Have you ever really engaged with yourself and figured out your truth?
It takes getting curious and asking yourself questions about your beliefs, judgments, behaviors and more. It takes getting to know your conditioning vs. your truth.
In today’s episode, we’re talking with repeat guest Andrea Owen, author of Make Some Noise.
Andrea shares the questions she invites her readers to ask in her new book and what it means to be someone who makes noise. It may not be what you think!
We also have a candid discussion about relationships and how difficult it can be when we are evolving and growing and our partner may not be in the same place. Andrea shares her own experience in her partnerships and how that has led to personal growth and evolution.
Join me in today’s episode as we discuss everything from handling differing opinions, how we’ve been conditioned for competition, women’s empowerment, why a willingness to be uncomfortable can be healing and so much more.
Getting curious and having the hard conversations is how you begin to make some noise!
Listen to episode 364 now!
In episode 364 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:
- [7:59] How working on a memoir is shaping how Andrea perceives memories
- [11:27] How to get curious about your conditioning vs. your truth
- [14:21] How a difference of opinion is not gaslighting and how to tell the difference
- [16:35] Why you need to stop allowing the brainwashing to make you small
- [17:57] Competition between women and why it manifests in various environments
- {22:48] How competitiveness is nurture and we’ve been conditioned to believe that’s normal
- [25:13] Money and power and how they are related to each other
- [36:00] How women’s empowerment is an act of rebellion and making noise
- [37:03] Being conscious of your reactions to people in similar work
- [39:14] Making pleasure a priority in our lives and relationships
- [52:08] Why communication and how we show up in conflict affects relationships
- [56:31] How a willingness to be uncomfortable is a pathway to healing
- [1:06:02] Personal evolution and how that affects relationships
Resources mentioned by Andrea and Elizabeth in the episode:
- Learn more about Andrea Owen
- Read Andrea’s Books
- Listen to Elizabeth’s episode with Tanya Geisler
- Alchemizing Anger workshop
- Books on anger: Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper, Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister and Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly
- Embodiment Specialist Training
- Check out The Embodied Living Center.
- Email us with questions or feedback.
- Don’t miss an episode of The Embodied Podcast.
Quote from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:
-
“I’m a true believer that women’s empowerment in and of itself is an act of rebellion.” – Andrea
How was this episode for you?
Was this episode helpful for you today? I’d love to know what quote or lesson touched your soul. Let me know in the comments below OR share the episode on Instagram, tag me your stories @elizabethdialto, or send me a DM!
About the Embodied Podcast with Elizabeth DiAlto
Since 2013 I’ve been developing a body of work that helps women embody self-love, healing, and wholeness. We do this by focusing on the four levels of consciousness – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
In practical terms, this looks like exploring tools and practices to help you tune into the deep wisdom of the body and the knowing of the heart, which I believe are gateways to our souls. Then we cultivate a new relationship with our minds that allows the mind to serve this wisdom and knowledge and soul connection, rather than override it, which is what many of us were taught.
If you’ve been doing self-help or spiritual development work for a while, these are the types of foundational things that often people overlook in pursuit of fancier concepts that often aren’t practical or sustainable. Here, we will focus on building these strong foundations so you can honestly and thoroughly embody self-love. If you’re feeling it, subscribe to the show, and leave us a review wherever you listen from. You can also keep up with show updates and community discussion on Instagram here.
Transcripts for Episode 364:
– [Elizabeth] Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode number 364 of the Embodied podcast. We have another dear friend of mine and repeat guest on the show today, Andrea Owen. Andrea is here partly talking about her most recent book, which is her third book, by the way. Let’s just give it up for Andrea, writing books is so hard and this woman has now published three amazing books. So we’re talking about her newest book Make Some Noise in this episode, but I really want to bring you all to two things that I loved talking to Andrea about so much in this episode, even though we spanned a lot more than just these two things. One of them was really how to engage with yourself to figure out what is your conditioning and what is your truth. And the other one is, for those of you that are in serious long-term partnerships and relationships, What do you do when you are doing more of your own work and your partner is not? And Andrea had a really incredible share around how she has navigated this with her husband of 13 years. And she also very openly and transparently shared, you know, times that were really hard when they thought about walking away, how they worked through that. And then now how they approach doing their own work both separately and together. And I know that’s a conversation. I know that’s a big question for people who listen to the show. A lot who are in partnerships. And I also know there are people listening who maybe you’re not currently in a partnership, but you’ve dealt with that in the past, and that might be something that you’re afraid of, moving into future and new experiences. So we talk about way more than that, but that was, those were two of my favorite parts of this conversation today. So I really hope you enjoy it. The show notes will be untameyourself.com/364, and we’ll talk to you later. Or we’ll see you on the show. I don’t know why I said I’ll talk to you later. I guess I will always talk to you later at some point, huh?
– Andrea, your back. Is this your second or third time on the podcast?
– I think it’s my third time.
– I think it is too.
– Yeah. I think you’ve been on my show three times too.
– That’s great. We like each other.
– We do, a little bit.
– So I’ve been asking people, you know how I always have an opening question. The opening question of the season is, how was your heart today? What are you feeling? I know you love talking about feelings.
– It depends on the day. My heart. Okay. I immediately wanted to answer from my head, but I know you.
– You know I’m not going to let you. Nice try.
– I know you would catch it immediately. My heart is feeling fiery.
– What? I mean, you don’t have to share super personal things, but, like, what’s the fire about?
– Well, I’m in a… No I don’t mind sharing personal things. I’m in a battle with an organization that’s COVID related and actually it’s one of my children, and that’ll set your heart on fire just, and you know what’s interesting too, with this whole thing, is that I have become very aware of asking myself, “Am I being self-righteous in this moment?” Like, “Am I continuing to fight just because I want to win and because I want to be right? Or am I continuing the fight because I actually feel in my heart and my values that what I’m fighting for is what’s right?”
– Yeah.
– Does that make sense? Like, there’s a difference and I have to be careful in that.
– Yeah. I appreciate that. I appreciate that distinction because I have been talking about this actually on Instagram a lot lately. I think I posted, “Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be free?”
– I had a therapist that asked me that same, that must’ve been like, Gandhi that said that, like way back when, because my therapist asked me that like 15 years ago when I was in a battle with my ex-husband, who was like spreading lies about me, and I wanted to like send out, I wanted to call a family meeting and like tell everybody that he was telling lies. And she was like, “Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be free?” And I said, “I want both. How do I get that?”
– How do I get both? What was the answer? Do you remember?
– She just, we just talked about how I felt like, what I wanted to do was reasonable and like, was it really reasonable? And it wasn’t. Because I was dealing with someone who wasn’t reasonable
– Yes.
– And so I wanted to be free.
– Yeah. And the follow-up to that, which I also posted recently and people were like, “Ah,” I got all these like mind blown emoji things, was like, it’s okay to let people be wrong about you.
– That is one of, like, the hardest. My divorce actually taught me that life lesson. And I went kicking and screaming because we want to control how we’re perceived by others. It’s a shame trigger.
– Yeah. And it’s just literally one of the most feudal things.
– That will take you down a path of destruction that I have been down and I’m familiar with.
– I love it. You’re like, “I’m not going to sugar-coat this. That is a path of destruction.” Just stop.
– You will see my footprints there of you go down it.
