Mahara Wayman [00:00:05]:
Welcome to the art of badassery where I explore what it takes to live life on your own terms, break free from the status quo, and unleash your inner badass. Whether you're a rebel at heart or simply seeking inspiration to step outside your comfort zone, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Mahara Wayman. And each week, I dive into the stories, insights, and strategies of those who've mastered the art of badassery and are living life to the fullest. They smile when no one is lucky. Welcome to the art of badassery. I'm Mahara, and today I have the incredible Theo Childs with me. Cleo recently released her spoken word poetry album, Moving With.
Mahara Wayman [00:00:53]:
It's a powerful and raw journey through grief after losing her mom to Alzheimer's. With the legacy of strong women writers in her family, Cleo's heartfelt poetry offers us an honest look at loss, healing, and finding peace. So grab your favorite beverage. Join us today as we chat about her story and how she connects with those who feel alone in their grief. Cleo, welcome to the show. I'm really excited to have this conversation.
Cleo Childs [00:01:22]:
I am super excited to be here. It is a beautiful
Mahara Wayman [00:01:32]:
Good. Good, good, good. Okay. So I want to go back to something that I read in your, in the information you sent me and I included it in the introduction, which is you come from a strong family of women writers. Mhmm. Tell us about that.
Cleo Childs [00:01:46]:
I come from a strong family of women. And so, and I'm very, very excited about that. So it's really been my grandmother on my mom's side. So my mom's mom is the matriarch or our family. We have a matriarch And she keeps us all in line. She's I've made sure that I can tell her age, and she says absolutely, I'm proud of it. So she's 93. And, she is in English she she taught English for 33 years in the Lanus Public Schools system, and then she has a 6 years grade bachelor's.
Cleo Childs [00:02:15]:
So she or 6 years degree, which is actually more than a master's of English. And she taught for 33 years. And my mom is an English major from the University of North George or the University of Georgia. I went to the University of North Georgia. But I really grew up with a wonderful representation and wonderful examples of what does it mean to be a strong woman, which I think is such a wonderful thing. I mean, my grandmother always said, you know, that we always needed to be able to have an education, provide for ourselves, be financially independent, have, you know, go and figure out what is it that made us unique and special, but also have a sense of self worth and be able to really take care of ourselves. I think that that was something that was really wonderful. And she really taught us, I think, to be able to be in a partnership with someone else, but making sure that we ourselves were complete and whole on our side, so that we can be in a really healthy partnership with someone else.
Cleo Childs [00:03:18]:
And I just come from, you know, just really just a couple of badass ladies. You know? And it's just the most wonderful thing is I think there's different ways people can carry themselves in that assery. Some people can be really strong, sometimes, you know, and kind of loud and proud with it, you know, and some people can be kind of more subtle and quiet with it. But I think overall, I just come from a family of badass women, which is I'm really, really just proud of everyone in my family and the legacy of women that I get to learn from and, you know, be a part of.
Mahara Wayman [00:03:50]:
What an absolute gift. So first of all, grandma sounds amazing.
Cleo Childs [00:03:54]:
Grandma is amazing. Can't confirm. Grandma's great.
Mahara Wayman [00:03:56]:
I'm thinking I'd like to have grandma on the show. Like, seriously.
Cleo Childs [00:03:59]:
Grandma would be fantastic. Grandma, her name is Geraldine. She it doesn't have Geraldine,
Mahara Wayman [00:04:05]:
what a great name for grandma.
Cleo Childs [00:04:07]:
And she doesn't even have a middle name because apparently, according to my great grandma, Birdie Cleo, which is how I have Cleo, I her name, Geraldine, was so beautiful. She didn't need a middle name. That is so cool.
Mahara Wayman [00:04:19]:
And can I say that it's quite rare because, you know, a lot of my guests well, I shouldn't say it's rare? For me personally, interacting with my guests on the show, you're one of the first people that have said, hey, I come from a line of badassery. Right? So that's that's that in itself is is lovely to talk about. But this idea that what a gift, first of all, to be to have this idea instilled in you that you matter. And you enough that you should that you want to learn how to take care of yourself. You matter enough that that is that that is your right to take care of yourself and to have an education and to to learn how to, I loved how you said, partner with someone as opposed to many of us grew up thinking we just need to get married and have them take care of us. So, alright, you come from a you come from a long line of very badass ladies. When did you know that you wanted to be a writer or that you were a writer?
Cleo Childs [00:05:15]:
That's a great question. I don't think I really it's interesting. Maybe about 6, 3 months ago, I kind of just wrote as a coping mechanism. Right? So I wrote when I when I was my mom got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's when I was 21. And then I lost her over the course of about 6 years, and she passed away on Halloween of 2021 when I was 28 years old. And the way that I came into writing other than writing really good research papers, Actually, I know I can back this up. Actually, I'm going to change my answer mid answer because, because I'm a badass lady and I can change my mind. I can take multitudes.
Cleo Childs [00:05:51]:
Grandma taught me how to be a writer. My grandma worked tirelessly. I was in college, you know, and I went to my first English class, and and I had the most wonderful English teacher, miss Steele, and she was patient as a saint. And so was my grandma and my grandma and I, we, we, she taught me how to write research papers. My grandma worked tirelessly. I mean, this woman put all of her heart and her soul into making me a writer, basically. So we had a whole system where I would write out a rough draft of my first paper, send it to grandma on the on the Internet. Grandma would then print it off, red line it, then we would go and talk about it on the phone.
