Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty The Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome back to The Doctor Wendy
Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. My guest doctor
Anthony Reading, psychologist and UCLA professor, an expert on trauma.
We've been talking about what happens when someone deals with
(00:21):
this kind of trauma. Doctor Redding, you know, I'm sorry.
I know I'm asking you to relive it again, but
you know you have lost your own home in this,
so you are literally in the trauma that you have
researched and reported on for most of your lifetime. Now
that you are experiencing it, is it what you imagined?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, I didn't imagine it the all.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I can.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
It comes in waves and the reliving it comes in ways.
Certain times, and many people will experience waking or having
a dream where they think what happened didn't happen and
everything is intact, and they wake up and regainful consciousness
(01:07):
and realizing was in the dream and that shock and
then return. I myself use writing to process. I wanted
to capture my last few hours in the house because
over time those memories will become in the stinct and
I wanted to lay down a memory of what it
(01:31):
felt like.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
To be there.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So would you recommend that to people that they write
the memories of their home, even what it looked like.
And should they be looking at photographs of the phone
could of their home?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Would that be a treatment?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It could be. You know, I lived in that home
for thirty years and designed the home it was built.
I had very special memories my whole life in America
in that home. There's no one set formula. I think
it's important not to spend. It's to resume a lifestyle
(02:12):
even though it change as much as possible, gain social support.
Look at how both with grief that helpful or constructive.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
We can both visit negative memories and sense of loss
and also positive memories, and people should be aware of
their memories and associations are uniformly negative and that a
sign that there may be encroaching depression, which we want
to stress as well in treat if that's the case.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Earlier on, can.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
We talk about early symptoms of trauma versus longer, more
chronic symptoms or even delayed symptoms that present later. Can
you help people understand the distinction between those.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, certainly people can be in denial or they can
have a like in congruous aspects this sort of trauma,
people need to process it in different ways, but not
allow them to indulph in to resume some modicum of lifestyle,
(03:20):
engaging with others, looking at ways of reconstituting, re establishing
their lives.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
If they have it, can still go.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
To work, that's helpful.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
If they can resume their prior lifestyle, childcare, whatever it is,
that's going to be helpful.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Spoke yes, I'm sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I spoke with one woman today who got a call
from the owner of the Plate studio that she worked
out with regularly, and they said, will you come back
in and she said, I can't. I don't have any
plates clothes, I don't have any exercise clothes. And they said,
just come stay on your schedule, we'll get you the clothes,
and that when she got there where everyone had donated
(04:02):
new stuff for her so that she can maintain at
least her exercise routine. So this is what you're talking about,
trying to maintain the routines that you can because it
gives some sense of control.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, control and resuming one's life, and of course that
exposes one positive experience. It's particularly exercise, larity, giogo, meditation.
Those are all helpful both in terms of the social
support the fact is positive, but also there's a therapeutic
in terms of downregulating arousal which occurs in stress loss
(04:37):
and trauma. That arousal needs to be dissipated and that's important.
So sleep is important, being able to sleep, exercise, not
outside with the air quality once again, doing what one can, diet,
resuming things that one did before, even though it may
seem different. Of course the quality the mood associated may
(05:04):
be variable.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And you talk about protecting young children from parents anguish.
How can parents do that.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, not to ignore it, certainly, to express their own feelings,
but to comfort the child by reassuring them that things
will recover, by getting the children back to what they're
used to doing, however different it may be, showing that
(05:35):
everything's going to be all right. It's very important, and
also enabling the child to talk, not having the child
protect the parents because they feel a certain spects in
discussing anything because they see their parents distressed.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yes, I loved one of bits of advice that I
saw that you gave online, that parents should be cuddling
their children, validating their feelings, cuddling with pets, whatever we
need to be together in this time. It's brilliant advice,
Doctor Redding. I know you're gonna hear it from thousands
of people. My heart goes out to you, having lost
(06:16):
your home. I do hope that you are surrounded yourself
with people, family and friends and loved ones who can
make you laugh from time to time as your brain
works through this terrible, terrible event. Thanks for being with us,
Thank you very much. Web You're listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere
(06:37):
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7 (06:40):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty Welcome back to.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty
Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. I never thought I
would be saying that, Thank goodness, Chef Jose Andres and
his World Central Kitchen is helping people in my own city.