– You will see. You’ll see my star, my walk of fame, on the walk of fame of that path of destruction, Andrea Owen.
– Trying to control how people perceive you. Yeah.
– Ah.
– That’s hard.
– All right. So I’m excited. And I’m so, you know, I’ve been saying this to, like, everybody lately because I, you know, the people I’ve been interviewing most recently, have all been people I know personally for, like, many years. And so I’ve gotten to see everyone’s body of work above and I keep being like, “I’m so proud of you,” not like a condescending way, but I am. I know how hard it is. And you know, for people watching, you see your three books, three fucking books people, on the shelf behind you, it’s a big deal. God, I’ve been, I was traumatized by one book in 2015. I’ve been trying to put together a new proposal for a year and a half, publishers have started reaching out to me to be, like, “Hey bitch, you want to write a book?” And I’m like, “I do,” but I don’t really want to do it again because it was the worst experience.
– It’s a lot. It really is.
– I feel like you’re getting great at it though. Is it easier now?
– It totally is, I will say that. Like, once you get it down to a science, I do believe it’s easier; however, I could write these kinds of books all day long, but I’m working on a memoir and that is a completely different craft.
– Yeah.
– And one that I’m not good, I was going to say terrible. I don’t think I’m terrible at it, but I’m definitely just okay. And I have a lot to learn. And so I’m taking this class, this memoir writing class. I have a really good friend who’s written a memoir that did really well and I’m talking to her a lot and it’s its own art form. One that I am not well-versed in yet.
– Oh, cool. I love to hear that. And I was going to ask, like, are you taking a class? Like, how are you? because that is different.
– Yeah.
– Is it pushing buttons to be sharing more?
– No, it’s not the vulnerability piece. Like, I’ve always had a pretty easy time just, like, here’s all my feelings on the platter and I don’t think ahead of time. PS, I just on Friday got re diagnosed with impulse control disorder, which explains so much about me, which we can talk about later or not.
– I did not know that was a disorder.
– It is. It’s people who exhibit high risk. A lot of addicts are. So I was like, yeah hand raised. So, the sharing part isn’t the problem, it’s the crafting of the story.
– Yeah.
– And like, one woman said to me she’s like, “You’re really good at summarizing.” because that’s what I’m used to doing. Because nonfiction, we typically summarize a story or when we’re talking to friends, we summarize, but in memoir you have to like really focus in on like moments and scenes. And that’s what I don’t know how to do yet.
– Is that hard? I don’t have a great memory.
– I do. I don’t have a good working memory. So like, I just had a meeting with my team this morning and I forgot, like, 80% of what they said. I have memories. I remember my friends from elementary school’s first and last names. Like it’s dumb. Why?
– Isn’t that so weird? Like again, like how we’re all like so unique. The things we’ll remember, the things we won’t remember.
– Yeah. Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam’s “I wonder if I take you home” came on the radio yesterday and I knew every single word. That came out in 1985, by the way.
– There are really a lot of songs that I’m like, “How do I still know the lyrics to this?” And can I perhaps forget those lyrics and remember more important things to my life.
– Right, like U.S. history or something like that.
– Does the brain work like that, please?
– But memory is from what I understand from brain science people, is that pretty much our memories are kind of shit. Like, we make up memories from stories that people have told us, or what we wanted it to be, or pictures that we’ve seen from our past. So I’m okay with that. As long as it makes a good story.
– Yeah.
– I’m just going to say, “This is how I remember it.”
– Exactly. And you know, I just trust that, you know? We have to, or otherwise, what are you going to do?
– Right, exactly.
– Obsess over it? Okay. So the most recent book is called Make Some Noise, yeah?
– It is.
– I want to know before we get into the book, which, you know, everyone listening, if you’ve been listening to podcast for a long time, you all know that typically when I interview people who’ve written a book, I haven’t read it. So I’m excited to hear about it. And then I will probably read it or parts of it.
– Yeah. So how did this book come after the last one?
– When did you and I meet, in 2015? I think it was.
– When we went to that thing in Montana?
– In person. Yeah. We knew each other before that, so it was around there.
– I think it was 20… It was not 2015, 2017.
– Was it? Okay.
– Yeah. Yeah.
– So then it was definitely in the works in my brain, and it started, I started thinking about it around 2015 and I was still writing my second book. And there was like a small section in that second book where I was talking about our culture and how a lot of our negative self-talk can come from our family of origin. It can come from how you’re wired. And it also comes from how our culture has taught and conditioned us and socialized us. And so, the seed was planted then. And then, you know, 2016 was a shit show in and of itself for a lot of people. And then 2017, the Me Too movement happened and was, I think retraumatizing for many of us, and the Kavanaugh hearings really rocked me as someone who’s had a similar experience to Christine Blasey Ford and hearing her testimony as calmly as she did it, and as afraid as she was to do it and seeing the, how she was just vilified in the media. I started really thinking about how we’re taught to be as little girls and women. And then when I started writing it, I wrote about this and you’ll see your name in the introduction because I talk about “I had this conversation with my friend Elizabeth DiAlto” and she-
– Oh, no way, I didn’t know that.
– And she, yeah. And you, we were talking about this concept and you said… You laid out the question, “What is my conditioning versus what is my truth?” And that is what I invite the reader to ask themselves. Like, and it’s not about… This book isn’t so much about like, “Here’s all the things you need to change about your life.” Like, I just want people to get really curious about their beliefs, about their behaviors, like, about their quick judgements against themselves, against other women, against men, like… You know, the new word of the day is indoctrination. And like we were all indoctrinated. I don’t care how you went to school or what family-
– It’s multiple things and multiple ways on multiple levels. Yup.
– Exactly. And so it’s not about, you know, coming to conclusions about what’s right or wrong. Like, I have my beliefs of what’s right or wrong, but I’m not saying that that’s, you know, universally going to be yours, but I just want people to get curious and ask themselves a lot of questions.
– I love that. I think that is super important. And I, that’s something I want to reindoctrinate people into, especially now, because I feel like people are so polarized and people are just glomming onto shit that is so unhealthy, unhelpful. And it’s interesting because some, there are some groups of people who use the word divisive as a weapon.
– Right.
– And because of that, I find myself not wanting to use it, but we really need to use it because we really do need to pay attention to what is separating us from people that we don’t need to be separated from and how that separation is detrimental.
– Yeah. And I also think, like on that same token, I think that it’s getting used a lot when people just have a different opinion, you know, like I-
– Seriously.
– I’ve been in Facebook groups. I was just saying this to one of the parents who’s in a Facebook group that I’m in and she was telling somebody to stop being divisive. And I’m like, that person just has a different opinion. It’s not the same thing.
– Yes. Good Lord. And by the way, that’s also not gaslighting. Someone saying… It drives me- I did a whole Instagram story about this. I was like, okay. Someone feeling differently about something than you do and telling you, is not gaslighting. It’s not gaslighting.
– Especially as someone who’s spent years in a relationship where gaslighting was like, just part of our routine, we did it to each other. I can’t say it was just him.
– Yes.
– I learned it from him.
– Yes.
– Yeah. It’s very distinct.
