Season 01, episode 05 March 9, 2025
Originally recorded Feb 14, 2025
64 minutes
This episode of Brave Middle Ground is brought to you by The Prosper Network and their upcoming summit, The Smart Woman’s Secret to Networking for Lasting Profits and Purpose on March 12. Learn more here.
SPEAKERS
Dayna Del Val, Naomi Vladeck
SUMMARY
In this engaging conversation, Dayna and Naomi explore the concept of ‘middle ground’ and its significance in personal and creative growth. Naomi shares insights from her book, Braving Creativity, discussing the five pillars of transition: liberation, navigation, play, empowerment and flourishing. They delve into the importance of embracing fear and excitement, the role of the universe in creativity and the necessity of creating safe spaces for dialogue and expression. The discussion emphasizes the journey of rediscovering one’s artistic self and the challenges of personal growth. In this conversation, Naomi Vladeck and Dayna explore the intricate relationship between fear, anxiety, bravery and personal transformation. They discuss how to embrace fear as a part of the creative process, the importance of recognizing and understanding our emotions and the journey of self-discovery that comes with facing our fears. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of community support, the transformative power of change and the necessity of pausing to explore our truths.
KEYWORDS
Braving Creativity, middle ground, transition, fear, self-compassion, intuition, play, empowerment, flourishing, third space, community, bravery, non-attachment, curiosity, transformation.
Takeaways
- Middle ground can create disconnection if we prioritize peace over truth.
- Liberation from fear is essential for creative growth.
- Navigating from the heart allows for vulnerability and openness.
- Play is a vital component of creativity and self-acceptance.
- Empowerment comes from knowing your values and asking for help.
- Flourishing involves taking action that aligns with your true self.
- The universe plays a significant role in our creative journeys.
- Grief can deepen our appreciation for beauty and connection.
- Creating third spaces is crucial for fostering dialogue and understanding.
- Most people find comfort in repetition rather than seeking growth. Finding a true container for your journey is essential.
- Fear can be a silent participant in our lives.
- Anxiety should not be viewed as a problem to solve.
- Courage comes in various forms and shapes.
- The journey of bravery often involves facing the unknown.
- Understanding our fears can lead to personal growth.
- Community support is vital in navigating change.
- The process of change requires curiosity and openness.
- We must pause to explore our emotions and truths.
- Transformation occurs when we embrace the empty spaces in our lives.
TRANSCRIPT
Dayna Del Val 00:00
Naomi, welcome to Brave Middle Ground.
Naomi Vladeck 00:17
Hey, I’m so happy to be here. This is exciting.
Dayna Del Val 00:20
I’m really happy to have you here, too. When our mutual friend Laura Rotter connected us, I don’t know, probably a year or more ago now, I immediately ordered your book Braving Creativity, Artists Who Turned the Scary, Thrilling, Messy Path of Change into Courageous Transformation and well, you know what? This is being video recorded, so some people will be able to see this, but I wrote all let me see if I can do this. All over this book. I have read this book three or four times. I love this book
Naomi Vladeck
That feels good to hear
Dayna Del Val
Write up a book. Yeah. I mean, you should be so proud of it. Naomi.
Naomi Vladeck 01:06
Thank you. Thank you. That feels good to hear. Yes, I love it. I don’t get a lot of, you know, daily feedback, so it’s really nice when I get feedback that has been written. I bumped into a friend whose daughter bought it for her mother, which was really sweet, too. So yeah, it’s it was definitely a project that came from, from deep longing for connection and also just love for women who are trying to create something when it’s hard and when it’s hardest. Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 01:41
Yeah. It’s really interesting. When I went back to read this book under the umbrella of Brave Middle Ground, I could not believe how many times I noted, “Oh my gosh, this is a perfect parallel, or a perfect connection to what I’m trying to do with this podcast!” So I’m going to ask you the first question that I ask everyone, which is, just, what does middle ground mean to you? And then we’re going to take off from there.
Naomi Vladeck 02:14
I love that question, and I laughed the first time I read it, because immediately what came to mind was being, I’m not a middle child, but I’m the only girl between two boys. I have a twin brother and I have a younger brother. So when you said middle ground, the first thing I thought is sitting in the back seat of my father’s like 1979 New York station wagon, and being in between my brothers, who always were fighting and often myself getting slapped in the middle. And I think that that’s emblematic of what I thought of middle ground growing up, that it was about keeping the peace, and that not wanting to sort of voice my own experience or opinion, because I was my charge was to keep the peace.
