Mathematically Assisted Miracles ft. Siobhan Diores | The Cosmic Co-Op Episode 4
[00:00:44] Intro
[00:00:44] Samantha Young: Welcome back, friends. This is episode four. I'm Sam, your host, AKA the Financial Witch, and today's episode is gonna cut straight to the marrow, I think, [00:01:00] because we're embracing the new moon in Capricorn that's happening today. It's also my birthday as I'm recording this, so the renewal vibes are very strong right now.
[00:01:14] Samantha Young: I am feeling incredibly blessed to have this podcast, to have this vehicle for connection, to have you, the listener. It's truly a gift in and of itself to even be able to create something like this. And it ties in really beautifully actually with this week's episode, with the conversation I'm having with Siobhan of With Soft Power.
[00:01:40] Samantha Young: We're going to talk about a lot of things like creative power, obviously anti-capitalism, we're going to talk about how embracing change, even when it feels messy or uncertain, is actually an act of profound resistance and I'm also going to read a listener submission that asks [00:02:00] one of those questions that really makes you think. It's about moving between safety and risk, between stability and evolution, and just pokes at some questions that I feel are really deeply tied to everything that we're talking about today.
[00:02:16] Samantha Young: Before we get started, I want to give you a heads up. This episode does include discussions of abortion and interpersonal abuse, so please take care of yourself as you listen. Pause if you need to. This isn't about pushing through for the sake of discomfort. It's about holding space for all of the complicated realities of life under capitalism. And we all have to find ways to move forward with intention. So take care of yourself.
[00:02:47] Samantha Young: Now, this listener question floored me in the best way possible. They wrote, "I am torn between two goals, it seems. On one hand, I want to move somewhere that is a bit more queer friendly, [00:03:00] with great public transportation, so that at least my and my family's quality of life can be improved. However, I feel that this move could draw me away from nature and from my craft, which is herbalism based in many ways. I don't know how I could relate to nature in a bigger city, but on the other hand, I am so wary of living where I grew up in a sub Where I grew up in a suburban hellscape that is only traversable by car. When I speak to my family about wanting to move to Chicago, they feel it comes out of nowhere and doesn't fit my personality. But I'm starting to wonder if I have just been self isolating my true desires out of a need to feel stable or secure in my relationships and maybe being a bit afraid of such a huge change. Anyway, I wonder how one prepares financially and spiritually for such a big change when they are still feeling unsure of its wisdom and alignment?"
[00:03:52] Samantha Young: And that question is an entire episode all on its own, but I'm weaving it into this conversation because it's one that Siobhan and I talked [00:04:00] about before we recorded and I just didn't get a chance to bring it up in our conversation, but it feels really foundational to the conversation that Siobhan and I had, that you're about to listen to, about navigating huge, life-altering shifts while remaining tethered to your values and your desires, even when that path forward is not the prescribed path and thus can feel really murky and really risky. So my hope is that you'll find your way through this dialogue, whether you're on the cusp of a big move, or maybe you are just reevaluating your craft, or you're just trying to figure out how to live a more aligned life in a system that thrives on disconnection and doubt.
[00:04:42] Samantha Young: Siobhan and I talked about how creative power is both a balm and a battering ram, really, against capitalism, and how it can carve out space for authenticity, even in places that might feel inhospitable to your spirit. We're going to be unpacking that along with some of the ways that [00:05:00] creative power can help us all be students of change, of chaos, even. This is a thing that came up while Siobhan and I were talking that she mentioned about being a student of change and understanding that change is not only inevitable, but change in itself is a birthing process. It is part of the birth-death cycle and it's something that we can't escape. So being a student of change is, in and of itself, being a student of birth.
[00:05:31] Samantha Young: But I'll let Siobhan tell you all about how she arrived at that conclusion and how being a student of change can liberate you from things like rigid expectations, whether those are coming from internally, from your family, from society, from capitalism, all of that kind of stuff. And this also ties into the new moon in Capricorn, which we're experiencing today. So let's get into that.
[00:06:04] Astro Mission Log
[00:06:04] Samantha Young: So the new moon in Capricorn is happening right now at 9 degrees, and this is our final lunation of 2024. I think this is a really significant period that we're putting on the year here with this lunation. And on a personal note, since it's also my birthday, that means that this new moon is not only conjunct my solar degree, but it's baked into the solar return chart for my entire year going forward. So it holds a lot of personal significance for me, and I'm also thinking about the significance that it holds to bookend the year with a new moon in Capricorn.
[00:06:43] Samantha Young: I think it really reflects a lot of things that are going to be said in this conversation, especially in terms of examining the boundaries that you place on yourself and where they come from, and even sometimes changing your relationship to [00:07:00] things that might feel restrictive or like roadblocks to the life that you really want to live. Sometimes when we get to examine those things really deeply, when we get to be introspective in the way that new moons encourage us to be, sometimes you can come full circle and realize that something that seems unpleasant or forced upon you can be something that you choose.
[00:07:24] Samantha Young: So even on the outside, nothing has changed, internally, the way that you feel about the boundaries or restrictions in your life can still reflect a more liberated internal landscape. Siobhan makes a really good point about this in our conversation as well. Taking responsibility does not mean blaming yourself for the circumstances you're in. Taking responsibility for your circumstances simply means noticing where you have a choice and noticing where [00:08:00] you are living out the consequences of your choices and just noticing, not placing any judgment on it, not trying to say what's good or bad about it, momentarily removing your own judgment and observing where you are responsible, and if and where you have been stepping up to that responsibility.
[00:08:19] Samantha Young: Examining the things in your life that maybe feel like you don't have a choice about them, and maybe you truly don't, but dig a little deeper and figure out: where within this restriction am I still allowed to make decisions? Where within this do I have some agency and some autonomy? This is really important, especially when you're talking about things like anti-capitalism. You're going to face restrictions. In an oppressive system, guess what? You're going to be oppressed unless you're part of the ruling class, which you're not. If you're listening to this podcast, you're most likely not.
[00:08:54] Samantha Young: And that's Saturn. That's Capricorn. That's the limiting [00:09:00] structures of the world that you live in. But this new moon in Capricorn is the lunation every year that always pulls me the most towards and taking an internal review, an inventory of my responsibilities and where I've been avoiding them, or maybe perhaps where I haven't even noticed that things are my responsibility.
[00:09:20] Samantha Young: I will always say on this podcast and I will continue to say that dismantling capitalism is not an individual job. That also doesn't mean that your individual decisions don't matter. But the heart of what I mean when I say that is: don't put everything on yourself to solve everything, and at the same time, don't shirk away all responsibility just because you recognize that it's impossible for you to solve everything. Just because you can't solve everything doesn't mean you give up and work towards nothing.
[00:09:55] Samantha Young: So happy new moon in Capricorn. Happy birthday to me. [00:10:00] And let's get into this conversation.
[00:10:04] Siobhan's Doula Roots
[00:10:04] Samantha Young: I don't remember when I started following you online or when I found you on the internet, but you were still at the end of your birth doula practice. You just recently ended that, right?
[00:10:16] Siobhan Diores: Yeah, I officially recently closed it and I was in this like, long limbo period of at least a year. The word doula is so expansive. And so I have been swaying between this, I'm not a birth doula because I'm not in the hospital attending births, I'm not able to attend births right now, but I'm also a doula in every single other way. But what does this mean for being a birth doula business and who's reaching out? But also how do I share with them that this is still relevant to you and come on with this business? I only released the title of birth doula a couple months ago.
[00:10:55] Samantha Young: It makes sense. It's its own process. Claiming any sort of title, I think, is [00:11:00] its own process and then the same thing, when you let go of something like that, something that you've been doing for a while. So how does one go from like witchy birth doula mom running your own business, to now starting a church with your friends? How, like, how did-- how do we get there?
[00:11:21] Siobhan Diores: Yeah. Yeah. I'm seeing that it is almost an exact three-year cycle that I'm looking at right now, like three-and-a-half-year cycle. So I feel like the story of stories starts in early 2021, and that was coming off of giving birth to my son in 2018, after that, having a very-- it was traumatic and also status quo, and all of those typical induction, epidural, like what they call the "cascade of interventions" is what they call it in the birth work world: when you start one, then you're just cascading into them. Also, that was my [00:12:00] inception, along with talking to some other friends who had births, where I really woke up and was like, "Oh, wow. I knew that this birthing industry was fucked, but I didn't realize exactly how fucked it was." And so that sent me off to become a doula, very politically motivated.
