Embodied Spirituality with Prof. Mariah LeFeber

Oh, yeah. Mutox is back in the studio.

You, ladies and gentlemen, are in the studios of Multnomah University with your favorite host, Rob. Renee and Aline welcome you back to another episode of MU Talks. And as you are now used to, we have special guests with us in the studio. And Renee will introduce the guest.

Right. Today on mutalks, we'll be talking with Multnomah University Professor Mariah Lefeber. Mariah is a dance movement therapist, a licensed professional counselor, and an educator. She's worked extensively in the field of dance movement therapy, and she teaches at Multnomah University in the master of arts and counseling program. Thank you so much for being here, Mariah.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. We're really excited to have you here. Today we're going to be talking about embodied spirit spirituality. Yes, embodied spirituality. Can you just start for us by giving us like an intro to what does that term really even mean if that's brand new?

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's very. I didn't really think of a definition, but I think it means that we are whole people and we experience all things, including our spirituality in our bodies, which seems like basic and. And yet it's very not basic because of the way that the church has handled the body and the embodied experience for hundreds of years. Really. So it's kind of novel, actually.

Yeah, I would say so. I mean, even I have to pause and think about what that term means when I put those two words together.

Yeah.

So you wrote a little piece that is on Multnomah. Edu. Yeah, it was just kind of a short encouragement for people. And it was titled how to move your way through this new online world. And in it, you encourage us to find creative and artistic outlets that we can include in our life as part of coping for this transition that we were in. Because you wrote this quite a while ago. So it was a transition into digital.

Really early on in the pandemic. Yeah.

And I'm wondering now that we're moving out in a lot of ways. I mean, we're still using a lot of digital connection, but we're moving out. Does that still apply, do you think, trying to find these kinds of movement opportunities.

Yes, absolutely. I think what a unique, I'm going to use the word unique experience that Covid has been for everyone. But I think the way that it was a really stark way to point out to us how disembodied we were, you know, because here we went into these boxes, we were on zoom, everything came closed in literally. And I think really what it exposed is the fact that we were already really disembodied. We are really disembodied, but we really started to feel. Feel it when we literally were not with other people doing our work, when we were inside of these boxes. So the mental health implications for Covid have just been so massive. And I think there's so many reasons for that. Right. There's been such complex nuances into what that has been, But I think the fact that we have lost this connection, this body to body connection with others and with ourselves in that way, then has really highlighted that. And our ability to get into our own bodies, our own embodied experience has been really crucial. And I. I hope that coming out of the pandemic. Are we coming out of the pandemic? You know, whenever we do that, like, we're gonna hold on to that a little bit. Like, actually, it does matter to have our bodies with other bodies.

The connection between the mind and the body is fascinating to me. Like, you know, just intuitively, without reading anything, I'd be like, well, I don't know, you know, how much of it. But then, like, you start reading, like, I t. Human growth and development for a couple years, and I started reading developmental theorists. And some of this stuff, like, the psychosomatic stuff doesn't make any sense to me, but it's real.

It's real.

It's really real. Yeah, I don't.

Yeah.

And I think what you're fighting against, Rob, too, is this dualism that was present, is present in theology and in the church because the. Which started with St. Augustine and the early Greek church. They were saying, no, you know, body and soul, body and mind are separate, and body is bad, and soul and spirit are good, and that's what's holy. And that message has been so pervasive now, and it has really infiltrated so much of our theology and our beliefs. But actually, if we look in both the Old and New Testament, we see that body and soul are differentiated, they're contrasted, but they're not actually pitted against each other. And it's not as black and white as many people have made it to be. It's not bad and good. But to your point, Rob, science is showing us actually these things work really closely together. They're always working together.

Like the psychosomatic illness. I remember. I can't remember the theorist. I should have done better homework, but the one guy who, like, there was a child who developed sort of like a mega colon tumor thing. I don't Know, if you remember that story, like it's just like bizarre like that, like physical manifestation, like, like not just, you know, not just like his hands are shaking or something like that, which would also be physical, but like, like a tumor or something like that.

