Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.
Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.
Join us on this illuminating episode of Creative Status as we delve into the profound and transformative journey of aging with Heather Isgrigg.
Heather, a passionate advocate for redefining the narrative around growing older, is a coach who leads an engaging online support group that weaves together the art, humor, philosophy, and psychology of aging.
In this insightful conversation, Heather shares her wisdom on navigating the intricacies of aging gracefully, embracing REALNESS, and finding joy in the process.
In this conversation, you’ll discover how the art of aging becomes a masterpiece when infused with a sprinkle of humor and a dash of philosophy – Heather’s unique approach creates a space that is not only supportive but also fun and loving, offering a guiding light for those seeking their path in the art of aging.
Whether you’re on the threshold of the golden years or simply curious about the profound wisdom that comes with time and applies to us ALL, this episode promises to be a celebration of life’s evolving canvas.
Tune in for an uplifting exploration of the beauty that emerges as we age into realness and cultivate a deep acceptance for ourselves and life itself!
Stay REAL out there,
Oli
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Leave a voice message to share your thoughts and to be (maybe) featured on future episodes of the podcast: anchor.fm/creativestatus
Episode Links:
Heather’s Youtube Channel (My So Called Reality): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTAzM1tI6hwYX_mXZDIeYhg
Heather’s Website: https://mysocalledreality.com
Heather on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/my.so.called.reality
Creative Status Links:
The Creative Performance Transformation Lab: olianderson.co.uk/creativeperformance
Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/olijanderson
My YouTube channel: youtube.com/olianderson
Get my books on Amazon: amazon.com/author/oli
7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose: olianderson.co.uk/systemshock
Free one hour creative workshop to take your creative brand or project to the next level: olianderson.co.uk/creativeworkshop
Free 90-Day Journal Challenge: olianderson.co.uk/journal
The Law of Attraction for Realness (mini-course): olianderson.co.uk/lawofattraction
Show Transcript: The Art of Aging into REALNESS
Heather Isgriggg Creative Status
Intro
Oli: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about cultivating a deep acceptance of what’s real in life so that we can have a solid foundation for building the lives that we want by embracing who we really are, embracing other people, embracing life. And we explore how creativity is a vehicle for allowing that to happen by making the unconscious conscious… if you really want to get into it.
If you’ve returned into the show, thank you very much. If you’re new, then welcome. My name is Oli Anderson. Like I said, I’m a creative performance coach. Help people to bring more realness into their lives, work with a lot of creative people, hence this podcast. Every episode of the show, I interview somebody who is scintillating and interesting and has some life experience that they can share through their personal philosophy, let’s say, about what it means to be human and all that kind of stuff.
Today’s episode is no different. I’m talking to Heather Isgrigg, Aka Hizzy to the Hizzy, aka again, My So Called Reality. Hizzy / Heather is on a mission to help people redefine aging itself. What it means to go through the aging process, how we can use that process, which is going to happen to all of us if we’re lucky and don’t die beforehand. To get into a sense of flow, to accept ourselves, which is the theme of the show, like I said, and how we can basically work with the aging process to allow some of the things we may have been hiding from ourselves to re-emerge so that we can get a more solid foundation and a deeper understanding of what it means to be human before we actually do drop dead and our lives end.
So this is an awesome conversation about life itself, ultimately, what it means to be human, how we can work with it, how we can get the most out of it. Heather, thank you so much for your time. This was an awesome conversation – love the energy, love the vibes. I’m going to stop talking. Thanks for listening. Here we go. Boom.
Interview
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Heather. Aka Hizzy to the Hizzo. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. You have a lot of, um, very wise things to say, I believe, about the aging process and death and how we can, uh, use life itself and some of its inevitability to become more real and to create the kind of life that we want and etc.
I’m going to ask you loads of questions, but before I do, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people how you became who you are and doing the things that you do and also what you want to get out of this conversation?
Heather Isgrigg: Thank you so much for having me. I am such a huge fan. So, I’m a bit of a fan girl, but I am so happy to be here. And I kind of fell into everything by accident, which I sometimes I think that sometimes is the best way. Um, I like to say I like to hold space for people and I like to be a tough love cheerleader, but predominantly I like to focus on the aging process and letting us know that it’s okay and it’s healthy and it’s natural.
