Greg Voisen
Well welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And today, we have Elisa Stancil Levine on and the book is This or Something Better, you can actually see it on her screen better than mine by just a little bug. And you're joining us from where this morning at least,

Elisa Stancil Levine
I'm outside of Sonoma in Sonoma County, actually a little town of Glen Ellyn on a mountain, looking at turkeys running through the fields outside my window. There, quiet out

Greg Voisen
here. Very beautiful place. You're in a very rural place. And this memoir, she and I were just speaking is a memoir of resilience. And that's the subtitle on hair this or something better? And it really is about how do we get to something better. And I'm gonna let the listeners know a little bit about you. And Lisa is spent her childhood in a canyon on the American River up street from the site of the California gold rush. She left school at 16 As a single mother in Sacramento I earned a degree in Library Science and studied creative writing. work with partners she remodeled 16 historic homes and was home and gardener editor and feature writer in the Sacramento magazine. At 36. She founded stem cell studios and award winning nationwide decorative finishes company in San Francisco. This memoir shares the story of making a maker and takes place in Northern California Manhattan in Paris. When Elisa is not writing, traveling or consulting on color and patterns, she and her husband Chuck spend hours immersed in nature running and riding horseback in Sonoma mountains. This or something they better is her second book or essays have received appeared in entropy magazines during a literary review, the penmen review and the writers workshop review. And she says her third book is in the works well. Third one is out can always be the best, it could be the best. I know lots of writers, it takes eight or 10 books for them to get to the best one. But you know, it's an inspiring personal memoir. It's also filled with these kind of I'm just gonna call them crazy yet harrowing stories in them. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you to share. So personal and um, front your story, you know, a memoir is always personal. And sometimes people don't want to tell that personal of the story. But you have done so why do you why were you inspired to do this?

Elisa Stancil Levine
Greg, really, from the time I was really little I realized, you know, I felt I had been born wise, you know, and I'm looking around with my panoramic vision. And thinking, hmm, this is not exactly some of these people don't seem to know what I seem to know. So it was really my very first memory that triggered that my desire to finally write about everything that I had collected visually, super visual. So this very first memory was when I felt totally embraced and recognized in nature. And that was really my very first memory. So this imprinting of nature bridge the all the gaps that seemed to be there or seem to bridge all the grounds that were in the my human interactions. So we you know, yeah, I was so happy. I thought I had solved my problem, you know, people not trustworthy nature all for me. Yeah. Done. And I progressed through my life, always intending to write about that, and how, you know, lucky that that made me under the circumstances, which we'll probably talk about a little bit. But in fact, when I went to write it, Okay, finally, I'm retired. Yay, everything's fine. I'm going to write in first 20 years of my life were traumatic, but they were distant by the time I'm writing, right? I'm like, 16 hours. 65. So, yeah. And the last 20 years, we're all great. So no problem. But what about the middle? Okay, that in between periods? What is it what they call the second act? I mean, in everybody's life, things come up, there's, you know, things get messy, okay. And it shows up in, let's say, Shakespeare's plays or anybody else's writing, you find out you know, what, what, actually,

Greg Voisen
What for you? It's certainly the hero's journey, right? You know, you go out and you've had these all these experiences. And you know, you have a picture on the front of this book, as you know, you can see the fire in the bottom. You can see the smoke and then you can see the clouds and I think that that is very symbolic of, of what I You're talking about and you start off the book with this, I'm going to call it harrowing experience. With this raging fire coming toward you, you say you get out of bed, you're completely naked, you're standing there in the window, and you see these flames coming over the hill. And you and Chuck are deciding to leave the ranch. And, you know, it Chuck says to you with a better sense, oh, why don't you be the one that guides this right. And while preparing to try and get your horses off the property, one of them needed to be sedated, but you couldn't find anything to sedate him with. Then you took these markers and you marked on tried to mark on the back of the horse is a phone number, the cell number I guess for check, but you couldn't do that because the markers were dry. You tell the story in your thoughts about leaving, and not warning others. Because this is a key point. It's the last statement in the chapter there that opening chapter. And why this was so important to you?

