Melissa Bernstein, LIFELINES
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[0:37]Melissa Bernstein is the author of lifelines an inspirational journey from profound darkness to radiant light
[0:44]Melissa along with her husband Doug is the co-founder of the toy company Melissa and Doug which is created over 5,000 children's products
[0:51]I think 4,999 of which I might have and sold billions of dollars of toys since its inception
[0:57]Raised by educators Melissa and Doug started the business in their garage in 1988
[1:02]And they've been on a mission ever since to provide open-ended inventive non-technology-driven playthings for young children
[1:08]Throughout Melissa's remarkable career. She kept secret her lifelong battle with severe depression and anxiety
[1:14]She reveals her struggles in lifelines her first book which she wrote to help others who are also suffering
[1:20]Melissa's book heralds the launch of lifelines.com an online ecosystem
[1:24]She and Doug are underwriting to support those seeking support guidance and community on their mental health journeys
[1:29]Melissa lives in Connecticut with Doug and their six children. That's right six children
[1:34]Welcome Melissa. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books to discuss lifelines your new book
[1:40]It's my pleasure. Can't wait. It's so exciting. I mean first of all this one's the award for a heaviest book ever
[1:50]It is a couple. I think it's awesome because it's like you have to pay attention to it
[1:54]This isn't something you're gonna throw in a pile and not think about and that's really important because it's highlighting
[2:00]some of the most fundamental
[2:02]Parts of life and not feeling alone and like you have to remember all those things
[2:07]I feel like this
[2:08]Form echoes some of the importance of that so why don't I let you talk about the form some Melissa
[2:14]Tell listeners about lifelines. What inspired you to collect your previously written verses and
[2:23]Songs of you will and poems and all the stuff that you have packed into the volumes in here
[2:28]And then let's talk about the form of it itself, which I think is unique and interesting
[2:33]Sure, so this product was the one that took my entire life to give birth to
[2:40]And I think I was hiding, you know, really everything in it all the verses which numbered about
[2:47]3000 by the time I put it together and all my journals, which I kept throughout my life
[2:53]You know, they were still in the dark in the shadows and I long to have them be out in the world because they truly
[3:01]represented who I really was and while they were in the shadows
[3:04]So was I and you said in this book that even five years ago
[3:08]You hadn't shown anyone that you just gave it to a girlfriend and your first two people the first two people
[3:13]You gave it to did not respond in the way you wanted tell me a little bit about that
[3:18]Yeah, I think you know
[3:19]I always believe that who I truly was would never be accepted and would be rejected and
[3:25]I mean throughout life
[3:27]I had a few instances where I think I showed some of the darkness
[3:30]I was feeling or tried to be seen as I was and I was so
[3:36]Stigmatized by that and felt so alone because people were horrified when I shared it
[3:42]That I vowed very early on to keep my true feelings hidden
[3:47]Even from myself because once the world didn't accept them
[3:50]I couldn't accept them in myself either
[3:52]So from the time I was a little girl
[3:55]I truly repressed denied and disassociated from anything that made me unique and creative
[4:02]And anything that showed the despair I was feeling
[4:06]That must have been a really hard way to live
[4:09]The hiding is such a huge piece of yourself and feelings that shame over something that was not in any way
[4:16]Bad or unique or even or you know, but feeling like you had this like albatross around your neck
[4:22]Tell me about that. Yeah, I think when you feel that you won't fit in and you know
[4:27]Society does a such a disurface from the time we're young which is a whole other story
[4:33]But I got the message very early on buck up be strong
[4:37]Don't show anything negative be happy act perfect
[4:43]And I truly believe that anything other than perfect great awesome
[4:49]Would stigmatize me and I and I got that message the few times I did show it
[4:54]So I think it became very unconscious
[4:57]But I just adopted a facade that became who I was like I didn't know it was a facade
