Dana Skaggs (00:01.675) Welcome friends. It's Phoenix in Flame. I'm so glad you're here to join me and I have another amazing guest. I tell you, I just can't say enough how much I adore podcasting. We just get access to some amazing people who have just incredible experiences. Today, we're going to be speaking with Julie Rose. Julie has been a radio journalist for 20 years.
reporting for NPR local stations and network shows like Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She has received a Gracie Award and multiple Edward R. Murrow awards for her work in her field. Now in 2015, she began hosting a nationally syndicated live interview show on Series XM 143 called Top of Mind. But after several years on the air every day,
she began fighting the urge to avoid the news completely because of how anxious and angry it made her feel. Now, Top of Mind is a weekly podcast that tackles tough topics in a way that's honest and probing, but also leaves people feeling empathetic and empowered. Julie, welcome to Phoenix in Flame. Julie Rose (01:27.694) Dana, thank you. It's so great to be here.
Dana Skaggs (01:30.635) This is wonderful. Now you also mentioned being an advocate for bridging divides in public discourse. You know, something that is this more needed more now than ever because new there's a lot of news avoidance going on. There's polarized information. I am very interested in this because you see it all the time. You know, you what's what can you believe? What can you not believe? And also, trying to engage people in conversations without it going sideways very quickly.
Julie Rose (02:03.534) Right. I mean, it feels like an impossible task to try to engage. And for me, just in terms of the flame point for me in my journey was this moment 15 years into my career as a news journalist where I suddenly could not muster the enthusiasm or desire to engage with the news. And yet it was my job. I mean, I was on the air every day for two hours talking with about
important topics. And it was driving me into a dark hole in my personal life of just so I'm, you know, I'm prone to depression, I'm clinically anxious. And I'm, above all, sort of a an avoider of conflict and discomfort, right? So which, you know, people are like, why the heck did you even become a journalist? And the true story is that I sort of wandered into it because I love to tell stories.
And I hadn't fully thought through that it would also mean engaging with some of the biggest and toughest and scariest things. And so I felt there was a point where I realized, and this was only just a couple of years ago, it would have been in about 2021 -ish, where I just no longer wanted to consume the news, but I also had to for my job. And I started thinking, well, do I have to change my career? I've built my identity on this. And...
What am I going to do now? So I was deeply embarrassed by this because what kind of news journalist doesn't want to engage with the news. And I also started to have these really uncomfortable realizations about some of the hypocrisy of my own sort of identity, well, of my behavior in terms of, you know, being on the radio and sort of asking these probing questions and kind of I have this persona.
of sort of fearless and willing to kind of go there and listeners really appreciate that because, you know, they're like, that's the question I wouldn't have dared ask, but I'm dying to know the answer, right? So I am really good at doing that when you turn the microphone on. And I had to acknowledge that in my personal life, I was not having those conversations at all. Like I was... Dana Skaggs (04:08.683) That's it.
Julie Rose (04:22.958) thinking deeply and engaging with guests, but then I wasn't talking about these important, challenging issues. Like, you know, my mom was voting for the exact opposite candidate that I was interested in supporting and sort of personally felt really strong about. And yet I never, I couldn't figure out how to have a conversation with her about that because it just felt like it wasn't gonna go anywhere productive.
and so I was really feeling frustrated by that. And I think that that was also part of why I was like, what the heck am I doing? I don't even want to pay attention anymore. And into the news, I feel like it's, it's yelling at me. It's driving up my anxiety. It's, it's, either, either demeaning my perspective or telling me I'm exactly right to have my perspective. Like it didn't feel like there was a lot of, and besides that, it was just super depressing. Like every news story seemed to be about terrible things going on in the world.
So, you know, I now know that a lot of people were feeling the same way, but for me, it was kind of an existential and an identity crisis as well and a professional crisis. Like, do I need to go do something else with my life? And I really spent a while burying my head in the sand and kind of embarrassed to admit it. Dana Skaggs (05:28.843) I
Dana Skaggs (05:34.731) Well, I love the fact that you are admitting it though, because so that we can be just very genuine and authentic with one another and say, this is what my experience was. Because it's trying to find a balance sometimes between not avoiding something altogether, but then trying to find a way to receive information, how to share information, and it's still be healthy.
And especially when there is a lot of polarized stuff, I've talked to people before that they did the exact same thing you're talking about. They just, they were either obsessed with the news or they did that. And then they had to go the total opposite direction because it was driving them into the very place that you so eloquently described. They just couldn't handle it. It was just so negative. They didn't see any space for agency.
