Latest / Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler / A Therapy Session with Dr. Dan Siegel

Transcript

A Therapy Session with Dr. Dan Siegel · Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. Hi. Oh hello Catherine, Hello Chelsea. Yeah, good afternoon, everybody,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Good morning. We have some very exciting news, Dear Chelsea.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: The podcast you are currently listening to has been named
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a Webby Honoree in the podcast general series Advice and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: how To category. Who congratulations, congratulations Chelsea. Oh my god.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Earning the distinction of Webby Honoree, that's what it's called,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: as recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is a significant achievement, granted to only the top twenty
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of more than fourteen thousand, three hundred projects submitted in
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: this year's petition. So that is a very exciting little award.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, how I love it. I love getting
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: nominated for awards. It's a whole new thing for me. Yeah.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's a little bit of recognition.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: It's kind of fun. I love an atta boy like
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I love a pat on the back. So this is
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: just a wonderful way to get one of those. Yes, Yes,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I agree, thank you very much. Yes, what else, Katherine, Well,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing my Dear Chelsea hat ches in. You guys
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: are Dear Chelsea. Merch is in. It's available on my
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: website at Chelsea Handler dot com. It's very exciting. Oh
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I should also tell you this. So the very first
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: day that I wore my Dear Chelsea Lemon yellow T shirt,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I went for a hike. My husband and I were
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: hiking in Griffith Park and a woman came up to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: me and she pointed at my shirt and she goes,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I have that in my ears right now. And I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: was really confused. And then my husband was like, Katherine,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: she said, she's listening to you, like this podcast right now.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It's on your shirt. And I was like, oh, that's cute.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It was very wonder why you were so confused. I was, well,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: it was like the ear in. It was like, that's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: in my ears right now. I was like, wait, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: don't understand. But she had earbuds in and it was
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a whole thing. But it was very cute, and I
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: was cute. I love that people listen to it. I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: always forget, you know, you leave here and then you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: get that you like, even did a podcast. So it's
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: nice when people say, oh my god, I love your podcast,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: or I I've called in, or I've written in. Somebody
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: tried to hand me their submission the other day, So
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I gotta get that to you as soon as possible,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: just so everybody knows. Katherine handles the submissions and there,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: how do you submit again, Dear Chelsea Project at gmail
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: dot com. Don't send it to Dear Chelsea. That's a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: very sweet woman who's not us and who's obviously annoyed
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: by getting all of our emails. But she's like, I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: feel bad. I want to make sure that these get
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to you. So Dear Chelsea Project at gmail dot com,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I read every single one that comes in
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: so and actually I have received several emails about our
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Amy Schumer episode and there was one specific little thing
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: that was mentioned on the episode that we wanted a
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: lot of people wanted to make sure that we corrected,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: which you know, we're here to learn to so I
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: think that's great, Ashley says, Dear Chelsea. I love, love
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: love your show. You have the topics you cover, It
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: helps so many people, and I love listening every week.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I'm writing to respectfully ask you for a correction to
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: your episode with Amy Schumer. It was educational and vulnerable,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and your conversation on the autistic community and later in
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: life diagnoses will change people's lives for the better. In
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the episode, it was mentioned that autism can't be diagnosed
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: until around age five or six, which is incorrect. I'm
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a speech and language pathologist who works with children aged
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: two to fourteen, many of whom are artistic. You can
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: seek diagnosis as early as age two. Early intervention is
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: key for many families, and often the stigma of autism
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: keeps families from getting a diagnosis until much later. My
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: goal in my practice is always to put children in
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: their families first, and with all the advocacy Amy does,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I want everyone to be armed with the most accurate
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: information possible. Thanks for your consideration, Ashley. God damn it, Amy,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: God damn it, Amy. Why she always getting me in trouble?
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: On I'm getting people in trouble, and then I've had
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Amy Schumer. Okay, so you can get diagnosis early. As
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to thank you for your letter, thank you for your correction.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: We appreciate that, and yes, we want to get out
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: accurate information to everybody. Absolutely, early intervention, Guys, early intervention.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I wish somebody would have intervened with me earlier than
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: they did, because I really just I could have used
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: some sort of diagnosis when I was younger. I don't
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: know what my diagnosis is, but I could have used
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: some help. I feel like we're as we have expanding
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: conversations about everything in the public domain. There are so
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: many things and I'm like, oh, wait, I have this.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I have that, Like it's because of podcasts and one
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: in particular that I was like, Oh, I have anxiety.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: That's what that feeling is. Yeah, we're actually knowing the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: difference between anxiety and like, you know, anxiety encompasses so
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: many different things, like being annoyed with people is anxiety.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I always had anxieties like oh, social anxiety and inability
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: to so chalize or perform or go out or stage
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: fright like that kind of thing. And it's actually much
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: more nuanced than that. There is a whole spectrum of
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: anxiety that you can suffer from, and it can present
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: in many different ways in different people. So, you know,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: eating his anxiety. Sometimes. Doing drugs is anxiety sometimes, or
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a celebration can be either. Chelsea, do you have any
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: tour dates that you want to come? Yes. I added
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a show in Saratoga Saratoga Mountain Winery. I added a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: second show in Nashville, Nashville is where I am shooting
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: my next special, so there will be two shows now
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in Nashville. And I am also performing at the Just
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. Everyone has been asking
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: for Montreal dates to all of my Canadian friends. That
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: is July, i will be at the Montreal Just for Laughs.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I'm hosting a gala, and then I also have another
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: can I have two dates in Vancouver Friday August twelve
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: to shows in Vancouver and then Saturday August and Sunday
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: August fourteen. Tickets are available for Calgary in Alberta, and
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I'm also adding a show Saturday October eight in Niagara Falls,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: which is Ontario. So those are my Canadian dates coming up.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And then this week I'm starting back on tour. So
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Thursday April I'm in Cedar Rapids, then I'm in Des
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Moines and I'm coming to Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday night.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: So and then the week after that is Louisville, Kentucky. St.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Louis Missouri and two shows in Kansas City. So check
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Chelsea Handler dot com for your tickets. I'm back on tour.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Vaccinated in Horny. Let's get down to business. It's just great.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: It's just great. I'm just back from Vegas, so I'm
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: looking a little peckish or peaked, one of those words
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: they both apply. Actually, I'm hungry and tired. We went
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to Whistler to celebrate my friend and his birthday. That
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: was Saturday. A very fun Sunday night was the Grammys
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: in Vegas, which we flew out to with all of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: our friends from Whistler. Then we celebrated Joe's birthday. After
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the Grammys. We had a after party for him with
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: DJ terb his one of his besties, Deejaying, and it
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: was so much fun. And then we did it again Monday,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and then we did it again Tuesday, and we had
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: activities like dune bugging in the desert for all of
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: our guests. We had about seventy people there. So I
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: am fresh off of a flight from Vegas. I just landed.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I'm here today and talking abounding to talk to my
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to our very special guest for our final episode, which
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: is our season finale of season two. We'll be back shortly.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: We won't take that long of a break. But our
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: finale guest is none other than my psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Siegel,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it's very exciting. It's very exciting to have him on,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and he's going to help us with a couple of
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: sort of trickier questions that I've had because I obviously
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to explain to every all of my listeners. Obviously I
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: can help with many things, and I think I know
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: a lot about a lot of things, and I also
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: know that I don't know a lot about some important things.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So when there is heavier advice to be given where
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: we do need a professional, I obviously tried to implement
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: one every few episodes so we can catch up with
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the callers who I was not feeling confident enough or
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you weren't feeling confident enough to help. By the way,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I've got so many compliments on you this weekend. My
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: sister was also saying, I was on the phone with
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: her last night just how much she loves your voice
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and be how well rounded you are. She was like, god,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Katherine just knows a little bit about everything. And I
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: was like, I know, she's like a general practitioner. That's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: so great. I mean, I guess I told her finances
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: your specialty, because that's where you really come a love.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that would actually make everyone in my family.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: My dad has a tax attorneys that would make him
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: laugh very very hard. But oh that's so great. Yeah,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I love to research. I love to fall
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: down an internet rabbit hole. So it's finally paying off.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: It really is. Now that you've got this Emmy Webby Award.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I mean I slept and said, Emmy, we can get Yeah,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that's for us. Excellent, excellent. Well shall we welcome Dr Dan?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I know Dr Dan during the course of this interview
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: will mention several of his books, but do we want
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: to also maybe at the end we can mention all
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the books because his books are helpful, and I would
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: like to just be on the record and say there
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: are a lot of them are parenting books. And I've
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: read three parenting books from him, So you are an
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: expert in parenting. Well, I mean it was more for
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Burton Bernie's and we know how that turned out. So
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if you could apply parenting
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: books to animals, but that's what I was after. I mean,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I think they can be as sassy as teenagers. Like
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Mimsy isn't a very teenagers stage right now. She just
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: plants her feet when she doesn't want to go home
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: on a walk. Yeah, Bernie's does that all the time.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: She Bernie's won't step on certain materials, like, she doesn't
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: like certain surfaces. So she's stops and then you have
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to basically choke her to pull her over it. She
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't like sand, she doesn't like cement. That's just like
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: anything that's dirty. Really, Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't know
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: where she got that from. Must be, it must be.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back. So today's guest it has a
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: medical degree from Harvard. He's a clinical professor of psychiatry
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: at the U c l A School of Medicine and
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the founding co director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: at U c l A. He is a multiple time
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: New York Times best selling author, a neuropsychiatrist and interpersonal neurobiologist,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Dr Dan Siegel. Oh my god, look who it is? Hi?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: How are you? Long time? You know? Ceci? I know?