– It’s so just like, someone denying your reality versus someone who’s lived experience is different than yours, who feels a different way about something, not gaslighting. It’s just different. My God. People are so unnuanced about so many things. It’s really hard for my Virgo brain. Okay. So tell me more, before we got on, I was like, “Listen, girl, I didn’t read the book, but we’re going to talk about it because I want to hear about it from you.” There’s two things I want to know. First of all, you said there was a chapter you think I would love, I want to talk about that, but first I want to ask you now that the book’s been out in the world for a little while, “What parts of the book are people, like, really loving, you know? Because I know there’s always the chapter that you love.
– Yeah.
– Then there’s like the parts that people love. Are they one in the same? Are they not? Are they different? Like, what are people really being like, “Oh, I needed this.”
– As we’re recording this it’s not out yet. August 31st. So I don’t have a crystal ball.
– Oh, when this, oh, damn it. I thought it was already out for awhile. I can’t do time.
– A week today.
– Crap. It’s such a good question if you knew.
– Because this will air when it already- I mean, people DM me.
– This won’t air until October.
– Okay. So DM me and tell me, I don’t even have like a hunch as to what people are going to resonate with.
– Crap. I thought it came out a while ago, sorry about that.
– No, it comes out in a week. But the chapter that I think you would like is called “Stop Allowing The Brainwashing To Make You Small.” And the reason I think that you would like it is because it’s a little- I hate the term heavy handed. I feel like we need a new one. Just it’s a little deep, it’s deeper than the other ones. And it was initially going to be the opening chapter, but my editor and I were nervous that it would make people kind of be like, oh God, this is like, a feminist theory book. Shrink’s a feminazi. I’m not going to read the rest of it. So it starts out lighter. And this chapter is later. And I talk about several things. And one of the most interesting things for me to research that I’m still working on myself is internalized misogyny. And internalized misogyny, there’s not a whole lot written about it that I could find online in terms of scholarly articles. There are some, but I feel like it’s something that needs to be talked about more often, especially in our circles where you hear so much of, you know, women supporting women. And then when we don’t see that, like when we are holding other women accountable, like the Rachel Hollis of the world, and people are screaming, “I thought you were supposed to be women empowering women. What, you know, how dare you?” And I’m like, well, there’s women who behave poorly,
– Listen.
– But, internalized misogyny is when women actively put down other women, you know, for reasons that don’t warrant, you know, putting them down. It’s also chronic dieting. It manifests as slut-shaming, it manifests as women who tend to be highly competitive in a family unit or a work environment, especially where the competition is proximity to higher up men, whether it’s a father or a boss, it’s fascinating. And I think most women who look into it and see what it, how it manifests, will see some of themselves.
– You know, over the years, whenever I see women talk about how women are so competitive with each other, I’m always just like, “I’ve literally never been like that or really had that experience.” And I know I’m like, greyer. That is a very common experience for women. And I’m always just like, “How did I miss that?” How did I, how was I, I think really what was happening is I just wasn’t perceiving it because I don’t compete with people.
– Right.
– I played sports growing up. So like, I competed in appropriate competitive containers.
– Healthy competition.
– But I just have never felt like, maybe that’s it. maybe I’ve always had context for healthy competition in my life. And then I worked at a sales job where you were literally competing on things that were appropriate to compete on.
– And you were ranked.
– Yes. Yes. And it was based on, like some kind of measurable performance. But I’ve literally just never felt the need. I don’t know if that’s weird, but also if I- I’m literally realizing this as I look back, people were always trying to compete with me.
– Yeah.
– And I was like-
– I appreciate you saying that. And like, of course I didn’t know you when you were younger and we were like out in the dating world and work world, but you strike me as the type of person who wouldn’t notice because: a, you’re not like that and… You’re just not focused on things like that. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, it just, part of it maybe is that it just doesn’t phase you.
– Yeah, maybe that’s it. I don’t know. You know what? This is reminding me of, you know Tanya Geisler, right?
– Yes. Love her.
– So I’ve had Tanya on, she’s been on. She’s been on, I’ve been on her podcast. We’ve talked about Impostor Syndrome and that’s like, kind of another thing that I’m like, I just don’t really have, you know, like I just, I don’t know, it’s weird. But I think when we all have-
– What are you on the Enneagram?
– I’m an eight.
– So am I.
– The seven wing.
– Well, it’s exactly the same. That’s why we like each other.
– Yeah.
– And I’m also in Aries, and Aries or, excuse me, we’re highly competitive, and eight’s tend to be as well. Excuse me. Hope I don’t have COVID. No, it’s just Kombucha. I just drank my Kombucha too fast. I hope.
– Wait. Wait. I just need to hashtag, I don’t even know what to call this shit. What kind of people say like, “Sorry my Kombucha just went down the wrong pipe.
– It’s not COVID.
– Please make a TikTok about this. “I thought I had COVID but really my Kombucha just ran down the wrong pipe.”
– Things should people in the wellness world say.
– Yes. People in the wellness world. Oh my God. That was, that was too good to be true. Okay.
– Competition. Yeah. I think it’s just people’s personalities.
– Yeah.
– And, I don’t know. I get the feeling you just kind of let that stuff just slide off your back. And I, because I’ve experienced it, both being competitive with other women and had other women compete with me.
– I have a funny story. I was on a date several months ago and this man was asking me about like, what I do, my business, whatever. And he goes, oh, “Who are your competitors?” And I was like, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “Well, like every business has competitors.” And I’m like, “I don’t know, like I just don’t, you know what, by the way, this is where I got tripped up. When I was working on the book proposal last year in 2020, because when it came to the comparative titles, I was like, “Ugh,” like I very specifically and intentionally try not to pay attention to what my peers are doing. Like, even many of my own friends I don’t follow on social media because creatively, like, we’re very often on the same wavelength and I don’t want the distraction. And I was like, oh, I was like, I don’t know. But the comp title thing that you do when you’re doing a book proposal, I’m like, “Oh shit, I actually have to go look at this.” And I don’t like, I don’t like it. I don’t like the feeling.
– I don’t either. That’s not my favorite part of the proposal. None of it is. But yeah, that’s internalized misogyny like that, that competition. And I, you know, there’s a little bit of research that shows that some of that is nature, that we are just as a species competitive so that we can secure a mate.
– Right.
– But the majority of it- I need to look at this research again that I looked at because there wasn’t a whole lot of it, but the majority of our competitiveness is nurture. It’s how we were conditioned and socialized to be. Like the whole like, women are catty and backstabbing. Like, that’s not true. That’s, like we’re not inherently that way, that’s a stereotype that is vastly portrayed in the media, as well as, you know, like I like reality TV like the rest of them. But man, that does not tend to show us in a great light in terms of competitiveness and things like that. Yikes
– You know what, I’m also having an epiphany. When I was growing up, there was an experience in my mom’s career where she got big time backstabbed by a woman. And I’m wondering if maybe going through that experience, I looked at that and went, “I don’t ever want to be treated that way or treat someone that way.” There were a lot of things growing up for me that I witnessed, and then I was like, “I’m not doing that shit.” And I literally just decided, and I have had some astrologers tell me, like I’m a Virgo sun with a Capricorn moon. And that Capricorn moon is apparently one of the reasons why I don’t really give much of a shit of what people think of me. And a lot of things can roll off my back.
– Since I’ve known you, you’ve always been like that. And I bet that it’s part of just your inherent personality and some of it is like that social conditioning, like that story you just told.