Cleo Childs [00:06:29]:
And then grandma would send then I would take all her edits. And then I would go to miss Steele, and then I would go get miss Steele's edits. And then I would take them back to grandma, and we did this 3 or 4 times. And I did this for every research paper throughout my entire college career. So at the end of it, I learned how to be a really good writer for research papers. I'm a damn good research paper writer, but dear lord, were there hours and tears and heart put into this. And my grandma and a lot of trees died in the effort of trying to make me a good writer. And so I could write a really good research paper, but creative writing came very, very naturally as a coping mechanism.
Cleo Childs [00:07:04]:
Because I when my mom got diagnosed, I didn't really know what to do with the emotions that were in me. I was learning how to process it, but I processed it all internally. And then when she passed away in the middle of the night around 1:30, 2 o'clock in the morning, I heard two lines in my head, and I just went downstairs out of curiosity to go see what would happen. And I wrote a poem and it made me feel a little bit better. So I wrote an isolation. I went into deep isolation know, did that for 6 months. That was my way of communicating to the world. And then I, you know, did that for 6 months.
Cleo Childs [00:07:33]:
That was my way of communicating to the world. You know, did that for 6 months. That was my way of communicating to the world is what was going on to me. It was through the poems that I was writing because that was my expression of grief and my expression of feelings. And then I went out of kind of isolation. I reenter the world is kind of how I describe it. And then about 6 months ago, December time's wonky after COVID, you know, I've just it's time to get it could have easily been like 1 week ago is back 6 months ago, but it was back in December. I got really interested in songwriting and I started to write again.
Cleo Childs [00:08:12]:
And then, that's how I came into writing. So I think to answer a long winded way of answering your question is, I'm still I'm still coming to terms with writing and calling myself And I've just really consider myself, And I just really consider myself, I guess, a storyteller, maybe? More of a writer. I I don't know exactly what I'd classify myself as quite honestly. I sit between, I think, storytelling and writing. And I think that is that's how I came to be a writer. I'm still kind of grappling with that, quite honestly. But my grandma, whoo, she put a lot of work and effort into me. You know, she put her heart and soul into making me a writer.
Cleo Childs [00:09:03]:
If anyone can get if anyone can get credit, it's grandma.
Mahara Wayman [00:09:07]:
Awesome. Well, thanks, grandma. And Cleo, can I just say I'm really sorry for your loss? Thank you. It's I I think and I I have had this discussion before, not only with some friends of mine that are in the industry, but also with some guests that of all the things that we feel we are prepared for in life, loss is just on the bottom end of the scale. Like, we just don't talk about it. You know? And so, especially, it sounds like your mom, you mentioned you're only 21 she when she was diagnosed. Incredibly early to lose a parent or to begin to lose a parent. And my own experience, my mom is still with us.
Mahara Wayman [00:09:47]:
She's 98. She has dementia. And I still am grappling with the loss of her even though her physical body is still here because we don't talk about it for the most part as a society. Right? We don't prepare for it. We talk ad nauseam about falling in love and getting married and having babies. Right? Not that I learned anything ahead of time. We thought we talked about it, but I didn't necessarily learn how to be a parent. But we don't really talk about loss and the fact that it you know, not all of us are blessed to live a long, happy, healthy life.
Mahara Wayman [00:10:18]:
So I just wanna honor you for that. When do you think it was during the grief process that you you realize that you needed to do this isolation, or did that just come automatically?
Cleo Childs [00:10:30]:
I think it came automatically. To me, it was natural to isolate Because I made the cons the conscious decision to feel everything.
Mahara Wayman [00:10:40]:
Okay. I wanna stop you right there because that is powerful. Most of us don't wanna feel. Yeah. How did you know that feeling that you had to feel it to move through it? Because like I said, most of us are like, no, no, that's uncomfortable. I'm not going there. I'm fine. I'm fine.
Mahara Wayman [00:10:58]:
I'm fine. You know, we have this this, pretend mask that we put on. But where did you get the wherewithal to say, no. No. No. I need to feel this.
Cleo Childs [00:11:06]:
I wrote a poem, and it's on the album, and it's anger. I wrote anger at these books. So when I when mom passed, I I think I used my intellect as a defense mechanism. She passed. And so I was like, I'm going to beat this through pure intellect. I'm gonna go and I'm going to read all of the lectures about grief. I'm going to read all of the books about grief or the physiology about grief. I'm gonna do all this stuff.
Cleo Childs [00:11:35]:
I'm going to be all the journals because journaling's helpful and get all the processing and, you know, and I did all this stuff and I tried to beat it through intellect saying I can I am grieving and it's a physiological thing? Right? And I need to just figure out what's physiologically going on with my body. And if I can do that, then I can just not feel as bad as I do. Right? I can learn about it. I can understand it. I can process it. I can move on. And I got all these books. I got, like, plenty of them.
Cleo Childs [00:12:09]:
I read all these lectures. I went to all these lectures about the physiologically of grief and I was angry. And what I was angry at was I realized that that was not the answer. That I could not intellectualize grief. I could not learn it. I could not understand it. I had to feel it because I tried to intellectualize it and it wasn't working. It made me angry.
Cleo Childs [00:12:36]:
And I think Glennon Doyle said this wonderful thing. I love Glennon Doyle, and I've read her book, Dontaine. It's the only book that I've actually ever bookmarked and earmarked and underlined and highlighted. And she says anger is set I'm I'm, you know, paraphrasing her. But she says anger is such an a wonderful emotion because it tells you about the things that are important. It tells you something, what you need to look at. And what I realized with my anger is I looked at the fact that I was powerless to grief. It was an unfair fist fight.
