SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to What Would Amber Do with your host, Amber Howard. Each week, Amber dances in conversation with inspirational leaders how to make a difference for what matters most to people. She brings you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being a leader and what it looks like to live a truly created life of service to others. And now, here is your host.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to What Would Amber Do. It is my privilege, pleasure, honor, pure joy this morning to be speaking with Denise Maby. Denise has spent her life educating our young people as a teacher, author, facilitator, and speaker. Denise life's Denise Life purpose is to give people a voice, especially our young people. Denise and I met in when I was coaching a leadership program years ago, and just I fell in love with you. I'm so grateful to have this time. And of all the days to have you on the show, it's your birthday. So from the entire What Would Amber Do community and all of us, and you know, just happy birthday and thank you for being here today.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Oh, thank you so much, Amber. And I am just thrilled to be here. I'm really honored. So thank you so much for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, thanks. It's so good. So we start the conversation and then we just kind of dance from here, you know, about your journey and you know, your journey through education, your journey to get to where you are today. What is that, you know, share with us what that journey's been like and and why why is giving a voice to others so important to you, Denise?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Okay. So my my journey in education uh started when I was really, really young. I used to play school all the time. My my parents were uh both teachers. Um my dad was a high school math teacher, and my mom uh was an art teacher. Um, and she basically created like her own classes. So it wasn't uh a typical art teacher, it was uh something that she created on her own. Anyway, and so I was, yeah, I was just surrounded by teachers and um and just always loved um helping people. And and so for me, becoming a teacher was just so natural. I mean, it was what I always wanted to do, and it just unfolded in such a beautiful way that I got to do something that I absolutely love and am passionate about and have a career at the same time. So I was really truly blessed to become a teacher. And um now the other thing is the giving of the voice. I found like when I was very young, um, I always stood up for the underdog. And I always found um, you know, times like for example, I remember in grade three, there was a young girl and and she was just standing by herself on the playground. And I noticed that. And I thought, I have to go over and be with her because I felt, you know, she must be so lonely and and she probably wants to play with people, but maybe doesn't know how to approach them. And anyway, long story short, I ended up going over and inviting her to play with my friends. And for some reason that really stuck with me. And uh, and it just made me realize that, you know what? Yeah, this is this is something that is important to me and something that I want to help instill in others to be there for other people and also to give people a voice. And um, and I'm very blessed too, because my parents um took us on many, many vacations when we were younger. And so we traveled uh to Australia. Um, we lived there for two years. My dad uh had a fellowship and uh teaching there in a high school, and so we got to experience what it was like to live in Australia in Melbourne for two years. And and then uh so meeting new people, meeting people who um, you know, had different ways of being, you know, and and even just traveling to Australia. We traveled to different countries, we went to New Zealand, we um we also on the way back to Canada, we went to Japan, Indonesia, and and we were just uh so blessed at such a young age, my sister and I, to have experienced, you know, that and and grown up with this understanding that um we just, you know, we're just so open to everybody, you know, and everybody's similarities and differences. And and uh so it was just so easy for me to step into that teaching role just with that understanding, too. So yeah, so that's kind of how it all came about. Um now with the voice, I I feel like when I was younger, I I was super, super shy. And uh I didn't speak very much. It was like I thought a lot, but I sure didn't share a lot. And uh so it wasn't until I was older that I started feeling more confident and more comfortable in my own skin enough to start sharing what I was thinking. And so to me, having grown up that way, I really understood what it was like to be um to feel like I couldn't share my voice, you know, even though I had opportunities too, I was just way too shy. Um, and I was also in some certain opportunities where I felt I couldn't share my voice. You know, I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings or I didn't want to step on someone's toes or things like that. And and so I uh chose to be quiet and just listen and let you know the wheels churn in my mind and not do anything or say anything. Um, so when I got older and had more confidence, I decided, and especially through teaching too and having a child, I realized no, it is so important for people to have a voice. And especially now in these days, where you know, having a voice is key to really showing who you are and having others accept you and appreciate you and honor you, you know, because of who you are. And and so that voice is absolutely key to showing people our true ways of being, but are also our essence too, right? Like it's who like and what I mean by essence is like our authentic selves. And uh so yeah, so I'd say that's probably a bit.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

