Cruelty on Steroids: How We Talk to Each Other, with Jameela Jamil

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm very, very focused on a resolution and on restoration,
and restoration is something we need to do on an
individual and mass social scale. And that's the only way
we can now be helpful is to push for more
love and grace in the world, because we are only
going to continue to see a rise of evil if

(00:21):
we are contributing to animosity in any way.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm
your host, Meghan Devine. This week on the show, Jamila
Jamil on looking back at past versions of yourself plus
what cancel culture costs us. Stay tuned. There is so
much fascinating territory coming up right after this first break.

(00:54):
Before we get started, one quick note. While we cover
a lot of emotional relutional territory in our time here
to get whither. This show is not a substitute for
skilled support with a licensed mental health provider or for
professionals to provision related to your work. Hey friends, So,
at first look, the subject of this week's show might

(01:15):
seem like a stretch, but really it couldn't be more perfect.
The tagline for this show is conversations with interesting people
about difficult things. How we talk about difficult things, how
we relate to each other, how we navigate conflict, and
our needs for connection. Like that's everything. In a lot
of ways, how we communicate is more important than the

(01:37):
thing we're trying to say. Jamila Jamil is an actress.
You might know her from the Good Place or legendary
or she Hulk. She's the host of the popular podcast Eyeway,
which explores mental health and relationships and chronic illness and
a whole bunch of other things. She's the host of
the very funny, very not safe for work podcast Bad Dates.
And she's an outspoken advocate on a big range of

(02:00):
important issues, which makes her a frequent target for criticism,
which we will get into a little later. I first
started following Jamila Jamil a few years ago because of
her comments on how we treat female celebrities. She broke
things down so clearly, showing the very predictable ways we

(02:20):
idolize and then demonize female celebrities, tearing them to shreds
and the tabloids and on social media for reasons that
are often entirely made up or taken out of context
in order to generate outrage, which generates clicks. That pattern
of adoration decimation is fascinating and horrifying once you start

(02:41):
looking for it. It's a pattern that shows up in
the ways that we talk about each other and to
each other too, not just celebrities, especially when emotions run
really high. Now, Jamila is one of the few people
I have seen pointing at how we use our words
and what that sort of vitriolic cancel culture communication style

(03:04):
does to us, What it does to our own minds
and nervous systems, what it does to our personal relationships,
and the world that kind of communication creates as we
work to build the world we want personally, collectively looking
at the harm we cause through the words we say
and how we say them like that is such a

(03:26):
powerful thing to do. Now, we cover a lot in
this episode, so be sure to listen for the questions
to carry with you at the end of the show
if you need some, like what do I do with
all of this information? I also want to hear your
thoughts about the conversation coming up with Jimmy Lajimil, So
leave a review of the show on your favorite platform

(03:47):
to tell me what you learned or the questions that
you have from this episode, or you can tag me
on social media at Refuge and Grief. Okay, let's get
to it with my guest, Jimmy Lejimir. I'm ridiculously happy
to have you here with me today. Like, there are
so many places that we could begin today, Like today,

(04:11):
I want to explore being human, which is what a
strange thing to do, but like I want to talk
about the ways that we talk to each other, because
I feel like you've been bringing that up a lot,
and I really.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Love this about you.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
So recently you said I'm in a period of transition
at the moment, trying to figure out how to show
more grace and more hope in humanity and in people.
Can you tell me what you mean by that.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
I think the last three years have revealed a lot
about our society. And when I got into social justice
at nineteen years old, you know, we were just so
used to not being heard and so we used to
have to scream. And so then when I kind of
came into a position in social justice where I was
also on one of the biggest TV shows around at

(04:57):
the time, I was still screaming, but people were at
listening to me, right, and so I didn't really need
to be screaming I didn't need to be aggressive or
shocking anymore. But I think I wasn't really aware of
my own position and platform and power because it had
happened so fast out of nowhere, and so we were
in a culture, especially amongst liberals, of just being so

(05:20):
tired and so angry that things were taking so long
to get to a place of just basic equity. That
my frustration was pouring out of me, and that impacted
the way that I was delivering my frustration rather than
through only fact and empathy for those who didn't understand me,
which is hard to muster, you know, when you've been

(05:42):
frustrated for a long time. My communication was what you
would call like causing, according to like Martain Rosenberg, like
violent communication is you did this like fuck you your assholes,
et cetera. And so in doing so, that seemed to
garner me's support from other people who also felt pain

(06:03):
and frustration and exhaustion, and there was a kind of
hyper normalization of us speaking to each other that way,
And I didn't realize that what I was doing was
contributing to what would grow to be a very fraught
landscape of communication socially, politically, and over the pandemic. I

(06:30):
took a step back and saw the way that people
were talking to each other, even very young people, and
the language they were using, and I was like, oh shit,
this isn't going to get us anywhere. And I realized
that I'm only now talking to the people who already
agree with me and already feel the pain and frustration
and empathy that I feel. And I'm not really reaching
out now to anyone because they presume I don't like them,
or that I don't think they're intelligent, or I don't

(06:50):
think they're ademable because of the stances that I take,
and I'm now an unhelpful presence. And the pandemic was
kind of like cruelty on steroids in the way that
all of us spoke to each other. And that was
when I kind of took a back seat and started
to become quieter. I started to listen more and pay

(07:11):
attention and think, how fuck the kids are watching us,
and now this is how they're going to talk to
each other, not online but in the school in person.
What am I going to do to I guess it's
like a carbon footprint, isn't It's like, how do I
how do I tone for anything that I would have
helped contribute as to their impatient and graceless way that

(07:34):
I would speak to the people that were oppressing me.
And I know it's not popular to talk now about
offering any kind of grace or empathy or understanding to
those who are either sitting by while you're harmed, or
who are participating in actively, you know, benefiting from harming
people like you, But it is sort of the only

(07:55):
way that we're ever going to make any actual progress
is by appealing to those have power over us and
getting them to empathize with us. And so I guess
I've been doing a very public journey via my podcast
and my Instagram of trying to shift the way that
I talk, shift my understanding, and remind people that we

(08:16):
are all a product of our environment. We are all
a product of some form of trauma or fear, and
that where most of our behavior on all political sides
is coming from is trauma and fear. It's not all
just ignorance. We always conflate ignorance and evil, and some
people find me frustrating a week in some way for
taking this stance, which is fine, But I feel the

(08:38):
most certain of anything I've ever done. That leading people
to a path of actual unity rather than any kind
of vengeance is the only way out of this mess
and the only way to really help the next generation.
So that's where I'm at.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, one of my favorite things about you is your
willingness to taggle really complex issues here. I want to
pull out just a couple of things here. So that frustration,
that irritation, that impatience. I think that's something that so
many people feel like things have been screwed up for

(09:13):
so long. There's this like pent up rage and print
up frustration and back. You know, five years ago, ten
years ago, fifteen years ago, we didn't have the public
square that social media is. We didn't have that kind
of visibility that social media is, and so you couldn't
see the impact of less than skilled delivery of frustration.

