Latest / Dear Chelsea / Live Every Day Like It’s Your First with Suleika Jaouad

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Live Every Day Like It’s Your First with Suleika Jaouad · Dear Chelsea

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay for the High and Mighty Tour people, we are
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: rocket and rolling. These are the shows we have coming up.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: April twenty third is Kansas City, Missouri. April twenty fourth
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is Saint Louis, Missouri. April twenty fifth is Minneapolis. April
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: thirtieth Nashville. May first, Charlotte, North Carolina. May second is Durham,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. May sixth in Los Angeles at the Sabon
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Theater for Netflix as a joke. May fifteenth, I will
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: be in Saratoga May sixteenth, Monterey, May seventeenth, Modesto.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I will be in port Chester on June fourth, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: we added two new dates to the High and Mighty Tour.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: On June third, I am coming to Saratoga Springs, New York.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: So pre sale has.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Begun for that, and then on June twenty eighth, I
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: am coming to Nantucket and presale has started on that.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: June fifth, I will be in Boston, Massachusetts. June twelfth,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I will be in Portland, Oregon. And June thirteenth I
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: will be in Seattle, Washington. June twenty seventh is going
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to be Hyenna's, Massachusetts. August sixth is Red Bank, New
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Jersey August seventh. I'm coming home to Montclair, New Jersey
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: August fifteenth. Is Calgary, Alberta, Canada, September eighteenth, Santa Barbara
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: September nineteenth, San Diego September twenty fifth. I will be
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: at the Beacon in New York City September twenty sixth.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I will be in Philadelphia September twenty seventh, New Haven, Connecticut.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: October second, Atlanta, Georgia, October third, Baltimore, Maryland, October fourth, Saginaw, Michigan,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: October ninth, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October tenth, Toronto, Canada, October sixteenth.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I'm coming to Boise, Idaho, October seventeenth, Spokane, Washington, November seventh.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I will be in San Francisco and November thirteenth, Salt
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Lake City November twentieth, Austin November twenty first, Houston, Texas,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: November twenty second, Irving, Texas.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: December fifth.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I am adding a second show in Denver for those
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of you who can get tickets to the first one.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And on December sixth, I will be coming to Vancouver, Canada. Okay,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: those are all my dates for the Hide Mighty Door.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Go to Chelseahandler dot com for tickets.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Hello Catherine, Hi Chelsea, how's the tour going?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Tour is going. It's a lot with Yaminika. It's a
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: full time job having her on tour with me.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: It's like a nanny job situation.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: It's basically I've turned into a nanny.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: She slept in my room again.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I opened that door accidentally one weekend when she had
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: overbooked her double booked herself. And now she wants a weekend,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: wants to sleep together, which you know is once too
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: many times for me. So I don't know, We're gonna
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: have to really reconfigure this weekend. I have Kansas City,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: which I'm so excited about. I haven't been back to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Kansas City in a while. I'm going to Kansas City
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Thursday night. And then I have Minneapolis and I have
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis, so I have lots of good stuff.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Oh nice.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: Actually, I think our minisode callers for this week are
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: going to be seeing you in Minneapolis, so.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: You'll, oh good. Yeah, I can't wait to go to
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Minneapolis and give them some love too. They need it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that'll be coming out tomorrow. So oh, everybody listened
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: into that minisod it's very cute and funny.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, yeah, I said about the couple's counseling.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Yes, some couples counseling.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Chelsea, I have a question for you that's related to
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: the guest for this week. So I've been trying to
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: do the gratitude journal and it feels a little stiff
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: to me to just be like I am grateful for this.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: I am grateful for this.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Like how are you writing it?
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Is that what you're doing like listing things?
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Are you getting more creative with it?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: It's funny.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I'm reading another book called like Mind, Mind, Mind your Body,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: this new book which is also talks about journaling, and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: like the big which which we talk about in this
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: episode with our guest, is like you want to write
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: it freestyle, knowing like I think anything that prevents us
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: from this isn't to your point exactly, but like you
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: want to write it assuming no one's ever going to
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: fucking read it, you know. Like Ben Bruno was over
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this morning and he's like, I'm writing it as like,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you know, to vent he goes, So I delete it
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: every day too, because I'm like, I don't want anyone
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to ever see this but that's how I'm able to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: be my most honest self. And I think that is
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: like I do think that stops everyone from being fully honest,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: because you, like you want to be grateful just for
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the things that you're supposed to be grateful for, in
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: case anybody ever reads your gratitude list, Like, that's how
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I think about it.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So I do think it's a little stiff, but I
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: mean I do it just.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: More of an exercise, and I do write or I
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: sometimes do it in Spanish and I write so agri
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: desido or you know, uh or astoy agri desido and practicamos. Yeah,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: like just to do it. I don't know, but it
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: is kind of perfunctory. Yeah, you're just doing I don't
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: say the same things every day, but I do just
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: go through mine is like how are you going to
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: make today special?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And name three.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Words to describe yourself and what are you grateful for?
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So it's like three different things.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I guess it can be.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think if you're really getting into journaling,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you really do have to get a journal and just
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: like let it rip and then put it in a
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: fucking safe Yeah.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, see, I have like my journal journal that I've
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: been trying to get back into. And then I have
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: like my little Gratitude journal, which is my little like
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: daily my daily driver.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really hard for me to write long form
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: in handwriting, like I've lost that, Like I'm I'm on
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a computer, you know what I mean. That's where So
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: it's yeah, I don't know. I've got to get into
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it though, because everything I'm reading about it, it's everywhere
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I go.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: So that's a sign. Is that?
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: Did they talk about that in Your Mind Body book
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: that you're reading right now.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: To Mind your Body.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot about meditation and journaling so like
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: so that you just to like connect with yourself, you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to to connect our conscious to our unconscious.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Okay, ooh and I love our guest today. She's perfect
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: for this conversation.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Oh well, she's very exciting.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: She wrote the book Between Two Kingdoms and her new
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: book is called the Book of Alchemy. So please welcome
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Suleika Joad. Well, I am so thrilled to be sitting
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: down and talking with you, because, first of all, Catherine's here,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: this is my producer, she's an.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: She's gonna chime in and whenever so you just so.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: You're aware amazing periodically periodically with her own questions. I
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: first became familiar with you with your last book, Between
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Two Kingdoms, which was so beautiful. A friend of mine
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: handed it to me and was like, you have to
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: read this book. You're gonna love it. And I was
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: blown away by your story and so and you're just
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: your attitude, the way that you dealt with everything in
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: such a graceful way, at least in the book. That's
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: how it came across. And I'm sure you had your
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: moments that maybe weren't so graceful. But then I started
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: following you on Instagram and I didn't realize you were
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: married to John Batiste, and so then I started watching
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: your relationship from Afar and I was like, these two
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: are such a magical couple, and not an Instagram magical couple,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a magical couple and there's magic there. And so I've
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: just been so blown away by your perseverance, your fortitude,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: all of it. I just find it so inspiring and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: such a wonderful story to be sharing with people, you know,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: anyone going through something like this, which I don't know
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: anybody else who's gone through something like this, but I
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: know there are people out there that have. So let's
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: just start with I know you have a new book out.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that. I've read it, but
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I want to start talking about Between two Kingdoms and
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: when you found you were able to start to write
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: about your experience.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: So I'm someone who was never interested in writing in
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: the first person. When I graduated from college, I wanted
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: to be a war correspondent. I have whatever that missing
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: genius when it comes to fear, Like if there's a
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: building on fire, my instinct is to run toward it.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: It's like an amygdala that you're yeah, yeah, that's your
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: fear part, right, Yeah.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: Like I'm most comfortable in crisis, Like if you're going
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: through shit, I'm the person to call, Like I get
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: calm when there's chaos. Okay, every day normal life a
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: little harder for me to manage. I could have been
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: like an er doctor in a different life. But when
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I got sick myself. You know, I was twenty two
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: years old, diagnosed with leukemia, diagnosed with leukemia, and about
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: to begin your life right exactly. It's like what do
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: they say in college graduation speeches, Like you're going to
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: be entering the real world, and that was the goal.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: The goal was independence, The goal was to find my way.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: The goal was to do what all my other friends
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: were doing, which was launching their careers and traveling and
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: all the other you know, big and small milestones of
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: early adulthood. And I, for as long as I can remember,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: have had this sort of ambition monster at me. And
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I had my one year plan and my five year
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: plan and my ten year plan, et cetera, et cetera.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: And suddenly I found myself, for the first time ever,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: stuck in bed without the possibility of doing anything. And
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: that was really hard for me, and it was really
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: important for me, because when you're a person who can easily,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: as I do, conflate productivity and momentum with a feeling
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: of self worth and meaning, to be stripped away from
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: the ability of doing anything is really hard, and for
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: me was really necessary, and so in a weird kind
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: of perverse way, it felt liberating to not have expectations
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: of myself, to not have external expectations, and to not
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: be able to do anything.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: So if you can recall, like what was the period
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: of time between your diagnosis and the acceptance of what
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, like, because initially you would think, Okay,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: let's get how are we going to fix this, Like
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do the chemo, I'm going to do
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: all the tree, and I'm going to be you know,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: you have your plan for that, right, which also obviously
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't go your way all the time. But I know
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you had a lot of support from your parents. You
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: talk about that in the book Your parents sound amazing. Yeah,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: what was a period of time between finding out about
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: that and then accepting, Okay, I'm not going to be
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: doing any of the things that I had planned on
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: doing in the moment that I wanted to do.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Them, Okay. So I remember so clearly the day I
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: was admitted to the hospital right after my diagnosis. I
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: was going to be in the hospital for six weeks,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: and I packed a giant suitcase filled with books, and
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: I told my professor father, I'm going to use this
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: time to read through the rest of the Western canon,
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: And I had worn Peace on my best side table.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: And it's kind of absurd to me now, because of
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: course I didn't read any of those books. Instead, what
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: I attempted to do was to set the world record
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: for the number of Grace Anatomy episodes watched consecutively, and
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I think it was this real reckoning with these new limitations.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: And at first I bucked against those limitations. I tried
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: to muscle through them. And at some point, after weeks
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: and weeks of trying and failing and feeling even worse
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: for failing than I already did, I realized I had
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: to surrender to these new limitations.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Was it like in a spiritual sense, like were you
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: feeling that in a spiritual sense or in a pragmatic
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: sense both?
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Honestly? Like, I had such limited energy that I could
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: maybe do three things, two or three hours worth of
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: you know, spending time with family or whatever it was
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: that I was doing. And what that forced me to
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: do was to figure out what was possible within those
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: limitations and to get really clear a reframe of what
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: had been the central question, which is, you know, what
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: does success look like? And a shift to a question
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: of what does success feel like for me today? And
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: the answers to those two questions were really different. It
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: wasn't reading more in peace, It was spending time with
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: my family. It was laughing, it was watching something silly,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: It was not trying to do something big and ambitious,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: but something much quieter and just kind of following my
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: curiosity without having a goal in mind.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: And I think that's applicable to so many people in
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: so many different circumstances, not just if you are very
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: sick in the hospital or going through a treatment in
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the hospital. I think it's really important for all of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: us to sometimes be like, Okay, today's not the day
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: for me to be successful. Today's not for the day
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: for me to accomplish all of these ideas of what
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I believe accomplishment is sometimes you do need to lie
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: back and watch Gray's Anatomy, whether you were sick.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Or not totally and sometimes that's what success is for
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: that day, right right. And so that led me on
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: this journey of not having goals, which counterintitively was an
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: important course correction because what I ended up doing was
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: not trying to be a work correspondent because I couldn't
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: be a work correspondent. It was becoming friends with like
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: my hilarious hospital neighbor Dennis, who was mounting a strike
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: against the cafeteria because our meal trays kept coming up
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: with the food still frozen. It was, you know, getting
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: to know my nurses and residents. If you've ever been sick,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: then you know that the nurses are the ones who
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: run the show, and you know, just writing in my
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: journal just for myself. I remember like one of the
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: first little anecdotes I wrote was about Gray's anatomy, because
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: a resident came to my room and I said, does
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: your life have any resemblance to the cast of Grace?
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: And she was like, we have just as much sex,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: but everyone is significantly less attractive. And I wrote that
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: down in my journal and made me laugh. And suddenly
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the hospital was not this grim, depressing place that I
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: was forced to be, and it was a place where
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of life was happening and a lot of
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: story was unfolding. And I realized, in you know, in
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: keeping this journal, that I was using it as a
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: kind of reporters pad, and that while I wasn't going
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: to be a war correspondent in the way that I'd hoped,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: I could report from the front lines of my hospital
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: bed from a very different kind of conflict zone. And
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: so that's how I started writing about that extent.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And I love that because it's so emblematic of life,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Like everywhere you look there's life happening totally, and sometimes
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: we are so wrapped up in our own lives that
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: we don't look around, you know, we're so concer I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: know that I've felt that way the last couple of weeks.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh my god, what's wrong, Like I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: can't even you know, I've been so busy that i
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: haven't been able to stop and look around and like,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: look at people, take them in, you know, make eye contact,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: make sure you're smiling and saying thank you and please
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and all of the basic things. But beyond that, there's
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: so much more to look at. When you ever you
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: are in an environment that you're unfamiliar with, there's so
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: much life happening.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: And while it's important to have goals, sometimes the goals
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: can distract you from the unexpected things that are unfolding
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: in the meantime, from the more interesting story or the
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: more interesting goal that may not be part of the plan,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: that may not make sense, but ends up actually being
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: the thing that opens up a whole new world. And
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: that was it for me. I'm still a really private person,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: but in writing in the first person, I realized, you know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: as uncomfortable and exposing as it felt there was so
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: much grists there. There's so much I wanted to talk about,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: not specifically about illness, but about things like early menopause,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: which I went through when I was twenty four years
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: old as a result of chemo, about you know, the
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: impact on relationships, about how you keep yourself sane when
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: you're navigating an insane healthcare system. Like, there was just
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: so much there, and it was that important lesson of
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You don't have
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: to like travel far to find an interesting story. There's
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: always something interesting unfolding right in front of you.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Right and even though your story is very interesting, I
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: mean you being in and out of the hospital as
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: many times, you were so many close calls, and I mean,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: it was that book was just astounding. I couldn't believe
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: when I was reading your first book, I was just like,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I can't believe this woman is alive to tell the story.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So I can't imagine the gratitude and like the depth
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: in which you came out of that, you know, with
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the depth that you came out of it with to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: become such a person that has survived.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Something like that.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And also for your parents, I mean watching your parents
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: care for you, watching how much it must have how
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: difficult it must have been for them to watch you,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you know, go through all of that. That really had
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a huge impact to think about, To think about what
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: it must be like to be parents and have your
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: child be in that situation was really heartbreaking.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, you know, there's that old Hemingway
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: saw of the world breaks you and you are stronger
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: in the broken places. Like I don't think that sense
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: of gratitude just naturally happens. I don't believe that people
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: necessarily go through something difficult and emerge better and braver
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: and stronger and wiser for what they've been through. Victor Frankel,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: there's a quote attributed to him that says, there's a
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: space between stimulus and response, and in that space is
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: how you choose to respond, and then that response is
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: your freedom and growth. So lots of people go through
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: almost lots of people go through hard things. It doesn't
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: just automatically turn you into a better person. To as
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: my friend Max said, who is a friend of mine
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: who I met in treatment, was also in treatment. He said,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: you know, just because you have cancer doesn't mean you
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: can't also be an asshole. But I think those moments
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: when you get brought to your knees open up an
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: invitation for reckoning about what is working and what is not,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: and what your priorities are and what it means to
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: actually live a good and meaningful life, because I think
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: for so many of us, you know, we move through
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: time as though time is in it. Especially at twenty two,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: I was like, I have time to figure out who
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: I am, time to figure out what I want to do.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: And I think the biggest shift for me was that
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: relationship to time. We're not here for that long. It
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: goes by like this, And while I may live a
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: little closer to that truth, it's the case for all
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: of us, and you have to ask yourself those questions.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Otherwise it's too easy to be swept up in the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: busyness of life and to kind of tumble into your
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: to dos and into every day head first without actually
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: taking a moment to get still and to ask yourself
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: what it is you really want. I mean, you have
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: this great framing in your memoir, and I think it
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: was a Victor Frankel quote too.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: It's just so funny that you just said that Victor
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Frankel quote, because yesterday I was an interview and somebody
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: read that quote to me no way, and I was
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: being interviewed and they read that exact quote that you
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: just just said, and I was it's like, God, Victor
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Frankel must be in the room with us, and with pleasure,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I invite him to stay.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I need a little bit more Victor Frankel in my life. Really,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: that's a beautiful He has so many beautiful quotes.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: And yes, everything you're saying is so beautiful, and you're
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: so eloquent. Like I just love your voice, Like I
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: just I wish you would just do voiceover for all
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: these books audio books, because I could listen to your
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: voice for a long time.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: You talk in your book, your first book and then
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the Book of Alchemy, and you also have the Alchemy
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Journal that also was released recently. You talk in your
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: book about this time period of time in your life.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: That's when you started to really journal.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: You commit it to saying like I'm going to write
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: no matter how I feel in the hospital every day,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start writing. And that's how you began,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and that's where this book came from. Right between two
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: kingdoms exactly. And so I think when you make a
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: commitment like that. When I started reading your book, I'm like,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: hundred commitment, because the Book of Alchemy is about committing
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: to journaling for one hundred days, and then it's a series.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: You talk a lot about why you know in the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: beginning of the book, about why you started journaling, how
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: you started journaling, what it's given to you, and then
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: you there's lots of prompts from lots of famous authors
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: about why they journal and what their prompts are, which
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: are beautiful because it really gives you an avenue to
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: really pick your own lane and figure out how to
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: give back to yourself in a meaningful way. I think
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: when you talk about something like journaling, and I love
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: what you said, because this has been my never ending question.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Can you write it or do I mean, can you
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: type it into your phone? Or do you have to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: write it? And you talk about how important it is
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: to you personally to write it, to feel the pen
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: in your hand, and to and there's even a suggestion
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: there to write with your non dominant hand, which I
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: thought was like, oh wow, what an interesting way, because
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: then you're.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Really out of your head.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: You know, you're really trying to like write with the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: hand that's non dominant, and like that's an interesting way
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to get out. But you could also paint, you could out.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: There's so many beautiful suggestions in this book. So talk
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: to me a little bit about the impact that you
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: felt from actually, and I know you've taught this in
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: your classes, the impact that you felt personally after completing
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: like one hundred days of doing this.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: So I am someone who is really bad at being consistent.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: I feel like you're different. You're probably someone who wakes
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: up and works out every day. I have never been
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: that person. I am the person who like starts not
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: just strong, but like in an extreme way for about
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: two to three weeks. Then I drop off. Then I
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: never do it again. And that was true of journaling
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: before this period. Like I was the person who would like,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: buy a beautiful journal with the intention of filling it
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: out right in the first couple of pages, stop, then
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: buy a new journal because that journal was ruined and
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: proof of my failure, and start all over again. And
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: so I really liked the one hundred day project, which
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: came at the suggestion of a friend when I was
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: in that first summer of just being in such a
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: low down place, Michael Michael Broot, Yeah, okay, and I
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: liked it. I was hesitant about it because I didn't
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: think I could actually get through the hundred days, and
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: I didn't need further proof of failure. So I knew
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I had to keep the bar really low, and I
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: decided I was going to write every day. But it
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: didn't matter what it was. It could be five pages,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: it could be one word, it could be a doodle,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: it could be a mark in the margins, but that
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I was going to do it every day, and I
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: needed that accountability of doing it with friends and family.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: But what was interesting in the course of doing it
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: every single day was that, of course there were days
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: where I felt like I had nothing to say, but
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: often it was especially on those days where if I
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: pushed through that resistance, I realized it was when I
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: needed it most. And so at the end of that
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: one hundred day project, I had a body of work.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: And it's kind of amazing when you do one tiny
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: thing every day, the way in which it can accrue
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: and not only felt the satisfaction of having completed it.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: But what it showed me was that within these very
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: constrained circumstances that I found myself in, there was actually
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: a lot I could be doing right there from my bed.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I got really inspired by the long lineage of artists
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: and writers and musicians who found themselves bedridden for one
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: reason or another. Free to Callo is a famous one who,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: when she got into an accident and found herself bedridden,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: started painting these self portraits that ended up making her
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: one of the most famous artists of all time. But
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: what it also made me realize was that I had
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: always loved to write. I knew this, I didn't quite
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: know that it could be a career. But I think
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: in that fallow period where I was just doing something
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: for myself for the first time, I was following the
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: thread of my curiosity and my intuition without any expectation
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: of it going somewhere or becoming something, And that ended
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: up leading me to the thing that I not only
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: wanted to do, but could do. And so that the
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: source material of that journal became my first ever writing gig,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: my first time being published, which was this New York
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Times column and video series called Life Interrupted and that's
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: a lesson I've learned again and again as someone who
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: likes to be busy, who likes to constantly fill my
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: days to the brim, that I need to schedule unstructured
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: time to do things for myself just because I'm interested
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: in them, but to do them with consistency, or to
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: do nothing at all, And that often the best ideas
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: happened when you get quiet enough to notice what you're
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: thinking or feeling or what's happening around you.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: And your parents did this with you, My parents did
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: this with me.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: My mom painted a tile every day, she's a visual artist,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: and she assembled it into a shield and hung it
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: above my bed and told me it had protective powers.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And my dad, who grew up in the south of Tunisia,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: who rarely talks about his childhood, decided to write one
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: hundred and one in a nod to one thousand and
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: one Arabian Nights, childhood memories, and he ended up compiling
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: them into a little stapled booklet from my brother and me,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: and so it was like this really beautiful project. And
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I've done many of them since, especially I think in
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: periods where I feel profoundly stuck and my impulse is
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: to just like force myself through it and muscle through.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: What it's taught me is that there's like a lot
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: of interesting stuff to learn in the stuck place, and
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: it's not actually the moment to force yourself forward, but
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: to maybe sit in the uncertainty and to excavate whatever
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: is coming.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Up, Yeah, and to lean into that discomfort in a sense, right,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to lean into the resistance of the moment.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I think we live in a world now where we
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: want instant results from things. Also, so we think, oh,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: we're going to meditate for three days and if it
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't work, it doesn't work, it's over.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, that's not really how it works exactly.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: It's a cumulative effect, and I think what you're talking
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: about it also is accumulative.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think journaling just like anything else. It's like
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: going to the gym. You can't just go five times
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: and reap the rewards. It's a muscle you have to build,
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: and you have to push yourself through the period of resistance,
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: through the period of exhaustion, and then you start to
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: reap its rewards.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: It's so beautiful, it really is. It's so inspiring.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I just want to, Like, I mean, your parents must
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: be so grateful to have this experience with you, you know, Like,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: what a beautiful experience to share with both of your parents,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: What a beautiful project to share.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Even though the circumstances weren't beautiful, It is beautiful.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: You made something that could have been ugly and hard
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: to think about into a beautiful experience.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And I think it's you know, it's why I'm obsessed
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: with alchemy, this idea of transforming something base or worthless
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: like lead, into something precious like gold. And I think,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: especially in a moment of upheaval, there's an invitation to
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: do that. But for us as a family, it was
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: really transformative. I grew up and pull yourself up by
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: the bootstraps, have tough skin household. Both my parents are immigrants.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Your dad's too Nisian, and your mom's Swiss.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: My mom's Swiss, exactly. And when we first went through this,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: you know, the impulse was to be stoic, was to
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: put on a brave face for each other, was to
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: wait until we were alone to cry individually. And I'm
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: no longer a proponent of tough skin. What I realized
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: through that experience not just myself, but as a family,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: was that we wanted to have tender skin. We wanted
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: to feel the things that were happening to us, the heartbreak,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: the joy, the funny moments, because there's a lot of
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: things might sound strange to say that are funny about
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: having cancer that emerge.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I believe that, yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And more than feeling them, we wanted to be
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: able to share them together, to not just put on
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: our brave faces and to privately deal with our fears
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: and our grief, but to talk about it because it's
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: such a missed opportunity, not just for supporting each other,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: but for a depth of intimacy that I think when
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: we're all trying to be tough, when we're all trying
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: to be brave, gets lost.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's fascinating to think of.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: It's almost kind of like, you know, you want all
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: the families that are unable to communicate healthfully, which is
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: basically every family, sure totally whatever our dynamics are, they're off.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: You know, Like if you have a great, fun family,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: that's great, but there's something off. I was thinking about
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: this family that I admire so much, like they have
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: so many siblings and It's just joyful every.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Time you go over there.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: And then I once went on vacation with them and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I realized how fucked up their family was, Like everyone
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: was fighting, it was crazy chaos, and I was like,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: oh god, this is everything you know you always look
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and you're like, but to go through an experience like
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: where someone's you know, life is on the line with
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: as a family, and to actually level up to that
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: experience is what you're describing, and it yields such beauty
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and such a great result. And then to top it off,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I know you you were in a relationship when that happened,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: when you were, you know, very sick, and that went
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: on for like was it four years?
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Four years?
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: And then your relationship ended, and then you met John,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: who you already knew from band camp?
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Is that right when we were teenagers? Yeah?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: And so you guys re how did you guys reconnect? Again?
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: We reconnected not long after I got out of treatment
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: and that big heartbreak and I was in a place
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: and frankly, for as long as I can remember, I
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: always thought to myself, like, I am not someone who's
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: built for long term relationships, and I thought to myself,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: I will either have no husband or I will have
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: ten husbands.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: That's like exactly how I feel.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And so when I met John, I was like, not
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: only is this bad timing, I'm not ready for this.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: I'm still sobbing every single day over this breakup that
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I've gone through. I'm a wreck physically. But I also
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: loved John because he was my friend, someone i'd known
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: for a long time, and I certainly didn't want to
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: put him through my chaos. And then there were other
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: things too. You know, I was infertile, I was going
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: through metopause. How when do you bring that up when
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: you're dating someone new, Like at what point? All of
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: it just sounded like a bad idea to me. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: John is someone who, for as long as I've known him,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: has been unlike anyone. But he was so good about it.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Like he'd come in and into my apartment and I'd
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: be crying over in my ex, and he would say,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: of course you're crying over your ex. Not only were
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: you together for as long as you were, but you
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: lived through something so intense and so hard. It would
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: be weird if you weren't crying for your ex. And
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: it takes a particular kind of man to say that,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: to not feel threatened by it, to give you the
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: space to grieve and to move forward. But even so,
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: you know, we were together ten eleven years before we
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: got married, and I think John and this relationship, this
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: marriage that we now have has surprised me in every way.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you must think of that as alchemy.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: It is alchemy, certainly my own personal alchemy when it
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: comes to my understanding of myself and relationships. But I
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: think any relationship requires acts of alchemy.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and to have I mean, he's such a huge
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: He's got magic all around him. You know, you just
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: see him do his thing on stage or even when
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: he's talking, Like everything he does has just this kind
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: of energy that is very unique. And it's easy to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: see that you know about him, and I can see
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: that about you as well. So for those kind of
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and they're not the same kind of energy. So for
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: those two energies to come together is alchemy. And yes,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: it's true for all couples. But there's a certain magic
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: surrounding you. I mean, I don't want to put that
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: on you, but I think you buzz feel that way too.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: To have met someone like that at the time in
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: your life and to have it be so have someone
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: that is such an understanding person, that is so gracious
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: and is you know, not a lot of people would
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: be understanding of watching another person cry about their relationship
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: that ended when you're entering into a new one.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of people know how to give that
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: space or are secure enough to be able to give
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: that space.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Certainly not a lot of men.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: And I remember, you know, like maybe three weeks into dating,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: I brought up the infertility piece and he said to me,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: there are many ways to make a family. Let me
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: back up and just say, for someone who is terrified
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: of marriage and had very mixed feelings about it, the
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: first week we started dating, he said to me, what
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: are your intentions, because just so you know, I'm not
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: interested in dating unless there's a possibility of it leading
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: to marriage, which was actually so endearing to hear, you know,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: a man in his twenties say, and also a little scary.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: But about two or three weeks in when I brought
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: up the infertility piece, he said to me, there are
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: many ways to have a family, And he said, if
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: we end up together, maybe that'll look like having kids.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Maybe it'll look like fostering or adopting, or maybe it
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: won't and maybe we'll just be like the world's best
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: aunties and uncles or godparents for our friend's kids. So
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: he got it. And that's not to say, you know,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: it was all magic the whole way through. But I
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: think he's someone who puts in the work, who understands
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: that people have their ups and downs, that we evolve
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: and grow, and who is there for every step of
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: it and there to put in the work to make
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: it work.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Why were you so scared of marriage, hm, because your
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: parents seem like they have a strong union.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Like, where does it come from? Do you think?
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Wow? I mean, this is probably a much bigger conversation
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: that can be contained in this time that we're spending together.
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I think, prior to getting sick, was a bit of
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: a health raiser. My dad used to always say, I
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: pity any man who falls in love with Suleika. And
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: I think I just thought I was someone who there
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: were a lot of things I wanted to do. I
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: was someone who went through a lot of phases, and
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: for whatever reason, maybe based on early dating experiences, what
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: I took to be a fact was that the longer
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: you are in a relationship with someone, the harder things get,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: the more distance that grows, the more incompatibilities that reveal themselves.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: And I didn't see myself wanting to or being able
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: to sustain that over the course of an entire life.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I grew up with a mom who was
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: very much a feminist, who never wanted to get married,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: who was very focused on her career, who ended up,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: you know, I was a surprise, and who ended up,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: much to her surprise, loving being a mother. But my
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: whole life would say things to me like, focus on
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: your career. Only have a kid if and when you've
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: established your career and have enough momentum to sustain that,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: be financially independent, never be dependent on a man like
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: I think there were a lot of important things that
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: she was passing on to me, but that for whatever reason,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: especially as someone who had a lot of ambitions and
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of big dreams, felt like the math of
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: it didn't work. How to do that and then also
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: how to be a wife or maybe a mother. I
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: also happened to graduate the year that Anne Marie Slaughter
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: wrote that essay about can Women Have It All? And
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: her conclusion at the end of it was no. You know,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: women of our generation were told you can go to college,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: you can have the big career, and you can have
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: the family, but the question of how to make that
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: all work and the math of it was never clearly
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: explained to most of us.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And I do think it possible, but it's
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: it's like a future idea, you know, when we figure
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: out our roles, our gender roles in a more equal way,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: then that.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Will be possible. But it is. I don't think it's impossible.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I just think it's not as easily attainable as it
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: will be in the future.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Why do you think you thought you were someone who
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: would either have no husbands or ten.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: For similar reasons to what you're describing.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I was a hell raiser and I am kind of
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: still like you seem like that's my next question for you,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and and I want to answer your question, but like, do.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: You still feel like a hell raiser?
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Definitely? Yes, okay, and an intentionally directed way. I'm no
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: longer a chaos hell raiser in every area of my life.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, so I feel that way too, Like there
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: has been an evolution and while I haven't been through
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: anything like what you've been through.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I've had my own kind of growth.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Just you know, things that make you go, oh, like
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I want to take all these great attributes and refine
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: them instead of having them be I don't want to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: be in attack mode. I want to be in you know,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I want to be a strong woman, and I want
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to stand up for things and make sure that people
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: know I'm reliable, dependable, consistent, you know, like those attributes
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: are meaningful to me.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: But with regard to.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: A husband, I just always felt like that was an
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: antiquated idea, maybe like it's too old fashioned, like there's
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: got to be a new iteration of marriage or And
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I also had this fantasy in my life of just
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: having lots of lovers, like I just always and I
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: still do.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: I'm always like I just want lovers, you know.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I just want to be this kind of bond yvon
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: that just goes around the world, you know. And now
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing someone, so I'm in a monogamous relationship as
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: we speak. But I still have these ideas and I
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: still have these kind of and I'm always willing to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: examine them further and actually, Okay, maybe this relationship changes you,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: or maybe this circumstance changes you. I'm not locked and
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: loaded like I thought I was when I was younger,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and I think that's something that you attain as you
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: become older. You start to realize that everything is malleable
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: and nothing is fixed.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: I think that was my big unlock as well. Like
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: much like any creative process, I think a relationship is
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: something you co create. It doesn't have to look like
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: the thing that your parents had or what people tell
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: you a relationship should look like. I'm someone who loves
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: to spend time alone. I love to spend time with
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: my friends, and we've built a kind of life that
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: accommodates that. You know, when John goes on tour, people
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: will often say to me, is that hard for you?
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, no, I love it. I love to
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: miss him, you know. I love when he's home, but
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: I also love having my own time. I get to
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: have my girlfriends come and stay with me for two weeks,
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: which I do. Also when he's there, I get to
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: just be with myself and my dogs and go deep
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: into a project and vice versa. When I'm on the road,
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: he's happy too. And there's something really beautiful about realizing
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: you get to be the architect of your relationship, even
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: if it looks like nothing like anyone else's relationship, and
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: you figure out the thing that works for you.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: And congratulations on your new chihuahuas. Oh my god, I
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: saw yesterday that you posted on Instagram. How many chihuahuas
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: did you end up getting too, or Chelsea? It looked
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: like there were about eight chihuahuas in that picture, okay pictures,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I hope they didn't get all
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: those dogs.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: So the love of my life was a little terrier
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: rescue I got at twenty two, who died four years ago.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: And after that I was like, I can't go through
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: this again. I don't think I can ever have a
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: dog again. Fast forward, we've gotten one dog every single
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: year since when you go to La Well, the first
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: two were not in La. So two years ago we
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: went to the Oscars. Our documentary American Symphony was nominated,
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: and normal.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: People want a grammyfore that also we did.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Normal people when they're traveling somewhere look up like cool
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: bars to go to great restaurants. I always go on
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: pet Finder on the flight over. I see this senior toothless,
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: hairless dog that's seven pounds named Lentil, and without consulting John,
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: without consulting anyone, I filled out the application on a
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: whim and when I landed the application had been accepted,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: and I was too scared to tell John what I'd done.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: So I woke up the next morning ubered to go
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: pick up this dog, brought it back to the hotel
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: and John woke up and he was like what. First
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: of all, what is this? Is this a dog? Which
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: is it a bat?
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: Like?
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Is it a mirracat? And also why are it here?
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: And I was like, it's fine, We're just fostering. And
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: he was like during Oscars weekend when we have so
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: much to do, and I was like, yes, it's all,
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: It's all good. And a few hours later, a TSA
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: approved dog carrier arrived at our door and he was like,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: and what is this? And I was like, just in
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: case anyway, I've decided this is my tradition and that
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: it's happened once. And so when we were back and
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: the Oscars. At the Oscars, I was joking about how
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: maybe I should get, you know, another dog, and the
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: joke was on me because we ended up coming home
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: to Senior toothless Chuabas. So we currently have five dogs
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: in our house.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Where did the other two come from? Oh?
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: This has happened every year. Yeah, oh so five? Okay,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: so you have okay.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the math is getting complicated.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, here's a question.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: When you're going to all these events, are you bringing
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the chihuahu with you the rescue or the fall as
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: a foster when you're fostering, or you leave it in
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the hotel room.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: I leave it in the hotel room. Might get a
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: dog sitter, Oh you do. I briefly considered skipping all
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: of the Oscar events because the dogs were arriving that
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: day and I was very excited to meet them. I
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: think I'm veering dangerously close to crazy dog lady territory.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: But to me, like I don't.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Know, there's a lot of joy coming home to a
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: group of dogs. Really, I have fantasized about this. I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: have fantasies of my own about this, which my type
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: as a chow chow.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Your type is a chiuoha.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I want to have five chow chows coming at me
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: when I come home. But it's really I'm just never home,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: so that would just it's not ideal. But I'm going
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: to make that happen at some point in my life.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: I want a farm, you know what. I just want
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: them all playing with each other all day, being friends,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: hanging out, you know, a big backyard, which I have. So,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I could do it, but I
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: mean it is I love. I like that kind of
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: lack of control.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: And I'm gonna say on the record, my type is
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: not a Chihuahua. If it's never a small dog person, Oh,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: I thought we have a lab. We have a medium
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: sized dog. And then what I will say, my most
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: recent type is is a baby grandma.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: I thought you, guys, I thought the chihua was your
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: rest today? Am I miss speaking?
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: No? The most recent or to chuah?
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Out of five two fifths?
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, okay.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, so you do have a lab?
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: We have?
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: And what are the other two?
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: The other one's a medium sized mut The third is
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: a hairless Mexican dog.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: The first one the og.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: The yeah, the og oscar rescue.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: So who walks all these dogs? Do you walk all
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: the dogs?
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: I walk the dogs. But I also feel like we're
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: nearing a point where we may need to hire a
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: dog nanny.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: A third party right, Yeah, that's inspiring.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I like that. I like that. That's how you spend
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: your oscar weekend.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: I do. It's like, you know, those weekends from your
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: are kind of stressful. I'm like an introverted extrovert. I
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: like a small group hang but after a couple of
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: hours of small talk, I start to go blink behind
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: the eyes. I get anxious. And those things are anxiety inducing,
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: but they're also not. It's like it feels high stakes,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: but it's not like we're doing, you know, pediatric brain surgery.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: No one's life is on the line. It's like your
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: shoes don't fit or whatever. Right, and so I like
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: when my brain is hijacked by something other than that,
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: preferably yeah, a senior dog who needs some.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Senior dog rescue.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, on that note, we're going to be right back
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: with Seleka Jawad.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: There we go, fanatically got it?
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, great? Did I get it?
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: You got it?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Okay? Great?
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I were back with Seleka Jawad Jawad. Tell me we
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: had to say.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Jawad like a thought, but not really Sleaka Jawad Jawad.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I have problems with fanatics and names.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: That's Okay, I have four vowels in my life.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it is a beautiful name if
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: you get it right.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Sean calls it a vowel salad. Okay, we have callers
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: calling in for advice. Ready for this, Jo Catherine, What
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: do we have in store for Seleka today?
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Well, let's start with our caller today.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: This is Tara, she says.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Dear Chelsea, my husband and I have been together for
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: five years and married for one. This past year has
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: been incredibly difficult. He underwent several surgeries, numerous medical appointments,
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: and er visits. We also had to move in the
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: middle of it all, I handled everything, planning the move, packing,
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: coordinating movers, while also managing his medical care. As a
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: medical social worker. I was the one scheduling appointments, contacting
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: insurance companies, and making sure his care stayed on track.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: All of this while working full time, maintaining the household,
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: caring for our two dogs, and managing the financial responsibilities.
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: This year took a significant toll on me mentally and physically.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: It felt like I was in constant survival mode. His
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: last surgery was in October of last year, and he
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: returned to work in January. Now that life has returned
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: to some sense of normalcy, a new challenge has surfaced
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: in our relationship, our intimacy. While he was sick, our
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: sex life was understandably limited. Now that he's feeling better,
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of pressure from him to have sex frequently.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: He expresses that sex is more than physical for him.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: It's how he connects and feels valued, and I understand
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: that perspective. However, at forty five, my sex drive is
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: not the same. We're currently intimate two to three times
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: a week, but this isn't enough for him. He also
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: wants more variety, more experimentation, lingerie, use of toys. It
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: feels like the expectations keep increasing and I struggle to
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: keep up. At the same time, I feel overwhelmed. At home,
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: I handle the majority of the household responsibilities, cleaning, laundry,
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: caring for the dogs, managing daily tasks. He does cook,
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: which I appreciate, but beyond that, I carry most of
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: the load. It's difficult to feel emotionally or physically open
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: when I feel exhausted and unsupported. I am trying. I've
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: made efforts to initiate more intimacy and to wear things
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: that make him feel desired, even when I don't particularly
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: enjoy them. I really value your guidance on how we
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: can approach this in a healthier way.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: Tara O, Hi, Tara Hell.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: We have a special guest today, Seleka Juwad, who actually
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: has been through many similar things that you've mentioned.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: First of all, thank you for calling in.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And Wow, you've really been through a lot and you've
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: held it together and I can totally understand why you
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: feel you're in a state of overwhelm.
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: Definitely, Yes, it's been really hard.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you have someone that you're talking to? Do
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: you have a therapist?
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: I talked to my therapists every two weeks and have
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: a great support of friends and the spiritual practice.
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: Good.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Great, So you're already firing on a lot of cylinders,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: so that's important. I'm going to say a couple things,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: and then obviously I want you to jump into with
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: any feedback you think might be helpful. I think you
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: know this is a really difficult situation and not something
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: that so many people can relate to. Not everybody experiences
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: these things, but you know, you're like you're a rock
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: star for being able to support him in this way
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: during this time, so you know, make sure you're telling
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: yourself that every day. And while that doesn't give you
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: permission to like control the dynamic of the relationship, it
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: does give you a sense of value and purpose independent
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: from everything else in your life. So just like kudos
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: to you for like staying the course and being like
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: a rock for somebody, because that's really important, and everyone
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: in his situation are going through something similar needs that
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: with regard like to sex and stuff. And I mean,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: it does sound like you guys have to have a
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: conversation with a third party to kind of, you know,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: balance everything out.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: It seems a little bit demanding from your ass from
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: your side of things, a little demanding and a little
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: bit you're not required to deliver on all of those
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: fronts at all the times. You know, you have a
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: lot on your shoulders, and so I feel like there
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: is an avenue for him to gain a better understanding
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: of everything that this has had on you. Like this
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: kind of not I don't want to say onus because
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: it has a negative connotation, but all of these responsibilities
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: have taken a toll on you in a way that
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: he needs to have probably a little bit at a
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: better understanding of So I guess my next question is,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: do you guys have a part of a therapist that
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you speak to or does he have one that you
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: speak to together or does he have one?
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: No, he doesn't have one. And I've been looking into
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: trying to find a male therapist for us as a couple,
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: because I feel like a lot of times if a
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: male tells him like, your expectations are way too high,
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: he might be able to be more open to it.
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: If it's another female therapist saying you're asking for too much,
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: so that would be our next step.
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: But it's been hard, Like I feel the barkeets I'm
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: getting up. It's not only we don't have and now
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: so now we have enough time, but then he's the
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: same positions or can we get a toy or can
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: we do something else? And so I feel like I'm
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: constantly trying to keep up with what's next in order
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: for him to be one hundred percent happy with our
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: sex lie right.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: And I also think that like he's probably feeling great
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: for the first time in a long time, and really
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: like this is a way of expression and a way
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: to make him feel better, and so that's totally understandable
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: as well. But I think a good therapist will be
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: able to end You're right to get a male therapist,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: I think because there's there's so many emotional things that
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: go along with this lake and not just the sexual component, right, Like,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: he has to have an understanding of everything you've been through.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: I just want to first acknowledge how much you've been carrying.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Caregiver burnout is very real and the someone who is
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: in the patient's chair, so much of the focus often
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: is on the patient, but you're living alongside it too,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: And I know, both for me but also for my
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: caregivers in a way, it was only once the crisis
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: was past us that they were actually able to take
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: inventory of what had happened, of the exhaustion of the
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: cumulative traumas, And so I couldn't agree more with Chelsea.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: I love couple therapy. We think of it as car
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: maintenance in my marriage, and I think often it's sometimes
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: people think, oh, couple therapy is something you do when
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: you're on the verge of breaking up, But it's something
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: I think that's good to start before its things reach
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: an inflection point. The other thing I'll say is sometimes
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: having these conversations as hard, and right now you're doing
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: not just a lot of labor, but also a lot
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: of invisible emtional labor, and it can be hard to
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: talk about that in a way where it doesn't feel
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: like you're saying, look at all the things that I
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: do for you, and someone responds with, but look at
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: all the things that I do for you. And so
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: my husband John, you know, years ago, in the early
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: years of our relationship, when we were navigating, you know,
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: feeling like we were both overwhelmed, had this idea that
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: instead of writing in a journal individually, which we both do,
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: we would start writing each other letters, because sometimes the
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: thing you say in conversation makes it difficult to actually
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: get to the there there you end up in a
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: back and forth and everyone's interrupting each other or queuing
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: up their next thought. And to my surprise, like I
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: would write this letter to John or do it in
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: a voice note, and I didn't even really know what
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: I was feeling until I had quiet to actually say
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: it myself, and then we'd take a photo, I text
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: the letter to him and he would write one back.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: But I think the communication piece here is so important
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: and I'm curious if he has a sense of how
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: much you're carrying and how much of that you share
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: with him.
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: I think he did have a sense because he was
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: encouraged me to tun time off, and I took time off.
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: Finally I went away for a whole week and he
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: was great. So he did have a sense. But then
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: when it comes to sex, I think that he gets blinded.
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I do want to also point out that, like
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: three times a week is above average for a.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Couple that's been I love getting a.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: Man involved to be like that's that's a lot, Like
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: that's doing great, and like yes, but you know, you
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: might also engage him in like one of the sexiest
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: things that you could do for me is to help
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: take some of this off of my plate so I
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: have the energy to feel sexy later in the day.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: You know, if you take the dogs for a walk
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: and give them their dinners or whatever, you know, whatever
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: the daily tasks are, Like, relate those two things together
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: in a really concrete way for him, so you can
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: be like, if you are able to take these things
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: off my plate, there's a better chance that I will
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: feel sexy later or like have the space in my
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: mind body and brain for that great, But I also
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: think it's important for men to understand that women we like,
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: we don't always love to be pursued.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we want to come to you and you know,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: like that's something that you can say in a very gentle,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: loving way, like it it's not so sexy all the
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: time when I feel pursued all the time by you sexually,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Like I want an opportunity to come to you and say, okay,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: you know I'm in the mood or initiate sex. Like
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: those are different ways of communicating things so that he
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: because I have a feeling, he feels like this is
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: his like he's feeling healthy and strong again and wants
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: to like kind of show his manhood off. You know,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: there could be an element of that, which is why
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: if male therapists will be great to deal with that.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: But there's also gentle ways that you can communicate that
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: and how you're feeling because you know, as Luka said,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: like you are in triage during this time and you're
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: just coming out of it. I mean, you're out of it,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: but like your body and your brain aren't always in
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: the same moment together, so like there is trauma involved,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Like you're you were in survival mode for a long
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: time and now you're just kind of like coming down.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot to deal with there.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: And so I'm so glad you're seeing a therapist and
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: talking to someone about it, because that stuff and getting
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: yourself recalibrated to these new or healthier circumstances is also
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: an adjustment.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: And if he's really into this, like exploring some kink stuff,
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: maybe you need to do like a dom sub thing
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: where like you're making him Catherine.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Loves the shit, she loves it. I love it.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: Put on some high heel, yeah, boss him around, make
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: him do.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: The house work, be very hot for sex. Yeah, two
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: birds with one stone, more healths on the domestic front
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: while playing into the kink exactly exactly.
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: I like that idea.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: All right, Tara, will you follow up with us after
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: you guys see a therapist together.
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: Yes, we'll do.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: Tara, you're amazing. You're amazing.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: Everything you've done rock solid. This, You're a rock solid woman.
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much. Bye bye.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: All right, Well we'll wrap up with a little quickie.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's close out with a little quickie.
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: So our wondering question today is Dear Chelsea. I'm thirty five,
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: and lately I've been trying to get back into journaling.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: But I'm having trouble writing without thinking. I have to
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: write as if someone is reading it. I sit down
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: to spill my heart onto the page, and it said,
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: it comes out censored and dry, just a list of
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: what happened that day, without any color. How do I
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: get past that?
