Samantha Paige & Lisa Field

Samantha Paige and Last Cut Photographer Lisa Field speak candidly about the evolution of their friendship over the last decade and how they have navigated working so closely on Last Cut as dear friends. They discuss not only how their trust and connection has fed the art, but also the need to speak up and create boundaries to honor and preserve the friendship. 

Vanessa Cuccia

I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Vanessa Cuccia, founder of Chakrubs, for the first time recently in New York. Our Last Cut Conversation took place on my birthday and let me say, the whole experience was a gift.  I reached out to Vanessa after following her story and stunning @chakrubs Instagram feed. I love everything she writes about self-love, healing and awareness and her aesthetic is gorgeous. Beyond that and the inarguable intrigue of the beautiful crystal sexual wellness products she creates, I knew I was meant to meet this woman. And I was right. I undoubtedly made a new friend for life that day, but also was moved by Vanessa’s deep self-awareness, honesty and vision in life. In a moment in history when our world is evidently going through some serious and intense change and evolution, I cannot help but hope that we will find our way through by first finding peace within ourselves. So, meeting people through this project with an evident and ingrained commitment to introspection, growth and service gives me hope for our planet and for my daughter.  I have spent the last couple weeks revisiting places and dear friends in Italy, where I have lived, loved, worked and visited for over twenty years. And, as I reconnect here while working on Last Cut, I am revelling in how it is possible to maintain a deep connection with those who support us regardless of time, space and distance and find new family with whom we will do the same along the way.  I believe this happens when we are clear on what matters most within and live it and find others who are doing the same. Vanessa is living this way. I am grateful to know her and share her story.  

I asked Vanessa to speak about what she is up to and what she has created with Chakrubs.

Vanessa: "I am the founder and creator of Chakrubs, which are sexual wellness products that are made completely out of natural, organic crystal.  It carries the philosophy behind it that through self-love comes self-acceptance and awareness and overall well-being."

What do you believe in most that has inspired you to be here today doing what you do?

"I think that what I am opening up to is being really honest. Honesty is what drives me, but in order to be honest you have to understand who you are. You have to go through experiences to build who you are, but you also have to look at yourself and reflect because honesty is the only way to receive love. When people give us love, if we are not really showing who we are at an authentic level, we are not going to receive that love because it is conflicting. It’s out there. We know love is the answer. Love is the ultimate. Love is the highest vibrational force. That answer is there. It’s ancient knowledge. It is just an intuitive thing. We all strive for it. There are a thousand love songs on it. It is everywhere. To me the clear purpose and path in life is love. I am trying to become authentic and to understand who I am to open up to love.

I have learned that if there is not honesty, whether with myself or in any relationship, I cannot open up to love. If I deny that truth, I get sick and the lies manifest in my body. How did you get clear that love is your driving force? What brought you to this point?

"When I was young, I was just going about the motions of life and everything. I woke up one day and was sleeping next to my boyfriend of six years. Just recently, I realized that when I lost my virginity to him, I did not consent to it. I was six years younger than him and I think that I was his sex bunny. I realized that, “Oh wow. I was with this person and he was a quote-unquote “great guy” but there were things that I had given away and I didn’t feel empowered.”  I started feeling energy from him or from myself. It felt like something was coming off of him when I would be sleeping next to him that was hurtful to me. It was like this strange energy that I felt physically. So much so that I woke up one night and was like, “Can you stop?” He was sleeping and I was like, “Ugh.” As I was feeling this thing, I started to get more sensitive to energy and realized, “Wow, what am I doing?” I am 21 or 22 now. I am old enough to make my own decisions. I don’t know why but all of a sudden, I said, “Ok, I am at that age. I am an adult now and I need to start making some changes because I don’t want to continue to be asleep.” So, I broke up with him but he still was this energy in my life and was still pursuing me afterwards.

But then, that was when I invited that young spiritualist to come live with me in my home. So he was this pillar of spiritual energy who was teaching me a lot about those concepts I was starting to become more in tune to. And then I started working at the Pleasure Chest, the sex toy shop, because I realized that I had some hang ups when it came to sex. I had not really been feeling pleasure from my boyfriend for six years, my whole sexual life. I took that job at the sex toy shop and I wanted to start to explore my own sexuality and building up that empowerment up within myself. That was the perfect environment because there was no judgment from anybody. They were all so accepting. I loved them so much, but I did not care for any of the products that we sold.

Then I went to a woman’s house and she pulled out a wand and something just clicked. That crystal energy would help me. When I came up with the name I knew this is what I have to do. This could change my life. It is a company. It is a brand, but it is rooted in that idea of self-love. I am not an expert on it. I am still on my path, but it really does reinforce that sensibility in me every step of the way. I had to do it. I had to get out of that and into something else."

Last Cuts are as much about walking towards something you believe in as walking away from something. It is the cutting of one paradigm and moving towards another.  It can be the story or how you feel. 

"I realized after we started talking that this idea of cutting something out or realizing that we are moving towards something, that I have had a lot of those moments actually. Before I moved to LA, my job [was not stimulating] and I was underneath that boss who was very nutsy, but I was not realizing it so much when I was there. It was that sleeping, kind of checked out [feeling] and ok, this is life and I am getting paid. I will look for the good in it but still something was not right. And, yeah, that one mistake of tweeting [about falling asleep at my desk] and getting fired. It made me realize what kind of boss I do not want to be. I had to stop that path. I had to completely change.

As I was sharing with you earlier, before when I was in Santa Cruz, I thought all my dreams were being handed to me. It was music related. I had this record deal and I was living in the Redwood Forest. No stress whatsoever but there was falseness there that I didn’t realize. It looked as if all my dreams were being handed to me, but there was something dishonest and very manipulative about that situation. I got out even though I was living in a paradise because it was false.  So I came back here [to New York]."

I am curious since you are living your life this way, how do you know in these moments? Talk to me about how you know when you need to stop and claim that something is not right. 

"A big part of it is through dreams. Since I was young I have been telling myself that guides will come to me in my dreams. My mother had a paranormal experience when I was very young. She would see spiritual creatures, I guess you could say, that would come and give her information. So, when I was young, I was very afraid to see that too. It was like ghost stories. I was a baby and I was afraid. So I would pray, “If you are going to tell me something, please come in my dreams so I am not afraid.” So there are times in my life when my dreams become so vivid and loud that I have no choice but to take note. I literally take notes. So when I was in Santa Cruz my dreams started to become really clear to me. That’s my intuition talking to me. It felt as if I had no choice but to leave. I guess I did, but the energy shifted. It was a feeling. It was like with my boyfriend. I started to feel something almost physical. Getting those dream signals that it will be ok. Then a complete energy shift is my guide."

What have you found is challenging then about following through with those energy shifts or is it black and white?  Often even when it is super clear, there is some good you are leaving or there is a huge unknown.

"That unknown thing. Oh…I remember being in these situations and getting that voice inside that was like, “Whoops. This isn’t good. This is starting to get a little bit shifty.” You hear that inner voice and it’s like, “Fuck. Fuck. Dammit.” But then there is the experience of doing that and remembering the times when you have been there and know it will work out. Now I have recognized some inner shifts within myself to not freak out at that. My mom is moving out of her house that is so sentimental and it feels like this big loss. Little things that you don’t think have a sentimental value do. Tears and everything. But now these times remind me that something good is coming up. So I guess in those moments I move forward with lot of trust and support from family and friends. Now I feel I am able to recognize that things feel so shitty right now in one moment but something good is around the corner and that excites me. So it is turning fear into excitement."

We have to build up the muscle and trust in making these decisions. How has that been for you?

"When I first came back here [to NY], I went through a depression for close to a year. That was when I really first started Chakrubs. I was randomly crying and things would come over me. I did not know what I had just come out of. Very strange things occurred there [in Santa Cruz], and I did not know where I was but I had this thing that I knew I had to do and I knew I would get out of it. So even if I just made one little baby step every day, that was enough. I think that when we feel sad, we think, “Oh shit. I don’t want to [feel this way].” Now if I feel as if I am having a down day, I am just going to make myself as comfortable as possible and let myself feel like this because the faith is that I am going to get through it. This is an energy passing through me and that’s ok. That flow of energy…I have learned to understand a little bit more. It is just not getting stuck. That is what Chakrubs, crystal healing, is all about, removing these blockages energetically within us so that energy is flowing, because that is the nature of life. We are nature. That is what we want to do. Not getting stuck. Knowing that it is going to pass. Letting yourself be sad. Those are all things that I have learned."

The world seems a bit crazy right now. We get into each other’s business as humans. Why can’t we all just mind our own business and let everyone be who they need to be? If you cannot respect someone and go at something from a positive place, it can be so harmful. The need to take other people down literally and figuratively for your own beliefs seems to go against the core of why we are all here. 

"It does. That is why I so believe that these things that happen are a reflection of how a person feels in here [motions to heart]. We are all our own universe and my perception is this. I think that when you feel shame, it is such a destructive emotion. When you are repressing certain things about yourself and you are projecting your shame onto the world, it becomes a much uglier place. But if you find that peace within yourself, self-acceptance of yourself and you really get to know yourself and all the nooks and crannies of “Oh, that’s a fucked up thing that I have there, but that’s alright, it’s not hurting anybody there.” Then being able to see other people in all their flaws of whatever may be. Maybe you accept that more because you have already done so with yourself. We all have all of it. It is what we tap into. We are coming to a time on this planet where we are looking at ourselves more. We are being asked to look at ourselves more."

What is the hardest part about living according to what is most true to you when it is always not in line with what is happening out in the rest of the world?

"I feel lonely sometimes. In social situations, conversation is tough. The shit that I want to talk about isn’t always on the docket. Feeling sometimes misunderstood, but that is loneliness. If you are misunderstood, you feel lonely. I think that is why I am starting to get my story more out there. I am feeling that sense that I have to show myself because that is the only way to alleviate that loneliness.  I am not actually lonely and there are so many people who feel the way I do and are living this way, but we have to open up the lines of communication to feel like it is ok to talk about this stuff.

We are all so much more than what we can see. So, I would say yes, it is that feeling of loneliness sometimes but again, loving your lonely is another aspect of it. That relationship to god or spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is strengthened by that but that is a really difficult concept. I can understand it intellectually. I get those concepts intellectually. I got it, but the experiences and really internalizing that wisdom is different. It is difficult as hell. Sometimes I hear myself going onto a negative flow and try to get back. Why isn’t it natural for me to speak in positivity all the time? I am just not there and it is ok. We are human. It is part of it, the accepting of it all. Light and darkness. It is all perfect.

That is why my next line is called the Shadow Line. It is a little more fetish inspired, because as I am doing everything with Chakrubs and everything has been more spiritually inspired, I have been feeling as if people are putting me under this veil that all is perfect and I am an angel. No. There is another side and that is ok too. Something isn’t just spiritual or sacred because it looks spiritual or sacred. Lighting incense when we are masturbating under the full moon is beautiful and all, and I love that. But there is this other thing of just being raw with all of the things of being human and what turns us on even in a taboo sense and that is sacred and that is spiritual as well. It is all good. Putting the shadow and the subconscious under that same light is important to me too."

What do you wish you could tell yourself at a younger age? What do you wish you had been told to own about yourself?  I often think about this in reference to my daughter’s age. So let’s pick age 9. 

