episode 33 with kristen portney.

Ailey Jolie (00:02.57)

We've already had the chance to hear so much of your expertise and insight and because I felt like the last time we saw each other, spent time together, there were so many more questions that I was left with. As soon as the recording ended, I wanted to have you back to dive just more into your work, what you offer, the perspective you hold and how you support people. And one piece that really came alive for me when I was thinking about our time together.

and also after was how the narratives around reproductive health get absorbed into our unconscious, how they live in family systems, how they permeate through culture. And I would love to hear from you what type of narratives consciously or in the implicit of your clients' bodies that you often find yourself working with or supporting people to work through.

Kristen (00:58.222)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, great question right off the bat. And I also just want to say that I left our first episode also just feeling so many sparks going off in my brain. I'm like, oh, this and this and this and this. So I'm very happy to be back. And one narrative that I want to start with and that I think is really important because it's being very clearly

you know, acted out in the US is like who should be a mother and who gets to be a mother and wanting to just start off in naming that mostly this idea and I think this is maybe a story or a narrative that comes in more

like from behind or, you know, is held as an unconscious belief, but is that as that like white women should be having children and that like this level of reproduction is important and needs to be empathized, emphasized and encouraged and protected. like going into this idea of like who's a good mother and who's a bad mother.

and who does mothering well and who doesn't do mothering well. And that these stories are so important and critical and understanding about how we think of ourselves as women and as mothers connected to our own, in particular, racial identities and other intersections about what make up our identities as people who can have children. So.

starting from that point is, you know, this sense of I should be having children, right? Like, because I am a woman, because I can birth a baby, that there's something that is, even at this point, patriotic about having a child, about sustaining labor, about sustaining capitalism. And even without that,

Kristen (03:11.138)

kind of like framework or direct knowledge, even though I think most people have a sense, felt sense of what their body means to the society, to the culture that we live in. But that this can go really directly into a sense of like urgency around needing to produce and produce children because that's related to, directly related to value, not only to the self, but to the...

society at large and there's like lot of different offshoots could go from there but that sense of like my worth is tied to being a mother I think is coming up more you know now than it has in many decades and I don't think it even stops at

having children, or having one child, for example. So in my practice, I've worked with women who are mothers.

and who terminated pregnancies after entering into motherhood and who are still grappling with this feeling of not being enough, of not being good enough, of not doing motherhood right, because you can always do more. You could have more children. You could be a better mother in infinite amounts of ways. And so I feel that there's this incredible dissonance between this

story that's coming in and saying have children, be a mother, this is the most important thing you're gonna do, this is gonna give you value in our eyes as any outside witness and to yourself. And then, I don't know this myself because I'm not a mother, but from my friends, from people who are in my practice, then you enter into that and the devaluation just continues.

Kristen (05:13.388)

Like, there is no place that you reach where finally you're good enough because you're never going to be a good enough mother. There's always going to be a reason to say that you're bad. And so this kind of like parrot, this like phenomenon of being a bad woman or a good woman and then being a good mother and a bad mother. And it just feels like there's no way to win.

And if you're having a miscarriage, if you're having an abortion, if you're having a child who has high needs, or if you've only had one child, like there's just, I haven't really met many people who feel like they've done the thing and now they're like, I'm fulfilled and I feel like I...

you know, and valued by myself, by my partner, by my family, by my community, by my society. It just feels like there's this myth out there around motherhood. And that's not to take away from people who love being parents and, you know, feel like they thrive in that role. And yet I think no one's free from the scrutiny of the patriarchy and what it means to mother and parent.

within that system.

Ailey Jolie (06:31.974)

As you were speaking, and it is a very Freudian but also Jungian concept that I often notice in my clients, especially around their sexualities that split between the Madonna-whore complex and the Madonna being that like eternal good enough mother, good mother, like in all of the ways and how...

Kristen (06:44.194)

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (06:54.906)

I've noticed in so many of my clients, even though they don't resonate with that idea at the start of our work together, as we begin to unpick it, like right at the core, it doesn't matter if they are the most anti oppressive, ideologically leaning person who has done as much excavating. There's oftentimes this very, and please correct me if I'm wrong, cause I'm not exactly fully firm on this language.

but almost this like religious tone of like being the good mother, being the Madonna. And it's like almost this like deeply unconscious compulsion. And I catch it in myself time and time again. And then I'm like, why am I splitting my sexuality? Why is it going back into two buckets? And I'm curious to hear from you how that plays out in your work. If anything I'm saying like resonates, if there's places you wanna add because it is something where I think.

Kristen (07:31.714)

us.

Ailey Jolie (07:52.036)

we start to really tie together sexuality with being a mother and that often doesn't happen as well.

Kristen (07:58.646)

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that you brought that up. And I was on my mind after the last time we spoke of being like, yeah, and sex and sexuality, and talking about embodiment and related to pregnancy and to abortion. think an unplanned or undesirable reproductive experience, whatever that might be on a wide spectrum or...

to whoever it might be is one of the most maybe like unsexy things about sex and can really take us away from pleasure. And so I mean, it's like, you know, going to the Madonna whore complex and this kind of religious undertone, I was just having this conversation the other day where it does feel like it's like, be the Virgin and give us children.

and do not be empowered. And I think like, you if we're talking about sexuality, there is a sense of being playful, being creative, being autonomous, setting boundaries, having, you know, responding to other people's boundaries. And this is not in the, you know, in the representation of like this kind of like religious mother who is just abiding and doting and sacrificial.

themselves. So yeah, I don't know if I got away from your question there, but...

Ailey Jolie (09:26.917)

You do. How do you support people in starting to unpick that in their own psyche when we start to bring up what are your unconscious reproductive narratives? Do you feel like you have to have children? Did you want to, maybe you didn't want to, but you felt like you had to, or you've chosen not to, and now you have guilt? Because all of these pieces kind of go together, and I'd love to hear from you if...

you start to unpick that in someone's psyche or what are some signs that it is maybe a narrative inside their mind?

