Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler is a comedian, actress, television host, producer, activist, and author. She sits down with Sophia to discuss her new Netflix Series “Hello Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea,” why we’re so uncomfortable talking about white privilege and race, how to know when it’s time to leave a job, dealing with loss and grief, and how getting honest with yourself leads to the best kind of comedy.  Executive Producers: Sophia Bush & Sim Sarna Supervising Producer: Allison Bresnick Associate Producer: Caitlin Lee Editor: Josh Windisch Music was written by Jack Garratt and produced by Mark Foster Artwork by Kimi Selfridge. This show is brought to you by Brilliant Anatomy.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, Sophia Bush here. Welcome to Work in Progress,
where I talk to people who inspire me about how
they got to where they are and where they think
they're still going Today. Today, I am so thrilled to

(00:26):
interview my friend and a complete legend, Chelsea Hammler. She's
here to talk about her new book, which is called
Life Will Be the Death of Me, her brand new
Netflix documentary, Hello Privilege. It's me Chelsea, and she talks
so much about life and comedy, her personal awakening therapy,

(00:46):
learning to listen to your body. I know that might
sound a little intense, but neither of us is that
woo woo, So get ready, buckle up. We're going to
get into mental health, family, white privilege, Paul ticks, and
we're going to have a lot of laps while we
do it. Enjoy. I'm very excited that you're here. Thank

(01:08):
you for you. I'm always excited to see you. I'm
always excited to see you, and I know that we're
going to get on a more regular train and I'm
excited about it. Well, don't bring up trains. I should
bring up a train. Oy. I went sexual with that,
and you went to a much darker now I went
to the Holocaust. Okay, awesome, So I'm gonna scratch that
word from the record. Um, don't they do that in court?

(01:31):
They like hit the gavel and they scratch it and
they yeah and what yeah, this is my like RBG moment,
I'm I get stricken from the record. We should think
we should get her in here and do planks together.
Absolutely should. I also feel like maybe we should have
those neck doilies for people to who doesn't love her.
If you don't love her, then you are a Trump
supporter her little purple super Diva sweatshirt in the gym.

(01:54):
I can't just keep planking ruth um. But to tell
people are you need no introduction, but to tell people
how we happen to be sitting here together, how we
know each other. I first have to admit, um that
I was just I mean still am obviously, but before
I met you. So thanks for not ruining the party.
Sometimes they say don't meet your idols, and I disagree.

(02:15):
But I was such a huge fan of yours and
your show, and I was like, I was always in
and then I finally got to come on your show
and it was so much fun and you were so
nice and so welcoming. And I brought my parents because
my parents were also obsessed with you, and you know,
my mother's from New Jersey and she was like the
most excited and you were so sweet to them, and

(02:37):
it's like still a thing that when it comes up,
they're they're very excited. That's such a nice story. Thank you,
Charles and Maureen say hi, my mom's like I love that.
She's a crazy dog rescuer like me. Yeah, so how
are you. I'm good, I'm good, thank you. Yeah, awesome,
I've been I've been listening to your podcast and listening

(02:59):
to your sh awesome thank you. And the freaky thing
is is do you do you ever see people like
posting things on social media where you know there's some
meme about a realization or like dumping a bad boyfriend
or whatever, and someone will repost it and be like,
I feel attacked the number of times I've been listening
to your book and Dan Siegel is saying something to

(03:21):
you and I'm like, oh my god, I feel attacked.
I know he's the best. I saw him this morning. Yeah,
just I could of because I don't go to him
as much as I did when I was writing the
book because I feel like when you get that information,
you got to kind of like then go put it
into your real life without an interdependent relationship, Like I don't.
I don't want to be calling my therapist on the phone,
you know what I mean. That's a step I don't
step too far from me. Yeah, you don't want to

(03:43):
be like I had a thought today. Yeah, Like he
was my dad's funeral last week or not last week
last I have no sense of time, So it was
probably a couple of months ago, like six months ago,
and he was like, you know, if anything comes up
at the funeral, I want you to know you can
call me. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to
call it. I'm like, even a funeral, I'm not gonna
call you. I'll talk to you when I get back. Yeah.
I have a little bit of that where I'm like,

(04:03):
absolutely not. I refuse to tell you that I need
help with something. I'm good. Yeah. For anybody who's listening
who doesn't know, because we just really jumped right into this.
Dan Siegel is the therapist who is my psychiatrist. So
I wrote a book about him and my experience in
therapy because I had it just was a huge wake
up for me, and I was like, oh, I better

(04:24):
tell everybody about it. I love it. Though. It's like,
you know, in a world where I feel like we're
seeing more people feeling depressed, more people experiencing lethargy, more
people experiencing burnout, these conversations not to like be all
woo woo about it or to l a about it,
but they really are life saving. They really can be

(04:45):
the life preserver to somebody who feels like they're drowning
and it. I think it's very brave what you're doing. Well,
thank you. I think it's important to you know, I
was somebody who pooh pooed all of that for a
really long time. Like meditation was one of those words
that I was not interested in hearing. It was overused
usually about crystals, the same crystals, manifest universe, all of

(05:07):
that jazz is something that kind of repelled me for
a long time, and crystals pretty much still do. But
you know, like I just it was a world that
I thought was to l a. It just to me,
it personified everything, like everyone's who is in this town
being a narcissist, you know, Like I have a TV
show named after me, I have books that I have
my name on them, and then I go and talk

(05:29):
to a therapist about myself for two hours a night.
Like that wasn't in my plan. I thought it was
too cool for that and too smart. Was there another
side of the coin, though, we're like, maybe you're like
I have my ship together obviously, like look, I'm on billboards.
But was there also a side of you that thought,
look at all the stuff I have, I don't deserve

(05:51):
to be sad. I don't deserve to be struggling, Like
what what's my pain compared to like all the people
suffering out there in the world, Like I, yeah, I
I I didn't think I got I didn't think I
got to be in pain because I didn't think like
I wasn't raped, I wasn't molested repeatedly throughout my childhood.
I thought that was what trauma was. I didn't think
my brother dying was traumatic. And I mean, I knew

(06:13):
it was on a guttural level, obviously because it was
so painful, But I had shut myself down and at
the age of nine, and you know what my psychiatrist
so eloquently explained to me over and over and over again,
that a nine year old does not have the ability
to think about the situation in a whole way, Like
you're not developed enough with that vocabulary to understand that

(06:33):
death is an accident, not a rejection. So when you don't,
you kind of get stuck at the age. That trauma
happens if you don't work yourself through it. And I
didn't work through it because my family kind of, you know,
we all fell apart at that time, and my father
really fell apart. So I didn't go to a therapist
until it was clear in high school, many years later

(06:53):
that I had some serious issues. But at that point
I wasn't ready to talk to anybody. I would sit
there with my arms folded, and any therapist who couldn't
get anything out of me was another win, you know,
Like my parents like, you have to go to see
a shrink, you know, we don't know what's wrong with you,
and and I just sit there, you know, and and
and they'd give up. They're like, we can't do anything
with her. She won't talk. And I'm like, yep, because
adults are unreliable because they lie. And so I hated

(07:17):
all persons of authority because it's like what what I
learned was, Oh, my brother's gonna tell me, he's gonna
be right back. He said, I'll never leave you with
these people talking about my parents, and then he died.
And for me, that was like being broken up with
with nobody calling you back, you know, like you're in
a relationship for nine years and the guy never calls

(07:38):
you back out of the blue. And when Dan put
it to me in that in those terms, I then
was able to finally I feel sorry for my little
nine year old girls self, whereas I never had compassion
for myself. And when you don't have compassion for yourself,
which is kind of the biggest lesson, you're not great
to other people. You have to be good to you.
You said something that was so again like not to

(08:01):
be l a and crystally, but I was like, damn,
that's a brave thing to admit. Where you were talking
in the book about realizing that you are one of
the most sympathetic and generous friends. Sure like you show
up for people, you fly places for people, like you'll
you'll rescue people from any kind of darkness they find themselves.

