Speaker 1: Hi Catherine, Hi Chelsea.
Speaker 2: Where have you been this week?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I have the first week off that I've had for
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving week. Oh that's my first week off. I'm hanging
Speaker 1: on by an actual threat of dental floss. I am
Speaker 1: really really. My body is shutting down. The plane rides,
Speaker 1: the partying, the more tired I get, the more I
Speaker 1: drink just to get it up, like I need help.
Speaker 1: So and that's backfiring. My voice is gone. I've been touring.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite tour. I mean, I say it's my
Speaker 1: favorite whenever I'm doing anything, because it is. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's so much fun. I don't know if I mentioned
Speaker 1: this last week, but Eddie Vedder came to my show
Speaker 1: in Seattle. I Goss Jill and we had the best
Speaker 1: fucking time.
Speaker 2: That's so funny.
Speaker 1: They were awesome. I mean that My tour managers like,
Speaker 1: Eddie Vedder's coming to the show tonight. I'm like what?
Speaker 1: And then we were in Seattle. I had two shows
Speaker 1: in Seattle, fucking epic in Seattle. Oh did I announce
Speaker 1: my Canadian dates? Oh? You know what shows I have
Speaker 1: coming up? I still have tickets for these shows. My
Speaker 1: second show in Cincinnati it's at five o'clock. I'm trying
Speaker 1: one of those shows in CINCINNT. I have two shows
Speaker 1: that day, one at five pm and one at eight pm,
Speaker 1: And the one at eight pm is sold out, but
Speaker 1: the one at five pm. I want to promote this
Speaker 1: the Taft Theater, which is in Ohio, obviously, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about Cincinnati. I also added a second show in Detroit.
Speaker 1: So there's a Thursday and Friday show in Detroit, and
Speaker 1: there are still tickets for the Thursday show November thirtieth,
Speaker 1: and that's coming right up. Yeah. And then I'm coming
Speaker 1: to Louisville, Kentucky. There's tickets for that. That's Sunday, December third.
Speaker 1: And then I'm coming to Montreal and I have two
Speaker 1: shows in Toronto. We're coming to Ottawa, We're coming to Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary,
Speaker 1: all of my Canadian lovers. I'm coming to Victoria, Kelowna, Vancouver,
Speaker 1: and then Salt Lake City and Denver and Maricopa, Arizona
Speaker 1: and Richmond, Virginia. It just goes on and on and on,
Speaker 1: and that's my schedule like through May. But I didn't
Speaker 1: say all of the dates. I was just telling you
Speaker 1: the ones that have tickets. So if you want tickets,
Speaker 1: go to Chelseahandler dot com and come to my shows
Speaker 1: because they're so much fun and you my Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had we had a little after party because some of
Speaker 1: my friends, my sister's friends were there. My sister wasn't there,
Speaker 1: but her friends came, and then we had I ran
Speaker 1: into a girl that I hadn't seen since I waited
Speaker 1: tables twenty five years ago. It was called Roasty. I
Speaker 1: saw her Roberta.
Speaker 2: She came.
Speaker 1: Her husband's a doctor in Seattle, so my doctor in
Speaker 1: Seattle because I had my cardio myopathy the last time
Speaker 1: I was in Seattle. They're friends and they came together
Speaker 1: to my show. So that's my friend from twenty five
Speaker 1: years ago who was awesome, and I'm going to see
Speaker 1: her again in Whistler this winter. And then I saw
Speaker 1: some other blasts from the past and we had this
Speaker 1: nice little after party in our green room, which was
Speaker 1: so fun. And then at midnight, I was like, it
Speaker 1: was Thursday night, our Friday night. I had a show
Speaker 1: in Seattle on Friday and Saturday, and I left and
Speaker 1: when I left at midnight, Eddie Vetter and his wife
Speaker 1: were still partying in my green room.
Speaker 2: That's your friend.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of spirit I like.
Speaker 2: I like it. That sounds great.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean I have a lot of rock and
Speaker 1: roll connections this year. People rot rot my tour. Dave
Speaker 1: Grol Yeah, well, Dave Girl, I've known for years. I
Speaker 1: love Dave Girl. But a lot of rock stars are
Speaker 1: coming to my shows and I'm fucking down with it,
Speaker 1: and now I need to start going to see their shows.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm going to see I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to get a list, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: be up in Canada and Whistler for a few months
Speaker 1: doing all my Canadian dates after I'm done with my
Speaker 1: American dates, and then I come back for my American dates.
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to go see who the big
Speaker 1: guys who are coming through Vancouver and go to shows
Speaker 1: because I love shows. Now. I used to hate concerts, really,
Speaker 1: I don't know why, just because of the sheer, massive
Speaker 1: people like I'd rather be on the stage than in
Speaker 1: the crowd.
Speaker 2: That makes sense though, does it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some people love concerts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's different going from to like a little hole
Speaker 4: in the wall concert versus like a big concert with
Speaker 4: all this like spectacle and special effects and everything like
Speaker 4: those are really fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they're all fun.
Speaker 4: But I told Brad like mid pandemic, when things were
Speaker 4: really bleak, I was like, it's kind of random, but like,
Speaker 4: let's go.
Speaker 2: See Pearl Jam when this is all over.
Speaker 4: Like for some reason, that to me was like this
Speaker 4: that will mean this is all over, so it's still
Speaker 4: on my list.
Speaker 1: Listen to how cute he was who My manager goes, hey, okay,
Speaker 1: you know they came early to be backstage, so they
Speaker 1: weren't in the crowd, and they were like, he's like,
Speaker 1: Eddie Vedder's here. I go bring him up and Jill
Speaker 1: his wife, who's fucking awesome too, and she they came
Speaker 1: up and he was like, oh, sorry, we didn't. We
Speaker 1: didn't come in and have a drink. He goes, oh god,
Speaker 1: we didn't want to bother you before you perform, like
Speaker 1: we were just coming to the show. We didn't even
Speaker 1: expect to meet you. I'm like, are already talking about better?
Speaker 1: I know how it works when you go to a
Speaker 1: show and they're your celebrity and that you get to
Speaker 1: meet the person most most often, but it was just
Speaker 1: so cute. He was like, so, it's so amazing when
Speaker 1: you beat legends like that and they're so humble, so.
Speaker 4: They're not He is not like a one thousand Brown
Speaker 4: M and M's person or whatever that writer was.
Speaker 1: No, he was drinking Corona and she drinks champagne, which
Speaker 1: is why I guess we had it because my tour
Speaker 1: managers hooked to their guy. But it was just so nice.
Speaker 1: I just love when there's surprises like that in the audience,
Speaker 1: and that keeps happening on this tour. So I love it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I love it well, Chelsea.
Speaker 4: Next week is Thanksgiving, and I wonder you know, I
Speaker 4: know your sister in law kind of has.
Speaker 1: She's I'm dealing with oga over Christmas. I see her
Speaker 1: for Christmas and we are all going to We're going
Speaker 1: skiing my whole family. And this is how nice I am.
Speaker 1: I'm moving out of my own fucking house so and
Speaker 1: renting my place so I can go be with my
Speaker 1: family in a nice, bigger house because they really won't
Speaker 1: settle for anything less, and we need a nice house
Speaker 1: because there's so many of us. So I'm moving out
Speaker 1: of my own house to move into this rental house
Speaker 1: with my family for a week and then no Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna spend with Connie Britain. I'm going to Connie's
Speaker 1: so I'm going to be in La. I have a
Speaker 1: week off, Chelsea.
Speaker 4: Is there anybody in your life that you sort of
Speaker 4: like don't align with politically and like how do you
Speaker 4: deal with them at Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: Etc? Well? No, I mean not in my family. I
Speaker 1: don't really have people like that where we don't align politically.
Speaker 1: I mean, now, with this everything that's going on, that's
Speaker 1: more of an issue, I would assume, because there's so
Speaker 1: many people that are so upset for multiple reasons. You know,
Speaker 1: it's horrifying what's happening on both sides, and the anti
Speaker 1: Muslim behavior and the anti Semitic behavior. So but and
Speaker 1: then that becomes an argument about Palestine versus and that's
Speaker 1: not the that's not the fucking argument. So I'm not
Speaker 1: willing to even have that discussion any there because it's
Speaker 1: an unwinnable conversation. Everyone's going around in circles. You could
Speaker 1: go around for seventy five years, you could go around
Speaker 1: for a thousand years, and they would still be the issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So no, I don't have that in my family, and if.
Speaker 1: I mean, my nephew can be a little bit conservative,
Speaker 1: which is annoying, but we all really jump down his throat.
Speaker 1: You know what.
