Canadian Political Superstar! Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, CLOSER TOGETHER: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
[0:14]I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZippyMedia.com or follow me on social at Zippy Owens
[0:26]or join the community at Zippy Readers.
[0:31]Sophie Gregoir Trudeau is the author of Closer Together, knowing ourselves, loving each other.
[0:37]We had the pleasure of doing this podcast in-person when I'm calling the Zippy Salon, and we had the best time.
[0:44]So here we go, and at the end, she even cried a little bit. So definitely listen till the end.
[0:48]Over the past 20 years, Sophie Gregoir Trudeau has been involved as a speaker,
[0:53]spokesperson ambassador, and interviewer in several causes related to gender equality, mental health, emotional literacy,
[1:00]the importance of physical activity, teenage self-esteem, and eating disorders.
[1:04]In 2022, Sophie became the first national volunteer for the Canadian Mental Health Association,
[1:09]which aims to destigmatize mental health and illnesses.
[1:12]Her professional activities have led her to converse with public figures from all walks of life,
[1:17]including Malala Yousafzai, Gloria Steinem, and Hillary Rodham Clinton to name a few.
[1:22]Her meetings with world leaders, such as her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Pope Francis, King Abdullah II of Jordan,
[1:29]Michelle and Barack Obama, and many others. I don't know if you heard of any of that.
[1:33]Have enabled her to forge relationships with engaged citizens, and to constantly reflect on ways to bring about change and more justice in the world.
[1:40]Sophie studied commerce at McGill University and holds a bachelor's degree in communications from the University of Montreal,
[1:45]as well as a certificate from the Prometheus School of Television Radio, passionate about sports movement and yoga.
[1:51]She is also a certified hot-the-yoga teacher for children and adults, and she practices in guides meditation and yoga-ninja sessions.
[1:59]What it doesn't say here is that she has been the partner of Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada,
[2:05]from whom she is now separated.
[2:07]Welcome, Sophie. Thank you so much for coming on mom's. Don't have time to read books and congratulations on closer together.
[2:13]So exciting and for hitting number one on the nonfiction list in Canada. Oh my gosh, congratulations.
[2:18]Thank you. Thank you. I'm pinching myself because when I wrote this book as a mental health advocate for 20 years,
[2:24]I really wanted to give people tools to know themselves better and to have more emotional leadership.
[2:30]I think that we're not even educated on what emotional leadership is, so I'm so happy to be able to share my baby with the world.
[2:38]Now, you have given us so many tools in here. Love the quizzes, love all the interviews and all of it.
[2:45]But I also really love hearing about you and your growing up and how your own attachment style formed and where all of your own issues and struggles and all the rest came from.
[2:56]So you immediately sort of give us access to you so that we can all open up and see ourselves in the book.
[3:01]So talk a little bit about where this project came from. Did it start looking like this or was it going to ever be more memoir? I don't know.
[3:10]No, I didn't want to write a memoir at this point in my life because yes, my story is important, but I don't want it to be at the center of my life and I'm not saying that memoirs shouldn't be written.
[3:22]But what I'm saying is that for me now, because I've been on this mental health path for quite a while, I realize that all these experts all this knowledge, all my own student, internal student of life, curiosity, I didn't want to keep for me because I've been learning so much through what I was reading, what I was discovering about myself and how to reset my own nervous system, how to better understand my personality
[3:47]and how my inner child and this is like a big one is like if you think that the inner child in you is not still active in every single relationship you have at work at play in your romantic life with your kids is not active or read this.
[4:01]So from our childhood bond of attachment, how somebody touched us, cared for us, looked at us, played with us, validated our perception of our own reality as a little person as a little human.
[4:14]From zero to three, this leaves a big imprint in our brains and everybody's brains.
[4:19]So you carry that in your life and into your teenage years, rebellious or not.
[4:25]And then in every relationship that you'll ever have.
[4:28]And it really made me realize that those two universal, every single human being need for attachment, healthy attachment and through the quizzes, you can find out what type of attachment that you have.
[4:41]generalize your whole life situation on it, but it gives you a better insight on how you work and what kind of personality that you have and why.
[4:49]And then you have authenticity, so that's childhood bond of attachment and then you have authenticity.
