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Speaker 2: That's the whole midlife crisis thing, right. It's because all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you like, stop doing what the world
Speaker 2: tells you're supposed to be doing, and your parents tell
Speaker 2: you what you're supposed to be doing, and then you
Speaker 2: go out and you're like, I'm doing what I want.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 3: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 3: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 3: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 3: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 3: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 3: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 3: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 3: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 3: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 3: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 3: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 3: for joining us. A guest on this episode is Carmen
Speaker 3: Rita Wong. She's a writer, speaker, investor, and advisor to
Speaker 3: women own businesses. Carmen is a former national television host,
Speaker 3: magazine advice columnist, and faculty professor. She was vice chair
Speaker 3: of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and board director
Speaker 3: at The Moth. She also hosts a podcast and is
Speaker 3: currently working on her sixth the book. Today, Carmen and
Speaker 3: Eric discuss her book Why Didn't You Tell Me, a
Speaker 3: memoir Hi Carmen.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Hi Eric, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have you on. We're going to
Speaker 1: be discussing your book called Why Didn't You Tell Me?
Speaker 1: A Memoir? But before we do that, we'll start, like
Speaker 1: we always do, with a parable. In the parable, there's
Speaker 1: a grandparent who's talking with her grandchild and I say,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always a battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops think about
Speaker 1: it for a second and they look up at their
Speaker 1: grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 2: I actually love this parable error because I've told it
Speaker 2: to my daughter a few times with a little twist
Speaker 2: on it. Because I've spent many years of self examination
Speaker 2: and all sorts of things, including therapy, to figure out
Speaker 2: those wolves. And what I have found most helpful for
Speaker 2: me is not giving them kind of this bad good
Speaker 2: or any kind of judgment on the one that's not creative,
Speaker 2: meaning like the one that's destructive that we'll call it.
Speaker 2: And I've learned that that wolf, for me is a child.
Speaker 2: It's me as a child, and our childish emotions, fear, ego, resentment,
Speaker 2: just all of those feelings that are actually of protection.
Speaker 2: We want to protect ourselves. So it's not that I
Speaker 2: need to starve it. Instead, I just kind of do,
Speaker 2: like I love dogs, and I'm I have to myself
Speaker 2: and I just know, like even some of the most
Speaker 2: unfriendly dogs are, there's a way to approach them where
Speaker 2: not all of them. Please don't take that advice, but
Speaker 2: just I pat it on his head, you know, and
Speaker 2: I say, I hear you, I hear you. I got you.
Speaker 2: Settle down. So that's how I treat the wolves and
Speaker 2: the other wolf. I try to like get it to
Speaker 2: hang out a little bit more, get a little louder,
Speaker 2: play a little bit more. But yeah, that's really worked
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: That's great. What kind of dogs do you have?
Speaker 2: I have a rescue and she's fourteen, Gloria. We got
Speaker 2: her in Brooklyn, and she came with a name so
Speaker 2: Gloria sticks and the other one's a little pandemic puppy.
Speaker 2: He's two, and he's named cubert Ah.
Speaker 1: And what type of dog is Gloria?
Speaker 2: Funny enough, you know, me and the DNA tests did
Speaker 2: a little doggy DNA. I mean it was the best,
Speaker 2: like thirty eight bucks I've spent. We thought she was
Speaker 2: a puggle, but she is like four things, and I've
Speaker 2: actually kind of forgot because when it comes to dogs,
Speaker 2: it's more just like who is she as a dog?
Speaker 2: Let me tell you. Yeah, she's seventeen pounds of diva.
Speaker 1: Is she doing okay at her age?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's amazing. She's been in great health.
Speaker 2: She has some arthritis, you know, just like Granny. She's
Speaker 2: on Gaba penin, you know what I mean. But she's
Speaker 2: but she's still walking around. And the funny thing is
Speaker 2: is that getting that puppy in the pandemic who's like
Speaker 2: this tiny, little wiry poodle thing. They said that he
Speaker 2: gave her like two years of life because she was
Speaker 2: already kind of on a downward and then ever since
Speaker 2: he's been around, now she's jumping and running around and
Speaker 2: he loves her like crazy. It's adorable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got an old lady. She's not doing as well.
Speaker 1: Oh my black legs are kind of failing her. And yeah,
Speaker 1: she's i think almost fourteen. She's a little Loston Terrier.
Speaker 2: Oh beautiful. Yeah, I'm very concerned, and it's we were
Speaker 2: taking it really day by day and just yeah, I've
Speaker 2: unfortunately lost many dogs.
Speaker 1: Yep. Podcasts listens are going to be like she's still around,
Speaker 1: because I mean I've been talking about her demise for
Speaker 1: six months, you know, because I thought for sure, like
Speaker 1: it's imminent, and she just keeps outlasting, you know, which
Speaker 1: is good. I'm glad to have her, yes, but it's
Speaker 1: on my mind a lot, Like I wish she could
Speaker 1: just tell me like is it times we are you know?
Speaker 1: Or how's your quality of life? You know? But anyway,
Speaker 1: all right, we're off topic. But I could talk about
Speaker 1: dogs all day.
Speaker 2: I don't mean too.
Speaker 1: What you said about the wolves is interesting because one
Speaker 1: of the things that I'm struck by in your book,
Speaker 1: and I've heard you refer to this elsewhere, is I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people in the book who do
Speaker 1: things that we might conventionally say are not good. They're lying,
Speaker 1: they're selling drugs, they're abusive, they're they're all kinds of things, right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of that is pointed at you, but
Speaker 1: not exclusively. But you do a really nice job of
Speaker 1: saying like, no one's a villain, and I've heard you
Speaker 1: sort of say, you know, everyone is a product of
Speaker 1: their times, their place. I just wonder if you could
Speaker 1: share a little bit more about how you've arrived at
Speaker 1: that place with people, and how does that inform your
Speaker 1: view looking out at the world as a whole, not
Speaker 1: just your own family.
Speaker 2: That's a big one, Eric. I'll say this though, it
Speaker 2: doesn't absolve anyone of responsibility. I want to make that
Speaker 2: very clear upfront. Understanding people as human beings does not
Speaker 2: absolve them responsibility. It does not mean you forgive them,
Speaker 2: It does not mean they can get away with it.
Speaker 2: But it does help you look at your own life
Speaker 2: and other people's lives in a way that's almost a
Speaker 2: little impersonal. I don't want to say dispersonal, but just
Speaker 2: you see them as people separate from you. Our ego
Speaker 2: is a big thing, you know, and it attaches us
Speaker 2: to things, and it takes things very personally, and it's
Speaker 2: this that the other. But maybe that person's having a
Speaker 2: bad day. Maybe that person got bad news. All of
Speaker 2: those things with me in order to process and understand
Speaker 2: and answer that question that I'm asking my mother's ghost, right,
Speaker 2: why didn't you tell me this tremendous secret of my life? I,
Speaker 2: as you read the book, can see that I had
Speaker 2: a very difficult mother and relationship and family and all
Speaker 2: of that. So in order to find peace myself, I
Speaker 2: had to see her something else besides my mother. I
Speaker 2: had to see her as a person, just a person,
Speaker 2: just a person who She was a child. She was
Speaker 2: a helpless child with her own abuse and her vicious,
Speaker 2: vicious abuse. She was born of a time when she
Speaker 2: had very few choices. She was brought to this country
Speaker 2: again no choices, married off by her father, horrible situations
Speaker 2: she found herself in, and you know what she did,
Speaker 2: what she did with what she had. Now I could
Speaker 2: label it, and we can, and yes it was abusive,
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you this, Understanding her as a human
Speaker 2: being brought me so much peace. Understanding the people that
Speaker 2: hurt you as their own people, and not ever in
Speaker 2: reaction to you. Like for me, I stopped feeling like
Speaker 2: it was my fault. Why would you do that to me,
Speaker 2: and is this person mad at me? And why it's
Speaker 2: this is what's happening, this is why she's this way.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be okay. And the funny thing is, Eric,
Speaker 2: is that when you start doing that to people, especially
Speaker 2: people that have really affected your lives, you do it
Speaker 2: to yourself. Meaning I'm kinder to myself for it, because
Speaker 2: it is that kind of idea of like, we're human beings.
