, it was the easy way out. You could just choreograph your, it's like I studied theater. So I was like, as I was looking, I'm like, oh, I wonder how, but I'm like, no, I actually,
00:43:06
Speaker
probably is easier when I'm here. This is what I say when I'm in doing this movement. This is what I say when I do this. This is what I say. So I could see how that could make it easier. And because you're so in the movement, it also would allow the emotions and everything to come through. It's just beautiful to watch. Go ahead. Sorry to interrupt you. No, no, you saw you saw it correctly because I you know, well, there are a couple of things that went through my mind because I was invited to do this TEDx and and
00:43:35
Speaker
I thought, oh, crap. People want me. And I've been teaching. And I've been teaching for years to big groups of people. And I've been on stages dancing before. But for some reason, having this invitation to talk about my story, and this was four or five years ago, I can't remember, but before the book. So being vulnerable on stage, not just being a character or teaching something, it was like, this is me.
00:44:04
Speaker
And it was, again, kind of like the writing letters. It was, how am I going to be able to get there and be vulnerable? Oh, I know how to dance. And I also felt like, what if I invited some friends into this too? So it's not just me on stage alone. So I invited one of my dance partners
00:44:22
Speaker
Dante Pallejo, who is now the Artistic Director of Limon, and then my two friends were playing and singing in the corner. So I said, ooh, I love to co-create. So let me see if I can do this in a way that feels good for me so I can go into those places and share my story. But it was a lot of fun. And actually, with Dear Radiant 1, now that it's out, we're doing something very similar with the book reading experiences. I just, last weekend, we had, I had a,
00:44:50
Speaker
painter on stage who was painting to my right live and then I had my friend on the left doing a whole sound healing soundscape with gongs and chimes and singing bowls and then I also had a friend reading some of the letters as poetry while I was dancing. So we had this beautiful experience like this performing art experience of bringing the book to life in a multi-dimensional way.
00:45:13
Speaker
So beautiful. The arts are just such a beautiful tool for us to heal and to connect to our inner emotions that sometimes we don't even know we have and through it, it just comes out as we express it in the arts.
00:45:31
Speaker
Let's talk about your book a little more, how people can get it, and then I want you to talk about how people can connect with you in all these different offerings that you have.
Phoebe's Book and Upcoming Retreats
00:45:44
Speaker
Sure. So my book again is Dear Radiant One, an emotional recovery story and transformational guide to embody the dance of life. And it's really out wherever books are sold online. You can also visit my website, phoebeleona.com. So you can see all of the, if you don't want to spend your money at Amazon or those big stores, there's also independent sellers. So you can go to my website and find
00:46:07
Speaker
Find that or even buy it from my website, too. So yes, and then to connect with me you can go to that website vvleona.com and I also have as I mentioned before Nomad the nomad collective org where it's my retreat business. We also have we're bringing on lots of new facilitators coaches healers yoga teachers and guides that are holding spaces, too So we're expanding our network at the Nomad collective and I will be
00:46:37
Speaker
leading my retreat in Costa Rica in November. And I'm very excited about that. And we'll have more to come probably by the time this airs. We might have another one announced, but I'm not sure yet. But yeah, so stay tuned. Phoebe, I always like to ask, is there anything I did not ask you that you would like to share with the listeners?
Honoring Emotions Without Judgment
00:47:02
Speaker
There was something that we were talking about earlier and I wanted to go back to it. Please.
00:47:09
Speaker
Let me see if I remember. OK. Let's think about it. That happens to me. That's why I end up staying after the interview with all these other questions that I'm like, oh, wait. Because as I'm listening, I'm trying to take notes. So I'm like, oh, let me ask about this. But then I'm like, yeah, I think we will. I'll just start going there. Let's see. And it goes. It will flow. It will flow. Go. It will flow. I trust because we're both intuitive beings and we'll find it. But it was around where we were talking about the stories that we hold in our bodies.
00:47:38
Speaker
And I think that this is really important, especially since your people are listening, are connecting to the stories of grief and gratitude and the gray spaces in between. What I was talking earlier about the mindset is we can't think our way. It's really to honor these emotions that we're feeling in our bodies are also these stories that when I remember exactly what it was, it was the massage.