They didn't see the, why should I listen to all of this? But at the same time, they didn't want to feel totally ignorant about what was going on in the world. And as I'm listening to you talk, that's right. Just how do you, you want to be informed, but what is the attitude? And also at the end of the day, I feel like it boils down to person to person conversations. Julie Rose (06:35.63) And that's the catch.
Dana Skaggs (06:48.523) at the end of the day, once it all shakes down, because we can report all kinds of events, but whatever event you're talking about, at the end of the day, what creates that event is a conversation between human beings. What is being communicated between people? And so that's one of the things that I really wanted to hear your wisdom on over the years is how to encourage these conversations so that we... Julie Rose (07:07.534) people.
Dana Skaggs (07:17.323) because that's where our agency lies. That's where we can make change. And right now, now this will air a little bit later, today, it's in May, and in the news is all this about the violence and the people on the college campuses because of what's going on in Israel and Palestine and all the...
you know, they're trying to communicate how they feel about that and all that's going on. It's just sort of, there's things going on in the world, but at the end of the day, it's human being communicating to another human being. So what has been your experience of that along the way? Julie Rose (07:58.606) Right.
Julie Rose (08:04.814) Yeah, so it started for me with a realization, first of all, with the discovery that I wasn't alone, that a lot of people feel like we don't know how to engage with these big important topics, that we feel inclined to avoid the news because of how it makes us feel or because of the way that it doesn't seem to be productively guiding us into a place where we can engage. And so it's driven us into our sort of little echo chambers, our safe little bubbles, where all we really have to do is engage with perspectives we agree with. And...
Or it's turned us into these like, you know, monsters of conflict wanting to constantly shut things down the minute something comes along, you know, trolling and poking and sort of like inflaming, right? Neither of which felt right to me because I wanted to, I realized that what was lacking was for me, a sense of curiosity that I was encountering each of these big topics with a defensive posture and a sense of fear, fear that it was gonna go badly, fear of how I was gonna feel.
Fear that I was going to discover that my position is actually harmful or that I don't know enough to actually have a position. Fear that if I tried to bring this up, it was going to go badly. Just a lot of fear. And I couldn't figure out how to not be afraid. And so I started there. What would it look like if I could engage with at least this information, the news in a way that didn't just leave me feeling paralyzed and afraid?
to have these conversations and to learn more. And I mean, this is going to sound kind of obvious or simple, but for me, the power, I discovered the power of curiosity, genuine curiosity to come into these. So I started with my news consumption, which was a kind of a workshopping place where we were also building this new podcast that would really come from a perspective of openness and curiosity, trying to practice.
hearing perspectives that are outside of my own worldview, trying to practice when I recognize that there's a blind spot, not freaking out about it, but being curious to that. You know, it really had never occurred to me that perspective because I wasn't raised in that environment or because I don't have that particular racial or religious identity. And to not freak out, which is kind of our fight or flight, you know, when the minute we hear something that like really challenges our worldview or sort of,
Julie Rose (10:33.038) flips things on our head, on its head, you know, it can be scary. And I realized I was responding with fear and defensiveness instead of, instead of just turning on my curiosity. Because I'm totally curious. That's why I'm a journalist. And when I'm on the air, I'm asking questions. But when I'm consuming news for myself and when I am having conversations with people, I don't.
It's I just like walk with this wall of fear in front of me and defensiveness and like I'm afraid of where it's going to go and that I'm not going to be able to control the outcome and that it's going to make me feel uncomfortable things. So what I discovered is that I could I could consume the news with curiosity first. I could also be very intentional about what I was consuming. I could stop allowing the algorithm. So a couple of things that I did that helped.
because I started with my news consumption and then I was able to pivot into using those skills out in the real world. I felt like what for me has become this as a scared person, there's a way to practice the curiosity in the safety of my computer screen, in my smartphone, in my sort of engagement. I can work the muscle. I go to the gym in my consumption of the news and then I take those skills and I go put them to work in my...
interactions with people because I have a new confidence in a sense of how to respond and how to recognize my emotions and maintain my boundaries when I go into these conversations. So I'm happy to share some of the tips that I've, you know, some of the strategies that I've used to make sure that I'm consuming with in a productive way that's intentional and really puts curiosity on the front, at the front line.