[5:03]It wasn't like I was like, ooh, you're you're putting off a sod Melissa
[5:07]That was who I became throughout my entire life denying
[5:12]Repressing submerging and becoming a very high achieving sort of existential despairing person
[5:19]But really only letting it eke out in my writings
[5:22]You know, that's where the truth of what I was feeling eaked out
[5:26]But even that was unconscious
[5:28]You know, it just would pour out of me and I would just sort of transcribe it
[5:32]Not even knowing the how dark it was
[5:35]You had some places where you talked about how your feelings would just pour out of your fingertips
[5:40]Right, and I just loved that visual because sometimes I feel like that too when I'm ready
[5:44]I didn't even know I was feeling all that wow look at that look what came out
[5:47]Once I let my fingers start working their magic and then you just find out what's in your head
[5:52]So I really related to that I truly believe when you create from your heart and you untether from your head
[5:58]Which is my mantra is you know step on out of the head moving into the heart
[6:03]free to channel all dread into jubilant art and when you allow yourself to create from that that intuition
[6:10]In all of us what comes out are things that you don't as you said sometimes don't even recognize it's incredible
[6:17]It's magic
[6:19]Yeah, it tends to be like magic. Yeah, I think that's why I'm always like so curious what people are writing
[6:24]Right because it's like a glimpse into people's souls
[6:27]You can't get another way and particularly with your book because you have covered up
[6:32]What was hidden in here for so long which I view is almost a tragedy
[6:36]I mean the fact that all of this was inside you and you're only now in your 50s
[6:42]I guess right. I'm not like revealing something private. You're not but
[6:47]That you're only now feeling comfortable sharing all of this and this was one of the reasons
[6:51]I wanted to do this so badly because I felt it was tragic
[6:55]It was tragic that I hide everything I was and everything that made me the creative person
[7:00]I am from myself and from the world to
[7:05]Brandish someone who wasn't me at all and if I could help others to earlier on accept themselves and
[7:12]Really show who they truly are to the world then their lives would have more meaning and they'd be able to feel freer and more
[7:20]Fulfilled through decades that I didn't and meanwhile when you say yes, you are a high-functioning like existentially depressed
[7:27]Operator you're not just high-functioning you founded like a multi-million dollar toy business that every parent out there
[7:34]Melissa and Doug has depended on in
[7:37]One way shape or form from costumes to puzzles to just like basically every single toy out there
[7:43]Many of which I have sampled over the years with you my four different kids and you've had six kids
[7:48]Insane how did you do that while only putting forward a slice of yourself?
[7:54]Like did you show it to your kids did they tell me about like where did it seep out anywhere or literally just on the page?
[8:03]Well, it's seeped out actually in the creation formless and Doug
[8:07]I mean, you know, the first dot for me really connected when Doug and I started our company because until then until my early 20s
[8:16]I created incessantly. I mean from the time I was born
[8:19]You know creation was pouring out of me in verses and in
[8:22]Music and in journal writings, but I never shared them with the world
[8:27]They were so dark and so despairing that even I after I write something I'd never read it again
[8:32]I would squirrel it away in a drawer and never see it because
[8:38]It was showing who I was that I didn't want anyone to see so because of that my creativity never brought me meaning
[8:46]I never understood the connection between what was the meaning in my life and creating until
[8:53]You know sort of by accident
[8:55]We created this this toy company and I started making toys and I saw for the first time
[9:01]It was such a profound metaphor because I saw creativity as a water faucet
[9:07]And one side of it was dark and one side of it was light and for the first you know basically 25 years of my life
[9:13]I had turned off the light side
[9:15]The dark side was on and this creativity just channel threw me almost as if I was a victim
[9:20]Into darkness
[9:22]You know despair into darkness and just stayed in that spiral
[9:25]It never saw light and because of that it never gave me meaning
