![[Ep. 1] Piecing the Past Together: On Loss, Forgiveness and Leaving a Legacy](https://img2.likefm.org/300x300/https://ssl-static.libsyn.com/p/assets/b/4/b/d/b4bdf9b26a14aeaf40be95ea3302a6a1/Abstract_Shapes_Podcast_Cover1.png)
My first guest, Nikki Weaver and I created this a year ago, in January 2021. At the time, I was 6 months pregnant and this podcast was on my heart as Healing Backwards, so you’ll notice us referring to that a bit in our conversation.
Nikki is a person that I look to as a Mama mentor. She may not know it yet, but now she does 🙂 Because of many reasons, but when we met I immediately felt a kindredness with her. As I got to know her more, I was taken by how creatively she lives her life, and how she blends it with a spirit of Service, even with two young girls, her husband, and dog.
A co-founder of Portland Playhouse in Portland, OR, She brings a deep sense of listening, curiosity and an open heart to any project she is a part of, and she believes in empowering women through connection to our bodies, each other and our spirits.
We met through nonprofit work together, and
Nikki now leads her own non-profit called On The Inside, which supports incarcerated women through creative connection.
This episode was recorded a year ago from its release, yet it timeless. Nikki shares about the lessons of her challenges in childhood, how that has shaped her mothering today, her visions for our future as a collective and SO much more.
I couldn’t pick out a quote because our conversation is full of potency. There is something for each of us here.
TW: our candid conversation includes mention of death & the process of dying, alcoholism, suicide and incarceration.
We hope that this serves to connect with those with similar experiences as it did for us. Listen at your own pace. And if after you feel that someone else pops into your heart who could hear this, please share this episode with them.
I’m so proud and honored to bring you this conversation, and to start us out with such depth.
Here's my conversation with the incredible Nikki Weaver.
Episode Topics (in chronological order):
- Nikki's story of loss when she was 5, and later at 10.
- Reflections on family communication styles around difficult events, and the different styles reflected in our experiences
- Was our independence by necessity, or as a result of feeling safety?
- The Mother wound, and its connections to receiving support from other women and our femininity
- How Nikki regained childhood memories which were once foggy
- How Nikki has found forgiveness for her father, seeing forgiveness as a practice
- Forgiveness and its entanglement with acceptance, and looking to her father’s past for understanding
- Using past experiences as a guide as you create your own life from the inside out
- Reflecting on how her past prepared her, "Motherhood, the longest improvisation lesson I’ve ever been in” and there’s “A thousand and fifty million ways to make it work”
- What it was like to enter motherhood without her own Mom, and keeping her legacy alive through ritual and purposeful work
- Nikki shares about her non-profit On the Inside and the meaning behind her work with incarcerated women
- How a practice of less judgment and more compassion for ourselves can change the world, in our families, our relationships and in our country
- The importance of finding connection through sisterhood to weather trying times
- Nikki shares an example of her current life lessons
- Nikki goes back in time to speak to her ten-year-old self, and to listen to the wisdom she has to share with her now.
Connect with Nikki:
Instagram @nikkiweaver
Learn More & Support On the Inside:
Instagram @ontheinside2
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