Speaker 1: Okay, Hi, oh hello Catherine, Hello Chelsea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good afternoon, everybody. Good morning.
Speaker 3: We have some very exciting news. Dear Chelsea.
Speaker 2: The podcast you are currently listening to has been named
Speaker 2: a Webby Honoree in the podcast general series Advice and
Speaker 2: how To category.
Speaker 4: Woo whooo.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, congratulations Chelsea.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Earning the distinction of Webby Honoree, that's what it's called,
Speaker 2: as recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences,
Speaker 2: is a significant achievement, granted to only the top twenty
Speaker 2: percent of more than fourteen three hundred projects submitted in
Speaker 2: this year's competition.
Speaker 3: So that is a very exciting little award.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, how I love it. I love
Speaker 2: getting nominated for awards. It's the whole new thing for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, it's just it's a little bit of recognition.
Speaker 4: It's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: I love an atta boy like I love a pat
Speaker 1: on the back. So this is just a wonderful way
Speaker 1: to get one of those.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I agree, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 4: What else, Catherine, Well, I'm wearing my Dear Chelsea hat.
Speaker 3: From merches In.
Speaker 2: You guys are Dear Chelsea merches In It's available on
Speaker 2: my website at Chelseahandler dot com.
Speaker 4: It's very exciting. Oh I should also tell you this.
Speaker 1: So the very first day that I wore my Dear
Speaker 1: Chelsea Lemon yellow T shirt, I went for a hike.
Speaker 1: My husband and I were hiking in Griffith Park and
Speaker 1: a woman came up to me and she pointed at
Speaker 1: my shirt and she goes, I have that in my
Speaker 1: ears right now.
Speaker 4: And I was really confused.
Speaker 3: And then my.
Speaker 1: Husband was like, Catherine, she said, she's listening to your
Speaker 1: like this podcast right now, the one that's on your shirt.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, that's cute. It was very
Speaker 3: I wonder why you were so confused.
Speaker 1: I was, well, it was like the you're in. It
Speaker 1: was like, that's in my ears right now. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: I don't understand. But she had earbuds in and it
Speaker 1: was a whole thing.
Speaker 3: But it was very cute. Well that was cute. I
Speaker 3: love that people listen to it.
Speaker 2: I always forget, you know, you leave here and then
Speaker 2: you get that you like, even did a podcast, right
Speaker 2: So it's nice when people say, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: love your podcast, or I've called in or I've written
Speaker 2: in somebody tried to hand me their submission the other day,
Speaker 2: so I got to get that to you as soon
Speaker 2: as possible. Just so everybody knows, Catherine handles the submissions.
Speaker 3: Yes, and there, how do you submit again.
Speaker 1: Dear Chelsea Project at gmail dot com. Don't send it
Speaker 1: to Dear Chelsea. That's a very sweet woman who's not us.
Speaker 2: And who's obviously annoyed by getting all of our emails,
Speaker 2: but she's.
Speaker 1: Like, I feel bad, I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: these get to you. So that's Dear Chelsea Project at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. And yeah, I read every single one
Speaker 1: that comes in so and actually I have received several
Speaker 1: emails about our Amy Schumer episode, and there was one
Speaker 1: specific little thing that was mentioned on the episode that
Speaker 1: we wanted a lot of people wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that we correct it, okay, which you know we're here
Speaker 1: to learn too, So I think that's great, Ashley says,
Speaker 1: Dear Chelsea. I love, love love your show guests. You
Speaker 1: have the topics you cover. It helps so many people
Speaker 1: and I love listening every week. I'm writing to respectfully
Speaker 1: ask you for a correction to your episode with Amy Schumer.
Speaker 1: It was educational and vulnerable and your conversation on the
Speaker 1: autistic community and later in life diagnoses will change people's
Speaker 1: lives for the better. In the episode, it was mentioned
Speaker 1: that autism can't be diagnosed until around age five or six,
Speaker 1: which is incorrect. I'm a speech and language pathologist who
Speaker 1: works with children age two to fourteen, many of whom
Speaker 1: are autistic. You can seek diagnosis as early as age two.
Speaker 1: Early intervention is key for many families, and often the
Speaker 1: stigma of autism keeps families from getting a diagnosis until
Speaker 1: much later. My goal in my practice is always to
Speaker 1: put children in their families first, and with all the
Speaker 1: advocacy Amy does, I want everyone to be armed with
Speaker 1: the most accurate information possible. Thanks for your consideration, Ashley.
Speaker 2: Goddamn it, Amy, goddamn it, Amy, Why is she always
Speaker 2: getting me in trouble? Come on getting people in trouble.
Speaker 2: And then I met Amy Schumer. Okay, so you can
Speaker 2: get diagnosis early. As to thank you for your letter,
Speaker 2: thank you for your correction. We appreciate that, and yes,
Speaker 2: we want to get out accurate information to everybody.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, early intervention, guys.
Speaker 3: Early intervention. I wish somebody would have intervened with me earlier.
Speaker 2: Than they did, because I really just I could have
Speaker 2: used some sort of diagnosis when I was younger. I
Speaker 2: don't know what my diagnosis is, but I could have
Speaker 2: used some help.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're as we have expanding conversations about
Speaker 1: everything in the public domain.
Speaker 4: There are so many things that I'm like, oh, wait,
Speaker 4: I have this.
Speaker 1: I have that, Like it's because of podcasts and one
Speaker 1: in particular that I was like, Oh, I have anxiety.
Speaker 4: That's what that feeling is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're actually knowing the difference between anxiety and like,
Speaker 2: you know, anxiety encompasses so many different things, like being
Speaker 2: annoyed with people is anxiety I always had. Anxiety is like, oh,
Speaker 2: social anxiety and inability to so or perform or go
Speaker 2: out or stage fright like that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And it's actually much more nuanced than that.
Speaker 2: There is a whole spectrum of anxiety that you can
Speaker 2: suffer from, and it can present in many different ways
Speaker 2: in different people. So, you know, eating is anxiety sometimes,
Speaker 2: doing drugs is anxiety sometimes, or a celebration.
Speaker 4: Can be either. Chelsea, do you have any tour dates
Speaker 4: that you want to come?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yes, I added a show in Saratoga. Saratoga Mountain Winery.
Speaker 2: I added a second show in Nashville. Nashville is where
Speaker 2: I am shooting my next special, so there will be
Speaker 2: two shows now in Nashville. And I am also performing
Speaker 2: at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. Everyone
Speaker 2: has been asking for Montreal dates to all of my
Speaker 2: Canadian friends. That is July twenty eighth, i will be
Speaker 2: at the Montreal Just for Laughs. I'm hosting a gala,
Speaker 2: and then I also have another I have two dates
Speaker 2: in Vancouver Friday August twelfth to show in Vancouver and
Speaker 2: then Saturday, August thirteenth and Sunday August fourteenth. Tickets are
Speaker 2: available for Calgary in Alberta. And I'm also adding a
Speaker 2: show Saturday October eighth in Niagara Falls, which is Ontario.
Speaker 2: So those are my Canadian dates coming up. And then
Speaker 2: this week I'm starting back on tour. So Thursday, April fourteenth,
Speaker 2: I'm in Cedar Rapids. Then the fifteenth I'm in Des
Speaker 2: Moines and I'm coming to Omaha.
Speaker 3: Nebraska on Saturday night.
Speaker 2: So and then the week after that is Louisville, Kentucky,
Speaker 2: Saint Louis, Missouri, and two shows in Kansas City. So
Speaker 2: check Chelseahandler dot com for your tickets. I'm back on tour,
Speaker 2: vaccinated in Horny. Let's get down to business.
Speaker 4: It's just great.
Speaker 3: It's just great. I'm just back from Vegas.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking a little peckish or peaked, one of
Speaker 2: those words.
Speaker 3: They both apply. Actually, I'm hungry and tired.
Speaker 2: We went to Whistler to celebrate my friend and his birthday.
Speaker 2: That was Saturday, very fun. Sunday night was the Grammys
Speaker 2: in Vegas, which we flew out to with all of
Speaker 2: our friends from Whistler.
Speaker 3: Then we celebrated Joe's birthday. After the Grammys. We had
Speaker 3: a after.
Speaker 2: Party for him with his DJ terb his one of
Speaker 2: his besties DJing and it was so much fun. And
Speaker 2: then we did it again Monday, and then we did
Speaker 2: it again Tuesday, and we had activities like dune bugging
Speaker 2: in the desert for all of our guests. We had
Speaker 2: about seventy five people there. So I am fresh off
Speaker 2: of a flight from Vegas.
Speaker 3: I just landed. I'm here today.
Speaker 2: And talking about to talk to my to our very
Speaker 2: special guest for our final episode, which is our season
Speaker 2: finale of season two. We'll be back shortly. We won't
Speaker 2: take that long of a break. But our finale guest
Speaker 2: is none other than my psychiatrist, doctor Dan Siegel. It's
Speaker 2: very exciting.
Speaker 1: It's very exciting to have him on, and he's going
Speaker 1: to help us with a couple of sort of trickier
Speaker 1: questions that yes' had because I.
Speaker 3: Obviously I want to explain to all of my listeners.
Speaker 2: Obviously I can help with many things, and I think
Speaker 2: I know a lot about a lot of things, and
Speaker 2: I also know that I don't know a lot about
Speaker 2: some important things. So when there is heavier advice to
Speaker 2: be given where we do need a professional, I obviously
Speaker 2: try to implement one every few episodes so we can
Speaker 2: catch up with the callers who I was not feeling
Speaker 2: confident enough or you weren't feeling.
Speaker 3: Confident enough to help.
Speaker 2: By the way, I've got so many compliments on you
Speaker 2: this weekend.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: My sister was also saying, I was on the phone
Speaker 2: with her last night just how much A loves your
Speaker 2: voice and be how well rounded you are. She was like, god,
Speaker 2: Catherine just knows a little bit about everything, and I
Speaker 2: was like, I know, she's like a general practitioner.
Speaker 3: That's so great.
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess I told her.
Speaker 2: Finances your specialty, because that's where you really come alive.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that would actually make everyone in my family.
Speaker 1: My dad is a tax attorney, so that would make
Speaker 1: him laugh very very hard. But oh that's so great,
Speaker 1: A great compliment. Yeah, you know, I love to research.