Oli: Yeah. So let’s get right into it. Right. Although I kind of do want to know what you want to get out of this conversation before we do that. What do you want to get out of what we’re about to embark upon?
Heather: Well, I just want people to see a different perspective on aging. I think a lot of times, especially women, we tend to kind of think it’s the same for everybody and it isn’t. And so my focus is more of, like, people really kind of authentically, finding out what their definition of aging is, because I find everybody, especially at my age, we kind of hit this midlife section, and we kind of decide whether we’re going to double down on what we’ve already done or if we’re going to change up. And so I think that a lot of times people are scared to do the change up. And I have. And I feel like it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done. And I would like to let people know there’s a life past. Grey hair.
Oli: Wow. So you just cracked open this whole conversation with what you said because ultimately it’s exactly that for most people. Like, everybody thinks aging is the same for all of us. And it basically means that, uh, at some point in our lives, we’re just going to start deteriorating in all areas. Our body is going to start falling to pieces and no one’s going to find us attractive anymore. And then we’re going to become invisible. And society is just not interested because we’ve deteriorated socially as well.
And ultimately, as you have found in your own life, that is not true. It actually only becomes true if you double down on trying to be the same instead of learning from the process of awakening, I guess, to what aging has to teach us. So let me really and keep it simple. What would you say is the perspective on aging that needs changing? What’s the main assumptions and narrative around getting old that people have that you have found to basically be bullshit and that needs shattering?
Heather: Well, I think that somehow and I have to speak from my woman’s perspective here, but I find a lot of times it’s kind of glorified to hold on to youth, uh, where I’m hoping that people can see that you can kind of transcend both of it. And for me, when I look at it, I feel like a lot of women look like they’re desperate when they’re trying to hold on to being 23, you’re just not going to be 23, 25. And honestly, being in middle age, you hear about this midlife crisis. And now that I’m here, I understand why.
It’s because you kind of grow up in a society where you see all of these, uh, pressures on women to look a certain way, be a certain way, act a certain way. Um, and there’s elements of that that are true, that you do enjoy, but then there’s a whole other side of it that gets kind of thrown out the window. As far as I tell my kid all the time, and I’m ranting here, but, um, you spend a lot of time on the outside as a kid, but then as you get older, you realize it’s the inside that matters. It’s like the glow up that you get on the inside. You can’t put a price tag on that.
And I think a lot of people feel like once they hit a peak of, uh, whatever it is they feel like their physical attractiveness is, then there becomes this huge depression that comes like they lost everything. Everything was based on this appearance. And then it’s this rat race to kind of keep up with the new lip filler or the new procedure that’s out that’s going to MICROBLADE your brows or whatever the case is. And I’m not disregarding. Good genes come into play. I mean, good genes are good genes, right? But there’s also things that we can do that we nurture a correct environment for ourselves.
Oli: Mhm, I love what you just said. Ultimately, the aging process is something that’s going to happen to everybody. And when it does happen, and it is always happening, but when you start to realize it’s happening, you basically have a choice. You can try and hold on to something that no longer exists, which is obviously futile, but I guess there’s a lot of modern conveniences that make you feel like you can hold on.
So I’m talking about cosmetic surgery and makeup and whatever else people do. But ultimately you realize, if you’re lucky, that it’s a shift, like you said, from focusing on all the external things to turning inwards and finding some kind of lasting sort of value within yourself and your relationship with yourself. Rather than just trying to get value in all these superficial ways that we’ve been conditioned to try and, um, get value from, uh, for our whole lives.
And so, um, I guess this is why your work coaching people around transitions into older age or older age and making the most of it. Your work actually has kind of universal application, because even though we’re talking about a specific period in life, what you’re actually doing is helping them to tune back in to realness, uh, or to reality.
Because if they spent their whole lives focusing externally, and then suddenly they realize, oh, okay, there’s a stronger foundation inside anyway. And my connection to that foundation has nothing to do with all of these things that change and that I can’t hold onto anyway. Because what’s real is always real and blah, blah, blah. By helping people to do that, you’re actually aligning them with universal truths that apply to all of us, no matter how old we are, whether we’re male or female or blah, blah, blah.
