Patreon Preview: Alyssa Pacheco - On Taking Ownership of Your Art

0:00 Hey friends, and welcome to this preview of our latest Patreon exclusive episode. To continue the conversation and listen to the full episode, head on over to the I Think Therefore I Slam Patreon and sign up to be part of the Slam Fam. The link is in the show notes Slam. Poetry doesn't. Care if it's perfect, it's. Time to slam now. It's the biggest poem I've got inside of her. She was a thief. You love me to love a haunted house, yelling blood black nothingness began to. Spin point of view on. To this day, I hate pork. Chops I am the master of my I am the captain myself. We write to taste, life to us.

0:44 Welcome to I think Therefore I Slam, the podcast bringing you the best spoken word and slam poetry artist from Australia and beyond. My name is Andrew Rogerson and my guest today is a Central Illinois based creative who's lived in Alaska, Colorado and Ohio. She's the author of Dear Desperation and Love in Liquid Form. She enjoys hiking, camping, and a solid road trip playlist, often drawing inspiration for her work from travel and music or a good podcast or book. I can certainly get behind that. Everyone should explore expressive writing and journaling. Everyone. And her main goals this year are to publish her third book, expand her publishing company endeavours, submit work to journals, and continue efforts in creating community around poetry and storytelling.

1:29 What a fantastic vision. Alyssa Pacheco, welcome onto the show. Hello. Hello, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here and have an opportunity to chat with you about, you know, all things poetry and being a creative. It's exciting times. Now. I do want to say that we're currently in tornado season. In your neck of the woods, is everything all right? You're not at risk of getting blown away or anything over there. You know, it's good. It's a pretty, I have the windows open, so if any point in time I need to close those because you hear rainfall in the back. It's settled down a little bit now. There's a little bit of, I guess that's maybe the Midwestern girl in me. It's still a decent storm outside, but it's chilling down so. What is with the open window thing like?

2:10 How does that help? It's just cooling it off in here. I'm just, I just think, you know, there's actually, there's a piece into your desperation that talks about kind of relishing and enjoying the heat from a Midwest summer. So I feel like I'm totally that girl, like you're going to catch me and it's 85° in my house. And then I'll like think about turning the air on so a good sweat never hurt anyone. And so now in the evening, it's cooling off. So kind of getting a lot of that fresh air in. I'm sure it's not helping my allergies to any extent, as you can maybe hear a little bit of my congestion. But that's the price you pay for the scenery, the landscape. Good stuff. Well, hopefully no one ends up in ounces, you know, during during this podcast recording. Oh gosh.

2:51 Alyssa, let's jump into some poetry now. We would love to hear your first piece that you've brought for us today. Yeah, so I'm actually going to just, I think in a good way, right? Get this one out of the way. I feel like it's one of my my really good pieces. It's actually one that you had mentioned that was the first piece that you would have heard of mine. So gifts from my father. This is the first piece that I ever performed at an open mic. And it was actually on my birthday years and years ago. And it was, I think, a testament to my desire to put myself out there and be vulnerable and be honest and showcasing what that journey looked like. Yes, from my father. The striped Baja was a hand me down from his adolescent era.

3:32 A drug rug, he called it. And we laughed as the messages ran clearer. And see, he started on his downward spiral at an age as ripe as mine, losing bits of himself as he slept in age through time. And sometimes I'd see him in the mirror amidst my own shell shocking life, resenting him for guidance he couldn't offer if he tried. And the thickness of the fabric fell odd in my saffron hand the moment that I realized he was a boy before a man, and it felt itchy on my skin when I tried it on to lend olive branches of acceptance to these extensions of him. And does he know yet that I needed one thing man cannot buy to take up some of his space, to preoccupy his time? And see my longing for it left me grasping for a line. Salvation, no stability.

4:28 And shake that tree of mine clinging to its vines, knocked down low hanging fruit to bring me to my knees, to put the world back into view. See, the first time I was presented with It's not you, it's me. When he left me sitting on the porch at the time, he said he'd be there to pick me up, to spend some time with me, to take a segment from his day, to listen to me speak. But there I sat, My face grew flat. I let expectations flee and see my desperations rooted in the times his absence left me weak. See, I'm not sure just what I'd say at his funeral, you see, and not even sure if, as his daughter, I'd be asked to speak and see.

