Stephanie: Shana. Thanks for joining me today.

Shana: Hey, Stephanie. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Stephanie: And I am thrilled to have you here. You know, obviously on the podcast, I talk a lot about the midlife transition and for most people that is impacted, at some level and in some way, by how we grew up and the kinds of things that happened to us as children. And for you, that is especially so. And I think today we'll spend a little bit more time than we normally do on the forces that shaped you and how we get to the beginning of the story. So can you, let's start with, you know, your childhood. How did you grow up?

Shana: Yeah. Ooh, buckle up everyone.I was born into an abusive household and raised inside of an evangelical Christian cult. And what that meant and how that showed up was that I had no ability to show up as myself. I was told how I had to show up and I was required to show up that way. And if I did not, I was punished, harmed, so on and so forth, fill in the blank. and so when people's definition of punishment is to do you physical harm, right? And just to pause, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how I felt about the environment that I grew up in and it felt a lot like fascism on a small scale.

Stephanie: Mm.

Shana: Right. Growing up in an abusive household is fascist. Yeah. So growing up in an abusive household is fascism in a micro study. It is the enforcement of rules through violence.And so when you grow up in that environment,you not being obedient, you not doing what you're told. It doesn't even matter if you've done something wrong. You not doing what you're told is rewarded with violence, right?

So in that environment you are not able to grow into yourself. You cannot be in constant self protection mode and also growing,

Stephanie: Right.

Shana: And so your resources are diverted to self protection. And so there's a part of you inside that is still learning and observing and taking it from the world around you. But what it's learning and observing and taking it from the world around is how to better protect yourself.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Shana: How to better study the people around you so that you know their every move, their every whim, their every movement, their every emotion, their emotional arcs, so that you can anticipate their needs and meet their needs to prevent them from harming you.

You're trying to make that

frequency less. Right. That in and of itself,is harm. You having to regulate the adults around you as a child is harm.

And so, you know, I was in an environment where unfortunately that was true. And so my growth was stunted in many ways, as far as my understanding of the broader context of the world around me, my access to resources, my access to learning and understanding, right? My access to who I could become, what was possible for me, because in tho se kinds of environments, curiosity is not allowed. Because curiosity would lead you to question the system that controls you, right? And so curiosity is deemed a threat. And when you embody curiosity, you are deemed a threat and you are treated as such, right?

Stephanie: That's so interesting because you just think of, you know, Small children, two, three, four, five, six years old, the most basic thing about them is that they are curious about the world around them. And for that to be dangerous, I can only imagine again,the walling off the stunting of yourself that you have to do to be safe.

Shana: Yeah. And for me, it started very, very early. For instance, the first time I ran away from home, I was three. You know, the first time I packed my bags and walked out the front door by myself, I was three.

Stephanie: I grabbed a brown paper Acme bag from the kitchen. I walked into my room, opened the top drawer, put every pair of underwear I owned, all my socks, coat, a sweater, and I walked out the door. And I thought,I'll walk to my grandparents house. It was my mom's parents, so they would have just brought me back.

Shana: And so then I thought, well, maybe I'll just find a really nice group of hedges and I'll live there in the woods. Like I fully planned on just figuring out as I went,but I knew I wasn't safe. I knew I wasn't safe. Yeah. So, and that's just like, that's just like a basic thing. That sounds traumatizing, but what all the things that happened after just deeply traumatizing.

Yeah.

Stephanie: that you understand the traumas more and you they become larger as you become larger. So again, yeah, there's no

Shana: Or as you try to become larger. Yeah. And the other thing that people don't think about is that when your parents are unhealthy persons, they were never. They were never taught how to be healthy persons, and they were never given the tools necessary to question how they showed up in the world and to seek help. Now, when I was three years old, my parents were still under the age of 30. My dad was 26 or 27. My mom was,25.

Stephanie: Mm

Shana: They were young. Their frontal lobes were just beginning to finish forming, right? They had endured,you know, In their own ways, but traumatizing very different ways, but traumatizing environments.

We found out later in life that my dad's dad,had autism spectrum disorder, right? So, growing up in houses with very neurodivergent parents who are undiagnosed on both sides, I believe. There's a lot of dysregulation. There's a lot of not knowing they're dysregulated. There's a lot of not understanding how to set boundaries. There's a lot of not knowing how to process your emotions, not knowing how to feel your emotions. That's a big one, how to even identify and feel them.

So they both grew up in those environments, right? With very dysregulated parents, most likely all of them neuro spicy. And, you know, my parents both. My mom isn't officially diagnosed, but we, all of us kids have our neurodivergent. So like mathematically, genetically,

Stephanie: Did your parents grow up in that cult environment or did they choose it for themselves?

