Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Welcome to Dear Chelsea. This is Chelsea and Catherine.
Speaker 1: Hiy Hi, how are you? I'm great today? Are you? Um?
Speaker 1: It's like, I mean, I think I've said this before,
Speaker 1: but it's finally sweater weather and I'm just really excited
Speaker 1: about it. I'm with you on that. I'm with you
Speaker 1: on the fall weather like vibes. I don't. Somebody said
Speaker 1: it was going to be ninety this weekend and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: luckily I'm on tour and I'll never be home on
Speaker 1: the weekend again. You can save the ninety degree weekends
Speaker 1: for when I'm out of town. Not interested at all.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in coming home, snuggling up to my two
Speaker 1: furry beasts in my bed until they jump off the
Speaker 1: bed after they've rejected me, and enjoying the cold weather
Speaker 1: as well. So yes, I can see that you are too.
Speaker 1: Catherine has just like sitting by the fire. A spooky movie.
Speaker 1: That's what I want. A spooky movie. Really? What about
Speaker 1: have you seen the Halloween movie the New Halloween? No,
Speaker 1: I haven't. Joson wanted to see that. Last night. I
Speaker 1: was like, you, guys, go, I can only watch that
Speaker 1: during watch a scary movie during the day with the
Speaker 1: lights on, because I get really scared. I've done that
Speaker 1: with some friends before, and we call it spooky brunch.
Speaker 1: We'll just like make a brunch and watch. When Hereditary
Speaker 1: came out, it was too scary, and so one of
Speaker 1: our friends wanted to see it. We'd already seen it,
Speaker 1: and we said, come over for brunch. We just made brunch.
Speaker 1: That's cute. I mean, that's a cute way to watch
Speaker 1: scary movies, for sure. So I read Minas Suvari's book
Speaker 1: The Great Piece, and it was pretty disturbing. A lot
Speaker 1: of it in the book she talks about I had
Speaker 1: no idea about her history. So she grew up as
Speaker 1: a child actor very young, moved out here with her family.
Speaker 1: They started out on the wealthier side of things and
Speaker 1: then bounced around and started to kind of live like
Speaker 1: a more toned down lifestyle. So I think she was
Speaker 1: introduced to a style of living and then slowly, you know,
Speaker 1: they started to pare it down. And then they moved
Speaker 1: to California with the hopes of her acting and modeling
Speaker 1: career taking off. And there seemed to be some form
Speaker 1: of neglect on their behalf because she became sexually active
Speaker 1: at a pretty young age. I also became sexually active
Speaker 1: at a pretty young age, and I was neglected too.
Speaker 1: So there's definitely a pattern with parents neglecting their children,
Speaker 1: which is why I don't have children, because I would
Speaker 1: neglect them. And I'm aware of this problem, just like
Speaker 1: I neglect my dogs. I know that's okay for dogs,
Speaker 1: and I know it's not okay for babies. So I
Speaker 1: would like some sort of fucking carbon credit for not
Speaker 1: producing children. But in the book I I was talking
Speaker 1: to Joe about it, and I was just so she
Speaker 1: gets into one relationship after another, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of sexual and emotional abuse, and her self esteem is
Speaker 1: in the toilet, and she doesn't have the tools or
Speaker 1: the skill set to get out of these relationships. She
Speaker 1: had a long term relationship with a guy that treated
Speaker 1: her terribly that you know, she did like sexual coercion
Speaker 1: and things. Why had a sexual coercion. I'm doing a
Speaker 1: lot of sexual acts that she didn't feel good about,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do, and just stayed in a
Speaker 1: really she tried to leave several times, but he always
Speaker 1: lured her back, and then that cycle of men just
Speaker 1: kind of repeated and within that she was married I
Speaker 1: think one or two or three times two times this
Speaker 1: I think who's marriage too now is number three? Number three?
Speaker 1: So she was married twice and both of those marriages
Speaker 1: didn't work out obviously, because she was traumatized and it
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't resolved trauma. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: addiction that she battled. She was doing crystal meth for
Speaker 1: a while. Then she was smoking pot, more pot than
Speaker 1: I've ever heard about anyone smoking. Quite frankly, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what and that's coming from you, I know, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I was like, fuck, I don't even do that. I
Speaker 1: haven't been smoking a lot of pot at all lately.
Speaker 1: Now that I think about it, Oh my god, it's
Speaker 1: so strict happening. You know what else I stopped doing
Speaker 1: is cracking my knuckles. That's I think from the grounding
Speaker 1: map though. Anyway, I digress. This is a serious topic,
Speaker 1: so let me address it with more respect instead of
Speaker 1: getting sidetracked. And it made me really think about how
Speaker 1: long it takes women to recover from sexual abuse and
Speaker 1: the work that it entails, and it is almost like
Speaker 1: a lifetime of work to get yourself to a healthy
Speaker 1: place where you can understand that you were violated and
Speaker 1: that your behavior is a direct reflection of that, and
Speaker 1: your lack of trust in yourself is a direct reflection
Speaker 1: of somebody stealing your trust and shrouding that as I
Speaker 1: love you, or as I'm the only one that loves you,
Speaker 1: or as you're so important, or nobody else will love you,
Speaker 1: and all of that is just such horseship. And so
Speaker 1: my hope is that anyone going through that that there
Speaker 1: are listeners today that are have experienced this, or that
Speaker 1: are at the precipice of discovering this about themselves and
Speaker 1: and stopping a pattern of abuse, whether it be emotional
Speaker 1: or sexual. I really want you guys to pick this
Speaker 1: book up because it is a clear view into the
Speaker 1: psyche of how you break someone down. And she's lucky
Speaker 1: that she was able to pull herself out of that.
Speaker 1: Not everybody is. So it's an important book to read,
Speaker 1: and it's quick. I read it yesterday and this morning.
Speaker 1: So the addiction part is obviously a product too of
Speaker 1: not wanting to feel pain. And when you think about that,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes me I actually did think about
Speaker 1: my pot use when I was reading it. Because I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, excessive use in any drug is always
Speaker 1: covering up pain. You're trying to numb something, You're trying
Speaker 1: to push that feeling back down. We're all familiar with
Speaker 1: doing that, and there's a lot of freedom and power
Speaker 1: in getting rid of those vices so that all your
Speaker 1: feelings are going to bubble to the top. A lot
Speaker 1: of people are scared for that to happen to them
Speaker 1: because they don't want to have those feelings. And I
Speaker 1: would like to impress upon you that those feelings are
Speaker 1: the only way to get to the truth and to
Speaker 1: get to being healthy right, and and feeling those feelings
Speaker 1: is the only way to process them, even though it's hard.
Speaker 1: Many people get to a point where they have to say,
Speaker 1: is it harder to process these feelings that are really
Speaker 1: difficult or is it harder to keep suppressing and keep
Speaker 1: numbing and keep really like wasting parts of your life
Speaker 1: on suppressing those feelings. Yeah? Right, It's never a fun endeavor.
Speaker 1: I have a girlfriend who's going through something separation, and
Speaker 1: she wasn't prepared to do to to go through any
Speaker 1: sort of pain because she left him and she moved out,
Speaker 1: and she kind of held all the cards, and then
Speaker 1: she went on a big trip and she came home,
Speaker 1: and of course all of the adrenaline from everything kind
Speaker 1: of came crashing down, and all of a sudden, she
Speaker 1: was sitting in the reality of the choices that she made,
Speaker 1: which were the right choices, but for the first time,
Speaker 1: she was questioning whether or not she made the right choice.
Speaker 1: And I was telling her, you did make the right choice.
Speaker 1: You're just now going through the grieving process. You delayed
Speaker 1: your grief with all of this other distraction, with partying
Speaker 1: in drugs, and I you know, I'm a total supporter
Speaker 1: of drug use, but when you're covering up pain, it
Speaker 1: becomes very obvious to other people that something deeper is happening.
Speaker 1: Just like when I used to drink excessively, that something
Speaker 1: deeper was happening. I was covering up pain. And so
Speaker 1: now that it came up for her, she's like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, I wasn't expecting to feel this way. And
Speaker 1: It's like, well, that's I've seen so many women go
Speaker 1: through this. You're going to feel this way. It's going
Speaker 1: to happen, and it's great to just take the weekend
Speaker 1: and sit through it. I was, like I said to
Speaker 1: her on the phone. I go, I want you to
Speaker 1: stay at home, do what you know, and just whatever
Speaker 1: comes up, let it out, get it out, out, out out,
Speaker 1: and I guarantee you by Monday you'll feel better. And
Speaker 1: she goes, I hope, So, I hope. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know, So you're gonna feel better by just being
Speaker 1: present with your own feelings of discomfort and pain, because
Speaker 1: we all have the power to get through anything, we
Speaker 1: all do. Yeah, And having that support system of a
Speaker 1: friend or a therapist or someone around you to be
Speaker 1: able to encourage you to do those things is it
Speaker 1: is invaluable. It's huge. Yea. And and that's another thing
Speaker 1: she said. She goes, God, I've been reaching out to friends,
Speaker 1: which is something I'm never I've never been comfortable doing,
Speaker 1: and the response has been so overwhelming that so many
Speaker 1: people want to help her and that are there for her.
Speaker 1: And that's something that we're all so guilty of too.
Speaker 1: People don't want to ask for help, and it's like,
Speaker 1: that's what your friends are for, that's what your family
Speaker 1: is for. Ask for help. People want to help you, right.
Speaker 1: I want to help people all the time, and I'm
Speaker 1: a bit so I guarantee you, you can find someone
Speaker 1: to help you anyway. So that's who our guest is today,
Speaker 1: Mia Sari. She wrote the Great Piece. That's her book.
