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- [00:03]
Kevin Allison
On this episode of Risk, you'll hear.
- [00:06]
Rebecca Heron
There was so much pain and he would come in and just sort of guide me into this really beautiful soft spot.
- [00:13]
Kevin Allison
And you'll hear as we walked, we.
- [00:16]
Stella Meyerhoff
Would stop periodically and we'd let out one of these calls, but we didn't hear anything return.
- [00:23]
Kevin Allison
And of course you'll hear me. Kevin Allison on the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to.
- [00:40]
Stella Meyerhoff
We'll be right back.
- [00:43]
Peloton Advertiser
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- [01:05]
Brooklyn Adams
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- [01:38]
Kevin Allison
Now here's the show. Hello folks, this is our good friend Rafter behind me now, and this episode is called How Can I Tell you Stories about Difficult Conversations or the stories we put off Telling, sometimes for too long. Now the second story we're going to hear on this episode was recorded in one of my online storytelling workshops. To be clear, we record the workshop sessions only for the workshop participants to refer back to. But the second story in this episode is a special exception where I asked the storyteller from one of our workshops if I could run the audio of them telling their story to their fellow students in the Zoom session. That's Rebecca Herron's story, and I'll tell you more about that after the break. But to start things off, we have a story by Stella Meyerhoff, a story about journeying beyond your homeland and encountering the deepest kind of grieving along the way. Here's Stella now with a story we call in ways I never could have imagined.
- [03:18]
Stella Meyerhoff
So when I was a kid, I loved Saturday mornings. I would Run downstairs. And I would go through our family's collection of VHS tapes and I would search through them one by one, trying to find the perfect movie to watch. So I would see Matilda. No. The Lion King. No. The Sandlot. No. And I would set aside every 90s kid's favorite movie until I found the perfect movie. It was this documentary about ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau.
- [03:51]
Rebecca Heron
Long before there was a spring of.
- [03:53]
Kevin Allison
Grass on Earth, there was life in the water.
- [03:57]
Stella Meyerhoff
Now, I'm pretty sure that this single handedly ruined any chances of me ever winning 90s trivia as an adult, but I spent so many mornings watching that movie and it spread, sparked this love of animals and of adventure in me. And so I would sit in complete awe as I watched Jacques Cousteau and his crew venture out into the ocean. And I was completely entranced by the sea creatures that he would find that would just swim across my TV screen. And I feel like I should say that the Lion King is obviously a great movie, but this movie, this documentary, was real life. And so, years later, I went to college and I decided to take a primate behavior class on a whim, just for fun. And within the first lecture, I was immediately transformed into a child again. I was completely captivated by this idea that scientists got to explore the most remote areas of the world and they got to travel to all these exciting places to study animals. And. And I became determined to do that myself. And so after college, I spent a year working with bonobos in captivity. And bonobos are often described as being like chimpanzees, and in many ways they are. But bonobos, unlike chimpanzees, are female dominant, and they're actually relatively peaceful animals. And the males are still stronger, but the females kind of rally together and keep the males in check. So needless to say, I immediately fell in love with them and I decided that I wanted to study them in the wild. However, bonobos only live in one country in the entire world, and that's the Democratic Republic of Congo in one of the densest jungles in the world, where fieldwork is notoriously dangerous and difficult. And I was a little concerned about this. But I ultimately decided that if Jacques Cousteau could venture deep into the ocean, I could trek through the forest, cross rivers, and live in a remote field site to study Bosnia. And it was my chance to live the adventures that I had watched as a child. And I knew that it would be the experience of a lifetime. So I applied for my dream job studying them in the wild. And somehow I Was hired as a research assistant at a remote field site in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo, working on a project to study the social lives of bonobos. So before I left for the field, a former professor of mine told me, it will be hard in ways that you never could have imagined. And so I came to terms with the fact that it was going to be one of the most challenging things that I would likely ever do. And I tried to be as prepared as possible. I packed as much as I could possibly fit into my bag. I bought enough first aid supplies and medications to fill a small pharmacy. I bought medical evacuation insurance, which explicitly stated that they would bring my body back, even if it was in parts.
