Let That Shift Go
Healing and Hope: Esme Saleh's Journey Through Loss and the Rediscovery of Life's Sacred Moments
Have you ever pondered the life-altering revelations that can emerge from the deepest of losses? Esme Saleh's story is a beacon for anyone navigating through life's darkest tunnels, proving that even when perfectionism and unspeakable tragedy collide, there is a path to healing and hope. Our heart-to-heart with this remarkable journalist and entrepreneur is not just a tale of sorrow, but a celebration of the human spirit's indomitable perseverance.
In our exchange, Esme shares insights that will resonate deeply with anyone who's felt overshadowed or sought validation in the most unlikely places. From the disorienting dazzle of the Golden Globes to a simple yet profound moment of empathy from a colleague, her journey exemplifies how transformative personal struggles can be. It's about recognizing the shifts that guide us towards uncharted yet fulfilling paths, and the serendipitous acts of kindness that signal the beginning of recovery and rediscovery.
In the embrace of nature and art, Esme finds a sanctuary for her soul. She invites us to witness the spiritual connections that transcend conventional rituals, finding sacredness in a child's musical tribute and the spiritual revelations of a moonlit walk. As she shares the role art has played in her path to healing, from painting a lion in remembrance of her child to finding solidarity with a struggling family during the lockdown, Esme's narrative becomes a canvas illustrating how embracing loss can lead to profound growth and the beauty of keeping our hearts open to the lessons of uncertainty. Join us for a conversation that promises not just to move you but to transform the way you perceive life's most challenging moments.
Have you ever pondered the life-altering revelations that can emerge from the deepest of losses? Esme Saleh's story is a beacon for anyone navigating through life's darkest tunnels, proving that even when perfectionism and unspeakable tragedy collide, there is a path to healing and hope. Our heart-to-heart with this remarkable journalist and entrepreneur is not just a tale of sorrow, but a celebration of the human spirit's indomitable perseverance.
In our exchange, Esme shares insights that will resonate deeply with anyone who's felt overshadowed or sought validation in the most unlikely places. From the disorienting dazzle of the Golden Globes to a simple yet profound moment of empathy from a colleague, her journey exemplifies how transformative personal struggles can be. It's about recognizing the shifts that guide us towards uncharted yet fulfilling paths, and the serendipitous acts of kindness that signal the beginning of recovery and rediscovery.
In the embrace of nature and art, Esme finds a sanctuary for her soul. She invites us to witness the spiritual connections that transcend conventional rituals, finding sacredness in a child's musical tribute and the spiritual revelations of a moonlit walk. As she shares the role art has played in her path to healing, from painting a lion in remembrance of her child to finding solidarity with a struggling family during the lockdown, Esme's narrative becomes a canvas illustrating how embracing loss can lead to profound growth and the beauty of keeping our hearts open to the lessons of uncertainty. Join us for a conversation that promises not just to move you but to transform the way you perceive life's most challenging moments.
Hello and welcome to the Let that Shift Go podcast. I'm Noel and I'm Lina, and this is where we talk about the good, the bad and all the shift in between. We just talk mad shift. Let's get into it, and on today's episode, we have a very special guest with us today, esme Saleh. She is my sister-in-law, and she reached out to me recently and just had something so profound on her heart that we decided to get together and record about it. And you know, I'm not even sure what this episode is going to be called, but it is about shifting the idea of loss. And so Esme is. She is a profound journalist. She has interviewed very, you know, exciting, popular people that everyone has heard of in Hollywood. She's worked for some of the big networks, and now she is also an entrepreneur who creates her own works of art, with some amazing hand-painted candles that have been featured in some of the most amazing architectural magazines, and so I'm so excited to have her on as a guest. Thank you, esme, for being here.
Speaker 3:And thank you for the invitation always to be here in this space and just, I know you call me sister-in-law and I think in a lot of ways we kind of grew up together.
Speaker 1:We sure do.
