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The Truth About Addiction
Dr. Samantha Harte is a speaker, best selling author, coach and sober mom of two. She is here to tell the truth about her life, which requires telling the truth about her addiction: how it presents, how it manifests, and how it shows up again and again in her recovery. This podcast is one giant deep dive into the truth about ALL TYPES OF addiction (and living sober) to dispel the myths, expose the truths, and create a community experience of worthiness, understanding and compassion.
If you are a mompreneur and are looking for a community of like-minded women who are breaking all cycles of dysfunction and thriving in business, family, body image and spiritual well-being, join the waitlist below!
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The Truth About Addiction
When Celebrity Meets Sobriety: Unexpected Revelations with Brooke Burke
Every so often, an unexpected friendship forms that cuts through the superficial and dives straight into soul-deep connection. That's exactly what happened when I met Brooke Burke—someone I'd admired from afar for years as she graced television screens with her natural charisma and undeniable presence.
What I discovered behind the public persona was truly remarkable: a deeply spiritual woman whose superpowers had nothing to do with her on-camera talent and everything to do with her genuine desire to lift others up. In this intimate conversation recorded in Brooke's backyard, we explore territory rarely covered in celebrity interviews—spiritual rock bottoms, the universal nature of addiction, and how loss can ultimately transform us.
Brooke vulnerably shares her own struggles with control and perfectionism, realizing through our friendship that addiction manifests in countless ways beyond substances. We reimagine recovery principles through a trauma-informed lens, distinguishing between mere acceptance and the deeper practice of surrender. Her insights about maintaining spiritual connection while balancing a busy blended family life offer wisdom applicable to anyone juggling multiple responsibilities.
The conversation takes a particularly powerful turn when we discuss grief and healing. Having both experienced significant losses, we explore how checking in with your heart—asking simple questions like "How does your heart feel today?"—can create space for authentic healing. Brooke's willingness to have a "broken heart" rather than closing herself off from love demonstrates a courage that transcends her public achievements.
Whether you're navigating recovery, processing grief, seeking balance, or simply curious about the person behind the persona, this episode offers rare insights into two women's journeys toward authenticity and healing. Listen in, and you might just discover your own path forward through life's most challenging moments.
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Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. Ooh, this episode is long awaited. I shot it many months ago with a woman who is now a good friend of mine, okay who I grew up watching on television thinking God, she's gorgeous and she's so natural on camera. I mean, this was a you know for lack of a better word a celebrity crush. I mean, I, I'm a, I'm a fangirl of this woman. Her name is Brooke Burke.
Speaker 1:She sort of rose to fame, if you will, uh, by first of all being a very successful model. She's stunning and somehow she's aging backward, which I don't understand. And then she got a chance to be the host of a show that was on E Network and it went on to be wildly popular, where she it was called Wild On traveled all around the world and explored cities and cultures and the people in them and interviewed them. And she's been just crushing it in entertainment ever since, which, by the way, takes a very specific type of human to play in that industry and stay in it successfully, not lose sight of what matters. And her and I ended up working at the same fitness studio in Malibu and I finally went to one of her classes because I'm like when am I going to get into close proximity with Brooke Burke? Ever, right, and I wonder what she's like. I wonder how she teaches fitness classes. I wonder how she thinks and how she moves through the world.
Speaker 1:I had no idea and I just couldn't believe how spiritual this woman was, how intelligent, and that's not a knock. But you know, we don't know. And we see people on TV, we just make up stories in our head about who they are and then you get to know them and this isn't one of those like oh, she's a real human. This is not that. This is that what the world knows of Brooke Burke and thinks about her as far as her superpowers, about her as far as her superpowers isn't at all what her real superpowers are the way that she, from her bones, wants to spiritually lift up other people, especially women. The way that she wants to cut through the noise and talk about healing, love, energy, abundance, manifestation, biohacking. She really wants to grow, to learn and to help others do the same.
Speaker 1:I got to sit down with her and this is not the only interview I'm going to be releasing, which I'm so excited about but last year to do this interview in her gorgeous backyard, and you guys are just going to get to listen in to this conversation and it's almost as if you know we're interviewing each other. It's like just being let in to a conversation between Brooke and I. You're going to get so much insight into some of the things we've lived through, how we see the world, why we're so connected, and I think there's some massive takeaways that will help you feel more connected to yourself and to other people, so I hope you enjoy it. Please leave a comment if you want more of this type of stuff, send it to someone you love, and I can't wait to know what you think game of make-believe.