Yeah, absolutely incredible. Yeah. One of my favorite just psychiatrist developmental folk is Dr. Daniel Siegel. And he has this theory of interpersonal neurobiology. And really what that means is that he talks about how relationships form our brain. And it's those early attachment relational experiences that really create the neuronal connections in our brain that really then wires the way we think and the way we see the world and, and the especially, you know, I, I got my master's degree in 2006. And even seeing the growth in how we understand brains and everything that's going on, you know, just on a neural level and how much that impacts our bodies has just exploded even in the last 15 years.

It's interesting. I worked growing up with orphanages in Eastern Europe and there was a very, it was a signature thing of an orphan in, in Eastern European orphanages where they would, they would actually rock back and forth physically. And the, the research showed it was because of the lack of mother's presence.

Yeah, they were trying to, they were.

Trying self suit, but it was, it was a very violent move and it was the first, it was the first memory I have of this. In the last memory I have of this very powerful how much a mother's presence, just the touch, the being there actually had to do with soothing and all this. And also empathy. Is it right that empathy is formed until you're two years old just by holding a child? I, we have three kids of our own and my understanding is that just that nothing replaces it actually holding the child and looking in their eyes forms empathy and nothing else could form it.

Yeah. And one of the things we talk a lot about in dance therapy is that we're, we're non verbal people before we're verbal. You know, like it's, it's before long before we're able to talk, that we're taking in the world, that we're understanding safety, that we're understanding people caring for us on this embodied level. Shame research actually says that we experience shame for the first time around 18 months on a non verbal level. You know, so all of this stuff happens before we can even put words to it. And so yes, that gets wired into our bodies. But also in dance therapy we would say also then we heal that way too. We don't heal by words, you know, when, when these things live inside of our bodies, we have to get deep into where they started in order to do healing and work there.

I can attest to that. I have a two year old that does not speak yet. This has no interest in speaking. I can see it in his eyes. He's like, no, I'm not, I'm not going to speak yet. I can read all the words in everything he does and his expressions and all this and shame. I never, I never knew that. Interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more about. About dance therapy now? I come from Eastern Europe. Yeah, you're going to speak truth to my soul. Not much dancing over there. Actually. Really not too much. Especially in the evangelical circles. We've moved away from it. So I'm curious to learn. I'm very curious to learn.

Yeah. So dance therapy. So I grew up dancing and I loved psychology and that led me down a path in my undergraduate. I got a double major in dance and psychology. And a wise advisor said, well, did you know you can actually these two things together? And that led me into a master's degree in dance therapy and counseling. And dance therapy is part of the creative arts therapies family. So music therapy, art therapy, and it involves the body and it's distinguished from things like physical therapy because it's looking at the expressive elements of the body, not the functional. Not like how can we figure out how you can walk, rather how is it impacting your mental health and your mental well being if you can't walk? So we're looking at the expressive elements of movement. And to speak to your point about Eastern European and evangelical circles, I mean, how much time do we have? Everybody. But for me, what was interesting is that the same Dr. Daniel Siegel who I was telling you about, when he talks about the brain, he talks about this idea called linkage, Differentiation and linkage. So basically every part of our brain has a job to do, but then those differentiated jobs have to link together. And that's how we experience neural integration. And for me, my own journey has been one of differentiation and linkage. Because I was like, okay, in this category is where my dance therapy world goes, and in this category is where my Christian faith world goes. Because those two things do not work together, you know, all the implicit messages. So when I was in school for dance therapy, I actually ended up writing my master's thesis on the disembodiment of the evangelical church. And it was like I was fighting against myself to do it, you know. And then I had a wise advisor who was like, oh, this is your work, actually, you know, so it's been my own integration process of, like, oh, I can't compartmentalize these things that do not like to work together.

Yeah. I grew up super conservative, too.

Yeah.