Speaker 4: I have a niece that's like kind of turning that
Speaker 4: corner too, and I'm like a little concerned. I'm just
Speaker 4: hoping that when she goes to college, like she's gonna
Speaker 4: get some different opinions and some different you know, worldviews
Speaker 4: and come back to like she used to be super
Speaker 4: super liberal. And I'm like, please come back to the
Speaker 4: please come back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I know, I know. It's very hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard when you have that in your family because
Speaker 1: you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not how we are.
Speaker 1: You can't hate people, you just can't. Like, that's not
Speaker 1: I don't want to live in a world where there's
Speaker 1: so much hatred. Like I don't want anyone to die
Speaker 1: or be killed. I don't like that.
Speaker 4: Guess what, Like the solution is not continuing to kill,
Speaker 4: Like it's just not.
Speaker 1: I know, we should just send four women in there.
Speaker 1: We should just send you know, fucking Angela Merkel, Send
Speaker 1: Christine A. Monpour, she read very good about the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Send Hillary Clinton, and send Michelle Obama let them go in,
Speaker 1: come up with their solution and then tell us what
Speaker 1: it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Send In grena Tuneberry just for you know.
Speaker 1: I like Gretituneburg it is it is actually technical.
Speaker 2: For now it's Tunberry, but everyone's a sun Berg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, oh over there the corrected.
Speaker 2: Like how cute is that? That's very cute? Well, Chelsea,
Speaker 2: we have Shelley back.
Speaker 1: On the Showy Gilskey, my dear friend and her friend
Speaker 1: and her friend Justin wrote a book and guess what
Speaker 1: the title is, How We Ended Racism. You know Shelley
Speaker 1: from this podcast because she runs Pandemic of Love and
Speaker 1: I've talked about her organization many times. And she also
Speaker 1: had another book come out a few years ago that
Speaker 1: we talked about called Sit Down to Rise Up. Shelley
Speaker 1: and just welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Shelly, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast, Justin. It's nice to finally meet you.
Speaker 5: So nice to meet you, Chelsea.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot about you Visa VI Shelley, and
Speaker 1: a lot about your experience writing this book together. And
Speaker 1: the book is called How We Ended Racism, which is
Speaker 1: in the past tense. We'll get to that and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to dive into. First of all, the boldness
Speaker 1: of this title, which I love, and we can talk
Speaker 1: about how you guys came together first. Yeah, let's start there.
Speaker 6: Well, when we first first first came together was actually
Speaker 6: in the rodeo of our first books. And so I
Speaker 6: was going on a book tour and somebody said, Hey,
Speaker 6: you need to talk to this woman named Shelley because
Speaker 6: she knows everybody in the whole world. Basically that helps
Speaker 6: a lot of people in the world, and she'll help
Speaker 6: you get to the right folks. And Shelley and I
Speaker 6: ended up connecting so deeply, like on our first call,
Speaker 6: which I think happens with Shelley when you know we're
Speaker 6: with good people. And the rest was really history in
Speaker 6: terms of how we started working together.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So I was going to teach in Southside, Chicago. I
Speaker 7: was invited through the Obama Foundation to teach there, and
Speaker 7: I was going to walk into a room with a
Speaker 7: bunch of mothers who lost their children to gun violence,
Speaker 7: and most of them are women of color. And what
Speaker 7: I recognized is that it would be really great to
Speaker 7: have a person of color in the room with me,
Speaker 7: so that it wouldn't because I only had a very
Speaker 7: short time to be there, and I realized, usually it
Speaker 7: takes me a good two to three hours to even
Speaker 7: like get their trust, you know. And so I invited
Speaker 7: Justin just on a whim. I said, Hey, what are
Speaker 7: you doing on this date?
Speaker 5: Can you can you.
Speaker 7: Come out to Chicago? And he said, let me check. Sure,
Speaker 7: absolutely I'm available, and.
Speaker 5: So and we had never met, never met.
Speaker 7: In person, we'd never taught together in person, and it
Speaker 7: was a really rich and wonderful experience.
Speaker 8: It was amazing.
Speaker 7: We actually it felt like I had been teaching with
Speaker 7: him for a really long time. And we actually created
Speaker 7: bonds there that we still have now with that community,
Speaker 7: which is incredible.
Speaker 1: Wow wow. Because she I went to a gun violence
Speaker 1: retreat with Shelley once too, and we made a lot
Speaker 1: of food in the kitchen, organic food. I think we
Speaker 1: made a beet soup, aborched. I was not what I
Speaker 1: was expecting at all. I was like, oh, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of team building here. But yes, I went to
Speaker 1: and by the way, by the way, I haven't been
Speaker 1: asked back, so Justin, I just want to let you
Speaker 1: know you're obviously crushing it.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, Well thank you.
Speaker 1: And Shelley's been on this podcast before. I've talked about
Speaker 1: her foundation, which is her Mutual Aid Foundation, which I've
Speaker 1: mentioned on the show multiple times, and she's helped out
Speaker 1: so many of our callers. It's called Pandemic of Love.
Speaker 1: And so talk to us about justin your background, like
Speaker 1: where are you from and where did you grow up
Speaker 1: and give us all that stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6: I grew up in northern California, actually in a town
Speaker 6: called Pittsburgh, California.
Speaker 5: A lot of people don't know there's Pittsburgh in California.
Speaker 1: No, my god, I didn't know. We needed two of them.
Speaker 5: We don't.
Speaker 6: But this one, this one is just like twenty minutes
Speaker 6: east of Berkeley. And I grew up actually in the hood,
Speaker 6: to be honest with you, I grew up in a
Speaker 6: home with gunshottles on the outside of my house. And
Speaker 6: so when speaking in these kind of communities that Shelley's
Speaker 6: talking about, it's something that I've really lived. And you know,
Speaker 6: one of the things that I talk about all the time,
Speaker 6: which kind of led me into the work that I
Speaker 6: do now, is I grew up kind of adapting to
Speaker 6: all of my trauma, being what I call a chronic overachiever,
Speaker 6: just feeling like if I do enough, accomplished, en I
Speaker 6: succeed enough, if I'm always good, if I'm always perfect,
Speaker 6: and I'll finally be out of here, I'll finally be enough.
Speaker 6: And I overachieved my way to getting a full ride
Speaker 6: scholarship to go to UCLA. I moved to LA, went
Speaker 6: to LA and it wasn't until I actually got to UCLA,
Speaker 6: came out of the closet, had extra money for the
Speaker 6: first time, was living in a safe neighborhood, and exhaled
Speaker 6: that I realized that I was absolutely depressed. And I
Speaker 6: was asking this question of like, how is it that
Speaker 6: I have everything that I've said I've ever wanted. I'm
Speaker 6: and I'm depressed, and it's you know what sent me
Speaker 6: to a therapist for the first time. I'm ever This
Speaker 6: was almost twenty years ago now at this point, and
Speaker 6: the therapist said to me, you should try meditation. And
Speaker 6: I literally said to him, meta, what like this before
Speaker 6: the iPhone?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 6: I was like, I didn't know any black people meditating.
Speaker 6: I was like, I don't even know what you're talking about.
Speaker 6: And he said, it looks like you've been trying to
Speaker 6: find your happiness outside of yourself, and you've missed the
Speaker 6: only place you haven't looked within. And the thing is, Chelsea,
Speaker 6: like I had. It's commonplace to say that now, like
Speaker 6: find your happiness within, but I had never even heard
Speaker 6: that phrase. So I like lift up my arms and
Speaker 6: I'm like within what?
Speaker 5: Like where what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: You're like here under here, find exactly right?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 6: I mean, I definitely was trying to find it in
Speaker 6: places with my pants down. I'll tell you about that,
Speaker 6: but that's another podcast.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's another podcast.
Speaker 6: But anyway, that all leads me to say that I
Speaker 6: think so many of us we have this experience in
Speaker 6: our lives where we're trying to change the outside, hoping
Speaker 6: that it will change something within us, and we find
Speaker 6: and learn it again and again and again that we
Speaker 6: could change our relationships, but we're never going to be
Speaker 6: in a good relationship if we haven't changed who we are.
Speaker 6: We can change our job, but our job is always
Speaker 6: going to feel like shit if we don't change who
Speaker 6: we are inside of those jobs. And so all of
Speaker 6: my work now that I've really dedicated my life too,
Speaker 6: is helping people not just change what's on the outside.
Speaker 6: But change what's within. So I do that in a
Speaker 6: lot of different ways through music and writing and teaching,
Speaker 6: meditation and books. But Shelley and I really came together
Speaker 6: to write this book to help people understand the work
Speaker 6: that it takes for us to actually change the world
Speaker 6: in the way that we're all saying that we want
Speaker 6: it to change, and who we have to become inside
Speaker 6: to really be able to show.
Speaker 5: Up for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like what you just said. I can relate
Speaker 1: to that a lot, changing you know, not the outside.
