Have you ever considered how the concept of wholeness, interconnectedness and balance could reshape your daily experiences, or even serve as a tool for teaching children? Join me and Virginia Dearani, a belly dancer and scholar, as we navigate the complexities of wholeness. Together, we tap into the rhythm of life, delving into the essence of balance that manifests in each breath, each movement, reflecting on the implications of this philosophy for all of us.
We explore the worlds of science, Eastern medicine, and Indigenous education, seeking different perspectives on wholeness. In the end, it's all about stories - those we tell ourselves, those we hear, those we pass on. Together, we explore the immense impact of storytelling on our understanding of wholeness, using the metaphor of a tree to highlight stories we cling to for survival, service, and ancestral connections. We question the impact of technology and social media on our balance and discuss how we can regain equilibrium. Join us, and let's reflect together on these big questions, the power of stillness and the wisdom we pass on to our children. Let's challenge our perceptions and rewrite our stories of wholeness.
If you, or someone you know, is having mental health challenges and is in need of assistance, please contact 988.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com
If you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6
www.bethtrammell.com
Have you ever considered how the concept of wholeness, interconnectedness and balance could reshape your daily experiences, or even serve as a tool for teaching children? Join me and Virginia Dearani, a belly dancer and scholar, as we navigate the complexities of wholeness. Together, we tap into the rhythm of life, delving into the essence of balance that manifests in each breath, each movement, reflecting on the implications of this philosophy for all of us.
We explore the worlds of science, Eastern medicine, and Indigenous education, seeking different perspectives on wholeness. In the end, it's all about stories - those we tell ourselves, those we hear, those we pass on. Together, we explore the immense impact of storytelling on our understanding of wholeness, using the metaphor of a tree to highlight stories we cling to for survival, service, and ancestral connections. We question the impact of technology and social media on our balance and discuss how we can regain equilibrium. Join us, and let's reflect together on these big questions, the power of stillness and the wisdom we pass on to our children. Let's challenge our perceptions and rewrite our stories of wholeness.
If you, or someone you know, is having mental health challenges and is in need of assistance, please contact 988.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com
If you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6
www.bethtrammell.com
Hello listener, welcome back. I'm your host, dr Beth Tramell, and I'm a licensed psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at IU East in Richmond, indiana. Actually, I really liked the four seasons. I've lived in Indiana all my life and I love visiting other places, but I really like the change of seasons. So, anyway, sidebar we're already starting with sidebars Virginia is just going to be a wild ride today. My focus is on behavior and communication strategies, basically to teach adults, grownups, young people how to make words matter for good. That's generally what I like to talk about, and so I have invited Virginia to come and chat with us today about a topic that isn't necessarily something that I have personally, or even professionally, spent a lot of time thinking about, and so if I'm not thinking about it, I'm certainly not teaching my kids or other people about it, and so I'm just thrilled that, virginia, you said yes to being here. So can you introduce yourself to listeners and then tell us one fun thing about you? Sure?
Speaker 2:So hey, my name is Virginia Durrani, I live in Auburn, maine, and can also agree. I like that change in four seasons and I'm not fully ready for the winter to hit us yet. It's quite cold, but I'm liking to all of a sudden see some of the change in the colors on the leaves, so that's cool. One fun thing around myself is I really like merging arts with research and teaching and parenting. I'm a Middle East from belly dancers, so that's something fun that I like to do that I haven't done as much professionally as I used to, and with that I play zills and drumming and so kind of connecting the arts with myself as a scholar and an educator and a parent is really important to me and it makes me feel more alive and have fun and embrace joy as I'm doing these other pieces that sometimes are not as joyful. Well, it's coding, research, you know doing other things.
Speaker 1:So entry is like a little less joyful. Yeah, I think data analysis, yeah, may become joyful, but really the entry part is not as joyful, so that's amazing. So I have to tell you the fall before the pandemic, I said out loud to someone that I wanted to start belly dancing. Cool, and so I, the spring January of the pandemic, I started a class in belly dancing and it was me and five other people and it was very new and I didn't realize, like muscles of my body that I'd never, ever used before.
