Speaker 1: I can tell when I walk into a room when
Speaker 1: someone wants me there or not. Terrible tendency is almost
Speaker 1: shut down immediately.
Speaker 2: They Grammy Emmy Antonia Award winning actor and singer you
Speaker 2: Know from the Color of Purple Area and Wicked.
Speaker 1: Oscar nominated Incredible Actor Singer, author.
Speaker 2: And producer Cynthia Arivo. What is the right type of
Speaker 2: validation to crave?
Speaker 1: All of it is healthy and all of it is unhealthy,
Speaker 1: so it's lovely to hear it. But if you don't
Speaker 1: feel that way about yourself, none of the comments, none
Speaker 1: of the making someone finally fall in love with you matters.
Speaker 2: You always felt ready didn't fit in.
Speaker 1: I had to come to terms with the fact that
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm ever going to fit in, and
Speaker 1: why would I want to.
Speaker 2: We don't want to let people down, we won't be
Speaker 2: able to be happy. We don't want to break someone's art.
Speaker 2: But the reality is that is how the way things go.
Speaker 1: I feel like a villain for doing it, for hurting someone.
Speaker 1: And this may be a hard thing to say, but
Speaker 1: sometimes hurting someone actually aids the growth of another person.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been heartbroken? The Number one health and
Speaker 2: Wellness podcast.
Speaker 1: Jay Seddi j Sheeddyjet.
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
Speaker 2: choose to become happier, healthier, and more healed. I'm so
Speaker 2: grateful today because I get to invite back onto the
Speaker 2: podcast one of your favorites, one of my dearest friends,
Speaker 2: someone that I have so much love and respect for,
Speaker 2: and someone who is truly transforming the world through her
Speaker 2: energy and her presence. She's a Tony Emmy and Grammy
Speaker 2: Award winning actress, singer, and songwriter known for her powerhouse
Speaker 2: performances on stage and screen. She first captivated audiences with
Speaker 2: her Tony winning portrayal of Selly in The Color Purple
Speaker 2: on Broadway. Cynthia starred in Harriet, earning Academy Award nominations
Speaker 2: for both her performance and original song, and Cynthia took
Speaker 2: on the iconic role of Alpheber in the film Out
Speaker 2: of of Wicked, earning another Academy Award nomination for her
Speaker 2: powerful performance. Beyond acting, Cynthia continues to make waves in
Speaker 2: music with her sophomore album, I Forgive You, set for
Speaker 2: release this summer. I've had the opportunity to hear it.
Speaker 2: It is divine, it is transcendent and it is truly powerful.
Speaker 2: Join us as we discuss Cynthia's insights on creativity, resilience,
Speaker 2: and using her voice to inspire change. Please welcome to
Speaker 2: On Purpose. Cynthia Arriva. Hello, Oh my gosh, you just
Speaker 2: you are magic. You know that, right, And I want
Speaker 2: to go back. And I was sharing this because it's
Speaker 2: so important for the audience to know. I interviewed you.
Speaker 2: I had a audio show in the pandemic called Safe Space,
Speaker 2: and I got the opportunity to interview over audio. We'd
Speaker 2: never met before. I don't think i'd even seen you
Speaker 2: at an event, and I just heard your voice and
Speaker 2: I was captivated, and i'd seen your work. I knew
Speaker 2: of you, but I didn't really know you. And I
Speaker 2: remember coming away from that audio interview, which is very
Speaker 2: different to a visual interview, and I remember just thinking,
Speaker 2: you're one of the most unique artists in the world.
Speaker 2: You're truly one of the most unique humans in the world.
Speaker 2: And what's beautiful is we've been able to go on
Speaker 2: to have dinner together and hang out. You've been on
Speaker 2: the show before. Your episode was just people loved it,
Speaker 2: Like those clips are still going viral everywhere and I'm
Speaker 2: just really honored to get to know you beyond this
Speaker 2: incredible life and world that you've created and say you
Speaker 2: were as magnificent and more in person. So thank you
Speaker 2: for coming back on my pleasure. My favorite thing is
Speaker 2: having guests back on So thanks you nice.
Speaker 1: I was excited to be able to come back and
Speaker 1: just spend a little bit more time with you.
Speaker 2: Know, I love it. I want to start with just
Speaker 2: you were literally just walking me through your schedule, yes,
Speaker 2: And I want to start with just how your life
Speaker 2: has been a whirlwind. First of all, you shot two movies, yes,
Speaker 2: not one, Yeah, and you were traveling the world. Obviously,
Speaker 2: we all saw the Press Store, which was absolutely insane
Speaker 2: and amazing and crazy. You were performing at the Oscars,
Speaker 2: like you know, it's just unbelievable. And then I was
Speaker 2: asking you, like, have you even had the moment to
Speaker 2: take a break.
Speaker 1: Not really, But I've been trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: I put some time in to just sort of breathe.
Speaker 1: I went from the Oscars. The day after the Oscars,
Speaker 1: I went to South Africa and I was shooting the movie.
Speaker 1: I haven't completed the movie yet, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: go back and finish, but I had finished that set
Speaker 1: of it and then he went to London. But within
Speaker 1: that time, whilst I was in South Africa, I was
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have like just a couple of days
Speaker 1: where I didn't need to be on set, and so
Speaker 1: I would literally use those days to rest. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean going to do things and using them for
Speaker 1: my own like literally staying in bed and resting, because
Speaker 1: I hadn't done that for a really long time, and
Speaker 1: I realized that my my body and my brain and
Speaker 1: my heart really needed it. So I sort of fed
Speaker 1: myself like that, just stopped for a second what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do, because I know it is going to
Speaker 1: ramp up again and get crazy again, even before the
Speaker 1: next movie comes out, and with this album and all
Speaker 1: of the things that are happening this year alone, before
Speaker 1: the end of the year, I know it's going to
Speaker 1: get insane. So I think I'm trying to be conscious
Speaker 1: about how much rest I put in and how I
Speaker 1: put my schedule. So there are times where I just
Speaker 1: this day is going to be for ust. Actually we
Speaker 1: don't need to do that there, so let's move it
Speaker 1: to this day so that there's a consecutive amount of
Speaker 1: time to sleep, time to just be because I think
Speaker 1: it's important and I think it makes me a healthier person.
Speaker 2: What do you do to keep yourself so healthy and
Speaker 2: fit and alert? Because your work so demanding, not just
Speaker 2: the travel, but we saw your performance, we saw the
Speaker 2: behind the scenes, we saw the audition tape. It's so physically,
Speaker 2: mentally and emotionally challenging. Yeah, now what are you doing
Speaker 2: on top of everything you just said that to really stay?
Speaker 1: I'm really picky about how I feed myself. So it's
Speaker 1: I take my vitamins every day. And that sounds very,
Speaker 1: very pedantic, and it sounds like almost like a kid,
Speaker 1: But I do take vitamins every single day. I make
Speaker 1: sure I'm eating in the right way when I fly,
Speaker 1: and this is not Please all airlines do not blame
Speaker 1: me if people stop eating food.
Speaker 2: Please.
Speaker 1: I want you to eat if you need to, But
Speaker 1: I don't eat on planes. I bring my food with
Speaker 1: me because I really need to know what I'm putting
Speaker 1: in my body. And usually when I land, I go
Speaker 1: straight to something. I don't usually get the chance to
Speaker 1: sort of stop and reset. I have to go from
Speaker 1: one thing to another almost immediately. I drink tea. I
Speaker 1: do not drink alcohol ever, and that's just because that's
Speaker 1: how my body works. I'm a vegan. I don't really
Speaker 1: eat meat because I can't process it. I've learnt that
Speaker 1: over the years, and so it has taken time to
Speaker 1: get to this place to where I know what is
Speaker 1: right for me, and I have good people around me
Speaker 1: who will listen to me when I say, actually, I
Speaker 1: think it's a good time to not do this today.
Speaker 1: It's about really being practical about how you take care
Speaker 1: of yourself and what you put in your body and
Speaker 1: when you get rest. And I'm not always the best
Speaker 1: when it comes to rest. I have to focus when
Speaker 1: it comes to that. I actually have to concentrate on
Speaker 1: making sure I put rest in.
Speaker 2: But I try. Yeah, that's what I was going to
Speaker 2: ask you. Are you good at slowing down?
Speaker 1: No, I'm terrible. I'm really bad at slowing down. But
Speaker 1: I'm good when I am slow, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes people get really antsy about not going
Speaker 1: somewhere when they are still. I'm good at being still
Speaker 1: when I need to be still, you know. So once
Speaker 1: I get the chance to be still, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But that's also taken time. You know, I haven't always
Speaker 1: been good at being in one place and okay with
Speaker 1: not going anywhere, But now I'm really good at it
Speaker 1: because I know how valuable it is for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what got you there? Because you're so right? I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us everyone will say it takes
Speaker 2: me three days to even and switch off. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: by the time you switch off, you're like, your vacation's
Speaker 2: over and now you're going back to work. What was
Speaker 2: it that helped you get to that space of how
Speaker 2: you just so beautifully said you know what, I actually
Speaker 2: now after some work, actually feel like I can be
Speaker 2: still and I can be present. Was that that got
Speaker 2: you there?
Speaker 1: I felt like I was missing things. I think even
Speaker 1: in this last sort of year or two, I had
Speaker 1: to figure out how to be really really present in
Speaker 1: what was going on and what's happening. And also, whilst
Speaker 1: we was shooting, I was wearing this album, so it
Speaker 1: meant that lots of thought was happening, lots of looking
Speaker 1: back on things and remembering. And you can't really do
Speaker 1: that if you aren't still. Sometimes when you're sat in
Speaker 1: a studio and you have to write, you can't go anywhere,
Speaker 1: and so learning that practice and doing that has really
Speaker 1: sort of shone a light on the ways in which
Speaker 1: I wasn't good at being still at times, and how
Speaker 1: I was missing certain things, not really being present in
Speaker 1: the moment and enjoying what's going on enough. Doing all
Speaker 1: of those carpets and things made me forced me to
Speaker 1: sort of be present and be with whoever I was
Speaker 1: talking to it at that moment. So I think what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do is lean into what that felt
Speaker 1: like for elongated periods of time, And for me right now,
Speaker 1: an elongated period of time could be anything from like
Speaker 1: one day to three days. Like that's an elongated perial
Speaker 1: of time for me. But it means that when I
Speaker 1: do get those opportunities, I can actually be there and
Speaker 1: be okay with doing nothing, because sometimes doing nothing is
Speaker 1: doing enough.
Speaker 2: What you're saying so true that I feel like, if
Speaker 2: you are where your feet are, yeah, then you'll always
Speaker 2: be where your feet are. So if you're on the
Speaker 2: red carpet and that's where you are there, then when
Speaker 2: you're off, that's where you are. And I think a
Speaker 2: lot of us and I've struggled with this in the
Speaker 2: past and got so much better with it. But when
Speaker 2: we're at work, we're thinking about the vacation, right, and
Speaker 2: therefore when we're on the vacation with thinking about work,
Speaker 2: because that inattention bleeds and you can't say I want
Speaker 2: to be attentive on vacation and I want to be
Speaker 2: inattentive at work, because they both feed into each other.
Speaker 2: And I love hearing about the athlete in you though,
Speaker 2: like even when you were talking about food and water,
Speaker 2: and you are an athlete and so all of us
Speaker 2: that demand a lot from our body. And I had
Speaker 2: this really interesting thing that happened to me this week
Speaker 2: where I did not go to South Africa or London,
Speaker 2: but I did my mini version of what you do.