5:12 I'd suppose I'd say things like he was kind in his old age, or it was nice to hear him tell a tale, even though you'd heard him tell it a different way. And I suppose I'd say things like that was very much like my father, so to say, giving bits of himself. And that I suspect why he turned out like this and chose to lead his life this way. And see, I think it boils down to his own life giver's force that his dad left him abandoned. It was the calm before the storm and I'd recount all his ideas. I'm sure one would have stuck, see a big payout, his claim to fame, another way to make a buck and see, I'd explain how he'd hustled his whole life.

5:54 But I'm unsure of his objective, his rationales and explanations of both. He was protective and see, he refused to let those people in who just may give a fuck. The potential of our relationships positioned in that rut. And see, looking back, the real gift was his storytelling tales, the plot relaying his hands swaying a slightly different rhythm from the same old beating drum. Long winded, he'd go on and on with easel, would become lost in the sound of the words, or the sizzling humming of his halfway heart spewing from his air filled lungs. See, his body's there in front of me. But his mind had long been gone, stuck in that place where half of them has existed all along.

6:37 And see, you can hear the passion in the voice in his voice, and wonder what it could become. You can hear regret deep in the tones of the songs he's never sung. Resentment for our life not LED and indifferent to the ones the only tethered to his existence as aging overcomes. And would he have approached fatherhood differently if given a single son? Perhaps I should not wonder as the damage has been done. And see, I've worn that Baja jacket a few times. Of course I missed my milestone Blues. Or when I felt I needed it most. Hoping to feel connection to him. Yeah, somehow something more in tune. Grasping to know how and see.

7:18 Hoping it would give me a different lens than green. Envy for all those girls who had a dad. But me. Yeah, A different hue, a higher view. The looking glass of his life anew. And his perspective stained A sullen blue. And see the insight that I've longed for. To see what makes him tick, to understand the reasons he feels scorned and why his guards impermeably thick and see the desire to uncover, to RIP up his floorboards. See who was this man, my father, before I was born, and to understanding why my presence wasn't his sole force or reason. To live up to expectations of things a father has in store. To show his daughter's love and kindness and that the world has so much more to offer well loved little girls before they enter dating wars.

8:07 But now I realize it's something deeper, and he hides inside himself. He knows and stares into the fires of his internal hell. And knowing now that my role is more than helping him learn to deal with his father's absence as I reconcile with his peace. Wow, Alyssa, that's a stunning piece. And it was the first one of your pieces that I heard. And I'm I'm so sorry to hear of your father's passing. I'm sure that that changes, you know, your relationship to to some of these words. Yeah. If we could just stay on on this piece Gifts of my father for a second.

8:47 When you look back to when you first wrote that piece, was it something you were trying to do to find, I guess catharsis in your own experience and your and your own hurt if you like, or were you trying to give voice to others that that carried that same experience? Yeah, so it's, it's a both end and, and I think like so many things, right. I, I first let me say I appreciate you asking this question because I feel like as a, as a poet and as a writer, it's always fun to have Easter eggs and like the people. Like if the you know, you know, those inside, I don't want to say jokes, but the understanding of I actually have something down the line where I'm thinking about a way to like let you inside my brain to some of these things in different editions where a between the lines and behind the prose, sort of like thought process. So to answer your question, it was both right. So I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing when I wrote this piece.

9:37 And I remember exactly the conversation that I ended with my father as when I sat down at my desk to write it. And so it was about 3 months, four months into at that time was a nine month separation for my now ex-husband. And so I had moved into a rental property while still maintaining, you know, a lot of the, let's call it admin work of my home that we purchased together as as a married couple. And so it was a a heavyweight of just going back and forth and part of that process, right to kind of go back layers before is I, when I moved all my my stuff to my rental house. I had have been journaling since I was gosh, 1214.

10:19 You know, I'm one of four daughters on my moms side. She was a single mother most of my life. And so especially when you talk about menstruation seasons in life and everyone's on the same hormone cycle and sort of chaos loop, if you will, and everyone's figuring those things out. It was, hey, y'all, you need a journal, figure this out. Bring one thing to the family meeting on Sunday and it was a family meeting. There wasn't a one-on-one conversation like you and I are having to address my dirty laundry with my mother. It was a collective opinion. Wow. OK, Yeah. And I don't think it was like set out to be that way intentionally. It was, my sisters and I are all about 18 months apart from one another. So it was just like 4 piece in a pod and there's really not a lot of room, but we make it work sort of mentality. And, and I think part of that was just efficiency. I mean, my mom worked three jobs. It was like, hey, I care.