Cleo Childs [00:13:05]:
I was fist fighting grief, thinking that I was going to win. I was not going to win. It was going to destroy me, I think. It was going to win, it was pummeling me. And I thought I stood a chance. And what I decided to do is to instead of fight it, because I wasn't going to win, I tried my best defense. I tried to intellectualize it. Instead, I was going to surrender into it.
Cleo Childs [00:13:32]:
And I was going to not fight it. I was going to move with grief. And so I felt everything And it's and and because I felt everything, I suffered greatly. My relationship suffered. My my husband and I, we did it. He there wrote a poem about this idea is we were we're Pangaea reduced to 2 islands. Right? My relationship suffered because of it. My friendship suffered.
Cleo Childs [00:14:02]:
I my work suffered. All of these things suffered because I was suffering. However, in suffering and feeling everything, I felt joy. If I had turned myself off and I had numbed myself, I would not have been able to feel joy. I would not have been able to feel happiness. I would have not have been able to feel all of the things. We contain multitudes as human beings. And I felt sadness, and I felt grief, and I felt isolation, and I felt despair, and I felt joy and camaraderie and happiness and surprise and delight.
Cleo Childs [00:14:41]:
And I went to isolation, and I wrote as a way to process all of the feelings that I was having. And I wrote and I explained my poetry as a way to be able to explain to other people what I was feeling. But not all the poems are about grief and despair. Sometimes they're about longings. Sometimes they're about happiness and hope and joy. Right? And I was able to go through the isolation and feel everything. Time. I wrote in a poem once that time presses begrudgingly, forcing me to continue movement, to think I'm immune as folly, believing I am as human.
Cleo Childs [00:15:20]:
Right? Time happened. It didn't hurt as much. And I was able to feel more joy and happiness and gratitude in my life than I felt suffering and pain and grief. And the the the scale of those emotions over time gently started to shift. And as they started to shift, I reentered the world. I think feeling everything and surrendering into grief is how I able I was able to come to what I have now, which is peace and acceptance about my mother. But it was incredibly difficult, and it hurt like hell. And I suffered for it, but that's how I got through it.
Mahara Wayman [00:15:58]:
Okay. Have the shivers. And I just want to thank you for such an eloquent explanation. I don't know about my listeners, but my mind is going into all of these beautiful realms. And to sum it up, what I'm feeling is that in your case, you allowed grief to take you back to your true essence, which of being human is to welcome to all of the emotions. Because I you know, so often in in our lives, regardless of where we are, where we're where we live, you know, the culture that we're raised in, all these different reasons, we put on a mask, and we believe lies that are we believe stories that are told to us. It's better to be happy than sad. Be a good girl, not a bad girl.
Mahara Wayman [00:16:40]:
Be a you know, don't be naughty, be nice. And along the way, many of us have forgotten what it feels like to feel the huge spectrum of emotions that is available to the human being, which is beautiful. But what I heard you say, which is so, so powerful was through the surrender to the most painful thing possible, the loss of your dear mom, you actually found yourself again, which encompass all of the components of of the human spectrum. And that in itself is incredibly beautiful because there I don't believe you can have sadness without happiness. Grief, you know, loss without without gain and happiness. You know, like, there's always there's there's everything. And if if this exists, then the complete opposite of it must also exist. I don't know what the technical term is for that, but I do believe that.
Mahara Wayman [00:17:35]:
And, wow, that's that's very touching and very powerful. You know, I gotta take a breath now. Thinking about your family, it was it your mom's it was Geraldine is your mom's mom? I was how how did grandma navigate your road through grief?
Cleo Childs [00:17:53]:
Grandma and I talked about this a lot. I think grandma's one of my best friends. I think she'll agree with that. She sat with me in it, and I sat with her. She lost her daughter. I lost my mom. They just happened to be the same person. I read her all of my poems, and she was so proud of them.
Cleo Childs [00:18:11]:
She was so proud of them. And she I think she navigated it in the way that we do with grandma, which is you just sit with someone. I think that's the other thing about grief, is that it's a secret that everyone knows when you're in grief and once you've gone through deep grief. But it is a secret, it seems like, to the outside world, which is that there is no there is nothing that anyone can do to take your mind off of it. People say, well, I don't wanna bring it up. Well, the thing is is that it's already on my mind. Right? What am I gonna do? I don't wanna I don't wanna add any more pain. You can't add any more pain.
Cleo Childs [00:18:52]:
The best thing you can do is you could sit with someone and just say, hey. I'm here and hope to ease the path that the person is on. I hope to I helped or I I attempted to help my grandma ease the path that she was on with my mother's grief by sitting with her. Not trying to make it better, because I can't make it better. Not trying to remove the pain that she had, because I can't do that. But I can sit with her and maybe ease the path that she's on. And she could sit with me and maybe ease the path that I'm on. And that's what we did together, is we helped we just sat with each other understanding of what we're going through is hard.
Cleo Childs [00:19:35]:
It's the hardest thing we'll probably ever go through. She lost her daughter. I lost my mom, and we're doing it together. And that made it a little bit easier.
Mahara Wayman [00:19:42]:
So, so beautiful. And I think I know from experience that especially with the work that I do as a coach and as a mom, I now understand that the greatest gift we can give someone else is the gift of our presence. It's not the gift of our eloquence. No. It's not the gift of our smarts or our baking. It really is to with our presence, we are letting that other person or people know that we see them. And I don't know why that can be so hard for people or maybe it's just me, but, you know, you get so busy in your own life that you kind of just fly, sort of do your own thing and and, you know, make connections and have friends and do stuff. But when when all of that is stripped away and we are left with some of the very basic emotions that human beings go through, like grief, loss, fear, sadness, and even happiness.
