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MY STORY
I have had a lifelong journey with sharing my voice. From debilitating fear to boldly making sonic works responding to personal, yet universal lived experience, I believe our core stories are the gateways that come to show us what we're made of. To help others feel less alone. To inspire the path we were born to embody. My first core story came in 6th grade.
I found solace with Mrs. Tucker, my school social worker, an elegant grandmotherly woman whose composed, attuned, embodied presence created safety for me in her brave space. She leaned in to track and listen with her gentle eyes, and great questions. Her curious presence was my first experience of being seen in a sacred, emotionally safe container telling stories about life.
When a disgraceful report card came home, again, Mrs. Tucker called and left a message for my mom to schedule a meeting in her office - alone. My mom thought they were going to have a conspiratorial talk about my less than average school performance.
My mom knocked on the office door of Mrs. Tucker and was invited in to have a seat. She closed the door and said,“Hello Mrs. Birnbaum (long pause), there are many paths to truth (another long pause). It’s a shame you don’t see how remarkable your daughter is. If it were possible I would take her home with me so she would be properly appreciated."
My mom was humbled without defense in this very short meeting. She left the office, the building, the skin of who she had been before entering that meeting. She drove for hours sobbing, pondering her role in my inability to focus and learn at school.
Upon arriving home, with a puffy red face, she gracefully said: “I have been toxic with you and I will never say another word about your homework again. Ask your teachers or your dad if you need help. He is more patient.” She never said another word about it again and stopped projecting her need for academic learning onto me. My brilliant mom decided to do the thing she secretly longed to do after college, which was to take the LSAT, attend law school, and become an attorney. And so she did in spades.
Today she is known as the "Granny Wizard" family lawyer in Chicago specializing in helping kids of divorce find their voice and make brave decisions about their needs. She sees who they are. She listens deeply for the truth in their stories. She solves problems with diplomatic skill and integrity. And, she attributes that day in Mrs. Tucker's office as the foundation for her law practice.
I learned that behavior change and healing is possible. That compassionate story listening and truth telling has the power to transform lives. That it is never too late to pivot into the unknown when shown the purposeful work we are here to bring forth.
This is my first foundational core story as Media Midwife... another turning point from life emerged in the wild of my teen age years.
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I found solace with Mrs. Tucker, my school social worker, an elegant grandmotherly woman whose composed, attuned, embodied presence created safety for me in her brave space. She leaned in to track and listen with her gentle eyes, and great questions. Her curious presence was my first experience of being seen in a sacred, emotionally safe container telling stories about life.
When a disgraceful report card came home, again, Mrs. Tucker called and left a message for my mom to schedule a meeting in her office - alone. My mom thought they were going to have a conspiratorial talk about my less than average school performance.
My mom knocked on the office door of Mrs. Tucker and was invited in to have a seat. She closed the door and said,“Hello Mrs. Birnbaum (long pause), there are many paths to truth (another long pause). It’s a shame you don’t see how remarkable your daughter is. If it were possible I would take her home with me so she would be properly appreciated."
My mom was humbled without defense in this very short meeting. She left the office, the building, the skin of who she had been before entering that meeting. She drove for hours sobbing, pondering her role in my inability to focus and learn at school.
Upon arriving home, with a puffy red face, she gracefully said: “I have been toxic with you and I will never say another word about your homework again. Ask your teachers or your dad if you need help. He is more patient.” She never said another word about it again and stopped projecting her need for academic learning onto me. My brilliant mom decided to do the thing she secretly longed to do after college, which was to take the LSAT, attend law school, and become an attorney. And so she did in spades.
Today she is known as the "Granny Wizard" family lawyer in Chicago specializing in helping kids of divorce find their voice and make brave decisions about their needs. She sees who they are. She listens deeply for the truth in their stories. She solves problems with diplomatic skill and integrity. And, she attributes that day in Mrs. Tucker's office as the foundation for her law practice.
I learned that behavior change and healing is possible. That compassionate story listening and truth telling has the power to transform lives. That it is never too late to pivot into the unknown when shown the purposeful work we are here to bring forth.
This is my first foundational core story as Media Midwife... another turning point from life emerged in the wild of my teen age years.
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It was 1990. I was 15 and a sophomore in high school. There was a family gathering for my mom’s 39th birthday party and she was stressed from having a final paper due to graduate law school at DePaul University in Chicago. She was stuck and had extended the final paper multiple times. We probably should have cancelled with her under deadline pressure and I with a slight cough and congestion.
At this family gathering of elders, aunts, uncles, and cousins, my Grandfather blamed my boyfriend for getting me sick after I visited him at the hospital.
