100 - Tele Darden: Aligned Timing and Tools for Thresholds
Tele Darden is a somatic coach, teacher, and facilitator with an international reach who supports visionary practitioners to bring their most authentic, embodied medicine into the world. She's been in practice since 2007, accumulating thousands of hours of body work and holding space as a coach.
I first got to cohabitate a space with Tele when I was training with Brigit Viksnins of Alchemical Alignment. Tele’s presence was so grounding, so intuitive, and so wise. She is a living example of her belief that well-resourced practitioners can become wellsprings of healing for all that seek them.
I’m thrilled to invite Tele to Threshold Moments. Please enjoy this conversation where we explore:
Aligned timing and moving slowly
Cultivating presence while moving fast
Why Tele returned to school after being a teacher for a decades
Hitting the “is this it?” moment in mid-life
What to do when things feel stable but stale
Centering devotion in hard times
Connect with Sarah
Connect with Tele
Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:06]:
Hello, welcome. I'm Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, a 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 hello and welcome to Threshold Moments. I just got off an incredible interview call with Tele Darden and of course at the beginning of the interview you'll hear a little bit about who she is, what she believes in. But if I were to give you a little teaser, I would say that she has played an extremely pivotal role in my life over the last five years. She was one of my main mentors through Alchemical Alignment and one on one sessions and I assisted her as she was putting together curriculum and teaching the foundation courses in alchemical alignment as well.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:18]:
And as I was moving through some really dark periods in my life where resources felt really slim and a lot of my life force energy was just pouring out of every cell of my body, she helped me come back to myself again and again and again. She gave me permission in hard moments. There have been so many moments in her presence where she will say something that just really deeply resonates with me that then helps me in this ripple effect type way to process, orient to and digest life. And currently I am working with her in a value rising container as I am readying to release, opting out of urgency and resourced 2.0 to really tune into what parts of myself I have dismembered, what parts want to come back, not just into my personal life but into the way that I teach. And so without further ado, here is my conversation with Tele Darden. Welcome to Threshold Moments Podcast. My name is Sarah Tacy and today I have Tele Darden here with us. I'm going to read a little bit of Tel's official bio and then say something that feels even more real and lived to me.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:58]:
Tele Darden is a somatic coach, teacher and facilitator with an international reach that supports visionary practitioners to bring their most authentic embodied medicine into the world. She's been in practice since 2007, accumulating thousands of hours of body work and holding space as a Coach. She spent seven years studying Somatic Trauma Resolution with Bridget Vixens and two years co creating and teaching a 130 hour foundation training. She also trained for four years with Joanne Lindenbaum as a coach and facilitator. She previously taught massage therapists and bodyworkers for eight years. Tel's work is about helping coaches space holders and others who are leading a guiding hand in this realm of healing to cultivate their own professional skills, their own healing and building a truly sustainable life and business centered around what matters most. Because, well, resourced practitioners can become wellsprings for healing for all that seek them. And when this happens, life gets a little easier for us all.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:21]:
What I would say is that I first got to cohabitate a space with Tele when I too was in a training with Bridget Vixens and her presence was to me, so grounding, so intuitive, so wise. And then as Tele moved into the role of facilitating and co creating the curriculum for the foundational courses, I got to assist Tel, which the funny story is that I the day before you reached out, I had reached out to Eliza Reynolds, who's been on this podcast and has worked with Tele as well. Like, oh, I just hope that when I'm experienced enough and when I'm wise enough and good enough that someday I'll be able to assist tell or like, assist this training. And the next day I got an email from you. And I guess what I want to highlight here is my appreciation for the way that you have seen me because you were coaching me before that, mentoring me that you've seen me and my darkest holes. And even in seeing me in those places, you still wanted me around. And there was something so healing to having a lived experience that was like, no, actually all of you is welcome. And so I have had a repetitive experience with you of having relational rehab.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:11]:
And so that would be my intro to tell. And also just starting off with like a real deep gratitude for you being exactly who you are.
Tele Darden [00:06:22]:
Thank you. I first am very excited to be here. Second, that bio, I was like, oh, where is he? Oh, I remember writing that time ago. So that's amazing. And I think what feels so remarkable to me is like, oh my gosh, yes, darkest moments. But for me, sitting across from you and getting to share space with you, I'm like, oh, but you were always enough. You were always more than enough. But just I think being able to witness you in this evolution right from coming out of some really hard times into blooming and blossoming into this like, current version of your, like wisest teacher is just so satisfying.
Tele Darden [00:07:09]:
And I am so grateful to spend a little more time with you today.