And so I guess the question is, what is the main thing or what are the main qualities that people need to start cultivating in order to be able to manage this transition that you’re helping them deal with?
Heather: Well, I think it really is simple to some degree. Is really simple is never really easy, is it? But, um, what do you want? What do you really want? Because I think that a lot of times we realize that especially, uh, people are like, oh, it’s just hair. It’s just grey hair. But it is hair. Hair is a big deal for a lot of people. And so you really see the resistance when you start doing something as simple as letting your hair go grey, how it can ruffle some feathers, and you’re just like, wow, because it reminds everybody else that we’re all getting older. And so then you’re like, wow, I just thought this was for me.
And so it will build up a resilience of, um, showing you that there is a lot of things in your life that kind of fall into that same pattern. And, uh, once you can see that, I always tell that story about the elephant. You always say that too. I love that story about where they put the elephant on a little stake when they’re young and they pull it and pull it, and they can’t pull out. And then when they get older, they’re just stuck there. They don’t even try to pull it anymore because they just have given up. And I feel like a lot of times, especially women, we’ve been told since birth that basically after 30, you’re useless at this point. I can’t tell you how much further from the truth that is. I’ve had more freedom and, the older I get, I have enjoyed every age to the point where I just want everybody to feel that way. And when I see women that are trying to hold on to 25 or whether it be I mean, you can take those same principles that you want, have a funky style, do a different thing, but don’t, um, try to hold on to these societal things that are and that’s the thing, is people act like they’re not there.
But when you start pushing up against them, you find that they are very real. Especially from the people that you love the most, which is almost the most shocking, because you’re like, how are all these strangers giving me more support than these people that are in my inner circle? And those are the people that are the most vulnerable with you. And so those are the ones that get most stirred up. So, uh, I find in my work that people are like me where they want to make this change and they try to make the change and then they get this pushback and then they get scared because they don’t have a safe space to kind of let this go. It’s just crazy how it relates or it connects like that.
Oli: Yeah. So for people that don’t know, the change that you’re talking about ultimately is just embracing the fact that, uh, aging is a thing and that people go grey and you don’t need to hide that you can own your grey hair and basically just rock the hell out of it. But what you found is a lot of people, like you said, by seeing women in particular embrace their greyness and the fact that they’re getting old and everything, a lot of people have a problem with it.
And they’ll try and convince them to go back to the old way of being where they feel like they have to dye their hair, they have to mask it, they have to pretend to be young and so on and so forth. And it’s because by truly accepting who they are, these grey haired women are actually making a stand against all of these kind of cultural narratives around beauty standards and aging standards and blah, blah, blah. And the wider issue there, which I find really interesting, is that purely by accepting themselves and where they are in life, it’s triggering unreal people who are actually being unreal with themselves and would rather hide from life and reality than truly go through this kind of internal shift you’re talking about and embrace who they are and what life is.
And so I guess this is where it’s a good point maybe, to get into your pathway that you’ve created for your clients, which is about helping them realize that they’re in a kind of prison, starting to awaken to the truth about life and how it works and grey hair and etc., etc. Learning to flow by owning themselves and then finding the kind of freedom that you’ve got and that you talk about where basically you’ve enjoyed every age and you’re happy in, etc., etc. Because you’ve embraced and accepted the truth about who you are and what life is.
The interesting thing that you’ve just shared is the one I’ve just been rambling about where people who, uh, decide they’re not going to buy into that cultural narrative and pretend that aging and death, etc. isn’t a thing. They let their hair go grey and they show it off and its natural colour. But then people try and make them feel guilty or they shame them or whatever it is, purely because people would rather stay in prison and keep other people in a kind of mental prison so that they can feel good about themselves.
So I guess the question is, what can you tell us about this prison stage? And, um, maybe on a deeper level, why do some people prefer to stay in the prison, even though actually it’s making them miserable?
Heather: I think that’s the biggest question. I think it’s because they don’t know any different. I think that once you have a taste of the freedom, you don’t even think about going back now. It’s just such a different mindset. But that prison kind of goes back to the story about the boiling the frogs.
