Radical Self-Care, Kindness, and the Power of Storytelling with Barbara Newman

Welcome to the Sharegiving Secret, my guest today is no stranger to thinking about the world at large and how caregiving functions in it. You might say she's a superpower as a share giver. Her name is Barbara Newman, and she's lived many lives as a storyteller. I've said often that there are probably 1 billion disabled people on Earth who will need 1 billion caregivers, and that number is probably growing. So when we start looking at the macro picture of caregiving, the larger worldview of it, I wanted to consult some experts on caring for the world at large, and Barbara Newman came to mind first, as a person who has really thought about these things, and she began on Madison Avenue, which we're going to talk about in a minute, as a creative director at some iconic global brands. And more recently, though, Barbara and I met at a writing workshop of a particular kind, where we were both in a competition to get a contract for a novel, and I'm proud to say I got to see Barbara win that competition with her book The Dream Catcher codes. So we're going to talk about that book as well, which has so many applications to the idea of caregiving and share giving, and it's led her into a particular focus for Gen Z, young girls and young adults to protect their mental health, to make sure that they have a solid foundation in which to live their lives and also become share givers. And she's involved in so many other projects. We're going to try to get to as many as we can in this episode, and I'm really looking forward to having this conversation. So welcome Barbara.

Thank you so much, Deb. And it was wonderful to to spend that time with you at that workshop. And you're such a beautiful writer, and what you're doing, how you've sort of marched that into this particular beautiful and important project, is a beautiful thing to see. So thank

you so so good to be having this conversation today. So I was thinking about the Madison Avenue days, and I imagine that was pretty stressful, at least from what I've seen on TV. How do you cope with the stress

it you know, it's it's interesting, because if I knew now, if I knew then what I knew now about how to deal with stress, it might be different. I just kept going and going and going like the Energizer battery, and for me, producing good work took away the stress. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but you know, I was very in, you know, engaged with collaboration and writing and art and going to edits and casting and producing the work that I really didn't have time to feel stressed. I just kept on going because I knew that if I stopped at that time, if I stopped, I might have fallen apart.

That's interesting. So creativity was fueling your energy.

Completely fueled my energy. It did as as it does now. I mean creativity and art I feel are so important to moving in the world in a way that is beautiful. I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now, but you know, like now, I would do yoga. Now, I would step aside and I would close my office door, and I would breathe. I would breathe in light. I would exhale anything that was dark. I would exhale fear. I would exhale anxiety. I just made a you know, this is what I do now. It's a very conscious and intentional choice to step out of whatever I am doing and sit and re, center and restore and that now gives me balance. I didn't have a whole lot of balance when I was on Madison Avenue. I was also a working mother, so all of my energy went into work and children and creativity, I had to find it a creative way to raise those children right and bring what I knew, which was a love of words and a love of music and a love of art to them, which which has really helped them in their lives today. So,

so that's on On the plus side of how creativity can fuel us. In terms of stress management, could you say a bit about how that helps you or helped you at the time?

Yes, stress management, I mean that we have. So many stressors. I mean, they are just, you know, they come at us from all different angles. And I think sometimes, well, I know that when I'm caring for myself, when I'm doing radical self care, I don't even like the word radical loving self care, when I'm loving myself, I'm able to give more. And so I find that for me, yoga is very important. Movement is very important. Dance is very important for me. So I feel that many people will benefit if they step aside and they they stop for a minute, like, I journal. Journaling is essential. I get all my stuff out. It just gets it's on the paper, it's out of my body and onto the page. And you don't have to be a writer to journal, exactly. And, yeah, yeah, I've even spoken to my son about this. My son is a paramedic firefighter, and he has a lot of stress and PTSD actually from dealing with medical calls. And I'm teaching him, I'm share giving in a way. I'm teaching him to center himself and also not be afraid to talk about your stress, right? Yeah, it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay not to be okay.

So, yeah, so important to give the caregiver some way to replenish him or herself, because it's not just women who are caregivers, but at least 40% happen to be men. And your son certainly in a caring profession, so so he's going to have some of the same sorts of things to cope with. Now, I know at some point you left Madison Avenue, and I know there's an interesting story about that too. So could we turn to the

