October 7, 2025 • 35 mins
As we lead up to World Mental Health Day, this special Best of My Legacy episode brings together powerful voices to remind us that we’re never as alone as we feel.
Hosts Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger explore how to stay connected—to others, and to yourself—when life feels overwhelming.
You’ll hear:
- Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on why loneliness isn’t just a feeling—it’s a public health crisis
- Simon Sinek on the most important skill we need when a friend is struggling
- Marie Forleo on her mantra for staying grounded through chaos
- Sophia Bush on the power of friendship to carry us home to ourselves
- And Mel Robbins on her viral “Let Them” theory—and how it helps us hold on to who we are
It’s a moving collection of lessons on belonging, resilience, and hope—just in time for World Mental Health Day.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
And I didn't know how to say that. I didn't
know how to deal with the shame and the kind
of embarrassment that I'd been wrong and that I'd been
wrong really publicly. And I called my best friend and
she said me too.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That was actress and activist Sophia Bush on the loneliness
of losing yourself and the best friend who helped carry
her back home. On this special best of episode of
My Legacy. Leading up to World Mental Health Day, hosts
Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King, Mark Kilberger,
and Praig Kilberger explore how to stay connected to others
and to yourself in a disconnected world. Simon Sindek shares
(00:36):
the skill we need most when a friend is struggling,
Marie Furlio reveals her mantra for staying grounded, and mel
Robbins explains how her let them theory helps us hold
on to ourselves. But first up, former Surgeon General doctor
Vivic Murphy on why loneliness isn't just a feeling, it's
a crisis.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Good fake And you were so open and so honest
and so vulnerable, if I can phrase it that way,
during your time instearch in general where you talked about
the importance of social connection and how a lone people feel,
and you were incredibly kind and being so open with
Martin and I talking about how personal it was for
you your own experiences that you had felt of loneliness, and
(01:19):
I wonder if we could and if I could ask
you to actually share it with our listeners and our viewers,
because I think what you have done is shift the
topic of social connection and loneliness into the public discord
through your own lived experience and your platform, unlike anyone else.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
For me, I realized the experiences I was having struggling
with loneliness were actually not unique. A lot of people
were having these experiences, but we weren't able to really
talk about them. That there was this veil of shame
that kept those experiences hidden and increased the suffering that
many of us were experiencing. And that's what I had
felt as a child, when I was having a tough
(01:59):
time making friends as really shy, introverted kid, and where
I worried about walking into the lunch room every day
and not having someone to sit next to. But that
whole time I not only felt ashamed about it and
never mentioned it as a result of that to anyone else,
But I also thought I was the only one dealing
with that, and because everyone else looked like they were
(02:19):
having a good time. And by the way, that distortion
of reality that tells us we're the only one struggling
is even more heightened today, thing for young people who
are because of the experience of social media, where people
are constantly posting their highlights, not their low lights, and
so the experience we have is that, oh, my god,
everyone is living this great life and I'm the only
one struggling. So that's how I felt even back then,
(02:42):
but it sensitized me to the issue. But I saw
a lot of it around me when I was a
doctor and I have patients would come in, maybe for
an infection or for complications of a medication they took,
or because they had cancer or heart attack or a
clot but often as I sat and talked to them,
realized that they were struggling with loneliness. And then I
(03:02):
came to see that at scale when I was searching
general traveling across the country. So that was the reason
I decided I wanted to do something about this, And
to me, it was in fact a health issue, because
when you dug into the data as I did on
loneliness and isolation, it became very clear that this was
so much more than a bad feeling, and that people
(03:23):
who actually experienced loneliness and isolation they had higher risk
of not only depression and anxiety and suicide, but also
heart disease and dementia and premature death.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
So, if that's the challenge, my question to you, and
you've touched upon it, but put your doctor hat on,
take out your prescription pad, take out a pen, and
what's the prescription of solving disconnection?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Well, since you asked for a prescription, it turns out
the final document that I issued when I was search
in general was actually called a parting Prescription to America.
It was about what you're getting at, which is there
was this deeper question that had been bothering me for
years when I was in office, meeting people talking to them,
which was this the question is why are so many
(04:07):
of the people that I meet struggling with a sense
of unhappiness and emptiness? Why do so many of them
feel like something is missing in their lives? And I
realized that many of the narratives that were told that
it's due to economic challenges, security challenges. These are real. Actually,
these really contribute to the unhappiness and anxiety and pain
(04:28):
that people feel. But even when those needs were met,
I was finding there was something else that was missing,
that people were still feeling that sense of unhappiness, they
were still suffering. And what I came to understand through
many conversations and research and data, etc. Was that there
is a story that we have told ourselves, and young
(04:49):
people in particular, a narrative that society has created about
what constitutes success. And young people would often say this
to me most eloquently and clearly, because when I would travel,
I would always ask the same question, how do you
define success? And they would say, well, society is defining
for it. Is it for us as money, power, and fame,
(05:09):
And if we can achieve those three things, then we
will really have made it. People make documentaries about us
or our books about us, it'll be great. It's why
I met so many people who were saying that. What
I would say, what are you focus on right now?
They woulday, I'm focused on building my brand right and
there's a small part of me, which you know, died
every time, like somebody said that because it's I think
(05:30):
it's emblematic of a broader problem. But when you look
at what really leads to fulfillment, it's actually remarkably consistent
in research in life experience and history and in scripture
across faiths, which is that it's a different triad that
try to modern day success maybe wealth, power and fame,
(05:50):
but the triad of lifelong fulfillment is actually relationships, purpose,
and service. It's the people we love, the people we help,
and it's how we find purpose in our lives and
lifting each other up and being a part of something
bigger than ourselves. That's actually how we find fulfillment. The
core though, the key about the try to fulfillment is
(06:13):
it has to be rooted in a core virtue, and
that virtue is love, Love and all its manifestations of generosity, kindness,
but also hope and courage those come from love as well.
And in writing this parting prescription, I was deeply inspired
by Reverend Martin Luther King, by your father and father
in law and his call for the beloved community, because
(06:36):
I saw the beloved community, and Alison and I would spend
a lot of time talking about this because we talk
about this in the context of what when you become
a parent, you start realizing that your child is going
to need a lot more than you can provide to
live a fulfilling life. They're going to depend on the
world around them, and the question for us is what
can we do to help make sure that that world
is going to be there for our kids and for
(06:56):
all kids, that it's going to be a nurturing world
where if they fall down, somebody's going to be there
to help them up. If they make a mistake, somebody's
not going to judge them in the worst possible bait way,
but give them the benefit of the doubt and where
they will do the same for others. And to me
that that beloved community is about belonging. It's about making
love the ethic and the compass through which we are
(07:18):
guided in our lives. It's about building a life rooted
in relationships, purpose, and service.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
Sophia Naw, I want to turn to a deeply personal
essay that you wrote in Glamour last April about your
coming out journey, and I want to read something that
you wrote because I thought that it was just so,
so very powerful. So I want to quote your exact words,
(07:51):
which is I finally feel like I can breathe. I
don't think, I don't think. I can't explain how profound
that it is. I feel like I was wearing a
weighted vest for who knows how long I hadn't realized
how heavy it was until I finally just put it down.