Like, they put you in the water and then they slowly turn it up. It’s like, if you’re like me, who somebody that was going grey at like 19, it’s like, oh my gosh, you just don’t let your hair go grey at 19. So you’ve been doing this over and over and over again. And then you get to middle age and now you’re losing all your hair. And everybody’s kind of telling you, it’s not this, it’s this, and this and this.
You have everything checked and you realize your body, if you listen to it, is saying, hey, just try something else. And so you try something else, you realize, holy moly, you break out of that prison and then you realize you were in one. So a lot of times we don’t even know we were in that boiling that boiling pot or that prison to begin with. But there are little signs like hair loss. I mean, I was at a point where my hair loss was so bad, I didn’t want to take any pictures with my family or my friends or anything. Um, and I was wearing a hat where when you’re colouring your hair all the time, you’re wearing a hat just occasionally when you need to colour. And then I was wearing it all the time because I just didn’t like my hair at all.
So now you were kind of on either side, you just didn’t like it. So it’s like, I would much rather try something else. So it’s, uh, recognizing those little things and when everybody you are kind of reaching out to is kind of giving you the back push of, no, that’s not what it is. But your body tells you one thing once m it gives you the evidence, then you’re like, okay, there’s a little evidence. Let’s build on that evidence.
So then you kind of make a plan of how you’re really going to do it. I mean, I tell people all the time. It took me three times to actually go through with it. Where I let it go, where the roots? Because with ladies, it looks like you just haven’t been to the hairdresser for a minute. But you’ve got to get past that six month mark. And that’s really, for me, that’s the biggest crutch. I would like to help those women that maybe feel like they’re in a prison. And that first six months is the hardest to get you.
You’re almost on the end of a diving board, just looking down, like, am I really going to do this? Am I really going to do this? And you get out. And then once you get in there, you’re like, the water is great, everything’s awesome. Look at this. I’m in an ocean. I could do my own thing. But it’s just that first getting that jump, and then, uh, after you start feeling good, then you hit that flow, and then you’re gone. After that, nobody can stop you. You’re so dug in, and you realize that so much of that stuff was so unreal. I mean, you hear that it’s unreal all the time, but when you actually feel it and you have that experience of it, and you feel so much better on the other side of it, there’s just no going back.
Oli: Yeah, I know. You focus on the Silver Sisters, as you call them. At this prison stage, it shows us and teaches us a lot about the human experience. Because actually, there are so many people out there that are stuck in a kind of prison. And I know it’s a cliché, right? It’s so obvious. But people are stuck in a kind of mental prison, and they don’t realize it because they’re filtering everything through their ego and blah, blah, blah.
But the weird thing is, people get so used to being in the prison that instead of trying to break out of it because I guess they’re not aware of it been a prison yet. But they get so used to it that everything they do is basically informed by the limited assumptions they’ve picked up because of the prison. And so they constantly try and adapt their lives to fit into the prison instead of breaking out and becoming whoever it is that they really want to be. And so, in the case that you’ve just shared, right, people are in prison because of the stuff that they carry around silver hair and grey hair and all this kind of stuff. And so, uh, they do all these weird things to try and cope, like dye their hair and all these different remedies and stuff that may get recommended on the Internet.
It’s the same for regular people that have not necessarily got this issue of grey hair out there in the world who are trapped in lives that they don’t want. Instead of actually trying to change things in a real way, they try and modify themselves to fit into the prison that doesn’t even need to exist. And so I guess the question for you is, how can we speed up the process of, I guess, waking up or awakening to the fact that the prison is even there in the first place, if that makes sense.
Heather: No, it does. And to me, I think that is like such a quintessential, uh, question of life, because I truly believe that you can’t be creative without limitations. The limitations is what gives you that creativity. But then some people, you give them the limitations and they’ll never go outside of them. So I don’t know what the mindset is that changes people. I mean, I just hope that people are open enough to be inspired by other people’s actions. And you can look at, uh, things and be like, wow, I like how they did that, but I’d like to put my twist on it or do something like that.
But if somebody isn’t born with a curious seed, I don’t know that you can actually give that to somebody or let them help facilitate. I mean, that’s why I say I try to hold space for people to see if they want to do that. If that’s even something that is something that is interesting to them. But I think passion comes from a place that I don’t know, but give me a cardboard box and I’ll make it look good. But some people, they’ll just sleep on it. Uh, I don’t know what does that sorry, no, I was going to say people that can inspire motion. That’s where it’s at.
