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What if our differences aren’t what separate us, but what connect us the most?
Welcome to Similar But Different, a space where Samantha Sadow explores the beauty of human connection, personal growth, and shared experiences. Through heartfelt storytelling and thoughtful reflection, Samantha invites you to slow down, embrace curiosity, and find inspiration in the everyday.
She shares her journey through motherhood, entrepreneurship, mindset, style, and spirituality—encouraging you to explore your own path with an open heart. No matter where you are in life, you’ll find a sense of belonging here.
Join this global conversation and discover just how beautifully intertwined our lives truly are.
If this podcast resonates with you, leave a 5-star review and help others find this space of connection and growth.
Samantha Sadow
What if our differences aren't what separate us, but what connect us the most? Welcome to similar but different. A space for self discovery, shared experiences and meaningful conversations. I'm Samantha Sato Mayfield and together we'll explore motherhood, entrepreneurship, mindset, style and spirituality, all with an open heart and curious mind. So take a deep breath, get comfortable, and let's dive in. You were a young mom. Yes. When you had your daughter, how old were you?
00:45
Leah Thompson
I was 19, so 18 when I got pregnant. 19 When I had her. And yeah, she was actually a blessing. So I mean, it was a challenging time, but I was so happy to have her. And yeah, it was a great experience. Now she's off on her own and she's an adult now. So it's really kind of cool to see that. That piece of it too.
01:08
Samantha Sadow
I think about like what I was doing when I was 18 and 19 and there's just no way I could have had a child at that age. Like, how did you do that as a young mom? Like a teenager, essentially?
01:20
Leah Thompson
Well, I'll never forget the day that I found out. I was in my parents house in my childhood home and I went in and took the test and I remember sitting there and just crying because I was scared. I didn't have a relationship with her dad. And thank goodness my parents were just like, okay, we're here, like, we're going to love you. We're going to love this baby. And it was never a choice for me. Like I was having her. There was something that just clicked inside of me that day that I knew God had put this on me for a reason. And it was hard a lot of the times, but I think it saved me. I think it gave me a purpose. It gave me something outside of myself to think about and to take care of.
02:07
Leah Thompson
And it made me work harder and kind of put my head down and figure out my life and where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be and what I wanted her to know in this world. And I also knew that by me making that decision that I had to also understand her dad's expectations, like what my expectations of him are. He was in no way, shape or form ready to be a dad. And I think for me, I knew that if I was doing this was to be 100% on me financially taking care of her. Like, my expectation from him was zero. And there were times when, you know, of course you get disappointed and things like that where, like he didn't show up or he didn't do certain things.
02:53
Leah Thompson
But I also knew he was completely incapable at that time of doing those things. So I wasn't going to put him in jail when he didn't pay his child support. I wasn't going to not let him see his daughter and have a relationship with her and also take that away from her and that experience away from her because of my own personal issues. She's biracial, her dad's black. And I really wanted her to know her family and know her other culture, this other side of her that is such an important part of her. So I really wanted to make sure that I cultivated that relationship and didn't allow my own bias and my own frustration or anger with her dad's inability to mess that up.
03:37
Samantha Sadow
That's really beautiful. Not letting your own bias influence your daughter's fresh perspective. Correct. On her brand new life and her father who could play a role in her life when he can. And accepting his limitations for what they are, that is something that really, I think resonates with a lot of people. And they're just incapable because of their own personality flaws. But you still want to love them. And the only way out of that is acceptance, accepting them. And how did it turn out?
04:20
Leah Thompson
I mean, listen, went through like with always knowing that was the foundation of where my expectations were. It helped me to move forward with like relationships with this family and things like that. And I look at them today, I look at Elise. She's 24. She's financially independent in this day and age, which is very hard. But she's got a phenomenal relationship with her dad and his wife and her brothers on that side and all of her family. She stays in great touch with them and I'm proud of that. Now I think that it's. If you understand and you meet people where they are, I think you can give yourself a better outcome than if you don't. And that's not to say you shouldn't still have expectations for them.
05:07
Leah Thompson
But again, it was a lesson that my daughter had to learn and had to engage with her dad on that I needed to not necessarily influence. I was the one who was the disciplinarian taking care of everyday life. But I think she was able to make her own decisions and she was able to process those and work through those. And we did together sometimes, but it was beneficial to her and to me.
05:34
Samantha Sadow
So when using the unbiasedness and not wanting to influence her, like for instance, how would you shield her from disappointment or hurt or feelings? Like if he didn't show up, would you just Wouldn't say anything.
05:51
Leah Thompson
No, of course they weren't. Say something.
05:52
Samantha Sadow
You don't want your child to grow up thinking it's them.
05:55
Leah Thompson
Yes. Right. That's where open communication comes in.
05:59
Samantha Sadow
Like, you know, it's not about you. You know, it's about this. Is this person's incapabilities, their own personality flaws. And once you kind of discover that, the hurt can almost, like, go away.
06:11
Leah Thompson
A little bit because it kind of scabs over the wound. But it does help 100%. I think the biggest thing is when she was very little, she didn't quite understand it. When she got older and she could communicate with me better and share some of the things. We would talk through them, and I would have conversations with her dad. But she was also surrounded by a tremendous amount of love. My mom and dad were very much a part of helping me raise her. We all lived together. So she had a wonderful support system at home. She had parental figures. My aunt was there in St. Louis, too. So she had a tremendous amount of people who did love her. So she didn't lack for that love when she got older. And it wasn't that her dad didn't love her.
06:53
Leah Thompson
Her dad just didn't know how to show up for her in the right way. And she would learn how to be vocal with her dad. She would learn how to say, I'm not okay with this, or if I do come, are you going to do this? And if you don't do this, I want to do this. So she learned how to advocate for herself. And we had just talked through those things, but she dealt with a lot of really heavy shit as a kid, and it caused some behavioral issues and some other things. So it didn't come out always in the best way. But I think now as an adult, she's so grounded and so understanding of other people's behaviors and things and tendencies and her own emotions that it helped her later. The abandonment with her dad kind of did get to her.
07:39
Leah Thompson
And then when I met and married my husband, we got pregnant with our first son. My husband's white, her brother's white. And I have a video of us literally the day we told her were pregnant and having a child. And the first thing she said was, you're not going to love me anymore. So she felt like, yeah. So that was a big, hard thing for her within that, because she had dealt with the stuff with her dad, but she always had me, and she always had our things. And now all of that was changing her dad at the same time. Was going through some things with his partner and their kids and things. So it was a lot for her. She dealt with a lot at a very young age.
08:25
Leah Thompson
And I think that comes with when you have a young parent who also isn't married and has a partner. So you're kind of growing up together a little bit. But I think the base of what we did with understanding. I always knew where Kyle was going to be. I always knew that he was going to be doing what he did. But I would always continue to try because I never wanted her to come back to me and say, you didn't give me a chance. You took that away from me. You didn't give me the opportunity because of money, because of your own anger, because of whatever it was. So I think we did that right.
09:01
Leah Thompson
And to this day, like, I just went to Kyle's brother's funeral and saw his whole family, and I went to his house with him and his wife and had dinner and a bottle of wine, and our daughter gets to be a part of that. Now, I think when you go through things that are hard in life and you actually work on those relationships and don't give up on them, and you actually also take accountability for how you participate in those relationships, great healing can happen later on, which is what happened with us. And when things got difficult with her during her teen years, we worked together. She went and lived with her dad. After her senior year of high school, she went to St. Louis and lived with her dad and went to School in St. Louis. And that was extremely hard for me.
09:50
Leah Thompson
But we had to do those things together. That's what she needed at that time. And it was hard for me as a mom.
09:57
Samantha Sadow
How do you, like, just let go?
