October 6, 2025 • 49 mins
Humor doesn’t just make us laugh—it hands us the mic. In this episode, Dr. Gina Barreca—award-winning professor, cultural critic, and bestselling author of Gina School—shows how wit turns grief into agency and outsiderhood into belonging. From losing her mother young to pioneering gender-and-humor studies, Gina traces the path where jokes become bridges and stories transform shame into connection.
We dig into how many women use humor differently—not as a weapon, but as an invitation—and why inclusive laughter thrives in everyday places (yes, even the women’s restroom). Gina is both bold and practical: you can’t live on other people’s praise, and outward confidence is not the same as inner self-esteem. The real fix? Steady self-kindness, cleaning up old messes, and the courage to claim your story.
Gina also takes us inside Gina School, an anti-AI, hand-crafted collaboration with a talented former student—pairing distilled lessons with pen-and-ink illustrations to prove that cross-generational creativity can be both human and timeless. We end with a grounded definition of hope: the belief that change is possible—and often better than we expect.
If you’ve ever felt like the “away team,” this conversation offers language, laughter, and a map back to yourself.
Connect with Gina on her website: GinaBarreca.com
Read more from Gina on Psychology Today.
And head right to grab your copy of Gina School here.
Thank you for listening to Hope Comes to Visit. If this conversation helps, follow the show, share it with someone who needs hope today, and leave a review - it helps others find their way to these conversations.
New episodes drop every Monday, so you can begin your week with a little light and a lot of hope.
For more stories, reflections, and ways to connect, visit www.DanielleElliottSmith.com or follow along on Instagram @daniellesmithtv and @HopeComestoVisit
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
My humor uh was uh really um born and developed um
from a sort of tough childhood.
Um I lost my mother uh prettyyoung.
She was ill.
Uh she died when I was 16.
And um I'm sorry.
Thank you.
And it was a loss that it'staken um a very long time to
(00:24):
process because especially at16, you don't know what's going
on and you don't know how todeal with it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:39):
Hi friends, welcome to Hope Comes to Visit.
I'm Danielle Elliott Smith, herefor the tears, the belly laughs,
and the grace in between.
If you've ever found yourselfwondering about hope for
humanity or wishing everyone youknew could go to school to be
the very best humans, I have theanswers for you today with our
most extraordinary guest, Dr.
(01:01):
Gina Barecca.
Gina Barecca is amazing.
Board of Trustees, distinguishedprofessor of English literature
at the University ofConnecticut, and winner of
UConn's highest award forteaching, is the author of 10
books and editor of 17.
You've seen her on PBS'sAmerican Masters, The Today
(01:21):
Show, CNN, The BBC, and Oprah.
You've heard her on every NPR inthe galaxy, including This
American Life.
You've read her in The New YorkTimes, the Chicago Tribune,
Cosmopolitan, Forbes, TheChronicle of Higher Education,
The Harvard Business Review, andPsychology Today, where she has
(01:41):
almost 8 million views.
Her new beautifully illustratedbook is Gina School, a graduate
of Dartmouth College, CambridgeUniversity, and the graduate
center of the city of Universityof New York.
Gina lives in Connecticut, andshe is here with us today.
Gina, did I did I covereverything?
I I'm I'm confident there'sgoing to be more we're going to
(02:03):
talk about, but did I did I hitthe highlights?
You did a great job.
SPEAKER_03 (02:07):
And people should know I make a really good
lasagna.
Um, which, you know, if they buyenough copies, I'll FedEx it.
So you know what?
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
I'm on my way over.
SPEAKER_03 (02:16):
Okay, that's great.
There's always enough.
I always have a lasagna.
Every three months I makebatches of lasagna because
there's no reason to make onelasagna at a time, right?
You have to No, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Lasagna has always been one of my favorites.
And I and I feel so if peopleare listening to us, they don't
have the ability to see yourfantastic office.
So I'm going to encourage peopleto head to YouTube as well so
they can watch and see howgorgeous your office is and how
beautiful, how beautiful youare.
And I I swear I want to justcome sit in your office.
It's as as colorful and as richas I could tell your personality
(02:52):
is.
SPEAKER_03 (02:53):
Oh God, I would like that um on a blurb, please.
And then I can have a bait ont-shirts and stationary.
Danielle, that's just great.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
So no, I thank you so much for being here.
You know, there's there's somuch that I want to want to talk
about, and we can delve rightinto the beauty and the hope
that is Gina School.
But I I said in in the intro,you know, one of the things we
like to do on Hope Comes toVisit is we laugh and we cry.
And and I have a feeling thatwe're we're gonna do a lot of of
(03:21):
laughing here.
But um, so how did you findyourself in the realm of writing
books from this career in inteaching?
SPEAKER_03 (03:33):
Well, I mean, the the humor preceded everything
else.
And so that's what's led to myfocus on humor, which is both uh
what I write about in in booksfor a general uh reading a
bunch, you know, and and then itstarted out with as an academic,
you have to get you have towrite these scholarly books,
(03:54):
which establish your position inan academic world and also sort
of show what your footprint isgoing to be for future
generations.
Like if I'm I was an early uh uhsort of researcher in the idea
that there are differencesbetween men and women's humor.
And uh they people, I I rememberwhen I was going to write my
dissertation uh for the PhD, andone of my beloved professors, a
(04:18):
great guy named Gerhard Joseph,um, who ends up being my
advisor, and he said a verytypical thing.
I bet a lot of women, but alsosome men, have heard a version
of like, how can you say thatthere's a gender difference in
humor?
Don't you think somebody elsewould have realized this?
You think you're the first oneto ever see something like this?
If there was that, there wouldhave already been publications
(04:40):
on it.
And I'm going, like, I don'tthink so.
I I really think I got anargument here to make.
And basically that became bothmy first academic book, uh,
which was called Untamed in OurBash, Wayne State University
Press, God bless them.
And then it became abest-selling um trade book
called They Used to Call Me SnowWhite, but I drifted, uh,
(05:02):
women's strategic use of humor.
And basically, it could besummed up.
What's the difference betweenmen and women's humor?
Is that women hate the threestooges.
Not all women, but most womenhate the three stooges.
Um, you do not see women inprofessional settings, at bridal
showers, during the events, uh,going up to each other and
(05:24):
going, nya, nya, nyah.
We are not trying to poke eachother in the eye.
We don't smack each other acrossthe forehead.
We don't make farting noises asa way to bond.
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Right?
So we don't have bathroom humor.
I mean, I think that, and Ithink this is so beautiful.
I've never had this conversationon this level, but it's that
fifth grade boy humor has neverentertained me.
I I don't fall into I love rich,witty language humor.
(05:56):
And this is why, I mean, mydaughter is smart funny.
She is like one-liners get meevery time.
People who are quick, and I findthat a lot of women are that
way.
And they can do it withoutnecessarily without being
(06:16):
disparaging, right?
And that's a huge part.
Yeah.
That's a huge part of it.
I I find that there is less uhmocking of other people and more
uh just straight uh zingerswithout taking you taking you
(06:36):
out at the knees.
SPEAKER_03 (06:38):
I think it's uh what you're you're focusing on is
absolutely essential, thatwomen's humor is inclusive.
Women's humor, and it's it's oneof the pages from Gina School uh
that John did such a greatillustration of, is that what
women are looking for is it inmost interactions in the world,
but especially when it comes tohumor, is a sense that we're not
(06:58):
nuts and we're not so we're notalone.
That's it.
We're not nuts and we're notalone.
So that when we're talking aboutbathroom humor, it takes women.
Tell me if this is yourexperience.
It takes women about 13 secondsin a bathroom for three women
who have never met to startlaughing.
(07:19):
There is always laughter comingout of the women's room.
Now, which is why we always gotogether.
Right, but there is also rarelylaughter coming out of the men's
room.
And when there is laughtercoming out of the men's room, we
should worry.
You ever been right?
SPEAKER_02 (07:34):
Well, they're in and out as fast as they can.
SPEAKER_03 (07:36):
Well, they're peeing in a trough.
I mean, right, you know, we'rethere where women are saying,
Oh, I have a headache, andanother woman is coming over.
Do you want aspirin?
She opens her 500-pound bag andshe's going, I know I have
aspirin, I have buffin, I havemotrin.
Is it allergy related?
I have pseudoped, I haveactafed.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
I'm out of toilet paper.
Do you have any?
Can you pass it down from thevery end?
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
And the jerky doesn't have toilet paper.
There you hear people going, Idon't have toilet paper, I don't
have tissues, but I have twofives for 10.
Right.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (08:11):
Exactly, right?
This is see, and this is this isamazing.
So I I want to talk about GinaSchool because let's start with
the reason you wrote GinaSchool, because I I loved the
intro and the dedication,because I think that we, and
this goes to the the intro Idid.
(08:32):
We we and I and I think this isI almost I just got chills.
I think this is extraordinarilyuh timely in that we find
ourselves in a place right nowwhere we are inundated with a
lot of bad news, a lot of whereis the humanity, a lot of damn,
(08:57):
I I thought people at their corewere good people.
And I I do believe people aregood, and sometimes we need the
reminder, right?
So I I suppose this is anopportunity to say, hey, if if
you think somebody needs thereminder, you can go ahead and
send them this episode becauseGina, you're gonna remind them.
(09:19):
Um and and they can, if theydon't get enough in the episode,
they they should go buy the bookbecause this is something they
can pass along to everyone too,because this is this is a book
that I want on my coffee table,right?
So while people are are sittingin my home, they can be reminded
of those little pieces of ofgood.
So let's start with the the thereason you wrote the book and
(09:41):
and why you think this issomething we need.
SPEAKER_03 (09:44):
I'm gonna uh that was beautiful, thank you.
Um, and I I take that in, and itmeans a lot to me because I I do
hope that Gina School is aboutstarting conversations and and
starting from funny places, butalso from some hard places.
Um my humor uh was uh really umborn, developed um from a sort
(10:10):
of tough childhood.
Um I lost my mother uh prettyyoung.
She was ill.
Uh she died when I was 16.
