Tiffany C.: All the things that happened within that scenario, I know that I needed to leave Los Angeles in order to also cultivate and create new things for myself. It opened up that opportunity of just having some quiet, and some space from my other day-to-day, because I was working six days a week for eons when I was there, and I couldn't just jump into that when I came here. So, it allowed me to start to hibernate and have this metamorphosis, and so I'm so grateful for that.
Announcer: You're listening to the MILF Podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF. Now, here's your host, the MILFiest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, sexuality, entrepreneurship. Happy July. It is July 4th today. Happy independence, guys, those of you that are listening in the U.S., and happy July 4th to everyone else. My dogs are going to be freaking out shortly, because they get really freaked out by the fireworks, which isn't that bad where I live, but I mean, it's just there's a lot of big firework-y places ... firework-y? Firework places ... firework shows near my house, because I'm in the middle of West Hollywood.
Jennifer Tracy: But, it's summer. I'm really been enjoying this summer vibe of just slowing down a little bit, which is hard for me, but I have been doing it, I've been forcing myself, and it feels good. It feels really good, and my son helps me do that, because he definitely is in that, I'm not in school kind of vibe. Everything's a little bit looser, and it's really nice. It's lighter longer. So, I'm leaning into that.
Jennifer Tracy: Let's see. So, this month's give is I'm going to ... I've worked with them before, so I'm going back to Every Mother Counts again, June ... July's give, sorry I have a little frog in my throat. I'm going to take a sip of water. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep, and I'm going to leave that in the intro, because that's real life. Hydrate thyself.
Jennifer Tracy: Every mother counts is an exceptional organization. I'm so impressed with everything they've been able to accomplish. They just did this thing in 2018 with the White Ribbon Alliance, to conduct the largest survey with women's opinion on their sexual and reproductive health needs. They wanted to discover what quality healthcare means to 1 million women and girls around the world, and then they created a detailed advocacy agender ... agender, agender, that was Freudian slip ... agenda to realize those demands.
Jennifer Tracy: So, anyway, you can read more about it on their website. There's a link to their website on my website, Every Mother Counts, and as always, you can either donate to them directly through either of those links, or you can write a review for Milf Podcast on iTunes, and I will donate $25 for each review in the month of July.
Jennifer Tracy: Our life show, you guys, is three weeks from yesterday. I'm kind of freaking out. I'm kind of freaking out with excitement, I'm a little bit nervous, I haven't been on a stage in a little, but it's like home, so it'll be just fine. No, I'm kidding. Anyway, it's going to be an epic show. Please get your tickets, there's a few spaces left. There's a link on my ... I think there's actually a popup on my website milfpodcast.com if you go there you could just buy the tickets right away on any of your devices, your phone, your tablet, your computer, or you can go to dynastytypewriter.com, and buy them there.
Jennifer Tracy: Today's guest is the lovely Tiffany Chambers. Tiffany came to me through our dance community, and I'm so glad that we connected, because our talk was just epic, and I have so much respect for her as a mom and as a movement therapist. What she does is really profound. She has all of this experience, like a wide, wide, wide range of experience and certifications, and she really understands the body on a physical level, a cellular level, a spiritual level, and it's amazing how she integrates all of those things into what she does now, and also into being a mother and mothering her children, which you'll hear a lot about in our conversation.
Jennifer Tracy: So, thanks so much for listening guys, and I just want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you. I really appreciate the listeners of this podcast, because it just makes me want to do more, and more, and more of it when I get messages from you guys about how an episode really resonated with you, an episode about how something made you laugh, made you feel less alone. This is why I do this. I'm so grateful to all of you, and I'm so grateful to my team that helps me do this every week, because I couldn't do it by myself. I'm just super stoked that I get to keep doing this, because it's really fun. It's really, really fun. Please enjoy my conversation with Tiffany Chambers. Thanks so much for listening.
Jennifer Tracy: Hi, Tiffany.
Tiffany C.: Hi.
Jennifer Tracy: Thanks so much for being on the show.
Tiffany C.: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: So, you are an S Factor woman, you're a pole woman, you're a yoga teacher, you're a healer, and a practitioner, from what I'm gathering.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm so glad you reached out, I love that. Tell me ... I want to just start from the beginning, where are you from originally?
Tiffany C.: Originally I was born in Wisconsin. I was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and at the age of just about eight, I had took the train for three days to California to Santa Barbara, and I was raised for the most part in Santa Barbara with my mom, and my sister, and my grandparents, my mom's parents. We all moved into my grandparents house when I was eight, and that was a whole other scenario. Then I moved to San Diego for a year of college, I moved to New York for a year of college. I had panic attacks in New York, and ran away and came to L.A. for more college. I think I had way too much college, and landed in Los Angeles for a good 25-ish years.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, and just under a year ago moved to Portland, Oregon with my family, my littles and my husband.
Jennifer Tracy: Do you love it there, is it just feel-
Tiffany C.: No.
Jennifer Tracy: You don't, oh my gosh, no. Tell me, are you coming back to L.A.?
Tiffany C.: There's a part of me that would love to come back to L.A., but my husband will never move back there. He's from Vermont originally-
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, yeah.
Tiffany C.: ... and he was dying in Los Angeles. It took me a long time to fall in love with L.A., it took me a long time, and then I finally got to the place where it was my home, and so it was very difficult for me to leave for a myriad of reasons. I mean, my built-in chosen family, and my clients of 10, 15 years, which are all very intimate relationships. So, it was very difficult, but I was willing and excited to have the adventure to come to Portland, and see what it was going to be. I really wanted to raise my kids, both of us wanted to raise our kids in nature, and away from a lot of the culture of Los Angeles.
Tiffany C.: We have one specific daughter who, L.A. just seemed like it was broken glass for her. It was too sharp, too much stimulation. She has a lot on her ... I think epigenetically she has a lot that's going to on with her, so we needed to get her into a place where she had space, and wasn't so confined. Also because in L.A. we had a smaller home, and in Portland, the thing that's beautiful about Portland is that obviously the trees, and the nature's stunning, and we can have a space that's large, which we couldn't do in L.A., but I am a girl of the sun, which is why I had panic attacks in New York. I had two times where I was like, "I have to leave right now.", and I just got on a plane and left, because I couldn't see the sun.
Jennifer Tracy: Is that your experience there, I've not spent much time in Portland, but I know it's a Northwestern place where generally the sun doesn't come out too often. So, is that-
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I know it's not as rainy as Seattle.
Tiffany C.: It's pretty rainy, I mean-
Jennifer Tracy: Is it? Okay.
