The Crack that Let the Light In with MaryElizabeth Murdaugh
Welcome to Resiliency the Podcast, the place for stories, strategies, and inspiration that help you to embrace change, overcome challenges, and redefine resilience in today's ever evolving world. I am Jen Quater. I'm a strategic communications expert and CEO of a company called The Smart Agency. I am joined by my wonderful cohost, the world's first doctor of resiliency, doctor Kelly Culver. She is an international business consultant with her company, the Culver Group, and she's a widely diverse, intelligent group of guests from all over the world who inspire, educate, and motivate our listeners to find their own inner strength in everything from the minutiae of everyday life to world altering problems.
Jenn Quader:Today, we are truly honored to have a wonderful guest. Today's guest gave one of the most powerful and brave talks that we experienced at the recent TEDx event at the American University in Paris. This young woman grew up in the rural community of Hampton, South Carolina, where she nurtured a strong spark of curiosity about the function of humanity and the world at large, and that led her to double major in political science and communications at the University of South Carolina. During that time, this young woman went through some major personal trials and challenges, and those have forged her into the person she is today. And listeners, I have to tell you just personally, this young woman has a love that is all encompassing.
Jenn Quader:She has, overcome things that you're gonna hear about during this episode, and it it's just truly amazing. Today, she is living in Paris with her dog, Tali. She attends the American University of Paris where she is a candidate for her master's degree in global communications, and she aims to be a political and cultural advocate to bring all that she's learned and all that she's developed to the world. Her studies in spirituality, philosophy, and the healing arts have made her one of the most resilient and truly refined people I've ever met. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to an elegant, wise, wonderful, and caring person, Mary Elizabeth Modal.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Thank you so much. Wow. Thank you for the introduction. I appreciate it so much, and it was so nice to meet both of you as we gave our talks at the TEDx conference at AUP.
Dr. Kelly Culver:We are absolutely delighted, Mary Elizabeth, that you've joined us today. Your as Jen said in her opening, your, your TED talk was extraordinarily powerful and an amazing journey that you took all of us on with you together, and we're hoping that you take us on that same journey today. We are a global podcast. Jen's in The United States. In LA, it's the morning for her.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I'm in Canada, it's noon for me. You're in Paris, it's 06:00 for you. How was your day, and where did you go?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:My day was fabulous. It's a Friday, so I had no class today. And I spent my morning with a friend, Amber. So I had a lovely morning. I can't stop thinking about Marie Antoinette.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I'm after I saw her bedroom, I'm thinking, wow. Rest in peace. She would have loved some pop culture references from today. I just think about I think about the way of life, and I I really am excited to continue in the next few days to continue to unpack that visit for me because it was really, really special.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's an absolutely beautiful place to go. And, you know, and so much that we can learn. There's so many references between, as you sit with, Marie Antoinette, what she experienced in life and, you know, and what we see today. And the petite triannal and the fountains, it's just beautiful.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It was stunning. It makes me think a lot about the female experience. I think as a young woman, everything that I do, I'm really trying to, you know, imagine the female experience from different types of lenses. But, of course, it's very easy to romanticize it whenever you're in the beautiful Palace Of Versailles and thinking about her demands. Why not?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Why not demand that?
Jenn Quader:I I wanna jump in on that. This is something I'm famous for is kinda diving in and digging deep on something that you say. And I find it so interesting, Mary Elizabeth, because you're in an age group. I think you'd be qualified as Gen z. Is that correct?
Dr. Kelly Culver:Yes.
Jenn Quader:Correct. Beautiful. And I find it so interesting, because, again, I'm I'm I'm in an older generation, and there's a lot of discussion among your generation that has helped to educate a lot of us about gender fluidity, about gender in general. And I wanna ask you through this lens of looking at things through the female experience and being a Gen Z er. What does that mean to you?
Jenn Quader:How do you carve that out in a world of acceptance for for all genders? Can we start it with a big wide concept question like that?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Yes. We can. We can. And, you know, I think we have to take into consideration. Everyone is coming from their own place of education, their own place of of philosophy, and how they feel like they fit into the world.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And so for me, in my study of spirituality, it really works for me to use the adjectives of masculine energy and feminine energy. And I know that that doesn't work for everybody. It may be limiting for some people, but it is it's two dualities that I feel comfortable in my understanding of both, and I think that it's a balance. I think that we all have our own balance of masculine and feminine energy within us, and it's like yin and yang where they both grow together. I think that all energies grow as twins, and I think the same thing for masculine and feminine.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And I think that during different times of our life, maybe we lean heavier into some of our different energies. Maybe sometimes it's a little bit more time to step into our masculine energy and take on a lot of our attacks with a certain tenaciousness that is associated with with masculinity. But I also I think that I grew up living a a good bit of my life more in this type of masculine energy, really prioritizing, checking things off my to do list, making sure that I'm getting the right places, my material achievements. And through some of the things that I experienced, I had to learn how to step back into my feminine energy because it's where I found my place of healing, was in the feminine energy. I found it more in the arts.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It was a different way of considering myself, considering the world around me through this lens. And I think that both have their place. And I think that when you are heavier on one or the other, it's dependent on your phase of life. And I think that finding this personal balance and the energies, it's gonna be up to every individual and what's serving you at that time. And so this is a very specific view of gender energy is what I'm referring to, more of this energy that works for me.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:But I think also part of what I am describing is gender fluidity because it is the understanding that we all have both within us. And so I think that in some ways, this idea of masculine and feminine energy, it could be considered very conservative. It could be considered a bit, like, set back in time. But I also think that it can be very advanced in thought too whenever we accept and understand that every one of us has this within us, and how we choose to express ourselves is it's out of a out of a place of authenticity. We aren't defined by our boxes by any means.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Some days, the way that I dress even is might be an expression. What do I have to do that day? I think about my tasks, and I think about what feels true to me in in these moments. What outfit feels the most empowering for me? You know, leaning into just being comfortable, having my body more safe, more covered.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Maybe that is more suitable for some of my activities versus some of my activities. Maybe I feel so much more empowered, so much more feminine and beautiful and flirtatious if I have on something else. So it's something that we get to play with, and I think that that is where we kind of can consider gender in this modern day environment. It's something that we all get to play with.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I think those are really, really wise words. What a really powerful question, Jen. And what a really dynamic answer, Mary Elizabeth. I'm struck by the insights that you have. And don't get this wrong.
