October 3, 2024 • 45 mins
Aidan Park, the dynamic founder and CEO of the Yay Foundation, harnesses his talents as an award-winning stand-up comedian and bestselling author to pioneer emotional healing and inner child work. Through his book, "The Art of Being Yay" (The OMG NSFW Memoir and Guide to Authentic Joy), Aidan underscores the significance of joy and authenticity, drawing from personal experiences to demonstrate the transformative power of embracing one's inner child. He believes that unresolved childhood traumas can manifest as intense reactions in adulthood, and his innovative use of comedy serves as a powerful tool to foster mental and emotional health, encouraging self-expression and connection. Aidan Park's collaborative efforts through engaging wellness programs continue to inspire individuals to delve into past experiences, empathize with their inner child, and pursue genuine happiness and self-acceptance. Here are three key takeaways from the episode: 1. **Utilizing Comedy for Healing**: Aidan Park's Yay Foundation utilizes comedy as a tool for promoting mental and emotional health. By incorporating humor into educational programs and workshops, the foundation fosters self-expression and healing through laughter. 2. **Personal Storytelling and Connection**: Aidan Park emphasized the importance of embracing emotions and narratives, encouraging individuals to engage in inner child work and empathize with themselves. By revisiting past emotional experiences, it is possible to heal and grow from unresolved traumas. 3. **Spreading Joy and Compassion**: The Yay Foundation aims to empower individuals to find joy and healing through a compassionate and joyful approach to mental well-being. By creating safe spaces for personal storytelling and connecting through comedy events, the foundation promotes emotional balance and self-acceptance. National Alliance of Mental Illness American Foundation of Suicide Prevention Aids Healthcare Foundation Website: https://www.theyayfoundation.org/ Instagram: @aidanparkshow (00:01:40) Healing through Comedy: Yay Foundation's Impact (00:14:45) "The Art of Being Yay": Finding Purpose (00:16:44) Impact of Childhood Molestation on Fear (00:27:12) Embracing Emotional Balance for Lasting Happiness (00:30:08) Desperation-Fueled Drug Use for Coping (00:36:50) Journey of Self-Discovery and Compassion (00:45:32) Embracing Authentic Narratives Through Comedy #MentalHealthAwareness #ComedyForHealing #FindingHappiness #EmotionalBalance #EmpathyMatters #OvercomingChallenges #StorytellingThroughComedy #InnerChildWork #SelfExpression #JoyfulHealing #EmbraceEmotions #SupportThroughHumor
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alya Lei (00:01):
Welcome to conversations with Aliya Lay. Tune
in for inspiration, information and upliftment as
creatives and entrepreneurs share their journeys, challenges
and successes.
Aidan Park (00:12):
So on today's episode of did you
know? With Aaliyah Le, we have our
wonderful guest Aidan park and we're gonna
talk about his Yeh foundation, how it
got started, what it's about and who
it's for. But first, real quick, Aidenae.
Aiden park, also known as the Yay
(00:33):
Guy, is the founder and CEO of
the Yay foundation. He is an award
winning stand up comedian and bestselling author
of the Art of Being Ye the
OMG NSFW Memoir and Guide to Authentic
Joy. Featuring a foreword by Margaret Cho.
(00:54):
Aiden utilizes comedy and personal storytelling to
spread yay, promoting mental and emotional health
through funny and engaging educational wellness programs.
Additionally, he teaches comedy as a tool
for self expression and connection while producing
comedy events to unite the community as
(01:16):
a comedian, Aiden has two comedy specials
available on NBC's Peacock and Amazon prime.
His comedy has been featured on NBC,
Amazon Prime, PBS, CB's, the TV Guide
Channel, Hulu and Comedy Central. So thank
you, Aiden, for being a guest here
today.
Alya Lei (01:36):
Hey, thank you. Yahoo.
Aidan Park (01:38):
Yahoo.
Alya Lei (01:39):
Yahoo.
Aidan Park (01:40):
Okay, so Aiden, do you want to
start with telling us what got you
to create the yay foundation?
Alya Lei (01:47):
Oh, okay. So, hi. What got me
to create the Ye foundation? It was
a necessity. So, um, what happened was,
you know, I had a pretty rough
childhood from the beginning. I, you know,
was born to a single mom. I
was undocumented, brought here, raised in government
(02:10):
housing with my grandma. And by the
time I was 19, I was, I
ended up, I was homeless and I
was HIV positive. Right. And so don't
worry, you can't get it from jokes,
okay? Or from podcast frequencies or what
have you, whatever you're watching or YouTube
channels. I like to make jokes about
(02:32):
difficult things. So that'll happen a lot
during this. And so at that time,
I picked up, there was a mentor
who stepped in and said, hey, I'm
going to help you. I'm going to
help you find footing in your life.
And he did. But the methodology that
was used was very pull yourself up
by your bootstraps, work hard, get it
(02:54):
together and push forward. And that worked
to a degree until I lost my
partner, Michael. And when that happened, nothing
worked. So I could not push through,
I could not work my way out
(03:14):
of it. I could note, I arm
wrestled my way out. I just, there
was nothing I could do. And I
always had this position against my negative
emotions, like, your negative emotions are not
serving you and therefore, you should not
be. Having negative emotions was kind of
(03:35):
my attitude against my own emotions, which
caused me to have extreme panic attacks
and suicidal ideation. It really hit a
rock bottom for me. Um, so it
was at that point, I was like,
all right, I have to figure out.
I have to figure out how to
be happy. I have to figure out
(03:57):
if I'm going to continue to be
alive. I have to figure out how
I'm going to be in this world
and not be miserable. So that's what
I decided to come in my life
to. That became a book called the
Art of being Yang. And surprisingly, I
didn't know people still read, but people
read and read the book, and they
(04:18):
asked me to make speeches. And that
became a developing of my foundation, where
I help people tell their story through
the art of stand up comedy and
all with the focus about mental health
and embracing your emotions and working with
your emotions, rather than muscling through, which
is often the strategy among certain groups,
(04:42):
which actually worked for me until a
point, and it did not work. So
that was a lot. So that's how
the Ye foundation got started.
Aidan Park (04:50):
That was a lot, but that was
great. That was a great synopsis. When
you say muscling through, can you clarify
what you mean by that? When you
say muscling through, what, why it worked
before, what it meant, and then why
it didn't work.
Alya Lei (05:06):
Okay, so when I. At the point
at which I found this empowerment life,
I was quite like a person on
a river. Faced up, up, and rocks
just kept hitting me, like, so you
were rowing.
Aidan Park (05:24):
Upstream and you were bumping into rocks,
right.
Alya Lei (05:27):
And I didn't see the rocks coming,
and I just thought life just happened.
I just thought life just happened to
you, and you have no really daring
or control over anything. I just thought
that's just how life was. And then
I was taught, oh, actually, you can
be responsible for your life, for the
(05:47):
outcomes of your life, right? You can
actually take control of your narrative, and
you can reframe your story and get
out of the victim mentality. So I
would say it helped me. It did
help me get out of the victim
(06:07):
mentality. But the way it went about
it was, it was kind of like,
you know, I was a musical theater
actor as an asian person, so it
was either Miss Saigon or I would.
That was it. Right? And I remember
I would go on auditions and I
would not get picked, and I would
get. I mean, I had this one
(06:29):
incident where I auditioned for Danny Zuko
in Greece when I was 19, and
I got a callback. And it was
me and this one other guy who
would not sing it. He would not.
He just could not sing it.
Aidan Park (06:43):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (06:44):
Could not dance it. And I was
like, I wonder what they're gonna do.
And they went with him. He looked
more the part than traditional, you know?
Aidan Park (06:53):
And I remember you would make a
great Danny Zuko. I totally see that.
Alya Lei (06:58):
Well, nowadays, I think with the, you
know, asian movement, maybe they would be
more open to it. But at the
time, they were very. They went very.
And so I remember going to those
groups and I would say, like, oh,
I feel like my being asian is
a disadvantage. And I remember them saying,
(07:19):
nobody cares about your story.
Aidan Park (07:24):
Ouch.
Alya Lei (07:25):
Yeah, nobody cares about your story. No
one cares about your story, about your
racket. You want to be an actor,
you're asian. Tough. Figure it out. You
gotta figure it out. It doesn't matter.
You gotta figure out you're not getting
the results you want. You own the
results. Take your power back. Get the
results. Don't blame society. Take your power
(07:47):
back.
Aidan Park (07:47):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (07:49):
And then sometimes I go in there
and be like, oh, I'm sad because
x, y, and z happens. Like, that's
your doing. You created it. And even
if you didn't create it, it's now
your responsibility, so you handle it. How
are you going to handle it? Do
you want to live the rest of
your life as a sad, hiv positive
person? You can do that if you
want, or you can take charge of
your life and you can move forward.
(08:11):
At the time, it was, this is,
like, from the world of Tony Robbins
kind of thing, okay? Which, he's great
in some areas. So it was successful
because in a way, I took that
on. I was like, and I had
no parenting before this. I didn't even
(08:31):
notice a thank you to people. Like,
I remember I got a ride from
somebody when I was in junior and
high school, and someone gave me a
ride home, and I did not say
thank you. I just. Just no one
really taught me thank yous, please, anything,
really. So I was like, this jungle
boy, you know? And I really took
(08:55):
that on. I was like, all right,
I want to be a successful actor.
I want to be, you know, whatever
I wanted. And so I would work
harder than everybody. And it created some
results, but also the position there was,
if you have negative emotions, it's not
(09:17):
serving you. So I would do things
like the swish pattern. So swish pattern
is like, all right, so I study
a neuro linguistic programming, which is a
mental tool that sometimes use it in
cults, but so I don't know if
(09:40):
you remember the Nexium thing. The nexium.
Okay. So anyway, gotta look that up.
