The StoicMom Project
The StoicMom Project
Confronted with my own emptiness -with Louise
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Confronted with my own emptiness -with Louise

conversations with stoic mamas along the way

This conversation is part of a special series in which I talk with other moms determined to find healthy ways of navigating gender ideology in their homes. Moms whose stories and strategies may inspire you.


Louise is a pseudonym and her voice has been disguised to protect her anonymity. The audio is a little rough at times but I’m pleased that we captured this conversation between two mamas half a world apart. Louise spent the past few years understanding trauma aka chronic overwhelm; how it affects our bodies and limits our experiences. She embarked on this mission once “the penny dropped” and she realized no one out there was going to be able to fix the situation she found herself in with her daughter. She had to recognize her own diminished capacity, or as she puts it, “digging out the bottom of an empty barrel.” Louise acknowledges that her daughter’s adoption of a trans-identity put the necessary fire in her belly to figure out what was actually going to make her stronger so she could be “the center” her daughter needs her to be. We discuss how our modern lifestyles lack meaning and drain our inner resources, and Louise encourages moms to understand the importance of caring for their own nervous systems. I thought this was a powerful conversation and am very grateful to Louise for engaging so vulnerably with me.

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Discussion about this podcast

The StoicMom Project
The StoicMom Project
At this point, I have embraced this destabilizing, sometimes excruciating, sometimes wondrous experience of having a trans-IDed child as “curriculum of the soul.” Because I can’t help but imagine how different the world might be if we could all take the hardest thing in our lives and view it as this, as curriculum of the soul. Practitioners of Stoicism might say, "the obstacle is the way." These are my conversations and reflections--along the way.