(08:22):
And if there are people that you love and maybe
a stranger um which bold move, but you said that
that's not the same as empathy, and like when you
close yourself off from your own deepest feelings, you can't
feel those things for with other people. And like that

(08:44):
that was a there was a clarity in the way
that you talked about it where I was like, Wow,
I don't know that I've ever heard somebody phrase something
like that before. Yeah, I didn't know about empathy. I
didn't know that I lacked it. I didn't know that
I had a deficit. You know, I thought I was sympathetic,
but I knew something was wrong because I had so
much anger and I you know, I after the election.

(09:06):
I know you felt this way too, because we've spoken
about this athlet and we're both very public about which
I applaud you for because not everybody is. But I
think it's so necessary, and I know you feel the same.
I really appreciate that because there's like people who tell
me I deserve to like, you know, have my head
cut off and have strangers fuck my corpse. So I
really any any amount of kindness for what we choose
to do, the sort of boldness and like telling the

(09:29):
truth that what's happening right now, it's not like, I'm sorry,
I'm not being a fake celebrity with a fake persona
online and I'm sorry that I'm trying to fight for
the country that i live in because it's into and
that I'm a negative person. You're negative, you're negative, or
you're angry, you're so angry. It's like, yeah, I'm fucking angry.
There are kids in caging. I'm angry, and I don't
even like kids. That makes me fucking angry. I really

(09:51):
do like kids, but I'm also and I'm also very
angry about that. And it's like, I think you have
to be a bit detached from reality not to be
And this whole idea that, uh, it's about parties, I'm
like no, because let me tell you what, if Barack
Obama had put kids in cages, I would have been
just as mad. Like there are things that are just

(10:13):
wrong and if and if you ignore wrongness for party
or person, it's like, so, what you're telling me is
that you don't actually have standards because they don't just apply.
If your standards are malleable depending on who's committing the offense.
You don't have a standard. You have like an opinion
and could probably be swayed with a cocktail and I
don't trust you, right right. It's funny to see what

(10:34):
these people fight for, you know, Like Ted Cruise was
in the paper today talking about fighting for Texas because
of the tariffs to Mexico, and it's like, oh, now
you're gonna you didn't have a problem with kids in
cages in Texas. This is your issue now, okay, Like
what is there any morality? You know? And that's I
think that's why it's so important, you know, And it's
and it's you know what I learned through therapy about

(10:55):
this whole because I was so outraged and so angry,
and I had veins popping out of my neck. I
was going into lounges at airports looking for the fox,
like looking for the Fox people to confront them, like
that's where I was at. And I was like, this
is not working for me, Like this level of outrage
doesn't It's I don't know why. I just imagined you,
like as a small child, but in your body being

(11:16):
like where are they like tearing through the first place
like Emirates lounge or whatever. That's a very funny image
to me, And uh, I just learned and I read
it in the Rebecca Soul that has a great book
where she talks about activism and that like, you know,
everything has to be out of five. You have to
look at the long like every incident can't be an eruption.
Every incident is part of the reason why you fight

(11:37):
for the cause that you fight for, because it's a marathon,
you know, when when you look at the length of time,
that real change cat you know, requires It's like I
I talked to a lot of young kids about this stuff.
I'm like, I just need you to understand the activism
isn't sexy. It isn't like the win you get to
have on a Saturday night. It's not that if you're

(11:58):
going to commit to something, you have to commit to
showing up even when you don't want to, learning doing
the next right thing, and also admitting when the thing
that you thought was right maybe wasn't, and then doing
the next right thing after that. Like it's it's a
long experience. It's like being married to somebody and and

(12:18):
you know, having no intimate relationship, but hopefully you raise
a good child, like you're you're you're hoping to create
a product that may not actually affect you, but it
might affect you know, other people who need help. It
might affect the next generation. It's like, why all this
climate science denial is so crazy to me? I'm like, hello,
the ice has melted, Like there's no denying, So let's

(12:43):
do something instead of keep pretending that there's something to
win here, Like what do you want to win at
Bag of Bones? It's very strange. We're talking obviously a
lot about therapy and what you learned, and you put
it in a book, which is amazing. It's called Life
Will Be the Death of Me and you too. Have
you been surprised by the response from this book because

(13:04):
it it's obviously very funny, but it explores such deep
um and vulnerable things, and it it's different than other
things that you've written. What what's kind of the what's
the conversation you're on the receiving end up? Now, Well,
I'm doing a book tour, so I go around to
all these different cities in the country. So far, I
just extended it so it's gonna I'm adding states and

(13:25):
stuff I'm gonna turn it into. So what I've been
doing is people are different. People are interviewing like in
different cities like Connie needed person. Yeah, well, thank you.
It's almost over that leg of the tour that I
appreciate it. Uh, Like Connie Britten interviewed me in Austin
and Dallas, Jake Tapper did d C, and Sarah Silverman
did San Francisco. Natasha Leone interviewed me in New York.
So we have just kind of like a badly And

(13:47):
that's why I got into the podcast because they're like,
what what about the people can and can't you know,
go and see you perform? And I was like, well,
and they said, what if we do a limited series podcasts?
So it's like all of us are getting all these podcasts.
It's so funny that we all just you get a podcast,
and you mean, it's so nice. It's just like the
easiest thing in the world, and it's so natural. And
we didn't have to put on escara. No I did

(14:07):
put on escara this morning because I was struggling a
little with my look. Um, but yeah, I so I tried.
I did a tour and then once I started having
these conversations on stage about the book and seeing the
response from the book, and you know, um, I thought
for sure I wasn't gonna be number one this time.
I had to like literally talk to my therapist about
I'm like, listen, I'm I've been ego driven for a
very long time, so I have to be okay if

(14:27):
I'm not number one. Because Michelle Obama was like, you know,
at the top of the list, and she had been
you know, somebody else had been number one once but
then she went back up. So when I got number
one without having a TV show and all the support
that I normally had when I had books, I was like,
I was so prepared to not be first place, Like
this is the thing I'm working on in life, is

(14:47):
like I don't want to be competitive, you know, And
I've never really been like that, but I've been self.
I think about my I thought about myself way more
than I was thinking about other people. Not competitive, but
I was just so in my own lane, almost not
paying attention to anything, not caring what anybody thought, and
also just being so hyper focused on myself. And it
just came to a point where I had to look

(15:09):
around and it was the election for me. You know,
I've been generous and nice to my friends and family
and intimates, but what am I doing for people that
are not in my life. And that's when I had
the wake up call about the racism and the sexism
in this country. I think everyone had a wake up
call to to elect somebody who was caught saying, grab
him by the pussy is our president? Is just such

(15:31):
a funk you to women. It is so disrespectful on
so many levels. And the women that voted for him,
you know. So all of that stuff made me really
dig deep because I had to realize that my life.
I was acting like a spoiled brat after the election,
like how could this happen? How could this happen? How
could this happened? And I was thinking about my life.

(15:52):
Nothing has changed in my life through these two years,
other than just having like probably high blood pressure. Nothing
has changed. Nothing's real, nothing financial, nothing anything. And you know,
and I just started reading a lot more than I had,
and I was starting to read lots a lot more
black authors and to really like understand how spoiled my

(16:14):
life has been. You know, I've had struggles, and I've
had heartbreak and my brother died. Yes, but I was
I never got everything came easy, you know, it was
I would be badly behaved or you know what people,
the norms of society would deem badly behaved. You know.
I'd write talk about drinking and doing drugs, and people
gave me TV shows and book deals, and I was

(16:35):
rewarded for all the things that if I wasn't white
and pretty, I wouldn't have gotten at that time. And
so I always thought, oh, I worked really hard. Nobody
works harder than me. And the reality was like, no,
you're fucking lucky too. You're fucking lucky that you were
born in a place where you got an education, that
you were never starving. I was never hungry, I was

(16:57):
never sexually assaulted. I've been fucking lucky, and that's of it,
you know. So I wanted to add on to that
with something with more depth. I wanted to add knowledge
and I you know, and I've been kind of even
before the election, I had been steering off in that
direction because after eight years of Chelsea Lately, I know,
you know that people who loved that show really loved
that show. But for me, I had to grow up more,

(17:18):
you know, and I had to have evolution. And so
when I went to Netflix, I was trying to become
more of an adult. But I hadn't done the inside work.
It was like, you know, I did externally. I was like,
let's make it more serious, let's talk to politicians, let's
get involved, and let's do social activism and and bring
awareness to things. But I hadn't done the work on
myself yet. So by the time the election came around,

(17:40):
that's when I was like, spun it. You know, I
just spun out with that result. And at that point
then I couldn't work. I was like, I can't do this.
I have to go campaign, I have to go meet
these people. And you know, I thought I was going
to just like fix the crisis. That's my personality, like
I'm going to go fix the election, which is thankfully
millions of people felt the same way. So we actually
did have a great result in the midterms. But that's

(18:00):
what I was focused on. And during that time, you know,
I said, let me go see a shrink. This guy
had met on my TV show. Actually I interviewed him
um for a segment on like adolescent you know, brain development,
which is perfect because I found out I was basically
like nine years old emotionally for the last thirty years.
You're like, oh might yeah, So that's that's what happened. Wow.

