Randi H.- Grief & Motherhood

* This episode discusses grief and loss in relation to the death of multiple family members. Please be aware of your comfort levels.

In this episode, Randi shares her journey of navigating grief and motherhood. She discusses the importance of community and support in both grief and parenting. Randi emphasizes the need to normalize grief and to give ourselves permission to feel our feelings. She also highlights the significance of finding people who align with our parenting values and the beauty of co-parenting in a community.

To learn more about Randi, visit her Facebook, Instagram, and Website.
Also, be sure to check out her podcast, Getting Real With Grief.

• Here's the episode she mentioned.

Takeaways

• Motherhood and grief are intertwined in Randi's journey, as she lost her parents at a young age and experienced the unexpected loss of her mother-in-law before the birth of her first child.
• The pandemic limited Randi's access to community and support during her first pregnancy, highlighting the importance of connection and community in the transition to parenthood.
• The second pregnancy has been different for Randi, with more awareness of her needs and a stronger support system in place, including a home birth and a network of like-minded parents.
• Non-monogamy has played a role in strengthening Randi's relationship, allowing for more connection and support outside of the partnership.
• Self-awareness and connection are key in navigating the challenges of parenthood and maintaining a healthy relationship. Grief and motherhood are intertwined, and it's important to give ourselves permission to grieve and to seek support.
• Community and support are essential in both grief and parenting.
• Finding people who align with our parenting values can make a significant difference in our parenting journey.
• Living with another parent and child can bring both challenges and beauty to the parenting experience.
• It's important to normalize grief and to acknowledge the complex emotions that come with it.
• Feeling less alone and more connected in our grief journey can be transformative.
• Co-parenting in a community can provide additional support and resources for parents.
• It's important to honor and appreciate the unique journey of each child and the role of older siblings in their lives.
• Giving ourselves permission to feel our feelings and seek support can lead to a more grounded and understanding sense of self.
• Finding ways to connect with and honor our grief can help us navigate uncomfortable emotions and experiences.

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Transcript

Chelsea (00:01)
Hello! Today I'm here with Randi. Randi, how are you?

Randi (00:06)
Today I'm like a busy morning, it's like a little bit frazzled, but overall I'm feeling more settled than I've been in a while.

Chelsea (00:16)
know the frazzled feeling. I'm having a frazzled day. But we're both taking a breath and we're both here and we're in it. We're gonna do it. We're gonna do this thing. I'm really happy to have you on. Thank you for being patient with me listeners.

Randi (00:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, let's do it.

Chelsea (00:35)
If you've been following along with my journey, things have been a little crazy for me. So a lot of my guests have been very flexible and I'm very thankful for that. to get right into it, would love it if you could sort of introduce yourself and tell us who was Randi before Randi was a mom.

Randi (00:54)
Yeah, that was such a big question.

Giving a gist. So I'll do my best. That's a little hard for me. So I'm Randi Hall. who am I? I really identify with motherhood, actually. So it feels like I was always like, I'm going to become a a mom to be. But I work in the field of mental health. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. But I also specialize in grief support, and specifically in the

realm of parent loss and yeah so I do a lot of work with relationships. Relationships are like the thing that feeds me personally, the thing that feeds me professionally, literally, literally puts food on my table, but also like just being in connection and being in relationship is the thing I think that defines me the most. It's like the most important part of my life, whether that be friendship.

or client relationships or otherwise. Yeah, so really just cares about people and cares about beginning relationships and ending them well. Yeah.

Chelsea (02:08)
I like that. Who was... So you did, mentioned you always envisioned yourself as a mom and that you are, you are living that mom life right now. Who were you before that?

Randi (02:24)
say before I feel like are a couple of identities, you know that...

feel like they fit in that category. One of the bigger ones, it feels like these have continued. Like I've continued them in ways as a mom still, so they haven't like gone away from me entirely, but they've definitely changed. Burner is definitely like one of the identities I really connect with. Just the community, there's like a global community. A lot of people in the mainstream kind of know about like the one Burning Man event that goes out into the desert and you know, has that experience of building a temporary.

world and temporary.

temporary world that happens for that week, but there's an entire community and identity base and a bunch of regional events and a lot of ways to tap into that community and that identity throughout the year. In years and that's a community and an identity I really connect with. It's a group of artists and like some other people are like engineers or just people who like to build community and people who like to do that intentionally and like to

like value a lot of creativity and a lot of more like

being in nature in survivally context and just kind of like making home and making life with what you've got and making it super awesome and fun. So that's one of my favorite identities. One of the ones that feels, I feel the most at home in that world and that community. also in the mental health field, I feel like I have identified with being a therapist and my grief business exists under a coaching umbrella because I don't,

Chelsea (04:04)
Mm.

Randi (04:05)
believe in diagnosing grief. I think that a lot of times that gets categorized as some disordered thing and I believe in my whole heart that it's just not, it's something so natural and so universal. So I've separated it from my therapy business and practice and identity.

And there's like a realm in the world of, if you know, know, there's a terminology called sister goddesses. so that's, are you familiar with this world?

Chelsea (04:31)
Mmm.

I have heard it, I wanna hear more about it.

Randi (04:38)
Yeah.

So a lot of this came from a woman named Regina Thomasauer. And she goes by Mama Gina. And she has written a number of books. But one of the ones that really got out, got the word out, was a book called Pussy, a Reclamation. And so she has this whole movement, sort of educating women about how powerful they are and the power of pleasure and of knowing yourself sensually and intimately and going out into the world and leading from that place, of really knowing how to

Chelsea (04:53)
Mm -hmm.

Randi (05:07)
care for yourself and nourish yourself and follow your pleasure as a form of power. But she is a very powerful woman in terms of building connections and community amongst women. And so that I did her School of Womenly Arts program, her Mastery program and her creation retreat and have since utilized a lot of her tools and have found a lot of community and connection through that world. And she calls all the women involved Sister Goddesses.

And so that was a world I was very much involved in before having a child.

Chelsea (05:37)
Mm -hmm.

I love it. And I love that the thread through all of this is community. Every single thing you've talked about is community, which is beautiful. Cause that's what we're trying to build. A community of birthing people who have experienced things that not necessarily would love to be in this club, but we are. And we're here for each other. So I love it. I love that.

Randi (06:11)
Yeah, I feel really honored to be here and to be a part of that building community. Thanks for including me.

Chelsea (06:17)
I'm honored to have you here. Every single person that reaches out and wants to be, or if I find them and they agree to share their story and build that community, I am so honored to be able to facilitate that. So, yay. I'm excited. So can you talk to me a little bit about your journey to becoming a parent and maybe too, like how those...

past versions of yourself, past present versions of yourself contributed to that journey.