Oli: Yeah, that’s so interesting because actually, I think in my coaching practice, people that have started to wake up to the fact that they need to change their lives have always reached out because they’ve reached some kind of a breaking point or the restlessness that they feel has just got so overbearing that they’re like, right, I actually have to do something.
But I think one of the traps of the prison that makes it more insidious and dangerous than it may even face first look, is that if it’s just the right amount of comfortable that it is tolerable, then people will never want to leave anyway. Because it’s not so uncomfortable that they do reach that breaking point where they’re like, fuck this, I need to change something.
They’re just kind of going through the motions and they can stay on that loop of just doing the same old thing again and again and again, even though it’s not really that satisfying, but it’s not that uncomfortable either, that they’re actually going to do something about it. And so maybe there’s something there. Like in your case, what made you wake up and say, right, this is it. I’m not going to keep dyeing my hair. I’m going to own the fact that I’ve reached a certain age in life and that, uh, my hair is just grey. And that’s that what woke you up and made you, I guess, reach that point of no return. Maybe there’s a lesson there.
Heather: Well, listen, it sounds woo woo, but it really is tuning into my body. I know women, we become so out of balance that we don’t even realize that we’re out of our homeostasis. And so when my hair was falling out and everybody was telling me it was a thyroid this or that or whatever, not one person was telling me that it was the dye, but my body was my body was right there saying, just don’t do it. Let’s just see what’s the worst why not?
In all true transparency, I was dealing this through the pandemic. So it was a little bit easier because you weren’t dealing with the whole social pressures of having a lot of weddings or a lot of different, um, activities. That is silly. But as women, and if you’ve been dyeing your hair like I was, you plan a whole dye schedule around your whole, ah, social schedule, as silly as that is. And that’s a part of being in a prison.
I can’t tell after having so much of my life in that particular, I have to have schedule to make sure I get the most out of it, to not even thinking about it. That is just you can’t put a price tag on that. Uh, I guess you can, because I’m saving tons of money, tons of time. You can actually it is crazy the amount of energy that’s spent on something like that.
Oli: Yeah. And if you think about it, it ultimately boils down to having either a real relationship with yourself or an unreal relationship with yourself. Surprise, surprise. That’s what everything boils down to you. But when you’re in the prison, the only reason you will be there or end up there for a sustained amount of time is because there’s a lack of acceptance.
And, um, by shifting into acceptance, which means that you’re accepting reality itself and what’s real about you and blah, blah, blah. Because the only thing you can do is accept reality by shifting into that way of being, all of the unreal choices that you were making, which were keeping you in the prison anyway, fell by the wayside.
Like, as soon as you realized that you’ve either been real or unreal, well, the choices that you make can only become more real. And that’s when you put yourself on the path to, I guess, the next stage of your pathway after prison and awakening, which is to start flowing. And so what can you tell us there, I suppose, from your journey around waking up to a deeper sense of acceptance, making real choices, and then flowing with life a lot more?
Heather: Well, I think that’s the key is flowing with life. I always say downstream effort. Downstream effort. So you’re not trying to take your boat, flip it around and trying to go upstream. It’s already flowing. You’re part of it.
So let’s get in our raft and just flow down there and let’s pull the things on the side that are already going in our direction. Once you start feeling, uh, that and then you feel the momentum of that picking up, it’s like now it’s a no brainer on the hair. Like, when people even make a comment of it, I just laugh because it’s like I don’t even get it that often. But every once in a while, they’ll be like something said and I just laugh because it couldn’t even touch it. Like the happiness and the downstream flow effort. Because now that has I’m like, what else is like that?
Now that I’ve done this with the hair and I’ve gotten such great results, it’s like, okay, let’s start a business. Let’s start a coaching thing. Let’s see what else has been told that you can’t do it because the flow is just coming in. You’re like, wow, this is kind of like an athlete or anything. I always say life waves, it’s all about waves. And you’re the surfer that’s sitting on the beach watching these waves.