(08:12):
That kind of clarity doesn't usually come without heartbreak. So
what was the turning point for you?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
If I may? You know, it's interesting how bite sized
the world wants to make your life or your experiences
when you are a public person. And I understand why
the totality of a life, you know, someone's journey is
(08:43):
it's not clickbait material and so you won't expect this.
But the reason this really relates back to Nia and
our friendship is because there was so much public fascination
about well, what is she? How does she identify?
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Is?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Explain? Explain? Explain? And they wanted to make it about
this coming out, you know, and part of me and
part of me were like, has nobody been paying attention
to like anything I've ever said since I've been on TV,
or all the all the people I've kissed since I've
been on TV, Like what are we doing? So there
was humor in it, certainly there there was absolutely given
(09:24):
again this rising fear mongering. There was a real importance
I understood for saying the words and saying them in
a way where they could be both hopefully inspiring or
freeing to someone else, but also to say, all of
us deserve to take up space and deserve to have
(09:45):
a full spectrum of rights. But the thing that people
didn't see behind the scenes was the journey to get there.
And the vest wasn't just about identity. The vest was
about society. The vest was about the expectation on women,
the exhausting demand to be small, but not so small,
(10:11):
to no matter what you do, you have a career.
How dare you not have kids? You have kids? How
dare you not have a career. You wait to consider
getting married, You're a crone. You got married young. You
must have been dumb and you didn't know what you
were doing. It's just we can't quite get it right.
And what I had to come to terms with was
(10:33):
that I'd carried certain traumas. Rather than push them back
on the people who'd given them to me, I'd tried
to make everybody happy, I'd lost my individual way, maybe
in a way because I'd prioritized community so much that
I finally said, well, I guess it's time, and I
(10:55):
guess it's time I do the thing everybody tells me
to do, and I'll make the list and check the
box and everybody says, once you've done it, you'll be happy.
And I checked all the boxes and I really wasn't happy.
And I didn't know how to say that to anyone
but Nia, and I didn't know how to say when
(11:19):
people said, well, why did you get married and why
did you do this? I didn't know I would go
through the next step, the family building stuff by myself.
I didn't know until it happened to me, and I
didn't know how to say that. I didn't know how
to deal with the shame and the kind of embarrassment
that I'd been wrong, and that i'd been wrong really publicly.
(11:39):
And I called my best friend and she if I may,
I'm just making sure I'm allowed to say the thing,
but she said me too, And we both knew what
was going on, obviously with each other. We talk one
hundred times a day. But when I said, I think
I have to be done and in her own life
(12:00):
and in her own world with her own young son.
She said, I do too. I can't. I would never
wish for someone else to be heartbroken, but to have
my best friend in the world having her version of
the same experience, and both of us saying we got
(12:21):
to like, we got to put it down and we
got to try to make a new way in the
in the most profound way. I knew I wasn't crazy.
I knew I wasn't doing something rash. I knew I'd
literally exhausted every option, I'd gone to, every therapy, I'd
done every bit of the homework, and I had to
(12:42):
just say it's okay to change your mind, it's okay
to learn something, and based on that learning, make a
new decision for your future. And so everybody wanted to
make it about, you know, the next person in my life,
because the next person in my life was a woman.
(13:03):
Plenty of people were shocked. It wasn't nea by the
way I was like, I was like, she is my wife,
just not like that. But you know what, I think
what people didn't understand was that the journey started again
in a community of women, and there were two of
us and then there was a best friend from college,
and then there was a woman I would eventually fall
(13:24):
in love with. And then there was another friend, you know,
dealing with will I stay or will I go because
of addiction in her family with her husband, and the
community of women who who didn't go really bad timing.
You know, you just had this whole big thing. They
didn't lean out and critique. They leaned in and said
it's okay. Those women helped me take off forty years
(13:49):
of expectation and people pleasing and just trying to do
it right because it hadn't felt right ever, no matter
how hard I tried. And it was yes about stepping
into that portion of my identity in a way, but
what it really was in totality was a was a
homecoming and a learning to honor myself. And I learned
(14:13):
how to honor myself watching the strongest woman that I
know and a group of the most impressive women we
love honor themselves. I had the courage of that conviction
because of what I was being shown in both love
and example by the women in my.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Life coming up.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Simon senek Urifolio and mel Robbins on how to show
up for others and for yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
Let's say maybe everyone has capacity to be resilient, maybe
they don't always know that, But can you have.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Resilience without connection?
Speaker 7 (15:01):
I don't think so. I Look, we're social animals, and
we know that solitary confinement is a form of torture.
And whether it's imposed by you know, a political system
or a penal system, or it's self imposed. When we
hide from truth and we keep secrets about our feelings,
(15:23):
we're putting ourselves in prisons. We're self imposing solitary confinement.
And we know what happens when you put someone in
solitary confinement. They'll go crazy and they will self destruct.
And I think the only way to get through anything
hard is with others. And it goes right back to
where we started, which is do we have the skills?
And I think most people don't even know how to
(15:45):
help a friend when they're in need. You know, if
somebody calls you and say, if somebody has the courage
to say I'm struggling, most of us go into fix
it mode, and that is incorrect. People are pretty smart,
even in pain. They know when they want to be
fixed and when they want your advice and they know
when they just need you to sit in the mud
with them. And most of us are more comfortable trying
(16:08):
to fix things because we're rational, we're not the ones depressed.
This is how we would solve the problem in our
state of mind now, But that's not the state of
the mind of our friend. And most of us do
not have the skill set to just get in the
mud with somebody. Like if your friend's depressed, do you
try and give them advice how they can get out
of their depression, or do you'd go to their house,
get in their bed and eat ice cream with them
(16:29):
all day with them and just be depressed with them.
Getting in the mud with someone is not fun. That's
why we don't do it. It is not enjoyable. But
you do it. And again when most of us are
pretty attuned, where if you sit in mud with someone
and just hold space and allow them to be depressed
or sad or angry or whatever feeling they're having, at
(16:50):
some point they're going to look at you and go,
I think I'm ready now, and then you can try
and pull them out and offer them the advice. I
remember I called a friend I was in a bad place,
and I called her and I said, can I just
talk to him in a bad place? And I started
talking and she went in to fix it mode, and
I remember feeling worse, feeling angry, you know, because I
(17:10):
wasn't feeling heard. And again I literally said, can you
stop trying to fix me and just shut up and listen.
