Natalie
And Nat — two very different sisters who come together each week to reframe problems big and small with you, our very dear Reframables.

Rebecca
And why are we calling you such a term of endearment?

Natalie
Because, Rebecca, we are all in the process of reframing and being reframed.

Rebecca
So true, Natalie. I think that every day. This week we are reframing ambition, and we’ve got lots of it. Let’s start unpacking.

Natalie
Bec, yesterday was your birthday.

Rebecca
I know!

Natalie
And we had so many things planned — not just for yesterday, which was a big day with much amazing food, if I do say so myself. Mochi donuts.

Rebecca
You outdid yourself, Nat, yes. Why don’t you give a list of the things you made for me?

Natalie
Ok. I made you a really delicious egg scramble in the morning — eggs and goat cheese and a little bit of salami. I think there was quite a yummy juice that happened at some point in the day. And then for dinner, which is where I kind of outdid myself, big, delicious, plump shrimp that we put inside these fresh rolls that we got to actually do at the table together as a family. And the kids were freaking out because this was so exciting, to fold these fresh rolls over the food. But I also did crispy tofu so that the kids could have that. And, oh my gosh, I upped the ante with a fried rice that had a combo of rice as well as a little bit of egg and riced broccoli. So I went really wild.

Rebecca
It was so good. It was all so wild and so good.

Natalie
Well, you even said it.

Rebecca
There was nothing regular about it.

Natalie
No, there wasn’t, was there? I’m so pleased, because that’s what I wanted for you. Nothing is regular for you, Rebecca. You are my wild little sister. That was something I really wanted to make happen there with that food. I wanted the food to mirror how I see you, which is adventurous and exciting. And now we get to have this adventurous, exciting 42nd year for you.

Rebecca
I was a bit afraid to say this, but doesn’t it make it my 43rd year, and I’m 42 within the year?

Natalie
You’re right, yup. That’s true.

Rebecca
It’s hard, I know. I started to write that in my Observables and then I was like, “Oh, I don’t want to write ‘43rd year’ yet.”

Natalie
Though, you know, 43 was a pretty great year for me. So… 42, was it good? Yeah, it was good, too. The forties have been solid.

Rebecca
So your 43rd year was when you were 42.

Natalie
Yes.

Rebecca
It doesn’t matter. That’s what you mean. You’re 42, and 43 was good?

Natalie
I think 41, 42, 43 — they’ve all been pretty good. Forties rocked. Thirties started off a little rough, but then, you know, that’s when I met Clifford, when I was 35, so things started looking up at around 35 in terms of relationships. Then I had the baby, didn’t die in the hospital. So I mean, there’s so many things that went really well. If anybody wants a reference to that, they can go back to episode one and two where we touch on Nat’s near-death experiences.

Rebecca
We should come back around to that sometime. I feel like there’s more to talk about. Should I just jump in with my first big question? Because it’s been on my mind.

Natalie
Yeah, please. Reframe ambition for us, Bec, or at least start the process.

Rebecca
Well, I’m wondering… oh, by the way, Meghan Markle, on her podcast, I think her first episode was about ambition. We didn’t know that was going to happen. One mind.

Natalie
Our marketing geniuses. So thanks MM, for joining on our train.

Rebecca
Yeah, it’s our train. You’re on our train.

Natalie
We started it.

Rebecca
Yup. Ok, so my question is: is ambition connected to jealousy for you? Because I think it might be a little bit for me, and sometimes that’s why I think, “Oh, ambition, it’s bad.” So let’s just start there. Is it bad because it’s connected to this feeling of jealousy?