Speaker 1:I would like watch the instructor in the mirror and she would like move her body like, just like a tiny movement of the neck or the shoulders, and I'm like my body has never moved. I don't know how to make my body do that. It was like such an awareness. It was very interesting. Yeah, it's interesting because the topic we're talking about just makes me think about this in particular, enlightening to me. And then the pandemic hit and the class was canceled and then I never finished the class, not because I didn't enjoy it, but totally that's very interesting to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, the dance itself, though, is so much in the subtle movements and, and it's a bolding dance.
Speaker 2:The origins of the dance from the Middle East and I really, you know, went and claimed this dance, as someone who's an Arab American was is that it was the tool they used to both children, that all the movements are helping the natural body to move a child through and out, and so, in that arena, there's so much subtlety and so much until, unless you have the ability and privilege to ball the child, and you know, in that arena, and you do not have to be in the body of a cisgender woman to do the dance but the origins around it and the subtle tease and the, you know the balance of breath, and you know my body, heart, really synergy is really integral to the dance.
Speaker 2:That's probably true for many dances I can't speak to other dances, but there is so many subtle movements within it that are part of what the dance is, and I, and so it doesn't surprise me, and when I started it was the same way, like all these little movements, in the way you hold your fingers and, yeah, the subtle piece of them, the neck, and how to isolate your body in certain places is really it's. It's challenging, it's a super challenging dance, but I've grown to love it.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. I think it, you know, it's very challenging and, as I mentioned, it's like it just was very enlightening to me to be like, wow, my body is capable of way more movement than I think I'm allowing it to do. And so it was. It was really fascinating and and, frankly, really frustrating, you know, because I would watch her and I'm like my body is not looking like that and she looks beautiful and I look cranky, I mean, I don't know what's happening. It wasn't the same, okay. So anyway, it sounds like we could talk about belly dancing for an entire episode. But this episode you are really interested and have spent a lot of time studying and even just it seems like it's kind of just ingrained in who you are, even just hearing about kind of your background and the things that you just described.
Speaker 1:This issue of wholeness, even just the word wholeness, is something that I think I mean some of us may have to stop right here, yeah, you know, like some of us may have to like really pause here and say what does that even mean? What does that mean for me as a person, as a human? And then, you know, we're kind of hoping we can talk about that from. What does that mean for me as a person or human? But then also, like, for those of you who are listening, who are parents or teachers, what does that mean for me to teach this or preach this or model this, when, in fact, I don't even know what it means for me, right? And so I think that that's at the heart of what we want to try to cover today is what is this idea of wholeness? Why does it matter? How do I understand this for me first before I try to teach it to other people? Definitely, yeah. So how do you start kind of talking about this, this word, this idea, this thing?
Speaker 2:So one most, I feel, like current movie. That was really helpful when I saw it and I was like, wow, this captures how I want to think about this world, because it is a big world, it can be really expansive and finding actual worlds to articulate it I think can actually be limiting. So the movie everything everywhere all at once that was produced and presented, I think, like 2021, I forget the actual year but when I watched that movie, the power behind it and why I use that as kind of a metaphor in me and thinking about this big world and it was one that I started to claim for me it's everyone, everything everywhere all at once, which is every. You know that's that includes a lot. I can't capture that word for wholeness because it is, you know, helping me think about myself as a human with the body and a mind, with the heart and emotions, with relations that I've developed with us humans, with my pet and in this body that I have. And when I think about what I think about in my mind, it's not just what's in the moment, but it's also all of my memories and things from the past, and then I also can get into my head and be worrying about the future.