Tiffany C.: ... it's pretty rainy, it's very gray. We're just coming into spring, thank God, and so I'm starting to get some reprieve, and this is only my first year.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Tiffany C.: It's only first year here, and I don't think we're staying, because I don't think I can do it, and so we-
Jennifer Tracy: Where would you move? What about ... I mean, I'm from Denver, I don't know if that would-
Tiffany C.: Yeah, we looked at Boulder.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, yeah, Boulder's better. Boulder's better.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, but it also wasn't quite right either. There was very clear reasons why we moved here. We needed to have the experience. There was a lot that unearthed itself when we made the move, and-
Jennifer Tracy: Interesting.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Like what? Give me one example.
Tiffany C.: Oh, God. Well basically, in our route to come here, my husband is an animator and illustrator, he's incredible, he's brilliant, and he booked this beautiful Eric Clapton music video gig on our drive from Los Angeles to Portland, and he's like, "Oh, well, I'm going to have to go to work when we get there." So, we got here, and I was immediately a single parent moving into this house by myself, and not only that but he was doing stop motion animation, so the set was being built at our house.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, wow.
Tiffany C.: So, before we were moved in I had five people in my living room ... I didn't have a couch, I didn't have anything for like five months, and I just have all these people around, and everyone's in the space every time, they're in my garage all hours of the night, all of that. It was just madness when we first moved in.
Tiffany C.: Yeah but, all the things that happened within that scenario, I know that I needed to leave Los Angeles in order to also cultivate and create new things for myself. It opened up that opportunity of just having some quiet, and some space from my other day-to-day, because I was working six days a week for eons when I was there, and I couldn't just jump into that when I came here. So, it allowed me to start to hibernate and have this metamorphosis, and so I'm so grateful for that, and then I want to leave. I want to go.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, you're like, "And check, check, got the metamorphosis, we're out."
Tiffany C.: And out, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: T-Dog is out.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: So, wow, that's awesome, and also congratulations, it takes such bravery to do that, especially with small children, and just to go for it, I think that's so great, and brave, and wonderful modeling for your kids. All of it. I think that's so exciting, and I have ... just in talking to you for six minutes, I already have total knowledge that you guys are going to land in some fabulous sunshiny place.
Tiffany C.: Oh, I'll take [crosstalk 00:11:23].
Jennifer Tracy: How old are your kids?
Tiffany C.: Almost eight. Maisie's just a couple weeks shy of eight-
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, you just have one little girl?
Tiffany C.: No, I have a son, Griffin-
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, you have son.
Tiffany C.: ... who's five.
Jennifer Tracy: Griffin.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Griffin. Oh my gosh. Wow, so eight and five, that's hands full, there's no stopping.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: It's constant. So, when you had them you were here in L.A., working six days a week as a mom, and a wife, what was that like, and what were you doing at the time?
Tiffany C.: I'm a movement therapist, which puts a big question mark over what does that really mean? I work with emotional and physical trauma in the body, by modes of many different ways. I was a bodyworker for 15 years, and a yoga teacher for 15, 20 years, and became a yoga therapist, and erotic movement dancer. So, I work with connective tissue, fascial adhesions, and through physical therapy, joint mobility work, and ball therapy, and the erotic movement, kind of depends on who's in front of me. But I've been doing all of that ... I did it six days a week up until the day that I delivered, actually, Maisie.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: Not my intention, I mean, God, I wish that women really had the ability, the time, I wish society were built where we could go out into the woods, or nature, for the entire gestation period, and really be able to birth in that way, but she was two weeks earlier than we thought she would come, and I was going to stop two weeks before. Not that that's any amount of buffer really for entering parenthood, but that's not how it went. I did a home birth with both of my kids, and that was amazing. Thank God there were no complications, and I was able to do the plan that I had wanted, which was to be at home. It was interesting, because there were so many people in my life who just thought it was going to be a breeze to labor for me, because of where I am embodied physically-
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Tiffany C.: ... and it wasn't that, it hurt like hell, and I don't know how so many women tell me that they've forgotten the pain. I've never forgotten the pain of what it was to labor. It was so incredibly mind boggling to me, and it's so layered of course too, because it is confronting everything that you have ever gone in your life in that moment.
Jennifer Tracy: Wait. Wait, wait, wait. We've got to go into that. That's juicy. So, what does that mean?
Tiffany C.: Well, I think the sea of women that we come from, whatever lineage I come from, my relationship with my mother, which has not been a very difficult relationship, and that is a lineage that runs in my family, of very painful mother daughter relationships. The act of birthing, and knowing that also in that moment that I was birthing a daughter, I was terrified that I was going to recreate the same scenario, and I knew from a very young age, I was four when I remember sitting in a field in Wisconsin, and I felt like being a mother was my chosen path. The biggest thing I was ever going to do in my life-
Jennifer Tracy: At four years old you knew that?
Tiffany C.: Yeah, it was really weird.
Jennifer Tracy: That's profound.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, it was bizarre, but I felt like, "Okay, I know that this is the biggest thing that I'm going to do-"
Jennifer Tracy: Ugh, I just got chills everywhere, that's so amazing.
Tiffany C.: And I felt like I then needed to watch everything from a third person of what not to do, what to do, what am I-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Sure, you were taking notes.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, totally. I was totally taking notes, and then I gave birth to a daughter who is very similar to my mother, and similar to me as well, but times 10. I've talked a little on a podcast before about my daughter, and if she is to listen to this at some point when she gets older, it's really important to me that she understands that for me this is my love letter to her. This is our love story, and even though it is painted in, I would say darkness, painted in ... There's a lot. It's just heavy. There is a lot there, and we are both learning together constantly, but it's so massive. It's bigger than anything that has ever come across my plate, and I just don't ever want her to think that I love her any less, or I think any different of her. I believe that this is our path, this was our journey, and maybe that's why I had that inclination at four that I knew that something big was coming. I don't know.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, that's so beautiful, and deep, and profound. It just really, when you said, and I'm paraphrasing now, but you said that giving birth to her was a confrontation of everything in you that came before in your lineage and everything, and I just feel like, yes. I mean, I can ... I just yes and that for sure, because for me, giving birth to my son was like being ripped in half, and I was essentially, I had third degree tearing. I was ripped in half, and physically, emotionally, spiritually just ripped in half, but burst open, and there was all this puzzle pieces splattered all over, for me to go, "Oh wow, this is a treasure map that some of those parts are really scary looking.", but it's going to take me a lifetime really.
Jennifer Tracy: But, I would say the first five, six years of his life, I finally had a puzzle that I was like, "Oh, that's the picture. Okay, and I'm going to be okay." I mean, that's maybe not the best analogy, but I'm just saying, I really relate to that feeling of ... and so agree with all of the things, like whatever I didn't work out with my mom, and she didn't work out with her mom, and she didn't work out with her mom. That is real, and cellular, and I'm sure you work with that with all your clients.
Tiffany C.: Yep.
Jennifer Tracy: It's profound. It's profound, and we're just never the same after we have that experience.