Kristen (09:58.326)

Mm-hmm. I mean, I get really curious about, you know, especially after working with someone for a few months and kind of like getting a sense for like their voice, their tone, how they speak about themselves. And then all of a sudden hearing something that's like, who's that? what? Like I don't usually hear you use like those words or that language or that tone or your volume changed. Like really like tracking.

the voice and as a critical part of hearing someone's story. And so when I'm working with people, it's really just being like, oh, like, that's different. Who said that to you? Where did that come from? And a lot of people are really, some people it's very clear. It's like, oh, my mother told me this or like, this is my mother and this is what I know about.

being a mother, and this is what has informed me about who I should be and why I should be a mother and what it should look like. And then there's this more like amorphous figure of culture and society that has come out or maybe from their religious background, but it's usually not so pinpoint to a specific person. And...

in kind of like D, I love doing this work actually of like clarifying values and beliefs from internalized stories. And I think that kind of goes into parts work that sometimes it more comes out in working with, you know, like the inner critic, working with the censor, the bully, like whatever, you know, kind of figure that resonates with the person. And also playing with time.

I mean, like, there's something that maybe got concretized five years ago, and this is a belief that you had then, but does it still hold up now? And how can you today, who's having this very clear voice about what you believe about your own self-worth?

Kristen (12:09.742)

How can that nurture or kind of like take over the bus, take over the reins, whatever it might be to help guide you to walk in what your actual beliefs are? And I think another tool that I use is going into Kristin Neff's work of mindfulness, self-compassion. I think it's a classic tool in self-compassion work where it's like,

write a letter to yourself as if you're a friend. And I think in terms of clarifying values, this is really helpful because it's like, speaking to your best friend or your sister or someone that you love, is this what you believe about them? And if they're very clear, like, no, of course not. I don't believe that. I don't want that for other people or other women. like, OK, here's the signs that this is what you believe. And then now we need to look at what's actually happening around.

I mean, for me, it's a sign of putting oneself down or self-hatred or a lack of self-compassion or forgiveness or understanding of who these voices are and what role they're playing actually and how to clear them.

Ailey Jolie (13:23.596)

Have you noticed your clients be quite shocked? I've done some of that work with clients and I've received it and I've, in my own personal therapy, been so surprised that like at the core, those voices are so there. I'm like, my goodness, yes, I don't believe I have worth because of all these reproductive challenges I've been through or because of this history. And it's so interesting.

how deep that voice is and to find that it's not there and is there any way that you support people with the shock of that when they do actually get in there and like this is not how I would talk to anyone that I know but yet this is like deeply what I believe about myself. What are the next steps of kind of unearthing that and supporting someone to change that voice?

Kristen (14:08.682)

I'm sorry.

Mm-hmm. You know, it's funny like bringing up Sean. I find that this is a point where sometimes like humor and laughter comes in because it it can feel so You know when we like really recognize something that's obvious and it's like, my gosh, like I mean, you know It can either feel like a little bit like shameful like of course it's like that but it's also kind of funny to see like we're so human and this is you know, it's just it's so hard to see the things that are

that feel so obvious once they're revealed. And so I think just getting a little bit playful with people because it can feel so like, how could I be treating myself like that? So I think.

just really bringing some lightness and just some humility to this process of shock and feeling. And this happens to so many of us, like so, and again and again, it's not something that, you know, we kind of have this revelation and then it stays, unfortunately. But, and that's okay. And I think like for me even, you know, when I think about my abortion history,

It's like the first, one of the first choices still that I could go down to is, is I'm terrible. Like, oh my gosh, I'm, I've done something really bad. Like, you know, I'm 36. I don't have children. What does this say about me? Is my life mean? And it's like, that choice is still there. I still see it very clearly, but now I see that I have all these other choices that I get to make.

Ailey Jolie (15:43.137)

that you brought that reference point in, I often, I was just the other day thinking about that and I was like, that child would be literally the age that I got pregnant right now. And then I was like, wow, that's an interesting one to revisit. And then I brought in the humor, which I love that you named because in this topic, it can feel so heavy and it's so loaded with so many systems and oppressive ideologies that exist outside of us that

Sometimes the use of dark humor or just playful humor can really just kind of shifted in such a way where it does reconnect us to our humanity and back to our body, which ties into another area that I would love to dive into with you is how does this stuff really impact the relationship we have with our bodies as we have, as we've talked about these.

Kristen (16:15.448)

Yes.

Ailey Jolie (16:35.615)

pretty unconscious ideas deep down in there. Maybe we get exposed to them, we have some shock, we can put some humor around them, but they kind of keep living there to some degree or another. But how do they impact how we actually connect to the body that we live in? Because they don't just exist in our minds as we both know.

Kristen (16:55.394)

Yeah, yeah. think that, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind when I'm hearing you speak right now is just like a rigidity that comes in. And I mean, of course we can have that in our thoughts, but we can have that in our body as well. And there's lack of like inflexibility, rigidity, holding, contracting. And so I think like there's...

there's so much value in trying to actually move the body. I this is what we're kind of talking about, there's a lot of folks that I see, they come in, have some sort of, when we're talking about abortion, they go to like a pain that they have in their body, like shoulder pain, stomach pain. And so there's, know, various ways of working with that. Sorry, I just kind of like lost my train of thought a little bit.

Ailey Jolie (17:53.152)

I asked you about how those unconscious stories live in the body. Yeah, and how you work with someone to kind of start to expose their impact in the body or move them through the body.

Kristen (17:54.568)

Can we?

Kristen (18:09.888)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, part of it is just... I mean, a lot of people that I work with are just starting to see the connection between the pain that they have and that when they go to the pain in their shoulder, that they cry. They don't know why they're crying.

And for me, I remember when after my second abortion and my more challenging abortion, I was going to yoga and I was getting into pigeon pose a couple of times a week and just like sobbing every time I went into that pose. And I didn't really know what it was. call it grief, loss, whatever. Doesn't really matter. But there was a release there. And so I think guiding people towards

exploring what the pain or sensation in the body has without then having to link it to something, which is very tempting to do. And I think this is one of the more uncomfortable parts of doing somatic work, which is like the brain really wants to know like, the pain in my shoulder is like this exact memory. And if I like do this exact thing, then I'm going to release this emotion. And often it's just like it's so much more it's so much like

bigger than that, not in a threatening way, but in a really kind of beautiful way of what actually the body holds. And I know a lot of people who, a lot of people in my practice who are afraid to go into the body because they're afraid that that's gonna mean what they think it means, which is that it's a really big deal, what's happened. And this part,

Like I feel myself even now after I said it just feel a little bit like quiet and something kind of drop in me. And I think that's just the reverence for how it is scary to get confirmation from the body. And sometimes maybe what we feel will confirm a thought or a belief or a memory. And I think really going slow and steady.