One year before, this same boyfriend almost died from a freak accident. He held the aluminum ladder base as his friend climbed up with an aluminum golf ball retriever trying to hit a bottle rocket out of a tree. They didn't see the non insulated electric wires running through this tree and the metals struck the boys with 2200 volts of electricity.
After enduring skin graft surgeries all year long, they were being treated at the nearest hospital burn unit 45 minutes away from my town.
I was a freshman without a license and my boyfriend was a junior with close friends who drove me to see him. Throughout the year, I organized creative ways to get rides every day after school. From this experience, my innate capacity to show up came forward with fierce love and depth of listening to support my love.
On one of our visits, I caught a cold from him just before my mom’s birthday party. So when my grandfather yelled for me to stay away from that “toaster jinx” I ran upstairs to my room, heartbroken and sobbing on the bed. My mom followed me upstairs and made excuses, “He didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean it…” she said.
In that moment, I stopped crying, wiped my face, marched downstairs, stuck my finger in his face and yelled in front of my entire family: “Don’t you EVER speak about my boyfriend like that again!” My grandfather stood up and screamed: “NO ONE TALKS TO ME LIKE THAT!”
He stormed out of the house, slammed the door, and drove home with my grandmother, his wife, who, before leaving with him, yelled: “Oh my goodness! Ahri, you can’t talk to your grandfather like that!” Then, my mom yelled: “Why does the First Amendment end with HIM?” She had my back.
My grandfather called my mom the next morning and said: “I was really angry yesterday but then after I calmed down I said to myself, "That kid's got spunk!”
In hearing his response, from that moment and for the rest of his life, we had great respect for each other. And in showing up for me at that family gathering, my mom was inspired to write that final paper which allowed her to graduate, become a lawyer, and land her first job.
Again, it was reinforced to learn the power of finding and using my voice which helped my mom find hers.
This is another WHY story guiding my path to uplift the powerful voices of visionary wise woman leaders.
---
Fast forward through time...
After an acutely exhausting pregnancy with my second child, our baby daughter did not sleep much. My husband or I would wake up with her in the night every hour for over two years. When it was my turn, singing to her was the only thing that calmed us in those brutal wee hours.
An improvisational vocal wellspring opened up from within me in the wee hours of creative lyrical liminality and in 2010, when my son was five years old, I was adamant that he take music lessons. After a few lessons he said, "Mom, I don't want music, you want music!"
In taking pause, after an award-winning public radio career of turning the microphone on mothers nationwide to capture their experiences of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, I was compelled to turn the microphone on my own story. After writing 10 original songs, and a Kickstarter campaign, in 2014, my debut album, DELVE, was born.
It was a catharsis to create from listening within for what wanted to emerge. And it was this transformational experience that inspired my work to illuminate the authentic voices of my clients as Media Midwife.
---
In 2022, during precious time with my parents, who traveled from Chicago to Oregon for a double graduation (my daughter from middle school and my son from high school in the Spring of 2022), one afternoon my mom and I went for a walk, holding hands and marveling at our relational growth - from strangers to soulmates - since my parenting journey began in 2005.
My mom grew up with conspiratorial intimacy as a proxy between her maternal grandmother against her mom. This dysfunctional trauma pattern made itself into our relationship, particularly when my son was 3. I had just been through a miscarriage and my mom flew from Chicago to our then home in California to “support” me without capacity for maternal tending. I needed nourishment, massage, care, presence, rest, but her form of intimacy was otherwise.
The morning after she arrived, I sensed a distinctly thick tension generated between her with my young son directed against me. It was psychologically familiar and unsafe and I had zero tolerance for it. I asked her to step aside and quietly, clearly looked into her eyes and said, “If you’re going to do this in my house with my son you will never see your grandchild again.”
My mom heard me - just like she heard Mrs. Tucker - and decided that she would do whatever it took to heal herself, choosing to dive into a rigorous, decades long journey of family systems therapy. She took direct responsibility and transformed herself, again. My mom's love was stronger than her fear.
Again, the role of truthtelling changed our lives and made it possible for us to engage a loving relationship and careers built on trust, integrity, and respect. We both bring the transmission of Mrs. Tucker into our daily lives of seeing and reflecting the meaningful stories of others that catalyze change.
And now, 17 years later, my mom and I came back from holding hands on our walk. We laid down on the couch and I played her a recent client podcast series production in process. She was deeply moved by it and said, “Wow! We are doing the same work in completely different ways!”
