Speaker 1: I have been in fight or flight mode for most
Speaker 1: of my life. What that has done to my brain
Speaker 1: and my body, my mental well being is if I
Speaker 1: continue at this rate, catastrophic. Hey everyone, welcome back to
Speaker 1: On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
Speaker 1: Thanks to each and every single one of you that
Speaker 1: come back every week to listen, learn, and grow, and
Speaker 1: I am so excited to be talking to you today.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of
Speaker 1: Love is out and I cannot wait to share it
Speaker 1: with you. I am so so excited for you to
Speaker 1: read this book, for you to listen to this book.
Speaker 1: I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already,
Speaker 1: make sure you go to eight Rules of Love dot com.
Speaker 1: It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or
Speaker 1: let go of love. So if you've got friends that
Speaker 1: are dating, broken up, or ruggling with love, make sure
Speaker 1: you grab this book. And I'd love to invite you
Speaker 1: to come and see me for my global tour Love Rules.
Speaker 1: Go to Jay Shelleytour dot com to learn more information
Speaker 1: about tickets, VIP experiences, and more. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see you this year. Now. I find it really an
Speaker 1: amazing fortune that I get to sit down with incredible
Speaker 1: people who are so open vulnerable led us into details
Speaker 1: about their lives so that we can feel a sense
Speaker 1: of connection to them, but also understand that we're not
Speaker 1: alone in some of the pains that we go through,
Speaker 1: some of the challenges that we have, and also that
Speaker 1: we can learn from some of the changes they've made,
Speaker 1: from some of the transitions and transformations they've been through
Speaker 1: as well. And today's guest has a truly inspiring story
Speaker 1: that I cannot wait to share with you. I'm talking
Speaker 1: to none other than Lily Ryanhart. Lily has quickly amassed
Speaker 1: an impressive resume, is one of Hollywood's most exciting young
Speaker 1: actors on screen and is quickly becoming a multifaceted talent
Speaker 1: with projects as an executive producer and author. Lily will
Speaker 1: next be seen starring in the incredible Netflix film which
Speaker 1: I Want You to Go and check out, Look Both Ways,
Speaker 1: which she is also an executive producer of. Lily will
Speaker 1: star as Natalie, whose life, on the eve of her
Speaker 1: college graduation diverges into two parallel realities I find that fascinating,
Speaker 1: can't wait, one in which she becomes pregnant and must
Speaker 1: navigate motherhood as a young adult in her Texas hometown.
Speaker 1: The other in which she moves to La to pursue
Speaker 1: her career. I can relate to the latter. Lily recently
Speaker 1: starred an executive produced the coming of age drama Chemical Hearts,
Speaker 1: based on the best selling novel Our Chemical Hearts, and
Speaker 1: Lily starred opposite our dear friend Jennifer Lopez and the
Speaker 1: film Hustlers, which went on to make over one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million at the box office. And of course,
Speaker 1: Lily plays our favorite Betty Cooper in the TV series Riverdale,
Speaker 1: and for her performance, Lily won seven Teen Choice Awards
Speaker 1: and has been nominated for three People Choice Awards. On
Speaker 1: top of all of this, I don't know how she
Speaker 1: has the time, and we will ask her that. As
Speaker 1: an author, Lily wrote Swimming Lessons, which is a collection
Speaker 1: of poems. I'm a huge fan of poetry, so can't
Speaker 1: wait to dive into that. Beyond all of this, the
Speaker 1: part that I'm really excited about is Lily is an
Speaker 1: activist for mental health and body image and uses a
Speaker 1: platform to raise awareness to these deeply important issues. Please
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Well, hearing it all in front
Speaker 1: of you is a little bit like, oh right, I
Speaker 1: forgot about those things. But thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. It's truly such an honor. I'm a fan,
Speaker 1: My friends are fans. They're stoked for me to be here.
Speaker 1: So I love hearing that. That means the world. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing that. Yeah, I'm deeply looking forward to
Speaker 1: this conversation. I do like to remind people of the
Speaker 1: incredible awards and accolades and the incredible success that you've
Speaker 1: achieved because you've been on your own path to get there.
Speaker 1: It hasn't come to you. You've made changes, shifts, transitions,
Speaker 1: as I said, But I wanted to start off kind
Speaker 1: of how we did when you first came in, because
Speaker 1: I love that we discovered that you're addicted to junk
Speaker 1: food in sweets, and I can relate, and so I
Speaker 1: had to ask you what is your favorite junk food
Speaker 1: to start off with. I mean, I'm a like I
Speaker 1: love taco bell. I am a fast food. I grew
Speaker 1: up having fast food. I'm a fast food and of
Speaker 1: course it's the most addicting thing in the world, so
Speaker 1: very addicted to fast food. Well, you said to me
Speaker 1: you had something on the way in and McDonald okay, regrettably,
Speaker 1: And I said, as I was pulling into the drive
Speaker 1: through that I'm actively hurting my body and my brain
Speaker 1: as I'm participating in this. But sometimes you need fast food.
Speaker 1: I was like, I need to have my podcast, I
Speaker 1: need to be I'm sure it'll actually be slowing down
Speaker 1: my brain. But what I needed to do I needed
Speaker 1: to eat something. It was there. I could have stopped
Speaker 1: into air Wan and gotten something, but I've actually never
Speaker 1: been inside an Airwan in my life, so you know,
Speaker 1: we had to keep it real today. I get it.
Speaker 1: I got off a flight the other day and I
Speaker 1: was exhausted, and I had to drive home from the
Speaker 1: airport and I got myself a sprite and I got
Speaker 1: myself a Burgom Prize on the way. Sometime that's always,
Speaker 1: you know, even when you're trying to make the healthiest
Speaker 1: decisions in the world, it's just convenient. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: hardest thing. You love sweets too, And I wanted to
Speaker 1: find out does that mean like sour candy? Does that
Speaker 1: mean sweet tooth? Like? What what is sweets? Is that
Speaker 1: chocolate sweet? I'm not I mean I love ice cream Okay,
Speaker 1: I love everything I love. I love candy. I love
Speaker 1: like milk Duds or my candy of choice. But I
Speaker 1: love sour Patch kids. I love savory ice cream. Like
Speaker 1: savory ice cream, I don't know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's the right word. Actually, probably not the right word.
Speaker 1: I just love ice cream in general. Yeah. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: always happy to connect on this these truths because I
Speaker 1: think as soon as we start talking about health and
Speaker 1: won as everyone everyone thinks that you live this life.
Speaker 1: And I know I, like I said, I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to Sunday for kind of ordering my bergran fries. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that I find fascinating about you
Speaker 1: when when we were doing our research, is that you
Speaker 1: started out and you've had multiple jobs before this. You've
Speaker 1: had multiple different careers and things I looked at was like,
Speaker 1: you were a hostess at a restaurant, you worked at
Speaker 1: a bakery, you're a sales associate, a role at pier
Speaker 1: one Imports. Yeah, and when I saw that list, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is incredible. Talk to me about what
Speaker 1: you learned from each of those roles in each of
Speaker 1: those jobs. It's funny because I was literally a hostess
Speaker 1: at a restaurant for three hours and then I quit
Speaker 1: because I had a panic attack in the bathroom. I
Speaker 1: worked at a bakery for one shift five hours, had
Speaker 1: a panic attack, quit for some reason. Peer one Imports
Speaker 1: is the only it's like, the only job that I
Speaker 1: was able to have outside of acting where I didn't
Speaker 1: have a panic attack. Although I'm pretty sure I didn't
Speaker 1: have a panic attack, but I didn't quit that one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I had to make money. I
Speaker 1: wanted to pursue my career in LA and you obviously
Speaker 1: need funds to move across the country and do so
Speaker 1: and support myself. So I struggled through a job there.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that it wasn't that bad. It was mostly
Speaker 1: I know how to break down boxes really well. I
Speaker 1: worked in the stock room breaking down boxes. It was
Speaker 1: fun during Christmas time opening all I was like, it's Christmas,
Speaker 1: I'm opening all the Christmas stuff. But I also did
Speaker 1: I was like enjoyed the cash register. I remember, it
Speaker 1: was so weird. I was so used to saying my
Speaker 1: full name for self tapes, like Hi, I am Lily Reinhardt.
Speaker 1: I'm however old, and I'm auditioning for So the phone
Speaker 1: rang at pier One once and I was like, this
Speaker 1: is Lily Reinhart and I just thought that was the week,
Speaker 1: like the worst that. I was like, this person's probably
Speaker 1: like who that was such a weird thing. I would
Speaker 1: think you would really professional. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is this is phnameh Yeah, yeah, very memorable. I
Speaker 1: am sure that person remembers it quite well. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: would be amazing. If that person is watching this or
Speaker 1: finds this somehow, please let us know because we would
Speaker 1: love to love to discover you. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: those episodes. I mean to start a job and in
Speaker 1: three hours to have a panic attack, to have five
Speaker 1: hours and have a panic attack, I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: let me know how old you were in both those jobs.
Speaker 1: But like, what was the cause of that? Where was
Speaker 1: that coming from? How did that happen? I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: so I was living in North Carolina at the time.
Speaker 1: We had moved from Ohio to North Carolina for my
Speaker 1: dad's job when I was sixteen, so I was prepping
Speaker 1: to move to la and obviously needed to have money
Speaker 1: to do so, so I was trying to find a job.
Speaker 1: My anxiety at that point really am from oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is so not what I want to be doing,
Speaker 1: but it's the means to make it happen. So the
Speaker 1: anxiety came from this is absolutely not where I want
Speaker 1: to be, but I know I have to be here
Speaker 1: because I need money. I have to make money. So
Speaker 1: the anxiety was like, don't have money, need it, have
Speaker 1: crippling anxiety and can't hold a job, but I need
Speaker 1: a job. So it was very, very isolating, and I've
Speaker 1: you know, I've been fortunate enough. I have really terrible anxiety,
Speaker 1: but I don't suffer from too many panic attacks, but
Speaker 1: I obviously have had them. I know how they feel.