Speaker 2: But this week I went to I was in Palm Springs, Vegas, Boston,
Speaker 2: and New York four days for work events. I was
Speaker 2: only in a city for hours. Yeah, and that's normal
Speaker 2: for me too, And so I was moving and I
Speaker 2: got back at like one am, or I got into
Speaker 2: bed at one am on Monday morning, and I got
Speaker 2: up at eight to work. Well, I got up a
Speaker 2: bit earlier and then at eight I was working out
Speaker 2: and it was this really amazing feeling I had. I
Speaker 2: got in the gym, and I felt amazing after doing it,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh wow, like all of this
Speaker 2: stuff works. Like the victimins, they were really like it
Speaker 2: all like people do it for a reason.
Speaker 1: Pattern as well. So once you get your body into
Speaker 1: it's almost like ritual. Your body needs a particular kind
Speaker 1: of ritual to keep it going. Doesn't matter where you
Speaker 1: are in the world or what you do in the like,
Speaker 1: as long as there are certain things that don't change,
Speaker 1: your body will thank you for it. You know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter where I am in the world. I will
Speaker 1: always have my betterments, like I have like packets, I
Speaker 1: take a round with me right, and I always have
Speaker 1: my tea, so bring tea with me wherever I go.
Speaker 1: It's the same tea, so I'm never sort of thinking,
Speaker 1: oh I have to have this or that's the tea
Speaker 1: that I have. I like ruffles chips, so I'll always
Speaker 1: take ruffles chips with me wherever I go. That's my
Speaker 1: sort of like guilty pleasure. I'm going to have that.
Speaker 1: But it means that, oh, there's a particular protein bar,
Speaker 1: so I'm not searching for something else that doesn't aid
Speaker 1: me actually helps me. I will always know where the
Speaker 1: gym is, so I can actually go and do my
Speaker 1: long walk or my long run that way. There are
Speaker 1: things that are already set in place that don't take
Speaker 1: up much room, but they do serve a really great purpose.
Speaker 1: It means that I can show up and be ready
Speaker 1: wherever I am, and when I get back home, I
Speaker 1: can always slot back in. And like, honestly, the jet
Speaker 1: lag should be crazy, but it is not. I work
Speaker 1: up this morning at like seven. I have like a
Speaker 1: little one person infrared sauna, but I also take I
Speaker 1: bought an inference on a blanket, which I take with
Speaker 1: me wherever I go, because it means that I can
Speaker 1: also heal from the inside out. And the wonderful thing
Speaker 1: about that is that you can get if I can't run,
Speaker 1: then I'll get in this storm, or I'll do both.
Speaker 1: But those things don't change. And so if you can
Speaker 1: keep healthy habits that keep you moving and working and
Speaker 1: your system is still alive and alert, then those things
Speaker 1: should stay. I think sometimes we underestimate what it is
Speaker 1: to form good habits. Those things really help and they've
Speaker 1: really helped me a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they take a long time to form. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: once you have them, then you like realize the value
Speaker 2: of that. And then you're like, I don't even want
Speaker 2: to miss them, that's right, even if I don't love
Speaker 2: doing them more, even if they're hard. Yeah, You're like,
Speaker 2: I know I'll feel better after it. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: I heard someone you said that you've always been an overachiever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I was trying to understand, like, what's the difference
Speaker 2: between achieving and overachieving?
Speaker 1: So I can, okay, make a song good, do an
Speaker 1: album good? The standard album is usually maybe ten to
Speaker 1: thirteen songs. My album has twenty songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1: You can spend six months doing something, I'll probably spend
Speaker 1: a year doing it. Someone says, write a book, and
Speaker 1: you get someone to help you write the book, I'll go, Actually,
Speaker 1: I would really like to write this myself. And this
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the healthiest I preface it with that.
Speaker 1: For me, I think I'm always constantly pushing to do
Speaker 1: what's the one thing further from the norm, Like, you've
Speaker 1: done something really amazing, But how can I be more
Speaker 1: than amazing? How can I push more? How can I
Speaker 1: do more? How much can I exert myself more to
Speaker 1: get more out of the thing that I'm doing that
Speaker 1: for me is overachieving and that isn't always a healthy
Speaker 1: way to think. But for me, I think it's become
Speaker 1: a habit and so I've had to find healthy ways
Speaker 1: of doing that. So like, if I am going to
Speaker 1: do twenty songs, how am I going to make it
Speaker 1: easy for myself after that to let go of it
Speaker 1: for a second and take a break. Or if I
Speaker 1: am going to run three for three hours? Am I
Speaker 1: going to feed myself to replenish myself the way I
Speaker 1: need to after running those three hours? It's the balance
Speaker 1: has to be addressed when you're doing something like that.
Speaker 2: No, that makes a lot of sense. Where does that
Speaker 2: drive come from? Where's that ambition come from? Have you
Speaker 2: always had it since day one?
Speaker 1: I think I have always had it. I think it's
Speaker 1: first came from my mom, because I think she has
Speaker 1: that sort of drive and want to achieve. I'm raised
Speaker 1: by a single mom and she really I'm not entirely
Speaker 1: sure how she managed to do all the things she
Speaker 1: was able to do. This is you know, a woman
Speaker 1: who emigrated from Nigeria, which is in her twenties, got
Speaker 1: her degree in nursing, went from nursing to being a
Speaker 1: health visitor, which is a big massive jump. Owns her
Speaker 1: own home, had her own car. But we're not middle
Speaker 1: class by any means, working class people who didn't have
Speaker 1: very much. But my mum was always pushing to make
Speaker 1: sure that she could have and that we could have.
Speaker 2: So I think.
Speaker 1: I watched and witnessed her do that on her own,
Speaker 1: and so picked that those habits, those traits up and
Speaker 1: then I think in my teenagehood, after experiencing some traumatic things,
Speaker 1: that sort of also became a driving force too, which
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the best thing because it can't sustain,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of like I'll show everybody that I
Speaker 1: can do this, and that sort of drove a lot
Speaker 1: of it, and then it didn't sustain. Then I was like, actually,
Speaker 1: I really want to do this for myself, and I
Speaker 1: love what I'm doing, and if I'm going to do something,
Speaker 1: I want to do it to the very best of
Speaker 1: my abilities. It stopped being about what I saw my
Speaker 1: mom do, which was wonderful, and stopped being about proving
Speaker 1: to people and is now about like sort of like
Speaker 1: eking out the maximum amount of joy from something by
Speaker 1: doing the most I can do with it, you know,
Speaker 1: by learning all of the details that I can about
Speaker 1: whatever it is I'm doing. How do I connect the most?
Speaker 1: And in connecting the most, it makes me be the
Speaker 1: best I can be, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I want to talk
Speaker 2: about all those transitions because they're so beautiful. And I
Speaker 2: literally was having this conversation with a friend the other
Speaker 2: day about my mom.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so my dad was less present. It's not that
Speaker 2: he wasn't there, but he was less present when I
Speaker 2: was growing up. Ye. And so my mom was the
Speaker 2: breadwrenner of the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She made us breakfast in the morning, dropped us to school,
Speaker 2: me and my sister, made us a packed lunch, went
Speaker 2: to work, picked us up from school, came home, made
Speaker 2: us dinner, went out again to work, and came home.
Speaker 2: And I still have no idea. I have no idea
Speaker 2: how she did it. And we always had a fresh
Speaker 2: dinner every day, a fresh lunch every day, of fresh breakfast,
Speaker 2: never had to eat leftover. She always believed that her
Speaker 2: home cooked meal was so important. And I look at
Speaker 2: my mom now and I just think, like, how did
Speaker 2: you do it? And I completely agree with you. My
Speaker 2: work ethic, I think comes from watching my mom, So
Speaker 2: I can relate to that where it's like I saw
Speaker 2: my mom after doing all of that, working in the evening, yeah,
Speaker 2: because she had to, And I saw her like turning
Speaker 2: up when it was really really hard. And it's amazing
Speaker 2: how that rubs off on you, yeah, and how you
Speaker 2: mirror what you see at home. And again, like you said,
Speaker 2: it's not that it was the healthiest. She had to
Speaker 2: do it for survival.
Speaker 1: It was a choice choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so we are lucky that we have the
Speaker 2: ability to slow down or have more resources or whatever
Speaker 2: it may be. But it is amazing how much our
Speaker 2: parents work ethic like.
Speaker 1: It becomes part of the DNA without even realizing that
Speaker 1: it's part of your DNA anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, what were some of those if you're comfortable showing,
Speaker 2: what were some of those teenage traumas that you went.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh, no, I've spoken about it, honestly. When I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, my dad and I went through a royal separation.
Speaker 1: He no longer wanted to be a part of my life,
Speaker 1: and that was like a big turning point for me
Speaker 1: because I had to figure out what that meant. And
Speaker 1: for a long time, that sort of fueled the way
Speaker 1: I would work, because you end up working to prove
Speaker 1: to someone that you're worthy of being loved or worthy
Speaker 1: of being looked after or wanted. And that's that was
Speaker 1: like a big moment for me in general, and I
Speaker 1: think that it's sort of like a formative years. I
Speaker 1: think I was sixteen when it happened, so it really
Speaker 1: was a turning point and a seminal moment in my
Speaker 1: growth that it happened in and it took time to
Speaker 1: get over the hill or over the hump of that
Speaker 1: and forgive and let go and be able to do
Speaker 1: things not for that purpose, but for me. I had
Speaker 1: to sort of really do some thinking and working to
Speaker 1: shift that habit. But I'm very glad idea because it
Speaker 1: was doesn't sustain you. It can only last for so long,
Speaker 1: and it means that the work you're doing not on purpose,
Speaker 1: but it comes from the wrong place and for a
Speaker 1: while it worked, but then it didn't. And when when
Speaker 1: it doesn't, you have to figure out how to make
Speaker 1: it work from something else. And it feels a lot
Speaker 1: better to not be working from that place anymore.
Speaker 2: There's a really beautiful system in Eastern philosophy that talks
Speaker 2: about how you can do anything from three different modes.
Speaker 2: So you have the mode of ignorance, which means you're
Speaker 2: doing things out of fear and insecurity, so you're doing
Speaker 2: something because you're scared. You're doing something because it's not survival.
Speaker 2: It's even like more negatively motivated than YEA. Then the
Speaker 2: second is the mode of passion, which is what you're saying,
Speaker 2: which is like, I'm going to prove someone wrong. I'm
Speaker 2: going to do it for a result. I want to
Speaker 2: do it because I want to show people. I want
Speaker 2: to do it with that energy. And then finally you
Speaker 2: come to love or duty or joy or bliss, and
Speaker 2: it's a ladder. And what I love about what you're
Speaker 2: saying is you've taken the ladder because I think sometimes
Speaker 2: we make ourselves feel bad, like or if I'm doing
Speaker 2: something to prove someone wrong, I shouldn't do it. That's
Speaker 2: a bad motive. And it's but it's like sometimes that's.
Speaker 1: The only thing that can If that's the only motive,
Speaker 1: you know, what else are you supposed to do?
Speaker 2: You have to use it.
Speaker 1: You have to use it, and if you use it
Speaker 1: to make good work, then you use it to make
Speaker 1: good work. And I think what we want to make
Speaker 1: sure of when we're doing that is that at some
Speaker 1: point we're okay to allow that to be what it
Speaker 1: was and to move on from it, you know, because
Speaker 1: if and everyone has their own time, I had it
Speaker 1: my time, and some else will be still working from
Speaker 1: that mode, and if it's still working for them, it's
Speaker 1: still working for them, but at some point they will
Speaker 1: come to a realization that I don't know if this
Speaker 1: works for me anymore, and it doesn't feel as good anymore.
Speaker 1: So when you and it's about noticing what it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel the way you want it to feel anymore. And
Speaker 1: so what am I now searching for? Am I searching
Speaker 1: for joy? Am I searching for bliss? Am I searching
Speaker 1: for contentment? And if that's the case, then it has
Speaker 1: to come from somewhere else, and so you seek to
Speaker 1: work in a different way.
