Speaker 1: Hello, Catherine.
Speaker 2: Hi Chelsea, you were telling me you added some second
Speaker 2: shows in some cities.
Speaker 3: What do you have going on?
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, I have added more second shows to my
Speaker 1: Little Big Bitch tour. I added second shows in Hollywood
Speaker 1: at the Pantagious. I am going to be there two
Speaker 1: nights October twelfth and thirteenth. I added another show at
Speaker 1: the Chicago Theater October twenty seventh and October twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite places to perform. I added another
Speaker 1: show in Portland, so I'll be there November second and third.
Speaker 1: And I added a second show in Boston at the
Speaker 1: Weighing Center, so I will be there November sixteenth and seventeenth.
Speaker 1: I also have two shows in Seattle, San Francisco, New
Speaker 1: York at the Beacon and Washington, d C. I will
Speaker 1: be there October fifth and sixth. And a special shout
Speaker 1: out to Phoenix, Arizona, where I'm coming Saturday, October fourteenth.
Speaker 1: And then I'm coming to Cleveland Columbus in Pittsburgh, So
Speaker 1: suck on that, you guys. I can't wait to set everybody.
Speaker 1: Oh and I'm coming to Eugene, Oregon too, everybody. That's
Speaker 1: November ninth, twenty twenty three, and I will be at
Speaker 1: the Clubhouse in East Hampton, which is going to be
Speaker 1: a very intimate show on Saturday, August twenty sixth, So
Speaker 1: if you are in the Long Island area, that's where.
Speaker 2: I'll be awesome. Well, we have a great guest today
Speaker 2: and she talks all about women and the patriarchy and
Speaker 2: it's very exciting.
Speaker 3: But I have a question for you.
Speaker 2: You've talked about how you know your mom and your
Speaker 2: sisters were big influences in your life. But I'm curious,
Speaker 2: who are some other powerful women in your life, either
Speaker 2: growing up or early on, and what did they teach you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I would start with my third
Speaker 1: grade teacher, missus Sheckman. She was a big influence on
Speaker 1: me because she loved me and she just showed me
Speaker 1: such like maternal love. And I went and stayed with
Speaker 1: her a couple times at her beach house with her husband,
Speaker 1: and my mom loved them, and she just really took
Speaker 1: me under her wing. I think she sensed how to
Speaker 1: neglected I was, and she must have felt for me,
Speaker 1: and she was just so sweet. I still talk to her.
Speaker 1: I talked to her. I haven't talked to her in
Speaker 1: a few months, but she calls me every once in
Speaker 1: a while and she's just she lives in Florida, and
Speaker 1: she just extended love to me and tenderness, and I
Speaker 1: really that made an impact on me to extend love
Speaker 1: and tenderness to others who or who who I could
Speaker 1: see were neglected. Yeah, so I and my mom was
Speaker 1: very much like that. My mom was very sweet to
Speaker 1: people when she knew they had issues or even my
Speaker 1: girlfriend growing up was really in a bad home situation,
Speaker 1: and my mom sensed it always told her she loved her,
Speaker 1: because my friend's parents had never told her that they
Speaker 1: loved her, And so that was nice. But as far
Speaker 1: as powerful women like, I don't know that anyone I
Speaker 1: looked up to like the lessons I learned were powerful.
Speaker 1: I think I I wanted to always be powerful because
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like enough women were in my life
Speaker 1: were powerful, and it made me, just as by instinct,
Speaker 1: want to be more than what I was seeing, Like
Speaker 1: I was like, this isn't good enough. Why does? Why
Speaker 1: are all like I want to be like a boss
Speaker 1: bitch from a young age. And it's not even that
Speaker 1: I wanted to be. I just inherently was it was
Speaker 1: in your nature, Like I just wanted to be in
Speaker 1: control of my own destiny, not reliant on anybody. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the always been the theme in my
Speaker 1: own experience, is that I'm dependable. That's all I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, because I saw so many people in my
Speaker 1: life that were not dependable. In my mind, however, I
Speaker 1: interpreted my brother dying, my mom not picking me up
Speaker 1: from school, blah blah blah, I wanted to be dependable,
Speaker 1: and so growing up that was always like, I wanted
Speaker 1: to be the friend. If you call me, I will
Speaker 1: be there. If you need me, I will be there.
Speaker 1: You know you can always count on me. And that
Speaker 1: was more than the idea of power or looking to
Speaker 1: someone who you know, in a powerful position. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to be a soft person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because you it sounds like you grew
Speaker 2: up knowing you wanted to be independent, but also be
Speaker 2: someone others could depend on.
Speaker 1: Well, excuse me while I burb well, said Catherine. Great, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's it, that's exactly right. And what about you? Who
Speaker 1: did you look up to?
Speaker 2: I was really lucky where I grew up with a
Speaker 2: really great mom who sort of like brought in all
Speaker 2: kinds of other people. Like so many people in my
Speaker 2: life are are like your mom is like my mom,
Speaker 2: you know, like she's she's adopted everyone around her. But
Speaker 2: I also feel like I had so many other like
Speaker 2: friends moms who were like a second mom to me.
Speaker 2: My best friend's mom always was like fun to talk
Speaker 2: to and interesting and like really wonderful and always had
Speaker 2: this like a bubbly charismatic energy and cared what us
Speaker 2: kids had to say.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think that's such an important quality.
Speaker 2: Is just like listening and being interested, and she always
Speaker 2: was that for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember I had an uncle growing up, and
Speaker 1: he was always interested in everything with the kids had
Speaker 1: to say. Like I remember loving going over to his
Speaker 1: house because he would spend time with me and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: tell me what you think about this. And I was
Speaker 1: such a young girl and I got so much attention
Speaker 1: from him. And then last summer, we were all at
Speaker 1: our family vacation on Martha's Vineyard and some of our
Speaker 1: cousins came over and then they told us that that
Speaker 1: uncle had so many affairs growing up with all of
Speaker 1: his girlfriends. I was like, oh, he was probably hitting
Speaker 1: on me, so I was like, well, you just blew
Speaker 1: that whole fucking memory that I had anyway, So well, okay.
Speaker 1: So our guest today is the host of the podcast
Speaker 1: Pulling the Thread, an author of On Our Best Behavior,
Speaker 1: Elise Lonein. Hi, Elise, look who's here today? Hello?
Speaker 4: This is exciting for me, you know, I love you.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, honey. And this is Catherine, my producer. Hello,
Speaker 1: and we are here to celebrate the launch of I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm holding this up like I'm Oprah
Speaker 1: Winfrey because I don't have the studio owns, but I
Speaker 1: guess I'm holding it up for Catherine, who's also read it.
Speaker 1: Your new book which is called On Our Best Behavior,
Speaker 1: The Seven Deadly Sins and The Price Women Pay to
Speaker 1: Be Good, which is a very important book for every
Speaker 1: woman and man to be reading. So that took me
Speaker 1: a while because it's a heavy book, Like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of information in there and a lot of history.
Speaker 1: I think you do a good job of really kind
Speaker 1: of bringing it back to yourself a lot, and the
Speaker 1: ways that it's kind of imprinted itself in you and
Speaker 1: your experiences in this world. And I think all women
Speaker 1: should have to understand or should want to gain, I
Speaker 1: guess a better understanding of where all of these ideas
Speaker 1: that we have about our responsibilities in society came from
Speaker 1: and how many millennia they have been making their mark
Speaker 1: on us. Yeah, And what we are able to do
Speaker 1: as women to kind of take our our own agency
Speaker 1: back and stop the art of performing for others, Yes,
Speaker 1: while also remaining true to who you are in the
Speaker 1: idea that by doing that it even gives yourself more
Speaker 1: room to give. Like, when we take care of ourselves,
Speaker 1: we are able to take care of others in a
Speaker 1: more impactful way. And if that's what we're trying to
Speaker 1: do in the first place, is take care of everybody,
Speaker 1: then we should really start with ourselves.
Speaker 4: Can you just do my book tour for meat?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no problem. Yeah, I just need a ton of
Speaker 1: wee to constantly talk about the same thing. That's how
Speaker 1: I make things exciting. Is I just add weed to it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I can talk about this again, because
Speaker 1: the book tour becomes very monotonous too. I know you
Speaker 1: have to repeat yourself a little, So talk to me
Speaker 1: and talk to us about your impetus for writing this
Speaker 1: book and tell us a little bit about all of
Speaker 1: your research and history.
