Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Defining Love for Yourself + Soul Contracts: with Cleo Wade

Transcript

Defining Love for Yourself + Soul Contracts: with Cleo Wade · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and I have conversations that.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Put a new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We talk a lot about self love lately on podcasts,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: on TikTok and in our own heart to heart conversations.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: We're all really rooting for everyone to love themselves more.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: But have you ever flipped the question on yourself? Do
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: you love you? Really?
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Truly?
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Do you love yourself?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: The act of really deeply embracing yourself is not as
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: easy as it may seem. Five years ago, I was
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: on the phone with an older, wiser, married, successful friend
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: whose opinion I trust. He was at the airport waiting
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: for his flight at the I could hear all the
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: noise in the background, but we hadn't spoken in a
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: while and I wanted to catch up, so he started
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: asking me questions, how is my work? How is life?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: He knew my ex boyfriend and said, are you dating?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Tell me about the new men in your life, and
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you. I was really acutely
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: depressed at the time, and I was on my couch
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and it took everything in me to muster up some optimistic,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: even borderline fake answers for him. He was about to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: ask me another question when he paused and he said, Danielle,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: do you love yourself? I said, of course, I feel confident.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I have always felt confident. He said, no, I know
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: you feel confident, but do you love yourself? Can you
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: say it out loud? Try it?
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm absolutely not.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Doing that with you.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: That's like what you do in the bathroom in the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: mirror to yourself. He goes, no, try it, say it
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: out loud, say it and mean it. I tried, but
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I could not get the words out, and I started crying,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: which shocked me.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Did I not love myself?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Or was I just so depressed that I couldn't muster
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: up the energy for this exercise he was putting me through.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I still to this day can't believe that I couldn't
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: get the words out. But five years later and I
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: can say it loudly, proudly, I love myself, and I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: gotta tell you, authentically, truly, sincerely. Loving myself has allowed
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: me to give so much more love to my friends,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to my family, to somebody that annoys me, to everybody.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: If there was a masterclass on this topic of self
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: love or love in general, our guests today could teach it.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Cleo Wade is a poet, author, speaker, and the New
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: York Times best selling author of Heart Talk. Cleo has
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a new book out, Remember Love, Words for Tender Times
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and Aren't We Living in Tender Times? I love Cleo's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: writing because she just gets to it. She says the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: things we are all feeling. You can open one of
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: her books, shuffle the pages like a deck of cards,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and whichever poem you land on feels like the words
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: you needed to hear that day. And lucky for us,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: so much of the wisdom you can find in her
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: books she was generous enough to share with us in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: this conversation.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Truth's about heartbreak.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: I think that love is aligned within, and once it's crossed,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: you will just live on the other side.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I think you want things more than you want the
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: person that you're in love with. You have to always
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: ask yourself.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I think when you're going through a breakup, to keep
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: yourself from calling or going back, what do I want
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: more than I want this person who is not going to.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Give me what I need?
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Loneliness when you put on your pajamas and you go
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to bed and your head hits the pillow and you're
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: not falling asleep right away. You are alone with your
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: feelings and no one else is feeling exactly what you're
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: feeling but you. And there's such incredible loneliness to feel
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: alone in this very tender.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Tough thing.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And why the next time we're struggling, she suggests we
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: put all those emotions on the page.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, I always say that poetry.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Was my therapy before I could afford a therapist, because
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I couldn't afford a therapist, but there was no way
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: I could possibly understand what was going on within me
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: unless I moved it outside of my body and put
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: it on a page.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Speaking of therapy, I usually feel like these episodes are
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: a mix of interviews and therapy with our guests. But
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: for the first time ever, the roles were reversed. I
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: think Cleo took me to therapy. I don't want to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: hold up this conversation anymore, but I want to share
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: one last thing. In twenty twenty, I got my first
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and only tattoo. It says on my fingers, think prayer hands.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: L on one pointer finger and ve on the other.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: And I got it for a few reasons. But one
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of those reasons is that it was a reminder to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: me to remember love, remember love when I was feeling hurt, sad, angry,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: anything other than loving. To remember love because it's always
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the answer. We never go wrong when we lead with love.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And that's what today is all about. Love of others
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and love of self, sacred love.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: You are from New.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Orleans am the best place ever. I'm sorry to all
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: other places. I love it too. There is a mysticism
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: about it. Yeah, And the first time I was there, I.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Took like a walking tour. They have these things called
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: free tours by foot in every city. But I wrote
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: this down from my tour years ago. He said, it's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: a city where the dead refused to rest, and literally right,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: because so many of the coffins are above ground.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: They all are because the city is below sea level,
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: so if we buried people, they'd all float, Oh my god.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And so everyone is above ground.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: But there's also this like third eye feeling of the city.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, I haven't friend anyone said ghosts
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: don't swim and said that's why New Orleans is such
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: a spooky place because everyone's kind of trapped in this
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: little kind of space surrounded by water. Yeah, but I
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: think also New Orleans is a really truly bohemian city
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: in America, and it really does culturally live by its
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: own rules.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: So but there's sort of when I say, I want
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: to be clear, when I say mysticism, I mean it
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in a positive way. Yeah, Like I feel like there's
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a mysticism to your work, and I was wondering if
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you felt like it came from the feel of the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: city at all.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: I think definitely New Orleans is a deeply spiritual place.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a really for a small place, it
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: is very dense.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: In the culture of spirit.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: But I think, more than anything, one of the most
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: spiritual things on earth, which is why I think people.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Die trying to have it.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: As freedom, I think it's a very free place, and
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: so I think the freedom of the city is what
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: I've always felt the.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Most inspired by.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: And I think in that this idea of like non
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: judgmentalism in pursuit of freedom is really the heart of
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: my work. Can I let go of this self judgment
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I have so that I can be free to field
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: so I can be free to be okay with where
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I am or what I'm going through or what I
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: want for my life. And so I think if I
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: hadn't have grown up in a place where I saw
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: people saying, well, I want to, like, you know, dress
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: in a wig and glitter and whatever.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Four times a year, or I want to get dressed up.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you go to Marti Grass, every single
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: person has a boa on or this or that, and
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: it is very weird.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: To not cover your face and glitter and it's not
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: like this.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I know a lot of people, I think get this
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: from Burning Man. But imagine if that essence of that
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: kind of really controlled thing existed in some way in
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: a city all year round, in some capacity.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: That's well said. So I've always felt like writing as
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a form of therapy. I don't know if that resonates
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: with you. Yeah, I know, it's your work.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: So I think especially poetry, because I mean, I always
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: say that poetry was my therapy before I could afford
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: a therapist, because I couldn't afford a therapist, but there
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: was no way I could possibly understand what was going
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: on within me unless I've moved it outside of my
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: body and put it on a page. And I always
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: say to people that, like whether you're a writer or not,
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: or you think about writing, like move it out of
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: your body and put it on the page. Because when
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: your feelings or your experiences are only living inside of you,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: every thought you have, you're trying to bribe or rush
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: or move or do or.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Judge or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: Whereas when you put it on the page, you can
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: see your story and you can say, wow, this is real.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: I really feel this way, but this isn't necessarily true,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: and wow, I can really notice that like this is
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: the fifth time I've done this, or like why do
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: I feel this way?