[00:12:17] Siobhan Diores: Coming from there, my spiritual self was very... I always had this concept and like general belief and connection, but I can't even really relate to what I thought before now that I'm so tapped in, like with my ancestors and psychic abilities. I'm like, what was I conceptualizing? Do you relate on that? Now that it's so literal, I knew that I believed and had a relationship, but I can't really understand what I think I was connecting with.
[00:12:42] Birth As A Portal
[00:12:42] Samantha Young: Yeah. It's funny that you say that because this is something I've been thinking only recently, and it's something I've attributed to just being out of the first Saturn return, but really noticing how much of a portal that time is. And I'm not even a really a big fan of [00:13:00] the word "portal", but for me it was motherhood and Saturn return happening at the exact same time, so it was the portal of all portals, and I'm like, I don't know who she was. I don't know her. I love her, but...
[00:13:13] Samantha Young: I think it was even before I was pregnant, somebody told me, "When you are pregnant, when you're giving birth, when you're just going through this process that literally billions of people have gone through, you're tapped into not only your ancestors who have done this, but just everybody in general who's ever done this. It's this huge collective portal." And going through it, same thing, I'm like, I don't know why I believed some of the things I believed. I've come to accept that some of it is like, things that you're taught to believe, obviously. But especially in a capitalist sense, a lot of the things that I wanted especially, I no longer can relate to even wanting anymore, cause I think there were things that capitalism told me I should want.
[00:13:57] Siobhan Diores: Totally. Yeah, those [00:14:00] wants, I think, going all the way back to pregnancy in 2018 it was an unexpected pregnancy, but I had been with my partner at the time for quite a few years, and it locked me into that relationship escalator. Why don't we just get married? Why don't you know, just all these things move back to California? He's from South Florida. So that was a very different life and that actually in itself opened up a lot of anti-capitalist things in me and a lot of softening in terms of growing up in somewhere like San Francisco, that I grew up in a very politicized family, very active labor union organizers, always volunteering for campaigns and very neoliberal, now is what I understand it to be, and yeah, being in Florida got me exposed to a little bit more of this, like varying view my first time really being around conservative people, South Floridians at that.
[00:14:57] Siobhan Diores: And so coming [00:15:00] here, giving birth, seeing how my friends were giving birth. I really see now how much I was experiencing symptoms of silencing my own voice coming out after that, because I had the sense of how I wanted to birth. I've always been... not crunchy, but, aware in a lot of things, and when I had mentioned the ways that I wanted to birth, immediately, my mom and my sisters were like, "No, this is not the time to be a hippie, Siobhan. You have a baby to worry about." Like that fear mongering around autonomy over your body, but our own fear of our body's powers.
[00:15:39] Siobhan Diores: And so coming out of that, all of my postpartum experience, super under-resourced, super angry, really isolating myself because I didn't know how to name that. I was just so out of alignment with myself, with my [00:16:00] desires.
[00:16:00] Siobhan Diores: 2020 hit, my kid was a little over one year old. I was working in healthcare. I've worked in and around workers' compensation injury for a very long time. That was a very radicalizing field for me coming out of college working with chronic pain patients from workplace injuries, noticing the patterns of who was more injured, what demographics they come from and how that really impacted their lives.
[00:16:27] Becoming Radicalized
[00:16:27] Siobhan Diores: Coming from that, where I was seeing that, and still defaulting to doctors. Like I had already seen so much and understood so much and just bypassed all of this wisdom that I gained observing these fucked up systems and handing over trust in that of the birth of my first child to that same exact system I already knew couldn't be trusted. And so yeah, I was super anxious, depressed, bitter and rather than anyone being like, "Hey, you seem like really different and not okay," it was like, [00:17:00] "Wow, she's a very not nice person."
[00:17:01] Siobhan Diores: And so I went through 2020 and that has that the pandemic began, or the shutdowns from it began. I had started my doula business after this conversation with my then-husband and my mom about, " Birth really changed my life. This is the solution." There's still sprinkles of saviorism in there: thinking that if I just knew all of this information, and if everybody else knew, then I could stop these birth outcomes and I could disrupt the status quo because knowledge is power and information is power.
[00:17:39] Siobhan Diores: And there's, of course, truth to that in some ways, but getting into birth, when I started attending births, the shutdowns happen, and so in the hospitals, I imagine you birthed after 2020.
[00:17:51] Samantha Young: In 2022.
[00:17:53] Siobhan Diores: Okay. The first thing they did was, you can only have one person with you. And so that cut down my ability to [00:18:00] attend births outside of single mothers, and so really, my experiences then became the people who really needed the most. So people who are birthing solo, solo parents, as well as home births. And when it comes to the word "portal," it was attending home births that really... I was like, "Oh shit, that is a portal." My very first home birth was for my friend, Bianca, who now is a doula as well, and I'll always be so grateful and so amazed. I actually should look up the chart for this first birth one day, because she invited me and herself, her midwife and her whole birth team were all Black women, all Afro Indigenous, birth trained in the Afro Indigenous framework for birth work. And so to experience that as my first home birth and see [00:19:00] uninterrupted physiological birth and to be part of that, and on top of that, the baby's name was Legacy. It just really like... to say the least, it changed my life spiritually.
[00:19:11] Siobhan Diores: So that was like in July 2020. Now, when I really think about that, that was happening in tandem with my marriage falling apart, because my doula training-- shout out Cornerstone Doula Trainings-- was so holistic in the political weaving all of these other pieces, especially in what it takes to be a doula and show up and that self-care and that personal commitment in order to do my job. I was now looking at the life around me and was like, "Oh, this is really not in alignment with what I'm working towards and everything that I believe in."
[00:19:44] Siobhan Diores: and so when I say 2021 kicked things off, I think that was like integrating 2020. I took that leap to leave my day job, because for the first year and a half, I was attending births with my PTO while working in health care [00:20:00] full-time still with a one year old. I don't know where I had this energy. This was like full adrenaline. That's why I burned out this year, because it was full adrenaline. She was showing up. She was doing shit. I was on Clubhouse holding 7 a. m. every Monday morning manifesting calls, which again, I'm like, what did I think manifesting was even at that time? I'm not quite sure.
[00:20:21] Samantha Young: And why do we have to do it at seven o'clock on Monday morning?
[00:20:24] Siobhan Diores: Because that was a time I had, and it was hilarious. And I could never now. Like immediately no. But this is related to all of this, because you really find those little things and that's what I believe now to be manifesting is finding those little places you can experience or access that feeling and then letting it grow and amplify and expand into the rest of my life. So that really was how that started was like, I'm going to do these things at 7am on a Monday and with my PTO, and this is a life that I want. And it was a little aggressive, because I aggressively needed to get out of that life.
[00:20:59] Siobhan Diores: But I [00:21:00] gave my notice at this healthcare job, and like the first or second week that I was fully self-employed, I found out I was pregnant. And my spouse was working in grocery and at the start of that year, too, was like, "Dude I really see you struggling from this and we need to find a solution because we are splitting apart here." He did not talk to me for two weeks because he just didn't know what to do. And so I chose to have an abortion. And that that all was transpiring along, it's fall of my marriage, starting this full-time business, choosing abortion.
[00:21:37] Siobhan Diores: Now I know that majority of abortions are people with children already, but I didn't quite know that at the time, and I had imagined for myself, "Of course I'm in full support of abortion, but I don't have an excuse. I'm already married with a kid. I can't do that." And that was the spiritual initiation for me, because it was the first time that I really acknowledged you don't have to do the things you're [00:22:00] able to do. You get to actually have choices. You get to choose what kind of life you want moving forward. And that's so obvious, but it was so radical for me at the time.
[00:22:15] The Ancestral Algorithm
[00:22:15] Siobhan Diores: And so I did that, and at the same time I'm on Instagram sharing about my work, and now I can see in hindsight that the people that I met in that same exact time where the people that were sent to navigate this, because they are also, in their own way, reclaiming their voice, reclaiming their body, their autonomy, their Soft Power, if you will. And so how I really got through all of that and kept showing up for my job was by going to these Zoom gatherings where we were just meditating and co-regulating, co-working sometimes, and just mirroring through this. And they were other people that had left academia or left [00:23:00] the medical field or other traditional professions, and we're like, "Okay, this is something I really want to do, but my nervous system is shot. And so how do we keep showing up? Let's just like, keep getting on Zoom so nobody vanishes." And so that was how the church started. It wasn't until just like this year that we were like, "Oh, this qualifies as a church."
[00:23:21] Siobhan Diores: But when I look back, I'm like, okay, yeah, we were linking up to meditate and connect with spirit just very intuitively. And, one of those people is also Filipino and Irish and she's an adoptee and my dad's an adoptee. And we had all of these parallels that we're like, "Whoa, this is getting freaky."
