October 30, 2025 • 66 mins
Actor and advocate Sophia Bush brings captivating takes on accepting all facets of your emotions, breaking down gender identity and raising awareness about mental health. Plus, she and Brandon attempt to play a messy game that turns into a discussion on self-reflection.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to tell me Something Messy with Brandon, Kyle
Goodman and iHeart podcasts on the Outspoken Network. Talking about relationships,
sex and identity always reminds me that being a human
is messy. So I wanted to create a compassionate space
where we could feel less alone and embrace our mess together,
the funny, the vulnerable, the cringe, and even the kinky,
(00:21):
because every part of who we are matters. So don't
be shy, baby, tell me something messy. Messy patrons, come on, baby,
welcome to the show. I am your messy mom, Brandon
Kyle Goodman, and you know what that means. It is
time for a guest. Now, while they get situated, we
will get our messy. Key Key started with a whole manifesto,
so repeat after me aloud or in your head. Grant
(00:43):
me the serenity to unpack my shame, the courage to heal,
the wisdom to know that sex is not about penetration,
the audacity to advocate for my pleasure and boundaries, the
strength to not call my ex that fuck boy, fuck girl,
or fuck bay, for it is better to masturbabe by
myself in peace than to let someone play in my
(01:03):
motherfucking face. Let the ho community say Hoelujah baby. Today
our mess is blessed because we've got the incredible, the
one and only Sophia Bush in our messy living room.
Now you know her from One Tree Hill, Good Sam
and a million other things. But listen, this woman is
more than just a TV queen. She's an activist, a storyteller,
(01:26):
a truth teller. Honestly, she is a walking heart with
a megaphone. She's smart, she's fierce, and she's messy, just
like us. Okay, we started with a lou breaker, but
then we couldn't help ourselves. We dive deep into our
mess fast. Please enjoy my conversation with Sophia Bush. Hi, Sophia,
(01:47):
Oh my goodness, Welcome to the MESSI living room.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But it's not it's not well.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
We bring the mess. That's the thing we are. We
are the mess.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's me.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
It's me, Hi, I am the mess. Well, before we
get our MESSI Kiki started, we have our messy mandates,
which is I know it by heart, but I'm still
going to read it. I like that things get to
be unprocessed. Any opinions shared have the right to shift
change today tomorrow ten years from now forever period right,
and if during the KIKI something feels too personal or
(02:18):
unintentionally offends, we use the safe word football, which gives
us a chance. Right, do you play football?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I mean, like, anywhere I see a table, you want
to play it, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I didn't know what foosball really was until I started
the show, because I said football is the safe word,
which gives us a chance to pause and pivot accordingly.
And then somebody I thought, I don't know what I
thought it was, but it's the men on the table.
I think I thought it was like table soccer, but
I guess it's called foosball, so yes. So I always say,
if foosball is mentioned on this show, something is clearly wrong.
(02:49):
Why are we ever talking about football? For now?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Really in the context of art, not.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Really in the context sports are not really in the context.
But who knows. Let me let me not limit myself,
maybe limit yourself. Maybe we'll expand maybe I'm going to
do a full episode about food. I can't wait with
the fall table.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I want you to know. What I want is for
you to do a full episode where you try to
live commentate a game with an actual athlete. Yeah, see
how it goes.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That kind of sounds fun.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Thank you, Like I love that.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I love that because I will know nothing, but I
will say everything because I have opinions. Of course, speaking
of sportball, which I don't know if this is a
great segway, but shall we do alue breaker?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh okay, I was like, which game are we going
to play?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
We're gonna play. We're going to play a new game
this season. Would you rather? It's going to be dating edition,
messy dating Edition. So I'll give you prompts and you'll
tell me which one you would rather.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay, okay, Oh I'm scared.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Oh, don't be scared about people. No, no, no, no no.
I always a scenario. We're always we're always scenarios. Mean exactly,
We're not mean girls. Here, I turn it off and
we'll talk offend.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Someone is my worst.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Night literally might as well makes you shake.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Come on, my best friend will literally be like, let
the joke land before you apologize for making the joke.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Just let it, let me laugh, let me enjoy it.
I know, I know, but like you're like, I want
to actually want you to know. This is not how
I think. It's just a joke.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
It's just a ha ha.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, it's a ha. Anyways, Okay, this will be this
will be very painless. Okay, So would you rather accidentally
like a thirst trap from twenty fifteen or reply daddy
to their Instagram story meant for work? And by the way, daddy,
I think anyone could be a daddy, but you know
so it's like, but it is a daddy. Daddy? Yeah?
So which one? Would you rather?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Wait? Their Instagram story meant.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
For or their Instagram first trap from twenty fifteen? You
know you've that means you've been We're really on, you're
really on the scroll and you accidentally double tapped and
liked their their Instagram their first trap from twenty fifteen?
Or would you rather accidentally reply to their story daddy
even though that story was meant for work?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I would choose daddy.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
You would choose daddy?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
What I choose? I would choose daddy too, because the
twenty feth team makes me feel like a soccer ten
years profile is that's a while. That's all the social media,
isn't it?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So something?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, and I'm not saying that I'm opposed to going
that far down to figure out who you are sure,
but I won't let you know.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
No, yeah, that would feel weird to me. I personally
wouldn't think anything of it. Yes, cute, Yeah, extend it
to me and be like this was a good haircut
on you something. Yeah, sure, but I know how it
would be perceived in the world.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Oh interesting, And.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I yeah, I wouldn't. I don't think i'd want to do.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's I think that I would if I and that
that's happened where people like like things from a really
long time ago, and I think my reaction is always like, huh,
you've found it. But my fear is that somebody's like,
you're a soccer why are you this far? Like why
are you? Yeah? Yeah, okay, so I think we both
I would. I would also say I would rather say daddy, yeah,
why not a compliment? Absolutely absolutely, okay.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Will say it to me. I'm like, thank you, curiod,
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know what I don't like. And I've said, you know,
non binary, and people sometimes like to say vat and
I'm like, I don't know if bady it doesn't do
the same thing as.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Dad doesn't have a nice mouth.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Feel Yeah, it's like what's a day? I don't know, like,
but daddy does it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
But this is something I actually find really interesting. Tell
me for my non binary friends, especially when we were
just talking about this with like scenarios you can and
cannot walk into. Yes, as a very fem presenting woman, Yeah,
I have a different experience in the world than you do.
Absolutely in this all strong athletic body.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I'm curious as a person who is in their
spirit enough to say, oh, I'm everything. Yeah, how do
you then receive terms like that? They're obviously met as
a compliment, Like if someone were to be like daddy,
does that bump you because it feels to gender gender?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
It doesn't you know. One of my friends has the
best saying. She's like, I'll accept any pronouns said with respect,
and so I think that like a daddy that said
with respect and that's not like, oh I know that
you hate this or whatever is totally fine. Like I
it's weird. Language for me has fluidity to it where
it's like, you know, like it's really about your intention
(07:23):
behind it. More so so, No, I'm I'm call me daddy,
but also call me mommy. I mean they call me
messy mom. Mommy is a nice, well, call me whatever,
but not they deep.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Because that also just feels like you're trying too hard. Yes,
it's actually why the people who don't like us like
us real dumb shit like.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You're like, it's just like too much, just too much back,
pull it back, love. I.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It's really interesting to me because I've thought about it
with a lot of my girlfriends and I. However, it
came to be ma'am turned into our word yeah, port
of like daddy. Yes, someone walks in looking gorgeous and
it's ma'am, Yes, why dare you give me a warning?
(08:08):
And I reacted that way to another non binary friend
of mine, Yes, because they walked in the room just
looking so gorgeous. Oh, And I was like ma'am. And
then I was like sorry, am I yo no, And
I realized it's one of those things to your point,
to have enough respect for your people how they feel
(08:31):
about things, yes, and then to know that not everyone
in any group is going to feel the same.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That is the biggest part. Absolutely, That's what I always say, like,
this is my experience and how I receive it. But
somebody else might love Adie, or somebody else might love
ma'am or and you kind of have to deal with
the person in front of you as opposed to the
group at large. I think that is the interesting thing
about while we're about to go into this about like
just gender norms in general, I was thinking about, like
(08:56):
what if we lived in a world that was actually genderless,
Like there was no boys or girls or man or woman.
You just kind of work, Sophia and Brandon. What would
that kind of open up in all of us? But
there's more work there. You actually have to intentionally connect
with people to find out who they are, whereas these
group these like labels allow us to just like shorthand
and allow us I think a little more disconnection absolutely,
(09:19):
you know, So I don't, you know, I don't. It's
more work, but I but I like. I like that
my gender identity and expression forces more connection. Yes, you know,
forces more like let's ask questions.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But I think that's why there is such a hysteria
around trans folks. Yeah, found non binary, Yes, because what
you do is challenge the box everyone has been cultured
to be in and agreed to be in, yes, consciously
and unconsciously for their entire existence, your totality of being
(09:56):
uh huh intimidates people who cannot imagine freedom that in
their current existence is undefined. It is, it's scary, it's
scary for them.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yet it's literally the tension is about freedom. It's about
like I've been told I'm supposed to act like this,
and so what have I cut myself off from because
of that? And how dare you not follow the same
rules that I'm following?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
How dare you be so free? Yes, your freedom scares
me because I don't know what that feels like.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And how dare you engage me in that or demand
that I engage in your freedom or respect your freedom? Yeah,
like we're all doing this, you got to do this,
and it's like no, I think everyone gets to be
who they are. But even that is also scary. Like
if I did say, Hey, the same freedom I have,
you can have, but that re that requires a lot
of reflection and a lot of talking and a lot
(10:49):
of curiosity, a lot of putting things together. And I
think there's a safety in the blueprint. There's a safety
in following a blueprint that was passed on from our
lineage or from society, and there's this scariness in building
your own.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But what drives me crazy about this notion that it's
a blueprint, that it's our DNA that we're somehow challenging.
Is that it's not.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
It's definitely not.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it's not the true experience of humans to exist
on a spectrum is in our DNA.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The binaries, the prescriptions, the demands yes, placed on people
come from culture, and they didn't used to be like this,
even in our own current cultures.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And so that's part of what drives me crazy is
I'm like, oh, this is just marketing and it's bad marketing.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Let's say it again. It is just marketing.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's bad marketing.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, terrible. It's it's marketing that allows us to play
our position for the powers that be, as opposed to
I think what a lot of us, or I think
what all of us, let's say what most of us
in the WHERE community are trying to do? I think,
and its pure ideal. It's reclaim, you know, it's reclaim
the freedom that I think we all had, regardless of
(12:08):
our gender or our sexual orientation. It's like, how do
you reclaim the ability to choose who you want to
be and how do you get comfortable being uncomfortable with
not knowing who it is.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, and how do you sit in the versions of
yourself the versions?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yes, and you.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Are when you are in a moment of evolution and
you say like this almost fits, Yes, this almost feels right. Yes,
but it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yes, you know, there's more inspection that I have to do,
more investigation that I have to.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Do it, and you have to make it.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Create it in a way to find what it's always been.
And yes, that dichotomy is very scary for people. They
just they want you to tell them the answer so
that the unknown, the fear of the unknown, can go away.
And it's part of why I find especially for our communities. Yeah,
you know everyone in the queer community. People are so
(13:03):
obsessed with sexualizing queer people.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
They call it your sexual identity, gender identity, referring to
your genitalia. Everything when you are not SIS, head has
to be about the sex part because the expansion of
identity is scary, so they actually try to reduce each
(13:27):
person's individual identity to a to a sex object.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And how crazy is that? When you really think about it,
You're like, I'm just I'm I'm I'm my dick, I'm
who I I'm who I like to fuck. Like no,
that's like the smallest part of it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
And then they'll do the thing where they go nobody
cares who you're sleeping with, and it's like, well, you
crestailing these people around town, so it seems like you
really want to be out there, like you really care.
We don't particular you don't care. It's like the least
interesting thing about any of us. It's the only thing
y'all out there want to talk about.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
How do you? I mean, like, it's really weird. And
I see it also in Hollywood and even like selling things.
