Defending Lady Macbeth

Hello my friends! How are you? I am doing great! I’m recording this on a Monday and this week I have 6 more episodes I'm recording - we’ve got a lot cooking for you! 

I want to take a minute and do 2 things with you all. First, I want to thank everyone who left a rating and review for the show. And I want to read one of the reviews. This one is from Sassafras2016-

Thought-provoking and Empowering. Tracy takes you on a thought-provoking journey that makes you examine your status quo as a woman. The guests she brings in are experts and provide really informative insights into the context of Lady Macbeth, but also women and their place in history. Breezy and light enough to listen to at any time but also so full of insight.

Wow, thank you Sassafras2016! If you are enjoying the show and can take a minute out of your day to leave a rating and a review, it really does help more people find and enjoy the show. ANd I will read your review in one of our upcoming episodes, I promise!

Also, if you want to connect with me to talk about the show, if you have an idea for an episode or a suggestion for a guest, please connect with my on LinkedIn Tracy Oswald - that’s where I hang out and also Instagram - I’m getting better - tracy.oswald. Would love to hear from you!

The genesis for this episode came from a LinkedIn Live I did last Friday with Maribel Perez Wadsworth, the President of News at Gannett and Publisher of USA Today. We talked about using the power of your voice as women, and we touched a little bit on the concept of masculine and feminine energy.

Adopting Male Characteristics, male energy, Lady Macbeth. How this has shown up for me.

In order to be taken seriously, and actually be able to do the job, I needed to not only act more male, but also look more male.

In Lady M’s most powerful soliloquy - she begs for this.

Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts,

Unsex me here

And fill me from the crown to the toe, top full

Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood and stop up the access

Passage to remorse.

That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake fell my purpose,

Nor keep peace between the effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall; you murthering ministers

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief

Come thick night and pall thee in dunnest smoke of hell

That my keen knife not see not see the wound it makes

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark

To cry “hold, hold”

Scholarly article that appeared in Shakespeare Quarterly in autumn of 1980 by Jenijoy La Belle

So let's take a look at what our Lady is really asking - and to do that we have to look at both the physiological and psychological aspects of her request.

What our Lady is asking is to be relieved from the so-called “limits” of her sex, to literally stop getting her period, to give her gall in her breast instead of the ability to make milk, to stop having the bodily functions of a woman, she believes that if that can happen, if she can stop being a woman physically, she will also stop being a woman Psychologically. 

And in order to do what she thought needed to be done, she believed she had to stop thinking like a woman, to stop being a woman. VEry much like witches were accused of doing, she invokes the spirits to change her body and mind in order to 

Side note - it was believed during this time that menstrual blood turned INTO milk after the baby was born - The Complete Midwives’ practice written by John Peshey

While the birth remains in the womb, it is cherished up with blood attracted through the navel….and goes on to say..Now this blood, presently, after conception is distinguished into parts. The purest part drawn by the child for the nourishment of self, the second is less pure and thin, the womb forces upward to the breast...

Hello my friends! I’m very excited today because I’m in an actual recording studio! Yes! I’m here with Erin Smith of Innovation Media Enterprises which is a podcast production company and they have studios inside City Central coworking buildings in Plano and Ft. Worth. I think I met Erin way back in 2019 and I spoke at one of their events about podcasting.

It feels invigorating to be in a studio again and I would be remiss if I didn’t give my old Growth Lab Show cohost a shout-out - Andre Archimbaud hello my friend. I miss being in the USA Today studios with you, I miss doing our show, and I think the last time we were together we were sitting here in this very room recording and goofing around.

Our guest today, Dr. Valerie Rein, is pretty special and it was actually Erin that recommended her book, Patriarchy Stress disorder. I got the book and read it and you know when you read a book and you have to keep putting it down because it’s smacking you in the face with your own truth? It was too hot in my hands, too much.

Yeah, it was one of those books. And I was so moved, I reached out to Dr Valerie on LinkedIn and asked her to be a guest on the show. She put me in touch with her assistant and we made it happen. 

Dr. Valerie Rein has discovered Patriarchy Stress Disorder (PSD) and created the only science-backed system for helping women achieve their ultimate success, happiness, and fulfillment by healing the intergenerational trauma of oppression. 

She holds an EdM in Psychological Counseling from Columbia University and a PhD in Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. 

Her cutting-edge programs have helped thousands of women shift from survival to thriving and master the game of "How good can it get?" in their work and personal lives.

Alright! Let’s get into it!

Here are some great opportunities to get connected with Dr. Valerie:

1) Subscribe to Dr. Valerie's Thriving Notes when you download the first chapter of her book or book resources

2) Follow her on Instagram -- or on Facebook - feel free to tag and DM her! She love tags and hashtags, hers are #patriarchystressdisorder and #thethrivingexperience -- follow them for updates

3) Come out and play with us live at our legendary free virtual retreat, The Thriving Experience! Learn more and register here. 

Hello my friends!

How are you all doing? Wow I’m hyped up on a tremendous amount of caffeine, so thats a good thing. 