11:03 But like we got to really, you guys got to care too. So that being sort of thought forward and and proactive in that way. And so the reason I tell you that is twofold. The first is I'm one of four. So when we're we're talking about why is this piece written, It was for me, of course, but it was also giving voice to my, the struggles that I know my sisters and I have all felt equally. And so it was a catalyst to, I would say healing, but it was unintentional at that time. It was totally a fuck you. I mean, are you kidding me? I remember the conversation, you know, and you know, rest in peace, you know, but the conversation I'd had with him at that time was fuck you. Like Dang, like I've kind of been thinking about this and if you would have just kind of like done your big one and really, you know, looked out for nurturing this sort of relationship and being a guide and a steward of what true things that are. Yes, me things, right, my wounds to work on childhood wounds like approval, seeking validation, all of that jazz that we'll get into when we talk about my third book, right. So all of that to say it was a catalyst to expressing where and me unpacking where a lot of this anger came from. Knowing that anger is a secondary emotion has always been a motivating factor for me.

12:14 I've always been an angry person and I and I, you know, maybe not outwardly facing. I think anger for me is more of a I'm critical to myself. I'm critical to the way in which, hey, there's a problem. I need to figure out how to solve this and anger at the ether for sort of the injustice, if you will. And so that anger and that point was this injustice I was feeling to my dad, who we had this different layers of relationships with each other throughout the years. But after that was out, I mean, this was a catalyst for all of us to sort of not only be aware that the elephant has been in the room with us, but finally own it take, you know, rather than waiting ground for it to Stampede and roll over us, grab by the leash and and let's at least figure out where we're going. And we are then in charge of how this is is going to to go out.

12:57 It's a great analogy. Thank you. And it might just be that I have control issues. I like to have a sense of control over like this is bothering me. What can we do? And part of that is getting it out there and how you really feel. And I never shy away from speaking 110% my mind. It's a good and a bad thing, right? Or can be, if you will. In this case, it it's I think 1 is a means to an end. You know, I think it started off, let's say poorly. It wasn't received well. It led to a lot of meaningful and important conversations between my sister and my father and I. And I'm grateful for it because, you know, before he he passed, we were well on our way to healing, as you'll see in another piece that I'll be reading here shortly. But I think that's the hardest thing is because of this sort of relationship, I didn't my, my father wrote poetry. I didn't realize that until sharing and showcasing in, you know, Africa.

13:42 He passed. I thought I always got that from my mom. I saw my mom. So I was nosy as hell when I was younger. I would, you know, go through my mom's drawers and see her journals and stuff and go, Oh my gosh. So my mom's introspective. I get the journaling, the observation oriented part of my brain and stuff. Probably from her and and tendencies. And then I was seeing oh wait a second. My dad had a typewriter 4 years before I was born. This poem was written in Typo. He's hardcore. Well, it was interesting. You know, my dad and I have always had a very complex relationship where as we, we, as I aged, right? So after high school it was, you know, during college we had, we were both operating in similar modalities, if you will, where it's not been lost in me, I've always been told I'm mature for my age.

14:24 And so I feel like I'm finally growing out of that and just growing into being myself. It like I've always been myself, but sort of the outside perspective of like shining light on it has sort of dissipated. And I'm like grateful for it 'cause it seems like an odd thing to sort of focus on in my personal opinion. But the reason I bring that up is 'cause sometimes the, the perspective is when I tell you this, we were operating in the same space. He was doing entrepreneurial endeavors, so was I. So we started bonding over different forms of I went from maybe a, you know, that father daughter relationship where it was every other weekend, right? Fun dad sort of mentality, if you will. And then going to when I was in, you know, young adolescents and then college kind of being more on the equal playing field as far as everyone probably has growing pains as you age into being an adult with your parents, right?

15:11 But it didn't ever quite feel it was on its way, I think to what I've always been yearning and longing for, which is that father, daughter, tried and true relationship and, you know, having children now a son of my own, right? So that we were well on our way there. And so I think that's the hardest part. When you said, Oh, I'm sure that these these pieces hold a different weight for you, It's actually interesting, right? So in an unintended way, I was the only one who spoke at my dad's funeral. I was going to ask you whether you did get the opportunity. It was odd, it wasn't planned, it was just kind of like I mean in gift of gab. I don't know what it is right when I just don't. Maybe I didn't appreciate the silence, if that's fair to say. And I know every and I think everyone was my other siblings are struggling to just I think, process and as I was, but it just didn't feel right for there to be nothing said in a way that my grandma was just off in an awful way.

