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Shadow Work, Part 2: Why Play Matters · No Mess, No Magic

• Monica Hay: Hello and welcome to the No Mass No Magic Podcast with Monica Hay, Podcaster Writers. This is part two of our episode with Chelsea Pippin Measy. Chelsey: You would want to. Monica Hay: We want to. ⁓ this is actually my first time having a part two on the podcast actually. Cause usually I don't know. I feel like because we know each other, we just like you know what I mean? We have fun. Chelsey: And also like shadow work is a big slippery topic. And so there's lots to talk about and many directions to go. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. And we also bonded over the fact that we have the same water bottle. If you're ⁓ watching on YouTube you can see this. Same exact color and everything. I I only I got this because it was less heavy than my other water bottle. Chelsey: Cheers. I got it because it fits in my purse and I can zip over it. so look, they they made a convenient thing and we bought it. Monica Hay: Yes. Yes. Yes. And we bought it, yes. I it's funny, this is like such a tangent. I'm sorry, people listening. Because I walk everywhere now and like get on buses in public transit. I'm like, I don't wanna be carrying fucking heavy th heavy things. Like, no. I'm not gonna carry a heavy ass water ball anymore. I want something light. Okay. I've said my piece. Agreed. Okay, so we were talking a lot about Chelsey: Agreed. Monica Hay: I would say some of the like the theory around shadow work last time. And this time I'm gonna ask you for some practical tips. Plus other things. So my first question is what are common fears that come up when people learn about shadow work and are afraid to try shadow work? What kind of comes up for people? Chelsey: Yeah, I think people are really afraid that they're gonna have to confront trauma. I think they're really afraid and I it makes it makes sense, right? Because there there is there is when we're talking about things that we've buried, there is that sense of like, well, I buried it for a reason. I don't wanna touch that necessarily or I things are fine here on the surface, so why would I dredge something up that's gonna disrupt my life? And shadow work can be disruptive because what we're doing is Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: Breaking open our surface so that we can draw a lot more authenticity from ourselves, a lot more, I think, creative honesty. And that's a really beautiful thing, but it can disrupt our lives a little bit because we're trying new things, and it can disrupt other people because they're seeing a different side of us. It can rock the boat. And I think rightfully people are like, ⁓ do I want to do that? But for writers, Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: Yes, of course you do. For creatives and artists, that's the way that we show up to our work is by doing something new, by stepping into that unknown, by saying something in a way that's never been said before, or sharing something that feels really true and authentic. And so I think it's this two-sided coin in the same way that I was talking about in in our first chat about sometimes we need shadow because we're in the sun and it's hot. And sometimes it's not helpful because it's already dark and cold. And if we step into the shadow, we're even gonna get more dark and cold. Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: what we what we get to do when we do that work is positively disrupt the status quo of our lives and we tend to when we're first hearing ⁓ there's this you know process and approach of looking Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: At parts of yourself that feel unknown or that feel buried. There's the fear of like, ⁓ well, what if bad things come up? But what if good things do? And they do. If that's not a what if. In fact, you're much more likely to find good things down there than you are to find bad. It doesn't mean there's not bad down there. I'm not toxic positivity and gaslighting you all to bits that there's nothing bad down there. But Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Chelsey: the guarantee is that you're gonna find something really cool about yourself, about the way that you wanna work, about the things that you wanna say. That's inarguable. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: where you may find things that are difficult, you're also gonna be able to rely on those hidden strengths to carry you through those things and you're gonna find a lot of resilience within you. You're gonna find a lot of compassion for those things within you. So we've got to break through that initial, I don't want to touch that because it's scary. Because the truth is to come back to the hero's journey again, like you're not gonna Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Chelsey: Go on an adventure until you touch the thing that's scary and in fact you're gonna find it's probably pretty fascinating. Monica Hay: Mm. Can I ask a personal question? If you're okay. I'm curious, was there what was something that you discovered when you did some shadow work that you were d maybe delighted by or that something that brought up some really cool stuff for you? Chelsey: Yeah. Yeah. I think, and this is like a really interesting journey I'm still on, but a lot of shadow work and shadow discovery for me has been about not feeling so attached to my public creative persona and getting to know much more my private personal creative persona because for me I Writing contest when I was 10 and was had my first paid gig as a writer at age 10. Alright, so I've been carrying the thing that I buried was that creativity was just for fun at age 10. I started thinking that same year I decided I wanted to work in the theater professionally. And so my creative pursuits from 10 Monica Hay: Mm. Mm-hmm. Chelsey: were professionally minded. And I was thinking about getting better. I was thinking about what I was gonna do when I grew up. I was thinking about how Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: This was gonna work for my life. And whilst I had a, you know, a wonderful, beautiful artistic upbringing in that sense, I lost really early just the pure delight of discovery because I was thinking about how is this productive? How do I make this work? How do I make a living doing this thing that I've decided that I love? That in many ways I kind of forgot to just spend time loving it. I was reading the books I needed to read to progress. I was going to the college I needed to go to. Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chelsey: Getting the degree I needed to go to to do the next thing. I was thinking about, well, how does a person get a book published, etc., etc.? And ⁓ certainly throughout my life, kind of like subconsciously cycled back and found myself my quote-unquote procrastination hobbies often tended to be my creative fun. But it wasn't really until I started doing my own shadow work that I was like. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: It's not a negative thing that I procrastinate by having creative fun. That's actually kind of the point. And when I started thinking about like my bad art, my doodling, my wandering, my meandering, my the fiction that I'm never gonna share with anybody and have no intention of sharing with anybody as the point instead of the detour, I don't know, it got better. Like I'm I and I think like I'm Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: All of that for me has been kind of cycling and spiral around to growing up. I really wanted to be a published novelist. I really wanted to write a novel. And ⁓ because I I liked writing fiction. And in my mind, the only way to justify the fact that I liked writing fiction was to be a published novelist. Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: And in the past couple of years, since becoming a published author in a kind of non-fiction space, publishing the three books that I've had, I've had this experience where I'm like, actually, the fact that I like writing fiction doesn't need to be validated and justified by a publication. There may be a book I want to publish one day, but I don't have to write to publish. I don't have to write to share. That gets to be just this cool thing that's mine that like I can write a fun, and you and I, Monica, are gonna talk about that a little bit in an episode. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: Of my podcast, The Shuffle, so stick around for ceremonial part three, friends. But I have had so much fun writing in my attic notebook and going, I don't even, I can't even read my handwriting. So it's not like I'm gonna come back and edit this later, but I'm just for the first time in a long time going, all right, imagination, go for it. And that's something that for me, it took a lot of unpacking. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: the scary thing of like, well, what if I'm never good enough to get published? And reframing the b to get published as a fiction writer and reframing the belief that Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: I don't have to be in order to enjoy that part of myself and in order to give it time and space and now I'm not writing going this isn't good enough or nobody nobody's gonna like this or this won't get a deal or whatever. I'm writing going, hi, I wonder what would happen if I just kept going here and and Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: I'm not saying that that makes the work better, because some of it's still unpublishable, right? But I don't care anymore. And that's that and like so I get to have fun with my creativity and and my relationship both with with Shadow Work and the Tarot have been critical to just reintroducing that personal relationship to creativity that I really just think. Monica Hay: You don't care anymore. Yeah. Chelsey: Artists should get paid for the work that they put out in the world. And also, art is one of those things that, like, you can't really only make it to make money. You have to have a personal creative practice for yourself that isn't about making money in order to sustain the money-making side of doing creative work. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. And this brings me to another a question I have you, another ask. So many times, so many times when I've talked with clients or students about play, a lot of them are they want to play, they want to learn how to do it, but there's a little part of them that says this isn't going to be productive or it's not going to create a life, a writing life in which I can publish and actually be a professional. Like a lot of them a lot of the the resistance I hear from it is that people want to make sure that they have what you eventually had, which was a success as a writer. But you're saying that that actually has mattered a lot more to you is like your actual play with writing. Yeah. Chelsey: Yeah. ⁓ 'cause otherwise it's just a j it's just another job that you do. and it you don't feel connected to that part of you that really wanted to make something in the first place. If you if you fall out of love with making because making becomes just the the job that has to get done. I find this. I mean like I have a like demand avoidance Aud profile. So like I'm speaking directly from my experience of for me, if I don't have the play, then I hate everything about the thing. If I don't have the kind of autonomy of like, well I can Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: fuck around here. and I and I took that from myself for a long time and it it affected my relationship with with the work. ⁓ if I don't have that then then I I I burn out. I Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: I I really lose the creative steam to make things that I am excited about sharing with other people if I don't have that kind of not secret practice but personal practice where I'm allowed to do anything and be anybody on the page and have no expectations and just be like everything is allowed here. I write that in my journal, like every time I'm in my journal, I'm like, everything's allowed. It's fine. I will first write like I feel like the most boring person in the world, and I'm like, that's allowed here, it's fine. Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: And that's kind of its own shadow work of me going, here's the complaint I'm making about myself. And also, like, that's fine. I have a container where I'm allowed to feel that way. And I don't have to attach then a negative self-judgment to myself about it. but I think like when it comes to restoring play for many. Monica Hay: Yes. Yeah. Chelsey: For me, the question that I'm always asking is like, what is the best part about engaging with a piece of art for you? It's that you get to escape, it's that you get to be somebody else, it's that you get to imagine, you're you're playing when you're reading most of the time. You're playing when you're going to the like you're giving, you seek out art because your brain is hungry for that. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Mm. Chelsey: playful experience, even even if you're watching and reading really intense stuff, you're doing make-believe. So if you're not engaging in make-believe and play as a creator, how are you gonna facilitate that for anybody else? And to me it's like it's bigger than filling your own cup before you fill somebody else's. It's like actually like, you know, how's a chef gonna cook for you if they don't eat? Monica Hay: Yep. Right. Yeah, yeah. Totally. I think Chelsey: If they've never tasted the food, then if they don't if they don't go out and and try stuff and remember what it's like to enjoy eating, what's gonna what's gonna be the culinary experience? Yeah. Monica Hay: Right. Yep. I love that you're calling it make believe. I love that so much because I'm realizing that's what I was doing as a kid. Chelsey: All of us. Monica Hay: I was like, I'm gonna make believe. Right? You have like your little stories in your head, and you're like, I'm gonna write them down and I'm gonna do whatever I want. Chelsey: Yeah, and somewhere along the way we learn it has to be worthy of being written down first. When actually we write it down and then we make it worthy. If we then we decide whether or not we want to make it worthy. Like it has to the the the ugliest thing has to be on the page before we can go, okay, and now how do I want to polish this and and adjust it and turn it into something that's gonna give a gift to other people? But like you can't do that if you're not looking at what you've got and where the kind of brain is going and that has to come from from play. Yeah. Monica Hay: Yeah, from play and from make believe. I love that. I love that. I'm curious and this is slightly for anybody who is like, Can I get rid of parts of myself that I don't like? A lot of writers have parts they don't like about themselves, right? Like most people I think do. And so people will say, like, how how can I get rid of this? Why is shadow work so important for accepting our parts instead of trying to Remove them. Chelsey: Yeah, so the goal of shadow work and play, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring back my phrase of shadow play, because that feels very on theme with with the conversation we just had. But the goal of shadow work is not to remove anything. You like if something lives in your psyche, it lives in your psyche. It's to integrate and it's to see yourself as this whole Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: person where where many parts of you exist. So we're coming back to the kind of parts work conversation again. And and think much more of everything that's going on for you, good, bad or in between, as something to draw on. something to work with and we kind of neutralize our relationship with those negative things. And so I think the fur and we're we're talking to writers here. So this is what I love about something like shadow work or or any kind of like therapeutic exercise. We're gonna change the language around the thing. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Mm. Chelsey: And that's if that's gonna almost for many of us be enough. So if we're saying, okay, I'm no longer trying to get rid of, I'm just trying to neutralize this thing, then it then there's suddenly there's room for it to exist is just not king anymore. ⁓ and what shadow work does is in in many therapeutic practices is just go, hey, this is there. Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Chelsey: Can we live with this being there? And if we can't live with that being there the way things are, what accommodations can we make for ourselves so that thing being there feels less bad? And I think that's on a collective level, that attitude is really helpful for all of us in general. ⁓ many artists in the room like have collective shadow work to do around existing in capitalism. We really wish that wasn't there. We would love to get rid of it. But how do we make art Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. I know. Don't even ⁓ Chelsey: while it's there. And like that's a kind of shadow work to go, I'm looking into the face of this thing that I don't like. And yet if I let this thing become king of my creative environment instead of going, okay, you're there, but I have other stuff to be getting on with. I have stuff to make, ⁓ regardless of what's going on here. That's different than ignoring it. And in fact it's really freeing to go, yes. Monica Hay: Yeah. Right. Chelsey: This thing that I don't like is here. And also all of these beautiful things that I do like and have access to are also here. And I can I can make art while this big shitty thing is also here. And that's internal work and external work. And like we would never live if we were stuck all the time trying to get rid of the bad thing. We've got like we've got a leak in our house that won't go away. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: and like that's really unpleasant. Like we've had the plumber here like nine times try over the past six months trying to get rid of it and it it won't go away. But like wouldn't it be crazy if I was like, I'm not gonna sleep in my bed because there's a leak in the floor. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: ⁓ I don't know if that metaphor makes any sense, but I'm just thinking like I'm thinking like our home is our home, our psyche, our shadow is much bigger than the negative things that are in there. My house is much bigger and more comfortable than the very annoying leak that I keep like stepping in a puddle every other day and going and like not ideal. Would love somebody to fix and get rid of that, but right now I'm living with it. And in fact, I'm living fine. I'm here talking to you. There's some beautiful art on my walls behind me. If you're watching YouTube, like it we Monica Hay: I think it does. Mm Yeah. Chelsey: We find a lot of beauty when we stop fixating on the negative thing, and the negative thing just becomes something that we're tending to like. I'm not saying don't call the plumber. I'm not saying don't take your trauma to therapy. Please take your trauma to therapy. But when the goal stops being fixing it and it starts being, well, let's be compassionate with the reality of the situation and make sure that there's space for all the good stuff, wow. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I think every writer who's listening needs to hear that. Because I th I think it's so easy. I mean, I get caught up in feeling like like sometimes I have days where I'm like, what's the point? Like I probably won't see the end of this type of system in my lifetime. And what would the end of it look like? And how you know, how is that going to affect the way we show up? And you know, a lot of times I think Chelsey: So Monica Hay: I think artists in general, writers, creatives feel very helpless. ⁓ and they can feel very hopeless. And I can see why, right? Like it's it makes sense. But I at at the same time, I don't think that being defeatist about it is helping either. Like being like, nothing's gonna get fixed, like we should give up. I don't think that's helpful, but I also don't think it's helpful to be like, we have to do this at all times. Like humans You know, even during very difficult times, we dance, we make art, we s tell stories around the fire, you know. Chelsey: And when we stop doing that, that's when it's like, what the point what's the point? When we stop doing that. Yeah. Yeah. I've been there, I find, I I really struggle with with anxiety and depression. That's like a lifelong situation. So I'm not standing up on a hilltop going, I did shadow work and now I'm healed. I'm much more aware of how I feel. ⁓ and I'm much more Monica Hay: What's the point? Yeah, seriously. And that's what a lot of people have stopped doing. Like a lot of us have stopped doing it. Yeah. Chelsey: able to hold a lot of compassionate space for that and communicate about it as well because I'm not trying to ignore the fact that I feel that way. But I s since my twenties and probably since I started Doing shadow work, reading the tarot, being being going to therapy, being more self-aware. One of the things I've come to notice is that I stop reading when I start to get depressed. I stop reading, I lose interest in reading. And that creates this cycle of like I feel shitty, and now I feel even shittier because I'm not engaging with art. And so I have to like get my ass out of bed. And if I'm if I'm really not feeling reading, I'm like, okay, I'm going to the art museum, or I'm listening to a song that means something to me, or I'm Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. ⁓ Mm. Chelsey: I'm I'm engaging with something that like is creatively interesting or playful. or whatever to me. And I think that's done a lot in helping me make bad work too. Cause I have a habit now of when I'm feeling really bad. I'm like, I'm just gonna go through a magazine and cut out pieces I may use in a collage. And I may not, I may never use them. But the like creative act of being like I'm I'm I'm making space, I'm laying the bricks for me to have this potential to be creative is is fun. ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm. Love it. Yeah. Chelsey: And yeah, brings me a lot of joy that otherwise I wouldn't normally have. So I don't immediately go, ⁓ I noticed I'm depressed and I'm not reading, so I'm gonna force myself to a book. But I'm I am asking the question, well, how am I supplementing my creative diet so that I'm not making this worse at the same time? Yeah. Monica Hay: Mm. I love that. I love that. You just you have like such a way with metaphors. Like you just like bring them out and they're beautiful. I I love this. Okay. Let me ask, because I think a lot of writers I work with, God, probably more than half of them, are very nervous about a public appearance, right? Like a lot of people, you know, talk about like, how do I, how do I feel safe sharing on the internet, on social media, whatever it might mean. What Chelsey: Thank you. Thank you. Monica Hay: kind of shadow issues can start emerging when people share their work publicly? And what I mean, even you could give examples of what's emerged for you when you started sharing your work Chelsey: Mm. Yeah. yeah, it's a really good question. I think there can be a couple things going on there. Sometimes if we haven't made the space to see ourselves, so if we're not kind of aware of what's going on, both in the golden shadow and kind of in the general shadow area in general, it can feel really vulnerable to be seen by others. Our work can feel really exposing. pot kettle when I'm giving this like