Speaker 1: In the beginning, it didn't seem like a big deal
Speaker 1: to kind of keep some things to myself. But gradually
Speaker 1: when you start justifying keeping something to yourself, especially when
Speaker 1: you're truly curious and you don't understand or that are
Speaker 1: quite obvious contradictions. We say we want progress, but it's
Speaker 1: interesting that we're using extremely intolerant tactics, including not asking
Speaker 1: any questions, right, having a list of people that are
Speaker 1: so called problematic that you can't listen to. So I'm
Speaker 1: not allowed to listen to Jordan Peterson, not allowed to
Speaker 1: listen to Joe Rogan, not allowed to listen to anyone
Speaker 1: that is on the right, you know. And I didn't
Speaker 1: question any of these things, which is what also started
Speaker 1: to ring alarms for me in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I'm safe though. You can listen to Scott beryc Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Today we have Africa Brook on the show. Africa is
Speaker 2: a London based consultant, credentialed coach, strategist and international speaker
Speaker 2: who tackles self sabotage and self censorship. Her first book,
Speaker 2: which was recently released, it's called The Third Perspective, Brave
Speaker 2: Expression in the Age of Intolerance. In this provocative discussion.
Speaker 2: We discussed the importance of diversity of thought and how
Speaker 2: to increase your own brave expression. I found this chat
Speaker 2: very inspiring and I really enjoyed Africa's positive energy. So
Speaker 2: let's get into it. We have the good Africa, brook
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 2: live in studio in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: Thank you. You have just the most magnetic energy. And
Speaker 3: I mean that hat. Can I honor you for this
Speaker 3: just because.
Speaker 2: The hat I'm wearing that I have what I have
Speaker 2: that energy without the hat.
Speaker 1: You have it without it, but even more so with it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here. And some ground rules.
Speaker 2: If any point you need a chill pill, just ask
Speaker 2: me and I will give you my chill pill. Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a safe space. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome.
Speaker 3: Oh I love that so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks. Yes, so gratulations on your new book. Is it
Speaker 2: your first book?
Speaker 1: It's the first, your new and first book, new and first.
Speaker 1: And I never ever thought I've always been a writer
Speaker 1: since I was ten years old, but I never thought
Speaker 1: the book that I would write would be this one,
Speaker 1: which is why I think it's probably one of the
Speaker 1: most important and bravest things I've ever done.
Speaker 2: So, like, let's say five years ago, if this version
Speaker 2: of you said to that African book, you're going to
Speaker 2: write a book called the Third Perspective, Brave Expression in
Speaker 2: the Age of Intolerance, what would that book of what
Speaker 2: that African book said, or even ten years.
Speaker 3: I would have.
Speaker 1: I think intellectually I could have seen that it might
Speaker 1: be possible for me to write a book about courageous expression,
Speaker 1: about bravery, because five years ago I was already starting
Speaker 1: to put myself out in the public as someone that
Speaker 1: was willing to have hard conversations. However, the content of
Speaker 1: what I write about in this book, which is a
Speaker 1: psychological study of what we call cancel culture, and there's
Speaker 1: a reason why I'm saying what we call and I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll come back to that, a psychological study of
Speaker 1: the level of intolerance that we've sort of created culturally,
Speaker 1: and me saying we need to push back against this,
Speaker 1: and we need to do that compassionately but very family.
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have thought that would have
Speaker 1: been the book because I was in so many ways
Speaker 1: in the clutches of my own self centering. So I
Speaker 1: would have been terrified to call out some of the
Speaker 1: things that I'm calling out terrified.
Speaker 2: Well, you're not terrified anymore? No, No, I feel you're
Speaker 2: almost the opposite. Now, You're like, you're like, give me
Speaker 2: the microphone, you know what.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer terrified, but I still experience discomfort when
Speaker 1: I need to call out certain things. And I think
Speaker 1: that's fine. I actually think that's useful.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's human.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely human.
Speaker 1: And I think I want to keep that part of
Speaker 1: myself alive of where I feel stretched by my own actions,
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh, this is a growth edge? Am
Speaker 1: I really going to do this? And then I do it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to sort of create my own internal
Speaker 1: bubble because I think then it can be easy to
Speaker 1: expect everyone else to behave in the same way, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love Did you say growth edge? Yeah? Did
Speaker 2: you just come up with that phrase?
Speaker 1: No? No, No, it's a it's a term in terms
Speaker 1: of well edge is already a time kind of pushing
Speaker 1: yourself to an edge, and I think of it as
Speaker 1: my growth edge because it's exactly that.
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 1: There's any other way for me to experience true expansion
Speaker 1: if there isn't some level of discomfort.
Speaker 2: Right, that's a theme across your whole book. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a theme you talk about. You talk about being a rebel,
Speaker 2: and you talk about a lot of things. But I
Speaker 2: think that's an interesting I think that's a thread that
Speaker 2: runs through the whole book. Is the growth edge. I
Speaker 2: love that phrase. I love I'm going to be using
Speaker 2: that phrase, please do.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, not even feel like I know that.
Speaker 1: The reason I resonate with you and your work and
Speaker 1: what it is you do is because you invite people
Speaker 1: to do that in your work, even the how you
Speaker 1: explore self actualization, that's that's exactly.
Speaker 3: What it is. You're constantly stretching yourself. Right.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I do pilates as well.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, so can we do a session while I'm
Speaker 3: in new that's a yes, thank you.
Speaker 2: I'll think about that. I don't know for ready for that? Okay,
Speaker 2: should we move on? What do you say?
Speaker 3: Shall we move on to Yeah?
Speaker 2: I'll talk about that later. So you you were born
Speaker 2: in Zimbabwe? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Wow? Okay, and how many years did you live? I
Speaker 2: want to know all about you? Okay, So how many
Speaker 2: years did you live in Zimbabwe.
Speaker 1: I so, I'm thirty one years old now. I was
Speaker 1: born and raised in Zimbabwe. Left when I was nine
Speaker 1: years old. But it's so interesting how when you hear
Speaker 1: the age nine, it's young, right, But those years were
Speaker 1: so significant and they truly truly shaped who I am,
Speaker 1: and I remember my young life so vividly. I remember
Speaker 1: my upbringing in Zimbabwe. I remember walking to school for
Speaker 1: about forty minutes it took to walk to school, which
Speaker 1: seemed like a very short journey at the time because
Speaker 1: walking is just a normal part of, you know, my culture.
Speaker 1: I remember climbing trees, I remember playing every single day outside.
Speaker 1: I remember the exact journey from Harada, which is the city,
Speaker 1: to Gueru, which is the country. I speak my mother tongue.
Speaker 1: It's still my first language now. When someone says where
Speaker 1: are you from, I say Zimbabwe. I'm a Londoner. I
Speaker 1: don't even say I'm British, which is interesting enough. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm British by passport, and I really honor
Speaker 1: that and value it, and I think it's one of
Speaker 1: the biggest privileges, actually, passport privilege. I don't know that
Speaker 1: we talk about that enough, but culturally and intrinsically in
Speaker 1: terms of who I am as a person.
