Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shondaland Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: The polls of the movie, our Joy wants to keep
Speaker 2: the core emotions away from sadness, right, so Joy, the
Speaker 2: whole movie is keep awake, don't touch. And at the
Speaker 2: end of the movie, because now she understands way I
Speaker 2: created all of this because I'm trying to avoid sadness.
Speaker 2: Riley being sad is Joy's handing the balls.
Speaker 1: This memory balls over to sadness.
Speaker 2: This little girl in the back of the theater yells no,
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh, there needs to be a discussion
Speaker 2: in the car.
Speaker 1: On the way home.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I hope there was.
Speaker 2: I did get some some things from parents that they
Speaker 2: did have to have interesting discussions with their kids after,
Speaker 2: but in a good way. Their kids were opening up
Speaker 2: to them about things and because now they have language
Speaker 2: to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome back to Katie's Crib. I've been trying
Speaker 1: to get today's guest on for a hot minute. Her
Speaker 1: movie affected me. It affected me inside and out. He
Speaker 1: he he. Do you get that Today's guest we are
Speaker 1: having on to talk about children's feelings, emotions, internal validation,
Speaker 1: and she is the brilliant brains behind the Oscar nominated
Speaker 1: film Inside Out. She also is a producer and a director.
Speaker 1: Her name is Meg Lava and She's brilliant. She was
Speaker 1: also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine for producing The Baby Dance. She also produced the
Speaker 1: two thousand and two film The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.
Speaker 1: She also wrote the script for The Good Dinosaur and
Speaker 1: also co wrote the story. She also wrote the script
Speaker 1: for the live action Captain Marvel movie alongside Nicole Pearlman.
Speaker 1: And LeVaux is married to filmmaker Joe Forte, with whom
Speaker 1: she has two sons, Aiden and Julian. Did you guys
Speaker 1: all see Inside Out? Has there ever been a better
Speaker 1: movie for adults and children to try to explain our emotions,
Speaker 1: our brains, our deepest well, fears, joys, anger, all the things?
Speaker 1: And I felt like the movie did such a great
Speaker 1: job of explaining emotions to our kids, and so I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear it from her first and bring it
Speaker 1: all to you guys. So here we are today with
Speaker 1: the one and only Meg Leveaux. Welcome to Katie's Crib.
Speaker 1: Meg Meg it's such a pleasure to meet you.
Speaker 2: It's so wonderful to be here.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for coming and making the time. It's
Speaker 1: so funny. I was just going to say thank you
Speaker 1: for having me, but it's because I'm at the time
Speaker 1: of this recording. I've just been coming off like a
Speaker 1: bunch of days of doing interviews. That's funny that that
Speaker 1: was my knee jerk reaction. I think you come to
Speaker 1: me through Rebecca Beninatti. Is that correct? Oh, yes, that's true.
Speaker 2: Rebecca and my kids went to preschool together, and of
Speaker 2: course we became best friends.
Speaker 1: So your children and Rebecca's children and my children all
Speaker 1: go to the same nursery school.
Speaker 3: Mine are now in college.
Speaker 1: So while ago the movie Inside Out so deeply affected
Speaker 1: me as an adult, the work that I'm most proud
Speaker 1: of on this podcast is for kids and adults similar
Speaker 1: to your film. So I have done a ton of
Speaker 1: research with a ton of notes. Okay, if you are
Speaker 1: a listener to Katie's Crib and you have not watched
Speaker 1: Inside Out, if you're a pregnant person you don't have
Speaker 1: kids yet, if you're a person with small kids, middle
Speaker 1: aged kids, older kids, or if you don't have any
Speaker 1: kids at all, do yourself a favor. Watch Inside Out
Speaker 1: because it is for everyone.
Speaker 2: Humans, It's for humans.
Speaker 1: It's for humans. How did you get involved in the project,
Speaker 1: How did you write the movie? I know you came
Speaker 1: along a little bit later in the process. Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were a couple of screens in so they
Speaker 2: spend years researching, and Pete doctor it's his movie, it's
Speaker 2: his baby, and he researched for years. Emotions and I
Speaker 2: think at one point they had twenty four and boiled
Speaker 2: it down to the five. He brought me in because
Speaker 2: they had their five emotions and locations, but the story.
Speaker 2: They were really struggling to find the story and what
Speaker 2: he wanted to say with the movie. He knew he
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about his daughter and how when she
Speaker 2: was younger, she was very outgoing and like she'd meet
Speaker 2: people at the front door and tap dance for them
Speaker 2: and just so joyful and happy and confident, and then
Speaker 2: when she turned eleven, she seemed to disappear. She was
Speaker 2: very withdrawn, and he literally had the question, what happened
Speaker 2: to my daughter's joy? I want to go inside her
Speaker 2: head and find out. But as he developed the story,
Speaker 2: he realized what do I want to say about joy?
Speaker 2: What do I want to say about the internal life
Speaker 2: of any person, whatever age they are. When we were
Speaker 2: working together, he came to the idea that it's sadness
Speaker 2: that he really wanted to be discovered, and that sadness
Speaker 2: connects us. It's not something to be avoided and to
Speaker 2: avoid in your children. It's something that connects us. And
Speaker 2: what's interesting about the fact that we have this connection
Speaker 2: with preschool is I wasn't involved in all of that research,
Speaker 2: but I came in really understanding emotional intelligence. My research
Speaker 2: was going to that.
