Sep 14, 2020
- Megan Flinn
I have, I have faced my own deep, like I have survived the thing, I think a lot of people have the great wounding or the great pain point of their life. And for those of us who have faced and wrestled through it and acknowledge it changes us. We then can turn to others and kind of say, like, I've been to my deepest, darkest parts of myself and come out on the other side like. That's possible for you too, the hope of that is true for everybody,
INTRO
Today’s conversation is about grief and femininity and finding yourself in the midst of a hard loss. When Megan Flinn went in for a straightforward surgery that yielded a devastating outcome, her life changed dramatically. Her uterus was gone as was any dream of giving birth to a child of her own.
But before we jump into her story, a little bit more about Megan. Megan is an old and dear friend. We’ve shared so many conversations of the heart, she has spent the night by Moses (my son)’s side as he recovered from heart surgeries. She has been there for birthday parties and was the one who originally rescued Tozer, a smart and loving mutt of a dog that became a part of my family.
Megan is tough and warm and smart. She is brave and confident and capable of doing her own electric wiring. She has a penchant for stray dogs. Megan is currently pursuing her a Ph.D., working as a school counselor, and is the founder of her own non-profit, Hamza International that combines embodied therapeutic approaches with a consultative framework that honors community workers while bringing forward the best of brain science.
- Liesel Mertes
Observing you over the years, you know, a key part of what you bring to so much of what you do in life is just a push for for justice and being a voice for those who have been marginalized. So I imagine that that is is a narrative thread that goes through your experiences that are leading you to where you are today.
- Megan Flinn
Yeah, absolutely. And I think something. You know, just in recent events in our culture and our world, this idea of being a voice for the voiceless I kind of struggle with. That phrase not not because it's not a good phrase, but the fact that that phrase has to exist. Right. We remember even back when I was teaching, I was like, why is no one listening to these kids? Like, they're coming in every single day with the same story and no one is listening to them, so.
- Megan Flinn
How do I. I how do I redirect people's attention to their voice and sometimes that does require me to use mine and so. I think that has been the thread of, OK, I'll use my voice to redirect, and then sometimes I have to use it longer because people really are willing to listen right to the mark to those who. We would classify as marginalized or not listened to.
Before founding her non-profit, Megan first worked as a teacher.
- Megan Flinn
So I had gotten an education degree. I had been trained. I was a licensed teacher. I had checked all the boxes to get certification to teach in the state of Pennsylvania. And then when I was put at twenty two years old, but into a middle school classroom in North Philly, I was very underprepared for what my day actually looked like.
- Megan Flinn
And so it was a quick lesson. I always say that was the year I grew up because it was I had bills to pay, I had student loans to pay, and I had to figure it out. And my teaching training, my education training did not prepare me for what I needed to do in that classroom.
Megan was seeing the effects of trauma on the youth that she was serving. And she knew she wanted to understand it better. Megan moved from teaching to working with an Indianapolis non-profit called Outreach Inc, which serves homeless youth. My husband, Luke, worked there as well and that is where our paths first crossed.
- Liesel Mertes
So as soon as I was meeting you, you were in this journey of really moving towards paying a lot of attention to your health and getting a lot healthier.
- Liesel Mertes
What did that look like for you as you're also doing this like trauma, informed care and building your health up?
- Megan Flinn
Yeah, so. Right. So the it was interesting because at the place where we worked, it was a hot, you know, outreach was a high stress place. You know, we're dealing with significant trauma with our youth, constant change of schedules, constant kind of like. In our own hyper vigilance, as we were interacting with some pretty extreme behavior from the youth and from the community, and so it was not uncommon, especially for the female staff, to gain significant weight there or to have issues with their health due to the stress that we were undergoing.
- Megan Flinn
And so it was a constant conversation and outreach about, you know, we all did the paleo diet or we did we would work out, we would go do Cross Fit or things like that.
- Megan Flinn
And so the conversation about can I part
- Liesel Mertes
I want to ask because for people who have lived it, they're like, oh, absolutely. Yeah. You again, in that situation, for people who are maybe a couple of steps back who don't see that connection.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me more. Why would gaining weight be something that would happen commonly?
