017 - Elena Brower: Weaving in Self-Care

Hello, dear ones!

Today we’re talking with Elena Brower, a woman who has profoundly impacted my life due to the integrity with which she lives her own.

Elena is a mother, mentor, artist, teacher, bestselling author and host of the Practice You podcast. Her first poetry collection, Softening Time, comes out today!! Please do yourself a favor and grab a copy or two!

Together, we discuss the powerful nature of weaving self-care into our daily lives, respecting and honoring our children, choosing solid partners, end of life reflections, and love. Join us.

Join us to learn about:

• The importance of having a deeply supportive partner

• The profound nature of men’s circles

• Parenting children with their humanity and autonomy in mind

• The difference between repressing and re-patterning anger

• Holding space for healing

• Honoring ourselves and our deceased loved ones through the grieving process

• Opening ourselves up to perspectives that differ from our own

Connect with Sarah

• Follow Sarah on Instagram

• Learn more about Sarah’s work

• Join Sarah for 21 Days of Untapped Support

Connect with Elena

• Visit Elena’s Website

• Follow Elena’s Thoughtful Instagram

• Pre-order Elena’s Book of Collected Poems Softening Time

• Listen to Elena’s Podcast The Practice of You

• Sign Up for the Perceptive Parenting Course

Episode Transcript

Sarah Tacy [00:00:00]

Hello, I'm so excited for this next episode and before it starts I want to send out a little reminder that I am opening 2 spots. There are two spots left to help support those who are looking to have greater nervous system resilience to do some recalibration re patterning. Ready to give up old patterns, start new patterns. But you want to get your body involved in the process instead of just your mind so that you don't have to fight your body, but instead you're working together, body and mind. 2 spots left. Look in the link below if you'd like to sign up for a few sessions. Hello welcome, I'm Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, the podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life saving tools. Join us. Before we get into today's episode, there's something I want to highlight that I'm not sure I highlighted enough in this episode. Here I'm plugging Elena's book and I want to do this upfront and there's no, I'm not getting anything back from it financially. I'm doing this because I found it so powerful to read and I'm so grateful for it. One could look at Elena Brauer's life and say, oh, that must be nice. During our conversation, she explained what her morning looked like before our conversation.

Sarah Tacy [00:01:54

And it had to do with having a positive interaction with her son, taking time to quiet her mind, to move her body to journal, to write poetry. And I could imagine that some people might listen and say, oh, that must be nice. And here's what I would OfferUp about this book of poetry softening times is that it changes our lens from this person has something that's unique to them that nobody else gets to have. We're all putting out fires. This person's living in a different reality that's not possible for others. It changes a lens from that, which is that must be nice to asking the question. Tell me about your life. Tell me about your life. And in her book of poetry, you get to hear about the depths of pain and joy and connection and disconnection. You get to hear about the tidal nature of being human, about where she came from as a child, about her loss, about her gain. There's a part in there for everyone to connect to and to help people see just how possible it is through practice, through excavation, through coming back to yourself, for any of us to begin to weave small pieces of self-care into our lives until perhaps by the time we get into our 50s, or maybe you're listening to this in your 50s and you're beginning your journey now that as time goes on that more and more of our life is a weaving of self-care, self love, self acceptance. So one, I'm so grateful for her to come on. I really think you're going to enjoy listening to her. And I would just say like as a supplement or as like an addition to this podcast. Grabbing a copy of this book is so rich to the question that I might want to ask anyone who is living a life that has elements in it that I want to live, which is tell me about your life.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:09]