Kristen (20:23.438)

with that with people. And you know, we talk about, I I talk about a lot meaning making and storytelling, and then also recognizing there's a point in somatic work, I think where we have to pull away from that a little bit and just let the...

let the sensations, let whatever is happening to be and not go too quickly into making meaning or like, you know, jumping to the conclusion about it. And so this is what I would say to somebody that I'm working with and we're starting to do, to go into what that shoulder pain is, what it feels like to have your stomach hurt as we're talking about your abortion.

Ailey Jolie (21:09.564)

I love that you named the bigness of it and that when we go into the body there is this.

I say almost instantaneous settling of this was a significant experience, positive or negative is somewhat irrelevant of just actually my mind's desire to minimize this story as something irrelevant in my history. The body is holding a different relevance to regardless of outcome and that's something...

Kristen (21:21.666)

you

Ailey Jolie (21:44.019)

that I've noticed a lot of my clients, I noticed them struggle with my clients who are like having an abortion or that miscarriage was absolutely the best thing that happened to me. And I full heartedly kind of believe that in my story and I know that and I sit with them and I can hear that and I have those lived experiences. And yet when I go in my body and confront it with this big.

sinking feeling or this big pause or this da da da and then the mind's like scrambling to go well does that mean something different does that mean that i have guilt does that mean i have sadness or and it just almost takes away from this i i don't how would you describe that or or that that feeling i'm not exactly sure for me it almost feels like a like a longing to be acknowledged in some way

Kristen (22:14.52)

Thanks.

Kristen (22:18.03)

Exactly.

Kristen (22:29.302)

Yeah, I don't know exactly what the word truth means in this, but something that's just like when we're in the presence of something that's like true also, like there is like the longing and just...

Like when truth is starting to come out about something, I feel like things get kind of quiet.

Kristen (22:55.926)

and like a little bit more still. And that's also sometimes really an unfamiliar place to be.

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (23:06.927)

unfamiliar and then the mind loves to kind of jump in and try and do its meaning making thing. Staying with a little bit of the theme of the mind, I'm curious to hear from you how you support people to rewrite or reclaim their reproductive story when they've gotten to contact with one that doesn't, doesn't serve them or doesn't fit.

some of that rewriting comes from actually the pause that both of us are kind of feeling right now, but I love to hear more about what that process is like.

Kristen (23:42.39)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's such a beautiful and delicate and,

kind of like mysterious process sometimes too in rewriting a story. Because sometimes it's very clear, like, you know, some clients really resonate with actually writing and journaling and wanting to go into this, like, into narrative therapy in a way, like they have their own relationship to how they understand how a story can change and unfold.

And then other times I feel like I'm in like an active kind of construction site with people and

and we're looking around and the plans haven't really been laid yet. We know the terrain because here's the story. And what I found with people who are coming after their abortion in a particularly challenging experience is that they need to tell this story a lot. A lot. They're telling themselves this story a lot, whatever that first story is. And...

I think it comes in a very slow, invitational way that one, a story can get laid to rest completely. Or we can even kill a story. There are many different possibilities of what to do with a story. But I start to...

Kristen (25:26.35)

to focus on areas where people do take great pause or like where their energy changes like they're telling their story and then all of a sudden they're like but but like I remember xyz and what he said and and and it's like ah here is like a point where like there's a a real like belief around what they know about themselves and so I will stop and talk about this for a long period of time or for a period of time

kind of exploring. And then as someone, you know, was coming back to therapy and the story's coming up, and then that part might be left out. I might remind them, like, I remember last time, like, we, in your story, like, there was this part. So I think part of it is being like a, like sharing a memory in the story creating process with someone. And then they're like, yeah, like, yeah, I do remember that.

part of the story, that's a really important part of the story. And then noticing like people start the story at different places. They're not just going back to like the original point, but then now they start somewhere what could be considered the middle or even at the end and then work their way through different points. And really again, like highlighting a major focus on...

people trusting themselves and when I hear that they've trusted themselves in their story, I will do like light fireworks, I will, you know, do whatever I can to bring attention to these moments to help build a new foundation for the story, which is that I trust myself, I love myself, I forgive myself, and this is my abortion story. And so people have that in their stories.

They all, like I've never heard a story where someone, where that didn't exist. But it's about kind of being able to highlight and point out to someone like, well, what about this area? And this is what I saw happen in you when you talked about this part of your story.

Kristen (27:34.038)

And then eventually, like, I will, you know, and then maybe, like, in a more classic way, like, there will be an exercise about, actually writing or telling the story, like, going into this part. But I think in the, like, the nitty-gritty parts of what it means to be in a story with someone, I think that's part of it, too. It's like, you need to really be willing to, like, be in the story with them.

Ailey Jolie (27:58.575)

I would love to focus on one of the three things you said. You said, I trust myself, I love myself and I forgive myself. And the forgiveness piece I want to focus in on specifically because of the climate that we're in around reproductive health. And because of that climate, I've noticed with some of my clients are just conversations with colleagues, that piece being very, very hard.

Kristen (28:16.93)

us.

Ailey Jolie (28:27.822)

because there's such a strong push and so much judgment right now. It's like, well, I don't at all subscribe to any narrative that this was a wrong thing to do. And it's like, actually, that's not about it. It's this other piece of self-forgiveness of like, kind of last time I, I my experience of like needing to forgive myself for kind of being on this repetition compulsion with.

men who I knew weren't gonna show up for me because of how that played out in my family system and my mother's experience of conception and such forth. How you work into that space of self-forgiveness to someone who is really pushing against the societal narratives that are so strong right now.

how you hold that space for someone so that they can actually kind of find the peace of self-forgiveness that actually resonates with them because like you, those three things do stand out to me as highly valuable in processing the experience and coming back to self and creating that relationship with body again and all those beautiful things.

