¶ Living Zero Waste
Welcome to Know your Flow podcast , where women in flow share what they know . I'm your host , Lauren Barton . Join me as we talk to women and hear their stories on what they know , how they've grown and living in flow . We're here today with Heather gust of wind .
Gust of wind .
How do you actually say it ?
It's gust of sun . It's Swedish . I tell people it's like a gust of wind , gust of sun . How do you spell it ? G-u-s-t-a-f-s-o-n . Nice , yeah , yeah .
So we're with Heather today and Heather is my client . We just did yoga . I did her hair . I said I have a podcast . Do you want to come on , because she has many titles ? I mean she has a documentary . What is your documentary called ?
Trashy , trashy a zero waste film , a documentary about I gave up trash for an entire year and I realized how trashy our whole world is . Why did you do that ? I think it was all part of the pandemic taking the time to realize what's going on in the world .
I found out about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch , which is a floating island of trash off of the coast of California . That's twice the size of Texas and it's getting into our food and it's getting into our bodies all the trash . And I just thought , oh my God , I have to do something . It was just a call to action , I can't do anything halfway .
So I decided to give up trash for 365 days , and I had all this background experience in media , so I decided to film myself along the journey . And that is trashy .
I haven't watched the whole film , but I did see a part where you're like crying . What were you crying about , do you remember ? I do remember what was overwhelming .
So that particular scene and overwhelming is a good word , I think , just for the entire process , because giving up trash is it takes over your life . Yeah , in that particular scene it was right after St Patrick's Day and I went out with friends and I wasn't even drinking at that point in the night .
I just had a little plastic cup of water and I went to leave the bar with my plastic empty cup and the bouncer stopped me and he said you can't leave with any cups which I get if you're drinking . There's no public drinking . I was in Florida but I got so upset Like wait , this was a water cup , I want to recycle it .
That's why I'm taking it to recycle it . And they're like no , no , no , no , no , you can't have it . He grabs the cup out of my hand , crumples it and throws it in the trash can right in front of me . And then I just started crying because , a he was so rude and B I just felt like a failure . I threw something away .
I inadvertently created trash and just at that moment it felt overwhelming and that I was failing and that I had to do it perfectly . And I think that was one of the messages of the film like you can never be perfectly , zero waste , so don't even try . But like little actions , add up .
What do you think of the top three that you could do ? That'll like really make a difference . That aren't that hard .
Saying no to plastic bags like at the grocery store , either getting paper bags or bringing a reusable bag . I always forget my reusable bags , but paper bags work . Straws like are not as big of an issue as we've made them out to be . I can't even tell you the last time I had a straw . And it's not like the largest things in the ocean are straws .
They do impact wildlife but that's not the biggest thing . So paper bags I was using shampoo bars and conditioner for about a year but , as you know , they are a very drying substance to your hair after a while . But anything in the bathroom you can switch from a bottle to a bar like body soap or face soap . That helps a lot .
And then recycling recycle what you can not wish . Cycling which is oh , I wish this is going to get recycled , so I'm just going to hope and put it in the recycling bin without checking if it's actually going to be recycled . Yeah , that just ruins the whole recycling system .
Those are some easy , easy things , but I think the biggest takeaway is just don't beat yourself up over it .
Yeah , I feel like . Oh , another thing that I think I would think about is like stop buying stupid shit from Amazon . Yeah , like Amazon is ruining our lives , just giving us like plastic shit and crappy clothes . I feel like clothes is a big one . Clothes and fast fashion is a really big one Fast fashion yeah , like buying clothes from like .
When I see ads on Instagram for people being like this thing I got on Amazon , I want to die .
Yeah , for the year I gave up trash , I didn't buy anything from Amazon . I am back to Amazon . It's got a chokehold on us . But yeah , the fast fashion , if you can buy things that are made with like real , just ingredients , is the word . Yeah , the real fabric .
Textiles .
Yeah , stuff that's made from linen or cotton Material . Yeah , stuff you're going to wear more than one season . And then you find that you're saving money too , if you're not purchasing stuff just rapidly All the time . Yeah , you're like saving money . You're feeling better , your skin is clearing up because you're not washing it with chemicals .
I ate a lot at farmer's markets so I noticed that , like my diet got a lot cleaner . None of my foods came in packaging or plastic .
Whoa , yeah , because it was all the way down to that . Yeah , so if you couldn't recycle it , you weren't buying it .
I could buy it if I was planning to recycle it , but I would try and avoid anything that was in plastic .
Okay .
Yeah , but I still use , like , aluminum cans because you can recycle those Right . Right , it's just so hard with plastic . Can it even be recycled ? Yeah , a lot of plastics are made of different substances and the recycling system .
If they have a whole container of aluminum cans , they know that it's aluminum going through and they're not going to like clash with each other .
But when plastic goes to the recycling system there's pet one or pet two or pet five , and you can't see that really from the naked eye and they don't realize until they melt the plastic down that it's different types of plastics and it can't mesh together . And then it just ruins the entire process and they just throw it out .
Oh my God , and it just goes to the landfill .
Yeah , also plastic like BPAs . If it gets near our food , then we ingest it and then you can have endocrine disruptors , right , right , and it's just not good for your health .
A lot of people were having issues with acne or fertility and they gave up plastic and they got pregnant and it was amazing , crazy , yeah , and they got rid of their acne , their cystic acne , and their skin cleared up .
And it's pretty crazy to think about . Because do other countries , like regulate all that better ? Is it our country or is it just human ? It's just crazy that we came up with plastic and now use it all the time .
Well , we came up with plastic because it's made of oil and we have such a dependency on gas and oil . But we had too much . So we were like , okay , what can we do with all this extra oil ? Oh , we can turn it into plastic . And in the 1950s that was great , because suddenly you can package things that last longer than a week on the grocery store shelf .
Right , it's like more contained . But then now fast forward to today and we're using it in every single product , and unnecessarily .
There's like a plastic packaging wrapped in plastic packaging , in a plastic bag , and it's just like an excess and so , yeah , all of plastic is made from oil , so it's not a natural substance and you don't really want that around too much and that's why it can't break down naturally .
And if it gets into the ocean it just kind of breaks down smaller and smaller and smaller . It never dissolves . It becomes micro and nano plastics and then fish eat it , and then we eat the fish and then it's in our bodies .
