Heather Davies and Shane Whalley

00:00 Hi, my name is Shane Whalley. I'm 60 years old. Today is June. 21st. 2021. I'm in Austin, Texas. I will be interviewing Heather Davies, and she's my friends.

00:15 My name is Heather Davies. I'm 49 years old today is June 21st of 2020. I am in Austin, Texas at my home called Gino's by my name and my interview partner is shame Wally and Shane is my good friend.

00:38 Covid-19.

00:50 Time to go into the military.

01:03 I want to see that the very beginnings of it started with watching an Army-Navy game and I was in 8th grade and a male cousin of mine said, he was going to go to one of the service academies. And we were fairly competitive with each other and I thought I don't even know if I said it out loud, but I thought well, I'm going to go to and then a few years went by and I had for a long time in my life. I had done gymnastics as a way or a hope of getting a scholarship to college my body kind of gave out on that in 9th grade and I shifted over to diving and I just started looking for ways that I could translate diving into helping me financially pay for college. And I was very good and enjoyed Math and Science. And I just started that thing about the service academies kind of came forward.

02:03 Answer my junior year. I started looking at options thought about West Point and in all honesty. I really don't like bugs. And so the Army felt like not a great option. And retired army officer. Who was the. Of a friend of mine and gymnastics had really encouraged. If I was interested in engineering, which I was at the time that the Naval Academy was a good place to think about that. They had one of the Premier engineering program. So I started the process of applying, and I also sent them video tapes of my diving and ended up getting recruited by their diving team and all of that kind of went together to get me in the door. Is there anything else about why you chose the Navy that you didn't include enough?

02:55 Well, I I don't think I would have said this then but in hindsight, I have a huge connection to both of my grandfathers.

03:08 Going to make me look cheery. They both served in the Navy during World War II. And there was so much of that military Journey. The parts of the reason for a motivation behind us that were unconscious at the time, part of what I do in the world right now has to do a lot with ancestral, connections, and ancestral work and resourcing. And as I've worked with my ancestors, over the last, probably 5 to 10 years. I just come to understand how much of my was. The only grandchild that went into the military. They both served and they both like, so many people in World War II, there's just a lot of unprocessed trauma because it was such a huge event that folks just had to like, lock it away and move forward. And so, there's a whole bunch of that that also went into that decision that I wasn't superconscious have done that.

04:07 So, let's put some time context on this. What year would you've been when he went to the Naval Academy? Yeah. So how was it to be a woman at the Naval Academy? Maybe at any time and especially in the 13th plus? Yeah.

04:33 It was hard.

04:38 I had the opportunity about 10 years ago as I was trying to reconcile my queer identity with my letter and identity to meet a lot of women.

04:51 The earlier classes.

04:56 Good to hear the stories about what they went through.

04:59 Lose weight harder for them and it was still not easy. When I was there. I was there during your big transitional. Time around gender relations in particular, and the race relations as well. And there was a big incident that happened, my plebe year, where a plea, but I believe was a woman in my class. There were a hundred and twenty of us in a class of 1,200. So we didn't know everybody, you had like four to six of you in a company that you knew really well, and then you knew of some others but not everybody. So I didn't know this woman. Her name was Gwen dryer. She was a black female midshipman and she was Hayes really severely during an Army Navy. Quote on quote prank was the language used by the perpetrators of that and it caused her to leave either before or at the end of flu year.

05:59 And she for my understanding pursued conversations with her congressperson afterwards and that launched an investigation into the academy, and things started to change as a result of that, and the change was needed. And the change was good. But and in the interim, Whenever there is a big push for change, there's also a backlash and being female at the Academy. I was there during the backlash also, so it's like when the officers went home at night and it was just the midshipmen, you could feel and around, you know, in places where people weren't paying attention or watching over right there. There was a lot of tension and what felt like hatred of women being there.