Shana: My dad chose it. My dad chose it. The thing about cult environments is they are really appealing to people who want to control other people, right? They're really appealing to creating a narrative and deciding that narrative is from a higher figure,

Stephanie: Mm

Shana: higher figure being something you must submit entirely to. Meanwhile, this physical being is a surrogate for that higher being and the mouthpiece for that higher being, you know. So there's a lot of unhealth, lack of health in those environments. And when you're someone who feels out of control in your own life, who, is traumatized and is now a continuously dysregulated human. You just want to control everything around you. You want it to stop. You want the pain to stop. You want everybody to stop. You want to be able to control everything around you. And it was very appealing to him. And there's no excuses there. My dad is a very unhealthy human who has never gotten the help he needed.

Stephanie: And he's an adult and he does need to be able to get that help. And I can also understand that he does not have the self awareness necessary to, was never given the tools to understand how to seek out help. And then you get married and start having children. I can imagine that adding that on top is so overwhelming.

Shana: Yes. and the internalized misogyny and growing up in a hierarchical system in which the demonstration of power is your control over others and your lack of accountability. you know, these are all things that were very much internalized and then weaponized, by my father. And so that's the thing, you know?And so, you know, yeah, growing up in that environment, not healthy, not healthy.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Shana: no, not

Stephanie: What was school like for you?

Shana: I went to the school that it was attached to the cult.

Stephanie: So that

Shana: so there was no,

Stephanie: uh, an outlet.

Shana: No. And when I was diagnosed with ADHD at five,my mom really, although she had her own things, she was trying to sort through really advocated for me to get me on medication. And so she got me on medication and the school went along with it.but I had to hide it. I wasn't really allowed, people weren't allowed to know I was taking it, so on and so forth. And then the state,offers support for neurodivergent humans and they were offering like extra tutoring and so on and so forth. But the school disallowed. The state to come in and provide me any support. They did not want the state interfering or being having any purview or any, you know, ability or say in the school.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. They probably didn't want them to see what was going on either.

Shana: No, definitely. It's interesting because people have specific experiences. Everybody's experience is unique. You can grow up in the same household, in the same abusive household, and not actually have experienced deeply traumatizing things. Because what happens in abusive households, typically one person becomes the most abused person. They become the scapegoat, right? And so that also can happen in those environments. In those larger environments, in the school environments, I was bullied consistently. Teachers didn't step in. It was other students, the older students, there was my one friend, Juliet and she stepped in and started walking me to my classroom every day because she saw me getting bullied and no,were stepping in.

You know, the teachers who were there predominantly or were good people who were just, you know, trying to do good in the world. But then there was other teachers who were not good people. Like I had one teacher. Who, you know, threw things at me because she left the classroom for 45 minutes and I had to use the bathroom and she said we weren't allowed to get up from our desk, but she was nowhere to be found. And I really had to go to the bathroom and it was either pee myself or go to the bathroom. And so I decided to get up and go to the bathroom. I was in sixth grade. I was not, you know, a two year old or a three year old, you know, I was old enough to walk myself to and from the bathroom.

And she happened to come back in the classroom. I was sitting back down at my desk and she had gone to go get our scholastic orders. And she took my scholastic order and threw it at me.

Stephanie: Oh

Shana: You know, and this teacher remained at that school. She would call students names. She would yell and scream at students, right? She was a very dysregulated human.

Stephanie: Mm.

Shana: She was allowed to have this reign of terror and everybody knew she was not nice to you, especially when you were in her class. But once you were out of her class and you weren't her student or even potentially her student anymore, suddenly she was your biggest fan.

There was inappropriate handling of things. So it wasn't like the school itself was this horrible place, but there was definitely unethical,immoral things that were happening that were not handled well, were not handled respectfully. Students were not seen as, fully autonomous human beings, but instead I don't even know what,

Stephanie: Cattle is the

Shana: to be, yeah,

As a something to be controlled, to be programmed, to do as you're told, like that's, you know, the philosophy that, that was primarily there. And so there was no like, but this doesn't align with me. This feels like it's attacking my soul. This isn't okay for me. It might be okay for you and you want it to be okay for me, but your desire has nothing to do with my life.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Shana: You know. There was no separation or understanding of, fostering. It was like they were raising cattle, not nurturing children. Right. And the fact that we talk about, and I use the word raised when I say raised inside of an evangelical Christian cult, I use that word on purpose because you raise cattle, you raise animals, you nurture humans.And so that nurturing was, Not there consistently. Like I said, there was great teachers there.

Stephanie: Sure.

Shana: But oftentimes they left, so.

Stephanie: Right. Right. So school was not an outlet for you. So there's home, there's school, it's all under the umbrella of the cult. Was there anywhere in your childhood growing up that was outside of this place, outside of this, the reach.

Shana: I had to craft that for myself. And yes, because my parents are both neurodivergent, they didn't really like us around, especially when they were dysregulated. And I'm an elder millennial, so my parents were like, go outside and go play. And so, you know, we just had to come back when we heard the bell. We had to be within the sound of the bell or when the sun, you know, as the sun started going down. And so I would be in the woods. I would just be in nature.