Kristen (29:37.024)

Yeah, yeah.

Kristen (29:41.346)

Forgiveness. I mean, just to share, remember when this, was sitting in Berkeley where I used to live at a park near my house and I was talking to a friend and I, for the first time in my life said a la, like, I don't know what forgiveness is. And somehow immediately it brought me to a, I didn't grow up religious or anything like this, so I actually don't have like the.

the religious trauma from my own family system, which I'm grateful for, I felt this, like, was, what came up for me, very organically in that moment, is like the word prayer, which isn't necessarily tied to something so loaded for me. But the question that followed is, what is a prayer, and what does it mean to pray for something? And I think that this was the first thing that I really actually prayed for for myself, was how do I...

One, I was also in a place of needing to forgive someone else who had done something to me, but also to forgive myself. And it's still something that I'm in a deep inquiry about and find new layers and new depths to forgiveness. And so I really, start there with people like, what do you know about forgiveness?

And I have like a little, know, in Clarissa Pincolla Estes, Women Who Roll With The Wolves, she has a chapter that includes forgiveness and it has four, the four stages of forgiveness that I also love to use as my own reference, but with people as well. oftentimes people don't know what it means to like...

I think just it's incredible what you can, what asking a direct question can do of like, what does this actually mean to you? When have you been in a position where you needed to forgive? And I think that this part is really precious again, because it's like, it's never about the abortion being wrong ever, or even that the decision needed to change.

Kristen (31:57.518)

but it's about how do I forgive myself for not knowing what I know now? And this is just like, man, we will cut ourselves up for not knowing what we know now five years ago, two years ago, 10 years ago. And this I just like really need to make clear for people and I talked about it last time of like really protecting where you were.

what age you were, what developmental stage you were at in your own process, like must be protected. This is part of the story that doesn't change. Because this is just like the truth about your circumstances. And if we keep applying where you are now, where your relationship is now, how much more money you have now, how much more healing you've done, whatever it might be, like we're never...

gonna get to the place of true compassion or forgiveness. And so it's exploring about like what expectations are you putting on your past self? And what's that about? Like how is punishment serving you? And can we let go of punishment for something else, which would be forgiveness? And I think people like that. I will say like it's something that people

really soften to. And it's like any of this and I sometimes I don't want to hear this and sometimes I feel bad telling people this but it's like it's gonna be it's gonna take practice and we're gonna have to do it a lot. And it's actually something like are you willing to and open to committing to and devoting to on this pursuit of

resolution, whatever that might be for you after your abortion, but also mean, spanning out in general of like, do you want, sometimes I really just ask people, do you want to love yourself? And some people are like, shit, how dare you ask me that?

Ailey Jolie (34:09.504)

It ties into another question that I sometimes ask my clients is, you want to experience pleasure? Like if we are to move pleasure into the body, it means that some of this self-hatred and self-judgment and blame and the things that are laid down from past experiences, let them be trauma, intergenerational patterns, like they have to be

Kristen (34:17.133)

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (34:38.067)

moved. So the question then becomes do you want this? And if yes, what are you willing to start to really get into with and maybe go into the not so comfortable stuff so that there is space for this? And I would love to hear from you how you support people to start moving love or pleasure back into their body when they have a reproductive history that maybe

is painful in the body or painful in the heart or just even confusing to hold.

Kristen (35:11.754)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kristen (35:17.102)

Well, first you reminded me of is there's a dancer choreographer from Israel. His name is Ohad Naharin and he developed Gaga, of which one of my movement teachers here, Hugo Marmalade, he's a Gaga teacher. in that space, there is one of the central tenants that comes through is like that there can be pleasure and discipline.

and pleasure and effort. that it can feel like working hard doesn't just have to be like, damn, this sucks, this hurts. We can work hard and it can be like, I'm in it, I'm stretching myself, I'm really using my body or I'm using my spirit or my psyche. And so I don't know, just this idea of the intersection of pleasure and effort has been really...

and beautiful to me.

before my own rule, like deep dive into this for myself, there was an idea like, well, if it's pleasureful, it should be effortless. Like it should just be, it should just come. I should just like it it should just feel good. And if it doesn't, that's not really what it is. And that was like a huge block because actually in terms of experiencing things that I pleasure, there was some effort I had to put forth.

to gain access to pleasure again, especially after abortion. mean, not only just related to erotic or sexual pleasure, but because I spent really like two years after my second abortion really punishing myself. And what I found is that like when I'm punishing myself, there is no room for pleasure.

Kristen (37:19.48)

There's just absolute, like that is just not something that I think I even deserve or could even think about or hear. And so I think moving people out of the, need to suffer, I need to be punished, I need to be bad is the first step in reclaiming pleasure. And then, know, just pleasure in general, like talking about like what...

I mean, I know like, you know, you know this as well, but just taking pleasure into like food and to, you know, entertainment, like what are the things that actually just feel good? And I noticed that when I asked people what brings you pleasure, they feel, oftentimes, more often than not, they feel uncomfortable because they think I'm just talking about sex right away. And although like we could go, we of course will.

typically it does end up going there for talking about the body or reconnecting with partners after having an abortion or a child or a miscarriage. know, also like zooming out and being like, I mean, I see the flowers that are behind you right now, which evokes like a sense of pleasure. So I think it's also like helping people like broaden their sense of what being in pleasure is for them.

And do they deserve pleasure? did they think that they deserve pleasure before their abortion? Like when did this idea of I don't get to be in joy in my body or in my environment, when did that story come in? Because that might be a lot older than the abortion.

Ailey Jolie (38:59.881)

I want to loop what you're saying now back to something you said earlier about how unsexy, unplanned pregnancy is or an unplanned termination is, whatever that ends up, and loop it to this idea of punishment and then how

Kristen (39:09.934)

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (39:19.039)

there does need to be this effort to reclaim sexuality, yes, but also to reclaim pleasure. And I've noticed this, Steph, as you were speaking, it touched on parts of my own story after having an unplanned pregnancy and then for five years just punishing myself in any said way that I could. It was through different forms of therapy that were definitely just like, I don't know, just kind of cruel on myself to keep excavating in that way or choosing really

Kristen (39:47.886)

it.