06:46 And so then like 2 years after that the tailhook Scandal hit which was about the aviation community and really egregious sexual. Harassment violations that were throughout that entire community and that launched a second congressional inquiry and overhaul. And so there were just these waves of it would felt to me like having to brace as a female to just get the hell out of there and and I kind of like my grandparents and my grandfather's not get all comparing my experience and there's a World War II, but I did have to lock it away and just move forward for a long time. And it's only been in the last 10 years that I've really been able to kind of fun pack more of that.

07:27 I just to help people out. What's a plebe, is the term used for a freshman at the, at the Naval Academy. So, it's your first year. There's a saying there that they tell you that they take your rights away and give them back his Privileges and that's really all of what flea beer is about is trying to get back. Little bits of your rights that were taken at the beginning. Thank you interview process. It says, what is one of the things that you're proud of her most proud of? And like one of the things I'm most proud of is being in the 13th class of women. There's also something from you really special about the odd to hold that that I'm tired of that. And that it felt so traumatic simultaneously and I'm still trying to reconcile that and that's

08:27 Great. So you said that out loud? Yeah, so that was a lot of hard. What are some of your more memorable experiences during your time at Annapolis?

08:44 Diving definitely goes at the top of the list. I do have as a springboard and a sort of hobbyists platform diver. So the springboard was serious and NCAA. The platform was just trying to get the courage up to jump and dive off of higher things for all four years. I would say for three of those years. It was an anchoring resource. That I'm really helped me get through. I am a Scorpio and all of my leg, my entire planet chart is half deer, half water with the always joke about. I got an aerospace engineering degree, which is the airport from the u.s. Naval Academy is so like, physically, beautiful aesthetically beautiful is right on the Severn River. Their Sailing Boat is like the river in the waters. So that was a big piece.

09:46 Yeah, that's really that I would say house there. Like, one of the things that happens. There's, you get a sponsor family. If you want one with your families, in the local area that are places. They kind of adopt you and you can go there on the weekends. When you're allowed out of my first sponsor, family didn't work out. But two years in I met this beautiful couple names Bill and Alice lot and they moved back to the World War II connection, which I had put together until this moment, but they lived in Holland during World War II. They were young parents, and had their kids, or at least some of their kids then I think. And when the Germans blew the dikes in Holland, they lost almost everything except for what they packed into a cart and got to Higher Ground and at the end of World War II they answered an ad from a Maryland. Farmer. Agreed to bring a family over that they would work for them for so many years and that's how they got to the US.

10:46 And I'm not them at church and we just hit it off from the start in the last two years. They were my lifeblood there and Bill used to Garden in his wooden shoes. And Alice made these amazing speculaas cookies that I know you and I still may still at the Holiday Inn. Yeah, and their house was so quiet. And so peaceful. It was right across the street from a row of houses, that was right on the Chesapeake Bay. And so it was just the most peaceful place in contrast to the minute. My feet, hit the ground at the Academy grounds after a weekend. My body would go into fights white mobilization mode. So it was, I got some going off script

11:36 What about those uniforms are kind of awful. I noticed that right now it's like the women's hats for the Navy is it looks like they're getting to wear the same one as the men which are so much better. We had those stupid little like butterfly colors that were just awful Stokes and it was still a time when women were required to wear skirts at formal events. You could do, there was not a pants option. I don't know if that means. I have a feeling it has, but yeah, I guess the other thing that happened when I was there, that makes me think about that is the year after I left the combat exclusion in law went into effect in that. Should, women were opened up to choose platforms that involves combatants are like they could serve in combat and ships. They could be Pilots. They could later.

12:36 Down the road. We now have female submariners right. Took a little bit longer, but the year that I graduated that lot had not been listed yet. So there was just a lot shifting again around us by gender Dynamics. I felt like right in the throes of the other one is going. And if you get caught in it, you lose orientation. That feels like the years. I was at the

13:08 We're going to talk about it. One of those castles coming up, Ray. Yeah, so we're going to move away from the academy, right? And how did you end up getting stationed in Wales for your first? Yeah. My at the end of my freshman year, one of my, I guess it would have been my next year. Are they call third class and sophomore? Year. One of the upperclassmen that I had a really strong friendship with, she went to service selection which it happens. I think in the spring with before you graduate and she came back and said that there was there were these billets or jobs that were open and brawdy Wales and my great, my grandfather's father, and my great-grandfather paternal great-grandfather immigrated from Wales. I've always had a really strong hard connection there. Even though, at that time I left, I didn't quite understand it all.

