Women and Power

Welcome to the first episode of the Woman Uncaged Podcast with Laura Gates-Lupton and Linda Katz!

"We can't be in power if we're not growing and changing; and so therefore, the things around us also need to move with us, consciously. That has to be chosen and decided." ~ Laura Gates-Lupton

In this inaugural episode, Laura and Linda take a deep dive into women and the P-word...POWER. Below we have highlighted a few of the key questions and themes that we explore in this conversation...

- What does intuition have to do with claiming our power? And how does one discern intuition from anxiety?

- We have tended to conceive of power through a patriarchal lens. What exactly is this old paradigm of power (and why is it rarely aligned with women's needs and desires) and what is the new paradigm that we are moving towards?

- What is the difference between the mature power of the Wise & Wild Woman versus the "fuck you" energy of the adolescent Rebel (which is VERY alive in our culture currently)?

- How do we define the difference between power over and power to / power with?

- Why is tolerating conflict a key to claiming our mature power and wholeness, and how does this show up in our most intimate relationships? 

- How are change and growth  intertwined with claiming our power and stepping into true adulthood?

And finally we divine how a world where women are stepping into their power fully would look and feel different from the world that we have today. 

We hope that you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as we enjoyed having it! It is our intention to stir deep thought, welcome emotion, and open up conversation around issues that are important to women becoming uncaged. 

We'd love to hear from you! How do you feel about owning your power and how did these themes resonate with you? Email us: womanuncagedpodcast@gmail.com 