Now, if you go out to the beach and there’s just no waves, you can get out there and make a wave. But the wave is probably not going to be the best wave. You’re going to have to make it work. And it’s not going to be exciting, it’s not going to be great. Or you can just come back the next day and do it when the waves are there. But choice to jump out into the wave. If you sit out there with your surfboard on the beach, you’re not going to have the fun experience, but you might get taken down, you might get under the undertow for a little bit, but m, you have to take the opportunity to ride the wave. And as soon as you hit that flow and you get that sweet spot, you don’t want anything else. Um, it has just gone over into everything. As silly as that is.
It started with hair and then it just snowballed into like a million other things. Um, in the three years that I’ve done it, it’s like I’m a completely different person. And it’s so silly that it started with that kind of by accident. But m, it’s real and the results are amazing.
Oli: Yeah, I don’t think it’s silly – I think anything in our life that reminds us things are changing and that we either flow with it, like you said, or we resist anything. Whether it’s hair or, I don’t know, uh, pet, dying, whatever it is…
Heather: A job, losing it or anything.
Oli: Yeah, literally anything. Right? It’s going to lead us back to the same place because everything actually leads to the same place, which is reality itself, truth, the nature of being, and blah, blah, blah. And so that is why your journey is so interesting, because it starts with this specific thing and it took you to a super universal place. The thing is that with the flow thing, I guess ultimately part of embracing all of these truths about life and everything is ultimately everything is flowing towards death.
Heather: Yes. My favorite.
Oli: I wanted to squeeze that in there. Everything is flowing towards death. You now accept that, I guess, as, uh, you were talking about flowing everything. I was thinking about that. Do you think one of the reasons people want to. Stay in prison is purely because they don’t want to face death. And so by creating this little bubble to live in. And you already know the question, right? So yeah, how does death feed into all this? And how can we accept it in the way that we seem to be talking about so that we can flow properly?
Heather: No, I think that’s exactly what it is. I mean, you’re essentially sitting on the beach and not getting out there because you don’t want to get pummelled because you might die. I mean, isn’t that the worst thing that can really happen to us? So, uh, it is, but it isn’t safer because then you’re resentful for everybody else.
If you’re on the beach, you’re going to be resentful for everybody else that’s killing it out there. And then you’re just going to be eaten inside, uh, out. So even if you look great, it really is about like the train has already left the station.
So, I mean, it’s a slide. And nobody really knows what happens when we’re done with this body. We could all just be floating in our little butterfly ethers or whatever. So to not enjoy every moment as much as you possibly can, I just think it’s a waste. But I could also see where if you’re eating the same thing every single day, how you can just get to the point where you don’t want to go outside of that because you’re too scared.
So, um, I don’t know what makes it, but I do think that once you taste the flow, once you taste it and you feel it throughout your body, you’ll want to try to do anything you can to get back to it. It’s the rush. It’s the rush. You get on whatever. When you’re in the zone, there’s just nothing like that. But you also realize that you can’t stay there forever.
I mean, there is fluctuations in life. So it’s about realizing that I might be low right now, but I know I’m just, uh, in the undertow. I’m going to get back on my surfboard here in a minute, and then I’m going to go after it again. But, uh, some people, they hit one bad wave, and then they’re just done. They’re done, and they’re not going to even try. I don’t know. What do you think gives people that spark to want to get up and fight the waves?
Oli: I think it’s exactly what you just said. Even if we’re in prison, we’ll get a little taste of bliss, and that’s just because the way life is, right? It might be something super simple, like we’re walking down the street and we see some reflections in a puddle, or like the sun, um, breaking through some leaves in a tree or something. And we have a little moment where there’s a little whisper in the back of our mind saying, wow, okay, that’s real. Or maybe it’ll be.
We’ve been a relationship. We’ve been making love and we become one with everything, or we do whatever it is, we’ll have a little tiny taste of it. And I think I’m being kind of romantic in everything I’m saying in this particular moment in time, that is enough to give you hope to kind of keep going. And if you do keep going, then probably you’ll get more and more and something will happen to give you a greater taste of what it feels like to be riding those waves.
