No. 17 - Deconditioning Identity with Nic Strack
Come hang with me and my friend Nic for a deep and personal conversation about our experiences with loss, grief, and identity, particularly in relation to gender and sexuality. We reflect on the impact societal expectations had on our identities, and touch on our experiences using a Human Design lens through parenting and health issues. We also discuss how our childhood experiences influenced our full grown identities, and how entering different relationships throughout our lives helped us to drop into different energies that shaped us into curious forms.
In this conversation, Nic and I share stories from the roof that carry challenging themes of death and sexual assault, and may be difficult for some listeners to digest. Listener discretion is advised.
Nic Strack is an open-hearted 4/6 Pure Generator and resonates with the Valley. Words, names, sounds, and communication interference can all distract Nic from navigating the Playing Field of life. In an intimate conversation exploring how our external experiences shape us, join us in considering how our past selves influence our current expressions.
Find Nic at:
Vaness Henry:
0:03
It's Vaness Henry, you're listening to InSights, my private podcast exclusively for community members like you. Here's my latest InSight: I'm chatting with the one and only n Strack today, a 4'6 pure generator with valleys and an undertone of inner vision which I find very cute. And Nick also has a totally open heart. I am very charmed by the totally open heart. As somebody who is ego authority, I often feel like it is a mirror, an accountability mirror, and when I come up to people who have this open heart, my spine straightens because it makes me want to. It puts this different type of accountability within me. I invited Nick on the show today to have a conversation about identity as somebody who identifies as non-binary and speaking with someone who identifies as gender fluid, who are both six lines. I wanted to talk about all the ways we can identify, but also the transition of becoming someone who's on the roof and how that makes you reevaluate everything that you've been through, ev erything you thought you were, how you thought you understood the world and beyond that.
Vaness Henry:
1:30
Welcome to the show.
Nic Strack:
1:32
Thank you.
Vaness Henry:
1:34
So what do we need to know about you and your work in the world right now, or what you're doing in the world right now?
Nic Strack:
1:40
I am raising my children and myself
Vaness Henry:
1:45
Love that
Nic Strack:
1:45
I guess we'll probably speak most about me and my husband Eric. We've been together for 16 years and my older kiddo, Uni, uses they and them pronouns. They'll be eight in a few months. And then Kylo we use he and they pronouns with him, and he's just over 15 months old.
Vaness Henry:
2:04
My son, who is nine now. When he was young we didn't put gender on him. We really wanted to see you know what would happen. And he had wanted to grow his hair out. He's a Métis child, he's indigenous. A huge part of their spirituality is the spirituality is in the hair a long braid and he was growing his hair out, growing his hair out, growing his hair out. And then there was this moment where we could finally pull it back. And he pulled it back and looked in the mirror and he was like I look like a girl. And that was the first time I had heard him say what he felt like about boy, girl, whatever. And he was kind of looking at himself and I said dad has a braid Cause, derek, my husband had long hair at the time. He was like, yeah, he does, but he was calculating himself, he was looking.
Vaness Henry:
2:49
He then had a time of experimenting with like we would let him buy whatever clothes he was attracted to and there was this time where he wanted to try a dress. I was like, okay, let's, what dress are you attracted to? We went and found him one and he would wear it around the house and then we had company over and he wanted to wear it as well, but he was nervous. So I was noticing okay, where's he even getting this from, you know? And then the friends, the company, came over. They had two little boys and the little boys were so gracious. It was like that's cool, I love what you're wearing, cause my son was a bit nervous but he was immediately received and kind of set at ease. But he never wore a dress again. It was like he never wore it again.
Vaness Henry:
3:30
And then he started to say I'm a boy, I feel like a boy. And I noticed he was going, he's a two, four and he's on the journey of, like, loving his friends and what does it mean to have bonds? And but he went on this identity journey and we were trying to hold as much space for that as possible and he experimented and it was clear to him necessarily, until it was and so now, okay, you choose to use that he pronoun, we'll honor that. But he's already been conditioned that he would never call a dog a girl or a boy. You know, he's like he's just they. Them is his default and he, if he hears somebody being gender, giving a gender to an animal, let's say he'll correct them.
Vaness Henry:
4:11
I was like you don't know, you can see the, you can see the wiener on the dog, like you know what I mean, but he's like he doesn't look at that and it's neat to see. Cause, honestly, for me, when this language was developing and we were learning about these different ways to identify, took me a beat right, because it's just a retraining of your mind and how to speak. But my son never had that retraining, he just had that training and so he'll correct me he'll correct me sometimes and I love it, I live for it.
Vaness Henry:
4:37
I'm like, yes, tell me, mom shouldn't have done that. You're right, absolutely. But sometimes he'll. He'll personify me as female and I'll say I'm not binary, but he can call me mom, I'll play the part of wife, you know. So I heard you say your husband, what do you say? What is the language that you use?
Nic Strack:
4:55
Yeah, so I feel like this has changed so much for me over time. But for a while when I first came out, I did I can't even remember I think I came out as genderqueer or something like that. I didn't know what was going to fit, but I knew it didn't like woman, didn't feel right, Same. So then I was just like change all of the labels Mama I like could not let go of because it just by then uni was I don't know two or so, and I was just like I don't want to change, Like mama still felt right. But then I was like spouse, child, sibling, all of those partner, any of those. And now I'm just like actually I'm fine with it, Like it, just it doesn't.
Nic Strack:
5:37
I feel like I grew into my own understanding of myself such that the label that gets put on to me, like Eric will refer to me as his wife or his spouse or his partner, and all of them feel equally fine to me in that sense. And then my brother died while I was nine weeks pregnant with Kylo, my recent baby. So it hasn't quite been yeah, it hasn't quite been two years since he died, and like he would refer to me as his sibling and stuff, but like I feel like I'm his sister, you know, like there's a real for a while he definitely honored my own changing understanding of myself and my identity and we both had a giggle when he was in treatment and the nurse kept calling me his little brother and like we both left it like that, like because we liked like he Sean knew that I liked like more boyish energy kind of feels.
Nic Strack:
6:26
but I introduced myself like as his sister to people that he knows and stuff, and that's the word that feels right. So it feels so like contextually specific I guess, in that like I have lots of mother-daughter stuff that I consider, you know, like I identify as a daughter, but mostly to my mom, like the mother daughter relational stuff, and like she has also died and so there's there's something for me about I know.
Vaness Henry:
6:55
I'm having a bit of a face right now as the death stories come up. I cannot help it. One thing I'm just curious about. I heard you say treatment. What happened to your brother?
Nic Strack:
7:04
curious about I heard you say treatment what happened to your brother? My brother had leukemia and then he got a bone marrow transplant which just never really took. So he had graft versus host disease which ended up being the reason why he died. He had holes that developed in his lungs and he could not convert oxygen anymore.