Transcript

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Linda 0:02

Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Woman Uncaged Podcast. I am here with my lovely co-host, Ms. Laura Gates Lufton, who is a money coach and women's liberation. I don't even know what the word is, like supporter, advocate. And I'm so grateful to be here with her and all of the work that she does of helping women to stand in their power to claim their voice through writing, through speaking, and through growing up in their relationship around money. Thank you, Linda. That was so nice. Yes, I'm Laura Gates Lufton, and I'm here with my beautiful and wonderful co-conspirator and business bestie, Linda Katz, who is a beautiful writer and a soulful wild feminine life coach, helps women bust out of their inner cages. And her fabulous, gorgeous book, Homecoming, is now available on Amazon. And I highly recommend it. I've had so much fun talking with friends and clients about this incredible, soulful, beautiful book. So excited to be here with you. Yes, likewise. I wanted to start by reading an excerpt from your book related to women in power, since that's what we're talking about today. Let's do it. Let's dive in. Okay. All right. In this way, claiming our intuition is related to claiming our power. It is often easier to pretend it's not there and that life is constantly throwing us curveballs and surprising us. This allows us to stay in the innocence of the good little girl. But when we listen to and develop our inner sense, we are no longer simply reacting to life. We are co-creating with it. We realize our own capacity to make choices moment by moment that shape our lives in both the present and the future. This is a huge responsibility and paramount on the journey to embodying our wise and wild woman. Thank you. You're welcome. I love, I love that excerpt. What is it about that excerpt do you feel like that speaks to you? Well, I think as somebody who got in trouble for her intuition a lot as a child, part of what that um that's part of what jumps out at me is that owning that is is stepping into power. And as a child, that was power that was very dangerous for me to have. And so part of my journey to my growing my own sense of power has been reclaiming that for myself. Yeah, that's been my experience as well. I think that I mean, so many, probably humans and particularly my experience, women have this powerful intuition. And it uh it does have it comes with this extra responsibility, but also it's not really accepted or valued, or even um, you know, like in our culture, there's not really a lot of space for it or people don't take it very seriously. And I think that as we develop this and as I've learned to develop this, it's like working with life in in greater depth and listening for what is what is coming forth from within me, what are the signs that I'm receiving from nature, from dreams? And rather than pushing ahead or pretending that I don't know something, it's like, okay, but if that is the case, how do I respond now? What are the choices that I want to make? Um Yeah, I think it's a very perhaps underestimated part of claiming our power. I think so too. Uh one of my clients, I think, or maybe it was a friend, I'm not remembering who it was exactly, had an experience recently of posting something probably on Instagram about her intuition. And a commenter, a man, told her that she shouldn't be relying on her anxiety. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And there is something there, you know, like uh for me, there's definitely been a process of discerning between what is my intuition and what is anxiety, because I do have anxiety from time to time. And I don't want to let fear in in that way govern my life, because then our lives have a tendency to become smaller and smaller and smaller. Um, but at the same time, when we do get those intuitive nudges, they can really help us to make decisions that are more in service to our lives. Absolutely. And for me, those times when I've had the most intense intuitive knowing are times at which I should have been very afraid. And I wasn't because I had that really strong sense of just knowing what needed to happen in the moment. Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting. That's what of my experience has been too, is like those moments when intuition comes in. There isn't this like agitated state in my body that tends to come with anxiety, right? Like the fear in like in the body. And there's also not really like this doom and gloom aspect to it, even when the information might not be joyous or what's coming through is not joyous. There is just this like, oh, this is what's happening or this is what's coming. And there's no one feeling about it or another. Right. You gave a great example of that in your book. With my husband. Yes. Yes, yeah. So I'll share it here too that it was a few years ago my husband was working at a startup, and you know, we were talking about something over dinner, and it wasn't like the news was particularly dire in any way, but all of a sudden it came through like clear as day. I was like, oh, they're gonna get rid of the entire sales organization. And soon. And my husband was like, Well, I don't know if it will be that bad, and like, not, you know, and there was just this sense of no, it's I think this is happening, and and I think it's gonna happen really soon. And, you know, that could have been a perfect opportunity. Like, if it was my anxiety, it would have been like, I'm worried about money, and then oh my gosh, maybe the results aren't that great, and so maybe there's gonna be layoffs, you know, like all that kind of an energy. And this one was like, no, I just think this is gonna happen. And within a week, I think it was my husband found out about that. That was indeed the case, that they were making drastic cuts, and within like a couple, two to three weeks, the entire organization was dismantled. And yeah, it's you know, having that awareness a little bit earlier can be helpful in multitude of ways in a practical way, because you can actually start making decisions if you trust your intuition, which I think is that is also a bit of journey for me, like learning to trust that part of it. Me too. Um that you actually start taking action based upon those things. And then um also just from your own emotional grounding that it's like you don't feel so much like kind of like that quote, you don't feel like life is ripping the rug out from under you. Um you can feel a little bit more prepared, like, oh, okay, here it is. Like I knew this was coming and now I can respond accordingly. And calmly meet it. Yes, yes, instead of freaking out. Yes. Although there's still situations when that happens for me as well. So just normalize that. Sure. I was having a conversation with a client this week about standing up to authority, and the example that she was thinking of was doctors. And you know, when a doctor tells you to do something or prescribe something, it's hard to question it sometimes. And she gave the example of having a very young child, and the doctor prescribed something that she didn't feel great about, but she went ahead with it anyway, and it turned out to be exactly the wrong thing. So she didn't trust her inner knowing. Um so we were talking about how to ground into that, like stand in that and speak up and question it and give yourself space to do that too, instead of thinking, well, I've just he said I've got to do this, I'm gonna go do it. Yes, yes, but the pause there, yes, to be able to discern if this is something that you know feels right to you. And I think that's so such a great example because it also ties into, you know, kind of what I call the good girl. Yes, right, like in this position of authority and how we have uh conceived of power in the past and through a patriarchal lens. So wondering, would you like to talk a little bit about that? Like what is the old model of power and what what are we moving towards? Yeah, well, the old model of power is very patriarchal. It's very much uh men in charge, you know, um father knows best. You can't see Linda's face right now, but that was very funny. Um yeah, that model of men in charge, and that you know, women were expected to be submissive to their husbands and in general in society, and to follow leadership regardless of what leadership said. And the leadership was usually male, right? Yep, yep. It's that power over model. Power over. Yep. And I think that has I think that also, you know, we've spoken about this before, but this how that impacts women stepping into power when all of the models that we've seen of having what you might consider power, agency, sovereignty, like so many of these things that are related, and how it's been wielded and how it's been utilized. You know, I think that there's a lot of women who are like, no thanks. I don't want any part of that because it's been uh deeply problematic, wounding, uh manipulative. Yes. Yeah, it doesn't look enticing from that perspective. Um, I think you know, you talk about the rebel in your work. That's for a lot of women, that's the vision of power. It's not the most mature vision, but that, you know, breaking out, doing your own thing, you know, screw everybody else. Flipping the bird. Yes. I was trying to think. We didn't decide whether we swear on this podcast or not.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

So I was trying to think whether I should say it or not. We probably do.

