|
|
MY STORY
In these times, visionary women leaders on purpose through the wild of this moment are needed to bring media medicine into the world. It is the wise, relatable teachings of lived experience that guides my life and work - listening within for what must emerge.
As a little girl, I was always deeply curious, creative, collaborative, and communicative. And it was this natural state that both charmed and threatened my brilliant, unrealized mom who got married to my dad and became pregnant with me at the age of 21.
At birth and through my early childhood, I was pedestalized for being beautiful and a blue-eyed dancer. My mom remembers me pulling up in the crib and moving my body in rhythm to the music. I was an innately wild creative relational being who loved playing and creating scenes in the forest with my neighbors.
When school started, my non-linear way of learning was not supported. There were a few teachers who saw me, but most of them wrote on my report cards that I was failing, a distracted student who needed extra help, that I couldn't sit still and was not paying attention. I thought I was dumb. And, before puberty hit, I was silently suffering, terrified, overwhelmed, bullied at school and at home.
From ages 7-11, my mom’s measure of success was for me to have perfect grades in school and when I didn't perform to her expectations, it enraged her so. What worked for her as a student did not work for me.
Unbeknownst to us, I was a creative contrarian kinesthetic relational visual/auditory learner which was deeply unfamiliar and threatening to her.
I can remember the sound of the typewriter keys as my mother would angrily, judgmentally, forcefully conjure practice tests for me to take under her tick ticking wristwatch. The pressure was a thick weight of heavy.
I could barely hear my own voice or fully breathe at home in those years. When I made mistakes she screamed with frustration like a raging drill sargeant with contempt: “WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THIS!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? HOW CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS?” My performance in school exasperated her so that she took me to the Sylvan Learning Center for extra academic help, while tensely watching through the window. I was in silent protest.
I found solace with my school counselor, Mrs. Tucker, an elegant grandmotherly woman whose composed, embodied presence made me feel safe. As she listened with her entire being and asked great questions, Mrs. Tucker learned about what was going on. This was the first person to instill in me the masterful, empowering art of holding a sacred container for the stories of another.
When a disgraceful report card came home, again, Mrs. Tucker called and left a message for my mom to schedule a meeting, assuming she was being called in to talk shit about me.
When my mom walked into this scheduled meeting, Mrs. Tucker closed the door and stared through her like a laser as she sat down and said: “Hello Mrs. Birnbaum. 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 could be properly appreciated."
My mom, eviscerated without defense, listened. She then left the office, the building, the skin of who she was before coming into that meeting. She drove for hours sobbing, pondering our unconscious dynamic.
Upon arriving home, with a puffy red face, she said: “I have been toxic with you about your homework and I will never say another word about it again. Ask your dad if you need help.” She never did and, in fact, stopped projecting her intense need for academic learning and went to law school to do the thing that compelled and terrified her.
This is one of my foundational origin stories as Media Midwife... another turning point emerged in the wild of my teen age years.
---
As a little girl, I was always deeply curious, creative, collaborative, and communicative. And it was this natural state that both charmed and threatened my brilliant, unrealized mom who got married to my dad and became pregnant with me at the age of 21.
At birth and through my early childhood, I was pedestalized for being beautiful and a blue-eyed dancer. My mom remembers me pulling up in the crib and moving my body in rhythm to the music. I was an innately wild creative relational being who loved playing and creating scenes in the forest with my neighbors.
When school started, my non-linear way of learning was not supported. There were a few teachers who saw me, but most of them wrote on my report cards that I was failing, a distracted student who needed extra help, that I couldn't sit still and was not paying attention. I thought I was dumb. And, before puberty hit, I was silently suffering, terrified, overwhelmed, bullied at school and at home.
From ages 7-11, my mom’s measure of success was for me to have perfect grades in school and when I didn't perform to her expectations, it enraged her so. What worked for her as a student did not work for me.
Unbeknownst to us, I was a creative contrarian kinesthetic relational visual/auditory learner which was deeply unfamiliar and threatening to her.