You're just like if there's not a coming out story,
they don't know what to do with it. And I'm like,
I once you come out, you did it. And there's
so much more to our existence after coming out. And
there's so much Like even when I'm with my gay
(14:23):
friends and not like we're sitting out talking about sex
the whole time, as sex positive as I am, we're
talking about so many things. There's so many experiences safe heart, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
You know, and the humanity right, And that's what's interesting
to me because if you look at you know, the
fifty six year old White Street CEO guy. Yeah, nobody
is asking him to solely talk about the sex he
has with his wife or you know, we all saw
I don't know last week. Oh yeah, nobody's asking that. No,
(14:54):
nobody's talking to those people about that.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
But for some reason, when you are any when you
are in of the alphabet letters in the you know,
under the big beautiful queer umbrella, Yeah, everybody just they
can't figure out how that's not the center of your
universe and you're like, well, actually, my universe is just bigger, richer,
free er, more curious. I have self interrogated myself in
(15:17):
ways you might not have had to. Yeah, And I
don't say that judgmentally. I say it as an offering,
would you like to yes, would you like to explore
who you are?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And you know what's scary is that some people the
answer is no. The answer is no. And like I
think as queer people making peace with that, like like
part of my pride and self acceptance is knowing that
some people really in this lifetime may not want to
and like kind of letting them be. And that because
(15:51):
somebody was asking how I remain soft And I think
it's like a radical acceptance. It's a radical acceptance, like
everyone's navigating a whole bunch and in this lifetime they
may not have the capacity to explore who they are,
and I don't have to adopt their pain as my own.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yes, I think the most radical thing you can do
is see people for who they are and where they
are and love them anyway. And my brain and for me,
learning to do that in the most interesting way has
made me so much softer and so much more loving,
(16:28):
and so much more angry. Like my when I am
angry about what's happening to us in the world, it's
not like pissy anger. It's yes, come come to me
in the lineage of what women are on the planet. Yes,
you'll find my rage there.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yes, you know, yes.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
And I cherish the growth in both directions because I
spent so much time in my life thinking that anger, frustration, pain, victimization,
the badge shit that happens to all of us. Yeah,
that if I spent time there, if I doated on
(17:13):
those feelings the way I doated on the positive, I
was wasting my time or not being my highest self.
And what I realized is that to continually turn your
back on half of yourself on the dark that goes
with your light is a self betrayal. And it took
me forty fucking years to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Us, how did you figure that out?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Uh? I finally had to come to terms with realizing
that some of what I had excused in the most
sacred inner sanctum of my life, yeah, was not a
badge of honor for my ability to compromise. It was
(17:57):
betraying myself and taking less and less in return for
what I consistently choose to give. I wasn't being mature.
I wasn't doing the grown up thing. I wasn't settling down.
I was settling for crumbs when I was serving feasts.
(18:25):
And I went, I'm done, and everybody's going to have
something to say. Everybody's gonna think they know what and
everybody will do the thing that people love to do
to women in the world. Blame, blame, blame, And I
know what's real. I know what's true, and I know
I have finally learned to stop the Sisyphian task of
(18:50):
pushing the boulder up the rock all day, every day,
like my life is a sentence. Yes, I dropped the
rock and then I jumped in the river and I
became water.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Oh yes, giving up other people's percies.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
What you do, This is how you do it, This
is what it means, this is what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And finding it for yourself and finding out what you
think what you want, as opposed to like being the
good woman or the good man, the good idea syndrome.
Oh my god, it really is, it really is. And
it's all rooted in optics. I mean I say that,
I kept saying to a friend of mine, optics or
a cage, like, we're so concerned about how other people
(19:42):
perceive it as opposed to what does it mean to
us that we then rob ourselves or cut ourselves off
and like leave half ourselves outside the room, as opposed
to saying this is what it is. Yeah, and when
I am who I am, I actually attract the best
people ever. Yeah, I can attract the people that are
(20:03):
for you, as opposed to people who like the idea
of you.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I cut out every idea of you person in my
life over the.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Last ten years. So thankfully, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, but we have evolved past. Yes, yes, yes, hindsight
is twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Absolutely of course. And you needed it, you needed it
to get here.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yes, but I can go. Oh, I see what drew
you to me? I see what part of my job
you wanted a connection to. Yes, yes, part of whatever whatever.
And then I think about people that are like really famous,
I'm like, poor, how how does like how does Jennifer
Anison go anywhere? You know what I mean? I'm like,
obviously she can't go with you, Like, I don't know
(20:48):
how those sorts of people do it. Know, even for
us in the in the relative notoriety lack of anonymity
we have, you have to start to identify, like moth
to flame is not always a good thing. I don't
want my house costed with bugs.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I heard somebody say a lot of shit is attracted
to the light. A lot of shit is attracted to
the light. It doesn't mean that it's good for you.
And you have to be able to build. I guess
a holder around your flame and understand, like, who is
allowed to be in that space with you? Well?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
And I think when you are subjected to society's demand
for you to be good, which women are yes, good girl,
syndrome is tough. Yes, I know, as a beautiful black
human in the world, Yes, like you are expected to
(21:45):
do twice as much to prove your goodness. Yes, you know,
you you have to behave differently than someone in your
exact body, my skin, in the face of an interaction
with a police officer. Yes, going to get a small
business loan, whatever it might be. And when you are
(22:05):
constantly existing trying to prove to people that you're good,
that is, to be frantic in your soul is exhausting.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So heah, you can't get it for each other. And
so living to be frantic in your soul your.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Soul, and you probably don't even realize that's how you
are in the world.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I this last Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving twenty twenty four, I
got freed from my good person syndrome. I like realize,
you know, and it's not it's it's like it's been
a fifteen year journey, particularly with my family. So I've
been a strange from my mother for like fifteen years.
She's a born a Christian, doesn't like the gays and
all that stuff, or has a problem with my homosexuality.
(22:48):
And so I had to create a really heavy boundary
between us, which ends up becoming kind of not kind
of no contact, very low contact. But what was playing
in the back of my head because she would say
it sometimes, and I think it was a way to
keep me in my place, like oh, you're arrogant, or
it was just like question my When I wasn't following
(23:08):
in line with her, then I was a problem. If
I ever showed individuation or if my light got a
little too bright, then I was full of myself. And
I think that stayed with me, and so in all
of my interactions, I was hyper vigilant about being good,
but afraid that there was a part of me that
(23:29):
was secretly bad and I don't know what it was.
But finally, like you know, just I think seeing my
mother's pain like finally getting to a place where I
could really hold that, like my mom is a human
and went through some things, and like he's not a
bad person, not perfect but not perfect, and like had
her whatever. I think it freed me from the pedestal
(23:51):
I had her on, because when you put somebody on
a pedestal, you think, well, what they're saying is law,
and it's very natural for us to feel that, especially
with our parents. But then when you go, oh, no,
that was it's just that's also just a wounded child
who then had a child and maybe didn't know what
to do with that child, especially one who is yes,
was wild as I am.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
But I think there's a really interesting there's a few
things that are true at the same time. Yea, in
my experience and in what all my people are experiencing
in this life, which is, our parents didn't have any
of the resources we have. No one was talking about
mental health. That anything they were hyper stigmatizing still a
(24:31):
stigma in many parts of the country and the world.
They couldn't go online to read about the parentified child
syndrome or exactly you know, childhood trauma or CBT techniques
to you know, get out of your anxiety. Yeah, and
I think they were still carrying what feels like an
(24:52):
old world but is clearly still everywhere expectation perhaps inheritance
of parenthood whe which is and I just watched someone
talk about this yesterday and send it to you, which
is that most parents, whether they realize it or not,
have children because they want their children to be their children.
(25:14):
They don't want their children to be born of them
or parented by them, brought into their home and to
go out into the world as the beings they are,
and so I think particularly for people who can step
into the totality of their identity, for trans folks, not
(25:36):
binary folks. You are so you that, whether she's conscious
of it or not, you have shattered her desire to
have something that's hers, and that's a generational curse every
child needs to break.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yes, yes, it's a I'm going to take I want
to take a little beat to let that till that's
it because you really go ahead.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
No, like I'm just thinking about it for you, even
what you were saying about getting a little smaller in
her company. Yeah, the idea that your light, which is
inherently so big that it does inspire others, attract others,
(26:24):
help lead others, help free others, could be a bad thing. Yeah,
is diametrically opposed from reality and why it's such a
beautiful thing. But again, full circle, I think it's why
you see so much fear and fear mongering about gender
(26:45):
expansive people in the country right now, because the freedom
is so big that it shines light on everything we've
tried to keep in the dark corners of our society.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
It makes you ask questions, and questions are scary for people.
It disrupts thing. You know, we always talk about disruptive
curiosity here, which is for me, intentionally asking questions that
interrupt your GPS so you can live a liberated life.
And the GPS, I always say is generational cycles, personal habits,
and your scarcity mindset, right like your soul is. I
(27:18):
always say your soul is trying to come back to itself.
But the GPS of that generational cycles, the personal habits
and the scarcity mindset is leading you towards the blueprint.
It's leading you somewhere else, and it's like, you need
that curiosity, which I think queer folks have trans folks
on binary, which is to interrupt that so you can
actually be free. But that is scary, and I think
(27:43):
my work has been to know that it's not actually scary,
but it might be scarier for them and be I
guess empathetic about that and give grace maybe that's a
better word, like give grace to in this journey that's
where they are. And you know, for our generation, I
always I'm saying it to my friends, like our parents
(28:03):
didn't have the therapy or the access and we do.
And so the next generation coming up will know what
mental health is their entire life. But we have this
I don't want to call it a weight, it's not
a burden, but we do have this like thing to
take up, which is the crossroads. It's like the transition,
you know, like we're the generation that new life before
(28:25):
the internet and new life with.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
The internet, you know, stretched across too. Yes, yes, very
unique to us.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's absolutely unique and also difficult. And so I think
it can be scary to want to shine your light
because there is so much telling you not to, and
yet there is so much telling you too, and having
to take a chance and leap out on faith that
like if it, if it makes you I always like
(28:51):
if it, if it feels good and you can't even
understand why, it's still probably something to pursue. If it
feels like your exhale, and even though you can't articulate why,
it's probably something to run towards. And if it makes
you feel like this and you don't know why, get
out of there. You don't need you don't need to
articulate it quite yet. But if it feels off, get
(29:14):
out of there, or make a boundary there, or put
something there so you can really nurture the parts of
you exhaling.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That is the most profound thing because before before I
had the oh, I don't have to push the rock.
I can be the water where I put it down.
I the unease in my body was everywhere. And you
(29:41):
know they that phrase like you can't see the forest
for the trees. Yes, in it and you're like, what
is this? What is this? Something's wrong?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
And for me, one of the best gifts that my
therapist gave me going through the whole process was pay
attention to your body. Stop asking the big question, stop
asking what's wrong. Stop stop saying I feel this way
in my house and being told this isn't reality, but
(30:11):
I feel it and I feel crazy, like you're up
here in the big concepts. Start to listen to your body.
Do you react to this with expansion or contraction? Do
you breathe in? Or do you expert? And that is
how I learned. Those were my baby steps. Like the
(30:33):
journey you're talking about, it's easier for you to see.
Let's use your mom as the exam. Yeah, you are
fifteen years into a journey. By now you are an expert.
By now you are like the professional sportball athlete your journey.
Your mom doesn't know how to hit the ball. Yeah,
that's a big chasm. What I've realized in every rung
(30:58):
on the ladder of life, I have climbed when I
when I get to one, that's like a big life
discovery season. Yeah, I'm learning something new. I couldn't have
talked about that the last five years of my life
this way without having worked through them. But the way
I started to find the language was learning to hit
(31:22):
the ball going, Am I relaxing or tightening?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Am I contracting when I hear this or when this
person comes in the room, or am I expanding? Uh? Yeah,
that's how I learned the language. That's how I learned, Yes,
to climb.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But like, what's so important what you're saying, and I
try to remind people, is that it is learning a
new language. And when you learn a new language, you
won't fuck it up. And I'm like, it's gonna be hard,
it's gonna be frustrating, but I always say it's temporary
discomfort to lead to everlasting peace.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yes, And by the way, you're probably gonna go through
it every five to ten years. Maybe you get to
the net I get it, then you get over the
hill and you're like, oh, there's absolutely I thought this
was the mountaintop and there's just you couldn't see it
from down. Absolutely, if you had been able to see it,
you probably wouldn't have tried to climb at all.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Exactly. It's remembering a friend of mine said this when
I first moved here. She was like, the journey is
the goal. And I keep reminding, especially artists, it's like,
if you don't understand or accept the journey is the goal,
then when you get the thing, when you get the job,
you're just gonna want the next one. You're just going
to keep focusing on the accomplishment's going to enjoy it.
