Speaker 1: I think our relationship to lostness and making peace with
Speaker 1: the fact that it kind of comes up a lot.
Speaker 1: We tend to act like it's like the big bad
Speaker 1: Boogeyman and will it come?
Speaker 2: Will it not?
Speaker 1: It will be here, you will be lost, it will happen.
Speaker 1: That is a part of the human experience.
Speaker 3: Clear Way is.
Speaker 4: A New York Times bestselling author and poet. Her work
Speaker 4: explores hope, resilience, and the power of love. Her books
Speaker 4: include Heart Talk, Where to Begin, May You Love and
Speaker 4: Be Loved, and Remember Love.
Speaker 1: We don't have to listen to the shadows just because
Speaker 1: we can hear them. Every moment you feel that the
Speaker 1: decisions or the voice in your head is someone else's voice,
Speaker 1: you do have this ability to reclaim it and say, like,
Speaker 1: is this what I want? Your life is your greatest
Speaker 1: gift and responsibility. Yeah, And so in that there is
Speaker 1: this relationship, a constant reclamation is this what I want?
Speaker 2: I think? Is this what I need?
Speaker 4: I'm Radi Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
Speaker 4: we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
Speaker 4: for raw and fielded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow
Speaker 4: you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together.
Speaker 2: Thank you for.
Speaker 3: Being here, my gosh, thank you for having me so excited.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I have to I'm such a huge fan of yours.
Speaker 4: You have changed so much of my life just by
Speaker 4: reading your one book, and I can't wait to read
Speaker 4: so many more of yours. But it has given me.
Speaker 4: I feel like your books give words to people when
Speaker 4: they feel like they can't express it themselves. I feel
Speaker 4: like I've understood myself so much more through reading it.
Speaker 4: I've noticed things about myself that I didn't even know
Speaker 4: existed within me, and I just think it's so beautiful
Speaker 4: how you share yourself with other people in order for
Speaker 4: them to also feel like they can accept and understand
Speaker 4: themselves better. So I just want to say thank you
Speaker 4: so much. I'm so honored to have you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and thank you for reading it.
Speaker 1: You were one of my early readers of the book,
Speaker 1: So thank you.
Speaker 3: It's incredible, it really is.
Speaker 4: And I wanted to ask you because obviously, like you said,
Speaker 4: you've done so many things in your life, but you've
Speaker 4: got this beautiful way of expressing yourself, and I think
Speaker 4: this day and age, people find it quite difficult to
Speaker 4: express themselves through words, especially me. I can talk for
Speaker 4: only myself, but I express myself through crying or through
Speaker 4: emotion release in that way.
Speaker 3: What do you think and how do.
Speaker 4: You think people find it difficult to actually use words
Speaker 4: to express themselves, Like how can people go about being
Speaker 4: better at that? And what do you think stops people
Speaker 4: from doing that? Well?
Speaker 1: One thing I think is really important, and I say
Speaker 1: that whether you feel that you're a writer or you're
Speaker 1: not a writer, I think it's important to write down
Speaker 1: what is going on. Yeah, because when you start to write,
Speaker 1: you inherently have like an inventory of what's going on
Speaker 1: inside of your body, and you're really able to sit
Speaker 1: and see the stories you tell yourself and see where
Speaker 1: you're maybe disrupting the stories by trying to kind of
Speaker 1: bribe yourself out of a feeling or think that you
Speaker 1: don't deserve a thing, or think that you're not worthy
Speaker 1: of this or that or whatever, or diminishing something that
Speaker 1: is reoccurring in your psyche or in your heart, and
Speaker 1: you can see that you're trying not to think of it.
Speaker 1: And so I think what goes on in our bodies
Speaker 1: is often a swirling conversation around the stories we tell ourselves.
Speaker 1: And if you can put the story on a page,
Speaker 1: you can at least quiet the conversation, which is usually judgment,
Speaker 1: irrational ideas around the story and around the narrative and
Speaker 1: around what's happening. And so I think the more you
Speaker 1: anyone has a practice of writing it for no other
Speaker 1: reason but to release, but to identify, but to get
Speaker 1: to know themselves better and better, which is so important,
Speaker 1: I think that probably makes it easier to be expressive
Speaker 1: in conversation. Maybe they'll be there could be more flow.
Speaker 1: But I think also it's great that we're all different,
Speaker 1: and it's great that some of us are. You know,
Speaker 1: for every talker, they need a listener. And I think
Speaker 1: it's important to say to know if you're someone who
Speaker 1: can express themselves in a really big way, and that's
Speaker 1: that's great for you, or if you need a really
Speaker 1: cozy nest, or you need just two people, and I
Speaker 1: think it's okay too. It's more important to identify where
Speaker 1: and how you can express yourself than if you can.
Speaker 1: You always can, but you you just might need to
Speaker 1: stop or you know, we just need to stop judging
Speaker 1: ourselves for not being expressive in the ways other people
Speaker 1: are expressive. So you know, I feel like for every
Speaker 1: person I know who says like, I'm not great with
Speaker 1: expressing myself, I was like, well, probably to me then,
Speaker 1: or to a crowd or to a stranger, but you're
Speaker 1: probably very good at expressing yourself to your partner or
Speaker 1: your husband, or your best friend or the one or
Speaker 1: two people you'd get really connected to, and that's enough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I feel like, I mean, I love what
Speaker 4: you said about journaling. I've had it on and off
Speaker 4: relationship with it. More so because I think when you
Speaker 4: do end up putting pen to paper, it becomes this one.
Speaker 4: I would have a filter up first, because you're so
Speaker 4: used to other people seeing everything that you do now right,
Speaker 4: And then to push through that filter one It obviously
Speaker 4: takes practice, but to push through that filter that other
Speaker 4: people the lens that other people are seeing you with,
Speaker 4: to then actually see you.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it can be really scary.
Speaker 4: And so I notice myself where it gets to points
Speaker 4: in my life where I'm kind of trying to subdue
Speaker 4: something or not really want don't want to actually acknowledge it.
Speaker 4: I will avoid putting pen to paper because it's almost
Speaker 4: too scary to even put it into words. And I
Speaker 4: think sometimes that's why words can be harder than getting
Speaker 4: angry or crying, because you don't have to necessarily be
Speaker 4: as honest with yourself, but I do. I have started
Speaker 4: seeing the importance of using words, even with all the
Speaker 4: other tools of emotion release. But words I think are
Speaker 4: necessary for communication between people, for people to be able
Speaker 4: to understand you, because regardless of whether people will know
Speaker 4: you're upset if you're crying, but will they know how
Speaker 4: they can help you? Will they know exactly what's happening
Speaker 4: in your heart, And really it's the only way that
Speaker 4: we can help someone, help us, but also help to Really,
Speaker 4: I think there's a words of the way that we
Speaker 4: kind of hide from and everything else I think from
Speaker 4: I can talk for only myself, but has been a
Speaker 4: way to escape the words and be able to at
Speaker 4: least just release a little bit out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and most of the time we're probably not of
Speaker 1: the anxiety we have around speaking up or saying something
Speaker 1: is not in the actual words, but what happens after Yeah.
Speaker 1: My brother always says the best and the worst thing
Speaker 1: about the truth is it gets instant results, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of times, you know, the conversations we're avoiding
Speaker 1: are really the results of the truth.
Speaker 2: We have to share.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not so much that you had to say
Speaker 1: those ten words and make a sentence. It's that those
Speaker 1: ten words to say the sentence are do you want
Speaker 1: to commit.
Speaker 2: To me or not? Or do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And I think that's hard.
Speaker 3: It's the vulnerability of it.
Speaker 4: I think when you end up sharing words with someone,
Speaker 4: it's easy to kind of hide behind an external you know,
Speaker 4: you can be very poised and you can feel really confident.
Speaker 4: But as soon as and I noticed that with my
Speaker 4: friends in relationships or that are dating, it's like I
Speaker 4: don't want to tell him I like him, Like I
Speaker 4: don't want to use the words I've already shown him.
Speaker 4: I've showed up every single day, I've.
Speaker 3: Sent him messages.
Speaker 4: But actually saying those words it almost it's a full
Speaker 4: version of you letting your guard down, and that can
Speaker 4: often be really scary.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's movies and TV shows and so much
Speaker 1: of our culture that is just around whether or not
Speaker 1: you can say the words I love you, or the
Speaker 1: struggle to say the words I'm sorry, but those words
Speaker 1: are shorthand for an entire experience of hope that you
Speaker 1: have for a relationship with somebody. Right, So if you
Speaker 1: say I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry, it's really shorthand
Speaker 1: for I see you and I recognize my own imperfections in.
Speaker 2: How we are in community.
Speaker 1: I love you is shorthand for I hope you'll hold
Speaker 1: my heart with respect and not break it.
Speaker 2: And that's scary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're so right.
Speaker 4: Within those small words or the two words that you say,
Speaker 4: there can either be no emphasis or no meaning behind it,
Speaker 4: or there can be so much emphasis and meaning behind it.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why.
Speaker 1: And when there is that, I think those are the
Speaker 1: ones that are hard to say. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: hard for anyone to say, you know, oh yes, can
Speaker 1: I have phrase with that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4: I love how you talk about the difference between fear
Speaker 4: based decisions or fear based living and then making grounding
Speaker 4: choices like you use that in your book that you've written.
Speaker 4: How would you say you can identify these fear based decisions,
Speaker 4: like how can you reflect on yourself and recognize that
Speaker 4: you are living from a place of fear? Because I
Speaker 4: always find for me often can end up being on autopilot,
Speaker 4: where if you've been living in that state for a
Speaker 4: long time, that can end up being your normality. It's
Speaker 4: like you don't know what can be without experiencing it,
Speaker 4: and so your normality could be living from a place
Speaker 4: of fear. You've just settled into it. So what would
Speaker 4: you say are good ways to recognize that you're living
Speaker 4: from a place of fear.
Speaker 1: I think anything you can do that helps you to
Speaker 1: be more as embodied as possible. So when you pause,
Speaker 1: when you create space to breathe, when you create space
Speaker 1: to kind of notice your heart rate, or notice how
Speaker 1: your head is feeling, or notice where your shoulders are,
Speaker 1: you can really see how the body wants to let
Speaker 1: you know that there's anxiety or fear moving through it.
Speaker 1: And I think that if you feel those things, like
Speaker 1: if you feel you know, your stomach doesn't feel easy,
Speaker 1: or your heart is racing, or your shoulders are a peer,
Speaker 1: fear is not something that is comfortable in our bodies.
Speaker 1: So if you do you any type of exercise for
Speaker 1: embodiment to kind of sink in and like check in
Speaker 1: with yourself, you'll usually find fear because it's it's not
Speaker 1: really something I feel that is that feels at home
Speaker 1: in us and so it you can find that disruption.
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, I agree, I think with the especially,
Speaker 4: your physical body is just a manifestation of what's happening inside.
