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On Our Best Behavior with Elise Loehnen · Dear Chelsea

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, Catherine.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Hi Chelsea, you were telling me you added some second
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: shows in some cities.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: What do you have going on?
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, guys, I have added more second shows to my
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Little Big Bitch tour. I added second shows in Hollywood
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: at the Pantagious. I am going to be there two
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: nights October twelfth and thirteenth. I added another show at
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the Chicago Theater October twenty seventh and October twenty eighth,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite places to perform. I added another
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: show in Portland, so I'll be there November second and third.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: And I added a second show in Boston at the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Weighing Center, so I will be there November sixteenth and seventeenth.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I also have two shows in Seattle, San Francisco, New
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: York at the Beacon and Washington, d C. I will
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: be there October fifth and sixth. And a special shout
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: out to Phoenix, Arizona, where I'm coming Saturday, October fourteenth.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And then I'm coming to Cleveland Columbus in Pittsburgh, So
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: suck on that, you guys. I can't wait to set everybody.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Oh and I'm coming to Eugene, Oregon too, everybody. That's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: November ninth, twenty twenty three, and I will be at
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the Clubhouse in East Hampton, which is going to be
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a very intimate show on Saturday, August twenty sixth, So
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: if you are in the Long Island area, that's where.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I'll be awesome. Well, we have a great guest today
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and she talks all about women and the patriarchy and
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: it's very exciting.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: But I have a question for you.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: You've talked about how you know your mom and your
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: sisters were big influences in your life. But I'm curious,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: who are some other powerful women in your life, either
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: growing up or early on, and what did they teach you?
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I would start with my third
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: grade teacher, missus Sheckman. She was a big influence on
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: me because she loved me and she just showed me
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: such like maternal love. And I went and stayed with
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: her a couple times at her beach house with her husband,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and my mom loved them, and she just really took
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: me under her wing. I think she sensed how to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: neglected I was, and she must have felt for me,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and she was just so sweet. I still talk to her.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I talked to her. I haven't talked to her in
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a few months, but she calls me every once in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a while and she's just she lives in Florida, and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: she just extended love to me and tenderness, and I
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: really that made an impact on me to extend love
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and tenderness to others who or who who I could
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: see were neglected. Yeah, so I and my mom was
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: very much like that. My mom was very sweet to
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: people when she knew they had issues or even my
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: girlfriend growing up was really in a bad home situation,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and my mom sensed it always told her she loved her,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: because my friend's parents had never told her that they
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: loved her, And so that was nice. But as far
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: as powerful women like, I don't know that anyone I
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: looked up to like the lessons I learned were powerful.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I think I I wanted to always be powerful because
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel like enough women were in my life
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: were powerful, and it made me, just as by instinct,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: want to be more than what I was seeing, Like
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, this isn't good enough. Why does? Why
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: are all like I want to be like a boss
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: bitch from a young age. And it's not even that
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be. I just inherently was it was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: in your nature, Like I just wanted to be in
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: control of my own destiny, not reliant on anybody. And
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I think that's the always been the theme in my
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: own experience, is that I'm dependable. That's all I wanted
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to do, because I saw so many people in my
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: life that were not dependable. In my mind, however, I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: interpreted my brother dying, my mom not picking me up
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: from school, blah blah blah, I wanted to be dependable,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and so growing up that was always like, I wanted
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to be the friend. If you call me, I will
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: be there. If you need me, I will be there.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: You know you can always count on me. And that
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: was more than the idea of power or looking to
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: someone who you know, in a powerful position. I just
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: wanted to be a soft person.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because you it sounds like you grew
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: up knowing you wanted to be independent, but also be
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: someone others could depend on.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Well, excuse me while I burb well, said Catherine. Great, Yes,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: that's it, that's exactly right. And what about you? Who
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: did you look up to?
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I was really lucky where I grew up with a
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: really great mom who sort of like brought in all
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: kinds of other people. Like so many people in my
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: life are are like your mom is like my mom,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: you know, like she's she's adopted everyone around her. But
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I also feel like I had so many other like
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: friends moms who were like a second mom to me.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: My best friend's mom always was like fun to talk
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: to and interesting and like really wonderful and always had
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: this like a bubbly charismatic energy and cared what us
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: kids had to say.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, yeah, I.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Think that's such an important quality.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Is just like listening and being interested, and she always
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: was that for sure.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember I had an uncle growing up, and
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: he was always interested in everything with the kids had
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to say. Like I remember loving going over to his
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: house because he would spend time with me and be like, Okay,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: tell me what you think about this. And I was
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: such a young girl and I got so much attention
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: from him. And then last summer, we were all at
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: our family vacation on Martha's Vineyard and some of our
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: cousins came over and then they told us that that
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: uncle had so many affairs growing up with all of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: his girlfriends. I was like, oh, he was probably hitting
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: on me, so I was like, well, you just blew
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that whole fucking memory that I had anyway, So well, okay.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: So our guest today is the host of the podcast
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Pulling the Thread, an author of On Our Best Behavior,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Elise Lonein. Hi, Elise, look who's here today? Hello?
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: This is exciting for me, you know, I love you.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, honey. And this is Catherine, my producer. Hello,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and we are here to celebrate the launch of I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: don't know why I'm holding this up like I'm Oprah
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Winfrey because I don't have the studio owns, but I
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: guess I'm holding it up for Catherine, who's also read it.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Your new book which is called On Our Best Behavior,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: The Seven Deadly Sins and The Price Women Pay to
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Be Good, which is a very important book for every
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: woman and man to be reading. So that took me
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a while because it's a heavy book, Like there's a
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: lot of information in there and a lot of history.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I think you do a good job of really kind
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: of bringing it back to yourself a lot, and the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: ways that it's kind of imprinted itself in you and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: your experiences in this world. And I think all women
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: should have to understand or should want to gain, I
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: guess a better understanding of where all of these ideas
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that we have about our responsibilities in society came from
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and how many millennia they have been making their mark
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: on us. Yeah, And what we are able to do
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: as women to kind of take our our own agency
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: back and stop the art of performing for others, Yes,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: while also remaining true to who you are in the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: idea that by doing that it even gives yourself more
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: room to give. Like, when we take care of ourselves,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: we are able to take care of others in a
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: more impactful way. And if that's what we're trying to
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: do in the first place, is take care of everybody,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: then we should really start with ourselves.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: Can you just do my book tour for meat?