Stephanie: Okay.

Shana: You know, find other children in the neighborhood to talk to. So there was spaces that I crafted out for myself.

I kept a journal my whole life. I still have all of those journals, except one or two when I was like six or seven, my handwriting was terrible. I couldn't even read it. I went back to read the one that I kept when I was like six, seven, eight. And I was like, I don't even know if those are words.

But yeah, so I still haven't, so there was these moments that I crafted and carved out for myself,to speak to myself, to hear from myself, to connect with the world around me, to take a deep breath.Even though that anxiety was still always there. Anybody who struggles with anxiety will know, even when you take a deep breath, it's still buzzing inside of your chest, know, that. You know, this moment feels good, but when does this moment end and what's going to be the thing that's going to end it? You don't know the answer to those questions. And that's, what's always buzzing inside of your chest.

Stephanie: I want to,ask you a question that really comes into play when we get down to the midlife transition, because. One of the things that is, common for people to say about this transition in their mid to late thirties, 40 ish, is that they finally start listening to their intuition .It's interesting because as younger people, we often ignore our intuition. We don't trust it, or we don't know what those weird voices in our heads are, or what those feelings in our body are, but you had a very different experience with intuition as a child and a young person.

Shana: Yeah. So, you know, again, when you grew up in those environments, your intuition is something you cannot listen to, because your intuition is telling you all the time you're not safe.

And so

Stephanie: And it's right.

Shana: you have to shut it down.

It's correct. Yeah. It's correct. It's not wrong. It's telling you you're not safe all the time. And so it becomes,it's not exactly the boy who cried wolf cause he's not crying wolf. It's the voice inside of you is absolutely crying for a reason, but you can't listen to it because you literally won't survive.

What I mean is if you were to listen to the voice inside of you telling you all the time that you're not safe, you literally won't survive, because you mentally, you will not be able to keep it together. And so you have to ignore that voice. You have to.

And then as you get older and you realize. Now you've got more access to different spaces, right? You've got a little more autonomy. You start to recognize who and where you might find some safety.You do start listening to your intuition a little bit, but there's still people in authority over you who are requiring you to override your intuition, and so it's programmed into you and you are primed, you are literally primed to be abused because you have to constantly put aside your intuition in order to serve the person in authority over you. And then the question becomes, as you get older, who's in authority? Whoever establishes themselves as having authority over you. That's who has authority. That's how it happens, right? That's the pattern. They don't have to be accountable for their actions. And so this is the person in authority. I have to do what theyAnd so it primes you to work for people who are abusive and narcissistic. It primes you to be in relationships with people who are abusive and narcissistic.

People, and harmful people can sense it about you. They can sense, they sort of test you with little things at the beginning and what they watch you. They help you override your intuition and start recognizing that you are a person who will do that and will acquiesce and submit yourself to them. And so you become someone who is now ripe for harm as an adult as well, until you start to actually listen and trust your intuition.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Shana: yeah.

Stephanie: You said it was like, being a rescue animal. A rescue dog. You said that there was, you don't know who to trust, what to trust,you're anxious, you're afraid,

Shana: Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Shana: And you lash out. So you get to a place where you realize that a lot of the people around you are unhealthy and you don't know what healthy looks like yet. You've never been given access to it, at least not consistently. So there's people around you who don't harm you, but they enable those who do harm.

So, you know that there's wolves in sheep's clothing, and you know that there's wolves in wolves clothing, and you know that there's sheep who just do what the wolf says. But you don't know who's actually there to support you and be true, authentic, ethical community for you. You don't know. It takes time.

So like, you have to start to establish, like for me, I had to very quickly start asking the question when I left those environments at 26. What is healthy relationship? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know how to show up healthy. I know that whenever I would feel someone trying to override my boundaries or someone not accepting my no, I was very reactive. I had a right to be. I had a right to be, but my reactions were disproportionate, but someone was trying to violate my boundaries. My reactions might have seemed irrational, but whenever someone's trying to violate your boundaries, to me, there is no irrational, like if I'm going to, if I yell at you or whatever it is, and I'm like, get out of my life or I ghost you, those are completely rational responses to someone overriding right now.

At the time, they felt out of control. And that's the thing. I, now I'm grounded in my knowing. And when someone violates my boundaries, I don't give them the energy of being angry or upset or flustered. I simply walk away. I don't allow them in my space anymore.

But at the time I would tell people how unhealthy they were and how, you know, so on and so on. And you, by the way, you never tell a narcissist they're a narcissist. Like you never tell a narcissist about themselves. They just turn it back on you and try to make you feel crazy like you're the one because now you're dysregulated and you're out of control.

They'll turn it back on you. So you never tell a narcissist or an abusive person about themselves. Don't waste your breath. You are wasting your breath. It's going to be used to harm you again. You just walk away.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Shana: Stay away from them. Just like an electric fence. Don't touch it. Don't go near it. Leave it alone.

