Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that.
Speaker 2: Put a new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about self love lately on podcasts,
Speaker 1: on TikTok and in our own heart to heart conversations.
Speaker 1: We're all really rooting for everyone to love themselves more.
Speaker 1: But have you ever flipped the question on yourself? Do
Speaker 1: you love you? Really?
Speaker 3: Truly?
Speaker 2: Do you love yourself?
Speaker 1: The act of really deeply embracing yourself is not as
Speaker 1: easy as it may seem. Five years ago, I was
Speaker 1: on the phone with an older, wiser, married, successful friend
Speaker 1: whose opinion I trust. He was at the airport waiting
Speaker 1: for his flight at the I could hear all the
Speaker 1: noise in the background, but we hadn't spoken in a
Speaker 1: while and I wanted to catch up, so he started
Speaker 1: asking me questions, how is my work? How is life?
Speaker 1: He knew my ex boyfriend and said, are you dating?
Speaker 1: Tell me about the new men in your life, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you. I was really acutely
Speaker 1: depressed at the time, and I was on my couch
Speaker 1: and it took everything in me to muster up some optimistic,
Speaker 1: even borderline fake answers for him. He was about to
Speaker 1: ask me another question when he paused and he said, Danielle,
Speaker 1: do you love yourself? I said, of course, I feel confident.
Speaker 1: I have always felt confident. He said, no, I know
Speaker 1: you feel confident, but do you love yourself? Can you
Speaker 1: say it out loud? Try it?
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Doing that with you.
Speaker 1: That's like what you do in the bathroom in the
Speaker 1: mirror to yourself. He goes, no, try it, say it
Speaker 1: out loud, say it and mean it. I tried, but
Speaker 1: I could not get the words out, and I started crying,
Speaker 1: which shocked me.
Speaker 2: Did I not love myself?
Speaker 1: Or was I just so depressed that I couldn't muster
Speaker 1: up the energy for this exercise he was putting me through.
Speaker 1: I still to this day can't believe that I couldn't
Speaker 1: get the words out. But five years later and I
Speaker 1: can say it loudly, proudly, I love myself, and I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, authentically, truly, sincerely. Loving myself has allowed
Speaker 1: me to give so much more love to my friends,
Speaker 1: to my family, to somebody that annoys me, to everybody.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: If there was a masterclass on this topic of self
Speaker 1: love or love in general, our guests today could teach it.
Speaker 1: Cleo Wade is a poet, author, speaker, and the New
Speaker 1: York Times best selling author of Heart Talk. Cleo has
Speaker 1: a new book out, Remember Love, Words for Tender Times
Speaker 1: and Aren't We Living in Tender Times? I love Cleo's
Speaker 1: writing because she just gets to it. She says the
Speaker 1: things we are all feeling. You can open one of
Speaker 1: her books, shuffle the pages like a deck of cards,
Speaker 1: and whichever poem you land on feels like the words
Speaker 1: you needed to hear that day. And lucky for us,
Speaker 1: so much of the wisdom you can find in her
Speaker 1: books she was generous enough to share with us in
Speaker 1: this conversation.
Speaker 2: Truth's about heartbreak.
Speaker 3: I think that love is aligned within, and once it's crossed,
Speaker 3: you will just live on the other side.
Speaker 2: I think you want things more than you want the
Speaker 2: person that you're in love with. You have to always
Speaker 2: ask yourself.
Speaker 3: I think when you're going through a breakup, to keep
Speaker 3: yourself from calling or going back, what do I want
Speaker 3: more than I want this person who is not going to.
Speaker 2: Give me what I need?
Speaker 3: Loneliness when you put on your pajamas and you go
Speaker 3: to bed and your head hits the pillow and you're
Speaker 3: not falling asleep right away. You are alone with your
Speaker 3: feelings and no one else is feeling exactly what you're
Speaker 3: feeling but you. And there's such incredible loneliness to feel
Speaker 3: alone in this very tender.
Speaker 2: Tough thing.
Speaker 1: And why the next time we're struggling, she suggests we
Speaker 1: put all those emotions on the page.
Speaker 2: I mean, I always say that poetry.
Speaker 3: Was my therapy before I could afford a therapist, because
Speaker 3: I couldn't afford a therapist, but there was no way
Speaker 3: I could possibly understand what was going on within me
Speaker 3: unless I moved it outside of my body and put
Speaker 3: it on a page.
Speaker 1: Speaking of therapy, I usually feel like these episodes are
Speaker 1: a mix of interviews and therapy with our guests. But
Speaker 1: for the first time ever, the roles were reversed. I
Speaker 1: think Cleo took me to therapy. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hold up this conversation anymore, but I want to share
Speaker 1: one last thing. In twenty twenty, I got my first
Speaker 1: and only tattoo. It says on my fingers, think prayer hands.
Speaker 1: L on one pointer finger and ve on the other.
Speaker 1: And I got it for a few reasons. But one
Speaker 1: of those reasons is that it was a reminder to
Speaker 1: me to remember love, remember love when I was feeling hurt, sad, angry,
Speaker 1: anything other than loving. To remember love because it's always
Speaker 1: the answer. We never go wrong when we lead with love.
Speaker 1: And that's what today is all about. Love of others
Speaker 1: and love of self, sacred love.
Speaker 2: You are from New.
Speaker 3: Orleans am the best place ever. I'm sorry to all
Speaker 3: other places. I love it too. There is a mysticism
Speaker 3: about it. Yeah, And the first time I was there, I.
Speaker 1: Took like a walking tour. They have these things called
Speaker 1: free tours by foot in every city. But I wrote
Speaker 1: this down from my tour years ago. He said, it's
Speaker 1: a city where the dead refused to rest, and literally right,
Speaker 1: because so many of the coffins are above ground.
Speaker 3: They all are because the city is below sea level,
Speaker 3: so if we buried people, they'd all float, Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And so everyone is above ground.
Speaker 1: But there's also this like third eye feeling of the city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, I haven't friend anyone said ghosts
Speaker 3: don't swim and said that's why New Orleans is such
Speaker 3: a spooky place because everyone's kind of trapped in this
Speaker 3: little kind of space surrounded by water. Yeah, but I
Speaker 3: think also New Orleans is a really truly bohemian city
Speaker 3: in America, and it really does culturally live by its
Speaker 3: own rules.
Speaker 1: So but there's sort of when I say, I want
Speaker 1: to be clear, when I say mysticism, I mean it
Speaker 1: in a positive way. Yeah, Like I feel like there's
Speaker 1: a mysticism to your work, and I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you felt like it came from the feel of the
Speaker 1: city at all.
Speaker 3: I think definitely New Orleans is a deeply spiritual place.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a really for a small place, it
Speaker 3: is very dense.
Speaker 2: In the culture of spirit.
Speaker 3: But I think, more than anything, one of the most
Speaker 3: spiritual things on earth, which is why I think people.
Speaker 2: Die trying to have it.
Speaker 3: As freedom, I think it's a very free place, and
Speaker 3: so I think the freedom of the city is what
Speaker 3: I've always felt the.
Speaker 2: Most inspired by.
Speaker 3: And I think in that this idea of like non
Speaker 3: judgmentalism in pursuit of freedom is really the heart of
Speaker 3: my work. Can I let go of this self judgment
Speaker 3: I have so that I can be free to field
Speaker 3: so I can be free to be okay with where
Speaker 3: I am or what I'm going through or what I
Speaker 3: want for my life. And so I think if I
Speaker 3: hadn't have grown up in a place where I saw
Speaker 3: people saying, well, I want to, like, you know, dress
Speaker 3: in a wig and glitter and whatever.
Speaker 2: Four times a year, or I want to get dressed up.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you go to Marti Grass, every single
Speaker 3: person has a boa on or this or that, and
Speaker 3: it is very weird.
Speaker 2: To not cover your face and glitter and it's not
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people, I think get this
Speaker 3: from Burning Man. But imagine if that essence of that
Speaker 3: kind of really controlled thing existed in some way in
Speaker 3: a city all year round, in some capacity.
Speaker 1: That's well said. So I've always felt like writing as
Speaker 1: a form of therapy. I don't know if that resonates
Speaker 1: with you. Yeah, I know, it's your work.
Speaker 3: So I think especially poetry, because I mean, I always
Speaker 3: say that poetry was my therapy before I could afford
Speaker 3: a therapist, because I couldn't afford a therapist, but there
Speaker 3: was no way I could possibly understand what was going
Speaker 3: on within me unless I've moved it outside of my
Speaker 3: body and put it on a page. And I always
Speaker 3: say to people that, like whether you're a writer or not,
Speaker 3: or you think about writing, like move it out of
Speaker 3: your body and put it on the page. Because when
Speaker 3: your feelings or your experiences are only living inside of you,
Speaker 3: every thought you have, you're trying to bribe or rush
Speaker 3: or move or do or.
