Episode 22 - Meenadchi: Checks From the Universe
Facilitator and somatic practitioner Meenadchi (Meenadchi/they) and Josie discuss non-violent communication, the tenderness the new year can bring, and the ways family constellation therapy helps us remember that we’re connected. This is a conversation full of laughter, space-holding, and magic.
[ID: A beige background and orange semi-circle. Text reads: The Intersectional Fertility Podcast Episode 22: Meenadchi and Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier @intersectionalfertility.]
Buy Meenadchi’s book, Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication, here.
Download checks to cash from the Universe here.
Episode Transcript:
Disclaimer: This is an automatically generated transcript edited to be more readable. It may not be 100% accurate.
[00:00:00] Josie: I'm Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and this is the Intersectional Fertility Podcast, where ideas and identities intersect to deepen our understanding of fertility and ultimately our whole selves.
[00:00:23] Meenadchi is a facilitator and somatic practitioner whose work centers the softness of meeting our best self and deepening into our collective light. Using a blend of family constellation therapy and non-violent communication, Meenadchi weaves group containers in which participants are invited to recognize and heal the entanglements of bad communication and ancestral trauma so that we can collaboratively become a set of badass ancestors who nurture legacies of connection and joy, both for ourselves and the communities we love to serve.
[00:01:00] Meenadchi, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:14] Meenadchi: Thanks Josie.
[00:01:15] Josie: I'm so excited to have you here. So Meenadchi and I know each other through Birthing Beyond the Binary. A course we took last year and we've been study buddies ever since. and turned into real buddies. So it's been such a joy and a pleasure to get to know you Meenadchi over the last year or so more now, I guess.
[00:01:46] Meenadchi: Just over, I mean, I wonder. We had our first study buddy session. It might have been in November, but it might have been in December.
[00:01:52] Josie: Yeah, totally. Aw. Well, thanks so much for being here, friend.
[00:01:58] Meenadchi: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:59] Josie: Yeah, so I would love to know, I love to hear people's stories and what brings them to their work that they do, and you do such interesting and wonderfully important work. Would you share with us the story of what led you to this work?
[00:02:16] Meenadchi: Oh, yeah. My name is Meenadchi, my pronouns are my name, and they. So I identify as, I keep going back and forth. You know how like part of what we do is like the iteration of what are the words that we even use?
[00:02:31] Josie: Yes.
[00:02:32] Meenadchi: That like, and some of the words I've been playing with more recently is saying that I'm a healing practitioner who helps people in the practice of remembering that they matter. Cause I think is when we feel like we don't matter, that we say and do things, that we say and do things that sometimes put us out of alignment with who we actually are. Because we're scrambling to be seen and we're fighting to be heard.
[00:03:00] Whereas if we remember that we matter and we remember that we are just the embodiment of source energy, complete lusciousness and love and wonder, then it helps us move with more grace, flexibility.
[00:03:18] Deepening into our yes deepening of who we wanna be in this lifetime, in this go around. And the primary modalities that I use are nonviolent communication, family constellation therapy, and cranio sacral therapy. And I identify non-violent communication or NVC as like my base modality. It's kind of where it started from.
[00:03:38] And I love to tell that origin story. My family's from Sri Lanka and the Civil War started three days after I was born. Civil War, War for Liberation. However you wanna phrase it or put the words together. And in 2002 there was a ceasefire, the first real ceasefire since the war began.
[00:03:59] And I was home from college and my amma was like, There's this woman who's doing a fundraiser because she wants to go home and teach nonviolent communication. And we both were like, don't know what that non violent communication thing is, but we gotta find out who that woman is. And her name was Jeyanthy Siva.
[00:04:21] Is Jeyanthy Siva. She's still alive and well. I call her Jeyanthy akka, which means big sister. Because yeah, she's become a mentor and friend. And so that was, that was where it began for me in 2002. And seeing the ways that the ways we speak to each other really transforms our ability to connect to ourselves and our ability to connect to each other.
[00:04:43] And seeing it in my own family, because both my amma and I started using these tools. And then also being able to travel back home and do work with Jeyanthy akka with our people, the youth population, et cetera. You know, just seeing, it's really just the ways in which words and resonance and holding space can do so much to shift our trauma histories or our experience of trauma.