Right , yeah , forever , it doesn't go away . I think about like I'm really into this like travel vlog of this guy's indigo traveler . I don't know if you've ever seen it , but it's crazy in other countries how this is a little bit different though , but how trash just like builds up .
Other countries don't have the resources like poorer countries .
They just have trash laying around , which is different because and I feel like that's why we're so like we act like we don't know that it exists , because we don't literally see trash , because it's in a landfill or I guess we have recycling systems and things like that .
But you know , in other countries , like the stuff they use just goes nowhere , it's just laying around forever . It's trashy Like yeah , yeah , you don't want to see
¶ Ocean Plastic Pollution and Personal History
that . Right , it's trashy .
I don't want to talk about like ooh , sticky , smelly , dirty things .
I want to look at pretty parts and waterfalls , but in those countries , like Indonesia , which is the third biggest producer of ocean plastic pollution , it has nowhere to go because it's just an island and they don't have the education system that we have either , so it's totally normal to just be on your bike and throw trash off the side of the road and not
think anything of it . So we definitely just need to do better as like a global act , to educate people , to hold our companies responsible and , like these corporations like Coca-Cola and Pepsi , that are the biggest suppliers of plastic , it's like why can't you switch to something else ? Right ?
Because people are addicted to Coca-Cola and they don't care . Well , yeah , but I guess no , I don't know .
But , like I know , a glass bottle would cost more and there's more incidents of glass breaking on the way to the final product , but they've experimented with like hemp plastic or so there's technology out there and in our country and in Europe people are really doing an amazing job . I feel like zero waste is a hot topic .
People are big into buying like from Grove Market or Thrive Market .
Yeah , like there is a change coming .
I agree , it's not all doom and gloom , but there is a definite trash issue . Yeah , like trash exists , yeah .
So I mean , do you feel like you've always been , because like it's one thing to like to watch like a YouTube video or documentary , and you feel some type of way and you're like , oh man , I really should stop doing whatever , and then you just live your life ?
But , for you to be like oh , this made me feel some type of way during the pandemic , and then to like commit to it for 365 days and make a documentary and all that . Do you feel like that is your personality in general ?
Yes .
Like , do you feel , like you get into , like , what do you think is the driving force behind ? Like , do you have some other examples of things that you've gotten into and obsessed with that ? You're like , I am going full force and here I am and I'm obsessed and I must do it .
I know , like my friends are always like you have such a drive and my family on both sides have said like , oh yes , we are driven , we are hard workers .
I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing , because last year I found myself like overworking myself and I think maybe that's an example of where I've gone a little obsessive , just being trying to be perfect , trying to just do it all and go like full throttle , not necessarily with a project like this , but in life Like trying really hard to do the things .
Trying to do all the things , yeah , and be all the things to all the people .
Yeah , definitely . So what was your like childhood like ? So where did you grow up Like , what was what did all that look like ? So I Is your how old now ? 29 ? 33 . That's right . I always think that you're my age . I'm 33 . That's right , yes , yes .
Yeah , so I have lived in eight states in my life which is , and I'm not a military brat .
Right no-transcript .
So Connecticut is where I was born and then DC I'm counting as a state .
Maryland .
Virginia , florida , west Virginia , texas and New York . My whole childhood we moved around a lot and it was just me and my mom because my parents weren't married and I was born in the 80s which- , eighty , eighty-nine , okay , You're right on the cusp , right on the cusp .
And even though the 90s were like more progressive and I saw like a lot of kids in my school with divorced parents , it was still not the norm to have parents that were not married at all , like that was still considered oh , that's true . And my whole family was very blended , which was not the norm .
Now everyone's families are kind of blended , which is nice .
So my parents weren't married and my dad was either still married when he met my mom or just coming out of his first marriage , and my mom was this hippie who had like long hair and free spirit , and then my dad worked on Wall Street and was very like rigid stocks and bonds , but then they had me . Yeah , and- .
So what was the age difference between the two of them ? Like 10 years ? I think my mom was like 10 years younger , but she was 41 when she had me , right , and my dad was 52 , which was another like strange thing to grow up with Everyone thinking your dad is your grandfather , right , yeah , it is .
And then my mom really thought that they would get married , so I had his last name on my birth certificate .
So right , because he , so we don't know if he was actually married or he was married , He- .
Or does he ? What is the story ? I think he had just gotten out of his marriage , okay , but it was fresh .
How did they , how did they meet each other ? Do we know ? I think it was through work stuff . Because , what did she do ?
She was an oil analyst and my dad worked in natural gas and oil .
Okay .
So they worked together .
They worked 洗 . He was your mom a Hottie .
I'm like what , tor ? We have a couplemos who wait for you outside now , but we talked for like a couple days at the dark , ustedes . So it was just�심히 . I was going to Cina , I was going to like такого in находku , but it wasn't until .
I met her .
So that's why I went to Connecticut until I was three to live with my grandparents and my mom . Then we moved back down to DC and then Baltimore . My mom got cancer when I was 10 and died three years later . She had stage four ovarian cancer .
Why do you think that your dad didn't marry your mom ? Why do you think that he didn't like ? Looking back now like , why do you think that he didn't want to commit to her ?
It's very interesting , right , because it's not like he didn't want to commit period . I don't know the situation as well as if I was there firsthand , but I think he wanted someone who was a homemaker , who would be at dinner time making meals every night , cleaning the house , and that's what my stepmom does .
That's what she is and that's not what my mom was .
So she wasn't like that and you think he wanted it Because he was married once before and had two kids .
Okay , and yeah , I think he just wanted that life .
So did you see him on like the weekends and stuff , or not really Right ?
So they had me and then there was custody battles . From as long as I can remember I was like three years old in a courthouse with a judge asking me who do you want to live with , your mom or your dad ? And as a child everyone says there's no wrong answer .
But you know there's a wrong answer and there's emotions and feelings and it's a lot of weight to put on a toddler . So I would see my dad , I think , like one weekend , a month or every other weekend , but I would live with my mom . So it was definitely just a joint custody situation .
Yeah , and then what was your relationship with your mom ? Like Like , what was she like ?