That's all I need from you right now is just
let me get it out of like. I don't want
you to fix me. Just let me tell you and
just listen. That's all I need, and so you can
even change it. And she goes, I hear you, I
hear I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and then she started listening
and I felt better. And so I think we need
(17:33):
to learn those skills. We need to learn those skills.
But I do not believe that you can do these
things by yourself. It's this thing called life is just
too difficult for any one of us to do it
by ourselves. Not a single one of us has the strength,
or the courage, or the wherewithal all the perspective to
do this thing called life alone. Life is a team sport.
(17:57):
This is why we organically and naturally make friends and
want friends. This is why when we don't have friends,
we feel lonely. This is why we envy people with relationships.
It's because those things all contribute to this thing called life. Look, remember,
suicide is an active it's an active loneliness. That's what
it is.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
You know.
Speaker 7 (18:17):
It's a it's a it's a it's a it's an
attempt to take control of a situation that feels bad.
Nobody nobody dies by suicide because they're hungry. They day
by suicide because they're lonely.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
One of the things that I have to be vulnerable
and transparent that I'm working on, and I see it
more with with parenting, with friends sometimes or even with
my husband, is is because I love so big you,
(18:54):
I want to go into fix it.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
You know.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
So if my daughter comes home and she's having a
she's had or just really bad day, and I want
to say, hey, Okay, if you do ten things of
gratitude right now or go jump on the rebounder, you
can change the state. And and it's not too but
one thing I've and this has been my mantra is okay,
Andrea lecture or love that's good, Yolanda, you know it's okay.
(19:18):
Or to let her know it's okay, or to let
Martin know it's okay, and just to to listen and
you know, just say, you know, just give them that
that love. And I'm so I'm constantly now playing in
my mind lecture a love, lecture a love and and
then there are times though, there are times when they
they that it's appropriate to give it. When I say lecture,
(19:41):
well my husband would say it's a lecture, but yeah,
it's like yeah, but it is like okay, you know.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
You know, now imagine, right, is this thing on?
Speaker 6 (19:53):
So so that's that's one thing that I'm that I'm
working so particularly with a teenager and and with a husband.
We work together and with so many people that I love. Particularly,
I think there's so many maybe of our listeners, certainly
the people that are you know, not purchasing your books
and listening to Simon that you know, they are like
the let's get it, let's get it, let's get it done.
Let's you know, so you know, maybe that's something that
(20:16):
we all can that will be helpful to them as well,
like okay, is this time for lecture or love?
Speaker 7 (20:21):
It's true And sometimes sometimes you don't have to guess.
Sometimes you can ask. Somebody tells you how they feel,
and you can say, do you want me to lecture?
Do you want me to love? Do you want me
to try and fix it? Do you want me to
just sit here and listen? And people will say I
just need to listen and say, oh, actually, you know what,
I want to know your opinion. So the irony is
you don't even have to guess, yeah, you can actually
ask and people know. The funny thing about all of
(20:43):
this is this is what we're trained to do. This
is what parents are trained to do for children. You know,
we're trained we learn to affirm the feelings of our kids.
You know, they come home angry or if something happens
or somebody takes their candy and they say, I'm angry,
and you're not suppose to say, oh, don't be angry,
you shouldn't be angry. Were supposed to say, boy, yeah, pooh,
(21:05):
that must really hurt. And this is what we're supposed
to do with kids. Like any parent who's that read
a couple books you know about parenting.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
Knows this well.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
We're supposed to do the same thing with adults too,
Like it hasn't changed because we get older, we still
want our feelings affirmed. And it's really funny how what
we know how to do for kids we stopped doing
for adults.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
Well, sign of the next time you call me lecture alone.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
If you're looking for stories that move you, insights that
shift you, in conversations that stay deeply within you, do
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Speaker 6 (21:52):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
Rio wanted to ask you. You've taught the world so
many amazing things. You've taught me so many amazing things,
and I want you to share with us what are
the coolest things that you've taught me that I love,
and just explain this to our viewers in the way
that you do, because you're such a great storyteller, which
is observe, don't absorb.
Speaker 8 (22:12):
Yeah, I think, first of all, this is really really helpful,
especially for those of us who are empaths, those of
us who are really also sensitive to energy, those of
us who tend to also have people in our lives that,
let's say, have different kind of energy that is not
necessarily a good chemistry match for you. So the notion
of observing and not absorbing. And I'll just say this,
(22:36):
you know, for especially what my life has been like
these past couple years. You know, family, we love them,
and then sometimes same thing like Josh and I you
need to shake each other.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Because you're like God, gotta get away.
Speaker 8 (22:48):
Same thing can happen in our work environments and with
our friendships. So I think observing someone it's like observing
what they're going through, having ultimate compassion for what they're experiencing,
being in terms of listening, mirroring what they're going through
without absorbing it into your own energetic field, taking it on,
(23:10):
becoming responsible for fixing it, for figuring it out, or
thinking that you are necessarily the cause of this other
person's distress or upset or stress, even if they tell
you that you are. So you know, I have been
through this most recently and again my mom, God bless her.
(23:31):
She's still with us. She's struggling a lot right now.
And you know, she's said some things in the past
little stretch of time that were extremely hurtful and some
might say cruel. I've shared some things with Christians. She
was like, WHOA, that's a lot. And so it comes
back to this notion of me going like and I
can observe her in her pain. I can observe her
(23:53):
what she's experiencing, which is a lot of terror and
a lot of fear and a lot of loss of control.
And I can empathize with the notion of what she's
experiencing and how those lash outs might be directed at
me if I'm in her presence. But I don't have
to absorb it and take it on. I don't need
to be a sponge and I don't need to as
(24:14):
painful as this is. As the daughter of the woman
who taught me that everything is figure outable, I don't
have to figure it out for her, nor is that
my role. I can trust at a very deep level
that there is for me, and this is my own
belief system. There is a higher power watching over her.
She is on her own soulful and spiritual journey, and
(24:37):
the greatest gift I can give both her and myself
is to show up. And Chris taught me this one
only love in the room, meaning bringing only love in
the room. Can I observe her and not absorb that negativity?
Can I observe her and not absorb her pain and
her fear as my own.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Mail your new book that Let Them Theory. It encourages
people to just let control go over other people's choices.
And the part that I love is that you said
it helped to heal and fortify your relationship with your daughter.
Can you share both the theory and how it brought
you closer together?