Speaker 1: I also think trying to control the outside, trying to
Speaker 1: control the outcome of things right, is never the way forward,
Speaker 1: you know, controlling something without looking within. You know, part
Speaker 1: of looking with in is being able to understand that
Speaker 1: the outcome and the outside are not things. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to go with the flow
Speaker 1: and move like with the you know, with some would
Speaker 1: say with the universe. I would say that now. I
Speaker 1: used to I used to be like you. I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh god, all that language is so free frou. But
Speaker 1: once you get clicked in and you're moving and everything's
Speaker 1: in a flow state, you understand the power of that,
Speaker 1: and then the kind of power that that attracts and
Speaker 1: the kind of energy that that gives off and brings in.
Speaker 1: You're bringing in so many more people when you embody that.
Speaker 1: When you do look in, you understand yourself. You realize, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to give out high vibes. I want to
Speaker 1: spread good vibes. I don't want to do the negative stuff,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? My purpose here is joy's
Speaker 1: sunshine and laughter. Whatever your purpose is. So I love
Speaker 1: that I can relate this to that a lot.
Speaker 6: I feel like people often ask me, you know, I'm
Speaker 6: thirty five, I'm turning thirty six, and people often ask
Speaker 6: me like, how are you teaching this stuff and doing
Speaker 6: this at such a young age? And I just feel like, honestly,
Speaker 6: I was just lucky enough to have hit rock bottom
Speaker 6: at such a young age and had the resources at
Speaker 6: UCLA to actually get help at that age that was
Speaker 6: just younger that I just happened to be starting this
Speaker 6: at a pathway that I think is before a lot
Speaker 6: of people do. And so I just feel really lucky
Speaker 6: that I get to be like a young queer black
Speaker 6: man who has been able to teach this work in
Speaker 6: these spaces. And that's why Shelley was talking about like
Speaker 6: us coming together the diversity that is happening in the
Speaker 6: world as it relates to wellness and well being. It
Speaker 6: takes people being able to see people who look like them.
Speaker 6: And it's just I feel grateful every day that I
Speaker 6: get to be representative of a community that sometimes is
Speaker 6: represented in this work in this world.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's talk about this book and what's inside
Speaker 1: this book. Obviously it's a very bold title choice, and
Speaker 1: explain to us how you got there and then what
Speaker 1: people are going to be able to learn from reading this.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So Justin and I are both Garrison Fellows, the Garrison Institute, which.
Speaker 1: Is in I'm also a fellow, Shelley. So just back
Speaker 1: to fuck up? Okay. So okay, so yeah, welcome.
Speaker 2: To the podcast.
Speaker 5: Back up, Shelley.
Speaker 8: Back it up? Where do you want me to back
Speaker 8: it up?
Speaker 3: Shelley.
Speaker 1: That's very inappropriate. That's really not the kind of book
Speaker 1: we're talking about.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you would reduce our podcast to this.
Speaker 4: That's Justin's other book.
Speaker 8: Back it Up? Okay.
Speaker 7: So Justin and I are Garrison Institute fellows, and the
Speaker 7: Garrison Institute Fellowship actually at the helm of the program
Speaker 7: is doctor Dan Siegel, who you know really well and
Speaker 7: who has been on the podcast. And the challenge that
Speaker 7: the Garrison Institute Fellows had in this two year program
Speaker 7: that we were in is to think about big questions,
Speaker 7: like really big questions that almost seem like completely insurmountable
Speaker 7: and unsolvable, et cetera. And Justin and I came together.
Speaker 7: This was around the George Floyd murders the summer of
Speaker 7: twenty twenty. We started thinking about what needs to change
Speaker 7: in this world for this kind of bullshit to stop happening,
Speaker 7: you know, what actually needs to change? What can change?
Speaker 7: Why do we feel so helpless, why do we feel
Speaker 7: so hopeless, and why do we feel so disempowered, like
Speaker 7: we don't feel like we can actually change anything. And
Speaker 7: what we started to do is we started to put
Speaker 7: together a program. First and foremost, we were like, let's
Speaker 7: bring together people to just have a conversation to really
Speaker 7: start exploring the answer to that question what can we do?
Speaker 7: And then what we started to find out as we
Speaker 7: start as we dove sort of deeper into just the
Speaker 7: rhetoric right around anti racism, and we read cast and
Speaker 7: we read all of the books, all the things that
Speaker 7: were coming out around that time. We recognize that in
Speaker 7: none of those books, in none of the DII programs,
Speaker 7: and none of the racial bias training programs, does anybody
Speaker 7: ever say that racism can end. All we ever talk
Speaker 7: about is that the work needs to continue.
Speaker 8: Generation after generation after generation. So and I looked at
Speaker 8: each other.
Speaker 7: We asked each other, you know, what would it look
Speaker 7: like if racism actually could end? What would it look
Speaker 7: like if we stood in the future and looked backwards
Speaker 7: and thought to ourselves, what do we need to do?
Speaker 7: Who did we need to become back then today in
Speaker 7: the present moment for racism to actually end.
Speaker 6: And I think one thing, Chelsea that I'll add to
Speaker 6: this is we thought it was crazy. So remember the
Speaker 6: Fellowship asked us to ask these big questions, And we
Speaker 6: looked at each other and.
Speaker 5: Said, could racism end?
Speaker 6: Like everything is saying this is going to be a
Speaker 6: lifelong fight for generations and generations forever and ever and
Speaker 6: ever and always and always and always. And we were like,
Speaker 6: but for why we do so many things in the world,
Speaker 6: Like we accomplish so many things, And right now everyone's
Speaker 6: talking about getting to another planet, and we're like, if
Speaker 6: we land on Mars. Without ending racism, we are fucked, Like,
Speaker 6: we're totally screwed, you know, if we figure that out first.
Speaker 6: And so we got what was so cool is we
Speaker 6: were about it too. We went in with a genuine question.
Speaker 6: We pulled hundreds of people together, We got anthropologists, sociologists,
Speaker 6: neuroscientists to ask the question, is it actually possible for
Speaker 6: this to end? And what we found actually against what
Speaker 6: we thought was going to happen. The answer was yes,
Speaker 6: it actually can, and for the first time in history
Speaker 6: it can because of everything that's come before us, all
Speaker 6: that we know now.
Speaker 5: But it can't end.
Speaker 6: That possibility doesn't exist without these eight specific pillars. And
Speaker 6: so our book kind of lays out the eight pillars
Speaker 6: that would have to exist for the idea of ending
Speaker 6: racism to even be possible. And so it's not really
Speaker 6: a book that like ten Steps to end racism. It's
Speaker 6: not like that. It's like, stand in the future, racism
Speaker 6: is over. What are the eight things that would have
Speaker 6: had to happen now for this to actually go down?
Speaker 5: And so that's what we write about, right.
Speaker 7: What conditions needed to arise in humanity in order for us.
Speaker 1: To get there? And can you talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of the pillar before we go to callers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, so there's eight of them. I'll start with
Speaker 6: the one that we normally don't start with because it's
Speaker 6: the one that people often like to talk about, which
Speaker 6: is we learn to have big conversations and how to
Speaker 6: have conversations across divides, and one of the things that
Speaker 6: we believe the world is ready to graduate from and
Speaker 6: needs to evolve from, basically immediately, and it is time.
Speaker 6: I think we all know this is from calling people
Speaker 6: out to doing what we have called and coined in
Speaker 6: our book Calling Forward. And the reason we talk about
Speaker 6: this is what we know from all the science is
Speaker 6: calling out which leads to cancel culture, which is shame
Speaker 6: and blame and guilt, and it never ever leads to
Speaker 6: the situation that we're actually trying to stop really changing
Speaker 6: in the big picture. It leads to canceling people instead
Speaker 6: of canceling a problem, which is a situation. And so
Speaker 6: what we know from all the research that we looked
Speaker 6: at is if you approach a situation with Shane blaming Gil,
Speaker 6: I don't care how bad it was, it is a
Speaker 6: thing that somebody did. Getting them to learn or grow
Speaker 6: is basically virtually impossible, and so we want to get
Speaker 6: people to learn and grow. What we have to understand
Speaker 6: is our book is based upon why I'm starting here.
Speaker 6: You can't be antie everything to get things to move forward.
Speaker 6: Being anti does it tell us what we're walking towards.
Speaker 6: It just tells us what we're fighting against. And if
Speaker 6: you're going to be fighting against something, you're ultimately saying
Speaker 6: that thing has to always exist so that I can
Speaker 6: keep fighting it. And so we're looking at no, not
Speaker 6: just what are we fighting against? What are we anti?
Speaker 6: What are we walking toward? What are we going forward too?
Speaker 6: And that's really what we're trying to do with the
Speaker 6: work in this book is teach people how to have
Speaker 6: the conversations, how to move forward to what we all
Speaker 6: actually want and.