Speaker 1: It's the worst thing in the world. And having those
Speaker 1: in those environments was so awful, and I always immediately
Speaker 1: text my mom. I don't know how she does it.
Speaker 1: She has been very much the person that I turned
Speaker 1: to during these moments in my life of of panic
Speaker 1: and anxiety. She's always at the other end of the
Speaker 1: phone or the other end of the skype or the
Speaker 1: FaceTime or whatever I need her in She's there. So
Speaker 1: I feel very lucky to have such a grounded I'm like,
Speaker 1: if I'm having a panic attack, you know Amy is
Speaker 1: gonna know about that. I really appreciate you sharing this,
Speaker 1: because I think so many people can relate to that anxiety.
Speaker 1: I remember when I came out of the monastery, left India,
Speaker 1: moved back to London. Took me about ten months to
Speaker 1: get my first job. Finally got a job. I was
Speaker 1: working at this big consulting firm. I was back in
Speaker 1: the professional corporate world, which is what I would have
Speaker 1: done if I hadn't become a monk, and I was
Speaker 1: working at a client where I didn't really understand what
Speaker 1: we were doing. I'd been out of the working world
Speaker 1: for like four or five years at that point, so
Speaker 1: kind of lost a lot of my training in that world.
Speaker 1: I struggled with small talk. I'd come back from this
Speaker 1: and I remember feeling so anxious that I would take
Speaker 1: the longest lunch breaks, like I would disappear from work
Speaker 1: for like two to three hours because I just couldn't
Speaker 1: have those conversations. I didn't know what to do. I
Speaker 1: wasn't very good at my job, and I remember going
Speaker 1: up to our senior manager at the time and saying
Speaker 1: to him that I know there's a space for me
Speaker 1: in this company, but I don't think this is the
Speaker 1: right role, or this is the right client because the
Speaker 1: work we're doing here, I feel really a deep lack
Speaker 1: of confidence and I'm really just feeling anxious. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the way he responded increased my anxiety. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, was he comforted? And so I did this.
Speaker 1: You did three to five hours, and you knew yourself.
Speaker 1: I lasted two weeks, and so this is after two weeks.
Speaker 1: He said, Jay, you realize people work really hard to
Speaker 1: get this job and then they do as they're told
Speaker 1: and they don't decide to shift after two weeks. And
Speaker 1: he said, if you shift after two weeks, you'll pretty
Speaker 1: much be ending your career with us, like that's what
Speaker 1: it's going to be like. And I just still knew
Speaker 1: that this was just not where I needed to be.
Speaker 1: And so what ended up happening was they told the
Speaker 1: client that we were servicing, so my company gave services
Speaker 1: to a client. They told the client that I wasn't
Speaker 1: performing well and so that they were going to let
Speaker 1: go of me. And they literally walked me out of
Speaker 1: the office as if i'd just been fired. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't fired, just let go of that client, but they
Speaker 1: made me feel like I was fired. So to pack
Speaker 1: my box shame so painful. How did you communicate? You
Speaker 1: obviously texted your mum, but how did you communicate? How
Speaker 1: were you received by your the people you worked with,
Speaker 1: the person who was the boss or the owner, Like,
Speaker 1: how did they respond? I mean they didn't know me
Speaker 1: and I didn't know them. It wasn't even like a
Speaker 1: two week it was genuinely nice to meet you. Here's
Speaker 1: this shift. Oh now she's quitting, right, So I genuinely
Speaker 1: don't even know what their impression was. I remember the
Speaker 1: bakery I worked at. The man the boss was just
Speaker 1: very concerned with getting the apron back. It was like
Speaker 1: a very like, okay, well make sure you return the apron.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I will make sure the apron
Speaker 1: gets back. So that was strange. Did you give them that?
Speaker 1: I actually don't know if I ever did. Um, sorry,
Speaker 1: but I think I felt more shameful about it towards
Speaker 1: like my parents and my sister, my older sister, because
Speaker 1: my little sister was young and didn't have a job.
Speaker 1: But I think I just felt like, oh, look, how
Speaker 1: pathetic I am. I can't even like my anxiety is
Speaker 1: really that bad. I can't even hold down a job
Speaker 1: when I know My sister at the time was like
Speaker 1: a hard working waitress at a restaurant and had been
Speaker 1: for multiple years. So I just felt pretty pathetic at
Speaker 1: the time, which is obviously a very shameful feeling. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's so tough, and especially for it to happen twice.
Speaker 1: And when you start judging yourself and you start causing
Speaker 1: pain towards yourself verbally or yeah, yeah, you become internally
Speaker 1: abusive towards yourself, and as you said, you start comparing
Speaker 1: yourself to to siblings and partners or whoever else family
Speaker 1: that's in your life. Yeah, how did you get the
Speaker 1: courage to try again when when you've got into such
Speaker 1: a dark space of and it's not just a dark space,
Speaker 1: it's like you're actually experiencing physical panic attacks. So it's
Speaker 1: not just mental, it's physical and mental, it's emotional. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you still getting the courage to go? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go peer one input, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to go even into acting. Of course, it was my
Speaker 1: drive to be an actress. It's it's something that has
Speaker 1: truly lived so deep inside me. It's the core of
Speaker 1: who I am, which will come back to that because
Speaker 1: but but it was truly my undying ambition and drive
Speaker 1: to be an actress, where I knew I needed money.
Speaker 1: I needed money to make this happen, and the anxiety
Speaker 1: was just going to have to I was going to
Speaker 1: have to find something that I could handle, tolerate, I
Speaker 1: think was the right the right word. You know. I
Speaker 1: obviously couldn't be going to work and having panic attacks
Speaker 1: every day, so I just need to find something that
Speaker 1: I could tolerate. And Peer one ended up being a
Speaker 1: situation where I was working around mostly older women, which
Speaker 1: I think also says something about who I amn't. I
Speaker 1: wasn't comfortable working around these young people, who I felt
Speaker 1: because I have social anxiety, and at the time it
Speaker 1: was pretty bad. I was living a very isolated life,
Speaker 1: so being around these young girls who were also there
Speaker 1: made me feel even more out of place. And so
Speaker 1: I found myself more comfortable in a job where I
Speaker 1: was around middle aged women who weren't judging me, weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily interested in talking to me about my personal life.
Speaker 1: I just really wanted my job to be my job.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to make friends, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: create relationships. I just was there to make money. And
Speaker 1: then bounce. Basically, that's a great lesson for all of us,
Speaker 1: because I think we often feel that you can get
Speaker 1: into such a dark place that nothing can get you out.
Speaker 1: But what you're saying is actually your drive to where
Speaker 1: you wanted to be and who you wanted to be
Speaker 1: was able to pull you out of that space to
Speaker 1: try again. It was, and I'm very thankful, very thankful
Speaker 1: for that. I never really gave myself a plan B.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a backup option. I knew I was
Speaker 1: going to be an actress. I didn't know what my
Speaker 1: career would look like at all, and I still don't
Speaker 1: know what it's going to look like. But it's because
Speaker 1: it's still, you know, a hustle, and you're still always working.
Speaker 1: But I really knew this is my dream. I have
Speaker 1: to do what I have to do to make this work.
Speaker 1: And I had moved to LA when I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: had had such bad anxiety while I was here, tried
Speaker 1: to hold down a job in La, was hired, didn't
Speaker 1: even work a shift, had a panic attack, and quit.
Speaker 1: And that was the moment I skiped my mom, literally
Speaker 1: hyperventilating in a paper bag, and said I need to
Speaker 1: come home. I'm not okay because I had been there
Speaker 1: for five months that I've been here for five months
Speaker 1: at the time, and it wasn't making any money and
Speaker 1: I clearly could not handle the stress and anxiety of
Speaker 1: holding down a job here, so moved back home for
Speaker 1: six months, went back to Pier one. It worked as
Speaker 1: many shifts. I think I was working two to three
Speaker 1: shifts a week because my anxiety could not handle more.
Speaker 1: Saved up very little money. We're talking like seventeen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars in the span of six months because I just
Speaker 1: could not work that much, but I moved back to
Speaker 1: LA because there was no other option. That's incredible. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for going into detail with me. I
Speaker 1: know we like really unpacked every job and every roley,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's so needed for all of
Speaker 1: us to hear that, because obviously, when people see you
Speaker 1: doing your thing and you know, now you're like executive
Speaker 1: producing and you're an author, and you know you're acting curious, booming,
Speaker 1: it's like it's easy to believe that you're just confident
Speaker 1: and you just you know, it's easy and it's listen
Speaker 1: and even today I've met you, you're you're wonderful, Like
Speaker 1: you have great presence, you have great energy, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's been so easy to connect with you. But
Speaker 1: to hear that that's the journey that it took to
Speaker 1: get slightly more comfortable with these things. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: useful to everyone who's listening, and of course hard when
Speaker 1: you're living it. But tell me about the role you
Speaker 1: played in your home. You have two sisters, and you
Speaker 1: spoke to a bit about your mother, who I want
Speaker 1: to focus on in a second, But what was the
Speaker 1: role you played in your family like or what is
Speaker 1: the role family? Has it changed? Middle child, two sisters.
Speaker 1: My parents are happily married after thirty plus years. So
Speaker 1: very happy to have them as beautiful, loving role models.
Speaker 1: In my life, I was the kid who was very
Speaker 1: stereotypical performer. Kid did the theater, did it dancing classes,
Speaker 1: loved recitals, loved I performed in front of my when
Speaker 1: we went on big family vacations. I would make my
Speaker 1: cousins sing with me in front of the family. I
Speaker 1: was that kid and Lego was terrible at sports. That
Speaker 1: kind of like this kid is meant to be an
Speaker 1: artist for sure. And I began struggling with anxiety at
Speaker 1: a young age when I was like eleven as when
Speaker 1: I got really bad, which sounds so young thinking back
Speaker 1: on it, Like I really was feeling such complex anxiety
Speaker 1: and my parents had no idea where it was coming from.