Speaker 1: It's out and available, so a lot of you may
Speaker 1: know Minasuari from American Pie American Beauty. One of the
Speaker 1: things in the book she talks about is when she
Speaker 1: was filming American Beauty, she was in the most toxic
Speaker 1: relationship that she had ever been in. And she was
Speaker 1: this guy was, you know, wanting to bring women over
Speaker 1: all the time, having three sums, and at first, you know,
Speaker 1: she didn't like that, and then she just got on
Speaker 1: board with it and she was having sex with women
Speaker 1: and her boyfriend three to four times a week. He
Speaker 1: was showing up to set with women and it just
Speaker 1: became their norm. And this was all while she was
Speaker 1: filming American Beauty, in which she played the sexpot, the
Speaker 1: you know, fantasy for a middle aged married man going
Speaker 1: through his midlife crisis. She was the ultimate young, a
Speaker 1: hot girl that he fantasized about that was going to
Speaker 1: give him all the pleasure that he no longer got
Speaker 1: from Annette Benning, who plays his wife in the movie.
Speaker 1: It was a fucking awesome movie, but to hear the
Speaker 1: backstory of what she was going through personally while she
Speaker 1: was filming that movie. Uh was was heartbreaking. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it really ties into a lot of the questions that
Speaker 1: we're going to get to today, some big questions, some
Speaker 1: really tricky ones today. Okay, well, I'm glad I took
Speaker 1: an extron. Well, I think we have to take a
Speaker 1: quick break right now, so we'll be right back with Mina. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a pp on the party. Hi, Mina, Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: can you see us? Yes, we can see you. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm like, it looks like you're in a prison cell. Sorry,
Speaker 1: are you in prison? Yeah? Just emotionally No, I'm okay.
Speaker 1: How are you doing. I'm good. I just read your
Speaker 1: book yesterday and this morning on my plane ride home,
Speaker 1: so I'm emotionally. You know, I'm emotional. It's fresh for you. Wow.
Speaker 1: Thank you for reading it. Absolutely. I don't sunk around
Speaker 1: when it comes to books and interviewing people. I take
Speaker 1: that very seriously. Well, thank you and happy to be
Speaker 1: here and talk. I'm happy to see your shining face.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a lot of stuff, but
Speaker 1: it was really must have been very, very difficult while
Speaker 1: also cathartic for you to write all of that stuff down,
Speaker 1: because some of it is so personal, and some of
Speaker 1: it is just so heartbreaking. You know, to even know
Speaker 1: that your younger self or part of you had to
Speaker 1: experience that kind of pain, even as an older person,
Speaker 1: it's like almost like you're talking about your own daughter
Speaker 1: in a sense. You know, That's how I feel when
Speaker 1: I look back at my childhood, I'm like, oh, that
Speaker 1: poor little girl. So I'm I'm wondering how it felt
Speaker 1: once the book came out. I know the book is
Speaker 1: recent and it just came out a couple of months ago.
Speaker 1: How did it feel to share all of this stuff
Speaker 1: with the world. I mean very weird, because you know,
Speaker 1: initially I felt so compelled to share it. I just
Speaker 1: had to express myself, and it had its own process.
Speaker 1: I over the years, I had moved, and I had
Speaker 1: my diary, and I had this book of poetry, this
Speaker 1: binder that I had entitled the Great Piece, you know,
Speaker 1: from the past, that had traveled with me for so long,
Speaker 1: and I finally just looked into it again, and at
Speaker 1: that moment, it was at least a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: I initially wanted to just publish the poetry book, I
Speaker 1: felt like I could share enough, but not all of it.
Speaker 1: And then through the process of sharing that with a friend,
Speaker 1: and then I was sharing some of the stories that
Speaker 1: went along with you know, some of my writings, because
Speaker 1: some of them were even timestamped, are dedicated to a
Speaker 1: specific person. They encouraged me to tell all of it.
Speaker 1: And so at that moment, I kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: went back and I sat with myself and I just
Speaker 1: felt ready. It really was a personal thing, and I
Speaker 1: knew that that was part of it. I just got
Speaker 1: to writing and it took me quite a while. So
Speaker 1: then going into the process of like talking about it,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's very weird. I kind of referred to
Speaker 1: it as like therapy with the world. You know, it's strange.
Speaker 1: I'm like living my life in front of everyone. That's
Speaker 1: very odd to me. But there's also something really beautiful
Speaker 1: and there's so many things that have come out of this.
Speaker 1: I mean, this book isn't done for me. I'm still
Speaker 1: very actively in therapy and love night therapist. Oh well,
Speaker 1: that's nice for those of you that are listening the
Speaker 1: book as this is Mina Safari. As we mentioned, the
Speaker 1: book is called the great piece, and it is a recollection. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a memoir, but it's a recollection of your whole
Speaker 1: life and a lot of abuse that you encountered, sexually,
Speaker 1: emotional abuse, just a series of running and running and running,
Speaker 1: a series of relationships of going from one person to
Speaker 1: the next to try and heal old wounds. And which
Speaker 1: is the stories as the old as time for so
Speaker 1: many women. And I think it's always so powerful for
Speaker 1: anyone to share their story, especially someone in the public eye,
Speaker 1: and when they can be candid and they can be honest,
Speaker 1: because there are details in there that you know, I
Speaker 1: was shocked to read. I was, you know, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: and I'm, you know, a shocking person. So I'm always
Speaker 1: over sharing everything. So I was like, holy fuck, I
Speaker 1: can't believe she wrote this and that you put that
Speaker 1: stuff in there. And I just think it's so brave
Speaker 1: and you should be applauded for that, because sharing your
Speaker 1: story is helping so many people understand that they're not alone,
Speaker 1: that other people experiences and other people and what they
Speaker 1: think are powerful life positions are going through stuff like this,
Speaker 1: And you know what happens when your parents aren't really
Speaker 1: present for you in a meaningful way that helps shape
Speaker 1: you and protect you during those years when you're coming
Speaker 1: of age as a young woman, which is something that
Speaker 1: you talk about a lot in the book, and your
Speaker 1: relationship with your father who is no longer with us,
Speaker 1: but who was much older, and your mom in the
Speaker 1: distance and everything, and moving to l a and living
Speaker 1: in that apartment complex that every young child actor lives in. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's an ongoing journey for you. How
Speaker 1: do you feel now about your life and where you're
Speaker 1: at and your mental health. Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like it's an ongoing process. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I said, I love my therapist. I'm still very active,
Speaker 1: you know, in working with her. It's I feel like,
Speaker 1: more than ever because of my son, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do the work as as much as possible in a
Speaker 1: way that I've never done before. A lot of it
Speaker 1: is just up in the air for me now and
Speaker 1: just trying to process it and and live in the gratitude.
Speaker 1: I feel like so much of it for me was
Speaker 1: just I totally felt like I was alone. You talk
Speaker 1: a lot in the book about your weaknesses or what
Speaker 1: you perceived to be your shortcomings or emotional weaknesses. What
Speaker 1: do you think that you've learned about yourself through this? Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think your strengths are? Definitely a survivor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I came across this excerpt. I think it's Agamemnon, and
Speaker 1: it was the translation was to suffer, suffer into truth,
Speaker 1: and I just thought it was so beautiful and so powerful.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I guess I tried to make
Speaker 1: that one my own in a way, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's my strong suit. I try to find solace
Speaker 1: in that within myself. I know that I have the
Speaker 1: strength to keep going and I get working with the
Speaker 1: vulnerability to share too. That's important for me to do now,
Speaker 1: especially you know, when I can work with organizations like
Speaker 1: Child Health, Invested Almar and because that to me is
Speaker 1: I feel like, this is just the real reason why
Speaker 1: we're here, to share of our experiences, to help encourage
Speaker 1: one another and to break cycles, right, to break cycles
Speaker 1: of behavior, patterns of behavior, cycles of abuse. And you know,
Speaker 1: moving forward in your marriage with your husband now and
Speaker 1: creating a different kind of set of patterns, right, you
Speaker 1: want to create change in your life? Yeah, not easy,
Speaker 1: but trying to just be present, and I think also
Speaker 1: understanding and working with the full spectrum of emotions, learning
Speaker 1: to express oneself. The part of your book where you're
Speaker 1: in the hotel room in Australia with you know, your
Speaker 1: pilates instructor, and that shutting down, you know, emotionally when
Speaker 1: you're being vulnerable, telling him something that you wanted to
Speaker 1: share with him out of respect for your sexual relationship,
Speaker 1: and then him reacting in that way and you shutting
Speaker 1: down and kicking throwing him out. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: relate to that so much because it's such a default
Speaker 1: that we go do you know, like when you're not
Speaker 1: emotionally healthy, like you have two modes of operation it's
Speaker 1: like aggressive or rejection. And how would you characterize your
Speaker 1: marriage this time with your husband now in the way
Speaker 1: that it's different than your past relationships. I try to
Speaker 1: be as present as possible. We try to talk, you know,
Speaker 1: address everything, just communicate and hold space for one another.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, that's the work for me, is
Speaker 1: understanding what those triggers are. It's doing the work for
Speaker 1: me to try to understand what might really be happening
Speaker 1: or how I might be reacting to it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's that kind of thing. So I think we just
Speaker 1: try to be present, communicate with one another about everything
Speaker 1: so that it's um I think that's what I didn't
Speaker 1: do enough of. And how did your mom and your
Speaker 1: brother's react to reading the book? Good question? Haven't had
Speaker 1: those conversations? Yeah? Really? Yeah yeah, But again that's not
Speaker 1: why I did this, you know, And it was important
Speaker 1: for me to say like this. I was never trying
Speaker 1: to write this as like a blame game. You know.