You said a couple of things that really like resonated with me. The one, the importance of being seen. I think it's like something that's really fundamental to what it is to be human, is like, and and I want to talk with you in a moment about your I own it campaign, but I think there's something about shame that has, you know, especially for those things about ourselves that maybe we don't think are great or we think other people might judge us, or you, you know, there's a like a pull to not be seen in those areas. And I found it, I find it interesting, Denise. I had this conversation with someone just yesterday where I was sharing about I completed a an 11-month uh personal development program recently. And one of the things that they asked in the completion session was like, like, what have you accomplished in the program and what past, like having now on the other side of having accomplished that, what past is complete for you? And one of the things that I really got to see is like I really have grown and developed in partnership over the last 11 months and and am out to explore partnership at an even deeper level in the in the coming year. And what that completes for me, like having that accomplishment of like learning, like being willing and open to partnership in a way that I haven't ever been before. It like completes this past where I felt alone for most of my life, which for many people probably would surprise them. Because I'm always surrounded by people I always have been, and I've always had really great relationships, but there was some way in which I felt disconnected. And it's ironic, given my purpose is to fulfill in a future where every human being feels profound love, connection, and belonging. And and in the conversation about that yesterday, there was this like perhaps that which we seek to give others is you know what we didn't have, right? And so for you growing up as someone who didn't use your voice or didn't feel you could use your voice, or you know, it's like well, and I and I think it makes sense because it's like, well, you have to have experienced it, right? Like in order to know that can how important connection is, you m must have experienced disconnection.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

And like really be present to and see, and I do for my family and you know, the my family history and some of the generational things that got passed down and and and things that happened to my parents that really weren't okay, like see the impact and the effect of that level of disconnection when we're disconnected from our own humanity or disconnected from other human beings. So I'm interested to hear from you, like given the work that you've done for most of your life in education, working with our kids, like what can you what could you say about the impact on on our young people when they're not free to use their voice?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Wow, that's uh that's a good question. Um I'd say the impact on on our young children is is not feeling a freedom, um, not feeling a sense of belonging, you know, like uh feeling like, as you had mentioned, like really being on their own and and and not finding their place in this world, you know, or feeling like they have to uh fit in when they don't really want to fit in, you know, or feel they they have something else to say or do. Um, but it's it's just not they're not in the moment where they feel like they can, you know, and because they're worried about being judged and criticized. And uh so I think for young people, I think it's so vital to teach them that it's okay, you know, to to just be and and to accept themselves the way they are and basically the way they aren't, you know, and and to really own what is important to them so that they can self-express, you know, what what what you know that that importance is to them and and to be able to later in life really stand up for themselves so that they won't get taken in by anybody else's views or they'll be able to um stand up and really just be you know what's important to them.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