Speaker 1: My older sister was bullied very badly and she struggled
Speaker 1: with her own issues, and so it was sort of
Speaker 1: like very hard for my parents to understand why I
Speaker 1: was struggling so badly because there were no real external
Speaker 1: factors that made sense. Nothing was really adding up, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you have you have friends, you have extracurriculars, you don't
Speaker 1: have any of these any blaring issues. Just why are
Speaker 1: you so anxious? So why do you eat schools so much?
Speaker 1: Why are you feeling this way? And so I felt
Speaker 1: a lot of isolation at that age, from the kids
Speaker 1: around me to my own family. It just felt very misunderstood.
Speaker 1: And that's really when I started going to therapy for
Speaker 1: the first time. And I really don't remember a lot
Speaker 1: of the journey because I think you're just so young
Speaker 1: you only remember so many things. But also I was
Speaker 1: in such a weird tunnel vision stage of your life
Speaker 1: where you just are in fight or flight mode and
Speaker 1: you're not really taking in your surroundings or really living.
Speaker 1: You're just surviving. And so it's interesting to think back
Speaker 1: on those times because I barely remember. All I remember
Speaker 1: is crying before school every morning, begging my mom to
Speaker 1: let me be homeschooled because I couldn't stomach the idea
Speaker 1: of walking through the door and sitting through an eight
Speaker 1: hour day with the people, the kids around me. Everything
Speaker 1: was a countdown, constantly counting down. How many hours left?
Speaker 1: How many hours until this class is over? When can
Speaker 1: I go to the bathroom so I can have five
Speaker 1: minutes to be alone, When can this happen? When can
Speaker 1: I do this? Blah blah blah, Always counting down to
Speaker 1: something so very much not living my life. It was
Speaker 1: always rushing through it. If you're a business owner, the
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Speaker 1: way to hire. One of the hardest things about mental
Speaker 1: health I feel is that it's invisible, like no one
Speaker 1: can see it, no one understands it. And often people feel, well,
Speaker 1: you have this, so why would you be anxious? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't add that you have this, or then why
Speaker 1: would you experience depression? And it's hard when it's your
Speaker 1: own family and you know, when you're talking about being
Speaker 1: that young, it's probably when the mental health conversation wasn't
Speaker 1: as open as it is now, not at all. Where
Speaker 1: I'm hoping today that at least parents are hearing about it,
Speaker 1: are more open to the fact that they could be
Speaker 1: providing a beautiful, loving atmosphere at home and a child
Speaker 1: could still be struggling with something. And I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things for parents is that it's
Speaker 1: almost like they see it as a reflection of them.
Speaker 1: It's like, what am I doing now? What's wrong with
Speaker 1: my kid? What did I do? What did I do? Exactly?
Speaker 1: And that idea of what did I do stops us
Speaker 1: from thinking about the other and thinking about that person,
Speaker 1: when that's really the moment where a child is saying,
Speaker 1: I'm struggling with something, and the ego inside all of us,
Speaker 1: not just parents, the ego and all of us because
Speaker 1: but no, no no, no, no, that's not my fault, like
Speaker 1: or I don't want, I don't know what. This can't
Speaker 1: be right because I didn't do anything for them. It
Speaker 1: sounds like your parents are wonderful, right like from what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing, and so obviously for them, I can imagine
Speaker 1: it's hard when you start going to therapy at that
Speaker 1: young age, when you start getting exposed to this. When
Speaker 1: do you start to feel like you're gaining rules, clarity,
Speaker 1: insight that you're like, oh, I can cope with this
Speaker 1: because it sounds like from what we were talking about,
Speaker 1: it's not something that ever goes away. It's not something
Speaker 1: that ever just disappears. But you start coping better, you
Speaker 1: start managing it better. Is that accurate or yeah? No,
Speaker 1: for sure, I think the therapy was a really beautiful
Speaker 1: For one hour a week, I was talking to someone
Speaker 1: who just got it. She was an older woman. I
Speaker 1: instantly really loved her and connected with her. I still
Speaker 1: felt like it wasn't okay for me to be feeling
Speaker 1: what I was feeling like it wasn't justified and maybe
Speaker 1: I would be looked at as crazy. So I remember,
Speaker 1: even in my therapy sessions would be like, oh god,
Speaker 1: my allergies are so bad. As I had tears streaming
Speaker 1: down my face, I'm like, girl, you're in a therapy office.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to cry. And it's interesting, like the messaging
Speaker 1: from when I was a kid to what it is
Speaker 1: now is so radically different compared to even you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, how in saying, but even just from
Speaker 1: when I was a kid being I feel like you
Speaker 1: heard the thing you heard the term don't cry. You
Speaker 1: don't need to cry. Crying is the most beautiful thing
Speaker 1: you can do. I encourage people to cry. I cry
Speaker 1: all the time, and I think it's the most healthy
Speaker 1: expression of how you're feeling. And I sometimes wish I
Speaker 1: just could have been told you can cry. There's no
Speaker 1: shame in that. There's no shame in how you're feeling.
Speaker 1: And also you don't need to always be justifying it,
Speaker 1: because I think I was constantly trying to come up
Speaker 1: with reasons why rather than just being accepted for what
Speaker 1: it was. I have anxiety, I have depression, okay, but
Speaker 1: why well sometimes there isn't and navigating that space when
Speaker 1: I was so young and trying to defend myself, having
Speaker 1: my first panic attacks and not knowing what this feeling was,
Speaker 1: how I could escape it, what resources I had. You know,
Speaker 1: I was too young to really be going on the
Speaker 1: internet looking for help elsewhere. I just really had like
Speaker 1: my parents, and I guess the kids around me at
Speaker 1: school who had no idea what to tell me or
Speaker 1: how to help. You know, my friends at the time,
Speaker 1: it's not like they got it, they just didn't so
Speaker 1: I was so isolated, and I'm happy that now this
Speaker 1: is a space we're moving into where we are saying
Speaker 1: feel your feelings and that they're they're justified. You don't
Speaker 1: need to defend yourself. I'm like, damn, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of environment I want to raise my future kids in
Speaker 1: to where it's it is a beautiful thing to cry
Speaker 1: and you're allowed to feel. You're just allowed to feel.
Speaker 1: If everyone would just listen to that over and over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over again every day, like,
Speaker 1: lives would be so much better. Because telling someone not
Speaker 1: to cry is like telling someone not to laugh. Advice, right,
Speaker 1: like the worst advice. It's it's such bad advice. And
Speaker 1: because yeah, like telling someone not to cry is like
Speaker 1: telling someone not to laugh. It feels a natural expression
Speaker 1: that needs to be released in order to feel an emotion,
Speaker 1: and you're being told to block it and not feel it.
Speaker 1: You would never do that with any other emotion, but
Speaker 1: when it comes to crying, and especially as a man too,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a big part of how boys don't cry.
Speaker 1: Boys don't cry, and boys never cry and you know
Speaker 1: you'll be fine, You're okay, there's nothing wrong, and so
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, if I cry, that means there's something wrong,
Speaker 1: and that association of crying is bad is actually the
Speaker 1: biggest issue. Yeah, it's so toxic that crying becomes a
Speaker 1: negative emotion. Yea, So now when I cry, I feel sad.
Speaker 1: Even if crying was going to actually make me feel better,
Speaker 1: but it does, it does. Yeah, and we cry when
Speaker 1: there's happy tiers too. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's a release, yes, And there are so many things
Speaker 1: that need to be released from the body, the mind,
Speaker 1: the heart and everything you just said. I wish everyone
Speaker 1: would just listen to that part again and again and
Speaker 1: again and play it to their children and play it
Speaker 1: to their family members, because if that's all you take
Speaker 1: up from this conversation, it will change your life. And
Speaker 1: I know there's so many more, but that was truly,
Speaker 1: truly powerful. Oh no, no, I mean I just to
Speaker 1: kind of go deeper into that. I feel the last
Speaker 1: two years have been a very large spiritual awakening for me.
Speaker 1: Really became awakened to the spiritual side of life and
Speaker 1: really what wellness means. And I thought I knew who
Speaker 1: I was before and was confident, but really I was
Speaker 1: so much of my identity was based off of pleasing
Speaker 1: other people and putting my identity in other people's hands,
Speaker 1: and the concept I read a lot of self help books,
Speaker 1: you know, did a deep discovery on all those things,
Speaker 1: and the biggest takeaway I was gathering was how vital
Speaker 1: it is to sit with your feelings and experience them,
Speaker 1: which again just goes along you know, the concept of
Speaker 1: don't cry not you're you're pushing it away rather than
Speaker 1: doing the opposite, which is how you heal. I was
Speaker 1: on a very big healing journey two years ago, which
Speaker 1: is how this all really started. And the biggest thing
Speaker 1: I kept reading was feel like, feel your feelings, sit
Speaker 1: there and let the feeling be in your body, like,
Speaker 1: let it flow through you, observe it, don't judge it,
Speaker 1: let it happen as it needs to happen, Let it
Speaker 1: flow through you. And so that's what I That's what
Speaker 1: I did, and that's what I My perspective has changed
Speaker 1: quite dramatically over even the last couple months, and I
Speaker 1: sort of look at things this way as someone who
Speaker 1: very much struggles with anxiety and depression. When I feel
Speaker 1: very overwhelmed by those things and sort of like I'm
Speaker 1: being burdened by these things. I like to think of
Speaker 1: it as if I started out as this celestial being,
Speaker 1: this just energy and the universe or God or whomever said, Hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to go to Earth for an incredibly
Speaker 1: short amount of time, like a blip and experience every
Speaker 1: emotion that you could possibly feel as a human? You
Speaker 1: get to have all these experiences love, heartache, anxiety, joy, euphoria, whatever,
Speaker 1: all of it. Do you want to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do. And so when I am feeling these intense feelings,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a reality check to step outside
Speaker 1: and say, although this is a very uncomfortable, painful feeling,
Speaker 1: it's quite beautiful that I have the capacity to experience it.