- [07:06]
Rebecca Heron
Yeah.
- [07:07]
Stella Meyerhoff
And so I spoke to people who previously worked at the field site, and I asked for their advice. And generally, I just tried to prepare as much as humanly possible for how hard field work was going to be. And I quickly learned that just getting to the field site was an adventure all on its own. After two days of traveling just to make it to Kinshasa, I rode in a tiny little propeller plane that landed in a field on purpose. And that's where I met the field site manager, Simon, who was a Swiss man who had disheveled hair and also just seemed entirely unshakable. And he also had the most contagious smile. I learned through walking with Simon through the forest that he was unshakeable. We trekked through dense forests, and these were parts of the forest that required a lot of attention and care. Every footstep, you had to pay attention to where you were walking. And we would then also walk through these open savannas that felt never ending in the incredible heat. And the sun really made us feel like we were being pushed to our limits because of how hot it was in those savannas. And we crossed rivers, we would hold our belongings above our head as we walked, and then we also would travel a bit by dugout canoe. And after six hours of a combination of all these things, we finally made it to camp. So Simon arrived happy and energized, as if he had just been, you know, walking around the block or woke up from a nap. And I arrived exhausted and seriously contemplating my life choices. And when we were at camp, there were usually around a dozen people or so staying at camp at a given time. Most of them were international researchers and field assistants from places like Russia and France and Germany and Mexico. And then there were also locals who work for the project in two weeks rotations, and they would help us keep track of the bonobos or help catch fish for our meals. And all of us lived in tents. And each tent was situated underneath a hut like structure that had a roof made of leaves. And our only source of water was the river. And our equipment was powered by the lone, somewhat functioning solar panel that we had. And once a day we could send or receive text only emails through our radio satellite system. The weather had to be pretty good for that to happen, though. So the field site was kind of like a social pressure cooker, for better or for worse. On the one hand, I became instant best friends with people like t, a research assistant who was around my age and looked effortlessly cool in the field and shared my stupid sense of humor. And the two of us would laugh so hard together that we would end up crying, and then we would start laughing because we were crying. And then there was also Toko. And Toko was a local man who was about my height, which is not very tall, and he was always, always happy. And Toko loved to poke fun at me for how clumsy I am, especially in the forest. And so every time I even kind of stumbled, Toko would yell tombe, which is the French word for to fall. And he would have a huge grin on his face. And it eventually happened so often that he just started calling me Tombe. Tombe, that became my name. And so this was all lovely and wonderful, but the reality was that the social pressure cooker environment also made things incredibly difficult, especially when personalities clashed. So, for example, there was Moke. Now, I can tell you all about how Moke was this strong, tall Congolese man with a glistening bulb head. But what you really need to know about Mokke is that what Mokue loved the most was Moke. So, aside from mentioning his son, Mokay only spoke about himself pretty much. And I had never met someone so unabashedly arrogant. He absolutely loved to hear the sound of his own voice and had this incredible, incredible gift for dismissing anything I said without even hearing it in the first place. At one point, I was tasked with trying to teach some of the locals how to use the gps. And while many of them tried very hard to learn, and some did, Moke despised the fact that a woman, especially a young woman, was giving him any sort of instructions. So he just outright refused to try to use the gps. And I quickly learned that there was no winning with him. And his presence essentially became this perpetual thorn in my side. On a good day, he would ignore me, and on a bad day, he would scream directly into my face. His Face, like inches away from my face and mock me. I know this forest better than you and I don't need the gps. I can make it through the forest by myself. So even if some of the social dynamics made things difficult, my job wasn't to live at camp. My job was to study the bonobos that I had longed to see in the wild. And that was also hard. So we would wake up long before the sun came up. We would walk for over an hour on most days through the forest with our headlamp lighting the way just to reach the bonobos before the day even really started. And then once the bonobos woke up, they would start moving, and each day we would follow them as they made their way through the forest, recording data on what they did and ate. Throughout the day, we would collect urine samples and fecal samples, all so that we could better understand how female bonobos maintain their relationships and how that serves as the backbone of their female dominance as well, society. And so life in the field was certainly brutal and the forest was