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Join feminist coaches Taina Brown and Becky Mollenkamp for casual (and often deep) conversations about business, current events, politics, pop culture, and more. We’re not perfect activists or allies! These are our real-time, messy feminist perspectives on the world around us.
This podcast is for you if you find yourself asking questions like:
• Why is feminism important today?
• What is intersectional feminism?
• Can capitalism be ethical?
• What does liberation mean?
• Equity vs. equality — what's the difference and why does it matter?
• What does a Trump victory mean for my life?
• What is mutual aid?
• How do we engage in collective action?
• Can I find safety in community?
• What's a feminist approach to ... ?
• What's the feminist perspective on ...?
Becky Mollenkamp (00:00.718)
Hello, good morning.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:02.219)
Good morning.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:03.982)
How's it going?
Taina Brown she/hers (00:05.322)
It's gonna write a little earlier than we normally record, so.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:08.962)
Yeah, I know, I can feel it too.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:10.801)
Yeah, me too.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:13.166)
I'm glad I'm not the only one. We have no agenda for today, so we'll see what this podcast becomes. What's on your mind?
Taina Brown she/hers (00:19.637)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:25.225)
My dog.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:26.543)
yeah, well this may end up being a grief episode, huh?
Taina Brown she/hers (00:29.748)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I was thinking, was like, maybe we should have Nikki on the podcast at some point to talk about.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:35.114)
Yeah, might have been good for today. And Smith, the death doula for people who don't know. maybe we can think to her. Yeah, because your wonderful dog that we thought might never die did finally had to put her down a week ago now.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:37.866)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:41.727)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:50.685)
Yeah. Yeah, we had to put her down about a week ago. She had pneumonia a couple months ago, which is like the sickest she'd been in a while. And so she was on antibiotics for like five or six weeks. And then a couple of weeks ago, she just, her health started to deteriorate. We thought maybe she had an infection, like a tooth infection or something.
We took her to the vet and turns out she was in kidney failure. So the kindest thing to do was to put her down. She was 18 and a half. So.
Becky Mollenkamp (01:33.506)
that's all for a dog. If only we could do, you know, I've always been a big supporter of euthanasia and the fact that we don't give dignity and death for humans, or at least I know there are some states that do I think Oregon and I don't know if there's others. I think Oregon is one of the only but we can't have death with dignity in the US for humans, but we do it for dogs is so bad to me. Because yes, you're right, the best sometimes you get to that place where the kindest thing to do is to let them go.
Taina Brown she/hers (01:49.065)
We are.
Taina Brown she/hers (01:54.495)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (02:01.615)
And my father-in-law died a week ago.
Taina Brown she/hers (02:04.704)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (02:06.466)
No, yeah, I don't know what day it is. I'm so out of it because it's been such a long week plus, but he died last Monday as a recording. So two weeks when this comes out and we just had all the ceremony stuff because of the 4th of July holiday. Everything got prolonged and pushed out. So it was seven days to the visitation and eight days until the funeral and burial. So I'm just a day off of that. And what I realized last night is when you go into caretaking mode for others,
Taina Brown she/hers (02:10.824)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (02:20.145)
down.
Becky Mollenkamp (02:34.464)
Like you, it's so funny. It reminds me when my brother died where I totally just tried to avoid my grief and eventually it caught me. It took me, it took a while because I ran hard, but it did eventually catch me. And this feels similar in a way of like delaying my own grief, which I didn't know there would be much, but yeah, the last 12 hours or so have been really heavy for me. I'm feeling like, I pushed pause to be there for my husband and for my son. And now I'm kind of feeling just the emotional weight of all that plus probably my
Taina Brown she/hers (02:55.11)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:03.494)
Vroom.
Becky Mollenkamp (03:04.264)
around my father-in-law dying. You know, for whatever reason I didn't expect, but... the reason it reminds me of you, not to make this about like saying my father-in-law was like a dog, the reason it reminds me of your dog is we also sort of... You know, somebody lives long enough and through enough that you start to think, well, that SOB will never die. And yeah, I think what I realized last night was just this feeling of like, like I think I've been in full-on denial for a week.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:06.984)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:23.996)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:32.052)
Mmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (03:32.776)
as pushing paws again to help others and realizing also that I think there was just this part of me that's like, I don't know, he'll never go. The same with your dog. Like that dog's gonna live forever. So anyway, I don't really want this episode to be super, super heavy and depressing for people, but that is where we're both at in a place of grief. And grief is more, I mean, that is part of life. And one of the things I told my son that I think is important for us to remember, like,
Taina Brown she/hers (03:40.645)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:50.77)
It is where we're both at, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (03:57.826)
Without grief, we don't have joy. You know, those are two sides of a coin. We experience joy because of our grief, because we know it can end, because it can be taken. And that's what allows us to be in joy, is that feeling of it going away. Because if you are in joy all the time, you don't actually appreciate it, you don't even recognize it as joy, because you don't know what its opposite is. Like happy or sad, or angry and calm. Like these are two sides of an emotional coin that rely on each other to exist, because our understanding of one
Taina Brown she/hers (04:10.737)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:19.133)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:27.381)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (04:27.76)
only exists because of the other. And so as challenging as it is to be in grief, is also like the part to try to remember is I have this feeling allows me to know what joy is. There's beauty in that even if it is hard.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:30.005)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:39.539)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I'm at the anger stage. And so I feel like I sent an email to my email list yesterday just about just being so fucking angry. And I think anger is a part of the grief process, right? And I think
Becky Mollenkamp (04:47.118)
Hmm
Taina Brown she/hers (05:07.826)
The grief that I'm feeling about losing little Luna is triggered anger about everything.
Becky Mollenkamp (05:18.104)
Well, right, because you can't parse out. That's something I also agree with. Right, you can't be like, I'm just gonna deal with this little fraction, this sliver of the anger about this specific thing. No, the anger is there and it brings all the anger for it. And we've got a lot to be angry about right now. Boy, do I feel that too.
Taina Brown she/hers (05:20.293)
Yeah, you can't parse out what you're angry about.