[00:23:39] Samantha Young: My dad's also an adoptee.
[00:23:41] Siobhan Diores: Really?
[00:23:42] Samantha Young: Yeah.
[00:23:44] Siobhan Diores: Yeah. So all of these we now, I now call it-- Dr. Kiki, my friend and co-founder calls it the ancestral algorithm, but I now can really see the ways that, when I postured that to the universe that I'm ready for my [00:24:00] best and most aligned life, my husband started falling away. Certain friends and people started falling away. New people were coming into my life. And I was even like, I'm ignoring all my friends and just like on Zoom with these strangers I met on the internet. But I know sometimes those internet friends are the life-saving friends.
[00:24:17] Samantha Young: For real.
[00:24:18] Siobhan Diores: Another thing I've grown to see is yeah, for queer people, for moms, this is the only place where we can find, sometimes, folks that are aligned. And what can that create now if we keep showing up for that?
[00:24:32] Siobhan Diores: And again, not dismiss that as just an internet friendship because it's real now: we've gone on vacation together, met each other's families, we're part of each other's families, they're aunties to my kid, and that past self would be like, "That's wild. That random chick on Instagram?" and I'm like, "yeah, exactly," because spirit moves through all these interesting ways.
[00:24:55] Samantha Young: I love that. Yeah.
[00:24:58] Back To Being A Weirdo
[00:24:58] Siobhan Diores: I think opening [00:25:00] up that spiritual impact of how I was orienting to the world-- studying physiological birth and seeing the ways that my life was mirroring the cycles of birth, it all just expanded my thinking from childbirth to birth, the birthing cycle in general, death, all of that, and over time have learned, that is what these cosmologies that are part of my ancestral legacy and lineage believed in. Especially Taoism would say that birthing is not exclusive to childbirth. It is a process, and sometimes that's a child.
[00:25:38] Siobhan Diores: And so that's why I say that shift from birthing into spiritual consulting and now a church felt very... it felt more separate, but it was very much like the same things happening, mirroring one another. And even now I still get caught in the in between of: I'm speaking about this in this way, oh, they still think I'm [00:26:00] talking about a literal baby. Hold on. Am I available for literal babies right now? And over time I'm like, okay, actually, no, I'm not.
[00:26:07] Siobhan Diores: So 2021, meeting these people, my marriage falling apart, me choosing to eventually separate from my spouse, that impacting my birth business-- during that I was still attending births, I was still supporting people with abortion or loss and postpartum, both virtually and locally. And then the help that I was promised with the help that I was actually receiving, when I caught myself, I was like, you're clinging more. Now what's your ego clinging on to everything that you built, or holding on to this saviorism, really, as a birth doula and what that meant back to something more vulnerable, which was stepping out as a witch.
[00:26:52] Siobhan Diores: It went from doing this really honorable, community-accepted and celebrated thing. People hear your birth doula, they're [00:27:00] like, "oh my gosh, that's so amazing." It really strokes your ego and people are like, "That's one of my favorite things to hear someone does." I'm like, yeah, and I do that. I was like, dang, I just started fitting in. Now I gotta go back to being a radical weirdo.
[00:27:15] Samantha Young: Yeah.
[00:27:16] Community Building As A Doula
[00:27:16] Siobhan Diores: But then I found my other radical weirdos. And yeah, so 2021 being up against this, like, how do I attend and serve these people while also, observing who was able to pay my full fees. What did I have to silence in myself to show up for them? How do I show up for the people who really need my services without being a martyr myself? And that's like a huge issue in the doula world, because doulas are badass. There's really very few employment opportunities for doulas. So most people are there because they were radicalized in some way.
[00:27:54] Siobhan Diores: And we're like, "I'm going to show up to do this," or they're moms that are like, "This is one way I can [00:28:00] have a business and show up," but it's not really a very fruitful field. And especially on the internet, you could see these doulas with big followings, but it's not because they're attending births. Usually it's because they have some other skills they've created. Usually they're coaching other doulas or things that I'm like... The realest, badass, busiest doulas do not have time for the internet so now I even see doulas with big platforms and I'm always raising an eyebrow, like, all right, what else are you up to? Because this isn't the kind of work you need a big platform for. The people are in your neighborhood.
[00:28:34] Samantha Young: It's also a job that maybe requires you to get up and leave in the middle of the night. When you also have your own children, it's not conducive to to a mom's schedule, unfortunately.
[00:28:44] Siobhan Diores: Totally, you have to have a community for it. And when I have mentored doulas, that's the first thing that I tell people to get very real about, is what does it actually take for you to be able to show up for this type of offering? You want to give this type of service, you want to provide because [00:29:00] you may feel called to be a doula, and that means for the next 2 years, you need to be building the type of relationships that can support that type of lifestyle, because it's a lifestyle. It's a beautiful lifestyle. There's so many great things about it because that is what healed my relationship to rest, especially in that abortion period.
[00:29:21] Siobhan Diores: When I had the abortion, I was on call for births and it really pushed me to sit with my capacity, sit with my self care, and that is what I'll always be grateful for my time as a birth doula and a postpartum doula was like, knowing I cannot allow myself to be depleted past a certain level because I have to show up and I committed to them, and that really fed me.
[00:29:48] Siobhan Diores: It saved my life in a lot of ways to not let myself slip into the despair and dissociation and knowing that, okay, I could call my [00:30:00] friend. I could call my backup to show up for this, but also they have a lot going on. And so how could I be really honest with myself about that boundary that I'm not just going to call a backup because I don't feel like it, because I respect them and I also trust that they're going to show up when I need to. I still get calls from people like can you do backup for this? I'm like, yes. I'm not available in any other way. But if you call me and someone needs me to show up, I will find a way to show up.
[00:30:28] Siobhan Diores: And that really is an anti-capitalism building in itself, is this doula industry, this doula culture of, we show up for each other. We find creative ways to provide for the people that need us most. They may not be getting us fully on call to attend the whole birth, but I'm going to show up for you in some way.
[00:30:47] Siobhan Diores: When you meet these people and you hear what they need, it's-- I'm just so Cancerian. I just like, feel them. And I'm like, "All right, you really need somebody. And I can find that person for you." I could [00:31:00] be that person, in some ways, while also checking, okay, can I be that person who could be that? It really started to reorient my thinking into this wider web of like, all right, what are these relationships that I have?
[00:31:14] Siobhan Diores: What resources do we collectively have together for this single mom who needs someone to drop off some food, walk the dog, like, how can we get creative here? Being surprised and not surprised, in other ways, cause I had witnessed this before, but it is surprising to see the ways that people are willing to show up sometimes.
[00:31:35] Samantha Young: Yeah.
[00:31:37] Siobhan Diores: I was surprised by the people that I knew that were like, "oh yeah, no question I've got this," or " I'm just going to Venmo you some money for you to support them," and seeing how much people really want to show up. But sometimes we create barriers for that, because the ask is so big or the idea of being a doula is that has to be your entire career.
[00:31:56] From Birth Worker to Spiritual Consultant
[00:31:56] Siobhan Diores: And so really this long-ass [00:32:00] answer to the question of how I went from birth work to spiritual consulting was attending, being in relationship with these people, meeting other doulas who are showing up for me, and then attending the births themselves, and eventually seeing the way that we even orient to doula work is very unsustainable, because we are all here trying to survive together with what we have, and maybe it's not a full-time job for most people. Actually, I think we just need a general cultural improvement on how we understand care and show up for each other.
[00:32:41] Siobhan Diores: And that was my first kind of shift, was like, I don't think I'm actually here to be a for hire, full-time, business-owning doula. I think I'm actually here to be part of a culture shift where we're all a little bit more aware of how we can show up [00:33:00] for people who just gave birth, how we can talk a little differently about abortion and other stigmatized experiences, even miscarriage. And so that is what pulled me there, was that observation as well as being at the births and seeing, "Oh, I'm also useless right now because you don't know how to trust your own voice. You don't have the confidence in your own decision-making and you're looking to me to speak for you and I cannot do that. I cannot speak for you in this moment."
[00:33:33] Siobhan Diores: Both legally and ethically, hospitals are becoming more hostile towards doulas and having us sign more things saying that we're not going to speak directly to providers, we're not providing advice, we're just there for comfort, we're just there. And I'm like, okay I'm getting retraumatized now because I've signed off on being just here for you and I'm watching you say yes to all of these things and I'm watching you get rolled off to a C-section-- sometimes those are [00:34:00] life-saving and in this case, it doesn't seem that way from what I know, and feeling, gosh, I'm not a savior after all. I'm not able to change birth outcomes with my mere presence. So really, I zoomed all the way out and was like, "Oh, we have to change everything."
