Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wokay F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, back from VAK and recording
Speaker 1: in the Brooklyn Bunker. Folks, I gotta tell you, and
Speaker 1: I know this every single time that I go on
Speaker 1: vacation and I come back and I jump into the news,
Speaker 1: it's like trying to catch hot grease in your hand.
Speaker 1: It is painful. It is almost impossible to catch up
Speaker 1: with what you've missed during the week that you're out.
Speaker 1: But I want to give you some initial highlights from
Speaker 1: my trip about recharging and just revitalizing my spirits, and
Speaker 1: then dive fully back into the headlines, which there are
Speaker 1: many and I don't even know which ones to start
Speaker 1: with thirst, But what I will say is that thank
Speaker 1: you all so much for your well wishes and your
Speaker 1: thoughts on how to recharge and being so wonderful with
Speaker 1: regard to recognizing that even you know, those folks that
Speaker 1: you may rely on for news on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis also require rest. And I do my best
Speaker 1: to offer to you all advice that I think will
Speaker 1: help you, but then also turn around and wanting to
Speaker 1: take my own advice, and what I will say is
Speaker 1: this rest and restoration should not just happen one week
Speaker 1: out of the year. It should be a daily practice.
Speaker 1: And I'm coming back to you feeling so recharged and
Speaker 1: so relaxed because I make self care a part of
Speaker 1: my daily routines. And while it's really great to take
Speaker 1: a full on break and to be able to just
Speaker 1: be in the sun and connected with friends and you know,
Speaker 1: just rest, do nothing right, like just lay by a pool,
Speaker 1: it's also important to just think of the ways in
Speaker 1: which we continue to overwork ourselves, grind ourselves, and wait
Speaker 1: until we are at our most depleted to say that
Speaker 1: we need a break. I think I'm coming back so
Speaker 1: recharged and feeling like just on a high, and not
Speaker 1: coming back in a way where I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I wish I had another day or a week of vacation,
Speaker 1: because I genuinely don't. I think that happens when you
Speaker 1: wait to feel like your thread has broken, that you have,
Speaker 1: you know, literally given all that you can and now
Speaker 1: you're completely depleted. I think that that's the wrong way
Speaker 1: to take vacation. I believe in the practice of daily
Speaker 1: self care. What are you doing for yourself? How do
Speaker 1: you start your day, How do you end your day?
Speaker 1: What are you doing in between when you're in your
Speaker 1: moments of deep frustration. I will tell you this, I
Speaker 1: was really of myself because over the weekend many folks
Speaker 1: know that I was up in Martha's Vineyard, That's where
Speaker 1: I was doing my holiday, and the hurricane Henri was
Speaker 1: heading our way, and I wanted to leave a day
Speaker 1: early because I felt like, you know, driving headfirst into
Speaker 1: a hurricane may not be the best. And you know,
Speaker 1: my friends that I was with were just like, no,
Speaker 1: it'll be fine. You know, they're blowing this out of proportion.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, when we wake up on the next
Speaker 1: day from when we should have left, all of our
Speaker 1: fairies were canceled and we were left scrambling to figure
Speaker 1: out now what we were going to do if we
Speaker 1: couldn't get off the island, if they didn't open up
Speaker 1: the fairies, like where they're going to be hotels available,
Speaker 1: knowing that you know, now everyone who was not able
Speaker 1: to get on the island was also going to need accommodations.