Speaker 2: There's a lot that puts us together, and we can't
Speaker 2: take everything personally, we really can. And of course that's
Speaker 2: a little easier for me to say now with fifteen
Speaker 2: years of weekly therapy under my belt and unfortunately my
Speaker 2: mother being gone for almost twenty years. It took that long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you write somewhere it's a lot easier to forgive
Speaker 1: people after they're.
Speaker 2: Gone, right, Yeah, And I haven't forgiven her though, by
Speaker 2: the way, Okay, I don't know, no, because I believe
Speaker 2: that first of all, forgiveness, who does it serve? I'm
Speaker 2: looking for peace, I'm looking for peace. How do you
Speaker 2: get there? Well, forgiveness definitely serves the person who's hurts you, right,
Speaker 2: and you've already been hurt, So why are you doing
Speaker 2: something for them. I think they have to do something
Speaker 2: for you first. To be forgiven, you know, you have
Speaker 2: to get an apology and a change in behavior. And
Speaker 2: I've gotten either from any of my parents, So you know,
Speaker 2: to me, it's I have found peace. I see you
Speaker 2: as a human being. But forgiveness, yeah, you got to
Speaker 2: do something for it, right.
Speaker 1: The studies that have been published that you know, people
Speaker 1: who study forgiveness will say something very similar. It's exceptionally
Speaker 1: difficult to forgive an unacknowledged crime, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better word, right, unless someone has come and said they're sorry.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to forgive. It's a key piece of it.
Speaker 1: And I think that distinction is helpful about making peace.
Speaker 1: It is you're sort of treading another line in there
Speaker 1: that I think is a really important line, particularly as
Speaker 1: we be a culture that is a much more aware
Speaker 1: of the impacts that our childhoods have had on us. Right,
Speaker 1: And I think the window of being a good parent
Speaker 1: has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. It's pretty narrow these
Speaker 1: days for you to be like, well, you did everything right,
Speaker 1: because of course you didn't, you know, it just feels
Speaker 1: like it's a shrinking window which I think in many
Speaker 1: ways there's a lot of good that has come from that.
Speaker 1: But I think that the thing that is difficult to
Speaker 1: get the balance right on is to say, because I
Speaker 1: see people on one end or the other, and I've
Speaker 1: been on both these ends, which one end is like
Speaker 1: everything was fine, my parents did the best they could, right,
Speaker 1: people are a product of their places. I'm fine, which
Speaker 1: does not acknowledge it all the impact that that had,
Speaker 1: or the other extreme is one of sort of almost
Speaker 1: giving all our power over to the parent who did
Speaker 1: this in that like, well, I'm this way because of
Speaker 1: all these things, and all the focus is on them, right,
Speaker 1: And I think what you're describing is this middle way
Speaker 1: where we say, yes, that had impact, and I need
Speaker 1: to work on healing that impact, like that's a very
Speaker 1: real thing, and carrying hate and blame doesn't really help me.
Speaker 2: Oh no, not at all. And the thing is that
Speaker 2: we have to understand that we're responsible for our own behavior,
Speaker 2: regardless of our childhoods and what happened to us, because
Speaker 2: that is the issue. When somebody hurts you and refuses
Speaker 2: to apologize or refuses to see how they've hurt you
Speaker 2: or that they've hurt you or acknowledge it or any
Speaker 2: of those things, you know, and they're saying, yes, but
Speaker 2: I suffered. You know, it's very dishonest. Right. We have
Speaker 2: to acknowledge other people's feelings, but we also have to
Speaker 2: acknowledge our own and take that responsibility. And I have
Speaker 2: been in therapy mostly not just because I knew I
Speaker 2: needed it because I had a really messed up childhood,
Speaker 2: but because I wanted a better life for myself, and
Speaker 2: I knew that that meant taking control of a lot
Speaker 2: of emotional things and I, you know, make better choices,
Speaker 2: of course, but also because I was parent myself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I always swore to myself if I ever became
Speaker 2: a parent, I did not want to be my mother.
Speaker 2: And we all say this, right, but guess what, we
Speaker 2: do have some ability to change that. Of course, there's epigenetics,
Speaker 2: and of course, like things are handed down in temperaments.
Speaker 2: I'm Latin, I yell a little bit, just a little bit,
Speaker 2: you know, but you're not gonna catch me screaming. I'll
Speaker 2: never insult or be little or all those other things.
Speaker 2: So it's really about me figuring my mother out, which
Speaker 2: helped me figure myself out, which then helped me figure
Speaker 2: my parenting better and stopping a long long chain of
Speaker 2: abuse and violence and lies.
Speaker 1: Yeah and lies. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You have a line about this that I really really loved,
Speaker 1: and you say, sometimes I have to remind myself that
Speaker 1: my mother may have blended the concrete, but I am
Speaker 1: the architect. And that is a really great way of
Speaker 1: sort of saying it. You know, as you said, we're
Speaker 1: still responsible. We've got to take the raw materials at
Speaker 1: hand and like an architect, make the best thing we
Speaker 1: can out of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I love this story. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you heard recently this year that they found, you know,
Speaker 2: why is the concrete construction in Rome? How has it
Speaker 2: lasted so long? And it's all about what the concrete's
Speaker 2: made out of. And that brought me back to that
Speaker 2: line that I had there, and I said, well, oh damn,
Speaker 2: they got good concrete. That's like good parenting. What an advantage.
Speaker 2: But then I thought to myself, I'm like, Okay, well
Speaker 2: we know that, and so if the concrete's not great,
Speaker 2: what it means is is that I need to actively
Speaker 2: and possibly always be repairing. But to repair, I have
Speaker 2: to always be noticing the cracks knowing where the weaknesses are,
Speaker 2: paying attention to them, and then doing the best I
Speaker 2: can to really fill it in. And the Japanese also
Speaker 2: do that with the you know, the gold yobby faces
Speaker 2: back together. Wabbi Sabby's that so much because I've hung
Speaker 2: on to that since I first learned about it years
Speaker 2: ago and just said that is going to be my life,
Speaker 2: because I think for many of us who have difficult childhoods,
Speaker 2: we can really feel the weight of the ugliness and
Speaker 2: the brokenness. And instead you can make all those cracks
Speaker 2: just so beautiful. You can make beautiful things at all.
Speaker 1: That stuff totally. As you were saying that, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about I was in France last summer and some
Speaker 1: of the best Roman ruins are in southern France. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's an aqueduct there which is still standing in
Speaker 1: It is spectacular and there's nothing holding the pieces of
Speaker 1: concrete together. The concrete is so good and it's so
Speaker 1: perfectly placed. And as you were talking, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you could build an aqueduct that would last with
Speaker 1: other materials, but to your point, you would want to
Speaker 1: put more support into it than exists in that one, right,
Speaker 1: And I think those of us who have had challenges
Speaker 1: and over like the word overcome them, have made them beautiful,
Speaker 1: have learned to live with them, have been able to
Speaker 1: grow from them. I think that the thing we learn
Speaker 1: is what support we need, what that actually looks like.
Speaker 1: And it looks different for everybody. It could be therapy,
Speaker 1: it could just be exercise, and it could be fifty
Speaker 1: different things. But we figure that out and then we
Speaker 1: sort of remain committed to doing our best to watch
Speaker 1: for the cracks, like.