Speaker 3:So I consider you like my blood sister. I have seen you grow and I'm sure you've seen a lot of different phases of my growth as well, and now is just such a good place. We are both in this space where we welcome expansion More of ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yes, more of our authentic selves.
Speaker 3:Yes, really seeing you grow into more of yourself in the past few years especially benefited, experienced so many wonderful things here at Serenity Cove that have just illuminated the work that I do in my professional life and also in my just spiritual life, and it's sort of full circle to be able to share. I know when you first started the podcast you had loosely given the invitation and in my mind, like what do I have to say, what do I have to share? I don't know what my message is or my story is. And the other day message is or my story is, and the other day I had that moment of like being proud, I guess, of the journey, of how I got here, because I remember when Linus now my eight-year-old son was first born and we would go on these little outings to just kind of like get out of the house and I was in one of those like nursing rooms at a department store and a woman asked if he was my only son and I said no, no, he's not.
Speaker 3:And I told her the story of loss, right, and she said to me jaw down to the floor. I don't think I could ever survive after going through something like that. You'd have to put me in a rubber room, yeah, and I felt a little bit ashamed in that moment because I thought am I not broken enough? Like I feel broken, do I not show that enough? Trying to like, put me in a space where I feel like I didn't do enough? Grieving.
Speaker 1:You know Well, tell us a little bit about your loss, just to fill us in on those who don't know.
Speaker 3:Yes. So you know, I feel like, in a lot of ways, it was our loss. You know, as a family, we were on the path of becoming parents in 2014, and we had a very traumatic birth experience and, like to put it mildly, and I think it illuminated so much of my perfectionism because I was like wanting to be the perfect pregnant mama. I wanted to do everything by the book. I read all the books, all the things that I was supposed to do, oh, all the things, and I was working as a very successful producer. I wanted to continue working all the way up until the end of my pregnancy, which I did, and we went to the hospital that morning that I was in labor and things didn't go as planned. Yeah, yeah, deep breaths, deep breath, deep breath. I don't know whatever force is out there, what the universe wants to tell me, but I'm here for it. Wow, I'm here for it.
Speaker 3:Are a lot of details that you know that I probably won't share today, because this is not an episode about that. Yeah, it's not. It's not about the nitty gritty, yeah, and it's about the acceptance that comes with a loss, right, and when we went through that, one of the things that the doctor told my husband at the time was your wife is going to live. Yeah, a challenge really, because yeah, you know, I was in that weird space of possibly not making it and coming through like all of those things, like the proverbial near-death experience and all of that stuff. But it was a challenge because, yeah, I'm going to live, yeah, yeah, I'm going to figure it out. You're going to live on purpose On purpose On purpose.
Speaker 3:And my sister came to visit me in the hospital a few days after everything evolved. She said to me, you know, because I was just a mess, I was broken. Yeah, just a mess. And she says you really have to look after yourself. You can die of a broken heart. And I thought, yeah, I mean I can, but I didn't die the first time, you know, or whatever. I was up against during that moment and I said to myself, like I don't know how I'm going to live. Yeah, I don't know how this is going to look for me. And I was a very anxious kid. You know, I went through so much anxiety as a kid because there was already a lot of loss in our world.
Speaker 3:growing up, you know whether it was poverty or just instability, insecurity.
Speaker 1:So a lot of my adult life was a remedy of what I thought that was, if I do all the right things, if I do everything I'm supposed to do, if I have the job, if I have the home, if I have the, then everything will be fine, right.
Speaker 3:And you saw a lot of that because you grew up with us, you know and you are like a witness to what we went through, but you didn't really like ever talk about it with us because it just was a circumstance, right, yeah. And so when you go through such a profound loss, you start to examine all of the other things that you've lost. Yeah. Yeah, and for me it was it's like while you're down like while you're down here, while you're down here.
Speaker 1:We might take a look around.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know a lot of people call it the dark night of the soul. You call it rock bottom.