Speaker 4: And as soon as you notice, like for me, it's
Speaker 4: my breath when i'm when I'm a mode of fear
Speaker 4: and i'm and i'm you know, functioning from that point
Speaker 4: of view. I noticed my breath stays here like it's fully,
Speaker 4: it's shallow, it doesn't go beyond my chest.
Speaker 1: Or I'm just not breathing at all, Like you're just
Speaker 1: like and you're like, wow, I haven't taken a breath
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean for so many people, fear and
Speaker 4: whether it's fear or anxiety, both have similar symptoms of.
Speaker 3: Your physical body. Either.
Speaker 4: I know, I know friends who go into rashes. They'll
Speaker 4: lose their hair from it. You know, your physical body
Speaker 4: tells you a lot and it will keep screaming at
Speaker 4: you until you really listen.
Speaker 2: And anxiety is fear. Anxiety is a symptom of fear. Definitely.
Speaker 1: Anxiety is the kind of mind's way of saying, you know.
Speaker 2: Be alert, be alert, be alert, be alert, be alert.
Speaker 1: Something something is not something's going to happen, and that's
Speaker 1: an and in that there has there there is an
Speaker 1: underlying belief system that things don't end up okay. And
Speaker 1: when we live in a world where there's so much
Speaker 1: not okayness, it is very difficult to not succumb to
Speaker 1: that mindset.
Speaker 2: And is it is a fight for peace of mind.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: You have to have thirty different ways to have some
Speaker 1: type of defense against anxiety, in some type of way
Speaker 1: to grab on to peace and whatever that is, whether
Speaker 1: that's by having certain friends or that you just feel
Speaker 1: that helps soothe you, or noticing your own sensitivities. I mean,
Speaker 1: you might just be going through like you know, we
Speaker 1: were talking earlier about if you take a red act
Speaker 1: and then you have to come back and you're really
Speaker 1: exhausted and you're really overtired, there might be certain things
Speaker 1: you just have to cancel the next day because you're
Speaker 1: trying to hold onto peace. And so you might say, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I was supposed to have this work
Speaker 1: dinner with somebody who requires a lot of my energy,
Speaker 1: and I don't have the energy for that, and so
Speaker 1: can I give myself care in this moment? Can I
Speaker 1: walk towards a sense of peace instead of a sense
Speaker 1: of anxiety and cancel that you know and have that
Speaker 1: kind of high integrity moment. Yes, And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety, yes, is so much of it as
Speaker 1: our genetic set.
Speaker 2: Points, depending on what you're you know kind of mental
Speaker 2: health world is like. And there's a lot that.
Speaker 1: We do where we really feed anxiety. And I think
Speaker 1: if we consider the ways that we feed anxiety as
Speaker 1: a way that we are embracing fear, we'd want more
Speaker 1: to change those habits really allow anxiety to fish.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I think there's one part, which is our
Speaker 4: internal anxiety. But what we often forget is that a
Speaker 4: lot of our external world is, like you said, feeding
Speaker 4: into that. So, yes, you may have an element of
Speaker 4: it already in tending. There may be a lot of
Speaker 4: things too worry about. But then how are you sleeping?
Speaker 4: What are you feeding your mind? What are pouring through
Speaker 4: into your senses? And I've been thinking about that a lot, actually,
Speaker 4: because I go through bouts of watching reality TV, and
Speaker 4: I do notice so much. I stopped watching scary things
Speaker 4: or anything that makes me feel scared for the past
Speaker 4: eight or nine years, and it made a huge difference
Speaker 4: to my day to day anxiety. But randomly I'd get
Speaker 4: recommended a show and I'd start watching it, and the
Speaker 4: level of consciousness of what I'm watching feeds into my
Speaker 4: daily activities, and I will wake up with anxiety when
Speaker 4: I've been watching something that's been super high stress or
Speaker 4: where people in the show are really anxious. And so
Speaker 4: what you allow into your senses and every single sense,
Speaker 4: at every single moment. And in Sanskrit there's a word
Speaker 4: called some scars, and I love that word. It means footprints,
Speaker 4: but it says that everything that you allow into your ears,
Speaker 4: even the sense your eyes, you know, through every part
Speaker 4: of you, leaves little footprints, some bigger than others, and
Speaker 4: those footprints are then almost molding how you are then
Speaker 4: shifting through the day. And for a long time I
Speaker 4: stopped specific types of music, like I went through a
Speaker 4: phase where I was really trying to see what a
Speaker 4: difference it made, and so I stopped listening to any
Speaker 4: kind of aggressive music. I wouldn't watch any TV that
Speaker 4: was that stimulated me in that way. I would there was,
Speaker 4: I had curated it, and I honestly can say I
Speaker 4: felt so much peace during that time.
Speaker 3: Slowly things started seeping back.
Speaker 4: In yeah, but it really does make a difference, and
Speaker 4: so a lot of anxiety could actually be prevented, or
Speaker 4: our fear can be prevented just by changing so much externally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, I have this conversation in my
Speaker 1: household a lot, which is that you know, everything that's
Speaker 1: big is always ten or twenty different things, and so
Speaker 1: you don't have to think about the one big solution
Speaker 1: for the big thing. You can just kind of tackle
Speaker 1: it from the thirty different ways. So it just might
Speaker 1: be the movies. I'm the same. I don't watch anything
Speaker 1: that's stressful ever, like I just And it's really interesting
Speaker 1: because I remember a few years ago, I think I
Speaker 1: was having like eggshimmer or something, and so I had
Speaker 1: seen this doctor who was was like, I'd put me
Speaker 1: on some type of anti inflammatory thing. And I'm from Louisiana,
Speaker 1: so it was the first time in my life someone was.
Speaker 2: Like, you can't have hot sauce.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And I was like, whoa what, because like
Speaker 1: I'd never like obviously, like a hot hot pepper is
Speaker 1: very inflammatory. And so I didn't have hot sauce for
Speaker 1: like a year or something like that. And what's really
Speaker 1: interesting is and when you have it again. It is
Speaker 1: like feels like the spiciest thing on earth because you
Speaker 1: actually have desensitized your palate if you have put hot
Speaker 1: sauce in every thing for so long.
Speaker 2: And so what's really interesting.
Speaker 1: About a media diet if you will this idea that
Speaker 1: if you have removed certain things, they are almost twice
Speaker 1: as glaring or make you feel twice as much if
Speaker 1: you start to incorporate them again. So you feel real
Speaker 1: stress or anxiety by having the stressful kind of anxious
Speaker 1: character or thing on or you know. I remember during
Speaker 1: during COVID, I was like I couldn't watch anything where
Speaker 1: like the world was ending.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, I was like, ah, but those of
Speaker 4: the movies that were trending on Netflix at the time, I.
Speaker 2: Was like, what is happening? What is like wrong with us?
Speaker 4: Can we not like all the movies that were recommended
Speaker 4: or that people were watching were all end of the
Speaker 4: world movies.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is like what are we doing
Speaker 1: right now? This cannot be helpful? Like no, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what is or isn't healthy for someone else,
Speaker 1: but like I feel pretty sure I could identify something
Speaker 1: as helpful.
Speaker 2: And I was like, there's just no.
Speaker 1: Way that like movies that are just seeped in doom
Speaker 1: can could possibly help us right now.
Speaker 4: No, And I think we're kind of unaware and desensitized
Speaker 4: to it because it's become so normal to watch things
Speaker 4: like that. My friend was telling me they're part of
Speaker 4: Netflix and they're saying the stuff that's actually being bought
Speaker 4: is the dark, the gloomy, the scary, the intense, and
Speaker 4: it's almost feeding into people's fears. But for some reason,
Speaker 4: if you're and I think it is the concept of
Speaker 4: if you're living in fear, it feels comforting to watch
Speaker 4: fear too. But you're right, I think taking that time
Speaker 4: away from it will help to.
Speaker 2: The opposite.
Speaker 1: I think I'm like literally one step away from being
Speaker 1: one of those people who watches like the Christmas ham
Speaker 1: all around.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm this Plus.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm getting to that time of year there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what are your favorite things?
Speaker 4: I mean, I would love to hear from you, Like,
Speaker 4: what do you do on a daily basis to help
Speaker 4: with those the fear levels, your mood, your energy levels,
Speaker 4: what are your kind of not non negotiables, but the
Speaker 4: things you found that have really helped you.
Speaker 1: I think looking at any way of feeling good with
Speaker 1: as much flexibility as you can possibly have without it
Speaker 1: veering towards a space of non discipline is really helpful.
Speaker 1: So I think this idea that you know, I know
Speaker 1: so many people who are struggle to meditate until they
Speaker 1: loosen up their idea of what meditating is. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: can't sit on the pillow for the twenty two minutes,
Speaker 1: or you or the TM mantra doesn't work well for you,
Speaker 1: or the whatever.
Speaker 2: But have you.
Speaker 1: Tried a seven minute meditation in the bathtub and you
Speaker 1: keep your eyes open and you don't and you don't
Speaker 1: try to think you're meditating in a right or wrong way,
Speaker 1: or have you decided that, Okay, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: I do this every day, go on.
Speaker 2: A walk in the canyon.
Speaker 1: That I live in, and I am not on my phone,
Speaker 1: and I just and I make it a walk of noticing,
Speaker 1: and I just noticed things around me.
Speaker 2: And so I just noticed, oh, that tree.
Speaker 1: Looks different than it did the other day, or oh
Speaker 1: I never noticed that that that house has.
Speaker 2: A flower hail in the front, or you know.
Speaker 1: And I think this idea that we practice noticing, especially
Speaker 1: the natural world around us, because that is where we
Speaker 1: belong and there so this idea that we are almost
Speaker 1: giving this daily uh seeing and respect of you know,
Speaker 1: the space in which we belong is I think really helpful,
Speaker 1: and because it also helps us to feel big and
Speaker 1: small at the same time, which I think is always
Speaker 1: the most helpful kind of I think hadspace to be
Speaker 1: in where you're like, yes, it's all important, and you know,
Speaker 1: what I feel is big and I'm small and a
Speaker 1: part of something big, and in that I'm never alone,
Speaker 1: and in that I always have some place to call home.
Speaker 1: And so I think me, I definitely like my walks,
Speaker 1: and I like to just truly have that flexibility where
Speaker 1: sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is
Speaker 1: call a friend that you just really want to catch
Speaker 1: up with, or you know that hearing their voice is
Speaker 1: going to make you feel better. And I think about
Speaker 1: following and moving towards what feels good and not being
Speaker 1: afraid to walk away from things that don't you know.
Speaker 2: I think so much.
Speaker 1: Of the suffering we have or because we have relationships
Speaker 1: we don't want to be in or they're not in
Speaker 1: the right they're not the right dynamic, but we feel
Speaker 1: we have to because of history or because of whatever,
Speaker 1: or you could have one day where you were feeling
Speaker 1: really high energy, so you commit to a lot of things.
Speaker 2: That you actually don't want to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I think actually having the like self
Speaker 1: integrity to I always say this that there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as a hell maybe.
