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[00:00:04] Hey, all. It's me, Dani Baby. I'm coming in kind of heavy today. I'm just going to go ahead and
[00:00:09] preface that. The nervous giggle and all of that. I nature, my nature, my entire identity.
[00:00:20] So struggling right now with being on this microphone at the moment and more than likely,
[00:00:28] I'm just going to end up speaking more to myself. The different versions of myself,
[00:00:35] as well as all the thoughts that are scattered and clattering in my brain.
[00:00:46] I do want to take a second to stem and breathing and movement so that I can actively listen to myself.
[00:00:58] So, here we go.
[00:01:04] Get this out.
[00:01:13] Alright. So I got. I'm in a very interesting space today. I had a really beautiful soul sit with me
[00:01:27] about 11 days ago. They sat right in this chair and sat at and they are no longer on this
[00:01:47] plane of existence with us. It's a, I don't want to say it's a lot. It's just
[00:02:00] process, it takes a moment, processing or maybe understanding that you don't have the ability to
[00:02:09] process at times. Maybe this is how I'm processing. But sovereign status was an incredible
[00:02:23] being that will continue living on and the vibrancy of the community that they gave so much
[00:02:32] love to. Including me. I, yeah, it's really profound the earnestity that existed in that person
[00:02:47] and just the way that they honored each and every single person that they cross paths with.
[00:02:57] Really, really beautiful. So, in honoring that we're trying not to just go through the motions
[00:03:07] I'm trying to exist in it and feel the things feel the anxiety of like, whoa, I can't just
[00:03:17] like call you and crack up about things we're creating anymore. But I will get to sit in the
[00:03:26] levity of conversations that were had and how much you just encouraged me and uplifted me
[00:03:35] and gave me space and time to exist as I do. Thank you. So this morning, I woke up and I was like
[00:03:47] I need to create something. I need to do something so printed some things on a old hoodie that I
[00:03:54] had. It just gives me the best hug like SS used to get me just a great hug and a jovial chuckle
[00:04:02] that could just like send you into further laughter. And I created something. I just put some words
[00:04:12] on a shirt just to remind myself that I'm in the doing and maybe it always doesn't feel like
[00:04:22] it's moving somewhere but there is a constant becoming the change, the shedding that we all go through
[00:04:34] in order to sit as the versions that we are for whatever time space that is and I think
[00:04:48] in passing, there is always just so much reflection. I think a lot of people go to
[00:05:00] whoa, I wish there was more that I could have done. I hope that they know I loved them.
[00:05:09] One more conversation we think these things and in the meantime as it's sitting with us presently
[00:05:19] not really getting to maybe even understand the gravity of how permanent of a shift it is.
[00:05:31] We tend to step away from creativity at times or we there's like really like a middle ground,
[00:05:37] you know, we'll step away from it fully or we use that space to really create and I wanted to
[00:05:44] really create. So I'm doing all of the things that I know last time sort of pushed me to do today.
[00:05:55] So, I think that in it all today I'm also saying goodbye to a different version of myself and I say this
[00:06:15] frequently because we're the constant of moving and becoming these new versions.
[00:06:25] I feel like I'm being like a death du la to my own version of self and saying hey it's okay
[00:06:36] get to become this now you can say bye to these pieces that you've been holding on to that
[00:06:42] unfortunately aren't really serving you anymore and when a big shift like this happens in
[00:06:51] a community and you have an individual that impacted such a big portion of your life
[00:07:01] it just kind of changes you know like sorry you just kind of changes how you look at the
[00:07:12] importance of things. So just to move into acknowledging that I'm going to choose to do these
[00:07:29] things today when it choose to be in the doing choose to create choose to just exist and whatever
[00:07:36] this is I don't know if it's pain, grief, happiness all the things it's like every emotion at one time
[00:07:43] and then it's nothing at all and that's just such a dichotomy I surmise that a lot of folks have
[00:07:53] felt this way currently feeling this way and are yet to feel this. I don't know how to properly
[00:08:09] articulate a lot of things at the moment so I think just in a reflection point for myself
[00:08:20] is to just recognize that I am my own opportunity you know I don't need to be presented
[00:08:28] opportunities in order to see myself as a creative anymore. I am an opportunity and I want to
[00:08:41] take the time to explore that more think this might be my stage of grief maybe
[00:08:50] you know we get handed opportunities we get offered opportunities and we try to size our
[00:08:56] self up to the offer and my good enough and my this and my that and it's like we don't reflect
[00:09:03] on the point that if it was offered then that means we ourselves are an opportunity us you as the