[9:29]But when I started making toys and realized that I could actually take that very same despair
[9:35]That created the darkness and instead choose to turn off the dark faucet and turn on the light faucet
[9:42]And instead channel it into this radiant light it was like for the first time
[9:47]I felt what it meant to breathe fresh air and that became my salvation
[9:53]So the reason we created you know nearly 10,000 toys and probably in our most you know
[10:00]prolific years, two to three hundred products a year, was because I was like channeling that
[10:06]profound despair that had nowhere else to go into creativity, almost medically, and trying to
[10:14]create meaning and a legacy from this anguish. Truly. And you identify this over, what did you
[10:24]call it over excitability piece that I've been trying to figure out if I also have, because I'm like,
[10:30]that sounds pretty familiar too that you feel like super sensitive and things affect you so deeply
[10:35]and you're like, tell me more about that. You know what? I think this is the next big thing because
[10:42]I truly believe that all of us have some hyper sensitivities. And if only we could, we could proudly,
[10:51]you know, show that to the world. It would change the way people see us. So I realized once I saw that
[10:57]I was afflicted with existential depression, which is so rare, by the way, it's not even in the journal
[11:04]of mental afflictions. It's not a diagnosed condition as of today, which means that when people like,
[11:11]you know, myself come forward, like no one knows what to do with us. So once I saw that I was
[11:17]afflicted with this and a highly creative people were also afflicted with it, I saw that these
[11:23]people who create for sort of their salvation happen to have these hyper sensitivities that make
[11:31]their acute sensations that they feel much more heightened than other people. And I would always say,
[11:39]you know, both the beauty and the pain of the world are unbearable for me. You know, I cry at the
[11:45]slightest thing of beauty and the slightest thing of joy. I'm sorry, the thing of pain, you know,
[11:51]I, I, I'm moved to tears by, by the world in all its beauty and its pain. So they, they appear in
[11:59]five areas. One that I think you said that you might feel is the emotional hypersensitivity. And it
[12:06]basically means when we feel it is so deep that sometimes we feel like a dagger is piercing our soul,
[12:13]it's palpable. You know, it's, it's just that you can feel the pain. There's intellectual,
[12:18]that's the curiosity. That's where you have this rabid need for knowledge and asking the question,
[12:24]why over and over and over again? There's imagination, which might be my greatest. It's where
[12:30]everything comes alive inanimate things or even animate, but they have voices like nature always spoke
[12:37]and you live in your imagination. That's a pretty important one to true innovation and creativity.
[12:44]There's sensual, which is another one that I think is much more common than we think. It's where
[12:51]your senses are extremely heightened. And there's their children who when they hear loud noises,
[12:56]they'll cover their ears and they'll power. That's a, you know, a hearing sensitivity or upright
[13:03]same thing. That's a site sensitivity. And it actually is connected to being able to your things
[13:11]other people don't necessarily hear. So it's that's in your five senses. And then the last one
[13:15]is cycle motor, which is like this revving up of your central nervous system. And this need,
[13:22]it's, you know, I have a volume in the book called the feudal race. And I feel like that was my
[13:26]cycle motor like this need to just keep talking and keep doing and keep creating and you can't
[13:31]ever stop. You're on this treadmill that won't ever turn off. So when, you know, I discovered
[13:39]those existed, it was also like this window had opened, you know, into my soul. Wow.
[13:46]Which ones do you resonate with? I mean, all of them. No. The last one in particular, the sort of
[13:52]motor revving nonstop feeling of needing to like keep producing and thinking. And I feel like my
[14:01]idea is like run away from like I'm just trying to catch up with all of my ideas all the time.
[14:04]And there's not enough time. Like I'm racing against time all the time. I just wrote an essay about
[14:08]this this morning. It's like, nor on a given day, I feel like I'm always racing against the clock.