[00:05:14] Josie: Right, right. Wow. Oh my gosh, that's such a powerful story. And it makes me think too of just like how nonviolent communication starts, and how violent communication starts and how it can really amplify on bigger scales. Just seeing the effects of war and all that. It's almost like, well, that started somewhere.
[00:05:43] So it's like, what are the impacts that these quote unquote tiny things we can do, on these micro levels of the way we communicate with each other, they can have, you know, global impact.
[00:05:59] Meenadchi: Completely. Gonna geek out a little bit, I was watching an episode of Star Trek yesterday.
[00:06:05] Josie: Nice.
[00:06:10] Meenadchi: So it was like I don't wanna like give any spoilers away, but cuz it's in the latest season of discovery. But basically it was all these cadets who were new to the Star Fleet and they had never interacted with each other before and they'd never interacted with folks or with beings who were from, not from their region.
[00:06:30] And so they were on this mission and they were from the smallest things were tripping over each other's words and getting into arguments, which was then escalating, escalating, escalating. Of course the big monsters coming and they have to get outta here, but they can't because you know. So just, yes, exactly.
[00:06:50] Josie: Ah. See exactly. They could have used you in that moment.
[00:06:55] Meenadchi: Well, they had Tilly so it was okay.
[00:07:01] Josie: Oh, that's so funny. Yes. Well, I love that story. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. So I wanna know more about what nonviolent communication is. I know a little bit about it, but what I really am curious about is like, how it can be decolonized. Cuz I know that that's what you sort of focus on is not only nonviolent communication, but decolonizing nonviolent communication.
[00:07:27] So could you give us an example of like, what is nonviolent communication and then how has it been colonized or how can we work to decolonize it?
[00:07:38] Meenadchi: Yeah, So there's a couple things. One is so whenever I teach, I always say that I say that I'm teaching nonviolent communication because it just is the modality, the specific modality that is my base was developed by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg who developed a very structured practice of NVC.
[00:07:57] And with that said, I have a problem even with the term itself. Because as soon as we say nonviolent communication, we're automatically establishing a binary. So then there's violent communication and nonviolent communication, which then brings into question a couple things. Like one, as soon as we're in that binary, we're automatically othering the person who's speaking the other different way. And the othering is the root of violence.
[00:08:24] Josie: Mmm, wow. Will you say that again? That feels so important.
[00:08:31] Meenadchi: Just the piece that othering is the root of violence. So when we see somebody acting or behaving a certain way and we say, that's not me, or none of that lives in me. And the other piece around what we define or describe as violent or nonviolent communication, when we have these labels in these terms, it's like, okay, but who is it that has the power to determine what is defined as violence and what is defined as non-violence?
[00:08:55] I think it's always important to remember, that one of the the biggest, most prolific people who's associated with nonviolence, right? Mahatma Gandhi, who said and did things that were incredibly harmful, that were incredibly racist, that were incredibly casteist, that were incredibly misogynist, right. So it is dangerous and I think that when people have this idea of what nonviolence is, they assume that it means you must speak with a soft voice and you must have a kind something.
[00:09:29] No, no, no. Like, there's no way you have to talk or are supposed to talk in order to get your expression across. What is important is that you are authentic to you, right? What is actually nonviolent is when we are our best self and when we are our truest self, and that might mean that we raise our voices Sometimes.
[00:09:50] That might mean that we pound our fists. Whatever it is that is your truth. You must speak that because that is the actual practice of nonviolence. It's the deconditioning, the unlearning, the relearning who we want to be. That I think is the practice of nonviolence or what it is for me.
[00:10:08] Josie: Oh wow, yeah. That makes so much sense. The thing that came to mind as you were describing that was during the Black Lives Matter protests last year, when all the looting and everything was happening and how, you know, people were viewing that as so violent. And it was like, is it?
[00:10:29] Meenadchi: It's not.
[00:10:30] Josie: It's not like, isn't this a response to what has happened? Where is the violence in that? And who was, you know, Anyways. Yeah, it really, that brought up that I see what you mean of like decolonizing, what that even means, what nonviolent even means and how it does automatically put that binary there. That's what colonizing does, right?