Speaker 2:So all of these thoughts that we're thinking about, that movie really kind of captured it in so many ways to help see us moving through time, moving through space. We could be in a office meeting and we're having this conversation, but my head's also thinking about the next place I need to be and all of that, for me, is part of this wholeness concept because it present with our children or whether we're present in our jobs as teachers, all of us, in the work we're doing, we're not just in our bodies doing it, we're also in our heads thinking about it. We have our emotions that we're carrying in our bodies from, maybe you know, having a rough morning because we fell on the way to work, or having a great morning because our kids were ready to go and left the door out the door really easily. But emotional stance of where we're at, what we're thinking about, is all part of the doing and the being in relationship in the work we do.
Speaker 2:And so how to think about wholeness from all of these layers and complexities is really important, and I think the way it's been explored thus far has really to try to simplify it and cut it up and cut our own identities up in a way that has limited us to this expansive place that I think we can go to in kind of the way you said about the dance. There's all these things in ways that your body can move you've never thought about before, and I think the way we can move as humans, our abilities to connect on lots of layers, is more than we maybe have ever tried out and explored, and so I'm fascinated with just sitting with that and trying it on and and using this world as kind of an open door to enter into to start up the conversation.
Speaker 1:I'm curious if you you believe or if you know that's what kind of people are saying about this word wholeness, right, is that part of why we've tended to cut it up is because it's so big. What I hear you saying is like everything everywhere all at once. We can't really understand wholeness in a compartmentalized way. But it's so big. How do we tackle it in any other way except in small archunks? We're primed, we're we're just trained to take a big problem and simplify it into small pieces that will then add up to the grand solution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think in my what I'm curious about now is how do we look at it from a both hand? So I think our approach, because of the way we've conditioned the way to think about things, has been very cut up either or dualistic. You know, wholeness may be expansive, but we're going to view it as I'm a human, you're a human, I'm in this body, you're in that body, my mind is here, my body's there, and so we've gotten so focused on the parts and we've been able to benefit from cutting ourselves up in these parts where, if those things we don't want to talk about, or if those people we don't want to be around, or if those things we don't want to talk about, we can take it out, and for you that might be okay, but for someone else, you just potentially erased a part of their story or ignored a part of their body or their identity, because that's a part you're saying we don't want to explore, but for them that's a part that's important. So I think how do we not break it up into the parts, but how do we always balance out? These are the parts, but they're still always part of a whole and and do, and it's a paradox, it's like that both hands. You can't not explore the parts within the whole.
Speaker 2:But I think we've gone to such a focus of only focusing on the parts at by almost ignoring the whole part, the whole that goes along with it. The unseen parts or the pieces that we keep silent are also part of that whole, and how do we just create space to honor it and and acknowledge it, even if we never put worlds to it? So I think it's a it's a shifting back to yep, the parts are important and let's talk about what those parts are and also always hold the container. These are also parts of a larger puzzle and not to ignore what we're seeing a larger puzzle and that there is a puzzle that is part of who this person is and not only limit them to the different pieces that we think they should be or that we have only seen or they share.
Speaker 1:I'm totally fascinated by this and I'm reminded of an episode I did with my friend and colleague, dr Pollack-Line, and she talked about meaning making. And she came on and was talking about how these sort of big questions and how we make meaning, you know, is really important for us to kind of sit with and settle into and kind of sort out on our own. And I, I'm finding myself in the same place of like I'm a doer and I'm also, you know, someone who can appreciate the bigness of this question. Like who am I?
Speaker 1:yeah and that's kind of like. That's kind of like the flavor I'm hearing from you is like this part of wholeness really, it's sort of like what is the big, who am I, like kind of question, and it's not necessarily just who am I? I mean, I know that that's not your only question, because you also believe this idea of wholeness is bigger than even just that like who am I? It's who am I in connection to this bigger world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. You know, in some of the walking with him I research in, is that the question of who am I has always kind of been answered in this frame of reference of thinking as human only. Yeah, so who am I? I'm a person in a body. Then I have these different labels that I have been given throughout school that I start picking from you know. You know cisgender woman, I'm Aerobeck, I have Carly Howe, and so we start to just answer that question of who am I in this human centered way, which is important. We are humans, and I started to look at, but also are we more than humans?