Speaker 1: And during that time, I, you know, I was frustrated
Speaker 1: and annoyed. And what I did as opposed to what
Speaker 1: I have done in the past is I did some meditations,
Speaker 1: I did some deep breathing. You know, a person that
Speaker 1: I was with said, you know, if I you're a
Speaker 1: much better person than me, because I would have been
Speaker 1: waving my finger doing a whole bunch if I told
Speaker 1: you so, I told you so about leaving early. And
Speaker 1: I said, my response was, what would be the point
Speaker 1: of that? Who does that help? It doesn't make me
Speaker 1: feel anybody just because I happen to have been right,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't change the present situation. Right, The only
Speaker 1: thing that will change the present situation is to keep
Speaker 1: like a calm head recognized that we're all safe, and
Speaker 1: we're all together, and regardless of decisions that could have
Speaker 1: been made better, they weren't. So what are the decisions
Speaker 1: that we're making now, and how are we going to
Speaker 1: operate and kind of move through? And I will tell
Speaker 1: you that twenty nineteen Danielle, twenty eighteen Danielle would have
Speaker 1: had a whole melt down, would have been angry and
Speaker 1: miserable and frustrated and just made a frustrating situation ten
Speaker 1: times worse. And what I've learned over you know, the
Speaker 1: almost two years of being invested in a regular if
Speaker 1: not daily, I you know, will miss a day here
Speaker 1: and there, But a daily meditation practice is that it
Speaker 1: has changed the way in which I show up in
Speaker 1: friction situations. And I don't say like in fight or
Speaker 1: flight moan, but in situations where there is friction, right,
Speaker 1: and I recognize that our attitudes can change those friction
Speaker 1: moments into fore alarm fires or into you know, more
Speaker 1: of a bomb right where you're like, this doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be like this. We can recognize that everything is frustrating.
Speaker 1: We can recognize that there is friction without making the
Speaker 1: situation worse. That does not mean ignoring right what is happening,
Speaker 1: but it means that you can choose how you decide
Speaker 1: that you want things to unfold moving forward. And for me,
Speaker 1: I am just so grateful And I'm sharing this because
Speaker 1: I feel that I see real time, daily affirmations of
Speaker 1: the steps that I have taken to better my emotional,
Speaker 1: spiritual and physical well being. Right, and that we have
Speaker 1: more power then we recognize that we do. And again,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're not frustrated. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you're not angry. It just means that I'm not going
Speaker 1: to allow those negative emotions to cloud how I find
Speaker 1: myself out of a situation or make it worse than
Speaker 1: it actually has to be. So at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it was, you know, we were able to
Speaker 1: leave the island and able to do so safely and
Speaker 1: just do it later. We were able to enjoy each
Speaker 1: other for a few more hours before everybody's you know,
Speaker 1: splits and goes their separate ways post vacation, And it
Speaker 1: was just an opportunity for me to do real time
Speaker 1: reflection on the growth that I feel like I've had
Speaker 1: as a person and how I approach situations and want
Speaker 1: to not be reactionary, not wanting not to be explosive,
Speaker 1: wanting to be you know, remain calm and thoughtful and
Speaker 1: be able to move through and choose joy over misery. Right.
Speaker 1: And I don't feel like we recognize in every moment
Speaker 1: of our lives that we that our emotions and how
Speaker 1: we feed into them are a choice, right and in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And this is let me provide
Speaker 1: the caveat. I'm not saying if you have if you
Speaker 1: are somebody that has mental illness or suffers from you know,
Speaker 1: I depression, all of these different things that like you're
Speaker 1: making an active choice. Know I'm saying for people who
Speaker 1: do not have those what can be seen as impediments
Speaker 1: to that way of thinking that Yeah, we can choose
Speaker 1: to be pissed off, we can choose to let things go.
Speaker 1: We can choose to find better ways to communicate our
Speaker 1: needs without their being yelling, without major frustration and disruption.
Speaker 1: And what I realize for myself is that I am
Speaker 1: choosing to be better each and every day and seeing
Speaker 1: that applied in real time situations where I know that
Speaker 1: I could have shown up differently makes me proud. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's important to take those moments and say, oh,
Speaker 1: all this like quote unquote, do in the work. And
Speaker 1: we got to do the work. And healing is a
Speaker 1: constant state of being right. It isn't something that is
Speaker 1: one and done, but that it does happen and it
Speaker 1: is happening. And I felt really good about that. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I hope that you all enjoyed. And I
Speaker 1: could see that there was lots of conversation that was
Speaker 1: happening underneath the episodes that we recorded and the interviews
Speaker 1: that were recorded for you all to enjoy while I
Speaker 1: was out, tell me what your favorites were folks that
Speaker 1: you would like to hear more from. I saw some
Speaker 1: people bought some plants and were inspired by the conversations
Speaker 1: with the various brilliant plant folks that I had on
Speaker 1: just trying to infuse some of my different and varied
Speaker 1: passions from politics with all of you. So I'm really
Speaker 1: glad that folks enjoyed the conversations, got things out of
Speaker 1: the interviews, went and bought some plant babies of your own,
Speaker 1: and really reflected on the kind of life that you
Speaker 1: want to be living. We all had the ability to
Speaker 1: design the lives that we want. Some of us may
Speaker 1: not be able to change things immediately in the moment.