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Like you can really question, I think what goes on
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: within you when you see it in front of you.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I do this really weird thing to admit, but if
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know what advice to give myself, I think
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: about the situation on stage as a play and I say, like,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: what would I tell my character to do?
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, And it's such amazing advice. Well it's the same
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: with writing.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, and like you'd also if you were an
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: actor who is going to take on a role, you
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: would like study the character and so that you so
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: that as you even if you've got on that staf
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: to be them. You felt like you embodied them by
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: really studying them, so that if you cried, it came
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: from a really sincere and high integrity place of why
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: the character's crying. And so the thing is is that, yes,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: like directing your life is so powerful and also studying
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: your life is so powerful.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: You mentioned feelings, big feelings.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: As a person who is so good with big feelings,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: how do you not get stuck in them?
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I do, you know? I think we all do.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: I think some of us just I think over time
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: you just developed different tools in different ways to.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Catch something as it's building.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Because like, some big feelings come in they are just
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: a big feeling, but most big feelings are the accumulation
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: of a lot of unacknowledged small feelings. So it really
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: does kind of snowball into this bigger snowball. And so
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I think that part of the kind of heart work
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: you do for yourself, spiritual work, therapeutic work, community work
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: where you have friends that help you acknowledge things in
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: you is saying like, well, I have all these small things.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: I kind of catch them before they become one big thing. Right,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: So like instead of you know, allowing for all of
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: my unacknowledged feelings to become a resentment, which is the biggest, hardest,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: a big hard feeling to deal with. I can catch
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: the unacknowledged feelings as they're coming, or I can catch
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: them sooner, or I can say, like, damn, I got
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to really like nip this in the bud before.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And that's a practice.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: So obviously you don't get it right every time. I
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: certainly don't, but even knowing what you need to attempt
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: to do to just have a kind of more peaceful
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: inside is helpful.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I've never heard anybody say that, and it's really poignant.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: It is because I've heard resentment is an un spoken no.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: But it's the same thing. It's not acknowledging.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a need that that went unfulfilled and unacknowledged.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you've said that you named your new book
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: remember Love, because there are no two words that you
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: have said to yourself more in the past three years.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Tell me where remember Love was born?
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, So I am in postpartum, my postpartum period where
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: I was experiencing some pretty incredible depression with Memphis.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I think it was with me.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I had postpartum depression with both of
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: my kids, but there was what so hard, Oh, it's
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: so hard. I don't wish it on myself. I don't
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: wish I would have gone through it. But I also
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: respect that, like my body needed to do something in
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: order for me to know something. I think.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, I hope, but I.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Think something that's really interesting is if your body's going
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: through a funky time. Part of how you know that
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: is if your usual stuff that helps you isn't helping.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: So for me, it's like if I'm having a hard day,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: or I'm feeling a little low, or I'm feeling a
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: little anxious, it's like I get in the bathtub, I
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: listen to Tara Brock and he's this meditation teacher I've
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: listened to for fifteen years, and so I get in
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and I'm kind of like, ugh, like I'm just foggy.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I'm like I'm kind of listening, I'm kind of not
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I'm just like in that kind of you know that
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: days of like that. I mean, I'm sure so many
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: people feel it, especially in our world right now, it's
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: like so hard to break the fog. And all of
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: a sudden, she's speaking and I just hear her say
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: remember love in a sentence. I don't even think it
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: was the point of the sentence. I couldn't even tell
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: you the episode, but I heard her say it, yeah,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and it just shifted something in me, like it didn't
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: cure my postpartum depression by any means, but it told
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: me like it just it.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It did.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: It was as if someone had grabbed my shirt and
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: pulled me out to say, like, something's going on. And
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: I think, I mean, obviously, I believe in the power
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: of words. Words saved me every time I needed saving,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: like I read Rumy poems or Maya Angelou poems or
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Lngston Hughes poems or Mary Alliver poems that truly, like
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: you know, when like Mary Oliver said joy is not
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: meant to be a crumb, that changed my life. That
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: changed the way I understood and sought after joy and
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: made space for joy. And so I know that I
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: know that power and I feel so lucky that I,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: you know, get to work in that power where I
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: know that words have really helped so many people in
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: my community through a hard time.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And so when I heard those two words, they kind
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: of became my mantra.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: I remember. I got a post it note and I
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: wrote on it please remember love, and I put it
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: on the top of a board. And I think there
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: was something about those words that helped me find where
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: I was not being kind to myself, which is what
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: actually created like the stuckness of my postpart and depression.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: So like, I think, when you're moving slowly, you're kind
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: of mean to yourself. So I think that that's whether
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: you're a runner and you sprained, you know, you have
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: a pulled muscle, and you're just like.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, my body, my body, I'm mad at my.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Body when your body is actually just saying slow down
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: so I can heal, and you're saying, no, this is
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: what I want to be doing, and this is what
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: I think you should be doing, and you're making me
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm broken, and that's making me feel like
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: my life is like ending instead of you know, beginning
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: or plateauing. And so I think for me, when I
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: was I didn't realize that I had so much wrapped
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: into productivity and getting things done and being able to
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: be that person for so many people and do and
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: do and do and do that I was mad at myself.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: I had shame in not being able to do and so,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: and I didn't even know. I actually realized that I
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: didn't really know how to love myself as a non doer,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: as just a simple as a beer and so in
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: that when I I could when I heard the words
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: remember love, I kept being like, okay, could can I
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: remember love?
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: When I talk to myself?
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Like what would would the way would would what I'm
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: hearing inside be something I would say to somebody I
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: love because I am someone I love.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Too, And so it was it was it hard to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: say that ever to myself. Yeah, there's I have like
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: five copies of Heart Talk like that, and I love
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: books because I love words, and I keep I have
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a whole bookshelf, but I keep a few in my
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: room and I keep Heart Talk in my room by
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: my bed, and so much of.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: It is about love and heartbreak.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: And I was reading Remember Love and thinking this is
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: love to But this book is about self love? Is
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: that how you felt writing it?