So she was working a lot and , looking back , I think that there was an emotional unavailability there from both of them . My dad is not like a love . He's never said I love you . He's not like a emotional person .
And I think my mom , either because of her work or because of how she was raised I mean remember they're in their 40s and 50s , so my dad was born in 1938 .
Right , the generation is just very different I remember her being obviously loving but kind of emotionally unavailable and I got it from both sides and I spent a lot of time alone as a kid or with nannies , or I remember there were times when I would just be by myself and thinking shouldn't someone be like checking on me right now or worried about me and just
kind of like taking care of myself ?
¶ Childhood Abandonment and Loss
Yeah , so would she hang out with you like on the weekends , like would you guys go do stuff on the weekends , or was she still working then ?
She wasn't working but she'd be like resting from work , yeah . And then there was always like we had to go to Sunday school or church on Sundays , because she was raised in a very Catholic home . So I remember one weekend we didn't have anything planned , and I think it was seven or eight , and I said , wait , we don't have to do anything this weekend .
And she said , no , you can do whatever you want . I was like , wow , I get to like be a kid at just such a young age already , thinking like , looking back on that , now you should just already be a kid , right . I had that feeling of like , not guilt , but like , whoa , I don't have to be anywhere or do anything right now , I can just chill .
Right , awesome . Was she like strict with you or not ? Really no , no .
She wasn't strict . I had to live in Nanny , though , who was strict . How did she so ? She had money . Yes , okay , when she died , she was the vice president at Lake Mason for oil analysts . I don't even know fully her job , but I know that she was a badass .
Yeah , she was making some dough . She was making dough , she'd have lived in Nanny .
And we had to live in Nanny and she was probably getting alimony from my dad which helped . So backtracking a little , I remember we had like two live in Nanny's before we had our real live in Nanny and one of them was named Tara and when I was six she pulled me into my closet and she said I'm leaving and I'm not coming back .
And that's exactly what she did . And so that happened twice where someone I was close to just left before I was even seven . And that just got to be like my pattern in life knowing that people would leave , yeah , or just waiting for them to leave .
Why do you think that they ?
left . I mean Tara was probably 24 . She was a kid , she was trying to roll . Yeah , I don't hold any resentment yeah . So it was from an early age that , like I , had these abandonment .
Yeah , that people would just like roll out . Yes .
Unexpectedly .
And then what was it like ? Like hanging out with your dad on weekends , cause he was like emotionally unattached . Emotionally unattached .
I'm living with my mom , who tells me my dad is a terrible person , 24 , seven Right . I'm now away from the only home I know , so yeah , I feel like I don't want to be there .
And .
I would call like if I had to do an overnight I would call home and say , please Like , come pick me up . I would be crying and sometimes I would get to go home and sometimes I would not .
Right . And then when did anybody try to support you when you were over at your dad's house , like , do people know that ? They know you were doing that ?
No , they knew , but my dad was mad , he's like . I remember one time he said you cannot go home early this time , you need to stay . It's my weekend , oh gosh . And my stepmother , I mean . Maybe she tried and meant well , but I remember being in the room and there was no nightlight and no door open and I was like a five year old kid .
I was scared of the dark Right In this home that like isn't my own and all the lights are out and I'm just like , oh my God , this is terrifying .
Yeah .
And you're alone , and alone , and you're five . Yeah , yeah , she has kids of her own though right , yeah , they're about like 12 years older than me .
And so , basically , what I'm hearing , though , is that , like so you grew up , say that you would like cry , and you were upset Did you go to your mom and be like mom . I feel really sad , weird and she would come for you or not really .
I don't remember her comforting me . I remember like crying and calling for her and she wasn't around . Would she listen to you ?
She would listen to me .
She would listen to me yes , yeah , but I'm sure we had great talks , but like as far as crying and being comforted , I don't remember that . And then at school I also didn't feel like I fit in , because I have this weird family dynamic and my parents have different last names and I have to go to a different house Certain weekends and it just was .
And like , looking back , for a long time I thought my childhood must have been really good , because I never wanted for anything financially or like monetary , but then to realize like actually it lacked in so many other ways .
Yeah , did you do sports or anything Like did ? Your parents like have you do that kind of stuff ?
I did sports because I loved it and I feel hockey in middle school and , like I'm still an athlete now . Yeah , I always love moving and yeah .
Like I guess I was thinking like , did they like allow you to have like times with other friends ? Yeah , like did you ?
encourage me to do like theater or field hockey . I think I did Taekwondo for a little bit and like that was . The cool part about being an only child is just kind of get to have your pick of what you want to do yeah Right and having yeah financial stability , like you can do whatever , so fast forward to .
So you were 13 ?
Yes , I was 13 when my mom died , but she was diagnosed when I was 10 . But even though I had three years to process what was happening , no one told me what was happening . So everyone said , oh , your mom's going to be fine .
So like yeah , like did somebody come to you and say , like did your mom come to you and say , hi , I'm unwell ?
or like yeah she , she was crying at my we had a lower school graduation and she was crying and I thought that's so weird , Like why are you getting so emotional ?
Yeah .
And she pulled me aside afterwards and she was like I am sick , I need to go get these treatments done and I'll be doing that through the summer . But it was very like surface level and then I just thought , okay , yeah , no worries , summer , I'm going to go have fun .
Yeah .
And I guess just over time like more information was given to me but they always kept saying , oh , your mom's going to be fine , Like she's going to be fine , Don't worry about it . And I would get really annoyed at her because I would go to like the hospital before school .
I didn't even realize like she was having a major life Right Threatening surgery and I'd be like , oh my God , I'm missing like first period cause I was like 12 . So but , yeah , no one really told me , so that made , when it happened , really shocking and I didn't process those feelings for many , many years .
But the hardest part was I didn't have any guardian cause . She was my sole guardian .
So you were almost like an orphan , a little bit , a little , and I was like , what was it like when she passed away ? Like did she just like , did you know that was coming ? Like were you like okay , and the next couple of days mom's like on a hospital , like was like a hospice situation , yeah , hospice , and I remember just not wanting to be there .
But then eventually they pulled me aside and they said , okay , you need to go in and say your goodbyes . And they left me alone in the room by myself and I just remember feeling so uncomfortable and knowing that my entire family was sitting outside waiting for you to like say goodbye Right . So I just was like okay , bye , and got out of there Again .