Speaker 2:Which science has shown, though, is these other energies you know, looking at Easton, you know traditions of medicine and the chakra system, or looking at indigenous education, in that lens of they call it warding, where meaning making is coming out, of being in relation to other humans, to trees, to the planet, and that being in that relationship is part of who I am, that the relationship itself is what gives us meaning, and we're not separate entities, and so it's.
Speaker 2:How do we think of ourselves? As both of that, human and more than human, because we're in relationship to multiple living things on the planet and I think with especially, you know, honoring the different climate changes in all of those pieces in global justice and climate justice. I think that's some of why this conversation has expanded more into this kind of post human lens. For me, again, it's that both and, and some people only talk about it from the lens of, well, all of it, and then some only focus on the lens of I'm just human and you're over there and I'm curious to get everyone at the same table to say, well, it's kind of, it's evolving. There's no final piece. We're all in different places around trying to understand what it means to be whole in this moment, on this planet, at this time, and how do we not negate one over the other? How do we just create more space to have more opportunities to think about it and explore it?
Speaker 1:So if I'm a person who is like, okay, that's uncomfortable, yeah, it's uncomfortable because what you're describing sounds like there's not really an answer or an end, I don't come to a conclusion. I don't come to like this is the answer right, and I feel competent, or I feel like this is the right answer. I'm picturing folks who are sort of like this would be hard for me to sit with, the ambiguity of it. And so in the, in the work that you're kind of doing, like why would a person want to sit and explore these things? What is the benefit of having the space to be able to say, hey, I'm going to slow down and really like spend some time pondering this, you know, because it takes time to pause and really think about all these things and like take a hard look at what your life is, what your day to day is, what your memory, like all the things.
Speaker 2:I think for me I can only come from an experience of more recently, but probably in the past, maybe 10 years, but specifically in the past year and a half I had as a parent I'm both a teacher and a parent and as a parent I had my younger son go through this pretty traumatic experience where he lost a middle part of his middle finger. And this experience really highlighted for me and kind of like, was my motivator to deep dive around this topic because I was navigating conversations with the seven-year-old around what this meant. You know it was a bodily loss, a piece of his body. So you know, as a seven-year-old thinking about Honest, I'm a body. What does this mean? How am I going to be able to play piano? All right, and you know, do work with this finger now.
Speaker 2:And so really common questions that someone, if they've ever engaged or you know, had an amputation of some sort. But then also larger questions came up. He had to go through surgery. So you know, was I going to survive surgery? Who is watching over me? What does that look like? And then just the navigation of re-entering the social world in his classroom. How are people going to look at me now? You know, one day I have all 10 fingers. The next day I am, you know, entering in and I look different and being really aware that his identity and the way he thought about himself was not, was impacted by the way he was and other people saw him. So all of these layers of who he was trying to think about and explore was coming up from for him in this moment of time and, as a parent, I was being really charged to navigate these conversations and recognize that, although he was seven, he had a lot of big questions coming up and thinking about what does this mean in my future? And so I think the beauty for me of because I was doing some of this work and researching some of it was it gave me some tools and honoring of what I don't know, and that that's okay, but also the power of being really present and having starting to have language or have an opportunity to meet my child where he was at in this emotional needs, in practicing healing he had a heel as single, but there was definitely some trauma and emotional mental healing that was going on. And so navigating and walking that journey with him by me practicing it or reflecting on it and in modeling it to him, whether it was my morning meditation, whether it was whatever tools I was starting to engage. I felt like I was allowing myself to be a better parent and he. I was also allowing myself to learn from him because it was an experience I hadn't had yet. I've never lost a piece of my body. So I was learning about wholeness from his lens and in that was just feeling like I was becoming a better human, a better mother, and in the end it became I became a better teacher because it was a story that I was able to use as an example of for future teachers to think about.