Speaker 3: I'm zimbabwe in first yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And what was it like, you know, growing up in Zambabwe, Like,
Speaker 2: did you grow up poor?
Speaker 4: M h?
Speaker 2: Do they grow up rich in Zimbabwe?
Speaker 3: Some people do? Some people do.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting how even though I would say my
Speaker 1: mother is the one that grew up in true poverty.
Speaker 1: When she was growing up, she had ten siblings and
Speaker 1: she lived in Guero, the countryside, So my mother's family
Speaker 1: is from there and my father's family. Our ancestral land
Speaker 1: is Tuesha, which is also in the rural countryside, but
Speaker 1: most of them migrated to Hadada, the city. But my
Speaker 1: mother and father grew up in actual, true poverty. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting because when we were growing up working class
Speaker 1: in Zimbabwe, I realized now that we had very little.
Speaker 3: We had.
Speaker 1: We had what we had, We could survive, we could
Speaker 1: go to school, we had a lovely home, but we
Speaker 1: really didn't have much. But we were ever made to
Speaker 1: feel like victims. And I think this is really a
Speaker 1: really important part of my work. We were never made
Speaker 1: to feel like we didn't have anything. We were in
Speaker 1: a community with people that had much much less, and
Speaker 1: even those people were never victims in our eyes. Never,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't because we're not acknowledging the reality of
Speaker 1: what is. It was a both and thing, right, We
Speaker 1: acknowledged the reality of our lives and we're not victims
Speaker 1: to this.
Speaker 2: That's it right. Being able to hold both feel like
Speaker 2: people in our society today are capable of holding both
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 3: Now, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: And the way that I grew up, I'm also grateful
Speaker 1: that I had siblings, two older sisters, one younger brother.
Speaker 1: So even though we grew up in a home where
Speaker 1: there was domestic violence. My dad was an alcoholic and
Speaker 1: he could be quite abusive, physically abusive when he was drunk,
Speaker 1: and eventually even when he wasn't drinking. It just became
Speaker 1: a part of how he was towards us. But in
Speaker 1: the name of holding those multiple truths, I always say this,
Speaker 1: and I'll never stop saying it. I really learned to
Speaker 1: hold multiple truths about my father before I could even
Speaker 1: you know, intellectualize it in that way. Because he could
Speaker 1: be abusive. He could be very, very scary, and I
Speaker 1: mean very but he was also a very gentle man
Speaker 1: at the same time interesting, he was also really funny.
Speaker 1: He was also someone who could walk into a room
Speaker 1: and without needing to be loudly confident, you could just
Speaker 1: feel Matchull's confidence, you know. And because he was a
Speaker 1: teacher from nineteen years old. He was a teacher, so
Speaker 1: he was obviously very compassionate and patient, which was a
Speaker 1: very stark difference to the man that I talk about
Speaker 1: when I'm speaking about the abuse. But I realized that
Speaker 1: me and my siblings and my mother grew up in
Speaker 1: an environment where we had to hold multiple truths, where
Speaker 1: there was so much certainty and times so much uncertainty
Speaker 1: because you never knew what mood this man was going
Speaker 1: to be in sure, you know. But my upbringing, as
Speaker 1: much as it had so much darkness in it, it
Speaker 1: also had so much light. I'm so glad and I
Speaker 1: could really honor this now as an adult to be
Speaker 1: from a collectivist culture where you know your neighbors, not
Speaker 1: even just know them, you know them very well. They're
Speaker 1: your aunts, and they're your uncles, and they're your second mothers.
Speaker 1: And they will come and twist your ear if you're
Speaker 1: staying out too late in the same way that your
Speaker 1: mother would. They love you, they will feed you they
Speaker 1: will give you everything they have. That's the culture that
Speaker 1: I'm from. So even though the abuse was contained in
Speaker 1: the home, outside of it, again, we were still not
Speaker 1: victims to it. And I know it can be a
Speaker 1: very difficult thing to understand through a Western lens, and
Speaker 1: I'd love to know what you think, but I realize
Speaker 1: now that it was never it was never as clear
Speaker 1: cut to say he's the abuse, You're the victim.
Speaker 2: Right, you know? Yeah? Or I mean you're you're able
Speaker 2: to see multiple sides of a human yes, which is
Speaker 2: And also, wow, this sounds like you have a little
Speaker 2: bit of a capacity for forgiveness within you as well,
Speaker 2: which is incredible without excusing forgiveness without excusing Yeah, incredible.
Speaker 2: And so obviously all this made you who you are today.
Speaker 2: I mean, like discussing all of this, you know, it's uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it all led up to this triumphant book
Speaker 2: release that you have. You know, in the themes of
Speaker 2: this book, it sounds like you had a major change
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago where you went from this
Speaker 2: kind of social justice warrior persona. I use the word
Speaker 2: persona intentionally because it sounded like you you really never
Speaker 2: felt really authentically connected to it if that correct me
Speaker 2: if I'm wrong, but that's what I gather. And then
Speaker 2: you kind of had this transformation and then you wrote
Speaker 2: this viral article. Could you kind of talk a little
Speaker 2: about this transformation you went through. Do you recommend this
Speaker 2: transformation for everyone? Or Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that historical context that I've just provided is
Speaker 1: very important because I'm leading with things like never grew
Speaker 1: up to be told that I'm a victim or even
Speaker 1: remotely believed that I was a victim. Came to the
Speaker 1: UK at nine years old, and this was the early
Speaker 1: two thousands, where there were no conversations about inclusivity at
Speaker 1: that time. Was just a very different time, which is
Speaker 1: also important because sometimes we have this tendency to look
Speaker 1: at the past through the lens of where we are
Speaker 1: right now. But it's important for me to bring that
Speaker 1: up because we did face in many ways actual racism.
Speaker 1: I would say more so my mother, she was in
Speaker 1: her thirties at the time she went into the field
Speaker 1: of nursing because she was a geologist in Zimbabwe. But
Speaker 1: none of that, none of that meant anything by the
Speaker 1: time she came to the UK. The relationship with Zimbabwe
Speaker 1: and the U and the UK was very fractural. Towards
Speaker 1: the late nineties early two thousands, there were sanctions placed
Speaker 1: on Zimbabwe. There were just harsher restrictions on zimbabwe zimbabwan
Speaker 1: citizens who wanted to come over to the UK. So
Speaker 1: a lot of her education, things that should worked so
Speaker 1: hard for coming from a poverty stricken background, it meant nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't applicable here. So she became a
Speaker 1: nurse and depending on what industry you're in, you're just
Speaker 1: treated like absolute shit. And racism was a very big
Speaker 1: part of that. But again she was never a victim
Speaker 1: to it. She didn't come to the family home and
Speaker 1: talk about even though it was very difficult to be
Speaker 1: a black woman at that time. These were not just
Speaker 1: things that became a part of her identity and then
Speaker 1: they became a part of how we viewed the world.