Stephanie: So you said you left that environment or those environments at 26 and tell me about leaving. How did you find the courage to do it? How did you find the tactical plan to do it?

Shana: Yeah.I'm going to be very careful with what I share here and how I share it because I don't want to harm people who are part

Stephanie: of course. Of course.

Shana: My father left at 24. He was with someone else. He left. While we were on vacation ransacked the house. Ransacking wasn't the best thing that ever happened, but him leaving was. However, when you have a whole bunch of people who are,have either PTSD or complex PTSD, the difference being usually complex PTSD is obtained in childhood. not, that's not the only difference, but.

You know, you have a whole bunch of dysregulated people, people are on constant high alert, people are very defensive. Well, you're going to harm each other. Even though the primary abuser is gone, you all have been abusing each other too. You become a part of the system of abuse. You enable it, you support it, you actively harm one another. So we had a whole bunch of dysregulated people in the same household and it didn't go well.

Intermission

Shana: And at 25, my grandfather got sick and,was dying from cancer and he needed someone to live with him. Now he was still very functional. He was just,on oxygen and he just couldn't like manage the house by himself. And I was looking for a job and found one in King of Prussia, three miles away from him.

And so it kind of became this really perfect fit. And so I lived with him during the week and would come home on the weekend. It was still part of the cult . So I would come home on the weekend, go to church, do all the things. Twice on Sunday, so on and so forth. But I was starting to create separation,between myself and the church and,kept backing away. Would only go Sunday morning 'cause I had to drive back to my grandfather's Sunday night, you know, that sort of thing.

Um, started going salsa dancing because I was seeking community. I really wanted to be around people who, I just needed something different and dancing is such a beautifully regulating thing, especially social dancing. Social dancing is to learn to trust,the lead, right? You have to learn to trust who's leading you. They have to demonstrate that you can trust them because when you're dancing social dancing, especially for salsa, because that's the community I entered into, the lead has to keep you in a straight line.

The minute they deviate from that line, you can get hurt. You can get stepped on. You can hurt an ankle, something like that, running into someone. So they have to establish really quickly that there's someone that you can trust, right? So it started to kind of really give me this opportunity to move trauma through my body and learn how someone shows you they're trustworthy, right? In this nonverbal way, that was really helpful for me as a neurodivergent person.

And so I started separating myself there. And then at 26, when my grandfather passed, I moved back home for a couple of weeks and I realized I can't be in this environment anymore. This is too traumatic. This is re traumatizing. I realized that my grandfather had worked so hard to foster my curiosity and question my assumptions and the ideology that I'd been steeped in. I, and he did it with such care and compassion,never making it judgmental. He would just ask a question and leave it there. He didn't even expect me or want me to answer him. He wanted me to answer for myself, right?

So it was this really beautiful thing, and I was home for less than a month, and something happened. I had to move out. There was no option. I knew I was not physically safe. And so I started calling around and,my sister had friends who were EMTs and firefighters and the one person had a house a couple miles away and he had an open bedroom and I said, Hey, can I rent your bedroom?

And he was charging me like 370 a month, everything included for this bedroom. And I said, sold. I'm in. And I moved out. And then I, you know, went on my merry way with my life. And,it was messy for a really long time, but the finding community and learning, navigating, trying to find safety and what, how a person who you're safe with shows up, you know,I loved having access to the Salsa community for that.

Stephanie: Yeah. Another thing that you said to me when we first spoke and this is we get to this part in the story. you said when you were in your thirties, you looked like you were ahead of everyone else by like 10 years. But now that you're 40, you look like you're in your twenties. So that, that kind of segues us to like, okay, you're 26, you leave. What does the next decade look like?

Shana: Ooh, the next decade looks like me learning to use my voice, because when you grew up in an abusive environment, you're not allowed to use your voice except in the way that you're told. You're only allowed to use your voice in ways that perpetrate and perpetuate specific ideology, the harm and violence, so on and so forth.

And so I had to learn how to be safe with myself. I had to learn to trust myself. I had to learn that although this. It had been weaponized against me every time I made a mistake that I couldn't trust myself that had been taught to me. You make a mistake. That means you can't trust yourself.

You have to trust me. I know better than you. I had to get to the place where I recognized that was never true, right? If the person who was saying that was constantly harming me. That was never true. I had to go along with it because I would have been harmed if I wasn't, but I didn't have to go along with that anymore. I had to discover what was true and what was true is that I trust myself.

Stephanie: Yeah. And the mistakes are part of learning. They don't mean that you're wrong. They just mean that you haven't learned it all the way yet. Life is a series of mistakes and corrections and learning.

