Emerging Women: Grace and Fire » Podcast

This episode’s guest is the soulful and wonderful Ani DiFranco. With 20 years in the music biz, self-described “Little Folksinger” Ani DiFranco’s influence on fellow musicians, activists, and indie-minded people the world over has been huge. Blending folk music with soul, funk, jazz, electronic music and spoken word, Ani DiFranco has released more than 20 albums, including her latest, ¿Which Side are You On? (2012). From the earliest days of her career, Ani DiFranco has lent her voice and her name to a broad range of social movements, performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums, and speaking at rallies.  She’s a pioneer, a rock star, and a soul sister.  Ani was a featured performer at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference in Boulder, CO. In this episode, Ani DiFranco and I speak about: How having kids has grounded her life and effected her music in a positive way Her support of community and connection and the importance of the feminine point of view Her focus on the present moment and relationships in her life The trajectory of feminism throughout the years and the current state of feminism today The hope that we both feel in seeing the wave of Feminine Courage currently emerging in the world And finally, the importance of trusting yourself   Tune in to listen to my conversation "Connection, Community, and the Feminine Voice" with Ani DiFranco. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Ani! It’s a real pleasure to have you here today. Ani DiFranco: Hi! Thanks for having me! CP: I was mentioning to you as we were chatting [that] this is such an honor. I feel kind of exposed by saying this, but I definitely had a very big girl crush on you in college. AD: [Laughs] All right! I’m giving myself a high-five. CP: [Laughs] Well, I’m not entirely sure that it’s gone away. I was preparing for the conference, for Emerging Women Live, and also our interview here, [and] I was just going, for the last week, back through all the old records. Oh my gosh. AD: Oh, wow. Craziness. That’s something you’ll never find me doing. [Laughs] CP: Oh, really? Interesting. AD: It’s always a bit dicey when I want to learn a new old song, like, “I should play that song, blah-de-blah,” and then I have to pull out the record and tiptoe very delicately through it to try to listen to what I need to listen to. Anything could throw me for a week-long loop, delving back into my own catalog. CP: Well, luckily it’s all there and we can dip into it anytime. What surprised me, though, was your recent record. It was amazing—this morning, when we had to reschedule, I was like, “I really have not spent time,” because I was getting so caught up in the old stuff. And there’s a song on there called “Life Boat,” and I do want to talk about the new record. I know it was last year, but I could not believe how deep and how touched I was by that song. AD: Wow, cool. CP: You know, you mention your child. I guess my lead-in question with that is—in fact, I was actually weeping as I was listening to the song, truth be told. It touched me that deeply. I’m curious to see how—you’re a rocker, sister, you’re a freaking cool rocker, and then you’ve had kids. Not that your music has changed tremendously. It’s still very moving. But I’m curious to see internally if there’s been a shift inside of you and the music to create since you’ve had kids. AD: Yes, I’m sure, there’s been so many shifts. Life keeps knocking you one direction or another, and then you have a slightly new direction with every knock. Kids are a big one, I imagine. I think in a big sense, I have a kind of balance in my life how that I didn’t b...