Tiffany C.: No, and thank God. I mean, thank God that we're not, and yeah, but epigenetically, that conversation is so enormous, and we're-
Jennifer Tracy: So, what does that mean, epigenetically? I've never heard that word before.
Tiffany C.: Oh, so it's passed down trauma on a cellular level. Originally it was studied with Holocaust survivors, and with the great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and how they carried in their DNA the same trauma. It's fascinating.
Jennifer Tracy: That's incredible.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: It makes sense. It makes so much sense.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, of course. Of course, yeah, but it's ... my daughter, when Maisie was born, I had a really ... I mean, even though sensory-wise it was so massive, I broke my coccyx, and that didn't hurt at the moment when I broke it, I just ... It popped, and I said, "Did anybody hear that?" because I heard it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, a friend of mine who was on the show, hers broke ... Christina Grant, I don't know if you-
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah I love Christina, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, and she was ... it was so painful. Not that day, not even I think the day after, but then the day after that night she was like, "Oh, pain, pain." It was just months, months, months, months.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah, yeah and that's a bone that can only be manipulated manually. You can go in anally and have it done, or you-
Jennifer Tracy: Fun. That sounds like a great time. Jesus.
Tiffany C.: Or, well you do have a lot of sensory organs, for some people it could be fun, there's a lot that's happening [crosstalk 00:19:20]-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, true. True, true.
Tiffany C.: ... just from an anatomical perspective, but or you can have it manipulated with an osteopath, and I am so lucky that my father-in-law is an osteopath. He came and it was the only time I had had an osteopathic treatment that I actually felt, because I could actually feel the bone starting to move back into place.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, wow.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, and that was amazing. So, I was really, really lucky.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank God.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, thank God. Yeah, but I had her and then after I had her it was like a 24 hour experience, and the midwife left, and my doula left, and my husband and I were laying with her, and he fell asleep, because we were up all night, and I was like, "I don't know what to do." I had so much ... I mean, the wave of hormones start to come in. So, I got up and I cooked. I went into the kitchen and I just started cooking, because I love to cook, and I was like, "Well, I haven't eaten really in a while."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, yeah.
Tiffany C.: I was just by myself cooking.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, it was wild, but when she came out-
Jennifer Tracy: Can I ask what you cooked?
Tiffany C.: I think I ... I don't even remember. I don't remember. I'm going to say [crosstalk 00:20:30]-
Jennifer Tracy: It's okay.
Tiffany C.: ... something with vegetables, but I don't remember. But when she came out, and I picked her up, and I looked at her, and I looked at my husband, and I said, "Oh, fuck.", and he said, "What?", and I said, "She's really angry." I knew it immediately.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: She looked at me with the most skeptic face of, "I don't know if I can trust you. I'm not sure.", and from ... That is absolutely who she is. 100% that is who she is, and so, so much of our journey has been about learning how to create a space that she feels safe in within this container, and that she feels that she can trust us, and it has taken ... I think we're just starting to create that space for her. It has taken so long. She's like half of a foot in of thinking, "Okay, I'm safe."
Jennifer Tracy: So, you're cooking, your daughter that you just now ... You feel like she's turning a corner on trust?
Tiffany C.: Yeah, that she feels that she's being heard. It's so very difficult, because when you're so little ... She used to tantrum every single day for an hour.
Jennifer Tracy: My son did too, after his second nap.
Tiffany C.: Really?
Jennifer Tracy: He'd wake up, and I just would be like ... I mean, I remember ... I did RIE, I don't know if you know RIE-
Tiffany C.: Yes, oh yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, and for listeners that's ... RIE stands for Resources for Infant Educarers, and it's ... I'll put a link to it in the show notes, but it's funny I haven't really talked about it that much in the show, I guess because he's older now, but anyway, my RIE teacher, Wendy, I'd call her and just be like ... and she said, "Just tell him he's safe. Keep his body safe from hitting his head or anything, and just say, 'It's okay to feel your feelings. I love you.'", and I would do that for an hour after he woke up from every single afternoon nap, and it was just part of his process, man. I don't know. But now talking to you, I'm like, he must ... his body must've been releasing old ... What's it called? Epigenetic?
Tiffany C.: Epigenetic trauma.
Jennifer Tracy: Trauma.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Because I so believe in having done S Factor, and all these things, that that's where it comes out. It's just emotions that come out physically that need to.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: So, she would do that too?
Tiffany C.: Oh yeah, and it went on, and on, and on, I mean, for years. So, it was-
Jennifer Tracy: His was three years too.
Tiffany C.: His was three years, yeah. So, Maisie started when she was about two is when she started tantruming to that degree every day for an hour, and then sometimes it was twice a day, and then around four it became like every other day, and then it became every couple of days, and then it was kind of every week, but still very there, and she also every single day still-
Jennifer Tracy: That's fun to parent with, that's awesome.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, and it's not the-
Jennifer Tracy: I have ... My son is like that too. It's like-
Tiffany C.: Yeah, it's not so strong-
Jennifer Tracy: ... he's just like, "No, I'm not, it's ... I'm not going to do that, Mom. It's my body.", and it's partly because I did the RIE and empowered him so much that he's like, "No, no, you're not hearing me." I'm like, "Oh my God, what are you, nine, or are you 29?" Sorry, I keep interrupting you, just because I'm relating to what you're saying.
Tiffany C.: No, no. Yes, I'm thrilled to have somebody who relates to it.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm sorry, so she's willful?
Tiffany C.: She is beyond willful. I mean, she is outside of all of the boxes, outside of all ... I mean, we've been to therapists, we've been ... tried to see if there was a diagnoses, we've done all different kinds of things, and it is every step of the way all day long. It's when you have to brush your teeth, when you have to get ready for school. It doesn't matter what ... If we said, "Let's go to Disneyland."-
Jennifer Tracy: So exhausting.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, if we said, "Let's go Disneyland." She'd be like, "I don't want to go to Disneyland. I want to do ...", [crosstalk 00:24:25]-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah-
Tiffany C.: Yeah, so it's a struggle, every-
Jennifer Tracy: But I do think those things ... I mean, the way I've had to look at it with my kid, because he can really be like that. He's gotten a little softer now, I don't know if it's because he's almost 10, or ... but it was so hard for me when the therapist, who I ... We had an amazing therapist for him in third grade when he was having the panic attacks. She was like, "Try a star chart.", and I was like, "Allison, I love you, a star chart when he's losing his mind? Not an option." Not an option.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: It's like, a star chart, he's like, "Fuck off. I don't want a fucking star. Fuck you. I'm not going to do what you're asking me to do.", and it's just ... But, I'm hoping, I'm hoping that what that means for him, and also for your daughter, is that he has such a strong sense of self, that when he's faced with choices as a teenager, and a young adult, and then adult, he can go to his body and go, "I'm not going to do that.", whatever, like coke, or sleep with that girl that is ... whatever.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, I mean, hopefully Maisie will be in the most positive light telling a lot of people what to do in the best case scenario.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, she'll be a leader. She'll be a leader, yeah,
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Jennifer Tracy: You're about to get pregnant with your second child, you have this tantruming toddler, you have a full practice, and a husband, how did you take care of yourself during that time, emotionally, how did you cope with this?