Speaker 2: You said, yeah, yeah, and then you know what, you
Speaker 2: get older and you are the architects, so you always
Speaker 2: could you know, add a new bedroom or you know,
Speaker 2: you can always be building. That's why I like that analogy.
Speaker 2: When it came to me, I'm like, I could just
Speaker 2: always be building and adjusting the blueprint.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's such a good analogy. You know so
Speaker 1: much your book is about identity. Why don't you give
Speaker 1: us the short version of the book without revealing too
Speaker 1: much that you don't want to, but that at least
Speaker 1: gives the context for the ways in which your identity
Speaker 1: has sort of shifted over time, because I'd like to
Speaker 1: explore then identity a lie a little bit more deeply,
Speaker 1: but I think listeners need a little more context before
Speaker 1: we do that.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, the one sentence I'm going to give you
Speaker 2: is going to just start you off with a lot
Speaker 2: of identity. So I was born a Dominican mother and
Speaker 2: Chinese father in Harlem in New York City, and my
Speaker 2: mother divorced my Chinese father and moved us to New
Speaker 2: Hampshire with an Anglo father. My Chinese father and my
Speaker 2: Anglo father worked from completely two different worlds, and so
Speaker 2: that was very different. But my childhood started in the
Speaker 2: very very rich cultural atmosphere of you know, if you've
Speaker 2: seen the Heights, that was you know, my early childhood
Speaker 2: and Chinatown, which is pretty incredible. And then we went
Speaker 2: to New Hampshire and New Hampshire in the late seventies
Speaker 2: early eighties was not very welcoming to my older brother
Speaker 2: and I. He was six years older than me and
Speaker 2: we're you know, we're brown folk. My mother was lack Dominican,
Speaker 2: so we're Afro Latinos and it was very, very difficult.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those things where sometimes, you know,
Speaker 2: if you get to go through life not having to
Speaker 2: think about identity, God bless you. We don't have the
Speaker 2: choice and so it came down on us pretty hard.
Speaker 2: And you know, I went through life Carmen readA Walt
Speaker 2: and that has followed me through many things that has
Speaker 2: shaped so much of my life, whether it was the racism,
Speaker 2: the expectation, the low expectations of people, to being questioned
Speaker 2: all the time about what am I? Who am I?
Speaker 2: My mother very much wanting to assimilate, so not necessarily
Speaker 2: giving me the great answers or not necessarily telling me
Speaker 2: whole stories. And then of course in the end, what
Speaker 2: the book's really about is I find out if she's dying.
Speaker 2: I was thirty one years old and she was only
Speaker 2: fifty nine, that I was not Popy Wong's daughter, and
Speaker 2: my stepfather at the time is the one who tells
Speaker 2: me this. And then I find out a confront her.
Speaker 2: She's has a whole bunch of stories, more news stories
Speaker 2: about who it is. And then I had gotten this book,
Speaker 2: sold the book. It was in edits, and I was
Speaker 2: doing all this DNA testing and I hired genealogists and
Speaker 2: no one could figure out who my father was. You know,
Speaker 2: all those now that money later and all that research later,
Speaker 2: and a lot of dead ends which are really interesting
Speaker 2: actually that I write about in the book, and I'm
Speaker 2: in edits and I had to write the epilogue because
Speaker 2: in the end I found my paternal family, which is wild,
Speaker 2: but that origin story of going between Harlem and New
Speaker 2: Hampshire and Dominican and Chinese to New Hampshire, it was
Speaker 2: a lot. It was challenging, and I think for many
Speaker 2: people who have discovered that they have different parents than
Speaker 2: they thought they did, you know, there is always that
Speaker 2: added element. Of course, if they happened to be a
Speaker 2: different race, there's that too, or different culture. The book
Speaker 2: is really about me asking my mother that question, why
Speaker 2: didn't you tell me? And trying to answer it myself.
Speaker 2: And I wrote it, you know, page ternary thrillery type
Speaker 2: of mystery solving book because that's the way it felt,
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted you to feel it along with me,
Speaker 2: Like as I'm going through my life in this kind
Speaker 2: of like mystery of like who is this woman and
Speaker 2: why would she do such a thing? And all these
Speaker 2: characters that come into my life is just wild stuff.
Speaker 2: As my daughter would say, Mom, your life is crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know what, we tend to throw that
Speaker 1: word around pretty easy, like that's crazy, But yeah, your
Speaker 1: life is heading in that direction for sure. Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of chaos and a lot of different cultural characters.
Speaker 1: I mean, your father is essentially a gangster in Chinatown,
Speaker 1: which you guys have no idea. You've got a pretty
Speaker 1: rich soup there.
Speaker 2: Yes, between the fathers, you know, a Chinese gangster, right,
Speaker 2: and then the stepfather who's like graduate school of economics
Speaker 2: at Columbia. Like this was absolutely the juxtaposition of my life.
Speaker 2: But here's what I'll tell you, which is how and
Speaker 2: really why I really wanted to write the book. Wasn't
Speaker 2: just you know, for myself ton to the story. Of course,
Speaker 2: I absolutely love memoir, but I do believe the storytelling.
Speaker 2: And I know people say this a lot, but it
Speaker 2: is the truth. It is the most powerful thing. It's
Speaker 2: very much our humanity. This is a very American story.
Speaker 2: We just don't hear it, but there are millions out
Speaker 2: there like me, and we need to hear more American
Speaker 2: stories about you know, immigrant families and black, Latino, Asian,
Speaker 2: all kinds of families that really make up this country.
Speaker 2: Because I was made to feel completely as a child
Speaker 2: that I was lesser than, I was worthless, I was invisible,
Speaker 2: because I wasn't in school. Well this is in New Hampshire,
Speaker 2: of course I wasn't in the library. I wasn't talked
Speaker 2: about it in history like nothing or television. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: kids carry that with them a lot, even adults. So
Speaker 2: it's helped some people, which I'm happy to have heard from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you describing moving to New Hampshire and being like
Speaker 1: the only I know you don't like this word, but
Speaker 1: I'll use it for ease of use, the only minority
Speaker 1: family because you were in that.
Speaker 2: Case you are usually brown, non white.
Speaker 1: Yeah, non white white.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Brought back a memory for me, and one that I
Speaker 1: am not particularly proud of, which is that I grew
Speaker 1: up in sounds like very much like the neighborhood you
Speaker 1: grew up, and you talked about your mom ringing a
Speaker 1: dinner bell to bring everybody in right, same same sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Dad went off to the office with a
Speaker 1: briefcase and very generic suburban thing. But there were two
Speaker 1: Chinese families that lived in our neighborhood and they really
Speaker 1: were just on the outside, and I, as a child,
Speaker 1: I think I just internalized the sort of otherness towards
Speaker 1: them that was there. I don't know that I was ever,
Speaker 1: you know, outright mean, don't. I don't have any recollections
Speaker 1: of that, but the me today would respond very very
Speaker 1: differently than the me did then. You know, I think
Speaker 1: the kids just seemed strange to me and I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do with that. And I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: of that in I mean, it's been a number of years,
Speaker 1: but I was reading your book and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I knew where they were to be like, sorry,
Speaker 1: I didn't do better.
Speaker 2: That's the thing is that it really starts with kids, right,
Speaker 2: and as parents, we got to understand that your kids
Speaker 2: absorb a lot from you. Yeah, and so you know,
Speaker 2: you instead of seeing, you know, neighborhood kids and being
Speaker 2: like they're just kids, they're just kids, Like Hi, what's up?
Speaker 2: You know, they're just kids, you know, and hanging out
Speaker 2: with them and being friends with them, it seemed odd
Speaker 2: or strange or weird. This happened with one of my nieces.
Speaker 2: She was very young, but we had all had gone
Speaker 2: out to dinner back in New Hampshire and years ago,
Speaker 2: and we went to Chinese food restaurant, which we love.