Speaker 3:Hey, gotta break the pattern and my, that's my main right, this is our main. Oh see, good, we know. Okay, ready, ready, ready, hi, everybody. Welcome to woman to woman.
Speaker 3:I am super happy today to have dr samantha hart with me, and you might know her from all of our digital meetups on Monday mornings, or you might know her from the amazing band and beat workouts. She's a girlfriend, she's a doctor, she's an author, she's a podcaster, and today we're actually recording a podcast, so we're letting you behind the scenes from our recording. We're going to kind of pitch catch this interview. I'm just a huge fan of everything that you're doing as a woman, as a friend, and may I also share that she's sober, which I think is pretty freaking amazing.
Speaker 3:And when I agreed to write a very short and little humble blurb for your book, one of the reasons why I did that is not just because I love you and I love what you're doing, but also because, after listening to your stories and after you sharing so much with me, I realized that I'm also an addict and I think we are all addicted to something, whether it's fitness, control, love, substance, something and I never really thought about that witness, control, love, substance, something and I never really thought about that. So I maybe I'm sober curious. I'm not sure. Maybe that's in my cards, maybe not, probably knowing myself and the way I challenge myself.
Speaker 3:I challenge myself, but I really learned a lot from you, and I really learned that the 12 steps, many of which are in this book and we're going to talk about it, I think are applicable to life, and so I'm just excited to interview you and bring this to life for our community. And we talk for hours, literally hours, and I think there are buckets of really valuable information that we're going to be able to share. Um, how'd I do on your intro? I love that.
Speaker 1:I feel very, very special and very smart.
Speaker 1:Thanks to you and I think I've told you this before. When I met you I was like I got to go to Brooke Burke's fitness class because I had been watching you on TV forever and I'm like, what is? What is she actually about behind the curtain? Cause I didn't know and I could not believe how spiritual you were and how tapped in to the wellness plane you were. And I said to you it felt like in your class you were operating from a loose framework. You had come in knowing roughly.
Speaker 1:I think this is how she operates in her life a loose framework, but that you are so connected that you just listen to the call of your body as you were teaching, and so when you asked me how the class was, I gave you that feedback, which I think maybe wasn't the feedback you thought I'll never forget that Sam was in my class at Rafi Lounge and I looked over to after the class.
Speaker 3:We didn't know each other, we just had a major sweat sesh and you said quote you said you're really the real deal. And it was such a compliment to connect those dots between perception and how we meet people. Oftentimes not meeting them for the first time, we already have this preconceived idea of who they are and that was a huge compliment. And then we instantly connected. And I also wanted to add that you were very instrumental in a huge part of my body healing when I had a little bit of arthritis, a lot of inflammation, a slight tear in my labrum, and you gave me some really effective, useful and specific PT exercises and I changed my form a little bit. I started listening to my body.
Speaker 3:I actually dropped into thanking my body for this very annoying and frustrating injury, because there were messages and signs and body language that my body was trying to tell me. Maybe I was grinding too hard, Maybe it was life, hormones and age Probably not but maybe I needed to just make some adjustments. And now today I feel stronger, more educated in my body space and more aware of what's going on. So thank you for that, Because you remember when you were doing some PT sessions with me, I was like am I going to have surgery?
Speaker 3:Do I have to stop doing yoga? What is going on with this shoulder? I love what I do so much. How much do I have to manipulate that? I was really bummed out and so then I just dropped into a little bit of surrender, which I know you're all about connecting all of these dots of the principles that you're going to read when you pick up this book, and I hope you do so. Thank you for that like deep gratitude for you, just for the healing and all of the other little beautiful and important and pivotal and inspirational moments that we unpack every time we go to lunch.
Speaker 1:Well, can I just say thank you for that, that's a tremendous compliment and, as you know, I had a practice for 10 years and I really, immediately upon entering the landscape of the healthcare industry, bowed out and was like absolutely not, I did not spend the money and the time learning about this so that I could chase people's symptoms.
Speaker 1:So, I do feel like the intentional decision. Though I was so early in my sobriety. I'm so grateful that that part of my life I was so clear that I wasn't going to enter into a rat race where people were just in a factory, not ever really getting better. So I feel like it set me up to be a special kind of clinician.
Speaker 1:And also my emotional IQ, I think, is very high, and having to be in a practice of accountability every 24 hours for the last 15 years makes it that much more so. And, feeling like you know, I had to stay within the scope of my practice. Somebody's coming in for their body. I can't be their therapist in a psychological way Like we do in yoga. Right.
