Cynthia Erivo: ‘I Was Working To Prove That I Was Worth Loving’ (How to Finally Let Go of the Need For Approval & Build Real Self-Worth)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I can tell when I walk into a room when
someone wants me there or not. Terrible tendency is almost
shut down immediately.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
They Grammy Emmy Antonia Award winning actor and singer you
Know from the Color of Purple Area and Wicked.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oscar nominated Incredible Actor Singer, author.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
And producer Cynthia Arivo. What is the right type of
validation to crave?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
All of it is healthy and all of it is unhealthy,
so it's lovely to hear it. But if you don't
feel that way about yourself, none of the comments, none
of the making someone finally fall in love with you matters.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
You always felt ready didn't fit in.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I had to come to terms with the fact that
I don't think I'm ever going to fit in, and
why would I want to.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
We don't want to let people down, we won't be
able to be happy. We don't want to break someone's art.
But the reality is that is how the way things go.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
I feel like a villain for doing it, for hurting someone.
And this may be a hard thing to say, but
sometimes hurting someone actually aids the growth of another person.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Have you ever been heartbroken? The Number one health and
Wellness podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Jay Seddi j Sheeddyjet.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
choose to become happier, healthier, and more healed. I'm so
grateful today because I get to invite back onto the
podcast one of your favorites, one of my dearest friends,
someone that I have so much love and respect for,
and someone who is truly transforming the world through her

(01:31):
energy and her presence. She's a Tony Emmy and Grammy
Award winning actress, singer, and songwriter known for her powerhouse
performances on stage and screen. She first captivated audiences with
her Tony winning portrayal of Selly in The Color Purple
on Broadway. Cynthia starred in Harriet, earning Academy Award nominations

(01:53):
for both her performance and original song, and Cynthia took
on the iconic role of Alpheber in the film Out
of of Wicked, earning another Academy Award nomination for her
powerful performance. Beyond acting, Cynthia continues to make waves in
music with her sophomore album, I Forgive You, set for

(02:13):
release this summer. I've had the opportunity to hear it.
It is divine, it is transcendent and it is truly powerful.
Join us as we discuss Cynthia's insights on creativity, resilience,
and using her voice to inspire change. Please welcome to
On Purpose. Cynthia Arriva. Hello, Oh my gosh, you just

(02:37):
you are magic. You know that, right, And I want
to go back. And I was sharing this because it's
so important for the audience to know. I interviewed you.
I had a audio show in the pandemic called Safe Space,
and I got the opportunity to interview over audio. We'd
never met before. I don't think i'd even seen you

(02:57):
at an event, and I just heard your voice and
I was captivated, and i'd seen your work. I knew
of you, but I didn't really know you. And I
remember coming away from that audio interview, which is very
different to a visual interview, and I remember just thinking,
you're one of the most unique artists in the world.
You're truly one of the most unique humans in the world.

(03:18):
And what's beautiful is we've been able to go on
to have dinner together and hang out. You've been on
the show before. Your episode was just people loved it,
Like those clips are still going viral everywhere and I'm
just really honored to get to know you beyond this
incredible life and world that you've created and say you
were as magnificent and more in person. So thank you

(03:40):
for coming back on my pleasure. My favorite thing is
having guests back on So thanks you nice.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
I was excited to be able to come back and
just spend a little bit more time with you.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Know, I love it. I want to start with just
you were literally just walking me through your schedule, yes,
And I want to start with just how your life
has been a whirlwind. First of all, you shot two movies, yes,
not one, Yeah, and you were traveling the world. Obviously,
we all saw the Press Store, which was absolutely insane
and amazing and crazy. You were performing at the Oscars,

(04:10):
like you know, it's just unbelievable. And then I was
asking you, like, have you even had the moment to
take a break.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Not really, But I've been trying to make sure that
I put some time in to just sort of breathe.
I went from the Oscars. The day after the Oscars,
I went to South Africa and I was shooting the movie.
I haven't completed the movie yet, but I'm going to
go back and finish, but I had finished that set
of it and then he went to London. But within

(04:38):
that time, whilst I was in South Africa, I was
lucky enough to have like just a couple of days
where I didn't need to be on set, and so
I would literally use those days to rest. And I
don't mean going to do things and using them for
my own like literally staying in bed and resting, because
I hadn't done that for a really long time, and
I realized that my my body and my brain and

(05:02):
my heart really needed it. So I sort of fed
myself like that, just stopped for a second what I'm
trying to do, because I know it is going to
ramp up again and get crazy again, even before the
next movie comes out, and with this album and all
of the things that are happening this year alone, before
the end of the year, I know it's going to

(05:23):
get insane. So I think I'm trying to be conscious
about how much rest I put in and how I
put my schedule. So there are times where I just
this day is going to be for ust. Actually we
don't need to do that there, so let's move it
to this day so that there's a consecutive amount of
time to sleep, time to just be because I think
it's important and I think it makes me a healthier person.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
What do you do to keep yourself so healthy and
fit and alert? Because your work so demanding, not just
the travel, but we saw your performance, we saw the
behind the scenes, we saw the audition tape. It's so physically,
mentally and emotionally challenging. Yeah, now what are you doing
on top of everything you just said that to really stay?

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I'm really picky about how I feed myself. So it's
I take my vitamins every day. And that sounds very,
very pedantic, and it sounds like almost like a kid,
But I do take vitamins every single day. I make
sure I'm eating in the right way when I fly,
and this is not Please all airlines do not blame
me if people stop eating food.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Please.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
I want you to eat if you need to, But
I don't eat on planes. I bring my food with
me because I really need to know what I'm putting
in my body. And usually when I land, I go
straight to something. I don't usually get the chance to
sort of stop and reset. I have to go from
one thing to another almost immediately. I drink tea. I
do not drink alcohol ever, and that's just because that's

(06:46):
how my body works. I'm a vegan. I don't really
eat meat because I can't process it. I've learnt that
over the years, and so it has taken time to
get to this place to where I know what is
right for me, and I have good people around me
who will listen to me when I say, actually, I
think it's a good time to not do this today.
It's about really being practical about how you take care

(07:07):
of yourself and what you put in your body and
when you get rest. And I'm not always the best
when it comes to rest. I have to focus when
it comes to that. I actually have to concentrate on
making sure I put rest in.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
But I try. Yeah, that's what I was going to
ask you. Are you good at slowing down?

Speaker 1 (07:24):
No, I'm terrible. I'm really bad at slowing down. But
I'm good when I am slow, you know what I mean.
You know, sometimes people get really antsy about not going
somewhere when they are still. I'm good at being still
when I need to be still, you know. So once
I get the chance to be still, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah,
But that's also taken time. You know, I haven't always

(07:45):
been good at being in one place and okay with
not going anywhere, But now I'm really good at it
because I know how valuable it is for me.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, what got you there? Because you're so right? I
think a lot of us everyone will say it takes
me three days to even and switch off. Yeah, and
by the time you switch off, you're like, your vacation's
over and now you're going back to work. What was
it that helped you get to that space of how
you just so beautifully said you know what, I actually
now after some work, actually feel like I can be

(08:14):
still and I can be present. Was that that got
you there?

Speaker 1 (08:17):
I felt like I was missing things. I think even
in this last sort of year or two, I had
to figure out how to be really really present in
what was going on and what's happening. And also, whilst
we was shooting, I was wearing this album, so it
meant that lots of thought was happening, lots of looking
back on things and remembering. And you can't really do

(08:39):
that if you aren't still. Sometimes when you're sat in
a studio and you have to write, you can't go anywhere,
and so learning that practice and doing that has really
sort of shone a light on the ways in which
I wasn't good at being still at times, and how
I was missing certain things, not really being present in
the moment and enjoying what's going on enough. Doing all

(09:01):
of those carpets and things made me forced me to
sort of be present and be with whoever I was
talking to it at that moment. So I think what
I wanted to do is lean into what that felt
like for elongated periods of time, And for me right now,
an elongated period of time could be anything from like
one day to three days. Like that's an elongated perial

(09:21):
of time for me. But it means that when I
do get those opportunities, I can actually be there and
be okay with doing nothing, because sometimes doing nothing is
doing enough.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
What you're saying so true that I feel like, if
you are where your feet are, yeah, then you'll always
be where your feet are. So if you're on the
red carpet and that's where you are there, then when
you're off, that's where you are. And I think a
lot of us and I've struggled with this in the
past and got so much better with it. But when
we're at work, we're thinking about the vacation, right, and

(09:55):
therefore when we're on the vacation with thinking about work,
because that inattention bleeds and you can't say I want
to be attentive on vacation and I want to be
inattentive at work, because they both feed into each other.
And I love hearing about the athlete in you though,
like even when you were talking about food and water,
and you are an athlete and so all of us

(10:16):
that demand a lot from our body. And I had
this really interesting thing that happened to me this week
where I did not go to South Africa or London,
but I did my mini version of what you do.
But this week I went to I was in Palm Springs, Vegas, Boston,
and New York four days for work events. I was
only in a city for hours. Yeah, and that's normal