I'm like a preteen at this point , so I just I have to be cool , I have to not show emotion . And then she died later that night and , like I just was remember shopping for the funeral , I thought , oh my God , this is the first time I can wear heels and like a cute dress .
I did not process anything for a really really long time . And nobody wanted you to right Like nobody was like let's make sure that she's okay Right .
And I think I wanted to put out a front that I was okay , so people wouldn't worry about me . Yeah , and I just put on like this Person of oh , you don't have to worry about me , I'm good , I got it .
Yeah , I'll take care of it .
Yeah , and it's something I'm still unlearning to this .
Yeah .
So my mom died and my grandparents got custody of me . At first they moved down to Baltimore and were there for about six months , and then one night they left and Move back to Connecticut , which was fine . We had been butting heads , they were so annoying . Yeah , yeah 13 year old and oh , elderly couple . We were not getting along , yeah and I so .
I was was were you ever close with them ? Yeah , but I mean only from the standpoint of a grandchild . Yeah , right . So then I lived with my live-in nanny and her apartment for the end of eighth grade , so I could finish school at my school . How old was your living nanny ? Like , maybe 30s ? Wow , okay .
And then that summer I moved down from Maryland to Virginia to live with my dad and my stepmom . Wow , I mean , it was such a big change .
Right after the funeral , I was sitting inside a closet with the lights off and it was dark , and I just remember thinking like , no matter how Like much I hide or like make myself small and disappear , I can't hide from these feelings .
Yeah , and I hated that at the time because you want to feel happy all the time , right for the most part . So , then I moved to Virginia where they nice to you .
because of what happened , yeah , you feel like yeah , but also they were like in their late 60s at this point and not wanting to deal with a teenager , right ? So they put me in boarding school for three years so , like 10th to 12th , 9th to , 9th to 11th okay , and . Oh God , personally , I didn't like boarding school .
I didn't really love the way the teachers handled everything , and that's like a another long story . But then I finally finished high school at a Catholic school for senior year . So I had the full gambit of boarding school , all girls , and then Catholic school .
It was like , yeah , the most strict situations when I was this teenager whose mom died , who left the only home I had known , living with these basically strangers , when I'm a teenager Coming into my own and wanting nobody , yeah , and it was just a wild time and I didn't have a single person in my corner to check in and say , hey , like are you doing ?
Okay ? No , everyone's like you need to fall into line , you need to be more strict , you need to do this , this and this , and yeah , I just hated it but .
I got through it and then you went to college . Yeah , and college was the first time . So was it always like a known thing in your family ? Because there is the money aspect , like the fact that your mom and money your dad had money ? both people had money , and money makes people Terrible , yeah it makes people terrible , but I guess it gives you opportunity .
I'm not like I'm grateful . Well , yeah , because I'm thinking of myself like there's a lot most People that are unwell , like you see , people that are like on skid row or that are like whatever . I mean they had a lot of sexual abuse a lot of times . Yeah , a lot of people that are unwell Mentally and like in their life .
I feel like it's because nobody really cared about them as like a kid , but I but you know your mom did care about you , but you ended up being okay and normal and successful . Yeah , so why do you think that is ? Is it from the boarding school stuff ? Is it because there was a little bit of money involved ?
Because a lot of people that you don't have a lot of trauma in their life , plus they're poor . Yeah , literally nothing . But I guess at least if you have money and opportunities and opportunity . You can maybe get through it .
I think some of it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about me being so almost stubborn to like work hard and Persevere , but yeah , I had a lot of like opportunities and almost like a safety net then and other people don't have , and yeah , helpful for sure .
Have the opportunities to try and to grow and to like get past all this .
I know that in high school I always felt like the black sheep Because it was a small , like Middleburg is 600 people right and it's white and it's upper .
Yeah , yeah .
Yeah , and so at the school , the kids are the same way and they all knew that I moved from out of town and , yeah , I looked and had a different last name than my family , so I was already coming in oh , target on my back .
So going to college was the first time that I could just reinvent myself , yeah , and be whoever I wanted to be and my past couldn't define me and I loved that .
So that was when I started getting interested in broadcast journalism , because , as I know now , tv really attracts people who want to reinvent themselves , because you can be anyone on TV and I was really good at being this character of TV news anchor and I worked for 10 years to be this robot and I was really good at my job and I looked like exactly how
they wanted me to look and sound and I spray painted myself with , you know , self-tanner to look darker , straighten my hair , like I just just playing this role . Yeah , I wanted to escape my past . I didn't want to be labeled as this victim or the sad case .
So that's why TV news really helped me like run away from my problems for about 10 years , and it wasn't until COVID that I was able to like stop , realize how terrible I had felt physically , emotionally and start working on who I want to actually be , who I am . And I got into therapy . I found a wonderful therapist .
Started like peeling back the layers , healing the trauma that had been there .
So , yes , I think I had many opportunities in life , but I think what helped me succeed was just running away from my problems , trying to be someone else , trying to cosplay as this successful person yeah , and then I'm still undoing the labels and practices of Pretending to be someone else and figuring out who I am .
I feel like being yourself is the hardest thing to be , because if you're pretending to be a role and people don't like you , then it doesn't matter .
You're just , it wasn't you anyway , right , so they can't , yeah ,
¶ Career and Personal Awakening
hurt you . So you went to college to be in like broadcasting initially it was just to get away .
It was the farthest place I could go that was in California and it was close to the beach . But then , yeah , I realized you would just school in Florida , florida book . Or from , okay , from Virginia , yeah , florida , basically cross-country . Yeah , ready to get out of a small town and now I love Virginia .
But I had to get away , yeah , and when I got to Miami and Boca , like life was so different down there and right , people valued you based on how you looked . They didn't care where you came from , who your parents were , what your background was , so long as you were pretty you're in , yeah , and so it definitely fed into some really twisted Mindset of me .
Yeah why do you think you were able to go down there with confidence and not like shrivel up and be like , ooh , I feel uncomfortable and I don't want to do this , I'm just kidding . Why do you think that you're able to , like , keep Persevering through uncomfortability all the time ?
one , because I was already so uncomfortable . Anyway , like yeah , what's a change of location ? And to Such a good point , not having a home Since I was a kid , or having my home ripped away , I didn't feel like I was leaving home . I was just . I didn't have a home . When I was 13 and my mom died .