It was interesting when you said the part about fitting in. And you know, each of us is a unique self. There's a unique self, an authentic self that wants to get expressed, but yet we live in a world, I think, that is constantly telling us from the outside that there's some way that we should be or life should be, or some way that our life should go. You know, there's just a lot of shoulding, right? And then that like I can really see how that gets in the way of that unique self seeking to find expression in the world. Like, what what what is it that I really want? What is it that I'm here to create? What is it that I'm here to say? When we and and I I I may I, you know, maybe not a conversation for right now, but you've given me a place to kind of inquire to because children, when they're firstborn, are very self-expressed. They will say anything, I mean, almost to the point of embarrassing their parents, right? And I wonder if that's where it starts. Like, where where does it start that children lose their voice? I was talking to my um one of my mentors the other day, and we were talking about like my plans for the future and like what I've got, you know, like I really see a future where we've fulfilled all the United Nations sustainable development goals. Like that's done, like checked those off, and we're sitting around a table as global leaders, writing the next set of goals for humanity. And, you know, and I don't even know what those goals would be because we kind of like, you know, you can imagine, kind of like science fiction allows us to create possible things to look at in the future. You could imagine, but it's a little hard from where we sit right now to even imagine what that next set of goals would be. But she said, like, what would that make available in the world? And I said, Well, imagine a world, like as adults, we spend so much of our lives unbecoming the traumas that we experienced as children, so we can get back to this authentic self that we were born into the world as. To imagine a world where adults didn't have to unbecome.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Oh, that would be absolutely liberating. You know, it would be freedom. It would be, and I truly believe that teaching young children is the key. I really do, because I think because they're so young and they don't have all this baggage and they don't, you know, have they're so open too, you know, to hearing new ideas and they're malleable, malleable their brains. And and I think that teaching children at a young age that you know everybody has um similarities and everyone has differences, and really understanding that if we can learn to appreciate and accept and love people for their similarities and differences, then I think that is creating a beautiful platform for people in the world to create peace, you know, like to have peace around the world if everybody really does accept and love and cherish each other. Because if you think about wars, for example, well, what causes wars? Well, it's a disagreement, and it's a disagreement over something that someone else, you know, feels well, this is this is important to me, but it may not necessarily be important to you, but I feel very strongly about it, and this is the way it's going to be, and I'm going to show you this is the way it's gonna be. And so in doing that, it and overpowering people like that, then it really um takes away from seeing the beauty in people, like seeing so raising children with the understanding of having a voice and having a voice through um a realization that everybody is made up of many, many different identities, you know, and that the physical identities on the outside aren't necessarily what the whole person is about. And so it's really looking at um the identities inside. And when I say identities, what I mean is um like personality traits, or it could be things like uh nationality or um gender identity or um age, you know, like all of these different things, like when you we're all made up of like over 700 different identities. And when you put all of those identities together, then you're looking at the real person, you know, and sometimes it's really hard being an onlooker and seeing just the outside identities, because we tend to make judgments really quickly. And when we make judgments, then that you know kind of creates this idea in our mind of who that person is, when in fact the person could be completely different if they knew all of the person's identities. And so I believe raising children with the understanding that appreciating, acknowledging, and accepting and loving each person's similarities and differences will lead to peace in the world one day.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah, wouldn't that be great? Yeah. Like, yeah, it's like a but to me, like what I hear in that conversation is about moving beyond like you know, for so long, in the conversation for diversity and you know, especially here in Canada, I can't speak for the rest of the world. It's been a conversation for tolerating difference, right? It's like, well, I'll grant you that you're allowed to be different beside me, but it's like there's a real, like I think there's something else to really be gained and and discovered when we move past just tolerating difference, like your right to be different, into a space of like really accepting, embracing, and celebrating difference. Like, wow, like your difference. Like, yeah, we have all of these similarities. And I think as human beings, especially in our shared experience of being human, yes, like there's that this shared experience of being human that transcends culture and location and any of those identities. Because as human beings, we know we all experience shame, we all experience disconnection, we all bump up against being seen and and living a creative life and like really living a life that we want based on what other people might think, or all of these things. Like it's a shared experience of being human. And but like when when I'm in the world, like wow, like what could I discover newly about myself? Or how could I expand based on our difference? Like, how could your indifference, how could your difference or the difference between us enhance me and my experience of life and who I am? Um, when you allow for that, I I think, and in teaching our children, and I think children do that naturally at first. Yeah, I and then I think they lose that somewhere along the way because there becomes this narrative or network of conversations that difference is somehow, you know, something to be threatened by or or scared of or and we can really learn a lot about ourselves through the eyes of others, you know, it's almost like reflecting ourselves by looking or hearing or listening to others.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