- Megan Flinn
Yeah. Yeah, so I think when you're in that setting and you're and all of us were passionate about the work, we signed up for it not just as a job, but as we saw how. We, as ourselves, could have an impact in lives for the better, so it wasn't just a job, it was a passion project for a lot of us or a movement out of our passion for most of us. And so we were very committed and it was difficult work.
- Megan Flinn
So long hours, lots of crises.
- Megan Flinn
You know, my typical work week is not a 40 hour work week. It was more 60 or 80 hour work week because there was just significant crises constantly. And so what that meant was, you know, you're exhausted, you're tired, so then to go like take care of your own body or go do exercise after this, like significant, exhausting day or week, most of us kind of didn't do that.
- Megan Flinn
We had kind of centered our attention around, you know, helping the youth, helping the organization, focusing on the work and not so much on ourselves. And so that meant when we're hungry, we eat whatever was around, which was typically, you know, we had a budget to take you to McDonald's or Burger King or just whatever, fast food. So the food we were eating was not great. We didn't take we typically didn't have the time and space and energy to take care of our bodies.
- Megan Flinn
So there's no way that, you know, the world of food deserts. There is one little organic grocery store that was way too expensive for our budget.
- Megan Flinn
And so, yeah, the food that was available was not the help. It was not food that was necessarily providing the nutrients and care for our bodies that we needed, especially to deal with the stress and anxiety, which for us is one thing. And it was compounded a hundred fold for our youth who are physically stuck in that in those neighborhoods.
- Megan Flinn
So we ate what they ate and we kind of did what they did, which was not move very much and not eat very healthy. And so over the course of a couple of months or years, you know, your body starts to change accordingly. And a lot of us, especially the female staff, like I said, would gain weight.
- Megan Flinn
And so it was a constant conversation of how can we now then take care of ourselves? We're talking about self care.
- Megan Flinn
We're talking about maintaining ourselves long term and remaining in the work and not growing too unhealthy from it to have to quit. And so. You know, the staff would go to Cross Fit or we would talk about the paleo diet or things like that, and so I had done pretty I had gone to some pretty extreme measures to get my body healthy.
- Megan Flinn
And I was at this point, by the time of the surgery, probably one of the healthiest physically my body had been in my lifetime, definitely in my adult lifetime.
- Megan Flinn
So I felt like I was finally in control. Now, I've had a long term autoimmune disease since I was six years old. So my battle of controlling my body and being an ownership of my body was lifelong. And this came at a time when I felt like I finally gained some power over some control over my body. And then that's when you know it all it all happened at this point of I went in for my yearly exam and my doctor said something's not right here.
- Megan Flinn
Like, your stomach is really hard. It shouldn't be hard.
The consultations and tests began. The doctors told Megan that she had hard fibroid tumors within her uterus. They were obstructing her body’s functioning…but were probably not cancerous. Megan makes plans for surgery.
- Megan Flinn
And I remember on this girl's weekend, a couple weeks before the surgery was scheduled, I said to them. I will not be OK if this doesn't work. I will not be OK, and that was probably the only time out loud that I had admitted any fear about it, because I had found the doctor that said, I think I can make this work.
- Megan Flinn
And so I was like, OK, she can make it work. Problem solved. It will be done.
- Megan Flinn
And so there was this one moment before the surgery where I said to those friends who had known me longer than most friends, none of any friends in Indiana had known me or I said, I'm not going to be OK if this happens. And they yeah.
- Megan Flinn
So that moment happened, but. I think it was pretty optimistic beforehand, it was, you know, no, and it was I remember.
- Liesel Mertes
I think it was March 23rd, because I was actually sure birthday that you went into surgery, which is a selfish way to remember, but I will always remember because it was my birthday. Yeah. Now. So so you go in, you have this realization. I've given voice to I won't be OK. Yeah, what happened? Surgery.
- Megan Flinn
So there's a there's like this interesting story where a friend of mine, Julia, who I had just asked her, I live here in Indiana.