Speaker 1: Preschool social emotional learning. It's like, forget about ABC's, you're
Speaker 1: going to learn that.
Speaker 2: The way you learn that is you have social emotional intelligence.
Speaker 2: It's the base for all learning. And you know what
Speaker 2: we used to learn at that preschool literally happens in
Speaker 2: the movie. We used to learn that when your kid
Speaker 2: is crying because some other kid knocked down their block
Speaker 2: structure and your kid is furious and screaming and angry
Speaker 2: or crying, you don't say, let's fix that, you can
Speaker 2: build another block structure. Let's get back to happiness as
Speaker 2: quickly as possible, which we all do.
Speaker 1: We all do it.
Speaker 2: The idea instead is sit down with them and reflect
Speaker 2: back what they're feeling so they can start to learn
Speaker 2: what that emotion is. First of all, can you identify
Speaker 2: what's happening inside your body, which, by the way, a
Speaker 2: lot of adults I know.
Speaker 1: Can't even do this one.
Speaker 2: What is this emotion? So you say to them, Wow,
Speaker 2: you're really mad. Ah, yeah, I'm really mad, they might say,
Speaker 2: and then they might start to get tears in their eyes. Oh,
Speaker 2: I see, Oh now you're very sad. I'm really sad.
Speaker 2: Just helping them reflect it and then letting it move
Speaker 2: through its process. I would be mad too if somebody
Speaker 2: knocked over my block structure. If you were doing a
Speaker 2: project all morning on your computer and it crashed and
Speaker 2: you lost the whole.
Speaker 3: Thing, would you be mad?
Speaker 1: That's right?
Speaker 2: Why are you assuming this child can't have an emotional life?
Speaker 2: They worked on something. So if you look in the movie,
Speaker 2: this happens. Bing Bong's wagon gets thrown into the dump
Speaker 2: and forgotten, and he's crying, and Joy wants him to
Speaker 2: move on. She wants to get going, And it's Sadness
Speaker 2: who has the emotional intelligence to sit down and say, Wow,
Speaker 2: you loved your wagon, I did, and he cries, Candy,
Speaker 2: I did. I loved my wagon.
Speaker 1: It's so sad.
Speaker 3: It is sad.
Speaker 2: She just sits with him and puts her hand on
Speaker 2: his little paw, and then he works through it and
Speaker 2: Joy as a character gets to watch, Oh, this is
Speaker 2: a different way of being in the world and processing
Speaker 2: that all of Riley's memories don't need to be joyful,
Speaker 2: and that there is value in all of our emotions.
Speaker 1: Ah. Everyone, I mean, come on, you really had your
Speaker 1: finger on the pulse. In terms of educating people towards
Speaker 1: this type of learning.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny though, because people take what they take.
Speaker 2: I had a guywalk up to me at a function
Speaker 2: and he goes, that movie changed the way I parent.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: What a compliment.
Speaker 2: And he goes, because now when my kids said, I go,
Speaker 2: get joy on the controls, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the opposite of the movie.
Speaker 1: But okay, yeah, that's the morals. But my first foray
Speaker 1: in to work like this was I was a nanny
Speaker 1: before I had children, for a family who had me
Speaker 1: as the caretaker. There are some similarities similarities, they are
Speaker 1: not everything, but When I first heard oh, when a
Speaker 1: kid is crying, my jump to was always like, you're okay,
Speaker 1: You're okay, it's okay, it's okay, okay. It was like
Speaker 1: a word I said one thousand times. And the teacher,
Speaker 1: similarly to your story, you know about if you were
Speaker 1: an adult and this was happening to you, she would say,
Speaker 1: in their world, it's not okay, they're not okay right now,
Speaker 1: and it's okay to not be okay. Fast forward to
Speaker 1: me having a five year old and a two year old.
Speaker 1: I've now since tried getting through sadness or tantrums. I'm
Speaker 1: lucky enough to say I've tried to get through it
Speaker 1: fifty million different ways. And I can tell you the
Speaker 1: quickest way out, and I know from you and your
Speaker 1: movie and other psychologists and experts we've had on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and the healthiest way out is to actually just sit there, reflect, narrate, listen.
Speaker 2: It's a way for a person to feel seen, be
Speaker 2: you five, two or fifty two. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 2: my sister's on the zoom and she seems to be
Speaker 2: saying words that are I'm fine and I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to explain something. But I can see in her face
Speaker 2: what is happening, and that there's a lot of sadness
Speaker 2: coming up for me to be able to say, hey,
Speaker 2: are you sad? You know what, I'm just I want
Speaker 2: to acknowledge what's happening right now and that this is
Speaker 2: really bringing up a lot of stuff for you. And
Speaker 2: it's okay, you don't have to talk about it, but
Speaker 2: I just want to say, I see you, I see this.
Speaker 2: It's a way to be seen, for your life experience
Speaker 2: to be real. And I think when we'd say to
Speaker 2: our kids, no, you're fine, you're telling them that feeling
Speaker 2: of not being fine is not real, but of course
Speaker 2: it is. Gosh, how does that mix up your brain? Listen,
Speaker 2: there is a moment in the movie where Mom sits
Speaker 2: down on the sleeping bag and says to Riley, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's been such a hard move and your dad's been
Speaker 2: so busy and overwhelmed, and we're just so grateful that
Speaker 2: you're a happy girl.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: That was a scene that was on the chopping block
Speaker 2: a lot because there was a concern in the notes
Speaker 2: that Mom isn't likable. It was the hill I was
Speaker 2: going to die on because I was like, wow, every
Speaker 2: parent does this, and it's out of love. We're not
Speaker 2: doing it to mess up our child. We're doing it
Speaker 2: a out of love because we want them to be happy.