I see them in Ukraine, I see them in Afghanistan.
(07:07):
I see them at Hurricane Katrina. I mean I see
them at big disaster zones, and here is his amazing
work here in Los Angeles. For those of you who
are displaced, especially in the Altadena area, I just want
to let you know that the world famous chef Chef
Jose Andres, whose charity World Central Kitchen shows up in
(07:30):
disaster scenes to feed people, is doing it here. Rose
Bowl lot F from five thirty to nine, serving dinner
every night for free if you are in need. Saint
Francis School in La Kenyata, Flintridge from noon to five.
That's where you can get your lunch. Arco on Fair
Oaks Avenue and East Woodbury Road in Altadena from one
(07:53):
pm to five pm every day, at a Jack in
the Box on North Windsor Avenue in Altadena from five
thirty pm to ten pm. And a Pasadena City College
on Colorado Boulevard from five pm until nine pm. There's
something so important about food, and of course Chef Jose
(08:13):
Andres will say that it is the politician's who actually
have to do the long term work. It's not just
about a meal. Today, let's take a listen.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
We need to remember that we cannot leave these communities forgotten.
Obviously everybody has to remember them. We need to find
ways so they can start reconstruction. And obviously when we
talk about the federal government, that's where the Fed government
plays a big role. We need to make sure that
the people that lost their jobs, probably for weeks a month,
they are not going to have an income, that we
(08:45):
take care of those people. This is the type of
things we need to make sure that our politicians on
one side under the other they're going to start arguing
on fingerpointing, but working with a smart policy so in
these events we can make sure that people are taking
care of is what Wis and Drogitchen does be. Next
to the people, we activated one hour after the fires began,
(09:06):
because unfortunately, we have a lot of experience in fires
and a lot of team members in LA and as
we saw that the fires keep growings, we keep adding
more team members, more food trucks, and we're feeding people
in shelters, we're feeding first responders, we are adapting because
the situation keeps evolving there by day, and we are
in every community, in every shelter or in the places
(09:30):
where the fire trucks gather to make sure that everybody
is receiving food and water.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Speaking of food, it is much more than feeding the stomach.
It is nurturing the soul. My next guest, celebrity chef
Katie Chin, joins us. Katie, are you safe? Have you evacuated?
First of all, we are safe.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
Luckily, we did a little mini evacuation Friday, even though
we weren't in the evacuation because our kids were scared.
But we made it back to our home and Fino,
so we are safe and healthy. Well, you were.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Close enough, you were like a mile away from the
evacuation zone.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
It would make me go to Yeah, I mean, I
just think better to be safe.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
And sorry exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Let's talk a little bit about food and the healing
power of food. I know you are so generous with
your craft, having donated your services to so many charities,
including the Saint Joseph Center here in Los Angeles. What
is it about food and feeding that becomes so important
during a disaster.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
Well, it's a way for communities to come together. We
still all need to eat, we need to be nourished.
It's a way for people to you know, visit with
their neighbors. This horrible disaster is happening. But we need
the love and support of our friends. But what better
way to do that than to cook together and eat together.
(11:00):
Not only that, where you're feeling stressed and anxiety, it's
very important that you eat foods, healthy foods loaded with antioxidants.
Don't eat a bunch of you know, funch fries and
I mean, it's okay once in a while, but it's
very important that we really fill our bodies with nutritious
foods because that's definitely going to help with serotonin and
help us calm down.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Oops.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
You mean all the carbs I've been eating in the
last week not a good thing.
Speaker 6 (11:25):
Like I said, so once in a while, I'm.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Calling it comfort food.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
You know, Chef Katie Chin, I have had the honor
of attending your one woman show that's played at the
Whitefire Theater and the Santa Monica Playhouse. And what's interesting
about your show is that it talks about intergenerational family trauma,
but in every scene there is this theme of food.