nothing short of relentless. And as we ran through the forest, these sandpaper textured vines would scratch our skin and leave behind this photosensitive chemical that made our skin feel like it was absolutely on fire when it was exposed to the sunlight. And then we were regularly attacked by driver ants that have jaws that are so strong that they're actually used as makeshift stitches in the villages because they'll clamp down and close a wound. So you can imagine it hurts a lot when you get bit by them and they bite you often. We also had other animals that were kind of scary to be around. Within two weeks, I had encountered an elephant that was flapping its ears at me, which is a sign that it was very, very much time for me to run as fast as possible. And then one morning while I was walking, long before the sun came up, I saw my headlamp reflect back to me in a pair of huge, beady cat eyes. And I watched as a leopard slipped away quietly into the forest. Another day, I narrowly missed stepping on a boomslang, which is one of the most venomous and dangerous snakes in the entire world. So a lot of really, really dangerous things that were in the forest. The bonobos also didn't exactly take routes that were convenient for humans. And so some days they would cross rivers or they would climb up and down cliffs all day long, leaving us frantically trying to catch up with them. And now I've said that the work was hard, but I think I should specify here that the work was Hard for the international researchers, the locals made this job look easy. So Toko, for example, was an expert at keeping up with the bonobos. And there were so many days when we'd go out into the forest together, Toko and I, and I'd fall behind as the bonobos suddenly took off into the forest through the trees, and I would be desperately trying to keep up with them, trudging through the brutal terrain and climbing over fallen trees and bushwhacking through the foliage that was so dense, sometimes I could only see a couple feet ahead of me. And if I was lucky, the bonobos would take a break from traveling to nap or to eat, and I would have the chance to finally catch up with them. And I would be panting and covered in leaves and covered in ant bites and who knows what else. Inevitably, there would be Toko sitting quietly at the bottom of a tree as if he'd been resting there all day. And so, despite these challenges, there were also countless moments that made it all absolutely worth it. Sometimes I would find myself sitting just a few feet away from my favorite bonobo, Iris. Iris was this older female with these really gentle eyes. She kind of reminded me of Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas. She kind of looked like as though at any moment she would offer some gentle wisdom that she'd gathered over her lifetime. That was kind of Iris as a whole. And there were also these days when the bonobos would take me to the most beautiful parts of the forest, and they would barely travel. And so I could actually pause for a moment and take everything in. And I'd set down my backpack and I would look up to see a group of baby bonobos playing with each other in the trees, fearlessly swinging from branch to branch and tackling each other and chasing each other. And I will never forget my favorite moment in Congo. I was following several bonobos as they slowly walked through the forest ahead of me. And all of a sudden, I heard this noise behind me. And I turned around and I realized that the rest of the group, which had kind of been straggling and trailing behind us all day, had caught up with us. And so suddenly I was walking through the forest, completely surrounded in every direction by bonobos, just walking alongside me. I remember in that moment realizing that it was the closest I had ever experienced to real magic. And so one day at camp, someone that I didn't recognize showed up and said that he had news from the village. And this was very abnormal because the village was several hours walking away, and so it wasn't usual for someone to just show up at camp, Someone that didn't work for the project. And so the visitor told me that I needed to find moke. And all I knew was that moke was somewhere in the forest looking for the bonobos. I knew the general direction that he'd gone, but really nothing beyond that. And so I filled up my water bottle, I packed up my backpack, and I set off a tali to find moke. And as we walked, we would stop periodically to make calls into the forest. And these were calls that we would use so that we could locate each other from far distances. So we would walk a little bit, and we'd let out one of these calls, so it kind of sounded like this, but we didn't hear anything in return. And we'd walk a little farther, and we'd let out another call. We didn't hear anything return. And then finally, after nearly two hours of searching for moke, we heard a callback. And so tali and I bushwhacked our way through the forest until we found moke. And moke saw the concern on my face, and I realized that he processed it, because for the first time, I could tell that he was actually waiting to hear what I had to say. And so I told him the news. Votre babee etre malade. Vous devez retuner au villages. Your baby is very sick, and you need to go back to the village immediately. But that was a lie. The truth was that moke's baby boy had already died from malaria. I had been told by the man from the village to only tell moke