My stepmom cleared out all of the stuff in our house and sold the house . Literally mom's house , mm-hmm , just taking away Everything I had ever owned or loved . And so from that moment on , it's like who cares if someone takes something away from me , like yeah .
I'm used to it .
I'm used to that abandonment of people leaving , of people taking things from me . Yeah , it wasn't scary , it didn't feel like that . No , it didn't feel like that . I wasn't scared to go somewhere else because I didn't have anything to call home anyway .
Yeah . So you went down there and then you got the job in Florida for a news Situation and you did the news every day like what was that schedule ? Like , oh God , the news .
So I've worked every schedule in news . Yeah , worked the 3 am to 11 am Shift and I would close down the bars at 2 am and then go to Denny's for an hour just over up and then go in .
Or I've worked the 2 pm To midnight shift , which I guess is like one of the better shifts and Weekends , holidays , nights , and if you complain there's other girls who are waiting to take your spot .
Yeah , they remind you of that all the time , really yes , so for 10 years you do the same job for 10 years , or I started in , I did an internship in Manhattan , and then I worked in DC for a year behind the scenes and then I got my first on-air Porter job in West Virginia , in Lewisburg , yeah .
Then I worked as a weekend anchor in Corpus Christi for three years and Then I got hired in Orlando as the prime-time anchor in a top 20 market . So that was like huge , huge , a huge jump . And when I was there , I won the Emmy for the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest and I just realized after that like I can walk away now . I have done it .
I've done it , it's not because you people recognize you when you're out and about or not really .
They did when I was working in news . But like then , yeah , back then yeah . I mean , it was local TV news too , so you were around the people who were watching .
So when you said you did like two to midnight or whatever , like were you working the whole time .
Yeah , we would go in . We don't have our pitch meetings and it's like , okay , if I was reporting , yeah , we'd have our pitch meetings , what are we gonna cover ? And then we go out in the field , interview people on the scene . Maybe there's breaking news .
We're always listening to the scanners , the police scanners , and then you sometimes put together a report for five and six , and then you always put together a story for 10 and 11 and sometimes you're live . But if I was anchoring we would be in the studio and you'd have to voice record things for the five . We would have a five , six , ten and eleven .
So you just get ready and then anchor the news . And I did love like the adrenaline of live news but it was just unhealthy overall .
Yeah , Because it was , was that five days a week ?
five days a week , yeah , sometimes seven . I've worked a ten day shift before , wow , yeah .
So what did it look like to be like dude ? I'm unwell . Like when did you start realizing hey , wait a minute , I might have some like trauma from the past . Yeah , like that might be what's happening here .
So To just diverge for a second . I told you the story about over Christmas . My stepmom said Heather , I don't understand why you're not 90 pounds , because you work out every day and you eat healthy . And I was thinking well , I'm a lot , I weigh more than when I worked at the news , but I don't get sick as often .
Hmm , I don't bruise as easily , my mental health is a lot better . So there was definitely eating disorders , but I I don't think that was something that really well . I got COVID in December of 2019 and it was after like a juice cleanse or some Very intense diet .
Pair that with filling in for the morning show , so I wasn't sleeping and I think I was still running like three miles a day . I was really putting a lot of toll on my body . And then I got COVID and I was sick for three weeks . I lost 10 pounds in one week .
I couldn't go up a flight of stairs without Not being able to catch my breath and I just thought , oh my god , like this could be the end .
It might have been a little dramatic , right right .
It was . It was scary and I mean that should have been the wake-up call , but it wasn't . The wake-up call was when I lost all that weight and was so sick .
My mental health really , really , really plummeted and I remember one weekend from work I just got in bed and I slept for two days straight and then I woke up and it was time to go to work and I was like I can't do this . I can't . It was over Christmas . I said I can't be here another Christmas , like I have no personal life . I Am not happy .
I just I live to work and I'm gonna die on this news desk . For what ? Like , yeah , I'm paying me enough for this ?
Were you ballin , did they pay you good money ?
No TV news . People don't make great money . At my height as a prime-time anchor , I was making 78,000 before taxes , okay yeah , right at the height , yeah , and there's nowhere to really keep going , right ?
I mean , where would you go after that ?
I mean you could go like DC and probably make six figures New York , okay , but you're dealing with the same problems . I mean I've worked in enough stations to realize like the problems are basically the same everywhere like day-in day out . Plus , if it's just not bringing you joy .
I'm sure there are people that get to cover the stories they want to cover , but I was covering city news , council meetings , oh , and I know I was helping people , like if there was a storm or but a lot of it just wasn't news . That was Earth shattering , right . Yeah , I could never do a story about the environment or yoga or .
Right , I would just get laughed out of the room . Yeah , and I . Through that time I was getting my yoga instructor 200 hours because yoga was like this , nice beacon of hope in 2019 . I got it in 2018 or like January 2019 .
Yeah okay and I was teaching through 2019 and I was going to work getting filled with the toxins and the stress , and then I was going home and doing yoga and meditating and eating healthy and I was barely like breaking yeah , just because , no matter how good I would feel leaving yoga , I would come back to work and all the stress would come back to me .
So I was still in that toxic environment , but at least I did have a little balance , a little bit . Yeah , I started to , but they would never let me cover anything that I was interested in at that point and . I really started getting interested in , like the Great Pacific garbage patch and Climate change and all of that .
Yeah , as my sister said you were having an awakening .
I was yeah , and then I went to therapy .
You're waking up , but you never thought okay , so like this point , you're how old ? 30 ?
Yeah , you're 30 , 30 , which is a really monumental time in anyone's life to evaluate what you're doing and you graduated at like 21 College right .
So from 21 to 30 , did you ever have moments where you thought , dude , I might have some trauma going on , or like I'm unwell , or like , dude , I miss my mom and I think that I like , yeah , and being a turd , like , but I don't know if they're correlated , or maybe , like I'm , I'm in relationships that are not good because of that , or did you not ?
Were you not even able to have that awareness because you were just shoving for years ?