(09:38):
You couldn't see the impact of harm in your words,
the way that we can see now. And I think
that there was a little bit more solidarity in what
you just described early on. I think about zene culture
right like back in the nineties, like, yes, let's talk
about our frustration and become a unified force in targeting

(09:59):
harm coming at us from others. But that world no
longer exists. It's changed.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
It's also the added thing of being a woman and
never being heard anywhere your whole life, and then twenty
fifteen happens, and it's the me too movement. And suddenly
after especially if you're like a person in the public eye,
after decades of us only ever being asked, so what
are you eat in a day, suddenly we're being asked,
so what do you think of these huge, complicated, historical

(10:27):
social infrastructures that have harmed people like you? And unpack
your trauma and bleed out your trauma so that we
can believe you that you have a right to speak.
So qualify your right to speak by telling us everything
personal about you that then will be used against you later.
And so it was a chaotic mess, like we didn't
have practice. I didn't have practice of having this megaphone.

(10:49):
But I also knew that, like, okay, I have the
megaphone now it feels callous to put it down when
I have an opportunity, and I know that I'm like
a strong communicator, and I know I've seen myself be
able to get shit done and change policy or get
myself to Congress or you know, make an impact on people.

(11:11):
So I just felt like it was my responsibility. But
I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't media trained,
I'm not a politician. And while I don't regret the
sentiment of what I've been trying to do, and I
don't regret the positive impact I've had, I definitely feel
very comfortable being accountable for the messy part of that.

(11:32):
And I never think it's too late to change. I
never think it's too late, because otherwise, what is the
point of activism If we don't believe fundamentally in the
change of human beings, in individual and social mass social change, Literally,
what is social justice work? So I think, like, okay,
you know what, I can recognize I haven't been perfectly
helpful all the time. How do I remedy that? And

(11:54):
how do I bring everyone along for the lesson? Because
we demonize learning so much, we demonize mistakes so much,
even though there's such a compulsory part of growth, And
so if other people aren't willing to own up to
their mistakes, I am, and they can just quietly privately
join my journey because I've got nothing to lose, because
I'm so deeply disinterested in other people's approval.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
There's something so powerful about being willing to go first,
to be visible in the process that you are living in.
I mean, you've been really open that at various times
in your life, the things being thrown back at you
did actual damage, right, Like this was from what I understand, like,

(12:38):
this is part of why you started really talking about
mental health issues and started talking about shame and started
talking about the things that we do, particularly to women.
Part of that was understanding what this vitriol did to
you and seeing what that did to the people around you.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, well, if you get dehumanized, very hard to stay
capable of never dehumanizing anyone else. You know, it's a
sort of it's a it's a trauma loop. And so
what I'm seeing increasingly in society that I don't think
I've been a part of is the last few years
of like cruel and deliberate dehumanizing. I was just pissed
off and speaking in a callous and sometimes rude way.

(13:20):
I think you know when I called is more than
a shit stains smeared across our country. I don't think
I moved any great political needle. I was angry, but
I also wasn't picking someone less powerful than me, and
I wasn't I wasn't trying to like harm him, but
it was still a rude and embarrassing thing to say.
And I regret stooping to his low because that's how

(13:40):
he communicates with other people in an unkind way. And
I took the vitriol and I spewed it back, and
that just creates a cycle of vitriol. Yeah, and what
we're seeing now is just like an like a really
odd comfort with dehumanizing each other, leading to it becoming

(14:01):
easier and easier to do that. And we're seeing younger
and younger people capable of it before their brains are
fully formed. And that's really dangerous because the part of
our brain that has empathy we can switch off. We
do it every time we walk past a homeless person
that we don't stop to help and get housing. We
do it every time we scroll past after we've seen
a terrible fire or a terrible earthquake in the world.

(14:23):
If we were constantly giving out our empathy all the time,
Clementine Morgan talks about this amazingly that like, you know,
we wouldn't be able to survive if we were constantly
engaged in our empathy, and so you can choose when
to switch it off. And we are teaching very young
people who haven't yet neurologically fully formed, to switch it
off far more frequently than is actually appropriate, which is

(14:44):
going to lead to a desensitiz and increasingly desensitized, miserable
and lonely generation. And I've always cared most about the kids,
and that's what a lot of my diet work was,
protecting the kids from diet culture and fat phobia. And
I have social responsibility as an adult who can see
it now and can see what it's doing to people

(15:04):
my age and older, to try to raise the alarm
about what our collective behavior is doing to them because
they are innocent bystanders and all of this.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Do you know the term process conversation? Hey, Before we
get back to this episode, we have been talking about
how we talk about things. Figuring out what to say
to somebody when you need support or more space, or

(15:34):
you need to clarify a boundary. That stuff is not easy.
If you want some help figuring out what to say
and how to say it, come chat with me once
a month live Q and a clinic. You can come
ask your questions on grief and love and relationships and
communication skills. You can ask for a script that you
can carry with you into a conversation that you really

(15:55):
need to have but you've been avoiding or dreading because
you don't know what to say. Come join me once
a month, live Q and a clinic. All of the
details are at patreon dot com, backslash Megan Divine, or
you can click the link in the show notes. Process
conversations are the conversations that we have around how we're

(16:16):
talking to each other instead of what we're talking about. Yeah, right,
and what I've seen and heard you talking about actually
for the last couple of years is without naming it,
a process conversation, A process conversation, so bringing awareness to
hold up everything is really inflamed right now. Can we

(16:36):
stop and look at the ways that we're engaging with
each other? Can we stop and look at the ways
that we're talking to each other? You did this in
your gaslighting highlight. I don't remember how long ago that was,
but it was about three years ago? Was it that long?
Oh gosh, time is meaningless, So like about three years
ago when you point.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
On, I've been constantly updating it. That's why I have
you recent because we have endless new examples of the
media in the world demonizing women, which is what it's about.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, and we'll link to that everybody, so you know
what we're talking about. But that gas lighting highlight was
where you talked about can we look at the very
predictable pattern, the very predictable system of what we do
to women in the spotlight? We hold them up as
these amazing people, and then the second they cross some
invisible boundary, we cut them down. Like it is very