Speaker 4: Well, unsurprisingly, you may know this about me, but I
Speaker 4: am a good girl. I have spent my life achieving
Speaker 4: and trying to be the best at everything and every
Speaker 4: sphere of my life. And I hit a point several
Speaker 4: years ago where I have a recurring panic disorder. I
Speaker 4: have a chronic hyperventilator and I hyperventilated for more than
Speaker 4: a month and just hit a wall of trying to
Speaker 4: understand what it was in me that was driving me
Speaker 4: to try to reach some invisible finish line where I
Speaker 4: would have safety and security and be loved and be enough.
Speaker 4: And I recognized, despite everything that I had achieved and
Speaker 4: how much I had done for other people, my family,
Speaker 4: my coworkers, that I was only driving myself deeper into
Speaker 4: a hole. I was the farthest I'd ever felt from
Speaker 4: emotionally free or comfortable, and so I knew I needed
Speaker 4: to address this, whatever it was in me, these invisible
Speaker 4: voices that were telling me that I was bad, that
Speaker 4: I wasn't enough, And that sort of began the journey
Speaker 4: of what would it look like to actually turn and
Speaker 4: face this rather than trying to continue to outrun it
Speaker 4: and In that process, I came across this code of
Speaker 4: goodness that is so obvious it's invisible, I think, to
Speaker 4: all of us, and this punch card of goodness that
Speaker 4: women specifically try to fulfill in our culture. Regardless of
Speaker 4: whether you're raised in any religion or know anything about religion,
Speaker 4: these are cultural rules at this point, and if you
Speaker 4: actually don't achieve them, you deny them sloth, pride, envy, gluttony, greed.
Speaker 1: Because we're treating they're so bad right to practice any
Speaker 1: of these things.
Speaker 4: Yes, that I recognized in that all the ways that
Speaker 4: I was policing myself and sadly policing other women.
Speaker 3: M hm.
Speaker 1: Yes, that very much struck a chord with me. When
Speaker 1: you're talking about the judgment we have, I'm a very
Speaker 1: judgmental person, so I struggle with this a lot because
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to just go at everybody with love
Speaker 1: and no judgment. But I'm so opinionated. So it's just
Speaker 1: a fucking pain in the ass. But it's not fair
Speaker 1: to judge everybody. It's not fuch fair to judge anybody.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be looking at people with sympathy and
Speaker 1: compassion and empathy and no judgment. I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: wait till one day feel that, you know for more
Speaker 1: than a couple of fleeting seconds. So talk to me.
Speaker 1: How you recognize that in yourself?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, the big question that I feel like I've
Speaker 4: been circling for most of my adult life, definitely since
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen and the election, is why do women have
Speaker 4: so much trouble getting on side with each other? What
Speaker 4: is it in us that makes us so it feels instinctual.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's instinctual. I think it's culture. But
Speaker 4: why do we slap each other down? And why is
Speaker 4: it so acceptable to dismiss each other with comments like
Speaker 4: I just don't like her, or who does she think
Speaker 4: she is? Or she's too big for her breches? And
Speaker 4: these are all cultural refrains we've said, we've heard, most
Speaker 4: likely we haven't interrupted them in ourselves and in conversation
Speaker 4: with each other. And I really wanted to understand that
Speaker 4: in myself. Why did I have that reaction to specific women,
Speaker 4: not all women? And what I realized I sort of
Speaker 4: started with envy. It's a gateway drug. I realized that
Speaker 4: those women that were bothering me were women who were
Speaker 4: pushing on a dream I had for myself and they
Speaker 4: had something. It was envy, They had something that I
Speaker 4: wanted for myself, and I just couldn't actually admit my
Speaker 4: own wanting or acknowledge it. And I think we're all
Speaker 4: conditioned to suppress it. It comes up, and we suppress
Speaker 4: that wanting and we just attack. That's what I think
Speaker 4: is happening.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's a great way to describe it,
Speaker 1: because you can, I mean, anyone listening to this can
Speaker 1: relate to feeling envious of another person and then what
Speaker 1: those feelings bring up for you or that you're supposed
Speaker 1: to shove them away, And it's like that's actually part
Speaker 1: of your psyche or you can call it your shadow
Speaker 1: self or whatever you want to refer to it as.
Speaker 1: But those are natural thoughts that have that happen, and
Speaker 1: it's your job to put them in the right compartment,
Speaker 1: you know, not to act on them, not to behave
Speaker 1: in a jealous way or behave in an envious way,
Speaker 1: but to acknowledge I mean, or you can. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really up to how you want to play this
Speaker 1: game of life. It is like, how do you want
Speaker 1: to operate within all of these dynamics and self agency
Speaker 1: and self respect allow you to acknowledge that you even
Speaker 1: have those feelings and they're not the most powerful feeling. Yes,
Speaker 1: or what that feeling leads to, which is a truth
Speaker 1: that you're not willing yet to admit to yourself. Yes,
Speaker 1: which is I want that.
Speaker 4: One thousand percent. It's full of really essential information. I
Speaker 4: think that our envy is our soul knocking on a
Speaker 4: door asking us to pay attention to what we want.
Speaker 4: And in our culture, unfortunately, women have been conditioned to
Speaker 4: subjugate what we want to other people's needs. It's just
Speaker 4: being a woman, one a one. We don't have great
Speaker 4: models culturally of identifying what you want and then going
Speaker 4: after it, and there aren't that many women also culturally.
Speaker 4: I'm sure it can relate to this, and I write
Speaker 4: about this in the chapter on pride. We don't have
Speaker 4: very many examples of highly visible women, women who have
Speaker 4: dared to be seen, women who are really living their dream,
Speaker 4: who have managed to escape cultural destruction. Right like so
Speaker 4: many women, business leaders, athletes, actresses, singers follow this trajectory
Speaker 4: where we love them when they're coming out, we applaud them,
Speaker 4: we celebrate them. They reach a certain pinnacle and then
Speaker 4: we destroy them, and we can say that those people
Speaker 4: have nothing to do with us, like people like you
Speaker 4: and me, Catherine. We can say, oh that we can
Speaker 4: get a little hit of schadenfreude or just find it
Speaker 4: kind of entertaining. But the reality is that lives in
Speaker 4: us too. It lives in all young girls. This is
Speaker 4: a playbook. This is what happens to women, and when
Speaker 4: we celebrate it, we're inhibiting ourselves from being seen too.
Speaker 4: It has really really deep implications I think for all women.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's something that it would be nice to have
Speaker 1: a language for young little girls, you know, and boys,
Speaker 1: everybody really, because who doesn't get envious of another person's accomplishments.
Speaker 1: But there's this dismantling that needs to be done about
Speaker 1: the way that we're taught about those feelings and all
Speaker 1: the seven deadly sins that we're not supposed to feel.
Speaker 1: I mean it, basically, your book speaks to the fact
Speaker 1: that patriarchy was invented with religion. You're not saying that,
Speaker 1: but that's what I'm saying. That's where all of everything
Speaker 1: started to get murky. And even in this book, I
Speaker 1: read Short History on Humanity, a few weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: that goes back to like two million years ago, and
Speaker 1: it goes back to when civilization began and the migration pattern,
Speaker 1: and it starts to understand when women became property because
Speaker 1: of burial sites like you can see that there was
Speaker 1: a change in civilization and when it's what started out
Speaker 1: equally ended up being they ended up being subjugated, and
Speaker 1: that was definitely because of religion.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, and I would say I'd take that one
Speaker 4: step farther and say, you have sort of the Hamarabi's code.
Speaker 4: This for early patriarchal ideology, which was all about destroying women,
Speaker 4: like drowning women and penalizing men slightly with like a
Speaker 4: slap in the hand. And then you when your hand job, yeah,
Speaker 4: or hand job if you really transfer the penal code exactly.
Speaker 4: But then with Judeo Christian religion in Rome just really
Speaker 4: taking over, you see this moralizing that comes into it
Speaker 4: as well. So it's not just about oppressive dominance, subjec
Speaker 4: subjucation of women. It's about you are bad and base
Speaker 4: and maybe you'll make it to heaven if you spend
Speaker 4: your life trying to prove your goodness.
Speaker 1: Well, interestingly enough, there's also evidence to show or direct
Speaker 1: you to the idea that this is one stage of
Speaker 1: civilization and then so it started out with patriarchy, then
Speaker 1: went to patriarchy, and then the next stage it could
Speaker 1: be some conjecture, will be androgeny.
Speaker 4: Yes, isn't that I love this idea.
Speaker 1: I also love this idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I feel like that's what the contemporary trans
Speaker 4: movement is moving us toward, this idea of transcending gender
Speaker 4: and gender identities and living balanced between energies the masculine
Speaker 4: and the feminine. Regardless of gender, we all have both energies.