that his son was sick, because moke still had to walk the whole way back to the village, where his wife would tell him the truth. And so we walked back to camp in complete silence. And deep down, I think that moke knew. There was something about the way that he just stared at me without responding to what I had just told him, and then abruptly took off toward camp. And he walked so quickly that I could barely keep up with him. And I was grateful for that, because if I had to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other as fast as I possibly could, I couldn't think about what had just happened. And it occurred to me at the time that maybe moke was doing the same. So we got back to camp, and moke remained silent. He packed up his bags, and he left for the village. And the moment that he was out of sight, I had tears streaming down my face. That night, I wrote home today. I had to Lie to a father so that a false sliver of hope could get him to walk for hours back to the village, only so that he could be told that his baby boy was dead. Looking at my watch, I realize that he knows by now he's made it back to the village, and his whole world has completely crumbled. I thought back to the words that my professor had told me. It will be hard in ways you could never imagine. And she was right. I had imagined running from elephants and living in the psychological pressure cooker that is field work. I'd imagined needing to use all of the first aid supplies that I'd packed. I had imagined being so tired and sore from climbing up cliffs and crossing rivers that I could barely walk. But I never could have imagined what happened that day. Not long after, a new international research assistant made his way to Congo. And since we normally couldn't get mail in such an isolated environment, my loved ones back home took the opportunity to send a package with this new field researcher. And he graciously agreed to bring it to camp. And among the snacks and replacement shoes that they'd sent me was a USB drive. And fortunately, the computer we used to compile our data had some battery left. And so I opened the USB drive and found that it was filled with videos from my friends and family that they'd recorded for me. And they shared how much they loved me and miss me. And while watching them, I thought about Moke. And I realized that while I was sharing joy with my loved ones, even from afar, he was sharing complete sorrow with his. And I thought about how lucky I was to know that I would be seeing my friends and family in a few weeks. So in my remaining time in Congo, I made a conscious effort to savor every detail. I listened closely to the sounds of the forest, the rustle of the leaves, the distant calls of birds, the soft footfalls of bonobos moving through the underbrush. And I studied every bonobo's face. I studied their mannerisms, the way that they interacted with each other, all desperately trying to etch their images so deep in my mind that I could recall them long after I'd left. And as much as I could, I wanted to capture the magic to take home with me. Eventually, Moke returned to camp, and he was unrecognizable, but not in his physical appearance, although I remember thinking that I had never seen him look so exhausted. But he was unrecognizable in his presence. This was a man who used to walk into camp like a storm and he now looked as if somehow grief had, like, reached inside of him and just taken out all that was within him and left behind something that somewhat resembled him. Suddenly, I found myself wishing that he'd be the self obsessed, arrogant man that I had disliked for months. And I had spent weeks thinking about him. And I wanted to tell him how sorry I was. But I knew that I was not the person to offer him comfort. He had never been particularly fond of me, to say the least. And I was now the person who had told him the most painful lie of his life. So I gave him space. And then, on my final day in Congo, some of the locals offered me these beautiful handmade gifts. One of the fishermen gave me a wooden carving of a bonobo. Toko gave me a set of arrows. And I made my way around camp, saying goodbye to each person one by one. And eventually, it was time for me to say goodbye to Moke. And to my surprise, he handed me two gifts, both carved out of wood. One was a small ring etched with the name Moke in huge letters. And the second was a sculpture that he'd made of himself. I knew in that moment that he wasn't the loud, brash man that I had first met. But in the hollowness of who he'd become, there was this small glimmer that was unmistakably Mokay. So it's now been seven years since I left Congo. And to this day, when someone asks me what it was like, I have no idea how to answer. But what I do know is what it taught me. That even through hardship and the most unfathomable moments of heartbreak, there are these moments of magic. And I'm now in my final year of my doctoral program studying primate behavior. And it, too, has been hard in ways that I never could have imagined. But I know now to look around for those small traces of wonder. And when I do, I see that I am once again surrounded by things that I love. I see it in the quiet moments that I spend watching the primates that I study. I see it in the curiosity of my students. And I see it in the unexpected way that a man named Moke made my heart a little softer. And it is wonderful in ways I never could have imagined. We'll be right back.