Speaker 1: This was my experience and and my story and my
Speaker 1: sharing of it. I think that's important for people to remember.
Speaker 1: I'm curious and this is kind of a question for
Speaker 1: both of you, but where is the point for you
Speaker 1: where you feel like with something traumatic like that, that
Speaker 1: it becomes your story to tell, and you know, you
Speaker 1: have to take the onus on yourself to tell your story,
Speaker 1: even though it may hurt other people. I would say
Speaker 1: that everyone has the right to tell their story, and
Speaker 1: it's really not up to other people what your story is,
Speaker 1: because that is your agency. But I always try to
Speaker 1: explain to somebody like you might think something that could
Speaker 1: be something so small like sentence said to someone could
Speaker 1: affect one person in no way and then it could
Speaker 1: destroy someone else's world. So it just depends. You know,
Speaker 1: I think, yes, we are entitled to share of our
Speaker 1: story and how that experience was for us. You know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't ever trying to say that no one else
Speaker 1: had an opinion. And again, what was so great for
Speaker 1: me is how there were people who because you know,
Speaker 1: there were names changed, not all of them, but there
Speaker 1: were people that knew who I was talking about. That
Speaker 1: was terrifying to me, actually grew out who that person was.
Speaker 1: Where people wrote to me on a relationship that they
Speaker 1: had with that person after me. God, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: very powerful for me too. Yeah, it's funny. I had
Speaker 1: I wrote one of my books. I changed the names
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But I wrote about a friend of
Speaker 1: mine and and it wasn't in the most complimentary way,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't really. It was we all took a
Speaker 1: trip to Africa and she was a hot mass on
Speaker 1: the trip, so it was kind of you know, neither
Speaker 1: here nor there, nothing super incriminating or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But she was pissed about I had sent her the
Speaker 1: book before I had changed her name, her description, and
Speaker 1: she got so upset about the book and then I
Speaker 1: had dinner with her a couple of years later, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I have a new book coming out,
Speaker 1: and she leans in she goes, is it about me again?
Speaker 1: And I thought, and I said no. And the fucking
Speaker 1: other one wasn't about you either, Like relax. It was
Speaker 1: so annoying that she took this section of my book
Speaker 1: that was one chapter and made the entire thing about her,
Speaker 1: and while it was, you know, a component of many,
Speaker 1: many stories and many chapters in my book, and then
Speaker 1: had the temerity to think that I would write about
Speaker 1: her again after the last round of annoying nous that
Speaker 1: they caused, It's like, no, I would never do that again.
Speaker 1: Dedicated it to you. Yeah, yeah, exactly to your fake name,
Speaker 1: so you won't know who it is either. See if
Speaker 1: you can figure that one out anyway, Mina, I'm glad
Speaker 1: that you're doing so well. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: really courageous thing and a courageous book. I really want
Speaker 1: everyone to read this because it's important to know, you know,
Speaker 1: about the experiences that you don't have when you're growing up,
Speaker 1: and to kind of feel other people's pain, because it
Speaker 1: is a painful book to read. And there were times
Speaker 1: where I just wanted to put it down to give
Speaker 1: myself a minute, and I had to remind myself that
Speaker 1: everyone's story is so important to know about, especially when
Speaker 1: it's dissimilar to your own. You know, to really work
Speaker 1: on your empathy and compassion for others when it's especially
Speaker 1: when it's uncomfortable. And I know that many women have
Speaker 1: had similar experiences to you, and so that it will
Speaker 1: be helpful for them as well. You're welcome. You're welcome. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, I was just within. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you keep in touch with Jason Biggs, but after
Speaker 1: reading about American Pie, was just with him in New York.
Speaker 1: He and his wife Jenny. Yeah, no, I do. I
Speaker 1: mean I know that you're close with Jenny too. They're amazing.
Speaker 1: Well they're too hot messes also, so yeah, too hot.
Speaker 1: We went to dinner with them, and I always forget
Speaker 1: Jason's not Jewish because he reminds me of such a
Speaker 1: Jewish guy. I'm always like Jason, you know, like then
Speaker 1: he's like, no, Chelsea, I'm Italian, and I'm like Jason.
Speaker 1: Jews and Italians are basically the same thing. All that guilt. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we have some callers. We're gonna give advice. This
Speaker 1: is an advice podcast, and it's all stuff that's in
Speaker 1: your wheelhouse, and you and I and Catherine will go
Speaker 1: for it and talk to people. I'll try. Yeah, great, Well.
Speaker 1: Our first question comes from Brianna. She says, Dear Chelsea,
Speaker 1: I recently moved to a new city, and I was
Speaker 1: fortunate to meet a girl that I really get along with.
Speaker 1: We both moved to the city around the same time
Speaker 1: and have spent quite a lot of time exploring the
Speaker 1: bar scene in the area. We've been hanging out for
Speaker 1: a few months, and I'm starting to notice that every
Speaker 1: time we go to the bar, the main focus is
Speaker 1: on meeting men and having them pay for our drinks. Now,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, it's fun having guys pay for
Speaker 1: drinks and flirting with strangers sometimes, but it seems like
Speaker 1: that's the only thing she likes to do. Now we're
Speaker 1: at the point where I feel like we don't really
Speaker 1: have anything interesting to talk about because we're both new
Speaker 1: to the city and don't have many friends here. I
Speaker 1: don't feel comfortable leaving her at the bar alone with
Speaker 1: the sometimes creepy men she meets. But I also hate
Speaker 1: waiting a round while she entertains losers for the chance
Speaker 1: at getting a free agent and tonic. This past weekend,
Speaker 1: she was involved in a pretty dangerous situation where the
Speaker 1: guy she decided to leave with wouldn't take her home,
Speaker 1: and she ended up having to sneak out in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night and call an uber to get home.
Speaker 1: She's such a pretty girl and has a really well
Speaker 1: paying job, so I truly don't know why she feels
Speaker 1: she needs to do this. How do I tell her
Speaker 1: that her behavior is coming across pretty desperate and annoying.
Speaker 1: I really don't want to lose my new friend, Brianna. Well, men,
Speaker 1: this is something you talk about a lot of your
Speaker 1: book when you tell I mean not that this woman
Speaker 1: is an addict. We don't know what her history is
Speaker 1: or if she has a drinking problem or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but you talk a lot about friendships and addiction in
Speaker 1: your book. So what are your thoughts on that, on
Speaker 1: having an honest conversation with somebody, because a lot of
Speaker 1: people are not in a state to hear that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if there's addiction are all
Speaker 1: involved there, but I feel like the thing that came
Speaker 1: to me first, is just approaching this person, is saying
Speaker 1: I love you, I'm worried about you, and I worried
Speaker 1: that you might not be in the safest situation. You know,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that, Let's have a conversation, you know,
Speaker 1: approaching it with love, because I mean, I think about
Speaker 1: my friend Tracy, who just simply said it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be this way. It was just somebody who really
Speaker 1: engaged with me, really saw me maybe having that moment
Speaker 1: of you know, really engaging with her in a quiet
Speaker 1: surrounding right where you can focus on one another and
Speaker 1: approach it with love and concern. Isn't that what it's about.
Speaker 1: We're worried about her getting hurt eventually. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that what was powerful with your friend Tracy in the
Speaker 1: book is that she said it in a quiet way
Speaker 1: and it wasn't allowed confrontational way. Looked at me and
Speaker 1: she stopped me with it because she was in the
Speaker 1: car and I was running to her and it was
Speaker 1: just hurried, but she just stopped and turned to me
Speaker 1: and just held space for a second. And and and
Speaker 1: that's why I think it hit me, because she was
Speaker 1: basic and to give people context, this is a situation
Speaker 1: with a person that Mina was in a relationship with.
Speaker 1: They were having what they hoped to be a threesome
Speaker 1: with this woman and she was not interested, and so
Speaker 1: she kind of she left, well she didn't kind of
Speaker 1: she left, and Mina chased her out to the car.
Speaker 1: To give everybody context, so I would say, also, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know, anytime you're having a conversation, it
Speaker 1: has to be coming from a place of love if
Speaker 1: you want any it to land at all, which is
Speaker 1: something that took me a really long time to understand
Speaker 1: because I like to tell people the truth all the time,
Speaker 1: and people don't necessarily want to hear that. So when
Speaker 1: you start out with I love you, I care about you,
Speaker 1: and try to take out any sort of condescension or
Speaker 1: any sort of tone that could be read as patronizing.