Natalie
I think for myself, I would want to, before I really give much of a response, I’d want to define ambition for us. Because I think that a big word like ‘jealousy’ feels really loaded. So that’s a really big question, and I love your big questions, but I want to start with something a little more grounded. So I have just looked up ambition according to the Oxford Dictionary, and they know some stuff. So they’ve said that it’s a strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. So if ambition is connected to desire, right, the desire to do — then yeah, I can see how ambition can butt up against jealousy, because jealousy and desire often go hand in hand. So I can see how that could make sense — maybe jealousy of someone having done something you wanted to do, and then they did it first. So you’re sort of feeling, like, catch up — like what we’re doing with Meghan Markle here, even though we were first with this.

Rebecca
Right, because I’m like, “Am I jealous of Meghan Markle?”

Natalie
It’s like, “No!”

Rebecca
I’m ambitious about this podcast, but…

Natalie
I don’t know. I mean, Asha Frost, when we spoke with her a few episodes back, when we were reframing her idea of what it means to be the medicine, she actually said that if you experience a feeling of jealousy, then perhaps instead of it as jealousy, reframing it to be a prompt towards excitement, to then do more with that idea. I kind of go back to that, I think, with this question you’re asking me. I think for me, I wouldn’t have necessarily said that ambition per se is connected to jealousy, but I do think that jealousy kind of connotes relationship — a sense of being in relationship to others. If ambition is about being deeply embedded in myself, I would like to think that jealousy is not about someone else. So I’d like to put the jealousy component somewhere else. But it’s probably gradations of experience. I mean, we don’t live in a bubble, we live in relationship to others. So maybe there’s no way around it — maybe they are threaded together. Maybe they don’t have to be inherently connected, but maybe there are threads.

Rebecca
Sometimes I’m like, “Oh, if I wasn’t ambitious, then I wouldn’t experience those pangs of jealousy and I would be happier.” So many big, big things there.

Natalie
But Asha would say that those pangs are what prompt you to go forward. If we’re taking our learnings forward from these other big conversations we’ve had, she’d probably say that the ambition is in you to do something with, and then that pang or that feeling that maybe was experienced as negative — because you say the word ‘pangs,’ that obviously sounds like hurt. That feeling doesn’t feel comfortable. How can we change that feeling, that pang, into something that’s more like a poke or a prod? To just… like a tool.

Rebecca
A tool.

Natalie
It’s a tool.

Rebecca
I mean, this is also connected, I think, as we are all different, not everyone is equally ambitious. You and me, is it interesting to figure out how we’re differently ambitious? I don’t associate you with being a very jealous person, but you are an ambitious person. Hence they don’t have to be, as you say, connected. And I think it’s also ambition when it’s connected to competition, right? You can be ambitious personally, and ambitious about what you want to create in the world as an artist, but you don’t have to be competitive about it — and similarly as an entrepreneur. So as you get more and more into that space, do you feel like jealousy would be something you have to watch more? Or you would be like, “That’s never really going to be my vice. Ambition is something else for me.”

Natalie
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to pretend that jealousy doesn’t show up. But I guess I’m just not so sure — if we’re reframing ambition, in our reframing… which is more just a journey, right? We’re journeying through that word, and we’re trying to figure out what we want to do with it, and how we want to apply it to ourselves. And maybe somebody can take something away from it and do something with it for themselves. I’m not sure that jealousy is the biggest of the feelings attached to that word for me. That’s only one part. You asked me how do I see it for myself — I think up until now, ambition has been quite a solitary experience for me. I mean, certainly in academia, you’re kind of writing your own paper and you hope that some people are going to read it, but nobody really, except for some of those bigwigs out there that get all the shares and likes. It’s the big joke in academia, that you write the book that no one’s going to read — it’s that kind of a thing. So what’s the ambition then behind writing the book? Well, because you just have this burning desire to share your learning with a few who will get excited with you about that one small thing that you now know a bit more about. So ambition doesn’t look so large in terms of maybe its reach, and it feeling kind of solo for a long time until maybe it reaches the eyes of someone else.

Rebecca
Right, but there was that period when you were thinking about if you wanted to get into an academic tenured job. So when you see other people getting those jobs… I mean, Twitter is the worst. That’s where all the academics seem to go.