[00:34:20] Samantha Young: This is so Jupiter in the ninth house of you, everything you're saying. Just like going through the realization that, yeah, as much as your one individual efforts are meaningful and can have a giant ripple effects, when you zoom all the way out, staring in the face of a gigantic monster, essentially, you're like, okay, we need a spherical approach to this, because yeah, just my presence in the room is not enough and it should be, but it's not.
[00:34:46] Samantha Young: I think it's also a crucial part of what I've been referring to now as like, when people start to "come out" to themselves as anti-capitalist, is that acceptance of "Damn, my good intentions are so fucking good, and at the same [00:35:00] time: alone, they are not enough."
[00:35:02] Samantha Young: That's a tricky balance to handle. And it's tough. I think it's also part of what turns people away from exploring those feelings deeper, even just because it's the first cognitive dissonance, maybe, that you come up against, or one of the first instances where you hit something uncomfortable and unsalvageable at the moment. You're like, "okay, this is uncomfortable and I truly can't do anything about this despite how much I want to," and it's... I don't know.
[00:35:29] Samantha Young: For me, that type of stark acceptance comes really easily. So maybe that's why I can help other people with it, but it usually takes big experiences like that or multiple layered experiences that you suddenly realize oh, this has been a narrative, actually, the entire time.
[00:35:47] The Magical Initiation of Abortion
[00:35:47] Samantha Young: I was even getting a little misty-eyed when you were talking about abortion, cause I went through the same thing earlier this year where I joined the club of people who already have kids and had an [00:36:00] abortion, and just the way that you spoke about it is exactly how I felt about my experience. I never heard anybody else speak about abortion as such a nourishing thing and like a portal in itself, because it was through that-- I am married, and so it was a decision with me and my husband, but it was very much like, we were immediately on the same page about, "We shouldn't be doing this."
[00:36:21] Samantha Young: So it was very immediately a no for both of us, but it felt so nourishing. It took months after that, I'd say probably about six months after I actually had the abortion, where me and my husband arrived on deciding to not have any more kids. And at the time, when I had that abortion, we were still, "Just not right now. We do want more kids but not right now, later." And so then we went through that, and then this decision coalesced together where we arrived at it individually and at the same time together, of yeah, actually, I don't think we want to do this again, like ever.
[00:36:54] Samantha Young: It was very cool to allow for that experience to be the catalyst. We were able to choose [00:37:00] this no, something that we said no to, and it was so empowering, and like you said, it was nourishing to me to go through that and to choose that no. And then to also be a united front and to have it blossom into, we realized we don't want any more children. And that's so cool to now know that, to just to have that solid knowledge of yeah, no, we're good. We don't want to have any more kids, we are one and done. And I don't know if I would have arrived at it the same way, if that hadn't happened.
[00:37:27] Samantha Young: It was also a bit of a deeper initiation for me as a witch, too. Because ever since then, I've just been having my own little personal inner witch revolution that I haven't talked about online. It's just been so deeply internal that I like, I don't even have words for it. But it started with that abortion, with saying no, and for me, living in Oregon, it was so easy.
[00:37:48] Samantha Young: It was so easy and so simple. And that made me really emotional because I was like, god damn, it should always be like this. It was so simple. It didn't cost me a dollar. I made [00:38:00] the appointment. The appointment was like five days out, we went in, we got it done, and It was so easy. It was so beautiful. They take you seriously at Planned Parenthood, or at least that's my experience. And I know I'm white, so there's medical privilege that goes into that too, but I find that generally, Planned Parenthood, they just tend to just take you a bit more seriously, as a person, as a woman in general.
[00:38:21] Siobhan Diores: I did not have mine through Planned Parenthood. It was through Kaiser. I actually had an issue after with blood clotting. I experienced this, I don't know, prejudice, I guess, from a nurse on the phone who answered and it was the nurse hotline that's supposed to be there to support you, and when I said that I was experiencing this outcome from an abortion, she was like "I'm gonna have to get someone let me get someone else to talk to you," and when the person came on they were like, "Oh, they told us that you were having a pregnancy issue," and I was like girl.
[00:38:54] Siobhan Diores: Yeah, so I'm glad Planned Parenthood exists for that. Kaiser, get your weird religious, or [00:39:00] whatever the hell is happening right now, discrimination...
[00:39:04] Samantha Young: Yeah, no.
[00:39:05] Siobhan Diores: I'm literally bleeding golf balls right now, bitch. I don't have the iron supply to fight, but I'll find it.
[00:39:14] Samantha Young: Oh my gosh. I'm sorry you went through that. It just pisses me off. Whenever I have an experience that goes the way I think it should go for everybody, I get mad because I'm like, it doesn't go like this for everybody though. And it should.
[00:39:27] Samantha Young: Planned Parenthood, they were up my ass for days calling me afterwards to check in on me to make sure that I was okay and to see if I needed a follow up appointment. Like they called me like three times in the week following just to make sure I was doing all right. And again, it didn't cost me a dollar. None of that.
[00:39:44] Samantha Young: Everything that you were saying about that just really resonated with me in terms of it being its own initiation into... tapping into an experience that many other people have had. The image you have is like, somebody who gets an abortion is some [00:40:00] scared young girl, who's 19 and not ready, and that does happen. But when you learn that it so much more frequently is people who are like, "I have children that need me presently that already exist."
[00:40:13] Samantha Young: And not even just having another baby, but just being pregnant. That was my thing. I was like, I can't go through that. I had gestational diabetes. I had preeclampsia. I had all the things, like I had one of those medically necessary C-sections. And I don't want to go through that again. I don't even want to risk it. I have a kid now who has increasingly more needs as the days go by.
[00:40:37] Samantha Young: It was interesting to join that, to feel the collective experience once again, and feel very nourished in it and like you said, the levels of self care you have to access for that-- because again, if you have a kid, an abortion is not just a heavy period, you have to be sat up in bed. You have to arrange for childcare. The levels of [00:41:00] care required, even that brought me into some sort of softening because I was like, wow, this is a huge act of nourishment, and it's also calling in other acts of nourishment in the process. I just didn't really have a way to talk about it in that sense of just being like, god, no, it was honestly such a pleasant experience. The least pleasant part of it was all the physical stuff.
[00:41:22] Siobhan Diores: Yeah. Thanks for sharing all of that. That's powerful. And I'm really thinking deeper into that experience, and something I forgot was that I literally had to stand in that decision because when I first became pregnant, because I hadn't considered having an abortion, I told people. I remember being at a barbecue with my friends and being like, "yeah, I'm pregnant again."
[00:41:50] Siobhan Diores: And then being like, oh my God. I think it was partially that moment where I was standing there and they were all congratulating me, and I was like, "yeah, y'all, I'm not okay. I don't think I want [00:42:00] to be, and I'm not sure I want to be." And I had a friend there who had just recently experienced a miscarriage, and I remember feeling like such a bitch. That was just like, how dare I just stand here?
[00:42:11] Siobhan Diores: But again, had to peel back more of that stigmatization for myself. And then when I really had to share that, because I had said it to my family-- I grew up in a family with three siblings, two parents, everybody's around for the most part here in San Francisco-- I had to tell them all because I had just blurted it out.
[00:42:32] Siobhan Diores: Standing in that decision felt really scary at first, and then I get calls and texts and disclosures from people who said, "I've had one too, and nobody knows this." And when it's your own immediate family members...
[00:42:51] Samantha Young: Yeah.
[00:42:52] Radical Responsibility
[00:42:52] Siobhan Diores: It really just helped me open and was like, wow, there's a reason I had to say this. There's a reason I had to experience it this [00:43:00] way, because I think there's something important-- Sag rising-- there's something important in my journey to just be and let people witness it and let people see me make choices and deal with the outcome and fuck up and try to pull it together.
[00:43:16] Siobhan Diores: There's something in watching that journey that I've now seen has given something to them. But the other thing that I'm really thinking about, as you're talking about that's really related to these other topics I know we have floating here, is that it was allowing myself to just even choose anything for myself.
[00:43:38] Siobhan Diores: The story itself that I can't do something holds such a power, more often than not. I'm seeing all these other examples, another one being living at home with my family and this feeling that "I have to do this. I have no choice. This is what has to be done." It builds this disempowerment that [00:44:00] can grow into such bitterness and resentment that even if you choose the same exact thing, just that power of allowing yourself to have a choice is so freeing and healing and radicalizing for me.
