You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome back to I Choose Me. My guest Valerie Bertinelli has embraced the idea of showing up perfectly imperfect in ways that feel brave and deeply human. Our conversation about her new memoir, Getting Naked, continues now with even more truth and the courage to be seen as you are. Okay, first things first, the subtitle of your book Getting Naked is the quiet work of becoming perfectly imperfect.
Why Because I've tried my whole life to be perfect, to be the perfect angel, to be the perfect actress, to be the perfect worker bee, to do everything perfect, and it's impossible. And if I wanted to get out of that loop, that crazy cycle, I had to be okay with it being imperfect because I was still doing my best. And just because you're doing your best doesn't mean it's going to be perfect. And it is a quiet work, because.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
You call it a quiet It is a very quiet work because it's between your brain and your heart, and your heart and your brain and your emotions and quietly being curious about your emotions and letting your brain. Oh, our brains are so magical. There's the neuroplasty is like you can form and shape your brain into anything you want. You can, And if you can tell yourself you're a terrible human being, you can also tell yourself I'm really good.
I'm really good at this. Maybe that's not my gift, but this is my gift, or maybe like they're not. Everybody's great at everything. Find what you're great at. If you're just you can. You can tell yourself anything and you will believe it. So you want to believe that it's good.
Yeah, make sure you're giving yourself the bad.
Because you deserve that too. Yeah, you don't deserve the bad stuff.
Yeah, I mean, but for so many of us, probably all of us, I would imagine, perfection has been fed to us as the you know, goal, end goal, right in so many ways?
Right?
What do you say to yourself each day to help you break that unrealistic cycle or expectation of yourself?
Lesson learned, Like if something didn't go the way I wanted it to and I made a mistake, it's like, oh, won't do that again, or maybe I will because I
need a harder lesson. But it's all a lesson, like anything I I I think a big, huge, loud mistake is a gift because from that we can self reflect and figure out what it is about that big loud mistake that we needed to go through so we could learn, learn to be better, learn to be a little bit more compassionate, a little bit more aware, just whatever it may, whatever that lesson may be. The bigger the mistake, the bigger,
the more life changing the lesson, So appreciate it. It's not perfect, it's imperfection, and through those imperfections you're going to learn some great lessons.
How to love yourself imperfectly. Yeah, yeah, I love that. You say we should celebrate our triggers, get curious about them, tell us more.
Well, just sort of like what I was just saying, like when a big mistake happens, or when somebody triggers you, or or I wish there was a better word for it, you know, just makes you feel something you don't want to feel. Yeah. Yeah, pokes the bear pokes, the bear presses the bruise that didn't you know, go away from childhood or wherever it came from. It's an opportunity to get curious about why, Like if that still hurts, what
else do I need to worry? Gone? Like if this, like like when my vulnerability and my shame was used against me, it's like, oh okay, So that means I haven't healed something that I need to heal so it can't be used against me. So those triggers are gifts. Yeah, use them to help yourself.
I was just I mean, I was thinking a lot about this this past week, having been triggered and realizing that what happens to me when I get triggered at this point?
And where do you feel it in your body? Right?
And who I tend to take it out on? Yeah, and one me always number one me? I take it out of me and to my husband.
Oh and because he's the safe place.
Yeah, but for how long? You know you think I cannot continue to do that. That's not why he's with me, right, But it's through that mistake, through those mistakes that trigger moment when I sat back and thought, what why?
But you have come stations about it later, right, Yeah, so it probably brings you closer.
Yeah, we learned from it. Yeah, that's what it takes.
That's what triggers are good for. Activate when someone activates me, that's what it is. Yeah, Like if I get activated, I'm like, well, that's worse I'm coming from. That shouldn't activate me because I'm supposed to be like solid in my you know self.
Yeah, and then you ask yourself, why am I? Why am I getting activated?
Right now? What's that weakness there? What's that? What's a better word than weakness because that sounds a derogatory But.
I always get that touching. That's the nerse, that softness.
What's the bruise?
Yeah, yep, Okay, let's talk about empathy. You write that you felt like you lost track of empathy for a while. Can you tell your story of being on the one on one free way because I felt that one man.
I mean, sometimes my Italian comes out. I let a lot of shit roll off my back. But there's sometimes or I'm just like triggered activated all of it? Is it usually in the car? Yes? Always? I mean I almost got triggered coming up here because something happened on the freeway and it was like backed up near the Glendale and I'm like, are you kidding me? It's afternoon. Then I thought, well, wait a minute, and then I went past it's like, oh, there's a little fender bender,
a bumper. You nobody's hurt, thank goodness, but yeah, that shit happens. And of course as I'm driving, micup, pay attention better next time. But it's like, oh, stop, just stop. That little bossy me that was bossy to my brothers always comes out at inopportune moments.
But as you realize that you were having trouble being empathetic towards.