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: You know? I remember even when hart Talk came out,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: people were like surprised I wrote about because I think
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: at the time it was kind of right, you know.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Around the twenty sixteen twenty seventeen elections in America was
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: having such a politically charged time, and so many of
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: my words and writings had been.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Used in the kind of political sphere, And so.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Did you intend for that or did it because your
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: words became activism in a.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Lot of ways.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know that it was an intention, but I
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: wasn't really surprised by it, because I certainly was inspired
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: by the ways in which poets and writers like Alice
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Walker or Angela Davis or Gloria Steinem how they did
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: create words that activated people, even if it was just
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: through a poem or Lucille Clifton like. And so I think,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: for me, Tony Morrison at my Angela like, I think
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: there were so many ways in which, like you know
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: how and still I rise is in themic to the
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: human experience and the political kind of or the human
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: endurance needed to kind of survive our political systems and
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: their injustice and inequities. And so I'm never surprised when
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: poetry is kind of brought into the mixed, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's like, I think it makes total sense.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: And ave every you know, presidential inauguration since Kennedy, there's
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: a poet there. Do you know, because I think poetry
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: really does bring to life our you know, most interior wants,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: desires and stories and creates a space for us to
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: imagine because it brings art to our emotional life. And
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I think when we can or it turns our emotional
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: life into an art that can be shared.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: And so I wasn't surprised, but you know, at the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: time when I was.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Writing hard Talk, they were like, well, should this be
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: a like people really thought I think thought I would
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: kind of have created a work that was more specific
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: to words for a political time rather than words for
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: the heart. I think they thought it would be more
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: like words for the world. And I would always say, like,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: you can't think about how to be a good citizen
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: until you've figured out how to be a person you're
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: proud of, Like you can't figure out like how to
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: be kind to your neighbor without self kindness, without knowing
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: how to give yourself a pep talk, without knowing how
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: to be your own friend.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: And so Heart Talk was really this book that was like,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: this is.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: About building yourself up, like just a building and a
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: building and a building. And I think remember love is
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: about like a true like investigation into the self. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: so it is as if I mean, I remember when
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I was writing it, I was kind of going through
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: some of my toughest moments, and I was like, gosh,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: if I every time, and in various ways that there
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: was through heartbreak, whether it was through disappointment and work,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: whether it's through disappointment in my family, myself and relationships.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Every time I felt like I was lost in the
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: dark and I was looking for the light, and I'm
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: searching and I'm searching and I'm searching until I realize
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: I can only turn it on within, and that I
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: was the light the whole damn time. How could I
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: retrace that? And so for me remember love is like
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: truly a trail of breadcrumbs of like getting back to
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: your light within.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: There's I don't want to butcher what you said because
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I don't have it in my notes, but I remember
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: listening to you on a podcast and you were talking
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: about how you were going through a really kind of
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: tough relationship. This guy was not being kind to you,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: he didn't like feel your soul, and you had a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: friend call you and she said something like, this has
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with him. Why do you feel like
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: this is what you Yeah, she said, I'll never forget
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: my friend Shatah and.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: One of my best friends.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: I met her on the dance floor in New York
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: City fifteen years ago and we're still best friends.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Shout out to Shad, A liftcat.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: I am obsessed, obsessed with this guy most of my twenties,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: like shall remain nameless, but obsessed. So now he has
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: broken up with me again when really he probably just
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: like didn't call me back.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: It feels like a breakup sometimes every time, Yeah, every.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Time, ghosting, like all the stuff like I mean those
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: are real, like you know, like these things like hurt
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: our feelings, they do. And so I say to my
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: friend Shade, she was like, you know what, cleo.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: She was like, I think you need to ask yourself.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: What do you believe?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: She says? She says, do you believe that at this
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: time in your life? I don't know how old I am,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: maybe twenty three?
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: She's like, do you believe that this is like the
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: only person you will ever be with? Do you believe
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: that love is something that doesn't love you back? Do
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: you believe that you should always be chasing like all
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: the things that were going on in this relationship I
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: put in quotes relationship. She was like everything that was
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: a reality that she kind of like affirmed everything that
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: was a reality.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And was like do you believe this question? Do you
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: believe this?
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Is?
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Like this is how love functions. And I never realized
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: that the problem was not him, it was my belief system.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Like I had not yet worked on my belief system.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: I'd come from a place and a you know, kind
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: of childhood and ways what I saw was men doing
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: whatever they wanted to do and women always making it okay.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: And that I think in deep in my in my
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: belief system, which is not an opinion, beliefs are deeper
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: than your opinions, Like beliefs inform your opinions and so
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: and beliefs and where in your beliefs.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Is usually where your trauma is.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: It's where your unhealed things are, Like that's actually what's
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: even below the beliefs. And so when I was having
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: these like opinions of like him or me or right
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: or wrong, Da da da dah, like all of that was.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Powered by the beliefs I had around love.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: And so when I actually got home and really questioned,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: like what do I believe? Why do I believe that.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: I found a lot of you know, pain and heartbreak.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: I found a lot of like, you know, there's got
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: to be something different, And I really started to think
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: about how to heal what caused me to believe these things,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: And that was eventually how I let go of truly
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: being obsessed with I mean eventually, because you have to
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: break your own heart, Like, were you still in love
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: with him when you ended it? I think you're in
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: love with everyone when you end it, you know, you
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: just I think that's why a every breakup takes at
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: least six months to detach. But I also feel like
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: it's I write about this, remember love. I think that
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: love is aligned within and once it's crossed, you will
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: just live on the other side. I think you want
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: things more than you want the person that you're in
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: love with. Yeah, and so whether that's the type of
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: relationship you want, like I want a partner who wants
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: to travel the world with me, or be in this
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: with me, or like cohabitate with me, or have kids,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: or be able to have conversations like this, or be
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: able to sit with my friends in this way. Like,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: you know, you want different things and so more than
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: you want the relationship. You have to always ask yourself,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: I think when you're going through a breakup, to keep
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: yourself from calling or going back, what do I want
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: more than I want this person who is not going
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: to give me what I need?
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: That's a good question, what do I want more than
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I want this person?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I also have never heard the belief system idea
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you presented. So it's trauma, wounds, beliefs.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Then opinions. Yeah, it's interesting.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Well that's why you can see like it's really easy
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: to pokeholes and opinions. It's really hard to overcome beliefs. Yeah,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: and there's like nothing you can do with somebody else's
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: pain and trauma, like they have to heal it themselves.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: So you write in this book, we don't work for
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: those we love. We work with them a loving relationship.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: As a collaboration, we contribute to a shared and sacred experience.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: I was on a plane recently.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I was coming back to LA from to San Arizona,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and I am sitting next to this guy on the airplane,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and because I ask a million questions, he starts telling
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: me about his relationship. He's in love with this woman,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't feel like she's loving him sacredly, and
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I said, what do you mean? And he said something
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: that was so profound. He was like, when you love
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: somebody sacredly, the way they show up with their friends
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: at work, at their workouts, everything changes because they feel
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: so full and they have the capacity to give to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: other people. And I was kind of embarking on an
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: egg freezing journey. And my results from the year before,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: like the nurse called me, and all of my tests,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: my scores had gone up, and I had not changed
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: anything in my life except for had been loved sacredly.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: And I thought, just.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: For my personal experience, how wild that there was quantitative
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: evidence of that sacred love.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Quick note, I want to clarify something because I think
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I was unclear when we recorded the conversation when we
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: talk about sacred love. And I share with her that
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the only thing that changed was that I was loved sacredly.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: What I meant was that I loved myself sacredly, and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I think it was for the first time ever. Okay,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: back to the conversation, and that's kind of what you're
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: talking about in this commitment idea.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: And in that again, their safety, Yeah, you know, when
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: their stress is the absence of feeling safe, and so
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: that stress really really puts your body through it. And
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: I think that like to be in a consistent, loving,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: nurturing environment reduces that stress and like allows your body
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: to like naturally and freely do what it wants to
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: do without fear.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Coming from a relationship where you didn't feel safe. How
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: has being loved sacredly changed how you show up?