But you’re right as well, because eventually the world is going to creep in. You’re going to have to worry about paying the bills maybe, or, uh, there’ll be something going on or someone’s going to die because that’s all that keeps happening in life. We’re all dying. And then you’re going to go back into your head and then you’re going to go back out into the world. And I guess it just depends at which stage you’re at, how frequently that is going to happen.
Because for me in my life, as I’ve stepped out of the prison I used to live in because of my own mind and become more real and started doing all the things I talk about and living in this real way where I’m trying to be creative all the time and move towards wholeness and all the stuff we talk about on the podcast. The more I live like that, uh, the more tastes of that I get, the more waves I get to ride with. And even when the world does creep in, I know where I need to return. Because once you’ve had a taste, even though I’ve been very poetic, all of a sudden, I don’t know why, even though, uh, you’re not literally eating the fruit, there’s still a kind of residue in your mouth and you know the direction you need to move in because of the juices that are still there, right?
And so it gets easier and easier to return to that place. So, uh, I guess in answer to your question, if you’re in prison, there’ll always be some little moments of truth that seep in between the cracks. And I guess they’re enough to kind of stir you to the feeling that there’s more, or to justify the feeling that you have that there is more. Because if we’re in prison, I believe our real version of who we are, the wholeness is always kind of trying to break out.
And those little tastes that are always there or, uh, those little signs that it’s there, seeping beneath the cracks or between the cracks, are going to be enough to kind of keep you going. Otherwise, everyone in prison would just kill themselves. But if you don’t listen to that or you don’t pay attention to it and you keep avoiding your own realness, that’s where you get this situation where self-destruction is resurrection and you’ll hit rock bottom because you’ve been ignoring all the signs and you’ll become totally static and totally shut down because your mind and ego are, uh, basically doing everything they can to keep you in prison.
And then something has to happen where you’ll be woken up, like somebody will die, you’ll get ill, you might lose something. Something will happen, basically, where you hit rock bottom. And then you have no choice but to wake up. And in either case, whether it’s these little whisperings of truth, seeping, between the prison bars or hitting rock bottom, and you’re like, right, I need to make some changes. The end result is always the same, which is awareness, ultimately. And then you get onto the stage of flow and awakening and then flow and all that kind of stuff. So that was a super ramble about that.
Heather: No, it goes back to that. It’s the acceptance. But it’s like, almost a radical acceptance. And then here you finally are like, yay, I got my radical acceptance. And then everybody’s like, what are you doing with that radical acceptance?
You’re not allowed to have that. You’re like, wait a minute. It took me so long just to get to this point, and now I have to deal with all these external stuff. You’re like, uh, man. You’re like, I’m out. I’m going to off myself, and I can’t please everybody if I can’t please myself. So it’s like, you see that. So people need to let you know.
Yeah, they say that that’s not there, and this is going to be, but it could be there. And I think if you’re more prepared, what is it you idolize? The worst case scenario, people are always like, oh, it’s not about that. But it is nice to know if you have that in mind, that you’re not going to be surprised by it anyway.
Oli: I think that’s part of acceptance, because the only thing you can accept is reality, right? And so if you accept reality, you also have to accept the reality of yourself and other people. And part of accepting that is that if somebody is saying things in an attempt to prevent you from embracing acceptance of yourself and life and basically having that unconditional radical acceptance, if they’re trying to stop you having that, then at some level they lack it.
That’s the only reason they would try and hold you back from that way of being. And so if you accept that, uh, as power for the course I know you’re a golfer, so that’s why I said, yeah, totally. If you accept that as power for the course, then even other people saying those kind of things to you will kind of slide off you like, uh, water off a duck’s back, because you realize it’s not real. And so you’ve got that real foundation yourself because of acceptance.
Um, the unreal stuff from others bothers you way less. And then I guess you can get into the final stage of your little pathway, which is freedom. But one final thing, actually, sorry, the other thing about flow and acceptance is that once you find that real place within yourself, you have to flow. Because reality is always flowing.
And the only thing that stops us is the mental bullshit of the prison and so on and so forth. And so if you can get to that point, you have no choice but to flow, and then you get to your final stage of freedom. So I guess the question is, how do we go from flow to freedom? And what is the difference between the two?