So it created disconnection, right? It didn’t create, you know, any kind of, you know, connecting truth or soulful coming together until many, many years later. And growing up, I definitely got that message that keeping the peace was certainly paramount to creating connection, because the risks of creating sort of obliteration of beliefs that we kind of grow up with was just too great.
So this kind of goes to all the stuff. I’m looking at some of my notes, but you know, when I’m able to meet my dad’s needs, my brother’s needs for, you know, safety or protection from each other, that was me. So I was able to meet those needs, but I really wasn’t aware of needs that I had in myself.
So I think the middle ground then is sort of creating a new, third space where you can create enough safety, enough approval, enough security to expand the bounds, boundaries around what feels integris or what feels right for you genuinely, as opposed to just reacting based on just conditioning and fear.
Dayna Del Val 04:27
That is an incredibly interesting response. What one of the things that has been so delightful about these conversations is that phrase is you know, how people talk about tofu absorbing whatever flavor you insert into it. That phrase “middle ground” seems to sort of be the same thing on its own. It doesn’t necessarily speak to very much, but when you infuse your perspective or your take or your lived experience on it, suddenly it has this very complex, complicated and unique definition to each person I’ve asked it to. So thank you for that very specific understanding of the phrase.
So let’s jump right into this. Naomi, I want to both use our time together as an opportunity for people to get a sense of this book, but also to maybe push even further. One of my goals with this podcast, and I think this will resonate for you, is to strip down this layer of fear and carefulness that I developed in the nonprofit sector. Fear of offending funders, or fear of coming across as too strident or too opinionated or too whatever people wanted to use for me. And I really want to step into my own sense of what is that third space and so, so I think this is a great opportunity for us to do that.
But the first thing that I want to do is I want to talk through these five pillars that you have developed, and we don’t need to spend a lot of time on them, but I think there’s such a compelling way to think about moving through fear. And I just want to say before I let you speak, this is a book about artists and makers and creatives, but I don’t think it’s a book only for artists, creatives and makers, because, of course, at the end of the day, what people like you and I know to be true is that we are all artists, creatives and makers, so don’t be don’t dismiss this conversation as a book and a talk for artists. If you’re, say, a dentist or an accountant, you also are an artist. So I will stop and let you talk through these five pillars.
Naomi Vladeck 07:16
Yeah, the pillars were the way I could talk about a process of transition. When we feel lost or alone, when we are facing a horizon of uncertainty, and we feel anxious and frozen, or really wanting to grasp for the past or what was, it really helped me to know that I was somewhere inside of a process. And what I discovered was that process itself; that process between who we were and who we’re becoming, is inherently creative.
So the book really is just a metaphor, like you’re saying it’s, it’s a metaphor for the empty page and an empty stage and a blank canvas. Just as any creative might approach that emptiness, not knowing what will come. How do we garner those skills and maintain an openness to what will arrive to meet us there?
So that these the stories in the book take on the pillars. And the first pillar is of liberation, and it really has to do with liberating ourselves from fear through a practice of awareness and self-compassion, and it derives from like, you know, Buddhist and Hindu, you know, tradition and practice and devotional things. And so it’s nothing new under the sun. It’s just one archway that I can talk to my clients about the process that they’re going to engage with. So that’s the first part is liberation.
The second is navigation, which has to do with intuition, with sort of tending to the part of yourself that knows and being able to hear it. So a lot of us who were who would consider ourselves if we had to label ourselves co-dependent, or in crisis tend to disassociate. We may not always know what our heart desires, what we long for, what even we need or even if we’re entitled to basic things. And so that’s a process that a lot of my clients have to go through, is get a practice of navigating from the heart. And by doing that, you’re really allowing vulnerability in. You’re staying open. You’re learning how to receive guidance, to listen well and to regulate yourself, first and foremost, from the inside out and.
Then there, of course, is play, which is available to everybody under the sun. And play is a beautiful thing, because so many of us get stuck on fears related to not being enough, to failure, to judgment, and play doesn’t care about any of that. Play wants to play. Play wants to make a mess, and is fully loving and accepting. It definitely actually feels like that improv. I think there’s the improv missive of yes and, and in fact, I’m taking an improv series coming up just because I really do want to step into the fire of that. Because it is very hard to stay open; we tend to grasp for control. We always want more. Our wiring is conditioned to look for what is lacking and the negative, and so we really have to continually be pretty vigilant about choice, being choiceful and choosing play or risk or growth.
The other is liberate, navigate, play, empower. And empowers the fourth pillar, which is really about when you’re sort of rolling with these other pillars. In empowerment you are you are resourced. You are asking for help. You are sharing your knowledge with others easily, because you’re not defended or in comparing mind. In that sense, you are able to declare what matters most to you, so you’re very keenly aware of your values, and it helps to bring all those other pieces together as a compass. So though, no matter where you are, you know who you are now, and that’s very important part of it.