- Megan Flinn
My whole family is out in Pennsylvania. I go in for the surgery and just say I just need a ride to the hospital. You don't just drop me off. You don't have to go to say, and
- Megan Flinn
so I went in that morning really thinking that after I went back, like, you know, they take you back a couple hours before things actually happen.
Megan is feeling good before surgery, optimistic and even a little flirtatious.
- Megan Flinn
but one nurse was like a really attractive guy. And so I was like, OK, like, I was in a mood where I was just like, everything's great. Like, you know, this is going to work.
- Megan Flinn
I was still like, look how cute I am here.
- Megan Flinn
I remember still being in like a really great mood. Because they the doctors and everybody was really were really friendly and upbeat and we had even said, like, this is going to go well. So everything was really great until I went to sleep.
- Liesel Mertes
And what did you awaken to?
- Megan Flinn
I was back in the room that I had been waiting in before. It's like there was a waiting area and then they take you. They took me back somewhere else to do the thing in my spine or whatever that was back in that room. And I woke to a nurse. You just said and I don't know if she spoken to me before and I had just not been coherent enough to remember, but the only word she said where they had to take it all.
- Megan Flinn
Yeah, that is what I woke up to and. My immediate reaction was I said, so no babies. That's literally what I said. I said so no babies.
There would be no babies. The doctors found that one of the tumors was connected to a large blood vessel. The bleeding would have been immense.
- Megan Flinn
So the question was, do we just leave it in there and it still just ruins her fertility anyway, or do we take it all out? And she survives. She just doesn't have, you know, a uterus anymore at 32.
Megan has to stay in the hospital for the next three days.
- Liesel Mertes
And so there's there's physical pain and recovery from pretty substantial surgery. Tell me about emotional weight of this being a baby, beginning with you.
- Megan Flinn
It's interesting because I think your mother said it, one of the best ways of a lot of wisdom she is, is she's her voice was.
- Megan Flinn
One of the ones that kind of just put words to it of. You know, a lot of women become mothers when they become mothers. It's kind of like this role that sometimes they're not like all the changes that you have to do with nurturing and caring. And all of that kind of comes when a baby comes and like you have to adjust and take on that role. And your mother kind of said, like, that is just kind of how I always was.
Megan Flinn
That's who I was. Obviously not. And there's all the boundaries and the, you know, appropriate roles you take.
- Megan Flinn
But that's the approach I took as a teacher. That's the approach I took with my Outreach girls. That's the approach I take. Even though as a therapist is like a nurturing, caring, aware of needs kind of approach. And so that kind of maternal eye or sense was something that was a part of me. Always and still is.
- Megan Flinn
And so. For me, it was like, does God or. This bigger picture. It's saying I'm not good enough to be a mom? Which was, for me, like the lifelong hope, you know, I started babysitting when I was 12 and my neighbor, I mean. They had another 12 year old in the house, but they wanted me to be there to babysit them like I was always identified as a caretaker or that role since I was little.
- Megan Flinn
And then my job in high school was to work in a daycare. I worked with babies and for over two years after school, you know, and. It was just this. You know, that internal battle that we all have of like, OK, things will happen or experiences will happen, and we have to battle this belief and remind ourselves like, no, we are good enough. This is this is like a lie or misconstrued, I belief about myself.
- Megan Flinn
But then when something so final like this happens. It was so. To to not. Let myself believe it, like even God, it was not good enough, it was really hard.
- Megan Flinn
And really complicated, right? Yeah, and so, uh. That part. Along with so that part was heavy in that part still.
- Megan Flinn
You know, I've done a lot of deep work in the past four years of who am I, what is my story? You don't start you don't have like even this experience led into the nonprofit of, like. Knowing who I am, knowing what I'm able to do, knowing. My skills and my innate personality and these God given gifts that I have are still very much needed and appropriate and worthwhile in this world.
- Megan Flinn
And like what what direction can I go where those fit into what the world needs? And like that the nonprofit doesn't happen if the surgery doesn't happen.
