December 7, 2021 • 64 mins
Leo and Rayna Jhaveri share a deep discussion about identity and embracing our many parts.
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Purchase My Grandmother's Hands!
https://bookshop.org/a/54905/9781942094470
By: Leo Yockey
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, Leo Yockey here. Before weget into the episode, I just
(00:04):
have a quick Editor's Note ofsorts. I mentioned in the outro
that I'm going to be in Bostonand I, my guests and I are
probably going to like dosomething live on social media.
There's been a change in plans.
I am no longer going to be inBoston. Well, I will be but not
right now. My TrueCar postponedhowever, I would like to
(00:26):
announce that I will be goinglive on Tik Tok, Wednesday,
December 8 at 7pm Pacific Time10pm Eastern time. That is my
four year T anniversary theanniversary of when I started
taking testosterone andofficially began my medical
(00:46):
transition. So I'll be on therejust kind of talking about that
and answering questions ifanybody has them. So if you're
not already following me on TikTok, please do so. I would
really appreciate your support.
Alright, so yeah, so just if youhear me talking about being in
(01:06):
Boston, the day that thisepisode drops just ignore all
that it was recorded before mytrip got postponed. Anyway, here
we go.
(01:28):
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of Leo Yockey. Show the
show where I Leo Yockeyinterview guests about their
unique life path. Okay, there isso much that I want to say in
both the intro and the outro.
The interview is a little bitlong. So I'm I'm going to try to
keep this as brief as possible.
(01:49):
There's just so much happeningover here, y'all. Okay, first, a
little bit of housekeeping fromlast week's episode, or I guess
the previous episode two weeksago, we're bi weekly now, right?
First of all, in the landacknowledgement that I did. I
mispronounce the name of one ofthe nation's it's Tanga. Tanga
(02:13):
is whose land I'm on here inthis place, known as Los
Angeles, shout out and thankyou, to my friend in future
guests to the show on twit netfor teaching me how to say that
name. Second of all, if youlisten to my previous episode
with my friend, Stephanie, youmay you might have noticed that
(02:37):
I said in the interview that Iwas going to explain the book
club that her and I were a partof, and then I just didn't. So
it's a little bit relevant inthis episode, too. So I just
want to touch on it verybriefly. So earlier this year,
Stephanie and I participated inthis book club for people of
(02:58):
color. And we read a book calledmy grandmother's hands. It's a
great book a great introduction,for me, at least to some
addicts, and some practicalexercises in that modality. It
taught me how to look at mypersonal history as a mixed
person. And the generationaltrauma that both the white and
(03:22):
black sides of me haveexperienced and might be
carrying in and that might becarried in my body. You know,
one one of the reasons why thatbook was so powerful for me was
because it was really the firstpractical guide that I got in
developing a relationship withmy body. And really learning how
(03:42):
to listen to it and feelcomfortable in at home in my
body is a very important piecein me being able to identify my
emotions. We talked about that alittle bit in my interview in
today's episode. I know I saythis all the time, but I'm
really excited about thisepisode. I love this episode, I
(04:06):
ended up making a bunch ofdifferent video clips from
Instagram because I just, I loveso many different parts of this
interview. And the way that wemet is just so random. I get
into that in the interview. So Iwon't get into that here. I have
a lot of changes coming up in mylife. And I feel like I talk
about that a lot without reallygiving a lot of information but
(04:31):
I will get into some of it inthe outro But right off the top
I just want to thank Reina forsetting an example of what it
really looks like to be real andauthentic. I really do feel like
we ended up in each other'slives for a reason you can hear
in the interview, like just howmuch fun we're having talking to
each other. There's a delightfulinterruption in the middle that
(04:54):
I just had to leave in it's it'sa good time. So like I said, I
have some I have some pretty bigannouncements. At the end of
this interview, there's going tobe a major change to the show.
So please stick around for that.
And without further ado, here'sReina.
(05:20):
recording in progress, I go youknow what the very first time
that ever happened becausethat's a relatively new update.
It's a like went right intolike, hello, guests name I
forget who it was that it's arecording of progress this way,
why is zoom yelling at me?
It's a very strict voice. Ican't.
(05:44):
It's like, I feel like I'm doingsomething wrong. I feel like I'm
breaking something.
Yeah, I think it could use somesoftness. But anyways, we'll
justzoom, if you're listening, we
have thoughts and feedback.
(06:06):
Raina, thank you so much forcoming onto the show, I'm
probably gonna leave all that.
Thank you so much.
Leave it all in, I say thank youfor having me. It's a pleasure
to be here and to be talkingwith you. In real time, face to
face as best we can. Andcircumstances.
Indeed, indeed. And you know,very excited to be talking to
(06:30):
you. Very excited to know you. Iwas thinking about this before
we started recording and of allof the internet friends I have,
you know, people that I've metonline that I may or may not
have ever seen in real life. Theway that we came together is the
most unique, I think so like,you know, pull to peek behind
(06:54):
the curtain for the listeners. Imet Rayna in some sort of
workshop thing about, you know,making money in podcasting,
something like that, you know, Iwas I was attending a lot of
those things really early on myjourney with this show. And rain
here was yeah, it was one ofthose events where you can be in
the comments as the webinarsgoing. And Reina was all up in
(07:18):
the comments, you know, justkind of entertaining everybody.
And I was like this, this seemslike a really cool person. And a
bunch of us exchanged Instagramhandles. And a few I don't know,
weeks months, something go bytime passes. And Raina, you post
something about feeling likethere's just kind of just
(07:41):
struggling, I don't, I don'twant to put words in your mouth.
But you're basically talkingabout how in a lot of these life
coaching spaces, I'll sayspecifically, there's a lot of
inauthenticity. And a lot ofwhat you were seeing, you're
putting a lot of language tothings that I've been hearing
feeling for a while. And so Iwas like, oh my god, can you
(08:01):
talk to it? Can we have it? Canwe have a chat. And so we ended
up talking on the phone, like areal, like old fashioned
traditional telephone call.
I love old school telephonecalls, the phone is my friend.
That's great. Yeah. I just loveconversation. So whether it's on
a zoom, or in person, or on thephone, I'm all for it. That's
(08:24):
why I have a podcast and like,hey, person, I'm gonna make you
have a conversation with me, andwe're gonna document it. But in
having that conversation on thephone, you know, we got to share
a little bit about our ownindividual paths, and how we
both kind of got to thisparticular chapter in our lives.
And I don't know, we reallyclicked we really connected. And
(08:46):
since then, you know, you'vekind of continued your journey
of really exploring what yourtruth is, and how to express
that in a way that I feel likeis very relevant to I think a
lot of people you know, a lot ofus are soul searching right now.
But it's also very relevant tothe conversations that have been
had on this podcast. So that's alittle bit of a backstory of how
(09:10):
we know each other. And again,thank you for coming on. If you
were to, if someone if you wereto, but if you if you're meeting
someone in there, and they'reasking you about yourself, what
would you say like how do youdescribe yourself? How would you
like to describe yourself to mylisteners?
(09:34):
This is one of those milliondollar questions. I do not know
how to describe myself because Ifeel like I'm constantly getting
to know myself in better,different deeper, more nuanced
ways. And I'm finding andlearning language, more and more
(09:57):
to describe myself So it'spretty, it depends was asking, I
guess, usually, you know, in ourculture, our culture meaning
here in the west at least I havemany cultures also in me, in
Western culture that thequestion often is, what do you
(10:21):
do? Which means translates towhat do you do for work?
translates to how do you earnmoney translates to what skills?
Do you barter in exchange foryour time? Or cash, etc? I have
a hard time answering thatquestion. I have had a hard time
answering that question, becauseI've done so many things, not
(10:42):
all of which have been inexchange directly for cash or
money. Often, very few of whichI have any, you know, a piece of
paper in a framed certificate onthe wall for but I have a lot of
lived life experience. Sothere's, that's one way to
answer that question is, this iswhat I currently do to pay my
(11:03):
bills, I find that a little lessinteresting, then describing
myself, for example, as amusician, or an artist, or a
television chef, people getexcited to hear that, then they
think I do it 24/7 365 days ayear. And then I break them the
(11:24):
news that TV does not work likethis. I'm on set only a few days
out of any given season of theshow. And for the rest of the
time, I do lots of other stuff,I make art, I make music. None
of those things currently be100% of my life tuition as it
(11:46):
were. And I also do executiveleadership coaching, I do that
with an agency. I do that with anonprofit as well, that works
for more underserved andmarginalized populations. And
I'm growing my own coachingpractice, which is what I'm most
excited about right now. Andit's an a specific therapeutic
(12:09):
modality that's kind of cuttingedge, it's very deep, it's very
holistic, it is very nonhierarchical, and non
pathologizing. And it's, I loveit. It's very creative, and
intuitive, and it feels likethis is my jam. This is my
thing. Being with people havingthe kinds of deep conversations
(12:35):
you seem to enjoy also aroundidentity around emotions,
especially. My my story, andtherefore my expertise. And my
own lived experience comes fromsome specific emotions and
(12:55):
behaviors associated with thoseemotions. I now I understand
myself to be a highly sensitivehuman being. I'm neurodiverse
intersectional queer asI mean, I don't show up in
(13:15):
segments and this hairstyle ifyou can't see it, but anyway,
whatever all this migrants JonesI try to do like,
check the Instagram clip. Yes,Rihanna came looking fly today.
Every day, even in my bathroom.
Hey guy would be great becauseit's from the inside out. So
anyway, these are some things Iknow about myself. I am not
(13:36):
white. Identify South Asian I'ma single parent. I'm in my 40s
so that some demographic genderidentity stuff a femme a lot of
people I've recently learnedpeople, some people assume I'm
uh, I didn't even know this wordearlier, uh, powerless. Ah, I
(13:57):
had to google that.
I think I would also need toGoogle exactly what that means.
Because I'm not sure that Icould define it. offhand. I feel
like it feels like time for mewhere I'm like, I feel like I
would know it if I but maybenot. I don't know. Definition.
(14:21):
Community.
I don't identify as a lesbian.
Queer is very different. And I'mjust starting to kind of
understand what that means forme. Especially coming into that
identity in my 40s. I alsoidentify as polyamorous This is
also a new identity. So I havelots and lots of newness in my
(14:44):
life, lots of exploration. Andit doesn't it's not so much
newness. I feel like it's, youknow, somebody else. I have a
lot of very nice internetfriends. And people say that,
you know, you got to be friendswith people on the internet. I
firmly disagree some of thepeople are closest to for the
longest period of time in mylife. I know somebody had met
(15:05):
once in person 20 plus yearsago. And we still feel very
close and it'd be nice to talkevery day. And we don't have to
know what is up in each other'slives. I'm an intense person.
This is another thing I'velearned about myself is a book
called Living with intensity.
gifted individuals and intenseindividuals and highly sensitive
individuals. I swear I could runa whole thing of just like, just
(15:27):
read all these books, or writelearn about all these concepts,
attachment theory, rage, shame,trauma, although trauma is so
overused and right now but I'mglad the conversations are
happening. Doing work of beingpresent in the body, especially
(15:49):
for people with traumatichistories, highly sensitive
people with traumatic histories,highly sensitive people with
traumatic histories manifestingas rage, rooted in shame,
manifesting as overdrinking,over eating, conflict and
relationships. Identity,conflict, internal conflict. So
(16:10):
I'm really interested in innerconflict resolution, I suppose.
Oh, that's a great way ofwording it I like that. No,
I have not said it. I have notset it as such yet. And so it's
happening right now. That isreally what I'm interested in,
in a conflict resolution.
Yeah, that's boom, I love that.
That might be the episode title.
(16:30):
That's great.
Um, that's what I do. So if youask me what I do, and how I
identify myself, like all thoselabels, and all those things,
although I don't read any ofthem have any, because I'm very
fluid. And I'm extremely fluidperson. I'm extremely curious.
