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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland

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Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Hello, Hello, hello, everyone, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to season two of The Laverne Cox Show.

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Speaker 2: We are back. We're back. It's been a minute.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry it took me so long, but girlfriend's been busy.

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Speaker 1: She's been booked and busy. As the kids say that,

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Speaker 1: it was so important for me to do another season,

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Speaker 1: and I am so excited. So this season, the second

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Speaker 1: season of The Laverne Cox Show, we're doing things a

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Speaker 1: little differently. We're going to have some episodes where I

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Speaker 1: just talk to you about what's going on with me,

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Speaker 1: where I'm at, what we're doing. And we thought the

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Speaker 1: first stream of consciousness, if we've want to be James

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Speaker 1: James Joyce about it, I wanted to talk about how

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Speaker 1: I'm approaching this podcast differently and overall, how I'm approaching

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Speaker 1: life differently. We wrapped the first season of the podcast

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Speaker 1: at the end of twenty twenty one, and then I

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Speaker 1: started a new job as the host of EA's Red

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Speaker 1: Carpet and that was really different and it's turned out

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Speaker 1: to be a tremendous amount of fun. And then we

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Speaker 1: did an interview show called if We're Being Honest that

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Speaker 1: was part of my deal with E and had a

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Speaker 1: lot of fun with that. Ended a bunch of other

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Speaker 1: things in twenty twenty two, like having a Mattel Barbie

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Speaker 1: doll created in my image that premiered to coincide with

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Speaker 1: me turning fifty the Big five. Oh, I turned fifty

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Speaker 1: years old in twenty twenty two. Of all the things

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Speaker 1: that happened in twenty twenty two, that was like, I

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Speaker 1: don't even know how to say accept.

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Speaker 2: I went in.

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Speaker 3: I was like, I'm gonna be like.

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Speaker 1: Happy and proud and evolved and like go into fifty

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Speaker 1: guns blazon and I did and we had like a

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Speaker 1: I don't usually do birthday parties, and I had a

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Speaker 1: big fiftieth birthday party that was Barbie themed and we

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Speaker 1: recreated my Barbie outfit life size, and I invited my

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Speaker 1: friends and my mom was there and my boyfriend and

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Speaker 1: it was great and there was so much love, and

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Speaker 1: I was feeling really positive about turning fifty, or so

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Speaker 1: I thought, And about three weeks late and not even

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Speaker 1: a full month later, I kind of had a bit

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Speaker 1: of a breakdown, meltdown, spiritual awakening I love you know,

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Speaker 1: reference Berne A. Brown a lot, and she talks about

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Speaker 1: having like a breakdown slash spiritual awakening. I don't know

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Speaker 1: how spiritual awakening it was, but it definitely was a

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Speaker 1: breakdown meltdown where I kind of just lost it and

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Speaker 1: I had to kind of go away.

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Speaker 3: For a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I had to like just like stop for a minute

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Speaker 1: and get myself together. And sometimes we have to just

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Speaker 1: acknowledge that everything has kind of fallen apart and we

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Speaker 1: have to put ourselves back together again. And that happened

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Speaker 1: about three weeks a month after I turned fifty, and I.

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Speaker 3: Had to, you know, cancel some things.

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Speaker 1: And there's so many things around that, and have a

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Speaker 1: lot of guilt around that, and I'm like that part

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Speaker 1: of the reason, like it's been a year since we

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Speaker 1: had the podcast. I mean it took like a month off,

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Speaker 1: but I also had tons of other obligations, right, So

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Speaker 1: I'm really busy. I have a really big life, and

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Speaker 1: I'm really grateful for it. It's everything I've dreamed of. But

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Speaker 1: with a big life comes a tremendous amount of pressure.

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Speaker 1: So there's pressure that I put on myself to deliver

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Speaker 1: and to prepare and it can sometimes be an unhealthy perfectionism.

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Speaker 1: Again to reference Brene Around Brene distinguishes between perfectionism and

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Speaker 1: healthy striving. She says that like perfectionism is when you

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Speaker 1: want to do everything perfectly to shield yourself from shame,

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Speaker 1: blame and judgment, and healthy striving is showing up, allowing

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Speaker 1: yourself to be seen doing your very best and knowing

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Speaker 1: that that's enough. And a lot of the way that

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Speaker 1: I've worked throughout my life, and I've been aware of

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Speaker 1: this for a long time, but it's like the story

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Speaker 1: that I have told myself my whole life is that

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Speaker 1: I'm black, I'm trans I'm a woman. I have to

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Speaker 1: work four times as hard as everybody else.

