Latest / Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler / International Women’s Day with Monica Lewinsky

Transcript

International Women’s Day with Monica Lewinsky · Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi Catherine, Hi Chelsea, Greetings from Whistler, Canada.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: You guys got dumped on?
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I cannot ski in deep powder. I got
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: buried like three times the other day. The powder is
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: so deep that I can't even navigate it. I don't
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: know which way to go, and then you fall down
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and it takes forever to get your skis out because
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: they're under like six four I was under like four
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: feet of snow and I was hanging upside down. At
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: one point, I skied through a tree, double ejected, went
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: through the woods. Finally, after the third tree I hit,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I was like, I think it's time to get out
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of the woods.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: A hot mess up here. And now I have children
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: at my house.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: My cousins are here, Molly and Carrie, and they arrived
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: with their three year old and four year old girls,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: so that's cute. I don't have children at my house
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: very often.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: You know that, little kids.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And then I had my other children here, Katie, my
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: little daughters, my twin buddhas Katie and Jesse. And I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: was trying to make Katie some food on Saturday night,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: so I made a bunch of hamburger meat and she's like,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: she calls me dad.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: She goes, Dad, that's disgusting.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not eating anything you cook, like you're not a
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: good cook, and we all know that we can't eat.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, all right, I'm fine. I'm like
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it's good. I put seasoning, I put onions. I'm like
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: it's good, it's good. And I took a bite. I'm like, oh,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: this is terrible. You know, I destroy everything I cook.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So the next morning I gave it to Doug because I,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I figured dogs like hamburger meat. Doug has
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: had an explosive diarrhea now for forty eight hours.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Oh no, he exploded all over.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: My carpet, and Molly, my cousin, is trying to clean
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: it up because she knows. I don't know how to clean.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Up feces PSA.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: Dogs are not supposed to have onions, so maybe that
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: is why.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Oh cool, what about hamburger meat?
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Though hamburger meat should be fine?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, what is it? Maybe too fatty
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: for him, that's why he got the diarrhea.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It's a hot shit show in this house, though, you should.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Literally this morning, the dog walker friends coming going diarrhea.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: My friend stepped in the diarrhea.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: How many of errors?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I added a new show in Prior Lake, Minnesota, and
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: then I added a new show in Santa Rosa, California.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Second shows for that, so you can go to Chelseahandler
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: dot com. I'm kind of a Salt Lake city too,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: which is exciting in April and Denver, Colorado. So go
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to Chelsea Handler dot com for all my tickets and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: we're going to be adding more and more dates.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Excellent, just always adding more dates. That's always happening. That's
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a great thing.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: This weekend I have Coloonna and Victoria both are sold out,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: but Victoria on Vancouver Island and then Colowna and then
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go to the Oscar parties on Sunday.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I think I can just get dressed up for the
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: day and then you.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Know, Nike more. That'll be fun. Chelsea. It's International Women's
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Day this week?
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Is it? Oh?
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: My goodness?
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Happy International Women's Day. We love women, women, women, women, women, Chelsea.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: Since it's International Women's Day, I wanted to ask you,
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: as women, what are some ways that you feel we
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: can regain our power?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's very important for you to be honest
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: with yourself and never to sublimate your feelings for the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: benefit of others.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: I think you have to.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Really, there's such an overcorrection that needs to be made
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: in order for us to balance out, because we have
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: been fed this whole song and dance, our whole lives
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that men are just more valuable, and that's simply not true.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: We are valuable.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And to understand your value, you have to be in
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a relationship with yourself, to understand who you are, what
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you're good at, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And once you can figure those things out, like what
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: you're good at and what you're not good at, then
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you can excel at the things you're good at and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: kind of minimize your exposure to the things that don't
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: bring you as much joy and as much power. But
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I think the most important thing is to always stand
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: up for yourself, to always, you know, be your best ally.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And one thing you talk about a lot is
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: like asking for what you want and asking for what
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: you need. And I was with someone this weekend who
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: you know, when she didn't want to do something, she
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: would say, oh, but you guys, go ahead.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to, but you guys go ahead.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: And I just was like, I want her to feel
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: confident in to say like, no, you know, let's not
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: do that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not really into that. Let's go to this other
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: thing over here. And I think the more we can.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Work that muscle and gain that muscle, the more powerful
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: will be.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, very important to always just kind of I like
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to think of myself as like my own little daughter.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to ever let somebody hurt a little kid,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: so I'm not going to let anybody hurt me either.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd want hurt a stand up for herself, so like,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: let's stand up for her.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: M M.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I love that we have a very special guest for
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: International Women's Day. Her ted talk has topped over twenty
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: two million views, Her reformation campaign went viral this week,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and her self care and anti harassment activism is widespread,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: including her most recent anti bullying efforts with stand upto
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: yourself dot com. Please welcome producer, activist, public speaker, and
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: contributing editor at Vanity Fair Monica Lewinsky. I can't believe
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you're in my studio, but I'm not there. Yeah, it's
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: so good to see you, Monica. Thank you so much
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: for being our special guest this very important International Women's Day,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: which we should be having more frequently than once a year.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: It seems like, Monica, where do we meet? We've met
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a couple times, right, Once this was with Alissa.
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: Wright, who I love, and I think we have Maria
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: Schreiber in common.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we probably have some people in common. Well, I
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: was meaning to hang out with you at some point.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: We still have to do that anyway, but now we're
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: hanging out here, so we'll start here. So I'm very
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: excited to talk to you because obviously, well you've been
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a very public figure for a very long time, and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: now you have a huge, big perspective on all of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the things that you've been through. So I'm sure the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: way that you look at things has probably changed a
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: lot since you were a young girl.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: I've had a lot, a lot of therapy and like
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: a lot of healing modalities.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I do it all, so do you.
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, My main therapist is a trauma psychiatrist. I
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: have a somatic therapist I have. I call him my
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: energy worker, but he's like, I don't know, it's more
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: resonance kind of resonance work.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: And I have a friend apist, and.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: What is a friend to pist? I mean, obviously I
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: can figure that out.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you know, it's someone that I had started
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: working with professionally, not as a therapist, but in other capacities.
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: We became friends, and then a few years ago I
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: was going through just challenging work stuff and she kept
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: stepping up to the plate so much, and I was
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: relying on her so much that I just felt like,
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: because we had had a transactional relationship before and now
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: there was this deeper connection, it just didn't feel like
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: an even exchange to me. So I was like, I know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: I'm going to just pay you a tiny bit of
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: money each week and then you know, so it's great,
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: because I just felt like there needed to be an
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: even exchange. But I find what I find really valuable
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: is that I don't have to always wait until my
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: next therapy B session to process something if it's really important.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to catch our listeners up.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: For anyone who's not familiar with Monica or her story,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: this was a very very long time ago. Let's set
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the scene because this was before social media, so we
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: didn't have Instagram.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Or even Twitter.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: At that time, we had nothing, and you were caught
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: up in a very, very, the most public scandal of
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: all time probably or one of the most public scandals
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: of all time, and you were only a twenty two
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: year old girl. So your Ted talk, which has received
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: over twenty two million views, was so moving because it
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: is on the subject of cyber bullying and what you
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: went through and the disparities between men and women and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: cyber bullying. So at that time, how were you reading
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: this stuff about yourself that people were writing.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: It was horrific.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: I think in large part, I think it's challenging for
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: anybody in the public eye to read or hear something
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: negative about themselves, but chosen to be a public person.