Dana Skaggs (12:13.163) I am absolutely going to be listening to those and want you to bring those to my listeners because the curiosity point is huge. I don't know how many times, even in my psychotherapy sessions, that I have suggested to my patients to observe your own behavior, not from a point of defensiveness, but from a point of curiosity. Isn't it curious that you're demonstrating this particular behavior pattern?
Isn't it curious that you do this instead of that? And so because if you look at the relationship between curiosity and defensiveness, the higher the curiosity, the lower the defensiveness. And then we bring in the role of boundaries and what you're talking about talking to other people, because it's one thing to be able to view your own behavior from a point of curiosity versus a point of defensiveness, then interacting with someone else. Julie Rose (12:47.374) Yeah.
Julie Rose (12:56.302) Yeah.
Dana Skaggs (13:09.515) the boundaries comes into play where we don't know what their attitude is going to be. But if we're going in, we're not coming in judgmentally, we're not coming in critically, but we are coming in with a curiosity because like you pointed out a few moments ago, Julie, it's like if we're talking to someone that comes from a different culture or a different race, different background in some kind of way, different level on the socioeconomic scale, that...
they're demonstrating behavior patterns and that's the only thing we can actually see, right? Because we can't, we don't know what they're feeling, we don't know what they're thinking, all we can actually observe is what they're doing. And so we don't know why they're doing what they're doing. So it's like if we can come at it just from a point of curiosity, but the issue though, and this is what I'd really like to hear from you is,
when we go, because I've been in this situation before where I would go in and my stance was simply curiosity because I didn't understand why someone was doing this or not doing this or whatever. But they were predisposed and amped up already to be defensive and angry. They were like, and they perceived me a certain kind of way. Julie Rose (14:20.846) Right. Yeah.
Dana Skaggs (14:25.131) And you kind of negative, like I was coming at them very critically and judgmentally, even though I was not, and they can't read my mind. So they were projecting that into my mind thinking I'm coming at them this kind of way. Which if you're using boundaries, you can stay calm because you're understanding that is projection that's coming from their mind, not mine, and that I don't have to personalize that. But I would really very much enjoy hearing the tips that you've learned of how to.
Julie Rose (14:32.782) Yeah.
Dana Skaggs (14:53.803) how to be able to engage, because one last thing I want to toss in real quick, because I want to hear what you have to say about it, is it's one thing when we're professional, when you are behind the mic, so to say, and engaging someone in questions, because you can have the stance that you're asking for someone else. It's not that you personally have this question, but yeah, you have to represent your listeners, right? Versus if you are asking for yourself personally,
Julie Rose (15:16.238) There's a little bit of a barrier there, right? I have like a professional role to, yes, exactly. Dana Skaggs (15:22.219) that pushes you way up close to the other person and people are much more likely, it seems, to be defensive and react in a vitriolic way. And so I'm really, really interested in your expertise in this.
Julie Rose (15:40.814) So here's the first thing I realized is that most people have not had these kinds of conversations productively, that most of our experience has been negative and that we have or that we've been fully avoiding it. I would say, you know, especially when you're talking about, I don't know, let's say you're talking about abortion or gun rights or, you know, racism or, you know, campus protests, whatever it is, right, or who you're voting for for president.
These conversations, the model, when you think about the models that we have, most of us are taking our cues from what we're seeing on cable television or online. Where those are not, I mean, frankly, they're just not good examples. In most cases, they're intended to pit people against each other to get emotions up.
And sort of, so I think we've been trained. I had to realize that part of why I was so terrified to have those conversations and why they so quickly went downhill was because of a couple of behaviors I'd picked up just from watching discussion about these topics happen out in the world, like online and in the news, you know, on television or a podcast or whatever. One of them was that I had somehow learned in my head that the only reason to have that conversation was so that I could win the argument. The point is,
to be the better, the better arguer, to be able to convince the other side that you're right. And if you can't at least convince the other side that you're right, at least you can come off looking better. You know, I can somehow own them or gotcha question or bring them up short with something that they hadn't thought of before. And that that was, that that was the point that truly the only point for the, to these conversations was, was to try to win.
So I had internalized that because that's what I'd seen on cable news. That's what I'd seen in the clips, the viral clips online. That's what I see on social media the minute somebody posts something and then other people respond. And very quickly it's like, well, why can't you see this and why can't you see this and why can't you see this? So that was one of the reasons why I was not having any of these conversations because I'm like, I don't think I can win. Like I'm not a good debater.