Taina Brown she/hers (05:27.688)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just, I rereading uses of anger by Audre Lorde. And actually I have a client, I put this in my email yesterday, but I have a client who is so comfortable with her anger. And I'm just like, I aspire to be like her so much.
Because I feel like, especially as a woman, right? Like we're told not to be angry. It's not nice. It's not polite to be angry. Anger is something that you manage, not something that you experience. Right? And so, and I'm also just like, I'm a bit of a headcase in the sense that like.
I think about my feelings, I don't necessarily feel my feelings all the time.
Becky Mollenkamp (06:25.006)
Oh friend, I ever like, I feel, oh, and I think I feel that a lot. do this with my friend who, my bestie, who is a counselor. She does counseling work with children. she's not a saint, cause no one is, but her work is unbelievable. She works with children who are just in the most awful situations.
But I called her as I was driving to be with my husband, who was with his dad when he died, was just talking to her about it.
She was like, I would love she's like you would be a therapist dream client. And I'm like, why? She's like, because you're so in your head that like you can you think about the thing before you even get to the thing. And like, because I was, you know, I'm sitting here talking to her through it and I'm giving myself all the answers. But part of the problem with that, though, is because I'm always thinking I'm thinking 10 steps ahead. I'm thinking about the way I should be feeling or how to manage the feeling. I don't like you. I don't think I actually sit in the feeling because I'm so in my head thinking about the feelings.
Taina Brown she/hers (07:13.119)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (07:21.199)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (07:26.63)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (07:27.056)
and managing the feelings and talking through the feelings and thinking about what's next in the process that I don't actually just allow the feelings, the somatic experience, embodied experience of feelings. I've...
Taina Brown she/hers (07:34.305)
Yes, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, so like when I was writing the email about being angry, I was like, mean, I still feel like I need to take some time to like feel this. And so and just like think about, OK, where where in my body do I feel this anger and how do I like release that energy? so put on some dance music.
to just kind of, you know, like move my body a little bit to get some of that energy out. But I think the thing that I'm just kind of sitting with grief, you know, lately is that like, cause also we have, my wife and I, we both have family members whose health is like rapidly declining.
So we're contending with that potential loss. We're anticipating that loss, right? Which is a different kind of grief, right, that you experience. And so, and I've been on this like journey for the past year since my medical trauma last year about like how to feel more embodied and what that looks like and what it means to be like just a radically embodied person.
Becky Mollenkamp (08:37.161)
for sure.
Taina Brown she/hers (08:57.554)
how that shows up in my coaching and in my business. the bottom line is denying yourself the anger, the feeling of the anger, right? Denying myself that feeling just connects me from my body. And so in order to really feel embodied, I really need to lean into those feelings and like...
It feels unsafe, you know, because again, anger is a thing that as a woman, as a person in this society, we're told is dangerous, right? It's not something to really feel. It's something to just kind of put on the shelf and leave there.
Becky Mollenkamp (09:44.099)
You know, it's interesting, I'm curious too. This is one of those places where I used to always say that like using women as a universal experience, which obviously I know, you know, we don't do that. like there are, because of all these intersecting identities, there's not a universal woman experience because as a white woman, I have a different experience than a black woman, know, woman who recognizes they may be queer or much earlier than other women have a different anyway, but
Taina Brown she/hers (09:55.825)
you
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (10:09.178)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (10:10.986)
I did say once about talking about women and the ways that we are conditioned to not feel anger and all that. And I had a black woman once say to me, you that you sound like a white woman as you're talking about some of these things because black women often, and it's interesting, I'm just interested to hear your perspective and not your.
universal black experience, but your Taina experience with what I'm about to share. But she was saying, know, black women, have many black women who have a different experience with some of these feelings with anger and other feelings, because we're not in the in these feelings of like caretaking and stuff, although seems to be a little more universal culturally, it's just women are expected to caretake for others. But because
White women often learn to be afraid of our anger for all the reasons that you're talking about. For black women, this woman was sharing in her experience anyway, that black women don't always have that.
privilege, I guess, to shy away from their anger because their experience of just existing in the world, right, is so filled, is so anger inducing that like you almost have to learn how to be with anger. But I'm curious for you if that resonates at all or you like your conditioning, of course, could be very different too in that. curious if you if that's like, especially since you're reading Audre Lorde and her perspective, I'm very curious what that
Taina Brown she/hers (11:15.29)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (11:23.472)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (11:28.273)
Yeah, yeah, I can definitely see that. I can definitely see that. And that has been a part of my experience. think also another bigger part of my experience, I think, is growing up in a household where there was abuse and anger was the trigger for the abuse, right?
And so that makes anger scary. Right. And so there was like these two opposing experiences with anger. Right. As I got older and started to like start to make sense of the world around me, you know, as a teenager, as a young adult, as a 20 something, just constantly being angry because of coming to terms with the fact that like this world is like really fucked out.
especially in the way that it treats.
often marginalized communities. And I remember one semester actually in college and by the time I finished was finishing school, I was in my early thirties, but like I had, there was one semester where I had a series of classes on the same day and it was all like about the fucked up shit of the world, right? Like it was like feminist theory or black feminisms, like.
women and gender studies from an international perspective. And then it was like...
Taina Brown she/hers (13:04.035)
I think it was like women and religion or something like that. And it was all on the same day from like morning. Like my first class was at like eight in the morning and my last class ended at like seven at night. And every week, like that was like the worst day of the week for me every single week that semester because I was just in a rage the entire day. so, so there was that experience, right? Of just like coming into this like,
consciousness of how the world responds to me. But then there's like the early experiences of my childhood where like anger, like you're just like constantly walking on eggshells. Like when you live in a home where there's abuse, like you're just constantly walking on eggshells because you don't know. The anger has been so undelt with, so tamped down that it's just like this smoldering.
hit and any little thing can trigger it. Like you said earlier, right? Like once you get angry about one thing, it kind of unleashes everything if you haven't like processed it and felt it. And so something as small as like getting angry over a spot of water on the floor, right? Like all of a sudden it unleashes like all this other anger and you never know what the response to that anger is going to be. And so those two opposing experience or seemingly opposing.
experiences with anger have just kind of...