Speaker 2: So it's like is it a no or is it
Speaker 2: a yes?
Speaker 1: And if it's in the maybe, then it's then it's
Speaker 1: that's just not a real thing. Is just this kind
Speaker 1: of purgatory we're in all the time. If you are like, oh,
Speaker 1: should I go should I not go?
Speaker 4: On?
Speaker 1: I'm like, if you're asking yourself that, then like you
Speaker 1: have just you have decided that the only way you're
Speaker 1: going to move through this is in a space of
Speaker 1: anxiety instead of just doing the thing where you're like, yes,
Speaker 1: I might let someone down, but if I need to
Speaker 1: do this for myself, I need to do this for myself, and.
Speaker 2: You hope the people who love you can respect that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I'm definitely a culprit of that. I'm
Speaker 4: in the maybe state way too much. But I also
Speaker 4: loved what you said about how you know, I think
Speaker 4: wellness and every part of our life, whether it's the
Speaker 4: way that you should look the way that you should act.
Speaker 3: Everything ends up.
Speaker 4: You think you have to be so uniform with everyone
Speaker 4: else because you jump on a trend or there's everyone
Speaker 4: ends up trying to do the same thing. But actually,
Speaker 4: when you think about your own practices, and which is
Speaker 4: why I love ioveada so much, because it's such an
Speaker 4: individual thing.
Speaker 3: Everything from your.
Speaker 4: Health to what you have to do for your mind,
Speaker 4: to your body, to the food that you eat, it's
Speaker 4: so individual. And I think meditation practices, and even if
Speaker 4: you're living with someone like for me and Jay, our
Speaker 4: meditation practices also look different. I wake up a little
Speaker 4: bit earlier than he does naturally, and he will walk
Speaker 4: about sometimes and he'll meditate, and I like sitting in
Speaker 4: one place. You know, we have so many different ways
Speaker 4: of doing it, but we can end up judging ourselves
Speaker 4: based on what we see other people doing.
Speaker 3: And then you have this deep.
Speaker 4: Expectation of oh, I didn't feel that when I was meditating,
Speaker 4: or I didn't feel that when I went on the walk,
Speaker 4: I didn't care about the flowers.
Speaker 3: But that's also okay.
Speaker 4: And I think there's also this element of consistency where
Speaker 4: I feel that there's this pressure of Oh, I've done
Speaker 4: this thing for thirty days, and you know that I
Speaker 4: can feel accomplished by But sometimes I'll show up to
Speaker 4: my practice and I will be there physically but not
Speaker 4: their mentally. And I've done that so many times. But
Speaker 4: what that has done for me is shown that I
Speaker 4: can commit to something and it keeps that ball rolling.
Speaker 4: Like I do believe in a sense of freedom. But
Speaker 4: then at the same time, I think there is a
Speaker 4: beauty in showing up for yourself every day, even when
Speaker 4: you don't want to.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to be gained in having discipline, and
Speaker 1: I think in that that's where I mean, there's this
Speaker 1: fine balance of flexibility and discipline where the flexibility might
Speaker 1: be yes, I'm going to do this thing for thirty days,
Speaker 1: but I keep trying to do it in the morning
Speaker 1: and it's not feeling growing in the morning, so I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to try it in the afternoon. Or you know,
Speaker 1: as long as I just got on the mat every
Speaker 1: day for thirty years, maybe I did yoga for an hour,
Speaker 1: or maybe I did it for ten minutes, or maybe
Speaker 1: I meditated for did a two minute meditation, or maybe
Speaker 1: I did a ten minute and I'm at and I'm
Speaker 1: continuing to say through my practice of being disciplined about
Speaker 1: something that I do believe this is important. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I also am trying to understand how it can be
Speaker 1: create a high functioning something high functioning for me and
Speaker 1: so that I can truly reef the bend if it's
Speaker 1: because listen, I know a lot of people who meditate
Speaker 1: every day and are like nuts, you know, like and
Speaker 1: and but it's actually because maybe it's the wrong meditation
Speaker 1: for them, or maybe they actually really need a walk
Speaker 1: and need to go outside and have sunlight on their
Speaker 1: skin while they while they kind of leave their thoughts.
Speaker 2: And some people, if they.
Speaker 1: Sit, they stew, yeah, and some so that's why some
Speaker 1: people need to you know, I feel that way a
Speaker 1: lot where I'm like, I just have to move because
Speaker 1: my like I am like, you know, I sit and
Speaker 1: write all day, so I feel that I churn all day.
Speaker 2: So I say that all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm like when I'm I I have to have a
Speaker 1: little like snacks all day when I eat, and because
Speaker 1: I feel like a little athlete that's like just churning, churning, churning, churning,
Speaker 1: like and so but that's just who I am so
Speaker 1: when I try to go from this churning, churning, churning
Speaker 1: sitting to the this sitting, it doesn't really translate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get that so much. I feel the same way.
Speaker 4: I have to have some sort of move in my
Speaker 4: day because even if I don't physically have movement, I
Speaker 4: feel stagnant internally. I found movements such a beautiful way
Speaker 4: to release. And whether that's in walking or whether that's
Speaker 4: a high intensity training class like whatever that movement is.
Speaker 4: I think movement of body really stimulates movement of mind
Speaker 4: and of I mean it stimulates so much well.
Speaker 1: Andrey know that because if you want to kind of
Speaker 1: start to rewire your nervous system, it is going to
Speaker 1: be a physical thing. I mean not to sound dark,
Speaker 1: but that's why they did like electroshock therapy, which is
Speaker 1: like very sick in the head obviously, but there is
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, we do know from data
Speaker 1: and studies that the body traps trauma, that body traps,
Speaker 1: I mean, all of these things.
Speaker 2: Live in the body.
Speaker 1: So you this idea that you are doing this movement
Speaker 1: out of you can start to repattern the piece at
Speaker 1: which your nervous system is moving and informing your mind
Speaker 1: and your kind of spiritual Yeah.
Speaker 4: I always find when I go off track or I
Speaker 4: don't show up in those thirty days, it's like my
Speaker 4: mind starts tricking me to be Like, you feel this
Speaker 4: guilt first of all, and then that guilt translates to
Speaker 4: not showing up again. Yeah, And it's this tricky cycle
Speaker 4: that you go through where you're like, oh, well I
Speaker 4: didn't commit to your mindset.
Speaker 3: Well maybe you just shouldn't do it.
Speaker 4: It's just not for you, you know, take a break
Speaker 4: from it. But actually that can end up being I
Speaker 4: noticed that's actually either my lazy self or this feeling
Speaker 4: of I didn't complete and now I have to start
Speaker 4: all over again. And that guilt really stops me from
Speaker 4: the practice I know is good for me.
Speaker 3: And so actually the.
Speaker 4: Guilt doesn't help in any way. It doesn't fuel me
Speaker 4: to keep going. It stops me from doing something I
Speaker 4: know I actually love doing. And I think that that
Speaker 4: so many people can get trapped in that feeling of
Speaker 4: guilt where you end up wanting to do something that's
Speaker 4: better for you. It's like when I'm like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna not gonna have sugar today, like for a week.
Speaker 4: I need to detox from it. I need to get
Speaker 4: away from it for a little bit.
Speaker 3: And then I have one piece. I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: then I just ruined all events.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: Give yourself a bit of grace. It's fine.
Speaker 4: It's not going back to the beginning. It's just stepping
Speaker 4: back and stepping forward again.
Speaker 3: Like it's not. You don't have to feel like you've
Speaker 3: failed or.
Speaker 4: Ruined everything by taking a break from something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And in that, there is something to be said
Speaker 1: about being able to cross a finish line and be
Speaker 1: imperfect at the same time. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the times we are just conditioned to believe that
Speaker 1: crossing the finish line having been perfect is the only
Speaker 1: way to get there, and that's just not real. And
Speaker 1: so I think we can say, like, no, I got there.
Speaker 1: I still like and I tried, and how what I
Speaker 1: did was better than last week or better than yesterday.
Speaker 2: And that's okay. And that's also life.
Speaker 1: That is our human condition, is that there is a
Speaker 1: day where we can wake up and we feel completely
Speaker 1: different than we did three days before, or something goes on,
Speaker 1: or you know, I was with a friend of mine who'd, like,
Speaker 1: you know, her her dad passed a month ago, and
Speaker 1: I remember she was on this kind of journey of
Speaker 1: like she wasn't having wine and she wasn't doing something
Speaker 1: because she was getting she's her body, she was preparing
Speaker 1: her body for something, and you know her dad passed
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, no, I need it. I want
Speaker 1: a glass of wine now, like you know these and
Speaker 1: obviously that's a very extreme example, but these things do happen,
Speaker 1: and we have to allow ourselves to be human or
Speaker 1: have or do so that we can also like you know, know,
Speaker 1: what is the life affirming decision for us? Like sometimes
Speaker 1: you just have to have eaten that junkie thing one
Speaker 1: too many times for it.
Speaker 2: To be like, no, I don't even want it anymore.
Speaker 1: Like I let myself have it like ten times and
Speaker 1: then it's just like I actually was, like I needed
Speaker 1: to happen until I didn't want it anymore, and then
Speaker 1: you don't even think about it. And I think we
Speaker 1: tend to become so kind of mentally attached to decisions
Speaker 1: we make around being well or happy or eating or
Speaker 1: all these things, when this idea that we give freedom,
Speaker 1: like you say, to our experiences around them, also gives
Speaker 1: us the free will to have discipline, so it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: something dragged us and made us feel disciplined. And that's
Speaker 1: why I like the word to be disciplined rather than
Speaker 1: like obligated to or whatever, because then we, you know,
Speaker 1: we chose, and I think when you feel that you're
Speaker 1: not choosing because you're like I should, I should I should. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's like sometimes I'm like, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: hit rock bottom with it, like like have ordered the
Speaker 1: like you know, pad tie or like and it just
Speaker 1: have that indigestion one more time, like and because like
Speaker 1: your body will also just be like you can we
Speaker 1: can't do that now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is like that, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I feel like being like a kid growing
Speaker 1: up in New Orleans, I remember it's like like I
Speaker 1: have like like drinking.
Speaker 2: Like whiskey or something like that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just like if I smell it, I'm like whoa,
Speaker 1: Like I can't even Like I'm like.
Speaker 2: I can't even you know. But it was because I
Speaker 2: was like out in high we'll sneaking into a bar
Speaker 2: like and.
Speaker 1: You know, didn't know what I was doing and we
Speaker 1: were just psychotic. Yeah, but you know, you just or
Speaker 1: you'll like have had that thing one too many times
Speaker 1: and your body's like, okay, can we like get on
Speaker 1: a roll. And even again, that embodiment, having that attunement
Speaker 1: to sell it does create a harmony between our wants
Speaker 1: for ourselves and our ability to be in and have
Speaker 1: that and become those things.
