Latest / I Choose Me with Jennie Garth / Monica Lewinsky CHOOSES to Reclaim Her Name

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Monica Lewinsky CHOOSES to Reclaim Her Name · I Choose Me with Jennie Garth

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: back to I Choose Me. Okay, I'm continuing my conversation
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: today with Monica Lewinsky, author, activist, and someone who has
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  Speaker 1: shown us what it really looks like to rise, to
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  Speaker 1: heal and to choose yourself. So let's get back into it.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: With social media, we now have this whole new world. Right,
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  Speaker 3: Like when you and I were going to school, you
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  Speaker 3: couldn't be globally shamed.
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  Speaker 1: In this snow way instantly, Yeah, you just couldn't.
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  Speaker 3: It was like, you know, I remember this kid that
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  Speaker 3: I had a crush on who was a year older
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  Speaker 3: than me, and I wrote him a love letter and
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  Speaker 3: he like showed all these kids at school.
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  Speaker 2: I was mortified. I was, you know, I was going
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  Speaker 2: to die.
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  Speaker 3: And it's like, okay, but we're talking about the you know,
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  Speaker 3: fifty kids who were at Hawthorne Elementary, you know, not
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  Speaker 3: fifty million. Yeah, right, So it's.
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  Speaker 1: I mean the pressure, yeah, pressure that's on our young people, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and our older people because of social media, especially when
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  Speaker 1: you're in that situation of you know being yeah, you know,
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  Speaker 1: walk into your own beat or being a little different
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  Speaker 1: than everybody else or whatever your differences are.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the things that I've really appreciated about
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  Speaker 3: having a podcast is that the conversations I've had with
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  Speaker 3: so many varied people, and the number of times that
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  Speaker 3: you hear, you know, someone talk about a bullying experience
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  Speaker 3: from when they were younger, and in fact, a whole
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  Speaker 3: handful of people who've been on the podcast or friends
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  Speaker 3: who participated. I've done a bunch of PSA campaigns for
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  Speaker 3: Bullying Prevention Month, which is October, and one of the
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  Speaker 3: ones we did was around this idea of reclaiming your name,
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  Speaker 3: like you're not the worst name that you've ever been called.
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  Speaker 3: And so a whole bunch of people generously gave their
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  Speaker 3: time or voice or let us use their name and
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  Speaker 3: with the name they were bullied with as a kid.
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  Speaker 3: And it's pretty incredible to sort of see, we can
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  Speaker 3: choose to not let that define us, right, and so
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  Speaker 3: we get to take the power back from that.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think this is like a calling that you
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  Speaker 1: stumbled upon? Like you know what I mean, Like I
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  Speaker 1: think it is your universe made lemonade.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that it's a you know, maybe if
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  Speaker 4: I live to an old age and on my deathbed,
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  Speaker 4: I might see the expanse of my life differently.
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  Speaker 3: I think they're still I've had to fully accept I'm
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  Speaker 3: a public person. There's something about my story that is
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  Speaker 3: useful in the times we live in, and that's my life,
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  Speaker 3: and so I need to accept that. And I just
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  Speaker 3: I sort of feel like I'm just trying to do
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  Speaker 3: the best I can with sort of what happened. Anyway,
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  Speaker 3: it's amazing. Two, you've probably had this experience, especially you know,
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  Speaker 3: when you were on book tour and stuff.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure of.
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  Speaker 3: You get reflected back to you from people that you
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  Speaker 3: don't know, ways that they ways that they like connect
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  Speaker 3: with your story right and connect with your pain and
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  Speaker 3: connect with your healing. And that's also not to I'm
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  Speaker 3: not like trying to just push my podcast, but I
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  Speaker 3: think that's the other Like, we're not prescriptive on the
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you've been on it.
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  Speaker 2: We're not prescriptive.
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  Speaker 3: It's not tell me the three things that you did
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  Speaker 3: to get through it. And this idea is it really
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  Speaker 3: comes from my experience of how other people have reflected
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  Speaker 3: back to me what I do, how that's impacted them.
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  Speaker 3: And I found okay, people are actually even though I
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  Speaker 3: love those. I click on those all the time on Instagram. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: what are the four things to do.
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  Speaker 2: To find out exactly? I can't swipe fast enough.
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  Speaker 3: But I also think there's a real beauty in allowing
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  Speaker 3: people that elasticity to find what they need in a story,
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  Speaker 3: to find what they need where they're at, and.