This episode’s guest is Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Kelly is a health psychologist and award-winning lecturer at Stanford University. A leading expert on the mind-body relationship, her work integrates the latest findings of psychology, neuroscience, and medicine with contemplative practices of mindfulness and compassion from the traditions of Buddhism and yoga. She is the author of The Willpower Instinct and Yoga for Pain Relief. In this episode, Kelly McGonigal and I speak about: Willpower How to create the desire for change Acceptance of the present moment versus a desire for change Curiosity being a key ingredient for science as well as intuition The over-masculinization of science Kelly shared how she overcame a debilitating fear in her life   Tune in to listen to my conversation "True Willpower" with Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript: Chantal Pierrat Welcome, Kelly! Kelly McGonigal: Hi, how are you doing? CP: Great! It’s so great to have you today. I’m excited about our conversation. KM: I am too, I’m looking forward to this. CP: Well, I thought we’d just launch into the concept [that] is the subject of your work, your latest book being The Willpower Instinct. The term “willpower” is just such a trigger. It’s edgy. And I was wondering if you could start by telling us what you mean by “willpower.” KM: I want to first even just acknowledge how edgy that word is, because it seems to imply a kind of judgment. When most of us talk about our own willpower, it’s almost always in the context of not having any. And it can almost point to a sense of lack or inadequacy, like, “I just don’t have what it takes to meet the challenges in my life or to reach my goals.” I wanted to reverse that sense that we have. I actually like using the word “willpower” now, even though it often triggers this immediate sense of, “Oh God, that’s something I don’t have. Please don’t remind me how little self-control I have.” When I was working as a health psychologist and a health educator, the Stanford School of Medicine would send me around to help people make behavior [changes] and talk about stress management and healthy choices. And everywhere I went, people told me they already knew what they were supposed to do and they didn’t think they could do it. In fact, they said they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t make the changes. They felt like failures at the whole self-improvement game. I thought, “This is something we need to radically rethink.” So many people felt like they simply did not have the inner resources to do what matters most to them, to improve their health and to find greater meaning and joy in their careers and in their family. So I’m re-staking a claim for willpower and define it as the ability to do what matters most—even when it’s difficult, even when you have self-doubt, even when you are exhausted—and to actually choose the thing that is most meaningful and important, and [access] all the resources that allow us to make that choice. CP: Right. Here’s a question I have: What do you think is necessary to actually create change? It’s one thing to say, “Oh, I know these things, these are good for me. I need to make this change,” and yet we don’t do it. What is that ingredient that first kicks off the action and the habits? How do we cultivate that desire for change? KM: I talk about four sets of strengths that support willpower. The first one is what I call “wantpower.” And it’s different than what you just said. You said, “Oh, I know this would be good for me.” How motivating does that sound? “This would be good for me.” It almost sounds like somebody else is telling you what you should do. Wantpower,

This episode’s guest is Elizabeth Gilbert. Liz is the beloved author of 2006’s runaway bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert’s memoir of soul-searching and international exploration in the wake of her devastating divorce. Committed, the follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love, tells the story of Gilbert’s unexpected plunge into second marriage—this time to Felipe, the man with whom she falls in love at the end of Eat, Pray, Love. Her Ted talk on creativity has over 5 million views, and she recently finished a novel, The Signature of All Things, to be published in October, 2013. In this episode, Elizabeth Gilbert and I speak about: The Signature of All Things Connection: how she uses it in her writing and how it plays in her life The wisdom of details and how they can help us see a bigger picture How perfectionism holds women back from living their truth. Curiosity and the Creative Process How passion can hold us back Tune in to listen to my conversation "Creative Curiosity" with Elizabeth Gilbert. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript: Chantal Pierrat: Welcome Liz! I feel kind of funny calling you “Liz,” but I guess everybody around you calls you Liz. Is that OK? Elizabeth Gilbert: If you call me “Elizabeth,” I’ll think that you’re my mother and you’re mad at me, so it’s probably best if you call me “Liz.” [Laughs] Everybody else does. CP: OK! Well, I’m honored to be calling you “Liz,” and I’m honored to have you here on the Grace and Fire show, so welcome! EG: Thank you so much, I’m delighted to be here!  CP: Great. Well, there’s a lot of places that we’ll probably end up going today, but I wanted to start with your book since it’s sitting here right in my hands. You were so kind to send me an unproofed copy. I’ve had a chance to dig in a little bit, and I have to say, it’s kind of a page-turner. EG: Oh, I’m so glad it’s making you turn the pages. That’s what I want. I want you to sprain your wrist turning pages with this book. [Laughs] CP: Yes! I didn’t realize it. Since I knew we were having this call, I thought, “I want to get into this a little bit,” and it’s one of those books that’s starting to take over, and I have to be careful because, you know, Emerging Women’s already taking over, so I’m like, “OK, hang on here!” EG: You’re going to fall down the rabbit hole! CP: Yes, I’m definitely falling down the rabbit hole. But it’s interesting—I’ve not read your fiction. I’ve read, obviously, Eat, Pray, Love, which completely had such a big effect on me. And so I’m curious to hear a little bit more about how this process was for you, not really writing about yourself. In the last two books, you’ve been writing memoir style. How did this feel? EG: Well, it felt like a homecoming. That would be the word that I would use, that popped into my mind. It’s true, you’re not the only person who hasn’t read my fiction! [Laughs] I started out as a writer of fiction many years ago, and the only thing I ever wanted to be my whole life, my only dream as a writer, was to write short stories and novels. So my first book was a collection of short stories and my second book was a novel. I was well on that path, and then my life fell apart, as anybody who’s got $10 to buy a paperback of Eat, Pray, Love knows. And I ended up veering very sharply into this world of confessional memoirs that, of course, I do not regret having done at all. It’s been an extraordinary encounter with myself and with readers. It’s just been an amazing phenomenon. And then after that came Committed, the follow-up, but 12 years had passed and I hadn’t written a word of fiction.