And then the last piece is flourishing, which is kind of an embodied experience of feeling that you have all the things I just described, and you’re able to move into action in a regular way that stretches your muscles for growth. And you’re able to create a runway of opportunities that you’re taking advantage of as you move forward in your life on the path to who you’re becoming.
Dayna Del Val 12:29
I actually just want to read the paragraph from flourish, because I love all five of these pillars. But this, I think, gives people a flavor for the book. “When you journey through transition after a big change, you learn to trust in yourself and in a universe that makes it possible for you to flourish. In flourishing, you build a runway of opportunities that align with the truth in your heart. These opportunities will ignite unplanned and synergistic occurrences that will feel like magic” (29).
Naomi Vladeck 13:05
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 13:05
Okay, so Naomi, let me play devil’s advocate for a moment.
Naomi Vladeck 13:10
Yeah?
Dayna Del Val 13:10
And let me say to you, what the hell? Universe? Magic? Is this a dumb woo, woo book? What are you trying to get me to buy into here?
Missing text.
Naomi Vladeck 15:00
And we’ve all experienced it. We’ve all experienced something that seemed out of nowhere. And then sometimes it’s just the quality of being. Like almost 30 years ago, I was writing grants for an artist, and she sent me a note after we had worked together for a while. And I saved it all these years because she said something like, “Naomi, you know what you did for me, basically, by telling, helping me tell my story in words, was like magic and alchemy.” And it was for her, in that sense. It was a gift of being really truly seen and reflected. So in some ways, it’s just purely that. And it is scientific in the sense that it has energy. And it’s demonstrated scientifically that energy moves beyond the word that comes out of our mouth. The thought that we think, the embodied sort of experience of like a hiccup or digesting our meat, energy creates more energy. Anyone who’s been in a theatre and has been moved by something knows that there’s resonance between you and the object. And that’s true in art and is true in life. So in that sense, that’s where the magic happens.
Dayna Del Val 16:19
I will take that answer. I love it. Thank you. You know I was thinking as you were talking about
Missing text.
That’s a dangerous place to be, because, as you said, we can only control what we can control, and all we can control is ourselves.
Naomi Vladeck 17:21
That’s right. That’s right. And it’s so interesting. I mean, you’re making me think about so many of my clients, because we’re all grown women. I coach women, are really…there’s this light in them that’s moving them forward in their lives. They’re going for it, they’re going for the thing, or the hard thing. They’re going to publish a book, they’re going to leave this job, they’re going to, they’re going to, you know, buy a house on their own, or have a child on their own. They’re going to do all those things. They’re moving in that direction. And still, these old conditioned thoughts, these deep beliefs that somehow I’m wrong or I’m bad or I’m not enough for as I am, are can still, kind of, you know, show up. And that’s something that we have to really honor, because it’s not like we sort of fix ourselves and get, you know, get going and then never look back. We’re always having to manage the world around us in some way, with reverence for where we came from. So that that piece of you know, that skill, really. And now, you know, science is such a…psychology is such a so many amazing tools to help us see more clearly what is really going on under the surface when we abandon ourselves, or we go out, we leave our own bodies to be somewhere else with other people, or something like that, what you’re describing, yeah,
Dayna Del Val 19:03
Yeah, it’s incredibly powerful.
So I would love to look at middle ground as you describe it through my lens. So I’m going to read a couple of things, and then I’m just curious to hear your response to them. First of all, this is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever come across. I did it as a Spark Moments in 2024 and it just really has stayed with me. “The Chinese word for crisis is made up of two pictures, danger and opportunity” (31). If that’s not middle ground, I don’t know what is. Okay, so that’s one piece.
Page 68 is “The ability to welcome fear and excitement at the same time is such a wonderful insight, because it shows us how we must learn to hold both in order to brave creativity and create new meaning and purpose in our lives.”
And the last one is…see if I had a little producer person, I guess they would have just made these notes for me, and I wouldn’t be looking through the book.
“When we spend time in grief, we access something greater than the pain of the loss itself. Our heart has the capacity to feel an extreme connection to grief and to beauty, and to hold both even when it seems too much to bear. When we have the courage to inhabit the darkness of loss, we appreciate the magnitude and vibrancy of the beauty that is also always here” (90).
So I picked three. I probably could have read six or eight more. This book absolutely inhabits this third space that you first started talking about. I guess my question around this, Naomi, is, how did you come to even be able to identify this third space?