Mahara Wayman [00:20:37]:
You know, there's the other side of the spectrum. Often, we don't really know how to navigate it because we've spent so much time kind of doing instead of being. You know? We get caught up in the world of just doing stuff rather than just being. And why are you smiling like that? Is she just guys, if you don't the video, she just her face just kinda lit up like a little red.
Cleo Childs [00:20:57]:
Because I have a theory. I have a theory. It's the hardest time to be a grieving person in human history. I have a theory about this, and what you just post on is one of my theories. I'll see if I can recite them. The lack of community. We used to have community. Right? We used to live in communities, and we took care of each other.
Cleo Childs [00:21:16]:
And I think that we don't have community. I mean, as much as we do. Right? The lack of we have an increased amount of social isolation. The judge asserted in general said that we have more social isolation than ever. So not only do we have a lack of community, we're now more socially isolated. We've lost morning rituals. Right? One of the things I learned during my theological studies of grief is that rituals are highly important in processing. Right? In the Victorian age, you had a mourning period.
Cleo Childs [00:21:44]:
You wore black. It really did help. Right? We've lost a lot of mourning rituals in regards in rituals in general, in our modern day life. We're not around death as much as we used to be due to modern medicine. So in something and beforehand, the median age was much lower. It wasn't because people didn't live as long as because there was a lot of child mortality. And we were around death more, right, because we didn't have modern medicine. So we knew and we were dealing with it more.
Cleo Childs [00:22:09]:
We also live in a society that's a very fast pace, and that wants everything to go at a very fast pace and to get over it now. Right? We need to move fast. You need to do things efficiently and effectively. And you need to you get 3 days. I got 3 days, from, after my mom passed from work. 3 days of bereavement leave. And I was told that was good enough. Right? And then I think, you know, there's 2 more, but I really can't remember them.
Cleo Childs [00:22:36]:
But I think that it's this idea is it's probably all of these things that made grieving in the past easier, we've lost as a modern society. And I think it's probably the hardest time to be a grieving person in human history. I think also we've been told, right, that feel doing to your point. My dog has opinions about this in the background of the hand go. Doing is much more important than being. We are creatures and we find we find, importance or we find value in what we do, not who we are. And in the past, I think that there is a difference in that. And that shifted, particularly in America, where we are seen as being, you know, we have to do things.
Cleo Childs [00:23:21]:
It comes from, like, this this work ethic that we have from the Puritan society, that we are ones that are doers, not beers. So I think that even in America, it might be even harder, but I have a theory that it's the hardest time to be a grieving person in human history. And why I smiled is because you hit on naturally. One of the reasons, which is it's easier. We are told that we have value in what we are doing, not when we are being, and when you were grieving, you are being, when you need to support a grieving person, your value isn't being not in doing.
Mahara Wayman [00:23:51]:
Okay, guys. If this is the only thing you take away from our my conversation with Cleo today, if this is the only thing, then I would like to think you are you have goal. Because what she's just said, I think is first of all, you don't hear it said very often, but so, so powerful. You know, we're humans first. And let's give ourselves permission to explore that and know that our feelings are okay. And doing is just something we do. We do it for like, we do it to, you know, whatever, clean the house, to have a clean house, or we do it to pay the bills. But that's not who we are necessarily.
Mahara Wayman [00:24:32]:
Like, that's we're not our labels, and we're not our actions. We are so much more complex than that. And this idea that we are more powerful when we are being rather than when versus when we are quote doing, I think is kind of new for many of us, especially in the 20th century in in the world that we live in now. So thank you for expounding on my, on my idea, because I loved what you said, and it's really true. I have some friends that are are in our death do list, for example, and they struggle because so many people just don't they don't not only do they not know, they they don't even wanna talk about it. Yes. Here it died. Can we move on? But, yeah, let's move on.
Mahara Wayman [00:25:14]:
So takes guts, I think. And, honestly, this is the art of badassery. So much of what you've shared already to me is incredibly badass, but not the least of which is this understanding that we are very powerful when we are just being, and it's not a just when we are being, a real power.
Cleo Childs [00:25:32]:
Well, I think to a griever, that's the most important thing. You can't do anything to someone that's in grief. There is nothing you can do really to make it better, because that person's on their own journey. The best thing you can do is to be with them as they go on their own journey because I think that the most you can do is help to ease the path of another. But you can't walk it. You can't make it better. You can't make it hurt less. But you can be there and support them.
Cleo Childs [00:26:00]:
And by the sole presence of your being there and sitting with them, But that includes being. Right? And that is contrary to this idea of doing because you can't do anything. You're powerless. I couldn't you can't do anything, but you can be there. And that's where your value comes from.
Mahara Wayman [00:26:17]:
And that's why it's so hard for us because we are we've been raised to make things better. Right? And to your point, when we can just really understand that there is no making anything better in grief. It's not possible to make grief. Grief does not change. Grief is grief. And I really appreciate your calling out that grief is so personal. You know, it we feel it differently. It resonates with every person differently for all these different reasons that go into being, being that particular person, being unique.