Speaker 3:It really isn't like, you know, the grief journey. It's like the stages. I didn't experience it that way. I experienced it in so many different ways that made me feel crazy sometimes. Yeah, and ooh. Yeah, there was one day early on when I was having just a really tough day and I drove myself to the cemetery. I drove up the hill to Forest Lawn and I felt like the purpose. I was searching for a purpose. I didn't know why this happened. Yeah, the why A lot of people talk about. You know, sometimes it was God's plan or the things that they want to say to make you feel better.
Speaker 3:Yeah they don't know what to say. They don't know what to say and I get it now. Yeah, I get it, because people, meanwhile, they don't want you to hurt, they don't want you to experience that pain on such a deep level, so they try to say the things To erase it. Yeah, what I've learned is that the silence is where the healing comes. Yeah, right, the presence and just the allowance, like having someone there to give you the space to just say this really sucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this shouldn't have happened. And that day that I drove to Forest Lawn and dad God bless his soul he picked up the phone. I called him because I just I wasn't sure I wanted to even be there anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Whew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the U-turn.
Speaker 3:And I don't think anyone. I get so emotional because I don't think anyone in our family knows this particular story besides dad and, of course, my husband, but he basically talked me off the ledge.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And on that drive home I need to find a way to walk this earth with my son in a different way. And along the way, there were so many books and so many things, yeah, that people shared and gosh like a lot of them are really really dark and sad, like the titles in and of themselves are like when you lose a child, when you know like the hand that rocks, the like all these things, and you're just like wow, and I couldn't get past the first chapters of any of those books. Yeah, and there's a reason and I know that reason now, you know, and and a friend suggested why don't you try going to a support group? And that might not be such a bad idea, because you get there and you're like maybe being around other people who have experienced such profound losses in their life.
Speaker 1:And I got to the first one and oof as an empath, oh, yeah, You're like no, I not only have my stuff, I have yours too.
Speaker 3:And then it becomes a like gosh, you got it way worse than I did and it's like I need to be there for you and I need to be there to comfort you. And I found myself holding hands with strangers and then I'm like, wait, I'm not getting what I need. But then it just sort of reminds you of of like your life, because that's what it is really. You know, I'm the youngest of six and you saw that dynamic firsthand right, I was always kind of brushed to the side and it brings back those feelings of like I need help too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like there's no room for you, for what you need, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that for me was just not the right fit. And I can recognize it now and I think if I were to go back into that space I could be more present for the people that need it, in a different capacity and more of a healing capacity, and so it was almost like opening up those little Russian eggs.
Speaker 1:The Russian dolls. Yeah, peeling back the layers of the onion.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes and like the first one. Okay, well, that's not working and like I think my my motivation was like I gotta get up out of bed yeah, first I gotta, I gotta get my life going again and at the time we had our dog, lucy, who you know needed to go out for the yeah, first things first. You know, and you talk about, like you know, hearing you describe like what I used to do in the past, kind of like you get that like, was that really me?
Speaker 1:Like it's somebody else's life.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a whole nother timeline. Yeah, that doesn't belong to you anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I sort of just kind of not disassociated, but like I don't put so much importance on what I used to do in the same way that I used to do it. You know, and my first realization of that was when I went back to work and my first like big event was the Golden Globes, and I put on a fancy dress and luckily it was, you know, an outdoor event and I was able to wear dark sunglasses, Because I felt so out of place. I felt like I was like an alien walking this red carpet and there's like these celebrities everywhere and everyone's asking them what they're wearing and I'm just like I'm just trying to get out of bed. I'm just trying to like survive this like darkness that I'm feeling, yeah, and just like get through my day and feel like I have a purpose and I thought maybe my work was that.
Speaker 1:But the perspective shifted big time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the perspective shifted so much so that it started to affect really how I did my work. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um, and at the time I was working with um, one of our fashion correspondents who was there to sort of do the fashion critique, and we were walking down cause he asked me to walk him to the step and repeat, which is a place where the photographers go to have their photos, or the people go to have their photos taken by the photographers. And I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll walk you down there. And he's standing there and he's posing and in my head I just kept thinking this is just so silly, this is not real, this is not real life. No, and on the walk back to our spot he says to me are you okay? And I'm sure you can relate to this when someone says are you okay, it's that invitation to like let the floodgates open.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not, and I think that's kind of what my response was. Like it was no, I'm not okay, this is all so fucked up, this isn't even real. And and I told him and he grabbed my hand he's like honey, what are you doing here? And I was just like you're kind of right what am I doing?