Speaker 4: I think women can really identify with this. The masculine
Speaker 4: being order, structure, truth, when you're directing, when you're organizing,
Speaker 4: when you're making stuff happen. The feminine is nurturance, care, creativity,
Speaker 4: and men have feminine energy and desperately need to be
Speaker 4: living that in their lives fully in the creative, nurturance
Speaker 4: carrying component of self. And so I think with the
Speaker 4: trans movement, we're seeing like it doesn't matter what your
Speaker 4: body parts are, these are universal human values and it
Speaker 4: is incumbent on all of us to be balanced in both.
Speaker 1: And imagine the lack of gender discrimination when there is
Speaker 1: no gender Yeah, like hello, that's what we need to like.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many advantages to understanding this movement
Speaker 1: and learning about this movement instead of rejecting it. Because
Speaker 1: if you only think there's a boy and a girl,
Speaker 1: which is so dumb, in certain places in the world
Speaker 1: they already have a third sex. Yes, so that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And knowing that everything is a spectrum also, I think
Speaker 1: it's really fascinating to understand that and how you know
Speaker 1: our conditioning and what you're supposed to do. Even with
Speaker 1: the little decisions in our lives every single day and
Speaker 1: the minutia, we do what everybody else is doing most
Speaker 1: of the time without having our own original ideas or
Speaker 1: thoughts about counteracting that kind of behavior or making a
Speaker 1: decision not based on what other people made their decision
Speaker 1: on yes.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: And I think like you, for example, to me, are
Speaker 4: sort of a post hratriarchal person, and you're an incredibly
Speaker 4: good interrupter of this programming that runs in US. I
Speaker 4: feel like you have an ability to sort of stop
Speaker 4: it and question it and evaluate it and then take
Speaker 4: it or leave it in a way that I think
Speaker 4: the rest of us need to develop this ability to
Speaker 4: sort of say, is this what's running me? Is this me?
Speaker 4: Or is this just some sort of conditioning that is
Speaker 4: informing my behavior? And if we could do that and
Speaker 4: get closer to ourselves and say, yes, I'm a woman
Speaker 4: and I'm a mother or in your not a mother,
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean that I am that that identity defines me,
Speaker 4: that I am only those things. You know, we have
Speaker 4: a lot of trouble with sort of the complexity. We
Speaker 4: really want women to be only caring and nurturing and
Speaker 4: men to only be this and it's a cage.
Speaker 2: It's a terrible cage.
Speaker 1: What were you saying, Catherine, You were saying something about
Speaker 1: our book before when we were talking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was telling Chelsea, you know one of the
Speaker 2: most meaningful parts of your book was that first introductory
Speaker 2: portion where you're talking about the history of where patriarchy
Speaker 2: comes from, having grown up very religious and basically going
Speaker 2: to church seven days a week between.
Speaker 1: School, and so sorry about that. Is it's you? Thank you.
Speaker 2: I've been spending the last couple of years sort of
Speaker 2: dismantling a lot of this stuff and being able to
Speaker 2: see where this stuff comes from. You know that Mary
Speaker 2: magg Delane was you know, called a prostitute, even though
Speaker 2: that was like maybe not not what was going on.
Speaker 1: It wasn't what was going on right, right.
Speaker 2: She was exonerated by the pope a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: But like the damage has already done. But like between
Speaker 2: your book, it's like when you see these things, when
Speaker 2: you read these things, your eyes are opened to like, oh,
Speaker 2: here's what's these thoughts are coming up in me, and
Speaker 2: they're just it doesn't mean they're true just because they're
Speaker 2: coming up. It's because of something I learned when I
Speaker 2: was very young that's maybe based on nothing.
Speaker 4: Yes, my friend calls it Bible fanfic. Uh huh. I
Speaker 4: mean the deadly sins weren't in the Bible, and I
Speaker 4: think most people never make that connection. It just these
Speaker 4: things are passed down to us, like law, and when
Speaker 4: you actually start to look at and you look at
Speaker 4: something like the New Testament, and we could nerd out
Speaker 4: on it, but just the number of mistranslations of the
Speaker 4: New Testament are higher than the number of words, and
Speaker 4: like some devastating ones, you know, like the Creation of
Speaker 4: Virginity was translation from Hebrew to Greek, and Beulah means
Speaker 4: young woman. It has nothing to do with sexual state.
Speaker 4: That's the original hubut rub has nothing to do with
Speaker 4: whether you're married or not. Just means young woman. That
Speaker 4: was translated as virgin. Oh nice, thanks for that, it's great.
Speaker 2: Wow. Could you also talk a little bit about I
Speaker 2: know in your book you include sadness, which was originally
Speaker 2: one of the seven deadly sins? There were eight.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that and did
Speaker 1: they cut that one?
Speaker 4: It just well convenient. So briefly, the history is that
Speaker 4: they were called eight thoughts, as you said, demonic thoughts,
Speaker 4: but demon meaning distraction, and they were first written down
Speaker 4: by this by.
Speaker 1: The way, at least speaks fluent Latin, so watch your back.
Speaker 4: Oh oh god. So they were first written down by
Speaker 4: this monk in the Egyptian desert, Evagrius Ponticus, as eight
Speaker 4: thoughts and these distracting thoughts. They didn't have this moral tone.
Speaker 4: This is at the same time that the New Testament
Speaker 4: was being canonized. This is fourth century, and this little
Speaker 4: chap book he wrote it as like a spell book,
Speaker 4: almost of pits of scripture. It was passed around and
Speaker 4: then it wasn't until five ninety that Pope Gregory the
Speaker 4: first turned these thoughts, he dropped sadness, and he turned
Speaker 4: the thoughts into the cardinal vices, the seven deadly sins,
Speaker 4: And as you said, Catherine, in that same homily, he
Speaker 4: assigned them all to Mary Magdalen, conflated her with a
Speaker 4: woman who anointed Jesus's hair, and turned that woman into
Speaker 4: a prostitute. So that's when Mary Magdalene miraculously became a prostitute,
Speaker 4: and that's how they entered sort of mainstream religion and sadness.
Speaker 4: We don't know why it went away. The way that
Speaker 4: Evagris Pontikus wrote about.
Speaker 1: It, he probably abolished it.
Speaker 4: They abolished it exactly so it had a feminine soul.
Speaker 4: So I think it fell off because these were assigned
Speaker 4: primarily to women, and I write I really wanted to
Speaker 4: include it in the book because I feel like our
Speaker 4: culture is drenched in grief, and I think sadness, fear
Speaker 4: of sadness is lodged primarily in the minds of men,
Speaker 4: and that being cut off from our feelings. The primary
Speaker 4: symptom of that is toxic masculinity, and this inability to
Speaker 4: experience grief and to cycle and alloud death is why
Speaker 4: we're all so screwed.
Speaker 1: Even guys that are really sweet that don't have the
Speaker 1: vocabulary to talk about this stuff end up having toxic
Speaker 1: masculinity episodes when they are challenged with a difficult conversation
Speaker 1: or they don't understand it because they think they're you know,
Speaker 1: they don't have It's like there's like a major disconnect.
Speaker 1: And I think in the book what you also talk
Speaker 1: about very necessarily is even women are conditioned to push
Speaker 1: their boys to grow up and be men and act
Speaker 1: tough because there's a certain age where, you know, the
Speaker 1: cuddling is diminished and the kids start to understand that
Speaker 1: maybe holding my mommy's hand isn't what a big boy does,
Speaker 1: and then they're not coming to you for comfort and
Speaker 1: they're not having emotional outbursts anymore because they're told that's
Speaker 1: not what little boys or big boys yeah do.
Speaker 4: Yes, there is this idea, this cultural remnant, that we
Speaker 4: have to turn boys into men. And you don't hear
Speaker 4: that about women and girls, but there is this masculinization,
Speaker 4: this pulling them away from their mother, so that if
Speaker 4: you don't do that, they'll be enmeshed or entrapped and
Speaker 4: the science actually shows that little baby boys are more feeling,
Speaker 4: have more attachment than girls. And so it is a
Speaker 4: horrible crime the way that so many boys and I
Speaker 4: feel like it's getting better, but we think about our
Speaker 4: generation and a lot of empathy for that severing and
Speaker 4: that severance, and it's it goes beyond family, right, This
Speaker 4: is all cultural re enforce that with each other. So
Speaker 4: you're mocked on the playground for crying, you learn fast
Speaker 4: right to not do that.
