Full Transcript:

[00:00:00] Emily Race: Welcome to the Founding Mothers Podcast, where we're discovering new ways of living with one another and our planet. I'm your host, Emily Race. On today's episode, we'll be speaking with Stephanie Leah. Stephanie is an Ecosattva. Through her graduate studies in spiritual psychology and urban sustainability. She has harnessed the connection between consciousness and climate change.

[00:00:35] Stephanie understands how magnificent humans are and can be, but that there is an imminent threat upon us that is causing a neuroendocrin destabilization of our response to this overwhelming experience. 

[00:00:48] Stephanie Leah: Eco anxiety is one of the number one issues or complaints that people are seeking out therapy because we are just not connecting to the Earth and then we can feel the frequency of nature. And if it's off balance, it does affect us. 

[00:01:05] Emily Race: She uses stillness, heartfelt listening, and breathwork to open up the pathways that can lead us through our innermost selves towards healing and unbearable compassion for ourselves and beloved Mother Earth.

[00:01:17] Stephanie's also a garden consultant and teaches children and adults the healing art of growing one's food. 

[00:01:25] Thank you Stephanie, so much, for being here today. I always love being in conversation with you, and I think this is a real treat for our listeners. 

[00:01:32] Stephanie Leah: Oh, it's good to be here. I was so happy that you asked me. 

[00:01:37] Emily Race: For our listeners who don't know you, could you describe who you are and the “work” that you do in the world? 

[00:01:44] Stephanie Leah: Yeah. It's interesting because it shifts. It's pretty much in the same camp, but I guess I would describe myself as a cultivator for climate.

[00:01:59] I'm in the sustainability world, the low waste world. But because of my experience with studying the psychology of the spirit, I have married the two, because it was my experience in the corporate sustainability world that there was a huge space, I would say, that needed to be addressed, and that was the spiritual component of the climate crisis. To me, it was the barrier between humanity and the cooling of the climate; that things were not working because we were bypassing the spiritual component of the reasons why we were here. Why we are here in the first place. And it's just my belief –and I'm sure there's many beliefs around the spiritual connection to climate change– is that we have progressed down the timeline of this industrial revolution, modern society, technology, progressed in a way where we've separated ourselves from the natural world. It's in our culture to build walls, to build boxes, to travel from box to box, travel from home, into our car, into our cubicle, back to the car, into the home, right? We've just become accustomed to that. 

So my work is in how can we lower those walls, and not in a way where it's huge sacrifices, even though I think we're at a point where we've gotta make some huge sacrifices, but there's a part of the population whose  lens is not going to visualize that, at least now.

[00:03:51] So, it's about easing into the personal position that we find ourselves, in relation to the climate crisis. Where is our part? Where are our practices and behaviors doing to heat up the climate to squander our children's, our grandchildren's comfortableness on this planet?

[00:04:14] I was just at a little dinner party and one of the participants, friends of a friend said, "Yeah, our great grandchildren are really gonna suffer.” And I paused and I said “No, our children are gonna suffer." 

I go back and forth. I'm sometimes at the cliff and I'm like, “okay, forget it, now we just have to learn to adapt”, which I think is true. But then I also have so much faith because I think humans have so much capacity to literally manifest a utopia, a great utopia. We can do it. We can. So, what can I do in my lifetime to at least shift some people to be able to see that possibility?

[00:04:57] Emily Race: Wow. t sounds like in manifesting this utopia– that's why we're here in conversation, because I agree that we do have that capacity as humans and sometimes we need to connect to something either within ourselves or outside of ourselves to even help us get there. And I love that you're working in that spiritual realm of things. Could you tell us a bit more about how you got to the point where you are, where you started merging all of these different ways of working into one? 

[00:05:25] Stephanie Leah: Yeah. My dad was a gardener and we grew a lot of our vegetables, so I was always really connected to nature.