Speaker 1: Just in general, like, I am so lucky to feel
Speaker 1: to the extent that I feel, and to feel as
Speaker 1: deeply as I feel, because it can often feel like
Speaker 1: a curse when you're having heartache, and you know, when
Speaker 1: you're experiencing love, it's absolutely euphoric, and then when it's
Speaker 1: the opposite, it's a curse. And so understanding that both
Speaker 1: of those exist in the same timeline and in the
Speaker 1: same life, and that is sort of something that I
Speaker 1: use to ground myself when I am stuck in a
Speaker 1: feeling of darkness. That is probably the best description of
Speaker 1: that ever before the idea of if we were given
Speaker 1: the choice to have this diverse set of emotions, experiences, feelings.
Speaker 1: And what you rightly said was that if you're experiencing loss,
Speaker 1: it means you've experienced love. Yeah. And if you've experienced pain,
Speaker 1: it means you've experienced joy. It actually means that you've
Speaker 1: had the fortune of receiving a glimpse of greatness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I lost my mentor to stage four brain cancer,
Speaker 1: and I lost him a few years before that because
Speaker 1: of how brain cancer works in the sense that he
Speaker 1: wasn't mentally there, even though he was spiritually there. And
Speaker 1: what I always referred to him as, which I found fascinating,
Speaker 1: was so when someone I staged four brain cancer, obviously
Speaker 1: they start to lose aspects of their memory, They start
Speaker 1: to lose aspects of identity. And his memory became so short.
Speaker 1: He had long term memory, he lost a short term memory.
Speaker 1: So if he'd see me, he'd be like, hey, J,
Speaker 1: how's it going, And then thirty seconds later, but, hey J,
Speaker 1: how's it going? Is if he'd just seen me, so
Speaker 1: he'd still know I'm Jay, and he'd still remember our
Speaker 1: relationship for many, many years, but in the moment, you
Speaker 1: couldn't have attention. But what I found fascinating was that
Speaker 1: all he did was thank people for their service to God.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. So all he'd do if he saw you,
Speaker 1: and he was a community leader, he was a priest
Speaker 1: in his own writing, if he saw you'd be like,
Speaker 1: thank you for what you're doing for others, thank you
Speaker 1: for your service. Wow. And I was like, how special
Speaker 1: was that? That? That was his broken loop was gratitude.
Speaker 1: That's the most wholesome thing I've ever heard, literally, and
Speaker 1: to experience that was just unbelievable. And it's what you're
Speaker 1: saying that yes, I miss him, and yes, of course
Speaker 1: I wish he was there. I feel like calling him
Speaker 1: up every day to tell him what I'm doing and
Speaker 1: different things that happened in my life. But the fact
Speaker 1: that I can experience that I miss someone, yeah, means
Speaker 1: that I just had something really special. Yeah. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that makes it easy. I'm saying that it reaffirms
Speaker 1: the point that you're making that we're fortunate to have
Speaker 1: both experiences because they only come together. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: do think no one really talks about how people leave
Speaker 1: your life. You know what death is. You know people
Speaker 1: are going to die, but you don't really until I
Speaker 1: think you're in your twenties honestly experience how often people
Speaker 1: come and go just in general, and it's loss. It
Speaker 1: is grief. It's not death, but it's but it's loss
Speaker 1: and how profound of a feeling that is. And I
Speaker 1: almost wish and I don't know what this looks like,
Speaker 1: or what the teachings look like or what the advice is,
Speaker 1: but just that there could be more of a conversation
Speaker 1: of when you are growing up, like people are going
Speaker 1: to come and go, and let's find ways to accept that,
Speaker 1: because I think the last two years, I've had what
Speaker 1: feels like a revolving door of people in my life,
Speaker 1: new people that I've tried to make connections with and
Speaker 1: then they leave, or people that I've been maybe not
Speaker 1: make a connection with, so there never really is one
Speaker 1: and then the relationship kind of just ends. But you know,
Speaker 1: there have been obviously meaningful relationships that come in and
Speaker 1: then they end, and so it's weird because you are
Speaker 1: going on this journey of loss and grief, but it's
Speaker 1: not death and the person still exists and they have
Speaker 1: their own conscious mind that you're sort of trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, well, how are they experiencing this? Because in death,
Speaker 1: the person's just gone and you can think whatever thoughts
Speaker 1: you have and they're yours and no one can take
Speaker 1: those away from you. Whereas when someone leaves your life
Speaker 1: and they're still around, it's like, oh, there's two sides
Speaker 1: to this story, and what is this person's experience? And
Speaker 1: I just think that's like a very interesting concept, is
Speaker 1: how do you deal with the loss of someone who's
Speaker 1: still around and around? Yeah, especially when we've been trained
Speaker 1: in society to believe that length of time equals success. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or that's the measure of love, correct, Yeah, that the
Speaker 1: measure of love, the measure of success is important longevity length.
Speaker 1: We know plenty of people that have been in a
Speaker 1: job for twenty five years that they hate yea, or
Speaker 1: have been in a relationship for fifteen years that they
Speaker 1: don't love, And you constantly find that. But also what
Speaker 1: you're saying, I think more deeply the idea that we
Speaker 1: actually deal with coming and going and the seasons of
Speaker 1: relationships far more And it's like we know that when
Speaker 1: it's winter, you put on a coat, and we know
Speaker 1: when it's summer you get to put your shorts on.
Speaker 1: And when it's spring you may carry if you're in
Speaker 1: London especially, you carry an umbrella. It's fall, you get
Speaker 1: to wear fall colors. Like you with the seasons of nature,
Speaker 1: we know how to adapt our clothing, our preparation. Not
Speaker 1: with the seasons of life. Absolutely, it just doesn't happen
Speaker 1: like you don't. You don't ever talk about the winter
Speaker 1: of life. No, it's what you're saying, if you talk
Speaker 1: about loss or death or grief, is the winter of life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't ever talk about it, and then you're unprepared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I feel very ill equipped, genuinely, and as I've
Speaker 1: been in the last two years dealing with so much
Speaker 1: of it, I'm like, there's gotta be some solutions out here.
Speaker 1: There's gotta be people who are talking about it, because
Speaker 1: I know I'm, you know, not the only woman in
Speaker 1: their twenties who's going through cycles of relationships and meeting
Speaker 1: new people and then having those people leave or me
Speaker 1: choosing to leave. So it's like, come on, guys, let's
Speaker 1: rally in brainstorm and be there for each other because
Speaker 1: I don't want to turn to Google and read stupid
Speaker 1: articles that tell me that when someone leaves your life,
Speaker 1: you should go on a hike, because if someone tells
Speaker 1: me to go on a hike one more time, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what people say. They say when someone leaves
Speaker 1: your life, when when something, when you're going through something,
Speaker 1: pick up a new hobby. Oh okay, sure I'll do that.
Speaker 1: And that'll take up three seconds of my time and
Speaker 1: probably like four hundred dollars to buy all this equipment
Speaker 1: for this new hobby, whatever it is. Maybe I'll try crocheting,
Speaker 1: and then you know, all of a sudden, I'm spending
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars and all these things, and at last
Speaker 1: two seconds, it's like, there's got to be what else
Speaker 1: can I be doing. So what I'm personally been dealing
Speaker 1: with is the struggle of what is my identity outside
Speaker 1: of everything else? What is my identity outside of everyone else?
Speaker 1: So just me an outside of work, because I'm a workaholic,
Speaker 1: and I since I was a kid, as a survival,
Speaker 1: because a coping mechanism had to basically make acting my
Speaker 1: identity to push me out of the situations that I
Speaker 1: was in and launch me into my career. So I
Speaker 1: feel that I have been in fight or flight mode
Speaker 1: for most of my life and what that has done
Speaker 1: to my brain and my body, my mental well being
Speaker 1: is if I continue at this rate, catastrophic, you know,
Speaker 1: I will lose my brain power. There's no way humans
Speaker 1: are not meant to continue living in that state of
Speaker 1: your adrenaline is always going, you know, just that fight
Speaker 1: or flight response. And I'm basically on this journey right
Speaker 1: now in my life of trying to calm that down
Speaker 1: and trying to just simply exist and sit in stillness
Speaker 1: without feeling like I need to fill a void. And
Speaker 1: that is the biggest that has been like waking up
Speaker 1: with anxiety because I'm not working the summer. I'm not
Speaker 1: filming anything. I'm promoting my movie. Very thankful for that.
Speaker 1: Um you know, I have my own production company, so
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm doing a lot of I do
Speaker 1: a lot of zooms. I do all the things. But
Speaker 1: there are days where I have nothing to do. That's amazing. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the challenge is where I'm thinking what do I
Speaker 1: do with myself? Because I have been programmed to constantly go, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me do that. I'm going to do that. Besides that,
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do I find serenity and acceptance in
Speaker 1: peace without running away from myself? Because even and I'm
Speaker 1: stopping myself in these tracks because the past week I've
Speaker 1: had such bad anxiety about not working and being bored.