Vaness Henry:
7:20
I lost a friend who was 12. To that I know that grief. That was not my are. I was treated on the children's ward and all the kids were dying and they all died in my year of diagnosis. And when Andrew died there was that's part of the time when the flame in me started, like the drive started through his death and feeling so angry that why am I living? Why did he not? He was so little, he was, you know he was, and there's the nicest kid on the ward making sure everyone was okay, Like it was very children, sick children is very challenging for me, yeah, Very triggering for me, and blood diseases like leukemia, similar to what I had. I did not have leukemia, but a disease of the blood, cancer of the blood also hits in a peculiar way.
Vaness Henry:
8:27
But, what I wanted to share about this and something that I had heard that you were saying I really relate to. Depending on the dynamic I have with the person before me that affects and influences my impression of my own gender and identity, I will be with a friend and I will drop into hey girl, what's going on? Girlfriend energy. I'll connect with the kid and I'll drop down to my hey buddy, what's up? You know, I can play with a band hey bro, what's up? Buddy, hey Like, and it will just depend. And I can see that as a child I have undefined G center. I can see that as a child, I preferred to play with little boys. I preferred to look like a little boy. It was just comfortable. I didn't really think about it. I wanted to look like my dad, not like my mom. But we didn't.
Vaness Henry:
9:17
we didn't have that language you know, we didn't know at that time what was going, how you would would call that, and so I was very groomed into being a little girl. But I don't feel like resentment toward the female body, it's just you don't think about it, I'll have. It's like drag to me. I love drag. Okay, I love the transformation, I love the male spirited. Just be like. I'm not trying to prove to you that I'm a woman, I'm just I'm a man dressed up.
Vaness Henry:
9:43
I love that. I really connect with that. The top, like the conversation about that, about dropping in and being influenced by the other. I respect that. It's like I'm your sister, I'm your child, I'm your daughter, I'm your wife, but I'll also be your brother. If you need me to be your brother, I'll also be. Do you know what I mean? What? Yes, I will meet you with what is needed.
Nic Strack:
10:07
How do you feel about that? The what is needed part? I was like, Ooh, will I? I don't know if I'll meet them with what is needed, necessarily. Well, your desire motivation.
Vaness Henry:
10:17
I need motivation right. What's needed here?
Nic Strack:
10:20
And so you're.
Vaness Henry:
10:21
I'm, I'm this, you know I'm not saying that, you're that. I want to hear how, yeah, how, it feels for you.
Nic Strack:
10:26
Yeah, I think. Similarly, I do feel that it's like different parts of me. I'm like what are the right words? That it doesn't feel like get pulled out, but it's almost like different parts of me want to show up in different ways, depending on who I'm with and the energy that I'm experiencing from them. And so, even with the same person, I can drop into girlfriend energy or like, hey bro, what's up? Energy depending on where I'm at, depending on where they're at, or like sometimes, depending on what we're talking about, Like I feel like it's so like yes, all those little bits.
Nic Strack:
11:02
And so I think that's where gender fluid has started to feel more correct for me, like it's still I don't know untranslatable experience that I have of myself to other people so that they might get a semblance of what it's like to be me for a little second. You know where, when I say like, oh, I'm autistic, then it's like it's. I am banking on the normative descriptions of these things neurotypicality, neurodivergence, like all of those things, like the label only has meaning because of the conditioned meanings around a lot of those things, whereas if, if I was, it's just like to me. I'm just like. I'm just me and I'm discovering new ways that I like to dress or feel or talk or take care of myself or all of those things. And so that's where sometimes my I'm like gender fluid. I don't know it feels good enough Like. It feels like a good enough translation because of the fluidity with which I experienced these parts of me who show up in different exchanges with people. Did I answer your question? I don't know. You did.
Vaness Henry:
12:18
You did, you did. I want to rewind to the first life phase. Okay, and you're in childhood, teenhood, young adulthood. How are you identifying during that time?
Nic Strack:
12:29
So growing up. So my brother is two and a half years older than me, was I don't know how to use the words for that Um, the tense, the time tense. He had all like, well, you know what, yeah.
Vaness Henry:
12:41
He will always be the same amount of years older than you. That's right. It doesn't matter he was my brother, two years older than me.
Nic Strack:
12:49
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think about that. But then I also think about like he died at 39. So if I turn 40, I will be older than he ever was. So that's like a weird.
Vaness Henry:
12:59
I'm like girl, here I go. My dad passed at 40. Okay, and I'm very afraid to turn 41. Ah, and to, I guess, outlive his experience, or there's something very haunting and scary about that. Yes, to think, wow, he will have never have seen with eyes this old. Yes, there's a huge grief there that you know, and I lost my dad at 11 and it's like this daunting looming, you know. Or what if I, you know, graciously, live to 60? Well, I would never know him at 60. He never got to 60. I don't, there's there's. So there's new grief waiting.
Nic Strack:
13:42
Yes, you know. Yes, that feels. What a beautiful way to articulate it Heavy.
Vaness Henry:
13:51
Yeah, what were we talking about? Where were we before?
Nic Strack:
13:54
I got lost in my girl energy, your childhood experience, yes, childhood experience, so my brother, two and a half years older than me. I often got his like hand-me-down clothes and in a lot of younger photos of me I would say that I just had a lot of boy energy. Like I couldn't really put my finger on exactly what that means, but it's just that's what it felt like. Everyone called me a tomboy. I used to attribute it to being Sean's little sister, like well, it's just because I'm always hanging out with Sean and I have his clothes and la la la. And then it just continued, like continued past the point where I was then using the well, I have an older brother story as in as a justification for my attraction toward like conditioned male or boy things and ways of being.
Nic Strack:
14:49
And I also had I just had a lot of male friends, like I was one of the fellas, like literally there were so many groups of friends that I had in which I would be one of the fellas and with girls I would have maybe like a one-on-one relationship or maybe like there'd be three of us or something, but it wasn't always, it was never like a large group of girl friends, but with guys I'd have like five or six and we'd all hang out together and it would just be me like the only girl, and that's just what felt most comfortable for me for a long time. And that's just what felt most comfortable for me for a long time. And I used to dress up as a boy for Halloween because I thought, you know, it's like the one day a year that it's OK To dress like no one's going to say anything yeah, yeah, exactly, I think I did it four years in a row and I put a beard on.
Vaness Henry:
15:40
Yeah, I would like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tape my, my tits down, speckle out, like I was like yeah, yeah, let's do this. Um, there's photos of me as a kid. My mom, who's a very good seamstress knitter, sewer, would make outfits for my sister and I to match her. And there's these photos and I'm frowning Like.
Nic Strack:
16:01
I hate it.
Vaness Henry:
16:02
You see this rage on my face, and my mom would always try and put me in dresses and I resented it so much I'd wear them backwards and um then she'd make me. I remember she made me a matching pair of sweatpants sweatpants to my dad. I was so happy and I think that my mom, my mom, is very queer, but that was not available to her. My mom loved, always loved, what she would call Andrade's name. She wanted to give her daughter's boy names.