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: And I literally went to bed one night a private
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: person and awaken the next morning and there was my
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: name above the fold on the newspaper like So it
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: was a very jarring transition and obviously not something people
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: want recognition.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: That's not what you want to become.
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: Known for, and so it was quite challenging, and I
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: think I went through a period where I became almost
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: obsessed with the negativity. But I also felt in many
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: ways that I had to follow along with everything that
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: was going on because it was giving me clues to
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: what was happening legally, and even though I had lawyers,
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: I think we've all gone through this before. When you
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: feel you're in a helpless, feeling situation, any straws that
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: you can grasp for agency can feel valuable. So it
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: was that way, but it was I mean, it did
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: a total fucking number on me. So I mean I
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: still deal with, you know, with insecurities and issue from
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: ways that I was talked about, both true and untrue.
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: And didn't you mention in one interview that your parents
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: didn't have really the Internet on their computer at home,
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: so you had to like go to an internet cafe.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: So my mom, yeah, we didn't. So my parents are divorced.
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: I was living with my mom in DC and my
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: dad and stepmom are in Brentwood, so my at my
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: mom's we did not. And then when I went out
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: to stay with my dad and stepmom, they had the Internet.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: And that was I was actually just thinking about it
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: when we were saying this a few seconds ago. Because
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: I would get up super early, I'd go on the internet,
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: and they eventually established a rule that I wasn't allowed
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: to go on the computer until after breakfast because I
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: would just dive in and then I was, you know,
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: little miss cuckoo pants from what was.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Being the moment you woke up. I'm sure, yeah, well
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: it's just a I mean, it was I wouldn't wish
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: the experience of my worst enemy.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: So, you know, I think influencers these days, and obviously
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: it's it's somewhat different from what you went through, but
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: there are bullies out there, there are nasty comments and
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: that sort of thing, and most of us are picking
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: up our phone first thing in the morning, We're going
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: on social media and so like same sort of situation
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: where they're filling their minds with that from the moment
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: they wake up.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: Well, any I think too, what we don't think about
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: enough with what we're seeing online is that we all
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: become collateral damage to that, particularly women, when we observe
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: what other people, even if it's other women are saying
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: about other women, we all relate on some level, and
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: so I think that's where it can it can become
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: so toxic for the culture.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: When you say, I want to go back to what
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: something you just said, When you said you became obsessed
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: with the negativity.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Can you expound on that a little bit.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I think it was.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: I had I mean, like most young women, I had
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: insecurities going in to nineteen ninety eight. I had insecurities
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: as a young woman and trauma that led to my
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: even being in that relationship. I don't know about either
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: of you, but I think that there's when I was young,
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: that feeling of almost the worst thing that could happen
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: would be someone confirming my worst fears about myself. And
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: when that's someone is the entire world, it's pretty fucked up.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: So it was just I think that it became sort
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: of like a wound that you just can't leave alone.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: It's fascinating to me that psychology, because it's impossible when
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: something is being said about you to just look away, right,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: especially with that magnitude or that cacophony of the whole
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: world watching. So I can't even imagine on such a
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: large scale because you don't have the tools as a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: twenty two year old girl. Your brain isn't even fully developed. Yes,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: you don't have the tools to weather that storm. So
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: it's like a miracle that you're okay.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, is no I'm kidding.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I'm okay, You're okay, okay, but you.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Know, I've I've found it. I don't know.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: I don't know if either of you've experienced this, but
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: I think one of the things that's been so magical
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: for me about how things have changed in my life
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: in the last decade is that I've come to learn
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: and understand how when you have that balance of things
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: starting to sort of gel more in your life. I
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: think feeling like I've been seen for more as my
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: true self, that it has allowed when there's been something negative,
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: something that might have laid me low for an entire
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: day that I kind of am miffed for five minutes,
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: and that there's just a wider landscape that you and
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: a wider context that you feel seen and judged in,
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: so that's been better.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: Do you think that's something that kind of comes naturally
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: a little bit with age or would you talk at
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: it mostly to the work that you've done.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: I think it's a combination of both, you know, So
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: there's there's the maturity, then there's that, you know, sort
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: of the alchemy that happens between maturity, age, experience and
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: how they all sort of work together. But I'm grateful
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: for it either way, so.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Right, because without the work, if you didn't have the work,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you would be a completely different person right now, And
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: you would be so easily triggered by that experience. You know,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: if not working through that experience, I would only just
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: come up and tap you on the shoulder at the worst,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: most inopportune time. So you're kind of left with no
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: choice but to do the work right because it's.
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: The only way out, exactly. And I think that's for me.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: I had kind of jettisoned what I thought I was doing,
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: was jettisoning my public life in two thousand and five,
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: and I left the States and I moved to London
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: and went to graduate school at the London School of Economics.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: And the intention there, I think, was that I would
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: leave this old Monica Lewinsky behind and now I was
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: going to be the new Monica Lewinsky with a new
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: scaffolding and start my real life. And of course, you
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: know that didn't happen.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you could clock when we were being
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: introduced to people that you have to get over that hurdle.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I'm so curious as to what that is like. Every
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: time someone meets you they're like, oh, that's the story,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Like how does one handle that?
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Like did you go at it with humor?
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Did you try to disarm people or did you just
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: let everybody figure it out as they went along?
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I think probably.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: I mean I like to think I'm funny, so I
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: would I'd like to think it was like disarming with
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: humor or just you know, I probably have a much
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: higher EQ than I do IQ and just in that
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: way of sensing people. But also trauma, you know, trauma
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: will definitely shape your senses and your nervous system around
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: how you perceive things, how you try to feel safe.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: Someone once said something so interesting to me that people
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: with trauma can't feel safe until everyone else in the
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: room is safe or feel safe to them comfortable.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: And I think that's definitely true for me.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: But I've had people, which was I took as a compliment,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: people saying that they get over the speed bump really quickly,
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: which I think is good. But I mean, then you
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: have those funny moments where you can just somehow tell
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: the difference between Sometimes people don't recognize you, they don't
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: know your history, all of those things, and then there'll
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: be times where someone will pretend that they don't know.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Have you ever had this happen?
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: Like someone pretends that they don't know you or your history,
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: and you're like, wait, I don't know. There's something about
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: the way you're doing, like I know you're either trying
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: to make me feel comfortable or you're trying to be
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: cool or whatever that is.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: So what was your first job out of college? Exactly? Exactly?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Have you ever worn a beret? I think you look
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: really good.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: But and on a larger note, the saying or everything
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: happens for a reason, there are a lot of people
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: who believe that. You know, what do you think about
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: that saying everything happens for a reason.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: I think it's bigger than all of that, because I
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: believe in karma, and I believe that idea that things
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: become cyclical in a much larger way over lifetimes. And
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: so that part of me thinks that's an accurate statement.