You're not going to enjoy it, and you have to
have to experience it. You Yeah, Sophia, by the way,
(32:36):
you won the game. We were playing the game would
you rather? And you want?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I forgot That's where we started.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
It is. This is how what I love about This
is what I love about the shop. It's like, wherever
it takes us, it takes us. M h. Sylvia, do
you want to tell us something messy?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Something messy?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yes? Or like it could be it could be a
personal story, something you heard or it could he be
a hot take.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I mean, our government is messy.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
There you go, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Like yeah, I was about to be like, you know,
what's really funny for a person who's as organized as
I am and my literally my closets clare coordinated. Yeah,
and everything has a place in a drawer. My nightstand
is so messy really, Oh my god, it's just always
there's like three drink containers, a glass of you know,
the rest of last night's wine that I decided not
to finish my teeth and I was like, why did
(33:31):
I carry this in here? Like there's every vitamin on
twelve books, three journals?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Are you do you read all different books at the
same time or like one at a time?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It depends, It depends. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I can't. I
have to read like four at a time, and then
sometimes I'm so engrossed, but I need the options, Like
I was doing three books in my carry on bag
even if I'm going on a trip for four days.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
This is my this is I've learned that this is
the thing, and I've just started it where I'm like,
I have like my four books. Bit yeah, because you're
like it's like a TV show, like I'm in the
mood for a drama today, but tomorrow I'm in the
mood for a little comedy. And so you need your
books to have I just need them.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, you have them. Even if I don't open any
of them, I need to know they're there. So that's
my personal mess.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yeah, the world, baby, how are you taking care of
yourself in the middle of all I mean, that's such
a hard question, and I'm sure you feel I feel
this like the dichotomy of watching the world burn and
also still having to go to work to do things
like this, and you're like still having to like look
cute and you're just like, wait, what are we looking
(34:34):
cute for?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I'm like, huhh. The blow dryers like a stupid invention.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
James really crazy right now?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, I think in a really odd way. It used
to make me insane, Yeah, like terrible President term one insane.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yes, now.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Again it's practice, right, And as as the as my
capacity to hold the dialectics the things that are absolutely
oppositional but true at the same time expands, that is
the for me feels like my personal journey in life
to continue to be able to hold more things, to
(35:24):
be true and hold them tenderly. So in a weird way,
it's so much worse than it was the first time around.
I'm like, remember, y'all didn't read project or even we
told you I was in it, and then you told
us weep, we're crazy, and now here we are, Like,
it makes me crazy. I activate by sharing, by standing up,
(35:48):
by never being silenced, by calling people to action, by
reminding people of collective power on those things. And on
the other side, like the very worst thing that could
happen in the cunt tree happens to people and around
the world. Yeah, And I am in love with the
best person I know who has the two most beautiful children.
(36:12):
And those babies want to read books and color yeah,
and play basketball yeah, and go to the park.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
And they deserve the war.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
They deserve that.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And it is that duality. The more I am willing
to experience sorrow, the more space it carves in me
for joy. Yes, and I'm just on the seesaw.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yes, you have to ride the wave and understand that
multiple truths get to coexist. We're going to parallel process,
and that both extremes are necessary, like the showing up
and the activism and the speaking and also the laughing
and the holding your people close and checking in like
the softness is just as important.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
You deserve to cook a beautiful dinner. You deserve to
go out dancing too late with your friend.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It is medicine.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
And I think your joy and your sacred rage exists
at the same time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
And the the skill, the human skill of living and
continuing to lean into both so you can grow your capacity. Yes, like,
what a what a gift to be on the journey.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Ugh hm hmmmmmmm mm hmmm. It is time for messy mail,
where we read out your whole fessions and questions. As always,
your submissions remain anonymous.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I love it and we we have really been in
the soul kinds of people.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Sub now okay, and it's always your submissions remain anonymous.
All right? So this one says I dated someone from
my friend group and when we broke up, I didn't
just ghost him, I ghosted everyone. I blocked the group chat,
archived the photos and started pretending I lived in Spain. Really,
I just moved to the East Side.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It was like, did you move to Barcelona? What's going on?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
They said? I ran into one of the friends at
Ralph's while test tasting the grapes tea you gotta have
a sweet grape. I told them I was visiting. This
has been going on for almost a year.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Wait, it wasn't a mental pretend. Like friends all think
this person.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Moved yeah, yeah, yeah, and then somebody ran into them
very close by stating, grape. How long? How long did
think this first? Keep this charade up? That's that's a
that's a big charade.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
That is so bold, that is so bold that with that.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
But social media, like I guess.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Oh no, you know what it reminds me of, Like
somebody sent the skywriting from a few months ago when
that terrible podcast or Joe Rogan who was platforming all
the white supremacist one huh, and somebody had paid to
skywrite Joe Rogan is literally five foot three over his office.
(39:13):
And I sent it to like ten friends and I said,
I aspire to be rich enough to be this.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yes, yes, some day some day.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
That's such a troll. But to be like that's petty.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
That's petty and also powerful, I guess, really powerful, but
also like I would always be. I mean, I guess
in New York, I would always be scared. I mean,
I guess over here, but you always be scared that
I'd run into somebody. How do you not run it?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
It would make me feel like a fugitive. But I
hadn't done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, you just broke up. Why block everybody?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Well, by the way, I'm like, what I want to know.
I want to get into the mess. I want to
be like, excuse me, uh, caller, if you blocked the
person you broke up with and the whole friend group,
what what did he do?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
What did he do? Secrets did they keep?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yes? What were the steaks that we had to block everybody?
And they were in Spain? Now I'm like, oh, that's tea. Also, yeah,
I do. I think you're asking the real the journalism journalism. Okay,
so this one, this next one says.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
I'm like, I'm like, I know, like something I went through.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Sometimes when they like ago listen sometimes when they when
they send these things and I'm like, I need more details.
How can I I need.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
To tell me more, tell me everything? Because see if
this was a caller.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Same more. Yeah, Yeah, we should do live calls. We
should live calls and we could like we can follow
up it'll be our Foodsball sport Ball episode. We'll have
martinis and beer and people will call in and we'll.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Roger Yes, literally my dream day.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Come on, We're gonna do it. This one said. So
I was trying to post a first trap with this
is how we started all this a little Jennie quah
and accidentally included a mirror reflection. And you can see
my ex in the back shirtless on my bed. My
bestie immediately called me and said it was an My
bestie immediately called me and I said it was an
(41:07):
old photo even though I posted it five minutes after
we hooked up. Bestie clock that in the photo, I
have blonde hair and the first time I died my
hair blonde was the last week. So I'm avoiding her calls. Now, that's.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Honestly.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
You have to check the mirror like that's that's the you.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Also, you just got you gotta be.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Honest about to your best You just gotta say, listen.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
You just have to be like I panicked because I
knew you were gonna tell me I shouldn't have done
the things I knew I wasn't supposed to do, but
I did it anyway. For myself and I did it anyway,
so you were right. You get unlimited. I told you
so is this week? Yes, I owe you dinner. Yeah,
you just accept it, make it funny, yes, and move on.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I also, here's what I'll say if you're what I've learned.
If you don't want to tell your bestie, there's probably
something you should not be doing. If you don't want
to share with your community what you up to, it's
probably not something you should be doing. That part period.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
You can't hide things. So if you have something to hide, yes,
don't do it.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Do a babe, don't do a vam. Don't do a VAM.
It'll also just make life easier.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
And if and and by the way, then if you
see people out doing the things, you should probably go, oh,
there's something I don't know because they're not hiding. Yeah,
hiding is the bad bad, It's just.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Not good for the soul. No, but I would also
say this, I have a I have a thing with
my friends and with just friends. And if I tell
you a thing, I'll tell you the thing one time.
If you ask me to tell you again, I'll tell
you it again. And if you continue to do something opposite,
it's no stress. I'm not mad. It's just like because
I think everyone has to be on their journey, so
don't even worry about hiding it. Like I clocked it.
(42:46):
We both we can look at each other eyes and
be like, you're like he girl, Okay, and let's move on.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
You're like a really old photo, you know, baby, have
your location? Like stop, I'm literally tracking.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
This one. Okay. I love this one. This one says
went out to dinner on two dates with the guy,
and he paid both times when I wasn't texting him
back to his liking. Oh. I finally told him, even
though I liked his vibe, I don't think I have
the time to keep seeing him. He Venmo requested me
for half of the dates. Do I pay it? All?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (43:23):
They ask him questions, They ask me, what do you
think do they pay it? First of all, it's wild.
That's petty as fuck, and crazy people are so petty.
People are wild. Ones are wild shook.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I'm also sort of inspired. I feel like I need
to be so much cuntier.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
I know, like, ask for what you want, give me
that half of that? Ven Mo back, No, but do
you pay it?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
No?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
No, you know what I would do. Tell me, I
would look up, like what's this person's coffee order? Like,
what's the coffee order?
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:56):
And I would venmo like seven ninety nine for a
Starbucks Grande Day Yes, to enjoy your day.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Yeah, yeah, you know, with a little note in the
Venmo enjoy your day.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
It offered. There's no take back, seas that's wild with
food you digested weeks a week.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
It's already done. It's already done. Also, like you had
those receipts, I guess you go back to your bank
statement or something like love.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
It's also I mean and listen, I want to be
these people could be very young. Sure, the expense of
paying for two people to have dinner, sure could affect
someone's like monthly grocery budget. I want to get a
little sensitive to that. But if that's it, if it's
like I liked you so much, I overspent. Don't mean
(44:43):
to be tacky, but a little more context, offer some context.
Or if you're doing it to be petty because you
got your feelings hurt, then you deserve petty and response.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
That's you know what I agree. I was going to say.
Somebody who wants to vendmo requests for some dates to
me and not all there, and so I'm like, I
would just pay it and block you and get out.
But there is like a if there was context, I
could understand that. Yeah, but it's like the it's just
so rude.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
It feels nasty.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, it feels nasty.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Explain it. Yeah. But also, as we all know, the
price of eggs have not gone down, they've gone up.
Come on in this economy, you know, you're like, let
me get.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
You know, I'll send you some money for our creative eggs.
How about that? I enjoy your breakfast.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
We send someone thirty dollars ninety nine cents to get
some organic.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Eggs, organic guys that we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I'm like, four red Carton love it.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Bye bye? All right. This one says this is a
little longer. I'm thirty four, and only recently have I
started naming myself as queer out loud to others, not
just in my head. It's been liberating but also disorienting.
I spent so much of my life minimizing myself, code
switching or trying to be the version of me that
made other people comfortable. Now I'm trying to be meme
(46:00):
but I don't fully know what that voice sounds like.
Yet everyone around me seems so confident in their queerness,
how they dress, how they date, how they speak about identity. Meanwhile,
I'm over here googling terms that I feel like I
should have already known. How do I find my queer voice,
not someone else's version of my queerness when I've spent
so long being quiet to survive. That's a real thank
(46:22):
you for this question, listener, that's a real yeah, what
are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (46:27):
I think it goes back to what we were talking about.
You're not going to get in the MLB if you've
never picked up a baseball. Yeah, you have to try,
You have to practice. Yeah, you deserve too. Yeah, you
deserve to try on every version of your style. You
(46:50):
deserve to go to every kind of restaurant to figure
out what kind of food you like. You deserve to explore.
And what I wonder about for so many people now,
everyone's so obsessed with the definition and the when and
the how long and this and that, and there's no
(47:12):
black and white answer. It's not there was before and
then today, there's today. It's always been there. Sometimes it's clear,
sometimes it's not sometimes you're lost in it. Maybe you
couldn't voice it, but looking back, you always knew, like
being a human is so complicated and messy. Yeah, and
I hope for this collar that rather than feeling like
(47:36):
they're behind and like they gotta figure it all out
so they can dress it or express it or say
it or name it or label it, that they can
just feel freer to explore.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yes themselves, to go on the journey and not worry
about the definition because the definition will evolve over time,
and so like you're never going to have a landing,
Like what queer means to you in the first month
is going to be different in the first year, it's
going to be different in ten years, And so giving
yourself permission to go on that journey. I also say
like going slow, like the not rushing, like go slow
(48:12):
in it, take it piece by piece. Don't feel like, oh,
I gotta know everything. I came out as non binary
in twenty twenty, and the best advice I got was
you don't have to tell everybody right now, like you
can just see what it is for you first before
you hear what other people think it is. And I
really spent that first. I think it was a year
before I actually like said something publicly, and I like
(48:36):
bought some more heels, and I bought skirts, and I
played with me and I just started just playing with
things I and I did it in my apartment like
I would just like And then then it was more
comfortable to go outside in heels, and then heels hurt,
so now they're just in the closet, you know, and
then like becoming comfortable that, like my style is a
(48:56):
little more boyish and is a little more that, and
that doesn't make me any less my version of queer,
but like the giving myself, as you're saying, the permission
to try all the restaurants, to explore and to also
I think the other piece about this I would say
is there's probably a version of queerness that this person
has that isn't available in the world, and so be
(49:19):
open to that, Like that you might have an expression
of it that actually doesn't exist in the world yet
that you are that you will bring to the world.
