Speaker 1: I'm Shonda Rhymes and we're bringing Dominant Stories, created by
Speaker 1: Shawn land Audio in partnership with the Dove Self Stam Project.
Speaker 1: How you speak to yourself matters, how you speak to
Speaker 1: other people matter, and how you think about other people,
Speaker 1: what you disrespect in other people. I think it's worth
Speaker 1: it for us to first investigate like that touches someone
Speaker 1: in the place that the thing that you really care
Speaker 1: about touches you. Hey, I'm Jess Meaner and this is
Speaker 1: Dominant Stories, the podcast that helps us reclaim and rewrite
Speaker 1: the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about our bodies,
Speaker 1: our beauty, our creativity, and our identities. So. I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but when I was growing up, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be so many things. I annually wanted to
Speaker 1: be a lizard trainer. I don't know why I thought
Speaker 1: that was a real job, But most of the time
Speaker 1: I fantasize about being a famous actor. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was a kid who loved performing, and I was a
Speaker 1: kid in the eighties so obsessed with TV and the
Speaker 1: people that I saw on TV. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: just like them. Whever that was Nancy McKeon on the
Speaker 1: Facts of Life or Molly Ringwald and the Breakfast Club
Speaker 1: and if you're not a gen X or go and
Speaker 1: google those folks immediately. But um, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if my desire to be famous was so much
Speaker 1: about fame itself, but about the popularity that I thought
Speaker 1: fame would bring me. I mean, hi, I was a
Speaker 1: girl at the last name of Wiener. I was like
Speaker 1: relentlessly picked on in school, and I thought that somehow
Speaker 1: fame would inoculate me from feeling some of those things, right,
Speaker 1: But I found myself as the years have gone on.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of dominant stories about fame and
Speaker 1: success and they would kind of sound like, you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm successful, then people are going to love me,
Speaker 1: which is why I'm always so fascinated to talk to
Speaker 1: folks who did have a chance to live out my
Speaker 1: childhood dream and become famous at a young age. What
Speaker 1: does that do to their dominant stories? And it's funny
Speaker 1: because all of us now could be famous. You know,
Speaker 1: there are so many more ways to be famous than
Speaker 1: just being an actor. Social media has really democratized the
Speaker 1: platform to reach an audience. So how do we live
Speaker 1: our lives authentically while others are looking and that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about on today's show. I am so
Speaker 1: thrilled to have Debbie Ryan joining me. You might know
Speaker 1: Debbie from her hit show Jesse on the Disney Channel,
Speaker 1: or from her series Insatiable, or maybe her new thriller
Speaker 1: film called Night Teeth. I've known Debbie since she was fifteen,
Speaker 1: and I have watched her career grow. I've watched her grow,
Speaker 1: and now she has a platform of over thirty five
Speaker 1: million folks who follow her online. And she is still
Speaker 1: so intentional about balancing being vulnerable and human while protecting herself,
Speaker 1: especially living her life out loud. She has so many
Speaker 1: gems to offer this conversation. I cannot wait to dig in.
Speaker 1: Oh and don't forget to let me know if you
Speaker 1: thank by subscribing and writing a review wherever you're listening,
Speaker 1: by super duper appreciate it. So, Debbie, I was trying
Speaker 1: to do the math on how long we've known each other.
Speaker 1: Did we meet when you were like fifteen? Maybe? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have been fifteen or sixteen, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: crazy because I was coming in. I was doing some
Speaker 1: coaching for the cast at the Disney Channel and we
Speaker 1: met and I was so struck. I was struck by
Speaker 1: a lot of things about you. But I remember, even
Speaker 1: at that age, the convos that we had felt like
Speaker 1: they automatically went deep. You were very like old soul
Speaker 1: in a young body. Did you do you feel like that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was actually sort of reflecting on so many of
Speaker 1: the moments that we've had and now we have a friendship.
Speaker 1: Before that, we would just run into each other, and
Speaker 1: every time I see you, I would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: real one. And I remember there was maybe a panel
Speaker 1: for young women, and maybe we were in the green
Speaker 1: room and I just started interrogating you, and I remember
Speaker 1: us having conversations about representation in the dream gap, and
Speaker 1: I remember being like, I can't imagine if I grew
Speaker 1: up with dolls that we're wheel cheer users, or how
Speaker 1: do we go? Or that just looked like what the
Speaker 1: world looks like. You always ask really good questions when
Speaker 1: you talk about interrogating me. But I remember the curiosity
Speaker 1: that you have about systems and stories and like where
Speaker 1: we're forming those in our own minds and our own experiences.
Speaker 1: And you know, this show is about dominant stories, the
Speaker 1: stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, and if left unchecked,
Speaker 1: they can become this sort of like seven maybe negative dialogue.
Speaker 1: And I was curious about because you've been in this industry,
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry for a long time, started out as
Speaker 1: as a young kid, and you're growing up in it,
Speaker 1: do you remember having a dominant story, like was there
Speaker 1: a debt tape running through your head that you remember
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about. I would say a specific story
Speaker 1: that I've had is and really sort of worked on
Speaker 1: not continuing to perpetuate my mind is that what something
Speaker 1: has been put out there and then sort of distilled
Speaker 1: and saturated and reframed and reflected back to you as
Speaker 1: something that you said or believed or identified that it's
Speaker 1: prescriptive suddenly. And it was tricky for me to not
Speaker 1: see someone hold a fun house mirror version of the
Speaker 1: thing that I once said or that they thought that
Speaker 1: I was, and use that as a template of where
Speaker 1: I not only who I am, but also how I
Speaker 1: have to be stuck. Yes, you know, the feeling that
Speaker 1: you can't change or evolve because media exists and it's
Speaker 1: a time stamp. And especially when I started out, I
Speaker 1: started out doing traditional interviews, and you would sit down
Speaker 1: with a reporter from Tiger Beat magazine or whatever, and
Speaker 1: you would say something and three months later it would
Speaker 1: come back to you or come out in a magazine,
Speaker 1: and there was sort of a distinct time stamp. I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about you as a young person, and lots
Speaker 1: of young people who have a dream a desire to
Speaker 1: be in the performing arts, to be in the entertainment space,
Speaker 1: and it does require like these like kind of two
Speaker 1: separate personas. Right, there's like the you you are being
Speaker 1: as an average twelve thirteen year old human being going
Speaker 1: through all of the requisite growings up right, and then
Speaker 1: there's like that adult layer that comes into plan. I
Speaker 1: only say adult because it feels more mature. Right, Shaking
Speaker 1: hands with people you don't know, learning how to connect
Speaker 1: with strangers, like wanting to put your best foot forward.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a tremendous pressure. Did you have You
Speaker 1: have you thought about that with a little bit of
Speaker 1: space now from that time, I think so, yeah. You
Speaker 1: know at the time, I would go onto a red
Speaker 1: carpet or something and someone would go, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure what you do, And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: that's what I go. That was what I know. And certainly,
Speaker 1: looking back, the ability to shoulder pressure does not take
Speaker 1: away from the weight of the pressure, right, And because
Speaker 1: it was what I knew how to do the way
Speaker 1: that my peers and friends were knowing how to do
Speaker 1: their homework, their extracurriculars, deal with things at home, have chores,
Speaker 1: have a weekend job, like I had my own sort
Speaker 1: of category of pressures that I was dealing with in tandem.