Sarah Tacy [00:07:14]:
And so today I have a mix of things of both wanting to talk about a more recent threshold, but there are also things that you've taught me or phrases that you've said that have shifted the way I see things in Such foundational ways that on a selfish level. And when I say selfish, it's like me, for me and the people who listen in, I can imagine that I might be like, can you say this is also a phrase that you say a thing or two. Can you say a thing or two about this one phrase? Even before that, I would love to say that I have this program coming up called Opting out of Urgency. And it became apparent to me this morning as I was just, you know, preparing a little bit for this session, I was like, wow, Tele has been such an awesome example of this because I first asked you on this podcast two years ago and you were like, oh, thanks so much. Can you come back and ask me again in a year? And I think I asked you a year later and you were like, oh, thanks so much, not now. And so there was no urgency of like, if it doesn't happen now, it'll never happen. I also back then took it as like, oh, she really believes in me that the podcast is going to last that long. And so when you reached out to me a few weeks ago again, I was like, great, let's set it up, let's do it next week.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:49]:
And you're like, cool, or. Because I also said I wanted to partake in this new coaching program that you're doing. Or what if we wait a bit so that you could do some sessions? And so I get to kind of, you know, see my own excitement and how healthy it feels to meet somebody else in the invitation who's just so steady to be able to check in and say like, not now, maybe later. Can you check again? And I'm wondering if that's a way you've always been or if that's a practice you've cultivated over time.
Tele Darden [00:09:29]:
It's such a good question. I think that I am consistently feeling for what feels like aligned timing to do a thing right, to do anything. But also the more that I spend feeling into my right timing, I can be a slow person. Saturn rules my chart, right? And so I am very much slow, steady feel for it. Whether that was me as a younger version of myself, I don't think so. I think actually I was driven a lot by the urgency of expectation and culture. And as I have deepened more or prioritized more into my own pacing and my own well being, this has emerged for me. And the alchemical alignment field has helped to give me permission to slow things down.
Tele Darden [00:10:29]:
It may be too slow for some, but, but I definitely, you know, I definitely appreciate the time and the future Possibilities of like, yeah, and we could be in relationship for a long time. The timeline could extend for decades. That would be my greatest joy. With the invitation, it just always felt like to me, like, great, and if it's not this version, it'll be another version of something amazing that you are creating or offering in the world. So it felt easy.
Sarah Tacy [00:11:01]:
When you speak about slow for many, and I would say even for myself actually, as I was moving into alchemical alignment and working on slow, and my life happened to be really slow at that time. Not in the way that all the demands were gone, because demands of early motherhood can sometimes feel quite rapid and overwhelming. But in myself and in some clients and in some groups that I facilitate, there is often this feedback that slow can feel like I'm going to die. If I go slow, I will become irrelevant. Or if I. This is kind of the opposite of the timeline. Expanding is like, if I don't take this opportunity now, who knows if it will come again? You know, as you said, that's been like enculturated. Is that a word? In, like school systems of making a team, getting the best grades, getting into the top class to get into a good college, this whole speed has been built in, in such a deep way.
Sarah Tacy [00:12:04]:
And so I'm curious how slow feels for you, how you've seen it for others, but then also, as you slow down enough to be in right timing with yourself, do you find any places where you're like, oh, here's fast health or because I went slow, there's this boomerang forward at the right time, in the right place.
Tele Darden [00:12:28]:
So I think really it is about being able to have the choice to have my own pacing. For me, that feels like liberatory work. And if I had my choice, I mean, I have my choice most days, which I recognize the privilege of that. And if I had my choice all the time, like, oh, I can imagine decades could go by. One thing, one thing gets planted, or one thing begins to bloom. I think that for others, I just really like to feel into, like it's going to take the time it takes. You know, whether that is for a session, whether that's for a series of sessions, whether that's for a new vision to emerge. You know, I try to hold that for myself.
Tele Darden [00:13:15]:
Like it's going to take the time that it takes. For me, fast often feels like death too. Fast is something that I am building the capacity to be with fast health in my body. I definitely live in that low, slow realm because it's a Way for me to find my resonance. When things speed up too quickly, I can lose myself very easily. And so the ways that I practice fast health, I don't know, it's still. I think it still may look slow on the outside, but it feels fast in my body. So I turn to times where swimming is a regular practice for me, and I can really get my heart rate up to a quite quick, quite high place.
Tele Darden [00:14:08]:
And I'm not the fastest one in the pool, right, by any stretch of the imagination. But there's such pleasure in that for me. But that took time for me to be able to build that capacity to stay there in that fast range and not lose myself. So that's one example. I would maybe need more time, I think, to think of others. I think that another part of being kind of outside of my own pacing has shown up more in this past year as I've gone back to school. Like, there is not a lot of choice there in a lot of the pacing of my days, the time that it takes to complete assignments, like, there is a very firm and solid due date, and I have to be able to show up to, you know, to turn that work around pretty quickly. And I think that what I have found, actually, because we'll often in class have these timed assignments where we're supposed to make some sort of art.