- Megan Flinn
And so in some regards, because it took this a look at myself and who I am and who God was and who the world is, where I was like. Bed, I was like stuck in my house, not even able to drive a car, or I had to have a friend come over and help me get up the stairs every night for six weeks.
- Megan Flinn
This idea of having needs and having to acknowledge them and having to ask for help and to not to be forced to not be independent, I think for me was this realization of like.
- Megan Flinn
Will someone show up for me? Will people show up for me the way that I've shown up for them? And that experience is like acknowledging my own needs and acknowledging. The fact that I'm not as independent as I would like to be. Was the first step and just kind of re-examining we talked about like looking at myself and who God is and who the world is. So that stuff was not a choice, but letting that happen and not being, you know, just kind of accepting.
- Megan Flinn
That those people are going to show up and trusting that was a deep healing spot for me.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah,
- Megan Flinn
And then from there, you know, I, I went. It was. OK, now what and what is still true of me, what is still my identity, like, who am I? And I was still like this nurturing, caring person. And shortly after the surgery, maybe. A year and a half after is when I started grad school, so less than the year I think after I was applying to grad school. It was less than a year after I was applying, and so it was like, this is the moment.
- Megan Flinn
This is when. Like, this big thing happened, it it changed who I am and how I see myself. So now is the time for this big change of going back to grad school. And and the idea of becoming a therapist of like
- Megan Flinn
I have, I have faced my own deep, like I have survived the thing, I think a lot of people have the great wounding or the great pain point of their life. And for those of us who have faced and wrestled through it and acknowledge it changes us.
- Megan Flinn
We then can turn to others and kind of say, like, I've been to my deepest, darkest parts of myself and come out on the other side like. That's possible for you too, the hope of that is true for everybody, so having learned that kind of. That gave me the confidence to become a therapist, but kind of added to my like, no, if this is the work that I can do, I absolutely want to do it.
- Megan Flinn
I want to provide that idea that hope is an option in those dark places and may not be not hope that like everything will be cut and dry and clean and pretty at the end. But that survival and goodness or something is available even in those dark spaces.
We will return to Megan and her story in a moment. But first, I want to take a second to thank our sponsors. If you are a business owner or an HR professional, you know that open enrollment season is upon us. Get the help you need with FullStack PEO. Fullstack is a full-service benefits firm for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Let them take care of your people and their benefits so you can get back to running your business. We are also sponsored by Handle with Care Consulting, which is my company. And I’m excited to announce my new, SHRM certified Empathy at Work Certificate program. Come take a deep dive into your empathy behaviors. Make meaningful changes and emerge with an empathy action plan. We kick off on September 22.
And now, back to my conversation with Megan. In the aftermath of her surgery, she was on her back, incapacitated, and plagued by big questions about her identity as a woman. And the support of a community was vital.
- Megan Flinn
There was a friend that showed up and. I remember just like. It was just like the either the very wrong moment or the very right moment for him to be there, but I just was like, I don't want to be bitter. It was like maybe three days after I had gotten home. So maybe a week after the surgery. And I was like, I know that this can be an experience that leads to people just being bitter.
- Megan Flinn
And I don't want to be bitter, but I don't know how to not be like I don't know how to get there.
- Megan Flinn
And so we just sobbed, I just sobbed and he just held my hand, it's only did he didn't speak these like powerful, effective words. He just held my hand while I cried. And then I had another friend who she just like, I didn't know her that well at the time. And she's become one of my close friends, probably because of this.
- Megan Flinn
But she had had her own she'd been in a car accident earlier in the week. And so she was also on pain meds and she just crawled and laid next to me in bed. And we just laid there and people just showing up and sitting there.
- Megan Flinn
Like I said at the time, I had two couches and they faced each other and I was always laying on one. And I just remember people just coming and sitting on the other one and just being there.
And of course, there were meals and things that were really helpful.
- Megan Flinn
But I the thing that the most powerful part of it was the people that just came and sat with me. And it wasn't I don't remember any words that anybody said, but just people that sat with me during those six weeks was the most powerful. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
And and didn't feel that compulsion to have to have the right words to make it all better.