Becky Mollenkamp (14:38.296)
Yeah, informed who you are, with. Well, the other thing I didn't, guess I should have said was it's not this particular black woman. I wasn't saying that black women, think, better adept, or adept, is adept the right word? I'm so, my brain is so fried. I think it's right. They aren't necessarily better adept at being with their anger, but it's being able to avoid anger in the way that white women are, we learn in our.
Taina Brown she/hers (14:39.662)
Yeah. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (14:54.958)
think so, yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:05.26)
often have this privilege to be able to avoid anger in many ways, where Black women maybe can't avoid that anger because existing is anger inducing. But there's this added challenge for Black women, I think, that white women can't understand of this angry Black woman trope that's out there, right? So Black women can't avoid the anger but have this additional, the word responsibility is not right, but feeling this self-responsibility.
Taina Brown she/hers (15:10.434)
Yeah. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (15:29.621)
It's expectation, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:30.784)
manage it so that they aren't perceived in this way that feeds into this really negative and harmful trope. Which I think must complicate in many ways that relationship with anger. Whereas white women have this privilege to sort of often avoid anger and just be it use their privilege in a way to sort of not have to ever be with that feeling of anger. And then, you know, when they have it, if they do express it, are allowed like not
Taina Brown she/hers (15:36.555)
Yeah, yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (15:42.144)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (15:52.268)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:59.512)
that it's okay to be angry as a white woman, but when we have it, it's more like, there you're being a Karen for a minute or whatever, which I love when the white women show up as if this is some, like that's equivalent to the angry black woman, right? Like, like we're allowed these moments of you're just sort of like, there she is, but then we get ourselves back into control and it's all okay, it's all forgiven, it's not feeding into some larger thing that affects all white women. Whereas black, angry black woman trope like affects everyone who's black.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:11.809)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:28.449)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it does.
Becky Mollenkamp (16:29.398)
So anyway, it's got to complicate things to make it like a mind field of a feeling for you.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:36.62)
Yeah, yeah, there's it reminds me of that James Baldwin quote. I'm going to fucking butcher it. But it's basically he says something like, you know, to be black and to be conscious is to be angry all the time. And so.
people who aren't angry? I kinda question that. And you know, it's interesting because I remember towards the end of my time in the religious bubble.
I started to realize that I had a lot of mistrust for a lot of the people there who didn't get angry about things. Because I was like, how? I don't trust you. You're too happy all the time. Yeah, how are you not angry? Yeah, yeah. You're either like, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (17:20.782)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (17:26.286)
They could just leave it at how. How? How do you look around the world and not be angered? Yeah. Well, that's a privilege showing, right? Because there is that, I think as white women, and this, like, that's why I think that wellness space that's so full with these toxic, positive white women, anger people, or like, it's just the side eye that I think so many black women give to those folks and why they, and why inside of that space they can't understand. And I remember,
whole mindset coaching space and why it never was right for me and why I don't use that title is because there is this like complete tunnel vision of the experience that I have as a white woman is the universal woman experience. Again, that's where that education that I received early on when I would be, and I still find myself doing it, where I start to talk about women and womanhood.
Taina Brown she/hers (18:17.206)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (18:18.156)
and it's clearly through my white lens, but it's like inside of that white woman wellness space, there is this belief that, hey, I think positive thoughts and look at my life. So why wouldn't that be okay for everyone? And it's your anger that's making you have the world around you feel so heavy, right? And there's just this lack of understanding that, no, it's your privilege that's making it feel like you can just.
Taina Brown she/hers (18:27.627)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (18:33.344)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (18:42.454)
talk, you know, positively talk yourself out of the world, the negative of the world, the Brooke Castillo's and I'm going to call that bitch out. don't care from the life coach school, because that was her whole thing is that, the model as she calls it, which is just CFAR, which is just a, a CBT method of therapy, right? Cognitive behavioral therapy, the CBT method, which is just basically
experiences are neutral. And it's your thoughts that create the feelings that create your actions that create your results, CTF AR. And so it's what you think about the neutral experience is what creates your feeling of anger. So racism, this is where you got into trouble, rightfully so. Racism is neutral. It's just a thing that happens. It's your
Taina Brown she/hers (19:06.166)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (19:20.374)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (19:25.794)
my God, are you serious?
Becky Mollenkamp (19:27.564)
This is her 2020 George Floyd, her reckoning. guess you haven't. Yeah, it was a whole thing. If you go back far enough, everyone, you go listen to her very wildly popular podcast. By the way, Brooke Castillo, for all of her learning, has been found to have given a lot of money to Trump. She's MAGA, no surprise. But yes, it was this whole thing of like, because it had got, it had worked for her. worked. She's a white woman with all the privilege. worked for her. I'll just take like my feeling. Because she started in the space of wanting to be skinny. Right. That was her whole thing. It was like weight loss. Because of course.
Taina Brown she/hers (19:47.786)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (19:54.86)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (19:56.792)
because that's for white women so much of our experiences around being small. And so it started with helping women lose weight by understanding that like food is just neutral, right? Food is just neutral. Okay, food is very different than racism, but fine. But also by the way, food's not neutral.
Taina Brown she/hers (19:58.806)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (20:07.392)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:12.576)
Anyway, nothing is fucking neutral. But she would say like, it's just neutral. It's your thoughts that you're creating like around the food that's then making you feel a way about your relationship with food that then creates actions that have you overeating or whatever and the results are your fat. Well, if you want to get skinny, because who wouldn't, right? Then we need to change the thought we have about food.
Taina Brown she/hers (20:27.285)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:34.414)
Because we just need to understand, no, it's just neutral. It's the thing. It doesn't have to have any power over me, whatever. And if I start to think that, then I don't feel like desire for food. I don't feel all this lobbying. So then I can take different actions and have different results. Well, she started to the same things then in 2020 with the George Floyd incident and all of this, like the racial awakening of America. Lots of sarcasm there. Anyway, she started saying the same things about racism and got her into trouble, right, Lisa.