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no problem. Yeah, I just need a ton of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: wee to constantly talk about the same thing. That's how
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I make things exciting. Is I just add weed to it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I can talk about this again, because
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the book tour becomes very monotonous too. I know you
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: have to repeat yourself a little, So talk to me
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: and talk to us about your impetus for writing this
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: book and tell us a little bit about all of
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: your research and history.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Well, unsurprisingly, you may know this about me, but I
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: am a good girl. I have spent my life achieving
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: and trying to be the best at everything and every
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: sphere of my life. And I hit a point several
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: years ago where I have a recurring panic disorder. I
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: have a chronic hyperventilator and I hyperventilated for more than
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: a month and just hit a wall of trying to
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: understand what it was in me that was driving me
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: to try to reach some invisible finish line where I
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: would have safety and security and be loved and be enough.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: And I recognized, despite everything that I had achieved and
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: how much I had done for other people, my family,
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: my coworkers, that I was only driving myself deeper into
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: a hole. I was the farthest I'd ever felt from
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: emotionally free or comfortable, and so I knew I needed
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: to address this, whatever it was in me, these invisible
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: voices that were telling me that I was bad, that
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: I wasn't enough, And that sort of began the journey
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: of what would it look like to actually turn and
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: face this rather than trying to continue to outrun it
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: and In that process, I came across this code of
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: goodness that is so obvious it's invisible, I think, to
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: all of us, and this punch card of goodness that
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: women specifically try to fulfill in our culture. Regardless of
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: whether you're raised in any religion or know anything about religion,
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: these are cultural rules at this point, and if you
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: actually don't achieve them, you deny them sloth, pride, envy, gluttony, greed.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Because we're treating they're so bad right to practice any
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of these things.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, that I recognized in that all the ways that
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: I was policing myself and sadly policing other women.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: M hm.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, that very much struck a chord with me. When
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you're talking about the judgment we have, I'm a very
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: judgmental person, so I struggle with this a lot because
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I'm always trying to just go at everybody with love
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and no judgment. But I'm so opinionated. So it's just
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: a fucking pain in the ass. But it's not fair
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: to judge everybody. It's not fuch fair to judge anybody.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: You're supposed to be looking at people with sympathy and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: compassion and empathy and no judgment. I mean, I can't
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: wait till one day feel that, you know for more
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: than a couple of fleeting seconds. So talk to me.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: How you recognize that in yourself?
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, the big question that I feel like I've
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: been circling for most of my adult life, definitely since
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: twenty sixteen and the election, is why do women have
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: so much trouble getting on side with each other? What
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: is it in us that makes us so it feels instinctual.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's instinctual. I think it's culture. But
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: why do we slap each other down? And why is
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: it so acceptable to dismiss each other with comments like
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: I just don't like her, or who does she think
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: she is? Or she's too big for her breches? And
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: these are all cultural refrains we've said, we've heard, most
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: likely we haven't interrupted them in ourselves and in conversation
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: with each other. And I really wanted to understand that
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: in myself. Why did I have that reaction to specific women,
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: not all women? And what I realized I sort of
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: started with envy. It's a gateway drug. I realized that
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: those women that were bothering me were women who were
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: pushing on a dream I had for myself and they
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: had something. It was envy, They had something that I
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: wanted for myself, and I just couldn't actually admit my
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: own wanting or acknowledge it. And I think we're all
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: conditioned to suppress it. It comes up, and we suppress
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: that wanting and we just attack. That's what I think
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: is happening.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's a great way to describe it,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: because you can, I mean, anyone listening to this can
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: relate to feeling envious of another person and then what
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: those feelings bring up for you or that you're supposed
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to shove them away, And it's like that's actually part
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: of your psyche or you can call it your shadow
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: self or whatever you want to refer to it as.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: But those are natural thoughts that have that happen, and
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it's your job to put them in the right compartment,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: you know, not to act on them, not to behave
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in a jealous way or behave in an envious way,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: but to acknowledge I mean, or you can. I mean,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: it's really up to how you want to play this
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: game of life. It is like, how do you want
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to operate within all of these dynamics and self agency
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: and self respect allow you to acknowledge that you even
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: have those feelings and they're not the most powerful feeling. Yes,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: or what that feeling leads to, which is a truth
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that you're not willing yet to admit to yourself. Yes,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: which is I want that.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: One thousand percent. It's full of really essential information. I
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: think that our envy is our soul knocking on a
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: door asking us to pay attention to what we want.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: And in our culture, unfortunately, women have been conditioned to
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: subjugate what we want to other people's needs. It's just
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: being a woman, one a one. We don't have great
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: models culturally of identifying what you want and then going
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: after it, and there aren't that many women also culturally.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I'm sure it can relate to this, and I write
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: about this in the chapter on pride. We don't have
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: very many examples of highly visible women, women who have
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: dared to be seen, women who are really living their dream,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: who have managed to escape cultural destruction. Right like so
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: many women, business leaders, athletes, actresses, singers follow this trajectory
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: where we love them when they're coming out, we applaud them,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: we celebrate them. They reach a certain pinnacle and then
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: we destroy them, and we can say that those people
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: have nothing to do with us, like people like you
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: and me, Catherine. We can say, oh that we can
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: get a little hit of schadenfreude or just find it
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: kind of entertaining. But the reality is that lives in
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: us too. It lives in all young girls. This is
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: a playbook. This is what happens to women, and when
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: we celebrate it, we're inhibiting ourselves from being seen too.
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: It has really really deep implications I think for all women.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's something that it would be nice to have
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: a language for young little girls, you know, and boys,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: everybody really, because who doesn't get envious of another person's accomplishments.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: But there's this dismantling that needs to be done about
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the way that we're taught about those feelings and all
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the seven deadly sins that we're not supposed to feel.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I mean it, basically, your book speaks to the fact
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: that patriarchy was invented with religion. You're not saying that,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: but that's what I'm saying. That's where all of everything
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: started to get murky. And even in this book, I
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: read Short History on Humanity, a few weeks ago, and
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: that goes back to like two million years ago, and
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it goes back to when civilization began and the migration pattern,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and it starts to understand when women became property because
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of burial sites like you can see that there was
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a change in civilization and when it's what started out
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: equally ended up being they ended up being subjugated, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that was definitely because of religion.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, and I would say I'd take that one
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: step farther and say, you have sort of the Hamarabi's code.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: This for early patriarchal ideology, which was all about destroying women,
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: like drowning women and penalizing men slightly with like a
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: slap in the hand. And then you when your hand job, yeah,
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: or hand job if you really transfer the penal code exactly.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: But then with Judeo Christian religion in Rome just really
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: taking over, you see this moralizing that comes into it
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: as well. So it's not just about oppressive dominance, subjec
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: subjucation of women. It's about you are bad and base
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: and maybe you'll make it to heaven if you spend
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: your life trying to prove your goodness.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Well, interestingly enough, there's also evidence to show or direct
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you to the idea that this is one stage of
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: civilization and then so it started out with patriarchy, then
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: went to patriarchy, and then the next stage it could
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: be some conjecture, will be androgeny.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, isn't that I love this idea.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I also love this idea.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I feel like that's what the contemporary trans
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: movement is moving us toward, this idea of transcending gender
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: and gender identities and living balanced between energies the masculine
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: and the feminine. Regardless of gender, we all have both energies.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: I think women can really identify with this. The masculine
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: being order, structure, truth, when you're directing, when you're organizing,
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: when you're making stuff happen. The feminine is nurturance, care, creativity,
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: and men have feminine energy and desperately need to be
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: living that in their lives fully in the creative, nurturance
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: carrying component of self. And so I think with the
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: trans movement, we're seeing like it doesn't matter what your
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: body parts are, these are universal human values and it
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: is incumbent on all of us to be balanced in both.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And imagine the lack of gender discrimination when there is
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: no gender Yeah, like hello, that's what we need to like.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many advantages to understanding this movement
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and learning about this movement instead of rejecting it. Because
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: if you only think there's a boy and a girl,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: which is so dumb, in certain places in the world
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: they already have a third sex. Yes, so that makes sense.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And knowing that everything is a spectrum also, I think
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: it's really fascinating to understand that and how you know
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: our conditioning and what you're supposed to do. Even with
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the little decisions in our lives every single day and
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: the minutia, we do what everybody else is doing most
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: of the time without having our own original ideas or
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: thoughts about counteracting that kind of behavior or making a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: decision not based on what other people made their decision
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: on yes.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: No.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: And I think like you, for example, to me, are
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: sort of a post hratriarchal person, and you're an incredibly
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: good interrupter of this programming that runs in US. I
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: feel like you have an ability to sort of stop
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: it and question it and evaluate it and then take
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: it or leave it in a way that I think
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: the rest of us need to develop this ability to
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: sort of say, is this what's running me? Is this me?