And um Gina, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
And it was a loss that it'staken um a very long time to
process because especially at16, you don't know what's going
(10:30):
on and you don't know how todeal with it.
And also, in retrospect, Irealized that my mother was what
we would now sort of identify asclinically depressed.
She was very sad.
Uh, she was French-Canadian, um,and so uh raised me, as many
immigrant mothers do, uh in nota mother tongue.
(10:53):
Um, she taught me and mybrother, again, I'm 68 years
old.
Uh, so in those days, um parentswho came uh with English is not
their first language, wereencouraged to speak to their
children only in English.
So my older brother and I lostout on learning Italian and
(11:13):
French.
So that the only, uh for me atleast, the only um the only
things that I can say in Italianand French are the things you
can't say in front of the kids,because they would argue in
their native languages.
So I can swear up and down, um,which has turned out to be
useful on the streets of Parisand Rome.
But I'll bet then if somebodyasks me for directions, I got
(11:37):
nothing to say.
No, capitale, and they'relooking at me because I look
like I'm out of a Follini movie,and they don't believe that I
don't speak, then they yell atme in Italian.
So it becomes, again, a way ofconnecting until they understand
that I really don't speak.
So my mother um felt isolated.
She she moved down to live inBrooklyn, New York with my
(11:58):
father's big Italian family.
And they were lively and theywere loud, but they weren't
really accepting of this littlegreen-eyed, blonde-haired
French-Canadian woman.
And um, and I think she felt umas if she was in exile much of
(12:18):
her life.
Um, we we didn't have money, soshe couldn't go back to Canada
very often.
And I think um she uh she tookan early exit out of her life.
It's hard to be the away team.
Yeah, huh?
What a good way of putting it.
Yeah.
It's hard to be what a that's abrilliant way of putting it.
SPEAKER_01 (12:40):
And you said that to other people about well, so I'm
I've been the away team myentire life.
I'm actually Canadian by birth.
I'm I'm I'm a dual citizen.
I'm not French Canada, but umToronto.
Yep.
Um, I'm Canadian by birth, dualcitizen, and I have, and it's
been a long process and a lot ofwork to understand how I've
(13:02):
operated, and a lot of thestruggles that I've had have
been as a result of identifyingas the away team.
So I grew up um in Los Angeles.
We moved to the States when Iwas five, uh, but moved to
Missouri.
And um, I'm in recovery and Iwas in treatment at one point,
(13:24):
and my I had a therapist look atme and say, Your true addiction
is not to alcohol, youraddiction is to uh believing
that it's your job to live in uhbeing the outsider.
And you are so addicted to beingthe outsider, you married into a
(13:46):
relationship that meant youwould permanently be the one on
the outside.
And so my ex-husband alwayssports metaphors was was you're
the away team.
And so that's where the awayteam comes from.
SPEAKER_03 (14:00):
Yeah, actually, that's that's such a smart,
precise summary of that feelingof always being the outsider,
which is uh again, uh a lot ofwhat Gina School is about,
because I have always felt umlike the outsider, but um, in
fact, there's uh I'll see whilewe're talking if I can find it.
(14:22):
But the older I get, the more Irealize that all of the people
who I thought were the insidersalso felt like the outsiders.
I was the first girl in myfamily to go to college, or I
think to graduate from highschool in a timely fashion.
It was not what girls in myfamily did.
(14:43):
It was not expected of them, andit was looked at rather
suspiciously.
And so I'm I was one of thefirst women at Dartmouth College
in 1975.
Um, I'll just say It'sextraordinary.
Well, they weren't expecting me,and I wasn't expecting them.
And it was quite a blind gate.
And um, so I get there, and in1975, I look like every girl
(15:05):
from my neighborhood.
I have waist-length black hair,I have tight t-shirt, I have
black jeans, I have fry boots, Ilook like a hooker, right?
But on a good day, I look likeJanice Joplin.
The other girls on campus, manyof them were alumni daughters,
they had brothers there, theyhad they knew of the culture.
I had no idea.
SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
It was a very 70s proper, I imagine.
And you were very edgy.
SPEAKER_03 (15:31):
I had Ivy, you know, it was this Ivy League, and
there were people who I thoughtthey were named after the
buildings until I realized thebuildings were named after them.
They came from families.
I thought they named you afterthe dining hall.
And they're like, my grandfatherbuilt the dining hall.
The dining hall is named afterme.
I'm like, oh, that's funny.
(15:53):
Do you get extra dessert?
You know, I mean, it was just itwas a different kind of thing.
But so um what I realized thisis on page 59 of Gina's wall, is
when even during those momentswhen we're feeling desperately,
despairingly alone, we are kindof kidding ourselves.
If only we could see it.
(16:14):
Looking around, we could at anymoment encounter 40 million
other desperately alienatedoutsiders chanting exactly the
same mode of dejection.
We're like a conga line ofalienated outsiders.
I mean, I just got elected to bethe class secretary.
I'm now a class officer at thisplace that I felt absolutely
(16:37):
rejected by one of my books iscalled Babes in Boyland, a
personal history of co-educationin the Ivy League.
When I was there, guys wouldcome up and say, When all
grandfathers went here, therewere no women.
And for three years I tried tomake an argument about the
usefulness of co-education.
Not everywhere, I think thereshould be same-sex colleges, but
at these places that are reallyjust the entryways to the
(16:58):
hallways of power and Americanand international culture, blah,
blah, blah.
Nobody listened.
By the third year, when theysaid all grandfathers went here,
there were no women.
I said, when your grandfatherswent here, there were no window
lights.
I said, sometimes things getbetter.
And they would laugh, and maybethis is what you were talking
about, your daughter doing,because you realize that if you
(17:18):
get somebody to laugh, for thatmoment, there's a bridge.
Right.
They understand, they couldn'tlaugh if they didn't understand
your point.
If they don't get it, they don'tlaugh.
But for that moment, if they'relaughing, you got them.
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
And you've created a bridge too, and you've also said
in your own way, I'm notinterested in you belittling me.
Right.
Yes.
I'm thank you, thank you foryour point that isn't a point.
I'm not interested.
Sit at a different table.
This table is for humans andfunny ones at that.
(17:58):
And clearly you don't qualify.
SPEAKER_03 (18:01):
So, so no, and so humor has always been for me a
way to protect myself, uh, toget a sense of control of agency
over the situation when I'mfeeling um like I need to make
what I see humor, and I thinkthis is where having read some
(18:21):
of your work and and seen, youknow, the compassion that you
offer, the generosity you offerthe world, I see humor at its
best as an act of redemption.
That humor lets you get yourdeposit back on the terrible
stuff that's happened to life.
Uh, because humor um humorallows you to make something
(18:44):
that happened to you into astory that you tell.
And once it becomes a story youtell, you get to control it.
So it's not just that you're,you know, the object that this
has been done to, but you arethe one who holds the story and
(19:04):
can either put it down, use itto help somebody else, put it
out into the universe, but youcan see how it's transformative.
And what the best humor hasalways done is to take out of
the shadows and the parts thatwe are ashamed of, the parts
that we want to keep secret, theparts that we think uh separate
(19:26):
us from everybody else, the awayteam manifesto, the part where I
don't understand the culturehere, I don't understand
anything, no one will everunderstand me.
And humor allows us to open upthat circle.
Humor isn't about one person onstage with a mic, humor is about
(19:47):
the women in that bathroom whodon't know each other laughing
together at the fact that notonly do women hold up half the
sky, but we do it while carryinga 500-pound bag that has
everything in it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:02):
So that we It's about community, it's about
feeling less alone, it's aboutthe collective.
And I I love that.
So humor for me is is a littlemore quiet.
It's uh my and my family, and byfamily, um I'm getting married
soon.
So James is is thank you.
(20:23):
James is is the the newest corein my family.
But the my ex-husband, Imentioned, is a good friend of
mine, and so he and my twochildren, I've always been told
that I am the fourth funniest ofthe the four of them.
And Jeff was always thefunniest, but Delaney has
superseded him as at the top ofthat, but I still remain at the
(20:46):
bottom, apparently.
And it's interesting becauseanytime I say anything funny,
one of the three of them willsay, that was actually funny.
And I think I am funny.
It's just that my funny is notthat knee slapping, guffawing.
(21:07):
It it is a quieter form, and I'mfeeling very validated by this
conversation.
SPEAKER_03 (21:13):
So I'm gonna can I interrupt for one second?
Of course, because they justwhat you said is it's perfect.
I'm afraid it'll slip away.
That when with funny people, Iwas a member of the Friars Club
when it was active.
I was the only full-timeacademic to be initiated into
the Friars Club, which had been,again, another all-male
(21:35):
institution.
It's sort of my job to go in andinfiltrate.
Disruption.
I I climb into the windows ofthese places.
I don't get tossed out of them.
I sort of sneak in.
But I love it.
Um funny people, really funnypeople, especially people who
really make humor.
You know, when you're reallyfunny, not when they laugh, but
when they absolutely listen andthen say, just as the family
(21:55):
you're describing did go.
That was funny.
It's not, there was a guy I wasgiving a talk, it was for a
healthcare organization, fourinch people in the room.
And I'm talking about how women,we we have to learn to look
after our hearts, um, literally,because we spent our whole time
as children figuratively givingthem away or waiting for them to
break or whatever.
And now we have to actually seethem not as some sort of charm
(22:19):
that we toss out, but somethingthat we have to keep and nurture
and keep safe ourselves.
And it was a it was a reallygood talk, and I got a standing
ovation.
I'm sure you get them when youtalk.
And there was one guy in thefront who stood up and was
applauding, but he hadn'tlaughed the whole time.
And he came up to me after, andI thought, oh God, is this one
of the cardiologists who's gonnatell me I I I didn't include
(22:40):
enough about this or this?
This guy came up and said, I'm aI'm a cardiac nurse.
And he said, But on the sign Ido stand-up comedy.
And I said, I want to tell youthat was very funny.
And I thought, thank God, that'sright.
Because he was paying attentionlike to the timing and the way
he was dissecting.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
But I really he was dissecting and he was copying
and he was thinking, how can Iincorporate?
And and she really did thiswell.