Taina Brown she/hers (20:42.762)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:57.836)
And that is that space, I think that's out there where it's like these white women, it's like, well, my experience with racism is pretty neutral. Why wouldn't yours black woman also be if you just change the way you think about it, then you can be I am. So that's like this, it's so infuriating where it's like, no, our relationship with anger, every, our relationship with everything is influenced by how, the identities we hold in the ways that we're perceived, including anger. That's one of them.
Taina Brown she/hers (21:04.499)
Yeah. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (21:10.592)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (21:24.413)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (21:28.206)
So I just went on a rant, and by the way, just for everyone, and you probably as well, but like my brain is so fucking fried after this last week of heaviness. if you ramble, please understand that's because I don't know what I'm
Taina Brown she/hers (21:37.813)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no, minus two, minus two. I, you know, we used to sleep with Luna. And so, so it's been weird not having her on the bed.
Becky Mollenkamp (21:53.484)
Yeah.
Even though she only took up like a square inch of it because she was so tiny. That is hard. That's so hard.
Taina Brown she/hers (21:59.787)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, she would sleep between us, know, because she she was so little, she would get cold easily.
Becky Mollenkamp (22:06.604)
And you don't love kids. Like, I understand that. I think sometimes people with children can get very, like, irroly about people who don't have kids and are treating their animals like kids. I get it. But also, I, for 40 years of my life, didn't have kids. And my dogs and my animals, even my cats before that, like, they were my kids. And those losses...
Taina Brown she/hers (22:24.757)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (22:28.202)
Milo, RIP, my Chihuahua who lived to be 15. I he was my, like, I really felt like he was my child. I felt like we had a relationship and I know it, but I mean, they can't talk to you, but they do. should, like you have a real relationship with your animals. And yeah, I hate when people dismiss that as like with this, I really like, well, if you had kids, you know, it's, you know, like.
Taina Brown she/hers (22:38.42)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (22:42.654)
They do.
Taina Brown she/hers (22:52.297)
It's different,
Becky Mollenkamp (22:53.342)
relationship and so is the relationship you have with your mom versus a know cousin or whatever and and even within that everyone has different relationships with different like we can't think there's a universal relationship with anything right and this is going back to that like universality so anyway all that to say it's a real loss and I hate it when people diminish it as if it's not
Taina Brown she/hers (23:06.377)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (23:12.349)
It is, yeah. Yeah, it is a real loss. So we're getting her cremated, so we'll have her ashes.
Becky Mollenkamp (23:21.452)
Hmm. you put what have you decided what you're to do with them?
Taina Brown she/hers (23:25.61)
they're coming back to us in an urn. So yeah, so we'll see what the urn looks like. You know, I have to have pretty things.
Becky Mollenkamp (23:28.495)
you aren't getting one, okay.
Becky Mollenkamp (23:33.132)
Sometimes the ones that they said it's like almost like a box where you're like
Taina Brown she/hers (23:36.88)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure we'll have to, buy something that's a little prettier.
Becky Mollenkamp (23:42.018)
Maybe you two could go do pottery lessons, have your little ghost moment and make friends.
Taina Brown she/hers (23:45.962)
I'm not patient enough for something like pottery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we did have family visit like right after though. Like, so we put her down, I think, on Tuesday and then we have family come in on Wednesday for a few days, which
Becky Mollenkamp (23:51.424)
No, because you're not gonna get it right the first time. So then you gotta like, it takes too long. Just go to the pottery store and buy one.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:10.99)
helpful or not helpful or I know it's complicated, right? Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (24:14.505)
Um, both, both, it was both, know, yes and. So I feel like it kind of delayed some of the grieving, but then it was also kind of fine. So I don't know.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:20.206)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:27.618)
Well, like I've been telling my kid through all of this with his grandpa dying of like, because I think there's this, I don't feel like American culture knows how to deal with Like, we are so bad at
Taina Brown she/hers (24:38.031)
No, no, definitely not.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:42.466)
grief in this culture here in this country. And I see how other cultures deal with grief. And it's much more healing, I think, than and again, I'm generalizing American culture, because within American culture, there are certain groups of cultures that do much better. But like on the whole, America doesn't deal well with grief. The very fact that we give three days of bereavement leave and typically, in most companies, that's only for a certain like your most like mom, dad, sibling. Actually, I don't even think siblings were are often included. It's it's mom, dad, spouse, child, I think.
Taina Brown she/hers (24:54.067)
They're subcultures, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:12.4)
is generally so grandparents forget it doesn't matter how close you are. Yeah, often even siblings because I think when my brother died, I don't think there was bereavement leave because it was adult siblings like that doesn't count or whatever. But anyway, so we really do poorly with grief here. And I was telling my son, it's OK.
Taina Brown she/hers (25:12.723)
Yeah.
cousins, aunts, uncles, pets, yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (25:22.707)
Wow.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:34.304)
If you want to go play, it's okay if you want to distract yourself and sit in the corner on your device and just not think like the idea that you're supposed to just sit in your grief and in three days be over it. Right? Because that is sort of how it feels in America. It's like, okay, we've given you a few days now or a week, whatever, like, and at most it's like you've had a week, maybe if it was a child, like we'll give you a month, but then like your grief makes us uncomfortable is the feeling.
Taina Brown she/hers (25:49.677)
Hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (25:55.592)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:59.244)
Right? So we need you to stop that because it's making I don't like to sit in my discomfort with your discomfort and I don't how to be with you. So get back to normal. And I just think it's important for people to remember too. Like sometimes you can play and like laugh and and I tried to tell him like because he would be like people are yesterday somebody my husband said you have a good time because after the funeral we went over to families and it started somber and then it turned into this sort of like fun. There was music playing and you know
Taina Brown she/hers (26:26.792)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (26:27.758)
laughing they were playing kids were playing games and swimming and and he was like well it was sad and he's like but then it was fun and we're like yeah that's kind of that very idea of bittersweet is exactly right like it can be both it's the both hand so only there sometimes can be distracting in a way that's helpful sometimes it's hard because then you're talking about it and you're like oh I'm just sitting in this but I almost think you have to have both of those experiences
Taina Brown she/hers (26:38.72)
Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (26:46.642)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (26:53.479)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. It's not that one is better than the other. I think it's a matter of like understanding what you need moment to moment, right? Sometimes you need that distraction and sometimes as uncomfortable as it might be, you need to sit with it, you know? And so having the self-awareness to know what is the right course of action in that moment.
is really helpful. It's funny, like yesterday in the coaches circle we had a community call and yeah, no, it's fine. It's totally fine. And we were just, you know, talking about the future resource library and like what it could look like. And we were talking about like having different like not tutorials, but like
Becky Mollenkamp (27:26.444)
Yeah, sorry, was obviously I couldn't.