Vaness Henry:
16:30
You know, quote unquote boy. Yeah, my dad was like man, I don't know about that. My mom was the first one who showed me you can wear suits where you don't need to wear. She was very, very lucky that I had her in that way. But I want to tell a story that's going to be a very triggering and upsetting story, just as a warning. When I was little and feeling very tomboy wearing my baggy pants, had very short hair, I was misgendered a lot.
Vaness Henry:
16:55
I just assumed I was a boy. I played with boys like you, grew up with bands, loved to be surrounded by men, but was also attracted to men, want to be them, but was attracted. There was a moment when I was very young, I was seven, and I was in a safe space but was assaulted by an older boy and that didn't come out for until I was a teenager, because I didn't understand what happened.
Vaness Henry:
17:23
I was seven and you know I hear stories of like why is it coming out 10 years later? Why you? You know you can't do it. Now You're lying. It's like fuck you. I did not understand what had happened to me.
Vaness Henry:
17:37
So after that event happened I really cowered into my body. I really did not want to be seen as a girl at all. That felt extremely vulnerable. So the masculinity in me was somewhat amplified and my parents were quite supportive. I had the short hair. I had these baggy little cargo pants that I loved. I remember my. I would play soccer with my cousins next door, who were all boys. They take their shirts off. I'd take my shirt off, but then I'd come and be told I have to put a camisole on.
Vaness Henry:
18:11
I did not like that because I didn't. I just I didn't want you to see me that way, and that brought that fear back in my body that someone was going to maybe do something to me that I didn't want.
Nic Strack:
18:22
Yeah.
Vaness Henry:
18:26
As I became a T after my actually after my dad died, my body immediately developed, immediately developed. Um, I've read a lot of studies that talk about young girls where the father is absent and the body begins to hormonally develop, literally to attract someone like protector attracts the body goes through a hormonal shift I definitely had that.
Vaness Henry:
18:47
I went from like a little a cup to a double D, like almost over a summer. It was insane and, like I had shared with you before, we started recording my face features I would say hyper feminized. They were sharp, they were just it. Also, I started to look like a fucking cat, you know what I mean. It just all came in and I was treated very differently.
Vaness Henry:
19:07
People were talking about my body before my body was known, before I was known. Going into high school and all of high school I would wear turtlenecks and big baggy t-shirts over top. Just, I don't want any attention because there had been this trauma that I didn't understand. But you could see my body anyway. You know, I grew up in a school with a hockey team. They loved to talk about my body. I was, and they'd spank you in the hallway and they'd touch you and I was just so terrified.
Vaness Henry:
19:38
I then got asked to go to grad safe grad with an older boy who I liked. I was excited, okay, and in preparing for this, I went to a salon and was getting my nails done, went in for a massage and the person who had assaulted me was the masseuse and came in and I was laying naked on the table and I was too. I was so it was I just froze, I don't know. He came in and and was touching me, like not sexually massaging me, and I just was too proud, like I didn't know I was, I was 16. So I just laid my face in the, in the, in the like the hole, and my tears were hitting his feet and I was just watching them. I never rolled over, because sometimes you roll over and you do. I didn't roll over. He then left and I was just shaking, I didn't pay, I just left and went straight to school.
Vaness Henry:
20:32
Just wanted to be surrounded by people. And the same thing happened, you know when it happened, when I was young, I ran to, just I got away from him and then ran and just went and sat in the middle of all my cousins, like I just want to be surrounded by people, because that's what felt safe. And after that re-encounter with him it started to come out in my poetry that we were doing an English class. Teachers started to suspect I was sent to child family services. It was all going to now start to kind of come out. But then I was diagnosed with cancer and that just totally superseded everything and that just totally fell away and just was not dealt with. I didn't want to deal with it.
Vaness Henry:
21:11
I didn't. I didn't want this to exist. I didn't really date. I wasn't. I was known as straight, edge and tight and she doesn't put out and she but, nobody cared Like, nobody was like.
Vaness Henry:
21:21
I didn't drink Cause I was so afraid of the male energy. So there was a part of me that felt if I am that energy, I am also safe. They will not sexualize me, they will not hurt me. And this started to really influence the way I wanted to carry myself. So I've always kind of dressed a bit masculine, but I know how to play it up If I want to play up my feminine form to do whatever I want to do. Sure, I only started dating in college when I finally felt kind of brave enough to like you know, and this is how I am. But I was still attracted sexually to the male form.
Vaness Henry:
21:59
It's not that I wanted to change my female form. Once it started to come in, like as a child, I didn't realize the form was female. Like I tried to pee standing up and I pissed all over myself Like I didn't understand why. When's my little stick going to grow out? Like I don't. I didn't understand, you know, I just felt naturally male spirited and the world taught me that my form was female. And the world taught me that my form was female. And then the world brutalized me for that female form and sexualized me for that female form Once I became a parent and I which I really rejected because I wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant based on the type of cancer and treatment that I had so it was a very big surprise, yeah.
Vaness Henry:
22:44
And when my body started changing and I started growing this big belly and my breasts were swelling even more than they already fucking were, I was just like I really really rejected it. I really really had a hard time. I almost died during delivery. My son, of course, has turned out to be one of the greatest gifts in my life. But the body dysmorphia started then that it was like, see, because I thought, if my body can't grow a child, see I am, there is a masculinity. And then it did, and so it was kind of like I had a nervous breakdown from it after giving birth to him and there's postpartum things going on. So this is my long winded way of of telling my story, but also asking you about your pregnancy experience and what that was like. Based on how, based on being someone who identifies as gender fluid, but then how, like right, and you're going to breastfeed your children. There's going to be this type of bond with them. I would love to hear about what you experienced through that.
Nic Strack:
23:46
Yeah Well, thank you for sharing your story. I feel like there are parts of my story that are like lighting up, just as I listen to you share about your experience.
Vaness Henry:
23:57
I would love to hear that too. Yeah, whatever has sparked in you, I would like to hear that.
Nic Strack:
24:00
Okay, I just I think if showing up male means that you could, or, with that male energy, means that you might be safer, I think that I went in the other direction.
Nic Strack:
24:10
So I did not develop in any sort of like super, particularly feminine looking way. I was fairly like flat and just like straight up and down, no real hips or anything like that. And in retrospect I look at that body and I'm like that's the body that I want now, and at the time it was not the body that I wanted and so I would play up like as puberty and stuff was happening, and I think at the time, like I was, I was attracted to males. But I later discovered, like I'm not straight, I doesn't like't, like, not because right, yeah, just that's a whole other thing, but just basically I was like interested in boys. Then I started going through puberty and I feel like I tried to play up any sort of anything that I could have push-uppy bras or like, like my just a bit of cultural context, so so my mom is Korean, my dad is Indian and they are very, they're very. That so like patriarchy was strict.