Ailey Jolie (39:48.935)

relationships that I definitely didn't see a future with because I just didn't feel deserving of a future with someone after that experience and I would I would love to hear from you how you start to kind of work with someone on that link because it's something I noticed in my practice is this I've had these experiences and Maybe I don't even acknowledge that there's judgment here, but I'm actually

Kristen (39:54.658)

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (40:15.398)

removing myself from pleasure. I'm putting myself in situations where this isn't really what I want, but like that's fine. And then also this really strong disbelief that pleasure requires effort. And I know that for myself, it's been a hard and continual practice.

Kristen (40:31.15)

Mm-hmm.

Ailey Jolie (40:35.602)

to actually take in pleasure, to find it and to feel it. I believe I'm worthy of it, but nonetheless, my system still has these unconscious imprints of, I don't really know, or like, it's gonna actually take you like a lot of time to like find your way there because there's still this sense of, are you sure? Are you sure it's okay to feel this? So I'd love to hear how you support someone in that process because

you did articulate it so lovely and I'm sure that there's listeners who can resonate with aspects of that and this type of knowledge, I'm going to go out on a bridge here maybe or a ledge, is not so accessible. It's not easy to find a clinician who can actually articulate this knowledge that works with it and so I'd love to hear more from you about that this process.

Kristen (41:20.568)

Yeah.

Kristen (41:32.11)

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, gosh, nothing can feel more punishing sometimes than repeating a cycle. And I mean, I thank you so much. I just want to say thank you so much for speaking about your own repetition with choosing the wrong partner and miscarriage. I've had that. I mean, I've looked at that myself and being like, wow, like I've done, you know.

Ailey Jolie (41:41.267)

Yes, this is true.

Kristen (41:57.752)

I've had four abortions. I have also repeated something around the birth control choices I was making or not making and scenarios that I got into or ways that I was in a little bit of denial about things before and believed something might be true, but I knew it wasn't true.

Ailey Jolie (42:21.853)

been there.

Kristen (42:25.742)

Yeah, wow. And so it feels really good to just hear someone else say that. Thank you.

Ailey Jolie (42:31.219)

I also, from being a clinician, I've heard so many women speak of that. because I do think there is such an unconscious and implicit imprint in the reproductive stories that we were born into, the ones that we carry through us and then the ones that we live out.

Kristen (42:36.206)

Mm-hmm.

Ailey Jolie (42:49.234)

that in the same way that we acknowledge that we'll keep kind of dating a quote unquote toxic partner who mirrors someone who harmed us in the past. I have always found this quite curious since my own analyst brought it to my awareness of like, why are we having that conversation around our sexual partners, the people we choose to have reproductive experiences with? Why isn't this being brought to light? Because when I looked at my history, I was like,

Wow, this started with my mother and at 16, like it dug real deep into me and at 25, it hit its climax point. And I'm so glad I had a clinician who could just stop me and be like, you're repeating something. And do you want to keep repeating it? Because this looks really fucking painful over there. Um, but it's always shocked me that there isn't a lot of narrative around that piece.

Kristen (43:26.85)

Mm-hmm.

Kristen (43:44.194)

Yes, yeah. I mean, think even that to just have a clinician who's gonna be willing to confront you with love and say, listen, you just described something that you've been doing for the last five years. Do you want to keep doing this for the next five? Which can feel like, what?

Ailey Jolie (44:02.419)

Supposed to be on my side. Where's the empathy and compassion? She had it.

Kristen (44:03.662)

Yeah, well yeah, know, glue with me, merge with me, and it's like, to have someone just even do that is like, whoa.

That's awesome. It's brave. I think it's brave to do that as a clinician also, like even in my own experience of asking those hard questions and pointing out like the really unsavory cycles that we get ourselves into and be like, here's this, here it is. Here's this, like, what are we going to do? What do you want to do? What do think we can do? And

I'm gonna go back again to this dance because I, and I'll just say like in my work clinically, like I love this question. It's still something I'm figuring out, like what do I do? And it feels different with each person and it feels like something that's like developing. But in my dance class with my teacher Hugo, like he's exploring how to break out of patterns physically.

that like when I start to dance, I always raise my right shoulder first. And like, this is where I start my dance. These are the moves that I feel comfortable doing. This is like my own groove. And the whole point of this exploration in his class, in the frame of Gaga is like, is finding how to, how, like there's so many other ways that you can dance right now. And like, can we research this together so that we're getting out of our patterns?

and that we can find more. There's just like even more ways that we can dance. And so this I think is really helpful for me. Well, it's been incredible for me in my own exploration of, like if I'm always sitting like this.

Kristen (45:50.06)

And I'm trying to tell you a different story about who I am and what I see. It's like, it's just not gonna work. Like we need to also like bring the body in and say like, can we change? It doesn't need to be as radical as going to a dance class, or if that's radical for someone, but like, it can also just be changing the posture in your chair and making another choice. Like what are the things that we're constantly going towards? And if someone in my practice is like talking about wanting to make change.

but they're not changing how they're sitting, what the friends that they're walking around with, the partners that they're choosing, the way that they're walking to work, like all of these things. it's like, we've got to look beyond just like what you and I are able to talk about here together. And are you willing actually to do the therapeutic work outside of therapy? I think is a huge question too, because like this is, you and I are together for an hour a day.

an hour, sorry, an hour a week, maybe two. And what about, like, how can we look at the other places in your life that you can bring in things like pleasure, that you can bring in a new activity, that you can bring in a new rhythm, a new pattern, a new tone, a new texture, a new quality to your life? Because if we're just gonna, like, talk about the change and the pattern, like, we're, like, then I'm just getting embedded in the pattern with you.

And so I think it's also being willing to say like, hey, like we've got to talk about what you're doing outside of therapy.

Seriously.

Kristen (47:31.192)

And I think this has become more, I think in the beginning, you know, years, like when I was a young clinician, I still feel young in many ways, but like, you know, it's like you want it to happen like in the therapy room. And a lot does happen there, but it's also now being like, and like, let's really talk about like, what are the other changes that you're willing to make in your life to bring in pleasure, to bring in support, to bring in connection, meet different kinds of people.