Speaker 2: Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from
Speaker 2: our sponsors. Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now
Speaker 2: back to the discussion. When you talk about these things,
Speaker 2: it feels like you've held your hand through it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is like a really beautiful visual to have, because
Speaker 2: I think what we're good is doing it as humans
Speaker 2: is as soon as something doesn't serve us, we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I've been getting it wrong for three years. Now I'm
Speaker 2: going to get it right. And it's like, well, no, yeah,
Speaker 2: that served you. Yeah, Like, even if it wasn't sustainable,
Speaker 2: as you rightly said, it served you and it was
Speaker 2: important and it mattered. So I think if what I'm
Speaker 2: saying is if someone's listening right now and they're like, Cynthia,
Speaker 2: you know what. I've spent the last three years trying
Speaker 2: to prove my parents wrong. I've spent the last five
Speaker 2: years trying to prove my ex wrong. I've spent the
Speaker 2: last seven years trying to prove my teachers wrong at
Speaker 2: school or whatever it may be. But I know it's
Speaker 2: not sustainable. Like I hear you in that place, how
Speaker 2: would you encourage people to hold their hand through that
Speaker 2: transition into rising? But not?
Speaker 1: Sometimes I get the question what would you give your advice?
Speaker 1: Would you give your younger self? Or what would you
Speaker 1: say to your younger self if you could meet her?
Speaker 1: Or is there anything There's three different questions. But then
Speaker 1: the other question is would you change anything if you
Speaker 1: could go back? My answer is always I would never
Speaker 1: change anything because I think that every step we take,
Speaker 1: even the things that we think are wrong, terms are
Speaker 1: the teachers. They're the way we get to where we
Speaker 1: get to. You know what I mean? If I was
Speaker 1: to change something, I don't know that I would be
Speaker 1: sad here in front of you. I think some of
Speaker 1: what we might think of missteps were the steps I
Speaker 1: was supposed to take. So if you're at home and
Speaker 1: you're watching this and you're thinking, oh, I've been doing
Speaker 1: this and I know it's not sustainable, but I but
Speaker 1: how do I move from that? When you take your time,
Speaker 1: it will come. And if that's what's feeding you right now,
Speaker 1: if that's the way, if that's the thing that gets
Speaker 1: you up out of bed and gets you energized to
Speaker 1: move forward, then keep using it. And when you realize, oh,
Speaker 1: actually maybe today I'll do it from a place of
Speaker 1: I want to cheer someone up. That is as much
Speaker 1: of that's love as well. So it's just taking small decision,
Speaker 1: changing your mind bit by bit. And don't be so
Speaker 1: hard on yourself because you've chosen other things to encourage
Speaker 1: yourself to move forward and to do well. If you
Speaker 1: haven't hurt anyone by using the pain that you've been
Speaker 1: through by using the hurt that you've been through, by
Speaker 1: using the rejection that you've exped eperience, by using the
Speaker 1: shame that you've experienced, and you've managed to transmute all
Speaker 1: of that into energy that makes you create positive work
Speaker 1: or think you've done something really good because technically you've
Speaker 1: given all of those people all those things energy in
Speaker 1: the most positive way. Now you get to find a
Speaker 1: way to give yourself positive energy. So I would say
Speaker 1: pack yourself on the back for managing to do that,
Speaker 1: because it takes a lot of time and energy to
Speaker 1: do that and be easy. That change in the way
Speaker 1: you move forward will come because you want it to come.
Speaker 1: The fact that you even are thinking about trying to
Speaker 1: work in a different way means that you're putting the
Speaker 1: idea that you can work in a different way into
Speaker 1: the universe and telling yourself, we can work in a
Speaker 1: different way, and one day you're work in a different way.
Speaker 1: Right now, what you're doing isn't hurting anyone. It costs
Speaker 1: you more than it costs anyone else. But you're also
Speaker 1: serving yourself the way you know how to, and then
Speaker 1: you'll find another way to serve yourself and other people.
Speaker 2: It's actually such a beautiful journey to take you when
Speaker 2: you kind of you know, and when you're going through
Speaker 2: it always feels like the worst because when you're trying
Speaker 2: to prove someone wrong, you feel controlled by them, you
Speaker 2: feel they still own your journey and you and the
Speaker 2: moment you let go, you recognize, oh, no, I'm taking
Speaker 2: back my control and that I have ownership. And I
Speaker 2: think that's what we're all looking for in life when
Speaker 2: you think about as humans. I was having a conversation
Speaker 2: this morning with one of my friends, is an incredible like,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the greatest therapists on the planet,
Speaker 2: and we're just just having a friendly conversation. But we
Speaker 2: were saying, I don't think humans even know what they
Speaker 2: want anymore. Like we think we want happiness, but do
Speaker 2: we really like what we're looking for? Do we want
Speaker 2: validation or do we want approval or do we want life? Like?
Speaker 2: What do we want? And I think, as we're talking
Speaker 2: about right now, I'm thinking about it, what we've really
Speaker 2: want is to feel agency, in autonomy, control over our
Speaker 2: lives and not feel like we're living for someone else,
Speaker 2: and not feel like we're trying to because even if
Speaker 2: you're trying to prove someone wrong. You're still living for them, right,
Speaker 2: That's right, And I think we want to feel like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm living for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love the idea that we're sort of trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what we want or we want happiness?
Speaker 1: Do we want to But actually the idea that we're
Speaker 1: simply seeking agency over our lives allows us to own
Speaker 1: all of those things. So, yes, we do want happiness,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's contentment. But also we want to have
Speaker 1: agency over the sadness that we have, so it's not
Speaker 1: because of someone else, but we can allow ourselves to
Speaker 1: feel something, and then we can decide when we actually
Speaker 1: want to damp down that feeling let it go. We
Speaker 1: can let that sort of dissipate for ourselves because we
Speaker 1: have the agency over it. We have the agency of
Speaker 1: what we choose to feel happy over. Or if we
Speaker 1: are feeling grief, then it's our grief, not someone else's grief.
Speaker 1: You know that, I mean takes time to realize, but
Speaker 1: it's that that I think is the ultimate goal for
Speaker 1: most of us, to be able to decide no, actually,
Speaker 1: this is my life and I'm choosing to feel and
Speaker 1: live this way for me first, and then I can
Speaker 1: use the energy that I am saving by having agency
Speaker 1: of my life for good that will sell other people
Speaker 1: as well. That's I think. Once we can be in
Speaker 1: true ownership of who we are and what we do
Speaker 1: for ourselves, there's more space for everyone else.
Speaker 2: Do you think that journey was harder for you because
Speaker 2: you've talked about how like you always felt like you
Speaker 2: didn't fit in. Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I had to come to terms with
Speaker 1: the fact that I don't think I'm ever going to
Speaker 1: fit in and why would I want to. But I
Speaker 1: think it was when you're young, it doesn't feel as
Speaker 1: good because you really do want to fit You do
Speaker 1: want to be a part of something. But I think
Speaker 1: that as I've grown and as I've learned, my difference
Speaker 1: and the not feeling like I fit in has actually
Speaker 1: really helped me become who I want to be. And
Speaker 1: I think if I was the same as everybody else,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know me, you know. And I think my
Speaker 1: not fitting has forced me to get to know myself
Speaker 1: deeply and learn about who I am and what makes
Speaker 1: me tick, and to be honest about the things that
Speaker 1: sort of like trigger me or don't trigger me, or
Speaker 1: the things that make me tick and the things that
Speaker 1: bring me joy and the things that like energize me.
Speaker 1: I was talking to someone yesterday and I said to them,
Speaker 1: I can sometimes tell when I walk into a room
Speaker 1: when someone wants me there or not. And my tendency,
Speaker 1: a terrible tendency, is almost shut down immediately because I
Speaker 1: want to be in a room where someone wants me
Speaker 1: to be in the room with them. I want to
Speaker 1: be able to share that. And why don't we maybe
Speaker 1: shift that and change that And maybe you walk in
Speaker 1: with the energy of openness and see if you can
Speaker 1: shift the energy. Maybe don't expect the energy when you
Speaker 1: walk in. Maybe maybe try and change that energy when
Speaker 1: you get there. And I hadn't thought of that before,
Speaker 1: and I thought that's something that I, maybe ten years
Speaker 1: ago wouldn't have been open to hearing. Because the automatical
Speaker 1: is what if they don't want me Here's why don't
Speaker 1: they want me here? What's wrong if I done something wrong?
Speaker 1: As opposed to maybe they've just had a bad day,
Speaker 1: maybe they woke up on the wrong side of the
Speaker 1: bed and they just don't have the energy right now.
Speaker 1: So maybe you feed the energy into the room and
Speaker 1: maybe that might shift things and I think because I've
Speaker 1: started to learn and have been in possession of the
Speaker 1: knowledge that my difference isn't something that separates but can connect.
Speaker 1: Maybe it means that using that difference in places allows
Speaker 1: the space to open up a little bit more.
Speaker 2: You know, I love that. That's such a cool idea. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't agree with it more. It's so important.
Speaker 2: I think we do live in a world right now
Speaker 2: that's always like, well, they don't want me there or
Speaker 2: they don't like me, and we're was just giving away
Speaker 2: our agency because what you just said that statement is
Speaker 2: claiming back our agency. Well, yeah, they may not want
Speaker 2: me there, but I want to be there, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to walk in as if I belong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't walk in thinking I don't want them there.
Speaker 1: So maybe if if I let them know what I want,
Speaker 1: you here I wanted so, well, maybe we can share
Speaker 1: that space. You know, there's ways to shift the conversation,
Speaker 1: shift the energy wherever you are. And and I think,
Speaker 1: as as human beings, sometimes we put it on the
Speaker 1: other person to do that when actually, if you're confident
Speaker 1: enough about what you bring, you can actually shift and
Speaker 1: share yourself.
Speaker 2: I've seen that so many times it's just well, and
Speaker 2: I see it when I'm on the road. I see
Speaker 2: it through. I was speaking at an event on Sunday
Speaker 2: and they had like, what is it like when you're
Speaker 2: on set and there's food for everyone?
Speaker 1: Now it was like a sharing table like around it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said that kind of thing. It was
Speaker 2: like all there is for their helpers, the volunteers to speak,
Speaker 2: it's like everyone to just take food. And there was
Speaker 2: this lady then I mentioned to that I was plant based,
Speaker 2: and I was like, could you just walk me through
Speaker 2: the options? She did it with so much enthusiasm, like
Speaker 2: I asked her just a really basic question. I was nice,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't that. I was just like, hey, how
Speaker 2: are you. I was like, hey, how's it going? Like
Speaker 2: I'm plant based? Could you help me out? And I
Speaker 2: was fine, like my energy was okay. Maybe my manager
Speaker 2: was a fie. I was neutral. It wasn't positive.
Speaker 1: Easy, it is easy.
Speaker 2: And she just responded. She was like a mom like
Speaker 2: I feel like she had that motherly energy of like
Speaker 2: what do you want? Like this is plant based? Can
Speaker 2: I get you a drink? And I and I said
Speaker 2: to it. I was with a colleague and I just said.
Speaker 2: I was like, that is like the energy of just life,
Speaker 2: and it's not her job was not easy. She wasn't
Speaker 2: doing something that was physically easy. She wasn't doing something
Speaker 2: where it's probably a thankless task, like but she was
Speaker 2: so passionate about it. I was, and I said to her,
Speaker 2: I was like, I hope you just know, like you
Speaker 2: made my day, and it was it's always people like
Speaker 2: that that you just kind of bump into. And I
Speaker 2: was like, we've got to become better as human and
Speaker 2: at noticing it, yes, and telling them that because we
Speaker 2: would notice it if they weren't like that. Yes. So
Speaker 2: if she had responded to me and be like, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would be right.