Speaker 2: Judge or whatever.
Speaker 3: Whereas when you put it on the page, you can
Speaker 3: see your story and you can say, wow, this is real.
Speaker 3: I really feel this way, but this isn't necessarily true,
Speaker 3: and wow, I can really notice that like this is
Speaker 3: the fifth time I've done this, or like why do
Speaker 3: I feel this way?
Speaker 2: Like you can really question, I think what goes on
Speaker 2: within you when you see it in front of you.
Speaker 1: I do this really weird thing to admit, but if
Speaker 1: I don't know what advice to give myself, I think
Speaker 1: about the situation on stage as a play and I say, like,
Speaker 1: what would I tell my character to do?
Speaker 2: Yes, And it's such amazing advice. Well it's the same
Speaker 2: with writing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, and like you'd also if you were an
Speaker 3: actor who is going to take on a role, you
Speaker 3: would like study the character and so that you so
Speaker 3: that as you even if you've got on that staf
Speaker 3: to be them. You felt like you embodied them by
Speaker 3: really studying them, so that if you cried, it came
Speaker 3: from a really sincere and high integrity place of why
Speaker 3: the character's crying. And so the thing is is that, yes,
Speaker 3: like directing your life is so powerful and also studying
Speaker 3: your life is so powerful.
Speaker 2: You mentioned feelings, big feelings.
Speaker 1: As a person who is so good with big feelings,
Speaker 1: how do you not get stuck in them?
Speaker 2: I do, you know? I think we all do.
Speaker 3: I think some of us just I think over time
Speaker 3: you just developed different tools in different ways to.
Speaker 2: Catch something as it's building.
Speaker 3: Because like, some big feelings come in they are just
Speaker 3: a big feeling, but most big feelings are the accumulation
Speaker 3: of a lot of unacknowledged small feelings. So it really
Speaker 3: does kind of snowball into this bigger snowball. And so
Speaker 3: I think that part of the kind of heart work
Speaker 3: you do for yourself, spiritual work, therapeutic work, community work
Speaker 3: where you have friends that help you acknowledge things in
Speaker 3: you is saying like, well, I have all these small things.
Speaker 3: I kind of catch them before they become one big thing. Right,
Speaker 3: So like instead of you know, allowing for all of
Speaker 3: my unacknowledged feelings to become a resentment, which is the biggest, hardest,
Speaker 3: a big hard feeling to deal with. I can catch
Speaker 3: the unacknowledged feelings as they're coming, or I can catch
Speaker 3: them sooner, or I can say, like, damn, I got
Speaker 3: to really like nip this in the bud before.
Speaker 2: And that's a practice.
Speaker 3: So obviously you don't get it right every time. I
Speaker 3: certainly don't, but even knowing what you need to attempt
Speaker 3: to do to just have a kind of more peaceful
Speaker 3: inside is helpful.
Speaker 1: I've never heard anybody say that, and it's really poignant.
Speaker 1: It is because I've heard resentment is an un spoken no.
Speaker 1: But it's the same thing. It's not acknowledging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a need that that went unfulfilled and unacknowledged.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you've said that you named your new book
Speaker 1: remember Love, because there are no two words that you
Speaker 1: have said to yourself more in the past three years.
Speaker 2: Tell me where remember Love was born?
Speaker 3: Okay, So I am in postpartum, my postpartum period where
Speaker 3: I was experiencing some pretty incredible depression with Memphis.
Speaker 2: I think it was with me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I had postpartum depression with both of
Speaker 3: my kids, but there was what so hard, Oh, it's
Speaker 3: so hard. I don't wish it on myself. I don't
Speaker 3: wish I would have gone through it. But I also
Speaker 3: respect that, like my body needed to do something in
Speaker 3: order for me to know something. I think.
Speaker 2: I mean, I hope, but I.
Speaker 3: Think something that's really interesting is if your body's going
Speaker 3: through a funky time. Part of how you know that
Speaker 3: is if your usual stuff that helps you isn't helping.
Speaker 3: So for me, it's like if I'm having a hard day,
Speaker 3: or I'm feeling a little low, or I'm feeling a
Speaker 3: little anxious, it's like I get in the bathtub, I
Speaker 3: listen to Tara Brock and he's this meditation teacher I've
Speaker 3: listened to for fifteen years, and so I get in
Speaker 3: and I'm kind of like, ugh, like I'm just foggy.
Speaker 3: I'm like I'm kind of listening, I'm kind of not
Speaker 3: I'm just like in that kind of you know that
Speaker 3: days of like that. I mean, I'm sure so many
Speaker 3: people feel it, especially in our world right now, it's
Speaker 3: like so hard to break the fog. And all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, she's speaking and I just hear her say
Speaker 3: remember love in a sentence. I don't even think it
Speaker 3: was the point of the sentence. I couldn't even tell
Speaker 3: you the episode, but I heard her say it, yeah,
Speaker 3: and it just shifted something in me, like it didn't
Speaker 3: cure my postpartum depression by any means, but it told
Speaker 3: me like it just it.
Speaker 1: It did.
Speaker 3: It was as if someone had grabbed my shirt and
Speaker 3: pulled me out to say, like, something's going on. And
Speaker 3: I think, I mean, obviously, I believe in the power
Speaker 3: of words. Words saved me every time I needed saving,
Speaker 3: like I read Rumy poems or Maya Angelou poems or
Speaker 3: Lngston Hughes poems or Mary Alliver poems that truly, like
Speaker 3: you know, when like Mary Oliver said joy is not
Speaker 3: meant to be a crumb, that changed my life. That
Speaker 3: changed the way I understood and sought after joy and
Speaker 3: made space for joy. And so I know that I
Speaker 3: know that power and I feel so lucky that I,
Speaker 3: you know, get to work in that power where I
Speaker 3: know that words have really helped so many people in
Speaker 3: my community through a hard time.
Speaker 2: And so when I heard those two words, they kind
Speaker 2: of became my mantra.
Speaker 3: I remember. I got a post it note and I
Speaker 3: wrote on it please remember love, and I put it
Speaker 3: on the top of a board. And I think there
Speaker 3: was something about those words that helped me find where
Speaker 3: I was not being kind to myself, which is what
Speaker 3: actually created like the stuckness of my postpart and depression.
Speaker 3: So like, I think, when you're moving slowly, you're kind
Speaker 3: of mean to yourself. So I think that that's whether
Speaker 3: you're a runner and you sprained, you know, you have
Speaker 3: a pulled muscle, and you're just like.
Speaker 2: Oh, my body, my body, I'm mad at my.
Speaker 3: Body when your body is actually just saying slow down
Speaker 3: so I can heal, and you're saying, no, this is
Speaker 3: what I want to be doing, and this is what
Speaker 3: I think you should be doing, and you're making me
Speaker 3: feel like I'm broken, and that's making me feel like
Speaker 3: my life is like ending instead of you know, beginning
Speaker 3: or plateauing. And so I think for me, when I
Speaker 3: was I didn't realize that I had so much wrapped
Speaker 3: into productivity and getting things done and being able to
Speaker 3: be that person for so many people and do and
Speaker 3: do and do and do that I was mad at myself.
Speaker 3: I had shame in not being able to do and so,
Speaker 3: and I didn't even know. I actually realized that I
Speaker 3: didn't really know how to love myself as a non doer,
Speaker 3: as just a simple as a beer and so in
Speaker 3: that when I I could when I heard the words
Speaker 3: remember love, I kept being like, okay, could can I
Speaker 3: remember love?
Speaker 2: When I talk to myself?
Speaker 3: Like what would would the way would would what I'm
Speaker 3: hearing inside be something I would say to somebody I
Speaker 3: love because I am someone I love.
Speaker 1: Too, And so it was it was it hard to
Speaker 1: say that ever to myself. Yeah, there's I have like
Speaker 1: five copies of Heart Talk like that, and I love
Speaker 1: books because I love words, and I keep I have
Speaker 1: a whole bookshelf, but I keep a few in my
Speaker 1: room and I keep Heart Talk in my room by
Speaker 1: my bed, and so much of.
Speaker 2: It is about love and heartbreak.
Speaker 1: And I was reading Remember Love and thinking this is
Speaker 1: love to But this book is about self love? Is
Speaker 1: that how you felt writing it?
Speaker 3: You know? I remember even when hart Talk came out,
Speaker 3: people were like surprised I wrote about because I think
Speaker 3: at the time it was kind of right, you know.
Speaker 3: Around the twenty sixteen twenty seventeen elections in America was
Speaker 3: having such a politically charged time, and so many of
Speaker 3: my words and writings had been.
Speaker 2: Used in the kind of political sphere, And so.
Speaker 1: Did you intend for that or did it because your
Speaker 1: words became activism in a.