Speaker 2: The kids they local Chinese because they don't get to
Speaker 2: go there very often, and we were using chopsticks, and
Speaker 2: she said, this is weird, this is weird. I say, uh, honey,
Speaker 2: it's not weird. It's just different from the way you eat.
Speaker 2: There's billions of people who use chopsticks, billions, and they
Speaker 2: would think you're weird for using a fork. So let's
Speaker 2: just not call it that and say this is different,
Speaker 2: let me learn, let me try, tell me more about it.
Speaker 1: And that was the word that was used by the
Speaker 1: adults about these families. They're weird otherings, you know. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and again I had absolutely, you know, no context for
Speaker 1: which to do what you did, which is like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe compared against this very white background.
Speaker 2: But yeah, just acknowledging the differences because once you realize
Speaker 2: that those differences, and that's another reason why I wrote
Speaker 2: the book, is like, look, that's what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 2: an American story because we all have parents that we
Speaker 2: don't get along with, we all have siblings that we
Speaker 2: have trouble with, we all have secrets in our family.
Speaker 2: We all sometimes feel like an outsider when we realize
Speaker 2: that people from other races and cultures, though they we
Speaker 2: all have our different kind of history and weight of
Speaker 2: living in this society, that we are people, that we
Speaker 2: can be curious and that we can learn, you know,
Speaker 2: seeing people's full human beings, like going backwards to what
Speaker 2: I was talking about about my mother, really makes a
Speaker 2: huge difference in how you see the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And I think being cross racial, cross cultural, cross everything,
Speaker 2: that is a gift, even though it was painful in
Speaker 2: many ways, that was a gift to me my ability
Speaker 2: to empathize with almost anybody and to see things very
Speaker 2: big picture.
Speaker 1: Yep. I think it's a definite limitation to me growing
Speaker 1: up the way I did, you know, in the place
Speaker 1: I did, there is a still you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about implicit bias, there is still in me. I have
Speaker 1: to really watch it and work on it, which is
Speaker 1: where I just want people to be like me, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is the way to be like this, you know.
Speaker 1: And again it just comes up sort of automatically, like
Speaker 1: the way we respond to certain things inside of and
Speaker 1: I now see it and I'm like, well, step back,
Speaker 1: like hold on, that's ridiculous. But it is an orientation
Speaker 1: that I grew up with, and as we know, anything
Speaker 1: we grow up with that's unquestioned for a long time
Speaker 1: takes a lot of questioning to unwind.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you are, because this actually can be
Speaker 2: very dangerous, extraordinarily yeah, to people you know who aren't
Speaker 2: of your group. Right. So for example, I say to
Speaker 2: my daughter, it's like, look, because when you're teenagers, especially,
Speaker 2: you tend to be very ego focused, like everything's about you.
Speaker 2: You're very much a narcissist, which is very normal as
Speaker 2: a teenager, right, And to say to them like, look,
Speaker 2: you're worried, you're anxious, everyone's talking about you. You feel
Speaker 2: like this, everyone's this, this, everyone's meaning. Do you realize
Speaker 2: that everyone that you're in class with goes to bed
Speaker 2: at night with the same thoughts going through their heads.
Speaker 2: Everyone's thoughts are just thoughts, just like yours. And I'm
Speaker 2: trying to help her, which I did for myself and
Speaker 2: I wish many people would do, especially if you had
Speaker 2: a limited upbringing or childhood, is to look and see
Speaker 2: that when you have a bias to look. Let's say,
Speaker 2: it's like you just you encounter a person and instantly
Speaker 2: your head goes I pull away or I'm this right,
Speaker 2: don't talk to them, or which I see all the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, people whether it's they don't want to sit
Speaker 2: next to me in the cafeteria, or they don't want
Speaker 2: to sit next to me in a bus or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just stop and go. That's a person, yes, just
Speaker 2: literally saying that in your head. That's a person that
Speaker 2: could be my cousin whatever, if they were a different color,
Speaker 2: or that could be my you know, if they're a
Speaker 2: different gender. So it helps not only you interact with
Speaker 2: the world, I'll tell you, it makes your world so
Speaker 2: much richer, so much richer to approach the world as
Speaker 2: that's a person.
Speaker 1: There's a Buddhist practice called commonalities practice, and it's been
Speaker 1: revolutionary to me in practicing it over probably twenty five
Speaker 1: years now, which is that you can find whatever word
Speaker 1: in you want, but in essence, it's realizing like every
Speaker 1: single human wants to be happy just like I do,
Speaker 1: and they want to avoid pain just like I do,
Speaker 1: without exception. I hate to say without exception, because there's
Speaker 1: always an exception to something, but ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: the time people are just like this.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was wondering whether sociopaths.
Speaker 2: Are that way anyway, Well, let's put it this way.
Speaker 2: We don't need to spend any time on socio pous
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Let's skip those They do
Speaker 2: that good for themselves.
Speaker 1: But for everybody else that phrase, and I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: just sit on public transportation in like a city and
Speaker 1: just looking around and just doing that person to person
Speaker 1: to person and just realizing like just like me, just
Speaker 1: like me, just like me on that fundamental level. And
Speaker 1: from there, everything to me is sort of strategy. You know.
Speaker 1: We may disagree about the strategies that emerge forgetting those things,
Speaker 1: but we're after the.
Speaker 2: Same thing, and we don't all have the same tools.
Speaker 2: You know, we come up with, like, for example, the
Speaker 2: idea of the architect and concrete. Like I would have
Speaker 2: probably been a very different person had I stayed with
Speaker 2: my people, you know, the Chinese intemican community, and stayed
Speaker 2: in the city. I can't say if I'd be worse
Speaker 2: or better off. I just think I would have been
Speaker 2: a different person. What I encountered in New Hampshire during
Speaker 2: like very important years of growth and growing and establishing
Speaker 2: myself as a human being. I could have done without
Speaker 2: some of that. Like you know how they say is
Speaker 2: like people say, oh, it builds character. I've had enough character.
Speaker 2: I got loads you know what I'm saying. But I
Speaker 2: think too, I like to just take myself out of
Speaker 2: myself a meaning like not centering myself as in relation
Speaker 2: to and instead And I do this in my family
Speaker 2: and I do this with a lot of folks. And
Speaker 2: I'm not perfect at it, but just really saying, like
Speaker 2: that person is hurting, that person is happy, that person
Speaker 2: is you know, I wish and I would hope that,
Speaker 2: you know, the more listening and understanding that is done,
Speaker 2: the better, the less generalization. So I have a master's
Speaker 2: in psychology, So one of my favorite tenants with statistics
Speaker 2: in theory was always differences within groups are equal to
Speaker 2: or greater than differences between groups. Right, So you can
Speaker 2: say men are better runners than women, and I can
Speaker 2: tell you I could get you the slowest man, and
Speaker 2: I could get you a woman who'll beat him. Or
Speaker 2: I could get you the fast man. I could get
Speaker 2: you a woman who'd equal him. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So there's so much variation within groups that we form
Speaker 2: in our heads, whether it's by race or culture or gender,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, there's so much variation that it's equal
Speaker 2: to the variation between the groups. We can always find examples.
Speaker 2: So if you look at the world that way, you
Speaker 2: start to see that to your point, commonality is it.
Speaker 2: We are human beings, period. We just come through different stuff.
Speaker 1: Totally. So I want to circle back to the idea
Speaker 1: of identity because as a I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: I'm not a Buddhist. I've practiced Buddhism a great deal.