- Megan Flinn
In fact, when they did, it was like really it was the side of the question.
This is just a side editorial note. I was one of the people that came and visited Megan in the aftermath of her surgery. And even as we were talking for this interview, I recalled how much I talked during our time together. I can rush to fill silence…and I have a great faith in my ability to make things better with my words. If I could do it all over again, I would have just been quiet more often during those visits.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me about the misses. What are some of the I mean, those are the worst one.
- Megan Flinn
Some of the misses were just. Yeah, the like the hope that was like No. You know, as this I almost hesitate to share this because it was this person who is much more charismatic in their faith than I am, and so they were like, God will give you a miraculous new uterus like that will happen. And I was like, please don't say that.
- Megan Flinn
Like, that is not what... One, i don't think that will happen. I don't have hope for that. And I don't know that I want that. That's not the story that I want. Like, I don't even know up from down right now. But that doesn't feel right.
- Megan Flinn
And people who. Just kind of ignored it. Who tell me more. Yeah, so like the. Just people who would like to interact with me knowing this had happened, it wasn't wasn't necessarily something I kept secret, but.
- Megan Flinn
I mean, they knew I was out of work for six weeks, they knew I was stuck in my house for a significant amount of time, but would show up and talk about their life or the things that they were like, as if business as usual.
- Megan Flinn
And it was almost like, you know, in hindsight. They were nervous, they were anxious, and it's a sensitive thing, right? It's not like I broke my leg or I have whiplash from a car accident.
- Megan Flinn
Like this is an intimate thing. It's an intimate part of my body. You know, especially in a Christian culture, to talk about, it brings up my sexuality, it's things that we kind of shy away from so they would show up or they would I would engage in conversation even after those six weeks.
- Megan Flinn
And it was like. As if nothing there was no acknowledgement of anything, and I just felt really like I'm different now, like
- Megan Flinn
I remember feeling very different about who I am and about the whole world and to have people who had before this professed to be in my corner. Kind of not acknowledging anything had happened was really painful. To not even talk to all the people who just came and sat, they were just providing space. And for those who ignored it, it was like they couldn't they had no they had no space to give for it.
Yeah, yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
And I, imagine, there's there's a there's a practical difference and experiencing that, like the people who who are profoundly uncomfortable, oftentimes it manifests itself in taking up the space, you know, that actually to leave the silence. Yeah. Makes them feel so uncomfortable. So they're filling it with their own stories or with inane conversation. Yeah.
- Megan Flinn
Yeah. And I understand that. I just don't like it. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
I feel well and that's part of the education of you know, that the conversation is the stuff that we can unconsciously do so easily. But when you actually take a half step back and say is is this actually like if I want to be helpful, is this being helpful or meaningful or is it just me avoiding my discomfort in the interaction? Right.
- Liesel Mertes
I'm struck that you're also so six weeks goes by and then you are having to show up in a tremendously outward facing capacity. We're actually giving care to people in circumstances of a lot of need that like like that's that's a returning to work is a big ask in that particular. Mm hmm.
- Megan Flinn
Well, and I think something that was really interesting that I had predicted or I don't know that I predicted it, but other people had predicted it for me. Was that so a lot of my job at that point, I was working with the longer term.
- Megan Flinn
at Outreach, and so what that means is a lot of them were having babies, a lot of females who are having babies and one of my just like life rules, which is funny because I told a friend to leave me at the hospital. Was that when you're in the emergency room or you're in a hospital thing, you should not be there alone. I just think. If you're in the emergency room, it just feels like you're at your most vulnerable point for a human to be in that position just alone.
- Megan Flinn
I hated it. So I would often be in the emergency room or I one of my things that I often did in that role was I would be there while my girls delivered their babies. And I remember being predicted by other people that that would be really hard for me. And it was not. It was not. I mean, it was something like, oh, yeah, this I mean, I had already known that wouldn't happen for me.