Dr. Kelly Culver:The insights that you have at your age around gender, gender fluidity, and how you bring the two of them together, I spent quite a long time living in what we would say the East, influenced by other religions, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Taroism. And there's a beautiful blend there that as a person who grew up in Western culture, there's this beautiful blend of men, women, masculine, female, and it just comes together in a really sweet and almost sacred place that I think sometimes we have trouble defining if we look at it through a very Western lens.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I agree. It's the synthesis.
Jenn Quader:Completely agree. And I think, Mary Elizabeth, I I second doctor Culver in in, being kind of a truly just amazed at your depth. And I I think that that, you know, there are people who are old souls, and perhaps you are one. But but you really you you take a very deep view of things. And that's something that struck me when I met you.
Jenn Quader:You know, you and I talked about we talked about Michael a Singer and The Untethered Journey. We talked about Don Miguel Ruiz. You shared with me that Talley is named after Eckhart Tolle. You you know, you have such an appreciation for a depth of spirituality. And so I kinda I wanna ask there, what are you reading in that regard, and and what could you advise us who are who are seeking the opportunity to better understand that yin and yang, better understand how to balance those energies?
Jenn Quader:Maybe kick us off with some recommendations there.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I love reading. It has been one of my outlets since I was a young girl, and it was one of my my first, the most accessible mode for information for me. And it could be creative versus informative, so I have always loved reading. And reading and writing has been one of my biggest methods to extend my spiritual practice. So spiritual reading is essential to my spiritual practice.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:My reading is a part of my yoga, and so I'm always working on this. And I consider even if I am reading I love to read, stories where women are sharing their experiences. So diverse types of women hearing their voices, hearing their experiences. It's not spiritual in text, but I gained so much from it because it's broadening my perspective. And so some books that I, off the jump, do recommend is whenever I first read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, it was really, really game changing for me because I was introduced to the concepts of ego and consciousness for the first time, I think, putting putting it into different words.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's the same concepts that I would have understood a bit in Christianity growing up as a Christian, but it's, it's framed a bit differently. You know, it's framed a bit more energetically and a little bit more psychologically as well. So I think that this is more like therapy language, I like to say too, because it's a bit more objective. So I think that a new Earth is a great place for people to start understanding the things within ourself that move us. What I think that we have two forces that move us, and it would be consciousness and it would be ego.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And both are so important. I think understanding where your desires are coming from, what's moving you. Are you being moved out of a place of ego, or are you being moved out of a place of higher consciousness? There's no right or wrong. They're both so important to our spirit, but I think that this awareness and this understanding is the beginning of your spiritual journey.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I think that when you have the awareness to be able to observe your own thoughts, this is the start of your spiritual journey. And I think that the right text, the right spiritual text also falls into your lap at the right moment. I've recommended A New Earth to people, and they say, okay. I tried to read it, and it just it didn't resonate with them. And it's no worries.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:You don't push it. It's not the right time, or it's not the right mode for you. Maybe it's not the right author. So I think playing around, I love A New Earth and also because I love the creative arts so much. I love Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And so Yes. I really, really, really love The Artist's Way because I think it's so important, especially for women to have a space that they are creating for themselves as a daily practice. I love that in her book, she helps women create a spiritual sacred practice within themselves. And where you take it beyond that is up to you, but here's this here's how you create a space for yourself for understanding yourself better, understanding the world around you better. I think that those two are my go to recommendations, and then it can go on and on and on.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I love religious text, so I can gain inspiration from spiritual text outside of my own religion. Like, I love reading about Taoist philosophy. I love reading classic Hindu philosophy. I love reading Buddhist philosophy, and you can take what resonates. And I think that whenever you're exposing yourself to different types of spiritual text, philosophical text, you are able to identify yourself within all of these rather than if you only have exposure to one or two philosophies, one or two spiritual ideologies.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Maybe that's what you identify with. And I think that I could go more into kind of, like, the mentality, but if you understand a little bit more about ego, you understand I the want to identify with something, but don't let yourself. I think take it back, expose yourself to many, many things, and then check your identification. Where do you want to be now that you have a broader broader understanding?
Jenn Quader:Beautifully said as always, Mary Elizabeth. And also such a I I continue to resonate
Dr. Kelly Culver:with you and feel like we
Jenn Quader:may be kindred spirits, and I'm just such a such a fan. Because I I too am a huge Julia Cameron fan with The Artist Way. And I'll tell you, so I'm someone who, like, I I I seem to always have, maybe an overoptimism. I see everything very, you know, light and bright, and and that's how I've always approached life. But when I first went to college, so just in my early twenties, I had this cloud of darkness come over me.
Jenn Quader:I I still remember it. I went to a very small college, and just this real cloud of darkness where I started having thoughts of, you know, why why does the world need me? You know? I I I don't have any any value here. And I was so fortunate.
Jenn Quader:I had a really beautiful teacher. Her name was Casey Crabtree. She was the director of dance at Lee's MacRae College where I was. And she pulled me aside out of a class, and she just noticed my depression. And she brought me into the artist's way, and she worked with me week after week.
Jenn Quader:And for those who don't know, this is a workbook where you take it week by week, and you really explore your own creativity. And and, frankly, I think it saved my life in a lot of ways where I found a new level of optimism. So I I can highly recommend that book. And then I also just want to speak to what you said, Mary Elizabeth, which is the opportunity to really expand your knowledge by reading all sorts of different texts, by ordering you know, order different books. You can find them on Amazon, find them on Thriftbooks, and just read whatever you can.
