Mary Bonnet On Spiritual Grounding After Reality TV Turmoil with Selling Sunset's Mary Bonnet

The headlines never tell the whole story. Mary Bonnet sits down with us to strip away the gloss of a blockbuster reality show and talk about what really sustains a person when the edit stings, the comments pile up, and the pressure won’t let go. We open with a funny story about how we met--an embarrassing fan girl moment on a West Hollywood sidewalk, then quickly move into the practices that keep her grounded: cutting way back on alcohol after an honest self-audit, delegating social media to protect her peace, and choosing not to clap back even when it would be easy.

From there, we dig into the making of her memoir—why private messages from viewers convinced her to write it, how reliving trauma on a press tour can reopen wounds, and what it took to return to therapy and EMDR to integrate those memories. Mary’s take on storytelling is refreshingly real: sharing isn’t a victory lap; it’s a brave step that can still hurt. But when readers say “I feel less alone,” the meaning of the pain changes. Shame loosens. Connection grows. Healing starts to scale.

Joy enters the chat through Bali, yoga, and a shared dream with her sister—now several years sober—to create a wellness retreat focused on movement, breath, and spiritual grounding. It’s a blueprint for nervous system sanity in a culture that rewards outrage. We talk ADHD and the work of slowing down, redefining God as an inner compass, and why material wins can’t fill a spiritual vacuum. Mary closes with a simple ethic—treat others as you want to be treated—that reads less like a quote and more like a daily practice.

If you’re curious about sobriety shifts, trauma healing, memoir writing, ADHD, spiritual fitness, and how to build boundaries without losing your heart, this conversation will land. Listen, share with someone who needs it, and if it resonates, subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the show.

To book a FREE discovery call with Dr. Harte, click the link below:

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Chapters

• 0:00 Host Sets Intent And Theme
• 2:05 The West Hollywood Meet-Cute
• 5:16 Mary Joins And Recalls First Encounter
• 6:56 Season Nine As A Spiritual Test
• 10:55 Coping Tools And Cutting Back Alcohol
• 14:05 Social Media Boundaries And Self-Trust
• 19:15 Why She Wrote The Memoir
• 23:05 The Toll Of Retelling Trauma
• 26:20 Storytelling, Shame, And Meaning
• 29:10 Finding Light And Selling Sunshine
• 31:40 Bali, Yoga, And A Retreat Dream
• 36:10 Spiritual Fitness Over Material Success
• 39:15 God, Identity, And Self-Acceptance

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

Welcome back, everybody, to the truth about addiction. Boy, am I excited for you to hear this episode. And I'm not going to give that much away. Here's what I want you to know. I have been obsessed with selling sunset. Yes, the massive hit reality TV show on Netflix since the beginning. Okay. And I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Mary Binet, one of the stars of that show, at my most recent Heart Conscious Creators event. And this is the interview. And I give this lengthy introduction about how I met her and who she is. So I'm going to save everything for the interview and just leave you with this will take you by surprise. This will, I hope, move you from any possibility of judgment into compassion and curiosity. And just have it be a really friendly reminder that at the end of the day, it is not the fame or the money or the accolades that move the needle of our lives in the direction we're all desperately seeking. It is how much love, connection, belonging, and joy we have that matters the most. Enjoy the interview, share it with a friend, like and subscribe. And please, as always, if you'd like to connect with me more deeply, go to the show notes and book a free discovery call. See you guys soon. So I'm gonna share a slightly embarrassing story about the first time I met this woman who's about to come onto the stage. This was one of those times. Okay. I was in West Hollywood minding my business and got in my car to head back to the burbs here where I dragged you fine folks to. And I saw this striking blonde woman walk past my car who didn't know me at all, but who I had seen on television and who I shared a makeup artist with. Our makeup artists thought we would be friends if we ever got a chance to meet. So it felt like I might have known her, you know, but I didn't. And I opened the door and I said, Mary. And she was like, like so awkward, right? Because how many times does that happen? And so I could be just a very scary fangirl about to do something crazy. And I I did what I did, it was embarrassing. I love you on the show. You're such a truth teller, you're so authentic. You have the same makeup artist. Fun fact. I don't know how we got to talking about books. It was last year when my book was coming out, and she said, I have a book coming out. What's your book about? So we exchange. And then we had this moment of what was the underbelly of the writing of the book, the loss of my sister, and an acknowledgement of this very deep struggle that happens in the dark that we don't see and hear about sometimes until it's too late. And she got it. And she just gave me a look like, hi, you know, I remember you, that kind of a thing. And lo and behold, here we are at the Canyon Club. And through one degree of connection and a little bit of fate and destiny, she said yes to coming here and letting me interview her. Not in the typical way that she probably gets interviewed. I don't think this woman needs an introduction, but she is a major star of one of the biggest reality TV shows on Netflix. Just finished filming its ninth season. She has written an incredible memoir that we're gonna dive into. She is a top producing real estate agent. She is a mother. She is a spiritual warrior. And I'm pretty sure after tonight I will officially be able to call her a friend. Mary Benet, please come to the stage. I cannot wait to talk to you. Thank you. Good Lord, give it up for this woman again.