Sure, I love Madison. Yeah, I left Madison Avenue because I felt I felt that something was missing, and I felt like I was contributing things that were not meaningful. I didn't want to sell products anymore. I just didn't want to do that. I wanted to be a good role map model for my daughter, especially who at that time was. She was about 12 years old, and she needed mom at home, and she also she needed to see that I could be strong without working in New York. 24/7, I and so I happened to have been listening to NPR, and they were doing an interview about the American cowgirl, and I it just lit me up. I'm like, what is it about the cowgirl that is exciting me so much, and I think it's her resiliency, her strength, her independence, her freedom, her her joy for living. How they get their hands dirty in the earth? They get their hands dirty and they're with animals and nature and all of the things that I was not feeling I was in touch with, so I traded in cowgirl boot, my high heels, and I went to Montana, and I put on some boots, and I began a documentary film about the American cowgirl and the string. I mean, I just fell in love with spirit. I fell in love with cowgirl spirit. And so while I was doing the film, I fell in love with the natural world in a way that I had never felt before. I felt so connected and so part of Mother Earth, the landscape out there was so beautiful. I might sit under the stars without a tent, you know, I'd sleep outdoors, you know, I would, I would learn about plant medicine, all of the things that really gave me a sense of peace, for the first time, a real sense of peace. And then I lost my funding for cowgirls. I lost my funding for the film, and I decided to write a young adult novel about four girls saving the planet from the environmental stressors that it is facing.

So that's interesting, that that caregiving impulse to be a good mother, to make sure your daughter had some strong role model that wasn't about working herself to death and on that very high stress job, but to practice her own creativity and pursuit of giving her daughter something that that's off. Been a big part of caregiving, that we turn our efforts to something creative to help another person. So I think that's almost fundamental to it, but it's produced all this wonderful, wonderful literature from you, and I imagine at some point that cowgirl film is going to get us funding back. It may, it may, I

think it will. I mean, Barbie walked into the real world dressed as a cowgirl, right? And Beyonce is, you know, but, but it's interesting about cowgirls, because they are really all about community, too, and they are known to really care about each other. It's a very caring community.

And tell me some more about that. What is that like?

Well, you know, ranching can be lonely, right? Ranching can be lonely. So they're out there in the wilderness. There is a lot of isolation, and yet, the community, I mean, they really, they gather on Sundays. They do community dinners. If one is in trouble, another one steps up. It's very, you know, they homeschool their children. It's a very, very different way of life, certainly from the life that we all know here and and yet, the similarities of these women, and, you know, on us, we all have capital, spirit, right? We all dust ourselves up and, you know, get back. We fall off the horse and and saddle in, you know, saddle up. And so I feel mostly that this connection they are, they're just connected. They're connected to the land. They're connected to each other, and they care a lot about the health of the community, and they care about the health of the animals. So I think that can be translated to every woman,

right who is a famous or not famous, someone you should bring to our attention cowgirl that we should not worry about, who might give us some inspiration about the caregiving spirit?

Well, I would say Sandra Day O'Connor is right up there. She's incredible. She was a girl who young girl who grew up on a ranch, and she says all the time that, you know, sitting in the saddle prepared her for sitting on the bench. There were no gender barriers. And what did she do? I mean, she cared for justice. She was all about justice, right? There's another wonderful cowgirl. Her name was wild horse, Annie, and she lived in the 1950s and had polio, and she saw horses being mistreated and abused, so she wrote to she got legislation passed to save the wild horses. There are so many women Temple Grandin, another one, okay, and I interviewed her, it was extraordinary to to be in her presence and and talk about how she cared for the animals. She changed the way animals are treated before, unfortunately, they got a slaughter. So, yeah, so that caring, I mean, and that recognition of what we can do for others and for our community is very, very present in all of these cowgirls. They're fantastic. They're poets and writers and photographers artists. They have really impacted and shaped American culture. So that was really exciting. Yeah,

I love that you brought up the protection of justice and also the prevention of trauma. A lot of people wonder why it's important to not permit a cow to go through all of that anxiety knowing that something terrible is going to happen, but it seems so much more humane, at least, to be thinking so much

more Yes, yeah, and that's the whole thing. I mean, care, you know, we have to come back to our humanness, right, to our humanity, to kindness. I mean, you know, you can be the most intelligent person you can be. You know, win this award and that if you're, if a person's not kind, all of those things don't matter. You know, it's how it's not about what they did. My Angela always says it's not about what you do, it's about how you make someone feel. And so I believe that's really true. I do. I believe that's true.