Randi (06:48)
Absolutely, so I always, there was like never a question for me at any point if I was going to be a mom. It was always like a when. It's interesting because I'm actually named after my maternal grandparents' mothers. So my mom's mother and father, both of their mothers are the women I'm named after.

Chelsea (06:57)
Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Randi (07:11)
one is Regina. My first name is Randi, and my middle name is Farah. And so I'm named after a woman named Regina, and Frania is my grandfather's mother's name. And there's just something about that that feels significant to me, because I just named after the mothers of my mother's mother, mother's parents, mother. Like, there's just something in that line that I feel really connected to.

Chelsea (07:15)
Okay.

Okay.

Randi (07:36)
And then, so when I was dating and when I was seeking out partnership in my early life, I was always kind of looking for who am I gonna have children with? And I think that tends to be rarer, because people are looking for arm candy or sexy fun partners or hot dates or people that they like for a moment. But that was always something I felt kind of disconnected from people from, because I was always a little bit more serious and a little bit more...

Chelsea (07:50)
Yeah.

Randi (08:02)
wanting to build a connection with somebody that would contribute genetically to my future children. But like, I mean, my husband is amazing and when we first met he was like, I'm a hell yes on kids too. And so we've always known, we actually dated for seven years before we got married and then we dated for two more years, or then we were married for two years before we had our daughter. And so it also,

Chelsea (08:08)
Yeah

Mm -hmm.

Randi (08:30)
weren't like immediate. still like lived a life and did a lot of adventures. We traveled, we, you know, built our careers a little bit and then we had a child and so and now we're about to have our second child. that journey has been like one of certainty and it's interesting because we got pregnant during COVID. So 2020, June 2020, I got pregnant and that was such an interesting time to be pregnant.

Chelsea (08:53)
Mm.

Randi (09:00)
It was like awesome at first because we were like, okay. Well, there's no FOMO. Nothing's happening out there like like of things to do of adventures to go on of course, it was like so much heartache and really challenging things happening in the world but that was a time that we really chose to invest in our marriage and invest in our relationship and in our sexual life and in our in our connection and

Chelsea (09:00)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Randi (09:22)
So that was a really fun time of like, okay, well, this feels like a really good time to try to make a baby and to try to like spend time together and really connect. But it was also one of the most isolating times of our life because like for how much we love and value building and being in community, were, we had just moved to Philly like a year and a half before that.

Chelsea (09:28)
Mm

Randi (09:45)
and we had very few really good friends and very few people that were like in our bubble and in our pod and in our whatever. a lot of my first pregnancy was very lonely and very disconnected and feeling like we didn't have a lot of support. So that was like, it just felt very out of character and it was like a very hard place for us to be in, I think, as far as like leading up to parenthood, which is like a thing that needs so much community and connection and village.

Chelsea (09:58)
Mm.

Yes. Yeah. And especially just like you said, for people who value community so much to have it not even be available, not just you can't find it, it's just not available.

Randi (10:25)
Yeah, like I was talking to somebody recently, But someone was like, can I touch your belly? And I was like, please touch my belly. Nobody touched my belly the first time around. Like I want the belly touches. So yeah, it was just like a really weird time for that.

Chelsea (10:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, a very different experience, which I'm sure we'll get into the differences between the two. When we were chatting, and you even have mentioned this, like grief is a big part of your journey, personally and professionally. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Randi (10:59)
sure yeah so grief has been a part of my I you know say when I share parts of my story that grief chose me it's like not ever a club you're going in search of like I really want to be part of that club and if it finds you and it found me really early so my parents died together in a car accident when I was three and so

Chelsea (11:07)
Mm.

Yeah.

Randi (11:22)
I've spent most of my life in my grief journey. in my, you know, one of my teachers calls it like a grief initiation. The like first time you really experience how powerful grief can be as far as like rocking your world. That it can feel sort of like an initiation or a rite of passage. Cause like in some ways grief is gonna come for all of us. Or at least loss will.

Chelsea (11:40)
Mm -hmm.

Randi (11:42)
So growing up in that way, I don't have like solid video memories of my parents, a couple of snapshots here and there, but mostly not a lot of memory. So a lot of my life has been navigating a grief journey.

of having people missing from my life and having lots of other people's reactions to my grief. like when you're young and growing up, people want to know where your parents are. that's a, you know, it was a thing I had to talk about and bring up a lot. And so I was raised by my grandparents.

Chelsea (12:07)
Yeah.

Randi (12:15)
And because of that, I was surrounded by a lot of older people. I was raised by people who didn't have all of the same abilities or resources or knowledge about pop culture or common things that kids were doing. Like I was just raised by the generation above me. So there was like a bit of out of touchness. And I think sometimes I talk about this in my work when there's a big loss, there's oftentimes a billion little losses that happen as a result of it. Or like even if they're not little, they're these like ripple of

Chelsea (12:28)
you

Randi (12:45)
effect losses that happen as the result of a loss because of all the changes that need to be organized as you navigate the aftermath. like I...

lost my home, I lost my rhythm, I lost my routine, I lost everything that was familiar to me. I was being raised in a new house with, you know, my grandparents had so much love and really cared for me and really like stepped up in this moment that was needed, not but, and I feel immensely grateful for that. And there were so many ways where like,

everything I ever knew and could count on and was my reality was completely gone. And I think that that's, you know, had ripple effects throughout the rest of my life in terms of like, some of the reason I value community so much, and like the sense of home and the sense of belonging and the sense of like building deep connection is like, having had that removed from me for so, like so immediately, and so like has just had a really like long term impact.

Chelsea (13:26)
Yeah.

Randi (13:50)
And so like over the years I've been navigating, lost, my grandfather died in 2019. So I got to be an adult with him and he got to know me. And my mother -in -law was the other like really big loss. I've lost like grandparents, I've lost like friends, I've lost, you know, I've had like romantic relationships. There's been grief throughout, but like the big death parts of my grief journey have been a lot of like parental figures.

Chelsea (13:59)
Mm -hmm.

Randi (14:20)
in law as it relates to my motherhood journey was probably one of the more profound ones because she died of COVID and she died two months before my daughter was born and she died like pretty unexpectedly and

Chelsea (14:29)
Mmm.

my gosh.

Randi (14:35)
was just someone I like, she knew me throughout my pregnancy. And she was somebody I was like imagining there and a part of my motherhood journey. And then she just wasn't all of a sudden. And that was like.

that really just like complicated a lot of things and was like a pretty devastating and unexpected loss. And I think becoming a mother and like she wasn't, she really never tried to be my mom. She really never tried to like push herself in that way, but she was very much my mother -in -law and she and I had a really good relationship. I really loved her a lot and I think she really loved me. And...