Speaker 1: There were just things she experienced and she didn't hide
Speaker 1: them from us. But we weren't to take this as
Speaker 1: proof that were less worthy. So I growing up, victimhood
Speaker 1: was not a part of my story in any way,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned those things. But I did end up
Speaker 1: getting captured in many ways by Western ideology because I
Speaker 1: was that young but also young enough to still remember
Speaker 1: my historical context from Zimbabwe, but also young enough to
Speaker 1: assimilate very quickly and to adopt Western thinking very very quickly.
Speaker 1: So outside of the family home, I was being told
Speaker 1: that I should feel X y Z because of my race.
Speaker 1: I was being told that I need to work twice
Speaker 1: as hard, which might have some truth to it in
Speaker 1: some ways, but it's also not the absolute truth for
Speaker 1: everything that I will experience. I was being told that
Speaker 1: I am to refer to myself as a marginalized person. Again,
Speaker 1: we can acknowledge the truth of that, but does that
Speaker 1: mean that I need to walk through the world thinking
Speaker 1: that I am marginalized?
Speaker 3: I am a victim.
Speaker 2: That's the identity right.
Speaker 1: To be your mean, So regardless of me not wanting
Speaker 1: to actually take those things on like deep in my bones,
Speaker 1: if you hear things enough times, you will soon buy
Speaker 1: into it. And if let's just be honest, if there's
Speaker 1: also social credits for who can be the most victimized,
Speaker 1: you will also start to find a benefit in identifying more,
Speaker 1: you know, with the sort of victim woodrol. So you
Speaker 1: starting to identify more as oh I am an immigrant again,
Speaker 1: you are an immigrant that's the objective truth. But does
Speaker 1: that have to be worn as some kind of grievance,
Speaker 1: some sort of heavy thing, like I am an immigrant,
Speaker 1: so I deserve to be treated. It just became a
Speaker 1: little bit warped for me over time, and because of
Speaker 1: the work that I had been doing from the age
Speaker 1: of twenty four when I finally got sober, I was
Speaker 1: speaking out about my addiction and I quickly got labeled
Speaker 1: as sobriety advocate, which I was very greatful.
Speaker 2: Let's start cross over this. So you you went, because
Speaker 2: we hadn't discussed this yet, that you went through a
Speaker 2: period where you were addicted to alcohol and drugs.
Speaker 1: Fourteen up until twenty four, So for a decade so young,
Speaker 1: so so young. But it's I don't know what the
Speaker 1: culture is like here, but in British culture, that's normal,
Speaker 1: heavy drinking, it's just seen as normal. It's just seen
Speaker 1: as I live. Really there you go in my twenty years.
Speaker 1: It's the social glue for absolutely.
Speaker 2: It really is. The club nightlife, is the pub night
Speaker 2: the pub life, everything. So it makes it easier to
Speaker 2: get addictive.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 1: It does because again, like I was saying, I was
Speaker 1: young enough even from nine ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen fourteen
Speaker 1: when I discovered alcohol young enough to still remember my
Speaker 1: historical context. I had a father who was an addict,
Speaker 1: and it was bad news. Through and through I understood that.
Speaker 1: But also, it's still young enough to be curious about
Speaker 1: the new culture that you're in. To see the freedom
Speaker 1: of young people. Oh my goodness, They're allowed to swear
Speaker 1: in front of their parents, They're allowed to drink, they're
Speaker 1: allowed to go out, They're allowed to so there was
Speaker 1: a sense of freedom. It was kind of my first
Speaker 1: exposure of freedom. But unfortunately alcohol was also a part
Speaker 1: of it, and I started to buy into another idea,
Speaker 1: which is that to access freedom, I need to drink.
Speaker 1: To access freedom, I need to change my state of mind.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, drinking at such a young age
Speaker 1: made me forget about my differences. It made me forget
Speaker 1: that I was the only black person, you know, in
Speaker 1: my friendship group. It made me forget that I was
Speaker 1: an immigrant, It made me forget that I spoke a
Speaker 1: little bit differently. So all the insecurities kind of washed away.
Speaker 1: So I started to associate freedom and alcohol. You know,
Speaker 1: that I could only be free within myself if I
Speaker 1: was drinking.
Speaker 2: Well, you went through You have a lot of things
Speaker 2: here that you admitted to. Can I just go through
Speaker 2: the world or the laundry list of pase? Okay, decade
Speaker 2: long struggle with alcohol and other drugs, fractured relationships so
Speaker 2: that you had a lot of maybe tumultuous relationships. Abolutely Yeah,
Speaker 2: compulsive sexual behavior.
Speaker 1: A missing again and there that part is important because.
Speaker 2: Alcohol.
Speaker 1: Absolutely when I started drinking, sex was a part of
Speaker 1: it too, So I started to associate sexual freedom or
Speaker 1: expression with alcohol. So until I got sober ten years on,
Speaker 1: that association was always there, not being able to be
Speaker 1: sexual unless I was drinking.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. So that's a condition, a condition upon
Speaker 2: I see, Yeah, I see.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean not a lot of people don't admit
Speaker 2: a lot of these things. So that's the kind of
Speaker 2: bravery you're talking about as well. Yeah, and bring that
Speaker 2: in a non victimized way. I think maybe that's the bravery.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's what the braver is. So, yeah, you had
Speaker 2: a missing front tooth. I don't see it. I don't
Speaker 2: see it. Yeah, because they fixed it.
Speaker 1: It was But again, do you agree they thank you.
Speaker 1: You would think that would shock someone into making a ship.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't enough. It wasn't even a big deal.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a it's so crazy. This was in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even a big deal. It was just like, okay,
Speaker 1: so this has happened. I can I can own it
Speaker 1: as a quirk, boid or kind of thinking, I this
Speaker 1: is even more insane. I can only laugh at it now.
Speaker 1: I was toothless for maybe three or four months, but
Speaker 1: it became a party quirk. It became like just a
Speaker 1: little this little thing and a story that I now have.
Speaker 1: So again, in the book, I write a lot about denial,
Speaker 1: and I talk about it through the context first recognizing
Speaker 1: it in that phase of addiction. But it's an invitation
Speaker 1: for all of us to recognize, where is their proof
Speaker 1: that something needs to change here? But we take it
Speaker 1: on as sort of like an identity piece. We kind
Speaker 1: of rework our lives and our value system so we
Speaker 1: can make peace with this and stay in that diner.
Speaker 1: I was walking around toothless in London for four months.
Speaker 2: We had you get the tooth you're avoiding, you're avoiding,
Speaker 2: I hear you. How did you get to the point
Speaker 2: where you didn't have a tooth.
Speaker 3: I was drunk.
Speaker 2: You don't have to answer any of.
Speaker 1: Course, of course, please. I'm an open book. I would
Speaker 1: answer everything I was. It wasn't even anything remotely different
Speaker 1: from what I used to get into all the time.