And expiratory in my nature, butthe nature of the Corps route
work that I'm deeply interestedin continuing, and I'm doing a
(16:54):
lot of learning right now. I'mdoing a lot of practicing RIGHT
NOW Institute, which is the bestway to learn. But yes, it is for
inner conflict resolution. Andwhen that happens, inevitably,
there's a ripple effect on theoutside. Inevitably, I'm seeing
this because I'm believing itright now. Yeah, I'm doing the
work myself, I do it on myself,I do it on people with their
(17:18):
consent, as paid or unpaidclients. I talk about it
constantly. I use a language,there's this linguistic nuance
to it, that's extremely potent.
And I use that every day, in myown my own language is changing
because of it. In a good way.
It's very helpful. And allows menot to get overwhelmed as easily
(17:42):
with big, big, big feelings. AndI'm someone who has a lot of big
feelings. And I want to be ableto experience those big feelings
and not shut them down or tryand control them in kind of a
squeezy way you know, with awhip. So I'm, I'm at the point
(18:06):
of learning, teaching myself howto re rewire reroute some brain
chemistry, body chemistry, tobring safety and expensiveness
into my system, and that ofanyone else who's interested in
doing that, in a particular way,that I find extremely beautiful.
(18:32):
And we use puppets, and we useour and we use, we use other
creative tools and toys, ifthat's what's called for we also
use imagination, which is anextremely powerful to guess. And
we can imagine ourselves intoabsolute states of, you know,
chronic heartbeat, paralyzinganxiety and depression. And we
(18:53):
can also imagineYeah, it's amazing. As I'm, as
I'm listening to you talk, it'slike, what what I'm what's
coming to mind for me, you know,it's you're bringing, you're,
you're talking about all thesedifferent facets of yourself,
getting the language for it.
(19:14):
attachment theory, you know,sent sensitivity, rage, fear,
imagination, you know, all thedifferent labels that we use to
describe ourselves. And to me,it's like, how, and and what I
think you know, what, what hasdrawn me to and is probably what
has drawn a lot of people to youis is I feel like your position
(19:37):
on this is like how deep downthe rabbit hole Do you want to
go? And you'll go as deep as youcan get, you know what I mean?
Like there's just there's,there's never there's never,
there's never like a finishline. There's never an endpoint
and so the more that you dig,the more that there is, and all
of these things are sointerconnected. I was just
(20:00):
thinking yesterday I had, I'mjust now after, I don't know, 11
or 12 consistent years of havinga really rough time,
energetically and emotionallyaround this time of year. Really
starting to understand for thefirst time this year that it's a
combination of Oh, is that yourFedEx?
(20:22):
Yes. Please, I have to hear theenergy thing one second. Okay.
Yeah, noworries, no worries. Oh my gosh,
her face her face the way thatit lit up. when that doorbell
rang. She's been waiting forthis package.
Okay. Leo, we're lucky charm.
You said it would happen in theshort window of time that we're
(20:58):
going to record. And it did.
I knew I manifested it.
Mike ITAR. So whatever you weresaying about being at a low
point energetically at this timeof year is no longer the case.
(21:18):
Well, I just made a keytarappear across the other side.
Right? Are you inyour way? California? Yeah.
Yeah, a giant instrument. CHADDinstrument is now sitting at the
bottom of the stairs that I'mnot going to bring up yet. So
we're done.
I'm gonna have to cut a clip.
Even if it doesn't end up on theInstagram clip. I want to send
(21:40):
you the clip of your face whenthe doorbell rang. Because the
pure just delight enjoy thatmoment was, I feel like you need
to be able to see that. That wasThat was fantastic. I'm very
happy just for that moment. Thatjust happened during the
recording. We shouldmake. We can make a little just
a looping boomerang video. Yeah.
(22:04):
Yeah. A great delight to give.
Yeah.
So I want to hear what you weresaying. So you said this time of
year, typically, for 11 or 12years now? Yeah, have this thing
happen? Or something like thatis what I understood.
Yeah. And I think a lot of itfor me, I think, you know, we,
(22:25):
we all have seasons, and thenthere's the literal actual
seasons going on. In the world,you know, because our
understanding of the self thatwe get just through osmosis in
school, in this culture is solimited to just a few different
subjects and ways of thinking,and leaves a lot of other stuff
(22:46):
on the table. And I'm learning,you know, for the first time
ever, this season, I'm startingto understand that there might
be something to me beingsensitive to the changes in the
astrological seasons. And sothere's like a one two punch at
this time of year of it beingScorpio season, which is a
(23:08):
season that's very, you know, inyour feelings very deep, very
emotional. And then the timechange, and all of a sudden, the
days are getting significantlyshorter yesterday, just so for
the listeners, we're recordingthis on Monday, November 8. So
yesterday was the first day thatyou know, we had the time go
(23:29):
back. And I found myself I waslike, I feel kind of depressed.
And I think it's because I feelthat like the seasons shifted,
and I feel that in my body. Butif you had asked me, you know,
even just a year or two ago, I'dbe like, I don't know, October,
November just kind of suck forme. I don't know why, like, you
(23:50):
know what I mean? And so,because I was able to kind of
recognize, regardless of whatthe cause is just kind of being
able to recognize that theremight be something greater than
myself, kind of adding to thisenergy that I'm feeling, it
allowed me the grace to be ableto say, you know, maybe, maybe
there's a couple things on my todo list, they don't need to get
done today. Or maybe, you know,maybe today is not going to go
(24:14):
exactly how I planned or maybe Ineed to do something I you know,
what actually ended up doing Istarted to do a bunch of like
creative stuff, and that helpedme feel better. You know, and I
was like, you know, I need tochannel this energy into
something as opposed to just belike, I just got to go Go, go,
go go. And I feel like in ourculture a lot of the times it's
like no excuses JUST GO GO GO GOGO and it's like, I actually get
(24:35):
a lot more done when I listen tothose ebbs and flow of my energy
and give my body what it needsin the moment so that on the
times when I do feel on top ofthe world and I can just go go
go I'm equipped to do it becauseI'm not all battle wounded from
trying to force it when it whenI just didn't have the energy
when during those low, lowperiods, you know,
(24:57):
I still hear you and I'm veryI'm excited for the fact that
you are able to tune in andconnect to your body feeling and
then attend to the needs.
energetic and physical. Right,especially knowing what I know
of your journey, specificallywith physicality. It's the very
(25:20):
specifically, not justobviously, obviously, but it has
a very specific physicalcomponent to it. Yeah. And what
I'm learning myself about traumaand dissociation like somatic
dissociation. For someone likeme, for example, I spent most of
(25:43):
my life not understanding whatpeople meant when they said,
Just feel it in your body orfeel your feeling just feel your
feelings and then let them go.
And I would want to flip them,you know, just the middle finger
of the eye. What are you talkingabout? There's a lot of thoughts
in my head. I'm in my head alot. Yeah, but I thought
everyone was I didn't know whatit meant to be in your head a
(26:04):
lot. I'm like, this is just howI know it to be. It's like you
don't know what you don't know.
You only know the experience ofthe wild you have is from your
experience of it. And then frompeople describing their
experience, but you can't reallybe inside their head, which is
funny because I'm a super Empathand I can really, I can pick up
on other people's feelingsemotions very easily. But I was
(26:27):
so good or bad that I kind of Ididn't know how to feel my own
feelings. I didn't know youknow, when they weren't for the
longest time. My previoustherapist and I worked together
for three years and I remembernoticing she she was trained in
somatic and dance therapy,specifically sexual use
(26:47):
expressive arts and dancetherapy. And she we've we came
to a point where I realized thatI don't know how to sense
somewhere between like,somewhere halfway through my
chest and like, the my torsolike my belly region. I
couldn't, I was like, I don'tknow, how does it Can you sense
the feeling of there's no,there's like blank spots.
(27:09):
There's blank spots in my memoryfrom my childhood and there's
blank spots in my ability tofeel sensations in my body, not
like physical numbness, it'slike an emotional numbness of
sorts. And it's starting to comeback. online now. So I'm, as I
do the work more as I amdeveloping internal, self worth,
(27:32):
self compassion, self love, andin relationship to myself or
parts of myself and inrelationship to all parts of
others. Because I work in arelational system now I
understand my internal self as asystem of thoughts that are all
in harmony or relative harmonyor some disharmony or sometimes
(27:55):
it polarized and fightingagainst each other. Right. Like
we have a critic and a judge anda cheerleader. And, and so many,
right, and like the, the nosyanti Biden, there's many, right
and anxious by it, and I'mworried by it and like a high
performer by the creative partof these. So they all kind of
they have their own littlesystem of functioning. As I
(28:17):
learn to work with my ownsystem. holistically, I'm able
to physically send sensingsignals from my body, like what
when people say, listen to yourbody, and I didn't understand
what that meant, either. But Idon't know what you're talking
about. I literally meant. And soI'm applauding your clear
(28:38):
progress and be able to hear andthen listen to your body in a
way that might not have been thecase for you previously.
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciatethat. And you test a little bit
on ifs the different parts. Oh,yeah, yeah, we yeah, we talked
(29:03):
about in that. That's remember,out of all the books that I
read, I read like 50 books in2020. And the one that I like,
recommend the most out of allthose books is Jonathan Van SS
memoir, where they talk about AIwell, okay, so here's the thing,
so, and maybe some of thelisteners can relate to so, you
(29:23):
know, I didn't go to college.
And even if I did, I would haveonly studied certain, you know,
a certain subject, right.
There's so many things thatlike, all experience it or I'll
kind of hear about it throughlike a stories such as, you
know, John Jimenez, his lifestory, something like that. And
(29:44):
I'll be like, Oh, this really,you know, like resonates with
me, this makes a lot of sense tome. And then way down the line.
I'll kind of hear about like theacademic side, you have the real
textbook definition. I'll belike, Oh, well, this is
something that I've been doingall along, but I learned From
this, I did it. I learned itfrom that. Another, you know,
when I learned about attachmenttheory, they talked about like
(30:07):
an attachment, like arelationship inventory that you
could do to kind of understandyour attachment patterns better.
And I'm meeting this just acouple months ago, and I'm like,
Well, I've known how to do thissince I was 22. And I was in a
12 step program, because that'sthe exact same thing that they
have you do in your fourth step,but except apply it to all of
(30:29):
your life. The only differencewith the attachment thing is
that it was, you know, hyperfocused on just your
relationships, but it was theexact same like the instructions
were like word for word thesame, they probably stole it
from a actually, maybe, youknow, what I stole is a strong
word. But you know, that'sprobably like where they got,
you know, some of thatinspiration from. So when we're
(30:49):
talking on the phone a fewmonths ago, any and you were
explaining ifs this internalfamily system, and you're
explaining the different parts,just as you explain it, right
now, I remember being like, Oh,this is this reminds me of
Jonathan Van Ness. And whenJonathan Van Ness said in their
book really resonated with me alot and really helped me a lot.
(31:12):
And you're like, they're they'rein this they're part of this
they like wrote like anintroduction to like, one of the
like, the newest eating books onit or something.
Yeah, this book by the founder,which is gone no bad parts by
Dick Schwarz, Richard Schwartz,name is the introduction has GB
ns, like a little box offreight, it's a little highlight
(31:36):
box of their experience withthis modality. And I think in
the previous book, the kind ofthe seminal book, I think, has
an introduction by AlanisMorissette, who also was
profoundly impacted by thiswork. So it is a model that
tends to be particularlyeffective. I, in my opinion with
(31:56):
it, I think it works for a lotof people, I'm not going to say
it's the best thing for everyonehow to say that about any one
thing. But I get the sense forartistic, creative, sensitive,
intuitive, emotional peoplewith, you know, big hearts, big
feelings, maybe who don't fit ineasily into neat little boxes in
(32:17):
the world. And maybe have feltlike at least maybe I'm echoing
some of my own experience. But Ifelt like edge dwellers, right?