Speaker 2: I probably wouldn't. But I know a few years ago.
Speaker 1: It's the thing that you would like, would you take
Speaker 1: it with you?
Speaker 2: You know, you take it with you? God? Why are
Speaker 2: they so like what's wrong with right? And we all
Speaker 2: carry that, But when someone does something amazing, you kind
Speaker 2: of take it for granted and you go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course they're just being nice.
Speaker 1: The thing is, I think we'd sometimes say for granted
Speaker 1: that that kind of energy is infectious. It is truly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the simple sort of act of smiling
Speaker 1: at someone on the street, right, that smile will pass on,
Speaker 1: It'll go from one person to another person to another person.
Speaker 1: You don't know who you're smiling it. And if that person,
Speaker 1: if you're smiling at someone who's that a bit of
Speaker 1: a rough day and they go, oh, someone's noticed me
Speaker 1: and they smiled at me, well you'll remember that person
Speaker 1: smiled at me, and then you might smile and that
Speaker 1: smile might pass into someone else, and you don't know
Speaker 1: who you're smiling at, how far that smile goes. And
Speaker 1: what we are not very good at is telling other
Speaker 1: people hate. This person smiled at me in the street
Speaker 1: and it was really sweet and I don't know who
Speaker 1: they were, but it was really lovely. Because that energy
Speaker 1: is also infectious. Yeah, what we normally do is that
Speaker 1: she like she bumps into me and I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but like she or he said that, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: really nice that we passed that energy on instead of
Speaker 1: the energy that brightens. We are better at sort of
Speaker 1: sharing the energy that doesn't and as humans who have
Speaker 1: to share a planet, we should probably get better at
Speaker 1: sharing what's right, because yes, we we're not always going
Speaker 1: to go through great times, but it's the little things
Speaker 1: that can move us from a place of darkness to
Speaker 1: a place of light.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that you. Have you heard of something
Speaker 2: called the frequency illusion. So the frequency illusion is this idea.
Speaker 2: It's the idea of like if I'm thinking about buying
Speaker 2: a red car everywhere, yeah, or like if I learned
Speaker 2: a new were yeah, and now I hear everyone saying
Speaker 2: that word or whatever it may be. And so the
Speaker 2: frequency illusion is when you start to notice something, you
Speaker 2: start to notice it more. And we think that the
Speaker 2: world suddenly has more red cars or the world suddenly
Speaker 2: is more intellectual because they're using this word. The truth
Speaker 2: is the world hasn't changed. You just notice it more
Speaker 2: and the brain is wired to do that. And what
Speaker 2: you just pointed out is that that it's not about
Speaker 2: This isn't positive thinking, and this is not like toxic positivity.
Speaker 2: What it is is whatever I notice, I'm going to
Speaker 2: notice more of it. So if I only notice when
Speaker 2: people frown and people kind of you know, push me aside,
Speaker 2: or people don't open the door, I'm going to notice
Speaker 2: that more and more and more. But if I notice
Speaker 2: the smile on the street, if I notice the nice
Speaker 2: gesture from the lunch lady. If I noticed that, then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, that's how I start to see things.
Speaker 2: And it's not faking it. It's not like pretending that
Speaker 2: the world's all roses and rainbows and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. But it's the idea that our brain is
Speaker 2: just wired to notice. And whatever you notice, you'll see
Speaker 2: more of. About your new album, there's no mask, there's
Speaker 2: no veil. It's this true, transparent, you know communication. The
Speaker 2: first time I listened to it, because I was lucky
Speaker 2: enough to get an early one for this, I had
Speaker 2: my eyes closed the whole time and I just sat
Speaker 2: and I listened to it in order as it was.
Speaker 2: I didn't skip, Yeah, I didn't need to. And it
Speaker 2: really was just this. It really felt like a divine experience,
Speaker 2: like it was very I like music, and I love music,
Speaker 2: but it was very different, and it was different because
Speaker 2: it felt familiar to my soul. And that's why when
Speaker 2: I was messaging about it last night before you were coming,
Speaker 2: I was like, it was divine, it was transcendent because
Speaker 2: it was. It just it felt otherworldly in the experience,
Speaker 2: but then felt really familiar and human. Yeah, and I've
Speaker 2: got so many questions about it, but I want to
Speaker 2: let you felt. I felt like there was something you
Speaker 2: were going to want to let you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I knew when I was going into it
Speaker 1: that I wanted to make something that felt like connective
Speaker 1: tissue to who I was. And part of me was
Speaker 1: deeply petrified to write this album just because I knew
Speaker 1: it was going to be so transparent and really human
Speaker 1: in the subjects and just extremely truthful. But I didn't
Speaker 1: really know how else to write it, so I just
Speaker 1: sort of had to let go and just write. And
Speaker 1: I think the other worldliness maybe in the composition of things,
Speaker 1: but even that was a really human experience. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't make any vocal arrangements. There were no written
Speaker 1: there's no written music. I would do it as I
Speaker 1: was going along, and I would know what I wanted,
Speaker 1: and then I would sort of start with a vocal pad,
Speaker 1: and I would start with a line, and that line
Speaker 1: would repeat the line, and we'd create a stack, and
Speaker 1: then over that stack, I would just create another line,
Speaker 1: and there was no leaving the booth to write what
Speaker 1: the next line was. As a line happened, I would
Speaker 1: think of another line, and sometimes I would distract myself
Speaker 1: because the line was creating itself as I was singing
Speaker 1: the line before, and that would go on and go
Speaker 1: on and go on until there was nothing left. So
Speaker 1: for me, it really was an experience of pouring all
Speaker 1: of myself into it every single time. And I would
Speaker 1: say to my producer and Will, who's also the engineer
Speaker 1: on it and was co writing with me, it was
Speaker 1: always it always felt really emotional when I would do
Speaker 1: the vocal pads. I always felt deeply connected to the
Speaker 1: music because it was the rarest form of vocalizing and
Speaker 1: making music that I could think of without any real
Speaker 1: structure necessarily. I just knew the emotion that I wanted,
Speaker 1: and that's what I would then write over a lot
Speaker 1: of these songs just started with a vocal pad and
Speaker 1: a melody, that's what would happen. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, has that always been your process or was that
Speaker 2: a new discuss?
Speaker 1: I think I've always wanted it to be my process,
Speaker 1: but I don't think until now I've been brave enough
Speaker 1: to do it that way. I've never done it like
Speaker 1: this before, and it felt so easy to do. It
Speaker 1: felt like a real natural way of exercising the music
Speaker 1: that I had in myself.
Speaker 2: Here, And what did you want people to feel throughout it?
Speaker 2: What was you were telling me earlier about how every song,
Speaker 2: even the order and the art were structured. Yeah, what
Speaker 2: was the kind of the emotional journey you wanted people
Speaker 2: to go on?
Speaker 1: At the beginning, it really is about heartbreak and love
Speaker 1: and loss, but it's also in a way about me
Speaker 1: breaking someone's heart, or what we put on ourselves as
Speaker 1: people in relationship, the responsibility we put on ourselves sometimes
Speaker 1: when we're in relationship when doesn't feel right, when it's
Speaker 1: not right, and we find it hard to disconnect from
Speaker 1: those relationships, and we find it hard to speak about
Speaker 1: what we're actually feeling when we're in them. And I
Speaker 1: think I wanted people to be okay with admitting when
Speaker 1: they're in the wrong space, when it isn't right anymore,
Speaker 1: when you have to go, And also that base feeling
Speaker 1: of it's your fault as well, you know, because sometimes
Speaker 1: we feel a lot of guilt for saying that, but
Speaker 1: because our relationships are made of two three However, many
Speaker 1: people are in your relationship, but it's never it's not
Speaker 1: on one sided. Relationships are made of the people that
Speaker 1: are in them, and what happens within those relationships are
Speaker 1: made of the people within them, even when you don't
Speaker 1: think they are. If you dig deep enough, you'll find
Speaker 1: that you both have responsibility in there. And so I
Speaker 1: think there was sort of like the assuming of responsibility
Speaker 1: and also the willingness to be like, also, your responsibility
Speaker 1: is this too. This is how I felt, but also
Speaker 1: I understand that I made you feel that way. And
Speaker 1: then I wanted people to know that that it's in
Speaker 1: that next section there's the discovery of something new, something passionate,
Speaker 1: within yourself and with another person, and how human that is,
Speaker 1: because sometimes we get very ashamed of talking about passion
Speaker 1: and desire, and I wanted to talk about that, and
Speaker 1: I think passion and desire aren't necessarily things that people
Speaker 1: associate me with, but they are also very human experiences
Speaker 1: which I have experienced as someone who's, you know, in
Speaker 1: her late thirties. You know, I think it's important for
Speaker 1: people to know that that is a part of me.
Speaker 1: And that third section is about when your feet touched
Speaker 1: the ground. After all, the desire and the passion and
Speaker 1: the headiness of what that can be, that when your
Speaker 1: feet touched the ground, you fall in love for real
Speaker 1: that it isn't just about the other person, but it
Speaker 1: really is with you as well, to fall in love
Speaker 1: again with who you are. That sometimes within our relationships
Speaker 1: we can lose ourselves a bit, but then eventually, if
Speaker 1: you want, you can come back to yourself. And that
Speaker 1: force section is about forgiveness, which is what this album
Speaker 1: is called. It is about forgiving the person that you
Speaker 1: were with, the person that you were, and the person
Speaker 1: you may have become because of it, forgiving the mistakes
Speaker 1: that you might have made because they lead to this place.
Speaker 1: And I guess in the grand scheme of things, it
Speaker 1: is really about forgiving yourself and allowing the fact that
Speaker 1: your human experiences are just that, the experiences we have
Speaker 1: as human beings that usher us through our lives. The
Speaker 1: things that I've been through have made me really sort
Speaker 1: of like look back on how I've dealt with certain situations,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I've not necessarily been my best self, But
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that I'm not a good human being.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes we mistake not being our best
Speaker 1: selves with being a bad human being, and I think
Speaker 1: sometimes we have to say that that's not the same thing,
Speaker 1: and that we can forgive ourselves for not being our
Speaker 1: best selves because we want to be good human beings.
Speaker 2: Even just listening to you explain that, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: I had so many thoughts that went through my mind.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about how it's so common for
Speaker 2: us to start hating ourselves, being harsh on ourselves when
Speaker 2: the situation is so complex, but almost our simple answer
Speaker 2: is I'm the problem. It's like, if someone breaks up
Speaker 2: with us, we think I'm the problem. I'm the weak one.
Speaker 2: It's over. If we choose to end something, we still
Speaker 2: blame ourselves. If you're someone who's self reflective enough, you
Speaker 2: still blame yourself. And I messed up. I don't deserve love.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll never get it. And I had a message
Speaker 2: recently from a friend who is going through a breakup
Speaker 2: and they were just like, I'm breaking up because I
Speaker 2: don't think this helps me grow anymore. It's not even
Speaker 2: like there's anything wrong with it. It's just like it's
Speaker 2: not right for them. But they were like, I'm just
Speaker 2: feeling guilty, and they're like, I also feel guilty because
Speaker 2: obviously the other person feels bad, and I can't even
Speaker 2: give them a real answer. To it because there isn't
Speaker 2: It's just a feeling. And it is so interesting how
Speaker 2: forgiveness is such the topic I'm thinking about our audience
Speaker 2: right now. One thing I've been trying to ask people
Speaker 2: to help people is have you ever been heartbroken? And
Speaker 2: what was the process or what was the one thing
Speaker 2: that helped you live through that, because I think so
Speaker 2: many of our audience are in that position that they
Speaker 2: come to me for that a lot. What was helpful
Speaker 2: to you?