Speaker 1: I was leaving a party after maybe a three day binge,
Speaker 1: so it was no longer even a party. It had
Speaker 1: become maybe even like a sort of crack dan environment.
Speaker 1: Always so thankful by the way, that I never, really,
Speaker 1: I never tried harder drugs. I'm always grateful for that.
Speaker 1: I still caution when it came to that, never did crack,
Speaker 1: never did heroin. Oh yeah, no, no crackel without the
Speaker 1: crack that you're saying.
Speaker 2: I never did more than a crack, Thank you, that's the.
Speaker 1: No. I'm so grateful that I never ventured there. But
Speaker 1: I would go on these day long binges.
Speaker 2: Okay, And did you get in a manic state? Did
Speaker 2: I go into se you in like a prolonged manic
Speaker 2: state during that time? Tell me what that would be
Speaker 2: felt like, God, or you felt like like you like
Speaker 2: you know, like you couldn't sleep, like oh, like your
Speaker 2: thoughts were racing.
Speaker 1: For me, it was mainly just not wanting the party
Speaker 1: to end, just wanting to sort of create my own
Speaker 1: reality where we don't have to go home. I see,
Speaker 1: we don't have to see the sunlight, we don't have
Speaker 1: to go outside. We can just caught. We need more drugs.
Speaker 1: We can just bring them into this environment and let's
Speaker 1: not leave.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 1: And even if you find the most kind of the
Speaker 1: people that are willing to stay for the party, at
Speaker 1: some point people have to go home. They have their
Speaker 1: real lives. But I had no thing outside of this bubble.
Speaker 1: So it was in one of those instances and I
Speaker 1: was just leaving the party.
Speaker 3: And then I fell. It was like a basement.
Speaker 1: And then I was walking up the stairs, still in
Speaker 1: a drugged state, and then I fell and then I
Speaker 1: smashed my face onto the concrete step. It could have
Speaker 1: ended really badly that fall. It could have ended really
Speaker 1: really badly. So I thank god that it was only
Speaker 1: a tooth. But again I had.
Speaker 3: To I had somewhat justify what was happening.
Speaker 1: So you just get up and you continue, you make
Speaker 1: fun of it, you make a joke of it, your toothless.
Speaker 1: For four months, everyone's like, are you okay? I'm fine,
Speaker 1: you know, no tooth. My family being like what is
Speaker 1: going on? I think I told my mom that I
Speaker 1: had fallen from my bed and fallen onto an adapter
Speaker 1: like a plug.
Speaker 2: Yep, one of things.
Speaker 1: I mean, whether she believed it or not. Because I
Speaker 1: was also in a home work that was very anti conflict,
Speaker 1: which I realized is now was because of the way
Speaker 1: conflict was handled with my father. My mom was never
Speaker 1: able to have direct conversations, so that ended up being
Speaker 1: a repeated pattern with me, which is so fascinating because
Speaker 1: she was still repeating that pattern of avoiding conflict, but
Speaker 1: I was the embodiment of conflict and repeating my father's pattern.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like she had to experience her husband
Speaker 1: again but through her daughter. And I can't imagine. I
Speaker 1: speak to her now about it, so open, so beautiful,
Speaker 1: my mum. I speak to her about it often so
Speaker 1: that I can really understand her psychological experience at the time.
Speaker 1: So for me, that's the role alcohol played, and I
Speaker 1: ended up relapsing seven times, finally got sober in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: at twenty four, and then that's when I started sharing
Speaker 1: about sobriety, et cetera. And so twenty sixteen, yes, so
Speaker 1: nearly nine years nine years this year, congratulations, thank.
Speaker 3: You, thank you.
Speaker 1: But that's how that's how I've been led to the
Speaker 1: work that I do, and I think that part of
Speaker 1: my journey is crucial because I never want people to
Speaker 1: think that I'm high and mighty speaking about how everyone
Speaker 1: should be braver in their expression and that it's just
Speaker 1: been overnight. There is that huge spark that was created
Speaker 1: by my open letter nearly four years ago now, which
Speaker 1: is mad, but there was so much leading up to it,
Speaker 1: and that story that I'm sharing now is a part
Speaker 1: of it. Because when I started sharing in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: my work was labeled immediately as advocacy, and in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways it was. I was sharing my own story.
Speaker 1: But eventually I started to get curious about the alcohol
Speaker 1: industry as a whole. I wanted to understand how alcohol
Speaker 1: was being marketed to women in particular, that's interesting, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to understand how people of marginalized people and
Speaker 1: people of working class heritage have a different type of
Speaker 1: relationship with alcohol. We view addiction differently when it's with
Speaker 1: someone that is working class versus someone that is middle
Speaker 1: to upper class. So my work became very objective quite quickly.
Speaker 1: That's when I came across the term self sabotage, and
Speaker 1: then I realized, oh, there's this thing that happens where
Speaker 1: we pulled the plug on ourselves when we're actually doing
Speaker 1: very well, because it meant that I could understand my
Speaker 1: relapsing more so, a lot of the work that I
Speaker 1: do now pretty much started from there, but it was
Speaker 1: labeled active advocacy to begin with, and then activism shortly
Speaker 1: after that.
Speaker 3: And I I really think.
Speaker 1: That allowed for me to take my own work very seriously,
Speaker 1: which is where labels are useful, because people were recognizing
Speaker 1: it as important work. It was no longer just me
Speaker 1: sharing my personal story in a kind of sort of
Speaker 1: like an open journal, which is which it was in
Speaker 1: the beginning.
Speaker 3: But then once you're.
Speaker 1: Labeled an activist, you're expected to be an activist in
Speaker 1: other areas. Right. That's the sort of idea of intersectionality.
Speaker 1: And again I was okay with that at the time,
Speaker 1: but then there were expectations for me to talk about
Speaker 1: sobriety as a black woman, talk about sobriety as an immigrant,
Speaker 1: talk about sobriety as a left leader woman.
Speaker 2: Because in the intersectional universe, you kind of win a
Speaker 2: prize r.
Speaker 1: I have so many I have so many ribbons to wear.
Speaker 1: But then there's an expectation for you to no longer
Speaker 1: just speak about something in sort of one uh, sort
Speaker 1: of in sort of one format, if you will, of exploration.
Speaker 1: It has to be so many other things. And again
Speaker 1: this is from twenty sixteen. I was fine with that
Speaker 1: because I wanted to understand. I wanted to be curious about, Okay,
Speaker 1: what does addiction actually look like as a Black woman?
Speaker 3: Is it different?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Is it different? Is it?
Speaker 1: I think it can be. I think their cultural difference
Speaker 1: is full stop when it comes to everything. I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's just confined to as a Black woman
Speaker 1: because what black were talking about, because Nigerian, Somali, Kenyon
Speaker 1: very different.
Speaker 2: It seems so so lumping together like all black people.
Speaker 2: Thank you, yes.