Yeah, there was something about it felt like being motherless not once but twice. Like brought up a lot of the same things around losing a mother that I was reckoning with while becoming a mother. And that was just like.

Chelsea (15:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's so, it's, well, so, and like you said before, like grief and loss comes for us all. but of course it's going to rock your world, especially like you were bringing life in while grieving a life lost and a life that you were sort of, I'm assuming you were like counting on for support and guidance in this like new role. Yeah.

Randi (15:48)
Yeah, I was like very much imagining her being in her life and being.

I don't know, even just like we used to joke about nursing or just like the parts of motherhood that you picture and anticipate because they're like the parts that are expected. Everything that we would do with our daughter initially always felt like there was this, like all of it was so bittersweet because everything was something she was missing. And everything was something we weren't anticipating that she was gonna be missing. So was like, how could she not be here for this?

Chelsea (15:56)
Yeah.

So on the one hand, you have at least had the majority of your lifetime processing and living with the grief and the loss of your own parents and your own mother. And now losing your mother -in -law in the way that you did and in the timing that you did, you're having to process a lot, a lot in a very short amount of time.

What did that sort of, how did that impact your sense of community and family? did you have a support system? Obviously we were all locked down, but did you have any sort of support helping you navigate that?

Randi (17:02)
I would say that honestly it was one of the like lower points in my life.

My marriage took a really hard turn after my mother -in -law died. My husband and I just...

We talk about this a lot now because we've been like literally crawling our way out of that period of time. Like the short answer is like, no, we really didn't have a ton of support. We had some people that could like check in from afar. I had a badass doula that I still love and I'm still connected with and she's going to be here for my second birth. And so she was a rock star during that time. And like she had like a new mom support group that was really helpful.

Chelsea (17:23)
Yeah.

Mm

Mm.

Randi (17:46)
resource for me at that time. And like a couple of friends here and there, some people that would fly in, but we really hadn't built a community base. And so I think like something that my marriage is frankly still recovering from, we're in such a better place right now, but it's still recovering from needing to be each other's everything. I think in general our society does a really poor job of like...

Chelsea (18:07)
Mm -hmm.

Randi (18:12)
building village and building community and diffusing all of the things that we need amongst many people. And a lot of times that gets lobbed onto our partners, especially in monogamous relationships, especially in like, you know, more confined quarters where it's like husband and wife and like a traditional, you know, heterosexual couple. There are these like gender roles or even in like all different kinds of couples can have this as well. But it's like two people and their child. And then they need to be

Chelsea (18:31)
Yeah.

Randi (18:40)
co -parents and friends and sexy lovers and good to each other's families and breadwinners and like just the list goes on and on and like a house together we owned a house like that we had to maintain we just like there are just endless things that these two people need to do and then they're also just people just freaking humans and so it just felt like you know when I take a step back we had such a rough time we were seeing like just the the dregs of each other

Chelsea (18:59)
Yeah? Yes!

Randi (19:10)
because like we just didn't have it in us and I think honestly I'm not sure how I think because we had sort of the

proactive conversations and we both knew how much we wanted to be parents, I think the thing that we do the best together is co -parent. I think we are really good co -parents and we are really on the same page as far as how we want to raise a child and how we team up and tag each other out and take turns and really have each other's back as far as parenting. So that's actually an area that we have struggled less with, but like the relationship, the friendship, the romantic ship, the like the marriage part of our relationship plummeted.

Chelsea (19:24)
Mm.

Randi (19:48)
during that time. And we didn't really have a lot of support. We were like searching for a couple of therapists and couldn't find a fit. It was just like all these things for a long time. I think like a couple years where we were just in a really low place until we started to like find, you know, pandemic ended. We started to like find a little bit more of our flow. Our daughter's three and I'll say that like our relationship has been in a better place for the past year.

Chelsea (20:12)
Yeah.

Randi (20:17)
And even more recently the past six months have been like such a great improvement where like we feel like we're really like best friends again and we feel like we're partners and we feel like we're loving But now going into the second child, There is a part of me that's like, no, am I this is gonna happen again? Like that's the only reference I have for transition to parenthood was this like shitstorm

Chelsea (20:33)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Randi (20:40)
And so it's just so real. I think that that's something when you're preparing for a child, I don't think there's enough marriage bolstering or partnership bolstering to be like, get ready to be rocked to your fucking core. Yeah.

Chelsea (20:53)
Yes, yes, there's so many layers to that too. Like, because even, even in a relationship or a situation where everything goes smoothly and you're in a good place and whatever, it still is going to rock you to your core. You were both navigating trauma through that whole thing.

Randi (21:12)
Totally.

Chelsea (21:15)
It doesn't surprise me at all that there's this voice in your head like, my God, is this gonna, is this gonna rock us again? and you don't, I mean, you don't know, but, and you are a mental health professional, so I don't even have to say this to you, but like, you've gotten there once, like you've gotten out of it once. You can get through it again. but yeah, you're.

Randi (21:27)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

And I think we've learned so much about what we needed during that time and what we really needed was just more community. And what we really needed was like someone to not have to be our everything, to just give each other some space and some slack. was just frankly, it was just like too much for any two people to need to be for each other. And I think it feels really good to be on the other side and say like, in hindsight, I can really see how much I was asking of him and he can see how much he was really asking of me.

Chelsea (21:42)
Yes!

Yeah.

Randi (22:04)
And so like I feel very grateful. We've like really invested in our marriage in the past couple years like he's my person. He's my teammate. He's my he's my person and so there it wasn't ever like a question of I mean, that's not true. There were questions of like is this gonna last I have no idea but like, you know in the place where we are now it feels really clear like we're working on this. We're really in this for the long haul. Our last name is Hall and so that was our wedding. That was like our wedding hashtag in it for the long haul.

Chelsea (22:13)
Yeah.

Hahaha!

Randi (22:33)
But we are, we are very much so. But we've really spent a lot of time finding individual therapists and couples therapists and making friends and prioritizing other parent relationships. And we actually currently live in a home with one of my friends and her two children. so, yeah, and so the three adults in the home now are...

Chelsea (22:49)
that's so cool.

Randi (22:55)
Like it's amazing, it's amazing what that does to a sense of connection, community support, the ability to divide and conquer, the ability to tag each other out. So yeah, we have since really set ourselves up differently because the way that things were before, it was a setup to fail.

Chelsea (23:14)
I'm super interested to hear more about that dynamic. But again, another recurring theme is like, we're not meant to do life alone in general. And even in a partnership, it's still important to have support outside of the partnership, which you know.

And then you add parenting on top, which is 100 % not meant to be done by even, it's supposed to be a village. They say it takes a village because it takes a village, but we don't have that. We don't have definitely didn't have that during the pandemic. So you guys are up against a lot. And so to see you...