Speaker 4: Definitely, it does take a while to like we were saying,
Speaker 4: your body just gets trained to something, but it takes
Speaker 4: a while. It's not an instant thing of oh I
Speaker 4: started meditating, or I started eating salads and iver was amazing. Now,
Speaker 4: like it takes a while for your mind and your
Speaker 4: body to notice that this actually feels good for me,
Speaker 4: because at the beginning, it's discomfort. At the beginning, it's
Speaker 4: uncomfortable that, oh, you're swapping out that pizza slice and
Speaker 4: you're eating vegetables instead, Like why am I doing this?
Speaker 4: But eventually, when you you're right you have to, it's
Speaker 4: almost like you stick at it for a small amount
Speaker 4: of time and you notice that shift and that change
Speaker 4: in yourself, which hopefully then creates a new pattern or
Speaker 4: a new way of existing.
Speaker 1: And it's like we were talking about earlier, when you're like,
Speaker 1: if you just have happen, have an energized day. So
Speaker 1: then you commit to all these things and you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: hold on, I was just having a really like I
Speaker 1: was on a high that day of being like I'm
Speaker 1: feeling good. I'm feeling like I have a lot of capacity.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the times, whether it's
Speaker 1: about how we want to eat or what we want
Speaker 1: to do for ourselves to feel well and good, we
Speaker 1: have one like kind of released day where we're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I am just into fruits and vegetables today, and so
Speaker 1: then you're like, oh my god, I am now.
Speaker 2: This forever and da da da dah.
Speaker 1: And then there comes the judgment and the shame and
Speaker 1: the whatever when something comes around.
Speaker 2: When really we.
Speaker 1: Can say like wow, on any given day, like I know,
Speaker 1: I'm free to make these amazing decisions for my body
Speaker 1: and my health, and what can I do to detach
Speaker 1: from reasons why I would want them to be one way.
Speaker 2: Rather than another? And I think that's really important.
Speaker 4: I'm so that friend who at the beginning of like
Speaker 4: a Friday, I have all this time, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: let's do this at night, let's do this, let's all
Speaker 4: hang out. I get to Midia, I'm like, why.
Speaker 3: Did I do that. Why did I just commit to
Speaker 3: all of that?
Speaker 4: I have no idea that friend waiting for your other
Speaker 4: friend to cancel before you do.
Speaker 2: That's always me.
Speaker 1: Yes, You're like, in the relief of them canceling, you're like, oh.
Speaker 4: Yeahs I you mentioned rock Button and it reminded me
Speaker 4: of something from your book where you speak about lostness,
Speaker 4: and I feel like I can I mean, I just
Speaker 4: keep saying this, but your book just felt like it
Speaker 4: was talking to me. But I felt that a lot
Speaker 4: of my life and I still go through waves of it.
Speaker 4: I think depending on what part of your life journey
Speaker 4: you go on, it's never just a onwards and upwards.
Speaker 4: It's always this ebb and flow of I feel like
Speaker 4: I've discovered something, and then you feel lost again. And
Speaker 4: then you feel like you've discovered something and then you
Speaker 4: feel lost again. What did lostness look like in your life?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: How did you recognize the lostness in your life?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's micro moments of lostness where
Speaker 1: you could just have a day where you're disappointed and
Speaker 1: you're like, what's the point of everything?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I think people go through that daily.
Speaker 1: I think there's macro lostness where people you know, finish
Speaker 1: one big goal, and because they're on the other side
Speaker 1: of that goal, they are now not really understanding how
Speaker 1: to like orient themselves to.
Speaker 2: What they want to be doing next.
Speaker 1: I think big changes change us, and if we don't
Speaker 1: get to know ourselves again when we've had a big change,
Speaker 1: we often feel lost. And so I know I've felt that.
Speaker 1: I felt that when I moved to LA. I felt
Speaker 1: lost after I had my first kid, because.
Speaker 3: So yourself, right, Yeah, well, and so much.
Speaker 1: Changes, and we have to really live in true observation
Speaker 1: of self and life when when big changes are happening.
Speaker 1: But a lot of the times we're just so busy
Speaker 1: trying to get through the change and do the next thing,
Speaker 1: or we're just busy, or we're grieving, or we're this,
Speaker 1: or we're that in this other emotional place that we
Speaker 1: just stop noticing. Yes, in the noticing and the observing
Speaker 1: is actually I think what's critical to us being able
Speaker 1: to kind of come home.
Speaker 2: To ourselves or steady ourselves, or feel.
Speaker 1: Like, yes, everything around me could look different, but I
Speaker 1: am familiar to me.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think when I think about my lostness, it
Speaker 4: was probably me doing again all these things externally and
Speaker 4: then suddenly it's me running after myself, trying to catch
Speaker 4: up with who I am, because suddenly I get to
Speaker 4: a point in my life where I haven't been doing
Speaker 4: the observation. I haven't been noticing the small shifts and
Speaker 4: changes I've been making, where I suddenly look at myself and.
Speaker 3: I'm like, how did I even get who? How did
Speaker 3: I even get here? And who am I?
Speaker 4: Whether it's in a good way or a bad way,
Speaker 4: it's me trying to catch up with the version of
Speaker 4: myself that I suddenly find I am, And so I
Speaker 4: always imagine it as you know, you're just constantly lost,
Speaker 4: like running through the forest of your own heart, and
Speaker 4: you're trying to chug along with this person.
Speaker 3: Who's going at the speed of lightning. But suddenly you're
Speaker 3: you know, it.
Speaker 4: Takes so much time to catch up with yourself if
Speaker 4: you're almost absent, you've been in darkness for such a
Speaker 4: long period where you haven't been checking in with yourself,
Speaker 4: and so it's almost like meeting someone. You've dated someone
Speaker 4: and then you meet them again in ten years time,
Speaker 4: you're like, you're a completely different person. And that's how
Speaker 4: I end up feeling about myself, where I've checked out
Speaker 4: from checking in with myself, and suddenly a year down
Speaker 4: the line'm like, oh wow, I haven't met you. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I need to get to know you again. Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: There's a poem and remember love that is like five words,
Speaker 1: like the shortest page in the whole books, and it's
Speaker 1: called It's simple every time you change, get to know
Speaker 1: yourself again. And it's really interesting that because having just
Speaker 1: come up of touring this book, that was something that
Speaker 1: stuck out to so many people as a mantra to
Speaker 1: return to giving yourself attentious attention so that you can
Speaker 1: bring awareness to your experience, so that you can locate
Speaker 1: yourself in your circumstances. And I think so much of
Speaker 1: the time we are just the last in our list
Speaker 1: for our own attention, and because of that, we are
Speaker 1: just you know, we don't we're not embodied, and we're
Speaker 1: not aware, and we're not and we're you know, we
Speaker 1: are our circumstances. We are the person we're talking to,
Speaker 1: we are the thing we're doing, we are and we
Speaker 1: are never actually any of those things. And so it's
Speaker 1: really disorienting and it happens everyone, and it can happen
Speaker 1: just like and you could have just have one crazy
Speaker 1: day that totally hijacks you, and you could just be
Speaker 1: feeling like lost and not yourself or confused, or like
Speaker 1: by the way, something really big and horrible happens in
Speaker 1: the world and it changes every way you're feeling about
Speaker 1: your own life and everything else, and you feel really
Speaker 1: lost in that. So I think our relationship to lostness
Speaker 1: and making peace with the fact that it kind of
Speaker 1: comes up a lot in what can be a rituals
Speaker 1: to returning to self are so important because we tend
Speaker 1: to act like it's like the big bad like Boogeyman,
Speaker 1: and will it come will it not? And you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it will definitely come, like that's the good news and
Speaker 1: the bad news like.
Speaker 2: It will be here. You will be lost.
Speaker 1: It will happen frequently, and that is a part of
Speaker 1: the human experience. You can move through it. You can
Speaker 1: create a practice of returning to self and being life.
Speaker 1: Going from familiar to unfamiliar is the natural flow of
Speaker 1: our existence.
Speaker 4: When you went through your periods of lostness, what were
Speaker 4: the few things that helped you to return, you know,
Speaker 4: back to who you were or to help rEFInd your way.
Speaker 2: I think acknowledging it.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the times we don't acknowledge it,
Speaker 1: and sometimes people maybe even try to help us acknowledge
Speaker 1: that we are, you know, like don't feel like ourselves,
Speaker 1: or we're you know, being even like extra grumpy about
Speaker 1: everything because we're not feeling at home in ourselves. If
Speaker 1: you can't accurately identify the wound, you can't heal the wound.
Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of it is that,
Speaker 1: you know, we just tend to think it's no, it's
Speaker 1: just this, and it's this, and they're just this and
Speaker 1: that's just and that's just that or whatever. And I
Speaker 1: think when we can say, okay, but what's my part
Speaker 1: of this, like what's going on on my side of
Speaker 1: the street and on my side of the street, it
Speaker 1: could be like, wow, I'm being really hard on people
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: Why am I being really hard on people? Like what
Speaker 2: is this saying.
Speaker 1: About where I am? And in that we can probably
Speaker 1: see that like, ooh, I'm feeling resentment and the resentment
Speaker 1: is like making me feel a little lost in who
Speaker 1: I am. And so I think kind of doing that
Speaker 1: work to like pause and interrogate yourself kind of Unfortunately
Speaker 1: in doing it with help if you can. But I
Speaker 1: think if you can't identify the wound. I remember when
Speaker 1: I went through being able to understand I was having
Speaker 1: postpartum depression, I was. It just changed when I could
Speaker 1: actually it to myself and feel it and know it
Speaker 1: was there. It changed my conversations with my therapist. It
Speaker 1: changed the type of support I asked my girlfriends for.
Speaker 1: It changed the conversations and type of support I asked
Speaker 1: my partner for. I mean, it changed really everything because
Speaker 1: I could I could say like, this is what's happening
Speaker 1: and so. And that was a profound period of lostness
Speaker 1: for me. But I think it was a little prolonged
Speaker 1: because I kept being like, oh, no, you just have
Speaker 1: brain fog, like so annoying hormones. No, no, no, Or you're
Speaker 1: just like oh or you're just like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: like la is so did da da? And you're like
Speaker 1: anytime you're focused on others or out other exterior circumstances
Speaker 1: is usually a sign that you don't want to look
Speaker 1: within and kind of say like, this is my wound.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I always think that whenever I start getting more attracted
Speaker 4: to gossip of other people or criticizing other people, or
Speaker 4: I reckon recognize myself noticing the bad in people more
Speaker 4: than the good. It's usually a sign for me that
Speaker 4: I have a lot of work that I need to
Speaker 4: be doing, all things that I need to bring up
Speaker 4: in myself, because the natural state is not to do them.
Speaker 4: Natural state is to see people and see the good
Speaker 4: in them before the bad, to be able to recognize
Speaker 4: the sweetness in someone before you recognize.
Speaker 1: And or at the very least, even if you can't
Speaker 1: do that, even if you're sitting her being like I
Speaker 1: struggle because like her, like they are annoying they are, yes,
Speaker 1: and like they just are and they like rub me
Speaker 1: the wrong way. So even if that's true, acceptance is
Speaker 1: truly our natural state. So the idea that you're like, well,
Speaker 1: they are who they are, and you know that's why
Speaker 1: I have this boundary and you can keep it moving.