Very interesting. So there are hypnotic language
patterns that you can use to kind
of get past the conscious mind. So
the idea is that your conscious mind
is the gatekeeper of your real beliefs,
(10:02):
which lives in the unconscious mind. So
I might say something to you like,
I bet you already know that you're
beautiful, aren't you?
Aidan Park (10:10):
Mmm.
Alya Lei (10:11):
So you hear that? It's that moment.
That moment right there. What did he
just say? That confusion.
Aidan Park (10:17):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (10:17):
Actually busies up the conscious mind, and
it lets you get behind and plants
information. So I bet you already know
that is a presupposition, right? I bet
you already know that you're beautiful, aren't
you? The wrong phrasing right there confuses
(10:38):
the mind. It's not something that we're
used to. But I just basically said,
you're beautiful. That's what I. What I
said.
Aidan Park (10:44):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (10:44):
I bet you already know that you
are beautiful, aren't you? I just said,
you're beautiful. Gets past the conscious mind.
So they would teach me tools like
that. So I would start. I walked
around saying things to myself, like, double
negatives is another hypnotic language pattern. I
bet you don't. Don't know that you're
awesome. Right? Isn't it? So I wanted
(11:10):
to implant ideas in my head.
Aidan Park (11:13):
Right. It sounds like that's a good
thing if you want to implant ideas
that are. That are serving you into
your. Your subconscious that maybe wasn't there.
Right? So, like, you're awesome. You're beautiful.
Yeah. Those are good beliefs to have,
you.
Alya Lei (11:32):
Know, it worked to a degree.
Aidan Park (11:34):
Yeah. Yeah.
Alya Lei (11:35):
And the swish pattern is basically the
idea, like, all right, so if you
close your eyes, like, every emotion has,
like, a picture scenario. So if I
think about a sad moment, I can
picture it in my head. Right? I
see it, like, I don't know, let's
say an ocean. I see an ocean,
(11:55):
and I see a sad girl standing
on the edge of the pierde. Okay.
And what they would say is, okay,
so if you don't want to feel
that, you want to make the picture
darker, turn down the color, make it
black and white, put the picture far
away from you, make it super small.
(12:16):
And then imagine tossing it behind you
and nailing it behind you and saying
that you are done with feeling like
that again. So every time you feel
sad, you either. Or unmotivated or upset
or anything like that, you would do
these kinds of patterns. So I would
(12:37):
either speak to myself in hypnotic language
patterns, or I would do the swish
method or. But all of those things
are actually, the issue with those things
was that all of them are a
response to get away from my emotions,
(12:58):
which works to a degree, but later
on, it really blew up in my
face.
Aidan Park (13:06):
Explain if you want to.
Alya Lei (13:10):
Do you know anything about me? This
is interesting. I don't think I talked
to you, right about this, any of
this.
Aidan Park (13:16):
A little, but not to this degree.
No. Yeah, yeah.
Alya Lei (13:20):
So we're learning something new. Okay. Yeah.
Aidan Park (13:22):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (13:23):
It got me a business success teaches
you to have gumption. So I actually
went to the bubble guy. I was
like, hey, you should expand your business.
I knew how to run things, and
I was basically, as a 19 year
old young man, surrounded by. At the
time, nobody was into empowerment in early
two thousands. Really? So I was surrounded
(13:45):
by, like, 40 something, 50 something white
men who come in and they're like,
I lost $100,000 in this deal. And
I'm like, I did not get this,
you know, audition in a community theater.
And, you know, same thing went to
them. Like, no one cares. What are
your results? What are. What's driving your
(14:06):
results? Like, it doesn't matter. Wow. You
know, very masculine energy.
Aidan Park (14:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Alya Lei (14:13):
So, okay, so it got me to
a certain level of success. You know,
I got the laugh factory. I ran
a show there for five years. It
made me super productive. I was very,
very good at people would be like,
how do you. How are you able
to manage all these things? You do
a lot, right? It's the NLP training.
(14:35):
So it was really helpful. But then,
as it relates to dealing with traumatic
emotions, I found that it was very
detrimental when Michael died.
Aidan Park (14:45):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (14:47):
And that was a. I was so
absolutely in love with him. And, you
know, I'm working on my next book.
There's more layers of grief under layers
of grief. Right. And, you know, I
suppressed all of it. But actually, deep
(15:09):
down, I did not like that I
was asian. I did not like that
I was gay, and I felt handicapped
in this world as a result. But
I went with, no one cares about
your story. And I doubled down on
all these techniques and tools. But what
happened, why Michael was so special was
(15:30):
he was the first man that was
like, oh, you have HIV, right? Oh,
me too. So I actually like that
you do. So that we can be
more comfortable. You are asian. I really
like asian guys. So I really like
that you've got this crazy energy. I
love that about you. I love. I
love that you're gay. It serves me
so I. There's everything that I really
(15:54):
did not like about me here was
somebody who could sit down and really
appreciate me for all those things that
I thought was such a handicap and
such a. Something to be ashamed of
and to have to be managed.
Aidan Park (16:07):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (16:08):
And when he died, that also died.
Right. The ability to be able to
love myself for all those things that
I thought was a curse.
Aidan Park (16:25):
Right, right.
Alya Lei (16:27):
So it triggered all kinds of things
when he passed away. I don't know
how intense we want to get on
that. I mean, is this like, how
intense is this podcast?
Aidan Park (16:41):
This is an authentic podcast. It is
what it is.
Alya Lei (16:44):
So, okay, I was molested when I
was five years old, and when I
was molested when I was five years
old, I remember my biggest fear was
not the perpetrator or anything. I thought
it was my fault. And I grew
up in a very conservative Baptist household
where everybody thought they were going to
(17:06):
get raptured. So I remember every good
moment that I had after that with
my mom, with my grandma. I remember
thinking as a kid, this could be
the last time I'm ever going to
have a moment with my mom again,
because any moment, the rapture would happen,
(17:28):
and I was already gay, so I
was going to go to hell regardless.
I couldn't tell them. But as a
five, six, seven year old, feeling like
everything you love can be taken away
at that moment, any moment, was deeply
down there. I have abandoned ministries as
a result. So on Michael died. All
of that came up, right?
Aidan Park (17:49):
Oh, my God. Yeah.
Alya Lei (17:51):
And when Michael died, I just felt
like I was left. That feeling of
I was left behind. I was left
behind. Right, right. And so all of
those things and the self hatred. And
then at that state, then I tried
applying the tools.
Aidan Park (18:13):
Sure.
Alya Lei (18:14):
Reframing is just kind of like giving
a new narrative. So, like one could
say, oh, Michael's dead and I'm sad.
Oh, but you know, I'm gonna. Oh,
but isn't it wonderful to be able
to get a fresh new start in
your life? This is a brand new
chapter, and you can step into it
as to avoid the feelings that you're
(18:36):
feeling only just puts a blanket over
a pile of crap or doing hypnotic
language patterns, you know? No, I bet
you already know that. You aren't, you
know, you're going to be, you're going
to be wonderful, have a wonderful life
with or without Michael. Isn't it? Is
(18:57):
that going to work? You know, no
one cares about my story. Let me
just keep it. No one wants to
hear you suffering, Aiden. Nobody wants to
hear programming. Nobody wants to hear you
suffering. Work harder. Switch pattern. I don't
know. Are you sad? Think about Michael.
Turn down the picture of him and
(19:18):
throw it behind you. And it's to
be behind you. Move on. And it
did not work. I started getting panic
attacks because now what was happening was
I was having these intense emotions, and
then I was having a reaction to
those emotions. So now I'm dealing with
two things. Like, I'm in resistance to
the emotions that I'm having, right. So
(19:39):
then I started, right, right, yeah. It
wasn't even the emotions itself. It was
the reaction to the. Like, I should
not be feeling this way. I should
not be in this position.
Aidan Park (19:50):
Right.
Alya Lei (19:51):
I am wrong for feeling this way.
And if I were a better student
at NLP, if I were doing this
correctly, then I should be able to
move on with my life, and I'm
not able to. What's wrong with me?
Aidan Park (20:04):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (20:05):
And that was. That was. That was.
Aidan Park (20:09):
Hell, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alya Lei (20:16):
So sorry. That was a lot. You
look so sad. Aren't you promised a
happy ending? Because I'm here talking to
you about it now.
Aidan Park (20:27):
Yes. So there's gonna be a happy
ending.
Alya Lei (20:29):
I wonder. I mean, not that time
with two Asians on one podcast. They
might have the wrong idea. We do
bubbles. We don't do salons.
Aidan Park (20:39):
Massages. Oh, my gosh. I didn't even
know that. Like, this is an aside.
When I was a teenager, I didn't
know what I wanted to do. And
I was like. And I thought massaging
would be a good job. And so
I told my mom, you know, if
I can't figure it out, I'll be
a masseuse. She got so mad at
me. She, like, pointed at me. She's
like, then you might as well be
a prostitute. And I was like, what
(21:02):
the f. Was she talking about? Cause
I had no idea at the time
that sometimes a masseuse could be literally
like, a prostitute, you know? And I
was like, huh.
Alya Lei (21:16):
Yeah, that masseuse. Maybe a massage therapist.
Does that sound better?
Aidan Park (21:21):
Probably. But, you know, at the time,
it wouldn't have mattered, you know, in
high school and, you know, but back
to you. Okay, so NLP swishing hypnotic
programming language. It was actually not even
not helping and not working. It actually
(21:43):
compounded everything and made it so much
worse.
Alya Lei (21:48):
At that moment.
Aidan Park (21:49):
Yes, at that moment. At that moment.
Up until then, it was working. Yes.
Alya Lei (21:55):
And then it's not.
Aidan Park (21:56):
Right, right. So then what happened? Like,
how did you get out of. You
went to tools to help you cope
and those tools were not working anymore.
Alya Lei (22:11):
Yeah.
Aidan Park (22:12):
What happened next?