(18:27):
And I'm grateful for it because now I see a
lot more clearly. You know, it changes your perspective on everything.
I feel like, you know, I don't like the word
awakening or enlightened just because of all the woo. But
I think there are many wake up calls in life
and it's up to you to answer the phone. Right
You're like, am I going to continue to hit snooze

(18:47):
or am I going to go for this? And I
do think, I mean to your point shared rage. Like, literally,
I have a I have a gray streak in my head.
Now it's not a few gray hairs, it's like a
chunk of hair. It is a shop. My hairdresser was like,
are you okay? And I was like, no, I'm not okay.

(19:09):
You're like turning the news on, Like how could anybody
be okay? Were you addicted to the news, like I
was like the news cycle or did you not do that? Oh? Yeah?
And I think for me, especially leading into the election,
you know, I was still working acting on a TV show, uh,
and so people were like losing their ship because I
wouldn't get off my phone. And I was like, what

(19:30):
about the fact that I am consuming news at a
speed at which you would think that somebody would need
to be popping an adderall every hour to get through.
But I'm I'm fueling myself with rage, not amphetamines. I
couldn't look away. I was reading every article, I was
reading every analysis. I was looking at at you know,
I wanted to know what was happening in the newspapers
in Ohio, and the newspapers in Florida, and the newspapers

(19:52):
in l a and the news. It was like it
was manic because I too couldn't understand how basic decency
could be so quickly cast aside. And it required a
sort of larger analysis for me of what hopelessness can
feel like in different communities and and what and and

(20:14):
at how you know the PR machine can work. Like
Donald Trump is a fucking idiot, but he's good at
publicizing himself because he learned to do that on a
reality show. He's good at he's good at lying, you
could say, but he's not really that good at it.
It's like people are are gullible. I mean, any clear
headed person would look at a man like that screaming
and yelling and going this guy and say this guy

(20:36):
is not equipped to be the president of the United States.
He can't string a sentence together. He's never answered one
question on policy in his entire presidency, and he just
like stalked around on the debate stage like you know,
an animal. Yeah, and we fell for it. So what
does it say about society? I think that there is
a lot more people becoming awake because of this. And

(20:58):
they're like, you know, even the meditation apps that are
all out there, calm, I meditate now, Calm headspace. I
love headspace and voices and breathe and like yeah, and
and it's like there's a reason why everybody has that.
There's a reason, like these two things happen at the
same time, like a level of raising, raising of consciousness
comes at the same time that this reality television stars

(21:20):
the president of the United States. And I think that
for a lot of people who naively believed, like, look
at us, we're solving things. We elected a black president,
we we have a female candidate, we are doing all
this big progress. It's like, what wasn't being talked about,
at least not in places I was aware of. And
I do read a lot of the news, but also

(21:40):
I'm very aware that white privilege is a real thing,
and that there were things that I wasn't reading before
or or not enough of before. Um. But I didn't
learn until this fallout from the Trump disaster that after
Barack Obama got elected, the number of young black men
being shot by the police started increasing. There was like

(22:03):
this direct correlation, and there so so to me, it
was so indicative of this base, insidious, subconscious, tribalistic grossness
that I think a lot of us have wanted to
assume we've grown past in the early you know, in
the early two thousand's, and it's like, no, you know,

(22:24):
think about what we were doing a hundred years ago.
We were a disaster. So we have to continue to
do the work as though we're on the precipice of
falling back into the disaster pit, because clearly we are.
We fell back in. And I think it's incredible to
see people who are waking up to these things, to

(22:47):
see people who are saying, I thought I knew, or
I'm embarrassed I didn't know, or I thought that I knew,
and I'm embarrassed I didn't know. More. Whatever, your sort
of personal spaces to find yourself in a space and
say I wasn't aware of this part or that part,
or any of my privilege, and I want to fix it.
You know that that's the only sort of silver lining

(23:07):
of this situation to me. It is it's like, you know,
I just shot a film for Netflix, a documentary about
white privilege called Hello Privilege. It's me Chelsea, because you
really do need to. You know, if you're not part
of the solution, then you're part of the problem. And
if you're benefiting from white privilege, which we all are, um,
then you're part of the problem. So you have to

(23:28):
use your platform. I mean, I feel so passionately now
in my life, thank goodness that I'm here, and and
and you know that that I I have to. It's
about making a contribution, not cashing a check. It's like, Okay,
I've got this, I'm gonna use it. I can I
have a career, I can pretty much do whatever I
want whenever I want. Why not do the good stuff?
Why not make do you know, write a book that

(23:51):
is so meaningful that that people can say, oh my god,
you're telling my story, this is what happened to me,
or this is why I was so angry, And now
it makes sense, and I want to go to therapy
like that's a good contribution. It's not just me stroking
my own ego. Going Look, I wrote another book. It's
about giving something away, you know what I mean. And
and with the documentary it was, you know, I still
want to have fun and be stupid and silly and

(24:12):
all of those things. But we have we have a
real situation right now, and so everything any like enlightenment
that any of us can bring to the table, it's
our responsibility to do so. Yeah, I think so too.
Why you think that white people get so upset about
talking about white privilege because they don't want to say

(24:32):
the wrong thing and they don't want to First of all,
no one can ask real questions. People are so scared,
you know. If I you know, in the trans community,
I want to understand the pronouns. I want to understand.
I want to be your ally, So please tell me
how to be a better ally and advocate for you
and any marginalized community, you know, because we're in the
un marginalized community. Even though we're women, we are white,

(24:54):
and we have had nice lives, you know. And uh,
for the most part, there's never been an a real,
real struggle for me, um, and that's that's not the
way it is for everybody else, And so close a
blind eye to that is is so disrespectful to so
many people. It's also disrespectful to yourself, you know. People.
The most common term you hear are when you're talking

(25:15):
to conservatives or people who think that you're accusing them
of being racist, is like, I'm never really, I don't
see any racism. I don't see you know. The first
thing they say is like, I'm good with black people.
I had a black friend, And you're like, okay, well
that's so sounds so racist, or I wouldn't any I've
never noticed any racism. We were out and we were
in Georgia at this like very like white community, you know,

(25:35):
one of those private communities, and I was talking to
some women there and she's like, I've never seen any rate,
I've never seen any racism. And I'm like, but would
you are you looking out for that? You're white with
a bunch of white people. Where would you see it?
So it's about opening your minds. And you know, a
lot of these people haven't ever had their thinking challenged,

(25:56):
so they haven't been out of a small town or
and they don't know black people, so you know, it's
all about like that stuff, you know. And it was
very self incriminating in a way, not incriminating, that's not
the right word, but it was like, Oh, I'm just
like I live in bel Air. I moved from l A.
From New Jersey where there was one black kid in
my school. I moved to l A. I lived in Brentwood,

(26:16):
Santa Monica, and now I live in bel Air. So
who the funk am I? You know what I mean,
I'm doing exactly what other white people do is, which
is go around other white people that's comfortable. Go what
you're comfortable with, how you were raised. No, what I
need to do is go live somewhere more diverse, not
bell Air. So that's why I'm trying to sell my house,
and that's why we're here today, Sophia. I'm putting my

(26:37):
house on the market. On this podcasts, the conversation we're
going to do an ad read quickly com is the
Hilton Family Hotel. Yeah, Hilton Hotel. Oh, it's like it's
really big. It's not. It's mini hotel, like a little

(26:58):
mini hotel. So for most of us, that's really big, Yeah,
it's bad. Okay, all right, well maybe we'll rerecord that
at all. Anyway, I'm going to go move to a
black neighborhood, is what I'm gonna say. What I'm gonna
That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna sell my house
and then, yes, but we're all guilty of it in
some ways. We just have to be more aware. One

(27:26):
of the things that I that I think, if I may,
that is really important is separating the person from whiteness
when you talk about it, because what I find is
that people will say like, show me my privilege, show me,
and I'm like, no, no, no no, no, I'm not saying
your life hasn't been hard. I'm not saying you haven't
been through trauma. I'm not saying you haven't been through
assault or violence or poverty or any of those things.

