Kitchen Sink Spirituality – Jane Bailey Bain

This is women's radio station. You're listening to Avril Price with Kitchen Sink Spirituality. And this is the voice of holistic London. Hello, listeners. Thank you very much for joining us. And as you know, Kitchen Sink Spirituality tries to bring you what's going out there in this lovely London town, a spiritual oasis. There's so much going on. And I hope that you will get something from today's program because I am speaking now with the lovely Jane Bailey Bain. Hello, Jane. Hello, nice to be here. Thank you very much for joining us. Now, as I say, Kitchen Sink Spirituality, it's about introducing the listeners to what's going on on the London scene. And I think that you would be a massive contributor to this, as I know that you have just got a new book out called Soulworks. Yes, this is my third book and it just came out a few days ago. Very exciting. Woohoo. So Soul Works, I want you to tell us a little bit about that, but I want to know a little bit more about you and I'm sure our listeners do. So who are you? Well, as you said, I'm Jane, Jane Bailey Bain. By background, I'm a psychologist and an anthropologist. So I've been interested in stories for a very long time. When I was in my twenties, I traveled overland to India and all around India and Southeast Asia, and I met some wonderful people. And when I came back, I really wanted to work in that area, going back to help the people who had been so kind, so hospitable to me. So I trained as an anthropologist and then I began working as a social development consultant. What that meant was that I would go out to projects, quite big projects, some of them, and make sure that we were actually helping the people that we wanted to help. So it's no good just doing a project in a village somewhere and thinking it's worked because the rich people get richer. I wanted to make sure that the women in the village, the children in the village, were really benefiting from what we did. So a typical story might go like this. I might be helping on a program to dig wells in 30 villages around India and Pakistan. And we'd go out to. And as we drove into the village in our Land Rover, we'd see that a lot of women were walking down to the river balancing water jars on their heads. And we'd think, now why is this happening? Isn't there a well in the middle of the village? So that evening we'd gather the women of the village together and ask them what exactly is going on? And you'd be sitting there with the candlelight flickering, and at first nobody wants to say anything because nobody wants to be blamed if the project gets stopped. But eventually, somebody, one of the older women, would start to. It wouldn't be a story about their village. It would be a story about another village where a girl called Layla lived. And in Layla's village, a well was dug. But the problem was that the well was dug between the headman's house and the place of worship. So the men would use it to wash before prayers, and the women still had to go to the river to get water. And then I would think, aha, now, who did we ask where the well should be dug? Hmm. Maybe next time we should ask the people that we want to use the well. And that's how we'd learn. And so that's when I became interested in how people communicate with others and even with themselves through telling stories. Gosh, that's a great story. There's such a lot in there. So just to rewind a little bit. So you were in India, and I can imagine that being in India as. As it did. I've read several stories about how traveling to India was indeed a game changer. You know, you came back to the first world, and you want to make things different. You. You know, you want to contribute. And so you. Whereabouts did you do? Your whereabouts, for example, was the setting for the story of the well. The well story is from, in fact, from northern India, where women have a very strong traditional culture. But the trouble is that when two cultures coincide, a traditional culture and then a Western culture based on money, very often the women's contribution becomes devalued because their contribution isn't a financial one. It's in other areas of the home. And once women's contribution is devalued, then there's less food for women, there's less money for health care, less money for education of girl children. And this is why it's very, very important that women are given their voice back, that we can hear their stories. I absolutely agree with you. I think that there was some work done in India regarding fuel. I think it's a very similar principle. And I like what you said, where through the emergence of this story, you realized who the appropriate people were that could actually perhaps point you in the right direction of what needed to be done. But, you know, for example, is it about labor saving? They've got to collect the wood in order to make the fire, to boil the water, to make the food. And then there's also Health issues about the fuel. So it's almost as if you're saying that by changing the lot of a woman, that you kind of improve the standard of living as a whole in general. Absolutely. By helping one woman tell her story, you can affect how women are seen in that community. You can actually affect whether little girls are given enough to eat, whether they're taken to the doctor when they get ill. And this is fascinating because if you can help someone to tell their story, you help that person to change the world. And this is when I became fascinated in this idea that if you