Thank you so much. Welcome to Threshold Moments. Today we have with us Elena Brauer. Elena Brower has had a huge impact on my life, and as I just shared with her, her bio is so long and multi dimensional and rich that I wanted to break it into pieces and take time to dive into elements of it. So the bio will be woven throughout the interview, the conversation, and we'll leave lots of room and space for whatever organically wants to come through. So I'll start at the top by saying that I first encountered Elena as the teacher. She's been guiding yoga and meditation since 1999. She can be found on globe.com and many of the most popular stages across the world. What impacted me? So I'm going to share what impacted me before the question. Some of the impacts were at a time, I'm going to think say like 2008 to 2015, where a teacher's sequencing and words were often linked with possibly this would be my perception, my projection, their worth, and their ranking. Elena would, to me, my perception, keep a center line while weaving in the lineage of what inspired her that day. It felt so generous to say. And from this student, I learned this thing, and from this teacher and from this moment in my life. And it was really affirming to me that there could be a way in which there's a communal weaving in what we offer. At a time when teachers, and I think this may still be true, were wise and skilled. There is often also an entertainment factor. And sometimes I felt in myself, Oh no, I'm not entertaining enough. And so it was affirmative to me to see a teacher that was wise, skilled, and whose presence could hold a room. One thing I'll add to that is that when Elena came to Maine to teach at leverage events, I saw something I had never seen before. What I was used to seeing, and this is not a judgement one or the other, except it was intriguing to me, was that a presenter might not want to eat on a day of because there would be some adrenaline and excitement about presenting. And what I saw, again, my perception was that there was self-care woven all the way through. And that again, your presence and self-care all the way through was what held the alchemy for the room that day. And that when it was over, you didn't need to collapse. And this was just so huge for me for what could be possible when self-care is woven in. And I think that's where I would like to start, which is asking you if there was a time in your life where being in front of people was more about presenting and what shifted into presence or if that's just something you've always had and welcome.

Elena Brower [00:08:09]

Thank you for having me so much. It's so nice to see you, to see your face. Nice to be here. I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of that question. I, I want to back up a little bit and just honor the way in which you talked about at each stage of the journey. For you, for me, for anyone who's listening or watching, there's an influence upon us, some person who's inspiring us or people who are inspiring us. Maybe it's a whole community. Maybe it's a body of work, body of teachings, and at every phase of the journey I've had different influences coming through. Each phase was relevant in certain cases. It was really sad that it didn't work out. I came to realize that this teacher, that teacher were just not for me after a certain period of time. But I want to leave our listener with this possibility that even when you feel like you've given your time to someone and it hasn't panned out, even when you feel like you've focused somewhere and it just didn't meet your hopes or expectations. The real question to ask is how quickly can you move on from this without hanging on to disappointment or fear or dread or any of those kind of wasteful lingering emotions? How quickly can you move on from that? And it's nice to hear you talk about those past times because I remember sitting in in those workshops in Maine and opening the notebooks and who was there.

Elena Brower [00:10:01]

It's not who's here now, you know, And yet it was just as relevant for all of us. So thanks for bringing that to my attention to the question. I think, I think there's an, there's an overarching element of what sort of needs to come through in any given moment. And if I'm not listening to my own energy levels and paying attention to what I have the capacity for and the bandwidth for, I will burn out, I will get exhausted. But I've learned over these 20-30 years how to take care of myself. I don't need to be digesting in the morning until, you know, 11 or 12:00. I really don't need to be staying up late on a device. I really do need a bath at night. It really is good for me to warm up my body before I go to bed. You know, there are little things that I do that that help me maintain a really stable, steady level of energy all the time. Just this morning, I was saying goodbye to Jonah. He's now at 17. He was driving off to school. Yeah. And it's crazy. And James and I made a point of going out to the driveway to wave goodbye. We have. Jonah and I took a trip recently to Japan. We just came back a few days ago. And at one of the places where we stayed, all the staff would come out when you would leave. This is something. It's a Japanese tradition in certain areas. They would all come out and they would wave these little purple hankies and goodbye, you know, and they wouldn't stop waving it until we were gone. So we got into the car, driving away. They were still waving. They were still waving. John and I were looking back. They were still waving. So James and I did that. And as he drove away, I realized, you know, today I feel like I did it all. I made him a glorious breakfast before school. I did my workout an hour and a half earlier before that breakfast was made. I took care of my meditation. I let my brain sit in my hands. I really was quiet for a while today in the sitting, you know, and I tended to my kid and took care of myself. And I just felt like, oh, that's it. That's everything right there. If I, if I can have this feeling, you know, for a glimpse of a second to pretty much a job well done, my energy is maintained and everybody's cared for.

