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Well, hello there and welcome to a special edition of the Tony Robbins podcast.
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My name is Mary B and I m here with Sage Robbins.
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Hello, Mary B. Hello, Sage Robbins.
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And you know, we re sitting down and the impetus of this edition, this episode of the podcast happens to be Mother s Day 2022.
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but we want to make a special announcement right out of the gates in that we don t want this to be another podcast that s just for moms for moms by moms that s not what this is at all so disclaimer right right on the up front that this is a conversation for everyone and having said that i do want to ask you sage what is motherhood to you and then why should
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Everyone stick around For this conversation.
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Don t don t turn it off yet.
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If you re like, oh, here we go a conversation for moms again Well, it s it s beautiful.
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Thank you, Mary B You know, I think the definition and the reality of motherhood has evolved over the years for myself and
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And experientially, my own path to actually being a biological mother and being a mother has been over a 21-year flight.
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And what I recognize now, having a child, is that mother energy has been alive in me always.
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And as a younger woman, I wanted that selfish identity or longing to be a mother.
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And at times when I didn t recognize the gift of like mother energies were already flowing through me, you know, I think the almost like a broader view from today s standpoint, the way I perceive it is in the way I experience it is motherhood is really it s sponsoring a life.
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And I ve had the gift, we ve had the gift, you know, we re both new moms at this stage, to experience that with a child.
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And yet I also recognize that every day of my life, every day of all of our lives, life gives us an opportunity to serve life, to sponsor life, to support life,
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love life and an individual, whether that be through, you know, helping support an animal or, you know, taking care of our parents.
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I think that s the beautiful gift of this rhythm and this cycle of life, of life comes full circle and allows us to touch it in a meaningful way.
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So I think whether we re male or female, we all have both, you know, mother and father energies within us.
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And I, you know, at this stage, I think just the awareness of and the cultivation of mother energies is what really heals.
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You know, if you think of every great, especially a mother who is well in mind, you know, she has that capacity to unconditionally love, accept,
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allow, understand, you know, she s compassionate even if, you know, her beloved or her child has behavior that s maybe less desirable.
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There still may be consequences, but there s a universal knowing within her of knowing her beloved s essence.
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And I think, you know, in the world today, somehow that s been lost, you know, lost of the innocence that we re all here and we all meet in this, you know, thing called earth school.
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And, um, you know, we re all doing the best we can and we all miss at times just like our children will, you know, we can all make mistakes.
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Uh, but that unconditional aspect of love, um, it changes the world.
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And it changes our life by experiencing it as a mom.
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I mean, I don t know for yourself, but it certainly, you know, changed mine.
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But it also makes me recognize that, oh my gosh, this was happening before I was ever a mother.
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And this is happening every day of my life when, you know, we re able to serve those around us.
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Wow, Sage, that s a really beautiful notion.
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I love that.
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And there was a lot in there.
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So I want to follow up on a few things.
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Of course, the notion of unconditional love and the way it can be a balm and change our lives and our world.
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But the other thing that you said that I just find so interesting is that we sponsor life, that motherhood to you is sponsoring life.
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So again, before we lose those high-powered alpha achievers out there, if we haven t lost you yet, if you re listening to this, hear that this really truly is not just for mothers, because as you heard Sage say, you call it sponsoring life.
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That s not kind of specific to any,
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Gender or any anything.
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It s that s a very interesting word to use to me the word sponsor I want to know what that means to you because to me it conjures up Images like in the connotation say for example in the context of a a for example, like you re your father.
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Yes who has over 50 years of sobriety and he is such Such a unique example.
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He sponsors so many men in the program
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And so sponsorship to me is one who kind of takes responsibility to mentor to you called it sponsor life.
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I think that s a really beautiful way to say it.
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I think that means to me to advocate for life as a teacher, as a coach, as a chaperone, as a mentor.
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I just want to put other words to it.
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So if you lose your mother, what else, you know, what else does that mean?
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A sponsor of life?
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Well, I think, you know, generally, it s like we offer our life in service to another.
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So whether it s, you know, gosh, it expresses in so many different forms.
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Obviously, you know, you mentioned, you know, a my mommy and daddy are both, you know, in the program, and they certainly sponsor people, there s opportunities for us to
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offer our life in a meaningful way, to offer our time.
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Sometimes it s not even being a teacher or a mentor.
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Sometimes it s actually just being an ear and having another feel seen and appreciated and loved in a meaningful way.
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And there s so many roles and identities that we could put on that.
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I mean, you could really think of any role, and I feel like those roles, those identities, they offer us a thread if we re really connected to our hearts and we understand why we re put here on this planet, to really connect and to be present with others and to offer our life and service to another.
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I think that that s, I think we re all called to do that.
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And we do it in all of our own unique way.
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I think that s, you know, it all comes together and it all expresses in its own unique way.
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Some people really have a passion for animals and they re sponsoring animals, maybe helping them through a shelter, you know, saving them out of, you know, slaughter or something of that nature.
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It can touch, you know, life expresses and animates through us in such unique ways.
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But I think that s how I perceive, at this stage of my life, motherhood, especially looking back to when I quote-unquote wasn t a mother.
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She was expressing those mother energies, they re universal, you know.