[00:05:33] My dad was a landscape architect, in his own way, DIY, and so I always somehow knew that feeling that you're in the soil — my job was to water the plants, and I’ll never forget, one time my dad - I must have been about seven or eight– and my dad's parents had an apartment building in South Central, LA, so he would take me in the summer to help him in the garden. Not a garden, but the landscape, and he said, "Stephanie, I'm gonna be in the back; you need to water the lawn." And I said, "Okay, daddy." So I started wateringreal quick and I said, "Okay, I'm all done." And I went in the back, he said, "No honey, you have to really give the lawn water. It drinks just like us." And I'll never forget that connection. “Oh, I really have to pay attention and focus and literally be still and give the lawn water.” And ever since then, something just clicked and I realized that we are nature; whatever we need is really what nature is. 

[00:06:41] And to me, nature is the manifestation of spirit. When I was studying spiritual psychology on the graduate level, I was doing my own stuff. I wasn't thinking about sustainability as a job, but I was really into healing myself, healing the issues,you know, all this stuff that comes with being a human and having the human experience. So I was doing that, and then because of my connections to nature, because of  that  “pediatric interest”. – that book that came out, “10 Ways to Heal the Earth”, or to be Friendly;I had that book. I was like, “What can I do? What can I do?” I did all 10 and I wanted to do more; that was just me. 

I became a mother, I became interested obviously in her future and the connection between food and planet and pesticide and chemicals.

[00:07:37] I started really slowly bringing that type of thought into my presence and into my consciousness, and I thought, “God, I'm doing all this at home. I'm saving water. I'm not using plastics. I'm a vegan, blah, blah, blah. I wanna make a living in doing this. I wanna teach people. Why not make a living, do something that I love and I'm good at?” 

I went back to graduate school and got a graduate degree in sustainability. Then I started working on the corporate level. I worked at a couple nonprofits, and I kept coming up to this “boom, bam”. They would get so far and then be like, “Oh, we can't afford it.” “Oh, we know it's,” – there was always an excuse, why they couldn't really go for it, and I was like, “What the hell?” I'm trying to understand this. So I started listening and I could just see the lens of lack, of not enoughness, or bottom line.

[00:08:34] It always came down to the bottom line. And the excuse was always, “Nobody's really gonna do that.” It didn't happen overnight, but I was like, it's spiritual deficit, it really is, that keeps– corporations have people running them– that keeps people fromtruly going for it, balls to the wall, “Look, this is what we're gonna do.” And I felt it just got “corporatey”. I wasn't doing anything that was making it better. I was recycling. Yeah, that's great, but that's not gonna– so I got a job at a non-profit called Sustainable Works in Santa Monica, and that's where I was bumping up against that barrier;the funding from the city, whatever. 

So I left there and thought, “I'll do it on my own. How can I use my practices, my spiritual practices, my spiritual processing practices that I use, with people?” Because it's all unresolved issues and trauma response. That's what climate change is. It's a climate response to the collective in the human realm, so I'm thinking, “Why are people consuming like there's no tomorrow? What is it? What are they trying to feel? What is that dopamine rush you get when you get that new thing?”

[00:09:52] How can we get that rush without actually harming the earth? 

And I wanna share that I'm not perfect.I have a car and I do eat meat sometimes.I'm pretty good at no plastic and I don't use paper towels. I haven't bought a roll of paper towels in years. I use organic cloth for toilet paper for when I have to go pee. I save lots and lots of gallons and gallons of water; very conscious of water.

[00:10:26] But there are times where it's like, “Oh my God, this hot shower feels freaking good. I do not wanna leave it.” So I say that because I'm human too, and I'm gonna do things that are not necessarily in the most loving and beneficial way towards the planet. But predominantly, my behavior is geared towards honoring the natural world,and thinking about what's going on upstream. “If I get this, who am I harming? Ten countries over, who am I harming?” I ask myself that question and, again, I'm not perfect. I have a computer. I have an iPhone, but I don't really buy a lot of stuff.I don't buy diamonds and gold I have a bike and I walk a lot. 