(10:38):
for me too, And so I was moving and I
got back at like one am, or I got into
bed at one am on Monday morning, and I got
up at eight to work. Well, I got up a
bit earlier and then at eight I was working out
and it was this really amazing feeling I had. I
got in the gym, and I felt amazing after doing it,
and I was like, oh wow, like all of this
stuff works. Like the victimins, they were really like it

(10:59):
all like people do it for a reason.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Pattern as well. So once you get your body into
it's almost like ritual. Your body needs a particular kind
of ritual to keep it going. Doesn't matter where you
are in the world or what you do in the like,
as long as there are certain things that don't change,
your body will thank you for it. You know, it
doesn't matter where I am in the world. I will
always have my betterments, like I have like packets, I

(11:23):
take a round with me right, and I always have
my tea, so bring tea with me wherever I go.
It's the same tea, so I'm never sort of thinking,
oh I have to have this or that's the tea
that I have. I like ruffles chips, so I'll always
take ruffles chips with me wherever I go. That's my
sort of like guilty pleasure. I'm going to have that.
But it means that, oh, there's a particular protein bar,
so I'm not searching for something else that doesn't aid

(11:47):
me actually helps me. I will always know where the
gym is, so I can actually go and do my
long walk or my long run that way. There are
things that are already set in place that don't take
up much room, but they do serve a really great purpose.
It means that I can show up and be ready
wherever I am, and when I get back home, I
can always slot back in. And like, honestly, the jet

(12:09):
lag should be crazy, but it is not. I work
up this morning at like seven. I have like a
little one person infrared sauna, but I also take I
bought an inference on a blanket, which I take with
me wherever I go, because it means that I can
also heal from the inside out. And the wonderful thing
about that is that you can get if I can't run,

(12:30):
then I'll get in this storm, or I'll do both.
But those things don't change. And so if you can
keep healthy habits that keep you moving and working and
your system is still alive and alert, then those things
should stay. I think sometimes we underestimate what it is
to form good habits. Those things really help and they've

(12:52):
really helped me a lot.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, and they take a long time to form. Yeah. Well,
once you have them, then you like realize the value
of that. And then you're like, I don't even want
to miss them, that's right, even if I don't love
doing them more, even if they're hard. Yeah, You're like,
I know I'll feel better after it. Yeah, I love that.
I heard someone you said that you've always been an overachiever. Yeah,
And I was trying to understand, like, what's the difference
between achieving and overachieving?

Speaker 1 (13:17):
So I can, okay, make a song good, do an
album good? The standard album is usually maybe ten to
thirteen songs. My album has twenty songs.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
You can spend six months doing something, I'll probably spend
a year doing it. Someone says, write a book, and
you get someone to help you write the book, I'll go, Actually,
I would really like to write this myself. And this
is not necessarily the healthiest I preface it with that.
For me, I think I'm always constantly pushing to do
what's the one thing further from the norm, Like, you've

(13:52):
done something really amazing, But how can I be more
than amazing? How can I push more? How can I
do more? How much can I exert myself more to
get more out of the thing that I'm doing that
for me is overachieving and that isn't always a healthy
way to think. But for me, I think it's become
a habit and so I've had to find healthy ways

(14:16):
of doing that. So like, if I am going to
do twenty songs, how am I going to make it
easy for myself after that to let go of it
for a second and take a break. Or if I
am going to run three for three hours? Am I
going to feed myself to replenish myself the way I

(14:37):
need to after running those three hours? It's the balance
has to be addressed when you're doing something like that.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
No, that makes a lot of sense. Where does that
drive come from? Where's that ambition come from? Have you
always had it since day one?

Speaker 1 (14:49):
I think I have always had it. I think it's
first came from my mom, because I think she has
that sort of drive and want to achieve. I'm raised
by a single mom and she really I'm not entirely
sure how she managed to do all the things she
was able to do. This is you know, a woman
who emigrated from Nigeria, which is in her twenties, got

(15:12):
her degree in nursing, went from nursing to being a
health visitor, which is a big massive jump. Owns her
own home, had her own car. But we're not middle
class by any means, working class people who didn't have
very much. But my mum was always pushing to make
sure that she could have and that we could have.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
So I think.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
I watched and witnessed her do that on her own,
and so picked that those habits, those traits up and
then I think in my teenagehood, after experiencing some traumatic things,
that sort of also became a driving force too, which
is not necessarily the best thing because it can't sustain,

(15:51):
but it's sort of like I'll show everybody that I
can do this, and that sort of drove a lot
of it, and then it didn't sustain. Then I was like, actually,
I really want to do this for myself, and I
love what I'm doing, and if I'm going to do something,
I want to do it to the very best of
my abilities. It stopped being about what I saw my
mom do, which was wonderful, and stopped being about proving

(16:14):
to people and is now about like sort of like
eking out the maximum amount of joy from something by
doing the most I can do with it, you know,
by learning all of the details that I can about
whatever it is I'm doing. How do I connect the most?
And in connecting the most, it makes me be the

(16:37):
best I can be, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I want to talk
about all those transitions because they're so beautiful. And I
literally was having this conversation with a friend the other
day about my mom.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
And so my dad was less present. It's not that
he wasn't there, but he was less present when I
was growing up. Ye. And so my mom was the
breadwrenner of the house.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
She made us breakfast in the morning, dropped us to school,
me and my sister, made us a packed lunch, went
to work, picked us up from school, came home, made
us dinner, went out again to work, and came home.
And I still have no idea. I have no idea
how she did it. And we always had a fresh
dinner every day, a fresh lunch every day, of fresh breakfast,

(17:19):
never had to eat leftover. She always believed that her
home cooked meal was so important. And I look at
my mom now and I just think, like, how did
you do it? And I completely agree with you. My
work ethic, I think comes from watching my mom, So
I can relate to that where it's like I saw
my mom after doing all of that, working in the evening, yeah,
because she had to, And I saw her like turning

(17:39):
up when it was really really hard. And it's amazing
how that rubs off on you, yeah, and how you
mirror what you see at home. And again, like you said,
it's not that it was the healthiest. She had to
do it for survival.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
It was a choice choice.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, And so we are lucky that we have the
ability to slow down or have more resources or whatever
it may be. But it is amazing how much our
parents work ethic like.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
It becomes part of the DNA without even realizing that
it's part of your DNA anymore.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
You know, what were some of those if you're comfortable showing,
what were some of those teenage traumas that you went.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Oh, oh, no, I've spoken about it, honestly. When I
was sixteen, my dad and I went through a royal separation.
He no longer wanted to be a part of my life,
and that was like a big turning point for me
because I had to figure out what that meant. And
for a long time, that sort of fueled the way
I would work, because you end up working to prove

(18:36):
to someone that you're worthy of being loved or worthy
of being looked after or wanted. And that's that was
like a big moment for me in general, and I
think that it's sort of like a formative years. I
think I was sixteen when it happened, so it really
was a turning point and a seminal moment in my
growth that it happened in and it took time to

(19:00):
get over the hill or over the hump of that
and forgive and let go and be able to do
things not for that purpose, but for me. I had
to sort of really do some thinking and working to
shift that habit. But I'm very glad idea because it
was doesn't sustain you. It can only last for so long,

(19:21):
and it means that the work you're doing not on purpose,
but it comes from the wrong place and for a
while it worked, but then it didn't. And when when
it doesn't, you have to figure out how to make
it work from something else. And it feels a lot
better to not be working from that place anymore.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
There's a really beautiful system in Eastern philosophy that talks
about how you can do anything from three different modes.
So you have the mode of ignorance, which means you're
doing things out of fear and insecurity, so you're doing
something because you're scared. You're doing something because it's not survival.
It's even like more negatively motivated than YEA. Then the

(20:03):
second is the mode of passion, which is what you're saying,
which is like, I'm going to prove someone wrong. I'm
going to do it for a result. I want to
do it because I want to show people. I want
to do it with that energy. And then finally you
come to love or duty or joy or bliss, and
it's a ladder. And what I love about what you're
saying is you've taken the ladder because I think sometimes

(20:24):
we make ourselves feel bad, like or if I'm doing
something to prove someone wrong, I shouldn't do it. That's
a bad motive. And it's but it's like sometimes that's.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
The only thing that can If that's the only motive,
you know, what else are you supposed to do?