Speaker 2: Lot of ways.
Speaker 3: I don't know that it was an intention, but I
Speaker 3: wasn't really surprised by it, because I certainly was inspired
Speaker 3: by the ways in which poets and writers like Alice
Speaker 3: Walker or Angela Davis or Gloria Steinem how they did
Speaker 3: create words that activated people, even if it was just
Speaker 3: through a poem or Lucille Clifton like. And so I think,
Speaker 3: for me, Tony Morrison at my Angela like, I think
Speaker 3: there were so many ways in which, like you know
Speaker 3: how and still I rise is in themic to the
Speaker 3: human experience and the political kind of or the human
Speaker 3: endurance needed to kind of survive our political systems and
Speaker 3: their injustice and inequities. And so I'm never surprised when
Speaker 3: poetry is kind of brought into the mixed, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think it's like, I think it makes total sense.
Speaker 3: And ave every you know, presidential inauguration since Kennedy, there's
Speaker 3: a poet there. Do you know, because I think poetry
Speaker 3: really does bring to life our you know, most interior wants,
Speaker 3: desires and stories and creates a space for us to
Speaker 3: imagine because it brings art to our emotional life. And
Speaker 3: I think when we can or it turns our emotional
Speaker 3: life into an art that can be shared.
Speaker 2: And so I wasn't surprised, but you know, at the
Speaker 2: time when I was.
Speaker 3: Writing hard Talk, they were like, well, should this be
Speaker 3: a like people really thought I think thought I would
Speaker 3: kind of have created a work that was more specific
Speaker 3: to words for a political time rather than words for
Speaker 3: the heart. I think they thought it would be more
Speaker 3: like words for the world. And I would always say, like,
Speaker 3: you can't think about how to be a good citizen
Speaker 3: until you've figured out how to be a person you're
Speaker 3: proud of, Like you can't figure out like how to
Speaker 3: be kind to your neighbor without self kindness, without knowing
Speaker 3: how to give yourself a pep talk, without knowing how
Speaker 3: to be your own friend.
Speaker 2: And so Heart Talk was really this book that was like,
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 3: About building yourself up, like just a building and a
Speaker 3: building and a building. And I think remember love is
Speaker 3: about like a true like investigation into the self. And
Speaker 3: so it is as if I mean, I remember when
Speaker 3: I was writing it, I was kind of going through
Speaker 3: some of my toughest moments, and I was like, gosh,
Speaker 3: if I every time, and in various ways that there
Speaker 3: was through heartbreak, whether it was through disappointment and work,
Speaker 3: whether it's through disappointment in my family, myself and relationships.
Speaker 3: Every time I felt like I was lost in the
Speaker 3: dark and I was looking for the light, and I'm
Speaker 3: searching and I'm searching and I'm searching until I realize
Speaker 3: I can only turn it on within, and that I
Speaker 3: was the light the whole damn time. How could I
Speaker 3: retrace that? And so for me remember love is like
Speaker 3: truly a trail of breadcrumbs of like getting back to
Speaker 3: your light within.
Speaker 1: There's I don't want to butcher what you said because
Speaker 1: I don't have it in my notes, but I remember
Speaker 1: listening to you on a podcast and you were talking
Speaker 1: about how you were going through a really kind of
Speaker 1: tough relationship. This guy was not being kind to you,
Speaker 1: he didn't like feel your soul, and you had a
Speaker 1: friend call you and she said something like, this has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with him. Why do you feel like
Speaker 1: this is what you Yeah, she said, I'll never forget
Speaker 1: my friend Shatah and.
Speaker 2: One of my best friends.
Speaker 3: I met her on the dance floor in New York
Speaker 3: City fifteen years ago and we're still best friends.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Shad, A liftcat.
Speaker 3: I am obsessed, obsessed with this guy most of my twenties,
Speaker 3: like shall remain nameless, but obsessed. So now he has
Speaker 3: broken up with me again when really he probably just
Speaker 3: like didn't call me back.
Speaker 1: It feels like a breakup sometimes every time, Yeah, every.
Speaker 3: Time, ghosting, like all the stuff like I mean those
Speaker 3: are real, like you know, like these things like hurt
Speaker 3: our feelings, they do. And so I say to my
Speaker 3: friend Shade, she was like, you know what, cleo.
Speaker 2: She was like, I think you need to ask yourself.
Speaker 3: What do you believe?
Speaker 2: She says? She says, do you believe that at this
Speaker 2: time in your life? I don't know how old I am,
Speaker 2: maybe twenty three?
Speaker 3: She's like, do you believe that this is like the
Speaker 3: only person you will ever be with? Do you believe
Speaker 3: that love is something that doesn't love you back? Do
Speaker 3: you believe that you should always be chasing like all
Speaker 3: the things that were going on in this relationship I
Speaker 3: put in quotes relationship. She was like everything that was
Speaker 3: a reality that she kind of like affirmed everything that
Speaker 3: was a reality.
Speaker 2: And was like do you believe this question? Do you
Speaker 2: believe this?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 3: Like this is how love functions. And I never realized
Speaker 3: that the problem was not him, it was my belief system.
Speaker 3: Like I had not yet worked on my belief system.
Speaker 3: I'd come from a place and a you know, kind
Speaker 3: of childhood and ways what I saw was men doing
Speaker 3: whatever they wanted to do and women always making it okay.
Speaker 3: And that I think in deep in my in my
Speaker 3: belief system, which is not an opinion, beliefs are deeper
Speaker 3: than your opinions, Like beliefs inform your opinions and so
Speaker 3: and beliefs and where in your beliefs.
Speaker 2: Is usually where your trauma is.
Speaker 3: It's where your unhealed things are, Like that's actually what's
Speaker 3: even below the beliefs. And so when I was having
Speaker 3: these like opinions of like him or me or right
Speaker 3: or wrong, Da da da dah, like all of that was.
Speaker 2: Powered by the beliefs I had around love.
Speaker 3: And so when I actually got home and really questioned,
Speaker 3: like what do I believe? Why do I believe that.
Speaker 3: I found a lot of you know, pain and heartbreak.
Speaker 3: I found a lot of like, you know, there's got
Speaker 3: to be something different, And I really started to think
Speaker 3: about how to heal what caused me to believe these things,
Speaker 3: And that was eventually how I let go of truly
Speaker 3: being obsessed with I mean eventually, because you have to
Speaker 3: break your own heart, Like, were you still in love
Speaker 3: with him when you ended it? I think you're in
Speaker 3: love with everyone when you end it, you know, you
Speaker 3: just I think that's why a every breakup takes at
Speaker 3: least six months to detach. But I also feel like
Speaker 3: it's I write about this, remember love. I think that
Speaker 3: love is aligned within and once it's crossed, you will
Speaker 3: just live on the other side. I think you want
Speaker 3: things more than you want the person that you're in
Speaker 3: love with. Yeah, and so whether that's the type of
Speaker 3: relationship you want, like I want a partner who wants
Speaker 3: to travel the world with me, or be in this
Speaker 3: with me, or like cohabitate with me, or have kids,
Speaker 3: or be able to have conversations like this, or be
Speaker 3: able to sit with my friends in this way. Like,
Speaker 3: you know, you want different things and so more than
Speaker 3: you want the relationship. You have to always ask yourself,
Speaker 3: I think when you're going through a breakup, to keep
Speaker 3: yourself from calling or going back, what do I want
Speaker 3: more than I want this person who is not going
Speaker 3: to give me what I need?
Speaker 2: That's a good question, what do I want more than
Speaker 2: I want this person?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I also have never heard the belief system idea
Speaker 1: you presented. So it's trauma, wounds, beliefs.
Speaker 2: Then opinions. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 3: Well that's why you can see like it's really easy
Speaker 3: to pokeholes and opinions. It's really hard to overcome beliefs. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and there's like nothing you can do with somebody else's
Speaker 3: pain and trauma, like they have to heal it themselves.
Speaker 1: So you write in this book, we don't work for
Speaker 1: those we love. We work with them a loving relationship.
Speaker 1: As a collaboration, we contribute to a shared and sacred experience.
Speaker 2: I was on a plane recently.
Speaker 1: I was coming back to LA from to San Arizona,
Speaker 1: and I am sitting next to this guy on the airplane,
Speaker 1: and because I ask a million questions, he starts telling
Speaker 1: me about his relationship. He's in love with this woman,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't feel like she's loving him sacredly, and
Speaker 1: I said, what do you mean? And he said something
Speaker 1: that was so profound. He was like, when you love
Speaker 1: somebody sacredly, the way they show up with their friends
Speaker 1: at work, at their workouts, everything changes because they feel
Speaker 1: so full and they have the capacity to give to
Speaker 1: other people. And I was kind of embarking on an
Speaker 1: egg freezing journey. And my results from the year before,
Speaker 1: like the nurse called me, and all of my tests,
Speaker 1: my scores had gone up, and I had not changed
Speaker 1: anything in my life except for had been loved sacredly.