Julie Rose (17:49.262) In the moment, I think I'm gonna freak out, I'm gonna freeze. Like, what if I don't wanna lose, I wanna save face. And so I'm just avoiding because if the point is to win and I don't know for sure I can win, then no thank you, I'm just not gonna do it. And then the minute when I would find myself in one of these conversations, immediately I'm like, how do I win? How do I win? How do I win? And so instead of listening to what they're saying, I'm hearing every other word and I'm like.
What's my rebuttal gonna be? How am I gonna get respond to that? And I need to, I need some paper. I gotta write this down. I gotta respond to that and that and that. And then I'm just like, we are not talking. We're just talking at each other. We're not really communicating. So I realized that that was, that my whole, that the intention, the goal for these conversations was wrong in my mind. That I hadn't, and then I had to ask myself, okay, well, if the point isn't to win, then what is the point? Like, why would I talk to somebody?
Why would I talk to my mom about who she's voting for for president unless I could convince her she's wrong? That's the whole point of that conversation, right? To convince her to no longer support that person. And I know it's weird, but it took a little while for me to actually realize, okay, there could be another value here. There are probably things about my mom that I actually don't know.
There might be parts of her daily experience, even though I see her on a daily basis, there might be aspects of her background. There surely are things that I don't understand. And I could get to know her better. I could deepen a relationship. I could better understand through understanding her better. I could maybe pull off some of these labels I had attached to her that were sort of influencing the way I was interacting with her.
you know, whenever we would talk about politics, I would kind of have this disdainful or like I'd walk into her house and a certain TV station would be on and I'd sort of have this like huffy disdainful like, why are you watching this? This is all, you know, like I could clearly improve our relationship if I had a better understanding or if she at least knew that I cared about her and that I was willing to listen to her perspective. Secondarily,
Julie Rose (20:04.462) If it's somebody that I don't, so deepening a relationship, whether it's an existing one or one that you'd like to build, then I was thinking, so in my neighborhood or in my church congregation, what would be the point of talking about this? Because I see this sign on their lawn, right? What would be the point of that? For me, I only saw the risks. I only saw the possibility that it would go badly, and then I'd have this awkward thing to have to deal with because we share a fence line.
And I wasn't seeing the upside, which is that I could, again, deepen a relationship. But more importantly, I could learn some stuff. Why was I afraid to just go in and learn? And that's where I realized the second thing that I was coming into these conversations with a misperception. And that was that because of everything I'd seen online and my sort of journalistic tendencies to fact check and kind of make sure I'm responsible to make sure that only the, that a good,
that good information gets out into the world, truthful information. I felt compelled to rebut when something that the other person said was, I felt like was either wrong or that it was maybe harmful in some way. And not necessarily harmful to me, but I felt like, well, don't you know that that's a...
So I wanted to chime in and be like, so with my mom's case, mom, that's not true. That's a conspiracy. Or mom, there's no facts to back that up. Or I wanted to, I felt like I needed to correct misinformation at every turn. And that was really, that was very quickly turning what could be a potentially a good learning experience into, I mean, you want to feel on the defensive, have somebody chime in and try to correct you. I don't care what it is. If you tell me.
If I'm like, wow, it's a beautiful shade of blue today. And you're like, it's really not blue, Julie. It's actually blah, blah, blah, blah. I'll be like, what? Why do I don't want to talk to you and don't tell me that. Like, what's the point of this? You're just correcting me for no good reason, right? Like I could really recognize why it would make people defensive. So those are the two things that I had to recognize upfront was that my intentions were that I didn't realize, see why I would have these conversations. I couldn't realize the value of simply just listening to learn.
Julie Rose (22:20.366) rather than feeling like I needed to set the record straight and that just the fact that I was listening didn't mean I was endorsing their view. That's the other piece that I felt was really challenging was like, if I just listen and I let them say those things, they're gonna think I agree with them. Well, of course they're not gonna think you agree with them. That's not how conversations work. But in my mind, I was thinking if I don't immediately chime in and be like, I don't agree with that, I don't agree with that, I don't agree with that, then they're gonna think I agree.