And so it's even more reason to explore because as
you explore and you take pieces from elsewhere, you kind
of build a new tapestry that is all your own,
and releasing the releasing the pressure of having to be
(49:42):
a scholar of queerness. Yes, you know, like you don't
have to be the stay.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
An expert on your first out loud day.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
And I love what you said about not rushing. Yeah,
because rushing is how you wake up day in a
house that isn't yours. You know. Oh, I can look
back now and understand that there were certain pressures that
I intellectually thought I had worked through. Yes, but in
(50:13):
my bones, I had felt my whole life and approaching,
particularly for women in this world, approaching forty and wanting
to be a parent and all these things, and the
pressure that my brain knew better than to fall victim to.
If you don't think I pinterest boarded and produced that.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Light baby fast, Baby Quick.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
And then I looked around and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, great,
Like I'm a good producer. But I ignored myself. I
didn't give myself time to really interrogate certain things. When
I would ask a question about something that made me uncomfortable,
I took the answer at face value, even though somewhere
in my body I.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Went there was that contraction, like.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
That you're telling me I'm safe, but I don't feel safe, Yes,
and the undoing when you've gone too fast. Yeah, there's
a whole lot shittier than going slow.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
They that's tea, Please.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
Give you so much money?
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Yes, that's tea. You know. I think as women and
queer folks, I always say our worth comes from our productivity,
Our worth comes from being good. And so there is
that indoctrinated to not ask more questions because you don't
want to be a burden. You don't want to feel
like you are difficult, so you just take things at
(51:35):
face value. But I think the way back home is
to go slow and to ask those questions, and when
you get that first answer, be like, is there an answer?
Is there a question? Is there another question? I always
say this now, and I say this in business, I
say this in friends. Is there a question that I'm
not asking? Is there a question that I should be at?
Like I end all my meetings with like, is there
a question that I should have asked that I haven't
(51:55):
asked because because there might be something that I'm missing
and that somebody else might be able to shed light
on or to bring me into. Yeah, it's like there
are always questions, and so you know, always always looking
for more of them. I think is part of the
journey of finding your voice and knowing that your voice
(52:16):
oof that sometimes it's okay to listen. Yeah, as you're
finding your voice, sometimes it's really in fact, I would
encourage you to listen that. I think when we think voice,
we think, oh, we have to like have a brand
of our queerness and have to be able to say
this is what it is and this is what isn't
It's like no, sometimes you're in the phase where you're
like listening and you're learning, and you're you're just sourcing
(52:40):
before you can actually express, And that's being in that
chrystalist or that cocoon is invaluable. Like do not try
and break out of your cocoon sooner than you need to.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, yeah, your self time.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yes, Yes, Sophia, this has been a nursing conversation. That's great.
I'm going to ask you the last two questions that
we asked. They're nice.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
I'm like, I just can't get over the full quote
from the episode. I was listening to you this morning.
You had Nick being like, well, it's pride, I'll stuff
him like a pepper, and I was like, we have.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
The range here, you range we go through it respect
Thank you, but you know what I mean, what are
we doing? So this question is what's your favorite piece
of advice you've ever received, given, or heard. It could
be naughty, it could be nice, it could be about anything.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
One I'll tell you after Okay, I'll say one of
the best pieces of advice I have ever been given
in respect to what we were just talking about, is
slow as fast.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
If you slow down, you check in, Yes, you make
the right first move. Yes, instead of running in, screwing up,
having to clean up the mess and run out. Yeah,
you will get into that space faster. Yes, slow as fast.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
I love that You're I was just reading what is
it called? I think rest is sacred? But it's Octavia F. Freeman.
But there's a passage about pace and like find is
like is the pace that you're at the cultural pace
or is it your pace? And that you have to
slow down to find your pace? And going at what
(54:37):
is your pace? So I love that so as fast.
The last question is I used to ask what do
people what can people learn to love about themselves? But
now I want to ask what do you love most
about yourself? You know? And I'm gonna I'm gonna give
context because I know that in our culture it can
sometimes feel arrogant or cocky to say what we love
(54:58):
about ourselves. But I really want to reshape that we
have to know what we love about ourselves. We have
to love ourselves first in order to what is my
angel say? She says something like something in the lens
of I don't trust somebody who doesn't love themselves. I
don't trust. Yes, I don't trust if they don't love
who they are. I'm not really sure what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
I love that I'm a courageous person, and I mean
that I show up for people.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
I show up when it is inconvenient, when it is
harmful to my career, when it is scary, sometimes when
there's a risk of violence, I show up. I will
not give up on us. And what I love about
(55:46):
finding my courage first for our community, Yeah, is that
it led me to be courageous for myself. Yeah. And
when I realized that there was an incongruent between the
way I could look at any person and say you
deserve better, the way I could look at any system
(56:08):
and say this is fucked up and it's broken, and
it oppresses people, and we can do better. I had
to realize that I didn't defend myself the way I
would defend a stranger or a neighbor. Yeah, And it
made me say to myself, like in the mirror, I
love that when you love, you love hard. I love
(56:32):
that when you commit, you commit all the way. You
go to the end of the road, and you finally
learned that if you reach the end of the road
and it's a dead end, who gives a shit what
anybody's going to think when you turn around and drive
right back out. Good for you. You explored it, You did it, Yes,
no stone unturned. You did all the work, and now
(56:52):
you're going to keep working on the next thing. And
that I used to be so ashamed at people's judgment
or or at the appearance of failure. And then I
started to realize, you know how courageous you have to
be to do something big and then be willing to
do the next Yeah, willing to move on, be willing
(57:15):
to continue to choose better, to not settle for mediocre.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
Like ah. And when I realized that the way I
was framing my personal failure is how I would view
courage in people I loved. I was like, oh, I
deserve love. I'm courageous. Yeah, and so that was a
really big.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Shift for Yeah, Sophia, this was I knew it was
gonna be a conversation. Like I was very excited, but
like this was beyond anything I could have ever dreamed
or imagine. We're pretty good together, right together, we do,
We're gonna do. We're gonna We're gonna do our talk show.
It'll be part soulful, It'll be part sports, yeah, it'll
(58:01):
be part foodsball, It'll be incredible.
Speaker 2 (58:04):
And then we can do like the after Hours. Yes,
have the dirty, have.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
The dirty, the dirty dirty talks. Yes, you know, thank
you for being here. I love you so much. You
well you know we are hose here, but hose with heart.
(58:28):
So before we part ways, let me speak to yours.
H I love Sophia so much. What a fulfilling and
nourishing and soulful conversation about all the things. One of
my favorite things that she said is I don't have
to push the rock. I can be the water. And
if rebring that up, because I guess you know, I
(58:49):
think for so many of us, and I said this
often about queer folks and women, our worth is tied
to our productivity, how much we can do you, how
we can be there for everybody else, Like, that's how
we feel our worth. We are we are affirmed in
our ability to do things for others, and it's how
(59:13):
we get our hit of worthiness. And so we often
feel like we have to push the rock. And so
I don't know who needs to hear this, but you
can be the water. You can go with the flow.
In fact, it's imperative that you find moments to do
so that your worthiness is not tied to your productivity
(59:35):
or how much you can lift, how much you can do.
It's not tied to pushing that boulder up a hill,
just by being by existing, you're worthy and you're enough. So,
as uncomfortable as it will be at first, what are
the ways in which you can let yourself be water.
Let yourself release some of the pressures, Let yourself release
(01:00:02):
the need to be perfect. Perfectionism is my rock that
I'm constantly having to put down, and then I find
myself picking it up without even knowing it. You know,
I think it'll be a constant, a constant work, and
I'm much better at it. But that's one of my rocks.
So you don't have to push the rock, you can
be the water. Also, I love when Sophia says, if
(01:00:25):
it feels good, you don't have to articulate why, but
if it makes you exhale, lean in, as you are
on this journey towards your liberation and towards your freedom,
you may not have all the language, but you can
know how it feels in your your body is yelling
at you all the time, or whispering or speaking at
(01:00:45):
a normal voice, but like your body is communicating with
you at all times. So when you say yes to
a thing and your body clenches, even if you can't
articulate what it's about, Like, notice that your body clenched
a little bit when you showed up at this environment
or when that person walked in the room. Notice how
your body shifted, and just get curious about why. Why
(01:01:09):
is that's what's coming up for you. And on the
opposite end, notice when your body relaxes, you know, somebody
calls you and you see their name and you get excited,
very different than when you get tense. Right, just notice it.
You don't have to make any changes yet, but just
starting to like, get curious about what is my body
(01:01:29):
telling me? What is my heart telling me? Where when
my throat closes up, or when I feel that pain
in my gut or that like pain in my neck
that continues to to get exacerbated after a certain uh,
after I'm me at a certain place or with certain people, like,
just start to notice that and see how you can
(01:01:50):
move towards the things that make you exhale. I also
love your joy and sacred rage get to co exist,
you know, I think, especially in the in the times
that we are in. I think it's impossible not to
(01:02:10):
feel rage. If you're not feeling rage, you're not awake.
You know, like there is a lot happening that should
make you angry. Certainly makes me angry. And at the
same time I understand that joy is also important that
(01:02:32):
in order to balance that rage and to make that
rage productive not your worth, We're not telling that, but
you know, like to do something with that rage that
can heal and that can move things forward. You got
to know where your joy is to You got to
know how to how to find moments where you can smile,
(01:02:56):
where you can find moments to laugh, where you can
find moments to exhale that your rage and your joy,
your sacred rage, because it is sacred because I used
to be afraid of rage, and I think I've talked
about this on here. Just assuming that the rage would
lead to or the rage was violence, like conflating those
(01:03:17):
two things, rage and violence, anger and violence. But rage
is just a human emotion. Anger is a human emotion,
and for some people they act on it if they
don't know what it is. Right, we don't have to,
but you still get to feel all your feelings as
a human and so you're so if you're somebody who
(01:03:40):
like struggles with being angry and you're always trying to
be like nice and happy and polite, I encourage you
to look in the mirror and find your sacred rage.
Because rage is also an indicator. It tells you don't
I don't want to be here, or I don't like
this thing, or this is unacceptable it needs to change.
(01:04:02):
Your rage is actually a beautiful indicator of when change
needs to happen, or of when you are out of
alignment with something. And so allowing our sacred rage and
our joy to coexist so that we can exist. You know,
you can't cut a piece of yourself off. You can't
(01:04:23):
cut some of your emotions off if you decide not
to feel the rage, and you can't actually feel the
joy either. Right, you can't fully feel the joy if
you don't also feel that rage. All of our emotions
work with each other, work in collaboration with one another. O.
There are so many things, and I don't want to
make this too long, but rushing is how you wake
(01:04:46):
up one day in a house that isn't yours. Slow
is fast. That's where I'm gonna leave this because I
know somebody needs that. Do not rush. You want to
build your house brick by brick. I know that there
are lot of there's a lot of messaging that's like.
Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
If you're not this by twenty three, you failed. If
you're not by here by thirty, you have failed. If
you don't have this by forty, you have baby. That's
all bullshit. You were on your timeline, you were on
your blueprint. Go slow, slow is fast. If you are
rushing and doing shortcuts or saying yes to things that
(01:05:25):
you haven't even processed, you don't have to double back.
You have to fix those things. You have to erase
those things. You have to restructure those things, and that's
going to be a lot harder than if you took
the time to go slow. You took the time to
be intentional about every brick that you're laying down for
the house that you're building, which is your life. So
(01:05:49):
rushing is how you wake up one day in a
house that isn't yours.
Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Slow as fast? What were some of your standout things?
You can email me at telling Me Something Messy at Gmail.
You know I always want to hear from you, and
I love you so so very much. I'll talk to
you next week. Bye. Thank you so much for listening
to tell Me Something Messy. If you all enjoyed the show,
(01:06:14):
send me episode to someone else you might like it.