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: But then there's another part of me that is like, no,
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: you just try and survive, and then this is the
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: story we tell ourselves that, oh, it happened for a
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: reason because it's easier.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: It's sort of like if you've had a friend who's
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: not made great choices in relationships for a long time,
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: and then they meet their person and then and they're like, well,
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: I finally went for the nice guy, you know, and
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: it's like okay, or that's just the story you tell yourself.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: You know that you stopped wanting the other things. And
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: sometimes that's true and sometimes it's not.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: It does seem that you have sort of intentionally tried
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: to arrive at the reason, arrive at the reason that
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: this happened, and you recently have been doing you know,
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: in the last several years, have been doing this anti
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: bullying work. Can you talk a little bit about turning
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: your pain into purpose? And it really seems like that's
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: what you're doing.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: Sure, it really ended up being it was not intentional.
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: I think I was trying to find purpose in my
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: life and I couldn't. When I got out of graduate school,
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: I couldn't get a job, and so then I found
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: myself approaching my forties and not really having anything close
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: to the life I had imagined. But it's the anti
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: bulling work that I've been able to do really stemmed
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: from the first thing I did a decade ago, which
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: was writing a first person essay for Vanity fair, and
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: I think that opportunity I was given to reclaim my
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: narrative and reintroduce myself on my own terms was a
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: really powerful moment, and it allowed people to start to
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: see me in a different light, to a reevaluate the story,
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: and that allowed me to eventually step into it. Was
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: actually an anti bullying group in the UK called Anti
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: Bullying Program that's part of the Diana Award, and they
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: were the first ones who were sort of said, hey,
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: we'll work with you and really embraced that I had
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: a story to share in a way that could help
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: other people feel less alone, and so that became really
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: important to me and finding a way that you know,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: so if you're a sensitive person, you just I hate
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: to say feel you know, I feel your pain, but
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: feeling other people's pain in that sense of the work
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: that I've been able to do has been incredibly rewarding
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: for me. And I think that all of the anti
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: bowling organizations that I'm connected to in different ways, we've
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: all tried to make strides in this area. But there's
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: still more work to be done, you know. So what's
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: great is we're now having more conversations about bullying and
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: public shaming and harassment, and therefore people feel less alone
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: if it happens to them, it's less stigmatized, which is
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: really important. I believe, you know, the worst things happen
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: when someone's suffering in silence.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about what happens
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to these people who get bullied. Like I was bullied
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: in high school or elementary school. I was a bullied
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and I was bullied, and I which came first.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly which came first?
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I think I got bullied and then I started to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, I have to be that way in
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: order to defend myself, and then I took yeah, and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: then I was like, oh no, you know, it took
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: me many many years to realize that's not you know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that's not cool either.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: So I was guilty of both.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: But I do remember in high school and or in
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: elementary or middle school, all of those terrible periods of time,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I fucking hated school more than anybody. I couldn't wait
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: for it to be over. I just could not wait
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to be out of school because I thought it was torture.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: But I remember having this thought, and this is so childish,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and I never was going to go through with it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: But I remember thinking if I just ended my life,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: if I just took my own life, then I would
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: teach everyone a lesson. And I know that that line
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of thinking goes through many people's brains.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Did you feel that way, Oh?
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, for sure.
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: There were a lot of times that I opped myself
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: to sleep, just praying I wouldn't wake up the next
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: morning and thinking about I mean, really, it was my
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: family that kind of kept me here. And I think
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: anybody who's gone through one cycle of that. The only
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: thing that's positive about having gone through one cycle is
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: that the next time it happens, there's that little tiny
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: voice in your head that knows, if I can just
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: get through this moment, it will get better.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing with young people, you know, and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: online bullying, is that that thought isn't as fleeting. You know,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: everyone can have the thought, but the idea is to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: have to be able to tell them this isn't it,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: This isn't the end of the world. You will survive this,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and you will get through this, and you will come
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: out stronger. It's so hard to get through to a teenager.
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: Right well, and I think it's so important why we
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: tell these kinds of stories. Why we talk about the
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: difficult times that we've been through, because especially if you
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: have a public platform, because it does allow other people
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: to hear, Oh, this person went through something shitty, they
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: felt the way I'm feeling, and their life has shifted
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: and it's turned around. And that really is sort of
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: at the core of using other people suffering and giving
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: a purpose to your past, is taking that pain and
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: trying to jiu jitsu it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So, and do you communicate with a lot of young girls,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: like do you work with them?
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Not so much directly with a lot of young women.
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: I work in with different organizations in different ways and
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: in opportunities that I have. Sometimes when I'm speaking somewhere,
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: someone will have brought their their daughter or their son
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: or their non binary child, and I'll have sometimes have
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: an opportunity to talk to people there, and I will
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: talk to a lot of different people who have gone
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: through big public shamings, but very privately.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: Because you touch in your TED talk on these themes
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: of you know, how you survived and how everybody does
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: survive this like public shaming and public bullying. And in
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: another interview I listened to of you, you mentioned that
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of times people will come up and say,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: I showed this to my fifteen or sixteen year old
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: kid and like that was a gut punch.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Oh it was for me too.
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: It was, I mean on the slightly more humorous side.
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: It was a nice shift for me for instead of
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: people coming up and saying, no offense, but do you
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: know who you look like, people would come up and
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: sort of talk about my ted talk, which was very
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: meaningful to me. But I've had teachers say that they've
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: shown it to their students. I've had parents talk about
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: that it was a very meaningful moment for me. Shortly
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: after the talk, a friend of mine from graduate school
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: had gone to visit her cousin who was going through
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: a hard time, and she saw that he had handwritten
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: out on a piece of paper that was on his
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: desk a quote from my talk, and it was sort
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: of a just did a deep heart moment for me
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: and real gratitude there.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: So I think it is, yeah, yeah, that's really wonderful.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I think in healing also that there are so many
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: moments of healing right, Like it doesn't all come in
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: one fell swoop. You don't all of a sudden feel
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: like yourself again. But there are these milestones, right, Can
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about what some of yours
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: were like over the years she felt like, oh I've
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: got I've got my feet back underneath me, or I
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm coming into my own in a new way.
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: I think it's interesting because I've sort of gone through
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: this a bit this past week after I launched this
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: get out the vote campaign with Reformation and it was
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: received really well, and so I worked all last week
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: on Okay, I'm you know, gotten good at weathering a storm.
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: Now I have to be able to enjoy this sunny day.
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: And that's fucking hard. Like it's really I can.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Swear, right, Yeah, yeah, okay, go ahead.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: So but yeah, I know, but I'm just checking, just
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: double checking. So I think that there is I mean,
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: for me, I would say there were some quieter moments
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: of like getting my masters. So the morning of graduation,
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: I was having a really hard time taking in this
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: fact that I was getting a master's degree.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: And I came up with.