So it was irrational stuff that was going on in my head, but I realized first and foremost that I had to enter into these conversations with the desire simply to learn that there could be value in having these conversations. And that if I wasn't there to win, what I was there to do was to understand, then that changes everything. Then that means instead of trying to figure out how I'm going to answer every time they say something, instead of focusing all my attention on what my response is going to be, I'm simply listening.
as actively as possible with as much humility and generosity toward them as possible and breathing through any emotional responses that I'm getting. And this has taken a lot of practice. I've done that through a lot of news consumption. I've worked on how to do that, but breathing through some of those emotional responses and simply asking a follow -up question. And I don't even have to be worried about what the next question is.
I'm in my day job, I do feel like I worry because I'm like, all right, I need to make sure this interview is flowing. What am I going to ask next? But in these conversations, all I have to ask is, tell me more. Would you tell me more about that? Better yet.
Would you share an experience that I'm really interested to understand better how you've come to hold this view or what has influenced your perspective on this issue? Would you share an experience? Would you be willing to share an experience with me that has shaped your view on abortion or on gun rights or on who you're voting for for president? Dana Skaggs (24:13.131) Julie
Dana Skaggs (24:18.731) Let me ask you, because what you're saying is amazing stuff. And it's reminding me, actually, of a word I ran across in college years and years ago called a duologue, where we think of the word dialogue, where we're talking back and forth. And a duologue is when we're just basically waiting for the other person to stop talking so we can start talking. We don't really care what they're saying. We're just watching their mouth to stop moving.
so we can start jumping in with whatever we want to say. It's called a dual log. And I have forgotten a lot of things since those years, but I remember that word. And it sounds like that's what you're describing, dual logging. And I'm wondering if your experience has been that once you give the other person space, when you're asking them, tell me something else, tell me an experience that you have, has it been your experience that once you do that, that they possibly,
Julie Rose (24:55.246) Yeah. Yeah. Dana Skaggs (25:13.739) are more receptive than to your views or not. Julie Rose (25:23.342) Sometimes, and it depends on the environment, and it depends on how much trust is actually there. So I can share an experience with you that I had recently with this. So I have a long, long, long time friend. We've known each other for 20 plus years. We have very different politics. Not that different, but he leans a lot more right than I lean.
And so he sees me as more progressive, even though in the grand scheme of things, I tend to be more middle of the road than anything. So he likes to kind of, but he also likes to kind of spar politically. And I'm kind of anxious about sparring politically, but I've been trying to get more comfortable expressing my own views in private circles.
So I don't know, a couple of months ago we did an episode of Top of Mind where we were looking, because our whole podcast is about trying to find perspectives that are gonna challenge us a little bit so that we can practice feeling uncomfortable, recognizing those emotions that kind of come up, like how dare you, you know, the innate urge that we have to correct or to dismiss or to argue that we can sort of.
practice that in our listening and in our news consumption. That's one of the reasons why one of my favorite things to do when I only have a few minutes for news consumption is I go to the opinion section of whatever organization I'm reading and I find the opinion that I most disagree with, like that I absolutely am like, how could somebody think that? And then I read it top to bottom and think about if I were sitting in front of this person, what would I be asking them?
noticing my emotions as they come up, noticing the moments where I want to be like, yeah, but, you know, or kind of interject with my own, you know, I'm like yelling at the, at the screen or whatever, right? Like I, and I noticed that and I practiced thinking what, what question would I ask instead? What could I ask that would help me better understand this person's perspective? What am I learning here that's surprising me? What, what, what aspects of what they're saying actually are sort of understandable to me?
Julie Rose (27:25.518) And that's like a safe way for me to practice for these kinds of moments when, so back to this story, a couple of months ago we did this episode and one of the conversations was about cultural appropriation and it was about trying to understand what is cultural appropriation? Why do people get really upset about it? Why does it cause all of this like cultural angst and cancel, you know, canceling and things like that? What's the harm? What's the line? How can we better understand why this is such an emotional thing?
Well, my friend texts me and he's like, and he and he's basically kind of coming at me with with like a provocative, I heard your thing on cultural appropriation. It's a bunch of woke bunk, blah, blah, blah. You know, he's kind of just like dismissive. Why would you even give air to this? Like it's such a, you know, it's a ridiculous thing that has not that's not real. And most of it is just, you know, liberals trying to cancel people, whatever. He was kind of throwing all the things at me right that were making me feel personally attacked, like I had done a bad job as a journalist. But also I'm like,
I actually see this in a much more nuanced way and I would really hope that you would too, that it's not all black or white, that there can be gray areas here and there can be harm and it can be over policed and sort of, you know. So my initial reaction when I saw that was I got angry and I was like, I don't have time for this today and also how dare he? And so I typed like 10 different responses and kept erasing them and I finally realized, okay, I'm feeling a lot of emotions here. He's trying to suck me into an argument. What do I want to do? My choices at that moment were just to ignore it.