Speaker 1: And I feel fortunate because when I started, I started
Speaker 1: when there were magazines in the beginning of musings of
Speaker 1: gossip blogs about celebrities, Ocean Up Jared, and that was starting,
Speaker 1: and it still felt there was like a respectful line.
Speaker 1: And then as I continued to do this thing, media changed.
Speaker 1: I became more of the lead and more sort of visible,
Speaker 1: and it felt gradual for me. But certainly I think
Speaker 1: reconciling both of those things is challenging. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: or sort of noticing early on, this dynamic of people
Speaker 1: in Hollywood being so attracted to youth and innocence. And
Speaker 1: if we can see someone experience something for the first time, acrush,
Speaker 1: a heartbreak, an argument with their mom, feeling alone, the
Speaker 1: sort of less experience they have the heart of these
Speaker 1: things will hit and and then to continue to work
Speaker 1: in that world, you have to learn boundaries, or you
Speaker 1: get more cynical, or things become less special, or you
Speaker 1: learn how to prota heck to yourself, and that shine
Speaker 1: goes away a little bit, and then people get discarded
Speaker 1: because suddenly the thing that made them special was taken used,
Speaker 1: ran out. And I just sort of remember speaking with
Speaker 1: my mom alat about it in this perspective that she had,
Speaker 1: and it felt like it was always important for me
Speaker 1: to remain open and truthful in my human experience, to
Speaker 1: protect things like Wonder, to protect believing the best in people,
Speaker 1: no matter how many people show me that people can
Speaker 1: be so terrible, like not using that to look at
Speaker 1: every person. And in the protecting of that, it almost
Speaker 1: feels like the more that you learn how to protect
Speaker 1: your boundaries, you can actually feel safe to protect Wonder.
Speaker 1: You can be open because you know where your line
Speaker 1: is and you know what's protected. So that juxtaposition is
Speaker 1: certain have been tricky. The thought that you just shared
Speaker 1: about youth, I think is really important because I think
Speaker 1: that's a huge dominant story for young people in our industry,
Speaker 1: which is like when you're the fresh new thing, when
Speaker 1: you're the fresh face when you're the new this when
Speaker 1: you know it's the unfortunate narrative we've heard about even
Speaker 1: like the Disney lineup of folks who go through like
Speaker 1: the Disney system, so to speak, and who are on
Speaker 1: Disney shows. And and then when you want to graduate
Speaker 1: and you do graduate and you're in this like more
Speaker 1: of an adult life and you're growing up, Like it's
Speaker 1: hard sometimes for people to let people grow, and I
Speaker 1: think internally, like if you're getting a lot of validation
Speaker 1: on the newness in your life, when you grow and
Speaker 1: you change, that can be really hard to kind of say, well,
Speaker 1: people still be interested in me if I'm not serving
Speaker 1: that fantasy for you. It's both in tandem. I think
Speaker 1: when you see child prodigies of any sort of field,
Speaker 1: it's so impressive both that they're young but that they're
Speaker 1: doing the grown up thing. And so the more that
Speaker 1: you do the grown up thing, and then you just
Speaker 1: catch up to the age at which other people your
Speaker 1: age are still doing that thing, and you're no longer
Speaker 1: sort of a novelty because you're young. The way in
Speaker 1: which maybe you've felt ahead can be rattling now that
Speaker 1: you are. The playing field has been leveled. But then
Speaker 1: the other areas that other people have been able to
Speaker 1: round out at they've maybe had college experiences that they've
Speaker 1: sort of worked through, dynamics with their families or whatever.
Speaker 1: But we live in a culture that glamorizes and romanticizes youth.
Speaker 1: We live in a culture that from a consumer perspective,
Speaker 1: that is one of the tools that people use. And
Speaker 1: I think what's been so cool about the last five
Speaker 1: or ten years, especially as it relates to femin feminine
Speaker 1: and like female presenting people. You know, it's you're both
Speaker 1: too young to be taken seriously and also not taken
Speaker 1: seriously if you're not young enough to be sort of
Speaker 1: aligned with this traditional beauty standard to get in the door.
Speaker 1: And it's this strange double edged sword that I think
Speaker 1: that we I've been really enjoying as I've been moving
Speaker 1: through my twenties, watching women breakthrough in their fifties and
Speaker 1: their sixties and like just absolutely crush it and watching
Speaker 1: people be celebrated in their evolution, watching Olivia Coleman, watching
Speaker 1: Angela Bassett, watching people only get better and better and
Speaker 1: not be sort of held by this tabloid standard of
Speaker 1: like are they doing an appropriate thing for their age,
Speaker 1: and it's like, we're doing the thing. Let us do
Speaker 1: the thing. We're just settling into our rights. Allow us
Speaker 1: to do it. We're doing it for thirty less income
Speaker 1: on average, Like for us do it. Yeah. When I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this convo with you today, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about the obvious challenge that I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people listening to this might be curious about being
Speaker 1: a young woman in Hollywood in entertainment, which is all
Speaker 1: about like the appearance pressure, right, especially around like dominant
Speaker 1: stories of like am I pretty enough? Like you know,
Speaker 1: am I the right? Wait for this kind of you
Speaker 1: know experience, Like there's so many people who inform those stories.