Alya Lei (22:15):
Drugs.
Aidan Park (22:22):
We laugh but also. Yeah. Self medicating.
Yeah, self medicating.
Alya Lei (22:28):
I just couldn't take it. And you
know how we say a tool that
once worked no longer works? Right? Yes.
You move on. You know what? The
drugs, um, actually, at that time, it
saved my life, because I really had.
I could not. I just could not.
(22:48):
I just. I just. I could not.
Aidan Park (22:51):
You couldn't deal. Yeah.
Alya Lei (22:52):
Imagine living in this world without Michael.
I just. I just, like, I could
not. You know, I would wake up
every day and pray for death. Like,
it was like, I could note. And
so, of course, I tried to get
a man to shove into that place
as quickly as possible. And when you
(23:13):
are in a really vulnerable state and
you open yourself up to a relationship,
you are ripe for people who see
you as an easy target for whatever
they want. So I met a guy
who was. I've never been gaslit before.
(23:35):
I did not know what that. What
that is. I did not. I had
no idea. We would meet and he
would do things, like, really intensely, check
out other people in front of me.
And I would go, what are you
doing?
Aidan Park (23:53):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (23:54):
And he would go, what? I wasn't
doing anything. I don't know what your
problem is.
Aidan Park (24:01):
Oh.
Alya Lei (24:01):
And then I started questioning my reality.
I was like, should I. Should I?
Am. Am I. What's really going on?
What am I seeing? What am I
hearing? Right?
Aidan Park (24:14):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (24:15):
I had an incident where. Oh, gosh.
Oh, this is getting deep. This is
interesting. We went to Vegas together, and
they were there. And I was there
with the girlfriend. He's bisexual. I was
there with the girlfriend. He met my
girlfriend.
Aidan Park (24:29):
Mm hmm.
Alya Lei (24:30):
And that girlfriend has been known to
sleep with other guys boyfriends.
Aidan Park (24:37):
Oh, okay.
Alya Lei (24:39):
I was on stage, and I performed,
and I came back into the theater,
and I looked for them, and they
were nowhere to be found. It was
a small room, but I left, and
I came back in, like, 30 minutes,
and they were sitting right there. And
I was like, where were they? And
at the time, I was like, oh,
I just must be. I must have
(24:59):
missed it. It's a dark room, but
how could I have possibly missed them?
Aidan Park (25:03):
Right.
Alya Lei (25:04):
And eventually, I thought, did something. It
was to that degree, like, did something
happen between the two of them? You
know?
Aidan Park (25:16):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (25:17):
So it was. I've never had that
kind of mind mess up.
Aidan Park (25:22):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (25:22):
And of course, I have that feeling.
And then I'm like, well, you shouldn't
be feeling this way because your suspicions
is the problem here, which is just
what they like you to believe. And
so I would switch pattern on my
belief systems and being suspicious while this
is actually happening in front of me.
(25:43):
So it was like. It was like
a tale, you know? So I hit
rock bottom. I was supposed to go
to Italy with them. He bought me
a ticket, plane ticket to Italy, and
we're gonna go on a ten day
vacation. And the day before, I I
I got a piece of information that.
(26:05):
That it didn't confirm what. What I
thought, but it actually. It made more
sense. You know, I did not know
that this. I mean, I knew that
this person, my friend, was, you know,
out there, you know, but I did
not know that she had a tendency
to do this with. And so, in
(26:26):
passing conversation with another mutual friend, she
actually told me what had happened. And
I just got this feeling like, I
was like, they weren't in the room.
They weren't in the room. I knew
they weren't. I checked.
Aidan Park (26:39):
Right.
Alya Lei (26:40):
But even then, you're walking away feeling
like, what did I feel? Right? So
at that time, I was like, all
right, that was my rock bottom. And
I said, I'm so unhappy, and nothing's
working. I have to figure out how
to be happy if I'm going to
continue to be alive, because I'm not
(27:01):
living like this. I don't know what
that means, but I just got to
figure out how I can be happy
again. What do I do?
Aidan Park (27:11):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (27:12):
And I figured out that happiness is
actually an emotional experience, and I quantified
it by saying, all right, happiness means
you spend more time in the positive
emotional states rather than the negative. So
we want to balance that out. That's
just kind of how I quantified it
at the time. And so my focus
(27:33):
became, well, how do I foster these
positive emotions? And what are positive emotions?
Even? So, I started really identifying what
they were like. Comfort, safety, security, pleased,
proud, excited. There's all these flavors of
(27:54):
positive emotions, and there's flavors of negative
emotion. So I found that, okay, if
everything is about emotions at the end
of the day, and I heard this
great quote, that at the end of
the day, everything's about emotion. Everything you
want is because there's an emotional experience
at the other end of it. Like,
you might want money because you want
(28:15):
a sense of freedom and security. You
might want a boyfriend so you can
feel safe and protected or something. You
might want, you know, to meditate because
you get that peace and calm. So
every experience has an emotion attached at
the end of it. Otherwise it's meaningless.
Aidan Park (28:36):
Interesting. Yeah.
Alya Lei (28:37):
I was like, okay, and when I
thought about Michael, when I would cry,
think about Michael, I was like, if
that is true, if Michael were here
right now, what emotions would I be
experiencing? So I said, okay, I would
be experiencing safety, comfort, and approval, maybe.
(29:03):
So, you know, approval. Approval can lead
to acceptance or something like that. Let's
say, you know.
Aidan Park (29:08):
Sure, yeah.
Alya Lei (29:10):
So then I would say, okay, well,
Michael's dead, and I cremated him, so
I can't bring him back through pet
sematary. So what am I going to
do? And so I said, okay, then
I guess I need to start figuring
out how to foster those emotional states
in myself. What do I say to
myself to get that? What do I.
(29:33):
You know, what do I need to
do, right? And so I started deliberately
going after emotional tones, and I found
that there were negative emotions, traumas that
were causing a lot of pain for
me. You know, I studied negative emotions
(29:58):
and how. What do I need to
do to handle this? Because shoving them
down, pushing them away, swishing them out,
talking myself into a pattern didn't work.
What do I do with it?
Aidan Park (30:08):
Right?
Alya Lei (30:09):
And I found this process, you know,
inner child work and actually validating your
feelings as a tool to really integrate
all of that energy back when you
have a little child who. It's from
the theory of, like, when you are
(30:29):
injured, when you're, like, three years old,
you know, you get a trauma and
the three year old will dissociate. And
not because they don't want to feel
that painful experience and they feel powerless
to change it, right. But that dissociation
and that negative emotional state actually gets
(30:52):
buried into your subconscious and you carry
that with you. And so when you
live through the day and someone triggers
you and you have a big response,
that is an indicator that there is
an unresolved trauma. And so I was
like, okay, you know, when you have
(31:12):
an infection on your arm, let's say,
for example, like, so if you got
a cut on your arm, if you
don't have a cut on your arm
and you bang a table, it hurts,
but it goes down, right?
Aidan Park (31:25):
Right.
Alya Lei (31:25):
Normal.
Aidan Park (31:26):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (31:26):
If you have an infection there and
you bang your hand on the table,
you will scream. That is equivalent to
unhealth, emotional trauma. And the way to
heal it is to actually go back
and re experience those emotional experiences so
that it can be completed and it'll
heal over. So that the next time
(31:47):
you bang your hand on the table,
there is not that reaction because you've
reintegrated that aspect of you that has
dissociated.
Aidan Park (31:58):
So it's because you disassociated that it's
stuck in your body and your emotions.
So when you. You're saying that, the
idea is if you relive it and
actually feel those emotions in ithemenous, then
it becomes healed and integrated, so it's
no longer a festering wound, but just
(32:18):
a healed wound, kind of that.
Alya Lei (32:21):
I can't purport to say I know
everything. I just can't tell you what
worked for me.
Aidan Park (32:26):
Right, right.
Alya Lei (32:26):
I know I'm a lot better than
I used to be. Yes.
Aidan Park (32:29):
Yeah. So that's what you started to
do.
Alya Lei (32:32):
That's what I started to do.
Aidan Park (32:33):
Okay.
Alya Lei (32:34):
And I I'll give you an example
that's, like, not as so intense. So
I had a lot of self hatred
and a lot of feelings about myself
that I really didn't like. And I
really do think that empathy is really
important. Like, why would somebody do that?
(32:56):
And I remember in middle school, I
was a perpetual liar. I would lie
about everything, and I was so ashamed
about that kid that would just lie
about everything. And I walked around the
world really hating liars. I was like,
(33:19):
anybody who lies is bad. Like, bad
liars are evil. But it was a
reflection of how I really felt about
myself when I was lying in middle
school. And so I deep dived into
(33:41):
myself as a middle schooler, and I
actually. And it was so uncomfortable. I
really hated this the first time I
did inner child work. Basically, you're supposed
to go back and meet your past
self, and at the end, you get
asked to integrate, um, the child, like,
(34:02):
oh, they can come with you. And
I said, no, they need to figure
out how to live life in this
tough way. That's how life is. I
remember that. And the person that was
facilitating was like, that's. That's an interesting
reaction, which actually is not comforting at
(34:23):
all. I'm not so good at that.
And. Right. So I went back to
my teenager, and I asked, you know,
why are you lying? Why are you
lying? What's going on? You know? And
I had this moment where I saw
(34:44):
my kid, and I was like, I
remember feeling like, man, when I was
in Korea, I was like, I was
nine years old. I was at the
top of my class. I had so
many friends. My mother and I were
best friends, I thought. And we were
so close, and my mother was so
proud of me. And then I moved
(35:05):
to the United States.
Aidan Park (35:07):
When you were nine?
Alya Lei (35:08):
When I was nine. And all of
a sudden, I did not know that
I was fat, but apparently I was
fat. Everybody said I was fat. I
can't speak the language. I can't defend
myself. I can't make friends. I'm not
good at school anymore. I'm no longer
making my mother proud. In fact, I'm
making her ashamed. And then she moved
across the country. Right. So, again, there's
(35:30):
that theme, being left behind.