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: How are you you? I am very well. This is
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: my co host Catherine, who I think he's spoken to. Hi,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: cats Aine, nice to see you. Like Wise, likewise, Dan
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: uses a standing desk, Katherine, So if his motion is
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: giving you motion sickness, let him know. Yeah, I can
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: stop if you want. It's I like walking, but if
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: you want me to stop, I can stop. No, that's fine.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I'm fine with it. Although, Katherine, are you okay with it?
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I think I'm okay with it. If I do get
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: motion sickness, I will let you know. I love the
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: idea of getting motion signess from someone else's motion. What
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: does an interpersonal neurobiologists mean? Dan? You know? Interpersonal neurobiology
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: is a phrase for a framework that combines all different
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: ways of knowing, like the different fields of science or
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: studies of meditation what are called contemplative insights with indigenous
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: practices indigenous wisdom, and we bring it all together and say,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: if there's one reality, can everybody join in the tent
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and have a conversation that's collaborative so we can see
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the wisdom from all these different points of view. Oh, interesting,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: is that a new field? Yeah, it's a new framework.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I introduced it in so it's relatively new compared to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: some other things. But it's new, especially in the notion
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that it's not trying to replace an existing point of view.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: It's trying to say, there's so many views from thousands
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of years ago or from dozens of years ago, and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: if they're all exploring the nature of truth, could we
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: see if they all fit together somehow? There's a common
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: ground that EO. Wilson, the writer calls concilience. So we
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: look for the concilience or common ground across independent pursuits
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: of knowledge. Oh wow, I'm we're really leveling up this episode,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Catherine buckle In. So that relates to actually one of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the questions that I want to ask you, but I'll
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: ask that later, but it relates to it. Okay, great,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I love it. I love when you're ask me questions.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: It's so great to see you, I gotta say, Jesse. Oh,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it's always good to see you, Always good to see you.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I I spoke to you a few months ago because
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I'm in a new relationship and about the adjustment to
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: be in a relationship with somebody, to spend so much
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: time with somebody when I'm so used to being so
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: kind of independent and alone. And I wanted to mention
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: because you and I have had conversation once. And I
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: can say this because it's it's private until I publicize it,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: so I'll say it. But we talked about I remember
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: there was a period of time where I was telling
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: you that I just I was like, I just want
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to go to bed at like eight o'clock every night.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not in the mood to hang out.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I just want to be in bed all the time.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And I was asking you, do you think I'm depressed?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And I was single at the time, and you said, saliently,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I think that if someone were in your life that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: you were excited about, you wouldn't want to go to
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: bed at seven or eight o'clock. And it's I still
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: like to go to bed at seven or eight o'clock.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are times when I can't, where of
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: course I don't because he's a night owl, and we
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: compromise a lot. But the other night, I remember we
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: came home. He was taping two of his shows at
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the Forum in l A, his Netflix special, so they
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: were big nights out and we were out soil one
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in the morning that we were outstill five in the morning.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And on the Sunday we were planning to go to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: all these Oscar parties and I woke up Sunday I'm like,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I'm done. I can't. I can't socialize anymore. And that night,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, Joe wakes up. My boyfriend has more
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: energy than a battery pack. I mean, it is unbelievable
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: what this guy is willing to do all day long
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: on no sleep. It's just crazy. I've never seen any
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: human being operate like this. He's got different DNA. So anyway,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that night, he was like going somewhere. I wanted to
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: go to dinner with his family, and I was like,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I really just want to go to bed at seven
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: or eight o'clock. And I remember the conversation you and
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I had and I thought, oh, what does this mean
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: that I still want this? Because I have this kind
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: of element now to my personality where I want to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: hunker down, you know, where I want to get in
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: bed and watch TV and just build myself a little nest.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And I know when you do that often or too much,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: it becomes it does become a pattern where it feels
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: like you are depressed. Well, now, so what's the part
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: where you're calling it depression? Well, I think when I
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: was doing it consistently. Now I do it, you know,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: on a Sunday night, you know, or you know, I
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: don't do it as frequently, so it doesn't feel as
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: like bad. Because when you do it consistently, and I
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: think it was also maybe a product of COVID as well,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that I was just like, there's nothing going on. It's
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: just easier to get stoned and you know, get into
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: bed and whatever. But it was becoming a pattern that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't like about myself. It just didn't feel I
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: didn't feel alive. I felt like I was slightly depressed.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: And I've never really dealt with any depression to the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: level where I had to really like take anything for it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Or I don't know, I guess I I don't know
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: if it's a question or just an observation, but I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, you were,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: You're raising a couple of really important issues. I mean, one,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: when you use the word depression, we should realize that
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: there are people in the world who who have really
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: serious ways where they get the experience of you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: maybe going to bed early or even having a hard
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: time falling asleep. It can go either way. Um their
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: sleep can be interrupted, they can get up early, or
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: they can sleep really a long time. So sleep is
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: a big issue to talk about with this thing called
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: major depression. But in addition, you know, they have low energy.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: They have something called an hedonia, which means and is
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: without hedonia's pleasure, So they don't get pleasure in things
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that used to give them pleasure. And also they don't
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: get pleasure in anticipating doing something fun, so they kind
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: of lose their jouis d viv their their their joy
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: of living. It kind of goes away. They start thinking
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: kind of really down thoughts like I'm no good, I'm
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: guilty of things that I'm not even guilty of, you know,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I'm a horrible person, and there's no future for me,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: there's no hope, and then I start feeling helpless. So
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: for any of us who have worked on a suicide
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: prevention service, when some of these serious depression calls you,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: you can feel it in the tone of their voice
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: is kind of like flat and there's a huge despair
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: there that makes suicide a serious risk. So if anyone's
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: hearing us and your experience of those, please reach out
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: for help to a mental health professional. If suicide is
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: something you're thinking about, you know, please reach out to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a suicide prevention service because the great news about depression
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: is that it's treatable, and even though you may feel hopeless,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: there's hope right around the corner. And part of it
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: actually is the connection we talked about. So when I
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: said to you, I think if you had a connection
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: with someone that matters to you in your life, it
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't that I thought you were depressed. But some people
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: do get depressed because they have no connection, and it's
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: really loneliness, deep deep loneliness, and our community are larger
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: society now doesn't really support people having connections with each other.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: You know. The the current US Surgeon General wrote a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: beautiful book called Together about this sad epidemic we have
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: where we have so much material wealth, but we don't
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: have much relational wealth. People are so isolated from each other,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: so you know, that's that's a separate sort of thing.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: So being lonely can make you feel horrible and despairing,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: but it might not be called major depression, but it
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: still feels terrible, and we need to help people with that.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: And then there's you know, just what's called dysphoria, which
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: is where you just feel yucky about your life. This
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: is bad for is how you feel. And I'm dysphoric,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: you know, And I think anyone who reads the news
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: can get dysphoric because we're in a rough place in
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the world now, so our our body is going to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: respond emotionally, and emotion, you know, is basically three things
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: woven together. It's relationships, the body's response, and meaning. Those
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: three things are really what emotion is. So if someone says, oh,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: my emotion it is horrible, I feel down. What's going
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: on with the world. Yeah, let's let's name it so
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: we can frame it like in a picture frame and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: say that's what it is. Let's try to participate, you know,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in social activism. Let's try to do something to really
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: feel empowered, to actually have what's called agency, or I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: can be an agent of action to do something. So