Speaker 1:But I always could feel the soul sickness in the person. I could always feel, as you touched on in the beginning, the cycle of addiction or dysfunction whatever you want to call it that they were stuck in and I knew full well that that was going to get in the way of their knee pain getting better, no matter how good a program I designed.
Speaker 3:The connection between the body and the spirit, the mind and the body. That's really amazing because we talk about that a lot. When we're flowing through a workout and connecting those dots and strength and weakness and surrender and challenge, it's really an amazing experience for me when I was able to take those tips and tools from you and drop into pain and discomfort and injury and do some healing through education and connection. Yeah, Right.
Speaker 1:And also you and I connected when, when we met that day, about our loss. Yes, which we cannot have this interview and not talk about that. Yes, and I did not know that you lost a sibling.
Speaker 3:And I did not know that you lost a sibling, which was sort of the breaking point of your journey. As it often is, it takes a tragedy, a lifequake, a pivotal moment, a disruption, a disease, a death for people to really open their eyes and drop into awareness, and many may or may not make those changes. So, yeah, we connected from a very traumatic common denominator and really had an opportunity with each other to discuss it and to heal and to meet each other with love and compassion and to just be in a space of pain where there are so many learning opportunities, where most people compartmentalize, do you agree? Maybe they don't deal, maybe the trauma is too shocking, maybe they deal with it a decade later. I'm one of them. I'm really good at that. Less so at this point in my life, but, um, yeah, I mean, why don't you take us through a little bit of your journey?
Speaker 3:I want everybody to get in to read the book because this would be a two-hour interview, but I know there were some traumatic, monumental points in your life that really shook you through to the other side.
Speaker 1:Oh God, there were so many. I mean there are buckets like pivotal bucket moments that changed the trajectory for me, and one that I think I more recently unpacked was I had already been exposed my whole life to drugs and alcohol as though they were normal things that you do, and I had already been a hardwired perfectionist with an unrelenting inner critic. So if you couple that, it's not really surprising that I was drinking and using, but it wasn't until a suspension from a major university after.
Speaker 1:I plagiarized because the one teacher in my whole life who wouldn't give me an A I just couldn't tolerate. So I cheated, I got caught and I got an 18 month suspension. Were you using at the time Very rarely, but then that shame was so intense because my grades were sort of the thing I could always rest on as the thing that made me okay in the world. And now, what was I? Who was?
Speaker 3:I, what was I? That thing that you controlled, that gave you purpose was taken away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was when my drinking and drugging really took off, and within a couple of years, I got my acceptance into a doctoral program. And on that day because the motto for my life was work hard, play hard- I did so much cocaine that I overdosed, but that wasn't the bottom.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing about addiction. It's one of the things I talk about in my book. Addiction is not a physical, it's a series of physical reward systems that you're chasing but almost dying, losing your home, losing your family. It takes a spiritual rock bottom not a physical one and it's so unique to the individual and what I really believe or one or the other for many people right.
Speaker 3:It's most likely not both at the same time for a connected human being.
Speaker 1:I think that we have to if we take. I'm just going to talk to Kelly to come in.
Speaker 3:really quick, Kelly come in.
Speaker 1:If I think about the cycles of behavior or thoughts that make an addict an addict In the beginning, it's a solution to your problem right In the beginning. You don't put poison into your body repetitively unless you are anesthetizing serious pain right. So you've learned something, or you've learned to escape something, such that you now need this thing to operate.
Speaker 3:Do you think most people are aware of that? No, that they are necessizing while they're in it no, no.
Speaker 1:So if you're not even aware and you're doing it, and now your body's becoming dependent on it and all of a sudden something scary happens like my overdose that doesn't mean you're done relying on those patterns that you used your whole life to keep you safe. I wasn't done. I was used to pleasing and perfecting and performing for decades. And I was still really capable of doing that, even though I almost died.
Speaker 1:So, the idea was let me just get that under control, but I don't need to change how I'm operating in the world right, I can I can have a noose around, whatever the thing is that I want, and if I squeeze it hard enough, I'll get it and everything will be okay. Until that exhausted itself in a marital crisis. I just tried to physically abstain when I eventually did get sober, but I didn't work a program. I didn't change my insides. I stayed holding on to perfectionism as the way.