chat. I'm I'm observing from amongst the people here because I like I I'm not gonna pretend that I have this all figured out. I have been very lucky that I started publishing work on the internet w in my early twenties before my Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: Prefrontal cortex developed, and I was like, it's fine for me to pour out my feelings to millions of people on BuzzFeed.com where I got my start as a journalist. I started working for BuzzFeed in 2014. So I was 20, I was 23, 24. I published a very vulnerable essay about ⁓ friendship breakup that had no business being on the internet at all. Monica Hay: Wait, what year would this start? Twenty three. Yeah, I was I remember that that year. Chelsey: Like I'm so sorry to that person, to myself, to the people that I subjected to my personal trauma that I was not looking at. and like that's This is this is a good personal anecdote about being a writer in shadow work, right? Like I hadn't I hadn't really done the work to understand what was going on for me at that time. Please don't Google this, by the way. I don't know if it's still online. Like, please don't Google it. There are no names except for mine. The embarrassment ends begins and ends with me. And it's sh look, she was her feelings were hurt, okay? My feelings were hurt. But it it was a Monica Hay: Well the thing is I think this is beautiful. I think it's beautiful when we're vulnerable. You know, and I think I think that's what happens when we're kids 'cause you were kind of a kid, right? Like not saying young women are kids, but you were young. You were young and you're like, I have feelings that I wanna post because I have I have this thing, it's painful. Chelsey: Yeah. Yeah. And like And some of the writing in there is some of my favorite writing I've ever done, in fact. Cause I think I was being I was being really raw. And there's like some things I've thought about in the many years since where I've gone, man, it's about time that I repurpose that metaphor. it like it it it really has my voice in it. I was, I was, I was really excavating. I was looking at how I was feeling. I wasn't then like integrating it into like what that meant for me and how I how I kind of wanted to experience the world. ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: I will also say, whilst I would handle that really differently now, million like a million people read that piece and nothing bad happened. It was fine. ⁓ It was like in retrospect, it was a little embarrassing. And I felt overexposed once I'd kind of put myself out there, but nothing bad happened. Monica Hay: Something bad happened. Yeah. Chelsey: I wouldn't say anything really good and beautiful happened. Yeah, exactly. And I think like like being cringe is some shadow work in and of itself. Like putting putting your shitty stuff out there is actu it's like it's actually fine. It's not gonna ruin your career as a writer, for sure. people reinvent all the time. Okay, here's a good example. Monica Hay: Yeah. And you know what? Being cringe is a rite of passage. Yes. Chelsey: Coming back to that period of my time, or that period of my life where I was working at BuzzFeed as well, I did a feature while I was there where I followed along with a woman who had written a book about quitting sugar. And I quit sugar for a period of time. ⁓ That woman has now gone on to completely reinvent her author brand. And now she's writing really well-received books about mental health and politics and like existing. Like it she's she's gone from a woman who wrote an I quit, like a how to quit sugar guide, to she like she's got a new book out with Penguin that's about like trying to exist in this world as an artist, and it's really beautifully and poetically written. Completely, she's published it under the same name. Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Wait. What is this what is this book? Chelsey: ⁓ her name is Sarah Wilson. ⁓ Sarah Wilson, to you I am also sorry for giving you such a hard time on BuzzFeed.com. She wrote a book called First We Make the Beast Beautiful about her own experience with mental health. It's like a literary mental health memoir. ⁓ completely different from I Quit Sugar. Those were those were published in within, I think like seven years of each other. I Quit Sugar was like Monica Hay: ⁓ yeah, yeah. I've seen this ⁓ I've seen this before. Love it. Chelsey: It like it caused a rod a lot of ruckus online. People were disagreeing. When I when I did my feature, I was like, this is stupid. I went to see a nutritionist who was like, this is stupid. It was just it's a stupid idea to quit. You can't she recommends that you eat bread. Bread has sugar in it. Okay, like if and my my point is that like you can do s you can pu you can publish something cringe and and reinvent yourself afterwards. I think it's like Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: it's not gonna hurt you to try something in public. and Monica Hay: Yes, I love that. It's not gonna hurt you to try something. Chelsey: like there's a lot of shadow work and just being like here's where I'm at right now and what here's what I'm putting out. And I'm not saying I wouldn't I wouldn't go back and stop former me from publishing that essay. 36 year old me would not publish a piece like that anymore. But thirty it's twenty twenty-four-year-old me needed to do it and it was fine and really it Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: was a foundation of bravery that thirty six year old me now has. I'm sure fifty year old me will go, I wouldn't have published that book about shadow work that you put on to the something there's something really kind of cool and beautiful about the fact that we can look back at old versions of ourselves and go, ⁓ man, what were you doing? But but we're still here. We're still going. And nothing like our putting our work out in the world isn't gonna kill anyone. It's really not. Monica Hay: Yeah. I know. We're still here. No. No, I was actually just reading a Substack. Maybe it was my three weeks ago, four weeks ago. Maybe it's been longer. I don't know. Time doesn't exist. One one of my favorite authors, ⁓ God. Laura is it Laura Stevens? I love her. And I loved the what is the book called? I loved it. And I'm what is our infinite fates, I think. Yeah. She wrote this beautiful piece on Substack about how. Chelsey: Or ⁓ Monica Hay: She often wishes that she could like go to people who are discovering her work and like tell them not to read certain books that she's published in the past. Like she's changed so much as a writer in her time and she's published all these books and she's obviously honed her craft over the years. And now she's like cringes when people read like her earlier works. And I just think it's really beautiful when writers can admit that and can just be like, yeah, this past version of me doesn't reflect necessarily like it it got me here where I am now. But like don't look at it. Like like I wanna put like the blinders on. But also that's that's the beautiful part is that it got you where you are now. Chelsey: Yeah, but we don't Yeah, and I think that that comes into this, it's a really similar idea with looking at the shadow part of the self, like, okay, this thing makes me really uncomfortable. And yet this thing is also part of who I am and how I got here and and kind of what would it look like if I was proud of this thing about myself, even if it makes me uncomfortable. to come back to the like example of of curiosity that I gave in the last Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: conversation. I was thinking about this this morning because I I had somebody make a comment on a post that I I made this week and it was a it was a comment where I was like, what do you mean? And and I was like, there's a version of me who would have been like, ⁓ well, it would be weird if I asked them what they mean. I don't it would be it