Shana:

Stephanie: But you didn't know

Shana: those high No, because in those high control environments, perfectionism is what is required, especially of women, to constantly monitor yourself. That's the thing. No one else. They teach you so well that at some point in time, no one has to monitor you. You are monitoring yourself. You are taught to tell on yourself. You are taught to constantly self flagellate.And so I had to get to the place where like in the corporate world, can you imagine how I navigated that early in my twenties, the way that I navigated that constantly telling on myself, constantly you know, falling on my sword every time I did something that was like a minor infraction? And it allowed the people in authority over me to weaponize that against me and to make me the fall person in those corporate environments as well.

And so, you know, eventually I just had to learn, I can trust myself because what I started to notice I'm neurodivergent, so I'm a great systems thinker and patterns become pretty apparent to me pretty quickly. And so, I started to recognize pretty quickly, wait a second. Every time I don't listen to myself is when I actually get in trouble.

Every time I listen to someone else who's quote unquote in authority over me because they say, Oh no, give that person a chance. You know, they're just whatever and excuse their bad behavior. I was like, this doesn't feel right to me. I don't feel safe with that person. I think it's more than that. I think they just. are being harmful to me and I have a right to not want to spend time with them or work on projects with them. You know, every time I would end up being harmed.

And so when I noticed that pattern, I was like, okay, so now we've got to invest in our intuition. Now we've got to pay attention to it. Now we've got to learn we can trust ourself. And I think it came much faster for me than other people because of the environment I grew up in and because of,having to stand on my own two feet,and the stark contrast between how I grew up and then suddenly being on my own.

Seeking out my intuition became a matter of recognizing that no one has authority over me I do not give them. There is no such thing as being rebellious. There's no such thing. I can trust myself and my intuition, even and especially when I make a mistake.

Stephanie: Yeah.

So talk about your thirties a little bit. How is it you were ten

Shana: Yeah. So,

Stephanie: ahead of everybody else?

Shana: Well, in some ways, yeah. In other ways, no. So like in interpersonal relationships and you know, those ways I felt like I was maybe behind everybody or just approached them differently. Now I know I approach them differently. I thought I was behind everybody else. Now I just know I'm neurodivergent and that's just the way my brain works.

But you know, my thirties were coming to terms with and recognizing because when I left the church I grew up in at 26, I went to a non denominational church. But within a few years, I started to recognize that that non denominational church was trying to become the very thing I had just left. And so then I left there, and I went to another non denominational church, and I moved into the city of Philadelphia.

I was now almost an hour away from my family, found a new job, so on and so forth. So I was creating this entire new narrative for my life.

And I think it really started to crack open what was possible for me, who I wanted to become. And so as I'm navigating these different churches, these church environments, and by the way, the second non denominational church,

absolutely started behaving exactly as the others. And I now happen to know why. Yeah, I now happen to know why,all of these non denominational churches, especially the larger ones, they've bought into an association. And that association has an entire catalog of music programming. It actually teaches the pastors,their cadence,so on and so forth. It's got all of the sermons that they can take and then alter if they want to. They could preach them just as it's written if they want to. They have to pay into this association. There's actual private shoppers, like undercover shoppers that will come in and double check the numbers you're sending into this association. It's a very high control situation. Yeah. And they get it, they have to pay like 10 percent of their tithe and something into it, but it also will protect those pastors when something is done that is harmful and they get sued.So it's this whole umbrella, which the more you learn about it, the more sinister it becomes. Anyway, they had bought into that system and so they were literally, that's why they felt exactly the same. I was right. They were actually trying to become the thing they had just left.

Did you at some point give up on churches?

Oh yeah, for sure. So at 35. I'm 40 now, so at 35,I said, you know what? I watched what was happening with the murder of George Floyd. I watched what was happening in the world around me and I became acutely aware that the church and the story of the Good Samaritan was the ones stepping over the bodies.

And I called my pastor out on it and I said, we're not speaking out about this. You're not speaking out about this. And this is not a white dominant church. I've never attended a white dominant church in my life. Not even the cult I grew up in. That's a whole nother story, but, you know, as far as the way that the white men in positions of power were using black and brown people as shields. To protect them.I had a two hour conversation with my pastor at the time and let him know I was leaving the church because I could no longer reckon and rectify what was going on in the world and what was going on inside of the church and the lack of investment in people. And people's overall safety and the honoring of people's humanity. I could no longer be a part of that. And so I swore off religion.

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Shana: Please, if you're listening to this, I don't. This is my journey. I'm speaking nothing about your own journey, your religious beliefs. This is what I believe. This is what I have come to understand. It is unique to me and my perspective. I am not here to disrespect anyone's beliefs.

But for me, I got to the place where I recognized that if God created all creation, the God that I was taught to worship, created all creation is supposed to be both benevolent and all knowing, then he knowingly created human beings in a way that he knew the choices they would make and knew that he would then create hell as a result, and knew he would be sending that creation to suffer for all eternity, without at any point being willing to reveal himself in a way that would confirm his existence.

