Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
In a time of hate,
love is an act of resistance.
In a time of fear, faith is anact of resistance.
In a time of misinformation,education is an act of
resistance.
In a time of poor leadership,community is an act of
(00:21):
resistance.
In a time like this, joy is anact of resistance.
Resist, resist, resist.
By Lauren Brantz.
So my daughter has read that ona different episode here, but I
needed to open up this 30-dayproject with another reading of
(00:45):
that poem, not just for you, butfor me.
I, like so many of you I'm sure, have been really struggling
very, very hard with my mentalhealth over the last few years,
but definitely since November,if I'm being honest, this last
(01:08):
election in the United States.
I know that I have a lot oflisteners in different countries
, but our last election inNovember of 2024 rocked my world
and I know I'm not alone.
And I'm saying this merelybecause I want everybody who
feels this way to know you'renot alone.
(01:28):
I've had a really difficulttime getting my head in the
right place to come back to thispodcast, and it's been very
upsetting because this issomething that means a lot to me
, but also, at the same time, Idon't want to be some downer
that is coming and talking aboutall the things that I'm upset
(01:51):
about.
Now my Instagram stories areanother.
That's a whole other story.
That's where I just let thingsfly.
But here you know, I siftthrough things before I come and
speak.
But the one thing that hassaved me through all of this
pain is my commitment to stayingcurious and to keeping my mind
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open and to asking questionsinstead of just deciding, oh,
I've got all the answers.
The one saving grace I have hadthrough these years is
curiosity.
Keep my mind open.
And so over the years, I keeptelling myself you can't close
your mind like a vault.
You have to keep it open.
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You have to stay curious.
You cannot let this just makeyou hate people or make you
despise this or that or decidethat you've got all the answers.
I am certain of nothing,nothing.
And that's scary, but it's alsocomforting and it's also
something that helps you keepyour ears open for new
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information.
And, just like the poem says,in a time of misinformation,
education is an act ofresistance.
In a time of poor leadership,community is an act of
resistance.
I want this to be a communitywhere we gather, we stay curious
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, we ask the questions.
It doesn't matter how angry weare about what's going on.
We stay open to new informationthat comes in Now.
I started this 30-day projectmany, many days ago.
I started recording episodesfrom day one back then and so
(03:42):
I'm opening this up right now.
But everything that I'm goingto play after this was recorded
a few weeks ago and I hopethat's not too confusing.
But I had originally recorded adifferent opening to this
project and so today I'm comingback right now with this
different intro just to tell youthat in these few weeks I ended
(04:06):
up leaving social media,erasing it completely off of my
phone.
I switched to only reading newswhich I'll get into in later
episodes, you'll hear and I cutout everything that was bringing
strong, strong emotion into mylife and just decided to stick
(04:27):
with facts and education andinformation.
I'm still calling my reps, I'mstill into protesting peaceful
protesting I'm still educatingmyself and reading, and all of
that.
I just cut all of the socialmedia and the news out.
So I wanted to come with areally, really clear mind, at
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least compared to what I waslike two weeks ago, and tell you
that this is working, thisproject is working, and this is
not some like oh hey, come anddo this project and then you're
going to buy this product fromme.
I'm not doing that.
I really just want to be incommunity.
I would like to have thiscreative community with all of
(05:13):
you who listen.
So if you listen to the firstfew episodes, I can't even
remember at this point what Irecorded.
I know that I kept myselftogether and was not, you know,
going haywire anything, but Iwas not in a good place.
And if I sound like I was in agood place, I was pretending or
(05:36):
I was having a good moment,until the episodes where I tell
you that I left social media andthen my mental health started
improving significantly and Ikept doing the project and I
kept working with my hands andso on.
And here, a few weeks later, Ifeel like a different person.
(05:56):
So now we will get on with whatI had previously recorded,
whether I love everything that Isaid or not.
I'm just going to air theepisodes and hopefully we all do
this together.
And now that I have left socialmedia, I don't know.