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Speaker 3: I have to be prepared. I can't make a mistake.

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Speaker 1: And even though I've known intellectually that this is a tragic,

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Speaker 1: deeply unhealthy, problematic story, to tell myself walking that path,

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Speaker 1: knowing and having it really be embodied right. And that's

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Speaker 1: what's been the difference too. With sematic therapy I've been

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Speaker 1: doing since twenty sixteen. If you recall, in the first

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Speaker 1: season of this podcast, I spoke with my therapist Jennifer

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Speaker 1: burdon Flier two different podcasts about the trauma resiliency somatic

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Speaker 1: therapy work that I do, and it's really about landing

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Speaker 1: in the body right that eighty percent of our information

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Speaker 1: comes from the body to the head and twenty percent

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Speaker 1: from the head to the body, right, so our body

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Speaker 1: keeps the score all that you know. It's like, even

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Speaker 1: though intellectually I know that I can't continue to tell

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Speaker 1: myself the story that I can't make a mistake, I

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Speaker 1: can't fuck up because of all these identity things like

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Speaker 1: having my body know it, having my nervous system know it,

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Speaker 1: and having my nervous system fire and wire in different

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Speaker 1: ways so that the default setting right when there's pressure,

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Speaker 1: when there's stress, is like to tell myself that story

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Speaker 1: and freak myself out and release a lot of adrenaline,

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Speaker 1: a lot of cortisol and deplete myself that after fifty years,

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Speaker 1: that just doesn't work anymore. It's not sustainable in terms

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Speaker 1: of overall health. If we remember the first season, this

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Speaker 1: podcast was so much about me trying to get myself together,

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Speaker 1: like so many of the guests I had on those

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Speaker 1: guests were about me trying to work through my shit.

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Speaker 1: And the Nadingburg Harris episode where we talked about asis

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Speaker 1: adverse childhood experiences and how big doses of adversity in

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Speaker 1: childhood basically constantly living in survival mode, in flight or

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Speaker 1: freeze mode, how that can have negative health consequences throughout

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Speaker 1: our lives and if we don't figure out a way

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Speaker 1: to live differently that like that toxic stress can kill

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Speaker 1: us us literally And so knowing that and absorbing all

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Speaker 1: that information, continuing my somatic therapy, trying to have the

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Speaker 1: resources and the tools that I've been learning, like trying

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Speaker 1: to like have them make a difference in how I

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Speaker 1: live my life on a day to day basis. Is

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Speaker 1: the work, and so much of where I'm at now

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Speaker 1: is like, Okay, how do I just let shit go

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Speaker 1: and quiet thoughts. We can think something and it can

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Speaker 1: completely shift our nervous system. I can think a thought

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Speaker 1: about all the things I have to do next week,

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Speaker 1: or like the show have to go and shoot in

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Speaker 1: Savannah and all the podcast episodes we have to do,

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Speaker 1: and the other show that I have to shoot and

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Speaker 1: this other project that I have going. When I start

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Speaker 1: thinking about all that stuff, I feel my nervous system

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Speaker 1: ramp up.

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Speaker 3: I have to stop myself.

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Speaker 1: And this is the thing that my therapist tells me

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Speaker 1: that I'm getting better at that. I'm tracking what is

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Speaker 1: going on my body. If you remember, tracking is one

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Speaker 1: of the tools of the community Resiliency model, one of

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Speaker 1: those six tools we talked about in that episode Go

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Speaker 1: reference the episodes with Jennifer Burned Flyer that I have

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Speaker 1: to track and know what's going on in my body

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Speaker 1: and feeling myself the ramp up, my brain becoming flooded

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Speaker 1: with thoughts, worry, anxiety, and the anxiety feels like there's

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Speaker 1: so much to do. I can never get it done.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to fail, I'm going to suck. Like it

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Speaker 1: just happened. Before I went on to record this, I

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Speaker 1: felt myself ramping up.