Speaker 1: But at the time, I think I just started to
Speaker 1: become more and more entrenched in social justice spaces because
Speaker 1: of the origins of my work. And I really want
Speaker 1: to make this clear. I was not forced into it.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do it. But around twenty eighteen I
Speaker 1: started to notice the shift.
Speaker 3: Actually, in the.
Speaker 1: Twenty sixteen it was already intense because of everything that
Speaker 1: was happening with Trump and the conversation, the kind of
Speaker 1: politicization of everything, everything. But twenty eighteen is when I
Speaker 1: started to notice that over the police of language, which
Speaker 1: was happening externally but also started to happen in my
Speaker 1: own mind. And I considered myself to be very open minded.
Speaker 1: I considered myself to be very brave and curious because
Speaker 1: of what I'd already been doing. But I started to
Speaker 1: notice that there were areas that were kind of no
Speaker 1: go areas you just don't go stay here, but you
Speaker 1: just don't go there. You don't question anything, certain things
Speaker 1: to do with race, You don't question certain mantras around,
Speaker 1: be it silence as violence, or even just the idea
Speaker 1: that every white person is born racist and they have
Speaker 1: to go through this process of anti racism. And even
Speaker 1: just hearing that, to me it was a red flag
Speaker 1: because there was something quite religious about it. It almost
Speaker 1: had this idea of the original sin. And I grew
Speaker 1: up in fundamentalist religion, not for a long time, but
Speaker 1: I'm from a Christian culture anyway, but my mother found
Speaker 1: herself in a sort of cult like so I was
Speaker 1: familiar with these with these kind of very coercive cult
Speaker 1: like patterns, the idea of the original sin that you're
Speaker 1: born as.
Speaker 2: Sinner like, so you put you in the perfect position,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, to say, wait, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: But I couldn't ask that because for me to say, wait, actually,
Speaker 1: when we say white people, which white people are we
Speaker 1: talking about? Then it seems as if I'm questioning the movement, right.
Speaker 1: So again, I in the beginning, it didn't seem like
Speaker 1: a big deal to kind of keep some things to myself.
Speaker 1: But gradually, when you start justifying keeping something to yourself,
Speaker 1: especially when you're truly curious and you don't understand or
Speaker 1: that are quite obvious contradictions. We say we want progress,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting that we're using extremely intolerant tactics, including
Speaker 1: not asking any questions, right, having a list of people
Speaker 1: that are so called problematic that you can't listen to.
Speaker 1: So I'm not allowed to listen to Jordan Peterson, not
Speaker 1: allowed to listen to Joe Rogan, not allowed to listen
Speaker 1: to anyone that is on the right, you know. And
Speaker 1: I didn't question any of these things, which is what
Speaker 1: also started to ring alarms for me in twenty twenty, I'm.
Speaker 2: Safe though you can listen to Scott baryc Can yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah and chill.
Speaker 1: And so for me twenty eighteen, I never want people
Speaker 1: to think that that open letter, which I encourage people
Speaker 1: to read, that it just happened in a burst in time.
Speaker 3: It was very gradual me.
Speaker 1: Starting to realize that there are things that I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed to question, but no one is even telling me
Speaker 1: explicitly externally. I'm starting to self police and overly self
Speaker 1: edit in a way that is very unnatural. And by
Speaker 1: the time twenty twenty came around, it all just took
Speaker 1: a different turn, and I couldn't unsee the things that
Speaker 1: I saw because I saw my own intolerance in a
Speaker 1: way that was very shocking to the system. I saw
Speaker 1: my own fear as well, and I'll get I'll get
Speaker 1: very specific about what I mean, but especially with the
Speaker 1: conversations around race, all of the fallout after George Floyd's murder,
Speaker 1: I just realized that I was so afraid of seeing
Speaker 1: things in a different way because it felt like a
Speaker 1: betrayal to again, the black community. No specificity as to
Speaker 1: what black community we're talking about, but essentially every black
Speaker 1: person that exists. If I don't quite agree with the.
Speaker 2: Just very.
Speaker 1: Harsh and intolerant approach that is being taken in terms
Speaker 1: of getting white people to understand what is happening.
Speaker 3: If I push back on that.
Speaker 1: That means I'm pushing back against the mission of black people,
Speaker 1: like a big pressure.
Speaker 3: And then I realized that it wasn't just that moment
Speaker 3: in time.
Speaker 1: I had felt this when it came to feminism, that
Speaker 1: I couldn't have compassion and empathy for men because it
Speaker 1: would mean that I'm a pick me, or it would
Speaker 1: mean that I am.
Speaker 2: Pick me.
Speaker 1: That is a term that is used for women that
Speaker 1: justify men's behavior because they want to be picked by men,
Speaker 1: so they side with misogyny. They side with all of
Speaker 1: these things because they want to be paid gosh. But
Speaker 1: it's so extreme that you don't even needing to be
Speaker 1: siding with misogyny. You can just say you have empathy
Speaker 1: and compassion for men, or that you love your husband,
Speaker 1: or that you want to cater to him, or that
Speaker 1: you don't mind being submissive to your partner. So for me,
Speaker 1: he's got twenty twenty. And I'd love to know your
Speaker 1: experience of this, because being in the position that you
Speaker 1: are not only someone that is visible and very much
Speaker 1: out there in the world, which means a lot of
Speaker 1: people have access to you, a lot of people might
Speaker 1: have demands of you. But you're also a psychologist, which
Speaker 1: means people might have a certain expectation for you to
Speaker 1: comment on things. It was such a I really don't
Speaker 1: think that we've truly processed the psychological damage that happened
Speaker 1: to most of us in twenty twenty, not just because
Speaker 1: of the racial tensions and the suspicion that we suddenly
Speaker 1: had off each other and this pushing for people to
Speaker 1: look at everything, everything through a very racialized lens where
Speaker 1: you're supposed to look for malicious intent in your interactions.
Speaker 2: You just said, it's either different lenses on offer in
Speaker 2: the world, and that's a lens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I bought into that very rigid, one dimensional way
Speaker 1: of viewing the world. And I never would have thought
Speaker 1: that I would buy into that, and I did. And
Speaker 1: it's important for people to understand that we have so
Speaker 1: many stories about what we will and will not do,
Speaker 1: how we will respond with external pressures and group think
Speaker 1: and what.
Speaker 3: But you never know.
Speaker 1: I was very humbled by my own intolerance and fear.
Speaker 1: I was very humbled by my response and demands for
Speaker 1: people to respond in a very specific way, and my
Speaker 1: inability to hold nuance. And at this point in time,
Speaker 1: I was already a developmental coach. I'd been studying self
Speaker 1: sabotage for a long time. I'd been a researcher for
Speaker 1: a long time. So again, all of these titles would
Speaker 1: make you think you should know better, but I didn't,
Speaker 1: And that sort of broke me out of this trance
Speaker 1: and led me to write the letter Why I'm Leaving
Speaker 1: the Cult of Wakeness, where I essentially made a declaration
Speaker 1: and owned up to my own intolerance and just really
Speaker 1: invited us or to question what we're seeing around us.