Randi (23:48)
Yes, literally.

Chelsea (24:00)
and hear you talk about where you are now, like, I can definitely, I can feel a more sense of grounding from you, like when you're talking about it now.

Randi (24:10)
Yeah.

Chelsea (24:11)
So going into the second pregnancy and you're nearing the finish line now, how has this experience differed from the first time?

Randi (24:21)
Yeah, so many, so many ways. I think physically, I feel so grateful. Physically, my body handles pregnancy really well. I have very gratefully not had pregnancy complications, like medical complications, and so that feels similar from the first one to the second one.

But the first one, like I said, so different. There was no touch. I didn't see another pregnant person outside of like a Facebook person I met that had the same due date as me. And we like would go for walks together occasionally like after I a baby, I started meeting other moms, but like.

Chelsea (24:47)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Randi (24:59)
During that time, think the first time I was in a class, like all the prenatal classes were virtual, all of that, but the first time I was in the same room as a person that was pregnant was my birth class the first time around. And I was in a birth class, I think, I don't know, somewhere like 30 weeks pregnant or whatever, and almost there, like visible bump whatever in a middle room with all the moms bouncing on the balls. But I was like, this is so amazing.

Chelsea (25:12)
wow.

Yes, you're almost there.

Randi (25:29)
I'm with other pregnant women, but like you know now I'm seeing the second time around that's like so normal right like pregnancy things going on so like that was really something the first time around was just like the the lack of connection and access with other people having the experience I was having or even getting to experience me throughout my pregnancy it was a very private experience like none of my clients knew I was pregnant because they only see me from the shoulders up you know

Chelsea (25:36)
Yeah.

Right.

Randi (25:59)
So that was kind of strange and then it was like a very private thing. like went into the pandemic, this person, this burner, this sister goddess, this therapist, this grief specialist, this whatever, and it came out a mom. like, but it was like, nobody got to see the progression of that. And I think now...

Chelsea (26:13)
You

Randi (26:20)
I'm in the second pregnancy and it's been so different. One of the changes that we made in our relationship that has helped immensely is we've entered into the space of non -monogamy, which is like a hole if that's a hole. We can talk about it or not, whatever, happy to go in any of those directions, but yeah.

Chelsea (26:32)
Mm

Hey, it's totally up to you. You would not be my first guest to have this conversation. So if you want to go there, we can go there.

Randi (26:44)
Totally, I mean it's, what I'll say is like...

One of the things we became very clear about being so community oriented and being so aware of how much we were putting on each other to be each other's everything. Being able to flex our relationship and open up our relationship to allow other people in just even for connection or intimacy or sexuality or whatever. It has just helped our relationship. It's just like released some of the pressure of to be each other's everything.

Chelsea (27:19)
Yeah.

Randi (27:19)
where we've been at in our particular journey that's been like one of the most helpful factors. And so I think that's been a big difference is just the way that I've been.

weird to use this word, like allowed to connect with other people in a more intimate way than I think I would have otherwise, even in friendship, even if there's like not a sexual component. I think I've used this phrase before that like monogamy has done a number on me in even in my friendships, in the ways that I like felt like I could cuddle with a girlfriend, you know, just like completely platonically, but that was just not something I felt like I could do. It's just like connect and snuggle and whatever and just like feel an intimate connection.

Chelsea (27:47)
Yeah!

Mm -hmm.

Randi (28:00)
even if there was no romantic or sexual component. But it feels like now we've built friendships with people that like, I have one friend that just like loves to touch my belly and so she'll come over and just like touch my belly and talk to this baby and just like hang out with me or like help me sort through old baby clothes or you know just, it feels like we just have a more solid base of connection which actually I need to like appreciate my daughter for that. My daughter's three. Her name is Dani Dazzle and she is

Chelsea (28:27)
Yeah. my god, I love that name.

Randi (28:32)
She's amazing. Yeah, her full name is Denellie, but we call her Danny, and Dazzle is her middle name. But she is a powerhouse of a little child. She is very social and very clear and very assertive and just really knows who she is, but she is very, very extroverted. I also am very extroverted, but she is very extroverted. And so she has made a lot of friends at parks, at school, at wherever she goes.

Chelsea (28:38)
love it.

Randi (29:02)
lucked out because you may know you likely know this as a mom it's kind of a crapshoot who your kids befriend who their parents are so sometimes you get great parents and you're like you go kid thank you so much and sometimes you get parents that you don't totally vibe with and we lucked out especially recently we moved to we live in Philadelphia we moved to an area called West Philly and there are just a lot of other like -minded parents and just people that are awesome and so my daughter's befriended a bunch of wonderful

Chelsea (29:08)
Eee yes. Eee yes.

Randi (29:32)
humans and their parents are also wonderful humans and so it's felt like we've also built a parent network that feels different. I didn't even know there was a thing called a meal train during COVID for example. I didn't know and I also probably would have like had to spray it with Lysol or something you know. totally we had like a whole station yeah absolutely we did too so

Chelsea (29:36)
So cool.

Yeah, yeah.

not do it back in the days where we're wiping down our groceries yes we did too yes

Randi (29:59)
Yeah, it feels like all of that is really different. Also, I think just going into my labor, my birth was a very fast birth, but it was the kind of fast birth that was like, we were not expecting it. I spent 50 minutes in transition in the back of my car in rush hour traffic.

Chelsea (30:17)
Ugh.

Randi (30:18)
That was the truly worst car ride of my entire life. And so this time I'm planning a home birth. It was just like everything that went wrong in my birth happened because I left my house. I gave birth on a pullout couch in the like, after there was like, none of the rooms were available when I got to the birth center. It was just like a whole slew of complicated things. They had just had a staff switch. It was just like,

Chelsea (30:21)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

my god.

Randi (30:45)
We got there at like a very chaotic moment and my birth was a very, very fast, very unexpected, very painful, very chaotic. Yeah. Didn't look anything like anything I was reading about or the 411 or whatever they tell you, like four contractions, whatever, that never happened. My contractions started and then stayed exactly that way and never stopped for 10 hours.

Chelsea (31:00)
Yeah.

my god. Yeah. Yeah.

Randi (31:09)
And then there was a baby. I was like, whoa. So again, so much gratitude. My healthy, happy daughter, healthy, happy me. Just all the things ended up being OK. But just being able to plan a home birth, feels like this second time around, have so much more of a sense. Every birth is different. But I have more of a sense of what I might want. I have more of a sense of my body and how it was in that space and what might feel better this time around.

Chelsea (31:30)
Mm -hmm.

Randi (31:39)
So I think in general the like common theme of like last time to this time is just like more awareness of our needs and more connection Because it was so fast I spent most of my birth alone Last time because like I didn't know to call everyone's like have a glass of wine and try to get some sleep And I was just like are you sure?