Tele Darden [00:15:10]:
10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Yesterday we had a luxurious 40 minutes of time. And over time, I have found that if I walk into the assignment with an expected outcome, like if I have any kind of vision at all for what the thing would be, then I lose myself, I panic, I'm moving too fast. It never ends up meeting the vision in such a short period of time. That's skill. That's my own resonance, right? That's just kind of the way that I'm wired. But when I walk into the exercise with no expectation and I go, I'm just going to start drawing, I'll just start painting. I'll just start creating something and feel for what would like to happen next.
Tele Darden [00:16:00]:
Then I'm consistently surprised by the outcome. And I can still maintain a pace that is. I think fast. Like, I think for me, it falls into the realm of fast health but stays within my range. And so I think that the takeaway for me really is if there's an expected outcome, it becomes more challenging. But if there's choice and freedom in some other part of it, then it works.
Sarah Tacy [00:16:26]:
As you say that I'm thinking a little bit about containment of time as well. I'm remembering When I was. I was a minor in art in college, which was really just me saying, oh, I just want to explore this area. It's not going to be my career. Which one of the teachers was very clear. He's like, you have no future here. I reminded him, like, yeah, but you're not going to become a professional basketball player. But you love basketball, right? So, like, you get to, like, practice and try to get better and play with your edges.
Sarah Tacy [00:16:57]:
Alas, we had a nude model, and it was very interesting. If I had a whole hour of time to try to draw this human, how much perfectionism would come out of me. And then sometimes we would do it with charcoal. And it would say, you have one minute. And every minute, this model would change postures. So it was a lot of just like looping in circles that, okay, this is body, this is head, this is. And there was this action and this movement to it. And so I actually felt containment of time in that scenario was probably really helpful for me not to nitpick everything.
Sarah Tacy [00:17:39]:
And that could be true, too. Like a newsletter. If I have all the time in the world, some parts of it can be really nice because I can rework and rework and rework. And sometimes having containment is like, I'm gonna put it out, even though it might not be my finest piece.
Tele Darden [00:17:55]:
Yeah, yeah. And that has been such a lesson for me of it may not feel finished to me and do it anyway. Right. And submit it anyway. And I think that's actually the thing that keeps some momentum happening in my life, is there could be a thousand more edits, There could be a thousand more nuggets of wisdom. Right. That might wanna come through. And, oh, look, they have a place.
Tele Darden [00:18:21]:
Right? They can be in the next paper, in the next email. Right. In the next iteration of whatever the creative act is. Like, they can go into the next thing. Which I think, for me is really helpful to think about the longevity of, like, oh, and if I had decades, if I get to stay in this work for decades, then would this be enough for now?
Sarah Tacy [00:18:47]:
Yeah. So I'm hearing what you're saying, like, the short. I think I'm hearing what you're saying. The short bouts within again, the orientation, too, and possibly forever.
Tele Darden [00:18:57]:
Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:18:57]:
Have all these short bouts of opportunities, you know, to throw my hat in, to give an effort to it. Last year, when you announced that you would be going back to school, I had this really big curiosity. So there's always this part of me that just really wants to honor role clarity. There's this part that's like. I kind of feel like I could text her, but also, I don't know. And so I just, from a distance, had this curiosity about what it was like for somebody who has been in the world of nervous system and somatic coaching to go from a field where you were holding the role of expert. And I know, I know, I know. I was like, there's probably a better word, but I will say I'm going to take a little left turn here that there was a time in the classes that you were holding in the core foundational classes, there could be people who have been in this realm of teaching and guiding for 20 years.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:08]:
There could be some who are a little bit newer, but no less than five years. There could be doctors. There could be a psychologist. And I feel like. I remember you saying, I feel confident in my area of. I didn't. You probably didn't use the word expertise of, like, this body of work. And you felt so stable.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:29]:
The very last training we were in together, people asked you such nuanced questions that I was like, oh, my God.
Tele Darden [00:20:36]:
How is she going to even.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:39]:
Like, how is this a question one could possibly even touch into? And so for me, there was a level of deep embodied confidence within the material. And then my understanding was that you were moving into a realm of becoming student again. Of course, you're always student of the material, but, like, student, student with, as you're now saying, like, different feels for deadlines and for even the medium that you were in. And you introduced me to the idea of familiar is how optimal, and the tension field in between. But I'm also aware that familiar can be optimal and that the other new thing may not be familiar, and it may not be optimal, but it is something that your system is, you know, trying to get adjusted to. So I'm wondering if. I'm thinking of that as a threshold of changing roles. I'm wondering if you could share with us your process of doing that or your experience in that.