(27:48):
I'm just saying that your race didn't add to that.
Your race didn't prevent you from getting a mortgage, the
name that goes on your job application, didn't prevent you
from getting an interview. Um, all of these things that
are so proven in the data science. It's like, as
as white women, we are not four times more likely
to die giving birth that as black women are like,

(28:09):
that's just a disparity that should upset all of us,
and especially if we talk about being um into community
or wanting to make the world a better place, we
have to look at that information. And and so I
think that reminding people that it's like, you may not
be paying into a system of privilege, but you were

(28:30):
born benefiting from it, and that doesn't make you a
bad person. What it means is that when you become
aware of it, you need to try to do something
about it. You need to pay your privilege forward. You
need to as you were saying, you've been talking about
the authors of color whose work you've been reading and
that you are talking about, I I share work from
the women of color who run in the activist circles

(28:50):
that I learned from. I share their work constantly online.
I'm constantly making sure that I can mobilize my followers
to be their followers, to make sure that we are
cross pollinating these conversations. And I'm not saying that like
that's saving the world, are making the difference, but it's
figuring out how in any system that I benefit from,
I can make sure others are benefiting from it as well. Yeah,

(29:12):
that's awesome and it and and we're learning and there's
gonna be more things, and there's gonna be more stuff
we need to do. But I think that talking about
the system and and and also sort of shaking other
white women and being like yo, it has nothing for us.
We are not benefiting from this system, like where Ted
Cruze gets elected, you are not benefiting. Yeah, I don't know.

(29:35):
And it also it's just it's it makes me so
upset that women, because so many women don't aren't you know,
they take they do what their husband does. You know,
they vote the way their husband does. Another reason not
to get a husband. But you did. You you dedicated
your book to your future husband. I like that, Thank you?

(29:55):
What do I put it out there? Because once I
went through all my therapy and I decided, like you know,
I was able to say, oh, this fierceness, this independence
that I've had hold onto for so long, it's because
I was protecting myself and I couldn't be vulnerable and
I couldn't. You know, obviously it's obviously everybody else, but
when it's you, you don't see it. You think you're
killing it. You're like wow, I'm doing great in life

(30:16):
until you're not, and then um, so you know. I
finally was like I sat down with him one day
and I was like, I think I'm ready to be
in a relationship. I said, I think I'm gonna say
a sentence I've never said out loud, but you've really
helped me, and I want to say something to help you, Like,
I think I'm ready to be in a healthy relationship.
And I wasn't. But I had to start saying that

(30:37):
and to admit that it's okay to want to be
in a relationship. I had never even thought about it.
I just assumed I shouldn't be Like I was like, no, no, no, no,
I'll do this. I'll have fun when I have fun.
And I hadn't made great choices for the relationships that
I was in, and we're all guilty of that. But
I really was like, you know what, I don't need

(30:57):
to be in a relationship. I want to be in
a relationship. There's a difference between being I need a
boyfriend and I want a boyfriend. Yeah, I'm okay to
say that now I want a boyfriend, and now you
know my friends, like it takes a healthy to get
a healthy and that's true. So so it's important to
say that without feeling like one of those little needy
girls who needs you know, like who, because I always

(31:21):
I always looked at weakness as you know, anything sickness.
Like yesterday, I woke up and my throat it was
all fucked up, and I had a day of stuff
and I was so mad at myself for being weak,
Like I was mad at me for being sick. And
I didn't until like now that I have a sense
of awareness, I'm like, what is your problem? And and

(31:41):
I was like, oh, you are so tied to being
strength that you know, any vulnerability, you know is just
it's hard. So you have to keep practicing it, you know. Now,
Like this morning, I went to my therapist and I
just came in and it was the first time ever
that I didn't fight crying, and I was talking about

(32:03):
being mad at myself for being sick. But I was like,
what is wrong with me? And you know, and he
broke it down again and like directed it back to
my childhood that my parents were completely gone, you know,
they were out to lunch pretty much, they had six kids,
they were fucking tired. Then their son dies, so they're
even more tired, They're in despair. They never picked me up,
they never came to school. It was kind of like neglect.

(32:24):
There was a lot of love, but not a lot
of follow through. And so the time that I got
the attention from them was when I was sick. Then
everybody perked up and was like, okay, what do you need?
What do you need? And so in my mind I
have this like subliminal feeling that when I'm being sick
it's because I want attention. And I hated that about myself.

(32:44):
So I now I fight being sick because I know
as a little girl, I used it as a tool.
So there's this internal battle going on. And only somebody
you sit down with for many, you know, months or
sometimes years, can really explain yourself to you. Isn't that crazy? Really? Oh?
Look at that. It's all connected. Yeah, I mean the
hallways and light bulbs are just popping off. You know.

(33:07):
As you learn about your your your patterns of behavior,
you're like, oh, you know, I said, why don't I
have patience for people? Like or you know, if somebody
screws me over, it's fuck you, it's over. It's a
wrap on you, like I've ended friendships on a dime
a million times and people are left in the dust.
I never think about them again. And I said, why

(33:27):
do I do that? He goes think about it and
answer that question, and I'm like, I don't know. That's
what I'm paying you money for it. I'm like, you
tell me the fucking answer one thing. And he's like,
because that's your blueprint for how our relationship ends. The
very first relationship you ended or that ended was the
guy saying he was here and coming back and then
he was gone and you were mad at him for

(33:48):
thirty years for leaving you. So that's how you think
you break up. And I was like, ho lee, shh it,
that was just like fireworks in my brain. Yeah. I
was like, that's exactly right. And I have no I
don't even think about the people like they're out of
my mind. It's funny that you say that I've had
this thing and I always joke. I'm like, you know,
I've got like this Italian family in like Jersey and

(34:09):
New York. Like that's that, you know. I'm like, mob
wives is like my family and not really but like
a little bit. And I yeah, I got I mean
it's very fun and ridiculous, but like there is a
real I remember I got sucked over by this guy
once and I got a phone call from my uncle
Raymond and he's like Sophia, and I'm like, Uncle ray like,
what's going on? And he goes, you tell me the

(34:32):
next time then motherfucker is going to be in New York.
And I was like, no, absolutely not, and he goes, what,
who's gonna know if I break his knees? I'm like
me and everyone, are you insane? Like that? You know that?
But that's love and it's a little crazy, but I
I've attributed that kind of like crazy I would commit
a crime for you love, Like not really but kind

(34:53):
of like when I really love someone, my favorite thing
to say to them is like, if you ever need
to bury a body, just call me and we'll figure
it out. And obviously I've never buried a body, but like,
I don't know, I watched Breaking Bad. How hard could
it be? Um? But but that thing that sort of
like romanticized idea that you hope no one ever follows
through on. Let me just clarify, sort of morphed in

(35:15):
my head into this thing that I've caught myself saying
over and over again, I'm like, I will take a lot,
and then i will take too much, but then there
will be a day when the too much. I'm just done.
And if you betray me, I'm scorched. Eff I'm like,
if you're gonna cross me, have the guts to like
look me in the eye and stab me in the stomach.
Don't ever stab me in the back, because then, like

(35:38):
nothing will get through this. And that is about what
I learned as a kid. That is about patterns of
things that I've been through, and it's so when you
start to learn that stuff, you're just like, oh my god,
and then what I what What was the real revelation
for me is that that toughness, that shield, that like

(35:59):
impenetrable all was a lie because the foundation was a
mess from being a little kid who didn't know how
to build one. And and the stuff that gets under
and the stories that I'll that I'll tell myself that
I'm so sure of that you know, somebody did this
or said this, or this is what this means. It's
like it's such a detrimental thing to live with, but
you don't know it until somebody turns the light on

(36:23):
in the hallway. Yeah, and then you're just like, you know,
you have to be in a place in your life
where you can accept it. Like I was learning bad
things about myself, or not bad things, but negative things
about myself, and I was becoming like from him, you know,
and not like he was sitting around insulting me, but
like the lack of empathy. And you know, I came
in for my lack of patience. I have no patience.
I was like, I can't deal with people. Everyone annoys

(36:44):
the ship out of me. You know. I was like, uh,
in a constant state of agitation, and I was just like, God,
you know, I need a channel change. And so it
came at the right time for me. You know, you
can look back and go, God, I wish I would
have sorted that out, but that's my you know, that's
I write the book so that somebody does sort it
out before they're in their forties, because you have the

(37:04):
opportunity to take a look at yourself. And we all
have trauma. There's there's no one who can go through
life and that hasn't had their heartbroken or is grieving
in some way, or has had some trauma. That's the
human experience, So nobody needs to pretend that they didn't
have that. It's about patching yourself back up and going
through it, not around it, which is what I did.