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of people these days are feeling hopeless, and
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: they can call it depressed, but that gets people mixed
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: up with a serious psychiatric condition rather than the world
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: is in a really tough spot. So we can feel hopeless,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Let's talk to each other about it, because in working
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: collectively we can actually move through that to what Joanna Macy,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a beautiful writer, calls active hope. So this is a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: way you can take that word depression and see it
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: as either a serious disorder that sometimes these medications or
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: other treatments, or a more moderate condition where you know
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: psychotherapy can be helpful, or a way we're using that
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: word to describe loneliness and then having a change in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: in your participation in life. You know, like people in
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a a for example, they get an instant community through
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: alcoholics anonymous meetings, and their feeling of a loneliness and
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: despair can dissolve a way because they go to a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: regular meeting. Like a relative of mind is a recovering
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: alcoholic and he goes to meeting seven days a week,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and he's like the most unlnely person you want to
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: find because he's got a whole community every day that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: he's actively a part of, very meaningful conversations. Yeah, I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: like dysphoric. That's a good way to describe it, because
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I think for many of us, especially with the events
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: of the last few years, it's it's like a low
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: level of dysphoria, you know, it's and it can feel
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: it feels maybe like depression because it's not a common feeling.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I know for me, I've never felt that kind of
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: listlessness where you're just like it's on we You're just
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: like I don't I can't get it up for anything.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not that excited about anything that's happening. And I
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: definitely did remove reading the news from my repertoire after
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: a while because I just I read too many. It
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was too obvious what it does to your brain. And
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: obviously now with the events, the most recent events in
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Ukraine and Russia invading Ukraine, like that is something that
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: is a human being. It's our responsibility, I believe to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: be up to speed and to understand and to be
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: actively involved in doing whatever it is that you may
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: be able to do, you know, whether that's donating money
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: or volunteering in some way, or just being mindful of
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: what's happening in the world and meditating on it every
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: day whatever, like small contribution you think is f I
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: fine for you, or big contribution, but the political aspect,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: it's just too sickening. So I realized that that was
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: just contributing to my kind of darkness for a long
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: time and had to remove remove that. And it's kind
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of like it's too bad, But it's an addiction. It's
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: just like anything else. It's just like being addicted to
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: TikTok or Instagram or mind ae scrolling through your phone
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on social media. That is also an addiction, you know,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and I don't like. I don't like the way that
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: makes me feel either. And I'm very mindful of how perusing. Like.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: You know, if I'm reading a book for two hours,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I come away with a much different feeling and much
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: greater self assured nous and self esteem than I do
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: when I'm wasting my time reading gossip or reading you know,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the internet, Like I I know now what the components
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: are that that triggered me or take me to kind
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: of a low energy, vibrational place exactly. Well, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: you're describing an awareness of how you're responding. Your body
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: is responding, your emotions are responding, and then in that
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: awareness you've beautifully created a space so you can say, well,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of addicted to these social media things, and
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I notice I feel really bad. Wow. When I take
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the time to reflect on that, I can name it. Oh,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I feel bad when I do this social media. I
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: could frame it say Okay, what do I want to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: do about it? I'm not going to do it as much.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: That's an empowered mind you're talking about that you have,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and it's beautiful here you describe it and a lot
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of people. And if you've seen the Social Dilemma documentary,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the people who designed social media studied addiction,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and they intentionally create stuff on your screens to capture eyeballs,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to capture your time, focusing your attention on the thing
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. That wasn't by accident, it was by intent. Yeah.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: But what's so astonishing is that everybody is aware of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: that and has been made aware of that, yet we
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: still allow ourselves to operate like that, Like people like,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: I know, it's crazy, d DA. It's like, well, wait,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you're just a cognitive wheel if you're just allowing people
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: to manipulate your brain, right. Well, And and part of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the reason why that addiction what's called interimate reinforcement. If
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: you keep on giving positive reinforcement over and over again,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: after a while, it isn't so addicting. But intermittent reinforcement
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: where I give you a reward, then three next times
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I don't. Then I give you one, then eight times
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: next I don't. Then the ninth time you get a reward,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: you don't know what it's gonna happen, So it really
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: pulls you in. That's number one. The other thing which
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: is the other side of it is that our brains
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: are incredibly social. So there's all sorts of studies I
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: can tell you about, but but the summary of all
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: of them basically is we are social creatures. That's no surprise.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: You didn't need to do brain studies to know that.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: But when you look at the brain, areas involved in
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: feeling accepted. And I can tell you one study that
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: is so cool. When you're accepted, it activates this dopamine release.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: It's very rewarding. That's what the dopammune is for. That
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: was good. Let me do it again, Let me do
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it again, Let me do it again. But then when
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you sense that you're not accepted, like you're not getting
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: as many hits on your social media or whatever like that,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the part of the brain, it's called the dorsal anterior singulate,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the part of the brain that registers social rejection. I
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: call it feeling of being inadequate, like I'm not fitting
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: in with the social group. It's exactly the same part
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of the brain as if someone's stabbing you with a knife.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: It hurts literally in the brain. It's the same part
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of the brain social rejection, physical pain, same part of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the brain. Now when you take that, you go wow, Okay.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So you're always trying to see how can I fit in?
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: How do I compare? How do I fit in? How
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: do I compare? Do I belong? Do I not belong?
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: You know, so you're trying not to feel the pain.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: You're trying to find membership in a in a modern
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: society as we talked about earlier, where we're so alone.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: So you combine those two things, the intermittent reinforcement, all
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the other ways they know about addiction with the social brain,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and it is a money maker because then you're gonna
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: get so much time. I think about fifteen years ago,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: we didn't have these things, and now everyone's got them. Yeah,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I know people are like, oh, we're gonna keep our
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: kids off social media, We're gonna keep them off of iPads.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get any of that until they're ten, twelve, fifteen.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I have a friend who waited for her kids to
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: get a phone until I think they were fourteen, And
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: it's like, what does that do? Because once you get it,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: once you're in, you're in, right. I mean I even
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: see it in my two kids, you know, one was
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: he's old enough he's thirty two two not have had
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: that part of his adolescence. The others twenty eight and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: she did. And you can even see in their different
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: groups of friends, you know, they deal with social media
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: in different ways, the younger one. More. I'll tell you
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a sad thing. I was having lunch with Caroline, my
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: my wife. We were having a nice lunch in New York.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: It was a great restaurant everything. Then these people come
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: sitting next to us with this one year old kid,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and it was really cute, and they were from another
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: country and it was her birthday, so it was the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: birthday party. So they put out this presents, just one
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: sitting in the high chair. They handed her a smartphone.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: For the rest of the so called birthday party lunch,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: every one of them is on their separate device, and
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Caroline and I are going, oh my god. So I
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: took out my phone to take a picture because I
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to put it up on social media. She goes,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: don't do that, you know, which is right. I shouldn't
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: expose them, although I did get a picture where you
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: couldn't see identity, But anyway, you really should know better
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: than that. First. I mean, but I wanted to share
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: on social media how scary social media can be. Because
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: this kid, now, at one, you should have got up
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to them and said, hey, these are my credentials and yeah,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: and said listen, I am a doctor that specializes in this.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I have a degree from Harvard. I'm a neuropsychiatrist. Do
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you understand the damage you are doing to your child's brain?