Chelsea (31:48)
Yeah.

Ugh.

my god, my god. And you were like, I'm pretty sure this baby's coming now.

Randi (32:05)
Yeah, like my doula took one look at me when she got to my house and she's like, get the car. So it was just, yeah, a whole lot of disconnection last time and being unclear about what I needed and not having people around me to model or help me figure out what I needed or things like that. And then this time just a lot more of my own clarity, but a lot more.

just people around, know, and like other forms of intimacy around that feel like have really fed my marriage and really helped my marriage be, like helped us show up for each other as partners with our cups fuller. They're not perfect, right? Like we're still human, there's still people still figuring it out. But definitely fuller so that we can show up for our marriage and show up for this pregnancy and this child and all of that a little bit different.

Chelsea (32:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that. I love too that, well, first of all, we love doulas on this podcast. We are all about a doula. I did not have doula, a doula for either of my kids because I, this is, literally my last call was with a doula. She's 23 years old and she's been a doula since she was 16. And we were talking about how,

My only real understanding of what a doula was, was from Gilmore Girls, when I was a teenager, where Luke's sister

gets a doula to have her baby and she's this like, she's a hippie dippy whatever and they named the baby doula because they're like, she was so great. We named the baby doula. And that's all I knew about what a doula was. But in doing this work and meeting all of the birthing people that I've met, I'm all about the doula baby. Like,

Randi (33:42)
Ha

Totally, I am so in the camp of like, do whatever you want for your birth, your postpartum, your parenthood, your whatever. Like, I am not here to tell you what to do with your life or your birth or your anything, but the one piece of unsolicited advice I will give people is like, just whatever you do, just get a doula. I don't care what you do, I don't care how you do it, just have a doula there to help support you. My doula put it, yeah. Totally.

Chelsea (34:12)
Yeah.

But that's like, that's the beauty of a doula, is that the doula is there to support you in the decisions that you make.

Randi (34:23)
My doula put it to me this way, in the first conversation I ever had with her on Zoom during COVID, she like smiled at me and I was like, you're my girl. I don't know what it is, but like, I know it's you. And she may have formed a really cool friendship since. But anyway, the thing that she said that really hit home for me is when you have a doula, everyone else gets to be in their role Meaning the midwife or a doctor or OB or whoever gets to do their job, your partner gets to be your partner. Anybody else who's there to support can do that. And then like, they are the, they just like help everybody

else be able to stay in their place and then they can also understand the medical language and the like colloquial language and be the the go -between to advocate for for your desires needs your partner's desires and needs being that and so like I don't know that's the truly that's like the only piece of unsolicited advice I always like warn people about is like I'm just gonna harp on the doula yeah yeah

Chelsea (35:14)
get a doula. Yes, we're hoping, we're hoping that by the time, I'm hoping by the time my children, if they decide to have children that doulas will be just a thing and will be covered by insurance and will just be available because, Wouldn't that be nice? That's a whole other can of worms. It's a whole other podcast.

Randi (35:32)
be.

whole other can of worms, separate episode.

Yeah.

Chelsea (35:40)
It sounds like going into this next birth, you're a little more grounded, you're not sort of in this storm. And...

Yeah, I'm interested. I'm interested to like see where this journey takes you. also, this wasn't in the questions that I sent you, but like, I'm also curious about, you mentioned your living situation. You're living with another parent and child. Two children. How is that dynamic and how is that sort of impacting your...

Randi (35:58)
Mm

Yep, two children.

Chelsea (36:16)
your role as mom and and and as and as Randi just as Randi.

Randi (36:20)
Mm -hmm. It's evolving. So it's interesting. So we just moved in together. This date, where are we? It's August 12th today. And we just moved in like the beginning of August, or at least started. Super brand new. Actually, like the week before, like the last week in July, we all moved in. So we've been here for two weeks. We moved from a communal home. So my husband and I moved from our home where we were.

Chelsea (36:31)
Yeah.

my god, so it's brand new.

Randi (36:46)
during COVID into a communal home that had eight adults and one child and our child. There were two children in that home and that was like a whole other experience. I'm really glad that we did it. There was a lot of beauty in that home and a lot of things that we learned about communal living and about the fact that it is for us. And I think for that particular set of humans, I don't think that they actually knew what it meant to live with a toddler.

Chelsea (36:51)
Wow.

Randi (37:12)
And I don't think that they actually knew what it meant to live with parents of a toddler. And how that limits your capacity to contribute to a community. And how that limits your ability to relate to and connect with. And also how much stimulation that brings into a home and clutter and mess and all of it. It's just, toddlers are really good mirrors for all of our biggest, boldest emotions and feelings and needs and all of it.

Chelsea (37:12)
Mm.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Randi (37:39)
I think that it was a really beautiful opportunity to explore communal living. Really glad that we did it and it wasn't the right setting for parents of a toddler. At least us, but I'll just speak for ourselves. So then we made the switch to this home and we have house meetings regularly. We did it at our old house and we brought them here. And so we've had two house meetings so far, but at both of these house meetings, the kinds of conversations that were coming up were like,

Chelsea (37:50)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Randi (38:08)
What is the shared language that we want to use around toys that they can't have or need to share? How do we send the same message? How do we want to sync up on breakfast so that everyone's eating the same thing? What are the things that we need to do around bedtime to help everyone settle their bodies? And what kids need which things to do that? One kid needs a chewy, and one kid needs stretches, and one kid needs rainbow breaths Kids are all different. we were just, my husband and I were marveling at the

Chelsea (38:32)
Yeah.

Randi (38:38)
good whiplash of like, can't believe we're having these conversations right now. This feels so good to be having these conversations about raising toddler or raising kids together and getting on the same shared language about them the same the same way that we want to do that. Where in our older house what we were saying is like, hey, there's a three year old that lives here so we can't have knives on the counter.

Chelsea (38:43)
Yeah.

Yes.

Randi (39:01)
Like, it's just like, there's just like real stark differences between the conversations we were having or like, yes, there are gonna be toys around the house or like, it's cold season and she's in preschool and like, everyone's just gonna be sick. Like, you know, whereas like, it's just so much, the conversations are like night and day because we're just, we know, you don't know till you know.

Chelsea (39:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

It's ironic because these are similar conversations that I have with my spouse. And we're on our second child. Like we have an almost nine year old and a two year old. And I'm like, Ben, you can't leave knives on the...

Randi (39:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, well it's also interesting, I mean in that vein I will say like I have a three year old and I'm going back to an infant and my three year old is now getting used to living with a one year old. The other two kids are three and one. And so there's two three year olds in this house and a one year old. And it's even interesting for us to need to go back to like, my daughter's favorite toys are marbles. She loves marbles. Marbles might.