I can remember the sound of the typewriter keys as my mother would angrily, judgmentally, forcefully conjure practice tests for me to take under her tick ticking wristwatch. The pressure was a thick weight of heavy.
I could barely hear my own voice or fully breathe at home in those years. When I made mistakes she screamed with frustration like a raging drill sargeant with contempt: “WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THIS!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? HOW CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS?” My performance in school exasperated her so that she took me to the Sylvan Learning Center for extra academic help, while tensely watching through the window. I was in silent protest.
I found solace with my school counselor, Mrs. Tucker, an elegant grandmotherly woman whose composed, embodied presence made me feel safe. As she listened with her entire being and asked great questions, Mrs. Tucker learned about what was going on. This was the first person to instill in me the masterful, empowering art of holding a sacred container for the stories of another.
When a disgraceful report card came home, again, Mrs. Tucker called and left a message for my mom to schedule a meeting, assuming she was being called in to talk shit about me.
When my mom walked into this scheduled meeting, Mrs. Tucker closed the door and stared through her like a laser as she sat down and said: “Hello Mrs. Birnbaum. 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 could be properly appreciated."
My mom, eviscerated without defense, listened. She then left the office, the building, the skin of who she was before coming into that meeting. She drove for hours sobbing, pondering our unconscious dynamic.
Upon arriving home, with a puffy red face, she said: “I have been toxic with you about your homework and I will never say another word about it again. Ask your dad if you need help.” She never did and, in fact, stopped projecting her intense need for academic learning and went to law school to do the thing that compelled and terrified her.
This is one of my foundational origin stories as Media Midwife... another turning point emerged in the wild of my teen age years.
---
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.
At this party, my Grandpa Herbie (who at the time felt there was nothing worse than a woman lawyer and to whom my mom felt voiceless since her childhood) outrageously blamed my boyfriend Steve for getting me sick with a cough after visiting him at the hospital.
One year before, this same boyfriend almost died from a freak accident after being struck by 2200 volts of electricity. While he was recovering in the burn unit of a hospital 45 minutes from my house, I was organizing different ways of getting there every day to show up and be present for his healing.
I was a freshman and he was a junior with close friends who drove, and between them and my parents, I orchestrated ways to get rides every day after school and learned about showing up. About listening and being in pain while staying open, generous, curious, and connected. It was my first experience of fiercely showing up for human loving.
When Steve finally emerged from this catastrophic experience, he told me that my presence at the hospital and late nights on the phone helped him heal from the trauma of over 100 skin graft operations.
On one of our visits, I caught a cold from him just before my mom’s birthday party. So when my grandfather called my boyfriend “a toaster jinx” I ran upstairs to my room, heartbroken and sobbing on the bed. My mom followed me upstairs and made disgusting excuses for her father's horrifying behavior: “He didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean it…” she pleaded.
In that moment, I stopped crying, wiped my face, marched downstairs, stuck my finger in his face and screamed in front of my entire family: “Don’t you EVER speak about my boyfriend like that again you son of a bitch!” 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 Grandma Niecey who, before leaving with her husband, 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?”
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!”
My mom was inspired to write the paper which allowed her to graduate, become a lawyer, and land her first job.
I found my voice and, in doing so, helped my mom find hers.
This is another WHY story guiding my path to support YOU, visionary woman leader to bravely step into the power of your wise, courageous voice.
---
Fast forward through time...
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 back 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.
You see, my mom grew up with conspiratorial intimacy as a proxy between her maternal grandmother against her mom. They had a common enemy.
This dysfunctional trauma informed family system bled into our relationship, particularly when my son was 3. I had just been through a miscarriage and my mom came to “support” me, although, maternal tending was not in her capacity at the time.
The morning after she arrived, I sensed a distinctly thick tension generated by her with my 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 said, “If you’re going to do THIS in my house with my son you will never see your grandchild again.”