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Remember what you're saying next time, I'm going to do that? Yeah,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: come on, I mean, think about the impact that would
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: have had. Yeah. Maybe it's unwelcome, but I mean you're
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: doing them a favor, you know, at least giving them
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the information that they may not be privy too. What's
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: so interesting, Chelsea, because there are times when I wonder
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: about doing that, offering un requested suggestions. Now my kids
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: are now adults, so that's that's a whole parenting adult
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: children thing where you actually intentionally don't do it. But
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: as a professional and a member of our human family,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: when do I offer stuff like that? So it's a
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: little tricky. I've I've tried it a few times and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: it often does not go off well. So what I
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: do is I keep a lot of my extra parenting
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: books in the car and then I just like hand
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: them out for free, like you know Halloween, you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: trigger Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess you know nobody. I
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: mean most people would say, don't give unsolicited advice. I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: obviously subscribe to a different theory. I think that sometimes
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I can hit somebody. I mean not always, but sometimes
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you can get somebody who really hears you and and
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: you're doing them a service or a favor, you know.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I mean that is sad. Yeah, But you know, when
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: you and I first met, I really was impressed with
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: how you like to learn new stuff. What in you
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: really empowers you to have such a focus on lifelong learning,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: because when you came to me, you weren't like an
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: adolescent coming to me for therapy. You know, I'm a
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: child adolescent and adult therapist, and adolescent can struggle with things.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You know. You were a full on adult accomplished a lot,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: but you came to learn more, you know, and it
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: was it's such a beautiful thing that I think life
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: will be the death of me. Your book illustrates. But
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: what is it that you can teach all of us
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: about your lifelong learning nature? Um? Well, I mean, thank you.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's a huge compliment. I mean, I don't
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: know that it's really I think I just I'm very curious,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: you know, Like I have a curiosity that I've always
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: had which has gotten me into lots of trouble as
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: a child, like asking impertinent questions, but being really curious
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: about people's lives. And I love interpersonal dynamics, like I
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: just love like when I meet a family, like if
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I'm on occasion and I get to meet brothers and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: sisters together with their parents and watching the dynamics and
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: like how they function. I just will never get tired
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: of that. And because I'm some from such a big
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: family and we have so many additional family members, because
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: people get married and hook up and have boyfriends and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: girlfriends and children, it just gets more and more complex.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And so for me, it was about becoming a better,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: more self aware, fuller person. But curiosity, I think, you know,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I could listen to you talk about the brain and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: science for hours because I find that fascinating too, you know.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I mean there are things I don't find fascinating, like bitcoin,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: you know that is when I talk about that, it's like, okay,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I don't have I mean I had someone explained an
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: n F T to me finally where I was able
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to get understand from the beginning to the end, and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I want to I
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: want to pay you for that explanation because I now
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: understand what an n f T is. Okay, well, I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: i'd have you tell me that, but we won't. We'll
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: save that for another We'll save that for a private conversation.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: But thank you. I mean, I don't know, I really
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: don't know how to answer that, but I do think
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: that you know, when you ask questions, you're you're signing
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: up for just like more knowledge, right, You're yea, And
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: especially if you have the luxury of going to someone
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: like you you have so much experience, it's like it's
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: a win win situation. Yes, it's going to be painful
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: at times when you're doing inner work, of course, because
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you have to face things about yourself that are not
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: pleasant and that are humiliating or embarrassing or however you
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: want to frame that. But bravery gets you to a
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: better place in life. I think you know, being brave
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: about finding out about yourself. I think your journey and therapy,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: it isn't everyone's experience that they're so basically open to change.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: And I remember there was a moment and you say
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: this in the book, so I can I can share it.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: You got very emotional about something, and I think there
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: was an awareness that you felt shouldn't be emotionally, shouldn't
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: be crying, You shouldn't have it right. One is lifelong learning,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: but the other is openness to change. Well, yes, I
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: would encourage everyone to always be curious to learn. I
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: mean learning is knowledge and knowledge is power and I
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: want to be poweraful Okay, so should we go ahead
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and take some colors? I think that's a great idea,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to make us take a quick break
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: before I do that. I love breaks, but let's take one. Excellent.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: We had a call, all right, Katherine, that's going to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: call back in because it's a man who's transition from
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: being a woman and he has a three year old
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: daughter with his wife, and he was asking when the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: appropriate time is to explain all of those things to her,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and I thought, we have Dan coming up. I think
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: you'd be better suited to answer that question instead of me.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: So I think we were able to get Alex on
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: the phone today, right, Catherine, Yes, his three year old
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: daughter Sutton. He has a bottom surgery coming up in
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the next year and a half, and so he's wondering
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: how to address those things with Sutton. So Hi Alex, Hello,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Hi Alex. Yeah, it's nice to meet you. Nice to
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: meet you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, well, when
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: you were on last time, I was like, oh, you
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: know what I you know, we had a great conversation,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: but I thought we have my doctor coming on next
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and he would be better suited since he specializes in
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: adolescent brain development and childhood all of this stuff. So, yeah,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: he's here, so we were we thought maybe you could
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: give him a summary of your situation so he could
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: weigh in for sure. Yeah, absolutely, thank you. So the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: situation really is is I am I am three year old,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and I am on the cusp of going through the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: consultation process to have my next major surgery as being
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a transgender, and I really am going to be embarking
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: upon a long journey of about three to four surgeries
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to have everything happened, and it usually takes about a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: year year and a half in long recovery times. And
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I wanted to do this early in in Sutton's development
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: so that it wasn't kind of a core memory for her.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: But I'm just kind of teetering on on how much
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to be to tell a three year old a four
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: year old about what type of surgery I'm having, the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: impact that it's going to have to her life, as
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: well as what healing time is, because it's not like
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I'm sick or going through anything that's that's something that
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: she should be worried about. More So, this is a
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: great part of my journey, but it's going to be
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: impactful for her, So I just want to make sure
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: that I'm expressing both sides of it and the reality
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: of it, but also in a way that she's going
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: to understand what's happening to Danny. Well. She's so lucky
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: to have you as a parent, Alex, because your intuition
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: of tuning in and getting a feeling of transparency that
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a family without secrets is a family that has you
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: could call it a coherent narrative that as a narrative
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: about whatever is going on, even if it's about something
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't expected, which is usually where stories come from. You
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: know is really important and what is your heart and
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: your gut? Literally we have three brains. You have a
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: brain in your head. You have a brain in your heart,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you have a brain in your gut. And what is
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: your heart brain and your gut brain? What are they
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: telling your head brain that has the words to speak,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: what are they signaling to you? So I suppose if
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I was to refer to my heart, uh, I would
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: say that I want to make sure that she feels
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: comforted in in those times when I'm healing and I,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you know, can't can't be around her as much, can't
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: play with her own so much or engage with her
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: as she expects. And then I guess, my my gut
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: is kind of telling me to be a little bit
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: more worried about kind of what the impact is going
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to have and and what I guess the optics are
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: are a big thing. Um, optics of her going back
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to daycare or talking about what our family looks like
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: at that time, or her having to do everything with
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: mom because I won't be able to get out of
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the house as well for for that amount of time.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I just want her to feel like like
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I'm still there just as I am every single day
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: now with being as able as I am. That's fantastic.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, these two brains when they send their
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: wisdom up to your head brain, which has kind of
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: logic and thinking about things in that way, what does
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: your head brain say about the whole developmental timing of
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: when to speak with her. I suppose my my headbrain
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: is kind of kind of being more logical hopefully it's
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: it's it's on my side, but being more logical in
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the way that and telling me that it's it's it's
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: going to be okay, like this is only going to
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: be a blip and what our family development looks like.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: And I hope that what comes out of it is
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: that he sees that my happiness continues to grow on
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: my personal journey and that our family just becomes more
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: kind of united, and that when she looks back on
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the time, yes, it was trying in the grand scheme
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of how we had to schedule things, and I wasn't
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: there for you know, going and running outside as much.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: But after the healing, life will go back to quote
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: unquote normal and I will just have more happiness and
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: more understanding of where how I walk in the world.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: So that hopefully just makes it easier for her and
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: for our family to progress as as a unit. That's
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: so beautiful. Well, I mean, Alex, for me, you've kind
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: of answered the question in the deepest way of what
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: feels right to you personally, what feels right to you
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: if your your daughter, and then you know when you're
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: turning to Chelsea and you know, turning to me, you know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: as a person who writes about development, here's just added
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: on top of your wisdom, I would just add the
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: following things. The way you're think approaching the notion of
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a family story, the family narrative. And I don't say
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: story like a pretend story. I mean we are narrative creatures.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: We tell the story of who we are. And some
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: families never do that, and there are all sorts of
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: secrets and all sorts of things that are never talked about,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: you know, and then that shuts things down. I mean, Chelsea,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: we could talk about that about when your your brother
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: died that you've written about so powerfully in your narrative
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: of letting that come out and be the story. So Alex,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: for you and for your whole family, everything can be
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: our teacher. You know, life happens, stuff that's challenging happens,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and if we see things that are not expected as
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: challenges rather than as threats. Then we bring as a
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: parent a very different attitude, like saying, you know, we
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: didn't expect this to happen. Now, how you then make
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: that health promoting growth promoting stress or distress is what
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I think your beautiful question is doing. You're saying this
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: is going to be stressful, that's fine. Life is that's
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: meaningful and stressful. How do we allow this to turn
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: into a positive, growth promoting, challenging experience rather than a threat?