I had a friend, we were listening to something, I don't know, as a speaker or something, saying, like, what are the areas that you've been wrong in your life? Like, are there things that you. You believed earlier that you're like, no, I was wrong. And probably our belief about dancing was one of those things that I was wrong on. And I get the reasons why. You know, the older generation, you know, they wanted to keep our minds pure and all that. I get that, of course, with the Internet now, but looking back on it, I'm like, I think I was wrong on that one. Or, you know, my community collectively was wrong on that one. Because, Dan, I mean, you know, obviously the passage in the Old Testament where guys are all dancing, it would be a good clue. But the other. The other thing is just like, watching kids, you know, freely jumping. Right. There's a joy to it. There's a beauty to it, and it makes sense to me.

Somewhere along the way, we turned that toddler joyful movement into fear, you know, and. And fear of what it would be like. Fear of the implications of being fully in our embodied selves. Yeah. And then I think that fear has driven a lot of the desire to say, nope, this is not okay.

Right. Well, for them, too, I think sexual attraction was the. At least the crowd I was in, that's what they were worried about.

But, yeah, I know. Which leads me down a whole nother rabbit hole of body theology and that our bodies are more than sex.

Right, right.

You know, which is another place I think the church has really missed the mark is like, no, we are sensual whole beings, and that's a lot more than the act of sex.

Right, Absolutely.

So thinking about this work that you did in your thesis, when you brought these two things together, what do you think we're missing out on as Christians when we don't pay attention to embodied spirituality.

A lot? Let me think about that. There's another individual I really respect. Her name is Dr. Hilary McBride, and she actually just published this amazing book called the wisdom of your body. But she says this thing, which I think is so true, which is. Oh, I don't want to get it wrong. Yeah. We heal when we can be with what we feel. And I think that we heal when we can be with what we feel. We can heal, but we can Also experience, you know, I experience the holiest, the presence of the Holy Spirit through my body. I experience connection with other people. I experience my whole understanding of the world, you know, in this body that I live in. It doesn't happen just in my mind. And so I think that we're cutting ourselves off, you know, it's like we're cheating ourselves of that full holistic experience when we think, oh, well, just from the neck up, let me experience what I'm gonna experience. But from the neck down, keep it tight, shut it off, you know, for, like.

So I. So I'm a. Feels arrogant to say I'm a musician. I like music.

Yeah.

And I understand you are a musician. Yeah, probably. Yeah. I can play some stuff. So, like, so on one level. So, for example, I understand what it's like to have a heavy heart and go sit down at a piano and play the piano and feel like I talk to God, you know, like, just. There's no words, there's no ideas. Just I feel like I'm communicating. And I feel like maybe some people can do that with dancing. And I don't.

I don't.

Art, like, you know, visual arts and also dance. I just don't have the gift, or I haven't explored it, or it's stifled or is. Would you say it's like. Is it the same kind of thing for.

Yeah, it's like a holy space for me, you know, when I'm, like, in an empty studio and I can just lay down and surrender the weight of my entire body to the ground and then just start to move. For sure. It's like, that's where I feel whole and connected. And I think for some people, that's hiking, you know, for some people, like, I think that happens so differently for everyone, but we all have this capacity to be connected in these ways.

Does this relate to even. Like, sometimes I kind of wish I grew up more charismatic, like, with the worship and the expressive worship. I just feel so. Like, if I'm in an empty room, I can do it.

Yeah.

And if it's a full room, if it's really, really dark and I'm towards the back, maybe I can get a hand a little bit up. But I like that. Like, I enjoy it. Is there a connection or is it different?

I think there is, you know, but. And I think that's also tricky because I wonder what's authentic and what's enculturated, you know, and that I ask for myself from a real place because I grew up Lutheran, and it Wasn't until I got into later in life that I started being in some evangelical spaces where people were really using their bodies to worship. And I'll say that for me, it felt disembodied.

Yeah. Oh, interesting.

Because at that point I was like, well, I. Again, because it was what was comfortable in my body, but it didn't feel authentic to me. It felt like that was what people had observed and what had been modeled for them, speaking of human development. And it was hard for me to understand what's authentic here and what are people doing, because the culture. This is what the. How the culture has expressed how to worship. So to that point, I think we just all worship differently, too.

Yeah.

You know, there's no way to say this bodily expression signifies that you're a really full, true worshiper.

Right. Because that's where we start. Right. Is whatever has been modeled for us.

Yeah.