Sarah Tacy [00:12:47]

Beautiful and that's I think that's really what I observed was the weaving of self-care that is not like it would never appeared to me as go hard and destroy and recover, which is one way but that there is just this weaving of self-care. So I think this is what I think I remember. I think I remember as you were guiding a meditation, seeing you walk over and grab an orange and peel the orange and take little nibbles as you went. And I could be making this up, Put in my mind there's one point where maybe James was giving you a foot massage while you were guiding something. And it was just this like layering of steadiness and care throughout. And it really stuck with me as a possibility.

Elena Brower [00:13:45]

Yeah, that could definitely happen. James tends to do that, and I tend to say yes. It's funny, I was just reading a quote from somebody who doesn't. It's not really our energetic match, but it's a really good point. Powerful women have with them either a really supportive partner or no partner. Yeah, I don't know why. I'm just going to bring that up right here for one listener who needed to hear that.

Sarah Tacy [00:14:14]

Yeah.

Elena Brower [00:14:15]

Really supportive partner or no partner at all.

Sarah Tacy [00:14:20]

Thank you.

Elena Brower [00:14:22]

I know you have a really supportive one so.

Sarah Tacy [00:14:24]

I do. And Elena I almost like right now, like this maybe isn't for the podcast, but right now he's just on such an epic part of his journey that he walked in last night from holding a men's circle. And I saw in him, I saw in him this light that I haven't seen for a while where it was like just in such alignment with his purpose. And it's been really beautiful. Thank you.

Elena Brower [00:14:51]

Yeah, there are also been circles being held here, and I don't think that's ever been more important than it is right now to have the men meeting each other intelligently, intentionally, intuitively, and taking care of each other. When James emerges from those Monday nights, I also see that same kind of brightness and enthusiasm for life, and they also need a level of caretaking of each other that gives them purpose that I don't. I think that's been ignored for probably several generations societally, and I'm really glad that that's turning. That tide is turning.

Sarah Tacy [00:15:37]

Me too. From what I know, and maybe I won't get too deep in this, it seems like there's often a level of we can engage on the level of activity of adventures, but to actually sit and go deep and be seen and see another is it's just such a good medicine. It's true. So you mentioned Jonah and this next part of your bio, which is really in your professional bio is the first line always is mother. But I'm going to talk about student and mother. So Elena, you are a lifetime lifelong student currently in Buddhist chaplaincy training that commences in 2024. And this mixture of studentship, leadership and being an ever evolving, perceptive, deeply loving mother has led to the creation of a what seems to be a beautiful relationship with your son and a course perceptive parenting, which I have taken. Thank you so much for offering it.

Elena Brower [00:16:48]

Wonderful.

Sarah Tacy [00:16:50]

And what I'd like to say is I would love to take it again with Steve. And I found it to be grounding. I found it to have really useful tools. I loved the way that you wove in your stories of challenge and of success or triumph or maybe just a knowing like that was a healthy pattern and I would love more of that. You were. So I feel like you always honor time so beautifully. So the honoring of time with a 12 to 15 minute digestible pieces. I'll say this one part. You offered a practice in which at night, I might ask my daughters, was there anything I could do better? Now, I've forgotten to do this a number of times. The first time I did it, I mean, I get feedback from them all the time. So I have pretty good practice. I like, OK, in this moment, they're, they're raging. And if they say something that could be hurtful, like I just understand they're raging and I can be there with them and I can stay steady. I was surprised at some like nervousness that I felt when I was like, oh, I might get feedback that might like really mean something that I really can listen to and I will continue this practice. And I that night they were like, no Mama, everything's great. But I, I can really see how that practice for me getting that feedback could be beautiful. And for them to see that I can receive that one could receive feedback, survive it, stay steady with it and integrate it and that I'm not less worthy. I'm not a bad person because the feedback wasn't all positive. But, and I'm saying it was interesting to see that I did have this little tickle in my tummy of like feedback. What are they going to tell me?