Speaker 2: And I love that you conflate toxic masculinity with like
Speaker 2: keeping men away from those feelings of sadness, because what
Speaker 2: do we do when we're having an argument. We use
Speaker 2: anger as like a shield from what's really underneath, which
Speaker 2: is hurt and sadness. You know, That's why so often
Speaker 2: you might be upset or you know, shouting or whatever,
Speaker 2: and what's really underneath there when you actually get to
Speaker 2: it is tears, it's crying, it's you know, it's the
Speaker 2: hurt underneath.
Speaker 4: Yes, a thousand percent, anger is often secondary to grief, shame, fear,
Speaker 4: and anger is also essential and animating, but it can
Speaker 4: often be a protective, a piece of armor.
Speaker 1: But it's also not useful, maybe at times it may
Speaker 1: seem useful, like coming from somebody who's naturally pretty angry,
Speaker 1: it seemed useful for a long time, but it is
Speaker 1: not the way to make my point anymore. And I
Speaker 1: down that calm, collected and thoughtful yields to much better results.
Speaker 4: And don't you think, though, that you have learned over
Speaker 4: time to metabolize your anger process it, Listen to it,
Speaker 4: you don't just suppress it.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, And usually I'm not angry when I
Speaker 1: have any time to think about anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you do skip the anger part, or you
Speaker 2: get past the anger part and you get to that
Speaker 2: vulnerability and that hurt, Like, that's where resolution can come.
Speaker 2: That's the only place resolution can come, is when you're
Speaker 2: honest with whatever the hurt is.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But I do think we're so hard culturally on
Speaker 4: angry women, and so so many women are swallowing it
Speaker 4: their resentment, frustration, rage.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. My friend used to be like, you're so
Speaker 1: so rage She's like, why are you so angry? I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're more angry than me. I'm just saying it, and
Speaker 1: you're fucking suppressing it and talking about everybody behind their back.
Speaker 1: What is that a more honorable way? To live.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, and this is this is our conditioning. I mean,
Speaker 4: you might be again like an example for all of
Speaker 4: us of how to live beyond these sins. But boys
Speaker 4: and girls have a lot of aggression. It's very natural
Speaker 4: and very human, and boys we let them express it
Speaker 4: physically and verbally, and girls we don't. When we don't
Speaker 4: teach any kids proper conflict resolution or how to have
Speaker 4: healthy conflict, which is an essential life skill, but girls
Speaker 4: are taught that they shouldn't be angry. It's not feminine,
Speaker 4: it's inappropriate, and so it comes outsideways, gossip, alliance building, backstabbing, exclusion, triangulation, triangulation.
Speaker 4: Really it's killing us. And then what's most painful about
Speaker 4: that is that it's then ascribed to us as our
Speaker 4: natural instinct like this, that's how you are, That's how
Speaker 4: you are. And it's no, we're just not interrupting these
Speaker 4: cycles and talking about learning how to talk about our
Speaker 4: feelings and our aggression and our frustration openly and productively.
Speaker 1: I heard this couple talking on Instagram, this older couple
Speaker 1: talking about their child coming forward about you know, being
Speaker 1: born a boy but identifying as a girl from the
Speaker 1: time she was a little girl and her parents resisting this,
Speaker 1: and you know, their church going and they believed everything
Speaker 1: in church and that it was a phase and that
Speaker 1: they could you know, they just ignored her. And the
Speaker 1: mother had something really powerful to say about when she
Speaker 1: finally was able to accept it and sit down and
Speaker 1: hear her, which I think is really what it comes
Speaker 1: down to, is everybody being seen and heard. When you
Speaker 1: are heard by the people that love you like, that
Speaker 1: sets you off on the road to love and acceptance.
Speaker 1: It sets you up for success, to be accepted by
Speaker 1: your parents and loved and encouraged no matter what you are,
Speaker 1: just for that embrace and the rejection of that sets
Speaker 1: you on the road that can be irreparable. Yes, and
Speaker 1: this woman said, as soon as I accepted what my
Speaker 1: child was telling me, and as soon as I sat
Speaker 1: down and listened to her, and my husband and I
Speaker 1: stopped fighting and just started hearing, she goes, the love
Speaker 1: that my daughter had like lit her up. She goes,
Speaker 1: she felt so loved by us, and she her whole
Speaker 1: energy and dynamic changed and she finally was like happy
Speaker 1: and joyful just by the act of her parents accepting.
Speaker 4: Yes. Yes, I mean it's so powerful and that's all
Speaker 4: that any of us want is to be seen, heard,
Speaker 4: but more intensely understood, I think.
Speaker 1: Not labeled, understood, you know. And this is a conversation
Speaker 1: that came up around that video because I watched it
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine and she was like, I said,
Speaker 1: don't you think most people's fear about their children being
Speaker 1: trans is that they're going to endure all this abuse
Speaker 1: and that they're you know, they're going to be subjected
Speaker 1: to such discrimination and you know, bad behavior. And she said, no,
Speaker 1: I think some parents that a parent's outlook should be
Speaker 1: oh no, I'm going to make sure that everybody knows
Speaker 1: as much as they know about this, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to protect you and I'm going to be there right
Speaker 1: by your side. That's the way they could be looking
Speaker 1: at it. And I thought, oh wow, yeah, that is right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, And I'm sure it's a whole wash. I mean,
Speaker 4: my brother is gay and we grew up in Montana,
Speaker 4: and I remember when he came out it was right
Speaker 4: around Matthew Shepherd, right, and so my parents, who are
Speaker 4: really progressive, were we all knew, right, But a big
Speaker 4: part of it was major understandable fear about what would
Speaker 4: happen to him Ben in the wider world, and he
Speaker 4: didn't say in Montana or yeah, no, of course he.
Speaker 1: Didn't say Montana. Why would you. I wouldn't go to Montana.
Speaker 1: Montana's beautiful, I think, by the way, Actually, so I
Speaker 1: guess I do just go there. I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I think that's where I did my back to schools shop.
Speaker 1: Oh right, right, right, right right on the other side
Speaker 1: of the path. Okay, Well, we are going to have
Speaker 1: some callers, Catherine, are you gonna get us up for
Speaker 1: this episode?
Speaker 2: Yes, We've got some overwhelmed moms, We've got some people
Speaker 2: who need love advice, we've got some cheating boyfriends. A
Speaker 2: lot of different stuff and all kind of relates to
Speaker 2: the patriarchy. So great, We'll take a quick break and
Speaker 2: we'll be right back with Elisa and Chelsea.
Speaker 1: And we're back.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 2: Well, our first question comes from Carter. Carter writes, Dear Chelsea,
Speaker 2: for the last eight years, I've devoted most of my
Speaker 2: time and energy to my career and family. My parents
Speaker 2: and my sibling depend on me for emotional and often
Speaker 2: financial support, which puts me under immense pressure. Feeling stretched
Speaker 2: thin has become normal for me, and I realized that
Speaker 2: I haven't had any real fun in a very long time.
Speaker 2: I'm thirty two, single and way too responsible for my age.
Speaker 2: How do I start to bring joy back into my life?
Speaker 2: What are some easy ways to begin to make joy
Speaker 2: a habit? Thank you both for the wisdom you share
Speaker 2: on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Carter to practice joy, Well, I guess that is a practice.
Speaker 1: But once you get it, you have it. So you
Speaker 1: got to start practicing because it is a practice. It's
Speaker 1: like for my practice is patients, I have to practice that.
Speaker 1: I have to practice that, and now it's coming much
Speaker 1: more naturally. I think joy is about finding what brings
Speaker 1: you the joy, Like what lightens you up where you
Speaker 1: feel kind of tingly? Like is it nature? Is it exercises?
Speaker 1: It work? Is it reading? Like? What is your passion?
Speaker 1: You have to identify certain passions that you have. And
Speaker 1: I think when you realize, you know you don't have
Speaker 1: to be good at a million different things or like
Speaker 1: a million different things, Like you can be drawn to
Speaker 1: two or three things, but make them a bigger part
Speaker 1: of your life. Like if you're an artist, you need
Speaker 1: to create. But I think if you're having trouble finding joy,
Speaker 1: then I think instead of looking harder, I would actually
Speaker 1: advise you to just be a little bit lighter about
Speaker 1: it and take note of yourself, like be in your
Speaker 1: body a little bit more and see what brings you joy,
Speaker 1: because that's what you have to surround your day around,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I love to read books. I need
Speaker 1: to read at least like an hour or two hours
Speaker 1: a day that brings me deep satisfaction and sometimes joy.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you know, it's heavier stuff like reading your
Speaker 1: book was so informational and so helpful, but I came
Speaker 1: away with such a bigger breadth of knowledge than I
Speaker 1: had started your book with, so so worthwhile. But I
Speaker 1: think that's what you have to find about out about yourself.