Jenn Quader:I was fascinated when I ordered the towel. I I was expecting some big thick book. It's not. It's a tiny, tiny little book of wisdom. So there's there's just so many avenues, and thank you for for reminding us that there's so many ways to to nourish that part of our spirit.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I just wanted to say also, Julie Cameron, Eckhart Tolle, these are my first two, but I really recommend to every woman also to continue to read the stories of other empowered women and women who have been making changes. And this is, within our current day activist as well. So Tarana Burke, she has a memoir called Unbound, and she is the founder of the Me Too movement, and she talks a lot about sexual assault within the black community. This is her this is her specialty. It's so important.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's a new perspective for me. Glennon Doyle, Brene Brown, these are like, Liz Gilbert, all of these women are, like, my real superheroes. You know? As I was growing into myself, I was reading their stories, reading their novels, following them in their personal journeys as well. And it makes me think, wow.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:What what brave people that they're not only sharing their creative art, they're sharing their novels, they're sharing their writing, but they're sharing their personal stories too. What could be more powerful than that?
Jenn Quader:Mary Elizabeth, from this beautiful perspective that you've given us, these stories, these this world of books, you know, that that you've grown into, the spirituality, the psychology, the this beautiful, level of education you've given yourself through all of that, if I could ask you to to kinda cut all the way through and tell us, what do you see as what resilience really means to you? Through all of that, what does resilience mean to you?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I think that resilience is inner peace in the storm. It isn't about what is going on in your environment. The amount of chaos, lack of chaos, It doesn't matter how smooth sailing things are going. It's about how steady you can stand through all of it. So I think that resilience is being able to accept your surroundings, truly accept, and control what you can, which there's one thing that you can control.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's your mindset. It's the it's your capacity for love. It's your capacity to feel. It's some of the only things that we can control in life. I think that's resiliency.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And chew I think choosing to stay here, stay in this world, stay present, that is resilient because I think in in so many cases, because you're too bored or because life is too crazy, any of these things could make you say it's too much for me. I'm too bored. I can't feel anything right now. Things feel too hard. I can't feel anything right now.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:So I think resiliency is choosing to be present and choosing to stay no matter what your environment is. You have to love life. You have to have gratitude for your life.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, I'm just going there's all kinds of things going through my mind when you when you talk about resilience in in that context because, as you know, that's how I define resilience as well. I look at this, you know, we are we find ourselves in this swirling nexus of contrast, chaos, uncertainty, disruption, joy, you know, profound happiness, all of those things. And it's being able to relate, who am I, where am I, get myself in the present, and be aware of the context of my surroundings and my environment and know that freezing isn't the option. Moving is the option. You move fluidly and you navigate.
Dr. Kelly Culver:You know? You shift. You tack. It's never straight. But there's this beautiful bright light on the horizon, always.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And if you can keep that in your mind and in your heart and your soul, you find the way through the storm, and it's better and more powerful on the other side.
Jenn Quader:Couldn't agree more. It's a it's it's a beautiful sentiment, and and certainly a proof of resilience, I think, when when you can walk through that storm, as you said, and and and know that you are there and accept that you are there and not try to fight the storm. You know, there's a great meditation teacher, Oren j Schaeffer is his name. He's he's fantastic. And he talks about emotions.
Jenn Quader:He says, you know, think of them as weather patterns. He said, you you don't wake up in the morning and it's raining and you think, I'm gonna outrun the rain. You know? I'm gonna drive until it's not raining. No.
Jenn Quader:You go to work in the rain. You get an umbrella. You accept that it's raining. And so sometimes it rains in your heart for for days and days, and if you can accept that and move forward. And then I wanna turn the the topic to something you said, Mary Elizabeth, which is choices.
Jenn Quader:Because you said, really, it's your choice to bring that resilience. And and I'm gonna, bring our audience into something really special here because Mary Elizabeth made the choice to share her experience through a wonderful TEDx talk at the American University of Paris. And as I mentioned, when myself and Doctor. Kelly Culver and really everyone else who was there heard this speech, we were all really amazed, astounded, and touched, in a in a deep way. And I think that there's there's an amazing amount of value in this speech.
Jenn Quader:So we're about to play that now. We're gonna play that through for our listeners, and then I invite everyone to please stay tuned because just after, we're gonna dive deep into some of what Mary Elizabeth shares. I do want to offer a trigger warning for our listeners that, Mary Elizabeth is talking about some very difficult things, that she has had to face in her life. So just be aware that that is coming, but truly, one of the most powerful speeches I've heard in a very long time. Listeners, I'd like to welcome you to miss Mary Elizabeth Murdaugh's TEDx Talk entitled The Crack That Let the Light In.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Hello. Thank you guys for holding the space for me today. I find myself to be someone who experiences their emotions very deeply and very passionately. I've always found my emotions overwhelming. When I was younger, this was difficult for me.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Every question came with such force and every emotion was such urgency. I was a curious child and a deep thinker. We can't control what we feel, only how much of it. If I numbed myself to the pain in life, I also numbed myself to the love. My journey coming into peace was learning to accept all of life's experiences.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Each experience leads up to another, giving us the tools that we need to make decisions that are in alignment with our divine path. My path began in rural South Carolina in a small town called Hampton. My hometown has 2,000 people, more dear than people, they like to say. I loved the people around me, but I couldn't understand them. I couldn't understand their satisfaction with a simple life.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I had ways to escape what I thought was my limited reality, through books and dance, my imagination and relationship with a higher power. I was very aware of the fact that I was experiencing life differently than those around me. I knew that there was a big world out there. I just couldn't touch it. This internal drama really took a toll on my identity.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It created a feeling of loneliness that I became very used to. If I couldn't live out life to its fullest experience, I didn't want to live at all. The mind of a young girl is a strange place to be. My babysitter would turn on the music video for Britney Spears Lucky, which is the story of a young girl who's misunderstood by the world, and she sings off her hotel balcony in a fur robe, if there's nothing missing in my life, then why do these tears come at night? And I thought, that is so me.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:This drama reached an all time high in 02/2019. I had to take responsibility of my mental state. I was in a low place where I would do anything to feel better. Instead of doing things with hopes of finding myself, I wondered what would happen if I did nothing. I tried meditating.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:My whole life I had been spiritual. I didn't know myself without a relationship to a higher power. But this tool of meditation, stillness to access consciousness, was completely foreign to me. I think that sometimes we're divinely called to action. You get an idea and you recognize a bit of yourself in it.