Speaker 1: Do you remember figuring out how to navigate those? Like
Speaker 1: could you share a little bit about like how do
Speaker 1: you traverse that minefield as a young person? It's tricky.
Speaker 1: And I will say that my perspective is from an actor, right,
Speaker 1: and it's from a person who has seen more photos
Speaker 1: of myself than any person should ever have seen. I
Speaker 1: was talking with my dear friend Sam Landsky the other day,
Speaker 1: but we were just talking and he was like, are
Speaker 1: like parents parents, parents parents? Like for how many generations
Speaker 1: have we had mirrors? And then cameras. It's not our
Speaker 1: business what we look like. I don't think that we
Speaker 1: ever should have been this surrounded with our own reflection.
Speaker 1: And I just think to myself, how normalized it's been.
Speaker 1: And there was a bit of time where I was
Speaker 1: going through strange just orphy and I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to figure it out, and I was like, O, great,
Speaker 1: it's not my business what I look like. I will
Speaker 1: have like a car reflection mirror to make sure I
Speaker 1: don't have anything on my face, but other than that,
Speaker 1: and I did not have any mirrors in my house.
Speaker 1: I sort of like covered the ones in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: and I went through moving through my day not checking
Speaker 1: in with what I look like, because I realized I
Speaker 1: was getting caught in the mirror and picking things apart
Speaker 1: and realizing that for me, my job is to be
Speaker 1: an actor. My job is to be a person. It's
Speaker 1: not to be sort of a professional pretty person. That's
Speaker 1: not our job. Our job is to be the best
Speaker 1: version of ourselves possible. And then a really healthy and
Speaker 1: fun relationship with style, with hair and makeup can come
Speaker 1: from emphasizing those things which first exist in you. M
Speaker 1: How do we reconcile the way, social media, even for actors,
Speaker 1: has become this additional job, right. I remember talking to
Speaker 1: ends on Broadway who were having less and less success
Speaker 1: in getting Broadway shows because they were plucking TV actors
Speaker 1: and film actors to be on Broadway. Because a lot
Speaker 1: of this became a game about audience, right, and how
Speaker 1: much audience are you bringing to something? And then social media,
Speaker 1: I think for performers became this like extra job of
Speaker 1: cultivating in between. So how do you reconcile the pressure
Speaker 1: to keep the appearance up on social the audience engaged
Speaker 1: and interested, because that's become a new like a new
Speaker 1: element of the business, don't you think I do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And if you figure it out, let me know. Final answer.
Speaker 1: My friend Aaron Long, who's also an actor, he's like Instagram,
Speaker 1: it's a toy. It's fun to play with. It's not
Speaker 1: your job. It's just a toy. And that is really
Speaker 1: helpful for me to remember whenever I sort of get
Speaker 1: wound up in it. And also having been seen a
Speaker 1: specific way, there's like this thing about being typecast, and
Speaker 1: I certainly have experienced that, and it can be really
Speaker 1: tricky to say you've seen me this way, but that
Speaker 1: was filmed eight years ago. So can I show you
Speaker 1: other ways that you could see me and who I
Speaker 1: really am? And so it can be very easy for
Speaker 1: us to create moments for social media, to create moments
Speaker 1: to sort of use social media as a medium and
Speaker 1: as a platform. And I know people who do that
Speaker 1: so effectively, so elegantly, And for me, I think I
Speaker 1: found that social media works best when it's just a
Speaker 1: way of highlighting or sharing something that already exists organically,
Speaker 1: and if I'm not creating moments for it, if I'm
Speaker 1: not sort of living and dying by it. But it's
Speaker 1: just like if people haven't ever seen me do a
Speaker 1: lot of stunts or they didn't realize I did a
Speaker 1: lot of stunts, but it was physical comedy and a
Speaker 1: sitcom for so long, And I do a lot of
Speaker 1: fight training, but no one's seen me that way. Great,
Speaker 1: Then if I'm doing some fight training, I'll throw something
Speaker 1: up on Instagram showing people with me fight training, And
Speaker 1: if that gives you a more well rounded picture of
Speaker 1: who I am, then that's great. And again, I think
Speaker 1: this goes back to the dominant story of like are
Speaker 1: we stagnant? Are we allowed to evolve? And I think
Speaker 1: it's like, yes, telegraph it as it happens organically. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm hearing in this that I think is
Speaker 1: a great takeaway for everybody, quite frankly, which is like
Speaker 1: what is your intentionality and using the platform that you're on. Right,
Speaker 1: So you're talking about creating sharing. I love the idea
Speaker 1: of sharing to your sharing parts of your life but
Speaker 1: that are authentically very That's a great model to think about, right,
Speaker 1: Like pull from your life organically share what you will
Speaker 1: for that are different parts of you, but not to
Speaker 1: manufacture an image you think you're supposed to be. And
Speaker 1: to know that if you're sharing what's organically happening in
Speaker 1: your life, it's never going to be as impressive as
Speaker 1: people who do it professionally. My Instagram will never be
Speaker 1: as perfect as impressive as someone who does Instagram as
Speaker 1: a job, because they are thoughtful about it, they're educated,
Speaker 1: they spend time thinking about it and doing it. So
Speaker 1: I cannot hold myself to a standard of you know,
Speaker 1: you can't go to karaoke and like have a good
Speaker 1: time if you're trying to put on the show at
Speaker 1: the Staples Center. That people have spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time putting together like I know what it is and
Speaker 1: know what it is to you, and it does not
Speaker 1: have to be your value. Most most of those people,
Speaker 1: that's not what their real life looks like. And that's
Speaker 1: also where the changing and the challenging of the dominant
Speaker 1: stories come in, is that when you recognize that we're
Speaker 1: all going through very similar evolution pieces everything that you've
Speaker 1: said thus far in our conversation about like can I change,
Speaker 1: can I grow? Can I be allowed to do that
Speaker 1: even when I've got a public audience. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think you've said this before, and I think it's really
Speaker 1: worth mentioning again that you do get captured in time,
Speaker 1: you know, when we produce things online for content. So
Speaker 1: people who might be seeing you now on a show
Speaker 1: like Jesse, which was you know, eight years ago, that's
Speaker 1: new to them and they're thinking about Debbie in that context.