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And the answer is what you've already told us. You're
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: ready to be fully present with your daughter. You're being
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: fully present with yourself, and so you know you could
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: turn to the people who are involved in the surgery
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and the centers you're working with and ask them this question,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to which I urge you to do. From my point
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: of view, it's not my area of specialty, but as
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a child specialist, what I would say is this is
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: every child's a little different terms of their temperament, and
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: every child a little different in terms of their attachment
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: to different caregivers. But the commonality across temperament and attachment
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: is to tell a story that makes sense of things.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: So in a book I wrote called parenting from the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: inside out. It's sort of t reaches you how to
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: bring those stories. Or I wrote that with Mary Hartzel.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: A book I wrote with Tina Payne Bryson is called
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: The Power of Showing Up. Those two books would be
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: great ones for you to actually read before you tell
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: her the story, because they show that whenever whatever the age,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: people ask this about kids are adopted, when should I
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: tell my adopted kids? Whenever? You bring it to three four,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: she's old enough now to be able to hear a story,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: as you know, do you want to hear it again
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: and again and again to agad and so you have
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: to be ready to like be repeating yourself. But that's fine.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: And when she sees the love in your heart, when
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: she feels that your gut is really behind this and
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: your head is now bringing the words to make a story,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: makes sense. She's ready at three unless there's some of
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the other issue that says, let's hold it off. But
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: if the surgery is happening soon, then telling the story
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: even having you know toys that allow you know, enact
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: a story. And here's what I would say. This is
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: not just about the surgery, but about the general idea
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: of transitioning is people they don't understand that gender identity
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: is different than assigned sex, whether you have a penis
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: or vagina. When I used to be in pediatrics and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: we go to the delivery room to help with the baby,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: you'd see the outer manifestation and say boy or girl.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: But gender identity is actually along an entire continuum because
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: the brain of mammals can be hugely female, which it
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: starts out as in all of us. But then the
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: way the testosterone that's secreted by the testicles crosses the
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: blood brain barrier into various degrees masculizes that brain to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: be a teeny bit masculine but mostly feminine, or middle
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: way both ways or all the way masculine. Your gender
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: identity is based on that, and it's not yes or no.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: It's not like a switch on or off, you know,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: boy or girl. So just explaining it that way, even
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: like a switch, you say, what we look like for
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: most of us, of us outwardly when we're born, is
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: like a switch. It's on or off, it's boy or girl.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: But actually gender identities not like that. It's more like
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a thermostat where we have all these degrees and you
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: can't tell a person's gender identity from the outside. And
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I had one gender identity and my assigned sex with
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: something else. So I'm in the good fortune of making
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: sense of that, and so I'm going to make my
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: outside match my inside. That's the story, right, So she
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: at three, she's gonna get that. And when I work
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: with kids who are like four or five, who are
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: assigned gender is one thing, but our gender identity is
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the other. I talked to them about that and the
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: parents say, oh, but this is gonna be challenging. Go yeah,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: but this is the way it is. And this person
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: could be incredibly healthy and happy if you, as their parents,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: let them see, this is just what happened. And life
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: is about always exploring and learning and growing and this
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: is a beautiful thing and it works out fine. Whereas
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: is you know, if people say no, no, no, you
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: can't do that, that's when it's a problem. So is
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: that part of the what you've learned in your journey? Absolutely,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: And making sure that having a daughter that's kind of
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: going through this journey as a part of my journey,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I feel it's my responsibility as her parent to make
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: sure that the environments that she is in the people
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: have that positive outlook and that's what I'm trying to
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: do as well, which is why it's just nerve racking,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: you know, raising a kid in this day and age.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm from We're in a small town in West Michigan,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: so um, it's a little bit difficult. But I think
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: exactly like you said, creating that narrative for my family
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: that makes a positive space no matter what challenges come
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: about is is a great way to put it. Because
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: no one writes that story or that narrative, but but us, Yeah,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: exactly exactly. You know you might enjoy also and giving
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: you these references. But there's a book called Brainstorm I
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: wrote for adolescence which talks about how parents can approach
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: when a child themselves is having a different This is
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I think with sexual orientation issue, but the same thing.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: You know, parents have one expectation, a kid comes out
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the other way. How that works out. This will be
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the flip side where you're going to come as the
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: parent to teach your child that what she may be
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: learning in school or in television is one extreme and
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: that is actually more subtle. And so she has the
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: incredible fortune of having you as a parent who will
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: guide her through a deeper notion of the way things
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: actually are, which is a beautiful gift you're gonna get her.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate that, and I appreciate your advice,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: and thank you for for having me so that I
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: can have that conversation and get that. I appreciate it. Well.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: I hope we'll be able to check in with you
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: and see how it all goes. Thank you, Hi, Alex,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: thank you so much. That was perfect awesome. I was
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: wonderful really connecting the dots here. Yeah, and I loved
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: what you said to about gender being so separate from
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the actual physical sex. It actually goes with another question
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: that someone wrote in, but this one really directly relates
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: to what you were saying. So this question is from Monica,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: whose child Kira, has told Monica that they'd like to
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: go by day them pronounced so. Monica says, Dear Chelsea
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: love the podcast. We have a fifteen year old daughter
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: who came out to us as non binary a few
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: months ago. She tells us that all of her friends
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: referred to her as they slashed them. A couple of
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: years ago, she told us she was bisexual. I laughed
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and told her that it was a trend. I didn't
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: handle that well, obviously trying to do this one better.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: We live in Boulder, Colorado, in a very liberal setting,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: where it's hard to tell if this is a trendy
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: choice or an actual feeling that she's going with. Several
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: of her friends are either bisexual, non binary, or trans.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: We love that this generation can explore their sexuality, unlike
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: we were able to do growing up. The hard part
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: is the labels. I feel like at this point in
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: her life she doesn't have to label her sexuality. Am
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I wrong? My husband and I don't feel comfortable referring
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to her as they slash them. We're both very open
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: and liberal. We believe that people should love whomever they
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: want to love to find happiness. For some reason, we're
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: having a hard time with this one. We support her
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: in every single way, and whoever she wants to love
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: would completely support. She's single at the moment. The issue
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: is the pronouns. We've talked to her about this and
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: have told her that we support her, but we don't
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable switching pronouns at this point. She says she understands.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Are my husband and I complete assholes? Thanks? For your time, Monica. Well,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: thank you Catherine for sharing Monica's question. There's so much
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: to say about her reflections. The first broadest statement to
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: make is the more you know, the less you see.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And what that means is the way the brain is constructed.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: It kind of has has a way of learning, learning, learning, learning, learning,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: and then to speed things up, it then makes categories
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: which have concepts then that emerge from them in words
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: like boy or girl. So by the time you're you know,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: very young, you figured out, okay, i'm a boy, I'm
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: a girl. You know that one's a boy, that one's
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: a girl. You know those are categories, right, and they
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: kind of make sense from anatomy. But as we pointed out,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: you're assigned sex, which is what your external anatomy is,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: is actually not always correlated with the feeling inside of
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: who you are or the feeling of who you're sexually
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: aroused by. That often comes up initially. You can feel
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that when you're four or five. Then it kind of
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: goes quiet for a little while, but then it gets
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: really active around eleven and twelve thirteen when adolescence hits. So,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: you know, sexual orientation is the phrase we use for
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: who you are sexually attracted to, and so it can
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: be for people of your same assigned sex and you
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: call that one thing or different assigned sex, and we
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: call that something else. And so being open to your
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: sexual orientation who you're attracted to, that's one thing. So
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: when you use a word like bisexual, that's different than
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the they them stories. So that should we should be
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: really clear about that. So that they them is about
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: gender identity. What I'd like to do if Monica heard,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: ask her, but I'll ask you, Katherine and you Chelsea
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: about this. You know, people have asked me to put