Speaker 2: And I thought, just.
Speaker 1: For my personal experience, how wild that there was quantitative
Speaker 1: evidence of that sacred love.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Quick note, I want to clarify something because I think
Speaker 1: I was unclear when we recorded the conversation when we
Speaker 1: talk about sacred love. And I share with her that
Speaker 1: the only thing that changed was that I was loved sacredly.
Speaker 1: What I meant was that I loved myself sacredly, and
Speaker 1: I think it was for the first time ever. Okay,
Speaker 1: back to the conversation, and that's kind of what you're
Speaker 1: talking about in this commitment idea.
Speaker 3: And in that again, their safety, Yeah, you know, when
Speaker 3: their stress is the absence of feeling safe, and so
Speaker 3: that stress really really puts your body through it. And
Speaker 3: I think that like to be in a consistent, loving,
Speaker 3: nurturing environment reduces that stress and like allows your body
Speaker 3: to like naturally and freely do what it wants to
Speaker 3: do without fear.
Speaker 1: Coming from a relationship where you didn't feel safe. How
Speaker 1: has being loved sacredly changed how you show up?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's two things.
Speaker 3: One, it's very hard to have love exists in a
Speaker 3: sacred space if the sacred space is not start within.
Speaker 3: So I think that you really have to work on
Speaker 3: self worth to be able to find relationships that exist
Speaker 3: in the highest possible integrity, spirituality, sacredness, whatever.
Speaker 2: We want to call it.
Speaker 3: But I think until you realize that you deserve that
Speaker 3: or can have that, you'll never find it, and you'll
Speaker 3: actually just often find things that affirm whatever you believe
Speaker 3: about yourself.
Speaker 2: And so I think that like, if we feel.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, like I should just be happy to be
Speaker 3: with somebody, you'll be with just somebody. And I think
Speaker 3: the more you say, like, I have so much love
Speaker 3: to give, and like, I know that it's possible for
Speaker 3: me to find someone who wants to bring as much
Speaker 3: love to the table as I have to.
Speaker 2: Bring to the table.
Speaker 3: I think that you will find that that it's different
Speaker 3: or you say to yourself, like, these are things I
Speaker 3: really want and these are things I really know where
Speaker 3: possible for me, I think your life will affirm you
Speaker 3: with people like that. And so I think for me,
Speaker 3: I did a lot of that kind of work for
Speaker 3: myself first to even I think, attract someone like my
Speaker 3: current partner Simon, who we do have this very sacred
Speaker 3: loving love and bond, but more than and within that,
Speaker 3: if I was going to kind of pull at it
Speaker 3: to say, like what makes something sacred? So, for example,
Speaker 3: I think the word sacred is like for everyone viewing
Speaker 3: this could mean fifty different things. Does it just feel sparkly?
Speaker 3: Does it feel like a rainbow? Does it feel like
Speaker 3: a unicorn? Does it feel spiritual? Does it feel soulful?
Speaker 3: Is it a feeling you have in church?
Speaker 2: Is it a feeling? And do you know, like what
Speaker 2: does that mean?
Speaker 3: And I would say that it is a bond of
Speaker 3: respect and integrity where at no point in your relationship
Speaker 3: is self betrayal required. And I think that's what I
Speaker 3: would call it being a sacred space or a shelter
Speaker 3: for those you love less alone.
Speaker 2: It's on the first page of the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a theme throughout and I could
Speaker 1: be projecting, but I feel like oftentimes through our work
Speaker 1: we seek to heal ourselves in many ways. Yeah, are
Speaker 1: you somebody that you like? Do you consider yourself lonely?
Speaker 3: I feel that there's no way to be human and
Speaker 3: not feel lonely, and so I certainly go through moments
Speaker 3: and times of loneliness, if for no other reason than
Speaker 3: every single day of your life, you are the last
Speaker 3: one with your thoughts and feelings, and that is a
Speaker 3: space of a loneness.
Speaker 2: So often.
Speaker 3: The reason I, you know, the reason my hope is
Speaker 3: to get books like Remember Love into the hands of
Speaker 3: everyone I know is actually because I feel that I
Speaker 3: write for that moment.
Speaker 2: So I feel that I write for like, you know, change, right, change?
Speaker 3: The act of change is actually pretty easy, right, It's
Speaker 3: really easy to say, here's my name signed on a
Speaker 3: sheet of paper.
Speaker 2: The feelings that accompany putting.
Speaker 3: Your signature on your divorce papers and your marriage of
Speaker 3: twenty five years ending is impossible to handle. And even
Speaker 3: if you have great support, you know, you talk to
Speaker 3: your lawyer, after you talk to your therapist, after you
Speaker 3: have all your girlfriends at your house and you're having wine,
Speaker 3: and to like the end of this era when you
Speaker 3: put on your pajamas and you go to bed and
Speaker 3: your head hits the pillow and you're not falling asleep
Speaker 3: right away.
Speaker 2: You are alone with your feelings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and no one else is feeling exactly what you're
Speaker 3: feeling but you. And there's such incredible loneliness to feel
Speaker 3: alone in this like very tender, tough thing. And so
Speaker 3: for me, I think that that's why I'm always so
Speaker 3: happy that people say I keep your book by my bedside,
Speaker 3: because that's where I hope people have it is wherever
Speaker 3: they are, you know. I've never had somebody say, like,
Speaker 3: I take it to the gym with me, like do
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? It is really like, or
Speaker 3: even I take it to the beach. I think people
Speaker 3: say I live with it. It lives on my bedside table.
Speaker 3: And it's because I hope that in the morning, if
Speaker 3: you just if it's just you and your thoughts. In
Speaker 3: the evening, it's just you and your thoughts. I do
Speaker 3: try to write something where you can feel that there
Speaker 3: is a friend or someone who sees you in that moment.
Speaker 1: That's really beautiful. There's this theme of rebirth in the book.
Speaker 1: You use the words rebirth, return, reclaim, recover repeatedly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Two of my quotes that I pulled out were, we
Speaker 1: leave ourselves behind because facing ourselves means facing our feelings.
Speaker 2: It's hard to love a stranger.
Speaker 1: It's extra hard when that stranger, excuse me, change.
Speaker 2: Has turned the stranger into you. Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 2: You know your book by heart.
Speaker 3: That is like the most quoted thing to me, my
Speaker 3: whole of every one I've sat down.
Speaker 2: Really Yeah, why do you think that's resonating with people?
Speaker 2: What's it hitting? I think that.
Speaker 3: And there's a poem in the book that is probably
Speaker 3: the shortest poem in the book. It's probably ten words
Speaker 3: on a page. Yeah, and it's called It's Simple, And
Speaker 3: the text of the poem is, every time you change,
Speaker 3: get to know yourself again. I think what so many
Speaker 3: of us go through is that we shift and we change,
Speaker 3: and we become different people, and we try to give
Speaker 3: this same needs or the same type of awareness and
Speaker 3: attention to an outdated version of ourselves. And I think
Speaker 3: everyone goes through that where they're just like wait, Like
Speaker 3: it's kind of what I was talking about in postpartum,
Speaker 3: where I was like, wait, the baptub and the podcasts
Speaker 3: are not working right now because I'm a different person
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: Than I usually am. And I think women I experience that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say more so because everyone's unique,
Speaker 1: but I hear from women that they really feel that.
Speaker 3: And I think women often are given really specific emotional roles,
Speaker 3: and so shifting out of who you are means you
Speaker 3: might be shifting your whole family unit. Yeah, so much
Speaker 3: of what I write about in this book is this
Speaker 3: idea of being the glue, right, like this thing of
Speaker 3: you call yourself the glue, but as you hold it
Speaker 3: all together, who is holding you?
Speaker 2: When we are the doers.
Speaker 3: Or the glue, meaning we're utility, We're not the thing.
Speaker 3: We're the tool that holds the thing together. But we
Speaker 3: don't get to be in the thing. If you're the glue,
Speaker 3: you're you're not a person, You're not in the family,
Speaker 3: You're something that is facilitating for the family. I think
Speaker 3: in that that does tend to be women, because I
Speaker 3: think that we do tend to just kind of emotionally
Speaker 3: hold together communities. So if all of a sudden, your
Speaker 3: emotional life shifts and you feel you need different things
Speaker 3: because you feel like a different person, how do you
Speaker 3: give yourself permission to have it if everyone's counting on
Speaker 3: you to.
Speaker 2: Always stay the same so that you can continue to provide.
Speaker 2: That's really hard.