10:00
Leah Thompson
I think one. There's shame that comes involved as a mom that, like, you failed in some certain way or whatever, that you didn't create the environment that she wanted to be in, but she couldn't be in that environment at that moment. She was struggling behaviorally and was just kind of heightened, and it was best for her in the situation. So I think as a family, we made decisions that were collective, that were. Sometimes it was what was best for us and not for her, and sometimes it was what was best for her and not for us. And I think we had to read each situation and work through it. We stayed in counseling our family, my husband, I, her. And again, that's what I mean.
10:46
Leah Thompson
When you actively participate and you're willing to put the work in, I think it would have been very easy just to write Kyle off and to be like, no, you don't have any access to her. I also feel like we broke a generational curse too. Like you break these curses as you don't play into the same roles that are just there for her moving forward. Like there's blended families everywhere. But as she goes into relationship, she's 24. Like the guy she was just dating for a while, 27 with a five year old, he had a five year old. So she could potentially be stepping into a situation where she's a stepmom or she's a step caregiver, a bonus mom, whatever you want to say. And she's going to approach that situation with care.
11:34
Leah Thompson
She's going to approach that mom with more love because she understands where I came from. She also saw me give her dad's girlfriends and partners grace and welcome the relationship and have open communication and try and make it the best situation. So I feel like that's a gift for her. That's a generational curse that like I could have given to her and she could have played into that. And so many times you see these co parenting situations that are just awful and listen, they're not easy. But when you have people who are willing to be humble in the situation and go in and say, hey, I understand you as a mom, this is of kind to be really difficult for you to share your child with somebody else and to be with your ex partner. That's not an easy situation.
12:20
Leah Thompson
But if you meet it with grace, then I'm proud of that. I'm proud that she'll have that ability and that understanding from the way that her dad and I handled it.
12:30
Samantha Sadow
You must feel really proud of it.
12:32
Leah Thompson
I am very proud of it and I'm very proud of where we are now. It sounds like we just were like this glorious family and I don't want to make it sound like it was all sugar cookies and rainbows because it's work. We were in the depths. My daughter went through a lot of emotional things as a teenager and like, gosh, we struggled. My husband is coming into this marriage as she's nine, turning 10 years old and then starting our family together, having his first biological child. And I think it was too short of a time for them to bond before that happened. So she really struggled to where she fit in. And so went through it. And as a parent, it can be an incredibly lonely place to because we struggled.
13:24
Leah Thompson
My daughter, if I sided with her, my husband didn't feel like, you know, back and forth and kudos to my husband because we've been married almost 15 years. Most men would have not come into my situation and our situation and stayed. Coming in blended family is incredibly difficult. But I think again, we all were willing to put in the work and were all willing to not sweep it under the rug. The goal was for everybody to be in healthy relationships. And I'm so happy to say that now. I feel that. I feel like she's doing so good. She's so grounded. She knows who she is.
14:02
Leah Thompson
I'm so proud of her for that because we all worked for very hard and I didn't know if her and I would ever have this type of relationship we have now to where we are really best friends and that it feels so calm and so grounded now. And same thing with her and her dad and the same thing with her and my husband. And like everybody now at this point did the work, showed up and we all took it on the chin. But we're all reaping the rewards now, which I think is the best part. And just like it makes me emotional because again, I could have chosen that day that I wanted to be selfish and didn't want to be mom yet. I gave up my soccer career.
14:44
Leah Thompson
I gave up going to a Division 1 school on a full ride scholarship to have her.
14:48
Samantha Sadow
Oh, did you? You didn't go?
14:50
Leah Thompson
No, I didn't graduate high school.
14:53
Samantha Sadow
Oh, you did it?
14:54
Leah Thompson
No, I got my GED and I never went to college.
14:57
Samantha Sadow
What did you do?
14:57
Leah Thompson
I put my hat down and worked. I bartended at night. I got a job during the day in the mortgage industry working with for sale by owner houses and did that for a while and then met the right people at the right time and did some work for the brewery. God blessed me with incredible opportunities after that. I did the work down at the brewery and they ended up asking me if I wanted to work for Anheuser Busch after that. And that's what moved me to Florida and started my career there. And I genuinely just wanted to work hard and create a good life for her. I wanted her to see that no matter what, she could do anything she wanted to do in her life. I wanted a better life for me and I wanted a better life for her.
15:45
Leah Thompson
And I wanted to show her that no matter what, you can do it, you can do anything you want to. And I genuinely feel like she knows that. My biggest advice to anybody who is in the thicks of it is just to keep going as long as you have the heart to have a healthy relationship and are Willing to be self aware and be aware that just because you're the parent doesn't mean you're always right and that it's okay to ask for help and that it takes a village. And if you come from a place of love and you're willing to take responsibility for how you participate, I think that you're going to be in a great place.
16:25
Samantha Sadow
Did you carry like shame or embarrassment about not going to college back then?
16:31
Leah Thompson
I did. Now I don't because I've accomplished some amazing things. I've been a business owner, I've sat on boards of charities. I've been all around the world and I have done amazing things. I think early in my life it was a bother to me, but now it's not because I feel like I accomplished all those things without it.
16:52
Samantha Sadow
So did you have big dreams or did you see beyond the blue collar in class or did you have dreams to have bigger and more or were you okay with where you were surviving through it?
17:06
Leah Thompson
Yeah, I think a little bit of both, right? I never had a dream to be rich. I never had a dream to live in a country club. I never had a dream to be at any of those things. What I wanted was to be able to support myself, but I wanted a good life. I wanted a good family. Like that to me was more important than having a lot of things. And I was successful, young, thankfully. I think so much of our generation, like college was like, you have to go to college. If you don't go to college, you're not going to get a good job. And I was one of the only people ever hired to the executive team in Anheuser Busch, like our higher level management team without a college education. And it came because somebody championed me, somebody believed in me.
17:51
Leah Thompson
They saw what I had and they knew that I was capable of doing the job. Regardless of that paper. If you're a hard worker, I think people can go so much further. I had really great mentors who showed me the right way to do things. I'll never forget my director of marketing, the first PowerPoint presentation. I didn't even know how to do a PowerPoint presentation. I went into her and I was like, Crystal, I have no idea. She spent three hours with me teaching me PowerPoint. And now to this day, you should see some of the things I create because of her. I still think of her 20 years later because she was so impactful to me. So I wanted to pass that along within my career. And I was very lucky that I had good people who wanted to Coach me.
18:34
Leah Thompson
But I also went into it with an attitude of I want to be coachable, I want to learn, and I'm also going to work hard. And those are two things that I wanted to teach my daughter too. And then once you learn a skill, you can become a leader, or once you start doing things, then you start leading. You can look at this piece of paper and just because it says I have a college degree, I could be a completely worthless human. I could be somebody who's a non starter. I could be somebody who's combative, who doesn't work well with others, and who's going to come in here and just give you the bare minimum. The degree is great to learn, whatever, but you used to need it. Like, it's great for like doctorates and like specialized careers things.
19:17
Leah Thompson
But I think for me, I learned better in real world experience. I was lucky, but I gave myself opportunities. And When I was 26, I was promoted to the sales manager for what we called on premise, which is like any bar, restaurant, theme park anywhere where you can go on property, buy a beer and consume it on premise. Off Premise is like grocery convenient, where you buy it and purchase it and drink it off premise. So I covered four counties. I had Disney, SeaWorld, Universal Studios. We're the seventh largest wholesaler in the country. I was the first female ever to hold my position at a team of 33. I had 30 men and three women that worked for me.
19:59
Leah Thompson
But what I learned in that job was I had to be able to belly up to the Vietnam vet in the hillbilly bar out in Bithlow. And I also had to be able to walk into the Swan and Dolphin Hotel and have a meeting with the head food and beverage director. We had been running a special on Bud select kegs, and were trying to get rid of them. And in this bar was a big, kind of like Vietnam bar. But he was selling the beer under Bud and Bud Light cap handles, which is illegal. Our driver had noticed it, called me. I called the supervisor on the account, said, handle this please. Get those down and replace them and whatever else. Well, the supervisor went out there and the guy told him to beat it.