Elena Brower [00:18:59]

I think it's funny 2 sided coin here because they're not just seeing you receive feedback gracefully, they're also seeing their own voices being heard. And I'm, I'm in a partnership with somebody who really did not have that as a child and the he's 56 now. And to be witnessing the healing of that is profound, obviously. But to be able to correct that in my own parenting with my kid has been a great privilege to make sure that I am raising somebody who knows that he has a voice, who's not afraid to use it, who doesn't use it inappropriately, who is willing to listen and is not interrupting all the time because he wasn't hurt as a kid. Really cool. So think of it, you know, it's both of those things, seeing you receive well, learning how to receive feedback well without fear, and then also realizing that they have a voice that is respected and so they start to pass that respect on to other people. It's very beautiful.

Sarah Tacy [00:20:23]

Everything that I learn about parenting or from parenting, I also see how, wow, like this is a practice for my partner and I, for my husband and I, it's something that's a little bit easier for me in friendships. So every time that I get to do something, quote UN quote, for my kid, it is also so much about healing for myself. Yeah.

Elena Brower [00:20:49]

And generations I mean.

Sarah Tacy [00:20:51]

Generations.

Elena Brower [00:20:52]

Generations. I wrote a poem last week in While We Were Away. I put it on my sub stick. Actually. I'm going to find out for you and it was about that exactly that we called it unexpected beauty. And it goes like this. The beauty, simplicity and reverence of Japan are shifting the ground beneath my feet. Writing that's emerged thus far speaks to this time out of time with my son. The words below spilled out onto the hotel scratch pad unexpectedly midweek that it points to the photograph that was taken on the grounds of Ahu, which is a temple that was built in the 1200's, the source temple for the lineage in Soto Zen that I practice. And the poem is called Saved Up. It's very it's very fast. So saved up, saved up for this moment across the table on the other side of the world, to not look at you, to fully hear you. Instead, I wonder if you know how many generations we're healing. Saved up for this moment in Kyoto Station when you take charge of the directions and I ascent peculiar blend of bliss and emptiness. Thank you for your nurturing, magnanimous, joyful mind. Saved up for this moment in the trees, averting my eyes so that you don't feel any sort of need. The need I couldn't tolerate when it was my mother and me. Also for your gentle persuasiveness about the sorbet. You get the mango, I'll get Raspberry. Brings a tear.

Saray Tacy [00:22:37]

Thank you for sharing that.

Elena Brower [00:22:38]

Yeah, it's, it's such an important thing to realize that when you make a move as a parent, that might not be uncomfortable, might not be comfortable and might be sort of really different than what the way in which you were treated. And it might feel like, oh, I'm not being disciplinarian enough or something like that. Comparing your experience, You know, the thing that we have to remember as parents is what really matters is respect, mutual respect. This is an autonomous being in front of you. Doesn't matter if they're two years old or 22. Now, if you can generate some mutual respect on this earth, you have done a very good job.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:22]

In your course, there are a number of times where you mentioned your son at the age of 5 and it wasn't because of his age necessarily. But it sounds like this was a turning point for you in which you began more mindful practices. And I'm wondering if you could speak to us a little bit about a process of, well, you named anger and maybe the difference between repressing and repatterning?

