Christina McKelvy: 0:13

Welcome to Hopology. I'm your host, christina McKelvie. Today we're going to be speaking with Yael, who authored the new thriller the Possibilities, which is about a new mother who ventures into parallel worlds to find her missing child. The question lingering what if he had a second chance? In this interview, not only do we talk about the inspiration behind her book, such as her research, but we also talk about her own experiences as a mother, in the hope that motherhood brings. We'll be right back. Welcome to Hopology. Stories of hope, healing and resilience. I'm Christina McKelvie. Today we have Yael Goldstein Love. She is the author of the new book the Possibilities. Welcome, how are you?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 1:37

doing. I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a pleasure.

Christina McKelvy: 1:43

Well, thank you. So you know I was reading your book and it's a very interesting book, and you know my podcast focuses on a lot of hope, healing and resilience and I can definitely see those themes tied in to the book. It's fiction, but tell me a little bit about you, know how you came to the idea of the story and you know we'll start there.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 2:06

Yeah, sure, so it's. You know. So the book, it's funny. I just a reader, I just described the book as everything everywhere all at once meets what to expect when you're expecting. And I'm like I didn't just, oh God, like I, and this is like a per, I don't even know this per, you know, like I wish that I had known you and you had like, like, now I know how to describe this book very quickly. It's everything everywhere all at once meets, what's to expect when you're expecting, and it's, you know, it's really a story.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 2:33

It is a sort of speculative thriller about the anxiety of, of, of parenthood, the sort of like the uncertainty. You know, how do we reconcile ourselves to the immense uncertainty of a child's future when we're, you know, we're so invested in this child's future and and so it is. Really it is a book about. You know, how do you foster hope? How do you or at least like, how do you not let hope totally collapse into despair and fear? You know, how do you sort of keep the uncertainty alive?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 3:06

And I really came, you know, I came to this book. I was just like I came to this book, very honestly, like, but I feel like, anyway, you come to a book is very honestly right by that is you know I. This was my struggle when I had a child, so I my son. The book begins with a very fraught birth scene where this child it's not clear if the child's going to live or die. That was my son's birth, so that that scene is just that is my son's birth. That was just me writing my son's birth, so even the scene where she notices the arm dangling except for the arm dangling, the there's.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 3:43

That's the only part that's different. But the, like you know the, the, the sort of silence greeting. Like you know, she here, this child is out, but there's nothing but silence and the room is filling with more people and I asked, and I kept asking, as people would run. You know, is he okay? Is there any chance he's going to be okay? And nobody would answer. This went on for about an hour and finally someone said there's a chance. And I was like, oh, that's the worst answer you could have possibly get. That's the response was there's a chance. There's a chance he might live. Yeah, oh, my goodness, I can't even imagine, yeah, so I I mean.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 4:18

So that was like an hour that I was like in the recovery room, like having no idea if I was in the midst of a tragedy, and so then he was fine.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 4:24

He turned out to be fine because I had because he had enough of a reserve of oxygen in his cord blood to get him through the 10 minutes unharmed, and and that was only because I had incest insisted on a C section. I think I might be the only mother in the history of the town of Berkeley, california, to have ever insisted on an emergency C section, like we were like the most like anti C section city in the world, probably. But but I insisted on a C section because things are sort of going wrong and that was why he was okay. And so this like this left me in this state when I got him home and everything was fine where I was, just like I am terrified all the time, and so I couldn't, I didn't have any hope in me for him. It was like I really felt as though the reality of which he had died it seemed like he had died had come too close to occurring and now he was somehow doomed, and so everything in the world like every. Everything I interpreted in that light.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 5:19

I mean, I should also say he was born like this was January of 2017. It's like Trump had just been elected. The world was just sort of like feeling dark and I think, like his, like almost death, um felt to me like oh yes, of course, of course, like there's no hope. This child is doomed. I never should have had him Because, like the world is falling to pieces and so it became very easy to go into this place of despair around the uncertainty of his future, and I really had to learn how to sort of surrender myself to that uncertainty in a way that I could still feel like rich and alive and engaged with life and engaged with him, and, and, and, and, so that he could feel hope and excitement for the future. You know, and that's where the book came from.