Speaker 1: I have definitely been heartbroken in separate occasions, and because
Speaker 1: this happened to different parts of my life, I reacted
Speaker 1: in different ways. Earlier on, I really needed my friends,
Speaker 1: I really needed people around me to just surround me
Speaker 1: with love, and for me, music has always been the bomb.
Speaker 1: So I would listen and I would sort of like
Speaker 1: try to feed myself with the things that would give
Speaker 1: me good energy. And for me, that sometimes is like running,
Speaker 1: working out and eating good food, speaking to good people,
Speaker 1: having good experiences, creating newer memories on my own, and
Speaker 1: that really was the thing that would help me with heartbreak,
Speaker 1: but also like dealing with the fact that I felt
Speaker 1: heartbroken and admitting, oh, I this broke my heart and
Speaker 1: then later on it really was about I love a conversation.
Speaker 1: I like real closure, so I want to have like
Speaker 1: an actual, real conversation. And I've always not necessarily always,
Speaker 1: but I've tried to in most of the relationships that
Speaker 1: have en did and it's not me ending them. Have
Speaker 1: given an opportunity for conversation, like to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and I've tried to be as honest and I've asked
Speaker 1: the person to be honest about what it is that
Speaker 1: has happened, whether or not that's taken not always, and
Speaker 1: then sometimes it's taken sort of later on fine, but
Speaker 1: it's really I think if you can have your conversation,
Speaker 1: have the conversation and try to end it as amicably
Speaker 1: as you possibly can, and if you can't, then I
Speaker 1: know this sounds really strange, but have the conversation, but
Speaker 1: just not with that person, Like what would that conversation
Speaker 1: in your head be, How would you have had that conversation,
Speaker 1: What would you have said if you had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to sit in front of someone say hey, this really
Speaker 1: had my feelings and this is this is where I
Speaker 1: am with this right now, and I'm really finding it
Speaker 1: hard to deal with or my heart's broken, and I
Speaker 1: needed to heal and have those conversations, write those feelings down.
Speaker 1: The one thing you cannot do is keep a hold
Speaker 1: of that and swallow the feeling and never let it out,
Speaker 1: because I think it grows, it becomes something else. A
Speaker 1: heartbreak that isn't shared, heartbreak that isn't exorcised, I think,
Speaker 1: becomes resentment and becomes sour. You know, because outbreaks a
Speaker 1: real emotion. It's actually actually, strangely quite a lovely, beautiful
Speaker 1: emotion means you're alive. If you have a heart to break,
Speaker 1: it means your heart is beating. So it's not a
Speaker 1: bad emotion. However, if you harbor it and never let
Speaker 1: it go and never share it just like you share love,
Speaker 1: just like you share happiness, and you share joy, then
Speaker 1: it becomes something else. We don't keep joy to ourselves.
Speaker 1: We can't, it's impossible to. It sort of comes out
Speaker 1: of us, whether we like it or not. We don't
Speaker 1: keep love to ourselves. We want to give out love.
Speaker 1: We want to share love, because that only multiplies. If
Speaker 1: we keep heartbreak to ourselves, it becomes something else. It mutates, fotastasize,
Speaker 1: and it sticks to us. And what that does is
Speaker 1: stops us from being able to If you don't mend
Speaker 1: your heart, it can't be whole again for something else.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that anyone who has their heart broken
Speaker 1: wants their heart to be whole again so that they
Speaker 1: can share their heart with someone else again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, Yeah, I love that. I love that. That
Speaker 2: really resonated that idea of how emotions are not meant
Speaker 2: to be held on too, and the sad and the
Speaker 2: tough ones are the only ones. But we do we
Speaker 2: hold on to tightly. And if there was someone who
Speaker 2: was feeling like, oh my god, there's only this much
Speaker 2: joy in the world, I'm going to hold onto it,
Speaker 2: which we do sometimes yea, yeah, we're like, oh no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be really scarce about joy. We know
Speaker 2: that doesn't work, It disappears, it goes away. And yet
Speaker 2: it's so interesting that idea of why we hold on
Speaker 2: to the hard emotions and don't hold onto the beautiful ones,
Speaker 2: and it limits us. But first, here's a quick word
Speaker 2: from the brands that support the show. All right, thank
Speaker 2: you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. When
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about your album and that idea of what
Speaker 2: you just said of recognizing that we can forgive ourselves
Speaker 2: for ways in which we want to be better, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't make us a bad person. I think you're
Speaker 2: so right that as humans, we've got good at making
Speaker 2: it this binary black and white choice of I'm either
Speaker 2: a good person or I'm a bad person. And actually
Speaker 2: I've seen people with good intentions do more bad because
Speaker 2: they're trying so hard to be a good person rather
Speaker 2: than taking that Like I remember a guy that was
Speaker 2: mentoring a while ago. He was saying like, Oh, I
Speaker 2: don't want to break up with her because it will
Speaker 2: hurt her, And I was like, but you're hurting yourself
Speaker 2: and you're hurting her for longer because you don't want
Speaker 2: to be seen as a bad person. So you'd rather
Speaker 2: be seen as a good guy, hurt her long term
Speaker 2: and hurt yourself. And by the way, we all go
Speaker 2: through this, you don't to let people down down And
Speaker 2: so it's like, how did you reconcile those two things,
Speaker 2: because I think it's a very human thing, like we
Speaker 2: don't want to let people down now we won't be
Speaker 2: able to be happy. We don't want to break someone's heart.
Speaker 2: But the reality is that is how the way things go, I.
Speaker 1: Think in the long term. So when I had broken
Speaker 1: up with someone, when it was my choice to break
Speaker 1: up with someone, I saw very clearly that we weren't
Speaker 1: growing together anymore and that we weren't right for one
Speaker 1: another anymore, and that us being together would actually be
Speaker 1: to the detriment of the both of us. If I'm
Speaker 1: in something that that I'm miserable in, that I'm not
Speaker 1: happy in, then the likelihood is that is going to
Speaker 1: grow within the relationship that I'm going to continue to
Speaker 1: be miserable, and that person is also going to experience
Speaker 1: the most miserable version of myself, and that isn't good
Speaker 1: for anyone because I'm not fertile ground for happiness if
Speaker 1: I'm doing that, which means it removes the ability for
Speaker 1: the other person also to be in a relationship that's happy.
Speaker 1: And I would rather remove myself from the situation so
Speaker 1: that they can go on and find whoever it is
Speaker 1: that they're meant to be with, because we will find
Speaker 1: the people that were meant to be with, and maybe
Speaker 1: we're meant to be with someone for a season, and
Speaker 1: then we move on and find the person that we're
Speaker 1: meant to be with full life, or maybe we're meant
Speaker 1: to be with several people for a season and that's
Speaker 1: what we're meant to do, or we're meant to learn
Speaker 1: from the people that were with to become the people
Speaker 1: that were supposed to be before we end up in
Speaker 1: the relationship were supposed to end up in. And I
Speaker 1: just knew that I couldn't continue to pretend to be
Speaker 1: something I wasn't within a relationship that wasn't It wasn't
Speaker 1: feeding me in the way I needed it to. And
Speaker 1: because of that, I knew it wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: feeding the other persons so strongly. It's really hard, though
Speaker 1: you feel like such a letdown for doing it. You
Speaker 1: feel I hate to use this word, but you feel
Speaker 1: like a villain for doing it, for hurting someone. But sometimes,
Speaker 1: and this may be a hard thing to say, but
Speaker 1: sometimes hurting someone actually aids the growth of another person.
Speaker 1: When we experience hurt, we are forced to grow again.
Speaker 1: It is another human emotion that we have to experience
Speaker 1: as we grow because it teaches us about what we are,
Speaker 1: how to react or how to soothe, how to use
Speaker 1: the hurt to turn into something else. Right, we're all
Speaker 1: going to be hurt at some point in our lives.
Speaker 1: That is not something that we can prevent. We're all
Speaker 1: going to hurt someone in our lives. That's also something
Speaker 1: we cannot prevent. We are also always going to we
Speaker 1: are all going to be hurt ourselves in general. It's
Speaker 1: not going to that's something we can't prevent, and it's
Speaker 1: not something we run headlong into. But when it presents itself,
Speaker 1: we also have to be brave enough to be the
Speaker 1: people that either experience it or serve it, not vindictively,
Speaker 1: not because we want to, but because it's sometimes necessary
Speaker 1: to begin again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love what you just said there, that sometimes
Speaker 2: we hurt people, and sometimes people hurt us, and then
Speaker 2: sometimes we hurt ourselves. Yes, and all of that you
Speaker 2: can't prevent. That's going to happen in the natural flow
Speaker 2: of life, And all we can learn to do is
Speaker 2: those people that we hurt, Yeah, try to help in
Speaker 2: the best way possible and recognize that. Like I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about it as you're talking about it. Whenever I've if
Speaker 2: I've broken up with someone, there's no part of me
Speaker 2: that was excited about it, were happy about it, felt
Speaker 2: good about it. Not only because I believe a good
Speaker 2: person and want to be a good person, but because
Speaker 2: I don't like causing anyone pain. But it made me.
Speaker 2: What it changed in me was it made me more
Speaker 2: responsible in the future of how I was with someone
Speaker 2: and how I conducted myself and thought about relationship. When
Speaker 2: I was a teenager, probably felt too quick, probably like
Speaker 2: you know, was all in like, didn't really recognize what
Speaker 2: that was. And as I grew up, it was like, no, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I understand I need to slow things down. Like
Speaker 2: one of the things I say to see so many
Speaker 2: people is don't fall in love too fast, because when
Speaker 2: you fall in love too fast, that's when love is blind.
Speaker 2: That's when you.
Speaker 1: Fall you even't learned the person yet, and.
Speaker 2: You haven't really understood, Like you understand there, you understand
Speaker 2: what they like, but you don't really know anything about them.
Speaker 2: Beyond that, you understand very little information about them. But
Speaker 2: it's such a hard process to forgive ourselves for breaking
Speaker 2: someone's heart and to forgive ourselves for when someone breaks
Speaker 2: our heart, because if someone breaks didn't.
Speaker 1: I see, how comes I don't know all of those things,
Speaker 1: all of those things sometimes you won't see and also
Speaker 1: sometimes there's nothing to do with you. Sometimes it's not you,
Speaker 1: it's that the other person needs something else, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it might be the other way around. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it isn't them, you need something else.
Speaker 2: That's actually it. Yeah, that's it. Like what you just
Speaker 2: said there, that is actually what it is. That when
Speaker 2: you're breaking up with them, it's actually all to do
Speaker 2: with you, and when they broke up with you, it
Speaker 2: was all to do with them. And the problem is
Speaker 2: in both those situations, we make it all about us.
Speaker 2: It's our fault, we messed up, you know, or we
Speaker 2: blame it on them as well. Yeah, no, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: There was a couple of lyrics from the album that
Speaker 2: I just I had to talk about. So this is
Speaker 2: from the song that's already out replay. Yes, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to I should let you do this, but I'll
Speaker 2: do it anyway to remind you I'm the best overachiever.
Speaker 2: There's not anyone like me. And you'd think that was
Speaker 2: a good thing till you're told that's not healthy. You
Speaker 2: spend every waking hour working hard to write your will,
Speaker 2: patiently waiting for validation until you're empty and unfulfilled. So powerful,
Speaker 2: I love it. It's even just reading it, it's like
Speaker 2: and then getting to hear you singing it. The part
Speaker 2: that I was really that really stood out to me
Speaker 2: because I think so many people struggle with it today.
Speaker 2: Is this waiting for validation? Yeah, there's such a you'll
Speaker 2: want to be validating. Yes, I've been thinking about this
Speaker 2: a lot. Yeah, what is the right type of validation
Speaker 2: to crave and what's the unhealthy validation to crave?