Elisa Stancil Levine
This has really been an interesting thing. All the people that have read the book have come to my readings and all that. But some of them feel really sympathetic and feel sorry for me and try to explain to me that I don't have to feel bad about I'm telling you, this was a signal to me a huge signal. Listen, you know, I'm not who I think I am. I think I'm this warm person with you know, lots of care. And I'm going to help people and do all these great things. But in fact, no, I zoomed away on my own without even looking to the left or the right, our little mountain road is one way out. And yes, everybody would be running and trying to save themselves. This is understood. But the fact that I didn't even think of it was assigned to me that there were things that have not been resolved from my early childhood. And, you know, this was, you know, I had had 70 or 73. Now, I have 20 years to resolve this I'm giving myself, I need to look deeply at how I, how I relate to others, and whether or not all this woo woo that I have in my life that is so loving, right? Is really being applied? Or if I'm still armored. And the question was, where did this armor come from? That causes me to have this defense. And did this did nature itself inspire me to learn how to melt my own armor through this fire? I mean, it's not like the fire was given to me through God because of and I needed to know this fire just was but what can I do with this fire? It's not any different than what can I do with a grandmother? That's so cruel? What can you know, what can I do with any of these things that seem almost impossible to realize? What

Greg Voisen
what do you think that that defense mechanism in other words, survival itself, obviously, maybe was tied up and many of the things from your prior life and you know, the book explores a number of these different themes and experiences, including one surrendering to kind of universal self-love healing. And you share this personal experience in the book. The story was particularly transformative for you. And you if you could speak about your grandmother. And she called you a murderer, which was because of your Catholic background, right? In other words, in other words, she was saying, hey, for her, it just seemed kind of odd to me that she would call a young girl a murderer. There had to have been something mentally challenging with her to do something like that. And then those crazy when you want to call them cleansing baths that, you know you had to take. I mean, you read this book, and you're kind of like, Are these people crazy?

Elisa Stancil Levine
So bizarre is in the community where she was living, which was another sort of mountain community 10 minutes or so away from my parents’ house. Who were you know, anyway, so grandma was this person, I really, I prefer to spend time at my grandmother's house. Question mark. Why would that be if she's going to be doing these things? Well, she didn't do these things all the time. And she was very definite and adamant and convincing about everything. Her perspective was very strong. And she part of her perspective as a seventh and as she had converted earlier in her life, and so somehow she's just had to accuse me the only one that she accused of being a murderer. I'm the only girl my mother was Catholic. So I married my grandmother I mean, my mother married my grandmother's son. And so this was both of her sons married Catholics, but I don't know what she did to anybody else. It was just me she just had, maybe because I was durable and kind of on the lookout, you know, she just wanted to somehow straighten me out. And, you know, blame me. And like I said, somehow, I knew whatever it was, she was, it was soothing to her. And it wasn't anything I could prevent. I mean, I just couldn't prevent it, she would do it. And I would go upstairs and dress, and then I would pretend like it never happened. And this, you know, I would say probably happened 20 times 30 times from the time I'm two and a half. And maybe she was aware that my grandfather, my step grandfather was sexually sexualizing. All of us little girls, maybe she was secretly aware and subconsciously aware of that. And was, I don't know, I mean, I could go all day on trying to analyze my grandmother.

Greg Voisen
Well actually talk about that, because, you know, I just recently had a woman on here. And it's called under the orange blossoms. And her defense was she and I'm not here to speak about her book. But I found it so compelling, because in the later years, she had to take care of her father. And her father was the molester. He was a pedophile. And he literally not only was molesting her, but he was letting molesting other kids in the neighborhood as well. And, but in the end, if you go to her website, she did interviews with her dad. And he was German. And he still had a strong accent. But he, during the interviews, he could not look at her. She would ask the questions in his eyes would shot and he would go into this banter about you know, she would ask him, why did it any said, because you were blossoming. Right. And it was what I say, you know,

Elisa Stancil Levine
because I was I was molested and a number of other little examples of times, and the thing is that I decided that I had the light of life. And this is why my grandfather was doing this. And he wanted to connect to the light of life, whether it was me or my other two grades.