Naomi Vladeck 21:13
Well, I was in it. And I was totally I was so curious about, what is this that makes me willing to show up in a way that in every other context of my life would have been impossible? So the third space that I’m referring to, in this case, was a performance space. But there are artists in the book who have created a third space that’s a little bit different. And then I’ll go to the quality of that space that’s a little bit risky, that makes it scary for a lot of us. You know, it can be surprising when we’re there and we actually find the excitement in it, because as we enter, we feel terrified. But there’s a beautiful story in the book by an artist named Chie Fueki who talks very poetically about creating a third space in her painting that is really the space she wants to inhabit, but doesn’t exist.
So this is a very emotional space, and it comes from her having to leave her homeland of Japan and live in Brazil as a young person. And leaving her grandmother behind, and feeling very misfit and out of place, and going to see going to the contemporary art museum there, and seeing Van Gogh, and for the first time, feeling like she saw a space where she belonged in that painting. And then she thinks the rest of her life, she was trying to create that space in her work. So it’s really, she’s so beautiful as a storyteller and an amazing artist.
And then there’s an artist who whose company is called A Canary Torsi, which is a mix up of her name, Yanira Castro. And she was a traditional choreographer, and she was getting many awards. And it started to not feel right, because it wasn’t in alignment with her most important values as she started to grow as an artist. And so she left that trajectory but didn’t know exactly what she would create next. So she tried all sorts of things because she didn’t want to collude in a in a business of contemporary dance where dancers were not valued. They had no security, no job security, etc.
So she found that she really cared about creating civic space, and that meant creating performance experiences that were not at all traditional. And one of the things she says is that her job isn’t to create a safe space for everyone to dialog over difficult things, but to create a safe enough space.
And her model is incredibly collaborative. So it kind of flips the model of, you know, audience and performer in a way where the community is writing the script together, in a sense. And writing their story together. And I think that really goes to your podcast idea, in a sense, it’s like, and even this morning, I was listening to NPR. We’re so, as a society, Western society, colonial society, etc, we create a lot of pain, and we manifest a lot of inequality and pain. And in order to change that, yes, we need to change systems. We also really need to change in such a fundamental way how we value each other. How we create ways of, create third spaces that are truly different than the spaces we inhabit today, that value care above all else. And that’s that idea of a third space.
So I came about it because I was in it, and it was uncomfortable. And the only thing I could do was explore it with the tools that I had. And the tools that I had were, like, writing and poetry and performance, and so that’s how I did it. And then I didn’t do it alone. That’s a big key thing. Like, you know, Yanira has collaborators. Chie has community around her work, and had mentors and things like that. I have community around me my whole life, and I really sought to create community coming together. At a certain point in my life I did that quite a bit, because liminality is all over the place. Like it’s not just when a spouse dies, as mine did, but when a parent dies, when a job ends, when election happens, when you know and so many of us experience a lot of change at once, and it can feel incredibly destabilizing. And so the opportunity is in there, as hard as that is,
Dayna Del Val 26:27
How do you help someone who, I’m gonna say has forgotten that they’re an artist? Has, you know, grown up—it’s sort of like, like Peter Pan. And so, how do you help someone who finds themselves across from you, believing that they are not an artist because they have this narrow definition, of you know, for many reasons. How do you help them lean into these ideas, if blank stages, empty canvases, white screens are not where they’re starting?
Naomi Vladeck 27:10
You can’t. You can’t. So, um, if someone’s sitting in front of me, they’re already willing to do something differently. They may not know what that is, or how it’s going to happen, or how long it’s going to take, or what they’re going to find, but they know that they came into a space where they’re like literally at the edge of that empty canvas, or at the edge of that abyss, as they might feel, you know. But they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t ready to do something differently. And I think that’s the key. Like, are we willing to do some one thing differently? And just then create a safe enough experience to take that one small step at a time, which is usually how we do it. I don’t always work in small steps, but for someone like that, or in a period where someone needs small steps, that is certainly one way to do it.
But not everybody wants to grow.
Text missing.
Just get so clear about what matters most. Now, I have a process for that. Because you can’t, you can’t just jump into the…I mean, it’s nice to think you can just jump in, but even someone who jumps into, you know, a situation, takes a leap into something that might be scary, probably has done some pre work, or it wasn’t so fundamentally terrifying.