Speaker 1: I love to fall down an internet rabbit hole. It's
Speaker 1: finally paying off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is, now that you've got this Webby award.
Speaker 2: I mean I slipped and said, Emmy, we can get
Speaker 2: what that? Yeah, that's for us. Excellent, excellent. Well, should
Speaker 2: we welcome doctor.
Speaker 4: Dan the show?
Speaker 3: I know doctor Dan.
Speaker 2: During the course of this interview, we'll mention several of
Speaker 2: his books, but do we want to also maybe at
Speaker 2: the end we can mention all the books because his
Speaker 2: books are helpful, and I would like to just be
Speaker 2: on the record and say there A lot of them
Speaker 2: are parenting books. And I've read three parenting books from him,
Speaker 2: So you are an expert in parenting. Well, I mean
Speaker 2: it was more for Burt and Bernice, and we know
Speaker 2: how that turned out. So I mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: if you could apply parenting books to animals, but that's
Speaker 2: what I was after.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think they can be as sassy as teenagers.
Speaker 1: Like Mimsy is in a very teenager stage right now.
Speaker 1: She just plants her feet when she doesn't want to
Speaker 1: go home on a walk.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Bernie does that all the time.
Speaker 2: She Bernie won't step on certain materials, like she doesn't
Speaker 2: like certain surfaces. So she's stops and then you have
Speaker 2: to basically choke her to pull her over it. She
Speaker 2: doesn't like sand, she doesn't like cement. That's just like
Speaker 2: anything that's dirty. Really, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: I don't know where she got that from, my belle.
Speaker 3: It must be, it must be. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: So today's guest It has a medical degree from Harvard.
Speaker 2: He's a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School
Speaker 2: of Medicine and the founding co director of the Mindful
Speaker 2: Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is a multiple time
Speaker 2: New York Times best selling author, a neuropsychiatrist, and interpersonal neurobiologist,
Speaker 2: Doctor Dan Siegel.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, look who it is. Hi?
Speaker 5: How are you?
Speaker 3: Longtime?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 3: Cci?
Speaker 5: I know, how are you you?
Speaker 3: I'm very well. This is my co host Catherine, who
Speaker 3: I think he's.
Speaker 5: Spoken to Hi, Catherine, Nice to see you.
Speaker 4: Like Wise, Likewise.
Speaker 2: Dan uses a standing desk, Catherine, So if his motion
Speaker 2: is giving you motion sickness, let him know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can stop if you want. It's I like walking.
Speaker 5: But if you want me to stop, I can stop.
Speaker 2: No, that's fine. I'm fine with it. Although, Catherine, are
Speaker 2: you okay with it?
Speaker 1: I think I'm okay with it. If I do get
Speaker 1: motion sickness, I will let you know.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of getting motion signess from someone
Speaker 2: else's motion.
Speaker 3: What does it interpersonal neurobiologists mean? Dan?
Speaker 5: You know? Interpersonal neurobiology is a phrase for a framework
Speaker 5: that combines all different ways of knowing, like the different
Speaker 5: fields of science or studies of meditation what are called
Speaker 5: contemplative insights with indigenous practices indigenous wisdom, and we bring
Speaker 5: it all together and say, if there's one reality, can
Speaker 5: everybody join in the tent and have a conversation that's
Speaker 5: collaborative so we can see the wisdom from all these
Speaker 5: different points of view.
Speaker 3: Oh, interesting, is that a new field?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a new framework. I introduced it in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety nine, so it's relatively new compared to some other things.
Speaker 5: But it's new, especially in the notion that it's not
Speaker 5: trying to replace an existing point of view. It's trying
Speaker 5: to say, there's so many views from thousands of years
Speaker 5: ago or from dozens of years ago, and if they're
Speaker 5: all exploring the nature of truth, could we see if
Speaker 5: they all fit together somehow? There's a common ground that EO. Wilson,
Speaker 5: the writer calls consilience. So we look for the consilience
Speaker 5: or common ground across independent pursuits of knowledge.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, we're really leveling up this episode, Catherine buckle In.
Speaker 5: So that relates to actually one of the questions that
Speaker 5: I want to ask you, but I'll ask that later,
Speaker 5: but it relates to it.
Speaker 3: Okay, great, I love it. I love when you ask
Speaker 3: me questions.
Speaker 5: It's so great to see you, I got to say, Joseph.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's always good to see you. Always good to
Speaker 3: see you.
Speaker 2: I spoke to you a few months ago because I'm
Speaker 2: in a new relationship and about the adjustment to be
Speaker 2: in a relationship with somebody, to spend so much time
Speaker 2: with somebody when I'm so used to being so kind
Speaker 2: of independent and alone. And I wanted to mention because
Speaker 2: you and I had had conversation once and I can
Speaker 2: say this because it's private until I publicize it.
Speaker 3: So I'll say it.
Speaker 2: But we talked about I remember there was a period
Speaker 2: of time where I was telling you that I just
Speaker 2: I was like, I just want to go to bed
Speaker 2: at like eight o'clock every night. You know, I'm not
Speaker 2: in the mood to hang out. I just want to
Speaker 2: be in bed all the time. And I was asking you,
Speaker 2: do you think I'm depressed? And I was single at
Speaker 2: the time, and you said, saliently, I think that if
Speaker 2: someone were in your life that you were excited about,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't want to go to bed at seven or
Speaker 2: eight o'clock.
Speaker 3: And I still like to go to bed at seven
Speaker 3: or eight o'clock.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are times when I can't where of
Speaker 2: course I don't because he's a night owl, and we
Speaker 2: compromise a lot.
Speaker 3: But the other night, I remember we came home.
Speaker 2: He was taping two of his shows at the Forum
Speaker 2: in La his Netflix special, So there were big nights
Speaker 2: out and we were out till one in the morning,
Speaker 2: then we were out till five in the morning, and
Speaker 2: on the Sunday we were planning to go to all
Speaker 2: these Oscar parties and I woke up Sunday, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm done. I can't socialize anymore. And that night, and
Speaker 2: you know, Joe wakes up. My boyfriend has more energy
Speaker 2: than a battery pack. I mean, it is unbelievable what
Speaker 2: this guy is willing to do all day long on
Speaker 2: no sleep. It's just crazy. I've never seen any human
Speaker 2: being operate like this. He's got different DNA. So anyway,
Speaker 2: that night, he was like going somewhere. I wanted to
Speaker 2: go to dinner with his family, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I really just want to go to bed at seven
Speaker 2: or eight o'clock. And I remember the conversation you and
Speaker 2: I had and I thought, oh, what does this mean
Speaker 2: that I still want this? Because I have this kind
Speaker 2: of element now to my personality where I want to
Speaker 2: hunker down, you know, where I want to get in
Speaker 2: bed and watch TV and just build myself a little nest.
Speaker 2: And I know when you do that often too much,
Speaker 2: it becomes it does become a pattern where it feels
Speaker 2: like you are depressed.
Speaker 5: Well no, so what's the part where you're calling it depression?
Speaker 2: Well, I think when I was doing it consistently, now
Speaker 2: I do it, you know, on a Sunday night, you know,
Speaker 2: or you know, I don't do it as frequently, so
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel as like bad.
Speaker 3: Because when you do it consistently.
Speaker 2: And I think it was also maybe a product of
Speaker 2: COVID as well, that I was just like, there's nothing
Speaker 2: going on, it's just easier to get stoned and go,
Speaker 2: you know, get into bed and whatever. But it was
Speaker 2: becoming a pattern that I didn't like about myself. It
Speaker 2: just didn't feel I didn't feel alive. I felt like
Speaker 2: I was slightly depressed. And I've never really dealt with
Speaker 2: any depression to the level where I had to really
Speaker 2: like take anything for it.
Speaker 3: Or I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know if it's a question or
Speaker 2: just an observation, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you're raising a couple of really important issues.
Speaker 5: I mean, one, when you use the word depression, we
Speaker 5: should realize that there are people in the world who
Speaker 5: have really serious ways where they get the experience of
Speaker 5: you know, maybe going to bed early or even having
Speaker 5: a hard time falling asleep. It can go either way.
Speaker 5: Their sleep can be interrupted, they can get up early,
Speaker 5: or they can sleep really a long time, So sleep
Speaker 5: is a big issue to talk about with this thing
Speaker 5: called major depression. But in addition, you know, they have
Speaker 5: low energy. They have something called anhedonia, which means and
Speaker 5: is without hedonis pleasure, So they don't get pleasure in
Speaker 5: things that used to give them pleasure. And also they
Speaker 5: don't get pleasure in anticipating doing something fun, so they
Speaker 5: kind of lose their jois de vivre, their joy of living.
Speaker 5: It kind of goes away. They start thinking kind of
Speaker 5: really down thoughts like I'm no good, I'm guilty of
Speaker 5: things that I'm not even guilty of. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: a horrible person, and there's no future for me, there's
Speaker 5: no hope, and then I start feeling helpless. So for
Speaker 5: or any of us who've worked on a suicide prevention service,
Speaker 5: when someone with serious depression calls you, you can feel
Speaker 5: it in the tone of their voice. It's kind of
Speaker 5: like flat and there's a huge despair there. That makes
Speaker 5: suicide a serious risk. So if anyone's hearing us and
Speaker 5: your experience of those, please reach out for help to
Speaker 5: a mental health professional. If suicide is something you're thinking about,
Speaker 5: you know, please reach out to a suicide prevention service,
Speaker 5: because the great news about depression is that it's treatable
Speaker 5: and even though you may feel hopeless, there's hope right
Speaker 5: around the corner. And part of it actually is the
Speaker 5: connection we talked about. So when I said to you,
Speaker 5: I think if you had a connection with someone that
Speaker 5: mattered to you in your life, it wasn't that I
Speaker 5: thought you were depressed. But some people do get depressed
Speaker 5: because they have no connection, and it's really loneliness, deep
Speaker 5: deep loneliness. And our community, our larger society now doesn't
Speaker 5: really support people having connections with each other. You know,
Speaker 5: the current US Surgeon General wrote a beautiful book call
Speaker 5: Together about this sad epidemic we have where we have
Speaker 5: so much material wealth, but we don't have much relational wealth.