[4:53]The two most universal needs and human beings, which is to be able to express your own unique personality, but without having to change your behavior to please or be loved.
[5:02]But here's the things that we all do it.
[5:04]We all do it as children to get the attention and love from our parents.
[5:08]And we do it in our romantic relationships.
[5:10]We do it in friendships.
[5:11]We do it at the workplace because we need to be seen.
[5:14]It's an inherent universal human need.
[5:17]And sometimes when our attachment bond is not healthy enough, right?
[5:22]And it wasn't done with as much safety as we needed.
[5:26]We become codependents.
[5:28]We try to numb our pain through addiction.
[5:32]I had an addiction.
[5:33]My drug of choice was food.
[5:36]Now eating disorders and every type of compulsion is just the tip of the iceberg, you know, sticking out of the water.
[5:42]Because or not, the water depends where you are.
[5:45]Because it comes from a deep need for emotional nourishment that isn't fulfilled.
[5:51]And mental health is not just the absence of a mental illness.
[5:56]It's our longing emotionally to be in connection.
[6:00]And it took a pandemic.
[6:01]Unfortunately for too many people to realize how human connection is meant for our survival.
[6:07]Right?
[6:08]But we're stuck in the intellect a lot, which is yes is a form of intelligence.
[6:11]But the heart actually has a nervous system that has a predictability for negative events.
[6:17]So when somebody says, I should have trusted my intuition.
[6:20]So my gut, right?
[6:21]And my heart is real.
[6:24]And we don't know this, but I learned this while writing the book that the gut sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the gut.
[6:30]So in modern medicine, now that we're finally looking at our personality or psychological emotional immunology.
[6:38]Right?
[6:39]And physiological health altogether.
[6:41]We understand that we cannot dissociate one element from the other.
[6:44]Because we're sick.
[6:46]If we do, we get sick mentally and physically.
[6:49]And you grew up like eating pine cones.
[6:52]I don't know what that says about your gut.
[6:55]I'm not sure I was chewing and swallowing the pine cones.
[6:58]But yes, you're right.
[6:59]My dad had me close my eyes and taste different essences of pine needles.
[7:03]So I could just know what kind of tree was.
[7:05]And there was a sensory experience that marked me forever.
[7:09]Unreal.
[7:10]I love how you talked about growing up and how you were in the forest.
[7:13]And that is like your baseline happiness, even though you moved back into the city.
[7:17]But that you feel most of peace when you are with nature and all of that.
[7:21]And then you tell us later on that even during one of these times with two of your kids
[7:26]before you're third to sport.
[7:27]And you were out on the rocks with the water and then slipped and broke your wrist.
[7:32]And I was like, no, she's in her happy place.
[7:34]Just give her the one minute of happiness.
[7:36]No, no, that was when I was surfskating.
[7:40]I was skateboarding.
[7:42]Oh, yeah.
[7:43]Oh, yeah.
[7:44]It's okay to worry about it.
[7:45]Because I've slipped off rocks many times.
[7:47]Okay.
[7:48]It's actually we jump off rocks is what we're doing.
[7:49]Okay.
[7:50]But yes, I did break my radius while I was doing kind of crazy stuff while the kids were playing on a Sunday morning.
[7:55]And yes, I ended up in the hospital, but we all have stories.
[7:58]Oh, okay.
[7:59]Yes, that's very true.
[8:00]We have kids about the same age.
[8:01]But I was like, oh, that's like, sounds as per pain.
[8:03]That sounds as per pain.
[8:04]I know.
[8:05]I know.
[8:06]I know how that goes.
[8:07]Well, you opened up a lot in the past and also in this book about your history with eating disorders.
[8:12]And the scene that I can't get out of my head is when you finally are ready to tell your mom,
[8:17]can you just tell that story again to listeners?
[8:20]It's like so.
[8:21]Yeah.
[8:22]Yeah.
[8:23]It's heart wrenching.
[8:24]Yes.
[8:25]Because I meet the little girl in me every time I, I, I explain it.
[8:27]Yes.
[8:28]And I want to take care of her.
[8:29]We're not taught how to take care of our inner child within us.
[8:32]And we spend our lives re-parenting ourselves in some ways, not to pinpoint and say,
[8:38]oh, my parents weren't good enough.