"I would have liked to have been told to focus more so emotional well-being than what I am doing. No matter what I was doing on the outside didn’t matter because I couldn’t really feel present. I wasn’t feeling that inner peace and happiness that we all have within us. So if I had known that then to just learn more or keep with that sense of childlike excitement and wonder and not let anything penetrate that or mess that up, I think that would have helped. To just be able to keep feeling that childlike excitement and wonder and not worry about what is happening on the outside would have been great."

Anne Van de Water

I was given the gift of yoga classes with Anne Van de Water for my birthday 8 years ago. We first met at her magical home in Santa Barbara just a few months after I had my preventive double mastectomy. I was a relatively new mother and in dire need of some guidance in learning to love and use my body after giving birth and invasive surgery.   That gift became one that keeps giving. That day was the beginning of a deeply supportive and dear friendship. I have also had the opportunity to work and play with Anne in many different capacities. She is a powerful and wise life coach, loyal friend and incredible travel sidekick. One of the threads that continues to bind not only our working relationship, but also our friendship, is a shared love of the truth. Anne and I are both straight shooters and have continued to support each other in showing up in the world in a manner that lines up with our values and beliefs.  Having this Last Cut Conversation was deeply meaningful for me. Our dialogue touched upon many interesting aspects of relationship and offered a beautiful marker in time for our friendship and lives. I am so grateful for this woman and excited to share the latest Last Cut Conversation. 

Before we launch into our conversation, why don’t you take a moment to introduce yourself?

Anne: “My work in the world, my offering in the world, my service in the world is what I call True Self Mastery. It is about creating a life where you are always deeply connected to your truest, deepest, highest, most authentic self. I work with visionaries, leaders, teachers, healers, and artists; people who are totally heart-centered and here to make a positive contribution on the planet. I help these amazing people to raise their vibration in all ways in their life so they embody whatever they are teaching, so that their thoughts, their words, their deeds, their relationships with people, places and things on all levels, planes and dimensions of reality match their mission and their values and their message and their vision. They become the living embodiment of their vision, and their mere presence activates positive transformation in the world.

I take them through a process that I call the Vibration Transformation process, helping them to transform their vibration, their energy in all ways, so that they know who they are and why they are here. I work one on one with people as well as in group settings. I have trainings, retreats, and online programs. My first book is almost finished. The vision is then to transform this work into a program for children, because I have a huge background in bringing yoga into the schools. I feel that we have so many remarkable beings on the planet right now and more that are coming, and there are not structures in mainstream society that help these amazing light beings and light workers stay connected to their mission. So I am here to help a lot of different people all over the planet to stay connected to what is most important in their life. "

One follow up question on that because I know some listeners/readers may have a more practical view of how these things work. I know what you do is very practical, as I have worked with you. Tell us though what are some practical ways that you help people make these energetic transformations for people who may not think this way or be familiar with your work.

"Yes, so one of my big offerings is called Vision, Courage, Action.  Most people have some vision, but we also all have blocks, things that block us from staying deeply connected to that vision. I have a huge background for about 25 years and 25,000 hours of teaching yoga, and the core of yoga is about staying deeply connected to your truest, deepest and highest self and having everything in your life be of service to that. Yet because of all of the stuff that we all go through, the daily challenges, the big life challenges, the stresses, the tensions, the heavy energies, that everybody is dealing with, day to day, internally and externally, our connection to our truest, deepest self can get blocked. So yoga is called the dance of destruction and it is about clearing, cleansing, releasing and letting go of those heavy energies so that you feel that major connection to your spiritual essence and that requires daily practice. One of my mentors, Bo Eason, says what separates the amateur from the pros is their relationship to practice.

So my work with manifesting one’s vision and staying in alignment with themselves is rooted in deep, daily self-love and self-care, radical self-love and self-care, because I do not feel that it is even possible to bring our offerings out into the world or to truly have healthy relationships with other people, places and things if our primary relationship, which is with ourselves, is not nurtured and taken care of on a daily basis. So in addition to helping people get really clear about what the vision is, there is daily work of eating high vibe nutrition, moving your body with whatever kind of exercise is best for you, doing breath work to clear, cleanse and let go of stress and tension and keep your energy levels high, meditating (taking time to go inward and keep that deep connection with your essence and yourself), doing physical cleansing, whether it is drinking water or getting in a sauna or doing dry brushing, and then doing emotional cleansing.

The next part of what I do is the courage part with people, because once you have a vision, then you hit all the stuff inside yourself. The voices saying, “You can’t do it,” or someone else saying, “You cannot do it,” or “I messed up 10,000 times before in the past. What is different this time?” So there is a whole alchemical process that you have to go through with your own emotional body to clear out all of the glommy emotion that is preventing you from manifesting your vision. Of course, rest, relaxation and sleeping [are key] so that you feel super charged and are then able to take action. My work is about taking action, because we all can have a dream. We all can have a fantasy. We can all have these amazing ideas of what is possible in the world, but if you don’t do the daily work of clearing out the fear and the heavy energy and the sadness and the regrets and the shame and the bleh that we all go through, then you are not going to take action. You are just going to want to sit on your ass and keep dreaming. So my work is very practical about taking action, making plans, sitting down and writing it down. What am I going to do today? What am I going to do this week? What am I going to do this month? Then [you have to take action in] doing it, showing up and doing it. That is where the rubber hits the road. My work is really about being a bridge, being a channel between those high spiritual ideals, alchemizing it within you, then embodying it, taking action and manifesting it." 

Thank you. I think that creates a visual for people who have not done this type of work or maybe they have but they use different language than you do.  The way you just described it is more relatable.

"It is 100% for everyone at their level, the level that is right for them, to go through that process. It is totally accessible. And when I speak of leaders, teachers, visionaries, healers and artists, everyone is [all of these things]. So I am not talking about some exclusive group of people. I feel everybody who has come to this planet came with a purpose and so it is possible for everyone. The thing that creates a separation or a difference is the people that take action and the people that don’t take action. And it is not only taking action, but it is the consistency. It is the showing up day after day after day after day. That is what makes people extraordinary. Extra ordinary."

That is what makes the professional athletes and the leaders and not only the ones who are publicly recognized that way but are generating change.  I am grateful for all that you do.

"You are my avatar." 

The timing of this conversation feels perfect. I know where I want to go with Last Cut and I am at the place in this process where the voices and the fears are coming up. Do you really have what it takes to write a book? Do you think your voice matters? Do you have what it takes? Are you worthy of all of this? I know I am. I know the answers, but you have to work through them, hear them out and put them to rest to get to the next step of actually bringing what you want to create to fruition. So this feels like the perfect day for me to be having this conversation as I am committing so fully to bringing this project into the world. I believe in it so deeply and want to be the holder of not only my own voice, but also other people’s, which is why I am sharing these conversations.

"The thing that I feel is common for all of us, but is often times not spoken of in the forefront of the journey of manifesting your gifts in the world, is that when you stay deeply connected to your vision and you stay deeply connected to your essence and to your muse and to that higher state of inspiration, it is very alkaline energy. The light quotient of it is super high. The more you stay connected to it, the more it flows through your thinking and your emotions and literally through your cellular tissue. It is constantly going to show all the places inside where you are not on board, or where your lineage is not on board, or where your society is not on board. You have to continuously face that stuff, but the great thing about it is that that is what we came here to do. Science has proven it. We came from the stars. We came from the cosmos. Science has proved that we are light filling up space. So we have this amazing capacity as light workers to transform and transmute the heavy energy, not only for ourselves, but for our family, our entire lineage, seven generations before and seven generations to come, and for all people, places and things, and it can be really friggin’ gnarly sometimes, because not everyone in the collective remembers who they are and why they are here. It can be really challenging to be on a planet where not everybody remembers and then to feel, “I do remember and I need to keep working for the collective.” The great thing is that is actually what we have come here to do. Even the act of breathing, when we breathe out, we are breathing out carbon dioxide, the heavy energy and that is what our planet needs. It is what Mother Earth needs. It is how she gets her mojo to survive and then, in return, she gives us food. She gives us oxygen. She gives us life force energy and so we end up in this amazing reciprocal relationship. That daily practice and process of dealing with the stresses, tensions and acidity and heavy energy becomes this incredible dance that we are doing with all of existence so that we can all, not only survive, but we can thrive."

As I am listening to you, I am thinking that what you are saying is ultimately either the most basic or the ultimate way of looking at last cuts. It is constant. We can all pick one that is significant because we have them in our lives, but really it is the breath out. It is all of it. It is what we do to continue to live this way. In focusing on living how we want to live, it is the constant choice of this or that. I am taking in this and sending this back out because it doesn’t serve me. It is not one thing. It is not my surgery. It is not a divorce. Those things may easily be viewed by others, but it is the constant process [that matters].  I think this is what the project is about as well. It is getting on board with living in a way that is an ongoing evaluation of whether or not what you are doing is getting you closer to living your vision. If it isn’t, get rid of it.

"Yes, essentially every single moment is a last cut. And every single moment is the vision. My aim for myself personally and everybody that I am here to serve is to bring that into moment-by-moment consciousness. That is why doing things like breath work, being conscious of the fact that right now, this is a last cut as I breathe out. This is a brand new moment to embody my essence in a deeper way than ever before. The more we practice that on a moment-by-moment basis, the more we calibrate our consciousness to that way of living. Then when the bigger last cuts come and the bigger leaps come, you are already encoded and already are embodying that way of living and can go through those transformations and transitions with more ease and more grace. It is happening on every single plane and dimension all the time. That is what yoga is also about. Shiva, the Lord of yoga, is the destroyer. Then there is Ram and Vishnu and they are preservers. Then there is Brahma, who is the creator. None of it ever ends. That is the other thing that happens a lot. People think, “That was it. I made this Last Cut. I lined things up and it is a done deal.” No, it is never going to end. It is never ending. It is this incredible dance of destroying and preserving and recreating and dying and rebirth in every single moment. That is the dance. That is the truth." 

And having an awareness to our attachment to those moments and our attachment to the coming and going of anything in our lives, whether it is people, places, things, money, possessions, a job, love, hate. All of it. Because these things are happening constantly if we hold onto to any one of these moments and hold a grudge or attach ourselves to whatever might have happened, you are missing whatever might be happening in the present moment. You are staying in the past and staying in a place that is no longer relevant for the current moment. Or it is holding you back. You said it so beautifully. If you become too attached to any one thing, it just becomes another place that you need to make a last cut.

"That is a huge part of the dance too. We are these spiritual beings. We are these light workers. We did come from the cosmos and from the stars, but we live on a planet. We live in the 3-D. We are human beings. We have bodies. We have thoughts. We have emotions. We have relationships. So if there is a total override of our humanity, we miss out on the very thing we came here to play with. And if we become too attached to being in this 3-D, human experience, then we miss out on the freedom and liberation and expansion and our connection to these higher energies. So that is a constant dance as well, maintaining that balance, the yoga, the yoking of being a human with a spirit, being of the sky and being of the earth, the internal and the external. That’s what is kind of fun about it and really challenging about it. We are constantly fumbling, stumbling, flying, soaring, figuring this stuff out and hopefully continuously learning and evolving and refining, always refining, until that moment when we blip into unity with all existence again. That place where we just feel connected and in the flow and not that feeling of separation and opposites but we can see how they meld and they connect and work with each other." 