I think so much of my early life was just yet pushing the boulder up the hill . And it's hard now because looking back I have like 20 , 20 vision is . Yeah , hindsight yeah and now that I'm learning all this stuff about attachment and trauma , I see so much more .
Looking back I don't know if I saw it when I was in it , but from today's perspective , looking back , you mentioned the moving . Well , I always was moving and living in all these different states because my body knew chaos and it craved it . Yeah and more than just the moving . Then that led to who am I choosing to spend my time with ? Who am I dating ?
If it's not chaotic , it's boring . I don't want it right , and it's just Fascinating what you will attract based on what is going on inside your head , like the world is just a canvas .
Reality Is just this canvas , yeah , but it's your inner world that paints it and colors it , and it can just go so many different ways Based on what's going on inside your head , because you literally create your own reality .
Yeah , even though it's such a like , a cutesy like you can't your own like you literally do .
Yeah , and that's what was going on in 2020 .
¶ Self-Exploration and Therapy for Personal Growth
I was just you're sick and realizing , yeah , so you're like going through another Christmas and you're like , dude , I can't do this .
I can't do this for another year and I wrote myself a letter and I said you know you , health is your wealth . Yeah , take priority of yourself , because don't die for these news people like they don't , they're not worth it and In one year from now you will not live here and you will not work here . Yeah , I did exactly what I wrote in the note .
Yeah , so the first option was making the documentary , which isn't like an obvious option , but it was news adjacent so I could still use what I had my degree in and and kind of knew how to do . But I still didn't really know . I still don't know , like what do I want to do ?
Well , yeah , what I want to be .
But I think that's really healthy , because when you're in news , it's always about the next job , the next market , everything's under contracts , and so for the first time in 10 years , I don't have like , okay , well , I'm gonna do this , and then this . Yeah right , I think it's healthy to just kind of go with the flow you're out , yeah , what's happening ?
So you know , I feel like a lot of people have jobs that they feel like that about where they're . Like I hate this job , like I'm Unwell , but a lot of and I don't want to work here anymore , but so many people stay . So why do you think that you didn't stay ?
Well , when my mom died , I got her estate like that opened up so many doors for me that no one like it was a terrible tragedy , but it has given me this kind of golden ticket in life to try out what I want to do . Okay , yeah , and I can't take that for granted .
But as far as I know , like I Think about that , what , what would be my I don't know . I think I'm so stubborn that I would have just taught yoga or worked at Starbucks . Just get out , yeah , because it was literally killing me , right . But I can't speak for other people's situations and what and why you're different .
But I guess leave what you know and what you've worked hard for it is . I guess it just comes to the point where it's like what's the worst Outcome staying or going , and are you ?
sick of your shit , enough yeah you're sick of this , like enough to be like let's go . But you are right and I'm glad that you be . That point which was dude , I had like in and like I had money . Yeah you know , and I was able to like keep moving on , because I guess that is a huge thing .
I know like I wouldn't wish the circumstances on anyone , but that's what helped me , yeah , so what ?
ended up happening in therapy . Oh , therapy like yeah so you left the job . And then you what ? Move back to DC not right away .
I stayed in Florida to film trashy , the documentary .
Okay , we were close the ocean and I had all my new friends there .
But I was working odd jobs at the time too . I was driving for uber and door dash and walking for Rover and Saving as much as I could , totally before I even left news , but because I knew moving to DC would be insanely , yeah , totally .
So I was there for a year and then I moved up to DC to be closer to family , because that's like one of my biggest values in life is family , even though my family Continually disappoints me . I just want the family , yeah , just want a family unit totally , I think everybody does , yeah . So I moved up to DC to be closer to them .
At First they kind of forgot that I was here , but I just make it a point . Yes and I just okay . So therapy ? That was a question . I found a really amazing woman in Orlando and One of the first things she said to me was you're an introvert who has social anxiety . You're like no , I don't like what ? Yeah ? Like huh on TV every day .
What are you talking ? about yeah but it's true , and Just slowly learning that this job was so mismatched for me . Yeah , and that's part of the reason I was unhappy and and just learning who I was Processing trauma . We did a lot of EMDR , which is really good for trauma .
It's bilateral stimulation and it just I think I've told you it like reprocesses a bad memory and turns it into a good memory . What's ?
the difference between that and brain spotting .
What is brain spotting ?
I feel like I thought brain spotting was like , like getting that moment , and then maybe that's like going back to there's also like Hypno therapy . Oh my god , I definitely wanted to have that therapy . I just did past life regression therapy . I would love to do that and that was pretty cool and you were doing what type of therapy ?
again EMDR . There was a lot of talk therapy , but EMDR , which stands for eye motion desensitization I forget what the acronym is for , but it's all about bilateral stimulation in your body .
So they started this with PTSD survivors of like the Oklahoma bombings or people who had veterans who'd been off to war and coming back with really traumatic memories , and they sat them down in three sessions doing this EMDR and it was more powerful than giving them medication , Right ? So you think of the negative memory .
But before you do that , there you're guided to pick your happy place so maybe it's a creek or mountains or the beach and you drum up this visualization in your head and you feel where you are and you see it , you smell it and you just really hold that image .
And then they guide you through the negative memory , kind of like PTSD , where you have to relive and retell yourself what happened , but not as deep .
And then while you're doing that , they guide you to your happy place , while either tapping your left and right thighs or knees in motion or tapping on your chest , or they also have pulsars in your hands and your eyes are closed because they figured out .
Whenever you are storing a memory , like when you're sleeping , your eyes rapidly move from left to right to store that memory . So when you close your eyes but stimulate the left and right hemisphere of your brain , then you're able to turn that bad memory and replace it with the positive one and it's like a scab healing in your brain .
There's so much plasticity in your brain . It's really cool . You can really change the brain waves and rewrite what goes on inside your head and it's just like really cool .
The woman who invented it was walking through nature and she was looking up at the skyline left to right , left to right they give this really bad problem and she noticed by the end of the walk she was much calmer and that's how she figured out she was activating the left and right hemisphere .
Yeah , wow . So how many sessions did you like have ?
I mean I still talk to that woman . Sometimes we'll do EMDR . I think I've only done like three , four or five serious sessions of EMDR and it can be any trauma . So they have the veterans with the big T trauma . But I worked with little T trauma , like being nine and having all the girls in my grade make fun of my hair right , it was wild and wavy .