Mahara Wayman [00:26:47]:
But if we can, as an outsider, give that person the gift of recognition, you're on a journey. I can't help you, but I can sit with you. I can't fix it. I can't give you a Band Aid and and say, oh, you have a boo boo. I'll make mommy will kiss it better. Grandma will kiss that's just that that ain't gonna cut it in this in this case. Then I think we have a better chance of navigating grief because we're all gonna experience it. And And that's the other thing that drives me crazy.
Mahara Wayman [00:27:15]:
Why? One of the you know, I think I know for for me, I'm not an I mean, I'm not an idiot. I know that my parents are are going to pass. My father already has, and I know my mom is gonna pass any day now. She's 98. But I still don't talk about it. I still don't talk about how it makes me feel other than a quick note to my best friend who knows my mom as well and is a nurse. So we give you know, I give her updates on my mom's health, but it's it doesn't nowhere in that is the is anything deeper than, yeah, she's, you know, she's she's struggling a bit and this med's gone up. She's taking more of this med.
Mahara Wayman [00:27:50]:
So even though I am very articulate, aware, I'm a life coach, this is what I do for a living, I talk to amazing guests like you that even broaden my my understanding of certain processes. I still ignore it. Like, I'll deal with that in a day. Yeah. Of course, I know she's gonna pass. I'll deal with that another I'll deal with that when I need to. And I'm thinking now, wow. What a disservice I'm doing to myself and to my mother even though she's still with us.
Cleo Childs [00:28:18]:
One of the weirdest lessons I think grief has a lot of lessons. I think grief. What I say is I would never ever ask what happened would have happened to me, and I would never give up the lessons that I learned from it. I learned a lot of things. I think with my mother, she had Alzheimer's. What I learned is to be highly present with people because every day was the best day I was gonna have with her. It was true. It was degenerative.
Cleo Childs [00:28:43]:
Every day was the best day I was gonna have with her. So I swallowed her. And I learned that by swallowing her and bathing in her, I just wanted I learned how to be incredibly present. And I learned the not the fragility of life, but the the finiteness of it. Right? We we think that we're I think one of my favorite things this is what's coming up. Right? There's a professor that went and he said, do you think that, America will live forever? Right? And everyone raised their hand. They said, yeah. They said, if I asked the Romans, I probably would have said yes too.
Cleo Childs [00:29:25]:
If I had the Byzantine Empire, they probably would have said yes too. If I asked all of these empires that they were gonna live forever, they probably would have said yes to. And what do we have? We have a book called The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. I think it's much easier to look at the rising, what we have have when we have it, not realizing the finiteness of things. And I think that with grief and with death, you have to learn the finiteness. It's the lesson of that, is that we are given one moment, and we are given one interaction that we can count on, which is the only one that's in this moment. So what I do is I learn to treasure those moments. I treasure what I have.
Cleo Childs [00:29:59]:
Every day, I treasure because I know that it is not given that I'm going to have it in the future. My mother died suddenly. Right? I thought we were gonna have 2 more years of life expectancy with her. We didn't. So what do I have? Rather than thinking, oh, I'm gonna do all these things in the future, I say, what can I do right now? What it is what do I have the control and my capacity to do? What I realized is what I have control of the capacity is I can I have control over my thoughts, my emotions, and my behaviors? That's it. Really. Everything else is outside of my control. I could go out on the street and I could get hit by a car due to no other fact that and I don't know.
Cleo Childs [00:30:37]:
That's out of my control. The weather could change. That's out of my control. But what I can control is how I interact with people around me, how I choose to engage with them, how I choose to love them, how I choose to, I say to people all the time now I love you. Because I know that I don't want to think one day that I wish I would have said that. You know? I choose to give people hugs all the time. I tell my friends that I love them so dearly. I do all the things that I say, hey.
Cleo Childs [00:31:05]:
I need to probably go get in shape or do, like, go on a walk. I try to go on that walk. Because I don't know. I know the finiteness of things. And I think it's really something that is probably ingrained in human nature. Right? It's not think about the finiteness of things. We need to think probably astrologically that we're going to live forever, right? Because that's how you go when you have hopes and dreams. And that's how you go and explore things.
Cleo Childs [00:31:27]:
That's how you go out further into nature, is because you think you're gonna live forever. I think what grief taught me is that's not true. And I'm so much more grateful, though, because I know and I appreciate things so much more than I ever did because I appreciate the I know the finiteness.
Mahara Wayman [00:31:45]:
Wow. Such powerful words. What how did obviously, you're a different woman today than you Completely different. Yeah. Is this was this a difference? Is this is this a difference that long time family other family members or friends notice?
Cleo Childs [00:31:59]:
Absolutely.
Mahara Wayman [00:32:00]:
Yeah. What was her reaction?
Cleo Childs [00:32:01]:
Truthfully, I didn't care. I care what I think about myself.
Mahara Wayman [00:32:04]:
Okay. So here's another way to look at that. Has your growth Yeah. Through grief Mhmm. Affected any of your friends or family Yes. In a beneficial way?
Cleo Childs [00:32:16]:
I think they could answer that. I don't know if I can answer that for them. I think what I would say though, is they have noticed a huge change in me. And I think that one of the reasons what I say is that intelligence can be learned by books. Wisdom is only learned through experience. I am much wiser than I was. And I think that I I'm much calmer than I was. I think beforehand, I'm and I'm much more interested in who do I spend my time with.