This episode’s guest is the inspirational and accomplished: Tami Simon. Tami Simon is the founder of Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company dedicated to disseminating spiritual wisdom. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True has published more than 800 audio, video, music, and book titles along with online courses and events. A two-time winner of the Inc 500 award as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in America, Sounds True is widely recognized as a pioneer in providing life-changing, practical tools that accelerate spiritual awakening and personal transformation. This podcast is especially juicy, as Tami and I were emerging into a new phase of our relationship as my 10 year career at Sounds True came to a close. In this episode, Tami Simon and I speak about: Handling the everyday fear “Everything depends on how much you trust” Authenticity and its acceptance in society Mentorship and the best way to mentor The energy of tenacity and will and when to let go Tune in to listen to my conversation "Emerging Into Being" with Tami Simon. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Tami. It’s really great to be here with you. I thought that we could start this podcast by doing a check-in. And I might take a few minutes to just explain what that is to our listeners. At Sounds True, you’ve developed a policy to connect people before a team meeting or before a meeting of any significance. We go around the room and we [each] take a minute to say something personal about the state that we’re in at the beginning of the meeting, what might be going on in our lives or in our business and work lives that would be particularly illuminating for the meeting. It’s just a really nice way to drop in and connect to people before we actually have an exchange. So I wanted to do that check-in process, and I’ve missed the check-in process, because it’s been a few months now since I’ve been out of Sounds True and launching my own business. So it just feels so natural for me to start with that. I could start or you could start. How does that feel? Tami Simon: Why don’t you start? CP: OK. So I feel—and it’s good to get this out on the table—a little nervous. I feel that I’m showing my first poem to my favorite poet. I’m interviewing the interviewer, and it just feels like I’m navigating unknown waters here. I also feel so much gratitude to be here with you. I feel like you’ve really had such a big impact on my life, and to see our relationship go from me working with you intimately and working for you at Sounds True, and now here I am, I’m almost rubbing my hands together because I have you all to myself and I can ask you all these questions and we can do a deep dive. So I feel a lot of gratitude for that and my whole experience at Sounds True. I think I also feel just genuinely happy. I feel like this whole trajectory and my history—everything that’s happened between me and you at Sounds True, working to build Sounds True to where it is, it’s just made such an impact on me, both personally and in a business setting. And I feel like this is a very big crescendo that will maybe also extend and have many, many more crescendos. It just feels very significant for me. And I’m happy to be here. [Pause] Usually we say, “Welcome.” TS: Welcome, welcome. I noticed, when you said the possibility of doing a check-in, I suddenly felt tension in my stomach, and a sense of, “Oh, I’m going to be asked to come forward with how I’m actually feeling right now.” And I know that check-ins are the most powerful when people tell the most truth and go to the most depth of their being. And it’s one thing to check in with four or five people in a meeting, and it’s another thing to check in with a microphon...

This episode’s guest is the inspiring Kristin Neff. Kristin is a professor of human development and culture at the University of Texas, Austin, and she has practiced Buddhist Meditation since 1997. Dr. Neff and her family were the subject of the recent book and documentary The Horse Boy, which documented her family’s adventure with autism. A self proclaimed “Self-Compassion Evangelist”, Kristin Neff is the world’s leading expert on self-compassion. In addition to authoring numerous academic articles on self-compassion, she has written a new book titled “Self-Compassion,” released by William Morrow in 2011. In this episode, Kristin Neff and I speak about: The real meaning of Self-Compassion and how it differs from Self-Esteem, The masculine and feminine aspects of mindfulness and self-compassion, The researched results of self-compassion and what the findings mean for leaders, and women leaders in particular, How self-compassion takes us from recognition, to action, and the power creating a practice of self care and love, And finally, Kristin offers sage advice for those women on the precipice of their own emergence. Kristin Neff was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference. Tune in to listen to my conversation "The Real Meaning of Self-Compassion" with Kristin Neff. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.