Speaker 1:what am I?
Speaker 3:doing here, playing, like I think he was still wearing Spanx underneath my dress because I still had, like, the baby weight and my, you know, my boobs are still engorged.
Speaker 3:You know, like I was still trying to mask the idea that like I still went through childbirth, I still went through all of this childbirth, I still went through all of this and most people who go through that and take care of a child are very, very tired and very like just worn out, let alone going through that process and then not having a baby to hold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Having grief deep, deep grief. So that was my first clue, like a wake up. It's almost like in the middle of the story, the play, you know. It was like, hey, what are you doing? You're still on the set. You know, this isn't really what you're here to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what you're saying is the voice in the back of my head, and it was so early and so fresh that I didn't really quite know what my life was supposed to look like, what it should look like, and it was sort of a series of things that would happen that were just kind of really crappy. And now that I see them, they weren't crappy things, they were doors that were opening. Yes, they were the signposts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and one of the signposts was I was sent to cover a funeral and it was a celebrity funeral and there was like a media barricade and everyone was there, every network, and I didn't have boundaries, I didn't have like the wherewithal to say to my bureau chief like I don't know if I can do this. So I went anyway and my sound guy, um, you know, he says to me you don't have to be here, go to your car, sit in your car, I'll call you if something happens.
Speaker 3:And at the time, like I would never do that, like I needed to be present, I was a good producer and I needed to like be on the ball, like I wasn't going to like neglect my job, and he shooed me away. He says go and thank you, doug, if you're listening. That meant the world to me. Yeah, oh gosh, gosh.
Speaker 3:And then here comes the tears again, because I remember that he had lost his sister so he knew what he knew he told me that story like years prior, and I knew his story, but I realized that not everyone's going to understand and the people that do are the ones that have gone through, that have experienced it and that know, and that's the definition of empathy and compassion. And so in that moment I did go back to my car and I felt terrible. I think I felt more guilt about not being there than I felt sadness about covering a funeral and you know, and how that evolved was I got back to the office and I got a phone call from Human Resources, got a phone call from human resources. I, you know, I got a call from your boss and you know you're not doing your job, yeah, and I felt so, so slighted, and I felt so like. I felt like, oh my gosh, like don't they understand, like, oh my gosh, like don't they understand.
Speaker 3:And then I realized something in that moment that I was a fish out of water now. Like my boss used to sign me to, like the sad stories, and he would always like know that whenever I'd interview someone, if they wanted tears, I had the ability to connect and he would call me his Oprah and I always thought that was like a badge of honor and in hindsight I thought, gosh, it's kind of an a-hole thing to do, because I don't want to do that anymore. I want to connect to people, but I don't want to do that anymore. Like I want to connect to people but I don't want to leave them with that feeling that we're sharing something so personal and then I'm just going to walk out of your life. But I've got that moment on camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just for the sensationalism of it, not for the depth of the human experience or connection, right, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so those moments continue to happen and I felt like I needed to find a different way, and I had worked so long in the industry that I didn't want to walk away from it entirely because I felt like I had worked so hard. I'm first generation college graduate, all the things, and I wanted my family to be proud of me. I wanted them to the ego is still present, oh ever so present, and I didn't know what it was that I would even do beyond that, like my entire identity was wrapped into my work. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You spent a lifetime building that.
Speaker 3:I spent a lifetime building it. I met my husband doing it. I grew up in that world. I grew up in that world Like, for better or for worse, the people that I worked with were like my family, because I spent so many hours doing it and I missed so many things that I wanted to do doing it. So I felt like I've sacrificed so much, why walk away now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's many of us. Yeah. So what happened? That's many of us yeah.