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Speaker 3: And I'm like, okay, girl, no, don't do it. Let

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Speaker 3: it go.

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Speaker 1: What's right in front of me, and trying to focus

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Speaker 1: on that and bringing the noise down, And I think

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Speaker 1: like the work is to quiet those thoughts as much

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Speaker 1: as possible, or try to let them just sort of

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Speaker 1: pass through me. Feelings aren't facts and thoughts aren't commands,

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Speaker 1: So trying to just kind of clear my mind because

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Speaker 1: it really feels like all those thoughts are just not useful.

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Speaker 1: I had this moment in my journey, like maybe six

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Speaker 1: months ago, four months ago, however long ago with something

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Speaker 1: that I read years ago, just finally clicked in around

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Speaker 1: thoughts and just like, these thoughts are not serving me

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Speaker 1: and they are actually bumping me out of my resilient zone.

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Speaker 1: So I'm being bumped out of my resilient zone into

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Speaker 1: high zone constantly with my own thoughts. So wipe my

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Speaker 1: brain thoughts and just like the consciousness. I actually, in

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Speaker 1: preparation for the podcast that I just did with Glennon Doyle,

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Speaker 1: she had an episode of her podcast We Can Do

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Speaker 1: Hard Things with Doctor Becky and they were sort of

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Speaker 1: talking about thoughts and how the three rings circus and

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Speaker 1: I talk about this with Glennon Doyle in the podcast.

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Speaker 1: But the three rings a of like what it means

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Speaker 1: to be human and the three ring circuits's thoughts, emotions,

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Speaker 1: and then like everything else that's happening in the outside world.

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Speaker 1: Lennon was sort of talking about like this one side

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Speaker 1: of her that thinks one way, on the other side

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Speaker 1: that thinks another.

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Speaker 3: Way, sort of fighting each other.

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Speaker 1: All of it's like not really helping her, but then

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Speaker 1: like she's watching herself. That part of herself that watches

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Speaker 1: herself understand this as an outside world, that part of

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Speaker 1: herself is a soul or pure consciousness, and I love

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Speaker 1: the idea of that being pure consciousness. And in transcendental meditation,

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Speaker 1: there's an idea around getting to sort of pure consciousness, right,

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Speaker 1: like having the mind just be quieted and getting into

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Speaker 1: the space of pure consciousness so we sort of observe.

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Speaker 1: It really actually sort of reminds me of Neo. I

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Speaker 1: didn't think I'd be talking about the matrix, but like

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Speaker 1: that moment when Neo realizes he's the one, that he's

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Speaker 1: the chosen one, he like begins to like observe. He

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Speaker 1: moves every every kind of slows down around him, and

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Speaker 1: then he can see the bullets coming, he can see

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Speaker 1: the punch is coming, and then he can dodge them.

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Speaker 1: It's this peaceful, calm state of pure consciousness. That's what

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Speaker 1: it sort of feels like when I'm in that place

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Speaker 1: where I kind of let the thoughts go, allow myself

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Speaker 1: to have feelings, but not let those feelings bump me

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Speaker 1: out of my resilient zone. The idea is that we

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Speaker 1: widen the resilient zone, right, so that it's wider and

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Speaker 1: so my capacity for life or emotion for the hard

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Speaker 1: things gets bigger because my resilient zone gets bigger. And

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Speaker 1: it's so interesting because when I think about it, I

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Speaker 1: think about something I know I probably said a rezillion

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Speaker 1: times in the first season of the show, something a

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Speaker 1: therapist said to me years ago, Carolyn Irlick, and she

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Speaker 1: said that we're not living in reality when we're ruminating

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Speaker 1: on the past, making positive or negative predictions of the future,

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Speaker 1: and reading people's minds. Our work is to stay present, curious,

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Speaker 1: and non judgmental. Really, so much of the ramping for

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Speaker 1: me is like the anxiety about the future. I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to be enough, I'm going to fail. Fear of

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Speaker 1: failure is huge for me. A fear of just being

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Speaker 1: bad at what I do is just it can overtake me.

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Speaker 1: And the Red Carpet brought up a lot of that.