Speaker 1:I coped with the world because it still worked, and when it finally stopped working, that was the bottom that was required for me to go. Now what I had to be introduced to something new, and that is when a woman came into my life and said what if we did the steps on your marriage and after you were, sober.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I was five years sober, so you were sober not necessarily using the most common tools that help people navigate that. So near-death experience. You OD'd, you got sober, but you were sort of just cruising through it because you had to, without really understanding the how or the why. It's remarkable that you were able to get sober and stay sober, by the way.
Speaker 1:Well, let me tell you why I think, After I got a year of sobriety, the guy who sponsored me, who was a friend, 22 years sober from heroin addiction, was the light of AA. Everybody loved him.
Speaker 1:I didn't believe anyone or anything. I didn't believe the program, I just believed him and that if he could be sober, maybe I could too. He relapsed and he killed himself. So at a year sober, here's what I knew. If I relapsed, I was dead, and to believe in God was also to die, because I was taught you cannot rely on anybody but yourself. So for the next, five years Okay.
Speaker 1:Wow that was that was the way I said I can't touch it. So I'm going to white knuckle this abstinence thing. I can't touch it because I don't want to die, but I have no idea how to live any other way than perfecting the world around me and the people in it.
Speaker 3:That's really incredible when you can put into perspective and give value to the fact that you don't know how to live, like so many people are not really living. They're living, they're going through the motions, we're marching through life, many of them doing very well, doing really well, in overdrive, grossly disconnected, but not truly living. It's's wow.
Speaker 1:Well, well. That is why, when I said I always saw the soul sickness in the patient, that's what I was seeing all the money in the world to pay me cash to fix their body problems.
Speaker 3:And they were dead inside.
Speaker 1:When my sister died, that version of me as a clinician who just treated the body died too. On the other side of the grief, having created not just a book, so many things I now have a blueprint as part of how I coach people to treat whatever spiritual malady they are suffering from and, as you said, I'd be so curious if I asked you to put you on the spot. Brooke, yes, you said. When you met me, when you read some of this book, when you were writing the endorsement, you realized you too were an addict.
Speaker 3:If you had to get to the root of what it is that you're addicted to, what would it be? I never thought about addiction in the same description of my life, my personality. When I started hearing your stories and reading your stories and better understanding your journey, I realized and it might seem trivial in comparison to all of these other things, but a little bit of a little bit of it is OCD and organization, so I'm constantly manipulating my environment around me to create a greater sense of peace, or to change an environment when something doesn't quite feel right, so sort of biohacking my environment, if you will um
Speaker 3:what do you think that's about my environment? If you will, what do you think that's about controlling an environment, creating change? Is that horrible? Shall we wait for our dog? The dog is gonna give us a break. Come over. Come meet my girlfriend Sam. She wasn't at the. This is dr dream, aka dr dream. I was also an author and a creator of Oracle cards and we did a gorgeous dream manifestation and dream circle during our wellness and holding a sense of this incredible story and I want to interview you, too when we do our next shoot.
Speaker 3:We bring these women to women interviews to life. This is Stuart. I think you met each other at the event. Sam has a new book too, and a girlfriend and a doctor and all kinds of other amazing things. We're finally sitting down to tell the story.
Speaker 1:We've been waiting for this. I'm drooling, thanks, and it's so pretty too, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for making the trip.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, my honor okay, this one is for you and this is for whoever this is amazing.
Speaker 3:I'm so excited that you delivered those thank you.
Speaker 4:I'll put it right here do you see it here, stuart?
Speaker 3:blue. Thank you. I wish. I had time to chat, but you're welcome to sit and listen and not get back on the road. Can I tinkle over there?
Speaker 3:You can tinkle, you can chill, you can take it, you can Also, can we just get a? What? What for the word tinkle Exactly? So good, yeah, do whatever you want. You can even chill out if you want. Oh my God, okay, okay, one second, all right. Whoops, I love all this. Thank you for your trip. Thank you for making the drive. I appreciate you. Thank you, and I don't want to downplay everything that you've went through too so, like when I realize that I'm addicted and it's to control and organize. It's like it seems so.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, but that is why I wrote my book.
Speaker 3:Okay, so less okay. We're back, so talking about control of organization and OCD and the things that I continuously manipulate, and I didn't really realize that I was addicted to those things until one day we were sitting here and we were outside with some of my girlfriends and I was serving lunch and we were in the middle of a meeting and I was like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, let me go get a towel. Wait, let me clean. Like I couldn't settle in my own body until I organized the environment. And that's just me. I actually don't think it's a bad thing, but I'm more aware of it now that it's my need to control. And if I couldn't do that, this is where I realize and I surrender to the reality of addiction for me. If I couldn't do that, this is where I realize and I surrender to the reality of addiction for me. If I couldn't do all that, I would be uncomfortable and I wouldn't be able to focus and I wouldn't be able to settle.