Speaker 2: And b I'm sorry half the time because we are overwhelmed.
Speaker 2: We have no emotional regulation, and we're trying to regulate
Speaker 2: our emotions by regulating our kids' emotion I found at
Speaker 2: that set that preschool, they're mostly teaching the parents. That's
Speaker 2: mostly what they're doing.
Speaker 1: It's so much less about teaching my children than it
Speaker 1: is about teaching myself. It's remarkable.
Speaker 2: It is just a zen experience of self knowledge every day.
Speaker 2: Just can you be with yourself right now? I had
Speaker 2: a moment where I had I was trying to plug
Speaker 2: in my car, and I had bags of food and
Speaker 2: one kid screaming and one kid saying, by the way,
Speaker 2: I have this dude tomorrow at school, and there was
Speaker 2: so much going on, and I went to plug in
Speaker 2: my car and the electric current went up my arm. No,
Speaker 2: I just went and I sat down, and my kid
Speaker 2: went started screaming, I need dinner.
Speaker 1: And I lost my mind.
Speaker 3: Of course what's happening?
Speaker 2: And my body is first of all, fear that I
Speaker 2: almost killed myself and then, honestly, the very next response
Speaker 2: is I almost killed myself in front of my children.
Speaker 2: There is no worse parenting that could possibly happen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they don't come back from that.
Speaker 3: They don't come back from that. You are such a
Speaker 3: bad mom.
Speaker 2: Now I'm yelling because I'm so overwhelmed emotionally and I
Speaker 2: cannot get mostly regulated. Right in front of everybody, I'm
Speaker 2: yelling at my kids. I get them inside and I
Speaker 2: just go in the bathroom because I've got to get
Speaker 2: myself regulated. And my little kid comes in and he
Speaker 2: sits on the tub in the dark with me, and
Speaker 2: he goes, Mama, are you okay? And I said, you
Speaker 2: know what, I have to be honest, I'm not. I'm
Speaker 2: a little upset. That was really scary, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to be okay. You know, you have to reassure me.
Speaker 2: He's little, but it's okay. And thank you so much
Speaker 2: for seeing me and coming to check on me. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much. And he put his hand on my
Speaker 2: hand and he goes, Mama, I think the universe is
Speaker 2: trying to tell you something. And I said, what is
Speaker 2: the universe trying to tell me? And he goes, you're
Speaker 2: too busy you're just too busy, Mama. You need to
Speaker 2: take a break sometimes. All those years of social emotional
Speaker 2: support and it comes back to you, It comes back
Speaker 2: to you in this emotional being who can be present
Speaker 2: with you and who can see you.
Speaker 1: I feel really confident in the vocabulary I've learned in
Speaker 1: the last five years and the work I've gotten to
Speaker 1: do on this podcast and at the nursery school we
Speaker 1: picked and all of that. But of course, like right
Speaker 1: before me my period, I'm ready to fucking kill someone,
Speaker 1: and I'm cranky and everything is wrong and no one
Speaker 1: can do anything right, mostly myself. And she falls in
Speaker 1: a puddle and she's soaking wet, and he's like, where
Speaker 1: is my breakfast or whatever it is? I've taken it.
Speaker 1: I remember I asked him to brush his teeth like
Speaker 1: a thousand times, just to get out the door. And
Speaker 1: I just said, you know what, forget it. And I
Speaker 1: took his toothbrush and I threw it out the floor
Speaker 1: and I just said, I mommy needs a time out.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a time out. I need to
Speaker 1: remove myself. I'm so angry and frustrated, not at you,
Speaker 1: but it frustrated at the situation and just how the
Speaker 1: day is going, that I need a moment because I'm
Speaker 1: not the best version of myself. And he always says, Mommy,
Speaker 1: you just need to take a long breath.
Speaker 2: Oh I love it.
Speaker 1: And he's five, but I'll tell you I want to
Speaker 1: throw in his face and I want to say I
Speaker 1: want to take a bath, and then I go, ida, what, Yes,
Speaker 1: I have to take a very long breath. Thank you
Speaker 1: for reminding me.
Speaker 2: But they're modeling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're modeling.
Speaker 2: They model what we do. We can say all we
Speaker 2: want a million times, they're going to model what we do.
Speaker 2: And I also think it's so important and I can
Speaker 2: see it now that my kid is a college aided
Speaker 2: student that I can see the emotional social training he
Speaker 2: has with his friends and with other people and with me.
Speaker 2: He needs to know that he can freak out. He
Speaker 2: needs to know that he can have a mildown, that
Speaker 2: he can lose his social emotional regulation because he's a
Speaker 2: human being. So he's going to So I don't think
Speaker 2: it's bad to freak out in front of your kids
Speaker 2: every once in a while, because you're teaching them this
Speaker 2: is what it is to be human. As long as
Speaker 2: you repair and that's what I keep telling myself, and
Speaker 2: I put money in.
Speaker 1: The therapy jar for later.
Speaker 2: You lived with an actual human being who's a mother
Speaker 2: and doing the best I can.
Speaker 1: Number One, we've had dan segel On rupture and repair.