Speaker 1: I don't know what, it doesn't matter. But as a practitioner,
Speaker 1: a student, you know, yeah, anyway, one of the things
Speaker 1: that sits at the heart of that tradition is this
Speaker 1: idea that the self we think we are isn't as
Speaker 1: solid as it is. And if you start taking the
Speaker 1: pieces apart, you go, well, what's really there? Right? And
Speaker 1: so I wanted to talk to you about that because
Speaker 1: I think you're coming from a slightly different angle on it,
Speaker 1: which you know you say in the book, how do
Speaker 1: you become Unchinese? After you know that's not your word
Speaker 1: in exactly, but you thought you were Chinese all these years,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you find out, at least
Speaker 1: by genetics, you are not. So there's that identity and
Speaker 1: then this father shifts and there's so many identity shifts
Speaker 1: that are happening to you. I'm curious how the external
Speaker 1: identity shifts that have occurred in what ways do they
Speaker 1: contribute to a strengthening inner identity. I know the ways
Speaker 1: that they're destabilizing, right, and you talk about those very well,
Speaker 1: how destabilizing that is. But I'm curious, is there something
Speaker 1: about that process that has allowed you to get a
Speaker 1: stronger inner identity that isn't based on the things outside
Speaker 1: so much?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yes, yes, yes, yes yes, And that's
Speaker 2: been like a beautiful thing through all of this, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, I'm still Chinese, but I'm not biologically
Speaker 2: but let me tell you, don't stop just because you know.
Speaker 2: It's like my Asian friends who are Latin American three
Speaker 2: generations back, like, they don't say they're Asian. They look
Speaker 2: at you, like look at them, and you're like you're Asian.
Speaker 2: You're like listen, and they're like mita, you know, like
Speaker 2: that's the Spanish is there? So we all have to
Speaker 2: come about it our own way. And I'll tell you this,
Speaker 2: My big revelations have been happening since the book came out,
Speaker 2: and since other things have of course happened. For example,
Speaker 2: Poppy Wong passed away in June, and having to reveal
Speaker 2: also to my stepfather who my biological father is. That
Speaker 2: was a whole other thing too, because I spent my
Speaker 2: childhood trying to please my parents, and my mother wanted
Speaker 2: to assimilar more right, and I wanted to be this
Speaker 2: new father's kid, and they went on to have my
Speaker 2: four sisters after me, and I felt two other. I
Speaker 2: felt completely unmoored. We left all of our family, everything,
Speaker 2: we knew everything, the community, everything. So I really spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time trying to be him. And at
Speaker 2: one point I was in therapy maybe gosh, I want
Speaker 2: to say eight years ago. So when I was doing
Speaker 2: TV and I had an aha moment where I realized,
Speaker 2: if I really loved finance, I was covered financial journalism
Speaker 2: for twenty years. If I really loved finance, you know,
Speaker 2: I would be just making bank on Wall Street. Right,
Speaker 2: That's not what I loved. What I loved was writing.
Speaker 2: What I loved was being on stage, giving advice all
Speaker 2: that stuff. So I said, you know, I think this stepfather, Marty,
Speaker 2: he used to always be in front of the TV
Speaker 2: when he was home, right, kind of like your dad
Speaker 2: comes home with a briefcase opens up the newspaper Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal, and then is watching Wall Street Week and
Speaker 2: all those shows. I had a byline in those magazines
Speaker 2: that he subscribed to. I was an editor at the
Speaker 2: magazines he subscribed to. I went on the shows and
Speaker 2: hosts a show on the networks he watches. I wanted
Speaker 2: him to see me and find me valuable as a daughter,
Speaker 2: as a child, and look at me like I've spent
Speaker 2: decades of my life trying to win somebody and in
Speaker 2: the end, you know, he was my father either right,
Speaker 2: but also to no recognition of what that did to me.
Speaker 2: And then I started realizing, as we do many of us,
Speaker 2: when we've been neglected by parents emotionally, we people please
Speaker 2: and we act, we perform for approval. And I realized
Speaker 2: that a lot of my life was about that. So
Speaker 2: now where I'm at fifty one years old, there's something
Speaker 2: about the fifty mark man like, really does it to you?
Speaker 2: I'm there, Yeah, I just realized I.
Speaker 1: Never have guessed that about you, But thank.
Speaker 2: You, darling. That's the Dominican side. But I realized, especially
Speaker 2: when Poppy Wong passed away, how much I'm really his daughter,
Speaker 2: Like really I am really his daughter. I am so
Speaker 2: much along and it's just so clear. Here is this
Speaker 2: Chinese drug dealing gangster who I never even knew by
Speaker 2: the way he did all these things until, of course,
Speaker 2: very late in life, but his character and the way
Speaker 2: he was and how he was just you know, could
Speaker 2: go up to anybody no matter what their background, and
Speaker 2: all of us you just just love this guy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like very social kind of person, very community focused,
Speaker 2: very much let's get things done type of guy, and
Speaker 2: very entrepreneurial. And that's something I very much am. But
Speaker 2: I'm just his daughter, for sure, and so I think
Speaker 2: in terms of identity culturally yes too, But I think
Speaker 2: him as a human being, as a person, and as
Speaker 2: my brother's sister, like the two of us very much,
Speaker 2: his kids and my mom's of course. But I was
Speaker 2: just kind of surprised to figure it out this late
Speaker 2: in life, just how much. And it took him leaving
Speaker 2: because trust me, he was a very disruptive presence even
Speaker 2: in his old age. I can tell you to be
Speaker 2: able to sit still with it, you know, and to
Speaker 2: realize that as I'm getting older and I'm discovering how
Speaker 2: much of me is really me, how much of me
Speaker 2: was built to please, to win love that by the way,
Speaker 2: children should just get no matter what, to win acceptance
Speaker 2: and approval and defy expectations of the larger community that
Speaker 2: thought less of me because of my race and gender.
Speaker 2: There's so much of that. So I'm excavating and it's
Speaker 2: pretty amazing that, you know, you can find yourself once
Speaker 2: you kind of dig out from all of that and
Speaker 2: to not feel bad about it either. I think there's
Speaker 2: this idea of like, you know, no, no, was I fake
Speaker 2: or whatever? Whatever the kids say, you know no, it's
Speaker 2: just like we're all like that. We all want mommy
Speaker 2: and daddy to love us. We all want to be accepted,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're all responding to and reacting to and being
Speaker 1: shaped by so many different things I've heard you talk about.
Speaker 1: You know, there's culture, there's color, there's your family, there's
Speaker 1: I mean, all these things are always shaping us. To
Speaker 1: the point that I think the question of like, who's
Speaker 1: the real me in here is almost a red herring
Speaker 1: in that it can be very hard to find any
Speaker 1: real me that wasn't shaped in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that we don't have personalities
Speaker 1: and that we don't have versions of ourselves that feel
Speaker 1: more true than others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the whole midlife crisis thing, right. If
Speaker 2: people say that, it's because all of a sudden, you like,
Speaker 2: stop doing what the world tells you're supposed to be doing,
Speaker 2: and your parents tell you what you're supposed to be doing,
Speaker 2: and then you go out and you're like, I'm doing
Speaker 2: what I want. We become kids again, and it's that
Speaker 2: whole idea of like, what were you like when you
Speaker 2: were like eight, What did you like to do, what
Speaker 2: made you happy, what was exciting to you. I recommend
Speaker 2: going back and doing that. That's the exercise I've been
Speaker 2: doing with myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting one because I do that from
Speaker 1: time to time, and I'm like, somewhere I crossed over
Speaker 1: and it happened relatively early, sort of a weird, little different, creative,
Speaker 1: little kid who was kind of into his own world
Speaker 1: and suddenly became really into sports in the sports world,
Speaker 1: and that didn't feel fake at all. Yeah, and yet
Speaker 1: I can see there was some degree of cultural shaping.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I think even you know, really little,
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to make my home work for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as gabor Mate writer says, I think he summed this
Speaker 1: up the best, which is we're always in a battle
Speaker 1: between attachment and authenticity. Yeah right. You know, on one hand,
Speaker 1: we're trying to be the person that gets loved and
Speaker 1: is secure early attached, and yet we have a desire
Speaker 1: to be authentic, and those two things are in a
Speaker 1: push and pull. I think to some degree it's attention
Speaker 1: that I don't think it's completely resolved ever, right. It
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't, right, because those are two important needs. They're
Speaker 1: both needs.