become conscious of your story, if we as women become conscious of the stories that we tell to ourselves and to others about who we are, that then gives us the strength to go out and actually change the future. That's fascinating because there's also stuff going on in Morocco around the Argan oil manufacturer, which is nearly all women that create this Argan oil. Yes. And, you know, some. Some groups of women are treated better than others, depending on who they work for. Yes. And I think it's very important in some of these countries that you have collectives or communities where it's. And it is mainly women that will do that work. Because my experience of being in Morocco as I went many times, was that prostitution was the alternative. Yes. So it's actually about not only giving women a story to tell, but also giving them a skill set. Yes. And I think that having that toolbox and the tale to tell should go hand in hand. What do you think? I think that's absolutely key. And that if women are given a sense of control over their lives, if girls are given a sense of the future, it changes what they can do. Morocco's a very, very interesting example because, again, you have a society in which women were traditionally respected, but only within certain domains. Now, as soon as you introduce a cash economy, it changes the value that's put on women's contribution. And that's absolutely key. If women have a way of contributing to overall household income, it doesn't matter if it's cash or in kind, then women will be valued. But the moment introduce an economy in which men are able to bring in money and only money can be used outside the home, then women's contribution is devalued to the point of becoming invisible. And that isn't good for our sons as well as for our daughters. We don't want to live in a world in which either men or women don't see that balance in life. Yes, I absolutely agree with you. And I think that I think it's about recognizing that women are good leaders of the community. I remember we kind of made charitable gestures, but we chose not to give it to the man. We chose to give it to the head lady of the community and she often had a better use for the contributions, I think. Yeah, I think it's fascinating how even formal financial institutions are recognizing this now. So you have people like the Grameen bank is very well established now. It's been shown again and again that if you lend women money that they have a sense of responsibility about repaying it and they will help each other to work together to do what they need to do to establish a community. And often it's tiny, tiny little women's radio station will give a voice to your brand, advertise your product, services or goods on air with a package tailored to suit you. 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And I'm in conversation with Jane Bailey Bain. And just before the break, we were about to launch into a discussion about North Africa. Do tell us, Jane. So this is a story about helping women do what they need to do to change their lives in a very, very simple way. A small collective of women had Chickens and they wanted to take the eggs to market. But if you pile a basket full of eggs, what happens? They break. So the way around this was a piece of technology that's so simple and yet so life changing, that hard to understand why no one had thought of it before. The idea was to come up with a cardboard press where you could put old bits of paper and newspaper in and mulch them up and make egg boxes. Cost nothing at all. It meant the eggs could be taken to market and sold and then the women had cash and they could buy food for the family. That's amazing. It's often something as simple as that that makes a whole difference. Absolutely. And you just have to talk to people and listen to their stories to find out what to do. Yeah. So let's move it on a little bit, Jane, and let's talk about soulworks. So let's have a little look at the back. I'm going to read a little bit what it says on the back. And it said, your life has a thread. It tells you where you've been and what you've done. It shows when one incident led to another and it explains how things turned out. This. So, yeah, and then it goes on to say, but your life has a deeper pattern and this one links the people, places and events that matter to you and it shows how early experiences connect with later ones. Now I'm getting all excited here because this is right up my street, because I kind of do this work myself within my consultations and I find that people do indeed create patterns and cycles from very early in childhood and then they represent those cycles in life choices and ultimately how they represent themselves. So I would like you to tell us, Jane, a little bit how this book came about. What. What was your drive to do this? I think it's very interesting to see how our lives turn out. Very often we form a dream in early childhood, an image of how our lives are going to be, often based on stories that we've heard, fairy tales, for example. And then as life goes on, things don't always go quite according to plan. Things don't always turn out the way that we thought they would. But often when we look back, we can see that there was a pattern after all that even though at the time it felt like we were swimming in the dark, sometimes that we can see that there was a motif, a form, a shape running through our lives and that actually things did turn out according to that early dream. It's just that destiny had different ideas about the