Natalie
Yeah, they do.

Rebecca
When you were wanting that, and seeing someone else getting it, what does that do to you, and what does that do to your…

Natalie
I can think of a couple of our friends who have had to hear me bemoan those experiences of applying and then not getting things, or almost getting things and then it not quite panning out. You’ve probably heard me feel sad about it, but I’m not sure it felt connected necessarily to jealousy about who was the other person that got it. But maybe, maybe if I’m being really honest — like, if you got me drunk on here, maybe.

Rebecca
Ok, that’s a whole other segment we could start.

Natalie
That could be kind of fun. Like when I think of that one job for that one university downtown where they tapped me for the gig, and then ended up hiring a white dude, I was like, “Really?” Like, you need another white man in that role? But am I jealous of him? No. I don’t know him. But am I irritated with the way that the system seemed to play out? That can be an irritation. But I don’t think that’s going to get in the way of my ambition to want to, again, share some knowledge and gain knowledge. And that’s actually what I find on places like Twitter. I get… my ambitions are actually spurred on to keep trying to dig deeper and find new things to read about and learn about and then share about through that space, because so many of those smart working academics are out there sharing their material. It’s just a really handy place to find access to great knowledge. So no, I think we can eschew the jealousy thing for a bit. I could be forcing that — like, I could be doing that because I don’t want to delve into that feeling. Well, I don’t know useful that feeling is for me in terms of getting through to my next project. So there are other feelings I want to spend more time in. Does that make sense?

Rebecca
No, it does make sense. Although I think it’s because it’s a strong feeling for me, because I have this really vivid memory. We have a close friend who’s a singer, and we grew up in church together, and I would always be sort of watching her and thinking she’s talented. And I think from a very young age I experienced that I would also like to do great things. This connection, and then this… “She’s going to achieve it first.” These kinds of things. It’s a struggle I’ve had since I was a kid. Maybe I’ve strengthened it by, or I need to release its power on my life. I need to just acknowledge that it’s like, “Yes, this has been a long-time struggle for me.” Can you hear Coco?

Natalie
Yeah. She’s really feeling with you.

Rebecca
She’s feeling all the jealousy, too.

Natalie
She’s empathizing so hard.

Rebecca
I don’t know what to do. Coco, I’m sorry. Just come — come here.

Natalie
It’s funny, because I can picture exactly who you’re talking about, and she and I went through the same music theatre program. You went a whole different direction. She and I should be the people who are in competition or, you know, ambitiously jealous (or something) of each other because ours are much more aligned. And yet that’s not how I feel, because it’s just about lives going in a different way. And if somebody were to look at your CV, they would go, “What the… why is that the energy that’s being taken up in Rebecca’s body, when she has accomplished all these things?” And that’s the hard part of it, right? It’s the feeling versus the seeing of experience. I mean, you’re the one living it. So I’m not going to disempower you by saying, “Don’t feel what you feel.” That’s not useful. But I think it’s cool if you can, as you just said, potentially release some of the power of that word so that you can really go forward in a new way with what ambition can mean to you now in your 43rd year.

Rebecca
Yes — as a 42-year-old in my 43rd. Ok, yesterday for my birthday… actually, I wrote down everything you guys said about me. We went around the table and everyone said a word or something…

Natalie
That they loved about you.

Rebecca
That they love about me — and Simon said my mind. And I’m just thinking about that in particular right now — that is a very encouraging thing for me to hear that he, you know, after this many years, that he is excited about my mind. You know, I think I have a churning, kind of ambitious… this is really feeling like a therapy session, Nat. Moving on after this. You’re like, “Uh huh…”

Natalie
No!

Rebecca
I think yes, my mind, yes, ambition — they’re connected. So I want to reframe that word for myself. So yes, that it can be a healthy concept of ambition the way Simon sees my mind. It’s not like this narrow, small thing that I think jealousy fits into, that is like this fear-based thing.