(17:27):
predictable and expected and horrendous and all of these things.
And like you have this habit of taking that step
back and trying to see what is the pattern, what
is the mechanism, what is getting repeated here over and

(17:49):
over and over again. And you've applied that to the
way that we treat celebrities, the way that we treat
people of color, the way that we treat mental health issues,
use right, and I love that you have been applying
that to social justice and the ways that we panealize

(18:11):
people for learning or needing to learn. You and I
had a very brief conversation via DMS a while ago.
You shared how you're hearing that people are afraid to
ask questions about gender, or ask questions about race, or
really anything they're interested in learning more about, because we're
so quick to demonize and punish people who don't get

(18:36):
things perfect. Can we talk about that a little bit,
and also just what you see happening, because you are
awesome at seeing that bigger picture. And also what's that
risk if we don't start looking at how we talk
to each other.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
My brain works in patents, and I am always looking
for the patent in everything, and I think that's what
kind of draws me to social justice, is that so
justice feels very clear in that a lot is the
same system of oppression just being used again and again
for different groups all of the time, and then everything
happens exactly the same way, and yet somehow we are
always still surprised. And so I feel very strongly when

(19:14):
I see these patterns occur again to just lay them out,
because I believe people are very very intelligent generally, and
I think that we're just in a lot of kind
of deliberate chaos amplified by the media and social media
algorithms that are just bombarding us with so much fucking
information all the time that then we can't clearly see

(19:35):
the patterns. And so that's why I'm obsessed with laying
those out when it comes to because a few things
were said there. When it comes to people feeling not
safe to ask questions, that's something that I feel very
passionately about, because you know, I think the old saying
of treat others as you would wish to be treated
yourself really applies to education, where we have to remind

(19:56):
ourselves of the question, how do I best learn? Do
I learn best when I am being fearmongered and shamed
and ridiculed, or do I learn best when I have
an open space to air what I think now and
have it challenged in a way that doesn't undermine my
intelligence or my nature. You know, I was talking to

(20:16):
this lovely therapist online. We were dming about some of
these issues, and she was telling me that a lot
of the young people who come into her clinic are
increasingly unable to separate opinion from identity. Like we grew
up in an age where you had your identity who
you were, and then you had your opinions and your beliefs,
and those were considered transient because they are transient, because

(20:37):
upon new information we change our mind. That's what we're
supposed to do. But nowadays it is not transient. The
opinion that you have now, however old you are, wherever
you have grown up, whoever your family is, that is
a tattoo. It is considered a tattoo of who you are.
Even if you're related to someone who has those opinions
and you are still speaking to that person in any way,

(20:59):
then inherit the tattoo of that marking your identity. And
it's very dangerous because then when people challenge your opinions. Now,
if you are someone who's intertwined your opinions with your
whole identity, then it feels like they're attacking who you
fundamentally are, and they're not. They're disagreeing with your opinion,
or they should be just disagreeing with your opinion. Far
too often we are now saying you're a bad person

(21:22):
for thinking that, whereas we're not taking into account that
a lot of us are reacting to what we're seeing
and we are all seeing different things based on algorithms.
One of the most important well, it wasn't a perfect documentary,
but documentaries that came out was the one I think
it was called like the social what's it called social experiment? Yeah,
where they explain that via whatever you click on, you

(21:44):
are going to see a different version of the same
world event to someone else. So we think we're all
seeing the same exact thing, and that the other people
who have a different take on it are just stupid
or ignorant or evil. We're not realizing that they seeing
a completely different narrative. So I did my own social experiment,
and I decided to have two Twitter accounts, one in

(22:07):
which I would click on leftist things and one in
which I would click on centrist or right wing things.
And I was seeing two completely different narratives and being
exposed to completely different information on both platforms. I'm the
same person's, same age, same gender on both in the
same location, which was fucking terrifying because these are delivered

(22:28):
these all these different arguments are delivered in often intelligent
and convincing ways by smart and educated people who know
how to manipulate and know how to communicate an idea.
So if I at thirty six am looking at these
two things being like, oh god, now, actually I don't
know how I feel about this anymore? What the fuck

(22:49):
are young people supposed to do? And they don't know
that this is happening, They don't really understand, And of
course social media suppresses I posted about this and my
Instagram always gets several hundred thousand likes and millions of views,
and it got like three thousand likes and very few
people were able to even see it, And I was like,
of course, this conversation is being suppressed by the very

(23:10):
platforms that are perpetuating it. If you put this clip up,
it won't get any vise, it will get suppressed, and
then you your Instagram account will become less visible in general.
So I'm just trying to figure out ways that I
can communicate that we are all being manipulated to shout
at each other, scream at each other, judge each other.

(23:32):
We're engaging in very archaic tribalism. Because if we stop
screaming at each other and pointing at each other and
arguing and nitpicking over the smaller things in life, then
we will be able to see that there are a
very small group of people, very high up, who are
not giving any of us, regardless of our political ideology,

(23:53):
healthcare or clean water or enough food for the people
who were here, or housing or in social and mental
health support. We'll all look at them. They don't want
us to look at them, because then they'll actually have
to fix this. So they're better with us just trying
to own each other and trying to humiliate each other

(24:13):
and trying to categorize and segregate one another. And that
to me is very disturbing, and I don't want to
be a part of that. So I've taken myself out
of all of this, and now I am I'm I
think the most punk thing I can do is now
moved towards love and unity. And I think we see

(24:34):
these waves happen again and again in history, and so
that's where I'm at now, and I hope that's where
I'm always going to be at. I hope I never
get dragged back into tribalism, because it's really bad for us,
and it often historically has ended up in some people
getting very badly hurt.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah. I love that This is the most punk thing
we can do is moving that direction. It's like all
of this noise has made us misidentify the enemy and
enemy in very big air quotes here because the enemy
isn't a person, right, It's that belief that we have

(25:15):
to attack things that make us feel stuff. Right to me,
everything is grief, right, we know this, but like that,
we're having a feeling come up and we don't know
what to do with it, and so we go on
that offensive attack thing. And what I hear you calling
for again and again and again is take a beat