Tiffany C.: Just like ... I've heard you speak also to not knowing that you had anything postpartum-
Jennifer Tracy: Postpartum, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tiffany C.: ... until a few years after, and I was so wrapped in all of that too, in trying to navigate whatever I thought balance I could do. I was blind to the fact that I was having postpartum anxiety, which I absolutely had, but my saving grace is my work, and because my work is about assisting other people through ... over the threshold of their own anxiety, that when I'm in that environment with them, and I would have multiple clients a day, it helped to reset me. Now, it's not that ... I would have to go right back in. I remember both my husband and I would talk about sitting in the car before walking through the door and coming back home.
Jennifer Tracy: Bracing yourself.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, "I'm not ... I can't ... Okay, I got to go, I've got to go." Yeah, yeah. But, one thing that I teach that I'm so incredibly ... One of the more passionate things I am about teaching, is about diaphragmatic manipulation, and downregulating the nervous system, and that ... As far as I'm concerned, if that were the only thing that I ever taught any of my clients, I could walk away feeling like a lot has been done here, and a life has been changed. It's basically about teaching people how to manipulate the diaphragm, which is the hub of your nervous system. It's a piece of the hub of the nervous system, the other being the enteric system, the gut-
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Tiffany C.: ... and when you learn how to soften the diaphragm, the diaphragm constricts when you start having panic attacks, or when you have anxiety in any way. So, when the diaphragm begins to constrict and get tight you can no longer take a full deep breath. So, when people come over to you and they say you're in the middle of something, you take a deep breath, you physically cannot really take a deep breath, because the diaphragm is constricting you from doing so.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: So, you can manipulate it using ... We use these ... I'm a Yoga Tune Up teacher, and we have these balls, I have one right here, your people can't see it, but it's like a squishy, pliable little less size of a soccer ball kind of thing that can grip onto the skin, the surface of the skin, and then begin to manipulate the tissue that's underneath it.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Tiffany C.: So, you are talking to the diaphragm, which is then talking to also the enteric system, the lining of the gut, which is where 90% of our serotonin is created, which is about our nervous system moving into rest and digest. When people are stressed, the enteric system, peristalsis, stops for the most part. For some people, they get very constipated, for some people they go the opposite direction and have diarrhea, but you get IBS, you get heart palpitations, you get sweating. All these different factors come up, and when you manipulate the tissue you're stimulating something called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve runs-
Jennifer Tracy: It sounds like it has gold sequins and high heels.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, that's right, exactly. Yeah, because the reason why it's called the vagus nerve is because it wanders, and it goes from place, to place, to place. It's also known as cranial X, the nerve cranial X. So, it goes from the brain, and it innervates all of your internal organs except for your adrenals, and it is the highway of your nervous system, of your ability to downregulate. So, it goes through the diaphragm, and it talks to the enteric system, to the gut, and if you stimulate it you will manipulate your body to be in rest and digest.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: It's very simple to do, and you can do it in five minutes and move on with your day. Not only can you learn how to manage panic attacks, you can deal then with asthmatic symptoms, because when you have an asthmatic attack the diaphragm constricts, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Right, right.
Tiffany C.: And yeah, stalls out. I mean, it goes on, and on, and on. It's also has to do with your immune system, because every time your diaphragm moves it also is building your immune cells. So, if you can get it to move through its maximum range, you can build stronger immunity for your body. It's really ... Like I said, it goes on, and on. I mean, there's so much that-
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, that is phenomenal, and this is just one of the tools that you use in your practice?
Tiffany C.: That's right.
Jennifer Tracy: But it's a central one it sounds like.
Tiffany C.: It is, yeah. It is. It's also if you were someone who's ever dealt with eating disorders, I was bulimic for 15 years of my life, and so I had to move through the trauma of that. The physical trauma that I created internally for myself, and also the emotional why I was doing it, what I was really hungry for in my life, and what I was trying to control, and all of those different things. But, and the relationship, especially for women, the relationship that women have with their abdomens, especially coming from Los Angeles, and being a mom, and what that ... the beautiful changes that a mother goes through, and the rejection that most mothers feel about their bodies having gone through that tunnel, which is your body is supposed to change. It's supposed to.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, yes.
Tiffany C.: And learning how to love one's self through that conversation of getting to know your tissues, by actually palpating them, and touching them. Very often, when you start doing that work, you will be very surprised at what surfaces, and you may not even know that you're holding tension in your body until you start touching yourself using these therapy modules, and then you realize, "Oh my God, I was way outside of my body."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Tiffany C.: "I was on a different planet.", and it brings you back home. It just brings you home.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, that's so important, and profound, and for it to be so accessible, that's the word I was looking for.
Tiffany C.: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Now, do you use this on your children?
Tiffany C.: Yes, but ... Well, Griffin's still pretty little, he's just a sprite of a boy, and he's kind of on another planet all the time. Meaning that he's kind of in the ether, and isn't really minding, paying attention to what Mommy's doing with balls so much.
Jennifer Tracy: Got it.
Tiffany C.: He sees me climb my pole in my house, and that he loves. My daughter, I've tried to get to use the balls for a long time, because we have different sizes for different things. She has neck issues, and this is fascinating, it's a total offshoot here, but-
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah, I love offshoots. I live for offshoots, that's my favorite thing. Tangents and offshoots, bring them on.
Tiffany C.: Yeah. I was a competitive gymnast for about eight years, and when I was probably ... I think it started somewhere around nine, I'm not 100% sure, but I started cracking my neck, and I had these kind of OCD patterns of like I would have to roll my wrist four times. Four is my number, so I would have roll my wrist four times, and I'd have roll my ankles four times, and I'd have to crack my neck four times. It was this bizarre-
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Tiffany C.: ... series that I had to go through before I would vault. I don't know where it came from, I didn't see it anywhere, I don't know where it came from. My daughter started cracking her neck at the age of seven in the way that I did-
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: ... and I was blown away. Now, we have something called mirror neurons where we ... that is why you see children mimic the gait of their parent, like how they walk, and you will see like wow, they walk just the same. It's not necessarily just because they have the same bone structure, it's because we have neurons that say, "Oh, this is the way to move, and this is the person that you see the most.", right?