Christina McKelvy: 6:09

Well, tell me a little bit more about what that looks like, surrendering yourself to that uncertainty.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 6:14

Yeah, I mean, I think it's so hard, in a way, to say it in words, like you know, like by the end I don't you know if you, if you've gone to the end of the book, that's sort of what happens at the end is you sort of like figures out how to surrender herself. You know, in her particular case, in this particular relationship with this particular child, and I do think in some sense it has to be like it can only be done in a way that you can do, you know, because I think for all of us, uncertainty is not, is not comfortable for any human being. We are not, we are not a species that likes uncertainty, but for each of us it manifests in a slightly different way. You know, like what is it? You know, what is it about? Uncertainty that like really gets onto our skin, like what is it? That's very difficult for us, given our personality structure, given our history. What are the things that go through our head when we're, like you know, trying to collapse on certainty and to despair? What are the things that we do? And so I think for each of us it's so distinct.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 7:09

I think that one thing that I have really found for myself, and then also my dissertation research was also was on the sort of the same topic of how mothers experience, experience the uncertain futures of their kids. So I spoke into a lot of people about this, a lot of mothers about this, and one theme that I have really found in common among the many, many that are not in common and are unique is and actually maybe this is two different things you tell me, but one is making friends with that uncertainty. Do you know what I mean? Just like I think that making friends, yeah, like when, or just sort of like allowing it, allowing that there's no way out of it. Because so one thing that I really that was really interesting to me in my dissertation research was that I found, like these are all everyone was responding to this call that I put out, saying like, do you know, is anyone a mother? Do you feel uncertainty about your children's future? Do you want to talk today? So it's like very broad, but like, and I said like, do you ever worry? Do you ever worry about your kids' uncertain future? But like you know, if you're going to respond, you worry about your kids' uncertain future.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 8:20

And people fell into two camps when they would, when we would start the interview, half of them would be like I'm a complete anxious mess, like I'm a disaster, and let me tell you all about it and those and here are all my anxieties and here are the things I think about it. And it was so interesting because those mothers, they were not a mess at all, they were very aware of their anxiety but because they were so aware of it and didn't try to avoid it, they had done so much thought and working through about it. They had all these thoughts about the meaning of it, the intergenerational meaning, the meaning with their own personalities, the meaning with their own history, what it might mean about their relationship with their children. They were using that anxiety in such interesting ways and they were filled with. They were filled with a lot of fear, as is normal as a parent, and they were filled with a tremendous amount of hope and meaning. And they would say these things. Like you know, very common theme among this group was they would say things like you know, I feel like I feel so much more alive to like every nuance of like, the seasons of like, of like you know, when a tomato is fresh, like everything that could be ripped away at a moment's notice because it can be ripped away. Because of that uncertainty. I feel such richness and aliveness from that, like that was such a common theme One participant spoke about like filling the abundance of the world war.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 9:40

And then in the other group it was this other group also very introspective, wonderful, thoughtful mothers. But they came in saying, you know, I don't really know why I responded to this because I'm not that worried actually, like I thought about it and it's like you know, I have all these tips and tools for controlling my worry and like they really quite work and like I'm not that worried. And those mothers, they were suffering more. Actually they were actually like they weren't aware of their suffering as much. They sort of were keeping it out of their awareness, but they were suffering more from the uncertainty. And this came out in a bunch of different ways. I mean, one was in really disturbing imagery and themes would sort of pop up in their interviews, Like as they were talking about their kids in their future. And so it's like you know, and they'd be like well, I don't know why I think about this like extremely disturbing thing.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 10:29

I just you know, it just often comes up in my thoughts Like, well, that's interesting, you know.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 10:33

And then also these thoughts of like escape, like these fantasies of escape to some, like safe haven where they could keep their kids safe and there would be hope in that safe haven. And that only came up in that group and so, you know, so I feel like for me that made me that sort of reinforced this notion that I felt in myself as well, but I think maybe I'd never articulated it quite that way. Which is the part of the surrender is just acknowledging to ourselves like this is scary, like loving someone this much, loving someone in this protective way that a parent loves a child, where, like everything in your psychology and your biology, is sort of like giving you this primal urge to protect this vulnerable being and you can't you know you can't, because you are human and life is uncertain Just sort of looking at that head on and figuring out how to live with that. That is where, that is where the surrender happens and that is where the actually the hope and richness can live.