Speaker 5: People are so isolated from each other, so you know,
Speaker 5: that's a separate sort of thing. So being lonely can
Speaker 5: make you feel horrible and despairing, but it might not
Speaker 5: be called major depression, but it still feels terrible, and
Speaker 5: we need to help people with that. And then there's
Speaker 5: you know, just what's called dysphoria, which is where you
Speaker 5: just feel yucky about your life. This as bad for me,
Speaker 5: it's how you feel, and I'm dysphoric, you know, And
Speaker 5: I think anyone who reads the news can get dysphoric
Speaker 5: because we're in a rough place in the world now,
Speaker 5: so our body is going to respond emotionally, and emotion,
Speaker 5: you know, is basically three things woven together. It's relationships,
Speaker 5: the body's response, and meaning. Those three things are really
Speaker 5: what emotion is. So if someone says, oh my emotion
Speaker 5: f horrible, I feel down. What's going on with the world, Yeah,
Speaker 5: let's name it so we can frame it like in
Speaker 5: a picture frame and say that's what it is. Let's
Speaker 5: try to participate, you know, in social activism. Let's try
Speaker 5: to do something to really feel empowered, to actually have
Speaker 5: what's called agency, or I can be an agent of
Speaker 5: action to do something. So a lot of people these
Speaker 5: days are feeling hopeless, and they can call it depressed,
Speaker 5: but that gets people mixed up with a serious psychiatric
Speaker 5: condition rather than the world is in a really tough spot.
Speaker 5: So we can feel hopeless. Let's talk to each other
Speaker 5: about it, because in working collectively, we can actually move
Speaker 5: through that to what Joanna Macy, a beautiful writer, calls
Speaker 5: active hope. So this is a way you can take
Speaker 5: that word depression and see it as either a serious
Speaker 5: disorder that sometimes needs medications or other treatments, or a
Speaker 5: more moderate condition where you know psychotherapy can be helpful,
Speaker 5: or a we're using that word to describe loneliness and
Speaker 5: then having a change in your participation in life. You know,
Speaker 5: like people in AA, for example, they get an instant
Speaker 5: community through alcoholics anonymous meetings, and their feeling of a
Speaker 5: loneliness and despair can dissolve away because they go to
Speaker 5: a regular meeting. Like a relative of mine is a
Speaker 5: recovering alcoholic, and he goes to the meeting seven days
Speaker 5: a week, and he's like the most unlnely person right
Speaker 5: to find because he's got a whole community every day
Speaker 5: that he's actively a part of, very meaningful conversations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like dysphoric.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to describe it, because I think
Speaker 2: for many of us, especially with the events of the
Speaker 2: last few years, it's.
Speaker 3: Like a low level of dysphoria.
Speaker 2: You know, it's and it can feel it feels maybe
Speaker 2: like depression, because it's not a common feeling. I know,
Speaker 2: for me, I've never felt that kind of listlessness where
Speaker 2: you're just.
Speaker 3: Like it's on Wii.
Speaker 2: You're just like, I don't I can't get it up
Speaker 2: for anything. I'm not that excited about anything that's happening.
Speaker 2: And I definitely did remove reading the news from my
Speaker 2: repertoire after a while because I just I read too many.
Speaker 3: It was too obvious what it does to your brain.
Speaker 2: And obviously now with the events, the most recent events
Speaker 2: in Ukraine and Russia invading Ukraine like that is something
Speaker 2: that is a human being. It's our responsibility, I believe,
Speaker 2: to be up to speed and to understand and to
Speaker 2: be actively involved in doing whatever it is that you
Speaker 2: may be able to do, you know, whether that's donating
Speaker 2: money or volunteering in some way, or just being mindful
Speaker 2: of what's happening in the world and meditating on it
Speaker 2: every day whatever, like small contribution you think is fine
Speaker 2: for you, or big contribution, but.
Speaker 3: The political aspect, it's just too sickening.
Speaker 2: So I realized that that was just contributing to my
Speaker 2: kind of darkness for a long time and had to
Speaker 2: remove that. And it's kind of like it's too bad,
Speaker 2: But it's an addiction. It's just like anything else. It's
Speaker 2: just like being addicted to TikTok or Instagram or mind
Speaker 2: scrolling through your phone on social media. That is also
Speaker 2: an addiction, you know, And I don't like the way
Speaker 2: that makes me feel either, And I'm very mindful of.
Speaker 3: How peruse it.
Speaker 2: Like you know, if I'm reading a book for two hours,
Speaker 2: I come away with a much different feeling, a much
Speaker 2: greater self assuredness and self esteem than I do when
Speaker 2: I'm wasting my time reading gossip or reading you know,
Speaker 2: the internet, Like, I know now what the components are
Speaker 2: that trigger me or take me to kind of a
Speaker 2: low energy, vibrational place exactly.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, you're describing an awareness of how you're responding.
Speaker 5: Your body is responding, your emotions are responding, and then
Speaker 5: in that awareness, you've beautifully created a space so you
Speaker 5: can say, wow, I'm kind of addicted to these social
Speaker 5: media things, and I notice I feel really bad. Wow.
Speaker 5: When I take the time to reflect on that, I
Speaker 5: can name it. Oh, I feel bad when I do
Speaker 5: this social media. I could frame it say Okay, what
Speaker 5: do I want to do about it? I'm not going
Speaker 5: to do it as much. That's an empowered mind you're
Speaker 5: talking about that you have, and it's beautiful here you
Speaker 5: describe it, and a lot of people and if you've
Speaker 5: seen the Social Dilemma documentary, you know, the people who
Speaker 5: designed social media studied addiction, and they intentionally create stuff
Speaker 5: on your screens to capture eyeballs, to capture your time,
Speaker 5: focusing your attention on the thing whatever it is. That
Speaker 5: wasn't by accident, it was by intent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what's so astonishing is that everybody is aware
Speaker 2: of that and has been made aware of that, yet
Speaker 2: we still allow ourselves to operate.
Speaker 3: Like that, like people like, I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, wait, you're just a cog and of
Speaker 2: wheel if you're just allowing people to manipulate your brain.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 5: Well, And part of the reason why that addiction what's
Speaker 5: called intermittent reinforcement. If you keep on giving positive reinforcement
Speaker 5: over and over again, after a while, it isn't so addicting.
Speaker 5: But intermittent reinforcement where I give you a reward, then
Speaker 5: three next times don't. Then I give you one, then
Speaker 5: eight times next I don't. Then the ninth time you
Speaker 5: get a reward, you don't know when it's gonna happen,
Speaker 5: so it really pulls you in. That's number one. The
Speaker 5: other thing, which is the other side of it, is
Speaker 5: that our brains are incredibly social. So there's all sorts
Speaker 5: of studies I can tell you about, but the summary
Speaker 5: of all of them basically is we are social creatures.
Speaker 5: That's no surprise. You didn't need to do brain studies
Speaker 5: to know that. But when you look at the brain,
Speaker 5: areas involved in feeling accepted. And I can tell you
Speaker 5: one study that is so cool. When you're accepted, it
Speaker 5: activates this dopamine release. It's very rewarding. That's what the
Speaker 5: dopamine is for. That was good. Let me do it again,
Speaker 5: Let me do it again, Let me do it again.
Speaker 5: But then when you sense that you're not accepted, like
Speaker 5: you're not getting as many hits on your social media
Speaker 5: or whatever like that, the part of the brain, it's
Speaker 5: called the dorsal anterior cingulate, the part of the brain
Speaker 5: that registers social rejection. I call it feeling of being inadequate,
Speaker 5: like I'm not fitting in with the social group. It's
Speaker 5: exactly the same part of the brain as if someone's
Speaker 5: stabbing you with a knife. It hurts literally in the brain.
Speaker 5: It's the same part of the brain social rejection, physical pain,
Speaker 5: same part of the brain. Now, when you take that,
Speaker 5: you go wow, Okay, So you're always trying to see
Speaker 5: how can I fit in? How do I compare? How
Speaker 5: do I fit in? How do I compare? Do I belong?
Speaker 5: Do I not belong? You know, so you're trying not
Speaker 5: to feel the pain. You're trying to find membership in
Speaker 5: a modern society, as we talked about earlier, where we're
Speaker 5: so alone. So you combine those two things, the int reinforcement,
Speaker 5: all the other ways they know about addiction with the
Speaker 5: social brain, and it is a money maker goes. Then
Speaker 5: you're going to get so much time.
Speaker 2: Think about it.
Speaker 5: Fifteen years ago we didn't have these things, and now
Speaker 5: everyone's got them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know people are like, oh, we're going to
Speaker 2: keep our kids off social media, We're going to keep
Speaker 2: them off of iPads. I'm not going to get any
Speaker 2: of that until they're ten, twelve, fifteen. I have a
Speaker 2: friend who waited for her kids to get a phone
Speaker 2: until I think they were fourteen, And it's like, what
Speaker 2: does that do?
Speaker 3: Because once you get it, once you're in, you're in, right.
Speaker 5: I mean I even see it in my two kids.
Speaker 5: You know, one he's old enough, he's thirty two to
Speaker 5: not have had that part of his adolescence. The other
Speaker 5: is twenty eight and she did. And you can even
Speaker 5: see in their different groups of friends, you know, they
Speaker 5: deal with social media in different ways, the younger one more.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you a sad thing. I was having lunch
Speaker 5: with Caroline, my wife. We were having a nice lunch
Speaker 5: in New York. It was a great restaurant and everything.
Speaker 5: Then these people come sit next to us with this
Speaker 5: one year old kid, and it was really cute, and
Speaker 5: they were from another country and it was her birthday,
Speaker 5: so it was a birthday party. So they pull out
Speaker 5: this presence, just one sitting in the high chair. They
Speaker 5: handed her a smartphone and for the rest of the
Speaker 5: so called birthday party lunch, every one of them is
Speaker 5: on their separate device, and Caroline and I are going,
Speaker 5: oh my god. So I took out my phone to
Speaker 5: take a picture because I wanted to put up on
Speaker 5: social media. She goes, don't do that, you know, which
Speaker 5: is right. I shouldn't expose them, although I did get
Speaker 5: a picture where you couldn't see identity.
Speaker 3: But anyway, and you really should know better than that
Speaker 3: first time.
Speaker 5: I mean, what I wanted to share on social media.