(25:38):
and check in with yourself and get out of social
media where it's not going to help you learn better
skills to communicate and to really listen to yourself. But
take that step back to be thoughtful, to do what
you need to connect and take care of yourself and
ask questions and build those relationships and those communities where
it is okay to not be sure.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
And also, like I said, you know at the beginning
of that very long runt of mine that you should
try to if you wish to educate others or inform others,
inform them in a way that you would be able
to actively receive and implement that information. It is almost
never from shouting and finger pointing, it really isn't. I mean.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
I think also if we look at just from a
transactional point of view here, like if your goal is
to reduce harm. If your goal is to help people
change policy or change their hearts or whatever it is,
to make the world a safer, more just, an equitable place,

(26:40):
is what you're doing making that more likely? Right? I
think we get so like we conflate things like constantly
frustration that how dare you do you realize what's at stake?
How dare you get it wrong and not be perfect?
Like that is not somebody getting it wrong is not
the enemy. That kind of nuanced conversation is really difficult

(27:05):
when we're being fed very specific information and not getting
the whole story. It's like that impulsive hit of I
feel so helpless, attacking somebody is the only action I
can take.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, because it feels empowering for a moment, you know.
And there's also like there's so many kind of like
basic childlike psychologies in our behaviors of like, let's all
point at them so that no one looks at me.
Or this thing has been said in the group or
publicly online a thousand times, but I'm going to reiterate
it loudly as I can so that everyone else knows

(27:39):
that I'm in the tribe. I'm one of the don't
don't ostracize me, keep me inside. So I'm going to
do it not really to make an impact on the
person that I'm trying to chastise or criticize. I'm doing
it to make myself safe so that I will be
included in the tribe. Because the safety in numbers, you know,
we have our brains haven't updated in thousands of years.

(27:59):
So we still think that we are out in the wild,
that negative tweets or negative comments or text messages at
school even are a saber tooth tiger. We have the
same physical and chemical reaction to emotional psychological threats that
we do to actual, tangible, immediate physical threats. And so

(28:20):
this is a very stressful time and I just cannot
help but believe that it is deliberately stressful. I think
this is more organized chaos than we realize. Because division
sells newspapers outrage. You know that when I was young,
sex used to sell, But now sex has been so
oversaturated by social media and by the Internet because pornography
has kind of bled into every art, every area of art,

(28:41):
that sex is kind of like, yeah, I've seen one, tip,
I've seen them all, you know, like we've We've just
seen it. I've seen it all, and so I'm no
longer shoptalized nudity, and nor is anyone else. And younger
and younger people are taking their clothes off, and so
we're kind of hyper normalized to that. Outrage is what
took over as the new sex. I think Donald Trump
was when the media realized, oh, this is our comeback.

(29:01):
The media was dying. That was the conversation. As you know,
everyone was going out of business, everyone was going out
of print. Donald Trump comes in, outrage, starts to sell newspapers,
moral superiority starts to sell newspapers, fear starts to sell newspapers,
and all of a sudden, like seven years ago, all
these new publications were suddenly popping up out of nowhere,
hundreds of new publications. People were starting their own quote

(29:24):
unquote media brands. And it was all based on terrifying people.
And again, it's very easy to have power and control
of the people that you have terrified. It is easy
to manipulate people who are afraid, who need a leader,
who need a guide, who need somewhere to feel safe,
who need a group, And tribalism is a very easy

(29:46):
way to make people feel safe, but they're not because
no one's coming to help you. Doesn't matter how good
you were on Twitter, or who you poke your finger out,
or who you've ostracized in your life, or if you
have the right or wrong opinion, it doesn't matter. None
of you have healthcare if you need it, that's free.
None of you have healthy food, none of you have
healthy water, none of you like there's just you don't

(30:06):
have appropriate healthcare, social care. Crime is going up. Unhoused
people are going up in numbers. Children are involved in that.
It is so naive for us to think that finger
wagging on social media is going to make any of
us sofa. All it's doing is pushing us far apart.

(30:27):
The reason the Me Too movement was so powerful is
because a bunch of people I'm talking about women in particular,
had been turned against each other from the beginning of
this industry, and kind of from the beginning of time
we taught that we're all each other's competitors. But in
this industry that was a really big part of the
journey is that she's going to take your place, and

(30:47):
there's only room for one. There's a room for thousands
of member only one woman, so you look out for her.
And that was an amazing way to keep us all
separated from each other because we didn't open up with
each other. We didn't share, we didn't share experiences. We
thought of everything as like a resource that we have
to hoard, and there was a very big scarcity mindset.
And I say we. I wasn't really in this industry
until post Me Too, but this is what I've heard

(31:09):
from people. I've been around, you know, from the beginning,
and I've definitely still like felt traces of it. Me
Too brought everyone together and for the first time, everyone
said what they'd experience out loud, and then we realized,
oh shit, this wasn't just me. I thought it was
just me or long, this was everyone. This is a
huge pervasive culture and system. And then we organized together

(31:32):
against the infrastructure that was allowing that was creating a
perfect a perfect environment for us all to be abused
without telling anyone and without seeking justice because we had
no power and protection and safety in numbers. So that's
how I know from lived experience that the only way

(31:53):
we can fix the huge social infrastructure problems that harm
everyone of both political or all political ideologies is if
we come together and start speaking about what we have
in common rather than our very minor differences. If we
really boil it down to the big things in life,
it's so.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Easy, I think, for people to like, be with you,
be with you, with everything you're saying, until you get
to that end part where we have to start listening
to the people we disagree with. And then people are like, no,
you don't understand what's a risk here, And I feel like,
you do understand what's that risk here?

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yes, But I also think we have conflated being upset
by someone or triggered by someone with being as bad
as actually having your rights taken away. Right. We've become
so hyperbolic around the words like trauma or triggered. And
I know that I'm not a psychologist, it's not my
place to say this, but I do know that we

(32:52):
are being actively moved away from resilience as a generation.
We're being told no one must upset you, no, no one,
you know, we must have boundaries. And these are all
things that I subscribe to and I believe in, like,
we should have boundaries, we shouldn't be actively traumatized, we
should practice self preservation. But we are making people feel

(33:12):
afraid to feel anything now, and that is stopping them
from engaging with people who might say something very upsetting.
And so we're bowing out of the conversation and we're saying,
nobody platform them, nobody talk to them. And I understand
where that comes from. I've definitely engaged with and felt
that way before. But if we become too afraid to

(33:33):
talk to the people that we disagree with because we
are afraid they're going to make us feel very uncomfortable feelings,
it's understandable to fear that we are not going to
have a single chance at changing their mind. We're going
to look like we don't have an argument. We're going
to look like we don't have anything meaningful to say.
We are not going to engage their humanity and their empathy.