Nic Strack:
25:17
They're very yes, they're strict, and my dad did not let me cut my hair above my shoulders ever. Even like heading it to a few inches below my shoulders was like very uncomfortable for him and took like a very long conversation for that to happen. Because, because I looked too like so forced to conform, super forced to conform Right, super forced to conform, open heart and did Right, so I did. And then I just I feel like I just kind of tried to take that part to the hilt. I was just like I'm going to be like a girl, I'm going to like flirt with boys and it's going to be so, this and that.
Nic Strack:
25:54
And then I went traveling for a while and when I was 19, I was assaulted and similar to what you're saying, like it was like a I had been drinking, so I thought it was my fault kind of a situation. For a long time I was just like well, it must've just been me, like I was just being too this or that or whatever. It took me a long time to recognize like no, that was actually rape, like that, that thing that happened. That was not my fault. I have responsibility for choices that I made and also those end at a a certain point and then it's like on this person, and so after that, I think the way that I tried to manage my non-processing of what had happened was to just find like a safe, stable relationship to in.
Nic Strack:
26:48
That was like that happened during my time of just like absolutely after a bad boyfriend and then the next, I don't know the next person I dated for two and a half years and then the next person was Eric, and then it's been 16 years and so I think I was like OK, I'm done doing this, like playing around, like playing the field or whatever kind of a thing. It no longer felt safe, although I still like participated in it sometimes. Just, yeah, I won't unpack it now, but there's definitely something about the power dynamic that came up for me when I was listening to you of like, oh yeah, what was I up to?
Vaness Henry:
27:22
I was constantly hit on in my school experience. When I entered the workforce, crossing the street, heaven forbid there'd be construction workers Like, and so by the time I got to college I was very ready to like, leave my past behind. I was in remission now, I really just needed a new start and all my friends were queer. I felt so safe in the queer community. No one was hitting on me, you know, they were just. They understood my suffering. I was so accepted and every best friend was queer and I didn't really realize that everyone was queer. I didn't realize I would only go to gay clubs. I didn't and so people started to think I was queer.
Vaness Henry:
28:12
I am queer now, but they thought I was a lesbian is what I want to say and they were trying to really, you know, and I never really had sexual encounters with females or males at that point. Like I'm being totally honest, like I didn't, I liked that I could go dance and I felt like no one was going to sexualize me. But then I was growing up and just getting hornier I'm just being honest and want it and a six line like I wanted to date and my friends were dating, everybody was in love and I started to feel lonely and I started getting confused. Like I'd be I'd hit on gay guys and he'd be like, honey, it's not. And I'd be like, fuck, okay. So then I was like, if I'm going to want to meet anybody, I'm going to have to get out of this setting. But all my friends are here. So then it was like, okay, I'm going to go to a house party with all my gay friends, but then there's only like there's no, there's still. There was no one for me to bond with in that way, because nobody was seeing me that way.
Vaness Henry:
29:15
I was like a straight girl who'd come, you know, even though they wouldn't have said that to me, I just wasn't sexual. Like I wasn't sexual and, um, I started to kind of I had a boyfriend in college, but he was very religious and felt such guilt and shame for being sexual. So I was like, oh God, like I'm never going to learn this part of my experience. Oh, my God, you know. And then felt like I had to like convince this guy to have sex anyway and and I was used to people very much like desiring my body or or sexualizing my body.
Vaness Henry:
29:46
So then, when I would try to like make that bond and this person who. He respected me. He had his own traumas. He wasn't going to sexualize me in that way. He was. He was a wonderful boyfriend, honestly there, of course we're not together and there was shit he fucking did, but you know it was. He didn't mistreat me in the ways I had been mistreated. So I I, he showed me actually it's good to. I didn't realize this as I'm saying this to you. He showed me men can be safe and I'm very grateful for that, because then it he, like you, had led me to who I'm with now.
Vaness Henry:
30:19
And my husband now was always the safe guy in high school Cause I met him in high school. He was always the one who I would go to because I knew he wasn't going to hit on me. I knew he was going to make me feel uncomfortable. He would kind of protect me. So I think it's funny that I ended up with him. Oh my gosh, and I don't know how did we? Not sure how I got here, but I didn't. And now it's so funny.
Vaness Henry:
30:39
Now I would just identify as queer. I was like, yeah, part of the queer community, even though I understand that I might look like I have this husband wife dynamic. I'll play that, sure. But if you would actually open me up and ask me, the stories of what happened in my first life phase shaped this transformation. I was going through the and the, and the world evolved in a way that allowed me to find the language that I needed to use to help me feel at peace with what my experiences were, why I was so confused.
Vaness Henry:
31:10
I thought I was a boy. I don't. You're telling I didn't, I don't understand. And then you're telling me I have a vagina and like I didn't even get a period, I didn't get a normal period until I was like 30. So I just had this huge rejection of the female experience, you know, and, um, I don't now, I don't now. When I went on the roof, I don't have a rejection of that experience. That's like I, that's I love drag, like I'll dress it up, I'll put a face on. Sure, that's fun, it's all performance to me, but I still don't really like. You can even see me now I'm in like a men's button up shirt. I don't like to.
Vaness Henry:
31:44
really I'll lead with my face, don't get me wrong, but I, I I'm still not super comfortable displaying myself because it feels dangerous.
Nic Strack:
31:56
It feels dangerous. I just think about my older kiddo who was designated female at birth or whatever. But just that, okay, yeah, the dangers.
Vaness Henry:
32:08
So, based on what I was saying, you had heard some power dynamics and that had inspired you to kind of look at that in yourself. Yeah, what do you see when you look at that? The power dynamics at play.
Nic Strack:
32:17
I think that I was so deeply conditioned into the like men are more powerful, but if you can woo them, then you can have that power kind of a story.
Vaness Henry:
32:32
Mm-hmm.
Nic Strack:
32:33
So I think that's kind of what I had going on in that 17, 18, 19, 20 kind of age. And then when I got together with Eric, we would joke that I wore the pants in the relationship, just like lots of us to like, like. I'm more of the man in our like, if you have to describe it in that way.
Nic Strack:
32:59
That's how I would describe and like I think I have softened in many ways on some of the stuff that I used to lead with from very like hurt places. You know, like some of the stuff that I used to lead with from very like hurt places you know, like some of the really hard, like just aggressive kind of anger things that I would have.
Nic Strack:
33:17
And I would still say that Eric and I are probably like I'm probably more male spirited and he is more female spirited. If we were to talk about and that's a balance right, yeah, exactly.
Vaness Henry:
33:28
We're the same in my house and my husband's Métis. So through his culture I was more exposed to two spirit. And what two spirit means in different like that in his culture where he comes from, and just that. You know. While that belongs in indigenous community, it just showed there's more than two options. Yes, you know, you're not limited to these two options and I remember saying, you know, having the conversation with him, I want us to have this with you. I don't identify as a female, I recognize that this is my form, but I identify as non-binary.
Nic Strack:
34:10
He, he's like I don't care what you identify as.