So that’s a lot of the work is to try to really find the container that is so true for you that it’s undeniable. So that when you’re going to take that step, you can’t deny there is no denying it anymore, even though your thoughts will be marshaled up from the depths of your beliefs to try to convince you otherwise, you will at that point, be able to recognize them as thoughts, and you will be able to send them lovingly to the mall or wherever you want them to go. And you will be able to do the thing anyway. Because you’ll be resourced, you’ll have a plan. You’ll be holding other people’s hands, you know, in real time, real life or otherwise. And that’s the only way, because ultimately, people need proof that it is safe enough that then that the sky isn’t actually going to fall down. Because it feels that way, and it can be incredibly dysregulating. And if you’re in trauma, if you’re in it, if you’ve been traumatized, you have to go very slow into this process as well, because can be very triggering. Doing this work
Dayna Del Val 31:40
That has me thinking about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and the way she talks about fear. That she knows fear is always going to be on the road trip with her.
Naomi Vladeck 31:50
That’s right.
Dayna Del Val 31:50
And she used to try to shove fear out of the car, but what she has since learned is that she can say to fear, “Fine, you can come, but you’re going to sit in the back seat. You get no voice about the journey. You don’t even get to decide what radio station we listen to.”
Naomi Vladeck 32:06
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Dayna Del Val 32:07
“Uou can come, but you can only come as a silent participant.”
Naomi Vladeck 32:11
You know what? I like? I like that, but I also I’m wearing my pin that says anxious since birth. Um, I like that. I mean, we give anxiety, fear, change such a bad rap. And a lot of artists and a lot of people say, “I’m just, I’m anxious. I’m just anxious, and I can’t do anything because I’m anxious.” And you’re like, well, anxiety is there’s nothing wrong. We can’t make anxiety wrong, like we the mind wants to make a lot of things wrong, but let’s say we say there’s no problem here. There’s no problem to solve. I am anxious, and in the book, one of the artists says, you know, I’m standing at the mic to tell this terrible tale of my life, and I sense fear. And I have to say to myself, I feel fear, but maybe it’s also excitement.
And that’s the window into the vitality of our existence. Don’t we want to feel alive? And we can’t feel alive without holding both things. Like, jumping off a diving board, for some of us is nerve wracking. I’m a sort of, not a big height person, so I will, I will do it, and I will not like the feeling of falling. I don’t like that feeling, but I want to also feel the joy of the experience of doing something that feels scary.
So in this, in the same way, those sensations, those felt senses, are actually probably very similar to the other felt experience that you’ve been, that you want to have that’s also scary, because the physical manifestations are going to be that different. It’s how we interpret it. So we don’t want to make fear bad, but we do want it to to be a little smaller than our desire at least to grow.
Dayna Del Val 34:13
I love this new, maybe it’s not new, it’s kind of newish to me. This idea that the lizard part of our brain, the fight or flight part of our brain, can’t differentiate between a saber tooth tiger and you know, your fear of jumping off a diving board. Let’s use something like that. It doesn’t know the difference. Fear is fear is fear is fear.
Naomi Vladeck 34:43
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 34:44
So we have then the opportunity to intellectually do exactly what you’re saying. Feel the fear, face the fear. Don’t judge the fear, but be willing to look at it and say, “Okay, is this a saber tooth tiger? Or is this a diving board with a 10 foot deep pool beneath me? It will be scary, but I will be fine.”
Naomi Vladeck 35:13
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s exactly right. We have to use our more advanced or more highly developed brain. So the fear is in the oldest part of our brain, as you say, and we have more brain now, so that’s where we have to use our skills to mitigate some of that, the fear responses that we’re familiar with, and get new proof so that we literally can rewire our brains. And that takes a lot of repetition. Something like, I mean, it’s like 3,000 repetitions on one task to re, sort of wire your reactivity to it.
So practice loves repetition. So if you’re gonna do a meditation, or you’re going to do an embodied sort of awareness where you’re checking in on yourself and you’re doing visualization or something. You have to do that repeatedly throughout the day, every day, as often as you can. Because the practice, repetition is really the key to sustaining change. And the point of it is to enable choice. Because when we are operating from an unconscious place, unconscious operation, we’re just on autopilot. We’re not in choice, and that is really hard to accept.
So the idea there’s a writer I love. William Bridges wrote a book called The Way of Transition. He says to live by choice is to live riskily. And that doesn’t mean taking risks like, you know, going to the race track. It means making choices for yourself; not for your mother, your partner, your husband, your children. But being really sure that you’re feeling choiceful about something. And that takes an ability to be really aware of what’s operating underneath.
So yes, we there is a point when we can really talk to ourselves very succinctly, but “Hi, that’s that thought about. I’m not good enough. Nice to see you. Well, I don’t need you right now. I know what I’m doing.”