Cleo Childs [00:32:40]:
My energy is a finite resource. Beforehand, before grief, I was a person that would go, and I tried to be with everyone. I was a people pleaser. I was with everyone I wanted, you know, I was always thinking about what do they think about me? What do they think about me? What do they think about me? And I would change myself to better fit that ideal version of people, right. That they thought about me. I was a shape shifter. After grief, my question is, what do I think about them? And what do I think about myself? Right? I think that for me, those are the 2 most important things. Because my energy is finite, and I need to figure out who are those good pea and I love my friends, but I keep a very tight circle of friends now.
Cleo Childs [00:33:22]:
Because I will give everything to my friends, but I think I keep a I I don't I like f beforehand, and I don't mean this to sound disparagingly. I wanted to be friends with everyone, regardless of if they were good for me or not, and regardless what I thought about them. Now, I don't suffer fools. I am very picky about my friends because I wanna be around people who who I who I feel inspired by, who are badasses, who are full of themselves in the best way possible, that take up space, that inspire me to be a better person. Right? And that are also on their own journey of growth and have the same very similar mindset. Rather than me going out being like a gnat fly trying to collect friends like their Pokemon, basically, I'm trying to curate friends. And I think that it's a very different mindset. But that came through grief because I realized that my energy was a resource because I had none of it.
Cleo Childs [00:34:21]:
When I was in grief, I had no energy. My resource was depleted and I built it up over time again, when I was coming out of isolation, when I was reentering the world. And I think what I also say is that my life is much richer after grief than it was beforehand. And someone asked me, they say, what do you mean your life is much richer? And I said, what I mean by that is that my life condensed on itself. If it did not serve me, I had no time for it. All these things that I thought serve me, all of these people, I thought served me, all of these things, if they did not fill my cup up, I could not do it physically. I had no energy. I had, I had nothing to give.
Cleo Childs [00:34:56]:
And I found those things that brought me joy, that brought me inspiration. Those people who I could count on. Right? Who who inspired me. And I kept those, and I keep them like jewels and I treasure them. But everything else, it was like fire. My life became fire, and everything burned. And we saw what left. And the things that left are jewels.
Cleo Childs [00:35:20]:
What a beautiful way to look at such
Mahara Wayman [00:35:23]:
a perhaps one of the most challenging components of the human experience is to navigate grief. And you've I'm not surprised you're a poet because you are very eloquent. But what I, what I want the listeners, what I guys, ask yourself whether you've experienced this level of grief or not, ask yourself, understanding that your energies, that my energy is finite, am I putting it where I want in the best place possible? Am I pretending overly much? Am I pretending at all? Who am I really? It's part of being badass. I talk about this quite often is, you know, it's not about being the best at something or climbing the biggest mountain. It's about recognizing your worth. And what I've heard from your story, Cleo, very clearly is through your incredible process of grieving for the loss of your mom, you have really recognized your worth. And it has it has facilitated other changes in your life because you are you recognize, you know, your time is finite. You surround yourself with the people that bring out the best in you.
Mahara Wayman [00:36:31]:
You do not need to prove yourself by having the most friends or being, you know, this, that, or the other. All you need to be is yourself and be very, very present. So a really powerful lesson. Can can we shift gears a little bit and talk about the actual execution of of this spoken record of this? Tell us more about that. How did that come to I mean, I get you've written the work, you've done the work, you've written, you've journaled, you've written, you've become a poet. When did you have the idea to put it on vinyl or whatever the term is? Make it make it into an audiobook. Yeah.
Cleo Childs [00:37:07]:
It wasn't my idea. It wasn't my producer's idea. So it was very, very, very natural. It was it was it I never would have I never could have expected it. Never, you know, would have could have was one of my favorite words. I'm from Georgia. You know, I never woulda, coulda, shoulda, coulda, woulda, coulda. But I went in for a mentorship session with an amazing producer, Jim Riley, who is just an absolute gem of a person.
Cleo Childs [00:37:32]:
And I just was going in, and he said, you're amazing. I'll produce you. I just was going in for mentorship, right, to go see if I could, you know, what what how I can get better. And he's like, these are great. And I was like, what? And he's like, I'll produce you. And I went, what? And I was like, okay. Mentorship to get better as a poet? Yeah. As a songwriter.
Cleo Childs [00:37:50]:
So I initially went to songwriting mentorships because I was so interested in songwriting. Initially, I was I'm really I love Sylvia Plath. And I learned all about Sylvia Plath, and then I got interested in songwriting. And I love Leonard Cohen. I love Bob Dylan. You know, Johnny Mitchell. All of these amazing writers are my favorites, and I was learning from them and taking inspiration. And and then I went and I went to a songwriting mentorship session with different, you know, it's the first time I had wrote after my mom had passed.
Cleo Childs [00:38:16]:
That was about a year and a half later. And I went in and I said, here's kind of what I'm working on. What do you think? You know, seeing if I could and he's like, these are amazing. And I was like, what? And he's like, I'll produce you. And I was like, what? And
Mahara Wayman [00:38:27]:
everyone knows. And I was like, oh, okay.
Cleo Childs [00:38:32]:
And, I was like, well, this is this is a very interesting turn of events. And initially, I was gonna have my the album was gonna be very, very, very different. And so that's actually the second album that I'm working on is the work that was gonna be on the first one. But I haven't I had 2 amazing editors, Sheree and Mary. And Sheree, I would we would be editing some of the work that's gonna go on the second album, and I would read her some stuff about mom. And she'd go, well, that's your best stuff. I tell me more about mom. Don't worry more about your mom.
