Changing the Prison System From the Inside Out: Faculty Lounge with Heather Newcomb

Ani
Hi and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. Hey there, Brian.

Brian
Hey, Ani.

Ani
I am so excited that we're here in the faculty lounge again.

Brian
Faculty lounge again. With our favorite people.

Ani
We're joined with one of. I gotta tell you, I love talking to Heather so much. One of my favorite people, Heather Newcomb. Hey there, Heather.

Heather
Hi, Ani. Hi, Brian. Glad to be here.

Brian
It's so inspiring that you're here. This is great.

Ani
So I'm actually kind of selfishly looking to. Looking forward to catching up with Heather a little bit. She's been very busy doing her thing. Before we get hopping into talking about you and all the amazing work that you're doing in the world, Heather, and catching up, would you tell us what you do professionally so everybody can understand?

Heather
Sure. So I am a women's program manager at Vermont Works for Women. And we are a nonprofit economic justice organization that help women gain economic independence through the transformative power of work. And I work directly in the only women's prison in Vermont. I run the career resource center there. So we do all the activities from career exploration through release, planning for careers and employment, and then I help support them through the reentry transition. That's a lot. It is. And employment is one of the biggest predictors of whether someone recidivates or not. Because I mean, employment is just such a huge part of our lives.

Ani
Meaningful work.

Brian
Meaningful work makes so much sense.

Ani
It's so important. As I was listening to introduce yourself, I was thinking about meaningful work and the meaningful work that you do. Like that you get meaning from the work that you do and then also helping people to have meaningful work. We talk about it and think about it, Brian and I, all the time. Because no matter who we're talking to, a lot of people who come and study with us are really looking to develop meaning in their work or even more meaning in their work. And I'm really excited to hear you talk about how the somatic coaching things that you've been doing have been helping people do that.

Brian
Yeah. You know, what was occurring to me as you were introducing yourself, Heather. And it's just like I love how over time, and we're going to go back in time and talk about that a little bit, how you've expanded so much of what you do with your work, it's really phenomenal. But the meaningful work bit for me, it's like the power of contribution. That's really, for me, what it really kind of boils down to is this, is this need to contribute. And I think it's really interesting that the link between, you know, recidivism and work is so highly linked together. Because I think if we look out into society, um, those folks who are not able, willing to contribute as much into the world definitely seem to not be as connected to the world in a lot of ways and connected to people and connected to their communities. Whereas the people who really have found ways to contribute in meaningful ways have deeper and more richer connections. And there's actually also links to physical and mental health around those things as well. So I just want to kind of plug that a little bit.

Ani
Which I'm sure you know, and see. So take us back in time a little bit. Take us back to you graduated, I think like five or six years ago now. So take us back to before we met. Tell us a little bit about your job and what the prison system looked like then in contrast to now. So take us back to then.

Heather
Sure. Well, one thing I will say is I approach my work through the lens of lived experience. So I am a woman in long term recovery and because of my addictions that brought me into to the legal system, interaction with the legal system. And so I approach my work from, you know, the lens of what did I need most when I was in their seat. And then I think, you know, through my own journey and many years of cognitive behavioral therapy, I still wasn't, I wasn't fully happy. And it wasn't until I was introduced to you Ani and learned more about the somatic pieces that I really started to heal my inner being. And it just transformed the way I delivered my work. So when I started, I was at the prison one day a week. I taught one class called Build Your Skills and it was focused on soft skill development, you know, workplace communication, goal setting, conflict resolution, all important skills. And I just felt like I was going through the motions and the women weren't really internalizing what I was delivering. And so when I discovered the somatics and in my own healing of some of those core wounds that I still carried, I was able to transform the way I delivered the Build Your Skills class to be more impactful.