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:When you get an idea or feel a call, you can either keep it in your mind as a fantasy, say you'll do it one day, or answer the call. There's no bad way to interact with your intuition except for to ignore it. I believe that we'll always make the right choices at the right time to serve our higher good. When I sat down to meditate, I thought of a quote and it seems like a good place to start. I am not a person experiencing life.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I am life experiencing a person. Who is she? Show me her. Who are you? Show me you.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I closed my eyes. I took a breath, and I allowed myself to sink in. I blurred the lines between me and what I conceptualized as life. I felt deep love. I was both.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:For twenty years, I had talked to God, but here I had found a tool to experience God. God, for me, only meaning love. With this tool, love surpassed me. I no longer knew what was Mary Elizabeth and what was love. We were one, and I was whole.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:My depression was the crack that let the light in. It was always essential to me. All of the sudden, I was grateful. I felt chosen even that I could experience anything this beautifully, this deeply. Thank God I'm so emotional.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I had found strength in my biggest weakness. And I kept going from here. I pursued my relationship with life like it was my greatest love. My first meditation was the experience that initiated my yoga practice, yoga being most simply defined as the relationship between you and all else. I felt like I was on a mission.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:By expanding my capacity for stillness, I expanded my capacity for motion. It felt like my duty to receive the peace that I was experiencing. My duty to work with my intuition and work with the tools that were guiding me deeper into myself. I was experiencing contentment for some of the first times in my life. Meditation was a technique that allowed me to access the thing within myself that I was driving myself mad trying to find.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I didn't need to do anything. I needed to do nothing. I spent twenty years looking for peace. I spent one year discovering it. The next two, I would get to practice peace in the face of adversity because on a regular day in 02/2021, my life would change forever.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I was asleep in my apartment until I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of my door opening. The door of my small apartment that led to the outside was right by my bed, and when I looked up, there was a man standing above me. His hand was in his pants, masturbating to the sight of my sleeping body. I had never seen eyes like the ones that he looked at me with. I screamed, which invited him in, and he told me that if I screamed again, he would kill me, and I believed him.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I was trapped with him for about twenty minutes. In this fight, I would have to use my tools, the same tools that I developed to fight my depression. I had to exert physical strength, but more than that I had to show emotional strength. Everything I had learned was essential to this moment. There are a few things that impacted what happened and how I got out.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:The first is acceptance. No one heard me scream. No one was going to save me. I remember thinking if I was going to get out, I would have to think of a way. The second is presence.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I was in pain from being beaten, but it was essential that I didn't lose consciousness. When he choked me and I knew I was about to pass out, I took a deep breath. And at the last possible moment, I let my body go limp. He thought that I had passed out, which gave me a few seconds to create space in between us so that we could talk. The third thing that saved me is mindful observation.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I noticed that when I spoke, he responded differently to tones of my voice. I was able to figure out a bit about the man in front of me. When he looked at my body, I grabbed his face and I forced him to look me in the eye. I told him I am a good person and you are doing something horrible. I confronted him with his actions, and while it didn't save me from the assault, it humanized the experience.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I had to allow myself to look into his eyes and connect with him in order to move through this skillfully. I asked him about himself, his relationship to life, his family, and when he realized that I was distracting him and became aggressive again, I had already thought of a way out. He responded so well to assertiveness that I decided to negotiate. It is sad that I had to negotiate my sexuality, but I never had plans to do what I told him that I was going to do. I positioned myself perfectly in the room.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I took off my clothes. And when his guard was down, I took off running. He followed behind me, but he slipped and fell at my ankles, giving me the few extra seconds that I needed to escape. When the police arrived, they cleared my bedroom, and then they let me peek in. I saw my own bloody handprints on the walls, my gold pajamas laying on the floor, and my once white bed, stained red, My childhood stuffed bunny sitting right there in the pool of my blood.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I went to the hospital, and I repeated the story over and over to police and investigators while we waited for the sexual assault nurse to come and perform the kit on me. I was more shocked at the world than what I had just experienced. I felt the energy of an oppressed collective and became very aware of my privilege. Privilege to a justice system that would legally see this situation through, privilege of support for my community, and the financial privilege that I would never have to spend another night in that apartment. As I healed in the weeks after, transformation continued to happen within me.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:The violence that was brought to me introduced a counter energy, a slower, sweeter, more gentle approach to life compared to the fire that I had under me before. I could have died, but I lived, and that was something that I could be grateful for. I felt inspired to share my spiritual and emotional journey now that I knew that these tools could truly save lives like it had mine. I began to talk to my family about healing topics, the importance of deep acceptance and divine timing. And my family and friends really gathered around me and gave me the support that I needed to move through this with grace.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:We all became a little more aware of the tenderness of life and how quickly things can change. About a month after my attack, my dad received a phone call from his brother saying that his wife and son had been badly shot. My dad was out the door in no time, and my mother, sister, and myself stood speechless with no information. I called my other uncle, and I asked him what we could do. And he said nothing.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:They're dead. There's nothing to be done. Both of them? I asked him. Both of them, he told me.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:On the kitchen floor, we held each other and cried. The media would call it execution style murders. The media would change everything. Two days later, my grandfather passed away. He passed in his bed surrounded by his children and grandchildren, and we held his hands expressing our love and gratitude towards him, sending him gently into death.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Within a few days, my family experienced both the most violent and intrusive of deaths and the most peaceful and loving of ones. This is life. It's love and it's pain. The story of the murders is a long and complicated one. We found out that my uncle is an addict and had been stealing money from the law firm founded by my family generations ago.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It was a total shock in the ultimate betrayal to the integrity of our family. Since then, he has been found guilty for the murders of his wife and son. The conflict is deep and complex and has caused so much pain for so many people. It became a headline in the global media where millions of people try to make sense of this story. It was adopted by the true crime community where it was turned into documentaries, podcasts, countless news articles and segments, and I watched the biggest heartbreak of my life turn into entertainment for millions.