She heard me and decided that she would do whatever it took to heal herself. My wise mama chose to dive into a rigorous years long journey of family systems therapy. That was 15 years ago.
Today she is known as the “granny wizard” family lawyer specializing in supporting kids caught in the middle of divorce, helping to empower them to find their voices and make bold, brave decisions. She sees who they are. She listens deeply for their stories and the truth of what they need. She inquires with impeccable insight and sensitivity. She solves problems with diplomatic skill and integrity. And, she attributes our saga as the foundation for her law practice.
It has been an expansive miraculous lineage metamorphosis.
When we came back from our walk, 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!”
---
One year before that visit and one year into Covid, overwhelmed and supporting my kids with zoom school at home, while in the midst of production on my award-winning, new-genre, podcast series STILLPOINT, I went on a long hike by myself into the forest, deeply listening for how to serve others with my passions and skills.
For two decades I had worked as an independent professional combining public radio, music, and podcast series making inspired by my experience of motherhood. With innovative, award-winning projects stretching the genre of what was possible within the sonic medium, and reaching large audiences nationwide to elevate the voices of women and mothers, these works were distributed via Public Radio International, NPR, PRX, and Spotify including: SHADES OF GRAY (won Golden Reel Award for Best National Radio Documentary NFCB Community of Broadcaster), BIRTH, BORN, DELVE, A MOTHER'S LENS, BENDING IN 2020, along with facilitated listening and birth story sharing circles in over 75 communities nationwide with THE BIRTH TOUR.
While sitting on a rock to rest, I observed a nest of baby birds chirping as their mama came back to feed her hungry young. So basic and true.
It was a miraculous, mundane moment of tending that moved me to an idea. I saw myself in that mother bird and felt human storytelling is as basic as the nourishment that sustains us.
The next day, I received a call from the chairman of my department at Southern Oregon University, where I teach the next generation of media makers in addition to my independent media work. He asked if I’d like to create my dream college course.
ALIVE: YOUR VOICE, THIS MOMENT became an ecosystem of stories to test my idea, inspiring authentic connection and wisdom sharing among my students.
We honed in on one transformational story from their lives with lessons applied to meet this moment.
From there, I guided each student to produce a sound-rich, creative podcast expression of their story.
It was a hit in the department and in the lives of my students, and this experience gave me another idea.
Taking the work a step further, I believe wise visionary women leaders are the brilliant collaborative tending force that can change the world. Centering personal wisdom stories from lived experience, illuminated with sound and music to deeply connect with customers, clients, colleagues and self, I was inspired to create podcast series consulting + creation offerings to serve this very special superpower inside the marketplace.
And so, my work as a Media Midwife in The Story Womb was born.
If it is TIME to create your podcast series, then BOOK A 30 MINUTE CALL to see if we're a fit to work together and animate the soul of your vision.
At this party, my Grandpa Herbie (who at the time felt there was nothing worse than a woman lawyer and to whom my mom felt voiceless since her childhood) outrageously blamed my boyfriend Steve for getting me sick with a cough after visiting him at the hospital.
One year before, this same boyfriend almost died from a freak accident after being struck by 2200 volts of electricity. While he was recovering in the burn unit of a hospital 45 minutes from my house, I was organizing different ways of getting there every day to show up and be present for his healing.
I was a freshman and he was a junior with close friends who drove, and between them and my parents, I orchestrated ways to get rides every day after school and learned about showing up. About listening and being in pain while staying open, generous, curious, and connected. It was my first experience of fiercely showing up for human loving.
When Steve finally emerged from this catastrophic experience, he told me that my presence at the hospital and late nights on the phone helped him heal from the trauma of over 100 skin graft operations.
On one of our visits, I caught a cold from him just before my mom’s birthday party. So when my grandfather called my boyfriend “a toaster jinx” I ran upstairs to my room, heartbroken and sobbing on the bed. My mom followed me upstairs and made disgusting excuses for her father's horrifying behavior: “He didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean it…” she pleaded.