details of how we would get there. So I sometimes think of life as like a piece of music. When you listen to a wonderful piece of music, you're not just sitting there waiting for the final chord. That's sort of missing the point. You're listening to the music and you hear the melody, maybe you want to sing along. And at the same time as the melody, you've got the harmony above and below, you've got counterpoint, you've got a chorus that comes back again and again. And those are all part of the experience of the music. And so when you start to sing your song, you have the melody, the harmony, the counterpoint, all creating something beautiful together. And when we're living our lives, we want to be singing that song, dancing to that music, living it to the full, as it happens. That's a lovely thing to say because as she was speaking, I'm getting this idea of lots of different layers and textures to our life. But I want to go back to this fairy tale thing because something just occurred to me as you were speaking, that I personally found quite exciting. And as a kid, I grew up on Grimm's Fairy Tales and I was particularly fond of the fairy tales that took us into the. Into the snowy waste, into in, you know, the cold frontiers and kind of like fast forward. For many years I used to travel to Finland and Lapland. In fact, I'm the first English lady that took tarot and esoterics to the North Pole. And you know, it was when I was kind of ambling around, in and out of. I was fortunate enough to go and be in like a 200 year old cabin. And it was exactly like was described in the fairy tales. And there's just miles and miles of forests and lakes. And it was almost as if I dreamed myself into that place. Yes. That I was actually experiencing everything that I'd kind of spent hours and hours and hours as a child creating in my unconscious from the fairy tales. And I did a whole assembly of different archetypes. And it just seemed that they all kind of manifested so many years later in my Scandinavian experience. And so do you think then that when we read fairy tales it's almost like a chicken or the egg situation? Does the fairy tale create the archetype which for me represents human experience, or is it the other way around? It's a very interesting question that in a sense it happens at the same time, it happens simultaneously. So a story will resonate with you. There'll be a particular story, maybe you can remember a story from your own childhood that really Touched you, really moved you. And if you think hard, you might be able to remember what happened. And it's inside you. It's become a part of who you are. And then that story, it's almost like having a chart, some old fashioned navigation chart that says, you know, to the north is the sea and here be dragons and take care. And we have this chart inside us that guides us, that tells us where to go. So the story sings to us, it brings out something in us, and it also helps us to navigate. And when we look back at those stories from our childhood and we see how they've played out in our own lives, how they've become real, become manifest around us, it really is like standing in the middle of a beautiful Persian rug. And you see the patterns, the motifs all around us, and we see how the past creates the present and the present creates the future. And it's all part of this same pattern. And then I think that is really interesting because we were talking a little about karma. It isn't just that what we do now affects the future. It's that what we have done affects where we are now. And we have to be conscious of that pattern. We have to start playing the music, we have to start dancing the dance in order for things to happen in our lives. Talk to me some more about karma. What do you see? How would you describe karma then? Well, karma is sometimes simply put as, be careful what you do, be good, because it'll affect what happens to you. And for women in particular in the west, that's a lesson that we've learned all too well as little girls. You've got to be a good girl, and if you don't, you're going to be in trouble. But actually, karma is much more complex and beautiful and rich than that because every effect needs a cause. For anything to happen, you have to initiate something. And that is the real beauty of what karma is. Karma is perceiving this pattern in the world in Samsara, the play of everyday illusion, and it's seeing how that works. I get the sense that our karma is affected by our culture, the culture that we have. Shall we stick my neck out? I do believe that we choose our parents, the culture that we're born into, and we've got an outline of the life that we're going to lead. And I want to come back to this topic if I can, after this next break. We care about social change within communities around the world and we want to help. This is why women's radio station is giving free airtime to all charities. 