Ailey Jolie (48:00.101)

love that you brought this up. When I got registered with ASEX, so as a registered sex therapist, right at the time I just had this influx of clients who wanted to work with me because they wanted pleasure, they wanted an orgasm, or they had gone through a miscarriage and couldn't feel portions of their cervix and they're like, my goodness, a sex therapist with all these fancy tools. And I did that work for maybe about, I think I lasted about six months with that type of client.

Kristen (48:21.322)

Uh-huh.

Ailey Jolie (48:30.018)

And then exactly what you are saying came out inside me where it was like, actually, I could give you the knowledge that you could actually probably also just find in a Cosmo. It's probably there. It's probably not the best version of the knowledge, but it's there. But it's, that's not actually the work. The work is finding all of the ways inside your system where every single day when you're out there in that world.

you deprioritize your own pleasure and most more commonly prioritizes someone else's wellbeing or pleasure or safety or ease or whatever it is and put yourself second. And that for me was a definite change in my practice where I just kind of stopped in many ways believing that I had that type of

Kristen (49:00.558)

Thanks.

Ailey Jolie (49:25.742)

I don't want to say power because it's not exactly the right word where I believed that therapy was that potent to change someone's life. I began to saw it as just a place where I could sprinkle things that I would deeply hope that my clients would water when they left the room. Especially around the conversations of pleasure and especially around these conversations of

Kristen (49:28.226)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kristen (49:45.26)

Mm-hmm.

Ailey Jolie (49:51.993)

How do I view my body? What is the reproductive history inside my body? Just sprinkling these things and hoping that when they go out there, they have another conversation. They talk to someone else, they prioritize their pleasure. And I'm curious to hear from you if this does resonate and B, what are some of the things that you find yourself maybe trying to sprinkle in on your clients? Sometimes I just am like, I'm just planting seeds over here all day.

I don't know what your garden's gonna be full of, but like I'm trying to make it great.

Kristen (50:23.278)

Yes, yes, yes. I love that.

Kristen (50:30.872)

Gosh, mean the seeds that I'm, the word that comes, although it feels reductive, is the word hobbies. And I'll say a personal, like years ago, I guess it was three years ago now, I was in a huge transition in my life and was, yeah, stuck. There was just a lot going on which I could go into another time. But my therapist, every session, kept being like, you need to get a hobby. What are you doing with your time? And I was like, if you tell me to get a hobby.

Kristen (51:04.078)

therapy and he never stopped and then I was very resistant to doing it and then at some point I started like picking up I started being curious about what was fun for me and what felt playful and what I could learn and how that connected to my self-esteem how it connected me to other people what groups it got me involved in and then all of a sudden I was like

dang, like I'm doing all these new hobbies and I'm so grateful for that. I mean, that was like a very like direct seed that was planted. And I think I try to do that for people that I'm working with. I love it, like wondering about possibilities with people. And I share my hopes for the people that I'm working with.

when I hear that they want their life to go in some direction and start imagining together, like, wow, like, I wonder, you said that you used to do improvisation, like, what could that look like or feel like, or how does that show up in your relationship? And sometimes it's like people are naming what it is that they could actually start watering again. And I think it's just about, for me, it's getting curious and wondering about it, but also getting into the...

imagination of what's possible, what could things look like, what's something that you could, what's a small change that you could just make, you know, right now, like today, like this week, that could bring in more pleasure, more beauty, what's something that also could make it easy?

It's maybe less of a seed sprinkling, but this is a new question I'm working with is like, the work is hard and like where are the places that it can be easy? And that's been kind of like a fun exploration with people.

Ailey Jolie (53:02.029)

like that question specifically in the context of what's moving in the world right now. And being all feeling very hard and very happy of like, where can I find these gentle spots of it being easy? As you were sharing about your therapist, I also had a therapist who for years asked me what I did every week for play.

And I hated this question and she would start the therapy with it and it would make me so angry because I like didn't even know what play was. I was like, why is she asking me this stupid question? Let me talk about my trauma. She didn't want to hear it. I would love to hear from you just the importance of play and creativity or making things easy or experiencing ease.

Kristen (53:29.71)

huh.

Kristen (53:36.834)

Yeah.

Yes.

Ailey Jolie (53:55.998)

in the process of reclaiming the body or making a relationship with the body after an experience of reproductive health that's been challenging. What is the role of those things and coming back after an experience like that, but also just having vitality in the body as well.

Kristen (54:15.79)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh.

Yeah, I'm just kind of marveling at it. It's a beautiful question that you're asking.

Kristen (54:32.492)

I mean, moving people towards creativity, I think, is a really, in general, but after abortion is really essential. And I had this kind of revelation after my third abortion of like, I...

my body was creating something in a very literal way. You know, there was cells, there was things coming together. And then I did end that process. And that something around this urge towards creativity felt both extremely intimidating and threatening at times and really exciting and enticing. And this kind of

feeling like, I deserve that? Like, do I deserve to be creative after I've ended a creative process, one creative process? Can I begin another creative process? And so I think capturing creativity after an abortion is a wonderful way to work with the energetics of pregnancy and...

and of terminating the pregnancy. so getting into like what, you know, ritual is a form of play. So oftentimes kind of going into like, what's your idea about ritual? A lot of people...

kind of scoff at it, but recognizing this is something that you get to play with. This could also be a form of play in a way that you get to communicate. Some people really resonate with the spirit baby realm and having allies in the beloved spiritual, either beloved dead or in the spirit realm and how to be in a...

Kristen (56:32.256)

in a process of like creative communication and honoring and intention setting and receiving support. So that's one kind of like avenue that that can go down with, go through with people that I see really brings a lot of lightness.

and a sense of play, like being in my imagination and being able to create the world where what I've done is free from punishment. It's free from anything but actually like me making this decision that was good for me and actually that this spirit that I'm connected to is an ally.

to me. Not only is it just a neutral, fine thing that I did, that I could be guided. I could be being guided by this process. that that for me is like, this is a whole, talk about story changing, everything. feels like this whole realm of creation and play. And this is the world that people get to make up for them. Not make up, this is the world that people get to create for themselves after abortion.

