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