SPEAKER_03 (23:08):
But it was his, I really thought, oh my god,
they're gonna sue me.
I didn't know what.
You know, so with that kind ofwhen you're playing to that kind
of house, and for you, thathouse is a home, you're you're
kidding.
But you're clearly I you'reyou're clearly a dynamic person,
and I did a dynamic person, anda leader has to have a sense of
(23:31):
humor.
And that humor has to be, again,compassionate and open.
It's not humor, it is not aboutum uh telling jokes.
The funny person doesn't telljokes.
Women don't tell jokes, womentell stories.
SPEAKER_01 (23:48):
I love that.
And storytelling is is hard workfor me for sure, and uh, and a
lot of it is not intended to behumorous, it's intended to evoke
emotion, to make people feelconnected, to help people
understand community and the andthe common ground.
That's always been my my goal.
(24:09):
In that vein, I would love to goback to.
I asked, you know, you and I,you and I could clearly talk for
for days.
I want to go back to thededication to the book and why
you wrote Gina School becausethere are a couple of I wrote
down, I realized as I was goingthrough your book, and I was I
wrote down, you know, numbernumber 27 and number 54, and I
(24:30):
realized I was writing them alldown, and I thought, okay, slow
down, Dionyla.
We'll just you're gonna have topick your your tops.
But I want to go back to thededication and why you wrote the
book.
SPEAKER_03 (24:38):
They uh I was sitting at um an astonishingly
amazing anniversary party and uhfor one of my best friends
actually from college, um, andshe and her husband were
celebrating their 30thanniversary, and the book is
dedicated to Beck, Becca andZach, right?
You're talking about thededication.
Yes.
(24:58):
And um, so we were in AxeProvence, not a place I throw
out lightly or go to on mostweekends, but this was like what
like a party.
Slightly fancy.
Yeah, a party out of like amovie.
And um, so there are about 15,20 people.
They had uh come from all overthe world.
(25:19):
Um, and uh Pam and Florian, thecouple, had chosen um the uh
menu, which was printed out onthis beautiful paper, and chosen
the wines to go with each thing,and they had uh sparkling water
for people who didn't drink, youknow, on the table, the fancy
(25:39):
Perrier, not just regularPerrier, some candy fancy
Perrier.
And and but then there werewines that were paired with the
courses and you know, uh uh agroup of servers just for the
table.
I mean, it well, I've neverbeen.
So I'm sitting next to theeldest daughter who I've known
since she before she was born.
She just graduated from Brown,and she was with her boyfriend,
(26:02):
and she's now actually ajournalist who's won a couple of
Pulitzer Prizes.
So she's doing amazing.
So and she's sitting with herboyfriend at the time, they're
now married, and um he says,here the service are coming and
they're doing the wine andthey're doing the appetizers,
and he says, Um, I'm gonna ordera gin and tonic.
And I like put my old lady hand,you know, I'm well dressed, but
(26:27):
I put my my pearl-wrapped handon his wrist.
And I said, You're not gonnaorder a gin and tonic.
It's not on the menu.
You're not gonna sell theservers.
This was in a chateau.
I said, You're not gonna sendthe servers to a whole other
part of the structure to get youa gin and talk.
He said, I'm not really a wineguy.
(26:48):
He was like 23, also just out ofschool.
Yeah, baby.
Very smart, very smart, but anidiot.
And I said, You're not doingthat.
He said, I don't, I'm not a wineguy.
I said, then have water.
You have water in front of you.
And his girlfriend at the timeleaned over and said, Can he go
to China school?
SPEAKER_02 (27:10):
And then he said, Yes, can I go to China school?
SPEAKER_03 (27:13):
And that just became a joke.
So I started writing thingsdown, and then I, you know, I I
write a lot, um, as youmentioned, and you know, for
psychology today.
And I started thinking aboutokay, what are the real lessons
in life?
And the short ones, the ones inclear language.
(27:34):
And so I'm writing down a lot ofwhat I need to remember, because
one of the things that Irealized that every lesson I've
ever learned in life is a lessonI've learned before.
SPEAKER_01 (27:48):
But you know what?
One of the things I have learnedthat has has struck me as truly
profound.
The things we need to hear, thethings that strike us as at the
heart, the things that hit usthe most are the things we
already know.
It's the stuff we need to hear,but damn, we know it.
(28:12):
And it hits us because it's sotrue.
It gives us chills because itresonates.
It gives us, it gives us thatfull body feeling because we
think, wow, I knew that.
But I needed to hear it, and Ineeded to hear my story, my
truth coming from you.
Because I needed to know thatI'm not alone.
(28:34):
I needed to know that myexperience is yours too.
I'm gonna tell, so I was writingall these down, and so many of
them are lighthearted, and somany of them are beautiful, but
there was one that I foundmyself tearing up at.
Number 95.
It's complicated to be in arelationship with somebody you
(28:55):
don't trust, especially if thatsomebody is your partner or your
spouse or yourself.
SPEAKER_02 (29:04):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (29:06):
And I and at first I'm like, yeah, especially if
that's somebody that, you know,if you're with a partner, and
then I'm like, oh, or you right?
Yeah, and you have that momentwhere you think, right.
Sometimes you don't trustyourself.
(29:32):
Sometimes you have lost trust inyourself, and then then what do
you do?
SPEAKER_03 (29:41):
I I I I'm glad that this echoed with you, and that's
exactly it's it's the echoesthat sometimes it's only in
hearing the echo that we hearour own voice, right?
Right, that we hear it back.
It's like otherwise we'respeaking into the abyss, but
then we hear an echo, and it'sit could be in some.
Else's accent.
It could be from you knowsomeplace we never expected to
(30:04):
hear it, but then we're going,right?
Actually, that made sense.
And this is, it is, it's justjust to know that.
And then, you know, theillustration, I mean, the reason
it became a book was because I Irecognize that these passages
needed that third dimension ofan illustration.
SPEAKER_01 (30:25):
The illustrations are gorgeous.
Tell me, how did you connectwith the illustrator?
SPEAKER_03 (30:29):
Uh, the illustrator was a student of mine.
And really, yeah, that's one ofthe nice things about.
Perfect is that.
And he is, and we did this isthe anti-AI book.
This is we crossed this, thiscould not be done.
You're like, absolutely not.
Except by two human beings.
He is a 26-year-old man who wasmy former student who had
(30:49):
actually come to Yukon, um, thendropped out, and went to the
West Coast, and then foundhimself um working in a hospital
in the hospice ward uh duringthe pandemic.
Wow.
Um, and then decided to comeback to finish school because
(31:10):
sometimes that's what people do.
Right.
The thing about being in collegeor being in a university or
being in any kind ofinstitutional structure is that
the institution will be there.
You know, I tell kids like, I'mnot sure I should be here.
I said, go, go do somethingelse.
Come back.
We'll be here.
It's not going anywhere.
Yeah, we'll be here.
It's okay, it's safe.
(31:32):
You can go find something else.
You're not gonna lose us.
You know, we'll be here.
And he took advantage of that.
And um, and I realized that notbecause he was in my creative
writing classes, and I realizedthat not only was he a good
writer, but then he started, Ijust saw his notebooks, and they
were filled with theseastonishing pen and ink drawings
(31:55):
that he were, he was justfilling every page with sort of
life studies.
This was somebody he'd seen onthe bus, this was somebody,
these were buildings that hewas, he lives in New Haven near
Yale, he was doing, you know,and and I thought this is what
the book needs.
It needs this other dimension.
This was like taking thesepassages that I'd written and
(32:18):
making them, it was likewatching somebody, I don't like
like taking a square of paperand making it into an origami
swan.
I love that.
He took this and made it intosomething else with the art.
But the art was drawn, and theywere so again, this is across
generations, different sexes,different backgrounds, different
(32:39):
everything.
And we came together to come upwith this book.
I mean, I really, it's his firstbook.
I I I hope it won't be my last,it might, but that he's gonna go
on to do remarkable stuff.
And he, one of the great things,and I'm I'm sure you I know
you've talked about this inother places, but it's working
with other people and the theessential nature of the
(33:01):
collaborative process, whetherthat's with a personal coach,
whether it's with a therapist,whether it's with other people,
it's in a workshop.
But the importance of notfencing yourself off and
thinking that you're the onlyone who can do this or that you
have to do this, but having thehumility and I think as you
(33:22):
would call it, Danielle, thegrace, right?
To understand that working withother people and allowing
yourself to be essentiallyvulnerable to that is the way to
strengthen yourself, what you'redoing, the process.
And so John and I went back andforth, um, sometimes in cheap
(33:47):
Chinese restaurants, um, youknow, so I can buy all the food.
Um, that's through uh, you know,sometimes in Zoom calls, uh
often in person, sometimesactually just putting things in
the mail, in the post.
Because seeing an illustration,seeing the hand-inked
illustration, he didn't do theseonline.
He drew and so can put theoriginals in the mail to me.
(34:11):
I have students who don't knowhow to write out an address.
You know that?
SPEAKER_01 (34:15):
I mean, there are people who don't know that
because I joined when I sent mychildren to school, I joined the
Facebook groups for freshmanstudents.
Ah, the parent the parents offreshman students, and the
number of parents who will go tothe trouble of sending addressed
(34:38):
envelopes to their children sothat they don't have to deal
with it.
SPEAKER_03 (34:42):
Or I mean we could we could make that a whole other
episode, but but yes, we surecan because I could do a gene of
school just for parents ofchildren for what your children
should know when they go tocollege, yes, and what you
should not do for them.
Like yes, yes, when they arecalling and saying, Mom, should
(35:05):
I have the apple or the banana?
It's like hang up.
Parents hang up.
Your child, if he is or she isold enough to cross the street,
you have to decide that firstbecause they have to take out
their ears and they have to lookup if they're crossing the
street.
Um, and if they're crossing thestreet, they can decide on their
(35:26):
own fruit.
And it should not be somethingthey're called about.
If it is, then you need torestructure that relationship a
little bit.
So, but anyway, so he knew howto address an on the life, which
again is a miraculous talentthese days to someone under 30.