Speaker 5: What I believe. Chelsea.
Speaker 6: Let's say this is a black gay man who has been
Speaker 6: all over this country. I'm half white. I have white
Speaker 6: family who lives in Alabama who are Trump voters, and
Speaker 6: they are the most I don't know if they'll vote
Speaker 6: for him again, but they did, and they are the
Speaker 6: most lovely, amazing people who I love with my whole heart.
Speaker 6: And what I've learned all around this country, is that
Speaker 6: what we're seeing in the news in the media is
Speaker 6: not what I would say most the majority of people
Speaker 6: are this extreme. I think many of us actually want
Speaker 6: the same things. We want to walk in a similar direction.
Speaker 6: But we're being torn apart by all this council culture
Speaker 6: and this anti everything in this call out everything, and
Speaker 6: we're trying to gather that group of people together so
Speaker 6: we can walk forward together.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so true, like the canceling and shunning people,
Speaker 1: Like if that worked, police officers wouldn't be up to
Speaker 1: the same business that they've been up to for the
Speaker 1: life last fifty years. You know, like people get arrested,
Speaker 1: they lose their jobs for assaulting and murdering innocent black
Speaker 1: men who are just scared to be pulled over, who
Speaker 1: run from them out of fear. And you would think
Speaker 1: with social media it's all over the place. I'm always like,
Speaker 1: how do these men still think they're going to get
Speaker 1: away with it? And it's like it clearly doesn't make
Speaker 1: an impact that some of these men have lost their
Speaker 1: jobs and some of them are spending time in jail.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have the impact. And so the canceling of
Speaker 1: people and the calling out you're right. Isn't a way
Speaker 1: to learn, It's a way to shame someone. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a nice step, in my opinion, to as a
Speaker 1: warning to people, but you know, it's not the most
Speaker 1: effective way, and clearly obviously it's not. Well that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I love that, and I mean I love this book
Speaker 1: because I like anything that talks about ending racism. Obviously,
Speaker 1: my hope for another planet is that when we do
Speaker 1: make contact with another planet, all of those people will
Speaker 1: be black. So that's my personal fantasy that we will
Speaker 1: recontact with whomever they are living somewhere else, because there
Speaker 1: are people out there, and I yeah, and then America's
Speaker 1: gonna be like whoopsie doodle.
Speaker 5: Yeah right.
Speaker 1: I doubt I'll be around for that moment. But anyway, Okay,
Speaker 1: so are you guys ready you want to take some
Speaker 1: calls about on this topic. We're gonna have people call
Speaker 1: some questions and that's the name of the game on
Speaker 1: this podcast. So okay, Catherine, what do we what do
Speaker 1: we got going on today?
Speaker 4: Well, first, I'm going to make us take a little
Speaker 4: break and we will be.
Speaker 2: Right back to take callers.
Speaker 1: Okay, We're going to take a little break okay, and
Speaker 1: we're back.
Speaker 2: We're back.
Speaker 1: Oh, I have a little frog in my throat. Excuse me.
Speaker 1: I had a coffee this morning, and I'm fucking bouncing
Speaker 1: off the walls. I don't normally drink coffee.
Speaker 2: That's not your usual thing.
Speaker 4: Well, we're actually going to start with a caller. Usually
Speaker 4: we start with an easy one. But I know you
Speaker 4: guys can handle it.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 2: Abigail is in Colorado.
Speaker 4: She is thirty five, and she says, my husband and
Speaker 4: I have been together for six years. We have different
Speaker 4: political views, and his friends share his views. My husband
Speaker 4: and I have never had any major issues about our
Speaker 4: con views, other than being annoyed from time to time,
Speaker 4: most of the big issues we agree on. His close
Speaker 4: friend comes over a couple times a month and spends
Speaker 4: several hours drinking. Early in our relationship, I actually enjoyed
Speaker 4: it and would even suggest it. The problem is his
Speaker 4: friend loves to bring up topics that make me uncomfortable,
Speaker 4: one being politics, but there are many, and they're offensive.
Speaker 4: It's only after he gets drunk, and it always feels
Speaker 4: like an attack because he knows where I stand on
Speaker 4: most issues. I feel like he just wants a reaction
Speaker 4: if I react. Then I get very defensive and never
Speaker 4: say what I really want to because I'm afraid of
Speaker 4: being so reactive. If I say nothing, I spin out
Speaker 4: for weeks thinking about what I should have said. It's maddening.
Speaker 4: My husband always gets pretty quiet when this behavior happens.
Speaker 4: He knows I don't need anyone to defend me. I'm
Speaker 4: a big girl, but I can't take it anymore. I
Speaker 4: don't want my husband to not hang out with his friends,
Speaker 4: and I appreciate that they always hang out here instead
Speaker 4: of going to bars. I've been meditating, listening to podcasts,
Speaker 4: and reading lots of books like Letting Go and The
Speaker 4: Untethered Soul, trying to let go of my negative feelings
Speaker 4: towards him.
Speaker 2: What should I do?
Speaker 1: Abigail Hi, Abigail Hi, Hi. This is Shelley and Justin.
Speaker 1: There are guests today. They wrote a book that relates
Speaker 1: to what you're talking about. I don't know how people
Speaker 1: do it. I'm like you, listen, I'm like you, But
Speaker 1: people like that, especially someone who's trying to get a
Speaker 1: rise out of you, you better figure out the toolkit too.
Speaker 1: As my friend would say, water Ski above it all.
Speaker 1: You cannot engage with somebody who's trying to wind you up.
Speaker 1: I mean, if that's not the dynamic between men and women,
Speaker 1: that also needs to end. That is the most annoying
Speaker 1: thing for a man to sit there and needle you
Speaker 1: about something he knows you're passionate about. So I would
Speaker 1: just I would really try and use all of your
Speaker 1: toolkit so that you can a either laugh at anything
Speaker 1: he says and just belittle that, not in a belittling
Speaker 1: way of him, but just belittling his behavior, like I'm
Speaker 1: not engaging with you. That's just too ridiculous. You're too ridiculous,
Speaker 1: Like I'll talk to you about regular things, but just
Speaker 1: trying to get me upset, and I'm like, it's just
Speaker 1: too stupid. And also, do you need to be subjecting
Speaker 1: yourself to him because what reason? Because you like your
Speaker 1: husband to be home drinking rather than out drinking.
Speaker 9: No, I mean that's nice, don't get me wrong, just
Speaker 9: to not think about like drinking and driving and stuff
Speaker 9: like that. But other than that, it's just his friend
Speaker 9: that he's been best friends with for like I don't
Speaker 9: even know, like twenty years. So I definitely don't want
Speaker 9: to try to like create any sort of wedge that's
Speaker 9: not it. I just wish he would stop doing this because,
Speaker 9: like I said, like he doesn't even remember the conversations,
Speaker 9: which is just crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, which is even more ridiculous for you to be
Speaker 1: upset about, you know what I mean, He's drunk and
Speaker 1: just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. You don't
Speaker 1: even need to engage with that. And at a certain point,
Speaker 1: when someone's that drunk, like you're totally able to have
Speaker 1: them leave or remove yourself from the situation, like there's
Speaker 1: no reason to subject yourself to that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, because I know that this is like a me problem,
Speaker 9: like I need to figure out my reaction. But also
Speaker 9: down the road, my son is a toddler now, but
Speaker 9: when he's older, I just feel like I'm going to
Speaker 9: have this explosive reaction if he says something you know,
Speaker 9: racial or homophobic or anything like that in front of
Speaker 9: my son, I think I'm going to lose it, and
Speaker 9: I need to, Like, I just don't want him to
Speaker 9: ever be exposed to hear someone that he's supposed to
Speaker 9: love and respect say terrible things, do you know what
Speaker 9: I mean?
Speaker 1: Well, that's your job as a parent to not have
Speaker 1: those people around your children voluntarily A I mean hot
Speaker 1: parenting tips for me be anytime you lose your shit,
Speaker 1: you've lost the argument. So anytime you are up in
Speaker 1: arms and screaming and yelling, it's nobody takes that seriously.
Speaker 1: So it is a practice to control yourself. I used
Speaker 1: to do that all the time. It's not effective, it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. When you make a point quietly and directly,
Speaker 1: it has much more of an impact than you jumping
Speaker 1: around screaming and yelling and being defensive. Shelley and justin
Speaker 1: over to you thoughts, feelings.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, Abigail, I feel so understanding of what you're
Speaker 6: dealing with. It reminds me of somebody that we wrote
Speaker 6: about in our book named Joe, who dealt with this
Speaker 6: with his coworkers. He was like going out to lunch
Speaker 6: with his coworkers again and again, and there was a
Speaker 6: few coworkers who just kept saying racist jokes, who kept
Speaker 6: saying all these remarks, and he didn't know what to say.