Speaker 5: How scary social media can be. Because this kid, now, at.
Speaker 2: One, you should have gone up to them and said, hey, yeah,
Speaker 2: these are my credentials and I need to yeah, and
Speaker 2: said listen, I am a doctor that specializes in this.
Speaker 2: I have a degree from Harvard. I'm a neuropsychiatrist. Do
Speaker 2: you understand the damage you are doing to your child's brain?
Speaker 5: And you rememborize what you're saying next time, I'm going
Speaker 5: to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, come on, I mean, think about the impact that
Speaker 2: would have had. Yeah, maybe it's unwelcome, but I mean
Speaker 2: you're doing them a favor, you know, at least giving
Speaker 2: them the information that they may not.
Speaker 7: Be vy to.
Speaker 5: What's so interesting, Chelsea, because there are times when I
Speaker 5: wonder about doing that, offering unrequested suggestions. Now my kids
Speaker 5: are now adults, so that's that's a whole parenting adult
Speaker 5: children thing where you actually intentionally don't do it. But
Speaker 5: as a professional and a member of our you know,
Speaker 5: human family, when do I offer stuff like that? So
Speaker 5: it's a little tricky. I've tried it a few times
Speaker 5: and it often does not go off well. So what
Speaker 5: I do is I keep a lot of my extra
Speaker 5: parenting books in the car and then I just like
Speaker 5: hand them out for free, like you know, Halloween, you know.
Speaker 3: Trigger Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess you know nobody.
Speaker 2: I mean most people would say, don't give unsolicited advice.
Speaker 2: I obviously subscribe to a different theory. I think that
Speaker 2: sometimes I can hit somebody. I mean not always, but
Speaker 2: sometimes you can get somebody who really hears you and
Speaker 2: and you're doing them a service or a favor, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean that is sad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But you know, when you and I first met,
Speaker 5: I really was impressed with how you like to learn
Speaker 5: new stuff. What in you really empowers you to have
Speaker 5: such a focus on lifelong learning, because when you came
Speaker 5: to me, you weren't like an adolescent coming to me
Speaker 5: for therapy. You know, I'm a child adolescent and adult therapist.
Speaker 5: An adolescent can struggle with things, you know, you were
Speaker 5: a full on adult accomplished a lot, but you came
Speaker 5: to learn more, you know, and it's such a beautiful
Speaker 5: thing that I think life will be the death of me.
Speaker 5: Your book illustrates. But what is it that you can
Speaker 5: teach all of us about your lifelong learning nature?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, thank you. I think that's a huge compliment.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know that it's really I think
Speaker 2: I just am very curious, you know, Like I have
Speaker 2: a curiosity that I've always had which has gotten me
Speaker 2: into lots of trouble as a child, like asking impertinent questions,
Speaker 2: but being really curious about people's lives. And I love
Speaker 2: interpersonal dynamics, like I just love like when I meet
Speaker 2: a family, like if I'm on and I get to
Speaker 2: meet brothers and sisters together with their parents and watching
Speaker 2: the dynamics and like how they function. I just will
Speaker 2: never get tired of that. And because I'm from such
Speaker 2: a big family and we have so many additional family members,
Speaker 2: because people get married and hook up and have boyfriends
Speaker 2: and girlfriends and children, it just gets more and more complex.
Speaker 2: And so for me, it was about becoming a better,
Speaker 2: more self aware, fuller person. But curiosity, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I could listen to you talk about the brain and
Speaker 2: science for hours because I find that fascinating too, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean there are things I don't find fascinating, like bitcoin,
Speaker 2: you know that is when I talk about that, it's like, hmm, okay,
Speaker 2: I don't have I mean I had someone explain an
Speaker 2: NFT to me finally where I was able to get
Speaker 2: understand from the beginning to the end, and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I want to I want to pay
Speaker 2: you for that explanation because I now understand what an
Speaker 2: NFT is.
Speaker 5: Okay, well i'd have you tell me that, but.
Speaker 2: We'll save that for another We'll save that for a
Speaker 2: private conversation.
Speaker 3: Yes, but thank you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, I really don't know how
Speaker 2: to answer that, but I do think that you know,
Speaker 2: when you ask questions, you're signing up for just like
Speaker 2: more knowledge, right, You're yeah, and especially if you have
Speaker 2: the luxury of going to someone like you you have
Speaker 2: so much experience, it's like it's a win win situation.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's going to.
Speaker 2: Be painful at times when you're doing inner work, of course,
Speaker 2: because you have to face things about yourself that are
Speaker 2: not pleasant and that are humiliating or embarrassing or however
Speaker 2: you want to frame that. But bravery gets you to
Speaker 2: a better place in life. I think you know, being
Speaker 2: brave about finding out about yourself.
Speaker 5: I think your journey in therapy it isn't everyone's experience
Speaker 5: that they're so basically open to change. And I remember
Speaker 5: there was a moment and you say this in the
Speaker 5: book so I can share it. You got very emotional
Speaker 5: about something, and I think there was an awareness that
Speaker 5: you felt shouldn't be emotionally, shouldn't be crying, You shouldn't
Speaker 5: have it right. One is lifelong learning, but the other
Speaker 5: is openness to change.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, I would encourage everyone to always be curious
Speaker 2: to learn.
Speaker 3: I mean learning is knowledge and knowledge is power, and
Speaker 3: I want to be powerful. Okay, So should we go
Speaker 3: ahead and take some callers.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great idea, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: make us take a quick break before we do that.
Speaker 3: I love breaks. Let's take one excellent.
Speaker 2: We had to call a right Catherine, that's going to
Speaker 2: call back in because it's a man who's transitioned from
Speaker 2: being a woman and he has a three year old
Speaker 2: daughter with his wife, and he was asking when the
Speaker 2: appropriate time is to explain all of those things to her,
Speaker 2: and I thought, we have Dan coming up. I think
Speaker 2: you'd be better suited to answer that question instead of me.
Speaker 2: So I think we were able to get Alex on
Speaker 2: the phone today, right Catherine.
Speaker 4: Yes, his three year old daughter, Sutton.
Speaker 1: He has a bottom surgery coming up in the next
Speaker 1: year and a half, and so he's wondering how to
Speaker 1: address those things with Sutton. So Hi Alex, Hello, Hi Alex,
Speaker 1: Hey Alex, nice to meet you.
Speaker 6: Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, when you were on last time, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know what, I you know, we had a great conversation,
Speaker 2: but I thought we have my doctor coming on next
Speaker 2: and he would be better suited since he specializes in
Speaker 2: adolescent brain development and childhood all.
Speaker 3: Of this stuff.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he's here, so we were we thought maybe
Speaker 2: you could give him a summary of your situation so
Speaker 2: he could weigh in for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, thank you. So the situation really is is I
Speaker 6: have a three year old and I am I'm the
Speaker 6: cusp of going through the consultation process to have my
Speaker 6: next major surgery as being a transgender and I really
Speaker 6: am going to be embarking upon a long journey of
Speaker 6: about three to four surgeries to have everything happen, and
Speaker 6: it usually takes about a year year and a half
Speaker 6: in long recovery times. And I wanted to do this
Speaker 6: early in Sutton's development so that it wasn't kind of
Speaker 6: a core memory for her. But I'm just kind of
Speaker 6: teetering on how much to be to tell a three
Speaker 6: year old a four year old about what type of
Speaker 6: surgery I'm having, the impact that it's going to have
Speaker 6: to her life as well as what healing time is,
Speaker 6: because it's not like I'm sick or going through anything
Speaker 6: that's something that she should be worried about. More So,
Speaker 6: this is a great part of my journey, but it's
Speaker 6: going to be impactful for her, So I just want
Speaker 6: to make sure that I'm expressing both sides of it
Speaker 6: and the reality of it, but also in a way
Speaker 6: that she's going to understand what's happening to Daddy.
Speaker 5: Well. She's so lucky to have you as a parent, Alex,
Speaker 5: because your intuition of tuning in and getting a feeling
Speaker 5: of transparency that a family without secrets is a family
Speaker 5: that has you could call it a coherent narrative that
Speaker 5: as a narrative about whatever is going on, even if
Speaker 5: it's about something wasn't expected, which is usually where stories
Speaker 5: come from. You know, is really important. And what is
Speaker 5: your heart and your gut? Literally we have three brains.
Speaker 5: You have a brain in your head, you have a
Speaker 5: brain in your heart, You have a brain in your
Speaker 5: gut and what is your heart brain and your gut brain.
Speaker 5: What are they telling your head brain that has the
Speaker 5: words to speak, What are they signaling to you?
Speaker 6: So I suppose if I was to refer to my heart,
Speaker 6: I would say that I want to make sure that
Speaker 6: she feels comforted in those times when I'm healing and I,
Speaker 6: you know, can't be around her as much, can't play
Speaker 6: with her on as much or engage with her as
Speaker 6: she expects. And then I guess my gut is kind
Speaker 6: of telling me to be a little bit more worried
Speaker 6: about kind of what the impact is going to have
Speaker 6: and what I guess the optics are a big thing.
Speaker 6: Optics of her going back to daycare, or talking about
Speaker 6: what our family looks like at that time, or her
Speaker 6: having to do everything with mom because I won't be
Speaker 6: able to get out of the house as well for
Speaker 6: that amount of time. So yeah, I just want her
Speaker 6: to feel like I'm still there just as I am
Speaker 6: every single day now with being as able as I am.
Speaker 5: That's fantastic. And you know, these two brains, when they
Speaker 5: send their wisdom up to your head brain, which has
Speaker 5: kind of logic and thinking about things in that way,
Speaker 5: what does your head brain say about the whole developmental
Speaker 5: timing of when to speak with her?
Speaker 6: I suppose my head brain is kind of kind of
Speaker 6: being more logical. Hopefully it's it's on my side, but
Speaker 6: being more logical in the way that telling me that
Speaker 6: it's going to be okay, like this is only going
Speaker 6: to be a blip in what our family development looks like.