Greg Voisen
That's the same thing. This guy kind of sad. Yeah.

Elisa Stancil Levine
So he's so I'm like, okay, but it's not my, you know, it's not my fault that I have a light of life. I already know. I'm blessed by God. I was just blessed. So yeah, I just have to keep moving. Right? This was my answer to the solution. You know, yeah. Not gonna make myself different. You know, I mean, well, from what

Greg Voisen
age what age did that actually happen? In her case, she was young. She was from five to 10 years old. He molested her?

Elisa Stancil Levine
Well, as it shows in, I think it's a third chapter or something. From the time I was about a year and a half, until I was started to really talk about almost three, I always the one that he would take to the woodshed that he would take to the garage, you know, we would go together. And it was always when grandma was at the church. Yeah. So there was other kids around, but they were just doing whatever, because kids used to be able to do whatever they wanted. They were out playing. And he and I was with Grandpa, I was special. Right? And so I had no idea. I knew that I felt comforted and safe when he would do this whole kind of Lingus thing with me. Right? But I was just a little child is described in there, sensitively. And I hope I'm not triggering anybody by talking about this so plainly. But I tried to write it, like I felt it at the time, which was just, oh, I'm special. And we're having all this time. And then we come out, and then everything's fine. And that's, and then when he stopped wanting to be with me, and started taking my little cousin, I felt totally abandoned. And I started thinking, okay, that's strange. You know that now they're okay. And he would just walk away. He was pretty desks, and he was always making his mumbly humming sound and stuff. And they would just be walking away to where we used to go. And like, oh, okay, that's done. And, you know, meanwhile, here's grandma with the scrubbing. And so yeah,

Greg Voisen
it's an interesting many of these pedophile column pedophiles, because it looks like your grandfather did the same thing that this man did. To her and other children. It was like more than one different children, some of them, many of them not related. In other words, kids in the neighborhood that he befriended and then, you know, did whatever he did You know, in your case, now your grandfather chooses somebody else you feel kind of rejected because you're so young, you don't really understand these things. But it made it certainly made an indelible imprint. Because while those memories aren't there, in in Cindy's case, she would start to have nightmares about it. Right? Nightmares could she could remember, and you speak about the role of self-discovery and self-exploration have played in your personal journey. If others that are listening right now, knowing that, you know, they've only listened to like, 15 minutes, so far, 20 minutes of this podcast. And here's this woman on the other end with his memoir. And already, we've talked about some pretty strange things that have happened to her. How would you help them deal with the difficult painful experiences the trauma of a loss? How would you tell them to find strength to persevere through these challenges? And then what would you expect, tell them to explore, to learn as a result of it?

Elisa Stancil Levine
I really do believe one of the most important things is tenderness that you would can extend to yourself, as you begin to explore or you know, realize, or even question your early life or other times in your life when you were not in control, and things did not go in a way that was healthy for you. Okay, so if you are grappling with this, and you're and there's anger, pain and resentment, of course, but that's a reaction, the thing, the very thing that is really so required is the tenderness you can extend to yourself, as you face these things, because this is the very thing that was missing. And that, you know, this is parenting yourself, loving yourself. And I'm not saying that this is an answer, it's but it makes it good, the pain different or go away. But it is a little kind of a North Star, better than the concern that people have sometimes if they're going to tumble into a black hole. And as

Greg Voisen
well, you explore forgiveness, and both for oneself and for others. I believe forgiveness is so important. Self-forgiveness is really important, because you didn't actually intentionally put yourself in that situation with your grandfather. So speak with us about that. Because, you know, you, we do see examples of it many times, you know, like, you know, it always kind of strikes me I'm in kind of all when somebody goes into court, and the family of somebody who murdered someone else in their own family says, Okay, we'll give you forgiveness because they know that if they carry around that grudge, the only person that's really hurting is themselves. But that's a very spiritual