(33:55):
Segregation is not the way. Refusing to platform people you
disagree with is not not actually the way. They are
the people we most need to engage with right now,
so we can all figure out that we have a
lot in common, or we have bigger shit to deal
with together, and then we can get to the smaller shit.
And I'm very concerned at how we are being taught
to not speak to anyone who's upsetting in any way.

(34:17):
You know, I was talking to Dotor Sirach Traveler, who's brilliant,
brilliant human being, on my podcast, and she was telling
me that universities. Now, if someone is coming to speak
to you a university who you do not like or
find triggering, someone who you're not being forced to listen to,
but just knowing that they're coming to your university and
they might spew words that could incite things that you
find dangerous or upsetting, then you're offered a safe space

(34:42):
which has bubbles and cookies and milk and coloring books.
These are for young adults. It is a literal infantalizing
of the next group of our next leaders and thinkers
and voters, et cetera, our society. That's not how we
need to be teaching resilience. We do need people to
learn how to create their own inner safe space, but

(35:04):
we also need to teach the next generation how to
tolerate someone's ignorant not because they need to then accept it,
but tolerate listening to it and coming back with a
well thought out critical response. We need to bring back debate.
We are discouraging debate. We are demonizing, debate, or engaging

(35:25):
with the opposition, and if we do that nothing, I
promise you, nothing will ever change. And I know that
you know that. But unfortunately, if you look back through history,
no minority ever just magically gained the right to what
they wanted. They did have to fight for it, they
did have to go to extreme measures, sometimes of either
harm or self harm. But ultimately it was always when

(35:49):
the oppressor, the enough people on the side of the
oppression went you know what, this is actually fucking crazy.
I don't stand by this anymore. They lost power and
they relented. We will stop that from happening. If we
demonize and ostracize everyone on the opposition, then there'll be
no one on that side to stop and say, you
know what, this is fucked and it's not fair, and

(36:12):
it is annoying and it is exhausting. But we couldn't
have more historical proof to know that that's the only
way we can ever get anything back. And we know
that this way isn't working, because I feel like we
are losing rights at speed that is terrifying, and I'm
deeply concerned that's going to keep happening. And then there's
so much work to undo for young people forever.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
When you say we need to let people say whatever
they want at universities in a public sphere, people get
really upset about that because they're like, wait a minute,
these are violent people. The whole reason that fascism is
rising is because we're allowing it to take so much
of the public attention and so much of the public sphere,

(36:54):
and like letting these people say the quiet parts out loud.
I think that this gets so confus using because we're
not condoning violence. We're not condoning any of that stuff.
What I just heard you say was it's not in
our best interest to soothe ourselves away from our outrage

(37:16):
with bubbles and coloring books. It is in our best
interest to think about, how do we want to talk
about this, What is actually making people attracted to these
ideas that are so divisive and so hatefilled and so
fear filled. How are we going to talk about this
and how are we going to come together in this

(37:38):
so that violence isn't running all over the place. Right, Like,
I'm not saying this very well partly because I'm like, yes,
I love everything you're saying here, It's hard for me
to find my brain.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
But no, But I think it's fair. I think I
think you're kind of like agreeing with me and challenging
me at the same time, which I think is fair.
And I agree. I agree that we shouldn't have to
be in this situation. But if you do not learn
how to convincing engage people, you're never going to have
a chance at changing their mind. Yes, And I think
you know, the Trump situation was so shocking because a

(38:09):
lot of these people had felt all these thoughts all
along and just hadn't said them. He didn't create racism.
He unearthed what had been sitting there hiding during the
entire Obama presidency. But because the mainstream narrative became very left,
a lot of people felt like, well, I can't say
how I really feel, and then it burst out of them. Right,
So it was there all along, and lifting the lid

(38:31):
and it's seeping out. Isn't the problem. We don't need
to just always be like on defense for the symptoms.
We need to figure out the cause of this fear, right,
and we need to work on that together as a
giant group of people who can say I'm scared or
I'm angry or I'm this, that and the other and

(38:51):
unpack that because we're all just grown up children, right
We're all just like operating from the same kind of
like five fundamental feelings. And I think that's just getting
lost on us. And I think that we forget that
just because we push for public obedience, that doesn't change
the way someone privately votes. And that is a very

(39:13):
very very important thing to get across to young people
right now, to all people right now, is that just
because we are pushing people into silence or obedience, it
does not actually impact what they are going to do
when they are alone in a voting booth. And we're
seeing that via lots of outcomes, political outcomes that we

(39:34):
find very surprising, and we find it very surprising because
we've managed to silence people into a kind of like
obedient state without actually changing their mind, and then when
they have the freedom and the privacy, they going to
do whatever they want or they don't engage at all,
which is almost as bad.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
I think that not engaging at all is something that's
happening so often. And this is true on a social scale.
It's also true on a really intimate scale, right like,
because we're afraid of saying the wrong thing to a
friend of ours who's going through a hard time. We
don't say anything at all, and then if they say,
you know, you not saying anything doesn't feel good to me,

(40:11):
then we're like, okay, well then I'm really not saying anything.
Like for me, what I hear you saying, you know,
foundationally is like, this all comes down to how scared
we are, how much pain we're in, and how much
we're afraid of loss and irrelevance and losing connections and
losing the people we love or the worlds that we love.

(40:32):
And what I hear you saying over and over and
over again through so many different things that you tackle,
is can we please start talking about how hard it
is to be human and how scared we are and
how much pain we're in, because not talking about it
is killing us personally, collectively, communally globally. Now, those might

(40:56):
not be that might not be a frame that you
apply to yourself. From from where I like, this is
what I have watched in following you for the years
that I've followed you is continually coming back to hold up. Please,
we are a human and can we talk about how
hard that is? Sometimes because literally, not talking about it

(41:17):
is killing us.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, and people are committing suicide. We're killing ourselves. But
also I'm just you know, going back to the patterns,
I'm obsessed with the pattern. I'm obsessed with the solution.
I was always obsessed with the solution. This was never
something that I was doing just to have an outlet
for my pain, because I'm quite a detached person. I
feel the frustration and the rage and all that kind

(41:38):
of thing, but I've always wanted to just fix it,
And so now I might not be having the emotionally,
you know, party approved reaction in saying like this isn't working.
And demonizing and ostracizing people, even if they are the
people that demonized and ostracize us, isn't working. But I'm