Speaker 2: It did very well, right, I mean it really did.
Speaker 3: You got like millions of it exploded.
Speaker 2: So it hit the mirror of what a lot of
Speaker 2: people maybe had been feeling at that point.
Speaker 1: Especially the silent majority, especially those people that are very
Speaker 1: much an embodiment of that thad perspective that I talk about,
Speaker 1: the people that don't neatly fit into left or right,
Speaker 1: into into pro or anti into are you woke or
Speaker 1: anti woke? You know, the majority of people that are
Speaker 1: just like I am doing my best, but the goalpost
Speaker 1: keeps on moving. You know.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you said that. And okay, if we just
Speaker 2: pause there a second, let me let me pick up
Speaker 2: the ball that you just threw at me. So because personally,
Speaker 2: I don't like these divisions in it, like I would
Speaker 2: never I'm not woke. I've written this before on Twitter.
Speaker 2: I'm not woke, but I'm also not anti WORLK. Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, like I would like the freedom to be
Speaker 2: able to pick and choose what I want to be
Speaker 2: a free thinker. Yes, right, If you put yourself even
Speaker 2: in the anti woke camp, I feel like that's that
Speaker 2: limits your free thinking and then you get caught up
Speaker 2: in this thing where you're no longer allowed to agree
Speaker 2: with anyone who's so called woke. I mean, there are
Speaker 2: some things that so called woke people say. I'm like totally,
Speaker 2: you know, like they're right, they've got a point, you know,
Speaker 2: like we should be more mindful and sensitive to some things,
Speaker 2: you know, like I don't want us to go in
Speaker 2: the company's obst direction where we become assholes, you know,
Speaker 2: and we have no sensitivity at all. But I see
Speaker 2: that sometimes there's like an exact opposite end where they're
Speaker 2: kind of like assholes. One I might allowed to say.
Speaker 1: That thin one, and I think we need to say
Speaker 1: that more because something that I made. I made a
Speaker 1: very conscious decision about that in the beginning, when I
Speaker 1: started talking about a lot of what I talk about now,
Speaker 1: I knew that it could be so easy for this
Speaker 1: to end up being a case of I'm leaving the
Speaker 1: left and going to the right, you know, And I
Speaker 1: was never someone that over identified with political leaning. I
Speaker 1: live by my values and for me actually, as an immigrant,
Speaker 1: it's not the norm for us to go to another
Speaker 1: country and tie ourselves with a new political identity because
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, and this was the case
Speaker 1: for me and my family, we're leaving environments that lack
Speaker 1: so much freedom, where you're truly punished for not taking
Speaker 1: a strong stance, where you don't get a chance to
Speaker 1: critique your leaders, where you don't get a chance to
Speaker 1: being nuanced in your thinking, which is why you have
Speaker 1: a lot of immigrants, even people that have left the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, which wasn't it even a long time ago,
Speaker 1: that are saying, hey, in the West, we need to
Speaker 1: stop politicizing the idea of freedom. We need to allow
Speaker 1: for people to externalize their ideas. We need to allow
Speaker 1: for people to disagree. You have people saying you don't
Speaker 1: know what you have, and I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1: But I was so intentional about not calling everything woke
Speaker 1: and not blah blah blah. I use the term wokeness
Speaker 1: very intentionally my open letter because I needed it to
Speaker 1: be a trojan horse. I did. I did, And when
Speaker 1: you read the lesson, I think why it resonated with
Speaker 1: so many people, especially left leaning people, is that I
Speaker 1: spoke about the value in the language of woke. I
Speaker 1: honored its origins and its beauty, and I also made
Speaker 1: it very clear that you have bad faith actors who
Speaker 1: didn't even realize that they're bad faith actors who have
Speaker 1: hijacked the movement and turned it into an ideological sort
Speaker 1: of cesspit, which is called wokeness, which I think is
Speaker 1: a very different thing. You know, But you will notice
Speaker 1: in my words and in what I share, I never
Speaker 1: referred to the woke because I think that's a very
Speaker 1: self righteous, ineffective positions criticized, it's doing the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: So you end up that horseshoe theory, right, You end
Speaker 1: up holding on the exact same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want to become the same thing on
Speaker 2: the other side.
Speaker 1: And I see that a lot with the anti words.
Speaker 1: They're extremely intolerant. They used to humanize language, and they
Speaker 1: they love cancel culture. If it's happening to the person
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the street, they absolutely love it,
Speaker 1: and they don't even realize it.
Speaker 2: Well, they use it for themselves to get a bigger platform, money.
Speaker 1: And become caricatures. It's so sad, how with people. There
Speaker 1: were some people in the beginning of my own awakening
Speaker 1: and really starting to break out of my own echo
Speaker 1: chambers who I really admired, who I really saw as
Speaker 1: people that were very important, But they quickly became caricatures
Speaker 1: of themselves. And I wouldn't even I wouldn't even be
Speaker 1: able to sit here now and mention a long list
Speaker 1: of people that I still admire who are on that
Speaker 1: side of the street. I can take what I need
Speaker 1: and still honor their work. But I think it's people
Speaker 1: for me like Ayisha. It can be who's a good friend,
Speaker 1: and Salome who I know we both love, who are
Speaker 1: just in integrity and they've allowed their voices to truly
Speaker 1: evolve in a way that is authentic, and they don't
Speaker 1: play into the device of games. They know that they could,
Speaker 1: they could take the easy route or sort of again
Speaker 1: becoming anti woke caricatures and voices, but they decide not
Speaker 1: to do that because they actually care about unity and
Speaker 1: bridging that gap, and they're genuinely curious. But I think
Speaker 1: it's such a shame when we leave one echo chamber
Speaker 1: and neatly walk right into another. So that's something that
Speaker 1: I'm always mindful about in my life.
Speaker 2: So wonderful, wonderful. I mean, I see you as a
Speaker 2: humanistic sister of my world. I mean I stay away
Speaker 2: from the world again all that, that's just the whole.
Speaker 2: I don't even why do we need to be in
Speaker 2: that world like I want to. I'm a humanistic psychologist,
Speaker 2: as I'm on critic, I am unequivocally like applying universal values,
Speaker 2: and that's it. I mean, we don't need to put
Speaker 2: a label on that other than humanistic. But I consider you,
Speaker 2: you know, now, I in the humanistic I don't use
Speaker 2: the word ally that frequently, but I view you as
Speaker 2: an ally in the humanistic psychology tradition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually why I resonate again and just value
Speaker 1: and revere you and your work. And I'm so thankful
Speaker 1: that we get to sit together and talk about this
Speaker 1: because you get me excited about the work that I do,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's I can feel your heart and
Speaker 1: what you do. And I know you've been doing this
Speaker 1: for a very long time, but I love the Lord.
Speaker 1: You don't shype, don't look a day over.
Speaker 3: A day a thirty one.