They don't belong anywhere, ormaybe even had like a decent
enough upbringing. And I likewhat's the big deal? What is my
big problem, and everyone'saround is like, you know, you
were fed clothed, houseeducated, like, what's the big
deal? Our systems areparticularly sensitive in a way
(32:39):
that often can get judged, likeyou have too many feelings,
you're too emotional, etc, etc.
Just, you know, zip it, controlit, clamp it down and go 95 or
living just right. And itdoesn't work. It's like, some
people are designed to behammers hammers are great in the
world. And some people like meare design, and possibly you I'm
(33:00):
guessing, are designed likeGeiger counters. And if you're
asking, right with that kind ofsensitivity, like I will, I may
not be able to build you ahouse, but I can let you know
when it's about to collapse.
Right? Since I can sense thetrauma coming. Yeah, so each
have each has its place. But ifyou're asking a Geiger counter
to become a hammer, becausethere's just lots of hammers in
(33:23):
the world, it's not helpful.
It's very isolating, it's veryseparating, and we're trying to
now find space for other kindsof people. There's diversity,
natural diversity exists in theworld. And so this is a way of
us integrating our own diverseparts and being able to first be
(33:44):
okay with ourselves as we are.
Because God knows we've goodnessknows that we've been socialized
culturally and otherwise, to notbe okay with ourselves with a
lot of internalized all kindsof, right. Oh, yes. So the the
(34:10):
amount of shame, low self worth,queer phobia, misogyny, like all
of these internalizedhomophobia, all of these things.
If we are not able to, I justsay, you know, I'm a walking,
I'm a walking laboratory, I canalways do this on the inside,
(34:30):
like other things, and otherpeople may not be with me all
the time and outside of mycontrol, but I can always go in
inside this lab and play insidehere. And if I do the play, I
don't even think of it as workanymore. It's it is my pleasure.
It's difficult. It's not it's,it's juicy. It's meaty, and it's
(34:56):
challenging, but I like a goodchallenge. I like a hard
question and I like a good Humanchallenge. And the people
responding to this work, in myview, these kinds of people
sensitive, marginalized, oftenstruggling a lot invisibly. And
(35:16):
so I think there is great valueto the doing this, okay, there
is for me anyways, and I havereally good teachers. Right now
I'm very grateful for my way tothis also, just like you very
intuitively, I had a spontaneousexperience of talking to my
rageful dragon Part A few yearsago, which completely changed
the course of my life. And manypeople who come upon this word
(35:39):
come upon it like this, becauseit's so intuitive. I didn't know
what it was then. And later,just like you, someone was like,
Oh, that's a thing. That's aIt's a framework. And there's
other frameworks. There areother such frameworks. And that
seems to me, but some, it's notdissimilar in some ways to
distort therapy, for example.
And there's a couple othermodels that, you know, there's
(36:00):
some overlap. So none of thesethings, I think, you know,
where's like, the crown of thebest and the only and all of
that, but we find, I feel likewe find our way to the thing
that that is there for useventually. And I'm kind of
getting there. Right now, in myway.
(36:21):
Yeah, I think I think that makesa lot of sense. Like, we're,
we're so conditioned to fitourselves into these boxes,
where it's almost, it's almostlike, at least for me, my
experience has been like reallyunderstood, like, really
internalizing and understandingthe vastness of the diversity in
(36:43):
humanity, in contrast to what wewere taught, is the experience
of humanity. And like reallyunderstanding that I fit some,
you know, somewhere in, in allthat, like, I am a human, but
what it means to be human is somuch bigger than what I
understand it, it's reallyhelped me a lot. I don't know if
(37:07):
you've ever heard of it, the onething I've been thinking about a
lot to kind of, like,contextualize it is. There's
people, usually people on themore conservative side who will
say, you know, oh, there's toomany letters and LGBTQI. Like,
you know, there's too much.
Yeah. And my, my response tothat is that they're, they're
kind of right, there are toomany letters. But the reason why
(37:29):
isn't because of anything goingon with the queer community. The
reason why there's too manyletters is because as a culture,
we're so insistent that thedefault is this completely
cisgendered, completelyheterosexual normative, that is
so insufficient to reallycapture the wide variety that is
(37:55):
human expression. And when itcomes to things as close to home
as gender and sexuality, that ofcourse, if you're insistent that
this is going to be the default,it is going to take a lot of
what will probably feel likeover explaining to try to fit
the other, because it's likethey're straight. And then
there's other and so many thingsare getting piled into that
(38:16):
other because the reality isthat really being cisgendered
being heterosexual andcompletely, you know, far on the
far end of the Kinsey scale inthat direction is a variation.
It's not the default. It's avariation. You know, and so
let'ssay a rainforest only has grass
in it. Exactly. The grass andeverything else. And like, look
(38:38):
around you, there's a lothappening in this rainforest.
Exactly. All those things areinterconnected. They all depend
on each other and feed eachother and to each other and
exist coexist with each other inwhat might seem like messy,
(38:58):
imperfect, yet harmoniouscoexistence. You take away one
and you you know, it's like thebutterfly effect. You take away
one and there's a ripple effecton the whole system. And maybe
some people want just like, youknow, clear square of astroturf
in their backyard, and that'sthe that that's how they want to
(39:20):
live.
Yeah. And that's, and that'syour choice because, like you
said, you know, it's it's, it ishow it feels, it feels like
play, I think just becauseBecause I agree, it feels like
play it's really fun. I enjoydigging into those parts of
myself learning about myself,being able to be more okay with
(39:43):
myself. Excuse me, um, but it ishard and it is scary. And the
other thing I think, too, thatI'm like learning is that
there's no there is no like rulethat says that you must do this
work like there. is no, there isit is all completely optional.
(40:04):
You can live a life withoutdoing any of this. It's
completely, like extra creditfor lack of a better term. And
and, you know, I don't know,well, okay. I don't know, this
is a great segue. But let me letme ask you this because I've
(40:24):
looked back on my life. And Ican see how certain
circumstances led me towards apath where doing all this stuff,
feels easier feels not not easy,but it feels like the obvious
choice, I guess. You know, like,I got outed as a member of the
(40:45):
LGBT community when I was 13. Ina small town. That was a very
horrible experience at the time.
But the reality is that it gaveme an experience really early on
in life, of embodying my truthand being okay, doing that,
which I think is, you know, oneof many experiences that helps
lay down a foundation being ableto do this work now. What do you
think it was for you? That waskind of that tipping point, even
(41:11):
if it wasn't a tipping point,but But have you thought about,
like, why? How you came about,you know, doing this work and
finding it to be in yourexperience the obvious choice as
opposed to not doing the work?
This is a great question. I lovea good question. I mean, on one
(41:36):
hand, I feel like I was born todo this. Yeah. I've been curious
about people, since as long as Ican remember. Yeah, I've been
curious about people andobservant about, like, I observe
people in great detail. I'm adetail oriented person. So I
(41:57):
listen to the words I listen tothe tone, I will see body
language, I will notice whatshows someone is hurting, and I
often will compliment them onthat game. I'm very observant.
You know, I really liked mysterystories and Detective kind of
(42:18):
stuff Sherlock Holmes and thegood detective stuff growing up,
I read a lot of Britishliterature, having grown up in
India, so we were exposed to alot of British literature for
the English stuff that we read.
And I was always drawn tomysteries, and especially human
mysteries, where like someonewould do something that was kind
of outside of their norms,you're observing like variations
from some radio observing apattern and then breaks in the
(42:42):
pattern. So I'm really good atfinding what might be a pattern,
and then what might be ananomaly to the pattern, for
example, and that always givesme a clue. So I've always got
like a little Sherlock Holmesbrain going on. I'm an extremely
curious individual. And I'm avery creative individual. I like
that the creativity is like it,a lot of its centers. It's
(43:03):
either, you know, making music,making art or understanding and
being curious about humanbeings. So in one sense, on one
hand, as I was saying, I feellike my personality is designed
for this. I also love talking tostrangers. That's a curious part
of me, I most days, I will talkto at least a couple of
(43:27):
strangers a day, either on theinternet or in person right on
the street, and get into deepconversations. So I also love
conversation. And so that's onepart of it. And I think the
other part, I mean, gettingspecifically to the AFS work is
probably my journey with rage,my personal journey with rage
(43:47):
has been instrumental, which wastied to my marriage, which ended
up not working out, largely dueto the fact that I was
experiencing such tremendousamounts of rage, and I didn't
know what to do about it. And Ididn't feel good when I
experienced it. And I didn'tfeel good about the judgment
(44:12):
that comes with being someonelike that, because it's so
misunderstood. And at the time,I didn't know anything. If you
had talked to me about shame atthe time, I would not I would
have punched you in the face. Iwould have said not us. I would
have said I don't even know whatyou're talking about. This has
nothing to do with me or shameor anything. This is like the
(44:35):
other person's fault becausethat this this this I was so
focused on my own stuckness inthis relationship, and it was a
relationship that was a problemand it was also the other person
that was a problem and it was alot of that and it was it was
uncontrollable. It eventuallybecame chronic, uncontrollable
and completely we at that point,it felt like the work was not
(44:58):
Shall I Yeah. I have madedesperate phone calls to
professional places asking forhelp, in the worst of it saying,
I don't know if I'm going tomake it through the night. And
I'm not exaggerating. So therecomes a point for people
sometimes. And I hope. I'm alsowanting to talk about this a lot
(45:23):
so that folks know that itdoesn't have to get like that
I'm not anyone to dictateanyone's journey or story,
because mine involves getting toan really not good place. And
others go to that place anddon't come back. Or they go
further. And then they comeback, right, everyone has a
different story. But part of mywork in being vocal and open
(45:45):
about my journey now that Idon't experience the flooding of
emotions when I talk about it,because when I first started
talking about my rage, journey,people wouldn't believe me, just
like, they don't believe thatI'm Indian, because I'm too
light skinned, or your hair istoo short, or your English is
too good. I'm like, whatstereotype do you have in your
mind?
Okay, so what it meansevery I have spent so much time
(46:07):
explaining my existence in theworld to people. Yeah. And then
take it as an opportunity now tohave conversations rather than
be upset about it. Like if theydon't know, then they're
curious. And now I can help youknow, like, there are also
people like me in the world whodon't fit any need box. And we
can have a conversation aboutthat, and what stereotypes you
(46:29):
might be bringing to that, andwhat your experience might be,
and how you might expand theexperience, if you're willing to
if you wish to. So my ragejourney was a big kind of more
pointed focus, even though it'staken many, many, many, many,
many years. And a lot of innersearching work to bring me to
the point of like, okay, there'sa, there's a model and a
framework, and there's languagearound it that I can use, that
(46:52):
helps me and that helps thepeople that I'm looking to
serve. And so that's kind of onthe other hand, one hand I was
born to do this, I've been doingthis all my life, and then the
rage, shame and unhealed traumajourney, I mean, it's all kind
of unhealed is like presumesthat you're broken in some way.
(47:13):
And then one day, you'll befixed completely. And I don't
buy that either. And really, mywork is like, I don't give
anyone that here's some tips andtricks and hacks and some neat
little solutions in a box andfollow this seven step strategy
to get to a from A to B, my workis creating a safe space for
people to lead by example, toshare openly my experience and
what I know, to be very open towho they are and be able to
(47:37):
witness and hear and see them asthey are. And often people have
not been given a space to fullyexplore and express themselves
without judgment, without beinglabeled with some illness or
disorder or defect in any way tosimply be viewed as they are for
(48:00):
the humanity that is in them.
And something magical happenswhen there's that safe space
created. When people can putdown and put words to the
burdens that they're carrying,the shame that they carry, the
(48:21):
struggles that they're having.