Vaness Henry:
34:13
Yeah, it doesn't. That doesn't matter to me. And he immediately recognized always that I was masculine spirited. He was attracted to that because he was feminine spirited, you know. And he was like if so, who's going to send my food back? If there's something wrong with it, I can do that. You know what I mean. I was like no one's going to send my food back if there's something wrong with it.
Vaness Henry:
34:29
I can do that. You know what I mean. I was like no one's going to be giving you the wrong food. I got you, Like there's a. So it brings up the conversation of what is divine masculine, and when does it rise up? And if there was a situation where someone was disrespecting my chosen mate, the divine masculine would rise up in me and I would destroy you for disrespecting my mates. You know what?
Vaness Henry:
34:56
I mean and I don't think that matters that I look like this. I don't think this matters at all. This is just like, honestly, something to have fun with now that I'm a parent. I do think that that giving birth was an imperative part of my experience and part of a transformation, and I'm very grateful that I was able to have that experience. I don't think it's something that's available to me again and it allowed for me to, I think, develop a much needed respect for my female form needed respect for my female form and, instead of resenting it because I did, I felt like why was I given this?
Nic Strack:
35:39
You know it means I'm destined to be hurt or raped because I have a hole.
Vaness Henry:
35:41
You know what I mean. And seeing that I held the power to create life was something to bow down to, you know was like wow. I wasn't able to bond with my child in the way that a lot of parents do, like I'd shared with you. I was not able to breastfeed, I didn't. There were some experiences that I didn't have that are kind of classic female feminine experiences, but I still got my experience and I'm still his mother.
Vaness Henry:
36:07
I would say I'm a parent, like I wouldn't go. I never really say I'm a mother. I always say I'm still his mother. I would say I'm a parent Like I wouldn't go. I never really say I'm a mother. I always say I'm a parent, but I don't mind if I'm mom. Like that's fine to me and I heard you say the same like mama, I don't have to give that up because that's just a name I don't know. Like, do you know what I mean? Like it's like, whatever, it doesn't, that doesn't matter to me.
Vaness Henry:
36:27
I also don't care what pronoun someone will use for me. I'm not like, I will just. I just know in myself that I'll drop into whatever spirit is before me, whatever is needed before me. I will just drop into that. Something I just want to point out about our two designs is all our variables are left, except both of our environment. Variables are passive and receptive, and I think there's something in. I love that sacral sound. I think there's something interesting that these are fluid bodies and these are bodies that are receptive to the environment, to the culture, to the lifestyle, to you.
Nic Strack:
37:07
Know what's going on, what's triggered in you, cause now you're looking at me with these different eyes, but I just you know I would say I dabble in human design and I love hearing when the way that you describe things accurately describes my experience or adds words to things that I haven't yet articulated, like that passive receptive in the environment piece.
Vaness Henry:
37:31
Like I've probably heard those words.
Nic Strack:
37:34
Yeah, like I've heard the words, but now I'm like, oh yeah, like, especially in the context of this conversation, I'm like, oh, it just yeah, like it drops in a little more of like my experience of that particular variable, like I feel like that's been something I've been exploring, more of like letting myself be the observer when we're out. So like, yes, Kylo and I both have a passive environment variable and Eric and uni both have an active one, and so for six and a half years, it was Eric, me and uni and the two of them have the active variable there, and so I used to think that I was like doing parenting wrong because I didn't want to be always active and the like Eric's like following them around on the playground and they're playing and doing all these things and I'm like I just love to watch them.
Nic Strack:
38:23
But I had this story and I wasn't supposed to right then I right at that time. So like I think I got pregnant when I was like 30 or so. I wasn't supposed to Right Then I right at that time. So like I think I got pregnant when I was like 30 or so I don't even remember ages.
Vaness Henry:
38:33
Of course You're climbing on the roof. That's when we become transpersonal. So many of us have children at that time because we need the other to now watch. Right, absolutely.
Nic Strack:
38:43
So that's when yeah, so, right at that time is when I then had all this new like parent stuff come online and that's where I was like, oh, I'm supposed to be doing this, supposed to be doing, there's a lot of like supposed to use. That I carried with me and as I feel like I I call it relaxing into my like environment, as I relax into being this passive, receptive observer of the environment, the more like I just get to enjoy my life and it feels like so much less pressure when I'm hanging out with our kids, particularly with Kylo, because he also has that. He also just likes to. He just likes to chill like we just like to chill, and he's in preschool now and a consistent report of what he does there is. He likes to sit on the side and watch everybody right, like he's just he's so himself and I love that. He like fell asleep watching everyone the other day do you feel deeply nourishing yes, it was so sweet to hear.
Nic Strack:
39:41
So that was the, that was the. Oh, like you're talking about the variable, and then my new eyes that I was looking at so then did you?
Vaness Henry:
39:51
you know, like me, did you have any type of shift, nerves, discomfort, when you started growing and changing by being pregnant? You did.
Nic Strack:
40:02
So what was that experience like for you? I?
Vaness Henry:
40:04
did. And if I could actually add something else did you want to have children? Was it like, yes, we're having children, I want to do this, I'm going to do this.
Nic Strack:
40:15
Yes, and so I wanted to have kids. I was stoked about it. To my knowledge, I was just a woman who sometimes felt like a boy, but was definitely a woman, definitely straight, definitely neurotypical, definitely didn't think about the fact that I was mixed race or a personal color. So, like all these things you know, I just kind of lived in the flow of conditioning and I knew that I wanted to get pregnant. I think it's worth pointing out you have a I want to.
Vaness Henry:
40:45
It's worth pointing out. You have a totally open head and totally open heart, and that those things were were forced upon you, put in your head, put in your body controlling you. Here's how you have to be. So there's an inherent vulnerability in the design, but also, anytime we have a totally open center, there's unlimited wisdom potential. There you have access to everything, you will hold everything and these are the people you will be the wisest and the most inspiring and the most empowered. And sorry, please continue.
Nic Strack:
41:14
I'll take, please continue, I'll take it, I'll take it. So we I'm like, how far back do I go? I had an ovary taken out in November no, october of 2014. Okay, it had a dermoid teratoma. Like during a regular gynecological exam, like a pap smear thing. When they were doing the bimanual examination, where they're like pushing from the inside to the outside, my doctor felt a lump. Turns out, it was this growth which had. When they went to do the surgery, they found out that it had like overtaken the ovary and tube, like the fallopian tube on my right side, and so they took out, they just like cut all of that out and then just kind of like sealed my uterus on that side. So that was, I feel like my Saturn return was like a month and a bit later. It was like all very at that time.
Nic Strack:
42:10
So Eric and I thought that we were going to try for kids. They said we could start trying like six months after that and we were like sure, why not? Because we were still on the for kids. They said we could start trying like six months after that and we were like sure, why not? Cause we were still on the like. You know, there's a timeline for these things. We're trying to adhere to the socialized timeline. We wanted to yes the rules. We wanted to have kids as far as we knew, so yeah with it. It was just before we hit the like six month mark, my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and so we moved. I mean, I'm cutting out a lot of details, which I'm very bad at actually, but I'm trying to. I'm trying to cut out the details.