Speaker 2:How do you support a student coming in with this physical difference? Now, what does that look like? So I think the benefit as massive and as expansive as a topic like this can be in the ambiguity. The beauty of it is not is surrendering that I have to have have the right answers, that it's in the exploration, it's in asking the questions, it's in sitting in the discomfort of the unknown that I was able to I feel like, meet my child more in an experience, and I think about our culture now, whether there is so much navigation of trauma and struggle with mental health.
Speaker 2:I think about us bearing witness technologically, through the news of other communities navigating natural disasters, and so none of us is in a bubble, unaware even if you haven't had that direct of an experience of something traumatic or difficult.
Speaker 2:We're all being very infused with a world that's very focused on division and focused on harm or conflict or just navigating loss, and so I think, as we bear witness to it, there's a comfort in keeping going and not sitting with it.
Speaker 2:But I feel like I feel I've learned how to be more alive and present and compassionate and patient with myself by allowing myself to ask these questions in moments like this, and therefore everything around me doesn't feel as overwhelming, because I have started to develop some tools to meet my son or my students in a way that feels like it's my piece of the that I'm playing in this great big world that we're in.
Speaker 2:First, it's walking around, being like everything seems crazy and overwhelming and I don't know what to do with it, and I observe a lot of people feeling that way, an overwhelmingness of the way the world is, and so me this is kind of my way to say at least this is a piece of starting to ask those questions and sit with these worlds and finding tools of healing and mindfulness. That, I feel like, is by you doing that, you're playing your part, and I don't think it's any small part. I think it's a powerful piece that each of us has an ability to play when we sit and give ourselves the time and presence to do it.
Speaker 1:I think everything you're saying around slowing down to be able to create the space to do this is that part that you're describing right, that we're playing a part in creating the meaning in the greater world and our connection to the world. And so if there is one small step that you often recommend that folks to get started with the work or to feel more grounded in this idea of wholeness, what is one thing that you have kind of recommended that people try or do or think or question or journal? I mean, what kind of things do you say to kind of get started?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the piece or the tool. I talked about the arts a little bit in the beginning, but I love the idea of story and so I think, with my pre-service teachers and even with my boys, I think it's thinking about. If someone was to ask you, what is your story, how would you answer that question? What does that world mean, story, and how? Each day, we're creating stories. So when my children come home from school and when we sit together at dinner, part of me having them think about sharing their day is really about continuing to put a story together, and my son's story took a really big when this big moment happened. But stories can be all of these little moments of you know them getting a soccer goal while playing soccer at recess, and so I think for people, when they start to think about my God, this is really big. I start to get them to think about. Well, let's think about the idea of stories. What stories have moved you? What are the stories of the people around you? What are the stories of your ancestors that have been passed down to you and what are the stories that you feel like you've been creating in this life that you would want to pass down to other people and you start to compile these stories and it can be stories, you know, you can focus the stories, stories of joy, stories of moments, you know, of being harmed, stories of healing. But I think everyone has a story.
Speaker 2:I think we unfortunately do a lot of judging other people's stories or negate stories. And how do we create spaces to just bear witness to people's stories, without judgment, you know, allow them to share their story without fear? And some of that is is taking that time to reflect on what would that story even be if you were to share it? I think we're so you know, unfortunately so more quick to do quick snap judgments and people haven't stopped and really reflected.