[00:09:15] person that is in the shoes that you're in in the brain you are in the flesh shoot we are with
[00:09:24] the ever so peculiar spirit that we hold in ourselves that we we hold that and I think that if
[00:09:33] we saw ourselves more as an opportunity that we wouldn't give ourselves to things that didn't align with
[00:09:43] didn't align with us we wouldn't just be so willing to give of our energy
[00:09:49] we would vet that in more you know we'd ask more questions to ourselves to those around us we'd take
[00:09:58] more time to observe we'd sit in space a bit longer and meditate on it you know
[00:10:07] meditative doesn't have to be the so breathe in and out and all this calm collective thing it can
[00:10:12] just be conversing with yourself in your head you know maybe going on a walk or stimming
[00:10:20] it's kind of meditation for me is dimming sometimes but just in the profound way that we have been
[00:10:33] given an opportunity to exist that opportunity is us existing and I may just be on this entire raw
[00:10:45] ramble right now it's like talking to myself and all the versions it's okay there's not an actual
[00:11:00] handbook people maybe have tried to write a handbook to something about what all of this process
[00:11:05] of becoming and growing aging learning teaching is but really we all don't have it figured out
[00:11:14] and your handbook may not work for me my handbook certainly isn't going to work for most of
[00:11:22] population and I've just taken a lot of time recently to hone in and re-navigate where it is I want
[00:11:41] to go as a person that really struggles with being a goal setting person or a goal oriented person
[00:11:49] I knew that I kind of needed to change that to prioritize myself as my own primary partner
[00:11:57] and the amount of therapy that I've been in the more self-discovery that I'm in with it all
[00:12:05] is so terrifyingly beautiful because the me three years ago could have never received this
[00:12:13] information openly and been okay with it the me ten years ago would have made so much fun of myself
[00:12:21] and the me way before that would have been like you made it here and here's ringing as I'm saying that
[00:12:33] I'm getting to define what words mean to me I'm getting to live in a more
[00:12:42] harmonious way with all the different parts of myself discovering that I have that different
[00:12:49] parts multiple many and that they all need a little bit of time to shine a little bit of time to
[00:13:00] grieve a little bit of time to just be and so I'm allowing that I am wild so this is all over the place
[00:13:12] y'all but I love a song that Andy R. E. Cings and there's some things in there that
[00:13:33] just resonate so profoundly like in the lyrics that say I am not the choices that my parents made
[00:13:46] not the decisions my parents made and a long time I used to live according to like what my
[00:13:53] parents would think recognizing that they a lot of time didn't think about anybody but themselves
[00:14:01] that's more my mom but my dad's always been who's just kind of trapped in that couldn't really show us
[00:14:16] but anyway I am not those decisions I am not the treatment that they gave me either and I used to
[00:14:25] try to live up to that so much and then see that my mom would live by carries me through me
[00:14:31] in an instance where a group of people would be proud and she'd be like yep that's my kid
[00:14:38] and then in secret would abuse me discipline me if you will but in the moment where there was
[00:14:51] celebration she would join in and take credit but then behind closed doors it wasn't that so
[00:15:02] I never really saw myself as an opportunity until now I want to give myself all the opportunities
[00:15:17] to heal to grow. I am not a healed person but I'm definitely working really hard on that
[00:15:25] in the doing very ambitious to learn more I know this podcast is all over the map right now
[00:15:42] and I never had representations so I'm being representation being the representation I always needed
[00:15:47] I'm being the safe space that I always needed to just let whatever is in here whatever is in here just
[00:15:55] be speak to it all does it make sense to me it does to others maybe not but I think the
[00:16:08] point of me speaking to basically myself today is that these stages these versions these
[00:16:15] becoming it's just the time it just takes time requires time. I used to try to rush these processes
[00:16:31] and that's what ended me up drinking nearly the death and ended me up in circles of
[00:16:38] volts or like predator energy vampires and sometimes I was the energy vampire to myself making
[00:16:50] myself disciplining myself beating myself up if I didn't suit the fancy for everyone if I wasn't
[00:17:04] constantly matching an energy that ultimately wasn't everyone I wanted to match and I forced myself
[00:17:12] to do it you know never asking myself for consent just doing it and I just want to live I can't
[00:17:25] sleep through myself like younger me you know Danielle
[00:17:36] have been so many names I don't really want any of them to be dead I just really want them to
[00:17:45] be honored sometimes they pop up but Danielle I think I think she would be proud