And proud of John.
Uh yeah.
And put it in the mail.
(35:46):
And um, he ended up redoing 40of the images.
Really?
The original ones, and I endedup rewriting some of the
passages because he was like,I'm not sure I get this.
And what I wanted to make sureof in Gina School was that
everybody, so that somebody 40years younger and from again a
(36:07):
completely different universewould understand what this
meant, as well as women of mytribe, which is, you know,
anybody too old for work studyand too young for cremation.
You know, that that would belike, you know, I so that
everybody could get this.
SPEAKER_01 (36:25):
That the book was truly cross-generational.
Do you have a couple of tidbitsfrom the book that fall into
your favorite?
SPEAKER_03 (36:32):
Well, the one I'll tell you, actually, I was
thinking about that coming upbecause they were the ones that
um that I think would fit mostlyor fit best into the kind of
work that you're known for andyour interests.
So that uh number 35.
Um, this is the one that Ineeded to remind myself of.
(36:55):
We're going back to the part Ineeded to hear.
This is a lesson I have learnedsince I was 17.
Um, and that I need to hearevery day.
And I don't know why this goesthrough me like I'm a sieve, and
I need to remind myself of itall the time.
And then I realized that otherpeople need the same reminder.
(37:19):
So this is you cannot count onthe praise of others to keep you
going.
Ever.
I have that one written down.
Probably ever.
You will almost never get it,and when you do get it, you
won't get enough of it.
And when you do get it, it won'tbe the right kind.
Also, it probably won't be theright person saying it, or it
won't be about the right thing.
(37:40):
It doesn't work that way.
Learn to give yourself credit.
That's one of the hardest thingsin the world uh for me to
remember.
I blame need because I I havelooked for validation from other
(38:00):
people, um, I think since I wasa child.
And um, and it's taken me a longtime and a lot of different
kinds of work, which I still do,uh, to um understand that I'm
responsible for my ownwell-being.
And one that goes along withthat, which is another big one,
(38:22):
is uh 27.
Do unto yourself as you would dounto others.
I think for women, the goldenrule is not do to others as you
would do to yourself, because wetreat everybody better than we
treat ourselves.
Yes.
So that this is do unto yourselfas you would do unto others.
Start treating yourself with asmuch generosity, charity,
(38:44):
kindness, and graciousness asyou would treat the least
favorite among youracquaintances.
Be as kind and as forgivingtowards yourself as you be
towards a pal.
Stop torturing yourself aboutwhat you might have done or not
done 10 days ago or 10 yearsago.
Offer comfort to yourself thatactually helps, such as cleaning
(39:05):
out old wounds and cleaning upold messes.
Don't rely on merely short-termdiversions, such as drinking
heavily before lunch, or eatingan entire Sarah Lee cheesecake
before letting it defrost.
You wouldn't suggest to a friendthat she do such things.
Why allow yourself to do them?
Imagine you're put in charge oftaking care of yourself the way
(39:28):
you might be privileged to takecare of someone you love.
Then do it.
SPEAKER_01 (39:34):
See, I love that.
It's um the way I've alwaysframed that is that I treat try
to treat myself the way I wouldtreat my daughter.
Yeah.
Because there are times that Iand and that actually comes from
something a therapist said to meat one point.
She said, if right now yourdaughter was telling you that
(39:57):
she felt the way you do, whatwould you do?
You would lock her in a room andforce her to sit on her bed and
feed her bonbons and ice creamand make her watch Winnie the
Pooh.
You would not tell her to getup, get going, keep it up.
Like you don't get to go, youdon't get to sit down until you
have surgery.
Like it's like that's when yourest.
After you have surgery, you'llbe fine.
(40:18):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (40:18):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (40:19):
Um So how do you how did you learn that though?
What made practice?
SPEAKER_03 (40:25):
Correct.
SPEAKER_01 (40:25):
Practice, I had to keep saying to myself, how would
you treat Delaney?
How would you treat Delaneyright now?
And it's there was one of thesentences you had on the on the
previous one, um, number 36,there are few things worse than
feeling like an embarrassment.
SPEAKER_02 (40:40):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (40:40):
Yet that's how I felt for much of my life.
I tag along uninvited, unchosen,annoying, as if my presence must
be accompanied by a shruggedexplanation or a shushed
apology.
The fear, I'm there as adefault.
They pretend to accept mebecause they're too embarrassed
to admit they've abandoned me,ditch me by the side of the
road.
And the last sentence of this iswhat really hit me.
(41:02):
Don't assume outward confidenceindicates inner self-esteem.
And that to me is that youroutside and your inside don't
always match, right?
We live in a world where we'reconstantly seeing everybody's A
game, but we don't have anyidea.
And I I think about the wholeinfluencer space, right?
(41:22):
What you're seeing is the onepicture they're showing, not the
420 they took, or what happenedto the picture in post before
they actually decided to shareit.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (41:35):
No, though that's absolutely wonderful.
And I hadn't thought about it interms of the influencer idea,
but I think that's right.
And I think that so many, again,people under 30, under 20 are so
uh swept off their feet by theidea that that's what they have
to be all the time.
And so that the one that youchose was a very hard one for me
(41:56):
to write, obviously.
And I think that you saw that,that that came from from looking
for the hope arriving.
SPEAKER_01 (42:04):
That that well, and I that that girl, that was me.
That was high school me.
Um, high school me was not goingsomewhere to anything unless you
specifically looked at me andsaid, Danielle, would you like
to come?
I could be standing in a groupof people, and if somebody, if
(42:25):
there were plans for Fridaynight, unless somebody
specifically looked at me andsaid, Danielle, are you coming?
Or would you like to come?
I wasn't going because I fearedthat I would show up and there
would be this, what are youdoing here?
SPEAKER_03 (42:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:38):
Uh, and I didn't want to be the tag-along.
And I think that that goes, Imoved a lot as a kid, so it goes
to that piece.
I want to talk, um, we're gonnawrap up shortly, but I want to
talk about your your article inpsychology today that you know
that has your nearly eightmillion views.
Snow White doesn't live hereanymore.
And this speaks to yourconversation about humor, how
(43:01):
important humor is.
And of course, we're learning alittle bit about that right now.
Um, with are we canceling humor?
Are we not canceling humor?
SPEAKER_03 (43:10):
Um, humor is uh, I think probably one of the first
cave drawings that our ancestorsdid was probably a joke.
You know, the cave.
It showed somebody trying toattack an antelope from the
wrong side or something.
You know, it was something umthat humor, because humor allows
(43:33):
us, like I said, to unveil partsof ourselves that the public is
not allowed to see, and or thatwe're afraid to show to other
people.
But that the best comedy hasalways shined light on the parts
that we're not supposed to lookat or that we're supposed to
pretend aren't there.
(43:53):
So that um that's why humor isalso illuminating.
It's literally illuminating, itlights up.
We talk about somebody lightingup a room or you know, a joke
like, wow, that was really thatspotlighted the most important
issue, or that did it.
We actually, the words that weuse talk about illumination,
(44:15):
even if it's indirectly.
And so the the idea that humorallows us to address what we
often try to hide means it'sessential.
Because as we've been talkingabout, anything that opens up
conversation and createsconnection and allows, you know,
allows shame or what is often,you know, uh hidden from behind
(44:39):
shame to come out and to say,look at me.
And then when we can laugh, notat it, but with it, because we
recognize it, again, that'sredemption.
Hubert is alchemy.
It turns straw into gold, ittakes those worst moments often
(45:00):
and transforms them into value.
When I give a talk or do aworkshop if I have enough time,
I ask people, what's the storythat you dine out on?
Right?
In England, the English say wethe stories you dine out.
So what's the story you alwaystell about yourself?
Most of the stories people tellabout themselves are awful
things that happen.
(45:21):
They're not the great things.
When you say, okay, what give meyour childhood story that sums
you up?
It's not about the time I wonthe spelling bee.
It's about the time that I hidunder the desk because I hated
my Halloween costume.
It's the time when my parentsforgot me at a rest stop and
came back two hours later.
(45:41):
It's the time, I mean, it's thetime when we were left out, when
we were forgotten, when we werehumiliated, when we were
desperate.
And we take, that's the straw,but we then transform it through
humor into gold.
It takes what could beself-pity, which is entraps us.
(46:01):
It's a trap that's hard to getout of and turns it into
something that can free us, thatgives us access to other
emotions and ways to heal.
Gina, how do you define hope?
Hope is the first hope isgetting up in the morning.
They're talking about givingcredit for yourself.
(46:23):
Um hope is the idea thateverything changes and that it
is possible for that change tobe for the better.
Um, and that, I mean, hope is soum, you know, so such a potent
uh uh precious thing.
I mean, I think of EmilyDickinson's hope is the thing
(46:45):
with feathers, right?
And then I think of Woody Allen.
I'm sorry to bring up his name,but then he said Emily Dickinson
hope said hope is the thing withfeathers.
He said, but we have discoveredthat the thing with feathers is
my nephew, and we're taking himto a specialist in Zurich,
right?
So but I see hope as just theidea that things will change.
Despair is the belief thatnothing can ever change, that
(47:09):
you were stuck in repetition.
Hope is the wish that somethingwill change.
And then what hope reallydepends on is your ability to
allow hope to embrace you, notnecessarily for you to embrace
hope.
You may not have the energy todo that, but that for hope to
(47:29):
embrace you and for you to allowyourself to accept that change
for the better.
SPEAKER_01 (47:35):
And sometimes it has been such a delight to have you
here.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with me, for making me
laugh, for making me think, forfor schooling us in all things
good and hopeful.
Where can people find you?
SPEAKER_03 (47:51):
Um, ginabarrecka.com,
G-I-N-A-B-A-R-R-E-C-A, so it'spsychology today, in every
bookstore.
Please buy the book.
Absolutely.
In book clubs, all the rest ofit, but I I am easy to find, and
and I answer every email and uhon Facebook and on all the rest
(48:13):
of it.
And I'm I it has been an honor,Danielle.
And I hope this won't be ouronly conversation.
You are a treat, and I wish youso much happiness in this new
wedding coming up, in this newmarriage.