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  Speaker 1: The strands that connect your story to their experience. And
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  Speaker 1: it's so impactful. I know exactly what you mean. And
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  Speaker 1: once you start hearing like the impact that you're you know,
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  Speaker 1: having on other people and it's potentially helping them get
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  Speaker 1: through a really dark time or situation, it fuels this
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  Speaker 1: kind of like furnace of you wanting to keep doing
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  Speaker 1: it because you're helping people, right, and that it's just
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  Speaker 1: you reclaiming.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're identity. And I think for me, given.
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  Speaker 3: Given both the negativity that I had coming at me
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  Speaker 3: and the negativity of what happened to everybody involved, including
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  Speaker 3: the country, you know, it's it. It's sort of it
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  Speaker 3: gives it. It makes it easier for me to keep going.
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  Speaker 3: Like they're you know, I don't always read comments on
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  Speaker 3: things like I read the comments on the clips for
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  Speaker 3: the podcast because I feel like it's important to know
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  Speaker 3: what people are connecting right, and those conversations and sometimes
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  Speaker 3: someone will just you know, tell me how something landed
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  Speaker 3: with them in a way that was meaningful, and it's like,
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  Speaker 3: oh my god, I needed to hear that so badly today.
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  Speaker 3: It's such a gift when it becomes this reciprocal relationship.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we don't talk to people in our lives.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's easy to go through a day and
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  Speaker 1: not connect, yes, really connect with someone else instead of
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  Speaker 1: just watching someone else's life for their great you know,
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  Speaker 1: moments on Instagram or whatever. So having someone speak truthfully
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  Speaker 1: and honestly about their own pain and suffering, it provides
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  Speaker 1: them with that connection that they are missing so badly,
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  Speaker 1: and it's really important. And I can see in you
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  Speaker 1: the same thing I see in what I'm doing is
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  Speaker 1: that when you help someone else, it helps ease your
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  Speaker 1: own suffering because you need that connection too.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if you ever read Roxanne Gay's memoir
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  Speaker 3: of her body Hunger, No, but I had read it
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  Speaker 3: in I think twenty fifteen, and then I listened to
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  Speaker 3: it recently and I was reminded of the more vulnerable
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  Speaker 3: someone is, the more it connects with other people, and
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  Speaker 3: the more you're helping ease other people's feelings of shame,
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  Speaker 3: you know, because you're not alone, you know.
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  Speaker 1: And you're doing that. You're doing that with people that
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  Speaker 1: listen to your podcast. You're also doing that with your guests.
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  Speaker 1: I saw a clip of when Miley Miley was on
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  Speaker 1: your show. I love her by the way.
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  Speaker 3: Oh my god, she's she is just she's everything, right,
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  Speaker 3: She's everything you could imagine, and then more. She's just
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  Speaker 3: wonderful and she's so funny. She's really funny.
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  Speaker 1: Well, he talked about feeling guilty about the effects of
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  Speaker 1: her or fame have, you know, the effects that that
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  Speaker 1: had on her family and her siblings, and you said
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  Speaker 1: how you could relate.
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  Speaker 3: It's interesting because I think both Miley and I had
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  Speaker 3: had these experiences, and it was amazing to see through
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  Speaker 3: a younger generation that has not sort of sat in
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  Speaker 3: shame around emotions for as long as our generation has.
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  Speaker 3: She had done emdr around that and had moved past
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  Speaker 3: it where I don't think I've even I've made peace
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  Speaker 3: with some of it, but I think it lives in
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  Speaker 3: me still in a way that it doesn't live in her.
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  Speaker 1: And that's interesting because I can yeah, I can totally
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  Speaker 1: relate to both of you, and I think so many
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  Speaker 1: people can, like when your circumstances or your situation detracts
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  Speaker 1: or takes away something that is inherently someone else's sure
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  Speaker 1: their life, their their name, you know, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean it's uh, it is.
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  Speaker 3: I'm so grateful that the last decade plus has changed
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  Speaker 3: what people think when they hear my name the first
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  Speaker 3: thing when they hear my name, and because I share
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  Speaker 3: that last name with a lot of people, you know.
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  Speaker 2: And it's so I think that's you know.
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  Speaker 3: I executive produced this series on Hulu on Amanda Knox,
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  Speaker 3: and one of the things that was Amanda is also
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  Speaker 3: an EP And one of the things that was so
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  Speaker 3: important to us and Hulu was so wonderful about was
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  Speaker 3: letting us show the aftermath of what happens. You know,
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  Speaker 3: most most of those shows would have ended Okay, she's exonerated,
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  Speaker 3: let out of prison, Yay go home, end of shows,
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  Speaker 3: you know, sentimental music. And it was so important to
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  Speaker 3: us for people to try to get a window into
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  Speaker 3: the collateral damage of what happens to people that it's
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  Speaker 3: not just you, it's your family, it's your extended family.