And um yeah, so it's it's really important that you know to stay open. And I agree with you. I think, you know, along the way, children tend to get jaded. Um, biases, we're we're all biased in some way. I mean, if we're gonna be really honest, we all are. And it's it's because of the way we were raised, it's because of societal expectations, and and and so there are you know reasons, but at the same time, we also have a choice, and we have a choice of whenever those biases pop up, we have a choice of acknowledging them and then moving forward from them. And and I think that's the key to to making a difference too in our world, because it's it's by facing your biases, it's hard, you know, it's really, really hard. And in doing so, you have to kind of look back and see how you learned that bias and why you have it. And in doing so, it can, you know, it can stir up some emotions and and uh and make it a little difficult to move forward from it. But at the same time, moving forward from it is so it opens up a whole new world, you know, where we can put those things aside and just accept people for their similarities and differences, and in turn, ours as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I love it. I think it seems like a natural kind of like um shift to talk a little bit about your I own it campaign. So, you know, you created a campaign where you invited people to own parts, and I want to hear you say more about it and and what you really discovered inside of that. But we invited people to own parts, like publicly own parts of themselves that maybe they hadn't before, or maybe they were afraid to, or they were, you know, like what people might think. And um, I think there's so much power in that because the things that we the things that we can't own about ourselves, right? Or we can't, we believe can't be seen, like we just have no power in those spaces. And when we have to, you know, and it's like massive sources of disconnection for people, which has people feel unfree and alone and all of that. So I'd love to hear from you like what was that like for the people that you shared that campaign with? Like, what was uh where did it come from? And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Um well originally it it came from um I was taking a uh a course, and uh and there was some something to do. With um bullying. And so I was talking to somebody, you know, at this course about bullying. And uh and he mentioned, well, you know what? If someone's being bullied, if the person owns what they're being bullied about, then it takes the power away from the bully. And it just totally resonated with me. And I took that back to school and shared it with students who were being bullied. And it was unbelievable. And then it just totally unfolded from there. I just I have this creative side. And so for me, whenever I get like a little tidbit like that, then it just, you know, just I go crazy with it. So what I decided to do was I I decided to um create this I own it campaign. And I happened to be at a peace, um, like a peace tree, not a peace tree, sorry, it was a conference through our board. And uh we were just talking about basically just being yourselves and and sharing who you are, and and uh and and I was with a couple of students and we were to go back and and to uh share what we learned from this conference. Anyway, as we were there, it just I don't know, things were just like happening and came together, and and it just I thought, okay, own it, own it. We've got to own it here. And so I I was talking to the the students and I said, you know what, we need to start an Ionic campaign where people can just own something that's really important to them and just take a stand for themselves. You know, then the students are like, yeah, that's cool. Anyway, so we went back. We went back and and um and then we initiated this ionic campaign. And it was, oh Amber, it just like when I talk about it, I get so excited because voice, you know, giving giving students a voice, especially young people, is so important to me. And this was an opportunity and a very easy way to do that. And so what we did was we asked everybody who wanted to participate to write an I own it statement. So it's I'm blank and I own it. That's simple. And it could be anything, anything that was important to that person. So people own things like I'm artistic and I own it, or I'm athletic and I own it, I'm a hockey player and I own it. Um, and then other people went like a lot deeper. And I found it depended on how the teacher introduced it to the students, that depended on what kind of um, you know, what they were going to write. And so the the students who um wrote deeper things, like one student wrote something about um about being like how she was raised and and she was from an orphanage, and um and that how she was so grateful, you know, for her parents now and and how they've raised her in such a positive way and made her feel like she belongs. And I mean, that's you know, yeah, it was a little shorter than that, but but uh but yeah, so basically just owning how she was raised. Another student owned that she was bulimic, which is huge. There was even another student um who was um uh like educable, um, but had some had some challenges uh in learning, and she owned saying I learned differently. And that was so impactful to the teachers because they didn't even think they that she understood anything they were saying, so it was just such, and and there you go, giving her voice, right? And and how powerful that is. And and there was another girl in in a different school who owned um being ADHD, and it was a fascinating. I got a letter from her parents, and she they were saying that basically um their daughter was just diagnosed with ADHD, and they're trying to help her accept her diagnosis, and they had no idea how to do it. And so they talked to psychologists, they talked to teachers, they talked to you know, friends and everybody, and nobody seemed to have a way of making her feel comfortable with it. Well, it happened that uh the Ionate campaign um was happening in her school, and uh, and she owned being ADHD. And now what happened was with all of these Ionit statements, they were put on a bulletin board. And so now this was back before the pandemic. So, you know, people were able to walk around freely in the school. Yes, yeah, and without masks, so you could see, you know, who was who. And uh anyway, so um this I own it uh bulletin board was on display in a very prominent place in the school. So parents could see it, teachers, you know, everyone could see it, students. And uh and so people would walk by and they would look and they would see everybody's voices, you know, and what they were owning. And it was just so, oh, I get chills whenever I talk about this, but it was just so impactful because, you know, it's it was such an opportunity to share something, you know, that they may not necessarily share. And anyway, so this young girl who had ADHD or has ADHD, um, she noticed one day when she was walking, um just walking in the hallway where the Iona bulletin board was, and there were two other students looking at it and reading her her um poster. And they were like, wow, I didn't know she had ADHD. That's really cool that she's owning it. Anyway, so she went over to those students and said, you know what? Yeah, I do have ADHD. And anytime you want to learn about it, come find me. And so it was like, oh yes. And that's really the whole idea behind this Iona campaign. And it really took off. Like we we got some funding for it um from the government. I was able to go to 12 different schools, um, and these schools had Ionate boards. Um, I even shared it with other people in the board, and they were looking at creating their own Ionate boards too in the office. And and so it's it's really something that is so powerful and just yet so easy to do. Anybody can do it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Oh great. I hear like permission. I hear a lot of things, but I hear permission. Like when you started talking about bullying, it was like, I think people bully other people because there are parts of themselves they can't own. Yes, right. And then it's like, so I'm gonna like go out out here to try and fix something in the circumstance of my external world because there are parts of my internal self and internal world that I can't, you know, like it's whether it's I'm in pain and I'm, you know, my home environment or my environment is unworkable, and and so I'm trying to get control by pay causing pain to other people, like whatever that is, right? And and then this whole piece around this whole piece around giving people permission uh to own parts about themselves that typically like we wouldn't, or we think it's that they they should be some other way. Like it's like you have ADHD, well, I shouldn't have ADHD. And we know from the work that anytime, anything you resist just keeps persisting, right? So giving people the tool, like this very simple yet powerful tool to transform and create a new frame around themselves, right? So the what's so is I have ADHD. Okay, well, you know, how could I frame that in a way that it that doesn't end up being something that holds me back in life or you know, a problem, but like it's just a part of of the makeup of who I am as a as a person. And was you while you were talking, I was thinking about like some of the things that are dividing us right now in in Canada and around the world, like specifically around um around COVID. You know, it's like I'm vaccinated and I own it, or I'm not vaccinated and I own it.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Like, you know, I support passports and I own it. I don't support, but it like takes some of the, it's like, oh, all of a sudden you get to see that, you know, it's a point of view. It's it's it's it's like and there's space for so many different points of view about uh any given topic, right? And then you can start to perhaps dialogue about something that up until that point in time, people were just like monologuing about, right? Like even if they're monologuing on loudspeaker, it's not a it's not a two-way di or or more than two-way discussion. It's people putting their their, you know, you you're gonna find agreement or not about something, right? Like you may you'll you'll surround yourself with people who share your point of view. But that doesn't mean that an actual dialogue is happening that's gonna ford a conversation. Yeah, so I think that's really beautiful. And uh so tell me a little bit because you're an author, you've written my shoe book, and you're in the process of writing another book. Uh, so you're a children's book author. How did the I Own It campaign and the other work that you've done, like talk about, you know, tell us about your book and um what was the journey? Because one of the things like, you know, I think I I got when I was preparing for this conversation this morning, Denise, is like I really got present to the evolution of ourselves, right? So, like, and the evolution of our ideas and how they build from one to the other, right? So it's like you you you are educating, you know, even you could even go back in this conversation to when you were a child, right? You you grew up in an environment of educators, you played school as a child, and and that formed a path that you you you started, you just kept moving further and further down and perhaps deepening, right? So I'd love to hear about the book and and the the you know, the catalyst for the book and and perhaps what was the relationship, like how did the book get born out of the other work that you'd done?