[00:10:57] Totally. Yeah. Ugh, that makes a lot of sense. So I, so we, you and I are talking a couple days before, well, one day before New Year's Eve.
[00:11:10] Meenadchi: Oh my gosh. That's tomorrow. Oh my gosh.
[00:11:12] Josie: Tomorrow, those of you will be hearing this recording, New Year's has already happened, but we're still within that New Year's afterglow. And every year this is something that I like to really be intentional about and think about, how am I gonna approach this year? What do I wanna do differently? Or what's worked well and that kind of thing.
[00:11:34] So I would love to talk with you kind of in the context of the new year in terms of like, making New Year's resolutions or goals, I'm curious if this is something that you do and how does this relate to how we communicate with ourselves in a non-violent or a violent way? Because I know sometimes having certain goals or resolutions or things like that can, can actually be detrimental to some folks, and it can feel like more of a violent communication in my mind. Yeah. So I'd love to know your take on that.
[00:12:12] Meenadchi: Mm. So I have a couple takes. One is I think of every day as a new year, you know what I mean? Like every, every day is a time when we could set that resolution for a fresh reset. I'm like a Hallmark holiday person, I love all the cheesy shit. So I do love New Year's. I like being at home and being awake and watching TV or doing whatever geeky things to celebrate. And I think that, I like to set intentions for the New Year's.
[00:12:45] I like to set dreams for myself. And I think that only you meaning whoever, only you can determine what is or isn't violent or harmful towards yourself cuz you know it and you feel it in your body. And I think a good way of tracking whether the way I'm speaking to myself is ultimately harmful or violent or not, is if I physically have a sense of expansion.
[00:13:10] If I have a sense of physical expansion, when I'm talking about my dreams, when I'm talking about my goals, or when I'm talking about what do I wanna achieve over the course of this next year, then it's actually feels like me putting myself on my path.
[00:13:25] But if the way that I'm talking about myself is loaded and laden with the sense of, if I don't achieve this, then I am nothing. And if I don't accomplish, I must accomplish this in order to prove, in order to demonstrate, right. I can already feel like the constriction monsters coming in on my shoulders and my chest. It's like at that point it's like, nah, you gotta let it all go and just deal with what is.
[00:13:49] Josie: Yeah, totally. Oh, I love the word dreams. I've, I've never used that word to make, instead of, you know, resolutions or goals to make dreams. Mm. I love that.
[00:14:05] Meenadchi: There's so many. I'm like, How many? Like how do you dream? And what does, What do Josie's dreams look like or feel like or taste like, or textures like ?
[00:14:16] Josie: Yeah. That's a good question. I wonder that too, I'll have to journal on that.
[00:14:23] I love that. I love that reframe. Yeah, And something else I'm thinking about in this conversation is the folks who are trying to conceive and how the coming of a new year can be quite triggering. To some who feel like, you know, I thought I would have a baby by now or , I was planning to have conceived already by now.
[00:14:47] Or the, you know, these pieces haven't lined up in the way that I thought that they would. So that it can be kind of painful, you know, this time of year to see another year go by, and especially if there's like a birthday nearby the new year where it's like, I didn't think I would get older, you know, kind of that that fertility ticking clock that a lot of folks have that awareness of can feel kind of painful this time of year.
[00:15:10] So I'm thinking of those folks and my audience today, and I'm wondering you know, how can we really bring tenderness and awareness to that and decolonize those sorts of timelines and expectations.
[00:15:27] Meenadchi: I was thinking about this question a lot when you had initially shared it with me and there were two thoughts and things. First, I just love that you used the word tenderness because even saying that word out loud, it just like settles something in the body or it brings a different quality of energy in.
[00:15:44] I was thinking about my partner, who some folks who are on my mailing list will know as the beloved being and Josie, you've known about a little, our journey trajectory. And when we first got together, we talked about the family planning stuff. And you know, we'll go in and we'll harvest his eggs and then I'll carry and, and this, this, and that.
[00:16:08] And I've talked about the, I just actually just recently told him this, but when he first started talking, About family planning I got really, really angry and I can still feel the tears come up right now because I was like, these are dreams that I have put to bed.
[00:16:24] Josie: Oh, wow.