Would you care to share how in your life, cooking
(11:54):
with your mother was the go to place whenever there
was trauma.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Well, you know, it really became a love language for
us and many you know, Chinese families and especially our
love is shown through foods. Like I like to say,
if I got all a's, I got a whole fish
and black bean thoughts, if I got all bees, I
got pork showing it was a way to communicate and
to show love and also heal. Like I said, that
(12:22):
was my mother's way of really showing us that she
loved us, because she didn't necessarily have the tools to
do that verbally. Also, it was very meditative me cooking
together with my mother in the kitchen. So much was unsaid,
so much was subtext. But if we got in the
kitchen together and we were able to make dumplings, you know, mindfully, purposefully,
(12:46):
it really we were really healing ourselves, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
And I do want to say to those people out
there who I'm sorry have lost your kitchens, this is
your time to be cared for. This is your time
to be served. So reach out to World Central Kitchen.
Check their locations and their hours. There are volunteers and
also jose Andres says there are volunteer chefs around the
(13:13):
city who are standing on street corners making food for people.
Google around see if you can find out where those
places are because it's your turn. Now, it's your turn
to be served and cared for, cared for by the
city of Los Angeles, meaning it's citizens and people, and
our heart goes out to you.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Katie.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
What last words do you have for those who may
not have a kitchen, who are sitting tonight wondering where
their world is because they've lost their home.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
I would just say, you know, take advantage of the resources,
the amazing work that jose Andres is doing, but reach
out to a friend, ask for help. Everybody wants to
serve in this time, so it's okay, you know, look
for a friends and I guarantee you someone will bring
you into your home and make you hot meal.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, there's so many of us who are like, what
can I do? What can I do? Please give us
the opportunity to give. Chef Katie Chin, thank you for
your wise words of wisdom and good luck as your
one woman show continues.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Holy Shataki. It's called I love the title Holy Shataki,
A walk Stark.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
Stars born and by the way, I am giving a
portion of proceeds to my show this Thursday at the
White Fire Theater at eight o'clock.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Wonderful to fire fire department.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Oh, to the fighters, to the firefighters.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Foundation.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yes, and jose Andris is also out there feeding firefighters,
which is very exciting. He's sending his food trucks out
to the with the.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
Trench Jennifer Garner, which is amazing.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
It's so wonderful. Thanks for being You.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
Can do it anyway, can do it.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Thank you so much for being with us, Chef Katie Chin.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7 (15:06):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Welcome back to the.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. My next guest thankfully did
not lose his home in the fire, but his family
went through jump through some serious hoops to try to
get out, evacuate safely, and even break back in to
(15:36):
be able to check on their home. I'd like to
welcome renowned artist and sculptor Anthony Pearson. I know that
your wife Ramona is also in the background and the
two of you are there I'm so glad that your
home is okay. But there's something interesting you told me, Anthony,
which is there's a reason why your particular small row
(15:57):
of houses in Pacific Palisades survived. Can you explain that.
Speaker 8 (16:04):
Luck?
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Luck?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, luck is the first reason. And then there's the
far paints I bought that I put on my home,
and all the brush I cleared back, and my situational
awareness and my neighbors tending to their property. But luck
is the reason.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Were you.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Were you aware in recent months about the possibility for
fire and danger? Is that why you took these events
to try?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
I've been aware of the possibility since I was nine
years old when I watched the same exact mountain burn
Mount to Mescal, and since nineteen seventy eight it hasn't.
So it would be like if you had a really
curly hair and you didn't get a haircut for sixty
(17:00):
years or something. It just was time, and this is
nature's way, and this has happened since ancient times, and
we knew this day would come, but the manner in
which it happened left us with nothing but a remembrance
of Pacific Thalisades and a remembrance of the community and
(17:23):
a remembrance of the sense of place. Spacific Dallisades is
a completely misunderstood place. People think it's a place for
movie stars and opulent schools, and it's actually a place
where the barber who cut my hair cuts my friend's
kids hair, my junior high school teacher was my daughter's
(17:45):
junior high school teacher build with. It's a neighborhood, and
it's filled with eccentric and apartment dwellers, and you know,
not all money people and not all famous people. When
I was a boy, they had a T shirt and
it said, if you're rich, you live in Beverly Hills.