Speaker 2: One thing that's helpful that my therapist, who's very informed,
Speaker 2: he's very Buddhist and Youngian, so which I love him
Speaker 2: to pieces. I love, I love, I got my obi wan.
Speaker 2: He helped me a lot by making me think of
Speaker 2: these parts of me as separate people at a table,
Speaker 2: and there was the one, and then naming them, giving
Speaker 2: them little names, little characters, because he knows I love
Speaker 2: to write and create worlds, and that makes total sense.
Speaker 2: And it's like, okay, so this one's been in charge
Speaker 2: for a while because she was constructed to protect you
Speaker 2: and strive and this and that the other thing and
Speaker 2: then this one over here's been a little quiet, you know,
Speaker 2: and now this one wants to come and sit at
Speaker 2: the table. And it's not that any of them are
Speaker 2: inauthentic mes, it's that they're all me Yeah, but there
Speaker 2: is one that should be at the head of the table,
Speaker 2: the one that when you kind of get to know
Speaker 2: them all, when you know that they're there, then you
Speaker 2: can kind of slide over to the one that's going
Speaker 2: to to your point about the one you feed. This
Speaker 2: one is going to sit at the head of the
Speaker 2: table because she knows how to do it the best way,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like one of them has
Speaker 2: to get up and be like scooch, scooch, I need
Speaker 2: to come in here. I need to come in here
Speaker 2: for a second, and then you can call on them too.
Speaker 2: That was very helpful to me, because for me, it
Speaker 2: was pretty traumatizing to realize how much I'd been living
Speaker 2: my life for other people. Really, it was kind of devastating.
Speaker 2: And it's not that I'm horrified. I mean, shoot, I've
Speaker 2: done so much. I look back and I go, oh,
Speaker 2: my god, who was that person? Well, she was doing
Speaker 2: all that and she's not who I want to always be,
Speaker 2: but you know what, she did what she had to
Speaker 2: do because that's what she thought she had to do.
Speaker 1: It's interesting even going what I thought was like my
Speaker 1: own path, Right, I'm not going to go to college
Speaker 1: and I'm going to pursue being a musician and screw
Speaker 1: everybody else, and that that descended into heroin addiction and
Speaker 1: drug addiction. It didn't end well. And even that was
Speaker 1: a reaction to right. Yeah, I'm not saying that no
Speaker 1: part of that was authentic, because some of it, of
Speaker 1: course was. To your point, it's not all one thing
Speaker 1: or the other. But there was a definite reaction to
Speaker 1: being brought up in a white, middle class society that
Speaker 1: I said, I don't want anything to do with this,
Speaker 1: so I pushed it away so hard. And that's just
Speaker 1: the opposite of playing to win in that system, Right,
Speaker 1: It's still a reaction to the system versus a way
Speaker 1: of body and who we are. And in the same
Speaker 1: way that your career that you're saying, you know you
Speaker 1: were playing to win, there were also parts of you
Speaker 1: that were being fulfilled as you went through that. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't all sure, you know, So it's yes, we're
Speaker 1: always kind of this blend of things.
Speaker 2: I remember I got very insulted when someone you know,
Speaker 2: older white banker guy looked at my background, at my
Speaker 2: degrees and all that stuff and was like, oh, you overcompensated,
Speaker 2: didn't you. And I was like, mmmm, see, you just
Speaker 2: told on yourself. Yeah, that's because would you say that
Speaker 2: to your fellow white male banker over here? Would you
Speaker 2: say that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: So what did you just say to me about yourself?
Speaker 2: That you're racist? Basically you're a bigot? And you know,
Speaker 2: my answer was like, I don't compensate for anything. This
Speaker 2: is just my existence. This is just who I am.
Speaker 2: Like there's plenty of us out there and get used
Speaker 2: to it. Yeah, But there was an element of I'll
Speaker 2: show you, yeah, And it was a lot actually about
Speaker 2: though my mother in my house, I couldn't exist without
Speaker 2: getting straight a's. I mean really she would have put
Speaker 2: me on the street. But it was very much like
Speaker 2: I'll show you I can do it and then leave
Speaker 2: like it was my way out. And it was communicated
Speaker 2: to me then in school with these nuns that it
Speaker 2: was just they just thought I was going to be
Speaker 2: barefoot and pregnant by sixteen. And so there was and
Speaker 2: I think I wrote about this one was just like
Speaker 2: I got to taste what spite tasted like and at
Speaker 2: the time I liked it, but it was really like
Speaker 2: overly sweet candy. They'll give you some cavities, so you
Speaker 2: gotta be careful. But when I was young, I was
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, look at her, she's mad that
Speaker 2: I ace this. Oh that tastes good. But then I
Speaker 2: learned that that's quite poisonous, you know. So you can't
Speaker 2: do things out a spite. But I did them anyway
Speaker 2: because I wanted to do them anyway. You know, if
Speaker 2: I broke someone ideas of who I should be as
Speaker 2: a young Latina, then I did Hopefully I served somebody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Someone asked you about the overarching message from the
Speaker 1: book that you'd like to give towards your daughter, and
Speaker 1: you said there was two, one practical one personal. But
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you what those were because
Speaker 1: I want to see if they're any different now. So
Speaker 1: if there was one very arching method, the true question,
Speaker 1: I'll tell them if you want. I actually was going
Speaker 1: to read them, and I thought, I wonderfully.
Speaker 2: Tell me, But then I'll tell you if I still
Speaker 2: agree or not, because all right, all right, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: So the practical one was that your daughter got to
Speaker 1: watch how hard it was for you to get this
Speaker 1: book published, right, the rejection again and again, and about
Speaker 1: learning to just take that and sort of get back
Speaker 1: up and keep trying. That was the practical and then
Speaker 1: the personal is I'll just read it because it's beautifully said.
Speaker 1: I hope she sees how I learned with empathy to
Speaker 1: see my mother as a full human being Faulse and all,
Speaker 1: to not treat her as a villain though she caused
Speaker 1: so much trauma.
Speaker 2: Yes, I would have definitely said that. Second one compassion. Compassion,
Speaker 2: And I've heard from quite a few people, and thank
Speaker 2: you to everyone who's ever written a review, written to
Speaker 2: or anything because authors love it, who's been surprised by
Speaker 2: how much compassion I've had. And that compassion is very
Speaker 2: hard earned. I worked really hard to do that, and
Speaker 2: it's probably one of the biggest gifts I feel I've
Speaker 2: given myself, is the ability to be that way. And
Speaker 2: in terms of practical too, I would add on that's
Speaker 2: about book writing. That's about like being in the business, right,
Speaker 2: any artistic creative business. It's like you just got to
Speaker 2: keep going. The rejections will keep coming. It's very subjective,
Speaker 2: but I'll say this I think, and I hope she
Speaker 2: also learned how to manage family and history and to
Speaker 2: be honest about it and to tell your story and
Speaker 2: that your story has value.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the compassion being a hard one thing. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what led you to compassion being something that you wanted
Speaker 1: to cultivate. I'm curious if you can remember what brought
Speaker 1: you there.
Speaker 2: Well, a couple things. I thankfully was built with a
Speaker 2: lot of compassion for other people. So because I ended
Speaker 2: up advocating for my little sisters a lot. You know,
Speaker 2: it was always going to bat for the little guy, right,
Speaker 2: or always then going to bat for my people, or
Speaker 2: there's young people, nonprofits like all this stuff. Always you know,
Speaker 2: raising money, always doing those things. I'm an activist, you know,
Speaker 2: all those things, always going to bat for people. And
Speaker 2: I realized that I was killing myself with the voice
Speaker 2: in my head that was so loud saying that I
Speaker 2: was doing the wrong things, making the wrong choices, being bad.