Aidan Park (35:32):
Right, right.
Alya Lei (35:33):
And so, in a way, it doesn't
look like, you know, somebody got raptured,
but I was, in fact, left behind.
And I. And the. The mirroring of
that event, like, the. The shame that
I felt, I thought I did it.
I was my fault. If I was
more lovable, she would want to stay,
but I'm not. So she left, and
(35:55):
there's nothing I can do about it.
So the shame that was running under
in the undercurrent was so strong that
I opted to lie. I thought I
was so unlovable as an individual, as
an 11, 12, 13 year old, that
if I could make up some stories
about who I really am, then maybe
other kids would like me. So I
(36:16):
would tell the other kids that I
was really wealthy. I would tell the
other kids that I was a genius.
I would tell. I would make up
whatever lie I could to get any
kind of interest, because I did not
think that I was enough. And after
that process, I had empathy for myself.
Like, I could see why people might
(36:36):
lie. I'm not saying it was right.
I'm just saying, you know what? No
one was there to teach me. No
one parented me, and I was living
in extreme fear and shame, so I
came back.
Aidan Park (36:49):
Right.
Alya Lei (36:50):
And my judgment against people who lie,
I don't think it's. I don't. I
don't think it's right to lie. I'm
not saying that. But I also think
I. I have empathy for them. Right.
And, you know, it would even be
(37:10):
like, little things like, oh, someone wants
to take an extended holiday and calls
in sick or something, and I would
just be like, that person is a
mother effort because I have such resistance
to a concept. But once I actually
came to understand the reasoning behind why
I lied to. Yeah, I could see,
(37:31):
oh, they had their reasons why they
lied. Another aspect is there's so many
different aspects of me that I was
trying to get away from, but ultimately,
it's the looking at it and coming
to understand why I did what I
(37:51):
did in an empathetic sort of way
that caused me to become more sensitive
to the world, become more understanding to
other people. And that pays dividends, because
when you have interactions with people from
that position, people really feel understood. People
feel understood, and if they feel understood,
(38:12):
they want to understand you. And it
creates a lot of. And this whole
entire process has created so many great
friends for me. It got me to
understand myself better. I can feel emotions,
you know, for the most part, I
can stand strong. In my truth, I
could still be nicer to myself. That's
(38:33):
what I'm working on. I'm quite. Quite
rough. So there's a. There's a lot.
There's a lot there. So does that
make sense? That's an example of integrating.
Aidan Park (38:44):
Yes. Yes. I feel like what I'm
hearing is that not just you, all
of us have so many multifaceted parts
of ourselves. Right. But what I'm hearing
overall is that your journey is progress,
and that by doing so, you're also
seeing and empathizing with others as well,
(39:07):
and that it's creating a more fulfilled,
happier life now.
Alya Lei (39:13):
Yeah. I mean, life is like, you
know, weird, because it's like, yeah, I
don't want to go through that. What
I went through with Michael again.
Aidan Park (39:21):
No.
Alya Lei (39:24):
But I do think that I'm probably
a better individual as a result of
the incident.
Aidan Park (39:32):
Yeah. And so from this now, and
is this where you are now? And
then how did that. You wrote the
book that was part of the integrating
and healing process. The book. Your yay
book. Right. The art of being. Yeah.
And then how did that transition into
(39:53):
becoming the Ye foundation? And how are
you helping people with the Ye foundation?
Alya Lei (39:59):
You know, I'm good at producing events,
and what happened was, when I wrote
the book, I started getting asked to
make speeches, and what I do is
I use comedy as a tool for
delivery on the speech. Right. So I
did that. I started doing that. And
this is actually a really funny kind
of story. During COVID I lived downtown
(40:20):
Los Angeles, and buildings were burning down
in downtown Los Angeles, like, burning down.
And I was like, I gotta get
out of here.
Aidan Park (40:30):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (40:31):
So I always wanted to visit Montana,
and I wasn't sure if the world
was gonna end, so I hopped in
my car, and I said, I'm going
to go to Montana, and I'm going
to teach myself how to ride a
bike. So I got up there, and
I rented a bike.
Aidan Park (40:47):
I did not ride a bike, like,
a bicycle bike. A bicycle. Okay.
Alya Lei (40:53):
Yeah. I never learned.
Aidan Park (40:54):
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Alya Lei (40:55):
I was crashing into things in Montana.
I was like, I can't believe I'm
here. I ended up in this town
where, serendipitously, I ran into a guy
who runs the comedy scene up in
Kalispell. And he was a 22 year
old kid, and his dream was to
perform at the laugh factory, and that
(41:16):
was my homecoming.
Aidan Park (41:17):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (41:18):
And so he was like, I cannot
believe you're here. You just fell out
of the sky. This is crazy.
Aidan Park (41:25):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (41:26):
And he was so excited. And little
entrepreneur, so amazing. I started mentoring him.
He brought me up there to play
the Elks lodge, which is interesting because
I'm a gay sian. During COVID coming
from California, the place was sold out.
I got a standing ovation for the
(41:47):
show, and I was like, wow, they
were so accepting. They really loved the
comedy. So I was really good. I
became really good friends with him. And
he said it was really the best
weekend of his life. And he said
it on Facebook. Sadly, a couple months
after that, he took his own life.
Aidan Park (42:10):
Oh, no.
Alya Lei (42:11):
It was devastating for all of us.
He had issues with alcohol, but by
then, I'd been up there a couple
times, so I was friends with his
fiance. I was friends with his best
friend. I had a whole connection of
people up there. And so we got
this idea. Every year, we'll do a
(42:33):
show and memory events and do a
show, right. Every year. And we'll pick
an organization to go ahead and give
money to.
Aidan Park (42:44):
Oh, okay.
Alya Lei (42:45):
The second year, the people that we
picked the money to give the money
to were being wishy washy. Like, we're
gonna give you free money. And they
were like, being wishy washy. They were,
like, not answering.
Aidan Park (42:58):
They were not open to receive. I'd
be like, gimme, gimme, gimme.
Alya Lei (43:02):
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Make you
cry. And it's just like. But this
has a really beautiful ending also, so
we love Vinnie. You know, Vinny. Vinny's
best friend is Nick Kinet, and his
fiance was Kara. And I went up
(43:23):
there the second year, and Kara said,
why don't you? So by then, what
I was doing was I was coaching
Nick on how to do comedy. So,
like, he had some dark senses of
humor, so basically, he shot himself in
Nick's car. And he's a veteran, so
Nick's a veteran, and he is from
Montana, so he. They have a dark
(43:45):
sense of humor. And so he was
like, the asshole didn't even think, you
know? Do you know that brain bits
are not covered by insurance? You know,
so things like that. Right? Helping. And
I was already running this, and Carol
was like, you should start a foundation.
And so she ran a fundraiser, and
(44:08):
in one weekend, we needed $2,300 to
file all the paperwork. The money that
came in was $2,287.
Aidan Park (44:16):
Mm. Wow.
Alya Lei (44:18):
And she just said, here you go.
And I said, wow. Okay. So we
started the foundation where we were, like,
finding our place more and more.
Aidan Park (44:30):
Sure.
Alya Lei (44:30):
Yeah. In the beginning, it was about
spreading yayful messages through comedy shows. Right.
And so educational workshops. So I put
together training programs for peers at national
lines on mental illness, American foundation of
Suicide Prevention, based on what I know.
(44:50):
So I'm not a trained therapist, but
I can speak to my personal experience
and say what worked and encourage people
to choose for themselves whether it's right
or wrong or whatever. But, you know,
I would always advise, go to therapist
or whatever. I'm just saying, like, this
is what worked for me. And so
it's like a kind of an out
of the box kind of way of
(45:12):
looking at things, you know? So that
is one thing that I advocate. But
what I found very helpful was people
like Nick being able to talk about
the death of his friend in a.
In a positive way is a safe
place for him to speak about his
experience and have it be safe.
Aidan Park (45:32):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (45:33):
Kara, I taught her how to do
it. So she got on stage and
she started speaking. And Kara is a
widow, and Kara's dad just lost his
wife of 40 or so. They're coming
with me to widow's camp where I'm
like a presenter and we're all so,
and I know how to produce. So
(45:54):
where we're falling. What do we do?
A lot of is we do three
things. We produce comedy events for organizations.
And I will teach a comedy workshop
to people of that organization, get them
to go up on stage, tell their
personal story, and then produce an event
for them. And I do training workshops
(46:14):
for mental health. So there's a lot
of different things we do. And we
have a, what, ten person board now
where we've got some funding from AIDS
Healthcare foundation for advocation for sexual health.
Lots of. I just, I mean, and
(46:36):
I'm just, I'm just rolling with it.
I'm like, okay, what do I need
to learn? What do I need to
do? Yeah, I'll just figure it's landing
in front of me and I'm doing
it. That's it.
Aidan Park (46:46):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (46:49):
That'S it. That's what we're doing.
Aidan Park (46:50):
It's fantastic. I think it's such a
fantastic, fantastic. I hadn't heard of something
like this before yet. Right. Wherever. It's
helping people heal through comedy. Right. I
think comedy is healing, but I mean,
specifically the way you're doing it as
an event with training and then a
(47:11):
separate training as well for mental health
if you want to. But putting it
in a way that's fun. The pain
right into something that's fun and funny
and connecting. I love that. I think
that's so great.
Alya Lei (47:25):
Yeah.
Aidan Park (47:25):
So, yahoo, last question. What can we
do? How do we follow you and
the Ye foundation? Do you have anything
coming up? You know, how do we
keep in contact?