Speaker 2: Well, if you had dan Segelon, that's like the expert
Speaker 2: of the experts of all of this.
Speaker 3: Yes, he has come on.
Speaker 1: Of course, I feel like I completely botched the opportunity
Speaker 1: and was like a fumbling, bumbling mess.
Speaker 3: But I tried. But yes, there's a lot of I.
Speaker 1: Think relief in parenthood when the hard moments come that
Speaker 1: I'm not doing what. I think my parents did a
Speaker 1: wonderful job with the knowledge they have for what they knew. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I think it's so beneficial for me that when
Speaker 1: I'm sad that our dog died two years ago, and
Speaker 1: it still comes up. Sometimes my son checks in on
Speaker 1: me and says, oh, you're you sad, and I say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really missing Roger. And sometimes I have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a cry. My mom used to I saw
Speaker 1: her cry maybe twice in my whole life when he
Speaker 1: dada and she hid it. She would go to her
Speaker 1: bedroom she wouldn't let me see. And so again you're
Speaker 1: painting the picture that there's something wrong with being sad
Speaker 1: or there's something exactly wrong with being angry when they're not.
Speaker 1: It's part of the human experience and it's part of
Speaker 1: something that makes us all connected to each other. How
Speaker 1: did you find that.
Speaker 2: On the DVD extras? I think they've put it on
Speaker 2: Disney Plus. I wish they would. But on the DVD
Speaker 2: extras of the film, Pete doctor is in a state
Speaker 2: and when he would get confused, he'd go our walks.
Speaker 2: You can see him. He takes a video out while
Speaker 2: he's walking in the woods and he's processing what's happening,
Speaker 2: which is I have this idea, but I can't get
Speaker 2: it to turn into a movie. Everybody's still saying it's
Speaker 2: a good idea. They're not yet seeing the story the
Speaker 2: movie yet, and I'm really you can see him processing
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna get fired. So what he does
Speaker 2: is what we're talking about. He just gets emotionally intimate
Speaker 2: with himself on camera. You can watch him do it,
Speaker 2: and he is a genius at this. Most of us,
Speaker 2: when we start to feel those feelings of oh my god,
Speaker 2: I might get fired, we start to make excuses or
Speaker 2: fix it, or we move away from it, or our
Speaker 2: anxiety takes over and begins to project forward into eventually,
Speaker 2: I'll die alone and a ditch somewhere. It catastrophizes into
Speaker 2: the future and projects versus staying present with what's happening
Speaker 2: right now. And Pete is a genius at this, and
Speaker 2: you can watch him on the camera say, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: I'm worried I'm gonna get fired. The guy has two
Speaker 2: Academy Awards at this point, which is just but still,
Speaker 2: it just tells you human beings, right. They just starts
Speaker 2: to ask questions to stay present with the feeling. What
Speaker 2: am I going to miss if I get fired? Well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to miss my house because I might have
Speaker 2: to sell it. But I'm also going to miss going to.
Speaker 1: Work every day.
Speaker 2: Why will I miss going to work every day? Well,
Speaker 2: because we've had such good times at Pixar. We've had
Speaker 2: so much fun. Is that the only thing I'm going
Speaker 2: to mix. No, I'm going to miss them because of
Speaker 2: the losses we've shared together and that we've been there
Speaker 2: for each other. Because they lost two people from the company.
Speaker 2: There was one of the founding members, Joe Ranff, died
Speaker 2: in a car accident and Steve jobs they suffered through
Speaker 2: and were there for each other, and he's suddenly realizing, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's the sadness that brought us together. And it's that
Speaker 2: connection that I will actually miss, is that we went
Speaker 2: through this together and we were there for each other
Speaker 2: in our sadness. That the sadness brought us together. And
Speaker 2: that's the movie. But he was able to get there
Speaker 2: because he just kept staying with the emotions that are
Speaker 2: signaling to him something. You know, our emotions are very wise.
Speaker 2: They're there for a reason. Pete Doctor was just a
Speaker 2: genius and is a genius at staying with those emotions
Speaker 2: in order to get the information that they're telling you.
Speaker 1: What do you hope little kids take away from the movies?
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because that was a discussion will little
Speaker 2: kids get this movie? And they did a screening for
Speaker 2: some employees' kids and they got it better than the adults.
Speaker 2: They don't have all the layers of resistance that we have.
Speaker 2: They have not built it up yet. So they're very
Speaker 2: open to their emotions. They are living inside of them.
Speaker 2: They're not judging them, they're not critiquing them and trying
Speaker 2: to push them down. So they really did understand it,
Speaker 2: though there was I went to when it was in
Speaker 2: the theaters. You know, you kind of sneak around and
Speaker 2: go to different theaters and see how the audience is
Speaker 2: liking it. And I was in one theater and the
Speaker 2: whole movie the polls of the movie our Joy wants
Speaker 2: to keep the core emotions away from sadness, right, so Joy,
Speaker 2: the whole movie is keep away, don't touch. And at
Speaker 2: the end of the movie, because now she understands the
Speaker 2: way I created all of this because I'm trying to
Speaker 2: avoid sadness. Riley being sad here sadness. Change these core
Speaker 2: emotions sad because you know, when you move all those
Speaker 2: memories do have a tinge of sadness. Now, this little
Speaker 2: girl in the theater is Joy's handing the balls the
Speaker 2: memory balls over to sadness. This little girl in the
Speaker 2: back of the theater yells no, And I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: there needs to be a discussion in the car on
Speaker 2: the way home.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I hope there was.