Speaker 1: And I mean the fact that she had that a
Speaker 1: guy wouldn't take her home and she had to kind
Speaker 1: of escape his house in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: is a is a red flag. And you want to
Speaker 1: make that first experience the last experience that something like
Speaker 1: that happens, And you don't want to be in a
Speaker 1: relationship with a friend that you're going to constantly be
Speaker 1: worried about. You're there for her and you and you
Speaker 1: love her, but you don't want to be put in
Speaker 1: that position. You know, it's not a safe situation, and
Speaker 1: it's and it causes you distress. Even hearing about that
Speaker 1: one night stand kind of causes me distress, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean for any woman out there. So it's it's
Speaker 1: just out of a respect for your relationship when you're
Speaker 1: out together that it shouldn't be all about getting guys
Speaker 1: to buy you drinks. That's kind of a boring story
Speaker 1: After a while, anyway, it seems like a fun endeavor,
Speaker 1: and after the third or fourth time, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: why didn't you rather just enjoy each other's company and
Speaker 1: then meet people naturally instead of trying to get them
Speaker 1: to do something for you. I mean, I'm more curious
Speaker 1: as to why she feels like she can't approach her
Speaker 1: friend in that way. She's clearly worried enough for she's
Speaker 1: writing to you about it. Yeah. Yeah, Well some people
Speaker 1: don't like to have those conversations at all. Yes, And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I learned earlier on was
Speaker 1: again just approaching it instead of I think I feel
Speaker 1: m hmm, Yeah, you're saying I think you you this,
Speaker 1: and you're doing this, and don't do that. It accusatory
Speaker 1: and we want to shut down. Yeah, Like I'm approaching
Speaker 1: you with love and I feel that, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: worried or I feel that this might not be safe
Speaker 1: for you. I think that because we all have our
Speaker 1: trauma right, the walls will come up as much or
Speaker 1: as quick. Yeah. And I also think it's always good
Speaker 1: to frame everything as we when you're talking to your girlfriends.
Speaker 1: You know, when my girlfriends are going through a bad thing,
Speaker 1: it's always like, we're going to get through this, We're
Speaker 1: going to do this. And when you're talking to a friend, like,
Speaker 1: I don't want us to be put in these situations.
Speaker 1: I don't want us to be in dangerous situations, so
Speaker 1: that it's not accusatory, and that it is more of
Speaker 1: a concerted effort. You know, if you feel like you
Speaker 1: have a team member, it feels like you're more you know,
Speaker 1: on a team. So I think it's always good to
Speaker 1: frame things as we Like, let's be safer when we
Speaker 1: go out. Let's not rely on guys to be buying
Speaker 1: us drinks. Let's have open conversations about you know if
Speaker 1: things are bothering us, and this is bothering me, so
Speaker 1: I want us to be able to last long, long
Speaker 1: in this friendship. So yeah, those are all good ways
Speaker 1: to start the conversation. And you should definitely have that
Speaker 1: conversation with her sooner than later. And listen, if she
Speaker 1: gets upset and she doesn't want to be friends with you,
Speaker 1: then that sucks. But you know, you have to be honest,
Speaker 1: and you have to be forthright and truthful, and I
Speaker 1: think it's really powerful to, you know, have people know
Speaker 1: that you're always coming at them with truth, and that's
Speaker 1: a great attribute to hold onto. Yeah, and sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just like more fun to go out with your girlfriends
Speaker 1: than have to worry about hugging up with a guy.
Speaker 1: I used to do that all the time, Like when
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties and I'd go out to bars.
Speaker 1: It was all about getting guys to buy us drinks.
Speaker 1: And I don't even understand why. I think it was
Speaker 1: the validity of being hot enough that like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I go out and know, you know, I don't have
Speaker 1: to pay for anything, and it's like it was just
Speaker 1: so it was just such an immature part of my
Speaker 1: life and that's what I guess your twenties are are
Speaker 1: partly for, not the entire ten years of your twenties,
Speaker 1: which is what I did. But it wasn't like I
Speaker 1: didn't have the money to buy myself a drink. It
Speaker 1: was like this thing like it made me be feel wanted,
Speaker 1: Like I wanted to be able to walk into a
Speaker 1: bar and just have any guy at my disposal and
Speaker 1: be the hottest girl there and and have my friends
Speaker 1: know how powerful I was with you know, the way
Speaker 1: I looked, in the way I felt, which is all
Speaker 1: silly now that I think about it. So it's it's
Speaker 1: not something that you're ever going to look back and
Speaker 1: be like, oh yeah, I used to get guys to
Speaker 1: pay for my drinks all the time, like high fiving
Speaker 1: each other, So you know you want to wrap that
Speaker 1: behavior up sooner than later. Anyway. Okay, good luck to you, Brianna.
Speaker 1: Let us know what happens. Stay in touch. Yes, and
Speaker 1: our next question comes from a caller. This is Katie.
Speaker 1: Katie says, dear Chelsea, I'm twenty nine years old and
Speaker 1: I'm married with two kids. My whole world revolves around
Speaker 1: these kids. I'm so obsessed with them. It hurts. I
Speaker 1: still work full time, but I'm always home with them.
Speaker 1: Outside of work, I rarely see friends or take much
Speaker 1: time for myself. My husband and I have had about
Speaker 1: two date nights in the last calendar year. Our youngest
Speaker 1: is only five months, which I know, Mina you can
Speaker 1: relate to that, and is still in our room at
Speaker 1: night for breastfeeding, so intimacy has to be pretty planned out.
Speaker 1: When I make plans with friends, I tend to feel
Speaker 1: guilty being away from the kids, are leaving my husband
Speaker 1: home with both of them, though he never complains. We
Speaker 1: don't have many family members around that are capable of
Speaker 1: watching the kids, and I'm not comfortable asking anyone I
Speaker 1: don't know well, like a teenage babysitter. Obviously, I'm struggling
Speaker 1: to balance life as a mother and finding time to
Speaker 1: maintain other relationships, needing some encouragement. Katie. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: Hi Katie, I feel you a Katie. Hi, It's so
Speaker 1: nice to meet you. Guys. Hi, how are you? I'm
Speaker 1: doing really well? Um, I'm sorry. I have managed to
Speaker 1: go this whole pandemic without using zoom at all, so
Speaker 1: so this is relatively new for me. I feel like
Speaker 1: the new Zoom is docu Sign. For some reason, I
Speaker 1: get five things to docu sign every day when I
Speaker 1: used to get five invitations for Zoom. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: are we slowly transitioning from Zoom to docu sign where
Speaker 1: we just signed documents instead of having to talk to
Speaker 1: each other. Well, you're doing fine. You made it happen.
Speaker 1: We can see you and we're both here. I'll let
Speaker 1: me to start this because she's a new mother and
Speaker 1: I'm not. Oh gosh, I feel like I mean, my
Speaker 1: son's only six months. I am not doing it any better.
Speaker 1: I feel you. It's so hard. Yes, it is. And
Speaker 1: there have been a couple updates since I sent in
Speaker 1: my submission, one of which we did kick our son
Speaker 1: out of our bedroom. So that has been huge great congrats. Yes,
Speaker 1: so a little private time with me and my husband
Speaker 1: after the kids go to bed sometimes just some me time.
Speaker 1: That's been a huge improvement there. Oh wow, you sound
Speaker 1: like you've really gotten ahead of your own problems though,
Speaker 1: writing in here and already solving like two of them.
Speaker 1: Because that's what I was going to suggest, is really
Speaker 1: setting time aside for yourself. I also want to just say,
Speaker 1: first and foremost is like, you know, this kind of
Speaker 1: we always beat ourselves up about the amount of time
Speaker 1: we're spending with this person or that person, or the
Speaker 1: strength of a relationship or the quality of it. You know,
Speaker 1: I was at a dinner the other night and I
Speaker 1: was like, is this quality time? Is this enough quality time?
Speaker 1: Like I was trying to stuff it all in, And
Speaker 1: when we put that pressure on ourselves, it's just unfair
Speaker 1: to the entire situation because it's just unnatural to try
Speaker 1: and force Like when you go out with your girlfriends,
Speaker 1: you should be able to have that time with them
Speaker 1: and enjoy it and not feel guilty about leaving your
Speaker 1: husband at home. And he's not making you feel guilty,
Speaker 1: So why are you making yourself feel guilty? You know exactly.
Speaker 1: And there's a big, I think social media aspect to this,
Speaker 1: where every mom is spending tons of quality time and
Speaker 1: you know, there's no screen time, and we're exposing them
Speaker 1: to all the right things and which thing is going
Speaker 1: to screw them up for the rest of their lives?
Speaker 1: All that stuff to look at on social media, and
Speaker 1: I think everyone's slacking off secretly, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: just all curated and I just need to get over myself.
Speaker 1: I went over to my friend's house the other day.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you this, and her four year
Speaker 1: old through an iPad at her face. This is the
Speaker 1: seventh child. No, this is the second child. I have
Speaker 1: another friend who throws iPads as well, whose son throws iPads,
Speaker 1: And I'm so horrified. And just just to let you know,
Speaker 1: everyone is slacking off. You know, everyone is completely full
Speaker 1: of ship on Instagram at social media about what they're
Speaker 1: doing right, and anybody that is really doing the right
Speaker 1: thing isn't bragging about it. So nothing replaces real, genuine,
Speaker 1: authentic love and time spent. You know, somebody said, or
Speaker 1: I think we were talking last one of one of
Speaker 1: our last episodes Katherine about quality time versus quantity, Right,
Speaker 1: quality versus quantity, and that you can't force it's it's
Speaker 1: the quantity of time you spend with somebody that leads
Speaker 1: to the quality of time. Right. You don't just meet
Speaker 1: somebody on a fly and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you're able to stuff that into one dinner or one whatever.
Speaker 1: And overall, like your presence with your children is going
Speaker 1: to come back in spades for you. You caring and
Speaker 1: thinking about their well being you caring and thinking about
Speaker 1: how much time you're spending and taking care of yourself
Speaker 1: as well as setting a side time for you and
Speaker 1: your husband is all that you need to do. That's
Speaker 1: all you need to do is just be present and
Speaker 1: all of those moments, because every time we're able to
Speaker 1: just access our presence right, it always leads to more
Speaker 1: and more presence and happiness and less anxiety about what
Speaker 1: you're doing wrong and more confidence about what you're doing right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know what, I know that you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: And to be honest, I tell people this. I work
Speaker 1: in a pediatric hospital. I'm a nurse, and I meet
Speaker 1: these parents that are staying in the hospital with their kids,
Speaker 1: which is totally appropriate, but at the same time, I
Speaker 1: try and remind them, you know, you need a break.