Speaker 3:And even my cousin we joke around because she has OCD as well she goes. You know you have OCD and you know it's a problem. I'm like why is it a problem? She goes. When you're laying in bed at night all night and you can't sleep because you know you didn't organize the sofa cushions downstairs, I'm like it's not a problem, I get up and I go organize the sofa cushions, I don't lose. And so she's like uh-huh, and you think you don't have OCD. I mean, it sounds silly, but we are all addicted to something somewhere in our lives, which is why, even though it might not be related to alcohol and drugs, I think the 12 steps are so valuable for people in life. I've read the 12 steps from AA. I thought they were amazing when I was healing from my divorce and redesigning my life and there was so much valuable takeaway in there for me.
Speaker 1:So let's play with something right. Step two, traditionally, is came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. So when I was first introduced to the steps and I hated the steps I read that and I was like, first of all, I don't believe in a power greater than me, and I was taught in my bones that if I did, I was a fool.
Speaker 3:So so right away.
Speaker 1:I was like absolutely not Could restore me to sanity. So now you're telling me I'm crazy, when the truth is. The truth is I've been acting a certain way because my nervous system has learned to adapt based on the chaos in my upbringing to survive that way.
Speaker 1:So don't call me crazy, because I'm actually so smart, having adapted to really unstable circumstances that were dangerous and found a way to get through it. Mmm, so how do we repurpose that step in a way that is modern, trauma-informed and applicable to whatever OCD? Sure, okay, what if we could come to believe that a part of ourselves, besides the desire to control for you and organize, or for me, the desire to make everything perfect around me, could we believe that there is another part of ourselves, a higher part of ourselves, a higher part of ourselves that could restore our nervous system to a feeling of safety? Keep going is that possible.
Speaker 3:Let me see it just keep going, okay so I want to wrap my head around.
Speaker 1:so I'll give you, I'll focus on myself, right, okay, if it's possible that there might be another part of me besides my perfect voice, and of course there is right. Although she was running the show forever For sure. The need to be perfect. And that one telling me you're never enough, you're not smart enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not thin enough. Right, if I can believe that there are other parts of me that are more loving, more tolerant, more patient, more kind.
Speaker 1:The less perfect parts of you the less perfect parts of me, the more intuitive parts of me. Could I believe that they might have something to say? Besides, you're not enough? Could they have something to say that would take my body and make it go?
Speaker 3:you're okay, take my body and make it go. You're okay. It was part of that looking through the lens of acceptance and really understanding the many layers that we all possess.
Speaker 1:Acceptance is always part of it, you know. Acceptance also doesn't mean you have to like it, right? Which I remember learning in recovery because I used to think if I accept something, that just means I'm putting my tail between my legs, you know?
Speaker 3:but actually, acceptance, surrender is so hard, surrender is so amazing and is such a space of freedom and realization and truth do you think acceptance and surrender are the same thing? I do not Can you tell me the difference?
Speaker 3:Let me see if I can unpack that. Acceptance for me would be living in truth and living in what is, and really getting clear on that story. I guess that we tell ourselves and really accepting the fundamental facts or your interpretation of them. Surrendering for me is a little bit of a deeper spiritual dive. It's a letting go, it's a releasing. It's almost like I imagine they're similar. But surrendering for me is accepting and then letting go. Releasing it's a softening, it's an awakening. What do you think Very difficult to define?
Speaker 1:It is difficult. So let's play with this for a second. So with your OCD stuff, your control stuff, if something were a total mess, especially if you knew you had company coming over.
Speaker 1:Oh no, okay, okay, company's coming over Brooke your worst nightmare the house is a mess. You literally will not have time to make it look the way you want. If you, if you, if you cerebrally logically accepted that you hated it. It sucks because you would never want it to be that way, but you accepted it. That's kind of step one. What would surrendering?
Speaker 3:look like Got it. I would accept the fact that I don't have time. The doorbell's ringing and the house is a shit show Humiliating, by the way. I hate that. My first reaction which is why this proves to be true, be true was what do you mean? I wouldn't have time? How could I not have time? I would find time and make time.