Speaker 1: I don't even know, because I think all of it
Speaker 1: is healthy and all of it is unhealthy to be honest,
Speaker 1: because the only real validation that matters is what you
Speaker 1: feel about yourself on the inside. Once it's once you've
Speaker 1: done something, do you know what I'm saying? Like, because
Speaker 1: you're never really going to please everybody. Everyone is seeing
Speaker 1: you objectively. They are They have their own idea of
Speaker 1: who you are and what you've been through and the
Speaker 1: type of human being you are, the type experiences you have.
Speaker 1: They haven't lived your experience, so all they have is
Speaker 1: what you tell them, right, All they have is what
Speaker 1: they see of you. And so as wonderful as it
Speaker 1: is when people are lovely and they say complimentary things
Speaker 1: and they you know, love the music, or there's also
Speaker 1: the other side that isn't that and that doesn't and
Speaker 1: isn't kind. And so if we don't take them in
Speaker 1: equal measure, then we're suggesting that one is more important
Speaker 1: than the other. But both come from people who are
Speaker 1: experiencing you in the exact same way, right, So why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you take the bad and the good inequal measure.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't feel good to take the bad inequal
Speaker 1: measure as the good, right, so we make this more
Speaker 1: important than this. So I honestly think that I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of my life trying to do things like
Speaker 1: you know, I was talking about my dad and what
Speaker 1: that felt like, and I was trying to prove to
Speaker 1: him that I was lovable. And you know, in the
Speaker 1: beginning of this, I would do my work and I want,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it be social media or whether it
Speaker 1: would be reviews. And you want the good reviews, and
Speaker 1: you want people to say really nice things. You want
Speaker 1: people who you've never met to love you. And that
Speaker 1: is the driving force behind the work. And in the end,
Speaker 1: it doesn't serve you at all. It's wonderful, it's lovely
Speaker 1: to hear it, but if you don't feel that way
Speaker 1: about yourself. If you don't believe in the work you're doing,
Speaker 1: if you don't love the skin that you're in, the
Speaker 1: work that comes from you, the things that you get
Speaker 1: to say, the people you get to meet. If you
Speaker 1: don't love that work, none of the comments, none of
Speaker 1: the lovely compliments, none of the making someone finally fall
Speaker 1: in love with you matters. What it does is come
Speaker 1: to an empty shell. You have to learn how to
Speaker 1: fill up yourself because that's what fills you, that's what
Speaker 1: feels actually good, that's what actually feels good. Like is
Speaker 1: what does this work? How does this work serve you
Speaker 1: in your life? Does it serve other people? And I
Speaker 1: also think that in doing of work, sometimes we think
Speaker 1: that it's only it is about us, But it's a
Speaker 1: cyclical thing. I think if you can do the best
Speaker 1: you can do in your work, if you can really
Speaker 1: pour yourself into the work in the right way that
Speaker 1: feels authentic to who you are, then you can actually
Speaker 1: serve that work to other people, that you can actually
Speaker 1: be of service to other people. And I really I
Speaker 1: talk about this when it comes to music and comes
Speaker 1: to teaching. When it comes to singing, it's less about
Speaker 1: me getting a big applause at the end of a
Speaker 1: song that is lovely, But that couldn't matter less than
Speaker 1: actually looking at someone's eyes in the audience and knowing
Speaker 1: that I've connected with them, knowing that this song means
Speaker 1: the world to this person, that this song is an
Speaker 1: expression of what they are. Also might be feeling that
Speaker 1: my being able to sing something in a way that
Speaker 1: connects with someone else that allows them to then process
Speaker 1: something that they've also been through. That, to me is
Speaker 1: what I love. That for me, is that's the question
Speaker 1: you answered that that's actually the best validation. It's not
Speaker 1: actually what people say, it's what I can witness someone feeling.
Speaker 1: To me, that is the best validation for me, I
Speaker 1: don't have to wait for that validation. That's almost instant.
Speaker 1: It happens when I speak to someone, when I sing
Speaker 1: to someone. A person can't hide how they feel, you know,
Speaker 1: even though we think we can, we actually cannot. It
Speaker 1: shows up in the small minute movements in our body.
Speaker 1: It shows up in our faces, It shows up in
Speaker 1: how we express It shows up in how open we
Speaker 1: are when we're speaking to a person. More than a
Speaker 1: person saying, oh my god, that was amazing, which is lovely.
Speaker 1: But actually I'm not necessarily seeking a hundred thank yous
Speaker 1: and a hundred you're amazing. I'm not looking for that.
Speaker 1: I'm actually looking for how deeply can I connect with people?
Speaker 1: How much can I make people feel? Does this mean
Speaker 1: that someone is going to go and figure out something
Speaker 1: in their relationships with someone? Does this mean that they're
Speaker 1: going to finally have a conversation with that person that
Speaker 1: they haven't spoken to for years because they've been harboring
Speaker 1: a feeling that they haven't yet faced. If that is
Speaker 1: what comes off my music, my work, teaching, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: then that's the validation I want, right. But what that
Speaker 1: lyric speaks about is the other sort that you're sort
Speaker 1: of waiting for people to say that you're amazing. You're
Speaker 1: waiting for people to give you, like all of the
Speaker 1: outward input that you can take. But eventually it's that
Speaker 1: old weird thing where you see one hundred lovely messages
Speaker 1: and you see that one message that isn't great, and
Speaker 1: everything comes tumbling down because it isn't based on anything,
Speaker 1: there's no foundation for it. Right, But if you can
Speaker 1: connect with that one person, those ten people, those fifteen
Speaker 1: people in that audience when their tears are falling and
Speaker 1: you can hear it. In There's something really wonderful about
Speaker 1: when it's quiet and you hear that one person go.
Speaker 1: You go, Okay, that person's connected and they're feeling something
Speaker 1: you make people feel. Then then that's the valization we want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, might drop Oh yeah that Yeah, I and I
Speaker 2: feel that. Yeah, you know, like you, I feel that.
Speaker 2: And as I was listening to you, I was thinking,
Speaker 2: sometimes when I'm speaking to a large group or leading
Speaker 2: a meditation for like maybe sometimes I've been fortunate enough
Speaker 2: to lead meditations for like five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand people,
Speaker 2: maybe even more in one time, and I almost in
Speaker 2: my mind when I'm leading it, I'll go back to
Speaker 2: when there were just ten people. Yeah, and when I
Speaker 2: used to lead meditations for five people in because that's
Speaker 2: also what we all want to feel. Yeah, Like we're
Speaker 2: all looking for intimacy deeply. That's what we're seeking is intimacy,
Speaker 2: and we go to these big group gatherings to feel.
Speaker 2: And that's what music does for people, is it makes
Speaker 2: us feel intimate with the person standing next to us
Speaker 2: because we have a shared experience. And I feel intimate
Speaker 2: with the person singing it, because I feel a shared experience,
Speaker 2: and that's what we're all seeking, is this intimacy in
Speaker 2: this mass. We're still looking for this moment where I
Speaker 2: just caught a glimpse of even someone in the audio.
Speaker 2: We both kind of know, we both felt what we
Speaker 2: just heard. And it's really interesting to me that we've
Speaker 2: confused validation with love. We've confused attention with affection, We've
Speaker 2: confused praise with power and purity, and over here we're
Speaker 2: really seeking intimacy, but we'll trade it for adulation and
Speaker 2: adoration everything else that does quite hit this spart. And
Speaker 2: as I was listening to you, I love that for
Speaker 2: you as your definition, And I think that's what's so important,
Speaker 2: is having your definition of what validation matters to you,
Speaker 2: because otherwise you'll constantly be pulled and pushed all over
Speaker 2: the place bye by everything that comes, and you'll run
Speaker 2: after it wherever it's delivered. Whereas you're really clear, like
Speaker 2: I do love the applause, of course, and so do I.
Speaker 2: I'm the same as you. I love it, of course
Speaker 2: it is. But like when yesterday when I was flying
Speaker 2: home and one of the air stewards came up to
Speaker 2: me and was just like, don't stop doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2: It really makes a difference.
Speaker 1: It's so wonderful because because you know that you have
Speaker 1: affected a person, it isn't just face value like you
Speaker 1: have I use the word infiltrated their nervous system, right,
Speaker 1: You're part of how they now moved through their days.
Speaker 1: Something about what you said has affected the way they
Speaker 1: now behave towards other people and behave in their lives.
Speaker 1: And that is really really special, Like that's actually the
Speaker 1: core of what we're supposed to be doing as human beings,
Speaker 1: not even just in my field or your field, but
Speaker 1: as human beings, what we want to be able to
Speaker 1: do is give a person something that they can take
Speaker 1: away with them into their own lives. If we can
Speaker 1: do that for me beyond anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And I think like whether
Speaker 2: you're a musician, yes, whether you're a creator, whether you're
Speaker 2: an author, whether you're an entrepreneur making a product. If
Speaker 2: you look at your comment section or your reviews, you'll
Speaker 2: see people pouring their heart who you've impacted. But the
Speaker 2: mind just wants the next million way or the next
Speaker 2: ten k and revenue or whatever it is that you're
Speaker 2: working towards and like you missed the facts.
Speaker 1: A human who took the time to be like you
Speaker 1: changed something for me, you know. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about as you were speaking to you, please,
Speaker 1: something came up for me when you were talking about intimacy.
Speaker 1: There's a concert hall that I performed and I but
Speaker 1: it was in the round, and which means that the
Speaker 1: stage is sort of in the center but still in prostarch,
Speaker 1: which means you have a front of the stage and
Speaker 1: then it comes back but behind you there are people
Speaker 1: seated watching from behind, so they have your head and
Speaker 1: your backs for most of it, and then there are
Speaker 1: people sitting in front in the round. And I remember,
Speaker 1: and I will always I would always do this, whether
Speaker 1: we like it or not. We want to be seen.
Speaker 1: So what I would try to do when I'm in
Speaker 1: those theaters is before we really launch into the whole concert,
Speaker 1: I would always sing a portion of the music to
Speaker 1: the people who would not just get the back of
Speaker 1: my head, because what that says is I see you
Speaker 1: as well, and as a form of intimacy to go, yes,
Speaker 1: I see you, but I also know that there are
Speaker 1: people who are behind me who are who want to
Speaker 1: be a part of this as much as you, And
Speaker 1: they're only getting the back of my head and the
Speaker 1: back of my shoulders and they're not getting the front
Speaker 1: of me, which is you know, our heart is cage.
Speaker 1: This is the thing I think of. Our heart is
Speaker 1: in our in our rib cage and within all of that.
Speaker 1: But it's in the front and they get the back.
Speaker 1: So you kind of want to make sure that they
Speaker 1: get your heart to they get to see the front
Speaker 1: of you where your heart is placed, right, it's here,
Speaker 1: but this is where we that's where we in our
Speaker 1: like in imaginations, this is where it is. So you
Speaker 1: turn to them and you you're open, so you say, hey,
Speaker 1: I see you, and I can see you here and
Speaker 1: I know that you're get in the back of my head,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to leave you out. I want
Speaker 1: you to be a part of this intimate experience that
Speaker 1: we're having together. And I feel like within this music,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I want to do. Like we're
Speaker 1: in the round, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: have had the back of my head and a lot
Speaker 1: of people have had the back of my shoulders and
Speaker 1: the back of me, and I really want for this
Speaker 1: album to be like me turning around and going, hey,
Speaker 1: I see you, and I want you to see my
Speaker 1: heart too as well, because I know that there's a
Speaker 1: large amount of people who've seen me and my heart,
Speaker 1: but there are some people who don't know that part
Speaker 1: of me, and they see the pretty dresses and they
Speaker 1: see me say nice things and all those things. But
Speaker 1: I want them to get in front of me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you did that in the album, like it
Speaker 2: comes across thank you. It's such an invitation, yeah, into
Speaker 2: that intimate space for yourself for them, Yeah, And that's
Speaker 2: why I think like people are going to listen to this.