[00:17:54] should be in shock actually getting to be here being this today giving my spell space
[00:18:09] and time grace compassion co-parenting myself in a parallel with my parents
[00:18:21] interesting and the versions that are yet to come you know there's another parallel where I'll be
[00:18:30] on another side of meeting a goal and I'll be talking to this version of myself saying hey he'd
[00:18:37] proud of you so yeah this is just how I'm processing today or not I don't even know if
[00:18:51] this is processing it's really interesting one reflective point I was in as I was in a
[00:19:10] history class in high school I just loved like wartime history the psychological effects of
[00:19:16] it all on folks and there was a book that I read and it was called id been hell
[00:19:22] um it's just a very graphic encounter of uh world war two and in this book the author states
[00:19:34] how can you tell a true how can you tell a true war story and you really can't as we've got
[00:19:45] worrying within ourselves and I don't want to talk directly about like you know wars but just the
[00:19:51] warring in ourselves the grappling we go through with ourselves the wrestling if you will and even
[00:19:59] to reference the Bible today as the ex cult member that I was you know there's a scripture in
[00:20:07] there and it reads and it visions yeah my net that's how that got put into my brain but for we
[00:20:13] wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness against these things you know
[00:20:21] that sometimes just feel like they can't actually be seen but the wrestling part the wrestling
[00:20:29] that at war with ourselves in this version of me could tell a story about how I was wrestling with the
[00:20:38] identity I had with alcohol back in the day or the identity that I had with how I would be in
[00:20:44] relationships or community um the warring that I was in the wrestling that I went through
[00:20:56] to be here and if I tell it as it is now there's truth in it but it's not coming from the same version
[00:21:07] that was in it and they're truth to it right so that truth portion is so interesting when I want
[00:21:16] to come from the most earnest sounding space and I'm like I know that the younger versions of
[00:21:23] myself that were warring with things that version of my truth was that life is pain yeah life was
[00:21:35] very painful and now on the other side of things where I've prioritized myself I think like wow
[00:21:48] there wasn't a way out as that version of myself so I had this shed I had to release that version
[00:21:55] I had to grieve that version so that it could be here there may be a lot of repetition of what I'm
[00:22:07] saying but I think it's important all the versions know that and so when telling a truth or
[00:22:22] a war story to its truth I don't know that I can you know even if there's triggers or there's
[00:22:29] reflections and you go to those spaces and your body reacts you know but then you've been
[00:22:35] empowering your mind and you've been summoning your spirit to be still in calm you don't have
[00:22:43] as reactive of behavior and so the reactiveness in me to grieve as I once would isn't there it's
[00:22:56] at peace and just being in the process but it's just a different reality now
[00:23:08] and so to my younger version of myself that maybe you discover like a little radio or something
[00:23:15] in your listening to an older version of you baby girl it's gonna be okay and won't feel like okay
[00:23:26] because you're not at the capacity to understand that yet and that's beautiful but I'm over here now
[00:23:38] and I really fucking proud of you for not letting go of the little tiny
[00:23:59] moments that may do you feel like it would be okay because it's me telling you that now you know those little
[00:24:10] earrings you would get like ear ringing sounds because it's me telling yeah you know
[00:24:25] so I think that's about what I got for today
[00:24:34] so I think I might just sit here pondering and just being Mike silent for a minute
[00:24:48] but yeah I think what's sitting with me the most as I want to wrap this up is that versions of
[00:25:03] ourselves do in fact leave or no longer with us you know that there's versions of me that no longer
[00:25:12] exists and there's been a lot of grief and relief in it but I think to say that it's okay to be your own
[00:25:27] death du la to that version of yourself like I relinquish what you had to do all this time
[00:25:36] you don't have to be so strong anymore you get a relax and just go be at peace I got it now you know
[00:25:47] so I'm not again here to encourage anyone necessarily I'm more just like observing myself growing
[00:26:02] I guess I'm sorry if this did not resonate with an audience but I'm not sorry to myself
[00:26:15] what this is what doing looks like so being my own safe space now
[00:26:38] and being the representation I always needed I'm just so eternally grateful for
[00:26:52] all the things that brought me here even the painful ones and the tragic ones the Jovel ones
[00:27:06] the accomplishments and accolades if you will and with that just a reminder to continue
[00:27:17] creating earnestly and love and we'll talk soon thank you for listening to this episode
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