Taina Brown she/hers (27:49.584)
Everyone's sharing their expertise, basically. And as we said, know, Nikki, she's in the Coach's Circle. She's a deaf doula. So she works with people who are grieving a lot.
she said something, I don't know if it was her or it was somebody else, like, grief is always in the room.
you know, it does. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Like somebody's always grieving and the level of grief varies, right? Like we're grieving.
Becky Mollenkamp (28:14.958)
sounds like a Jordan Manie thing to say too. She's good with those kinds of lines. That's really, that's true.
Becky Mollenkamp (28:26.936)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (28:34.434)
Well, right now we're all collectively grieving America as we know it, right? Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (28:36.033)
Yeah, like just the world in general. Yeah, like there's all those people that got lost in the flood in Texas. There's what's going on in Palestine. There's bills being passed, cutting funding. Yeah, for like health care for people and reproductive rights and trans rights. And there's so much to grieve. There's no shortage of things to grieve.
Becky Mollenkamp (28:50.04)
There's an endless limit to everything that we can be free men.
Becky Mollenkamp (29:04.674)
Well, and I think it's also helpful to remember that I think, again, the way that America deals with grief generally is that we think grief is this one thing, right? Deep sadness over the loss of someone very close to you, right? And again, we define that very narrowly here too of like what you're allowed to be grief. But grief, and I love the way my mom once told me, she's like, grief is just when you are dealing with...
Taina Brown she/hers (29:13.927)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (29:29.364)
something being different than you thought it would be. Right? So with that it is, I thought this person would be here and they're not. That's grief. But it's also like divorce, even if you wanted to divorce. I my life looked this way. I thought my life was going to be this with this person. And now it's not. There's grief in that. There can be, and I've worked with clients on this, I'm sure you have too. There's grief in things that are happy.
Taina Brown she/hers (29:31.706)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (29:38.971)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (29:51.343)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (29:52.098)
Because it like moving you want to move I want to go to this new place But that doesn't mean that we don't also grieve the change what we knew to be part of our idea or our existence And so like grief is so so much bigger of a feeling we want to put it into this really tiny little box We feel uncomfortable with it. So then we can be like, well, it's only this little thing, right? And you're only experienced a small amount of time But like you said, it's always in the room because we're always grieving something. There's always
Taina Brown she/hers (29:58.298)
Yeah. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (30:09.369)
mm-hmm
Taina Brown she/hers (30:18.415)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (30:18.894)
and change is inevitable and change brings with it grief. Always.
Taina Brown she/hers (30:20.837)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think about leaving a job, right? Like when you're like a job that you've wanted to leave forever. And then you finally get the courage or, you know, and find something else or start your own business and you put in your notice and it feels amazing. But then like, there's also a sense of loss there.
Becky Mollenkamp (30:49.218)
Yeah, because you've probably had some friends and the coworker, know, co-workers, or like sometimes I grieve being in an office, just the camaraderie when I'm sitting alone working, there are times where I have a little of that grief. like, like that, I kind of miss the water cooler moment, right? They were going out to lunch with a bunch of coworkers or things. And I don't in any world ever want to work in a corporate environment again, ever, ever.
Taina Brown she/hers (30:52.485)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (31:02.117)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (31:06.17)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (31:15.525)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (31:16.502)
Yet there is still some of that grief. And that's okay. Like we need to hold space for that. We need to do better at that. Of allowing ourselves to say, yeah, there is some grief there. Because I think the reason that we make grief so scary is because we do put it in such a tiny box and then associate it only with the very worst things that happen in our life, right? The loss of a child, a partner, parent.
or you know, and when we make it into that big, giant, scary thing, then we're terrified to touch it. And we can start to understand like, I'm interacting with grief all the time. I can be with, it makes it something we can be with without all that discomfort. And the same way with anger, right? For women, I'm interacting with anger all the time. Those moments when I get a little like frustrated, call it, like that's, if you look at the emotions wheel, we have like the core big feelings, right? Of like sad, happy, angry.
Taina Brown she/hers (31:43.312)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (31:48.101)
the time.
Taina Brown she/hers (31:53.07)
Yeah. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (32:07.824)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (32:08.462)
In that anger if you go out like yeah, it has shades of it and frustration is a shade of anger Just we just because we call it by another name doesn't mean it's not so rooted in anger that frustration is still like I think like I could and if I could learn to be with that I guess I say I can be with anger. I'm with anger all the time I just call it something different or I minimize what it is because I'm so afraid of that same way I'm terrified to touch anger because I've been made to believe I can't be with it, right?
Taina Brown she/hers (32:12.08)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (32:21.21)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (32:26.478)
the time.
Taina Brown she/hers (32:37.606)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (32:38.42)
to learn like no I'm interacting with it all the time I'm interacting all the time these are things that I experience all the time yeah what's that
Taina Brown she/hers (32:40.441)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It also makes it ambiguous. Yeah, it also makes it ambiguous. Like, right, if we have such a narrow definition of these feelings, then when we feel them in a different way, we're like, whoa, what is that? I don't know what that is. And then it feels like really scary and stressful. it's no, it's all like part, like you said, it's a shade of that.
Becky Mollenkamp (32:58.744)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (33:09.304)
that one feeling and so.
Becky Mollenkamp (33:10.542)
Every person should if you've never seen the feelings wheel or an emotions wheel like we should all have them and and honestly, we should Have just carry with you all the time and challenge each other to identify on that wheel what we're feeling because I'm sure we've talked about it here before but there I once had someone tell me that most people can only identify like three feelings or something like the number of ways that most humans can actually name or most Americans anyway, I think was an American study. It's very small. It's like happy sad
Taina Brown she/hers (33:17.87)
and put it somewhere.