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Speaker 1: The first season of this podcast brought up a lot

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Speaker 1: of that for me. The way I prepare for the

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Speaker 1: first season this podcast, I read everything, watched everything, try

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Speaker 1: to just be over prepared and know the guests work

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Speaker 1: better than they did, you know, and I love being prepared,

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Speaker 1: But the way I did it was coming from a

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Speaker 1: place of scarcity and from I have to work harder

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Speaker 1: because of I'm black, I'm trans on whatever, and not

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Speaker 1: coming from a place of joy. And one of the

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Speaker 1: best gifts my boyfriend, my current boyfriend gives to me.

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Speaker 1: A lot of gifts he gives to me, but he

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Speaker 1: like says, babe, have fun, have fun. What's the point

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Speaker 1: if you're not having fun? And what I learned early

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Speaker 1: on as an artist, like studying classical ballet as a

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Speaker 1: kid and studying acting and performing growing up, is that

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Speaker 1: you have to enjoy the process. So that I in

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Speaker 1: the preparation for the podcast or for Red Carpet when

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Speaker 1: I the first few Red Carpets, was like overload, Like

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Speaker 1: we have a list of people who are going to

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Speaker 1: be at the event, who we may be interviewing, so

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Speaker 1: we prepare for anything and everything.

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Speaker 3: So we have a question session.

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Speaker 1: My first question session for e was like five and

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Speaker 1: a half hours, Like I shit you not for the

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Speaker 1: people stories of Wars in twenty twenty one, it was

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Speaker 1: five and a half hours on a zoom and we

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Speaker 1: went through potential questions for every person who's going to

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Speaker 1: be walking the Red carpet. We have a great team.

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Speaker 1: It didn't thieves who like preps me really well, but

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Speaker 1: like I need to have seen at least an episode

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Speaker 1: of their TV show. If they're on a TV show,

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Speaker 1: reality show in People's Choice Awards, is music, it's reality TV,

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Speaker 1: it's movies, and so ideally I want to have watched

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Speaker 1: interviews that the person has done before and just have

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Speaker 1: a sense of the work and the person that I'm interviewing.

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Speaker 1: And so beyond that five and a half hour question session,

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Speaker 1: there's like me watching Kobe's a Master television and film

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Speaker 1: and listening to songs. And I still do that, But

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Speaker 1: the first few Red Carpets, I was still in that

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Speaker 1: like stressed out prep mode where I just would work

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Speaker 1: myself up into a frenzy of anxiety and preparation instead

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Speaker 1: of finding the joy in it. This is a good

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Speaker 1: time to take a little break. We'll be right back though, Okay,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So where I'm at today and as I

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Speaker 1: approached all of the work I do now is that

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Speaker 1: I am trying to find the joy and the happiness

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Speaker 1: and the preparation and getting to a point where it's

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Speaker 1: good enough. So that's how I'm trying to approach the

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Speaker 1: second season of The Liver and Cock show and this

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Speaker 1: new season of my life where yes I do want

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Speaker 1: to be prepared and yes I'm going to do my work,

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Speaker 1: but I have to at a certain point just have

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Speaker 1: to like trust that I'm prepared enough and not but

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Speaker 1: myself into kai zone where I'm in a fight flight

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Speaker 1: or freeze that is just not useful anymore.

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Speaker 3: And my body just feels it.

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Speaker 1: When you have been in a constant state of fight

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Speaker 1: flight or freeze for fifty years. I've just been exhausted

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Speaker 1: for years, like physically exhausted for years, and I've worked

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Speaker 1: with my doctors and therapists to get enough sleep and

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Speaker 1: diet and whatever, but like so much of it is

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Speaker 1: like not stressing myself out every single day in this

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Speaker 1: like rat race that I've created for myself around scarcity

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Speaker 1: of me not being enough. I'm trying to a day

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Speaker 1: at a time find joy in the work that I do,

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Speaker 1: find joy in the preparation. I know I've said this before,

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Speaker 1: but my prayer to myself and it's like I have

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Speaker 1: to remind myself every day throughout the day my prayer, God,

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Speaker 1: give me permission to do this imperfectly and allow me

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Speaker 1: to be of service. I've been saying that prayer since

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Speaker 1: I think twenty thirteen. Oh my god, it's twenty twenty thirty. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've been saying their prayer to myself for ten years now.