Speaker 2 (20:37):
You have to use it.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
You have to use it, and if you use it
to make good work, then you use it to make
good work. And I think what we want to make
sure of when we're doing that is that at some
point we're okay to allow that to be what it
was and to move on from it, you know, because
if and everyone has their own time, I had it

(20:59):
my time, and some else will be still working from
that mode, and if it's still working for them, it's
still working for them, but at some point they will
come to a realization that I don't know if this
works for me anymore, and it doesn't feel as good anymore.
So when you and it's about noticing what it doesn't
feel the way you want it to feel anymore. And
so what am I now searching for? Am I searching

(21:19):
for joy? Am I searching for bliss? Am I searching
for contentment? And if that's the case, then it has
to come from somewhere else, and so you seek to
work in a different way.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from
our sponsors. Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now
back to the discussion. When you talk about these things,
it feels like you've held your hand through it, Yeah,
which is like a really beautiful visual to have, because
I think what we're good is doing it as humans
is as soon as something doesn't serve us, we're like, oh,

(21:49):
I've been getting it wrong for three years. Now I'm
going to get it right. And it's like, well, no, yeah,
that served you. Yeah, Like, even if it wasn't sustainable,
as you rightly said, it served you and it was
important and it mattered. So I think if what I'm
saying is if someone's listening right now and they're like, Cynthia,
you know what. I've spent the last three years trying
to prove my parents wrong. I've spent the last five

(22:10):
years trying to prove my ex wrong. I've spent the
last seven years trying to prove my teachers wrong at
school or whatever it may be. But I know it's
not sustainable. Like I hear you in that place, how
would you encourage people to hold their hand through that
transition into rising? But not?

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Sometimes I get the question what would you give your advice?
Would you give your younger self? Or what would you
say to your younger self if you could meet her?
Or is there anything There's three different questions. But then
the other question is would you change anything if you
could go back? My answer is always I would never
change anything because I think that every step we take,

(22:49):
even the things that we think are wrong, terms are
the teachers. They're the way we get to where we
get to. You know what I mean? If I was
to change something, I don't know that I would be
sad here in front of you. I think some of
what we might think of missteps were the steps I
was supposed to take. So if you're at home and
you're watching this and you're thinking, oh, I've been doing

(23:10):
this and I know it's not sustainable, but I but
how do I move from that? When you take your time,
it will come. And if that's what's feeding you right now,
if that's the way, if that's the thing that gets
you up out of bed and gets you energized to
move forward, then keep using it. And when you realize, oh,
actually maybe today I'll do it from a place of

(23:33):
I want to cheer someone up. That is as much
of that's love as well. So it's just taking small decision,
changing your mind bit by bit. And don't be so
hard on yourself because you've chosen other things to encourage
yourself to move forward and to do well. If you
haven't hurt anyone by using the pain that you've been

(23:56):
through by using the hurt that you've been through, by
using the rejection that you've exped eperience, by using the
shame that you've experienced, and you've managed to transmute all
of that into energy that makes you create positive work
or think you've done something really good because technically you've
given all of those people all those things energy in
the most positive way. Now you get to find a

(24:19):
way to give yourself positive energy. So I would say
pack yourself on the back for managing to do that,
because it takes a lot of time and energy to
do that and be easy. That change in the way
you move forward will come because you want it to come.

(24:41):
The fact that you even are thinking about trying to
work in a different way means that you're putting the
idea that you can work in a different way into
the universe and telling yourself, we can work in a
different way, and one day you're work in a different way.
Right now, what you're doing isn't hurting anyone. It costs

(25:02):
you more than it costs anyone else. But you're also
serving yourself the way you know how to, and then
you'll find another way to serve yourself and other people.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
It's actually such a beautiful journey to take you when
you kind of you know, and when you're going through
it always feels like the worst because when you're trying
to prove someone wrong, you feel controlled by them, you
feel they still own your journey and you and the
moment you let go, you recognize, oh, no, I'm taking

(25:32):
back my control and that I have ownership. And I
think that's what we're all looking for in life when
you think about as humans. I was having a conversation
this morning with one of my friends, is an incredible like,
you know, one of the greatest therapists on the planet,
and we're just just having a friendly conversation. But we
were saying, I don't think humans even know what they
want anymore. Like we think we want happiness, but do

(25:54):
we really like what we're looking for? Do we want
validation or do we want approval or do we want life? Like?
What do we want? And I think, as we're talking
about right now, I'm thinking about it, what we've really
want is to feel agency, in autonomy, control over our
lives and not feel like we're living for someone else,
and not feel like we're trying to because even if
you're trying to prove someone wrong. You're still living for them, right,

(26:16):
That's right, And I think we want to feel like, no,
I'm living for me.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah. I love the idea that we're sort of trying
to figure out what we want or we want happiness?
Do we want to But actually the idea that we're
simply seeking agency over our lives allows us to own
all of those things. So, yes, we do want happiness,
but maybe it's contentment. But also we want to have
agency over the sadness that we have, so it's not
because of someone else, but we can allow ourselves to

(26:40):
feel something, and then we can decide when we actually
want to damp down that feeling let it go. We
can let that sort of dissipate for ourselves because we
have the agency over it. We have the agency of
what we choose to feel happy over. Or if we
are feeling grief, then it's our grief, not someone else's grief.
You know that, I mean takes time to realize, but

(27:02):
it's that that I think is the ultimate goal for
most of us, to be able to decide no, actually,
this is my life and I'm choosing to feel and
live this way for me first, and then I can
use the energy that I am saving by having agency
of my life for good that will sell other people

(27:24):
as well. That's I think. Once we can be in
true ownership of who we are and what we do
for ourselves, there's more space for everyone else.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Do you think that journey was harder for you because
you've talked about how like you always felt like you
didn't fit in. Oh?

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, I think I had to come to terms with
the fact that I don't think I'm ever going to
fit in and why would I want to. But I
think it was when you're young, it doesn't feel as
good because you really do want to fit You do
want to be a part of something. But I think
that as I've grown and as I've learned, my difference

(28:02):
and the not feeling like I fit in has actually
really helped me become who I want to be. And
I think if I was the same as everybody else,
you wouldn't know me, you know. And I think my
not fitting has forced me to get to know myself
deeply and learn about who I am and what makes

(28:23):
me tick, and to be honest about the things that
sort of like trigger me or don't trigger me, or
the things that make me tick and the things that
bring me joy and the things that like energize me.
I was talking to someone yesterday and I said to them,
I can sometimes tell when I walk into a room
when someone wants me there or not. And my tendency,
a terrible tendency, is almost shut down immediately because I

(28:45):
want to be in a room where someone wants me
to be in the room with them. I want to
be able to share that. And why don't we maybe
shift that and change that And maybe you walk in
with the energy of openness and see if you can
shift the energy. Maybe don't expect the energy when you
walk in. Maybe maybe try and change that energy when
you get there. And I hadn't thought of that before,
and I thought that's something that I, maybe ten years

(29:07):
ago wouldn't have been open to hearing. Because the automatical
is what if they don't want me Here's why don't
they want me here? What's wrong if I done something wrong?
As opposed to maybe they've just had a bad day,
maybe they woke up on the wrong side of the
bed and they just don't have the energy right now.
So maybe you feed the energy into the room and
maybe that might shift things and I think because I've

(29:30):
started to learn and have been in possession of the
knowledge that my difference isn't something that separates but can connect.
Maybe it means that using that difference in places allows
the space to open up a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
You know, I love that. That's such a cool idea. Yeah,
and I couldn't agree with it more. It's so important.
I think we do live in a world right now
that's always like, well, they don't want me there or
they don't like me, and we're was just giving away
our agency because what you just said that statement is
claiming back our agency. Well, yeah, they may not want
me there, but I want to be there, and I'm

(30:09):
going to walk in as if I belong.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, I didn't walk in thinking I don't want them there.
So maybe if if I let them know what I want,
you here I wanted so, well, maybe we can share
that space. You know, there's ways to shift the conversation,
shift the energy wherever you are. And and I think,
as as human beings, sometimes we put it on the
other person to do that when actually, if you're confident

(30:34):
enough about what you bring, you can actually shift and
share yourself.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
I've seen that so many times it's just well, and
I see it when I'm on the road. I see
it through. I was speaking at an event on Sunday
and they had like, what is it like when you're
on set and there's food for everyone?

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Now it was like a sharing table like around it.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, like you said that kind of thing. It was
like all there is for their helpers, the volunteers to speak,
it's like everyone to just take food. And there was
this lady then I mentioned to that I was plant based,
and I was like, could you just walk me through
the options? She did it with so much enthusiasm, like
I asked her just a really basic question. I was nice,
but I wasn't that. I was just like, hey, how
are you. I was like, hey, how's it going? Like

(31:16):
I'm plant based? Could you help me out? And I
was fine, like my energy was okay. Maybe my manager
was a fie. I was neutral. It wasn't positive.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Easy, it is easy.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
And she just responded. She was like a mom like
I feel like she had that motherly energy of like
what do you want? Like this is plant based? Can
I get you a drink? And I and I said
to it. I was with a colleague and I just said.
I was like, that is like the energy of just life,
and it's not her job was not easy. She wasn't
doing something that was physically easy. She wasn't doing something

(31:47):
where it's probably a thankless task, like but she was
so passionate about it. I was, and I said to her,
I was like, I hope you just know, like you
made my day, and it was it's always people like
that that you just kind of bump into. And I
was like, we've got to become better as human and
at noticing it, yes, and telling them that because we
would notice it if they weren't like that. Yes. So

(32:07):
if she had responded to me and be like, oh, yes,
over there.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, you would be right.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
I probably wouldn't. But I know a few years ago.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
It's the thing that you would like, would you take
it with you?