Speaker 1: But I do think that when you're like really ruffled
Speaker 1: by people and it's more than one and and and
Speaker 1: that's a and that's happening all around you, it's helpful
Speaker 1: to be like, wait, if I'm annoyed with everyone, yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's me, am.
Speaker 2: I the problem?
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, like everyone can't be annoying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, When I moved to New York, I I just
Speaker 4: I felt that intensely because I had to give up
Speaker 4: I had been studying for six years. I couldn't use
Speaker 4: it in America. I had no friends, no family. Jay
Speaker 4: was at work all day, and I basically had no
Speaker 4: idea what I was supposed to be doing. I genuinely
Speaker 4: wandered the streets of New York. I'd take him lunch
Speaker 4: because it was the only thing that I knew I
Speaker 4: could do. And I kept trying to figure out what
Speaker 4: my purpose was. And it was that discomfort, the serious
Speaker 4: discomfort of just having to sit with myself, which I
Speaker 4: never had to do in my life before, without the distractions,
Speaker 4: and also not really having people to talk to because
Speaker 4: I didn't want to talk to my mom or my
Speaker 4: sister about it because I thought it would upset them. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I didn't want to tell my friends that I
Speaker 4: was in New York and not really happy, because oh my.
Speaker 3: God, you've moved to New York. It's amazing.
Speaker 4: And I didn't want to really upset Jay that much
Speaker 4: because it was already quite intense for him that I
Speaker 4: was so upset, And so it was actually a beautiful
Speaker 4: time to be able to just I mean, at the
Speaker 4: time it felt horrific, but now I look by it,
Speaker 4: I'm like, that changed so much of me because that
Speaker 4: lostness physically of just wandering around, the lostness of sitting
Speaker 4: there and not even knowing what to do with myself,
Speaker 4: it allowed me to expand so much. Like I then
Speaker 4: decided to study so much more. I was like, if
Speaker 4: I don't know what I want to do, let me
Speaker 4: figure it out. Like again, I had to sit here,
Speaker 4: keep telling myself, I have no idea what I want
Speaker 4: to do. I've no idea what my purpose is. Or
Speaker 4: let me trial an error, let me try to do
Speaker 4: this yoga teacher. I didn't want to do yoga at
Speaker 4: the time, but I was like, let me do a
Speaker 4: yoga teacher training.
Speaker 2: It's near me.
Speaker 4: Let me figure out what I can learn about that
Speaker 4: and myself. I then studied, I evade, I did so
Speaker 4: many things to try and understand myself better from scratch,
Speaker 4: because I realized at that point I really didn't know
Speaker 4: anything about my new version of myself that was that
Speaker 4: was becoming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting because there's a page
Speaker 1: to remember a lab where I quote my friend's mother
Speaker 1: who's in her nineties, and she had said to me,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd always heard people say this, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you have you where they're like, well,
Speaker 1: if you you know, you can't understand the good if
Speaker 1: you don't have the bad, or if you can't understand
Speaker 1: like joy, if you don't have pain.
Speaker 2: And I was always I was always like, really, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do think you I do think we would know
Speaker 1: joy without needing pain.
Speaker 2: She said this really interesting thing to me.
Speaker 1: Which was she's like, you know, the thing about when
Speaker 1: you're happy all the time is you don't think because
Speaker 1: you're so present. You're just like I'm happy, I'm here,
Speaker 1: I'm in it. She's like, pain causes us to question life,
Speaker 1: so they say like.
Speaker 2: Why me, why this? Why? Why?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 1: And in those questions that's how you become deliberate yes.
Speaker 1: And so this, that's how you create a deliberate path.
Speaker 1: That's how you do those things where you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: is there like do I have like a scratch? It's
Speaker 1: something in me scratching at yoga something to me, scratching
Speaker 1: at at at medicine, at like healing at ira Veda.
Speaker 2: You know all of these.
Speaker 1: Things, and and you you you you could hear the
Speaker 1: things that are whispering, because there's you're you're in this questioning.
Speaker 1: And when she said that, I was like, Wow, that
Speaker 1: really helps me understand pain. Yeah, because I never was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the only way you get joy.
Speaker 2: It's like that just never.
Speaker 1: I get it in theory, but I never it never
Speaker 1: resonated with me spiritually.
Speaker 2: And that I was like, yes, you need It makes.
Speaker 1: You ask questions, You say, why, like why am I
Speaker 1: not happy in New York? Why do I like, why
Speaker 1: does this thing I want not feel the way I
Speaker 1: thought it would. Why you know all of these things?
Speaker 1: And then you have to answer those questions and in
Speaker 1: that you start to chart a path that is uniquely
Speaker 1: your own.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I agree.
Speaker 4: I think there's so many different ways that people even
Speaker 4: come to their like spiritual path. And I remember someone
Speaker 4: saying to me, it's either through confusion and curiosity, or
Speaker 4: most of the time, it's through pain. You've been through
Speaker 4: something difficult and you're questioning life, you're questioning death, you're
Speaker 4: questioning why we're even here. And only at that point
Speaker 4: do you start thinking, I need to understand the world
Speaker 4: myself and how this will relates together and so many
Speaker 4: people I've met the spiritual journeys, and by that I
Speaker 4: mean connecting to yourself, connected to the universe, connecting to God.
Speaker 4: It all started through a position of pain and discomfort
Speaker 4: in the world. I loved this quote the semi quoite
Speaker 4: Seite loved in your book, but this one really hit
Speaker 4: deep for me. You said, we do not have to
Speaker 4: listen to the shadows just because we hear them.
Speaker 3: Where do you.
Speaker 4: Think negative you know, self talk and this constant almost
Speaker 4: not demonizing ourselves but speaking more negatively to ourselves than good,
Speaker 4: which I think a lot of us are in that position.
Speaker 4: Where do you think it ends up rooting from? And
Speaker 4: how did you.
Speaker 3: Have that in your life? And then how did you
Speaker 3: shift to the narrative you have in your mind now?
Speaker 1: When it comes to negative self talk, I mean obviously
Speaker 1: that comes from judgment, and judgment comes from this kind
Speaker 1: of deep conditioning that there's.
Speaker 2: A culture that tells us we.
Speaker 1: Are fundamentally broken or wrong. Because if you buy this
Speaker 1: and you do this, then you get more and more whole,
Speaker 1: or you get less and less broken, or you'll be
Speaker 1: more and more Okay, if you wear the right thing,
Speaker 1: or you take the right supplement, or you do that,
Speaker 1: you know, all that stuff and so and it's hard
Speaker 1: to shake that because that's the world we see.
Speaker 2: So when we see it in billboards and we see
Speaker 2: it and.
Speaker 1: It's in conversation, and it's how parents raise us because
Speaker 1: ultimately it keeps you safe to understand the way the
Speaker 1: world works. And so your parents want you to be scared.
Speaker 2: Of the same things that they felt kept them safe.
Speaker 1: And so it's like, you know, think that you need
Speaker 1: to get this in order to be safe or settled
Speaker 1: or happy or whatever. And so to me, a lot
Speaker 1: of that, you know, the poem that that comes from,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have to listen to the shadows
Speaker 1: just because we can hear them is more of a
Speaker 1: rally cry to say, just reclaim yourself. Every moment you
Speaker 1: feel that the decisions or the voice in your head
Speaker 1: is someone else's voice, or someone else's opinion or someone
Speaker 1: else's directions home, you do have this ability to reclaim
Speaker 1: it and say, like is this what I want? I think,
Speaker 1: is this what I need? Because you owe yourself that,
Speaker 1: like your life is your greatest gift and responsibility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so in that there is this relationship of constant reclamation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4: I think that can be so difficult when you've had
Speaker 4: these constant layers put on you, and like you said,
Speaker 4: whether it's family, whether it's societal pressures, whether it's the
Speaker 4: labels people have put on you. And the only way
Speaker 4: I think you can really reclaim and keep coming back
Speaker 4: to what do I want? The only way to really
Speaker 4: know what you want is by, you know, deconstructing all
Speaker 4: of these these layers that have been put on you.
Speaker 4: And I always think about that because sometimes I get
Speaker 4: to who I'm like, is this what I want? Or
Speaker 4: is this what other people want? But if I haven't
Speaker 4: stayed in tune with myself, I don't know what I want.
Speaker 4: And I always think about the channel between like my
Speaker 4: heart or my soul and my mind, like this channel
Speaker 4: that can often be clogged up or filled with all
Speaker 4: this other stuff. So by the time what comes into
Speaker 4: my mind goes through to my whole, or what's happening
Speaker 4: in my heart goes to my mind, it's gone through
Speaker 4: so much that I don't even know whether it's me
Speaker 4: talking or someone else talking. And I think it's really
Speaker 4: important and I've obviously still working on that so much,
Speaker 4: but to try and figure out how to unplug those things,
Speaker 4: because the clearer that channel is, the more comfort and
Speaker 4: the more confident you will get in being like, this
Speaker 4: is actually me. This I can confidently stand in who
Speaker 4: I am and I know that this decision is coming
Speaker 4: from me and nowhere else. But I think to unclog
Speaker 4: that and I think those are daily practices. It's little
Speaker 4: things that we've been talking about that whole.
Speaker 2: It's real maintenance. So it's me. I think if you think.
Speaker 1: That there is a there that you're like, okay, and
Speaker 1: I talk about this a lot, and remember love it.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, we often talk about self care
Speaker 1: as something you either it's a battle you win or
Speaker 1: you lose, but it really manifests more as a bird
Speaker 1: in flight. There are times when you are kind of
Speaker 1: the elements are working towards you, and there are times
Speaker 1: when the elements are working against you, and it's like
Speaker 1: it's raining and you just got to find shelter and
Speaker 1: it's really really tough. And there are certain times where
Speaker 1: like the wind is at just the right place beneath
Speaker 1: your wings and you're able to cruise that it's different
Speaker 1: from one day to the next, and it is no
Speaker 1: matter what, still this movement of self. And so I
Speaker 1: think that every time we think like, okay, I got
Speaker 1: to the point where I unclogged you know that part,
Speaker 1: or I just got this or I got and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like anything else in your house that breaks, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know that like pipe is still connected to this pipe,
Speaker 1: and this one's probably getting like clogged.
Speaker 2: Up now too. And I think we.
Speaker 1: Get defeated really easily if we think, you know, if
Speaker 1: we when we approach it as and it's hard because
Speaker 1: it's daunting, but it's real. It is lifelong, like you
Speaker 1: will just every day, every single day because everything.
Speaker 3: That again every day you're taking out.