Christina McKelvy: 11:37

Because you are surrendering, like you said, surrendering to that uncertainty, surrendering to the anxiety and that fear that this could happen. But by doing that, like you said, there is the hope is stronger, and whereas the individuals that didn't surrender they had these tools didn't come out in other ways too. You said it came out in all sorts of ways.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 11:58

that fear yeah, it came, I mean the other ways were sort of more individual, but I would say that it just seemed like, even though they came in not saying they're a mess, they really just seemed to be their suffering was higher, like they were. They were, it was just. They were just clearly more anxious day to day and they didn't speak about that, meaning that they found with their kids Like there wasn't that flip side where they would talk about like the richness that it had lent their life, and that was really interesting to me, like it, just like they seemed more pessimistic in how they talked about their kids' futures.

Christina McKelvy: 12:32

Actually, there's a book called my Friend Fear. I don't know if you've heard of it, oh.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 12:38

Yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 12:39

It's by Marie-Lee Patel and it's it's basically very similar with, you know, making friends with your anxiety, surrendering to it, and I believe it's almost like a different way of thinking, because we're usually told to run away from that or it's not normal or typical, and that must be a hard conversation, like from especially mothers, you know, to be told.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 13:02

Yeah, I think you're right, cause it's like none of us we don't like it, like we want to run away from anything as aversive as that feeling, and I think it is. I think there that can be a hard conversation, but I think it's also I mean, in my experience it can also be a very liberating conversation for parents, because there's something you're you're expending so much energy, you know, in trying to run away from that feeling that I think it can feel really good to say like oh, I don't have to expend that energy, like I can actually be quote, unquote, normal, whatever that means.

Christina McKelvy: 13:37

When parents are told or anyone is told like, oh, don't surrender to fear, or, you know, don't lean into the anxiety. You should try and avoid it or find ways to avoid it. It can. Actually, you mentioned it's like freeing more, freeing for those individuals.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 13:53

Yeah Right, it's like I mean, then we can sort of move freely through all our feelings. You know, you don't have to constrain your feelings, and I think that there is so much valuable information that we get out of actually, you know, letting ourselves move into that fear, move into any of those thoughts I mean. I mean, I think, for any human being, in any scenario, but in particular for parents, you know, I think we get information about our own psyches from knowing what we're, what we're afraid of and what we're anxious about, and we get information about our relationship with our children and how that's going and why we're worried about the particular things we're worried about. And then, you know, I also think, like, in addition to this this is a group that I didn't really end up speaking to, but I see a lot on social media and I see a lot among my friends. It's like people who, instead of like trying to push away the fear, try to push away the hope.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 14:47

You know, and I think that that's Push away the hope, push away the hope. Do you know what I mean? Like where it's like where you go immediately and it's like it's all despair, like there's nothing like to be a smart person is to know that, like we're doomed. Do you know what I mean Like? Do you know that too? Where it's like I mean you know, and like always speaking as though things are inevitably getting worse and worse and worse and there's no possibility for like change, there's no possibility for hope, and I think that that, too, can become a coping mechanism for an anxious parent, because it's like it's hard, it's hard to you know hope is uncertainty.

Christina McKelvy: 15:28

It's uncertainty, and people might have a sense of disappointment if things are not as they are.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 15:34

well, we're hoping for, let's say Exactly, exactly, a sense of disappointment and a sense of like. There's almost like I mean there's such a vulnerability in hope. You know Like, when you hope, like you are, like you're wearing, you're wearing your possibility for hurt on your sleeve wearing your possibility for her on your sleeve.

Christina McKelvy: 16:00

Oh, I love that. That is so true. It's there, like you said vulnerability you're exposed, you're exposed. Yeah, yeah, how did that show up for Hannah, the main character of the book?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 16:15

The wearing hope on her sleeve part, or the which part that's true.

Christina McKelvy: 16:21

All of it. No, I think you know how did she? I mean, I know, towards the end you mentioned there's something, so I don't want to give that away but like, how does it show up for her where she was? Yeah, wearing hope on her sleeve, that vulnerability you know as a new parent.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 16:40

Yeah, you know, I think for her it was about wanting a child at all. So, like this, you know her character, is this character who, because of her history of being parented, because of her history in the war, and you know as being a person in the world who could not count on anyone, she, she sort of describes herself as holding to all things lightly. You know, like she just sort of like she never wants to hold to anything too tightly because she wants to be okay when things drift away, you know. So it's like, you know she also, you know she marries this man, even like to marry her husband. It's like that feels like a little too dangerous but she like gets convinced of it and then finally he convinces her to like have a child.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 17:23

And I think it's that act of having a child where like, oh my God, like I cannot hold lightly to this. There is no way to hold lightly, to like any outcomes once you have a child, because you can no longer, you can no longer muster holding lightly, because you care so much about that child. And I think that so much of the book is about her reconciling herself to that Like now I cannot hold lightly, now I will be devastated by certain outcomes and I am deeply invested in certain other outcomes and that's her psychological task in reconciling to motherhood, or one of them.