Linda 11:41

Um but yeah, that kind of that kind of energy is probably what a lot of women can relate to when they think about power, but that is not the most mature version of power that isn't standing solidly grounded in your truth and able to be in relationship to other people. It's more of a I'm out of here. I'm like you always say, the rebel defies. It's that like, you know, keeping everybody at arm's length. I'm a I'm a lone wolf, doing everything myself. And and is there some power there? Yeah, absolutely, but it's not the model that we've been talking about, which is more the power with and the power to. Yeah, yeah. I think that's the it's such a huge shift. And I think the rebel is very alive in our culture and has been for a while. And I think it makes sense because we're coming out of maybe the model of the good girl and we're starting to become more aware of it. You know, I mean, the number of people and coaches and that I see talking about people pleasing and you know, a lot of these things that are typically associated with the good girl, we've become very aware of that. And now, you know, we're it feels like we're moving into a bit of that rebel phase. And it's I think there's value in it, but it's like I don't want to get stuck there. No, because it, like you said, it's still not rooted in that power to make choices for ourselves aligned with our own inner voice, aligned with what really matters to us, uh, what we value uh with our communities, you know, in all of these different ways. It's rather it's I'm making these choices in defiance of this old system. Right. And it feels like freedom for time. But if you took away that thing that you're defying, it's like pushing against. Yeah, who the hell am I now? What do I what do I actually want to do? What do I want to create? What do I want to stand for rather than what am I tearing down? What am I pushing against? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because one of the old ways, if you want to call it that way, I know this still happens, that women had power in relationships with men, you know, is the whole idea of make him think it's his idea, right? Like make him think that he's one that came up with this. And so sort of quietly in the background manipulating things. In some ways, that's not that different from the rebel because it's it's defying this person without him knowing it necessarily. So, you know, it's to me that's it's similar. It's like the rebel feels better because it's more uh brazen, it's more visible, it's more out there. But the energy to me doesn't feel that different from this sort of quiet rebellion in the background. Yes, and these ways that we have passively aggressively, slash manipulatively tried to have our needs met, to be able to state our desires without to assert ourselves, to assert ourselves without anyone knowing. Yes, you know, like this like I'm just gonna sneak it in under the you know, under the door here, and then it's like, oh, here's this idea, you know, rather than being able to stand in it ourselves. Yes, yeah, yeah, with potential backlash, with potential disagreement. I mean, that's part of why it's not the good little girl, because the good little girl can't handle that disagreement, you know, the anger that might come from someone else. And like being able to and I think that's you know, we've been talking about this kind of rebel energy, and I think that is related because when we are both are kind of afraid to be in conflict in some ways, right? Because it's like the good girl just subsumes her whole self to protect the the relationship or to protect the feelings of the other. But the rebel is like, fuck it, I'm out of here. Yes, there is no relationship, exactly. And so it's kind of the same, like it's actually a way of not being in conflict, it's a way of ending conflict. Yeah. Because what is it like it's it's harder in a lot of ways, and it requires more of that maturity to be in the container of relationship and to stick it out, right? To say, this is what I need, this is what I believe, this is what I want. And your partner's like, okay, I don't agree. Or your your friend or business colleague or whoever it is, and in some way you have to stay there and kind of be in that nuanced, messy, gray space. Yes. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot lately about, you know, I've been married almost 28 years, coming up on our 28th anniversary, and about um just how relationships need to be renegotiated. And I think that's something that's missing is part of the how we talk about marriage. And part of that is because of the power dynamic of thinking that men have been in charge and are in charge to some degree, and men tend to earn more and all that comes with that. But I really think that especially because we're living longer, and especially because we have, you know, we have emptiness, we have a longer stretch of time after that. Things change when kids leave or when careers end, when people retire, there are all these milestones that need to be renegotiated. And there's that the image of the man who retires and the woman is still doing all the housework and all the cooking and all the cleaning and all the laundry. Like she doesn't get to retire, but he does. Yeah. And the only way that can happen is if we're not renegotiating the relationship. Yeah. But it's it's hard, and it's exactly what you just said, which is that your partner may not like it, may not be comfortable for a while. It's not really pleasing. So all of that is yeah, so all of that is difficult to navigate, but I think it's part of having our power as women is learning to stand in that to live with it, that messy gray area. Yeah, I don't want to live as a martyr, you know, if somebody really loves doing all the cooking and the cleaning, and maybe those women exist. I'm not one of them. Me neither. Either. Um shocking. Exactly. I'm like, but if you exist and you're like, you know, I love this, this is my love language, then sure, go for it. But it's like if that's not true, it's like we carry this like our burden to bear. And it doesn't have to be. It's, you know, like you said, it's up for renegotiation. And it makes me think uh Esther Perel talking, you know, she's been married for many years also to the same man, and she talks about how she's had several marriages, they've just been to the same person, yeah. Because yeah, like external life things change. I mean, I am vastly different than I was when I married my husband because I am vastly more myself. Yes. When I first met him, I was still in that pleasing kind of good girl. I signed up for fantasy football for crying out loud. I mean, I was horrible at it until finally I was like, I don't like this. I don't want to do this anymore. But you know, it was not like I'm gonna be the cool girl who likes football, yeah, you know, and who is engaged in this stuff. And, you know, over time I've become more myself and he sees me in my kind of full witchy, you know, out dancing under the moonlight. And it's it's it's it's different, and he has grown and changed too. And so it's like to normalize that that is going to happen and that that does require having sometimes uncomfortable conversations as well. Yes, yes, and the patriarchy likes us to be consistent, it is not a growth-oriented model, it likes us to be reliable, which is all part of that good girl. And so that part can also be uncomfortable because as we recognize, yeah, like if you've been married to somebody for more than a decade or even just a decade, you've changed. At least I hope you have.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yes.