Cleo Childs [00:39:02]:
And I was like, oh, wait a second. If I have only one opportunity to put out one album, I want it to be about my mom and my like me and my mom. I want to be about our relationship, and I want it to be about what my journey of grief was like through it. And so I went into a recording studio in Nashville with 5 amazing musicians. We did it in about 3 hours. We did everything in 1 or 2 takes. Everything is live. So they and and my favorite thing that came from that day is there's a poem on the, on the album, and it's about disillusionment with god.
Cleo Childs [00:39:36]:
And I was like, so one of the people in the, you know, all these amazing artists, the session musicians. And I was like, hey, this is about disillusionment with God. And they're like, okay, we'll just figure out what disillusionment with God sounds like. And I was like, me. So then they figured out what disillusionment with God sounds like from, like, a sound perspective. And then I would just listen to them, and then I would come in when I felt ready and I'd read my poem. And then if I messed up, which is occasionally I, you know, said the wrong word or I didn't pronounce something perfectly, we did it one more time. So we every that thing was done in 2 takes most.
Cleo Childs [00:40:08]:
We got out of there and, you know, 3, 3 hours, and then it came out on May 15th. And so, yeah, that's kind of how the record it came together. It's like getting, like, it I feel like how Newton must have felt when the apple hit on his head, you know, just like all of these things come together and it's like, oh, wow. Okay. You know, here's calculus. It's just like, I guess here's an album. So just like that. You're so badass.
Mahara Wayman [00:40:33]:
Seriously. It's it's I mean, it's it's fun and light to hear you talk about this this experience of moving this body of creativity into a whole new realm of creativity, which I think takes a lot of guts. And going back to something you said earlier, this idea of surrendering, it sounds like you really surrendered to this new opportunity that the universe brought you through this mentorship, through musicians. And I can't wait to hear what the disillusionment with god sounds like.
Cleo Childs [00:41:04]:
It sounds like disillusionment with god. I'm really it's my I I don't have a favorite. But if I did, it would be a disillusionment with God. The reason why is it came out. It's called gratitude for the lambs, and it came out like spring water. And it came out and it came out complete. There was nothing the editor said. My 2 editors said it's done.
Cleo Childs [00:41:25]:
You know, my one of my said, just move just move the stanza up. I don't wanna touch it. It's and then it's the, I have a special moment. My mom showed herself to me. My mom showed herself to me different ways. It's what I say is I had never lost my mom. I just don't know her in the way that I did beforehand. How I knew her beforehand is that physically, I knew her physically.
Cleo Childs [00:41:45]:
I could speak and talk with her. Now I have to look for signs and things like that, but she still is here with me. I just see her differently. And so she had a I it's about it's called gratitude for the lambs. And it's let me see if I can do it. I can't let's recite. It's been a little bit of time, but it's really good. And I was told by one of my editors, Mary, who I adore.
Cleo Childs [00:42:09]:
She said it was absolutely fantastic, and it was Leonard Cohen esque, which was a huge compliment to me. And a week later, my mom was very big at the church, and I got an email from my a friend of my mom's, missus Weldon. And it was a poem or it was a piece that my mother had written for Lent, back in 2010, and it was about lambs. And it was about the shepherds and about lambs. And I it was my mother speaking to me from, you know, from beyond, I think. Because it's about disillusionment with god and about how he should have gratitude for the lambs, the lambs he relegated to walk this land. For they will leave you clear of the brambles. Protect your almighty ego from shambles as they shepherd you with unworthy merit through this world you banished us to inherit.
Cleo Childs [00:43:00]:
And my mother's perspective about the lamps was so much more hopeful, but it was still about lambs. And that's my I think that might be my favorite one just because my mother spoke, and I was so proud of that. And then about a week and a half later, I got her perspective on Lambs.
Mahara Wayman [00:43:18]:
Mhmm. Sifers, again, this has really been a powerful conversation, and I really wanna thank you for your vulnerability in sharing this with us because there's so much that we can take from your experience. Not the least of which is not to be afraid of of the process because we have to go through it. And not just for grief. I mean, I think there are other emotions that we shy away from. And because we're told it's bad. You know, it's bad to feel that way. But, you know, I I found in my work that the only way to understand ourselves is to sit with the feelings.
Mahara Wayman [00:43:55]:
It's to really and also, to learn to to call them by the right name. You know, I've read Susan David's work, emotional intelligence, and there's so many words in the English language that we don't know, but we are very lazy, I think, in general, and we tend to, Oh, I'm pissed. I'm stressed. I'm sad. When we have the opportunity to go really deep and figure, okay, what are you really feeling? And I think grief gives us that. For the most part we just want to say, you know what, I'm grieving. But what are you really feeling? Like, what words do you know to explain this emptiness or hollowness or despair or pain? Like, whatever it is. I think that whole process is what helps us to sort of navigate it.
Mahara Wayman [00:44:40]:
What would you say are your number 1? And I know you've you've given us lots of tips, but if you were to only give 2 tips to someone that was experiencing grief for the first time or it doesn't run it doesn't matter whether it was first time or the 10th time, but what are some of your top tips? Two top tips for navigating grief that you'd like to share with the audience?
Cleo Childs [00:44:58]:
What you're doing is probably one of the hardest things you'll ever do in your life. Give yourself grace. I found it much easier initially to give other people grace around me, because people wouldn't know what they were doing. I think most people tried to be helpful, and they would say things that were not helpful by sending a poem while meaning sympathies begin to lash. And I gave grace to a lot of people. I said, they're doing their best. What I never realized until about halfway through is I'm doing my best. I'm doing my best.