– Yeah. And then the Virgo piece is just very discerning and I’m like, “This is not efficient. This is not productive. This is a waste of time and it doesn’t feel good. Why would I bother?” That’s so fascinating, part of the reason why I have a podcast is so I can self-reflect, you realize this, right?
– I do that with my guests, like, ask selfish questions.
– Like, let me ask you something that I’m dealing with right now.
– Can we dissect me? Yeah.
– Yeah, let’s talk a little bit more about me here. Hopefully it gives other people areas to reflect too. Okay. So what, but then… Okay, so we don’t know what other people’s favorite chapters were yet. What’s yours? Was there one that you were like, “Oh my God, I love this.”
– It’s actually spawned an idea for my next book. So, I wrote a chapter about pleasure and I wrote a chapter about money. So let’s talk about the money one. And I had never written about money before, because I just, I’m not, you know, I’m not an expert. And I was also still doing my own money work over the last few years, but I had to write about money because I’m writing about this topic. And one of the things that I, as I was writing and I hadn’t planned on writing about this when I did the outline was about power because like, money is currency, whoever has the most of it tends to have the most power. And we all know who tends to have the most money and power. And I started writing about power, and I reached out to you about this and we had a conversation about it too, and how fascinated I am with the topic. And there’s not a lot written on women and power, not women in power, but women and power. And it’s a fascinating topic to me, and I’m going to do more research with my community and just like, see what their views are on it. But again, this is a section where I asked a lot of questions to the reader of like, “What’s your relationship with power? Do you have a relationship at all with power? What do you think of when you hear that word? Do you, like, how do you define it?” And I love Brené Browns, you know, when she talks about power over versus power within, and looking at different leadership qualities and methods, and it’s fascinating. And I think that power and money are inextricably connected. I do.
– Yeah. I remember that because, so I used to call my signature program Power, but it was about getting to true power because real power has nothing to do with influence, money, possession, position, hierarchy, or anything like that, In my perception and perspective and practice. So you’re saying that’s going to be a topic for the next book?
– I think so. And also anger and like those kinds of bigger feelings. I have three books that I need to read. Eloquent rage by Brittany Cooper. Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister and Rage Becomes Her, and I cannot remember the name of the author and it’s way on the other side of the room and my eyes don’t see that far, but, So I’m still doing research before I figure out what exactly the topics are going to be. But writing about money was interesting in how still… Oh, can I also, like, let’s talk about some research that I looked at. So Pew Research Center did some research on, they asked Americans to rate certain words and attributes for men versus women. So it was a bunch of different words, like, you know, compassion, ambition, and the one that I looked at most closely was the word power. And these Americans rated power as 92% positive for men and 67% negative for women. And you would think that this study was done in like 1950 and it was done in 2016. I know. Still, an ambition, the word ambition and the word… Oh, shoot. Now I forget what it was. I’d have to look at my, I have a Keynote on it, was rated similarly. Like, super positive for men- Oh leadership, it was leadership, but negative for women. And I’m like, “Oh my God.”
– Who was answering this, though? Because I’m always… These surveys, where, whom, like, we need to know the demographics.
– Pew Research Center is like, they’re a very, you know, like, well known, renowned research center. So, I think that their sampling was probably, you know, done really well. I need to look into it more, but I just.
– Because that matters, right? Like, who the fuck are you asking? Yeah. Who funded it and who was asked, who’s included.
– Race, the ability, the class of all these people-
– Totally, all that stuff.
– It matters. But I was sort of shocked, but not that surprised, you know, like, at the end of the day, I think that, I wonder, I don’t know for sure, but I wonder if there’s a lot of women out there who like the idea of empowerment, but when it comes down to it, the conditioning and socialization, like, when they’re filling out a survey in private, they’re going to say how they really feel. And the conditioning and socialization runs so deep within the vast majority of us and that knowledge of punishment versus reward where we are rewarded if we stay within our own “lane,” using air quotes over here, when we adhere to what we’ve been taught what it means to be a good woman or a good girl, or a good mother versus the punishment when we veer away from that, we’re vilified, you know, sometimes like pushed out of our social circle.
– Yeah. Yeah. I’m just cracking up. Like this has been, you know, everyone has their like core wounds or whatever, and one of mine which, I’m sorry?
– What’s yours?
– Well, so too much, the too much wound, big one for me, but the fear of my own power.
– Same.
– Has been truly… And that’s actually what sent me down the path of Wild Soul Movement originally. In 2013, a bunch of the books I was reading that was helping me to come to grips with that or how I came across the wild woman archetype. And how I came across, and a lot of people listening will know this about my story, that God has a Durga.
– We’ve talked about Durga.
– Yeah and being like, “Oh.” So my whole life I’ve like, shamed myself that I’m not feminine enough.
– Too masculine.
– I’m too masculine, right? But it’s like, “No, I’m just, my expression is wild and it’s fierce,” you know? It’s also incredibly soft and loving and mothering and I’m a human care bear, but you know, the fierceness is a thing that often makes feel- So, my own power and I’m like, yeah, if I go full blast and then in more recent years, it’s more around my mysticism, right? Like, being psychic, being super spiritual, like channeling shit, you know? I try to like, not bring too much focus or attention to that, but lately I’m like, “Whatever I’m done pretending I’m not all these fucking things,” you know? Like, we are who we are.
– Don’t pretend you don’t hear voices.
– You know, listen, I’m not saying I already knew that about you, even though you didn’t tell me, but I’m so glad you finally got around to telling me. So, anyway.
– Yeah. I’m with you. Those are mine. And also fear of abandonment is a huge one for me, you know, that goes back to family of origin and then was confirmed in various relationships. I think probably most of us have that core fear based on experience or just who knows past life wounds. But yeah, those run deep. I hear you.
– Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. So anyway, the money conversation, the power conversation, how did writing this book transform you?
– Well, I wrote it during the pandemic, so that was fun. Last time, for my first book was written, I got my book deal right when my son’s preschool teacher told us that we should get him tested for autism. And so we had to go through that whole thing when I was writing that book. And then in my second, during the writing of my second book, my dad died. And then in this one, I signed my contract in like February of 2020, flew to Manhattan to meet with my editor at Penguin Random House, was like dream come true. I go to the Penguin Random House offices, that was March 8th, 2020.
– And then a week later.
– Right when like the buzz was happening in Manhattan or people were like, “What’s happening?” I flew home. And a week later, like all hell broke loose. And that was when I was like sitting down to write this book. And so, I thought to myself, if someone dies like, in my next book, like I’m done. Or if there’s another pandemic I can’t anymore. But no, it was when the pandemic hit, I went through some stuff. I think like many people, old wounds got kicked up, fear, immense anxiety. So I hired a new therapist and I was ready to do like, deep trauma work. And so I was going through that at the same time. And I’m thankful that I had her to go through this because it helped keep me, it helped force me to take really good care of myself, and also just get through some, you know, the pandemic was hard, you know, and my husband had also left his job and I was the sole breadwinner suddenly, and it was rough. So I was going through a deeply personal experience with healing and at the same time writing this book. I’m thankful that I wasn’t writing about what I was going through personally, because that would have just been, I don’t think I could have done it. So I’m grateful that I had the outlet to be able to do this type of work.
– What, how did you come to the title Make Some Noise? Why is that the title of the book?
– So, originally I wanted the title to be Burn It Down. There is already a book with that title.
– That’s worst. You know how many any ideas I have and I’m like, “Does anyone already?” And I’m like, ah.