Speaker 2 (32:18):
You know, you take it with you? God? Why are
they so like what's wrong with right? And we all
carry that, But when someone does something amazing, you kind
of take it for granted and you go, oh, yeah,
of course they're just being nice.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
The thing is, I think we'd sometimes say for granted
that that kind of energy is infectious. It is truly, Yeah,
you know, it's the simple sort of act of smiling
at someone on the street, right, that smile will pass on,
It'll go from one person to another person to another person.
You don't know who you're smiling it. And if that person,
if you're smiling at someone who's that a bit of
a rough day and they go, oh, someone's noticed me
and they smiled at me, well you'll remember that person

(32:49):
smiled at me, and then you might smile and that
smile might pass into someone else, and you don't know
who you're smiling at, how far that smile goes. And
what we are not very good at is telling other
people hate. This person smiled at me in the street
and it was really sweet and I don't know who
they were, but it was really lovely. Because that energy
is also infectious. Yeah, what we normally do is that

(33:09):
she like she bumps into me and I don't know why,
but like she or he said that, and it wasn't
really nice that we passed that energy on instead of
the energy that brightens. We are better at sort of
sharing the energy that doesn't and as humans who have
to share a planet, we should probably get better at

(33:32):
sharing what's right, because yes, we we're not always going
to go through great times, but it's the little things
that can move us from a place of darkness to
a place of light.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, I love that you. Have you heard of something
called the frequency illusion. So the frequency illusion is this idea.
It's the idea of like if I'm thinking about buying
a red car everywhere, yeah, or like if I learned
a new were yeah, and now I hear everyone saying
that word or whatever it may be. And so the
frequency illusion is when you start to notice something, you

(34:06):
start to notice it more. And we think that the
world suddenly has more red cars or the world suddenly
is more intellectual because they're using this word. The truth
is the world hasn't changed. You just notice it more
and the brain is wired to do that. And what
you just pointed out is that that it's not about
This isn't positive thinking, and this is not like toxic positivity.

(34:27):
What it is is whatever I notice, I'm going to
notice more of it. So if I only notice when
people frown and people kind of you know, push me aside,
or people don't open the door, I'm going to notice
that more and more and more. But if I notice
the smile on the street, if I notice the nice
gesture from the lunch lady. If I noticed that, then
all of a sudden, that's how I start to see things.

(34:48):
And it's not faking it. It's not like pretending that
the world's all roses and rainbows and all that kind
of stuff. But it's the idea that our brain is
just wired to notice. And whatever you notice, you'll see
more of. About your new album, there's no mask, there's
no veil. It's this true, transparent, you know communication. The
first time I listened to it, because I was lucky

(35:09):
enough to get an early one for this, I had
my eyes closed the whole time and I just sat
and I listened to it in order as it was.
I didn't skip, Yeah, I didn't need to. And it
really was just this. It really felt like a divine experience,
like it was very I like music, and I love music,

(35:29):
but it was very different, and it was different because
it felt familiar to my soul. And that's why when
I was messaging about it last night before you were coming,
I was like, it was divine, it was transcendent because
it was. It just it felt otherworldly in the experience,
but then felt really familiar and human. Yeah, and I've
got so many questions about it, but I want to

(35:50):
let you felt. I felt like there was something you
were going to want to let you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
I think I knew when I was going into it
that I wanted to make something that felt like connective
tissue to who I was. And part of me was
deeply petrified to write this album just because I knew
it was going to be so transparent and really human
in the subjects and just extremely truthful. But I didn't

(36:16):
really know how else to write it, so I just
sort of had to let go and just write. And
I think the other worldliness maybe in the composition of things,
but even that was a really human experience. It wasn't.
I didn't make any vocal arrangements. There were no written
there's no written music. I would do it as I

(36:38):
was going along, and I would know what I wanted,
and then I would sort of start with a vocal pad,
and I would start with a line, and that line
would repeat the line, and we'd create a stack, and
then over that stack, I would just create another line,
and there was no leaving the booth to write what
the next line was. As a line happened, I would

(36:58):
think of another line, and sometimes I would distract myself
because the line was creating itself as I was singing
the line before, and that would go on and go
on and go on until there was nothing left. So
for me, it really was an experience of pouring all
of myself into it every single time. And I would

(37:19):
say to my producer and Will, who's also the engineer
on it and was co writing with me, it was
always it always felt really emotional when I would do
the vocal pads. I always felt deeply connected to the
music because it was the rarest form of vocalizing and
making music that I could think of without any real

(37:43):
structure necessarily. I just knew the emotion that I wanted,
and that's what I would then write over a lot
of these songs just started with a vocal pad and
a melody, that's what would happen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Wow, has that always been your process or was that
a new discuss?

Speaker 1 (38:00):
I think I've always wanted it to be my process,
but I don't think until now I've been brave enough
to do it that way. I've never done it like
this before, and it felt so easy to do. It
felt like a real natural way of exercising the music
that I had in myself.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Here, And what did you want people to feel throughout it?
What was you were telling me earlier about how every song,
even the order and the art were structured. Yeah, what
was the kind of the emotional journey you wanted people
to go on?

Speaker 1 (38:28):
At the beginning, it really is about heartbreak and love
and loss, but it's also in a way about me
breaking someone's heart, or what we put on ourselves as
people in relationship, the responsibility we put on ourselves sometimes
when we're in relationship when doesn't feel right, when it's

(38:49):
not right, and we find it hard to disconnect from
those relationships, and we find it hard to speak about
what we're actually feeling when we're in them. And I
think I wanted people to be okay with admitting when
they're in the wrong space, when it isn't right anymore,
when you have to go, And also that base feeling

(39:11):
of it's your fault as well, you know, because sometimes
we feel a lot of guilt for saying that, but
because our relationships are made of two three However, many
people are in your relationship, but it's never it's not
on one sided. Relationships are made of the people that
are in them, and what happens within those relationships are

(39:32):
made of the people within them, even when you don't
think they are. If you dig deep enough, you'll find
that you both have responsibility in there. And so I
think there was sort of like the assuming of responsibility
and also the willingness to be like, also, your responsibility
is this too. This is how I felt, but also
I understand that I made you feel that way. And

(39:55):
then I wanted people to know that that it's in
that next section there's the discovery of something new, something passionate,
within yourself and with another person, and how human that is,
because sometimes we get very ashamed of talking about passion
and desire, and I wanted to talk about that, and
I think passion and desire aren't necessarily things that people

(40:17):
associate me with, but they are also very human experiences
which I have experienced as someone who's, you know, in
her late thirties. You know, I think it's important for
people to know that that is a part of me.
And that third section is about when your feet touched
the ground. After all, the desire and the passion and

(40:40):
the headiness of what that can be, that when your
feet touched the ground, you fall in love for real
that it isn't just about the other person, but it
really is with you as well, to fall in love
again with who you are. That sometimes within our relationships
we can lose ourselves a bit, but then eventually, if

(41:03):
you want, you can come back to yourself. And that
force section is about forgiveness, which is what this album
is called. It is about forgiving the person that you
were with, the person that you were, and the person
you may have become because of it, forgiving the mistakes

(41:24):
that you might have made because they lead to this place.
And I guess in the grand scheme of things, it
is really about forgiving yourself and allowing the fact that
your human experiences are just that, the experiences we have
as human beings that usher us through our lives. The

(41:46):
things that I've been through have made me really sort
of like look back on how I've dealt with certain situations,
and sometimes I've not necessarily been my best self, But
that doesn't mean that I'm not a good human being.
And I think sometimes we mistake not being our best

(42:07):
selves with being a bad human being, and I think
sometimes we have to say that that's not the same thing,
and that we can forgive ourselves for not being our
best selves because we want to be good human beings.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Even just listening to you explain that, Yeah, I mean,
I had so many thoughts that went through my mind.
I was just thinking about how it's so common for
us to start hating ourselves, being harsh on ourselves when
the situation is so complex, but almost our simple answer
is I'm the problem. It's like, if someone breaks up

(42:40):
with us, we think I'm the problem. I'm the weak one.
It's over. If we choose to end something, we still
blame ourselves. If you're someone who's self reflective enough, you
still blame yourself. And I messed up. I don't deserve love.
Maybe I'll never get it. And I had a message

(43:01):
recently from a friend who is going through a breakup
and they were just like, I'm breaking up because I
don't think this helps me grow anymore. It's not even
like there's anything wrong with it. It's just like it's
not right for them. But they were like, I'm just
feeling guilty, and they're like, I also feel guilty because
obviously the other person feels bad, and I can't even
give them a real answer. To it because there isn't
It's just a feeling. And it is so interesting how

(43:25):
forgiveness is such the topic I'm thinking about our audience
right now. One thing I've been trying to ask people
to help people is have you ever been heartbroken? And
what was the process or what was the one thing
that helped you live through that, because I think so
many of our audience are in that position that they

(43:46):
come to me for that a lot. What was helpful
to you?

Speaker 1 (43:49):
I have definitely been heartbroken in separate occasions, and because
this happened to different parts of my life, I reacted
in different ways. Earlier on, I really needed my friends,
I really needed people around me to just surround me
with love, and for me, music has always been the bomb.