Thank you so much.
And have your kids if they haveany questions about how to deal
with school, they can write tome.
SPEAKER_01 (48:30):
I I definitely, I definitely will do that.
Dr.
Gina Barecca, thank you so muchfor joining me and friends,
thank you so much for beinghere.
However, we have found youtoday.
I certainly hope we have leftyou with some light and some
laughs and some good schooling.
Make sure you go out and findGina's book and ginabarecca.com.
(48:50):
And please go back and find onetidbit in this episode, share it
with a friend, pass the episodeon.
And of course, if you areenjoying the show, as I so hope
that you are, you can eithersend me a text there on the
episode itself, you can write areview, you can pass it on.
And I do hope that you will takevery good care of yourself
(49:12):
between now and the next timethat we see you.
Thank you for being here.
My humor uh was uh really um born and developed um
from a sort of tough childhood.
Um I lost my mother uh prettyyoung.
She was ill.
Uh she died when I was 16.
And um I'm sorry.
Thank you.
And it was a loss that it'staken um a very long time to
(00:24):
process because especially at16, you don't know what's going
on and you don't know how todeal with it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:39):
Hi friends, welcome to Hope Comes to Visit.
I'm Danielle Elliott Smith, herefor the tears, the belly laughs,
and the grace in between.
If you've ever found yourselfwondering about hope for
humanity or wishing everyone youknew could go to school to be
the very best humans, I have theanswers for you today with our
most extraordinary guest, Dr.
(01:01):
Gina Barecca.
Gina Barecca is amazing.
Board of Trustees, distinguishedprofessor of English literature
at the University ofConnecticut, and winner of
UConn's highest award forteaching, is the author of 10
books and editor of 17.
You've seen her on PBS'sAmerican Masters, The Today
(01:21):
Show, CNN, The BBC, and Oprah.
You've heard her on every NPR inthe galaxy, including This
American Life.
You've read her in The New YorkTimes, the Chicago Tribune,
Cosmopolitan, Forbes, TheChronicle of Higher Education,
The Harvard Business Review, andPsychology Today, where she has
(01:41):
almost 8 million views.
Her new beautifully illustratedbook is Gina School, a graduate
of Dartmouth College, CambridgeUniversity, and the graduate
center of the city of Universityof New York.
Gina lives in Connecticut, andshe is here with us today.
Gina, did I did I covereverything?
I I'm I'm confident there'sgoing to be more we're going to
(02:03):
talk about, but did I did I hitthe highlights?
You did a great job.
SPEAKER_03 (02:07):
And people should know I make a really good
lasagna.
Um, which, you know, if they buyenough copies, I'll FedEx it.
So you know what?
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
I'm on my way over.
SPEAKER_03 (02:16):
Okay, that's great.
There's always enough.
I always have a lasagna.
Every three months I makebatches of lasagna because
there's no reason to make onelasagna at a time, right?
You have to No, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Lasagna has always been one of my favorites.
And I and I feel so if peopleare listening to us, they don't
have the ability to see yourfantastic office.
So I'm going to encourage peopleto head to YouTube as well so
they can watch and see howgorgeous your office is and how
beautiful, how beautiful youare.
And I I swear I want to justcome sit in your office.
It's as as colorful and as richas I could tell your personality
(02:52):
is.
SPEAKER_03 (02:53):
Oh God, I would like that um on a blurb, please.
And then I can have a bait ont-shirts and stationary.
Danielle, that's just great.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
So no, I thank you so much for being here.
You know, there's there's somuch that I want to want to talk
about, and we can delve rightinto the beauty and the hope
that is Gina School.
But I I said in in the intro,you know, one of the things we
like to do on Hope Comes toVisit is we laugh and we cry.
And and I have a feeling thatwe're we're gonna do a lot of of
(03:21):
laughing here.
But um, so how did you findyourself in the realm of writing
books from this career in inteaching?
SPEAKER_03 (03:33):
Well, I mean, the the humor preceded everything
else.
And so that's what's led to myfocus on humor, which is both uh
what I write about in in booksfor a general uh reading a
bunch, you know, and and then itstarted out with as an academic,
you have to get you have towrite these scholarly books,
(03:54):
which establish your position inan academic world and also sort
of show what your footprint isgoing to be for future
generations.
Like if I'm I was an early uh uhsort of researcher in the idea
that there are differencesbetween men and women's humor.
And uh they people, I I rememberwhen I was going to write my
dissertation uh for the PhD, andone of my beloved professors, a
(04:18):
great guy named Gerhard Joseph,um, who ends up being my
advisor, and he said a verytypical thing.
I bet a lot of women, but alsosome men, have heard a version
of like, how can you say thatthere's a gender difference in
humor?
Don't you think somebody elsewould have realized this?
You think you're the first oneto ever see something like this?
If there was that, there wouldhave already been publications
(04:40):
on it.
And I'm going, like, I don'tthink so.
I I really think I got anargument here to make.
And basically that became bothmy first academic book, uh,
which was called Untamed in OurBash, Wayne State University
Press, God bless them.
And then it became abest-selling um trade book
called They Used to Call Me SnowWhite, but I drifted, uh,
(05:02):
women's strategic use of humor.
And basically, it could besummed up.
What's the difference betweenmen and women's humor?
Is that women hate the threestooges.
Not all women, but most womenhate the three stooges.
Um, you do not see women inprofessional settings, at bridal
showers, during the events, uh,going up to each other and
(05:24):
going, nya, nya, nyah.
We are not trying to poke eachother in the eye.
We don't smack each other acrossthe forehead.
We don't make farting noises asa way to bond.
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Right?
So we don't have bathroom humor.
I mean, I think that, and Ithink this is so beautiful.
I've never had this conversationon this level, but it's that
fifth grade boy humor has neverentertained me.
I I don't fall into I love rich,witty language humor.
(05:56):
And this is why, I mean, mydaughter is smart funny.
She is like one-liners get meevery time.
People who are quick, and I findthat a lot of women are that
way.
And they can do it withoutnecessarily without being
(06:16):
disparaging, right?
And that's a huge part.
Yeah.
That's a huge part of it.
I I find that there is less uhmocking of other people and more
uh just straight uh zingerswithout taking you taking you
(06:36):
out at the knees.
SPEAKER_03 (06:38):
I think it's uh what you're you're focusing on is
absolutely essential, thatwomen's humor is inclusive.
Women's humor, and it's it's oneof the pages from Gina School uh
that John did such a greatillustration of, is that what
women are looking for is it inmost interactions in the world,
but especially when it comes tohumor, is a sense that we're not
(06:58):
nuts and we're not so we're notalone.
That's it.
We're not nuts and we're notalone.
So that when we're talking aboutbathroom humor, it takes women.
Tell me if this is yourexperience.
It takes women about 13 secondsin a bathroom for three women
who have never met to startlaughing.
(07:19):
There is always laughter comingout of the women's room.
Now, which is why we always gotogether.
Right, but there is also rarelylaughter coming out of the men's
room.
And when there is laughtercoming out of the men's room, we
should worry.
You ever been right?
SPEAKER_02 (07:34):
Well, they're in and out as fast as they can.
SPEAKER_03 (07:36):
Well, they're peeing in a trough.
I mean, right, you know, we'rethere where women are saying,
Oh, I have a headache, andanother woman is coming over.
Do you want aspirin?
She opens her 500-pound bag andshe's going, I know I have
aspirin, I have buffin, I havemotrin.
Is it allergy related?
I have pseudoped, I haveactafed.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
I'm out of toilet paper.
Do you have any?
Can you pass it down from thevery end?
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
And the jerky doesn't have toilet paper.
There you hear people going, Idon't have toilet paper, I don't
have tissues, but I have twofives for 10.
Right.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (08:11):
Exactly, right?
This is see, and this is this isamazing.
So I I want to talk about GinaSchool because let's start with
the reason you wrote GinaSchool, because I I loved the
intro and the dedication,because I think that we, and
this goes to the the intro Idid.
(08:32):
We we and I and I think this isI almost I just got chills.
I think this is extraordinarilyuh timely in that we find
ourselves in a place right nowwhere we are inundated with a
lot of bad news, a lot of whereis the humanity, a lot of damn,
(08:57):
I I thought people at their corewere good people.
And I I do believe people aregood, and sometimes we need the
reminder, right?
So I I suppose this is anopportunity to say, hey, if if
you think somebody needs thereminder, you can go ahead and
send them this episode becauseGina, you're gonna remind them.
(09:19):
Um and and they can, if theydon't get enough in the episode,
they they should go buy the bookbecause this is something they
can pass along to everyone too,because this is this is a book
that I want on my coffee table,right?
So while people are are sittingin my home, they can be reminded
of those little pieces of ofgood.
So let's start with the the thereason you wrote the book and
(09:41):
and why you think this issomething we need.
SPEAKER_03 (09:44):
I'm gonna uh that was beautiful, thank you.
Um, and I I take that in, and itmeans a lot to me because I I do
hope that Gina School is aboutstarting conversations and and
starting from funny places, butalso from some hard places.
Um my humor uh was uh really umborn, developed um from a sort
(10:10):
of tough childhood.
Um I lost my mother uh prettyyoung.
She was ill.
Uh she died when I was 16.
And um Gina, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
And it was a loss that it'staken um a very long time to
process because especially at16, you don't know what's going
(10:30):
on and you don't know how todeal with it.
And also, in retrospect, Irealized that my mother was what
we would now sort of identify asclinically depressed.
She was very sad.
Uh, she was French-Canadian, um,and so uh raised me, as many
immigrant mothers do, uh in nota mother tongue.
(10:53):
Um, she taught me and mybrother, again, I'm 68 years
old.
Uh, so in those days, um parentswho came uh with English is not
their first language, wereencouraged to speak to their
children only in English.
So my older brother and I lostout on learning Italian and
(11:13):
French.
So that the only, uh for me atleast, the only um the only
things that I can say in Italianand French are the things you
can't say in front of the kids,because they would argue in
their native languages.
So I can swear up and down, um,which has turned out to be
useful on the streets of Parisand Rome.