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Or is this just some sort of conditioning that is
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: informing my behavior? And if we could do that and
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: get closer to ourselves and say, yes, I'm a woman
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: and I'm a mother or in your not a mother,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: that doesn't mean that I am that that identity defines me,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: that I am only those things. You know, we have
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: a lot of trouble with sort of the complexity. We
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: really want women to be only caring and nurturing and
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: men to only be this and it's a cage.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: It's a terrible cage.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: What were you saying, Catherine, You were saying something about
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: our book before when we were talking.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was telling Chelsea, you know one of the
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: most meaningful parts of your book was that first introductory
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: portion where you're talking about the history of where patriarchy
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: comes from, having grown up very religious and basically going
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: to church seven days a week between.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: School, and so sorry about that. Is it's you? Thank you.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I've been spending the last couple of years sort of
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: dismantling a lot of this stuff and being able to
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: see where this stuff comes from. You know that Mary
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: magg Delane was you know, called a prostitute, even though
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: that was like maybe not not what was going on.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: It wasn't what was going on right, right.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: She was exonerated by the pope a couple of years ago.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: But like the damage has already done. But like between
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: your book, it's like when you see these things, when
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: you read these things, your eyes are opened to like, oh,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: here's what's these thoughts are coming up in me, and
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: they're just it doesn't mean they're true just because they're
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: coming up. It's because of something I learned when I
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: was very young that's maybe based on nothing.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, my friend calls it Bible fanfic. Uh huh. I
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: mean the deadly sins weren't in the Bible, and I
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: think most people never make that connection. It just these
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: things are passed down to us, like law, and when
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: you actually start to look at and you look at
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: something like the New Testament, and we could nerd out
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: on it, but just the number of mistranslations of the
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: New Testament are higher than the number of words, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: like some devastating ones, you know, like the Creation of
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: Virginity was translation from Hebrew to Greek, and Beulah means
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: young woman. It has nothing to do with sexual state.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: That's the original hubut rub has nothing to do with
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: whether you're married or not. Just means young woman. That
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: was translated as virgin. Oh nice, thanks for that, it's great.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Wow. Could you also talk a little bit about I
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: know in your book you include sadness, which was originally
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: one of the seven deadly sins? There were eight.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that and did
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: they cut that one?
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: It just well convenient. So briefly, the history is that
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: they were called eight thoughts, as you said, demonic thoughts,
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: but demon meaning distraction, and they were first written down
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: by this by.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: The way, at least speaks fluent Latin, so watch your back.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: Oh oh god. So they were first written down by
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: this monk in the Egyptian desert, Evagrius Ponticus, as eight
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: thoughts and these distracting thoughts. They didn't have this moral tone.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: This is at the same time that the New Testament
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: was being canonized. This is fourth century, and this little
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: chap book he wrote it as like a spell book,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: almost of pits of scripture. It was passed around and
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: then it wasn't until five ninety that Pope Gregory the
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: first turned these thoughts, he dropped sadness, and he turned
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: the thoughts into the cardinal vices, the seven deadly sins,
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: And as you said, Catherine, in that same homily, he
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: assigned them all to Mary Magdalen, conflated her with a
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: woman who anointed Jesus's hair, and turned that woman into
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: a prostitute. So that's when Mary Magdalene miraculously became a prostitute,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: and that's how they entered sort of mainstream religion and sadness.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: We don't know why it went away. The way that
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: Evagris Pontikus wrote about.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: It, he probably abolished it.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: They abolished it exactly so it had a feminine soul.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: So I think it fell off because these were assigned
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: primarily to women, and I write I really wanted to
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: include it in the book because I feel like our
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: culture is drenched in grief, and I think sadness, fear
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: of sadness is lodged primarily in the minds of men,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: and that being cut off from our feelings. The primary
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: symptom of that is toxic masculinity, and this inability to
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: experience grief and to cycle and alloud death is why
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: we're all so screwed.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Even guys that are really sweet that don't have the
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: vocabulary to talk about this stuff end up having toxic
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: masculinity episodes when they are challenged with a difficult conversation
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: or they don't understand it because they think they're you know,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: they don't have It's like there's like a major disconnect.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And I think in the book what you also talk
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: about very necessarily is even women are conditioned to push
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: their boys to grow up and be men and act
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: tough because there's a certain age where, you know, the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: cuddling is diminished and the kids start to understand that
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: maybe holding my mommy's hand isn't what a big boy does,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and then they're not coming to you for comfort and
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: they're not having emotional outbursts anymore because they're told that's
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: not what little boys or big boys yeah do.