In that moment, I stopped crying, wiped my face, marched downstairs, stuck my finger in his face and screamed in front of my entire family: “Don’t you EVER speak about my boyfriend like that again you son of a bitch!” 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 Grandma Niecey who, before leaving with her husband, 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?”
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!”
My mom was inspired to write the paper which allowed her to graduate, become a lawyer, and land her first job.
I found my voice and, in doing so, helped my mom find hers.
This is another WHY story guiding my path to support YOU, visionary woman leader to bravely step into the power of your wise, courageous voice.
---
Fast forward through time...
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 back 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.
You see, my mom grew up with conspiratorial intimacy as a proxy between her maternal grandmother against her mom. They had a common enemy.
This dysfunctional trauma informed family system bled into our relationship, particularly when my son was 3. I had just been through a miscarriage and my mom came to “support” me, although, maternal tending was not in her capacity at the time.
The morning after she arrived, I sensed a distinctly thick tension generated by her with my 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 said, “If you’re going to do THIS in my house with my son you will never see your grandchild again.”
She heard me and decided that she would do whatever it took to heal herself. My wise mama chose to dive into a rigorous years long journey of family systems therapy. That was 15 years ago.
Today she is known as the “granny wizard” family lawyer specializing in supporting kids caught in the middle of divorce, helping to empower them to find their voices and make bold, brave decisions. She sees who they are. She listens deeply for their stories and the truth of what they need. She inquires with impeccable insight and sensitivity. She solves problems with diplomatic skill and integrity. And, she attributes our saga as the foundation for her law practice.
It has been an expansive miraculous lineage metamorphosis.
When we came back from our walk, 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!”
---
One year before that visit and one year into Covid, overwhelmed and supporting my kids with zoom school at home, while in the midst of production on my award-winning, new-genre, podcast series STILLPOINT, I went on a long hike by myself into the forest, deeply listening for how to serve others with my passions and skills.
For two decades I had worked as an independent professional combining public radio, music, and podcast series making inspired by my experience of motherhood. With innovative, award-winning projects stretching the genre of what was possible within the sonic medium, and reaching large audiences nationwide to elevate the voices of women and mothers, these works were distributed via Public Radio International, NPR, PRX, and Spotify including: SHADES OF GRAY (won Golden Reel Award for Best National Radio Documentary NFCB Community of Broadcaster), BIRTH, BORN, DELVE, A MOTHER'S LENS, BENDING IN 2020, along with facilitated listening and birth story sharing circles in over 75 communities nationwide with THE BIRTH TOUR.
While sitting on a rock to rest, I observed a nest of baby birds chirping as their mama came back to feed her hungry young. So basic and true.
It was a miraculous, mundane moment of tending that moved me to an idea. I saw myself in that mother bird and felt human storytelling is as basic as the nourishment that sustains us.
The next day, I received a call from the chairman of my department at Southern Oregon University, where I teach the next generation of media makers in addition to my independent media work. He asked if I’d like to create my dream college course.
ALIVE: YOUR VOICE, THIS MOMENT became an ecosystem of stories to test my idea, inspiring authentic connection and wisdom sharing among my students.
We honed in on one transformational story from their lives with lessons applied to meet this moment.
From there, I guided each student to produce a sound-rich, creative podcast expression of their story.
It was a hit in the department and in the lives of my students, and this experience gave me another idea.
Taking the work a step further, I believe wise visionary women leaders are the brilliant collaborative tending force that can change the world. Centering personal wisdom stories from lived experience, illuminated with sound and music to deeply connect with customers, clients, colleagues and self, I was inspired to create podcast series consulting + creation offerings to serve this very special superpower inside the marketplace.
And so, my work as a Media Midwife in The Story Womb was born.
If it is TIME to create your podcast series, then BOOK A 30 MINUTE CALL to see if we're a fit to work together and animate the soul of your vision.