To me, it's a consciousness. It's really a consciousness.I would say mostly everything I do, I think about the planet first. How can we get to that place? Can you imagine if everybody, before they considered everything, thought about the planet first?

[00:11:30] No judgment, whatever you decide, but at least you're in that consciousness where the planet is first. And most of the time you make a decision that's planet honoring, if you ask that question first. So how can we just get to that spot where the planet is first, not my need to have something. 

[00:11:53] Emily Race: On that point, because now we're moving towards the vision of what things could look like;on one level, imagining a world where we are all conscious of the planet and our connection to it, and thinking of the planet first. Do you have other ideas of a vision for the future here and now that you would like to see, that “utopia”, so to speak?

[00:12:16] Stephanie Leah: Oh God, I have a lot. Is that okay if I give you practical? 

[00:12:20] Emily Race: Yeah. Give me it all. 

[00:12:21] Stephanie Leah: I know we have the knowledge and the know how to build our structures in a way where it's honoring the indigenous material that we are already on. Those greenhouses, not necessarily stick houses with solar panels, that's great,but I'm talking about pulling up the earth and using it to build structures, because those structures, they withstand all the things that are coming because of the climate crisis, they withstand hurricanes and tornadoes. I don't know if they'll withstand a tsunami, but they withstand the heat and the cold.They're 10 degrees warmer in the winter, 10 degrees cooler in the summer. They're nontoxic to build. So when you think about the upstream with the buildings that we use now, the drywall, the toxic paint in the materials: who is that hurting and what is that hurting upstream? There's a union or a corporate, not a corporation, but the people that build houses. I can't remember. It's a certain kind of sector. They stop the zoning of those types of earth friendly materials.

[00:13:32] So my dream is that they will actually be able to see the benefit, even for their children. Also, I don't know if it's a negative fantasy, but I wish that we could do something like a Scarlet letter initiative or program, where we actually call out the big heads of the corporations that are making the decisions that are not planet honoring. There's a map of a hundred people. They're mostly white males– I think they're all white males; I don't think there's a woman on there– that are basically killing the planet. They're making all the decisions and they're fossil fuel executives. And they're all over the world. My vision is that we light their life up,because as far as I'm concerned, it's crimes against humanity. I would love them to be held accountable, but also in a way where we see this can be in a place of loving and healing for those men, because they're just overshadowed or blinded by greed and close-mindedness. So yeah, I would love that to happen.

nd I think it'd be nice to not have wars, obviously. Because of my lens, I look at the Ukraine, Russia thing and I think “CO2, going up into the atmosphere, CO2”, because I have the lens where I'm like, “the planet is suffering as well as people”. 

And then, gardening being a prerequisite, or you learn gardening from preschool all the way through graduate school; we all do what we are designed to do. These 10 digits that we have, they're designed to dig and to harvest and to gently self pollinate and to grow. They're designed for that. It'd be really great if that was part of the curriculum.Not just special funding, but it's part of the curriculum, like math and history and science. 

And then when people go after high school and they take a year off and have that gap year. And the gap year is about healing; “what can I do to heal the planet? Where can I place myself for that?” 

And then, student loans are forgiven. If it's planet centered, if it's about cooling the Earth, maybe there aren't even student loans. Being in service to the planet. 

And also sanctions or whatever we can do to keep the Amazon from burning like it is.

The interesting thing is most humans want to do this. There's maybe a tiny percentage of humans that don't give a shit, but I would say 99.8% of humans don't want the Amazon to burn, don't want the icebergs to melt, want community, want to walk out and know their neighbors, want to have community gardens.want to feel safe, because actually that lowers crime rate. It lowers returning back into the prison system. Connecting to nature, learning how to connect with nature. 

It's extremely healing and so self nurturing that it's almost a miracle what can happen when you spend the day in the garden, to make that a habit. I know there's communities that are like that, like eco villages and communities in Europe and around the world that have that same intention and are like that. It would be nice to model parts of our city in that way. 