Christina McKelvy: 18:04

And she's seen the psychologist because her holding like it sounds like there's like she's holding too tightly and that's kind of like what's making the marriage a little rocky. Yeah, yeah, that's what you were for.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 18:22

Yeah, oh, you know what I realized? Like, actually, I think Dr Goodman, the therapist in the book, is a psychiatrist.

Christina McKelvy: 18:27

I just realized that Psychiatrist yeah yeah, she prescribed her medicine. She prescribed her medicine. I'm a therapist. I know the difference. Shame on me.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 18:36

No shame on me, I wrote it and I was like, yes, yes, yes, psychiatrist. I was like Jesus psychiatrist, yeah, I think you know she's seeing. She's seeing this psychiatrist because she can't shake the feeling. I call it in the book the car sewer feeling, which is this feeling that that I think I've had many times in my life not just with my son's birth where like something comes too a bad thing comes too close to happening that you can't, you don't feel like you can just like shake it off and be like that didn't happen.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 19:09

There's this feeling of like that came too close, like somehow that in itself is a danger and like for me that I call it the car sewer feeling, cause it's like if there's like a near miss on the road, you know, and then you're just like, ah, you don't just like, you know, you don't just drive away and you're like, oh, it's all fine, you drive away and you're like, shake it.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 19:25

That terrible thing. It's almost as though there's this other world where it happened. That feels like it's a little too close to this world. And so in the book, her child's birth, where he almost dies, is like leaving her with a version of that feeling that she just like cannot shake, and so she's just filled with anxiety and doesn't know whether to it manifests most in like never knowing whether to trust her instincts as a mother. So it's like I feel like there's this game that so many mothers play maybe every mother of like, like forever. It's like, is this my instincts or is this my anxiety? Like welcome to today's round, you know, and that is sort of driving her a little baddie and it's getting in the way of her relationship and that's why she's seeing this therapist. And then at the start of the book, like the world goes a little baddie and it's not clear anymore whether she's the one who's a little off or the world is a little off.

Christina McKelvy: 20:22

It's very interesting to see the juxtapose between at the beginning of the book, especially the two different worlds, because she has one world where, you know, her child survives and their relationship's rocky, but then in the other world her child does not, but their relationship, you know, at least seems intact.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 20:43

Yeah, yeah, and in fact it's sort of better than ever, because they sort of they, they, they, this.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 20:49

You know this couple has not learned yet how to love each other through having a child, but they had. They did actually navigate, you know, a very perhaps a harder thing loving each other through losing a child that they were sort of able to do. But but their coping strategies for actually dealing with the uncertainty of having the child, as opposed to the despair of losing the child, are more at odds and they have not figured out yet. Yeah, how do you go from a two-some to a three-some? How do you love each other through that?

Christina McKelvy: 21:21

Yeah, and dad's response to the child in the world where they have the child. He's not necessarily, you know, similar response to Hannah, but there's like this aura of perfect parenting that she interprets, or you know, that he wants.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 21:39

Yes, yeah, Like this idea that there's a right way to do everything. And if you could, only you know. I think, again, this is about like uncertainty and hope and and and despair, and sort of that balance between hope and despair is like. I think that a lot of parents fall into this trap. I mean, actually, I think Hannah and and and Adam both parents actually fall into versions of this to something like this idea that you can reduce uncertainty by, like, you being so perfect.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 22:04

If only you can be right, I mean, and I think this is how guilt and uncertainty gets so entwined in parenthood, you know. And so like for Adam the father, he interprets this as like, okay, like, if we just like follow these schedules and these rules and do everything, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, whatever that means, then we reduce uncertainty, Whereas for Hannah, she has sort of this, a different approach which again, I think is a very common approach and and equally it could be, equally it could equally lead to suffering and getting in the way of some functioning is this idea that? No, it's not about the rules and the rigidity, it's about, you know, total merger, instinctual, just like all love all the time, and it's that version of perfect parenting, but in both of these it's like as though there's some perfect way the parent could be that can reduce all uncertainty for the child's life, and of course that's an illusion, and not a healthy one.