Also, the truth is that these last few months, since January have been hard for me when it comes to my health and taking care of myself. I haven’t been going to yoga regularly - and in the last 7 years, hot yoga has been the way I stay strong and sane. And I simply got out of the habit.

I also have been eating my feelings, especially at night, how many of you can relate to that? Numbing myself with Netflix, wine and chips. ANd there’s nothing wrong with doing that. It's simply that it’s making me unhealthy, and it wasn’t making me feel very good. Isn;t that funny. Even when we know something isn’t good for us, if we’re used to it, even if it feels bad, it kinda feels good or safe at the same time? It’s like our bodies are used to doing this thing and so they want us to keep doing it. It feels normal and safe in so many ways.

I had some realizations over the last week, some really great things that have happened. I started going back to hot yoga and I’m feeling feisty! In the best way possible! so I’m calling this Spring my focus on my renewal.

Alright! Today my friends we are talking about WITCHES...

Double, double

Toil and trouble

Fire burn and

Cauldron bubble

Today we are going to start our conversation around WITCHES, and I say START because this is a really vast topic and we will talk about this from lots of different perspectives over the course of the show.

We’ll delve into WHY the 3 witches were so important in the Scottish Play, even though they only appeared 2 times

And we’ll START to look at the comparison and contrast between Lady Macbeth and the 3 witches and LAdy Ms transformation inside her story arc

It’s important to set the stage with some backstory on the time period we’re talking about- the very early 1600s. King James 1 of England is also King James the 4th of Scotland. Same person. He rules as King of Scotland from 1567 to 1625 and picked up the role of King of England in addition to Scotland when Queen Elizabeth, his distant cousin died, and was chosen as her successor. 

And my promise to you in that we are going to go deep into Queen Elizabeth 1 as a powerful fierce ruler and leader, why she never married, and how she was able to rule in such a patriarchal structure .

Witchcraft, and women (and men) being accused of being witches was not a new thing in Jacobean England but it wasn’t made a capital offense in Britain until 1563, although it was deemed heresy and was denounced as such by Pope Innocent VIII in 1484. 

From 1484 until around 1750 some 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt or hanged in Western Europe. Most of them women.

What we need to understand is that during the reign of King James 1 people of all social status and intellect levels believed in the reality of witchcraft or enchantment. This was part of their everyday lives - just like we know for a fact that the planets rotate around the sun, the people back then “knew” this as if it were absolutely truth.

In fact before he assumed the role of King of England King James actually wrote a dissertation titled Daemonologie that was first sold in 1597, and this book was heavily influenced by the North Berwick Witch trials of 1590. 

And this all gets very interesting on several fronts, when King James is betrothed to Princess Anne of Denmark.

She’s only 14 years old at the time and in 1589 they’re married in Denmark by proxy, and an earl marchial stands in for King James. Then Anne sets sail from Denmark to Scotland along with a fleet of 14 ships. Now, the weather and storms that fall caused some pretty harsh sailing conditions and set light to a vigorous renewal in the fear of witches.

According to Phillipa Gregory, author and historian,

“ Anne’s journey was a disaster – the...

Welcome my friends! How are you today? I’m fantastic. As I’m recording this, the show hasn’t launched yet and we're in pre-launch frenzy trying to get all the pieces in place. 

I have an INCREDIBLE interview for you today, and I’m really excited for you to meet our

First I want to share something really interesting that happened to me as a result of this show. Last week I felt inspired to post a video on Instagram thanking the Sleep No More franchise and some specific actors who have not only changed my life these last 9 years but who were collectively the springboard to this show. And even though I follow these folks Instagram, we’re not friends. They don’t know me. 

And I was so afraid to do this - voices in my head!

This is stupid. They're going to think you’re weird and needy.

But I did it. And you know what? They did care. They told me so. And not only that, but other folks in the fandom reached out and connected with me. A few of them DMd me and wanted to connect to talk about SNM and had ideas about episodes for the show! And this was such a deep experience for me and showed me once again how truly connected we all are and that humans are mostly wonderful and loving.

And I share this with you because if there’s something you’re afraid of doing - please go do that thing. Reach out to that person, send that text, call them. Believe in humans.

Alright, today’s guest is Dr. Marta Cobb. She’s a senior congress officer in the International Medieval Congress and a teaching fellow at the School of History at the University of Leeds, England

She’s got a seriously badass list of degrees..

• PhD Medieval English Literature (Leeds)
• MA Medieval English Literature (Leeds)
• MA Heritage Management (Birmingham)
• BA English Literature (Brown)
• Areas of expertise: late Middle English Literature, especially Langland and Chaucer; medieval female mysticism, including Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich; the portrayal of witchcraft, medieval to modern; medievalism

And in addition to all of her staggering qualifications, she is HILARIOUS!

Marta Cobb and I discuss:

• Symbolism of the Middle Ages that are being misrepresented in current political narratives
• Her interpretation of Lady Macbeth
• What life was actually like for women in Medieval times. How much agency did they have? What were the male/female power dynamics really like?
• Other interesting women of the time who found ways to activate their agency 
• The progress she feels we’ve made as women since the Middle Ages

Let’s get into it!