Taina Brown she/hers (33:31.3)
I
Taina Brown she/hers (33:37.934)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (33:40.224)
I don't remember, those are the big ones, angry. Like, you know, they know just those very core Inside Out 1 level of feelings, right? It's not even that many, because I think there's five characters in Inside Out. But that's it, that's all they can do. Because we are, we don't understand feelings. We are made to be very heady in this culture and patriarchy.
Everything about our brains is like exalted and everything about emotions is demonized. And so we're terrified of feelings. We don't know what they are. We can't identify them. And then again, like you said, because we make it these little like narrow things, it creates all of this ambiguity where when you try to get someone to say, like, what are you feeling, they can't even pinpoint it because they don't know because we've never learned them. And it's not like we're creating all these emotionally unintelligent, emotionally stunted kind of humans that then that what does that do for us as parents as partners?
Taina Brown she/hers (34:20.302)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:30.734)
Right? It's no wonder we have such high divorce rates. And again, I'm like not, I'm pro divorce. I'm not saying we shouldn't be divorced, but like it's hard to be in couples when you can't communicate feelings. When you don't have a way to feel it. It's hard to parent when you can't communicate feelings. We need to, we need to do better at this. Yeah. I don't know. I should do better.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:42.884)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:48.58)
again.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:53.07)
We Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:54.23)
Inside Out 2 brought at least a few more feelings. like, I can see like, there's some expansion there. I hope they could, I would love to see them keep doing the Inside Out process, like in her 20s, and she's going to college and like, like, what's that like? And then when she has her kids, and then when her parents are dying, I would love for that to happen, because I so relate to them adding on these additional feelings. And like, I love the language it gives my child to express that.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:56.984)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (35:04.526)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (35:18.264)
Yeah. Yeah. We'll link the feelings wheel in the show notes. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:25.966)
One other thing before I forget because I just want to give a huge shout out I don't know if you've ever have I ever talked to you about Bernadette pleasant. She's with
Taina Brown she/hers (35:33.141)
No, I don't think so.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:33.806)
runs something called the Emotional Institute, speaking of emotions. And she's sort of a grief coach as well. But she's all about somatic experiencing of emotions. And it was one of the most profound experiences I ever had. went to Dr. Valerie Raine, who wrote Patriarchy Stress Disorder. So PSD, kind of like PTSD. And she's a white woman, and there's ways that it falls short. it was really, it's a great book. I do recommend it, because it helps for, especially if you're very early in your journey of
of understanding patriarchy and especially as a white woman, I would say, since it's centered in that way. But it's really good in understanding systems and how so much of what we feel isn't us, it's what's happening to us. So it was really healing in that. But she does these free weekends, I think once a quarter or something. And it's a sales pitch. It's really interesting for business on the business front of what she does. It's like a two.
Taina Brown she/hers (36:17.379)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (36:29.184)
night three days sort of a retreat online. And I the first time I like I did it, it's free, but you you'll hear her sales pitch trying to get you to come in. But honestly, I still think what she does is so worth the sales pitch. Just go into it knowing the sales pitch. she gives so much and the people in the room are all there.
Taina Brown she/hers (36:44.258)
Okay.
Becky Mollenkamp (36:49.518)
with the same heart and the same intent for trying to unlearn and do better and have healing. And so was beautiful experience. I got a hotel. It was what started my journey of getting to where I am now. Yeah, hotel retreats. Because I was like, if I'm going to do this, I can't do this at home. So I went to the hotel. It was such a gift to myself. I highly recommend, if you decide to do her thing, go get a hotel. Go do it on your own. But she had Bernadette come in.
Taina Brown she/hers (36:59.906)
I'm doing the hotel. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (37:14.35)
when that was my first experience with Bernadette and she comes in to help you process feelings, to learn how to express feelings, to be with our feelings embodied. And this was in my early, in my journey of like, what the fuck does it even mean to be embodied? What the hell does it mean? Like, I don't even understand how to be.
with feelings or how to feel feelings or anything like it was just so foreign to me because I have always been so in my head and she uses dance and movement because you were talking about dance. She dance and movement and she has you and so it's really nice to in a room alone in hotel room. Don't look at yourself like we put the
just has you move through, okay, what does happiness feel like? Like, how does it feel to start moving and expressing that? then like, and I mean, I found myself, we were going through grief was one of them, sadness. And like, I found myself like curling walls and like, I just had never been with my body and emotions in that way. And it was fucking beautiful.
Taina Brown she/hers (38:04.162)
you
Taina Brown she/hers (38:11.106)
Becky Mollenkamp (38:13.484)
She has this wonderful spirit about her and the way she does this. So then later when I was running my group coaching program, I paid her to come in and do that with my community and they...
loved it. So I highly recommend, think she may do some free or low cost online sort of session well, the group kind of things. So I would check her out. I'll link to her Instagram. It's Bernadette underscore pleasant. And it's she's also, like I said, the emotional Institute. I think she's in New York. Anyway, she was amazing. So highly, you might like as you're going through some of this, if you can find something that she does for free, I can't recommend her enough. It's just really, really.
Taina Brown she/hers (38:27.446)
Okay.
Taina Brown she/hers (38:41.25)
I
Taina Brown she/hers (38:45.239)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (38:49.646)
so helpful when you're trying to understand like what the fuck do you mean be in my body like first I hope you understand what that looks like to be with your feelings in that embodied way not just thinking I'm angry but like feeling it was really healing
Taina Brown she/hers (38:55.948)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:04.482)
Feeling it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have to check it out. I have to check it out.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:11.128)
think you'd love her.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:13.314)
So what do we do from here?