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When you say mother energies, I think, you know, and we ve talked about this before, Tony talks about it, especially at his program, your program Date with Destiny, that there is a kind of masculine and feminine energy that we all, first of all, we all have both some spectrum of both and there s a wholeness to that.
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And so in the same way that you and I as women
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have access to our masculine the same way that men have access to their feminine.
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And there are many archetypal historical examples of mother divine energy.
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So maybe you could speak to that a little bit about these longstanding examples that we have in our culture, different cultures express them different ways.
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Some examples that come to mind for you, I m sure.
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Well, gosh, if you look back historically at ancient cultures and societies, Mother Divine was utterly revered throughout Egypt, Greece, throughout the East.
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There was different archetypes, all the many faces of Mother Divine and how she expresses and usually unique to the culture.
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If you look at modern religion today, whether it be Catholicism, Mother Mary, uh,
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Beloved Guadalupe from Mexico, Quan Yin, the embodiment of compassion and mercy, Lady Tara from Tibetan culture and lineage, and as well Kali and Durga from India or from the East.
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They all express fractals or the many faces of Mother Divine.
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Yes, that s right.
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I love the different archetypes.
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And you and Tony teach this in your Platinum Seminar, even the different archetypes of woman.
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We were speaking with a friend of ours the other day who was talking about the four mothers in Judaism.
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Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.
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I personally grew up in a household steeped in the Catholic faith.
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My father went to an elementary school.
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He grew up in New York City.
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He went to an elementary school in Queens called Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which is just a notion I really love as one way to refer to the blessed mother.
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um there s one way to refer to the blessed mother is the untire of knots yes or our lady of golden happiness and all these different are you know queen of peace comforter to the afflicted these ideas and to me when i think about what being a mother what tapping into feminine energy means that is the essence of
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what I strive for and in times when I feel out of balance that s what I hope to get back to is these core essentials like untying knots, like golden happiness, like comforting the afflicted.
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I think that s to me the essence of the universality of motherhood but I do think that that wholeness is found in men and women and children as we see
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and our little one that just, I mean, it just, these children just brim with this naturally.
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It s beautiful to recognize the, you know, divine attributes that we re all born with, you know, and you expressed, I mean, I think it s such a beautiful
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metaphor, the untire of knots.
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If you think of any well-minded mother, you know, when our little ones are conflicted or having a challenge, you know, you help them through your love, through your compassion, through your empathy in those moments to help to untangle any knots internally within mind or any upset or
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through inquiry, asking a question that helps bring a broader perspective.
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That s love, it s nourishment, it s mercy, it s compassion, all the forgiveness.
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Once again, it s like if your child has a behavior that is less ideal, there s such a vastness of
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of acceptance and a vastness of forgiveness, because it s our nature when we are in our essence to express that.
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It s our nature to offer that.
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Love is just extending through us when we are in our true nature and in our true essence.
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Sage, that is beautiful and I love the words that you re putting to it, the vastness of forgiveness, the nourishment, the mercy, the compassion.
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You mentioned the word compassion of course a few times here and one, you know I m a word nerd and one little fact I just am tempted to bring up here is that I ve learned that in Hebrew
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The word for compassion shares the same root word in Hebrew as the word womb.
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Yes.
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And so this likeness between compassion and womb, I think, is a really interesting connection.
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And, you know, even sometimes in seminars, if you guys have ever been with Tony in a seminar, you may have heard him ask, well, what if your child had, you know, the most horrific behavior you could imagine?
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Imagine the worst case scenario.
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Wouldn t you still love your child?
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And of course, you know, you would frown upon their behavior if it was if it was truly the most horrific thing you could imagine.
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But I mean, take it to the extreme.
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Wouldn t you still love your child?
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Yes.
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And undoubtedly the person always says, yes, of course I would.
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No matter what my child did, I would love them like there would never be a lack of love.
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And so, again, here s that essence of the universality of what we re talking about and why it s not just for mothers, because imagine
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If we could extend that kind of unconditional love and acceptance in every direction, not just to our own children,
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but to the far left to the far right whatever think of the people that make you go oh not them yes but what would a world look like if we could all love each other with that mother s love whoa in a world that we see stricken with war right now when people say what s the answer i think there s a hint of it somewhere in what we re talking about right now
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I agree and I think you know in an external world right now where there is such confusion and discord and externally blaming sometimes innocently shaming or you know this versus you know good versus bad or you know this side versus that side
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I don t know, there s a sweet middle ground and in that space of understanding and connectedness to recognizing, I think, just the human experience.
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We re all, I think that s where we all meet, you know, we all have our trials and tribulations and we all have
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circumstances that are painful.
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Our little ones have circumstances that are painful in moments.
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The beautiful gift of holding the space for another, the beautiful space of presence, of beingness.
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A lot of times we think that we have to do something and I think it s also the gift of not doing, actually just sitting with somebody.
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Sitting with somebody if you ve never had the privilege to sit with somebody when they re transitioning and leaving this earth There s as much of a sweetness and a beauty in that reality is there is Birthing into this existence.
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I ve had the privilege to be with a few different individuals and I don t know there s just such a an aliveness because there s nothing else but you know the the breath of that moment every life is so ripe and
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There s such a beauty and I think that s once again those mother energies she renews, she restores, she offers, she gives of herself and adapting and tuning to the circumstance.