And these are very hidden thingsthat you're not allowed to talk
to talk about, even some oftento your spouse, hidden
behaviors, compulsive behaviors,voices in their head that say
you're not okay. Because if theywant to number out or check out,
right, even if they're there,they're, you know, the body's
(48:43):
going but the rest of them iskind of offline. And so really
my work is that, like certainpeople, I'm not the only one
doing this work. But certainpeople will resonate, either
with the way I speak, or theexperience that I've had. It's
similar to a right like, why isit that they're not it's not a
(49:04):
roomful of licensed therapistsand counselors, it's people
who've had the lived experienceand have lived through the
transformation are continuing tolive through the transformation.
And there's some legitimacyhugely legitimacy and being in
those rooms with people who aregoing through it or have gone
through and walk away you havebalked. Absolutely. And offer
you the respect of your ownjourney being yours. I'm not
(49:28):
going to foist my, my journey onyou. Yours may take twists and
turns and we can hold her I willjust hold my light for you as
you walk and find your own lightuntil it is strong enough to
like somebody else's path andyours as well.
I love I love that analogy. Igotta I gotta tell you something
(49:52):
about that line analogy but I'mgoing to save that for me once
we stop the recording. Sorrylisteners. I But yeah, I love
that. Thank you for sharingthat. I love everything that you
have to say. And I think, youknow, kind of what comes to me a
little bit is, you know, whenyou're really first I think
you're right, that does get to apoint I think where it's, you
(50:14):
know, if you get to do the workand choose to do the work
beforehand, gray or if your lifenever yes is point great, but I
think there are a lot ofsituations where it's like this
or die, which sounds like wasthe position that you were in.
But I think if you're if you'rereally curious about other
people, it becomes really fun torealize that you can take that
(50:34):
same curiosity about otherpeople and turn that inward.
That's exactly what it is. Infact, I just realized, even
though this is a podcast andthey will not be able to see but
I have here behind me, you'll beable to see it. I have here
behind me a little golden fabricegg. And inside this fabric
(50:57):
golden egg with scales on it,Nibs, Dragon puppet,
golden and Black Dragon puppetthat comes out of the egg. This
is my this is my rage dragon.
All the Rage that burned througha lot of my life. That is not it
was protected in nature. I knowthis now. It was well intended
in nature, but was judgedotherwise. I've understood now
(51:20):
its fears and its motivationsand its hopes and desires for
me. And now it is a puppet andit is always near me. And we
have a very good relationship.
We have a very good relationshipmy rage and I have very close,
my rage has now become anextremely powerful creative
(51:43):
force rather than a destructiveforce. And allows me to create
the music that I make, I havetwo bands one is I'm a punk band
about punk trio. And I get to bemy completely unrated crazy
Rayji self. And there's a wholeother look to it and everything.
(52:09):
And it's like there's like agoddess energy that flows right
through me I don't even knowwhere it comes from. It is
completely channeled iscompletely channeled, instead of
positive dissociation like myrage used to be a destructive
negative dissociation back inthe day. And now it is similar
but it's like a state of flowlike pure creative flow. And
just the same is the sameenergy. I've just been able to
(52:30):
flip the switch I think justlike it's an easy thing like
point to a shutdown of work. Andunderstanding and self
forgiveness also understandunderstanding and compassion and
forgiveness and people talkabout self love. And people talk
about compassion. And peopletalk about forgiveness and
surrender and letting go andnobody showed me how and now I
(52:51):
feel like I have a way and bekind to yourself but how love
yourself but how Becompassionate yourself forgiving
yourself but How about how abouthow I'm a process person and
when you said right the diggingis infinite. You can keep
digging and digging and there'sno end. I am a process person I
(53:12):
fall in love with process. Andwhen you're in love with the
process, the end goal ceases tomatter because you are just in
love with the doing of it at thebeing a bit.
Yeah.
And that's my breathing in andout as I breathe in and out. I
am doing the play and doingwork. That's it.
(53:34):
Yeah, it just becomes part oflife. Hey, thank you so much for
showing me your your dragonpuppet. That's a cool little
puppet. Puppet Yeah, that'sgreat. I yeah, thank you so
much. I think I think we'repretty much at a time Gosh, this
was this went by super quicklyeven with the even with you
adding a little bit more time tocompensate for the FedEx
(53:56):
interruption. This was I just Ilove talking to you Rana. I'm so
you know, there's just certainpeople that you meet and it
feels like especially becausethe wild circumstances that it
takes to meet it just feels likecertain people are in your life
for a reason. There's noaccident in meeting and you
definitely feel like one ofthose people to me. I love
watching your journey. I loveseeing what you're doing. And
(54:19):
another thing to talk aboutafter recording I may be
spending more time in Boston. Sowe'll we'll talk we'll talk
about that. We'll see butmy excited face again. Oh yeah.
It's very exciting.
I will say you were definitelymore excited for the guitar but
it's okay. It's okay. Iunderstand. You can see me and
(54:41):
talk to me online. You can'tlike play a guitar online. So I
understand. I'm not I'm notoffended but yeah.
I would be very excited to seeyou in the area and also I'm
this close to setting my ownpodcast again. I did one last
(55:04):
year. And we met on a podcast,umbrella of doing podcast, you
know, making a podcast and I'vebeen putting that off for a
while. For good reason. It'sokay. I'm not gonna have any
pressure. But I'm inspired tojust kind of push the button and
go with that. And you I invitedto be on that.
Yes, I'm so excited. Iabsolutely whenever that's up
(55:27):
and running again. Yeah, nopressure, but whenever it's up
and running, I'm down. I'm down.
Awesome. Raina, thank you somuch again, where would you like
listeners to find you or followyou on the internet?
I think at this point, since Istill have no website and I
don't know if I will. Instagramis my favorite platform at the
moment. Right? It lets me postand write and make art and
(55:50):
comics and and reptile stories.
So I am at the punk monk Pu andKn O and K on Instagram. So come
find me there and we can play.
Awesome. And the link link is inthe show notes for that
listeners. Raina again, thankyou so much. And I will tell I
guess Ricky I made it veryclear. I've always liked by even
(56:15):
though we're just on therecording, but this time, it's
like very obvious that the callsnot ending, you know, ruining
the magic here for those.
Thank you for having me. You'rethe best. I really enjoy your
company and your presence.
Thank you so much. All right nowI'm gonna press stop by
(56:39):
Raina Thank you, thank you,thank you for coming on to the
show. having this conversationwith me. Oh, my gosh, what a
wonderful time. And it's anamazing, y'all, you know, peek
behind the curtain. I you know,I record these ahead of time,
obviously. And at the time ofrecording this interview in the
(56:59):
beginning of November, I knewthat I wanted it to likely be
the first episode that comes outin December, right. And during
the interview, as you heard, Iwas telling Raina that I was
probably going to hopefully bespending more time in Boston.
That is 100%. What's happening.
The the winds of change areblowing me Eastern bound. We'll
(57:24):
just put it like that for now.
But what's amazing is that Iplanned a trip to Boston, and
then realized after the factthat I would actually be in
Boston today, if you'relistening to this when the
episode drops on on Tuesday,December 7. And I told us to
(57:45):
rain on like, Hey, I'm going tobe in Boston, like when this
episode drops. And Raina says,Oh my gosh, that evening has
just opened up for me. Likelet's do something, let's get on
live like, you know, all ofthese ideas kind of start
floating around. So be on thelookout on both Instagram and
Tik Tok. If you're listening tothis, the day the show comes
(58:06):
out, I'm sure I'll announce somestuff on Instagram as well. Or
maybe not, maybe it'll besomething spontaneous. But I
just love how all of that linedup, I was already going to be in
Boston anyway, I was alreadygoing to post this episode
anyway. And the fact that thesetwo things kind of happen at the
same time. It's just I don'tknow, I love stuff like that.
(58:29):
As, as always, thank you so muchfor being on this journey with
me. You know, when I startedthis podcast, what's seven
months ago now, I had no ideareally what I was trying to do.
I just knew that I had no ideawhat direction my life was gonna
go. And I had to do something.
And the connections that I'vemade as a result of this podcast
(58:52):
have been literally lifechanging. I mean, gosh, I have,
there's so many people that I'vehad on this show that I just I
really really look up to. Rainis one of them. I mean, just
about everybody that's come ontothis show is someone that I
really look up to, you know, atthe end of every episode we'll
do I always say, Stay evolving.
(59:17):
I've never really gotten intowhy I say that. You know, I
started saying stay evolving,because to me, I feel like
that's what life is all about.
We're constantly growing intomore and more authentic versions
of ourselves, or at leasthopefully, right like, that's
hopefully what we're doing.
That's what I tried to do atleast. And part of that is
(59:41):
really trusting that still smallvoice inside of me. You know,
and that was the voice that toldme to start this podcast to
begin with. Don't worry aboutwhat direction it's going to
take you and like just do it.
Just trust the process. And atthis point, it's that same
voice. It's telling telling methat this podcast is just about
served its purpose. And I haveone more episode already
(01:00:06):
recorded ready to go. I'm notquite sure what's going to
happen from there. I might go ona hiatus immediately after that
podcast, or immediately afterthat episode, I might record a
couple more things before goingon hiatus. But there's so much
change happening in my life, I'mgoing to start spending time on
(01:00:28):
the East Coast, I'm starting afull time job in tech that I'm
actually really excited about.
I can't, I'm not quite ready toannounce exactly where I'm
going. But I will say that I'llbe working very closely with a
former guest of the show. So I'msuper, super excited about that.
(01:00:49):
My tic toc is growing into thisamazing space for me to be able
to have a creative outlet, whilealso connecting to the queer and
trans community there. And myvalues are becoming clearer and
the the ways that I want tospend my time are shifting, I've
(01:01:11):
become very aware of the energythat I'm putting out into the
world, and really wanting to bedeliberate with how and where I
spend that energy. And all thatbeing said, if this podcast is
to continue, it's going to needto be a new season with a
completely different direction.
Where that direction will beexactly I don't know. I know
(01:01:34):
it's going to be more closelyinvolved with the LGBTQIA
community that much I can sayfor sure. The influences of
capitalism that motivated thispodcast in the beginning need to
be dismantled, there's justthere's a lot of change that
(01:01:54):
would need to happen. But that'skind of the whole point of it.
Right? You know, it This podcastwas never meant to be the exact
same thing carbon copied overand over again, I named this
podcast the Leo Yockey show,because I didn't want it to be
tied to any kind of purpose orpoint or format. I wanted it to
(01:02:15):
be able to grow and evolve as Igrow and evolve. So while I'm
taking this break, however longthat may be, it's really
important to me that when I comeback, this feels like an
authentic expression of who I amat this point, and not, you know
who I was earlier this year. Soanyway, like I said, I have I
(01:02:37):
definitely have at least onemore episode coming out. That'll
be a really special one, too.
This will be my first timehaving multiple guests on a
single episode. Some of thefolks that I volunteer with at
Noho home alliance will betalking about the housing crisis
in LA and some of the thingsthat we're doing to to address
(01:02:58):
it, and some of the challengesand rewards that come with that.
It'll be the last episode of2021 possibly the last episode
of the season, possibly the lastepisode ever. I'm again, I'm not
100% Sure. There's a lot ofchange in the air in my world.
And again, just thank you somuch for being on this journey
(01:03:21):
with me. Shout out to all of thefriends that have just helped me
and supported me on thisjourney. Old and New Reina Of
course, being one of them. Andyeah, I'm really excited for the
direction that my life isheading in. I'm really, really
excited for the direction that alot of my friends lives are
(01:03:42):
heading in. It's been anincredible journey. I really
appreciate all of the love thatI've gotten from all of you both
in and outside of the context ofthis podcast. I could ramble on
forever. I don't really know howto wrap this up other than
again, just saying thank you. Ihope you stick around for this
(01:04:04):
next episode coming out in twoweeks, which is December 21.
Just in time for the holidays.
Keep an eye out on social mediafor stuff that I'll be doing
with Reina today, December 7. Ifyou're listening to this on
December 7, please follow me onTik Tok. If you're on there, I'm
having a blast there. Stay safe.