[8:39]So, so I have to take care of myself.
[8:41]No, we learn to have the maturity to discern why we act the way we do.
[8:46]why we suffer.
[8:47]And in that moment after years of suffering from bulimia,
[8:51]I remember that they was, I had had too much curging that night.
[8:55]And I was a low body weight.
[8:57]I wasn't anorexic, but I was close.
[8:59]Very close.
[9:00]And I was trembling in my bed.
[9:02]And I kept crying crying because I was not processing my sadness properly.
[9:07]And if I talk about this with psychologists in the book,
[9:10]if you don't process your sadness profoundly and well,
[9:15]it comes back and haunts you with even more difficult emotions to deal with.
[9:20]Yes.
[9:21]And I was just sobbing and crying and on stop.
[9:24]And I said, I can't do this to myself anymore.
[9:26]I don't want to treat myself like this anymore.
[9:29]And I felt like the little Sophie was watching over the Sophie of then
[9:33]in that bed and going, it's enough, my love.
[9:36]The parent and the child at the same time.
[9:39]And I called up my mom and I still remember the tone of how I called her
[9:44]because I could hear her in the bathroom doing her little things.
[9:47]And that was a reassuring sound.
[9:49]I was safe, right?
[9:51]But I was sad.
[9:53]And I was holding in so much from my parents' dynamics and what I was internalizing
[9:58]as an only child.
[10:00]Well, then the solitude yes, which was beautiful,
[10:02]but the loneliness too.
[10:03]Yeah.
[10:04]And she came over when I called her name.
[10:07]And she came in bed with me because I was laying down
[10:10]under my covers.
[10:12]And I said, mama, I'm not doing well at all.
[10:14]And I think I have an eating disorder
[10:16]because I had read up upon my condition, on my condition.
[10:19]And she said, I was wondering if something was off.
[10:23]I was noticing little science here and there.
[10:25]And like I'm here for you, you know?
[10:27]And we were bawling together.
[10:28]And then part of me was like, okay, oh my God,
[10:31]I can breathe now, I can breathe.
[10:34]I can release the sadness feeling safe enough
[10:36]that I won't be judged or feel shame or guilt
[10:39]from all of this, which I did all the time.
[10:41]And most people with addictions,
[10:43]or, and I'm saying addictions,
[10:44]but we have to be careful here.
[10:46]Yo, yo, dieting, obsession with physical appearance,
[10:50]codependency and relationships.
[10:51]They're not in the DMS, is it?
[10:54]The book of like mental illnesses?
[10:55]Yes, but they are a form
[10:58]of addiction.
[11:00]And when we live in a society where lust and distraction
[11:03]and rage, especially in men,
[11:05]are really the emotions that are encouraged to be released,
[11:09]it's so difficult to be vulnerable and to tell your story.
[11:13]So from that moment on, it was a mix of,
[11:17]okay, I'm supported through this journey of healing.
[11:20]But I'm also mad and angry that nobody picked up on it
[11:26]before and said, hey, like, can I help?
[11:29]Are you okay?
[11:30]My apart from one girlfriend who was like,
[11:32]like, how can I understand this better
[11:34]because she really didn't understand it?
[11:36]It's tough.
[11:37]Nobody should suffer in isolation or in silence
[11:40]because silence can kill.
[11:42]And this is real.
[11:43]It's true.
[11:44]The secrecy is the worst.
[11:45]Feel like every good novel, there's a secret,
[11:47]the corrosive power of secrets.
[11:49]And it's a form of entertainment, right?
[11:52]That we integrate in our culture.
[11:54]Michael J. Fox said in his documentary on his own condition.
[11:57]I love it.
[11:57]I love it.
[11:58]He said, me are only as sick as our secrets.
[12:01]I believe that.
[12:02]Not the little interior garden that you tend to.
[12:04]That's different.
[12:06]Your deep secrets, you hold them alone.
[12:08]You're in for quite a hell of a ride and hell,
[12:12]you know, from an emotional standpoint.
[12:14]I don't believe we should,
[12:15]human beings are meant to keep secrets like that
[12:18]in relationships and within ourselves.
[12:21]You're absolutely right.
[12:21]Oh my gosh.