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, I I love my shoe book. It's like, and I think it's because it it represents what I so believe in, you know, with giving everyone a voice and and understanding identities. And anyway, so how it all came about was uh around the time of the Ionic campaign, I was also um giving workshops with uh our uh teacher federation, and it was uh rethinking white privilege. And I first learned um more about intersectionality of identities uh through that workshop, like preparing for the workshop. And uh and basically intersection of ident identities basically means that uh we're all made up of many different identities, and it's the intersection, it's how those identities fit together that really show who we are, you know. So that intersectionality. Anyway, so I are again probably a couple of months later, I happened to be at a workshop um at our board, and I uh went to the washroom, and uh on the back of the stall, in the I saw this amazing quote. And that's the quote that starts my book. And the quote is equality means everyone gets a shoe, equity means everyone gets a shoe that fits. And for some reason, again, with my the way my mind works, in that moment, boom, I knew exactly what I was gonna do. And so that weekend, I went home and took two and a half hours and wrote my shoe. And it just, it was like, it was just like a divine download, you know, like it just I don't know where it was coming from. But I mean, I obviously it was, you know, everything I believed in. And then it was just like I was suddenly excited and and um and just wrote the book um and inspired. Anyway, so I wrote the book, and then I remember going down to my son and and saying, because I've written like many children's books, like when Mitchell was growing up. And uh and I any and I hadn't published any at that point. And anyway, so I went down to Mitchell. I said, Mitchell, I just wrote a book. I'm so excited about it. And he said, Yeah, yeah. Or kids, right? Yeah, I used to go, oh, here we go, another one of mom's stories, you know. Anyway, but from there, it just, you know, I worked on it and shared it with other people. And uh it just it just like blossomed and and just went crazy, you know, from there. And and in fact, I I uh created a workshop around it and was part of a big conference, an educational conference called Quest, um, which is happens once a year and it's it's a really big, big, big educational conference within our board. And uh so I was very fortunate to um to present, you know, based on my book, a workshop. And it was all around intersectional intersectionality of identities and and uh just really looking at our biases and how we can move forward from them. So yeah, so it was really cool. They're really, really cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