– It’s fine if it’s in a different genre.
– Yeah.
– But it wasn’t, that Burn It Down is a series of essays about women’s empowerment or women or something like that. So I’m like, okay, cool. I’m glad at least it was like a good, I haven’t read it, but I’m sure it’s good. And then it was going to be called Raise Hell, actually. And my editor didn’t like it. And they also wanted me to have a book without a curse word in it. Because it’s hard to like sell it to certain retailers. And I’m like, okay, I understand.
– For anyone who isn’t familiar with you, who’s meeting you for the first time here. Can you tell them the name of your first two books?
– So the first one was 52 Ways To Live A Kick-Ass Life, which I don’t even consider ass to be a curse word. It’s like, come on.
– No, me neither.
– Donkey. The second one is How To Stop Feeling Like Shit, which that one I can see. And I just want to say for the record, that one was like, before everybody and their mother decided to put a curse word in their title, it became like a trend. And that was another reason they didn’t want me to have a curse word in the title. Because they’re like, we feel like it’s a trend.
– Everyone’s doing this.
– Yeah. So, we brainstormed a bunch of titles and that was on the list and we all liked that one the best. It’s how titles work sometimes.
– When you’re saying like, make some noise, about what? Like, what do you wanting people to make noise about and how and why?
– The title really, I’m a true believer that women’s empowerment in and of itself is an act of rebellion, because we’re pushing up again against the socialization and conditioning that we’ve all received. And that is something, you know, I’ve said for a long time. And that’s what I mean when I say make some noise. Like, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be super loud or flip tables or, you know, tell your boss to fuck off. Like, if that’s what you want to do, then go for it, this is your choice, this is your life. I don’t recommend it, unless warranted, but it’s really about just gathering- Again, it’s all about first getting curious about why you’ve been behaving the way that you have, getting clear on what it is that you want. And in order to have those hard conversations, in order to get right with your finances and your money, to create more pleasure in your life, whatever that looks like. That is an act of making noise. Of course it’s, you know, theoretical and metaphorical, but that’s what I mean when I say make some noise.
– How do you deal with, because I find- This bugs me a lot sometimes, that it feels like almost everything like, so for example, I started talking about embodiment, of course I wasn’t the first person, people have been doing embodiment work for decades and centuries and all these things. But there’s also when you do things online, there’s like, before and after it got popular, online. Right? And so I was doing embodiment work before it got really popular online, which has been like the last couple of years. Women’s empowerment is also something that’s like, very saturated. So how do you deal with talking about something? Like, does it bother you at all? Like, it starts to bother me. It’s a distraction for me that’s so many people are now talking about things. It makes you want to go do other things, but I have to be like, “No, this is my thing. And it doesn’t matter if other people are talking about that.” Do you bump into that at all?
– Hundred percent. Yeah, I get, and because my personality is highly competitive I have to be very conscious of that, because I’ll get like my all like, the worst than me will come out. Like my shadow side comes out. And so I have to turn off social media. I don’t follow a whole lot of like, my quote on quote competitors. Like unless they’re my personal friends, and by personal, I mean like, people I talk to fairly regularly like you. And I just, I have to a lot of times change my perspective, you know, and just say things like, “Well, if they’re helping somebody, then that’s great. I hope that they have the proper training.” Or like, I hope they’re not doing any harm. I hope they’re not doing work that’s beyond the scope of what their training is. And I just have to, I have to be really… My short answers I had to be very careful, intentional and conscious of my reactions and my thoughts and when my own internalized misogyny comes in.
– Yeah, yeah. Come back to the pleasure conversation. I feel like we kind of grazed over that.
– Yeah, we did.
– What was that? What was that like? What that bring up for you and how do you pick like, such a vast topic?
– It is.
– How do you pick what goes in the book around something like that?
– Well, I kept it pretty general in terms of pleasure and just asked a lot of questions about, I have found for women, I don’t know if this is your experience too. When you ask them the sort of general like, life coaching 101 question of “What is it that you want more of?” A lot of times they can’t answer.
– Yeah.
– So I start with like, “What do you want less of?” Like, a lot of times I can tell you a whole list of things that they don’t want, that they complain about that they want less of, or that they want help with. So, it’s questions like that, you know, “What do you need?” And if you say that it’s this, could it be these other things? Like, if you say that you need reality TV and you know, a chocolate croissant, is it that? Or is it these other things? So I do keep it very general for people who may not have even really thought about pleasure in their own life. And I also talk about sex and, you know, and looking at the research of the orgasm gap, and how yes things have changed. And so, by the way, this is interesting too. This is the first book I’ve ever written over four generations. So I have Baby Boomer readers. I have GenXers like myself. I have Millennials like you. And then I also have, you know, GenZ young women are in their early twenties and they’re interested in my work as well. So it was interesting, like in some of the chapters, because some things have really changed. Like these young women are more likely to have conversations about what they want in bed, about consent, about past trauma than my generation ever was, like, this was not a topic when, you know, I was coming of age. So it was interesting to do research on that, as well as, talk about it in the book and I just acknowledged, you know, this is probably dependent on how old you are, but still like, research still shows now that we have an orgasm gap and the long and short of it is that in heterosexual sex, men are getting off a lot more than women are. And so I asked a lot of questions in that chapter too, like, “Do you have hangups about sex?” Which a lot of us do, depending on how we grew up. And if so, you know, I just kind of break down a bunch of questions for people to ask themselves. And a lot of times they’re going to answer these questions and need to see a therapist because it’s not something you can just like, oh, so that happened, you know. And I’m over it, and I can have this hard conversation with my partner. So it’s, I get like, kind of deep, but pleasure I feel like, unless someone intentionally follows, you know, self-help people like yourself, they probably haven’t made it a priority in their life.
– Yeah.
– [Elizabeth] Quick break in the show, everybody, to let you know that applications are open for my 2022 Embodiment Specialist Training. I am so excited about this training. It is like, seven or eight years in the making. It is expanded beyond what was Wild Soul Movement teacher training since 2016. And this is a really, for anybody who feels the pull to graduate from doing basic level self-help personal development and spiritual work and truly embody self-love healing and wholeness so they can live soulful and soul centered lives that contribute to collective healing and liberation, as well as people who are wanting to really integrate the light and the dark, who place a high value on kindness, generosity, integrity, humility and reverence, who know that while we receive all kinds of gifts and talents and genius. We are the instruments, not the players. This is for people who want to prioritize embodying their divine nature in order to serve the human experience, as well, for those who would like to incorporate vitamin work into their professional lives in some way, shape or form, or just deepen their own practice. So if you want to learn more about the training, which starts in February, 2022, head to untameyourself.com/specialist. There are some dates by which to apply. If you need an extended payment plans, we have a couple of different extended payment plans, and it’s just going to be an incredible alchemical, transformative experience. It’s going to be a small intimate group, because I will also be mentoring and working with everyone one-on-one throughout the 13 months of the training. So again, really deep, really beautiful, really incredible experience if you are interested. Go to untamedyourself.com/specialist, and I will be so excited to receive your application. If you decide to submit one.
– It’s so interesting because pleasure is one of those things that I don’t really directly talk about a lot, but people like you just did ascribe it to me, often because it’s so much of like, I just do. Like, sensuality is deeply connected to pleasure and so much of embodiment work is about sensuality, but it’s funny because it’s something that I don’t talk about very often but, even recently, it’s funny that this is coming up now. I’ve been feeling like maybe I need to. So I feel like that’s another little wink.