Chelsea (39:45)
So, but yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mmm, yes. My oldest did - my oldest did too.

Randi (40:10)
Yeah, she just loves, her favorite category of toys is choking hazards. And so, like, we trust her. She's not gonna put them in her mouth, but like, will she leave them all over the floor? Absolutely. And so it's interesting, you know, in defense of your husband, and like, we've had to navigate, like, wait, we have to go backwards towards like thinking about babies and infants, because they need such different things. Or I had to like squish a blueberry the other day. I was just like, right, I need to do this. I forgot about that. Why can't you just chomp

Chelsea (40:14)
Hahaha!

Mm -hmm.

You

Randi (40:40)
the blueberry. Like it's just there's there every stage comes with its own its own thing so

Chelsea (40:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Randi (40:47)
Just appreciating that. So it's been really wonderful. Our decision and the unfolding of us leaving our last home coincided with my housemate's separation with her partner. And so we were just like, we're about to have a baby. She just did the transition to two a year ago. And she's a single mama. And so we were like, well, we can support you. You can get a break. Your son doesn't have to watch TV during bedtime. We got you.

Chelsea (41:02)
Mm

Randi (41:17)
to, like, you know, we can make, we can really make home together and really help each other out. And so it's been really special. It's only been two weeks, so like, stay tuned, I'll update you. Yeah, totally, but it's been really, really beautiful and really meaningful to like witness.

Chelsea (41:29)
But yeah, I'll be following along.

Randi (41:35)
witness the kids and it's been also really hard and really overwhelming because like the needs of the other two children are so different from my daughter or like the ways that she can't play in the same issues too or the toys that she can't hold or bedtime has to look a little different. If the two three year olds are going to like sit in my lap and read together, both of them settle their bodies really differently and I can say something to my daughter and then the other child is not responding in the same way and that's hard and frustrating at the end of my day. So,

Chelsea (42:05)
Yeah.

Randi (42:06)
I would say so much more noise. So fighting, so much more anticipating. We have a whole pile of the toys that cause conflict that we hope never see the light of day again. Yeah. yeah.

Chelsea (42:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, those are the toys that magically disappear after bedtime. Yeah. I'm not sure where that went actually. Are you? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I feel that. I just, I'm just marveling sort of at, like your life's journey took you this way to this, to this deep.

Randi (42:26)
Yeah, yeah, where'd you last leave it? I don't know.

Mm

Chelsea (42:44)
love and ability to foster community, but the way that you're incorporating that into your parenting strategies and, I don't want to call it parenting strategies, but just mothering. You're not mothering alone. Which is what I want for everyone. What I want for everyone.

Randi (43:06)
It feels so natural, like it feels so good. I think it really requires you to find someone or find people that align with parenting. My housemate and I had already had a sense. She and I met actually through my doula long ago in that mother, like the postpartum mom support group. That's where we met.

Chelsea (43:16)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Randi (43:27)
Yeah, so I feel like she and I have had a sense for a long time that we speak to our children similarly. We have generally similar guidelines, feelings about food, feelings about things like that, and of course some discrepancies. I'm all about a kid's table and she's like, my kids need to sit at the main table. There's little things like that.

Chelsea (43:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Randi (43:47)
you know, that we're figuring out. I think overall it's made more successful when you find the people that align with you around parenting. But it does feel like a very like this is how we're sort of wired to be. It just makes sense to me to be like, I'm going to do lunches and can you just clean up from dinner and like, can you do bath and I'm going to read to this kid or like I got the diaper. Hold on here. There's a spill. Like it just makes sense to me to just have the extra set of hands. But like the mom

Chelsea (44:01)
Yeah.

Yes!

Randi (44:17)
super power hands and eyes and I don't know there's something you know there's something about moms other parents dad you know whatever they're all absolutely wonderful and great and there's just I think moms show up uniquely as do parents in all their own ways but it's really it feels really meaningful and really nourishing and really like right for my system to be like being a mom with another mom in my home

Chelsea (44:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, that is such a gift. like you said, it's not all easy. It's not just because you're living in this situation. not like, yeah, everything's solved and parenting is easy and it's great. It comes with its own challenges. there is, changes the way that we...

Randi (44:58)
Absolutely not. my god.

Chelsea (45:04)
that we navigate our world. And community doesn't have to be giant. Community can just be you and your spouse and your friend living together in a house and co -parenting together. Like, that's a community.

Randi (45:21)
And I actually think it applies in motherhood. that's a big, that translates really well to the work I do in grief. I don't think grief is meant to be held alone either, and that's something else we have to do, sort of solo or with the select few people in our inner circle. it's a wish I have for parents, and it's a wish I also have for people experiencing grief of any kind, is that it's just more a part of community, it's more a part of the natural discourse.

of our life and the natural rhythms of our life is that we do it together. It just doesn't make sense to me that you do that in like silos and separate corners of the earth when like it's happening to all of us on the daily, you know.

Chelsea (45:53)
Yeah.

all the time. Yeah, I don't know if this was in a was in a previous episode or not. But I know I've had a conversation about grief. We often go to loss. We think grief, we think loss. And by that, mean, like death, we think of death. And grief doesn't necessarily have to just be death. Grief can, right, grief can be

Randi (46:17)
Yeah.

Totally.

Chelsea (46:27)
And even loss, if you want to bring it there, like it could be loss of anything, loss of identity, loss of a lifestyle, loss of a friend in terms of you're just not, you don't see them anymore. yes. Yes.

Randi (46:37)
Totally like big moves when you move even trauma comes with grief like the transition any big life transition like transition to motherhood or Transition to menopause or transition to empty nesting all grief if you like switch jobs if you move states if you have an injury or an illness It's like who you were before and after There are so many ways that grief touches our life that like just fall through the cracks and just nobody acknowledges them and then they're like I'm feeling sad or I feel heavy and like

Chelsea (47:03)
Yeah.

Randi (47:07)
your'e kinda describing grief. You lost something really significant. it's really, in my work I talk a lot about grief needing two things. It needs presence and witness. Meaning it needs to just be able to be where it is, how it is without being fixed or changed or whatever. It just needs space to be. And then it also needs to be held and witnessed and seen ideally in community, but at least by somebody else.

Chelsea (47:09)
Right.

Yeah.

Mm.

And I hope that what you said really, really hits to my listeners because it's something that I needed to learn in my journey. And it really is the entire reason that I'm doing what I'm doing because...