And so then I had to come to the conclusion for myself, that there is no puppet master in the sky, or if he does exist, he is either not all knowing or not benevolent. He cannot be all knowing and benevolent. I see no benevolencein the way he has constructed the world around him. And then I also came to the right realization that if all creation is a reflection of God, and we know here on earth that absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Then why would absolute power not corrupt that which created us?

So I got to the place where I recognized, yeah, that there was, for me, no puppet master in the sky. I do believe there's something. Life is magical. Life is miraculous. I don't know what gave us all life or gives us all life, but for me, once I stopped looking for validation externally, for a puppet master in the sky, right? Once I stopped thinking that I had to have the approval of something external for myself, then I stopped seeking external approval. And my confidence became very real for me because it no longer had to be something outside of me. It was always inside of me. I was just distracted.

Stephanie: This is, you have just, and I know you used the context of religion and of God but you have just enunciated clearly the exact transition so many people go through at some point around their 40th birthday, plus or minus five years. And that is the transition from relying on external authority. And for you, the external authority was,a negative experience. For most people, the external authority wants good for us. They want the best for us. It's our parents, our teachers, our bosses, our mentors, right? They want us to be happy and healthy and successful and safe. And so they tell us, you need to do all these things. You should, the shoulds, right? And so most people spend their twenties and some part of their thirties doing all the things they should. And you did as well. You just did it in a different framework. But the way you

Shana: Should is the only curse word as far as I'm concerned,

Stephanie: Agreed. Agreed. Right. And, and so there comes the time where you start to trust yourself.and I think the thing that I'm learning most is, is not that we could have, and maybe some people do, but not that we could have trusted ourselves to that level earlier, because we didn't have the experience. I think it's the experience that brings trust. So our experience of being an adult, we need 10, 15, 20 years of being an adult, being independent, being out on our own and seeing the sort of cause and effect of our actions and the reactions before we can finally trust ourselves to say, I know what's best for me.

Shana: Yeah. Do you think that arc would be different if our parents were taught different and then taught us differently? Do you think if our parents had been taught to trust themselves, to trust but verify, and they had taught us that and given us the space earlier on to test things out and to let it go wrong in the safety of their protection? Do you think that arc would be shortened?

Stephanie: I don't know. And while you were asking that question, I thought of two different things. The first thing I thought was, it will be interesting to see what happens when Gen Z approaches 40,

Shana: That's what I'm thinking about. Yeah, because I'm watching Gen Z right now.

Stephanie: They're doing things differently. They're making different choices for themselves. Millennial generation has been, branded as, the killers of, you know, all kinds of different industries social norms, but they're also the people who quote unquote, can't get those things because of how the world is. Gen Z is actually opting out of them, choosing actively to opt out. So it will be very interesting in 15 or 20 more years to see what the 40 shift looks like. That being said...

Shana: Yeah, I'm so proud of them. I'm just saying I'm so proud of the way they're using their voice and that they're willing to get it wrong so that they can learn how to get it, right. And they're not getting it wrong. Predominantly, I'm not seeing them getting it wrong. They're using their voices and saying, what's wrong is wrong, and I'm going to use my voice and say that it's wrong. The process of using their voice is still messy and complicated, but they're doing, I mean, I'm in awe of their courage, their bravery, and their humanity.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I thought when you were asking the question was, you asked about, you know, having the space to make mistakes and try things. And I think back to my own childhood, because I'm a Gen xer and we were the latchkey kids, right? We were the kids that go out and play kids, right? You're an elder millennial. You were right on the tail end of that.And so there was that element of that freedom to try and test and experiment, when we were kids, that is not available today. There are no longer free range children. There are no longer, unsupervised children. So there was an element of that in my childhood and in my generation's childhood, but. I think what there wasn't was that piece that you added to the question, which is that supportive and loving Sort of container,and not that there weren't supporting or loving households and families and not that mine wasn't supportive or loving from.

I also think we keep learning things right as a society and as people, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when I was a kid, nobody was, talking about dysregulation. Nobody was talking about coregulation.

Shana: No, absolutely not.

Stephanie: So even

Shana: People say all the time that I was lucky to be diagnosed as neurodivergent as a kid because then I could learn more about myself. No, there was nothing to learn. Neurodivergence in women had literally never been studied. It's only just being studied now,starting, and it takes like 17 years from the time, 12 to 17 years from the time that something begins to be studied before it makes it intothe canon, right? And so we're not even going to see the result of those studies for another decade. And so there was no understanding of it. I was lucky in that my neurodivergence presented in enough of an exterior way that it was identified, right?