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I think once again it s like any great mother walks in and
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You know, you re feeling and you re tuning to the room or to your family and seeing what s needed or not needed.
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I think that s the gift of our awareness and practice as offering both the gift of mother and father energies, both because they both have a place.
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We just happen to be speaking of the mother principle.
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Yes.
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and you hit there on several kind of virtues and values that um whether it s offering and nurturing and you know a curiosity a holding space a compassion an assumption of innocence a loving um all loving nature are there what do you think are the important values and virtues to instill in children or maybe it s to
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you know, to exemplify yourself as a mother, as a parent, as a sponsor of life?
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It s a beautiful question.
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My experience and what I recognize is that these little ones come through with such wisdom, such innate knowledge, such an innate joy and capacity to love and to connect.
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So I don t know that we re instilling, but I do feel that for us to be an example of a beautiful human being, whatever that looks like for you, to embody and to live the attributes, because we can t ask of another what we re not offering or living ourselves, whether that be kindness and consideration or gratitude.
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um of life it s so interesting because like for my own in my own path and watching you know this our little one here develop and and grow and evolve it s number one all I want is her happiness you know I have no expectation of what she should be or shouldn t be I just
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I want what she wants.
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I think love wants what the other wants.
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I want what makes her happy, what she feels attracted to or pulled to.
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I don t know.
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I think it s different than I thought it would be because I think there would be so much more that I would be teaching her.
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And I ve never felt more like a student.
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I ve never felt more like just learning by watching, by observing, and actually doing less.
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Oh, we have a visitor.
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Visitor in the studio.
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Hi, Tony.
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How are you?
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I just wanted to say, where s your little camera here?
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There he is.
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There he is.
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I just wanted to say that these are the two best moms I know and the best people to cover this subject because they don t just mother little ones, they mother everybody they love.
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Just bring a level of unconditional love that only mothers know how to give to everybody.
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I just want you guys to know I m your biggest fans.
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And for all those listening, I hope you really enjoy this podcast and I hope you have a magnificent Mother s Day.
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Love you, honey.
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Thank you, Tone.
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Well, that was a nice surprise.
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And you know, Tony brings up an interesting point right there, because your
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to motherhood was a journey as it is for so many couples, for so many women, men, folks of all strokes, mothers and others, anyone who s wanting to bring a child into the world, it can truly be a journey and so yours was over two decades but we know that you of course were a mother, you embodied this energy well before you quote-unquote
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quote, became a mother.
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But even that, I don t even like to put that language to it because, and I think it s important that we mark that out here explicitly, is that the path to motherhood is not just carrying a child or even, you know,
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having a trip like this is this is not that and you were a mother and Embodied this mother energy long before this baby got here And so I m wondering if you could speak to you I mean those of us if you know stage well everyone around us here in our inner circle Everybody kind of calls her ma.
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Hey, ma.
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Hey, ma
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mom and dad mama so she was a mother to many before this little person came to earth and I m wondering if you could I would assume that you felt that that you felt that that was part of your role even then yes and how was that different and and can you talk to about specifically about being a mom before before baby without baby not even just before without baby altogether
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you know uh it s true i feel like i ve been a mom my whole life whether it s uh taking care and mothering my family or i have a soft spot for elderly people um you know those that enter this home or our workspace or our sphere uh or even animals not just people i was gonna say she does not discriminate any species squirrels birds you name it if it rocks up our driveway it s coming in she s gonna mother it
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I definitely have a soft spot for animals.
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We had this beautiful pelican that was all entwined and entangled with fishing wire.
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It was one of the magic moments of my year last year, just the interaction helping this little one get free.
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And so it s been a longer journey than expected to motherhood.
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And I started, gosh, I think the first time I ever carried life, I was in my mid-20s.
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And it was the first time I also miscarried.
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I was around 26 or 27.
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I was five and a half months or five months pregnant.
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At that time, I will never forget the grieving, the loss, the longing, all those realities to that experience.
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have the wisdom I have now, you know, I can look back now and really see the perfection of life and watch all of life unfold so perfectly.
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And, you know, my experience was as I let go of what I wanted, I know this sounds crazy, but, you know, in my 20s, late 20s, early 30s, I very much wanted to have a child and
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you know, there s so many external pressures and, you know, family dynamics.
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It s like, oh gosh, when are you going to have a little one?
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When are you going to, you know what I mean?
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And so, you know, it was, I think it was collective and as well, it was my own.
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But it was for me.
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And as I surrendered that, as I accepted what life was offering me,
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Life was so much more beautiful than what I was desiring and I didn t know it at that time.
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I think that s a beautiful gift of evolution as we as human beings.
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It s like through life it humbles us and opens us and tunes us.
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and through that process of surrender and accepting what life was offering me, you know, this life became that much more beautiful because, you know, this path was chosen for me and I showed up and here I am after all these years and it s, you know, looking back in hindsight, you know, there s a different level of wisdom and context to things but
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there s just such a sweet beauty to the journey that I ve been on.
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I had my own mothering of myself that I didn t even know was even needed.
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I probably, even at that stage in my 20s, I didn t even recognize, you know, the awareness to me.
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I think I looked at motherhood as an extension of my own ignorance.
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I didn t recognize that it was also, it was an inflow and a receiving, of course, and a great lover.