(44:13):
So I would listen and I would sort of like
try to feed myself with the things that would give
me good energy. And for me, that sometimes is like running,
working out and eating good food, speaking to good people,
having good experiences, creating newer memories on my own, and
that really was the thing that would help me with heartbreak,

(44:35):
but also like dealing with the fact that I felt
heartbroken and admitting, oh, I this broke my heart and
then later on it really was about I love a conversation.
I like real closure, so I want to have like
an actual, real conversation. And I've always not necessarily always,

(44:56):
but I've tried to in most of the relationships that
have en did and it's not me ending them. Have
given an opportunity for conversation, like to talk about it,
and I've tried to be as honest and I've asked
the person to be honest about what it is that
has happened, whether or not that's taken not always, and

(45:17):
then sometimes it's taken sort of later on fine, but
it's really I think if you can have your conversation,
have the conversation and try to end it as amicably
as you possibly can, and if you can't, then I
know this sounds really strange, but have the conversation, but
just not with that person, Like what would that conversation

(45:39):
in your head be, How would you have had that conversation,
What would you have said if you had the opportunity
to sit in front of someone say hey, this really
had my feelings and this is this is where I
am with this right now, and I'm really finding it
hard to deal with or my heart's broken, and I
needed to heal and have those conversations, write those feelings down.
The one thing you cannot do is keep a hold

(46:01):
of that and swallow the feeling and never let it out,
because I think it grows, it becomes something else. A
heartbreak that isn't shared, heartbreak that isn't exorcised, I think,
becomes resentment and becomes sour. You know, because outbreaks a
real emotion. It's actually actually, strangely quite a lovely, beautiful

(46:22):
emotion means you're alive. If you have a heart to break,
it means your heart is beating. So it's not a
bad emotion. However, if you harbor it and never let
it go and never share it just like you share love,
just like you share happiness, and you share joy, then
it becomes something else. We don't keep joy to ourselves.

(46:45):
We can't, it's impossible to. It sort of comes out
of us, whether we like it or not. We don't
keep love to ourselves. We want to give out love.
We want to share love, because that only multiplies. If
we keep heartbreak to ourselves, it becomes something else. It mutates, fotastasize,
and it sticks to us. And what that does is

(47:07):
stops us from being able to If you don't mend
your heart, it can't be whole again for something else.
And I'm assuming that anyone who has their heart broken
wants their heart to be whole again so that they
can share their heart with someone else again.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah. Wow, Yeah, I love that. I love that. That
really resonated that idea of how emotions are not meant
to be held on too, and the sad and the
tough ones are the only ones. But we do we
hold on to tightly. And if there was someone who
was feeling like, oh my god, there's only this much
joy in the world, I'm going to hold onto it,
which we do sometimes yea, yeah, we're like, oh no, no,

(47:44):
I'm going to be really scarce about joy. We know
that doesn't work, It disappears, it goes away. And yet
it's so interesting that idea of why we hold on
to the hard emotions and don't hold onto the beautiful ones,
and it limits us. But first, here's a quick word
from the brands that support the show. All right, thank

(48:07):
you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. When
I'm thinking about your album and that idea of what
you just said of recognizing that we can forgive ourselves
for ways in which we want to be better, but
that doesn't make us a bad person. I think you're
so right that as humans, we've got good at making

(48:27):
it this binary black and white choice of I'm either
a good person or I'm a bad person. And actually
I've seen people with good intentions do more bad because
they're trying so hard to be a good person rather
than taking that Like I remember a guy that was
mentoring a while ago. He was saying like, Oh, I

(48:49):
don't want to break up with her because it will
hurt her, And I was like, but you're hurting yourself
and you're hurting her for longer because you don't want
to be seen as a bad person. So you'd rather
be seen as a good guy, hurt her long term
and hurt yourself. And by the way, we all go
through this, you don't to let people down down And
so it's like, how did you reconcile those two things,

(49:12):
because I think it's a very human thing, like we
don't want to let people down now we won't be
able to be happy. We don't want to break someone's heart.
But the reality is that is how the way things go, I.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Think in the long term. So when I had broken
up with someone, when it was my choice to break
up with someone, I saw very clearly that we weren't
growing together anymore and that we weren't right for one
another anymore, and that us being together would actually be
to the detriment of the both of us. If I'm

(49:46):
in something that that I'm miserable in, that I'm not
happy in, then the likelihood is that is going to
grow within the relationship that I'm going to continue to
be miserable, and that person is also going to experience
the most miserable version of myself, and that isn't good
for anyone because I'm not fertile ground for happiness if

(50:09):
I'm doing that, which means it removes the ability for
the other person also to be in a relationship that's happy.
And I would rather remove myself from the situation so
that they can go on and find whoever it is
that they're meant to be with, because we will find
the people that were meant to be with, and maybe
we're meant to be with someone for a season, and

(50:30):
then we move on and find the person that we're
meant to be with full life, or maybe we're meant
to be with several people for a season and that's
what we're meant to do, or we're meant to learn
from the people that were with to become the people
that were supposed to be before we end up in
the relationship were supposed to end up in. And I
just knew that I couldn't continue to pretend to be

(50:53):
something I wasn't within a relationship that wasn't It wasn't
feeding me in the way I needed it to. And
because of that, I knew it wasn't going to be
feeding the other persons so strongly. It's really hard, though
you feel like such a letdown for doing it. You
feel I hate to use this word, but you feel
like a villain for doing it, for hurting someone. But sometimes,

(51:16):
and this may be a hard thing to say, but
sometimes hurting someone actually aids the growth of another person.
When we experience hurt, we are forced to grow again.
It is another human emotion that we have to experience
as we grow because it teaches us about what we are,

(51:36):
how to react or how to soothe, how to use
the hurt to turn into something else. Right, we're all
going to be hurt at some point in our lives.
That is not something that we can prevent. We're all
going to hurt someone in our lives. That's also something
we cannot prevent. We are also always going to we
are all going to be hurt ourselves in general. It's

(51:59):
not going to that's something we can't prevent, and it's
not something we run headlong into. But when it presents itself,
we also have to be brave enough to be the
people that either experience it or serve it, not vindictively,
not because we want to, but because it's sometimes necessary
to begin again.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yeah, I love what you just said there, that sometimes
we hurt people, and sometimes people hurt us, and then
sometimes we hurt ourselves. Yes, and all of that you
can't prevent. That's going to happen in the natural flow
of life, And all we can learn to do is

(52:41):
those people that we hurt, Yeah, try to help in
the best way possible and recognize that. Like I'm thinking
about it as you're talking about it. Whenever I've if
I've broken up with someone, there's no part of me
that was excited about it, were happy about it, felt
good about it. Not only because I believe a good
person and want to be a good person, but because

(53:02):
I don't like causing anyone pain. But it made me.
What it changed in me was it made me more
responsible in the future of how I was with someone
and how I conducted myself and thought about relationship. When
I was a teenager, probably felt too quick, probably like
you know, was all in like, didn't really recognize what

(53:23):
that was. And as I grew up, it was like, no, Okay,
now I understand I need to slow things down. Like
one of the things I say to see so many
people is don't fall in love too fast, because when
you fall in love too fast, that's when love is blind.
That's when you.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Fall you even't learned the person yet, and.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
You haven't really understood, Like you understand there, you understand
what they like, but you don't really know anything about them.
Beyond that, you understand very little information about them. But
it's such a hard process to forgive ourselves for breaking
someone's heart and to forgive ourselves for when someone breaks
our heart, because if someone breaks didn't.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I see, how comes I don't know all of those things,
all of those things sometimes you won't see and also
sometimes there's nothing to do with you. Sometimes it's not you,
it's that the other person needs something else, and that's okay.
And sometimes it might be the other way around. Sometimes
it isn't them, you need something else.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
That's actually it. Yeah, that's it. Like what you just
said there, that is actually what it is. That when
you're breaking up with them, it's actually all to do
with you, and when they broke up with you, it
was all to do with them. And the problem is
in both those situations, we make it all about us.
It's our fault, we messed up, you know, or we
blame it on them as well. Yeah, no, it's fascinating.

(54:40):
There was a couple of lyrics from the album that
I just I had to talk about. So this is
from the song that's already out replay. Yes, and I'm
going to I should let you do this, but I'll
do it anyway to remind you I'm the best overachiever.
There's not anyone like me. And you'd think that was
a good thing till you're told that's not healthy. You
spend every waking hour working hard to write your will,

(55:04):
patiently waiting for validation until you're empty and unfulfilled. So powerful,
I love it. It's even just reading it, it's like
and then getting to hear you singing it. The part
that I was really that really stood out to me
because I think so many people struggle with it today.
Is this waiting for validation? Yeah, there's such a you'll
want to be validating. Yes, I've been thinking about this

(55:24):
a lot. Yeah, what is the right type of validation
to crave and what's the unhealthy validation to crave?