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: Yes, there is this idea, this cultural remnant, that we
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: have to turn boys into men. And you don't hear
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: that about women and girls, but there is this masculinization,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: this pulling them away from their mother, so that if
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: you don't do that, they'll be enmeshed or entrapped and
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: the science actually shows that little baby boys are more feeling,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: have more attachment than girls. And so it is a
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: horrible crime the way that so many boys and I
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: feel like it's getting better, but we think about our
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: generation and a lot of empathy for that severing and
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: that severance, and it's it goes beyond family, right, This
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: is all cultural re enforce that with each other. So
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: you're mocked on the playground for crying, you learn fast
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: right to not do that.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: And I love that you conflate toxic masculinity with like
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: keeping men away from those feelings of sadness, because what
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: do we do when we're having an argument. We use
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: anger as like a shield from what's really underneath, which
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: is hurt and sadness. You know, That's why so often
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: you might be upset or you know, shouting or whatever,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: and what's really underneath there when you actually get to
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: it is tears, it's crying, it's you know, it's the
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: hurt underneath.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Yes, a thousand percent, anger is often secondary to grief, shame, fear,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: and anger is also essential and animating, but it can
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: often be a protective, a piece of armor.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: But it's also not useful, maybe at times it may
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: seem useful, like coming from somebody who's naturally pretty angry,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: it seemed useful for a long time, but it is
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: not the way to make my point anymore. And I
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: down that calm, collected and thoughtful yields to much better results.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: And don't you think, though, that you have learned over
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: time to metabolize your anger process it, Listen to it,
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: you don't just suppress it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, And usually I'm not angry when I
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: have any time to think about anything.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you do skip the anger part, or you
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: get past the anger part and you get to that
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: vulnerability and that hurt, Like, that's where resolution can come.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: That's the only place resolution can come, is when you're
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: honest with whatever the hurt is.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah. But I do think we're so hard culturally on
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: angry women, and so so many women are swallowing it
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: their resentment, frustration, rage.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. My friend used to be like, you're so
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: so rage She's like, why are you so angry? I'm like,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you're more angry than me. I'm just saying it, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: you're fucking suppressing it and talking about everybody behind their back.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: What is that a more honorable way? To live.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: Yes, well, and this is this is our conditioning. I mean,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: you might be again like an example for all of
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: us of how to live beyond these sins. But boys
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: and girls have a lot of aggression. It's very natural
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: and very human, and boys we let them express it
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: physically and verbally, and girls we don't. When we don't
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: teach any kids proper conflict resolution or how to have
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: healthy conflict, which is an essential life skill, but girls
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: are taught that they shouldn't be angry. It's not feminine,
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: it's inappropriate, and so it comes outsideways, gossip, alliance building, backstabbing, exclusion, triangulation, triangulation.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: Really it's killing us. And then what's most painful about
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: that is that it's then ascribed to us as our
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: natural instinct like this, that's how you are, That's how
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: you are. And it's no, we're just not interrupting these
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: cycles and talking about learning how to talk about our
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: feelings and our aggression and our frustration openly and productively.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I heard this couple talking on Instagram, this older couple
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: talking about their child coming forward about you know, being
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: born a boy but identifying as a girl from the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: time she was a little girl and her parents resisting this,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and you know, their church going and they believed everything
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in church and that it was a phase and that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: they could you know, they just ignored her. And the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: mother had something really powerful to say about when she
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: finally was able to accept it and sit down and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: hear her, which I think is really what it comes
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: down to, is everybody being seen and heard. When you
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: are heard by the people that love you like, that
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: sets you off on the road to love and acceptance.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It sets you up for success, to be accepted by
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: your parents and loved and encouraged no matter what you are,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: just for that embrace and the rejection of that sets
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you on the road that can be irreparable. Yes, and
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: this woman said, as soon as I accepted what my
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: child was telling me, and as soon as I sat
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: down and listened to her, and my husband and I
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: stopped fighting and just started hearing, she goes, the love
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: that my daughter had like lit her up. She goes,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: she felt so loved by us, and she her whole
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: energy and dynamic changed and she finally was like happy
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: and joyful just by the act of her parents accepting.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes, I mean it's so powerful and that's all
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: that any of us want is to be seen, heard,
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: but more intensely understood, I think.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Not labeled, understood, you know. And this is a conversation
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that came up around that video because I watched it
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: with a friend of mine and she was like, I said,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: don't you think most people's fear about their children being
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: trans is that they're going to endure all this abuse
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and that they're you know, they're going to be subjected
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to such discrimination and you know, bad behavior. And she said, no,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I think some parents that a parent's outlook should be
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: oh no, I'm going to make sure that everybody knows
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: as much as they know about this, and I'm going
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to protect you and I'm going to be there right
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: by your side. That's the way they could be looking
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: at it. And I thought, oh wow, yeah, that is right.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, And I'm sure it's a whole wash. I mean,
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: my brother is gay and we grew up in Montana,
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: and I remember when he came out it was right
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: around Matthew Shepherd, right, and so my parents, who are
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: really progressive, were we all knew, right, But a big
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: part of it was major understandable fear about what would
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: happen to him Ben in the wider world, and he
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: didn't say in Montana or yeah, no, of course he.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Didn't say Montana. Why would you. I wouldn't go to Montana.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Montana's beautiful, I think, by the way, Actually, so I
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: guess I do just go there. I'm not sure.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: I think that's where I did my back to schools shop.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Oh right, right, right, right right on the other side
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of the path. Okay, Well, we are going to have
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: some callers, Catherine, are you gonna get us up for
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: this episode?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, We've got some overwhelmed moms, We've got some people
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: who need love advice, we've got some cheating boyfriends. A
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: lot of different stuff and all kind of relates to
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: the patriarchy. So great, We'll take a quick break and
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: we'll be right back with Elisa and Chelsea.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And we're back.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: We're back.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Well, our first question comes from Carter. Carter writes, Dear Chelsea,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: for the last eight years, I've devoted most of my
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: time and energy to my career and family. My parents
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and my sibling depend on me for emotional and often
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: financial support, which puts me under immense pressure. Feeling stretched
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: thin has become normal for me, and I realized that
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: I haven't had any real fun in a very long time.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I'm thirty two, single and way too responsible for my age.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: How do I start to bring joy back into my life?
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: What are some easy ways to begin to make joy
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: a habit? Thank you both for the wisdom you share
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: on the podcast.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Carter to practice joy, Well, I guess that is a practice.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: But once you get it, you have it. So you
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: got to start practicing because it is a practice. It's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: like for my practice is patients, I have to practice that.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I have to practice that, and now it's coming much
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: more naturally. I think joy is about finding what brings
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: you the joy, Like what lightens you up where you
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: feel kind of tingly? Like is it nature? Is it exercises?
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: It work? Is it reading? Like? What is your passion?