The transition into parenthood comes with a lot of things. And if you're adding perinatal mental health disorders or if you're navigating fertility struggles or loss or anything, that all comes with grief. That all comes with grief. And

there's such a narrative of don't talk about this. We don't talk about this. We don't want to scare parents. We don't want to talk about this. And I feel very strongly, and I get the sense that you do too, that that is so counterproductive. And that, again, grieving within a community.

It doesn't mean we are bad parents. It doesn't mean we are complaining. It doesn't mean we are ungrateful. It means that we're allowed to feel our feelings and someone else can be like, my God, I felt that too. There's nothing wrong with me.

Randi (48:43)
Yeah, it totally normalizes things when we talk about it. And when it inevitably happens for us in some way, or form, then it's not like, my god, is there something wrong with me for feeling this way? And then we go into shame. It's like, this is normal. Even the grief of what could have or should have been or what we wish would happen and then doesn't happen, and that can be something as simple as ways we expected our parents or caregivers or whoever to show up for us postpartum, or our friends, or our spouse.

Chelsea (48:46)
Yeah.

Yes.

Randi (49:13)
and then they don't. And then there's this like loss of what we imagined a postpartum period to be and then it's something else, you know.

Chelsea (49:22)
Yeah.

Randi (49:23)
Or even like one of my podcast episodes, I don't know if you know this, but I also have a podcast specifically about grief. But in one of the episodes, I was connecting with somebody about their postpartum journey and feelings of regret of parenthood that was coming up because there was so much loss of identity and independence and her body and just all of these ways that she was like, what have I done?

Chelsea (49:29)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Randi (49:46)
And how scary that was for her to say out loud because for so long she felt like, no, there's something wrong with me because nobody was talking about it. And like, I think so many of us have at least a part of us that are like, no, what is this new reality? How have I shifted my life? Even if we're amazing parents and even if we love our kids so much and even if it's exactly what we're meant to do, that's like so normal and so okay to say like, I miss my independence. I miss just being a burner I miss just being a sister goddess. I miss just going out dancing.

Chelsea (49:54)
Yeah.

yeah!

Randi (50:16)
on a random Wednesday night because I fucking feel like it. And like that's just not, you know, like the ways, the things that are possible are not always the same. And so, yeah, it felt really refreshing when we were talking about it to just normalize that. And also to give it a name and a label of like, that's part of a grieving experience, I think. And new parenthood or transition to parenthood multiple kids later, I think is just like so intertwined with grief. There's so much beginning and then there's so much ending.

Chelsea (50:19)
Yes!

yeah.

Yeah. And it goes back to something you said when, and you did this, you probably didn't even notice that you did this. When we first started talking, you said, but, and you're like, no, I mean, and the, the whole, and thing you can feel grief at that loss. can feel, you can feel regret and also love your child and also be grateful for your family and also be like, the two things are not.

they can exist at the same time. And as my therapist would say, and that's okay. That's her catchphrase.

Randi (51:17)
video.

Yes, totally. One of the things...totally.

feel that. One of the things I'm aware that I'm grieving which feels also like, I don't know, not as oftenly talked about is just like the end of my solo relationship with my daughter. I'm just so aware of like how I don't know but I know that I don't know how much things are going to change when I have a second child and when like I'm gonna hopefully be able to nurse that child and you know.

Chelsea (51:27)
Yeah.

Yes.

Randi (51:51)
be able to build this connection that comes at the cost of all this time that I have with her. And so feels like I'm doing all of this savoring or feeling pre -anxiety or anticipatory grief about the loss of this connection that I have with my daughter that's just ours and how I'm gonna have to share that.

Chelsea (51:58)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, and it doesn't matter how many people tell you what it's like, it's gonna be your own journey. Because the first thing I wanted to do was be like, let me hit, because I did, I went from one to two and there's a big age gap between my kids. And I did, I wanted to be like, let me tell you how it was. But it's like, it's gonna be your own journey.

And you are, you're, you do, I balled. I had the night before I had my second, I had a scheduled C -section for a number of reasons, but I balled. was like, this is my last night as just Lily's mom. So I feel that I get that. And you're right. I don't think that's talked about enough.

Randi (52:57)
Yeah, I've been trying to find all the ways to savor and to like, I mean, we're in a difficult moment. Dani's been really going through tons of transition recently. The move was a big deal for her, we're in this new house, now all of a sudden there's two other kids that live here, soon there's gonna be another kid. She has a different room, her talk about one big loss is a bunch of billion other losses is like, everything in her life is really different right now.

Chelsea (53:13)
Yeah.

Randi (53:22)
Yeah, so it's been this whole process, but I have been trying to like, so she has also had just like a lot of big feelings that are understandable and like things haven't been entirely as smooth. She's a very adaptable kid, but she's a human also. But one of the things I did, this is like veering off topic, I didn't even know that I actually talked about it, but it's like coming to my, so I had this really important like,

Chelsea (53:38)
Yeah.

totally fine.

Randi (53:51)
big life -significant milestone with her because I was three when my parents died. And so Dani crossed the threshold of being exactly the same age I was when my parents died.

Chelsea (53:57)
Mm -hmm.

Randi (54:03)
in April. And so we had this like really beautiful ceremony and we spent the whole day really in honoring of that life experience. I was honoring it, but I was also trying to find child appropriate ways to honor that with her and to find meaning. And I go into a lot of detail if anyone's actually really curious about that. In my podcast, Getting Real with Grief, there's an episode all about how I navigated that.

Chelsea (54:05)
Wow.

Randi (54:33)
that life milestone with her. So if you're curious about how to do that for yourself or just want to hear more, that's a place to do it. yay.

Chelsea (54:39)
I will link it in your show notes because I know I'm going to be listening to it.

Randi (54:44)
Yeah, was honestly that was like one of my favorite episodes to record because it was like that was I think the title is like the most profound day in my grief journey. It was like a truly I am the person that I am after that day and before that day. That was a huge shift. But one of the intentions that I had that day was that no matter how she felt, no matter how she showed up, no matter how like what was happening for her that day, I was committed first and foremost to seeing the magic in my child and to like living that day entirely.

Chelsea (54:56)
Yeah, wow.

Mm.

Randi (55:14)
appreciating that I got to be alive with her. Period. That was like one of the coolest things I've ever done as a human was like commit to just seeing the magic in somebody because of like how profound it was that like she got to be alive with me and I got to be alive with her that day because it was like on that day my parents didn't get to be alive with me.

Chelsea (55:19)
Yeah.

Randi (55:36)
And on that day, my little child didn't get to have her parents. And so like, whatever the fuck happened that day, I just wanted to see the magic in her. And so I find myself to like bring it back to now. Yeah, I find myself.

really leaning into that and just trying to say like, do I just feel the magic in her? How do I memorize like every little line and every little wrinkle and every little dimple and every little tushy and every little all of it? Just like, how do I really like see her and take it in and just hold her and appreciate her and just because there's gonna be the person she is before having another baby in our house and the person after and I'm gonna be the mom of before and after and I'm just so aware of how finite and fleeting that is.