Tell Me Something Messy was executive produced by Ali Perry,
Gabrielle Collins and Yours Truly. Our producer and editor is
Vince de Johnny. The video of tell Me Something Messy
is produced by Des Lombardo and a special thank you
to Natalie Branham who helps me organize and come up
with some of this mess tell Me Something Messy is
(01:06:34):
a production of iHeart Podcasts on the Outspoken Network. For
more podcasts, listen on the free iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
You're listening to tell me Something Messy with Brandon, Kyle
Goodman and iHeart podcasts on the Outspoken Network. Talking about relationships,
sex and identity always reminds me that being a human
is messy. So I wanted to create a compassionate space
where we could feel less alone and embrace our mess together,
the funny, the vulnerable, the cringe, and even the kinky,
(00:21):
because every part of who we are matters. So don't
be shy, baby, tell me something messy. Messy patrons, come on, baby,
welcome to the show. I am your messy mom, Brandon
Kyle Goodman, and you know what that means. It is
time for a guest. Now, while they get situated, we
will get our messy. Key Key started with a whole manifesto,
so repeat after me aloud or in your head. Grant
(00:43):
me the serenity to unpack my shame, the courage to heal,
the wisdom to know that sex is not about penetration,
the audacity to advocate for my pleasure and boundaries, the
strength to not call my ex that fuck boy, fuck girl,
or fuck bay, for it is better to masturbabe by
myself in peace than to let someone play in my
(01:03):
motherfucking face. Let the ho community say Hoelujah baby. Today
our mess is blessed because we've got the incredible, the
one and only Sophia Bush in our messy living room.
Now you know her from One Tree Hill, Good Sam
and a million other things. But listen, this woman is
more than just a TV queen. She's an activist, a storyteller,
(01:26):
a truth teller. Honestly, she is a walking heart with
a megaphone. She's smart, she's fierce, and she's messy, just
like us. Okay, we started with a lou breaker, but
then we couldn't help ourselves. We dive deep into our
mess fast. Please enjoy my conversation with Sophia Bush. Hi, Sophia,
(01:47):
Oh my goodness, Welcome to the MESSI living room.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But it's not it's not well.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
We bring the mess. That's the thing we are. We
are the mess.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's me.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
It's me, Hi, I am the mess. Well, before we
get our MESSI Kiki started, we have our messy mandates,
which is I know it by heart, but I'm still
going to read it. I like that things get to
be unprocessed. Any opinions shared have the right to shift
change today tomorrow ten years from now forever period right,
and if during the KIKI something feels too personal or
(02:18):
unintentionally offends, we use the safe word football, which gives
us a chance. Right, do you play football?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I mean, like, anywhere I see a table, you want
to play it, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I didn't know what foosball really was until I started
the show, because I said football is the safe word,
which gives us a chance to pause and pivot accordingly.
And then somebody I thought, I don't know what I
thought it was, but it's the men on the table.
I think I thought it was like table soccer, but
I guess it's called foosball, so yes. So I always say,
if foosball is mentioned on this show, something is clearly wrong.
(02:49):
Why are we ever talking about football? For now?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Really in the context of art, not.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Really in the context sports are not really in the context.
But who knows. Let me let me not limit myself,
maybe limit yourself. Maybe we'll expand maybe I'm going to
do a full episode about food. I can't wait with
the fall table.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I want you to know. What I want is for
you to do a full episode where you try to
live commentate a game with an actual athlete. Yeah, see
how it goes.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That kind of sounds fun.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Thank you, Like I love that.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I love that because I will know nothing, but I
will say everything because I have opinions. Of course, speaking
of sportball, which I don't know if this is a
great segway, but shall we do alue breaker?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh okay, I was like, which game are we going
to play?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
We're gonna play. We're going to play a new game
this season. Would you rather? It's going to be dating edition,
messy dating Edition. So I'll give you prompts and you'll
tell me which one you would rather.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay, okay, Oh I'm scared.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Oh, don't be scared about people. No, no, no, no no.
I always a scenario. We're always we're always scenarios. Mean exactly,
We're not mean girls. Here, I turn it off and
we'll talk offend.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Someone is my worst.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Night literally might as well makes you shake.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Come on, my best friend will literally be like, let
the joke land before you apologize for making the joke.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Just let it, let me laugh, let me enjoy it.
I know, I know, but like you're like, I want
to actually want you to know. This is not how
I think. It's just a joke.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
It's just a ha ha.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, it's a ha. Anyways, Okay, this will be this
will be very painless. Okay, So would you rather accidentally
like a thirst trap from twenty fifteen or reply daddy
to their Instagram story meant for work? And by the way, daddy,
I think anyone could be a daddy, but you know
so it's like, but it is a daddy. Daddy? Yeah?
So which one? Would you rather?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Wait? Their Instagram story meant.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
For or their Instagram first trap from twenty fifteen? You
know you've that means you've been We're really on, you're
really on the scroll and you accidentally double tapped and
liked their their Instagram their first trap from twenty fifteen?
Or would you rather accidentally reply to their story daddy
even though that story was meant for work?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I would choose daddy.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
You would choose daddy?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
What I choose? I would choose daddy too, because the
twenty feth team makes me feel like a soccer ten
years profile is that's a while. That's all the social media,
isn't it?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So something?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, and I'm not saying that I'm opposed to going
that far down to figure out who you are sure,
but I won't let you know.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
No, yeah, that would feel weird to me. I personally
wouldn't think anything of it. Yes, cute, Yeah, extend it
to me and be like this was a good haircut
on you something. Yeah, sure, but I know how it
would be perceived in the world.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Oh interesting, And.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I yeah, I wouldn't. I don't think i'd want to do.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's I think that I would if I and that
that's happened where people like like things from a really
long time ago, and I think my reaction is always like, huh,
you've found it. But my fear is that somebody's like,
you're a soccer why are you this far? Like why
are you? Yeah? Yeah, okay, so I think we both
I would. I would also say I would rather say daddy, yeah,
why not a compliment? Absolutely absolutely, okay.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Will say it to me. I'm like, thank you, curiod,
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know what I don't like. And I've said, you know,
non binary, and people sometimes like to say vat and
I'm like, I don't know if bady it doesn't do
the same thing as.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Dad doesn't have a nice mouth.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Feel Yeah, it's like what's a day? I don't know, like,
but daddy does it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
But this is something I actually find really interesting. Tell
me for my non binary friends, especially when we were
just talking about this with like scenarios you can and
cannot walk into. Yes, as a very fem presenting woman, Yeah,
I have a different experience in the world than you do.
Absolutely in this all strong athletic body.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I'm curious as a person who is in their
spirit enough to say, oh, I'm everything. Yeah, how do
you then receive terms like that? They're obviously met as
a compliment, Like if someone were to be like daddy,
does that bump you because it feels to gender gender?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
It doesn't you know. One of my friends has the
best saying. She's like, I'll accept any pronouns said with respect,
and so I think that like a daddy that said
with respect and that's not like, oh I know that
you hate this or whatever is totally fine. Like I
it's weird. Language for me has fluidity to it where
it's like, you know, like it's really about your intention
(07:23):
behind it. More so so, No, I'm I'm call me daddy,
but also call me mommy. I mean they call me
messy mom. Mommy is a nice, well, call me whatever,
but not they deep.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Because that also just feels like you're trying too hard. Yes,
it's actually why the people who don't like us like
us real dumb shit like.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You're like, it's just like too much, just too much back,
pull it back, love. I.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It's really interesting to me because I've thought about it
with a lot of my girlfriends and I. However, it
came to be ma'am turned into our word yeah, port
of like daddy. Yes, someone walks in looking gorgeous and
it's ma'am, Yes, why dare you give me a warning?
(08:08):
And I reacted that way to another non binary friend
of mine, Yes, because they walked in the room just
looking so gorgeous. Oh, And I was like ma'am. And
then I was like sorry, am I yo no, And
I realized it's one of those things to your point,
to have enough respect for your people how they feel
(08:31):
about things, yes, and then to know that not everyone
in any group is going to feel the same.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That is the biggest part. Absolutely, That's what I always say, like,
this is my experience and how I receive it. But
somebody else might love Adie, or somebody else might love
ma'am or and you kind of have to deal with
the person in front of you as opposed to the
group at large. I think that is the interesting thing
about while we're about to go into this about like
just gender norms in general, I was thinking about, like
(08:56):
what if we lived in a world that was actually genderless,
Like there was no boys or girls or man or woman.
You just kind of work, Sophia and Brandon. What would
that kind of open up in all of us? But
there's more work there. You actually have to intentionally connect
with people to find out who they are, whereas these
group these like labels allow us to just like shorthand
and allow us I think a little more disconnection absolutely,
(09:19):
you know, So I don't, you know, I don't. It's
more work, but I but I like. I like that
my gender identity and expression forces more connection. Yes, you know,
forces more like let's ask questions.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But I think that's why there is such a hysteria
around trans folks. Yeah, found non binary, Yes, because what
you do is challenge the box everyone has been cultured
to be in and agreed to be in, yes, consciously
and unconsciously for their entire existence, your totality of being
(09:56):
uh huh intimidates people who cannot imagine freedom that in
their current existence is undefined. It is, it's scary, it's
scary for them.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yet it's literally the tension is about freedom. It's about
like I've been told I'm supposed to act like this,
and so what have I cut myself off from because
of that? And how dare you not follow the same
rules that I'm following?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
How dare you be so free? Yes, your freedom scares
me because I don't know what that feels like.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And how dare you engage me in that or demand
that I engage in your freedom or respect your freedom? Yeah,
like we're all doing this, you got to do this,
and it's like no, I think everyone gets to be
who they are. But even that is also scary. Like
if I did say, Hey, the same freedom I have,
you can have, but that re that requires a lot
of reflection and a lot of talking and a lot
(10:49):
of curiosity, a lot of putting things together. And I
think there's a safety in the blueprint. There's a safety
in following a blueprint that was passed on from our
lineage or from society, and there's this scariness in building
your own.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But what drives me crazy about this notion that it's
a blueprint, that it's our DNA that we're somehow challenging.
Is that it's not.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
It's definitely not.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it's not the true experience of humans to exist
on a spectrum is in our DNA.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The binaries, the prescriptions, the demands yes, placed on people
come from culture, and they didn't used to be like this,
even in our own current cultures.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And so that's part of what drives me crazy is
I'm like, oh, this is just marketing and it's bad marketing.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Let's say it again. It is just marketing.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's bad marketing.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, terrible. It's it's marketing that allows us to play
our position for the powers that be, as opposed to
I think what a lot of us, or I think
what all of us, let's say what most of us
in the WHERE community are trying to do? I think,
and its pure ideal. It's reclaim, you know, it's reclaim
the freedom that I think we all had, regardless of
(12:08):
our gender or our sexual orientation. It's like, how do
you reclaim the ability to choose who you want to
be and how do you get comfortable being uncomfortable with
not knowing who it is.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, and how do you sit in the versions of
yourself the versions?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yes, and you.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Are when you are in a moment of evolution and
you say like this almost fits, Yes, this almost feels right. Yes,
but it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yes, you know, there's more inspection that I have to do,
more investigation that I have to.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Do it, and you have to make it.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Create it in a way to find what it's always been.
And yes, that dichotomy is very scary for people. They
just they want you to tell them the answer so
that the unknown, the fear of the unknown, can go away.
And it's part of why I find especially for our communities. Yeah,
you know everyone in the queer community. People are so
(13:03):
obsessed with sexualizing queer people.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
They call it your sexual identity, gender identity, referring to
your genitalia. Everything when you are not SIS, head has
to be about the sex part because the expansion of
identity is scary, so they actually try to reduce each
(13:27):
person's individual identity to a to a sex object.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And how crazy is that? When you really think about it,
You're like, I'm just I'm I'm I'm my dick, I'm
who I I'm who I like to fuck. Like no,
that's like the smallest part of it.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
And then they'll do the thing where they go nobody
cares who you're sleeping with, and it's like, well, you
crestailing these people around town, so it seems like you
really want to be out there, like you really care.
We don't particular you don't care. It's like the least
interesting thing about any of us. It's the only thing
y'all out there want to talk about.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
How do you? I mean, like, it's really weird. And
I see it also in Hollywood and even like selling things.