- Megan Flinn
That doesn't make the delivery and the resulting baby any less beautiful. And I was even part of like an adoption situation, one of my four children adoption. That was a family that I connected them with in that time. And it yeah, it wasn't
- Megan Flinn
it was like everyone had these assumptions about what would impact me and what wouldn't. And that was probably the most frustrating part, was like the assumptions without being asked, you know, what actually was hard for me and I and I mean, you know this because you lived with me through some of that, but just feeling like.
Megan Flinn
There was assumptions made about what would be hard or what wouldn't be, but no one was asking me. Not saying, like, is this hard for you? Or, what is draining in this part? And so, not feeling heard by the people around me was the most frightening part, not the actual work that they were that I was being asked to do.
– Liesel Mertes
Tell me if this is accurate, is that. Within your work situation, under under the premise of caring for you, there were assumptions being made about your preferences or your capacity that you weren't actually being checked in with and that that actually left you feeling overlooked.
- Megan Flinn
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
And I know things about like how your workplace showed up or didn't show up for you that you think like, yeah, this this was this allows me to reflect on what good managerial support is and what not good it is. Yeah.
- Megan Flinn
I think I will say my co-workers, the people who were on my same like level within the organization, they showed up like there is no doubt that those are the people or their spouses, but they're the people that I remember sitting on my couch or sitting with me or even the volunteers that I had worked with through the organization. They showed up. I did not leadership, I don't know that I've had. During those six weeks, I did not have a single conversation with someone in leadership.
- Megan Flinn
I thought I was doing and that I mean, one person there did say that, that they regretted that. But in terms of my functioning within the organization, it was still impacted, you know, because I didn't have those conversations with people in leadership and. That was really, really hard because and as you know, having been married to someone who works at outreach along.
- Megan Flinn
You you're investing yourself, and I think you assume that that is known and seen and understood, and then when something like that happened to me and I felt so missed, it was like, oh, my investment is not seen the way I thought it was. I am not seeing the way I thought I was. And so that was really hard.
- Megan Flinn
But, you know, like I said, like my co-workers should have, I remember like laying on my couch sleeping and I woke up to like the vacuum running and one of my co-workers had just brought over her own vacuum because she didn't want to ask me where mine was and was just I mean, someone else was another coworker had already been there to let her in my house, but she just vacuuming my house, not asking, just doing it.
- Megan Flinn
And it was like at the moment I was like, what are you doing? And now when I think back, it's one of my favorite things that someone has done for me, like a huge thing. And in that moment or like taking care of my home, it's just not possible. That was released, and she is not someone that I was particularly very close to. So that was even more just like. She didn't know what to say or what to do, but she could hold up.
- Liesel Mertes
I was just in I was just speaking at an event this morning and the question came like, well, what can you do to support someone that was like, people always have to eat?
- Liesel Mertes
And everyone I was like there always still like nobody has time to clean their toilet, do stuff like when they're dealing with complex grief and, you know, bring your vacuum.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
As she reflects on the lingering impact of her experience, honesty is very important to Megan.
- Megan Flinn
Being honest about what we've experienced, being honest about. Who we are and how things have impacted us, which also means like an awareness that we may not all have because our culture doesn't ask us to have it.
- Megan Flinn
So in terms of like a workplace to just have that awareness and honesty and balancing that with like completing tasks that any business asked us to do. And that's that's the big thing for me is just like we have so much to get done in a day and to just always remember that all of us are humans doing the best we can.
- Megan Flinn
It's just something that's been deeply different for me since this experience.
Yeah, yeah, thank you for adding that. Thank you, Meghan, I'm going to stop recording you. OK, so.
- Megan Flinn
One of the thoughts that kept running through my head after the surgery, and I would say this out loud to people like close, close, close friends, people within my tight inner circle, I would say, like I can no longer do the thing that is definitively female.
- Megan Flinn
And I had taught science when I was teaching. And so it was just very scientific, like I could no longer bear children. That is the thing that is definitively female amongst any species. Right.
- Megan Flinn
And I just had this deep fear. You know, I'm a single woman expected and hopeful for a partner to do this life with and. It's never been an issue, it's never one, this topic and we've had this conversation about my body, this part of my body, it never it has never been an issue.