20:48
Leah Thompson
The rep went out there, guy told him to beat it. So they're like, leah, I don't know what to do. So I walked in the bar and it's like middle of the day, nobody's in there. And so I walked in, I sat down at the bar, I ordered a beer off this tap, and I asked him to light my cigarette. And we Sat there and talked. I asked him about his service. He had a Vietnam bat hat. And so were hanging out, and I started asking him questions about integrity and about, like, being an integral person and with the military and what that means to be integral. And so I said, I have to be honest with you, since we're talking about integrity, I wasn't here to have a beer and cigarette with you today. I said, I'm the sales manager for City Beverages.
21:28
Leah Thompson
And I said, I understand we sell you Bud select kegs, but you poured me a beer out of that with a Budweiser cap handle. And it's not Budweiser, it's Bud Select. And I said, I need to walk out of here with those two tap handles, and I'm going to give you these. And I said, I know you'll do the right thing. And so he hands me the top handles. It was just one of those things that you have to understand your situation. You have to know who you're dealing with, and you have to able to get the best out of a situation without being confrontational.
21:53
Samantha Sadow
How old were you at the time?
21:54
Leah Thompson
At that time, probably like 27, 28.
21:57
Samantha Sadow
How did you have the fortitude to think like that with somebody? Like, did you. Is that something you learned or is that an innate.
22:07
Leah Thompson
I think a little bit of it's innate for me. And two, I think it's also just like knowing people and like, I genuinely love people and I love meeting them with who they are. Right. And finding a commonality. So the commonality for him and I was the military. And so it's just finding that common thread, I think that can bring people together. But it's also very beneficial in sales and business and everything else to be able to see a situation and know how to read it and be able to adjust and be helpful instead of, you know, I could have gone in there and been confrontational and said, hey, I'm the boss. I'm taking this away or else I'm turning you into the liquor department and you're going to get a fine and all this other stuff. It would have ruined our relationship.
22:50
Leah Thompson
And so I think it was a good situation for all of us. It was a learning experience for my guys, and it was an opportunity to be helpful instead of harmful.
23:01
Samantha Sadow
So you were meant to be an entrepreneur maybe?
23:04
Leah Thompson
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I love to create. I love to come up with ideas. I love to see how I can improve something or make a process better or, you know, that's. I love ideas. I think that People like us, myself, whatever. I think were innately born as self starters and we don't wait around for something to kind of come to us. But I think that's happened a lot with this younger generation and that's something that I try and implore in them is it's so much better when you work for it's so much better when you earn it. And what that brings to you as far as like you as a person?
23:42
Samantha Sadow
Well, it builds real confidence. Yes.
23:45
Leah Thompson
Now that she's older, she's exactly like me. She treats her sister and brother like she's like a parent. But I think for her now she's more comfortable in it because she sees that it's not a purposeful thing. Well, like my youngest is in middle school now and she just had a situation where with like friends. But I think with what Elise, went through with Elise, my communication with my two younger kids is so open, is so honest and they feel like they can come say anything to me, ask me any question, tell me all the tea about the kids at school. Yeah, they feel very supported in that. And I think Elise gave me that, I think she taught me that. So that's something that I feel like was different for her because I was so young, I didn't know what I know now.
24:38
Samantha Sadow
But did you have that growing up with your relationship, your mom, or did it evolve and open up when you had your own daughter, did you naturally always want to be that kind of communicator and talk about hard things?
24:53
Leah Thompson
Oh yeah, I always want to talk it out. I'd rather have a hard conversation and I'd rather hurt your feelings and tell you the truth and lie to you. So sometimes that's kind of got me in trouble a little bit. But I think it's also been helpful because you know, it's honest.
25:08
Speaker 3
Yeah.
25:09
Samantha Sadow
Everything else much more settled at home and things like that. So what do you think about moms who are now choosing to have children on their own without a partner?
25:21
Leah Thompson
I think that it's something that each person has to personally weigh because there is a detriment to not having a partner, whether it's a husband or wife or whatever your orientation is. I think that having a partner and everything is always easier to share the load. To have somebody to bounce ideas off of, to have somebody take over when you can't or you don't have enough left in you from the day when it's all on you, it's difficult. But every situation's not perfect and real and It's a person finds themselves in a situation where they want a baby and they know they're going to be a beautiful mother, go for it. I think babies are blessings. I also think it has to do with your support system too, that you have there.
26:05
Leah Thompson
Like I said earlier, I was very lucky to have the support system in my family.
26:11
Samantha Sadow
What would be your best advice for someone who doesn't have a partner to raise a child with? Whether that relationship just did not work out and they're just not involved in that child's life for whatever reason, that would be your best advice for that mother.
26:29
Leah Thompson
I think one first thing is to find a wonderful counselor, a wonderful someone who you can have as your sounding board that understands your situation and can give you good feedback when you need it. And if you can't do that, I think it's important to have somebody that you believe is a good role model to be your board. I think support is key and I think open communication. But I think that it's important to have open lines of communication. So when your kid does feel a certain type of way, they come to you to get that information and don't go externally to get it and could potentially get bad or wrong information that's not helpful to them. Yeah, we're not going to do everything right. I didn't do everything right. There's a lot of times I've made situations, situation worse.
27:15
Leah Thompson
But having somebody there to walk you through it, to talk you off the ledge, to settle your nervous system down, I wish I would have known that when Elise was little, because I was young, I was reactive. Right now I'm not as reactive and I'm very more calm because I have tools. So I think that's a big thing, is really support and having the proper tools. Don't compare yourself to others. Don't compare your situation, don't compare your relationship, any of it to anybody else, because you really don't know what other people have going on behind closed doors. And also you're different. You know, your story is different. And then once I got married and I had my kids and my two other kids, and it's now it's just evolved differently.
28:02
Leah Thompson
Where like then I was going through Elise having behavioral issues after we got married and with her siblings and stuff. And I felt this level of shame that maybe I did something wrong with.
28:15
Speaker 3
Her when I was younger.
28:16
Leah Thompson
So that was hard for me. So I had to really go through and let go of that shame. And it took me a while, but once I did, I Wanted to share. I was more open with sharing. Once I let go of my shame, I realized how many more people were going through similar things. I found a village in those moms, you know, that were also dealing with similar things. But then I had to realize that's not defining anything, and that comparison isn't healthy because our situations are totally different.
28:50
Speaker 3
But it also took Elise getting older.
28:53
Leah Thompson
And having her own life, becoming an adult, living on her own, paying her own bills, dealing with things for her to kind of start to realize certain things. So I think maturity plays a big role in it, too.
29:08
Samantha Sadow
And how did your other two children grow up feeling around Elise, your oldest child?
29:16
Leah Thompson
When they were younger, they didn't really realize things, but my younger two really just. They just love her, you know, they were really young, and also, like, they just loved her when she'd be with them and stuff like that. Like, she's their fun big sister. So I think, all in all, I think it actually helped me be a.
29:36
Speaker 3
Better parent with the other two, and.
29:39
Leah Thompson
I think it helped them understand having an older sibling seeing things and not to make some of the same mistakes. And I think family is just. We all carry things, but with family,.
29:51
Speaker 3
We also allow certain behaviors that we.
29:54
Leah Thompson
Wouldn't allow outside of our family. She's showing up differently because her nervous system. System is calm now. She feels that now after we've gone through all this stuff. But her and I, over the last three years, have put our heads down and worked. We've been very honest with each other. We've both had to take accountability for things that we both held on to. But once we did that with each other, it's just been this. It's like you let all those things go. But I think it comes down to accountability on both sides, and especially now that she's an adult because she showed up and participated in things. So we really focused on our sides of the street. How do we clean those up? And how do we get to this great point where we're at now? And I'm proud of us.
