Spreading joy and harmony in our joint discovery. Finding connection. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ritual sister.

Welcome to Ritual Sisters, the podcast where we help you feel more grounded and connected through the magic of ritual. This is Michelle. This is Kelly. We are your hosts and fellow travelers. So let's take a deep breath in and out. and start this journey together.

Alright! Hello, hello! We are just doing a little bit of a teaser episode just to give you all a taste of what's to come and explain who we are. Mmm, yes. Callie, how are you feeling about the Starting a podcast. Oh my goodness. I am over the moon. Excited. Just so grateful to be on this journey with you. And we've learned a lot.

Yes we have. I'm trying to think of how many months, it has not been that many months. I think we started in September, talking about it. 2024. Yeah, so maybe like 5 months. And I just, I am I'm totally mind blown by how much we've learned and how we're going to continue learning and growing. How are you feeling?

I'm feeling excited and just maybe a little stress of just the amount of work that it will take between. I mean, we have About two weeks. I know. It's wild. Before the launch party. Yeah. So we've done a ton of work, but we have it's like that crunch time now. Yeah. Yeah. I feel that. It's like we're back in grad school.

Oh yes. Studying. Learning. Crunch time. Starting from sunrise till way past sunset. For some of us, some of us need our beauty sleep.

All right. First of all, what is ritual? It's interesting to me because it can be so many different things. So ritual can come from It can be religion, it can be part of a, you know, a religious practice, uh, but it can also be completely secular, it can be spiritual, you can use it synonymously with ceremony, so kind of a one off celebration of a specific moment, or it can be something day to day.

So it's, it's just such a wide topic. Beautiful Michelle. Yeah, I would definitely say at the core. A ritual for us, it's about intentionality and connection. I also really need to shout out Katie Asmus, the founder of Somatic Nature Therapy Institute. She wrote an article on ritual and described ritual in the following way.

Rituals serve to connect individuals to communities and help people to realize that they are not alone in the world. Rituals can also serve as anchors in times of chaos. That is creating regular intentional practices in one's daily life. I see ritual as a catalyst for reconnecting to the essence and simplicity that is lacking in so many people's lives.

And again, that quotes by Katie Asmus. I think that sums it up really well. Mm hmm. Yeah. So I think for us, really the key elements that we want to highlight in our show are This idea of staying grounded through transitions and seasons. Talking to people from all walks of life and all different stages of life and kind of figuring out how all of us can collectively move through life together in a more grounded way.

And then that community aspect, I think oftentimes we feel lonely as a society. And I think it's something that a lot of people struggle with. We hear about it a lot with our clients as therapists. So it's really important to us to build that community. And then the opportunity to explore different sides of ourselves, especially as adults, we kind of get stuck in certain identities and kind of feeling like we're We're doing one thing or one way and maybe we have interests in other sides of ourselves, but we kind of lose that sense of play and exploration.

Yeah. Identity expansion. Yes. We're going to expand your minds.

Yeah. So one example of that is we had my friend Kayla on the podcast. Yeah. And it could be really easy to say, like, she's somebody who works in environmental justice and just kind of leave it at that. But she's also an artist. And she's part of this group, Jewish Voices for Peace. And she's also in a transitionary period of life, becoming a mom.

And actually, she just had her baby! Oh, yay! Yay, Kayla! So, Kaloma, baby are healthy. Oh, yay. Um, but yeah, having these conversations, I think really helps to expand all these different ideas of ourselves. Yeah. And so for the podcast, we're going to be bringing our expertise as marriage and family therapists to help draw out these sides of people.

We're also approaching it as fellow travelers in the journey of life and learning from the unique perspective of our guests. So sometimes Kelly and I are going to be talking solo, just the two of us, but we mostly want to be in conversation with people about their specific expertise. So at the end of each episode, we are going to build a ritual based off of what we've learned from Our guest and it's going to be something that you can take into your life and you can use yourself.

And we've already learned so much from the episodes we've recorded thus far and just we cannot wait for you all to listen. In fact, uh, stay tuned because there'll be, um, some highlights from some of the upcoming episodes at the end of this. But before we get into that, I just want to share a quick story about.

Why I'm feeling and why I think Kelly and I are both feeling so passionate about this So literally everything that we've recorded so far. I feel like I have already Reflected on and brought into my life in some way. And back in November, we were like, let's just try to record a podcast. Just like see how it feels.

Get the workflow of it. And it's not great audio, but maybe someday we'll share it with you. I think we do need to share it. Just for funsies. But as part of that, we were talking about holiday rituals and kind of Just different ways to move through the holiday season more intentionally, like, kind of regardless of where you're at with it.