Christina McKelvy: 23:00

Right, and that can show up in so many different facets of life. You know, I need to be the perfect. You know, like you mentioned in the book, parent, but the perfect child, the perfect coworker, the perfect employee, perfect spouse.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 23:14

And that way I can control, yes, the perfect therapist.

Christina McKelvy: 23:18

And if I'm perfect in my eyes, then all that uncertainty, all that anxiety around making a mistake or failing will go away. But then it kind of is very it gets amplified when there is a mistake or failure. That happens.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 23:33

Which of course there will be, because you're a human.

Christina McKelvy: 23:36

Right, yeah, I don't know any perfect people.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 23:39

Yeah, and even if you are perfect I mean if you are, even if theoretically you could be perfect it still doesn't reduce the uncertainty because we're not in control of most things. And so, yeah, I mean I think of that as, like you know, that the hope built or, like you know, the hope, the kind of hope that's built on the idea of our own perfect behavior, our own, like you know, near perfect behavior, is like that is like a fragile, fragile kind of hope. You know that is not real robust hope. That is hope that can like shatter instant life, because it's not hope that allows in reality. Like I think you know, robust hope is hope that allows in reality, and reality is that we are not omnipotent. Life is uncertain, life is full of suffering and tragedy and full of beauty and joy, and you have to let them both in and that's, I feel like that's, where any real hope lives for a parent or for anyone else.

Christina McKelvy: 24:42

And that's where resilience shows up.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 24:46

Yes, right, I mean right. So that is in a way, like that is resilience, right, it's knowing, yeah, it's not all gonna go great and we're gonna keep on trucking and there's still gonna be good things in life because we keep on trucking.

Christina McKelvy: 25:00

Yeah, and it's finding those, the tools that you need to keep on trucking, but also, like you said, surrendering to the idea. Oh, my goodness, this cat. He wants to say hi, hi, hello, what's your name? He can't hear you, but his name is Ty.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 25:20

He's very cute. I have a cat sleeping right there.

Christina McKelvy: 25:24

Oh, he's clawing at my back and I'm like I don't know. Do you want to sit on me or do you want to be let out On my web page for the podcast I have that. He's my co-host.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 25:34

That it's very appropriate that he's making an appearance.

Christina McKelvy: 25:36

Yes, I am very much that type of cat person. My husband loves it. So I'm curious about I can probably talk about the cat all day, but we won't. So you mentioned some of the research that you did for your dissertation. So how did your well, your current work now, but also your dissertation, your research, kind of played into maybe ideas for the book as well, or how that?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 26:06

influenced it. It influenced it quite a bit. I mean, I started writing the book before I started the dissertation research. The dissertation research in part grew out of a great need for efficiency in my life because, as a mother of a young child and a novelist and having a full case load of clients and getting my doctor, I was like, how did you do that? This is a great mystery in my life. I think I have some effective hypovenia that I am.

Christina McKelvy: 26:42

You're inspiring me.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 26:47

But I was like, well, I'm revising this novel, I got these revisions due to Random House and it really is, at the end of the day, about how parents learn to live with the uncertain futures of their children.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 27:00

So that's what I'll do my dissertation research on and it was great it was actually great to do them both, to do the research after while I was doing the revisions for the book, because there were a few parts to it I mean, one was. I mean the research itself was just fascinating. I loved doing the research, I love talking to these mothers, but also it made me, I think when I was writing the book I had an inkling but was not sure how universal these experiences were that I was talking about. I knew that it was true to my experience and to friends that I spoke to, but I didn't know, I wasn't sure quite how much these were universal themes I was talking to and of course I still don't know that they're universal themes. But in doing this research I saw just these themes of uncertainty and how we reconcile ourselves and how we either surrender or don't to this uncertainty for our children and what I'm calling now fragile or robust hope in the role of a parent that this came up in every interview in various ways, and so that was really helpful to know. It changed how I wrote the book in certain ways, I think, or how I revised it.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 28:11