And just thinking back , she guided me back to that memory and then like guided me , how would you talk to those girls now ? Or what would you say to your younger self ? And it's a lot about like loving your inner child . Yeah , I think that leads to so many problems in today's world is adults with child trauma .
Yeah , I think so too , Because you know , and it kind of goes back to like hypnotherapy like all that stuff lives in your subconscious , the body keeps the score it does , and it's just like sitting there festering around and like you don't even realize that it's there , right , and there's like blockages and all types of ways , then when you start to unblock it .
¶ Attachment Styles and Healing Trauma
So we were talking about attachment styles .
Yeah .
Are you familiar with , like all the different .
Yeah , you can go over them , though , if you want . So we have avoid an attachment which is , which is yeah , give a brief point If you'd like avoid an attachment .
there are more men than women who have this , and it's the runners , don't ?
get to me .
I don't want to get too emotional . I'm going to ghost you , yeah , avoid it , yes . And then there's the anxious attachment which is oh my God , I haven't heard from you . Where are you ? Text me back . I'm going to send you a million texts and I just need you to be close to me . And then there's two more .
There's disorganized attachment style and fearful , avoidant attachment style , which is what I am , and that's the worst of both worlds , because it's fearful , it's anxious and avoidant . So it's like be close to me , I need you here , but , oh my God , don't get too close to me . I don't want to feel emotions .
Yeah , and these all stem from childhood experiences , because they did studies on children who were left alone from their major parental figure , like their mom or dad . The anxious children would cry when their parent left the room . The avoidant child wouldn't cry at all . And I'm sorry there's the fifth attachment style is secure , which is what most people are .
Okay . The secure baby would not cry or be happy . They would just wait for their mom to come back and be fulfilled when their parent came back . And even the avoidant baby , who didn't cry when their parent left , they did studies on them and their heart rate still went up as high as the anxious babies did . They just didn't show how anxious they were yeah .
And then the disorganized and fearful are just like combinations of it . And the way we get insecure attachment styles is from our parents . And if you have a loving parent who embraces you and is emotionally mature and shows you love , you're probably going to have a secure attachment style .
But if you have parents who are abusive , who aren't around , are emotionally unavailable or sexually abused , any of those create the insecure attachment styles . Yeah , and it's just interesting to see how your parenting style can really affect your child well into their life .
And then , the attachment affects who you choose , not only in your romantic relationships , but in every single relationship in your life , and how you interact with people , which is wild . It is wild . So to know that now and to see that it's from emotionally unavailable parents .
When I was growing up I could see why I chose this boyfriend or why I did this or that , and I fight my attachment style now , but it's a lot . I can recognize when it's acting up and thankfully now I can work on it . Yeah .
Process . Do you feel like it's hard or to let people in or to let people go ?
Let people in . Yeah for sure , I'm a pro at letting people go .
Do you feel like you're your real self with people , or do you feel like you put up a front until they have , like it's been a little brown long enough ?
I'm my real self with people because I am a recovering people pleaser and didn't know how to set boundaries . And one trauma response is oversharing . It's a way to build intimacy , but it's a false intimacy . So , yeah , I'm always myself . It's like trauma dumping . Trauma dumping is like oversharing .
I'm oversharing while hating myself , while being socially anxious , while exhuming people will leave me .
And I'm gonna like overshare and hope that you like what I'm saying and then like me and will say it yeah . So you're saying you don't overshare ?
Not anymore .
Yeah .
But I mean , this is all just within the last like two years , of learning that and to learn to set boundaries , and learning that boundaries are really self care and saying no to someone else is saying yes to yourself .
What kind of boundaries do you feel like you have trouble setting with people ?
Well , I want to help everyone . I want to do everything for everyone , and even today in our yoga class , two people came in late and I immediately thought let me move my mat over so they'll have room . They weren't even coming to my row , right ? But I immediately thought let me fix this situation for everyone else .
Yeah , and I had to stop myself and think it has nothing to do with me .
Let me just let them go on their way , yeah , and let me just focus on what I'm doing right now .
So , but that is crazy because you're trying to like create space for people and like do things for people to get them to like yeah , to like you to keep them , yeah , but what happens when that doesn't work ?
Probably self hatred ? Yeah , because then they're leaving me . So it's , I did all that . I could ?
Oh my God , yeah , they never asked yeah .
Then you feel like you've let yourself down , I guess .
Yeah .
But it's just not a good place to be over serving others in the hopes that they'll stay around . That's the problem .
That's the tension behind it , yeah .
Another trauma response is being easy going , going with the flow . Yeah , oh , I'm not going to make waves or rock the boat because I don't want people to leave . I don't want to alienate people . I want people to like me , I want to be a people pleaser .
And that's also not healthy , because then you get resentful , you get resentful and you end up doing things you don't want to do . And do you cry ? Are you a crier ? Yeah , I'm a crier . Yeah , I'm a cancer moon .
So I got the yeah , yeah , I'll be emotional . Do you cry ?
in front of people . Yeah , now I do , but I think for 10 years I didn't cry period .
Really yeah . So do you feel like you had like a limited amount of emotions ?
Yeah , I guess anger and frustration was my main emotion . And when you work in the news , that's kind of a badge of honor to be angry and cynical , yeah . And then I read something about how the traits in ourselves that we keep hidden we resent when we see them in other people .
Yeah , so I would always think , oh , those people are so weak , they're emotional , they're crying .
What's wrong with them , such a ?
good point and now I love that . I'm the same way . I'm emotional . I'll cry at a commercial Right Because I'm feeling my feelings and the only way out is through feeling them .
Yeah , yeah , absolutely . So I wonder what Heather in 10 years is going to be like .
I don't know .
You know I mean to do that amount like why do you think you were able to do that amount of work in like two or three years ?
I mean that's like crazy . Well , I'm overachiever . I always have to go from zero to 100 . I can't just go to a yoga class . I have to become a yoga instructor . Right , I can't just be zero ways that I have to make a documentary about it yeah . Yeah , so I think it was a goal to heal when I started therapy . Okay , what's my homework ?
What do I need to do ? What do I need to read ? Let me be the best therapy client you've ever seen and let me get a gold star .