would be like rude of me to be like, I don't understand what it is that you're saying. Like you've taken the time to comment on my post. I don't I'm Monica Hay: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chelsey: afraid that if I ask you to clarify this, it's gonna come off as rude or come off as ungrateful. and I and I I I was like, do you know what? I I asked the question. I was like, I'm not I'm not sure what you mean. And I'm I was like, I'm really curious. I wanna understand what this means. It wasn't it wasn't even it was innocuous. It was she said she'd found me somewhere on the internet where I'm not on that platform. And so I was like, what do you mean you found me there? Because I'm I'm not there. But I was worried about coming across like I was challenging her or being rude to her when really I was just really curious. And when I started thinking, well, I'm asking the question because I really want to know the answer. How'd you find me there? and and in fact she came back and she was like, ⁓ you're right, I didn't find you there. I've I I I went there looking for something that you recommended, and and here we go. And I was like, man, I just solved a problem by being like, it's fine to ask a question, actually. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you're being curious. Got it. Yeah, yeah. Chelsey: and even that kind of work of just going in my brain, I had this thought where I was like, you can't ask the question because that will be rude. And reframing and goes, No, I can't ask the question because I'm curious. That little moment is the result of a lot of shadow work where I'm just like, I'm going, it's not a negative or vulnerable or exposing thing for me to go, I'm curious about this. Ex please explain. Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because you mentioned that you the curiosity, you're you know, the the politeness that you had been taught, right? And you're like, is it polite to ask these questions? And you're like, I'm just gonna let myself be curious. Chelsey: Yeah. And when I when I started calling it curiosity instead of ⁓ nosiness or like Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Chelsey: ⁓ what's another what's another kind of word that I had assigned to come back to talking about changing the language again, like entitled to information. then then I started being able to go, it's it's fine for me to wonder about this thing. I I I it funnily enough, I think it Julia Cameron has this thing. She talks about shadow artists and people who are like drawn to to art adjacent careers. And I have a whole Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: thought about how that works. But I did have a minute where I was like, you know, I trained as a journalist, and I wonder if I did that because that's one place where I felt safe to ask questions because that was the job. And so I couldn't go, I could always go, this is an appropriate place for me to ask questions. So I was always seeking out ⁓ fulfillment of that shadow quality of myself where I told myself, no, you can't ask questions unless it's perfectly appropriate. So I went, what's a job where it's totally appropriate? Monica Hay: Yeah. Right. Chelsey: to ask questions where I'm getting paid to do a thing that I feel like in the rest of my life I can't do. And Q, now I read tarot for a living and ask questions all the time. Yeah, it's just interesting to me to look at all that and go, yeah, that was going on all in my brain. I was seeking out these parts of myself that also at the same time I felt like I needed to hide or control. Monica Hay: To ask questions. Mm. That is so funny. I love it. Yeah. Right. That's so interesting. Yeah, I it's funny 'cause I I have I was always a very curious kid, but my parents never shut up. My parents like ne like always let me be curious. I never had the I didn't grow up religious, but like I grew up in an environment where like my dad hated on like the church and things like that because he was a Vietnam veteran and like had been raised Catholic himself and had a lot of feelings about religion, right? And so I, you know Chelsey: That shocks me. It doesn't. I'm sure that went well. Monica Hay: He taught me a lot about religion that was that was not pretty, like the home homophobia, all this stuff. And it's funny because I w I was like such a curious person and I was taught to like have arguments at the dinner table. Like my family would argue with each other at the dinner table about politics. And like that was the norm in my family and then my my first boyfriends ⁓ from high school. And I don't know if her his mom and I still listen to this because we still Are like connected on Facebook and stuff. And if you're listening to this, Deanna, hello. I love you. ⁓ my my first, I like went to his house and we had dinner, and I was like arguing politics with everybody, and everybody was shocked about what because I didn't I just didn't know that that was what you were supposed to do at all dinner table. Chelsey: Yeah. exactly. Like and so there's like some some you're bringing out kind of shadow material for people when you're challenging them, which is good. Which is good. like that's that's a lot of what Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. It's just funny. Chelsey: Therapeutic conversations are like, well, let's take something out of the box and really look at it instead of go. I remember a really early conversation with my therapist where I like, there's just a bunch of trash bags down there and I don't wanna go through them. And it look, it took a really long time and like still, still sometimes I'm like, I'm comfortable going through them myself, but do I have to take you through the trash bag? Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: Do I have to like do I have to open it and like show you what's in the is it not enough if I know? and sometimes it is enough that you know, I think. So like sometimes it is enough that you know. Yeah, exactly. Monica Hay: Yeah. Sometimes it is, but sometimes we have cognitive distortions about it. The cognitive distortions where we get in trouble and we start believing things that are hurting us and things like that. But yeah. Chelsey: And I think we have a real one societally about the idea of our quote unquote shadows. We're looking at those as our like evil twins when really it's just kind of parts of us that are hanging out going, Should I am I allowed out? I don't know. Am I in jail or is it just nap time? I'm not sh I'm not sure. Monica Hay: Yeah. I love this so much. I love I love making shadow work feel like you're hanging out with buddies rather than like being that thing. Chelsey: Yeah. Well, that is my dream for what the book will make you feel. very much it is a it is a beginner's guide to like touching and meeting those parts of yourselves that feel a little hard to fathom. ⁓ e and like you may be at a place in your journey where you're like, I don't even know if there's anything down there. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: And I don't know if I wanna know. And like the idea and and I this is this is kind of the running theme through all of my work is that I do want everything that's in there and everything that I'm kind of offering to you and as part of this conversation to just feel like, hey, here's a thing you can play with, you can hold it, you can dismiss it if it's not for you, but it's here for you to think about. And it's a like it's a friendly Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: offer. and I really want people to feel like here's a thing that it's morally neutral to look at. And it's fine actually. And there's nothing attached to you going, I'm curious about what's in there or ⁓ I kind of want to try being different. Or like there's a part of me that I haven't let out in a while Monica Hay: Yeah. Yes, yes. Chelsey: There's a desire that I I haven't really known how to name or there's something that I wanna say but it feels risky. What if I just hang out with that thing I wanna say? There's no pressure for you then to go and now I'm the person who has this opinion very publicly and it's I'm like this forever and ⁓ Monica Hay: Yes. That has to say it. Yeah. Right. Chelsey: Some work around that to do about talking about the shadow in general, because I wasn't coming at it from a really academic lens. I was coming at it from a creative practice perspective. And I'm very lucky to be surrounded by many, many colleagues in the tarot space who who are very academic about their approach to Young and the Shadow and kind of the very Monica Hay: Yeah. Right. Chelsey: academic psychological side and and some of those references are are noted in the back of the book because I think if you if you're into that kind of academic element or you want a much more rigorous approach to the theory that that work is available to you but also at the end of the day all all we're talking about is being a whole person and like that being fine. Monica Hay: Yeah. Which I love I love this because I think I have so many thoughts that I won't I won't name all of them, but as somebody who used to be in academia, I look, I like me an academic per an academic test text test. I hate academic tests. An academic text where I can learn some stuff. But most of the time I don't wanna be treated like an academic. I just wanna read a fucking book that helps me understand something. And I'm not trying to like get a freaking degree in it. I'm just like, I'm curious about this thing and I want to read it from an accessible viewpoint that helps me understand myself and the world. And I have, I was just listening to ⁓ the unpublished podcast by Amy McNey, who I'm always talking about the podcast. I can't help it. I'm sorry, you guys. All the time, every time. And she was, she's she's writing a lot about like jobs right now. If anybody has like kind of watched her space, she is talking about how creatives Chelsey: Mentioned Monica Hay: you know, like ⁓ all of society is being pushed into work. And she was saying that because she's writing about this, she feels like she needs to know all the like ins and outs of like capitalism and communism and socialism and like all these all these academic things that people have studied. Because she's writing about work. And she's realizing like I actually don't have to be an expert in this and the fact that we're trying to remove like normal people from these conversations is very classist and very ableist and all the things because you're allowed to just have like opinions about like sure, if you don't know literally anything about it, maybe read read something about it. Like do some research, sure. But do you need to become a fucking expert? Probably not. You probably don't need to get a degree or read about it for like years and years and years before you're allowed to have opinion. Because that's just keeping normal people out of the conversation and we need those people in those conversations. Chelsey: Like the the the the beauty of living in a world where we have access to many voices is that we we can make a buffet for ourselves of many things. I think I very much feel, and I I come to the the tarot like this, where I'm like, if you only have one source on any of these things and and and your intuition is not amongst your sources when you're working with with any kind of tool or information, then you're missing out on on what the material is actually gonna do for you. And so you want a little bit of look, I was a I I was a librarian for years. I I did a master's in research. Like I I very much value ⁓ the same as you Monica the the deep knowledge and ⁓ Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: I whilst writing this book many times was hunting down a quote from Young or or or Freud or somebody and like the number of times I found things misattributed online by people who generally speaking, I'm like, I tend to trust what you say and you're you're quoting incorrectly a number of things. ⁓ and so like there was rigor to what I was doing, but my my goal was never to go Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: Yeah, here's the Bible of every psychological experience you're gonna have. And instead it's like, okay, I'm bringing together a lot of ideas and offering you something that feels like a like a beginner's taste of what this can be like. And so Monica Hay: Right. Chelsey: You know, for anybody who's like really interested in projection and kind of how the shadow affects our relationships with other people, book isn't really doing that, wasn't really intended to do that. ⁓ but what it is doing is going, hey, you've got this kind of part of you that you could hang out with and enjoy and like have conversations with and and draw an inspiration, like try new things with that otherwise would feel like maybe out of character, but but how do you know what's in character for you if you're ignoring half of your character? ⁓ and I think all of that can be really powerful. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: Powerful alongside where you're curious about the theory and the academics, like, yes, absolutely read lots of sources and also check your sources because even really smart people with doctorates misquotes. so my and myself included, I'm sure I've done it somewhere in there, despite the fact that I like really rig rigorously checked my quotes. correct me all the time, but but I just think. Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah, misquote or make mistakes, things like that. Yeah. Chelsey: Yeah, there's something to be said as as you've pointed out of bringing both regular people and and high concept information into the same space and going, let's find the middle ground. Monica Hay: Yeah. Let's find the middle ground. Let's let's find ways that people can consume this knowledge without feeling like they need like all the degrees, right? Especially it's it's funny 'cause I you know, I I know that you left the US a long time ago, but I have so many conversations with friends who really regret their degrees because of how expensive it is in the US now. And, you know, how are people gonna be educated if the system and an institution is set up in a way that like we can't really survive the way that we used to be able to, right? Like, and that's another conversation for another day. But okay, ⁓ if someone is curious about shadow work, of course you can grab Chelsea's book, The Shadow Path, which is beautiful and I'm showing you guys if you're watching YouTube, the Shadow Path will come up if you Google it, if you're just listening. ⁓ Chelsey: Yeah, there is also a novel of the same name, so you w I mean like get them both. but but but you do want the one by me, which is Chelsea Pippin Measy, not not the other one. If you have to choose. But like, you know, why choose? Have them both. Authors supporting authors. Monica Hay: them both. So I'm curious if someone is curious about it. Okay, I have two questions and I'm trying to figure out which one to ask because I know we're gonna we're gonna like go into each question. Chelsey: Give d ask me both and I'll decide which one I have a better answer for. Monica Hay: Okay, so first, is one of the things I mentioned way before we start recording. your book has a lot of really awesome hands-on prompts. And I am a little intimidated, little baby, about like craft and hands-on prompts because I don't know why. And I am not a crafty person, which I don't love this about myself. This is probably a shadow thing I need to work with. I'm like, ⁓ my God, hands on prompts where I like make things that sound scary and like I'm gonna be bad at it. LOL. So how what would you say to someone who's intimidated by hands on prompts, first of all? But also if someone's curious about shadow work, where could they start? And I have a feeling it's gonna be a prompt