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Tiffany C.: So, very possible that she has seen me do it, even though I don't do it like I used to at all, but it's fascinating. So, anyway, I gave her these little balls to try and use, and because she's so resistant to anything that I would ever possibly say, I just had to leave them. I just had to leave them there, and someday kind of hope that she might say, "Okay, I'm going to pick them up.", and she just started picking them up to use.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: And it's helping her, so that's great.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, and so I mean, I have a thousand question that we're going to have to do another whole podcast. Do you ever come to L.A. to visit?
Tiffany C.: Once a month, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Tiffany C.: Once a month I come back to teach clients, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh cool, okay, well next time you're here let's have coffee, or lunch, or something.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, I'm coming on the 9th.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh great.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, that's soon. Okay, well I'm going to bug you then. So, now you have a practice in Portland doing this-
Tiffany C.: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: ... you're kind of shaking your-
Tiffany C.: My practice is really in Los Angeles, so I Skype-
Jennifer Tracy: Really? Okay.
Tiffany C.: ... with my clients. I Skype with clients-
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, you Skype with your client.
Tiffany C.: ... while I'm here in Portland, and then I come back once a month and I plug in with them in person.
Jennifer Tracy: Got it.
Tiffany C.: I'm unbelievably humbled and grateful. I can't believe ... That wasn't the plan at all. I thought I was walking away from everybody, and I was devastated by that, because I love them, and it's not like there aren't more people for me to love in another place, but I didn't know-
Jennifer Tracy: No, but it's an intimate ... I would imagine-
Tiffany C.: It is.
Jennifer Tracy: ... it's a very intimate ... Like any kind of therapeutic ... My God, this dog is hysterical, he never gets on the table like this.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: He's like, "I know she's getting a puppy, and I just want to show her what she's in for. Just craziness, but it's so yummy. So yummy." Sorry, me ... Talk about tangents, I'm the worst. I am the worst. Oh God, I'll just go-
Tiffany C.: I love it.
Jennifer Tracy: ... people will be like, "Well, weren't we talking about this?" I'm like, "Oh, yes we were, and I completely derailed us.", so ... Oh, any intimate therapy, there's a deep trust that has to happen over time, and so it's wonderful that you're able to continue with them.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, it's amazing they wanted to. It was really amazing to me.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, yeah.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so great. So, while you're in Portland how are you ... because you said that your work really nourishes you and resets you.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You are able to do it on Skype, but on the three weeks out of the month that you're not able to come down to L.A., how do you tune in to that piece of yourself?
Tiffany C.: Yeah, well the metamorphosis that I went through was really about starting to create an online program for the erotic movement for women. So, right now I'm in that gestation period, and being nourished just by the creativity, and everything that's kind of coming up around creating that platform, and so-
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, this is so exciting, oh my God, tell me ... Can you tell me more, or is it in-
Tiffany C.: Yeah, I mean, it's still very much in its infancy. I'm in the process of building it, and so it is a combination of the therapy ball work in conjunction with the erotic movement. I mean, you know the language, because you've been doing it also for years, but it is my ... That movement is ... It saved my life beyond anything-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, me too.
Tiffany C.: ... that I have ever done, and I've been involved in so many different physical expressions. Any time I find something that I am passionate about I scream it from the mountaintops, and I share it, and I'm so excited for anybody to do it. I resisted teaching it for so long. I've been doing it for about 15 years, and I kept being asked, "When are you going to teach? Are you going to teach?", and I'm like, "Nope, this is just for me. I'm not going to teach. I know I teach already, I do all this other stuff, I don't want to."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Tiffany C.: And then it was, "I have to.", and it felt as though it were happening to me, through me, that I just had to do it. That's also been part of the really interesting trajectory of being here in Portland, and navigating what all of that meant even within my own marriage, because it's very vulnerable, and vulnerable ... I can do it in class with my sisters, my girls, all day long, but when I start making it public, and I've been doing it for years, and I've been talking about it for years, and all of that, but now that I start to share it all publicly, my husband has to go through his own vulnerable experience of, "Oh my God, my wife is being seen on another life, and what are people are going to think about this, and it's so triggering. It is so incredibly triggering.
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Tiffany C.: It's a beautiful conversation to have, and it's another reason why I want to do it, because it has to continue. That conversation must continue in order for the emergence, or reemergence of the feminine, you know?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, yes.
Tiffany C.: So, it's about creating this platform so women can do it from the privacy of their own homes who are a little nervous to go out into a classroom to even do it. Like, "I couldn't even ... I can't do that in a class.", then maybe they will touch it in the privacy of their own home, and close their door, and start to explore. Really, it's all about eradicating body shame, and finding what turns you on in life. It's so separate from one's sex life, although it can crossover, of course-
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, but it is really just about turned on in your own life, and how do you stay plugged in, and that's how I stay plugged in is I do that movement, and the whole world changes when I do that movement.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, it's so therapeutic. I hit my head in class ... I've shared about this on the podcast, so I hit my head in class in January, I didn't go back until ... I don't know, two months later, just recently, and I hadn't danced in class in like over eight weeks. It was so ... First of all, my sisters in the classroom did a campfire, which in the classroom, for the listeners that means we sit in a circle around the pole and give the dancer space, but it's a way to support and witness the person dancing and moving through this movement. I just felt so vulnerable doing that for the first time in eight weeks, after this massive head injury, and everything that followed emotionally for me after my friends death, and it was ... I felt like a ... I didn't know how I was going to feel at the end of it.
Jennifer Tracy: I was like, "I might burst in to tears, I might ... I don't know, I'm prepared for whatever, because I've been doing this luckily long enough. I don't know what my body is going to express.", and I felt empowerful, I felt supported, I felt seen, I felt strong, I felt energized. I mean, I just left there feeling like a million dollars, it was so good, and then a couple days later I went through something hard, I went through a little bit of a heartbreak.
Jennifer Tracy: I remember calling Mercedes, who's my teacher, and she said, "Babe, I want you to put on a playlist of like three songs tonight, and I want you to just move this emotion." I hadn't done the movement in my home in a really long time. I just don't take the time to do that for whatever reason. Again, because it was a week after that had ... I'd been back to class, just using the movement, and the language of the movement that I have already in me was, again, just so ... I needed to let that stuff move through my body.
Jennifer Tracy: I think it's easy to think, because we're such a thinking society, and everything we do is very thought oriented, and social media being on phones, it's like eyes to finger to brain to ... it's just sedentary, and ... but there is magic that happens when we move these emotions through and out of our bodies, just as for me in my work, when you put pen to paper, or when you start creating words and stories, yours or ... I mean, they're all yours, but magic happens. It's just magical, and that's all expression ... Anyway, now I'm going off on a massive tangent, but yeah, I love that ... And I love that you have a pole in your house.
Tiffany C.: Oh, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Now, is there a studio up there that you can go to and have a community, or?