30:42
Leah Thompson
I'm proud of that. I'm proud of our journey. We've both been through. We've all been through a lot of counseling, but it took me. Her trauma was me getting married, right? And having another family. That was her trauma. That's what all this, like, her behavioral issues in her teenage years stemmed from.
30:59
Samantha Sadow
And how old was she when that happened?
31:01
Leah Thompson
She was 10 when we got married. She just turned 10. So I'll never forget, were in this, like, family weekend that Basically we talked through that whole situation of when I got pregnant and met married Brian and all this different stuff. And one of the moms came up to me afterwards and she grabbed me and she said, I just want you to know that it's okay that you got married. And I didn't realize like how much I had held on to that because I'd like felt, should I have not married my. Like this has caused her this hurt and this pain and all this different stuff. And I felt like for years I was like, but Alicia wanted a family. Like we, this is what we talked about. But I didn't know, I wasn't listening to her.
31:42
Leah Thompson
And also we got married very quickly and for her, she wanted me to take more time. But the thing with when it happened is I kept trying to justify it to her. I could have done it differently. I never thought about it, I never thought about that in that way that maybe for her, all she needs from me is to say, I could have done this differently. I didn't listen to you, I didn't see you, I didn't hear you. But in her 10 year old brain, she doesn't have the cognitive ability to be able to decipher it. I sat down with Elise and I like apologized to her and she literally said to me, she's like, mom. That's all I wanted to hear for the last. That's all I needed.
32:23
Leah Thompson
It was like all she needed for me and all she needed for me was that apology. And it was like, we haven't had an argument since then, we haven't had a fight since then. Like it has literally changed our relationship. It was like the healing she needed. It was like all of a sudden that open wound that was so open, so every little thing that touched it felt like this explosion. It was like instant scab. And so now she can feel things, but it doesn't hurt in the same way. That's her reality, may not be my reality, but that's her reality.
32:56
Leah Thompson
And I had to acknowledge that I had to take responsibility, that I didn't do everything I could have done for her in that moment, even though in those moments and for years afterwards I thought it was, but it was like that click. And it was that shift that happened, but it comes from consistent work. It was like the chains like literally fell off.
33:19
Samantha Sadow
So how could more people just do that?
33:22
Leah Thompson
Take accountability for yourself first. Put your face mask on. You cannot take care of your children, your husband, your marriage, your relationships unless yourself are healthy and viable. So that's where I start is me. I have to hold myself accountable and I have to make sure that, like, I'm healthy enough that I'm not creating these problems, that I'm contributing in a positive way and in a helpful way instead of a harmful way.
33:51
Samantha Sadow
So speaking about entrepreneurship.
33:53
Leah Thompson
Yeah.
33:54
Samantha Sadow
And being a leader, you had your own business. So do you want to tell us about that? Yeah.
33:59
Leah Thompson
So when my oldest was 12 and kind of struggling, I wanted to get her involved in community service and could not find really anywhere in Orlando for her to volunteer or for us to volunteer as a family. So we started going out in community and doing things ourself. We would go down and feed the homeless around Lake Yola and it started to become expensive. So my mom and I decided that in order to keep doing these things, which was keeping Elise with us and doing healthy things, was to create a business. So instead of doing a charity, we decided to create a candle business and it was called Collective Kindness and it was a mission based business and we would just work with whoever we wanted.
34:50
Speaker 3
To, whether it was helping with a.
34:52
Leah Thompson
Family through an adoption or building chair ramps or helping to redo a daycare. But we started Collective Kindness, which was our soy based candle business. We had our first location within nine months of doing farmers markets, and then expanded into our second location after four years. It was a beautiful thing for my mom and I to do together. It gave me an opportunity to be creative, be entrepreneurial, have those same kind of leadership pieces that we talked about, but really be involved in the community.
35:27
Speaker 3
Yeah.
35:27
Samantha Sadow
So the concept was in starting the Collective Kindness, it was because your daughter was struggling a little bit behavior wise, and you wanted to give her something to focus on that was beyond herself,.
35:43
Leah Thompson
Something for us to do together, and.
35:46
Speaker 3
Also for her to see that there.
35:49
Leah Thompson
Are less fortunate people out there. She loved it. She thrives in those situations. She's exactly like me. I was just gonna say. And how did that.
35:57
Samantha Sadow
You see the change in. Yeah.
35:59
Leah Thompson
Oh, she loved doing it and loved being involved in it. I don't think it made the impact that I was necessarily looking for. But again, that's like as a mom, you try and go down every avenue you can to try, and you don't know what it's going to be. You don't know what's going to be the thing that's going to be helpful. But for me, it was a way to connect with her and I think she enjoyed it. My mom was my business partner for many years. She kept the business going even after we moved to the Bahamas. But between both locations, when we ended up closing, we had 15 employees. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was a lot.
36:35
Samantha Sadow
And how did you know it was time to close that chapter, really?
36:40
Leah Thompson
God. God kept putting things on my heart. And there were a couple, like, just really big moments where I needed to focus in on myself and my family. We were debating on moving. It was big time for my husband's career. It was hard for me to let go of it because it was like. I didn't feel like it was done. I still felt like it had a lot of life left in it. But with growth comes a lot of pressure, a lot of responsibility. When we did close, we closed earlier than before we left, so I had time to, like, focus on the house and getting things ready. But it was hard. But it was the best thing for us at that moment because we. Brody was going through, like, he got diagnosed with autism. He doesn't have autism.
37:25
Leah Thompson
Is he probably on the spectrum somewhere where you would consider, like, a little bit Asperger?
37:30
Speaker 3
Yes.
37:31
Leah Thompson
But he makes eye contact. He's social. Like, his brain just works at a very high rate. He's incredibly smart, and once he retains the information, it's there. But I was going through those things, and I was just. I was pulled in a million different directions. You know, here we are getting ready to potentially move out of the country, and I've got. Elise was not in a good place. Brody was doing this. So I had a couple. Two different things where I felt like God really hit me upside the head and was like, you need to listen. It's time. You need to stop putting this off and go ahead and start to close this down so you can focus on your family and what's important, which is this move and being there. And it was a book by this Christian writer called Ali Worthington.
38:19
Leah Thompson
It's called Breaking Busy. And in the book, she talks about how we as women wear a busyness badge. Like it's a badge of honor. Like, if we're not busy, we're not valuable. So it really became this thing, like, what am I trying to do? I didn't want to let my husband down. I didn't want to let my mom down. I didn't let my employees down. I didn't want to let my kids down. I didn't want to let myself down. You know, So I had all this pressure to keep going.
38:44
Speaker 3
And so it was almost like I.
38:46
Leah Thompson
Had to kind of separate myself from it and realize. And that's when the whole kind of concept for me came on, that I wasn't taking care of myself first, so I couldn't take care of anybody. I wasn't being a good wife, a mom, a boss, anything, because I was so stretched then. And so it was that moment where I was like, okay, you need to take a step back. Yes, this is gonna suck. Right? And you created this thing, so it was like you're giving away this thing that you birthed and worked on for years. And so that was really hard. But it was a beautiful end to that chapter of my life. And then went on to our next chapter of the Bahamas. But each chapter in my life has taught me something.
39:26
Leah Thompson
And I think that at this point, I feel very proud. I feel lucky. But I also feel proud that I've created a lot of the positive things that have happened in my life. They haven't just come because of luck. They've come because of the hard work that I put in to not only myself, but to my family, to the relationships that I care about. And in doing so, I feel like I'm in the best place. I'm so excited for this year because I feel so grounded. I feel like Elise is so grounded. Our relationship is just really solid and healthy and exactly what I prayed for and exactly what I worked for. Same with my marriage. You know, it's in the strongest place it's been. I feel very lucky and I blessed and proud of all of that.