Speaker 6: And I hope that what comes out of it is
Speaker 6: that she sees that my happiness continues to grow on
Speaker 6: my personal journey and that our family just becomes more
Speaker 6: kind of united, that when she looks back on the time, yes,
Speaker 6: it was trying in the grand scheme of how we
Speaker 6: had to schedule things, and I wasn't there for you know,
Speaker 6: going and running outside as much. But after the healing,
Speaker 6: life will go back to quote unquote normal and I
Speaker 6: will just have more happiness and more understanding of how
Speaker 6: I walk in the world. So that hopefully just makes
Speaker 6: it easier for her and for our family to progress
Speaker 6: as a unit.
Speaker 5: That's so beautiful. Well, I mean, Alex, for me, you've
Speaker 5: kind of answered the question in the deepest way of
Speaker 5: what feels right to you personally, what feels right to
Speaker 5: you for your daughter, and then you know, when you're
Speaker 5: turning to Chelsea and you know turning to me, you know,
Speaker 5: as a person who writes about development, here's just added
Speaker 5: on top of your wisdom. I would just add the
Speaker 5: following things. The way you're I think think approaching the
Speaker 5: notion of a family story, the family narrative. And I
Speaker 5: don't say story like a pretend story. I mean we
Speaker 5: are narrative creatures. We tell the story of who we are,
Speaker 5: and some families never do that. And there are all
Speaker 5: sorts of secrets and all sorts of things that are
Speaker 5: never talked about, you know, and then that shuts things down.
Speaker 5: I mean, Chelsea, we could talk about that about when
Speaker 5: your brother died that you've written about so powerfully in
Speaker 5: your narrative of letting that come out and be the story.
Speaker 5: So Alex, for you and for your whole family, everything
Speaker 5: can be our teacher. You know, life happens, stuff that's
Speaker 5: challenging happens. And if we see things that are not
Speaker 5: expected as challenges rather than as threats, then we bring
Speaker 5: as a parent a very different attitude, like saying, you know,
Speaker 5: we didn't expect this to happen. Now, how you then
Speaker 5: make that health, promoting growth, promoting stress or distress is
Speaker 5: what I think your beautiful question is doing. You're saying,
Speaker 5: this is going to be stressful, that's fine. Life is
Speaker 5: that's meaningful and stressful. How do we allow this to
Speaker 5: turn into a positive, growth promoting, challenging experience rather than
Speaker 5: a threat? And the answer is what you've already told us.
Speaker 5: You're ready to be fully present with your daughter. You're
Speaker 5: being fully present with yourself, and so you know you
Speaker 5: could turn to the people who are involved in the
Speaker 5: surgery and the centers you're working with and ask them
Speaker 5: this question too, which I urge you to do. From
Speaker 5: my point of view, it's not my area of specialty,
Speaker 5: but as a child specialist, what I would say is
Speaker 5: this is every child's a little different terms of their temperament,
Speaker 5: and every child's a little different in terms of their
Speaker 5: attachment to different caregivers. But the commonality across temperament and
Speaker 5: attachment is to tell a story that makes sense of things.
Speaker 5: So in a book I wrote called Parenting from the
Speaker 5: Inside Out, it's sort of tea you how to bring
Speaker 5: those stories. Or I wrote that with Mary Hartzel, a
Speaker 5: book I wrote with Tina Payne Bryson is called The
Speaker 5: Power of Showing Up. Those two books would be great
Speaker 5: ones for you to actually read before you tell her
Speaker 5: the story, because they show that whatever the age, people
Speaker 5: ask this about kids whore adopted, When should I tell
Speaker 5: my adopted kid whenever you bring it? Two, three, four.
Speaker 5: She's old enough now to be able to hear a
Speaker 5: story as you know, to want to hear it again
Speaker 5: and again and again and again, and so you have
Speaker 5: to be ready to like be repeating yourself. But that's fine.
Speaker 5: And when she sees the love in your heart, when
Speaker 5: she feels that your gut is really behind this and
Speaker 5: your head is now bringing the words to make a story,
Speaker 5: makes sense. She's ready at three unless there's some of
Speaker 5: the other issue that says, let's hold it off. But
Speaker 5: if the surgery is happening, soon been telling the story,
Speaker 5: even having you know, toys that allow you know, enact story.
Speaker 5: And here's what I would say, this is not just
Speaker 5: about the surgery, but about the general idea of transitioning
Speaker 5: is people they don't understand that gender identity is different
Speaker 5: than assigned sex, whether you have a penis or vagina.
Speaker 5: When I used to be pediatrics and we'd go to
Speaker 5: the delivery room to help with the baby. You'd see
Speaker 5: the outer manifestation and say boy or girl. But gender
Speaker 5: identity is actually along an entire continuum because the brain
Speaker 5: of mammals can be hugely female, which it starts out
Speaker 5: as in all of us. But then the way the
Speaker 5: testosterone that's secreted by the testicles crosses the blood brain
Speaker 5: barrier into various degrees masculinizes that brain to be a
Speaker 5: teeny bit masculine but mostly feminine, or middle way both ways,
Speaker 5: or all the way masculine. Your gender identity is based
Speaker 5: on that, and it's not yes or no. It's not
Speaker 5: like a switch on or off, you know, girl. So
Speaker 5: just explaining it that way, even like a switch, you say,
Speaker 5: what we look like for most of us ninety eight
Speaker 5: percent of us outwardly when we're born, is like a switch.
Speaker 5: It's on or off. It's boy or girl. But actually
Speaker 5: gender identity is not like that. It's more like a
Speaker 5: thermostat We have all these degrees, and you can't tell
Speaker 5: a person's gender identity from the outside. And I had
Speaker 5: one gender identity in my sign sex with something else.
Speaker 5: So I'm in the good fortune of making sense of
Speaker 5: that and so I'm going to make my outside match
Speaker 5: my inside. That's the story, right, So she at three,
Speaker 5: she's gonna get that. And when I work with kids
Speaker 5: who are like four or five who are assigned gender
Speaker 5: is one thing, but a gender identity is the other.
Speaker 5: I talk to them about that and the parents say, oh,
Speaker 5: but this is going to be challenging. Oh yeah, but
Speaker 5: this is the way it is. And this person could
Speaker 5: be incredibly healthy and happy if you, as their parents,
Speaker 5: let them see. This is just what happened. And life
Speaker 5: is about always exploring and learning and growing and this
Speaker 5: is a beautiful thing and it works out fine. Whereas
Speaker 5: as you know, if people say no, no, no, you
Speaker 5: can't do that, that's when it's a problem. So is
Speaker 5: that part of the what you've learned in your journey?
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And making sure that having a daughter that's kind
Speaker 6: of going through this journey as a part of my journey,
Speaker 6: I feel it's my responsibility as her parent to make
Speaker 6: sure that the environments that she is in, the people
Speaker 6: have that positive outlook. And that's what I'm trying to
Speaker 6: do as well, which is why it's just nerve wracking,
Speaker 6: you know, raising a kid in this day and age
Speaker 6: and I'm from We're in a small town in West Michigan,
Speaker 6: so it's a little bit difficult, but I think exactly
Speaker 6: like you said, creating that narrative for my family that
Speaker 6: makes a positive space no matter what challenges come about
Speaker 6: is a great way to put it, because no one
Speaker 6: writes that story or that narrative but us.
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly exactly. You know you might enjoy also and
Speaker 5: give me these references. But there's a book called Brainstorm
Speaker 5: I wrote for adolescents which talks about how parents can
Speaker 5: approach when a child themselves is having a different This
Speaker 5: is I think with sexual orientation issue, but the same thing.
Speaker 5: You know, parents have one expectation, a kid comes out
Speaker 5: the other way. How that works out. This would be
Speaker 5: the flip side where you're going to come as the
Speaker 5: parent to teach your child that what she may be
Speaker 5: learning in school or on television is one extreme and
Speaker 5: that is actually more subtle. And so she has the
Speaker 5: incredible fortune of having you as a parent who will
Speaker 5: guide her through a deeper notion of the way things
Speaker 5: actually are, which is a beautiful gift you're going to
Speaker 5: give her.
Speaker 6: Thank you, I appreciate that, and I appreciate your advice,
Speaker 6: and thank you for having me so that I could
Speaker 6: have that conversation and get that.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 5: I hope we'll be able to check in with you
Speaker 5: and see how it all goes y.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I love that by alex Hi.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Ah, that was perfect, awesome, I'm wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really connecting the dots here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I loved what you said too about
Speaker 1: gender being so separate from the actual physical sex. It
Speaker 1: actually goes with another question that someone wrote in, but
Speaker 1: this one really directly relates to what you were saying.
Speaker 1: So this question is from Monica, whose child Kira, has
Speaker 1: told Monica that they'd like to go by them pronounce so,
Speaker 1: Monica says, Dear Chelsea love the podcast. We have a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old daughter who came out to us as
Speaker 1: non binary a few months ago. She tells us that
Speaker 1: all of her friends referred to her as they slash them.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, she told us she was bisexual.
Speaker 1: I laughed and told her that it was a trend.
Speaker 1: I didn't handle that well, obviously, trying to do this
Speaker 1: one better. We live in Boulder, Colorado, in a very
Speaker 1: liberal setting where It's hard to tell if this is
Speaker 1: a trendy choice or an actual feeling that she's going with.
Speaker 1: Her friends are either bisexual, non binary, or trans. We
Speaker 1: love that this generation can explore their sexuality, unlike we were.
Speaker 4: Able to do growing up. The hard part is the labels.
Speaker 1: I feel like at this point in her life she
Speaker 1: doesn't have to label her sexuality.
Speaker 4: Am I wrong?
Speaker 1: My husband and I don't feel comfortable referring to her
Speaker 1: as they slash them. We're both very open and liberal.
Speaker 1: We believe that people should love whomever they want to
Speaker 1: love to find happiness. For some reason, we're having a
Speaker 1: hard time with this one. We support her in every
Speaker 1: single way, and whoever she wants to love would completely support.
Speaker 1: She's single at the moment. The issue is the pronouns.
Speaker 1: We've talked to her about this and have told her
Speaker 1: that we support her, but we don't feel comfortable switching
Speaker 1: pronouns at this point. She says, she understands. Are my
Speaker 1: husband and I complete assholes? Thanks for your time, Monica.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you Catherine for sharing Monica's question. There is
Speaker 5: so much to say about her reflections. Yes, the first
Speaker 5: broadest statement to make is the more you know the
Speaker 5: less you see, and what that means is the way
Speaker 5: the brain is constructed. It kind of has has a
Speaker 5: way of learning, learning, learning, learning, learning, and then to
Speaker 5: speed things up, it then makes categories which have concepts
Speaker 5: then that emerge from them in words like boy or girl.