But it has only primarily been studied in young white boys. It hasn't even really been studying that adults. These are all the things, I didn't have access that. We didn't have that language. I didn't know my parents didn't know how to regulate themselves, let alone co regulate with me. They didn't have the language of I was dysregulated. They couldn't say, you're dysregulated. Let's figure out how to help you get regulated. Do you want to go jump on a trampoline or go for a walk or, you know, listen to some music or do you want to go sing, whatever it is that helps to regulate you. I didn't have the language to know the ways in which I was regulating myself and to identify those and pay attention to them. So nobody had any of that language.

Stephanie: So though there were elements of the, experimental and,you know, trying things and making mistakes and cause and effect there, even though there was more of an element of that in my childhood than kids today, we didn't know a lot of what we know today.

I mean, you know, geez, 10 years ago, I finally found out. I have had,digestive issues since I was nine years old. I remember being out school the first time with digestive issues. I think I was in third or fourth grade and,had them my entire life. And about 10 years ago, I found out that I was,gluten sensitive, intolerant,allergic to gluten and dairy, right? And soy actually, and a couple other things. But my mother would say, when I first went gluten free, my mother would say, What did we know from gluten free in the 70s? And she's right. And my mom was also the kind of person who was in the creepy hippie, you know, natural food stores in the seventies. I remember going to grammar school with Tiger Milk bars. I mean, they were so disgusting, you know, instead of candy bars.

But, you know, my mom was in those places that were off the beaten path, and we still didn't know what gluten free was. So

Shana: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah

Stephanie: Do I think that we could get there sooner? Maybe the generation after you and the generation after them. Maybe their kids.

Shana: Alpha. Yeah.

I'm amazed by them. Oh, you know, I can't wait to see what they do with the world.I have faith that they're going to, help step us back from the place that we are now as a society and as a world, and I think they're going to bring a lot of revolution or innovation to the conversation around global warming and so on and so forth. I just don't think they're going to have any tolerance for the shenanigans that is tolerated now.

Part of the silent gen who are still with us, which there's still 5 percent of the population and still hold 15 percent of the wealth in this country, by the way.Boomers have a little more than twice the wealth of their population size. Gen X, it's proportionate. Millennials have almost 27 percent of population have 5 percent of the wealth, right? Well, we see the silent gen holding on with a death grip and boomers are doing the same. So people who are in positions of power, they're refusing to step away until they pass away.

Stephanie: Right.

Shana: Even when they're asked to step aside because the decisions that they make, they're not going to be able to live with the consequences. They're not going to be here to live with the consequences. Everybody else will. Yeah. so that's the

Stephanie: There's a book that I started years ago,that is, hysterical, and it wasn't intended to be, it's called A Generation of Sociopaths. And it's about the Boomers. I forget who wrote it, but it was somebody who took the DSM,definition of sociopaths and went line by line. It was like, here are the boomers and they fit every, as a generation, not as individuals, not as groups, not as families.

Shana: Yes.

Stephanie: But as a generation, they fit like every single criteria of legitimate sociopaths. I think that is, you know, part of a societal,challenge we face. And so it is, is, is it going to be the, you know, are you guys, the Millennials, or are you guys going to get the power when the Boomers are all, you know, dying off? Or is it not going to be until Gen Z is, emerging into their thirties and forties and fifties, I don't know.

Shana: The place we are in society, I don't think those in a position of power can hold onto the power much longer because society is collapsing and on itself. And so they're going to have to give up that power because there's no more power for them to extract. If we're being honest. There's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing more for you to extract. But before we go too far, do we want to try to get back on track?

Stephanie: Let's reign it back in rain. Okay. Ready? Slash rant over,

Shana: Right. Turn the page, here we are.

Stephanie: Okay. Back to you. So when we come to you at your mid thirties. You are,emerging into your place in the world and,the thing that you said to me, which was so interesting was the thing that you did at this point in your life was giving language to your values. How did that come about?.

Shana: Yeah. So I started my first business when I was a kid,but the first legitimate one that had an LLC, I started at 32. And so that was my interior design business. That's what I went to school for. But at 35, 36 is when I realized, hold on a second. There's a larger conversation to be had here. There's a lot of research I've been doing for years and years on how to show up as an ethical human. What does it mean to be in relationship with the people around us? What does it require? What is leadership? How does it show up in an ethical way? You know, I've been seeking the answers to these questions for years and years. And that had infused itself into my work, my interior design work. And was a foundational part of it. It was how I approached every conversation with my clients. And it was them that pointed out to me how much value they saw in that part of the work. Because I knew it was there. I knew what I was doing. It was a conscious choice to infuse kind of discussion into, how we're approaching interior design. And they were like, you need to do more with this. Because we have powerful conversations. And you need to be having these with more people.

And at the time I was leading group coaching for, you know, entrepreneurs all the way up to, you know, people in their mid fifties and well established business owners. And we were having these extremely powerful conversations. And so, it became this thing of okay, I think I need to shift the narrative of my business. I think what I'm doing and what I'm bringing into the world needs to shift. And I think it needs to align with who I am and how I actually desire to show up because interior design is not an effective medium anymore.There's another way, another path, right? Because I was using interior design as the medium. It was a limiting medium. It was not successfully carrying this work forward.