It, because I was, so you know, there's a zipper method when you're getting onto the freeway. Yes, one car, one car, one car car. You don't let two cars in and you don't try to get in. It's one car, one car car. It's the zipper method. And someone was trying to mess up the zipper And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like don't you know, yeah, you'll Gourna is still gonna get there, But why are you making all of us wait, I'm We've been patient.
That happens like every exit rampo not.
To screwing with the zipper methods. So anyway, then I decided, you know what, wait a minute, maybe they got to get off the freeway, Maybe they gotta you know, maybe got a poop coming. Maybe there's there is sad about something there. You don't know there's such. There's this word called sounder that I adore, and it's about everyone that you pass, no matter how briefly in your side. I they have a full, well, beautiful complex life. And this person in the car that screwed up the zipper has
that right. So I need to just like sip back and go okay this, you know, just sometimes you just have to be more patient.
Yeah, it takes training, though, it does, especially on these freeways.
Yes, I mean I'm to try. I live probably four or five ten miles maybe maybe max ten miles from downtown LA, and it's never taken me less than forty five fifty minutes to get there.
Yeah. You can't go anywhere in LA no matter what time, it's always going to be at least an hour.
Yeah. Yeah, And people wonder why if someone lives in Santa Mona don't want to come to the valley.
I'm not friends with people no Petamonica. Now, like I've lost my friend Brian, never never heard from him again.
People just need to know the freeway systems out here, and it sucks.
Yeah yeah, okay, uh you say that, you say that you have to choose to be empathetic to practice it, like learning the piano or something. How do you choose to be empathetic?
Put yourself in their place, put yourself in their shoes always, and what would be your reaction? What would you be doing. I became so angry for a while because I was so constantly being triggered in my life and I was going through a lot of surgeries, and I was just like miserable, and I kept trying to pull myself out of it, like, come on, this is but least you get to go and have surgery. At least you get to whatever are gonna heal. I'm gonna it's gonna heal.
It's gonna get better. And though it took four and still I still have to have one more. But it if I put myself in someone else's situation and I can try to see it from and we're never going to actually be able to fully see them the way they view things, because we all have our own ghosts and we all have our own background, you can then be a little bit more empathetic with what they're going through. I feel like that That's how I feel about my second husband. Now I have empathy for him where I
didn't before. I was just so angry. Now I'm like, I get it.
Okay, he was scary and what you're working with? Yeah, right right? I think about a lot when I'm in traffic. I think about I get curious instead of angry like that. I try to flip it right away.
That's a great, great thing I do.
Oh, I wonder why they're in such a rush, right, wonder if everything's over right with them?
And I always feel noisy, and then I want to pull with them.
I need a look. I need a good look. Okay, speaking of practices, I love your meditations and.
The bad thank you. I wouldn't courage anyone to see if they could get that on audio. And are you going to be recording your book? I recorded it, okay, you did? Yeah, and I cried multiple times reading it. We had to stop a few times. But I think it might be helpful to listen to those meditations more so than reading them. Although they're perfectly fine to read.
I just think listening to them, I was really careful to make sure that they were soothing and calm and would hopefully help somebody through it.
Right, Yeah, run out and get that audiobook.
People.
You wrote a beautiful poem thank you, which I'm going to just read a little bit of if you don't mind. But you guys are going to have to read the rest of the book yourself in a warm bath. I am with myself. I am present. I feel my body tense before it relaxes. My thoughts slow, the racing abates. I feel a different kind of weight on my chest comfort. I am snug. I am able to close my eyes and breathe. I am able to exhale. That's just some of it. Yeah, just saying it out loud, it.
Just it calms me.
Yeah, why do you practice meditation?
It centers me. And let me be very clear. I don't do it every day. Okay, maybe I do it like I basically did it this morning without even realizing it by doing this, yeah, because I was anxious. So that is meditation. And I think we don't give ourselves enough credit for what meditation is. Right.
We think we have to sit on a mat in an uncomfortable position now with incense earning.
A candle burning or whatever. And you could do that because it feels really good to do that.
You could go there.
Yeah, And you can meditate in a bath. That's how I wrote that. I was talking into my phone. And you can meditate just staring at the ocean. You can meditate just watching your cat clean itself. You can meditate where it lets your mind just be and just wander to a place of serenity. And I think when you watch things that you find beautiful, that will help you do it as well. So meditation can be anything where you calm yourself.
I don't know if watching the cat clean itself is going to do that for me.
Well, my cats, I just love when they just like do this, and when the cats do that, I'm like, like, I get the little heart eyes. I love watching my cats clean their faces. They're so precious.
Oh and it's the beauty of just being in those little simple moments, yeah, and appreciating them. Yeah, that's what keeps you.
Say, in your skin. Yeah, yeah, being present. It's bringing yourself back to your body, trying to ground yourself.
Well, thank you so much. You are wonderful. I knew you would be. You've blown my expectations out of the water.
Oh you're a sweetheart.
I've always been a fan and I always will be getting naked. The quiet work of becoming perfectly imperfect is available wherever you find your books and Valerie's Place, her new virtual platform, is available on the App Store and Google Play Yes
And you can go to the website Valarsplace dot com