Heather: I suppose for me personally, it’s just not even thinking about my hair, and then it not even being a thing, um, from it being such a huge portion of my daily everything from my hair dye schedule stuff to then the whole transformation process to now, I just don’t even think about it. I mean, the freedom of it just not being on the plate at all, really, other than when I need to get a haircut or something like that.
And then the freedom of realizing by breaking out of that prison that it gave me the blueprint to do it in so many other things on bigger scales. And it’s like, wow. At that point, you’re like, wow, this is crazy. This was the door that I walked through. And now this is where I’m at. And now I just want to help as many people see that they can do that too, in their own way. That’s the thing. And I don’t know, it’s different for everybody. Just like some people can sit and meditate, some people can’t sit and meditate. But I’m a huge advocate for women to get into their bodies, um, and learning some values for just the beginning staples of this, and then having a support group, because a lot of my YouTube channel is basically more of a support group for these women to help support them to get to this freedom.
Because a lot of again, going back to the women’s, uh, even in the grey hair, it’s more about the beauties that you can do with the grey hair and stuff like that. And we’re not really talking about the mental aspect that happens as you’re watching that hair change from that color that it’s always been, and in my case, it was very dark, to a totally different look. Um, there’s so much more after it. And when you see all these women not only surviving, but totally thriving in this where you’re supposed to be invisible and you’re just like, oh my gosh, girl, come sit down. Let’s talk, let’s talk. Let me show you some more stuff. And, ah, show you how good it is on the side.
Oli: Wow. I think, um, what you’re kind of saying is that if you become aware of the prison and you stop it from holding you back because you let yourself flow with life and you’ve got that natural deep acceptance of the way that things are and so on and so forth. Eventually you’re going to flow to this point where you basically realize you can do whatever you want within reason. And because you have that foundation of acceptance, basically, you can start to use that to shape your life. So that it’s an expression of who you really are and there are less external barriers and all that kind of stuff. And it all starts by just embracing some specific thing, like you said, like in this case, grey hair, and then riding the lessons it has to teach you to wherever it ends up going.
But for all of us, no matter how we wake up, whether it’s through grey hair or an illness or a relationship falling to pieces or just a bad day in general, whatever it is, that is the end result of just trusting life and following these lessons where they need to take us. You can do whatever you want, really. And it seems like that’s where you’ve now found yourself by just going through this process.
Heather: Well, and it’s so funny too, because the freedom resonates with so many people. Like the older women that see me that are still dyeing their hair are like, man, m, maybe I should do that. And then I have a daughter who is younger and she’s going to have to grow up with these TikTok filters and all this stuff. And so when her kids or her friends see me with the grey hair, they love my hair.
So it’s like, I want them to realize that they have other options, too, that they don’t have to go that path. And the only way we do that is to, uh, be represented. So going back to the whole beauty thing, it’s like everybody’s out there, but they got to see all the options.
Oli: Yeah. So your freedom is freeing other people, basically, right? M well, I think I’ve learned a lot today about aging in general and I’m kind of looking forward to getting even older and then dying. So thank you for that. How would you, uh, sum all this up? And can you let people know where they can find you? So your website, if you want to share that, and your YouTube channel definitely, and all those kind of things, so.
Heather: Uh, you can find me? Um, well, I guess to sum it all mean, I think that don’t take your life too mean. I know that that sounds silly, but there’s a fine line there. I think that a lot of times we do that. And I think when we loosen up a little bit, sometimes it takes a minute, but when we do, we find a lot of enjoyment out of that. And whether, um, that translates to happiness for that person or not, that’s I guess, relative to them. But I think that life, um, is short. Very short. Mhm so don’t spend any time if you can regretting it, the things that you did.
Oli: Stay out of prison, kids.
Heather: Good advice, then, yeah, stay out of prison. And you can find me at you, um, can reach me on my website@mysocalledreality.com or my YouTube channel, which is the same, or on Instagram. But I’m more active probably on my YouTube channel than anything as far as responding. I haven’t, um, been that active of late, but I’ve had some things going on. I will be back there.
Oli: Um well, I will share that and everything else in the show notes. Hizzy to the Hizzo. Heather, thank you so much.
Heather: Thank you.
Oli: I’m glad we did this, finally.
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