Speaker 1: You can't take care of your kid if you don't
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. And I say this to people
Speaker 1: all the time, and I just don't do it myself.
Speaker 1: I did the same thing we all do that, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's something about I feel like it's
Speaker 1: so like embedded though too. My funds only six months,
Speaker 1: but I'll wake up with that panic or that like
Speaker 1: thanks when you feel like you have to take care
Speaker 1: of yourself, but then you feel guilty taking a show.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's hard to describe. But and also
Speaker 1: there's that great quote. The advice you give best is
Speaker 1: the advice you need to seek most. You know, That's
Speaker 1: what you're saying. And Katie, Yeah, when you're giving that
Speaker 1: advice and dolling it out at the hospital, remember to
Speaker 1: direct it right back at yourself. Because you've got all
Speaker 1: the knowledge you need and you've got all the skill
Speaker 1: sets you need. It's just about applying it to your
Speaker 1: own life rather than giving it out to other people.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could do both. Obviously, you don't want
Speaker 1: to withhold from giving out great advice to other people either. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really shape you guys given me this time, and
Speaker 1: like I said, I know what I need to do,
Speaker 1: I just need other people, for some reason, to just
Speaker 1: tell me to do it. How's your sex life with
Speaker 1: your husband? It's good. It's not what it used to be.
Speaker 1: We still are pretty active, but I do still have
Speaker 1: some discomfort sometimes from delivery that I maybe need to
Speaker 1: talk to someone about. But it has made drastic improvements
Speaker 1: that since, like I said, we kicked our son out,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would imagine that would be a better scenario.
Speaker 1: That is my worst nightmare having waking up and oh,
Speaker 1: I slept with my Bert, my baby Bert, who's my dog.
Speaker 1: Not to compare my dog to your child, but I
Speaker 1: did put trap him in the bed last night because
Speaker 1: I'm only home for three nights. I'm on tour, so
Speaker 1: I'm never home. And I had my boyfriend over and
Speaker 1: I had Birt in the bed and he goes, is
Speaker 1: he really going to sleep between us? And I go,
Speaker 1: don't even fucking say that sentence. Yes, he's going to
Speaker 1: sleep between us. And he's like, what was going to happen?
Speaker 1: I'm like, we're just don't worry. We're gonna have sex
Speaker 1: to every thing is gonna work out. Don't get it twisted.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I slept with my baby in my bed
Speaker 1: last night. So I can't even pretend that I don't
Speaker 1: sleep with my child. As I'm sitting here telling discomfort,
Speaker 1: you are always just very aware of the dog for
Speaker 1: the baby who might be asleep, but you just always
Speaker 1: kind of know they're there. Are I think you know
Speaker 1: the thing that kind of keeps popping into my brain too,
Speaker 1: as far as like making the time and taking the
Speaker 1: time for yourself is sort of like bravery is feeling
Speaker 1: the fear and doing it anyway. I think some of
Speaker 1: the most amazing moms that I know in my life
Speaker 1: are women who feel the guilt, but they take time
Speaker 1: for themselves anyway. They take time for the occasional massage
Speaker 1: or just to go be alone for a little while.
Speaker 1: And you know, to your point about the way that
Speaker 1: social media makes things look too, it's like we don't
Speaker 1: really know what's going on in those homes. We don't
Speaker 1: know what kind of childcare that person has, we don't
Speaker 1: know what else they have going on. And it's not
Speaker 1: always all about being right there there, Nanny's right, right.
Speaker 1: And also to just to relate it a little bit
Speaker 1: back to Mina's book, you know, like when we avoid
Speaker 1: something or ignore something, it doesn't go anywhere. It just
Speaker 1: gets deeper embedded in us, you know, and it becomes
Speaker 1: our story and our narrative. So like when you ignore
Speaker 1: yourself or your needs or your wants, or you don't
Speaker 1: take the time that you need for yourself, it will
Speaker 1: bite you in the ass. So that should be motivations
Speaker 1: to take care of it, because that kind of resentment
Speaker 1: or however it manifests itself in you and your psyche
Speaker 1: in your body isn't worth it. You know, you want
Speaker 1: to be healthy and strong for your children, so that
Speaker 1: means being healthy and strong. I have a friend who's
Speaker 1: always like, I don't have time for self help, but
Speaker 1: I don't have time for self care. I have three children,
Speaker 1: you know, and she has this kind of martyrdom around it,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, and she's always frazzled, and she's
Speaker 1: always at the end of her rope and she's always
Speaker 1: about to lose it, and that's no way to go
Speaker 1: through life either. Hopefully she's not listening. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: want to stressful mom? Yeah for sure, Yeah I do.
Speaker 1: A couple of people asked when we had our second child,
Speaker 1: are you going to stay home? And that was never
Speaker 1: really thought in my head. But I always said, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm really a better mom when I can miss them
Speaker 1: just a little bit when I'm at work and I
Speaker 1: can come home and you know, cherish that time a
Speaker 1: little bit more right, And I think that you speak
Speaker 1: for a lot of mothers when you say that. So
Speaker 1: your problem is easy. Be grateful. You don't have a
Speaker 1: bigger problem. This is easily solved. Yes, you're exactly what
Speaker 1: You're exactly you're happy and healthy. Yes, yes they are.
Speaker 1: And if you feel this way, you're probably a really
Speaker 1: great mom. You know, if you're feeling those much guilt,
Speaker 1: then you know you're probably giving them a ton. You're
Speaker 1: clearly too because of what you do as your occupation.
Speaker 1: You're clearly a giver. You need someone to give you
Speaker 1: a little more. Yeah, time for you now. Yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: for calling in, Katie. Yes, I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Sure, I love giving parenting advice.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I'm going to teach a parents in class.
Speaker 1: I've decided at my pool every morning between nine and am,
Speaker 1: so you have a very small window to get there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Would you like that, Mina. I love it. I love
Speaker 1: your advice. I want you to beat my mom. Well.
Speaker 1: Our next caller is Gabrielle. She says, Hi, my name
Speaker 1: is Gabrielle and I am a twenty five year old
Speaker 1: woman lost in the world. My mother's largest goal of
Speaker 1: her life was to have a baby with or without
Speaker 1: a man. Eventually, after many miscarriages, I popped into her
Speaker 1: world at a young age. She told me she had
Speaker 1: had an affair with a married man who was my father.
Speaker 1: He would show up from time to time in the
Speaker 1: first decade or so of my life. The issue is
Speaker 1: that he never told his wife or children about me.
Speaker 1: I'm still a huge secret. My mother passed away in
Speaker 1: my late teenage years, leaving me to grow up too fast.
Speaker 1: The advice I seek is should I break my father's
Speaker 1: twenty five years secret and introduce myself to my siblings,
Speaker 1: who are now married with children of their own. Deep
Speaker 1: down inside, I know revealing myself would stroy their childhood
Speaker 1: memories of their father. And to add to that, my
Speaker 1: father is a prominent man in a big city, and
Speaker 1: revealing myself could make quite the waves for the entire town.
Speaker 1: Gabrielle Wow, wow, Hi Hello, Hi, Hi. Oh, how are
Speaker 1: you well? How are you? I'm good, Thank you, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with Mina and Catherine. We just read
Speaker 1: your submission. Wow. That sounds like a lot to be
Speaker 1: dealing with on your own. Yeah, you know, honestly, there's
Speaker 1: been so many things that have happened since that. It's
Speaker 1: kind of one of those things that's in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind, doesn't really hold a lot of weight,
Speaker 1: but it's something that comes to the forefront, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean right off the top of my head. Mina,
Speaker 1: tell me if you agree with me, and and also Catherine,
Speaker 1: I want to know what you think, because I I
Speaker 1: it goes back to what we were talking about earlier
Speaker 1: in the episode about everyone has the right to their
Speaker 1: own story. And while your identity would be a major
Speaker 1: disruption for this person, it's his history and his accountability,
Speaker 1: and it's your story, and you have every right to
Speaker 1: reach out to him or to reach out to your
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, if that is your right as a
Speaker 1: human being. You know, you don't get to be invisible
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to acknowledge something and you don't
Speaker 1: even know if that's still how he feels. You're assuming
Speaker 1: it's how he feels, which could be accurate. Well, honestly, Um,
Speaker 1: after my mom passed away, I reached out to him,
Speaker 1: and this was when I was a freshman in college
Speaker 1: and I asked for his help, and he told me
Speaker 1: he'd financially helped me if he made sure that this
Speaker 1: didn't come to light. And it was just because I
Speaker 1: needed a little bit of help with my tuition. I accepted,
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm pretty sure, like I know exactly
Speaker 1: where he stands on that, and that's really rough, but
Speaker 1: that's where I'm at. Yeah, that sounds painful. How did
Speaker 1: that make you feel when he said that? A little frustrated?
Speaker 1: For sure? I mean I I told him that my
Speaker 1: mom had passed, and he didn't even get that into
Speaker 1: his head. He's a perfect Catholic, and so he said
Speaker 1: that his prayers and thoughts were with me, and then
Speaker 1: I had to like really break it into his head
Speaker 1: that like she actually died, it wasn't just something that
Speaker 1: like she was going to recover from. Um. It made
Speaker 1: me feel really frustrated, But I was thankful to be
Speaker 1: able to finish my school because of it, and I
Speaker 1: hated to go to those links. I hated, you know,
Speaker 1: being in the predicament just because I went to a
Speaker 1: really good school that was a lot of money and
Speaker 1: so even with financial aid, I just had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a discrepancy that I couldn't come up with.