[14:13]Like there's too much to do. Not just like there's too much. Not like I have too many bills to
[14:18]pay. Not like tasks. Just like I have so much to do. And like the time is clicking down on my
[14:25]You know what? That's existent. That's existential. So you have a bit of the existential meaning,
[14:32]you know, crisis going on. Yeah. And I do what you did. You described it in the book. Like if you
[14:38]think about death to too much, like too head on and you start like having kind of like a panic
[14:43]attack and your whole body and like I do that. Like that's why I can't think about it. Like it
[14:47]happens every time. So yeah, you just have to know these things about yourself. I don't, although
[14:52]I haven't had you're in the book. You talk a lot about the despair, right? And the darkness that
[14:58]you had to climb out of, which I haven't felt to this extent. You know, I have it more in like
[15:04]moments or days, not years and lifetimes, but I can relate in that way. And you had just like
[15:10]a million beautiful lines. Let me see. I turned down like every other page here. And let me see.
[15:14]Oh, this I love too, by the way. For the first time ever, I felt something entirely different.
[15:18]Having spent a lifetime suffocating with the tube suddenly jammed into my trachea and experiencing
[15:24]what it meant to breathe fresh air. And it's kind of what you were just saying now. And then you said
[15:28]you had the power to funnel a desolation into engaging playthings for children. By doing that,
[15:33]I was resuscitated from my lifelong coma. Oh my gosh, a lot of like COVID analogies here.
[15:39]Yeah. And this passage too, you said, my voice rarely leaves these lips, but boldly channels
[15:44]through my hand for I find most discourse challenging, since answers can't be planned,
[15:49]often uttering opinions, which are terribly received and encountering reactions so much worse than
[15:54]I perceived. They're by heading to a corner, armed with paper and a pen to release the desolation
[15:59]using written words again. Wow, you're so good. These are all so powerful. Like one after another
[16:08]after another. It's just amazing. Tell me a little bit about just to change gears slightly.
[16:14]Like I have to know about the form that you chose because you are a producer of objects, right?
[16:18]Your toys are all well thought out and completely addictive for those parents and children. And I
[16:25]know that you applied that same thought to this book and made it a creative package in and of
[16:32]itself. So tell me about the design and the intention and all of the things that made this beautiful
[16:38]book, which for people listening is it's almost like a coffee table book, although much smaller and
[16:44]very thick and it has like a rainbow and like all these inspirational designs and a poem or two on each
[16:50]page and interspersed by text about all these different volumes that you have in your life. So
[16:56]anyway, tell me about that. Yeah. So I think there's nothing I love more than creating products
[17:02]that really are an interactive experience. And I think, you know, in toys, that's what our mission
[17:08]was, right? To create toys that spark imagination and allow people to ignite their inner bonfire.
[17:18]So we wanted to do the same. And I wanted to take the three things that are maybe most important,
[17:23]you know, in my life, which were writing in these journals, writing these verses and photography
[17:29]of nature because nature is one of my most powerful lifelines. And I do most of my writing in nature.
[17:36]So we said, why can't all three be in one book, which is why, by the way, we chose to create
[17:43]this book ourselves and not go through the traditional methods of publishing because that would
[17:50]have really, I would say, hampered us from doing exactly what we wanted and then using materials
[17:57]that nobody uses in a traditional book. I mean, we have a hand-sewn binding, which never happens.
[18:02]We have a cover that is like so thick and embossed. Like I love to just run my hands. I'm doing it
[18:08]right now over the title lifelines because it's embossed and just the feel of the cover like
[18:13]makes me happy. And then the pages are like extra thick and it has a hundred full color photographs.
[18:19]Like it's just a beautiful work of art. And then we said, and we want to make it at a price point,
[18:25]which is the same as other, you know, regular hardcover books, which is $28. So we were like,
[18:31]we're going to do all this and we're going to make it accessible so that, you know, regular
[18:36]folks can hardworking folks can afford it. And then I think most importantly, I didn't create
[18:42]this to be a bestseller. You know, I know now how to create toys that sell millions because,
[18:48]you know, I do it every day. And I could have done that. I could have made it the cute anecdotes
[18:53]about my kids and then listen, Doug stories. And I had been asked to do that book like
[18:58]again and again and again over the years. But I knew that would just be promoting that façade.