At this family gathering of elders, aunts, uncles, and cousins, my Grandfather blamed my boyfriend for getting me sick after I visited him at the hospital.
One year before, this same boyfriend almost died from a freak accident. He held the aluminum ladder base as his friend climbed up with an aluminum golf ball retriever trying to hit a bottle rocket out of a tree. They didn't see the non insulated electric wires running through this tree and the metals struck the boys with 2200 volts of electricity.
After enduring skin graft surgeries all year long, they were being treated at the nearest hospital burn unit 45 minutes away from my town.
I was a freshman without a license and my boyfriend was a junior with close friends who drove me to see him. Throughout the year, I organized creative ways to get rides every day after school. From this experience, my innate capacity to show up came forward with fierce love and depth of listening to support my love.
On one of our visits, I caught a cold from him just before my mom’s birthday party. So when my grandfather yelled for me to stay away from that “toaster jinx” I ran upstairs to my room, heartbroken and sobbing on the bed. My mom followed me upstairs and made excuses, “He didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean it…” she said.
In that moment, I stopped crying, wiped my face, marched downstairs, stuck my finger in his face and yelled in front of my entire family: “Don’t you EVER speak about my boyfriend like that again!” My grandfather stood up and screamed: “NO ONE TALKS TO ME LIKE THAT!”
He stormed out of the house, slammed the door, and drove home with my grandmother, his wife, who, before leaving with him, yelled: “Oh my goodness! Ahri, you can’t talk to your grandfather like that!” Then, my mom yelled: “Why does the First Amendment end with HIM?” She had my back.
My grandfather called my mom the next morning and said: “I was really angry yesterday but then after I calmed down I said to myself, "That kid's got spunk!”
In hearing his response, from that moment and for the rest of his life, we had great respect for each other. And in showing up for me at that family gathering, my mom was inspired to write that final paper which allowed her to graduate, become a lawyer, and land her first job.
Again, it was reinforced to learn the power of finding and using my voice which helped my mom find hers.
This is another WHY story guiding my path to uplift the powerful voices of visionary wise woman leaders.
---
Fast forward through time...
After an acutely exhausting pregnancy with my second child, our baby daughter did not sleep much. My husband or I would wake up with her in the night every hour for over two years. When it was my turn, singing to her was the only thing that calmed us in those brutal wee hours.
An improvisational vocal wellspring opened up from within me in the wee hours of creative lyrical liminality and in 2010, when my son was five years old, I was adamant that he take music lessons. After a few lessons he said, "Mom, I don't want music, you want music!"
In taking pause, after an award-winning public radio career of turning the microphone on mothers nationwide to capture their experiences of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, I was compelled to turn the microphone on my own story. After writing 10 original songs, and a Kickstarter campaign, in 2014, my debut album, DELVE, was born.
It was a catharsis to create from listening within for what wanted to emerge. And it was this transformational experience that inspired my work to illuminate the authentic voices of my clients as Media Midwife.
---
In 2022, during precious time with my parents, who traveled from Chicago to Oregon for a double graduation (my daughter from middle school and my son from high school in the Spring of 2022), one afternoon my mom and I went for a walk, holding hands and marveling at our relational growth - from strangers to soulmates - since my parenting journey began in 2005.
My mom grew up with conspiratorial intimacy as a proxy between her maternal grandmother against her mom. This dysfunctional trauma pattern made itself into our relationship, particularly when my son was 3. I had just been through a miscarriage and my mom flew from Chicago to our then home in California to “support” me without capacity for maternal tending. I needed nourishment, massage, care, presence, rest, but her form of intimacy was otherwise.
The morning after she arrived, I sensed a distinctly thick tension generated between her with my young son directed against me. It was psychologically familiar and unsafe and I had zero tolerance for it. I asked her to step aside and quietly, clearly looked into her eyes and said, “If you’re going to do this in my house with my son you will never see your grandchild again.”
My mom heard me - just like she heard Mrs. Tucker - and decided that she would do whatever it took to heal herself, choosing to dive into a rigorous, decades long journey of family systems therapy. She took direct responsibility and transformed herself, again. My mom's love was stronger than her fear.
Again, the role of truthtelling changed our lives and made it possible for us to engage a loving relationship and careers built on trust, integrity, and respect. We both bring the transmission of Mrs. Tucker into our daily lives of seeing and reflecting the meaningful stories of others that catalyze change.
And now, 17 years later, my mom and I came back from holding hands on our walk. We laid down on the couch and I played her a recent client podcast series production in process. She was deeply moved by it and said, “Wow! We are doing the same work in completely different ways!”