Heather
And the women, really. So when I incorporated natural laws, for instance, I can remember how powerful it was to learn. Everything's created as a whole, and we're not broken and don't need fixing. You know, we're wounded and need healing is what I say to the women. And it just transformed how I connected with them in that energy exchange. And so I start every class with a grounding exercise because the environment of prison is very harsh and punitive, and I want my career resource center to be a safe place to get vulnerable. And so I think over time, they saw the connection I was making. And so today I run the career resource center. I'm in the prison five days a week, and I'm running the in-facility worker program. So the women hold jobs in-facility, like working in the kitchen or doing other jobs in-facility. And I use that as a context to build those soft skills in somatic ways so that when they get jobs after release, they can still find that same passion and meaning, no matter, because the job is just the vehicle that I use, but the destination is finding that fulfillment and that meaning, and that's where the somatic pieces come in.

Brian
Wow, that is so. I just want to. I'm getting emotional here listening to you, Heather.

Ani
It's.

Brian
You've done something so incredibly remarkable. And I love in so many ways how our graduates take what they've learned at the Somatic Coaching Academy and then make it their own in a lot of ways and weave it into what they're doing. And I have to say, really, what you're doing is next level.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
You've taken this and brought it into a system that needed healing itself. Right. So it's not just. Not just the people within the system that were wounded or are wounded and need healing. It's the system that's obviously wounded and needs healing. And it's really emotional for me to hear what you've been doing and how you've been incorporating that work into that healing, not only the humans in the system, but the system itself.

Ani
One of the things that strikes me about listening to your story is we get people all the time, whether they work for themselves or I think, especially as I listened to people who work for other people who are employees, and they'll talk about joining our program, and people can't see how much of an impact they could make where they work or they work for themselves and they can't see that they could take this work and bring it into systems and bring it into workplaces as employees. And yeah, we're great at, and we're passionate about helping people to grow their own thing. We're especially passionate about helping to transform systems. Sometimes that's done by people who own their own companies and sometimes it's done with employees. The things that you've been able to grow through the context of being an employee and working within the system are so inspiring. Did you have a vision for all that it could become? When I first met you like that, that first time I remember I came to your office. Did you already know all of what it could become or was that vision, did it kind of unfold?

Heather
It absolutely unfolded and I like to say due to the somatic practices, the universe really unveiled it for me because I didn't know where this was going. But that certainty and that belief in the natural laws, I just kept saying yes to the opportunities that, you know, it came to me really. You know, I like to say that since I started the somatic practices, more has come to me than I ever could have hustled, manipulated, coerced. So I had no idea this is where it was going to be. And I just want to touch about, you know, the system piece because it's not only working with the women who are incarcerated. I also work with the officers so that they can run their units in a more somatic way instead of a punitive way. And so the officers are really latching onto the somatic practices as well. So if there are disagreements between two women in a unit, the officers are really asking natural law questions of the women so that they can really. Because often it's not the surface stuff that the arguments happen, it's the inner stuff.

Brian
Yeah.

Heather
So they just are in using more restorative framing to handle disputes and conflict.

Brian
Oh my gosh. I am just like blown away here. Heather.

Ani
It's a dream.

Brian
It's really amazing.

Ani
So good.

Brian
I was just, I was just this week, I was traveling and doing some continuing education training for rehabilitation professionals that also work within a system. Right. Within the healthcare system. So different system than the prison system, but it's still within a system. And it's interesting. This is just a couple of day trainings that we're doing in brief kind of snippets of blocks either six-hour, two-hour, three-hour kind of thing. And so therapists come to get their continuing education units. And as I'm talking about these things, the things that you've been trained deeply in and that you're actually doing now in the system. Some of the pushback I get from therapists, they say, "yeah, but you don't understand, like, I don't have enough time to do it. The system doesn't allow it, those types of things". And what I'm hearing you saying is that which is what I tried to convey to them, but you're a living embodiment of this, Heather, that when you take up the work, when you become the work itself and you follow the natural laws and the law of more life, then the universe helps you find the way.

Brian
And that's what I tried to explain to these people, to say, listen, like, the system is not going to change itself, number one, like in healthcare system. Health insurance companies are not going to change the system. Pharma companies are not going to change the system. Right. Because they're both, they're both benefiting from it hugely right now. They said the people are going to change the system are sitting in this room right now. Look around at your colleagues. You're the ones that are going to change the system. If you have the courage, the confidence and the fortitude to do it, it will change. But you're the ones that have to do it. And you're living proof of changing a system that way, Heather, just by changing yourself. And that's what is this, like, amazing. The evidence of that's incredible.