And based off of that, we had talked about finding ways to bring in adult resilience when you go home to be with your family. So, I came up with this idea to do a meal with my family, because cooking is something that I really love to do. Michelle is an amazing cook, everyone. Yes. Thank you. I mean, aw, no way.

So I, I was at home and I was kind of like, oh, do I want to do this? It's kind of. cramped timeline and it's a lot of effort. I was like, no, I said I was going to do this on the podcast. I'm going to give it a try. And I went a little overboard maybe, but, um, I, I decided, um, to make a four course meal with my family and each course.

So I have nieces that are. At the time, four, seven, and nine, I believe. And, so, to make it kind of more engaging for them, I had each course kind of have a theme, and then everybody wrote down a word related to that theme. So, an example was, like, the second course was a soup, and I was, like, comforting, so everybody wrote down something that they found comforting.

And I didn't tell them what it was for, so The whole meal, um, the nieces were all like, what, you know, what's it gonna be about? And so everybody was like really engaged throughout the whole meal. And at the end, we wrote like little poems or stories with the words as kind of like those magnets that you get with like the different words.

And it was truly one of the most memorable experiences I've had with my family as an adult. And my mom and I were reflecting afterwards that, you know, everybody in the family, my dad has a very small social battery. So he will leave, he will eat in five minutes and leave. Um, So him and like these like young kids.

I mean, we all know low attention span So the fact that we were all there for probably two plus hours Engaged with each other talking Laughing like connecting in a real way. It was like so beautiful and it was so memorable and That was just my like my very first experience from the first little riff episode that we did So I, I just really believe that ritual can be so impactful in our lives and that so much of what people do in therapy can be so heavy and that, that's really important, but ritual can be fun and light and playful and it can create such deep change in a fun and regulating way.

Mmm. Michelle, that is so heartfelt. And really illustrates your hope for this podcast and for the RitualFam listeners. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just reflecting on your story that you just shared and how it also highlights that community aspect. And I know that's so important to both of us for this pod.

We really want Ritual Sisters to be a community where we can uplift and support each other through life's ups and downs. So please feel free. We would love to hear from you. So you can find us on our website, which is www. ritualsisterspod. com or Instagram. Ritual Sisters pod. And yeah, let us know if there's topics you want us to talk about, if there's any rituals that you end up doing that you want to share with us.

We, we truly want to hear from you, um, and just can't wait to co create this space all together. So stay tuned for community events and we'll also be launching our Patreon soon. So we'll have free access for membership and also some fun events like the full moon fireside chats. That's right. We are so excited to start this journey with you all.

We look forward to connecting with you. Yes, we'll talk soon. Bye!

If you were to do a pinecone dance, what do you think it would look like? I There is something about pinecones. Like, when I go on walks with my dog, I love looking at the, especially the baby pinecones. Like, they always draw my eye. Um, that's a great question, Michelle. Yeah. What would my interpretive dance be?

There was a string of time where she walked around, uh, just casually commenting that she was a warrior goddess. And I was like, you're damn right. Mallory! Yeah, you know. Dream. Yeah. And she is. She's the best. I was telling her about when you were a baby. I would read to you until you fell asleep, and then I would put you in your crib.

And then it became, I would read to you until you were sleepy enough that I'd put you into bed. Now we read, and get into bed, and talk before we go. Like, this is how our bedtime has changed, but that's the, reading is always the first step. How can you, as a woman, not put everyone else before yourself?

Because that's what we're socialized to believe is that women are just constantly going to be there for everybody else, going to put everyone else's needs in front of their own. And while I definitely believe in community and I do a lot of helping in my career and in my world, and I value that, I also have a side of me that is very, almost like it's more than just a desire, but a need to be even more vocal about what I think and what I believe and what I feel and what my body is saying.

And again, I just think back to our women ancestors and what they went through, the fights that they went through forever without even seeing the fruits of their labor. Feedback is love. Being able to, whether it's give or receive feedback, is such a gift. And it's something I try to remember to tell my supervisees.

Because I think sometimes when we are given feedback, we can instantly go to that place of dread. Versus, oh my gosh, what an opportunity that I get to learn and grow with this person and just like understand what did they observe, you know, what, what did they take from that interaction? Yeah, I love that.

I think it would be really nice if when people in myself included in this, when you're giving feedback. If you do come from that place of like, I believe that this person can achieve this and that's why mm-hmm . I'm giving them this feedback. Yes. Yes.