40:16
Leah Thompson
And I know that it can be scary when people go through things in life and we carry shame and we carry this weight, but I think we as women need to do a better job of sharing our truth. Because when we show up in truth and we see that in each other, we want to share our own. And the ability for the healing that can happen within that is incredible. Yes. And it's okay to be different people. I think for so long, like, I.
40:45
Speaker 3
Kept myself that 19 year old girl.
40:48
Leah Thompson
I think for a long time, even though I had worked so hard and I could say that I had and.
40:54
Speaker 3
Done these things and shown you these.
40:55
Leah Thompson
Things, I still mentally kept myself back there. That I wasn't worthy, that I wasn't.
41:00
Speaker 3
Good enough, that I was still like, whatever. And it was like the shame.
41:04
Leah Thompson
You have to release that shame. And the only way you can really,.
41:09
Samantha Sadow
How do you release that shame?
41:11
Leah Thompson
You have to confront it.
41:12
Samantha Sadow
Confront it. So let's talk about where you are now.
41:18
Leah Thompson
From like a body standpoint, like mental health and just. I firmly believe that we store trauma in our body.
41:26
Speaker 3
Yes, I do too. And I think that, you know, while I was Going through all of these.
41:32
Leah Thompson
Things, there were so many happy moments, so many sad moments within there. You can get physically ill.
41:37
Samantha Sadow
There's different stages in life. You being so brave and coming here and sharing it, I think is really going to inspire a lot of women.
41:46
Leah Thompson
Yeah.
41:46
Speaker 3
Well, thank you, and I hope it does. And I think I've said this before, and you and I have talked about it, that, like, when women speak the truth and other women hear that from them, that authenticity, that kind of. It allows you the grace to then open up and to share. Like, you and I have talked about that. The reason why I'm here is because I've actively pursued it. I have wanted to get to a point where I genuinely feel calm and my nervous system is not buzzing all the time. I know what it feels like to live in chaos and to try and cover it up and to try and be Stretch Armstrong.
42:26
Speaker 3
It's a deep shadow work that sometimes takes you back a little bit because you're having to acknowledge and resurface things that have caused you pain, that have caused you to put up walls and boundaries that may not quite be healthy for you. So it's like once you acknowledge your fear, you realize that it doesn't have as much power as you've given. And again, we talk about expectations. Like, my expectations of certain things were up here when really they needed to be down here. And it's understanding the expectations that we give to other people and the power that we give to other people. And I think that's been a big life lesson for me.
43:09
Speaker 3
And I had it recently where I had to cut off a very close friendship for a little while, one of my best friends, but she was behaving in a way that was causing a lot of unnecessary problems and stress. And I tried to have a conversation, and it got flipped around. And at first she apologized. I felt like the apology was genuine. And after the weekend was over, somehow became that I was being judgmental and that this is not how it happened, and that's not what she said and kind of took back all that accountability. I was so disappointed. But then I had to sit back and think about, like, where she's at within this whole thing and how I want to approach this, because, one, I need to do it with care, but two, I need to build a boundary.
44:01
Speaker 3
And I tried to have those conversations and the behavior kind of continue. So I had to say, like, clearly we're seeing things differently right now. I need to take a step back. Right? Like, when your behavior becomes toxic and it starts Impacting my life. And it's not just a one off. And oh, my gosh, I'm sorry, it was this, and now it's 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 things that have happened. And you cross the line in a point where accountability gets lost. Like, again, not trying to punish you. I'm not your mother. I'm your friend. You hurt my feelings. You hurt me in a way that I needed to share that with you and say, like, I'm not okay with this if this keeps happening.
44:44
Speaker 3
And then to have the accountability taken back, it really just put me in a place where I had to shut it down and cut that friendship off for a while because I needed to do it to protect myself. And clearly I didn't say anything. So it grew from, I should have nipped it in the bud in the first one or two times that things happened, and then I didn't. And I allowed it to go on because of the friendship and because of the closeness. And I didn't want to be like, I was being judgmental or whatever. It is almost like breaking my trust because now I don't trust that, like, it's not going to happen again. Right.
45:17
Speaker 3
So that's why I had to, like, step away from it a little bit and be like, let me just take a breath so I'm not upset and I'm not angry about it. And then I sent her a message and she really responded to it, which is great. So it kind of quieted everything down. And I just like, let's just give this a shot and see. And now we're going to have a conversation soon. I feel like I'm in a better place where I can have a conversation about it. Hopefully she is. And we'll see if we can move forward as friends. And if we can, great, then that's wonderful. I think that's it.
45:49
Speaker 3
Like, if you and I are in a friendship and I hurt your feelings, and you say to me, leah, the way you said that really hurt my feelings, I shouldn't be like, oh, well, that was because of this and that it should just be, samantha, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I apologize for doing that, and I won't do that again. And that's accountability. And those are the things that I know to be so powerful in my own life because I watched it happen. When I took accountability with my daughter, and I watched years and years of trauma just go away because I finally took accountability of that. I could have handled things differently. I could have shown up differently for you. I wasn't exactly what you needed me to be in that moment. And I'm sorry that I wasn't.
46:36
Speaker 3
And I want you to know that if I could go back and support you better and better in those moments, I would 100% do that. And not that it needs to be that deep, but just when we screw up, we say, I'm sorry. It's just, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you in that moment. I'm sorry that I hurt you with my words. I'm sorry I hurt you with my actions.
46:58
Samantha Sadow
But what if we don't get that?
47:00
Speaker 3
Sorry, That's a difficult thing. You have to make a decision on how you move forward with that person. And if that person isn't able to give you that, how you move forward. And depending on the relationship, obviously, whether it's husbands or girlfriends or whatever it is, the expectation of that person is going to change because your expectation of them was up here and they didn't meet that. And I feel like we have to stand up for ourselves and say things to people when they do hurt us or they do behave in a certain way, because we can't get bad and go back when they keep behaving that way. And it doesn't have to be mean and it doesn't have to be confrontational. It's, hey, can I check in with you? I'm really frustrated and uncurt by and hopefully moving forward with this friend.
47:52
Speaker 3
We have a very positive conversation and we can move forward in our friendship because it's important to me. I care about her. She's somebody that even during this time of, like, pause, there's been so many things I've wanted to call her about or talk to her about, and clearly that still means something to me. So hopefully we can move past this and those things don't happen again. But I can only go into it with what I have, and that's my expectation.
48:21
Samantha Sadow
What do you need to restart this friendship?
48:24
Speaker 3
Yeah, just accountability. I mean, just saying, you know what? I screwed up by doing that and by saying those things. And I understand how that hurt you and how it caused issues in certain areas. And I am just sorry. That's it. I mean, I don't even need all of that. Even just an I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry that I kind of recanted my things. And it's just an I'm sorry. It's just acknowledging that those things were not okay because they weren't. And if we're going to move forward, she has to be able to acknowledge that if she can't, then we just continue to move forward with the pause the way it is. And we still see each other. We still do things that are within groups with each other. It's just a different dynamic.
49:15
Speaker 3
So if she's unable to still meet me there, then I know how I need to move in my own life to protect my peace and my boundaries and what I value in a friendship.
49:29
Samantha Sadow
And it sounds like it is a meaningful friendship with a lot of history. And what is meant to be will be. And if not now, maybe later. Yeah, but it's like we're all on this journey in life, going on our own path. And sometimes people will just like, come in and out and keep popping in, maybe bounce out a little bit, then come back in and get close again. And it's impossible to control people and make them be in your heart at all times because, like, they're going through their own stuff and some stuff. Even if you really know a person well, there's still so much that you don't see.
50:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, a hundred percent. We talked about when I was going through Astra, really kind of having that breakdown and trying to figure out how I could heal myself and my relationships and went and did the ayahuasca.