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:This changed everything I know. People that I thought loved me separated themselves from me. I was truly confronted with grief. Me and my family had our hearts broken in front of everyone, and some people chose to hold us, hug us, stand with us. Others chose to write movies about it.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:In 2022, I had the opportunity to travel. And when I'm sitting on a little island off the coast of Italy, and I overhear ladies, discussing the scandal and getting the facts all wrong, I have to laugh. Remember when my biggest problem was that I was lonely? Now I have to tell strangers the truth of my life's experience because they think that they know the story better than I do? Later that summer, I dedicated some time to my yoga practice, and I went to Indonesia to study healing arts.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I spent my 20 birthday in the sky on the way to Bali. It was my first time away from home for a substantial amount of time. In there, I would discover a feeling of comfortable displacement, which I would take on as a theme for the next phase of my life. I wanted to integrate my academic interest in politics with my personal interest in healing and spirituality, so I looked for outlets to study cultural advocacy. A few months later, it was January of twenty twenty three, and I was on a plane to France with my companion.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:He's the sweetest, funniest, most handsome boy in all of Paris, my little dog, Tully. And having him with me on this journey has been the treat of my life, honestly. Nothing could define comfortable displacement like being alone in a new country, me and my dog. My first week of school was also the first week of the murder trial. So on my walk home from class, I pulled up a live stream of the trial on YouTube, and I watched my friends and family as I walked through my new city.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:In the summer of twenty twenty three, I had to go back to South Carolina and finish my own trial. One year after I had left for Indonesia on my 20 birthday, I met my attacker again in court. I looked him in his eyes, and I fought him with the same strength that I did the first time. In the end, justice was served as I believe it always is in one way or another. I came back to Paris and have started the rest of my life.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I couldn't imagine the relief and freedom that I feel with that chapter of my life closed. Now some days a few days will go by and I won't even think of the trauma. I love my life in Paris, even with its challenges. I'm proud to have separated myself from what I know and created something of my own. I feel very free, and I'm very grateful.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I'm not happy about the details of this story, but I can't forget them. I will never forget the first punch. I will never forget how it felt whenever I found out that my uncle and my attacker had gotten in a fight in jail. I will never forget how it felt seeing a photograph of my cousin's blurred dead body on TikTok and finding out that his brain was found at his ankles from a video that had 3,000,000 likes. My loving cousin, only one year older than myself.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I cried for days over that detail, but I told my professors that I didn't make it to class because I went the wrong way on the metro. I can't honor the truth if I don't shed light on it. I can't honor my journey if I'm scared of what people are gonna think. I want to live bold. I want to be brave and share myself and feel every single thing.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's my honor too. When I had nothing to be sad over, I was miserable. And when I have lots to be sad over, I'm okay, because I know that part of living is feeling hard things. When I was a child, I would have never thought that I would lose a loved one to gun violence. Nor would I think that I could move to Paris and share my emotional journey with all of you.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I could have never predicted the assault the same way I could have never predicted setting NGOs in India for a month over Christmas with strangers that now feel like my family. Where there is darkness, there is light. And where there is pain, there is love. I know because I feel it. It's my strength, remember?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's not normal, some of the things that I experienced. But it's also not normal that 12,000 children have been killed in Gaza. It's not normal that 5,000 people will sleep outside tonight in Paris. It's not normal that every sixty eight seconds an American will be raped, and that will disproportionately affect women of color. So what do we do?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Do we numb ourselves because it's uncomfortable? It's hard to look tragedy in the eye and connect with it. It takes bravery. But as a collective, this is what we have to do. When we name it, we feel it, we give life to it, and this is how we heal ourselves and we heal the world around us.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:To limit your capacity for pain is to limit your capacity for love. I continue my journey and I will forever, and I'm not scared. I know that wherever the darkness is, the light will follow.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, Mary Elizabeth. So that's the second time that Jen and I have had the privilege of watching you deliver your TED Talk, and it's just as powerful as it was the first time. This, you know, if you don't experience pain, you can't experience love. And you're, I love your your concept of living bold in comfortable displacement. I can very much relate to that because I moved to Paris and lived bold in a lot of comfortable displacement too.
Dr. Kelly Culver:But I have a question for you, my dear. It's been a couple of months now since you gave that talk. How has the TED Talk changed your life?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I think that the talk has been such a release for me and such a healing process for me to I've always felt the same way. You know? Nothing has changed in how I feel about myself, these situations, but I had to be a bit private about it. And whenever I say I had to, that was self imposed. It was for my own healing.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It was what was right for me for a long time was to heal in private, you know, and and hold this for myself for a moment. But it really seemed like the right opportunity, the right moment in time, the right mode of communication to share these thoughts and share these feelings with other people. And the response has been so beautiful because I've achieved exactly what I wanted to from it, which is I've connected with so many people. And I think I feel so seen. Nothing I could never share myself in a way that is more true than what I did.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:There's nothing that I could do that is is more me than what I have already said. And so whenever you put that out there, people will receive it as they do. But being loved, respected, and met right where you genuinely are, nothing can be more healing from that. You know, had I altered the talk a little bit and made it a little bit more PR friendly, you know, a little bit more curated, maybe a little bit more held back different parts of myself and then received a beautiful response, it wouldn't have felt as good as it did where me really, really pouring pouring my truth into it. And the way that it has connected me with my hometown community specifically has been so beautiful and so healing.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And so I am very grateful also for the for the mode for to be able to share, and we'll see where it goes. It I really feel like it has been a big jump jump start for me because this was I didn't have a public media presence either, because of some of what I feel like we experience with my family in the media where I had people sending me the craziest messages. You know, at all time, I really felt like I had to be protecting protecting myself, And this was a place I could start and say, I can't hide from Internet trolls. And whenever you don't hide from Internet trolls, also, you're not hiding from the beautiful connections that can come from an online media presence. So, again, it's all these dualities.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Right? In giving this, I knew it would open me up to, potentially some, you know, some backlash or some critique, which you have to accept that because I knew that it would also connect me with so many beautiful people. And I I have no regrets. I feel very proud and empowered to have given this talk.