Speaker 1: But that's me sounding off. What do you have to say, Elise.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad to hear Carter use the word joy
Speaker 4: because I think in our culture we're taught to look
Speaker 4: for happiness as a steady state, which drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, that's that's stupid. Also, I want to say
Speaker 1: that it's impossible to be happy all the time. Joy
Speaker 1: is something separate than happiness.
Speaker 4: It is and it's I think joy can be brief,
Speaker 4: fleeting it is that, you know, Catherine's laugh it.
Speaker 1: Is overwhelming gratitude for something in your life that can
Speaker 1: bring you joy.
Speaker 4: Yes, just that sort of It can be five seconds,
Speaker 4: but I think that that's where you start. And finding
Speaker 4: those moments where you do laugh out loud or you
Speaker 4: have a nice moment with a barista is a great
Speaker 4: place to start. And that's the reality of our lives
Speaker 4: ups downs, that sort of emotional durability. So that's great
Speaker 4: that Carter wants joy and not happiness, because we all
Speaker 4: need to unplug from the toxic positivity.
Speaker 1: That's toxic positivity. That's good. Yeah, Yeah, some people are
Speaker 1: really annoying with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think because it's hard. It sounds like
Speaker 4: things are hard for Carter. You understand the underside, and
Speaker 4: so just developing the upside sort of what you were
Speaker 4: talking about, Chelsea. Just a great song. A quick walk
Speaker 4: reminds you of what it is to have that full
Speaker 4: emotional expression.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also to recognize it, you know, take your
Speaker 1: time throughout your day to recognize what are the things
Speaker 1: that perk you up, even if it's your coffee in
Speaker 1: the morning, When you have that moment and you sit
Speaker 1: with that moment and experience it, Like even the littlest
Speaker 1: of joys, they start to kind of multiply and then
Speaker 1: you start to understand and enjoy more and more of them.
Speaker 1: So just pay attention to what you're feeling and thinking
Speaker 1: for the next few days and pinpoint some of the
Speaker 1: things that bring that feeling into your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it goes right back to what Alice and
Speaker 2: Chelsea were saying at the beginning of the episode, which
Speaker 2: is you can't pour from an empty cup. So if
Speaker 2: you're giving all of this to your family, to your friends,
Speaker 2: to whoever else needs stuff from you, you actually have
Speaker 2: to do what you need for you first. Yes, well, Carter,
Speaker 2: thank you for writing in and let us know what
Speaker 2: solutions you find.
Speaker 1: To give you more carters.
Speaker 2: Yes, we have our first caller. This is Emily and
Speaker 2: she's in her late twenties.
Speaker 1: Is it Emily Dickinson?
Speaker 2: It is, Uh, she's a lie.
Speaker 1: I told her. She texted me earlier. I told her
Speaker 1: to call in good. We're on the text thread.
Speaker 2: Well, she writes, Dear Chelsea, I'm writing in because I
Speaker 2: need some powerful woman love and advice. I just found
Speaker 2: out my boyfriend of a year has been dating another
Speaker 2: girl almost the entire time. I found photos in his
Speaker 2: phone of them together, not snooping, and it makes me
Speaker 2: sick to my stomach. She's trashy and she knew about me,
Speaker 2: which makes them both disgusting. We were planning our future together,
Speaker 2: we were talking about having babies and getting married, and
Speaker 2: he was with her the whole time.
Speaker 1: Gross.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he would go on trips with her and tell
Speaker 2: me it was a boy's weekend or he was out
Speaker 2: with his family. I need some advice on how to
Speaker 2: move on from this and get my power back. And yes,
Speaker 2: I dumped his ass, but my heart is broken and
Speaker 2: I can't stop picturing them together. Cheers Emily, Oh.
Speaker 1: Emily, Hi, Emily, Hi, Hi, this is our guest Elise.
Speaker 1: Say hi to Lalise and Catherine.
Speaker 5: Hello, honest to meet you.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, honey, that is such a betrayal like
Speaker 1: ew that makes me so I can't even imagine how
Speaker 1: painful that must be for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I was very, very shocked, and he gave me
Speaker 5: no warning signs at all, Like I never went through
Speaker 5: his phone, like he never gave me any suspicion, So
Speaker 5: I was pretty shocked. He also gave me a fake
Speaker 5: Instagram account that said it was her and it wasn't her.
Speaker 5: So I actually ended up finding out who actually was.
Speaker 5: And they've been seeing each other for a couple of
Speaker 5: months now, so yeah, I was. I was pretty shocked,
Speaker 5: to be honest.
Speaker 1: And so what did he do when you confronted him?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 5: He gasled me quite a bit. I was like, who
Speaker 5: is this girl? And he said that it was his
Speaker 5: ex from six years ago and he randomly ran into
Speaker 5: her at Harrison Hot Springs together. So I did some
Speaker 5: more and he was like, I knew that you would
Speaker 5: do this. I know that you would do this, and
Speaker 5: it was the U you used that he got me like,
Speaker 5: I knew that you would go to Instagram and find
Speaker 5: the cell blah blah blah. I'm like it makes no
Speaker 5: fucking sense, Like who is she? Just fucking tell me
Speaker 5: who she is, you know, And I was just shocked.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's traumatizing to have somebody lie to you
Speaker 1: on that kind of level.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's deep betrayal.
Speaker 1: Are you in therapy? No?
Speaker 5: And I actually I listened to your podcast all the time.
Speaker 5: I know you love therapy. I have never been to therapy.
Speaker 1: You need to go, I know you need to go.
Speaker 1: Because like, that's a terrible thing to have happened to you.
Speaker 1: That's a major betrayal of trust, and in order to
Speaker 1: work through that in a healthy, really adult way so
Speaker 1: that you get through it sooner and you're not holding
Speaker 1: onto resentment three or four years down the line. You
Speaker 1: need somebody, like a really solid professional to talk you
Speaker 1: through this on a regular, consistent level, because nobody deserves
Speaker 1: to be treated like that, including yourself. Obviously, you know
Speaker 1: that because you broke up with him. So that's the
Speaker 1: first best news, is that you broke up with him
Speaker 1: and that you have enough strong enough sense of yourself
Speaker 1: to know that that's not acceptable to you. So great
Speaker 1: for doing that. Good for you. It's hard to break
Speaker 1: up with somebody when you love them, but like you
Speaker 1: stood up for yourself and you respect yourself, so like
Speaker 1: you're already on your road to recovery just by that action. Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, I ripped up his orchid. He got me. I
Speaker 5: put all his love letters and I put her on
Speaker 5: a box of my patio, and so get your shit.
Speaker 1: So good.
Speaker 5: I'm doing a lot better. I'm in school now to
Speaker 5: be a teacher, so I'm just focusing on that and
Speaker 5: I'm really, I'm getting back into running and stuff, so
Speaker 5: I'm doing a lot better, but I do think I
Speaker 5: should probably go to therapy here, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you also need to restore trust in yourself,
Speaker 4: and betray is hard in that you think that you
Speaker 4: should have seen something or known something that was being
Speaker 4: held from you. So you need to primarily restore your
Speaker 4: own faith and your intuition and your sense. And then
Speaker 4: I heard you also say it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 4: It doesn't make any sense. And so as you heal,
Speaker 4: part of it is to disconnect from him energetically and
Speaker 4: to stop trying to figure it out or justify it
Speaker 4: or wonder what you missed. And it takes a lot
Speaker 4: of self control to interrupt that. But you're not going
Speaker 4: to figure it out. It doesn't make any sense, No.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. It's not your problem. Really, anybody that duplicitous
Speaker 1: isn't your problem. Like that's he's a liar, You excited
Speaker 1: him from your life, and like it doesn't matter, and
Speaker 1: you picturing him with that girl also doesn't matter. Who
Speaker 1: gives a shit? Thank god you're not fucking with him,
Speaker 1: thank god. Yes, Like what she did you a fucking
Speaker 1: huge solid, So reframe the way you're looking at that
Speaker 1: divine intervention. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I even messaged her on Instagram and I said, the
Speaker 5: girl a girl, can you just tell me?
Speaker 3: And she just blocked me.