Ani
I want to talk about that. Changing yourself before, I do want to say to anybody listening to this? We're talking about the ability to change any system. I'm thinking education, I'm thinking government, I'm thinking our corporate systems. We operate within a lot of systems right now that need help. And it's possible through stories like yours, Heather. So you said something about how you're teaching this skills class once a week and you said something about how you started changing how you were being in that class. And I want to touch on this because this is something that we take very seriously at the academy and we teach in the somatic coach training program about how to be different. And it can be tough to articulate when you're not like in the class. So before you were doing any somatic coaching, how were the. What did disengagement look like? Because I think you said disengagement. What did it actually look like that - the before and the after.

Heather
Yeah. So like, before, I taught content. So I taught, you know, how to resolve conflict using, you know, if you Google conflict resolution, it gives you five steps. And so I delivered content and when I started delivering it in a way and integrating the somatic practices, it became more than content because now I've got that energetic connection with the person. So I work very hard. Before I deliver any content, I've got to set the stage first. Set that container with my class. Whether I'm working one-on-one with someone or today's class this morning I had 16 people show up.

Brian
Wow.

Heather
And I have to set the container first before I can deliver any content. Because if they're not open to receiving the information, it doesn't matter what content I deliver. So that's how it, that's how you got to be different. That's what it looks like.

Brian
I can't help but, I mean, I do acronyms and all that kind of stuff, the way I organize thoughts. But really I've got three Cs that are kind of coming to me here. You've got this moving from content, I see the context, right. You're actually teaching content now. It's context, which is totally different. But you do it by creating a container. So there's something that's happening around that, around that framework.

Ani
The container is something that we do a lot of work with in the Somatic Coach training program. And I'm just tickled to hear how you're using it with your work there. You know, there's something else that I don't want to forget to bring up. You said something about being trauma informed. How's that impacted the work that you're doing?

Heather
Oh, if you don't know what trauma is, just visit a prison. I mean, our prison system is based in a trauma structure. And most of the people who come into the system have already been traumatized. So then to continue that trauma and think that you're doing rehabilitative work is just an oxymoron. And so when I first started this work, I thought I was a member of the justice reformers. We have to fix the system. And the more I am entrenched in it, I've become an abolitionist because I think we can't just tweak what we already have. We have to dismantle and rebuild in a trauma informed way. Because continuing to perpetuate the trauma doesn't return our citizens to wanting to be those contributors of the community. And so that's what I try to build with somatics is the community in my class first to begin with. And then they take that back to their living units, and then they can take that back to their homes when they get released and back into their communities.

Ani
Yeah. The ripple effects are so giant. As soon as you said homes, I'm thinking, yeah, I mean, that you're actually looking at how to change someone's entire life so they go home and they are different. And these. We do this kind of thing all the time, right. Where we go and Brian and I'll do a workshop or a training or something, and we talk to people about actually being different afterwards. And that takes time and it takes commitment, and that's the kind of things that you're doing with people. So they're. They can actually make that commitment when they go home.

Brian
Yeah. The other interesting that that's occurring to me right now is we talk a lot about the difference between therapy and coaching here at Somatic Coaching Academy. But if we just take therapy out for a second, just say rehabilitation, because rehabilitation works in the... I think I heard you use that term as it applies to the prison system. And also rehabilitation works in healthcare, which is a lot of where we come from. And the theory with rehabilitation is you get somebody back to baseline. And we know that that's actually coming up short when we think about a coaching paradigm and how it fits in with the natural laws. So, you know, if someone recovers from a disease and they're just back to baseline and then they just go back to doing what they did before that gave them the disease, then have we really achieved anything? And it sounds like the same thing that you're saying. If someone is incarcerated because of something that happened or they did, they were involved in, and if rehabilitation is only getting to the point where they're back to baseline, then they go back into the community. Of course they're just going to repeat what they've done.