Vaness Henry:
42:43
Then let's pause. Okay, You're telling me I was going to say, was your tumor, was your growth on the right side? Because I was looking at your spleen and all the tell me and all the activations out of it. And then you're telling me your mom passed away specifically from ovarian cancer.
Nic Strack:
43:03
Correct.
Vaness Henry:
43:04
And you had a growth on your ovary.
Nic Strack:
43:07
Correct.
Vaness Henry:
43:07
That's peculiar, it is right. And when we look at, when we know what the spleen does and it hangs on to things and it wants to heal things, you often hear stories about two people getting cancer in the same household, or right back to back, or husband and wife, or why does this happen? Oh my God, how can this be? That was at least my story as well. And then you have all these activations reaching out of your spleen, reaching for wisdom, ready to connect, ready to learn. I think that's very strange, that that happened to you and then that happened to your mom and your mom passed. She had a progressed cancer, progressed stage.
Nic Strack:
43:47
So she lived for five and a half years after the diagnosis, which I can't remember. There was something like 84% of people live past five years, or something Like. There was this you know statistic, I'm very familiar with the statistic.
Vaness Henry:
44:03
Okay, if you, if you, god, I'm jumping in again, sorry, If you live to five years in one day and you die on that five years in one day, you still meet all the statistics of being a cancer survivor beyond five years. I think this, I think this is. I don't like this. Yeah, I'm at 20 something years post-remission. This is not common, so there's not a lot of information available for me as to why my body is changing now and what these long-term symptoms are. We don't know how to deal with it. Oh, we see, those chemos were too aggressive. Now, because the data is on that one to five window yeah because a lot of people, because that people are surviving.
Vaness Henry:
44:55
see, we we're surviving. They survived five years but they die at the five years in one day and it doesn't matter, they still count them for, like the survivor number, which is kind of fucked up and misleading, like you know, cause that person may have been suffering for those five years, but they lived, they lived, you know.
Nic Strack:
45:13
Yes, so that is the. That's the exact statistic that stuck in my head, the five years thing and my mom was given six months to live, I don't know 22 months before she ended up dying. So she called it all bonus time. So she, like you know, it's such an interesting thing of the perception based on what to me I believe in statistics and studies and all of that stuff, and also sometimes prognosis, is seem a little arbitrary to me like based on a guess.
Vaness Henry:
45:44
Yes, it's a guess. Exactly, it's an informed guess, but it's a guess, it's a guess.
Nic Strack:
45:49
It's a guess because it's based on however many other bodies have experienced this thing, and we're not talking about this person with this body, with this history, with this design with these experiences exactly, and so, because both of I mean even, just like the first time that you give birth, this is what it may be like and like, I take none of those boxes, you know, and it's just.
Vaness Henry:
46:11
These things are such yes, they're a guess, and so they're informed guesses, but they're guesses at the end of the day. Informed guesses.
Nic Strack:
46:18
Thank you. Yes, informed guesses, but guesses nonetheless.
Vaness Henry:
46:22
But when she passed she lived 22 months.
Nic Strack:
46:25
Right. So she died in September of 2020, soon after COVID started not because of COVID, but so she got diagnosed right at the tail end of when we thought we might start trying for a kid, and then we decided to put that on hold. At the time when she was diagnosed, eric and I were on a mini retirement where we were just we were traveling. We had saved up a bunch of money and we said that we were going to travel until we ran out of money or visas or the desire to be traveling, like until we just didn't want to be doing it anymore. We were three weeks or so into that and we didn't want to be doing it anymore. So we moved in with my parents. I became my mom's primary caregiver and my dad continued doing his work so that he could they could have money. Eric got jobs so that we could have money and then I was helping to take care of mom, and so we did that, for it was just really intense.
Nic Strack:
47:21
Um, she did like nine rounds of chemo, some huge eight hour surgery that they thought would take three hours. It was like a debulking one. So they just they tried to get every visible sign of cancer, then did more chemo and by the end of that year, 2015, she was called like no, I can't. It was not remission, but it's something like no visible signs of cancer, like all of her tumor marker numbers in the blood were whatever, regular something. And so then a month later I had a dream that we were that we like tried to get pregnant, and I was like I woke up and was like I think we need to try to get pregnant. Eric was like what the fuck? We had this other plan. We had a plan we were going to move to Oregon and blah, blah, blah.
Nic Strack:
48:05
But then, within 24 hours of me having the dream, I had secured an apartment in Berkeley, living with my best friend that we would move there that's because that's where we had like people Right and I was like I want to start trying sooner. And so I basically got pregnant the first time we tried and then in March of that year, we moved to Berkeley. So this is 2016. I was pregnant. We didn't know when we moved. I felt like maybe, but then when uni, so uni came and when they were about six days old, my parents came to visit to go like to meet them and stuff, because my parents live near Chicago. We were living in Berkeley and then my parents told me like oh, mom's cancer is back, like it's actually been back since like August or September, but we didn't want to tell you and risk stuff with a baby.
Vaness Henry:
48:52
So mom's cancer? How did you feel in that?
Nic Strack:
48:54
moment. Oh, I was so pissed, baby. So mom's cancer, how did you feel in that moment? Oh, I was so pissed, I think, pissed at the time. At the time I did not understand they're not telling me, but that to me like my mom had lied to me several times when I had asked her for updates on how her health was and stuff, because I knew she'd had her whatever, whatever scan and this, that and the other. And so she's like, nope, everything's fine, Everything's fine.
Nic Strack:
49:15
So then I was thinking everything was fine. And then I have a six day old and postpartum. They came at 36 and four, so like they were technically called a preemie, like late, whatever the fuck the words were, but they were like a preemie. My milk hadn't come in, it was just a whole thing. And so I think the only thing that I had the capacity for at that time was to be super pissed at my parents, Cause that felt like I don't know the safest thing for me to, of course. Of course you know at that time you're angry at the world and who's your creator.
Vaness Henry:
49:47
So I'm going to be angry at you.
Nic Strack:
49:49
Yes, we got into, like my dad came for a few days. My mom was staying for longer, but she ended up leaving early because we got in a huge fight where she was just yeah, we just had a really hard time communicating with each other for like most of my life. Do you happen to know her designs? Don't even exactly know where, like out in the field, somewhere. They didn't register her birth for like two years, so her actual, like birth certificate was two years later than she was actually born. So I have like none.
Vaness Henry:
50:23
My suspicions include I was gonna say you know your mom, though, if you and you know energy, what do you think she was?
Nic Strack:
50:31
I have suspicions of maybe a two, four emotional projector okay those are, but you feel projector energy from her yes, some of the biggest fights we'd have would be like why? What? Do you think I'm stupid? Why aren't you asking me for advice? Why aren't you asking like for me to tell you? You know like? It just sounded so much like the uninvited or invited kind of dynamic, bitter she was yeah, yeah yes, and then like very sociable, but also hermity, like I don't know.