[19:04]And the whole point in this was to have the courage to show exactly who I am in all its depth
[19:12]and rawness to give others the courage to share their stories as well.
[19:17]Wow. And then not only did you do this, but at the end of the book you show us how to
[19:22]continue to engage with this whole mission. And then you have a whole website with like
[19:26]a little backpack kit that you can start using to like go on your journey and the acorns and
[19:31]you have like so much extra stuff. And then an Instagram and you've created like a real front door
[19:38]and entry point essentially for anybody who is feeling this way and doesn't know where to turn.
[19:44]You've literally like laid out a welcome mat with this book as the first brick in the path essentially.
[19:51]Yes, I mean the reason I did this wasn't you know as much for myself at this point as
[20:00]to help others.
[20:02]Lifelines, the truth is it was for three reasons.
[20:05]Based on my journey, but really one,
[20:09]to show others, they're not alone.
[20:10]And that sounds really cliched
[20:12]until you read my story.
[20:13]And you know that throughout my entire life,
[20:16]I felt utterly and completely alone.
[20:19]Because I knew I would be rejected for showing
[20:23]the, you know, the mania that comes
[20:25]with being a creative person.
[20:28]And I don't want others to feel that way.
[20:29]I want our community to be one
[20:31]that accepts every single person
[20:33]no matter who they are or what they're scared of.
[20:37]So that's one.
[20:38]The second is, you know, I've spoken with so many people
[20:43]who felt the same way I did.
[20:45]But the one difference between the two of us
[20:48]is I have found a way to turn my darkness into light.
[20:52]And most people have not.
[20:53]So the second is we all have the ability
[20:56]to turn our darkness into light.
[20:59]Just many of us don't know how.
[21:01]And it's my role to show them.
[21:04]Because we all have these beautiful seeds
[21:06]of self expression in our souls that long
[21:09]to rage freely and ignite a bonfire with humanity.
[21:12]But so many of us keep them shrouded
[21:14]because we're terrified of tapping into them.
[21:17]And we're terrified of the responsibility
[21:19]of taking ownership for our lives and making meaning.
[21:22]So I wanna show them that until we do that,
[21:24]we are all in a coma.
[21:26]We're not really living.
[21:28]And then the third is until we decide
[21:32]to stop racing out there in the feudal race,
[21:35]we decide to stop change direction
[21:39]and plunge inward to discover who we are
[21:42]and accept ourselves in totality,
[21:45]we will never find fulfillment or be at peace.
[21:50]And for me, that journey, you know,
[21:52]I had two parts of my journey.
[21:54]The first was making sense of things through creativity,
[21:59]which I had did, you know, I did since we started
[22:03]Melissa and Doug for 32 years.
[22:04]I've been channeling all that despair into the toys
[22:09]and finding salvation, no doubt.
[22:11]But there was still a big part missing.
[22:13]And I realized that again, a few years ago
[22:15]when some dots started connecting
[22:17]that I wasn't accepting those qualities
[22:20]that burned the creation.
[22:21]I still was denying who I was
[22:24]and really not coming out as the real Melissa.
[22:28]And I knew I needed to stop and make that journey.
[22:32]And I also knew I couldn't do it alone.
[22:34]So that was when four years ago for the first time.
[22:36]And part of it was stepping off my perfectionistic podium
[22:40]and saying, I need help.
[22:42]Like I cannot make this journey alone.
[22:44]It's gonna be way too terrifying.
[22:46]I need a partner and I enlisted the help of a professional
[22:50]and she and I made this journey inward,
[22:53]which was one of the most arduous expeditions
[22:57]of my life, I mean, I'm still on it.
[22:59]And that formed the basis for this journey
[23:02]that we're taking at lifelines is the exact journey.
[23:05]So it was so deep and so revelatory that I said,
[23:12]I have to make it so others can take it as well.
[23:16]So that's number three that we all really ultimately
[23:21]if we want to truly feel and be in our lives
[23:26]in totality, we have to take this journey.