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There s a giving and a receiving.
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There s an offering and a receiving both.
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perspectives happening.
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And I think as there was, you know, I experienced a number of miscarriages in my 30s as well.
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And gosh, there were so many times that it felt like, you know, I would never be quote, unquote, a biological mother.
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But what happened through that journey, it was my own path back to my own wholeness.
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I think we already are that.
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It s probably just the recognition of that.
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And part of that path was actually learning to nurture myself, what I would extend to another.
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I m a lover.
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I love to take care of people and light people up.
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And yet, it would feel so natural for me to do that to anybody in my proximity.
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And yet, did I always take the time to take care of this body and being, and I didn t, I didn t.
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And I think at this stage through life experience and also just looking back, I recognize like, oh my gosh, I m so grateful that this little one came now, because I stumbled upon through grace the gift of nourishing and mothering my own self.
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I think that there s, you know, another thing that you and Tony teach at nearly every program is, you know, when you re on that airplane and there s turbulence, do they say, okay, put your oxygen mask on you first.
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It s like, even if you re sitting next to an infant.
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So when you speak about mothering of self and letting that love come to yourself first and the importance of that, whether you do have children,
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for your own so that you can be your best self for them or whether you don t have children there is even when you in the in the beginning there when you mentioned as a sponsor it also it reminds me of anyone who is in whether you re in the program or whether you ve had any kind of sobering up of any kind if you have to leave an old self and give birth to a new identity then you do have to kind of mother yourself
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through a transition and you have to be there for yourself in a way that almost that no one else can but you.
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And so there s that kind of, you know, essential survival oxygen mask kind of love that, especially if you re at a point like that, that also has to be celebrated, I think, for all those who have made that transition as well.
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And I think you know whether it be addiction but even without addiction you know we re all you know pulling our pieces back.
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That s a beautiful way to say it.
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And we all I think there s life and birth there s like the I can look at a picture of myself a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago and think oh my
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Gosh, I have compassion for her.
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I see her and from this perspective, a little more life experience, a little more wisdom.
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It s like I would choose differently today than I did a year ago.
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And once again, I think that s the gift that this human experience offers us is the gift of evolution, the gift to begin again, the gift to be reborn, the gift to renew, to restore.
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And I think that that s the essential energies of Mother Energies is that restoration.
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And that s the beautiful gift when we re holding the space for another through sponsoring life.
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I love that you ve mentioned AA.
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My own parents, you know, as I mentioned, they ve sponsored individuals their whole life.
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You know, there was always strangers coming into our home and whether it be through the holidays or, you know, Christmas dinner or something of that nature and, you know, the welcoming and the celebration with this beautiful human and it schooled us as children to accept and to open our heart and our mind and selfishly sometimes it was like, no, I just want to be with our, you know what I mean?
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now being an adult woman and being able to live that reality and pay that forward in my own unique way.
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I don t know, I think that s the universe.
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I think that s where we all meet.
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And I really feel like that s the gift, whether you re a parent, whether you re not, whether you re, you know, you re longing to be a mother.
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In my longing to be a mom, a lot of times in my own suffering, because of what life was offering me was different than my own, you know, mind of the thought of the way I wanted or perceived it to be.
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In those moments, I was missing what life was offering me.
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And yet from this perspective, I can look back and be like, oh, gosh, sweetheart, there was so much that was happening, you know, and so much life to be lived and to be experienced right in front of us.
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And I think that s the beautiful gift of this journey we re all on.
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You ve said this a few ways using words like acceptance and surrender and out of our control.
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That thread I ve noticed has kind of woven through a few of your responses here today.
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and that s something too that I think is so interesting when I think of in the past I suppose maybe before I became a mom when I think of a parent I kind of think of more control and I realize that
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honestly what would what would make a great loving parent is realizing that at some point you have to surrender control not to your child not hand over the reins and let your kid you know do anything you want but also that their path is in many ways while you have influence as Tony would say you have influence but you don t have control and especially you know like we have friends for example
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um that have lost a child to an opioid addiction and so to see a parent kind of the tragedies of of parenthood and motherhood too when you have that love immeasurable love and this is something that you have to at some point surrender and say for whatever reason this child s path is is out of my control
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um and even i you know we we both have we know parents that are outstanding people and outstanding parents and maybe their children are making decisions that they wish they weren t making and they could be harmful in fact and even that part of that s life that s not just motherhood or parenthood that s it is wow there is a level of surrender
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whatever word feels true to anyone listening, maybe surrender.
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If it s not surrender, it s acceptance.
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It s acknowledgement that I, little me, do not have as much control as maybe I wish I had.
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But there s like an evolution that I think that comes especially in any kind of parenting role of
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Yeah, this is out of my hands.
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Let it be.
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You know, let go, let God as my mom would say, there s something there.
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It s like, I m just starting now to understand all these little isms and catchphrases that my mom used to make fun of.
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And now I m like, man, she was right.
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She was so right.
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You know,
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Your mom is lovely.
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I think, you know, we re blessed with amazing parents.
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My parents as well, like they had two of my siblings, you know, dealt with addiction, opioid addiction.
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And, you know, watching the pain of that, watching the, you know, the worry, the obsession, the enabling, you know, all the dynamics that happen in the human play.