Speaker 5: And I want to just have There's a section.
Speaker 6: In our book where we walk people step by step
Speaker 6: through how to set boundaries and in a way that
Speaker 6: actually works and is meaningful. And I want to honestly,
Speaker 6: I just want to promise you that we're going to
Speaker 6: give you a gift of our book ourselves. So we're
Speaker 6: going to send it to you so that you have
Speaker 6: a copy of it to walk through this step by step.
Speaker 6: But I want to give you a piece of this
Speaker 6: here that I think is really important to know, and
Speaker 6: then I'll pass it to Shelley. A big part of
Speaker 6: the reason why we don't set boundaries we lie to
Speaker 6: ourselves and convince ourselves that we're not setting the boundary
Speaker 6: because oh, I don't want to create a wedge between
Speaker 6: my husband and his friend, or I don't want I
Speaker 6: want to make sure that I don't ruffle any feathers,
Speaker 6: or I want to make sure that I'm being nice,
Speaker 6: and we kind of act like the reason we're not
Speaker 6: setting boundaries is because we're so nice, But what we've
Speaker 6: actually learned from all the studies around this is it's
Speaker 6: actually the opposite. We're not setting boundaries because we don't
Speaker 6: want to have to sit with having caused someone else disappointment.
Speaker 6: So we will abandon our truth to make sure that
Speaker 6: we don't have to sit with someone else being disappointed
Speaker 6: with us, and so we'll let ourselves, continue to get
Speaker 6: run over, continue to be upset, continue to be angry,
Speaker 6: continue to be in some cases this is not the
Speaker 6: situation that you're in, but like abused or bothered, also
Speaker 6: that we don't have to have somebody go I'm a
Speaker 6: little disappointed in you. And so if you could just
Speaker 6: own that a part of the reason you're not saying
Speaker 6: anything is not because you don't really feel strongly about this.
Speaker 6: It is not because you maybe don't have the tools
Speaker 6: to speak about it when you're all sober and bring
Speaker 6: it up in a meaningful way. But it's because you're
Speaker 6: afraid of you having to sit with the reaction of
Speaker 6: if he gets upset, or if your husband gets upset
Speaker 6: about it. And so this might be a starting point
Speaker 6: for the conversation is share the dilemma instead of going
Speaker 6: in with this anger and solution. Share the dilemma and
Speaker 6: start with your husband and say, hey, I want to
Speaker 6: talk to you about something. Here's the dilemma. You're not
Speaker 6: going in with this hard boundary answer. I need him
Speaker 6: to stop. It's Hey, I really love your best friend
Speaker 6: and I want us to all be able to stay
Speaker 6: really close, and I care about him and I love
Speaker 6: when he's over. And at the same time, it's really
Speaker 6: important to me that we're creating an environment where we're
Speaker 6: not talking about these things because it really bothers me.
Speaker 6: What do you think we should do? How can we
Speaker 6: handle this together? That's a whole different way of setting boundaries.
Speaker 6: And now you're involving your husband and you're a team
Speaker 6: actually wondering how to do this, and you have the
Speaker 6: same conversation with him. Hey, he doesn't even realize this
Speaker 6: is even happening, Shelley, I'll let you jump in. I
Speaker 6: do I want to monopolize this. I know you have
Speaker 6: something to say.
Speaker 1: That's very good advice, very good advice. I love it.
Speaker 5: That's super helpful.
Speaker 7: No, I mean, yeah, there's not a lot to add here.
Speaker 7: You know, what I will say is that I personally
Speaker 7: had this experience with my husband, Jason's friend, best friend,
Speaker 7: and he would constantly say really sexist and aggressive things.
Speaker 7: He would come over on Sundays, they would watch football games,
Speaker 7: and it would just, you know, it would be fine
Speaker 7: when he got there. And my son was always at
Speaker 7: home as well and looked up to his quote unquote uncle,
Speaker 7: and it became really challenging for me to be in
Speaker 7: the same room as my husband and his friend when
Speaker 7: he came over and they started drinking. So I made
Speaker 7: a conscious decision definitely did what Justin said, you know,
Speaker 7: raise the dilemma.
Speaker 1: And then she also started drinking. That's how she happened.
Speaker 1: You know what, can't beat them, join them, but.
Speaker 8: Not with them, but not with them.
Speaker 7: Yeah, basically, you know, you have the choice. I feel
Speaker 7: like you're kind of giving your power away in a sense,
Speaker 7: and I recognize that, Like, the one thing that I
Speaker 7: can control is where I am physically when this person
Speaker 7: comes over, or whether or not, you know, if you're
Speaker 7: concerned about you know, you said, you know, I don't
Speaker 7: necessarily want them to it's nice that he's at home,
Speaker 7: but I'm just thinking to myself, like, maybe it doesn't
Speaker 7: always have to be at your home. You know, we
Speaker 7: live in an uber world, Like, yes, they're drinking and driving,
Speaker 7: so then you drive them to the bar and yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, and you can have your husband uber back,
Speaker 7: or you can send him the uber, you can go
Speaker 7: pick him up, or there's so many different options as well.
Speaker 7: But the idea is like, don't give your power away,
Speaker 7: don't put yourself in a situation I remove myself from
Speaker 7: that situation, and eventually, I will tell you that became
Speaker 7: a little bit wiser about it and was like, why
Speaker 7: doesn't Chillie ever want to hang out with us anymore?
Speaker 7: And I finally, when he was sober and he was
Speaker 7: willing to come to the table and have this conversation,
Speaker 7: I had this conversation with him, and I will say
Speaker 7: that he actually apologized for his behavior and was a
Speaker 7: little bit more conscious about it.
Speaker 8: At that point. I still can't stand him, but still.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also it's just a nice test for you,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, to see how you can
Speaker 1: handle a situation that is difficult, that is causing you
Speaker 1: distress and handle this in a different way, Like you know,
Speaker 1: you probably haven't had to deal with this specific, you know,
Speaker 1: situation before, but handle it. And you're going to feel
Speaker 1: so good after you do handle it. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: when when he's not drinking. You can't talk to someone
Speaker 1: when they're drunk or in a blackout for that matter.
Speaker 1: But you know, there are many different avenues to like
Speaker 1: address this at first with your husband and then you know,
Speaker 1: in a very mature and affectionate ray even exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think Also, you know, of course you
Speaker 4: want to keep your child away from this, but whether
Speaker 4: it's from this guy or in seventh grade or in college,
Speaker 4: he will be exposed to these.
Speaker 2: Types of opinions.
Speaker 4: Now, this is something I'm dealing with, like with my
Speaker 4: nieces and nephews, and just to be there to have
Speaker 4: those conversations from the other side, like well, this is
Speaker 4: what I believe and this is how I feel about it.
Speaker 4: I think is so important that they just hear that
Speaker 4: other side all along.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I totally agree, honestly, Abigail, That's what I was
Speaker 6: going to say, is the most important thing for your son.
Speaker 6: You're not going to be able to protect him from
Speaker 6: these conversations. I mean, maybe you can protect him from
Speaker 6: a bit in your home. I'm not saying I'm say anything,
Speaker 6: but what you can do is model for him how
Speaker 6: he can show up inside of these conversations. And that's
Speaker 6: where you get to really make a big difference.
Speaker 1: Also, you have every right to tell him. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a perfect in It's like, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: want my son hearing any of this stuff. Those are
Speaker 1: your opinions, You're entitled to have them, but not when
Speaker 1: you're at my house as my guests, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: need my child hearing that, and it's under his own roof.
Speaker 1: This is a safe place for him, and I'm his
Speaker 1: mother and I have every right to protect him from that.
Speaker 1: You know, he's going to hear that outside in the
Speaker 1: outside world, but not under my house. Not in my house, Like,
Speaker 1: come on, it's not your belief system. That's not part
Speaker 1: of what you have to put up with.
Speaker 9: So yeah, no, that's all super helpful. I think I
Speaker 9: just needed to hear someone tell me, like, saying nothing
Speaker 9: is so much more powerful than trying to engage, because
Speaker 9: anytime I've tried to educate or just try to listen
Speaker 9: or try it just it never it always makes me
Speaker 9: spiral later, and it always makes him feel like he
Speaker 9: won or whatever, like and I just I need to
Speaker 9: not engage.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, Well, thank you so much, Abigail, and good luck.
Speaker 4: It's a tricky situation.
Speaker 1: Take care, Abigail, Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Thank you, care dear, thank you.
Speaker 4: Our next email comes from Margo. Margo says, Dear Chelsea.
Speaker 4: After I graduated college in twenty twenty one, I went
Speaker 4: abroad to solo travel for a while, but I ended
Speaker 4: up never coming back. I've lived in three different countries
Speaker 4: since then, and have worked six different hospitality and retail jobs.