Speaker 3:But okay, I'm with you, sam, the, the, the surrendering would be for me to take a deep breath and just let it be and to find comfort in the reality that this is what it is and what I have learned in this recent decade of my life, especially now with six children and five of them at home and a lot of things and a lot of sports equipment and a lot of bikes and a lot of surfboards and a lot of stuff and a lot of mess and a lot of food and a lot of everything is that I organize and I control, I guess, what I can within my own space and power, but that I have to accept the reality of my very busy blended family and let us all be and live and exist and I have to sort of surrender to the chaos in the fridge and the chaos in the garage and then on some days I try to manage it all and then I fail and then it's okay.
Speaker 3:But I've learned how to take into accountability how it makes me feel and why and what I can do more of and what I need to do less of and how we can all how I can be in a space that I share with a lot of people.
Speaker 1:I have two questions that I really want to ask you.
Speaker 3:Clean up your stuff, Stuart, Like when you walked into the living room on production day and there's equipment all over. I'm like it's making me nervous.
Speaker 1:It makes me so happy to see anything messy around you.
Speaker 2:Oh really, Good job, Good job.
Speaker 1:Brooke, so something I've noticed.
Speaker 3:I know, can we just clean up this?
Speaker 1:table. Something I've noticed is you know your ability to serve others is spectacular, thank you, and that is, in its own right, a superpower. And, although this would seem really counterintuitive, when you spend time with you, I don't know how good you are sitting still, completely still, by yourself when you're not serving others. So how much time in your in a 24 hour day, typically in your life, if 60% of the time is giving outwardly serving right, teaching a class, helping other people drop into meditation, what is the percentage of time that is just for you, in stillness, in communion with yourself?
Speaker 3:It's a great question and you and I have talked about this, so it's an important conversation that our greatest neglect of self-care is serving others is caring for others. I love to be in service. It gives me purpose. I'm very grateful for that space, but I'm also very aware of the need and the art of serving myself. I wasn't able to do that as a younger woman and a younger mom.
Speaker 3:I do a lot of things to refill my cup, to protect my own energy, to ground and to serve myself, like my own meditation, my own prayer time, going to bed earlier, waking up earlier, taking time in the sauna, doing yoga flows alone, whether I go into the tipi by myself when I'm not teaching a class most of which, most of the time that I spend getting what I need in that space is with other people. But I do need time alone. I do need to take my shoes off and walk barefoot in the garden or be with my dog, which that feels like very intimate and sacred time for me. I do lay down off of my phone and not even reading a book and just taking some vitamin D to just slow down, and maybe it's five minutes. I don't have a lot of time to spare for that, but I make the time to replenishish. I do a lot of DIY baths at night where I'll put a do not disturb on my door. I'll put a bag of Epsom salt, a whole bag in my tub, some herbs from the garden or some flowers in a playlist, and I will get in there and soak and cleanse and detox and do nothing but literally lay there, healing my body but but also quieting down my mind.
Speaker 3:So I've learned to do that and you know the art of not doing, the doing of not doing is really hard. Sometimes it's two minutes. In Savasana it's two minutes that are so valuable. If you take classes with me, and you certainly know this they're usually not an hour, they're like an hour 15. Cause I want to soak up that, those 10 minutes of meditation and not more than two minutes when there's not a class rushing that's invaluable. Um, so I take my moments and I need them and I know when I need to schedule a day for me. I used to look through my calendar as a younger woman with three jobs and not have a moment, and I was like, but I was so used to it.
Speaker 3:I just put my war paint on and I would just grind and I would say there's a time coming. There's a time coming, I got to do this, I got to take advantage of that. There's so much going on. Now I go, I need a me day, I need a day for lunch. If I control time which I actually believe I do in the healthiest of ways because I get to decide how I spend it I am the only one that gets to decide how I spend it. Beyond the work requirements, the obligations, the family, the give, the love, the life, the man, I get to decide when I need a moment of me time so that I can serve myself, and I'm a really big believer in that. And I think we struggle with selfishness, with this interpretation of really putting ourselves on top of our list. It's imperative for me to function. It's imperative for me to function and to live. What's the percentage I would say in a whole day?
Speaker 3:Yeah on average of just you. I'm lucky if it's 10. And I'm always fascinated when I hear from other people in this space of wellness, other people that are guiding the percentage of their day that they spend just loving on themselves the percentage of their day that they spend just loving on themselves and no excuses.