Alya Lei (47:37):
Yeah, you can go to the yeayfoundation.org
or the artofbeingye.com. and so, you know,
one way or the other, you can
check out, you know, the artofbeingye.com is
more about me. The yeayfoundation.org is more
about the organization. But my big thing
that I have coming up is the
(47:58):
five city tour that we have. It's
a southwest yay fest tour through new
mexico and four cities in Colorado. So
I hope to be there. And we're
working on something in San Jose. So,
I mean, we'll keep you abreast and
all the information, go to the website
and you can see all the cool
things we do and come join us.
(48:19):
It's fun. Totally fun.
Aidan Park (48:20):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (48:21):
And we even have a gifting suite.
We get like, get swag.
Aidan Park (48:26):
Is swag still a word? Swag? So
when is the southwest one? Around what
time? When is that timeframe?
Alya Lei (48:35):
End of September, early October. So the
last weekend of September and the first
weekend of October. Yeah.
Aidan Park (48:40):
Okay. Very cool. Thank you, Aiden, so
much for being fantastic and sharing your
authentic self and being so open and
vulnerable. I think that it'll really resonate
with so many people.
Alya Lei (48:53):
Yay. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Aidan Park (48:55):
Thank you so much for listening to
conversations with aaliyah lay. I'd love to
hear from you. Follow me on Instagram.
Yale. A l y a l e
I.
Welcome to conversations with Aliya Lay. Tune
in for inspiration, information and upliftment as
creatives and entrepreneurs share their journeys, challenges
and successes.
Aidan Park (00:12):
So on today's episode of did you
know? With Aaliyah Le, we have our
wonderful guest Aidan park and we're gonna
talk about his Yeh foundation, how it
got started, what it's about and who
it's for. But first, real quick, Aidenae.
Aiden park, also known as the Yay
(00:33):
Guy, is the founder and CEO of
the Yay foundation. He is an award
winning stand up comedian and bestselling author
of the Art of Being Ye the
OMG NSFW Memoir and Guide to Authentic
Joy. Featuring a foreword by Margaret Cho.
(00:54):
Aiden utilizes comedy and personal storytelling to
spread yay, promoting mental and emotional health
through funny and engaging educational wellness programs.
Additionally, he teaches comedy as a tool
for self expression and connection while producing
comedy events to unite the community as
(01:16):
a comedian, Aiden has two comedy specials
available on NBC's Peacock and Amazon prime.
His comedy has been featured on NBC,
Amazon Prime, PBS, CB's, the TV Guide
Channel, Hulu and Comedy Central. So thank
you, Aiden, for being a guest here
today.
Alya Lei (01:36):
Hey, thank you. Yahoo.
Aidan Park (01:38):
Yahoo.
Alya Lei (01:39):
Yahoo.
Aidan Park (01:40):
Okay, so Aiden, do you want to
start with telling us what got you
to create the yay foundation?
Alya Lei (01:47):
Oh, okay. So, hi. What got me
to create the Ye foundation? It was
a necessity. So, um, what happened was,
you know, I had a pretty rough
childhood from the beginning. I, you know,
was born to a single mom. I
was undocumented, brought here, raised in government
(02:10):
housing with my grandma. And by the
time I was 19, I was, I
ended up, I was homeless and I
was HIV positive. Right. And so don't
worry, you can't get it from jokes,
okay? Or from podcast frequencies or what
have you, whatever you're watching or YouTube
channels. I like to make jokes about
(02:32):
difficult things. So that'll happen a lot
during this. And so at that time,
I picked up, there was a mentor
who stepped in and said, hey, I'm
going to help you. I'm going to
help you find footing in your life.
And he did. But the methodology that
was used was very pull yourself up
by your bootstraps, work hard, get it
(02:54):
together and push forward. And that worked
to a degree until I lost my
partner, Michael. And when that happened, nothing
worked. So I could not push through,
I could not work my way out
(03:14):
of it. I could note, I arm
wrestled my way out. I just, there
was nothing I could do. And I
always had this position against my negative
emotions, like, your negative emotions are not
serving you and therefore, you should not
be. Having negative emotions was kind of
(03:35):
my attitude against my own emotions, which
caused me to have extreme panic attacks
and suicidal ideation. It really hit a
rock bottom for me. Um, so it
was at that point, I was like,
all right, I have to figure out.
I have to figure out how to
be happy. I have to figure out
(03:57):
if I'm going to continue to be
alive. I have to figure out how
I'm going to be in this world
and not be miserable. So that's what
I decided to come in my life
to. That became a book called the
Art of being Yang. And surprisingly, I
didn't know people still read, but people
read and read the book, and they
(04:18):
asked me to make speeches. And that
became a developing of my foundation, where
I help people tell their story through
the art of stand up comedy and
all with the focus about mental health
and embracing your emotions and working with
your emotions, rather than muscling through, which
is often the strategy among certain groups,
(04:42):
which actually worked for me until a
point, and it did not work. So
that was a lot. So that's how
the Ye foundation got started.
Aidan Park (04:50):
That was a lot, but that was
great. That was a great synopsis. When
you say muscling through, can you clarify
what you mean by that? When you
say muscling through, what, why it worked
before, what it meant, and then why
it didn't work.
Alya Lei (05:06):
Okay, so when I. At the point
at which I found this empowerment life,
I was quite like a person on
a river. Faced up, up, and rocks
just kept hitting me, like, so you
were rowing.
Aidan Park (05:24):
Upstream and you were bumping into rocks,
right.
Alya Lei (05:27):
And I didn't see the rocks coming,
and I just thought life just happened.
I just thought life just happened to
you, and you have no really daring
or control over anything. I just thought
that's just how life was. And then
I was taught, oh, actually, you can
be responsible for your life, for the
(05:47):
outcomes of your life, right? You can
actually take control of your narrative, and
you can reframe your story and get
out of the victim mentality. So I
would say it helped me. It did
help me get out of the victim
(06:07):
mentality. But the way it went about
it was, it was kind of like,
you know, I was a musical theater
actor as an asian person, so it
was either Miss Saigon or I would.
That was it. Right? And I remember
I would go on auditions and I
would not get picked, and I would
get. I mean, I had this one
(06:29):
incident where I auditioned for Danny Zuko
in Greece when I was 19, and
I got a callback. And it was
me and this one other guy who
would not sing it. He would not.
He just could not sing it.
Aidan Park (06:43):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (06:44):
Could not dance it. And I was
like, I wonder what they're gonna do.
And they went with him. He looked
more the part than traditional, you know?
Aidan Park (06:53):
And I remember you would make a
great Danny Zuko. I totally see that.
Alya Lei (06:58):
Well, nowadays, I think with the, you
know, asian movement, maybe they would be
more open to it. But at the
time, they were very. They went very.
And so I remember going to those
groups and I would say, like, oh,
I feel like my being asian is
a disadvantage. And I remember them saying,
(07:19):
nobody cares about your story.
Aidan Park (07:24):
Ouch.
Alya Lei (07:25):
Yeah, nobody cares about your story. No
one cares about your story, about your
racket. You want to be an actor,
you're asian. Tough. Figure it out. You
gotta figure it out. It doesn't matter.
You gotta figure out you're not getting
the results you want. You own the
results. Take your power back. Get the
results. Don't blame society. Take your power
(07:47):
back.
Aidan Park (07:47):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (07:49):
And then sometimes I go in there
and be like, oh, I'm sad because
x, y, and z happens. Like, that's
your doing. You created it. And even
if you didn't create it, it's now
your responsibility, so you handle it. How
are you going to handle it? Do
you want to live the rest of
your life as a sad, hiv positive
person? You can do that if you
want, or you can take charge of
your life and you can move forward.
(08:11):
At the time, it was, this is,
like, from the world of Tony Robbins
kind of thing, okay? Which, he's great
in some areas. So it was successful
because in a way, I took that
on. I was like, and I had
no parenting before this. I didn't even
(08:31):
notice a thank you to people. Like,
I remember I got a ride from
somebody when I was in junior and
high school, and someone gave me a
ride home, and I did not say
thank you. I just. Just no one
really taught me thank yous, please, anything,
really. So I was like, this jungle
boy, you know? And I really took
(08:55):
that on. I was like, all right,
I want to be a successful actor.
I want to be, you know, whatever
I wanted. And so I would work
harder than everybody. And it created some
results, but also the position there was,
if you have negative emotions, it's not
(09:17):
serving you. So I would do things
like the swish pattern. So swish pattern
is like, all right, so I study
a neuro linguistic programming, which is a
mental tool that sometimes use it in
cults, but so I don't know if
(09:40):
you remember the Nexium thing. The nexium.
Okay. So anyway, gotta look that up.
Very interesting. So there are hypnotic language
patterns that you can use to kind
of get past the conscious mind. So
the idea is that your conscious mind
is the gatekeeper of your real beliefs,
(10:02):
which lives in the unconscious mind. So
I might say something to you like,
I bet you already know that you're
beautiful, aren't you?
Aidan Park (10:10):
Mmm.
Alya Lei (10:11):
So you hear that? It's that moment.
That moment right there. What did he
just say? That confusion.
Aidan Park (10:17):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (10:17):
Actually busies up the conscious mind, and
it lets you get behind and plants
information. So I bet you already know
that is a presupposition, right? I bet
you already know that you're beautiful, aren't
you? The wrong phrasing right there confuses
(10:38):
the mind. It's not something that we're
used to. But I just basically said,
you're beautiful. That's what I. What I
said.
Aidan Park (10:44):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (10:44):
I bet you already know that you
are beautiful, aren't you? I just said,
you're beautiful. Gets past the conscious mind.
So they would teach me tools like
that. So I would start. I walked
around saying things to myself, like, double
negatives is another hypnotic language pattern. I
bet you don't. Don't know that you're
awesome. Right? Isn't it? So I wanted
(11:10):
to implant ideas in my head.
Aidan Park (11:13):
Right. It sounds like that's a good
thing if you want to implant ideas
that are. That are serving you into
your. Your subconscious that maybe wasn't there.