Speaker 1 (55:31):
I don't even know, because I think all of it
is healthy and all of it is unhealthy to be honest,
because the only real validation that matters is what you
feel about yourself on the inside. Once it's once you've
done something, do you know what I'm saying? Like, because
you're never really going to please everybody. Everyone is seeing

(55:52):
you objectively. They are They have their own idea of
who you are and what you've been through and the
type of human being you are, the type experiences you have.
They haven't lived your experience, so all they have is
what you tell them, right, All they have is what
they see of you. And so as wonderful as it
is when people are lovely and they say complimentary things

(56:13):
and they you know, love the music, or there's also
the other side that isn't that and that doesn't and
isn't kind. And so if we don't take them in
equal measure, then we're suggesting that one is more important
than the other. But both come from people who are
experiencing you in the exact same way, right, So why
wouldn't you take the bad and the good inequal measure.

(56:36):
But it doesn't feel good to take the bad inequal
measure as the good, right, so we make this more
important than this. So I honestly think that I spent
a lot of my life trying to do things like
you know, I was talking about my dad and what
that felt like, and I was trying to prove to

(56:58):
him that I was lovable. And you know, in the
beginning of this, I would do my work and I want,
you know, whether it be social media or whether it
would be reviews. And you want the good reviews, and
you want people to say really nice things. You want
people who you've never met to love you. And that
is the driving force behind the work. And in the end,

(57:21):
it doesn't serve you at all. It's wonderful, it's lovely
to hear it, but if you don't feel that way
about yourself. If you don't believe in the work you're doing,
if you don't love the skin that you're in, the
work that comes from you, the things that you get
to say, the people you get to meet. If you
don't love that work, none of the comments, none of

(57:43):
the lovely compliments, none of the making someone finally fall
in love with you matters. What it does is come
to an empty shell. You have to learn how to
fill up yourself because that's what fills you, that's what
feels actually good, that's what actually feels good. Like is

(58:07):
what does this work? How does this work serve you
in your life? Does it serve other people? And I
also think that in doing of work, sometimes we think
that it's only it is about us, But it's a
cyclical thing. I think if you can do the best
you can do in your work, if you can really
pour yourself into the work in the right way that
feels authentic to who you are, then you can actually

(58:29):
serve that work to other people, that you can actually
be of service to other people. And I really I
talk about this when it comes to music and comes
to teaching. When it comes to singing, it's less about
me getting a big applause at the end of a
song that is lovely, But that couldn't matter less than
actually looking at someone's eyes in the audience and knowing

(58:52):
that I've connected with them, knowing that this song means
the world to this person, that this song is an
expression of what they are. Also might be feeling that
my being able to sing something in a way that
connects with someone else that allows them to then process
something that they've also been through. That, to me is
what I love. That for me, is that's the question

(59:14):
you answered that that's actually the best validation. It's not
actually what people say, it's what I can witness someone feeling.
To me, that is the best validation for me, I
don't have to wait for that validation. That's almost instant.
It happens when I speak to someone, when I sing
to someone. A person can't hide how they feel, you know,

(59:34):
even though we think we can, we actually cannot. It
shows up in the small minute movements in our body.
It shows up in our faces, It shows up in
how we express It shows up in how open we
are when we're speaking to a person. More than a
person saying, oh my god, that was amazing, which is lovely.
But actually I'm not necessarily seeking a hundred thank yous

(59:58):
and a hundred you're amazing. I'm not looking for that.
I'm actually looking for how deeply can I connect with people?
How much can I make people feel? Does this mean
that someone is going to go and figure out something
in their relationships with someone? Does this mean that they're
going to finally have a conversation with that person that
they haven't spoken to for years because they've been harboring

(01:00:18):
a feeling that they haven't yet faced. If that is
what comes off my music, my work, teaching, whatever it is,
then that's the validation I want, right. But what that
lyric speaks about is the other sort that you're sort
of waiting for people to say that you're amazing. You're
waiting for people to give you, like all of the

(01:00:41):
outward input that you can take. But eventually it's that
old weird thing where you see one hundred lovely messages
and you see that one message that isn't great, and
everything comes tumbling down because it isn't based on anything,
there's no foundation for it. Right, But if you can
connect with that one person, those ten people, those fifteen

(01:01:02):
people in that audience when their tears are falling and
you can hear it. In There's something really wonderful about
when it's quiet and you hear that one person go.
You go, Okay, that person's connected and they're feeling something
you make people feel. Then then that's the valization we want.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Yeah, might drop Oh yeah that Yeah, I and I
feel that. Yeah, you know, like you, I feel that.
And as I was listening to you, I was thinking,
sometimes when I'm speaking to a large group or leading
a meditation for like maybe sometimes I've been fortunate enough
to lead meditations for like five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand people,

(01:01:43):
maybe even more in one time, and I almost in
my mind when I'm leading it, I'll go back to
when there were just ten people. Yeah, and when I
used to lead meditations for five people in because that's
also what we all want to feel. Yeah, Like we're
all looking for intimacy deeply. That's what we're seeking is intimacy,

(01:02:05):
and we go to these big group gatherings to feel.
And that's what music does for people, is it makes
us feel intimate with the person standing next to us
because we have a shared experience. And I feel intimate
with the person singing it, because I feel a shared experience,
and that's what we're all seeking, is this intimacy in
this mass. We're still looking for this moment where I

(01:02:28):
just caught a glimpse of even someone in the audio.
We both kind of know, we both felt what we
just heard. And it's really interesting to me that we've
confused validation with love. We've confused attention with affection, We've
confused praise with power and purity, and over here we're

(01:02:52):
really seeking intimacy, but we'll trade it for adulation and
adoration everything else that does quite hit this spart. And
as I was listening to you, I love that for
you as your definition, And I think that's what's so important,
is having your definition of what validation matters to you,

(01:03:13):
because otherwise you'll constantly be pulled and pushed all over
the place bye by everything that comes, and you'll run
after it wherever it's delivered. Whereas you're really clear, like
I do love the applause, of course, and so do I.
I'm the same as you. I love it, of course
it is. But like when yesterday when I was flying
home and one of the air stewards came up to
me and was just like, don't stop doing what you're doing.

(01:03:33):
It really makes a difference.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
It's so wonderful because because you know that you have
affected a person, it isn't just face value like you
have I use the word infiltrated their nervous system, right,
You're part of how they now moved through their days.

(01:03:55):
Something about what you said has affected the way they
now behave towards other people and behave in their lives.
And that is really really special, Like that's actually the
core of what we're supposed to be doing as human beings,
not even just in my field or your field, but

(01:04:16):
as human beings, what we want to be able to
do is give a person something that they can take
away with them into their own lives. If we can
do that for me beyond anything.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And I think like whether
you're a musician, yes, whether you're a creator, whether you're
an author, whether you're an entrepreneur making a product. If
you look at your comment section or your reviews, you'll
see people pouring their heart who you've impacted. But the
mind just wants the next million way or the next

(01:04:52):
ten k and revenue or whatever it is that you're
working towards and like you missed the facts.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
A human who took the time to be like you
changed something for me, you know. So I don't know.
I've been thinking about as you were speaking to you, please,
something came up for me when you were talking about intimacy.
There's a concert hall that I performed and I but
it was in the round, and which means that the

(01:05:18):
stage is sort of in the center but still in prostarch,
which means you have a front of the stage and
then it comes back but behind you there are people
seated watching from behind, so they have your head and
your backs for most of it, and then there are
people sitting in front in the round. And I remember,

(01:05:40):
and I will always I would always do this, whether
we like it or not. We want to be seen.
So what I would try to do when I'm in
those theaters is before we really launch into the whole concert,
I would always sing a portion of the music to
the people who would not just get the back of

(01:06:00):
my head, because what that says is I see you
as well, and as a form of intimacy to go, yes,
I see you, but I also know that there are
people who are behind me who are who want to
be a part of this as much as you, And
they're only getting the back of my head and the
back of my shoulders and they're not getting the front
of me, which is you know, our heart is cage.