Cleo Childs [00:45:23]:
I'm traveling and navigating to something that's the hardest thing probably in human history, A human experience is to go through grief, intense grief. I need to give myself grace because I'm doing the best that I can in a hard circumstance that I have no clue what the hell is gonna how I'm gonna do this. But I'm doing the best by showing up by getting up every day. And sometimes it's the best I could do. And I feel like sometimes, like, that's not enough. It is enough. I showed up for myself because I got up. I got out of bed.
Cleo Childs [00:45:52]:
Maybe I sometimes didn't even get out of bed. But you know what? I did the best I could. I say, give yourself grace. I think the next one I would say is, it's along the lines of it, but they know not what they do. Got angry with a lot of people because they thought, how could you not know what that means to me? How could you not know what you're saying is so hurtful? But they know not what they do. I think people and I think generally, people are good. I think people also are now in a new situation that they don't know how to help. They don't know how to comfort.
Cleo Childs [00:46:22]:
It's not taught to us. We're in a situation in a society that this is not natural. I think I took things very personally, and I took them particularly when I was very fragile, when I felt like glass, that everything was an affront to me. They know not what they do. That's what I would say.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:38]:
So so good. One of the things that my dad taught me when I was a little girl was to bless them and release them. At the time, I didn't know what he saw. I'm like, no, dad. I'm pissed. No, dad. It they were wrong. Mostly, it was girlfriends and being in high school as a teenager.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:54]:
He just constantly said, sweetheart, just bless them and release them. But really, really good, really good advice for all of us to give yourself some grace and recognize that for the most part, people are doing their best. They just they just don't know. They just don't.
Cleo Childs [00:47:10]:
I think give yourself grace and give other people grace because you were going through and it is the hardest thing. Probably one of the hardest things in her life. And people I think, are just doing the best that they can. You're doing the best and other people are too.
Mahara Wayman [00:47:28]:
And, of course, the challenge is finding that balance. Right? Because sometimes we I know that I have felt look, if I just give everybody grace, then I'm not gonna move forward. Like, I'm just gonna sit on my couch all day, do, you know, to that trap of I'm not doing enough.
Cleo Childs [00:47:45]:
And Oh, that's interesting. Because that is a trap because you just said the word. Right? Absolutely. It's a trap. And You're not doing enough.
Mahara Wayman [00:47:54]:
So, you know, the journey of of everybody's journey, I think, is is is finding that perfect balance of what's gonna work for them based on your situation and your thoughts and your and your values and know how you were raised and your experiences. But when it comes to navigating very difficult challenging emotions like grief, your your advice to give yourself grace and give others grace, I think is beautiful and incredibly powerful. And I want to thank you for sharing your story with us. And truthfully, I could sit here and chat with you all day because I'm just so intrigued by your journey, but I am gonna get your album. I'm gonna invite you to come back at some point, and we can talk about something else because, clearly, this is I really, really enjoyed your perspective on such a difficult and personal journey, one that many of us are gonna go through. So thank you for that. And Yeah. Any last minute thoughts that you'd like to share on the art of badassery as it pertains to your experience?
Cleo Childs [00:48:53]:
I think because I it's I love we talked about this a little bit. I love to go back because I would I say and I think about being a badass, right? Is, I said initially when we were first getting to meet, is I'm not a cool person. But I am an interesting person. And I'm a kind person. And that's into your point really, that's pretty badass. And I've thought about this for about a week and a half. I'm like, yeah, that is pretty badass. And I think too is just, you know, what is I I find interesting people so interesting.
Cleo Childs [00:49:25]:
Kinda interesting people are the people that I curate. Right? And I think that's badass. I think being yourself is badass. Badass. Figuring out, you know, your finite energy and figuring out where it serves you. That's badass. You know, forgiving yourself when you make mistakes because you're, you are human and reminding yourself that you are human. That's badass, I think, in appreciating your humanness and, and, and saying, I, I am, I am a big, what I say all the time, I'm just a big monkey walking around trying to do my best.
Cleo Childs [00:50:07]:
Right? And and reminding yourself that's that's badass. I'm a big monkey that's just trying to do itself. Do the do the best it can. In a world of changing variables and hard situations and other big monkeys that are probably just trying to do the best is, you know, just embrace your humaneness. And humaneness is is, you know, just embrace your humaneness and humaneness is messy. And it's not perfect all the time. And it won't be perfect. But sure.
Cleo Childs [00:50:38]:
It's fun sometimes. And just figure out like, how are you kind what is your kind and interesting thing that you can provide to the world And be that kind and interesting person and find all those other kind and interesting big monkeys wandering around trying to do their best.
Mahara Wayman [00:50:52]:
Oh, perfect. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you for those last, those last thoughts because absolutely the trick is to view yourself as badass. That's number 1. Right? Put your hand on your I matter. Bam. You're badass.
Mahara Wayman [00:51:07]:
And then start looking for all the reasons why, just like the list that you shared with us. Theo, thank you again. This has been a great conversation. Join us next week on the art of badassery when I will come back with another very kind and interesting person, and we'll do a deep dive on why they think they're badass. For now, have a great week, everyone. Leo, thanks again. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to another badass episode.
Mahara Wayman [00:51:34]:
Your support means the world to me. So if you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to like, share and rate the episode on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback keeps the badassery flowing. And hey, if you're ready to unleash your inner badass and conquer whatever life throws your way, why not book a complimentary badass break through session? Just click the link in the show notes to schedule your session, and let's kick some serious butt together. Until next time, stay fearless, stay fabulous, and of course, stay badass. This is Mahara signing off.