Speaker 2: Whether they've just gone through a breakup or a divorce,
Speaker 2: they're going to listen to this. If they're just falling
Speaker 2: in love, they're going to listen to this. Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: going to listen to this album. If they're on their
Speaker 2: own journey, they're going to listen to this album with
Speaker 2: their friends. Like I feel like it's one of those
Speaker 2: albums that you're going to experience, not just listen to,
Speaker 2: not just have one in the background. And yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's so special. A couple more things I want to
Speaker 2: ask you about. There was another lyric from replay as well,
Speaker 2: and you were mentioning it just there it was this
Speaker 2: and it's so powerful and I'm a big fan of
Speaker 2: break like reading lyrics.
Speaker 1: Like this album is that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's such a because it's such mastery as well,
Speaker 2: like for even anyone who loves poetry and writing, and
Speaker 2: it's just that you go, daddy, trauma has emasculated all
Speaker 2: my common sense. So I'm looking through the lens of
Speaker 2: an impending abandonment. All the voices in my head, some
Speaker 2: not worth the time you spent. So I searched for
Speaker 2: an escape before you notice your mistake. And I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean it's just beautiful to even read off the
Speaker 2: page like it's such a The part that struck out
Speaker 2: to me there was the so I'm looking through the
Speaker 2: lens of an impending abandonment, and I was like, goes
Speaker 2: back to what you were just saying. Now that people
Speaker 2: feel that, Yeah, people feel really abandoned by themselves too.
Speaker 1: It's also about feeling abandoned and then taking that into
Speaker 1: everything you go into. And so even now sometimes I
Speaker 1: expect people to leave. So what the way I move,
Speaker 1: the way I work, I don't trust people quickly. I
Speaker 1: am expecting them to go away. It's sort of like,
Speaker 1: if I can set myself up to know that I'm
Speaker 1: going to be abandoned, then I can't be hurt when
Speaker 1: it happens. Yes, right, And so what I've had to
Speaker 1: do over time is start to trust people and to
Speaker 1: not tart everything with a brush of abandonment. If a
Speaker 1: person has to leave, a person has to leave, that's okay.
Speaker 1: They're not abandoning. They're simply leaving, you know. And that
Speaker 1: isn't to say that the experience of feeling abandoned isn't real,
Speaker 1: but it is also to say that that experience of
Speaker 1: abandonment isn't always what happens. And for a really long time,
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell the difference. And so every time a
Speaker 1: friend left, or I broke up with a person, or
Speaker 1: a relationship didn't quite work, it felt like a massive
Speaker 1: moment of abandonment. It felt like the floor was taken
Speaker 1: out from underneath me. And it's taken a long time
Speaker 1: to get to a point where I can trust that
Speaker 1: that's not the case. And so what that would do
Speaker 1: is stop me from saying how I really felt in
Speaker 1: a situation, because I didn't want them to go away.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, like if I'm not happy with something,
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't say because I don't want them to
Speaker 1: have a reason to leave, you know. Or if I
Speaker 1: didn't want something, then I wouldn't say I don't want
Speaker 1: something because I was afraid that they would leave, right.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately that leads sometimes to really dangerous situations because
Speaker 1: you don't speak up. And I've had to learn to
Speaker 1: be okay with the idea that if someone leaves, they
Speaker 1: are meant to and if they're meant to come back,
Speaker 1: they will, right. But sometimes we're very afraid to chance it.
Speaker 1: We're very afraid to let a person go. We are
Speaker 1: afraid to let a person go, and we need to
Speaker 1: be okay with it.
Speaker 2: And people go.
Speaker 1: Because they have their own journey as well. We don't
Speaker 1: know what path people are walking on when they walk
Speaker 1: into our lives. We might just be a stepping stone
Speaker 1: in their path, just like stepping stones are in their life,
Speaker 1: and they might just be a stepping stone in our
Speaker 1: lives as we keep moving forward. If we're not confident
Speaker 1: or comfortable enough to let that be a stepping stone
Speaker 1: to move on to the next one, we won't go
Speaker 1: anywhere we're stuck.
Speaker 2: Would you say that's the hardest emotion you've ever had
Speaker 2: to face and deal with or has it been harder.
Speaker 1: I think that has been because it's shown up in
Speaker 1: many different ways for different people. For me, and I
Speaker 1: think it's always that's always been the root emotion that
Speaker 1: makes other emotions amplified. Feeling abandon makes hurt feel a
Speaker 1: lot bigger than it than it should, or feeling abandoned
Speaker 1: makes loss feel bigger than that. So it's like silly
Speaker 1: things like if a friend. If I call a friend
Speaker 1: and I don't this has happened before a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: and it was just their process. She would call, or
Speaker 1: I would call, she would pick up, We would have
Speaker 1: the most amazing like conversation we would have, like the
Speaker 1: connection would be right back where we were before and
Speaker 1: it would be lovely. And then I would call maybe
Speaker 1: a month later, and she wouldn't pick up, or and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't see her for another month or two, and
Speaker 1: I would take it so personally for me it would
Speaker 1: be like she's left me again. But actually that was
Speaker 1: just her process. Sometimes she would go and sort of
Speaker 1: shield herself and grow herself back and put herself back together.
Speaker 1: And then she would appear again, and I had to
Speaker 1: learn that that is just the way she exists, and
Speaker 1: I had to be okay with her way of existing.
Speaker 1: And once I learned that that's her way of existing,
Speaker 1: it meant that I could welcome her with open arms
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't be so upset when she was gone
Speaker 1: that I knew that she was just putting herself back
Speaker 1: together again, and I could just send a lot of
Speaker 1: message of how are you, and I'm thinking of you,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna call you in a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: and if you're around, I'm okay for a chat, and
Speaker 1: not expect anything, so that when something did come back,
Speaker 1: it was joyous. It was really wonderful when that feeling
Speaker 1: of abandonment was the main focus. It felt really bad
Speaker 1: when she went away. And it's the same and it
Speaker 1: had been the same in different relationships that when they
Speaker 1: had decided that they wanted to move on or when
Speaker 1: they it just felt like such a wound. And that
Speaker 1: is that is not sustainable. You can't live like that.
Speaker 1: You can't live believing that everyone that is abandoning you,
Speaker 1: because it makes for a really lonely existence. It means
Speaker 1: that you build up a wall of protection to stop
Speaker 1: yourself from really being connected to anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even if you're surrounded by loads of people. Before
Speaker 2: we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our
Speaker 2: sponsors and back to our episode. You know, you've been
Speaker 2: dedicated to your art for so many years, and I
Speaker 2: feel like Wicked was like this global phenomenon. Yeah right,
Speaker 2: it's and you've been recognized in one awards and done
Speaker 2: phenomenal work, but Wicked was just Yeah, at least the day,
Speaker 2: it felt different, Like how did that change your feeling
Speaker 2: of fitting in and belonging? And because you're part of
Speaker 2: something bigger, yeah, bigger, Like, how does that kind of
Speaker 2: how do you make sense of that?
Speaker 1: What's really interesting is that I think I've really been
Speaker 1: able to lean into who I am, and what I
Speaker 1: noticed is that there are so many people in the
Speaker 1: world who feel really different. And because I got to
Speaker 1: do this piece that put me in front of many people,
Speaker 1: it meant that there are other people who felt like
Speaker 1: they were invisible who finally felt visible again. And that
Speaker 1: has been something that's really wonderful to experience, to bump
Speaker 1: into people who didn't feel like they fit. Women specifically,
Speaker 1: who have spoken to me about either women who have
Speaker 1: suffered cancer and have been through chemotherapy and lost their
Speaker 1: hair and said, and I'm not ill. My hair is
Speaker 1: a choice. I shaved it first because of the film,
Speaker 1: and then I loved what it did to me. It
Speaker 1: meant that I really could just see my face and
Speaker 1: me and we know that there's always a massive conversation
Speaker 1: around hair and what it does and how long someone's
Speaker 1: hair is or how smooth or how straight or whatever
Speaker 1: that is, or how curd it whatever, and I had
Speaker 1: made a choice to not have it at all. And
Speaker 1: the amount of women who have suffered alopacia, suffered, have
Speaker 1: been through cancer and survived but now have to wear
Speaker 1: wigs or don't wear wigs or have been sort of
Speaker 1: shy about going without, have reached out and been like,
Speaker 1: I saw you rocking no hair, and now I feel
Speaker 1: really confident about walking around with no hair and being baled,
Speaker 1: and I feel really strong about it. That's been a
Speaker 1: huge eye opener that there are so many people who
Speaker 1: feel like they don't belong. But seeing one person who's
Speaker 1: very different from the norm, and you know, rocks what
Speaker 1: they rock and are who they are, sort of put
Speaker 1: out a little bit of permission to also be who
Speaker 1: you are. And I think that for me was a
Speaker 1: real crux of this. There are so many people trying
Speaker 1: to just discover themselves and they just need to see
Speaker 1: it on someone else to also decide or I can
Speaker 1: just be. That's been wonderful. The amount of eyes on
Speaker 1: you is really new for me. It's I'm still adjusting
Speaker 1: to it. And while I have, I'm really grateful for
Speaker 1: the platform that has been given to me because of it.
Speaker 1: It's still a new thing. It's new to be heard
Speaker 1: all the time. It's new to be seen all the time.
Speaker 1: It's new to see, you know, walk through an airport
Speaker 1: think that you're anonymous and not being honout at all,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, even when you have no
Speaker 1: makeup on it and it's like who you are. And
Speaker 1: that's a norm for me to walk through an airport,
Speaker 1: no makeup, no nothing. She sort of had on, just
Speaker 1: like ready to go, but not be recognized. But when
Speaker 1: you are recognized, it's a new that's very new for me.
Speaker 1: It's also really wonderful because people are so excited by it,
Speaker 1: and so excited by these characters, and so excited by
Speaker 1: the people who play the characters. That's also new. Before
Speaker 1: I could play a character and they would recognize the character,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily recognize me from the character. Now people
Speaker 1: know me and the character, which is a new thing.
Speaker 1: Also that they are able to separate the person Alphaba
Speaker 1: who I played, and me Cynthia. That's also a new thing,
Speaker 1: which is lovely because it means that I guess I've
Speaker 1: made an impression as me as well as an impression
Speaker 1: as the character, which is really lovely. It's nice to
Speaker 1: be able to people have welcomed me into their homes.
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, I love that. Well, I think RADI sent
Speaker 2: you that little clear of my niece calls me Alphaba
Speaker 2: and she thinks she's Glinda and she just made this up.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And so literally every voice note to me is she
Speaker 2: calls me Alphabe and now I'm Alphabet to her. And
Speaker 2: so when Raley told her that we know the real Alfama,
Speaker 2: she just cann't believe it. And you know, but it's
Speaker 2: one of those things of like just it meant so much,
Speaker 2: like I feel like you and Ariana like meant so
Speaker 2: much more than a movie to people.
Speaker 1: It felt that, Yes, people came to see the movie,
Speaker 1: and people loved what the movie said. But I spoke
Speaker 1: to someone who's who said that they were a couple
Speaker 1: of parents actually who said that this movie has given
Speaker 1: them the opportunity to have conversations with their kids. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like seven year olds, six year olds
Speaker 1: to talk about playground politics and being different and being
Speaker 1: excluded and what that fee like, and the ownership over
Speaker 1: one's self and deciding to be who you are against
Speaker 1: all odds and having those conversations between adult and kid
Speaker 1: and how difficult that can be when there's nothing to
Speaker 1: bring that conversation up. But because of this movie, it's
Speaker 1: meant that people can have those conversations, you know, and
Speaker 1: then people our age who are leaning more into their friendships,
Speaker 1: leaning more into their relationships that they have that can
Speaker 1: be difficult, but they can pour more energy into them,
Speaker 1: and then leaning more into discovering who they are as people.