(01:06:22):
This is the thing I think of. Our heart is
in our in our rib cage and within all of that.
But it's in the front and they get the back.
So you kind of want to make sure that they
get your heart to they get to see the front
of you where your heart is placed, right, it's here,
but this is where we that's where we in our

(01:06:44):
like in imaginations, this is where it is. So you
turn to them and you you're open, so you say, hey,
I see you, and I can see you here and
I know that you're get in the back of my head,
but I'm not going to leave you out. I want
you to be a part of this intimate experience that
we're having together. And I feel like within this music,

(01:07:07):
that's kind of what I want to do. Like we're
in the round, and I think a lot of people
have had the back of my head and a lot
of people have had the back of my shoulders and
the back of me, and I really want for this
album to be like me turning around and going, hey,
I see you, and I want you to see my
heart too as well, because I know that there's a

(01:07:30):
large amount of people who've seen me and my heart,
but there are some people who don't know that part
of me, and they see the pretty dresses and they
see me say nice things and all those things. But
I want them to get in front of me too.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yeah. Yeah, you did that in the album, like it
comes across thank you. It's such an invitation, yeah, into
that intimate space for yourself for them, Yeah, And that's
why I think like people are going to listen to this.
Whether they've just gone through a breakup or a divorce,
they're going to listen to this. If they're just falling
in love, they're going to listen to this. Yeah, they're

(01:08:04):
going to listen to this album. If they're on their
own journey, they're going to listen to this album with
their friends. Like I feel like it's one of those
albums that you're going to experience, not just listen to,
not just have one in the background. And yeah, it's
it's so special. A couple more things I want to
ask you about. There was another lyric from replay as well,
and you were mentioning it just there it was this

(01:08:26):
and it's so powerful and I'm a big fan of
break like reading lyrics.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Like this album is that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Yeah, there's such a because it's such mastery as well,
like for even anyone who loves poetry and writing, and
it's just that you go, daddy, trauma has emasculated all
my common sense. So I'm looking through the lens of
an impending abandonment. All the voices in my head, some
not worth the time you spent. So I searched for
an escape before you notice your mistake. And I mean,

(01:08:56):
I mean it's just beautiful to even read off the
page like it's such a The part that struck out
to me there was the so I'm looking through the
lens of an impending abandonment, and I was like, goes
back to what you were just saying. Now that people
feel that, Yeah, people feel really abandoned by themselves too.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
It's also about feeling abandoned and then taking that into
everything you go into. And so even now sometimes I
expect people to leave. So what the way I move,
the way I work, I don't trust people quickly. I
am expecting them to go away. It's sort of like,

(01:09:36):
if I can set myself up to know that I'm
going to be abandoned, then I can't be hurt when
it happens. Yes, right, And so what I've had to
do over time is start to trust people and to
not tart everything with a brush of abandonment. If a

(01:09:57):
person has to leave, a person has to leave, that's okay.
They're not abandoning. They're simply leaving, you know. And that
isn't to say that the experience of feeling abandoned isn't real,
but it is also to say that that experience of
abandonment isn't always what happens. And for a really long time,

(01:10:20):
I couldn't tell the difference. And so every time a
friend left, or I broke up with a person, or
a relationship didn't quite work, it felt like a massive
moment of abandonment. It felt like the floor was taken
out from underneath me. And it's taken a long time

(01:10:43):
to get to a point where I can trust that
that's not the case. And so what that would do
is stop me from saying how I really felt in
a situation, because I didn't want them to go away.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Well, you know, like if I'm not happy with something,
that I wouldn't say because I don't want them to
have a reason to leave, you know. Or if I
didn't want something, then I wouldn't say I don't want
something because I was afraid that they would leave, right.
And unfortunately that leads sometimes to really dangerous situations because

(01:11:19):
you don't speak up. And I've had to learn to
be okay with the idea that if someone leaves, they
are meant to and if they're meant to come back,
they will, right. But sometimes we're very afraid to chance it.
We're very afraid to let a person go. We are

(01:11:43):
afraid to let a person go, and we need to
be okay with it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
And people go.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
Because they have their own journey as well. We don't
know what path people are walking on when they walk
into our lives. We might just be a stepping stone
in their path, just like stepping stones are in their life,
and they might just be a stepping stone in our
lives as we keep moving forward. If we're not confident

(01:12:09):
or comfortable enough to let that be a stepping stone
to move on to the next one, we won't go
anywhere we're stuck.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
Would you say that's the hardest emotion you've ever had
to face and deal with or has it been harder.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
I think that has been because it's shown up in
many different ways for different people. For me, and I
think it's always that's always been the root emotion that
makes other emotions amplified. Feeling abandon makes hurt feel a
lot bigger than it than it should, or feeling abandoned
makes loss feel bigger than that. So it's like silly

(01:12:45):
things like if a friend. If I call a friend
and I don't this has happened before a friend of mine,
and it was just their process. She would call, or
I would call, she would pick up, We would have
the most amazing like conversation we would have, like the
connection would be right back where we were before and

(01:13:05):
it would be lovely. And then I would call maybe
a month later, and she wouldn't pick up, or and
I wouldn't see her for another month or two, and
I would take it so personally for me it would
be like she's left me again. But actually that was
just her process. Sometimes she would go and sort of
shield herself and grow herself back and put herself back together.

(01:13:29):
And then she would appear again, and I had to
learn that that is just the way she exists, and
I had to be okay with her way of existing.
And once I learned that that's her way of existing,
it meant that I could welcome her with open arms
and I wouldn't be so upset when she was gone

(01:13:49):
that I knew that she was just putting herself back
together again, and I could just send a lot of
message of how are you, and I'm thinking of you,
and I'm gonna call you in a couple of weeks
and if you're around, I'm okay for a chat, and
not expect anything, so that when something did come back,
it was joyous. It was really wonderful when that feeling
of abandonment was the main focus. It felt really bad

(01:14:13):
when she went away. And it's the same and it
had been the same in different relationships that when they
had decided that they wanted to move on or when
they it just felt like such a wound. And that
is that is not sustainable. You can't live like that.

(01:14:33):
You can't live believing that everyone that is abandoning you,
because it makes for a really lonely existence. It means
that you build up a wall of protection to stop
yourself from really being connected to anyone.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
Yeah, even if you're surrounded by loads of people. Before
we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our
sponsors and back to our episode. You know, you've been
dedicated to your art for so many years, and I
feel like Wicked was like this global phenomenon. Yeah right,
it's and you've been recognized in one awards and done

(01:15:14):
phenomenal work, but Wicked was just Yeah, at least the day,
it felt different, Like how did that change your feeling
of fitting in and belonging? And because you're part of
something bigger, yeah, bigger, Like, how does that kind of
how do you make sense of that?

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
What's really interesting is that I think I've really been
able to lean into who I am, and what I
noticed is that there are so many people in the
world who feel really different. And because I got to
do this piece that put me in front of many people,
it meant that there are other people who felt like
they were invisible who finally felt visible again. And that

(01:15:52):
has been something that's really wonderful to experience, to bump
into people who didn't feel like they fit. Women specifically,
who have spoken to me about either women who have
suffered cancer and have been through chemotherapy and lost their
hair and said, and I'm not ill. My hair is
a choice. I shaved it first because of the film,

(01:16:14):
and then I loved what it did to me. It
meant that I really could just see my face and
me and we know that there's always a massive conversation
around hair and what it does and how long someone's
hair is or how smooth or how straight or whatever
that is, or how curd it whatever, and I had
made a choice to not have it at all. And
the amount of women who have suffered alopacia, suffered, have

(01:16:38):
been through cancer and survived but now have to wear
wigs or don't wear wigs or have been sort of
shy about going without, have reached out and been like,
I saw you rocking no hair, and now I feel
really confident about walking around with no hair and being baled,
and I feel really strong about it. That's been a

(01:17:00):
huge eye opener that there are so many people who
feel like they don't belong. But seeing one person who's
very different from the norm, and you know, rocks what
they rock and are who they are, sort of put
out a little bit of permission to also be who
you are. And I think that for me was a

(01:17:21):
real crux of this. There are so many people trying
to just discover themselves and they just need to see
it on someone else to also decide or I can
just be. That's been wonderful. The amount of eyes on
you is really new for me. It's I'm still adjusting

(01:17:42):
to it. And while I have, I'm really grateful for
the platform that has been given to me because of it.
It's still a new thing. It's new to be heard
all the time. It's new to be seen all the time.
It's new to see, you know, walk through an airport
think that you're anonymous and not being honout at all,

(01:18:05):
you know what I mean, even when you have no
makeup on it and it's like who you are. And
that's a norm for me to walk through an airport,
no makeup, no nothing. She sort of had on, just
like ready to go, but not be recognized. But when
you are recognized, it's a new that's very new for me.
It's also really wonderful because people are so excited by it,
and so excited by these characters, and so excited by

(01:18:26):
the people who play the characters. That's also new. Before
I could play a character and they would recognize the character,
but not necessarily recognize me from the character. Now people
know me and the character, which is a new thing.
Also that they are able to separate the person Alphaba

(01:18:47):
who I played, and me Cynthia. That's also a new thing,
which is lovely because it means that I guess I've
made an impression as me as well as an impression
as the character, which is really lovely. It's nice to
be able to people have welcomed me into their homes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Yea, yeah, I love that. Well, I think RADI sent
you that little clear of my niece calls me Alphaba
and she thinks she's Glinda and she just made this up.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
And so literally every voice note to me is she
calls me Alphabe and now I'm Alphabet to her. And
so when Raley told her that we know the real Alfama,
she just cann't believe it. And you know, but it's
one of those things of like just it meant so much,
like I feel like you and Ariana like meant so
much more than a movie to people.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
It felt that, Yes, people came to see the movie,
and people loved what the movie said. But I spoke
to someone who's who said that they were a couple
of parents actually who said that this movie has given
them the opportunity to have conversations with their kids. And
I'm talking about like seven year olds, six year olds
to talk about playground politics and being different and being

(01:19:58):
excluded and what that fee like, and the ownership over
one's self and deciding to be who you are against
all odds and having those conversations between adult and kid
and how difficult that can be when there's nothing to
bring that conversation up. But because of this movie, it's
meant that people can have those conversations, you know, and
then people our age who are leaning more into their friendships,