Speaker 5: So by the time you're you know, very young, you
Speaker 5: figured out, okay, i'm a boy, I'm a girl. You
Speaker 5: know that one's a boy, that one's a girl. You
Speaker 5: know those are categories, right, and they kind of make
Speaker 5: sense from anatomy. But as we pointed out, you're assigned sex,
Speaker 5: which is what your external anatomy is, is actually not
Speaker 5: always correlated with the feeling inside of who you are
Speaker 5: or the feeling of who you're sexually aroused by. That
Speaker 5: often comes up initially you can feel it when you're
Speaker 5: four or five. Then it kind of goes quiet for
Speaker 5: a little while, but then it gets really active around
Speaker 5: eleven twelve thirteen when adolescence hits. So you know, sexual
Speaker 5: orientation is the phrase we use for who you're sexually
Speaker 5: attracted to, and so it can be for people of
Speaker 5: your same assigned sex, and you call that one thing
Speaker 5: or different assigned sex, and we call that something else
Speaker 5: and so being open to your sexual orientation who you're
Speaker 5: attracted to, that's one thing. So when you use a
Speaker 5: word like bisexual, that's different than the they them stories,
Speaker 5: So that should we should just be really clear about that.
Speaker 5: So the day them is about gender identity. What I'd
Speaker 5: like to do if Monica Herod ask her, but I'll
Speaker 5: ask you, Catherine and you Chelsea about this. You know,
Speaker 5: people have asked me to put my gender identity in
Speaker 5: my little box at the bottom of a zoom call
Speaker 5: or any kind of platform. My mom and I thought
Speaker 5: about it, and I thought, you know, I actually don't
Speaker 5: feel like particularly a he. I don't feel like a she.
Speaker 5: I don't feel like a they. Actually I barely feel
Speaker 5: like a Dan. I know that's kind of an illusion too.
Speaker 5: So I've been putting ABCD, which is like an abbreviation
Speaker 5: for a body called Dan, you know, because even that's
Speaker 5: an illusion. You know, we're all kind of manifestations of
Speaker 5: the same essence popping up in a body for about
Speaker 5: one hundred years.
Speaker 2: So one hundred Jesus Dan. I mean, yeah, well that's
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 5: I know, I get superstitious. Okay, fine, So anyway, let's
Speaker 5: just put it that way, you know. So I say
Speaker 5: that because the world needs us to broaden our identity
Speaker 5: from just the bodies we're in and realize in terms
Speaker 5: of racial justice, social justice issues, and racism. You know,
Speaker 5: we're part of one human family, and also we're part
Speaker 5: of the family of all living beings in terms of
Speaker 5: what we're destroying biodiversity in the climate. So yeah, they say,
Speaker 5: say whether you're he or she or they, and I go, well,
Speaker 5: actually I want to say none of the above. There's
Speaker 5: a lot to write, and then it gets people angry.
Speaker 5: So when I don't put it on my little name tag,
Speaker 5: it's not it's not because I'm being like dismissive of it.
Speaker 5: I actually I don't want to be put into buying.
Speaker 5: So I don't know how do the two of you
Speaker 5: feel when people ask you to do that, because it's
Speaker 5: it's a personal, very personal thing.
Speaker 2: Catherine, you identify, right, you label that I know on
Speaker 2: your emails.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: I do it really as a support for people who
Speaker 1: may not use traditional pronouns.
Speaker 4: And it was tricky for me in the beginning.
Speaker 1: I have a few friends who are non binary, and
Speaker 1: it was tricky in the beginning, and now just after
Speaker 1: practicing it sort of suddenly feels like the most natural
Speaker 1: thing in the world. Like said to my husband's day.
Speaker 1: You know, we're going to our friend Ash's birthday and
Speaker 1: it's at you know, seven o'clock, and they want us
Speaker 1: to be there. Da da da da, And it just
Speaker 1: suddenly feels like the most natural thing in the world
Speaker 1: to use those pronouns for someone else. It takes a
Speaker 1: little bit of practice, but you can come around.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And more importantly, it's important to respect people's decisions about themselves.
Speaker 2: Whether it's a fad or a trend. That's not your
Speaker 2: decision either. Even though you're a parent, you don't get
Speaker 2: to decide if it's a fad or a trend. But
Speaker 2: respecting your child's decision and respecting their choices goes a
Speaker 2: long way into the future of your relationship with your child.
Speaker 2: When you give them agency and you give them license
Speaker 2: to be themselves, then it's not going to be a
Speaker 2: problem if in five years she's like he or she
Speaker 2: or they decides that they want to be referred to
Speaker 2: as a girl again, or that they're not they don't
Speaker 2: feel non binary or any of it. But I think
Speaker 2: you are doing your child a disservice when you're not
Speaker 2: respecting something. That is not an easy thing for them
Speaker 2: to say. It's not easy for that. You have to
Speaker 2: think about that, you know, and you can say you're supportive,
Speaker 2: but that you're not. You don't feel comfortable calling them
Speaker 2: they is actually not really being supportive.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the other thing too, is it's not a huge
Speaker 1: thing to give away. You know, it's not changing who
Speaker 1: your child is fundamentally. It's not a wild leap to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just going to go with this.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say they them. I might slip up,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to try my best. And you know,
Speaker 1: supporting your child's in whatever way you can. And like
Speaker 1: Chelsea said, these things.
Speaker 4: Can pass or maybe they won't.
Speaker 1: And you're allowing your child to discover who they are
Speaker 1: by supporting who they are right now, because that is
Speaker 1: always going to change. Whether their pronouns change or not,
Speaker 1: they're going to continue to change.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I concur with what you're both saying. And I think
Speaker 5: it becomes challenging when parents get really upset. When some schools,
Speaker 5: like here in Los Angeles, they'll have a whole day
Speaker 5: of discussing gender identity and that you have choices of
Speaker 5: names you used and you should look inward, which I
Speaker 5: think is actually fantastic. And some parents get all agitated
Speaker 5: about it because they think it is making a child
Speaker 5: be confused, but it's actually, I think just informing a
Speaker 5: child and freeing a child like Monica's daughter is or
Speaker 5: I don't know if you do use the words daughter
Speaker 5: here Monica's child. Let's say that way. So we have
Speaker 5: a moment where as a parent you can take a
Speaker 5: deep breath and say, if your child comes to you,
Speaker 5: to empower them, to explore the actual biological reality that
Speaker 5: gender identity is independent of assigned sex at birth. People.
Speaker 5: I remember when I was a kid where that wasn't
Speaker 5: a part of our discussion. They suffered so much. And
Speaker 5: when schools introduced this or this podcast or all the
Speaker 5: ways we can just make it a part of our conversation.
Speaker 5: It is a biological fact that gender identity develops in
Speaker 5: its own way that can be independent in an extreme
Speaker 5: or subtlely or aligned with yours signed sex. So to
Speaker 5: name it as something that's very real in our lives,
Speaker 5: I think is going to really help with everyone. Even
Speaker 5: if your gender identity matches your signed sex, You're going
Speaker 5: to understand that there are other people where that's not
Speaker 5: the case, and instead of feeling uncomfortable like Monica feels,
Speaker 5: which you know, we feel uncomfortable when things don't match
Speaker 5: your expectations. So I hope listening to this conversation will
Speaker 5: help Monica and her child's bother to feel we're learning
Speaker 5: something to and to be lifelong learners is a really
Speaker 5: important stance today.
Speaker 1: Our last color today is Katie. Katie says, Dear Chelsea,
Speaker 1: the last nearly two years of my life have been
Speaker 1: the most intense, devastating and transformational time of my entire
Speaker 1: twenty one years. In member of twenty twenty, my older
Speaker 1: brother and only sibling died extremely suddenly from a brain
Speaker 1: aneurysm at twenty two years old. Needless to say, this
Speaker 1: loss has been extremely difficult to navigate and my entire
Speaker 1: outlook on life has completely changed.
Speaker 4: I know you were very.
Speaker 1: Young when you lost your brother, and I feel as
Speaker 1: though we were similar in how that type of loss
Speaker 1: affected us. After the first few months of complete shock
Speaker 1: and fear that I would lose my parents to heartbreak
Speaker 1: over the death of their son, I started to get
Speaker 1: really angry at the world, which was completely unlike my
Speaker 1: old self. I have done a lot of therapy to
Speaker 1: overcome some of that anger, but I still struggled daily
Speaker 1: to comprehend how my smart, wonderful, and seemingly perfectly healthy
Speaker 1: brother is gone and never coming back. I also find
Speaker 1: meeting new people to be emotionally draining, as sometimes the
Speaker 1: do you have siblings question comes up, and without fail
Speaker 1: this always makes me spiral. I feel nervous opening up
Speaker 1: about my brother because I feel like people in their
Speaker 1: early twenties are not equipped to talk about loss and death.
Speaker 1: It's almost taboo in some ways. What has helped you
Speaker 1: with accepting and understanding such severe and sudden loss at
Speaker 1: such a young age, And how do I combat how
Speaker 1: his death has caused me to struggle with coping in
Speaker 1: other areas of my life?
Speaker 3: Katie, Hi, Katie, Hi, Hi Katie.
Speaker 2: It's your lucky day because my psychiatrist Dan is here
Speaker 2: with us as our guest today. Oh wow, who helped
Speaker 2: guide me through my grief and my new reality which
Speaker 2: I had. You know a lot of delayed grief, So
Speaker 2: it's good that you're talking about it not so long
Speaker 2: after it's happening, and that you're facing these issues because
Speaker 2: it's it is a big, big, unexpected obstacle that has
Speaker 2: happened to you, you know, and it's not something that
Speaker 2: you're not going to get through, but it's so difficult
Speaker 2: and only other people who have lost the sibling can
Speaker 2: really relate or understand. So Dan, do you want to
Speaker 2: take the lead on this and I'll chime in sure.
Speaker 5: First of all, Katie, thank you so much for reaching
Speaker 5: out to Chelsea to really share your experience and share
Speaker 5: your question. I'll ask you, when you were actually putting
Speaker 5: this question together and sending it off, what were you
Speaker 5: feeling inside of you that allowed you to feel like
Speaker 5: you could articulate it in a sense go public with it.