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: You have to identify certain passions that you have. And
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I think when you realize, you know you don't have
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: to be good at a million different things or like
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: a million different things, Like you can be drawn to
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: two or three things, but make them a bigger part
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: of your life. Like if you're an artist, you need
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: to create. But I think if you're having trouble finding joy,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: then I think instead of looking harder, I would actually
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: advise you to just be a little bit lighter about
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: it and take note of yourself, like be in your
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: body a little bit more and see what brings you joy,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: because that's what you have to surround your day around,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you know, Like I love to read books. I need
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: to read at least like an hour or two hours
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a day that brings me deep satisfaction and sometimes joy.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: But sometimes you know, it's heavier stuff like reading your
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: book was so informational and so helpful, but I came
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: away with such a bigger breadth of knowledge than I
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: had started your book with, so so worthwhile. But I
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: think that's what you have to find about out about yourself.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: But that's me sounding off. What do you have to say, Elise.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad to hear Carter use the word joy
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: because I think in our culture we're taught to look
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: for happiness as a steady state, which drives me crazy.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, that's that's stupid. Also, I want to say
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: that it's impossible to be happy all the time. Joy
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: is something separate than happiness.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: It is and it's I think joy can be brief,
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: fleeting it is that, you know, Catherine's laugh it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Is overwhelming gratitude for something in your life that can
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: bring you joy.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, just that sort of It can be five seconds,
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: but I think that that's where you start. And finding
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: those moments where you do laugh out loud or you
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: have a nice moment with a barista is a great
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: place to start. And that's the reality of our lives
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: ups downs, that sort of emotional durability. So that's great
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: that Carter wants joy and not happiness, because we all
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: need to unplug from the toxic positivity.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: That's toxic positivity. That's good. Yeah, Yeah, some people are
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: really annoying with that.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think because it's hard. It sounds like
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: things are hard for Carter. You understand the underside, and
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: so just developing the upside sort of what you were
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: talking about, Chelsea. Just a great song. A quick walk
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: reminds you of what it is to have that full
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: emotional expression.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also to recognize it, you know, take your
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: time throughout your day to recognize what are the things
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: that perk you up, even if it's your coffee in
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the morning, When you have that moment and you sit
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: with that moment and experience it, Like even the littlest
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of joys, they start to kind of multiply and then
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: you start to understand and enjoy more and more of them.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: So just pay attention to what you're feeling and thinking
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: for the next few days and pinpoint some of the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: things that bring that feeling into your life.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: I think it goes right back to what Alice and
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Chelsea were saying at the beginning of the episode, which
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: is you can't pour from an empty cup. So if
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: you're giving all of this to your family, to your friends,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: to whoever else needs stuff from you, you actually have
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: to do what you need for you first. Yes, well, Carter,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: thank you for writing in and let us know what
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: solutions you find.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: To give you more carters.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, we have our first caller. This is Emily and
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: she's in her late twenties.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Is it Emily Dickinson?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: It is, Uh, she's a lie.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: I told her. She texted me earlier. I told her
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: to call in good. We're on the text thread.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Well, she writes, Dear Chelsea, I'm writing in because I
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: need some powerful woman love and advice. I just found
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: out my boyfriend of a year has been dating another
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: girl almost the entire time. I found photos in his
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: phone of them together, not snooping, and it makes me
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: sick to my stomach. She's trashy and she knew about me,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: which makes them both disgusting. We were planning our future together,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: we were talking about having babies and getting married, and
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: he was with her the whole time.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Gross.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he would go on trips with her and tell
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: me it was a boy's weekend or he was out
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: with his family. I need some advice on how to
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: move on from this and get my power back. And yes,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: I dumped his ass, but my heart is broken and
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: I can't stop picturing them together. Cheers Emily, Oh.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Emily, Hi, Emily, Hi, Hi, this is our guest Elise.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Say hi to Lalise and Catherine.
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: Hello, honest to meet you.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, honey, that is such a betrayal like
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: ew that makes me so I can't even imagine how
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: painful that must be for you.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I was very, very shocked, and he gave me
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: no warning signs at all, Like I never went through
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: his phone, like he never gave me any suspicion, So
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: I was pretty shocked. He also gave me a fake
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: Instagram account that said it was her and it wasn't her.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: So I actually ended up finding out who actually was.
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: And they've been seeing each other for a couple of
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: months now, so yeah, I was. I was pretty shocked,
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: to be honest.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And so what did he do when you confronted him?
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: He gasled me quite a bit. I was like, who
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: is this girl? And he said that it was his
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: ex from six years ago and he randomly ran into
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: her at Harrison Hot Springs together. So I did some
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: more and he was like, I knew that you would
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: do this. I know that you would do this, and
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: it was the U you used that he got me like,
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: I knew that you would go to Instagram and find
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: the cell blah blah blah. I'm like it makes no
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: fucking sense, Like who is she? Just fucking tell me
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: who she is, you know, And I was just shocked.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's traumatizing to have somebody lie to you
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: on that kind of level.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's deep betrayal.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Are you in therapy? No?
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: And I actually I listened to your podcast all the time.
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: I know you love therapy. I have never been to therapy.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: You need to go, I know you need to go.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Because like, that's a terrible thing to have happened to you.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: That's a major betrayal of trust, and in order to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: work through that in a healthy, really adult way so
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: that you get through it sooner and you're not holding
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: onto resentment three or four years down the line. You
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: need somebody, like a really solid professional to talk you
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: through this on a regular, consistent level, because nobody deserves
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: to be treated like that, including yourself. Obviously, you know
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that because you broke up with him. So that's the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: first best news, is that you broke up with him
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: and that you have enough strong enough sense of yourself
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: to know that that's not acceptable to you. So great
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: for doing that. Good for you. It's hard to break
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: up with somebody when you love them, but like you
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: stood up for yourself and you respect yourself, so like
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: you're already on your road to recovery just by that action. Yeah.
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: No, I ripped up his orchid. He got me. I
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: put all his love letters and I put her on
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: a box of my patio, and so get your shit.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: I'm doing a lot better. I'm in school now to
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: be a teacher, so I'm just focusing on that and
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: I'm really, I'm getting back into running and stuff, so
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: I'm doing a lot better, but I do think I
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: should probably go to therapy here, right.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because you also need to restore trust in yourself,
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: and betray is hard in that you think that you
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: should have seen something or known something that was being
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: held from you. So you need to primarily restore your
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: own faith and your intuition and your sense. And then
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: I heard you also say it doesn't make any sense.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: It doesn't make any sense. And so as you heal,
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: part of it is to disconnect from him energetically and
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: to stop trying to figure it out or justify it
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: or wonder what you missed. And it takes a lot
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: of self control to interrupt that. But you're not going
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: to figure it out. It doesn't make any sense, No.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: It doesn't. It's not your problem. Really, anybody that duplicitous
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: isn't your problem. Like that's he's a liar, You excited
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: him from your life, and like it doesn't matter, and
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: you picturing him with that girl also doesn't matter. Who
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: gives a shit? Thank god you're not fucking with him,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: thank god. Yes, Like what she did you a fucking
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: huge solid, So reframe the way you're looking at that
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: divine intervention. Yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: I even messaged her on Instagram and I said, the
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: girl a girl, can you just tell me?
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: And she just blocked me.