Speaker 1: So it did make me just, yeah, really sad, really sad.
Speaker 1: And that's also something to consider, you know, putting yourself
Speaker 1: out there in that way, if it's only to be
Speaker 1: rejected and you know, there's no guarantee of being embraced
Speaker 1: by your siblings. It sounds like he's not going to
Speaker 1: be embracing the situation. Do you want to set yourself
Speaker 1: up for that? That's why I came to you, honestly,
Speaker 1: because you know, everybody says you should do it, just
Speaker 1: rip the band aid off, like you deserve this. But
Speaker 1: it breaks me out. I mean, I've had a lot
Speaker 1: of death in my life. I've had a lot of abandonment,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, I'm not sure if I want
Speaker 1: to open myself up to that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: do I just never say anything? Because if not now,
Speaker 1: when I'm actually an adult, when and is it going
Speaker 1: to be something I like take to the grave as
Speaker 1: a regret? I don't want that either. Well, what would
Speaker 1: be your motivation and reaching out to them to to
Speaker 1: develop a relationship, like, what would be your ultimate goal? Yes?
Speaker 1: I would like to know my family. I mean I'm
Speaker 1: an only child technically other than them, so without a mom,
Speaker 1: without parents stuff like that. I mean, I want family
Speaker 1: just like everybody else does. And who how do you
Speaker 1: have in your life that is close to you and
Speaker 1: important to you? Um? For a long time. I've been
Speaker 1: just like you, Chelsea, and my biggest people in my
Speaker 1: life for my dogs. But I have a significant other
Speaker 1: now and some of my mom's side of the family.
Speaker 1: But it's different when you're just a cousin or a
Speaker 1: niece compared to if you were actually, I don't know,
Speaker 1: larger member of a family. You know. Yeah, I just worry.
Speaker 1: I worry about, you know, if their reaction, which all
Speaker 1: sides are pointing into the direction that it's a big
Speaker 1: secret and that they're not going to be welcoming you
Speaker 1: with open arms. And that's not to say that after
Speaker 1: time passes and they're able to digest it, that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't open you with open arms. But I don't want
Speaker 1: you to set yourself up for that kind of rejection
Speaker 1: because that's just going to create more and more reason
Speaker 1: for you to go to therapy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's creating, it's creating trauma in a way if it
Speaker 1: doesn't go your way. So I before you would even
Speaker 1: be able to consider doing that, you would have to
Speaker 1: be in such a place of strength and mental health. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: are you actively in therapy? I mean that's something that
Speaker 1: I think about. My therapist stopping me and saying that
Speaker 1: she wanted to have a conversation with me before I
Speaker 1: spoke with my mother, and that was sort of surprising
Speaker 1: to me because I thought, oh, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just going to do it on my own, but
Speaker 1: it was important for her or to, I don't know,
Speaker 1: guide me through that or make sure that I was
Speaker 1: in the right place. And I also feel like with
Speaker 1: what you're saying, it's just like I mean, I think
Speaker 1: about my own experience. You're the only one who's going
Speaker 1: to know when that time is right, and if you're
Speaker 1: going to take that chance, you're the only one who's
Speaker 1: gonna be able to give yourself that answer, because I
Speaker 1: feel like that's the only real way to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is important and I think part of
Speaker 1: that process, but ultimately, I think you're going to have
Speaker 1: to decide if you're going to take that step or not.
Speaker 1: I am actively in therapy. I do have a lot
Speaker 1: of friends that are basically like family, and my significant
Speaker 1: other is so supportive. He was even incredibly surprised that
Speaker 1: I would write into a show about it because I
Speaker 1: am quite private about it. It's not something that I
Speaker 1: speak about often, but thanks to my therapist. I've been
Speaker 1: trying to come to some sort of conclusion, and Chelsea,
Speaker 1: I've even a micro dos to it in mind. For
Speaker 1: that matter, I have really thought about this a lot.
Speaker 1: It's just it does I have a fear. I have
Speaker 1: a fear of rejection. I mean, it would really stink
Speaker 1: to actually go through with all of that and then
Speaker 1: for them to, for one thing, maybe not believe me.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a huge possibility. How am I supposed
Speaker 1: to force them to like swab their mouths or like
Speaker 1: to get a DNA you know what I mean? Is
Speaker 1: their freedom in that fear? Yeah, yeah, there is there,
Speaker 1: definitely is well. And I mean you bring up a
Speaker 1: very good point, you know, with twenty three and me
Speaker 1: and all these other ways that you can share DNA. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have done something like that and
Speaker 1: one of them decides for the moment like oh, let's
Speaker 1: like find out what my ancestry is, and they find
Speaker 1: out there's a half sister out there somewhere, you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a way you can leave that door
Speaker 1: open without taking direct action. What was your micro dosing
Speaker 1: experience when you micro dosed with this in mind? What
Speaker 1: what what came to you. Well, actually, it was funny
Speaker 1: that you mentioned tree because I was thinking about that
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, that's another huge reason, not just
Speaker 1: because I want family, but because I deserve to know
Speaker 1: what I have in my genetics, you don't I want
Speaker 1: to know, like if and when something's going to happen
Speaker 1: to me, what runs in the family. Why have people
Speaker 1: died on that side? You know? And so that did
Speaker 1: come to mind a lot, and I felt more open,
Speaker 1: and you know how it gives you the euphoric after effect.
Speaker 1: I felt a little more calm and less fearful, but
Speaker 1: after a while without micro docing again, than the fear
Speaker 1: kind of creeps back in. So I definitely thought of
Speaker 1: that idea because that's a huge reason that I really
Speaker 1: want to know myself more and I want to know
Speaker 1: the people that are related to me. Is that the psilocybin,
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, the micro docing Gabrielle is psilocybin. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love psilocybin. I've finally gotten over the stomach related
Speaker 1: stuff and found a good way to consume it so
Speaker 1: that that doesn't happen. Yeah, sometimes when I take it,
Speaker 1: I don't like that stomach feeling too. I get little nauseated. Right, Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I hate that feeling. I but wait, I
Speaker 1: actually have more in common with you and this problem
Speaker 1: that I realized because I just remembered I have a
Speaker 1: brother that came out of the woodwork, like ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I forgot that. So there's six kids in my family,
Speaker 1: and about ten years ago, maybe eight, I have no
Speaker 1: sense of time, maybe eight years ago, this guy contacted
Speaker 1: us and said that my dad was his father. He
Speaker 1: looked exactly like my dad, more so than even my
Speaker 1: brothers looked like my father. And I guess my dad
Speaker 1: had gotten this woman pregnant right before he married my mother,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't exactly the same. But it was a
Speaker 1: brother that none of us knew we had. I was
Speaker 1: probably less interested in learning about him than my brother was.
Speaker 1: One of my brothers became is in touch with him.
Speaker 1: They they've met, they've met in person, they communicate online
Speaker 1: via email, etcetera. And but he wanted to know about
Speaker 1: his genealogy and his history, and he wanted to know
Speaker 1: about his health history, and and so he had every right.
Speaker 1: I mean, my sister spoke with him at one point.
Speaker 1: I think a bunch of people did. I never have,
Speaker 1: And I think it's well, I found out he was
Speaker 1: a Republican and so that was a really hard pill
Speaker 1: for me to swallow. But I think people will have
Speaker 1: different Do you know how many children are in that family? Um?
Speaker 1: Yes too, and they're both females. Yeah. I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say, if it had been a woman, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have hesitated no matter what to meet with her because
Speaker 1: I would want that feeling and I would want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge her. For some reason. Because it was a man,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel that need. I guess because I'm just
Speaker 1: so close with my two sisters. I'm close with my
Speaker 1: brothers too, but it just doesn't even compare. You know,
Speaker 1: men are so stupid, so my sisters are just so powerful.
Speaker 1: So I mean, in that sense, I think there's a
Speaker 1: different tie and a different poll once you get past
Speaker 1: the hurt. So I think if you get to a
Speaker 1: place where you feel confident and you and again what
Speaker 1: Mina said is absolutely true. It has to be your decision.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be my decision for you. But
Speaker 1: if you get to a place where you feel like
Speaker 1: that is absolutely what you must do. Writing a letter
Speaker 1: in advance to them breaking it down, breaking it down
Speaker 1: from your perspective that you're alone, you're an only child,
Speaker 1: you lost your mother. You just wanted to reach out
Speaker 1: to your family members, and that you'll understand if they
Speaker 1: don't respond, or you know, you don't even have to
Speaker 1: say you understand whatever is true to you, you know,
Speaker 1: giving them time to digest that. I think most well
Speaker 1: rounded women would want to reach out to another woman
Speaker 1: and you can't really understand what their personalities are or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but given sometimes to digest that information,
Speaker 1: I think would produce a different result than obviously anything
Speaker 1: more dramatic like showing up or calling or any of
Speaker 1: those things. Not that that's what you had planned. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you had a really good point to Chelsea,
Speaker 1: where we think of this as like they might reject
Speaker 1: you or they might accept you, but you might have
Speaker 1: sort of a mixed bag where one of them is
Speaker 1: really interested in meeting you and getting to know you,
Speaker 1: and the other one isn't as interested in that. So
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's that potentiality too. I know that's
Speaker 1: something that happened with a friend of mine. She found
Speaker 1: out as an adult after her parents had passed that
Speaker 1: while they had split up for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: her father had had a child with someone else, and
Speaker 1: two of her siblings want to have a relationship and
Speaker 1: the other two don't so, and your health history is
Speaker 1: your business. Anyway, I suppose you could get that from
Speaker 1: your father. Anyway, you could email him directly and say
Speaker 1: that you need that information, which you should do. That
Speaker 1: was true, and Nina's right. I need to do it
Speaker 1: when I feel like I'm ready to do it. And
Speaker 1: you are also right in saying that writing a letter
Speaker 1: instead of just showing up is definitely a better idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say you're such a beautiful, wonderful person, Gabrielle.