50:21
Samantha Sadow
You went on an ayahuasca? Sure.
50:23
Speaker 3
When was this? This was in September of 23. I went to Peru.
50:28
Samantha Sadow
What possessed you off to do this? Why are you all by yourself with anybody?
50:32
Speaker 3
By myself for eight, nine days. I was in probably in one of the worst mental places I had been. I felt like I was having just like a breakdown. I actually went and got on medication, which is like, I'm not really super for. I researched for a while because I'm a more holistic type person and really wanted to dive in more to the meditation, breath, work the somatics. And led me down a path where I researched ayahuasca, which is a plant medicine that can help people who have been through traumatic events in their life and or have addictions, mental health issues. Lots of different things can help you access a different part of your brain and help you heal some of those traumas. The way to work with your body and your mind, because your body and your mind are incredibly powerful.
51:24
Speaker 3
And we store trauma in our body. We store different things which can cause physical ailments, mental ailments, all kinds of different things within your life. And for me, I didn't just want to cover it up. I Needed to calm it down. And then I wanted to, like, face it, and I wanted to get to the root of why I was where I was at this point. And I can look back at it now and say this, like, I thought I knew better. And again, like I said, if you just listen to what I want, if you just do what I want you to do, you'll better. Well, not like. I wasn't saying it like that, but that was the broad strokes of it. Like with Elise, like, didn't you want a family? This is what we wanted.
52:13
Speaker 3
When I was a single mom with you for nine years, we wanted a family, but she didn't want it in this way. The way that things happened and the other things that were going on, not that she didn't want it. It was too fast for her, and she felt left.
52:28
Samantha Sadow
Sometimes we just want somebody to acknowledge our feelings and not do anything at all.
52:33
Speaker 3
And trying to tell you how to.
52:34
Samantha Sadow
Feel, just be seen, right? Yeah.
52:36
Speaker 3
And I tried to fix it all. I wanted to fix it all, you know, and I tried to show up the way that I thought everybody needed me to show up for them, and I wasn't showing up for myself. So then again, you go back to expectations, and it's just this vicious cycle. It's like when you've been immaculate tangled, and you just gotta start pulling things out and going under one and over another, and eventually you'll get the knot out, but you gotta keep trying.
53:03
Samantha Sadow
And this might be one of the biggest lessons for all us as moms is to let our children be children and not try to fix everything. Let them feel their own feelings, feel them without trying to fix it. Just let them sit in it and sit with them.
53:24
Speaker 3
So years later, realizing and coming to the conclusion that, you know, I could have handled things differently, and I'm sorry that I didn't hear you and I didn't listen to you and I didn't talk to you in the way that you needed me to be. I'm sorry I wasn't the moment you needed me to be in that moment. But I didn't take into capacity how it would deeply affect her. And I don't think I knew how at that time either.
53:52
Samantha Sadow
So if you had her at 19 and you weren't equipped with that, you were learning as you go and were, you know, surviving up until that point, you know, nobody's equipped with a handbook, right? I think, sure. There's always gonna be something that we're going to look back on. Big things, little Things, whatever it is, everyone's like, I wish I handled that differently. I wish I had. If only I had done this differently. But you know, what is the next best thing? Realizing it at some point and then going to your child like you just did and saying, I'm sorry. I wish I had handled this differently. Because you know what? Some parents never do that with their children.
54:36
Leah Thompson
Yeah.
54:37
Samantha Sadow
And children will yearn for that their whole lives. So give yourself a whole lot of credit. Thank you for doing that. She needed that on a soul level, and you gave that to her. Some people grow up their whole lives and wish that their parents would acknowledge their feelings.
54:57
Leah Thompson
Yeah.
54:58
Speaker 3
And it was a game changer for us.
55:00
Samantha Sadow
It's good. Amazing. Yeah. So let's go back to the ayahuasca retreat. Tell us what happened there. For people who have no idea what ayahuasca even is, or what did you do, like, lay it all out for us? Sure.
55:15
Speaker 3
So ayahuasca is a plant medicine. It's been used in South American culture, typically Peruvian culture, for hundreds, thousands of years. It works with indigenous people that are there. And it is, I guess, what you would call, like, a psychedelic, in the psychedelic realm of plant medicine, that helps people who are dealing with trauma, ptsd, addiction, mental health disorders, like ocd, and different things like that. It's a medicine that helps you unlock a part of your subconscious that helps you heal. And there it's much more detailed than that. But that's kind of like a brief overlay. I had done a lot of talk therapy, different types of group therapies through when my daughter was in and out of behavioral treatment, but also individually. But I felt like I needed something deeper. I needed something to really get in there and to unlock those areas.
56:18
Speaker 3
I needed to step outside of my life and take some time for myself and put that face mask on and get some help, you know, that was more intensive.
56:29
Samantha Sadow
So what happened when you got there?
56:30
Speaker 3
Well, I researched it for a while,.
56:33
Leah Thompson
And I researched different places, and I.
56:35
Speaker 3
Wanted to make sure one, I was going to a place that was safe, that was authentic, that was dealing with true indigenous shamans, and had deep respect for the medicine because it's not doing drugs. It's not like you're going to get high. This is deep soul work. It's to be respected.
56:56
Samantha Sadow
Okay. So from my understanding from ayahuasca, is that you hallucinate and you're kind of,.
57:03
Speaker 3
Like, out of it. Is that true?
57:07
Samantha Sadow
Like, adrene's like, yeah.
57:08
Speaker 3
So basically, the medicine activates a certain chemical in your brain called dmt. And when that is activated within your brain, it's actually activated when you die. The last thing your body releases when you die is dmt, this like euphoric. So when people talk about when they die, they had this euphoric I see the light moment. That's the DMT within your soul, like activating in your brain. So this activates the same chemical within your body, right? It creates dmt. So you're putting DMT and activates within your body and you can basically go into a part of your subconscious or conscious that has these traumas, these trapped emotions, these trapped things within your body. And it helps you to basically face them and to acknowledge different things, hear different things.
58:02
Speaker 3
And so the place where I went was and it was an eight day retreat and during we're in the lower Amazon so we get there and accommodations were rustic but beautiful, very clean, very safe. We had facilitators there who are trauma certified facilitators.
58:21
Samantha Sadow
Are they proven?
58:23
Speaker 3
No. 1 Was American and then the other one was. There were four there, but only two that were with our group because the.
58:31
Leah Thompson
Other two, they go one week one week off.
58:33
Speaker 3
But there's only 10 people in my group. So this is not a money maker. There are places in like Costa Rica and other places that have where you'll be there with like 40, 50, 60 people and that you're allowed your cell phones, there's music playing on the beach. And that to me is not going to do the work that's going to take advantage of the medicine. And I didn't connect with that. In my opinion that's the way it felt to me was that wasn't what I was going to do. I wanted to disconnect from my life and go do true deep work in the middle of the Amazon, you know, with these indigenous people.
59:10
Speaker 3
And so there were 10 people in our group from all over the world and we worked with our facilitators and then we had two of the shamans who were part of the Shipibo tribe who were with our group for the week. We met with them, we did a pre ceremony called a vomitivo where we have to drink this lemongrass tea until leif ro up to learn how to purge.
59:32
Samantha Sadow
Did you throw up?
59:34
Speaker 3
You drink as much tea until you vomit it back up. So it's to prepare the body for the purge and it's all like they're there and they're playing guitars and singing. And what did the tea taste like? Just like lemongrass water. Okay. Just like room temperature lemongrass water. And you do flower baths every day. It's very much. You meditate, you have your time. We did yoga each day. The food is just so clean and delicious and all right out of the Amazon, we had plenty of time to just sit and be. We could go down to the river and write. We could go to our house and.
01:00:09
Leah Thompson
Lay in our hammock.
01:00:10
Speaker 3
We could go hike in the forest if we wanted.