- [27:57]
Jill Schlesinger
Hi, this is Jill Schlesinger, CBS News business analyst, certified financial planner, and the host of the Jill on Money podcast. With the new year upon us, there's no better time to take control of your financial life. And the Jill on Money podcast is here to help. It's your questions that make it possible for me to provide unconventional and I hope entertaining insights on your money and and more importantly on your life. Follow and listen to Jill on Money wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:28]
Stella Meyerhoff
We're back.
- [28:42]
Kevin Allison
This is Risk. This is Kobe Salomon behind me now and we just heard from Stella Meyerhoff, a primatologist turned science communicator you can find on Bluesky. Stella Mayerhoff folks, one of our Patreon patrons, Bianca sent us this note with their contribution to help keep brisk running. Hey kids, this is Bianca from London, uk. Wishing I could help out more but with crazy childcare fees for my toddler, this is what I can spare this month. I absolutely hoping to contribute more often. Bianca, full disclosure, my business director JC pays attention to what amounts people donate, but me? I just want to see what folks are saying to us when they donate because I know that if everyone who listens fairly often to the show just gave a little bit, we'd be all set and everyone on the team is moved to hear what folks who donate have to say. So thank you so much Bianca. I will soon have a new check in up on Patreon and there's so many other perks like the bonus stories, but the main thing is that you're helping to keep the show afloat for real. We're struggling these days, but we also know that so many others are too. If you're listening and you're not a member, join Bianca and the rest of the Risk community there. Just go to patreon.com risk or you can send us a one time donation at PayPal me riskshow. Now next up, that story from Rebecca Heron that I was talking about before. Like I said up front, this audio recording is highly unusual. It's from one of my online storytelling workshop Zoom sessions, so the audio quality might sound a little odd. Picture this there's about 13 of us in a zoom session. It's the final session of the workshop, the eighth of the eight sessions, and one student, Rebecca, has volunteered to tell the final story of the day. The whole class is on pins and needles because we knew that Rebecca had a particular story in mind that she had been wanting to tell for the entire two months of the workshop. We knew that the story concerned abuse. We didn't know any of the details, but we knew it concerned something that was quite traumatizing for Rebecca and that she'd just been struggling to find the words to share the profundity of it. We just knew she was really nervous about this. The whole Two months we were meeting. In fact, Rebecca felt she would feel safer and more private on this particular Sunday morning if she could share it with us from inside her car. So we all watched Rebecca on our zoom screens, sitting in her car, telling us this story. You know, sometimes people improvise in workshops or tell stories that. That might go more into the form of poetry or daily reflections. So we all really had no idea where this was going. But I think you'll certainly hear the vulnerability, the radical honesty, the sincerity. The other students are muted, but you might sometimes hear me. But mostly, I think you'll be able to finish feel from this audio how Rebecca felt that the workshop was a safe and supportive place to experiment like this, and it meant the world to all of us watching and listening for her to be sharing it from inside her car on that Sunday morning. So without further ado, here is this remarkable moment. It's Rebecca Herron with a story we call unfolding.