(37:25):
I have scotched around it, round it, partied really hard
to avoid it. When that didn't work out, I pivoted
to something else. Worked my ass off, you know, said
yes to everything, did every book towards, did every stand
up toward. While I was doing a show five nights
a week, I tore the country. I slept like you know,
people would go, oh my god, she's so strong. She's
so strong, and I love to hearing that. They're like,
she can do anything. How can you travel? But it's nothing,

(37:47):
it's no problem. I'd fly in from you know, Michigan
and on a Monday morning after doing two shows there,
and you have to do a show every day, and
I just kept going because moving is doing and avoiding
anything real. Oh yeah. I did not know how to
sit still until I could quit my last job, until

(38:09):
this very podcast. Look how still I am? You are?
Look at us adulting shit? Yeah? O god. When the
light turns out in the hallway and you're like, this
is what being a fucking adult is this is horrible? Um,
But it was interesting because going around pain for me.
I had this like pretty gnarly experience on my last job,

(38:31):
and it went on for years, and I tried to
solve it every which way, but like never really just stopped.
Like what I needed to do was sit down in
the middle of the room and just ball and let
everyone see it. But I was like tough, tough, tough,
good good good. And I'd go home and like cry
in the fetal position on the floor of my apartment
every night. And and what I realized is that I

(38:53):
knew when it needed to stop, and I kept pushing
myself to do it, and I never stopped, and I
never slept. And people would be like, I don't know
how you do it all, and I'd be like, yeah,
because it becomes fuel, right. And I'd fly home every
weekend and i'd make sure I wasn't missing birthdays, and
i'd go to the thing in New York and I
go back to Chicago and i'd fly to the and
I wasn't stopping so that I didn't have to feel it.
And then when I when my body started to shut down,

(39:16):
and when I really couldn't keep up with it anymore.
Instead of letting myself be as upset as I was,
my fuse started getting shorter. So that thing that you're
saying about, like everyone's annoying, my fus got shorter and
shorter and shorter. And I was angry all the time
because I was looking around. My my inner child was

(39:37):
looking around, going, how the funk are none of you
paying attention to this? And how is nobody standing up
to this? And why do I have to do this alone?
And what? And it had never occurred to me that
I didn't need to be there. I was like, I
have to fix it, and why why doesn't anybody else work?
You know? Why does everybody look away? And why does
everybody laugh when the thing isn't funny? And then and
then I was like, oh, but I'm keeping myself here,

(40:00):
I'm staying like what the funk am I staying for?
This isn't my responsibility? Like this that I've said, the piece,
I've done, the thing I've done, the defending I've tried
to defend myself and if it's not gonna work, I
could actually just walk out the door. But it had
never occurred to me before out the door. I do,

(40:21):
so I know what you're going for different reasons, but yes,
and on that note, she's walking out the door. Everyone's
it's powerful, right, and good for you for realizing it,
because it is. If it's so upsetting, then you need
to remove yourself from the situation. You can, and you can. Yes,
And what a wild thing to realize. And like that
doesn't mean it's not scary. That doesn't mean it was easy.

(40:42):
That doesn't mean it was the fucking financially smart decision
to make or whatever. But it was like, I'm gonna
do this. I'm gonna walk out the door, I'm gonna
jump off the roof, and like I'm not looking to
die on this hill. And something that's interesting to me
because you. I love the way you make fun of
your best friend, Mary McCormick, who's amazing. Who's house I'm
going too straight from here? Are you? Yes? She's great.

(41:03):
Everybody loves Mary McCormack. She told a story on your
podcast about taking a ship in a service in her car.
She couldn't get to about that story. I truly was like,
this is brave, Like these are some brave women who
I can learn to tell the embarrassing were older than you.
So maybe when you're even talking about my my palms
just started sweating talking about that, like I'm horrified, but

(41:24):
I'm talking about I'm talking about doing should you be?
Which is what I call it, into any container other
than a toilet, very intense. I don't know any the
other way. I mean, I obviously had to go outside
before because of an emergency situation, but in in any
sort of container, I can't imagine that that's horrifying. But
you tease her for many things, which she takes like

(41:45):
a champ. But you say that like you both you
both have the Mary McCormick disease, which is people pleasing.
And I'm curious about that because when you're the person
who like, where's the armor and has the wall? And
the irony is that you just want to make everybody
happy all the time. I'm not so much of a
people pleaser as I am a fixer, Like I like
to go in and save the day, like Joan of
arc Mode, Like I like that. I like, oh if

(42:07):
for friends in need they call me, Like a friend
called me the other day who's like a peripheral friend,
and she's like, I mean obviously she's a friend, so
but I'm not. I don't see her, I don't talk
to her, and she's going through this thing. And Mary's
I called Chelsea. Chelsea is great in an emergency and
I love that, like I'm great. And if there's drama,
if there's something, if I need you need to calm down,
I can get anyone to do anything. So it's not

(42:28):
so much people pleasing that I have. I have a
showing up disease. I want to show up because my
parents never showed up for me. So I have to
prove to everybody that I'm fucking reliable. Yeah, so that's
my thing. Mary is a people pleaser. She doesn't like
to hurt people's feelings. She wants everyone to like her.
She doesn't want to ever end a friendship. Like whenever
I would break up with a friend, she'd be like, oh,
I wish you hadn't done it like that. Can't you

(42:49):
just do a slow fade? Like she's trying to teach
me about a slow fade? Why do you have to
make everything monumental? And I never listened to her, and
she's not wrong, but I didn't hear her. Then I
have a little mix of the two of it's like, yeah,
put you in a blender and I come out. It's
a It's weird though, that thing of like wanting girls too.
You know, first, all human being wants to be liked,

(43:12):
you know, and then when they we're not like when
you when you're rejected and you're rebuffed by anyone, there
is an anger, you know, you feel rejected, dejected, you
feel angry, sometimes you feel sad. Either way, it's what
sets up you know what I mean, Like we all
want to be liked. There's no one that's like, yeah,
I just want to be hated. Even Donald Trump wants

(43:32):
to be liked by the people he wants to be
liked by, which is unfortunate for us because it's ruining
the country, right. But you know, it is a I
think it's a human it's a human nature. It's how
you go about getting liked, is what I think. Where
people differ. You know, me showing up is like Chelsea's solid,
She'll always be there in an emergency, she can. I
like that about myself because I've never had that growing up.