Speaker 1: The fear of being bored has been haunting me, and
Speaker 1: I've been thinking, what trips can I go on? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to reach out to like literally everyone I know,
Speaker 1: when are they available? I'm filling I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: calendar on my phone, going, I'm alone that day. Need
Speaker 1: to fill that up, Like, genuinely, how can I fill
Speaker 1: my time so I'm not alone because loneliness equals my
Speaker 1: existential crisis thoughts and I'm going to spiral. So I
Speaker 1: am very much on that journey of because I know
Speaker 1: I don't want that. I do not want that. I
Speaker 1: do not want to be someone who has to fill
Speaker 1: that void. I pride myself on being someone who will
Speaker 1: never just succumb to that and be the person who
Speaker 1: always has to have friends around, always needs to be
Speaker 1: doing something. I don't want that. That's not the identity
Speaker 1: that I want. I want to be able to be
Speaker 1: okay by myself. And that's a really hard thing to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like how do you do that? But
Speaker 1: even hearing you verbalize and vocalize it is so powerful, right, Like,
Speaker 1: even to have that as an aspiration is an unbelievable
Speaker 1: power because it's a recognition of your true feelings. Going
Speaker 1: back to what we were speaking about before, you're actually
Speaker 1: responding to and listening to how your body, mind, and
Speaker 1: heart feel. And so you're already making so much progress
Speaker 1: because if you weren't listening, then you would be going
Speaker 1: against the advice that we should be allowed to cry
Speaker 1: and we should be allowed to do this. And so
Speaker 1: you're saying, well, I just need to take the next
Speaker 1: three months or however long it is, off, because that's
Speaker 1: what I'm feeling I need, And even if you don't
Speaker 1: know yet what that looks like, you're still deeply responding
Speaker 1: to that need. And so I think there's a real
Speaker 1: power in that because identifying it is one thing. Then
Speaker 1: implementing it, which you are as another thing. And then
Speaker 1: as you said, building your identity as this new identity
Speaker 1: is almost like step three. I want to dive into that,
Speaker 1: and how we do that with you and how you
Speaker 1: have found ways of doing it, because I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: you've had glimpses in these last two years where you
Speaker 1: have felt at peace with yourself, or you have had
Speaker 1: moments where you recognize the value of solitude over loneliness,
Speaker 1: or there are moments where you're starting to realize you
Speaker 1: said it in your own words, I don't want to
Speaker 1: live based on the opinions of others or for others.
Speaker 1: So there are glimpses of what this looks like, and
Speaker 1: you're piecing together the puzzle. But you were saying that
Speaker 1: you know you're going through this transition in your life
Speaker 1: right now, and our identity gets wrapped up in other people,
Speaker 1: our jobs, our work, everything around of us. And so
Speaker 1: when you're saying you're trying to understand your identity beyond
Speaker 1: this as Lily, not today, who are you beyond those
Speaker 1: things right now? It's a process for me. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to take it day by day because I overwhelm myself
Speaker 1: by trying to fix it all right away. I'm a
Speaker 1: very all or nothing person, and I'm a very compulsive person,
Speaker 1: like once I find out what's wrong, oh gotta have
Speaker 1: a solution immediately. Can't. I don't want to wait for time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to that's the worst when people say
Speaker 1: just give it time. No, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: But I would like to do it right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to be honest, I was just in Maui recently and
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful moments I had there was
Speaker 1: when I was in a very spiritual it was like
Speaker 1: a spiritual shop. They had crystals, they had but they
Speaker 1: had a labyrinth like a maze on the ground that
Speaker 1: you could walk in and just sort of it was this.
Speaker 1: It took you like good fifteen minutes to walk through
Speaker 1: all the little pathways and then you get you get
Speaker 1: to the center and you can meditate or and then
Speaker 1: you can and then you walk out and it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's there was like a whole book about about
Speaker 1: the ideology behind this labyrinth and I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: read it, but I but I took it as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to use it as just like a just meditating,
Speaker 1: a moment of meditation. And I felt so close to
Speaker 1: myself when I was doing that, like it was so
Speaker 1: true to who I was in that moment to just
Speaker 1: be doing this activity. It was so comforting. It's hard.
Speaker 1: Just like anything, you can lose yourself in something you know,
Speaker 1: you can lose yourself in becoming overly like awakened, and
Speaker 1: your whole identity becomes I'm a spiritual guru and I'm
Speaker 1: healing like all about heal, Like it's so easy to
Speaker 1: just fall into that trap, and I'm obviously trying not
Speaker 1: to do that as well, and I'm definitely not, but
Speaker 1: I my friends would would never I would never let
Speaker 1: me do that. But I do find so much therapy
Speaker 1: through even just talking about it, even if I don't
Speaker 1: have the answers. Yes, I don't have the answers to
Speaker 1: who really am I outside of my fight or flight mode?
Speaker 1: And who am I outside of being an actor? I
Speaker 1: don't really have the answers to those questions, But just
Speaker 1: even saying that out loud, it makes me feel like
Speaker 1: I'm closer to figuring it out. And I really appreciate that, honestly,
Speaker 1: because I agree too, Like I'm I'm hearing you speak
Speaker 1: and it feels the same way to me where I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're not forcing yourself at least in this moment to
Speaker 1: arrive at an answer or to give an answer to
Speaker 1: complete the sentence. But at the same time, I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a self awareness, I'm seeing a acceptance of that path,
Speaker 1: and that's what's so useful. And you are right that
Speaker 1: if you've never allowed yourself to be yourself, how would
Speaker 1: you know how to describe it? So if I ask
Speaker 1: you to describe yourself as an actress, you'd be able
Speaker 1: to describe yourself. It'd be pretty easy because you've been
Speaker 1: an actress plenty of times, or you could describe those
Speaker 1: roles that you've played. But then when someone asks you
Speaker 1: who are you to pretty much nine percent of people
Speaker 1: on the planet, we can't answer because we've never actually
Speaker 1: let ourselves be ourselves. So it's not alien to not know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I think we know who we are in relation
Speaker 1: to other people. Yeah, into things, role, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: But then when you take take the roles away, what
Speaker 1: are you? Yeah? Whoa whoa? Whoa? I do not know.
Speaker 1: I do not But that is the beginning of figuring
Speaker 1: it out, Like that's yeah, that's the biggest you now
Speaker 1: can go, Okay, am I playing Lily the actress? Or
Speaker 1: am I playing Lily the daughter friend whatever? Or am
Speaker 1: I trying to discover what Lily would do. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: And it's and it is that conversation of It's kind
Speaker 1: of like when my sister when I'm giving her relationship advice,
Speaker 1: and She'll be like, stop being j Sherry, like you know,
Speaker 1: being my brother, right, And it's like, that's what my
Speaker 1: sister would say to me, because she doesn't want a
Speaker 1: coaching conversation with her brother. She wants me to be
Speaker 1: her brother. And so then I'm like, okay, so she
Speaker 1: gets the brother version, and then there's this version that
Speaker 1: this community gets. But then it's like, but then who
Speaker 1: am I beyond all of those things? And I really
Speaker 1: realized that when I left the monk would because even
Speaker 1: so much of my identities had become wrapped in being
Speaker 1: a monk, ye, And the whole point of being a
Speaker 1: monk was to not have an identity that you're wrapped
Speaker 1: up in. Yeah, that was the whole goal. Everything you're
Speaker 1: talking about is exactly what we were working on for
Speaker 1: when I was there for three years. But even then,
Speaker 1: it was so easy to get wrapped up in another identity.
Speaker 1: And so when that identity collapsed after three years, when
Speaker 1: I when it all fell apart for me, that was
Speaker 1: when I allowed myself to learn about who I was
Speaker 1: beyond that identity, and even now I have to hold
Speaker 1: onto that. I'd say that the first of it was
Speaker 1: a sense of and this sounds painful, and it is.
Speaker 1: There is a sense of role destruction, panic and feeling
Speaker 1: something and a part of you that you use for
Speaker 1: safety to dissolve. And that's the hardest part. It's hard
Speaker 1: to let go of the false identity because it's a
Speaker 1: sense of safety. That being a monk is a sense
Speaker 1: of safety. Being an actor is a sense of safety.
Speaker 1: Being whatever is a sense of safety. And unless you're
Speaker 1: willing to go, I'm letting that safe to go. To
Speaker 1: some degree, it's very hard to say, okay, well I'm
Speaker 1: open to what this is. So that was the first part.
Speaker 1: It was like letting go of that identity externally in
Speaker 1: my language, in my intellectual thoughts about who I was,
Speaker 1: in how I thought people perceived me. And then the
Speaker 1: next step was saying, rather than who am I was,
Speaker 1: who do I want to be? So what I realized
Speaker 1: was with trying to figure out who we are rather
Speaker 1: than create who we are, and we do this as humans.
Speaker 1: We go into finding and seeking rather than creating and
Speaker 1: being and finding and seeking is the never ending journey
Speaker 1: because there's nothing to look for, there is only things
Speaker 1: to be and create. And so I realized that everything
Speaker 1: I was currently being and creating was based on values
Speaker 1: I'd adopted from family, friends, or society. So I literally
Speaker 1: made a list of what are my current values? I
Speaker 1: then asked myself where do they come from? And so
Speaker 1: it was like my parents, some kid in school who
Speaker 1: bullied me, my teacher who told me I wasn't this
Speaker 1: or that, a friend who thought I was cool or uncool,
Speaker 1: based on whatever. And then I asked myself, do I
Speaker 1: still have that value? Do I still want to live
Speaker 1: that value? And so I shifted to creating a new
Speaker 1: list of values and principles that I wanted to live by,
Speaker 1: and I just started practicing them with everyone I met.
Speaker 1: And that's how I started to create and be my
Speaker 1: new identity rather than subscribing to an old one. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense, it makes a very quick verson. No,
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense because I recently I've been having
Speaker 1: those thoughts to myself, as like, who have I really?
Speaker 1: If I were to explain myself, describe myself in a
Speaker 1: couple words, there are characteristics that I use that I
Speaker 1: don't actually like. I don't like being a negative person.
Speaker 1: But I think I would describe myself or I used
Speaker 1: to describe myself as a negative person, as a pessimist,
Speaker 1: as a full realist, not entirely hopeful kind of person,
Speaker 1: and recently was thinking, well, I don't like that. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't actually if I had the choice, I
Speaker 1: would choose to not be that person. I would not.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a negative person. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a pessimist. But it's safety. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: not getting my hopes up, it's protecting my heart. It's shelter.
Speaker 1: And how do you part ways with something that you
Speaker 1: have identified with for so long? And that's obviously a
Speaker 1: challenge in itself, but it's something that I'm very much
Speaker 1: trying to do, even with my food choices, like someone
Speaker 1: who has enjoyed really food that's really terrible for you
Speaker 1: your whole life, and now making the conscious effort to
Speaker 1: change that and fuel my body and treat my body
Speaker 1: in a better healthier way. It's it's all just making
Speaker 1: these conscious decisions of oh do I I'm just fully
Speaker 1: an autopilot right now, just choosing the same thing because
Speaker 1: that's what I've always done. Oh, I'm just being pessimistic
Speaker 1: because that's what I've always done. And it takes pausing
Speaker 1: and reflecting and making an active effort to shift that behavior.