It doesn't have to be exactly these words, you do not have to live in the world of the Trump administration or any of these. This is a sick, nasty world, and you do not have to live there. And in fact, we can create this other beautiful world that we can use words like portals and growth and healing and reclaiming and guiding and pleasure and connection. This is the world that we can live in post-abortion.

Ailey Jolie (58:18.229)

that you brought up two pieces. One, the continued creativity, regardless of its abortion, miscarriage, medical termination, that there is this creation process inside the body. And I absolutely adore some of the research that shows that the brain chemistry continues to changes, that there's hormonal changes that actually extend into a nine month period.

even if you have your medical termination or your abortion and your miscarriage, at early as six weeks that you're still in this process. I know when I found out that piece of knowledge, I was like, oh my goodness, everything makes so much sense. Why I just wrote like da da da da, or like why I started painting again, and these like big moments that almost felt kind of manic. When I look back, I'm like, I'm a pretty like shwoosh person, but it was like this, I was like,

Kristen (59:13.21)

huh.

Ailey Jolie (59:14.659)

that was that energy moving through me. And I love that you brought it up because it's something that I so wish more people knew about. So I'm going to ask you a question about that. And then we go back to spirit babies because also another topic that I adore. So with someone is feeling that creative energy. How do you support them with that? Because it can be a lot. Are there pieces of psycho education that you offer?

Kristen (59:26.638)

Okay. Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (59:43.914)

How do you kind of bring up that conversation with someone?

Kristen (59:48.748)

Yeah. Well, I bring up like, I'm glad to know that there's literature on this because I've like, I've often thought of it, I've called it the parallel pregnancy phenomenon. And I've recognized that like the abortion experience is as long as, you know, like it carries until nine months. And generally like there's like a shift in perception or like a felt sense that can.

change for people once the due date has passed. And of course, there are these moments, like you just said, wow, my daughter would have been 16, the age that. So these moments, these milestones, there was all these little parallel lives going on that we live after pregnancy loss. And so I try to just extend beyond the medical model that we know around abortion.

first as the one entry point to the creative process, but also I think not putting too much expectation on. There's a gentle balance of, oh, and now I need to go and do, that there's nothing that needs to be done. There need not be a finished product.

such as if you stay pregnant like a baby. But what's more important is this recognition that I am a creative person, my body is creative in and of itself, and I can use that energy to help move me forward. I just talk about my own understanding from my own embodied experience of losing pregnancies and also just in terms of the catharsis that art

and creativity and play have together. don't, know, nothing so much more than that. And then kind of seeing, you know, where people, you know, some people don't want to pick that up and that's, and that's okay. But for the people that do, then it's, you know, it can be like a fun brainstorming process.

Ailey Jolie (01:02:06.781)

Yeah, that for myself and something I have noticed, does kind of tap into this, I would say like differently embodied experience of like, there's creation inside of me. I can do whatever I want with that. Whenever I want to do something with that, there's no time. I don't have to do it right now. There's no pressure, but like actually that is inside here in some way. And there are like many other ways to tap into that experience.

Kristen (01:02:18.69)

Yeah.

Kristen (01:02:23.18)

Yes. Yeah.

Kristen (01:02:33.783)

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (01:02:36.393)

As someone who struggled with infertility, like it doesn't have to be through pregnancy, but this kind of process, even engaging with it in an ideological way can start to just touch on that in a different way and start to give some of that experience in a different way, I think, because it requires some slowing down and acknowledging the body and the bodies we come from as well.

Kristen (01:02:39.075)

Mm-hmm.

Kristen (01:02:57.143)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think one of my favorite ways too is I love altar building. I mean, I kind of see like every surface of my house, even where I keep my pens as an altar, as like an altar space. it's not, I'm not so, you know, like, like this is the altar and I, you know, sit in front of it, although I have friends that do and it's really beautiful. But just to like, what did, just to gather beautiful things together.

that you like. This is something that I'll usually recommend to everybody. Sometimes people don't like the word alter because it has a religious tone to it, but of just like, can you create a beautiful space with two objects that you can look at and think about yourself in a beautiful way in regard to your abortion? I think that's kind of the place where I start with people.

Ailey Jolie (01:03:53.544)

I love that because it's creating a physical something. Let it be altered. It's two objects. I've put two objects together that have meaning to me. I've created a sense of something with whatever those objects are. I want to loop back because you touched on it. Just

Kristen (01:03:58.488)

Mm-hmm.

Ailey Jolie (01:04:13.647)

how you bring in the conversation of spirit babies if that is something you bring in or if you wait for them to bring it in because I loved what you said about you don't need to take on this narrative that's going on out there in the external world that you can create your own narrative from your own internal experience.

based upon whatever your belief system is inside or whatever your relationship is to spirituality or religion or if you're agnostic, whatever, it's based on your inner experience. I'd love to hear a little bit more on that piece from you.

Kristen (01:04:51.072)

Yeah. You know, I, well, I orient my own abortions in that way and have for a long time. and when I'm working with people and this is an assessment.

that I do throughout the time that we work together or like, you know, part of the listening is what is the language that people are using about their abortion and asking very directly and sometimes multiple times, what are you comfortable, you know, I've heard you say fetus, I've heard you say being, I've heard you say it, I've heard you, like whatever it might be and like, what are you comfortable with? What's the language that you want to use as we're talking about the abortion?

And what I've noticed is that can really change moment to like session to session. And in the more long-term work I've done with people after abortion, meaning like a year, year and a half working together, I've noticed a few people who have shifted into talking about their baby. That once...

a lot of the like stigmatization and all of this work kind of starts catching in the self-compassion and getting in touch with their own story. There's more comfort of talking about it as the baby, my baby.