Tele Darden [00:21:46]:
Yeah, I'm happy to. I think for me, the beginning of it was me waking up, either waking up or. Or going to bed one night, laying next to my husband, and feeling in this way that I think many, you know, early forties women feel of, like, is this it?
Sarah Tacy [00:22:10]:
Be another podcast right there? Like, could we stop and just. Or, like, have a podcast that's called Is this it?
Tele Darden [00:22:15]:
Is this it? Right? And we had, you know, we have a beaut. We had. We have a beautiful life, right? Like, his work. So much has changed since that time. His Work was going well, it was steady, it was stable. My practice was going well, I was teaching. It was probably, you know, in this, like year between the first and the second cohort, our kiddo was doing well. Like, we kind of crossed the threshold of real difficulty with them.
Tele Darden [00:22:47]:
We have a house. Like, we're so privileged, right, to have all of the things, all of the things that I was told that I was meant to have. This is such a cliche story.
Sarah Tacy [00:23:00]:
So cliche. And still happens.
Tele Darden [00:23:03]:
It still happens. And it's so, and it was so somatically real. The deep existential dread that hit me in that moment of like, is this it? I have optimized my morning routine and my evening routine and things are steady and stable and why am I unsatisfied? Do I just need to be more grateful? Do I need to make. Start a gratitude journal? What could it be, right? But it was actually what I found was that there actually was something missing from my life and from my world. And so I had done a values based integration training with Heather Morgan somewhere in that time. And I knew that beauty the creative was somewhere in my wheelhouse. And I wasn't really living into it, right? Like make my kids costumes for Halloween. We would go to fairy festivals.
Tele Darden [00:24:07]:
Like, we would bring in a bunch of magic, I would work in my garden. But I was not really channeling and tuning into that creative force now. Embodiment, freedom, liberation, trust. Those were things that I was practicing on a regular basis. But I recognized that this one core piece was missing. And I didn't understand in that moment or at that time how fundamental having all of those values be a part of my everyday life were so that way it was missing. So I took that, I just started being curious. So I was like, okay, well, this piece is missing.
Tele Darden [00:24:50]:
And then I started to look more at my astrology chart. I think, at least for me, I find that there's something quite stabilizing in the blueprinting tools. And then I noticed, oh, there's my tenth house of career. I have a libra stellium. And I was like, oh, well, there's not like that creative force is not actually emerging in the work. Somatic work is so amazing. It's actually not emerging anywhere in my life. And so the ruler of the 10th is in my seventh house of relationships.
Tele Darden [00:25:24]:
And it was just so clear to me of like, I actually need to bring values and art making and justice work more into my day to day work and more into my life. And really that was it. Like, I was like, well, I'm out of ideas really. So I should try this thing. I should try it on. I'm still unsatisfied. Something feels like it's missing. Here's something that I can identify that's missing.
Tele Darden [00:25:54]:
So let me go try it on. So I took a class, like a night class at the community college. And it was me and a bunch of like 60 and 70 year olds in our drawing class. And I was like, you know, I just want a low stakes path to entry. I just want to try it on. And I tried it on and I loved it. And not only did I love it, I found that I was good at it, which was remarkable for me because I was an art major in college 20 years ago, 20 years had gone by and I had always studied photography because I felt like I couldn't draw. I felt like I couldn't paint.
Tele Darden [00:26:34]:
There was some walk to that creative longing that I had that I couldn't visually express. And so time had gone by and I just felt like, oh, well, that dream is over, right? It was a younger, a dream for a younger version of myself. And so then I show up to this class, I'm like, oh, this brings me so much joy and I'm good at it and I need to figure this out a little more. And so lo and behold, after a little bit of research, I found that there was an art therapy program that had opened five years before, right? Like right in close proximity. And so when I graduated 20 years ago, that was not an option for me. I was a psych minor, art major. Right. It would have been perfect and it just wasn't, you know, it wasn't available.
Tele Darden [00:27:22]:
So all of that kind of took me into this year long process of preparation for the program where I had many prereqs to complete. And so I was back in school, right, as a beginner doing my prereqs at the community college and really trying it on and then landing, like moving into the program, getting accepted into the program, and then landing in this field where very quickly it was clear that none of the skills that I had cultivated were really going to be relevant for this part of my training. And so it was a. There was so much tension because I came in as a really seasoned practitioner and the oldest person in my cohort. And they would like, look to me like I was like, I have some insight about some things, about theoretical things, but when it comes down to it, we are all very much beginners in the, you know, in the same field. But it was, I think, hard to be accurately perceived as that there was tension there. And then my internship was working in a public school system. K8, right.