Speaker 1: And that's so hard. It's so hard. We're simply living patterns.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's literally as simple as it is. It's
Speaker 1: like we've adopted a pattern and now we have to
Speaker 1: choose to practice a new pattern based on who we
Speaker 1: want to be. And that's why I think the journey
Speaker 1: of who am I is really who do I want
Speaker 1: to be? Who do I want to create? Who do
Speaker 1: I want to live as? Because we've never known who
Speaker 1: we are, so trying to figure out who we are
Speaker 1: is a full's errand because you just keep getting stuck.
Speaker 1: And then, like you just said, now you accept oh
Speaker 1: I'm a negative person because that's who I've always been,
Speaker 1: not realizing it's just a pattern you developed, it's just
Speaker 1: a habit you adopted. It's just what you absorb through
Speaker 1: your environment as opposed to selected it. That's truly, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's such a profound thing. That's just like settling into
Speaker 1: my brain now is even the last couple of days
Speaker 1: been thinking I need to find out who I am,
Speaker 1: like find I need to find it. I need to
Speaker 1: search for it rather than I will never get anywhere
Speaker 1: if I do that. It's a matter of who do
Speaker 1: I want to be? And then actively doing that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and selecting those values, selecting those principles, selecting the habits
Speaker 1: Like you just gave for your food. It's like if
Speaker 1: you just said who am I, I'd be like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm someone who loves chocolate, Like I'm someone who loves
Speaker 1: ice cream. I'm someone who loves junk food, fast food.
Speaker 1: But that's not who I am. That's just a pattern
Speaker 1: I built, and I can change that pattern. Yes, it's hard,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm with you on that, like it's been
Speaker 1: when I met my wife, She's the one who transformed
Speaker 1: my diet because I was always someone who is focused
Speaker 1: on mastering the mind and I kind neglected the body
Speaker 1: and kind of didn't care. And my wife is a
Speaker 1: nutritionist and dietitian and iradic chef, and so her whole
Speaker 1: world is food. Quite convenient, very convenient, huge inconvenient if
Speaker 1: you want to change your life. Yeah, And it was
Speaker 1: like she got me off refined sugar. She got me
Speaker 1: off the wrong oil. She got me off like packaged
Speaker 1: and processed foods on a daily basis. And it was
Speaker 1: so much education and so much coaching that I received
Speaker 1: from her that allowed me to make transitions where the
Speaker 1: first thing I said to was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how I would live without sugar. Yeah, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: And it sounds ridiculous now, but it's like, yeah, when
Speaker 1: I when we got married six years ago, and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I don't know what you want me
Speaker 1: to do. And then we started looking for alternatives. And
Speaker 1: now if you ask me, I pretty much would each
Speaker 1: like I guess, refine sugar maybe like once a month
Speaker 1: and so and that's amazing for me, Like that's a
Speaker 1: big thing for me because I didn't know. I grew
Speaker 1: up being four chocolate products a day. I'm getting me
Speaker 1: a chocolate biscuit, a chocolate bar, a chocolate yogurt, and
Speaker 1: a chocolate ice cream every day, and I was addicted
Speaker 1: into sugar. And so it's pattern formation though, and yes,
Speaker 1: you're so right, it requires discipline, it's painful, it's it's hard,
Speaker 1: but I love that that's dropped for you, Like, and
Speaker 1: I love that you took us there today because I
Speaker 1: think too many people are finding and looking and seeking
Speaker 1: and searching, and it's being and creating and building and forming,
Speaker 1: which is where our energy needs to go. Because you've
Speaker 1: seen yourself build a career, you've seen yourself create your roles,
Speaker 1: you've seen yourself create a book, you've seen yourself create
Speaker 1: a show. Like you created those things. You didn't find them,
Speaker 1: very true, you didn't search for them, you didn't seek them,
Speaker 1: so you know you have creative energy and creative power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my damn got to create myself now? Yeah? How exciting?
Speaker 1: It is very exciting. And then there's a sense of
Speaker 1: selection and control and not control in a control freak
Speaker 1: way really in a sense of like you can choose, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can make the choice. And in my first step
Speaker 1: was definitely the epiphany of oh wait, I actually don't
Speaker 1: want to keep identifying with this. Yeah? Yeah? Were you
Speaker 1: always you use the word spiritual? Was that a word
Speaker 1: in your vocabulary? Always? Did it arise two years ago? Like?
Speaker 1: How did that become a path to a lot of
Speaker 1: this healing and journey that you've been on as opposed
Speaker 1: to something else? Like I think there's so many options? Yeah,
Speaker 1: why this why I mean I grew up Christian. It
Speaker 1: was I went to a Presbyterian church, which I definitely
Speaker 1: do not align with those teachings anymore. But I do
Speaker 1: believe in God. I do call myself a Christian, but
Speaker 1: I also call myself very spiritual. And I think two
Speaker 1: years ago the lockdown was was forcing me to go
Speaker 1: through this this healing journey by myself. And my journey
Speaker 1: through healing was through spiritual healing and through working with
Speaker 1: actual healers and energy. And I studied, and I started
Speaker 1: to study reiki, and I'm gonna get my master, and
Speaker 1: my master's I mean, I'm going going to be a
Speaker 1: raiky master at the end of the summer, I'm taking
Speaker 1: thank you. So it became a I'm going to look
Speaker 1: inward a sort of what it was. And I found
Speaker 1: that that became, Oh, that's clearly a very spiritual route.
Speaker 1: You're looking in towards your spirit, towards your soul, You're
Speaker 1: doing shadow work, soul searching. So I was like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: spirituality is the word that I'm resonating with. And I
Speaker 1: actually went to Mount Shasta, which which is a very
Speaker 1: high vibrational, highly spiritual place in northern California, and I
Speaker 1: went there by myself and I worked with a she
Speaker 1: calls herself a sound healer, and I worked with her
Speaker 1: and found the experience I just again felt, I felt
Speaker 1: very much like I was so at home with myself
Speaker 1: while I was doing those things, so connected to myself,
Speaker 1: connected to my higher self, the person that I want
Speaker 1: to be, and so I thought, yes, this is the
Speaker 1: right path for me. And so kind of ever since then,
Speaker 1: I've been very into spirituality. And you know, I've always
Speaker 1: loved crystals. Everyone else crystals, but like looking past that
Speaker 1: into a deeper form of energy healing. And that led
Speaker 1: me to raiki, which led me to sound healing and
Speaker 1: going to sound baths and then meditation, and I took
Speaker 1: a course and I learned TM Transcendental Meditation, which wasn't
Speaker 1: really the It didn't super resonate with me. It hasn't
Speaker 1: stuck with me, but it is something that I tried.
Speaker 1: So it's in a trial, you know, trial of just
Speaker 1: different things. And I guess that's just what I call
Speaker 1: when I say I'm spiritual. I'm I'm on that very
Speaker 1: personal journey with myself looking inward. Yeah, So what I
Speaker 1: mean by that, Yeah, But but I love those examples
Speaker 1: because it is a practicing of different methods and techniques
Speaker 1: to find what works for you. And you've obviously found,
Speaker 1: you know, both in raiki and sound healing, what really
Speaker 1: sued your soul and your your your healing, which I
Speaker 1: think is such an important part of it. I think
Speaker 1: spirituality or healing or any of these terms can often
Speaker 1: get they're so big, yeah, and they can get a
Speaker 1: good or bad name based on a particular practice. And
Speaker 1: the idea is that it's just such a big umbrella
Speaker 1: term for so many practices that it's so important that
Speaker 1: people keep an open mind to finding what works for them.
Speaker 1: And you're right, there may be a certain aspect that
Speaker 1: just doesn't you know, float your boat and doesn't make
Speaker 1: you feel great, but there's other parts that could reveal
Speaker 1: it to you, you know, very powerfully. I think when
Speaker 1: I lived as a monk, we traveled a lot in
Speaker 1: southern India where a lot of temples around two to
Speaker 1: five thousand years old, and I never had been anywhere
Speaker 1: that old. Like my school was five hundred years old
Speaker 1: that I went to in England, and so that was
Speaker 1: pretty old. Yeah. But then when you go yeah, yeahol
Speaker 1: is fifteen seventy three I think was the year old
Speaker 1: found by the queen and so yeah, and so our
Speaker 1: school was pretty old and had this big history. But
Speaker 1: when I when I went to these temples that were
Speaker 1: like two thousand, five thousand years old and you see
Speaker 1: this incredible architecture, it's you know, it's a mainta I
Speaker 1: never realized that I found going on pilgrimage to be
Speaker 1: so deeply healing for me because I would go into
Speaker 1: these chambers where sound it similarly has been maintained and
Speaker 1: preserved for that of years. People have meditated, chanted, played balls, gongs,
Speaker 1: whatever maybe in these spaces and you can still feel
Speaker 1: the reverberation when you walk in, and it's and it's
Speaker 1: really powerful, like it really feels like you know. And
Speaker 1: so again that was something that I never would have
Speaker 1: known growing up in London. And you know, having to
Speaker 1: go to that experience and those temples I mainly in
Speaker 1: Southern India, it sounds like I need to go to
Speaker 1: southern India. Yeah, where you see that like real ancient
Speaker 1: history of spirituality in Southern India. And so those kind
Speaker 1: of places for me were like things that I never
Speaker 1: thought i'd discovered and then there's parts that I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would never go and do X y Z. So
Speaker 1: how did you find these things? Or where their friends
Speaker 1: where their recommendations was at the internet, Like how were
Speaker 1: you discovering certain things for you? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: that's quite difficult for people to Yeah. I mean it's
Speaker 1: easy in LA because you're surrounded by people who are
Speaker 1: You're there's a crystal shop on every genuinely and truly.