Jenn Quader:Good. Totally good and so inspiring. Mary Elizabeth, I I'm I'm blown away again by just your authenticity, your ability. And as you said, you didn't PR up your speech, which as the PR person on the call, I I really value that. I value the authenticity.
Jenn Quader:Because you're talking about online media presence and because people who have may have touched this story before but didn't get to see the true depth of truth, maybe they read something about your family, I wanna ask a question that we had prepared that may be tough, you know, but I want to know, in your current state, having recognized, you know, that you are honoring the pain and the love in your life, do you hold any animosity toward the media?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:No. I don't. And I have studied journalism as well. You know, it's a part of it's my personal beliefs, and it's my academic understanding. And media the news media is so important.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Information is important. And so I don't blame people at all for interacting with this story, and I don't blame the media for bringing this story into the attention of other people at all. It's important. You know? It there were crimes.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's very, very, very important. And I would never say that we should suppress information for anyone's sake of anyone in a in a in a powerful situation. I have no animosity towards the media. I think that the presence is very important, and I find myself whenever I do feel senses of discomfort. What I'm always uncomfortable with is the larger system.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:So I'm not upset about any ways that the media chooses to present a story that they also read online. This is a big, big, big chain of information that goes down a long line. I think something that makes me a little bit more sad and not animosity, but something that I feel a little bit more uncomfortable with is a system where people are engaging with media as entertainment that comes from a place of true tragedy. And I also I don't blame people for doing that either. I just I I wish for a different world.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I wish for people to engage with more inspiring media, and I think that you we really have to understand what's drawing us to the to the media that we're engaging with us. So I think that for people, if you find yourself always interacting with trauma stories, you know, I think that it's something to consider. Why do we gain pleasure from seeing, seeing horrible stories? I think information is important, but I think that whenever we turn real people into stories and we have a narrative that feels comfortable for us about other people, we just have to know that that is how that is. It's not real.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And I think that I had to make it a lot less personal for me in in my understanding that as people draw their conclusions, they're drawing it based on the information that they have. It's the same way that I interact with media. It's the same way that I interact with the world around me. And you have to do that with that little mindfulness behind you. I don't know this person.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I'm only doing the best that I can with the information that I have.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I'm hearing a level of of in in what you expressed, which is which is, again, very wise. I'm hearing you have been able to detach yourself from the story of the tragedy that struck your family and look at it through a different lens. We like to attach ourselves with things that are similar. Shared experiences are similar, something that sparks our interest. And when I hear you describe it in this way, I'm hearing a detachment that almost has has reached a level of of, you know, acceptance.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And we wanted to ask you around, does acceptance, equal forgiveness?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I don't think that acceptance equals forgiveness. I think that both are important, and I think that both are gonna take different muscles. So I think that they're both important, but you're gonna have to flex different muscles as you're working these. Yes. I think you can be in a state of acceptance, but also without without forgiveness.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And I think that as we come into more holistic healing, we'll be at that place. We'll we'll be at the place where we're flexing both muscles at one time. But I think that sometimes, maybe it's hard. Maybe you can forgive, but you can't accept because maybe you become attached in
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:a way to your
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:your position in the forgiving. Do you understand what I mean by that?
Dr. Kelly Culver:Mhmm. Mhmm. Absolutely.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:How noble am I? How noble am I to be able to let this go? That's not acceptance.
Jenn Quader:And what I see in that, Mary Elizabeth, I think it's, yet again, as always so wise because there there's kind of this and and it relates to to my brain the way you were talking about how there's a system of people that are consuming traumatic content. And that that, you know, there there's a bit of a, I'll call it the quicksand. Right? Like like, it pulls you in. And so I think that when you're looking at acceptance and forgiveness, you also have to look at, is that forgiveness coming from a place where I'm willing to really let go of the parts of this that I'm clinging to?
Jenn Quader:Or some people, as you're saying, you know, how noble am I to forgive? And more than that, I have forgiven this person, but I'm still holding on to myself as a victim. And I think that's something that really strikes me, Mary Elizabeth, is that you are someone who could very easily say, I am a victim. You have gone through things that I can't even imagine, my dear, like, can't even imagine. And yet, you stand up with such strength.
Jenn Quader:I guess I wanna ask your perspective on that, on on the you know, because being a victim and having a mindset of a victim are two very different things. Can you speak to that a little bit from your depth of experience within this?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Yeah. I think it's a really good and interesting point. And whenever you say, oh, I if I appreciate your compliment in saying that you don't feel like I I create that within myself, but I don't exactly do it for other people. I do that also. I'm not a victim because if I made myself the victim, who would be miserable?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Me. When you choose your mindset, you're the one. You're the one that suffers. So it's a little bit selfish. I don't wanna be the victim because I don't wanna live my life that way.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's not for me. So that that's that's my choice. And I whenever I talk about this as a choice, I also really understand that some people are gonna be in positions where it's a lot easier to make the choice to be in a state of surrender based on external environment. So I really I take this into consideration, and it doesn't take away from the different levels of depth of people's struggles and experiences. But at the end of the day, the reason why I want for people to live in a state of acceptance and to forgive and not to be the victim of their own story, it's not so that I don't have to hear you whine about it.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's because you get to live free. I want for you to live free. I don't want for people to walk around feeling like the world is out to get them.
Jenn Quader:I want a t shirt that says you can live free because it's true. What you're saying is so true. And and I love what you're saying, and I think I appreciate that you're saying, you know, maybe it's selfish, but I I don't think it's selfish. I think it is self full because we can't contribute to the world if we are in our whole. You know?
Jenn Quader:We can't we can't do and and and we have a purpose to be here or else we wouldn't be here. Right? Like, what are what are we doing here? We're here to do something. There is some you talk about a a divine calling in your in your talk that each of us has something we need to do.