And the work that’s happened behind the scenes is really care-full work. It’s, about, why am I afraid? What did that little kid? That part? I love, parts theory: work, family, internal, family, systems stuff. It can be very helpful to think about the parts of us that contracted with ourselves or parents or the universe to believe certain things to keep ourselves or our environment or the universe safe and palatable to us. And that’s at the core of all of this; that’s underneath all of it,
And it’s so important to talk about the brain, the amygdala, in that way, because it doesn’t know time. It’s not only that it thinks the tiger is the same as an SAT test, but it thinks it’s all happening now. Just what happened in your home when you were seven, when someone shut you down, feels as humiliating as someone interrupting you at the grocery store. It makes sense. And I think that’s the caring part. When you talk about middle ground and creating conversations between people who don’t have agreement, and don’t even want to look at each other in the face, that’s kind of where you have to start. Is like, where did that come from? And, wow, that makes sense. Instead of, you know, vitriol and fear and defensiveness, because that just creates disconnection. And getting to that place where people understand that they long connection and they’re not so afraid of it is hard,
Dayna Del Val 39:06
Yeah, yeah, because in many instances, we have been burned by seeking connection, and so we are reluctant to enter in with our full selves, because it’s, it’s like standing naked in front of someone and having them go, “I don’t think so.”
Naomi Vladeck 39:28
On every level, right?
Dayna Del Val 39:30
Yeah,
Naomi Vladeck 39:30
Every level. I mean, you talk about…my daughter’s studying world religion. So you talk about, you know, these larger political influences that have manipulated whole societies into you know,
Missing text
That’s, that’s human nature. But you know, when we know we’re suffering, can be an invitation into this space of curiosity to get to know ourselves a little bit better. And there are just so many resources for that. And it can be fun. You and I can attest it can be fun. You and I went to some pretty dark places, and we are having some fun.
Dayna Del Val 40:36
Yep, that’s absolutely true. Um, okay, I want to look at this about bravery, because that’s another piece, obviously of my title, but also obviously of your title. So you say early in the book, “My sense is that if you are perceived as brave, it’s because you have stirred someone else’s longing for the courage they imagine you have. But if you feel brave, it’s because you have traveled a broad expanse of the unknown and have arrived on solid ground when at least a part of you feared you might vanish altogether” (12).
So you made this allusion to you and I have been to some dark places, and that is absolutely true. You know, you and I are, in some ways, sort of one, one entity in two bodies: both actors, both redheads, both married to Irish men who became alcoholics, both coaches, both performers, all these things, but your story took a very different turn than mine did, Naomi, and you lost your husband to alcoholism, and were left with these two young children. So I’m really interested in just hearing you share with us a little bit: what about being open? I mean, in your case, you sort of had to be because he died. I could have chosen to never be open about it. We just, life changed and sort of went back for us. But what about that created bravery in you?
Naomi Vladeck 42:29
I think I was always brave. I just didn’t know it because we have these really powerful narratives about ourselves. And mine was that I wasn’t going to be the brave or the smart one in my family. In fact, that was not my job, and if I went there, it was not good. Like it would be probably pretty detrimental to my relationship with my father. I didn’t know all this until one day when I got a big award in college, I was literally felled by fear because I did not want that thing. I did not want that recognition. I was like, “This is a mistake. I’m not that person. Don’t put this on me. I will disappoint you.” And my parents were just like, what is wrong? What is wrong with this child? She got this great recognition.
But it was a first time I realized that I had a belief. Now, I don’t know if I called it that or what happened, but even I remember being at my wedding, and my father said, you know, was referring to my husband as the…well, he was referring to me as the gem in this setting. It was a metaphor. And my husband is the setting, the sort of thing that holds everything together. And actually, I was the rock and the setting, you know, I was all those things. And he was his own things, but I was all those things.
And even then, I remember thinking, Oh, that is the story, essentially, that I grew up with: a very kind of conventional and scenario. And so after my husband died, I, after time, I realized, I was able to see that in so many ways. I mean, you know my story, when you tell people your story of the art and the choices and the moving and the family, the things you’ve done, they’re like, “Oh my God, that’s brave.”
But I didn’t feel that way. I thought, I’m afraid of certain things. I’m afraid of leaving home, I’m afraid of this, I’m afraid of that. And it helps to see that courage, it comes in all shapes and sizes, and that some courage is different than others. So I was what I was looking for was more courage in intimacy, in the intimate space. I’m still looking for more courage to be an adventurous traveler.
Dayna Del Val 44:59
I have that one I can connect you.