Natalie
Well, and you did start that question by asking, “Do you think everybody’s ambition looks the same?” I don’t think it would, because I think some people will be ambitious for different things. Clifford was explaining to you yesterday… my husband was talking to you about his meditation practice, right? And his truest ambition really is to meditate in a way that he experienced many years ago in his twenties when he was in a meditation retreat at a place in Thailand. We were walking just the other day, and he was describing to me this location that he now tries to go back to in his meditative experience — not because he’s trying to recapture an experience, but because that is actually the place where he felt the most (and this is the word he used, right) neutral. And I’m like, “Neutral? What a word!” That’s so interesting that that would be the desired emotive space to land in, but that is actually what meditation’s supposed to be about. It’s not supposed to be about feeling happy, or feeling excited. It’s about, actually, not being about feeling. It’s just supposed to be about being, right? So for him, ambition and being are much more connected than ambition and doing. So could that be, like somebody else’s ambitious nature is to achieve... it could just be being. Being present, being.

Rebecca
To achieve more being — that’s really beautiful.

Natalie
And really Buddhist monk-like stuff, you know what I mean? If you were to go read a bunch of the old desert fathers, you’d probably (and mothers), you’d read stuff like that. So that is a different type of ambition, isn’t it?

Rebecca
I think that’s actually maybe connected to the jealousy for me, because the feeling is so big in the body. It takes up so much room. I really love this idea of being ambitious for something neutral. And dad wished me happy birthday, and he had said, “I hope it’s a joyful, peaceful day.” I do think that is something I yearn for, is more peace. What about you? Do you yearn for more peace — like neutrality? Is that something that…?

Natalie
Yeah, I don’t know if it’s neutrality that necessarily I am yearning for — or even peace. And maybe I’m going to find sort of like a meandering way to answer this. I remember a day where you were talking, and you had really influenced Clifford, who then shared it with me, and so I’ve thought about this a lot: where you talked about how in your career you had learned at some session about the idea of a triangle of experience. There’s career at the top, and then art-making in one other corner, and then another corner is money. Any one project in your experience as a creative is not necessarily going to hit on all three. In fact, most are going to hit on one, and you might be lucky if they hit on two. So it might be career and art — that would be amazing. It might be career and money, but it might just be money.

And I think that I have been, since my twenties (and I entered this conversation saying that my thirties were hard, but it started in my twenties, really), alone. And in that alone time, I was so ambitiously focused on making it. I wasn’t just going to make it, I was going to make it and be good at it. So I was going to do my master’s, and then I was going to own that house, and then I was going to reno that house in the best way I could. It was so project-based that I don’t know that I had time in my mind for, like, a feeling to be connected to how I wanted to be. So I really admire the way that you say that with such certainty that you know that you’d actually like to embrace a feeling of peace. Because I think I’m just getting in touch with my feelings, I really do. So I don’t even know what the feeling is, necessarily, that I’m searching for because it’s more just like naming them that is such a big deal for me — which is probably why I spend so much time being excited for you that you do, or encouraging a friend to feel what she feels, or whatever it is. Because probably it’s actually speaking to something in myself about what I’m searching for. I’m searching for the words to name where I’m at, and then now do something with those.

Rebecca
Hey Reframeables: a little housekeeping. Don’t forget to rate, review, or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts if you like what we’re doing here on Reframeables. Your feedback really supports this reframing project of ours. Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter, which comes with a free delicious recipe from Nat. And we have a new segment for our Patreon subscribers: mini-episodes which we call Life Hacks and Enhancers — our five best things in a week. So check us out over on our Patreon, and consider a donation if these reframing conversations have supported you or someone you know. All the links are in our show notes. Love, Reframeables.

So when we get together to work, the first thing I should be asking you is, “How do you feel, and where do you feel it?”

Natalie
Oh my gosh, then I’ll run. “I don’t know! Fuck off!” Like, honestly.