14:08 And I remember thinking cash. What are the what are the chances that when my chance comes in? Two years. A bill, it will be up in brawdy Wales, and I worked really hard, and I got a pretty high up place in the class cuz you get to service electric based on class order. And I got there and there were two bill. It's open and brought a whale. And then circle thing, is that one of my on and off roommates at the Academy came back and she was a little bit lower in the class and she came back crying. And I said, what did you select? She's trying. She said I'm going to Brody whales with you and the tears weren't so much about going with me. Some of the things that she had wanted. We're no longer. They weren't necessarily take tears of joy, but we ended up making the best of it, for sure. It was great to have somebody in Wales with me. That I knew well, and we weren't together for a bit and

15:08 I think share a lot of those memories. Yeah, there are there. Other pieces of the family or cultural significance of living and oils that you want to talk about the one of the cool things that happened. So I ended up living. I worked at this base. The base was called, brawdy. It was a royal Air Force Base when I got there. While I was there, they went through a change and it became a base for the Welsh Army. I think I lost Army regiment and was near a town, called Haverford West. If you want One Direction, which was like a larger town. And then if you went down this little road for about 5 minutes, maybe five miles and occasionally, you'd have to stop because farmers were moving sheet from field to field. Which I loved you would get to this little fishing Village called soda and English are still alive and well and that's why I ended up living with this little fishing Village and

16:08 My grandfather's cousins still lived in a place called Swansea which is a much bigger city, and I did get to go have tea with them while I was there. There was just a feeling. I've not learned since I've been learning Welsh, there's a word in Welsh subsidized which there's not really a translation in English. But even as I stated, I got like Goosebumps and it's this just like this love and passion like at the depths of your soul about being Welsh and I felt that when I was there, like I said, I've never felt like I did on the way there.

16:45 And I wish that you don't think we have what we have at the time that we have it, right. This was like internet was just getting started right there was trying to learn about time to stop just absolutely impossible. I didn't have the brain space forward to trying to find classes. Now, there's some great opportunities and I'm starting to learn it on my landlord. So Davies is my last name is pronounced dabbas over there and my land. My first landlord have the same last name. It's a very common Welsh last name, and then my second Lawrence and Laurence Malcolm in Yvonne Perkins on Malcolm was from the mountains of Northern Wales, and he had such a strong accent when he spoke English that I used to have to ask Devon to translate son, but he we would I would I write poems for them and poetry is a big part and song or a big part of the Welsh culture and he would put his arm around me and he'd be like through and through, I tell you what else through and through.

17:45 So they were just super delightful and there was such a huge part of its like, I called it, the land of sideways rain because of all the wind and the rain and I just bought boots and a long raincoat and it would just go out in the rain and hiked the coastal path, which is 180 miles along the coast of the Irish sea and you would see seals and big mountain goats and puffins and it's just a magical place for me on so many different levels. Alright? New stories.

18:25 So, we're going to shift into a different topic. And so, I asked a question. What did you know is your sexual orientation when you went into the military? Yeah, that's a great question.

18:44 If you would ask me, I would have stood straight just to clarify at that time. When you did, all the paperwork, you had to check a box that said, I am not a homosexual that was the language, right? So at that time sexuality was not really on my radar. So I would have assumed straight because that's what you were supposed to be quote-unquote there.

19:08 And then,

19:10 When I left there, I mean in a maybe even to a sexual. If I had even known that word, then write like so much has changed around language and identity how we talked about identity since then.