Speaker 4: It's like I always think of it as a sun
Speaker 4: pit where you're taking a shovel and you're taking it out,
Speaker 4: and then there's someone else that's pouring back in. You're
Speaker 4: taking a shovel and you're taking it out. But what
Speaker 4: parts are you taking out and what parts are you
Speaker 4: allowing to stay in you? And the voices that get louder,
Speaker 4: whether it's the shadows or whether it's your soul, It
Speaker 4: depends on which one you feed and everything that you're
Speaker 4: doing is feeding one or the other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and or watching or seeing And so I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the times, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of our you.
Speaker 2: Know, judgments.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're feeling like you're really judging, you
Speaker 1: should watch what you're watching and watch who you're with,
Speaker 1: because you might find that you are also surrounding yourself
Speaker 1: with people who put an exclamation point on your judgment
Speaker 1: because they're your friends who like to be judging and
Speaker 1: have maybe have those same judgments or have those same struggles,
Speaker 1: or what you're kind of who you're watching or doing
Speaker 1: on social media is like something that says, yes, your
Speaker 1: judgments are valid, instead of saying, hey, like pause, release
Speaker 1: your judgment, have a moment of joy, have a moment
Speaker 1: of discovery, have a moment of something different. And so
Speaker 1: it's really important, as you say, to to really be
Speaker 1: clear on what you're feeding.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I always notice, I'm like when I go to
Speaker 4: my for you page, and I really know where my
Speaker 4: mind's are depending on what's on there. And so I
Speaker 4: really started to try and curate that, whether it's quotes,
Speaker 4: or whether it's things that make me feel good or
Speaker 4: animal videos, you know, things that just really uplift my spirit.
Speaker 4: But I click on one little video that's about gossip
Speaker 4: of like this couple just did this.
Speaker 2: Suddenly your page was your Darker SLF. I'm like, I
Speaker 2: can even get on there.
Speaker 1: I like won't even open it, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't need this mirror.
Speaker 4: No, it's but I always say it's a good It's
Speaker 4: a good but sad reflection.
Speaker 3: Sometimes.
Speaker 4: You also said in your book, I'm tired of feeling strong.
Speaker 4: I want to feel nourished. I love that line. I
Speaker 4: think that's this is so much in such little words.
Speaker 4: So busy, exhausting, distracted has become the norm. How do
Speaker 4: we get back to accepting and recognizing relaxation as the
Speaker 4: norm and not the exception or like the treaty, I
Speaker 4: do think. I mean, we've spoken about this so much
Speaker 4: to do with anxiety being a state that you can
Speaker 4: be constantly in. But what are your favorite ways to
Speaker 4: nourish yourself on a day basis, Like whether it's what
Speaker 4: the foods you eat, what do you like? Can you
Speaker 4: give me three things that you just it can be
Speaker 4: so specific to you, but.
Speaker 1: Well, I think gearing your day and that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you don't go to work, or you don't do
Speaker 1: or you don't fulfill your responsibilities or obligations, but gearing
Speaker 1: it towards ease, so saying how can I get this done?
Speaker 1: And ease is still on the table. Something we question
Speaker 1: that I found myself saying a lot on my tour
Speaker 1: was you know, in your dreams and your biggest dream
Speaker 1: for yourself is your body and your dream like in
Speaker 1: what you're dreaming of that in your greatest goal is
Speaker 1: your body in your goal. And I think in this
Speaker 1: kind of hustle and grind culture where we truly like
Speaker 1: the idea of hustle and grind is like your body
Speaker 1: doesn't get to exist because if you ground grind something,
Speaker 1: it turns to dust. And so what do we think
Speaker 1: our body's place is in our destiny, in our dream
Speaker 1: And so for me, what I found is just the
Speaker 1: moment these pauses to say, well, what does tomorrow's like
Speaker 1: planning tomorrow look like where my body gets to like
Speaker 1: belong in the schedule too, And that doesn't mean that like,
Speaker 1: oh so I'm like trying to get my workout class
Speaker 1: in because that's not like my body like belonging to it.
Speaker 1: That's something that I can check off the list as
Speaker 1: like a right thing I did that day for health, vanity,
Speaker 1: whatever my body belonging to. It means that like, I
Speaker 1: have some relationship with like ease and relaxation because I
Speaker 1: don't want my body to live and fight or flight
Speaker 1: in order to achieve. And so that might look like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to have the babysitter come early
Speaker 1: because I know that even after the kids do get up,
Speaker 1: I can probably I think I could at least rest
Speaker 1: for an extra hour if that's possible, or I can say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to order all of the like
Speaker 1: green juices that I like to have because I truly
Speaker 1: feel the like alkalie my body when you you know
Speaker 1: that feeling when you're just like so like salty or
Speaker 1: this or that, and you have that like moment where
Speaker 1: the like I mean plants are medicine, where you truly
Speaker 1: feel that the medicinal value of having something that is
Speaker 1: a life because I try not to look at foods
Speaker 1: as like good or bad, but life affirming or not.
Speaker 1: And so it's like I in all of the ways
Speaker 1: that I approach wellness, I think of like, well, what
Speaker 1: makes this feel life affirming? And my friend Jenna always says,
Speaker 1: you know, if you eat ninety percent life affirming and
Speaker 1: ten percent soul, then like you're always kind of you know,
Speaker 1: you don't feel that you have like fomo or weird
Speaker 1: attachment around what you do or don't have. And so
Speaker 1: for me, I think ways in which I can even
Speaker 1: ask for support, whether it's from you know, my partner,
Speaker 1: by being like, well, can are these things you can
Speaker 1: take off the plate of parenting because.
Speaker 2: I need to feel like I'm not.
Speaker 1: In a state of like the constant arranging and like
Speaker 1: scheduling of everyone all day long. Or I can say,
Speaker 1: you know, I have to be able to do my walk,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to do my walk during this time.
Speaker 1: And I think as far as nourishing, I'd say, like
Speaker 1: starting your day with something you knew grew from the earth,
Speaker 1: I think is just really helpful. It just is like
Speaker 1: so I think whatever it could be, because I do again,
Speaker 1: I feel that like, you know, we hold these machines
Speaker 1: in our hand all day long and they work in
Speaker 1: this really specific way, and then our brains start to
Speaker 1: think that like that the world created in on the
Speaker 1: phone is the world we live in, and we start
Speaker 1: to feel really this like distance from feeling like connected
Speaker 1: to something because ultimately we don't belong it, like in
Speaker 1: this world of technology, like we don't belong there. We
Speaker 1: have interest there and it's cool and it's amazing, but
Speaker 1: it's not like that's not where we come from, Like
Speaker 1: there's no spiritual home there. And the more we stare
Speaker 1: at a machine, the where we think that we are
Speaker 1: meant to function like a machine, which means that if
Speaker 1: we need to move slowly, we think we're broken. Because
Speaker 1: if your phone's moving slowly, you're.
Speaker 3: Like damn it, like you know, and think so fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And your body is you know, seasonal, like and
Speaker 1: the seasons go through your body and you have really
Speaker 1: slow moving kind of like winters where you find it
Speaker 1: kind of need to hunker down, and then you have
Speaker 1: these like really like active springs and these kind of
Speaker 1: cozy falls of like a winding down in this like summer.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, there there's just so many ways that
Speaker 1: the way that that that how energy flows in our
Speaker 1: bodies is similar to the natural world. And so I
Speaker 1: think whatever you can do that is connective to that.
Speaker 1: So I think even if it's like and without judging,
Speaker 1: it's like you know, because we've gotten to this point
Speaker 1: where people really judge you about fruits and vegetables.
Speaker 2: I think this is like kind of odd.
Speaker 1: Did you notice that You're like, wait, what's like the
Speaker 1: problem with the banana? Like and it's like and that's
Speaker 1: like the thing you want, like have the banana, Like
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong if it was grown in earth, I
Speaker 1: promise you if it came out of soil, there's it's
Speaker 1: not harming you.
Speaker 2: Like, it's just not like have the potato. Who cares, Like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is the tips every time exactly every.
Speaker 1: Time, like or anything that is like has been processed
Speaker 1: in a lab. And and by the way, like no
Speaker 1: shade to any of those things. Like whatever you know
Speaker 1: you need for want for your ten percent soul, have
Speaker 1: your soul food. But I think this idea that we
Speaker 1: know every day, like how can I connect?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 1: Can I connect through food? Can I connect through like
Speaker 1: winding my day down when the sun goes down? Can
Speaker 1: I connect to starting like moving into my day as
Speaker 1: like the sun comes up and like acknowledging sunlight? You know,
Speaker 1: so often I think we like kind of go into
Speaker 1: these like dark rooms and get our work done all day.
Speaker 1: And it's like or like, can I move with the
Speaker 1: ways the day moves Like that's really nourishing. It's really
Speaker 1: nourishing to have to have like the elements water, air, sunlight.
Speaker 1: I mean, those things drastically change your points of joy
Speaker 1: and okayness. And so I think there's so much we
Speaker 1: can do that is just in a natural flow, if
Speaker 1: we just have a little intentionality, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And acknowledging that if we don't even realize what we're
Speaker 4: consuming from nature on a daily basis, that's keeping us alive,
Speaker 4: from the sunlight.
Speaker 3: To the air to the food that we're eating.
Speaker 4: This really beautiful practice actually that I learned and been
Speaker 4: practicing it for ten years, and it's it's a really
Speaker 4: great way to become so intentional. I talk about it
Speaker 4: in my book as well. But you offer back from
Speaker 4: the morning. I have an altar here in my home
Speaker 4: where that's why I do my meditation. But throughout the day,
Speaker 4: you can offer back all the elements that the universe
Speaker 4: gives you, all the earth gives you. And so in
Speaker 4: the morning, will like incense and that's like the scent
Speaker 4: and the sandalwood that comes from the earth. Every morning,
Speaker 4: I'll offer back water and I'll say a specific mantra
Speaker 4: for that, and then before we eat or drink anything,
Speaker 4: you place it up on a separate plate and you
Speaker 4: offer that back before you actually consuming yourself. And it
Speaker 4: has been such a beautiful practice to reget. And I'll
Speaker 4: offer a lamp in the morning, a light where all
Speaker 4: like a candle is offering back fire to the earth.
Speaker 4: And it's such a beautiful way to reconnect back to
Speaker 4: nature in a very simple way. You're simply just offering
Speaker 4: back what you're consuming. But what a lovely way to connect.
Speaker 4: I've just I've really appreciated that practice throughout the years
Speaker 4: because it helps me to just appreciate what I am
Speaker 4: as a person living within the earth consuming on a
Speaker 4: daily basis. Well.
Speaker 1: And if we want to talk about claiming our own
Speaker 1: peace of mind, like one way to do that that
Speaker 1: will be free every time is ritual, like creating some
Speaker 1: ritual around relaxation, and like all of those things you do,
Speaker 1: like the ritual, like it's just a way in which
Speaker 1: we focus on doing something, which is also how you
Speaker 1: could define a meditation, which is also how you could
Speaker 1: find any of these practices that help us to feel
Speaker 1: better about how we're moving through the world. We're leaving
Speaker 1: the busy mind state and saying I'm striking this much,
Speaker 1: and I'm lighting this candle and I'm deciding where my
Speaker 1: thoughts flow by saying thank you Earth for this and
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: Dida da da da.