I don't really know how I'mgoing to deal with that.
(06:18):
Who cares?
Just leave me.
Leave a review.
That would be great.
Nobody has left me one in along time, so that would be.
That would be fun to receive areview, a rating, something I
don't know.
You can email me if you reallyneed me.
It's all available out there.
But okay, here we go.
(06:39):
Here is my first episode of our30 day project.
Wrap yourself in light.
Then give yourself away withyour heart, your brush, your
march, your art, your poetry,your play, and for every day you
(07:00):
paint the war.
Take a week and paint thebeauty, the color, the shape of
the landscape you're marchingtowards.
Everyone knows what you'reagainst.
Show them what you're for.
By Andrea Gibson.
I was reminded recently aboutthe force field of light that I
(07:20):
spoke about with my daughter inthat no Cherished Outcomes
episode months back, and Iforgot about it for a little bit
.
I got caught up in what isgoing on in this world and,
quite frankly, this has justbeen a tough, tough time, not
(07:42):
just for me, for so many people.
I don't feel like a victim onebit, but I want everyone out
there to know that you are notalone.
I also believe that it is hightime that I return to this
podcast with something that wecan do together.
Some of you may remember, sometime ago I did an episode about
(08:06):
the effort-driven reward circuitin our brains and basically
what that is.
It's a neural pathway in ourbrain where physical effort
particularly when it leads totangible and meaningful outcomes
something done with our handsit triggers the release of
neurochemicals associated withpleasure and satisfaction.
(08:28):
So, to put it very simply,making things with our hands
makes our brains happier.
So what is this episode about?
It is about a 30-day projectthat we are going to do together
where every day for 30 days, wewill make something.
It does not matter what it is.
(08:50):
We're going to make somethingwith our hands.
It doesn't matter if it's thesame type of thing every day.
Like, if you want to choose anart project for 30 days, that's
great.
If you want to choose a cookingproject for every day, that's
great.
If you want to do cooking oneday, art the next, writing the
(09:11):
next, pottery the next, it's allup to you.
But we are going to check inevery day for the next 30 days
and I'll have other littlethings to talk about here and
there, but this is all justgoing to be an accountability
thing and hopefully we can workwith our hands and make things
and change our habits, our dailyhabits, and get to a better
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frame of mind together.
This project each day.
You can devote five minutes ofdoodling, or you can devote two
hours of some elaborate project.
Whatever time you have on handproject.
Whatever time you have on hand,make use of it.
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It could be five minutes, itcould be an hour, it could be
four hours, you choose.
You see what you have room forin your own life.
I could cheat and say thatmaking these podcast episodes
each day would be my projectbecause, to tell you the truth,
this alone helps my mentalhealth so much.
But I'm not going to cheat.
I'm actually going to do athing, and today's project is
(10:18):
working with my daughter to helpcreate her vision board.
We've never done one together.
I love doing them, but I kindof fell off of it.
It just I don't know.
It wasn't feeling great, but Ibought a little kit for her and
we're going to put that to useand we're going to get creative.
We're going to cut and paste,we're going to use stickers,
(10:40):
just all of the things that makeboth of us happy.
And I want to be sure to tellyou that this in no way has
anything to do with toxicpositivity.
I am not engaging in anyspiritual bypassing and I am
more than aware of all of thehorrendous shit that is going on
(11:03):
in this world.
I don't have my head in thesand and I don't intend to, but
I do believe that if we're goingto be informed and we're going
to have the spirit keep up ourspirits to fight for what we
care about and what we love inthis world, we have to keep our
souls nourished and protected,and what better way to do that
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than through art?
And what better way to do thatthan through art, than through
creation?
Art is a vital, vital connectorof the human experience, and I
have never felt moredisconnected from so many humans
in my entire life.
I'm just not willing, I'm notwilling to allow myself to be
(11:49):
swallowed up by anger and hate,and I don't want you to be
either.
I do believe that the creators,the artists, the creative ones
whatever you want to call thiswill be the ones to change the
world, and I do believe in thepower of art to bring us
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together.