Speaker 3:So what happened? So then I became pregnant again. Oh, and that was the most fine dance of joy and fear. Oh yeah, let's not do that again. And fortunately, I had a wonderful team of doctors who held my hand through the whole thing, and one of the things that was very crucial in the process was creating those boundaries those boundaries that I never had. So, in that world, when you create boundaries that you never had before, the people that are around you start to feel like you're pushing back, so like when you say no.
Speaker 3:I cannot do this?
Speaker 1:No, no, I cannot do this.
Speaker 3:No, right, mm-hmm. But it was different this time, because my incentive was my child, yeah, and you're a mama, you had something to fight for.
Speaker 3:Right, there's nothing you wouldn't do for your kid, even if you haven't met them yet. And I think for me that was the most important thing in the moment is a safe and successful pregnancy. So fast forward. Nine months later, linus arrived safely. Everything kind of came full circle.
Speaker 3:I just lavished in being a mom and I was worried about like postpartum and all of those things, and I experienced such a beautiful journey with him that it made me realize I don't have to be the same person that I was before, person that I was before, and I don't have to look back in regret but just use it as a stepping stone to figuring out what it is that I really want to do with my life and what I want my child, what I want Linus to see me do with my life and how I experience joy. And in a lot of ways he has seen the evolution of that in those beginning stages and he is a very creative kid and he's a creative kid on his own. But I often wonder like? Does he see that as an invitation, like his mother doing the things that she loves, as an invitation to just embrace what he loves too? And maybe, maybe not? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So when he was born and I, you know, I would go and do talk therapy, and I remember the therapist asking what my goal was for therapy and I said I just want to be able to talk about my first son without breaking down, and she just kind of nodded and smiled, it's like hmm, and I think that was her way of saying well, good luck, you know. And I knew then that that was not going to be a possibility. I mean, it's hard to even do it here today. Yeah, and I think that's what my strength became.
Speaker 1:Because it's like saying I'm hoping to not feel and it's like, no, you didn't come here for that.
Speaker 3:You didn't come here for that. But also part of learning and part of healing means that you have to face the loss. You have to face the loss. You have to face the things that you were sweeping on the rug under all those years, and the biggest one for me was the feeling of the other shoe always dropping, because it always did, and you know why. Bother Like something bad's going to happen. Yeah, you know you're going to. We were kids. You're going to lose the house.
Speaker 1:If things are good, that means something bad's coming right around the corner, so don't get too comfortable. Yeah, yeah, that's a story many of us have.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, that's a a lot of guilt, because here I was leaving behind a career that at the time, I loved doing. What was I going to do now? You know, like, how are we going to make this work?
Speaker 3:and I just found a way to embrace it and I think one of the books that I read along the way was no Death, no Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh and that really opened my eyes to so much. Yeah, how so? Oh well, if you know a lot of his work, he's a Buddhist monk and I was raised Catholic. I don't know anything about Buddhism, I don't know anything, but I explored, you know, in my 20s and college, and meditation, mindfulness, and couldn't afford to buy the book from Barnes Noble, so I'd go in and I'd sit in the corner and I would write down the page that I left off on so that I'd remember to go back again to read.
Speaker 3:And mindfulness was always something that was available to me but I didn't know quite how to incorporate it. And then this book I don't know how it came into my world, but it didn't. I'm so grateful. And there was a passage, like right in the beginning, that just shifted the perspective of how I walked this earth with my son, with my first son, and it was just such a beautiful passage that I just have it bookmarked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, please, I want to share Please read it and he talks about losing his mother and how he was going to be able to relate to the world around him like after her loss and how difficult that was. And he says I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants and my hut was set behind the temple. Halfway up, walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight, caressing me as she had done so often very tender, very sweet, wonderful.
Speaker 3:Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents all of my ancestors. I can't read that without getting teary-eyed, because he says those feet that I saw as my feet were actually our feet Together. My mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil and and. After reading that I realized that I already had the relationship with my son. It was there all along. I just never had the courage to access it from a spiritual place. Yeah, because in order to do that, you have to let go of all the things that you grew up believing. Yeah, because in order to do that, you have to let go of all the things that you grew up believing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How did it shift the way you saw spirituality?