Elena Brower [00:24:01]

Yep, that's that was kind of everything. 5 was when I realized that I had to do this. I didn't get it till many years later, I don't think, but the angry outbursts certainly became less frequent and less intense. I was raised in a house where anger was the way one communicated sincerity or severity importance. So I kept that up unconsciously for a long time. And when he was about 5 and he really had a voice, he said something to me one day, something like, you know, you don't have to do this something So sage Jesus, you know, and he had already had a couple of years of this, you know, what could I be doing better? So he had a voice and he knew how to use it. And I was just struggling. It was like it was, it was as though I was addicted to anger. I could not stop, even though I knew it was bad for me, even though I knew it was causing deleterious effects in my home and more broadly. And when he said that, that was the beginning of my journey toward abstention, freedom, sobriety from anger. And, you know, it's funny when I said it was very recently that we made those plans to go so far away together, just the two of us meeting up with a friend for a few days. But it was really just the two of us. I could see when I asked him that he was nervous. Like, even though there hasn't been any sort of ruffle in our matrix for a number of years now, I could see that he was nervous that it would get weird. And I said to him, you know, here's the deal. We're going away. This is going to be one of the most peaceful, steady, beautiful trips we've ever taken. I'm going to come back and help you with your homework to make up for the time that you're losing. I think it's going to be a wonderful experience, and I think you should come. And he was, he sort of cocked his head a little to the side and he considered it for a while. And off we went. I did help him with the paper last night and that was really fun. But during the trip there was not one moment of hardship. At the very, very end when we were coming home, Tokyo, Denver, Denver, Santa Fe, in Denver, he got cross. He did not want to leave Japan. He loved it so much and he got really super cross and I let him disappear for a little while. I said, you know what, go grab some food. I'm going to be over here. I know I shouldn't be talked to like this. I can only imagine what you're going through, not wanting to go home, wanting to stay in that beautiful, clean, safe, organized country. I'll be at the gate and you can meet me there. And when I got to the gate, he was already sitting there. And I sort of meandered and I walked over and he had his headphones in and I said, Hey, I think it would be helpful if you could just acknowledge what happened. And he said, I'm really sorry for treating you that way. I shouldn't treat you that way. Really sorry for that. I'll do it better next time. That was it. That was the whole scandal. Like the whole trip, 10 days. That was that was all we endured. I credit meditation practice. I credit the teachings of Soto Zen. I credit particularly the teachings of Roshi Joan Halifax and all the teachers that she has orbiting around her for this steadiness that I feel.

Sarah Tacy [00:27:58]

And it also sounds like years of practice with do overs and feedback.

Elena Brower [00:28:04]

For sure.

Sarah Tacy [00:28:06]

Yeah.

Elena Brower [00:28:07]

I'm seeing in the field some things like there's some book or some author that says ban the do over or something like that. I'm just like, I don't know. We did many do overs and they were wonderful. Like when you study the work of Alan Shore ALLANSCHORE and you see the importance and the peer reviewed studies that he did on what it means to repattern shame after a shame stress incident, whether you've inflicted it or you've experienced it, to repattern it, it's priceless. Like, it changes the brain, changes the neurology. So I like a do over. Yeah. I'm going to keep those around. James and I do them sometimes when we act like jerks to each other, you know, it's like rushing around or something and be like, let's just do that over, shall we? Yeah, you know, and we do. And it's much better.

Sarah Tacy [00:29:01]

I was just in a conversation with Amna Altai. 2 days.

Elena Brower [00:29:05]

Ago She's great, she's great I.

Sarah Tacy [00:29:10]

In prep for talking to her, I just put her name into, you know, into the search and your podcast came up and I was like, what? So it was so fun to listen to the two of you right before I was about to talk to both of you, but I'm unsure how it came up. But in the conversation I, I was talking about in my early 20s, I used to train athletes and we did nervous system upregulation. And part of the training was that they had immediate feedback either from a camera or the mirror in front of them. And that with, if you can get feedback within 15 seconds of the original pattern, if not right away and begin and make a change, you generally get to keep that change. Whereas if somebody tells you something 10 minutes later, 15 minutes later, it's really hard when you get when you're in activation again to actually make that happen. So while you're in activation and you re pattern, the Physiology can then keep it. And I think that's so much like a do over.

Elena Brower [00:30:23]

Yes, I feel that to be true. It's physical and it's neurological and I definitely feel that to be true.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:32]

This next part of the bio, I know this is maybe making it chunky. So I'll, I'll learn about this, about this, breaking up at the bio.