[00:17:18] Emily Race: I'm hearing a real earth centric, eco consciousness spread throughout the world really.And then that informs our policies and our education system and the way that we interact with one another and build our communities. And it all starts with that initial question of “What is needed for the planet right now.” And then, “What is my part in that?”

[00:17:39] Stephanie Leah: Yeah. What we're experiencing now in the world– I don't think it's new, but it's so in our face that it seems like it's a new way of being– the way politics are right now, it's really all rooted in fear. It's fear based. And people vote for certain people based on what they think someone's taking from them.

You really don't really experience that in the garden. It's about sharing. It's about forgiveness for yourself. It's about making mistakes and seeing what comes from that mistake, “Oh, I planted the wrong thing, but, something else is coming up. What a surprise.” Or, it's about sharing, it's about dialogue. I think that we would have less of these types of political challenges if we were more connected to the wild within and the wild around us. That's where the spiritual psychology comes in. Because when I see someone like our last president, I just think, “What kind of life did this person have?” Same with the war that's going on now in Eastern Europe. “What kind of life did this person have?” It's really trauma filled. 

And there is no trauma in the garden. I guess you can reframe it like, “okay, well, plants die.” But then they go back into the system, and they bring nutrients to the next generation. All that stuff that we're seeing, you really won't find that in the garden. 

[00:19:19] Emily Race: Yeah. From my own experience, presence to the cycles and presence to how everything is interconnected and is working together. There is also a different relationship to grief or loss, because like you said, it's also regeneration.

[00:19:32] Stephanie Leah: Exactly. When I really got into urban farming, the urban garden, I remember working seven, eight hours a day; hard work in the soil, but feeling so good as if I went to the spa. I remember not thinking about walking into a store to buy anything, clothes, shoes, anything. If I was gonna buy something, it was seeds. It was maybe new garden shoes, because I had worn a hole in the ones I had; and probably not even new, just, “where can I get secondhand something?” But it was never about consumption. It just left me. 

And then when I find myself thinking, “Ooh, that looks good. Do I need that?” I'll take a moment. “I haven't really gardened in the last week or two”, or “I haven't been in the greenhouse”;, there's always some kind of disconnect that's happening when I feel like I need to have a material possession to release the dopamine. 

[00:20:28] Emily Race: Yeah. Can dive into that spiritual component a bit? Because in the vision that you just so beautifully described, one, I so appreciate how you gave some real tangible examples, like the buildings, for example, that we could inhabit. I think that really helps paint a picture for folks of what could be possible.

[00:20:44] But what would that spiritual component look like in this vision of the world? 

[00:20:48] Stephanie Leah: One of the major components of spiritual psychology is being able to see the loving essence in your fellow man. And no matter what, to be able to look through whatever we've placed – judgements and criticisms and beliefs – and be able to still see the loving essence in the other person. It would be really wonderful if that was just a practice from grade school. It’s  interesting because I think kids can do that, but somehow we lose it. I don’t know if we lose it, but we put stuff in front of it.Barrier, barrier after barrier where it just becomes —we don't recognize it. But there are glimpses when we meet certain people that don't have those barriers, that are able to see the loving essence in people, and we're drawn to them, intrigued by them. We follow them, because they've either removed the barriers or they didn't put a lot in front.

[00:21:45] So there's the seeing the loving essence. And to be taught and make it common practice in therapy or counseling is to self forgive.  To forgive ourselves.

[00:22:00] (Emoting) This always gets me, always gets me. To be able to forgive ourselves for the judgements that we've placed on ourselves, over time and time again, and to forgive ourselves for buying into the misunderstanding that we're not part of nature, or it's up to the people in power to make this change, or it's “what can I do as one person? How can I solve this?” That’s  a huge misunderstanding. But I get it. 

Yes; be able to forgive ourselves and to, number one, recognize when we are totally projecting onto others. To learn those basic skills. 

There's a lot more in the spiritual psychology realm, but those are three big ones. I think the lack of that is why we're in the situation that we're in, politically and environmentally, socially. 