Speaker 2: I was not good enough, not good enough, not good enough,
Speaker 2: that which of course is my mother's voice. That you know,
Speaker 2: we can turn down the volume on that record, that
Speaker 2: record will not maybe leave us ever, and that's okay.
Speaker 2: But I can turn down the volume. But in order
Speaker 2: to do that, it does take some self compassion, because
Speaker 2: I had found that I had more compassion for other
Speaker 2: people than for myself, and it was very damaging, right,
Speaker 2: And then being a mom, I had to feel more
Speaker 2: for my child then react to her. That is something
Speaker 2: that unfortunately gets handed down, of course, in families of
Speaker 2: generational trauma and abuse, this idea of you know, don't
Speaker 2: you talk to me and you respect me and you
Speaker 2: fear me? And I refuse to do that. So that
Speaker 2: took me being compassionate to her as a child, as
Speaker 2: a human being, a separate human being for me, with
Speaker 2: her own sets of feelings and own personality and own
Speaker 2: self and not everything's in reaction to me, Not everything's
Speaker 2: about me, and then turn that on, you know, to myself.
Speaker 2: What I was told was be curious about why I'm
Speaker 2: feeling that way, Be curious about where that voice comes from.
Speaker 2: Be curious about when it shows up and how and why, yeah,
Speaker 2: and what's it saying? You know, So it's not so
Speaker 2: that you just hear almost like a clattering sound, instant
Speaker 2: clattering sound, which can bring up about a physical response
Speaker 2: where I'd be like, I need a drink, you know,
Speaker 2: Whereas now I'm just kind of like I don't need that.
Speaker 2: I'm fine, you know, like I don't have these automatic
Speaker 2: physical reactions to like make these things go away instead
Speaker 2: of I'm just kind of like, who is that voice?
Speaker 2: What she's saying? And sometimes you just talk back to it?
Speaker 2: Can I swear? I'll be like, you're full of shit? Sure,
Speaker 2: you're fool of shit, You're scared, You're afraid, And then
Speaker 2: it's I keep digging and going backwards, you're afraid of what?
Speaker 2: What are you afraid of? That? It's almost like a
Speaker 2: little conversation. That's compassion. And when you have that compassion
Speaker 2: for yourself, that helped me understand everybody around me. But
Speaker 2: again I understand them. It doesn't mean, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: like peace, I'm all about my piece, like it's about
Speaker 2: time I had some peace, but I'm not responsible for
Speaker 2: the piece in that way.
Speaker 1: I love the way you deconstructed that process because that
Speaker 1: really is a lot of when we talk about self compassion.
Speaker 1: I mean some of it we talk about being kind
Speaker 1: to ourselves, which is important, but it's so nebulous, right,
Speaker 1: But you really described a very clear process and it's
Speaker 1: funny that you said I need a drink, because as
Speaker 1: I was getting sober, I had to do it a
Speaker 1: couple of times. But the second time that thought would
Speaker 1: just emerge and I would notice it was just running
Speaker 1: in my brain, and I would go, what is happening here? Right?
Speaker 1: Some of it is habit pattern, right, but some of
Speaker 1: it And so then I began to notice what situations
Speaker 1: most caused it. And then it morphed, and not in
Speaker 1: a way that initially sounds better, because it went to
Speaker 1: I want to die.
Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, but even that in there, but I didn't
Speaker 2: want to write.
Speaker 1: It was just this habitual voice. And I was able
Speaker 1: to then go, well, what's causing that? And notice it,
Speaker 1: and I was able to have a little humor around it,
Speaker 1: a little bit like Okay, let's step down the drama here,
Speaker 1: a little bit like, you know, without minimizing the hurt
Speaker 1: that was driving. Right for me, it was really about going,
Speaker 1: what is it that causes that to come on most strongly?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I've identified those things. I mean, for me, they
Speaker 1: tend to be come in a situation where I'm going
Speaker 1: to make someone unhappy, Like with whatever choice I make
Speaker 1: someone is going to be unhappy. I'll acquiesce on my
Speaker 1: own behalf far easier. But when I'm trapped, that's certainly
Speaker 1: one of them. But another I've realized over the years
Speaker 1: is when I don't know the answer to something, that
Speaker 1: could be a variety of things. I don't think humans
Speaker 1: we like uncertainty. It makes us uncomfortable. But as a kid,
Speaker 1: the one thing that I was praised for was being smart.
Speaker 3: That was it.
Speaker 1: That was the thing. And so to not be smart
Speaker 1: is like to not exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But to say I don't know, is you know,
Speaker 2: the smartest thing of all?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean the Zen tradition is very clear about
Speaker 1: this point. As an old phrase from a Zen master,
Speaker 1: not knowing is most intimate, And I love that phrase.
Speaker 1: So I get it absolutely, and I just know that
Speaker 1: it's something I've still worked unwind. But I can just
Speaker 1: catch that voice going now a whole lot easier. I
Speaker 1: like that way of saying clattering, you know, because now
Speaker 1: it is a noise.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm like, well hang on a second, like hold on, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not what's actually going on here? What is you know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but thank you for deconstructing that, because I think it's
Speaker 1: really helpful.
Speaker 2: I needed that too, Like I needed that. Then, yes,
Speaker 2: this was therapy provided my obi wan. I needed that,
Speaker 2: And especially since I tend to write and think in
Speaker 2: very kind of visual, textual ways and process ways. You know,
Speaker 2: don't just say be kind of me. What does that mean?
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to be kind of myself.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that means. But it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you're a curious person. Be curious about why did you
Speaker 2: just have that thought? What were you feeling when you
Speaker 2: had that thought? Why are you reacting to that person
Speaker 2: in that way? What are they bringing out to you?
Speaker 2: What do they remind you of what just happened there?
Speaker 2: And I started doing that, like when I interact with
Speaker 2: people and I just walk away and just think and
Speaker 2: be like, oh, this is interesting. If you start doing
Speaker 2: that and you make it very much a habit, it's
Speaker 2: quite fascinating what you see of yourself. Yeah, I found
Speaker 2: it to be an incredible way to kind of excavate
Speaker 2: and do the work. As they say, on yourself is
Speaker 2: really just asking these questions. And to your point about
Speaker 2: when you say, you know, oh I need a drink,
Speaker 2: or I need this, or I need just stopping, Well,
Speaker 2: what the hell am I feeling right now. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: sometimes it's just a matter of just feeling those feels
Speaker 2: and just being like and naming it and just being like,
Speaker 2: all right, maybe I masel just tired, you know, let
Speaker 2: me take a bath, or let me just like watch
Speaker 2: a good show or something else. It's been incredibly helpful,
Speaker 2: and I'm hoping to pass that down to the kid
Speaker 2: because boy, man, if I had had that, how tremendous
Speaker 2: for people to have that. It opens up your world too, right,
Speaker 2: because then you're not so ego forward.
Speaker 1: Yep. Absolutely, So let's close with I just got to
Speaker 1: throw this line in here. It's not what I want
Speaker 1: to close with, but it's so good. Which is Catholicism
Speaker 1: lends itself well to obsessive compulsive disorder. Say the full
Speaker 1: rosary before bed, and then another three Hail Mary's. Just
Speaker 1: to make sure cross yourself three times every night before
Speaker 1: you go to sleep, and kiss your right thumb after
Speaker 1: the last time. I would say the zen tradition is similar.
Speaker 1: I came to it as an adult, but you know,
Speaker 1: there can be so much like focus on exactly like
Speaker 1: which foot do you step into the zendo with? Then well, anyway,
Speaker 1: that's not really where I wanted to go.