Speaker 4: I'm currently living in Australia and I'm strongly considering moving
Speaker 4: to Vietnam to teach English soon, but my dad thinks
Speaker 4: it's time for me to come home and start my career.
Speaker 4: Since I'm almost twenty four, I understand where he's coming from,
Speaker 4: but I'm worried that if I don't go now, I
Speaker 4: never will. I really value the sense of autonomy and
Speaker 4: fierce independence I've developed from not being committed to one home, base, job,
Speaker 4: or partner. However, I do know that in the near
Speaker 4: future I want to have children, a partner, and a
Speaker 4: successful career. I feel at once too old to continue
Speaker 4: my current unconventional lifestyle and too young to enter a
Speaker 4: life back home where I could turn complacent doing the mundane.
Speaker 4: Do you think I should get serious or stay adventurous
Speaker 4: or is there a way I can keep the sense
Speaker 4: of wonder and freedom even without traveling and while I'm
Speaker 4: trying to join the corporate ladder, get married and have kids.
Speaker 4: I don't know, girl, Margo, she's twenty four.
Speaker 2: You say almost twenty four?
Speaker 1: Shelley would you like to begin.
Speaker 7: Almost twenty she is, Yeah, Wow, I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna save my feedback for the very end.
Speaker 5: Okay, Wow, I'm.
Speaker 8: Just like, wow, I'm floored.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's interesting because I spent the first you know,
Speaker 7: twenty years of my life climbing the corporate ladder, doing
Speaker 7: everything that people told me I should be doing, you know,
Speaker 7: went to school, got a master's degree, did everything the
Speaker 7: right way, got the corner office, you know, made a
Speaker 7: great salary, and like Jessa was saying earlier about his life,
Speaker 7: like it was the most miserable I'd ever been in
Speaker 7: my life.
Speaker 8: And it finally at the age of like.
Speaker 7: Forty, I was like, burn this all to the ground,
Speaker 7: you know, through the match behind me, and was like,
Speaker 7: let's go, Let's go live this wanderlust adventurous life that
Speaker 7: I didn't really have an opportunity to do when I
Speaker 7: was younger. And so I would say that, especially because
Speaker 7: she's only it seems like twenty four. Wow, you know,
Speaker 7: you're a quarter of a century old almost. It's hard
Speaker 7: to like imagine what life will be like at age fifty.
Speaker 7: But if you know, you're thinking about what your parents
Speaker 7: or your father is telling you, you should be doing,
Speaker 7: and I would say don't let people should or would you?
Speaker 7: I would say, absolutely continue living this adventurous life because
Speaker 7: you will not only when you travel far you find yourself,
Speaker 7: that's first of all, and second of all, you will
Speaker 7: find your tribe. You will find the people, and maybe
Speaker 7: even find your husband. Maybe he's not back quote unquote home,
Speaker 7: maybe he's in Australia, maybe he's in Vietnam, maybe he's
Speaker 7: or your partner. I should say, because I don't want
Speaker 7: to assume what your sexuality is, but I think you
Speaker 7: should absolutely continue to live what feeds your soul, because
Speaker 7: when you come back home, you will there's a very
Speaker 7: big possibility that you will live a life filled with
Speaker 7: resentment and remorse and what ifs. And it's it's worse
Speaker 7: to live a life of what ifs, a life laden
Speaker 7: with regret, than it is to live a life that
Speaker 7: feeds your soul every single day.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean ditto all along that pathway. I think
Speaker 6: what I'll say is that Shelley and I you know,
Speaker 6: have worked with hundreds of thousands of people all around
Speaker 6: the world at this point. And what I will tell you,
Speaker 6: my dear Margo, is we work with people at all
Speaker 6: ages of their life who would just die to have
Speaker 6: the chance to travel in the way and experience what
Speaker 6: you're experiencing right now.
Speaker 5: Would just really want that.
Speaker 6: And you are on a pathway that I think your
Speaker 6: family and your parents it's not that they want there's
Speaker 6: something that they're trying to create, something bad for you.
Speaker 6: It's just there's a different life for them. There's something
Speaker 6: different that they know and that they may have defined
Speaker 6: as success. And what you have to do is really
Speaker 6: ask yourself, what does success look like for me? What
Speaker 6: does happiness look like for me? And follow that path
Speaker 6: and if the pathway that you're on is it, do it,
Speaker 6: Because girl, you are twenty four. I remember when I
Speaker 6: was twenty four thinking that I was old and had
Speaker 6: to have all my shit together. Oh my god, if
Speaker 6: I only knew how much life there, you know, is
Speaker 6: hopefully still left to live and so enjoy, my dear.
Speaker 5: Find the pathway and you'll find home.
Speaker 6: But you know, having a house doesn't mean you have
Speaker 6: a home, So don't make it like it's all about
Speaker 6: moving and buying a house to you know, save your
Speaker 6: life here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and don't listen to your father. Okay, like, don't
Speaker 1: listen to some man tell you what is best for you,
Speaker 1: even if it is your father, because your life sounds incredible.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what what I want to be?
Speaker 5: You?
Speaker 1: And you're twenty four years old. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: career until I was thirty two years old. I didn't
Speaker 1: make a living until I was thirty two doing what
Speaker 1: I wanted to be doing. So I think you should
Speaker 1: stay there, go to Vietnam, go then go go to Laos,
Speaker 1: go wherever the fuck you feel like going. Do whatever
Speaker 1: you want, and don't put a time limit on anything.
Speaker 1: You know, time is like, this is the most important
Speaker 1: thing you could possibly be doing with your life as
Speaker 1: seeing the world. And you're right. If you go home
Speaker 1: and you find some guy and you shack up and
Speaker 1: start a family, you're never going to get these opportunities again.
Speaker 1: So you know, I know your father probably wants the
Speaker 1: best for what's best for you, but he's also referencing
Speaker 1: this constructed society that we're told what we have to
Speaker 1: do and when we have to do it, And I
Speaker 1: say fuck you to all of that. You know you
Speaker 1: have to follow what you want to do and be
Speaker 1: passionate about who you are and not listen to anybody
Speaker 1: who's trying to explain to you what's best for you,
Speaker 1: because only you know that, and that's what I have
Speaker 1: to say about that. Hal Amen, Amen, there you go, Margo,
Speaker 1: There you go, Margo. Okay, don't fuck this up.
Speaker 2: Send as a post guard from Vietnam.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we better not be seeing you in these parts
Speaker 8: of the words.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Our next call is from Laura. She is in Carasau
Speaker 2: and is a nutritionist.
Speaker 4: Dear Chelsea. After suffering four small strokes in a row
Speaker 4: last December, my life has been really a roller coaster
Speaker 4: ride through depression and back. Almost nine months later, I
Speaker 4: can finally say I feel a bit like myself again.
Speaker 4: Your special and podcast has been the first thing to
Speaker 4: get me laughing again in months, so thanks for that.
Speaker 4: Now here's my question. I have severe ADHD and have
Speaker 4: tried and really want to meditate, but it's been absolute hell.
Speaker 4: And I truly mean this with all the respect.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 4: But I figured, if you can meditate and actually enjoy it,
Speaker 4: isn't it possible for everyone? I've tried every app there is.
Speaker 4: I tried first thing in the morning, tried at night.
Speaker 4: After eight weeks of hating it and not seeing even
Speaker 4: the tiniest change.
Speaker 2: I gave up again.
Speaker 4: My mind doesn't want to deal with another thing to
Speaker 4: check off my already never ending to do list. Would
Speaker 4: love your advice on how to make meditation enjoyable. Much
Speaker 4: love from the Caribbean, Laura.
Speaker 1: Hi Laura, Hello, Hi Laura. Our special guests today are
Speaker 1: Justin and Shelley. They wrote a book called How We
Speaker 1: Ended Racism. So Shelley has a lot of experience, well
Speaker 1: so does Justin with meta meditation. So Shelley, why don't
Speaker 1: you start first about meditation and ADHD and how you
Speaker 1: combine the two.
Speaker 10: Absolutely, So, look, can I be an ADHD er and
Speaker 10: say this is fucking awesome? Absolutely interrupt and interrupt you
Speaker 10: right away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just keep interrupting us, I mean, and then
Speaker 1: we'll get the picture, no problem.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And what's fucking awesome is the sunshine and your
Speaker 7: sunglasses and you're sitting outside in a tank top somewhere
Speaker 7: in the Caribbean. Let me say that I am married
Speaker 7: to someone who also does not enjoy meditation in any way,
Speaker 7: doesn't necessarily see the benefits if you will, And what
Speaker 7: I will tell you is that there are many modalities
Speaker 7: to meditation. I think there's this stigma that you have
Speaker 7: to you know, sit down, cross legged, do an app
Speaker 7: close your eyes, do breathing exercises. And that's actually not
Speaker 7: true at all. When my husband, for example, plays guitar,
Speaker 7: he's meditating or sure, he's lost in some other universe
Speaker 7: and that is his way, that is his meditation.