Beautiful and challenging.

Lisa: I love the part about it never ending. I felt like that today when I was filing my nails. I was thinking to myself, “Didn’t I just do this?” It is the same with mopping the floor. We are never done, but in that the realization that we are constantly growing. I had a moment [of noting] the Meta of that. I am constantly dividing and regenerating new cells. There is that relief sometimes and attachment to being done. “Oh, I filed my nails. I am done.”

"For today."

Lisa: "Right, but sometimes the “for today” gets lost and I want to just be done. It gets lost, in the overwhelm perhaps."

"Yes, and that is one of the reasons that there is chaos in the world. When there are so many people who do not keep their hands on the steering wheel and who say, “Wait, I just clipped my nails and now I am done.” Their nails grow out and get dirty. We have to be the captain of our own ship. We have to be responsible and not expect someone else to do it for you. I am responsible and able to respond to the trash, my nails and that daily devotion. That is where I see us all doing it and where things are powerful. That is when things are working and flowing, that realization that it is never going to end. I am just going to keep showing up and doing all the chop wood and carry water stuff. And, yes, sometimes we want to just go sit and hope someone else will take care of it!"

The piece in the middle is that so much of what we are talking about requires taking responsibility within ourselves. That goes without saying. There is also an element too that notes the piece where we ask for help, where we find the community and the friends who support the way that you are choosing to live and the action that you are taking. For example, because it is an easy one to illustrate, if you are deciding you are not going to drink anymore and all your friends are insisting you go to the bar, it is probably going to be very challenging. So I think lining all of that up and having the right people in place when you get to those moments of feeling up against a wall who have your vision in their heart for you, they help you keep going. As much as this is work we have to do within and alone, we cannot do it alone.  It is two sides of the same coin. You need to focus within, but you cannot focus so much on what you are trying to do that you block out the people who support you in getting there.

"Yes, I know so many entrepreneurs, visionaries, authors, people who are doing amazing work in the world, but they’ll say, “I have a book deadline. It’s three months from now. So until then I am not hanging out with my friends and my family. I am going to eat pizza every day. I am going to stop moving my body. I am going to stop doing my stuff, because I am in service to this thing.” And then it is like, “Who cares?” You wrote the book but you feel like crap now. Or you have people who become so incredibly isolated and believe they have to do it by themselves so much so that they lose connection. But if we don’t have connection, really, who cares?

I am facilitating one of my Self-Love weeks coming up and made a meme this morning with a picture of me with a bunch of wild dolphins from when I was swimming with wild dolphins. It says, “Join our love pod.” I was writing all about how sometimes we do feel as if we are all by ourselves and wonder if there is anybody who cares about the stuff that I care about. If you don’t have your pod, your little dolphin pod of people who are devoted to the same things that you are, it is really challenging. We have all heard that quote, “We are the five people that we spend the most time with.” In Buddhism, they talk about our Satsang and, going back to Last Cut and our truths, the word “Sat” means “truth.” In yoga, we say that is what we are all hardwired for. First and foremost we are all truth. If we don’t stay connected to the truth of who we are and to our authentic self, then we can end up getting super lost in this world. There is this word, Satsang. Sanga means your community. You need to be in a community of other people who are devoted to authenticity, that are devoted to truth, that are devoted to self-love and self-care, that are devoted to being of service in the world.

That, I would say, is one of the most challenging parts of the whole entire adventure is staying deeply rooted and connected inside of yourself so that you keep your vibration at that level of truth, love and whatever else it is you may value, while recognizing and remembering there are lots of people on the planet who feel the same way and knowing that as you maintain your vibration, you will attract those people. Simultaneously one of the saddest parts of staying connected to truth is that there are people who have been in your life who don’t share that or you thought they shared it or you projected onto them that they shared that same value. They may even share the value but they don’t show up that way. They don’t act that way. That is the whole next level of clearing, cleansing and letting go and doing it in a loving way; doing it in a way that you love yourself enough to recognize that for example, if you are trying not to drink, “I am not capable right now of being around people who are going to bars and partying. It doesn’t mean that’s wrong. I am not strong enough right now. My will is not strong enough. Right now I need to surround myself with people who have the same vision so that I can gather up my willpower and strength.” I feel that that is one of the most challenging parts.

If you think about a tree or anything growing in nature, your roots system is your vision. It is your mission. It is your purpose. It is your values. It is the way that you love and care for yourself. But, as you begin to grow and expand out in the world, if you are in relationship with people, places and things who don’t share those same values, then what it can do is it can stunt your growth. It can stunt your own evolution and it can make you feel as if you are in an eddy and kind of stuck. Whereas if you are in right relationship in choosing to be with people and in environments that are nurturing and growing, then you can continue to expand personally and support them in the same way. Then when two or more are gathered, magic happens. Then you start to create this vibration that can go out into the world and be of service. It gives you mojo and support to bring your personal gifts out into the world. That process never ends, which is why it is so incredibly important to have this conversation and to really find out what makes you tick. What are you all about? What does truth actually mean to you? What does health mean to you? What does love mean to you? What does commitment mean to you? And then you find, “Well, that’s cool. I love you and I support you, but I am not going to do business with you. I am not going to marry you. You are not going to be my best friend, because we are not on the same page.” In doing so, in creating that last cut for yourself, you free your energy up to be in right relationship with someone who does and you give freedom to that other person so they can be in relationship with someone who is simpatico with their values." 

We both use the word truth a lot. As showed up in our conversation with Talila, there are many views of the meaning of truth. What is most true to you? What do you believe in most that keeps you living the way you do, which requires a lot of letting go of things that you may love, but that are not necessarily a match?

"So the thing that is most true to me is truth and love and love for the truth. The ultimate truth for me is love, which means we are all connected, we are all in this together. I have universal love for each and every individual on this planet, because it is such a miracle that any of us are here. The chance of getting into this life is close to nothing. I remember my conception. The mantra of my conception is “I am the one. I am the only one.” The sperm does not penetrate the egg without that level of focus and dedication to going for it. And, as an egg, my mantra was “Only the best.” So “only the best” means what is true, what is right, on all levels. “I am the One” means I know who I am and I know why I am here. “Only the best” means when I make my decisions and my choices in my life, the best means right relationship. It means full presence and commitment. It is doing what you need to do to be ready and connected to who you are and why are you here. When both parties do that and show up that way, you know it is real. So for me, truth is individual. That’s why these conversations are important. You know what is true and you back it up with action so that it actually manifests. For me, truth is something that is extremely obscure unless you talk about it and you ask exactly what that is and what commitment are we making and how are we going to show up; to not only talk about it, but to embody it and to make it happen. You have to have these talks in order to figure that stuff out. First you have to have that talk with yourself on a daily basis. Then you have to talk with others." 

Yes, those conversations are key. I feel in my own way too as if the purpose of my life has become very clear. Last Cut has become an opportunity for me to highlight the point you just made. What are the questions I need to be asking myself to live a more true, consistent, connected, loving life for me and how do I take that out into the world?

"I am a life coach. When I did all of my trainings and certification, the root and base foundation of those studies was asking powerful questions. It is not being a psychic and telling people what is going to happen in their future. It is not telling people who they are and why they are here and what is most important to them or even telling them what to do. It is asking them powerful questions. Who are you? What is right for you? What resonates with you? We need to be constantly asking ourselves those powerful questions and constantly asking each other those powerful questions. It has become a real indicator for me when I am in the presence of people who become uncomfortable around those straight up, no chaser powerful questions. For me, I have learned that I will have a challenging time being in deep, intimate relationship with people who cannot have the conversation we are having right now, because it is depleting for me. That is a whole other level of self-love and self-care. Is this loving for myself? Is this nurturing for myself? IS this dynamic? Is this passionate? Does this turn me on? Do I love this? Does it light me up? Does it evoke the deepest states of bliss inside of me when I am in the presence of somebody who doesn’t want to connect like this? The answer for me is “no.” It is not good for me and, yet we have to be in the presence of people like that all the time. So we all have to work together.

So for me, I have discovered that, in my most intimate relationships, I need what we are having right now, and I would rather have three relationships like that than hundreds and hundreds that are more on a surface level. My soul is here this time around to go as deep as I possibly can and as high as I possibly can. Being able to have these stripped down, lay it down, put your heart on your sleeve, tell it like it is, no BS, cut through the crap conversations is what I live for. It is like food to me. I am eating this conversation and being nourished by it." 

The alternative does the opposite in our bodies. It has the negative effect internally. Most people have some recognition of the experience of when you stay in bed with those who aren’t communicating in the way that works for you; it breaks you down and creates disease, illness, anxiety, depression, etc.

"I like to think of all people, places and things in this way. If it were food, would I eat it? If it were a lover, would I want to make love with it? Essentially, energetically, that is what is constantly happening all the time. We are all made up of energy and are constantly intermingling and swapping energy all the time. I would say that I am at an all time high of fine-tuning and refining this aspect of myself. If I put energy into my mouth that I am trying to digest and I don’t like the taste of and it makes me feel like crap and I know it is not good for me, [I need to] just spit it out. Abraham Hicks, these wonderful wise ones, say that life is like a giant buffet. There are so many different kinds of energy. So when you cruise through the buffet you get to try it all. If you try something that you don’t like, don’t keep eating it, because it will give you indigestion and eventually it will rot inside of you and give you disease, physically, emotionally and spiritually. And, when you cruise around the buffet, you are going to find things that make you say, “Wow. This is delicious!” So ingest that!" 

"The other thing that is my leading edge right now is not trying to get apples from an orange tree, not trying to get something from a person, place or thing that they are either not capable of giving or that they don’t want to give or that they just simply aren’t. I realized how much of my precious life force energy I have wasted on this, because I see the best in people. Those are my latest last cuts. I have experienced more liberation and true happiness in the last three and a half, four, weeks of my life, consistently where I am in that realm of feeling I am aligned, the realm of my essence, my thoughts, my words, my actions, more than I have in a long time because I hit this place with myself where I realized, “Good god. This part of me that is such a champion for the human spirit and sees the best and the potential will project that onto somebody. I want to keep projecting that, but then I actually want to be present with the way people actually show up, not even their wish for themselves or what I see. I see people’s essence. I am a champion for people’ s highest potential. But if I base my involvement on that dream, rather than on the reality, then I end up wasting a lot of my precious mojo.

So I have been doing a lot of [regrouping] to meet people, places or things in reality. In my prayers and my meditation, I will continue to connect with them as their highest, truest, deepest self, but as far as making physical, tangible, 3-D, in the world decisions, I am going to base it on reality. I feel as if I have reached a tipping point. The amount of relief I feel is amazing. I feel as if I am more in right relationship with myself and with all of reality than I have ever before in my life. Then there is nothing to be disappointed in other than, for a second, “Oh damn. That didn’t work out the way that I fantasized it, but I am going to line up with what is.” Then there is deep nourishment and nurturing that comes from what actually is, because I am actually getting apples from an apple tree and oranges from an orange tree. And, I am setting those people, places and things free to be as they truly are. The greatest gift I can possibly give anybody is to actually accept them as they are rather than wish they were something else."  