Speaker 3:It changed everything. You go through the process, I mean, even on the day of his funeral. I remember my father doing the eulogy alongside an imam and I didn't feel a connection to any of it, and I know it sounds weird, but it's not that I didn't feel a connection to the words. It was that the religion, the aspect of religion, was. I couldn't make sense of the loss through those eyes and it wasn't until Jake, your son, my nephew, he, his little guitar. Yeah, my nephew, his little guitar.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he stood there on that day and somehow found the courage to play. Here Comes the Sun, and that was God for me. Yeah, that moment was God for me, that gesture, and I realized that I was looking for God in not the wrong places, but in the places that I didn't think he existed. That was in nature, in my breath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a song, in a song.
Speaker 3:Being outside, just being Right. Song being outside, just being right, and early on. The hummingbirds I know a lot of people who have suffered loss have this profound connection to hummingbirds and I get it now. Yeah, they would come early on and practically knock their little beak against the window asking me to look. And now they come and I invite them and we have a very deep connection and those moments in the past would make me feel like I was a little crazy and I'm sure you can relate to that aspect of like being on a spiritual journey and wondering if anyone would get you or understand you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so many suffering in silence with that same question and just not letting each other know, Right, and I think that's why-.
Speaker 3:It doesn't fit into the box. It doesn't fit into the box and I think maybe that's why I felt that call and that pull to record this with you today and here. You know you'd asked me like do you want to do it on Zoom, do you want to come in person? But I think this place, like, has become the invitation to welcome those experiences. Yeah, come home to yourself, to come home to yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And to really just be open to the idea that sometimes, the things that you can't explain are not supposed to be. Yeah, you're supposed to just experience them, without trying to prove that they exist. Yeah, and I sat outside the other day and I saw the shadow of a bird and my instinct was to look for the bird. Oh, and by the time I looked around to find the bird, it was gone. And that sat with me, because if I had just enjoyed the moment and just seen the shadow of the wings flapping, and experiencing that moment, I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't have lost it, you know.
Speaker 3:And so I think that's kind of how I explain my relationship with Laith, and his name means lion in Arabic, and I think that gosh, like that kind of like segued into what it is that I'm doing now, because, after he died, one of my dear friends, chaz, who lives in Portland, and Chaz, who lives in Portland, she asked me to paint a lion, and I think we have one here too, and she asked me to paint a lion and I'm like, you know, how would she even know? How would she know? Oh, my goodness, I have it here and it's signed on the bottom corner ES 2014. And it's kind of funny, but, like my mom had this portrait of Jesus on her wall, or she still does, and it's the kind of portrait where the eyes sort of follow you wherever you walk and that's kind of how I feel about this one, but like, not in a weird way that I used to feel about the Jesus.
Speaker 3:But anyway, when Chaz asked me to do this, she was my invitation To create, to create, and it was something that I'd always done. Whenever I would be stressed If I would come home from a really tough story, I'd open up my watercolor palette and. I'd just let it flow and it was like my escape. And I realize now that sometimes what it is that you are drawn to during the times that you feel most disconnected to yourself, is your passion. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's when you can hear it, mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and she asked me to make this for her, and I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that it needed to come out. It needed to come out, it needed to exist in a different way, and that opened the door to other forms of art. I created a logo for a friend's business and a baby shower invite, and just little things that I would weave into my day-to-day while I was doing my quote-unquote real job.
Speaker 3:You know, my day-to-day while I was doing my quote-unquote real job and fast forward. After Linus was born, I just started exploring it a little bit more and feeling like this is what makes me happy. And it might not be any good At least that's the story that I was telling myself. It might not be any good, but it makes me feel alive. Yeah, that's the currency. That was the currency and it was always like this voice in the back of my head that said the process is the purpose, like the process of doing this is the purpose. It's not the outcome. It's being in that state of like, bliss and joy. Um, because you're just doing it for the sake of being, being and loving what you're doing. That's everything and that's that. That's all there is. And, um, boy, like I, you know you get caught up with like motherhood and all the things and the paintbrushes were put away and all the things that, uh, you know the. The reminders weren't there as frequently, but this photo was still hanging on our wall.