But I'll bet then if somebodyasks me for directions, I got
(11:37):
nothing to say.
No, capitale, and they'relooking at me because I look
like I'm out of a Follini movie,and they don't believe that I
don't speak, then they yell atme in Italian.
So it becomes, again, a way ofconnecting until they understand
that I really don't speak.
So my mother um felt isolated.
She she moved down to live inBrooklyn, New York with my
(11:58):
father's big Italian family.
And they were lively and theywere loud, but they weren't
really accepting of this littlegreen-eyed, blonde-haired
French-Canadian woman.
And um, and I think she felt umas if she was in exile much of
(12:18):
her life.
Um, we we didn't have money, soshe couldn't go back to Canada
very often.
And I think um she uh she tookan early exit out of her life.
It's hard to be the away team.
Yeah, huh?
What a good way of putting it.
Yeah.
It's hard to be what a that's abrilliant way of putting it.
SPEAKER_01 (12:40):
And you said that to other people about well, so I'm
I've been the away team myentire life.
I'm actually Canadian by birth.
I'm I'm I'm a dual citizen.
I'm not French Canada, but umToronto.
Yep.
Um, I'm Canadian by birth, dualcitizen, and I have, and it's
been a long process and a lot ofwork to understand how I've
(13:02):
operated, and a lot of thestruggles that I've had have
been as a result of identifyingas the away team.
So I grew up um in Los Angeles.
We moved to the States when Iwas five, uh, but moved to
Missouri.
And um, I'm in recovery and Iwas in treatment at one point,
(13:24):
and my I had a therapist look atme and say, Your true addiction
is not to alcohol, youraddiction is to uh believing
that it's your job to live in uhbeing the outsider.
And you are so addicted to beingthe outsider, you married into a
(13:46):
relationship that meant youwould permanently be the one on
the outside.
And so my ex-husband alwayssports metaphors was was you're
the away team.
And so that's where the awayteam comes from.
SPEAKER_03 (14:00):
Yeah, actually, that's that's such a smart,
precise summary of that feelingof always being the outsider,
which is uh again, uh a lot ofwhat Gina School is about,
because I have always felt umlike the outsider, but um, in
fact, there's uh I'll see whilewe're talking if I can find it.
(14:22):
But the older I get, the more Irealize that all of the people
who I thought were the insidersalso felt like the outsiders.
I was the first girl in myfamily to go to college, or I
think to graduate from highschool in a timely fashion.
It was not what girls in myfamily did.
(14:43):
It was not expected of them, andit was looked at rather
suspiciously.
And so I'm I was one of thefirst women at Dartmouth College
in 1975.
Um, I'll just say It'sextraordinary.
Well, they weren't expecting me,and I wasn't expecting them.
And it was quite a blind gate.
And um, so I get there, and in1975, I look like every girl
(15:05):
from my neighborhood.
I have waist-length black hair,I have tight t-shirt, I have
black jeans, I have fry boots, Ilook like a hooker, right?
But on a good day, I look likeJanice Joplin.
The other girls on campus, manyof them were alumni daughters,
they had brothers there, theyhad they knew of the culture.
I had no idea.
SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
It was a very 70s proper, I imagine.
And you were very edgy.
SPEAKER_03 (15:31):
I had Ivy, you know, it was this Ivy League, and
there were people who I thoughtthey were named after the
buildings until I realized thebuildings were named after them.
They came from families.
I thought they named you afterthe dining hall.
And they're like, my grandfatherbuilt the dining hall.
The dining hall is named afterme.
I'm like, oh, that's funny.
(15:53):
Do you get extra dessert?
You know, I mean, it was just itwas a different kind of thing.
But so um what I realized thisis on page 59 of Gina's wall, is
when even during those momentswhen we're feeling desperately,
despairingly alone, we are kindof kidding ourselves.
If only we could see it.
(16:14):
Looking around, we could at anymoment encounter 40 million
other desperately alienatedoutsiders chanting exactly the
same mode of dejection.
We're like a conga line ofalienated outsiders.
I mean, I just got elected to bethe class secretary.
I'm now a class officer at thisplace that I felt absolutely
(16:37):
rejected by one of my books iscalled Babes in Boyland, a
personal history of co-educationin the Ivy League.
When I was there, guys wouldcome up and say, When all
grandfathers went here, therewere no women.
And for three years I tried tomake an argument about the
usefulness of co-education.
Not everywhere, I think thereshould be same-sex colleges, but
at these places that are reallyjust the entryways to the
(16:58):
hallways of power and Americanand international culture, blah,
blah, blah.
Nobody listened.
By the third year, when theysaid all grandfathers went here,
there were no women.
I said, when your grandfatherswent here, there were no window
lights.
I said, sometimes things getbetter.
And they would laugh, and maybethis is what you were talking
about, your daughter doing,because you realize that if you
(17:18):
get somebody to laugh, for thatmoment, there's a bridge.
Right.
They understand, they couldn'tlaugh if they didn't understand
your point.
If they don't get it, they don'tlaugh.
But for that moment, if they'relaughing, you got them.
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
And you've created a bridge too, and you've also said
in your own way, I'm notinterested in you belittling me.
Right.
Yes.
I'm thank you, thank you foryour point that isn't a point.
I'm not interested.
Sit at a different table.
This table is for humans andfunny ones at that.
(17:58):
And clearly you don't qualify.
SPEAKER_03 (18:01):
So, so no, and so humor has always been for me a
way to protect myself, uh, toget a sense of control of agency
over the situation when I'mfeeling um like I need to make
what I see humor, and I thinkthis is where having read some
(18:21):
of your work and and seen, youknow, the compassion that you
offer, the generosity you offerthe world, I see humor at its
best as an act of redemption.
That humor lets you get yourdeposit back on the terrible
stuff that's happened to life.
Uh, because humor um humorallows you to make something
(18:44):
that happened to you into astory that you tell.
And once it becomes a story youtell, you get to control it.
So it's not just that you're,you know, the object that this
has been done to, but you arethe one who holds the story and
(19:04):
can either put it down, use itto help somebody else, put it
out into the universe, but youcan see how it's transformative.
And what the best humor hasalways done is to take out of
the shadows and the parts thatwe are ashamed of, the parts
that we want to keep secret, theparts that we think uh separate
(19:26):
us from everybody else, the awayteam manifesto, the part where I
don't understand the culturehere, I don't understand
anything, no one will everunderstand me.
And humor allows us to open upthat circle.
Humor isn't about one person onstage with a mic, humor is about
(19:47):
the women in that bathroom whodon't know each other laughing
together at the fact that notonly do women hold up half the
sky, but we do it while carryinga 500-pound bag that has
everything in it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:02):
So that we It's about community, it's about
feeling less alone, it's aboutthe collective.
And I I love that.
So humor for me is is a littlemore quiet.
It's uh my and my family, and byfamily, um I'm getting married
soon.
So James is is thank you.
(20:23):
James is is the the newest corein my family.
But the my ex-husband, Imentioned, is a good friend of
mine, and so he and my twochildren, I've always been told
that I am the fourth funniest ofthe the four of them.
And Jeff was always thefunniest, but Delaney has
superseded him as at the top ofthat, but I still remain at the
(20:46):
bottom, apparently.
And it's interesting becauseanytime I say anything funny,
one of the three of them willsay, that was actually funny.
And I think I am funny.
It's just that my funny is notthat knee slapping, guffawing.
(21:07):
It it is a quieter form, and I'mfeeling very validated by this
conversation.
SPEAKER_03 (21:13):
So I'm gonna can I interrupt for one second?
Of course, because they justwhat you said is it's perfect.
I'm afraid it'll slip away.
That when with funny people, Iwas a member of the Friars Club
when it was active.
I was the only full-timeacademic to be initiated into
the Friars Club, which had been,again, another all-male
(21:35):
institution.
It's sort of my job to go in andinfiltrate.
Disruption.
I I climb into the windows ofthese places.
I don't get tossed out of them.
I sort of sneak in.
But I love it.
Um funny people, really funnypeople, especially people who
really make humor.
You know, when you're reallyfunny, not when they laugh, but
when they absolutely listen andthen say, just as the family
(21:55):
you're describing did go.
That was funny.
It's not, there was a guy I wasgiving a talk, it was for a
healthcare organization, fourinch people in the room.
And I'm talking about how women,we we have to learn to look
after our hearts, um, literally,because we spent our whole time
as children figuratively givingthem away or waiting for them to
break or whatever.
And now we have to actually seethem not as some sort of charm
(22:19):
that we toss out, but somethingthat we have to keep and nurture
and keep safe ourselves.
And it was a it was a reallygood talk, and I got a standing
ovation.
I'm sure you get them when youtalk.
And there was one guy in thefront who stood up and was
applauding, but he hadn'tlaughed the whole time.
And he came up to me after, andI thought, oh God, is this one
of the cardiologists who's gonnatell me I I I didn't include
(22:40):
enough about this or this?
This guy came up and said, I'm aI'm a cardiac nurse.
And he said, But on the sign Ido stand-up comedy.
And I said, I want to tell youthat was very funny.
And I thought, thank God, that'sright.
Because he was paying attentionlike to the timing and the way
he was dissecting.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
But I really he was dissecting and he was copying
and he was thinking, how can Iincorporate?
And and she really did thiswell.
SPEAKER_03 (23:08):
But it was his, I really thought, oh my god,
they're gonna sue me.
I didn't know what.
You know, so with that kind ofwhen you're playing to that kind
of house, and for you, thathouse is a home, you're you're
kidding.
But you're clearly I you'reyou're clearly a dynamic person,
and I did a dynamic person, anda leader has to have a sense of
(23:31):
humor.
And that humor has to be, again,compassionate and open.
It's not humor, it is not aboutum uh telling jokes.
The funny person doesn't telljokes.
Women don't tell jokes, womentell stories.
SPEAKER_01 (23:48):
I love that.
And storytelling is is hard workfor me for sure, and uh, and a
lot of it is not intended to behumorous, it's intended to evoke
emotion, to make people feelconnected, to help people
understand community and the andthe common ground.