Elisa Stancil Levine
thing, isn't it? Or sometimes it's it. I mean, sometimes you can, forgiveness can be sort of like counting coup, like, Haha, I'm better than you, I have forgiven you. I'm not saying that. That's not forgiveness. But there is some process in my experience of having to come to terms with certain things that happened. And then wait. And certainly with my grandmother, no, say my grandfather killed himself. Okay. So there's that. And my grandmother, and this is a step grandfather. So this step grandfather, she married when he was like 65. So he's gone, he's out of the picture. It's fine. And then my grandmother, the reason he killed himself is that my grandmother had a stroke, and she wasn't anything like she was before. She had no confidence. She was totally, you know, heartbroken to be so unable. And she was paralyzed on one side, and she ended up living for 20 plus years in a convalescent home, or not with her children, you know, and this is a long arc that happens in life sometimes. And all I knew was that, you know, she would have value that I would come and visit and why would take her out, we would go to a Chinese restaurant and you know, with a wheelchair and my son who was 12 at the time, you know, and I would give her a massage or a hand that was, you know, paralyzed and give her a manicure and you know, like that. So, there's no reason not to do that, in my opinion, even out it pretty fresh after leaving home. There was every reason to do it, because I could then say, Look, I am not a murderer, right? I didn't have to say it. And it probably was about 15 years into her arc of being paralyzed. And I brought her down to my house here in Sonoma. And we, we know, had a three or four day thing, anyway, in that moment, and finally she said, you know, the world lost, the world lost a good nurse when you became an artist. Now, this phrase is a little sentence to me meant, I know, you're not a murderer. I know, you, you know, I also credit you for being an artist, and I thank you for being so loving to me, is what I took from that. You know, and that's just how I try to work it out. So in terms of how people can find a space for forgiveness, for others, I think it is an it's a process, it's not an instant idea that this will be good, or this will make it less painful.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, you, in this case with your grandmother, obviously, after stroke, you were doing some caring for her. And in the process, the exploration, she was saying things, which I would say probably made a lot more sense than when she was talking to you saying you were a murderer, right? Which I would think that that would leave a pretty indelible implant. And, you know, the book discusses vulnerability and authenticity and relationships. How have you cultivated these qualities in your own life? And, you know, I know Brene Brown is speaks a tremendous amount about vulnerability. And I think what she has to say about it is so important, whether you're in your personal life, or your business life, you know, because we have a lot of business people that listen to the show as well. And you're a businesswoman, you're very astute businesswoman. And you work with some very high end clients. Right? And I think, one having the vulnerability at apt to actually say, or admit you're wrong when you're wrong. That you that you, oh, I see your viewpoint. You know, I see your side of this is really important. And what has it done to help you that and authenticity, and helping you with relationships, both in your personal life, and obviously doing what you do in the art world as well.

Elisa Stancil Levine
I have to say, one thing that I confess is that I have very, I've studied a bunch of different ideas about vulnerability and about authenticity, and intimacy, this idea of intimacy, and with my personal relationship, I mean, I finally told my husband, who's my fourth husband, okay. And I was divorced three times, by the time I was 27. So obviously, I wasn't really doing

Greg Voisen
Well, you started young.