Speaker 5: So I'm like, you have them, honey, he's yours. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you know what they say if you
Speaker 2: wind up with the guy you were like having an
Speaker 2: affair with, you were just creating a job opportunity.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think that you are like a
Speaker 1: great example of somebody getting through a relationship. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: you still should go to therapy, absolutely, but you seem
Speaker 1: very solid and like this is good for women to
Speaker 1: be hearing that you're already through the thick of it
Speaker 1: in a short amount of time and that you are
Speaker 1: identifying all of this kind of self awareness.
Speaker 5: Yeah. No, I let myself cry for a couple of
Speaker 5: days and then I was like through this, Like I'm
Speaker 5: getting back on my shit. I wrote into you, I
Speaker 5: talked to my mom, I talked to my friends, like
Speaker 5: I have a really good circle.
Speaker 1: So it just it sucked, you know, Yeah, No, it
Speaker 1: does suck, and like, like, listen, that sucked, and hopefully
Speaker 1: that will never happen to you again.
Speaker 5: So I won't hopefully I'm not going Yeah, I was
Speaker 5: just confused how I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't matter. You can't see things when you're
Speaker 1: in them. It. Don't self flagulate or blame yourself for
Speaker 1: not identifying a situation as it was like. It may
Speaker 1: not have been that way the whole time. It may
Speaker 1: have been that you know, it may have developed like
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter either. That doesn't matter either. All you
Speaker 1: have to know is moving forward, like what you're willing
Speaker 1: to tolerate and what you aren't. And you already said
Speaker 1: that to the world by breaking up with him, which
Speaker 1: is again a strong move, and your headed already in
Speaker 1: the right direction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and don't go forward defended, So do whatever you
Speaker 4: can to heal that so that you can go through
Speaker 4: life heart open.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, no, you're right. I'm just said of hitting
Speaker 5: this summer to me and only me and all of
Speaker 5: my goals and what I want to do.
Speaker 1: So I love it. Okay, Well, take care. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for calling it, and best of luck to you.
Speaker 1: We're sending you total good vibes.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks Emily, Bye, Emily Bye. That I mean that goes
Speaker 2: right back to what we were talking about before with
Speaker 2: right now she's in the anger part and she's in
Speaker 2: the like fuck that guy whatever. Like that's where she's
Speaker 2: at right now, and you know, getting into therapy to
Speaker 2: get past that a little bit and into the hurt
Speaker 2: processing the heart like that will help her not carry
Speaker 2: it with her. Yes, well, should we jump to another caller?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Our next caller is Amy.
Speaker 3: She is thirty four.
Speaker 2: Dear Chelsea, first of all, I adore you both. I'm
Speaker 2: writing in because I probably need a swift kick in
Speaker 2: the rear. I'm a former high school teacher who left
Speaker 2: the profession after ten years, feeling completely beaten down by
Speaker 2: the demands of the overall system of what we like
Speaker 2: to call public education.
Speaker 1: God, I don't fucking blame you. What a joke.
Speaker 2: I have since focused on my two young children, who
Speaker 2: are four and twenty two months. I love being a
Speaker 2: stay at home mom, but eventually, sooner rather than later,
Speaker 2: I would love.
Speaker 4: To go back to work.
Speaker 2: One career path I can't seem to get out of
Speaker 2: my head is to be a personal trainer, more specifically
Speaker 2: a coach at Orange Theory Fitness. I've been attending this
Speaker 2: gym for about eight years. I have almost nine hundred
Speaker 2: classes to my name. The problem is I don't have
Speaker 2: the body type you envision when you imagine a personal trainer.
Speaker 2: I'm short and chubby, but I'm in great shape. I'm
Speaker 2: afraid Jim's won't hire me over this fact, as well
Speaker 2: as clients not taking me seriously or believing I don't
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about because I'm in a slightly
Speaker 2: bigger body. What do you ladies think? What a slightly
Speaker 2: larger bodied person make you not want to take workout
Speaker 2: advice from them? Or would it be refreshing to see
Speaker 2: a different body type in the gym? Any advice or
Speaker 2: opinions are appreciated. You both are doing amazing things and
Speaker 2: inspire me Weekly Amy thirty four Nevada.
Speaker 1: Hi, Amy, Hi, Hi, how are you?
Speaker 3: I'm amazing, couldn't be better? How are you? Guys?
Speaker 1: This is our special guest at Leise loan In today.
Speaker 4: Yay, so nice to see to meet you.
Speaker 3: Thank you well.
Speaker 4: Have you actually applied or are you still just contemplating this?
Speaker 6: I'm so contemplating. I'm still in this kind of awkward
Speaker 6: place in my life where I'm trying to embrace the
Speaker 6: stay at home mom life a little bit, but it's
Speaker 6: already starting to get to me one year in. So
Speaker 6: I'm thinking of avenues to you venture down and I
Speaker 6: was thinking, what do I enjoy doing?
Speaker 3: And I really enjoy working out.
Speaker 6: I'm kind of the silly one in my friend group,
Speaker 6: and you know, the coaches at my gym are really
Speaker 6: upbeat and fun and they like really get you into
Speaker 6: your workout.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I could do this. You know,
Speaker 3: I was a teacher for ten years.
Speaker 6: I'm really good at being able to delegate my attention
Speaker 6: and everything like that. So I was thinking, like, this
Speaker 6: might be something I could really do. But I'm worried
Speaker 6: about how I look. People might not take me seriously
Speaker 6: just because I'm not in the best shape, you know
Speaker 6: when you just look at me.
Speaker 3: But I'm in the best shape for myself. But you know,
Speaker 3: some people are.
Speaker 6: Really judgmental, and I don't know if I kind of
Speaker 6: want to get an outsider's opinion, just if they think
Speaker 6: that that would be an issue I would come across.
Speaker 4: Basically, I think you have to go for it. I
Speaker 4: think that that whole scene. I think the way that
Speaker 4: we equate health with an exterior representation is so profoundly
Speaker 4: and deeply flawed. Some of the least healthy people I
Speaker 4: know are walking time moms. And I think we're at
Speaker 4: the beginning of this culturally. So I'm not going to
Speaker 4: say that it's going to be easy, but body diversity
Speaker 4: and different experiences of health have got to be present
Speaker 4: in places where we work on ourselves and work on
Speaker 4: our bodies and think about a lot more women look
Speaker 4: like you than they look like you know, a tiny
Speaker 4: little spin instructor at that point, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's a huge opportunity for you to attract
Speaker 1: people who are intimidated by a perfectly fit trainer. A
Speaker 1: lot of people that turns them off because they feel
Speaker 1: like they're being judged by their trainer. So you have
Speaker 1: a whole group of women, especially moms, who probably feel
Speaker 1: that way and feel intimidated, so they can find somebody
Speaker 1: that looks a little bit more like them. It's they're
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit more I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable I would say working out. I would
Speaker 1: think that would apply to a lot of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a group of people that want their trained to
Speaker 1: look a certain way. Then there's a group of people
Speaker 1: that want to feel comfortable working out with somebody that
Speaker 1: makes them feel good about themselves.
Speaker 4: Yes, a thousand percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I was banking on too.
Speaker 6: I was like, you know, if I saw someone like
Speaker 6: me when I started out my journey with working out
Speaker 6: about eight nine years ago, I think I wouldn't have
Speaker 6: been as intivity. I kept putting it off. You know,
Speaker 6: I don't want to go to this gym, you know,
Speaker 6: it looks scary. But then I finally went and it
Speaker 6: was fun. But you know, maybe if I did walk
Speaker 6: in and see someone that looked more like myself, maybe
Speaker 6: I would have been more inclined to start sooner.
Speaker 3: That's a really good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's also how you sell it
Speaker 2: to someone when you're in a job interviews. It's like,
Speaker 2: when I walked in here, I wanted to see somebody
Speaker 2: who looked like me, like not just like a size
Speaker 2: double zero. I wanted to see somebody who's like an
Speaker 2: average size person.
Speaker 1: Without apologizing about your size. And you can advocate for
Speaker 1: what they They may have their guardrails up about what
Speaker 1: they deem as somebody that can teach there. But I
Speaker 1: also wouldn't even limit yourself to orange theory Like this
Speaker 1: is great marketing. I could already see like you marketing
Speaker 1: to women in your neighborhood and moms, Like, do other
Speaker 1: moms want to work out without being judged by everybody
Speaker 1: in the gym? Do you guys want to and figure
Speaker 1: out fun ways to do that around the neighborhood walking
Speaker 1: around or going to a park and meeting up. So
Speaker 1: it's not so that there's a fun vibe and there's
Speaker 1: kind of movement in the movement, not you know, literally
Speaker 1: and physically, like you're actually changing it up and offering
Speaker 1: different places to go or different activities. I think you
Speaker 1: could just not limit yourself to only thinking you can
Speaker 1: just fit yourself into somebody others operation and potentially create
Speaker 1: your own business.