Speaker 1: Like all of those rituals create slowness. They create a
Speaker 1: way that we exit this kind of like to do
Speaker 1: list mind frame and go into this you know space
Speaker 1: of here's what I've decided I'm thinking about or not
Speaker 1: thinking about and really deciding and choosing our thoughts, and
Speaker 1: it gears towards gratitude, which we know that gratitude every time.
Speaker 2: Is this free anxiety release.
Speaker 3: Yes, serotonin boost yeah.
Speaker 4: Do you have any gratitude practices that you do during
Speaker 4: the day or is it just the general trying to
Speaker 4: see things, observe things, and feel You know.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I think I feel like I talked
Speaker 1: with this in Heart Talk first book, but I like
Speaker 1: to have my little gratitude parties at the end of
Speaker 1: every day, which is just that I like to alchemize
Speaker 1: something I would consider a chore as something that's a privilege.
Speaker 1: So if I'm washing the dishes, you know, I'll say
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that I got to feed my daughter's
Speaker 1: food that I made for them, or that you know,
Speaker 1: I think is and I get to understand how to
Speaker 1: feed them and have the privilege of being able to
Speaker 1: give them food in a world that is food and
Speaker 1: secure in so many places, and so all these things
Speaker 1: that I would be like, oh this sucks, like I
Speaker 1: don't want to wash the dishes, or I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this, or I don't want to like take
Speaker 1: out the garbage. It can say like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful I like get to have like my garbage
Speaker 1: taken because there's so many places in the world where
Speaker 1: like you have to sit in your garbage, and you know,
Speaker 1: and that's like a way that people have been you know,
Speaker 1: we demoralize people or create inequities in the world. Is
Speaker 1: truly like sanitation, our ability to live in a clean space, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean clean water. I have to.
Speaker 4: I think I function through the day in the same way.
Speaker 4: Every time I find something that I feel ungrateful for
Speaker 4: or that I'm having a negative thought about, even if
Speaker 4: it's through with my own body when I'm looking in
Speaker 4: the mirror or when I have a thought in my mind,
Speaker 4: I at least try and follow up with a thought
Speaker 4: of gratitude of Okay, well, I've just cussed myself out
Speaker 4: in the mirror, but I'm so grateful for my legs
Speaker 4: to be able to carry me, and you know, for
Speaker 4: me to be able to have a voice that I
Speaker 4: can you know, articulate and express myself, for me to
Speaker 4: have eyes that can see this world like at least
Speaker 4: something to not even balance it out, but to create
Speaker 4: slowly create a new pattern of thought, and that really
Speaker 4: helps me to get through the day, but also helps
Speaker 4: me to see different perspective that I wouldn't normally see
Speaker 4: if I was building on this negative talk like at
Speaker 4: every single moment. Whereas it it does, it almost balances
Speaker 4: it back out.
Speaker 1: And it proves the power of your thoughts and so
Speaker 1: in that, I think so often if we don't try
Speaker 1: to kind of again reclaim our thought pattern, our thought flow,
Speaker 1: we really do feel that we are victim of everything
Speaker 1: we think. And while we of course are not in
Speaker 1: control of our first thought, we just aren't. We usually
Speaker 1: have a lot to say so over the thoughts that
Speaker 1: follow y So like, we can't if you just have
Speaker 1: that fear, that irrational thing, or that anxiety, or that
Speaker 1: like doom feeling, or that inappropriate thought, or that whatever
Speaker 1: it might be.
Speaker 2: That you're judging yourself for.
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't have a practice of reclaiming
Speaker 1: how you think by whether that's inserting gratitude or looking
Speaker 1: on the right side side of things, or whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, then you will live a life
Speaker 1: where you your thoughts are the boss of you all
Speaker 1: the time, and you always feel that like, oh, I
Speaker 1: just can't do this because I'm not someone who can
Speaker 1: do da da da, And you're like, well, who says.
Speaker 3: Yes, you said, you said, you know, Yeah, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. I could literally listen to your voice.
Speaker 3: Is your Boudia book? It is, Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 3: could hear your voice all day.
Speaker 4: You have such a seething energy and personality. I really
Speaker 4: appreciated this conversation so much.
Speaker 3: I have a few questions I want to ask you.
Speaker 4: It's just like a final quick fire, but you can
Speaker 4: take as long as you want to answer. What's something
Speaker 4: that a lot of people don't know about you, but
Speaker 4: now they will, but you'd like them to know about you.
Speaker 1: I'm someone who watches the same movies over and over
Speaker 1: and over again and tell me, and I probably watched
Speaker 1: like one, like I probably watch a Meg Ryan movie
Speaker 1: every night. But there's something there's something like soothing about her,
Speaker 1: like and like in every movie she like chose for
Speaker 1: like a span of like ten years, was just something
Speaker 1: where you were like, this is a really cool reality,
Speaker 1: Like I wish this was the world.
Speaker 2: So it's like if you want my god, like my.
Speaker 3: Mom was obsessed with her going.
Speaker 4: I've watched every Meg Ryan movie out there because if
Speaker 4: I had that enjoy Roberts, yeah, oh, I.
Speaker 2: Mean beyond that.
Speaker 1: And so I watch, you know, the like Sleepless in
Speaker 1: Seattle and we're hearing that Sally and I. But I'm
Speaker 1: someone who just like does not I do not like
Speaker 1: integrate new things like I have. And I usually watch
Speaker 1: a rom com and I like watch one every like
Speaker 1: I fall asleep to one like every I guess fall
Speaker 1: asleeps out.
Speaker 2: The right word, but I like I have I have
Speaker 2: to have.
Speaker 1: That moment as if it was like some people go
Speaker 1: to the gym. I'm like, I have to have twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of like the world according to rom comms before
Speaker 1: I go to sleep, like and I just need to
Speaker 1: have it. And I don't like I don't care how
Speaker 1: late I go to bed. I like have to, like,
Speaker 1: like Simon knows, He'll be like, yes, like I have to.
Speaker 1: I have to turn off a like I usually turn
Speaker 1: it off before I go to bed, but I just
Speaker 1: have to even if I'm watching something else, I have
Speaker 1: to have that ten minutes of like the rom com
Speaker 1: Like we were just watching that, Like did you watch
Speaker 1: you guys watch the David Beckham documentary. Yes, we were
Speaker 1: just watching it. And Simon was like, okay, like good night,
Speaker 1: because we'd watch an episode and he'd go ready to
Speaker 1: like and to go to bed.
Speaker 2: I was going to bed and he's like, what are
Speaker 2: you doing.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I have to like still have
Speaker 1: ten minutes to like calm down, Like it just calms
Speaker 1: my nervous system down.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the best genre.
Speaker 4: And I feel like they really don't make They really
Speaker 4: don't make movies like they did back.
Speaker 2: I have a theory about this.
Speaker 1: I think that people think we don't have the patience
Speaker 1: to watch people fall in love anymore. So what ends
Speaker 1: up happening is that in these genres, it's like this
Speaker 1: quick thing of like I don't believe because they just
Speaker 1: don't fall in love, like and when Harry met Sally.
Speaker 1: The entire movie is not about that they end up
Speaker 1: together or they don't, but you watch them fall in
Speaker 1: love for two hours, like through these different circumstances, through
Speaker 1: these different conversations, where now they would just be like
Speaker 1: a montage of them being.
Speaker 2: Like we're at the movies, week, gone shopping, We've did
Speaker 2: it all.
Speaker 1: We are like had a day at a coffee shop,
Speaker 1: like all these things, and you're like it doesn't like
Speaker 1: work that way. You actually like you're not hanging in
Speaker 1: the moment of like watching them fall in love or
Speaker 1: fall out of love or like and so they that
Speaker 1: part and they think that we just are waiting to
Speaker 1: see like what's going to be the drama, Like what's
Speaker 1: going to be the conflict, And it's like nobody watched
Speaker 1: like there's like no conflict in.
Speaker 2: Like any episodes of Sex and the City.
Speaker 1: Like it was like like literally like nothing happens, but
Speaker 1: you watch these friends just like love each other all
Speaker 1: the time and like fall in love with each other
Speaker 1: for like ten years.
Speaker 3: Can you send me your whole list?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I will, Oh you're great, I will.
Speaker 4: What emotion do you find difficult to deal with the
Speaker 4: why if any.
Speaker 1: Uh, I'd say, you know, definitely, anger is something I've
Speaker 1: worked through and with a lot, in the sense of
Speaker 1: I think those fiery emotions where you're you know, the
Speaker 1: thing about anger, Like, there's nothing wrong with any emotion
Speaker 1: you have, right, Like jealousy is one of the most
Speaker 1: informative emotions you can have. It's only when we turn
Speaker 1: jealousy into violence that it's a problem.
Speaker 2: So if we say that like it.
Speaker 1: You know, I could look at someone and be like,
Speaker 1: oh my like jealousy, could say, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: so amazing she has that. I'm so grateful that I
Speaker 1: can see somebody in real time achieving something that is
Speaker 1: lighting me up inside because now I know what to
Speaker 1: work for. It's helping me on my path to make
Speaker 1: decisions towards my goal. It's crystallizing something for me. Or
Speaker 1: I can say, how could she have that? I have
Speaker 1: this and they have that and she doesn't do da da,
Speaker 1: And like any moment in which like an emotion tells
Speaker 1: you your God and you're somehow deciding what someone does
Speaker 1: and doesn't deserve, or like you should be in charge
Speaker 1: of anyone else's destiny, Like that's obviously toxic. But if
Speaker 1: we pause before it turns into that, and we decide
Speaker 1: to keep it as information, then it's really helpful. And
Speaker 1: I think anger is something where you know, like in
Speaker 1: my household growing up, I would just see anger manifest
Speaker 1: as like yelling or whatever, and you're just like, I
Speaker 1: just don't want to be like that, and so you
Speaker 1: are afraid to actually have that.
Speaker 2: Feeling.
Speaker 1: But really, the thing about like anger is that it's fire,
Speaker 1: and fire is light. It's illuminating something in you, like
Speaker 1: it is illuminating your values.
Speaker 2: It is illuminating what you.
Speaker 1: Believe should or should not be. It is like it
Speaker 1: is illuminating like a history. It's illuminating like how you
Speaker 1: feel injustice. And we always have to be tapped into
Speaker 1: feelings like what we feel is or isn't just around us,
Speaker 1: And I think it really helps us to be an
Speaker 1: advocate for ourselves because we can feel that heat and
Speaker 1: we can feel the light, and the light brings things
Speaker 1: out of the dark and clarity to things.
Speaker 2: So when we.
Speaker 1: Hide from those hot emotions like jealousy or big sadness,
Speaker 1: jealousy or anger or big sadness, we do tend to
Speaker 1: miss out.
Speaker 2: But I think we're so you know, you watch so
Speaker 2: many people.