Speaker 3:And in 2020, when the world just shut down completely, linus and I were driving through our little town and I saw a little girl trying to hang a tree swing, or like a makeshift tree swing over a tree and this was in a parking lot of like you know, middle of like nowhere. And she, I thought she was alone and I said to Linus, something's not quite right. Let's turn around and see, like, what this is all about. And I rolled down the window and I asked her if she was okay. And then I see her dad coming out of a car and I realized I saw the suitcases and the things packed in and I put two and two together and I knew what their situation was. So I said to Linus, like let's go home and put together like some things for them to eat. And it was around like Halloween and we had some leftover candy and like. So he was so excited because he felt that kind of like let's do something nice for these folks and like let's, you know, cheer them up. And we go back.
Speaker 3:And this time she wasn't there and saw the father and he's just like, oh, we're okay, we're just a little down on our luck. And I was just so angry, a little down on her luck, and I was just so angry, like this kind of like anger and anxiety at the same time, because I'm like I want to do something for her and I didn't know how and like, this bag of candy isn't going to solve anything, but I thought maybe it'll bring her a little joy. But she wasn't there. And next thing, you know, I see her little head peeking out of the car and I was like this is not okay. And I went home and I think I called my sister and her husband's police officer.
Speaker 3:I'm like, what can I do? Like I felt like this sense of desperation and that night when I went to bed, I had a very vivid dream about a flower. And the next day I painted that flower on a candle because like that's all that was in front of me. It was like a blank candle and I had my paints and I painted this flower and I was like, all right, well, there's nothing that I can do for this little girl. She was gone.
Speaker 3:We went back again. The car was missing, but in a way I think I was trying to heal like my own inner child. It brought back the memory of, at one point in our lives, being homeless and spending some time in a car and, although my parents were in that similar circumstance, it made me feel like I was trying to overcome that wound. Yeah, and I realized that that was going to be my way out of that wounded self, like that feeling of being powerless all of my childhood. You're going to alchemize it, I'm going to like, move it and I'm going to make it something else. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then fast forward to November. You know, we still weren't really gathering in big groups and I had this really love-hate relationship with flowers because they always reminded me of loss and death. And so I said I'm going to paint them on candles and I'm going to celebrate that way, I'm going to make peace with them in that way. And I did and I felt bold enough to say you know, maybe this is something other people will relate to the idea of impermanence, that nothing lasts forever. The beauty is there to enjoy it in the moment, and it's going to be gone. So you're going to light the candle, you're going to burn it and it's going to be gone, and that's okay, yeah, and it's okay to do.
Speaker 3:And in that moment I felt like I'd always defined success as like an accomplishment, as something that I did externally. And when I would paint, I felt sort of like a fraud in a way, because I felt like I'm doing this and I'm enjoying it. It's my meditation, like how dare I try to monetize this in any way? And I didn't like the idea of something being so transactional. That's meant so much to me. So I struggled with that for a while and I sat on it for a while and my friends would say, like you need to share these. But I didn't want to go into that space because I didn't want to lose the feeling of what it was, that I was channeling when I was doing this, but again the whispers, and then again the dreams.
Speaker 3:A lot of things for me will come in a dream, you know, and I didn't trust that for a very long time. Yeah. I doubted it, and again the word crazy always comes up, because you feel like your intuition is not, couldn't possibly be as spot on.
Speaker 3:No, no. And I think the thing that kind of like shifted that for me was when I had a dream that my husband had something in his throat. I woke up that morning and I felt, I felt a lump, and it sent him to the doctor because I'm like you need to get this checked out. It sent him to the doctor because I'm like you need to get this checked out. Lo and behold, he had a tumor in his thyroid and you know, they took it out and the whole thing and he's like. The first thing he said was you're weird. And I thought, okay, you're welcome, yeah, but I think the weird has become like a good word, like thank you, yeah In our household, and I embrace that word.