This episode’s guest is the powerhouse Claire Zammit.  Claire is the co-creator of the Feminine Power training courses for women and co-leads a thriving learning community of hundreds of thousands of women throughout the world. In this episode, Claire Zammit and I speak about: “Feminine Power” Living our truth through relationship and our greater connection to the whole The best way to empower other women How spirituality will change with the rise of feminine power The feminine as the “Great Integrator” Her latest honor through Inc. Magazine and her company Evolving Wisdom   Claire Zammit was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference, October 10th-13th in Boulder, CO. Tune in to listen to my conversation "The Keys to Feminine Power" with Claire Zammit. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.   Transcript Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Claire! Claire Zammit: Hi, Chantal. Great to be with you. CP: I’m excited to be talking to you because I know that every time we get on the phone together, we end up talking about my favorite topic, which is feminine power. CZ: Yes, absolutely. CP: Well, maybe we should just jump in, and I know that’s the title of your upcoming book, and it’s the title of your work. I know you have a telecast and a workshop that does—I don’t know, how many thousands of people have listened to that workshop now? CZ: We’ve been teaching a seven-week course on feminine power for the last four years, and we’ve had about seven thousand women participate in that, [and] hundreds of thousands more with our free events. It’s something that I’m really seeing as speaking to women’s experience at a very deep level. I think that’s what we connect with when we have our conversations. So I’m excited to be able to dive into it today, together. CP: Well, why don’t we start by—it’s just interesting, “feminine” and “power.” They’re two very different energies, but together they totally make sense. And I’m just curious to see if you can start with defining what you mean by “feminine power.” CZ: Well, I might just start, if I can, with a bit of a story that creates a little context for it. I think this exploration and discovery [really] came out of our own experience. My teaching partner Katherine Woodward Thomas and the women that we were serving in the community we had started in Los Angeles—we had a center for transformation, and we were coaching women and working with women. And both of us were accomplished, successful women, as were the women we were serving. And we really noticed, in spite of having so much “power” in our lives, we both felt this very painful and confusing gap between the deeper potentials that we sensed for who we were as women, for the creative contribution, for the intimacy and connection of our relationships, and just for our overall experience of life. We couldn’t quite put our finger on what it was, and we found that women everywhere were having the same experience as us. At the same time, we noticed that there was a yearning towards the feminine that was happening. We [said,] “This is really interesting. So why don’t we do a class so we can begin to explore what the feminine is?” And the first night of class, it was [really] interesting: We listed these feminine qualities up on the board, and these masculine qualities up on the board—just common assumptions about [the] feminine: flowing, intuitive, receptive, surrendered, nurturing. And typical masculine qualities like logical, linear, hard, angular, penetrating. And we looked at these different energies and these different qualities, and what was noticed was that we were hungry, as a group, as women,

This episode's guest is the formidable Tara Sophia Mohr, an expert on women’s leadership and well-being. Download now to hear Tara and I discuss: Weaving spirituality practice in business How we keep ourselves small and the importance of “Playing Big” How to deal with criticism when stepping out and Playing Big The words: Pahad and Yirah and how they can help us understand our fear The value of mentorship   Tune in to listen to my conversation "Playing Big" with Tara Sophia Mohr. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript Chantal Pierrat: Well, Tara, welcome, and thank you for being here today. Tara Mohr: Thank you, thank you so much for having me.  CP: I’m so excited to have you today—half an hour or 45 minutes all to myself. I think I discovered you about a year ago or a year and a half ago. I’ve been getting your blogs and I read your poetry. And the thing that struck me the most was here was a woman who was diving into business, clearly very, very articulate and wise in the business world, but who was overtly—and I’m putting some emphasis on that because it’s unusual—spiritual. And I’m just so excited because it’s such a rare combination, and I would love to dig in a little bit more about your background and how that came to be and how you came to combine these two worlds that seemingly are very separate. So maybe we could just jump in there. TM: Yes. I’d love to begin there. That’s certainly been a big part of my journey. I was raised in a fairly unique way, hopefully a way that’s becoming less unique. My mom was very much a spiritual seeker, and had a huge passion for psychology. So our house was full of books from all different religious traditions, from the mystical side of all different religious traditions, and she was always busy reading them. She was up at 5 a.m. writing about