So I, I let go of that medium, but as I was letting go of it, I was like, before we let go of it entirely, let's get the language together. Who am I? How do I want to show up as a leader, as a business owner? How do I want my clients to experience my business?

It's here intellectually, but I've never given it specific language. And so I sat down and wrote down my company values, which happened to be my own values.

And in giving, language to that I gained so much clarity, because you can't really be intentional until you give something language, right? Like when you can explain something to somebody else precisely is when you can truly embody it. And so that's the thing that it did is that I changed my business name. I really just opened another LLC. Andshifted everything. Because I, when I found that language and I was able to anchor myself in that language and recognize how powerful it was and recognize how, you know, I began to recognize how powerful it was for other people because I thought what I knew, everybody else knew already. I had just had to figure it out. And then I realized they might know it in their deep knowing, but it's not showing up in their everyday life because they don't have the language yet. But I found the language and other people are finding, it helpful for me to give them the language.

And so it just became this really beautiful thing where, you know, sharing language is powerful. Sharing our stories is powerful and it empowers other people to find the language for themselves, to speak their truth, to share their stories. And so that's the thing that really altered and shifted things. And that was not that, I mean, it feels like it was a hundred years ago because it was at the beginning of the pandemic.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that you've just, articulated another element of this transition that is so common, and that is the rethinking of identity. Who am I,what do I want? It's so interesting to me how,everybody's transition is different, everybody comes from a different place, I, you know, have heard some extreme stories of childhood and abusive relationships and things like that.

Yours is unique to my podcast and to my guests. And yet there are still commonalities with this transition and the phases we go through during this time it's just so interesting to me how consistent it is and how much we go through it.

What is the language that you found?

Shana: A number 1 is as a brand, as a consulting firm, we are a community and we actively create community. And community has a very specific definition. For instance, a nuclear family is not a representation of community. It's a representation of hierarchy.Lasting relationships matter and are key to our success, both in life and as a company.

Great talent is rare. People are not replaceable. They are individual, unique and critical to our success.

We must constantly challenge all of our assumptions and search for flaws that could destroy our culture, community and our integrity, personally, as a business and in our work.

We believe that it is critical to our success, that our community be one that is made up of a diverse group of individuals who contribute to and are responsible for our success and that people are honored for their contribution with equitable pay.

We cannot succeed without open lines of communication that are actively used with intention often, with thoughtful pause, but not hesitation and with respect not reverence. Well crafted actionable transformational ideas do not come about by accident. They are created when we work together to solve a problem or set of problems.

Great ideas can and do come from everywhere and anyone. There is no hierarchy that will stand in the way of facilitating good ideas being brought forward by anyone at any time.

We are all in this together. No one is above doing the little things or beneath doing great things.

So those are my values, both my personal ones and for the work organization..

Stephanie: They're beautiful. And I, really related to the people are not replaceable. Because that's how I approach my organization as well. I have attracted wonderfully talented,exceptional people and,I do what I can to keep them with me and with the organization. I treat them the way they want to be treated because they are not replaceable. And in fact, in a small organization, it is so disruptive to have to replace someone or have to retrain someone or have to start the learning curve again that, my people, the team I have at my marketing agency are my most valuable asset.

Shana: Oh, absolutely. They are the people who work with you and for you and partner with you, they are absolutely your most valuable asset. And that's the place that I see more and more organizations putting language to, and creating intentions and actions around. And I am excited to see how that pushes the overarching narrative in the corporate world, you know, and continuing to,value people. But, you know, those values took a long time to write. That's not the first draft of them.

Stephanie: doesn't sound It's too, it's too beautifully written to be anywhere near a single digit draft.

Shana: Yeah. You know, I spent years doing research. And it's when I could give it that language that I recognized how many organizations needed to give it that language too, because you cannot align. You really need people to understand when they come into your organization from the very beginning. Who is it that you are attracting? What is your intentions? Because people can't decide if their intentions and their own ways of showing up actually align with your organization if it's like this willy nilly thing that's kind of haphazard. The more intentional you are the more you're going to attract the kind of individuals who align with that intention. Now, I'm not talking about good culture fits. That's not what I'm talking about. That's a trap. That's a trap for echo chambers and groupthink.

What I am talking about. is people who align with your intentions, who share those intentions from their own perspective, can contribute to those intentions.

Stephanie: Interesting. I like that clarification.

Shana, I feel like you and I could probably talk all afternoon. and we could go down into different tangents and different rants and it would be a lot of fun, but I also want to be thoughtful of,your time and I want to thank you for joining me today. And you've been truly exceptionally generous with your story and I appreciate it. And I want to thank you.

Shana: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. We didn't know whether it was going to work from the beginning because I'm just 40. but I'm so glad that we did because I really appreciate this conversation.