01:00:14
Samantha Sadow
So you were there how many days total?
01:00:16
Speaker 3
I was there eight days at the actual retreat. So three of those days you have ceremonies. The book ends are like your beginning, where you're like getting there and you're like kind of doing things to lead up to it. Your ceremonies are in the middle.
01:00:32
Samantha Sadow
How many days to lead up to the ceremony when you first arrived?
01:00:35
Speaker 3
I think there was three. Till my first ceremony, were in the Amazon, but there was like a river. It was actually just at the end of rainy season, so we had like this. It was more like a creek. And you had a scheduled day, but not over scheduled. So like we may have something at nine, like yoga at nine, we may meet with our facilitator and our therapist. Breakfast at 10:30, lunches at 12, we do another integration at 1, then at 3 we do something else. Or you have like free time to like this thing. And ceremonies were in the evening.
01:01:11
Samantha Sadow
It sounds like a lovely day. Aside from the throwing up.
01:01:17
Speaker 3
No, I get that. I was very nervous with it. But when they explain why and when you're there, you're so committed to doing the work that you're just. You want to accept all of it. Yeah, right. And it's beautiful and it was incredible. So before ceremonies, they're in this thing called a maloka, which were kind of up, kind of sitting in the forest trees, and it's this big kind of round rotunda with this big pointed roof and it's all wood and it's got like screens around it so you can hear all the monkeys and the birds and the everything in the forest. And nighttime comes. And we did pre yoga beforehand just to kind of get in flow, like a very soft meditative yoga. And then our shakibo and our maestro, our facilitators would come in.
01:02:11
Speaker 3
They would prepare the medicine, and we would go before them and receive our medicine. So we would drink it with them. They would say what was called an icaro, which is a prayer over us. And then we would go back to our pad. And our pad had a blanket, a pillow, a bucket next to it, a Roll of toilet paper, a lighter, because they gave you mapacho to smoke, which is tobacco. But it's their tobacco. It's like clean. It's just basically like a cigarette.
01:02:37
Samantha Sadow
What does it taste like?
01:02:38
Leah Thompson
Like pure tobacco. It's just pure, dry.
01:02:41
Samantha Sadow
Did you smoke it?
01:02:42
Leah Thompson
Yeah, a couple times.
01:02:43
Speaker 3
Just because it's like, ritualistic for them. Smoke is also ritualistic. And so they smoke the mapacho and they'll blow it out and they'll do these different puffs and stuff. So it's the cleansing ritual to also smoke the mapacho. It also helps to enhance. It can help with different things during the ceremony.
01:03:06
Samantha Sadow
I know fire really resembles a lot of that color.
01:03:09
Leah Thompson
Clearing away.
01:03:10
Speaker 3
Yes, Smoke. Smoke, you know, so that's what the mapacho is used for, is that cleansing ritual. And then they also take the medicine with you, the maestro stew. And then there's a female and a male. And for the next five hours they go around the room and sing these songs. I mean, and I can share some of the songs, but it's,.
01:03:35
Leah Thompson
You know,.
01:03:35
Speaker 3
It's very tribal and it's loud. Yeah, but once the medicine hits you, people experience different things. Typically, purge is like the first thing that they'll feel. Whether it's vomiting, going to the bathroom, sweating. It's your body preparing for the medicine. And then some people will see vision, some people will see patterns. It's more pattern based. A lot of animals and a lot of patterns.
01:04:03
Samantha Sadow
Okay, so if you were experiencing a problem, like throwing up or getting like, scared or panicking, like, who would be there to help you? Yeah.
01:04:12
Speaker 3
So you have your facilitators that are there. And before they talk, before you have a pre. Brief. Right. And everybody has a flashlight. If you need help or you're starting to feel overwhelmed or you need a facilitator, you turn your flashlight against your body and they come over and can help you. They can help you to the bathroom, but typically they leave you alone even when you're vomiting and stuff. That's why you have a bucket. I only vomited once. Did you need their help? No. And I could still get up and go to the bathroom. So when you open your eyes, it's different than maybe like LSD or mushrooms, where it's a very visual. When your eyes are open. When your eyes are open with ayahuasca, it's fuzzy. Like, it's more like grainy, almost like black and white because it's dark.
01:04:58
Speaker 3
So it's more like black and white. And when you close your eyes, it's color. It's just like you're in a kaleidoscope of color. Sometimes it's patterns, sometimes it's animals, sometimes it's visions, sometimes it's nothing.
01:05:12
Samantha Sadow
Did you have a journal to write things down, like, put it during ceremony, like, you were just supposed to be.
01:05:19
Speaker 3
On your mat, Be there and remember.
01:05:22
Samantha Sadow
The messages or the how it all.
01:05:24
Speaker 3
Just be in it.
01:05:25
Samantha Sadow
Be it if you could.
01:05:26
Speaker 3
Yes. Some people are sitting up, Some people are laying down. Some people are rocking. Some people are on all fours. Like, some people are laughing, some people are crying. But it's weird because you can recognize.
01:05:38
Samantha Sadow
How was it to experience all this with other people having their own experiences next to you?
01:05:44
Speaker 3
Those are what the days leading up are for. And it's like everybody's there for the same reason. Not the same reason, but they're there for healing. They're there for answers. They're there because they need to be there. Right. And so there's this mutual respect and just honor and just. I don't know, like, you just feel comfortable, like, familial with these people. Very soon, everybody had different experiences, like, very different experiences.
01:06:13
Samantha Sadow
So while they're having the experiences next to you, it didn't feel like, oh, this person over there is bothering me, or this is too much. Like, you were feeling too much of other people's energy. It didn't affect you. You were still.
01:06:27
Speaker 3
I. Very much in my own space.
01:06:30
Samantha Sadow
Okay.
01:06:31
Speaker 3
And, yes, you're conscious. So, like, I could realize my roommate, who was across the room for me, was having a big struggle the second night. She was vomiting a lot, you know, And I would realize every time Gabriel would sing to my neighbor next to.
01:06:46
Leah Thompson
Me, you know, I heard my other.
01:06:48
Speaker 3
Buddy Ash, like, laugh at one point. Like, you can remember different things from the night, but it's. You're in your own world.
01:06:56
Samantha Sadow
Yeah.
01:06:57
Speaker 3
And there's different intensities that happen at different times. And very much the maestros, the shamans, can control and give you different prayers, and they seal different things, and they're. It's so ceremonial and indigenous that you just feel so connected to the earth. Yes, you feel so connected. And, like, at night, when we would walk back to our things and these.
01:07:30
Leah Thompson
Hills in the middle of the, like,.
01:07:31
Speaker 3
Amazon, at these stairs, and my roommate and I would sit up and we'd talk afterwards. And this is a person I'd never met in my life before. And she knows things about me that nobody else in this world knows. And we felt so open to share and to be. And it's so cathartic and healing, and you don't realize it in those moments. It takes time to integrate and for it to settle in and for things to happen. And then the next day, you know, you're a bit exhausted. We would start our ceremonies around 7 o'.
01:08:05
Samantha Sadow
Clock.
01:08:05
Speaker 3
So you would start your medicine between 7 and 8. And you could take more medicine during the ceremonies. Like, if you weren't feeling things as much, you could go up and ask for more medicine. So everybody starts with the same. And everybody's tolerance was different. Like the second night, I took more than I did the third night, I didn't need as much the third night. Like, you're conscious to be able to make decisions for yourself. And I could get up and go to the bathroom. I could get up and walk after five, six hours, go back and walk to my home. But, you know, you are exhausted. It is deep work. And the facilitators are there to help you process the night before.
01:08:48
Samantha Sadow
Wait, so you're saying that you were there for five, six hours in that little hut in Ayahuasca? Five, six hours before leaving and then.