16:05 And what I did was I read a poem that he wrote actually that he had written. He'd written a poem to my sisters and I, And so I was open to discussing some of the also the elephants in the room with our family. I mean, we're I always kind of joke, right, that I'm a recovering Catholic. And so I say that to give a little bit of insight to a large family, Catholicism comes with a lot of looming shame, a lot of obligatory ways in which we should or should not navigate our lives. And I think a lot of that, if you even derail in the slightest without a sense of quote, UN quote, rational or outward advocacy for yourself, it's you're already itching to be shunned, right? You have that factor of it as well. So I'm like, hey, we might not all have agreed with how my dad lived his life, but what I'm not going to do is sit here. Like, it almost was kind of like pissed me off a little bit, the silence at his funeral.

16:58 So yeah, I, I did speak. I remember all about, like, I remember reading his poem and then I'm sure I said some other things as well, but it was very private, very Catholic. Wow, that was so fascinating just to hear how there were so many different dynamics and layers to the story behind that poem. I mean, that's, that's the stuff I love to hear about, you know, that's the stuff I want to read about in the in the notes section of of someones collection or something like that. I totally agree with you that family expectations are tricky to to navigate at the best of times. I want to return to what you said about this piece, starting in anger. And I think you mentioned that you saw anger as like a secondary emotion.

17:38 I'm really interested in like the science of emotions for, for lack of a better word, in terms of, I've always heard anger being outlined as important because it lets you and it lets other people know when a boundary has been crossed. How do you kind of see emotions within this, this kaleidoscope of, of things to learn from and things to listen to? Excellent question. And 1st, if it, if it matters at all, I'll just say that the primary emotion, right that I was that anger was the messenger to was disappointment. And that's been a, a common thing, if you will, for me. And so that's a check and balance for me. It was like, well, why are you putting check the bounds of your expectations and where those are really rooted? And you also asked me how I think about emotions as a modality in this. So I personally, and it's funny that you ask that. So I've always operated with the mentality, right? Emotion means like feeling in motion, like to emote, right. So I personally 110% lean into that. I am the I'll say it.

18:37 I'm a I'm a crybaby. I am so sensitive, but I'm also the most hard up bullheaded poker face that you will also meet. And so there's that. You can't be impassioned and also not be really, really sappy sometimes, right? It's 2 ends of that emotional spectrum. And so I bleed in and lean into both of them. And for me, I think emotions to your point, a boundary has been crossed, right? Usually with anger or sadness, it's our responsibility to respond to those things. And I think awareness sometimes has, it's a little bit slower to catch up than when we emote. And so it might take 3 or 4 or 15 years feeling that disappointment as a primary emotion that is continually showing up, not every day, right, but situationally over that lifespan and that cycle showing up where it's like, oh, wait a second. This is what it's telling me that I need to stop putting weight and expectations without A conveying them, B checking in to see if it's even feasible.

19:42 That's more, I would say, in chosen relationships, right? And then my I statements, For me, a lot of that has come in as I feel this way, not just 'cause you asked how I particularly resonate with emotions is you did not make me feel that way. I feel that way because something that you have done to me and so that is done wonders for me. I'm sure I'm human. I mean, catch me in an argument, I might slip up a couple times, right? But I'm intentional about at least trying to be mindful about that. Yeah, wow. And what I'm hearing is that you've got kind of this legacy of poetry in your family. And so that legacy kind of drips down. It meets your, your unique, you know, emotional makeup and, and how you process the world.

20:24 And it's resulted in these highly emotive, very moving pieces like the one that we've just heard. Alyssa, I, I'd love to take a, a step back and look at how did you start actually creating and sharing your work. You've mentioned years of of practice in in journaling and things like that, but what made you cross the threshold into into bundling that all up into a collection? Yeah, like, like any answer I give you, it's three-part. So the first is I used to have a Wellness blog and podcast called The Wealthy Way. Like WELLTHY, Like, you know, I thought that was cute and kitschy.