Here is the information that I have about someone else or about how I am personally showing up in any situation.  To expect change or demand change unless we are shown by action is naïve.

"Yes, that is the yoga; your thoughts, your words, your deeds all line up. Like today, all three of our thoughts, our words, and our deeds were a match. We made a plan. We wrote that shit down. We worked on it every day. I have thought a lot about this. Then we made it happen. It is so basic, but I know I have in the past made things a lot more complicated. We keep trying to get matches in energy and devotion and love and commitment from places where it is not naturally happening. For me, in order to make a relationship happen, there has to be two individuals who come together each with their 100%. We have all come together today with our 100% and that is why there is a dynamic energy field being generated because we are all 100%. I have had this tendency in the past, that if someone shows up with 50%, I bring 150% to make up for the lack of what they are bringing and I end up getting depleted and exhausted. I end up getting pissed at them. When, if I had actually paid attention and seen that I was trying to get apples from an orange tree, I would not have flowed all my energy like that in the first place, and wouldn’t ultimately have to end up forgiving myself.

When people ask me what I think is the ultimate healing tip, I tell them about Ho’oponopono, which was created amongst the Kahunas in Hawaii for peacekeeping amongst people. That is basically everything that we are talking about; peacekeeping with ourselves and with all people, places and things. I think it is super juicy that we are talking about relationship, because in our world right now, lack of relationship, lack of connection, lack of this conversation is why so many people are having a really rough time. In the beginning, it was a sperm and an egg that got us here. So anytime we are not feeling that connection, that unity and that co-creation, we feel disconnected. We were literally attached to an umbilical cord. We grew inside our mothers. So we need that deep, deep connection and a lot of times when we are trying to get that connection from a place where we are not going to get it, we end up depleted and pissed off at the other person. We are trying to get stuff from places where we are not going to get it.

So Ho’oponopono is coming back to this place of universal love, humility, forgiveness and gratitude. The way that I have worked with it in my life, with people I have had trouble with, is by saying, “I have universal love for you or I am trying to have universal love for you. I know that having universal love is how we can have peace on the planet. I know that there has been some stuff that has gone down between us and I am sorry. I take personal responsibility for my part in that, which might have been trying to get apples from an orange tree. Sorry I projected that onto you. Please forgive me for my part in this. I forgive myself for my part in this and set myself free. I am going to set you free too. Even if I am a bit miffed, I know it is the best thing for me and for you. I am grateful for this opportunity to evolve as a human being and as a spiritual being because we had this snafu.” Ultimately, time and time again, and it has happened recently, I do this with myself, “Anne, I love you. I am so sorry that I did it again. I was trying to get apples from an orange tree. I projected something onto that person that wasn’t real. I am sorry I didn’t pay attention. I am sorry that I can be so deeply in love with someone’s potential that I will put on my rose colored glasses and not actually see what’s real and what’s being presented. Some of that was unconscious. Some of that is a collective patterning. Some of that comes from my lineage. Some of that comes from society. Wherever that came from, I am sorry and I am going to forgive myself. Today is a new day. Right now is a new breath, a new moment for me to commit more deeply than ever to the truth. I am so excited and I am so grateful that I was just given another opportunity to grow, evolve and learn and be the very best me that I can be.”

All of these last cuts come back to knowing that I am going to do my very best to love myself and care for myself and live in alignment with my highest potential. That adventure is not going to end in this lifetime. How cool that life is going to keep giving me opportunities and relationships and situations where I get to apply everything that I have ever learned? I get to keep tapping into myself as a visionary so that, all the crap that has gone down, I get to transform and transmute it and it is compost. It is helping me to evolve and grow and I get to keep connecting with the spiritual light that is helping me evolve."

Is it worth it?

"It’s fun!"

What is the most challenging part of living this way? Perhaps answer that with your human hat on? It is the reason that many, ourselves included at times, hesitate to make last cuts or have to make the same cut multiple times. Talk to the challenges because that part is real too.

"The biggest challenge for me goes back to the sperm and the egg, and it goes back to that very, very human need for this [touches my arm]. I want intimacy. I want connection. I want bond. I want the skin on skin, deep connection with another. I want it with my partner, my lover, my friend, my family, my clients, with the people I am here to serve. It is what I want for everybody, because that is where we came from. It is how we got here. The fear that comes up inside of me is “Am I going to have that? If I stay on path and deeply, deeply connected to myself, rooted and grounded, and if I don’t go off course and if I live without rose colored glasses on, in alignment with the truth, am I going to have that?” For me, what I recognize for myself is that my weak link is especially in intimate love relationship. I will just slightly tone it down, so that I can have that companionship, that intimacy, that partnership and that is my leading edge in my life. That is the fear that I have to deal with, but out of fear comes the gift of courage. The root of courage is couer, which means heart. In my heart, I know that that is my destiny, but I have to be the one who holds the sacred space for my own destiny; by saying, only the one who is actually going to meet me there with their 100%. So that is the hardest part is the trust, the deep, deep trust and faith, in my own capacity to hold that sacred space for myself and my life, and the deep, deep trust and faith that in the same way that amazing miracle happened, that I was the sperm that said, “I am the one,” and the egg that said, “Only the best,” I will be met with that over and over again if I stay committed to it and keep clearing and cleansing the doubts and the fears inside of myself that say I have to settle for something less than that. That is a fine line. It’s the razor’s edge. That’s the last cut for me. The last cut is the first cut and it is every single day. This field that I came from, that I was conceived in, that I was cultivated in, that I was born in, that I have dipped in and out of, that is my true nature, that is the realm where I truly exist, I have been living there more than ever lately.

I feel as if I have come to a massive tipping point, where the sacrifice of letting go of the things that do not meet me in the field is becoming easier and easier because I am so deeply devoted to staying here in this field of truth. That is what I am here to support everyone in doing. Everyone has that realm where they know that they are living in alignment with who they are and why they are here. The core of that tipping point for me is the self-love and the self-care. It is a snowball effect. The more that I love myself and the more that I take care of myself, the more courage it gives me to let go of the things that don’t match that energetic. So going back to one of your first questions about being practical, the more that I eat high vibe food, exercise, spend time in nature, clear the heavier energies, do my breath work, spend time in meditation, get good relaxation and sleep, and purify toxins and impurities from my body, mind and heart, the more that I create that field for myself on a daily basis, where I can tangibly feel it in my cells, it feels so good. Then, when I am in the presence of people, places and things that don’t match that energy, lately what has been happening is that I just stay here rather than going out of alignment and leaving the field. That takes a tremendous amount of willpower, but the great thing is that willpower is given by doing those things. The empowerment, the groundedness, the nourishment, the creativity, the spark, the inspiration, the insight and the clarity- they all come from there.

Lately all of my sessions with people, all of them, have all in some way shape or form have come back to “love yourself and take care of yourself,” because out of that place, clarity comes. All the inspiration comes. I remember, and will speak about you and your process, but after you made some of your massive last cuts in your life, that was my main support for you was to help you strengthen your root and return to your self-love and your self-care. When we have made these last cuts and when we have let go of things that are not in integrity, we all have this tendency to want to quickly fill up the void created. All these people, places and things that were filling up the space are no longer there and there is all this empty space. During that time, it is like the winter of our lives and, in winter, what nature does is it goes back and does root work. One of my favorite sayings by Lao Tzu is “Do you have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water is clear and right action arises by itself?” I remember many times that you said, “I want to be doing something!” but you had to tend to the root system and fight that tendency to build and fill it up with a person, a place, a thing and just make sure that your root system was locked and loaded and healthy and deep. Then, Last Cut popped by itself. You have to till the soil so that the star seeds of inspiration have a place to land. So we all have amazing spiritual guidance. We all have our muse. We all have the magic. We all have our spirit guides. There is a constant influx of inspiration and super high vibration mojo coming towards us but if it doesn’t have the tilled soil to land in, we will not be able to receive it. So that is the other part that is challenging. The patience. Do you have the patience to stand still and chop wood and carry water and do what needs to be done on a daily basis?" 

It is how we show ourselves our own worthiness. If you don’t do those things for yourself, you are making a statement that you don’t think you are worthy of the most basic things. We have to show up for ourselves and show that we are worthy on a basic level. That feeds on a much bigger level the readiness to receive, whether it is a partner, a project, a child, a great meal. If you aren’t clear on who you are and what you need to feed yourself and love yourself and feel you are worthy on the most basic level, there is no way that you are able to receive anything else.

"The ability to stay in that holding pattern until you are clear sets the stage for the right thing to come at the right time. I have never been more at peace with being who I truly am and it is so rewarding to stay connected to the root of my truest, deepest and highest Self so that I know in the core of my being that I can trust myself to make super wise, loving and aligned choices in my relationships with all people, places and things.

Even with all the self-love and self-care, we are hardwired to give and to receive. We need to receive that love and that care from another and we need to feel as if we are seen, that someone gets us and understands us and wants to take care of us and nurture and make sure we are ok and that they care enough to find out what that is. What is care for you? What is nurturing for you? What is love for you? And, then, we do the same for the other. That is the miracle that happens with the 100%. “I am the one.” “Only the best.” When two human beings come together with their 100%, you exponentially expand the give and the receive and the gifts that are received. It is a wild dynamic that we have to give ourselves what we most want to receive in order to receive it from another.  I am in awe. I am constantly in awe of how my external world radically transforms when I give myself that exemplary level of love and care. That is another amazing part of the dance. When we give ourselves what we need, the world gives it back to us." 

What do you wish you had known or not forgotten or been supported in being you?

"Well, I feel incredibly blessed because I had two parents and other adults around me who saw who I am and acknowledged it and deeply wanted me to stay connected to that. The main thing though that I wish had been imprinted on me would be the connection between knowing who I am and why I am here and then caring for that on a baseline level. This is what happens a lot with the self-love and self-care thing. You eat healthy food, because you are going to be healthy. You move your body, because you are going to be in shape. You get rest so that you are energized and you are not sleepy. What I have done with my lifestyle program and wish had been taught to me is [highlight how] self-love and self-care impacts how you show up in the world, and how this is in direct relationship to your mission and purpose in the world. There was a disconnect for me. I feel as if I was taught the important of self-love and self-care, but I didn’t understand that that self-love and self-care was the foundation of who I am and why I am here and the gifts that I have come to give the world. What happened to me a lot as a child was that those things all seemed separate in and of themselves.

That is why now I am so devoted to taking my lifestyle program and turning it into something for kids. I want to help children to understand that we love them and we support them and want them to manifest their dreams and fulfill their missions. Eating food that makes you feel good and taking time in nature, going to bed at a certain time and hanging out with people that love and support you are all in support of their dreams. Everyone has a nine-year old inside. You are the one that can make your dream come true. Give yourself the best that you can possibly give yourself so that you know in your heart of hearts that you can make your own dreams come true. It is about empowering children to take responsibility for their own life and for their own desires. What is important to you and what do you need to do behind the scenes to make it happen? I always use the metaphor of the iceberg. 10% of the iceberg is above the water. That is what you see. Then the 90% is what’s underneath, which is the way that you are thinking, the way that you are treating yourself, the way that you are visioning. That is why I really want to empower children and people on the planet to get into the driver’s seat. Be the captain of your own ship. Be the one. Do your best. Give yourself the best. Treat yourself the best. Be your own best friend. Be your lover. Be your teacher. Then watch how it all pops in the 10% above the surface." 