That's always been my my goal.
(24:09):
In that vein, I would love to goback to.
I asked, you know, you and I,you and I could clearly talk for
for days.
I want to go back to thededication to the book and why
you wrote Gina School becausethere are a couple of I wrote
down, I realized as I was goingthrough your book, and I was I
wrote down, you know, numbernumber 27 and number 54, and I
(24:30):
realized I was writing them alldown, and I thought, okay, slow
down, Dionyla.
We'll just you're gonna have topick your your tops.
But I want to go back to thededication and why you wrote the
book.
SPEAKER_03 (24:38):
They uh I was sitting at um an astonishingly
amazing anniversary party and uhfor one of my best friends
actually from college, um, andshe and her husband were
celebrating their 30thanniversary, and the book is
dedicated to Beck, Becca andZach, right?
You're talking about thededication.
Yes.
(24:58):
And um, so we were in AxeProvence, not a place I throw
out lightly or go to on mostweekends, but this was like what
like a party.
Slightly fancy.
Yeah, a party out of like amovie.
And um, so there are about 15,20 people.
They had uh come from all overthe world.
(25:19):
Um, and uh Pam and Florian, thecouple, had chosen um the uh
menu, which was printed out onthis beautiful paper, and chosen
the wines to go with each thing,and they had uh sparkling water
for people who didn't drink, youknow, on the table, the fancy
(25:39):
Perrier, not just regularPerrier, some candy fancy
Perrier.
And and but then there werewines that were paired with the
courses and you know, uh uh agroup of servers just for the
table.
I mean, it well, I've neverbeen.
So I'm sitting next to theeldest daughter who I've known
since she before she was born.
She just graduated from Brown,and she was with her boyfriend,
(26:02):
and she's now actually ajournalist who's won a couple of
Pulitzer Prizes.
So she's doing amazing.
So and she's sitting with herboyfriend at the time, they're
now married, and um he says,here the service are coming and
they're doing the wine andthey're doing the appetizers,
and he says, Um, I'm gonna ordera gin and tonic.
And I like put my old lady hand,you know, I'm well dressed, but
(26:27):
I put my my pearl-wrapped handon his wrist.
And I said, You're not gonnaorder a gin and tonic.
It's not on the menu.
You're not gonna sell theservers.
This was in a chateau.
I said, You're not gonna sendthe servers to a whole other
part of the structure to get youa gin and talk.
He said, I'm not really a wineguy.
(26:48):
He was like 23, also just out ofschool.
Yeah, baby.
Very smart, very smart, but anidiot.
And I said, You're not doingthat.
He said, I don't, I'm not a wineguy.
I said, then have water.
You have water in front of you.
And his girlfriend at the timeleaned over and said, Can he go
to China school?
SPEAKER_02 (27:10):
And then he said, Yes, can I go to China school?
SPEAKER_03 (27:13):
And that just became a joke.
So I started writing thingsdown, and then I, you know, I I
write a lot, um, as youmentioned, and you know, for
psychology today.
And I started thinking aboutokay, what are the real lessons
in life?
And the short ones, the ones inclear language.
(27:34):
And so I'm writing down a lot ofwhat I need to remember, because
one of the things that Irealized that every lesson I've
ever learned in life is a lessonI've learned before.
SPEAKER_01 (27:48):
But you know what?
One of the things I have learnedthat has has struck me as truly
profound.
The things we need to hear, thethings that strike us as at the
heart, the things that hit usthe most are the things we
already know.
It's the stuff we need to hear,but damn, we know it.
(28:12):
And it hits us because it's sotrue.
It gives us chills because itresonates.
It gives us, it gives us thatfull body feeling because we
think, wow, I knew that.
But I needed to hear it, and Ineeded to hear my story, my
truth coming from you.
Because I needed to know thatI'm not alone.
(28:34):
I needed to know that myexperience is yours too.
I'm gonna tell, so I was writingall these down, and so many of
them are lighthearted, and somany of them are beautiful, but
there was one that I foundmyself tearing up at.
Number 95.
It's complicated to be in arelationship with somebody you
(28:55):
don't trust, especially if thatsomebody is your partner or your
spouse or yourself.
SPEAKER_02 (29:04):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (29:06):
And I and at first I'm like, yeah, especially if
that's somebody that, you know,if you're with a partner, and
then I'm like, oh, or you right?
Yeah, and you have that momentwhere you think, right.
Sometimes you don't trustyourself.
(29:32):
Sometimes you have lost trust inyourself, and then then what do
you do?
SPEAKER_03 (29:41):
I I I I'm glad that this echoed with you, and that's
exactly it's it's the echoesthat sometimes it's only in
hearing the echo that we hearour own voice, right?
Right, that we hear it back.
It's like otherwise we'respeaking into the abyss, but
then we hear an echo, and it'sit could be in some.
Else's accent.
It could be from you knowsomeplace we never expected to
(30:04):
hear it, but then we're going,right?
Actually, that made sense.
And this is, it is, it's justjust to know that.
And then, you know, theillustration, I mean, the reason
it became a book was because I Irecognize that these passages
needed that third dimension ofan illustration.
SPEAKER_01 (30:25):
The illustrations are gorgeous.
Tell me, how did you connectwith the illustrator?
SPEAKER_03 (30:29):
Uh, the illustrator was a student of mine.
And really, yeah, that's one ofthe nice things about.
Perfect is that.
And he is, and we did this isthe anti-AI book.
This is we crossed this, thiscould not be done.
You're like, absolutely not.
Except by two human beings.
He is a 26-year-old man who wasmy former student who had
(30:49):
actually come to Yukon, um, thendropped out, and went to the
West Coast, and then foundhimself um working in a hospital
in the hospice ward uh duringthe pandemic.
Wow.
Um, and then decided to comeback to finish school because
(31:10):
sometimes that's what people do.
Right.
The thing about being in collegeor being in a university or
being in any kind ofinstitutional structure is that
the institution will be there.
You know, I tell kids like, I'mnot sure I should be here.
I said, go, go do somethingelse.
Come back.
We'll be here.
It's not going anywhere.
Yeah, we'll be here.
It's okay, it's safe.
(31:32):
You can go find something else.
You're not gonna lose us.
You know, we'll be here.
And he took advantage of that.
And um, and I realized that notbecause he was in my creative
writing classes, and I realizedthat not only was he a good
writer, but then he started, Ijust saw his notebooks, and they
were filled with theseastonishing pen and ink drawings
(31:55):
that he were, he was justfilling every page with sort of
life studies.
This was somebody he'd seen onthe bus, this was somebody,
these were buildings that hewas, he lives in New Haven near
Yale, he was doing, you know,and and I thought this is what
the book needs.
It needs this other dimension.
This was like taking thesepassages that I'd written and
(32:18):
making them, it was likewatching somebody, I don't like
like taking a square of paperand making it into an origami
swan.
I love that.
He took this and made it intosomething else with the art.
But the art was drawn, and theywere so again, this is across
generations, different sexes,different backgrounds, different
(32:39):
everything.
And we came together to come upwith this book.
I mean, I really, it's his firstbook.
I I I hope it won't be my last,it might, but that he's gonna go
on to do remarkable stuff.
And he, one of the great things,and I'm I'm sure you I know
you've talked about this inother places, but it's working
with other people and the theessential nature of the
(33:01):
collaborative process, whetherthat's with a personal coach,
whether it's with a therapist,whether it's with other people,
it's in a workshop.
But the importance of notfencing yourself off and
thinking that you're the onlyone who can do this or that you
have to do this, but having thehumility and I think as you
(33:22):
would call it, Danielle, thegrace, right?
To understand that working withother people and allowing
yourself to be essentiallyvulnerable to that is the way to
strengthen yourself, what you'redoing, the process.
And so John and I went back andforth, um, sometimes in cheap
(33:47):
Chinese restaurants, um, youknow, so I can buy all the food.
Um, that's through uh, you know,sometimes in Zoom calls, uh
often in person, sometimesactually just putting things in
the mail, in the post.
Because seeing an illustration,seeing the hand-inked
illustration, he didn't do theseonline.
He drew and so can put theoriginals in the mail to me.
(34:11):
I have students who don't knowhow to write out an address.
You know that?
SPEAKER_01 (34:15):
I mean, there are people who don't know that
because I joined when I sent mychildren to school, I joined the
Facebook groups for freshmanstudents.
Ah, the parent the parents offreshman students, and the
number of parents who will go tothe trouble of sending addressed
(34:38):
envelopes to their children sothat they don't have to deal
with it.
SPEAKER_03 (34:42):
Or I mean we could we could make that a whole other
episode, but but yes, we surecan because I could do a gene of
school just for parents ofchildren for what your children
should know when they go tocollege, yes, and what you
should not do for them.
Like yes, yes, when they arecalling and saying, Mom, should
(35:05):
I have the apple or the banana?
It's like hang up.
Parents hang up.
Your child, if he is or she isold enough to cross the street,
you have to decide that firstbecause they have to take out
their ears and they have to lookup if they're crossing the
street.
Um, and if they're crossing thestreet, they can decide on their
(35:26):
own fruit.
And it should not be somethingthey're called about.
If it is, then you need torestructure that relationship a
little bit.
So, but anyway, so he knew howto address an on the life, which
again is a miraculous talentthese days to someone under 30.
And proud of John.
Uh yeah.
And put it in the mail.
(35:46):
And um, he ended up redoing 40of the images.
Really?
The original ones, and I endedup rewriting some of the
passages because he was like,I'm not sure I get this.
And what I wanted to make sureof in Gina School was that
everybody, so that somebody 40years younger and from again a
(36:07):
completely different universewould understand what this
meant, as well as women of mytribe, which is, you know,
anybody too old for work studyand too young for cremation.
You know, that that would belike, you know, I so that
everybody could get this.
SPEAKER_01 (36:25):
That the book was truly cross-generational.
Do you have a couple of tidbitsfrom the book that fall into
your favorite?
SPEAKER_03 (36:32):
Well, the one I'll tell you, actually, I was
thinking about that coming upbecause they were the ones that
um that I think would fit mostlyor fit best into the kind of
work that you're known for andyour interests.