Right? So, like, you're awesome. You're beautiful.
Yeah. Those are good beliefs to have,
you.
Alya Lei (11:32):
Know, it worked to a degree.
Aidan Park (11:34):
Yeah. Yeah.
Alya Lei (11:35):
And the swish pattern is basically the
idea, like, all right, so if you
close your eyes, like, every emotion has,
like, a picture scenario. So if I
think about a sad moment, I can
picture it in my head. Right? I
see it, like, I don't know, let's
say an ocean. I see an ocean,
(11:55):
and I see a sad girl standing
on the edge of the pierde. Okay.
And what they would say is, okay,
so if you don't want to feel
that, you want to make the picture
darker, turn down the color, make it
black and white, put the picture far
away from you, make it super small.
(12:16):
And then imagine tossing it behind you
and nailing it behind you and saying
that you are done with feeling like
that again. So every time you feel
sad, you either. Or unmotivated or upset
or anything like that, you would do
these kinds of patterns. So I would
(12:37):
either speak to myself in hypnotic language
patterns, or I would do the swish
method or. But all of those things
are actually, the issue with those things
was that all of them are a
response to get away from my emotions,
(12:58):
which works to a degree, but later
on, it really blew up in my
face.
Aidan Park (13:06):
Explain if you want to.
Alya Lei (13:10):
Do you know anything about me? This
is interesting. I don't think I talked
to you, right about this, any of
this.
Aidan Park (13:16):
A little, but not to this degree.
No. Yeah, yeah.
Alya Lei (13:20):
So we're learning something new. Okay. Yeah.
Aidan Park (13:22):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (13:23):
It got me a business success teaches
you to have gumption. So I actually
went to the bubble guy. I was
like, hey, you should expand your business.
I knew how to run things, and
I was basically, as a 19 year
old young man, surrounded by. At the
time, nobody was into empowerment in early
two thousands. Really? So I was surrounded
(13:45):
by, like, 40 something, 50 something white
men who come in and they're like,
I lost $100,000 in this deal. And
I'm like, I did not get this,
you know, audition in a community theater.
And, you know, same thing went to
them. Like, no one cares. What are
your results? What are. What's driving your
(14:06):
results? Like, it doesn't matter. Wow. You
know, very masculine energy.
Aidan Park (14:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Alya Lei (14:13):
So, okay, so it got me to
a certain level of success. You know,
I got the laugh factory. I ran
a show there for five years. It
made me super productive. I was very,
very good at people would be like,
how do you. How are you able
to manage all these things? You do
a lot, right? It's the NLP training.
(14:35):
So it was really helpful. But then,
as it relates to dealing with traumatic
emotions, I found that it was very
detrimental when Michael died.
Aidan Park (14:45):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (14:47):
And that was a. I was so
absolutely in love with him. And, you
know, I'm working on my next book.
There's more layers of grief under layers
of grief. Right. And, you know, I
suppressed all of it. But actually, deep
(15:09):
down, I did not like that I
was asian. I did not like that
I was gay, and I felt handicapped
in this world as a result. But
I went with, no one cares about
your story. And I doubled down on
all these techniques and tools. But what
happened, why Michael was so special was
(15:30):
he was the first man that was
like, oh, you have HIV, right? Oh,
me too. So I actually like that
you do. So that we can be
more comfortable. You are asian. I really
like asian guys. So I really like
that you've got this crazy energy. I
love that about you. I love. I
love that you're gay. It serves me
so I. There's everything that I really
(15:54):
did not like about me here was
somebody who could sit down and really
appreciate me for all those things that
I thought was such a handicap and
such a. Something to be ashamed of
and to have to be managed.
Aidan Park (16:07):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (16:08):
And when he died, that also died.
Right. The ability to be able to
love myself for all those things that
I thought was a curse.
Aidan Park (16:25):
Right, right.
Alya Lei (16:27):
So it triggered all kinds of things
when he passed away. I don't know
how intense we want to get on
that. I mean, is this like, how
intense is this podcast?
Aidan Park (16:41):
This is an authentic podcast. It is
what it is.
Alya Lei (16:44):
So, okay, I was molested when I
was five years old, and when I
was molested when I was five years
old, I remember my biggest fear was
not the perpetrator or anything. I thought
it was my fault. And I grew
up in a very conservative Baptist household
where everybody thought they were going to
(17:06):
get raptured. So I remember every good
moment that I had after that with
my mom, with my grandma. I remember
thinking as a kid, this could be
the last time I'm ever going to
have a moment with my mom again,
because any moment, the rapture would happen,
(17:28):
and I was already gay, so I
was going to go to hell regardless.
I couldn't tell them. But as a
five, six, seven year old, feeling like
everything you love can be taken away
at that moment, any moment, was deeply
down there. I have abandoned ministries as
a result. So on Michael died. All
of that came up, right?
Aidan Park (17:49):
Oh, my God. Yeah.
Alya Lei (17:51):
And when Michael died, I just felt
like I was left. That feeling of
I was left behind. I was left
behind. Right, right. And so all of
those things and the self hatred. And
then at that state, then I tried
applying the tools.
Aidan Park (18:13):
Sure.
Alya Lei (18:14):
Reframing is just kind of like giving
a new narrative. So, like one could
say, oh, Michael's dead and I'm sad.
Oh, but you know, I'm gonna. Oh,
but isn't it wonderful to be able
to get a fresh new start in
your life? This is a brand new
chapter, and you can step into it
as to avoid the feelings that you're
(18:36):
feeling only just puts a blanket over
a pile of crap or doing hypnotic
language patterns, you know? No, I bet
you already know that. You aren't, you
know, you're going to be, you're going
to be wonderful, have a wonderful life
with or without Michael. Isn't it? Is
(18:57):
that going to work? You know, no
one cares about my story. Let me
just keep it. No one wants to
hear you suffering, Aiden. Nobody wants to
hear programming. Nobody wants to hear you
suffering. Work harder. Switch pattern. I don't
know. Are you sad? Think about Michael.
Turn down the picture of him and
(19:18):
throw it behind you. And it's to
be behind you. Move on. And it
did not work. I started getting panic
attacks because now what was happening was
I was having these intense emotions, and
then I was having a reaction to
those emotions. So now I'm dealing with
two things. Like, I'm in resistance to
the emotions that I'm having, right. So
(19:39):
then I started, right, right, yeah. It
wasn't even the emotions itself. It was
the reaction to the. Like, I should
not be feeling this way. I should
not be in this position.
Aidan Park (19:50):
Right.
Alya Lei (19:51):
I am wrong for feeling this way.
And if I were a better student
at NLP, if I were doing this
correctly, then I should be able to
move on with my life, and I'm
not able to. What's wrong with me?
Aidan Park (20:04):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (20:05):
And that was. That was. That was.
Aidan Park (20:09):
Hell, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alya Lei (20:16):
So sorry. That was a lot. You
look so sad. Aren't you promised a
happy ending? Because I'm here talking to
you about it now.
Aidan Park (20:27):
Yes. So there's gonna be a happy
ending.
Alya Lei (20:29):
I wonder. I mean, not that time
with two Asians on one podcast. They
might have the wrong idea. We do
bubbles. We don't do salons.
Aidan Park (20:39):
Massages. Oh, my gosh. I didn't even
know that. Like, this is an aside.
When I was a teenager, I didn't
know what I wanted to do. And
I was like. And I thought massaging
would be a good job. And so
I told my mom, you know, if
I can't figure it out, I'll be
a masseuse. She got so mad at
me. She, like, pointed at me. She's
like, then you might as well be
a prostitute. And I was like, what
(21:02):
the f. Was she talking about? Cause
I had no idea at the time
that sometimes a masseuse could be literally
like, a prostitute, you know? And I
was like, huh.
Alya Lei (21:16):
Yeah, that masseuse. Maybe a massage therapist.
Does that sound better?
Aidan Park (21:21):
Probably. But, you know, at the time,
it wouldn't have mattered, you know, in
high school and, you know, but back
to you. Okay, so NLP swishing hypnotic
programming language. It was actually not even
not helping and not working. It actually
(21:43):
compounded everything and made it so much
worse.
Alya Lei (21:48):
At that moment.
Aidan Park (21:49):
Yes, at that moment. At that moment.
Up until then, it was working. Yes.
Alya Lei (21:55):
And then it's not.
Aidan Park (21:56):
Right, right. So then what happened? Like,
how did you get out of. You
went to tools to help you cope
and those tools were not working anymore.
Alya Lei (22:11):
Yeah.
Aidan Park (22:12):
What happened next?
Alya Lei (22:15):
Drugs.
Aidan Park (22:22):
We laugh but also. Yeah. Self medicating.
Yeah, self medicating.
Alya Lei (22:28):
I just couldn't take it. And you
know how we say a tool that
once worked no longer works? Right? Yes.
You move on. You know what? The
drugs, um, actually, at that time, it
saved my life, because I really had.
I could not. I just could not.
(22:48):
I just. I just. I could not.
Aidan Park (22:51):
You couldn't deal. Yeah.
Alya Lei (22:52):
Imagine living in this world without Michael.
I just. I just, like, I could
not. You know, I would wake up
every day and pray for death. Like,
it was like, I could note. And
so, of course, I tried to get
a man to shove into that place
as quickly as possible. And when you
(23:13):
are in a really vulnerable state and
you open yourself up to a relationship,
you are ripe for people who see
you as an easy target for whatever
they want. So I met a guy
who was. I've never been gaslit before.
(23:35):
I did not know what that. What
that is. I did not. I had
no idea. We would meet and he
would do things, like, really intensely, check
out other people in front of me.
And I would go, what are you
doing?
Aidan Park (23:53):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (23:54):
And he would go, what? I wasn't
doing anything. I don't know what your
problem is.
Aidan Park (24:01):
Oh.