Speaker 1: But here's Debbie now, this whole other, evolving, growing, maturing person.
Speaker 1: And so that's part of the downside I would say
Speaker 1: of like living our lives as publicly as we do,
Speaker 1: is that you're right whenever anybody gets connected to you.
Speaker 1: What do you always say, like, context is a luxury, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is things can be so quickly decontextualized, and it
Speaker 1: can just be challenging to make sure that things represent
Speaker 1: what your intention is and what your voices. And something
Speaker 1: I've been really focusing on is making sure that the
Speaker 1: things that I put out there, I'm trying to run
Speaker 1: it through a filter of like Heidi Gardner, who's currently
Speaker 1: a CAUSSE member on SNL, who I think is so
Speaker 1: funny and so cool. One time I heard her say,
Speaker 1: we were doing press with this movie Life of the Party,
Speaker 1: and she was talking about before she says anything, before
Speaker 1: she speaks, she likes to ask herself, is it kind?
Speaker 1: Is it truthful? And is it necessary? And those three things.
Speaker 1: It was the first time I had heard that. And
Speaker 1: I think joy is necessary. I think laughter is kind.
Speaker 1: And so it's just funny. It's funny, but along as
Speaker 1: it also checks those boxes, you know, And then there's
Speaker 1: only so much we can do. And this is why
Speaker 1: the more that we hold space for ourselves to constantly
Speaker 1: grow and evolve, I think, the more that we can
Speaker 1: remember that everyone else around us is also doing that.
Speaker 1: Someone that you love, someone you admire, someone a version
Speaker 1: of you that you really liked. Like anything is subject
Speaker 1: to sort of find more truth and evolve. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. This conversation is getting so good. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're back. You're ready to conquer your dominance stories. I
Speaker 1: know you are here. We go. I think a lot
Speaker 1: because I educate, as you know, a lot of young
Speaker 1: people on these topics. We do a lot of workshops
Speaker 1: around media literacy and helping to kind of deconstruct some
Speaker 1: of the images that we're getting, especially as young people
Speaker 1: who might not have these lived experience yet to contextualize
Speaker 1: in the way that we're talking about. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to dig a little bit deeper into like what you
Speaker 1: said before about comparison is the thief of joy, the
Speaker 1: comparison trap of all of this scrolling. Because you you
Speaker 1: said something in a project that you were doing for
Speaker 1: Darling magazine and for Area, And I want to play
Speaker 1: a clip of this when we're talking about the compare
Speaker 1: and despair cycle that social media can instigate. So I
Speaker 1: want to I want to take a listen to that.
Speaker 1: I want to play that for you real quick. The
Speaker 1: idea of comparison is something that I think became so
Speaker 1: new with social media and stuff. I didn't notice it
Speaker 1: until I got a zanga or in my space. God, like,
Speaker 1: these girls are beautiful and like every thing looks circular
Speaker 1: on them, and they're glowy, and they're like just splayed
Speaker 1: out on like someone's yacht, which is like shiny things everywhere,
Speaker 1: and we're like told that this is like success and
Speaker 1: this is beauty, and it is, but there's also like
Speaker 1: forty other versions of it. M it's funny to hear
Speaker 1: me realizing and working through it for the first time.
Speaker 1: It's true, and you know, I think that it also.
Speaker 1: I was asking someone the other day how things change
Speaker 1: in trends, and we were talking and what women find
Speaker 1: beautiful versus what men find beautiful and sort of which
Speaker 1: comes first the invention of a new beauty trend or
Speaker 1: media pushing it or products being sold to perpetuate it.
Speaker 1: And a friend was sharing the sort of origin. They
Speaker 1: study a lot of like relations about women, femininity, and sex,
Speaker 1: and they were saying that slut shaming is something that
Speaker 1: actually was really pushed and brought about and furthered by women,
Speaker 1: which is like something I think we maybe historically associate
Speaker 1: with men, but it's something that women tend to really
Speaker 1: drive the idea of us sort of gate keeping and
Speaker 1: like controlling supply and demand and being like what it
Speaker 1: means to be a woman and your value of a
Speaker 1: woman has to look like what I value as a woman.
Speaker 1: And I think the times that so many of us
Speaker 1: as people find something in a quality and another person
Speaker 1: that we don't like, it's usually not about that person.
Speaker 1: It's just about what you maybe are unable to provide
Speaker 1: for yourself or unable to protect in yourself, and the
Speaker 1: ability to find the value in someone else's path looking
Speaker 1: different is the ability to grow into something that might
Speaker 1: be really fulfilling for you, or to just hold value
Speaker 1: and respect for something that is not your journey but
Speaker 1: that someone else is doing so beautifully in a way
Speaker 1: that you could admire and learn from. And I think
Speaker 1: that one of the biggest sort of points of confusion
Speaker 1: I think for especially for women are female presenting people,
Speaker 1: is this sort of vintage concept of having it all.
Speaker 1: I'm very validated by being a person in relation to
Speaker 1: my partner, and that can be a tricky thing and
Speaker 1: reconciling both. You know, there's just so many mixed messages
Speaker 1: first about womanhood and value and how it's been so
Speaker 1: strongly tied historically to someone else into a family. Then
Speaker 1: if spaces have opened up and conversations around in women
Speaker 1: and our rights, and you know, they're letting us vote now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard. That's really cool. They're
Speaker 1: running us to politics for now. Anyway, this could go wrong,
Speaker 1: But it also it almost feels like there's sort of
Speaker 1: a that pressure to do it all. You can work now,
Speaker 1: but also you still must be an engage parent, you
Speaker 1: still have to get dinner on the table, and that
Speaker 1: I think perpetuates this judgment, particularly I've noticed by women
Speaker 1: of women who do choose to follow a more traditional path.
Speaker 1: I just think it's one of the places that's so undervalued,
Speaker 1: Like it makes it hard for us to allow ourselves
Speaker 1: to feel proud of excelling in one or two areas,
Speaker 1: to commit to one or two things and to run that.