Elena Brower [00:30:39]

But I like it. It's actually really fun. Yeah, my ego certainly likes it. I feel like I'm letting her go. I do feel like it's actually helpful way to interview somebody as from the podcaster's perspective. I really am appreciating the format here, so thank you.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:59]

We're trying it on. This part is about you as an artist though, Elena. You are an artist which can be seen in every Instagram post that you make with such care. The visual artistry within your books such as Art of Attention, your bestseller practice You which I have bought many copies of the follow up of that Being You and I heard that there's another coming out in 2024. Your spoken word poetry which can be heard on Above and Beyond's Flow State album which just went gold. And your sequencing in yoga and guided meditation that are multi dimensional artistic weaving of soul, body and space. Lastly and maybe not lastly, but I'm naming at the end, your art comes through with such mastery in your latest book of poetry softening times. And I would really love to highlight this in this interview as it will be posted on the same day that people will be able to go and buy your book. And maybe I'll say here that if they buy 2 books, a little promo here, that if they buy 2 books, Elena will offer a free, what I believe is a four week course with some of her nearest and dearest wise friends. This is a side note, which is just to name that every experience I've had with you is filled with generosity. And I think this is a really beautiful example of that. Thank you. So as the book I devoured, I lovingly devoured, it was when I can find something that I can drop into and not count how many pages I have left in a way of like, OK, I'm almost to the end or I'm but more like, oh geez, like there's an ending and I'm close and I'm just so loving and I felt a pull each time. So I did. It was three different sittings, which is really great because I can be so fully present in each of those. It was like this whole of excitement to go back. So I found myself like enfolded in each excerpt. And the beauty of the poetry was how the brevity could meet the depth and then how there could be timeline jumps. And your front friend Young Pueblo wrote. Elena creates space for us to appreciate the small moments and life changing ones. The word that kept coming to me as I was reading your book was stunning. I was so moved. And when people listen to you on your podcast and when they hear your voice hear or your steadiness, I feel like the gift of this book was to see the practice was to see the title, nature and humanity of you and the vulnerability with which you offered the wholeness of yourself.

Elena Brower [00:34:39]

Thank you. Yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:34:42]

Thank you so much.

Elena Brower [00:34:44]

Yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:34:47]

The place I'm wondering if you would be willing to go is the first half of your book. It speaks quite a bit to, I would say, these timeline jumps between your early years, your early interactions with your mother and your current interactions. And I'm wondering if you'd speak to us about your journey with your mother?

Elena Brower [00:35:25]

Yeah, I'm happy to. It's still happening. She passed away in 2016, January 23rd of 2016 and she was 69 and I talk to her everyday. If I'm honest, she still is around, guiding, laughing, ridiculing, loving me, encouraging me. I think probably the most important thing that I can share is that she loved me so much and I was often annoyed by this attention and care that she gave me. And so my sort of evolution of all of that has been to figure out a way to really let the kid, my kid, know that I'm here but not hovering. I'm available, but I'm not in need. Like that poem that I read to you previously from Japan. And it's going well. And she's very proud of me. I can feel her and hear almost hear her voice at times when she, when I catch myself doing something that feels good to me, you know, and I can hear her saying, yeah, good, you know, good girl. I saw that. I got that, you know, and it's like I'm receiving now fully what she was offering me back then. It's the only way I could think about it. In summary, if you're listening and you are having an issue with your mom and barring any mental illness or something that is keeping you from really connecting, like addiction or something like that, it's just another person. Could be my mom, could be anybody else's mom, Sarah's mom. So can you look at this person like a stranger? I did it with Jonah often, too. There's a great book by Wendy Moghel called Voice Lessons for Parents just like this. Like, oh, that kid over there, He's like an exchange student. I don't know who that is. I'm just going to be nice and courteous because he's here, staying in my house, somebody else's kid. I would often reframe things like that, and it would help me to be less annoying and less overbearing. So yeah, that's what I would say. I would say, you know, think about how you can connect with that person as though that person wasn't your mom anymore and things that had happened that haven't happened. You'd have barely know this person. She's just another autonomous person. You know, How do you treat her?