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: my gender identity in my little box at the bottom
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of a zoom call or any kind of platform. My
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: mom and I thought about it, and I thought, you know,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: I actually don't feel like particularly he. I don't feel
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: like a she, I don't feel like they. Actually I
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: barely feel like a Dan. I know that's kind of
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: an illusion too. So I've been putting a b C D,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: which is like an abbreviation for a body called Dan,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: you know, because even that's an illusion. You know, we're
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: all kind of manifestations of the same essence popping up
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: in a body. For about a hundred years, so a
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: hundred Jesus Dan. Yeah, well that's a long time, I know,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: but I can decious. Okay, fine, So anyway, let's just
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: put it that way, you know. So I say that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: because the world needs us to broaden our identity from
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: just the bodies were in and realize in terms of
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: racial justice, social justice issues, and racism. You know, we're
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: part of one human family, and and also we're part
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of the family of all living beings in terms of
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: what we're destroying bio diversity and the climate. So yeah,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: they say, say whether he or she or they? And
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I go, well, actually I want to say none of
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the above. A lot to write, and then it gets
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: people angry. So when I don't put it on my
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: little name tag, it's not it's not because I'm being
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: like dismissive of it. I actually I don't want to
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: be put in a vine. So I don't know how
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: do you, the two of you feel when people ask
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: you to do that, because it's it's a personal, very
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: personal thing. Catherine, you identify, right, you label that I
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: know on your emails and yeah, I do. I. I
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: do it really as a support for people who may
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: not use traditional pronouns, and it was tricky for me
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: in the beginning. I have a few friends who are
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: non binary, and it was tricky in the beginning, And
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: now just after practicing, it's sort of suddenly feels like
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the most natural thing in the world. Like said to
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: my husband's day. You know, we're going to our friend
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Ash's birthday and it's at you know, seven o'clock, and
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: they want us to be there. Da da da da,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: And it just suddenly feels like the most natural thing
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: in the world to use those pronouns for someone else.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: It takes a little bit of practice, but you can
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: come around. And more importantly, it's important to respect people's
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: decisions about themselves. Whether it's a fad or a trend.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: That's not your decision either. Even though you're a parent,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: you don't get to decide if it's a fat or
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: a trend. But respecting your child's decision and respecting their
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: choices goes a long way into the future of your
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: relationship with your child. When you give them agency and
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: you give them license to be themselves, then it's not
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: going to be a problem if in five years she's
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: like he or she or they decides that they want
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: to be referred to as a girl again, or that
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: they're not they don't feel non binary or any of it.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: But I think you are doing your child a disservice
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: when you're not respecting something that is not an easy
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: thing for them to say. It's not easy for that.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: You have to think about that, you know, and you
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: can say you're supportive, but that you're not. You don't
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable calling them they is actually not really being supportive. Yeah.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: And the other thing too, is it's not a huge
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: thing to give away. You know, it's not changing who
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: your child is fundamentally, it's not. It's not a wild
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: leap to say, you know what, I'm just gonna go
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: with this. I'm going to say they them. I might
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: slip up, but I'm gonna try my best. And you know,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: supporting your child's in whatever way you can. And like
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Chelsea said, these things can pass or maybe they won't.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: And you're allowing your child to discover who they are
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: by supporting who they are right now, because that is
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: always going to change. Whether their pronouns change or not,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: they're going to continue to change. Yeah, I concur with
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: what you're both saying. And I think it becomes challenging
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: when parents get really upset when some schools, like here
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, they'll have a whole day of discussing
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: gender identity and that you have choices to names you
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: used and you should look inward, which I think is
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: actually be fantastic, And some parents get all agitated about
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: it because they think it is making a child be confused,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: but it's actually I think just informing a child and
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: freeing a child, like like Monica's daughter is or I
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: don't know if you use the words daughter here, Monica's child.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Let's say that that way. So we have a moment
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: where as a parent, you can take a deep breath
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and say, if your child comes to you, to empower
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: them to explore the actual biological reality that gender identity
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: is independent of assigned sex at birth. People. I remember
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid where that wasn't a part
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: of our discussion. They suffered so much. And when schools
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: introduced this or this podcast or all the ways we
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: can just make it a part of our conversation. It
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: is a biological fact that gender identity develops in its
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: own way that can be independent in an extreme or
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: subtly or or aligned with your assigned sex. So to
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: name it as something that's very real in our lives,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: I think is going to really help with everyone. Even
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: if your gender identity matches you're assigned sex, you're going
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: to understand that there are other people where that's not
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: the case, and instead of feeling uncomfortable like Monica feels,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: which you know, we feel uncomfortable when things don't match
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: your expectations. So I hope listening to this conversation will
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: help Monica and hurt child's father to feel we're learning
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: something to and to be lifelong learners is a really
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: important stance to take. Our last color today is Katie.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: Katie says, Dear Chelsea, the last nearly two years of
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: my life have been the most intense, devastating and transformational
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: time of my entire twenty one years. In sept member
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: of my older brother and only sibling died extremely suddenly
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: from a brain aneurism at two years old. Needless to say,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: this loss has been extremely difficult to navigate and my
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: entire outlook on life has completely changed. I know you
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: were very young when you lost your brother, and I
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: feel as though we were similar in how that type
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: of loss affected us. After the first few months of
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: complete shock and fear that I would lose my parents
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to heartbreak over the death of their son, I started
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: to get really angry at the world, which was completely
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: unlike my old self. I have done a lot of
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: therapy to overcome some of that anger, but I still
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: struggle daily to comprehend how my smart, wonderful and seemingly
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: perfectly healthy brother is gone and never coming back. I
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: also find meeting new people to be emotionally draining, as
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: sometimes the do you have siblings question comes up, and
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: without fail, this always makes me spiral. I feel nervous
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: opening up about my brother because I feel like people
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: in their early twenties are not equipped to talk about loss,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: and it's almost taboo in some ways. What has helped
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: you with accepting and understanding such severe and sudden loss
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: at such a young age, And how do I combat
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: how his death has caused me to struggle with coping
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and other areas of my life. Katie m Hi, Katie, Hi, Hi, Katie.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: It's your lucky day because my psychiatrist Dan is here
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: with us as our guest today who helped guide me
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: through my grief and my new reality, which I had,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of delayed grief. So it's good
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: that you're talking about it not so long after it's happening,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and that you're facing these issues because it's it is
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: a big, big, unexpected obstacle that has happened to you,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's not something that you're not going
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to get through, but it's so difficult and only other
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: people who have lost the sibling can really relate or understand.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: So Dan, do you want to take the lead on
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: this and I'll chime in sure. First of all, Katie,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for reaching out to Chelsea to
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: really share your experience and share your question. I'll ask you,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: when you were actually putting this question together and sending
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: it off, what were you feeling inside of you that
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: allowed you to I feel like you could articulate in
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: a sense of called public with it. What was going
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: on inside of you? It was, honestly, Chelsea, because I
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: watched Evolution with my mom and I don't think either
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: of us had ever really seen somebody talk about death
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: like so raw and just so open like that, And
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it just like really spoke to me
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: and we didn't say a word. The entire time all
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: we did was cry and laugh, and yeah, I don't know,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I just felt so kind of like I felt empowered
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: by it, and I was like, you know what, I'd
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: love to talk to her because there was a lot
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: of parallels between what you were saying and what I've
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: definitely been feeling, and so yeah, I definitely felt like
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: there was like a bit of a connection there. And
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: like you guys said, like, not a lot of people
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: go through what I've gone through and and Chelsea has,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: so Yeah, definitely that was empowering for me when you
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: saw that someone could really look at the death of
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: a sibling. In this case, you know, you both shared
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: the loss of your brothers. Was there something in what
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Chelsea shared an evolution that especially spoke to you? Yeah? Absolutely.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: I think the main thing was like the anger, because