And to change the news, the media, to shift it to more integrity, news outlets that will focus on the solution, not necessarily the problem. Because  that gets overwhelming. Eco anxiety is one of the number one, I would say, issues or complaints that people are seeking out therapy for.

[00:23:47] We see mental illness is always on the rise, right? Because we are not connecting to the earth, and then we can feel the frequency of nature. And if it's off balance, it does affect us. There's no way that it can't affect us. 

[00:24:06] Emily Race: Totally. Yeah. 

[00:24:06] Stephanie Leah: The melting of the icebergs has direct effect on our mental health, the burning of the old growth trees all over the world, directly affects our brain, our neurotransmitters. There's nothing separate. So to be able to know that on a more collective and more powerful level, is a big deal. Really big deal. 

[00:24:35] Emily Race: I'm also thinking about how distracted we are as a collective, or we can be as a collective, by all of this media noise and the technology and all the “boxes”. I love that of image of “moving from box to box”.  For someone listening, it's a really helpful to hear that even for yourself, you can realize you're disconnected if you haven't perhaps gardened in a week's time or something. And there's these very simple ways to reconnect and feel, “Oh, what perhaps I'm feeling in my body, has a direct connection to the earth.” 

You mentioned at one point that you believe most people actually do wanna live in this way, connected to the earth, or thinking about the planet first. Are  those the people you specifically work with, or do you also work with some percentage of folks who are like,“I feel disconnected and I don't even have a garden.” Where do you meet people in the work that you do? 

[00:25:29] Stephanie Leah: I would say the large percentage of people that converse with me, come to me or are attracted to me, want to live in a peaceful, environmentally safe and balanced environment. I only really face people that just had certain beliefs and certain agendas when I worked in the corporate world. Even in sustainability, there are certain agendas. It’s more like limiting beliefs. They couldn't see past the bottom line. Not all of them, but again, it was all fear based. “What are we gonna lose if we do this?” It's about a deficit or not having enough. 

I think because we're just humans in general, even though you might come across someone who says “ there's no such thing as climate change and it's all corporate lies, the left and progressives are lying to us.” I can see through that. You're a human.  proof enough. That's evidence enough. You can have that type of lens, you can get to that position where you understand the connection between nature and the human condition and the human place. 

So I think a hundred percent of humans have that capacity. But, it's all this stuff; it’s the trauma, it's being abused as children, that starts to build that cataract of insensitivity and disconnection on the lens of being a spiritual being, that on the spirit level has a deep understanding of the connection that every single one of us have.

[00:27:22] So I don't really work with people that push up against it. But I definitely have seen it. When I was in the corporate world, if they called us in, they could see some type of way of being. But like I said, when we would be, “Balls to the wall, let's go.We're composting under every desk.” They’d say “What?” They just didn't see the vision, but they were doing it because it was the thing to do. 

[00:27:48] Emily Race: So now that you've evolved away from that, perhaps for your ownsoul's health, what does it look like now when you're working with someone, in an ideal scenario? What's that journey that you take with somebody?

[00:28:00] Stephanie Leah: Most these days, it's in the garden;, we have the conversation in the garden because they'll bring me in, they'll hire me sometimes for a day, sometimes for an hour, and it never fails. As soon as we start talking about the garden, it gets spiritual. It just does. So that's what I pretty much do.

[00:28:20] I still have one-on-one listening sessions where I hold space, bring in the neutral, nonjudgmental loving presence to hear someone talk, because in that practice of speaking, that oral tradition that humans have,  the story, the sharing, it opens up so many spaces in our consciousness that we weren't necessarily conscious of at the time. Usually when I have a listening session, I don't really need to say anything. People come up with the answers themselves because they're just sharing. And usually the garden consultations turn into listening sessions.

[00:29:00] Emily Race: Totally. 

[00:29:02] Stephanie Leah: Stuff gets in; like a couple wants a garden and maybe, one part of the couple wants a garden and the other one's pushing back. Then the marital stuff comes in; or “I don't have enough time” comes in. Where are you finding space for you?