- [33:23]
Rebecca Heron
So I have been trying to figure out how to tell the story, but I'm also really tired because I got home late last night, so I had this story sort of planned out. And then yesterday we got word that my uncle was found unconscious in a park and was taken to the er, And I happened to be up near where he was, so I was able to go and see my family in the er. One of the things that kind of related to my story that I was thinking about this morning in the shower was that my uncle had suffered two years of pretty intense sexual abuse when he was a teenager, unbeknownst to anybody, and he never told anyone about it. And now he's in the throes of dementia and he's very young, and I really feel like his story just sort of ate him alive based on sort of the trajectory of life. And he lives alone, he's kind of a hermit, been through a few wives, that kind of thing. And his story has really just destroyed him. And part of it is, I think, because he never found a place where there was an outlet that he was comfortable with. Never accepted therapy, never accepted medication, never accepted friendships, family. So now he's sort of beyond where he can even tell his story because of the dementia. And we're sort of kind of looking back on his life and trying to piece things together as he's sort of found in this park unconscious. And we all know he did tell us 10 or 15 years ago about the abuse, and then he just went in and became a hermit. It just ate him alive. And he's only 70 years old, and he's deep in the throes of dementia. He can't get out of this cycle in his head. Anyway, in my own story, I've been thinking about how to tell it again. I get kind of lost in the whole thing. And maybe it's because I've been thinking so much more about storytelling and then also thinking about my story and all my stories that I have has almost got me tripped up in this loop in my head. I don't know if anybody else was experiencing this where I almost get lost and I don't remember and I try to organize things and I. I have these pieces that I feel are important, and I just don't know how to link them all together without then getting in into sort of this. Not a spiral, but into like. Not even really, like a cycle, but just trying to tie it all together in some kind of coherent way, which I don't feel like I'm being very coherent right now. But I don't know, it's. It's been really challenging for me to kind of organize what I want to say. I guess I wanted. I don't know, kind of get some feedback, I guess so. When I was a little girl, I would get really terrible earaches, These terrible ear infections that would, you know, always come in the middle of the night when the doctor's office is closed and my brother's trying to sleep and my parents are trying to sleep. And my dad would come in and he would sit on my bed and he would just get me to think about, like, a. A nice place. And he. He did a lot of meditation in his life. And he had this way of doing a guided imagery to sort of help me control the pain. And I was like 4, 5, 6 years old. I had finally had surgery on the ears when I was 7, which could help with all the ear infections. But it was so much pain. And he would come in and just sort of guide me into this really beautiful soft spot where I could sort of detach myself from this pain. And it was something clearly he had been doing in his life for whatever pain he was going through, which I don't know about because he's already passed. But he gave me this skill. And fast forward a little while and I'm, you know, in the dentist chair. And I was always very excited to go to the dentist. Cause I always had cavities. And they would give you the nitrous and you could just spin. And I could put myself in that, like, wonderful space that my dad had created. And we never talked about the space that I created. He just guided me into it. So it was never something I shared with him so I could put myself with the nitrous back into this wonderful floating sort of whirly place. And I just absolutely loved going to the dentist and having cavities. And so I feel like I got really good at it. And then as I got older and I wasn't able to go to the dentist all the time and get my cavities filled, because you don't want cavities and you start brushing your teeth. But I could try to keep those two places together and sort of float. Whenever things got really scary or sketchy, I would sort of float into this place where I could kind of recreate the sensations in my body. So then fast forward a little bit more. And that's when I got into this situation with this person when I was about 16. He was always very respectful of boundaries. We had been together