Speaker 5: What was going on inside of you?
Speaker 7: It was, honestly, Chelsea, because I watched Evolution with my mom,
Speaker 7: and I don't think either of us had ever really
Speaker 7: seen somebody talk about death like so raw and just
Speaker 7: so open like that. And I don't know, it just
Speaker 7: like really spoke to me and we didn't say a
Speaker 7: word the entire time. All we did was cry and laugh,
Speaker 7: and yeah, I don't know. I just felt so kind
Speaker 7: of like I felt empowered by it, and I was like,
Speaker 7: you know, what, I'd love to talk to her because
Speaker 7: there was a lot of parallels between what you were
Speaker 7: saying and what I've definitely been feeling, and so yeah,
Speaker 7: I definitely felt like there was like a bit of
Speaker 7: a connection there. And like you guys said, like, not
Speaker 7: a lot of people go through what I've gone through
Speaker 7: and Chelsea has, So yeah, definitely that was empowering for
Speaker 7: me when.
Speaker 5: You saw that someone could really look at the death
Speaker 5: of a sibling. In this case, you both shared the
Speaker 5: loss of your brothers. Was there something in what Chelsea
Speaker 5: shared an evolution that especially spoke to you?
Speaker 7: Yeah. Absolutely. I think the main thing was like the anger,
Speaker 7: because I was never an angry person. I was always
Speaker 7: really calm, you know, quite put together and everything, and
Speaker 7: then I started to have these feelings of anger when
Speaker 7: the numbness started to go away, and it just was
Speaker 7: so unlike me, and I was just so kind of
Speaker 7: mad at the world like that it took him because
Speaker 7: he was just such a wonderful, kind human and he
Speaker 7: truly just like he was just such a light in
Speaker 7: this world and it just felt so wrong. And so
Speaker 7: the anger that she had and how that leaks into
Speaker 7: other areas of your life I think that's kind of
Speaker 7: where I drew like a lot, like I just I
Speaker 7: just totally connected to that because it was like, WHOA,
Speaker 7: this is affecting how I see every area of my life,
Speaker 7: not just death and loss. It was you know, in
Speaker 7: school with friends everything. Then bitterness too when people talked
Speaker 7: about like their siblings, and it was like, I'm self
Speaker 7: aware enough to know, like, it's not right. I don't
Speaker 7: want to be bitter about other people because they should
Speaker 7: get to express their love for their siblings that are alive,
Speaker 7: and that makes me happy. I'm still happy for them,
Speaker 7: but I couldn't help but still feel bitter, you know,
Speaker 7: and angry. So definitely those feelings of anger that Chelsea
Speaker 7: talked about, I definitely connected to that a lot. That's
Speaker 7: what made me start to realize WHOA like I got
Speaker 7: to I have to seek out like therapy and stuff
Speaker 7: like that because I tried to do it myself for
Speaker 7: I think the first eight months, and yeah, it just
Speaker 7: wasn't working and I could just see down the line
Speaker 7: it would just start to get worse.
Speaker 2: I want to just jump in and just say, you
Speaker 2: have such a huge opportunity for growth right now for
Speaker 2: you to be facing this so soon after it happened,
Speaker 2: means like you have such a bigger advantage, Like I
Speaker 2: didn't face this. I went thirty years without being able
Speaker 2: to deal with my emotions, you know. So you're so
Speaker 2: young and you're vibrant, and you're going to be able
Speaker 2: to get through this. And I just want to say
Speaker 2: something that's so important for you to hear. It's like,
Speaker 2: when you think of how amazing your brother was and
Speaker 2: what a light he was in this world, he would
Speaker 2: hate to see you in pain. He would hate to
Speaker 2: see you feeling bitter.
Speaker 3: He would not want that.
Speaker 2: So in honor of him, you've got to do the
Speaker 2: work to get yourself out of that anger and bitterness,
Speaker 2: because you want to be able to celebrate a life
Speaker 2: that he had and live your life with him in it,
Speaker 2: in honor of him and with him, because he's still
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just because he's gone doesn't mean he's gone from you.
Speaker 2: He's still within you and your parents, and that is
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing, and that is the like that you
Speaker 2: should think about getting to spread when you move forward
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Absolutely, And he truly would be so unhappy, he
Speaker 7: would be so upset if he saw like this affect
Speaker 7: us long term because again like just such a selfless
Speaker 7: human being, and he just would not he would he'd
Speaker 7: be angry with us, to be honest, if we let
Speaker 7: it get us down for a really long time, he
Speaker 7: would not be happy with us for sure.
Speaker 5: It's such a beautiful invitation of Katie that you're inviting
Speaker 5: us to really look this question what helped? And Chelsea,
Speaker 5: you're bringing up, you know, this notion of what the sibling,
Speaker 5: what the brother would actually want for you. The experience
Speaker 5: of grief, which is the word we use for when
Speaker 5: someone we love that's really important our life dies or
Speaker 5: goes away and we can't reach them. That loss is huge.
Speaker 5: So grief goes through stages and it really invites you
Speaker 5: to bring into awareness all the different feelings you're having.
Speaker 5: And as Chelsea points out, you know you are doing that, Katie,
Speaker 5: and your notion of self awareness is really important and
Speaker 5: there are things you can do to expand that. You know,
Speaker 5: with Chelsea we would do meditation in particular, this thing
Speaker 5: called the wheel of awareness. You can get this book
Speaker 5: called Aware or Becoming Aware, the workbook where you will
Speaker 5: learn to actually enrich that ability to be aware and
Speaker 5: that can help the grief process. To just let the
Speaker 5: anger there be in awareness. You don't have to do
Speaker 5: anything with it. It can just teach you something. The
Speaker 5: other emotions that are really basic when something like this
Speaker 5: happens are sadness and fear. So a loss like this
Speaker 5: at a young age that can rock your world because
Speaker 5: you don't expect someone young to die. You expect someone older,
Speaker 5: way older to die. So when something unexpected like that happens,
Speaker 5: it can lead to fear, It can lead to sadness,
Speaker 5: and it can lead to anger where the fear is like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, things aren't safe, nothing, I can't rely
Speaker 5: on anything. The sadness is there was a connection that's
Speaker 5: ripped from me, and I have such a longing to
Speaker 5: be with my brother, but it's it's not there, when
Speaker 5: in fact it's just like Chelsea said, he's inside you,
Speaker 5: but him being alive in his body now that's changed.
Speaker 5: So you want to deal with that feeling. You can't
Speaker 5: just call him up and talk to his actual self.
Speaker 5: You can deal with the inner self of your brother.
Speaker 5: And the anger, you know, is about something is wrong
Speaker 5: that needs to be righted right. So anger is like
Speaker 5: this drive to correct you know sadness is like a
Speaker 5: drive to connect, and in many ways, fear is a
Speaker 5: drive to protect. Right, those are the three in the brain.
Speaker 5: They're deep, deep in the brain, so they're really really foundational.
Speaker 5: As you're pointing out, the anger then starts spreading over
Speaker 5: all these things. So the idea of finding a practice,
Speaker 5: whether it's in therapy or doing like a meditation that
Speaker 5: gives you time to just be with your emotions. And
Speaker 5: then the grief process once you give yourself that respect
Speaker 5: to just feel what you feel, talk about it, write
Speaker 5: in a journal about it, do meditative, reflect the reflection
Speaker 5: on it. Then it will have its natural course. Don't
Speaker 5: worry about the timing, but do give respect to all
Speaker 5: the emotions are there, and they will then take their
Speaker 5: natural path. And in many ways, grief as it goes
Speaker 5: forward becomes meaning making. That is, you say, I didn't
Speaker 5: plan for my brother to die, but my brother would
Speaker 5: want me to actually make sense of how this has
Speaker 5: impacted me. And as Chelsea has done, you know, with
Speaker 5: her wonderful work. Now to take a loss that really
Speaker 5: as you've shared with the world, Chelsea, you know, your
Speaker 5: way of dealing with that pain was to shut it
Speaker 5: off the emotions, but now to share with the world.
Speaker 5: You don't know, Katie, how the sadness and really profound
Speaker 5: loss of your brother dying unexpectedly like this. It was
Speaker 5: no one's fault, aneurisms happened. All the ways that you
Speaker 5: can bring the emotional learning from this will be a
Speaker 5: meaning that you can make this. There's a number of
Speaker 5: things about hope and about joy that there are wonderful
Speaker 5: books on this. There's it called a book called the
Speaker 5: Book of Hope and a Book of Joy that I
Speaker 5: think you'd love because what it says is that the
Speaker 5: sorrows in the world, whether it's a personal loss or
Speaker 5: the loss in biodiversity with what we're facing the climate,
Speaker 5: or the challenges of social justice, all these can get
Speaker 5: us all angry, sad, fearful. And what we want to
Speaker 5: do is take those emotions and allow ourselves to feel
Speaker 5: them fully, but then really keep hope alive, a kind
Speaker 5: of active hope that a writer named Joanna Masi calls
Speaker 5: it active hope, where you're really turning that pain into
Speaker 5: actually something positive in the world, and not only having hope,
Speaker 5: but having a sense of joy. And I think if
Speaker 5: your brother were watching us now and he said, my
Speaker 5: dear sister Katie can hold on to hope and can
Speaker 5: be joyful in this life. What would he feel about that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a really good point, Alice Tears, That's really good. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I honestly like you bring up a really good point too,
Speaker 7: in the fact that, like I have grown, like so
Speaker 7: much from this loss, and like the way I view
Speaker 7: the world in good ways too, and my desire to
Speaker 7: make my parents proud, even though I know I would
Speaker 7: make them proud if I did nothing, because they're just
Speaker 7: the most wonderful people in the entire world. But yeah,
Speaker 7: like he really has allowed me to see the world
Speaker 7: so much clearer, and I just feel like I'm going
Speaker 7: to do such great things because I've grown so much
Speaker 7: from this And yeah, you're right, like it is it
Speaker 7: is a choice too to wake up every single day
Speaker 7: and you know, choose happiness despite all the pain. And
Speaker 7: that's what I've really been working on, is just choosing
Speaker 7: to be happy because at the end of the day,
Speaker 7: you know, like the random cruelty of him being taken away,
Speaker 7: it has to be a choice for me to keep
Speaker 7: going and to do it for him and to do
Speaker 7: it for my parents. And I find that that's really
Speaker 7: helped me too, is like letting myself feel those emotions
Speaker 7: and yeah, growing from it, like you said, like it
Speaker 7: is there's power in that.