[00:16:25] Meenadchi: I was like, I have already, I have already made peace with the fact that I, that this is not the way that I am gonna bring a family into the world. Already made peace with like the fact that I am not gonna have the opportunity to carry children. Like, why are you bringing this back up? You know? And I think it is incredibly important that we remain vulnerable to our dreams, right?
[00:16:48] The future generations really require that of us, that we just remain so tenderly open and soft and sweet and inviting to our dreams, and also allow those dreams to manifest in the ways that they need to, want to, or will. It's the other piece of healing for me and what I'll offer out is in my work with Family Constellation Therapy, which looks at how all things come into being.
[00:17:15] It's the remembrance that we are actually all part of any life that comes into the world right now is part of a collective process, right? Like there are people who are listening right now and the fact that our conversation and the vibrations that we are bringing in are possibly nourishing their fertility, right?
[00:17:39] It's the remembrance that our sense of family and sense of connection and kinship to each other. Is so much more expansive than we sometimes give ourselves permission to see.
[00:17:54] Josie: Wow. Oh, that's so beautiful. I can picture it. That expansive connectedness. That's beautiful. Yes I love that, remaining vulnerable to our dreams because being that vulnerable is so scary. Tremendously, right? Because it feels like, well I, you know, cuz there's a tremendous opportunity there to be disappointed. Yeah. So, that's what makes being vulnerable to it, like being still open to it. So scary.
[00:18:28] I think about that a lot. I feel, you know, I've worked with in this realm of fertility for so many years now, for about 13 years, and I've always felt like it's people are the most brave. On these fertility journeys because they are so vulnerable to having stuck their flag in the sand of being like, this is what I want and I'm gonna put my whole heart on the line for it.
[00:18:53] And in some cases, I'm gonna mortgage my house for it. I'm gonna, you know what I mean? Like really the stakes are high cuz they've put not only emotional stakes, but also financial in a lot of cases. And so it's like this full, complete surrender that they're like, I want this so bad. I'm willing to just risk losing.
[00:19:17] I'm willing to risk having this not work out. And that is like, I mean, that's the bravest, most beautiful expression of love, I think. Yeah, that's awesome. Ugh. So yes, I think that's probably one of the best ways to decolonize timelines and expectations around your fertility journey. Is to open up to that dream that you have and let it let it come however it's gonna come right?
[00:19:48] Meenadchi: Will come in one. You know, and also the pieces, again of remembering this might be too woowoo for some, you know, but that time isn't real. And that we are expansive beings whose energies and entities expand beyond this present moment and that life will constantly be in flow and accompaniment with us.
[00:20:08] Josie: Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. I love that. Well, I'm curious, do you have a New Year's ritual that you do? Would you like to share it with us?
[00:20:20] Meenadchi: One of my mentors and coaches, she loves writing some checks. She loves receiving some checks. I was like, ok, well then this is also what I am gonna do. I have I started cutting up pieces of paper, like in check shape and I'm just gonna write myself checks for everything I want to receive, whether that's like abundant, expansive, community, delicious, delicious celebrations. Of joy. Safe in-person meetings, you know, dance parties galore. I'm just gonna write myself checks from the universe that I can cash, you know, whenever I want to in 2022.
[00:20:57] Josie: Oh my gosh, I love that. Can I copy your ritual?
[00:21:01] Meenadchi: Please? Take it.
[00:21:05] Josie: I love that so much. Oh, I wanna do that too. Those things sound wonderful. Ugh. Dance parties. I miss dance parties. Oh, I love that. Thank you. Well, something that I ask all my guests and something that I teach is that in Chinese medicine, our fertility is referred to as our essence.
[00:21:30] So the more we're able to get in touch with who we really are the more access we have to our fertile potential or our creative power. And this is what I teach in my online course, and so I always ask folks, do you have a personal practice or ritual in place, not just a New Year's ritual, but just kind of a day to day, that allows you to connect with your essence or your whole self.
[00:21:51] Meenadchi: Well, first I just love this principle and this concept. I was so excited when you went like, you know, you first introduce stuff like, Ooh, that is luscious. I think for me, the things that I try and do, I try and go into my sacred container which is again, a practice I've received from one of my teachers.