And so to at least begin that way, rather than beginning with maybe feeling like you couldn't use your body, it seems like that maybe would be a. I don't know if healthier is the right. Is the right, but at least a more promising path to take to including that in your spirituality. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I think. And when I was doing my master's thesis, which again, was a long time ago, but, you know, a lot of people who were talking about it were from Pentecostal or charismatic traditions, and they were saying, yes, we invite this, we're excited about this. That's where a lot of anything that has been written on liturgical dance has come out. A lot of those traditions.

Yeah. Interesting. You know, and this is maybe not a very exciting point, but, like, when that pandemic started, you know, I was sitting around on the couch all the time just, you know, the spirits are coming. And even as a teacher, you know, summer comes along, and for the first couple years, my wife's like, you got to get out and just start doing stuff, man, because you're getting becoming grumpy. So I decided to build a shed. And. And I had so much fun building that shed. It just. And it's not. I mean, I don't know if that counts, but, like, you're hammering stuff and you're moving around. And is that. Is that a small picture of this as well, or.

Totally. So, another. So I've talked twice about Daniel Siegel, but Kurt Thompson, who wrote this great book on shame, where I referenced the 18 month thing with shame. He's actually a Christian psychiatrist who really likes Daniel Siegel's information, and he Places it in a biblical context. He says, like what. What's the scriptural ideas to support this? So he has this idea that I really like. He calls it the neuroplastic triad. And he says every day we should do three things. We should try to engage in aerobic activity because again, the more we know about the brain, the more we know actually like dopamine, serotonin, you know, like that is really good for us. And then we should try to participate in focused activity, which does not mean focusing on your phone. You know, it means like centering prayer or meditation or even taking a walk and like saying, I'm going to look for all the colors that I see. You know, that's your focus. And then the third thing is novel activity. So something new. Even if that's. I'm going to drive a different route to work than I normally do, or I'm going to, you know, just try something I've never tried before just for the heck of it. So he talks about that. That's like a really healthy way to support your brain and your mind. And I think even in your shed story, you know, like I think, or even when we're feeling stuck in pandemic land, like I say that to myself. I give that assignment or homework to clients. You know, can, can you do these three things every day? Is it possible to do that?

Yeah, I love it.

It's fascinating how, how prevalent the body is in the scripture. Everywhere going from Jesus's temptation starts in his body. He's hungry. He is experiencing that. What do you do with that? What do you, how do you control your hunger in the midst of 40 days and all this.

Yeah.

Apostle Paul experiencing this, this tension between. I don't want to be, I want to have, I want to be out of this body. I want this to just open up. But I am, I live in this from Old Testament to New Testament. But yet we are somehow blind to these. It's a blind spot. We have really, I think, accepted fully that our soul is spiritual, that our, that our spirit is what matters, but really our bodies. And I can see that in the self care, in the care that we have for the bodies. And, and that's why I want to affirm the work that you're doing, how powerful it is to actually bring us back to what do you do with your body? How do you, you know, Apostle Paul, I think and, and John picks up, I want to pray that your body, your soul and your will kept. Be kept whole.

Wow.

What a powerful, powerful image. But here's here's something that I want to share with you, especially coming from the work you wrote about the pandemic and the online. I'm an online guy. I invested. You know, I'm really passionate about that space, but it's really about online learning as a. As a viable method of learning. I'm not an online guy for other stuff, even though my background is computer science. But I had a class, an online class, and we studied the concept of belonging. Coming from Joseph Meyer. He spoke. He spoke about the four spaces of belonging. And so it was. It was public, social, private, and intimate.

Right.

And for you to feel like you belong in a place, you need to actually touch on all four. So you don't just have to belong in one space. So public. You know, it's a. It's a. Basically the. The schoolyard here. Social is a place where, for example, the cafeteria. Private. It's a small group, and intimate is a place. It's called a naked space, where you just connect with somebody very vulnerable. It's the closest friend that you have.

Yeah.

And the topic in the online class was, to which space do you think this online class belongs to? And it's a discussion board. So it's a lively discussion board. And it was fascinating that students identified all spaces. But there are students that identified that online class to the intimate place of belonging.