19:24 And then, when I left, I started coming out to myself in Wales, like, started to explore a little bit started. At that time. I was identifying as lesbian, and then, it wasn't until I got to Austin a few years later, started to make the shift to clear identified. And then to non-binary, this means that don't ask don't tell would have been put into place while you were in the military. I guess we were looking at the dates. Don't ask, don't tell. I think went into effect right after I graduated, right? I graduated May of 93. I think it went into effect, maybe January 94, somewhere, 94. It wasn't really on my radar, the folks that I'm not in the military. Once I left the academy who identified as gay or lesbian.

20:24 Queer met. Most of them had been in for a while or a long time and they were used to operating under the old format, which is you are straight or else. You're going to get kicked out and those kinds of things. So that's really where my brain was with all of that. I was just terrified and trying to stay in secret most the time and live. Double a double life is don't ask don't tell was seen as progress. Yes. Yes. I know on some level that I guess it was but it wasn't great. By any means, when I got to Austin, I was part of a Recruiting Command. So my command was actually in San Antonio, I lived in Austin gave me a little more space to explore and and things just kind of snowballed from there. And then I got involved in a few projects around trying to help get

21:24 Don't ask, don't tell. Lifted that also helped me kind of in the reconciling process for myself, around sexual, identity and Veteran identity.

21:35 Did you know a people who were kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation? I don't think I did while I was in, I heard stories. I didn't know anybody personally. And then when I got involved in the out of Annapolis project and you were with me and San Francisco. When we went to the film festival that actually where they film actually aired and met quite a few folks, there, whose stories were heartbreaking to me for being

22:12 Not straight not heterosexual. Right? So I've Had The Good Fortune to kind of walk with you through two big projects. That one was out of Annapolis. In one was the gays in the military project. Do you want to talk a little bit about each one and like what your involvement was? Sure. I'm out of Annapolis was a project spearheaded by Steve Clark Hall, who was Academy grad from. I think back in the 70s, but he sent something out. I was on a list of at the time cuz she was part of an organization that called usna out that it Formed to try to bring lesbian gay and queer. And I think at that time they were talking about trans, but kind of struggling to bring that identity in for a long night at the Academy and and I think it brought it out.

23:12 And some organization. And I was on a list there for that and he sent out a thing saying that he was going to start working on a documentary called out of Annapolis, as part of an effort to educate and help move the cheek to help keep the wheels moving around. Lifting. Don't ask don't tell, I remember being at home. I was on a scooter that my parents had just gotten like, an electric scooter and I was riding it. And all the sudden I was like, I have all this music that I've written in the last 10 years and that would be like amazing. We could use that as a soundtrack and I had been somewhat kept everything in. Like, I wasn't somebody that naturally went out and shared a bunch of what I created at that time. So it was a huge leap in terms of Courage, but I reached out and said, hey, I don't know if you're interested. I have these. So, you know love to talk to you about, you know, participating in the project. He was super enthusiastic and ended up coming out. We did a whole recording thing.

24:12 Wonderful and terrifying and the music ended up being primarily a big part of the back of the sound backdrop of the movie. I also got interviewed in that movie and my check. I'll just because I do know when we watch the video, I like I'm in so much like rigid military mode. Just like you almost went back to an Apple cuz I feel like that's why I wasn't my processing. Which is the moment. Feels lovely in that today is like being able to sit with you in a room. I don't feel, I have a little bit of identity of my spine, but I don't feel in lockdown. Yeah, it's so so that was a really amazing project. We went to the premiere showing at the gay and lesbian film festival, San Francisco. I've never been to San Francisco and that lots of people involved in the project and that lots of people on the periphery of the project because there are a lot of bumps head and some conflict around.

25:12 How that project was handled. It was really powerful. We walked in that. If I remember correctly. We walked in the San Francisco. Gay pride, parade lesbian. Yeah. Yeah. I like that was wild. Everything I had done before so in the end on the heels of that. Also there was a call on a list from a guy named Vincent siani. Who's a lovely man kind man and amazing photographer out of southern New York, and he was doing a project called gays in the military, which was a photo journalism project. I think that had some installations and then it later became a book. And so she flew down here and had a few of us. He was interviewing you were present for that. We did a photoshoot with him.