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: This kakammy thing where I thought, Okay, if I ran
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: into someone I hadn't seen in the last two years,
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: and I said, oh, what are you doing today? And
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: they said I'm going to get my master's in social
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: psychology from London School of Economics. I would have thought
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: to myself, Oh, I could never do that. Wow, that
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: would never be me. I could never do that. And
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: somehow that unlocks something that allowed me to step into
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: some of the pride that I had for that. But
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: definitely when the Vanity Fair piece dropped and people started
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: to I mean not everybody. There was a lot of
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: controversy around it, but there were loud enough voices that
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: wanted to start to revisit the story. Doing the Forbes Talk,
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: my Ted talk, you know, doing the work with anti
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: bullying groups, and we did a campaign for Bullying Prevention
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: Month in twenty eighteen and it was nominated for an
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: Emmy in the Commercial category. So and that was exactly
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: what I had wanted to do coming out of graduate
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: school and I couldn't get a job in it. So
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: it was very rewarding for me. But it's people saying
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: I'm funny on Twitter, my brother having to finally acknowledge
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: I'm funny, Like that.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Was that was such a moment.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: After I was I was interviewed by John Oliver and
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: my brother's like, okay, fine, you are funny, you know,
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: because he was always saying, you're really not as funny
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: as you think you are.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: I'm funny. I am funny, you know.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: It's so you think those were Those are some of
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: the moments. I turned fifty last year, and so I
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: did a lot of personal work leading up to it
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: of really trying to catalog the past decade from before that,
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: and I burst into tears one morning just really thinking
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: about how much had changed and how much had happened,
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: and just how grateful, just how fucking grateful I am.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for you too. I'm
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: grateful at your strength and perseverance. I'm really just I mean,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: if you could get through something like that, you can
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: get through almost anything. Really, You've turned all of it
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: into something positive. And that is just so admirable and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: so important for our listeners to hear, because if you're
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: not a kid you have a kid, or if you're
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: like me and smart or like Monica and refuse to procreate,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: then because I can't.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Prograte because I don't want any of my daughter.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I don't want a daughter going through any of the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: shit that happens in high school. I'm like, I will
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: never have children because I will never put them through
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: this that was just regular high school.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: Well, I have baby popsicles, so I, you know, I
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: froze my eggs and I you know, but I think
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: I'm at a point now where that just didn't happen
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: for me, which is which has actually been not always easy.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: So you know, right, yeah, tell me how is your
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: trust level?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Like how is your trust with men and in relationships
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: with women too?
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: Well, I you know, I consider myself really lucky because
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: I could see, you know, if I stepped outside of
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: my own experience of this story, I could look at
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: what happened to me and think, oh, yeah, this is
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: going to be a person who is bitter and whose
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: heart is closed for the rest of their lives.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: And that's not me.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: So I consider myself really lucky that way that I
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: can trust. I.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I think it's still a.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: Challenge in romantic relationships somewhere of a challenge there. And
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: my therapist will often say to me, She's like, well,
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: the paradox of you is that the very skills and
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: things that allowed me to survive this sort of well
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: of hope or my perseverance and not giving up.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: She's like, it's not.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: So it's like a little maladaptive in romantic relationship.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: So well, I think not every man can be with
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: a strong woman. Not every man is up to the challenge.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Well done, Brad.
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: And I also think too that there's I think there's
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: something with this generation too, that we're sort of sandwiched
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: between the Boomers and the millennials and that where things
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: were changing, and so you had a lot more people,
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: particularly I think Gen X men eventually coming out that
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: was more acceptable. So you still had with the Boomers
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: and the silent generation a lot of men who got
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: married who were gay, a lot of men who were
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: gay who married women either because it wasn't acceptable or
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: they didn't even know they were gay, right, And then
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: our generation it was you know, I think men started
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: to come out later. But then the younger generations are
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: the ones where it's been much more fluid, and so
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: I think that there literally are less straight men available.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: So I mean, it is.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: God, thank God, we had an overdose for a while. Truly,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: we need some non straight man more of them.
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's a you know, I'm at a point
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: now where I'm like it'll happen or it won't happen.
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: You know, I have a lot of great things in
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: my life.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: What I like a partner? Sure, but that's okay.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Well on that. No, we're going to take a break
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: and we'll be right back. And we're back.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, we are back for our first question.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: We're going to have a caller, and Christina is going
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: to join us on the line. But she says, Dear Chelsea,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: I'm a female in my thirties and a resident physician
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: at a hospital in New York City. During my training,
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: I've experienced a substantial amount of sexism within my department,
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: including favoritism, rule bending, inappropriate and non constructive criticism, additional
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: tasks or tasks withheld, and yes, sexual harassment. I have
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: discussions with my other female co residents in which we
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: all have our own experiences to share.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I decided to become involved.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: In leadership and was asked to create a project relating
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: to diversity, equality and inclusion. I thought this would be
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: the perfect opportunity to conduct a survey with the goal
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: of bringing to light the gender inequalities in my department.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: After finding a legitimate and validated survey with many citations
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: and publications. I was met with complete pushback. After talking
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: with higher ups, I received numerous phone calls from URHR
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: rep expressing concern for potential consequences of the survey. I
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: was advised to just drop it and go ahead and
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: find a new project.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: The have it caused by a request for.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: Permission to conduct a survey along the lines of sexism
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: tells me all I need to know. I listened to
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: your podcast every week on my walk to and from
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: work and all the great advice you provide. I know
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: there's no quick fix to this, but I met a
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: loss as to how I can move past this. How
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: am I supposed to continue these next few years working
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: for such a sack of shit place, knowing it covers
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: all this up and there's nothing I can do about it.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: How am I supposed to encourage female medical students to
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: come here for their residency. I cannot risk my training
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: position by pushing the issue, and I need some of
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: the higher ups in question to write me letters of
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: recommendation upon my departure, any guidance on how to navigate
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: the sexist political nightmare while we wait for these old
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: barnacles to fall off.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Christina Wow.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Hi Christina.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Hi, Hi, this is Monica, our special guest today, Monica Lewinsky.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Nice to meet you, Christina.
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: I know you mentioned something to me that I would
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: love for you to share with Monica as well of
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: why you were like, I actually have to call it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 6: I have your biography from ninety eight on my nightstand.
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: I had about forty pages left when Catherine told me
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: that you were going to be on and I was like, Okay,
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: I have to go. I have to do it.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: That was an authorized biography that Andrew Morton did and
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: that I participated in, and he's a great person. I
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: do not recommend doing an authorized biography right when you're
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: coming out of the most traumatic year of your life
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: that is also written in three months.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: But you know, help pay the legal bills, Yeah exactly,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: you know, there you go.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so your situation.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You have tried to kind of blow the whistle on
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the situation there and you were met with a lot
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: of pushback, right, correct, And do you see any other
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: avenues for you to pursue that line of accountability?
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: So the only other thing I could do is like, go,
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: I guess find the correct authoritative people to kind of
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: report things to. But unfortunately, I think it would have
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: the same outcome or the same negative effect in terms
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: of what my reputation would be or some of the
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: ways I would be treated. And I still need, you know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: a lot of things from these people forward with my career.
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: Kind of a tough situation.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a tough situation, and I'm sorry that
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: you're in it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Did you so did you already deal with HR on
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: this when you asked to do the survey or.
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: So they just kind of ghosted me. I never heard
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: anything back. They said they would get to, you know,
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: touch base with me at some point, but it's like
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: they wouldn't even say no. You know, it's like I'm
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: just asking for permission. So if the answers no, then
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: just say no, and you know, give me whatever reason
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: you can come up with. But it's like they just
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: completely brushed it under the rug and just ignored me.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: What is the vibe at work? Is it a daily occurrence?
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Like, are you constantly just dealing with being marginalized there?