Speaker 1: I think it's like, yeah, it just validates what we do,
Speaker 1: and you don't shy away from speaking about the things
Speaker 1: that are happening culturally, which I you can tell me
Speaker 1: what you think on this because you're more in that space.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of proff healthcare professionals are really
Speaker 1: terrified of this culture, but I think they are the
Speaker 1: people we really need to be talking about the intricacies
Speaker 1: of what it means to be a human being and
Speaker 1: the psychology of it, and why a lot of the
Speaker 1: sort of mantras and phrases and positions would take us
Speaker 1: so simplistic interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, I would be careful for people if I
Speaker 2: if I could give advice to people too, I'd be
Speaker 2: careful to not have self fulfilling prophecies, and I am
Speaker 2: very mindful of creating spaces and situations where self fulfilling
Speaker 2: negative self fulfilling. I'm okay with positive self. But if
Speaker 2: you even if you even encounter like let's say, you know,
Speaker 2: someone is like quote woke, and then you're like terrified
Speaker 2: of them, you're already setting the tone for and they'll
Speaker 2: pick up on it. Yes, they'll be like this, this
Speaker 2: person seems like they're terrified of me, and then they'll
Speaker 2: respond in kind, and then you'll be like, oh, they're
Speaker 2: acting like they're terrified of me. And then before you
Speaker 2: know it, to people are like not liking each other
Speaker 2: because of the expectations they brought into it. I really
Speaker 2: am an advocate of fresh eyes, you know, with everyone
Speaker 2: you meet, you know, just like a little kid, you know,
Speaker 2: just like wonder and all. I'm wonderful of everyone, like
Speaker 2: everyone I meet. Everyone, Like you know, I try not
Speaker 2: to listen to things. You know, people gossip. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: you should talk to the amoration. You know. There are
Speaker 2: there are people that I know became friends with people
Speaker 2: like oh, you shouldn't be friends with that person, And
Speaker 2: I'm like, but why I enjoy talking to them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really love and appreciate that you say that,
Speaker 1: because I think it really brings it back to the self.
Speaker 1: Because sometimes when we speak about these big topics like
Speaker 1: censorship or cancel, culture, whatever, it can resonate in the
Speaker 1: moment because we all know intuitively what it looks like
Speaker 1: and feels like. But I think it feels so big,
Speaker 1: it's like, where do I even begin with this? But
Speaker 1: I love to bring it back to this self. And
Speaker 1: you'll see that I do that a lot in the book.
Speaker 3: You do because I want it to feel so manageable.
Speaker 1: It really is in a again, like the micro moments,
Speaker 1: the micro interactions, when you meet someone, instead of leading
Speaker 1: with filtering them through an identity, so this person is black,
Speaker 1: this person is this, so they probably can't handle that,
Speaker 1: you then drown in a world of assumptions and you
Speaker 1: treat people based on assumption, not even truth. So I
Speaker 1: think when you allow yourself to be like, huh, I
Speaker 1: wonder how this person will surprise me, or how will
Speaker 1: I surprise myself? That's that's what I like.
Speaker 2: To contur me. Right, Yeah, but you just said it's
Speaker 2: also very interesting surprising yourself. What does that mean? Can
Speaker 2: you double cook on me? Give me a moment when
Speaker 2: you've surprised you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I even love that language because surprising myself is in
Speaker 1: moments where I I no longer assume what I can
Speaker 1: or cannot handle. Okay, I can handle discomfort? Am I
Speaker 1: able to surprise myself in this moment where someone says
Speaker 1: something and then I get what I call the initial
Speaker 1: ouch where I'm like, oh, well, I really don't agree
Speaker 1: with that. Okay, why would this person say this?
Speaker 3: It's all this?
Speaker 1: Then I'm I'm like, and then I lean just a
Speaker 1: little bit, just a little bit in and to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can I be surprised by this person? Because maybe
Speaker 1: they're going to follow up with something, But then maybe
Speaker 1: I could say, ha, why do you think that instead
Speaker 1: of immediately attack it? Right. I surprise myself by listening
Speaker 1: to people that I have been told, especially in the
Speaker 1: earlier days. I've been told this person's evil, problematic, they're bad,
Speaker 1: they're a biggot. Okay, let me listen for myself. Let
Speaker 1: me surprise myself. Can I resonate with even one thing?
Speaker 1: I can discard the rest. I don't have to agree
Speaker 1: with every single thing. What's one thing I can surprise myself.
Speaker 1: I can surprise myself in conversations where even though I
Speaker 1: feel terrified, I can respond in a way that's a
Speaker 1: tiny little bit more assertive than I would I don't
Speaker 1: have an opinion on this, instead of me blindly agreeing
Speaker 1: or being like scared, because we forget that we're animals,
Speaker 1: so we emit this smell and energy of I'm terrified.
Speaker 1: What if I surprise myself and say, I don't know
Speaker 1: what I.
Speaker 3: Think about that? Yeah, it's so gentle.
Speaker 2: Well, I love that approach. I love that approach. You
Speaker 2: you talk about something in your book that I want
Speaker 2: to double click on. You talk about the fear of exploration,
Speaker 2: and I'm a big fan of overcoming that fear.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, okay, okay, well if since you asked, Since
Speaker 5: you asked, I wrote a book called Choose Growth with
Speaker 5: Jordan fine Gold, and the whole book is about choosing
Speaker 5: exploration versus fear.
Speaker 2: So I'm like all about that and uh and we
Speaker 2: have you know, workbook, exercise and things to help people
Speaker 2: get outside their comfort zone and do that. So when
Speaker 2: I saw that in your book, I was like, yes, sister,
Speaker 2: I call you a sister. That's not incorrect because maybe yeah,
Speaker 2: I said not. Uh, I didn't say this is the.
Speaker 3: Do It's like that thing heavy.
Speaker 1: So you're saying you're gonna self censor, You're gonna censor
Speaker 1: this conversation.
Speaker 2: Well that was a joke saying we'll cut it, but
Speaker 2: we'll see. I love this idea. Fear of exploration. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: Please tell me what you're thinking about. How can people
Speaker 2: overcome that fear? Why do people have that fear?
Speaker 1: You know what I to me when I say that,
Speaker 1: I think it's I mainly want to think about it
Speaker 1: as don't be afraid to even explore that fear, because
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're talking about here is it's
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable. I want to honor the fact that, and
Speaker 1: I say this in the book, that I'm asking people
Speaker 1: to do something that is quite a natural introspection and
Speaker 1: self scrutiny and looking at your own ship, lifting up
Speaker 1: the carpet and seeing all of these sort of goals.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not the norm, and I I want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that it's so easy as human beings to externalize.
Speaker 1: We'll look at what everyone else is doing wrong. How
Speaker 1: can I stay safe because of what other people are
Speaker 1: doing or not doing, and that's normal. So I want
Speaker 1: us to look inward. And I know this is a big,
Speaker 1: big part of your work that you actually can't change
Speaker 1: much externally if you're not willing to see what's happening internally.