Brian
But what you're doing is taking this coaching model into the prison systems, which is, can someone actually be better off after they get out of prison than they were before they went in? I think that is an amazing idea, and it's what you're actually doing. And I think that's beautiful. That's just wondrous. Rather than just being back to baseline, can they be better? Can someone be better than they were before they had a disease? Can someone be better than they were before they ended up finding themselves incarcerated?

Ani
Are you actually... Is the system actually tracking and finding better outcomes?

Heather
Well, so the tricky thing about better outcomes in the prison system is there is not a unified or common definition of recidivism, it means different things in different states. And also women or anybody comes back to prison, sometimes it's for a violation of conditions of release. So it's not actually a new charge that brings them back. It could be, maybe their condition is to have a residence and then they lose their residence, which isn't actually a crime.

Brian
Right.

Heather
Not a crime to be homeless. But if that's your condition of release, it can bring you back to prison. So is that really recidivism because they didn't pick up a new charge? Yeah, so. So it's really hard to track. But I know for the women that I work with that of those that maintain connection with me through the release process and gain that employment or get into some long term training program for career development, I am seeing about, I'd say 20% recidivism, which normally it's around 50, sometimes as high as 70 I've seen in some states.

Ani
Wow. Wow. That's incredible.

Heather
Yeah. And I just, I want to touch on that baseline that Brian mentioned, because oftentimes women coming in like that baseline is coming from that wounded place. So to make them better, I like to say in my own work, I did 12 years of CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, and I still wasn't getting the level of success, the level of happiness, the level of joy that I wanted in my life. But learning the somatic practices, I made more progress in 12 weeks than I did in 12 years of cognitive behavioral therapy. And it wasn't until I learned the triangle where it's feelings, thoughts, behaviors, actions. I was like, CBT starts with the thoughts and behaviors. We got to start at the first step. So.

Brian
Yeah, right.

Heather
It made perfect sense to me why somatic work so much was more streamlined than CBT for me.

Ani
Yeah. Yeah. And it infuses that thing that you mentioned about, like passion and interest and enthusiasm and like, it has this energy behind it. Once we start talking about the feelings and the sensations, it just really is like, oh, how can we forget about that?

Brian
Yeah. Instead of wrestling with the sensations, let's just work with the sensations.

Ani
Right to the heart of it, right? Yeah, yeah. To the heart of it. Yeah. Yeah. what are you most proud of? I'm thinking of a few different programs that you've told us about that just blow my mind. The things that you've created. What's something that you're most proud of that you are doing?

Heather
I have to say I am most proud of the connections that I make with people and how like my own energy and passion for this work, they really feel it and they discover their own path of passion. Like, they see how happy and joyful I am and I say I'm not special. anybody can tap into this. Like, it's out there. I remember, like, Brian telling me this story about the oak tree and he thinks he's the best oak tree in the whole world and everything. And it's just, confidence is energy and it's there for anyone to tap into. You just have to be open to receiving it. And so just knowing that I worked with this woman, am working with this woman, she just got released on July 13 after 16 years of being in prison. And this woman has hit the ground running and she is planning on...She is taking business classes right now because she wants to start her own transitional home with a social enterprise attached to it or other women coming out of prison. Yeah.

Ani
Amazing.

Brian
Love it. I love it. And then that would help potentially with that condition of release about not being able to find. So I love that it starts to interweave and lock back with itself and maybe starts to solve some of the other gaps that might result in someone ending up finding themselves back in jail, not because of a new charge, but because of something else happened in the world that caused them to not have that condition of release met such as you pointed out. Right. So it just, it sounds like there's this whole paying it forward thing that's happening in the work that you're doing. Heather. It's really wonderful.

Ani
Yeah. Before we got on the recording, you were telling us a little bit about some things that are coming down the pipeline and I would love for you to share a little bit about it, if you would, because I think one of the things that can happen, I mean, this happened for me when I was in the healthcare care system. I left and I was like, "screw the system. I'm out of here. I'm going to do my own thing." And I think that it can be easy to think that and to leave and to disconnect from the systems. And one of the things I'm most proud of with our work now is how we've actually been able to get back into systems through our graduates and people like you, Heather, to influence change. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what's coming down the pipe and how actually being in the systems helps to influence the change in the future.