(01:04:28):
Protect your energy. Take careof yourself. Stay evolving.
Hey, Leo Yockey here. Before weget into the episode, I just
(00:04):
have a quick Editor's Note ofsorts. I mentioned in the outro
that I'm going to be in Bostonand I, my guests and I are
probably going to like dosomething live on social media.
There's been a change in plans.
I am no longer going to be inBoston. Well, I will be but not
right now. My TrueCar postponedhowever, I would like to
(00:26):
announce that I will be goinglive on Tik Tok, Wednesday,
December 8 at 7pm Pacific Time10pm Eastern time. That is my
four year T anniversary theanniversary of when I started
taking testosterone andofficially began my medical
(00:46):
transition. So I'll be on therejust kind of talking about that
and answering questions ifanybody has them. So if you're
not already following me on TikTok, please do so. I would
really appreciate your support.
Alright, so yeah, so just if youhear me talking about being in
(01:06):
Boston, the day that thisepisode drops just ignore all
that it was recorded before mytrip got postponed. Anyway, here
we go.
(01:28):
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of Leo Yockey. Show the
show where I Leo Yockeyinterview guests about their
unique life path. Okay, there isso much that I want to say in
both the intro and the outro.
The interview is a little bitlong. So I'm I'm going to try to
keep this as brief as possible.
(01:49):
There's just so much happeningover here, y'all. Okay, first, a
little bit of housekeeping fromlast week's episode, or I guess
the previous episode two weeksago, we're bi weekly now, right?
First of all, in the landacknowledgement that I did. I
mispronounce the name of one ofthe nation's it's Tanga. Tanga
(02:13):
is whose land I'm on here inthis place, known as Los
Angeles, shout out and thankyou, to my friend in future
guests to the show on twit netfor teaching me how to say that
name. Second of all, if youlisten to my previous episode
with my friend, Stephanie, youmay you might have noticed that
(02:37):
I said in the interview that Iwas going to explain the book
club that her and I were a partof, and then I just didn't. So
it's a little bit relevant inthis episode, too. So I just
want to touch on it verybriefly. So earlier this year,
Stephanie and I participated inthis book club for people of
(02:58):
color. And we read a book calledmy grandmother's hands. It's a
great book a great introduction,for me, at least to some
addicts, and some practicalexercises in that modality. It
taught me how to look at mypersonal history as a mixed
person. And the generationaltrauma that both the white and
(03:22):
black sides of me haveexperienced and might be
carrying in and that might becarried in my body. You know,
one one of the reasons why thatbook was so powerful for me was
because it was really the firstpractical guide that I got in
developing a relationship withmy body. And really learning how
(03:42):
to listen to it and feelcomfortable in at home in my
body is a very important piecein me being able to identify my
emotions. We talked about that alittle bit in my interview in
today's episode. I know I saythis all the time, but I'm
really excited about thisepisode. I love this episode, I
(04:06):
ended up making a bunch ofdifferent video clips from
Instagram because I just, I loveso many different parts of this
interview. And the way that wemet is just so random. I get
into that in the interview. So Iwon't get into that here. I have
a lot of changes coming up in mylife. And I feel like I talk
about that a lot without reallygiving a lot of information but
(04:31):
I will get into some of it inthe outro But right off the top
I just want to thank Reina forsetting an example of what it
really looks like to be real andauthentic. I really do feel like
we ended up in each other'slives for a reason you can hear
in the interview, like just howmuch fun we're having talking to
each other. There's a delightfulinterruption in the middle that
(04:54):
I just had to leave in it's it'sa good time. So like I said, I
have some I have some pretty bigannouncements. At the end of
this interview, there's going tobe a major change to the show.
So please stick around for that.
And without further ado, here'sReina.
(05:20):
recording in progress, I go youknow what the very first time
that ever happened becausethat's a relatively new update.
It's a like went right intolike, hello, guests name I
forget who it was that it's arecording of progress this way,
why is zoom yelling at me?
It's a very strict voice. Ican't.
(05:44):
It's like, I feel like I'm doingsomething wrong. I feel like I'm
breaking something.
Yeah, I think it could use somesoftness. But anyways, we'll
justzoom, if you're listening, we
have thoughts and feedback.
(06:06):
Raina, thank you so much forcoming onto the show, I'm
probably gonna leave all that.
Thank you so much.
Leave it all in, I say thank youfor having me. It's a pleasure
to be here and to be talkingwith you. In real time, face to
face as best we can. Andcircumstances.
Indeed, indeed. And you know,very excited to be talking to
(06:30):
you. Very excited to know you. Iwas thinking about this before
we started recording and of allof the internet friends I have,
you know, people that I've metonline that I may or may not
have ever seen in real life. Theway that we came together is the
most unique, I think so like,you know, pull to peek behind
(06:54):
the curtain for the listeners. Imet Rayna in some sort of
workshop thing about, you know,making money in podcasting,
something like that, you know, Iwas I was attending a lot of
those things really early on myjourney with this show. And rain
here was yeah, it was one ofthose events where you can be in
the comments as the webinarsgoing. And Reina was all up in
(07:18):
the comments, you know, justkind of entertaining everybody.
And I was like this, this seemslike a really cool person. And a
bunch of us exchanged Instagramhandles. And a few I don't know,
weeks months, something go bytime passes. And Raina, you post
something about feeling likethere's just kind of just
(07:41):
struggling, I don't, I don'twant to put words in your mouth.
But you're basically talkingabout how in a lot of these life
coaching spaces, I'll sayspecifically, there's a lot of
inauthenticity. And a lot ofwhat you were seeing, you're
putting a lot of language tothings that I've been hearing
feeling for a while. And so Iwas like, oh my god, can you
(08:01):
talk to it? Can we have it? Canwe have a chat. And so we ended
up talking on the phone, like areal, like old fashioned
traditional telephone call.
I love old school telephonecalls, the phone is my friend.
That's great. Yeah. I just loveconversation. So whether it's on
a zoom, or in person, or on thephone, I'm all for it. That's
(08:24):
why I have a podcast and like,hey, person, I'm gonna make you
have a conversation with me, andwe're gonna document it. But in
having that conversation on thephone, you know, we got to share
a little bit about our ownindividual paths, and how we
both kind of got to thisparticular chapter in our lives.
And I don't know, we reallyclicked we really connected. And
(08:46):
since then, you know, you'vekind of continued your journey
of really exploring what yourtruth is, and how to express
that in a way that I feel likeis very relevant to I think a
lot of people you know, a lot ofus are soul searching right now.
But it's also very relevant tothe conversations that have been
had on this podcast. So that's alittle bit of a backstory of how
(09:10):
we know each other. And again,thank you for coming on. If you
were to, if someone if you wereto, but if you if you're meeting
someone in there, and they'reasking you about yourself, what
would you say like how do youdescribe yourself? How would you
like to describe yourself to mylisteners?
(09:34):
This is one of those milliondollar questions. I do not know
how to describe myself because Ifeel like I'm constantly getting
to know myself in better,different deeper, more nuanced
ways. And I'm finding andlearning language, more and more
(09:57):
to describe myself So it'spretty, it depends was asking, I
guess, usually, you know, in ourculture, our culture meaning
here in the west at least I havemany cultures also in me, in
Western culture that thequestion often is, what do you
(10:21):
do? Which means translates towhat do you do for work?
translates to how do you earnmoney translates to what skills?
Do you barter in exchange foryour time? Or cash, etc? I have
a hard time answering thatquestion. I have had a hard time
answering that question, becauseI've done so many things, not
(10:42):
all of which have been inexchange directly for cash or
money. Often, very few of whichI have any, you know, a piece of
paper in a framed certificate onthe wall for but I have a lot of
lived life experience. Sothere's, that's one way to
answer that question is, this iswhat I currently do to pay my
(11:03):
bills, I find that a little lessinteresting, then describing
myself, for example, as amusician, or an artist, or a
television chef, people getexcited to hear that, then they
think I do it 24/7 365 days ayear. And then I break them the
(11:24):
news that TV does not work likethis. I'm on set only a few days
out of any given season of theshow. And for the rest of the
time, I do lots of other stuff,I make art, I make music. None
of those things currently be100% of my life tuition as it
(11:46):
were. And I also do executiveleadership coaching, I do that
with an agency. I do that with anonprofit as well, that works
for more underserved andmarginalized populations. And
I'm growing my own coachingpractice, which is what I'm most
excited about right now. Andit's an a specific therapeutic
(12:09):
modality that's kind of cuttingedge, it's very deep, it's very
holistic, it is very nonhierarchical, and non
pathologizing. And it's, I loveit. It's very creative, and
intuitive, and it feels likethis is my jam. This is my
thing. Being with people havingthe kinds of deep conversations
(12:35):
you seem to enjoy also aroundidentity around emotions,
especially. My my story, andtherefore my expertise. And my
own lived experience comes fromsome specific emotions and
(12:55):
behaviors associated with thoseemotions. I now I understand
myself to be a highly sensitivehuman being. I'm neurodiverse
intersectional queer asI mean, I don't show up in
(13:15):
segments and this hairstyle ifyou can't see it, but anyway,
whatever all this migrants JonesI try to do like,
check the Instagram clip. Yes,Rihanna came looking fly today.
Every day, even in my bathroom.
Hey guy would be great becauseit's from the inside out. So
anyway, these are some things Iknow about myself. I am not
(13:36):
white. Identify South Asian I'ma single parent. I'm in my 40s
so that some demographic genderidentity stuff a femme a lot of
people I've recently learnedpeople, some people assume I'm
uh, I didn't even know this wordearlier, uh, powerless. Ah, I
(13:57):
had to google that.
I think I would also need toGoogle exactly what that means.
Because I'm not sure that Icould define it. offhand. I feel
like it feels like time for mewhere I'm like, I feel like I
would know it if I but maybenot. I don't know. Definition.
(14:21):
Community.
I don't identify as a lesbian.
Queer is very different. And I'mjust starting to kind of
understand what that means forme. Especially coming into that
identity in my 40s. I alsoidentify as polyamorous This is
also a new identity. So I havelots and lots of newness in my
(14:44):
life, lots of exploration. Andit doesn't it's not so much
newness. I feel like it's, youknow, somebody else. I have a
lot of very nice internetfriends. And people say that,
you know, you got to be friendswith people on the internet. I
firmly disagree some of thepeople are closest to for the
longest period of time in mylife. I know somebody had met
(15:05):
once in person 20 plus yearsago. And we still feel very
close and it'd be nice to talkevery day. And we don't have to
know what is up in each other'slives. I'm an intense person.
This is another thing I'velearned about myself is a book
called Living with intensity.
gifted individuals and intenseindividuals and highly sensitive
individuals. I swear I could runa whole thing of just like, just
(15:27):
read all these books, or writelearn about all these concepts,
attachment theory, rage, shame,trauma, although trauma is so
overused and right now but I'mglad the conversations are
happening. Doing work of beingpresent in the body, especially
(15:49):
for people with traumatichistories, highly sensitive
people with traumatic histories,highly sensitive people with
traumatic histories manifestingas rage, rooted in shame,
manifesting as overdrinking,over eating, conflict and
relationships. Identity,conflict, internal conflict. So
(16:10):
I'm really interested in innerconflict resolution, I suppose.
Oh, that's a great way ofwording it I like that. No,
I have not said it. I have notset it as such yet. And so it's
happening right now. That isreally what I'm interested in,
in a conflict resolution.
Yeah, that's boom, I love that.
That might be the episode title.
(16:30):
That's great.
Um, that's what I do. So if youask me what I do, and how I
identify myself, like all thoselabels, and all those things,
although I don't read any ofthem have any, because I'm very
fluid. And I'm extremely fluidperson. I'm extremely curious.