(41:59):
very very focused on a resolution and on restoration. And
restoration is something we need to do on an individual
and mass social scale. And that's the only way we
can now be helpful is to push for more love
and grace in the world, because we are only going
to continue to see a rise of evil if we

(42:20):
are contributing to animosity in any way. And I slip,
my temper gets the better of me. It's okay, it's
okay to slip. I use foul language sometimes, especially for politicians,
because I do dehumanize them because they have an unhuman
level of power. But it's still not okay to use

(42:41):
the language that I use sometimes because when a kid
or a teenager sees that and sees that going viral
because it's on social media and it was vitriolic, and
so therefore it's going to get the most attention more
so than anything reasonable. I say, They're not going to
look at that in the context of me telling truth
to the highest level of power. They're just going to
see me talking to another human being like that, and
they're going to go home and talk to their sibling

(43:02):
or their friend at school that way. And the last
time I did that, I was like, this is the
I hope the last time I'm ever going to do
this where I let my temper get the better of
me because I'm not around children, I don't want children.
I forget about the children. And now that my friends
are all having kids, they've all had babies since my
last outburst, and suddenly I have this like tangible example

(43:26):
of the next generation where I can actually see them,
and I can see their little minds, and I can
see how fast they're learning and how fast they're absorbing
everything around them. It has given me a complete shift
without needing to be a parent, as to my sense
of responsibility in this world, and as to how my
carelessness is something that I cannot condone once I'm aware

(43:47):
of it.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
I love this point that like with such a grace
that you offer yourself while also being responsible, Like looking
back over a few decades here, it's like I did
what I thought was the most powerful and effective way
to use my voice back then, and I can see
what I was doing, But I look back now and

(44:08):
that wasn't appropriate, And I'm going to do what I
can now to make things better. And like, this is
literally how we grow and develop as human beings. It's
not that we get things right once and we're done.
That is actually death. But looking at the impact on yourself,
on others, on the world. How am I doing this?

(44:32):
How am I voicing this?

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah? It's constant incremental progress. Yeah, that's all life is.
Life is supposed to be constant incremental progress. It's not
supposed to be perfection. Pushing for perfection is the enemy
of progress. It is ridiculous. It is utopian, and it's
literally getting the opposite of the desired effect and result.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
I think cooking things back to understanding what we're longing for,
and on a biological basis, we are all longing for love,
connection and safety. And the question to ask is, is
what I'm doing right now contributing to that?

Speaker 1 (45:10):
It's really not. And you know, your work is a
lot in grief and the area of grief and the
impact of that, and I think what we are feeling
as a collective grief we are feeling. You know, we
have statistics, hard statistics that proves that loneliness is at
the highest numbers we've ever seen it, Like people have
a lack of community, especially in the West. You know,
people at something like sixty or seventy percent of citizens

(45:33):
of these huge countries that feel so connected and active
and cosmopolitan are saying they feel desperately, desperately lonely. That
is not just because of the fact that they may
not have a lot of people physically in their life.
There is a general culture of hyper individualism and a
lonely feeling of I can't tell anyone who I really
am because if I'm not perfect, I will be ostracized.

(45:57):
We have to make space for people's mess. I'm not
talking about hatred, I'm talking about mess, misunderstandings, mistakes. We
have to because people are killing themselves, and even the
people who aren't actively hurting themselves. Loneliness is being proven
to now be more dangerous for you than alcohol or
cigarettes as an impact on your physical health and your

(46:18):
stress levels. You know, there's hormone regulation that is needed
from physical touch. We're not going near each other, so
we're just afraid. Everyone feels like a potential enemy, and
so the kind of social contagion of who do I
have to ostracize next? Leaves us individuals also feeling very
lonely because if you're looking for perfect people, you're not

(46:39):
going to find them. You're going to end up pushing
everyone away, and then all that's left is you, and
that worries me. And that's the collective grief that I
think we are all feeling. And that's what I'm pushing
against because if my work is in mental health, I
want everyone to be happy, regardless of how they grow up,
regardless of what their family's political ideology is, or even
their current or former political ideologies. I want everyone to

(47:01):
be happy and healthy. That's how we make a happy,
healthy society.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
You've said, we're all on the same side here, the
side of love, which I think really encapsulates everything you've
said and everything that you're trying to do, is to
call people back into their humanity and look at the
way they are relating to themselves and relating to each
other and relating to the world from there, which is

(47:26):
not perfection, it's process.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
And listen, we might not all love each other, but
everyone loves someone, and that someone is going to be
impacted by a culture in which we are against each
other and vitriolic, or they are going to be impacted
by a lack of safety in our society, like active
physical safety, Or they're going to be impacted by pollution,

(47:50):
or they're going to be impacted by dirty water or
sickness or not being able to pay your healthcare bills
because they're so exploitative in this country. Someone you love
is going to be hurt. You might not love everyone,
you might not love whole groups of people. You cannot
ever escape the fact that someone you love is going
to get hurt by all of these massive crises. If

(48:14):
we don't all work together and fix this shit and
create space for tolerance, and create space for equal rights,
and create space for people to be allowed to be themselves.
And so that's where I'm coming from. You know, like
when I talk about abortion, I've stopped just coming from
a place of like, my body, my choice, and fuck

(48:35):
you if you want to tell me what to do
with my body. You know, I think we all got
a bit on that. You know. I'm someone who's a
very loud abortion advocate. Now I'm like, hey, all right,
let's just talk to you in a way you can
understand you're very worried. A lot of you politically who
are against abortion are also politically against immigrants coming in.
Those are citizens who can work, who can contribute to
our economy, and who can pay taxes. They're not dependents.