Heather
Yeah, I think when it comes to systems, they get to a size where the priority or the driving force is to protect the system itself rather than serve its clients. You know, I think you mentioned the healthcare system. Tons of problems with that insurance. You know, I'm thinking not just health care insurance, but like, you know, business insurance. You know, say a business wants to hire a formerly incarcerated individual. There are some insurance companies that don't allow that company to, you know, engage in that practice because then it jeopardizes their liability insurance and things like that. So I think of like the foster care system. Like, we know what the foster care system produces, but it still hasn't changed. We just keep producing that same damaged person. Yeah. And so I do think that systems get to a size where they just protect themselves. And so it takes people inside the system to be the disruptors. So in Vermont, our women's prison was built in the mid-70s and they deferred maintenance for a very long time. It was only meant to be a short term facility until people went to trial. It was never meant to house anyone long term.

Heather
So there's not enough program space. They have, you know, four people to a room. It's just, it's horrific. And everybody agrees no one should be living in this facility. So in Vermont, we are in the process of developing a new women's facility. And I am a member of the stakeholder group and we've been meeting for two years to talk about how do we want this prison to be different? How do we want, you know, like right now there, it's a cinder block building and there are no windows, no natural light. It's awful. And how can we incorporate it, build this new one so that every living unit has accessible outdoor space anytime they want it. How can we make sure that, you know, instead of the loud metal doors that take these really heavy keys to open every time, can we use softer materials? And, you know, I mean, we can always paint cinder blocks, but it's not the same as natural materials. And you know, what technology has allowed for is less invasive security measures. So you don't have to have those high fences with razor wire anymore. Like, every single incarcerated person wears an ID bracelet.

Heather
And if it were, you know, one of those magnetic chips, you can track the person. So why do you need to have the razor wire to hold people in if you can just monitor where they're located anyway?

Ani
Right, right.

Heather
So I think when we look to, you know, building a new prison, let's do it in a way that doesn't isolate members of our community from community. Like I think when I think about our prison system right now, just to be a volunteer in the prison system, you have to jump through so many hoops just to have access, and you have to be approved to become volunteers. And I think if someone wants to share whatever they have to share with a member of their community, they should have access to them. So how can we make this new prison more integrated with the community it's embedded in? How can we get the employers that are in that region to hire the women preparing for release before release so that they can go out during the day? Maine has a great reentry center, and I was able to go tour it. And the employers pick the women up every morning, go to work, they go off site during the day, they go to work, they're able to have a savings when they come out. They're able to have that, you know, work-family before they get released.

Heather
So that way they have the social connections. So if they were ever backed into a corner again, they would make different choices because now they have resources to access. But the traditional prison setting to isolate and segregate them doesn't give them those resources. So to release them into a worse condition, because now they've lost everything, so they're starting all over and they have no connections.

Ani
Right.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
Yeah. How hard is that?

Brian
Yeah, well, it's impossible.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Right.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
I mean, one of the things we talk about a lot here is in order to make transformation, one of the key parts of that is community and connections.

Ani
Yeah. Right.

Brian
You really can't change without a community that fosters or supports the change. You know, the community that you spend the most time in, the water that you swim in is what you become.

Ani
Yeah. Hey, how did you get to be a part of that group of people? Like, that's a pretty big deal to be a part of that stakeholder group.

Heather
Yeah. I mean, I have to say we were able to get a new commissioner of Department of Corrections, and he just breathed a lot of new life. The Department of Corrections revamped their whole mission statement, values and to integrate more restorative practices. And we have one of the best superintendents. That's what we call our wardens in Vermont, they're superintendents. And I can just recommend any pilot. And she's like, "whatever, Heather." So, like, I spoke at this church one Sunday a couple months ago, and the lady who runs the prayer shawl group reached out to me and said, how can we make prayer shawls for the incarcerated women? And I said, "well, the women already love to crochet instead of you making prayer shawls, why don't we have a swap of shawls?"