Speaker 1: Really thank you. You know, we all come from somewhere,
Speaker 1: but I need to just have such a grasp over everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's really impressive, and you should give
Speaker 1: yourself a lot of credit. Yeah, you should, thank you.
Speaker 1: You should, absolutely, Gabrielle, and also recognize how wonderful it
Speaker 1: is to have a partner that you trust and that
Speaker 1: you love, and that you have so many friends like
Speaker 1: you mentioned, there are a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: that don't feel like they have any of those things.
Speaker 1: So you're so ahead of the game, and like, if
Speaker 1: you if you want to live in that world, you
Speaker 1: already have enough to draw from from that. You've created
Speaker 1: your own family, and so looking outside of that into
Speaker 1: a situation that is unknown isn't necessarily going to be
Speaker 1: the most productive thing for you. Yeah, you're right, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take that into mind. Hopefully one day I'll
Speaker 1: be able to just pull that band aid off and
Speaker 1: at least give them the opportunity to have their feelings
Speaker 1: about it, rather than mulling it over in my head
Speaker 1: repeatedly coming up with scenarios that may not play out
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, there's a lot of conjecture and speculation
Speaker 1: that we put into things that may or may not
Speaker 1: ever come to fruition. And that's our brain at work
Speaker 1: and our ego at work. And so enjoying what you
Speaker 1: have and and relishing all of the wonderful things that
Speaker 1: you already have going for you, which we can all
Speaker 1: tell that you've got your ship together in a big way.
Speaker 1: That's big, you know, celebrate that and enjoy that. And
Speaker 1: disrupting the situation in the way that you're talking about
Speaker 1: is something that really needs to be seriously thought out.
Speaker 1: And obviously you are thinking about it, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like you're ready to do that, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to make that decision tomorrow or the next day
Speaker 1: or the next day. An opportunity may present itself for
Speaker 1: you in the future where then it makes total sense
Speaker 1: to do it, you know, yeah, when you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll happen that moment. Thank you, guys. Yeah, we deserve
Speaker 1: to be happy to you. Don't forget that. Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: I've definitely taken all the traumatic things that have happened
Speaker 1: in my life and used humor dark humor. It's a
Speaker 1: really big leaning point in my life and finding the
Speaker 1: light even when it seems like there isn't any You
Speaker 1: have to find some way to turn your perspective because
Speaker 1: that's really all you have. As you're saying that, there's
Speaker 1: all these light beams coming down on you in your
Speaker 1: car while we're watching you. So I just want you
Speaker 1: to know the lights has found you. Thank you guys. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: gabriel We'll take care and keep us posted if anything changes,
Speaker 1: let us know if you do contact them, just keep
Speaker 1: us posted if anything develops. Definitely will do. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys so much. Thanks Gabrielle. Well let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: But I think there's more to unpack with Gabrielle's story. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's take a break after that. She's that's a tough one. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's heavy. Yeah, and especially her feeling this guilt around
Speaker 1: having accepted money in exchange for her silence, and you know,
Speaker 1: to me, it doesn't feel like that's something that needs
Speaker 1: to buy her silence forever. No, no, no, I agree
Speaker 1: with you and that he doesn't get to buy her silence.
Speaker 1: You know, I was going to suggest, you know, I
Speaker 1: was thinking while she was on the call, I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe she should wait until the father dies. And I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: why is she no, she should do whatever she really
Speaker 1: wants to, because why I get let him off the hook.
Speaker 1: You know, he's the one that is worried about it
Speaker 1: coming to the four. But yeah, that is a It's
Speaker 1: just it's just so heavy to think about that and
Speaker 1: the kind of need that we all feel about wanting
Speaker 1: those familial bonds that desire to be loved by the
Speaker 1: people that have rejected you. Well, that humans need desire
Speaker 1: or connection. I mean, can I ask what the status
Speaker 1: is of you and your mom's relationship I'm pending. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's generational trauma too, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: we just had a perfect example of it, you know,
Speaker 1: and how these things just keep going. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: again what I did. I never wanted it to be
Speaker 1: a blame game. I never wanted this to be about
Speaker 1: like you didn't do this for me. I'm very aware
Speaker 1: of how Like even though I'm sure I'm going to
Speaker 1: give everything to my son, I'm sure he'll come up
Speaker 1: with some reason amy, you know. But that's the thing too,
Speaker 1: the process of doing that, it's like I now gone
Speaker 1: into a whole different space of like what it must
Speaker 1: have been like for my mom right when I was
Speaker 1: the fourth child? Was I lost in the mix or
Speaker 1: a lot of things my mom experienced because she was
Speaker 1: younger that didn't give her a chance to be a
Speaker 1: mature enough parental figure. And that's not her fault for
Speaker 1: me just trying to be present, do the work and
Speaker 1: break that that pattern. Yeah, And I think when you
Speaker 1: put that effort forth and you get the results back
Speaker 1: at dividends, and it doesn't necessarily happen just when you
Speaker 1: want it or where you when your crack open that conversation,
Speaker 1: because it is a prolonged conversation. It doesn't happen overnight,
Speaker 1: but it does feel like when people are really honest,
Speaker 1: painfully honest with themselves, you really benefits that you just
Speaker 1: weren't aware were of even available to your life and
Speaker 1: to your psyche and you know, even trying if you
Speaker 1: think about it as an investment for your relationship with
Speaker 1: your own child and breaking that intergenerational trauma, like I
Speaker 1: don't want to repeat the patterns of my mother, And yes,
Speaker 1: my mother is not a bad or good person, like
Speaker 1: you know, what happened between your relationship doesn't classify somebody
Speaker 1: as bad or as good because we're not taking into
Speaker 1: account their his three I didn't until I went to
Speaker 1: therapy like you, Mina, I never even took into account
Speaker 1: what my mother was dealing with, what my father was
Speaker 1: dealing with, what they've experienced when they lost their son,
Speaker 1: who was my brother. To me, it was like my
Speaker 1: brother's dad, my brother's dad. To my parents, it was
Speaker 1: their kid. So until you become a fully realized or
Speaker 1: a self actualized adult, you can't even contemplate what other
Speaker 1: people went through. And that is the meaning of being
Speaker 1: healthy is understanding that everyone's experience is different and everyone
Speaker 1: has their own perspective, and the blame game is about
Speaker 1: as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle because it
Speaker 1: gets you nowhere. And that is a narrative, a narrative,
Speaker 1: a narrative that just runs out of gas as soon
Speaker 1: as it's someone else's fault. Then you're not taking ownership
Speaker 1: over anything about yourself. Yeah, that's like how I lived
Speaker 1: my life for the most part, blaming people. You mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: like and just racing towards this idea of perfection, you know,
Speaker 1: and like holding up everyone up instant. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a lot healthier for me now to just be open
Speaker 1: and honest and real and talk about these things and
Speaker 1: working on myself. And you know, something interesting also that
Speaker 1: I've heard before and that you write about in your
Speaker 1: book is about how after you would have you know,
Speaker 1: intimacy or have an orgasm, that was when it would
Speaker 1: come into your body where you would kind of break
Speaker 1: down and really become vulnerable in those moments. And I've
Speaker 1: heard that before, and I find it so interesting because
Speaker 1: everything we were learning is that all of our trauma
Speaker 1: lives in our bodies, right, so we react in ways
Speaker 1: that we're not aware of when we're hit with these
Speaker 1: emotions and when we're hit, and it just relives and
Speaker 1: replays in your body, in your body until you go
Speaker 1: inside and fix the problem. And Yeah, there's a great
Speaker 1: book called The Body Keeps the Score. I'm reading that
Speaker 1: one right now. And then there's an amazing documentary called
Speaker 1: The Wisdom of Trauma. Totally recommend me. Is they're like
Speaker 1: mind blowing, like the best therapy you could ever get.
Speaker 1: This book's really helping me make a lot of connections
Speaker 1: and understand all of that behavior. It's really all laid
Speaker 1: out in there. Yeah, I've heard about that book. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read that. Actually, that's a book I need
Speaker 1: to read The Body Keeps the Score because I've heard
Speaker 1: that what happened for me is because of the rate,
Speaker 1: the way that sex was intertwined with it, I turned
Speaker 1: over and started bawling, And so I believe that was
Speaker 1: the trauma that came out upon that release. So there's
Speaker 1: always some form of trigger, right, that was the tension.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had moments too, like, yeah, my adrenals
Speaker 1: are shot. I've had moments too where something's happened for
Speaker 1: me and like my hands start shaking, because my body
Speaker 1: is reacting to it. So this is what I mean.
Speaker 1: This book, I'm telling you it is gold and you
Speaker 1: you you It literally tells you how it's proven. How
Speaker 1: are one of our hemispheres literally shuts down during the
Speaker 1: experience of trauma, you know. So these are the conversations
Speaker 1: to have. It's not so much like trauma builds character.