Art is not frivolous, it'svital.
We keep hearing this from somany people out there.
It's time to really take it toheart and get to work together.
For all of you book nerds, Ihave a book to recommend on this
topic and it's called yourBrain on Art, and this is a book
that leads you through all ofthe latest science on how art
transforms the brain and thebody, and it just gives clear
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demonstrations in all the waysin which art is just essential
for our things like healing, joy, creativity, and for building
connections and neural pathwaysfor mental health.
It's nerdy.
It's packed with information.
It's not one that I've just satdown and read cover to cover,
(12:57):
but I read little bits of itevery now and then.
Also, I got myself back intoreading fiction instead of all
of this information, and it'sreally done something for me.
It's opened up a whole newthing in my brain.
I started with Demon Copperhead,which is very heavy.
(13:18):
I had to put it down for a year.
I read half of it, put it downfor a year because it was too
heavy for me.
Then I decided I wanted to getback into fiction again and I
finished it pretty quickly,loved it, but it's heavy.
I fell in love with BarbaraKingsolver through reading that,
and so my next book was FlightBehavior, and that happens to be
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about monarch butterflies,which you know well.
Most of you know that I've beenraising monarch butterflies for
I don't even know maybe fiveyears now.
It's one of my favorite thingsto do, so I love that book.
It's a little bit slower, but Iloved it.
Next I dove into one of the bestbooks I have ever read in my
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life, and it's the Nightingaleby Kristen Hanna.
It's historical fiction which Idid not think was going to be
up my alley and now it's my newthing.
So I highly recommend thatflipping book, my God.
Next, I was on a road trip.
It was like an eight-hour drivefrom San Francisco and I
(14:30):
started the audio version of theInvisible Life of Addie LaRue,
which was recommended to me bymy friend Cynthia when we were
in Morocco a few years ago, andI always kept that written down.
I really, really liked it.
I don't love doing the audioexperience as much with fiction
for some reason, so I need to.
(14:51):
I'm like halfway through thatbook, I need to get it as a book
and stop the audio.
But I started the Women readingit as a book, and that's
another Kristen Hanna book.
Amazing, everybody's talkingabout it.
I'm loving it.
I think I'm a little more thana third way through of that.
So that's my book roundup forright now.
(15:13):
I can honestly say that addingfiction into my routine has
changed my brain.
It's building this layer oflike, not empathy.
It's not like I need more ofthat, but just the ability to
walk in someone else's shoes fora while, get out of my own head
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and construct these worlds inyour imagination.
That's been written for you.
It's something that Idesperately needed.
I was taking in too muchinformation.
I have this propensity towardstaking in information and it's
kind of like drinking out of afire hydrant.
The whole fiction thing is agreat addition if anybody's
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looking to kind of calm yourbrain.
Slow down.
I do it before I go to bed,laying in bed, and I highly
recommend it For anyone whomaybe spends time scrolling on
their phone in bed.
Replace it with fiction books.
Highly, highly recommend.
Okay, so that's it.
Today is day one.
(16:17):
I apologize for the sound here.
My microphone broke.
I'm using my headphones tospeak into the little mouthpiece
thing and it sounds horrible,but that's all I can do and I
wasn't about to let that stop mefrom making an episode.
So hopefully I'll buy a new micsoon, if not just get through
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it.
It's only 10 minutes so far.
Sit down, do a project today,doesn't matter how long, doesn't
matter what it is.
Do something with your hands,see how it feels and join me
tomorrow for another episode.
I'm thinking that each day I'mjust going to feel a little
different and expose a littlebit more of where the hell I
(17:03):
have been for all this time.
So catch me each day to seewhat I let out.
There's so much to explore, soso so much, but anyway, I'm
really hoping to reconnect withso many of you that I've lost
touch with over these years,where I've been in and out and I
(17:25):
haven't been loving socialmedia too much or interacting
very much.
I hope to hear from you In themeantime.
Stay curious.