Speaker 2:So I think just thinking about that act of storytelling and it could be through dance and movement doesn't have to be an actual literary story, but the idea of I have a story, that's my experience and I you know how you describe your lived experience is how you describe it. There's no right or wrong way, but to allow yourselves to claim it and embrace it and express it. And children, I feel like, are natural storytellers, so doing it every day and every moment, and it's allowing us to kind of mirror that back to them. But I think we we lose that natural curiosity and creativity of the way we are in the world as we get older. I think, just reflecting on this other world story in relation to honus and how we relate to what it means to be whole, well, what is your story and how you describe it as your way of being whole is the way I kind of connect and look at it.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting because one of the things that I was thinking about, as you were describing this idea of judgment, is that we can fall into the trap of creating, or maybe not even creating, but like sharing a story that we think is least likely to be judged by someone else. Yeah, and how that is contrary to this idea of wholeness? I'm thinking of how I can curate my story that will be most accepted or most liked by the people around me, and how that is a disconnect. Yes To this idea of wholeness. Right, I mean that's. That's the idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to me, because I also like to use the metaphors of nature and, really, tree. When I have my students I have them think about all the stories that are linked to a tree. So leaf stories are kind of tend to be those stories that are stories of their lives, that they have been judged because the leaves are like the external parts of their tree and so I have the reflect on that. Those stories are important but they're not all of you, they're parts of you and they sometimes tend to be the parts we attach ourselves most to for survival. I'm going to only share this story, I'm only focused on this because I'm constantly navigating the external world and being judged or being harmed, and that's real. And I help them try to go deeper into their tree and into their roots, into their ancestral stories, to say these are also part of who you are. And how do you start to embrace all of those? And again, you don't have to share them with everyone, you can simply share them with yourself, but honoring the layers of who we are and those stories that go with it. And I use the tree as a metaphor. You know, the branches are the arms of service, the stories of service that we've had. The roots are stories of cultural and values that have been rooted in us. You know I bring in lots of other layers, but I think a lot of it is. They are so used to first wondering when I explore stories, who's going to be looking at them Because of we are so conditioned, especially as technology and social media has evolved, to constantly think about the external, and for me, wholeness is about the external and the internal.
Speaker 2:It's not centering one over the other, but we've been conditioned to.
Speaker 2:So that's why this world can be uncomfortable. Because I'm trying to unpack it and say again it's the both and it's not ignoring the external, but it's stopping and saying I have more internally that I've never really given credence to or valued out of fear or out of not having time. And how do we give more time to find that balance so that we can model it to children? Because an infant and a baby is starting to create their story and they might not be navigating so much as the external they're kind of still in their internal bubble world. But as they get older they're going to start to know how to tell the story and so I think most people want to know and say all of it should be welcomed. But I think we forget how much we've been conditioned to not actually walk that path because we've not been welcomed typically. So we don't realize that we are perpetuating harm by simply isolating and doing this, cutting up all you know. So I think a lot of it's starting with that reflective space.
Speaker 1:I mean, I love this question, I love the way you're kind of talking through this idea of stories and you know, our story, our ancestor story, is all a part of this idea of wholeness. And I also am thinking about, you know, particularly teenagers who are really connected in a digital world. And you know, I'm just thinking about how isolating it is just to be in this digital space just scrolling. I'm just not at all present in the like current physical space that I'm in, because I'm really lost in the digital world. And teenagers but myself included, right Like I've been, I'm guilty probably every day of doing the same thing. And so I'm just thinking about, you know, this idea of story and this idea of ancestors, and how am I missing how we can do that within the digital world? Because I'm like right now I'm seeing them as opposing things, right, Like I can't be engaged in the digital world while also being grounded in wholeness. Or am I missing the connection?
Speaker 2:No, I think you can, but I think it's so the way I'll do it, like with my children, with the digital world. So they're very connected to the digital world, they like playing video games and I am constantly helping them try to find balance of. You know what does that mean to be in relationship to this digital world? And so I think some of it in the scrolling, I think it has become a tool to disconnect because, again, the larger world feels overwhelming. So I tried, so that's real and that's validating in that and that's not a bad thing. Yet how do we look at it as let's not look at it as a tool to disconnect, let's look at it as a tool to connect and to bridge. So what are the stories we're seeing as we scroll? What stories hit us, what stories are we drawn to, what stories you know? And then, in that process of looking at the relationship and our attraction to the digital world First, not even looking at it as good or bad that becomes the cutting apart, just looking at it, as this is just now a new pool, you know.