Dana Donofree

Diagnosed with Infiltrative Ductal Carcinoma, an aggressive form of breast cancer, at 27, Dana Donofree founded AnaOno out of her own necessity and desire for pretty, sexy, beautiful lingerie. After a bilateral mastectomy with implant reconstruction, her own bras no longer fit, and she was certain there must be better options. After discovering her beautiful and functional bras following my explant surgery, I had the pleasure of becoming friends with Dana from across the country. Finally, in December in New York City, I had the pleasure to meet Dana and Ana Ono employee, Alison Hinch, to discuss life after breast cancer, mastectomies, personal growth and embodiment after illness and trauma. Dana frankly shares about breast cancer and her last cut, her decision to get a mastectomy tattoo years ago before it was popular to do so. Her choice was a powerful reclaiming of self after all she had been through at a young age. I love Dana’s honesty and honor all she does for this community. For more information on Dana and her gorgeous lingerie and loungewear, please visit anaono.com and @anaonointimates on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

SAMANTHA: I’m here with Dana Donofree of Ana Ono Intimates and Alison Hinch. So excited to be here in New York with you. It is really such a gift to be ending this profound year meeting these incredible people that I’ve been communicating with throughout the year and receiving so much love and support from. Here we are meeting in person, and it is pretty amazing. We’ve known each other now for close to a year via to the interwebs.

DANA: "It’s everything I thought it would be."

So, Dana why don’t you start and tell everyone about you. I’ve been screaming your praises on Last Cut throughout the year, but not everyone knows what you are up to. So, why don’t you tell us a little about who you are and a little about your story and what you do and then we can go into the questions and chat about other stuff? 

"What I do is that I run my own business. I am an artist and a creator. Unfortunately, a diagnosis at the age of 27, which I lost both of my breasts to, ended up sending me in the direction of my dream and my dream was to own my own fashion business. So, I have since launched Ana Ono after my bout with breast cancer, and we make intimate apparel for women whose bodies have been altered because of the disease. I say, "One breast, no breasts or new breasts, we’ve got it for you." That’s my pitch." 

That’s amazing. And real breasts.

"Yes, and real breasts. No matter what you have, any alternative. I just want women to feel comfortable in their own skin. I think that is important and I didn’t even know it was important to me until I lost it. It’s an opportunity to encourage us all to feel proud of ourselves and not try to fit into the pretty little box that everyone wants us to fit in." 

You are incredible. I have been so grateful for the beautiful creations that you make. Days after my surgery, it was such an incredible surprise to come across your website and to see that there was something out there for women who are flat chested who don’t want to go without anything. I remember that same week I had ordered a little bralette from another company and was so surprised that something that looked as if it would work on a flat chest was absolutely wrong in all of the right places. Wrong in ways that made it unwearable. So, finding your company was such a treat. I wear them every day. I wear them to workout and all the time. And then finding you has been such a treat. 

"So, I don’t want to say that I tripped into it. But when I started designing the lingerie, I started designing for women who had reconstruction and I was mostly thinking of women with bilateral reconstruction. I wasn’t sure of all the roadblocks at that point in time. What happened was that I was actually asking women whose bodies had been affected by the disease to come to my studio and try on all of my prototypes, which mean I had women with lumpectomies, with one breast, with one side with mastectomy, with reconstruction, without reconstruction. Just as I was asking people to come over, I started putting the bras on my friend that had no breasts, or my friend that had one breast, and my friend that was using forms and my friend that wasn’t using forms and I found that, "Oh my gosh! This is working! This is actually literally working." Not to say that the other companies don’t do that, but I test everything on women’s bodies that I am meant to dress. It only makes sense. So, I think that that has really helped me to not only see all of our different forms and shapes and aftermaths from surgery, because I’ve seen them all, the good, the bad and the really bad, and you know, women want that comfort. It is us that have to look in the mirror every day and feel good about ourselves. So, you do what makes yourself feel good and that’s all that matters." 

And I think, as I said, "I don’t need to wear anything. I don’t need the “support.”" But there is something about that comfort. Something that makes you feel beautiful and also something that fits well and makes you feel comfortable in your own skin as you get dressed and head out into the world. I think, in hearing how you tested everything, it is incredible that you have built such a community of women, as well. I think that probably has been an incredible gift to you as you have gone through your own journey but then also, I know how much you enjoy giving back. You are providing this product that is meeting people’s needs.

Did you ladies know each other before? {gestures to Alison}

"No, actually. Alison came to one of my big casting calls for our last photo shoot, actually. A year ago."

ALISON: "Yes, last November. I had responded to something else you were doing before that, in North Carolina, and I couldn’t make it there, but we just talked a lot and corresponded about different things. And then we had the shoot, and that’s when I first actually tried on one of the bras. Before that, I just wasn’t wearing anything. I thought, "I need something," but I didn’t find anything that really worked. Working from home, it didn’t really matter so much, so I just wore things when I needed to. Now that I have the Ana Ono bras, I wear them all the time, even when I am home, because it is very comforting to have that thing that you were so used to before. Even better than before, because you actually want to keep it on. You don’t want to take it off! I’ve texted you before, saying that I think I’ve had this bra on for three days straight and I probably should shower and I probably should wash the bra in the shower with me.  

And my daughter wears them. She’s 11. I figured that they work for women who are getting their chest expanded, and her chest is expanding at 11. This is perfect. I remember when I was a kid being so worried about wearing my bra because kids would poke fun at you or whatever, because they are jerks, and she doesn’t care. It has not phased her one bit and I think it is because it is not uncomfortable. She wore a “regular” one one day and she was like, “I don’t like this. I’m not wearing these any more. We might as well throw them all out. Don’t get me anything but the Ana Ono ones.” I was like, “ok.”"

DANA:  "Expensive little girl! She’s got good taste!"

ALISON: "She’s a customer for life!"

DANA: "It’s true. So, I think just being able to see women that surface through this. You know, one of my proudest moments was a woman in North Carolina who really wanted to get reconstruction. She was really not feeling whole and that piece to her was a piece that was missing and all of her doctors had told her that she couldn’t have it for one reason or another. She wrote to me and she said, “I don’t know what I am supposed to do. What am I supposed to do with myself?” So, I said, “Well, what are their technical reasons that they are telling you about this?” And she said, “I don’t really know.” So, I said, “Then you have the wrong doctors.” So, we posted on our Facebook page that there was a woman in this tiny town in North Carolina. "Please everyone give us your plastic surgeons names. We are getting on the phone with every single one of them and finding out who can do her surgery." I got an email from her six months later and she said that she found her doctor. Women from Facebook had recommended their doctors in her area. She had her surgery and her reconstruction just got complete. That is what we are doing. We are here for each other."

I think that is one thing that has been incredible to me about our relationship and also observing exactly what you just said in your company and in what you do. You seem that you have adopted this idea that it is so much about every woman’s choice and decision to do whatever they want with their body with no judgement, and creating your line that reaches out to every iteration. It creates that inclusivity and community so that there is not judgement one way or the other. In speaking about my explant, I wasn’t speaking about any other woman’s decision because I made a decision to do reconstruction in one phase of my life that then later I realized was not the right decision for me personally but I don’t pretend that I can hop into your body or hop into your body or hop into your body and tell if it is right for you to have implantsor if it is right for you to have pizza for dinner. That is your domain.

You have handled that so beautifully in your business in a way that, beyond the product, goes into what needs to be spoken about more in society. That we all look different and that every iteration of different is beautiful. So, I thank you for that and I think that that’s a really incredible aspect of what you are doing that far exceeds the creation and selling of a product. I know that it is about more than that for you, so I am reflecting back that I think that comes through so beautifully and I know it is hard. I’ve been a business owner and I know it is hard to balance all of the different things that you are trying to communicate.

"Yes, at the end of the day we are all women, no matter what our bodies look like. So, if something makes you feel good about yourself, and if that happens to be a pretty piece of lingerie, then it happens to be a pretty piece of lingerie. If it happens to be fake eyelashes, then it is fake eyelashes. If it’s a different wig every day, then it is a different wig every day. We all get to choose what makes us feel good about ourselves. I try to leave it open so that women can talk about their experiences without the judgement. Because it is really hard, especially on social media. I have had my story published on plenty of platforms and when I showed my mastectomy tattoos, because it really wasn’t the trend at the time and I had to find a tattoo artist that would do it. I mean the comments of what people would say to me were so incredibly shocking. I thought to myself, "Here I have thick skin. I don’t really care what you say. It’s my body, I don’t care what you say about how I’ve destroyed my body. It’s not your thing to say." But it is the same for women who decide to explant or stay flat or to get reconstruction and to get the biggest reconstruction that they can get. To each their own. Entirely so. So, I really appreciate that feedback that you noticed that."

How did you handle that feedback when that happened? Did you just turn a blind eye? I’m just curious because the more that we put ourselves out there…

"I stopped reading comments. Don’t ever read the comments. Even when my first story published about the lingerie, one woman was incredibly rude in her comments. I even got some hate mail. I thought, "Wow, this is incredible." I thought I was trying to do something really beautiful."

LISA: What’s to hate?

"The hate mail was that she couldn’t believe that I was writing a story about my breast cancer experience and what I created afterward. She didn’t think it was newsworthy. And so I said, "Ok." I didn’t really know what to say. Here’s this thing that comes from my heart, something I really wanted to do to help other women feel beautiful and good about themselves and I got hate mail. It made me sympathize with celebrities. You know they are just people and you look at some of the comments that are put down and, you know, the internet is an easy place to hide behind. Trolls will troll." 

SAM: It is easy to reach out or lash out from a place of pain through the internet because there is no face to face contact and it is another way of not dealing with whatever is happening internally for someone. It is just a complete displacement of whatever pain or anger or sadness, whatever is going on for the individual, to "I am going to lump it onto you." 

"That’s what it taught me. It taught me that.  I kept it for a specific reason because I had to know that my story getting out was doing this to a woman, some way, somehow. Maybe because she wasn’t at the right place in her life. Maybe there was some PTSD after her diagnosis. It could have been a million things. I wanted to be conscious of it because I want to do my best to encourage others but not everyone is going to see it that way and you have to do what is best for you. So, since then, my skin has gotten thicker. So, I don’t read the comments."

Otherwise, it just deflects from what you are here to do.

"And your energy. If you know you are making a difference in women’s lives, and you are making a difference in just one woman’s life, then that’s all I need to know. I’ll keep going. The second that stops, game over. You know? It becomes something else and I have no interest in being involved in it. The encouraging emails, the encouraging replies back, I will look at them on my worst days and I will pick myself off the ground and keep going because that is what it is all about."

That is the truth. That’s what Vonn shared with me. They photograph the positive comments for those tough days, for the times when someone lashes out. So they can look back and say, "Ok, I made a difference in that person’s life or I inspired that person to show up as themselves." Move on and keep doing. Because otherwise we get pulled down. 

So, I would love to hear about a last cut that perhaps you have made. I don’t know if you have a particular instance that you‘d like share that was significant and put you up against walking through the fire of “this is what I believe in most" and "this is what I need to do to step up to who I am supposed to be,” or, as I have talked about, sometimes it is walking toward something. It doesn’t have to be a removal. We talk so much about removals in this realm!