Tele Darden [00:28:44]:
And so the trauma resolution work is really great for resolution work for adults, but the skills are not necessarily transferable to children. Living through it in the moment, right, Where. Where the systemic and the personal and the collective is running through their little bodies, right? And the goal is to get them back to class and back to learning. We're like, well, we have to change the systems. I'm like, does anyone see where all of this is going sideways is so much of a systemic issue and, you know, the vulnerability and the perpetual heartbreak of watching the kids play that out in real life time. I think I'm good with beginner's mind. I think I'm good with not knowing. And there is so much that was new.
Tele Darden [00:29:43]:
It really challenged my. I wouldn't say my sense of self, but it challenged my capacity to stay present in all of the now many new roles and communities that I was navigating.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:05]:
I wonder if this feels accurate at all. Somebody that Steve and I see almost every Friday, Jerry Molitor, will say that stress is when you have more demands than resources. I just love when somebody can find something that's quite complicated and could have a physiological definition. And then just put it so simply, I'm like, oh. And so as I was moving through my. Is this all there is? Moment, plural moment, ongoing. And I was speaking to you earlier about how I was beginning to find it an adventure. And I was at Acadia national park, and my oldest daughter was there with her class, and they were going to take off, and I thought we were staying with them, and they're like adults.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:48]:
You can go do whatever you want. And there was no gps. Well, GPS didn't work because there was no service and people just took off to do hikes. And I had no idea that I would have such a freeze of like, well, I don't have a map and I don't know where I am. And how do you know what hike will lead you? I have been known to go down the wrong side of a mountain.
Tele Darden [00:31:07]:
So, like.
Sarah Tacy [00:31:10]:
And I was with a friend, and I had to have some patience to pull over to the side of the road and ask them, locals, this way or that way. But there was something enlivening to it. To not know it really heightened my attention quite a bit. And then the next day, since I had a layout of the land, the demands of needing to be so heightened were lowered. And then I could go with the Flow of, like, I know the way to this awesome hike. If you don't want to come with me. I know the way to the water and to. A friend of ours happened to have a house in that area.
Sarah Tacy [00:31:49]:
So it was like we found the ways and then going back to pace and rhythm. It's like, oh, we could enjoy it with so much more ease. But they both seemed like such big parts of it. But I can imagine if the newness is stacking, that it can also be a lot. Whereas in the expertise role, I imagine there's less newness and almost more ease, which might be less exciting to a system to have that little piece of edge.
Tele Darden [00:32:17]:
Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:32:19]:
Do you think that there is a part of having a learning and an edge that comes up in that middle age of working so long to become good at something that we lose what we might have when we're little, when it's like, let's go play this game. Let's this. Let's try this out of just that edge of not knowing.
Tele Darden [00:32:39]:
Yeah. I think that we can definitely first. I love this story, right. It's like, it might kill me, I.
Sarah Tacy [00:32:43]:
Might die, but maybe not.
Tele Darden [00:32:44]:
The chances, like, let me weigh the odds. And there is something, Right. There's something in the risk and the novelty of it that I think is. That is definitely enlivening. There were definitely times that I stood in my kitchen eating some French fries because it was the only coping mechanism I had, like, saying to my husband, like, this might kill me. I'm really, like, I'm really sure. But I think that. I think that as humans, we are wired for novelty.
Tele Darden [00:33:19]:
We need that newness of experience. Otherwise, I. You know, I. You could ask a neuroscientist, which I am not, but I think things start to atrophy, right. And I think our worlds get smaller. And part of what was attractive to me about trying the new thing, even though it might have killed me, was that I. I watch some people around me whose lives have gotten very small. And I think as a body worker, as a massage therapist for a number of years, working with a lot of older folks, I got to see folks who were in their 70s and 80s and who were living really.
Tele Darden [00:34:05]:
And it was the ones who were consistently doing not radically new things, but a little bit of travel here, a little bit of connection there, a night at the theater here. Right. Like to go see the symphony there, Just like, new enough experiences, and they were so satisfied with their lives. So I learned a lot from that. And then I would see other people whose as their worlds got smaller, as their brains and bodies got more rigid, right? They're just. From my experience on the outside, hearing those stories, there was less joy, there was more complaint. Right? Like, that bitterness can run so deep. And then.
Tele Darden [00:34:57]:
I mean, that's something I learned a while ago. But it really has stayed with me about, like, how do I want to be? And it layered in for me of, like, oh, this. You know, I think that making the connection now, like, oh, that moment, that existential dread. The dread part of it was, I think, the premonition of right and your world could get so small.