Yeah, and a lot of the caregivers role is to protect the person they're caring for from experiencing trauma, which is the you know, the ultimate kindness is to make the environment. Percent comfortable enough for the person to live through the experience of not being well or survive the experience of a disability. So so that impulse that comes partly from cowgirls and and from from a number of other walks of life too, but that is the thing that we try to protect as caregivers, and often that's the thing that's most challenging for us, because of the level of stress that it creates to maintain that kind of protection

so that I go out in nature. Yeah, I mean, nature is my sanctuary. And you know that that goes back to my book, right? The Dream Catcher codes and why I had to write that book. It took two of the things that I deeply care about, which is the environment and protecting and restoring our Earth, and girls finding their voices and vital place in the world, right? So, so, going back to that, just for a moment, you know Sophia, you know the book is about four young girls who come together from the four directions, and they're powered by earth, air, fire and water, and they're here to find an ancient crystal that holds the codes of nature that will heal the planet. Well, the codes of nature, basically it's love. That's what it is. It's love, right? Caring for our Earth. She gives so much, right? So she gives so much. So it's about giving back to her and recognizing that we are not separate. So these four girls are super diverse, you know, one is Lakota. One is, you know, biracial from New York. One, you know, so they come together, and they're very, very different, but they have the same purpose, and they support one another, and in sharing this quest, right? In sharing, you know, they support one another, and they learn that they are not so different. And when one is down, they raise each other up, right? And that, you know, they really learn how to balance the four and they're young girls, and I think that's super, you know. So they're share, giving. And I just want to mention that I think that word is so brilliant, you know. And as a word person, I really appreciate how, how that has I think that's we need to share. We need to it is a village. It does take a village sometimes, and we need to share the responsibility of caring for others, which is why, I mean, in my wildest dreams, I would love a tiny house community with all of my girlfriends,

right? Be nice. It would be nice. It would have all that wisdom, sharing, going on, and helping each other, which is the way we fantasize, that I think, and it could happen.

It could happen. And the other thing is, you know, in my book, you know, I really didn't know how when I was writing it, I did not realize how much tik alum would be rise to the top, and it really did, and that means to repair the world in Hebrew. And that's what I was raised to do, repair the world in some way or another, whether it's one person or three people or 10 people, the microcosm that you know you started with that, you know you opened a conversation with that. And it is really so true. So repairing the world has always been something inside of me that that I grew up with, and I think that this book shows that and talks about it because I have a Jewish character, I have a Lakota character, and they come together and They talk about their their shared intergenerational trauma, and that's healing. Talking heals.

Yeah, I think that the Dyads that you set up, one is Mother Daughter, which is something that has persisted in your work, because we're going to talk about your Gen X project as well. That has has always been there, I think, from the beginning, and it's a wonderful microcosm of a role model. We don't all have to be mothers and daughters, but we can protect the world and teach the world the way that kind of information is transferred between mother and child. We often. To do that as caregivers, and yet some of the outside forces, as you know, make it difficult for caregivers to function that challenge the the integrity of what the caregiver is trying to do, either by disrespecting the caregiver or not giving enough resources to the caregiver. So I I appreciate that you brought up the conception of tikkun olam as well, because it's a similar one to what I was given as a young child. As part of my role was to make the earth better, to to repair the earth. So I was wondering if we could turn now toward that Gen X project that you have of empowerment for young people, which I think draws right out of that experience of wanting to give your daughter a better experience of life as her mother and as has her own self to see what was possible. Oh, thank

you. Yeah, so I'm working with an organization called Empower Gen Z, and they are the, you know, they're the younger, younger, huge generation. I mean, it's the largest generation in history, I think, even larger than the boomers. And they are struggling. They are struggling so much. You know, they're in their phones all the time. They they don't really know how to communicate. They have huge loneliness, and of course, anxiety, there's climate anxiety, there's bullying anxiety. There's just so much in the world that they're carrying. And so, I don't know if you know horrible Hendricks and Helen Hunt. They are relational therapists, very, very well known. They wrote the book Getting the love you want, and they've been on Oprah like 25 times. I mean, they really are and they they teach people how to communicate, the art of mirroring one another. And I think that's also so important in caregiving, to really listen, you know, to to what do you what is it that you need? Asking the question, what is it that you need the most, right? So I'm mentoring these young kids, and it's been such a pleasure and so horrible and and Helen created something called dialog, which is an app that you can get on their phone, because that's where they live, and it teaches them how to dialog back and forth so that they don't feel so alone. It's wonderful. And they also are writing. There are a lot of singer songwriters that we're working with, young singer songwriters and filmmakers, and they are doing dialog to help them find their balance and their creativity. So we have dialog songs. They're talking about their feelings, in poetry, in music, in art, in filmmaking. And so it's been a wonderful opportunity for me to mentor these, these kids through this organization. Really wonderful.

That sounds like a wonderful tool dialog. I think care, adult caregivers could use something like that as well. I don't know if it's an open app that where it would be appropriate for for adults to be, but maybe someone could develop something like that for

I think it's really, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, just asking the question is so important?

Yeah, to be heard,

I think, to be heard exactly, seen and heard exactly, that's the, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what it is. So these kids now are being seen and they're being heard and they're being seen and heard with one another. And that's healing, and that's restorative, and that's so very important.