[12:22]The tarnishes you from the inside in a way.
[12:25]It's like, it's toxic.
[12:27]Do you feel like you have any secrets left?
[12:28]No.
[12:30]Do you want to spill them down?
[12:31]No, I've never.
[12:33]No, but I've never been somebody who has hold on to secrets.
[12:37]I would say, except for when I was suffering from it.
[12:39]I was keeping my sadness secret to myself.
[12:43]This is why I wrote this.
[12:45]I know what it means to be known by the world
[12:47]and to have to expose your personal relationship
[12:50]to the world.
[12:50]And I hope I could have done it in another way.
[12:55]But I also know that what comes with having a public side
[13:00]to your life and personality,
[13:02]it's not why I wrote the book,
[13:04]not to get more known, trust me.
[13:06]I wrote this book so people can be known to themselves
[13:09]because without the perspective of emotional leadership
[13:12]from the inside,
[13:14]you're not really leading a conscious life.
[13:17]So what's emotional leadership?
[13:19]Like, you're out of breath, you're anxious.
[13:23]Things are overwhelming you.
[13:24]Can you go and take that deep breath
[13:26]and say, wait a second,
[13:28]and take five minutes to regulate my nervous system?
[13:30]Are we taught that?
[13:31]No. Is it easy to do?
[13:32]No.
[13:33]I almost did it.
[13:34]I was just out this weekend doing a million things.
[13:37]And there was this whole passage about when you're like,
[13:39]okay, why didn't your feet lean over?
[13:42]Did it?
[13:43]I was like, should I just get up and do this?
[13:44]It works, it works.
[13:46]I do it between meetings.
[13:48]I do it when one of my teenage years is like,
[13:51]driving me a little bit, go call it.
[13:53]Because I want to be more patient with myself.
[13:57]And because I want to be able to be more discerning
[13:59]and patient with others.
[14:01]And that doesn't come without work.
[14:04]But the tools that I share in this book, they work.
[14:06]And they reset your nervous system.
[14:08]I didn't even know I had a Vegas nerve in my body
[14:11]before I wrote this.
[14:12]And I'm a mental health advocate, right?
[14:14]So because we don't teach children to actually know
[14:16]their anatomy, their neurobiology.
[14:18]And it doesn't have to be complicated.
[14:20]This is what I tried to do is that to make it accessible, right?
[14:23]While I explain it.
[14:24]And your Vegas nerve, every human being has one,
[14:28]which runs from the base of your brain,
[14:29]brainstem goes into the throat region,
[14:31]chest, abdominal cage, and lower pelvis.
[14:36]Regulates heartbeat, digestion, salivation, breathing.
[14:40]It just, it's, and we call it the Vegas nerve
[14:43]because Vegas comes from wandering
[14:45]because it wanders all over your body.
[14:48]W-A-N-D-R-S.
[14:51]And it has two branches, the sympathetic,
[14:54]which is your fight, flight, freeze response.
[14:56]You don't want to cross the street if there's a car.
[14:58]It's protecting you from danger.
[14:59]And then the parasympathetic, which is your rest and digest.
[15:03]So during a day with your mom at home,
[15:06]or your working, your dad on a construction site, whatever,
[15:09]okay, whatever you do, a nurse, whatever.
[15:11]You dance between your sympathetic
[15:13]and your parasympathetic nervous system,
[15:15]all day long, all year long, all life long, yeah.
[15:18]Because we live in a society that one
[15:21]rewards a self betrayal.
[15:22]We cannot age, we cannot accept ourselves
[15:24]the way that we are physically or mentally
[15:27]and we gotta behave a certain way
[15:29]in order to perform and be accepted and fitting in.
[15:32]That means we're not expressing our authenticity,
[15:34]which we talked about at the beginning of the interview,
[15:36]which is a visceral need for every human being.
[15:38]Yes.
[15:39]So we become very anxious
[15:41]and in self betrayal mode,
[15:44]teaching young girls and boys to hate themselves
[15:47]from a very young age.
[15:48]And we suffer the consequences.
[15:50]And it's unacceptable.
[15:52]And it's not allowing us to be the creative human beings
[15:54]that we are.
[15:55]So mental health, again, it's not just the absence
[15:58]of mental illness, it's the lack of emotional leadership
[16:01]that we should be.