And expiratory in my nature, butthe nature of the Corps route
work that I'm deeply interestedin continuing, and I'm doing a
(16:54):
lot of learning right now. I'mdoing a lot of practicing RIGHT
NOW Institute, which is the bestway to learn. But yes, it is for
inner conflict resolution. Andwhen that happens, inevitably,
there's a ripple effect on theoutside. Inevitably, I'm seeing
this because I'm believing itright now. Yeah, I'm doing the
work myself, I do it on myself,I do it on people with their
(17:18):
consent, as paid or unpaidclients. I talk about it
constantly. I use a language,there's this linguistic nuance
to it, that's extremely potent.
And I use that every day, in myown my own language is changing
because of it. In a good way.
It's very helpful. And allows menot to get overwhelmed as easily
(17:42):
with big, big, big feelings. AndI'm someone who has a lot of big
feelings. And I want to be ableto experience those big feelings
and not shut them down or tryand control them in kind of a
squeezy way you know, with awhip. So I'm, I'm at the point
(18:06):
of learning, teaching myself howto re rewire reroute some brain
chemistry, body chemistry, tobring safety and expensiveness
into my system, and that ofanyone else who's interested in
doing that, in a particular way,that I find extremely beautiful.
(18:32):
And we use puppets, and we useour and we use, we use other
creative tools and toys, ifthat's what's called for we also
use imagination, which is anextremely powerful to guess. And
we can imagine ourselves intoabsolute states of, you know,
chronic heartbeat, paralyzinganxiety and depression. And we
(18:53):
can also imagineYeah, it's amazing. As I'm, as
I'm listening to you talk, it'slike, what what I'm what's
coming to mind for me, you know,it's you're bringing, you're,
you're talking about all thesedifferent facets of yourself,
getting the language for it.
(19:14):
attachment theory, you know,sent sensitivity, rage, fear,
imagination, you know, all thedifferent labels that we use to
describe ourselves. And to me,it's like, how, and and what I
think you know, what, what hasdrawn me to and is probably what
has drawn a lot of people to youis is I feel like your position
(19:37):
on this is like how deep downthe rabbit hole Do you want to
go? And you'll go as deep as youcan get, you know what I mean?
Like there's just there's,there's never there's never,
there's never like a finishline. There's never an endpoint
and so the more that you dig,the more that there is, and all
of these things are sointerconnected. I was just
(20:00):
thinking yesterday I had, I'mjust now after, I don't know, 11
or 12 consistent years of havinga really rough time,
energetically and emotionallyaround this time of year. Really
starting to understand for thefirst time this year that it's a
combination of Oh, is that yourFedEx?
(20:22):
Yes. Please, I have to hear theenergy thing one second. Okay.
Yeah, noworries, no worries. Oh my gosh,
her face her face the way thatit lit up. when that doorbell
rang. She's been waiting forthis package.
Okay. Leo, we're lucky charm.
You said it would happen in theshort window of time that we're
(20:58):
going to record. And it did.
I knew I manifested it.
Mike ITAR. So whatever you weresaying about being at a low
point energetically at this timeof year is no longer the case.
(21:18):
Well, I just made a keytarappear across the other side.
Right? Are you inyour way? California? Yeah.
Yeah, a giant instrument. CHADDinstrument is now sitting at the
bottom of the stairs that I'mnot going to bring up yet. So
we're done.
I'm gonna have to cut a clip.
Even if it doesn't end up on theInstagram clip. I want to send
(21:40):
you the clip of your face whenthe doorbell rang. Because the
pure just delight enjoy thatmoment was, I feel like you need
to be able to see that. That wasThat was fantastic. I'm very
happy just for that moment. Thatjust happened during the
recording. We shouldmake. We can make a little just
a looping boomerang video. Yeah.
(22:04):
Yeah. A great delight to give.
Yeah.
So I want to hear what you weresaying. So you said this time of
year, typically, for 11 or 12years now? Yeah, have this thing
happen? Or something like thatis what I understood.
Yeah. And I think a lot of itfor me, I think, you know, we,
(22:25):
we all have seasons, and thenthere's the literal actual
seasons going on. In the world,you know, because our
understanding of the self thatwe get just through osmosis in
school, in this culture is solimited to just a few different
subjects and ways of thinking,and leaves a lot of other stuff
(22:46):
on the table. And I'm learning,you know, for the first time
ever, this season, I'm startingto understand that there might
be something to me beingsensitive to the changes in the
astrological seasons. And sothere's like a one two punch at
this time of year of it beingScorpio season, which is a
(23:08):
season that's very, you know, inyour feelings very deep, very
emotional. And then the timechange, and all of a sudden, the
days are getting significantlyshorter yesterday, just so for
the listeners, we're recordingthis on Monday, November 8. So
yesterday was the first day thatyou know, we had the time go
(23:29):
back. And I found myself I waslike, I feel kind of depressed.
And I think it's because I feelthat like the seasons shifted,
and I feel that in my body. Butif you had asked me, you know,
even just a year or two ago, I'dbe like, I don't know, October,
November just kind of suck forme. I don't know why, like, you
(23:50):
know what I mean? And so,because I was able to kind of
recognize, regardless of whatthe cause is just kind of being
able to recognize that theremight be something greater than
myself, kind of adding to thisenergy that I'm feeling, it
allowed me the grace to be ableto say, you know, maybe, maybe
there's a couple things on my todo list, they don't need to get
done today. Or maybe, you know,maybe today is not going to go
(24:14):
exactly how I planned or maybe Ineed to do something I you know,
what actually ended up doing Istarted to do a bunch of like
creative stuff, and that helpedme feel better. You know, and I
was like, you know, I need tochannel this energy into
something as opposed to just belike, I just got to go Go, go,
go go. And I feel like in ourculture a lot of the times it's
like no excuses JUST GO GO GO GOGO and it's like, I actually get
(24:35):
a lot more done when I listen tothose ebbs and flow of my energy
and give my body what it needsin the moment so that on the
times when I do feel on top ofthe world and I can just go go
go I'm equipped to do it becauseI'm not all battle wounded from
trying to force it when it whenI just didn't have the energy
when during those low, lowperiods, you know,
(24:57):
I still hear you and I'm veryI'm excited for the fact that
you are able to tune in andconnect to your body feeling and
then attend to the needs.
energetic and physical. Right,especially knowing what I know
of your journey, specificallywith physicality. It's the very
(25:20):
specifically, not justobviously, obviously, but it has
a very specific physicalcomponent to it. Yeah. And what
I'm learning myself about traumaand dissociation like somatic
dissociation. For someone likeme, for example, I spent most of
(25:43):
my life not understanding whatpeople meant when they said,
Just feel it in your body orfeel your feeling just feel your
feelings and then let them go.
And I would want to flip them,you know, just the middle finger
of the eye. What are you talkingabout? There's a lot of thoughts
in my head. I'm in my head alot. Yeah, but I thought
everyone was I didn't know whatit meant to be in your head a
(26:04):
lot. I'm like, this is just howI know it to be. It's like you
don't know what you don't know.
You only know the experience ofthe wild you have is from your
experience of it. And then frompeople describing their
experience, but you can't reallybe inside their head, which is
funny because I'm a super Empathand I can really, I can pick up
on other people's feelingsemotions very easily. But I was
(26:27):
so good or bad that I kind of Ididn't know how to feel my own
feelings. I didn't know youknow, when they weren't for the
longest time. My previoustherapist and I worked together
for three years and I remembernoticing she she was trained in
somatic and dance therapy,specifically sexual use
(26:47):
expressive arts and dancetherapy. And she we've we came
to a point where I realized thatI don't know how to sense
somewhere between like,somewhere halfway through my
chest and like, the my torsolike my belly region. I
couldn't, I was like, I don'tknow, how does it Can you sense
the feeling of there's no,there's like blank spots.
(27:09):
There's blank spots in my memoryfrom my childhood and there's
blank spots in my ability tofeel sensations in my body, not
like physical numbness, it'slike an emotional numbness of
sorts. And it's starting to comeback. online now. So I'm, as I
do the work more as I amdeveloping internal, self worth,
(27:32):
self compassion, self love, andin relationship to myself or
parts of myself and inrelationship to all parts of
others. Because I work in arelational system now I
understand my internal self as asystem of thoughts that are all
in harmony or relative harmonyor some disharmony or sometimes
(27:55):
it polarized and fightingagainst each other. Right. Like
we have a critic and a judge anda cheerleader. And, and so many,
right, and like the, the nosyanti Biden, there's many, right
and anxious by it, and I'mworried by it and like a high
performer by the creative partof these. So they all kind of
they have their own littlesystem of functioning. As I
(28:17):
learn to work with my ownsystem. holistically, I'm able
to physically send sensingsignals from my body, like what
when people say, listen to yourbody, and I didn't understand
what that meant, either. But Idon't know what you're talking
about. I literally meant. And soI'm applauding your clear
(28:38):
progress and be able to hear andthen listen to your body in a
way that might not have been thecase for you previously.
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciatethat. And you test a little bit
on ifs the different parts. Oh,yeah, yeah, we yeah, we talked
(29:03):
about in that. That's remember,out of all the books that I
read, I read like 50 books in2020. And the one that I like,
recommend the most out of allthose books is Jonathan Van SS
memoir, where they talk about AIwell, okay, so here's the thing,
so, and maybe some of thelisteners can relate to so, you
(29:23):
know, I didn't go to college.
And even if I did, I would haveonly studied certain, you know,
a certain subject, right.
There's so many things thatlike, all experience it or I'll
kind of hear about it throughlike a stories such as, you
know, John Jimenez, his lifestory, something like that. And
(29:44):
I'll be like, Oh, this really,you know, like resonates with
me, this makes a lot of sense tome. And then way down the line.
I'll kind of hear about like theacademic side, you have the real
textbook definition. I'll belike, Oh, well, this is
something that I've been doingall along, but I learned From
this, I did it. I learned itfrom that. Another, you know,
when I learned about attachmenttheory, they talked about like
(30:07):
an attachment, like arelationship inventory that you
could do to kind of understandyour attachment patterns better.
And I'm meeting this just acouple months ago, and I'm like,
Well, I've known how to do thissince I was 22. And I was in a
12 step program, because that'sthe exact same thing that they
have you do in your fourth step,but except apply it to all of
(30:29):
your life. The only differencewith the attachment thing is
that it was, you know, hyperfocused on just your
relationships, but it was theexact same like the instructions
were like word for word thesame, they probably stole it
from a actually, maybe, youknow, what I stole is a strong
word. But you know, that'sprobably like where they got,
you know, some of thatinspiration from. So when we're
(30:49):
talking on the phone a fewmonths ago, any and you were
explaining ifs this internalfamily system, and you're
explaining the different parts,just as you explain it, right
now, I remember being like, Oh,this is this reminds me of
Jonathan Van Ness. And whenJonathan Van Ness said in their
book really resonated with me alot and really helped me a lot.
(31:12):
And you're like, they're they'rein this they're part of this
they like wrote like anintroduction to like, one of the
like, the newest eating books onit or something.
Yeah, this book by the founder,which is gone no bad parts by
Dick Schwarz, Richard Schwartz,name is the introduction has GB
ns, like a little box offreight, it's a little highlight
(31:36):
box of their experience withthis modality. And I think in
the previous book, the kind ofthe seminal book, I think, has
an introduction by AlanisMorissette, who also was
profoundly impacted by thiswork. So it is a model that
tends to be particularlyeffective. I, in my opinion with
(31:56):
it, I think it works for a lotof people, I'm not going to say
it's the best thing for everyonehow to say that about any one
thing. But I get the sense forartistic, creative, sensitive,
intuitive, emotional peoplewith, you know, big hearts, big
feelings, maybe who don't fit ineasily into neat little boxes in
(32:17):
the world. And maybe have feltlike at least maybe I'm echoing
some of my own experience. But Ifelt like edge dwellers, right?