You're just like if there's not a coming out story,
they don't know what to do with it. And I'm like,
I once you come out, you did it. And there's
so much more to our existence after coming out. And
there's so much Like even when I'm with my gay
(14:23):
friends and not like we're sitting out talking about sex
the whole time, as sex positive as I am, we're
talking about so many things. There's so many experiences safe heart, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
You know, and the humanity right, And that's what's interesting
to me because if you look at you know, the
fifty six year old White Street CEO guy. Yeah, nobody
is asking him to solely talk about the sex he
has with his wife or you know, we all saw
I don't know last week. Oh yeah, nobody's asking that. No,
(14:54):
nobody's talking to those people about that.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
But for some reason, when you are any when you
are in of the alphabet letters in the you know,
under the big beautiful queer umbrella, Yeah, everybody just they
can't figure out how that's not the center of your
universe and you're like, well, actually, my universe is just bigger, richer,
free er, more curious. I have self interrogated myself in
(15:17):
ways you might not have had to. Yeah, And I
don't say that judgmentally. I say it as an offering,
would you like to yes, would you like to explore
who you are?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And you know what's scary is that some people the
answer is no. The answer is no. And like I
think as queer people making peace with that, like like
part of my pride and self acceptance is knowing that
some people really in this lifetime may not want to
and like kind of letting them be. And that because
(15:51):
somebody was asking how I remain soft And I think
it's like a radical acceptance. It's a radical acceptance, like
everyone's navigating a whole bunch and in this lifetime they
may not have the capacity to explore who they are,
and I don't have to adopt their pain as my own.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yes, I think the most radical thing you can do
is see people for who they are and where they
are and love them anyway. And my brain and for me,
learning to do that in the most interesting way has
made me so much softer and so much more loving,
(16:28):
and so much more angry. Like my when I am
angry about what's happening to us in the world, it's
not like pissy anger. It's yes, come come to me
in the lineage of what women are on the planet. Yes,
you'll find my rage there.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yes, you know, yes.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
And I cherish the growth in both directions because I
spent so much time in my life thinking that anger, frustration, pain, victimization,
the badge shit that happens to all of us. Yeah,
that if I spent time there, if I doated on
(17:13):
those feelings the way I doated on the positive, I
was wasting my time or not being my highest self.
And what I realized is that to continually turn your
back on half of yourself on the dark that goes
with your light is a self betrayal. And it took
me forty fucking years to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Us, how did you figure that out?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Uh? I finally had to come to terms with realizing
that some of what I had excused in the most
sacred inner sanctum of my life, yeah, was not a
badge of honor for my ability to compromise. It was
(17:57):
betraying myself and taking less and less in return for
what I consistently choose to give. I wasn't being mature.
I wasn't doing the grown up thing. I wasn't settling down.
I was settling for crumbs when I was serving feasts.
(18:25):
And I went, I'm done, and everybody's going to have
something to say. Everybody's gonna think they know what and
everybody will do the thing that people love to do
to women in the world. Blame, blame, blame, And I
know what's real. I know what's true, and I know
I have finally learned to stop the Sisyphian task of
(18:50):
pushing the boulder up the rock all day, every day,
like my life is a sentence. Yes, I dropped the
rock and then I jumped in the river and I
became water.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Oh yes, giving up other people's percies.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
What you do, This is how you do it, This
is what it means, this is what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And finding it for yourself and finding out what you
think what you want, as opposed to like being the
good woman or the good man, the good idea syndrome.
Oh my god, it really is, it really is. And
it's all rooted in optics. I mean I say that,
I kept saying to a friend of mine, optics or
a cage, like, we're so concerned about how other people
(19:42):
perceive it as opposed to what does it mean to
us that we then rob ourselves or cut ourselves off
and like leave half ourselves outside the room, as opposed
to saying this is what it is. Yeah, and when
I am who I am, I actually attract the best
people ever. Yeah, I can attract the people that are
(20:03):
for you, as opposed to people who like the idea
of you.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I cut out every idea of you person in my
life over the.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Last ten years. So thankfully, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, but we have evolved past. Yes, yes, yes, hindsight
is twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Absolutely of course. And you needed it, you needed it
to get here.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yes, but I can go. Oh, I see what drew
you to me? I see what part of my job
you wanted a connection to. Yes, yes, part of whatever whatever.
And then I think about people that are like really famous,
I'm like, poor, how how does like how does Jennifer
Anison go anywhere? You know what I mean? I'm like,
obviously she can't go with you, Like, I don't know
(20:48):
how those sorts of people do it. Know, even for
us in the in the relative notoriety lack of anonymity
we have, you have to start to identify, like moth
to flame is not always a good thing. I don't
want my house costed with bugs.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I heard somebody say a lot of shit is attracted
to the light. A lot of shit is attracted to
the light. It doesn't mean that it's good for you.
And you have to be able to build. I guess
a holder around your flame and understand, like, who is
allowed to be in that space with you? Well?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
And I think when you are subjected to society's demand
for you to be good, which women are yes, good girl,
syndrome is tough. Yes, I know, as a beautiful black
human in the world, Yes, like you are expected to
(21:45):
do twice as much to prove your goodness. Yes, you know,
you you have to behave differently than someone in your
exact body, my skin, in the face of an interaction
with a police officer. Yes, going to get a small
business loan, whatever it might be. And when you are
(22:05):
constantly existing trying to prove to people that you're good,
that is, to be frantic in your soul is exhausting.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So heah, you can't get it for each other. And
so living to be frantic in your soul your.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Soul, and you probably don't even realize that's how you
are in the world.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I this last Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving twenty twenty four, I
got freed from my good person syndrome. I like realize,
you know, and it's not it's it's like it's been
a fifteen year journey, particularly with my family. So I've
been a strange from my mother for like fifteen years.
She's a born a Christian, doesn't like the gays and
all that stuff, or has a problem with my homosexuality.
(22:48):
And so I had to create a really heavy boundary
between us, which ends up becoming kind of not kind
of no contact, very low contact. But what was playing
in the back of my head because she would say
it sometimes, and I think it was a way to
keep me in my place, like oh, you're arrogant, or
it was just like question my When I wasn't following
(23:08):
in line with her, then I was a problem. If
I ever showed individuation or if my light got a
little too bright, then I was full of myself. And
I think that stayed with me, and so in all
of my interactions, I was hyper vigilant about being good,
but afraid that there was a part of me that
(23:29):
was secretly bad and I don't know what it was.
But finally, like you know, just I think seeing my
mother's pain like finally getting to a place where I
could really hold that, like my mom is a human
and went through some things, and like he's not a
bad person, not perfect but not perfect, and like had
her whatever. I think it freed me from the pedestal
(23:51):
I had her on, because when you put somebody on
a pedestal, you think, well, what they're saying is law,
and it's very natural for us to feel that, especially
with our parents. But then when you go, oh, no,
that was it's just that's also just a wounded child
who then had a child and maybe didn't know what
to do with that child, especially one who is yes,
was wild as I am.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
But I think there's a really interesting there's a few
things that are true at the same time. Yea, in
my experience and in what all my people are experiencing
in this life, which is, our parents didn't have any
of the resources we have. No one was talking about
mental health. That anything they were hyper stigmatizing still a
(24:31):
stigma in many parts of the country and the world.
They couldn't go online to read about the parentified child
syndrome or exactly you know, childhood trauma or CBT techniques
to you know, get out of your anxiety. Yeah, and
I think they were still carrying what feels like an
(24:52):
old world but is clearly still everywhere expectation perhaps inheritance
of parenthood whe which is and I just watched someone
talk about this yesterday and send it to you, which
is that most parents, whether they realize it or not,
have children because they want their children to be their children.
(25:14):
They don't want their children to be born of them
or parented by them, brought into their home and to
go out into the world as the beings they are,
and so I think particularly for people who can step
into the totality of their identity, for trans folks, not
(25:36):
binary folks. You are so you that, whether she's conscious
of it or not, you have shattered her desire to
have something that's hers, and that's a generational curse every
child needs to break.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yes, yes, it's a I'm going to take I want
to take a little beat to let that till that's
it because you really go ahead.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
No, like I'm just thinking about it for you, even
what you were saying about getting a little smaller in
her company. Yeah, the idea that your light, which is
inherently so big that it does inspire others, attract others,
(26:24):
help lead others, help free others, could be a bad thing. Yeah,
is diametrically opposed from reality and why it's such a
beautiful thing. But again, full circle, I think it's why
you see so much fear and fear mongering about gender
(26:45):
expansive people in the country right now, because the freedom
is so big that it shines light on everything we've
tried to keep in the dark corners of our society.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
It makes you ask questions, and questions are scary for people.
It disrupts thing. You know, we always talk about disruptive
curiosity here, which is for me, intentionally asking questions that
interrupt your GPS so you can live a liberated life.
And the GPS, I always say is generational cycles, personal habits,
and your scarcity mindset, right like your soul is. I
(27:18):
always say your soul is trying to come back to itself.
But the GPS of that generational cycles, the personal habits
and the scarcity mindset is leading you towards the blueprint.
It's leading you somewhere else, and it's like, you need
that curiosity, which I think queer folks have trans folks
on binary, which is to interrupt that so you can
actually be free. But that is scary, and I think
(27:43):
my work has been to know that it's not actually scary,
but it might be scarier for them and be I
guess empathetic about that and give grace maybe that's a
better word, like give grace to in this journey that's
where they are. And you know, for our generation, I
always I'm saying it to my friends, like our parents
(28:03):
didn't have the therapy or the access and we do.
And so the next generation coming up will know what
mental health is their entire life. But we have this
I don't want to call it a weight, it's not
a burden, but we do have this like thing to
take up, which is the crossroads. It's like the transition,
you know, like we're the generation that new life before
(28:25):
the internet and new life with.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
The internet, you know, stretched across too. Yes, yes, very
unique to us.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's absolutely unique and also difficult. And so I think
it can be scary to want to shine your light
because there is so much telling you not to, and
yet there is so much telling you too, and having
to take a chance and leap out on faith that
like if it, if it makes you I always like
(28:51):
if it, if it feels good and you can't even
understand why, it's still probably something to pursue. If it
feels like your exhale, and even though you can't articulate why,
it's probably something to run towards. And if it makes
you feel like this and you don't know why, get
out of there. You don't need you don't need to
articulate it quite yet. But if it feels off, get
(29:14):
out of there, or make a boundary there, or put
something there so you can really nurture the parts of
you exhaling.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That is the most profound thing because before before I
had the oh, I don't have to push the rock.
I can be the water where I put it down.
I the unease in my body was everywhere. And you
(29:41):
know they that phrase like you can't see the forest
for the trees. Yes, in it and you're like, what
is this? What is this? Something's wrong?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
And for me, one of the best gifts that my
therapist gave me going through the whole process was pay
attention to your body. Stop asking the big question, stop
asking what's wrong. Stop stop saying I feel this way
in my house and being told this isn't reality, but
(30:11):
I feel it and I feel crazy, like you're up
here in the big concepts. Start to listen to your body.
Do you react to this with expansion or contraction? Do
you breathe in? Or do you expert? And that is
how I learned. Those were my baby steps. Like the
(30:33):
journey you're talking about, it's easier for you to see.
Let's use your mom as the exam. Yeah, you are
fifteen years into a journey. By now you are an expert.
By now you are like the professional sportball athlete your journey.
Your mom doesn't know how to hit the ball. Yeah,
that's a big chasm. What I've realized in every rung
(30:58):
on the ladder of life, I have climbed when I
when I get to one, that's like a big life
discovery season. Yeah, I'm learning something new. I couldn't have
talked about that the last five years of my life
this way without having worked through them. But the way
I started to find the language was learning to hit
(31:22):
the ball going, Am I relaxing or tightening?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Am I contracting when I hear this or when this
person comes in the room, or am I expanding? Uh? Yeah,
that's how I learned the language. That's how I learned, Yes,
to climb.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But like, what's so important what you're saying, and I
try to remind people, is that it is learning a
new language. And when you learn a new language, you
won't fuck it up. And I'm like, it's gonna be hard,
it's gonna be frustrating, but I always say it's temporary
discomfort to lead to everlasting peace.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yes, And by the way, you're probably gonna go through
it every five to ten years. Maybe you get to
the net I get it, then you get over the
hill and you're like, oh, there's absolutely I thought this
was the mountaintop and there's just you couldn't see it
from down. Absolutely, if you had been able to see it,
you probably wouldn't have tried to climb at all.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Exactly. It's remembering a friend of mine said this when
I first moved here. She was like, the journey is
the goal. And I keep reminding, especially artists, it's like,
if you don't understand or accept the journey is the goal,
then when you get the thing, when you get the job,
you're just gonna want the next one. You're just going
to keep focusing on the accomplishment's going to enjoy it.