Speaker 2: I hope you heard that kid, and she needs to
Speaker 2: talk about some stuff. I mean, I did get some
Speaker 2: some things from parents that they did have to have
Speaker 2: interesting discussions with their kids. After, but in a good way.
Speaker 2: Their kids were opening up to them about things because
Speaker 2: now they have language to talk about it. In this business,
Speaker 2: you Academy awards and blah blah blah. The best thing
Speaker 2: that ever happened to me is how this film is
Speaker 2: now being used to help children communicate what's happening inside
Speaker 2: of them. I was at a wards ceremony right after
Speaker 2: the movie came out, and a woman walked up to
Speaker 2: me and said, your film is still helpful for my job.
Speaker 2: I work for the City of la and I go
Speaker 2: in the night of the trauma and I'm now able
Speaker 2: to have them talk to me immediately because we can
Speaker 2: just use your movie to talk to them and I
Speaker 2: can get to them.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, my god, my god, you
Speaker 1: must have been Wow.
Speaker 2: What an incredible thing, Pete doctor did. What an incredible thing.
Speaker 1: What do you hope parents take away from the movie?
Speaker 1: And is there a difference.
Speaker 2: It's a great story, right, and it's for a human being,
Speaker 2: whatever age, economic status, create class, color, It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: like it's a human it's the human condition and we
Speaker 2: get that by digging into ourselves. If I was an
Speaker 2: eleven year old girl who wanted to say to her parents,
Speaker 2: you want me to be happy, but I'm not. I
Speaker 2: never had the courage to say it, but Riley does
Speaker 2: have the courage to say it. And it was really
Speaker 2: important to me that at the climax of the film,
Speaker 2: when she speaks her truth to her parents, which is
Speaker 2: you want me to be happy, but I'm not, that
Speaker 2: then changes the parents because she allows them to be
Speaker 2: brave and talk about their sadness, and they're able to
Speaker 2: now let go of their I have always having to
Speaker 2: be happy. So the film is for everybody, but it's
Speaker 2: also I think it would be extra special if parents
Speaker 2: could just, for one moment, allow their child to have
Speaker 2: the emotions they have. I think about little girls and anger.
Speaker 2: My friend's daughter for her birthday party in elementary school
Speaker 2: dressed up as anger, and I was like, that's the coolest.
Speaker 1: Thing ever, the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 2: You must be a great mom because you're allowing a
Speaker 2: female child to be angry, which I think is one
Speaker 2: of the final frontiers femaling. If a person, a human,
Speaker 2: a woman, cannot have anger, she can't have boundaries. Anger
Speaker 2: is an important emotion. I'm not talking about a meltdown
Speaker 2: or freaking out. You freak out and have those milkdowns
Speaker 2: because you haven't had anything. You've been stopping the natural
Speaker 2: process of anger. You're not there as a parent to
Speaker 2: control them. You're there to help them, regulate them, not
Speaker 2: get rid of them, investigate them, identify them. What is
Speaker 2: this emotion here to tell me? I mean, by the way,
Speaker 2: here's the irony of the story. I like, sound like
Speaker 2: the super expert and I'm such a good parent. I'm
Speaker 2: in the premiere of the movie sitting next to my son.
Speaker 2: When Riley says at the end, you want me to
Speaker 2: be happy, but I'm not. My kid leans over to
Speaker 2: me and goes, well, I know what she's talking about.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
Speaker 2: I did you can You're gonna do it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you're gonna do it. But that's why there's
Speaker 1: also the therapy jar, you know exactly.
Speaker 3: It's like, we're all just doing the best we can.
Speaker 3: It's just a race.
Speaker 1: My mom says the same thing about my kids eating
Speaker 1: their vegetables. She's like, I always used to say, does
Speaker 1: it add up at the end of the month. No,
Speaker 1: is the ratio better? It's sort of in your life,
Speaker 1: you know, like exactly, that's a great way to put
Speaker 1: it and looking at what your son said to you
Speaker 1: in the premiere. Your two children, now, what is in
Speaker 1: college at the time. I'm not sure how old they
Speaker 1: were when the movie came out. What did they love
Speaker 1: about the movie and how did they respond to knowing
Speaker 1: that you wrote it?
Speaker 2: Well, of course they're kids, so they want to see
Speaker 2: themselves in it. So the first thing was that meat
Speaker 2: was that something I did so adorable, because don't we
Speaker 2: all do that. They were very proud of their mom,
Speaker 2: and they loved the movie. And I also wrote The
Speaker 2: Good Dinosaur with Pixar, which was even more personal for me.
Speaker 2: I have a special need son, so a little dinosaur
Speaker 2: who can't figure out how to do anything and how
Speaker 2: this all works and how he fits. And your kids
Speaker 2: never talked to you about that stuff, Like your.
Speaker 1: Kids aren't like, Mom, let's talk about the movie.
Speaker 2: You're just kids who are like, can I get a
Speaker 2: bigger popcorn?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, sure, I know you said that a
Speaker 1: lot of the nursery school you sent your kids to
Speaker 1: had already done a lot of the heavy lifting in
Speaker 1: terms of this sort of work. Did the movie further
Speaker 1: enhance or change your parenting at all?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: It Pixar.