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: So I'm like, you have them, honey, he's yours. Yeah.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you know what they say if you
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: wind up with the guy you were like having an
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: affair with, you were just creating a job opportunity.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: So you know, I think that you are like a
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: great example of somebody getting through a relationship. I mean, listen,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: you still should go to therapy, absolutely, but you seem
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: very solid and like this is good for women to
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: be hearing that you're already through the thick of it
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: in a short amount of time and that you are
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: identifying all of this kind of self awareness.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah. No, I let myself cry for a couple of
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: days and then I was like through this, Like I'm
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: getting back on my shit. I wrote into you, I
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: talked to my mom, I talked to my friends, like
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: I have a really good circle.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: So it just it sucked, you know, Yeah, No, it
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: does suck, and like, like, listen, that sucked, and hopefully
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: that will never happen to you again.
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: So I won't hopefully I'm not going Yeah, I was
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: just confused how I didn't see it.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't matter. You can't see things when you're
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: in them. It. Don't self flagulate or blame yourself for
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: not identifying a situation as it was like. It may
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: not have been that way the whole time. It may
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: have been that you know, it may have developed like
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter either. That doesn't matter either. All you
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: have to know is moving forward, like what you're willing
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to tolerate and what you aren't. And you already said
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: that to the world by breaking up with him, which
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: is again a strong move, and your headed already in
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the right direction.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and don't go forward defended, So do whatever you
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: can to heal that so that you can go through
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: life heart open.
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, no, you're right. I'm just said of hitting
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: this summer to me and only me and all of
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: my goals and what I want to do.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: So I love it. Okay, Well, take care. Thank you
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: so much for calling it, and best of luck to you.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: We're sending you total good vibes.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Thanks Emily, Bye, Emily Bye. That I mean that goes
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: right back to what we were talking about before with
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: right now she's in the anger part and she's in
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: the like fuck that guy whatever. Like that's where she's
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: at right now, and you know, getting into therapy to
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: get past that a little bit and into the hurt
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: processing the heart like that will help her not carry
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: it with her. Yes, well, should we jump to another caller?
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Our next caller is Amy.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: She is thirty four.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Dear Chelsea, first of all, I adore you both. I'm
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: writing in because I probably need a swift kick in
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: the rear. I'm a former high school teacher who left
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: the profession after ten years, feeling completely beaten down by
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: the demands of the overall system of what we like
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: to call public education.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: God, I don't fucking blame you. What a joke.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: I have since focused on my two young children, who
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: are four and twenty two months. I love being a
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: stay at home mom, but eventually, sooner rather than later,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: I would love.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: To go back to work.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: One career path I can't seem to get out of
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: my head is to be a personal trainer, more specifically
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: a coach at Orange Theory Fitness. I've been attending this
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: gym for about eight years. I have almost nine hundred
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: classes to my name. The problem is I don't have
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: the body type you envision when you imagine a personal trainer.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: I'm short and chubby, but I'm in great shape. I'm
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: afraid Jim's won't hire me over this fact, as well
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: as clients not taking me seriously or believing I don't
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about because I'm in a slightly
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: bigger body. What do you ladies think? What a slightly
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: larger bodied person make you not want to take workout
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: advice from them? Or would it be refreshing to see
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: a different body type in the gym? Any advice or
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: opinions are appreciated. You both are doing amazing things and
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: inspire me Weekly Amy thirty four Nevada.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Hi, Amy, Hi, Hi, how are you?
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: I'm amazing, couldn't be better? How are you? Guys?
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: This is our special guest at Leise loan In today.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Yay, so nice to see to meet you.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Thank you well.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: Have you actually applied or are you still just contemplating this?
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: I'm so contemplating. I'm still in this kind of awkward
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: place in my life where I'm trying to embrace the
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: stay at home mom life a little bit, but it's
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: already starting to get to me one year in. So
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: I'm thinking of avenues to you venture down and I
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: was thinking, what do I enjoy doing?
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: And I really enjoy working out.
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: I'm kind of the silly one in my friend group,
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: and you know, the coaches at my gym are really
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: upbeat and fun and they like really get you into
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: your workout.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: And I was like, I could do this. You know,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: I was a teacher for ten years.
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: I'm really good at being able to delegate my attention
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: and everything like that. So I was thinking, like, this
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: might be something I could really do. But I'm worried
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: about how I look. People might not take me seriously
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: just because I'm not in the best shape, you know
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: when you just look at me.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: But I'm in the best shape for myself. But you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: some people are.
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: Really judgmental, and I don't know if I kind of
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: want to get an outsider's opinion, just if they think
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: that that would be an issue I would come across.
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: Basically, I think you have to go for it. I
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: think that that whole scene. I think the way that
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: we equate health with an exterior representation is so profoundly
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: and deeply flawed. Some of the least healthy people I
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: know are walking time moms. And I think we're at
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: the beginning of this culturally. So I'm not going to
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: say that it's going to be easy, but body diversity
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: and different experiences of health have got to be present
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: in places where we work on ourselves and work on
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: our bodies and think about a lot more women look
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: like you than they look like you know, a tiny
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: little spin instructor at that point, Yeah.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I think there's a huge opportunity for you to attract
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: people who are intimidated by a perfectly fit trainer. A
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: lot of people that turns them off because they feel
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: like they're being judged by their trainer. So you have
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: a whole group of women, especially moms, who probably feel
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that way and feel intimidated, so they can find somebody
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: that looks a little bit more like them. It's they're
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: going to be a little bit more I guess, you know,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: feel more comfortable I would say working out. I would
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: think that would apply to a lot of people. Yeah,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: there's a group of people that want their trained to
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: look a certain way. Then there's a group of people
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: that want to feel comfortable working out with somebody that
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: makes them feel good about themselves.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, a thousand percent.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I was banking on too.
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: I was like, you know, if I saw someone like
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: me when I started out my journey with working out
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: about eight nine years ago, I think I wouldn't have
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: been as intivity. I kept putting it off. You know,
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: I don't want to go to this gym, you know,
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: it looks scary. But then I finally went and it
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: was fun. But you know, maybe if I did walk
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: in and see someone that looked more like myself, maybe
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: I would have been more inclined to start sooner.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: That's a really good point.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's also how you sell it
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: to someone when you're in a job interviews. It's like,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: when I walked in here, I wanted to see somebody
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: who looked like me, like not just like a size
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: double zero. I wanted to see somebody who's like an
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: average size person.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Without apologizing about your size. And you can advocate for
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: what they They may have their guardrails up about what
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: they deem as somebody that can teach there. But I
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: also wouldn't even limit yourself to orange theory Like this
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: is great marketing. I could already see like you marketing
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: to women in your neighborhood and moms, Like, do other
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: moms want to work out without being judged by everybody
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: in the gym? Do you guys want to and figure
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: out fun ways to do that around the neighborhood walking
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: around or going to a park and meeting up. So
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: it's not so that there's a fun vibe and there's
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: kind of movement in the movement, not you know, literally
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: and physically, like you're actually changing it up and offering
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: different places to go or different activities. I think you
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: could just not limit yourself to only thinking you can
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: just fit yourself into somebody others operation and potentially create
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: your own business.