Speaker 1: And my perspective over the last few years has broadened
Speaker 1: so much in regards to how challenging and how admirable
Speaker 1: and ultimately badass it is to take inventory of your
Speaker 1: home life and create a really beautiful and safe space there,
Speaker 1: to be a person committed to your partner, investing in communication,
Speaker 1: investing in building something together to hold space for love,
Speaker 1: to be a mother, to untangle generational tendencies or traumas,
Speaker 1: or antiquated ways of communicating unhealthy value systems, to set
Speaker 1: your family up. That's so much work. It's so hard,
Speaker 1: and I feel like in the collective voice of feminism,
Speaker 1: it's still is maybe underrepresented or undervalued, or sort of
Speaker 1: approached with a snarky voice. And I just think that
Speaker 1: how you speak to yourself matters, how you speak to
Speaker 1: other people matter, and how you think about other people,
Speaker 1: what you disrespect in other people, what you undervalue or
Speaker 1: think is settling. I think it's worth it for us
Speaker 1: to first investigate like that touches someone in the place
Speaker 1: that the thing that you really care about touches you,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to look the same. And the
Speaker 1: more that we can begin to hold space for that,
Speaker 1: the less hard we can be on ourselves for what
Speaker 1: we're doing or not doing, and the more linearly we
Speaker 1: can follow our path without following comparison. Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: talk about the judgment that we have about the way
Speaker 1: a woman or a person might structure their life and
Speaker 1: their values and their interests, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: that is our internalized sexism patriarchical beliefs, racism, Like I
Speaker 1: think we've internalized so much that we are a commune
Speaker 1: to be running around with dominant stories that have been
Speaker 1: left unchecked. And partly what I'm passionate about is us,
Speaker 1: much like we're doing in this conversation, just like opening
Speaker 1: the box, examining a bit like where did that come from?
Speaker 1: Why do I feel that way? How does that serve me?
Speaker 1: Because that's at the core of everything we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: Like you're creating what I call like the designing of
Speaker 1: a good life, right, a life that you love on
Speaker 1: your own terms, and that even figuring out like what
Speaker 1: are those terms? What do I care about? Is it
Speaker 1: okay for me to be ambitious for one part of
Speaker 1: my life and then change focus and care about family
Speaker 1: and another How do those live side by side? Like
Speaker 1: we've kind of boiled those down into little magazine articles
Speaker 1: or listicals or kind of you know, memes on the internet.
Speaker 1: But a lot of this is the true reckoning of
Speaker 1: our lives, right, is how do I move through the world,
Speaker 1: developing who I am, not being stuck in dominant stories
Speaker 1: about what I can or can't be, and then how
Speaker 1: do I give myself grace in space to grow. What
Speaker 1: I've heard you say is when we start to practice that,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a much better odds of giving that
Speaker 1: grace in space to somebody else, whether we know them
Speaker 1: or not, whether you're you know, Debbie Ryan, the performer
Speaker 1: I'm scrolling through on Instagram, or whether you're Debbie Ryan,
Speaker 1: my friend who I'm watching blossom develop and grow into
Speaker 1: this like incredible human, which is true, by the way,
Speaker 1: But like, I feel like that is the real work
Speaker 1: of the work, and it's not easy to do that work.
Speaker 1: It's not easy to unpack that stuff. No, it's not,
Speaker 1: and I think at first requires the courage to again
Speaker 1: challenge the stories because there are things that we do
Speaker 1: not want to believe about ourselves. We don't want to
Speaker 1: believe that we've internalized misogyny as women. The meme of
Speaker 1: a girl who's like, I'm not like other girls. I'm
Speaker 1: a cool girl. I'm not like other girls. I've drink
Speaker 1: beer and I don't wear makeup. Like for us to
Speaker 1: take down or disrespect other women, that is perpetuating the
Speaker 1: male gaze, because that's just about being seen as cool
Speaker 1: to do it and correct and that's like inherently twisted.
Speaker 1: It's not us versus them, And I think that how
Speaker 1: much more should we do that for other women and
Speaker 1: other other people? I think in general, challenging what the
Speaker 1: stories are, challenging, what the what culture is set up
Speaker 1: to reward? Agreed, we're all trying to do it. We're
Speaker 1: all trying to do a version of it. Wow, I
Speaker 1: thought that it looked like this. I grew up thinking
Speaker 1: this was it, This was my value. It came from
Speaker 1: doing this. It came from being this thing and holding
Speaker 1: space to be like, we'll look at this other person
Speaker 1: doing this thing that I could never imagine finding value
Speaker 1: from or finding identity in, and they're killing it and
Speaker 1: it's so impressive. That's what I liked about what you
Speaker 1: said in that clip that we played, because when you
Speaker 1: talked about like there's you know, forty different versions of success,
Speaker 1: I feel like why that spoke to me is because
Speaker 1: I've been unpacking, repacking and unpacking again, like all of
Speaker 1: my belief systems around my worth equals my work, which
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people listening could probably relate to.
Speaker 1: In whatever career you're in or whatever field you're in.
Speaker 1: But when you start to unpack those and you start
Speaker 1: to say, well, then what what would my value be
Speaker 1: based on? What do I care about? What's valuable to me?
Speaker 1: I think that's a conversation. We can't start young enough.
Speaker 1: This is such a great learning tool about a self tenderness,
Speaker 1: a self compassion, and a self like an independence that
Speaker 1: isn't looking for the external world to bless our value
Speaker 1: or our loveability. Yeah, I mean, no one is in island.
Speaker 1: And I think if we're all sort of equally navigating
Speaker 1: a culture that has some sort of toxic and dangerous
Speaker 1: and confusing viewpoints, we also get to be intentional with
Speaker 1: the voice that we put back into that culture. And
Speaker 1: that's from public facing an actor, or that's anyone with
Speaker 1: a platform. We all are public facing. We all have platforms,
Speaker 1: and there's so much that we're all putting in and
Speaker 1: if it's not productive, it could be just perpetuating the
Speaker 1: broken things, but also the concept of reframing idea of productivity.