Alya Lei (24:01):
And then I started questioning my reality.
I was like, should I. Should I?
Am. Am I. What's really going on?
What am I seeing? What am I
hearing? Right?
Aidan Park (24:14):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (24:15):
I had an incident where. Oh, gosh.
Oh, this is getting deep. This is
interesting. We went to Vegas together, and
they were there. And I was there
with the girlfriend. He's bisexual. I was
there with the girlfriend. He met my
girlfriend.
Aidan Park (24:29):
Mm hmm.
Alya Lei (24:30):
And that girlfriend has been known to
sleep with other guys boyfriends.
Aidan Park (24:37):
Oh, okay.
Alya Lei (24:39):
I was on stage, and I performed,
and I came back into the theater,
and I looked for them, and they
were nowhere to be found. It was
a small room, but I left, and
I came back in, like, 30 minutes,
and they were sitting right there. And
I was like, where were they? And
at the time, I was like, oh,
I just must be. I must have
(24:59):
missed it. It's a dark room, but
how could I have possibly missed them?
Aidan Park (25:03):
Right.
Alya Lei (25:04):
And eventually, I thought, did something. It
was to that degree, like, did something
happen between the two of them? You
know?
Aidan Park (25:16):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (25:17):
So it was. I've never had that
kind of mind mess up.
Aidan Park (25:22):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (25:22):
And of course, I have that feeling.
And then I'm like, well, you shouldn't
be feeling this way because your suspicions
is the problem here, which is just
what they like you to believe. And
so I would switch pattern on my
belief systems and being suspicious while this
is actually happening in front of me.
(25:43):
So it was like. It was like
a tale, you know? So I hit
rock bottom. I was supposed to go
to Italy with them. He bought me
a ticket, plane ticket to Italy, and
we're gonna go on a ten day
vacation. And the day before, I I
I got a piece of information that.
(26:05):
That it didn't confirm what. What I
thought, but it actually. It made more
sense. You know, I did not know
that this. I mean, I knew that
this person, my friend, was, you know,
out there, you know, but I did
not know that she had a tendency
to do this with. And so, in
(26:26):
passing conversation with another mutual friend, she
actually told me what had happened. And
I just got this feeling like, I
was like, they weren't in the room.
They weren't in the room. I knew
they weren't. I checked.
Aidan Park (26:39):
Right.
Alya Lei (26:40):
But even then, you're walking away feeling
like, what did I feel? Right? So
at that time, I was like, all
right, that was my rock bottom. And
I said, I'm so unhappy, and nothing's
working. I have to figure out how
to be happy if I'm going to
continue to be alive, because I'm not
(27:01):
living like this. I don't know what
that means, but I just got to
figure out how I can be happy
again. What do I do?
Aidan Park (27:11):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (27:12):
And I figured out that happiness is
actually an emotional experience, and I quantified
it by saying, all right, happiness means
you spend more time in the positive
emotional states rather than the negative. So
we want to balance that out. That's
just kind of how I quantified it
at the time. And so my focus
(27:33):
became, well, how do I foster these
positive emotions? And what are positive emotions?
Even? So, I started really identifying what
they were like. Comfort, safety, security, pleased,
proud, excited. There's all these flavors of
(27:54):
positive emotions, and there's flavors of negative
emotion. So I found that, okay, if
everything is about emotions at the end
of the day, and I heard this
great quote, that at the end of
the day, everything's about emotion. Everything you
want is because there's an emotional experience
at the other end of it. Like,
you might want money because you want
(28:15):
a sense of freedom and security. You
might want a boyfriend so you can
feel safe and protected or something. You
might want, you know, to meditate because
you get that peace and calm. So
every experience has an emotion attached at
the end of it. Otherwise it's meaningless.
Aidan Park (28:36):
Interesting. Yeah.
Alya Lei (28:37):
I was like, okay, and when I
thought about Michael, when I would cry,
think about Michael, I was like, if
that is true, if Michael were here
right now, what emotions would I be
experiencing? So I said, okay, I would
be experiencing safety, comfort, and approval, maybe.
(29:03):
So, you know, approval. Approval can lead
to acceptance or something like that. Let's
say, you know.
Aidan Park (29:08):
Sure, yeah.
Alya Lei (29:10):
So then I would say, okay, well,
Michael's dead, and I cremated him, so
I can't bring him back through pet
sematary. So what am I going to
do? And so I said, okay, then
I guess I need to start figuring
out how to foster those emotional states
in myself. What do I say to
myself to get that? What do I.
(29:33):
You know, what do I need to
do, right? And so I started deliberately
going after emotional tones, and I found
that there were negative emotions, traumas that
were causing a lot of pain for
me. You know, I studied negative emotions
(29:58):
and how. What do I need to
do to handle this? Because shoving them
down, pushing them away, swishing them out,
talking myself into a pattern didn't work.
What do I do with it?
Aidan Park (30:08):
Right?
Alya Lei (30:09):
And I found this process, you know,
inner child work and actually validating your
feelings as a tool to really integrate
all of that energy back when you
have a little child who. It's from
the theory of, like, when you are
(30:29):
injured, when you're, like, three years old,
you know, you get a trauma and
the three year old will dissociate. And
not because they don't want to feel
that painful experience and they feel powerless
to change it, right. But that dissociation
and that negative emotional state actually gets
(30:52):
buried into your subconscious and you carry
that with you. And so when you
live through the day and someone triggers
you and you have a big response,
that is an indicator that there is
an unresolved trauma. And so I was
like, okay, you know, when you have
(31:12):
an infection on your arm, let's say,
for example, like, so if you got
a cut on your arm, if you
don't have a cut on your arm
and you bang a table, it hurts,
but it goes down, right?
Aidan Park (31:25):
Right.
Alya Lei (31:25):
Normal.
Aidan Park (31:26):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (31:26):
If you have an infection there and
you bang your hand on the table,
you will scream. That is equivalent to
unhealth, emotional trauma. And the way to
heal it is to actually go back
and re experience those emotional experiences so
that it can be completed and it'll
heal over. So that the next time
(31:47):
you bang your hand on the table,
there is not that reaction because you've
reintegrated that aspect of you that has
dissociated.
Aidan Park (31:58):
So it's because you disassociated that it's
stuck in your body and your emotions.
So when you. You're saying that, the
idea is if you relive it and
actually feel those emotions in ithemenous, then
it becomes healed and integrated, so it's
no longer a festering wound, but just
(32:18):
a healed wound, kind of that.
Alya Lei (32:21):
I can't purport to say I know
everything. I just can't tell you what
worked for me.
Aidan Park (32:26):
Right, right.
Alya Lei (32:26):
I know I'm a lot better than
I used to be. Yes.
Aidan Park (32:29):
Yeah. So that's what you started to
do.
Alya Lei (32:32):
That's what I started to do.
Aidan Park (32:33):
Okay.
Alya Lei (32:34):
And I I'll give you an example
that's, like, not as so intense. So
I had a lot of self hatred
and a lot of feelings about myself
that I really didn't like. And I
really do think that empathy is really
important. Like, why would somebody do that?
(32:56):
And I remember in middle school, I
was a perpetual liar. I would lie
about everything, and I was so ashamed
about that kid that would just lie
about everything. And I walked around the
world really hating liars. I was like,
(33:19):
anybody who lies is bad. Like, bad
liars are evil. But it was a
reflection of how I really felt about
myself when I was lying in middle
school. And so I deep dived into
(33:41):
myself as a middle schooler, and I
actually. And it was so uncomfortable. I
really hated this the first time I
did inner child work. Basically, you're supposed
to go back and meet your past
self, and at the end, you get
asked to integrate, um, the child, like,
(34:02):
oh, they can come with you. And
I said, no, they need to figure
out how to live life in this
tough way. That's how life is. I
remember that. And the person that was
facilitating was like, that's. That's an interesting
reaction, which actually is not comforting at
(34:23):
all. I'm not so good at that.
And. Right. So I went back to
my teenager, and I asked, you know,
why are you lying? Why are you
lying? What's going on? You know? And
I had this moment where I saw
(34:44):
my kid, and I was like, I
remember feeling like, man, when I was
in Korea, I was like, I was
nine years old. I was at the
top of my class. I had so
many friends. My mother and I were
best friends, I thought. And we were
so close, and my mother was so
proud of me. And then I moved
(35:05):
to the United States.
Aidan Park (35:07):
When you were nine?
Alya Lei (35:08):
When I was nine. And all of
a sudden, I did not know that
I was fat, but apparently I was
fat. Everybody said I was fat. I
can't speak the language. I can't defend
myself. I can't make friends. I'm not
good at school anymore. I'm no longer
making my mother proud. In fact, I'm
making her ashamed. And then she moved
across the country. Right. So, again, there's
(35:30):
that theme, being left behind.
Aidan Park (35:32):
Right, right.
Alya Lei (35:33):
And so, in a way, it doesn't
look like, you know, somebody got raptured,
but I was, in fact, left behind.
And I. And the. The mirroring of
that event, like, the. The shame that
I felt, I thought I did it.
I was my fault. If I was
more lovable, she would want to stay,
but I'm not. So she left, and
(35:55):
there's nothing I can do about it.
So the shame that was running under
in the undercurrent was so strong that
I opted to lie. I thought I
was so unlovable as an individual, as
an 11, 12, 13 year old, that
if I could make up some stories
about who I really am, then maybe
other kids would like me. So I
(36:16):
would tell the other kids that I
was really wealthy. I would tell the
other kids that I was a genius.
I would tell. I would make up
whatever lie I could to get any
kind of interest, because I did not
think that I was enough. And after
that process, I had empathy for myself.
Like, I could see why people might
(36:36):
lie. I'm not saying it was right.
I'm just saying, you know what? No
one was there to teach me. No
one parented me, and I was living
in extreme fear and shame, so I
came back.