(43:53):
So that's what I wanted to embody. And then but
the people pleasing like I'm not that worried if people
don't like me. I mean, that's never really been my thing.
I'm pretty direct, a little too direct obviously. I mean
I have been where if I don't like someone, I'd
be like, no, not into you. Move on. Now I'm like,
that's just not nice, So I'm not going to do it. Yeah,

(44:13):
you're like, maybe I don't need to share that thought
with that person. I can just move don't say things
because you thought of that, Right, that's a nice thing
to do to like, you know, step back and go.
You don't have to say anything right here. You can
just sit here and not exert your opinion, you know,
and insert your opinion I should say, and you you know,

(44:33):
you don't have to and you don't have to get
in the conversation. You can just observe and be cool
and chill the funk out. I'm horrified at like the
thought of hurting people's feelings, so I avoid that kind
of a thing, which has been a good thing to
start unlearning. Yeah, I need to learn. Give me that,
and I'll give you a little of mine. You give
me a little now. I mentioned that I knew when

(44:57):
I needed to leave a job, But you talk about out.
In your book, you talk about getting to this point
because you were running a million miles an hour, you know,
burning the candle at both ends that you you said
something and I was like, oh, I feel attacked when
you said I liked walking off the stage better than

(45:17):
I liked being on it. How long do you think
you were in it before you were conscious of it?
Or when was it just like so in your face
that you said I have to stop, like I have
to take a break. I mean, people were telling me
to take breaks leading up to I think it was
at the end of my A show. I was so
over the show before it was over, you know what

(45:38):
I mean. I loved it for seven years and I
stayed a year too long. Or I loved it for
five years and I stayed three years too long. Whatever.
I was just ready for something else. When I was
I thought I was gonna go to travel. I'm like,
I'm gonna go take a year and travel. And then
and then I started, you know, I quit a job
and then you get rewarded for quitting it, and then
all these other things popped up. And then I started
talking to Netflix and they said I could do because
I was like, I don't want to do a show
right away, Let's do a docuseries? Is I want to

(46:00):
do something I wanted to learn? Um, So we did that.
I did take some time off and travel and then
I did the show. And so there were two you know,
it was at the end of the show was one
set of circumstances the end and the end of the
Netflix show was the election. And what that did to me, like,
I really just felt like what am I? You know,
I felt so helpless, and I figured, why don't I

(46:25):
just actually do something instead of talking about it, instead
of bitching about it from my soapbox on TV, Why
don't I actually go to fucking Michigan and Ohio and
Pennsylvania and talk to people and and in order to like, um,
cultivate that vocabulary that I didn't have, which is talking
to somebody who voted for Donald Trump without screaming and
without being berating them and belittling them was a skill

(46:47):
that I did not have and I wanted to learn.
So that was kind of like the impetus for me
going in like that was what I told myself, like,
you need to be more patient. But obviously, on a
subconscious level, I was searching for a little bit more
because that's what I got um. But it was it
was moments like with Netflix. It was I was consumed

(47:11):
with the news and talking about it and it and
it destabilized me. It made me feel like the world
was not right. And that's how I knew how entitled
I was, because that's kind of the first time I
ever felt that way. How could this happen in my life?
And then I was like, that's Ikey, You're really singular

(47:32):
right now. You're really only thinking about yourself, and you
have to get a bigger life, you know, you get
I think I got lost a couple of times, you know,
like once I left, like the last year of E
was rough and I didn't like it, and I was
bitter that I had to be there and being people
tugging at me. I got sick of everyone knowing where
I was all the time, and you know, and I

(47:53):
partied really hard during that time. I drank a lot,
did drugs all that stuff. And then I left and
then I was so happy when I wasn't working, I
was traveling the world. I went on great trips, I
got school, went scuba diving in French Polynesia. You know,
I went it just did whatever I wanted to and
then I shot those documentaries and that was good, and

(48:13):
then uh that that was a great time, and then
Netflix show started. There were a couple of bumps in
the beginning, and then it started to get good and
I liked it and I kind of gotta handle what
I was doing. And then the election happened, and I
think because I wasn't completely stable, it completely destabilized me,
and so then that became really hard. The year after

(48:34):
he got elected was probably the darkest year I think
I've ever had, um in terms of anger and in
terms of like, you know, being reactive. And what I
really wanted to learn was how to see something I
don't like or read something I don't like, and to
not react. That's the skill I went in there for
and then came out with a whole other bag of tricks.

(48:55):
Yeah wow, Yeah, because you think I need tools for
now and you and your therapist goes, the reason you
don't have tools is because of what happened when you
were nine. It's like, copres about that. I want to
be I want to talk about being a better person.
I want to be present right now, like I don't
wanna talk about that, you know, and and it's like, yeah,

(49:15):
you have to. He I mean, he even said, what
tell me about you childhood? And like my brother died
when I was nine, my mom died five years ago,
ten years and I don't know, I have no sense
of time. And I'm like, and hopefully my dad will
die by the time this year is over, because it's
a wrap on him too, and he's in an old
age home. I'm like, I'm good with death. I just
want to be a better person. I need to be
more patient with people, and I need to learn how
to talk without yelling. So I learned how to do that.

(49:39):
It's like one year crash. Yeah, that's crazy. Cry all
the time. I know. I cried. I cried today in
my car. I was like, what's happening, Oh, it's just
it's coming. I just I was feeling um, really frustrated
and and unheard. And I realized that something that is

(50:02):
hard for me is when I feel like I'm putting
in so much time and effort, not not feeling like, uh,
reciprocally prioritized is very hard for me because then I
I it goes to this thing of like is my
effort worthless? Does this not matter? And it can be
hard to forget that other people are processing through a

(50:25):
different lens, and and you I sound like a stalker,
but I swear that I'm not. I just was really
doing my homework. You said something um in your book
also because I've been listening to it, uh where you
you say this thing of of what your experience was
as a child when your brother died, and what your
experience was with your father, and how you didn't remember

(50:47):
that one of your sisters was home and all these
things because you were in your own experience. And then
you talk about how you had never thought before from
your experience as a child with your dad, what your
dad's experience was having children or having a son died.
I had no empathy, so not then a nine year
old is supposed to be concerned for their parents at

(51:08):
that stage. I think the parents were supposed to be
concerned for the children. Um. But still like he was
a broken man after that, and I didn't have any empathy.
I just wanted him to get himself strong again, like
I remember after the funeral. You know, in Judaism, you
sit shiva, so people come over and they bring a
bunch of corn beef and pstra me and you're like,
what does this have to do with death? And I

(51:30):
remember sitting there talking, like trying to decipher what the
difference was between corn beef and postroomy and just how
gross it all seemed and how inappropriate it was that
people were in our living room drinking wine. You know,
in my in my mind, that was a celebratory thing.
My parents aren't drinkers, So I don't know where the
funk I came from. But and I remember, and my, yeah,

(51:50):
that's exactly what I am. A fucking rebel. Anyone tells
me what to do when I do the opposite. So
like with a book tour, like I was saying before,
you know, I do this twenty tour with people interviewing
me in different cities, and then halfway through the tour,
I'm like, Okay, I'm going to turn this into a
stand up show and do like a one woman show.
And you know, everyone has been telling me, my whole
team of agents and managers and all of those like,
just do stand up, please, do stand up. Don't do

(52:12):
a tour where you're doing conversations. I'm like, no, no,
I don't ever want to do stand up again, never never,
And of course everyone's like, oh, really, now you're gonna
and I, you know, added a bunch of tour dates.
You can buy your tickets at live nation dot com.
And I'm like, I'm doing stand up and They're like,
You're so ridiculous that you. I had to back myself
in because I have such stubborn patterns. But back to
what we were just talking about, which was the father

(52:34):
and how to see how do not even necessarily see
through someone else's lens, but be have enough space in
your own awareness of your experience that there is space
for someone else's experience to be in it with you,
and to not try to fix everyone's problems. Like my
dad was at the window. We had this bay window,

(52:55):
and I remember him sitting and we had neighbors over,
and we had some relatives over, and my dad was
this big, strong guy, you know, and and he was
like the guy and he was bawling in front of strangers,
and I was ashamed. I couldn't believe my eyes. I
was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on now?