Speaker 3: And so I think even like when you think of
Speaker 3: just culturally, how much forgiveness or not even forgiveness, but
Speaker 3: okayness we give to men changing It's like you, for
Speaker 3: some reason, only men go through midlife crises, Like that's
Speaker 3: so insane, Like only men should be like, oh, of course,
Speaker 3: he just wanted a sportscard of this or that, and
Speaker 3: he just feels like a totally different person and it
Speaker 3: gets to go through a totally different phase of life.
Speaker 3: And we just call and we call women just going
Speaker 3: through menopause as if it's just this physical condition that
Speaker 3: we go through and has nothing to do with our
Speaker 3: personalities or or are like desires to like have as
Speaker 3: much out of life as possible as we kind of
Speaker 3: get to the middle part of it. It's it's a
Speaker 3: physical condition that we have. And so I think it's really,
Speaker 3: you know, there's so much that this idea that like
Speaker 3: men get to go through phase true phases of life,
Speaker 3: whether that's like you know, being a boy, he's.
Speaker 2: Just he's just a school kid.
Speaker 3: He's he's just a boy to be like time to
Speaker 3: be a man, and then like time to be a dad.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, there's so much.
Speaker 3: And I think women often whatever role you play in
Speaker 3: your family of origin, you're really asked to play it
Speaker 3: your whole life, and then you probably marry into or
Speaker 3: take part in relationships that require that same role.
Speaker 2: Do you resent it at all? Or do you embrace it?
Speaker 2: I think I'm reckoning with it.
Speaker 3: I think that we, you know, have the power to
Speaker 3: change that in our own ancestry and lineage ourselves.
Speaker 2: And so I think for me, I always think about the.
Speaker 3: Ways in which I can actively change the physical and
Speaker 3: spiritual DNA of my family. Like I always think about
Speaker 3: what can I show my daughters that's different than what
Speaker 3: I saw?
Speaker 2: How can I like even by.
Speaker 3: Being able to name and understand this idea of the glue, Like,
Speaker 3: what do I do with that once I learn it?
Speaker 3: And so I think that the journey of you know,
Speaker 3: reckoning with like how am I in these roles based
Speaker 3: on what I've attracted how many in these roles based
Speaker 3: on like what the world tells me things have to be?
Speaker 3: How you know, there's I mean, there's so many factors.
Speaker 3: But I think being in it and putting my own
Speaker 3: power and ideas in it and working on the ways
Speaker 3: in which I think I can shift and change and
Speaker 3: ask for different things really helps because then I don't
Speaker 3: feel like I'm victim to it. I feel that I have,
Speaker 3: you know, I get to claim or reclaim agency.
Speaker 1: You write in this book to live is to get lost.
Speaker 1: There's sort of like a spiritedness behind that line. I felt,
Speaker 1: h do you feel comfortable sharing a time when you
Speaker 1: felt really lost?
Speaker 3: I go through seasons of feeling lost regularly. I think
Speaker 3: that we feel lost when we moved to a new place.
Speaker 3: They certainly had that when I moved, even I moved
Speaker 3: to Los Angeles when I had Memphis, so maybe January
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty. I think I was here by November
Speaker 3: of twenty nineteen, and then I had.
Speaker 2: Her in this strange time. It was a very strange.
Speaker 3: Time, and I remember just like waking up because I
Speaker 3: didn't really have a I've never had a desire to
Speaker 3: live in Los Angeles. I think that that was also
Speaker 3: a thing, like I was kind of like, what am
Speaker 3: I doing here? But my sim and my partner as
Speaker 3: kids from a previous marriage, and I wanted everyone to
Speaker 3: be together.
Speaker 2: So we came here. I came here to.
Speaker 3: Have Memphis, and it was I felt lost for I
Speaker 3: mean a because I ended up having my postpartum period
Speaker 3: was tough, and then the pandemic end, and I was
Speaker 3: like kind of inside and kind.
Speaker 2: Of like really alone and in child rearing, you know.
Speaker 3: I don't even think my mom or dad saw my
Speaker 3: kid until she was six months old because of you know,
Speaker 3: traveling and cod all the things of like you're so
Speaker 3: we were so afraid during that time, and so I
Speaker 3: think it was definitely a period of feeling lost, like wow,
Speaker 3: am I working from here?
Speaker 2: Am I like?
Speaker 3: What what does it look like to kind of build
Speaker 3: community here?
Speaker 1: You feel lost because you became a poet in your twenties, right,
Speaker 1: did you feel a sense of lostness during that time?
Speaker 1: I can't imagine like being like, yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be a poet and I'm also going to feed myself.
Speaker 2: It's a really hard being.
Speaker 3: Deciding to write was actually like a period of foundness,
Speaker 3: but I'd say the entirety of my team and very
Speaker 3: very early twenties, like until twenty two, I felt like
Speaker 3: just completely lost. I felt like someone who was just surviving,
Speaker 3: Like I just got jobs and made money, and like,
Speaker 3: you know, because I didn't.
Speaker 2: I moved to New York at seventeen. I didn't have
Speaker 2: a safety net.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I'm not an.
Speaker 3: Educated person, you know, I think, so for me, you
Speaker 3: are was well, I guess traditionally educated, but yes, and
Speaker 3: so I think for me it was very like I've
Speaker 3: just got to work and I've got to you know,
Speaker 3: get through and I'll figure out my life.
Speaker 2: But I knew that I wanted to be in New York.
Speaker 3: And and I'd always kind of like spiritually been drawn
Speaker 3: to that as a place, and it was the only
Speaker 3: place I could ever imagine living that wasn't New Orleans,
Speaker 3: because New Orleans is just so special?
Speaker 2: Was it what you wanted it to be?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: I love New York and that's it every day?
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, I mean I love New York. I
Speaker 3: think there's nothing you know, I think the literary city
Speaker 3: it's really just for some people or it's not. But
Speaker 3: I truly do feel that I am like the you know,
Speaker 3: like the almost toxic lover of New York, like a
Speaker 3: like a friendly Buetz or something where it's just like
Speaker 3: this is not healthy, but like we're going with it.
Speaker 1: Frand what do you feel like has been the penultimate
Speaker 1: moment of your career so far?
Speaker 2: And it's open ended purposely.
Speaker 3: Gosh, you know, I wrote this thing and remembering Love
Speaker 3: that said when the it said, when the material is
Speaker 3: at the center of my goals, when I cross the
Speaker 3: finish line, even if I'm holding the first place trophy,
Speaker 3: there's some loneliness there when the relational is at the
Speaker 3: center of my goals. When I cross the finish line,
Speaker 3: whether I'm I win or I lose, I'm what's held.
Speaker 3: And I think for me, my friendship and being able
Speaker 3: to sustain them through so much change in my work
Speaker 3: and all the things I do that you know, aspecially
Speaker 3: as I sat down to write this book and sitting
Speaker 3: down to remember Love, I was you know, it was
Speaker 3: around ten years since I started writing hart Talk, because
Speaker 3: it took time to kind of write it and piece
Speaker 3: it together, and I.
Speaker 2: Was just so.
Speaker 3: Like it was such a kind of I guess i'd
Speaker 3: call it a career highlight because I felt so present
Speaker 3: and so purposeful and so like, Wow, I still get
Speaker 3: to sit in my living room with all these women
Speaker 3: that I love and eat take out and then turn
Speaker 3: the greatest things I learned from the people I love
Speaker 3: into books that help people.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, you did a Ted talk titled want
Speaker 1: to Change the World Start by being brave enough to care?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just care so much? Oh my god, I
Speaker 2: really too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think it's like, what else are we
Speaker 3: doing with our lives if we're not caring and caring
Speaker 3: for the people that we know, love, or like. And
Speaker 3: I guess to me too, I really do believe in thoughtfulness,
Speaker 3: and I also believe that people. I don't think we're
Speaker 3: an accident. I don't think we meet people by accident.
Speaker 3: I don't think that we're in the world at this
Speaker 3: time with the people where that we're around by accident.
Speaker 2: And I don't think that even when we're in the midst.
Speaker 3: Of calamity and tragedy and it's happening like if you
Speaker 3: even if it's happening while you're on this planet, then
Speaker 3: like you, that to me means somehow you're a part
Speaker 3: of the solution or somehow you're a part of.
Speaker 2: Helping even just one person.
Speaker 3: And so I think that I think, because I just
Speaker 3: don't believe we're a mistake.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like I'll make it a statement instead
Speaker 1: of a question. I feel like your work has allowed
Speaker 1: people to embrace the idea that it's cool to care,
Speaker 1: because I think we hear the phrase all the time
Speaker 1: like degas don't give a fuck, yeah, and whoever gives
Speaker 1: the least amount of fucks when yeah, And as somebody
Speaker 1: who has always given all of the fucks all the time, I.
Speaker 2: Just feel like you made it cool to care, you know.