Sarah Tacy [00:35:21]:
I was working with you when I had my moment, I think, where I was, like, all the things that I thought I needed to climb out of this hole, I have them now. I have all the resources. And I had been practicing nervous system tools of pacing and right distance. And everything felt really stale. So it felt stable, but stale. And that, for me, was a really, really scary feeling. To also be someone whom. I think you have this overlap, too, of.
Sarah Tacy [00:35:53]:
Of trying to always stay awake and have. You know, at 24, I wrote a letter to myself of, like, may I. I was like, this is a smart sentence to write, like, may I have a midlife crisis every day. But with that, I wanted that so that I wouldn't wake up at 40 and have that feeling. But it happened anyway.
Tele Darden [00:36:11]:
I was like, what I thought I'd.
Sarah Tacy [00:36:13]:
Done, like, the work. And. And I know it's a natural part of the cycle, and it's. It's here for my own evolution. But it was. It was a shocking moment.
Tele Darden [00:36:26]:
I think we have more choices now than. I mean, we're close to the same age than our mother's generation had. Right? Like, there just for me, it feels like I have way more options to remain vibrant and strong. And, well, as I age, it's important to me. Right. It's important to me. And so it's a terrifying but necessary choice.
Sarah Tacy [00:36:54]:
I have a few phrases that. At the beginning, I was like, I'm gonna ask you these phrases. Cause I want everybody to hear about it. However, you also. Right before we got on, because we had a session before this, which I'm happy to also, if you have any. If there are any parts of it that you want me to share about my process. You kind of gave me a question, and I was like, oh, that's a great question. Perfect.
Sarah Tacy [00:37:19]:
And it was, what are the tools that get you through the thresholds? And. Because I was just saying, like, I'd love to also talk about the work that you're doing now. And so I'm guessing that those two weave together. And so I'm gonna give you that question and see if they weave and if they don't weave, then I also just would really love to share the last part too.
Tele Darden [00:37:44]:
Yeah, I think they. I think they weave and I think for me they weave because so I think the other thing that I mentioned is I feel like I live threshold to threshold. And so the. As I think about the threshold of the last year, year and a half, right? Leaving the steady life to try something new in a way that really stretched me beyond, honestly, beyond my capacity. The schedule was brutal. I was working or putting in 60 hour weeks consistently for almost a year, right. With very little, with maybe two weeks off in between. And you know, as a mom, that as soon as you have time off on your calendar, something will show up with at least one of your kids, right? So my two weeks off really became three days off maybe.
Tele Darden [00:38:41]:
So there was not enough time to recover. So I was stretched beyond my capacity. At the end. I really was feeling myself burning out again. I spent four years in pretty deep recovering from pretty deep burnout at the height of COVID and was the beginning of the recovery time. And so I could feel that in the spring as I was finishing up this last semester, like really chest, you know, my body just really needing such deep rest and so much of a break. And what I realized is as I was reflecting on it over the, you know, over the past couple of months since the semester ended, and then again this morning was actually I was, I was burning out, my body was depleted, I was emotionally drained, right. In all of the Pemser category.
Tele Darden [00:39:36]:
My spiritual practices had fallen by the wayside. My, my being was doing the thing that beings do when the, when there's more stress than resources, right? When the demand is too high, but you need to do the thing anyway. I mean, of course there's always a choice to not do the thing, but for me, I see things through, right? And I was so close to the end. And what I realized and what I recognized was that the thing that actually was untouched by it were my values, right? So even on the most difficult day, I was finding these micro expressions of ways to live them out. They remained untouched.
Sarah Tacy [00:40:21]:
Wow.
Tele Darden [00:40:22]:
Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:40:24]:
In our session together earlier where I was inside person, I was talking to you about how I found myself at 2:30 in the morning in my car feeling urgency as I am preparing to teach a course called Opting out of Urgency. And I got to reflect on that Same thing of like, wait, I still have choice here. So I get to feel the pressure of a container and containment and make a choice of is this still in alignment with what I want? What things have I said yes to that I might now say no to so that I can, you know, I would have more choice in this scenario than if I were in a western school system. But like, what things can I opt out of? But it was really interesting to feel the squeeze of urgency but then add, oh, and I do have agency in a few of these areas. And now I'm just thinking like, and was I meeting my values? And as we've worked together, that particular retreat actually had a lot of my core values in it. So I was able to pendulate between the work, which is something I value and is made up of the values, and then go and tend to my body and my system in ways that are both communal and create a lot of vitality and energy moving through me that feel more wild and move from mind into a really body led experience. And when I heard your story too, I heard that even as choice was getting minimized, but not completely gone, even in the place where for sure the demands have overcome the resources to have your values there. What does that do for you?