And so great. When you talk about like moving, you know, like the first step is awareness, right? Like when you talk about moving past our biases, like and I don't know that I love the word normalized, but like when we can just start to be authentic about the fact that we do have biases, right? Like that that is part of the experience of being human being. And and it and it really, I think, like if I look at my training in neurolinguistic programming and neuroscience, it's like, well, I have a map of the world, right? In my mind, there's a point of view, a context, the way in which I see the world. And then my my subconscious mind is constantly like without me even being present to it and aware of it, unless I choose to bring, you know, I have the tools and I can bring the awareness to it. But by default, my my my experience of life, of other people, of of everything is constantly being filtered through this map I have of the world. And that map is all based on my past experiences. So I really do believe that. And I've I've I've lived that myself. And and so of course we have biases because that's the how the brain is processing the living of life. And and that filtering is happening even before we're aware of it. Like you and I, in our subconscious mind, is filtering this conversation, even as we're having it. People listening to this episode of the show are filtering what they're hearing, and they'll hear some things and they won't hear others, and some things will be more significant for them. And it's all based on their perceptions of the world. So when we can, again, I don't know that I love the word normalize it, but when we we can just create safe spaces, which is what I really hear that you're doing and is a common thing amongst all of your work, Denise, is like creating safe spaces for people to be authentic about elements of themselves that perhaps they haven't been able to be authentic about before. And and and have that just be like not just okay, but like celebrate the fact that that we're we're human. And and because until we can be with all of it, we're gonna be in an upset.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Absolutely. Yeah, no, you nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. And and that the Ionic campaign did create a safe space because everybody chose of all chose what they wanted to own, but also posting it, and it was really cool too, because it was just uh basically a um from the shoulder or I guess from the chest up, so to the top of a person's head, and then in front of a person, the person's chest, they were holding their sign, their Ionate sign. So every single picture looked the same, but yet, of course, it was a different person and a different message. And that was done intentionally because we wanted to show that we all belong, you know, like we're all a part of this. And we may look differently, we may sound differently, we may act differently, you know, but or we may own something differently. But really, we're all in this together, you know, in this big journey of owning it. And uh I just I can't speak enough about how powerful this is. And I'm I've decided, Amber, now that I've retired, I'm going to uh, even though I talk about still, I'm still talking about my board and you know, because I still feel connected, but um, but I am going to be taking this on the road. And I'm going to be taking, I don't even know exactly how it's going to look right now, but it is going on the road. And I'm going to empower people around the world to own it, you know, and do something that they're that's important.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Well, when there's nothing about ourselves like that, you know, I love it for a lot of different reasons. And it just really echoes my own experience, right? Because for most of my life, there were parts of myself that I couldn't own and I couldn't be authentic about. And and that is really what was at the source of a lot of my experience of being alone. Uh, and and that, you know, like we talk about the masks that we wear, like the facade, like in order to be, you know, we think that in order to belong and connect and be in community, we have to be a certain way or we have to look a certain way. Or, you know, and and if we don't, then there's parts of ourselves that we either kill off or we hide. And um, and that's what causes disconnection. Like, show me a world where everyone is like able to be seen for who they authentically are and get that actually connection, like they they just belong because they're human. Right.