(01:20:22):
leaning more into their relationships that they have that can
be difficult, but they can pour more energy into them,
and then leaning more into discovering who they are as people.
And even though it can be scary to be who
you are meant to be, to show up as yourself,
it's equally as rewarding. And those conversations that this has

(01:20:42):
sort of brought to life is blown my mind, and
it means something different to every single person. You think
it's possible, but when you see it, it's beyond it,
just beyond it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
Yeah. And I think the point you were making about
how people accepted alphabet BA accept you, Yeah, I think
that is because of how you showed up through all
of the both you an era and I through all
the press. Yeah. It's almost that you didn't both show
up as movie stars, showed up as friends and people.
You showed up as people, and you felt that, and
I think that's what everyone felt, where it was like, oh,
they didn't show up as two people who were promoting

(01:21:18):
a movie. They showed up as themselves. And of course
we all love the movie and want to watch the
movie and all the rest of it. But it was
very different to what people have been exposed to before.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Yeah, that you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
Usually even think we did that on purpose. I think
that's just that's just who we are, you know. I
think I don't know that. I said to myself, well,
I'm going to come to these q and a's and
I'm going to just talk about this and that I think.
I just there's something wonderful that exhaustion does to you,
where if the veil sort of falls away and we'd
been We were already exhausted before we begun the press

(01:21:49):
store because we'd worked so long. We'd been working so
long on it, and we'd worked really hard. We didn't
really have much of time away from the film before
we began, you know, sharing it with people. We finished
the film in February, and we're on the road basically
from June, so that's not a long time. And between
that time we also were working on other things, so

(01:22:10):
we hadn't actually stopped. So by the time we were
in front of everybody, there was no energy to put
up pretenses. We just were who we were. And there's
something wonderful about having only the energy to exist in
yourself in front of people. And once you begin that way,
it doesn't go in the other of the direction. It

(01:22:33):
just amplifies, and so we become You just watched us
become more and more and more of ourselves, and all
the tears that you saw were very, very real, because
the experience was still very raw. We only just had
left it in February. That was the last time I
took off the green. I hadn't completely put her down yet.
I was still sort of decompressing and letting her go

(01:22:57):
and putting myself back together in front of people. That's
what was happening. And then we were having to talk
about our characters and talk about the experience, and it
was only a month or two away, and that's sort
of how it was. And then because we're having these
constant conversations, we're also relearning and remembering and figuring things

(01:23:18):
out and learning new things. There are things that I
didn't know that she was experiencing that I learned on
the spot, and there are things that I was experiencing
that she was learning on the spot, and the things
that our director was experiencing that we had just realized.
So we were learning new things in real time in
front of everybody, but we weren't pretending that it was
old hat to us. We were realizing, oh my god,

(01:23:38):
I didn't I didn't know that that's a new thing
to learn. I think hopefully we'll make people do that more.
When you're in this sort of business. And I was
speaking to someone about this, the tendency is to put
up the wall and try to protect yourself, and actually,
the most wonderful thing you can give any one who's

(01:24:00):
watching is a little bit of yourself and the revelation
that it is a human experience all of the things
that it looks fancy when you're running around and you're
in the pretty dresses, but when you're on a set,
it's as human and as real as you can possibly
make it. You're up early, you're exhausted every day, the

(01:24:22):
makeup is coming on and off, and there's someone you know,
You're meeting loads of different people who you've only met
for the first time on day one, and then you've
got to perform that next day. It's a very vulnerable,
like very open experience, and you have to sort of
learn to get used to that quite quickly. And then
once you are used to that, you then make family
with people and you're you get to know everyone's tells
and you get to know everyone's sort of like the

(01:24:43):
way people take all. She's really tired today. I'm going
to bring her a cook and she likes chocolate chip
cookies and I know that will make her happy. Or
he actually is vegan, so he'll only have the double chocolate,
which is you know, and he loves raising a note
and that's his favorite thing. But don't put butter in it,
because he actually really doesn't like you know, you start
to learn or people like she likes to eat at twelve,
but he likes to eat it too. He's tired, judging

(01:25:04):
by you know, how fast he's working. But actually she's
had a great morning because she's really quick, or she's
quite shy, so go to her, speak to her quietly
or that. You learn people and then you have to
let them go. You actually have to say goodbye. So
that's a really human experience once you come off a set.
And I think when you promote something, when you're on

(01:25:26):
the road and you're talking about that experience, you do
yourself and everyone else a service by making people understand
just how human the experience is, so that people understand
that it isn't just moving pictures and we aren't just people.
You sort of cut and splice together on that day,

(01:25:46):
this person, I've been having a terrible day, but yet
they did this and that day she was in complete
pain in this harness that she'd been in for twelve hours,
but she was still able to sing that. And on
this day she you know, even though she has an
allergy to whatever, she still moved through it because that
was happening. You know, everyone is trying to create something

(01:26:08):
create art, and we're not doing it from the comfort
of our homes and our sofas. We're really on the ground,
in the dirt, moving through it, and then we come
together to share it. That really is what being on
the road is about, sharing the experience. And I think
we kind of knew that almost automatically, and I think

(01:26:29):
it's something that I will take with me for the
rest of my life, not just for this next move,
but for everything I do. To make it a really
human experience is a gift.

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
I remember, I've traveled so much with my clients and
been on set and been in trailers from coaching someone
or working with someone, and I couldn't believe how not
glamorous film sets are. They're just not at all. And
it's so interesting because no one ever sees that. Now
you only see the finished product, and then you see
the red carpet, and so you assume actors have a

(01:27:01):
really like glamorous life. And actually, for four months, or
for projects like yours, for years, you're sitting in a
tiny little trailer, you know, putting on your clothes, taking
them off lines like whatever, makeup, whatever it is. You
go on set. You wait for three hours you don't
know when you're going back out. It's cold, it's you know,

(01:27:21):
it's so interesting how what you see and what you
think are two very different different things. And it dehumanizes
people and and so there's there's such a need for that,
And I don't think I could ever be friends with
anyone who likes oatmeal. Raising cookies.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):
So it's in the right way, and they're crunchy on
the outside but sort of like soft and buttery on
the inside. You can't convince me I think there's a
place for them in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
I do think that. I think so there's that there's that.
I can't remember who said, if someone was like, raising
cookies are the reason I have trust issues, because it's.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Exactly I will make like I because I do like
to bake occasionally, and when I was when I was
on the set, I would make big tins, like two
three tins full of like cookies for people. So I
would do like a set of chocolate chip, a set
of like double chocolate, some chocolate and salt like someone's
like salted caramel. And then for this one person, my

(01:28:22):
wonderful first a d Jack who was like, I just
want oatmeal a raisin. That's what I want, and that's
my favorite. And I would make them from scratch, and
I would like with absolute love, and sometimes would I
would put maybe like raspberries in it, or sometimes I
would do white chocolate in it, and he would and
if that's what someone loves, that's what someone loves. He

(01:28:43):
would know very clearly that that is what that was
that and I would make just a couple extra just
in case anyone else felt like they wanted to try,
and it would make it very clear this is not chocolate.
There is There are raisins, just so you trust me,
but there are chocolate chip over there if you need.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
That's me over there. That's amazing that you're doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
Yeah, I would do it every Monday.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, that's so beautiful. Cynthia. It has
been such an honor to talk to you, and I
can literally talk to you for hours. But I yeah,
I just got it from your team. I just got
a little time nod. So I want to be mindful
of that, but honestly, you are. I just I love
meeting people whose work is infused with such deep inner work,

(01:29:30):
like it really brings my heart joy to see that
when people are putting art out into the world, it's
coming from so much revelation and reflection and inner work
because I think sometimes we all appreciate art, but for
so long in the world, you appreciated art but never

(01:29:50):
knew the artist until they died, maybe correct, and you
didn't really understand them because they weren't famous or there
wasn't social media, podcasting didn't exist. It's like you saw
a piece of art, you thought it's beautiful, but you
don't really know that artist. Yeah, and I just really
appreciate you just being so open and vulnerable. Thank you
as the artist, as the human because it gives us
such an invitation to understand ourselves better, understand you better.

(01:30:13):
And I can't wait for people to listen to the
album review.

Speaker 1 (01:30:17):
I'm really proud of it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:18):
Yeah, yeah, you should be it really I meant every
word like it's when you hear new music in it
and you're making sense of it just on your own,
and it feels like that. I can't wait for people
to hear it. And as always, friend, I'm rooting for you,
Thank you forever in your corner and so grateful for you.

Speaker 1 (01:30:36):
Thank you for having me, thank you having me again.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
If you love this episode, you will also love my
interview with Kendall Jenna on setting boundaries to increase happiness
and healing. You're in a child You.

Speaker 3 (01:30:48):
Could be reading something that someone is saying about you
and being like, that is so unfair because that's not
who I am and that really gets to me sometimes.
But then looking at myself in the mirror and being like,
but I know who I am. Why does anything else matter?

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Jay Shetty

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