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, pretty much. And it's and it's not just the
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: men either, it's it's the women too. You know, it's
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: kind of like sometimes the women attendings are harder on
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: the female residents, and you know, a lot of the
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: HR people are women. It's tough, it's it's just kind
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: of you know, no one wants to lose their job.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I know, And I'm so against keeping your head down.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel about that, Monica, but
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: like I'm very much about telling on people. I like
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: to tell on people, especially when it's that this issue,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: because this issue, it's so weird that we're living in
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: this time, you know, where we just had Me Too
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: and the repercussion and of Me Too is basically the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: overturning of Roe v Wade. Yeah, like I look at
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: that as all, you know, like we stand up for
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: ourselves and then they're like shut the fuck up, don't
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: talk too loudly, and don't stand up for yourself too strongly,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: like whack them all?
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right? And how many years do you have
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: left in the program?
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: But two?
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: And do you think that, like what are you thinking?
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Are you thinking that you can survive that and that
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: you're going to just like get through it?
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: I mean, I guess I don't really have another choice.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Well, you do have a choice.
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: You.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: You do have choices here.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: You can decide to make a big deal out of
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: this and blow the whole thing up.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: You can. I don't know if that's what you want
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It's that doesn't sound like that's necessarily the best option
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: for you, But it is what I.
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: Want to do, of course. But no, I don't think
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: it's the best thing to do in my particular situation.
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: But it's kind of like, how do we ever progress
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: if everyone thinks that way? You know, if everyone is
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: putting their head down and just complying because we're trying
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: to get, you know, to to get and we've all
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: worked very hard to get to this place. You know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: it's not it's a lot to put on the line,
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: but like, how do you force change if everyone does that?
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Well, I think there are other ways to kind of
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: stand up for yourself without making it this huge thing
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: where you're calling everyone out. I think there's a you know,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know, how there's microaggressions. There's
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: also micro assertions, like ways to make yourself be more
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: you know, standing up for yourself in a way where
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be kind of a blanket statement.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: It's actually individual to you like, I'm actually not willing
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: to do this, I actually don't appreciate being spoken to
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: like this, or you know, like little little things where
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: if that's how you see yourself and you start actually
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: calling people out on the little things without making it
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: a huge deal, but being like, I actually don't really
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: appreciate being spoken to like that or just being overlooked
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: in that way.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: It kind of feels like it's because I'm a woman.
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: I find the phrase that's not going to work for
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: me sort of sometimes can feel really empowering and also
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: puts the ball back in someone else's court of Okay,
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: this isn't going to work, and therefore come up with
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: another fucking solution, you know, or suggestion of something else.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you mentioned there are opportunities that are given to
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: some of the male residents or taken away from the
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: female residence. Maybe there is just some questioning that you
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: can do on an individual basis, like, oh, is there
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: a reason that this task or opportunity is going to
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: this person instead of this other person, whether it's you
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: or another woman resident.
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that's true. For instance, there's a certain
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: rotation where if there is a female resident on with
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: other male residents. This one attending will only ask the
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: female to go like run errands, like to a console,
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: other physicians, or give them cases, like not even their case.
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: But if there's two females on then you know, he'll
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: kind of go back and forth between the two females.
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: But like, the males never get asked unless there is
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: no female in service, of course, so things like that.
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: But yeah, I think that I think you're right. I
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: think it does need to be just said in the moment.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in the moment.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: And also, like, you know, I learned this a few
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: years ago about when I'm having a confrontation to be
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: light and happy about it and be overly like smiley,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: because you have to actually act that way with people,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: especially men, because they're like, oh, all of a sudden,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: you're you're contesting something that they're saying and you're a bitch.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: But if you're smiling and you're friendly and you're like,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: but wait, it's kind of weird that you're only asking
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the women to do this, right, Like it's almost like
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you have to play with their brains, you know, And
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: it's almost I don't want to say in a flirtatious way,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: but sometimes I do do that where I'm like, wait,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I don't understand, are you giving? Because this one guy
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I went and I was pulling up to this nail salon.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I had forgotten something and this guy I was at
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a meter and I didn't put money in the meter
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: because I was just running up to the nail salon
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: on Montana Avenue and I came downstairs and the guy goes,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: excuse me, miss miss, missmiss, you didn't put any money
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: in your meter, And I was like, who the fuck
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: are you my fault?
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Like why are you a meter maid? Who cares what
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: I'm doing?
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: But I was like, okay, this is a man telling
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: a woman what to do, And even though it's not
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing, it is a very micro aggression. If
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: you get enough of those, it becomes a macro aggression
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and it's fucking annoying. You know what man would say
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: that to another man, You forgot to put money in
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: your meter? Mister Like, no, that's it's definitely a male
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: female like dynamic.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: So I said to him, I go, I'm sorry, but
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: I just I'm so confused.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Why do you care what I'm doing with my meter?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And then I like slapped him on the shoulder, like
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: in a playful way. I'm like, I'm just really curious.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: He goes, well, I'm just looking out for you, and
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I said, but are you? Are you looking out for me?
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Like do you think that I don't know about parking
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: meters like that? I don't know what goes on? You know,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: this isn't my So it's like, but just that tonality,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: like he clearly saw what he did in our small exchange.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I just wrote about this and he was like, oh god,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I go it's just kind of unnecessary. Do you understand
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: like women were just so sick of being told especially
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: by men. I'm sure you meant well, but it doesn't
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I don't need you. You're not my babysitter. I'm a
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: grown woman. I'm in my like I'm almost fifty, you know,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: like stop so And it was a nice conversation. I
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: ended up giving a kiss on the cheek as I
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: left him for being such a good listener. But do
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, It's like the small kind
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of calibration to just kind of change the narrative so it's.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Not like, oh, you're whining and bitching and moaning, because
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: that they can use against you.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So if you go in there with like playfulness and
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, not flirty, you don't need to
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: flirt with anyone that's like, you know, that's not cool
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: for us to even have to do, but in a
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: more playful manner, like, oh, interesting, you should take a
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: look at that, And so it doesn't feel like such
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: a threat to them. I think maybe it's easier for
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: people to see it that way.
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they're definitely more men, especially are more receptive when
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: you're a little.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Smiley and yeah, and who cares, like we're just manipulating
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: them anyway into seeing their own behaviors.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: So I'm all for that.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like we are societally built to think this
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: is a zero some game and only one woman could succeed,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and we're in competition with each other because of what
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: men the way that you know, we've all been going
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: through the world for millions of years. It is a
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: man's world, and women are like, oh fuck, there's not
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: going to be three of us at the top. There's
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: only going to maybe be one of us, so everyone
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: else get out of the way. But I think you
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: can do the same thing, like actually, it's not even
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: like confronting them. It's actually pointing out, go oh, that's interesting.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: We're actually working against each other, like because of the guys, Like,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: isn't that funny?
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Don't you think it's funny?
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: You know, like in a conversational way, just like pointing
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: out things that you notice or in the moment that
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: they're happening.
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: Or after the fact, with a version of you know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: I'm sure it was unintentional, but it seems to me
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: that I've been asked to do this where some of
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: the other male residents haven't. And is there something personal
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: to that I don't you know, or that you doubt
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: it's personal.