[23:28]So not that this is any of my business
[23:30]and you don't really discuss this in the book.
[23:32]So feel free to just say you don't wanna talk about it.
[23:33]But have you ever thought about medication
[23:36]for any of the feelings that you had in your life?
[23:39]I love that question.
[23:42]And absolutely.
[23:44]And by the way, I am not against medication for anyone.
[23:48]I think we all have to make those choices for ourselves.
[23:51]But it's really interesting for me.
[23:53]I knew medication wouldn't work for me for two reasons.
[23:58]One is I knew once I tapped into it
[24:02]that I had a meaning crisis, that I needed answers to,
[24:05]why am I here, what am I meant to do while I'm here
[24:08]and what is the meaning of life
[24:09]if we ultimately have to die?
[24:11]And I knew medication wouldn't give me that answer.
[24:14]Like I knew it was gonna involve a much more
[24:16]intellectual plunge toward philosophy
[24:19]and really discovering it for myself.
[24:22]And two, I knew my salvation was creativity.
[24:25]And I was terrified of messing with it in any form.
[24:30]Not that maybe it would have stayed completely intact.
[24:34]But I knew without it, I wouldn't be here.
[24:36]Like that is my lifeline.
[24:38]And I must engage in it every single day.
[24:41]So I think for me, that wasn't the answer.
[24:45]But many around me take medication
[24:47]and they say there's still justice creative,
[24:48]it hasn't done a thing.
[24:50]And it's really helped them at dark points
[24:52]in their life to come out of it.
[24:55]So I think to each his or her own.
[24:58]And I think we all have to do what is best for us.
[25:02]So I wanna ask if you have advice for aspiring authors.
[25:05]But before that, I just wanna know,
[25:07]now that you have all this out there
[25:09]after so long having all of it hidden,
[25:13]even with your husband, even with your kids.
[25:15]And I know that Doug even wrote your like introduction
[25:18]and then your bio, which I was like,
[25:20]I can't believe she's not writing her own
[25:22]about the author.
[25:23]She had like everything about this book
[25:24]is so designed to make you think, right?
[25:28]How do you feel that all of this is out there?
[25:31]Like to strangers, to family,
[25:34]what does it feel like now?
[25:36]That's such a good question.
[25:38]It feels absolutely incredible.
[25:41]I have a word that I coined,
[25:43]which is the combination of when you are exhilarated
[25:47]and terrified at the same time.
[25:50]And I call it exelyified.
[25:52]Or it's an exelyifying experience.
[25:55]It feels utterly exelyifying.
[25:58]Because when you're not hiding,
[26:00]it's exhausting to hide who you are.
[26:02]I mean, it is to resist who you are
[26:05]and pretend to be someone else.
[26:07]Is the most tragic and exhausting thing
[26:10]any of us will ever do.
[26:11]And when you have nothing left to hide,
[26:13]I mean, I write a lot of verses about that.
[26:15]You know, it's like, here I am, take me or leave me.
[26:19]Like, you can be my friend now or not.
[26:22]And it's perfectly fine with me.
[26:25]And I think that's one of the positives
[26:27]awaiting this long is, you know,
[26:29]as I said, the cry of my own soul to be seen
[26:32]became so great that the risk of not saying who I was
[26:37]was much greater than the risk of saying who I was.
[26:41]And now I'm just loving it.
[26:43]And, you know, I find it really humorous too
[26:46]because people aren't taught in society.
[26:50]This is one of the things we wanna do with lifelines
[26:52]how to deal with people's mental health afflictions.
[26:56]So now when people see me, I can see, you know,
[27:00]I can tell when they've read something or seen a video
[27:04]and they look at me like either they will avert their eyes
[27:08]and I'm like, oh poor thing, they don't know what to say to me.
[27:10]Like, they don't, you know, know how to approach me.