Did you know what was going to show up ? No , you didn't know . You didn't know that like okay , you're going to have some trauma because of your Like passed .
No . Which is so weird , but I went in there thinking I'm having stress at work , I probably need to deal with my eating disorder , but I don't want to and I am depressed and I don't want to be anymore , so let me just fix it . Wow .
And it is really hard to peel back the layers of your own what's going on with you ?
because it hurts and it sucks , yeah , and so it's easy to get distracted . You can just watch TV , you can just and forget about yourself .
So do you feel like when you started doing yoga , you started to meet things like that and you didn't have the self study before ?
When I started the yoga teacher instructor course I remember we had I don't even know if it was an assignment or if it was just something I felt called to do but I wrote down I am . And then I thought who am I ? I didn't even know who I was Like , I didn't know , but my favorite color was or like the people , I enjoy what .
I enjoy what my hobbies were . I knew I liked yoga , but it was just like I probably got started in yoga honestly like as a workout ?
Yeah , exactly as they do .
Yeah , which is fine . And then I learned about meditation . I was like , whoa , this is so good , yeah , but I didn't know who I was and I didn't even know where to begin . And I didn't go into therapy to figure out who I was , I just wanted to get better than inadvertently , I started to learn To see .
Yeah , to peel back the layers , to learn .
And I think back to the relationships that I had and the friendships that I created before I started this awakening journey . Yeah , I'm like what did we talk about ? What did we even talk about ? It must have just been surface level , because we weren't talking about the things we talk about now and I can't be in a conversation now .
That is just surface level , were you talking ?
about like did you drink Drinking ? Yeah , we were drinking , yeah , Not having real conversations .
Yeah , I just am kind of like sad for myself then . It must have been so boring , but there's a whole world above the surface and you can live there and have conversations there and relationships there , and never I know .
I know , I know , isn't that crazy . You live like 10 plus years of your life having surface level living .
And that's the living I wanted . I wanted to escape my past . I didn't want to deal with it . It was too heavy and deep .
Yeah Right . So it was like let's just okay , because , yeah , you can get caught up in . Okay , I'm going to like do I'm going to like go to college and I'm going to like try to get a good job .
And then people are going to we're going to talk about my job and I'm going to get this job and I'm going to be excited about this job , and then I'm going to get a relationship maybe , and then , like , we're going to like date and then I'm going to like you know , it's just like all this , like get , get , get , get , get me , me , me , me and the next ,
and the next . Yeah , and never stopping yeah .
And then looking like COVID forced us all to stop . Yeah , and take a peek at what's going on and who you are and what it's all about , and I think just the way I was living too just wasn't sustainable . But I mean , maybe I probably could have kept going , but then what would that have looked like like 30 years from now ?
it would have been a tumor , it would have been like asthma , I don't know something unhealthy , yeah , and then you would have had to come back in the whole new life and try to learn again .
And there are people like there , are people doing these spiritual awakenings in their 40s and 50s and I'm just so grateful that , like I did it now I know Cause . You only get one life .
Yeah .
And I think eventually you do have to sort through the shit , yeah .
So might as well do it now . Yeah , I think you're going to have to , for sure .
That's cool about our generation is taking Gen Z , taking inventory and having conversations and , yeah , hearing about the planet .
Isn't that crazy . It really is our generation . People really do care .
Yeah , what's crazy is the generation of our grandparents , or my parents . They were taught don't hug your child when they're crying , you need to just let them be . And those parents raised the parents of Jen's Jen X , who learned okay , you can hug your child , but also you need to work and make money and go out and be a boss .
And it's just amazing that from those two generations we get to the millennials , who are more in touch with the emotions and the feelings , which is so great . But I'm just continually impressed by us coming from those different generations into what we are now . We've done a lot of work and totally yeah .
I know . I mean social media gets a lot of shit for sure , yeah , and like we do , like it is . But think about how much reach we have , yeah , and how much like things we see that we never would have been able to see before .
And like the collective is like a thing , a thing that we're able to tap into and communicate and share ideas and totally learn about past lives .
I know yeah , we would never have known .
¶ Discovering Self and Future Plans
So what do you think is the biggest lesson that you've like learned through all of this ? Or your biggest takeaway from all the reflection , or just the maybe even right now , the theme of your life that you're like all right , I'm going to try to do this now . Or just maybe like a conclusion , like some sort of like to tie it all up .
To tie it all up , I guess , yeah , and like .
So I felt like the first part of my life and college was just trauma and then running away from trauma , and only in the last few years have I started to find out who I am and what makes me happy .
So I guess , to tie it all up , and the biggest lesson I'm learning now is who I am , but also that you kind of have to work on finding that out every single day . Yeah , and I see this slide back into habits of eating junk food , junk for your brain , and like you can drive through traffic and just be angry and curse people out .
It takes intention to check in and say let me go to a yoga class , let me meditate today , let me choose something healthy , let me check into how I'm actually feeling , let me process how I'm feeling and just doing the maintenance every day to figure out who am I .
Yeah , I think that was such a hard question , but I think that being yourself is the hardest thing that there is .
Thanks for sharing all that good stuff . And the next , even five , not even 10 years , the next five years of your life , you're going to be in a completely different beautiful spot and it's been a beautiful journey and I'm glad that you peeled back the layers .
And I'm glad of all the people I am now magnetically attracting .
Uh huh , instead of . I'm a little agna , baloney and trash , so is there . So where could people find you ? What can they find ? Can they ? Are you on social media ? I am on social media , do you have ? Like ? I guess we're so trashy they can watch that .
Trashyfilmcom is the website for that . I am on TikTok and Instagram at Heather Elgastavsin or at Rhymes with Feather , but I don't use my social media too much , and I'm currently working on creating a YouTube channel slash podcast that'll integrate more of the psychology that I've been learning , because it's just so fascinating .
More about the attachment issues and EMDR .
I feel like I gave a half hearted explanation to both of those , so yeah , it's just because we don't deserve the full one until your next project comes out .
Yeah , and it'll talk more about ADHD , anxiety , all the things that I struggle with Most people .
Yes , yeah , I'm just going to go over what's new for her to us All . Right , thanks , heather , thank you , thank you .