Speaker 5: Have you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not that everyone needs to be a digital influencer,
Speaker 4: but I also wonder if you started making some content
Speaker 4: just for your friends and family. I think you would
Speaker 4: get a lot of positive reinforcement. It might be what
Speaker 4: you need confidence wise to see the market for this
Speaker 4: and move into it. You don't have to keep doing
Speaker 4: it or build a profile, but yeah, I think you
Speaker 4: get a lot of feedback.
Speaker 3: That's a really good idea. I didn't even think about.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and I love what Chelsea said too. When
Speaker 2: my mom was like in her fifties, she and several
Speaker 2: of her friends started working out with a gal who
Speaker 2: was about your age. She'd built like a whole gym
Speaker 2: in her basement, which like depending on your weather situation
Speaker 2: where you live, you know, basement outside whatever. But like
Speaker 2: that was where they love to go because it was
Speaker 2: like a normal person with great equipment, and they would
Speaker 2: go and have a great time and chat with the
Speaker 2: other ladies. And it wasn't like this like gem gem
Speaker 2: gem experience.
Speaker 4: And where our culture is awash with unattainable bodies and
Speaker 4: if that's what people need in order to feel inspired,
Speaker 4: they have a plethora of opportunities to feel bad about themselves.
Speaker 4: And no, but I think it would be revolutionary to
Speaker 4: disrupt that narrative and to get comfortable. For people to
Speaker 4: see someone who's healthy, strong and has a body that's
Speaker 4: attainable and equivalent is really powerful.
Speaker 1: And I think exactly picking off off of what at
Speaker 1: least said earlier, make that part of your narrative too,
Speaker 1: Like how we define health has been misinterpreted for eons,
Speaker 1: and actually healthy and strong and fit are the most
Speaker 1: important things to be. It's not about being a size
Speaker 1: zero or a size two, especially not for everybody. Nobody.
Speaker 1: People aren't naturally like that, and you know, are forcing themselves.
Speaker 1: There are people that are naturally like that, good for them,
Speaker 1: but that's not natural for most people. So I think
Speaker 1: you have a huge opportunity here too, So get get going,
Speaker 1: get working.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I also like how when you had Ben Bruno
Speaker 6: and he talked more about how women should be doing
Speaker 6: more like weight training, how we're always we go straight
Speaker 6: for the cardio, and.
Speaker 3: I was thinking, like, because that's.
Speaker 6: Where I found my passion. I used to hate lifting weights,
Speaker 6: and now it's like I look forward to it. Can
Speaker 6: I beat my personal record and things like that, And
Speaker 6: I want to get people excited like that, and women
Speaker 6: excited about that, because I think there's a misinterpretation of
Speaker 6: you know, lifting weights for women too. They don't want
Speaker 6: to look too bulky or whatever. And I'm like, that's
Speaker 6: not a thing like that, It's not a thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I also this just kind of keeps popping into my
Speaker 2: mind too. You may want to talk to a therapist
Speaker 2: or somebody as well, just to see if there's somebody
Speaker 2: dys morphias stuff going on, because if you're limiting yourself
Speaker 2: so much like having this question about like am I
Speaker 2: good enough to do this? Am I the right side
Speaker 2: to do this? There might be just some extra like
Speaker 2: body stuff that you need to work out with a therapist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I grew up with an almond mom.
Speaker 1: If you guys know, so, I try to an almond
Speaker 1: joy mom. So I have the opposite set of problems.
Speaker 3: You got a trademark that Chelsea. That's great almond joy.
Speaker 4: I see a new commercial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I've all yeah, this was all great advice if
Speaker 6: I never thought of so, I just I feel inspired.
Speaker 3: Thank you, I really awesome.
Speaker 1: Great, Well, job is here, problem solved. Everybody can go
Speaker 1: home now.
Speaker 6: I will keep you updated on my future endeavors.
Speaker 2: Okay, let us know the name of your jim when
Speaker 2: you start it.
Speaker 1: Your mantra is think Bigger, Think bigger.
Speaker 6: I gotta pick up a gym name with that has
Speaker 6: nugget incorporated into it somehow, like you know, nugget.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to work out with a nugget. But you
Speaker 1: could call that think bigger too. That's a good gym name.
Speaker 1: Think bigger.
Speaker 4: Bigger is a great name. We are like you have
Speaker 4: three CM right now doing your marketing plan.
Speaker 3: Love it, love it. Thank you. I appreciate your time,
Speaker 3: I really do. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks for calling in my pleasure?
Speaker 3: Thank you?
Speaker 4: Why this is so fun?
Speaker 2: Anything we want to expound on?
Speaker 4: I ask her a question?
Speaker 1: Oh yes, oh yes, would you like to ask me
Speaker 1: a question? At least? I'm so sorry, how rude of me.
Speaker 2: Well, we can take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 2: back with more Alice and Chelsea.
Speaker 1: And we're back.
Speaker 4: We're back, Alisa.
Speaker 2: Did you have a question for Chelsea?
Speaker 4: I sure do. Thanks for asking. Catherine. You have a
Speaker 4: fearlessness about you, and I'm assuming you've always been a
Speaker 4: brave person, but you are someone who says it anyway, right,
Speaker 4: you see something, you say something. Do you ever feel
Speaker 4: scared and what do you do in those.
Speaker 1: Moments scared of saying something, just being.
Speaker 4: Who you are in the world.
Speaker 1: Oh, I have fears. But everyone always asks me this question,
Speaker 1: and I take it as a compliment that people think
Speaker 1: I'm so fearless. I think I'm not really sure. I
Speaker 1: haven't digested it fully because I don't feel fearless. I
Speaker 1: definitely feel brave, but I have lots of fears, and
Speaker 1: I make it my business to kind of work push
Speaker 1: through like go you can do it, like every time
Speaker 1: you get over a fear, the level of the confidence
Speaker 1: that you feel, and the I think self security is
Speaker 1: the biggest thing that I have. Like, I know I
Speaker 1: can depend on myself. I know I'm not going to
Speaker 1: let anything get too carried away, not for anybody else
Speaker 1: and not for myself, and that if someone asks me
Speaker 1: to do something, I have complete confidence in my competence.
Speaker 1: You know, as long as it doesn't involve technology, like
Speaker 1: anything emotional, any sort of draatic thing, Like I can
Speaker 1: help somebody and I can actually deal with it myself.
Speaker 1: But I think it's from stepping through fear over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. I think there's so many different
Speaker 1: nuances of fear and how that plays out in your life.
Speaker 1: You know, you can be fear full, you can live
Speaker 1: in fear, or you can just have a fear of
Speaker 1: certain things. You know, it depends how and do you
Speaker 1: let it run you? And no, I do not let
Speaker 1: it run me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And how do you interrupt it in that moment
Speaker 4: or do you just feel it or do you do
Speaker 4: you have a practice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm very into like meditation. For the
Speaker 1: past like five years, I've been really practicing meditation. And
Speaker 1: this isn't fear based necessary, Yes, it is fear based.
Speaker 1: This is a good example. Then last week I thought
Speaker 1: I got some bad news about something. I just looked
Speaker 1: at it and thought, oh, that's not good, Like I
Speaker 1: was expecting more from this or a better outcome from that.
Speaker 1: And then I had a phone call and I and
Speaker 1: that was based on my fear of not being good
Speaker 1: enough at delivering something. Right, Like, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: I thought I did a better job at that. They
Speaker 1: should have gotten more for that, whatever the net result
Speaker 1: of it is, right, And I was like, huh, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not doing a good enough job. And then I
Speaker 1: had a phone call assessing the information we got, and
Speaker 1: it turns out I did a fucking great job, right.
Speaker 1: It turns everything was great. We did everything we wanted
Speaker 1: we set out to do, and it worked in many ways,
Speaker 1: multiple levels that I hadn't even seen yet until everyone
Speaker 1: got together told me. But I chose to go down
Speaker 1: the negative route for some reason. And that's fear based.
Speaker 1: That's because you think you're not good enough, you're not whatever.
Speaker 1: And I remember getting off that call and sitting with
Speaker 1: myself for about twenty minutes and saying, next time you
Speaker 1: do that, you need to recognize that A you don't
Speaker 1: have all the information. B where is this coming from?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why do you care so much about this specific outcome?