21:05 And part of that, what I realized was that was just me finding my voice. That was like me having the intuitive desire of I wanna connect with people. I wanna share the feeling that it should be positive and centered around connection and community, right? And so all of these things, in hindsight, 2020, but that's what I was feeling called to do and what made sense to me at that time. I'm a Tumblr girl. Does that resonate, that phrase Tumblr? Sure. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. So there's some folks listening that if you're a Tumblr girl, thigh gap, all that look into it, there's a whole culture of it where that was really the start. Like that was pretty Pinterest around the same time. Like it's a lot of those things like Instagram, right? That would have been Instagram and mood boarding before that was, you know, really those two things. Part of that was very much into topography in the digital realm and poetry, short stories, all of that stuff and more of a, let's call it a fan fiction sort of modality if you would on a Reddit or the similar way that people write fan fiction. That sort of subculture is why I'm explaining it. So I've always in the background. I've had blogs, private blogs that were password protected, maybe share with people that you connect with on Tumblr or on Myspace.

22:14 I think that was a huge thing for me too, connecting on Myspace with, with people in like, but a lot of it was, let's say behind the curtain. And I also didn't want anybody to know I was Oz. There was no Oz to be or not be. It was just really me trying to figure that out and connect. But it always felt like like cliche or played out or in a way that I didn't know. I knew what I was looking for, but I didn't know quite how to grab a hold of it or what I even what I would even grab if it passed me by what that looked like. All of that to say, I was having this Wellness blog. So that was me going and going, OK, like Tumblr, my own little personal blogs for poetry, my own personal blogs for storytelling and photography, doing this Wellness stuff. And then I just started, it was COVID. I mean, I'm sure so many people have the same pattern of what do you do when you don't have anything to like you kind of got to know me a bit.

23:03 I will 110% say COVID was a reset for me to really check myself in the mirror and say, oh damn girl, so much of your personality is based off of outside validation and approval seeking. Like what gives? Where it really put into question when I was no longer was able to, you know, fill my time by saying yes to the the request of others. And I say that because so much of this new thing thought pattern I've had for myself is just 'cause I can't doesn't mean I should. Just cause someone thinks I'm good at it doesn't mean I should, should carry that out. And it's hard when the upbringing of that is, is seeking out when you don't, when you're poor and, and maybe you don't have a lot of opportunities. Do you have tenacity, charisma, academics and the ability to make an opportunity in a way for yourself? Should you have the the work ethic to do so? That means you don't say no often. That means you're a yes man.

23:54 That means not in a way that you just do what's told, but if an opportunity comes, you say, well, you never know it's going to come based off of this. And that's great, that's great until you until you start to realize that that's also embedded in a scarcity mindset. That's great when it works out, but that's that's odd when you don't then have the ability to build the muscle that is discernment. And then that's how for me personally, that's how you get into a situation where you sent out save the dates and you realize, well, shit, I don't want to get married, but God damn, people are expecting me to do it. So I'm going to walk down the aisle and waste eight years of my life. And I say waste because I'm still processing the work on me trying to do the work and the shadow work. I'm thinking, no, no, no. What was the lesson here, which you hear a lot in my work that I'm doing right now. My third book is very heavily rooted in as you'll see, sometimes dear desperation gets called dear depression. And I'd laugh and say, you know what, 1 and the same. It's very melancholic in nature, right? Where love and liquid form themed as well around this question and this topic of liquidity of love, whether that self love, maternal love, sister, open marriage, trials, failures, all of these different things. This third book is is around the why the third book is around really looking in, and so I'll I'll share the the title of it if it's not jumping the gun in your order of operations here. Yes, we love a scoop.

25:11 But it's titled The Things We Do for Love Before we learn to love ourselves. Incredible, love it. I'm all bad. I want to pre-order it now. Thank you. I will be sending out a link for pre-order when that time comes. So I'm thinking of gosh, September coming up. I think so I've got and I'm 125 pages into it and I have the real meat done. Now it's to you know, I'm giving myself in between this. My my process is when I feel like I've gotten the artistic flush out. I give it three weeks. Busy myself with other things and then come back with a fresh eye and go, OK, what makes sense, what doesn't, what was that really leaning into that just doesn't fit anymore. That sort of thing. I guess that's how I think about emotions. That's how I think about anger as a motivator. That's how I think about boundaries. And I probably could have a lot more to say about it too, but I'll let you ask another question. Yeah, I mean, like I said, that's an incredibly vivid picture of how it all started for you. Firstly, I owe a lot to having older sisters, so I probably wouldn't know what a a Tumblr girl was without them. So I understand the aesthetic.