Speaker 1: And I think I was always like, oh, taro was interesting.
Speaker 1: That happened a couple of years ago about my first
Speaker 1: tarot deck and Raki actually my makeup artist on Riverdale
Speaker 1: who worked on the first and second season. She was
Speaker 1: a raky master and she was telling me about it
Speaker 1: and one day performed raky on me and I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is so cool. And so I was always super
Speaker 1: interested in diving into that, and then the lockdown just
Speaker 1: kind of gave me a boost to explore that because
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, I could use some healing. Maybe
Speaker 1: I should heal myself. And then it also just came
Speaker 1: from I think the word wellness, like what is well wellness?
Speaker 1: And I googled wellness or retreats in California, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, maybe not a retreat. I don't really
Speaker 1: want to be doing yoga and eating vegetables for a week,
Speaker 1: like not necessarily my vibe. But I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a little bit more personalized and grounding for just me.
Speaker 1: And I found my sound healer in Mount Shasta, and
Speaker 1: so I went and saw her by myself and really
Speaker 1: kind of had a firsthand experience of sound healing and
Speaker 1: past life readings and chord cutting ceremonies and not astral
Speaker 1: projection but just sort of your astral bodies and things
Speaker 1: like that. It was like this world that was suddenly
Speaker 1: opening up to me. That was so I've always just
Speaker 1: found this kind of the afterlife, I guess, very fascinating.
Speaker 1: I've always been terrified and intrigued at the idea of
Speaker 1: ghosts and like what are what? What's that? Like? What
Speaker 1: is talking to a spirit? You know? It's so weird.
Speaker 1: And I've always felt like I've been very highly intuitive,
Speaker 1: kind of intuned person. Oh, I see symbols and I
Speaker 1: see things are very serendipitous, and there's not there's all
Speaker 1: these coincidences that are happening. And so I also was
Speaker 1: looking into and to be honest, TikTok was, but there
Speaker 1: is such a spiritual side of TikTok that is so yes.
Speaker 1: I mean it's the algorithm. You start seeing one video
Speaker 1: and then you're seeing a million of them, And and
Speaker 1: I was stumbling on these pages of just like highly
Speaker 1: intuitive people, and I reached out to one of them
Speaker 1: and said, do you offer mentorships or something? And she
Speaker 1: said yeah, And so I did a mentorship with a
Speaker 1: psychic for three months where she taught me how to
Speaker 1: heal my ancestral trauma. And I believe we all have
Speaker 1: psychic abilities. It's a matter of training your brain. Some
Speaker 1: people are just born being more in tune and tapped
Speaker 1: into that skill, but I do believe that we all
Speaker 1: have the ability to tap into them. So I was
Speaker 1: really just trying to learn how to do that because
Speaker 1: I thought that was so fascinating. She did teach me
Speaker 1: how to talk to the deceased, not that I can
Speaker 1: do it well. I will say I've only I feel
Speaker 1: that I've only successfully done it like twice or three times.
Speaker 1: And even then, while you're doing it, you're sort of
Speaker 1: like why doing It's like most people when they would
Speaker 1: hear these things there's judgment about that's just wacky or
Speaker 1: that's whatever, like, but what I'm seeing in you, which
Speaker 1: I'm appreciating, is just, Hey, I'm trying to be me,
Speaker 1: Like I'm right now, I'm exploring this right now, I'm
Speaker 1: experimenting with this, learning this. Yeah, maybe it's something that
Speaker 1: I believe, it's true, maybe it isn't, but I'm at
Speaker 1: least doing what I want to do now without worrying
Speaker 1: about what everyone else thinks and believes. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I chose to become a monk at twenty one
Speaker 1: going on twenty two, nineteen percent of my friends thought
Speaker 1: I was absolutely insane because they're like, why would you
Speaker 1: do that? Like why would you not want to go
Speaker 1: make money and date more women and get into another
Speaker 1: relationship and get at home or whatever it was. And
Speaker 1: so I know what it feels like to make a
Speaker 1: decision that most people around me feel doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense and it is completely against the grain of But
Speaker 1: it was the best decision I ever made in my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I have zero regrets about that decision or how
Speaker 1: I spend that three years, and I look back at
Speaker 1: it all the time, but at the time everyone around
Speaker 1: me thought I was making the worst decision. My family
Speaker 1: said I was committing career suicide. You know, my friends
Speaker 1: were completely confused. My society and people in our community
Speaker 1: were like, oh, you're letting your parents down and you'll
Speaker 1: never get a job again. You know, there's just so
Speaker 1: much judgment. But I was just trying to do what
Speaker 1: felt right in my intuition at this time, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't harming anyone. And that's you know, that to me
Speaker 1: is like the barrier where it's like, well, you're trying something,
Speaker 1: it's not harming anyone. It's harming you. It's not harming
Speaker 1: anyone around me. And if that's allowing you to explore
Speaker 1: a part of yourself, you just never know where it
Speaker 1: could go. So it's very comforting for people to hear
Speaker 1: about being into unique things. Is we all it's almost
Speaker 1: like we all followed the same people, we all watch
Speaker 1: the same things, and there's nothing wrong with that. But
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a few things exactly right from
Speaker 1: the norm. I want to talk to you about a
Speaker 1: bit about you know, this this new show, and we
Speaker 1: were talking about this idea of you get to play
Speaker 1: these two parallel lives, which kind of with everything you're
Speaker 1: talking about is interesting, and I love that idea of
Speaker 1: parallel universes, of multiple lives of the multiverse right now
Speaker 1: is a big, big thing and a big talking point.
Speaker 1: When you're playing these roles, how much of these roles
Speaker 1: are you identifying with, especially I guess like moving to
Speaker 1: la for a career that's very much in line with you,
Speaker 1: and then obviously becoming a pregnant experience. Like when you're
Speaker 1: doing that, how much of what you've just talked about
Speaker 1: that you're interested in kind of feeds into those roles
Speaker 1: and when you're playing those roles and becoming these new identities. Well,
Speaker 1: for the I mean for the film, people are people
Speaker 1: asked like, was it so hard to play to two
Speaker 1: different characters? No, that's the same woman. So it's the
Speaker 1: same girl, just experiencing two very different things. And so
Speaker 1: that was amazing to play this this woman and I
Speaker 1: knew who she was and I created her as a character.
Speaker 1: I knew what she valued, what she wanted, and I
Speaker 1: was you know, were fortunate enough as an audience to
Speaker 1: see both things play out. It is weird because I
Speaker 1: I'm very into I do have those existential like if
Speaker 1: I did make this decision what would have happened and how,
Speaker 1: you know, how how would things have panned out? And
Speaker 1: the reason why I loved the script so much when
Speaker 1: I read it was She's okay in both lives. She
Speaker 1: ends up being okay. And there is no one path
Speaker 1: that you go, oh, that was the right path or
Speaker 1: that was the wrong path. It's truly just two different paths.
Speaker 1: And I think, especially in your twenties, things happen every day,
Speaker 1: relationships and things, you know, people, you can get pregnant
Speaker 1: and you think, oh, my whole life is just gone
Speaker 1: or my whole world is shifting. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that's always a I don't think that's a has to
Speaker 1: be a bad thing. I think there are millions of
Speaker 1: ways your life can turn out. It's based off decisions
Speaker 1: you make every single day. But in the end, things
Speaker 1: are okay. Things end up okay. I think if you
Speaker 1: stop and put too much thought into every decision you make,
Speaker 1: you're going to live a very treacherous life of feeling
Speaker 1: like you're walking on eggshells. I think it's it's a
Speaker 1: matter of saying. I mean, I personally like to look
Speaker 1: at it as the universe has my back, and so
Speaker 1: I think this film also resonates with how I feel
Speaker 1: in that art of this woman had she had a
Speaker 1: positive pregnancy test and a negative one, and you see
Speaker 1: two possible scenarios out of a million of what her
Speaker 1: life could have been, and you see the journey she
Speaker 1: goes on through both, and how she still has the
Speaker 1: same ambition and she doesn't lose herself in having a child.
Speaker 1: She still stays who she is and she doesn't lose
Speaker 1: her ambition. And when she goes to LA and goes
Speaker 1: through the hardships of trying to make her career work,
Speaker 1: she doesn't give up. You know. It's sort of a
Speaker 1: perseverance story and how you don't have to lose yourself
Speaker 1: in the things that happened to you, you can still
Speaker 1: stay you. Yeah. The thing that resonates most with me
Speaker 1: with that message in the whole conversation we've had today
Speaker 1: is this idea that even in one life, you can
Speaker 1: be so many things. Yeah, And I think we always
Speaker 1: are trying to make this choice. As you're saying, like
Speaker 1: it's like what do I do this and how will
Speaker 1: that impact me? Do I do this? And it's like
Speaker 1: you could probably do both. I mean, we've probably You've
Speaker 1: lived so many different lives, and I know most Yea
Speaker 1: and most people I know have lived loads of different lives.
Speaker 1: And I think we feel forced to live one life
Speaker 1: and one truth. And I don't think that's true for
Speaker 1: anyone in reality. And when you force yourself to live
Speaker 1: one life and one truth, you actually limit what you
Speaker 1: started with was with all these experiences and all these
Speaker 1: experiments and an openness to all these feelings. So you know,
Speaker 1: I like that idea of the two lives into ultimately
Speaker 1: that both work out okay, and recognizing in one life
Speaker 1: you can live three lives or seven and things can
Speaker 1: be okay. With that in mind, I want to shift
Speaker 1: towards You've made so many changes in your diet, your health.
Speaker 1: You've experienced chronic fatigue, you know, and we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about that, So let's let's dive into that. Actually deeply,
Speaker 1: I've been through chronic fatigue. Get it lasts a wrong time.