Yeah, I think that brings us back or down to the lowest niche of this, which is working with individuals, which we had started to talk about a little bit before, but we've gone from that macro view of how do we repair the earth in the world to a particular generation, and now you're also going to be working with boomers on sharing their stories. So once again, we're back in that story world in a whole different way. So could you? Could you tell me, I'm so excited,

I'm so excited for this next chapter, I can't tell you. I mean, I'm writing another book. I'm writing which is actually interesting, and I think people can do this as a form of caring for themselves. I'm writing a book of letters to myself, which is very healing. So from my older, wiser. Person. My, you know, the things I've gained over the years, my Crone, if you will, right, my wise self, to my younger my younger selves, my four year old, my 14 year old, my 21 year old, and, you know, on and on, and it is so beautiful. I'm like, Yes, Coco, I'm talking to you, dear Coco, yeah, I'm talking to you, and, and, and what do you mean? You don't feel visible anymore when you walk down the street. What do you mean? You know, and it's, um, it I'm Deb, it is so wonderful. It is such a way to heal. So I encourage anybody else to do that. Now, that's not my project with boomers. I had thought that I might want to be an end of life doula and conscious dying coach, and it was something I've always been drawn to. I thought that it was a calling when I got older. This would some this would be a beautiful gift and a way to be a share giver. And I researched four different schools, and I took a class from each one, and I realized this is not for me. Bless the walking angels on the planet who can do this work, because it is extraordinary and it is so needed, but I'm too much of an empath, so it just wasn't something that I saw myself doing. But out of that exploration, and I think we always need to stay curious, out of that exploration came this idea of guiding people to write their legacy stories. And I call myself, you know, I am the story whisperer. You know, I've been writing stories all of my life in one way or another, whether through film, whether through books, whether through, you know, writing commercials even. And so I feel very and I'm also a good interviewer. I'm an active listener. I love listening to people, and I love that the art of communicating and how, how we all need to be seen and heard, right? So I have this beautiful idea to bring this skill and this love of people and story to people who haven't had the opportunity to share what it is they need to say. So I'm calling it, what is it you want to say? And I it. They won't come out with a book necessarily, but they can come out with poetry. They can come out with anecdotes. They can can come out with stories, letters. It can be in whatever form they feel good about. And I'm so excited to be storing this in January. That's so lovely,

the way it combines mirroring, reflecting back and acknowledging and hearing what someone says, and also kind of channeling your inner grandmother to make sure that your legacy continues in some way for the people who need to hear it exactly.

Yeah. I mean, I'm so excited there are books out there that I know a lot of grandpa children give their grandparents and fill this in and fill that in, but I think that and they sit there. They don't really, they just they they're not finished. So this would be a course. I'm not really sure of the format, but yet, but it really gives people a one on one, and I guide them, and I will hold their hand, and I will help them find the pearls and the wisdom and what they want to leave behind. And I feel like it is a gift. It will be a gift for those people.

Yeah, I think your magnificent skills in storytelling are going to be a boon to so many caregiving types of people who have lived an awfully long life of story and yet haven't had a chance to to synthesize it and put it out there so that the rest of us can benefit from it, and story often relieves stress. So we started talking about stress a little bit, and how Madison Avenue was the mother of all stresses, perhaps, but how you've made an antidote in your life and through using that same kind of creativity to produce very different results for very different populations. So this has been a really wonderful, wonderful interview. I just want to ask you if there's anything else. Like to share with people who are trying to do share giving in their own way, as far as stress or storytelling, any closing remark or project that you want to talk about that we haven't covered yet,

I would just say to find the beauty in the little things. Give yourself that gift of finding the beauty in the little things and letting go of these massive expectations we put on ourselves. We don't have to be heroic. We have to be kind,

and kindness doesn't have to be a large rock that you drop on someone's head, so to speak. It doesn't have to be a huge gesture. It's often the smallest of things that people remember, as you were pointing out, Maya Angelou said, how you make people feel, which is not a tangible thing, but it is a very big thing in the scheme of our lives. So I want to thank you for so much, for all of the wisdom you brought to the table today, and I hope we have a chance to chat again sometime next year, perhaps when who knows what projects you will be into by that point. Because you, I'm hoping. I'm

hoping that I I'm I'm guiding people to tell their stories, which is, you know, their own healing and their own gift to the people that they love.

Well, thank you for sharing, giving Barbara today. It's been a wonderful journey with you, and I'm sorry it's coming to an end, but

no, I think we could talk for a long time.

We did, we did, and I enjoyed it, and I I'm sure the people who are going to listen to this episode will as well. So thanks again for coming, and thank you all for listening as well. It's been a pleasure to take this time with you on the Sharegiving Secret Thank you.