Speaker 8: When I have a friend.
Speaker 7: Who's a runner, and when she runs and trains for marathons,
Speaker 7: you know she runs long distances, she's completely.
Speaker 3: I tried that now, Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I think the idea is that there's
Speaker 7: something that is there, whether it's when you're walking along
Speaker 7: the beach because you're in the Caribbean, when you're swimming,
Speaker 7: when you're paddleboarding, when you're where do you find that
Speaker 7: your mind is the quietest, you know, where there's got
Speaker 7: to be something. There's got to be one thing. If
Speaker 7: it's listening to music, if it's playing music, if it's
Speaker 7: but the idea is that wherever you find that bliss,
Speaker 7: wherever you find that moment, then I would say that's
Speaker 7: where you should go to meditate, right that, Because I
Speaker 7: think this stigma of like I have to do it
Speaker 7: in a certain way or use a particular app or
Speaker 7: something is not correct. It's not correct at all. And
Speaker 7: the other thing I will tell you is that there's also,
Speaker 7: you know, benefits to just mini meditations or microhabits. And
Speaker 7: so what I will say to you is that even
Speaker 7: if you're just doing breathing exercises throughout the day that
Speaker 7: takes sixteen seconds ten seconds, you know, Chelsea, I remember
Speaker 7: you and I were talking about the meditation exercise of
Speaker 7: six one eight or four seven eight, which is like
Speaker 7: breathing in for four, holding for seven, exhaling out for eight.
Speaker 7: What that does is it recalibrates your vagus nerve so
Speaker 7: that you can calm yourself, you can center yourself. Even
Speaker 7: if you just do that every time you wash your
Speaker 7: hands right after you go to the bathroom or you're
Speaker 7: in the kitchen or whatever, and you start incorporating these
Speaker 7: mini habits in your life, that is meditation too. That's
Speaker 7: also a form of meditation, and you can get the
Speaker 7: benefits of it right because it recenters you. It brings
Speaker 7: you back to the present moment, and you're able to
Speaker 7: now not just necessarily react, or you're able to be
Speaker 7: self aware that your mind has wandered.
Speaker 8: Oh my mind wandered. Let me bring it back.
Speaker 7: And so in long forms that may not work for you,
Speaker 7: but in short forms that is maybe there's a way
Speaker 7: that it will give you a sense of self awareness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Laura, where is that place that you find bliss?
Speaker 10: It's difficult because I don't know, Like you always make
Speaker 10: jokes that you have ADHD, but if you.
Speaker 3: Have it, it's just it's not something that's that goes away.
Speaker 10: I have about eight hundred channels in my head that
Speaker 10: are constantly giving some kind of signals.
Speaker 3: And it's very rare that they're completely turned off.
Speaker 10: Some like if I'm caught in a really really really
Speaker 10: good show on Netflix, then that that sometimes you lose
Speaker 10: yourself in something like that. Mm hmm, if it's a
Speaker 10: really good book. But I'm not, Like I tried marathon running.
Speaker 10: I didn't all trust, It's just my brain doesn't fucking stop.
Speaker 10: It doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: It doesn't stop. But what you can, I hear you,
Speaker 1: and you're right, I don't have ADHD properly, so I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, I'm always just joking about it.
Speaker 1: I think I have more add but no.
Speaker 8: But it's fine. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I left my ass off, But I think that whatever
Speaker 1: you can do to just relinquish all of the noise,
Speaker 1: like the added noise, since you already have so much
Speaker 1: noise in your head. Whatever activity can allow you to
Speaker 1: put your phone away for an hour, two hours, whatever
Speaker 1: the best challenge is for you. Maybe it's thirty minutes
Speaker 1: to begin with, maybe it's ten minutes. But put your
Speaker 1: phone away and get lost in the activity of what
Speaker 1: you're doing. And reading a book is a perfect example.
Speaker 1: If it's a really good book and you get lost
Speaker 1: in it, doesn't that feel so good when you realize, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've been reading for thirty minutes and I haven't even
Speaker 1: looked at my phone.
Speaker 10: Yeah, but I was going to suggest and this is
Speaker 10: the thing. I need my phone for it, because what
Speaker 10: I've noticed is that your podcast. That's how it started,
Speaker 10: because I don't listen much to podcast, but I was
Speaker 10: looking for something because my brain was going after I
Speaker 10: had the strokes.
Speaker 3: It was I had to go off all the meds
Speaker 3: and anyways.
Speaker 10: It was fucking horrible, and I was trying to find
Speaker 10: some way to focus.
Speaker 3: I could do my.
Speaker 10: Job because I own my own company, I cook for people,
Speaker 10: and I was just putting so much pressure on myself
Speaker 10: and then the podcast is just like you have this
Speaker 10: noise in the background that keeps you just focused enough
Speaker 10: and it quiets down all the other trap that's going on,
Speaker 10: and I just keep going and going.
Speaker 3: So it would involve my phone, but it is like listening,
Speaker 3: it's very soothing. You wouldn't think it, but it is.
Speaker 1: That's okay that you're listening on your phone as long
Speaker 1: as you're not on your phone while you're enjoying the activity, Like,
Speaker 1: don't interrupt that activity with other activities. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how many things are going on in your head. You
Speaker 1: know what happens when you pick up your phone and
Speaker 1: interrupt something that you're doing, or you interrupt you know,
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of something and then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go do this, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: do that. The point is it's to be as present
Speaker 1: as possible. Right, that's present minded awareness, Like that's it.
Speaker 1: You're paying attention to the activity that you're doing, and
Speaker 1: the goal is to find the activity that brings you
Speaker 1: to that so that the voices are a little bit
Speaker 1: duller and all of the traction that's going on in
Speaker 1: your head becomes a little bit less chaotic. And when
Speaker 1: you notice that you're feeling that way, then that's an
Speaker 1: activity that you should do again, you know, with the
Speaker 1: intention of Okay, I'm going to put my phone away
Speaker 1: for this amount of time whatever your big distractions are,
Speaker 1: to remove them from the thing that is going to
Speaker 1: make you just really be focused and pay attention. And
Speaker 1: I promise you that if you keep practicing this.
Speaker 3: I gave up.
Speaker 10: I have to be honest. I had a good, like
Speaker 10: eight week cycle going and then I gave up.
Speaker 1: I know, but you're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: meditate right now. So just what we're saying is find
Speaker 1: the show, find the book, find the podcast, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and practice doing that for a certain amount of time
Speaker 1: every day, and I promise you will start to become
Speaker 1: more focused. You won't, you know, you don't believe that now,
Speaker 1: but it will. So that's a gift you're just going
Speaker 1: to give to yourself. All right, justin, did you want
Speaker 1: to chime in?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I would love to.
Speaker 6: Actually, Laura, So there's this really amazing book that I know.
Speaker 6: It's one of the best books that I've ever seen
Speaker 6: on meditation, and it's written specifically for meditation, like one
Speaker 6: of the titles originally was going to be Meditation for
Speaker 6: people who can who can't Stop thinking. That's not the
Speaker 6: actual title. The title is Stay Woke, A Meditation Guide
Speaker 6: for the rest of us. Happened to write I happen
Speaker 6: to write this book shameless plug just.
Speaker 3: Recently learned the word plug.
Speaker 5: I recently learned what.
Speaker 8: I have a different definition for plug.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I do too, Actually a few a few, but no,
Speaker 6: I'm actually sharing this with you because I'm one of
Speaker 6: these people who I don't have ADHD, but I can't
Speaker 6: stop thinking. And one of the biggest myths about meditating,
Speaker 6: it is a myth.
Speaker 5: It is a lie. It's bullshit.
Speaker 6: No one's ever done it ever in their life. And
Speaker 6: if they told you they've done it, they're alive. People
Speaker 6: say that they if they to meditate, I have to
Speaker 6: get my thoughts to stop or get my mind to
Speaker 6: stop thinking. That would literally be like saying, oh, I'm
Speaker 6: going to meditate, I need to get my heart to
Speaker 6: stop beating. If your mind stops thinking, you're dead. Like
Speaker 6: the mind thinks, that's what it does. That's literally what
Speaker 6: it does. Like the heart beats, that's what it does,
Speaker 6: whether we like.
Speaker 5: It or not.