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I was never an angry person. I was always really calm,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: you know, quite put together and everything, and then I
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: started to have these feelings of anger when the numbness
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: started to go away, and it just was so unlike me,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: and I was just so kind of mad at the
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: world like that. It took him because he was just
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: such a wonderful, kind human and he truly just like
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: he was just such a light in this world and
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: it just felt so wrong. And so the anger that
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: she had and how that leaks into other areas of
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: your life. I think that's kind of where I drew
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: like a lot, Like I just I just totally connected
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: to that because it was like, whoa, this is affecting
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: how I see every area of my life, not just
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: death and loss. It was you know, in school with
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: friends everything, and bitterness too when people talked about like
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: their siblings and it was like, I'm self aware enough
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: to know, like it's not right. I don't want to
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: be bitter about other people because they should get to
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: express their love for their siblings that are alive, and
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: and that makes me happy. I'm still happy for them,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't help but still feel bitter, you know,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: and angry. So definitely those feelings of anger that Chelsea
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: talked about, I I definitely connected to that a lot.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: That's what made me start to realize, well, like I
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: gotta I have to seek out like therapy and stuff
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: like that, because I tried to do it myself or
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I think the first eight months, and yeah, it just
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't working. And I could just see down the line
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: it would just start to get worse. I want to
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: just jump in and just say, you have such a
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: huge opportunity for growth right now. For you to be
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: facing this so soon after it happened means like you
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: have such a bigger advantage. Like I didn't face this.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: I went thirty years without being able to deal with
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: my emotions. You know. So you're so young and you're vibrant,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: and you're going to be able to get through this.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: And I just want to say something that's so important
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: for you to hear. It's like you're when you think
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: of how amazing your brother was and what a light
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: he was in this world. He would hate to see
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: you in pain. He would hate to see you feeling bitter.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: He would not want that. So in honor of him,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: you've got to do the work to get yourself out
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: of that anger and bitterness, because you want to be
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: able to celebrate a life that he had and live
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: your life with him in it, in honor of him
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: and with him, because he's still with you. You know,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: just because he's he's gone doesn't mean he's gone from you.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: He's still within you and your parents, and that is
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: a beautiful thing and that is the light that you
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: should think about getting to spread when you move forward
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: in your life. Yeah. Absolutely, And he truly would be
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: so unhappy. He would be so upset if he saw
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: like this affect us long term because again, like just
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: such a selfless human being and he just would not
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: He would not he be angry with us. To be honest,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: if you if we at it get us down for
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: a really long time, he would not be happy with us,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: for sure. It's such a beautiful invitation, Katie, that you're
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: inviting us to really look at this question what helped?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: And Chelsea, you're bringing up, you know, this notion of
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: of what the sibling with the brother would actually want
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: for you. The experience of grief, which is the word
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: we use for when someone we love that's really important
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: in our life dies or goes away and we can't
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: reach them. That loss is huge. So grief goes through
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: stages and it really invites you to bring into awareness
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: all the different feelings you're having. And as Chelsea points out,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: you know you are doing that, Katie, and your your
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: notion of self awareness is really important and there are
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: there are things you can do to expand that. You know,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: with Chelsea we would do meditation in particularly this thing
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: called the wheel of awareness. You can get this this
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: book called Aware or Becoming Aware, the workbook where you
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: will learn to actually enrich that ability to be aware
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: and that can help the grief process. To just let
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: the anger there be in awareness. You don't have to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: do anything with it. It can just teach you something.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: The other emotions that are really basic when something like
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: this happens our sadness and fear. So a loss like
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: this at a young age that can rock your world
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: because you don't expect someone young to die. You expect
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: someone older, way older to die. So when something unexpected
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: like that happens, it can lead to fear. It can
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: lead to sadness, and it can lead to anger where
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: the fear is like, oh my god, things aren't safe, nothing,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I can't rely on anything. The sadness is there was
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: a connection that's ripped from me, and I have such
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: a longing to be with my brother, but it's just
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: it's not there. When in fact, it's just like Chelsea said,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: he's inside you, but him being alive in his body
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: now that's changed. So you want to deal with that feeling.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: You can't just call him up and talk to his
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: actual self. You can deal with the inner self of
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: your brother. And the anger, you know, is about something
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: is wrong that needs to be right. It right. So
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: anger is like this drive to correct, you know. Sadness
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: is like a drive to connect, and in many ways,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: fear is a drive to protect right. Those are the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: three in the brain. They're deep, deep in the brain,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: so they're really really foundational. As you're pointing out, the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: anger then starts spreading over all these things. So the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: idea of finding a practice, whether it's in therapy or
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: doing like a meditation that gives you time to just
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: be with your emotions. And then the grief process. Once
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: you give yourself that respect to just feel what you feel,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: talk about it right in a journal about it, do meditative,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: reflect the reflection on it, then it will have its
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: natural course. Don't worry about the timing, but do give
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: respect to all the emotions are there, and they will
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: then take their natural path. And in many ways, grief
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: as it goes forward becomes meaning making. That is to say,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't plan for my brother to die, but my
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: brother would want me to actually make sense of how
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: this has impacted me. And as Chelsea has done, you know,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: with her wonderful work, Now to take a loss that
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: really as as you shared with the world, Chelsea, you know,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: your way of dealing with that pain was to shut
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: it off the emotions. But now to share with the world.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: You don't know, Katie, how the sadness and and and
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: really profound loss of your brother dying unexpectedly like this.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: It was no one's fault and urisms happened. All the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: ways that you can bring the emotional learning from this
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: will be a meaning that you can make. And there's
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: a number of things about hope and about joy that
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: there are wonderful books on this, as it called a
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: book called the Book of Hope and a Book of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Joy that I think you'd love because what it says
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: is that the sorrows in the world, whether it's a
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: personal loss or the loss and biodiversity, what we're facing,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: the climate, or the challenges of social justice, all these
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: can get us all angry, sad, fearful. And what we
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: want to do is take those emotions and allow ourselves
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: to feel them fully, but then really keep hope alive,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: with kind of active hope that A writer named Joe
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Animasy calls it active hope, where you're really turning that
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: pain into actually something positive in the world, and not
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: only having hope, but having a sense of joy. And
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: I think if your brother were watching us now and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: he said, my dear sister Katie can hold on to
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: hope and can be joyful in this life, what would
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: he feel about that? Hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: aliceonven need Tears, That's really good. Yeah, I I honestly
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: like you. You bring up a really good point too,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: and the fact that like I have grown like so
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: much from this loss, and like the way I view
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: the world in good ways to and and my desire
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: to make my parents proud, even though I know I
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: would make them proud if I did nothing, because they're
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: just the most wonderful people in the entire world. But yeah,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: like he really has allowed me to see the world
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: so much, so much clearer, and I just feel like
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do such great things because I've grown
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: so much from this. And yeah, you're right, like it
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: is it is a choice to to wake up every
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: single day and you know, choose happiness despite all the pain,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: and that's what I've really been working on is just
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: choosing to be happy because at the end of the day,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: you know, like the random cruelty of him being taken away,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: it has to be a choice for me to to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: keep going and to do it for him and to
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: do it for my parents. And I find that that's
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: really helped me too, is like let letting myself feel
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: those emotions and and yeah, growing from it, like you said,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: like it it is. There's power in that. There's also
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: something Dan taught me. Losing a somebody is like a robbery.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: You've been robbed, you know, and that's how it feels.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: It feels you're violated and you cannot make sense of it.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: But are you going to spend your entire life harboring
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: such anger towards those robbers? You know what I mean?