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So thin, so powerful, so genial. Leave behind embarrassing rashes, annoying skin irritations, leaks with your old menstrual pad. Order your free trial@genially.com you can also find us at womensradiostation.com WRS Women's Radio Station, Voice of women worldwide. This is Women's Radio Station. You're listening to Avril Price with Kitchen Sink Spirituality. And this is the voice of holistic London. And here I am having a lovely chat with Jane Bailey Bain. She's the author of Story Works lifeworks and her latest book, Soul Works. And we've been here talking about all things fairy tales, listening to women's stories, and we have just been discussing karma. And the point I wanted to make following on from that conversation was, was that here in the first world, I think women have it equally as tough, but in a different way. I think we have a lot of expectations placed upon our shoulders, yet we're not given the equipment or the room to carry it forward. And I think it is an illusion to say, well, it's better than it used to be, because I still think it comes with a price tag. Not necessarily literally, because I feel that we've got so many different challenges to work through before we can achieve our goal. So, you know, getting back to the description of karma, it was about consequence following action. So say, for example, our desired intention, manifestation is to do reasonably well either in our career or to be a good mother, or to be the best version of ourselves in some way or another. I think that we're heavily conditioned into self loathing, not believing in ourselves, not being good enough. Why should we try? Because that's a male domain. Do you think that those different aspects are a part of a predestined karma or. Or can affect our karma further on down the line? I think that we have not only the possibility, but a downright responsibility to ourselves to become the best possible versions of us that we can. And we can call it karma, we can call it fate, but it's also opportunity. You see, I believe that we're incarnate for very, very specific reason. And that is to express our sou story in this world. And to be incarnate is an incredible opportunity. And with every great opportunity comes a huge responsibility. We've got to become the best possible versions we can of ourselves, to live to the best of our ability in this world. The metaphor I sometimes use is imagine if you were a car. There are three pillars to our incarnate existence. So the metalwork of the car, that's your body, and you can keep it fit. You can engage on a physical level. You can reach out and touch another human being. Then the fuel of the car, well, that's the intellect. That's what lets us think about things. It lets us imagine how the world could be and then make plans to actually put that into action and make the world a better place. And then last and yet most important, the driver of the car, that's your spirit, your soul. That's how we decide how we're going to express ourselves in this life. And so to be here on earth is a fantastic opportunity. And we need to do soul work consciously to work out who we are and to become the very best that we can become. Oh, here, here, Jane, I couldn't agree with you more. I think that, you know, being on the earth plane is one of the most spiritual experiences you can ever have. And I often say to people, the most spiritual thing you can do is just be alive. Yes, absolutely. Just do what you've got to do. I don't even believe that there are mistakes, really. And regrets are only things that we haven't learned yet. Absolutely. There's no shame, there's no blame. There are no mistakes. Wherever you are now is where you start from. Absolutely. Because that's the Only thing you can affect yourself. Yes. And I also like to say to people that we're all magicians. We're all capable of creating opportunities. We create our own look. And this has come from many years of reading cards and tuning into people, discovered the actual fact that the universe doesn't throw things at you randomly, like, oh, I'll give you gifts of stuff. You know, you are the gift from the universe. Your gift to the world is your light. And, you know, I'm very interested in this psycho spiritual perspective of the spirit in human form as we go about creating our life opportunities. Do you think that it's fair to say that, particularly as we've been talking about women's position in the first world. I can't talk about third world because I've not been a regular visitor, but give me the first world because I seem that I feel that there's a lot of work to do here. Yes. So what would you suggest that women do in order to create opportunities that are going to really be relevant and beneficial to them and of course, the environment they live in. Women are creators. We are the original creators and the procreators. We make things from the beginning. We can create a world that is richer, that is better, and it is a huge responsibility. And I think the important thing is that you have confidence in yourself, that you believe that what you have to offer the world is worthwhile. And to live in that way, to live with respect for yourself, which has often been stolen from women in modern culture. So just to have confidence that your path is the right path for you, that what you're doing is worthwhile, to hold your head up and to. To step forth confidently. There's a lovely quote in that classic book, the Little Prince, where the fox says to the boy, he says, your flower has value because of the time you wasted on it. We give value to things that we care about. That's great. So whatever we give our time and energy to, it creates its own beauty and its own value and its own worth. Absolutely. And that includes us, that if we spend the time and energy on us, then we immediately become a value. I really love that. That's a bit special. I want to go to some of the things that you talk about storytelling, because I actually, I saw a clip of your video talking about this, and what struck me as you were talking is your conversation about storytelling. Is that gender specific or is