Dana Skaggs (28:34.699) Hehehehe.
Julie Rose (28:49.774) I'll just pretend I'm too busy. Hopefully he didn't see all the little bubbles that I was typing and untyping. I'm like, I'm just going to ghost him. I don't want to have this conversation. And I thought, OK, well, maybe there's something more I could do here. I'm always talking about engaging. I'm safe. I don't have to feel this isn't. There's a level of trust here. Maybe we could have a conversation about this. And then I had to check myself and think, all right, so what's my goal going to be here?
You just want to understand, Julie. You're just trying to understand. That's it. You don't have to try to convince him that you did a good job or that that was a good episode or whatever, that he's wrong. You just want to understand. See what you can learn in this exchange about him or about this viewpoint in particular, ideally both. So I responded back and it was something more along the lines of, well, hey, good to hear from you. I'm so glad you listened. Yeah, I think you recognize that, you know, you, I'm sure you know that we disagree on this, like, and you're clearly trying to like,
You know, you want to kind of jab about this. And I'd love to have a bit of a conversation with you. You know, my perspective is that this is a little bit less black and white than what you're portraying. And then he came back with me with his argument that, you know, I could tell he was just like pent up all this stuff he wanted to say, right? So I start getting this flood of stuff from him. And each one I'm like, I don't agree with that. I really don't agree with that. I think he's being a little extreme. And so I started kind of asking questions.
But he sort of felt like I was interrogating him a little bit. It threatened to kind of go off the rails, right? Because my initial questions were like, well, but what about in this situation? And do you think that this is inappropriate? Or how would you feel if someone did this related to your identity? And he's like, that's stupid. And I can see you're just going over the top. And this is ridiculous. And I'm like, this doesn't feel like it's being very productive here. What am I going to do now? And.
before I even had the chance to remember to ask the magical question, which was, I'd love to better understand what's behind this viewpoint for you. Have you had an experience that has shaped your view on this? I didn't even get a chance to ask that because I just stayed in the conversation long enough to be like, I hear you, I see you, I see that you're wrecking, you know, I was kind of repeating back to him like, yes, I can see that this, you know, feels and I agree that sometimes it feels like it's,
Julie Rose (31:14.254) goes too far and I agree that sometimes maybe there isn't real harm. It's hard for me to know if I'm not part of that marginalized community. Like I was trying to maintain a really conciliatory view to sort of keep him in conversation, to keep it on a good level so that it didn't just end in us yelling at each other, like all capsing each other and then hanging up the phone and not talking for another three years. I forgot in that moment to ask the question, can you tell me to focus on how he had come to hold this view? Because that's the magical piece of this.
is to not talk about the issue, but to talk about how he came to hold this viewpoint. Right as I was about to remember to do that, he shared an experience that he'd had that all of a sudden I was like, I get it. It had to do with years ago when one of his kids was a little baby and I don't know, they'd been at a cultural restaurant and the...
the little kid had sort of dressed up. I think it was a Mexican restaurant. They put like a little sombrero and a little mustache and it was, I don't know. It was like this cute little toddler baby picture. And then many years later, you know, his wife had posted that like on the kid's birthday or something and then had tagged my friend. And then my friend's coworkers saw it. And one of my friend's coworkers was like, how dare you? This is cultural appropriation, totally insensitive. And...
like really came after my friend and it was humiliating, it was hurtful, it felt over the top. It embarrassed him in his work environment and he was just really, really burned by that. And I could totally see setting aside whether or not it was appropriate to dress their kid up 15 years ago in that outfit, like, you know, and whether or not anyone else might have been hurt by it, I understood why he felt so viscerally engaged in this topic.
Why of all the things he wanted to argue with me about it was this one. I got it. And that changed the entire way that I was viewing everything. I was scrolling back and looking at the other things that he'd said with this new information in mind. And I'm like, this is where he's leaning. He's really talking about the harm that this could, you know, like I just saw it all completely differently. And my response back to that was, wow, that must have really been painful. And I could totally understand how this would have hurt, you know.