Speaker 3: I think that there's just power, and I think there's
Speaker 3: actually power and I don't give it back. And I
Speaker 3: remember writing in Hard Time, there's a page that says, like,
Speaker 3: remember not to care about the things you don't even
Speaker 3: care about. So I think that there are things that
Speaker 3: are truly like unimportant, like somebody else's drama or somebody
Speaker 3: like you know that is truly inconsequential to all, like
Speaker 3: all the time, like my mom is like such a
Speaker 3: gossip and she's just like scoot in the kitchen. I
Speaker 3: don't know why they all scoot just scoot in the
Speaker 3: kitchen and be like, so you know, like I gotta
Speaker 3: pauseure there, I can't give this real estate.
Speaker 1: Like I love that you didn't grow up when you
Speaker 1: said it, Like, but I like that I can't give
Speaker 1: this real estate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I was like, don't do not, do not,
Speaker 3: do not. I was like, I don't even want to
Speaker 3: like bring it in because it is truly like not
Speaker 3: a single person involved is going to care about it tomorrow,
Speaker 3: Like do you know what I mean? It's not her
Speaker 3: like truly care about it, so like if it's important, yes,
Speaker 3: but if it is truly like well she said she
Speaker 3: thought her hair was weird, and you're like, none of
Speaker 3: that's not going to bother anybody. In like twenty minutes,
Speaker 3: you just are like it's making you feel spicy.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna tell you my favorite line from the book.
Speaker 1: It was I know that's hard to do.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious to know if it's been other people's.
Speaker 1: So you're right, I'm sorry is the blessing of all blessings.
Speaker 1: WHOA I never thought of I'm sorry as a blessing.
Speaker 1: It's a blessing to you and to the person you're sharing.
Speaker 2: It with well, i'm sorry. This is shorthand for I
Speaker 2: feel ashamed.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's ashamed, because I think, actually, if
Speaker 3: we can pull shame out of i'm sorry, okay, we
Speaker 3: can more freely gift i'm sorry as like an offering
Speaker 3: to both of us. And I think what ends up
Speaker 3: happening is that because we rap shame in it, people
Speaker 3: don't want to acknowledge it, and therefore they can't acknowledge
Speaker 3: what happened, okay. And so I think that when we
Speaker 3: say i'm sorry, it's really shorthand for I see you,
Speaker 3: and I understand that there was harm caused, like I
Speaker 3: understand that something just happened, okay. And I think that
Speaker 3: when you can just even start with acknowledgment, because there
Speaker 3: is nothing you can heal without first seeing it, like
Speaker 3: you cannot heal a wound if you cannot identify where
Speaker 3: the wound is. And so I think for me, i'm sorry,
Speaker 3: it is something you say, not for you, not for me,
Speaker 3: but for us. It is something that is like truly
Speaker 3: two words that are for the building of our bond
Speaker 3: in our community.
Speaker 2: I really like that it's for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it is like it is, And I think
Speaker 3: that that's why sometimes you have to have humility to
Speaker 3: say it, because you're kind of like, well, here's the
Speaker 3: twenty reasons why I ended up doing what I did
Speaker 3: and da da da da da. And it's really like,
Speaker 3: there's so many things that stand between us and I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: and they're in there in all those things are valid
Speaker 3: ways to feel. Every way you feel is real, like
Speaker 3: that is true, but like what do you want to
Speaker 3: do with what you feel? And what do you want
Speaker 3: more than like a feeling you've had, Like do you
Speaker 3: want to actually come inside from the cold and be
Speaker 3: with your family?
Speaker 2: And is I'm sorry the only thing that's.
Speaker 3: Standing between you and like the warmth of the people
Speaker 3: you love.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me too, because sometimes I'm sorry feels
Speaker 1: hard to say because you don't feel like you did
Speaker 1: anything wrong even though you see someone else's pain. So
Speaker 1: the idea of making it for us, I think makes
Speaker 1: it easier to.
Speaker 3: Say and understanding, Like what does it mean? Like is
Speaker 3: it like I see you and I see that you're hurting,
Speaker 3: like I'm sorry. I see that I see that there
Speaker 3: is hurt like it is it is shorthand for I
Speaker 3: see what you're I see that this is hurting you.
Speaker 2: And I think that, like.
Speaker 3: In any situation, there's always accountability to be had in
Speaker 3: some way.
Speaker 2: There just is a very personal question.
Speaker 1: Tell me what has been the hardest apology you've had
Speaker 1: to share.
Speaker 3: My hardest apology I think I've had to one of
Speaker 3: my hardest apologies is probably one to myself. I think
Speaker 3: self forgiveness is one of the hardest things ever. And
Speaker 3: it's like we rarely say I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We
Speaker 3: rarely see those words to ourselves, like we even think
Speaker 3: about the concept of self forgiveness, but we it's a
Speaker 3: kind of this abstract thing.
Speaker 2: Of like I should just feel better about this thing.
Speaker 3: But like, have you ever just kind of like put
Speaker 3: your hand on your heart and been like I'm really sorry,
Speaker 3: Like I'm sorry that like I didn't make you safe
Speaker 3: in this place, or I didn't you know, I felt
Speaker 3: that you deserve this, or like or that you know,
Speaker 3: I'm really sorry that you didn't like we couldn't have
Speaker 3: done better in this way or whatever the self talk. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And so I think I think that, and then I think,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm sorry. It is also just is truly
Speaker 3: a practice that's so helpful, Like even if you. I think,
Speaker 3: especially in relationships you feel like you know, I still
Speaker 3: like I'll say I'm sorry to my mom or Simon
Speaker 3: or my partner just in like in ways where like
Speaker 3: most people would not maybe say it because they're like, well,
Speaker 3: we're like related, we're together, like you know what I meant.
Speaker 3: But it's amazing actually to bring those words into like
Speaker 3: the people you're with the most that you think just
Speaker 3: like should know or know you love them, so it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. Like whenever I have like maybe like gotten
Speaker 3: a little too harsh with my mom about something or
Speaker 3: been like you know, frustrated with her, when I come
Speaker 3: back around and say like, I'm sorry for like you know,
Speaker 3: expressing my frustration so harshly. Yeah, I do think that
Speaker 3: it builds our bond instead of like and I think
Speaker 3: that the lack of apology does, even if it's one
Speaker 3: tiny crumb, kind of crumbles it.
Speaker 2: And I think it's the same with Simon.
Speaker 3: I think that I don't think there's ever been a
Speaker 3: time where Simon wasn't like grateful that I apologize or something. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I think bringing it into like not in a
Speaker 3: casual way, but like just not making it the biggest
Speaker 3: deal ever to have to apologize is also just really
Speaker 3: helpful and healthy.
Speaker 2: You're right. The lack of recognition like builds resentment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and then and then like it also builds
Speaker 3: such a distance between you and this blessing that you're like,
Speaker 3: it's like it's like that friend you can't call because
Speaker 3: like more and more and more stuff happens that you're like,
Speaker 3: I can't get on the phone with you because I
Speaker 3: can't be on the phone for two hours like to
Speaker 3: tell you about everything. So you just sort avoiding your
Speaker 3: friend because you like know that you are that favorite
Speaker 3: aunt you have because you know you don't have the
Speaker 3: time to tell them everything when you're like you should
Speaker 3: just call them, like and just start and.
Speaker 2: If you have to go, you have to go. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I think that we really start to avoid I'm sorry, we.
Speaker 2: Avoid apology that like less we do it.
Speaker 1: There's been a movement for that because women have been apologizing.
Speaker 3: Yeah and yeah, but there's apologizing for something that's important,
Speaker 3: and then there's apologizing for existing. Yeah, like oh sorry,
Speaker 3: Like we say sorry instead of excuse me, we say sorry.
Speaker 3: Like if you're putting your I guarantee you if you're
Speaker 3: putting your suitcase up above, and it's like someone's right there,
Speaker 3: You're like sorry, instead of being like excuse me, like
Speaker 3: for doing the thing. Of course I have to do that,
Speaker 3: like everyone is doing.
Speaker 1: But I think because we've tried so hard to eliminate
Speaker 1: that word, there's sort of this backlash of like we've missed.
Speaker 2: See, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: You say when you are actually I'm gonna you say,
Speaker 1: big beginnings and big endings change us. I would kind
Speaker 1: of argue that one runs into the other. What do
Speaker 1: you think, like, give me an example.
Speaker 2: I think, well, it doesn't. It's not in verse.
Speaker 1: I think big endings bring new beginnings always.
Speaker 2: New beginnings don't necessarily bring new.
Speaker 3: Endings, you know, I think it. I definitely see what
Speaker 3: you're saying. And I think, to me, it's like not
Speaker 3: so much about like linking them, but like.
Speaker 2: Honoring each individual experience.