Speaker 9 (25:15):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
So.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
Let Them theory is a simple mindset tool that helps
you identify literally in a moment, what's in your control
and what's not in your control, and the way that
you use it is very simple. If you're in a
situation and some other person is stressing you out or
upsetting you or offending you, or you're worried about them,
or they're treating you poorly, you literally say let them
(25:38):
because the number one thing in life that you will never, ever, ever,
ever be able to control is another human being. You
can't control what they think, you can't control what they do,
You cannot control how they feel, period And any psychologist
will tell you that any time that you spend trying
to only makes you feel more stressed, out, frustrated, and
out of control. And the problem for all of us,
(26:02):
and I didn't learn as so as fifty four years old.
If I had known this way back when, I would
literally not have been a walking red flag for most
of my life. I would not have taken my stress
out of my family. I would have been more peaceful
and more powerful because I had no idea how much
power I'd given to other people, and neither nobody does
(26:26):
because we don't understand how we're turning other people into
the problem. And I've got very important and exciting information.
It says, if you feel tired in life, if you
are frustrated, if you're stuck, if you're stressed out, if
you feel like you never have time for yourself, if
you're just not as happy as you'd like to be,
(26:47):
the problem isn't you. The problem is you're unknowingly giving
power to other people, and you do it in four ways.
You allow them to stress you out, you worry about
and you manage what they're thinking. You navigate your life
based on their moods and their opinions and their disappointment
and their guilt and their expectations. And you paralyze yourself
(27:08):
because you're chronically comparing yourself to them and telling yourself
that if they're successful or they're this, then I can't
have it. And it's simply not true. And what the
let them theory does is that any situation that you're
in and you're going to use it with your family
more than anybody, because I think family teaches you how
to love people you hate sometimes, right, you gotta let
(27:29):
them because you're not going to change them. And what
you will learn as you start to use this is
people only change when they feel like changing. People only
change when they're ready to change. People only change when
they're ready to do the hard work to change. And
the other piece that you have to embrace is that
(27:51):
we think worrying about or pressuring or judging or pushing
people to change motivates people to change. It's actually the opposite.
If you look at the wiring of a human being,
everybody has a fundamental need for control. When you're in
control of what you're thinking about in your decisions and
your future and the environment that you're in, you actually
(28:11):
feel safe. And the problem is if Martin's doing something
that is worrying me, now, his behavior is something I
want to control. But Martin has the same need to
control his life as I do. So when I start
to push on Martin or suggests that Martin should do
this or should do that, what does Martin do? Martin
(28:32):
pushes back because he needs to be in control. And
I didn't realize that I was creating so much unnecessary
friction and frustration and distance with people in my life.
I didn't realize how much time and energy I was losing,
because you know, let's just take a simple example. You're
(28:52):
at the grocery store and there's five people in front
of you, and there's one cashire. We've all been there, yes,
And immediately the stress rises up inside you. And then
all of a sudden, you get agitated, and then you
start thinking why are they not calling it? And then
(29:13):
you're looking around, and then you start thinking you can
run the store better than anybody, right, And now let's
just stop and actually really look at what this is.
This is you giving power to something that you do
not control. And when you do that, a number of
things happen. Number one did you notice is the stress
goes up, your life force energy goes out. So you
(29:38):
are allowing stupid, meaningless all kinds of irritating people that
are beneath you and not worth your time and energy.
You are allowing it to exhaust you and you don't
have to. And the solution is just to say let them,
and immediately you feel peace because what you're doing is
(29:59):
you're tapping into a tremendous like I feel like I've
got everybody's ancestors with me. Because this is an application
of stoicism, of Buddhism, of radical acceptance, of detachment, theory
of literally not reacting and staying in your piece, and
(30:21):
then something interesting happens. You say the second part, which
is let me, let me remind myself that in any situation,
I have power because there are three things I can control.
I can control what I think about. Next, I can
control what I do or I don't do. Because you
can leave the supermarket. You could if you never have
(30:41):
time to talk to your friend, you could pick up
the phone and call your friend or your grandma. You
could practice meditation, you could say a prayer. If you say,
let me and remind yourself that you have power, right,
and so that's what it is.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
And also you said you know all of these different ancestors.
You're bringing in the ancestor of Martin Luther King Junior
in the whole civil rights movement. Yes, because I think
what people also forget is that when you're talking about
the lunch counters, you're talking about the freedom writers.
Speaker 9 (31:12):
Yes they trained, Yes.
Speaker 6 (31:16):
You know, they didn't just go and you know, and
so and Nona was and it was a lot of
what exactly that you're talking about and let them, Like
this is like they're going to do this. Yes, I
you know, I choose, I choose how then I will
respond to that. And what I also think is important
(31:36):
is that you have to it is training.
Speaker 9 (31:38):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
You know, you have to think about it and you have.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
To Yes, it is disciplined. And here's the other thing
it is because a lot of people hear this and
then they'll say, wait, you're just allowing people to walk
all over you. You're allowing people to abuse you. And
I'm like, oh no, it's the opposite, because you're actually
allowing it. Now when you say let them, it's almost
like you're allowing it without allowing it, because you're saying,
(32:03):
I see the reality here, and I see that I
can't control this, and so I choose my response because
I know I do have power, And oftentimes the best
response is no, response. The best response is peace. And
we give too much energy and too much fear into
(32:24):
things we can't control, and in doing so, we blind
ourselves to the fact that you always have control. And
whether you're talking about a family dynamic, or you're talking
about a community, or you're talking about a world at large. See,
I find it just so sad and fascinating that we
always let the most challenging and toxic behavior seem to
(32:45):
get all the power. But I actually think the opposite
is true. I believe that the person that is peaceful,
I believe that the person that understands their power. I
believe the person who actually constantly reminds me themselves, wait
a minute, I have power here because I have power
over my thoughts, I have power over my actions. I
(33:06):
have power over how I allow my emotions to rise
and fall. And it's inside that power that any single
person can change something for the better.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
And you know that's what because you're responding and not reacting. Yes,
and responding is when you come from a place of power.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Yes.
Speaker 9 (33:26):
And it's also how you take personal responsibility. Let's talk
about responsibility, because the word responsibility is just the ability
to respond, and everybody has that and so when you
really remind yourself of that, now you can be the
(33:47):
person that changes everything. Because it just takes one person
to change the energy and dynamic in a family. It
takes one person who cares enough to change the politics
in a country. It takes one person to just shift everything.