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  Speaker 3: You're impacted by how you move through the world by
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  Speaker 3: you know, and so that I think is important because
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  Speaker 3: we tend to you know, it's the image that comes
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  Speaker 3: up is the sort of the arena, the gladiator arenas
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  Speaker 3: of old, you know, and that it feels like we
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  Speaker 3: have that one person in the center that we're throwing
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  Speaker 3: you know, horrible things out and yelling or cheering for
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  Speaker 3: and we.
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  Speaker 2: Don't see them go home.
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  Speaker 3: We don't know that maybe their mom or dad is
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  Speaker 3: sitting in the stands rooting for them or worried about them,
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  Speaker 3: like we just don't, and so they become entertained in
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  Speaker 3: a way. And I think it's important for us to
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  Speaker 3: how we hopefully shift consciousness and shift society for those
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  Speaker 3: things to seep.
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  Speaker 1: In, you know, right, I think just acceptance people. That's
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  Speaker 1: I mean, oh, it's so hard though, so hard when
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  Speaker 1: people say, Monica Lewinsky, now, what do you hope comes
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  Speaker 1: to mind?
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think if at the end of my
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  Speaker 3: life I was a poster child for surviving shame and
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  Speaker 3: being able to move on and work to create your
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  Speaker 3: own ending, You're chosen ending or you know, my production
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  Speaker 3: company is called All the Endings, and it's like you
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  Speaker 3: know that there's that It's not we're not faded that way.
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  Speaker 3: Certain things in life are faded, but I think we
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  Speaker 3: can we can move the needle on those things.
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  Speaker 2: And that is important because.
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  Speaker 3: We go through these kinds of humiliations or losses, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and everything in between all the time in life. If
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  Speaker 3: you're living, if you're if you're out there living, you're
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  Speaker 3: going to you're going to be disappointed sometimes, You're going
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  Speaker 3: to lose. Sometimes, you're going to be rejected sometimes, and
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  Speaker 3: you know, the ability to pick ourselves back up.
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  Speaker 2: I have a friend.
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  Speaker 3: I think it maybe comes from the twelve step program
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  Speaker 3: of progress not perfection, and that is such a great
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's such a great thing.
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  Speaker 1: So do you have a lot of supportive girlfriends?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm very lucky.
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  Speaker 3: I have my like my inner circle, you know, I
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  Speaker 3: have my Okay, these are my people. I'm not afraid
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  Speaker 3: to say the good, I'm not afraid to say the bad.
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  Speaker 2: And with new.
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  Speaker 3: People, I think there's this I think I have a
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  Speaker 3: relationship with my intuition and where I don't know if
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  Speaker 3: it's good or bad. I mean, I'm going to say
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  Speaker 3: I think it's good. It would be pretty hard to
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  Speaker 3: move through the world just bitter and mistrusting everyone that
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  Speaker 3: I have an open heart. I am trusting, and so
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  Speaker 3: I think that it's I'm more trusting than I might
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  Speaker 3: expect of someone. But boy, if my spidy senses go up,
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  Speaker 3: I like really shut down to a point where I
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: started to get a little paranoid about you know, I'm
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  Speaker 3: just sort.
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  Speaker 1: Of whoa, whoa.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and and sometimes still I don't listen to those
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  Speaker 3: warning signs, you know, and and you know, but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I'm very I have I'm very lucky with my friends.
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  Speaker 3: I have a box sitting on my counter that my
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  Speaker 3: best friend from college sent me.
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  Speaker 2: She's like, I've collected these things for you. So it's
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  Speaker 2: you know, it's not even for my birthday.
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  Speaker 1: So which is up by the way, Yes, how are
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  Speaker 1: you celebrating.
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  Speaker 3: I am going to be on vacation that week. That's
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  Speaker 3: like one week of vacation this year and perfect.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So I think we're doing with friends that I was
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  Speaker 3: with last year and we all play majong together and so.
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  Speaker 1: It was amazing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they got a cabana on the beach and we
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  Speaker 3: played mashong all day on the beach. So I think
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  Speaker 3: we're doing that the day before my birthday and on
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  Speaker 3: my birthday going to an event of a friend of
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: ours company.
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  Speaker 1: So it must be difficult. Any woman I talked to
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: says dating is difficult, especially at our age.
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  Speaker 2: What is it like for you? Are you dating?
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  Speaker 1: Do you ever want to date? I?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I date.