Nic Strack:
50:57
So this is just, like you know, guesses. Yeah, yeah, definitely informed guesses. Okay, yes, informed guesses yeah, so that was that whole thing, and so we moved. I've like, not, I've left the track of gender and pregnancy and no, you haven't.
Vaness Henry:
51:17
This is a pretty traumatic experience. Yeah, you're wanting to have children. You then your parent needs you. So parent becomes your child. Yep, you come in as primary caregiver. You're now. Your parent is everything. They're the protector, they're the provider. Your parent becomes the child.
Vaness Henry:
51:40
There's immense grief there and seeing their humanity and their vulnerability. Getting mad at each other is so valid because you're so angry at the situation at the world. You're also incredibly hormonal at that time because your body has shifted. You've just given birth. A huge trauma to the body you know beautiful, but that's your body.
Vaness Henry:
52:06
Ripping into to create something else is a hugely traumatic experience. Like, yes, you know, I'm your six line. You were splitting in two. Now you had a part of yourself outside yourself and you were looking at it, and it's also a part of the person you love the most in the world. So you're also relating to mom in a whole new way that you haven't related to mom before. Of course, there's going to be this crash of emotions. I'm terrified. You're not going to be here. I'm mad. I was mad at my dad for a long time, not at him, but mad, yes, that you're not going to walk me down an aisle. So I'm not getting married, you're not going to be a grandpa, so I'm not having kids. Like you know, you have this, these feelings, that kind of come over you. So babies are here now. How did you and mom move through this? Well, she didn't get to meet baby two.
Nic Strack:
53:01
Thank God, she met baby one.
Vaness Henry:
53:03
I'm so glad. What a gift for your mom.
Nic Strack:
53:05
Truly Like we moved back in with them when Uni was 10 months old and we lived there until past when she died. So Uni got to live with mom for like three years and those real formative you know baby toddler years, and what a gift to your mom yes, the two of them, like uni would just.
Nic Strack:
53:23
They'd be like grandma's. My best friend, like they just. It was amazing and I feel like to watch my mom have that relationship with uni was very supportive for me to see like my mom was available for my. I don't like I wasn't always the, I wasn't always like mom you need to do like this, you need to do it like that or anything like that. It's just like naturally in a multi-generational home, everybody's like influencing everybody else and how they show up with each other all the time absolutely.
Nic Strack:
53:50
And so I could see my mom shifting some of the stuff that she would say or the ways that she would approach things or how she would talk to uni or stuff around emotionality and stuff like that.
Nic Strack:
54:02
And I just felt like it was so special for me to get to watch her shift in those ways, even if it didn't necessarily like she and I had so much stuff that it would have taken a lot to like move past it and not have our habitual ways of interacting with each other's not be those habitual ways but to see her be with somebody else, this human who I like grew in my body and love so tremendously like to watch my mom treat them the way that she did was very like healing for that part of me, like to get to have the lived experience of watching my mom engage with someone who reminds me so much of me, like even in how they look and how they act and stuff. That was huge and I feel like that continues to live in me now, you know, and I just I'm so grateful for that time. It was completely, it was like unplanned in that way. We just, you know, it was just kind of one step at a time it was like, okay, now we need this, now we need this, now we need financial help.
Nic Strack:
55:02
You all like mom's cancer's back. Can we move back home Like we didn't know?
Nic Strack:
55:05
if my parents were going to want us to live with them with a one-year-old while mom's getting cancer treatments Right On my mom's having treatments and stuff, but we ended up being there for those three years plus and it was, I think, incredible for all of us and it was big like I came. So I did to jump back to some of the gender yeah stuff like I.
Nic Strack:
55:27
so when we moved to Berkeley we moved in with my best friend, who's queer, and I just started hanging out with more of like more queer folks and I feel like it was just. It was almost like my eyes hadn't seen people who existed outside of the binary. Does that you're nodding your head like that makes sense? When I went to college, it was I.
Vaness Henry:
55:48
I reject the binary. I think we have already evolved past this. I think it is such a limitation on our consciousness. We know there's more than one gender. We know there's more to right wrong. There's multiple truths at once. I think we've already evolved past this and we're alive at a time where we're just helping build even more collective awareness around this.
Vaness Henry:
56:10
And the queer community is leading that and does need to be bowed down to. I feel as a shores person I go between both worlds because I present as very heteronormative, but if you would talk to me or see my community, you would quickly discover there's a queerness there and so I bow down to the queer community as the leaders of that. I don't always feel like I fully belong there because of how.
Vaness Henry:
56:38
I look but I grew up there in the most formative time and was exposed to the most loving, accepting energy and then simultaneously exposed to extremely rejecting energy who spat on that and mistreated that and was cruel and and beating up my gay friends or like it was just I couldn't believe. I couldn't believe what I discovered there, like so much love and so much hate and a secret.
Vaness Henry:
57:12
Third thing you know, new possibilities that were available. So I I deeply bow down to the queer community and I a lot of my work will center or talk about trend, the transgender community, how I see that. In mountains people, you know the elevated lifestyles that we don't necessarily understand. Um, I've worked a lot with parents who have queer kids and and these kids are often mountains, just a weird pattern and trying to explain to them these kids are on another level. You might not understand what's going on. Here's how to best support them, because there is so much love in that space it's wild and so much acceptance. It's wild to me that that wouldn't be spread further. But I do just have the feeling of each generation that comes after is an expansion and expansion and expansion. And we are part of this time where we're helping each other move in that direction of it doesn't matter what you look like. What matters is the quality of love you have between you and somebody else.
Vaness Henry:
58:18
You know, there's more important things going on. Do we really want to fight about this? Are we happy, are we healthy? Are we in love? And so the queer community taught me that's how I want to raise my family, that those are the values that I want instilled in the world around me, and I, and I, and I bow to them for that. I bow to that space. That's my rant on that.
Nic Strack:
58:44
I love it. Yes, I am like fuck yeah on all of that, because that, to me, that's been my experience as well of my own expansion. I think like being in more queer spaces and seeing people who just like it just felt like I fit in, like there was a belonging that I felt. That had not necessarily anything to do with what other people were actively doing to me, but it's just I could get in the space and I felt understood or something. There was just this like complete. It was a complete shift in how I felt in other spaces, like it really highlighted for me how consistently uncomfortable I would feel in other spaces of people and there was just a relaxing that a part of my body got to do when I was in queer spaces that I had never even known had been tense, all of that time Clenching.
Vaness Henry:
59:39
Clenching, yes, and you're supposed to have a relaxed body Right. So I had been clenching for a thousand you got a tumor essentially a growth, we'll say on your ovary. I'm now just want to reference Louise Hay's book.
Nic Strack:
59:52
Oh, yeah, do it.
Vaness Henry:
59:53
The ovary representing the point of creation and your creativity and your abilities to create, and that's where there was something going on. And we now see you have this openness in your design on the two sides.