Speaker 6: And what we have to learn how to do when
Speaker 6: we're meditating or anything that bringes into this state. Is
Speaker 6: what we're really hoping for is to get our thoughts
Speaker 6: to work for us instead of against us. The reason
Speaker 6: why there's a struggle is not because you have too
Speaker 6: many thoughts. It's because you feel like your thoughts are
Speaker 6: pulling you out of the moment that you want to
Speaker 6: be in. And so Chelsea's invitation and Shelley's invitation are amazing,
Speaker 6: but I really want to invite you into this nuance
Speaker 6: to think.
Speaker 5: I'm hearing you talk.
Speaker 6: About your thoughts like a problem, and I want you
Speaker 6: first to reorient yourself to say that you and your
Speaker 6: mind is not a problem. That's actually the thing. You've
Speaker 6: got a diagnosis that sometimes when we get these now,
Speaker 6: we run this story in our head that says, my
Speaker 6: brain's a problem, and.
Speaker 5: If you have a problem, you're.
Speaker 6: Going to be fixing it right instead of going, how
Speaker 6: do I use this that I have to work in
Speaker 6: favor of me? So I just want to reorient your
Speaker 6: language around that a little bit and help you see
Speaker 6: that there's no problem happening here. What there is is
Speaker 6: a desire for you to be more present in your life.
Speaker 6: And this is what I think all of us are
Speaker 6: inviting you into.
Speaker 10: You know, no, because I used to use the ADHD
Speaker 10: as my superpower, like you can do so much stuff.
Speaker 10: But after I got sick, my mind just kind of
Speaker 10: became my enemy.
Speaker 4: Well, and I think too, because you've had you know,
Speaker 4: some traumatic brain events. You may need some time to
Speaker 4: heal with that. You know.
Speaker 10: That's that, and that is everyone kept saying, give it time,
Speaker 10: give it time. And we're I think ten months in
Speaker 10: now and only now I'm starting to feel a bit
Speaker 10: like myself again. Yeah, and that's and I am. And
Speaker 10: I have like a journal. I listened to your shit.
Speaker 10: I tried the twenty one days a habit forming thing.
Speaker 3: I did it. I'm still doing it.
Speaker 10: I bought a special journal for it, to do it
Speaker 10: in the morning and the evening. And I noticed that
Speaker 10: with certain things.
Speaker 3: I really really do try to be grateful.
Speaker 10: Like certain things that I couldn't be grateful a few
Speaker 10: months ago, that I'm like, I'm sleeping again, you know
Speaker 10: shit like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, love, So I.
Speaker 10: Do try to, like I really am applying more of
Speaker 10: the present stuff. But it's difficult if your brain is
Speaker 10: natural friend at the moment and it kind of messes
Speaker 10: with the system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I like what Justin said. I think that's
Speaker 1: really nice that, like, listen, you're recovering. Your brain is
Speaker 1: your friend, not your enemy, regardless of how crazy your
Speaker 1: thoughts are, how frenetic it may seem, it's your friend,
Speaker 1: and you can make friends with your brain, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's true, Laura. And I'm really serious.
Speaker 6: I'm not I'm honest to God, not just sharing this
Speaker 6: with you to promote my book at all. I'm sharing
Speaker 6: with you because I actually really think it would help.
Speaker 6: Like I really am a person who's with you, Like
Speaker 6: my mind is going all the time, and I thought
Speaker 6: I was somebody who could never meditate. And so that's
Speaker 6: literally why why I decided to write this is because
Speaker 6: people write these meditation books thinking that you know, everybody
Speaker 6: can just sit and cross their legs, and you know,
Speaker 6: like Shelley was talking about it, and we all can't
Speaker 6: do that, and so we need a space that we
Speaker 6: can be able to drop into ourselves. So just anyway,
Speaker 6: just check out my book. I promise it will help you.
Speaker 6: It's like the biggest gift to me when I hear
Speaker 6: somebody going.
Speaker 3: Through that what was the title again.
Speaker 6: It's called Stay whe A Meditation Guide for the rest
Speaker 6: of Us. Okay, all right, I know woke means all
Speaker 6: kinds of bullshit. Now, it didn't mean that when I
Speaker 6: put the book out. But it's not about that. It's
Speaker 6: about you know, helping us. A meditation guide for the
Speaker 6: rest of us, you know. So, yeah, you got it,
Speaker 6: all right.
Speaker 3: My elderly mother likes to say she's woke. She thinks
Speaker 3: it's the thing that you have to say to everyone.
Speaker 5: Now, I'm woke, go mama.
Speaker 1: Well I feel like this was a very productive phone call.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I hope it was helpful.
Speaker 3: This is very cool. You need to come perform here.
Speaker 3: This is I live on an island called Puasa. It's
Speaker 3: next to Aruba.
Speaker 1: Well, i'll be there. I'll be there this weekend.
Speaker 3: And it's gorgeous.
Speaker 10: It's like everything you can think of a of a
Speaker 10: Caribbean paradise.
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, the Caribbean is pretty gorgeous. So you're lucky. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad for you have and heal. Keep healing and
Speaker 1: keep doing the work. You're gonna you're gonna get to
Speaker 1: a better place. You're coming out of it.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I meant that I watched your show
Speaker 3: and that was the first.
Speaker 10: Time in three months that I left.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was I laughed so hard. I watched it
Speaker 3: twice and I laughed again the second time.
Speaker 5: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, thanks Laura, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Okay, bye Laura, all right, bye, Shelley.
Speaker 4: I loved what you said about like the short little
Speaker 4: snippets do because I do have ADHD and that has
Speaker 4: been something that's like helped me so much, is to
Speaker 4: just sprinkle them through the day.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's big.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's take a quick break and move back to
Speaker 4: wrap up with Justin and Shelley, and we're back.
Speaker 1: That's my baby voice.
Speaker 8: That's also your doggie boys.
Speaker 1: Oh, I haven't seen Bernice in so long. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to embrace her and have her reject to be I'm.
Speaker 5: Allergic to dogs. It's the worst. Oh yeah, I know it.
Speaker 5: I hate it because dogs are so cute.
Speaker 1: I'm in the market for some new dogs anyway, since
Speaker 1: Bert fucking died and Bernice is here or she's no
Speaker 1: that it was months ago. Don't worry, but I'm in
Speaker 1: the market and I'm ready to rumble. I just need
Speaker 1: a full house and that's operational. And then I'm just
Speaker 1: going to add to my brood. Who knows what's going
Speaker 1: to happen next in the dog world with me.
Speaker 8: A whole pack.
Speaker 1: I love it, and probably I see these videos on
Speaker 1: Instagram where people have like eight or nine chowls, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's what I want. I want to come
Speaker 1: home and have eight different colored chowls running towards me
Speaker 1: like a like a kibble commercial.
Speaker 7: Oh, like a moving carpet. Yes, yes, you'll be like
Speaker 7: the Queen of England, like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I bet people always are confusing me with
Speaker 1: her anyway. I mean, well, especially since she died. Oh no,
Speaker 1: there's a new queen.
Speaker 2: I forgot.
Speaker 1: I thought they all died anyway. Thank you guys for
Speaker 1: being on the show. I appreciate both of your advice.
Speaker 1: It was but very great. Actually, you guys both gave
Speaker 1: great advice. And the book is called How We Ended
Speaker 1: Racism by Shelly Tagilski and Justin Michael Williams, and it's
Speaker 1: available now, so please go get a copy, and get
Speaker 1: several copies actually and hand them out to all the
Speaker 1: fucking nsholes you know.
Speaker 8: Amen, Amen, let's do this together.
Speaker 1: Amen. Thank you guys. Thank you for having la Yeah,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Appreciate it.
Speaker 8: Bye, Chelsea.
Speaker 4: Do you have some new dates for us?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 1: You know, I do?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 10: I do?
Speaker 1: I have a lot of We added lots of Canadian cities, Canadians,
Speaker 1: I'm coming. We added about fifteen new tour dates. I'm
Speaker 1: coming to Denver again, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Richmond, Virginia,
Speaker 1: Santa Rosa, California, Gary and Deana, Baltimore, Verona, New York,
Speaker 1: and about seven dates in Canada. So go to Chelseahandler
Speaker 1: dot com. I am performing everywhere. I will be on
Speaker 1: tour all for the rest of the year and through December,
Speaker 1: and then next year I'm going to be touring all year.
Speaker 1: So come and get it, you guys. It's good times
Speaker 1: and it's a very very much needed reprieve from all
Speaker 1: the fucking madness that's going on in this world. So
Speaker 1: I'm here to bring joy and sunshine. Do you have a.
Speaker 4: Holiday themed question for Chelsea? Please send us all the
Speaker 4: questions you need answered about crazy family get togethers, arguing
Speaker 4: over which cranberry sauce recipe to use, and all your
Speaker 4: holiday drama. Just send your questions to Dear Chelsea podcast
Speaker 4: at gmail dot com. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered
Speaker 4: by Brad dickerd executive producer Catherine law And be sure
Speaker 4: to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot com