Latest / Dear Chelsea / A Therapy Session with Dr. Dan Siegel

Transcript

A Therapy Session with Dr. Dan Siegel · Dear Chelsea

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