Chelsea (56:02)
You

Yeah.

Randi (56:20)
But it feels so hard because I'm like, it's just really hard to hold on. And it's going to end. And I'm just like, feel my system like, my fingers are really, I feel my system like resisting but like clinging. But I'm like, I don't know what I'm clinging to because she's just like, okay, mom, I'm done with this hug.

Chelsea (56:24)
I know.

like resisting.

Yes.

the one thing that I will offer, just mom to mom is what I have realized on the other side of it is the gift of watching who my older daughter becomes in her sister's life. Like that has been, and they don't, you wouldn't think,

that a two year old and a nine year old would have a lot to fight about and you'd be very wrong. She's not obsessed with her sister, like they fight and they argue and whatever, but watching her become the person that she is since having my youngest has been a separate but very, cool journey.

Randi (57:11)
Hahaha

Chelsea (57:32)
So maybe, I mean, if that gives you like a little nugget or something to just think about.

Randi (57:39)
Yeah, that's giving me so much actually. It's just getting to think about, I don't know, my heart gets really warm thinking about her, who she'll be as an older sister, that identity for her. Because she's also, yeah.

Chelsea (57:48)
Yeah. And it doesn't mean... I'm sorry, go ahead.

Randi (57:53)
No, it's okay. She's also just like a natural leader and she's very excited to be a big sister and I think that she really, she's like, I want to change poopy diapers. And I'm like, girl, if you want to, like, I'm not gonna fight you at all. I'm gonna teach you how to do that so well. We're gonna do that together. You know, she just like really wants to help and really wants to be a part of it. So I'm excited to see her in that identity. I think it's gonna be beautiful. And you know, I'm just, really appreciating that perspective too.

Chelsea (58:21)
Yeah, I mean, and it's not always, it's not always beautiful. Like I said, like she, mine never wanted to, she's like, I'm never, I'm not doing diapers, mom. I'm like, that's fine. She's also a lot older, but, and yeah, and she struggles with it she's like, Avery's driving me crazy. And I'm like, yeah, Avery's driving me crazy too, but.

Randi (58:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

haha

Chelsea (58:42)
just who she is becoming as a person, as a big sister and just as a person. It has shifted since her sister was born and it's cool. It's cool to watch. So it's another like piece of the journey. I feel like you did such a gorgeous job of like bringing us full circle. You did this, you did this wonderful thing where you brought us back to

Randi (59:01)
Mm.

Chelsea (59:06)
your experience of grief and your experience of motherhood. Listeners, again, I'm plugging here. Check the show notes because I really want to check out your episode. I want to hear more about that experience. But I think...

I don't even you know what every single episode I do I wait until the end to figure out my wrap up question because I got to get a feel of the person and I got to get a feel of where the story is gonna go and I don't even I I'm so well I'm torn I'm torn because

Randi (59:36)
I'm like on the edge of my seat.

Chelsea (59:42)
whether this is true for you or not, whether this resonates for you, that what I get from you is a real sense of like grounding and understanding of yourself and your needs, which is something that I desperately am working on as a person. So it's hard for me to think of a good question for you because I'm like, she's got this great sense of self and she's done such a beautiful job of

taking us on this journey. So I'm gonna go with what do you hope my listeners take away from your story?

Randi (1:00:22)
like that question.

Chelsea (1:00:25)
I'm glad, because I was still unsure of it.

Randi (1:00:27)
Yeah, no, I like this question. I think it's helpful for me around, I don't know, what's really important to me here. What do I really hope to pass on or that people can receive or ways the story can be of support? think...

Chelsea (1:00:44)
Yeah.

Randi (1:00:44)
probably like you don't have to hold it alone. Like that can be like just really the importance of doing life in general relating in community and parenting in community and like, I don't know, like just how.

much of a game changer that's been in my own life. And if that's something that you're feeling, feeling like lonely or your relationship is burdened because there's too much expectation or pressure or need to be each other's everything that like this gives some permission to like look outwards, you know, and to see if you can like add more people into the team because that feels like such a game changer and so important and like how we're frankly wired. And I think the same goes for grief. I think it's like

Chelsea (1:01:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Randi (1:01:27)
permission also to claim the griefy parts of your journey and to label them accurately. You know, like sometimes people are like, I'm this, I'm disorganized, I'm bipolar, I'm sad, I'm depressed, they'll throw out all the labels when a lot of it is the complex experience of grieving that doesn't necessarily fit so neatly under all of those or any of those. So yeah, I think like permission to grieve it and to claim it and to like have some of the messier feelings and like, yeah, to like

that they're not alone in messy marriages, they're not alone in feeling a sense of loss, they're not alone in losing parts of themselves or their identity.

like it's just made easier and better when you do it with others.

Chelsea (1:02:08)
Yeah, it's beautiful and it definitely, yeah, how'd you do? No, that's the very on brand, very on brand.

Randi (1:02:10)
How'd I do? Ta -da! good, yes, okay cool. At least keeping it consistent.

Chelsea (1:02:21)
No, I think that's, that's perfect. That, that really encompasses a lot of, of what you have shared with us about your journey. I, I just, again, I want to thank you for sharing your story, for being patient with me and understanding and all of the chaos and,

where can my listeners find you if they'd like to follow along in your journey?

Randi (1:02:46)
Yeah, thank you. Honestly, it's been such a pleasure and a privilege. We don't get to tell our stories that often. There's not a lot of holding spaces for these stories. So I'm just really grateful to you Chelsea for holding space and making space and just like really I see how dedicated you are to like creating a container for people to get real and for people to be with each other around some of this stuff because it's so important.

Chelsea (1:02:52)
Mm -mm.

Thank you.

Randi (1:03:07)
Yeah, it really means a lot to me. My business is called Realness Rising. My name is Randi Hall. so Realness Rising will take you to a website, realnessrising .com. Realness Rising will take you to an Instagram account, a TikTok account, a Facebook.

Account it's like a page Facebook's weird these days. I don't know but there's a So I have a group I have a private Facebook group community and I do some trainings in there I have a lot of interviews in there like all the beginnings of my interview series podcasts are in there and it's called getting real with grief and then I also have a podcast called getting real with grief and Yeah, all those all those spaces Yes, thank you. All those spaces are there really to

Chelsea (1:03:26)
Yeah, Facebook's weird.

It's going on my list.

Randi (1:03:52)
help people feel less alone in their grief. It provides approachable and accessible ways to connect with and to honor their grieving experience. So my hope is that it helps you feel less alone and more connected and more resourced and more confident tackling really uncomfortable things.