Linda 20:08

For better or worse, pun intended. You know, it's so why wouldn't the relationship need to change? And why wouldn't you want it to change consciously as opposed to the ways in which we can be martyrs and more manipulative and sort of backdoor the whole thing? To me, that's part of us standing in our power is the recognition of that in terms of our relationships that we need to because we're growing and changing. We can't be in power if we're not growing and changing. And so therefore, the things around us also need to move with us and consciously, and it has to be chosen and decided. Yes, a hundred percent. I think that's so important to have our like the yeah, the the relationships that we allow for that change to occur there as well. Yeah, I mean it's part of growing up. Nobody would ever expect their 10-year-old to be the same as their two as they were as a two-year-old. Right? Like never. But somehow we have that expectation of us as adults, right? Yeah, that we're not going to continue to grow. And I'd like just I love the way you said that, that patriarchy, like this society, is not growth-oriented. Right, it's not. And that and men are victims of that too. I'm not, I don't want to imply otherwise. I mean, the whole idea that a man might choose a career sometime between the ages of 18 and 22 and stick with it for the rest of his life, no matter what happens, because he's the provider and he's got to be out there working and he's got to bring home the bacon and all that stuff. Like they're victims of it too. It's not, it's not just us. Yeah. It's uh And so it requires, like you said, renegotiation on all fronts and to be able to stand and and to speak your your own truth and also to be able to witness and support the the truth of another. Yes. To witness and support them in their evolution as well. Because sometimes it can be easier also to be like, okay, but I'm having my own growth moment over here, but I need you to be my rock. Yes. And it's like, that's not how it works. That's not fair. No, it can be scary. You're right. Like it can be scary to have two people growing and changing at the same time. Um, especially if it's doesn't look like you're necessarily going in the same direction, which can happen.

unknown 22:47

Totally.