Yeah.

And their reasoning was, I shared things with you that I have not shared with anybody else in my life.

Yeah.

So that this embodiment. And I'm curious, in your perspective, so is it. Is it that we have to go back to the truth of it, that we are embodied, you know, embodied spirituality or that we have. We have created the space where it's. It's actually possible for you either to think or to actually belong in the virtual world and for. For your spiritual life to be sufficient?

Yeah. I mean, I've been challenged in this myself. I think that for dance therapists, the move to telehealth felt really unfair. Like, initially it was like, what? So, wow, learning curve. I mean, and I think even I had been. I've been in this online doctoral program that I'm almost done with, but I didn't feel as uncomfortable shifting my teaching to online because I also felt like, so we're on a screen. You gotta stand up anyway, you know, like, I. I didn't feel as uncomfortable with that. But for me to shift to doing online therapy was not fun. And that was a big mental hurdle, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I think that a lot of my colleagues, you know, we openly, intimately shared that lack of love. And yet here we are two years later, and none of my clients want to go back to in person, really, because of the access that the online has allowed them that they can take a lunch break and do therapy. Right. And so they don't have to factor in two hours to drive and things like that. And I think there is something intimate about being able to be in their own home and their own space and the safety.

Less embarrassing, maybe.

I don't know. I've been amazed as I've been able to say to people, well, do you want to come back to in person? And they're like, no, actually, I think I want to stay in this format. And to that, I have to always challenge myself to say, how can we still be embodied in this space? How can I still be doing the work that I do and noticing what's. Tracking what's going on in people's bodies, continuing to move together in the midst of the pandemic. I've started two different online consulting supervision groups for dance therapists, and even our ability to come literally from around the country together. And we always start by moving together. And we kind of all got used to it. You know, you got a little bit of a delay, you got things going on, but. But we can all still, you know, we can. We're dancing in the Zoom room together. So to your question, Aline, I think, yes, it's possible to experience all four of those ways of belonging, and that's probably a way I've grown and been challenged in the pandemic is opening up my own mind to that.

Do you have any advice for maybe someone who is still. Is not buying this zoom thing? Like, I have. I have friends who, I mean, they. They just hate it. They hate it so much, they've never gotten used to it. Is there a way to bring this kind of, like, embodied, being able to think this way that can improve using the digital world for us?

Yeah, I mean, I think one thing I would say is, yeah, probably it is not really great for our bodies to just sit in front of the computer all day. So is there a way in movement world, we talk about this movement, that movement often needs to exert and recuperate. So we can't just like, do hard exert, exert, exert movement, and then we collapse. And I think the same. We have to exert and recuperate with our zoom experience. So after you've had a long day of meetings, can you get outside. Can you do some movement? Can you not be in front of a screen that night? You know? And so how. How can you balance that out over the summer? In the Mac department, we do have classes all summer long. Just. Just a little plug for me and my colleagues in the summer. On my one long day that I had, it was all still from home on Zoom. And I had an hour break midday. And my girls knew that was the hour we'd go for a bike ride, you know, and so I said, okay, I'm done. I'm done with my last meeting. Everybody get on your bikes. And we'd go bike around the neighborhood and the sunshine and the vitamin D and that really. Then I felt like when I came back to start my supervision group, I could do it, you know? So is there. Are there ways to still incorporate that?

I follow the works of John Wyatt. W Y A T T. Okay. Christian neurosurgeon from. From England, I think. I think he's based in Oxford. He talks about humanity 2.0 and artificial intelligence. Industry, industry, industrial revolution 5.0. But humanity 2.0 caught my attention because it's all about the fact that our bodies are outdated and we're looking for robots, we're looking for artificial intelligence, we're looking for. Actually, one of his works that was fascinating to me was the fact that we gave robots faces. And the moment we did that, they. It humanized a lot. Like kids play with them. It was. It was actually. It just. It crossed a massive barrier. But his response. Response to that, which was fascinating to me because my question, I was part of his lecture, and my question was, what should be the church's response to this? Like, you're presenting that we're moving the discussions out. There are. And actually a lot of the tech gurus and all this, they have reached the conclusion that our bodies are outdated, which is fascinating to me. So it's humanity 2.0. But his response to that was, we need to spend time together in person, in church. And I was like, that's. That's it. I spent 50 minutes here, and you talked about the most worst doom and gloom I've ever heard of, of where the conversation is. He's not even bringing anything. He's just sharing where the conversation is in the tech world. And his response was being in a finite time and space in the same place with other people and being face to face with each other. And I found that to be really powerful. So have you seen in your work major differences in when people actually spend time together? Embodied that. That the whole versus just virtual.