that open to both men and women? It's definitely open to men and women. Women were traditionally the storytellers. Of course, women were the ones who passed down the wisdom of the ages. And storytelling is incredibly important. The word abracadabra comes from abracadabra. I create as I speak. We even to this day talk about spelling, the use of words to create reality. So when we weave with words, we are creating a world. We're creating both a vision and a reality. And I think that's absolutely vital for boys and girls. This is the traditional wisdom of women. It is something that we are particularly good at, working with words to change the world. Yeah. From our mouth to God's ears. Yes. So you break down the storytelling into three different parts. So the personal anecdotes. I quite like what you said about personal anecdotes because they show us how to be human. And in a way, other people can get comfort from these personal anecdotes because they can see their own humanity. And then you described the professional stories. Now, I found that particularly interesting. Again, leaning towards women's issues because, you know, again from sitting with women and I found that it can be unfair in the workplace. And so we're going to have a quick break and then we're going to come back to this point about how important it is for women to tell professional stories. Okay, back in a moment. Women's radio station will give a voice to your brand. Advertise your product, services or goods on air with a package tailored to suit you. For more information, visit womensradiostation.com hi, I'm Michelle Bartlett, the founder of Live Laugh Love Ladies Club. We're looking for ladies to link arms across the globe. This is a new vibrant brand connecting women socially. Our club members enjoy great food, fun and inspiring speakers whilst making friends in a room of all generations. If you're a social butterfly in the community, this fast growing franchise could be for you. If you would like to know more about stepping into our pink shoes, then look at the business opportunity page on our website. Live laughloveloveladies.club. also@womensradiostation.com do you experience skin irritation, unpleasant odor or feel insecure worrying about possible leaks? Discover revolutionary and patented, most absorbent 100% ECO certified genial day sanitary napkins with tourmaline strip. So thin, so powerful, so genial. Leave behind embarrassing rashes, annoying skin irritations, leaks with your old menstrual pad. 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For more information please visit www.thesoapcode.org or for business inquiries please email B2B. That's letter B number 2B at the soapcode.org hi, my name is Gary Parker and my company is called CNT Associates. We provide fundraising, business support and training services for small businesses, charities and non profit making organizations. We've raised over £20 million since 2003 and we'd like to help you. Visit us@associates.com or on Twitter NT Associates. Women's baby. This is women's radio station. You're listening to Avril Price with Kitchen Sink Spirituality, the voice of holistic London. And we've been having a wonderful time with Jane Bailey Bain. Really inspiring, very, very interesting stuff. And we're talking about the art of storytelling and how it can enhance us, or rather enhance our expression of who we are in various life domains. And we were talking about professional storytelling. So it showcases experiences. And there was something that you said which I thought was really profound and rather lovely and it was failures are just as important as successes. And I think that it's very important for women to know that and work with that because. Because we feel that we mustn't fail, that there's going to be some kind of wrath poured upon us somewhere if we do. Would you like to elucidate that a little bit? Failures are the way that we learn. They are in fact much more important than when everything goes right. You don't learn very much about the world if everything is just smooth sailing. So I think it's vital that we embrace everything that happens to us. And one of the ways that we can make sense of our experience is through stories. And let's just take that back to those three aspects of incarnate existence. Again, we can tell stories, relate them to our own physical experience and that's the little personal stories. How was your day? Oh, this happened. That happened. We're communicating about living our lives here on the everyday level. Then there's the intellectual side and that's more like the professional stories where we're saying, I had this idea, this was my experience and this is what I learned from it. And we can communicate with each other. So I can say to you, I touched one of those hot silver kettles and it burnt my hand. And you see the causal connection between that type of kettle and the hand being hurt. And so you've learned, I've shared something with you. You've had an idea. You don't have to Go through it yourself. And at the professional level, that's very, very important, where we as women can share things so that we're pooling our common experience. And we as women are very good at this. We're the gatherers. We're the ones who go out and get the nuts and the berries and we feed the whole community and then the third type of story. So we've had the sort of everyday sharing of experience, we've had the high level sharing of ideas and learning. And the third function of storytelling, let's relate this back to soul work, is