[16:02]It's a human right to have emotional leadership over yourself.
[16:07]Therefore, if you lead yourself better,
[16:09]you can inspire and lead others with respect and compassion.
[16:13]But here's the pickle we're in.
[16:15]When almost, I think the research in the data
[16:17]is saying almost half the population
[16:18]is chronically stuck in their sympathetic nervous system.
[16:21]So alert, always being over anxious.
[16:25]Thinking that there's a saber truth tiger
[16:27]that's gonna come into the room,
[16:29]that's tough to live with every day.
[16:31]And our bodies are saying, I can't handle this anymore.
[16:34]And because women and moms are the nucleus of the family
[16:37]and they hold the emotional load
[16:39]of every single family member,
[16:42]our plates are overflowing.
[16:44]Our bodies are depleted.
[16:45]We're not sleeping, right?
[16:48]Yes.
[16:49]I don't know many women my age.
[16:50]I'm 49 who are sleeping well.
[16:51]And yes, there's Perry Menopause and all that,
[16:53]but still the incessant rhythm of our lives
[16:57]and the fact that we are not supported adequately
[17:00]in holding that plate.
[17:01]So it does an overflow and spill on our own kitchen rounds
[17:06]where we live, right?
[17:08]Whether it work or not, we always end up in the kitchen.
[17:10]I love the kitchen.
[17:11]Yeah, I love the kitchen too.
[17:12]I just think it happens.
[17:13]I should move this into the kitchen,
[17:14]which is just the best parties.
[17:16]Yeah, in the kitchen.
[17:17]I agree, I agree.
[17:18]Yeah, so, yeah.
[17:20]Wait, moving to your kitchen.
[17:21]Can I go back to your kitchen or something?
[17:23]So you have a part.
[17:24]And I'd love to know what you were saying about teenagers too
[17:26]because I totally agree with you.
[17:27]There's this myth that like their teenagers
[17:29]are fine go off and they can do their own thing,
[17:31]but you have to really be in it with them.
[17:32]It's just like your kid another day later,
[17:35]like you can't just let them fly.
[17:37]But you had a conversation with Xavier.
[17:39]You pronounce it Xavier?
[17:40]Yes, yeah.
[17:40]Who you asked about, the secret of relationships
[17:42]or something about what would make a good relationship.
[17:45]And he said, taking it slow, right?
[17:48]And I was like, that is great.
[17:50]So you couple that, but then in another place,
[17:52]you describe yourself and like,
[17:54]what style of lover you are.
[17:55]And I'm like, oh my gosh, A, are the kids reading this book?
[17:59]And B, like what are the main takeaways here
[18:02]that we can learn from our kids
[18:03]and in general about relationship?
[18:06]I'm fascinated at how parenting experts
[18:09]are deconstructing the model of parenting
[18:13]that we've known for so long.
[18:15]Parenting is not a role.
[18:16]It's a relationship with teenagers, for example.
[18:20]This face to face, I to I, getting a wink
[18:24]or a touch, a safe touch, even though they don't want it
[18:27]as much as you as before.
[18:28]And that's fine.
[18:30]One validating warm facial expression
[18:34]before entering a conversation.
[18:36]You and I, we're in front of each other right now,
[18:39]you're picking up in 100 milliseconds
[18:41]on my facial cues.
[18:43]This is how human beings interact
[18:44]and how we get our first choice of emotional nourishment.
[18:48]If I was like this the whole time,
[18:49]you'd be like, whoa, back up lady, right?
[18:52]Yeah.
[18:53]So during the pandemic, not only did we not have this,
[18:56]but the most unhappy human beings
[19:00]and I speak about this in the book with a famous psychologist
[19:03]are the ones who cannot trust in the other.
[19:06]So if in your own household as a mom,
[19:08]there is a distrust between you and your kids
[19:11]or between your husband and your kids
[19:12]or your partner or your whatever, or between them.
[19:15]And if you don't feel secure enough as a parent,
[19:18]if you haven't looked at your own trauma
[19:21]and if you're not ready to face your truth
[19:24]and be on your own healing path,
[19:27]you will transmit and you will leave as a legacy
[19:30]an emotional weight onto your children
[19:33]that doesn't belong to them.