"Well, I am actually not going to talk about a removal. I am going to talk about an addition because I had both of my breasts removed. I had a very aggressive form of breast cancer at a very young age. So, the cards were stacked up against me and I wanted to take as much control as I could. I got the reconstruction because I was 27. It was two months before my wedding. The only thing I could think of, when I had to postpone my wedding, was how was I going to wear my wedding dress? It was two months before my wedding. Everything was already purchased, so I did the reconstruction. I really felt like it would help me ease the transition in that phase of my life, which it did. I am very happy with my choices. When it comes the time to remove them, I have no idea what person I will be and what I will want to do. My big defining moment was when I decided to get my mastectomy tattoo because that was the moment when I took my life back, and I stopped listening to what the doctors were telling me. I stopped listening to “This is your next stage. This is your next surgery. This is your next part of the process,” because I said, “Stop.” 

I put my foot down and I said, "Stop." I was really nervous about getting my mastectomy tattoo. First, because I knew my doctors would not approve, and I felt like they had been such an intimate part of my life for so long that I didn’t want to disappoint them. Secondly, when I went on the world wide web and started typing in "mastectomy tattoos," I came up with nothing, except the woman that has a double mastectomy and has the Celtic shield across her chest. My only point of connection was if they can tattoo a nipple on my reconstructed breast, they should be able to tattoo whatever I want. If I want a flower or a star, whatever, I should be able to do that. 

I had wanted to do stars instead of nipples. My nipples faded. I’m not sure if that’s common. There’s that whole thing you go through and then they were gone. 

"I’ve heard that. It is common. So, I asked my doctor, "What do I do with these nipples? So, I get the nipples tattooed. Am I going to feel anything?"  And they were like, “No.” So, help me understand why my next phase is to get nipples when they aren’t going to do anything? I’m sorry if I’m just missing a part of the process. I finally felt like I was starting to assess my choices and make the one that was right for me. You know? So when I consumed my whole chest with a chest tattoo and found a tattoo artist who was willing to do it, that was an extremely liberating moment for me when I stopped listening to what other people wanted me to do and I started doing what I wanted. That was my transition into this newfound power that I didn’t know that I had beforehand."

So beautiful. How soon after your whole diagnosis, treatment, surgeries, everything? When did you get married then after that? How long did you and your husband wait? And then also when was the tattoo in terms of that timing?

"So, I was diagnosed two months before our wedding. Not knowing what I was getting into, I kept asking the doctor, “So can I still get married?” I’d get the friendly little pat on the shoulder saying, "You know, honey, you can. You can have your bilateral mastectomy, go have your wedding, and then come back and start chemo. So, if that’s what you want, do it, but there’s no time to play around here." So, I didn’t want my wedding day to be a sad day. I wanted it to be a point of celebration. We postponed the wedding until one year later. I got my doctors all on board. I said, “We’ve got one year, guys.” 

So, I ended up going through two reconstructive processes. My second one was done in January, and I started my tattoo in March. I only had the outline and half of my body done on our wedding day. I was going back every four to five weeks and getting more work done."

How many sessions did it take?

"Three seven hour sessions. It was really intense. It was intense because it was emotional and physical. My tattoo artist was the first person who touched my new fake breasts after surgery. I didn’t feel comfortable with my fiancé touching them. I could barely touch them and shower and wash them off. It was something that I was not trying to identify as myself. I felt very alien to it. So, as I started to feel these sensations and pains as someone was tattooing on my body, it helped me to not feel like they were a complete foreign object on me. Even though I still kind of view them as not quite me, not really quite a part of my body, they are still a little bit alien." 

They are an important accessory.

"They are an important accessory."

They fill out your tattoo. 

"They do. They do a really good job filling out my tattoo!"

How much of your tattooing in that region did you feel?

"Not much at all. Just the pressure. Across my mastectomy, I felt about 50% of it. So, that part was good!"

There’s the one positive bit about that. And how did you feel after walking towards that decision and getting the tattoo? You already alluded to how that made you feel so much more in your power. Give me more detail about how you then felt in your life. It’s interesting, because obviously not everyone sees it, but you went on to create all of these different dreams and have become an incredibly powerful business woman and community leader and so much more in your personal life, friend life. 

"I guess I just don’t take shit anymore. I don’t have any energy to pretend or to try to take anybody’s shit. I just feel like if it is a decision of something that I want to do, then I am going to do it. I sometimes have to let go of the just the judgements in life. I think women, especially, you know, [think] you aren’t pretty enough. You aren’t smart enough. You are not working hard enough. We are our worst critics. 100% of the time. We just do it to ourselves. I mean, I’m still my worst critic. I disappoint myself and hold myself to really high standards but, I guess it felt like I was in the power to control it. I knew somebody else wasn’t going to control my success. Nobody was giving anything to me. I had to work for it. That was a definitive moment for me. Especially in that one year when doctors were making decisions for me, I felt like I lost that side of me. I was letting things happen around me and I wasn’t in control of anything and that was a new experience for me, or so I thought. I thought I was in control. I wasn’t. I don’t know. I think that led from one tattoo to another tattoo. I wanted a sleeve my entire life but I was afraid that people would judge me. So, I went and got the sleeve. And I wanted the port scar on the inside of my arm covered, because that was the thing that almost killed me."

Did you get an infection or something?

"My platelets crashed in my last three treatments. So, I had to get platelet transfusion each time and IV bags and it was scary. You know, you’re sitting here thinking, "Oh, my cancer is not going to kill me but my treatment could knock me off my game and cause some internal bleeding and really eff things up." People would say, “But why do you want a tattoo there? You don’t even see that scar.”" 

But you see it every day. Many times a day. 

"I said, “I see it every day. All day long. It is a constant reminder.” Yes, I want to put something pretty over top of it and you don’t have a choice what I am going to do with my body. So, I think things like that just start surfacing. I did my bio photos for Ana Ono but the photographer ended up convincing me to take off my shirt to show my mastectomy tattoo, but that wasn’t the original intention. I ended up getting the pictures and I sat on them for a few years because I don’t think I was ready. I wasn’t ready to share that intimate side of me. So, I sat on them and I’m glad that I did because now I am one of a handful of stories of women who are out there to share that option. I was very vocal about it that you get choices. Make them for yourself! Now women all over the world are getting these incredibly beautiful and impressive mastectomy tattoos. Makes me jealous and wonder if I should have waited. But I’ll just build on to it. It’s fine! There’s always more skin."

I love it. What you are telling reminds me so much of how these circumstances, these moments in life, that are so particular to a certain community or a certain person, are so universal, when you really take a step back. It is how I felt about the explant. I don’t know how many people can relate to that specific thing, but when you actually talk about it, it is the same thing that you are actually talking about. How well do I know myself? How willing am I to know myself and allow myself to stand up for who I am regardless of what anyone around me has told me I need to look like, what I need to say, how I need to dress and all these other protocols, and so on and so forth? 

In writing my book, I have become so clear that when we have a traumatic medical diagnosis, you are so traumatized in that moment that you are outsourcing everything to the people who are going to save your life and make you healthy. And that is so damaging when then you go back out into the world because you forget where your power is sourced. So, I love what you chose to share because I think it is exactly that moment. Someone, say a man, whatever, someone who won’t have that specific experience, can relate to that story and think, "Ok, I need to completely just own what is mine and take it back and block out all of the other voices." So, yay! Kudos.

"Yay. I didn’t do anything for anyone beside myself. Thankfully, my fiancé was extremely supportive, breasts, no breasts, you know. He’s a butt guy so I lucked out on that front! We skated through on that one! So, I got to make the decisions and it is important that you continue to harbor that. There are some women who don’t want treatment and you have to respect that too. So, we have decisions that we have to make very quickly and typically with very little information, especially surgery and mastectomies. They don’t talk about it." 

Yes. And that was part of the conversation I had with Vonn, as well. In that moment, I felt as though I was given very thorough information about very specific options. Not doing any reconstruction was not given a forum in the way that this implant vs. this implant were, in terms of then what would make me seem normal, what would make me happiest, because that was what made other women happy. Even the nipples, that was part of the conversation as well, that the nipples are a marker of normalcy. Maybe that’s true, in some circumstances, again it goes back to the individuality. I have a daughter and so it was presented as “Well, see how she feels about it because with kids it has little to do with breasts or not, it is the nipple that is more of a psychological marker.”

"I have a friend who said “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I think my son thinks that all women don’t have nipples!” You know, your kids see you naked, I assume. I go home to my niece and nephew and there is no privacy. I think there is an association to that. So, you know, the nipple is the source of life, right? That’s how women feed their children, you know, for as long as they can. There is an importance to that, especially through your sexuality, but when it stops being a functioning piece, and it is just ornamental, you get to make a decision."

ALISON: "To change your ornaments."

DANA: "Right. You get to change your ornaments. Hey, and some women actually do. There are some beautiful nipple prosthetics out there. I had them stuck to my hands. They are beautiful. I thought they were great. I could see the association of maybe wanting to get sexual and get intimate and wanting to feel that way. I can feel that and respect it and get it. For me, it just wasn’t that."

You need to have a talk show about all the bells and whistles.

ALISON: "How many times have I told you that?"

I love it. You are so frank. It’s great. You are just to the point. I think the whole point to so many angles of this conversation is that it is so taboo. 

DANA: "Correct."

So, what happens underneath our clothing, as women, really in the US, as humans, is “don’t be naked.” So there is that aspect of it and then, a real and honest conversation about what happens after you are sick, in a way that affects your hormones and your parts, is huge. 

ALISON:  "No one talks about that. They don’t tell you what to expect afterward. They say you are going to be better and things will happen. Very vague and it’s like being hit by a truck when they say, "Oh, you are going to be on these meds for like ten years." It is like, what? Where did this come from?"

DANA: "Yeah, and what the med side-effects are. You know, I was an engaged fiancé with an amazing sex life that now is completely destroyed because of cancer. Who tells you that? I didn’t have a single doctor tell me that my sex life after cancer was going to suck. Now there are ways around it and I should probably get therapy, but there are just some physical limitations and it takes a lot of work to get back to a place where you were before. I know some women who have gotten there and they give me words of encouragement, and I know a lot of women that haven’t. So, you just figure it out as you can figure it out." 

Well and the part where my heart is just ripping open hearing you speak, not only for you, for all of us, because it is, your body changes and you have to reorient around that. Then throw having a baby in there and you are like what in the world is going on? But, you are at least talking about it and I imagine…and this is a question that I want to ask you if you are willing to share it…how you have navigated this with your husband and keeping open communication around all of these things? I know from my own experience with my ex-husband, you know, when I had so many different medical things. It is really challenging to maintain that closeness with someone, and I’m not talking about even just the sexual closeness. It’s really difficult to maintain a connection when you are so in your own shit of what you are going through and they are trying to help but don’t know how. It takes an enormous amount of conscientiousness to communicate and stay committed to the commitment. So, I would love for you to speak to that because you made it through and I am sure there are good days and bad days.

But what I was going to say, before you answer that, just as a side note, is that my heart goes out. I know that so many women can’t talk about this in their communities and in their families. That really is so much about what Last Cut is about—creating a place where people can talk about things that aren’t normally given a stage and to desensitize it and say, "Hey, it is ok. We all have something behind closed doors that we are ashamed to talk about and when we start to talk about it, we start to meet other people that make us feel human and make us feel ok about ourselves." 