Speaker 3:You know, the word weird for me means that we get to welcome all those parts in our lives that were suppressed for a very long time. Same yeah. And now I love the phrase I heard this the other day you have to learn to smuggle your weirdness wherever you go. And like I mean smuggling is kind of synonymous for like suppressing, but I love that because it is sort of a way to integrate, like, all of the parts that make you who you are. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think I, like you, know you have to find a way to celebrate your weirdness wherever you go. I mean, now I actually love being celebrated for being a little bit different, and that was something that was not always that way, you know, especially as a woman, and you know, growing up and now I'm like, yeah, you know what, it's kind of like my superpower in some ways.
Speaker 3:It is your superpower and it's your light. Yeah, it's your light, and I see you in the same way that I see the like when you get invited to a party, right, and someone hands you the invitation and you're so excited. I see you in that same way, like you're the invitation to the party that everybody wants to be at, because it's not you know. You know that when you get there you're going to have a good time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right, but your road might be bumpy. You might be bumpy, but, like you know, there's always that like anxiety, of like, am I going to be the awkward one there, am I going to be like the weird one there? And I'm very like, I'm not antisocial, but I'm an introvert and so when you see the person as the invitation, then it makes you feel more comfortable to walk that path yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's probably one of the most powerful things I'll ever have received as a description and it's a very like for me. That's how I see it, and I think nothing is an accident.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's the same. You're inviting people into the space of themselves with your words, with your work, and that's what we're all doing for each other.
Speaker 3:And that's what I hope you can see. And, yeah, sure, there's social media. There's like the magazines and all of the things that in an old life you would hang on to because it's the ego right.
Speaker 3:And now it's just the very, it's sort of like, eh, nonchalant, and it drives some people crazy because they're like you should really enjoy, like what you're working towards and what this means. And for me it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel like a celebration, it feels like an invitation, because it feels like if I can do this, if I can share a piece of my joy and how I got here, then maybe it becomes the invitation by way of so, on the nose, a light, the illumination, the illumination. Then that is my gift and my purpose. Yeah, and I feel that so deeply. And the reason why I know this to be like my truth is, you know, I've been asked to do workshops candle painting workshops and I love the idea of community and gathering and I accept other invitations for other workshops.
Speaker 3:But that one is different and it's not because I don't want to share the ability, it's because when I'm doing it, I'm in this flow state where it doesn't feel like me, it's a channeling, like my hands, and this one hits really deep. On the heels of yesterday, we had the breath work session and one of the things that, one of the insights that I took away from that, was this feeling of being held by the hand by my ancestors, by all the people that I have either have never met or that have loved me throughout my life. And they're holding me by the hand, yeah, and in this process I feel that so much and I feel that connection. So that's not something that you can teach, in a way, but you can show that that is a possibility and you can do it, you can emulate it, you can do it through this medium. So that's the invitation.
Speaker 3:And it's not a product. Sure, there's a price tag attached to the things that I create and that I make, but it's an invitation to bring something into your home that's going to remind you that-.
Speaker 1:It's all temporary. It's all temporary. Enjoy the beauty.
Speaker 3:Enjoy it and light your own way. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that Well.
Speaker 1:Thank you so so much for sharing your story. That the purpose is the process, the process is the purpose. That loss doesn't always equal loss. Actually, in many ways it leads to the biggest gains, the biggest growth, yeah, when you're able to embrace it and just keep walking forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you know, I used to think like the idea of expansion was gaining. The idea was this accumulation, but it's not. It's an emptying. It's being open to the idea that when you're expanding everything around you, you have to be open to the mystery of it. You have to know that not everything can be explained and that you have the ability to create the life that you want based on that mystery. And I am just so grateful to be able to walk that path and to be reminded and, yeah, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad you've been walking it. Thank you All right. Thank you, esme. Love you, love you too.