Speaker 1: Unless it's based on fear and that needs to be
Speaker 1: identified in the moment, and then it's easier to deal with.
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, anyway, do we have time for one
Speaker 1: more question from a caller too? Unless at least do
Speaker 1: you have any more questions?
Speaker 4: So many?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just have one more email from Nicole. She
Speaker 2: is in her forties. Dear Chelsea, I would love your
Speaker 2: opinion on a recent dilemma with our thirteen year old daughter.
Speaker 2: She and her friends are having a costume party and
Speaker 2: are dressing in similar themes. Her costume idea was super cute.
Speaker 2: She was going to be the Queen of hearts. However,
Speaker 2: when she showed me her inspiration or esthetic board, I
Speaker 2: was taken aback. We're talking corset, platform heels, miniskirt, thigh
Speaker 2: high hose. To give you a little backstory of my daughter,
Speaker 2: she's very independent, self motivated, and an incredibly smart eighth grader.
Speaker 2: She prides herself in making straight a's even though I
Speaker 2: think she's too intense about it. And she's a terrific
Speaker 2: performer who's done musical theater since she was seven. She
Speaker 2: started her period in sixth grade and her body changed
Speaker 2: almost overnight. She has big boobs, just like her mama.
Speaker 2: I have been very intentional about not body shaving my daughter. However,
Speaker 2: when she tried on the corset she bought, I was
Speaker 2: at a loss. I told her I thought it was
Speaker 2: inappropriate for her age, and she freaked out. She even
Speaker 2: said she wanted to dress slutty for the costume party
Speaker 2: and knows it's a cliche but doesn't care. While I
Speaker 2: appreciate her honesty and confidence, I just don't know how
Speaker 2: to tell her she shouldn't dress this way without making
Speaker 2: her feel ashamed of her body. Am I in the
Speaker 2: wrong here? How do I help her stay age appropriate
Speaker 2: and still love her body? Thanks Chelsea Nicole, Well.
Speaker 1: At least I know you don't have any daughters, but
Speaker 1: you're the only parent here, so I have to let
Speaker 1: you go first.
Speaker 4: Okay, I have a lot of feelings about this. Okay,
Speaker 4: So Peggy Ornstein, he's an amazing journalist. She was telling
Speaker 4: me a story about talking to a boy. She writes
Speaker 4: a lot about kids and sexuality, and he was talking
Speaker 4: about his girlfriend and he said she's sexy but not sexual.
Speaker 4: And I thought that that distinction was so critical and key,
Speaker 4: because I think with a lot of kids, girls specifically,
Speaker 4: they are wanting to be sexy and they are not
Speaker 4: yet really sexual. They don't have a full sense of
Speaker 4: their own sexual power. I don't know, maybe they've all
Speaker 4: maybe they're far more advanced than I was at that age,
Speaker 4: but I worry a lot about the performance of sexuality
Speaker 4: for an audience and the objectification when you don't even
Speaker 4: know yet what it is. And then you know. I
Speaker 4: know that we're in a time where which I respect
Speaker 4: not slept shaming girls or talking about their bodies body
Speaker 4: shaming them, But culturally we are not there. We still
Speaker 4: live in a culture that is incredibly patriarchal, where of
Speaker 4: one thousand sexual assault cases, only twenty five ever progressed
Speaker 4: to trial. It is not safe for girls. You are
Speaker 4: expected to be the babysitter of rapacious male desire. Whatever
Speaker 4: happens to you is your fault. This is the culture
Speaker 4: that we live in. And so I think not acknowledging
Speaker 4: that and pretending that it's all fair for girls is
Speaker 4: not is a gross to service. So it's not about
Speaker 4: shaming her about her body. It's about making sure that
Speaker 4: she can keep her self safe. And I recognize that
Speaker 4: no girl should be responsible for keeping herself safe and
Speaker 4: that it's fucked up, but unfortunately that's where we are.
Speaker 2: I think you said that so beautifully. There's also I know, Chelsea,
Speaker 2: you can speak to this too, there's also a shitty
Speaker 2: thing that happens when you have bigger boobs of like
Speaker 2: you can put on the same exact dress as your
Speaker 2: friend next to you with small boobs, and like you
Speaker 2: look quote unquote sluttie. You look like you're trying to
Speaker 2: be more sexual than your meaning to be because your
Speaker 2: breasts are larger. Like that's definitely an experience I've had.
Speaker 1: For sure, I felt that way too, But I also
Speaker 1: want to counter argue, like I get all those things,
Speaker 1: and I understand you're saying. Everything you're saying is true,
Speaker 1: But I also think at eighth grade, a girl who
Speaker 1: has shown responsibility and shown good judgment should be given
Speaker 1: the right to make these kinds of decisions on her
Speaker 1: own and then see where that lands, Like see she's
Speaker 1: going to school, you know, like hopefully that's a safe
Speaker 1: place for her to try to exercise her freedom and
Speaker 1: the way she wants to dress. And maybe she'll come
Speaker 1: back from that and be like, oh, I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't like I don't like that kind of attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or I don't like the way people are looking at me,
Speaker 1: and maybe she won't. Maybe she'll come back and go
Speaker 1: I liked that. I liked that a lot. But again,
Speaker 1: you can't control her experience with that, like at a
Speaker 1: certain age, especially the way girls dress now, they show
Speaker 1: everything at a young age, you know that the things
Speaker 1: that they're exposed to. And I agree with especially what
Speaker 1: you're talking about regarding sexuality and sexy because I do
Speaker 1: think girls are more innocent these days. They're exposed to
Speaker 1: more on the internet, yet they have less experience in person,
Speaker 1: which is I guess you know this has been a
Speaker 1: hot topic of conversation with boys and girls, adolescents and
Speaker 1: everything in between, and nine binary children as well, Like
Speaker 1: you want your own agency, You want your kid to
Speaker 1: be able to make decisions and understand what those decisions
Speaker 1: lead to, especially something that I understand why you're asking,
Speaker 1: but overall, this seems pretty innoc to me. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a major big deal. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: like she's sexually active all of a sudden and you
Speaker 1: don't know how to handle that, because that's something that
Speaker 1: could also happen in the eighth grade. We're talking here
Speaker 1: just about an outfit, and it might be worth the
Speaker 1: experience of her wearing that to understand if she wants
Speaker 1: to wear something like that again.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, my sister calls that the natural consequences. She talks
Speaker 2: about this with her kids a lot who are now teenagers,
Speaker 2: Like my niece Lucy, she wanted to wear high heels
Speaker 2: to school, and my sister was like, you know, the
Speaker 2: natural consequence to that are you can, but your feet
Speaker 2: are gonna hurt at.
Speaker 4: The end of the day.
Speaker 2: And of course it came home with like terrible feeling
Speaker 2: feet and blisters and all this stuff, and it's like,
Speaker 2: that's the natural consequences. But yeah, letting her go to
Speaker 2: school and see how she likes that attention, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think I mean it's nice to
Speaker 1: give people some responsibility also instead of parenting them at
Speaker 1: that age in that way, I think it's a good like,
Speaker 1: that's a good self esteem booster to kind of be
Speaker 1: have your own you make your own decisions on certain fronts,
Speaker 1: to see how you make them, Yeah, and practice making them.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's all fair And I don't want
Speaker 4: to be sound so puritanical. I just like any girl
Speaker 4: we can save from.
Speaker 1: Sexual predatory behavior, toy behavior. Yeah, but can we save
Speaker 1: anyone from that? You know what I mean? Like, can
Speaker 1: you really save somebody from that?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I know, I think I think it's
Speaker 2: kind of both of these answers. It comes down to
Speaker 2: like is it a safe sandbox to be playing in?
Speaker 2: Like is she going to a safe place? Or is
Speaker 2: she like going out into the city? Like not great?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Okay, guys, this is your opportunity. The book is called
Speaker 1: On Our Best Behavior, the Seven Deadly Sins, and The
Speaker 1: Price Women Pay to Be Good. It's written by Elise Lonan.
Speaker 1: Please order your books or go to your independent bookstores
Speaker 1: and buy a copy of this book. It is very
Speaker 1: important reading. Elise. Thank you so much for being here too.
Speaker 4: So fun.
Speaker 1: It's so nice to talk to real people right and
Speaker 1: give advice. I love it. I love it. Thanks guys,
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week, Bye bye, bye bye.
Speaker 2: If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
Speaker 2: at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
Speaker 2: sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
Speaker 2: and engineered by Brad Dickert executive producer Katherine Law and
Speaker 2: be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot
Speaker 2: com