Speaker 1: It led to deeper gut issues. It's led to so
Speaker 1: many lifestyle changes. It was stuff that also just snuck
Speaker 1: up on me without me even being aware, because I
Speaker 1: was living so much in the mind in my heart
Speaker 1: that I wasn't even aware of what my body was
Speaker 1: going through. Yeah, and so I was, you know, grounding
Speaker 1: back into my body. How does it feel to live
Speaker 1: your career and experience chronic fatigue? You know, active days
Speaker 1: is sometimes eighteen nowadays, if not more, early mornings, late night.
Speaker 1: So I think people don't realize the lifestyle of making
Speaker 1: a movie or making a show where you're in a
Speaker 1: trailer rule day. It's not the most comfortable inspiring atmosphere
Speaker 1: as people think. The career, Yeah, how does that work
Speaker 1: with chronic fatigue and diet and yeah. I mean I
Speaker 1: say to myself, I'm like, damn, I'm in the wrong career.
Speaker 1: Not that I don't actually believe that, but you know,
Speaker 1: when I when I I'm someone who very much needs
Speaker 1: at least eight hours to function, And so sometimes when
Speaker 1: it's a four hour turnaround or I have to get
Speaker 1: up and go on a plane quickly, I'm like, oh God,
Speaker 1: this is a challenge for me. But because it's something
Speaker 1: that I love to do so much, I truly just
Speaker 1: run off of the pure joy I find and what
Speaker 1: I do, and it's not something you know. I take
Speaker 1: naps when I can, but I also am very much
Speaker 1: understood now at this point in my life, really taking
Speaker 1: my gut health seriously trying. I've treated my body like
Speaker 1: a junkyard for a very long time with what I've
Speaker 1: been eating, and it's got to a point where earlier
Speaker 1: this year, I knew I needed to make real changes
Speaker 1: because I was so unhappy with how I looked one
Speaker 1: but also I felt that I was doing a great
Speaker 1: disservice to my body. I spend so much time trying
Speaker 1: to better my mental health and I don't put any
Speaker 1: of that into my physical body. And there's all this
Speaker 1: new research on how depression is directly related to your
Speaker 1: gut and all these things, and I'm like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to take this seriously. And it is a truly
Speaker 1: reprogramming of bad patterns and habits that I've grown up,
Speaker 1: just immediately going to the fast food to processed foods.
Speaker 1: And it's truly been about educating myself on the better
Speaker 1: options and reading ingredients and choosing the less convenient alternative.
Speaker 1: And actually think that the chronic fatigue has slowly started
Speaker 1: to because of it. I mean me too. It's been
Speaker 1: I've been dealing with this basically since I was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with depression when I was fourteen, so it's it's just now,
Speaker 1: and it's it's always. I don't know if it'll fully
Speaker 1: cure itself with my with my diet. We're getting there,
Speaker 1: we're trying, but it is a it's an everyday thaying
Speaker 1: small steps, not trying to completely change everything all at once.
Speaker 1: And I think obviously in these hard times, food is
Speaker 1: a great comfort and offers a lot of to me
Speaker 1: at least it can be very comforting, So I do
Speaker 1: turn to food sometimes to fill that sort of emotional need,
Speaker 1: but again recognizing that, not judging myself for it. Just
Speaker 1: trying to make healthier decisions overall is what I'm very
Speaker 1: much trying to do me too. Yeah, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: relate to everything you just said. So it's a daily yea,
Speaker 1: it's a daily practice. How would you describe your current
Speaker 1: purpose in life? Like, you know, as in where you're
Speaker 1: at right now or even today or And the reason
Speaker 1: why I asked that is because I believe that you
Speaker 1: know when you're healing, when you're growing, when you're going
Speaker 1: through all these journeys, like there's somewhat of an intention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you will, what is your intention? Then if that's
Speaker 1: easier my intention And I've actually had this intention for
Speaker 1: a very long time, and I don't really believe that.
Speaker 1: You know, you make a birthday wish. If you don't,
Speaker 1: don't tell some of your wish, you know. Like I,
Speaker 1: ever since I can remember, every time I've seen a
Speaker 1: shooting star blown out birthday candles, my wish always has
Speaker 1: been I want to be happy and I my intention
Speaker 1: is to find true happiness and peace with myself. And
Speaker 1: that is my purpose right now to find that. And
Speaker 1: that's a big task, but um, but it is. But
Speaker 1: that's the that's the intention and to I find it.
Speaker 1: So the spiritual journey has has been so encouraging to
Speaker 1: me because once you start, you never stop. It's it's
Speaker 1: not something that one day you're going to go, I'm healed,
Speaker 1: I'm done. It's truly a For the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: I will be seeking out growth and that is so
Speaker 1: I'm so happy about, so liberating it is. I'm like
Speaker 1: I will always There's always more things to learn, There's
Speaker 1: always something else to explore within myself, and that is
Speaker 1: so exciting and wonderful. Yeah, I love that. I am.
Speaker 1: You're so right, Like the feeling of something ending or
Speaker 1: figuring something out is where all the pressure comes, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: when you're trying to complete something, or you're trying to
Speaker 1: end something, you're trying to get something over the finish line. Like,
Speaker 1: that's where all the stress and pressure and intensity comes from.
Speaker 1: Whereas when you say, well, I'm pretty much going to
Speaker 1: live with this. I had some of the other day
Speaker 1: ask me, actually, it's just jog my memory. Someone said
Speaker 1: to me. They were like, well, how do I forget
Speaker 1: my past so I can move forward? I was like,
Speaker 1: you probably won't forget your past, and it's probably not
Speaker 1: a useful place to put your focus, right in trying
Speaker 1: to forget your past, Yeah, And knowing you'll never forget
Speaker 1: it liberates you, and then you can actually move forward
Speaker 1: and keep eloping. And I find that sometimes our fixations
Speaker 1: on completely the wrong target. I agree, And so we
Speaker 1: spend all this time trying to forget something, yeah, and
Speaker 1: knowing that pretty much none of us can actually physically
Speaker 1: do that. Well, that's what I feel about our conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, I truly have been thinking I need
Speaker 1: to find myself, and now I am, oh, I actually
Speaker 1: need to just create it. Yeah. So that's been Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. That has been will you led
Speaker 1: us impactful? Yeah? Thank will you let us there? Well?
Speaker 1: We got there, all right. Now we'll go to the
Speaker 1: final five. They have to be answered in one word
Speaker 1: to one sentence maximum one sentence is I don't know
Speaker 1: what the official breakdown. It's maybe seven words. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm making it okay, all right? So what is the
Speaker 1: best advice you've ever received? I will say my dad
Speaker 1: always told me growing up, find a job that makes
Speaker 1: you happy. Have a career in something that makes you happy.
Speaker 1: It makes the world of a difference. That's great, ye.
Speaker 1: Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard
Speaker 1: or received? Probably don't yep. Question number three, Something especially
Speaker 1: that your mom did for you when you called her
Speaker 1: all those times. Something that you remember that stood out.
Speaker 1: I think just her telling me that she would be
Speaker 1: there whenever I needed her. Sometimes, just hearing that is
Speaker 1: so calming. So her reassurance that you can text me
Speaker 1: when you need me. Okay, thank you, absolutely? I love that.
Speaker 1: Question number four. Something you think people misunderstand about you
Speaker 1: if they don't know you deeply. I think my outspokenness,
Speaker 1: I think is sometimes misinterpreted as ignorance, whereas or attention
Speaker 1: seeking whereas I just sometimes can't keep my thoughts to myself.
Speaker 1: But it's never from a bad place. It's from a
Speaker 1: place of let's have a conversation, not this is my
Speaker 1: opinion and it's right. It's no, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: add my bit to the conversation, whether it's helpful or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going to be there. I love that. And fifth
Speaker 1: and final question, which we ask every guest since the
Speaker 1: day one, is if you could create one law in
Speaker 1: the world that everyone had to follow, what would it
Speaker 1: be law? Yeah, it can be anything. Take your time,
Speaker 1: take your time. This is a Okay. One law that
Speaker 1: anyone had to follow. The law that I would create
Speaker 1: is you are not allowed to tell another human being
Speaker 1: what they can and cannot feel. Period. That's a great one.
Speaker 1: We've never had that, man. Okay, good. I was like
Speaker 1: people have probably said that no, no no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: that's and it's and it's completely aligned with with this episode. Yeah, everyone, Lily,
Speaker 1: Ryan h so grateful to have had this amazing conversation
Speaker 1: with you. I have talked about hours, we have talk
Speaker 1: It's it was so much fun getting to know you
Speaker 1: and honestly hearing about your journey in such an intimate,
Speaker 1: vulnerable way was so special for me. Past the name
Speaker 1: and so looking forward to the thank you. It's such
Speaker 1: a great time. And everyone who's been listening or watching
Speaker 1: back at home, I want to make sure that you
Speaker 1: share what stood out to you. I think there were
Speaker 1: so many incredible things that Lily mentioned genuinely, so many
Speaker 1: amazing points, so many insights, so many great reflections that
Speaker 1: she had, And I love knowing what connected with you
Speaker 1: because and I know she'd love to know. She's nodding
Speaker 1: along if you're not watching, she'd love to know too.
Speaker 1: So please do tag us on Instagram, on TikTok on
Speaker 1: Twitter you're allowed TikTok Instagram, Twitter like, do tag us
Speaker 1: to let us know what stood out, what was the point,
Speaker 1: what was the part? Because this is one of those
Speaker 1: ones that I think you're going to listen to a
Speaker 1: few times. And as I said before, there are moments
Speaker 1: in this episode that I want you to repeat and
Speaker 1: listen to over and over again, maybe multiple times a week,
Speaker 1: because that repetition to hear that message again is what
Speaker 1: really gives us that permission to do it in our lives. Lily,
Speaker 1: any final words, any thoughts, anything you want to share
Speaker 1: just thank you. Thank you for having a space to
Speaker 1: talk about things that I two years ago didn't know
Speaker 1: were things to talk about. So I'm very grateful to
Speaker 1: have come into this world of wellness genuinely and that
Speaker 1: you create this environment for the conversation. Thank you, I
Speaker 1: deeply appreciate. Thank Chris, thank you, thank you.