[00:22:07] And like just three minutes of meditation. And I set a container for myself and then I can call in whomever or whatever it is that I want to meet. And it's like a quick hit of nourishment and play with the universe. That can help me just kind of like relax a little bit when I start to feel lots of different ways just to remember. Oh no, everything is A Okay.
[00:22:33] Josie: Mm oh, interesting. So is it like a person live or dead or a spirit or It can be anybody?
[00:22:39] Meenadchi: I'll do anything. So what I'll do is I usually will close my eyes and I set my sacred container by mentally drawing a circle. That is the container. And then I will ask anybody who's not here for my highest good to leave the container, everybody who is here for my highest good to come into the container. And then I will step into the container and usually I'll get an intuitive hit of who I want to ask to meet. Right?
[00:23:04] Maybe I want to ask to meet the version of myself who knows that everything is gonna be okay, or maybe I want to meet somebody I wanna. Maybe I'll say who is it from the animal realm who wants to speak to me or has something to guide me today? Or maybe I'll ask can you please let me see the side of my shadow that wants to be held so that it can turn towards the light?
[00:23:28] I just ask lots of different questions once I get into my container, and then the information will just appear as I let it. I'll receive whatever information, blessings, downloads and then usually like my alarm will kind of go off or. It'll just time that I will intuitively know it's time to leave the container and then I will thank everybody and I'll close the circle.
[00:23:53] Josie: Wow. Yeah. That is awesome. That's so powerful. Okay, thank you for explaining that cuz I was thinking like, Something totally different. I was like thinking of like, Oh, that I would call like a specific person into the space to like talk with them or have like a soul meeting almost.
[00:24:14] Meenadchi: Yeah. And that too, I mean, on the topic of fertility, I've definitely gone into my container and asked to speak with the children that I would've wanted to have or, you know what I mean? I've definitely had those conversations and felt the energy and the care that comes from that. And I, again, it's because I do believe that. When we come in as children, we're choosing who we come in through and with and, and that things can happen over many lifetimes. Yeah.
[00:24:42] Josie: Totally. I believe that too. Oh, what a powerful practice for folks who are trying to conceive. I love that. Yeah, and just the thought of too, like asking more future versions of yourself to come in. I love that too.
[00:24:56] I did a meditation, a guided meditation, I don't know, a couple years ago of like meeting my older self. And it was during a time that was, I really needed that confirmation and that sort of stability coming from myself. It was amazing. So powerful. It sounds really powerful. Yeah.
[00:25:17] Cause it's like, yeah, there's something different about meeting, you know, your own energy. I guess coming kind of full circle back to the non-violent communication of what that, the essence of that is, is like communicating your truth of who you are, who you actually are. That's a really interesting way to do it.
[00:25:37] Well, I've loved this conversation. I've learned so much. I always learn so much. Every time I talk to you.
[00:25:44] Meenadchi: I love just being in space with you.
[00:25:46] Josie: Me too. Well, is there anything else you can think of that you wanted to share with folks today or that we didn't get a chance to talk about?
[00:25:55] Meenadchi: Yeah, maybe just gratitude for the folks listening cuz even though this is now in the past and you're in the future, if there is a flow that's happening here, grateful.
[00:26:06] Josie: Exactly. All right. Well how can folks find you and support you and actually will you let us know about are there any offerings that you wanna talk about in more detail that you have right now? And how can people sign up for those.
[00:26:20] Meenadchi: Yeah, so folks can find me at my website, which is www.traumainformednvc.com, For non-violent communication, traumainformednvc.com. And the two things I have coming up that I'm pretty excited about I'm starting a reflective listening course in January, January 13th is when that starts. And I love that class because people think therapists are magic and therapists are magic. Therapists are, yes, they're absolutely magic.
[00:26:50] And those. Skills of active listening, patient listening, graceful listening, those are a hundred percent learnable. And it just takes practice, it just takes a little bit of drilling and insight and awareness to begin holding space for each other in a similar way which I think is important. Because we can and should be able to access all manners of healing with each other.
[00:27:13] So I love being able to offer that course. And that's a course for anybody and everybody who wants to come. And then in April I'm gonna be doing a train the trainer specifically for BIPOC folk who want to learn how to facilitate family constellation therapy. Mm. Cool. I'm super excited about that too cuz it's a modality of ancestral healing that I started studying specifically in order to bring it.