[19:35]So we have a responsibility of individualization, right?
[19:40]We're not taught that.
[19:41]It's okay, it's not our fault.
[19:43]If you're not, there's a famous Cheyenne proverb
[19:46]that says, in the end we will save what we love,
[19:49]love what we understand and understand what we've been taught.
[19:53]If we're not taught self-knowledge,
[19:56]if we're not taught to be in tune with our emotions
[19:59]and to know how to regulate.
[20:00]them. Then how can we save what's happening on the planet right now? The movements of division,
[20:08]of polarization, the hatred, which actually in which talk about this in the book, which actually
[20:13]stems from a deep desire for connection. The men and women who commit atrocities. And yet
[20:19]we're going to push away the major like serious mental illnesses for now during this conversation
[20:24]because it's not, you know, we're going to have like a, I don't want to generalize, you know.
[20:29]What happens in our homes? We bring back onto the streets, into our community centers,
[20:34]into companies, into schools, everywhere. So if we're able, as mothers, to know that we're
[20:40]worthy of rest, number one. And a society that tells us that we're not. The patriarchy loves a damaged
[20:46]woman. This makes me want to cry every time. Liz Plant, who I interviewed in this book, who has the
[20:51]podcast for, are you men enough and who wrote the book for the love of men? She says that, that the
[20:56]patriarchy loves a damaged woman. And it's true. And it's not because men and boys today want it,
[21:02]but they were raised in that narrow concept, which is quite insulting to their protection,
[21:06]potential and their intelligence. So if we want to move closer together, which is probably one of
[21:11]the most important, if not the most important way that human beings will be able to build resilience
[21:17]to face the crises that we're facing as a planet and as communities and as families within our
[21:21]own homes, we must be secure in ourselves. Because if you're not secure in yourself, you are threatened
[21:27]by the difference of other. So look at the state of the planet right now and try to, try to put that
[21:31]equation in, it makes a lot of sense. Do you feel that as someone in the public eye, you have had to put
[21:40]some sort of version of yourself that you're not even, before I can finish my question.
[21:46]Yeah, it's because you don't finish it. No, I don't want to finish it. No, I love it. That's amazing.
[21:50]That's like, we get a jump. Yeah. I've always had difficulty pretending. I'm not that kind of
[21:57]person, not that kind of person, but it's not something that I feel, I just feel sick when I do that.
[22:02]I don't feel the integrity of it. And we do it as a protection mechanism, right? Yes. Have I had to
[22:07]adapt to a very well-protected silo of what it means to be on the copolitical path? Yes,
[22:15]absolutely. And has the world's perception have had an impact on my level of stress,
[22:21]on the security physical psychological of my family and my partner? Yes.
[22:28]Not fun. I have much more compassion and empathy for a lot of young families trying to do the
[22:33]service and the political path. And unfortunately, there are some bad people and it's not the
[22:38]majority. It's the minority who tarnished the image of what it means to be in service to each other,
[22:43]whether you're in a prime minister role in a family accompanying or whether you're in a community
[22:48]volunteer, right? We have a lot to learn there. And when you look at the political landscape now,
[22:56]it is a reflection of how insecure people are feeling. And they need to be assurance.
[23:02]And the criticism and the hatred stems from a deep need for connection. That's been
[23:08]undunourished. So I have had, and I made the choice of wanting to understand that better,
[23:15]to understand my own struggles better. And it's not that personal. People need to find someone
[23:23]to blame and we do it when we feel insecure. When we're not willing to see why am I actually
[23:28]feeling like this, it can't be just one person's fault. But we do that in our couple relationships.
[23:33]We do it with our husbands, with our partners, right? And the main source of conflict in a
[23:38]relationship is objection to difference. If you're hubby, doesn't see the world the way you do,
[23:45]you're sometimes like, wait a second, we're completely off track here. We're not seeing the
[23:49]situation the same way. No, because we don't have the same type of attachment because we didn't
[23:53]have the same life before you might each other. And because nobody wants to be left alone,
[23:57]rejected, abandoned. Nobody, right? So we hold on so tight to life, to partners. I heard Esther
[24:05]Parell recently say that longevity is not the sign of success of a relationship. We applaud. Wow,
[24:13]40 years marriage. Great perseverance and effort is absolutely a sign of healthy dynamic.