[00:44:14] Siobhan Diores: It was like, oh, I'm upset right now because I'm telling myself I have no other option, but if I allow myself to believe I can do this, if I allow myself to remember that this is a choice I'm making... So other example I'm thinking, it's like living with my family of origin. I can't cut them off. I can't do all of this. And eventually being like, actually, you can, you're allowed to do that.
[00:44:43] Siobhan Diores: And then it brought me full circle. I don't want to do that. And I'm choosing to be here. This is my choice to be living in this situation. And because I made that choice, I'm responsible and accountable for all of the outcomes, [00:45:00] and I'm not a victim here. What happened with my abortion was like, oh, I am accountable to this choice.
[00:45:08] Siobhan Diores: I think everything following that decision was a reminder and this push to honor my own power and to honor that choice that I made. If I'm choosing to not bring this soul that I'm so connected to, that I still am receiving messages and guidance and affirmation from, it was an option.
[00:45:29] Siobhan Diores: It helped me understand the spiritual world a lot more. My understanding of what I believe, really being like there are souls that will come to the front of the line and say, "I want to do this with you, mom." And you're allowed to say no and that's okay.
[00:45:43] Spirit Babies & Past Selves
[00:45:43] Siobhan Diores: And I still feel this connection. Whatever it is you believe, I do believe that there's other timelines and things where I have two sons. A psychic told me, before I was ever pregnant the first time, told me "You [00:46:00] have these two boys close in age, Irish twin vibes," and that's exactly how that came. I have two friends who've had dreams about me with two little boys. I have one friend and they're very active in their dream world. So they were like, "I had this dream that I'm like at your house, and then I look at the other little boy and they're like, you can see me? They're like, yeah, I can." So it opened up philosophically so much for what I believe in.
[00:46:25] Siobhan Diores: Recently, I had this reading where this person told me that they saw this different spirit baby and after asking a lot of questions and like kind of discerning for myself, I was like, wow, those choices I made, those choices to turn and end a cycle and open new possibilities for my life. And I could never see past this age, but I actually shifted my own story or whatever, however you want to see it, and now there's someone new that might want to come with me and their [00:47:00] journey is going to be so different because they're not going to be born through an abusive marriage.
[00:47:05] Siobhan Diores: That also healed me, because when I had all this guilt about all of that from my son, this concept of the spirit baby and like negotiating with them also helped me accept okay, there's something that his soul, I think, understands that I can't, that sees like, "all right, these two people are young and dumb, but those are my parents and there's something they're going to give me," and I see now why for my son is because he's a powerful artist now. He was going through huge emotional things and now he's developing an art practice that's incredibly talented. He's very talented, I'm learning through with his therapist, he's transmuting huge emotions for huge, fucked-up things he's witnessed and experienced. And that's part of his journey.
[00:47:49] Samantha Young: Yeah. I feel that a lot too. Like the feeling of this, the spirit understanding, 'cause even at the time when I had my abortion, I [00:48:00] felt...
[00:48:00] Siobhan Diores: Was this love, this unconditional love and acceptance from the spirit.
[00:48:04] Samantha Young: Yeah. 'cause at the time it was even like a "not now," cause at the time I still thought I wanted more kids. And so I was just saying not now, and even now that we've arrived on no more kids, so that spirit's never going to be here physically, it's an understanding of because I want to dedicate my limited resources to the child that I have.
[00:48:29] Siobhan Diores: You're going to birth so many other things.
[00:48:32] Samantha Young: It's that too, why I had to leave room for other things, too. Like as much as I love to be a mother, like I've always known that being a mother is not like the basis of my identity or it's not my core path. It's just a path that I'm choosing. One of many. I need the space in my life to to bring other things in right now. I also don't want to die because I have a child who needs me. I don't even know if I could survive another pregnancy.
[00:48:57] Samantha Young: That sense of deep understanding-- and I've come to [00:49:00] recognize this, too, cause when I work with people on the fourth house, I talk a lot about your unlived lives. Like you're talking like alternate timelines, your unlived lives, or even just your former selves, former versions of yourself, they become your guides. You can work with them the same way that people work with their literal ancestors. In your lifetime, you have these guides, yourself at each age, who-- and this is probably also cause I started doing IFS--
[00:49:25] Siobhan Diores: I was just thinking that parts work is so compatible to this, like when I started doing was like, Oh yeah, this is intuitively how I see my journey is like these little parts are loud. Yeah.
[00:49:36] Samantha Young: Yeah. And there's parts that I disagree with heavily, like my 17 year old self is so vastly disgusted and disappointed by my life at this point, but she's got a lot of other really great qualities. So yeah. Part of what inspired digging into that for me was people always bringing up that Sylvia Plath fucking fig tree quote to me
[00:49:57] Siobhan Diores: I don't know it.
[00:49:58] Samantha Young: It's the, [00:50:00] she's writing about she's imagining a fig tree spread out before her and each one is a different life, right? This one is being a housewife and having a loving family, but this one is like being an artist traveling the world and having a string of lovers. And if you pick one, all of the other ones will rot and fall off.
[00:50:15] Samantha Young: Right? And that's just how, and that's the collapsing of timelines is how I've come to understand it. You pick one fig. Yeah, you close down a lot of possibilities and timelines with that, but you also at the same time, open up many more. And so the unlived lives, the versions of you that went on and did the things that you never did, the alternate timeline version of you who does have multiple children, they can still be called upon.
[00:50:41] Samantha Young: They can still be a guide, in a sense, because they have their own experiences, they have their own perspectives. And I think ultimately I choose to believe that they all want the best for you. We all want the best for each other, right? Like, I want the best for alternate timeline me, so I'm going to assume that they feel the same about me or just [00:51:00] even past versions of myself too, deciding that I can be a guide to them, even reaching through time.
[00:51:06] Siobhan Diores: I think that's really helping me to see that like my birth, my active birth doula self, that little savior yourself who was out and determined to improve birth outcomes for all people. I do have to listen to her because there's something in her that's so important to me, while also knowing that like my energy, my physical body cannot keep up with what she wanted to do and what she was really fired up about. But I also want to honor her and listen to her, and she keeps me in my integrity. She keeps me questioning sometimes as I do a lot more online work and a lot more creative paths of advocacy and change.
[00:51:51] Siobhan Diores: Sometimes I have that like, hard kind of social justice warrior in me: is that impactful though? Are you doing [00:52:00] enough? Is being on podcasts talking about birth the same as helping people give birth? And the answer is yes. It's all in just like keeping her, letting her come to the board meeting and still be like, but what are we doing for the people? That is always going to be that part of me that like keeps me in check. So I really love that.
[00:52:20] Samantha Young: Yeah, absolutely. And it does help. I love what you were saying earlier, because I think about when you were talking about the decision to like, live at home, right? Or when you release the idea that you can't do something, you come back around to, "oh, yeah, I just don't want to." That type of decision-making process, I think is very admirable and something that I try to work on too.
[00:52:44] Reframing Resentment As Desire
[00:52:44] Samantha Young: A reframe for myself that I've been doing lately, which flows along the same lines as when when I feel resentful about some aspect of my life, something, right? Something that's happening, something that's not happening. It's usually things that are not happening that I feel resentful about.
[00:52:58] Samantha Young: I'm always like, [00:53:00] okay, so if everything went your way, what would that look like? Okay. I run through that scenario in my head. What would it look like? What would it feel like if everything went the way I wanted it? Okay. So then, can we reframe the resentment to just desire? Just to say, "hey, I just want this and it's okay to want it and not having it doesn't have to be a bad thing, it just means I get to keep wanting it." It's about changing it from resentment about what's not happening to trying to enjoy my emotional experience by turning it into desire. I can be annoyed and resentful about what's not happening, or I can be like, "Oh, but I want this thing so bad, and it's going to feel like X, Y, Z, if this thing happens, or if I get this thing," so I can leave space for it. I can make moves towards it.
[00:53:43] Siobhan Diores: So much more empowering and impactful and effective. I'm like, let me steer it back to that "birth to church founder" pipeline, because being effective really is a guiding thing for me in that. I [00:54:00] was like, how do I show up for these things? The way that I knew how to show up was virtually: I started with holding a monthly-- I called it Refill Your Cup-- a monthly virtual care circle that was free, where people typically pregnant folks and moms would come and we would just move through usually a somatic practice and then a meditation and then integration and sharing and I started to become, again, inspired and moved by my marriage and my family and all the dysfunction. The obsessive question has been, how does change work?