And if you don't like where you're at, or you
(34:07):
don't like where your family's at, or you don't like
something in a relationship, or you don't like something in
the world at large, that one person is you. And
as long as you give your time and energy, and
you give other people power, their opinions, all of it,
none of what you can control. You are not present
to the power you actually have and the time and
(34:28):
the energy that you need to create the change that
you're capable of changing.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy Movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, This podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(34:56):
A Legacy Plus studio production distributed by iHeartMedia. Creator and
executive producer Suzanne Hayward, Come executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
And I didn't know how to say that. I didn't
know how to deal with the shame and the kind
of embarrassment that I'd been wrong and that I'd been
wrong really publicly. And I called my best friend and
she said me too.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That was actress and activist Sophia Bush on the loneliness
of losing yourself and the best friend who helped carry
her back home. On this special best of episode of
My Legacy. Leading up to World Mental Health Day, hosts
Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King, Mark Kilberger,
and Praig Kilberger explore how to stay connected to others
and to yourself in a disconnected world. Simon Sindek shares
(00:36):
the skill we need most when a friend is struggling,
Marie Furlio reveals her mantra for staying grounded, and mel
Robbins explains how her let them theory helps us hold
on to ourselves. But first up, former Surgeon General doctor
Vivic Murphy on why loneliness isn't just a feeling, it's
a crisis.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Good fake And you were so open and so honest
and so vulnerable, if I can phrase it that way,
during your time instearch in general where you talked about
the importance of social connection and how a lone people feel,
and you were incredibly kind and being so open with
Martin and I talking about how personal it was for
you your own experiences that you had felt of loneliness, and
(01:19):
I wonder if we could and if I could ask
you to actually share it with our listeners and our viewers,
because I think what you have done is shift the
topic of social connection and loneliness into the public discord
through your own lived experience and your platform, unlike anyone else.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
For me, I realized the experiences I was having struggling
with loneliness were actually not unique. A lot of people
were having these experiences, but we weren't able to really
talk about them. That there was this veil of shame
that kept those experiences hidden and increased the suffering that
many of us were experiencing. And that's what I had
felt as a child, when I was having a tough
(01:59):
time making friends as really shy, introverted kid, and where
I worried about walking into the lunch room every day
and not having someone to sit next to. But that
whole time I not only felt ashamed about it and
never mentioned it as a result of that to anyone else,
But I also thought I was the only one dealing
with that, and because everyone else looked like they were
(02:19):
having a good time. And by the way, that distortion
of reality that tells us we're the only one struggling
is even more heightened today, thing for young people who
are because of the experience of social media, where people
are constantly posting their highlights, not their low lights, and
so the experience we have is that, oh, my god,
everyone is living this great life and I'm the only
one struggling. So that's how I felt even back then,
(02:42):
but it sensitized me to the issue. But I saw
a lot of it around me when I was a
doctor and I have patients would come in, maybe for
an infection or for complications of a medication they took,
or because they had cancer or heart attack or a
clot but often as I sat and talked to them,
realized that they were struggling with loneliness. And then I
(03:02):
came to see that at scale when I was searching
general traveling across the country. So that was the reason
I decided I wanted to do something about this, And
to me, it was in fact a health issue, because
when you dug into the data as I did on
loneliness and isolation, it became very clear that this was
so much more than a bad feeling, and that people
(03:23):
who actually experienced loneliness and isolation they had higher risk
of not only depression and anxiety and suicide, but also
heart disease and dementia and premature death.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
So, if that's the challenge, my question to you, and
you've touched upon it, but put your doctor hat on,
take out your prescription pad, take out a pen, and
what's the prescription of solving disconnection?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Well, since you asked for a prescription, it turns out
the final document that I issued when I was search
in general was actually called a parting Prescription to America.
It was about what you're getting at, which is there
was this deeper question that had been bothering me for
years when I was in office, meeting people talking to them,
which was this the question is why are so many
(04:07):
of the people that I meet struggling with a sense
of unhappiness and emptiness? Why do so many of them
feel like something is missing in their lives? And I
realized that many of the narratives that were told that
it's due to economic challenges, security challenges. These are real. Actually,
these really contribute to the unhappiness and anxiety and pain
(04:28):
that people feel. But even when those needs were met,
I was finding there was something else that was missing,
that people were still feeling that sense of unhappiness, they
were still suffering. And what I came to understand through
many conversations and research and data, etc. Was that there
is a story that we have told ourselves, and young
(04:49):
people in particular, a narrative that society has created about
what constitutes success. And young people would often say this
to me most eloquently and clearly, because when I would travel,
I would always ask the same question, how do you
define success? And they would say, well, society is defining
for it. Is it for us as money, power, and fame,
(05:09):
And if we can achieve those three things, then we
will really have made it. People make documentaries about us
or our books about us, it'll be great. It's why
I met so many people who were saying that. What
I would say, what are you focus on right now?
They woulday, I'm focused on building my brand right and
there's a small part of me, which you know, died
every time, like somebody said that because it's I think
(05:30):
it's emblematic of a broader problem. But when you look
at what really leads to fulfillment, it's actually remarkably consistent
in research in life experience and history and in scripture
across faiths, which is that it's a different triad that
try to modern day success maybe wealth, power and fame,
(05:50):
but the triad of lifelong fulfillment is actually relationships, purpose,
and service. It's the people we love, the people we help,
and it's how we find purpose in our lives and
lifting each other up and being a part of something
bigger than ourselves. That's actually how we find fulfillment. The
core though, the key about the try to fulfillment is
(06:13):
it has to be rooted in a core virtue, and
that virtue is love, Love and all its manifestations of generosity, kindness,
but also hope and courage those come from love as well.
And in writing this parting prescription, I was deeply inspired
by Reverend Martin Luther King, by your father and father
in law and his call for the beloved community, because
(06:36):
I saw the beloved community, and Alison and I would spend
a lot of time talking about this because we talk
about this in the context of what when you become
a parent, you start realizing that your child is going
to need a lot more than you can provide to
live a fulfilling life. They're going to depend on the
world around them, and the question for us is what
can we do to help make sure that that world
is going to be there for our kids and for
(06:56):
all kids, that it's going to be a nurturing world
where if they fall down, somebody's going to be there
to help them up. If they make a mistake, somebody's
not going to judge them in the worst possible bait way,
but give them the benefit of the doubt and where
they will do the same for others. And to me
that that beloved community is about belonging. It's about making
love the ethic and the compass through which we are
(07:18):
guided in our lives. It's about building a life rooted
in relationships, purpose, and service.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
Sophia Naw, I want to turn to a deeply personal
essay that you wrote in Glamour last April about your
coming out journey, and I want to read something that
you wrote because I thought that it was just so,
so very powerful. So I want to quote your exact words,
(07:51):
which is I finally feel like I can breathe. I
don't think, I don't think. I can't explain how profound
that it is. I feel like I was wearing a
weighted vest for who knows how long I hadn't realized
how heavy it was until I finally just put it down.