Tiffany C.: No, there's one ... I don't know if you know who Brenda Munson is, she-
Jennifer Tracy: That sounds familiar.
Tiffany C.: She's in the San Francisco S Factor group, and she doesn't have poles, but she has a space, she teaches something else called Liquid Motion-
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, cool.
Tiffany C.: ... that's here, and she just started doing that, but there really isn't ... You can speak to the fact that S Factor in particular is very special-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Tiffany C.: ... and the community that exists there. So, when you very often ... My experience of going to many other pole places that it's all performance based, and it's a very different-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, just be like, "Five, six, seven, eight." It's kind of like ... and you're like, "Wait, oh my God, why are we doing ... What?"
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: It's not organically led through each-
Tiffany C.: That's right.
Jennifer Tracy: ... individual persons body.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah. So, it's not ... It doesn't exist so much here, but she is doing something here, which is great. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Cool, cool.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, and I luckily, because I come back to L.A. every month I get to plug in back with my girls once a month, which is great.
Jennifer Tracy: Yay. Oh my God, well let's do that ... Let me know, I mean, if that's okay-
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: ... and I'll tag along, and then we can ... whoever you want of us, we can all go have some food.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Doesn't that sound nice?
Tiffany C.: Yeah, that sounds always nice.
Jennifer Tracy: I would love to connect with you in that way.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, me too.
Jennifer Tracy: So, I can't wait for this platform to come out. Is there a timeline for this, or is there a way we can-
Tiffany C.: I don't know. So, right now, I mean, I have a working title for it as I'm building, because naming something is quite difficult, finding ... I mean, you probably find that within your writing as well.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Tiffany C.: So, currently my working title is mypilotlight.com, but it will all be linked to ... I have a website, which is tcgyoga.com. T-C-G are my initials-
Jennifer Tracy: Which are in the show notes on my website, so after you listen to this you can go there and then you can click on Tiffany's website, and learn and read more about her, and go on her social media and stuff and follow her so you can stay abreast, as it were, of this creation. Okay, so you're going to ... Look at this tail that just came ... his tail, you guys can't see it, but just the whole screen came with tail. This is my life. Okay, so you're building, you're building, you're birthing it, you're birthing it right now.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, I'm birthing it currently. Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God, I can't wait.
Tiffany C.: Me too.
Jennifer Tracy: I can't wait. You know what I'm wondering, is there ... because I saw some of these pictures on your website, and we'll get some of them probably for the promo, I'm wondering if you can do a little tiny video for my listeners, and for my newsletter, I would love to have ... or if you already have something in your arsenal that's like you on the ball, and just talking about that, because I think it's so ... Like you said, if you can give that tool, or even just a tiny bit of that tool.
Tiffany C.: Absolutely.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, that'd be cool.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah, and the website that I'm building will have ... It has little different increments, so you can find a ball video that's like five minutes, or one that's like 10 minutes that will target specific areas of the body. Then you take that ... once you've talked to that tissue and freed it, especially as somebody who is working with poles, if you are actually a pole dancer, or anything, I mean, I'm also ... I use weights and things like that too, I love HIIT training, and I use my body in various ways, but any time you are overusing tissues, you want to work with the connective tissue to release it so you can have full range of motion, and release any repetitive stress. Then when you do the dancing portions you have much more freedom in your body's ability to be able to express itself, you can keep reaching beyond. So, they work hand in hand, but yeah, absolutely I would love to give you a little snippet to offer, absolutely.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, let's do that. I think my people listening would love that, and just to try it. Like you said, it makes so much sense to do that in the privacy of your own home without fear of ... I mean, it's so funny, I've had many friends come with me. They want to come, they want to come, "I want to do the pole dancing event", and then they get there and they're like, "Oh fuck. Oh my God this is so scary. Oh my God. Oh my God."
Jennifer Tracy: No matter how much I reassure them like, "Look, every woman in there is just like you, we're all just women. You're not going into a strip club, you're not going into a studio with mirrors and bright lights, nobody's going to be evaluating your body fat index. This is all about just closing your eyes and going inward.", but there's a lot of fear around it, because it is very intimate and vulnerable. So, I love that you're doing this, and I will support you in every way possible.
Tiffany C.: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: I think it's awesome. Awesome, awesome.
Tiffany C.: I fell in love with women in a whole nother way when I started S Factor, because it's a sea of women all shapes, all sizes, all different backgrounds, and when you become a witness to all these women who you think when they're moving they are unbelievably confident, and then you find out later after having conversations with them that they were terrified every time, or whatever it is, but I remember just thinking like, "How could any woman not think that she was stunning? How could any woman walk around this world and think that she is not this unbelievable creature?"
Jennifer Tracy: I know, I know, and it's because we've been taught to look at ourselves through the mirror of magazine covers, and messaging, and ads, and billboards, and it's just ... It's untraining that, that A, it takes a lot of time and willingness and continuity, but I think also we're doing it with our kids. So, hopefully we're changing that for the future.
Jennifer Tracy: I've said this on the podcast before, but there's this billboard in L.A., it's always changing, but there's a billboard advertisement for Wet Republic in Vegas, the vagus nerve, to bring it back to vagus, sequins and heels, and it's always got 30 gorgeous young women in bikinis with beautiful, perfect, tan bodies, and perfect, perfect, perfect, and then there's one guy in the background with sunglasses and a t-shirt on, and I'm like, "Okay, that's weird, first of all.", and then there was one recently where the girls were in a tank, like an Army tank-
Tiffany C.: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jennifer Tracy: ... and the Army tank was spraying champagne out of it, and they were holding champagne, and the dude was just standing there with his ... and my son goes, he said, "What is that about? What is that ad for?"-
Tiffany C.: Oh, good for him.
Jennifer Tracy: ... and I said, "Oh, it's a hotel, blah blah blah.", and he goes, "Why are the girls in a tank, and why are they wearing bikinis? Like, if they were ...", because he's obsessed with World War II, and history, he's a history buff. He's like, "That doesn't make sense, if they were in the Army, they wouldn't be ...", and I was like, "I know. I know, I know.", and then so we had a whole other conversation about-
Tiffany C.: Oh, that's beautiful.
Jennifer Tracy: ... sexualization, and objectification. He goes, "Ugh, that's stupid. They should be swimming in a pool with their swimsuit." He couldn't ... and he's nine, so he's starting to hear and seem and experience more of that, but from his point of view it was just so absurd, and it's like, it is absurd, it is absurd.
Tiffany C.: It is, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Like you said, as women birthing babies, our bodies are going to go through massive changes internally, externally, spiritually, metaphysically, all these things, and yet we expect it's like, "Oh look, I dropped the baby weight." I had this thing ... Now I'm going on a rant, but-
Tiffany C.: Let's do it.