[00:54:38] Becoming A Student of Change
[00:54:38] Siobhan Diores: How do people change? What is the mechanics of this? And I feel like that's what I've become a student of is one, through the birthing then it went into more things of, okay there's a nervous system. Then I studied hypnosis and mediumship and even Reiki and really understanding, what are the mechanics of these [00:55:00] things?
[00:55:00] Siobhan Diores: And alongside that is when I was gathering more online with my Soft Power co-founders, and one of them, Dr. Kiki, hired me to be her spiritual doula, virtual doula for her first baby. And so that startedthree-yearars ago probably this month was our first session. Her baby just turned two. So we met every month for 18 months to sit and make room for the things that were coming up around her birth. She's a transracial adoptee. And so there's a lot of-- There's so much loaded in there.
[00:55:35] Samantha Young: Big feelings.
[00:55:36] Siobhan Diores: Yeah. Yeah. So how do we make room for birthing? If I believe that this is a portal opening and that the baby's trying to come through and that when we surrender to that process, all these other things can pop up that have been dormant and that are begging to be seen, that's how I visualize it in my head.
[00:55:57] Siobhan Diores: I have a very like, time [00:56:00] traveler orientation to existence. But what I see is we open up this portal when we're having a baby that your baby's coming through. But if you've never been to that portal before, you've got a cue that's "hello, I want to be seen," this thing that happened to you when you were eight, "I want to be seen," your grandmother that never was seen before in my years of having 12 children on a farm, and all of these things.
[00:56:24] Siobhan Diores: And that is what I experienced. That's why I think people get so blocked. People can get re-traumatized. That's why I say it's actually not the best for people who've had sexual trauma that's unaddressed to be unmedicated and experiencing all those sensations down there. If you've never dipped into your subconscious before, your birth is not the time to do that.
[00:56:47] Siobhan Diores: But that built my framework of like, how we dig in and how we can work with these things and make room, and so the more that happened and the more I started to see how effective that was and impactful that was, [00:57:00] then I got more and more comfortable loosening on this grip to traditional birth work.
[00:57:07] Co-Founding A Church???
[00:57:07] Siobhan Diores: And as time went on-- I'm collaborating with my three co-founders: Dr. Kiki; Midori, who's an astrologer who comes from a fine arts background; and Flo, who comes from a master's of public health into the yoga and somatics and movement world. Now she's really exploring how kink fits into all of that. And it's really cool to see the ways their paths unfold. Kiki came from, like I said, a transracial adoptee who is a choral professor and a student of the voice and sharing her work. When we came together, it was like, oh, the voice and the pelvic floor are two cells that split, like there's a connection here. And so again, the ancestral algorithm just placed us and dropped us. We're all Saturn in Aquarius. This all incepted during our Saturn return.
[00:57:59] Siobhan Diores: So we're [00:58:00] like four queer, gender expansive, Asian, mixed Asian girls that got called together. And then whatever you believe about other lives and timelines and where we see ourselves, it's a lot of ancient priestess visions of linking up here in 2024, and really seeing, okay, our souls are expansive as fuck. And so why did we come here to this moment here?
[00:58:26] Siobhan Diores: Because we also met doing these different like, spiritual programs that felt bypassy, that we all came out and were like, "are we supposed to be charging?" The messaging of like, "charge your worth." And I'm like I'm worth more than free, but I'm also worth more than 200 dollars, but I'm also-- that advice falls really flat.
[00:58:44] Siobhan Diores: And then "oh, don't assume, you don't need to give discounts to your people because that's not honoring that they're responsible for their money and they know how much they can afford," like all these bullshit things that people tell themselves for why [00:59:00] they get to exit to the jungle and do all the plant medicine and all of that, and I'm like, girl, I've been doing shrooms in the park since I was 15. I don't come from a disillusioned-- like I do believe you all know your path, and so maybe your path in this lifetime truly is for you to dissociate from the material world? I don't know.
[00:59:23] Siobhan Diores: Only you can decide that for yourself, but I'm here for the people who are feeling these things and they're sensing these things. And like when I was pregnant, they just want somebody to say, "you're allowed to do that. Yep, you can do that". Like 99 percent of people who've hired me just want to hear, "yeah, you're allowed to do that. You get to choose whatever you want to do, and you can do that, and here's a group of people who are trying to do that too."
[00:59:50] Siobhan Diores: And so as it went on, as we're collaborating, I think the vision just started to get deeper and bigger and wider, and we founded an LLC [01:00:00] a year ago. That was bringing these practices in a business and again, struggling with us ourselves being anti-capitalist, knowing that the nonprofit industrial complex is not a solution, like starting a church is not inherently a solution. None of these business models are clean, are ethically pure, and you gotta ditch this purity politics to be effective and get shit done.
[01:00:30] Siobhan Diores: So as we were coming up with these first business models of how we're going to fund the message-- and I don't believe this is for everybody, but-- the message for us, specifically, the four of us, was: y'all have the accountability amongst the four of you to responsibly run something like a church, and I want you to trust that you will be provided for, and guess what? We've been provided for. [01:01:00] It could still be super delusional. It's an act of faith.
[01:01:03] Siobhan Diores: I'm not here to say that we started a church to take tax deductible donations because that's the right thing for everybody. You're responsible for sharing those notes, having a board that could vote you off. All of these things are really scary, but you've been given three people to go through it with that you can absolutely trust and that are going to check-- my experience this year was like, we know how to approach each other when somebody needs to be called in.
[01:01:34] People Emerging As Radical Leaders
[01:01:34] Siobhan Diores: That's been the building of resiliency, is okay, can you find the courage to propose a plan to people and believe in it enough that you believe it can resource all of you and everybody that's come in to work on this vision? This shit is so scary. Like, leadership is so scary.
[01:01:53] Siobhan Diores: My idea as a solo entrepreneur, only I had to buy into it. And the customer and the people hiring me, my clients and [01:02:00] customers had to buy into it. But now I need people to buy into it enough to show up every day and work on this plan that my little brain came up with. It takes a lot, but that has been my calling to leadership.
[01:02:12] Siobhan Diores: And it's birth work every day. Like, I'm caring for birthing of every facet of this business. I'm caring for the grief, the death, the showing up no matter the conditions, which all entrepreneurs know. That's what doula work supported me with. But it's been this act of faith in something unseen, and I think that is part of what makes childbirth really beautiful, is that we're preparing with so much hope and faith for an outcome that we aren't quite sure, but you can't tell yourself that as you're going through it.
[01:02:46] Siobhan Diores: You cannot go in thinking like, what if I don't survive this? Like you made that choice way ahead. People can go through that and do often, but typically, you have a baby shower, you put the [01:03:00] gifts together and the room together and you prepare with the faith that this baby is going to come Earthside and they're going to be here and you're going to care for them.
[01:03:08] Samantha Young: It's so many displays of faith over and over again.
[01:03:13] Siobhan Diores: Yes. So that's what I would say. That is how I ended up being a church founder was that faith that strengthened through birth, that strengthened through exiting a marriage and all of these things, like all of these little miracles that I showed myself are like, I just am collecting proof of miracles.
[01:03:32] Siobhan Diores: This is so Jupiter. I'm just like, I collect miracles so that when I make this decision, people can see. People see a Sag rising and they're like, "oh, they're random and risky," and I'm like, no, I'm calculated. I know my my batting average on jumping for a miracle, and I work on my intuition and I work with my ancestors because I'm not shooting in the dark here.
[01:03:55] Samantha Young: I call it Mathematically Assisted Miracles.
[01:03:59] Siobhan Diores: Love that. [01:04:00] Love that. Yeah. And so Soft Power, Church of Soft Power is a mathematically assisted miracle that I just have faith, and the more faith that I grow, the more I trust myself to be in collaboration and trust others. That's the hardest part, is trusting our livelihood with one another, trusting our livelihood into a community to source us and these people that we're getting little whispers from spirit to meet with, and that is part of the experiment.
[01:04:29] Siobhan Diores: Part of the experiment is the "behind the scenes" of how we're doing it. That's why we started live streaming our Monday morning meetings, because I think the story is more in how we do it, in this act of faith in each other and this act of trust building and healing and having a safe place to be triggered and come back and mend and grow together.
[01:04:54] Siobhan Diores: That's the story of Soft Power and why we call ourselves "a church for the spirits of [01:05:00] creativity, care, connection, and change," because it's for everyone to discover their own. It's a safe place. We can't guarantee safety, but with all these practices and studies we've done, we create this environment for people to discover what they believe in, and we're just there to be mirrors: "you get to believe in that." like, you believe in what you want to believe in as long as it upholds life and all these other things. Principles.