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I think there's two things.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: One, it's very hard to have love exists in a
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: sacred space if the sacred space is not start within.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: So I think that you really have to work on
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: self worth to be able to find relationships that exist
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: in the highest possible integrity, spirituality, sacredness, whatever.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: We want to call it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: But I think until you realize that you deserve that
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: or can have that, you'll never find it, and you'll
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: actually just often find things that affirm whatever you believe
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: about yourself.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: And so I think that like, if we feel.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Like, oh, like I should just be happy to be
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: with somebody, you'll be with just somebody. And I think
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: the more you say, like, I have so much love
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: to give, and like, I know that it's possible for
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: me to find someone who wants to bring as much
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: love to the table as I have to.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Bring to the table.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: I think that you will find that that it's different
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: or you say to yourself, like, these are things I
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: really want and these are things I really know where
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: possible for me, I think your life will affirm you
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: with people like that. And so I think for me,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: I did a lot of that kind of work for
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: myself first to even I think, attract someone like my
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: current partner Simon, who we do have this very sacred
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: loving love and bond, but more than and within that,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: if I was going to kind of pull at it
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: to say, like what makes something sacred? So, for example,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: I think the word sacred is like for everyone viewing
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: this could mean fifty different things. Does it just feel sparkly?
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Does it feel like a rainbow? Does it feel like
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: a unicorn? Does it feel spiritual? Does it feel soulful?
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Is it a feeling you have in church?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Is it a feeling? And do you know, like what
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: does that mean?
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: And I would say that it is a bond of
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: respect and integrity where at no point in your relationship
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: is self betrayal required. And I think that's what I
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: would call it being a sacred space or a shelter
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: for those you love less alone.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: It's on the first page of the book.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a theme throughout and I could
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: be projecting, but I feel like oftentimes through our work
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: we seek to heal ourselves in many ways. Yeah, are
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you somebody that you like? Do you consider yourself lonely?
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: I feel that there's no way to be human and
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: not feel lonely, and so I certainly go through moments
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: and times of loneliness, if for no other reason than
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: every single day of your life, you are the last
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: one with your thoughts and feelings, and that is a
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: space of a loneness.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: So often.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: The reason I, you know, the reason my hope is
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: to get books like Remember Love into the hands of
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: everyone I know is actually because I feel that I
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: write for that moment.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: So I feel that I write for like, you know, change, right, change?
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: The act of change is actually pretty easy, right, It's
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: really easy to say, here's my name signed on a
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: sheet of paper.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: The feelings that accompany putting.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Your signature on your divorce papers and your marriage of
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: twenty five years ending is impossible to handle. And even
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: if you have great support, you know, you talk to
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: your lawyer, after you talk to your therapist, after you
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: have all your girlfriends at your house and you're having wine,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: and to like the end of this era when you
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: put on your pajamas and you go to bed and
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: your head hits the pillow and you're not falling asleep
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: right away.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: You are alone with your feelings.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and no one else is feeling exactly what you're
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: feeling but you. And there's such incredible loneliness to feel
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: alone in this like very tender, tough thing. And so
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: for me, I think that that's why I'm always so
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: happy that people say I keep your book by my bedside,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: because that's where I hope people have it is wherever
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: they are, you know. I've never had somebody say, like,
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: I take it to the gym with me, like do
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean? It is really like, or
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: even I take it to the beach. I think people
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: say I live with it. It lives on my bedside table.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: And it's because I hope that in the morning, if
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: you just if it's just you and your thoughts. In
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: the evening, it's just you and your thoughts. I do
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: try to write something where you can feel that there
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: is a friend or someone who sees you in that moment.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: That's really beautiful. There's this theme of rebirth in the book.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: You use the words rebirth, return, reclaim, recover repeatedly.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Two of my quotes that I pulled out were, we
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: leave ourselves behind because facing ourselves means facing our feelings.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: It's hard to love a stranger.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: It's extra hard when that stranger, excuse me, change.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Has turned the stranger into you. Yeah. I love that.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: You know your book by heart.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: That is like the most quoted thing to me, my
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: whole of every one I've sat down.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Really Yeah, why do you think that's resonating with people?
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: What's it hitting? I think that.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: And there's a poem in the book that is probably
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: the shortest poem in the book. It's probably ten words
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: on a page. Yeah, and it's called It's Simple, And
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: the text of the poem is, every time you change,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: get to know yourself again. I think what so many
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: of us go through is that we shift and we change,
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: and we become different people, and we try to give
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: this same needs or the same type of awareness and
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: attention to an outdated version of ourselves. And I think
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: everyone goes through that where they're just like wait, Like
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: it's kind of what I was talking about in postpartum,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: where I was like, wait, the baptub and the podcasts
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: are not working right now because I'm a different person
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: right now.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Than I usually am. And I think women I experience that.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say more so because everyone's unique,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: but I hear from women that they really feel that.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: And I think women often are given really specific emotional roles,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: and so shifting out of who you are means you
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: might be shifting your whole family unit. Yeah, so much
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: of what I write about in this book is this
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: idea of being the glue, right, like this thing of
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: you call yourself the glue, but as you hold it
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: all together, who is holding you?