Aidan Park (36:49):
Right.
Alya Lei (36:50):
And my judgment against people who lie,
I don't think it's. I don't. I
don't think it's right to lie. I'm
not saying that. But I also think
I. I have empathy for them. Right.
And, you know, it would even be
(37:10):
like, little things like, oh, someone wants
to take an extended holiday and calls
in sick or something, and I would
just be like, that person is a
mother effort because I have such resistance
to a concept. But once I actually
came to understand the reasoning behind why
I lied to. Yeah, I could see,
(37:31):
oh, they had their reasons why they
lied. Another aspect is there's so many
different aspects of me that I was
trying to get away from, but ultimately,
it's the looking at it and coming
to understand why I did what I
(37:51):
did in an empathetic sort of way
that caused me to become more sensitive
to the world, become more understanding to
other people. And that pays dividends, because
when you have interactions with people from
that position, people really feel understood. People
feel understood, and if they feel understood,
(38:12):
they want to understand you. And it
creates a lot of. And this whole
entire process has created so many great
friends for me. It got me to
understand myself better. I can feel emotions,
you know, for the most part, I
can stand strong. In my truth, I
could still be nicer to myself. That's
(38:33):
what I'm working on. I'm quite. Quite
rough. So there's a. There's a lot.
There's a lot there. So does that
make sense? That's an example of integrating.
Aidan Park (38:44):
Yes. Yes. I feel like what I'm
hearing is that not just you, all
of us have so many multifaceted parts
of ourselves. Right. But what I'm hearing
overall is that your journey is progress,
and that by doing so, you're also
seeing and empathizing with others as well,
(39:07):
and that it's creating a more fulfilled,
happier life now.
Alya Lei (39:13):
Yeah. I mean, life is like, you
know, weird, because it's like, yeah, I
don't want to go through that. What
I went through with Michael again.
Aidan Park (39:21):
No.
Alya Lei (39:24):
But I do think that I'm probably
a better individual as a result of
the incident.
Aidan Park (39:32):
Yeah. And so from this now, and
is this where you are now? And
then how did that. You wrote the
book that was part of the integrating
and healing process. The book. Your yay
book. Right. The art of being. Yeah.
And then how did that transition into
(39:53):
becoming the Ye foundation? And how are
you helping people with the Ye foundation?
Alya Lei (39:59):
You know, I'm good at producing events,
and what happened was, when I wrote
the book, I started getting asked to
make speeches, and what I do is
I use comedy as a tool for
delivery on the speech. Right. So I
did that. I started doing that. And
this is actually a really funny kind
of story. During COVID I lived downtown
(40:20):
Los Angeles, and buildings were burning down
in downtown Los Angeles, like, burning down.
And I was like, I gotta get
out of here.
Aidan Park (40:30):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (40:31):
So I always wanted to visit Montana,
and I wasn't sure if the world
was gonna end, so I hopped in
my car, and I said, I'm going
to go to Montana, and I'm going
to teach myself how to ride a
bike. So I got up there, and
I rented a bike.
Aidan Park (40:47):
I did not ride a bike, like,
a bicycle bike. A bicycle. Okay.
Alya Lei (40:53):
Yeah. I never learned.
Aidan Park (40:54):
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Alya Lei (40:55):
I was crashing into things in Montana.
I was like, I can't believe I'm
here. I ended up in this town
where, serendipitously, I ran into a guy
who runs the comedy scene up in
Kalispell. And he was a 22 year
old kid, and his dream was to
perform at the laugh factory, and that
(41:16):
was my homecoming.
Aidan Park (41:17):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (41:18):
And so he was like, I cannot
believe you're here. You just fell out
of the sky. This is crazy.
Aidan Park (41:25):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (41:26):
And he was so excited. And little
entrepreneur, so amazing. I started mentoring him.
He brought me up there to play
the Elks lodge, which is interesting because
I'm a gay sian. During COVID coming
from California, the place was sold out.
I got a standing ovation for the
(41:47):
show, and I was like, wow, they
were so accepting. They really loved the
comedy. So I was really good. I
became really good friends with him. And
he said it was really the best
weekend of his life. And he said
it on Facebook. Sadly, a couple months
after that, he took his own life.
Aidan Park (42:10):
Oh, no.
Alya Lei (42:11):
It was devastating for all of us.
He had issues with alcohol, but by
then, I'd been up there a couple
times, so I was friends with his
fiance. I was friends with his best
friend. I had a whole connection of
people up there. And so we got
this idea. Every year, we'll do a
(42:33):
show and memory events and do a
show, right. Every year. And we'll pick
an organization to go ahead and give
money to.
Aidan Park (42:44):
Oh, okay.
Alya Lei (42:45):
The second year, the people that we
picked the money to give the money
to were being wishy washy. Like, we're
gonna give you free money. And they
were like, being wishy washy. They were,
like, not answering.
Aidan Park (42:58):
They were not open to receive. I'd
be like, gimme, gimme, gimme.
Alya Lei (43:02):
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Make you
cry. And it's just like. But this
has a really beautiful ending also, so
we love Vinnie. You know, Vinny. Vinny's
best friend is Nick Kinet, and his
fiance was Kara. And I went up
(43:23):
there the second year, and Kara said,
why don't you? So by then, what
I was doing was I was coaching
Nick on how to do comedy. So,
like, he had some dark senses of
humor, so basically, he shot himself in
Nick's car. And he's a veteran, so
Nick's a veteran, and he is from
Montana, so he. They have a dark
(43:45):
sense of humor. And so he was
like, the asshole didn't even think, you
know? Do you know that brain bits
are not covered by insurance? You know,
so things like that. Right? Helping. And
I was already running this, and Carol
was like, you should start a foundation.
And so she ran a fundraiser, and
(44:08):
in one weekend, we needed $2,300 to
file all the paperwork. The money that
came in was $2,287.
Aidan Park (44:16):
Mm. Wow.
Alya Lei (44:18):
And she just said, here you go.
And I said, wow. Okay. So we
started the foundation where we were, like,
finding our place more and more.
Aidan Park (44:30):
Sure.
Alya Lei (44:30):
Yeah. In the beginning, it was about
spreading yayful messages through comedy shows. Right.
And so educational workshops. So I put
together training programs for peers at national
lines on mental illness, American foundation of
Suicide Prevention, based on what I know.
(44:50):
So I'm not a trained therapist, but
I can speak to my personal experience
and say what worked and encourage people
to choose for themselves whether it's right
or wrong or whatever. But, you know,
I would always advise, go to therapist
or whatever. I'm just saying, like, this
is what worked for me. And so
it's like a kind of an out
of the box kind of way of
(45:12):
looking at things, you know? So that
is one thing that I advocate. But
what I found very helpful was people
like Nick being able to talk about
the death of his friend in a.
In a positive way is a safe
place for him to speak about his
experience and have it be safe.
Aidan Park (45:32):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (45:33):
Kara, I taught her how to do
it. So she got on stage and
she started speaking. And Kara is a
widow, and Kara's dad just lost his
wife of 40 or so. They're coming
with me to widow's camp where I'm
like a presenter and we're all so,
and I know how to produce. So
(45:54):
where we're falling. What do we do?
A lot of is we do three
things. We produce comedy events for organizations.
And I will teach a comedy workshop
to people of that organization, get them
to go up on stage, tell their
personal story, and then produce an event
for them. And I do training workshops
(46:14):
for mental health. So there's a lot
of different things we do. And we
have a, what, ten person board now
where we've got some funding from AIDS
Healthcare foundation for advocation for sexual health.
Lots of. I just, I mean, and
(46:36):
I'm just, I'm just rolling with it.
I'm like, okay, what do I need
to learn? What do I need to
do? Yeah, I'll just figure it's landing
in front of me and I'm doing
it. That's it.
Aidan Park (46:46):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (46:49):
That'S it. That's what we're doing.
Aidan Park (46:50):
It's fantastic. I think it's such a
fantastic, fantastic. I hadn't heard of something
like this before yet. Right. Wherever. It's
helping people heal through comedy. Right. I
think comedy is healing, but I mean,
specifically the way you're doing it as
an event with training and then a
(47:11):
separate training as well for mental health
if you want to. But putting it
in a way that's fun. The pain
right into something that's fun and funny
and connecting. I love that. I think
that's so great.
Alya Lei (47:25):
Yeah.
Aidan Park (47:25):
So, yahoo, last question. What can we
do? How do we follow you and
the Ye foundation? Do you have anything
coming up? You know, how do we
keep in contact?
Alya Lei (47:37):
Yeah, you can go to the yeayfoundation.org
or the artofbeingye.com. and so, you know,
one way or the other, you can
check out, you know, the artofbeingye.com is
more about me. The yeayfoundation.org is more
about the organization. But my big thing
that I have coming up is the
(47:58):
five city tour that we have. It's
a southwest yay fest tour through new
mexico and four cities in Colorado. So
I hope to be there. And we're
working on something in San Jose. So,
I mean, we'll keep you abreast and
all the information, go to the website
and you can see all the cool
things we do and come join us.
(48:19):
It's fun. Totally fun.
Aidan Park (48:20):
Yeah.
Alya Lei (48:21):
And we even have a gifting suite.
We get like, get swag.
Aidan Park (48:26):
Is swag still a word? Swag? So
when is the southwest one? Around what
time? When is that timeframe?
Alya Lei (48:35):
End of September, early October. So the
last weekend of September and the first
weekend of October. Yeah.
Aidan Park (48:40):
Okay. Very cool. Thank you, Aiden, so
much for being fantastic and sharing your
authentic self and being so open and
vulnerable. I think that it'll really resonate
with so many people.
Alya Lei (48:53):
Yay. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Aidan Park (48:55):
Thank you so much for listening to
conversations with aaliyah lay. I'd love to
hear from you. Follow me on Instagram.
Yale. A l y a l e
I.
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com