[01:05:27] Siobhan Diores: It went from attending births in the night to actually, probably 24-hour commitment in that. But it's our anti-capitalist solution for how to survive in this world, because our dream is to resource artists and creatives and we're choosing very... I'll say this here on this podcast, but it's not going to be on our website, that we are very intentional about choosing the language that we're using because this is a self-trust experiment in how to be [01:06:00] effective with our values. We're going to speak to creativity and we know that is deeply spiritual and mystical, and we're very intentionally not labeling ourselves with all the identities that would get us popular on the internet because we are looking at the long term vision of where this country is headed, and churches are safe institutions, they're protected institutions, and they have been places of refuge. And if we're talking about genuinely creating a sanctuary for trans and queer people, which is who our church is made of, we are being extremely mindful of the ways that we are willing to step out with our privileges and our bodies.
[01:06:44] Siobhan Diores: We're experimenting. But that is what drives experimenting, is being effective with the world that we are inheriting and the world that we're already in, and if it's going [01:07:00] to get more and more dangerous than we know, we're filing in a tax category where we have a higher chance of... I don't know. We can't guarantee anything. I catch myself and I'm like, but I don't really know if that's what's going to happen. We don't really know.
[01:07:14] Samantha Young: I've been thinking about this the whole time. There is so much intentionality behind it being a church, and I have a lot of hope for what y'all are doing because it feels to me like... the churches of Pluto in Aquarius, where it's based on, like you said, a true... I don't know.
[01:07:32] Samantha Young: The intention of a church is supposed to be a safe third space or whatever, but it's also a nexus of community. It's supposed to be an extension of your mycelial network, essentially. And we're going to need those. We're going to need a lot more of those moving forward as just generally marginalized people. And yeah, it's also just reframing what a church can be.
[01:07:56] Samantha Young: I'm loving so much what you've been talking about in terms of [01:08:00] leadership, because, when I was in an MLM for five years, I read so much about leadership. I read so much fucking John Maxwell books.
[01:08:08] Siobhan Diores: Oh my gosh. I had an MLM era.
[01:08:12] Samantha Young: Yeah, and I actually love John Maxwell. I really have no problem with him. His books are really good. He comes from a Christian pastor background, but he's written so many books about leadership, and the main takeaways are pretty much always that a good leader is more concerned with serving their people than being served, and a good leader is always modeling the behaviors. That's really the two main things that stick out to me about leadership when it's being done effectively. It's not the ones who claim, "I am the leader therefore X, Y, Z," it's the ones who say, "Hey, I'm doing this. This is what I'm modeling, the way that I am, and if you want to learn from me, or if you want to place me in that position in your life to be somebody to look up to, or to be led by," which is [01:09:00] also another huge thing too.
[01:09:01] Samantha Young: In our very neoliberal society, there's a lot of aversion to allowing yourself to be led. Every single one of us is raised to be a leader, right? Everybody's got to be the leader. I'm like, "bring back leadership," because it's not that you're a follower and you're a sheeple if you aren't the leader of every gathering, it's that you have the skill of being led, that is a skill in itself, just like leading is. The format of church, I think, is really conducive to allowing both leadership and also being led, and what that can feel like in a way that's not a lot of the gross connotations that can have, especially for people who are like, religiously traumatized.
[01:09:40] Siobhan Diores: Totally. And we are a lay-led church, a lay-led congregation. So that was also intentional to not have-- we were wondering at first, do we need to all go get ordained as ministers and do that? And that was a possibility and maybe something that still happens, but the lay-led part that really [01:10:00] clicked was like, yeah, this is us modeling that we're here to organize and coordinate and to lay foundations and to be protectors of this sanctuary space, but we are not the spiritual leaders. We may share practices because the four of us co-founders share identities, but these practices are how our ancestors oriented to the energy of holding a space. Your ancestors have your own ways, and we want you to bring them and explore them too.
[01:10:29] Siobhan Diores: And leadership really is to me, my driving force. In fact, my personal business that was born this year that I will be sharing more-- I've changed the name on Instagram, that was about it, but it's Mother of PEARL. Shout out to Sam Scharrer, the Vibe Caster, who I hired for my rebrand. They channeled this name. Mother of PEARL is the acronym for People Emerging As Radical Leaders.
[01:10:53] Siobhan Diores: And yeah, I got a little chill again.
[01:10:56] Samantha Young: I know.
[01:10:56] Siobhan Diores: They hit me up one day and was like, I [01:11:00] got this name that just came through, wondering what you think. I was like, that's fricking epic and exactly what I'm here to do. And my stack, my ninth house Leo Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are like, yes, you are here to mother. Also mother the way that I mother, which is by example, which is through empowerment and curiosity and play and autonomy and leadership.
[01:11:29] What Is Soft Power?
[01:11:29] Siobhan Diores: The reason why Soft Power really is the people we serve, we say artists and we want all people not because they're people who come from an artist background, but we're like everyone needs to see themselves as an artist and a leader because you're leading yourself, you're leading your household, you're leading your family, whatever that is. And the key thing that I believe we need, or at least the lane we're called to support, is that creativity relationship through the [01:12:00] intuition, because that ties back to all the birth stuff.
[01:12:03] Siobhan Diores: The biggest investment in this country is to disconnect us from our creativity and our creative autonomy so that we cannot imagine and build something beyond, and so I firmly believe that. And that's what Soft Power like really stands on is, like you said, we need a different type of leader. We need a different type of celebrity. People who are celebrated are those who know how to trust themselves and know how to discern and are willing to use their voice and to accept whatever outcomes and consequences and just make a choice and stand on it.
[01:12:40] Siobhan Diores: And that is what we're here to empower. That's why I'm in these calls sometimes like "I'm going to cry," and I used to think that was so weak of me. I genuinely, up until this year was like, oh my God, I hate that I cry when I start speaking about what I care about. Someone had to tell me, "do you know how powerful it is, though, to watch you just be willing [01:13:00] to cry and not run away when you start crying because how passionate you are about something or how deeply something hits you? Like, people need to see that people are willing to feel that and still show up and pick something and give it a shot and then be willing to accept when it's time to end and recognize the end of that cycle."
[01:13:21] Siobhan Diores: And so that's what I really believe: the leaders that we need are people who are tapped in with their creativity, who are tapped into the concept of life being a cycle and not this constant light. That is the consumer capitalism that has bled into us. It's like, not knowing when to pause and rest, when to let something go, when to release something or someone. We had a fifth co-founder who released themselves, and that was hard for all of us because we're such good friends, and it was really hard to say, "I freaking love y'all as my chosen family, and I know this isn't right for me."
[01:13:58] Siobhan Diores: And that's why it all [01:14:00] comes back to that leadership being connection to your creativity and voice, because I really think only you can decide that. And that's a trust that I try to uplift, and every time I feel like my trust is dwindling in a team situation, I'm like, how can I create the environment for people to feel connected with what's right for them and feel safe enough to tell me that? Cause I've had a lot of wounding of people being like, "You're really intense. You're hard to say no to," and I'm like, but that's a you thing. That has nothing to do with me.
[01:14:31] Siobhan Diores: But also learning, people feel like it's a scam when you're like, "I just want to hear what you really think." People don't feel safe, even with all of that. And that was crushing for me. That was like, "Oh my God, you don't trust me?" And so again, leading by example, stop asking and go work on the little, create the environment that is nourishing for all these things you want to see.
[01:14:58] The 5th House-11th House Axis
[01:14:58] Samantha Young: Yep. [01:15:00] Absolutely. And I was thinking about astrology while you were talking, because in astrology, the fifth house in the chart is represented by children and creativity and art, and childbirth, whatever. And I think about the fact that the fifth house follows the fourth house and the fourth house is your base where you're creating from, right? It's like the mass of all of the experiences and all the ancestral info that you're born pre-programmed with. All of that comes from the fourth house. And then what follows, like what comes out of that in the fifth house, is that creativity.
[01:15:36] Samantha Young: And I loved when you mentioned being a student of change, because that's the whole process of birthing anything, right? Even childbirth itself. The first time you go through childbirth, it's probably the largest change you've ever gone through, right? It's like your initiation, for some people, into being a student of change, but really change is just birth, right? Or death. It's all just part of that same [01:16:00] loop.
[01:16:00] Samantha Young: It just was giving me a lot of thoughts about the fifth house being opposite from the 11th house, which is where-- I put the internet and social media in the 11th house. These two houses having a relationship with each other. Like you said, sharing what you truly feel with other people is such a purified, distilled example of that relationship between those two things, of having the vulnerability to tap into yourself, which is like step one of the creative process, but then also to share it.