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: When we are the doers.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Or the glue, meaning we're utility, We're not the thing.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: We're the tool that holds the thing together. But we
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: don't get to be in the thing. If you're the glue,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: you're you're not a person, You're not in the family,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: You're something that is facilitating for the family. I think
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: in that that does tend to be women, because I
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: think that we do tend to just kind of emotionally
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: hold together communities. So if all of a sudden, your
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: emotional life shifts and you feel you need different things
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: because you feel like a different person, how do you
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: give yourself permission to have it if everyone's counting on
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: you to.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Always stay the same so that you can continue to provide.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: That's really hard.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: And so I think even like when you think of
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: just culturally, how much forgiveness or not even forgiveness, but
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: okayness we give to men changing It's like you, for
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: some reason, only men go through midlife crises, Like that's
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: so insane, Like only men should be like, oh, of course,
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: he just wanted a sportscard of this or that, and
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: he just feels like a totally different person and it
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: gets to go through a totally different phase of life.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: And we just call and we call women just going
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: through menopause as if it's just this physical condition that
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: we go through and has nothing to do with our
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: personalities or or are like desires to like have as
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: much out of life as possible as we kind of
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: get to the middle part of it. It's it's a
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: physical condition that we have. And so I think it's really,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: you know, there's so much that this idea that like
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: men get to go through phase true phases of life,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: whether that's like you know, being a boy, he's.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Just he's just a school kid.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: He's he's just a boy to be like time to
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: be a man, and then like time to be a dad.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Like I mean, there's so much.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: And I think women often whatever role you play in
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: your family of origin, you're really asked to play it
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: your whole life, and then you probably marry into or
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: take part in relationships that require that same role.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Do you resent it at all? Or do you embrace it?
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: I think I'm reckoning with it.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I think that we, you know, have the power to
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: change that in our own ancestry and lineage ourselves.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: And so I think for me, I always think about the.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Ways in which I can actively change the physical and
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: spiritual DNA of my family. Like I always think about
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: what can I show my daughters that's different than what
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: I saw?
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: How can I like even by.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Being able to name and understand this idea of the glue, Like,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: what do I do with that once I learn it?
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: And so I think that the journey of you know,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: reckoning with like how am I in these roles based
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: on what I've attracted how many in these roles based
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: on like what the world tells me things have to be?
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: How you know, there's I mean, there's so many factors.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: But I think being in it and putting my own
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: power and ideas in it and working on the ways
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: in which I think I can shift and change and
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: ask for different things really helps because then I don't
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm victim to it. I feel that I have,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: you know, I get to claim or reclaim agency.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: You write in this book to live is to get lost.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: There's sort of like a spiritedness behind that line. I felt,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: h do you feel comfortable sharing a time when you
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: felt really lost?
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: I go through seasons of feeling lost regularly. I think
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: that we feel lost when we moved to a new place.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: They certainly had that when I moved, even I moved
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: to Los Angeles when I had Memphis, so maybe January
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: of twenty twenty. I think I was here by November
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: of twenty nineteen, and then I had.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Her in this strange time. It was a very strange.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: Time, and I remember just like waking up because I
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: didn't really have a I've never had a desire to
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: live in Los Angeles. I think that that was also
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: a thing, like I was kind of like, what am
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: I doing here? But my sim and my partner as
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: kids from a previous marriage, and I wanted everyone to
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: be together.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: So we came here. I came here to.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: Have Memphis, and it was I felt lost for I
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: mean a because I ended up having my postpartum period
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: was tough, and then the pandemic end, and I was
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: like kind of inside and kind.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Of like really alone and in child rearing, you know.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: I don't even think my mom or dad saw my
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: kid until she was six months old because of you know,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: traveling and cod all the things of like you're so
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: we were so afraid during that time, and so I
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: think it was definitely a period of feeling lost, like wow,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: am I working from here?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Am I like?
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: What what does it look like to kind of build
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: community here?
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: You feel lost because you became a poet in your twenties, right,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: did you feel a sense of lostness during that time?
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine like being like, yeah, I'm going to
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: be a poet and I'm also going to feed myself.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: It's a really hard being.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Deciding to write was actually like a period of foundness,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: but I'd say the entirety of my team and very
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: very early twenties, like until twenty two, I felt like
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: just completely lost. I felt like someone who was just surviving,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Like I just got jobs and made money, and like,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: you know, because I didn't.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: I moved to New York at seventeen. I didn't have
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: a safety net.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: I didn't.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not an.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Educated person, you know, I think, so for me, you
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: are was well, I guess traditionally educated, but yes, and
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: so I think for me it was very like I've
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: just got to work and I've got to you know,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: get through and I'll figure out my life.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: But I knew that I wanted to be in New York.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: And and I'd always kind of like spiritually been drawn
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: to that as a place, and it was the only
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: place I could ever imagine living that wasn't New Orleans,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: because New Orleans is just so special?
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Was it what you wanted it to be?
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: I love New York and that's it every day?
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, I know, I mean I love New York. I
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: think there's nothing you know, I think the literary city
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: it's really just for some people or it's not. But
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: I truly do feel that I am like the you know,
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: like the almost toxic lover of New York, like a
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: like a friendly Buetz or something where it's just like
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: this is not healthy, but like we're going with it.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Frand what do you feel like has been the penultimate
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: moment of your career so far?
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: And it's open ended purposely.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Gosh, you know, I wrote this thing and remembering Love
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: that said when the it said, when the material is
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: at the center of my goals, when I cross the
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: finish line, even if I'm holding the first place trophy,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: there's some loneliness there when the relational is at the
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: center of my goals. When I cross the finish line,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: whether I'm I win or I lose, I'm what's held.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: And I think for me, my friendship and being able
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: to sustain them through so much change in my work
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: and all the things I do that you know, aspecially
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: as I sat down to write this book and sitting
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: down to remember Love, I was you know, it was
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: around ten years since I started writing hart Talk, because
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: it took time to kind of write it and piece
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: it together, and I.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Was just so.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Like it was such a kind of I guess i'd
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: call it a career highlight because I felt so present
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: and so purposeful and so like, Wow, I still get
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: to sit in my living room with all these women
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: that I love and eat take out and then turn
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: the greatest things I learned from the people I love
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: into books that help people.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, you did a Ted talk titled want
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to Change the World Start by being brave enough to care?