Rebecca
No no, Nat. This is starting, Nat, and I’ve also decided I’m going to wear weird things.

Natalie
Just to prompt thought? Ok.

Rebecca
Spoiler, but we interview Ian Williams, and he said the most awesome thing about something he was wearing. You’ll have to listen to the interview next week to find out. But I just feel like I might need to show up in a… I don’t know, Nat. Something surprising that you’ll be like, “What? Are you wearing that?”

Natalie
Fur coat in the middle of summer.

Rebecca
Fur coat in the middle of summer.

Natalie
For you, even as I described that triangle again, does that triangle (you know, the art-making, career, money) connecting and reframing ambition, do those three triangle points still mean the same to you? What do you think that would mean for someone who’s not an artist, what would fall into their triangle? Do you think it’s a good image for ambition?

Rebecca
I think it is. I think it’s a good image because it gives clarity to ambition. I have the tendency to let everything meld all together, and then let issues collapse on top of each other. So if I separate them out into a nice clean triangle, I could say, “This project I’m doing is hitting these two things. It might not be hitting all three. That’s ok.” You know, any tools that give clarity are a useful thing, I think. Yeah, I don’t know what some of my other friends who aren’t artists, aren’t entrepreneurs, what would they be putting in their triangle? I mean, I get a bit unifocus. I’m kind of like, the artist side of my triangle — artist, career, those end up getting really heavily weighted. So I think the idea of weighting your being on the triangle, weighting health, weighting family, weighting relationships — I mean, I feel like relationships would be strong on your triangle. Do you think, Nat?

Natalie
Yeah, I do.

Rebecca
In general, do you think it feels more acceptable for a man to be ambitious? And are you bothered by how other people perceive your ambition? This is just an interesting thing, this idea of, “My ambition, it’s for me.” Because I think you maybe off the top used something like that — you said something about it being personal. So whereas sometimes I wonder about people weighing in on my ambition, or how people would like me to be.

Natalie
Well, I think having spent so long as a teacher… and teachers get to be alone in the classroom with their students, so it is still quite a solitary experience, right, where what you share, the material that you bring to the table… as much as there is a curriculum, it’s between you and the kids, in the end. So I can see why mine would have been more personal. Whereas you as a creator, it’s always going to be about a larger audience. So I see why the idea of other people’s opinions weighing in might mean something different, if I’m understanding the way that you’re presenting it.

Rebecca
But I’m also seeing, like, you were ambitious about your own marriage, your own personal life, so you decided to change that. No?

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
So people definitely weighed in on you as a woman, your choices. So do you think that’s connected to ambition? I definitely feel like there have been chatter talking about Natalie’s… now, maybe you wouldn’t say ‘ambition,’ but in some ways you sort of could. “What is she doing? What are those choices she’s making?”

Natalie
Yeah. “Why does she get to make those choices for herself? What does that say about her?” Yeah, no, that’s interesting. Maybe there’s been enough negativity in the background — enough of that chatter that I just, to function, I would have to kind of tune it out — or talk to you about it, or a couple good friends. But I also just kind of had to hunker down and put my head down and just do it.

Remember when I told you that story about shoveling snow? I shared a driveway with another house, and so I would have to shovel one month, if it was my month to have the driveway. And then if it was their month, they would shovel. And just to make him mad, because it was so important to him that it would be separate even though it would be inequitable (because one month, one month it wouldn’t, right?) I started to feel like it would only snow on my month, and so when it would snow on his, I would shovel his anyways, just to make him grumpy. So it was like I was killing him with kindness. But I don’t think it was altruistic. I actually think I was proving a point: I, the single woman who owned this place, you guys are critiquing me, I know you’re critiquing me for being on my own in this space. I’m going to shovel the damn driveway every single month. I don’t know that it worked to my favour, but I think that there’s something in me that was basically being a bit stubborn. And my ambition to prove a point was going to win out over any other sort of version of self-care. Anyways, I don’t know quite what to do with that, but I think there’s something in there.