26:05 And then parts of that interview were printed in the back of the book. And I remember he one of the things I love on MPR. One of my favorite interviews is Terry Gross from fresh air and just the way that she hates people and use and that use of her curiosity and he was like that for me like that rigidity that showed up and out of Annapolis. He like melted away with his presence and I remember speaking with him about things. I had never spoken about around my experience of being gay lesbian queer in the military and there was a huge part of my healing process and I'll be forever grateful to him for

26:48 For that was one of my favorite things. Is it also showed in the Austin, gay film festival and you played live after the film some of the music, right? That's right at Alamo Drafthouse. Wedge sandals fell off and starting to go over to the ShopRite. Found a pair of shoes through mine went and played my guitar watch the film. So kind of is there anything else surrounds? The kind of queerness in the military that you wanted to talk about?

27:46 We didn't get to moving on. How does your time and experience in the military, inform an impact? The work you do in the world today? What you've done since the military, right?

28:09 I think.

28:11 I know that when I met you and I didn't even know you well at that time, but I knew what you were doing at that time, right? When I found out you went to that you had gone to Annapolis, right? I was like what it feels like a disconnect and I do that at that isn't necessarily how it feels for you in civilian life. I thought I was going into the ministry for a while and then that pass just stood and along with that pasta thing with me kind of coming out to myself a second time and I ended up with the help of encouragement of my first therapist. At the time. I ended up applying to social work school at UT Austin. I got to talk to him that you were there on the day or whatever. And I remember being so astounded that he was a place that might actually value.

29:11 Queer identity and that felt like such a contrast from where I was coming from in terms of my internal psyche and the world that I'd been in. And so I ended up, I got my masters in social work. In 2004 ended up getting my Advance license in clinical social work in 2008, launched Private Practice in 2010 in like during that time before I launch Private Practice. I worked at the UT counseling and Mental Health Center. I worked at Waterloo.

29:46 And then a little bit before starting Private Practice. I got involved in an alternate route program, a student program for dancing and therapy, and also started under explain shamanic practice. So, all of that together over the last 12 years. I'm, I just recently made the shift to full-time shamanic practice and the shamanic the shamanic archetype. I think of a lot as the sort of warrior healer that you have to have both parts because it's about with the way I talked about it is, I'm dancing in and out of the dark and service to the light. And that I feel like my time in the military was a huge part of me, beginning to understand the warrior archetype and how that works, both in the world and in the psyche and how that can work in a really generative way to support Creative Vision and to build things up and to create things.

30:46 And so. And then somebody, a friend that knows me well said, why it's like we both think, like engineering social work, shame on a practice. And, and that person said to me, once, like, you used to engineer everyday and how you deconstruct the soul round, and that's a huge part is like that in, your comes in and deconstruct the Soul around. And understands. I think, one of things have come to understand is at least the undergrad in engineering for chili with Aerospace is all about the flow of energy in solids liquids and gases. Right? And so is shamanic work is about the energy like the principals at this place for Science and spirit really kind of move together and sort of that double helix DNA store. Do you know that I love? And in that process is my gift of a sort of opened up around that I've fallen in love with the ancestors and ancestral work, particularly as someone with European lineage and white skin. And I'm always

31:46 Gosling with those questions and it has sent me deeper and deeper into this particular. My Welsh Roots Scottish and Irish also, but particularly the washroom over this last year of covid.

31:58 Yeah.

32:01 Anything else about kind of the journey kind of professionally in any of the military pieces? Anything else about that before we journey to the next part. Yeah, I don't think so. Cuz this is like, you know, I feel like this is a cake and layers or do part of the private practice was needing your own health insurance, or wait for your health care. Yeah. Yeah. It's been such a journey.