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you just care so much? Oh my god, I
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: really too.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think it's like, what else are we
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: doing with our lives if we're not caring and caring
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: for the people that we know, love, or like. And
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: I guess to me too, I really do believe in thoughtfulness,
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: and I also believe that people. I don't think we're
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: an accident. I don't think we meet people by accident.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: I don't think that we're in the world at this
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: time with the people where that we're around by accident.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that even when we're in the midst.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Of calamity and tragedy and it's happening like if you
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: even if it's happening while you're on this planet, then
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: like you, that to me means somehow you're a part
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: of the solution or somehow you're a part of.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Helping even just one person.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: And so I think that I think, because I just
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: don't believe we're a mistake.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like I'll make it a statement instead
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of a question. I feel like your work has allowed
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: people to embrace the idea that it's cool to care,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: because I think we hear the phrase all the time
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: like degas don't give a fuck, yeah, and whoever gives
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: the least amount of fucks when yeah, And as somebody
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: who has always given all of the fucks all the time, I.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Just feel like you made it cool to care, you know.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: I think that there's just power, and I think there's
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: actually power and I don't give it back. And I
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: remember writing in Hard Time, there's a page that says, like,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: remember not to care about the things you don't even
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: care about. So I think that there are things that
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: are truly like unimportant, like somebody else's drama or somebody
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: like you know that is truly inconsequential to all, like
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: all the time, like my mom is like such a
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: gossip and she's just like scoot in the kitchen. I
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: don't know why they all scoot just scoot in the
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: kitchen and be like, so you know, like I gotta
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: pauseure there, I can't give this real estate.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Like I love that you didn't grow up when you
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: said it, Like, but I like that I can't give
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: this real estate.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I was like, don't do not, do not,
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: do not. I was like, I don't even want to
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: like bring it in because it is truly like not
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: a single person involved is going to care about it tomorrow,
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Like do you know what I mean? It's not her
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: like truly care about it, so like if it's important, yes,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: but if it is truly like well she said she
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: thought her hair was weird, and you're like, none of
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: that's not going to bother anybody. In like twenty minutes,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: you just are like it's making you feel spicy.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna tell you my favorite line from the book.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: It was I know that's hard to do.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious to know if it's been other people's.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: So you're right, I'm sorry is the blessing of all blessings.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: WHOA I never thought of I'm sorry as a blessing.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: It's a blessing to you and to the person you're sharing.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: It with well, i'm sorry. This is shorthand for I
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: feel ashamed.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's ashamed, because I think, actually, if
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: we can pull shame out of i'm sorry, okay, we
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: can more freely gift i'm sorry as like an offering
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: to both of us. And I think what ends up
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: happening is that because we rap shame in it, people
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: don't want to acknowledge it, and therefore they can't acknowledge
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: what happened, okay. And so I think that when we
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: say i'm sorry, it's really shorthand for I see you,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: and I understand that there was harm caused, like I
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: understand that something just happened, okay. And I think that
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: when you can just even start with acknowledgment, because there
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: is nothing you can heal without first seeing it, like
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: you cannot heal a wound if you cannot identify where
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: the wound is. And so I think for me, i'm sorry,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: it is something you say, not for you, not for me,
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: but for us. It is something that is like truly
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: two words that are for the building of our bond
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: in our community.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I really like that it's for us.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it is like it is, And I think
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: that that's why sometimes you have to have humility to
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: say it, because you're kind of like, well, here's the
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: twenty reasons why I ended up doing what I did
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: and da da da da da. And it's really like,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: there's so many things that stand between us and I'm sorry,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: and they're in there in all those things are valid
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: ways to feel. Every way you feel is real, like
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: that is true, but like what do you want to
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: do with what you feel? And what do you want
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: more than like a feeling you've had, Like do you
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: want to actually come inside from the cold and be
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: with your family?
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: And is I'm sorry the only thing that's.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: Standing between you and like the warmth of the people
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: you love.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to me too, because sometimes I'm sorry feels
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: hard to say because you don't feel like you did
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: anything wrong even though you see someone else's pain. So
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the idea of making it for us, I think makes
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: it easier to.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Say and understanding, Like what does it mean? Like is
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: it like I see you and I see that you're hurting,
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: like I'm sorry. I see that I see that there
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: is hurt like it is it is shorthand for I
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: see what you're I see that this is hurting you.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And I think that, like.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: In any situation, there's always accountability to be had in
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: some way.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: There just is a very personal question.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Tell me what has been the hardest apology you've had
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: to share.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: My hardest apology I think I've had to one of
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: my hardest apologies is probably one to myself. I think
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: self forgiveness is one of the hardest things ever. And
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: it's like we rarely say I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: rarely see those words to ourselves, like we even think
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: about the concept of self forgiveness, but we it's a
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: kind of this abstract thing.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Of like I should just feel better about this thing.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: But like, have you ever just kind of like put
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: your hand on your heart and been like I'm really sorry,
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Like I'm sorry that like I didn't make you safe
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: in this place, or I didn't you know, I felt
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: that you deserve this, or like or that you know,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I'm really sorry that you didn't like we couldn't have
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: done better in this way or whatever the self talk. Yeah,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: And so I think I think that, and then I think,
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm sorry. It is also just is truly
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: a practice that's so helpful, Like even if you. I think,
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: especially in relationships you feel like you know, I still
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: like I'll say I'm sorry to my mom or Simon
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: or my partner just in like in ways where like
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: most people would not maybe say it because they're like, well,
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: we're like related, we're together, like you know what I meant.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: But it's amazing actually to bring those words into like
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: the people you're with the most that you think just
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: like should know or know you love them, so it
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter. Like whenever I have like maybe like gotten
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: a little too harsh with my mom about something or
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: been like you know, frustrated with her, when I come
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: back around and say like, I'm sorry for like you know,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: expressing my frustration so harshly. Yeah, I do think that
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: it builds our bond instead of like and I think
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: that the lack of apology does, even if it's one
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: tiny crumb, kind of crumbles it.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: And I think it's the same with Simon.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: I think that I don't think there's ever been a
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: time where Simon wasn't like grateful that I apologize or something. Yeah,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: And I think bringing it into like not in a
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: casual way, but like just not making it the biggest
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: deal ever to have to apologize is also just really
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: helpful and healthy.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: You're right. The lack of recognition like builds resentment.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and then and then like it also builds
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: such a distance between you and this blessing that you're like,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: it's like it's like that friend you can't call because
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: like more and more and more stuff happens that you're like,
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: I can't get on the phone with you because I
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: can't be on the phone for two hours like to
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: tell you about everything. So you just sort avoiding your
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: friend because you like know that you are that favorite
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: aunt you have because you know you don't have the
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: time to tell them everything when you're like you should
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: just call them, like and just start and.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: If you have to go, you have to go. Yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: But I think that we really start to avoid I'm sorry, we.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Avoid apology that like less we do it.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: There's been a movement for that because women have been apologizing.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah and yeah, but there's apologizing for something that's important,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: and then there's apologizing for existing. Yeah, like oh sorry,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: Like we say sorry instead of excuse me, we say sorry.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: Like if you're putting your I guarantee you if you're
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: putting your suitcase up above, and it's like someone's right there,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: You're like sorry, instead of being like excuse me, like
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: for doing the thing. Of course I have to do that,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: like everyone is doing.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: But I think because we've tried so hard to eliminate
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: that word, there's sort of this backlash of like we've missed.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: See, I'm so sorry.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: You say when you are actually I'm gonna you say,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: big beginnings and big endings change us. I would kind
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: of argue that one runs into the other. What do
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: you think, like, give me an example.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: I think, well, it doesn't. It's not in verse.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: I think big endings bring new beginnings always.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: New beginnings don't necessarily bring new.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Endings, you know, I think it. I definitely see what
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: you're saying. And I think, to me, it's like not
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: so much about like linking them, but like.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Honoring each individual experience.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: So like the idea that like you can have like
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: a big beginning might be like you met somebody and
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: you have this extremely serious relationship and it actually makes
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: all of the other relationships in your ecosystem change and
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: some shed and like some friendship dynamics change and some
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: family dynamics changed. Because as you would say, a sacred
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: love really changes your existence. Right, So I'd say that's
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: a big beginning that really changes us. Big endings change us.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: You know, my best friend's father passed away two weeks ago,
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: and she will just never be the same person again.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: She is forever changed.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: And so I think big, you know, I think I
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: will always be different because of the big ending of
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: my you know, thirteen years in New York. I think
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: that was a big ending and it really changed a
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: lot for me as as well as like and it
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: did bump into a new beginning and a big beginning
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: in Los Angeles. But they don't always have to.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think always and never are not great words. Yeah,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: so I probably shouldn't have said that. There's a term
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you use called spiritual investigation. I'd never heard of that.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Can you share a lesson you learned by being curious
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: like that?