I would say that the other thing that was so amazing was the lit review. It's like I was so immersed in everything about mother, the subjective experience of motherhood, and that, too, was just so, and I was having a lot of trouble figuring out. There's this close to final scene of the book, or I was like I don't understand what happens here. I know that something is like, and for a book like this, we're both speculative fiction with some sci-fi elements and it's so much deeply. What it really is is about the psychological experience of becoming a new parent and, I think, a new mother in particular. It was like what is the thing? I know there's something that has to happen here that is both the exciting resolution of the adventure story, but also is something really about the psychology of what this is, and I could not figure it out, and I finally figured it out through doing my lit review and actually, I think, also thinking through my own cases as a psychopath. It's like, oh, what has to happen here is.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 29:15

I need to make a sci-fi scene out of the process of projective identification.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 29:20

This has to be.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 29:22

I have to show how a mother or a parent or any caregiver, they receive this communication from this wordless infant In the form of these primal feelings they have to sort of the infant screams, the infant's feeling hunger or cold or whatever it is, but they don't have the concept of these things and so they just feel like awfulness and then they scream and they communicate to the caregiver these feelings of awfulness, these feelings of like the world is ending, that you might only feel for a millisecond before your adult mind can turn it into like my baby's hungry, my baby's cold, my baby's tired, and sort of respond with what they need.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 30:06

And that process, that process of early projective identification as our earliest form of communication and how our minds kind of come together, but from the mother's perspective, like how you experience from a mother's perspective, that became the key to figuring out how to land the ending of this book. And I think there was no way I would have ever figured out how to land the ending of this book if I wasn't immersed in this other way in this material, as a therapist and as a researcher and as someone writing my dissertation on this topic.

Christina McKelvy: 30:42

So definitely informed each other and I find it fascinating, like with that communication or speaking of, I used to do a lot of early childhood intervention and so we talked about attunement. You know, having that attunement between the mom and child and you know, so it sounds like that's what was seen a lot, you know, in your lit review. Are those little areas of attunement, like what does my child need? Meeting, reading their cues, meeting their needs?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 31:13

Some of it. Yeah, and I think definitely, although I think of the attunement. I guess I think of the attunement as Well. I don't know, I mean, is this really true? I guess I tend to think of attunement as like the more palatable moments of that. Do you know what I mean? It's like you know, it's like I see, like, oh, my child wants to play with me in this, you know, sort of flirting with our eyes or we're laughing or we're smiling and that's and that's, and that's sort of the happy attunement. But I guess, but I guess attunement is really also.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 31:44

I guess attunement is both right, I mean, I guess attunement is also when it's like you are, you are meeting your child in their moment of, like, utter panic, like or rage or like whatever there. I guess that you know that, of course, is also attunement. And and I was really interested in exploring both of those and especially the more difficult pieces of that, because I think that that is a part of early motherhood that we don't speak about as much as we need to. We, we know that that that part of the job is is accepting and making sense of and acting on such difficult, raw emotions. But yeah, I, I but right like why? Why would that also not be called attunement? That is a two men toe, you're right.

Christina McKelvy: 32:40

And yeah, I was thinking, I was like I don't know if I'm getting the other word right or not but definitely reading cues, you know, and understanding those cues and, like you mentioned, it's interesting. We, you know you're, you're right, you don't talk a lot about the difficulties of parenthood, of motherhood, you know, and those hard moments. And again, it is it because it's the whole perfect parenting. That's even like kind of in parenting magazines and things like that, maybe not necessarily like it doesn't say how to be the perfect parent, but you know, I'm sure people maybe read into a lot of these parenting books and I don't know, with your lit review did you see a lot of talk about the difficulties of childhood or parenting and those moments?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 33:27

Yeah, I mean I think I saw, yes, I mean I see a true well, I guess I guess it depends in what way. I mean I think there is more and more there's a growing interest in the subjective experience of motherhood, you know, especially within sort of feminist psychoanalytic literature really looks at it in depth, and so I think, in that sense, yes, but I think what I did not find, and that I was really surprised about but was good because it left an opening for me to actually write my decision was looking at, in particular, how mothers reconcile themselves to the difficulty that is, uncertainty in particular. And I think, like, again, it comes down to that. You know, when we talk about like perfect parenting and the idea that like there's like the right way to do this and like this whole industry that has grown up, you know over decades and decades, at this point to like of like the parenting industry that tells you like the right way to do everything, and I think it can be quite harmful in certain ways because it can get in the way of trusting your instincts and trusting your relationship with your child, I think that, again, like that all comes down to like a fragile versus robust hope.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 34:49