Elisa Stancil Levine
And each relationship got better. So yeah, I can point it out. Here. You know, here, I, we had started dating and I was just trying to lecture him, you know, kindly help him with ideas about intimacy. And finally, I mean, I guess it was, like, 15 years later, I said, you know, I don't know shit about intimacy. I really don't. You know, I know what it's supposed to look like, I know what it sounds like, I know how to make it. You know, cobble it together for a minute. That doesn't mean that I know anything about it. And this was the thing is beginning to understand that it's okay to not know. And it's okay to share. That unknowing is part of what really came from my writing career when I was trying to do articles about things I knew nothing about I was assigned them. And we get all anxious and upset, because I didn't know everything. Well guess what if, of course, I don't know everything. And the same thing with collaborative work within decorating, and working with the client and the decorator, the architect and the builder, this collaborative experience, you're not expected to know everything, but there are things that we can feel intuitively. Yeah. And that's the key. Yeah, yeah. And bring to the party that you know, has value. And it's the same thing for these others. So it's more, the collaboration really helped me a lot. But when it's just one on one, I mean, just sometimes just get really confounded. And I don't know if that's still just old stuff. I mean, believe me, I had therapy and still have a wonderful therapist I can check in with, which I do. You know, and there's a lot that we all can do to help ourselves. But in fact, one of the things that was a little bit of a problem for me is wanting to be right and being okay and being fine and being strong. And that's part of that armor. And it's not part of vulnerability,

Greg Voisen
right? Do you think that in that process of, even though you were very young, what your grandfather did to you, no matter what those memories might have been that, you know, you look at for marriages, you look at intimate relationships, did that really affect your intimacy? Because, you know, I, I'm relating now to Cindy. And you know, and I'll say this again, because this interview was just so recent. You know, it's like, when all the other girls told her, you know, a guy's foot size or hand size was good, you know, she even writes very openly about it. Right? It was like, and, and her having intimate relations with young men, kind of the first time after this thing with her father, right? Do you believe that those old wounds that you carried, that you maybe didn't even realize, because you supplanted them into the subconscious really affected your ability with intimacy and relationships?

Elisa Stancil Levine
Definitely, definitely. I was again, like, from the, I think in the second chapter, I just say, by the time I was three, I was on the lookout for who and what I could trust, sunflowers, raspberries, my cousin Debbie, better, you know, good stuff. And so when with these men, and of course, many people who have been women, I'd say that maybe perhaps also men who've been sexualized at a young age. They are very promiscuous, without any thought of it being promiscuous. It's just like, well, what the hell, you know? And so here I was, and it was the beginning of, you know, no broad, you know, free love. So what am I going to do? I'm just out and about, and like, I've told people, we would I would go have coffee, I would have sex with someone to find out if I wanted to have coffee with them the other way around. Whatever. But this was totally there was no, there was no deep connection, right at all. And it was also not, what do you call it? Productive of sexual fulfillment? Either. It was just an action. Okay. I called it there in the book, counting KU and Ka, U, U, U, whatever. And I wouldn't be walking down the it. College and think, oh, that person looks from I wonder and I can tell they were thinking, I wonder if I had sex with her. I'm thinking I wonder if I already had sex with me. It's just like a lot of sex going on?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, you recount that in the book. Yeah. Yeah.

Elisa Stancil Levine
So this was not the way to get close.

Greg Voisen
So you said this, or something better, maybe it was something better.

Elisa Stancil Levine
Was this for something better finally came when I met my fourth husband, I mean, we dated for 20 years before we got married. Wow, on the opposite coast. So it took, you know, there was a lot to bring us together. And it he's it just I just love him so much. And he's so consistent. And he's so accepting. I mean, it's amazing. So, you know, I just really feel so blessed to have found him. And I did an affirmation and wrote a look at my list, you know, from Shakti Gwaine. And, you know, creative visualization. And from, you can heal your life. Remember the list in a present tense, the man I choose to love is, you know, I just read this every day for like, I don't know, I think it was maybe a month? Well, you, you know,

Greg Voisen
you've been through so much change and uncertainty. I mean, you know, really, when you read this memoir, and you look at, you know, the crazy baths and your grandmother being Seven Day Adventists and calling you a murderer, and you having all these sexual relationships and the fires that you've had, and in this, the things that you've dealt with is it's truly a very full life. But if you're going to talk to the listeners, about the importance of embracing change and uncertainty, share one of the personal experiences or a story that illustrates how you kind of navigated, so we're talking about you navigating, change, and how others may want to look at uncertainty or change, because, you know, most people resist it. They go, I don't want I don't want to change. You know, I mean, a perfect example of that is when you talk to people today about you know just what happened the corner ation with Charles. You know, like, That's old school, right? Put on a crown now and it's so old school, right? And you talk to people today and they'll say, well, I don't even know why we're doing that anymore. Yet it hasn't changed in hundreds of years, you know, they're still playing the same old stupid stuff, right? Pardon me, for all the people that are British that still believe in that that's my own personal commentary. Yeah. How would you tell somebody to embrace change, embrace uncertainty? And actually learn and what story? Would you like to relate with that? Because you've got so many in the book?