Speaker 3:That's probably all that I make and it feels right for me and I also get so much out of what I give. So it's a unique passion that I have in the wellness space because I learn in that space, I evolve in that space, I grow in that space, I enjoy that community so much that it serves space I evolve in that space I grow in that space. I enjoy that community so much that it serves me. I get that, yeah, but I suppose it'll be more when I'm retired?
Speaker 1:Okay, wait, wait. So I have a final question for you.
Speaker 3:I feel like I'm in the hot seat.
Speaker 4:You are, I am, but I'm supposed to be for you, I feel like I'm in the hot seat.
Speaker 3:You are. I am, yeah, but I'm supposed to be interviewing you. But yes, I know, I totally took over.
Speaker 1:I took over. No, no, no. Okay, so we're going to laugh for a second. The other day we got together and I was so jealous I couldn't come to your menopause event. Yes me a secret, a fabulous question, that one doctor asked everybody oh, are we going there. Well, no, but I'm going to tell you what I can't stop thinking about since then, and I'm going to take that and ask you something.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay. So, by the way, can I just tell them the question yes, please. So if you didn't get a digital ticket to the momentopause event, we are doing it again. But one of the brilliant MDs on our panel as we were talking about OBJYN, but one of the brilliant MDs on our panel as we were talking about OB-GYN hormones, libido, sex, sensual health, everything. One of the amazing questions to our sit-down dinner of women some conservative, by the way was if your vagina could talk, what would it say? And we were all like holy shit, like what would it say? Would it say I want more, it's too much, I don't want it, I want it. I don't know who you are. It was a fascinating, fascinating exercise. So that's the question she's talking about.
Speaker 1:Okay, so are you ready for this pivot? Are you ready? And I'm not answering that publicly, no, that is not no, no, no, but Are you ready?
Speaker 3:And I'm not answering that publicly. No, that is not. No, no, no, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1:But okay. So after I lost my sister, most people culturally don't know how to handle grief.
Speaker 1:They don't know what to say and they don't know what to do. One friend asked me a question that I've never forgotten, that I've tried to ask other people. Asked me a question that I've never forgotten, that I've tried to ask other people and then when you said that question by that doctor, it made me take the question after the grief and rephrase it, and then I'm going to ask it to you. So my friend said to me how is your heart today?
Speaker 1:and I thought god damn it if that isn't the the question we should be asking each other. But certainly because you're not stepping in and sharing your grief, you're not saying I cannot imagine your pain and putting an armor around your heart so you don't have to go there with the person. You are literally giving an open-ended question and really tapping in right. So if your vagina could talk what would it?
Speaker 1:say here's how we rephrase Brooke Burke Close your eyes while we do this, Okay, Okay, I want you just to imagine for a second. You're scanning your life, your family and all the kids and all the chaos family and all the kids and all the chaos your work life, your app and your love of fitness and that entire community, your alone time, your retreat life. You're scanning the whole thing Right now, in this moment, while you're sitting here. If your heart could talk, would it say I got.
Speaker 3:It's such a beautiful question. Well, so many things my heart would say. Is it speaking to me or to speaking to me? My heart would say thank you just for allowing me to do what I do. My heart feels full and alive and feels like it's beating just to this powerful rhythm. My heart would say thank you, and I feel like living in that space of gratitude for me. I know that I'm taking care of me. I know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm so lucky that I get to love my children the way that I do my man. I have this amazing family. My heart like beats, like my heart's full in that, um.
Speaker 3:My heart would say thank you for the connection that I have with my mind, body and my spirit. My heart would say that it's like beating to these possibilities that I've created, that I trust, and like this freedom, space to design and to change. And just, I don't know if the heart. I feel like my heart speaks to me all the time and that I live from a place that comes from my heart as much as I do from my gut and my intuition, but that I like, like I ask my children that all the time. How does your heart feel? How do?
Speaker 3:you feel inside. Sometimes you ask a man that they're like what? So I love this question so much. I've asked. I've asked my man that'll be like what do you mean? Like I'm like, just like, how do you feel inside? So my feeling comes from my heart space. I'm very connected to this space in front of my heart and the space behind my heart where I give love, where I receive love. So I'm really like I sit sometimes and so listen. I listen to my heartbeat because I want to make sure that I feel life, that I feel alive, that I'm connected, that I'm really present, but that I'm alive in my mind, body, spirit connection.