Again, like, I think that all of us to some extent you know, whether you're a mother or not we all kind of want to believe in the fantasy of a perfect mother, because we all wanted a perfect mother. Do you know? What I mean Like to let go of that fantasy is to let go of the ability that you could have had that, and if you let go of the possibility that you could have had that, you have to mourn what you never had, and that is painful and hard. And so I think that, like, each and every one of us, on some level, is invested in this fantasy of perfect motherhood, perfect parenthood, and it's an important thing to interrogate in ourselves, because I think it does actually a great deal of harm to two mothers to not interrogate that fantasy and to make it seem as though it's just the way. You ought to be trying constantly to live up to perfection.

Christina McKelvy: 35:46

Yeah, you're not leading into the anxiety or leading into the fear. You're not surrendering.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 35:55

You're not surrendering. Exactly, you're like against, against. You're holding on to that branch of refusing to fall into the into the fear. Yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 36:05

I'm curious how surrendering and, you know, leading into that fear and anxiety, how that might play into being able to trust or not trust their instincts, and how that showed up for Hannah.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 36:19

Yeah, that's such a good question, I mean, I think I think it's there's not a simple one-to-one correlation, you know, between Surrendering to the, to the fear, and trusting your instincts. Because, of course, like not all our instincts, you know, and that's the truth I can say, as someone who does not always have the best instincts, like I, I think that the, the, when I think about you know how to best use maternal anxiety, which is something I think a lot about these days and talk a lot about. I think that the sort of sweet spot is you don't take your fear, your instincts, your anxiety at face value, as as Fact, right, you don't let it control you, you don't let it control your children, but you take it as information. And then you get curious about the information of like well, why is this my instinct, why is this my anxiety?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 37:26

Why do I keep coming back to this particular Fearful fantasy or like this thing in my? You know what's going on and what does this tell me about myself? What does it tell me about my child, what does it tell me about my relationship with my child and what people might be going on between us or something else in my life, and also what might it tell me about reality and the actual dangers here and when? You can Sort of bring that curiosity and try to separate out those strands, then I think you can actually really make good on your instincts and on your anxiety and actually use those feelings as the information they're meant to be.

Christina McKelvy: 38:03

Yeah, being curious, and by being curious it helps you kind of Understand, like, what feelings you should be leaning into or what might be evident, what might be real versus Not like. Okay, I don't need to listen to this. It's similar to and I've mentioned this in other podcast interviews. I tell a lot of the kids I do therapy with, or even adults, that you know your anxiety, your depression, even you know functional hypomania Could be a superpower in a way you know, similar to the Hulk. The Hulk gets that big and he destroys stuff and a lot of times it's to save people and you know, help the Avengers.

Christina McKelvy: 38:47

But then there are other times, when he gets big, and he gets just as large and he smashes things he shouldn't be smashing.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 38:54

Yes, exactly, I mean and in the book it is. You know that is exactly what happens. Hannah, my main character, like her, or like being a nervous Jewish mother, which is what she has like. Yes, it's her superpower, you know. It's like her ability to like, see all these possibilities to sort of her vigilance, that sort of in many ways getting in the way of Her relationship with her child and her and her husband, becomes sort of also this superpower that then she can like, when she can harness it properly, it becomes the key to sort of saving her child and potentially also her marriage of the pets and ambiguous at the end, but yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 39:39

But yeah, I mean just trusting your instincts be leaning into your anxiety and fear or whatever it is that you know you might need to lean into more can really help find fine tune, those instinctual recognitions Exactly exactly and I have found for myself so much.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 39:55

It's like you know the things that I was most afraid of.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 40:00

If I had just tried with my son, you know, if I just tried to block them out or control them and you know I just don't let myself go there I would have missed out on so much information about myself, like things I needed to know about how my Mind works, how the moves I make in relationship to sort of like keep myself feeling safe, and those and those pieces of information have been crucial to my mother, to becoming a better mother, to knowing you know.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 40:33

Okay, well, if I make these moves in relationship, I'm gonna be making this moves in relationship with my child, which is the one of those intimate trying relationships there is, and so I'm so because I was able to pay attention to my fears and learn things about myself. There are all these things I'm aware of that I do in relationship or can become aware of when I do Strange things why did I say that thing? Why did I do that thing? You know and I and there's so much more information to pull from, and I really think one of the you know, for me one of the biggest sources of that information was staying open, open to my fear, to the uncertainty, to how I felt in the uncertainty.