Speaker 3: So like the idea that like you can have like
Speaker 3: a big beginning might be like you met somebody and
Speaker 3: you have this extremely serious relationship and it actually makes
Speaker 3: all of the other relationships in your ecosystem change and
Speaker 3: some shed and like some friendship dynamics change and some
Speaker 3: family dynamics changed. Because as you would say, a sacred
Speaker 3: love really changes your existence. Right, So I'd say that's
Speaker 3: a big beginning that really changes us. Big endings change us.
Speaker 3: You know, my best friend's father passed away two weeks ago,
Speaker 3: and she will just never be the same person again.
Speaker 2: She is forever changed.
Speaker 3: And so I think big, you know, I think I
Speaker 3: will always be different because of the big ending of
Speaker 3: my you know, thirteen years in New York. I think
Speaker 3: that was a big ending and it really changed a
Speaker 3: lot for me as as well as like and it
Speaker 3: did bump into a new beginning and a big beginning
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles. But they don't always have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think always and never are not great words. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I probably shouldn't have said that. There's a term
Speaker 1: you use called spiritual investigation. I'd never heard of that.
Speaker 1: Can you share a lesson you learned by being curious
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 3: Well, I think, Okay, you have a feeling, right, and
Speaker 3: a feeling makes you like say something and you don't
Speaker 3: mean what you said, Like spiritual investigation would say, like
Speaker 3: why did I feel this strongly about this thing?
Speaker 2: Like why did I like? Where did that come from?
Speaker 3: So again, like spiritual investigation could bring us back to opinions, beliefs, trauma, pain,
Speaker 3: So like the investigation is how what you would stay
Speaker 3: instead of just being like money is the opinion? Like
Speaker 3: of course, it's just what I think, my opinion, And
Speaker 3: you're like, well, like how do we get here?
Speaker 2: Like I always wonder how we got here?
Speaker 3: And I think that that's a big part of like
Speaker 3: understanding even our political spheres of like when someone is
Speaker 3: you know, there's so many topics that are so socially
Speaker 3: charged when someone talks to you about them, and every
Speaker 3: single time, if you spiritually investigated the pain point from
Speaker 3: which everything stems, you'd understand why someone feels or votes
Speaker 3: or is the way they are.
Speaker 1: You are writing Valentine's to yourself nowadays?
Speaker 2: What does that mean? Why?
Speaker 3: So I write in the book about this time where recently,
Speaker 3: Like as I was writing the book, my mom brought
Speaker 3: me a Valentine i'd written to her. It was like
Speaker 3: a school project in second grade and it was writing
Speaker 3: a Valentine to your parents.
Speaker 2: And I'd written this.
Speaker 3: Valentine to my mom and it had said, like I
Speaker 3: show my love for you by that was the prompt.
Speaker 3: So there were three and it was I don't remember
Speaker 3: all three offhand, although is in the book, but it's
Speaker 3: I show my love for you by not talking when
Speaker 3: you're on the phone. I show my love for you
Speaker 3: by like doing all the dishes, getting the dishes done.
Speaker 3: I show my love for you by There was another,
Speaker 3: there was another one I can't remember, but every single
Speaker 3: one of them was like something I did to accommodate
Speaker 3: her need. And it you know, while I so respect
Speaker 3: and let love my mom and all that she did
Speaker 3: as a single parent raising us, I'd wondered, at what
Speaker 3: point in my personal life did this like kind of
Speaker 3: desire to accommodate kind of turn into making myself.
Speaker 2: Invisible in relationships because.
Speaker 3: You'd have the like, you know, oh my God, like
Speaker 3: my mom is like so loved because I, like just
Speaker 3: you know, made sure I was doing the thing that
Speaker 3: she needed in the moment. So if that starts as
Speaker 3: your pattern, then you end up being in relationships with
Speaker 3: people where the entire basis of your connection is like
Speaker 3: ways in which you accommodate.
Speaker 2: Their need needs.
Speaker 3: And if you're solely accommodating the needs of the others,
Speaker 3: you're there's no way that there's equity in how yours
Speaker 3: are fulfilled.
Speaker 1: Do you catch yourself now. Still even with all the
Speaker 1: self work fighting that.
Speaker 3: It's all practice, like the idea that we do the
Speaker 3: work to like kind of win or lose something. I
Speaker 3: say that about self care. It's like we look at
Speaker 3: self care as a battle. We either win or we
Speaker 3: lose based on the work that goes in. But we
Speaker 3: say work, we might when we should maybe even say practice.
Speaker 3: It's like anything else. The practice of anything is never done.
Speaker 3: People practice playing chess their whole lives. They practice, you know,
Speaker 3: even if you're Serena Williams. You practice. It's not like, oh,
Speaker 3: you made the Grand Slam that time and so you know,
Speaker 3: or like you just go play tennis again one day
Speaker 3: you just got it.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of soul contracts that you bring up.
Speaker 2: Can you share what they are?
Speaker 3: So I'm in San Francis, I'm not actually no, I'm
Speaker 3: in New York. But I'm talking to this woman in
Speaker 3: San Francisco who recently passed. Actually she was this amazing astrologer.
Speaker 3: She introduces the concept of a soul contract to me,
Speaker 3: and I was like, what does that mean? And she
Speaker 3: said that a sole contract is when you understand that
Speaker 3: like every relationship has like terms and a time limit,
Speaker 3: and because we change so much, like sometimes we renew
Speaker 3: it with new terms because like that's our change self,
Speaker 3: or we kind of rip it up.
Speaker 2: And so there's this.
Speaker 3: Idea that we like, you know, you could have a
Speaker 3: soul contract with your parents, for example, and then in
Speaker 3: adulthood you likely need to like renew the different renew
Speaker 3: it with different terms because like you can't be their
Speaker 3: small little daughter anymore, because that's not like the reality
Speaker 3: the situation, and that that contract is outdated.
Speaker 1: I love this idea because I think if we were
Speaker 1: to do this with friendships, in relationships marriages, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we both like came to the table with expectations, agreements, terms,
Speaker 1: we would be in such a I think we'd find
Speaker 1: more fulfillment and less frustration our relationship.
Speaker 3: What I'd also say is if our even in marriage vows,
Speaker 3: It's like, it's interesting to think about people who renew vows,
Speaker 3: Like I wonder what it would look like for them
Speaker 3: to like, you know, redesign vows every five years or
Speaker 3: something like even as a practice, but where it acknowledges
Speaker 3: where you are now and what you need now and
Speaker 3: what you vow to do to help with the other person.
Speaker 3: And so soul contracts aren't necessarily like something you actually
Speaker 3: write up, although I'm sure you could, but they are
Speaker 3: something that to me really helped me understand a how
Speaker 3: to let go of some people that like where you're
Speaker 3: like in that kind of old like saying a season
Speaker 3: or reason, a lifetime whatever, where you're like, you know,
Speaker 3: like our contract's just up and of being very close
Speaker 3: friends and now we're just our new contract is that
Speaker 3: we're people who used to be really good friends and
Speaker 3: love each other and we see each other and like
Speaker 3: that's the integrity of the situation or the relationship. And
Speaker 3: you know, you were you were the guy was obsessed
Speaker 3: with in my twenties and like you're not the like
Speaker 3: our contract does not have you being like the father
Speaker 3: of my children.
Speaker 2: Can I do a little rapid fire? Okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 3: A word?
Speaker 2: You just love A word? I love, you know. I
Speaker 2: love the word beloved.
Speaker 3: I love the word it's my it's my daughter's middle
Speaker 3: my second daughter by U's middle name. I use it
Speaker 3: in so many different poems. It's just there's something like
Speaker 3: even if I someone writes me a note and it
Speaker 3: ends with beloved, or like the question does or like
Speaker 3: it's something. It's a word I feel like I can
Speaker 3: laugh at, and when it's used in a certain text,
Speaker 3: it's a word I use. I think it's just like
Speaker 3: so sweet and tender, and I've used it in so
Speaker 3: many of my writings.
Speaker 1: I saw a psychic for the first time a few
Speaker 1: years ago, and she calls everybody beloved.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's very southern to do that too. We have
Speaker 3: everybody like baby and beloved. It's nice, it's warm.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: If you were to tell me to travel to one
Speaker 1: place you've been that I must see.
Speaker 3: That you must see, I mean, I guess I would say,
Speaker 3: but you've already been. I would say New Orleans. I
Speaker 3: think that New Orleans is a place every person should go. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it truly is amazing.
Speaker 2: A simple pleasure you've been introduced to lately, m a
Speaker 2: simple pleasure.
Speaker 3: My simple pleasure lately is actually that is watching like
Speaker 3: Disney movies with my kids, like rewatching because now they're
Speaker 3: both at the age.
Speaker 2: Like I never was the like I'm not a TV parent.
Speaker 3: I was always like I don't care, Like there's nothing
Speaker 3: better in life than being in bed and watching a movie,
Speaker 3: and like, why would I like rob My children of
Speaker 3: that at too, and so we've always been in bed.