(48:56):
They're hugely independent, highly skilled. A lot of the time
afraid of those people coming in, but you're not afraid
of that. A million babies a year that you are
now wanting to force to be born, who are dependents
for the next eighteen years, who are going to grow
up without the necessary mental health stability. If they're not
wanted or if they can't be parented, they might end

(49:17):
up in a foster system which is very well intentioned
but deeply broken. In this country, they are more likely
to have their parents or themselves have to go into
crime of some sort in order to be able to
pay the bills because we have a cost of living crisis.
So have you thought about what the uptick in crime
and the medical resources being even more thinly spread, and

(49:39):
a million dependents a year pouring into this country with
no social infrastructure to help young parents, especially young mothers,
with childcare or paying for formula. We have a shortage
of baby formula in this country. Is that a society
that you definitely want to live in? Do you definitely
want to vote in favor of a society that is
even more crowded forcibly crowded in huge unsustainable numbers with

(50:04):
not enough resources for everyone? Are you going to enjoy
what that society looks like? Because you took this one
moral stance about something that was never really going to
affect you, because you weren't going to adopt those kids
who are You are in no way impacted by the
decisions of another person as to what they do with
their own body and their future. But you are very
much so impacted by the society you create with the
decision you make regarding this. Of course, I'm angry that

(50:28):
people want to take away other people's body rights, but
you can't explain it like that because that's not where
they're coming from. They're coming from a place of fear
and scarcity and moral superiorities. You have to appeal to
that with logic and break down what the world looks
like if they vote the way that they are voting,
And that's how you get through to people. And when
I said it like that on the view got ten

(50:49):
million likes and then went completely fucking super viral, and
more people listen to me than if I was just
scolding them about their morals and their you know how
archaic the behavior is. And after that I felt very
like sure of my path.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
That's such a powerful example because again I think that
we're such a binary culture, right like for us are
against us kind of thing here, and the stakes are
so high you have to burn't do all this stuff.
But that example that you just gave is perfect because
we're not saying don't try to change policies, don't try

(51:27):
to change behavior that impinge on others rights, Like all
of this stuff. It's like, listen for the pain at
the root of the choices they're making, at the root
of the policies they're voting for, because if you don't
hear their very human pain, we're not going to change
the policies that get enacted. There's something ferocious in that

(51:51):
for me, that the way that we create the world
that we most want is not by demonizing the people
who would take it from us, but by hearing their
humanity and answering that and helping them see what you're
voting for is actually creating what you're afraid of. Can
we talk about that? And that that is a million

(52:11):
times more effective. It's a million times more effective in
getting the world that we want, but it's also a
million times more effective in our own health and our
own relationship and the stability of our own nervous systems
because we're not continually stoking that outrage machine that might
feel good in the moment but doesn't carry us. We

(52:34):
have to be willing to feel a little bit of
discomfort in order to deepen and grow our relationships. It
just reminds me of what you were talking about earlier,
is that we are so intolerant of discomfort, that we
will not listen for what is needed to strengthen our relationships. Right, So,

(52:55):
if you're trying to if you're trying to help somebody
who's going through any kind of hard time and they say, actually,
what you're doing is not helpful, if you're having a
reaction of well, I have good intentions, my heart is
in the right place, cut me some slack, Like, neither
of us are going to get what we want, right,
Like that person wants to be truly wants to be helpful,
Their intentions are good. The person who's having a hard

(53:18):
time truly wants to feel supported. But if we can't
have a dialogue about what's true because we're afraid of
that discomfort, because we're afraid of our feelings, then nobody
is getting what they want. So to me, like, that's
the microcosm, that's the intimate level of what you've been
talking about all along. Is it is okay to have

(53:39):
conflict and relationship. It is okay to have discomfort, It
is okay to fail each other. What isn't working for
us is demonizing each other for failure, for not getting
it right, because that makes us not willing to have
conversations about what would feel healing, what would feel like growth,
what would feel like connection, because that is actually what

(54:03):
we all want, and what I hear you doing is
taking that out onto a much wider scale.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Yeah, we also just don't really have enough conversations from
a young enough age around rejection, so we take rejection
very badly. And I also think that this is generation
and this is you know, this is maybe going to
sound a bit like me reaching for something, but we
are a dopamine deficient generation because there are so many
ways in which our dopamine is being exhausted because we're hypersimulated,

(54:32):
and there's also things in our social environment, our food
that are impacting our dopamine receptors. Right, So people who
don't have enough dopamine are massively, massively impacted extra hard
by rejection. It feels physically painful to them. And if
no one's even being taught at a baseline, even someone
with normal dopamine levels how to receive rejection and that

(54:55):
rejection is okay. It's just a sign that you need
to move differently in some way, either move on to
a different person or a different job, or move on
from this action. That you thought would be the correct action,
that's not, in fact the correct action. Rejection feels so
awful and like this terrible stain on us, because again,
we demonize mistakes, we demonize learning, we demonize growth. We

(55:19):
look at it as a pathetic thing. And that's incredibly sad,
because it's the most noble thing as being willing to change,
being open to change, being open to hearing someone. And
so I do think that that is a big problem
is the fact that we just don't know enough about rejection.
We don't understand dopamine, we don't understand the human psyche,

(55:40):
and we speak in ways that don't account for that
at all. So we need how to learn how to
effectively give rejection and tell someone what you're doing is
not right or this is not right for you, and
we need to learn how to receive rejection more appropriately.
I'm very good at receiving rejection. I don't know why.
I think it's because I'm asc likely and tice person, perhaps,

(56:01):
but I just I'm logic based, and so when I
know something isn't working, I would like to learn how
to fix it or whether I should just cut my
losses and you know, move away. And I think that
I would love to be able to share the peace
that I have in life of being okay with rejection,
social rejection, whatever, rejection for my own group, rejection of

(56:22):
another group. I would like to share that piece because
it's a much nicer way to move through the world,
is looking at rejection as pointers rather than an attack
or a death sentence, a social death sentence, or a
death sentence of a relationship.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Yes, and we come back to you like this is
the way that I frame that is that process conversation.
But I love that you put this in learning that
rejection is not a moral judgment, it is a boundary
it is.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
It's about self protection, not rejection of you.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Yeah, and it's also like rejection is in a lot
of ways a bid for a deeper connection.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
These things sound like their high concept because they're about
big social things, but really it all boils down to
the same things that babies need, right. Babies need love,
Babies need to be allowed to express when they need
love or a cuddle or a shit or some milk.
We're all just massive babies who just have been taught
to no longer advocate for ourselves. We've been taught from

(57:21):
the age of two onwards, not to advocate for our needs,
to bury our needs, to find our needs embarrassing and pathetic,
to find it embarrassing to reach out and say I'm lonely,
to find it embarrassing to say I'm sad, to be
embarrassed to say I need a cuddle, I need more.
You know, Oliver Twist taught us the shame in asking
for more. But my point is is that I think

(57:44):
that we need to get back to the innocence that
got robbed from us when we were taught to stop
telling the truth about how we feel and to stop
advocating for what we need. Because when we don't tell people,
they don't know of expect them to psychically intuit what
we need. But that's not possible because we're all so different.