Tele Darden [00:42:16]:
They bring me back to life. I mean, I think that this gets reflected in your experience too, like that return of vitality. They are the through line of purpose for me and they help me to reorient to what I'm willing to do, to what I'm willing to do in service of the life that I want to live and in service of myself and in service of my purpose, right? And I mean other people benefit when I have a outward macro expression, others benefit from it, but really they help me return to me and remember why I'm doing things. And I knew at the beginning because As I say, 60 hour weeks, you know, I must see a client, spend some time in the hammock, see another client, right? Like my pacing, because of the way I'm wired, needs to, needs to be slower, needs to be more spacious. And so for, for so much time it really has been. I'm willing to do it in service of liberation, right? I'm willing to do it in service of embodiment. I'm willing to do it in service of trust, willing to do it in service of the creative right and magic and beauty, because those are the things that I need more of. And that really was, you know, as I was creating the program or beginning to write copy for it really was at the turn of the election, right around from the election to inauguration, where I realized, like, oh, it could all be gone.
Tele Darden [00:44:09]:
It could all be. Every vision that I had worked for could be totally dismantled, right? I was working in the schools, okay, well, funding, Medicaid funds, my position. So that could be gone. My kiddo wants to be a teacher. That school system, financial aid, like, all of that could be gone. There's a chance in the next four to five years, right? That the things that we were working towards, my husband and I were working towards financially could be gone. In the in between of getting accepted and getting and beginning the program, he lost his job. And so our financial situation changed completely.
Tele Darden [00:44:56]:
And so with the inauguration and the effect on the economy, it was unclear when he would find work again, right? So I'm like, oh, it could all just be gone. And so if everything is gone, not overnight, we're privileged enough to not have that be our story. That is absolutely, absolutely the story for some people, right? Things could be dismantled. What would I have left? This was my two in the morning existential thread. Like, what? What would be left? Right? And what I realized were the values were the things that I would have left, right? It doesn't matter the form my work takes. It doesn't matter what the expression of it is in the world. I will consistently stand for liberation. I will consistently stand for trust.
Tele Darden [00:45:46]:
I will express that and live that out. No matter if I am art therapist, somatic coach, the lady on the corner. It doesn't actually matter how I'm perceived, what I call myself, what my title is. What matters is what I'm sharing and putting out into the world. So that was a theory, right? And then moving through this time of burnout where I really felt like, oh, and now I really have, you know, I have the material things, but internally I really feel like I have nothing left but to have the values still be standing tall for me. Proof of the theory for me feels remarkable and it feels important. It just feels important.
Sarah Tacy [00:46:29]:
I heard a lot of threads of devotion in there. I heard really that if everything were to end, who do you want to be.
Tele Darden [00:46:44]:
And who am I? Right? And I think that the shift for me, over the threshold of or into the threshold of middle age, right, is that shift of who I'm expected to be, the external locus of expectation and identity to this internalized locus of, like, well, who. Who am I? Like, what really brings me to life and do I have permission to live that out?
Sarah Tacy [00:47:25]:
As we close up here, I would love to take a Moment just to sing your praise. And I know we all just had an hour or two to be with you. And this program that you're offering now, is it six sessions, five sessions, five.
Tele Darden [00:47:47]:
Sessions over three months or your right timing? Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:47:53]:
So I am relaunching a program called Resourced. And it was really aware as I was going into the field, I was like, I really feel like I could. A coach is the wrong word. But I just felt like I was stepping into an updated version of self. And like, how fortunate was I that when you reached out to say, hey, is that podcast offer still open? I'm doing this thing. And I was like, yes, and can I be your client? Because I was so. I mean, it just felt like this blessing, right? Like, I was so clear that as I step into this work, I want my work to be value aligned. I know that my tendency can be to get very mental and that I feel a lot of safety there.
Sarah Tacy [00:48:41]:
But sometimes I can get into work and offer up the things and perhaps people really love it. But then I feel slightly dead on the other side. And it's a bit devastating to me to be like, I think this is my work.
Tele Darden [00:48:54]:
I think this.
Sarah Tacy [00:48:55]:
And it's been really so helpful the way that you are able to reflect things, see things lovingly. Call me in where I'm missing the thread, where I think I see the obvious storyline and you may point something out like you did today. And I'm like, oh, oh, oh. And it's helpful to also slow down in the stories to see where in the story do my emotions begin to quiver, begin to show up beyond story, begin to show like, oh, this is meaningful and important. And so I know that a lot of people who listen to this podcast are entrepreneurs, coaches, put themselves somewhere in like the somatic spiritual realm, who have purpose driven work. And as you and I just spoke about, we can have purpose driven work and really follow the next right step and still find ourselves in a place of confusion. You are also the first person to use the phrase intuition rehab to me. And so that was.