Yeah. First I'll say that idea that our bodies are outdated. Like, I feel that inside and I have a very visceral, unlike reaction.

Yeah.

I was like, what, what are you following over there?

Here I am in my work, I'm trying to teach people, gosh, your bodies are brilliant, actually. Your bodies are telling you things. You can't even imagine what your body's telling you if you listen to it. You know, like if you just let yourself listen to the messages your body is telling you. So I just have to name that. I'm like, oh.

Yeah, we don't know that guy.

And he's just presenting the way the conversation is.

I believe it. I believe that the conversation's there and I have feelings about it.

But before you say that, the reason he said that is because we have, we have ourselves started to compare. And that's what was from, from actually 20, 30 years ago. Our mind is like a steam engine. And now we're saying our mind is like a computer. We have actually used our own metaphors and metaphors are powerful. We have used to explain our own bodies. We have used the machines and we have used the. Actually the industry around us to explain our own bodies, bodies. And that's where he's saying we've dehumanized that. In the conversation, I was moving past the human body to, well, if that computer can think faster than you.

Right.

Then it's better than you.

Right?

No, but we like our body. I know much more, though.

Well, I understand, but that's, that's where the logic of the conversation and the.

Metaphor of the body, of machine as machine comes back to disembodiment. Right. Like if we say the Dr. Hillary, Hillary McBride has this great example I really like of like thinking of our body as a house and how we tend to be front lawn people. So we sit out on the front lawn and we say, oh my gosh, that paint is chipping. And look, my, my grass isn't as nice as my neighbors when it's our house and we live inside of our house, you know, and so if we can experience like from what's going on in here, then we're less judgmental and, you know, we're less outside of ourselves, which I don't think you can do as a machine. But to your point about church. Oh, I hit my microphone, which I think is really important. You know, I don't know research around that, but I believe it just anecdotally. I think my family's had an interesting season. And we transitioned to a new church during COVID So we were only with the community on zoom for an extended period of time. And we're just now going back to in person gatherings. And my girls just get so excited on those in person days. And you can just feel their energy, you know, and they're like, yes, it's in person Sunday. And again, it's that time. You know, it's like just over an hour and then we're talking with people after. And I can feel all four of us, the lightness when we're leaving of that. So anecdotally, yes, you know, and I think it's really about connection and community. And that's so much of what is good about the church is where we feel seen and known and where, like where we have community.

Wow.

Yeah. I mean, the church is all about using sacraments and symbols for what's going on spiritually. And so the gathering of people into a space of their physical bodies is an. Isn't. Is that symbol of what Christ has done for us and gathered us into a body? So to do away with that is not to call that a sacrament, but to do away with that is. It reminds me of feeling like, well, we can do away with all of the symbols that relate to these spiritual realities.

Yeah. And to your point, you were talking aline earlier about Jesus. Jesus incarnate. Our bodies matter.

I'm with you.

And that's where I really struggle with this, like, theology of disembodiment. I'm just like, Jesus, everybody.

So I feel that that's the. The. That's the way I make my argument for distance learning, for online learning. I'm like, you know, the New Testament, they're all letters. It's distance learning. Anyways, so the way you're using Jesus's body, I'm like, hey, distance learning, New Testament, we are at time. I can't believe. I wish we could talk way more about this. Mariah is part of a brilliant team. We actually had another team member here, Jeremiah Peck, if you listen to that, to that podcast. But part of a brilliant team. We invite you to actually look it up. The Mac program, the Master of Arts in Counseling. And do you have. Do you have a private practice? Do you have a website where people can go and learn more about you?