Sarah Tacy [00:38:24]

I love that. Yeah. thinking about the beauty of the way that a relationship can continue. Yes, afterlife. And gosh, there was one thing that I wanted to highlight from what you just said. And it's and it's invading me. So I'm going to, I'm going to let it go and ask you about. Well, I'll actually, I kind of want to start with this little story that Sophia was in bed the other night and it looked like she was using her hands and weaving something in the sky above her with her hands. And I said, oh, I remember when my Papa was just about to pass away and he was finishing all of his projects in his lifetime that were unfinished, and we called them hallucinations. But one night, he was finishing weaving or sewing this model ship that he had started to build, and he was moving his hands just like that. And she said, were you with him when he died? And I said, I was, I was right by his side. She said, was it scary? And I said, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever been witness to. And she said, like, what did it look like? I said, well, he was laying there. And then he exhaled and all the tension that was in the room disappeared and everything got lighter. And there was a sense of relief. And she said, was there sadness too? And I said, yeah, there was sadness and relief. And I don't, I'm sure I wrote it somewhere in here of your words. But you have a part of your poetry that speaks to those moments with your mother's passing. And I think you said like the most beautiful moment beyond childbirth. And I'm wondering if you might want to share a bit about your experience with that moment. I.

Elena Brower [00:40:40]

Think I can find it?

Sarah Tacy [00:40:44]

Page 46 The most sacred commencement.

Elena Brower [00:40:48]

Good girl. Yeah, I'll read the last paragraph. Is that cool?

Sarah Tacy [00:40:57]

Yeah.

Elena Brower [00:40:58]

Please, this piece, the piece is starts on page 45. It's called almost. It's a story about this moment where she had been, she got a stem cell transplant just like her second or third round of cancer. She was doing actually quite well and she'd gotten the stem cell transplant. It was successful. She was at Ground Zero really like not really talking, barely able to move. I was brought her to the bathroom in the hospital room. There was nobody else there. And I was holding her up like this and I was putting her onto the seat, this very tall seat that they have in hospital rooms. I'm sure if you're listening, you've seen one. And all of a sudden she just like crashes. It's as though every just the lights go out, she's gone sideways, and it's just me. And I see over my left shoulder, there's a phone. I get the phone. Like this whole thing happens in a matter of three minutes. She's somehow holding herself up with one hand of mine. She makes it. Five years later was when she died. Five years later was when she actually died. And this is that moment. The moment, that moment in the hospital those years before makes her real. Last day, one of the holiest days of my life, Holier than childbirth, full of prayer and meaning, connection and clearing death. No longer to be feared. Here in my heart, it's the most sacred commencement. That's really how I feel about it now. And I don't think we have a choice. So it's.

Sarah Tacy [00:42:42]

Going to happen.

Elena Brower [00:42:43]

It's we're going, so I'm feeling like, OK, let's make sure that we at least consider if you're listening this way of looking at death, you know, But there is a, Sarah said, a release of all the tension in the room. You have a choice whether you're going to be the person who freaks out and brings all the attention to yourself and cries and just, you know, goes there, or if you're the person who holds the space for the person who's deceased transitioning to go in peace. And I decided I wanted to do that for her.

Sarah Tacy [00:43:37]

And for anyone listening, I feel like for me, that duality, that it could be so important I can lean into a time where I was in deep grief and I had this little bit of shame of, OK, I've felt the grief and I've done the things and why am I still feeling it? And in one part, you'd say it's been seven years, I'm not healed. Yeah. And so just permission for like, that both. And that it's beautiful. It's a sacred commencement and for those on the other side, there's the process of how do we get to talk to them on a day-to-day basis perhaps, or experience them, and that the missing or the pain can still be there.

