Lily talks with her dear Aunt, Wendy Berger, about the winding path that led Wendy to her career as a therapist.

Wendy shares about the deep pain she experienced in her adolescence, her time spent in a cult and how she got out and began to make sense of that season of her life,  and how she began to recognize her profound intuition and build a career around that gift. 

This conversation centers on our spiritual relationship to our lives and the events that impact us. Lily takes the opportunity to dig into some of the big questions and ideas that have been on her mind and seeks Wendy's guidance. 

Link the full poem, Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye, which Lily shares a segment of in the episode intro: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47993/famous

A few clarifications:

Allan Werthan is  Wendy's brother/Lily's dad (and, of course, the star of S1Ep1 of the Open Exploration Podcast!)
Allen Berger is Wendy's husband/Lily's uncle.

Lily's mom, Vanessa, died in 2019 after a 10 year battle with MSA (a degenerative neurological dissorder).

Lily refers to her experience in Mexico - she taught in Mexico from 2016-2017 on a Fulbright grant. 

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