Ani
Oh, I love that.

Heather
That's so good. So there's that reciprocity. Instead of just a bunch of shawls that church women made and passing them out to the women, now the women from the church are coming in with the shawls that they made so that they can then trade them with the women incarcerated who made shawls. And it's just a beautiful connection and reciprocation, and it's amazing.

Brian
Yeah, it's really. It's wonderful. It's like these little things that may not seem like they're a big important thing, but they're huge. These micro changes create macro changes. Right? These micro approaches create macro changes. And I just. I love it. It's really so heartwarming.

Ani
So I'll be honest. One of the questions we kind of knew ahead of time that we wanted to ask you was what would you tell people who are employees who are interested in this kind of work? And through the course of this conversation, one of the things that I think is most striking, Heather, that I don't think people can see before they've gotten into this work, is how on the beginning side, before you get involved, you can't even see who you can become.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
You can't even see the amount of change, the creativity that pours through you. Every time I talk to you, you tell me about some amazing program that you're creating, and each one of them just blows my mind. So I'm going to ask you the question. What would you say to somebody who's an employee who's interested in joining these programs?

Heather
I would absolutely recommend it, first of all, because talk about advancement in your career, advancement with your company, advancement with the organization. Somatics has helped me tremendously because, you know, I say that, you know, jobs and employment is the vehicle that I utilize to teach the somatic practices. But to be honest, it's really like my supervisor will delegate a task to me. And much like with the church lady wanting to give us prayer shawls, and I'll be like, wait a minute. I think I can make this a little bit better and more beneficial for everybody involved. So what if we did it this way instead? And that's somatics. That's the natural laws in practice, because it's not just a gift. It's that reciprocity now. So somatics was just, I did my job way better than I ever could have imagined integrating the somatic practices and really embodying how I do my work. And I think it can happen for anyone, whether you're a salesman or whether you are the receptionist at the medical office or just any position. Yeah, yeah.

Ani
What, what Heather's talking about reminds me of the science of getting rich.

Heather
Yeah.

Ani
And it's these principles of influence and becoming a person of influence. And when you're a person of influence, the universe conspires to help you all the time. Like you said, opportunities just start showing up for you to get more and more of the kind of life you want to create and creating win win solutions just like those prayer shaws for everybody around you. And I think when I started learning about these principles in my own life a number of years ago, it felt a little bit like more of a selfish pursuit. Like I wanted to see how much I could get or how far I could go. But the more that I get into it and then, you know, being able to influence and impact lives like yours, Heather, and all the lives that you're impacting, it's just like, it's just this like, well of goodness. And that's actually what it feels like. It's in it for me to be a part of that magic and a part of that, well, of, of wellness, you know, that and health and joy, like you were saying, that just continues to pour out of this work in win win ways.

Brian
Yeah. And you know, it just keeps growing and expanding that, that law of more life. Now, I actually do have one little other question for you too, Heather from what you told us about your beginning story, your early story and then where you are now, do you feel like you move through the world with a different core belief about yourself and about the world? Has that changed? Has your core belief in some way anyway changed between who you were and who you are now through that, through doing the work with the Somatic Coaching Academy?

Heather
Yes, my own core beliefs have definitely changed. Throughout the course. And Ani knows this. I grew up with a very critical mother and you know, nothing was good enough. If I got all A's and one B, she focused on that B. Why wasn't it an A? And so for a long time I didn't identify as a victim of trauma because I didn't experience any physical abuse or anything like that. But I realized the trauma was to my self esteem because I felt like if the woman who gave, if I wasn't good enough for the woman who gave birth to me, how could I be good enough for anybody else? So the retreat that we had during my training, I left my fantasy mom in the Berkshires, and I said, this is the mom that was chosen for me. And there's a lesson in it. And so my core belief and my soul's agenda is worthiness. And when I think about, you know, the spectrum of worthiness and unworthiness, as long as my choice is in alignment with worthiness, it can't be the wrong choice. Yeah, can't be. Can't be. And so that's why I love doing soul's agenda work with my clients, because it may not give them the roadmap, but at least sets the compass in the right direction for them.