You're not going to enjoy it, and you have to
have to experience it. You Yeah, Sophia, by the way,
(32:36):
you won the game. We were playing the game would
you rather? And you want?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I forgot That's where we started.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
It is. This is how what I love about This
is what I love about the shop. It's like, wherever
it takes us, it takes us. M h. Sylvia, do
you want to tell us something messy?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Something messy?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yes? Or like it could be it could be a
personal story, something you heard or it could he be
a hot take.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I mean, our government is messy.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
There you go, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Like yeah, I was about to be like, you know,
what's really funny for a person who's as organized as
I am and my literally my closets clare coordinated. Yeah,
and everything has a place in a drawer. My nightstand
is so messy really, Oh my god, it's just always
there's like three drink containers, a glass of you know,
the rest of last night's wine that I decided not
to finish my teeth and I was like, why did
(33:31):
I carry this in here? Like there's every vitamin on
twelve books, three journals?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Are you do you read all different books at the
same time or like one at a time?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It depends, It depends. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I can't. I
have to read like four at a time, and then
sometimes I'm so engrossed, but I need the options, Like
I was doing three books in my carry on bag
even if I'm going on a trip for four days.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
This is my this is I've learned that this is
the thing, and I've just started it where I'm like,
I have like my four books. Bit yeah, because you're
like it's like a TV show, like I'm in the
mood for a drama today, but tomorrow I'm in the
mood for a little comedy. And so you need your
books to have I just need them.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, you have them. Even if I don't open any
of them, I need to know they're there. So that's
my personal mess.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yeah, the world, baby, how are you taking care of
yourself in the middle of all I mean, that's such
a hard question, and I'm sure you feel I feel
this like the dichotomy of watching the world burn and
also still having to go to work to do things
like this, and you're like still having to like look
cute and you're just like, wait, what are we looking
(34:34):
cute for?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I'm like, huhh. The blow dryers like a stupid invention.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
James really crazy right now?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, I think in a really odd way. It used
to make me insane, Yeah, like terrible President term one insane.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yes, now.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Again it's practice, right, And as as the as my
capacity to hold the dialectics the things that are absolutely
oppositional but true at the same time expands, that is
the for me feels like my personal journey in life
to continue to be able to hold more things, to
(35:24):
be true and hold them tenderly. So in a weird way,
it's so much worse than it was the first time around.
I'm like, remember, y'all didn't read project or even we
told you I was in it, and then you told
us weep, we're crazy, and now here we are, Like,
it makes me crazy. I activate by sharing, by standing up,
(35:48):
by never being silenced, by calling people to action, by
reminding people of collective power on those things. And on
the other side, like the very worst thing that could
happen in the cunt tree happens to people and around
the world. Yeah, And I am in love with the
best person I know who has the two most beautiful children.
(36:12):
And those babies want to read books and color yeah,
and play basketball yeah, and go to the park.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
And they deserve the war.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
They deserve that.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And it is that duality. The more I am willing
to experience sorrow, the more space it carves in me
for joy. Yes, and I'm just on the seesaw.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yes, you have to ride the wave and understand that
multiple truths get to coexist. We're going to parallel process,
and that both extremes are necessary, like the showing up
and the activism and the speaking and also the laughing
and the holding your people close and checking in like
the softness is just as important.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
You deserve to cook a beautiful dinner. You deserve to
go out dancing too late with your friend.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yes, yes it is.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It is medicine.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
And I think your joy and your sacred rage exists
at the same time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
And the the skill, the human skill of living and
continuing to lean into both so you can grow your capacity. Yes, like,
what a what a gift to be on the journey.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Ugh hm hmmmmmmm mm hmmm. It is time for messy mail,
where we read out your whole fessions and questions. As always,
your submissions remain anonymous.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I love it and we we have really been in
the soul kinds of people.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Sub now okay, and it's always your submissions remain anonymous.
All right? So this one says I dated someone from
my friend group and when we broke up, I didn't
just ghost him, I ghosted everyone. I blocked the group chat,
archived the photos and started pretending I lived in Spain. Really,
I just moved to the East Side.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It was like, did you move to Barcelona? What's going on?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
They said? I ran into one of the friends at
Ralph's while test tasting the grapes tea you gotta have
a sweet grape. I told them I was visiting. This
has been going on for almost a year.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Wait, it wasn't a mental pretend. Like friends all think
this person.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Moved yeah, yeah, yeah, and then somebody ran into them
very close by stating, grape. How long? How long did
think this first? Keep this charade up? That's that's a
that's a big charade.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
That is so bold, that is so bold that with that.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
But social media, like I guess.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Oh no, you know what it reminds me of, Like
somebody sent the skywriting from a few months ago when
that terrible podcast or Joe Rogan who was platforming all
the white supremacist one huh, and somebody had paid to
skywrite Joe Rogan is literally five foot three over his office.
(39:13):
And I sent it to like ten friends and I said,
I aspire to be rich enough to be this.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yes, yes, some day some day.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
That's such a troll. But to be like that's petty.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
That's petty and also powerful, I guess, really powerful, but
also like I would always be. I mean, I guess
in New York, I would always be scared. I mean,
I guess over here, but you always be scared that
I'd run into somebody. How do you not run it?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
It would make me feel like a fugitive. But I
hadn't done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, you just broke up. Why block everybody?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Well, by the way, I'm like, what I want to know.
I want to get into the mess. I want to
be like, excuse me, uh, caller, if you blocked the
person you broke up with and the whole friend group,
what what did he do?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
What did he do? Secrets did they keep?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yes? What were the steaks that we had to block everybody?
And they were in Spain? Now I'm like, oh, that's tea. Also, yeah,
I do. I think you're asking the real the journalism journalism. Okay,
so this one, this next one says.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
I'm like, I'm like, I know, like something I went through.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Sometimes when they like ago listen sometimes when they when
they send these things and I'm like, I need more details.
How can I I need.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
To tell me more, tell me everything? Because see if
this was a caller.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Same more. Yeah, Yeah, we should do live calls. We
should live calls and we could like we can follow
up it'll be our Foodsball sport Ball episode. We'll have
martinis and beer and people will call in and we'll.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Roger Yes, literally my dream day.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Come on, We're gonna do it. This one said. So
I was trying to post a first trap with this
is how we started all this a little Jennie quah
and accidentally included a mirror reflection. And you can see
my ex in the back shirtless on my bed. My
bestie immediately called me and said it was an My
bestie immediately called me and I said it was an
(41:07):
old photo even though I posted it five minutes after
we hooked up. Bestie clock that in the photo, I
have blonde hair and the first time I died my
hair blonde was the last week. So I'm avoiding her calls. Now, that's.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Honestly.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
You have to check the mirror like that's that's the you.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Also, you just got you gotta be.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Honest about to your best You just gotta say, listen.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
You just have to be like I panicked because I
knew you were gonna tell me I shouldn't have done
the things I knew I wasn't supposed to do, but
I did it anyway. For myself and I did it anyway,
so you were right. You get unlimited. I told you
so is this week? Yes, I owe you dinner. Yeah,
you just accept it, make it funny, yes, and move on.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I also, here's what I'll say if you're what I've learned.
If you don't want to tell your bestie, there's probably
something you should not be doing. If you don't want
to share with your community what you up to, it's
probably not something you should be doing. That part period.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
You can't hide things. So if you have something to hide, yes,
don't do it.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Do a babe, don't do a vam. Don't do a VAM.
It'll also just make life easier.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
And if and and by the way, then if you
see people out doing the things, you should probably go, oh,
there's something I don't know because they're not hiding. Yeah,
hiding is the bad bad, It's just.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Not good for the soul. No, but I would also
say this, I have a I have a thing with
my friends and with just friends. And if I tell
you a thing, I'll tell you the thing one time.
If you ask me to tell you again, I'll tell
you it again. And if you continue to do something opposite,
it's no stress. I'm not mad. It's just like because
I think everyone has to be on their journey, so
don't even worry about hiding it. Like I clocked it.
(42:46):
We both we can look at each other eyes and
be like, you're like he girl, Okay, and let's move on.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
You're like a really old photo, you know, baby, have
your location? Like stop, I'm literally tracking.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
This one. Okay. I love this one. This one says
went out to dinner on two dates with the guy,
and he paid both times when I wasn't texting him
back to his liking. Oh. I finally told him, even
though I liked his vibe, I don't think I have
the time to keep seeing him. He Venmo requested me
for half of the dates. Do I pay it? All?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (43:23):
They ask him questions, They ask me, what do you
think do they pay it? First of all, it's wild.
That's petty as fuck, and crazy people are so petty.
People are wild. Ones are wild shook.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I'm also sort of inspired. I feel like I need
to be so much cuntier.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
I know, like, ask for what you want, give me
that half of that? Ven Mo back, No, but do
you pay it?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
No?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
No, you know what I would do. Tell me, I
would look up, like what's this person's coffee order? Like,
what's the coffee order?
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:56):
And I would venmo like seven ninety nine for a
Starbucks Grande Day Yes, to enjoy your day.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Yeah, yeah, you know, with a little note in the
Venmo enjoy your day.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
It offered. There's no take back, seas that's wild with
food you digested weeks a week.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
It's already done. It's already done. Also, like you had
those receipts, I guess you go back to your bank
statement or something like love.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
It's also I mean and listen, I want to be
these people could be very young. Sure, the expense of
paying for two people to have dinner, sure could affect
someone's like monthly grocery budget. I want to get a
little sensitive to that. But if that's it, if it's
like I liked you so much, I overspent. Don't mean
(44:43):
to be tacky, but a little more context, offer some context.
Or if you're doing it to be petty because you
got your feelings hurt, then you deserve petty and response.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
That's you know what I agree. I was going to say.
Somebody who wants to vendmo requests for some dates to
me and not all there, and so I'm like, I
would just pay it and block you and get out.
But there is like a if there was context, I
could understand that. Yeah, but it's like the it's just
so rude.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
It feels nasty.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, it feels nasty.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Explain it. Yeah. But also, as we all know, the
price of eggs have not gone down, they've gone up.
Come on in this economy, you know, you're like, let
me get.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
You know, I'll send you some money for our creative eggs.
How about that? I enjoy your breakfast.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
We send someone thirty dollars ninety nine cents to get
some organic.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Eggs, organic guys that we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I'm like, four red Carton love it.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Bye bye? All right. This one says this is a
little longer. I'm thirty four, and only recently have I
started naming myself as queer out loud to others, not
just in my head. It's been liberating but also disorienting.
I spent so much of my life minimizing myself, code
switching or trying to be the version of me that
made other people comfortable. Now I'm trying to be meme
(46:00):
but I don't fully know what that voice sounds like.
Yet everyone around me seems so confident in their queerness,
how they dress, how they date, how they speak about identity. Meanwhile,
I'm over here googling terms that I feel like I
should have already known. How do I find my queer voice,
not someone else's version of my queerness when I've spent
so long being quiet to survive. That's a real thank
(46:22):
you for this question, listener, that's a real yeah, what
are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (46:27):
I think it goes back to what we were talking about.
You're not going to get in the MLB if you've
never picked up a baseball. Yeah, you have to try,
You have to practice. Yeah, you deserve too. Yeah, you
deserve to try on every version of your style. You
(46:50):
deserve to go to every kind of restaurant to figure
out what kind of food you like. You deserve to explore.
And what I wonder about for so many people now,
everyone's so obsessed with the definition and the when and
the how long and this and that, and there's no
(47:12):
black and white answer. It's not there was before and
then today, there's today. It's always been there. Sometimes it's clear,
sometimes it's not sometimes you're lost in it. Maybe you
couldn't voice it, but looking back, you always knew, like
being a human is so complicated and messy. Yeah, and
I hope for this collar that rather than feeling like
(47:36):
they're behind and like they gotta figure it all out
so they can dress it or express it or say
it or name it or label it, that they can
just feel freer to explore.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yes themselves, to go on the journey and not worry
about the definition because the definition will evolve over time,
and so like you're never going to have a landing,
Like what queer means to you in the first month
is going to be different in the first year, it's
going to be different in ten years, And so giving
yourself permission to go on that journey. I also say
like going slow, like the not rushing, like go slow
(48:12):
in it, take it piece by piece. Don't feel like, oh,
I gotta know everything. I came out as non binary
in twenty twenty, and the best advice I got was
you don't have to tell everybody right now, like you
can just see what it is for you first before
you hear what other people think it is. And I
really spent that first. I think it was a year
before I actually like said something publicly, and I like
(48:36):
bought some more heels, and I bought skirts, and I
played with me and I just started just playing with
things I and I did it in my apartment like
I would just like And then then it was more
comfortable to go outside in heels, and then heels hurt,
so now they're just in the closet, you know, and
then like becoming comfortable that, like my style is a
(48:56):
little more boyish and is a little more that, and
that doesn't make me any less my version of queer,
but like the giving myself, as you're saying, the permission
to try all the restaurants, to explore and to also
I think the other piece about this I would say
is there's probably a version of queerness that this person
has that isn't available in the world, and so be
(49:19):
open to that, Like that you might have an expression
of it that actually doesn't exist in the world yet
that you are that you will bring to the world.