(08:12):
That kind of clarity doesn't usually come without heartbreak. So
what was the turning point for you?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
If I may? You know, it's interesting how bite sized
the world wants to make your life or your experiences
when you are a public person. And I understand why
the totality of a life, you know, someone's journey is
(08:43):
it's not clickbait material and so you won't expect this.
But the reason this really relates back to Nia and
our friendship is because there was so much public fascination
about well, what is she? How does she identify?
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Is?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Explain? Explain? Explain? And they wanted to make it about
this coming out, you know, and part of me and
part of me were like, has nobody been paying attention
to like anything I've ever said since I've been on TV,
or all the all the people I've kissed since I've
been on TV, Like what are we doing? So there
was humor in it, certainly there there was absolutely given
(09:24):
again this rising fear mongering. There was a real importance
I understood for saying the words and saying them in
a way where they could be both hopefully inspiring or
freeing to someone else, but also to say, all of
us deserve to take up space and deserve to have
(09:45):
a full spectrum of rights. But the thing that people
didn't see behind the scenes was the journey to get there.
And the vest wasn't just about identity. The vest was
about society. The vest was about the expectation on women,
the exhausting demand to be small, but not so small,
(10:11):
to no matter what you do, you have a career.
How dare you not have kids? You have kids? How
dare you not have a career. You wait to consider
getting married, You're a crone. You got married young. You
must have been dumb and you didn't know what you
were doing. It's just we can't quite get it right.
And what I had to come to terms with was
(10:33):
that I'd carried certain traumas. Rather than push them back
on the people who'd given them to me, I'd tried
to make everybody happy, I'd lost my individual way, maybe
in a way because I'd prioritized community so much that
I finally said, well, I guess it's time, and I
(10:55):
guess it's time I do the thing everybody tells me
to do, and I'll make the list and check the
box and everybody says, once you've done it, you'll be happy.
And I checked all the boxes and I really wasn't happy.
And I didn't know how to say that to anyone
but Nia, and I didn't know how to say when
(11:19):
people said, well, why did you get married and why
did you do this? I didn't know I would go
through the next step, the family building stuff by myself.
I didn't know until it happened to me, and I
didn't know how to say that. I didn't know how
to deal with the shame and the kind of embarrassment
that I'd been wrong, and that i'd been wrong really publicly.
(11:39):
And I called my best friend and she if I may,
I'm just making sure I'm allowed to say the thing,
but she said me too, And we both knew what
was going on, obviously with each other. We talk one
hundred times a day. But when I said, I think
I have to be done and in her own life
(12:00):
and in her own world with her own young son.
She said, I do too. I can't. I would never
wish for someone else to be heartbroken, but to have
my best friend in the world having her version of
the same experience, and both of us saying we got
(12:21):
to like, we got to put it down and we
got to try to make a new way in the
in the most profound way. I knew I wasn't crazy.
I knew I wasn't doing something rash. I knew I'd
literally exhausted every option, I'd gone to, every therapy, I'd
done every bit of the homework, and I had to
(12:42):
just say it's okay to change your mind, it's okay
to learn something, and based on that learning, make a
new decision for your future. And so everybody wanted to
make it about, you know, the next person in my life,
because the next person in my life was a woman.
(13:03):
Plenty of people were shocked. It wasn't nea by the
way I was like, I was like, she is my wife,
just not like that. But you know what, I think
what people didn't understand was that the journey started again
in a community of women, and there were two of
us and then there was a best friend from college,
and then there was a woman I would eventually fall
(13:24):
in love with. And then there was another friend, you know,
dealing with will I stay or will I go because
of addiction in her family with her husband, and the
community of women who who didn't go really bad timing.
You know, you just had this whole big thing. They
didn't lean out and critique. They leaned in and said
it's okay. Those women helped me take off forty years
(13:49):
of expectation and people pleasing and just trying to do
it right because it hadn't felt right ever, no matter
how hard I tried. And it was yes about stepping
into that portion of my identity in a way, but
what it really was in totality was a was a
homecoming and a learning to honor myself. And I learned
(14:13):
how to honor myself watching the strongest woman that I
know and a group of the most impressive women we
love honor themselves. I had the courage of that conviction
because of what I was being shown in both love
and example by the women in my.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
Life coming up.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Simon senek Urifolio and mel Robbins on how to show
up for others and for yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
Let's say maybe everyone has capacity to be resilient, maybe
they don't always know that, But can you have.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Resilience without connection?
Speaker 7 (15:01):
I don't think so. I Look, we're social animals, and
we know that solitary confinement is a form of torture.
And whether it's imposed by you know, a political system
or a penal system, or it's self imposed. When we
hide from truth and we keep secrets about our feelings,
(15:23):
we're putting ourselves in prisons. We're self imposing solitary confinement.
And we know what happens when you put someone in
solitary confinement. They'll go crazy and they will self destruct.
And I think the only way to get through anything
hard is with others. And it goes right back to
where we started, which is do we have the skills?
And I think most people don't even know how to
(15:45):
help a friend when they're in need. You know, if
somebody calls you and say, if somebody has the courage
to say I'm struggling, most of us go into fix
it mode, and that is incorrect. People are pretty smart,
even in pain. They know when they want to be
fixed and when they want your advice and they know
when they just need you to sit in the mud
with them. And most of us are more comfortable trying
(16:08):
to fix things because we're rational, we're not the ones depressed.
This is how we would solve the problem in our
state of mind now, But that's not the state of
the mind of our friend. And most of us do
not have the skill set to just get in the
mud with somebody. Like if your friend's depressed, do you
try and give them advice how they can get out
of their depression, or do you'd go to their house,
get in their bed and eat ice cream with them
(16:29):
all day with them and just be depressed with them.
Getting in the mud with someone is not fun. That's
why we don't do it. It is not enjoyable. But
you do it. And again when most of us are
pretty attuned, where if you sit in mud with someone
and just hold space and allow them to be depressed
or sad or angry or whatever feeling they're having, at
(16:50):
some point they're going to look at you and go,
I think I'm ready now, and then you can try
and pull them out and offer them the advice. I
remember I called a friend I was in a bad place,
and I called her and I said, can I just
talk to him in a bad place? And I started
talking and she went in to fix it mode, and
I remember feeling worse, feeling angry, you know, because I
(17:10):
wasn't feeling heard. And again I literally said, can you
stop trying to fix me and just shut up and listen.