Speaker 2:And again I think about my son's amputation, you know. Thankfully it was one where he hasn't needed to get a, you know, a technical tool to add on. But when you think about people who've lost dip in parts and they added, you know, a leg that's now a piece of technology, they've now merged their bodies to be part technology, part human world. So I think, how do we think about that? You know, the phone becomes an extension and the stories behind the phone on some level are activating our memory, are activating aspects of ourselves.
Speaker 2:And how do we engage with teenagers to think about it in that arena, versus don't go on it? Or you know, how do we ask them the questions through this idea of storytelling and wholeness, to say what are you being brought into? How does it activate your mind, body, heart and what stories are you thinking about when you see this other person's story quickly milled back to you? And those are the conversations I try to have with my children and helping them to say this is another tool and that's great. But how do we then find balance, not totally escape one over the other, but also help them to say I don't view this tool as bad and negative, it's another extension of who you are in the world. But how do we have those kinds of conversations around it? And I don't think it's. Those conversations are happening around the technology.
Speaker 1:I think you keep saying it. You know it's like the both and. Right, I think we wanna live in a black and whites world. You know, like it's either a technology is good or technology is bad. It's either they should be allowed to be on technology or they can't be on technology, like.
Speaker 1:I just feel like we tend to live in this sort of dichotomous way of thinking and making decisions, and I think we do it as parents too, and so I think it's really good to challenge all of us to think it has to be about balance. We're not gonna be able to get out of being in a digital world. There's just such a like tiny, tiny part of the population that lives outside of the realm of the digital world, and if you're listening to the podcast, you're probably not one of them, you know. So, yeah, you, just by you being here means you're connected to the digital world in some way, and so I think it's honoring that, while also like welcoming the conversation with our kids, our teenagers and even ourselves. Right, that it's still both and with the technology, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's finding that balance and recognizing this is part of their wholeness, this learning of TikTok dance, but it's also not helping them to see. The concern of the harm is when we are most ourselves too much in one at the expense of the other, and that's in everything, not just technology, but it's inviting it in for them to see and for myself to say oh, this is part of my whole, not as much as compared to my kids, but is that for me to judge? And I think that's where the non-judgment is really important, because I think we function more on that, as you say, in a dichotomous judgment place and we're so afraid of doing something right or wrong, borses saying, well, it's just, is it's all part of it and mistakes will be made. But how do we reconcile and move forward and learn from them, borses, trying to prevent them?
Speaker 1:It's great. There are so many things to think about right now. So, if somebody might want to reach out to you, how do people find you or how can people connect with you?
Speaker 2:So I have a website, virginiaduraniconsultingcom or VDuraniConsultingcom, so you can look me up on that. Irina, I live in Maine so I think just kind of Googling my name might come up and I do a lot of education, consulting with families and parents through social services, as well as with schools, and do some adjunct education within the local colleges. So happy to engage and have conversations or support families or teachers or school systems if they're curious around expanding, integrating some of this language and concepts in, whether it's curriculum or just parenting approaches or what does this kind of look like on the ground? How do we actually operationalize it? Lots of different ways to think about doing that. Happy to explore.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, thank you for being here. It was so fascinating just to think about and take time to ponder big questions. I think it's easy to get lost in the day to day to keep move, move, move, move, go, go, go, and I just really appreciate the time to just sit and wrestle with it. I think it's good and important in our kids. Our kids need to see it. I think we need to get better at it, and I am looking right in the mirror for even just myself. So I thank you for bringing your wisdom to the podcast and I'm excited to hear what listeners think about it.
Speaker 2:So Me too. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Listener, thanks for being here, as always. Stay safe and stay well. Make words matter for good. Ciao W earlier.