for like a year. He was very respectful, always stopped. And then one day, he didn't stop. We were up in his bedroom on the bed, and he didn't stop and he raped me. I should maybe back up a little bit. He got me to comply. He put a pillow over my face and he held it there for a really long time. And with a pillow, you can. You can really breathe a lot when you're kind of being smothered, but you can't really breathe out. You can kind of suck more in, but you can't really push air out. And it's a really horrible feeling. And I remember getting a little panicky, but I also remember thinking, okay, well, you know in the videos that they show you in school about how the body works, those little cartoony things, and you have oxygen in your blood, and if you fight a lot, you use up that oxygen. And so you don't want to fight a lot because you'll run out faster. Somehow I'm thinking this. So I stop sort of fighting, and then I think, okay, well, maybe if I stop fighting back, he'll just get freaked out, right? Because he can't see my face. So maybe he'll just get a little bit nervous and just sort of check on me to make sure I'm not dead. Because I don't think you really wanted to kill me. I think he just wanted what he wanted. So at that time, I was starting to try not to panic because I was thinking about the cartoon. I was hoping he would get freaked out. So I just completely stopped moving. And he did remove the pillow. At that time, I didn't feel like, you know, other folks, they say that and they have these near death experiences and they're floating in the room and they're watching the whole thing happens. And I didn't really float to the corner of the room. I was there. And I put myself into that beautiful space that my dad and I had created. And I tried to like keep going with this movement as sort of like that nitrous feeling of being in myself. And what I really then tried to do was I folded myself up. I imagined that I was this piece of paper and I folded myself in. And I'd also remembered in this time that I don't know if it's a wives tale or urban legend or whatever, but you can't fold a piece of paper in half more than seven times. And so I envisioned myself just sort of folding in to this piece of paper and just sort of staying there. And while everything else was going on that he was doing it was very painful. I just sort of stayed in that piece of paper and became very small. And that core became very, very deep inside. And when he was done, I feel like I put that piece of paper into my pocket. And when it goes in your pocket, you forget about it. It goes into the washing machine, it goes into the dryer. You wear the pair of jeans again and you reach into your pocket and you're like, oh, yeah, that piece of paper that's in there. And it's like kind of soft and fibrous on the outside. But you know that like deep down in the middle, there's still that like core down in there. And maybe it's a piece of gum or maybe it's something that's stuck way down there. And you put it back in your pocket, you forget about it again. It goes through the wash, through the dryer, through the wash, through the dryer. And I feel like that piece of paper, sometimes I try to take it out of my pocket and try to unpeel it a little bit to show people why I am the way I am, why I am who I am, because I don't share the core of that paper. And I know that deep down inside that core, there's still the lines of the paper. You know, it's been through the wash and the dryer so many times, there's still that hard piece. But it's like once you open it up, you can't ever put it back again. And so I think now that I'm older and I'm looking back even at my uncle yesterday, who's sort of beyond where he can tell his stories in a coherent way because he just can't. He's in this continuous loop of dimension and almost a delirium as well. And he's been a hermit for so long. He doesn't connect. It's just I think about him and his story and how it's so buried and almost inaccessible. And I think about me and my story and this piece of paper that has the writing on it deep down inside, but once I open it up, I can't put it back. And that's really scary. But I don't want to become like my uncle who is beyond being able to tell a story. So all that to say I just loved this class. Thank you all so much.
- [43:56]
Musical Performer
Birdie tells me that we've all been through the ringer of anxiety, depression and grief. I know I'm lucky that I get to be the singer. Release brings some relief but my heart is with the man just walking at the counter selling the things we buy and my heart's with the woman. The works are making rounder the tips on the pointed things.
