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