Speaker 3: Like my like three and a half year old does
Speaker 3: this like insane attention span because of it, and she
Speaker 3: can literally watch like alliga of their own.
Speaker 2: It is crazy. Do they eat in bed too? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: Well just well like we just that's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: And so my simple pleasure recently is I usually go
Speaker 3: like old school, so I just have my own nostalgia
Speaker 3: around the Disney movies I watch. Yeah, but I watched
Speaker 3: Tangled recently. Yeah, and Mandy Moore is the voice of Tangled,
Speaker 3: and she's like such a nostalgic thing for me that
Speaker 3: I was like, Wow, this movie is amazing and all
Speaker 3: the songs are so good and so like my daughters
Speaker 3: and I have been watching Tangled.
Speaker 2: Like every other day, and I'm like, this is beyond.
Speaker 2: I'm obsessed. I was like, I gonna ask you if
Speaker 2: they like it as much as you do.
Speaker 3: Buy you definitely does Memphis Like thanks were insane. She's like,
Speaker 3: can we please try She's like, mom, we have to
Speaker 3: try something, you know.
Speaker 2: I was like, your sister wants to watch Tangled, and
Speaker 2: she's like.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for them to watch Big Daddy. I feel
Speaker 1: like every kid that's like.
Speaker 2: A god they have to watch Yes. Okay, the most
Speaker 2: consequential no in your life, you know.
Speaker 3: I think the day I said no to being a
Speaker 3: yes person and like an accommodator in that way was
Speaker 3: like the most life changing, not like the day I
Speaker 3: like said no to only being a yes person and
Speaker 3: then just figuring it out. I think really changed everything
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, a book that you've read, something that you feel
Speaker 1: like everybody should read.
Speaker 3: All about Love by Bell Hooks for sure, at least.
Speaker 3: I mean I could give you a million book recommendations, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a booky podcast, so feel free.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, I would say all about Love. I
Speaker 3: would say Beloved by Tony Morrison. Although it's sad. I
Speaker 3: mean all of her books are so sad, you're just like,
Speaker 3: damn it, Tony, but they're so beautifully written. The fire
Speaker 3: next time, I'd say, if you're going through a breakup,
Speaker 3: the Mastery of Love is like one of the best
Speaker 3: books you could ever read.
Speaker 2: If you're going through a breakup. Oh, that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: My friend Jenna has this amazing book she just released
Speaker 3: on human design called My Human Design. I think that's
Speaker 3: excellent for most women. I think a really important book
Speaker 3: to read is my friend Taz just released a.
Speaker 2: Book called The Hormone Shift. She's amazing. You should talk
Speaker 2: to her, She's so great.
Speaker 3: And the color purple absolutely, any book by Mary Oliver,
Speaker 3: any book by My Angelou, especially Letters to My Daughter
Speaker 3: is so incredible.
Speaker 2: What's the best thing You've ever quit? Whiskey?
Speaker 3: Although I'll still have one sometimes, but I don't really
Speaker 3: drink hard alcohol anymore, but I still have wine.
Speaker 2: How many do I do?
Speaker 3: Do what I felt you do?
Speaker 2: Another? Most likely to splurge on clothing. You have a
Speaker 2: great closet, I really do.
Speaker 3: I also have a great shout out to Shiona Tarini
Speaker 3: because she has like unfortunately changed my esthetic and it's
Speaker 3: made me broke. She just like she's my stylist and
Speaker 3: she literally is just like, oh.
Speaker 2: What is change?
Speaker 1: Because I've always found it to be bohemian but simple
Speaker 1: and sophistication. Know.
Speaker 3: She just like showed me the nicer things of life
Speaker 3: and now I'm like, oh I get it, Like that's
Speaker 3: why that sweater is so much more expensive than this?
Speaker 2: That are so nice to introduce you to the row.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a prob.
Speaker 2: It really is it really is?
Speaker 3: And then you're just like it really is one thing
Speaker 3: you are trying to or need to let go of.
Speaker 3: I am always trying to let go of making other
Speaker 3: people feel okay with my decisions to do one more?
Speaker 2: There's one on the bottom. Oh should I do that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I'm wondering what you what would your younger you
Speaker 3: not believe about your life today? I think my younger
Speaker 3: me would not believe that there is so much kind
Speaker 3: of like peace and care within our entire family unit,
Speaker 3: not without its dysfunction, but like we have really like
Speaker 3: kind of you know, not kind of healed every fracture,
Speaker 3: healed every wound, but there is this kind of genuine
Speaker 3: kind of flow of love and care with all members
Speaker 3: of our family, which my parents, like, I just don't
Speaker 3: think were built to bridge that gap in my life
Speaker 3: as a child and or needed more time. And I
Speaker 3: think as a kid, you just thought that it would
Speaker 3: always just be like an overhere and and over there,
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 2: You were just like having to figure out yourself over here.
Speaker 3: And now like the decisions kind of do flow and
Speaker 3: have a flow between all?
Speaker 1: Well, would you say you it's like the biggest catalyst
Speaker 1: to that what did you change within the dynamic?
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's really about forgiveness, real forgiveness.
Speaker 3: I think it's really about not caring about the things
Speaker 3: you don't even care about. And it is like, I
Speaker 3: think that thing for giveness of like, it's not for you,
Speaker 3: it's not for me, it's for us, because I do
Speaker 3: think that in forgiveness or apology or even even especially
Speaker 3: even in forgiveness, and like, even if somebody couldn't bring
Speaker 3: you the apology, you're like, I actually want forgiveness for us,
Speaker 3: Like even if I still like, because I think if
Speaker 3: you don't feel the other person deserves your forgiveness, you'll never.
Speaker 2: Really be able to give it to them.
Speaker 3: And you can still not feel that they deserve it
Speaker 3: from you or want to give it to them, but
Speaker 3: you probably feel that like the to the entire the
Speaker 3: us of it all deserves it.
Speaker 1: That psychic her name's chris Is Schumacher, And I was
Speaker 1: asking her about forgiveness because I think it's it's something
Speaker 1: I least like about myself.
Speaker 2: I find it hard to forgive.
Speaker 1: And she was telling me about the difference between forgiveness
Speaker 1: and mercy, and I thought that was sort of an
Speaker 1: interesting distinction if you can't quite get to forgiveness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well, and I think you know, forgiveness is
Speaker 3: especially hard for people who take the ways in which
Speaker 3: they treat others so seriously, like you know, so it's
Speaker 3: just like you're just it's like you're the offensives or
Speaker 3: offenses are so deeply offensive because you're just like.
Speaker 2: I would never, I would never, I would never.
Speaker 3: And I I find that if I'm saying that about something,
Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, okay, I'll never be able to forgive
Speaker 3: if like I'm only in the ego of.
Speaker 2: What I would or wouldn't do.
Speaker 1: Just oh my god, I hate to say it, Cleo,
Speaker 1: thank you for that.
Speaker 3: And so it's like if you can get if I
Speaker 3: can get out of there, that space like where there's
Speaker 3: absence of ego and only presence of like spirit i'd say,
Speaker 3: or soul.
Speaker 2: Mercy lives there, Forgiveness lives there.
Speaker 3: But that's the hardest place because you're like, you know,
Speaker 3: that's it's so hard to exit our judgments.
Speaker 2: It's so hard.
Speaker 1: My last question is what is the smartest decision you've
Speaker 1: ever made.
Speaker 3: The smartest decision I ever made was probably, you know,
Speaker 3: really taking that big chance and that big risk to
Speaker 3: move to New York as such a young person, and
Speaker 3: it probably seemed really dumb at the time to so many,
Speaker 3: but I just don't think that, Like all of the
Speaker 3: things that I'm so grateful to have today, I really
Speaker 3: feel that that was like the first step on the
Speaker 3: new journey that, like, you know, I could say, I
Speaker 3: could have easily said like having my daughters, you know,
Speaker 3: saying yes to my first date with Simon, you know,
Speaker 3: signing a book, you know, like a book deal to
Speaker 3: make heart talk, But I think none of that would
Speaker 3: have been possible without saying yes to a giant risk.
Speaker 2: Like that was the smartest thing I ever did, was say.
Speaker 3: Was really get used to risk taking at an early age,
Speaker 3: Like and I didn't know that at the time, but
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, so much of risk taking has
Speaker 3: to do with just being having a habit and having
Speaker 3: a practice of doing it, and doing it at seventeen
Speaker 3: just like completely changed the possibilities for my life.
Speaker 2: Thank you for this therapy session. Oh my god, thank
Speaker 2: you so much. This is so fun. Okay, you know
Speaker 2: what time it is.
Speaker 1: Today's a good day, to have a good day.
Speaker 2: I'll see you next week.