Speaker 1: We can change how we think about them. We can
Speaker 1: change how we give, what we give power to, what
Speaker 1: we give energy to, and what we choose to take
Speaker 1: energy away from. Those are active choices that we can make.
Speaker 1: And I think that for me, the goal is to
Speaker 1: be able to always come back from vacation excited to
Speaker 1: get back into work, excited and feeling like I'm rested
Speaker 1: enough to dive back in and give you guys my best.
Speaker 1: And so that was my trip in a nutshell, all right.
Speaker 1: So now we go to the news. Dear God, the disaster,
Speaker 1: the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in Afghanistan is like
Speaker 1: nothing I have ever seen before. And listening and reading about,
Speaker 1: you know, America is a really compli cated, an interesting
Speaker 1: country to be a citizen of and to be critical of.
Speaker 1: And then listen to the ways in which we have
Speaker 1: devastated other countries, communities of people for twenty plus years. Right,
Speaker 1: it's been twenty years since the war in Afghanistan began. Right,
Speaker 1: because initially we were headed to Afghanistan for what to
Speaker 1: find those that were responsible for nine to eleven, And
Speaker 1: after being attacked in nine to eleven and watching the
Speaker 1: towers fall and watching a plane go into the Pentagon
Speaker 1: and the families who were destroyed and lives were destroyed,
Speaker 1: and all of these things, understanding that you should not
Speaker 1: make decisions when anger and passions are so high. The
Speaker 1: only person who you all know that voted against going
Speaker 1: to war in Afghanistan, one person out of the entirety
Speaker 1: of Congress, was Barbarly Congresswoman Barbally at A, California. She
Speaker 1: has been on this program before and she is honestly,
Speaker 1: when I was working on the hill, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite members of Congress because she's always been very clear
Speaker 1: headed about who she is, who she represents, and what
Speaker 1: she stands for. And that is why she is a
Speaker 1: long serving member of Congress. She was a sole member
Speaker 1: to vote against the war in Afghanistan. And why was
Speaker 1: that because without a clear path in and a clear
Speaker 1: way out, what was America doing in Afghanistan? What were
Speaker 1: we going to disrupt? How is it that there are
Speaker 1: so many American lives, right members of our military who
Speaker 1: over the course of twenty years, who died for the
Speaker 1: work that they were doing in Afghanistan, interpreters, health providers,
Speaker 1: humanitarian people, all because they were working under the guise
Speaker 1: that they were building an infrastructure for a country that
Speaker 1: was going to assume that control of itself. So how
Speaker 1: is it that when this current president, the fourth president
Speaker 1: to lead this war, that weeks after the announcement is
Speaker 1: made that we are pulling troops out, that the entire operation,
Speaker 1: the entire work you build Afghanistan to a place that
Speaker 1: it could stand on its own, crumbled right before the
Speaker 1: eyes of the world. Because when you're watching these scenes
Speaker 1: of I mean thousands of people trying to run on
Speaker 1: to a tarmac, to save themselves, to save their families.
Speaker 1: When you hear the stories of women literally given birth
Speaker 1: in mid air or on the tarmac, you see the
Speaker 1: please of these people for safety. It's like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck was America doing? What were rebuilding there? How is
Speaker 1: it that after twenty years and countless, countless lives lost,
Speaker 1: this is what the men and women and people who
Speaker 1: have been serving, this is what this is the legacy.