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Because are you going to spend your energy doing that? No,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: you're not. You want to be a light for your parents.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: You want to be helped your parents heal. It's not
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: your responsibility, but you can, you know, you can be
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: a light for them as well. And when you're talking
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: about emotions coming up, something that Dan and I talked
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: about a lot was like, where are you feeling something,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: you know, are you feeling it in your chest? Do
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: you feel it in your stomach? Being in touch with
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: your body and respecting yourself enough to sit with it,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're overcome, you're allowed to go outside
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: and cry and sit there for twenty minutes because once
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: you extinguish it, there is a lightness of being that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: that happens. And it's when you resist your emotions where
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: you get into trouble. So it's okay to feel all
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: those emotions and let them out and know, okay, oh
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling Okay, I'm feeling this. Sometimes it takes thirty
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: seconds just to sit with yourself, and sometimes you need
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: an hour. Whatever it is you need, you know you
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: need and you'll know. But but being respectful of that
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: so you're not repressing or suppressing anything so that it's
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: not creeping up on you later. You know that you're
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: experiencing everything and and thinking about where it is in
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: your body, like, oh, I'm heavy in my chest right now, Okay,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm gonna cry. Okay, now I'm gonna cry.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: It sounds almost pedantic in a way, but it's so
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: important to respect yourself and your emotions, and that's how
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: you get through something like this in a healthy way,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: because you are going to be in a place where
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: the pain is no longer as acute as it feels today.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: You are, That's what happens with life. You're gonna move on.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: There are going to be moments where you're gonna feel
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: dream joy again, and you may already have, and that's
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: part of healing. That's part of healing because you're still here.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: So everything that is coming up, it's just you know,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: you obviously want to be with a therapist and talking
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: with somebody too. You need that kind of support right
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: now for sure. Are you seeing someone right now? Yeah? Yeah,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: I have a therapist, Yeah yeah, and she's really great. Yeah.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: So all of those things are helpful, and just you know,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: remembering that there is no wrong feeling or emotion. There's
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong. This is all just a process and it
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: doesn't last forever. No, that's really great. Thank you, And
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you to you as well,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: because honestly, yeah, like listening to your podcast and watching
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: your stand up has really helped me a lot, and
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: I just think it's so brave of you. And yeah, again,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: it really empowered me as well. Oh thank you. I'm
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: so glad you called in and I'm so glad we
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: had Dan here today for you, Katie. It was so
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: nice to meet you as a little Dan. Thank you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: so much, Katie. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks, Katie, Bye bye bye. Wow? What is sweetie? Wow? Okay,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Well that was quite a heavy episode today. It was
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: I do have one little extra thing as we move
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: into this close. Kelsey emailed us and said, I recently
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: went through a massive life change which led me to
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: changing careers, moving states, and finally getting out of a
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: long term toxic relationship. I read life will be the
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: death of me, and it inspired me to get back
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: into therapy and really try to delve into the deep
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: childhood trauma. Your story resonated with me. I was sitting
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: outside my therapist office today and debated going in and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: was questioning whether this was where I needed to be.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: I put out into the world that I needed a sign.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: I went into therapy and halfway through, my therapist pulled
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: out an orange out of her bag, tossed it to
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: me and said, I think you need this today. I
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: stared at her in doc and then subsequently lost it
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: and then had to explain that I was inspired to
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: get back into therapy after reading Chelsea's book, and that
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: someone tossing me an orange was an unexpected sign of
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: compassion when I needed it the most, and orange unraveled
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: me and gave me the sign that I'm exactly where
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: I need to be. Our journeys are not the same,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: but thank you for sharing yours and inspiring me to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: heal so that I can find my happy and success
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: as well. It's already working. Much love and admiration, Kelsey.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, that makes me cry. Dan, can you
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: believe that? No, that's incredible, That is so beautiful. I
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: was sitting the other day I got some shitty news.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: I was sitting the other day with Joe and we
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: were somewhere. Oh yeah, it was when I had to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: go to the hospital. And when the next day we
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: were sitting down, I was just like, oh my god,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with me? I'm so stressed out. I landed
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: myself in the hospital. Like I didn't think I was
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: stressed out. And we were just sitting in this restaurant
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: and at a hotel, and I was just looking at
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: him like just so confused about where I was in
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: my life, Like I thought I was doing so great
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: and I was on top of everything and I had
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: learned how to deal with everything. And I looked down
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: and there's this whole tree of oranges right behind him,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, and I go
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: look and he's like, see, you're okay, You're okay, You're
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: always okay. It's just a little hiccup. So I love that. Oh, Kelsey,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: thanks for sharing that with us. That was so nice,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: so emotional. I love it. Yeah, Okay, let's take a
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: quick break because I just I have a new loofa
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: that I want to try out on Catherine. I'm sorry,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: does that sound like workplace? A work? Workplace professionalism? Times
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: have changed and someone has to respect that, and that
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: someone is me, that's right. So I apologize Catherine about
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: the loofah comment. It's okay, I love, I love, I'm glad.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: I apologize to you do about the loofah comment. Gosh,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: that's your husband right in front of and I know
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: it's okay. He wouldn't mind. It'll be fine, it'll be fine.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Let's take a break, Okay, Dan, what advice do you
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: need for me? Well, I asked you earlier, you know,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: how do you keep that lifelong learning approach going? And
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: the related thing was how did you let yourself be
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: open to really facing your emotional life? There? And then
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: a bonus question for you, which from our relationship you'll
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: probably think this is Dan is never shortwinded everybody is
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: how did humor enter your life? So we can try
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: to be inspired, not to be funny stand ups like
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: you are, but to just make sure that in the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: face of all the challenges we keep our humor alive. Yeah. God,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you can. I don't know if
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: that's a learned thing or if that's inherent. You know,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: I think I was born with that because my family
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: was just we're all like that, Like sarcasm was our
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: was our function, you know, like everything was sarcastic to
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: deal with the lameness like we just are were constantly like, oh,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: like our parents were lame. Growing up was just lame.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: Our birthdays, our parents trying to like celebrate our birthdays
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: was lame. So we just had these built in senses
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: of humor to cope with it. But I don't I
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: can't really speak to whether or not you can. You know,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: adopt it. I think it's important to remember not to
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: take yourself so seriously. Right, You're not the only person
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: on this planet. There's a million billions of things going
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: on around you, and you're just What you want to
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: bring is light and happiness and joyfulness right to the table,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: to the energy field around you, to the people that
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: you come in contact with. So I think humor plays
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: into that. To be light and happy and set a
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: tone and inspire people to be open and yeah, I
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: guess you know, just try not to take yourself so seriously.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: You gotta be able to laugh at all the bad
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: stuff too, because there's humor and everything. Sometimes you have
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: to look a little harder for it, but it's there, beautiful.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Well that's great because that actually relates to the other
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: questions that you've already answered. You know how to keep
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: those questions going and really keep an open mind to
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: grow throughout life. So, Chelsea, thank you so much. Catherine,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's really an honor to be
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: here with you and really enjoy to speak with all
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: the people who have questions today, and I feel very
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: privileged to be here. It's the thing. Oh, thank you
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: so much. Dan, I know that you usually charge for
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: this kind of advice, so I appreciate you volunteering your services. Well.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm enriched, just like working with you, Chelsea.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: This has really been a great conversation today. Thank you awesome.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Dan, I really appreciate it. I'll
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: see you soon. Great, thanks Catherine, thank you so much
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: for tuning in to Dear Chelsea season two. We'll be
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: back with another season May twelfth. See you then.