Elisa Stancil Levine
I actually, you've sent me some great questions. And I did write something about that, that I could actually read, it would probably be more efficient to tell you answer this question by reading it, if you don't mind. Sure. Okay, so early questioning about the power of adults. And the importance I should place on their dictates helped me escape my family. But it did not guarantee that I would thrive and bloom, but rather simply remove myself from one dynamic to find myself lodged in another. Yet any setback up until the death of my fiancée, I believe myself strong enough to overcome, even including the death of my baby. But then I collapsed like a cheap umbrella. I swear, after that was just too much. That was it. I bet you there's everybody that has had to be greedy, and all that has things that just were just too much. therapy was helpful. And I've had a longtime connection with an amazing behavioral therapist. But my own anger was key. If it mounted to a boiling point, a boiling point, I would realize I needed to make a change. So like in a marriage of something, I would just say, Is this good enough? Is this really what I'm supposed to be doing here? Am I being my best self here? No. Okay, I'm out. Okay, out. Oh, UT out. Okay, so I tend not to blame others, but rather and then my own reality, I find that more efficient and effective. But that doesn't, that's still keeping the same behavior. I'm like, the king's robes, right, I'm still doing the same, same, same thing. I think it looks different, because it's a different setting. So this whole idea that whatever worked before, is really working is a little suspect. And fit. One of the things that is true for me is I just like figuring stuff out, I just like it. I like wandering. So I may be wondering about something 10 years ago, and not applying it today. But however, we're progressing through all this, whether it's the COVID crisis, or anything else, I take things that I used to use or do and try to apply them to the new difficulty, you know,

Greg Voisen
and I think, you know, speaking with a doctor the other day that ended up and this is, this is relatable to what you're talking about, know, he went to India, and all the mushrooms and seeking enlightenment. So this is a true story. He goes there first time, and looks for all these gurus who have enlightenment, goes the second time, goes a third time, finally finds a guru. And he says, you know, I don't really see where there's so many of these people who are just enlightened. And the guy says, what is your definition of enlightenment? And he says, what's supposed to be somebody that's calm and peaceful all the time, and blissful and whatever? And he goes, well, I think you have your definition wrong. Right? He said, enlightenment is really unconditional self-acceptance. And with that, he came back from India. And he realized that it is unconditional self-acceptance, is what actually in his world now creates enlightenment. What would you say about unconditional self-acceptance?

Elisa Stancil Levine
That's something I probably try to practice every day is like a constant like little. I mean, I'm just like picking up the tab of the edge of it so often, and I, you know, and then the times when I feel the most rich truly, in that place, if I'm out running on the mountain, is when I'm, I'm not there. I know, I'm no longer this entity I am. Since of life, you know, and when you have this, you know, this beautiful experience of the essence of life and you are one with it, then this is just heavenly. Anytime there's, you know, the monkey mind, there's all these other things that come into play, or just whatever you promised to do that day that