– Well, I feel like it’s a buzzword kind of in our industry. So maybe you find a different word.
– And I hate the way a lot people talk about that.
– Maybe find a different word. If I was just referring someone to you, I wouldn’t say “My friend Elizabeth teaches about pleasure,” and I always feel like it’s interesting for other people to like, say their perspective of like, how they see what you do. I feel like you give women access and permission to start the process of their own pleasure.
– Yeah.
– And that I think is amazing. So yeah. Short version of that.
– You know, I like to use the term sensual delight.
– Yeah. I like that.
– That’s actually where I like to drive a lot of pleasure. I don’t know why this question just popped into my head for you. What are you really proud of yourself for lately?
– You know what? I was just having this conversation with my husband yesterday. So we had a disagreement, well, boundaries one. So let me… Maybe it was snapshot. So, I was going to get a massage and a facial yesterday, which I almost canceled because I have so many things to do. And I realistically had enough time, but I felt guilty. You know, it’s like, it’s a Monday morning, I should be doing all the tasks. And I scheduled this a long time ago because I knew that I wasn’t going to have a lot of time a week before my book comes out and I’m like, I need to schedule this. And so, that’s why I didn’t cancel. And I was getting ready to leave. You know, my husband’s the stay at home parent now, he has been for 18 months. And I said, “I’m going to go get a massage.” And I also needed to mail out a bunch of books. Yours is coming by the way. And he said, “Oh, the books are in the car. Can you swing by the post office and mail them?” And I paused. And I said “No.” Just like that. And there was a whole explanation, but I’m like, I don’t need to give him like the whole story of why. And he sighed and like, did a little eye roll and like went back to his phone. And I was like, “Okay, we’re going to have this conversation.” And I said, “Listen,” it wasn’t my best self. And then I gave him the whole thing. And I’m like, if I keep saying yes to all these little yeses, they add up to a lot of time taken. I would do it if the post office was where I’m at, but I’m going to have to backtrack. And it’s going to take up more time. I have to come home and do full hair and makeup because I have a video interview. Like he didn’t need to hear all that, but bitch gave me the eye roll, I’m going to do it. So, that happened. And then he ended up, you know, taking the other car and doing my books for me. And so I got home later and had my day, and then we sat down to have the conversation about it. And we both apologize to each other for how we showed up. And what I’m proud of is: a, saying no in the first place, because the old me would have just done it. And just because he asked,
– And been resentful.
– And been pissed and not said anything and then complained to you later about it. I complained to my friends. I’m also proud that because the old me also, like in the first handful of years of our relationship, anytime we’d have a disagreement, I’d get so triggered because of that abandonment wound, I would be like, “Is he going to leave?” and be like planning out my single motherhood life? And I did that. I’m not kidding.
– We jumped from like, a to z real fast.
– And that is how my brain works. And that’s that impulse control stuff like, I would think about like, which apartment complexes are close to my kids’ school. Like, that’s the road I would go down.
– Yeah.
– And so I didn’t do that. And I’m like, I got in the car to leave and I’m like, “Yeah, we’re mad at each other, but we’re going to be fine. He’s not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere.”
– Yeah, I love that.
– That like, comfort and security that I have in the relationship is so much better. I’m also proud that we circled back with each other and apologized about how we showed up and talked about a system of like, how we can avoid this in the future.
– Love.
– And we’ve been married for 13 years now and we both came into the relationship pretty broken and have come so far. And I’m so proud of him and the uncomfortable work that he’s done. I’m so proud of me. And I’m proud of us as a couple. And I acknowledge that all the time. And I am grateful to him for his effort because at one point we had like a huge come to Jesus where he called me out and he was like, “I feel like you have such high expectations of my growth and I don’t work like you.” And I was like, “That’s fair.” You know? Like he’s not the same, I can’t expect him to be like, a version of me when it comes to therapy and things like that.
– Yeah.
– And you know, I love the saying like, “Give people the dignity of their own process.”
– Yes.
– I had to do that for him. And so we made an agreement and I said, “Okay, I don’t care how fast you move. I just need to see progress and that you’re trying.” And that’s what he’s given me. And like, I can’t believe the relationship that I’m in now. Like, it is beyond my wildest dreams. And it’s not that we have like hot, sweaty sex every night. Like, that’d be great, but we also have two kids.
– By the way, why is that the thing that people decide is the measurement for what’s a great relationship. You know? Not everyone’s dream relationship means you’re fucking all the time.
– Right.
– Some people it is.
– Our relationship is like a little bit boring. And like we started the Grey’s Anatomy series and I feel good that we have like 17 fucking seasons to get through. How did I go from like the girl who was like, going down to Tijuana, Mexico and losing her shoes to like, being excited to get to 17 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy with a guy who, you know, is almost 50.
– I love it. Listen, I love this quote. You and I have talked about this, actually. I think you and I were talking about this after I had gone through my breakup last year, you know, “Give someone the dignity of their own process.” And one of the things that I had realized in that relationship is, same like, I work through, I metabolize, I digest, I process, I integrate, I alchemize things much faster than most people. So I’ve learned that I cannot expect people to move at my pace and that’s cool, but I need people to be moving.
– Right.
– Even if you’re moving at a snail’s pace, I need you to be, it’s the effort. So, and I really want to overemphasize this because I know people listening, like, I get this all, all, all, all, all the time. People are worried that if they do their own work, they’re going to lose their partner. Their partner is going to lag behind or not catch up. And it’s not about even moving at a parallel pace, but it’s just about facing the same direction.
– Exactly.
– And I love that. There’s something about the word dignity lately that’s really been calling to me because we really- I’m going to say we’d just as like a collective, have been treating people in such undignifying ways, dehumanizing and undignifying, and that does not get us anywhere, but more of what we don’t want, you know, in any context, like in, you know, I know your big into Breneé Brown’s work, I know you’ve done The Daring Way, you’re like, certified in her stuff. And so shame work is a big part of that. Never in the history of anything has like, shaming and blaming people, tearing people apart and ripping them down, made any kind of progress that we actually want.
– It might change people’s behavior on a dime, but over time it’s incredibly destructive.
– It is absolutely destructive.
– Yeah, it is. And I love the word dignity too. And that just comes with maturity. I feel like, since I’m in this kind of battle, like, as I was saying at the top of our conversation, I have had to- Because I’m so impulsive and emotional, I will hit reply on an email and just tear somebody apart. I have had to… self-manage so much. And it takes more time and energy to conduct myself in a respectful and dignified manner in emails, because I want them to do the same for me.
– Exactly.
– And I know what it feels like to be dehumanized like that and to be treated like a second class citizen and it’s infuriating and it makes you so angry. You can’t even see the point of what’s actually happening because you’re so angry. It just, it doesn’t help. And there’s something else I wanted to point to as well. Oh, for the people listening who are thinking about, who are worried about, you know, leaving their partner behind and them not catching up. And I have so been there, I think what’s helpful is to get really clear on what your non-negotiables are.
– Yes.