That's all I need from you right now is just
let me get it out of like. I don't want
you to fix me. Just let me tell you and
just listen. That's all I need, and so you can
even change it. And she goes, I hear you, I
hear I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and then she started listening
and I felt better. And so I think we need
(17:33):
to learn those skills. We need to learn those skills.
But I do not believe that you can do these
things by yourself. It's this thing called life is just
too difficult for any one of us to do it
by ourselves. Not a single one of us has the strength,
or the courage, or the wherewithal all the perspective to
do this thing called life alone. Life is a team sport.
(17:57):
This is why we organically and naturally make friends and
want friends. This is why when we don't have friends,
we feel lonely. This is why we envy people with relationships.
It's because those things all contribute to this thing called life. Look, remember,
suicide is an active it's an active loneliness. That's what
it is.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
You know.
Speaker 7 (18:17):
It's a it's a it's a it's a it's an
attempt to take control of a situation that feels bad.
Nobody nobody dies by suicide because they're hungry. They day
by suicide because they're lonely.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
One of the things that I have to be vulnerable
and transparent that I'm working on, and I see it
more with with parenting, with friends sometimes or even with
my husband, is is because I love so big you,
(18:54):
I want to go into fix it.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
You know.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
So if my daughter comes home and she's having a
she's had or just really bad day, and I want
to say, hey, Okay, if you do ten things of
gratitude right now or go jump on the rebounder, you
can change the state. And and it's not too but
one thing I've and this has been my mantra is okay,
Andrea lecture or love that's good, Yolanda, you know it's okay.
(19:18):
Or to let her know it's okay, or to let
Martin know it's okay, and just to to listen and
you know, just say, you know, just give them that
that love. And I'm so I'm constantly now playing in
my mind lecture a love, lecture a love and and
then there are times though, there are times when they
they that it's appropriate to give it. When I say lecture,
(19:41):
well my husband would say it's a lecture, but yeah,
it's like yeah, but it is like okay, you know.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
You know, now imagine, right, is this thing on?
Speaker 6 (19:53):
So so that's that's one thing that I'm that I'm
working so particularly with a teenager and and with a husband.
We work together and with so many people that I love. Particularly,
I think there's so many maybe of our listeners, certainly
the people that are you know, not purchasing your books
and listening to Simon that you know, they are like
the let's get it, let's get it, let's get it done.
Let's you know, so you know, maybe that's something that
(20:16):
we all can that will be helpful to them as well,
like okay, is this time for lecture or love?
Speaker 7 (20:21):
It's true And sometimes sometimes you don't have to guess.
Sometimes you can ask. Somebody tells you how they feel,
and you can say, do you want me to lecture?
Do you want me to love? Do you want me
to try and fix it? Do you want me to
just sit here and listen? And people will say I
just need to listen and say, oh, actually, you know what,
I want to know your opinion. So the irony is
you don't even have to guess, yeah, you can actually
ask and people know. The funny thing about all of
(20:43):
this is this is what we're trained to do. This
is what parents are trained to do for children. You know,
we're trained we learn to affirm the feelings of our kids.
You know, they come home angry or if something happens
or somebody takes their candy and they say, I'm angry,
and you're not suppose to say, oh, don't be angry,
you shouldn't be angry. Were supposed to say, boy, yeah, pooh,
(21:05):
that must really hurt. And this is what we're supposed
to do with kids. Like any parent who's that read
a couple books you know about parenting.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
Knows this well.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
We're supposed to do the same thing with adults too,
Like it hasn't changed because we get older, we still
want our feelings affirmed. And it's really funny how what
we know how to do for kids we stopped doing
for adults.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
Well, sign of the next time you call me lecture alone.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
If you're looking for stories that move you, insights that
shift you, in conversations that stay deeply within you, do
us a favor, and do yourself a favor and hit
the subscribe button right now. It's the best way to
support this podcast and support your journey. New episodes drop
every week.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
Rio wanted to ask you. You've taught the world so
many amazing things. You've taught me so many amazing things,
and I want you to share with us what are
the coolest things that you've taught me that I love,
and just explain this to our viewers in the way
that you do, because you're such a great storyteller, which
is observe, don't absorb.
Speaker 8 (22:12):
Yeah, I think, first of all, this is really really helpful,
especially for those of us who are empaths, those of
us who are really also sensitive to energy, those of
us who tend to also have people in our lives that,
let's say, have different kind of energy that is not
necessarily a good chemistry match for you. So the notion
of observing and not absorbing. And I'll just say this,
(22:36):
you know, for especially what my life has been like
these past couple years. You know, family, we love them,
and then sometimes same thing like Josh and I you
need to shake each other.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Because you're like God, gotta get away.
Speaker 8 (22:48):
Same thing can happen in our work environments and with
our friendships. So I think observing someone it's like observing
what they're going through, having ultimate compassion for what they're experiencing,
being in terms of listening, mirroring what they're going through
without absorbing it into your own energetic field, taking it on,
(23:10):
becoming responsible for fixing it, for figuring it out, or
thinking that you are necessarily the cause of this other
person's distress or upset or stress, even if they tell
you that you are. So you know, I have been
through this most recently and again my mom, God bless her.
(23:31):
She's still with us. She's struggling a lot right now.
And you know, she's said some things in the past
little stretch of time that were extremely hurtful and some
might say cruel. I've shared some things with Christians. She
was like, WHOA, that's a lot. And so it comes
back to this notion of me going like and I
can observe her in her pain. I can observe her
(23:53):
what she's experiencing, which is a lot of terror and
a lot of fear and a lot of loss of control.
And I can empathize with the notion of what she's
experiencing and how those lash outs might be directed at
me if I'm in her presence. But I don't have
to absorb it and take it on. I don't need
to be a sponge and I don't need to as
(24:14):
painful as this is. As the daughter of the woman
who taught me that everything is figure outable, I don't
have to figure it out for her, nor is that
my role. I can trust at a very deep level
that there is for me, and this is my own
belief system. There is a higher power watching over her.
She is on her own soulful and spiritual journey, and
(24:37):
the greatest gift I can give both her and myself
is to show up. And Chris taught me this one
only love in the room, meaning bringing only love in
the room. Can I observe her and not absorb that negativity?
Can I observe her and not absorb her pain and
her fear as my own.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Mail your new book that Let Them Theory. It encourages
people to just let control go over other people's choices.
And the part that I love is that you said
it helped to heal and fortify your relationship with your daughter.
Can you share both the theory and how it brought
you closer together?