Christina McKelvy: 41:13

Oh, wow, hmm, I Thought in uncertainty.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 41:21

Yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 41:22

Being able to have that, have that confidence.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 41:26

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. Yeah, to have that confidence that, like I can withstand the uncertainty and I can sort of stay open, I threw it and, and and and see what, what's really going on. Yeah, I think that is that you're right. I think confidence is a really good way to describe that.

Christina McKelvy: 41:45

Yeah, well, I think this. I think I love when fiction Is able to really teach a valuable lesson or really speak to a world that maybe a lot of people Don't talk about or maybe even show a different perspective. You know of Issues, like you know new much. You know new mothers and parents and parenthood and, like you said that, uncertainty. So I I think it's really great. The book is the possibilities. Are there any other future books that you're working on that you're able to share, or past books that you might?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 42:21

want to? Yeah, sure, I mean so I have. I have past books Overture and the passion of Tasha Darskay, which are actually the same book with two different titles. They changed the title for the paperback. It's very confusing. Why would you buy?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 42:36

that. Why would they get? Yeah, you'd have to take it off with double day and find out they changed the title for the paperback. So that was my first novel, and that one is actually it's also about motherhood and and it's, I mean, very much about hope as well actually, but but about it's about female ambition, um, and like how do you, how do you, how do you be like an incredibly ambitious woman, um, while also being a mother and a daughter? I wrote it before I was a mother, so I vouch for almost nothing I say about motherhood in there, but I vouch for everything I say about young female ambition, um.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 43:10

And then I'm working on a book now that is that isn't like early stages, like I'm still just very much playing with it and I've been describing it as my, um, my sci-fi house of mirth, but I'm really not sure about it. It's. It's about, um, it's about it's actually it's on, it's actually sort of like a speculative fiction about the experience of transference, like about the phenomenon of Transference and how and how we bring it into everything in our lives. You know that every relationship we sort of experience through this pattern, um, this sort of blueprint of our past relationships, and and about single motherhood and the connection between sex and loneliness, and how will all those things come together? We will all be surprised if I me most of all.

Christina McKelvy: 43:58

I look forward to seeing it and um definitely see a theme. You know about motherhood, so you know my podcast is called hopology, so I like to close with asking you know my participants what is one thing that brings you hope?

Yael Goldstein- Love: 44:16

I would say that there are many things that bring me hope. I feel, um, but I think that the thing that brings me most hope on a day-to-day basis are it's two things, but they're deeply related. One is time spent with my son and just sort of like seeing him brimming with exuberance and joy and fury and and misery and just every emotion, and it all is so moving, um. And the other is is my, my work with my psychotherapy clients and just sort of like seeing the, the, the Bravery of every single person I work with and the like the deep desire to see themselves more clearly, to like Free themselves from old patterns.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 45:00

I think like seeing, seeing both my son and seeing these adults sort of like in the thick of their feelings and sort of trying to like stay true to themselves. In the thick of these overwhelming feelings it brings me. I find myself like moved, like on an almost spiritual level, like daily, by sort of being part of that, like part of people, sort of Of they're like messy humanity and it's like beautiful, deep level and it just, I don't know, it makes me. It makes me feel full of hope, because it makes me feel Full of sort of the beauty of what people are. I.

Christina McKelvy: 45:43

Missy humanity.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 45:45

Yeah, I love, I love messy humanity.

Christina McKelvy: 45:51

You know you want to be a novelist. If you didn't? I think that is true.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 45:56

Or a therapist, to be honest therapist.

Christina McKelvy: 45:58

That's right, right. Well, thank you so much for being on my podcast and, like I said, I look forward to looking, you know, for future novels and you know the possibilities. Is such a unique novel and well written and, like I said, there's so many amazing themes in it. So, you know, I really yeah, I really enjoyed it. So thank you again, you know, for being here.

Yael Goldstein- Love: 46:22

Thank you so much. This was this was really, really a wonderful experience, and I I think this is such a wonderful idea for a podcast and I hope you spread so much hope through it.

Christina McKelvy: 46:33

Oh well, thank you, Thank you you.