Yes, just my name, Mariah LaFever. Mariellefever.com. that's it. And that's got all my dance therapy stuff. And I do have a private practice. And I also see. I supervise. And that's become a big passion of mine over the last several years, is actually supervising new clinicians.

Oh, wow, that's exciting. So please go to that website. And now we get a chance for just a few minutes to get to know Mariah a little better in a rapid fire session. Ladies and gentlemen, you have reached the rapid fire session. We're gonna start with Rob. Rob, you ready?

If you had to live in any movie or television show for one week, like, you got to live in it as a character. Which movie or television show might you choose?

A movie or television show? This is so hard. Frozen.

Oh, fun. Yeah. The music could be fantastic. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

I'm not gonna.

I'm not gonna shy away from that. Like, that's pretty. I would live in a Disney movie.

I like it.

I like it.

If you could have a lifetime supply of anything, what would it be?

I feel like a real cliche here. But it would have to be either coffee or chocolate. So, like, I'm just like, you're a cliche middle aged woman right now.

Coffee and chocolate. If you. What's the. What's your favorite place in the world? This is my. This is one of my favorite questions, like country or place or anything, you.

Know, that's a really hard one. I grew up in the Midwest and I. I love going back to the Midwest. My heart is there. But once you've lived in the Midwest and then you move out here, you're kind of like, oh, my gosh, mountains, you know? Right, right. So, like, that's so beautiful here. But I will say this is not. I'm not trying to not answer your question. People are what matter to me. So when I think of beautiful places, I think of the people that I want to see. So I think that that is more than a place, is like, could I go see. That's been a stretch for me in the pandemic. Is not going to be able to see my Midwest people and just hug them. So it would be to see my people.

Oh, wow.

Anything else?

Oh, shoot. Yeah, it's not rapid.

Sorry.

Renee, if you had a boat, what would you name it?

I don't know the answer to that. You told me that that might be one of the questions.

I mean, that would be a weird answer.

That would be a weird boat.

I don't know.

I'm very good at witty names.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's something I need my family to help me with, so I don't.

You'd let your kids name it?

I would let my kids. That's a good answer. Paul would name it. He would have a good one.

If you had a superpower, what would it be?

You there?

Well, you have superpowers cuz you know how to dance.

But teleportation. Cuz then I could go see all those people that I miss. Right. I was just.

Well, yeah, yeah.

There's so many. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, Definitely that answer. I know.

Are you all science fiction people? Is it Paul? I have a recollection.

Paul likes science fiction. I'm like, here's the thing about the work that I do. I have to encounter the difficulty of life a lot in the work that I do. So in my media consumption, I'm like Disney or rom com, you know, like.

I just keep it light.

Give me Will Ferrell all day long.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Up. I mean this is so corny, but like I think I wanted to be a dance therapist. I just didn't know it existed.

Great.

I think I said teacher when I was little, you know. And for me to be able to teach using dance therapy has been like a really cool combo of that.

Yeah.

What would you hope it would be obsolete in 20 years? Something that would just vanish in 20 years.

That's a hard one.

Child abuse.

Wow.

Yeah. I take that.

Yeah. And especially being such like human development being my passion. Just the long term implications of early abuse really are something that keep me up at night. Yeah.

I have one more. What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?

Oh, the strangest thing I've ever eaten. Oh, girl from Nebraska's ones. 1. One time I did go a friend, I was with a friend and we were in Seattle and we were at a very fancy seafood restaurant and we did have octopus legs which I feel like again for a girl from Nebraska.

That felt like that's a win.

That's about as far as I go.

Yeah, I'm with you. That's good for me.

Okay. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you for really putting a topic on the table that I think is very important. Very important for us to know. Very important for our listeners to actually think through. I hope that you. And I'm talking to the audience now, I'm looking at. But I hope that you got value out of this. And you go to Mariah's website and you also go to multomaplus.com. there's some really good courses out there from the Mac team. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. See you in next episode of MU Talks.

Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to thank you for listening to MU Talks, a podcast with some friends from Mola University. Now our views are our own. In no way way can they represent the school or its affiliates. Thanks for.