Rebecca
Right, like it’s ambition to prove a point, versus… I don’t know. I feel like we need Tamara here. Tamara, what do you think about all this? She will weigh in. Something else I was listening to was on the Tim Ferriss podcast. He had said that he has struggled with hating himself for a long time. That’s something he admits he’s open about. And it was connected to that if he didn’t hate himself, it would mean that he was accepting where he was at in his life, and he always wanted to strive for more — so he needed to keep hating himself, in a way, to keep acknowledging that he needed to keep striving. Ok, are you with me?

Natalie
I’m really disagreeing with him, but I am with you.

Rebecca
Ok. I guess I just wanted to say I sort of can relate to that. That’s the particular nature of my ambition. So I think we definitely have very different definitions and experiences of ambition. I’d be curious, from our listeners, who they can relate to more.

Natalie
I think it’s super brave that you say that because nobody wants to hate themselves, and yet lots of people do. I think that is a feeling that lots of us struggle with at different points in our journey. But I don’t know — obviously it’s not something, as a feeling, that I want for you to spend the most time in. Because from my perspective (I think it’s how I started the conversation), I don’t think it’s necessarily the feeling that I want to have take up the most space. It goes back to the jealousy piece for me. These are all emotions that can be prompts for change, according to some of our guests, but also, they can be stumbling blocks, can they not? If you spin in a feeling, I imagine that that can get in the way. I don’t think you have to do it my way, which is to block off feeling, because that’s not been terribly useful either. So I’m having to work on getting more in touch with those feelings so that I can do something with them, use them as prompts, but I definitely don’t think that you going to that feeling and then spinning it is the way, either.

So there’s got to be a balance, which I think is probably at the heart of why our ambitions work really well together. I mean, that’s one of the reasons why building this community of Reframables together with you feels so possible, because we have ambitions to grow it into something that people can really pull from and learn from and pore into. But it’s because we both bring different skills to the table to balance each other out. We’re like salt and pepper — two shakers.

Rebecca
Yes. And so could you name moments in your life where you’ve had that particular… this is me asking you to name something, ok Nat? Maybe as we close up here. Do you recognize that feeling of self…?

Natalie
I’m just going to pause you for right a sec. You want to close up on me naming when I have felt hatred? No, not going to happen!

Rebecca
Ok, no, we won’t close up then. But have you felt that? I’m asking you to name it. Have you felt that? You’re like, “I think that’s a feeling,” but I wasn’t sure if you’d actually experienced that.

Natalie
I don’t think Tim Ferriss and I feel the same thing, no. I think I’m never worried that I am going to strive after the thing I’m going to strive after. My understanding of how you just presented his feeling was like if he ever got too comfortable, that he would stop moving forward — I’ve never felt like that.

Rebecca
Yeah, I see what you’re saying. That’s not going to be a motivator for you. You’re going to be motivated by different things.

Natalie
Mm-hmm, and that’s why I shared the story about the…

Rebecca
The shoveling.

Natalie
About the shoveling. What was I motivated by there? I mean, a) I want the shoveling done, but also I want to prove to this other person that their rules don’t need to box me in. We can modify the rules, we can work together. But I also just wanted to make him grumpy. So I don’t think mine is altruistic, right? I just don’t think that it’s about, like, a Tim Ferriss self-hatred.

Rebecca
Right, where I might shovel because, “I’m bad. I’m not good enough.”

Natalie
Yeah. I might just be shoveling for the exercise.

Rebecca
Right, or, “I don’t have a big enough house, so I will…”

Natalie
Yeah. I like that we don’t think the same way. That would be a way less fun, ambitious partnership to be in. Because then it would be like, “Ugh, I know why she’s doing that.” Now, it’s like a constant mystery.