Speaker 3:So I don't know how to give it words, but I think it's beautiful, my heart would just say thank you, like, like, huge thank you, and that is an amazing feeling, yes, to know that I'm connected in my purpose, in my body, in my spirit, enough that I'm living in gratitude. That's creating energy, it's creating this life force, that's creating this beat, and I want to like, feel that.
Speaker 3:And then I want to protect it and I'm also okay when it breaks to protect it and I'm also okay when it breaks. Like it's this really. It's this really emotional and valuable and real um commitment that I have like to my heart space like somebody asked me once after my divorce, like how did I love again? How did I find love again? How can I make the commitments again?
Speaker 3:and I'm like, because I was willing to have a broken heart. I was willing to live and to bleed and to hurt and to yearn and to heal and to be and to like love completely with an open heart. I'm very committed to having an open heart as much as an open mind, so I don't know how you connected the dots between vagina and heart.
Speaker 1:Because I'm a magician, brooke, because we've got to make it funny and deep what would your heart say? I mean it's funny.
Speaker 3:I knew I was going to ask you that but I did not try to prepare myself which is the best way to answer these questions, because we're so good at doing what we do that we neglect our own process of exploration within ourselves.
Speaker 1:So I'm glad you weren't prepared yeah, I mean, the overwhelming thing that comes up is I am so proud of you. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 3:I think there's like I know you did not live in that space for most of my life trying to be a little miss perfect and striving for that and doing everything that you can control until you hit rock bottom. And then you went through your journey of self discovery and learning to live again and find hope and find joy and heal. But, wow, I am so proud of you, it's so beautiful to come from within an acceptance. Wow, tell me more about that.
Speaker 1:I think wow, I think in this.
Speaker 3:I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 1:Thank you you know, if I think of the arc of of grief and this doesn't even touch all of it, but obviously bobby's death was the beginning, and then I lost my dad, and then I lost my sister, and in each grief period I handled it very differently. This, this most recent pocket, I have been leaning all the way in. I have been birthing new things into the world, I have created really a life beyond my wildest dreams and I think the younger versions of me are just inside of me, just jumping up and down, like yes, yes, like, yes, yes, yes. Like we knew it. We knew it, we just didn't know.
Speaker 3:We didn't know what was going to happen to get here, we didn't know, god damn it.
Speaker 1:We didn't know the level of pain and despair. We didn't know, god damn it.
Speaker 3:We didn't know the level of pain and despair. But, yes, like that's the part that feels like is saying I'm so proud of you, it's so beautiful, it's so, it's such an accomplishment to live in that space. I would very much like to do an interview part two about grief. Interview part two about grief. So much to say about it. I know and I do as well, and we just scratched on the surface of that and you know, I lost my brother, my two of my best friends in the same year, my father that decade, my nanny that decade. It's such a long list of trauma and loss and grief. Each one was different for me as well. So I would love to come back again when you have time.
Speaker 3:Because I think we could really help a lot of people in sharing our stories, which are different than their stories, but I feel like these little nuggets of information allows us to tap into a toolbox and a tool shed. Information allows us to tap into a toolbox and a tool shed and just to give people possibilities of how to sit in a space of discomfort for no other reason than to heal and to learn and to evolve right absolutely let's do that, let's do that get this book?
Speaker 3:everybody breaking the circuit how to rewire your mind for for hope and resilience and joy in the face of trauma. There's so many little nuggets of learning opportunities in here. Um, I'm super proud of you. I think you're an amazing human being and doctor and woman and author and friend and trainer and work out with sam bands and beats.
Speaker 3:It's so, so much fun. She's also um giving us a stretch and recovery, a stretch program, which I think is another opportunity to go inward and just to connect with self, definitely, and to learn about your own body. What's happening in your body tension, strength, weakness, injury, need neglect. That's why, why some people, that's why fitness is so emotional for some people. When we open up these hips and these storage filing cabinets, oh yeah, shit happens right um go there happens, so the shift can happen.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, that's right. Shit happens, so the shift can happen. Works for me, and what would your vagina say? And also thanks everybody for tuning in. That was amazing.
Speaker 2:I hear the desperation call, I turn my back and hit my head against the wall. Don't need a crucifix to take me to my knees. I'm whipping my mistakes to jump over the grief. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough. It's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern. Find a new reprieve. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it all.
Speaker 2:I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I gotta let this slide. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion, start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Trust the process, cause it's gonna set me free. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got nothing left. Gotta gotta gotta break it or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. Come on One, two, three. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I gotta live the life. There's no deep inside. I got left alive. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got left alive.