They don't belong anywhere, ormaybe even had like a decent
enough upbringing. And I likewhat's the big deal? What is my
big problem, and everyone'saround is like, you know, you
were fed clothed, houseeducated, like, what's the big
deal? Our systems areparticularly sensitive in a way
(32:39):
that often can get judged, likeyou have too many feelings,
you're too emotional, etc, etc.
Just, you know, zip it, controlit, clamp it down and go 95 or
living just right. And itdoesn't work. It's like, some
people are designed to behammers hammers are great in the
world. And some people like meare design, and possibly you I'm
(33:00):
guessing, are designed likeGeiger counters. And if you're
asking, right with that kind ofsensitivity, like I will, I may
not be able to build you ahouse, but I can let you know
when it's about to collapse.
Right? Since I can sense thetrauma coming. Yeah, so each
have each has its place. But ifyou're asking a Geiger counter
to become a hammer, becausethere's just lots of hammers in
(33:23):
the world, it's not helpful.
It's very isolating, it's veryseparating, and we're trying to
now find space for other kindsof people. There's diversity,
natural diversity exists in theworld. And so this is a way of
us integrating our own diverseparts and being able to first be
(33:44):
okay with ourselves as we are.
Because God knows we've goodnessknows that we've been socialized
culturally and otherwise, to notbe okay with ourselves with a
lot of internalized all kindsof, right. Oh, yes. So the the
(34:10):
amount of shame, low self worth,queer phobia, misogyny, like all
of these internalizedhomophobia, all of these things.
If we are not able to, I justsay, you know, I'm a walking,
I'm a walking laboratory, I canalways do this on the inside,
(34:30):
like other things, and otherpeople may not be with me all
the time and outside of mycontrol, but I can always go in
inside this lab and play insidehere. And if I do the play, I
don't even think of it as workanymore. It's it is my pleasure.
It's difficult. It's not it's,it's juicy. It's meaty, and it's
(34:56):
challenging, but I like a goodchallenge. I like a hard
question and I like a good Humanchallenge. And the people
responding to this work, in myview, these kinds of people
sensitive, marginalized, oftenstruggling a lot invisibly. And
(35:16):
so I think there is great valueto the doing this, okay, there
is for me anyways, and I havereally good teachers. Right now
I'm very grateful for my way tothis also, just like you very
intuitively, I had a spontaneousexperience of talking to my
rageful dragon Part A few yearsago, which completely changed
the course of my life. And manypeople who come upon this word
(35:39):
come upon it like this, becauseit's so intuitive. I didn't know
what it was then. And later,just like you, someone was like,
Oh, that's a thing. That's aIt's a framework. And there's
other frameworks. There areother such frameworks. And that
seems to me, but some, it's notdissimilar in some ways to
distort therapy, for example.
And there's a couple othermodels that, you know, there's
(36:00):
some overlap. So none of thesethings, I think, you know,
where's like, the crown of thebest and the only and all of
that, but we find, I feel likewe find our way to the thing
that that is there for useventually. And I'm kind of
getting there. Right now, in myway.
(36:21):
Yeah, I think I think that makesa lot of sense. Like, we're,
we're so conditioned to fitourselves into these boxes,
where it's almost, it's almostlike, at least for me, my
experience has been like reallyunderstood, like, really
internalizing and understandingthe vastness of the diversity in
(36:43):
humanity, in contrast to what wewere taught, is the experience
of humanity. And like reallyunderstanding that I fit some,
you know, somewhere in, in allthat, like, I am a human, but
what it means to be human is somuch bigger than what I
understand it, it's reallyhelped me a lot. I don't know if
(37:07):
you've ever heard of it, the onething I've been thinking about a
lot to kind of, like,contextualize it is. There's
people, usually people on themore conservative side who will
say, you know, oh, there's toomany letters and LGBTQI. Like,
you know, there's too much.
Yeah. And my, my response tothat is that they're, they're
kind of right, there are toomany letters. But the reason why
(37:29):
isn't because of anything goingon with the queer community. The
reason why there's too manyletters is because as a culture,
we're so insistent that thedefault is this completely
cisgendered, completelyheterosexual normative, that is
so insufficient to reallycapture the wide variety that is
(37:55):
human expression. And when itcomes to things as close to home
as gender and sexuality, that ofcourse, if you're insistent that
this is going to be the default,it is going to take a lot of
what will probably feel likeover explaining to try to fit
the other, because it's likethey're straight. And then
there's other and so many thingsare getting piled into that
(38:16):
other because the reality isthat really being cisgendered
being heterosexual andcompletely, you know, far on the
far end of the Kinsey scale inthat direction is a variation.
It's not the default. It's avariation. You know, and so
let'ssay a rainforest only has grass
in it. Exactly. The grass andeverything else. And like, look
(38:38):
around you, there's a lothappening in this rainforest.
Exactly. All those things areinterconnected. They all depend
on each other and feed eachother and to each other and
exist coexist with each other inwhat might seem like messy,
(38:58):
imperfect, yet harmoniouscoexistence. You take away one
and you you know, it's like thebutterfly effect. You take away
one and there's a ripple effecton the whole system. And maybe
some people want just like, youknow, clear square of astroturf
in their backyard, and that'sthe that that's how they want to
(39:20):
live.
Yeah. And that's, and that'syour choice because, like you
said, you know, it's it's, it ishow it feels, it feels like
play, I think just becauseBecause I agree, it feels like
play it's really fun. I enjoydigging into those parts of
myself learning about myself,being able to be more okay with
(39:43):
myself. Excuse me, um, but it ishard and it is scary. And the
other thing I think, too, thatI'm like learning is that
there's no there is no like rulethat says that you must do this
work like there. is no, there isit is all completely optional.
(40:04):
You can live a life withoutdoing any of this. It's
completely, like extra creditfor lack of a better term. And
and, you know, I don't know,well, okay. I don't know, this
is a great segue. But let me letme ask you this because I've
(40:24):
looked back on my life. And Ican see how certain
circumstances led me towards apath where doing all this stuff,
feels easier feels not not easy,but it feels like the obvious
choice, I guess. You know, like,I got outed as a member of the
(40:45):
LGBT community when I was 13. Ina small town. That was a very
horrible experience at the time.
But the reality is that it gaveme an experience really early on
in life, of embodying my truthand being okay, doing that,
which I think is, you know, oneof many experiences that helps
lay down a foundation being ableto do this work now. What do you
think it was for you? That waskind of that tipping point, even
(41:11):
if it wasn't a tipping point,but But have you thought about,
like, why? How you came about,you know, doing this work and
finding it to be in yourexperience the obvious choice as
opposed to not doing the work?
This is a great question. I lovea good question. I mean, on one
(41:36):
hand, I feel like I was born todo this. Yeah. I've been curious
about people, since as long as Ican remember. Yeah, I've been
curious about people andobservant about, like, I observe
people in great detail. I'm adetail oriented person. So I
(41:57):
listen to the words I listen tothe tone, I will see body
language, I will notice whatshows someone is hurting, and I
often will compliment them onthat game. I'm very observant.
You know, I really liked mysterystories and Detective kind of
(42:18):
stuff Sherlock Holmes and thegood detective stuff growing up,
I read a lot of Britishliterature, having grown up in
India, so we were exposed to alot of British literature for
the English stuff that we read.
And I was always drawn tomysteries, and especially human
mysteries, where like someonewould do something that was kind
of outside of their norms,you're observing like variations
from some radio observing apattern and then breaks in the
(42:42):
pattern. So I'm really good atfinding what might be a pattern,
and then what might be ananomaly to the pattern, for
example, and that always givesme a clue. So I've always got
like a little Sherlock Holmesbrain going on. I'm an extremely
curious individual. And I'm avery creative individual. I like
that the creativity is like it,a lot of its centers. It's
(43:03):
either, you know, making music,making art or understanding and
being curious about humanbeings. So in one sense, on one
hand, as I was saying, I feellike my personality is designed
for this. I also love talking tostrangers. That's a curious part
of me, I most days, I will talkto at least a couple of
(43:27):
strangers a day, either on theinternet or in person right on
the street, and get into deepconversations. So I also love
conversation. And so that's onepart of it. And I think the
other part, I mean, gettingspecifically to the AFS work is
probably my journey with rage,my personal journey with rage
(43:47):
has been instrumental, which wastied to my marriage, which ended
up not working out, largely dueto the fact that I was
experiencing such tremendousamounts of rage, and I didn't
know what to do about it. And Ididn't feel good when I
experienced it. And I didn'tfeel good about the judgment
(44:12):
that comes with being someonelike that, because it's so
misunderstood. And at the time,I didn't know anything. If you
had talked to me about shame atthe time, I would not I would
have punched you in the face. Iwould have said not us. I would
have said I don't even know whatyou're talking about. This has
nothing to do with me or shameor anything. This is like the
(44:35):
other person's fault becausethat this this this I was so
focused on my own stuckness inthis relationship, and it was a
relationship that was a problemand it was also the other person
that was a problem and it was alot of that and it was it was
uncontrollable. It eventuallybecame chronic, uncontrollable
and completely we at that point,it felt like the work was not
(44:58):
Shall I Yeah. I have madedesperate phone calls to
professional places asking forhelp, in the worst of it saying,
I don't know if I'm going tomake it through the night. And
I'm not exaggerating. So therecomes a point for people
sometimes. And I hope. I'm alsowanting to talk about this a lot
(45:23):
so that folks know that itdoesn't have to get like that
I'm not anyone to dictateanyone's journey or story,
because mine involves getting toan really not good place. And
others go to that place anddon't come back. Or they go
further. And then they comeback, right, everyone has a
different story. But part of mywork in being vocal and open
(45:45):
about my journey now that Idon't experience the flooding of
emotions when I talk about it,because when I first started
talking about my rage, journey,people wouldn't believe me, just
like, they don't believe thatI'm Indian, because I'm too
light skinned, or your hair istoo short, or your English is
too good. I'm like, whatstereotype do you have in your
mind?
Okay, so what it meansevery I have spent so much time
(46:07):
explaining my existence in theworld to people. Yeah. And then
take it as an opportunity now tohave conversations rather than
be upset about it. Like if theydon't know, then they're
curious. And now I can help youknow, like, there are also
people like me in the world whodon't fit any need box. And we
can have a conversation aboutthat, and what stereotypes you
(46:29):
might be bringing to that, andwhat your experience might be,
and how you might expand theexperience, if you're willing to
if you wish to. So my ragejourney was a big kind of more
pointed focus, even though it'staken many, many, many, many,
many years. And a lot of innersearching work to bring me to
the point of like, okay, there'sa, there's a model and a
framework, and there's languagearound it that I can use, that
(46:52):
helps me and that helps thepeople that I'm looking to
serve. And so that's kind of onthe other hand, one hand I was
born to do this, I've been doingthis all my life, and then the
rage, shame and unhealed traumajourney, I mean, it's all kind
of unhealed is like presumesthat you're broken in some way.
(47:13):
And then one day, you'll befixed completely. And I don't
buy that either. And really, mywork is like, I don't give
anyone that here's some tips andtricks and hacks and some neat
little solutions in a box andfollow this seven step strategy
to get to a from A to B, my workis creating a safe space for
people to lead by example, toshare openly my experience and
what I know, to be very open towho they are and be able to
(47:37):
witness and hear and see them asthey are. And often people have
not been given a space to fullyexplore and express themselves
without judgment, without beinglabeled with some illness or
disorder or defect in any way tosimply be viewed as they are for
(48:00):
the humanity that is in them.
And something magical happenswhen there's that safe space
created. When people can putdown and put words to the
burdens that they're carrying,the shame that they carry, the
(48:21):
struggles that they're having.