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, Okay, you have a feeling, right, and
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: a feeling makes you like say something and you don't
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: mean what you said, Like spiritual investigation would say, like
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: why did I feel this strongly about this thing?
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Like why did I like? Where did that come from?
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: So again, like spiritual investigation could bring us back to opinions, beliefs, trauma, pain,
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: So like the investigation is how what you would stay
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: instead of just being like money is the opinion? Like
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: of course, it's just what I think, my opinion, And
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: you're like, well, like how do we get here?
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Like I always wonder how we got here?
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: And I think that that's a big part of like
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: understanding even our political spheres of like when someone is
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: you know, there's so many topics that are so socially
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: charged when someone talks to you about them, and every
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: single time, if you spiritually investigated the pain point from
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: which everything stems, you'd understand why someone feels or votes
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: or is the way they are.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: You are writing Valentine's to yourself nowadays?
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: What does that mean? Why?
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: So I write in the book about this time where recently,
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Like as I was writing the book, my mom brought
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: me a Valentine i'd written to her. It was like
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: a school project in second grade and it was writing
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: a Valentine to your parents.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: And I'd written this.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: Valentine to my mom and it had said, like I
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: show my love for you by that was the prompt.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: So there were three and it was I don't remember
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: all three offhand, although is in the book, but it's
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: I show my love for you by not talking when
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: you're on the phone. I show my love for you
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: by like doing all the dishes, getting the dishes done.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: I show my love for you by There was another,
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: there was another one I can't remember, but every single
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: one of them was like something I did to accommodate
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: her need. And it you know, while I so respect
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: and let love my mom and all that she did
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: as a single parent raising us, I'd wondered, at what
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: point in my personal life did this like kind of
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: desire to accommodate kind of turn into making myself.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Invisible in relationships because.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: You'd have the like, you know, oh my God, like
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: my mom is like so loved because I, like just
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: you know, made sure I was doing the thing that
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: she needed in the moment. So if that starts as
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: your pattern, then you end up being in relationships with
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: people where the entire basis of your connection is like
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: ways in which you accommodate.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: Their need needs.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: And if you're solely accommodating the needs of the others,
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: you're there's no way that there's equity in how yours
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: are fulfilled.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Do you catch yourself now. Still even with all the
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: self work fighting that.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: It's all practice, like the idea that we do the
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: work to like kind of win or lose something. I
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: say that about self care. It's like we look at
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: self care as a battle. We either win or we
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: lose based on the work that goes in. But we
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: say work, we might when we should maybe even say practice.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: It's like anything else. The practice of anything is never done.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: People practice playing chess their whole lives. They practice, you know,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: even if you're Serena Williams. You practice. It's not like, oh,
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: you made the Grand Slam that time and so you know,
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: or like you just go play tennis again one day
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: you just got it.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of soul contracts that you bring up.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Can you share what they are?
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: So I'm in San Francis, I'm not actually no, I'm
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: in New York. But I'm talking to this woman in
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: San Francisco who recently passed. Actually she was this amazing astrologer.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: She introduces the concept of a soul contract to me,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: and I was like, what does that mean? And she
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: said that a sole contract is when you understand that
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: like every relationship has like terms and a time limit,
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: and because we change so much, like sometimes we renew
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: it with new terms because like that's our change self,
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: or we kind of rip it up.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: And so there's this.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: Idea that we like, you know, you could have a
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: soul contract with your parents, for example, and then in
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: adulthood you likely need to like renew the different renew
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: it with different terms because like you can't be their
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: small little daughter anymore, because that's not like the reality
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: the situation, and that that contract is outdated.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: I love this idea because I think if we were
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: to do this with friendships, in relationships marriages, Yeah, and
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: we both like came to the table with expectations, agreements, terms,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: we would be in such a I think we'd find
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: more fulfillment and less frustration our relationship.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: What I'd also say is if our even in marriage vows,
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: It's like, it's interesting to think about people who renew vows,
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: Like I wonder what it would look like for them
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: to like, you know, redesign vows every five years or
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: something like even as a practice, but where it acknowledges
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: where you are now and what you need now and
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: what you vow to do to help with the other person.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: And so soul contracts aren't necessarily like something you actually
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: write up, although I'm sure you could, but they are
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: something that to me really helped me understand a how
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: to let go of some people that like where you're
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: like in that kind of old like saying a season
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: or reason, a lifetime whatever, where you're like, you know,
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: like our contract's just up and of being very close
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: friends and now we're just our new contract is that
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: we're people who used to be really good friends and
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: love each other and we see each other and like
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: that's the integrity of the situation or the relationship. And
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: you know, you were you were the guy was obsessed
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: with in my twenties and like you're not the like
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: our contract does not have you being like the father
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: of my children.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Can I do a little rapid fire? Okay, I'm ready.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: A word?
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: You just love A word? I love, you know. I
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: love the word beloved.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: I love the word it's my it's my daughter's middle
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: my second daughter by U's middle name. I use it
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: in so many different poems. It's just there's something like
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: even if I someone writes me a note and it
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: ends with beloved, or like the question does or like
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: it's something. It's a word I feel like I can
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: laugh at, and when it's used in a certain text,
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: it's a word I use. I think it's just like
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: so sweet and tender, and I've used it in so
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: many of my writings.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I saw a psychic for the first time a few
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: years ago, and she calls everybody beloved.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's very southern to do that too. We have
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: everybody like baby and beloved. It's nice, it's warm.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: If you were to tell me to travel to one
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: place you've been that I must see.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: That you must see, I mean, I guess I would say,
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: but you've already been. I would say New Orleans. I
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: think that New Orleans is a place every person should go. Yeah,
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: it truly is amazing.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: A simple pleasure you've been introduced to lately, m a
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: simple pleasure.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: My simple pleasure lately is actually that is watching like
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: Disney movies with my kids, like rewatching because now they're
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: both at the age.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Like I never was the like I'm not a TV parent.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: I was always like I don't care, Like there's nothing
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: better in life than being in bed and watching a movie,
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: and like, why would I like rob My children of
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: that at too, and so we've always been in bed.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Like my like three and a half year old does
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: this like insane attention span because of it, and she
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: can literally watch like alliga of their own.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: It is crazy. Do they eat in bed too? Oh yeah?