Speaker 9 (25:15):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
So.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
Let Them theory is a simple mindset tool that helps
you identify literally in a moment, what's in your control
and what's not in your control, and the way that
you use it is very simple. If you're in a
situation and some other person is stressing you out or
upsetting you or offending you, or you're worried about them,
or they're treating you poorly, you literally say let them
(25:38):
because the number one thing in life that you will never, ever, ever,
ever be able to control is another human being. You
can't control what they think, you can't control what they do,
You cannot control how they feel, period And any psychologist
will tell you that any time that you spend trying
to only makes you feel more stressed, out, frustrated, and
out of control. And the problem for all of us,
(26:02):
and I didn't learn as so as fifty four years old.
If I had known this way back when, I would
literally not have been a walking red flag for most
of my life. I would not have taken my stress
out of my family. I would have been more peaceful
and more powerful because I had no idea how much
power I'd given to other people, and neither nobody does
(26:26):
because we don't understand how we're turning other people into
the problem. And I've got very important and exciting information.
It says, if you feel tired in life, if you
are frustrated, if you're stuck, if you're stressed out, if
you feel like you never have time for yourself, if
you're just not as happy as you'd like to be,
(26:47):
the problem isn't you. The problem is you're unknowingly giving
power to other people, and you do it in four ways.
You allow them to stress you out, you worry about
and you manage what they're thinking. You navigate your life
based on their moods and their opinions and their disappointment
and their guilt and their expectations. And you paralyze yourself
(27:08):
because you're chronically comparing yourself to them and telling yourself
that if they're successful or they're this, then I can't
have it. And it's simply not true. And what the
let them theory does is that any situation that you're
in and you're going to use it with your family
more than anybody, because I think family teaches you how
to love people you hate sometimes, right, you gotta let
(27:29):
them because you're not going to change them. And what
you will learn as you start to use this is
people only change when they feel like changing. People only
change when they're ready to change. People only change when
they're ready to do the hard work to change. And
the other piece that you have to embrace is that
(27:51):
we think worrying about or pressuring or judging or pushing
people to change motivates people to change. It's actually the opposite.
If you look at the wiring of a human being,
everybody has a fundamental need for control. When you're in
control of what you're thinking about in your decisions and
your future and the environment that you're in, you actually
(28:11):
feel safe. And the problem is if Martin's doing something
that is worrying me, now, his behavior is something I
want to control. But Martin has the same need to
control his life as I do. So when I start
to push on Martin or suggests that Martin should do
this or should do that, what does Martin do? Martin
(28:32):
pushes back because he needs to be in control. And
I didn't realize that I was creating so much unnecessary
friction and frustration and distance with people in my life.
I didn't realize how much time and energy I was losing,
because you know, let's just take a simple example. You're
(28:52):
at the grocery store and there's five people in front
of you, and there's one cashire. We've all been there, yes,
And immediately the stress rises up inside you. And then
all of a sudden, you get agitated, and then you
start thinking why are they not calling it? And then
(29:13):
you're looking around, and then you start thinking you can
run the store better than anybody, right, And now let's
just stop and actually really look at what this is.
This is you giving power to something that you do
not control. And when you do that, a number of
things happen. Number one did you notice is the stress
goes up, your life force energy goes out. So you
(29:38):
are allowing stupid, meaningless all kinds of irritating people that
are beneath you and not worth your time and energy.
You are allowing it to exhaust you and you don't
have to. And the solution is just to say let them,
and immediately you feel peace because what you're doing is
(29:59):
you're tapping into a tremendous like I feel like I've
got everybody's ancestors with me. Because this is an application
of stoicism, of Buddhism, of radical acceptance, of detachment, theory
of literally not reacting and staying in your piece, and
(30:21):
then something interesting happens. You say the second part, which
is let me, let me remind myself that in any situation,
I have power because there are three things I can control.
I can control what I think about. Next, I can
control what I do or I don't do. Because you
can leave the supermarket. You could if you never have
(30:41):
time to talk to your friend, you could pick up
the phone and call your friend or your grandma. You
could practice meditation, you could say a prayer. If you say,
let me and remind yourself that you have power, right,
and so that's what it is.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
And also you said you know all of these different ancestors.
You're bringing in the ancestor of Martin Luther King Junior
in the whole civil rights movement. Yes, because I think
what people also forget is that when you're talking about
the lunch counters, you're talking about the freedom writers.
Speaker 9 (31:12):
Yes they trained, Yes.
Speaker 6 (31:16):
You know, they didn't just go and you know, and
so and Nona was and it was a lot of
what exactly that you're talking about and let them, Like
this is like they're going to do this. Yes, I
you know, I choose, I choose how then I will
respond to that. And what I also think is important
(31:36):
is that you have to it is training.
Speaker 9 (31:38):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
You know, you have to think about it and you have.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
To Yes, it is disciplined. And here's the other thing
it is because a lot of people hear this and
then they'll say, wait, you're just allowing people to walk
all over you. You're allowing people to abuse you. And
I'm like, oh no, it's the opposite, because you're actually
allowing it. Now when you say let them, it's almost
like you're allowing it without allowing it, because you're saying,
(32:03):
I see the reality here, and I see that I
can't control this, and so I choose my response because
I know I do have power, And oftentimes the best
response is no, response. The best response is peace. And
we give too much energy and too much fear into
(32:24):
things we can't control, and in doing so, we blind
ourselves to the fact that you always have control. And
whether you're talking about a family dynamic, or you're talking
about a community, or you're talking about a world at large. See,
I find it just so sad and fascinating that we
always let the most challenging and toxic behavior seem to
(32:45):
get all the power. But I actually think the opposite
is true. I believe that the person that is peaceful,
I believe that the person that understands their power. I
believe the person who actually constantly reminds me themselves, wait
a minute, I have power here because I have power
over my thoughts, I have power over my actions. I
(33:06):
have power over how I allow my emotions to rise
and fall. And it's inside that power that any single
person can change something for the better.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
And you know that's what because you're responding and not reacting. Yes,
and responding is when you come from a place of power.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Yes.
Speaker 9 (33:26):
And it's also how you take personal responsibility. Let's talk
about responsibility, because the word responsibility is just the ability
to respond, and everybody has that and so when you
really remind yourself of that, now you can be the
(33:47):
person that changes everything. Because it just takes one person
to change the energy and dynamic in a family. It
takes one person who cares enough to change the politics
in a country. It takes one person to just shift everything.
And if you don't like where you're at, or you
(34:07):
don't like where your family's at, or you don't like
something in a relationship, or you don't like something in
the world at large, that one person is you. And
as long as you give your time and energy, and
you give other people power, their opinions, all of it,
none of what you can control. You are not present
to the power you actually have and the time and
(34:28):
the energy that you need to create the change that
you're capable of changing.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy Movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, This podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(34:56):
A Legacy Plus studio production distributed by iHeartMedia. Creator and
executive producer Suzanne Hayward, Come executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
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