just to have fun, to entertain, to touch each other, to dance. And at the base, that's what storytelling is all about, communicating with each other. It's absolutely about communication. And I think it's part of our collective karma that we undertake communication, that we, you know, our whole lives from Neanderthal, has been about expressing and communicating what it is to be a life force, what it is to be on Earth. You know, Stevenson's rocket, the computer, radar, everything. Man's whole journey, I think, has been into communicating and telling what it is to be human. And, you know, this. This whole idea, again, of the women being in those early villages, that very altruistic view that they had where you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, and how we shared about what it was to be a person and maybe a woman as well, by what we did in that community. Absolutely. You think back to how we as human beings evolved in those early Bronze Age societies which depended on horticulture, on caring for your garden. That's a very, very important concept. Just care for your garden, whatever that may be. You work together, you look after each other, you tell stories, you hand down the wisdom and the land from mother to daughter. And I think the wheel was invented in order for people to communicate so we could travel distances, that we could literally spread the word. Yes, spread the word. In the beginning was the word, and that's what we pass on to each other. Now, as we've been talking, I've been thinking about Scheherazade, who was noted for her ability to tell stories. I think she must have told a thousand of them. Do you think there's a bit of a metaphor in that, though? What I think, you know, ultimately her purpose was to stay alive, basically, but I kind of think there's something else woven in there, and it was about her sustaining her feminine power and being recognized as a power in her own right. What do you think? Jehazel Arada is one of my greatest Heroines. Because she literally used words to change the world. She went into one situation and she wove words in such a way that reality was changed. And instead of everything being preordained, including her own personal destiny, she changed how the world was run, how the world operates. And words do change the world to this very day. You can pronounce, for example, somebody guilty or innocent, and their entire future depends on those two words. And so words do create reality. They're very, very important. Well, she certainly impressed the emperor because he spared her life. Indeed. And there's another favorite story of mine to do with Belkis or the Queen of Sheba and Solomon and how she. She fell in love with Solomon and so she went from the Yemen with her gold and her camels. And I mean, that must have been quite a journey in those days. And she. She went to. She. Again, she was in the habit of telling Solomon lots of stories and entertaining him. And he. He made a remarkable comment to her, which has stuck with me was, you know, because she flaunted her valuables and he told her that actually her real treasure was within her. She had it already. Yes. And I think that came as a result of connecting with him on a very beautiful level through the art of telling stories. And I feel that what your book may bring out is the beauty of the soul and how the journey of the soul has its own tale to tell. And it's the one thing that we've all got in common is that we're all spirit in human form. And I think that our stories possibly begin long before we even arrive here. You know, when you think that maybe we've been traveling through eternity forever. So what would be your advice for somebody around storytelling? Would you be an advocate of people just going out there and doing it? I would say start thinking now about what your story is and how it's manifesting so that you can start to weave something really beautiful with the time that's allotted to you here on earth so that you can create something that's marvelous and memorable and lets you connect with others and gives back. I can see that being quite important, getting back to this career thing again, because I think, you know, when you're going for that interview, I think it would really serve you well to have your own story embodied and ready to go. So it might be worth kind of writing it down beforehand, perhaps, so that you go in there and you are that best version of yourself. Jane Bailey Bain, it's been wonderful talking to you and your book, Soul Works. It's Living your soul story. Looking forward to reading this. It's out now, published by O Books and our listeners may want to try and find you and to know more about you. Please tell us how they can. Well, I have a website that's www.janebaileybain.com. i've also got a Facebook page that's LifeWorks one number one and also if you Google my name, Jane Bailey Bain and any of my three books, LifeWorks Story Works and Soul Works, each a single word. Come and join me. Well, I'm so very glad that you were able to join us today. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I I just wish we had more time because in our conversation there were so many different aspects that I would have loved to have unpacked. So maybe you could come back at another time and we can continue this conversation. Thanks so much, it's been wonderful. Thank you Jane and thank you everybody for tuning in and see you again next time. Women's radio station will give a voice to your brand. 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