Linda 22:48

Yeah. But there's also there has to be some acceptance that you don't have to have everything be buttoned down and in common. Like it's okay for people to grow and change and move in different directions. To me, that's kind of exciting. It's like, what's new in the relationship? What are we bringing in? Like what's fresh and different. And yes, that reminds me of uh, I think I've spoken with you about this, but Gordon Neufeld has these like his six roots of attachment. And I think the the first one is is proximity, you know, like you attach to someone just because you're close to them, they're in the same class as you are, or you know, the same. And then the next one I think is sameness. And it's a very shallow route. And I think in our modern culture, we get stuck at that root. You know, we want we want our partners, our friends to be, you know, have this like need to have a similar viewpoint, need to have a similar interests in life, that there isn't this kind of evolution for that. But as you get deeper into attachment and get deeper rooted relationships, there's more space for that to change. And there's more space for divergence and diversity. And like you said, it's like those are the places to kind of paraphrase Audre Lourdes, right? It's like those are the places where the diff can the difference be enlivening rather than threatening. Right. Right. I see that with my kids, you know, now that they're all in their early 20s and the changes, like it's really amazing to see like them really stepping into adulthood. And there's a occasionally a part of me that will be a little bit sad about it. It's like, oh gosh, my babies are completely gone, you know. But on the other hand, it's so exciting to relate to them in this new way and to see what they're doing and taking on life in this way, and it's really exciting. But they're again related to power, it's letting them be themselves and spread their own wings. And of course, we're there as their safety net whenever they need us, but we don't need to micromanage or step in or overly get involved in their lives, which is what people do when they're trying to retain some power in a relationship. Um, but letting them fly and getting to hear about it and see it, it's like it's really special. And I and I I think that's a similar kind of model of what we should allow for our relationships, if they're not parent and child, but friends or marital relationships or long-term commitments. Yes. And I think you brought forth such a beautiful point there that there can be from an emotional standpoint, there can be these things that live snuggled up side by side, that there can be the excitement of you know, broaching the unknown or this new facet of a relationship, whatever it is, developing. And right alongside it can be the grief of well, what I loved and what I was accustomed to is is changing. And so it's like making space for for for both of those. And I think that there's probably some relation to the more that we can be with all of those different emotions and feelings and make space for them, the more that we're also able to support and grow and grow with ourselves and the other people in our lives as they spread their wings and as we spread our wings. I think I absolutely agree with you. I believe that's completely true. My mom sent me a picture this morning of two of my kids dancing in her driveway when they were little. Of course, I know. And for a moment I had that like, oh, it's over, you know, that's all gone. Um, and then I had a conversation with my son a little while later on the phone. And he's so grown up, and you know, and that's and it's beautiful and lovely. So it's both. It's both. It's like it's sad that it's over, but at the same time, what we have now is great. I think it's that's so important. Like we need to normalize all of those, those different feelings because we're so bad at grief and our culture in particular.

unknown 27:19

Yeah.

Linda 27:19

So we're like, oh, that's you know, like we completely tuck that under the rug, we pretend like it's not there. And it's like then I think that warps the relationship, that warps the way that we're able to show up because we have this huge thing that we're not able to actually consciously engage with in ourselves. Yes, I totally agree. And related to women in power, I see that, and we've talked about this, some of you and I have about that emptiness stage for women. So I'm talking specifically for women who have children. It comes, it comes about for women who don't have children too, but since we're talking about kids right now, we'll focus there for a minute. Um, when we don't allow ourselves that grief and allow it to move through, we can get stuck there and think that like the best part of our life is over because our kids are gone and we're not needed in the same way that we were before. Yeah. When really it's a huge opportunity to figure out who are we now and what do we want and what do we want the next third of our lives or whatever's left to be like. But we do tend to get stuck there sometimes. And and then that there's the whole piece about like, well, I just want grandchildren. It's like because then I'll have somebody else to take care of. Yeah, we can retain our same identity, right? Like nothing, we can kind of we can stay the same. Cause again, like you said, it's like that fear of that fear of change and that fear of stepping into stepping into our power perhaps in a different way. Yes. That I think we are invited to right around that time in our lives, you know, on the cusp of on the cusp of our crone years, if you will. Yes. Our young crone. Yes. Yeah, there's a huge opportunity that we don't necessarily take advantage of. And we're not encouraged to, for one thing, um, but we don't necessarily take advantage of it. It's a there's a lot of looking back instead of looking forward. And it's like I think when we allow ourselves, like you said, the space for the grief to move through, naturally we come to that point where the new seeds will start to sprout. You know, but we need those, we need the tears. We need that, we need to allow that to move through us in order for the next stage to happen so that we don't just get stuck there. And that's kind of that's kind of a topic for another day. I feel like it could be its whole own thing, but it's that I think because we're so afraid of emotion and we're so afraid of feeling, we actually bring about what we're most afraid of in some ways. Yes. I would agree with that. So what is you what like when you imagine a world where women are standing in their power, what do you see? Like, how is that world different than this world? How is it not different? Um shape. Oh, I just see so much more fluidity and less rigidity in terms of relationships and options and choices. You know, because I'm a money coach, of course I often I go right to that too, of like women having plenty of money of their own. And you know, I think of it as fuck you money, but if you have fuck you money, then you can say fuck you to a job, a relationship, a place, a housemate, anything that's not working in your life. You're not stuck, you're not trapped. I think that's probably the biggest thing is that if women have their own agency and their own power, they're not stuck or trapped anywhere, in any relationship, in any circumstance, but instead they can be fully present to whatever they're doing, and they can make choices around whether they want to stay, go, renegotiate, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah.

Linda 31:43

How about you? Yeah, I feel like it would it really excites me as an image, as a possibility to even imagine. Because yeah, I I agree with you. I feel like there would be this greater the fluidity, the more like I feel like a more organic rhythm. Like there's something about our society which is so mechanized and now it's becoming digitized. But it's you know, like before it was we can even see it in like the language we use. You know, we use um right now a lot of things are kind of that digital language, like the language of digital machines. I'm receiving a download. It's like I'm not a computer. Um I I feel like there would be a closer relationship to cycles, to the natural world, to being able to see you know, it's almost paradoxical, right? It's like as stepping into when I feel into stepping into my power and my power with and my power to, there is this function of the web of also noticing, right, that all of the just hierarchies start to break down and it becomes this web of life that I am woven into and I am an integral part, but I am only one part. And that this these webs of relationships, I think, actually strengthen and we start to see that as the net or the safety net, the thing that holds us. It's like each of us standing in our own power is like a node of this web that we can lift one another up when needed, we can show up as fully human. Um we can allow others, we support others to stand in their power as we stand in our own. You know, it's just like these weird power over strange dynamics kind of start to break down. And it would be so intriguing to see almost on a huge macro level, like if we built our society from the ground up from that energy, what the heck would that look like? I think there'd be a lot of self-definition, yeah. A lot of deciding and choosing and trying things out, and everything wouldn't look all the same. There wouldn't be an expectation that families would all function the same, or that relationships would, or that you know, how we raise children. That would be more of a I think I think hopefully there would be more sharing across families, like more of that, like you're describing the web. But there would be more like you know, how stay-at-home dads sometimes feel isolated because they feel like they're the only one. There would be less of that. It would be less, you know, when you do something different than the norm, it would be maybe there would be no norm, you know. Yes, yes. Oh my god, this brings me so much excitement. Yes, that it's that, oh yes, like in so many areas of our lives, there is this benchmark of what is normal. And then, you know, like we're deviating from that. And I think we're starting to see that more and more as we're starting to become more aware of what we call neurodivergence, right? But like we're diverging from the typical, but it's almost like the typical, this idea of the typical is breaking down in some ways. You know, it's like there doesn't have to be this definition of normal in all of these ways, and like this is the way that we do family, this is the way that we do schooling, this is the way that we, you know, all of these things that are just defined. And then when you stray from that, you're kind of like that's we assume that that's the rebel, right? But the more that we're able to embody that wise and wild woman, it's like there are so many ways to do this thing called life. Yes, yes, and there's a richness to that, to to allowing for people to be themselves and not be labeled as normal or not normal around exactly all the things you're talking about, around neurodivergence, but also gender, roles, identities, all of those things, you know, and and having been a homeschooling family, I love that you said education in there. Um, and people assume, actually, at least in my experience, that when you're homeschooling, it is a rebellion. Like a lot of times I would people would comment or ask me like about why we were sort of acting against the school or why we were that really wasn't what we were doing at all. We just happened to have a kid, our firstborn, who was an early reader and who was extremely shy. And the kindergarten teacher didn't want a pre a kid who could read in her classroom. Wow. I'm not kidding either. I wish I were. Um, and so I asked our neighbor whose son was 10 months older, well, because I knew he was reading. I said, What did they do? And she said, Well, the teacher had him read to the class 10 minutes a day. That was sort of the accommodation, and I thought, Oh god, that'll never work for our kid. She's so shy. And kindergarten wasn't mandatory. We were living in Rhode Island and we thought, well, we'll homeschool, she's already reading. How bad can it be? Yeah. And it ended up being amazing. And so the next year we decided to keep going, and the next year we decided to keep going. And that kid homeschooled all the way through until she went to college. Um, the other kids chose to go to high school, but it wasn't a rebellion against the school. We were just choosing a path that was better for our kid. Yes. And that I think is such that to me is what that power to that shift that we're talking about. That that richness of being able to decide for ourselves, not in opposition to, not in defiance of the school, but this is actually what is is best for me. This is what is best for my family. I'm doing what feels what feels right and true. And yeah, that's yes. Yes. Yeah. So in answer to your question, Linda, that's more of what I would want to see. That's what I would expect to see if women were fully in our power, but there would be more options taken. And I would see more people also being able to inhabit their gifts and their strengths.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yes.

Linda 39:10

You know, so often we uh we devalue our strengths, especially if the culture does not value them. And by valuing them, it typically means putting monetary value on them. Um that we could value our own gifts and also, you know, work again in that web with each person having their particular strengths. Like it just feels like I love that you use the word rich because that's what it feels like. It feels like a very rich tapestry to me, that is rather than kind of being at this like everything is the same. And if you deviate from the norm, you're either a rebel or you're an eccentric or whatever it is. And then for those of us who do, it can be very tempting to want to kind of form a little shell around ourselves, right? For protection. Because we're like, I'm just gonna close off rather than opening up. You know, I I also see that like the ability to do that and stay open and stay strong, but also soft. Yes. And in connection with each other. Yeah. For some reason, you just made me think about the women's mastermind group that we're both a part of, um, which, you know, we have nine members right now, which is really awesome. And how boring that group would be if we were all alike. Yes. I mean, we're very different. We all do, we all have a similar kind of goal in terms of what we do in our work. We're all about smashing the patriarchy and helping women evolve and grow and change and all those things, but we all do it so differently. And and we don't all just work with women either. I should I want to mention that as well. But we all have our own approach, we all have our own backgrounds. We live all over the world. We're not the same. And it's that's what makes that group so rich to use that word again and so fun to be a part of and so exciting and also so enlivening. Yes, yes, exactly. It's that again, those those points of difference are where the juice, like that's where the juice is. Like when everything is kind of the same, there's no juice there. It's like flat and boring. Very boring, very boring. Well, and the other thing is we all hire each other too, and we wouldn't be doing that if we were all the same. Exactly. Like I wouldn't have hired you to be my coach if we were the same, because I wouldn't have needed that, right? I wouldn't, right? I wouldn't want your perspective. Yeah, we bring forth different aspects in one another as well. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a beautiful example of the web that you've been talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 42:02

Wow.

Linda 42:04

Yeah. Well, I think this was a very juicy conversation. I hope that uh to our listeners, you've enjoyed it as well. Our inaugural Woman Uncaged podcast. Uh, we're flying by the seat of our pants. This is really Laura and I embodying this, the ethos that we are wanting to bring forth of liberation. And part of that, I think, is allowing women the space to experiment, the space to not show up as perfect, to not have to overprepare, but to to come in and like see what happens, to stay present and to to have fun with it. And so I hope that that is what has come through. And we have a lot of juicy, juicy episodes that are coming up because we have lots of topics around this. Um Laura and I had long conversations anyway. So we're like, you know what? We should really start recording these. Yes. Thankfully, though, for you, our listeners, we these aren't as long as our usual conversations, which are usually like three hours.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

We're keeping it to a tight like 45 to 60, guys. Don't worry about that. But I'm proud of us. I'm proud of us for diving in and doing this today without really any preparation.

Linda 43:28

I am too. You know, I think this is the this is the new this is the new model that it's it's safe for women to do that. Yes. Like think about how many men, you know, they have that the studies that if men meet like a fraction of what a job, you know, the job posting, what the requirements are, they will still apply. And women were like, oh no, I don't meet that one. I can't apply. You know, it's like, let's just show up. You know, that's what this is about. That's what being uncaged is, that's what liberation is, that's what stepping our into our power is about. Yes. Show up. Be you. Yay! Until next time. Thank you. Bye.