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: Have you.
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, not that everyone needs to be a digital influencer,
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: but I also wonder if you started making some content
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: just for your friends and family. I think you would
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: get a lot of positive reinforcement. It might be what
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: you need confidence wise to see the market for this
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: and move into it. You don't have to keep doing
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: it or build a profile, but yeah, I think you
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: get a lot of feedback.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: That's a really good idea. I didn't even think about.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you, and I love what Chelsea said too. When
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: my mom was like in her fifties, she and several
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: of her friends started working out with a gal who
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: was about your age. She'd built like a whole gym
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: in her basement, which like depending on your weather situation
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: where you live, you know, basement outside whatever. But like
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: that was where they love to go because it was
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: like a normal person with great equipment, and they would
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: go and have a great time and chat with the
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: other ladies. And it wasn't like this like gem gem
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: gem experience.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: And where our culture is awash with unattainable bodies and
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: if that's what people need in order to feel inspired,
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: they have a plethora of opportunities to feel bad about themselves.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: And no, but I think it would be revolutionary to
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: disrupt that narrative and to get comfortable. For people to
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: see someone who's healthy, strong and has a body that's
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: attainable and equivalent is really powerful.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: And I think exactly picking off off of what at
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: least said earlier, make that part of your narrative too,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Like how we define health has been misinterpreted for eons,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: and actually healthy and strong and fit are the most
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: important things to be. It's not about being a size
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: zero or a size two, especially not for everybody. Nobody.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: People aren't naturally like that, and you know, are forcing themselves.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: There are people that are naturally like that, good for them,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: but that's not natural for most people. So I think
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: you have a huge opportunity here too, So get get going,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: get working.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: And I also like how when you had Ben Bruno
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: and he talked more about how women should be doing
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: more like weight training, how we're always we go straight
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: for the cardio, and.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I was thinking, like, because that's.
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: Where I found my passion. I used to hate lifting weights,
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: and now it's like I look forward to it. Can
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: I beat my personal record and things like that, And
• 49:36
  Speaker 6: I want to get people excited like that, and women
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: excited about that, because I think there's a misinterpretation of
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: you know, lifting weights for women too. They don't want
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: to look too bulky or whatever. And I'm like, that's
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: not a thing like that, It's not a thing.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I also this just kind of keeps popping into my
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: mind too. You may want to talk to a therapist
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: or somebody as well, just to see if there's somebody
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: dys morphias stuff going on, because if you're limiting yourself
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: so much like having this question about like am I
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: good enough to do this? Am I the right side
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: to do this? There might be just some extra like
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: body stuff that you need to work out with a therapist.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I grew up with an almond mom.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: If you guys know, so, I try to an almond
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: joy mom. So I have the opposite set of problems.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: You got a trademark that Chelsea. That's great almond joy.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: I see a new commercial.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: Absolutely, I've all yeah, this was all great advice if
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: I never thought of so, I just I feel inspired.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you, I really awesome.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Great, Well, job is here, problem solved. Everybody can go
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: home now.
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: I will keep you updated on my future endeavors.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, let us know the name of your jim when
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: you start it.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Your mantra is think Bigger, Think bigger.
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: I gotta pick up a gym name with that has
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: nugget incorporated into it somehow, like you know, nugget.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants to work out with a nugget. But you
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: could call that think bigger too. That's a good gym name.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Think bigger.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: Bigger is a great name. We are like you have
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: three CM right now doing your marketing plan.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: Love it, love it. Thank you. I appreciate your time,
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: I really do. Thank you.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Oh thanks for calling in my pleasure?
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: Thank you?
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: Why this is so fun?
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Anything we want to expound on?
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: I ask her a question?
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, oh yes, would you like to ask me
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: a question? At least? I'm so sorry, how rude of me.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Well, we can take a quick break and we'll be
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: back with more Alice and Chelsea.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: And we're back.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: We're back, Alisa.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Did you have a question for Chelsea?
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: I sure do. Thanks for asking. Catherine. You have a
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: fearlessness about you, and I'm assuming you've always been a
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: brave person, but you are someone who says it anyway, right,
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: you see something, you say something. Do you ever feel
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: scared and what do you do in those.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Moments scared of saying something, just being.
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: Who you are in the world.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, I have fears. But everyone always asks me this question,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: and I take it as a compliment that people think
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: I'm so fearless. I think I'm not really sure. I
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: haven't digested it fully because I don't feel fearless. I
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: definitely feel brave, but I have lots of fears, and
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I make it my business to kind of work push
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: through like go you can do it, like every time
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: you get over a fear, the level of the confidence
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: that you feel, and the I think self security is
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing that I have. Like, I know I
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: can depend on myself. I know I'm not going to
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: let anything get too carried away, not for anybody else
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: and not for myself, and that if someone asks me
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: to do something, I have complete confidence in my competence.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: You know, as long as it doesn't involve technology, like
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: anything emotional, any sort of draatic thing, Like I can
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: help somebody and I can actually deal with it myself.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: But I think it's from stepping through fear over and
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: over and over again. I think there's so many different
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: nuances of fear and how that plays out in your life.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: You know, you can be fear full, you can live
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: in fear, or you can just have a fear of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: certain things. You know, it depends how and do you
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: let it run you? And no, I do not let
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: it run me.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And how do you interrupt it in that moment
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: or do you just feel it or do you do
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: you have a practice?
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm very into like meditation. For the
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: past like five years, I've been really practicing meditation. And
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: this isn't fear based necessary, Yes, it is fear based.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: This is a good example. Then last week I thought
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: I got some bad news about something. I just looked
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: at it and thought, oh, that's not good, Like I
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: was expecting more from this or a better outcome from that.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: And then I had a phone call and I and
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: that was based on my fear of not being good
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: enough at delivering something. Right, Like, I was like, wait,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I thought I did a better job at that. They
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: should have gotten more for that, whatever the net result
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: of it is, right, And I was like, huh, maybe
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not doing a good enough job. And then I
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: had a phone call assessing the information we got, and
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: it turns out I did a fucking great job, right.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: It turns everything was great. We did everything we wanted
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: we set out to do, and it worked in many ways,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: multiple levels that I hadn't even seen yet until everyone
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: got together told me. But I chose to go down
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: the negative route for some reason. And that's fear based.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: That's because you think you're not good enough, you're not whatever.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: And I remember getting off that call and sitting with
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: myself for about twenty minutes and saying, next time you
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: do that, you need to recognize that A you don't
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: have all the information. B where is this coming from?
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Why do you care so much about this specific outcome?