Naomi Vladeck 45:03
Okay, okay, good. I did stay open in the sense that I was like a dog, like I just was desperate to figure this out. So I got myself as much help as I could between therapists and reading and courses. I had myself plugged into every podcast. I mean, for years. For like, three years, I was, please, like, there’s got to be a way to be able to feel safe inside of myself and with other people, yeah, relationships in general, and it was a big mess for a while. So I’m not It’s not like, Oh, I was open, and things were flowing through me after my husband died. I wasn’t like that. And if you read the book, you’ll hear a little bit about what that mess was. But it had to be messy. It had to be messy. I had to go deeper in to the pain before I could come out of it and make a choice that was more, that was more true to the person I wanted to become and was becoming. So…
Dayna Del Val 46:10
Let me ask you if this metaphor works for you. I just came up with it the other day. And it…first of all, I have not read the book, I’ve only seen the movie, So I apologize to the people for whom this is a religion. But it dawned on me the other day that I often think of myself and feel like Frodo from The Lord of the Rings. So I lived this very sort of happy, unconscious little life in my happy, unconscious little spot in the world, and then some things started to happen. And it’s, it’s as if the universe plucked me out of this happy,” unconscious obscurity and said, I think there’s something bigger.”
And it was very attractive to me, and it was terrifying to me. And it is attractive and terrifying to me because we’re talking about walking to friggin’ Mordor with a ring that people are willing to kill me for to own this weird power. And it’s this internal understanding also that maybe I’m attracted to the darkness of the power, and that’s scary, too. Like, there’s all of these layers to Frodo’s journey. And when I realized that I have, that I feel this immense greatness inside me. I worry about what it entails, what its desire is leading me towards sometimes. I believe I’m the best person to do it. I carry it like the burden that it is. But I secretly love the burden. I mean, there’s this just enormous mess to all of this .
Naomi Vladeck 48:07
That is, so great, yeah.
Dayna Del Val 48:10
Does that resonate with you?
Naomi Vladeck 48:12
Yeah, I like thinking about the darkness. I just think, you know, in the book I talk about it, and I’m not the, I’m not the first one to talk about it like this, obviously, but as the, as the gap. We have, you know, inside of that, if we can slow into that, into that moment of anxiety of desire, of lust, of greed, of, you know, of judgment, of shame, all that. In there, there is some truth. And that’s all we’re looking for. We’re just looking for some truth. And it’s just, it’s just a place to explore. You know, truth and authenticity, and we have to pause deeply, pause in those moments.
And I think it requires some support. I’m not a great like, “Gee, I pause on my…” I actually have a bracelet somewhere over here that says pause that I made for myself, because it’s, it’s a lifetime practice to slow down for most of us who aren’t like living in, you know, a monk life practice and. Yeah, and so I think being in community can be incredibly helpful in that regard. I think that’s really a big part of it is…
I always say to folks, like, especially when you’re trying to create something, is make sure you go to the right well for support, you know, when you’re feeling vulnerable, because it really matters. You know that you make choices to be with people who share your passion for the truth, and it is going to be uncomfortable depending on where you are, or what you want to challenge yourself with. You know, we all come from sites, are shaped by sites that are based on, you know, how we grew up, what culture, what race, what religion, what part of the world, what political system. And then we have to come together in certain ways, and we have to grapple with our privilege or our suffering and somehow realize… Actually that was coming up this morning, somehow get to a place where we are all one on some level, connected in a kind of plane of care and oneness. And that’s the big, big tall order. But when I work with clients, we’re kind of working on that in the in the life and the choices that they have to make that are in front of them. But the same themes come up.
Dayna Del Val 51:01
I wonder if, to go back to an earlier part of this conversation where we talked about a number of people kind of don’t want to change, just want to be on repeat, I wonder if that is because to hold up the mirror of truth, however you define that, to yourself, is, like, the hardest thing we do. I mean to literally think, to go back to my Frodo metaphor, to think about that ring and what I could do if I just put it on my finger. The damage I could cause, the irreparable harm that I could bring to people, both whom I love, whom I don’t love, That’s, and that I’m sometimes drawn to that, that is a really difficult thing to not just see but to acknowledge and to say out loud. Because it’s…there’s nothing particularly positive about it.
You want to think you’re the person who wants to unify the world, who wants to create more equity, who wants to, you know, be in community, and maybe some people are. I’m only speaking about myself. But that drawing to darkness, to power, to privilege, is a very real piece of looking at the truth, and so sometimes it just feels easier to say, “You know, I’m think I’m just going to stay with my current job and just going to stay on that treadmill, because that treadmill keeps me too busy to actually address this pretty, dark and scary truth.”