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And it s ironic, you know, I thought I knew what surrender was in my 30s, in my 20s.
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I remember reading books about it.
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It s like, oh yeah, I surrender all the time.
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The truth is, is we do in each breath, you know, we let go and we come back to a greater truth.
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But wow, you know, I think one of the greatest gifts in AA is, you know, the notion of one day at a time or their prayer, God grant
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me, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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I said that prayer throughout my entire life, and I remember praying it, and I said the words, and I didn t understand the words.
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And from this perspective, the wisdom in that prayer, the wisdom to know what you can change and what you can t change, the wisdom to know that
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gosh, I m completely out of control, and that there s a larger force that beats our hearts, that breathes us, and I think surrendering to God of understanding, to whatever that looks like for you,
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I think that s where we come to a surrender of peace.
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I think that s really what faith, no matter what that looks like, whether it s in a religion, outside of a religion, in an organization, you know, life is kind enough.
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It gives us a choice to find what s true uniquely to ourselves.
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And my parents were super cool.
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My mom, you know, you mentioned your mama.
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My mama was the experience of, you know, gosh, she embodied mother energies and was overflowing and is overflowing with life, with joy, with passion, with playfulness.
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Cookies.
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Cookies.
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And always nourishing, whether it s, you know, you walk into her home and my parents  home and
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You just feel like enveloped, you feel hugged by that space and you know my mama s love of life and my parents servitude to life.
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Just like yesterday I called my parents and you know they re in their 70s at this stage and there was a family member that
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was in the hospital and dealing with some, you know, challenges and depression and, you know, my mom and daddy, they were sponsoring life, you know, they re looking to be present and just to be an ear and to, you know, be a mirror to this individual that they re loved.
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they re a great example like anyone who knows your mom and dad you have a big family I do but there s so many people that know your mom and dad that like I might bump into somewhere at one of our events or something and everybody s like oh mom and dad we re just like the number of people that call your mom and dad it s true mom and dad that s another thing that I just think speaks to this theme that we re trying to hammer in here is that it s not
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we re not limiting this to biological children by any stretch because there s so many ways to sponsor life, to advocate for life, to just to be that mentor for someone.
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Age aside, it s not even that.
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It s not about
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it s just about so much more, it s love.
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I mean, it s love.
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Let s just call it what it is.
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It truly is.
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And I think it s beautiful to recognize that.
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Like I look at, you know, my parents are such a beautiful example, but all the ways that, uh, you know, they express love all the ways that they support all the way, their thoughtfulness, the consideration, the kindness,
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I was blessed with a remarkable example, and you know, you asked me of what I would want to instill upon, you know, our daughter, and I think it s just that.
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It s, you know, we re gifted and blessed with the gift of life.
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We wake up in the morning, it s like, hello.
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I m alive.
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We re spinning on this planet and my heart is beating and just even sitting here there s these lights and this microphone and this is going to be projected out and some of you are going to be driving to work hopefully where some are doing something and listening to this.
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That s just crazy, the crazy sheer miracle of life.
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And I think to connect to that reality, to connect to the beauty, to come back to the core, there s so much external right now that s distracting us from
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what s really meaningful and possibly a broader perception or a broader understanding rather than what we recognize on our social media, what we might read in our social media, what we might hear in the news.
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And I don t know, I think it s that core essence of allowing that
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calling them other energies, calling it essence, whatever name you want to give it or just simply love.
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I think allowing that to lead and to extend on social media.
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There s a lot of confusion there.
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There s a lot of people maybe sponsoring something else.
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It can be a culture of sometimes innocently tearing people down or
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you know, meta commenting of what one doesn t like, or it s like, what about just like offering and being like, gosh, you know what, like, offering kindness, offering sincerity, acknowledging, like that is how this shifts.
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It starts with me, it starts with you.
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And it starts with each of us recognizing that, gosh, I m here and it s a gift to be alive.
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And I ve been blessed with life.
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And how I live my life and how I touch life, I think that s the greatest blessing and gift back to this reality and this existence and this moment.
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That s beautiful.
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That s really beautiful.
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And I think I would add, too,
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So no one would even misunderstand that when you say this whole, you know, gift of life and this blessing of life, that s not to say that it s without, you know, the challenges.
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And even, you know, you and Tony have a friend in Ken Wilber, who this phrase gets thrown around a lot, but like grit and grace, that makes me think of,
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what it is to sponsor life.
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There s grit and there s grace.
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There s this fragility of life and this fierceness.
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Like we watch a lot of Animal Planet with our little one and you see you and we re sitting in this library right now recording this podcast and there s
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a giant elephant painting that I m looking at over stage s head and I m thinking about we watched this one episode of these matriarchal elephants like leading the pack and it s like the physicality of it and there s like this spiritual welfare element that that is taken on too through and I think also like you know you mentioned about you know life and you know there s the beauty of it and and the mess of it and the sweetness of it and the pain of it and
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So, you know, that s not to say that there isn t challenges and that there isn t pain in moments or, you know, like right now what s happening on the world stage.
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But we can contribute to the schism or we can be a bomb, you know, we can be a bomb of kindness and goodness and look to bring, you know,
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love, light, illumination, presence, connectedness, to be an ear, to listen.
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It s amazing how that can shift another s world.
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I know what it feels like for me to receive that.