- [44:40]
Kevin Allison
This is Risk. This is Rafter again behind me now. And we just heard from Rebecca Heron. I am so grateful to Rebecca for letting us share that story on the podcast here. I was so blown away during that workshop session. We were all listening and wondering if this was just going to be a story about what was going on with her family members that particular weekend. But then it unfolded into this haunting story from her past that she'd alluded to two months prior in the workshop but could never really bring herself to share until that final session that you just heard. And I'm just so honored that Rebecca then let me share that recording with you all here today. And to let you know, my latest online storytelling workshop is now sold out, but the one starting on February 15, with sessions every Sunday morning at 10am Eastern, still has slots open and there will be ones after that. So whenever you're hearing this, you can email me for more information@kevinrisk-show.com now you might remember a couple years back I was getting certified for for Ericksonian hypnosis work, specifically the kind called generative trance. And back then I thought I might be able to be a life coach. Most people who study that sort of trance are licensed therapists, but others do it in life coach work. And I quickly began to feel that I was in over my head with that when folks started coming to me for for generative trance life coaching I kept getting clients whose problems were so profound that I just kept recommending to them that they see licensed therapists instead of me. But then Rebecca shared this story in the workshop. And I was so struck in the story by how Rebecca's father, when she was a little girl, had taught her to, in her mind, drop down and go to that beautiful place. And I asked her in the feedback session after the story, did your dad study Ericksonian hypnosis? And indeed he had. And he had the wisdom and the grace and the sensitivity to teach it in such a basic, simple and creative way to. To a child to use their imagination in their daily life. And it got me thinking. Maybe I could return to generative trance work, but for creative brainstorming with people. Not to tell people what to do with their lives or to quote, unquote, fix people in this or that way, but to help people see, stretch, and play with their active imagination for the sake of working on stories or other creative pursuits. So I'm toying with that idea now, and I'm so thankful to Rebecca for kind of jostling that idea into my subconscious. And folks, I did want to, at the end of this episode, say something again about America. It's hard to comment on the news from America on the podcast for one reason in particular, which is that I record episodes one, two, sometimes even three weeks in advance of when you hear them. And meanwhile, there are just countless horror stories every day about just this relentless amount of chaos and destruction that the Trump regime is creating at home and now around the world. I mean, it would be hard to keep up with even if I was posting episodes every day and recording them the same day that I was posting them. But it's pretty impossible, I've found, for me personally, not to be completely consumed by the news coming from back in the States. I mean, honestly, I can't conceive how anyone with a conscience would not be consumed by this news. But I do want to say that the ways that Americans, especially folks in Minnesota recently have been finding to offer one another mutual aid, to disrupt the systems, to be loudly and clearly expressing their disapproval of the Trump regime's destruction, to be organizing the way people are starting to really reach out to one another and act up is so worth learning about and experimenting with. Ordinary Minnesotans are teaching us all how resistance works. The ice sighting networks like the Immigrant Defense Network, people doing legal observing and rights documentation, school staffs and parents organizing deportation defense initiatives at their schools, the know your rights trainings that citizens are organizing and the mutual aid funds for rent, groceries, laundry, transportation, childcare and small businesses are partnering in those efforts. The Walk for Peace that the monks from Texas are organizing, the disruptions that people have organized in target stores. It's so important to remember that nonviolent action can be extremely disruptive. It's not always exactly quote unquote peaceful per se. It's just that it's not violent. It's such an important distinction because big disruptions from people and lots of people who care about people are so necessary. There's a great organization called Waging Nonviolence.org that you might want to check out. And if you're aware of organizations or types of direct action that you think others should know about, reach out to me at kevinrisk-show.com and I'll spread the word. You know, for the rest of our lives, we'll have to be helping one another survive and thrive and do whatever we can to bring about a season change so that one day our children or grandchildren might live in a world less dangerous and hateful as this world on fire right now. Every year that that horrible, horrible human being rode down that escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015. Every, every year since then has been challenging. But this year I think is going to be the most challenging one yet. We have to be clear eyed that there are literally insane, monstrously sociopathic, utterly out of control people with way too much power and money deliberately causing so much destruction right now. And so we need to do whatever we can to come together to be in community, to speak up, to act out, to keep one another safe. Okay, that's gonna do it for this episode. This episode was directed by Taj Easton. Stella Meyerhoff's story was coached by two David Crabb and edited and sound designed by John lasalla. Rebecca Heron's story was edited by Taj Easton. And thanks also to our business director, J.C. cassis, who is working her butt off for us in so many ways, and our casting director, Cindy Freeman, who wants you to send us your story pitches at risk-show.com submission and me, Kevin. Folks, today's the day. Take a risk.
- [53:37]
Stella Meyerhoff
Hey.
- [53:41]
Musical Performer
I'm reaching out to you. You're right at home. Reaching out to you. You're not alone, you're right at home.
- [54:28]
Stella Meyerhoff
Who.