Greg Voisen
The ego is so strong that you know it wants to say to you Is it Lisa, I can't accept you for what this is. You know, you're not you're not good enough. Right? Right. So when you say unconditional self-acceptance, that's like no matter what happens wherever it happens, however it happens. Whatever memory you're taking from it, we're putting a judgment on it as to whether or not it's good or bad. It seems and that and that is the meme. That is the meme that saying, hey, I call that bad. I call that good. Like with your grandfather, most people say, well, there's, there's a stigma, your grandfather molested you. Now, if you really want to take it to the complete opposite side, maybe that experience was supposed to be for unconditional self-acceptance. And that's what gives you the ability to get out of the pain. You know, I don't know how I look, I've done this show now for 16 years, and I've had all kinds of fascinating people like you on and we get into these deep conversations. But let's talk about this idea of spiritual connection and faith. Because it is this part like, whether Catholicism was the big deal, or Seventh Day Adventist was the big deal, or Judaism was the was whatever it is, that to me is religion. That's not spirituality. Can you speak to us about the role that these have played, the spiritual connection in your faith and your personal journey and how people listening on the other end of this right now can learn about how being having more faith and having a connection to a higher Spieler and getting in touch with their intuition can really transform their lives?

Elisa Stancil Levine
Well, that's a big question, Greg. But I can tell you that if I look at the whole progression of my experience with religion, Catholicism taught me how to edit a religion. There's a lot of things that it yeah, very little. And I'm like, that can't be true. Even Mary couldn't even save her son. And she's standing there looking all glorious, and he's hanging on across. I mean, and okay, he's only hanging on this cross for supposedly 32 hours, and then all of us are supposed to look at that all day, every day and feel bad. No, I'm not doing it. Okay, so then, you know, Seventh Day Adventist, okay, that they had some great ideas, a book called happiness, homemade. It was all about how you're going to, you know, it was really beautifully inculcating the idea of the nurturance of a woman into the whole home life. Okay. And this was my grandmother's thing. I agreed with the book. But you know, how she took it was not what I thought was right. Okay. Judaism later, okay, now I'm ready to really look and hear is a bunch of children at my husband's family at a table. And whenever they ever start to speak, everybody's quiet, like, oh, wait, he's speaking. Yeah, he's a whole person over there is four year old, right? Yeah, let's listen. And then on top of that, editing, anything that I thought was really just not really what I wanted. And then finally, just realizing that the reason I was really attracted to Judaism was because they have this whole thing called ethical values. And basing the religion supposedly bedrock on these ethical values, was I use it as a key to pattern design and all kinds of other things, an organizing principle, for my, for a lot of my work with other people simply doing that. So yes, and a lot of the newer parts of Judaism, I just, I just really don't care about, but I'm gonna edit it to what I care about, which kind of pretty primitive. And I think that's probably the fact is that I'm more primitive than I am. Anything else, so

Greg Voisen
that but I think the basic principles of many faiths, of many, whether it's Catholicism, Judaism, Muslims, whatever, you know, they're all leading toward the same thing. And that's a connection with a higher spirit. In essence, you get there's a lot of things but Judaism because, you know, that's my background. My mother was Jewish. So I'm Jewish. And there are fundamental principles, as you're talking about, which are really, really core rooted things that I think if our whole society actually believed in and worked on, we might have a more just and meaningful America. How's that? You know, as I'm speaking with clients that are all the way across the world rolled in, we talked about, you know, things like shootings and you know, stuff like that. And we talked about homeless, they go, hey, we don't have one home homeless person in Amsterdam, if they are, they're in being taken care of. And in the nine years that this friend of mines lived there, he hasn't known of any one person that had been killed back on. Right. So you know, you look at the fundamentals of, of how those fundamentals you're talking about, could be the basis, the underpinning basis of, of a society and a culture that could operate more justly and I would call sanely. Then I would say you're right now, you share your personal experiences or stories. Many of them in this book, there are what's weaved throughout the whole book in this memoir. What do you hope that the reader who picks up your memoir, and you basically, we're going to put a link to her website as well. And I will tell all my listeners, that it's E, L ISASTANCIL. Out e v i, n a.com. Go to there, and you're going to learn more, you can read our blog, as well. What do you want people to take away from this?

Elisa Stancil Levine
I think it was just trying to share the humor and the interesting perspective that you get over such a long period of time, that ends up tying many of the things that seem totally unrelated together, and that you as you make your way through this life, you know, it's st is there's all these little keys that you pick up as you go almost like an Alice in Wonderland type of story, where you are becoming more and more and more aware, or more and more able to cope, simply because of these innocent tiny ease that you have absorbed, you know, observed and brought with you and find a place for. And it just, it's a it's a process. It's not, you know, you're not doomed, made or made or broken or, or blessed by any one thing. You really, you know, we're just in process.