(53:15):
Like our brother just died and now you're fucking what
are you doing? Right now. You're supposed to be the
leader here, and you better be strong. Be strong and
strong and strong, don't be weak week week week. And
I that was when I had to grow myself up
because I looked around the room and everyone was in shambles,
and I was like, oh, this is really scary, Like
now I really have to be strong. And I remember

(53:37):
riding my bike, and i'd ride my bike because anytime
I cry, I wouldn't let anyone see me cry. I
was not going to cry. My mom would try to
trick me into crying, like I felt. She'd be like,
do you you know, do you want to talk about chat?
I'm like, no, he's dead. There's nothing to talk about.
It's over. Like that was my you know. And I
would go on these bike rides and I would ball
while I was riding my bike, so no none of
the neighbors could see because I'd be riding so fast

(54:00):
and i'd be gone for hours, you know, just sit
in the woods by myself and I cut back and
my parents wouldn't even you know, they wouldn't have even
known I was gone. And it was but I remember
being coming so steely when I saw everybody becomes so weak,
so for a really long time. And Mary and I
discussed this uh also on an upcoming episode where shoot,

(54:24):
I would get mad at anyone who cried. Anyone's weakness
was a turn off. Be stronger. Why can't you do
things the way I'm doing it because this is the
right way, you know, no capacity or space of awareness
or focused attention on anything other than my own experience,
you know, Like I had my brother and I used
to have cereal together at night when he would come
home late at night from college and I would make

(54:46):
him a bowl of cereal. And after he died, like
I never ate. I haven't had a bowl of cereal
since I was nine, and my brothers and sisters, when
I saw them having cereal after he died, I lost.
It was like an attack, What are you doing right there? You?
How could you eat cereal when we know what we know?
And what what I learned was like, they don't have

(55:08):
your experience with cereal and chick that's your experience, that's
not everyone's, and that information is like, oh god, wow,
you people can get so stuck in their own lives.
And I don't even have kids or a husband or
people that I have to take care of like I
was just so far up my own ass and my
own experience. But I also think, like, look, I think
it's badass that you're willing to be like I was

(55:31):
in this sort of very self centered space, and more
power to you. And I also think it's really important
for all of us, in whatever version of that we've experienced,
to say, but there's also a reason, like you compartmentalized
because you went through a deep trauma at nine, and
and the way that you compartmentalized that experience for yourself
and your own suffering and what you would and wouldn't

(55:53):
show other people, those became the boxes, the building blocks
that you built your life out of. And it's a
very courageous thing to say, I want to open those
up and unpack them and rebuild this. And and just
like I even think about issues of you know, privilege,
for example, like we all should have known this a
very long time ago. But any person who comes to

(56:16):
the table, my reaction is like, yes, it's okay that
other people are mad that you weren't here before, but
also it's okay that you're here now, Like I'm really
glad that we're here now, Like I'm really glad that
people are doing the work, and in reality, we've all
shown up to different tables first, maybe you know, like I,

(56:37):
I came into the space of caring about activism because
of the environment, because I was a little girl who
grew up in California and heard that the oceans were
getting polluted and it was devastated, and like that was
my entrance in. I didn't know about what was happening
to women, and I didn't know what was happening to
you know, impoverished communities around the world, and I didn't

(56:59):
know what was happening to minority communities in America yet.
But the path has led me to I hope, greater
and greater understanding and willingness to listen and learn, and
sometimes I think at least for all of us, but
I know for me, I had to learn to turn
that willingness to learn and and to hear, and to

(57:22):
recognize that simultaneous things could be true, you know, things
could be true at the same time. I had to
turn that in on myself because I was very willing
to do that for other people. And what I realized
is my version of that compartmentalization was that I had
zero patience for weakness in myself, which weirdly, which weirdly

(57:42):
presented itself in these ways of like self sabotage, like
I love being active, and when when the election blew
up the rage and upset I've been experiencing for the
prior four years in my working environment, and and the
action made me realize what the system is. And then
I realized that by staying in the system of my job,

(58:04):
I was complicit in the system. And like I had
a full meltdown, like sad mac that computer is never
to be recovered, and and it it made me realize
that I had to acknowledge that different things could be
true at the same time. That I could have loved
something and hated it. That I could be progressive and

(58:26):
also totally fucking clueless. That I could be a really
good friend and also a very angry person, Like I
had to realize that all of this was happening at
the same time. That's beautifully said, you can be multiple
things at the same time. You know, you could be
kind and loving and be tortured. Yeah, So it's like,
you know, people define themselves. People aren't one dimensional. Everybody

(58:48):
has lots of different things going on. So it's just
a matter of like tuning in and finding out what
your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, you know, and
what Like my psychiatrist calls it your growth edge, Like
what do you need to work on me? I have
to look out for empathy now. I have this fucking
exercise I do anytime somebody annoys me on, Like, think
about their life, think about how many people they have
to deal with the day, think about what they're are
they married, does their husband love them or hate them?

(59:10):
Or did they hate their husband? Like, I have to
play this empathy game to get to myself a point
where I get empathy more. You know, I have to
overcorrect in order to land in a space space that's acceptable.
I want the twenty nineteen version of Gossip Girl where
there's like someone going through something and then there's the
narrator that's like, hey everybody, but it's you doing the
empathy test like some character, and then Chelsea's voice comes in,

(59:32):
being like, think about their experience, what might they be
going through, what's happening in their house? Yeah, it's exhausting too,
Like he's like, how you doing on your empathy? I'm like,
I'm fucking wiped out. You're like, you've ruined everything for me.
I don't get to scream indiscriminately in my car anymore.
I had to. I had to apply a version of

(59:52):
that exercise to my road rage because I realized that
I feel like, given what we all do, that like
I always kind of have to be on um and
you know, be ready to receive and be nice and whatever.
And not to say that I'm perfect at that by
any means, because I screwed up all the time, but
I feel like I'm supposed to. So my car is
the place where I like let loose and I'm a savage.

(01:00:15):
I'm I'm horrible, and I don't like cut people off.
I don't, it's not that. But I watch people do
stupid ship on the road and I just scream and yell,
like I drive your outlet. Yeah, I drive by somebody
who's texting, and I'm like, that's the asshole who's going
to cause the pilot but it's gonna get seven people killed.
And like I just and I was like, this might
not be healthy, this this thing that happens here when

(01:00:36):
I'm alone, that I don't tell anyone about it. Now
I've told everyone listening. That's good, though, I divulge a
little business because you know, there's a lot of people
out there that are listening that probably do the same
exact thing. That's what you realize when you tell people
the truth, that there are so many people that are
dealing with the exact same issues that you are. Yeah,
one of my friends and I talked about that, how

(01:00:57):
how there's this sort of and maybe it's an uncon
just fear that if we share our pain, people will
be repulsed by it, like they'll be like, oh ick.
But really, what happens when you share your pain or
your failures or vulnerabilities is that people lean in and
they go, oh, you too, And it's such a gift,
Like it's like a way to deflate the balloon that's

(01:01:18):
overfilled with all this like tension and pressure to be
perfect and like you know, have your Instagram be curated
like it's exhausting. It's not exhausting. Another reason to be authentic,
you know, don't put on a persona and fool everybody.
How insulting is that it's insulting to people to be
pretending something that you're something that you're not. And you know,

(01:01:39):
to worry about your brand. It's like, guess what, this
is my brand? I'm fucking pissed. Yeah. I think people
know that anger at the current political system is my brand.
I think they're pretty clear on that. I actually realized.
I was like, I have to be a little better
at being more of who I am in my life
in those spaces, like especially on Twitter, because all I

(01:01:59):
do on Twitter sc about politics and retweet articles because
like that feels like it's for But I have so
much also joy in my life and that's not what
I share. So sometimes I meet people and they're like, god,
I just thought you'd be so angry, And I'm like, no,
I mean I think I'm a nice person. Annoying that
being an activist is equated with being angry. Yeah, I
mean the way I was doing it was angry, but

(01:02:20):
I think the way you do it is very informative
and strong. And why are we angry? Yeah? Why is
it angry? It's like negative? The President is negative. He's
screaming and yelling and he's calling you know, the Sadik Khan,
the mayor of London negative. He's like, oh, this guy's
a very negative guy. It's like my favorite is that
he called Megan Marco nasty in an interview and then

(01:02:42):
on the air and then was like, I never said
she was. And then since Harry went to the lunch
the state dinner with him, why would he do didn't
You're very proper those English No, that's not I never
have had him over there and a state dinner. I mean,
I understand that it's really and I guess that's again
the long game. I'm not playing it. I'm playing the
short I just want him to get impeached. I want
do you think about him out? What do you when

(01:03:04):
you think about that, when you think about the last election,
Because I think about you know, I loved you wrote
an article before the election. You wrote this great article
for Playboy about abortion. And it's so interesting because I think,
like so many of us thought you said, you were like,
I'm not worried about ro versus. Wait, like that's settled,
you know, it's subtled president, And now we're like, oh