Speaker 1: I mean, people literally cannot write their brains around it.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of a disservice to say, like snap
Speaker 1: out of it. The communication isn't happening. So a lot
Speaker 1: of the work that I have to do is is like, oh,
Speaker 1: holy sh it, my hand shaking. Let me try to
Speaker 1: work with my thoughts here to actually calm my system
Speaker 1: down right. To me, that was the biggest gift because
Speaker 1: it truly helped me like understand how to help myself.
Speaker 1: Because I think that's like the biggest thing is people
Speaker 1: think like, oh, I'm the only one who's experiencing this.
Speaker 1: I'm totally lost, you know, I'm lost upon myself. I
Speaker 1: have no control, and you really do. I mean, like
Speaker 1: truly and again, in the wisdom of trauma, be or
Speaker 1: Mate is like my hero. I love this man. I
Speaker 1: want to put him in my pocket and like carry
Speaker 1: him everywhere. He's such a genius and he just expresses
Speaker 1: that like the most just literally in and of itself.
Speaker 1: How powerful is it to just understand that it's just
Speaker 1: your react ship to the trauma. It's not you. Oh
Speaker 1: my God? Like that right there is stone boarded to
Speaker 1: just remember and to work with. Yeah. I was talking
Speaker 1: to Joe last night about it. When I was reading
Speaker 1: your book. I was telling him about it, and I
Speaker 1: was saying, you know what our brains do when we
Speaker 1: experience that trauma. You know how we go into We
Speaker 1: have to shut down to survive. You have to go
Speaker 1: into denial about what is happening in order to survive
Speaker 1: the incident because otherwise it's too painful and we don't
Speaker 1: have the skills to deal with that kind of pain.
Speaker 1: And he was like, well, what happens when you get
Speaker 1: that knowledge and then you have trauma? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I think when you get that knowledge, nothing becomes that traumatic.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, know what if you know all
Speaker 1: the things you know and you've been to the therapy,
Speaker 1: you get that you go into denial and then you
Speaker 1: have a traumatic experience. And I said again, I go
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's the same level of trauma.
Speaker 1: Like you've been through something before, you can have a reaction. Yes,
Speaker 1: a building can collapse, or you could be in a
Speaker 1: plane crash, or you could get you know, sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1: Those things are all possibilities. But I think once you've
Speaker 1: lived through that and understand the way that all works,
Speaker 1: you don't go into a denial phase. But it could
Speaker 1: go the other way because interestingly enough, in the book,
Speaker 1: what they talk about is how the trauma in and
Speaker 1: of itself has a beginning middle in anet and so
Speaker 1: sometimes it can backfire. So when we're reliving things were
Speaker 1: being triggered, we don't know where we're at. Right right
Speaker 1: doesn't have that cycle anymore, And that's why I like,
Speaker 1: for me, i'll start shaking or the balling comes up,
Speaker 1: because all that tension, it's all just there. So I
Speaker 1: guess the thing that I try to do, and what
Speaker 1: I've done over the years is just let it out,
Speaker 1: allow it to come out. I don't want to incorporate
Speaker 1: it anymore into my body, so I just work to
Speaker 1: allow myself to express it, yes, and not resist it,
Speaker 1: never resist it. Yeah, because I think upon resistance we
Speaker 1: just create more disease in the body. That's just my opinion. No,
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I think that's very true. I
Speaker 1: think we're all learning that now. People they think the
Speaker 1: body is just like, you know, this thing that we're
Speaker 1: that's carrying us around. It's like it's carrying everything around.
Speaker 1: And we have such a short time here, even though
Speaker 1: it feels like it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we have so many experiences and they happen so quickly,
Speaker 1: and you know, most of us have an experience and
Speaker 1: then we have fifty tho other experiences before you can
Speaker 1: even digest what happened to you. So being in touch
Speaker 1: with your body is never going to steer you down
Speaker 1: the wrong path. It's only going to make you stronger
Speaker 1: and healthier. Yeah, mind, mind, body spirit, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: That's right, sister, Mind, body spirit, openness. Don't resist pain,
Speaker 1: let it out, grieve, cry, deal with your trauma and
Speaker 1: let it out, because that is the way to extinguish
Speaker 1: it if it's ever going. I said this to my
Speaker 1: girlfriend yesterday. She was like, I didn't expect to be
Speaker 1: in this kind of pain. And remember you're not alone,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. Watching the wisdom of trauma. It truly
Speaker 1: changed my life after everything that I've gone through and
Speaker 1: the work that I'm still doing. Just truly understanding that,
Speaker 1: like every time you're entering the world, it's just it's
Speaker 1: all trauma up against one another. It's it's it's It
Speaker 1: gave me the ability to just hold even more space
Speaker 1: and compassion for other people and to not feel like
Speaker 1: again because I was just I feel like trauma just
Speaker 1: makes you feel like you're alone, and then you're just
Speaker 1: piste off all the time. And then when you just
Speaker 1: realize like, oh, we all kind of are like to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, it just feel like next level about
Speaker 1: this documentary and it can really push us into this space.
Speaker 1: We have to communicate more with one another. We have
Speaker 1: to understand that we're not alone. It's like it's reached
Speaker 1: the breaking win and I think we can just work
Speaker 1: with each other more, you know, and understanding that we
Speaker 1: all have that right instead of like looking at Instagram
Speaker 1: and acting like none of us do and constantly holding
Speaker 1: ourselves up against something that is real. Yeah, it'd be
Speaker 1: nice when Instagram goes away, won't it. Actually? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wanted to just like overheat, self destruct maybe Instagram can
Speaker 1: go to the moon with Elon Musk and whoever else
Speaker 1: is going to the moon there it is. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: can save it for that civilization that they create up there.
Speaker 1: They can give Instagram to them. Will be like, we
Speaker 1: have this leftover from Earth. Would you mind taking it
Speaker 1: from us because we can don't know? And it was fun,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's like we have to. We
Speaker 1: have two gifts for you, Instagram and climate change, and
Speaker 1: they're all yours. Goodbye. Anyway, Mina, it's been a pleasure
Speaker 1: speaking with you. I'm glad you wrote this book. It
Speaker 1: was really powerful. I want to encourage anybody who suffered
Speaker 1: trauma please pick this up and know that you're not alone,
Speaker 1: and people who haven't. It's a great book to get
Speaker 1: into the psyche of a lot of women in this
Speaker 1: world and a lot of people who have suffered things
Speaker 1: that you know. Maybe you haven't, but it's so important
Speaker 1: to understand what that is like and why how that
Speaker 1: develops in a person, and how patterns of behavior are
Speaker 1: so hard to break but when they do, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you have like a whole new world. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. I'm so grateful. Really, it was
Speaker 1: our pleasure. Thank you, Mina, have a great day. Thank
Speaker 1: you you too. Okay, take care all the best, lots
Speaker 1: of love, take care okay. Well, in conclusion, Catherine, I'm
Speaker 1: eager to well. I guess I'm still thinking about Gabrielle
Speaker 1: and I stick with you, I know. And then I
Speaker 1: remembered my brother that I haven't even spoken to, you know,
Speaker 1: I had no interest in meaning him. And then I thought,
Speaker 1: oh god, am I going to tell her that? But
Speaker 1: then I just figured I had to because it's the truth.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I have no interest in getting to know
Speaker 1: my half brother. I don't know what that says about me,
Speaker 1: but that's how I feel. Well, I think, just like
Speaker 1: Mina said, if it becomes the right time, I think
Speaker 1: you'll know, you know, you're feeling might change on that.
Speaker 1: I just I think also because I have so many siblings,
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, not another one. That's how I feel. Like,
Speaker 1: Wait a second, we're our party bus is full? Uh?
Speaker 1: Would you want to if you found out that you
Speaker 1: had a half brother or a half sister that contacted you,
Speaker 1: what would your reaction be? Do you think? I think shock,
Speaker 1: of course first, and then interestingly, actually, in my family,
Speaker 1: my dad is that person. He found out like all
Speaker 1: of his family when he was in his mid twenties,
Speaker 1: and he was he was he was the sort of
Speaker 1: secret baby who like everyone knew about, but he didn't
Speaker 1: meet any of his family he was in his mid twenties,
Speaker 1: and so I grew up just knowing all of his
Speaker 1: siblings as like my aunts and uncles, but found out
Speaker 1: later in life like, oh no, these are all his
Speaker 1: half siblings. And I mean, I think if that was
Speaker 1: my situation, I would want to know them because in
Speaker 1: my family, it's very like cool one more great, like
Speaker 1: let's add another, whether it's Thanksgiving or something. If there's
Speaker 1: a friend who doesn't have somewhere to go, where someone
Speaker 1: doesn't have a place to stay for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: they would always come stay at our house. And so
Speaker 1: I think after the shock war off, I think I
Speaker 1: would be open to meeting them. Does everyone have a
Speaker 1: secret sibling? I think that's the title of this episode.
Speaker 1: I think it might be okay, well, problem solved. Okay.
Speaker 1: With regard to my stand up, you guys, I have
Speaker 1: added seven or thirty cities, I'm not sure, but thirty cities.
Speaker 1: We've added des Moines, We've added your request people, people
Speaker 1: who requested Louisville, Kentucky. Guess fucking what I'm coming. We've
Speaker 1: added Montclair, New Jersey. We've added a whole slew of cities,
Speaker 1: So if you have not gotten your tickets yet, do
Speaker 1: it Chelsea handler dot com. We just announced thirty more cities,
Speaker 1: twenty seven or thirty Niagara Falls. I'm talking to you too,
Speaker 1: so stuck on that. I'll see everybody on tour, loving it,
Speaker 1: vaccinated in horny. Bye. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week