Speaker 2: But well, I was gonna say, why do you like
Speaker 2: that line? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It made me laugh. I think it is true, and
Speaker 1: I think it points to how I'm very interested in
Speaker 1: ritual and the role of things like that, which is
Speaker 1: what those are. They're rituals, and how they can be
Speaker 1: either constricting, oh yes, or they can be freeing, and
Speaker 1: how they can be meaningless or packed with meaning. You know,
Speaker 1: the very same exact thing.
Speaker 2: I tell you. I am completely, like absolutely non practicing
Speaker 2: for many many years, not raising my daughter in religion.
Speaker 2: It's not about that for me. It's really about many
Speaker 2: other things. But I still when I get in the
Speaker 2: car and behind the wheel, I still do my little
Speaker 2: blessings the Cross, and I still and my daughter even
Speaker 2: does it, and she's the most agnostic person on the planet,
Speaker 2: and we do it. But the thing is what I realized,
Speaker 2: I was like, why am I keep doing this? Like
Speaker 2: I don't like superstition. I don't want it to be
Speaker 2: about superstition. I wanted to have some kind of meeting.
Speaker 2: And it's every time I do it, I think about
Speaker 2: my mother, and not in a bad way. It's almost
Speaker 2: like I am saying to her for just a moment
Speaker 2: because we spent many hours behind the wheel, or she
Speaker 2: did of just like hi, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think that speaks to something you said a
Speaker 1: couple minutes ago when you were talking about sort of
Speaker 1: how to work with these inner voices. At one point
Speaker 1: you said doing it. I don't know if you said
Speaker 1: consistently or over and over. And then you also use
Speaker 1: the word habit in there, And I think the point
Speaker 1: is the little crossing yourself in the car. What that's
Speaker 1: giving you is it's an anchor point. Yes, that you
Speaker 1: then have an opportunity to reflect in a certain way
Speaker 1: that if we don't have anything like that, we just
Speaker 1: get caught up in whatever is happening. But now you've
Speaker 1: got a little way of reflecting on your mother that's
Speaker 1: sort of built in and habitual at this point, and it's.
Speaker 2: Just for a split second, exactly. I respect all dangerous
Speaker 2: things that we involve ourselves in, like crossing the street
Speaker 2: in New York City, which is always dangerous, but getting
Speaker 2: behind the wheel is a dangerous thing, and it's I
Speaker 2: respect it. So I do the cross and it's not
Speaker 2: a superstition. It gives me like literally split second to
Speaker 2: just like a breath yep, a memory and a breath
Speaker 2: and then we go. So I'm very cognizant and aware
Speaker 2: of what I am doing and to your point, like
Speaker 2: it's just a very grounding thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I teach this program spiritual habits, and the
Speaker 1: goal of the program is to take sort of common
Speaker 1: spiritual principles that everybody would pretty much agree on, and
Speaker 1: then use what we know about behavior science to live
Speaker 1: them more fully. And one of the keys there is
Speaker 1: to use triggers to remember, because we just don't remember,
Speaker 1: we're so busy. And so what you've got there is
Speaker 1: sort of we could call it a location based trigger.
Speaker 1: Right when you get into the car. I do this thing.
Speaker 1: And it's those small moments though, that add up over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over and over again. That
Speaker 1: tends to be the way we change most Some people
Speaker 1: have sudden awakenings, but so much of change is just
Speaker 1: this gradual yes, accumulation, both good and bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And it can be very much in your head.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be like an outward thing. I
Speaker 2: do that very much. I do the anchoring thing, and
Speaker 2: I do like, you know, where's my drink and that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. But I'm not you know, and OCD
Speaker 2: is a very real diagnosis, which is unfortunate in my
Speaker 2: family quite a bit. So it can be very painful.
Speaker 2: But when you are able to kind of put where
Speaker 2: it disrupts your life aside and instead understand what it's
Speaker 2: about about that emotion that you're not processing. But instead,
Speaker 2: now I use my quest for order, I use it
Speaker 2: more so as a way to ground myself. So for me,
Speaker 2: it's like, instead of when I was a kid, it
Speaker 2: was if I don't turn this page, someone will die.
Speaker 2: Like those are the thoughts that go through your head
Speaker 2: when you have your OCD. Right, Yeah, instead of that,
Speaker 2: it's I like to turn you know, my things in
Speaker 2: my bathroom cabinet, like to be facing forward. Is it
Speaker 2: someone going to die if it doesn't?
Speaker 3: Know?
Speaker 2: So instead now it's I'll take a moment and straighten
Speaker 2: it up. And sometimes when you know things are crazy
Speaker 2: on the outside world, creating order like cleaning your house
Speaker 2: just regrounds you. So yeah, but no more rosaries.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I'm glad we went down this little street
Speaker 1: that I wasn't planning on because I think it yielded
Speaker 1: a lot of really useful things. And I really love
Speaker 1: what you just said there, because it's back to that
Speaker 1: idea of a ritual can be freeing or constraining. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you've taken something that has become sort of habitual
Speaker 1: in your life and you've changed the meaning around it.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, and that has been so incredibly helpful. Whether
Speaker 2: it's sometimes I need to, you know, recharge my iPad.
Speaker 2: I flip it over so that I know when I
Speaker 2: wake up the morning and I'm half brain dead to
Speaker 2: recharge my iPad. Like so, I have all these little
Speaker 2: things that I do, whether it's reminders or things that
Speaker 2: ground me, or that things that just change other rituals.
Speaker 2: So for example, like a lot of people in the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and there's no judgment here, I was a Margherita Dey person,
Speaker 2: you know, trapped at home love in my tequila, and
Speaker 2: I realized that, you know, it made me unhealthy. I
Speaker 2: gained weight, I felt terrible going through menopause. It was
Speaker 2: just awful. I was like, I can't do this alcohol
Speaker 2: stuff anymore. So now I get this, you know, mocktails.
Speaker 2: But I do the same ritual. So I do the
Speaker 2: same cup, the same taheen and salt on the edge
Speaker 2: of the same mind. I do the same thing, and
Speaker 2: I just tricked myself into it, and it's just I
Speaker 2: don't miss anything about it. I realized that what I
Speaker 2: had thought was helpful in the substance was actually partially
Speaker 2: about the process. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In behavior science, it's called the habit loop, right, that
Speaker 1: there's a stimulus and there's a reward, and then there's
Speaker 1: action in the middle. And it's very difficult to change
Speaker 1: the stimulus, which is like, I want to feel like
Speaker 1: I'm unwinding after work as an example, right, or I'm
Speaker 1: stressed after work. The reward you want is to feel
Speaker 1: like you've unwound a little bit. But we can change
Speaker 1: the thing that's in the middle, and that's often the
Speaker 1: most effective way to do it, just yanking something out
Speaker 1: and being like I'm not doing that anymore.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, no, it's too hard, doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Ver.
Speaker 2: Once I found this, it was so satisfying, and then
Speaker 2: I realized that what really was helpful to me was
Speaker 2: actually the ritual. Not necessarily the substance. Substance made me
Speaker 2: feel like grap but the ritual of it, the sound
Speaker 2: of ice shaking, the salt, to the taste of the
Speaker 2: and it's understanding those things and you know when am
Speaker 2: I likely to, you know, buy something on Instagram. I
Speaker 2: don't need you know. That's you know, just always being
Speaker 2: aware of those things that you want to stop. You
Speaker 2: can reformulate a lot of habits that way, for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that is a great place for us
Speaker 1: to leave off. Carmen, Thank you so much. This has
Speaker 1: been really enjoyable. The book is wonderful again. It's called
Speaker 1: why Didn't You Tell Me? A Memoir? And we'll have
Speaker 1: links in the show notes to where people can find
Speaker 1: you where they can find the book. And thanks so
Speaker 1: much for spending some time with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me Eric, It's been great.
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