Rebecca
“Your brain, it’s so strange today.”

Natalie
“Why is Rebecca doing that? Simon loves her mind.”

Rebecca
Is there an opposite to ambition?

Natalie
Yeah. Now, that’s an interesting question to me, because I think the easy answer that somebody might go with — would say ‘peace,’ or just ‘ease’ or even, God forbid, but you could say ‘lazy.’ But then I could reframe any of those words to say that they could each mean different things. I don’t know that there’s an opposite to ambition, the more that I think about it. If we’re saying that ambition has so much openness and can be lived out in so many different ways… what about you, what do you think?

Rebecca
Well, I think I would go back to Clifford, and I would say maybe the opposite is neutrality.

Natalie
Except that that’s what he’s ambitious to achieve. That’s where I think I’m stumping myself a bit. It’s the strong desire in him, right?

Rebecca
But what I mean by that is: is being the opposite of ambition? To be, being — is that the same? Do you still hear that the same way?

Natalie
For me, I do, simply because of that Oxford definition of it being a deep desire.

Rebecca
But what if it’s not deep desire? What if it’s just being — like, a deep desire to be? That’s still ambition, but what if it’s just…?

Natalie
Oh. Alright, Rebecca.

Rebecca
And maybe you can only achieve that in silence, or in meditation, or…

Natalie
Well, you’ve left me with something to sit with. That’s a good one.

Rebecca
Mm-hmm.

Natalie
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca
It’s very tricky stuff, this ambition. I’m going to have to go listen to MM, find out where she went with this.

Natalie
Well, ok. Are we saying that our takeaways from today, as we reframe ambition, is that there are some potentially threaded connections to jealousy. So it may be good to be aware of them, so we can protect our energies as we use that jealousy.

Rebecca
Mm-hmm, and it’s maybe more of a proclivity for some of us. That’s not denigrating me over — I’m just saying that there is a proclivity.

Natalie
Yup.

Rebecca
Some of us, and maybe it’s our careers, whatever. We can tend towards that. It’s good to know where we can meander a little more easily, and where we need to protect ourselves.

Natalie
Yup. And then another takeaway could be that ambition might be, for some of us, more relational. Like there could be something about gaining from being in relationship to others, to certain communities, to whatever it is that then will actually drive that ambition in a healthy way forward. So I am going to probably enjoy pursuing my ambitions over the next few years, getting to do this work with you — as opposed to having done what I’ve long done, which is do out my ambitions in my head. So what does it look like to potentially consider relationality in connection to ambition? I think that could be a takeaway for some.

Rebecca
There’s a risk in all that, right? A relational risk, in naming and being seen. Because if you keep them all in your head, are they really…

Natalie
Mm-hmm. Safe space up there, in some ways.

Rebecca
Ok, yeah, I should think about that one. Just because I always have you by my side, Nat. Another takeaway, I think, is bringing back the idea of the triangle. So not every goal is maybe going to be equally satisfying, but it’s a good idea to be balanced in our ambitions and pursuits, and to honour where they might be hitting. So if I might be achieving this goal, that’s a good thing, and to give myself a pat on the back for that. Or mothering — maybe we’ve accomplished a mothering goal or, I don’t know, whatever. We didn’t really touch on that, that’s for another time, but just acknowledge when we’re hitting things on our triangles. Or maybe it’s a pentagon.

Natalie
I was just going to say, “Or maybe it expands.”

Rebecca
Yeah. Maybe it’s a different shape for you, if a triangle doesn’t work. I love you, Nat. Thank you, and I love talking to you and picking your brain.

Natalie
Happy birthday.

Rebecca
Thanks for being my ongoing therapist and friend, and I’m going to help you name your feelings.

Natalie
Oh gosh. I love you too. Thank you for making me think about my feelings. I will delve deep, Bec. We will unearth something unexpected on this show.

Rebecca
Yes we will. Bye.

Natalie
Love you. Bye.