[24:21]But when we bring the notion of success that is marriage and separation is failure,
[24:27]those are the two words apart from conscious uncoupling that we have to describe relationships.
[24:31]The children bear the emotional grunt of the drama that we have been left with because of the
[24:38]narrow definitions and standards from religion, from cultural standards that we've been left with.
[24:45]And we are emotionally immature and relationally immature because we're so attached that it's
[24:52]difficult for us to leave the person that we love with more space without feeling that we're
[24:58]losing them. They are now more definitions of what it means to be a family. Good. It's still
[25:04]unsettling to hear what, you're how many? You know, I think we still judge. I think the most important
[25:10]thing, no matter what happens and how you decide to restructure your relationship, is to preserve
[25:18]the history and the beauty that you want shared and to make sure that that continues to grow
[25:25]through time. It is our responsibility because we should be starting a relationship with the
[25:31]curiosity, compassion, and patience. The same way we end our relationship. When I teach yoga,
[25:37]it's a cool metaphor. When you come into a physical pose, there are three steps to the physical
[25:43]pose. The first one is the body alignment, which in a relationship, you have to be aligned
[25:48]in order to communicate. And then there's the breath work. Are you calm enough in your pose?
[25:53]The breath should always be greater than the pose. When you're in a relationship in a friendship or a
[25:58]couple, can you actually calm down before starting to listen to the other? And finally,
[26:04]at the pose in yoga, you let go. You've aligned yourself, you're breathing properly,
[26:09]you're conscious of your own presence, and then you let go. Same thing in a relationship.
[26:15]We haven't been taught that. I went through, I'm divorced and remarried,
[26:20]and I'm not sure that the end of my, I mean, that's a lot. That's a tough part. It's like
[26:24]we have the end to be beautiful. It doesn't have to be easy and beautiful, but it takes two
[26:29]to tangle, and it takes two secure individuals to be able to commit to that. Why? Because we are
[26:37]guiding children, and we gotta be responsible for what we leave after a relationship.
[26:44]And I am saddened and disappointed in adulthood, that we were not taught this before.
[26:52]Because we're breaking hearts. Do you feel like it's easier to live this when you know it,
[26:58]or do you feel like in real life, even if you know something to be true, it's harder.
[27:02]Are you joking? Of course I do. I wish I didn't have to go through, through it the way we did.
[27:08]I wish I didn't have to announce it to the world. I would have been definitely for sure if we
[27:12]weren't on the copolitical path. Was I conscious the whole way through of how my kids could feel
[27:18]about all of it? Yes. Did I try to de-dramatize it? Yes. Was it the right thing to do? Not sure?
[27:25]They're sad. They're sad. They're hurting. They're hurting.
[27:28]Right. Not, then, then, then, then, then, then, then a distraction. Don't think about it.
[27:32]It's not gonna work. Sit with your pain. Let it be painful without feeling that you don't
[27:41]have the resilience to get back up. But do we train the brain to do that? No, we don't.
[27:46]But if we read your book. Well, if you read this book, and this is my only wish,
[27:52]is that it creates that you feel something so deeply that you'll say you'll be ready to change
[27:58]something small in your life, but that you commit it to. And that you see the change because you
[28:03]will, because microhabits create traits in our personality as we repeat them. And it's not that
[28:08]difficult to change your brain. And the way you think, so your mind can change your brain structure.
[28:15]It's fascinating. It's fascinating to learn closer together that we have the tools as human beings
[28:22]to intervene on our own well-being much more than we think.
[28:27]When you're with your friends, I mean, you know so much, right? Your mind is like,
[28:32]I'm continuing learning. You're like, no, you're like up and you have so much, like,
[28:37]exploding out. I know. And I know you want to share it because you're trying to help people.
[28:41]And it's like, it's coming from such a good place. Is it like, when you guys have coffee,
[28:46]are you like, did you know that the top three things, or did it like, is that, is it like that in
[28:50]your closest friendships? I think we go from those conversations to pulling the most, pulling the most
[28:55]mischieving pranks on each other. I think we go from playfulness to deep, serious topics. We go from
[29:02]laughing, being in our pants, laughing, to crying on each other's shoulders. And isn't that life?