Speaker 1: You know this whole story that our workers are worth
Speaker 1: and that well, can I even do this hobby? Can
Speaker 1: I afford the time to do this thing? But there's
Speaker 1: a much more productive use of my time, and there's
Speaker 1: a much more productive use of my money, and I'm
Speaker 1: saving and saving and everything I'm doing is working and grinding,
Speaker 1: and I believe in that sort of as the rule,
Speaker 1: so that there can be exceptions to that rule. I
Speaker 1: think the exception is that anything that you do, an
Speaker 1: extracurricular hobby, time with a friend, time unplugged, setting a boundary,
Speaker 1: not being on your phone for ten hours, keeping a
Speaker 1: gratitude journal, meditation, doing a silly play day, anything that
Speaker 1: you do that you have a hard time justifying in
Speaker 1: relation to a productivity mindset. I think it's important to
Speaker 1: remember that to protect the art, you have to protect
Speaker 1: the artist, and that you can only show up better
Speaker 1: for your obligations, for your relationship, for the people in
Speaker 1: your life, for your future version of yourself if you
Speaker 1: are first well rounded and grounded and healthy, and anything
Speaker 1: you do that reinforces your self esteem and your soul
Speaker 1: only makes you better and it is worth it. Amen.
Speaker 1: And here's what inspires me about what you're just saying
Speaker 1: there when you said to protect the art is to
Speaker 1: protect the artist as well. And I was thinking about
Speaker 1: your incredible husband as an artist. You're an artist, you
Speaker 1: have a family of artists, like we love and no artists.
Speaker 1: And I'm also thinking about how tender it is when
Speaker 1: you put your art out into the world. The protection
Speaker 1: that we need to create, right because anybody, whether you're
Speaker 1: a writer, a speaker, a singer, you know, an actor,
Speaker 1: dance or anybody athlete, anybody who puts their art into
Speaker 1: the world, it's so tender to receive critique. It's so
Speaker 1: tendered to receive feedback on that. And I would be
Speaker 1: remiss if I didn't introduce into this conversation, like how
Speaker 1: do you navigate against like trolls and unsolicited feedback and
Speaker 1: everybody's got an opinion, and like everybody is so quick
Speaker 1: to judge, and the way we've set up our systems too.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about establishing all this grace and space,
Speaker 1: but the reality is we can literally fire off a
Speaker 1: terrible comment to somebody we know or don't know with
Speaker 1: a blink of an eye, Right. Yeah. I think ultimately,
Speaker 1: if I put something out there and it's not for you,
Speaker 1: that's cool. If you feel compelled to go online and
Speaker 1: trash talk it, I'm probably not going to see that
Speaker 1: because I just I don't spend tons of time on
Speaker 1: social media, and when I do I'm that's not what
Speaker 1: I'm looking for. So maybe that made you feel better
Speaker 1: by saying that didn't really do anything to me. Definitely
Speaker 1: didn't do anything about the fact that it's already been
Speaker 1: made and that it's someone else's favorite thing and someone
Speaker 1: else's thing that they like, And if you're trolling, then
Speaker 1: you know that's on you. That has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with me. I've done what I've done and anything that
Speaker 1: we put out there, as long as you can really
Speaker 1: stand beside your intentions in doing it and you investigate
Speaker 1: it to begin with, like you cannot look backwards a
Speaker 1: second guess yourself. You have to just first make sure
Speaker 1: that it's right, is it kind, is it truthful? Is
Speaker 1: it necessary? And then do it, release it and move
Speaker 1: on to the next thing. I think that's the theme
Speaker 1: of a big part of our combo today has been intentionality,
Speaker 1: whether it was what you were putting out on social media,
Speaker 1: how you were sharing your life. But now, even as
Speaker 1: an artist, and I don't know if a lot of
Speaker 1: the folks know this about you, but when you were
Speaker 1: doing Jesse, you became a director and you were actually
Speaker 1: the youngest female director of episodic television as well as
Speaker 1: the youngest female actively engage in a multi camera community
Speaker 1: at the d g A, which just stands for the
Speaker 1: Director's Guild of America. It's no small feat, and it's
Speaker 1: worth mentioning because I wanted you to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what it means to be more in control
Speaker 1: of your image or the story in that role than
Speaker 1: being in front of the camera. What does that serve
Speaker 1: differently for you as a as a human being and
Speaker 1: as an artist and storyteller. I think over the last
Speaker 1: for me, it's felt like five years the conversation has
Speaker 1: evolved so gorgeously to be really thoughtful in trying to
Speaker 1: diversify not only the stories that are being told, but
Speaker 1: the people that are telling the stories and the opportunities
Speaker 1: that those people get. And I've read a thousand scripts
Speaker 1: about a girl and she's someone's something, daughter, sister, friend,
Speaker 1: cheer leading captain, girlfriend, first crush, dream girl, crazy girl,
Speaker 1: next door, whatever, and I've seen how those are written.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's a thing that happens when someone
Speaker 1: tells a story that they know very well, and then
Speaker 1: there's a thing that happens that someone tells a story
Speaker 1: that feels to be public domain and it's sort of
Speaker 1: their approximation of this generation of the same thing. And
Speaker 1: being in the d g A and being in the
Speaker 1: multi camera meetings and the Director's Guild, being certainly the
Speaker 1: youngest person, certainly one of the few women, and being
Speaker 1: given a seat at the table, being invited into those spaces.
Speaker 1: You know, like, certainly there are people who were like, go,
Speaker 1: she's here because use an actor, And it's like, I
Speaker 1: mean here because I've studied this and because I've shadowed
Speaker 1: at length, and also being an actor got me the
Speaker 1: opportunity to shadow, like not being sort of ignorant about
Speaker 1: what got me in the spaces, but also taking accountability
Speaker 1: for what I've done with those opportunities and for young women.
Speaker 1: When I think about, and we talk about this all
Speaker 1: the time, how affected we are by the stories and media,
Speaker 1: by how we see other girls, how we see women,
Speaker 1: how women talk about other women in movies. What kind
Speaker 1: of woman is seen to be desirable and worth loving,
Speaker 1: and what kind of woman is seemed to be unlovable
Speaker 1: or the friend and deemed to be the support person.
Speaker 1: These things can perpetuate themselves, or we can create like
Speaker 1: a beautiful architecture of a world that looks like not
Speaker 1: only what I know it to be, but also what
Speaker 1: I like for Yeah, and I've been fortunate to be
Speaker 1: in those spaces and have people take a chance on me.