[00:29:21] I'm actually developing a course. I've been thinking about it for a long time, where it's about space and time and how to bring gardening into– not necessarily gardening, but being in the presence of plants, trees,, the ocean, being in the wild and finding that space; how can we model our daily lives to find those spaces in between the busyness, in between the boxes? Because there's a lot of life that can happen in between those confined spaces that we've been accustomed, culturally, to remain in. 

[00:30:06] Emily Race: Yeah. For myself, I've been on that path of, “how do I fit this in?” And I think that's something so many people can relate to. Especially with Covid, we saw a lot of remote work happening, and then more and more being tied to these devices and the computer and not creating  that space to breathe and get outside. 

What comes to mind, too, is not everybody has a yard, right? Not everybody has the same access to the wild. How would you address that? 

[00:30:32] Stephanie Leah: A few ways. If you're in your apartment, you live in one of those bigger complexes where it  takes time to even get outside, slow down and pay attention to the light. How is the light coming into the window? What is it reflecting on? Do you have a cat, do you have a dog? Spend five minutes in stillness and watching that other species. Spend the time. Slow, slow it down. 

If your response is “I don't have time to slow it down.” You have to make the time. You have to make the choice. It comes to a matter of choice.  What are you choosing? Are you choosing the disconnect? Are you gonna choose the connection? Even if it's five minutes? Usually when we take those five minutes we start to shift and change the consciousness and the physicality of our brain. What's coming outta those neurotransmitters?

[00:31:24] Just in those five minutes, we crave even more. So we turn it into 10 minutes. We turn it into half an hour. We turn everything off and we eat our lunch in silence and just watch whatever's going on. Watch the sky, if that's all you can see. 

And sometimes I say, is your faucet dripping? Okay, listen to it. How many drips? How many drips is it coming per minute? Try to save that water. 

[00:31:48] Emily Race: (Laughing) I'm  like, “Turn that off!”[00:31:53] Stephanie Leah: It's all the little noises, the nuances. Right now I hear my daughter's doing dishes in the sink. And I think, “what is she doing? Is she listening to music? Is she wiping the counter now?” It's literally slowing down. 

I can hear my neighbor upstairs. I wonder what they're doing today. She's going from the dining room to the living room. Oh, maybe she's putting the pills on the couch. You're just slow. And you find beauty in the mundane. I'm looking at my next door neighbor. Her fan is in the window. I can see the blades. Some cheap plastic fan. I'm just noticing now it's slowing down and I'm wondering why.

There's a finch in the tree, right between– does that Finch have a nest? It's just like this, the nuances of life. 

[00:32:57] Emily Race: Yep. 

[00:32:58] Stephanie Leah: Start to notice them. Start to count the steps it takes to open the car door, get out, open the other door, in case you have a child. Just pay attention.

[00:33:11] That's how you start, right? Because then you start wanting more of that, you start wanting more and then more will turn into a van trip, taking two weeks off of work and hitting the road in your electric van and living off the grid for two weeks. You know what I mean?

And then you have children and you model that behavior. So it's tiny starts. Tiny . 

[00:33:35] Emily Race: I love it.. You're opening this door to a whole different way of relating. 

[00:33:42] Stephanie Leah: Yeah.. I used to restore furniture, and sometimes I'd strip off one layer of paint and I could literally smell the perfume that most likely the woman put on day after day, in the twenties and the thirties, and then I can see “Oh, that's totally 1970s”. Or my kitchen floor,, “oh, totally sixties.” And to me, that's slowing down time and going back in like a little time machine.

[00:34:19] So stuff like that. Starting to think who used to live here before I did. 

[00:34:24] Emily Race: It's so interesting, because as we've been talking, so much focus has been on the garden and I'm imagining soil and roots and trees, and then at the same time, what you're bringing awareness to iswhat some may traditionally think of as  “man made things”, or not nature, not wild. It’s  interesting how one can be the access point for the other.,. 

[00:34:43] Stephanie Leah: Exactly. And when you really think about it, it's all energy. None of this could be made without the sun. 

[00:34:49] Emily Race: Yes. 

[00:34:51] Stephanie Leah: None of this.

[00:34:52] How could I have this brass thing without the energy from the sun to dig it up; everything is because of the sun. Even to think about that, “how is that my window, the glass in my window? How was that by the sun?”[00:35:09] Emily Race: Follow that path. 

[00:35:10] Stephanie Leah: Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:11] Emily Race: So we arrived here already naturally, but I love to ask what invitation you have for listeners, as something they could tangibly do or think about leaving this conversation today. Is there anything else that comes to mind? 

Stephanie Leah: Yeah, the  Cliff notes of what I just said is finding the beauty in the mundane and knowing that you have the capacity and the power to be part of the solution, to cool the climate. When you do feel that disconnect or the need to consume unconsciously, Maybe  take a couple moments and ask yourself, “What do you really need? What are you really trying to feel?”

[00:35:57] And then really, “Do you need that or do you want that?” And for me, like I said, it's about asking myself, “When have I gardened last?” It's like when someone has a funny feeling in their back. “Oh, I haven't stretched in a while.” That's like me. “I haven't garden in a couple days or haven’t  connected with another human somehow.”

[00:36:20] And if you're too scared to do that, start there with the questions. “Why am I fearful of connection? What is it bringing up for me?” Because we're tribal people, we're a community species, we're designed to be with others and to be in nature together.

[00:36:43] I know that sounds kind of cliche or corny, but it feels good to be in nature. No one's gonna argue that. It feels good to look over the vista, and see the ocean. That feels good because it's innate in us. So how can we create that in our own world, no matter how small it is? 

[00:37:02] Emily Race: And as far as how we, as listeners, could support you or work with you in the future, is there anything you'd like to share here?

[00:37:08] Stephanie Leah: If you've always desired to have a garden, no matter how small, I even work with people on patio gardens. Reach out. Or, if you have a big space, connect. I can help you collaborate with others. It's a community thing. 

And one thing I ask is just consider the planet first. And like I said, no judgment on the choice you make, but think about the planet first. 

[00:37:34] Emily Race: Yeah. It really just comes full circle back for me, to that initial question that you asked in the beginning. 

[00:37:41] Stephanie Leah: Before we do anything ask yourself, is this doing harm? To another person or an animal or a plant or an environment?  Is this doing harm? What's going on upstream? Upstream, meaning, how did the product get to me? The products in your hand, you're in the stream.  And then the way to get rid of it is the downstream. Just consider the consequences.

[00:38:13] Emily Race: Our impact.

[00:38:15] Stephanie Leah: Yeah, exactly. And you don't have to make huge sacrifices. You can if you want, but you don't have to make a huge sacrifice. Just start small, but keep going. Just keep going. And I can help you with that. I do personal consultations in people's homes where they want to have a lower footprint and waste less. 

[00:38:37] Emily Race: You've brought so much wisdom, truthfully, to this conversation, and I'm just thinking about all the people listening to this who will feel inspired or connect with a piece of what you said, if not the full conversation. I'd love for anyone listening to be able to find you easily; what's the best way for people to connect with you?

[00:38:55] Stephanie Leah: Yeah, just IG -I'm the Root Pause, like the root cause, but pause with a 'p'. 

[00:39:02] Emily Race: Wonderful. Stephanie, thank you so much for being in conversation and community today. 

[00:39:08] Stephanie Leah: Yeah, it's been really nice. Thanks, Emily. 

[00:39:12] Emily Race: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Founding Mothers podcast. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Emily Race, and edited by Eric Weisberg.

[00:39:21] If you wanna support the show, please leave us a rating or share this episode with the important people in your life. We'd also love to hear from you. If you or someone you know would be a great guest to share about their vision for the world, you can email emily@founding-mothers.com or visit www.Founding-mothers.com/podcast.