Speaker 2: When you do an animated movie, you're showing the whole
Speaker 2: movie and board, so you know, employees come in and
Speaker 2: watch and give you three hundred sets of notes. Right,
Speaker 2: And we went so fast that I just puked that
Speaker 2: out of my soul one day. And now we're suddenly
Speaker 2: in a theater watching it on a giant screen with
Speaker 2: all these people, and I hear Riley say basically, you
Speaker 2: want me to be happy, but I'm not. And my
Speaker 2: whole body started to shake because I had just broken
Speaker 2: the code man, the embedded DNA code of my childhood,
Speaker 2: and in front of all these people, I literally I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm getting fired, Like my catatriphizing started.
Speaker 3: I started sweating.
Speaker 2: It really helped push me through that threshold and speak
Speaker 2: my truth. And by somehow speaking your truth in such
Speaker 2: a public way, it changed me. And by me being
Speaker 2: able to speak my truth, I think I can therefore
Speaker 2: allow my kids to speak their truth. Half the time,
Speaker 2: we can't let our kids speak their truth because we're
Speaker 2: not speaking our own. It's like all backwards, right, So
Speaker 2: I think that's mostly how it affected me.
Speaker 1: So brave, I can't imagine that. It's like, why stand
Speaker 1: up comedy is so frightening or oh yeah, like being
Speaker 1: a singer is so frightening. I mean, I bring my
Speaker 1: own self and my own personal experiences to a character,
Speaker 1: but I'm still hiding like it's not me. I can
Speaker 1: still I'm not you like writing this stuff? God, that
Speaker 1: would I get sweating just even like thinking about that.
Speaker 2: It's funny on my podcast when I'm talking to creators
Speaker 2: and again any creating anything, I think being a parent
Speaker 2: as being a creator. You know, we talk about lava.
Speaker 2: If you're really doing it, you're gonna hit some lava.
Speaker 1: It's gonna burn.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's gonna bring up that hidden stuff that you've
Speaker 2: been ignoring, or that unconscious soul stuff that the brain
Speaker 2: wants to bring it up now wants you to look
Speaker 2: at it, and it can feel like lava. I don't
Speaker 2: know about you, but I had that experience at the preschool,
Speaker 2: and I watch other parents have it, because when you're
Speaker 2: trying to help learn emotional regulation, your stuff comes up.
Speaker 1: And there's a We had another wonderful author on I
Speaker 1: think maybe season one, no maybe season two of this podcast.
Speaker 1: We had this writer named Shefali Sabari who wrote The
Speaker 1: Conscious Parent MM hmm. She's talks a lot about you
Speaker 1: get the child to who's going to teach you the most?
Speaker 1: And I yes, and I remember I have a huge
Speaker 1: people pleasing societal norm. I was thrown right out of
Speaker 1: left field with anything I thought parenting was the minute
Speaker 1: my kid, at two years old, hit the shit out
Speaker 1: of a baby on a New York City public playground
Speaker 1: and everyone's looking at me and angry at me, and
Speaker 1: it's my fault and I'm a bad And of course,
Speaker 1: who the fuck knows that they were actually thinking lava, lava, lava,
Speaker 1: and my son is not conflict averse and I am
Speaker 1: conflict averse. And it's been the greatest life lessons of
Speaker 1: my life, reteaching myself how to advocate for someone and
Speaker 1: reteach myself, Yeah, why do I care what people think? Like,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievably incredible, this journey of lava.
Speaker 2: It's incredible of lava. And here's the thing, as parents,
Speaker 2: just let's be honest. Half the time, we're like, I
Speaker 2: don't have time to deal with this lava right now.
Speaker 2: It's gonna submerge again and send off little weird signals
Speaker 2: and you're gonna do weird stuff and you don't even
Speaker 2: know why you're doing it. It's up, it's walking around
Speaker 2: your belief systems.
Speaker 3: That lava.
Speaker 2: I had a situation where I was getting on a
Speaker 2: train and we've got luggage, we got kids, and there's
Speaker 2: so many things, and this train's gonna leave, it's gonna
Speaker 2: leave the station, and we have to get seats.
Speaker 3: Why aren't there assigned seats?
Speaker 2: And this guy in front of me's going so slow, literally,
Speaker 2: and he's like asking people, can you move over? And
Speaker 2: I'm like, we have to get a seat. The train
Speaker 2: is leaving, and so I'm like, excuse me, can you
Speaker 2: let us pass? And I'm clearly pissed off. And now
Speaker 2: the guy moves and I see why he's going so slow,
Speaker 2: because he's got his wife in front of him.
Speaker 3: Who's holding up two kids. Oh, I'm Karen.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden and literally they both turn back
Speaker 2: and look at me, and the whole train's looking at me, like.
Speaker 1: Oh, how damn dare you? She's so made?
Speaker 3: And I sit down.
Speaker 2: Oh the lava's coming up now, Like I'm literally.
Speaker 1: Like, I was the bad person. I was the I
Speaker 1: What am I doing?
Speaker 3: I was such an asshole?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, why was I so nervous about the
Speaker 2: train leaving, like we're on the train.
Speaker 3: Hold on, just like take a breath.
Speaker 2: So I was like, Okay, I can just ignore this
Speaker 2: right now and like go get a cookie, or I
Speaker 2: can say.
Speaker 1: What was that about?
Speaker 2: And just sit in there. I was so much lava,
Speaker 2: and I was like, there's something about being left behind.
Speaker 2: I'm so afraid of not having a place and being
Speaker 2: left behind that all my lava comes up around it.