Jennifer Tracy: ... I'm going to finish. This is my last thought. I was asking a bunch of questions on my Instagram poll, I do that occasionally. It was like, what are you struggling with right now? I can't even tell you how many women responded ... this breaks my heart, new moms, brand new moms, new to motherhood, trying to balance milk production and losing all my baby weight at the same time. I wanted to cry, because I just wanted to wrap my arms around them and say, "Honey, mm-mm (negative), someone told you a lie. That is ... You don't have to lose anything, just ... You receive the bounty of this beautiful thing that you created, and that you are.", but we've been taught this lie of, "Oh, you're fat. You got to lose the weight, or you won't be sexy again." It's just maddening, and that's part of why I chose the acronym MILF for the podcast, because it's like, fuck you guys.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You know?
Tiffany C.: Yeah, and there's such a ... God, there was an article that was just written recently that is so beautiful geared towards men around the ... We need this bridge between the Me Too movement, and where men have been for years, and they don't know how to get to the other side, because there's no map for them, and my husband went through so much around confronting where did he show up within all of that over the years, and he's an incredibly sensitive, present human being, was raised meditating twice a day from the day he was born.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, wow.
Tiffany C.: He's incredible, and he had to go through his own process of seeing where he was misinformed in what he believed himself, and ... God, there's so much more work to be done, and I'm so grateful. I'm grateful that he is a support of what I'm doing, although it is triggering him left and right, but he knows it's right, and so we have to keep going back in over and over again, the more vulnerable like certain things that I write that I am so grateful for.
Tiffany C.: But this is also another tangent, but we just had spring break with the kids, and we exposed them to a couple of new films. Our kids don't really watch screens as much, so it's a very slow process of exposing them, but they are into Star Wars, and they just saw Empire Strikes Back. We're watching it, and there's this moment of just Princess Leia coming in, and Billy Dee Williams is like, "Hey, hey, hey.", you know, like-
Jennifer Tracy: Totally.
Tiffany C.: ... and I looked at my husband, and he just kind of looks at me and he's like, "I didn't even realize that."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, because we don't remember.
Tiffany C.: You don't remember it, and he's like ... he said, "I remembered when I was kid thinking like, 'That doesn't feel so good.'", and he's like, "But now it feels even worse.", and I'm like, "Yeah."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, it's crazy.
Jennifer Tracy: I know. Yeah, we do have a long way to go, but I do think we've come further-
Tiffany C.: We're on our way.
Jennifer Tracy: ... because I will ... Yeah, I'll watch ... My son's really into '80s movies too, and we'll watch ... I'm going to just say it, because I'm embarrassed that ... Not embarrassed, not embarrassed, that's not the right word. I admire that you don't let your kids watch so much screen time, because I let my kid watch an insane amount of screen time, and-
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah, you're also a single parent, and I don't-
Jennifer Tracy: Well, you're generous, you're being generous, however-
Tiffany C.: No, no, oh my God, no. I don't know ... mind is blown by single parents.
Jennifer Tracy: It's ... Well, here's the thing, yes and no, because ... and I'm very fortunate, and every circumstance is different. I get along so well with my ex-husband, and he is ... We've come through so much shit that now we're actually both so much happier, and I think it's been a long journey, but he has our son like 35% of the time, so I have a break. I have a nice solid break where I can go, "Okay, I'm going to rest. I'm going to regenerate. I'm going to feed myself, and I'm going to get work done.", and I have finally after two and a half years of being apart, figured out that balance, and so I do get this break. So, that is a luxury of being a single parent that-
Tiffany C.: Yes, true.
Jennifer Tracy: ... coupled parents don't have, where they can be like, "I need three days to myself.", you can't do that.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, but I'm lucky I get to go to Los Angeles once a month, that's a first-
Jennifer Tracy: That's true.
Tiffany C.: ... I didn't leave my ... I never left my kids until basically we moved here.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, but we were talking about movies and messaging, and my son ... because I was going to say I'm embarrassed that I'm going to say this, but I'm very honest about all this, because it's just ... it's all a mess every which way you look, and it's okay, it's a beautiful mess for all of us. But, so I let him watch Weird Science, do you remember that movie?
Tiffany C.: Oh, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: With Kelly LeBrock?
Tiffany C.: Oh, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Exactly, exactly, she grabbed her boobs when she [crosstalk 00:54:42]. So yeah, Kelly LeBrock who, I mean, was so interesting, she's one of the most beautiful women ever to walk the earth, was beaten by her husband in real life.
Tiffany C.: In real life, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Anyway, that's an aside, but it's that movie is ... I mean, it's about teenagers, so it's understandable that it's ... but it is so ... Every reference is a sexual reference. Every reference is a reference to sexualizing a woman, or ... Not about sexualizing a man, or a boy. It's totally about hot girls this, hot girls that. Her boobs, her tits, her ... and the young girls feel so insecure. Even the two girls that are the hero girls that they want to have as girlfriends, they're very deeply insecure about how they look, and how they ... and they're going out with these jerky boys at first, and they look at Kelly LeBrock, and they're like, "I'll never be that beautiful.", and it's just like wow, I didn't even know I was getting all that messaging.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: But I absorbed it.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, of course. My mom was a graphic designer, and she used to work for a company that made breast implants, and we had breast implants in our freezer, because they were used as ice packs. They were the perfect ice pack, because it's malleable, and it stays cold, and it's soft.
Jennifer Tracy: That makes me so happy, and girl, I could write a whole t.v. pilot just based on that one seed of information. That is so good. Okay, go, yes.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, but I remember, we also had ... there were also some testicular implants too that we had in there, but I remember I could just slip one in on the outside of my bra, because I had zero breasts until I was like 18. I didn't have ... I developed very late in life, and I remember thinking like, whispering, "Grow.", wanting them so desperately, I identified with them. It's so interesting.
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, well especially in the '80s ... Well, you're younger than I am-
Tiffany C.: No, I'm not. I'm 43.
Jennifer Tracy: But in the '80s ... okay, we're the same exact age.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, in the '80s I just ... It was all about Barbie style body. I mean, it was ... the boobs were everything, and I think that's a little less so now, but I don't know, I don't even really know, because I guess I pay attention to different things, but you whispered, "Grow.", to them, that's adorable.
Tiffany C.: I did.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it. I love it. All right, so Tiffany, we have come to the portion of the interview where I ask you three questions that I ask every guest, and then we go into a lightening round, are you ready?
Tiffany C.: I'm ready.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, what do you think about, Tiffany, when you hear the word, "Milf"?
Tiffany C.: I think two things. I think about myself, because my husband says it all the time to me, and yeah, it's amazing. He has never, ever a day in my life made me feel undesirable, which is really incredible.
Jennifer Tracy: How long have you guys been married, or together?