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: And you can also sort of you know, you know
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: these things are happening, so you can maybe bypass the
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: questioning about it and go straight to the solution. And
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: I think, especially with the women applying to their better
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: nature and their mentorship, maybe a good solution saying you
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: know what, I really am feeling like, I want to challenge.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Myself over these next few months, you.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: Know, I want to take on additional tasks if there's
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: any any time, you know, maybe you have specific examples,
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: but if there's anything that I can do to do
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: more challenging work. I'm really interested in doing that because
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: I want to be the best doctor that I can be,
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: and like really applying to that sense of mentorship could
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: be a way through that as well.
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely, I think that's I think that's great advice.
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: I think the sort of it's difficult for women in medicine,
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: and especially if you're you know, we have a lot
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: of international attendings too, so I think they had to
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: work really hard and probably had to experience that stuff themselves.
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: My best friend from college is a is a pediatrician,
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: so I know she's I hear numerous stories about both
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: ways she's respect and ways she needs to assert herself
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: at times, and so it is a balance. I think
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: it is finding that balance, and I'm sure you've done this,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: but it's also good to just be documenting what's happening,
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: you know. So yeah, it doesn't have to be a
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: whole report, but.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that too.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and even if you know, I don't know if
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: this is the sort of thing that you would talk
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: to somebody in the media about on an anonymous basis,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: but especially if you are documenting it, you have specific
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: examples and dates and times and people that you can
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: that you can reference.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: And then again like you know these things are happening.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's skipping something like the survey and going straight
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: to suggesting like hey, you you know you wanted me
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: to do this leadership and DEI.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe we go ahead and have a training. Maybe we
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: go ahead and take some steps.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: And you know, do some sort of a rotation where
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: it's like doctors are all about systems, right, you have
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: your checklist, you have your system. So maybe it's like, hey,
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: instead of just like picking willy nilly, here's who gets
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: the task or here's who gets the opportunity, maybe we
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: have a rotational thing so everybody is getting you know,
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: the same level of opportunities. I don't know if that's
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: something that can happen because I know it's very hierarchical.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: But maybe just bypassing going straight to the solution.
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 43:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: One of the things we talked about for like a
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: project idea was to do like some sort of PowerPoint
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: like presentation on you know, workplace microaggressions. But the thing
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: is is it's already a training. You know, it's already
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: a module training, right that's required, and so it's like
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: no one's paying attention to that or the people.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: I think with trying to change social behavior, we found
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: with some of the PSAs that we did that getting
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: people to feel an emotion always helps shift thinking and
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: behavior a lot faster than just hearing information. And maybe
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: there's I don't know what that creative solution is, but
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: maybe there's a way of if you're doing that, maybe
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: it's writing scripts and having the men be the women
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: in something funny and you know, some version of that,
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: because that's what people remember is how they felt.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so true.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: That's true, especially through humor, even though it's not a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: humorous situation. It kind of takes the weight off of it.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: It takes the weight off of feeling like you're learning.
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, like a skit or something like that.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, medical snl. Yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like we have to outsmart men now just
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: to like it's so exhausting, you know, we're not allowed
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: to be smart, and then we have to become smarter
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: than them to like make change or make something different.
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: And it makes you pay more attention to the you know,
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: to things that probably are nothing and you're like, oh,
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: that's something. It's like when I go for a hike
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: and you know, you're trying to pass somebody and it's
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: a mail and then he's like, he's like go ahead,
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: and I'm like, don't tell me what to do.
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: You know, but it's like, isn't it funny? I find
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: in the car so much. I don't understand why people
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: have such an issue of letting someone pass, Like I
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: want to go faster than you do.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Why do you fucking care? Like it's such a weird thing.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: It is so it just but also what about people
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: who scream at people while they're driving?
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: O wait, road rage?
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: It's so harossing, I do.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I had a boyfriend once, Ted Harbert, who pulled over
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: someone else. He pulled over another car. He's not a
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: police officer, it wasn't then, and he literally made this
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: arms gesticulation to this crazy driver. We were in Venice, California,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: and he went like this and pulled over and the
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: woman pulled over.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh my god, what are you doing?
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: And he's like, I can't deal with this, and he
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: went out and screamed it her and goes, you have
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: no friends, That's what he said too.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: And I was like, how I'm supposed to be fucking you?
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: Like are you kidding me? You have no friends? And
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: like after this and all of it was mind blowing.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, pulls over for a random man going
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: like this, talk.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: About man's blaming.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I digress. That wasn't a very necessary story, but
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: when I had to share. But yes, I think it's
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: great that you're asking these questions, and I think it's
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: great that you're open to like solutions, like a non
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: traditional solution, like you have to get creative, and that's
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: only going to serve you in the long run anyway,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: to deal with more situations like this, because they're gonna,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: unfortunately be there, you know what I mean. You're going
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: into the medical field. This isn't going to be the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: first time you're dealing with this. So I think if
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: you just try like a couple of different approaches and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: then when you find one that works, then that's going
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: to be like something that you're going to be able
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to use throughout the rest of your career to put
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: people in their place.
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah. No, I think everything you guys said is really
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: good advice. I think it's you know, you have to
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: kind of girl the courage to say things in the moment,
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: and not everything is in the moment. Some things are like,
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: you know, you talk to my like I'll talk to
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: my male co residents and then they'll tell me, oh,
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: that's weird, like they didn't have me do that, and
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: you're like, really, you know, it's kind of like you're
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: finding out after the back things that do happen. I
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: think I think you're right. I think I need to
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: just address that, just you know, finding the courage.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the tone and the right tone, because the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: right tone is everything you could say. You could say
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: fuck you eighteen different ways, and one of them can
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: be friendly, you know, like you can find different ways
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: to say almost anything where it becomes more of a
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: conversation and more.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Of a thought, like oh, you say to your doctor like,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: oh my god, that's so funny.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I was talking to the male interns like they've never
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: done any of this stuff. I wonder why that is.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: They don't know how the coffee maker works. How funny?
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is that part of the rule, you know, like
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: almost kind of in a playful way.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: And see where that gets you.
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: As Chelsea said earlier, I'm sorry you're going through this.
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: You shouldn't have to do all this extra fucking work.
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: So I agree, But it's everywhere. I mean, that's that's
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: the unfortunate part. You know, we're still talking about this. Yeah,
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: it happens everywhere, medicine not medicine.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: So yeah, well, keep us posted, let us know how
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: everything is going with you.
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: I will hope you enjoyed the last forty pages of
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: the book.
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: Bye bye, well.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: Our next caller, Ali says, Dear Chelsea, my dad was
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: diagnosed with ALS when I was two and a half
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: and died a week after my fourth birthday. I'm turning
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: thirty on March fourteenth, and every year my birthday and
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: the week's leading up to it are awful.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Try as I may, it's.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: Often an anxiety ridden day that I white knuckle through
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: and often don't enjoy. I get stressed about it months
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: in advance. I've tried everything. My grief tends to come
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: and deeer the month of March.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Every year.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: It's like my body is remembering everything and grieving, and
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: every year I'm surprised I can't get out from under it. Honestly,
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: my best birthdays aren't even up there with neutral days
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: in my life. I'm an extrovert with incredible people in
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: my life who want to celebrate me and who know
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: this and try to support me each year, and it's
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: still a day in a month. I'd rather just fast
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: forward right through. Can you help me enjoy my birthday?