(18:05):
If you're famous, you live in Malibu. If you're lucky,
you live in Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Oh, it's wonderful now. Earlier you had explained to me
that there was something unique about the topography of your
particular street that may have contributed to the luck you had.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Can you explain that, Well, it's a funny paradox. We
lived up against the slope which last February decided to
move on us and create a mess in our backyard
and mess up my neighbor. And we cursed that slope
because it hovered over us like a dangerous worry it
(18:47):
was a mudslide. Yeah, it was a mud slide, But
that same big slope behind these four or five houses
in a row, it also sheltered us from an ember cast,
So that imber cast went right over us and down below.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Like you lie in.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
The back of a pickup truck and you don't feel
the wind if you like.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It, like when you like that's exactly right. Yeah, So
how many houses on your street survived? We have about
thirty or forty houses on our street, and I think
we lost seven or eight something like that.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
And what is to go back to with all the
burned out streets in order to get there?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Well, you know, there's certain neighborhoods that looks like Dressden.
It's absolutely leveled. And everybody's seen the pictures, and you know,
we live in this world where we look at our
phones and we have what one of my friends called
fire pornography, and all we see these pictures of destruction,
(19:56):
and when you get back in you quickly realize that's
not entirely true. And there's homes and there's buildings, and
there's things still there, and those few things that are
still there. Maybe it's forty percent in some places, ten
percent in others. That's specific. Calisays, Now that's what we have,
and that's okay.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
So you have gone back in to investigate.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I did not go back in to investigate. I came
in to check on my property, but I mostly went
back into put out spotfires, look for my neighbors who
stayed there. I have a neighbor who's ten fifteen years
older than Knees, an incredible hero. He was ripping siding
off of houses and going around feeling for heat in
(20:42):
the walls and extinguishing things. And he and I and
another man with buckets of pool water, we work two
days straight trying to, you know, make sure that nothing
else reignited, and you know. And then I went from
place to place to check on neighbors' homes.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And so some of your neighbors refuse to evacuate.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Several of my neighbors did not leave, yes, And I
felt like I was a fourteen year old kid again,
because I was hopping through vacant lots and jumping over
the walls and lying to the police to make my
way down secret little staircases and up the canyon. And
I went four nights in a row, and I slept
(21:28):
there for the first night, the other night, setting the
alarm every hour and just making sure I was safe.
And that's the way it goes when you live in Paradise,
when you live on the hillside like that. And we
knew that, and everybody knew that. And the day, the
day finally came. One of the things, Wendy that happened.
(21:50):
People think that Pacific Poliitdaves is a really fancy place,
and it is, but we all suffer. Rich poor black
white man woman. We all have joy and we all
have pain. And there's a lot of different kinds of
people in my community. And you'd be surprised, you know
(22:12):
what that place is like.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Well, I hate to use the term, it's not my
favorite term, but because of trickle down economics, when one
wealthy family loses their house, there are a lot of
working class people who lose their jobs.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Whether we're talking about there's a lot of Yeah, there's
a lot of people who who don't have a job.
There's a lot of people who don't have a place
of business, and there's a lot of people who don't
have homes. That's exactly right, Yeah, when.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
We're talking about landscape workers, where we're talking about childcare workers, teachers.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
The right, the dog walkers of the world, right, I mean,
there are a lot of you.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
You would be surprised how many of those people reside
in Pacific Fallisa. You'd be surprised by that they live
in their parents sold home that they inherited. They live
in a little studio apartment on Sunset Boulevard, and they
teach at the school and many palastates high school teachers
lost their little cottages in the alphabet streets. We know
(23:19):
four or five of them.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
You know, we have to go to a break. You're
an artist. When we come back, can we talk a
little bit about art as therapy and a way to
hear sure and how you think this tragedy may inform
your own art going forward. My guest is sculptor Anthony Pearson.
(23:41):
You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on
KFI AM six forty. We live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7 (23:47):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Welcome back to the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy
Wall Show. I do want to say before I return
to my guest, that I hope that some of the
information and the human stories that we've been able to
share with you tonight will help in this healing that
we are all enduring together. Whether the fires impacted you
directly because you lost your home, or you had to
(24:16):
evacuate and you're waiting for news, or you're living further
away and watching anxiously from the sidelines, there is a
kind of secondary trauma from spectating what's going on, and
that's why we all need to take care of our
mental health. That means, as the psychoanalyst said who we
had earlier on in the show, sticking to the routines
(24:38):
as much as possible, trying not to binge on too
much news. I'm guilty myself of doomscrolling in the middle
of the night, but trying to regulate how much we're consuming,
What do we need for information and what are we
taking in that's just exacerbating our fears. Then what can
(24:58):
we do today down our arousal, our flight or fight response.