Speaker 1: And even though it can be scary to be who
Speaker 1: you are meant to be, to show up as yourself,
Speaker 1: it's equally as rewarding. And those conversations that this has
Speaker 1: sort of brought to life is blown my mind, and
Speaker 1: it means something different to every single person. You think
Speaker 1: it's possible, but when you see it, it's beyond it,
Speaker 1: just beyond it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think the point you were making about
Speaker 2: how people accepted alphabet BA accept you, Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that is because of how you showed up through all
Speaker 2: of the both you an era and I through all
Speaker 2: the press. Yeah. It's almost that you didn't both show
Speaker 2: up as movie stars, showed up as friends and people.
Speaker 2: You showed up as people, and you felt that, and
Speaker 2: I think that's what everyone felt, where it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: they didn't show up as two people who were promoting
Speaker 2: a movie. They showed up as themselves. And of course
Speaker 2: we all love the movie and want to watch the
Speaker 2: movie and all the rest of it. But it was
Speaker 2: very different to what people have been exposed to before.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that you don't.
Speaker 1: Usually even think we did that on purpose. I think
Speaker 1: that's just that's just who we are, you know. I
Speaker 1: think I don't know that. I said to myself, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to come to these q and a's and
Speaker 1: I'm going to just talk about this and that I think.
Speaker 1: I just there's something wonderful that exhaustion does to you,
Speaker 1: where if the veil sort of falls away and we'd
Speaker 1: been We were already exhausted before we begun the press
Speaker 1: store because we'd worked so long. We'd been working so
Speaker 1: long on it, and we'd worked really hard. We didn't
Speaker 1: really have much of time away from the film before
Speaker 1: we began, you know, sharing it with people. We finished
Speaker 1: the film in February, and we're on the road basically
Speaker 1: from June, so that's not a long time. And between
Speaker 1: that time we also were working on other things, so
Speaker 1: we hadn't actually stopped. So by the time we were
Speaker 1: in front of everybody, there was no energy to put
Speaker 1: up pretenses. We just were who we were. And there's
Speaker 1: something wonderful about having only the energy to exist in
Speaker 1: yourself in front of people. And once you begin that way,
Speaker 1: it doesn't go in the other of the direction. It
Speaker 1: just amplifies, and so we become You just watched us
Speaker 1: become more and more and more of ourselves, and all
Speaker 1: the tears that you saw were very, very real, because
Speaker 1: the experience was still very raw. We only just had
Speaker 1: left it in February. That was the last time I
Speaker 1: took off the green. I hadn't completely put her down yet.
Speaker 1: I was still sort of decompressing and letting her go
Speaker 1: and putting myself back together in front of people. That's
Speaker 1: what was happening. And then we were having to talk
Speaker 1: about our characters and talk about the experience, and it
Speaker 1: was only a month or two away, and that's sort
Speaker 1: of how it was. And then because we're having these
Speaker 1: constant conversations, we're also relearning and remembering and figuring things
Speaker 1: out and learning new things. There are things that I
Speaker 1: didn't know that she was experiencing that I learned on
Speaker 1: the spot, and there are things that I was experiencing
Speaker 1: that she was learning on the spot, and the things
Speaker 1: that our director was experiencing that we had just realized.
Speaker 1: So we were learning new things in real time in
Speaker 1: front of everybody, but we weren't pretending that it was
Speaker 1: old hat to us. We were realizing, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't know that that's a new thing
Speaker 1: to learn. I think hopefully we'll make people do that more.
Speaker 1: When you're in this sort of business. And I was
Speaker 1: speaking to someone about this, the tendency is to put
Speaker 1: up the wall and try to protect yourself, and actually,
Speaker 1: the most wonderful thing you can give any one who's
Speaker 1: watching is a little bit of yourself and the revelation
Speaker 1: that it is a human experience all of the things
Speaker 1: that it looks fancy when you're running around and you're
Speaker 1: in the pretty dresses, but when you're on a set,
Speaker 1: it's as human and as real as you can possibly
Speaker 1: make it. You're up early, you're exhausted every day, the
Speaker 1: makeup is coming on and off, and there's someone you know,
Speaker 1: You're meeting loads of different people who you've only met
Speaker 1: for the first time on day one, and then you've
Speaker 1: got to perform that next day. It's a very vulnerable,
Speaker 1: like very open experience, and you have to sort of
Speaker 1: learn to get used to that quite quickly. And then
Speaker 1: once you are used to that, you then make family
Speaker 1: with people and you're you get to know everyone's tells
Speaker 1: and you get to know everyone's sort of like the
Speaker 1: way people take all. She's really tired today. I'm going
Speaker 1: to bring her a cook and she likes chocolate chip
Speaker 1: cookies and I know that will make her happy. Or
Speaker 1: he actually is vegan, so he'll only have the double chocolate,
Speaker 1: which is you know, and he loves raising a note
Speaker 1: and that's his favorite thing. But don't put butter in it,
Speaker 1: because he actually really doesn't like you know, you start
Speaker 1: to learn or people like she likes to eat at twelve,
Speaker 1: but he likes to eat it too. He's tired, judging
Speaker 1: by you know, how fast he's working. But actually she's
Speaker 1: had a great morning because she's really quick, or she's
Speaker 1: quite shy, so go to her, speak to her quietly
Speaker 1: or that. You learn people and then you have to
Speaker 1: let them go. You actually have to say goodbye. So
Speaker 1: that's a really human experience once you come off a set.
Speaker 1: And I think when you promote something, when you're on
Speaker 1: the road and you're talking about that experience, you do
Speaker 1: yourself and everyone else a service by making people understand
Speaker 1: just how human the experience is, so that people understand
Speaker 1: that it isn't just moving pictures and we aren't just people.
Speaker 1: You sort of cut and splice together on that day,
Speaker 1: this person, I've been having a terrible day, but yet
Speaker 1: they did this and that day she was in complete
Speaker 1: pain in this harness that she'd been in for twelve hours,
Speaker 1: but she was still able to sing that. And on
Speaker 1: this day she you know, even though she has an
Speaker 1: allergy to whatever, she still moved through it because that
Speaker 1: was happening. You know, everyone is trying to create something
Speaker 1: create art, and we're not doing it from the comfort
Speaker 1: of our homes and our sofas. We're really on the ground,
Speaker 1: in the dirt, moving through it, and then we come
Speaker 1: together to share it. That really is what being on
Speaker 1: the road is about, sharing the experience. And I think
Speaker 1: we kind of knew that almost automatically, and I think
Speaker 1: it's something that I will take with me for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life, not just for this next move,
Speaker 1: but for everything I do. To make it a really
Speaker 1: human experience is a gift.
Speaker 2: I remember, I've traveled so much with my clients and
Speaker 2: been on set and been in trailers from coaching someone
Speaker 2: or working with someone, and I couldn't believe how not
Speaker 2: glamorous film sets are. They're just not at all. And
Speaker 2: it's so interesting because no one ever sees that. Now
Speaker 2: you only see the finished product, and then you see
Speaker 2: the red carpet, and so you assume actors have a
Speaker 2: really like glamorous life. And actually, for four months, or
Speaker 2: for projects like yours, for years, you're sitting in a
Speaker 2: tiny little trailer, you know, putting on your clothes, taking
Speaker 2: them off lines like whatever, makeup, whatever it is. You
Speaker 2: go on set. You wait for three hours you don't
Speaker 2: know when you're going back out. It's cold, it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's so interesting how what you see and what you
Speaker 2: think are two very different different things. And it dehumanizes
Speaker 2: people and and so there's there's such a need for that,
Speaker 2: And I don't think I could ever be friends with
Speaker 2: anyone who likes oatmeal. Raising cookies.
Speaker 1: So it's in the right way, and they're crunchy on
Speaker 1: the outside but sort of like soft and buttery on
Speaker 1: the inside. You can't convince me I think there's a
Speaker 1: place for them in the world.
Speaker 2: I do think that. I think so there's that there's that.
Speaker 2: I can't remember who said, if someone was like, raising
Speaker 2: cookies are the reason I have trust issues, because it's.
Speaker 1: Exactly I will make like I because I do like
Speaker 1: to bake occasionally, and when I was when I was
Speaker 1: on the set, I would make big tins, like two
Speaker 1: three tins full of like cookies for people. So I
Speaker 1: would do like a set of chocolate chip, a set
Speaker 1: of like double chocolate, some chocolate and salt like someone's
Speaker 1: like salted caramel. And then for this one person, my
Speaker 1: wonderful first a d Jack who was like, I just
Speaker 1: want oatmeal a raisin. That's what I want, and that's
Speaker 1: my favorite. And I would make them from scratch, and
Speaker 1: I would like with absolute love, and sometimes would I
Speaker 1: would put maybe like raspberries in it, or sometimes I
Speaker 1: would do white chocolate in it, and he would and
Speaker 1: if that's what someone loves, that's what someone loves. He
Speaker 1: would know very clearly that that is what that was
Speaker 1: that and I would make just a couple extra just
Speaker 1: in case anyone else felt like they wanted to try,
Speaker 1: and it would make it very clear this is not chocolate.
Speaker 1: There is There are raisins, just so you trust me,
Speaker 1: but there are chocolate chip over there if you need.
Speaker 2: That's me over there. That's amazing that you're doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would do it every Monday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, that's so beautiful. Cynthia. It has
Speaker 2: been such an honor to talk to you, and I
Speaker 2: can literally talk to you for hours. But I yeah,
Speaker 2: I just got it from your team. I just got
Speaker 2: a little time nod. So I want to be mindful
Speaker 2: of that, but honestly, you are. I just I love
Speaker 2: meeting people whose work is infused with such deep inner work,
Speaker 2: like it really brings my heart joy to see that
Speaker 2: when people are putting art out into the world, it's
Speaker 2: coming from so much revelation and reflection and inner work
Speaker 2: because I think sometimes we all appreciate art, but for
Speaker 2: so long in the world, you appreciated art but never
Speaker 2: knew the artist until they died, maybe correct, and you
Speaker 2: didn't really understand them because they weren't famous or there
Speaker 2: wasn't social media, podcasting didn't exist. It's like you saw
Speaker 2: a piece of art, you thought it's beautiful, but you
Speaker 2: don't really know that artist. Yeah, and I just really
Speaker 2: appreciate you just being so open and vulnerable. Thank you
Speaker 2: as the artist, as the human because it gives us
Speaker 2: such an invitation to understand ourselves better, understand you better.
Speaker 2: And I can't wait for people to listen to the
Speaker 2: album review.
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you should be it really I meant every
Speaker 2: word like it's when you hear new music in it
Speaker 2: and you're making sense of it just on your own,
Speaker 2: and it feels like that. I can't wait for people
Speaker 2: to hear it. And as always, friend, I'm rooting for you,
Speaker 2: Thank you forever in your corner and so grateful for you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, thank you having me again.
Speaker 2: If you love this episode, you will also love my
Speaker 2: interview with Kendall Jenna on setting boundaries to increase happiness
Speaker 2: and healing. You're in a child You.
Speaker 3: Could be reading something that someone is saying about you
Speaker 3: and being like, that is so unfair because that's not
Speaker 3: who I am and that really gets to me sometimes.
Speaker 3: But then looking at myself in the mirror and being like,
Speaker 3: but I know who I am. Why does anything else matter?