Naomi Vladeck 53:02
Yeah, it’s so interesting. You’re making me think, because I did just have to read about some, read some of the Bhagavad Gita I bought at a garage sale, and because it had been coming up a bunch, and then I was reading up on it, helping my daughter with her world religious glass. And the idea that it’s actually not our responsibility to know what the outcome, to care, to even consider the outcome or get attached to the outcome. So the idea of non-attachment, obviously, is a big one in both Hinduism and Buddhism, but the path is what there is.
And if you are called, if you’re sort of calling in life, do you just use our terms, or the terms that we use today. Is driving you is driving you toward this actualization, this realization of a need, of full embodiment of who you’re becoming. The risk is that you might destroy your family, or you might create, you know, abundance beyond what you can imagine. And we can’t control any of it, so we step with integrity based on our calling, because we know, like I said, it’s undeniable.
I mean, I always say, like I told this story about when I was 40, I’m afraid of height, so when I was 40, naturally, I took a trapeze class. I’m standing at the top of the ladder I’m holding on one hand, leaning over the drop in front of me, holding the pole over the empty space, and a man is standing next to me. He’s waiting very patiently, trying to coach me. And it was like seven times before I was ready to go, because he said, You can do this.”
And at that moment, I realized I’m not actually going back down the ladder. So I only have this one choice. I’ve made it already, in a sense. So here I go. And then, of course, you know, once I did it, and this sort of Amazonian like sound came from my body, I wanted to do it again. But it’s, it’s something like that. I don’t know you know how else to say, Yeah,
Dayna Del Val 55:26
I love that. I really appreciate this point. If…
Missing text.
Then just take the next step. I don’t really need to solve “would I use the ring for good or evil? Would I become a terror? Would I become benevolent?” I don’t need to solve that. I just need to take the next step, knowing that Mordor is the end, and I will do the best that I can do every single step of the way.
Naomi Vladeck 56:07
Or is it? Or is it the end?
Dayna Del Val 56:08
Yeah, that’s a good point. I guess there are more books, aren’t there?
Naomi Vladeck 56:12
That’s it. I mean, I think in the in the story, in the in the Gita, either God is, is Krishna is saying, you know, “I can see already the end of this war, where you win.” You don’t know whether you’re win or lose, you know, to the young prince, but you’re called to do it. So you, do that duty, which is what your calling is, to do the right thing, which was, at that point, the right thing, based in the story of a lot of years of deception and exploit of this, this family, um, without caring if you win or lose. You’re following your calling without knowing, caring, controlling. It’s that’s not your job, and it’s hard. It’s a hard thing to do. But it makes sense, you know, as a point of study. And it truly is how we go forward. Because the more we test those old assumptions that we can or we shouldn’t, the more, the less suffering we feel. Because, oh, then we have proof. We have evidence, we get clarity, just long enough to see the next step ahead of us. Then we might feel confused again, which is part of the process.
Sometimes I have clients that just feel and I, especially after a new year or something, they might feel like, I’m not really sure, I feel a little confused. And you say, that’s great, you know, feel confused; like, let’s see what happens in confusion, you know? So there’s a function and a purpose to this third space, which is empty at the moment, until these two parties, or this one soul, comes into it and decides it’s going to walk around there for a while and see what shows up.
Dayna Del Val 58:06
Okay, this conversation has been so glorious. If you have stayed curious, get Naomi’s book. I just cannot recommend it highly enough. It’ll be in the show notes, so you’ll be able to easily get it. But I want to read two last thoughts as sort of closing to the book and the conversation.
You say, “The real opportunity in change takes place when we get curious about what will emerge in the place of our former identity. Whatever we encounter in this empty space is now part of a process of transition where we will discover who we are now that our old life has ended, and move toward who we are longing to become” (24).
And then, “If you pay attention in transition, there will be moments when you sense more than just the empty space around you. If you surrender to all that you don’t know right now, your heart will open, as will all of your senses. In that state, you will have experiences that surprise you for their inexplicable synergy and truth” (25).
Naomi, thank you for the book, thank you for this conversation. You have given me so much to think about, and you have only further cemented my desire to continue to grow my friendship with you.
Naomi Vladeck 59:24
Yes. I know; I love it. I was saying that to my partner. I was like, “I have a friend in this journey.” And it’s so important to have a friend in this journey that really feels aligned with the stuff that we love to think and talk about. And there’s a lot of community around us that I think is hungry for this kind of conversation. So thank you so much for inviting me, for having the courage to create something new. And I can’t wait to see all the things that I know you’re creating come to fruition this year. Absolutely.
Dayna Del Val 59:59
Thank you. Me, everyone else, we will talk very soon.