(58:05):
We're all products of such different experiences. Even if we
have the same skin color and the same age and
same gender, life shapes us all in such different ways,
and so we can't all into each other's needs because
we all each have such different needs and different approaches.
We just need to learn how to fucking communicate. If
we can all just learn how to communicate our needs

(58:26):
and the needs of others. With some more kindness in
humanity on all sides, we can get out of this
mess before it's too late.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
I love that everything comes down to the ability to
communicate and to listen, which is what you've pointed out
again and again and again through so many different facets
of this life, and being willing to take the heat
for that in the service of the world that we

(58:59):
long for, which is incredible. Thank you for that so much.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
That's all right. I'm like a teflon person, you know.
I was one of the first people to really come
out swinging the way that I did about diet culture
and eating disorder stuff and going up against the media
and going up against the bullying of different people. And
I took a lot of heat when I did that.
It wasn't just all collaps and clicks. I took a
lot of heat, a lot of death threats, a lot
of rape threats, a lot of criticism. I lost a

(59:25):
lot of work, a lot of you know, opportunities for
doing so. But now I'm willing to be to take
the onslaught of rage because I'm now moving in the
opposite direction. I feel like I was built to maybe
be that crush test tummy for society, and I'm so

(59:48):
obsessed with accountability because I think it's really healing. And
so I'm moving forward the way that I did before,
with just as much accountability I could muster, and trying
to show people that I a real piece of shit
in some ways who left school at sixteen and is

(01:00:08):
also isn't educated therefore, and it's very flawed, and was
very mentally ill and raised a little bit by wolves
at times because my family were also very ill. It's
like I'm a deeply problematic person. I have deeply problematic
thoughts and beliefs and behaviors at times. And so if
I can change and keep being willing to change, even
so publicly, then you can too. But I'll be the

(01:00:32):
one that takes the flames and you can get behind me,
and then we can figure this shit out together. That's
not because I'm some great hero. I think there's something
wrong with me, but it has made me kind of
perfect for this position, and so until it takes my
health away, or my mental health, I'll keep doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
I was going to ask you if you think there
is any hope for us, but I think you just
answered that I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Full of hope. I'm full of hope all if everything
is based in optimism, my approach has just changed to
a far more hopeful one. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
I think that's a great spot for us to wrap up.
I am obviously gonna link to iway. I'm going to
link to your Instagram. I'm going to point people to
the gaslighting highlight on your Instagram because I think that's
a really good introduction to the ways that you take
that step back and talk about the systems in which
we operate. We will be right back, everybody, with your
questions to carry with you. I have several to share

(01:01:30):
with you right after this break. Each week, I leave
you with some questions to carry with you until we
meet again. Okay, my list of questions and comments on
this episode is very long, and I am not going

(01:01:51):
to subject you to all of them, so I'm just
going to pick one from my list. Jamila and I
spent a lot of time talking about social movements, which, honestly,
social movements are just personal individual losses, personal needs multiplied
at scale. Right, think about that, Social movements are just

(01:02:15):
personal individual losses, personal needs multiplied at scale. I love
that Jamila spoke right into that right into those individual
fears and those individual desires inside social change itself, like
we fight for the things that we're trying to protect.
Her example was, if you want to protect bodily autonomy,

(01:02:37):
then screeching at people that they have to respect bodily
autonomy isn't going to be effective because it's not an
issue they care about. If they care about other perceived
threats to their survival, that's what we need to engage with.
That's what we need to address. I mean, basically, what
Jamila was saying there is what are their fears? Where

(01:02:58):
is their human soft spot? Where are they scared? Can
we listen for that and speak to it. Can we
listen for their pains that we might all join together,
maybe from different starting points, and arrive at the same
destination In this case, in Jamila's example, it was safeguarding
bodily autonomy, but this really does apply to anything. Listening

(01:03:23):
for pain and speaking into it, addressing the pain in
the room. I mean, it's the whole foundation of this show, right,
It's the whole foundation of the work that I've been
doing for the last ten years. This world that we
are trying to build here together, how do we listen
for pain and shift up the ways we respond to it.
It is kind of accurate, right that, like so much

(01:03:44):
of activism, so much of cancel culture is kind of
just unskilled yelling right now. And it's like we, of
course we need boundaries and all of that stuff. This
isn't like a free for all where everybody gets to
do what they want. But that practice of listening for
pain and using the ways that we speak to each other,
that's scaffolding of the ways we communicate, using that to

(01:04:09):
build the world we want. Like, there's just so much
power in that. That's one of the things that I'm
going to carry with me from this conversation is that
reminder of how much power there is in the ways
we listen and the ways we communicate, and whether we
build a world or destroy a world by the ways

(01:04:32):
we choose to communicate. Yeah, So I'm carrying that with me,
and I am carrying one more thing with me because
it feels important whether it is okay.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
To make mistakes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Now, I'm not going to go into this because that
would be like a whole other thing, another like two
hours of me doing a recap here, but I'm going
to be reflecting on whether it is okay to make mistakes.
I'm curious what stood out for you in today's show.
I know we touched on a whole lot of things.
Everybody's going to take something different from the show, but
I do hope you found something to hold onto. Also,

(01:05:07):
if you did, I would love to hear about it.
You can leave comments on social media at Refuge and Grief.
You could leave a review for the show on your
favorite platform. I want to know how this conversation affected
you and what you're thinking about and if it sparked
any interesting conversations with the people in your life. Let
me know. You can follow the show at It's Okay

(01:05:27):
Pod on TikTok and Refuge and Grief everywhere else. To
see video clips from the show, use the hashtag It's
Okay pod on all platforms, so not only I can
find you, but others can too. None of us are
entirely okay, and it's time we start talking about that together. Yeah,
it's okay that you're not okay. You're in good company.

(01:05:51):
And seriously, these process conversations, these conversations around how we
talk about the things we care about, the things we need.
They are so important and I'm really glad you're here.
That is it for this week. Everybody, remember to subscribe
to the show, leave a review, get your own conversations
going by sharing the show with your people. Coming up

(01:06:11):
next week, it is the lead vocalist for one of
my all time favorite bands, Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies.
Now you do know their music. Even if you're not
sure you recognize the name, Google it. Follow the show
on your favorite platforms so you don't miss an episode.

(01:06:31):
It's okay that you're not okay. The podcast is written
and produced by me Megan Devine. Executive producer is Amy Brown,
co produced by Elizabeth Fozzio, with logistical and social media
support from Micah, Post production and editing by Houston Tilley,
music provided by Wave Crush and Background Noise, and a
slightly delayed production schedule provided by the sudden road construction

(01:06:53):
outside my house, which is yes, improving the infrastructure.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
And I'm glad they're here too,

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Megan Devine

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