Elena Brower [00:44:21]

Yeah, I still miss her terribly and I still do, you know, find myself bawling at random moments. A song will come on. It's a Billy Joel song. Or like, you know, I'll smell. I walk through the duty free the other day and I walk by the Clinique counter. Just the sight of the Clinique counter and I weep for this woman. The sadness is still there, but it's not it's not all consuming. It's an honoring and choice that I make to honor her. Whenever I am reminded and my whole body is moved, that's where I go with it. It seems to be a good way, but going back to the beginning of conserving our energy and honoring ourselves and not getting lost in the grief, but in fact making it into a really beautiful container for some other creative energy to come through.

Sarah Tacy [00:45:24]

Thank you.

Elena Brower [00:45:26]

I'm aware of the time and if you need.

Sarah Tacy [00:45:30]

To one more question. Yeah, I wanted to. There was like there's one more question, but there's also kind of end of bio, which I'll put that out there and see if there's anything else that wants to be said. Cool end of bio closing is that if you want to hear more from Elena, she has a practice you podcast and the tagline together will elevate humanity to spark, share and sustain well-being. And I found that she uses this platform not only to share the voices of well known humans, but also to turn up the volume for the voices that the world ought to know. Elena is a mentor, helping others find steadiness, space, creativity, and encouraging healthy, high valued ecosystems. Elena is a giver. She works to elevate bright futures for girls, women and children through the support for Girls on Fire, Leaders on the Inside and Free Food Kitchen. When she was in Maine for just a few days, she helped raise awareness and funds for Sea Change Yoga, a nonprofit serving those with less access to yoga and mindfulness classes. Thank you so much for being here. I really, it's such an honor.

Elena Brower [00:47:01]

I tell you, your thoughtfulness, the care with which you've crafted all of your questions, this idea to go through somebody's bio and kind of tease it out and pull it apart. So good, so solid. Thank you for it and thank you for your friendship all of these years. You know, I, I feel very connected to you in ways that aren't explicable and, and I really appreciate that.

Sarah Tacy [00:47:26]

I'm so glad. I mean, I'm so glad you bring up friendship. I'm so aware of the time too. And for anyone listening, if you want to hear more about the possibility of what friendship can be, the whole book softening times. I just said that wrong, didn't

Elena Brower [00:47:49]

No, it's perfect. It's softening time. You're perfect. But the back of the book.

Sarah Tacy [00:47:54]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was saying I was going to see the second-half of the book. But if you consider your relationship with your mother or yourself as part of relational healing and possibility of what can become, then it's the entirety of the book. And if you're looking more towards the platonic relationships or the love relationships with a partner, that second-half really speaks to what's possible in the way that we might feel it and see it. And you said something, there was some beautiful line. See if I can find it. Maybe it can depend on this line. Are you willing to disagree harmoniously? And I got to see you again in Maine, sitting at a table with dear friends of yours. I got to see you so deeply in love with this woman. And the man who I was sitting next to, who shared his stories so generously with me, had a life path that seemed at the time quite different than yours. And I loved the way that you could love all of you without needing to feel the exact same way about everything. And I think that is something that so many of us could lean into and find such richness in.

Elena Brower [00:49:25]

Yeah, I think that's one of the most important practices we've got right now is to make sure that we are constantly asking ourselves to just be. Be in can dialogue, be in consideration, be in conversation with people with whom we don't agree. Watch things with which you don't agree. Listen to things with which you don't agree. We need to know what everyone is doing and saying so that we can start to soften the boundaries a little bit, soften the edges. Yes. You feel this way. I got it. There are other people that feel this other way. Get that and let go a little bit of the chronic tension in your body around what you think is right and how everyone else is wrong. I've had to do it time and time again. And I think it's one of the most important things that we can do for ourselves and for each other. Consequently, yeah.

Sarah Tacy [00:50:21]

Thank you for sharing yourself so generously.

Elena Brower [00:50:24]

Thank you for having me here, your sister. Thank you.

Sarah Tacy [00:50:34]

Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure. If you're looking for added support, I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It's pretty awesome. It's very easy, it's very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe. And like, apparently it's wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you Scroll down to the bottom subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you're not feeling it, don't do it. It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.