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Ali?
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, Yes we can. Ali. Hi, Hi, Hi speak, How
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: cute you are? This is Monica Lewinski, our special guest today.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Hi, nice to meet you.
• 48:49
  Speaker 8: Hi'm lotka, nice to meet you. Nice to see you.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Catherine, you need to flip it and reverse it. Sister.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: You are going to start now in the month of
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: March and just do Every morning you are going to
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: get up and do all you're going to write down.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: We're going to get you a list of affirmations where
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you're going to say, this is going to be the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: month that I celebrate my father's life and that he
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: celebrates my birthday with me. And you are going to
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: go through that month enjoy because you had a father.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: It wasn't his fault he died. He doesn't want to
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: see you mourning for him a month every year. He
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: wants you to enjoy your birthday and you're going to
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: enjoy it with his spirit and mind. You have to
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: take hold of this and take hold of him and
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: be like, we're doing this together. This is the year
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: that I am going to enjoy my birthday, and I'm
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: going to enjoy this month, and I'm just going to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: be appreciative for all the love that I have in
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: my heart for you, because that's really what it's all about.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: You know, there's no point in grieving. Obviously it's a
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: natural feeling. You can't control grieving, But there's no point
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: in suffering because now you're suffering more than grieving, do
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you understand.
• 49:53
  Speaker 8: Yeah, that's the difference.
• 49:55
  Speaker 7: So it's like it'll hit me in October and I'm like,
• 49:57
  Speaker 7: this is grief, and then every March I'm confied and
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: it feels more like suffering and not like grief.
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, Also, what Chelsea's saying in other words, is
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: finding a new story for it. You know. So I
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: went through something similar, different underpinnings. But so January sixteenth
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: for me, every year was January sixteenth was the day
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: I was stung by the FBI and I found out
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: about the investigation happening and was told if I didn't
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: wear a wire, I was going to jail for twenty
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: seven years, blah blah blah, and the sort of next
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: year or two, I dreaded that day, I dreaded.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: One oh one pm.
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: That's this is when it happened last year, and then
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: I think it was maybe by the third year, I
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: decided that I was going to celebrate it as Survivor's Day,
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: and so my family and I do that every year,
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: and January sixteenth is Survivor's Day. I, by myself a present.
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: I try to celebrate as much as I can. And
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: changing that narrative around that event made a difference. And
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: so I wonder if there's you know, is there a
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: different story to find.
• 50:59
  Speaker 8: No, it makes sense. Yeah, it's this bodied remembering.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, and you just chase. I mean, we have
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the power to do that.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: It's just that we feel kind of wrapped up in
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: our own feelings and we don't know how to get
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: out of them. Sometime, but like even as simple as
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: finding out some of your dad's favorite books, right, or
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: some of your dad's favorite things, and spending that time
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: when the date is coming along or you know, your
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: birthday's coming along, or whichever the day you know, reading
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: what he loved or experiencing some of the things that
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: he loved. Whatever his hobbies were like as a way
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: of connecting him to your life now. And I guarantee
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: you the more you welcome people who are gone, and
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the more you wring them towards.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: You, like I do it in meditation all the time.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I always just imagine my mom who's passed away, and
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: my brother as these kind of like mythical little nymphs
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: like in Greek mythology, like dancing through the sky. I
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: always just summon them when I'm meditating because that's like
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: my light that's protective, and your father is protecting you.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Like that's what happens. You know, people who are in
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: your life, they never just go away. Their energy is
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: with you forever, and it's worth celebrating and it's worth honoring.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: It's not just about the time you didn't have with him.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: It's about the person that he was and that he
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: created you. And I think there's a lot of stuff
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: that you can do and set yourself up for turn
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: it into a celebration. Yeah.
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: There Also what comes up for me is I wonder
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: too if there was anything that happened when you were
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: so little that you somehow coupled you know, kids, as kids,
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: we make our own stories.
• 52:26
  Speaker 8: Definitely.
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, was there some narrative or something you you overheard
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: that you maybe misinterpreted as a kid that made you
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: loop that connection of sort of this negativity and that.
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: And I'm clearly not saying you were responsible for your
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: dad's death. I think kids can kids can take that
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: on and sort of that you know, that version, and
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: so there could be you know, your younger self could
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: be in there sort of still holding on to that narrative.
• 52:53
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's a feeling of a lack of
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: control that I that's a trigger for me in my life.
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: I've in general, but I think, yeah, he did hospice
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: in the home, so there were years of me watching
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: that that I don't remember, but I was there, right,
• 53:09
  Speaker 7: And so every March it's like my body is like
• 53:13
  Speaker 7: something happened twenty five.
• 53:14
  Speaker 8: Years ago that scared the shit out of us, right,
• 53:17
  Speaker 8: and like my body remembers first. And so I.
• 53:20
  Speaker 7: Really I think because of that, I avoided this month
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: maybe more than I would in a different month, because
• 53:26
  Speaker 7: I'm afraid to kind of like turn into the curve.
• 53:29
  Speaker 7: And I like what you're both saying about claiming it,
• 53:32
  Speaker 7: not trying to.
• 53:33
  Speaker 8: Put it under the rug, because I'm not like that.
• 53:36
  Speaker 8: My family is not like that.
• 53:37
  Speaker 7: There's no reason for me to say, hey, I really
• 53:39
  Speaker 7: miss him today. It's no reason I can't say that
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: or do a toast to him at my birthday dinner.
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: Do you live either in California or Florida where there's
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: like a design I'm in La Okay, you know, going
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: to my my energy guy, he talks about like literally
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: disrupting the pattern in your body and how it could
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: be so great to like Disneyland is a rate to
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: place to do that, going on a roller coaster rides,
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: going on the rights and maybe maybe doing doing that
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: on your birthday. It's literally shaking up your pattern.
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: Yeah, when I travel, My birthdays are better every time
• 54:14
  Speaker 7: I travel. Which is interesting that you say that I
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: have people coming here which will still be different and good.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: And know something, you know, whatever you focus on intensifies, right,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: So if you're focusing on the loss, that is intense feeling.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: If you focus on the love and the experience that
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: you had, that will intensify. So it really is a
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: choice that you make and it becomes a practice, but
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: it works.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: It's like, have you had any somatic healing or somatic therapy.
• 54:40
  Speaker 7: I talked to Catherine about that. I do therapy, and
• 54:42
  Speaker 7: I've always done like king.
• 54:44
  Speaker 8: And body work. I don't know that I've ever done
• 54:46
  Speaker 8: like us somatic therapist.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you might want to look into that because that
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: is healing your body.
• 54:51
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: The La Pain and Psychology Center is where I have gone.
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: My therapist is there and that's been super super helpful
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: for me in getting certain stuff out of my body.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: And just how you say, like it's like your body
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: triggers your emotions with this, like it starts in your body.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: That might be something to look into. Yeah, and I know, Monica,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: you do some semitic I have a sematic. Yeah, every
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: other week I do. I have a somatic session.
• 55:16
  Speaker 7: So yeah, because your body remembers for sure, I'm like
• 55:19
  Speaker 7: always every year, I'm like the last to know why.