spiritual topics, really just for her own journey. She raised me, every morning, at the breakfast table, asking me what did I dream the night before, and having me diagram my dreams out, the Jungian interpretation, on a yellow pad while I was having my oatmeal or my Cheerios or whatever it was at the time. And truly, I can remember incidents like being teased on the playground in kindergarten and coming home, getting into the car [when] my mom picked me up and saying, “Mom, so-and-so teased me, and I really hate him.” And she would always say one of two things in that scenario. She would say, “Well, what do you think is going on for that person at home that would make them tease another kid?” Or she would say, “How do you think God looks at that person?” So this was the milieu I was raised in, and it was particularly remarkable because it wasn’t attached to any organized religion. I grew up with this access to inner life and to spiritual concepts that I think children are ready for and can understand, but we often underestimate how much and how early they can understand [them]. So I would say that was one track that I was on from very early in life. And yet, at the same time, my parents were [a] middle class, professional, Jewish family who really valued education, and [they] were saying to me, “You’re bright and you have a lot of potential and we expect you to work hard in school and do well in school.” And school was a world that felt like the opposite of all that stuff I was just talking about. Because, of course, at school, nobody was asking what God thought about any of the other kids. [Laughs] Nobody was thinking about what dreams meant. School felt very hierarchical. I was always aware [of], “Oh, you can get a good grade or a bad grade.” And yet, my mom was saying every child was divine and special. So those things were at odds. In school, we would learn about,

In this episode the amazing powerhouse Alanis Morissette and I talk about: Vulnerability Strength with Femininity and balancing the Yin/Yang or Masculine and Feminine essence The effect of success on the creative process How anger can actually build intimacy in relationship And finally, Alanis gives her one piece of advice for women who are on the precipice of their own Emergence.   Tune in to listen to my conversation "Creative Intimacy and the Merging of Yin and Yang" with Alanis Morissette. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript: Chantal Pierrat: You’re listening to Grace and Fire, brought to you by Emerging Women. In today’s episode, Alanis and I spoke about vulnerability, strength, and femininity; and balancing the yin yang or masculine and feminine essence; the effect of success on the creative process; how anger can actually build intimacy in relationship; and finally, Alanis gives her one piece of advice for women who are on the precipice of their own emergence. Here is my conversation, “Creative Intimacy and the Merging of Yin and Yang” with the amazing and talented Alanis Morissette. OK, welcome, Alanis. Alanis Morissette: Thank you for having me. CP: This is such an honor. I just want to lay all my cards out on the table here. [Laughs] I’m feeling a little star struck, and I’m usually a pretty cool cat, I can hold my own, but at this point I’m feeling incredibly vulnerable. AM: Oh! CP: You’ve just had such an impact on my life, especially as a young woman, and I just want to get it out there and let you know that. I think I’m speaking for every one of our listeners that were born in this time that were influenced by Jagged Little Pill and your other albums—and I want to get into that a little bit, your new album. So there it is. It’s out on the table. So if I fumble— AM: [Laughs] And you’re still alive and you’re still safe and everything’s still OK. CP: I’m still OK! That’s right! AM: That’s so sweet, thank you. CP: Well, I thought I’d try and level the playing field a little bit and go in super deep on our first question, and hopefully that will the OK. AM: Yeah, go for the jugular, I live for that. [Laughs] CP: [Laughs] Great! So, with regards to vulnerability, when do you feel the most vulnerable? When do you feel the most naked? AM: I feel the most vulnerable with my husband, probably. I’m a big Harville Hendrix, Helen LaKelly Hunt, Imago therapy model fan, so I just really see that the degree of commitment and intimacy is commensurate to the degree of healing available. So for me, there’s no bigger commitment than marriage. Definitely motherhood, too, is a near second for obvious reasons. But the commitment of marriage is really vulnerable and really intentional, so there’s the great vulnerability of coming together in that three-phase process, in theory. There’s the infatuation that brings us together, all the chemistry and the animal stuff, and then there’s that disillusionment that turns into that power struggle and conflict. And in the theory, we could segue into this third phase where we actually help heal each other’s wounds and pull each other out of this survival strategy that helped us survive as kids into this wholeness. That’s the theory of it, and now I’m actually experiencing it in practice, which is incredibly vulnerable. And then there’s also a whole other chapter about deepening my vulnerability with my girlfriends, and just letting intimacy be the terrorizing thing that it can be, but also the beautifully healing thing that it can be. And there’s a great quote—the other day, my friend said, “The soul is shy.