"Yes and I, sadly, have met a lot of those women that only their best friends and their husbands know that they have had breast cancer. Their kids don’t know. Their families don’t know. That society and that piece of expectation is still out there. Though we are changing the conversation and a lot of women are starting to speak out about their experience and really how physical and damaging this disease can be, there are still a lot of people who don’t know anything about it. You know? We’ve wrapped everything in a pretty pink bow, and we’ve delivered it with a bunch of cupcakes and sunshine and rainbows, that the reality has gotten so far away from that mission. We are hurting women whose lives could potentially be saved because they are actually aware what a disease is and not just doing a walk for a pink ribbon and that is a shame. Because some of these women we know, eighteen years old, I mean their doctors told them for three and four years that they were fine because breast cancer in the scope and now they are stage four."

That’s the interview we did with Stephanie, who was 23 when she was diagnosed. Same thing, her doctor said to her 99% chance that you are fine. Whatever it was, and she said, "Well, if there is even half a percent of a chance, then we should biopsy this," and they did and she had breast cancer. So, right, I think that is where we need to be having a more serious dialogue. Also, environmentally things have shifted so much in probably the last 30 years. So the conversation is changing with all cancers and all diseases because we have completely abused our environment and in return all of the chemicals and the pollution and things that are triggering the rise of cancer diagnoses is rampant. 

"Yes, we are paying the price for that." 

For a doctor to say, "Oh no, you are too young." I think that is happening in every realm of the medical world that things are happening so much earlier. I mean, look at diabetes, and that is happening perhaps less about the physical world and more about the social environment that we are promoting, especially in America and what people are eating. Then we have so many kids being diagnosed with diabetes. So, I think the conversation needs to shift not only on what are we doing to prevent all of these things from happening to begin with and how can we promote taking care of ourselves better, but then the realization that we are screwing ourselves over here a little bit if we don’t wake up. That’s a bit of a tangent but it is related to exactly what you were saying.

"It is entirely true." 

So, I want to hear about the relationship part. Just in general of how you have coped with your relationships. Obviously, what you have spoken to in your decision to do your tattoo of stepping into your power, not taking crap from other people…but I know that can be challenging at times to then put that into practice. So, I guess that is a more general way of asking the relationship question. What’s challenging about holding yourself accountable to what you committed to when you got your tattoo?

"Yeah. I mean, I think relationships are hard. Straight up. And when cancer enters that picture, they just get harder and that can be with your loved ones or your friends. I have seen it go all different directions. My husband and I to this day, the way he deals with things is through denial. It is not the best way to handle things! So, I really have to make an effort to be like, “We need to talk about this. My body is changing. Our relationship is changing." You know, we can go off course. We can come back. I think that a lot of that is communication but it is really hard to have that conversation with somebody that loves you because we sit with the fear of what our life will be in the future, or now, or the present, every day. They can’t. It is just different. And so, I have said a lot of nasty things to my husband in the last six years.

There was one rant when he was talking about how he was putting money away for retirement and I lost my mind and I told him if he says one more thing about his retirement I was going to lose my shit because it didn’t matter what he did now, that was for his next wife. Because I didn’t know if I was going to make it. It was in those moments when he went stone cold because I exposed my true honest feelings and why I was having such an issue at that phase of my life as I constantly heard about him talking about the future because I couldn’t think past tomorrow and he didn’t get that. At least it took that outburst for us to have a conversation about how I was afraid of dying and how he was afraid of me dying and that’s why he could only talk about the future and I could only talk about the present. But how do you have those conversations with people that you love? I mean, that’s heavy shit and that’s why I say, too, that I can’t go through menopause for a third time because somebody will die and it will be him."

Poor guy. 

DANA: "He’s a champ. But, really, menopause makes your crazy. It literally makes you lose your mind. I understand these shows now where like grandma has gone wild!"

ALISON: "The whole thing just like shoots you right into old lady things. You have no filter so you say whatever the hell you want. Cancer gives you no filter. I act like my grandmother, like we will both say the same thing. I think it is the lack of hormones in our bodies or whatever." 

DANA: "I understand why Grandma sat down with a glass of whisky every night."

Right. But the flip side of that is that then it is out in the open. I had a couple of really incredible conversations in the last month. One with my dad and stepmom in particular which was so special because we talked about how, with the people we love the most, sometimes we hold back. Because our deepest darkest fear I think as humans, universally, is that the people we love won’t love us back. So, whatever scenario is playing out in each of our lives, you don’t say something because you are afraid that what you say may not land right. However it might be perceived and that then the love will be cut off. Then we hold back but really that doesn’t get us anywhere, either. I then had the same conversation with my best friend from college, just the other day, where she said if I say too much and I’m so opinionated and I’m so East coast about things. I said that shows me that you love me. It is not so easy to be on the receiving end in the moment but holding back, to me, now that I have gotten to a point where I am constantly holding myself to a place of "Ok, what do I need to say? How do I want to say it? What is going to make me feel best?" I can recognize that but it is so hard. I mean, I barely slept last night because of something related to a similar thread. Now hearing you talk, I am like, "Ok. Here is the perfect moment to be having this conversation with you and hearing that, because why am I not sleeping and worrying about what someone else thinks about something I am doing if I know that I am doing it with the right intention and I am doing it in a way that feels clear to me and isn’t something that I worry will hurt my daughter?

Whatever check points we each have, if I am good on that, why am I spinning out? It’s an old habit and old habits die hard. Lisa can tell you that every time we go to shoot I say “Here I am again. I’m just having my best friend take picture of me?” But it goes back to your same point you made about your mastectomy tattoo. If we can change one person’s life by making ourselves vulnerable and if we can improve our relationships with our most intimate people and family then putting ourselves on the line with our people and family is worth it, as scary as that is. And every time it is scary. 

Do you find that each time you push yourself to grow what you are doing, whether it is in your business or within yourself, that the same old things rear up and say, "Oh hey, remember me? Are you ready to be bigger?"

DANA: "Oh yeah. You know, there is something different about being who we are and evolving and staying still at the same time. I think I often times find a big conflict in that for myself because… A few points here is… One is putting myself out there, initially. I had an incredibly successful career before I stepped away to start my own line and there was a professional side of me that said, "If I do this, everybody is going to know that I had breast cancer. And if this falls on its face and fails, then I am out of work for the rest of my life." That is truly a risk that I thought I was taking when I launched Ana Ono. I now know that is ridiculous, but in that moment I was truly afraid of telling people that I had cancer. I didn’t know what they would think. I thought I was going to die so why wouldn’t everybody else think that I was going to die? 

You had to kind of figure this out but then there are other parts of me where… I know I will always be a workaholic. I know it is not good for me, right? I know it causes me stress. I know it keeps me out of the gym. I know all of these things and as much as I tell myself every morning, “You are going to do yourself first!” I’m like, "No, I’m not." That’s kind of funny. No, I’m not. Because that is who I am. That kind of deep thread in my body doesn’t go away with cancer. It might put it into perspective a little bit more so I can say, "Ok, I need to calm down. I need to go on vacation. I need to go to the spa for a day. I need to watch "Walking Dead" for eight hours. Whatever I need to do, right?" Which before, I was not able to do that. So, I am evolving but you can’t flip a switch and start all over again at once. 

So, yeah, sitting up late at night running through my head as to, you know, how am I going to keep the business moving forward?  How am I going to pay the people who are helping me? How am I going to keep making product? Like, it is going to constantly be there. The good thing about cancer is that I can maybe shut it off with some medication if I need to. Occasionally. That’s why my favorite eye mask says “Medicated,” because that is likely true {more laughter}. Alison designed that one, actually and I thought it was perfect.

I don’t know. I kind of went off in several directions there but I think I am a better person. I don’t think I’m a different person."

ALISON: "I think I became the person I always wanted to be because I am not afraid to like disappoint anyone because I just don’t care if I disappoint anyone. Because you know that you have that end. Everybody knows that they are going to die but we are much more aware of it. I’m not going to spend time skirting an issue. I am going to deal with it and move past it because I don’t want to waste any more time on something that is going to hurt me or doesn’t hurt me. I need to know what it is going to do."

DANA: Somebody said something really insightful to me once and it really helped me. They said “Time now has a definition.” That has stayed with me since the moment it was said because, especially at 27, I thought time was limitless. I thought I had all the time in the world and now I guess it just removed some of that inhibition because, so what? Ana Ono doesn’t make it? I tried. I did the best I could. I gave it my all. I did something that I always dreamt of doing.

Yes.

"And I guess because I wasn’t afraid of failing is why I was able to take that leap. Where, I spent {my life} having this dream to have my own fashion line, my own fashion house, my own couture."  

And look at what you are doing. It is amazing. 

"Yeah, I never had the guts to go and try it before it. So, I don’t know. Good, bad, indifferent, I don’t know."

Well, it shakes everything up and I think it provides the opportunity to either go this route or to retreat to what was known.

"Right."

Again, it speaks to everyone going their own way about it but I think perhaps those of us who had felt the friction of what was happening around us and how perhaps we were out of sync with the actions we were taking with our internal compass and then something like that happens and it is like, "Ok, I have this opportunity. I kind of have this card here to just deep dive into being who I am. Do I want to take it?" And it took me years. I was 21 when I had thyroid cancer and I am now 41 and so, I started to pull all of this apart five years ago. That was still a very long window of time.  I don’t think I had the ability because of my age to process, where maybe in my later twenties I might have and then I got hit with the BRCA diagnosis, which even though that wasn’t an actual breast cancer diagnosis, my mom was 31 when she had breast cancer and since I had already had thyroid cancer, I was looked at like a grenade that the clip had been pulled on. I was told, "Ok, have yourself some babies if you are going to have them and let’s get this show on the road."

{To Alison} How old were you when you were diagnosed?

ALISON: "I was 34 when I was diagnosed and I found it myself in the shower. It wasn’t like a lump, it was like a hard spot and I thought, "This doesn’t feel right." I went to my family doctor because I wasn’t really sure what to do. The way that that spot had spread out, they looked at me right away and said, “You went from having a 20% chance of having cancer to having an 80% chance of cancer,” just based on the way that mass looked and I had my mastectomy on my 35th birthday." 

DANA: "Happy Birthday!"

ALISON: "My doctor even said, “Look at all the drugs we are going to take today!” It was my first major surgery under general. My surgeon came in with a little music box that played "Happy Birthday" to me because he was sweet. My whole family kind of rallied around me which was great. My husband flew his mother up and made her basically take care of everyone. My house was spotless! There’s some ways I wish she was always there." 

You’re like, "I don’t want to get sick again but…"

ALISON: "All the laundry was done and I didn’t have to think about it! Her and my mom were like matching socks forever because apparently, I had not matched any socks in like over a year. I still worked through my treatment because I worked from home and I could but that was like the first time I was doing only freelance work and I thought if I can do all this while going through chemo and reconstruction then there is no reason for me to go back into an office again. That was when I decided that I’m not going back. My kids are much more relaxed. I’m much more relaxed. It is just a better situation. So far, I’ve managed to do decent. I mean, I’m not a millionaire but I’m enjoying life and my kids enjoy it. I get to drive them to hockey."