26:10 I understand of what you're getting at. The other thing is that just COVID obviously is a cultural moment and a cultural reset. I mean, I don't think I've had a single conversation on this podcast where COVID has not played a significant role. Whether it's something absolutely tragic like people who've lost loved ones because they got COVID, or if it's the yeah, the reassessment of, of where people are at in their lives and what they what they want out of their experience, including their creative endeavours, you know? And to your point, during COVID, it was part of my rule when I would be journaling is in order to be. I don't know if you're familiar with the thought process right where when you're taking a standardized test, people who test poorly specifically on standardized test, a lot of that reason is because there's this idea of someones like looming you watching you, like people are gonna judge you. Like performance pressure kind of thing. Thank you.

27:07 I was like, I know there's a word for it, I just don't know it, so I'll put that in my back pocket. So in that same way where you have sisters, you just said, right. So part of that was we agreed to not read our journal, each other's journals because we're, we're all awful nosy, would go and steal each other's clothes. So that was one of the we've always respected that boundary of each other. And so with that I had like I said about like, I don't even know how many journals, like 36. I mean, I was 25 at the time, so from when I was 14 and I'd never gone back to read them. I just moved them from my house to my rental house and was looking at this box that I was put on a bookshelf. Like, well, now's about as good a time as any. So I started to go back and look, and I started to see all these repeating themes.

27:48 And it was at first enlightening. And then it was like, Dang, girl, get it in gear. Lock in. You're talking about this is something you were dealing with and you were 16 and you're still dealing with it right now at 20, you know, in this journal at 22, Like, let's figure that out. Or there's something there we need to process, right? And Dear Desperation, I was very intentional, I think now a little bit begrudgingly, to maintain the integrity of the pieces that I wrote when I was younger, even though it felt so foreign and disconnected from the writing style that I was showcasing at the at 25 or 24. Because there's some people who get it, some people who don't. So there's that layer of like, I had to ask myself, what would I really be doing this for? This was just literally for me, like Dear Desperation. Yes, it was I, I've come to find out it's truly resonated with folks in a way that I'm, I'm so proud and happy that I did it in the way that I, you know, did with such vulnerability. But originally this was just for me. It was for me and I and my sisters. And I mean, I, I dedicate the first and I'll show you really quickly here if it picks up, right, dedicated the first page to my sisters and I intentionally, I mean, they're literally me.

28:56 And more part of that I think was being intentional about, OK, this is picking up some traction. This is really resonating with people. Like I felt moved by people reaching out to me and saying like, this was life changing for me. This open up doors to me. I didn't think about where I'm like, Oh my gosh, it was almost decided for me. That's a fairway to say like after a while, it was like, I didn't even think about whether or not I was going to publish anymore. It was, Oh my gosh, I, I finally have, you know, broken through to what this was a testament of just getting comfortable being uncomfortable. And once I did this, I I'm like, I'm not tripping about it anymore I'll be fine. But with that in mind, my key 110% rule for myself when I am compiling a book is if I am putting it in to my layout and it makes me uncomfortable or I question, oh, is this too much? Like is this going to be an issue That can be many things. Is this, you know, because it's a true short story where maybe involves somebody else or something. And obviously I change names and all that jazz or usually don't even name anybody or OK, well, I'm a mom. I'm talking about, you know, I'm also other things, right? So just that awareness that this is probably going to rear its ugly head in some way, shape or form sometime. And I have to be comfortable with whatever that consequences. And I don't view the word consequence with a negative connotation.

30:18 Anything has a consequence. Anything has a, you know, cause effect, right? If I questioned it, I put it in. If I say, hey, it's if it makes me uncomfortable, is this too much? That is my sign to put it in and I and it's a must for me. Wow, so, so again, talking about emotions, you kind of read that not in your gut or something as like this is the way, like I'm feeling the resistance and that is the way. And, and, and like you said, you, you've been able to get a taste, if you like, of, of the magic that can happen when you put something personal out there and it turns out to be more universal than you probably ever thought it would ever be, right? A. 100%.

31:00 Hope you enjoyed this preview clip. To continue the conversation and listen to the entire episode, head over to the I Think Therefore I Slam Patreon. The link is in the show notes.