Speaker 2: There's also something Dan taught me. Losing somebody is like
Speaker 2: a robbery. You've been robbed, you know, and that's how
Speaker 2: it feels. It feels you're violated and you cannot make
Speaker 2: sense of it. But are you going to spend your
Speaker 2: entire life harboring such anger towards those robbers?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Because are you going to
Speaker 3: spend your energy doing that? No, you're not.
Speaker 2: You want to be a light for your parents. You
Speaker 2: want to be help your parents heal. It's not your responsibility,
Speaker 2: but you can. You know, you can be a light
Speaker 2: for them as well. And when you're talking about emotions
Speaker 2: coming up, something that Dan and I talked about a
Speaker 2: lot was like, where are you feeling something?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 3: Are you feeling it in your chest? Do you feel
Speaker 3: it in your stomach?
Speaker 2: Being in touch with your body and respecting yourself enough
Speaker 2: to sit with it, you know, when you're overcome, you're
Speaker 2: allowed to go outside and cry and sit there for
Speaker 2: twenty minutes because once you extinguish it, there is a
Speaker 2: lightness of that happens, and it's when you resist your
Speaker 2: emotions where you get into trouble.
Speaker 3: So it's okay to feel all.
Speaker 2: Those emotions and let them out and know, okay, oh
Speaker 2: I'm feeling Okay, I'm feeling this. Sometimes it takes thirty
Speaker 2: seconds just to sit with yourself, and sometimes you need
Speaker 2: an hour. Whatever it is you need, you know you
Speaker 2: need and you'll know, but being respectful of that so
Speaker 2: you're not repressing or suppressing anything so that it's not
Speaker 2: creeping up on you later. You know that you're experiencing
Speaker 2: everything and thinking about where it is in your body, like.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm heavy in my chest right now. Okay, I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm going to cry. Okay, now I'm going
Speaker 3: to cry.
Speaker 2: It sounds almost pedantic in a way, but it's so
Speaker 2: important to respect yourself and your emotions, and that's how
Speaker 2: you get through something like this in a healthy way,
Speaker 2: because you are going to be in a place where
Speaker 2: the pain is no longer as acute as it feels today.
Speaker 3: You are That's what happens with life. You're going to
Speaker 3: move on. There are going to be moments where you're
Speaker 3: going to feel.
Speaker 2: Dream joy again, and you may already have and that's
Speaker 2: part of healing. That's part of healing because you're still here,
Speaker 2: so everything that is coming up, it's just you know,
Speaker 2: you obviously want to be with a therapist and talking
Speaker 2: with somebody too. You need that kind of support right
Speaker 2: now for sure?
Speaker 3: Are you seeing someone right now?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Yeah, I have a therapist, yeah yeah, and she's
Speaker 7: really great. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So all of those things are helpful, and just you know,
Speaker 2: remembering that there is no wrong feeling or emotion.
Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong. This is all just a process and
Speaker 3: it doesn't last forever.
Speaker 7: No, that's really great, Like, thank you, And I just
Speaker 7: want to say thank you to you as well, because honestly, yeah,
Speaker 7: like listening to your podcast and watching your stand up
Speaker 7: has really helped me a lot, and I just think
Speaker 7: it's so brave of you and yeah, again, really empowered
Speaker 7: me as well.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you called in, and I'm so glad
Speaker 2: we had Dan here today for you, Katy.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was so nice to meet you as well.
Speaker 3: Dan.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Katie, nice to meet you. Thank
Speaker 5: you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks Katie, bye bye bye.
Speaker 3: Wow what a sweetie. Yeah wow?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Well ah, well, that was quite a heavy episode.
Speaker 1: Today it was I do have one little extra thing
Speaker 1: as we move into this close. Kelsey emailed us and said,
Speaker 1: I recently went through a massive life change which led
Speaker 1: me to changing careers, moving states, and finally getting out
Speaker 1: of a long term toxic relationship. I read life Will
Speaker 1: be the Death of Me, and it inspired me to
Speaker 1: get back into therapy and really try to delve into
Speaker 1: the deep childhood trauma. Your story resonated with me. I
Speaker 1: was sitting outside my therapist office today and debated going
Speaker 1: in and was questioning whether this was where I needed
Speaker 1: to be. I put out into the world that I
Speaker 1: needed a sign. I went into therapy and halfway through,
Speaker 1: my therapist pulled out an orange out of her bag,
Speaker 1: tossed it to me, and said, I think you need
Speaker 1: this today. I stared at her and sh and then
Speaker 1: subsequently lost it, and then had to explain that I
Speaker 1: was inspired to get back into therapy after reading Chelsea's
Speaker 1: book and that someone tossing me an orange was an
Speaker 1: unexpected sign of compassion when I needed it the most,
Speaker 1: and orange unraveled me and gave me the sign that
Speaker 1: I'm exactly where I need to be. Our journeys are
Speaker 1: not the same, but thank you for sharing yours and
Speaker 1: inspiring me to heal so that I can find my
Speaker 1: happy and success as well. It's already working. Much love
Speaker 1: and admiration, Kelsey.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that makes me cry. Dan, Can you
Speaker 3: believe that?
Speaker 5: No, that's incredible, that is so beautiful.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: I was sitting the other day I got some shitty news.
Speaker 2: I was sitting the other day with Joe and we
Speaker 2: were somewhere. Oh yeah, it was when I had to
Speaker 2: go to the hospital. And when the next day we
Speaker 2: were sitting down, I was just like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with me?
Speaker 3: I'm so stressed out. I landed myself in the hospital.
Speaker 3: Like I didn't think I was stressed out. And we
Speaker 3: were just sitting in this restaurant and at a hotel.
Speaker 2: And I was just looking at him, like just so
Speaker 2: confused about where I was in my life, Like I
Speaker 2: thought I was doing so great and I was on
Speaker 2: top of everything and I had learned how to deal
Speaker 2: with everything. And I looked down and there's this whole
Speaker 2: tree of oranges right behind him, my goodness, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, and I go look and
Speaker 2: he's like see you're okay.
Speaker 3: You're okay, You're always okay. It's just a little hiccup.
Speaker 3: So I love that. Oh, Kelsey, thanks for sharing that
Speaker 3: with us. That was so nice, so emotional. I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, let's take a quick break because I just
Speaker 2: I have a new loofah that I want to try
Speaker 2: out on Catherine. I'm sorry, does that sound like workplace?
Speaker 2: Workplace professionalism? Times have changed and someone has to respect that,
Speaker 2: and that's someone is me.
Speaker 3: That's right. So I apologize Catherine about the lufa comment.
Speaker 4: It's okay, I love I love it.
Speaker 3: I'm bad.
Speaker 2: I apologize to you too about the lufa comment. Gosh,
Speaker 2: that's your husband right in front of I know.
Speaker 1: It's okay, he wouldn't mind. It'll be fine, It'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break. Okay, Dan, what advice do you
Speaker 1: need from me?
Speaker 5: Well, I asked you earlier. You know, how do you
Speaker 5: keep that lifelong learning approach going? And the related thing
Speaker 5: was how did you let yourself be open to really
Speaker 5: facing your emotional life? There? And then a bonus question
Speaker 5: for you, which from our relationship you'll probably think this
Speaker 5: is Stan.
Speaker 3: Is never short winded.
Speaker 5: Everybody particular is how did humor enter your life? So
Speaker 5: we can try to be inspired, not to be funny
Speaker 5: stand ups like you are, but to just make sure
Speaker 5: that in the face of all the challenges we keep
Speaker 5: our humor alive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, God, I don't know if you can. I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's a learned thing or if that's inherent.
Speaker 2: You know. I think I was born with that because
Speaker 2: my family was just We're all like that, Like sarcasm
Speaker 2: was was our function, you know, like everything was sarcastic
Speaker 2: to deal with the lameness like we just are were
Speaker 2: constantly like, oh, like our parents were lame.
Speaker 3: Growing up was just lame.
Speaker 2: Our birthdays our parents trying to like celebrate our birthdays
Speaker 2: was lame. So we just had these built in senses
Speaker 2: of humor to cope with it. But I don't I
Speaker 2: can't really speak to whether or not you can, you know,
Speaker 2: adopt it. I think it's important to remember not to
Speaker 2: take yourself so seriously. Right, You're not the only person
Speaker 2: on this planet. There's a million billions of things going
Speaker 2: on around you, and you're just what you want to
Speaker 2: bring is light and happiness and joyfulness, right to the table,
Speaker 2: to the energy field around you, to the people that
Speaker 2: you come in contact with. So I think humor plays
Speaker 2: into that. To be light and happy and set a
Speaker 2: tone and inspire people to be open and yeah, I
Speaker 2: guess you know. Just try not to take yourself so seriously.
Speaker 2: You got to be able to laugh at all the
Speaker 2: bad stuff too, because there's humor and everything. Sometimes you
Speaker 2: have to look a little harder for it, but.
Speaker 5: It's there, beautiful. Well, that's great because that actually relates
Speaker 5: to the other questions that you've already answered. You know
Speaker 5: how to keep those questions going and really keep an
Speaker 5: open mind to grow throughout life. So Chelsea, thank you
Speaker 5: so much. Catherine, thank you so much. It's really an
Speaker 5: honor to be here with you and really a joy
Speaker 5: to speak with all the people who had questions today,
Speaker 5: and I feel very privileged to be here. So thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Dan.
Speaker 2: I know that you usually charge for this kind of advice,
Speaker 2: so I appreciate you volunteering your services.
Speaker 5: Well, I feel like I'm enriched just like working with you, Chelsea.
Speaker 5: This has really been a great conversation today.
Speaker 3: Thank you awesome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Dan.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it. I'll see you soon.
Speaker 5: Great, you will.
Speaker 1: Thanks Katherine, thank you so much for tuning in to
Speaker 1: der Chelsea Season two. We'll be back with another season
Speaker 1: May twelfth.
Speaker 3: See then,