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: Well just well like we just that's a pleasure.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: And so my simple pleasure recently is I usually go
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: like old school, so I just have my own nostalgia
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: around the Disney movies I watch. Yeah, but I watched
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: Tangled recently. Yeah, and Mandy Moore is the voice of Tangled,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: and she's like such a nostalgic thing for me that
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: I was like, Wow, this movie is amazing and all
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: the songs are so good and so like my daughters
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: and I have been watching Tangled.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Like every other day, and I'm like, this is beyond.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: I'm obsessed. I was like, I gonna ask you if
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: they like it as much as you do.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: Buy you definitely does Memphis Like thanks were insane. She's like,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: can we please try She's like, mom, we have to
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: try something, you know.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: I was like, your sister wants to watch Tangled, and
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: she's like.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I'm excited for them to watch Big Daddy. I feel
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: like every kid that's like.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: A god they have to watch Yes. Okay, the most
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: consequential no in your life, you know.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: I think the day I said no to being a
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: yes person and like an accommodator in that way was
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: like the most life changing, not like the day I
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: like said no to only being a yes person and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: then just figuring it out. I think really changed everything
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, a book that you've read, something that you feel
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: like everybody should read.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: All about Love by Bell Hooks for sure, at least.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: I mean I could give you a million book recommendations, but.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a booky podcast, so feel free.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, I would say all about Love. I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: would say Beloved by Tony Morrison. Although it's sad. I
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: mean all of her books are so sad, you're just like,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: damn it, Tony, but they're so beautifully written. The fire
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: next time, I'd say, if you're going through a breakup,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: the Mastery of Love is like one of the best
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: books you could ever read.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: If you're going through a breakup. Oh, that's a good thing.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: My friend Jenna has this amazing book she just released
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: on human design called My Human Design. I think that's
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: excellent for most women. I think a really important book
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: to read is my friend Taz just released a.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: Book called The Hormone Shift. She's amazing. You should talk
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: to her, She's so great.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: And the color purple absolutely, any book by Mary Oliver,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: any book by My Angelou, especially Letters to My Daughter
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: is so incredible.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: What's the best thing You've ever quit? Whiskey?
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: Although I'll still have one sometimes, but I don't really
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: drink hard alcohol anymore, but I still have wine.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: How many do I do?
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: Do what I felt you do?
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: Another? Most likely to splurge on clothing. You have a
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: great closet, I really do.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: I also have a great shout out to Shiona Tarini
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: because she has like unfortunately changed my esthetic and it's
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: made me broke. She just like she's my stylist and
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: she literally is just like, oh.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: What is change?
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Because I've always found it to be bohemian but simple
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: and sophistication. Know.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: She just like showed me the nicer things of life
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: and now I'm like, oh I get it, Like that's
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: why that sweater is so much more expensive than this?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: That are so nice to introduce you to the row.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a prob.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: It really is it really is?
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: And then you're just like it really is one thing
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: you are trying to or need to let go of.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: I am always trying to let go of making other
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: people feel okay with my decisions to do one more?
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: There's one on the bottom. Oh should I do that one?
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I'm wondering what you what would your younger you
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: not believe about your life today? I think my younger
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: me would not believe that there is so much kind
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: of like peace and care within our entire family unit,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: not without its dysfunction, but like we have really like
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, not kind of healed every fracture,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: healed every wound, but there is this kind of genuine
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: kind of flow of love and care with all members
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: of our family, which my parents, like, I just don't
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: think were built to bridge that gap in my life
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: as a child and or needed more time. And I
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: think as a kid, you just thought that it would
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: always just be like an overhere and and over there,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: and then.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: You were just like having to figure out yourself over here.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: And now like the decisions kind of do flow and
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: have a flow between all?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Well, would you say you it's like the biggest catalyst
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: to that what did you change within the dynamic?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: You know, I think it's really about forgiveness, real forgiveness.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: I think it's really about not caring about the things
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: you don't even care about. And it is like, I
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: think that thing for giveness of like, it's not for you,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: it's not for me, it's for us, because I do
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: think that in forgiveness or apology or even even especially
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: even in forgiveness, and like, even if somebody couldn't bring
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: you the apology, you're like, I actually want forgiveness for us,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: Like even if I still like, because I think if
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: you don't feel the other person deserves your forgiveness, you'll never.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: Really be able to give it to them.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: And you can still not feel that they deserve it
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: from you or want to give it to them, but
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: you probably feel that like the to the entire the
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: us of it all deserves it.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: That psychic her name's chris Is Schumacher, And I was
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: asking her about forgiveness because I think it's it's something
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I least like about myself.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: I find it hard to forgive.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: And she was telling me about the difference between forgiveness
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: and mercy, and I thought that was sort of an
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: interesting distinction if you can't quite get to forgiveness.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well, and I think you know, forgiveness is
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: especially hard for people who take the ways in which
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: they treat others so seriously, like you know, so it's
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: just like you're just it's like you're the offensives or
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: offenses are so deeply offensive because you're just like.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: I would never, I would never, I would never.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: And I I find that if I'm saying that about something,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, okay, I'll never be able to forgive
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: if like I'm only in the ego of.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: What I would or wouldn't do.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: Just oh my god, I hate to say it, Cleo,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: thank you for that.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: And so it's like if you can get if I
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: can get out of there, that space like where there's
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: absence of ego and only presence of like spirit i'd say,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: or soul.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Mercy lives there, Forgiveness lives there.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: But that's the hardest place because you're like, you know,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: that's it's so hard to exit our judgments.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: It's so hard.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: My last question is what is the smartest decision you've
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: ever made.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: The smartest decision I ever made was probably, you know,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: really taking that big chance and that big risk to
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: move to New York as such a young person, and
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: it probably seemed really dumb at the time to so many,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: but I just don't think that, Like all of the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: things that I'm so grateful to have today, I really
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: feel that that was like the first step on the
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: new journey that, like, you know, I could say, I
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: could have easily said like having my daughters, you know,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: saying yes to my first date with Simon, you know,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: signing a book, you know, like a book deal to
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: make heart talk, But I think none of that would
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: have been possible without saying yes to a giant risk.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: Like that was the smartest thing I ever did, was say.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: Was really get used to risk taking at an early age,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: Like and I didn't know that at the time, but
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: I was like, wow, so much of risk taking has
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: to do with just being having a habit and having
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: a practice of doing it, and doing it at seventeen
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: just like completely changed the possibilities for my life.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you for this therapy session. Oh my god, thank
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: you so much. This is so fun. Okay, you know
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: what time it is.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Today's a good day, to have a good day.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: I'll see you next week.