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Brittany, Oh, yeah, you talked about this in the book.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's one of the biggest reasons people
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: don't journal. This is what lock boxes are for. And
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: you know, I had this semi traumatic experience in the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: eighth grade of leaving my journal in my bag in
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: a gym locker room and a girl at my school
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: finding my journal and reading it. Oh. Now, I've always
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: been a very adventurous journaler, which is that I don't
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: think of the journal as a space where you have
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: to necessarily write in the first person about things that
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: are happening. My journals were like full of fantastical stories
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: with aspirational, you know, female protagonists, and so in my journal, I,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: you know, had written essentially a bunch of lies about boys.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: I said, I kissed that. I certainly hadn't, and it
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: was like in that blurred line between nonfiction and fantasy.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: And so she went around and told everyone that I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: had written these things, that I was a liar, et cetera,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: et cetera. I now look back at that moment and
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: I wish I had just owned it and said, yeah,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: it's not lying. It's a journal. It's private. I get
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: to write whatever I want in there. I get to play,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: make believe, I get to whatever. But I think it's
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: really scary to show up as your most unedited, vulnerable
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: self in any space, let alone and a physical object
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: that might fall in the wrong hands. And so my
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: advice to you, get a little carry on suitcase with
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: a lock get a lock box, do whatever it is
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: that you need to do to feel like you can
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: say whatever it is you need to say, write your
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: journal entry, and then paint over it. How do you
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: feel about that?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: I totally relate to what she's saying.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: And when I read it in your book, in the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Book of Alchemy, like when you talked about people's reluctance
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: to journal, the same thing, It's like I always kind
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: of even when I'm alone, like even when I get
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: on my knees and pray. I feel like I'm being
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: watched and I'm like, hopefully the person who's watching me
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: can help me. But I've always have this idea that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: someone will see it or watch it, so I can
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: totally relate to that. But in a more practical sense,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: there are ways to keep privacy, you know, there are
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: ways to remain private. There are you know, you can
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: do all of these things. And I liked what you
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: said in the book or about you know, the idea
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: of tearing it up once you write it, you know,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: to kind of start with that idea to because now
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: I have a gratitude journal that I write in every
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: morning just to write, and sometimes I think, oh, this
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: sounds so and I was like, it doesn't matter.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Stop that, you know, stop thinking someone's going to read this.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: And just also I kind of think about it in
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: a way, so what if everybody does also?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Who cares? But that doesn't really help this person.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: But that's when you're asking me how I feel about that,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: I kind of think like, it doesn't matter what anyone
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: sees that I write to myself. It doesn't it doesn't
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: change how I feel. It doesn't change how I am
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: in this world. If anything, it's more liberating to know that,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: like I stand by everything I say, you.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Know totally and that we all have the same insecurities
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: and fears and anks. But I think what you said
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: is so as to and so interesting, which is sometimes
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: the deeper fear isn't that someone will read it. It's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: actually writing and reading what it is youth for yourself
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: that you want to say. It's so vulnerable to articulate
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: what it is that you're the truth of what you're feeling.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: I'm reminded of during my first book, I had this
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: post it note above my desk that said, if you
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: want to write a good book, write what you don't
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: want others to know about you. If you want to
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: write a great book, right what you don't want to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: know about yourself. And I think journaling, when you're doing
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: it deeply requires you sometimes to write things you don't
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: want to know about yourself, and that feeling of being
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: exposed may actually not be so much about other people
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: at reading X or lots as you put it, practical
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: ways to make sure that that doesn't happen.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really beautiful. I think it's also
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: so important to own for women, especially to own your thoughts,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Like I have a feeling that there's a big differentiation
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: between as a whole men thinking about you know, what
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: people know about them versus women, Like we also have
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: to be a little bit more. We have to embrace
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: ourselves a little bit more than we do. You know.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit too critical, a little bit too judgmental.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: And this has been going on for the last ten
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: thousand years, you know, since we turned into a patriarchy
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: that are so we're scared, you know, and that's how
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: we shrink. And so I think that really embracing that
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: idea and really writing down the things that you're icked
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: out about, you know, for lack of a better term,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: in this moment about yourself is like a great liberation.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Like it's really great to write down all of the
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: things and read them and be like, this is who
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: I am, and it's beautiful totally.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: The poet Muriel Rikaiser has this great line she said,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: what would happen if one woman told the truth about
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: her life? The world would break open. I think it's
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: scary to tell the truth about your life, about what
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: you're feeling, about what you want, especially when you're not
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: doing it with an audience.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exact.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: Then you actually have to tell the truth.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, right, and you have to look at it.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: And then inevitably you have to do something about it.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: And so I guess, to me, what's on the other
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: side of that fear maybe the thing that is needed most.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Well, beautifully said, you're a beautiful person. I'm just blown
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: away by person.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I just really, I'm so moved by
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: your story. I'm so moved by your life. I'm so
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: happy that you're Are you healthy.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: Now, I'm not.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: You're not.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: I'm not. I had a recurrence three years ago and
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: then again two years ago. But the weird thing is,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: even though my prognosis may be worse than it's ever been,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: I think, in a weird way, my relationship to my illness,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: but also my life in general, is healthier than it's
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: ever been.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: I believe that.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: I believe that.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: And you said something I don't know if you said
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: it or John said it about the attention that you
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: give to your illness that doesn't overpower your existence, that
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: you give it the amount of attention it deserves.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: And not one ounts more, right, And so what does
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: that mean for you. So when I learned two years
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: ago that leukemia was back a third time, I was
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: like just undone. I spent a month in bed, and
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: I just didn't know how to deal with that level
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: of uncertainty, how to move forward with it. And I
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: kept saying to my doctor, like, how do I live?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: Like what do I do with this? What do you
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: do when you have no idea what's going to happen
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: in three months or six months? How do I make plans?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: How do I go on trips? How do I make
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: commit to work projects that might take several years to
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: see through? And the thing he said to me is
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: the thing people often say, which is you have to
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: live every day as if it's your last. And I've
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: come to believe that that is the worst advice. It's
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: a lot of pressure to make every family dinner meaningful,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: to make every day as great as it can be,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: and it's just exhausting. So I'm done doing that. I've
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: come to believe it's bad advice generally, because if we
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: were all doing that, we'd be declaring bankruptcy and the
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: world would devolve into chaos. And so the way that
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: I do that, in terms of right sizing my fear
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: and going about living my life. Is that I've had
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: to shift to a gentler mindset of living every day
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: as if it's my first, which is to say, waking
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: up with a sense of curiosity and wonder and playfulness
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: that little kids do so easily. And when I do that,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: it's not about like the big bucket list things. It's
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: about finding small joys. It's about lowering the pressure and
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: the barrier to entry and just moving towards what feels nourishing,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: what feels fun, what feels interesting, and the.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: Things that make you smile, you know, sharing smiles with strangers,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: like those innocent acts or like, you know, little acts.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: I guess those things.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, when you find yourself smiling alone
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: at your house, you know, like looking out the window
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: and looking at the tree and smiling.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: You're like, that's actually quite.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Beautiful to have moments like that, and we all get
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: swept up in the sea of craziness.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: So it's a great reminder.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: Or adopting five dogs, not because it makes sense, it
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: certainly does not, but because it makes you happy.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so Leca, thank Youllouska Jawad, Is that right?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: Perfect.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: I got it, I knew, I got I get it
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: now all the.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: Time I fucked up.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: The book is called the Book of Alchemy, and there's
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: also the Alchemy Journal. Both are out now, and her
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: p book Between Two Kingdoms you can also purchase. And
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: her column that you mentioned New York Times is called
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Life Interrupted, and also American Symphony if you haven't seen
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: American Symphony on Netflix.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: It was produced by the Obamas, wasn't it Yeah? Yeah?
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: That was an Oscar nominated film, a Grammy Award winning film,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: and it was a beautiful illustration of your lives together
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: and just everything.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much for your time today.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Chelsea.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: If you want advice from Chelsea, write into Dear Chelsea
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: podcast at gmail dot com. Dear Chelsea is a production
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: of iHeartMedia. Follow Chelsea on all socials at Chelsea Handler,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: and find Katherine on TikTok at flash Cadabra. Dear Chelsea
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert executive producer Katherine Law.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: Find full video episodes and minisodes now on Netflix, and
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: get tickets to see Chelsea live at Chelseahandler dot com.