Speaker 1: Create violent manifestations of that, so like anger is great.
Speaker 1: Anger is like some of the most incredible information you
Speaker 1: could get about people in your life, life, about yourself.
Speaker 1: It's just anger. Obviously when it turns to violence, is
Speaker 1: you know, not helpful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not in my list. But what does
Speaker 3: your tattoo?
Speaker 2: Day? Oh it says love. Why wouldn't you?
Speaker 3: Ah, I love that. When was the last time you
Speaker 3: had a really good cry? And why?
Speaker 4: Oh you don't say why? Just when was the last
Speaker 4: time made a really good cry?
Speaker 1: You know? I have been crying a lot lately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful. And I write about crying in
Speaker 1: this book because I was the person who was never
Speaker 1: a crier. And I had this revelation once in therapy
Speaker 1: where I had said to my therapist, like I hid
Speaker 1: my tears for so long they started hiding for me,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't like locate my tears.
Speaker 2: But it's because we live in a world that tells
Speaker 2: us not to cry.
Speaker 1: And and I write, you know, you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: cry at home, and you shouldn't cry at school, and
Speaker 1: you could shouldn't cry here, Like there's not a place
Speaker 1: where we say, like, these tears are welcome. And so
Speaker 1: I think because of that, this idea that we are
Speaker 1: like strong and not human happens in a human like
Speaker 1: is always going to have relationship to water and to
Speaker 1: cleansing into removing. And so recently I was having this
Speaker 1: cry and I was like kind of you know, I
Speaker 1: had been with my friend who his dad passed, and
Speaker 1: I was with her and her mom, and you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel I could cry when I was with them,
Speaker 1: but it was so horrible, and I remember getting in
Speaker 1: the car and like just really letting it go. And
Speaker 1: it was really weird because like not to sound like psycho,
Speaker 1: but I'm not, like I don't think about like live
Speaker 1: citing my own work. But I had this moment in
Speaker 1: the car because I was like, I still was having
Speaker 1: trouble to let it go even when I got there,
Speaker 1: because I was like, I'm going to cry in this
Speaker 1: uber and like now it's going to be this guy's problem,
Speaker 1: and like, and there's this poem in the book that says,
Speaker 1: the tears they shed and shed it is it is
Speaker 1: a gift. It is a gift to release what I
Speaker 1: can no longer hold in this idea that like we
Speaker 1: just don't have to hold it and that our tears
Speaker 1: come as a way to like let us release what
Speaker 1: we can't hold anymore, you know, really helped. I mean
Speaker 1: I wrote that poem because it was a mantra that
Speaker 1: helped me like kind of allow for myself to cry
Speaker 1: whenever I need to have the cry. And so whether
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, I'll have a tour stop and
Speaker 1: my tours, I meet every single person, and I talk
Speaker 1: to every single person every night, and there's so much
Speaker 1: that goes on, and so many of the you know,
Speaker 1: we don't really have like we don't like skim the waters,
Speaker 1: and so it was really you know, there were sun
Speaker 1: nights whorts just like needed to like let it go
Speaker 1: because I was that was a way that I was
Speaker 1: able to have held space for someone in a moment,
Speaker 1: but perhaps not continued to hold their offering to me,
Speaker 1: which I was so grateful that they felt they could
Speaker 1: share with me. And so I've been having a lot
Speaker 1: of cries lately and just been like the tears they
Speaker 1: shed and shed.
Speaker 4: That's so beautiful. I feel the same way I really
Speaker 4: tried to see. I love the definition of emotions, energy
Speaker 4: and motion, and I truly believe that emotions are not
Speaker 4: supposed to stay in you. It creates stagnancy. And you know,
Speaker 4: in an irate it talks about how when you allow
Speaker 4: emotions to stay stagnant and to be held in different
Speaker 4: parts of your body, it's actually the beginning of a
Speaker 4: lot of disease in the body and a lot of
Speaker 4: discomfort in the body, well, disase like disease exactly. And
Speaker 4: so I see, I really try and recognize the emotions
Speaker 4: I have, and I think that's why I do cry
Speaker 4: a lot, because a lot of my emotions come out
Speaker 4: and crying, whether I'm happy or sad or angry, it's
Speaker 4: just it pours out of me in that way, and
Speaker 4: I'm not in control of that. And I've started to
Speaker 4: see it as a really beautiful thing because I do
Speaker 4: think it allows that space for you to I mean,
Speaker 4: if you're at full capacity, how can you hold space
Speaker 4: for anybody else? And how can you hold space for
Speaker 4: even yourself because you're not allowing anything else to enter
Speaker 4: and release through your body.
Speaker 2: It's just what you need, like some people might need to.
Speaker 1: Like sweat every day exactly, like to have released that
Speaker 1: like and have that way that their body is able
Speaker 1: to shed experience or emotions or whatever, and they just
Speaker 1: that might be the relationship they have with the water
Speaker 1: and their body. Like, but you know, we are again.
Speaker 1: It's like when you think about these tears, when you
Speaker 1: think about the sweat, the whatever it is, it's like
Speaker 1: the earth needs the rain, then you do, and and
Speaker 1: the earth needs the rain like we need these moments
Speaker 1: of downpour and and that's what cleans our earth truly,
Speaker 1: Like that is what makes you know, if we didn't
Speaker 1: have these ways of like street cleaning or whatever, the
Speaker 1: streets would become clean by the rain that fell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just amazing. Love our bodies, their human bodies
Speaker 3: is just so amazing.
Speaker 2: I know, they really are.
Speaker 3: So much.
Speaker 1: And if you have decided that your body is the world,
Speaker 1: all you notice is how the body behaves like the world.
Speaker 1: And all you'll want to do is keep putting your
Speaker 1: body in the real world with real people. You know,
Speaker 1: we talked about that so much on the tour. It's like,
Speaker 1: especially lately online, it's like if you are always online,
Speaker 1: you will always feel like there's no possibility towards okayness
Speaker 1: does no matter how many amazing people like and I
Speaker 1: say that as someone who like, I'm so grateful to
Speaker 1: be able to offer in so many ways that you do,
Speaker 1: and I know your husband does. Just offer help and
Speaker 1: support to people via the online world and at the
Speaker 1: same time being incessantly online, you will never feel like
Speaker 1: you're going to be okay. But I guarantee you, if
Speaker 1: you go somewhere and you sit shoulder to shoulder with somebody,
Speaker 1: you will feel that like there is this possibility for okay.
Speaker 2: Human just will.
Speaker 1: Because the like that's when we remember that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a flower and they're a flower, and we're just
Speaker 1: growing and it's just this thing and we're all in
Speaker 1: this together and we're these a live things in this
Speaker 1: a live place, and we're not like at the mercy
Speaker 1: of the worst image we saw today on our phone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that interaction between us as I always think
Speaker 4: about this, you know, back in the day, you'd go
Speaker 4: to your friend's house when you need to talk to
Speaker 4: them or when you're upset, and now we communicate even
Speaker 4: it kind of lessens the impact and the ability to
Speaker 4: connect through a vessel rather than being and seeing and
Speaker 4: exchanging energy and exchanging eye contact and physical touch and
Speaker 4: human interaction is what we thrive on. We all need
Speaker 4: to be around each other to collectively give and receive
Speaker 4: energy from each other, and I think it brings so
Speaker 4: much ease when you're able to do that on a
Speaker 4: regular basis.
Speaker 2: I totally agree. I totally agree.
Speaker 4: My last question to you is what kind of crier
Speaker 4: are you? So I have broken down the crier it's
Speaker 4: more of a fun thing. But there's the loud ugly crier,
Speaker 4: which is not ugly, but you know, the ugly cari,
Speaker 4: the ugly cris everything is just it's all now and yeah.
Speaker 4: Then there's the breathless, where it's it's like just the
Speaker 4: there's the sniffler and snotty, which is there is water
Speaker 4: coming out from every hole possible. There's the high pitch
Speaker 4: where suddenly they go like three octaves higher you just
Speaker 4: don't know. And then there's I'm not crying, you're crying.
Speaker 4: I have something in my eye, right, And then there's
Speaker 4: a silent cry where they go away they come back
Speaker 4: and you wouldn't even know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which one do you think you are?
Speaker 1: I think for that silent one, there's also the person
Speaker 1: that like they go away, they cry, and you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to tell if their eyes weren't red.
Speaker 3: Yes, like you're just like.
Speaker 2: Like okay, and they're just like no, like I'm fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel that I'm like maybe more the silent cry,
Speaker 1: but not in like a hiding way, you know, where
Speaker 1: it's like I think that I just like go and
Speaker 1: it's like I have like just like tears streaming down
Speaker 1: my face.
Speaker 2: And it's just like and and again.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because I like have yet to reach the
Speaker 1: point as somebody who's like a reformed not a good crier,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to be a better crier.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've reached the point.
Speaker 1: Of like cause the ugly cry is where we all
Speaker 1: want to be because like that's like that I had
Speaker 1: like free to just like emote like what I like
Speaker 1: what my body is like telling me, and like I
Speaker 1: have no care or like in the world for how
Speaker 1: this appears.
Speaker 2: Like the ugly cry is goals.
Speaker 4: No, I feel like from the being around your presence
Speaker 4: and the way that you speak, I'm not I can
Speaker 4: only imagine you're one of those artistic, beautiful criers where
Speaker 4: it's just like the tears just slowly generally roll down
Speaker 4: your face. It's like a romantic movie.
Speaker 1: Where you're just like it's like you're and you're staring
Speaker 1: out the window and you're just like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then your your poetry book is like playing
Speaker 4: in the background.
Speaker 3: Like that's how I feel you'd be.
Speaker 2: That's also how.
Speaker 1: Like a sociopath is gonna cry right like that, Like
Speaker 1: you could have like framed like oh this like nice
Speaker 1: poet or like a villain like who's like you know,
Speaker 1: it's a just about to get revenge and is like
Speaker 1: saying goodbye to like this cul world.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So but I think that like the ugly cry is goals,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I get ugly cry often enough.
Speaker 2: I think I more have the like.
Speaker 1: They're just like the tears are streaming down and I'm
Speaker 1: like and I'm like, you know, letting them, so I'm
Speaker 1: not doing the like I want to hide it. But
Speaker 1: it is just this like kind of like silent outpour,
Speaker 1: and I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, okay, like you know, well, remember love.
Speaker 4: Your book definitely brought many tears to my eyes, but
Speaker 4: in a really cleansing and uplifting way. So thank you
Speaker 4: for that. Thank you for all the work that you do.
Speaker 4: Thank you for writing such beautiful words and for anybody
Speaker 4: who needs to understand themselves better, needs a really good cry,
Speaker 4: please check out the book. It is honestly one of
Speaker 4: the few books lately that I haven't been able to
Speaker 4: put down.
Speaker 3: It's just it's beautiful. So thank you so much for
Speaker 3: being Thank you so much, Thank you so much, and
Speaker 3: look forward to many more conversations.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and thank you so much.