32:58 I felt for a long time that I wasn't worthy of the Care at the VA and a lot of that comes out of a military culture Dynamic around combatants and non-combatants. Right? Like I didn't serve in a field of War. I didn't, I wasn't injured. I don't have a disability or an injury from my time in service. I think the keys are on the Naval Academy in my officer identity also played into that, about not feeling like that was, okay? For me to access those resources and it's been as, you know, a heck of a journey over years of like, sticking my toe in the water and seeing, if anybody's going to yell at me, that I was using it or tell me that I wasn't allowed to use them and and then when I first started going to the VA and does it run the grandfather pieces coming again, and there's so many lovely, beautiful old men in particular with their hats of where they served the ships at.

33:58 I served on and their jackets with their patches Korea, doesn't storm like they're just so many of those folks and in particular, would like stir the heart. Strings are on my grandfather's and over the years. I've really had met some other non-combatant, that's male and female and non-binary, who all struggled with the same thing. And all the sudden. It was like, wait, this maybe isn't Just Me. Maybe This is a cultural thing that has to do with the military and how it's framed value. And I am the government's telling me that I was a veteran and I served and therefore, I have access to these services and that maybe that's enough. I'm so, over the last few years, in particular. I'd really stepped into you accepting that and owning that my Care at the Austin, VA here has actually been phenomenal. And I've been met with so much. I'm acceptance.

34:58 Curiosity wanting me to get help, wanting me to feel better, you know, those kinds of things. And then, I usually freeze up when that comes my direction, because I'm like, wait, what's happening? Like somebody. You're not yelling at me right at these old patterns that are so ingrained. Yeah, so it's just been actually from you're really beautiful journey and right now in an ancestral level, I am thinking about the care that I'm getting there as the feminine aspects of my grandfather's getting tended to, by the government that they serve. And that for me has just had tremendous healing for me and I think for them, energetically wherever their souls are thoughts about the VA. Yeah. I mean, I think any of that, right? It's like, when I first, when I first met with this position, in my medicine pod there, my general medicine pod, everybody that I crossed paths are the roads like

35:58 You're a woman. There's a woman in our pod. Like we don't usually go through Women's Health Services. And for whatever reason, I ended up in this pod and I've been treated beautifully there. It's just been a little shocked, Women's Health of therapy. They've also been lovely about a little bum penis, but

36:16 There's just in the non-binary piece. They're working on it there. You know, I mean, I've met some other non-binary that that are finding some support and support groups there. There's some networking happening about you know, providers that are more on it, around 9, binary identity and things like that. So so I feel good about the direction things are moving, but that also definitely mean every time I go in a kind of hold my breath a little bit. And, and again, I've been pleasantly surprised by the care that I've gotten, and how it's been treated. Yeah. Yeah. Hesitancy. What time, I step into a new environment related to the military, my bed, and identity. There's always that sense of like, how's it going to be? Is it going to be? Okay. I'm holding my breath and

37:16 Is part of what got trained in the initial training of the military, you know, and then gracefully I have lots of support like you and other friends and that when I can breathe in and show up with my own Humanity. I have been fortunate enough. That I've been met and saw some lovely ways. Most of the time you pulled a bunch of pictures for the two projects, right? I just like that picture of you, I think maybe play beer standing against the wall with your neck and right. Somebody syringes from your face with that is

37:54 What you got baked in early? Yeah, right. Like it through that process. Yeah, I think, I think I just also want to say about that. Is that the things that, you know, that I've come to know about myself, is that I'm neurodivergent. I am extremely sensitive. It's part of what makes me really great as a shamanic practitioner, but that was like being in a frying, pan 24/7 for my nervous system and I have other tears and

38:28 Other veterans that I served with and stuff. That, that's not how it processed in their nervous system. And that's not how it works in mine. And so is this helpful? I think, also just come to appreciate that. I versity of nervous systems, and how we cope, and at the time that I answered there was so much structure that I needed even though it was terrifying. The structure helps keep me alive because I had a lot of stuff I needed to go through and look at personally that I wasn't in a place to do yet, and I needed that much support to shore me up until I could get some place safe enough to fall apart and kind of disintegrate in the service of immigration.