- Megan Flinn
But I really, because of the story and the way we talk about motherhood and the way we talk about feminine sexuality and what our bodies are for within our culture, I was really just expecting rejection on all fronts from that. And I have never had that experience. So for me, it spoke to something about how we talk about women in our bodies and. We talk about value to talk about the value value of ourselves and the value of our bodies, right.
- Megan Flinn
Like I think we're told to kind of disconnect our body from our person, from our personal. A lot of times. And that's just not how we were made.
And so. Yeah, it just for me was
- Megan Flinn
I had this deep fear that I was no longer worth anything because I couldn't perform this act as a female. And in the years since and through the work that we've talked about me doing, like, no, I'm very much a female. I'm very much able to do most of the things that female can do. My body is still capable of things like, you know, I still have a nurturing hug.
- Megan Flinn
I still have, you know, all this like a nurturing presence and these things that, you know, feminine presence and with my body that I have and so reconnecting that. It was a big deal and it kind of acknowledging the value of my body despite this action, that it couldn't do anymore.
- Megan Flinn
Yeah, I was really deeply healing and to. Just kind of navigate how our culture talks about it has been. Just its own experience,
you know, how
- Liesel Mertes
how have you changed the dynamic now and how you speak about what it means to embody femininity?
- Megan Flinn
I've had, like, an almost redefined view of what is female, right? When I hear that the starting place with your experience of yourself, instead of having a place of what is held out to you as the arts where the should be is right is a rare move of adulthood.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, I think it's interesting.
- Megan Flinn
The art and the should as a therapist, I often it's one of the one of the few like training pieces that I've taken with me of like when I hear a client or someone say I should be doing this or I ought to be doing this, the should or ought is often a red flag of like. Well, according to whom? Like where does that message come from? And then recalibrating, like, what if the message was coming from within you, what would it be?
- Megan Flinn
And that is definitely like a. Changed within me, like how I view myself and where who's. Who should not be let in there? It's much smaller than what it was before this all happened, for sure.
- Liesel Mertes
Well, and one of the things that I consider a lot for myself and also talk about in my trainings is the reality that how we treat ourselves is so often what we're translating and how we're treating other people. And even as you talk about your work in therapy, I imagine it's only expanded as you give yourself more space to embody that, to come out professionally in the space that you grant to those you work with.
- Megan Flinn
Mm hmm. Yeah, I would. I would say it's. I think I am I think I am shocked, but by how much I really love my life post-test because my life is so different than I wanted it to be five years ago. But I really genuinely love my life and what it is right now. And so I give that excitement to my clients about their potential and their possibilities. And they that, I think, is something that makes me unique as a therapist, that they don't often have people who are excited about who they are.
- Megan Flinn
And I like as I get to know my clients, I genuinely grow more and more excited about who they are as I get to see them more. And that, I think, does come as a direct result of this experience.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
Here are three key takeaways from my conversation with Megan
- Just showing up matters…and your words can oftentimes get in the way of deep comfort.Megan talked about the importance of the friend who just sat there, silently, with her as she cried. In our hurry to “fix” grief and make things better, our talking often gets in the way of truly listening and being present.
- If you are a manager or someone’s supervisor, make sure that you take the time to check in with them while they are away on sick leave.And this check-in shouldn’t just be about work projects or getting on the same page regarding clients. Set a time in your calendar to call or the visit just to hold space for hearing about how they are acutally doing. Megan’s managers never checked in with her while she was away…and she felt that gap.
- Be careful how you talk to and about women regarding their reproductive choices.We make so many flippant comments, asking women when they are going to start a family or if they are having any more children. This is tenuous territory. You never know the story behind what you can see. And so much of society has, historically, bound the value of being female to being able to reproduce. Avoid these minefields. Stop asking unless someone offers you information. And if you want to go deeper, consider your own biases and culturally conditioned conceptions of what it means to embody femininity. After hearing this episode, is there anything that you want to revisit or revise?
OUTRO
Hamza International Care: https://www.hamzainternationalcare.org