01:08:56
Speaker 3
Going back to your room? Okay, yeah. And the next morning, you know, everybody kind of takes their time. And you have integration with your facilitators. So you can walk through things. You can ask your maestros questions and things like that.
01:09:12
Samantha Sadow
What?
01:09:12
Speaker 3
On what?
01:09:13
Samantha Sadow
Like, for instance, like, what does this mean? I was experiencing this. I was seeing this. Like it goes.
01:09:17
Speaker 3
Or what their connection was, what they were feeling when they were with you, some of the messages that they received because they're so in tune, you know, shamans, Right. So those types of things and just really processing it. Like one afternoon, James and I, my facilitator from Perth, we sat on these two rocking chairs for three and a half hours talking, and it was just conversational. It helped me so deeply, you know, and like, he said things to me that nobody had ever said to me before that were so freaking healing. Yeah, that like, kind of like when I said that to my daughter, finally, that it's things that nobody's ever said that have recognized that it instantly heals something in you. It instantly causes that little bit of validation is that it's just. It's such a blessing.
01:10:05
Speaker 3
And so after these days and this hard work, I mean, you have to go back to your life and 90% of the work is done at home and continuing with good therapy and, you.
01:10:21
Samantha Sadow
Know, eight days you were there.
01:10:23
Speaker 3
Yeah, Eight days.
01:10:24
Samantha Sadow
Yeah. Three days. Liti knock. Three days of ceremony work. Every Night, showing up, doing the same thing over and over again, drinking ayahuasca in it for five, six hours for three days in a row.
01:10:37
Leah Thompson
Okay.
01:10:38
Samantha Sadow
And then the final days we're doing what kind of the same thing is integration.
01:10:43
Speaker 3
Integration work. You know, they have like a cool down process to kind of prepare you to go home, back into the real world. Yeah, back end of things. And most people that were there all were staying in career for at least another week or two and traveling and being there. Not me, though.
01:11:02
Leah Thompson
I decided to and go right back into my life.
01:11:05
Samantha Sadow
So.
01:11:05
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:11:05
Samantha Sadow
So tell us, what was it like going back to your family, back to your home?
01:11:12
Speaker 3
Yeah, it was tough. It was a hard integration for me.
01:11:16
Samantha Sadow
Was it?
01:11:17
Speaker 3
Because I was so processing everything and I felt like I just needed to be quiet, like I didn't want to explain myself, I didn't want to talk about what had happened. And everybody was so excited to date me back. And I came back and just needed to be quiet and needed to like process all of everything.
01:11:41
Samantha Sadow
And they were eager to hear about it. They wanted to know what went on.
01:11:45
Speaker 3
And I'm such a talker and a sharer that they were expecting me to come back and share, but I really.
01:11:52
Leah Thompson
Did need to just sit with it.
01:11:55
Speaker 3
And like process and work and slowly but surely things just really. It was like all those little puzzle pieces and like some of the things were just different. I was different, I walked differently, I carried myself differently. But how I could set boundaries that protected that so I didn't put myself in the same positions I had been in before and how I could just be the better version of that. Now that I've gone through all of these things and learned these things and taken the time for myself, how do I continue to do those things and make real changes that are going to be for the benefit of my family and myself and my relationships and really have true healing and I mean, I think there's always a chance to work on yourself and always a thing.
01:12:48
Speaker 3
But I feel so proud and happy that the relationships that were causing me.
01:12:55
Leah Thompson
So much turmoil and angst and stress.
01:12:57
Speaker 3
Are all in such positive, beautiful, really healed, accountable places. And I think that's because you did the work.
01:13:07
Samantha Sadow
It's because of you. Nobody can do the work for you.
01:13:11
Leah Thompson
Right. I had to show up for me first.
01:13:15
Speaker 3
So travel all the way to career and not everybody needs to do that, but it does start like taking care of yourself mentally and finding somebody that you can talk to and that is not going to be a yes person for you. But is going to be somebody that's going to help you see how you show up in your life and help you tweak those little things to be the best version and so that you get the best out of people, too.
01:13:44
Samantha Sadow
What would be your best advice for a woman or a mom who is currently raising her children on her own and going through it alone? Because you know what it's like you've been through?
01:13:56
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's not just one thing, but I think it's putting your mask on. It's the old adage that, you know, if you're on an airplane, you have to put your face mask on first before you can take care of anybody else. And if you're not taking care of yourself, you're not showing up as the best version of yourself. For our kids, for whatever it may be that are. That is in our life, taking care of you is not selfish. It's a priority, and it should be one of your top ones, because if you're healthy mentally and you're healthy relationally, you're going to set your kids up to be healthy people. The ceilings that we have when we give birth to our children are our children's floors. So wherever we are is where they're going to start.
01:14:46
Speaker 3
So let's give them the highest denim ceiling they can have.
01:14:50
Samantha Sadow
What did you do when you were. When it was just you and your daughter to prepare you for. For finding that?
01:14:59
Leah Thompson
Well, I think if I could go.
01:15:00
Speaker 3
Back, if I could give myself advice now, it would have been to talk to her, to care about her feelings and her opinion and how this affected her and make sure that she had a voice in it, because I didn't.
01:15:18
Leah Thompson
Give her a voice in it.
01:15:20
Speaker 3
And like you said, when you're talking about, your friend is receiving it, you know, because we're not always going to get the answers we want to hear. We're not always going to get the responses we want to hear, but we do have to be able to receive it and process it and how we respond, you know, and so for me, I do it a lot with my kids now. I talk a lot to them. I ask them, and we have conversations, and it's just much different. They get to advocate for themselves, and I teach them how to be advocates for themselves and how to speak up and how to ask questions and to be curious, but to also be a good listener and to be able to receive, but to be a good advocate for themselves. And so I think that's it.
01:16:05
Speaker 3
You know, our kids have feelings. They're much more resilient and much more aware of things that are going on in our life. And I think if we give them the opportunity to share them, we might learn a little bit and we might.
01:16:18
Leah Thompson
Give them make better decisions.
01:16:20
Speaker 3
That is better for our children.
01:16:22
Samantha Sadow
We learn it all from them. I feel like they are our teachers now. Children are our teachers and we're being guided by them. I think we're a mirror and we're seeing our own selves through them. That's what I mean is that children have come into this world as our teachers too. What would you say to your 19 year old self now if you couldn't stand in front of her and see her and talk to her?
01:16:48
Leah Thompson
Well, I'm proud of her because even.
01:16:50
Speaker 3
Though she didn't have a very high ceiling at the time, I did the best and I always put Elise first. I'm proud of who she is and that it's okay not to be perfect, but I'm proud of who I turned out to be and I'm proud that I never gave up.
01:17:11
Leah Thompson
Yeah, I think I'm just, I. I'm proud of her. I'm proud of you too.
01:17:15
Samantha Sadow
Thank you. Dill, thank you so much for sharing your story. Yeah, thanks for handing me this turned out to be a completely different story than I had any idea of and it is so beautiful.
01:17:29
Leah Thompson
Thank you.
01:17:30
Samantha Sadow
I know that it's going to mean something to other moms and women out there.
01:17:36
Leah Thompson
Yeah.
01:17:37
Samantha Sadow
I didn't know it was going to turn out like this and I'm so glad it did. And that's what's so beautiful about having conversations and taking the time to sit down with a friend or even somebody who's different than you and discovering that everybody's got a story and we're all connected in some way and there's always something to learn and be inspired by from each other.
01:18:05
Leah Thompson
Yeah, I 100% agree. Thank you.
01:18:07
Samantha Sadow
Thank you so much. I'm so grateful you spent this time with me. If this episode spoke to you, let's keep the conversation going, share it with a friend, reflect on what resonated and if you loved it, please leave a review and subscribe. Your support helps this community grow and allows more people to find these stories. And until next time, be kind, stay curious and remember, we're all more connected than we think.