Julie Rose (33:34.126) Like I probably would feel really upset too and would maybe feel like this would be a hot button topic for me as well if I had experienced that. And then the tenor of the conversation changed. And he wasn't necessarily, he didn't necessarily go all the way to asking like, what do you think? But I could tell he started, he had a couple of messages back to me where he said, I know that you've said you feel this way and that you feel this way. Like suddenly I was recognizing that he had heard me, we had engaged.
And it didn't go much further than that. We spent 10 minutes of a day. It was going to heavy duty texting for 10 minutes, like really intense, a lot of emotions going on for both of us. And then there was this moment of like, wow, that actually was, he even texted me, the one of the final messages was, wow, you know, we just did the top of mind thing. Like we just had a tough conversation and it stayed productive and I learned something and you learned something and that felt really good. Neither of us changed our minds.
Dana Skaggs (34:18.731) Hahaha
Julie Rose (34:30.958) on the topic, but we deepened our relationship. And it was a good reminder to me that when people have strong feelings about issues, most of the time it's not just out of the blue, like they just picked that one out of the sky and decided to bake that the hill they die on. It's because they've had lived experience that has shaped and affected them in ways that I haven't or can't even begin to comprehend, unless I'm willing to listen and ask the questions.
Dana Skaggs (34:57.131) That is amazing. I just love the way you described all of that and the interaction and how the whole attitude toward one another just sort of transformed throughout this conversation because you were willing to step back and breathe and just kind of hear him. You didn't actually ask the question because he came forth with his experience. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I know sometimes I talk to people who have been in relationships with people that
Julie Rose (35:11.886) Yeah. Julie Rose (35:22.646) Yeah. Dana Skaggs (35:26.155) have been abusive or, you know, different kinds of negative things. And we talk about how at some point this person was a toddler and then something happened because this person did not have this particular behavior pattern when they were a toddler, but they do now. And so when we're able to view someone and remember them being a toddler or imagine them being a toddler, it really shifts things around thinking.
Julie Rose (35:38.446) Mm -hmm. Dana Skaggs (35:54.379) wow, okay, they were a toddler, I was a toddler at one point, and then things happened. And that's kind of what I hear you saying is this respect for the things that happen to us when we grow up and how we end up with our strong views on things and holding space for everybody to have their own view and why. Julie Rose (36:04.622) Yeah, absolutely.
Julie Rose (36:17.134) And once you have looked at someone and you have seen in their eyes the toddler that they once were or the hurt father that they are or the scared mother that they are, it's so much harder to just paint them as that scary other or that, all of these labels we attach to people that make it so much easier for us to kind of come in ready to fight, ready to get dismissive.
We spend so much of our time in circles around people who are very much like us in a lot of different ways in our lives that we're quick to paint the other not just as like somebody we disagree with, but somebody who is inherently less than us or even evil. And once you see the toddler, the humanity in someone, it becomes impossible to see them as inherently evil or inherently threatening to us. Dana Skaggs (37:09.835) Yes.
Julie Rose (37:15.886) And hopefully, the empathy that has sort of cracked, your heart's been cracked open to a little bit of empathy. I have found that if I keep my curiosity front and center, I can sort of push through that crack to where I'm actually learning things. I'm not just having a like, yeah, I feel, I see you as a person, but now I'm actually.
feeling more safe and confident to keep learning and keep listening, which the payoff for me at that point is not just that I felt empathy, which is a great human experience, but that I have light bulb moments where they're expressing things in a way that has never occurred to me, where I'm recognizing whole other viewpoints out there that are in my blind spot. And at the end of the day, I become better capable of having these conversations about this topic. I have...
I have a desire to go learn more and have these and talk about this issue with other people. I have a desire to go read up. And I feel like I can better advocate for my own viewpoint. So when the day comes, when the appropriate moment comes for me to stand up and say something, whether it's in a debate, whether it's, you know, voting, whether it's joining a protest, whether it's talking to the media, whatever it is, or in a book group or whatever, I'll feel more confident because I have actually spent time thinking clearly about what my view is and.
how the others, what the other viewpoints can be. I think you can become a better advocate for the things that matter to you just by engaging in these conversations.
Dana Skaggs (38:46.283) my gosh, Julie, I think what you're doing, if somebody just stops for a moment and just conceptualizes what you're doing, if we were to take a moment and think if everybody could do what you're describing, imagine what a different world we would be living in. Imagine actually Democrats and Republicans working together, hearing each other.