Brian
And that's what changes everything. Right. Because the way I hear you describing what's happening to you, Heather, and the opportunities that are just expanding themselves and your when someone delegates something to you to say, wait, I think we could do this differently. Right?

Ani
That's your worthiness.

Brian
That's your worthiness, Right? To be able to do that.

Heather
Absolutely.

Brian
That's a demonstration of a different core belief. And to transform any system, the prison system, as people are coming out and being different people in the world, that's the work you're doing with them, too. And that, for me, is, again, just amazing. It feels so incredible to know that you are in the world, Heather, helping other human beings thrive on the other side of intense adversity.

Ani
Knowing that core belief is coming from a place of your worthiness. Because if we don't know that, that's what's driving our behavior and our thoughts and our feelings all day, we don't know. We don't know what we're not aware of.

Heather
Right.

Ani
And once we have an awareness that, oh, snap, my behavior is being driven. I'm so glad you asked that question. From this core belief and then being able to choose over and over again every day with micro decisions and big decisions in direction of a belief that is empowering, and then being able to help other people do that.

Heather
Oh, man.

Brian
Yeah. Incredible. Incredible.

Heather
Yeah. I just wanted to add. And I get just as much from the women that I work with as they get from me, because I say, I tell them all the time that, like, you know, being in recovery and knowing I'm accountable to them every single day helps strengthen my recovery. Because if I were to, you know, deliver the content in an inauthentic way, you know, preaching recovery but I'm relapsing like they have got the best, like, BS detectors in the world. And I would not be able to face them and do that because that would be so out of alignment with my worthiness that, you know, they could. They could just see it. It would be written all over me. And that's the power of knowing, you know, that your soul's agenda. That's the power of knowing that you're in alignment. And when you're in flow, there's no better feeling in the world.

Ani
Yeah. Yeah, it's true. And I'm getting just as much goodness hearing your story today, I think, as you feel living it out. Just like. Heather, thank you so much for. For you. Thank you so much for you. Thank you for sharing you with our listeners on the podcast and with us today. You're such a special human, and I'm really, really happy you're a part of our community.

Brian
Really super grateful. Really super grateful for so much, Heather.

Heather
Thank you.

Ani
Yeah.

Heather
And I am so grateful that Universe brought you two into my life. Like, I remember the first meeting with Ani and she told me she sent her book to, like, 10 different organizations and I was the only one who returned her call.

Ani
Yeah.

Heather
Like, talk about Universe at work.

Ani
Yeah. It was a. It was a list of 100 people that I reached out to, and you were the one who answered my call. And I was just telling your story the other day to a client who was saying, 'God, how many people do I have to reach out to?' And this is what I said. I said, "it doesn't matter because when you find that one person who it really matters for, it's going to mean so much to you that it's worth it."

Heather
Oh, yeah, totally.

Brian
Yeah.

Heather
And I say that many of the women I work with do come back, and even though I'm saddened when they come back, I say it just means we got to come up with a tighter plan. We got to put the dots a little more closer together. That's all it means.

Ani
Yeah.

Heather
We didn't have a tight enough plan.

Ani
Yeah, yeah.

Heather
But the plan. We'll get the right plan if you're just willing to keep trying. I'm right there to walk with you. Yeah.

Ani
That's part of being a human, isn't it? It's not right that we just get it right and nail it every single time. And off we go. We get to be human together.

Heather
Yeah.

Ani
Heather, thank you for being here today.

Brian
Thanks so much, Heather, for joining us. We really, really appreciate it.

Ani
And for those of you listening, like, I hope you'll put your comments and send us emails and all of this to shine the light on Heather's work, because it's so good. Thank you, Heather.

Heather
Well, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to share my work because this is how we change systems. It is. It's one person at a time.

Ani
Yeah. And talking about it.

Heather
And talking about it. That's right.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Heather. And thanks so much for being here and joining us again on this week of the faculty lounge episode of this podcast. And we look forward to seeing you again next week.

Ani
Bye, everybody.

Heather
All right, bye.