Speaker 2: And so I had to talk to that little man's
Speaker 2: say you're all right, You're all right. This is all
Speaker 2: happening in five minutes on a train, because I let
Speaker 2: the lava just be present for a minute, because it
Speaker 2: feels like it's going to burn you up into nothing,
Speaker 2: but it's.
Speaker 1: You sent in an Academy conversation panel for the oscars.
Speaker 1: Be there with them where they are. I think that's
Speaker 1: really an easy way to put it. It's like, whatever
Speaker 1: emotion they're at, it's just beat them where they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, be with them, be with them. You have to
Speaker 2: be present. You have to be in your own being right,
Speaker 2: your own experience of being with them, which can be hard,
Speaker 2: and to be with them, and that means you're going
Speaker 2: to have to be with yourself.
Speaker 1: Did anyone know when we signed up for this parenting
Speaker 1: shit that it was going to be like all about
Speaker 1: Oh my god, my goodness. Word. It reminds me of
Speaker 1: We had this psychologist ond named Zachary Blunkin, who's great.
Speaker 1: He has three boys, and he was convinced. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure the world would be a different place
Speaker 1: if everybody studied the rabbit listened in school. Do you
Speaker 1: know this book?
Speaker 2: I don't know this.
Speaker 1: It's a book about a little boy's building a block
Speaker 1: structure and a whole herd of pros come in and
Speaker 1: they break it all down, and a bear comes by
Speaker 1: and he's like, let's fuck him up and get even
Speaker 1: with them. And then a snake comes by and says
Speaker 1: to the little boy, let's plot revenge or you know
Speaker 1: of something, And then another animal comes by, all different
Speaker 1: emotions until a rabbit comes at the very last page
Speaker 1: and just sits, and the boy just tells the rabbit
Speaker 1: what happened, goes through a whole array of emotions, and
Speaker 1: the rabbit just listens, and then the boy moves on.
Speaker 3: You do.
Speaker 1: Can you explain, also in layman's terms, what emotional intel?
Speaker 1: Maybe I should have started with this, But whatever, You're
Speaker 1: welcome people. I'm a great interviewer. What is emotional intelligence
Speaker 1: and how is it different from social emotional learning or
Speaker 1: is that the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm no expert for sure, but my understanding of
Speaker 2: it is emotional intelligence is about you understanding your own emotions.
Speaker 2: You can identify them, what is it that I'm feeling?
Speaker 2: And then you can regulate that i e. Be with
Speaker 2: it and allow it to give its information that needs
Speaker 2: to give you so it can wash out. That alone
Speaker 2: is emotional intelligence, right. Social intelligence to me is more
Speaker 2: outside of you. Can you identify that as an emotion
Speaker 2: on another person's face and what that person is asking
Speaker 2: for or needing or it's a little bit more outside,
Speaker 2: whereas the emotional intelligence to me is about it internally.
Speaker 2: Can you regulate your emotions and know your emotions versus
Speaker 2: just put them in a trunk over there?
Speaker 1: Oh God, one big ass trunk. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: want to teach your children that you felt you missed
Speaker 1: in your own upbringing when it comes to emotions and
Speaker 1: validating them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely listen. Again, our parents did what they
Speaker 2: could given what they had the tools, and there were
Speaker 2: five kids in my family, they really approached it more
Speaker 2: like my father, who was a Navy pilot, he kind
Speaker 2: of approached it like the army, Like he literally would say,
Speaker 2: this is not a democracy. It's interesting because my father
Speaker 2: was big on the word responsibility, take responsibility, and I
Speaker 2: totally understand that, and I think consequences are something that
Speaker 2: every kid needs to learn. I'm just trying to do
Speaker 2: this with my kid right now as a teenager and
Speaker 2: will knock out of bed in the morning, and so
Speaker 2: I've called his teacher and I've said he's gonna lay
Speaker 2: for school probably for a couple of weeks, because he
Speaker 2: has to learn the consequences of kno getting out of bed, right.
Speaker 2: He just has to. But my dad was all about responsibility, responsibility,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't util I as an adult that I
Speaker 2: was like, the word response is in that I'm allowed
Speaker 2: to have a response. My father only wanted one direction,
Speaker 2: your responsibility to me again, because that's how he grew
Speaker 2: up and that's what he was taught. Of course, how
Speaker 2: you keep the craziness of five kids, which I'm sure
Speaker 2: that's the track, keep the bananas that must have been bananas.
Speaker 2: And as an adult, it's like no, but then I
Speaker 2: need to have a response, and I want my kids
Speaker 2: to be able to have a response. They're allowed to
Speaker 2: participate there, what's happening with you? What's going on with you?
Speaker 2: Of course not all the time, because life is what
Speaker 2: it is, but in general, they're allowed to participate in this.
Speaker 2: It's their life too.
Speaker 1: What can we expect for insight out two?
Speaker 3: Are you allowed to talk about this? No, of course not.
Speaker 3: We're Pixar. We're not allowed to talk about anything.
Speaker 2: Well, but Amy Pohlar, Amy Polar in the announcement, let
Speaker 2: people know there will be new emotions so that we
Speaker 2: can say.
Speaker 1: Whoa wh this is so exciting. I am so very
Speaker 1: excited and when it comes out, oh my god. We
Speaker 1: would love nothing more but for you to come back
Speaker 1: on and tell us. Now that'll be fun things you've
Speaker 1: learned and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a whole other kettle of fish, man, there's
Speaker 2: a whole there morse at.