[01:16:32] Samantha Young: And to me, I'm like, yeah, that's church. I'm like, that's, that sounds like church to me. Or at least a version of church that I would happily go to. Even the versions of church I have been to that are the really strictly religious kinds, it's then what the fuck is the testimony? It's people going up there and crying about how they feel about Jesus.
[01:16:50] Samantha Young: But it's much more vulnerable. And so I love that you're leading by example too. I'm like, yeah, be a crier. I'm trying to be more of a public crier. In my day-to-day life, I [01:17:00] cry all the time, but I still have that thing about crying publicly. I'm trying to unlock it. I'm trying to get there.
[01:17:06] Siobhan Diores: I believe in you. I really believe in you. I'm the Cancer to your Capricorn right now. I'm like, yes, just cry.
[01:17:12] Samantha Young: Like I want to so bad.
[01:17:14] Covert Anti-Capitalism
[01:17:14] Siobhan Diores: I love hearing you speak to what church means or should mean for you. Cause that really was an inception point probably three-years ago, as I said to my friend, "I just want a place where we can gather and rest and eat together and do hobbies and exchange mutual aid and blah, blah, blah," and she was like, "what you're describing sounds like a church." And I was like, why don't I ever want to go to those? And so she's the one who, my friend Mitzi reminded me, "Remember when you had that epiphany that what you want is a church? I remember." And I'm like, yep, exactly. That's all I want, because that's what I see, is that belonging. That's why for a long time, I was so obsessed with like, [01:18:00] pre-colonial spirituality and judging why people would want to still be Christians or part of a church, even though that was violently forced on us, and now I get it.
[01:18:12] Siobhan Diores: I'm like, they are one of the only places where people can exchange mutual aid and be provided for and be among people that look like them right now, because I found a couple of radical churches and it just wasn't there. The music wasn't hitting. It was very white. And I was like, why don't people want to be here? I'm like, oh, yeah, because belonging matters more than the doctrine itself. Just being amongst people, being in connection with others with similar experiences, that's more powerful than what we're even saying we believe in, and we don't have to say too much.
[01:18:47] Siobhan Diores: And so that's why I'm more comfortable standing now as a church founder, is just trusting that's people will feel it. And I've keep receiving affirmation of that. I met somebody who experienced a [01:19:00] Soft Power at an event at the First Unitarian of LA, and he was like, "this is all really cool, and I love this and that, but I feel like you guys are also like, undercover radical." And I was like, "you don't know how much it means to hear you say that and pick up on that."
[01:19:16] Siobhan Diores: Cause he was like, "yeah, I really feel that embodied in what you're saying," and I'm like, that's what I want: I want people to feel the anti-capitalism. I don't to say the word anti-capitalism. And that's what I'm practicing, is just embodying these things and trusting that those who get it will get it.
[01:19:34] Samantha Young: Oh my gosh. I love that. There is something very powerful and-- I think about this a lot-- very subversive about being the thing without naming the thing, and letting people arrive at it on their own. Because when you lead with a label, sometimes it just plants so many ideas in somebody's head that they sometimes can never get past them. It makes a lot of sense. And it would be very different if you guys were [01:20:00] leading with like, "radical anti-capitalist church," like I think Soft Power, just even in the wording-- cause I believe a lot in names are very powerful, so even just the wording of "Soft Power" invites you in. It feels like it's inviting you in to something instead of standing and screaming about what it is.
[01:20:18] Siobhan Diores: Yeah. And that is the reminder in the name for us, because we're all raging feminists at the end of the day. There's also something very sacred about being willing to say all those things with your chest. And I think I'm only comfortable softening now, I don't have to say it because I've probably screamed it a million times, all these things I believe in, and Soft Power for me is that reminder to bring it back to the power. It's creative power, and seeing that name is what reels me in sometimes, because I'm not always feeling soft, and also discerning when needs somebody to rage and someone to bring that sword and torch or whatever and just [01:21:00] be like, "no." Soft Power is a spell over ourselves to remind us: bring it back to what's impactful and effective again. Thanks for that.
[01:21:09] Samantha Young: Yeah.
[01:21:11] Siobhan Diores: So people can join Soft Power in our virtual sanctuary on our website, WithSoftPower.Org. All of our events are held in the same Zoom room, because we really take the frequency seriously in cultivating that frequency.
[01:21:26] Siobhan Diores: So drop in or RSVP, or you can watch us on our YouTube channel, @WithSoftPower, every Monday morning, where we stream our Moonday grounding meetings and you can get a little behind the scenes of our day-to-day as church founders.
[01:21:43] Siobhan Diores: Other than that, we have our free membership called Village In The Sky, and that's just for people to stay connected. Everything that we offer right now is free and open to the public, but the Village In The Sky is a place to really connect and build, and [01:22:00] that's what we're looking forward to in 2025 is a lot more organizing opportunities and co creative opportunities in there.
[01:22:09] Samantha Young: I love that. I've been online since I was like eight years old, so.
[01:22:14] Siobhan Diores: Dude, I love it. I'm like, this is what I dreamt of as a kid and I just accepted it. I'm like, yeah, I'm an Aquarius moon. Of course. Even Midori, she's just always, "Every time I just know you're in your feels and I know that you're going through the most like intense shit, and then I see you on Threads, just like responding." That's how I process. And that is my line, is I'm going to reach to the internet for random connection. I'm going to be on Reddit to heal. Okay, that's my workshop coming next year. My Healer Is Reddit.
[01:22:49] Samantha Young: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I feel that. Absolutely. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm very excited to share your church and also just you with the world.
[01:22:59] [01:23:00]
[01:23:02] Outro
[01:23:02] Samantha Young: All right, friends, that's a wrap for this week's conversation. If you're anything like me, you'll be digesting the threads of this conversation, like how creative power can be a tool of resistance, how we can navigate change without losing sight of ourselves, how embracing uncertainty leads to profound transformations... there's a lot of cud to chew on here.
[01:23:26] Samantha Young: To our listener who shared that incredible question, thank you again. Your words, though I did not read them during our conversation, were directly woven through this entire exchange. And so I hope that was made obvious. Change is never linear or simple, but that doesn't make it any less worthwhile.
[01:23:45] Samantha Young: And we can all be Kim. And we can all be students of change whenever we decide to. So remember that whatever direction you choose, you're allowed to honor your craft within that and within whatever restrictions [01:24:00] will be present. in your new life, and you're still allowed to honor your evolving desires throughout that process.
[01:24:08] Samantha Young: They can coexist, even if it feels complex or wrong, or if it goes against anything that you've been taught to want or taught to believe is desirable.
[01:24:19] Samantha Young: And like I said, there's a new moon in Capricorn that's rounding out 2024 for us and Capricorn energy being all about structure and commitment in the long game makes this a perfect time to reflect on what's worth carrying forward and what needs to be left behind as we move into a new calendar year.
[01:24:37] Samantha Young: So let's not romanticize this. Capricorn and Saturn ask us for honesty and reality. Not perfection, not pretty presentation. So as you set your intentions or release, whatever you're releasing, whatever you're doing for this new moon, keep it grounded. Think of it as, as building a foundation for 2025 brick [01:25:00] by brick, instead of some kind of grand sweeping overhaul.
[01:25:04] Samantha Young: And speaking of strong foundations, I do want to highlight two amazing resources, which Siobhan uplifted during our conversation. The first is Cornerstone Doula Trainings in San Francisco, an organization redefining what care and support can look like Siobhan mentioned. Their work is. Really a testament to the power of community and education.
[01:25:27] Samantha Young: And of course, Sam Scharrer, the vibe caster who Siobhan also mentioned, whose work I am a fan of their cosmic and practical grounding is really a gift to anyone who's lucky enough to work with them. If you haven't checked out her offerings yet. Now would be the time. Very much recommend Sam's work.
[01:25:45] Samantha Young: And thank you, listener, as always for being here, for listening, for allowing these conversations to stretch your heart and your mind. Thank you for being a part of my 2024 and this incredible project that I [01:26:00] was able to birth, because I was able to create space for it in my life when it was ready to be born.
[01:26:07] Samantha Young: I'm so touched that anybody takes the time to listen to these conversations. They mean the world to me. It means the world to me that you're here, looking forward to 2025. I've already got some amazing guests lined up for the next few episodes so I can't wait to bring those to you. And yeah, keep exploring, keep evolving, keep honoring your creativity, keep questioning why you want the things you want.
[01:26:34] Samantha Young: And until next time, take care of yourselves, take care of each other.