00:48:04
Speaker
When we have these emotional releases, like you said in a massage or in a yoga class and you're doing a deep hip opener and you just start to feel- Pigeon post. Pigeon post is one that at one time I was like, ah. Yes.
00:48:19
Speaker
Yes, and it's like you feel this rush of heat and anger or you could feel really deep, deep, deep grief and cry. Whatever it is, you don't need to know why, just honor what it is. You don't need to know why. And that's funny because I teach a lot as a teacher to yoga teachers like know your why when you're teaching anything, have intention. But in this case, as this practitioner who's experiencing your body, experiencing these emotions,
00:48:47
Speaker
You don't need to know why you don't even necessarily need to go and dig into your story. Just honor them and then feel whatever that emotion is that you're feeling and go, okay, now what? Now what? Do I need to feel more of this? Have I released it? Is there something else I could do to shift it? So just have a bit of a conversation with it and honor it.
00:49:14
Speaker
and not label it or judge it or try to change it. That's the other thing too, in our Western world, if something doesn't feel right, let's change our mindset, right? Oh, let's do something different that'll control, like, no, just,
00:49:26
Speaker
It's more in that receptive state of just witnessing it, becoming more aware of it. And that awareness is the transformation. So that's where beautiful. Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing it. Yeah. As you're saying of the whole thing of like the changing, it's like, how do we cheer you up? Like when somebody's sad, it's like all of a sudden it's like we have this, uh,
00:49:48
Speaker
urge to want to change how that person's feeling. And I say that even for myself when I feel, you know, in that moment of grief, grief that sometimes my husband like, oh, how can I help? I'm like, no, just let me be. Just let me be right now. I want to be. Or in those times of the month.
00:50:05
Speaker
That's sometimes more emotions. I'm like, right now, just let me be with what I am feeling. I just want to feel how I'm feeling right now. Don't try to change it. Just let me be it. A lot of times it's the person who's responding and reacting to your emotion just doesn't know how to handle it themselves. It's like, oh, let me pacify your emotion because I can't handle
00:50:28
Speaker
your anger or I can't handle you crying or I can't handle seeing you, you know, whatever it is. Because it brings us, right? It's discomfort for us as the person viewing someone going through that because we don't even know what to do with those emotions even sometimes within ourselves, right? Yeah.
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah, it is. As a parent of two teenagers, they go through a lot of different emotions. Yeah. Oh, man. And one of the things I say, anger or disappointment and stuff, I'm like, it's okay for you to feel that way. Let's find other ways in which you can
00:51:05
Speaker
express it in a way that's maybe not as, I don't know how to say it. So yeah, or that it's affecting everybody else in your family or things. And I could say that even for myself, I'm a study theater for a reason. So therefore, could be these big explosive ways of expressing joy, anger, all of them. And how do we
00:51:28
Speaker
navigate them and express them in a way that is safe as well. It's not that it's everybody. Yes. So that's the only thing. It's not about disregarding the emotion. Just like with grief, the emotion itself is fine. It's just how we process it and how we express it that we
00:51:49
Speaker
are to kind of look at it. If we start doing self-harm, those kind of things, those are the ones that then we kind of have to question a little more. Anything else aside from that part that you'd like to share?
00:52:01
Speaker
I just want to say thank you so much for holding this space. As we talked about today of how Western culture doesn't always hold this space for grief. And I love the name of your podcast of having it being grief and gratitude and the gray spaces. So I just want to honor you and say thank you for holding the space for other people and for yourself too and for me. So thank you so much, Kendra.
00:52:27
Speaker
I'm so honored to have you on the podcast and thank you for sharing your story, your journey, being vulnerable. And you said something so key that when you realized that you sharing your story was going to help others is why you allowed it to go there. And I invite the listeners to do the same, to know that your stories matter and that your stories do have
00:52:56
Speaker
a reason for being and they can impact somebody else's life as well. So honor yourself and honor your stories. And thank you again with Phoebe Leona here and dear radiant one that you can find anywhere where you buy books or on her website. Thank you, Phoebe. Thank you.
00:53:21
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:53:49
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.