– And for me, it was communication, which I think is for a lot of people. And, you know, we went to marriage counseling and learned about John Gottman’s The Four Horsemen. You can easily find that information for free online. And we both saw, my husband and I, you know, how we show up in conflict and how destructive it can be in our marriage. And that’s what we worked on specifically. He tended to be a stonewaller, I tend to be contemptuous and it was a disaster, such a disaster. And that very well could have been the demise of our marriage. I can say that without a doubt, if that would have continued, one of us would have decided we were done. And so that’s what we’ve worked on. And that we’re very cautious of. And he even told me yesterday, when we were talking about this, he’s like, “I have moments where I want to just walk away,” not like walk away from the marriage, but just like walk away from the conversation.
– Yeah.
– Because he wants to avoid it. And because that’s been his coping mechanism in the past and he doesn’t, and you know what he said to me too, he’s like, “I realized it’s so much easier to just get the conversation over with and talk about how we felt about it and sometimes apologize and move on and watch Grey’s anatomy.”
– It’s like folding the laundry. I let it sit there for a week and a half and torture myself about it. And then it takes seven minutes. To fold it and put it away.
– Right. And you can like, listen to something while you’re doing it.
– So much stuff is like that though, right? Like, what we are making it in our mind out to be, what it will be like, the fear of discomfort, the want that just like, the unwillingness to be in it.
– That fear of discomfort is such a bitch. And it’s like, you know, we hear all the time in our circles, you know, people say like, “Oh, I don’t want to have that hard conversation. I’m so afraid of confrontation or I’m conflict avoidant.” And I’m like, “Bitch, we all are”. If you’re someone who likes, like, if hobbies include confrontation and conflict, you’re an asshole and probably a sociopath. You don’t want to be friends with those people.
– Yeah. Yeah.
– What you’re afraid of is a hard conversation and they are uncomfortable.
– I actually say I like conflict, but you know, I’ve been teaching you on courageous conversations or courageous communication for a long time. I say I like it because that’s where we really get to know people, you know? In my dating experiences, I’m always like, you really don’t know someone. And I find this in everything. It’s not just dating. It’s dating, it’s friendships, it’s work relationships. You really don’t know who someone is until there’s a conflict.
– 100%.
– So when I say I like conflict, I like what happens when conflict comes, because then you get to go deeper, then you get to figure out, “Alright, what are we made of, what do we need to work on? How am I going to really be able to engage with this person? Or am I not?” Like, conflict brings decision time.
– Yeah.
– Conflict always brings some kind of realization, progress, something I didn’t know.
– Yeah. That’s a good perspective. I like conflict and confrontation when I’m right. And they admit it, which doesn’t happen all the time.
– Because that’s what you were saying earlier. I don’t want to be free. In this case, I’d rather be right and trapped.
– Exactly.
– But I get what you’re saying. I just, I love healing. The thing is I love healing and conflict when approached with an open heart and with compassion and a desire to resolve it for real. And a willingness to be uncomfortable is like, literally a pathway to healing. Always.
– Yeah, same, same.
– But I’m not like out here searching like, cruising for conflict.
– You’re not trolling.
– I’m not trolling for conflict. Yeah. But I’m with you on that. You know what I have to do? What I’ve noticed that really helps me. This happens on social media and it happens in emails. I have to write the response that I want to write, screenshot it and send it to a couple of people and be like, #ThingsIDon’tPost. You’ve probably gotten one of these from me at some point.
– I have before, I haven’t in a while, I feel a little hurt that I haven’t gotten one of those in a while. We’ve sent each other the passive aggressive responses that we’ve wanted to send.
– Or the aggressive, aggressive responses.
– The violent aggressive. Yeah, I do it in my Notes app.
– It’s therapy. You gotta write it out. You gotta get it out. So you don’t actually say it. I’ll send it to my team. I’ll be like, “Here’s what I want to write. But why don’t you respond to this in a much kinder way?”
– Right. Yeah. I do it in my Notes app and it has a lot of middle finger emojis in it too. Just so immature like, things like eat a bag of dicks.
– Bag of dicks is something that I’ve wanted to say out loud to someone for so many years. Actually I did once. I did once on the highway on Staten Island, Circa 2010, rolled down the window. Absolutely unfiltered. “Eat a bag of dicks!” Honestly, it felt great, because it wasn’t consequential, you know?
– Yeah. There’s a part of me that like wants to have surgery and have some prescribed medication so I can do that and blame it on the medication. It’d be like, “It was the Percocet.” Like on a Facebook Live or something. People are all shocked.
– Oh my goodness. That’d be… Well, this is why we have each other.
– True stories of the women’s empowerment movement.
– You got to get, you know what I love? And I got this from Nisha, my friend Nisha many years ago, I remember one time Nisha was like, “Can I just be my most unevolved self for a moment?” And I was like, “Yeah, please.”
– Great term. Yeah.
– So I preface with that sometimes. And I love, and you know, it’s funny, I’m the friends that most people call to do that because they know that I’m not going to judge them. I’m certainly not going to give them unsolicited advice.
– Yeah.
– I’m going to be like “Yeah, cool.”
– Remember there was a certain male person in our industry,
– I know who you’re talking about.
– Sent picture and drew a dick on his face. Sent it to you. He had done something really shitty. He deserved it.
– Oh God. That’s so funny. I do remember. Literally, as soon as you said it, I knew he was talking about, but I didn’t remember the, I wasn’t sure what specifically you’re going to say. because we really can’t stand the person.
– I drew a dick with my finger on his face and I’m not sorry, I would do it again.
– I would do it again. But again, and anyone listening, I hope- I mean, I hope you’re getting some giggles along with us, but also seeing how we all judge, you we’re all like this. We all have our undignified responses. And like, that’s just part of being a person, being a human, having a brain. But you do need to get them out of your system. And it’s a beautiful thing to have people that you can… It’s one thing, if you just write it in your journal, rip it up and toss it or burn it or whatever. But it’s one thing to be able to actually allow yourself to be seen as that so that you don’t feel ashamed of having those thoughts, having those feelings. I mean like “Yeah, being hella unevovled right now,” you know?
– Totally. Yeah. And I think that’s the only time I’ve ever like drawn a dick on someone’s face and he’s so high up in the hierarchy that that’s like, I would not do that to like, somebody in our circle or…
– Yeah.
– That’s probably like, the worst thing I’ve done. But I think that sometimes we have to have a sense of humor-
– Yes. Oh God.
– About hard stuff or we’ll just not be able to live in this hard world.
– I mean, you know, I, hundred percent wholeheartedly agree with that. Like we have to be able to make jokes. Like even earlier you made a joke. You’re like, “I coughed.” You’re like, “Oh, I hope it’s not COVID, just kidding, swallowed my Kombucha wrong.” And like, there are probably some people who might think that that’s in bad taste and I’m like, I just don’t… I had posted a meme. There was like a COVID related meme that I posted a couple of weeks ago, and someone sent me a comment to say they were really offended by it. And I’m like, we have to keep a sense of humor. And I said, I was like, “Thank you for sharing your experience,” and I mean that, but I’m not going to be like, I think it’s… You know? Cool, you don’t think that’s funny, you know?
– When you and I have had this conversation offline about comedy specifically, because you’ve done standup and things like that and who makes the rules for what’s funny and what’s not funny. And I’ve seen Margaret Cho get raked over the coals about some jokes that she was making. I believe about her own sexual assault and people were super offended and called her out on it. And she like profusely apologized and I’m like, “Did she need to?” I don’t know. It was her own experience. Like, I don’t know. I don’t have an opinion on it. It was just I questioned it.