unknown 40:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

And that like if if we don't belong somewhere, it's a as a function of often our thoughts and our speaking, right? Like, what if I I already always belong to every community that existed in the world, just by virtue of being a human being that we belong.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Oh wow.

unknown 40:56

Right?

SPEAKER_02 40:57

A sense of belonging is more powerful than a sense of love. Like that's how important it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Well, yeah. I and I think, yeah, I mean, I that's interesting. Thank you for saying that. Because now there's somewhere for me to look and for anyone listening to the show, like, you know, for yourself, I um what is that? You know, the relationship between, like, you know, the relationship between love and belonging, and uh and a place perhaps to inquire into. So I'm excited. Congratulations on your retirement. I love how you still talk about being part of the board because I think we carry the past with us, right? So and you did have such a great experience of being an educator, and so you get to bring all of that to the table as you go out and embark on what's next. And so I know that you've created a platform called Just Be You, and and we'll be excited to watch and see what happens in the future, Denise. And and if there's anything that myself, you know, you know, I'm one of your biggest fans. So if there's ever anything that I can do personally to support you on this journey, because I I think it takes so many of us, you know, being out there, fulfilling on our unique purpose, whatever that is for ourselves. Um, you know, that's what's really going to have us create a world that works for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

And absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

I want to acknowledge you and thank you. Because I get that the journey to be an entrepreneur or the journey to get out in the world and create your own thing, whatever that is, it can be a confronting journey at times. You you it requires expansion in so many different ways. And so I, you know, whenever I see someone who is living a created life, really pursuing the things that light them up, um, I just you know want to acknowledge that that courage because you know it really is about failing forward, like learning as you're going and expanding. And so just I'm sure we'll have you back on the show further down the road as you continue to develop this idea. And and for anyone listening to the show, if you want to connect with Denise, you can find out how to, you know, to connect with her in the show notes. And just thank you so much for for your stand that our children and that all people have a voice and are heard.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Oh, thank you, Amber. And and as I said at the very beginning, it's been an honor to be here with you. And I just absolutely love you two to bits. And I love what you stand for. And and again, you know, it's like being kindred spirits, you know, and working together. More people who think the way we think, it's it's just gonna ripple. And I do believe that every like our society is now more open to thinking the way we do. I really feel that. And I'm really excited to say that too.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Yeah, well, you know, it's over here where I said, and I think you agree, it's only going one way, right? Like, and it's not like there's a right way for it to go, but it's like um like if if enough of us keep standing in this place, and if we keep taking action in in pursuit of inquiry and and what would it take? And what does it, what's it gonna look like? We will. It's it's just a matter of time, and then we get to stand from that place and create what's next. And just thank you for being a partner on that journey and and thank you for being here on the show this morning.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

It's so my pleasure, Amber. And thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Amazing for everyone listening to the show. Thank you, and we will catch you next week. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For more information on the show and our extraordinary guests, check out whatwoodamberdo.com.