Tiffany C.: I think we've been married almost 11 years.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, congratulations.
Tiffany C.: And together for about 15 years.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Tiffany C.: Honestly, I think about all of the women that I see who I can tell by the way they are embodying themselves that they don't know that they are. They don't see themselves and I wish that they did, because I think of Milf in a very positive life, and not in derogatory ... you know?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, awesome. Okay, what's something you've changed your mind about recently?
Tiffany C.: Making people uncomfortable.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, in what sense?
Tiffany C.: I think I have always made people uncomfortable, because I was willing and wanting to talk about the big things really young, and I was willing to speak the truth at a really young age, and it makes people very uncomfortable. So, I wanted to talk about it, and then I would talk about it, and then I would feel shame or fear. I would feel fear that that person would no longer like me, want to be near me, have anything to do with me. It took me a very long time to get to the place where I was comfortable in the act of bringing something to light even if it made them uncomfortable.
Tiffany C.: That was more important was to speak to the truth of something, and saying with the erotic movement, because it's the same thing, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Especially if they know me very well, and all of a sudden they're seeing ... They never think of me in an erotic sense, necessarily, and so now they're like, "Ah, I don't ... I can't unsee that. I don't know what to do with it.", and I'm okay with it, because whatever it triggers in you is your shit, it doesn't have anything to do with me. I'm good. I am good in me. It's wherever you're standing it's a reflection. So, I am now okay with standing in that very uncomfortable place, you know?
Jennifer Tracy: Awesome. How do you define success?
Tiffany C.: I think ... I mean, the first thing that came to mind was joy, but honestly I think underneath that, and really where joy comes from is from presence, from being present. The more present I can be moment, to moment, to moment is the greatest success that I could have, because if I can be unbelievably present for my daughter when she's experiencing the throes of anxiety, or whatever she's handling, or I can be very present with my client who's in front of me, or my husband, or even myself in that moment of, what do I really need in this moment, and not trying to mask it with a food or drink, or something to distract myself from being present, because sometimes being present is uncomfortable, but when we are present in the day-to-day your life becomes so much more vivid, beautiful, and tasty, you know?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. All right, lightning round, girl, you ready?
Tiffany C.: Okay. We'll see. I'm not so fast, I like tangents.
Jennifer Tracy: Ocean or desert?
Tiffany C.: Oh, ocean. Does anybody pick desert?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Tiffany C.: Really?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Tiffany C.: Okay. Ocean, next to the forest in Big Sur.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, yeah. Favorite junk food.
Tiffany C.: Pizza and ice cream. Both.
Jennifer Tracy: Movies or a Broadway show?
Tiffany C.: Movies.
Jennifer Tracy: Daytime sex or nighttime sex?
Tiffany C.: It used to be nighttime, now it's daytime.
Jennifer Tracy: Texting or talking?
Tiffany C.: Talking.
Jennifer Tracy: It sounded like you were going to say more. Talking-
Tiffany C.: Talking, but I really-
Jennifer Tracy: ... but I text more than I talk, that's my answer.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, exactly.
Jennifer Tracy: That's my answer, I'm projecting.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Cat person or dog person?
Tiffany C.: Newly a dog person, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn a unitard?
Tiffany C.: Yes, and it was a problem.
Jennifer Tracy: Why was it a problem?
Tiffany C.: Because when I was a competitive gymnast, I had this silver unitard with a pink belt-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, you did.
Tiffany C.: ... and I wore it ... So, when you're a competitive gymnast you're at the gym every single day for like four hours a day, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Sure, sure.
Tiffany C.: I was obsessed with that unitard so I wore it like every day, and all my teammates were like, "I don't think you should wear that every day, I think it smells. I think ...", and I was like, "No, I have a second one. I have a second one so I can switch them on and off."
Jennifer Tracy: Did you have a second one?
Tiffany C.: Yes, I did have a second one. I did, and I loved it.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it. We may need to dig up a picture of you in that unitard if we can find it. Shower or bathtub?
Tiffany C.: Oh God, both, all of the time with the door locked.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, yes. Ice cream or chocolate?
Tiffany C.: Ice cream.
Jennifer Tracy: What flavor?
Tiffany C.: Either salted caramel, or mint chip ... No, actually it's peppermint, that's really my all time favorite.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, yeah, good.
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: On a scale of one to 10, how good are you at ping pong?
Tiffany C.: With my kids, I'm like a 10. With my husband, I'm probably like a four.
Jennifer Tracy: Nice. If you could push a button and have perfect skin for the rest of your life, but it would also give you incurable halitosis for the rest of your life, would you push it?
Tiffany C.: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Super power choice, invisibility, ability to fly, or superstrength?
Tiffany C.: Fly.
Jennifer Tracy: Would you rather have a penis where your tailbone is-
Tiffany C.: Nope.
Jennifer Tracy: ... or a third eye? You're going with a third eye?
Tiffany C.: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Tiffany C.: For sure, and I also think, God, how beautiful, honestly, a third eye would be. I just think it's beautiful.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Tiffany C.: I think it's [crosstalk 01:03:18]-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, and your tailbone's been through enough, let's be honest.
Tiffany C.: Right.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of your first pet?
Tiffany C.: Frisky was the name.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, shit, girl.
Tiffany C.: That was the first animal I named was Frisky.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course it was, Tiffany, and what was the name of the street you grew up on?
Tiffany C.: My first street was Bryn, my second street was Toltec, so it depends on if California or Wisconsin.
Jennifer Tracy: Wait, say the first street again?
Tiffany C.: Bryn. B-R-Y-N.
Jennifer Tracy: Frisky Bryn?
Tiffany C.: Frisky Bryn.
Jennifer Tracy: That's some good shit right there.
Tiffany C.: It's good. Maybe that should be the name of my-
Jennifer Tracy: I think it could be. I think it certainly could be. Frisky Bryn Movement. She's got a little bit of ice queen, and a little bit of come hither.
Tiffany C.: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jennifer Tracy: And lay your belly on my ball.
Tiffany C.: Balls.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. She might be sort of English or Scandinavian? I don't know, she's a mystery. Tiffany, you are such a joy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Tiffany C.: Oh, thank you so much. I just want to presence too that you ... The space that you hold for personal chaos is so beautiful. I don't know if that translates, but the overarching acceptance for where everybody stands, whatever mess they are in the midst of, to be able to hold a home for that is so unbelievably beautiful, to remind everybody that it's all okay, and it's all messy for all of us.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Tiffany C.: Yeah, I am so grateful for that, so thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you so much. Thank you, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. I can't wait to see you when you come to L.A.
Tiffany C.: Yay.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, thanks so much for listening, I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with Tiffany. Next week join me as I welcome entrepreneur, and founder of Petal Beverages, Candice Crane to the show. Have a great week guys, I love you. Keep going.