Can we exercise still? Can we meditate? Can we cuddle
our children and family and loved ones. Can we pet
our pets? Can we spend time, just releasing our own
natural endorphins and opiates to calm ourselves down. It's up
(25:22):
to us to try to do the work. And Anthony Pearson,
I wanted to keep you on the show because you
are an artist, and I always think of art as
a language, just yet another language that humans can learn
to speak. But it also there's been so much research
in recent years about how therapeutic art can be.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Do you agree?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I completely agree, And I think that the work I've
made is really about my childhood experience. And I think
that the work I've made, albeit abstract, represents, in a
rather obscure way, the magical topography of my childhood and
(26:07):
what it was like living at the ocean, in the
bluff and you know, in the mountains, and you know,
it takes me back to the natural world to be
able to, you know, depict these things in some certain way.
(26:28):
My childhood was magical there, and my parents moved there
in nineteen seventy and the freeway, the ten freeway, didn't
come through till nineteen sixty six or something, so people
don't realize this was a distant place and it was
a place where the children would crawl down into the
brush and they would make little forts and create these
little worlds for themselves. And my brother Michael Pearson in
(26:51):
this incredible essay about our childhood that he posted on Facebook,
and I wept because that sense the place is something
I always never wanted to lose, and the making of
things and using my hands, and it reminds me of
(27:12):
when I used to go to a quiet place, find
my home, and you know, play with things in the
dirt and create little tableaus and have an imaginary world.
And those things in art are a place that I
can go that quiets my mind and it makes me
(27:34):
feel contemplative, and that's really the purpose of my work.
That's really the purpose.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Would you recommend to somebody who may not be considered
a great artist that they should get their hands in
some clay, or get their fingers around some markers and
just let it come, you.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Know, tinkle on a piano even though you have no
expertise or or you know, knit or anything else. Because
we're cerebral people and we sometimes forget that, you know,
when we put our hands in front of ourselves and
we moved back and forth doing something totally irrelevant and useless,
(28:19):
it actually has a purpose art has no usage. It's
something that is separated from doing my tax return and
trying to talk my kid out of making a bad decision.
It doesn't need a reason art, it's just something that
we can do, you know, one on one with the object.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I had a guest on earlier, a psychoanalyst who said
that he took some time his home was burned in
the Palisades. He took some time to write dialogue, write
a narrative about the last few hours he remembers in
his home because he wanted to remember everything he saw
(29:05):
and heard and smelled, because he was afraid those memories,
because they were so close to the trauma, would degrade
the quickest. And so I mean, would you agree, I'm
not an artist, that it might be a good idea
for some people to draw their favorite places in their home.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Yeah. I think that that sometimes has important And I
think that sometimes people want to make an insurance claim
and they want to check on their neighbor, and they
want to figure out where they're going to get the
first pair of underwear from. But don't forget that, you know,
you need to sit there and quietly, you know, have
(29:46):
that that time and space and get that get I
call it getting back into place.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Feel the time to feel, you know so, and.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
You know we all we all deal with it differently.
And you know, our two daughters deal with it differently
moment to moment. And my wife and Mona is sitting
here with me, could tell you, you know, the way that
she feels in any given moment. And there's there's no
one right way. We all every way is okay and
it's fluid okay.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
So well, I will.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Say that my best advice to everyone is to not
hide from the feelings. On the other hand, don't wallow
in them and dwell on them to the point where
they continue to grow. But from time to time, go
back and forth. The brain heals itself from trauma by feeling,
then moving away from it, getting distracted, laughing with some friends,
having a moment of joy, and then coming back to
(30:43):
the memories, and we go back and forth. It's like
if you've lost a loved one, and that's the grieving process.
You're not sad every single minute of every single day,
but your brain deals with it by going back and forth.
And that is my advice to all. Anthony Pearson, thank
you so much much for joining us tonight, and I
do hope you know your home is still intact. Thank goodness,
(31:06):
and I hope it stays that way. I hope the
winds are all in our favor as this week continues.
And thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Thank you, Kin, thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
And thank you for being with me on The Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show. You've been listening to The Doctor Wendy
Walls Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh.
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app