So that uh number 35.
Um, this is the one that Ineeded to remind myself of.
(36:55):
We're going back to the part Ineeded to hear.
This is a lesson I have learnedsince I was 17.
Um, and that I need to hearevery day.
And I don't know why this goesthrough me like I'm a sieve, and
I need to remind myself of itall the time.
And then I realized that otherpeople need the same reminder.
(37:19):
So this is you cannot count onthe praise of others to keep you
going.
Ever.
I have that one written down.
Probably ever.
You will almost never get it,and when you do get it, you
won't get enough of it.
And when you do get it, it won'tbe the right kind.
Also, it probably won't be theright person saying it, or it
won't be about the right thing.
(37:40):
It doesn't work that way.
Learn to give yourself credit.
That's one of the hardest thingsin the world uh for me to
remember.
I blame need because I I havelooked for validation from other
(38:00):
people, um, I think since I wasa child.
And um, and it's taken me a longtime and a lot of different
kinds of work, which I still do,uh, to um understand that I'm
responsible for my ownwell-being.
And one that goes along withthat, which is another big one,
(38:22):
is uh 27.
Do unto yourself as you would dounto others.
I think for women, the goldenrule is not do to others as you
would do to yourself, because wetreat everybody better than we
treat ourselves.
Yes.
So that this is do unto yourselfas you would do unto others.
Start treating yourself with asmuch generosity, charity,
(38:44):
kindness, and graciousness asyou would treat the least
favorite among youracquaintances.
Be as kind and as forgivingtowards yourself as you be
towards a pal.
Stop torturing yourself aboutwhat you might have done or not
done 10 days ago or 10 yearsago.
Offer comfort to yourself thatactually helps, such as cleaning
(39:05):
out old wounds and cleaning upold messes.
Don't rely on merely short-termdiversions, such as drinking
heavily before lunch, or eatingan entire Sarah Lee cheesecake
before letting it defrost.
You wouldn't suggest to a friendthat she do such things.
Why allow yourself to do them?
Imagine you're put in charge oftaking care of yourself the way
(39:28):
you might be privileged to takecare of someone you love.
Then do it.
SPEAKER_01 (39:34):
See, I love that.
It's um the way I've alwaysframed that is that I treat try
to treat myself the way I wouldtreat my daughter.
Yeah.
Because there are times that Iand and that actually comes from
something a therapist said to meat one point.
She said, if right now yourdaughter was telling you that
(39:57):
she felt the way you do, whatwould you do?
You would lock her in a room andforce her to sit on her bed and
feed her bonbons and ice creamand make her watch Winnie the
Pooh.
You would not tell her to getup, get going, keep it up.
Like you don't get to go, youdon't get to sit down until you
have surgery.
Like it's like that's when yourest.
After you have surgery, you'llbe fine.
(40:18):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (40:18):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (40:19):
Um So how do you how did you learn that though?
What made practice?
SPEAKER_03 (40:25):
Correct.
SPEAKER_01 (40:25):
Practice, I had to keep saying to myself, how would
you treat Delaney?
How would you treat Delaneyright now?
And it's there was one of thesentences you had on the on the
previous one, um, number 36,there are few things worse than
feeling like an embarrassment.
SPEAKER_02 (40:40):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (40:40):
Yet that's how I felt for much of my life.
I tag along uninvited, unchosen,annoying, as if my presence must
be accompanied by a shruggedexplanation or a shushed
apology.
The fear, I'm there as adefault.
They pretend to accept mebecause they're too embarrassed
to admit they've abandoned me,ditch me by the side of the
road.
And the last sentence of this iswhat really hit me.
(41:02):
Don't assume outward confidenceindicates inner self-esteem.
And that to me is that youroutside and your inside don't
always match, right?
We live in a world where we'reconstantly seeing everybody's A
game, but we don't have anyidea.
And I I think about the wholeinfluencer space, right?
(41:22):
What you're seeing is the onepicture they're showing, not the
420 they took, or what happenedto the picture in post before
they actually decided to shareit.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (41:35):
No, though that's absolutely wonderful.
And I hadn't thought about it interms of the influencer idea,
but I think that's right.
And I think that so many, again,people under 30, under 20 are so
uh swept off their feet by theidea that that's what they have
to be all the time.
And so that the one that youchose was a very hard one for me
(41:56):
to write, obviously.
And I think that you saw that,that that came from from looking
for the hope arriving.
SPEAKER_01 (42:04):
That that well, and I that that girl, that was me.
That was high school me.
Um, high school me was not goingsomewhere to anything unless you
specifically looked at me andsaid, Danielle, would you like
to come?
I could be standing in a groupof people, and if somebody, if
(42:25):
there were plans for Fridaynight, unless somebody
specifically looked at me andsaid, Danielle, are you coming?
Or would you like to come?
I wasn't going because I fearedthat I would show up and there
would be this, what are youdoing here?
SPEAKER_03 (42:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:38):
Uh, and I didn't want to be the tag-along.
And I think that that goes, Imoved a lot as a kid, so it goes
to that piece.
I want to talk, um, we're gonnawrap up shortly, but I want to
talk about your your article inpsychology today that you know
that has your nearly eightmillion views.
Snow White doesn't live hereanymore.
And this speaks to yourconversation about humor, how
(43:01):
important humor is.
And of course, we're learning alittle bit about that right now.
Um, with are we canceling humor?
Are we not canceling humor?
SPEAKER_03 (43:10):
Um, humor is uh, I think probably one of the first
cave drawings that our ancestorsdid was probably a joke.
You know, the cave.
It showed somebody trying toattack an antelope from the
wrong side or something.
You know, it was something umthat humor, because humor allows
(43:33):
us, like I said, to unveil partsof ourselves that the public is
not allowed to see, and or thatwe're afraid to show to other
people.
But that the best comedy hasalways shined light on the parts
that we're not supposed to lookat or that we're supposed to
pretend aren't there.
(43:53):
So that um that's why humor isalso illuminating.
It's literally illuminating, itlights up.
We talk about somebody lightingup a room or you know, a joke
like, wow, that was really thatspotlighted the most important
issue, or that did it.
We actually, the words that weuse talk about illumination,
(44:15):
even if it's indirectly.
And so the the idea that humorallows us to address what we
often try to hide means it'sessential.
Because as we've been talkingabout, anything that opens up
conversation and createsconnection and allows, you know,
allows shame or what is often,you know, uh hidden from behind
(44:39):
shame to come out and to say,look at me.
And then when we can laugh, notat it, but with it, because we
recognize it, again, that'sredemption.
Hubert is alchemy.
It turns straw into gold, ittakes those worst moments often
(45:00):
and transforms them into value.
When I give a talk or do aworkshop if I have enough time,
I ask people, what's the storythat you dine out on?
Right?
In England, the English say wethe stories you dine out.
So what's the story you alwaystell about yourself?
Most of the stories people tellabout themselves are awful
things that happen.
(45:21):
They're not the great things.
When you say, okay, what give meyour childhood story that sums
you up?
It's not about the time I wonthe spelling bee.
It's about the time that I hidunder the desk because I hated
my Halloween costume.
It's the time when my parentsforgot me at a rest stop and
came back two hours later.
(45:41):
It's the time, I mean, it's thetime when we were left out, when
we were forgotten, when we werehumiliated, when we were
desperate.
And we take, that's the straw,but we then transform it through
humor into gold.
It takes what could beself-pity, which is entraps us.
(46:01):
It's a trap that's hard to getout of and turns it into
something that can free us, thatgives us access to other
emotions and ways to heal.
Gina, how do you define hope?
Hope is the first hope isgetting up in the morning.
They're talking about givingcredit for yourself.
(46:23):
Um hope is the idea thateverything changes and that it
is possible for that change tobe for the better.
Um, and that, I mean, hope is soum, you know, so such a potent
uh uh precious thing.
I mean, I think of EmilyDickinson's hope is the thing
(46:45):
with feathers, right?
And then I think of Woody Allen.
I'm sorry to bring up his name,but then he said Emily Dickinson
hope said hope is the thing withfeathers.
He said, but we have discoveredthat the thing with feathers is
my nephew, and we're taking himto a specialist in Zurich,
right?
So but I see hope as just theidea that things will change.
Despair is the belief thatnothing can ever change, that
(47:09):
you were stuck in repetition.
Hope is the wish that somethingwill change.
And then what hope reallydepends on is your ability to
allow hope to embrace you, notnecessarily for you to embrace
hope.
You may not have the energy todo that, but that for hope to
(47:29):
embrace you and for you to allowyourself to accept that change
for the better.
SPEAKER_01 (47:35):
And sometimes it has been such a delight to have you
here.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with me, for making me
laugh, for making me think, forfor schooling us in all things
good and hopeful.
Where can people find you?
SPEAKER_03 (47:51):
Um, ginabarrecka.com,
G-I-N-A-B-A-R-R-E-C-A, so it'spsychology today, in every
bookstore.
Please buy the book.
Absolutely.
In book clubs, all the rest ofit, but I I am easy to find, and
and I answer every email and uhon Facebook and on all the rest
(48:13):
of it.
And I'm I it has been an honor,Danielle.
And I hope this won't be ouronly conversation.
You are a treat, and I wish youso much happiness in this new
wedding coming up, in this newmarriage.
Thank you so much.
And have your kids if they haveany questions about how to deal
with school, they can write tome.
SPEAKER_01 (48:30):
I I definitely, I definitely will do that.
Dr.
Gina Barecca, thank you so muchfor joining me and friends,
thank you so much for beinghere.
However, we have found youtoday.
I certainly hope we have leftyou with some light and some
laughs and some good schooling.
Make sure you go out and findGina's book and ginabarecca.com.
(48:50):
And please go back and find onetidbit in this episode, share it
with a friend, pass the episodeon.
And of course, if you areenjoying the show, as I so hope
that you are, you can eithersend me a text there on the
episode itself, you can write areview, you can pass it on.
And I do hope that you will takevery good care of yourself
(49:12):
between now and the next timethat we see you.
Thank you for being here.
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