• 55:21
  Speaker 8: I'm just I'm like, oh, yeah, I do this every year.
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: Well can you just you could you like when you
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: start to really pay attention to it too, I mean
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: they're just the subtle.
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: Early on working with my somatic therapists, I had this
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: realization that I feel I am on my legs, I'm
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: not in my legs, and so like even just a
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: little something like that just really reorients how you how
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: you see and experience your life. You know.
• 55:53
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so interesting. Thank you so much. I'm going to
• 55:56
  Speaker 8: look into.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: That happy early birthday.
• 55:59
  Speaker 8: Thank you. Ten days until I'm thirty.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Oh this is perfect. This is perfect timing for you
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: to turn the beat around.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, new decade.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: And also have you ever read have you ever read
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: any of like like Signs from the Universe by Laurlyn Jackson?
• 56:13
  Speaker 7: I haven't, but I heard her on your podcast and
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: learned about her work.
• 56:19
  Speaker 8: I have her book. I haven't read it yet, but
• 56:20
  Speaker 8: I do do that.
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: I have a sign that I have with him, and
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: he does it's the band of who it's and he does.
• 56:26
  Speaker 8: Come to me a lot. I ask for him.
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I talked to him a lot. I feel connected
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: to him. The older I get, which is great. And
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: so this year I think I'm like, let's get real dat.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, yep, yep, yeah, yeah, Well good for you. You're
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: going to be fine, It's going to be better.
• 56:44
  Speaker 8: Thank you, Thank you, al. I really appreciate this.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, take care, thank you.
• 56:50
  Speaker 8: Bye.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: What a perfect little face. She I was looking at
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: her face. I was like, oh, you're like a little
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: baby doll.
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: But I think that idea of turning toward the pain
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: you feeling, or turning into your body, that was something
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: that was a real key for me. Was because I
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: was having a lot of stress that was manifesting in
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: physical pain. And there were times when I would have
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: pain in one part of my body and I actually
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: turned inward and focused on it, it either changed or
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: dissipated or lessened. But also I would notice things like, oh,
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: I think I'm only having this pain in this this
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: is the only sensation I can focus on. And when
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: I actually did a body scan, I'm like, oh my gosh,
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: my hands are tingling, or you know these other body
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: sensations that I could I wasn't even aware of because
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: I was so focused on trying to not focus on
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: the pain.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: And when you actually.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Look inward and focus on it, whether it's emotional, physical pain,
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: it can change your relationship to it. Obviously, it doesn't
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: cure every pain, but like I can change your relationship
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: to it so well. Our last question comes from Adria.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: Dear Chelsea, I'm turning fifty in August, and I'm blissfully
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: single and child free as such, I've not had a wedding,
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, a baby shower, or
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: received gifts or money for any major life events beyond
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: high school graduation. I didn't even send out graduation notices
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: when I earned my undergrad or graduate degrees.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: My chosen careers have never been.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: Especially lucrative actor teacher, bartender, and I'm currently self employed
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: as a pet sitter. I also volunteer five or six
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: days a week at my county's woefully underfunded animal shelter.
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: My goal is to open a humane society operating on
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: government contracts, essentially doing away with the animal shelter, as
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: was done with great success in a neighboring county. I
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: want to ask my friends and family members for money
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: to start this humane society, with the purpose of the
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: announcement being my fiftieth birthday present. My conundrum about doing
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: this is twofold. First, will starting something like a GoFundMe
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: for this be perceived as ghosh or worse lazy? In
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: other words, why am I not well connected or financially
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: solvent enough by this age to accomplish this without their help? Second,
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: I think I deserve to be acknowledged. Nay is celebrated
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: for not adding to the world's overpopulation or being another
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: divorced statistic, which I surely would have been if any
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: of my prayer relationships had led to marriage. So how
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: do I bring this up without offending those who have
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: chosen to get married and have kids? Thanks so much,
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: love the show, Adria.
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: I think starting a gofund me is that what she's asking?
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, for sure, absolutely, that's perfect go fundme material.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. I don't have a problem with that at all,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: and I don't wouldn't worry about I mean, the people
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: you're gonna offend, You're going to invite a lot of
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: people that are not going to be offended to focus
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: on those people.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: Right, I think this is a perfect way to like
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: reach out. I don't think it's gohosh, I don't think
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: it's seen as lazy. Ask your friends to share it,
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: and I think there is You know, this is such
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: a cute, funny way to be like, I haven't asked
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: for you know, baby shower gifts or any of these
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: other things, Like this is how you can give back
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: to me because I want I mean, you're not asking
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: for yourself you're asking for this humane society that's incredible.
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: And also can always sort of say if you can
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: to people. I think just like giving people because sometimes
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: you know, people feel uncomfortable asking for money. It's like,
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: if you can, if you, if you can do this, great,
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: this is what I I would like and you should
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: feel good about yourself that you have such an amazing
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: friend who this is what she wants.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: For her fiftieth berxactly.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: And if you can't give financially, I would love if
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: you share it on your social media exactly, and other
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: people may get involved. It can be a whole community effort.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: Like I think this is a wonderful thing to do.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. I love it.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good job, Adria, go for it.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: Problem solved.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Well that's all we got.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, well we're going to wrap it up. Monica.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: It was such a pleasure to have you on our show. Yes,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: being here, and I want to hang out when I'm
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: back in La.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, for sure, let's go out.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: We'll go out with Maria and we'll have some drinks.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Maria has to watch me drink though, because she doesn't drink,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: so I don't drink either.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: But oh well, then they both watch me and I'll.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: Drink until ten o'clock. I'm like everybody who drinks gets
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: boring after ten pm, so no worry.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm in bed by nine thirty.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Oh no problem, me too. Grandma hours. That's what I
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: call it. I keep Grandma hours.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: So okay, Well take care. So yeah, and Happy International
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Women's Day. Wow.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: We mentioned this at the start of the show, but
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: the team here at Dear Chelsea is celebrating International Women's
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: Day this week. For more programming honoring the incredible women
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: at the network and worldwide, head over to iHeart Podcasts
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: International Women's Day feed by searching Women Take the Mic
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: wherever you look for podcasts. We're featured alongside Therapy for
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: Black Girls, The Psychology of Your Twenties, Cheeky's and Chill,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: the Nikki Glazer Podcast, and others. That's Women Take the
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: Mic on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, so, Chelsea Handler is my name and comedy is
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: my game. Comedy and therapy are my games. I'm sorry,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I misspoke. I have added more shows. I added a
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: second show in Vancouver, so I have two shows in
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Vancouver March twenty ninth March thirtieth. Then I've added another
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: show in Sydney, Australia on July thirteenth, So i have
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: two shows in Sydney July twelfth and thirteenth. For other
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: shows in Australia at New Zealand, go to Chelseahandler dot com.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: And I've added two shows in Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma on
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: May third and one in Thackerville, Oklahoma, which is May fourth,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: and then I'll be at the YouTube Theater May eleventh
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles with Matteo Laine and Vanessa Gonzalez and
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Fortune Femmester.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: And Sam Jay. Those are my updates and more shows
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: are coming, so pay attention.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: and engineered by Brad Dickard executive producer Catherine Law and
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: com