that's relatively hands on, but I could be completely right wrong. Chelsey: okay. ⁓ the book includes both a combination of like crafty prompts where I'm encouraging you to like do some doodling, do some making, but also lots of journaling prompts. I am I am a I'm a ⁓ Verbal first processor. And so I tend to go straight for the journaling prompts. There are there are 365 journaling prompts in the back of the book. So if you are a a ⁓ writer first, you have a shadow work prompt for a shadow work and play prompt for every day of the year in the back of the book. So my first suggestion is that if you're really, if you're coming up against so much resistance that you don't Monica Hay: Mm. Chelsey: that you would rather close the book than try the prompt that I'm offering you, flip to the back and do one of the journaling prompts instead. Like if by all means adapt the process to your own needs and accommodations. Like i there's the I didn't write a law book. I wrote something that I felt like offered a whole bunch of ranges of cause I when I when I create a resource, I'm often thinking about different processing types and different creative types as well. And so I want there to be a mixture of things that appeal to different brain types and and different energy levels. So very much first and foremost, if you're ever hitting a prompt in my book or really I think anywhere, I I do this with the artist way a lot. I've worked through that program a lot and I adapt it every single time. I ran an adapted version of it last summer where I used tarot cards to kind of guide us through and I threw a lot of water out of of that and broke a lot of rules that I'm sure ⁓ it would were Julia Cameron to know she would she would be most displeased with me ⁓ but but that that process worked for me ⁓ and so like always always always adapt as you need I would also say if you have even like one iota of curiosity Monica Hay: Yeah, yeah. Chelsey: About what it would be like to try a craft prompt. Nothing bad is gonna happen if you try it and either you don't like it or it's weird. I will Monica, I will send you a picture because I don't think I have it on me now, but in my notebook when I was I was leading a a workshop based on the Shadow Path when the book first came out, and Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: in the first exercise I encourage you to draw your experience i within a meditation. Guys I can't draw I can draw stick figures, maybe. ⁓ I'm I'm really I'm really drawing like I like I really struggle to transcribe visually the what's in my head with with pen and pencil. I drew it. Monica Hay: I can't either. Yes, same. Chelsey: It's it looks like it looks like ⁓ a small child using their wrong hand. and nothing bad happened. They didn't come and take the book away from me and say, you can't have your name on this book that you wrote because you can't do your own prompt beautifully. It was fine. ⁓ and if I can do my own prompt really badly, I know you can too. Monica Hay: Agreed. Chelsey: It's like I can't tell you how confronting and like like like ego death it is for me to have to be like I designed this thing and I can't do it. But I can I can try it. Nothing's stopping you from trying it. and like if you want to rip it up and burn it after, by all means. By all means. ⁓ you should feel free to do that. There's there's no rule or rigor and you don't have to show your work off to anyone and you Monica Hay: Yes. Yes. Chelsey: can try it again, but like there's no grade. ⁓ you're not you're not gonna be graded on this process. It's really just there for you to try and see and kind of see how it feels. ⁓ so you're getting an A, you're acing every prompt if you're just like trying it. The like particip participation trophy. I'm true millennial, you get one. You get one from me for e for even considering it. But I will say like I don't know like Monica Hay: I love that. Yes. Chelsey: Once you've made a little bit of bad art, it starts to be kind of fun to make bad art. And then and then you kind of shake it loose. So the most creatively rewarding experiences of my life have started with me going, I can't do that. you can. And if you can't, that's also fine. the other question was where should you start? where should you start? I think Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: When it comes to like kicking off your shadow work journey, there's a very simple, non-crafty prompt you can do where you just sit down in your journal and you write down 50 things you wish you could say out loud. Monica Hay: Yes. ⁓ my god. Chelsey: Mm-hmm. And it's really that simple because once we get in that like framework of of touching the things that we're like. const constraining and constricting inside of us, then then they're on the page, then they're there for us to look at. Then we're going, well wait, why am I afraid to say that out loud? That's fine actually. You know, I've done this exercise and been like, I really like purple or something stupid. Like what it's fine. but like you don't know what's gonna come up. So so a a good way this is kind of this is kind of comes from a little bit of an acting technique. ⁓ if I have any Meisner trained actors in the room maybe maybe this will sound familiar to you. But like with the repetition of like what I really wanna say is, what I really wanna say is, or what's what I can't say out loud, what nobody wants to hear from me is, those phrases are really powerful in terms of and the more we do them, so you can't just do it once, because if you do it once, that's not where the truth is gonna live. If you write it down 50 times, Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: Probably 10 of those 50 things are gonna be really true, and you're gonna go, shit. ⁓ I did a version of this a couple of weeks ago based on a tarot card that I pulled where I was just like two things that I know to be true at once are, or two opposing truths that I hold are. ⁓ boy, by the end of those three pages. Was I really shocked where I was like, that is like I haven't looked at the fact that I'm trying to make sense of these two separate conflicting ideas at once, and that explains. Monica Hay: Mm. Mm. Chelsey: Explains why I'm stuck here on this thing that I'm stuck on. ⁓ And there's something really powerful and really evocative for getting the kind of subconscious out from where it's hiding when we use repetition. And if you're using really compelling phrases, this isn't an exercise from the book, so you're really getting a bonus here. But like that really compelling repeated phrase. Monica Hay: Mm. Yeah. Chelsey: at some point is gonna pull something up where you're like, wow, I didn't know I felt that way. I'm really interested in the fact that I feel that way. or that's something that even I'm interested in like maybe a character feeling that way. all of all like it's it's really simple. You can spend Monica Hay: Yeah. Mm. ⁓ Chelsey: 15 minutes on it, set a timer, see what you get. ⁓ if you don't get to fifty, that's fine, but just continue repeating something along the lines of what I really want to say out loud or what I'd say if if I thought everybody would think it was fine or Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: The thing that I would never admit to anybody is, ⁓ and just seeing what happens with that, I think will at the very least bring up a lot of great writing prompts for you. And at the best, will make you go, huh, I had no idea that was there, and now I'm interested. Tip for that though: if something comes up and it makes you really, really uncomfortable. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: Don't let that shatter your day. it is as simple as going, huh, that's interesting. I didn't expect that. That doesn't make it true. It's like this true defining thing about me that's gonna wreck my entire life. If you write down what I really want to say is that I hate my husband. It's like that doesn't necess it doesn't necessarily mean it's true. It just means, hey, here's a thought that maybe I I want to think more about or maybe I don't. Monica Hay: Yeah. Chelsey: Or like is just coming up because I'm I feel like I have to confess something. ⁓ but something something in that 50 is gonna be interesting to you and something in that fifty is gonna feel true to you and what you're looking for is the one thing that feels true, not suddenly all these 50 things about me are true and I don't know who I am as a person anymore. There's a difference, you know? Monica Hay: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. I love it. I I love that we've talked ⁓ it's been what, like two hours of this now, the from the first time and today. I love this so much. Chelsey: I know and we're gonna talk again later this week. Monica Hay: On Friday. Yes. I love this. Yeah, it's I this is I'm not surprised that we get us in front of a mic and this is what happens. Like I'm not surprised at all. Chelsey: I'm ⁓ John, thank you, and I'm sorry. Monica Hay: John is the one who edits the pod. Chelsey: He's gonna you're gonna have like flashbacks to following us around in Avignon like Jesus Christ. ⁓ Monica Hay: No, I think I think he's gr he loves it. We act I like I feel like we should come visit you again this summer. That'd be probably really nice. Chelsey: We're fascinating. You're welcome anytime. I should come to Amsterdam as well. I will I will say finally for anybody who's listening to this, if you are listening to this before the 5th of July, I'm hosting a read-along of the Shadow Path on my newsletter, The Shuffle. ⁓ if that's something that you're interested in, I run a weekly journaling club through that channel and ⁓ are Monica Hay: You sh it. Love Chelsey: summer program is moving through the 10 weeks of this book. So if you want to know more, you want to try it, you want a little bit of extra support, that's happening this summer. I'd love to make space for you there. I will send a link over to Monica and you're very welcome to come play with us. Monica Hay: Love it. Yes. Yes. So where if people want to find you, I'll have I'll have links in the show notes, but let people know kind of the different spots where you have content. You have Substack, what else? Chelsey: ⁓ yeah, I have Substack theshuffle.substack.com is where all of my writing on Shadow and the Tarot currently live. So I've talked a lot about this book. I've talked a lot about my other work and I run my journaling club through that platform right now. I've also got it available as a separate subscription. If you're not a Substack girly, that's cool. and I'm on Instagram at Pipcardstarot. P-I-P-C-A-R-D-S tarot. That's me. And my website is is easy. It's tarotforcreativity.com. And that's where you can find me. and or you can just like say my name three times and maybe I'll appear. Monica Hay: Mm. Love it. What inspired your Instagram handle? Chelsey: ⁓ well my last name is Pippin, so there's the Pip there. ⁓ Pip cards are the minor arcana of the tarot. It's another name for the minors. So the four suit cards of the tarot of the swords, the wands, the cups, and the pentacles are also kind of traditionally referred to as the pips. ⁓ even playing cards, sometimes the suit cards are pips. So back then, ⁓ Monica Hay: Yes. Got it. Chelsey: taking myself very seriously and I thought I was gonna like have an anonymous tarot blog where I just kind of like journaled and took some pictures and I had no ambitions of turning my weird little a hyper focus into the thing that would finally get me my publishing deal. ⁓ I was like that's funny ha ha because I'll know it's me because it's Pip and and people sometimes call me like grew up Pip was a nickname for me because it's short for Pippin. And I was like, but I know ha ha ha and it's like and now it's like the plague on my existence because I'm like I have to explain it every time and I'm like it's not Monica Hay: Cute. Chelsey: it's not it is sweet it was so it was it was really genuinely I was just like that works but that's it so there yeah you will find at Pip Cards Tarot on Substack if you google it too and that's one I started before starting my real one so it was just redirect you to the shuffle where I where I have been publishing since 2023. that the shuffle was a much cooler name if I could go back and claim Monica Hay: Sweet. So I love it so much. I love it. Chelsey: at the shuffle with Chelsea, I think I've like there's there's a correction I would make. If I could if I could go back in time to do something completely innocuous. Like if the time machine was like, you can't change anything that matters. Monica Hay: The shuffle is a really good name. Yeah. It's it's a it's a it's it's laps. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsey: That's what I would do. I know. I shuffle the cards, but also I when I called it that I was like I wanna the con sometimes the content's gonna be random. I don't only wanna talk about the tarot, so I I was like I wanna leave it open. So I'm shuffling through my interests as well. ⁓ I was gonna say, can you tell I have the ADHD? Monica Hay: Yep. That's such a neurospicy thing to do. Yes. Yes. My mom and I, all my life we've called each other shufflers. We shuffle things. That's how we like that's literally what we've always said. Yeah, because we're both very clearly. Chelsey: So cute. thank you for asking me so many thoughtful questions, Monica, that I really forgot to ask you any, but I'm really looking forward to to taking the mic and asking the questions when we speak over at The Shuffle. Cause of course the ⁓ yeah, I should say that. If people can find me on my podcast, The Shuffle, also available wherever you can find podcasts is the Shuffle Conversations on Tarot and Creativity. Monica Hay: ⁓ your The shuffle? Love it. Perfect. Awesome. Chelsey: If you can stand to listen to any more of me, I don't know how you're gonna be able to. Monica Hay: ⁓ man. We should do an episode when I come visit you and like get that would be really fun. Chelsey: Yeah, l ⁓ in person one would be so fun. We've got two mics here. We've got two mics here in Zach's recording studio. Come before before we l leave Avignon. Monica Hay: Yeah, we're gonna have to do this. Let's talk about me visiting. John will love love to visit France. He he would like die. And then hopefully we can actually get on the right train on the way home. If anybody was listening to me not mentioning that story, I'll mention it very briefly. It was 7 AM. I know, it was 7 AM. We were on our way home from Avignon to Amsterdam, and there was a train. Chelsey: Come back, John. Monica Hay: That said gar de Lyon. We were going to Lyon. We were going to Lyon. And I thought Chelsey: It was not your fault. The the main train station in Paris is called Gard de Lyon, but there's also a city in France called Lyon and s and so if if you're and the it makes sense to the French because Garde Lyon in Paris is the station where the trains from the south come via Lyon. So it's the Garde Lyon, it's the station no, you wouldn't know, you couldn't know. Monica Hay: Yes. Yeah, I didn't know. Chelsey: You couldn't it makes it makes sense to the French who understand their own geography. It makes no sense to anyone else and this is my life here where it makes sense to them. Monica Hay: Did not know. Well, yes. And I look, it was on the same platform that we were supposed to be on, but seven minutes before our train. And so I thought our train arrived a few minutes earlier like, you know, was 'cause sometimes trains will get there and they'll be there for ten or fifteen minutes. Sometimes it can take, you know, a minute to anyway. So that's that's the story. And then we ended up in Paris accidentally. We missed our flight. LOL. Okay. Thank you, Chelsea This has been super fun. And thank you guys for listening. Chelsey: You were a victim. You were a victim. Oops. Thank you so much.