Speaker 1: And then to ask yourself, is this working for me
Speaker 1: or against me?
Speaker 3: So to me, fear.
Speaker 1: Looking at especially looking at it in the eye, the
Speaker 1: fear of exploration is actually looking at the fear in
Speaker 1: and of itself. What am I afraid of? What do
Speaker 1: I think is going to happen if I speak? And
Speaker 1: what do I actually even want to say? Because when
Speaker 1: a lot of people say things like if I speak up,
Speaker 1: I will lose my job, my kids, my family, I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, what do you want to what do you want
Speaker 3: to say? What are the things?
Speaker 1: And then you ask someone and they realize, actually, maybe
Speaker 1: I don't even have a clear opinion. I just have
Speaker 1: this feeling that if I speak the truth, I'll be
Speaker 1: punished for.
Speaker 2: It, exactly right. Yeah, I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: are afraid of shame. We live in a shame don't
Speaker 2: you think that's it? We live in such a shameby's
Speaker 2: culture where it's like you know, even you hear the
Speaker 2: protesters going around saying shame, shame, that's their tactic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's so ancient, isn't it, Because it feels like, again, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not even a religious person, but there's something so
Speaker 1: religious about it, the whole village chanting shame, shame, shame,
Speaker 1: being publicly stoned. But now we just do it in
Speaker 1: common sections, right, So I think for me, let's be
Speaker 1: okay with exploring, you know, the fear. Let's be okay
Speaker 1: with exploring the discomfort. Let's be okay with seeing where
Speaker 1: a conversation is going to go without trying to control
Speaker 1: its outcome. You know, experience what it looks like to
Speaker 1: hear a joke that is kind of crude in some way,
Speaker 1: but a part if you finds it funny. What if
Speaker 1: you were to lean into that laugh, if it feels
Speaker 1: like you're you're in a safe space with someone that
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: You did that today at multiple moments.
Speaker 1: Exactly like lean into allow for yourself to be open
Speaker 1: to whatever feels intuitive.
Speaker 2: You know, some of the things we've discussed today.
Speaker 3: To me, that's all part of exploration.
Speaker 2: What about you, what do you think about what you
Speaker 2: just said?
Speaker 1: Well, generally, the idea or what exploration can look like
Speaker 1: in this culture that we find ourselves.
Speaker 2: Oh, it would just change everything. It would be a
Speaker 2: game changer if people had social more social curiosity with
Speaker 2: each other, you know, and and kind of led lead
Speaker 2: with their social curiosity as opposed to leading with their ideology,
Speaker 2: leading with their I mean, but but I feel like
Speaker 2: the more I talk, the more I am kind of
Speaker 2: preaching to the choir over here, because I found myself
Speaker 2: nodding in vigorous agreement with so much of your book.
Speaker 2: Let me see, I just want to read some quotes
Speaker 2: from maybe because we're running out of time, so let
Speaker 2: me read some of my favorite quotes from your book.
Speaker 1: By the way that I can'tnot say this again?
Speaker 3: That hat?
Speaker 2: Can you? Right?
Speaker 3: Old time?
Speaker 2: Do you think it suits me?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe this would be my new hat for the
Speaker 2: psychology podcast, I think so.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: I tend to I like, I like, you know, being
Speaker 2: unique with each guest though as well, so that also
Speaker 2: may be the case, which is this hat might be
Speaker 2: unique to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and select other sisters, not us, not as sisters, okay.
Speaker 2: Sisters with a hot with a heart. Yes, yes, I
Speaker 2: feel like it's I can't say sisters, okay, so uh
Speaker 2: I do I do have people. One of the most
Speaker 2: common and things on the Psychotic podcast common section is
Speaker 2: my laugh is about my laugh? Yeah, I can't help it, it'sery.
Speaker 3: I feel it in visceralc.
Speaker 2: When you like, I'm gonna quote I'm going to quote
Speaker 2: Africa Brooklyn. When you go of the incessant need to
Speaker 2: cling on to a single story, you open doors to
Speaker 2: more interesting conversations, deeper understanding, and greater empathy. Yes, how
Speaker 2: can people not cling on to a single story so tightly?
Speaker 2: What does a single story bring them psychologically? Safety?
Speaker 1: But it's exactly what we're talking about now that there
Speaker 1: are those sort of very temporary rewards, right yea of
Speaker 1: feeling safe, not having to go into the unknown, which
Speaker 1: again can then bring discomfort. But that single story doesn't
Speaker 1: allow for you to even see a second, third, fourth,
Speaker 1: fifth perspective, and it also doesn't allow for you to
Speaker 1: meet yourself at a different level. Because if we're going
Speaker 1: back to that idea of surprising yourself, how can I
Speaker 1: surprise myself if I'm always clinging to a single story
Speaker 1: and I never wanted to change because a part of
Speaker 1: me will always feel like we've outgrown this. We don't
Speaker 1: really think this anymore. We don't agree with that, but
Speaker 1: you're suppressing it. I want you to pick when I
Speaker 1: said earlier about lifting the carpet, and there's sort of
Speaker 1: gauls looking up at you. They just want to be heard.
Speaker 1: To me, that's a useful visual in how we take
Speaker 1: part of ourselves and we just shove them under the carpet.
Speaker 1: They just want to be heard. They don't expect you
Speaker 1: to agree with them all the time. They don't expect
Speaker 1: you to take them as part of your full time identity,
Speaker 1: but they want to be heard. Otherwise they become very resentful,
Speaker 1: they become very frustrated, and they become very lonely because
Speaker 1: they're discarded in there. So that's how I like to
Speaker 1: humanize myself. So a single story never actually serves me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it might feel like it does, and you might
Speaker 1: need it at points in time to create your own
Speaker 1: sense of safety.
Speaker 3: But I don't know that for the.
Speaker 1: Rest of your life, as you meet more people, as
Speaker 1: you have more conversations, as you get older, I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's useful. Oh, it takes more than it gives.
Speaker 2: I love it. Look I enjoyed talking with you so much,
Speaker 2: and there's so much we could still discuss. You know
Speaker 2: how much we talked about the third perspective. This I
Speaker 2: want to end by making it clear to everyone, this
Speaker 2: whole frameworking out today is what you call the third perspective.
Speaker 2: We have to make sure we get that in and
Speaker 2: I'm going to title this episode probably something relating to
Speaker 2: the third perspective. Thank you so much for being on
Speaker 2: the Psychology Podcast and for everything you're bringing to the world.
Speaker 2: To bring more, I'm co opting you into the humanistic
Speaker 2: psychology movement.
Speaker 3: Please please take me.
Speaker 2: I really could say part of part of the brother
Speaker 2: or sisterhood of humanistic psychology.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. One of my favorite conversations that I've had,
Speaker 1: and I'm not just saying it. I'm saying that because
Speaker 1: I feel I feel an expansion within me. I feel
Speaker 1: validated in my voice and my mission and what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and you're someone that I deeply respect.
Speaker 3: So thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you,