39:11 So I realize we're running out of time kind of thoughts on. So I think they're kind of comment about structure made me. Think about this, right? Like you had a leadership role didn't you at the Annapolis? Yeah. What was that? And what was that? Like, yeah plebes. So the first years the Freshman there, the summer training is overseen by upperclassmen. So my my senior year the summer before my senior year. I was what they called the regimental adjutant adjutant. So it's the person who stands in the center of the parade field and Bellows. The day is orders at the top of their lungs. I'm not sure if they'd had a female adjectives before. I remember the Gunnery Sergeant, who was in charge, came up to me the first

40:11 And he was like, you think you can handle this man? And I was like, I think I got it. He was like, okay, but you can tell he was doubting and then I bellowed the first orders and he was like, all right, we got this done. And so that was pretty fun. It was a very public role. I do have a loud voice that that's been an issue sometimes. In the past though. It was a good place for me. The commander they gave me the position. After the interview said, all I kept thinking was that voice that voice. We got to get that voice out there. So my senior year,

41:02 Me and associations with the military in the Ville fun have been rare. So that's why I was hoping for something different today. So I just want to thank you. I really appreciate your your presence with me and support with me all these years and your willingness to step into this adventure together today. Will thank you for letting me go off-script and ask unexpected questions in rolling with that. So, yeah, it's been fun to be on the journey, right? I still remember lunch, seems big ass ring on your hand and being like what is that ring? And you being like it's my class ring from Annapolis and I was like, alright, we've been having these conversations for 18 years.

41:51 Got a couple couple quick questions. You mentioned your, your grandfather's a fair bit, my babies Davies and my maternal grandfather is Ralph at Lee Kinsley.

42:12 And yeah, do you have like you talked about like really feeling connections to them? Do you do have a strong like a moment where you seem like parts of them in you like it there?

42:27 Jenna has described how what parts of them are you seeing yourself.

42:38 The way our relationship was forged because I didn't they weren't the greatest to be related to when they were on this plane. They were hot like I was desperate for their love and connection and for them to be proud of me. And they both really struggled in different ways with how to be in relational connection with others. And I think a lot of that had to do with World War II. I need some of it had to do with generationally cultural expectations around masculinity, but a big part of it I think had to do around trauma that they had locked away to protect themselves in the people that cared about which meant that there were big parts of them that were inaccessible.

43:19 And so is I've done been in my own healing work and had to unlock those pieces that mirrored them in that locking away of connection. Then it does this idea in the shamanic that when we moved our own healing work that has lineage routes that we heal, all those going backwards and all those to come who got stuck or might have gotten stuck in the same pattern. And so as I freed myself, I freed we we freed each other even though they weren't on this plane anymore, right? It's like working with them in the spiritual but you could feel their energy free up and when their energy freed up and they found joy on the spiritual plane. I could find the freedom in the joy, in my own body, in ways. I had never known.

44:04 Feel like that you was going to answer that question.

44:08 Yeah.

44:10 And yeah, and though the one last question, I had you you talked a little bit about how are you mentioned? That Shane has helped you at various points. I was wondering if there was any one point that there are any any particular story that you'd like to remember and until Shane.

44:33 Esther many.

44:35 I would lovingly pushed pushed Heather, a lot.

44:42 I mean, I think the pieces that come to mind are so many of these kinds of things are, right? Like you have you have one of your gift is to see that which is Behind the Walls that desperately wants to be seen but is terrified and every time an opportunity has presented itself, that allowed a part of me to step out from behind the wall.

45:09 You were there pushing a little bit but in a way that was not too much most of the time and when it has been too much, we can talk about it which is why our relationship works. So well.

45:22 And it helped me free myself.

45:27 In ways that have meant the world.

45:31 Thank you.