Speaker 1: And there's certainly times where you developed the character and
Speaker 1: I developed this project. We were taking around and pitching
Speaker 1: it and people were like, well, why why do we
Speaker 1: care about these women? And I was like, there are protagonists.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. Why do you
Speaker 1: care about anyone who's the lead of anything? Like, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's John Wick, it's because he got out of
Speaker 1: the game and his wife died in the But like,
Speaker 1: people are worth caring about, even if they don't look
Speaker 1: like your typical hero. I find those questions come up
Speaker 1: mostly then, Yeah, that and you know, quite frankly, I've
Speaker 1: also been in things where you know, my role existed
Speaker 1: to make the man a hero, and now we know
Speaker 1: why we care about the dynamic is because it allows
Speaker 1: the man to grow and rise to the occasion and
Speaker 1: impress the girl. And that is a thing that exists
Speaker 1: in real life. Certainly, men motivated by love or by
Speaker 1: beauty or by whatever can rise to an occasion. But
Speaker 1: I think that's first thought, and I think that's lazy,
Speaker 1: And I don't think that that's putting anything in the
Speaker 1: world that we're missing. When you're in those rooms, Debbie,
Speaker 1: I hear this incredible confidence and conviction and self possession
Speaker 1: which I know you and I know to be true
Speaker 1: about you. And and I'm also curious if somebody is
Speaker 1: listening and saying like, Okay, I'm the first in my
Speaker 1: room of coders, right, or I'm in this room of
Speaker 1: you know, executives, and and I'm one of the only
Speaker 1: dominant stories are bound to come up, right, We're bound
Speaker 1: to have a thought of what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Am I an impostor are they going to find out
Speaker 1: I'm a fraud? Like do you have like a is
Speaker 1: there anything you've discovered that helps you quiet that story
Speaker 1: and tell yourself another? I mean, I will say that
Speaker 1: the credits don't transfer. You can be very good at
Speaker 1: taking up space in one area of your life and
Speaker 1: very easily shrinking another. It happens to me where I'll
Speaker 1: be like, and let me know when the script has
Speaker 1: a personality and the woman exists for a reason, click,
Speaker 1: and then I'll walk into a room and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm so oh, I'm so sorry. I spoke like I
Speaker 1: should be seen and not heard. Why that, um, I
Speaker 1: would say, in terms of taking up space, first look
Speaker 1: around a room and look at why you're there. The
Speaker 1: things that I feel usually like I shouldn't speak because
Speaker 1: I'm different than everyone in this way. That typically is
Speaker 1: your gift. That's what you're bringing to that room that
Speaker 1: someone else isn't bringing. So while it can get very
Speaker 1: twisted in our brains and say, but that's why you're
Speaker 1: unqualified to speak, that's why you should not say anything
Speaker 1: that actually is Like everything that you've gone through and
Speaker 1: your family and your life and your messaging, the art
Speaker 1: you consume, the things that you are sort of emotionally
Speaker 1: allergic to, all of those things has built such a unique,
Speaker 1: beautiful mosaic of who you are. And it's no one
Speaker 1: else in any room that you're in will have that.
Speaker 1: But if there's something that continuously feels bad and makes
Speaker 1: you feel unqualified or small and does not value you
Speaker 1: and has you questioned your own value, I promise you
Speaker 1: you can do without that. Yeah, get out of there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, you know the drill at that time. I'll
Speaker 1: be back before you know it. Yeah, I hope you're
Speaker 1: enjoying this as much as I am. All right, let's
Speaker 1: dig back in. What is a story that you're actively
Speaker 1: working through right now in your life as an adult?
Speaker 1: Like we talked about the ones in the beginning as
Speaker 1: a kid, But what story is Debbi kind of working
Speaker 1: through now. I think a story that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: shift is that as important as it is to show
Speaker 1: up for other people, it is that important or more
Speaker 1: important to show up for myself. It's just about turning
Speaker 1: that knowledge into a priority list and a value system
Speaker 1: with my time and to know that not only is
Speaker 1: it enough to show up for myself and for my
Speaker 1: primary relationship and my family, but also it's the kinder
Speaker 1: thing to every obligation or every relation up in my
Speaker 1: life for me to show up as the best version
Speaker 1: of myself, and to do that, I have to first
Speaker 1: show up for myself. Yeah. I mean, it's just as
Speaker 1: you were talking. I was just all I hear when
Speaker 1: you're saying that it is a sort of like well
Speaker 1: rounded approach to being a human that you're allowing yourself
Speaker 1: to be fulfilled by multiple avenues. If joy is a
Speaker 1: value that you most hold on to dearly, then of
Speaker 1: course you know we want to live into that. We
Speaker 1: want to live into that in our relationships and our
Speaker 1: work and our self a relationship to ourselves too. And
Speaker 1: I and I think what we've uncovered today a lot
Speaker 1: is the platform that we might express ourselves on. That's
Speaker 1: a medium, that's a way to connect. But the why
Speaker 1: you're connecting and understanding who you are is really most important.
Speaker 1: And you're just a gem. Thanks so much for having
Speaker 1: me into this conversation. I just think solful for us
Speaker 1: all to remember that we're always growing. We have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to constantly evolve. Age is no long longer you know,
Speaker 1: you are only ripening, You're only getting better. And something
Speaker 1: that I've noticed sort of coming out of pandemic probably
Speaker 1: with everyone that can relate to this to some degree,
Speaker 1: but particularly the people that I'm having a lot of
Speaker 1: intimate conversations with women or people in their sort of
Speaker 1: early twenties to mid thirties. The biggest thing is we've
Speaker 1: sort of put our heads down, got out of high school,
Speaker 1: we went really hard in one direction, developed a thing,
Speaker 1: and then sort of grew another thing. Secondarily, and that
Speaker 1: can be style, that can be your home environment, that
Speaker 1: can be your career that could be your family, that
Speaker 1: could be kids, that could be you know, your dynamics
Speaker 1: with your family or whatever. Doing those things and going
Speaker 1: through those things, that feels as though we've all now
Speaker 1: lifted our heads up and said, oh no, what about
Speaker 1: these other things? And these other people next to me
Speaker 1: are so much farther along in this thing, and it's
Speaker 1: too late for me to start in this thing. Or
Speaker 1: I don't know about this, so this is just not
Speaker 1: what I'm going to be good at. Those are all lies.