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Unless it's based on fear and that needs to be
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: identified in the moment, and then it's easier to deal with.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, anyway, do we have time for one
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: more question from a caller too? Unless at least do
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: you have any more questions?
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: So many?
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just have one more email from Nicole. She
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: is in her forties. Dear Chelsea, I would love your
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: opinion on a recent dilemma with our thirteen year old daughter.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: She and her friends are having a costume party and
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: are dressing in similar themes. Her costume idea was super cute.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: She was going to be the Queen of hearts. However,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: when she showed me her inspiration or esthetic board, I
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: was taken aback. We're talking corset, platform heels, miniskirt, thigh
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: high hose. To give you a little backstory of my daughter,
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: she's very independent, self motivated, and an incredibly smart eighth grader.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: She prides herself in making straight a's even though I
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: think she's too intense about it. And she's a terrific
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: performer who's done musical theater since she was seven. She
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: started her period in sixth grade and her body changed
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: almost overnight. She has big boobs, just like her mama.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: I have been very intentional about not body shaving my daughter. However,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: when she tried on the corset she bought, I was
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: at a loss. I told her I thought it was
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: inappropriate for her age, and she freaked out. She even
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: said she wanted to dress slutty for the costume party
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: and knows it's a cliche but doesn't care. While I
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: appreciate her honesty and confidence, I just don't know how
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: to tell her she shouldn't dress this way without making
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: her feel ashamed of her body. Am I in the
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: wrong here? How do I help her stay age appropriate
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: and still love her body? Thanks Chelsea Nicole, Well.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: At least I know you don't have any daughters, but
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: you're the only parent here, so I have to let
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: you go first.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: Okay, I have a lot of feelings about this. Okay,
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: So Peggy Ornstein, he's an amazing journalist. She was telling
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: me a story about talking to a boy. She writes
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: a lot about kids and sexuality, and he was talking
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: about his girlfriend and he said she's sexy but not sexual.
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: And I thought that that distinction was so critical and key,
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: because I think with a lot of kids, girls specifically,
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: they are wanting to be sexy and they are not
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: yet really sexual. They don't have a full sense of
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: their own sexual power. I don't know, maybe they've all
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: maybe they're far more advanced than I was at that age,
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: but I worry a lot about the performance of sexuality
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: for an audience and the objectification when you don't even
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: know yet what it is. And then you know. I
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: know that we're in a time where which I respect
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: not slept shaming girls or talking about their bodies body
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: shaming them, But culturally we are not there. We still
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: live in a culture that is incredibly patriarchal, where of
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: one thousand sexual assault cases, only twenty five ever progressed
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: to trial. It is not safe for girls. You are
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: expected to be the babysitter of rapacious male desire. Whatever
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: happens to you is your fault. This is the culture
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: that we live in. And so I think not acknowledging
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: that and pretending that it's all fair for girls is
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: not is a gross to service. So it's not about
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: shaming her about her body. It's about making sure that
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: she can keep her self safe. And I recognize that
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: no girl should be responsible for keeping herself safe and
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: that it's fucked up, but unfortunately that's where we are.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: I think you said that so beautifully. There's also I know, Chelsea,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: you can speak to this too, there's also a shitty
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: thing that happens when you have bigger boobs of like
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: you can put on the same exact dress as your
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: friend next to you with small boobs, and like you
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: look quote unquote sluttie. You look like you're trying to
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: be more sexual than your meaning to be because your
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: breasts are larger. Like that's definitely an experience I've had.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: For sure, I felt that way too, But I also
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: want to counter argue, like I get all those things,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: and I understand you're saying. Everything you're saying is true,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: But I also think at eighth grade, a girl who
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: has shown responsibility and shown good judgment should be given
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: the right to make these kinds of decisions on her
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: own and then see where that lands, Like see she's
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: going to school, you know, like hopefully that's a safe
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: place for her to try to exercise her freedom and
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the way she wants to dress. And maybe she'll come
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: back from that and be like, oh, I don't want
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: to I don't like I don't like that kind of attention. Yeah,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: or I don't like the way people are looking at me,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: and maybe she won't. Maybe she'll come back and go
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: I liked that. I liked that a lot. But again,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: you can't control her experience with that, like at a
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: certain age, especially the way girls dress now, they show
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: everything at a young age, you know that the things
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: that they're exposed to. And I agree with especially what
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: you're talking about regarding sexuality and sexy because I do
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: think girls are more innocent these days. They're exposed to
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: more on the internet, yet they have less experience in person,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: which is I guess you know this has been a
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: hot topic of conversation with boys and girls, adolescents and
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: everything in between, and nine binary children as well, Like
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: you want your own agency, You want your kid to
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: be able to make decisions and understand what those decisions
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: lead to, especially something that I understand why you're asking,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: but overall, this seems pretty innoc to me. I don't
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: think it's a major big deal. You know, it's not
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: like she's sexually active all of a sudden and you
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: don't know how to handle that, because that's something that
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: could also happen in the eighth grade. We're talking here
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: just about an outfit, and it might be worth the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: experience of her wearing that to understand if she wants
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: to wear something like that again.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Now, my sister calls that the natural consequences. She talks
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: about this with her kids a lot who are now teenagers,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: Like my niece Lucy, she wanted to wear high heels
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: to school, and my sister was like, you know, the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: natural consequence to that are you can, but your feet
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: are gonna hurt at.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: The end of the day.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: And of course it came home with like terrible feeling
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: feet and blisters and all this stuff, and it's like,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: that's the natural consequences. But yeah, letting her go to
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: school and see how she likes that attention, Yeah.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: I think so. I think I mean it's nice to
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: give people some responsibility also instead of parenting them at
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: that age in that way, I think it's a good like,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: that's a good self esteem booster to kind of be
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: have your own you make your own decisions on certain fronts,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: to see how you make them, Yeah, and practice making them.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's all fair And I don't want
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: to be sound so puritanical. I just like any girl
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: we can save from.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Sexual predatory behavior, toy behavior. Yeah, but can we save
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: anyone from that? You know what I mean? Like, can
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: you really save somebody from that?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I know, I think I think it's
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: kind of both of these answers. It comes down to
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: like is it a safe sandbox to be playing in?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Like is she going to a safe place? Or is
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: she like going out into the city? Like not great?
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, guys, this is your opportunity. The book is called
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: On Our Best Behavior, the Seven Deadly Sins, and The
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Price Women Pay to Be Good. It's written by Elise Lonan.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Please order your books or go to your independent bookstores
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and buy a copy of this book. It is very
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: important reading. Elise. Thank you so much for being here too.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: So fun.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: It's so nice to talk to real people right and
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: give advice. I love it. I love it. Thanks guys,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next week, Bye bye, bye bye.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: and engineered by Brad Dickert executive producer Katherine Law and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: com