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I know what it feels like to offer that.
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And I think that s a beautiful reality that sometimes in the busyness of life, we can forget how impactful in a moment that we can touch another, that we can reach another, that we can move another.
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that we can remind another because we re mirroring each other and as we re offering that we re experiencing that everything that I m saying to you in this moment it s really all selfishly for myself you know we really that s life is such a beautiful house of mirrors we re all reflecting each other.
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This is true.
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You know, Tony always says that in nature there are no straight lines, and certainly my own path to motherhood was not a straight line.
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And there was times of disillusionment, there was times of loss.
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You know, for every mother that s out there that s ever miscarried, you know the grief that can, you know, pair with that, or that you experience through that process.
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Um, and also on the other side of that comes deep healing and, uh, new birth and rebirth of oneself, uh, different than, you know, the expectation or the desire to have a child.
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And I look at all those, um, points in my life that over a 20 year period and the hopes and the dreams and the desires and the wants, and there was probably over a
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10-year decade that I had thought you know what I think this ship has sailed and completely let go of the even the notion of ever being a mother and life continued to surprise me and I you know I d mentioned
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earlier about, you know, self-nurturing and healing.
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And I think that that was probably one of the unexpected gifts of this path was my own personal journey.
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And for those of you who are walking this path, and maybe you ve just lost a little one or you re going through, you know, certain type of fertility treatments, just know that sometimes, you know, it can look different, can be longer.
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And you know, I never imagined that I d be in my late 40s and being a mom.
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And it blows my mind.
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It blows my heart.
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And it s been the most incredible experience of my life.
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And it was so worth the wait.
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And, you know, you witnessed pieces of that journey and all of those things and all the time and effort and the physicality of what it took for women that are out there, those flippin  injections in your tush, my word.
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But it was a wild, beautiful ride.
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And, you know, I prayed about it and I knew that I d be led, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that God would send me somebody so sincere
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And so lovely is you to carry our little one.
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And so, you know, I look at how you birthed life, you sponsored life, you offered life to this little one.
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Our daughter wouldn t be here without you.
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And, you know, I felt that this was important to share because, you know, we re living in a world where, you know,
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I don t know what it is.
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I don t know whether it s chemicals or hormones or what, but there seems to be more and more families and individuals, both men and women, that are having challenges to conceive.
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And like I said, for my own journey, it was a 20-year journey, and there was a lot of unexpected loss, but there was also so many unexpected blessings.
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And this unique constellation of this family, how it s all come together, it blows my mind and heart.
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And Mary B, you know, you sponsored life in the most meaningful and unexpected way.
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Our daughter wouldn t be here without you.
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And it was a decision that you made that took such incredible courage.
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It was bold.
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It was beautiful.
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It was kind.
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It was generous.
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And I know I ve thanked you, but I thought it was appropriate in this moment to say thank you.
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You were so gracious in offering to carry our little one as a surrogate.
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I wasn t able to carry, as you know, and I have a rare genetic disorder.
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And so, you know, never in my wildest dreams, in my deepest heart of prayers, could have I imagined God sending somebody as sincere and true as you.
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So thank you.
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God is good.
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Well, thank you.
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Never in my wildest dreams either.
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I think I must say.
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And this has been such a gift to me.
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And I don t know even quite where to begin.
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Well, I did not think it would end in our little modern family that is created.
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There s no way.
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You could have told me that 10 years ago and I wouldn t have believed you.
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How could I?
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But necessity is the mother of invention and getting to know you and Tony as I was, as I did, and hearing that this was something that you would need, that you would need someone to make this happen.
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We didn t even discuss it.
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We never had a conversation about it.
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People ask me like, how did this even come about?
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And it was like an understanding, a happening of when I found out that they would need someone to carry.
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All of a sudden there was this little voice and I never had any intentions of having children myself, but it was just like, I ll do it.
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I would love to do that.
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And to be able to be a mother,
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is something I never thought I would get to experience.
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And I m so grateful that that I have this gift.
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Thank you both.
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Lucky me.
4
Lucky me.
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Thank you.
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I was going to share, you know, when we
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when our child was just born.
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Friends of mine came over and they had a little gift and it was a frame of Khalil Gibran s poem on children.
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And I remember I read it at that moment and cried my eyes out.
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The line and just the notion that your children are not your children.
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They are the sons and daughters of life s longing for itself.
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And I just think that idea that, you know, when you look in the eyes of children.
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That is what, like, when we look at all the turmoil and what s going on in the world right now, as adults, it s scary as adults.
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It s scary as an adult to watch the news these days.
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And then to think about it in the context of protecting, not even protecting, I don t think that s the right word.
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I honestly don t know that it s about protection as much as it s about sponsoring life and making it, you know,
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making the world worthy of the children that we have.
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There s another quote, Pablo Casals that said, make this world worthy of its children.
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And as I never in my wildest dreams imagined being a mom and how this has come to be, now it s shifted my whole perspective on what we re doing here.
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I don t know what the, you know, Tony would call it the ultimate outcome.
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We have many outcomes throughout a day, but what s really your ultimate outcome?
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And if purpose is too nebulous of an idea, which I don t think it is, but if you can say to yourself, like, really?
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And, you know, parents often talk about kids saying the darndest things.
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It s like, kids will ask you that question.