Kristen (01:06:25.12)

Sometimes I will take a risk.

with people and ask how have you ever heard of this term or people start kind of like, they start going there themselves like wondering about communication. Would this baby punish me? Are they mad at me? I wonder if they're mad at me. That's often a question that comes up. And that for me feels like there's a little bit of a doorway to talk about like how do we communicate?

with this spirit, or like with this baby, with this being. And again, like staying attuned to the language that people are using. And then when there's like a curiosity about it, then I go into further detail of what I've read and what I believe spirit babies are and the way that they can guide us.

still be guiding us. And part of this is, I don't know if you're familiar with Perdita Finn, but she does a, I attended one of her workshops on the sacred choice. And I was already very familiar with spirit babies and, and she introduced like this idea to me that was life-changing, which is like, maybe you're really special.

that you've had for abortions. Like maybe it's so special to have been contacted by these entities. like, they know that, and that there's also this belief that like, they know that they're not gonna stay. That this is a relationship. This is, it isn't so linear as people think that like, we can still have these relationships in our life and that actually we can.

Kristen (01:08:20.014)

not only be guided by them wants, but that they can still be with us and be guides. So for me, I absolutely love this perspective for myself. It really resonates. It's given me so much clarity and guidance and in a sense of like peace as well. so going into that work with people, going into dialogue.

And also being able to open up a conversation between, you you could even think of it in the Gestalt lens of the empty chair, like here, the baby is here now in the session, like, can we open up a dialogue and talk about it? And in that sense, like, I mean, I've never heard something mean come through.

Ailey Jolie (01:09:13.902)

I love that you have brought this up. This is definitely not something I've ever spoken about publicly or had really any desire. Maybe a little bit with my experience at 16, but I often say like feeling her death inside my womb is like what allowed me to acknowledge that I felt nothing inside my body. And she is like the biggest like spirit.

guide for me. Like I feel her inside my system. I get a little voice and I'm like, okay, we need to redirect. Like you've moved away from yourself. And it's one of my biggest resources in the spiritual realm. But my other biggest resource that I have, and I have worked with a lot of really incredible male therapists and I hold them deeply in my heart, but the experience of 25 of losing my son,

When that experience happened, I just heard this voice and it was like, I'm gonna teach you a different version of masculinity. And that is when I started having a somatic sense of fear around men who weren't good for me, who weren't going to treat me well, because prior to that experience, I had no somatic sense of danger with a man. And then that experience happened and then...

Kristen (01:10:28.6)

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (01:10:32.281)

All of sudden I did. And then all of a sudden I started choosing safer and safer men because I had this voice that was like, not that one, really not that one. And I feel like, I don't know. There's like a no inside me. And I never used to have a no. I used to just have you like me, okay. And that has been one of the biggest resources and also has allowed those experiences in my heart and my body to not necessarily be

encased with the trauma that society tells me that I should have around being a person who's experienced multiple miscarriages. It's just been like, well, actually, I got something really valuable here and I have this connection now and that is not my narrative at all. And so I'm really glad that you brought this up and started to touch on it because it is something that I think as clinicians, we get to hear in the room.

we get to kind of hear these truths and these like really intimate insights and these other narratives. But because of the culture around us, I don't feel like individuals who have these experiences get to share them or hear other people have them as well. So I'm really glad that you brought it up. Is there anything you'd like to add as I see you nodding there?

Kristen (01:11:50.806)

I I just feel like a full body, like, yes, like I feel this like beautiful protective energy coming up of like, you're just like nailing it on the head is that like, no longer do they get to rob us of our love, our meaning making, our deep feelings, the magic that we can make that we can transform and that abortion is sometimes the doorway into that.

Ailey Jolie (01:12:18.446)

Yes.

Kristen (01:12:18.478)

and carries on to be a part of that. And so I'm just so tired of this like, this old, old narrative that I just don't have, I just feel completely allergic to. I just feel completely allergic to at this point and just want kind of what you just shared so eloquently of just like, there's so much poetry here. And if you're not gonna come and talk to me with poetry about abortion, don't come and talk to me.

Like, because it's what it deserves. It deserves just the play, the creativity, the pleasure, the poetry, the dance, the flowers, the connection. Like, this is just the world that it gets to live in and should be in. That's it.

Ailey Jolie (01:13:04.737)

Yeah, a lot more of the...

I hold my experiences really as a mystical experience and I also hold them as this deeply continued thread of connection to something larger than myself. Like I don't exactly know what this thread is. Even recently and being someone I've been quite unwell and in one of my surgeries I had to take myzoprostol which is the abortion medication and they didn't tell me that's what I was going to have. They just gave it to me which was

Kristen (01:13:12.579)

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (01:13:38.289)

pretty traumatic if you've ever taken this medication as someone with endomyo- endomyosis and endometriosis. It's really quite horrific but it was also this experience where I got to be in the room with my partner and he was the one who looked in my eyes and saw the pain and went

I'm getting a doctor and you're going into surgery now because you're in pain Ailey and you're telling me you're not but I don't believe you and I'm getting doctors and getting physicians in there and there's just this like little voice inside that was like that's what I needed. I needed a man to see this pain. I needed him to validate it and I needed a room of doctors in here right now because this is the pain I've been forced to live in on my own on different occasions and I needed a corrective experience and that I hold.

Kristen (01:14:17.219)

this.

Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (01:14:25.654)

is some type of esoteric little thing. You believe in spirit babies or not, repetition compulsion, I don't care. There's something going on here. And I really wish that more people were offered that space to bring the poetic, to bring the mystical, to bring the spiritual, to bring the Freud, whatever you wanna call it, into these experiences instead of them being segmented off into things that.

Kristen (01:14:32.845)

Thank

Ailey Jolie (01:14:53.301)

We just judge or we feel we have to process.

Kristen (01:14:56.322)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ailey Jolie (01:14:59.523)

Is there anything else today that you would like to add in, maybe around the pieces that we just spoke about or anything else before we close?

Kristen (01:15:18.806)

I feel complete.

Ailey Jolie (01:15:20.215)

Okay.

Kristen (01:15:22.382)

Although I'm sure in 10 minutes I'll be like, and then this and then this.

Ailey Jolie (01:15:23.523)

Thank you so much for your time and just everything you offer. As I said in last one, you're someone I deeply admire and appreciate and really just see as doing something so valuable and so different in this space as a clinician and something that is ever more important as

our world moves into whatever it's moving into, that these spaces exist and that there are clinicians who offer this. So thank you.

Kristen (01:15:56.44)

Yeah.

Kristen (01:16:02.464)

Yeah, wow. Thank you so much. Really, from the bottom. Thank you.