– Yeah, that’s hard. There are some things that are just like kind of paradoxical.
– Yeah.
– But I do think-
– And I think there are things that are off limits but-
– I do really think we get to talk about our own experiences however we want to.
– I agree with you and it might offend some people.
– Yeah. That certainly will. Like, you know, so for, I will zoom back to, there’s this Dave Chappelle special that I went to the live taping of in 2016 so, years later I still get people will watch it and send me screenshots of right towards the end, like four minutes until the end. There’s a shot of me laughing my face off in the audience. And so people still send me screenshots of this, but he was making some Cosby jokes and you know, that’s something where I’m like, “Okay, I can see where that does cross a line because that’s not your experience,” but talking about your own experience, just because it’s something that other people had experienced and it will trigger and bring things up. But in the context of comedy, I mean, I think that’s a really, really slippery slope and it’s not about people being overly sensitive. People get to be however sensitive or feel however the way they want to feel. But it’s the policing of somebody else’s expression. Again, when it includes their own experience, that I’m not down with that.
– Well, and you look at comedians like Dave Chappelle, like, has he ever been somebody who’s like, going to say trigger warning.
– No.
– No, he’s not.
– He’s just not.
– And I hate to say you knew what you were getting into, because I hate that but.
– I mean, I think there’s contexts where that’s appropriate. You know? It’s interesting because my brother, you know, I did stand up just for fun. My brother does it for real and this is something we talk about a lot. And so he has a lot of friends who have comedians. When I was in LA, I was doing standup. I was spending time with one of Mikey, my brother’s Mikey, one of Mikey’s dear friends, Sean and we would talk about that a lot. Like, “Where are these lines? Where are these lines? Who draws them? Who makes the rules and who cares?” Because some people don’t give a shit, some people do.
– It’s complicated.
– Then we all get to choose, cool. I’m going to be a fan of that person or I’m not, but to want to take them out, I don’t really think is anyone’s to do.
– It’s super complicated. It very much is.
– Yeah. And I mean, but again, it comes back to something that we talked about earlier in different contexts, which I just see so many things as waste of personal time. For what? Like, for what actual outcome? This person isn’t telling those, I don’t know. Because it’s also hard to measure. Anyway, anything I didn’t ask you that you’re like, “I was really hoping she was going to ask me about this.”
– I don’t think so. I’m glad I got to circle back about, you know, people worrying about their partners and you know, not evolving and.
– I loved. Thank you for that conversation. That’s always important content.
– Well, and I want to say too, you know, at my first marriage that was part of our demise. Like, he wasn’t interested in evolving or growing or looking at his stuff and that ultimately, and our therapist one time we went to marriage counseling and she told me privately, she’s like, “You’re kind of trying to drag him with you and he’s not, he’s not coming. And you’re on different planes of existence, basically.” And I was too afraid to leave and start over. So I stayed and I, and I knew what was happening and I chose to stay. I was too afraid to start over and I really wanted to have a family and all these things and it ended up blowing up. I’ve been in both worlds where I did leave him behind and it didn’t work out. And so I’m not saying it’s always going to work out in your favor. The other person has to be willing to at least, you know, look at the one thing of communication, so.
– And I like what you said. It’s the effort. They just have to be willing. They have to be making their own effort.
– Yeah.
– That feels like the non-negotiables, like, okay. It’s the pace I could deal with, you being at a different pace, but that you are doing your work. To me. That’s like a non-negotiable.
– I love that you pointed that out. That is an absolute non-negotiable. And in my former relationship, what I’m seeing, and I’m seeing so many things that I’ve been out of that relationship for like 15 or 16 years now, is that he didn’t bring a whole lot to the table. He really didn’t, like, good-looking and you know, and some dick doesn’t go that far. Like after a while, like it doesn’t. He had a lot of misogyny and entitlement. And part of that entitlement was that I was responsible for our relationship. I was responsible for the nurturing, the care taking and you know, the evolution of it and for fixing us. And it took me a long time to realize that I was like, “Oh, I was responsible for everything including that.” And that’s what, you know, and I was also codependent. So it was a perfect storm.
– Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course.
– And I say that in case anybody’s in that relationship, I don’t think it’s hopeless, but I do think it needs to be pointed out.
– Yeah, totally. Thank you. I also really cherished my friends who’ve been in long-term relationships that have been through many phases because I think, one of the things that I really dislike about meme culture, specifically psychology meme culture is how prevalent the, “You need to cut people out of your life and walk away.” Like, my friends who are in the best relationships that have endured. There have been some really hard, hard times. And anyone I know who’s in a great relationship now, like, that shit was earned.
– Oh yeah.
– They earned it.
– Boundaries.
– Yeah.
– All of that. I had a really close girlfriend in my twenties and we were not evolved either of us and we ended up breaking up, basically. She broke up with me because I was too much drama, which she wasn’t wrong. I was also very selfish and she was going through a lot of hard things and she didn’t have the skills to tell me about it in a, you know, in a healthy way. So we split up and then I moved. So it was easy for us to not communicate. And then she popped into my DMS one day and I was like, “I have grieved you, I’m done. I can’t do this again.” And then I decided to give her a chance. And we had the most beautiful conversation at a restaurant when I went back to San Diego and resumed our relationship and have had some of the most amazing conversations as two mature women now in our forties. So, but it’s the same as intimate relationships. It takes two, like, this wouldn’t have happened if it was just one of us.
– Yeah.
– It takes both of us to like own some of our shit. And also talk about like, what we’re going to do going forward.
– I think this is a really important point. And I was reading something about this the other day. And I’ve let a lot of people go over the last several years. Some communicated well, some not communicated well, some communicated not at all. And you know, we do. We do circle back with people sometimes. I certainly have felt compelled to reach out to someone and on a couple of different occasions, it’d be like, “Hey, we never really talked about this, but it feels really important to let you know.” But, filtering that through, of course. Like, not being attached to a response, not needing anything and making sure that’s not like, actually a self-serving reach out, which it sometimes can be. So, I love this. We said we would span the topics and we certainly did. Always amazing to talk to you, so excited for you and your books. Everyone listening. If you loved Andrea, what is your website now?
– It’s andreaowen.com.
– It is andreaowen.com. Great. We’re going to link up not only to Andrea’s books in the show notes, but other books that she mentioned. I know you mentioned three titles about anger. We love talking about anger.
– We love anger.
– We love anger. I have an alchemizing anger workshop on the website. We’ll put a link to that on this as well. We’ll put Andrea’s Instagram, Andrea’s podcast. She has all the stuff.
– TikTok.
– Oh, TikTok, that’s right. I know you’re getting up in the TikToks.
– I love TikTok.
– I love watching TikToks that other people post on Facebook and Instagram. I am a geriatric millennial and I just can’t get my ass on- I tried, I was doing those megaphone videos and I started posting them. And then I was like, “Eh, I can’t really be bothered”
– If you can’t be, yeah. You need to like give it your all. And honestly, the only reason I did it was because I had a book coming out and so, but I fell in love with it.
– Well, great. Yeah. And then you have a knack for that. So yes check out Andrea’s TikTok as well. All right, mama. We’ll see you later. Thank you.
– Okay. Bye everybody.