[27:14]Or I've had the instance where a couple of people
[27:16]have come over and sort of patted me on the back awkwardly
[27:19]and said, I'm so sorry, which I kind of feel bad for them
[27:24]because, you know, I'm so sorry is means they pity me
[27:29]in a way and I don't pity myself anymore
[27:31]but I think that was what people did my whole life
[27:34]if I showed them they were like, wow, I'm so sorry
[27:36]as opposed to saying, this is who you are, maybe on it.
[27:40]So it makes me understand that we really need
[27:44]to broaden this conversation
[27:46]because, you know, my depression isn't something
[27:51]to be sorry about.
[27:52]It's something that I want people to say,
[27:55]I feel the same way as you.
[27:57]Like, let's join hands and support each other.
[28:00]Amazing.
[28:01]Well, I'm really thrilled you have this out there
[28:05]and I'm excited to watch your exhilarating,
[28:08]exhilarating, whatever,
[28:10]exhilarating, exhilarating,
[28:11]exhilarating, that's amazing.
[28:13]Okay, parting last minute advice for aspiring authors
[28:17]or anybody who is thinking of revealing a big piece
[28:21]of themselves and is maybe on the fence about it.
[28:25]You know, I don't think anyone should do anything
[28:28]before they're ready and I'm a big believer
[28:31]in our hearts versus our heads.
[28:33]You know, my whole life has been untething
[28:36]from my head and moving into our heart
[28:38]and I believe our heart tells us everything
[28:40]when it's ready and our heart leads the way
[28:44]if we allow it to.
[28:46]Like, every question I've ever had has been answered
[28:49]when I stop thinking and really be.
[28:53]So I wouldn't do anything until I would just really work
[28:58]on becoming present and grounding in the moment
[29:02]and being in places that make you feel alive
[29:06]and engaging in those activities that make you feel alive
[29:08]and with those people who make you feel alive
[29:11]and soon the answer will come to you.
[29:13]And I think when you're ready,
[29:15]it won't be a question anymore.
[29:17]You will just one day wake up and say,
[29:19]I'm ready to tell my story.
[29:21]And then I would just personally tell it,
[29:24]you know, where I would write it to,
[29:25]I mean, I always write things down first,
[29:26]but I would write it down and I would read it over
[29:29]and I would, you know, practice sort of sharing it.
[29:32]So you feel like you can own it
[29:34]and then I would just go out there
[29:36]and yell it from the rooftops.
[29:38]Like that's what I hope we'll all do
[29:40]and that's what life lines is for.
[29:41]So we can all commune and share our stories
[29:44]and have others just sit there smiling and clapping for us
[29:48]because it's such a brave thing
[29:51]to really go out as yourself.
[29:53]And I always thought the brave thing,
[29:55]that my biggest stain on my lens
[29:58]was I always thought the bravest thing was to.
[30:00]Buck up and fake it and pretend everything was great even though it was and I thought that was what gave me my my power and sort of the I'm not going to let anything take me down.
[30:11]But actually it was the complete opposite that was the weakest thing to really try to show the world that I wasn't human that I had no emotions and that I would just fight on no matter what.
[30:22]The bravest thing I've ever had to do is to to truly honor myself and accept myself and only in showing myself compassion have I finally been able to show others compassion as well.
[30:33]So it's really come full circle and I think once we can feel confident to share our truth them will be able to hear everyone else's and and clap for them as well.
[30:44]Amazing. Wow, well there's so much more one to talk about but Melissa thank you thank you for this book I can't wait to hear all the lifeline devotees or all the lives you end up really saving by providing this lifeline to other people.
[30:59]And if any matter thank you if any of your viewers or listeners want to talk with me directly I would be honored to answer them personally if they email me at Melissa Bernstein at lifelines.com that is like my salvation I love nothing more than connecting with people and sharing my story sharing experiences communing with them to maybe make them feel not so alone that is why I'm here so bring it on.
[31:28]Wow good luck with that lots of emails cut it your way I'm sure way okay all right thanks Melissa thanks so much for coming once no time to read books you are so welcome bye.
[31:41]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week.
[31:56]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan back texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.