Now we really know we are on the East coast. Hockey. 

{To DANA} So what’s most true to you? What do you believe in most that makes you get up every day and keep doing this?

DANA: "My heart. I’ve always been fortunate enough to follow my heart and I think I consider myself lucky because of that. I’ve had always support along the way to maybe do what I didn’t necessarily think was right or wrong but was what my heart told me to do. Anytime I have denied access to that part of my being, it has ended up wrong so now I’ve just learned to trust it and go with it. I think if you can think and make decisions from that place it will always be good decisions personally and professionally. So, it is what gets me up in the morning. It is the passion and the love for the people around me, my friends, my husband, the people I work with, my dog. I don’t have kids but I have a little furry baby. Yeah, that’s just how I try to stay honest."

I love that.

"Yeah. Thanks." 

 Thank you.

Is there anything else you want the world to know about you, the company or what you are doing that you want to share? 

"You know, I just hope for support of one another. It took me a long time to say that what I was doing was helping to change a woman’s life but I’ve had so many stories shared with me about how women’s lives have changed because they’ve decided to take control. I’ve just encouraged people to not only be there to support your friends and loved ones, but tell them about Ana Ono. Get them to come to the website!"

Take pictures of yourself like I did! 

"Take pictures of my bras. Whatever works. I’m not asking for too much.  But yes, the support has been incredible, and I just want to thank everybody. Thank you and knowing and doing what you are doing I think is so impressive and so inspiring and you are helping many women out there as well. We just have to lift each other up." 

That is so true. Thank you. 

"Yay."

Go team. 

SAMANTHA PAIGE & LISA FIELD

Samantha Paige and Last Cut Photographer Lisa Field reflect on the first season of Last Cut Conversations. They discuss the universal threads shared across many of the conversations, and the notable moments that made an impression as well. Each Last Cut Conversation has been special and unique. However, Season One’s ongoing dialogue about the significant decisions each individual makes to live their truth highlights how universal these choices are as well. Samantha and Lisa's conversation also circles back around to how last cuts must come from within, but are often made easier and supported by community and connection. 

SAMANTHA PAIGE & JEANNE MARKS

In this special Mother’s Day edition of Last Cut Conversations, Samantha Paige and her mother, Jeanne Marks, share about the evolution of their relationship over the years, but specifically open up about the deepening of their bond during this first year after Last Cut’s inception. In this honest and raw exchange, this mother-daughter duo dialogue about motherhood, the big life choices we make and learning how to respect and love one another as unique individuals. Jeanne opens up about details of her breast cancer diagnosis at age 31 and how she coped. This episode is poignant and sweet and speaks more broadly to the power of listening and learning from the important and key people in our lives. Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Dear Mama,

I have learned this year that motherhood, in its most stripped down state, is a conversation. As a relationship, the idea of a two-way street is what comes to mind. It is not about telling and being told. It is not only rules and regulations, but also reflections and respect. Motherhood is a dialogue about truths and values, love and guidance, change and tradition. As a mother myself, I have personally found this role to be a battleground for my greatest insecurities and my sweetest victories.  I have danced with how best to be mother to my own daughter for nearly a decade, and in doing so, am reflecting non-stop on how best to show up for her.

Over this past year, you and I have been deep in conversation. We have uncovered and discovered. We have faced and revisited. We have remembered, forgotten and forgiven. From our first, rather rocky call about my explant surgery in January 2016, we have traveled to so many raw and vulnerable places on the emotional spectrum. All along, we stayed committed, like never before in our nearly 42 years together, to the back and forth and our love for each other. We held each other accountable to the communication, and our relationship is undoubtedly better for it. 

As highlighted in our Last Cut Conversation (link above), initially my work with Last Cut was shocking to you. You are incredibly private and traditional. With my brother and me, you brought into the world two creative types who definitely push your boundaries over and over again! So, sharing such personal aspects of my life in such a raw manner publicly was outside the box for you. At first, even my actual decision to remove my implants was alarming to you, but we stayed in the discussion.

Through this honest exchange, often spurred by Last Cut posts and the soon-to-follow texts I would receive, we kept talking and evolved as a mother-daughter pair. We opened to the possibility that we could deepen the ways and places in which we respect and honor each other as individuals, regardless of how different our views or styles on any particular issue (or outfit or hairstyle) might be. We learned from each other. We laughed with each other. We cried together too, and we shared so much more honestly than ever before.

In the evolution of it all, you have become my biggest Last Cut fan. We moved from “You aren’t going to post naked pictures of yourself on the Internet, right?” to your happily sharing my naked torso in the Equinox “Commit to Something” ad to everyone you meet. I adore you more than ever before. I honor the intelligent, gracious, generous, kind and loving woman who gave birth to me. You have taught me volumes through your actions and words throughout my whole lifetime. Your may not speak publicly of your last cuts, but you are incredibly discerning and focused about how you live your life. You have modeled this to me. This year in particular, you taught me to have an open mind and be more patient.

Often we falsely believe that relationships are stagnant, that an old way of being will be forever. You and I have proven that we are only as much the same in our rapport with others as we (both) choose to be. We can grow, change and even expand our love for one another if and when we both show up fully present and ready to walk through the uncomfortable moments. Mama J, I am so grateful for your willingness to stay in the conversation with me. I love you dearly. 

xx,

Samantha

SAMANTHA PAIGE

Artist Samantha Paige kicks off Season 2 of the Last Cut Conversations podcast with an honest reflection on this tenuous moment in history and the need for human connection beyond technology. She shares her belief in the importance of raw self-inquiry as a means to healing, connecting and growing in spite of what is happening around us. Samantha speaks to freedom, Season 2’s theme, and how, even though this word means something different to each of us, there is great beauty in the art of reflection and conversation around what makes us individually feel connected and free.

SARA MILLS

Model Sara Mills, best known as “Sara on the Internet,” reached widespread international acclaim with a viral YouTube video highlighting her twerking her breasts to Mozart. Her global Internet fame focused greatly on her silicone implant enhanced breasts, as well as her tattoos and distinct voice. However, along the way, Mills has also openly shared about her relationship to her body, autoimmune ailments that increased with the implants and an autism diagnosis she received two years ago. Finally, in 2016, after moving towards a healthier lifestyle in an effort to feel better, Mills opted for an explant surgery. Not concerned about what effect this decision would have on her following, she did what she does and made a YouTube video announcement.  Sara’s direct and outwardly vocal style around her choices is what drew Samantha Paige to her story. When they finally met in person to share this conversation in LA, Mills shared so much more with Paige, including her take on the effects of chronic illness on creativity and friendship, “social inoculation” with autism, body positivity, the reasoning behind her tattoos and her take on societal norms. It is no surprise that her strong, clear voice and intelligence around these issues have actually garnered her a much larger following, far compensating for anyone, or anything, lost with the implants.

ALEJANDRO AMEIJEIRAS

Santa Barbara, California based Pilates instructor and dancer, Alejandro Ameijeiras shares his long, sometimes dark, road to personal acceptance and embodiment of his sexuality, sensitivity and inner power. Born in Communist Cuba to prominent Diplomats in 1963, he grew up in a culture, beautiful in many ways, but far from accepting of individual differences. He studied first as a professional swimmer, then in military school and eventually as a dancer. Being the son of a top General was at times in contrast to who he was and knew he wanted to be. Alejandro left Cuba in his late teens to train with the Bolshoi ballet in Moscow and traveled with the Tropicana troupe in East Germany and Italy right before the Berlin Wall came down. After further exploring his dancing and modeling career in Cuba, he finally left for Panama in 1995 and arrived in Miami on Christmas Eve in 1997. Years, and much dedicated internal work, later, he has created a dream life in California with a loving husband, thriving Pilates business and ever-evolving inner peace, due to his ongoing dedication to personal growth and self discovery.

GET LIT POETS: MONIQUE MITCHELL & VANESSA TAHAY

Get Lit Poets Monique Mitchell and Vanessa Tahay bravely and vulnerably share how reading, writing and speaking poetry has paved a path to freedom and happiness in their lives. In this raw and moving conversation, these two powerful women detail where they came from and the ways in which they have used their art and voice to cultivate freedom, self love, empowerment and joy from pain and hardship. Mitchell, a Get Lit graduate and now Get Lit Education Coordinator, and Tahay, a recent Cleveland High graduate and 2017 Classic Slam winner, hold nothing back and boldly recite their own original poetry. Their raw eloquence and strength give me hope for the future. For more on Get Lit, please visit getlit.org or @getlitpoet on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. For more on Monique Mitchell, please visit www.mnqmtchll.com or @mnqmtchll on Instagram and Twitter. For more on Vanessa Tahay, please visit @vanessa_tahay on Instagram and Twitter, or Vanessa Tahay on Facebook.

Get Lit was founded by Diane Luby Lane in 2006 in Los Angeles. It started in two high schools, Fairfax & Walt Whitman, and now offers its program in almost 100! Get Lit-Words Ignite fuses classic and spoken word poetry to increase teen literacy and cultivate enthusiastic learners emboldened to inspire social consciousness in diverse communities.

MALLIKA CHOPRA

Mallika Chopra joins Samantha Paige for a powerful conversation about living life with intent and conscious parenting. In her humble and authentic manner of sharing, Chopra details her self-defined "somewhat messy journey" to deeper purpose, peace and joy in all aspects of life. With anecdotes from her life and conversations with her father, Deepak Chopra, and friend, Eckhart Tolle, she models how we can set clear intentions to create greater balance in all areas of our lives. She shares her belief that conscious parenting requires mindfulness in speech and actions with our children as well as a continuous reflection on our deepest desires for the journey as parent. We discussed how she is raising two empowered, engaged feminists through her family's honest sharing of what is happening in the world and how she is always modeling the need to connect with self in order to navigate everything with grounded confidence.

Mallika Chopra is a mother, author, speaker and entrepreneur. Her books include “Living with Intent: My Somewhat Messy Journey to Purpose, Peace and Joy,” “100 Promises to My Baby” and “100 Questions from My Child.” She is the founder of Intent.com, an online community where members can share their dreams and aspirations, and receive support from others to do the same. For more information on Mallika’s work, please visit mallikachopra.com (@mallikachopra on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and Intent.com (@intentdotcom on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).

JENNIFER YASHARI

In this moving episode, Samantha Paige reunites with her childhood friend, Jennifer Yashari, who opens up about living with hereditary inclusion body myopathy (HIBM), a rare degenerative disease that causes muscle cells to weaken progressively. Diagnosed in her early 30’s, Yashari, a psychiatrist, has learned to cope with the massive loss delivered with the disease and all the subsequent losses that have come in its wake over time. She started a blog, “Living with HIBM,” in 2011, and writes beautifully and with a piercing rawness about the experience of a living with an ever-evolving disability that affects how she moves, parents and interacts with the world. Yashari details the importance of mourning each and every loss fully, so that we can then do our best to be present in life, and fostering strong, loving relationships to support us on the ride. In telling her own story, she provides guidance and vision for how to speak with others about differences and how to maintain a connected mindfulness in the process. For more information on Jennifer Yashari, please visit her website, www.jenniferyasharimd.com, and her blog, www.livingwithhibm.com.