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you know what s the meaning of life like what are we doing here what s it all about it s a good time to think about those questions for all of us no matter who we are what we re doing because we re all doing the same thing
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It s beautiful.
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I think that s where we all come together.
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We ve all experienced loss in moments.
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We ve all experienced joy.
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We ve all experienced pain.
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We ve all experienced, you know, I think that s the flight of the human experience.
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And it s always calling us home.
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You know, one of the gifts of the pandemic, and I think it was probably even happening before that, is, you know, I feel that possibly the model of what a family looks like, it s ever evolving.
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And, you know, I mentioned in my own family how we fostered, and it was also his, hers, and ours,
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You know, my daddy was married before, my mommy was married before, they had children, then they got together and, you know, they had me and then we fostered children.
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So there was this unique dynamic of diversity of these worlds and lives coming together.
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And then there was chosen family, you know, family that, individuals that, you know, come into your life for a period of time or for forever.
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that has a meaningful impact.
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And I feel like in today s world that family is birthing a new reality of choice and constellation and ways about co-parenting and how people kind of are stepping into what it looks like to be a parent, to be a mother, to be a father.
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It s so much broader.
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A very dear, beloved friend of ours was just over for dinner the other night.
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And he s a single man.
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He s on his own.
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He s a gay man from Iran.
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And, you know, he, through the gift of surrogacy as well, just had a baby girl.
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And as well, he has, I think, like a two and a half year old son.
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And I look at this cool man, so freaking courageous, and he s doing it, and it was his dream to be a father, and he s doing it on his terms, and he s such a love, he s such a dear heart, and I m just so inspired to be around him and to learn from him and to listen to him.
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And I think it was just such a courageous choice.
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And I think that s also just for parents that are out there, for those of you that are on the path, maybe walking this path, and maybe you have a longing in your heart.
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Gosh, there s so many babes in this world that so could use love.
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You know, there s so many displaced children right now with what s happening in the war in Ukraine.
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There s so many places of opportunity that
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You know, we can support life, whether it s for a short time, a period of time, or for your life.
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And life is so kind because it s so uniquely diverse of how it can come together.
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And I think when we follow our heart, we follow our guidance, our intuition, our instinct with things, it unfolds.
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And it unfolds so much more beautifully, from my own experience, than the way I wanted it to or I thought I wanted it to.
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expectation yes expectation that we might all have in our younger days and then something else unfolds and it might look nothing like we expected but isn t it beautiful
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Isn t it beautiful?
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So for those of you watching, thank you for your willing hearts and your receptivity to tune in.
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It s beautiful to have a conversation.
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Mary B, maybe about a month ago, reached out to me and asked if I d be interested in having a conversation.
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And I was laying in bed one night thinking, gosh, motherhood, what does it really mean?
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And I recognize that it s so much larger than the identity of mother.
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and that you know we re all blessed and born with intrinsic attributes and I say they re divine because we were all gifted with life so the source that beats your hearts that s what I m speaking of and there is a a mother aspect of it or a feminine aspect of it and a father or masculine aspect of it within each of us whether we re male or female
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And I think recognizing that gives us tremendous freedom and gives us tremendous creativity and allows us to have access to both within.
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A lot of times, I think innocently, we think we need to go outside of ourselves to experience that, even though we do have that reflection.
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But we have a whole universe inside of ourselves.
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And I think coming into Mother s Day, it just felt highly appropriate and sincere.
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to be able to offer just a sliver of the gift of what it means to be a mother, what it means to serve life, what it means to embody and extend and touch upon something sincere, which is those divine attributes of the divine feminine within inside of ourselves.
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Well said, Sage Robbins.
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Well said.
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Well, as a new mother, we certainly are still learning every day.
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Yes.
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But I feel like we ve learned so much already.
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What have you, what are some of the lessons that you ve learned already from relating to this little being?
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Gosh, number one, how much innate intelligence is already within them.
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And I think in my own ignorance or projection that, you know, once a child or an infant is able to identify or to speak, that there s a different level of intelligence.
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But watching our daughter express and like she has her, when we bring her down in the morning we have like a little kind of a playpen and she ll go in there and we call it her quiet reflection time because she ll, right after you know we give her the bottle and so forth and then you know we ll place her in there
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And what s so amazing to me is to watch her laugh, to watch her giggle, to watch her awe, to watch her wonder, to watch her troubleshooting, to watch her exploring and recognizing that this like perfect consciousness, her essence is so alive.
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And a lot of times we as parents, you know, we think it s like, oh gosh, I m making her happy.
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you know what I just did made her smile or made her giggle and yes that might be so but what is is more accurate and what I experience is just the beauty of her essence that s just flowing and I actually have a desire to create more of a space that she can actually experience herself and it s so interesting because you know in the world of technology and and devices and
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where there are iPads and so forth.
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And by the way, they all have a beautiful gift and a place in our life.
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But they also pull our attention outside of ourselves.
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They pull our attention to other people s lives.
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They pull our attention out of the moment of what we re experiencing here and now.
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And so, you know, I, it surprised me of like, almost like the, not old fashioned, but the simplicity, I suppose, of toys that I just feel attracted to.
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The ones that don t light up, you know, the ones that don t entertain, just because, like, just letting her be with herself.
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And, you know, I don t know, there s so much distraction calling ourself external.