Speaker 1: It crumbles in a matter of weeks. And now the
Speaker 1: Taliban is able to use America's withdrawal as a win
Speaker 1: because what else would you? What else if you are
Speaker 1: a terrorist entity and you are seeing that all of
Speaker 1: these countries around the world are sending in planes and
Speaker 1: people are fleeing because they're running from you, How is
Speaker 1: that not seen as a huge win. And again with
Speaker 1: the finger waving of this administration and administrations of pass
Speaker 1: like the world will remember you. These motherfuckers don't care
Speaker 1: how the world sees them. They are literally going door
Speaker 1: to door and killing the family members of people who
Speaker 1: worked for the United States and trying to aid the
Speaker 1: creation of a democratic country out of the grips of terrorists.
Speaker 1: They're going door to door and they're killing, calling for
Speaker 1: the killing of the brother of a language interpreter. They're
Speaker 1: going on hunts for women and killing them for not
Speaker 1: abiding by Sharia law. Like so to wave your finger
Speaker 1: from a podium and try and and and call what
Speaker 1: some some morality, some moral center to people that literally
Speaker 1: put out multiple beheading videos a fucking day, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And honestly, the question is on everybody's mind
Speaker 1: is what was the United States doing? What did these
Speaker 1: people risk their lives for to fight alongside the United
Speaker 1: States for what? Only to end up on a tarmac
Speaker 1: hoping to God that the next plane that lands you
Speaker 1: and your family members can get on to go where.
Speaker 1: Because you know, folks, I got to tell you this too.
Speaker 1: What is getting me with these videos and the pictures,
Speaker 1: the heartbreak and the devastation is that I can't imagine it.
Speaker 1: I can't even wrap my mind around what these people
Speaker 1: are feeling. Because I want you to think to yourself,
Speaker 1: right now, you're in your home, you're in your apartment,
Speaker 1: you're in your dorm room, and an alert comes through
Speaker 1: your country is being completely and totally destabilized, and within days,
Speaker 1: if not weeks, the terrorists who you thought had been
Speaker 1: pushed out or at least had lost power, are now back.
Speaker 1: You are now sitting maybe on your couch at the
Speaker 1: kitchen table, kicking it with your friends in a dorm room.
Speaker 1: You get this alert and you have but a few
Speaker 1: days maybe to pack up whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: can carry, leave your country of origin, to get on
Speaker 1: a plane to go to an unknown destination with a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who you are now in solidarity with
Speaker 1: on this plane, who you may not have known other
Speaker 1: than the fact that you are all American. Right, thinking
Speaker 1: about this from your perspective, Now you're on a plane
Speaker 1: and you are going where to do? What? To build?
Speaker 1: What with what? I can not imagine the fear. I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine the grief, just the shock. And this is
Speaker 1: what is happening right now. The United States to this
Speaker 1: day has evacuated I think somewhere within the last day,
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand people they evacuated in twenty four hours. The
Speaker 1: question that is being asked you to Jake Sullivan, who's
Speaker 1: the National Security Advisor and others, is are these just
Speaker 1: Americans that are being evacuated? Are the people who risk
Speaker 1: their lives to work alongside in a multitude of capacities
Speaker 1: with the United States. Are they being evacuated? Have these
Speaker 1: people been identified? You're telling us that there is a
Speaker 1: deadline of a week. You have until August thirty first
Speaker 1: to get out of Dodge, And then what are we
Speaker 1: keeping up the pace of evacuating sixteen thousand people every
Speaker 1: single day for the next week. Is that going to
Speaker 1: be enough? And what happens after that deadline passes? Do
Speaker 1: we just say, well, here's hoping that you're not slaughtered?
Speaker 1: So to think about I'm sitting and I'm looking around
Speaker 1: at my apartment. What the fuck am I grabbing? Do
Speaker 1: I have time to unite with my family on Long
Speaker 1: Island and flee together so we're on the same plane,
Speaker 1: or do I just risk it and if I have
Speaker 1: the ability, I just get on and hope to God
Speaker 1: because now I have no way to connect with them,
Speaker 1: right because what access do they have to anything? That
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