Jenn Quader:And maybe it's big, maybe it's small. It doesn't matter. There's something to do. And so as you talk about being able to navigate to a place where you can hold that inner peace through the storm where you, you know I I just wanna say I I don't think that is selfish. I think it's very self full.
Jenn Quader:And I think that it it leads to a place of contribution to others by you working on finding that own place, as you say, that allows you to say, you know, let's be free. I choose to be free. I choose to love life with all of its pain.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It's about leadership of self, and you have transcended a place where you have been able to come to the leadership of self. Some people never get there. They live their whole life, and they never get to that place of leadership of self self awareness, self empowerment. But self leadership, you know, it's it's almost like you're on an accelerated trajectory.
Jenn Quader:You are. I mean, you really and and I think, again, Mary Elizabeth, you you're a gift to us. You're a gift to those who sat in that room, and you are a gift to the people who will hear all of this. And I I wanna bring us back, as doctor Kelly just said, you're a leader of yourself. You've accomplished that at at at a relatively young age, let's say.
Jenn Quader:And so in that position, you now have this ability to share with others. And one of the things you talk about as you begin, even before you had these really difficult tragedies, is that you faced depression as a child growing up. And we are in the middle of a, I'll call it another pandemic of depression. We are in a mental health crisis globally, and that is undisputed, right? We all know this.
Jenn Quader:I wonder if we can take that very strong inner light of yours, and if you could help shine it to some others and help tell our listeners, if they are going through a pandemic of depression, what are the steps they might take in in simple form to help find their own inner love?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I think whenever you are going through it, the way through is to hit it hard. If you're going through something, go right through it. Don't go around it. Don't stop at the wall before you touch it. It's waves, and I think that acceptance is everything.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And so being able to ride out your feelings, I think now with this perspective, I really can understand how my depression as a child, it was fueling me. It was equipping me to be who I was going to be. I think had I just been the type of person that just was happy with everything and was okay with everything, well, I would probably still be in my hometown. You know? And that would be completely okay if that was my path.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It was never going to be my path, though. I had to have this little something underneath me that was pushing me to a new place. And so I think that all of these things, they come together, and I think our emotional journey, it all comes together to serve us. And so it's not even as much of ups and downs as much it is as it is here and there. You're here today.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:You're there the next day. It's not really up and down. You know? Because it's all part of the human experience. And I think that whenever you consider, whenever we know that you have to have one in order to have the other, you won't think of it as being up and down.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:You'll just think of it as here or there.
Jenn Quader:I I have such a visual with that because I often talk about how life feels to me sometime well, that just does. Like, every day, I feel like I'm at the bottom of a mountain, and I'm about to climb it again. You know? And so I think if I change that metaphor in my head and I say, well, no. Today, I'm at today, I'm over here on this plane, and over here, I'm on this plane.
Jenn Quader:I think that there's a there's a lot of calmness that that brings to think about, you don't have to see it as I'm lacking in something. You don't have to see it as a deficiency within oneself. And maybe we can look at that in acceptance also because acceptance does not mean resignation. You know, it doesn't mean, oh, well, I've accepted that I'm just, just that I'm Eeyore. You know, that's who I am.
Jenn Quader:It it it means so I I think it's important to kind of clarify that acceptance is an open state. And I think that's really important and actually comes back to what Michael A. Singer talks about in The Untethered Journey. You can accept something and close and say, I'm I'm a victim. I don't wanna talk about that.
Jenn Quader:I don't wanna hear about that. I can't you know? Or you can accept something and open and say, let me share my journey. This is what I'm doing to get past it. And I think you've just done that in such a beautiful way, Mary Elizabeth.
Dr. Kelly Culver:What you just said around here and there, We had a guest on a on a previous episode, and he was talking about he provided us with this beautiful imagery of a willow tree. And you know how a willow tree can sway in the wind, and it's like that here and there, but it and it's the grace. And you speak about grace in your talk as well, that you now have found a place of grace and comfort with where you are. And so I have this image of this willow tree. You know, it's like back and forth, but it's steadfast and constant and strong.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And that's what I see and hear from you in the discussion that we've had with you today.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:But I
Dr. Kelly Culver:do have some fun questions Yes. How we like to end all of our podcasts. Okay. So let's go.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And I didn't prepare answers. I don't have answers. I don't have answers.
Jenn Quader:Even better. Top of mind answers. All the best.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Okay. Are you ready? Close your eyes. No peeking. Yep.
Dr. Kelly Culver:What's your favorite movie or TV show that makes you feel resilient?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:My favorite movie that makes me feel resilient, I think it has to be you guys. I don't know how I feel about this answer, but it's my real answer. Okay? It's Forrest Gump. It's Forrest Gump.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's Forrest Gump. Yes. Awesome. Can I open my eyes? It's Forrest
Dr. Kelly Culver:Gump because Yeah. You can open your eyes.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:I'm, like, sitting there like, okay. You did.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Let me tell you. It's Forrest
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Gump because this it was filmed in my hometown. It wasn't filmed in Alabama. It was filmed in Hampton, South Carolina. So the imagery from this movie, it feels so resonant with me, with my hometown. And I love the story of this one guy.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:It's a story of this one guy, and he goes through all of these different phases of life. It's a good example of not up or down, but here or there. And I think whenever we remove expectations for how our life should go, what you're gonna end up with is a beautiful, long, eclectic movie like Forrest Gump where you're sitting down on a park bench in Savannah telling your story, and you just you realize that you collected these life's experiences, and you didn't try. All that you were doing was living in the state of acceptance, and what came to you came. So Forrest Gump.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Wow. That's so country girl.
Jenn Quader:Good answer. Good answer.