Speaker 1: Those are all lies designed by just culture and negative
Speaker 1: forces to keep you small, like they don't want you
Speaker 1: to thrive, they don't want you to spread your wings,
Speaker 1: like it's an act of rebellion for us to take
Speaker 1: up the space that is ours. And the more that
Speaker 1: you stand where you are, and the more that you
Speaker 1: take ownership over what you can do, the more you'll
Speaker 1: realize most of the limits are not put on you.
Speaker 1: They're just perpetuated by us because we're so used to it.
Speaker 1: My dog used to put him in the cage when
Speaker 1: he was a baby, and like a crate so that
Speaker 1: he could sleep, and we would close the door and
Speaker 1: after several nights of pawing at the door. He would
Speaker 1: go in there and we close the door and he
Speaker 1: would sleep, and then he would wait for us to
Speaker 1: open the door in the morning. And after a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time, we didn't even close the door, but
Speaker 1: he didn't even try. He didn't even push the door
Speaker 1: because he was so used to knowing. He tried a
Speaker 1: couple of times, and he said, well, this door is
Speaker 1: always closed, and I should just wait for someone to
Speaker 1: let me out. And I think so often I find
Speaker 1: we do that to ourselves, even if it's been closed before.
Speaker 1: Try today. That is bringing the metaphor all the way home. Baby,
Speaker 1: that was we did one, did one. But it's so
Speaker 1: true because those dominant stories are lies and they thrive
Speaker 1: on secrecy and shame, which is also why I like
Speaker 1: to speak them out loud, so that people can hear
Speaker 1: they're not alone in them, they can challenge them, change them.
Speaker 1: It's evolution and it's a revolution. That's right, That's right. Yeah, Shame.
Speaker 1: I think shame is the biggest hindrance that we have.
Speaker 1: It's something that I spent a lot of time because
Speaker 1: I have generalized anxiety. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: waking up just mortified that I existed in a body
Speaker 1: and spoke in general like being perceived and being a person.
Speaker 1: Plagues may often and I think to myself, if I
Speaker 1: was born into a haunted locket or an old baby
Speaker 1: bell as one often, maybe then I would have been free.
Speaker 1: But I was born this way and this time, in
Speaker 1: this moment for a reason, and so I got to
Speaker 1: just disentangle from that, allow myself to be perceived, not
Speaker 1: be held back by embarrassment, change, just move forward and
Speaker 1: know you could change your story. Beautiful Mike Drop, I
Speaker 1: love I love her. I love that combo. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy that as well. So I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: kind of like my three takeaways. But I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: just coming out of this convo with Debbie, and I
Speaker 1: think number one, what I'm really ruminating on is her idea.
Speaker 1: But like social media works best when it's just a
Speaker 1: way of kind of highlighting or sharing something in your
Speaker 1: life that already exists organically. You know, it's about doing
Speaker 1: it with intention, but it's also about like letting your
Speaker 1: life need is what I took away from it, not
Speaker 1: trying to make your life look like somebody else's. Love
Speaker 1: that thought. I also want to remind us that we
Speaker 1: are the CEOs of our own media empires. All of
Speaker 1: us with platforms, whether we're famous or not, have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to be responsible in what we post and what
Speaker 1: we share and to make sure that we're not contributing
Speaker 1: to any toxicity or negativity out there. And then I
Speaker 1: think personally, a huge takeaway that applies is creating grace
Speaker 1: and space for ourselves and for others, you know, just
Speaker 1: knowing that we are human beings and process we're going
Speaker 1: to change. Social media's just a snapshot of a single
Speaker 1: moment of our lives, and giving us the grace and
Speaker 1: space to grow, to change those dominant stories, to move
Speaker 1: away from those stories. That permission for ourselves is important,
Speaker 1: and certainly permission for the people that we admire and
Speaker 1: love and follow online. And then I think there was
Speaker 1: some great cractical action stuffs that Debbie rattled off that
Speaker 1: I wrote down, which was like making sure that we're
Speaker 1: maintaining our personal boundaries, not oversharing, on plugging from social
Speaker 1: media when we need to, and certainly things like keeping
Speaker 1: a gratitude journal, being consistent in any kind of meditation
Speaker 1: you might be doing, just taking time offline so that
Speaker 1: you're fulfilled and balanced, and then I think you'll bring
Speaker 1: that into your online relationships as well. And if you're
Speaker 1: a parent, educator, or a mentor out there for young kids,
Speaker 1: and this conversation has inspired you to want to have
Speaker 1: more of a dialogue with young people in your life
Speaker 1: about the impacts of social media and how to help
Speaker 1: them build a positive relationship with it. Our partners at
Speaker 1: Dove have an incredible resource for that. You can find
Speaker 1: it at dove dot com Backslash the Selfie Talk, And
Speaker 1: if you're interested in exploring more about your dominant stories
Speaker 1: and how you can challenge them and change them, I
Speaker 1: teach workshops on this stuff, so you can always sign
Speaker 1: up at Jess Weiner dot com. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram and I'm Jess Weiner. I really loved the
Speaker 1: community that we're creating. I love the stories you're sharing
Speaker 1: and the questions you're asking. So if you want to
Speaker 1: tell us about your dominant stories that you're rewriting and
Speaker 1: working on, you can email us at podcast at dominant
Speaker 1: stories dot com or leave us a voicemail at two
Speaker 1: one three two five nine three zero three three And
Speaker 1: don't stress, I'm gonna put all that in the show. Notes.
Speaker 1: Next week on the show, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: what happens when your body feels like the enemy. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking with poet and speaker as your In Twinet,
Speaker 1: who will be sharing about her life with ms a
Speaker 1: common neurological condition. Assur is a commission slam poet who
Speaker 1: forms magazine once called the Maya Angelou of the millennial generation,
Speaker 1: and her diagnosis of ms AT for late twenties both
Speaker 1: disrupted her life and gave her a new appreciation and
Speaker 1: relationship to her body and body image. This is going
Speaker 1: to be a fantastic conversation as your is hilarious, so honest,
Speaker 1: so raw. Until then, thank you so much for listening,
Speaker 1: and please don't forget to write a review. It's super
Speaker 1: duper duper helps us out and remember always learning, always growing.
Speaker 1: Dominant Stories with Jess Winer is a production of Shonda
Speaker 1: land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.