(01:03:26):
my god, yeah, I mean I'm still not worried about it.
In the long run, Like, I don't think we're ever
going to be in a country that where abortion is
not legal in certain places, but criminalizing it in the
states that they're doing. Yeah, this is exactly what I
thought was going to happen. I don't think that it
will take over, but I think that it involves everybody
to stand up and stick their neck out. And it's

(01:03:46):
just horrific to me because it's like, you know, all
those lawmakers, the guy who who said, well, we don't care,
they said, okay, if it's you know, if conception means life,
then what about all the fertilized eggs, And he goes, well,
they're not in a woman, And I was like, so
you you just admitted it's about controlling women's bodies. Like yeah,
So when I read there was a good New York
Times article about what men would if we punished men

(01:04:09):
the way we punish women for getting pregnant, Like if men, okay,
if you They used all these examples like, okay, so,
if you've got a woman pregnant that you weren't married
to or did, what happens to the guy and she's
forced to have the baby. If you rape somebody and
they're forced to have the baby, what happens to the man.
If you're you know, uh, if you don't use a condom,
then then that's illegal. It's illegal. If you the person

(01:04:31):
doesn't want to have a baby, and you don't use
a condom, that's illegal. I mean, and like taking to
the condom, yeah, but be illegal. And if men had
to be accountable for children the way that women are
accountable for children, I mean, for fox sake, they decide
what we're going to do with our bodies, and then
half of the time they take off when the woman
has a baby. Fuck you, and men are telling us

(01:04:53):
what to do with our bodies. I mean, it's laughable.
And women aren't getting promoted because their bosses are asking
them if they think they're going to want to be moms,
and it's like, you don't think that affects us? And
I also just find it so crazy. It's like, if
you don't like it, don't do it. If you don't
like if you don't like gay marriage, don't marry someone
who's the same sex as you. If you don't believe
in abortion rights, don't have one. Like, honestly, I can't

(01:05:13):
believe my dumb luck that I've never gotten pregnant. I
can't believe that right now. I mean as I mean,
I'm very fertile, but no, I haven't been sitting across
from me making you feel like you might be having
immaculate conception. I'm glad that I could do that for you.
It's very hot in here. Can you imagine getting pregnant
at forty four? And then I'm a real dummy. Then
I deserve to have a baby. I mean, listen, I

(01:05:34):
don't know. I don't know what the future holds for
any of us, but like I just I think about it.
It's like it's nobody's business to tell anybody what to
do in their personal circumstance, with their life, with with
what it is that they're going through. Like I I'm
so amazed. You know that Busy Phillips got on her

(01:05:55):
show and said like this is what happened to me,
and and this is how old I was. In says, well,
I had an abortion, and like you know here I am,
I'm married, I'm a mom, I have two kids who
I love, And I got to do all of this
because I had a choice. And I just thought, like
good for you, Like and and who is anybody to
tell anybody anything? I don't know, but it does make

(01:06:16):
me wonder, like what do you what do you think
is coming in what do you think we need to
be doing. Who do you like? I think that if
the answer to Barack Obama was Donald Trump, then the
answer to Donald Trump has to be somebody who's transitioning,
who's Muslim, who's a Native American Indian. I like Elizabeth
Warren and I like Petege. Those are my two favorites

(01:06:37):
right now. Uh, Pete beauta Jedge I've seen. I interviewed
him on my Netflix show, and I went to a
fundraiser of his, uh, like a couple of weeks ago.
And I just think Elizabeth Warren, you know, when I
interviewed her for my show, I read her book and
and she does care. She's somebody who would win an
election and not celebrate that, you know, should just get
right to work. She has policy and she has plans,

(01:06:59):
and she's all for getting at the corporate megalomaniacs and
what's happened to this country and the capitalism. You know,
this isn't the greatest country in the world, so stop
saying it. It has the greatest hopefulness in the world
where it had. It's not the greatest country in the world.
We have greater than any other country. Yeah, we have
this great story. But then you look at these other countries.

(01:07:19):
You look at Sweden, you look at the Netherlands, you
look at you look at countries over there that have
proper you know, relationship and sex said for kids that
starts at four and takes them all the way through
high school, and they have no they have like the
lowest rates of team pregnancy and the lowest rates of
sex assault and the lower And you're just like, ah,
there's so many things we could be learning if we

(01:07:40):
weren't so fucking egotistical saying how we're the best while
people are suffering. I I agree. I'm just really hopeful
that we get to see all of them on a
debate stage. I don't feel like I have a candidate,
but I feel like I have a lot of hope
for what's coming. And you know, I'm just hoping that
things like the Pave Act would would actually get us

(01:08:00):
back on paper ballots which are securable. UM gets past
because it makes me upset that like Russian oligarchs are
buying voting machines in the United States and that that's
not even front page news because of all the dumb
ship Donald Trump is doing every day. So but to
think about though, what we accomplished the mids terms is like,
that's what we have to vote in the supermajority because
they cheat, you know what I mean. And I'm sure

(01:08:21):
Democrats have cheated too, but that's not really our thing.
As much as we're not trying to suppress votes. We're
trying to get everybody to vote, whereas Republicans want to
make sure people don't vote. So that's a big distinguishable
trait right there. And you know, um, very unconstitutional, Yes,
that's one word for it. I'd look at that, you
know what I did. I had a thought and then

(01:08:42):
I reined it in and then I said the nicer
thing not to be too woo woo, but like I
made it higher self decision just then. Right, that was good.
That was good. All of this therapy is panning out
a look at us girl, like that's adult ng. So
I think about how everyone has something but to them
is like a work in progress, something that they are

(01:09:03):
working on, whether it's professional, personal, you know, political, life, passion.
What what feels like your work in progress going forward?
For everything, I work in progress my passion. I mean,
you know, I read a book called Essentialism which talked
about doing two things really well instead of eight things mediocre.

(01:09:25):
And that hit me because I've always been spinning plates
in a million different directions. And so when I wrote
this book, it and focused only on writing a book,
and the election was also and skiing that was my
I picked two things. I'm like, well, I picked three politics,
skiing and writing the book. And the integrity of the
work was so raised by me allowing myself to actually

(01:09:48):
live it, eat it, and breathe it. And it was
something that vomited out of me, so to speak. It
was a completely different experience. Even recording my audio book,
I was dreading it, dreading it because I hate talking
and hearing my voice. I find my voice, but I
my energy so different now, Like I'm so much calmer
that I didn't annoyed me and it poured out of me.
And even when I got emotional and like, leave it,

(01:10:09):
it's real, it's real. Leave everything in there. You know,
they'd be like, do you want to redo that take?
And I'd be like, no, I know, leave it. This
is where driving around l A being like oh my god,
completely like I'm crying in my car listening to you.
So it's what made me want to do a podcast
the reaction to people's and then I was able to
listen to my audiobook on tape, which is something I've
never in my life done. I can't, you know, I've
never watched, you know, an episode of my own show

(01:10:31):
unless I was wasted, you know, and my friends were over,
Like I would never go home and watch myself because
I was just so kind of like over myself for
a long time. And this is the first time that
I was being so real that I had to embrace myself.
So that's the moral of the story. The more truthful
and the more real we get, the more grounded. You know,
when people talk about spiritual awakenings or spirituality, I think

(01:10:54):
of that language and I think about being grounded, like
I don't think about it in an ethereal way. I think, Oh,
I've got my feet on the ground. I'm engaged. I've
heard every word you're saying to me, every single person
I meet along the way. Every day, I try to
be present for even if it's two seconds. And this
is a game changer. Then you are in control of
everything in your life. When you're calm and relaxed, then

(01:11:17):
you control everything, and in the best way and if
something doesn't work out the way you like or want,
you're still in control of yourself. This show is executive
produced by Me, Sophia Bush, and sim Sarna. Our supervising
producer is Alison Bresnick. Our associate producer is Cate Linlee.

(01:11:39):
Our editor is Josh Wendish, and our music was written
by Jack Garrett and produced by Mark Foster. This show
is brought to you by Curly at Anatomy