Becky Mollenkamp (39:15.586)
I don't know, like I'm in the place now where it's like, okay, you know, the reintegration part of like, so you go through a loss, especially when we're talking about like, like a death or something, or I mean, even a divorce, but that can be, although death can be long too. mean, my father-in-law has been effectively dying for over a year now. So in that same, you know, there's this like with Luna, it's been this long. Luna went to the community guys who took her to put her down almost a year ago and she.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:41.768)
Yeah, yeah, as she fell back, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:42.35)
And like we've been through the same thing where my father-in-law had to have long removed. He had to go through chemo and radiation. Every time along the way we've been sort of like, you're bracing and then you're like, there's this like, okay. So that's where you start to get that belief of like, they're never gonna go, right? Even though, so it's interesting because people will be like, well, they've been, you've been preparing and it's like in some way, yeah, but in some ways it actually does the opposite where you start to think.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:55.883)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (40:04.466)
well, like, this won't ever really happen. So, but this reintegration period of like, you get through the initial parts of all the things you're supposed to do, you put the dog down, you, you know, you feel sad about it for a few days, you like get the ashes, and then like, now with, know, we had the burial, the funeral, the burial, the visitation, the family moment. And now it's like today's sort of the first day of like, okay, what is the, now you have to get on your with your life without them there, right?
Taina Brown she/hers (40:05.665)
That'll be fine. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (40:16.693)
we go to the funeral.
Taina Brown she/hers (40:30.667)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (40:31.616)
And obviously for me, it's so different than with my husband. He's gonna have a very different experiences. Clearly it's his dad and even my son, it's his grandpa. Like for me, it was my father-in-law, but anyway, it's just like that. Yeah, I guess you're supposed to go back to normal, but it's not, it's a new normal. I mean, I remember when my brother died, it was much harder. It was probably like where my husband's gonna be with his dad, which is this feeling of like, you look around, you think everybody's just.
going on. Don't they know that my don't they know the world just radically changed? Right? Like for you with little like the world just radically shifted or bad is empty. Like you know, this little dog that like we have to like, whatever the loss is for you, your world has radically shifted for everyone else.
Taina Brown she/hers (41:01.419)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (41:14.687)
the rest of the world. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (41:15.826)
is just like it was yesterday, right? And that's such a hard thing where you just, and because that can bring up the anger, like, fuck you, why don't you know that the world is just radically dipped in? You know, the resentment and all these feelings that come up and yeah, I'm like, you just have to slowly start trying to get back at it. Like I feel so fucking out of it. Like it's been a week since I've really done any work. I've been checking emails and doing the best sort of things I can do, but like, I'm feeling this like, don't even.
Taina Brown she/hers (41:23.476)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (41:32.682)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (41:43.905)
I don't even know where to dig in. Like, I feel like it's become so overwhelming after a time where you're just like, then you almost don't want to start because it feels too big to start. And then you're just like, and then that just keeps delaying the problem. So that's where I'm at right now is just like, how do I, how do I sort of hit restart in this new version of what of life is like? That's hard. That's not hard. That's really hard. I don't have the answer. Is that where you're feeling too?
Taina Brown she/hers (41:52.16)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (42:01.449)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (42:05.204)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (42:11.986)
A little bit,
Taina Brown she/hers (42:18.612)
Yeah. Just like, I think.
I feel like I've had a little bit more time than you have, right? Because you just had the funeral yesterday and all that.
Taina Brown she/hers (42:35.656)
I have therapy this week, so that's a good thing.
Becky Mollenkamp (42:37.678)
That is a thing. Yeah. I, you know, I'm trying really hard because my role through most of this has been more of carrying emotional weight for others or I don't want to say that because I can't, but trying to help others to be there so that they have space to carry their own emotional weight, to be with that.
Taina Brown she/hers (42:56.853)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (42:58.702)
maybe feels the right way to say it. Like I'm, I'm just trying to be there so that I can remove as much of the load from others so they have space that they need, you know, my husband and my son and, um, trying really, really hard to not be in, let me fix this for you space. Uh, which is hard. That's hard. Just don't want to see the ones that you love the most in the world, but we have like just having to keep going to that place. Like that's right. No, you have to like, I can't.
Taina Brown she/hers (43:14.249)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (43:20.554)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (43:27.502)
take it from you, can't fix it, I can't change it. What is is, I need to just be there to help you have that space. And then that creates this emotional load that I knew, intellectually I knew, but I think just in the last, again, since the burial yesterday, mean, honestly, we went back to the family thing, I fell asleep. I went inside and I fell asleep. And then I got a migraine last night. And I was like, oh, my body is telling me you've been carrying a heavy load here.
Taina Brown she/hers (43:28.842)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (43:36.992)
you
Taina Brown she/hers (43:54.355)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (43:55.054)
and not wanting to burden, obviously I don't wanna burden my husband with my load because he's got a bigger load, but that realization of that's what the caretaking part of. And I think for so many women, this would be where Nikki would be great too, where I think they can understand that, like, it's a weight we carry. And by the way, this this moment, but we do this all the time. We're carrying that weight that we don't see.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:11.359)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:17.802)
all the time.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:21.698)
the weight of the care that the work we're doing for everyone around us to make their lives here and better to Navi all that.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:27.39)
easier.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:29.848)
We're doing that all the time and that weight is always there. And I think again, kind of like what we're going through, think collectively where so many people are burning out right now because they had already been carrying so much weight. And then this one added weight of the bullshit world we're living in at the moment politically broke them. And that's kind of how I've been feeling. I think in the last day of like, shit, all that weight I've been carrying, I didn't have space for this one additional weight. And that's why it's feeling like it's breaking me, which is that real, like a great reminder.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:52.083)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:57.528)
that we have to stop carrying so much weight that's not for us to carry and we do it as women we do.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:59.783)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, you gotta leave some space for yourself.
Becky Mollenkamp (45:07.246)
which is hard to do. Which by the way, I posted this morning on threads, already deleted it, because I can't fucking deal with people. And my wording, I realize, I think part of it is I don't like, there's that defensiveness of like, if you knew me, you would know what I meant. But you don't know me, because fucking social media, of course you don't really know me. But I posted like, I said I hate when women make parenting their only identity.
What I really mean is I hate that we live in a world that makes women believe that parenting needs to be their own identity. I did repost it with that reframing because get all these people like women shouldn't attack women. I'm like, I this is a statement about like the world that we live in that we make that we make like our sacrifice, our identity. Right. And
Taina Brown she/hers (45:43.743)
Yeah, it's gone.