[29:10]I think my friendships reflect our lives. Yeah, and vulnerability. And I can't live it any other way.
[29:19]Because at the end of the day, if you keep stuff inside, it comes back to haunt you. It really does.
[29:25]Like, great. Yeah. So last, you know, just to, I know you have your big press tour and all that stuff.
[29:31]But this is real. I love it. No. I know. I'm like, you're like, in a second act, I feel like,
[29:37]like, I'm 47. You're 49. We have all these years God willing, like, left ahead of us, right?
[29:42]Now you're an author on top of everything else. Like, where do you want your life to go?
[29:48]I've realized. And this is from the emotional nourishment I get from humans.
[29:54]Okay. I'm an only child. So for me, and you're a president. I know.
[29:57]Hey, you want to play? You know, I'm kind of still like that at 49.
[30:00]Two things, I have learned to deal with uncertainty.
[30:03]I've trained my brain and my feeling of security
[30:06]and by the way, on every hand my Maslow's pyramid,
[30:09]your most basic needs, so having a roof over your head
[30:12]and having food on your table, if safety is not there
[30:16]and remember that safety is not just the absence of threat,
[30:19]it's the presence of connection.
[30:21]So I've tried to train my brain through yoga,
[30:24]meditation, movement, being aware of what I put in my body,
[30:26]what I eat and how I sleep and who I survive myself with.
[30:29]What I bring my attention to,
[30:31]that uncertainty is a part of life.
[30:33]And in my most difficult moments
[30:35]where I was deeply hurting inside,
[30:38]I decided to still jump through the circle of fire,
[30:43]even without knowing where I was gonna land.
[30:45]And I know now that when we're courageous
[30:48]and brave as human beings,
[30:50]and we don't suffer alone and we ask for help,
[30:53]we ask for help, where you land after having jumped
[30:57]and not knowing where you're gonna land
[30:59]is always softer than you think.
[31:02]And I've learned that and I've integrated that lesson.
[31:05]And when I will be thrown with more adversity,
[31:08]I know that I can handle it.
[31:10]And I do have dreams and I'm noticing now
[31:13]that how people react to the book and to me, right?
[31:16]Whether it's at the supermarket or at an event
[31:19]or at my, I don't know, my kids, kids, school,
[31:22]get together, the human warmth
[31:26]and the leaning into each other safely
[31:29]confirms that I need to continue to serve
[31:32]my fellow human beings.
[31:34]And it makes me cry because at the end of the book,
[31:36]why remember trying to write the end?
[31:38]And I was trying, how do you end the book?
[31:40]You know, how do you end the book?
[31:43]And the only thing that could come up was
[31:45]and to you, dear reader, I loved you first.
[31:49]And this wasn't just a line that I chose.
[31:51]It's how I feel from the inside.
[31:54]So I want to give until my last breath,
[31:56]not from a place where, oh, I have to give, give, give, give.
[31:58]Because us women, we do that and we put our needs last, right?
[32:02]But to feel emotionally nourished by authentic bonds
[32:06]and the healing of our homes, what's happening inside
[32:10]in our schools, with our teachers and our students
[32:14]and in companies and throughout the world
[32:17]and the most raging regions of the world
[32:20]where the fires are burning
[32:22]or whether it's within ourselves or out there in the world,
[32:25]getting closer together will be a source of reassurance
[32:29]even through collective therapy
[32:31]that now psychologists are looking at,
[32:32]bringing people who have gone through similar things
[32:34]but on other sides of the world,
[32:36]telling each other stories, storytelling is how we bought.
[32:39]It's been like that forever.
[32:40]I want to continue sharing my story
[32:42]so others can continue to tell theirs
[32:45]and we can make the thread of our lives
[32:49]all tighter so that nobody falls through the cracks
[32:51]in the holes.
[32:53]That's beautiful.
[32:53]That's what I want.
[32:54]Wow.
[32:55]Congratulations.
[32:56]Thank you.
[32:57]Thank you, thank you, thank you.
[32:58]Oh my gosh.
[33:01]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[33:04]If you love it, please leave a review and follow us
[33:06]on social at Civi Owens and at Civi Readers.