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Speaker 1: The work is to fire and wire differently, to reference

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Speaker 1: what the language that doctor Joe Despenza would use, to

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Speaker 1: create new neuro transmitters in my nervous system so that

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Speaker 1: there's new pathways that are more resilient. That is the work,

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Speaker 1: and so I have to practice that and it has

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Speaker 1: to be embodied. It has to land in my body

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Speaker 1: so that the old wiring of like stress, stress, stress, stress, stress,

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Speaker 1: I'm not enough, and trying to listen to my body

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Speaker 1: and what my body needs and letting it all go.

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Speaker 1: Find joy in the moment. Sometimes I have to check out,

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Speaker 1: and I love seam ripping. I'll explain later. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: bedging out on television thankfully. A lot of times it's

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Speaker 1: just being in the arms of my beautiful boyfriend, that

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Speaker 1: coregular that happens, and just being in such gratitude that

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Speaker 1: I have the life right that I have the life

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Speaker 1: that I've always dreamed of. It's like, Okay, I have

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Speaker 1: worked so hard for so long and I am literally

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Speaker 1: living my dreams, but I am like putting so much

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Speaker 1: pressure on myself that I can't enjoy it. And I

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Speaker 1: have to say there was a shift at the Emmys

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Speaker 1: last year. I was like, Okay, I'm doing this differently.

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Speaker 1: I need to enjoy this. I'm going to watch the

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Speaker 1: TV shows. I'm going to do my interview, watch the interviews.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read interviews. I'm going to do all

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Speaker 1: my prep and background, but I'm going to do it

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Speaker 1: with joy and I'm going to have fun with this.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to have fun with the process. Oh my god.

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Speaker 1: It was just it was night and day in terms

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Speaker 1: of like how I went in, Like before I would

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Speaker 1: go in with all this anxiety and stress, and then

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Speaker 1: like I would live in the moment and then like

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Speaker 1: you know, once you're live on.

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Speaker 3: TV, like you just have to jump and it is

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Speaker 3: what it is.

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Speaker 1: And I think after so many years of doing this,

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Speaker 1: it goes and I and I not bad at what

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Speaker 1: I do because part of it is just like the

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Speaker 1: ten thousand hours I probably have, Like I have way

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Speaker 1: more than ten thousand hours in what I do. But

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Speaker 1: it was so beautiful to like have my preparation, be

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Speaker 1: joyous and step onto the red carpet with Joy and

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Speaker 1: step into the interviews for if We're being honest with Joy,

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Speaker 1: and that's I've been proceeding with the second season of

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Speaker 1: this podcast. So it might I have anxiety that it

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Speaker 1: might feel less in depth or less nuanced or less researched,

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Speaker 1: but it has to be enough because I'm enough, And

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Speaker 1: so much of what I love about this podcast is

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Speaker 1: me being on a search for healing, in search of

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Speaker 1: like better tools to live my life, to be a

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Speaker 1: better version of myself, a more healed version of myself.

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Speaker 1: That is still my work every year day, but I

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Speaker 1: want to have a lot more fun with it. So

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Speaker 1: we're gonna have a lot more fun in season two

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Speaker 1: of The Liver and Cock Show. Even when the topics

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Speaker 1: are hard, We're gonna laugh. We're gonna have fun because

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Speaker 1: I have to. It's time. I'm fifty years old. It's

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Speaker 1: now or never, okay? And what else is true?

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Speaker 3: Okay?

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Speaker 1: So you know I end every podcast with the question,

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Speaker 1: what else is true for me in this moment today?

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Speaker 3: What else is true?

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Speaker 1: Is this breath and that I can slow myself down

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Speaker 1: and I am surrounded by beauty and things that bring

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Speaker 1: me joy in this home I'm in right now and

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Speaker 1: in my life with the people and the work that

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Speaker 1: I do, I'm surrounded by joy and beauty that is

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Speaker 1: so true and it's so amazing. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please rate reviews, subscribe,

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Speaker 1: tell everybody you know. You can follow me on Instagram,

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Speaker 1: Twitter and TikTok at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at

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Speaker 1: Laverne Cox for Real and until next time, stay in

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Speaker 1: the love. The Laverne Cox Show is a production of

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Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.