Speaker 1: The top of that excites me and also terrifies me. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's not much you can tease there. What advice
Speaker 1: would you like to give your kids? Are they do
Speaker 1: they have any birthdays coming up? How old are they
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: My son is going to be twenty. I can't believe
Speaker 2: it in July. Please, I just I can't even process it.
Speaker 2: I'm just constantly asking him to stay with himself, because
Speaker 2: it's easy to get all worried about what everybody else
Speaker 2: is doing. In this poor generation, they can see what
Speaker 2: everybody's doing around the world. Like I never knew what
Speaker 2: anybody else was doing. I clearly God, people down the
Speaker 2: hall and my dorm were doing.
Speaker 1: Thank god. I feel so relieved about that. It was
Speaker 1: pressure enough when we didn't know. I can't imagine.
Speaker 2: I just you know, it's just like, dude, you're young,
Speaker 2: this is time to have fun and just you don't
Speaker 2: have to get a's. I don't care about that. That's
Speaker 2: not what this is about. This is about experience and
Speaker 2: making mistakes. Make the mistakes. Pixar The motto is fail
Speaker 2: fast because they as a creative being, they want you
Speaker 2: out on the edge. They want you pushing and what
Speaker 2: else when you're twenty should you be doing? You? Should
Speaker 2: be trying stuff? And do you like?
Speaker 3: It? Was that fun?
Speaker 2: And he's finding out experiment. It's just encouraging him and
Speaker 2: he's good at that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotta say as a forty year old. I
Speaker 1: regret that I didn't live more on the edge in
Speaker 1: my twenties in some way, because it does feel too late.
Speaker 1: I didn't get my nose pierced, and now I think
Speaker 1: about it, and I should have fucking done it.
Speaker 2: When I was talking, why can't you get your nose piers?
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, why can't you get your nose piers?
Speaker 1: I mean because I just am like uugh, Like, now
Speaker 1: I work as an actor and now I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to get there early, and they even cover it up.
Speaker 1: And if I scar because I have those that things.
Speaker 2: Okay, the actor thing is good, that's.
Speaker 1: A pass, but I should have done it, Like why
Speaker 1: who gives a shit?
Speaker 3: Like just a little bit more of that.
Speaker 1: I was such a goodie two shoe and I was
Speaker 1: so interested in success and working hard and being validated
Speaker 1: for my talent. And I love Pixar's thing fail fast, baby, Like,
Speaker 1: just live on that edge a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And of course I don't mean physically, like I don't
Speaker 2: want I'm drinking and driving in oh God, I'm talking
Speaker 2: about emotionally creatively, he's in a film.
Speaker 3: Score try an outcast.
Speaker 1: Try stuff, Go make something that might be a piece
Speaker 1: of shit. Who cares?
Speaker 2: It will be it's going to be that. Like, that's
Speaker 2: what we say on my podcast all the time. These
Speaker 2: people who are like I wrote a first draft and
Speaker 2: it was bad, so I must not be a writer.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, no, it's the opposite. That means you
Speaker 2: are a writer and welcome because everybody's first draft suck. Like,
Speaker 2: just experiment, have fun. There's time for this whole like
Speaker 2: obsession with being the best in success and picked out
Speaker 2: and chosen because of those social media stuff they have
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: But okay, we asked this to everybody. I'm curious what
Speaker 1: your answer is, and it can be long or short whatever.
Speaker 1: Parenthood is.
Speaker 2: Long and short. There's the days it feels like so long.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, your.
Speaker 1: Last night spend time. I was like, this is a
Speaker 1: I was like this, we are on a plane of
Speaker 1: we are in an alternate reality of Groundhog's day.
Speaker 2: Time stops. It's such a cliche. I used to hate
Speaker 2: when people said this to me when I was my
Speaker 2: kids were little. It's so short, like I can't even
Speaker 2: believe it. But you know, ultimately, parenting is a privilege.
Speaker 2: It is a privilege, but it's lava man there's going
Speaker 2: to be some lava.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else where listeners can find you and
Speaker 1: listen to you more.
Speaker 2: I have a podcast that I co host with my
Speaker 2: friend Lauren McKenna. It's called The Screenwriting Life. Don't let
Speaker 2: this title fool you. It's really about the life of
Speaker 2: any manifestor any artist of any star, And honestly, I
Speaker 2: think parents are artists are Your creation is right in
Speaker 2: front of you. So it's just about some of it.
Speaker 2: It's the craft of writing because it's a writing podcast,
Speaker 2: but a lot of it is life stuff. So if
Speaker 2: you want to hear more about lava and where that
Speaker 2: term came from, you can come over to The Screenwriting Life.
Speaker 1: I'm listening to it immediately. I'm all about the lava.
Speaker 1: I'm so honored to have met you, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much for spending time here with our listeners. And
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for Inside Out too. Thank you. What
Speaker 1: a gift Inside Out one was for everyone who's listening.
Speaker 1: If you want to do something for yourself and for
Speaker 1: your kids this weekend to give you all a common
Speaker 1: vocabulary of how we can best honor, process, and learn
Speaker 1: from our emotion with that movie? Is it?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 3: That was great.
Speaker 1: Yay. Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode.
Speaker 1: I want to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns.
Speaker 1: Let me know. You can always find me at Katiescrib
Speaker 1: at shondaland dot com. Katie's Crib is a production of
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.