And so it's even more reason to explore because as
you explore and you take pieces from elsewhere, you kind
of build a new tapestry that is all your own,
and releasing the releasing the pressure of having to be
(49:42):
a scholar of queerness. Yes, you know, like you don't
have to be the stay.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
An expert on your first out loud day.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
And I love what you said about not rushing. Yeah,
because rushing is how you wake up day in a
house that isn't yours. You know. Oh, I can look
back now and understand that there were certain pressures that
I intellectually thought I had worked through. Yes, but in
(50:13):
my bones, I had felt my whole life and approaching,
particularly for women in this world, approaching forty and wanting
to be a parent and all these things, and the
pressure that my brain knew better than to fall victim to.
If you don't think I pinterest boarded and produced that.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Light baby fast, Baby Quick.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
And then I looked around and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, great,
Like I'm a good producer. But I ignored myself. I
didn't give myself time to really interrogate certain things. When
I would ask a question about something that made me uncomfortable,
I took the answer at face value, even though somewhere
in my body I.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Went there was that contraction, like.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
That you're telling me I'm safe, but I don't feel safe, Yes,
and the undoing when you've gone too fast. Yeah, there's
a whole lot shittier than going slow.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
They that's tea, Please.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
Give you so much money?
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Yes, that's tea. You know. I think as women and
queer folks, I always say our worth comes from our productivity,
Our worth comes from being good. And so there is
that indoctrinated to not ask more questions because you don't
want to be a burden. You don't want to feel
like you are difficult, so you just take things at
(51:35):
face value. But I think the way back home is
to go slow and to ask those questions, and when
you get that first answer, be like, is there an answer?
Is there a question? Is there another question? I always
say this now, and I say this in business, I
say this in friends. Is there a question that I'm
not asking? Is there a question that I should be at?
Like I end all my meetings with like, is there
a question that I should have asked that I haven't
(51:55):
asked because because there might be something that I'm missing
and that somebody else might be able to shed light
on or to bring me into. Yeah, it's like there
are always questions, and so you know, always always looking
for more of them. I think is part of the
journey of finding your voice and knowing that your voice
(52:16):
oof that sometimes it's okay to listen. Yeah, as you're
finding your voice, sometimes it's really in fact, I would
encourage you to listen that. I think when we think voice,
we think, oh, we have to like have a brand
of our queerness and have to be able to say
this is what it is and this is what isn't
It's like no, sometimes you're in the phase where you're
like listening and you're learning, and you're you're just sourcing
(52:40):
before you can actually express, And that's being in that
chrystalist or that cocoon is invaluable. Like do not try
and break out of your cocoon sooner than you need to.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, yeah, your self time.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Yes, Yes, Sophia, this has been a nursing conversation. That's great.
I'm going to ask you the last two questions that
we asked. They're nice.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
I'm like, I just can't get over the full quote
from the episode. I was listening to you this morning.
You had Nick being like, well, it's pride, I'll stuff
him like a pepper, and I was like, we have.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
The range here, you range we go through it respect
Thank you, but you know what I mean, what are
we doing? So this question is what's your favorite piece
of advice you've ever received, given, or heard. It could
be naughty, it could be nice, it could be about anything.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
One I'll tell you after Okay, I'll say one of
the best pieces of advice I have ever been given
in respect to what we were just talking about, is
slow as fast.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
If you slow down, you check in, Yes, you make
the right first move. Yes, instead of running in, screwing up,
having to clean up the mess and run out. Yeah,
you will get into that space faster. Yes, slow as fast.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
I love that You're I was just reading what is
it called? I think rest is sacred? But it's Octavia F. Freeman.
But there's a passage about pace and like find is
like is the pace that you're at the cultural pace
or is it your pace? And that you have to
slow down to find your pace? And going at what
(54:37):
is your pace? So I love that so as fast.
The last question is I used to ask what do
people what can people learn to love about themselves? But
now I want to ask what do you love most
about yourself? You know? And I'm gonna I'm gonna give
context because I know that in our culture it can
sometimes feel arrogant or cocky to say what we love
(54:58):
about ourselves. But I really want to reshape that we
have to know what we love about ourselves. We have
to love ourselves first in order to what is my
angel say? She says something like something in the lens
of I don't trust somebody who doesn't love themselves. I
don't trust. Yes, I don't trust if they don't love
who they are. I'm not really sure what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
I love that I'm a courageous person, and I mean
that I show up for people.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
I show up when it is inconvenient, when it is
harmful to my career, when it is scary, sometimes when
there's a risk of violence, I show up. I will
not give up on us. And what I love about
(55:46):
finding my courage first for our community, Yeah, is that
it led me to be courageous for myself. Yeah. And
when I realized that there was an incongruent between the
way I could look at any person and say you
deserve better, the way I could look at any system
(56:08):
and say this is fucked up and it's broken, and
it oppresses people, and we can do better. I had
to realize that I didn't defend myself the way I
would defend a stranger or a neighbor. Yeah, And it
made me say to myself, like in the mirror, I
love that when you love, you love hard. I love
(56:32):
that when you commit, you commit all the way. You
go to the end of the road, and you finally
learned that if you reach the end of the road
and it's a dead end, who gives a shit what
anybody's going to think when you turn around and drive
right back out. Good for you. You explored it, You did it, Yes,
no stone unturned. You did all the work, and now
(56:52):
you're going to keep working on the next thing. And
that I used to be so ashamed at people's judgment
or or at the appearance of failure. And then I
started to realize, you know how courageous you have to
be to do something big and then be willing to
do the next Yeah, willing to move on, be willing
(57:15):
to continue to choose better, to not settle for mediocre.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
Like ah. And when I realized that the way I
was framing my personal failure is how I would view
courage in people I loved. I was like, oh, I
deserve love. I'm courageous. Yeah, and so that was a
really big.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Shift for Yeah, Sophia, this was I knew it was
gonna be a conversation. Like I was very excited, but
like this was beyond anything I could have ever dreamed
or imagine. We're pretty good together, right together, we do,
We're gonna do. We're gonna We're gonna do our talk show.
It'll be part soulful, It'll be part sports, yeah, it'll
(58:01):
be part foodsball, It'll be incredible.
Speaker 2 (58:04):
And then we can do like the after Hours. Yes,
have the dirty, have.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
The dirty, the dirty dirty talks. Yes, you know, thank
you for being here. I love you so much. You
well you know we are hose here, but hose with heart.
(58:28):
So before we part ways, let me speak to yours.
H I love Sophia so much. What a fulfilling and
nourishing and soulful conversation about all the things. One of
my favorite things that she said is I don't have
to push the rock. I can be the water. And
if rebring that up, because I guess you know, I
(58:49):
think for so many of us, and I said this
often about queer folks and women, our worth is tied
to our productivity, how much we can do you, how
we can be there for everybody else, Like, that's how
we feel our worth. We are we are affirmed in
our ability to do things for others, and it's how
(59:13):
we get our hit of worthiness. And so we often
feel like we have to push the rock. And so
I don't know who needs to hear this, but you
can be the water. You can go with the flow.
In fact, it's imperative that you find moments to do
so that your worthiness is not tied to your productivity
(59:35):
or how much you can lift, how much you can do.
It's not tied to pushing that boulder up a hill,
just by being by existing, you're worthy and you're enough. So,
as uncomfortable as it will be at first, what are
the ways in which you can let yourself be water.
Let yourself release some of the pressures, Let yourself release
(01:00:02):
the need to be perfect. Perfectionism is my rock that
I'm constantly having to put down, and then I find
myself picking it up without even knowing it. You know,
I think it'll be a constant, a constant work, and
I'm much better at it. But that's one of my rocks.
So you don't have to push the rock, you can
be the water. Also, I love when Sophia says, if
(01:00:25):
it feels good, you don't have to articulate why, but
if it makes you exhale, lean in, as you are
on this journey towards your liberation and towards your freedom,
you may not have all the language, but you can
know how it feels in your your body is yelling
at you all the time, or whispering or speaking at
(01:00:45):
a normal voice, but like your body is communicating with
you at all times. So when you say yes to
a thing and your body clenches, even if you can't
articulate what it's about, Like, notice that your body clenched
a little bit when you showed up at this environment
or when that person walked in the room. Notice how
your body shifted, and just get curious about why. Why
(01:01:09):
is that's what's coming up for you. And on the
opposite end, notice when your body relaxes, you know, somebody
calls you and you see their name and you get excited,
very different than when you get tense. Right, just notice it.
You don't have to make any changes yet, but just
starting to like, get curious about what is my body
(01:01:29):
telling me? What is my heart telling me? Where when
my throat closes up, or when I feel that pain
in my gut or that like pain in my neck
that continues to to get exacerbated after a certain uh,
after I'm me at a certain place or with certain people, like,
just start to notice that and see how you can
(01:01:50):
move towards the things that make you exhale. I also
love your joy and sacred rage get to co exist,
you know, I think, especially in the in the times
that we are in. I think it's impossible not to
(01:02:10):
feel rage. If you're not feeling rage, you're not awake.
You know, like there is a lot happening that should
make you angry. Certainly makes me angry. And at the
same time I understand that joy is also important that
(01:02:32):
in order to balance that rage and to make that
rage productive not your worth, We're not telling that, but
you know, like to do something with that rage that
can heal and that can move things forward. You got
to know where your joy is to You got to
know how to how to find moments where you can smile,
(01:02:56):
where you can find moments to laugh, where you can
find moments to exhale that your rage and your joy,
your sacred rage, because it is sacred because I used
to be afraid of rage, and I think I've talked
about this on here. Just assuming that the rage would
lead to or the rage was violence, like conflating those
(01:03:17):
two things, rage and violence, anger and violence. But rage
is just a human emotion. Anger is a human emotion,
and for some people they act on it if they
don't know what it is. Right, we don't have to,
but you still get to feel all your feelings as
a human and so you're so if you're somebody who
(01:03:40):
like struggles with being angry and you're always trying to
be like nice and happy and polite, I encourage you
to look in the mirror and find your sacred rage.
Because rage is also an indicator. It tells you don't
I don't want to be here, or I don't like
this thing, or this is unacceptable it needs to change.
(01:04:02):
Your rage is actually a beautiful indicator of when change
needs to happen, or of when you are out of
alignment with something. And so allowing our sacred rage and
our joy to coexist so that we can exist. You know,
you can't cut a piece of yourself off. You can't
(01:04:23):
cut some of your emotions off if you decide not
to feel the rage, and you can't actually feel the
joy either. Right, you can't fully feel the joy if
you don't also feel that rage. All of our emotions
work with each other, work in collaboration with one another. O.
There are so many things, and I don't want to
make this too long, but rushing is how you wake
(01:04:46):
up one day in a house that isn't yours. Slow
is fast. That's where I'm gonna leave this because I
know somebody needs that. Do not rush. You want to
build your house brick by brick. I know that there
are lot of there's a lot of messaging that's like.
Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
If you're not this by twenty three, you failed. If
you're not by here by thirty, you have failed. If
you don't have this by forty, you have baby. That's
all bullshit. You were on your timeline, you were on
your blueprint. Go slow, slow is fast. If you are
rushing and doing shortcuts or saying yes to things that
(01:05:25):
you haven't even processed, you don't have to double back.
You have to fix those things. You have to erase
those things. You have to restructure those things, and that's
going to be a lot harder than if you took
the time to go slow. You took the time to
be intentional about every brick that you're laying down for
the house that you're building, which is your life. So
(01:05:49):
rushing is how you wake up one day in a
house that isn't yours.
Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Slow as fast? What were some of your standout things?
You can email me at telling Me Something Messy at Gmail.
You know I always want to hear from you, and
I love you so so very much. I'll talk to
you next week. Bye. Thank you so much for listening
to tell Me Something Messy. If you all enjoyed the show,
(01:06:14):
send me episode to someone else you might like it.
Tell Me Something Messy was executive produced by Ali Perry,
Gabrielle Collins and Yours Truly. Our producer and editor is
Vince de Johnny. The video of tell Me Something Messy
is produced by Des Lombardo and a special thank you
to Natalie Branham who helps me organize and come up
with some of this mess tell Me Something Messy is
(01:06:34):
a production of iHeart Podcasts on the Outspoken Network. For
more podcasts, listen on the free iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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