Dr. Kelly Culver:And she's fabulous. Okay. Next question. Close your eyes. What's the favorite song that you have that makes you feel resilient?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Let the Light In by Lana Del Rey. It's my favorite song. It's my favorite song, and it's a newer song. You know? So something has to you have to love it for it to become your favorite, but it's my favorite.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And I love, I love the metaphor of it. I actually I kind of intentionally named my talk also with the same language of this song because it just works for me. That that sentence, it works for me, and I feel it whenever I hear it. So I love this song. And then I also love this song.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:One of my my second favorite song is beast of burden by the Rolling Stones. And I like that because it's a little bit of perspective of how do we feel, like, how do we feel things are not that serious? He's saying, I'll never be your beast of burden, but all I want is for you to make a love to me. At the end, sometimes it's that simple.
Dr. Kelly Culver:Oh, you're touching my heart because it's my favorite band in the whole world.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:This is feel good music.
Jenn Quader:Yeah.
Dr. Kelly Culver:It is feel good music. Oh, so what's the last thing that made you laugh?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:So easy, Tolley. Toley's always the last thing that made me laugh. He's always the last thing that makes me laugh, and he provides me with such a source of joy. I giggled at him as I'm sitting here. I can see him, and he's looking out the window watching people go by, And he just he had a little staring competition with a pigeon that it's it makes me giggle.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:His whole personality, he he reminds me of a crystal. He soaks up all the bad energy and just reputs out good vibes towards everyone. So it's Tollie. It's always Tollie.
Dr. Kelly Culver:I love it. What is the question that you would like to leave for a future guest on this series?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Tell us your favorite technology of the self. And by that, I mean, what is your mode of self discovery? Or not self discovery, discovery of the world around you. Technology of the self. So what's that method for you?
Dr. Kelly Culver:Okay. Okay. Okay. So I'm gonna ask you a question. Mary Elizabeth, a previous guest on, on this show, left a question, and we'd like to ask it to you.
Dr. Kelly Culver:What is the mantra that gets you through the day?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Oh, I study spirituality. I have so many beautiful mantras from text that I could tell you guys, but am I allowed to cuss? Can I say a cuss word?
Jenn Quader:Absolutely. We we can cuss say
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:a cuss word? Okay. Okay. Because, you know, at the end of the day, I really I love to talk about my academics. I love to talk about my personal interest, but at the end of the day, I'm a 23 year old girl.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Like, my language, it's not always like this. So what really gets me going, what I really say to myself in the mirror in the morning is sometimes you just have to look at yourself and I say, this is the price you have to pay to be a bad bitch. And that means that as you carry on your day, do it with, like, a sense of tenaciousness. And if you live your life like other people, you're gonna get the same result as other people. And I know that it's not what I want.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:So as you are taking that that other path, you see people going one way and you go the other way, It's what I remind myself. This is the price that you pay to be a bad bitch. It's your choice. You want it. So boom.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Don't complain. Don't complain when you have to make sacrifices. Don't complain whenever you don't get to stay out all night doing the same things as everybody else. You chose this path, and it's your way. So
Jenn Quader:I might borrow that mantra. We're
Dr. Kelly Culver:gonna borrow that.
Jenn Quader:Yeah. I I think we're I think we might all have to adopt. We're gonna
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:borrow that.
Jenn Quader:It it it's so speaks to to me, it's it's fascinating because it so speaks to who you are. It speaks to that duality that you talk about because you do have such a strength, such an elegance, such a spiritual softness, I would say, and then you have just what you said earlier, hit it hard. This is what it takes to be a bad bitch. You have that strength. I'm I'm amazed by it.
Jenn Quader:I want to ask you as we wrap things up, are there places right now that our listeners can find you online? Where can they go to follow you to learn more about your level of resilience and all of what you have learned in your life?
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Professionally, my LinkedIn is my only public platform right now, and so it's a way to reach me on any type of professional inquiry. And on the personal side, I'm working on it, you know, because this is something that I'm still healing from, and it's something that I need to continue to cultivate. And so I wish that I had something that I could just offer out, but this is a part of my process, and it's gonna come for me. You know? I know I'm gonna find myself being more comfortable in the public eye, and, I feel excited.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:And can I offer, like, one last thing before we close? I just kinda wanna leave to to finish out this conversation. We talked a lot about different things that we can do to cultivate the self, and I think it's so important. But I also want to remind anyone that's listening that you don't have to work to heal. Healing is already happening within you.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:In each breath that you take, it's an inhale and it's an exhale. And when you breathe out, you're releasing parts of yourself, and you're breathing in new life. So the change is happening. If you're breathing, you are healing. And so I just think everyone is right where you need to be.
MaryElizabeth Murdaugh:Let it happen. Do your best. And we're all just rocking it out the best that we can. So I I wanna remind people that healing is not work.
Jenn Quader:Amen, my friend. Thank you. What an important message. What an important thing to remember that rest and respite and that sense of quiet is where we all find healing. And it's all innate.
Jenn Quader:It's already in us. All we have to do is sit, remember, and find it. Mary Elizabeth, thank you. Doctor. Kelly Culver, thank you.
Jenn Quader:What a beautiful episode. To our listeners, thank you for joining us today for resiliency the podcast. We are honored to have you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please hit that like button, subscribe. Here, you will find stories and strategies and inspiration that can always help you to overcome challenges, to embrace change, and to redefine resilience in today's ever changing world.
Jenn Quader:I am Jen Quater. You can find me online at jenquater.com, at my company, the smart agency Com, or at jen quater on all the social profiles. My illustrious, wonderful, and brilliant expert host, doctor Kelly Culver, you can find her at CulverGroup.CA. That's .CA. Remember, she is a our Canadian princess here on Resiliency the podcast.
Dr. Kelly Culver:You can also oh, yes.
Jenn Quader:You can also find her on doctor Kelly Culver dot com and at doctor kelly culver on both LinkedIn and Instagram. Once again, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you to Mary Elizabeth Murdaugh for a beautiful, open, heartfelt, and really powerful discussion. Thank you to doctor kelly culver, and thank you to our listeners. We love you.
Jenn Quader:We appreciate you. This space is for you, and we hope you will continue to tune in. And until then, we wish you resilience, we wish you happiness, and we wish you a day of being a bad bitch. Happy resiliency.
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