And these are very hidden thingsthat you're not allowed to talk
to talk about, even some oftento your spouse, hidden
behaviors, compulsive behaviors,voices in their head that say
you're not okay. Because if theywant to number out or check out,
right, even if they're there,they're, you know, the body's
(48:43):
going but the rest of them iskind of offline. And so really
my work is that, like certainpeople, I'm not the only one
doing this work. But certainpeople will resonate, either
with the way I speak, or theexperience that I've had. It's
similar to a right like, why isit that they're not it's not a
(49:04):
roomful of licensed therapistsand counselors, it's people
who've had the lived experienceand have lived through the
transformation are continuing tolive through the transformation.
And there's some legitimacyhugely legitimacy and being in
those rooms with people who aregoing through it or have gone
through and walk away you havebalked. Absolutely. And offer
you the respect of your ownjourney being yours. I'm not
(49:28):
going to foist my, my journey onyou. Yours may take twists and
turns and we can hold her I willjust hold my light for you as
you walk and find your own lightuntil it is strong enough to
like somebody else's path andyours as well.
I love I love that analogy. Igotta I gotta tell you something
(49:52):
about that line analogy but I'mgoing to save that for me once
we stop the recording. Sorrylisteners. I But yeah, I love
that. Thank you for sharingthat. I love everything that you
have to say. And I think, youknow, kind of what comes to me a
little bit is, you know, whenyou're really first I think
you're right, that does get to apoint I think where it's, you
(50:14):
know, if you get to do the workand choose to do the work
beforehand, gray or if your lifenever yes is point great, but I
think there are a lot ofsituations where it's like this
or die, which sounds like wasthe position that you were in.
But I think if you're if you'rereally curious about other
people, it becomes really fun torealize that you can take that
(50:34):
same curiosity about otherpeople and turn that inward.
That's exactly what it is. Infact, I just realized, even
though this is a podcast andthey will not be able to see but
I have here behind me, you'll beable to see it. I have here
behind me a little golden fabricegg. And inside this fabric
(50:57):
golden egg with scales on it,Nibs, Dragon puppet,
golden and Black Dragon puppetthat comes out of the egg. This
is my this is my rage dragon.
All the Rage that burned througha lot of my life. That is not it
was protected in nature. I knowthis now. It was well intended
in nature, but was judgedotherwise. I've understood now
(51:20):
its fears and its motivationsand its hopes and desires for
me. And now it is a puppet andit is always near me. And we
have a very good relationship.
We have a very good relationshipmy rage and I have very close,
my rage has now become anextremely powerful creative
(51:43):
force rather than a destructiveforce. And allows me to create
the music that I make, I havetwo bands one is I'm a punk band
about punk trio. And I get to bemy completely unrated crazy
Rayji self. And there's a wholeother look to it and everything.
(52:09):
And it's like there's like agoddess energy that flows right
through me I don't even knowwhere it comes from. It is
completely channeled iscompletely channeled, instead of
positive dissociation like myrage used to be a destructive
negative dissociation back inthe day. And now it is similar
but it's like a state of flowlike pure creative flow. And
just the same is the sameenergy. I've just been able to
(52:30):
flip the switch I think justlike it's an easy thing like
point to a shutdown of work. Andunderstanding and self
forgiveness also understandunderstanding and compassion and
forgiveness and people talkabout self love. And people talk
about compassion. And peopletalk about forgiveness and
surrender and letting go andnobody showed me how and now I
(52:51):
feel like I have a way and bekind to yourself but how love
yourself but how Becompassionate yourself forgiving
yourself but How about how abouthow I'm a process person and
when you said right the diggingis infinite. You can keep
digging and digging and there'sno end. I am a process person I
(53:12):
fall in love with process. Andwhen you're in love with the
process, the end goal ceases tomatter because you are just in
love with the doing of it at thebeing a bit.
Yeah.
And that's my breathing in andout as I breathe in and out. I
am doing the play and doingwork. That's it.
(53:34):
Yeah, it just becomes part oflife. Hey, thank you so much for
showing me your your dragonpuppet. That's a cool little
puppet. Puppet Yeah, that'sgreat. I yeah, thank you so
much. I think I think we'repretty much at a time Gosh, this
was this went by super quicklyeven with the even with you
adding a little bit more time tocompensate for the FedEx
(53:56):
interruption. This was I just Ilove talking to you Rana. I'm so
you know, there's just certainpeople that you meet and it
feels like especially becausethe wild circumstances that it
takes to meet it just feels likecertain people are in your life
for a reason. There's noaccident in meeting and you
definitely feel like one ofthose people to me. I love
watching your journey. I loveseeing what you're doing. And
(54:19):
another thing to talk aboutafter recording I may be
spending more time in Boston. Sowe'll we'll talk we'll talk
about that. We'll see butmy excited face again. Oh yeah.
It's very exciting.
I will say you were definitelymore excited for the guitar but
it's okay. It's okay. Iunderstand. You can see me and
(54:41):
talk to me online. You can'tlike play a guitar online. So I
understand. I'm not I'm notoffended but yeah.
I would be very excited to seeyou in the area and also I'm
this close to setting my ownpodcast again. I did one last
(55:04):
year. And we met on a podcast,umbrella of doing podcast, you
know, making a podcast and I'vebeen putting that off for a
while. For good reason. It'sokay. I'm not gonna have any
pressure. But I'm inspired tojust kind of push the button and
go with that. And you I invitedto be on that.
Yes, I'm so excited. Iabsolutely whenever that's up
(55:27):
and running again. Yeah, nopressure, but whenever it's up
and running, I'm down. I'm down.
Awesome. Raina, thank you somuch again, where would you like
listeners to find you or followyou on the internet?
I think at this point, since Istill have no website and I
don't know if I will. Instagramis my favorite platform at the
moment. Right? It lets me postand write and make art and
(55:50):
comics and and reptile stories.
So I am at the punk monk Pu andKn O and K on Instagram. So come
find me there and we can play.
Awesome. And the link link is inthe show notes for that
listeners. Raina again, thankyou so much. And I will tell I
guess Ricky I made it veryclear. I've always liked by even
(56:15):
though we're just on therecording, but this time, it's
like very obvious that the callsnot ending, you know, ruining
the magic here for those.
Thank you for having me. You'rethe best. I really enjoy your
company and your presence.
Thank you so much. All right nowI'm gonna press stop by
(56:39):
Raina Thank you, thank you,thank you for coming on to the
show. having this conversationwith me. Oh, my gosh, what a
wonderful time. And it's anamazing, y'all, you know, peek
behind the curtain. I you know,I record these ahead of time,
obviously. And at the time ofrecording this interview in the
(56:59):
beginning of November, I knewthat I wanted it to likely be
the first episode that comes outin December, right. And during
the interview, as you heard, Iwas telling Raina that I was
probably going to hopefully bespending more time in Boston.
That is 100%. What's happening.
The the winds of change areblowing me Eastern bound. We'll
(57:24):
just put it like that for now.
But what's amazing is that Iplanned a trip to Boston, and
then realized after the factthat I would actually be in
Boston today, if you'relistening to this when the
episode drops on on Tuesday,December 7. And I told us to
(57:45):
rain on like, Hey, I'm going tobe in Boston, like when this
episode drops. And Raina says,Oh my gosh, that evening has
just opened up for me. Likelet's do something, let's get on
live like, you know, all ofthese ideas kind of start
floating around. So be on thelookout on both Instagram and
Tik Tok. If you're listening tothis, the day the show comes
(58:06):
out, I'm sure I'll announce somestuff on Instagram as well. Or
maybe not, maybe it'll besomething spontaneous. But I
just love how all of that linedup, I was already going to be in
Boston anyway, I was alreadygoing to post this episode
anyway. And the fact that thesetwo things kind of happen at the
same time. It's just I don'tknow, I love stuff like that.
(58:29):
As, as always, thank you so muchfor being on this journey with
me. You know, when I startedthis podcast, what's seven
months ago now, I had no ideareally what I was trying to do.
I just knew that I had no ideawhat direction my life was gonna
go. And I had to do something.
And the connections that I'vemade as a result of this podcast
(58:52):
have been literally lifechanging. I mean, gosh, I have,
there's so many people that I'vehad on this show that I just I
really really look up to. Rainis one of them. I mean, just
about everybody that's come ontothis show is someone that I
really look up to, you know, atthe end of every episode we'll
do I always say, Stay evolving.
(59:17):
I've never really gotten intowhy I say that. You know, I
started saying stay evolving,because to me, I feel like
that's what life is all about.
We're constantly growing intomore and more authentic versions
of ourselves, or at leasthopefully, right like, that's
hopefully what we're doing.
That's what I tried to do atleast. And part of that is
(59:41):
really trusting that still smallvoice inside of me. You know,
and that was the voice that toldme to start this podcast to
begin with. Don't worry aboutwhat direction it's going to
take you and like just do it.
Just trust the process. And atthis point, it's that same
voice. It's telling telling methat this podcast is just about
served its purpose. And I haveone more episode already
(01:00:06):
recorded ready to go. I'm notquite sure what's going to
happen from there. I might go ona hiatus immediately after that
podcast, or immediately afterthat episode, I might record a
couple more things before goingon hiatus. But there's so much
change happening in my life, I'mgoing to start spending time on
(01:00:28):
the East Coast, I'm starting afull time job in tech that I'm
actually really excited about.
I can't, I'm not quite ready toannounce exactly where I'm
going. But I will say that I'llbe working very closely with a
former guest of the show. So I'msuper, super excited about that.
(01:00:49):
My tic toc is growing into thisamazing space for me to be able
to have a creative outlet, whilealso connecting to the queer and
trans community there. And myvalues are becoming clearer and
the the ways that I want tospend my time are shifting, I've
(01:01:11):
become very aware of the energythat I'm putting out into the
world, and really wanting to bedeliberate with how and where I
spend that energy. And all thatbeing said, if this podcast is
to continue, it's going to needto be a new season with a
completely different direction.
Where that direction will beexactly I don't know. I know
(01:01:34):
it's going to be more closelyinvolved with the LGBTQIA
community that much I can sayfor sure. The influences of
capitalism that motivated thispodcast in the beginning need to
be dismantled, there's justthere's a lot of change that
(01:01:54):
would need to happen. But that'skind of the whole point of it.
Right? You know, it This podcastwas never meant to be the exact
same thing carbon copied overand over again, I named this
podcast the Leo Yockey show,because I didn't want it to be
tied to any kind of purpose orpoint or format. I wanted it to
(01:02:15):
be able to grow and evolve as Igrow and evolve. So while I'm
taking this break, however longthat may be, it's really
important to me that when I comeback, this feels like an
authentic expression of who I amat this point, and not, you know
who I was earlier this year. Soanyway, like I said, I have I
(01:02:37):
definitely have at least onemore episode coming out. That'll
be a really special one, too.
This will be my first timehaving multiple guests on a
single episode. Some of thefolks that I volunteer with at
Noho home alliance will betalking about the housing crisis
in LA and some of the thingsthat we're doing to to address
(01:02:58):
it, and some of the challengesand rewards that come with that.
It'll be the last episode of2021 possibly the last episode
of the season, possibly the lastepisode ever. I'm again, I'm not
100% Sure. There's a lot ofchange in the air in my world.
And again, just thank you somuch for being on this journey
(01:03:21):
with me. Shout out to all of thefriends that have just helped me
and supported me on thisjourney. Old and New Reina Of
course, being one of them. Andyeah, I'm really excited for the
direction that my life isheading in. I'm really, really
excited for the direction that alot of my friends lives are
(01:03:42):
heading in. It's been anincredible journey. I really
appreciate all of the love thatI've gotten from all of you both
in and outside of the context ofthis podcast. I could ramble on
forever. I don't really know howto wrap this up other than
again, just saying thank you. Ihope you stick around for this
(01:04:04):
next episode coming out in twoweeks, which is December 21.
Just in time for the holidays.
Keep an eye out on social mediafor stuff that I'll be doing
with Reina today, December 7. Ifyou're listening to this on
December 7, please follow me onTik Tok. If you're on there, I'm
having a blast there. Stay safe.
(01:04:28):
Protect your energy. Take careof yourself. Stay evolving.
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