Vaness Henry:
1:00:07
It might be a sacral being, but you have this openness and all these things reaching and the world's telling you you have to be this way and okay. And you're clenching and your cells are getting confused. Body's getting confused. It's trying to look. This might this might be and this might sound intense, but I'm trying. I'm not trying to grow testicles, am I trying to create something? That's right? My body is confused. Same ovary as you uh, mine is much higher and doesn't work properly. There's really one functioning ovary. They've been radiated. How the fuck did I get pregnant?
Vaness Henry:
1:00:45
yeah my mom then reveals huh, I had a tumor on that ovary and it was also removed, and that's what then opened up the journey of her identity and how she saw herself and what was available to her and how she was treated.
Vaness Henry:
1:01:03
Now these generational things like affect a family line yeah and make us unwell because we're trying so hard to be what we're not. So everything you were telling me, all I hear, is this body clenching trying to be something else and it gets sick because you have happened to have a body that's here to be deeply relaxed, is incredibly sensitive to how people talk to you, because your valleys and the information you're taking in and you have this undertone of inner vision, so you are not to be distracted and there might be all this information that comes in and tells you how to be, and it's just okay. I'll guess I'll contort myself and be, but all I want is to just and we get sick. Of course we get sick.
Nic Strack:
1:01:46
Yeah.
Vaness Henry:
1:01:48
So what do I need to do to get deep into that relaxing lifestyle? I've learned one of the most profound ways for healing. I'm a cross of healing. My conscious son is in 46. So just take me with a grain of salt. You know what I mean. Okay, but my husband loving me for who I am and how I identify, and that not being an issue for him, was the most healing thing I've ever experienced. And as a manifester who was made to feel like I'm unlovable and there's something wrong with me, that became my inner narrative. To have someone who I felt was so good and so kind, care for me and fall in love with me made me think well, perhaps I'm not as bad as I thought I was If someone like that could love someone like me. And then it began my healing journey on the roof.
Nic Strack:
1:02:41
Oh, I just those same in so many ways for that like six line shit.
Vaness Henry:
1:02:47
Hey, that's so wild.
Nic Strack:
1:02:49
Cause I'm just like, yeah, I used to. I used to be like no, like the fucking you're gonna love yourself before, like all that kind of shit, and I was just like he loved me into loving me. Like there's a real me too. There's a real. I am so clear on that and I don't think I've really talked to anybody else who's just articulated it in that way. I'm just like yes, and I am like I'm okay with that. Like the narrative that it has to go one particular direction or one particular way, I think is so limiting to opportunities of like it. I didn't make it his responsibility to do that, you know, like I think that there are ways to go about it that are not clean. And then there's just like the organic way that it happened to happen was like yeah, he saw me. This is where maybe it is like his projector thing. Right, I feel like he saw me better than I ever saw myself. In a lot of different ways.
Vaness Henry:
1:03:46
He just he, just like I'm even doing this projector generator dynamic is one of the most beautiful things and yeah, you're doing this, you're pointing towards your chest where the projector sees us and focuses in on us, at our aura. They focus in on the G and they see it even when we don't see it, and you're in. You're in the ideal dynamic and you're in love.
Nic Strack:
1:04:08
What was?
Vaness Henry:
1:04:09
what was? How did you talk to him about this? How did you say to him you know, I don't want to perform this way, the way my parents have been forcing to me, with my Korean and Indian cultures, stuff down my throat telling me how to be. I want to present as this. Will you love me anyway? What, what, how did that?
Nic Strack:
1:04:26
go Like too easy. I think in a way where, like same I'm very lucky with he was like I love you. I don't care what you identify as, Of course, Like it was just like, obviously, like for him it was kind of like oh, it's like I was saying something that was new to me, that to him was old to him.
Nic Strack:
1:04:45
And he didn't say it in a way that was like, oh you're stupid, how did you not know? But he was just like, of course. Like, of course that's you. Like, of course I love you. And it's been various layers of, you know, identity, revealing let's call it from me to myself of like gender fluidity and realizing that I'm autistic and have ADHD. And realizing like I'm a mixed race person of color, and that has given me a certain set of experiences that I never really acknowledged for a long time. Like and I grew up in a primarily cishet, white affluent neighborhood. Like I didn't acknowledge the ways in which those things affected me, with having immigrant parents.
Vaness Henry:
1:05:23
You were steeped in a culture you know absolutely.
Nic Strack:
1:05:27
Yes, exactly. And so for Eric, every step along the way he's just kind of been like okay, like it doesn't change anything for him. I think that's the thing he's just he doesn't care about how I look or present in public. In that sense, like when my, when I did a side cut so I had the super long hair and then I shaved half my head and then we went to India to visit my family and the primary question that multiple aunties and uncles asked me was, in different forms, like how did Eric let you do that? Let, yes, how did he let you do that right? And it just it revealed to me like my roots yes, those are my roots right.
Nic Strack:
1:06:11
And like Eric is just not of that ilk in that sense, like he doesn't give a flying fuck how I look, how I present in public, any of that stuff, like he just doesn't have stuff tied up in that, and that, for me, ended up being the perfect person for me to work this shit out with, right, because then it really comes back to me and like okay, well, like I can't hang it on him that I'm like not doing this or not doing that. I could hang it on my parents for so long it's like well, they wouldn't let me cut my hair, they wouldn't let me buy these clothes, whatever the fuck. And with Eric he's just like I love you unconditionally. What now?
Nic Strack:
1:06:51
and then for me it's like oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, okay, I guess, like permission, right, and so that. For that's, that's scary. It is like, because I was so used to, the chains is the word that wanted to come out. Yeah, I was so used to that that it's like excuse me, what do you mean? But like, if you're not going to have a say on who I am and who I'm supposed to be, and how I'm supposed to look and how I'm supposed to present and how I'm supposed to talk, and all of that stuff, who's going to tell me what to do? Who's going to tell me who to be.
Vaness Henry:
1:07:21
Beautiful, beautiful example of valleys with the inner vision tone no distractions, no excess noise, no voices shouting at me telling me how and who to be, but the quiet, loving, non distracting entities around you is what you need to be surrounded by. That's what will make you into the visionary that you're designed to be. That's what will bloom the visions in the consciousness and inspire you on where to go next. And there is a question of can I go there without the right people around me? You know can. Is it even available to me if I'm not plugged in to these types of people? What is available to me if I'm with someone else? And I think the primary partner in the life is the most important relationship that we ever find ourselves in, and I find your love story to be very inspiring.
Vaness Henry:
1:08:18
I know we came here with an intention of talking about something else, but I want you to know that that is a thread that is in there, that, as a 6'2" soulmate-seeking, fucking hopeless romantic over here, that's more inspiring than you maybe know. That love conquers all you know and it doesn't matter what the world thinks If the world we have between us is sound.
This was a 6/2 Studio production. Find us at SIX-TWO.STUDIO for all your creative sound needs.