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (45:52.681)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (45:54.348)
That's yucky. And it's not our, I understand why we do it. It's because we don't have the support structures in place for us to be able to have more space on our shoulders. I just had a client do an activity too, where I actually had her draw her head and shoulders and write all the weight she's carrying on her shoulders. And it was really for coaches listening, it was a great exercise for her because she was like, wow, like.
Taina Brown she/hers (46:05.236)
Huh.
Becky Mollenkamp (46:19.084)
when I see it this way of all these things like sitting on my shoulders. It's like it is too much. And I'm like, yeah, there it is. Like we need to, sometimes we need that visualization.
Taina Brown she/hers (46:22.59)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (46:27.966)
Yeah, yeah, that's so funny. I did a visualization exercise with a client about the weight on the shoulders. Yeah, we imagined it as like a ball of yarn, like different colored yarns, right? And so, and if you just pull one thread of something that doesn't need to be on your shoulders, the rest of it will easily start to come out on its own.
Becky Mollenkamp (46:35.453)
that's hilarious. it's because we're good coaches, Taina.
Becky Mollenkamp (46:54.862)
But there is part that it also makes me think though the fear inside of that, which is like if I pull the one string and I let that thing go. Yeah, and what about the string? What about those yarns that I do want there, right? And that gets scary. And so having to like unpack all of that. Yeah, that's good stuff. So if you are in for great coaching stuff, by the way.
Taina Brown she/hers (47:03.94)
everything will fall apart. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (47:18.744)
to our sales pitch speaking up. Join us on the Goja Circle. We're having, it's like, I've been a little absent in the last two weeks as we've been navigating a lot of this stuff. think the last few months, I think really we've been navigating a lot of this stuff that's been going on and probably will be a little longer. And thank you to Taina very much for helping to carry that load, speaking of loads on your shoulders, but especially as you're navigating your own grief with Luna. But yeah, that's a great space that we're really excited about.
Taina Brown she/hers (47:26.706)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (47:47.552)
and being able to talk about coaching techniques and practices, support each other of like this kind of shit of like showing up for clients when your own world feels so heavy. And then also the business of coaching of like, how the fuck do I get more clients in the door? Or how do get people to understand that it's okay to invest in themselves in this way?
Taina Brown she/hers (47:54.834)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:02.599)
Yeah.
Yeah, or what's the best CRM to use? What are the pros and cons?
Becky Mollenkamp (48:10.058)
Right. So if you are a coach listening to us, we'd love to have you join us in all that's in the show notes as well.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:14.501)
Yeah, yeah. And just remember, grief is always in the room, so don't deny yourself the opportunity to experience it.
Becky Mollenkamp (48:27.086)
And don't gaslight yourself into trying to convince yourself it's not there. Because isn't that what we do, right? We try to protect ourselves. That's what we do with anger. We put it behind this door. like, oh, I shove it in the closet, it's not in the room. It's there. Right? So don't gaslight ourselves. We have enough gaslighting happening to us from everyone else. I think if we could learn to stop gaslighting ourselves, that would be huge. Because I think part of the reason we let other people gaslight us is because we're still doing it to ourselves.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:30.023)
Yeah. Yep.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:36.943)
It's not there, yeah. If I don't look it in the eye, it's not real.
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:54.501)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (48:57.09)
I love the grief is always in the room, which is why I hope even if this is heavy that you've gotten something out of listening to your own grief, whatever it is, is in your room right now too. So yeah, I mean, which is hard. What is going on with that computer in case people are hearing it? It's just keep in there by telling me why do I keep hearing your Apple go bing.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:03.089)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:06.651)
Yeah, treat it like a friend.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:19.779)
It's my very old laptop that keeps like...
Becky Mollenkamp (49:23.554)
that it's get last gasps.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:25.853)
It kind of, it keeps dying and then it's plugged in. So it keeps losing battery, then recharging and kind of restarting.
Becky Mollenkamp (49:34.862)
I mean, it's like, that sounds like it's saying, I want to die. Let me die with dignity, Taina. Like, please, it's time. Yeah, I mean, if it's not, because it's done that a lot in just like 45 minutes, I've heard it least probably a half dozen times. That doesn't feel right. That feels like it's time to say goodbye. Maybe it's too much, because you've already had too many goodbyes. But bye, old Mac. It's just so damn, and you know, if you're a Mac user.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:38.705)
Help! Help! Just put me out.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:48.42)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:53.262)
Yeah. Yeah. At some point I'll get a new laptop.
Becky Mollenkamp (50:03.04)
So fucking expensive. So hard to change ecosystems. Like I don't think I could ever leave the Mac ecosystem. And I feel like Apple knows that they get you by the... ...earlies in the most disgusting way of saying it.
Taina Brown she/hers (50:04.474)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (50:12.823)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. They do last longer than other brands.
Becky Mollenkamp (50:19.31)
I think so too. I mean I had one that was like 11 years old. It did finally die, but I mean that's a long I think that's a long time. I feel like You know, you feel like the little disposable almost ones they make now like they're cheap Yeah, but then they die every other year and you're getting a new laptop every other year. Anyway, okay We have to even grieve our max y'all. I agree. All right. Well, thank you I knew like I was coming in very and still feeling scattered
Taina Brown she/hers (50:28.198)
That's a long time for a laptop, yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (50:37.041)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (50:41.881)
Yes, yes.
Becky Mollenkamp (50:49.934)
But it does help to start just having these kinds of conversations, getting back to just the, I need routine. Is that ADHD? I think it is, but I was telling my husband last night, like, I just need routine. And when I get off my routine, I just feel like I am don't know, yeah. And I feel like other people, kind of thrive on that, but I'm not that person. I need routines. So thank you for doing this today, because it's starting to feel like I'm getting back into routine.
Taina Brown she/hers (50:53.392)
Yeah, yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (50:57.894)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (51:06.576)
floundering.
Taina Brown she/hers (51:13.606)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (51:17.862)
Good, I'm glad. I'm glad. You too.
Becky Mollenkamp (51:19.598)
Good to see you.