[00:27:41] Most family constellation practitioners are white and and straight, and so I wanted to bring it back into queer and trans, black and brown communities. So I'm really excited to be doing that. Train the Trainer, which starts in April.
[00:27:55] Josie: Oh, that sounds amazing. I was curious too, is the, what you explained about the creating the container and then meeting with with other beings, is that similar to the like constellation?
[00:28:07] Meenadchi: Family Constellation? It is not.
[00:28:09] Josie: Okay, yeah. Can you, well, would you kind of elaborate a little bit on what family Constellation therapy is?
[00:28:18] Meenadchi: Yeah. Family Constellation therapy is a somatic modality, meaning it has to do with the body. Where there's there's lots of different ways to do it. The way I do it is always in circle space with people. And we're really just tapping into our shared experience in order to be able to identify for the seekers. So the one person who I might be working with, who maybe has like I'm like, Oh, these are all my, I gotta make this shorter, cause I'm like, Oh, 10, 10 different tangents in explaining this.
[00:28:48] Josie: No, go for it. I wanna hear all the tangents.
[00:28:51] Meenadchi: Basically, the idea behind it is that anytime we have a block in our own life path or in our own life flow and what we want to achieve, and we just can't seem to get there, it's often connected to some form of ancestral trauma, whether we have recognized it or not.
[00:29:06] There's a blockage in the flow of love that is coming to us. And if we can do a bit of work to identify where the blockage is and then release it, we can come into our most aligned life path. And you don't have to know specifically who your ancestors are.
[00:29:22] I think, again, in the practice of decolonizing, it's important to remember this microphone that I'm speaking into, or this laptop or this chair, all of these pieces, there are pieces of my ancestry all here, right? Because we're all connected and connected and connected, right?
[00:29:37] So that's a little bit of what Family Constellation therapy looks at, is how do we tap into the remembering that we are all connected and collective permission that exists in the field to live our best life.
[00:29:51] Josie: Wow, that is awesome. Yeah, that's a good point. And good to know that you don't have to know who your ancestors were specifically. Yeah, interesting. Okay, and so the first offering is, will you say them again? Just to recap.
[00:30:10] Meenadchi: So the first offering is the Reflective Listening course, so that's a 13 week course to practice your reflective listening skills. And then the other thing is this BIPOC Train the trainer for Family constellation work. And you can find it all at traumainformednvc.com.
[00:30:28] Josie: Okay, cool. And then I'm wondering too about the train the trainer. So is it only for people who are trainers?
[00:30:36] Meenadchi: It's for people who want to begin to facilitate this work. You don't have to have prior experience with Family Constellation work. It is intended for people who are already like, identify as space holders. For who are doing healing work in the community and wanna have like a new tool in their pocket.
[00:30:53] Josie: Gotcha, okay, perfect. So I could do it.
[00:30:56] Meenadchi: Yeah, definitely.
[00:30:57] Josie: That's what I'm really getting at. That sounds incredible. Okay, so folks can find out all about those on your website and I'll put that your website in the show notes. Cool. Great. And is there any other places you wanna direct folks to support you or is that the main one?
[00:31:11] Meenadchi: That's the main one.
[00:31:13] Josie: Okay, perfect. Yeah. And then also, folks, be sure to sign up for Meenadchi's newsletter. Can they do that on your website?
[00:31:18] Meenadchi: Yes, they can do that on my website.
[00:31:21] Josie: It's such a good newsletter. I look forward to it all the time. I feel like you're talking directly to me.
[00:31:27] Meenadchi: I try.
[00:31:28] Josie: Oh good. Well, thank you so much for being here today, friend.
[00:31:32] Meenadchi: Thanks for having me, Josie.
[00:31:40] Josie: Thanks for listening to the Intersectional Fertility Podcast. To get customized fertility recommendations based on your Whole Self Fertility Method element, join my mailing list at intersectionalfertility.com and get immediate access to my two minute quiz. If you like the show and wanna hear more, tap subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and please leave us a review.
[00:32:04] It really truly helps. The Intersectional Fertility podcast is hosted by me, Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and produced by For the Love Media with Original Music by Jen Korte.
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