Greg Voisen
Well, I like your quote on your blog, and it says, this is this. And maybe we kind of sum it up like this, all that has been all that will be is held in the essence of each moment, then and now, dark and light. These contrasts shape how we see. Only by looking deeper, can we discover the ever present suchness of life, these writings are my greeting to you, and the light within you. And I actually think that that's a really good, I mean, that's very deep. It's very philosophical. But at the same point, when you take that little statement, and you break it down the part about Then and Now dark and light, these contrast shapes how we see, only by looking deeper can discover the ever present suchness of life, I think meant as it's always said, the darkness serves the light. Right? You can't have the light without the darkness. Right. And those are the polarities that we have in life. I mean, as an artist, you I just saw something the other day around kindness, and the guy was sketching on the street. And he says, you know, most artists, when they give them a canvas or a piece of paper, that a lot of time they're frightened by it, because it's like confines, it's like this square thing that I've got to do something in to make it but yet when they went out on the street, and they took chalk, and they started doing chalk and, and images and creating out of pieces of gum that were actually on the street and going around it, they were able to create this such this this beauty right? And it was seeing in something that somebody else would step on, or step over the beauty in that or the eyeball. You know, he took two pieces of gum and the GM actually created eyeballs in the piece of the artwork, and I thought that was pretty cool.

Elisa Stancil Levine
And probably to him, like just sitting there looking at him. He knew that that's what he would do. It's like it's these things just tell you what to do. This intuition aspect. I'm sorry, I can't really help people understand it any more than just to try to listen, I mean, you can see I mean, there'll be I don't know a little flower that's just saying hello, hello. Hello. Hello, are you walk out and you know a dog comes up and running to you. And it smells totally of rosemary, because it's been rolling around in this rosemary, and you're thinking, I don't even know I had rosemary, What a lucky thing. I mean, there's just so many things that are beyond. You can be on planning. And that's why planning to be intuitive or something is like, I don't know, no,

Greg Voisen
no, you can't do that. You can't plan to be intuitive. But you can plan to be this or something better. So I would highly recommend people go to Amazon and pick up a copy, we'll have a link there. Go to her website.

Elisa Stancil Levine
There are blog posts, the first chapter on my website, and it's cute, because it shows it pages turn you can hear the pages turning as you're reading it, you know,

Greg Voisen
yeah. But I think, you know, if you're looking to get a kind of a unique perspective, about how to view the world, Elise's book is something that will do that for you. Granted, she used her stories and trials and tribulations to actually guide you and direct you direct to there to get you there. But at the heart of it, it's a way for you to shift your perspective. And for you to be more accepting and more kind to yourself. And for you to be more understanding of others and for you to see the world in a new light. And I appreciate you for bringing not only your story to us, but also your memoir and all the stories that you tell throughout this book, to help the readers understand that. And this is this. Anything, any parting words?

Elisa Stancil Levine
I just want to thank you so much, Greg, I really love this and I love hearing that read out loud about the blog quote, it is true. I mean, I really am joyful to be on the planet. And I love to share my the things that I learned and see and I welcome anybody to check out what is on my website would make me really happy.

Greg Voisen
Oh, it's awesome. It's a koi pond when you get there people there's a koi pond there. And underneath it is the little princess by Antoinette de Saint. How do you say your last name ex spray?

Elisa Stancil Levine
It's Antoine de Saint esprit.

Greg Voisen
I don't know who it is, but it's a great quote. No read The Little Prince. No, it does say it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. That kind of sums up what we're talking about here. It's great. Thanks so much at least appreciate you being on inside personal growth. And speaking with our listeners today about your new book called this or something better A Memoir of resilience. Definitely resilient woman folks. Thanks Namaste

Elisa Stancil Levine
Namaste.