Sarah Tacy [00:50:10]:
You said experts can sometimes be really great intuition rehab. And so I sometimes offer that to groups. I always say that I heard it from you, but because you don't have to, like, you could listen to what I'm saying. And being like, that's bullshit. So great, you get to like just get information from that. But the reason why I'm saying this is that even when I worked more in the yoga field and with clients, one on one, I had a mirror just on one side of the wall. And I know that my job was also to be a mirror, because when patterns repeat themselves enough times. And I think this also goes back to, like, if you're an expert in something and you keep doing it neurologically, we begin to see that as neutral and true.
Sarah Tacy [00:50:59]:
So somebody could be in a twist and feel like they're. Or I'll give a different example. When I was in Down Dog, someone kept saying, straighten your left arm. Straighten your left arm. And I thought they must be talking to somebody else until they came up and touched my elbow. Did I say right or left? It was the left elbow. And my bent was perceived as straight. And so it.
Sarah Tacy [00:51:22]:
And for some of my clients, I'm thinking about when somebody was twisting and he just started laughing. Cause he's like, I just thought that what I was doing looked like what you were doing. And it can take a mirror of some sort to just give a little accurate reflection and. Or something that would even cause an intuition rehab of, like, I hear that's their reflection, but I know this is my truth. And so the. The invitation for anyone listening that I see here is to have someone who I. She is standing in her core values and a brilliant, brilliant, accurate reflector, who, even in a session three years ago, when I was looping on something, you literally paused me and you're like. Or you said, like, can we have a pause? And you said, I just want to say this doesn't sound like you.
Sarah Tacy [00:52:17]:
And in most scenarios, that might be, like, bypassing. But it was like, you so clearly heard in that moment what I couldn't hear. But when you said it, I knew in my bones it was true. And I was able to pause in that moment and just, like, recalibrate to my truth, take a breath and start again. And it is a skill that is, like, so nuanced and refined. And you were just really incredible at it. So if anybody is having that urge of. Is there, you know, a teacher there who understands trauma resolution, somatics, pacing, and is also there to help coach and guide on values and business? I can't recommend tell loud enough, strong enough, slowly enough, in your right timing.
Sarah Tacy [00:53:11]:
And I'm just so grateful that you've been in my life and you've made such a big impact on me. And so I really, really appreciate you.
Tele Darden [00:53:21]:
You're. The depth of your kindness. It no longer surprises me, but I always feel so grateful to be in your presence. I. There's something magical that happens, I think, when teachers come together, right? Just like, you know, archetypal innate teachers come together. And I consistently so much from you through listening in, through our sessions, through hearing the brilliant ways that you weave. We've talked about this. But so many of the brilliant ways that you weave these disconnected threads into something cohesive to really in just the most genuine and magical ways.
Tele Darden [00:54:17]:
I think that's magic. I think there's some serious magic that I just deeply appreciative to be in the presence of when we work together. So thank you for the kind words and also right back at you. There's just like a reciprocity of deep care here.
Sarah Tacy [00:54:36]:
All right, well, thank you. I was like, we should do this more often. This feels good. And so sometimes I close out with a reticular activating system prayer where it gets to weave together the, the sacred and the neurological.
Tele Darden [00:55:00]:
This is brilliant. This is what, this is exactly what I'm saying.
Sarah Tacy [00:55:02]:
Yeah.
Tele Darden [00:55:03]:
Magic.
Sarah Tacy [00:55:04]:
Yeah. And so sometimes you'll hear some of the Bridget phrases of surprise and delight me, show me along with. I love just saying like, may I. Or you know, we'll see what comes. May I have so much compassion for myself in the moments of. Oh shit, is this it? May I have a wedge in the moment that has the smallest clue that this might just be a hint, a call in the next right direction. May I stay open to when the callings around me show up in right timing. May I see enough people who trust in right timing, in an unrushed life, in a value based life that I might believe even just a single thread of myself that that's possible and that I might try it on in the smallest doable way.
Sarah Tacy [00:56:25]:
Surprise and delight me beyond what I could imagine for myself. And may I remember that in birth, whether of a child or a project, the containment can feel tight, the pressure feels real, and that there is another side. I'm just going to take a nice easy inhale here.
Tele Darden [00:56:51]:
And a full exhale.
Sarah Tacy [00:56:54]:
Thank you.
Tele Darden [00:56:55]:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for your time and your care.
Sarah Tacy [00:57:08]:
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@SarahTacey.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.
Sarah Tacy [00:57:39]:
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.