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  Speaker 3: I think this year it's been a little less than
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: the last year because I just had been juggling a
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: lot more professionally than I expected to be, and I've
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: gone on dates with some amazing men, and you know,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: but I am a little more sensitive to certain things,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: and it's sometimes it's hard. It's it could be really
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: hard to tell the difference between nervousness, like someone else's nervousness,
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  Speaker 3: and feeling like you need to hold the space for
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  Speaker 3: someone else because they're more nervous because they're not a
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  Speaker 3: public person and you're a public person.
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  Speaker 2: And so there's sort.
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  Speaker 3: Of that dance and even you know, the times where
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: they're trying to make you feel comfortable, it sometimes is
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  Speaker 3: a miss, you know, and it's the but you know,
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  Speaker 3: I think again back to the.
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  Speaker 2: Acceptance and my.
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  Speaker 3: My sister in law's turning fifty, and I was like,
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  Speaker 3: it's the best decade.
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  Speaker 2: She's like, really and nicely.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, because you just it is.
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  Speaker 3: You're baked, Like all right, all the fucks are kind
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: of gone, so yeah, I take it, leave it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I do feel like.
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  Speaker 3: Something that evolved for me in the last several years
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  Speaker 3: was this, you know, Okay, I might not this lifetime,
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  Speaker 3: I may not end up with the person at some point.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it just may not have happened for me,
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  Speaker 3: and I'll be okay, and if it does have, like,
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  Speaker 3: I be equally surprised.
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  Speaker 2: If it doesn't happen, or.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It does happen, that's a perfect place to land because
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  Speaker 1: that's again acceptance of what is, instead of fretting over
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: it or trying to force something or feeling badly that
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: it's not a certain way, giving into societal pressures. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I love that. That shows just like immense strength and
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: growth in you. Yes, you know, and once you're like,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I'm fine on my own, then let you know, I'd
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: be surprised if something doesn't just fall into place for you.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: We'll see, you know, when you're least expecting it.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's but you know, I always joke when people
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: say that, I'm like, okay, now show me how to
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  Speaker 3: least expect it right. So I know it's hard, it's tricky,
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  Speaker 3: but you're doing a great job.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I have one last question for you. Yeah, Monica Lewinsky,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: what was your last I Choose me moment?
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  Speaker 3: One of my friends was offering to We had talked
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: about like doing something for my birthday, so before my birthday,
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  Speaker 3: but because I won't be in La and this and that,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: and I have a lot going on. It's supposed to
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: be Sunday, and I have a lot going on this week,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: and I'm on the one hand and I want to receive,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to be a better receiver, and on the
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: other hand, there's just some stressful stuff going.
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  Speaker 2: On this week.
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  Speaker 3: And so I said, I think I'd probably rather not.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I think what I was able to do was to
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: sort of think about, yes, I might just feel joy,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: or it may feel really performative to me, and the
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: energy of being performative is something I need to put elsewhere.
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  Speaker 2: And so that sort of feels like a choose me.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: What are you going to do on Sunday instead?
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Oh? Probably pack?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Just relax. Your pack is so stressful.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: It's so stressful, you know.
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  Speaker 1: My favorite thing to do.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: I know what.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: My small hack, although I never give it to fitting
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: it away after, which is annoying, is I pull out
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: a rack I put you know, I put together one
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: of those temporary clothing hanging racks. And then that way
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I feel like, Okay, I'm you got your outfits right,
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: especially because I'm going to be doing a bunch of
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: podcast interviews on this trip, and so it's like, okay,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: you know what mood am I going to be in?
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: You just and then but I recently, I'm going to
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: brag for a minute. I went to the TED conference,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: which is like five or six days in April, and
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: I took a carry on only.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Which is like beyond for me.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I love that you're bragging about being in a carry on. Yeah,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: it makes a big difference, especially when you don't have
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: somebody to help you slip exactly exactly.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: But I tried that. Have you seen that thing on Instagram?
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: It's the Sudoku method of packing with the cubes?
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: No, it's no, It's like, what is it?
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Three outer layers, three bottoms, and three tops and you
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: sort of have them and you and you just sort
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: of choose the color palette and then you mix and
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: match everything and it worked.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I'm going to google that. I'll send it
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: to you.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Actually, I send you to post it and I.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Was like, oh, thank god, you've found to you I know.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to text you right after this and
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: I will when I find the sudoku thing.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I will look at to you.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, You'll make my life so much better
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: because I hate packing.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I wish you a much better week next week.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And I know that all good things are coming for
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: you because you are looking for them. And I'm just
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: really happy for you.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you for having me so lovely.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here.