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and what I recognize, and we spend our whole lives trying to return back home, you know, I speak for myself, you know, through practice of meditation and inquiry and prayerfulness and, you know, being aware and catching ourselves through this human experience.
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It s like, you know, we re all living that reality to come back home and just seeing the perfection that they re born and that sweetness and that reality.
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I don t want to interrupt it.
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I really don t.
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I don t want to interrupt it.
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It s too beautiful.
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Me too.
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I love that idea of just let them be that less is more.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes, do less.
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That s correct.
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You know, we read a lot of books in this house and since becoming parents, we send a lot of articles back and forth and you sent me one and I think if I was asked the best parenting advice that I ve come upon yet, and I know I m brand new, I don t pretend to be an expert by any stretch,
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SPEAKER_00
But one of the articles he texted me the other day was, I can t remember the article, but it was 10 bullet points from the Magda Gerber, RIE philosophy, R-I-E, Magda Gerber, the late, great, born in Hungary, passed away in Silver Lake.
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And she has this philosophy that we should just, you know, that parents can kind of back off a little bit.
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I m paraphrasing.
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That s not what she says, but just that to respect their space, that they re active learners and explorers and self-teachers.
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And so not to muddle their experience too much, keep them safe.
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And so one of those bullet points that I think is, if I forget everything else, the thing that I cling to that s really stuck with me said simply,
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Observe more, do less.
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And I love that.
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I love that mantra.
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And it s hard because these babies are so stinking cute and you want to cuddle them and play with them and sling them around.
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but to have the discernment, which is a word stage that you use so often, just to let this child do their thing.
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They re endowed with it, they re walk-ons, they come into the world with so much, and I think we can, as adults, with the best of intentions, get in there, and when really, they don t need anything from us.
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SPEAKER_01
Helicopter parent, that s what I helicopter innocently, you know?
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I think, yes, that might be a touch of hypervigilance.
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And I practice every day to just, I m like, okay, you know, let that be or let that go or don t be that mother.
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But I do, you know, I watch it.
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She schools me every day.
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And what I most go by is the sweetness that pours out of this little one s being.
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It s so beautiful.
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And it s such a beautiful mirror.
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And it shows me myself.
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It shows me all of our, you know, just that like,
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what that s inside of us, that s who we are, when we are of right mind, when we don t have all the shoulds and shouldn ts of life, or he should, she should, or however that manifests.
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SPEAKER_01
We don t have as Byron Katie so beautifully says, she calls like the stickies that, you know, that s like having a sticky pad and
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Mary, if I m like, you know, you re too this, you re too loud, I put a stick over you.
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You re this, you re that.
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SPEAKER_01
And before you know, we re not seeing each other.
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SPEAKER_00
You have a refrigerator covered in post-it notes and you can no longer see the refrigerator.
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SPEAKER_00
That s kind of what we do to each other with our beliefs about each other.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes, the limited beliefs about each other.
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And I think what s so gorgeous as a child is they don t have those identities.
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Even walking outside and say if she s noticing a moon or the stars, and I notice how quick I am to be like, oh, honey, stars, moon.
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SPEAKER_01
But then it s like, what s more beautiful?
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SPEAKER_00
the label or the experience?
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SPEAKER_01
I m projecting and identifying and putting a label on something but like actually what s more beautiful is her response of just ah bah bah you know which I whatever bah bah everything s bah bah but how cool that
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SPEAKER_01
but like every just this beauty of of appreciation of life and so something that we ve done for those of you that are parents is like say if we go outside and we go for a walk maybe one time we do identify uh what we re seeing so you know yes we re going for a walk or you know looking at a star or whatever it might be and we might put identification or a label whatever you want to call in it call it but then
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SPEAKER_01
We also look to have time where we re outside and there s no labels.
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It s just her experiencing because it s like you think like being outside and feeling the wind or feeling the sun or the other day there was this little bug and like watching her like just connect to this little creature that was, you know, crawling on the ground.
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SPEAKER_01
It s gorgeous.
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SPEAKER_01
It s beautiful.
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It humbles me.
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She schools me.
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I ve never learned more about life, never mind myself, never mind her.
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And every day is just a really cool exploration.
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SPEAKER_00
True.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, Sage Robbins, this was fun.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you for sitting down and having this conversation.
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And while we have opened it up so broadly, which I m so grateful we did, I also want to say happy Mother s Day to all the mothers of all kinds out there.
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Happy Mother s Day to your mom and my mom too.
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SPEAKER_01
Happy Mother s Day mom and happy Mother s Day to all of you out there that you know are already or from this conversation maybe moved to touch life that much deeper and looking for ways to connect or serve those around you.
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SPEAKER_01
So bless you for that reality and thanks for tuning in.
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SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
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We love you.
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Thank the moms in your life, whatever they look like, wherever they come from.
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Call your mother.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
If you can, if you got one to call, find one, give her a call.
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SPEAKER_00
And I mean, I look forward to doing this for Father s Day too, just to be clear.
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SPEAKER_00
So we got to talk about those dads too someday.
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SPEAKER_00
Likewise.
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SPEAKER_00
Perfect.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, enjoy.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you everybody.
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SPEAKER_00
Thanks for tuning in.
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SPEAKER_01
We appreciate it.