And having, you know, having different viewpoints, you know, and seeing world a different way, but actually holding space for one another and working together. I mean, it's just, if you just stop for a moment, listeners, just imagine. And you know what we can't, we cannot impact what the world in the abstract is going to do, but we, the world is made up of individuals. The world is made up of me, of you. And so,
if we can go out and try to do, you know, Julie, what you're describing, it would make a really big difference instead of things becoming incendiary and acrimonious between people, that we could actually come into the space of people that we are not like, people that have backgrounds very different from us, that have opinions very different from ours.
and we can be in the same space and hold that respect for one another. We can agree that we don't have the same views because we're different people, we have different backgrounds, different things happened to us past our toddler years, right? Which brought us to the space we are right now and we could hold that for one another. And I just think it would just be a miracle. It would be amazing if this could just flow out and spread.
I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing. Keep doing it. I mean, just sending just kudos and power and love and all the things to you to help your platform. Now, let me ask you, because I want to make sure that my listeners can get a hold of you. Because I have kind of a long website, but let me... Julie Rose (40:44.366) Thank you. Julie Rose (40:50.51) It's fake. Julie Rose (40:57.998) Yes, absolutely.
Julie Rose (41:02.99) Yeah, so let me just tell you, just really straightforward. OK, so I actually host, so the podcast, the one that dives into a tough topic and looks for ways to kind of allow us to practice feeling like staying present and staying curious when we hear information that challenges us. That podcast is called Top of Mind with Julie Rose, and it's on all the podcast platforms. So just look for that. Just go to whatever podcast platform, look for Top of Mind. But the thing that I think is going to be most interesting to your listeners at this particular moment, based on what we discussed, Dana,
is that I've just launched a brand new podcast that's called Uncomfy, Sticking with Moments That Challenge Us. So you can follow that, Uncomfy, on all the podcast platforms. And this is basically a how -to podcast for what we've been describing here. So each episode, each week, we talk to someone who has done this, who has encountered a perspective or a situation outside their comfort zone that really challenged them and they felt like it was gonna go badly and they felt...
uncomfortable and they wanted to bail out, they wanted to get defensive, but they chose to stay open, they chose to stay uncomfy long enough to see where it might lead. And then we talk about how they did that. What did it feel like? What were the challenges? What came out as a result of it? Why are you glad you did that? Because it deepened a relationship, helped you feel new empathy, gave you more clarity, whatever it is.
These opportunities happen not just when we want to sit down and have a tough conversation about who you're voting for for president, but all around us encountering things that make us want to go like, that's outside my zone. Like, I'm going to go back to my safe corner. We're missing opportunities to engage and to learn and to feel empathy. So this podcast, Uncomfy, is real life experiences from our guests about how they did it in one specific moment in their life so that we can learn from that and start to find those moments in our own lives as well.
Dana Skaggs (42:48.843) my gosh, that sounds amazing! Julie Rose (42:52.59) Really excited about that. And you can reach me on both of those. Yeah, my email addresses are on there. And then you can also find me on social media. I underscore underscore Julie underscore Rose. I am Julie Rose on all the social media platforms.
Dana Skaggs (43:05.579) that. Now uncomfy, sticking with moments that challenge us. Now listeners, I'm gonna have all of this in the show notes, so rest assured if you're out jogging, I'll have it down. Julie, this has been amazing. I am so appreciative of the time and the energy that you have sacrificed to be here with us because we all know that everyone is spinning 65 plates and you have Julie Rose (43:12.654) Challenge us. Yeah. Stay uncomfortable. Julie Rose (43:21.614) Awesome. Thank you.
Dana Skaggs (43:35.019) intentional about carving out some space to be with me and my listeners and in sharing us and being so honest and transparent about your journey. Thank you. Thank you so much. Julie Rose (43:49.198) It's been a real honor. Thank you for making space for me here, Dana, and for all that you're doing with your show.
Dana Skaggs (43:50.251) Thank you Julie. Guys I know that you have heard multiple things today that you're thinking, not only do you want to remember, but you might have a friend or a co -worker or a relative that you had that person in mind thinking they really have got to hear what Julie Rose has to say. Take this episode, copy and paste the link and text and email, put it on your favorite social media sites. Let's grow the Phoenix and Flame community so we can get the word out that we are not alone, we're in this together.
I hope the rest of your day goes fabulously. I'm Dana on Phoenix in Flame.