SPEAKER_02: 5:56

Yes. Hello guys.

SPEAKER_03: 6:01

Hey, solo redhead.

SPEAKER_02: 6:03

I know, right? I'm like twinning. I'm like single white female over here. Mike moment.

SPEAKER_03: 6:19

Hi, Mary. Hello. Hi. Do you remember that moment?

SPEAKER_02: 6:23

I do very well. I was just saying that to Derek when um I was I was like, you were like, Mary, as if I knew you. Yeah. But it happens all the time. So then I'm like, hi. And I'm trying to like rack my brain. I'm like, do I know you? Do you know me from the show? So but normally I remember faces, not so much names, but I remember faces. Yeah, and I didn't remember your face. Hopefully now you I remember your face now. Bearable. Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_03: 6:55

Oh yeah. So I am sure, and we're on the heels of season nine just ending, right? So there's probably an interview frenzy, an article frenzy, and I could ask you all the things, okay, about the show and the drama and the relationships, but I'm not interested in that.

SPEAKER_04: 7:20

Good.

SPEAKER_03: 7:22

What I do want to know is what is the greatest spiritual lesson that you have learned from season nine.

SPEAKER_02: 7:39

So I I think that looking back on it, we all live in the moment, right? And what we're just living our lives and and and we're not aware of of what how things come off. We're not aware of what's said, like how that can be taken different ways, like stuff like that. And so I think it's been very eye-opening. And normally I'm extremely aware. I'm an empath, and and I I take time before I speak, I get made fun of for it, where I'm like, uh, uh, and I'm like, think about think it through. Don't speak before you think about it. And um, and I think looking back on it, and obviously we're reality TV, everything is chopped up, and yeah, and and there's so much more to the stories, but but I think looking back on it, I think it's been a very big learning lesson for me. Um to stay true to myself because I know who I am, I know what happened, and to not, and I'm the biggest advocate of support other people, build people up, do not tear them down. And and I think that this has been a test for me, like to not to not try to not let it like everything bother me to try to not let um like lash back and forth and stuff like that. It's like, no, just stay true to yourself. It's been hard. And I've I've gone to um to spiritual gurus and everything like that to help learn how to center myself and and grounds and and moments of like panic and weakness and stuff because I'm a very emotional person. Um, I have severe ADHD. And so I mean it makes it makes things, I'm you know, part of it is being an empath, and part of it is being extremely emotional. So um I don't want those emotions to to affect other people. I don't, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 9:48

Do you feel like when I mean, do you guys are get privy to watching it before it goes out to the public to see the way in which they chopped it up and are presenting you, or does it just get dropped on you?

SPEAKER_02: 10:01

We get to see it a week before. So sometimes press gets to see it before we do. Um, but they let us see it about a week before, and we have no control over anything. Um, this I think this is the first season where I was like, I'm sorry, what did this? But I was like, wait. Um, but because I I feel like everyone's always very true to themselves, like on this show. Maybe you don't see the full story, but right. It's it's you're very true to yourself, like every cast member. Um, I think this time there were a lot of people like that, it was just such a crazy season. Yeah, like in so many ways. Um, so you can't you can't put everything in. Like the reunion, for example, was 13 hours of filming. Oh my god. And it was less than 30 minutes. 13 hours of filming. Wow. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, there's so much that happens that, and yeah, it's just it's like so.

SPEAKER_03: 11:05

I don't know if I'm hearing you correctly, but I want to just sort of say back what I'm hearing, which is you end season nine, you see the way that you've been portrayed as well as everybody else, but we're here to talk about you. Yeah. And it's blindsiding. Oh, yeah. Okay. And it's testing who the world thinks that you are. Yeah. Maybe who you think that you are, yeah. And you're you're now speaking to it as a type of test of I could fall into flipping out, reacting, going off about the way this is coming across or not. Right. Is that that's exactly it, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's exactly it. So can you tell me then what are the, I mean, you said spiritual healer, but what are some of the things that you've had to do being under such public scrutiny, especially with a season that is baked in drama and chaos? They're trying to pin you guys against each other, make everybody look crazy. What are you having to do and level up with in your spiritual regimen wellness routine in order to go, wait a second? Yeah. Like no matter who the world thinks I am right now, how can I remember who I actually am?

SPEAKER_02: 12:22

Yeah. Um, I've done I've done a bunch of different things. Um, right before the season came out, after I watched the show, I stopped drinking completely. Umgratulations. Thank you. Well, I mean, I now it's been like two and a half months. I was like completely subbed. And now on occasion I'll have one or something, but I started realizing I was drinking too much. Um, I was coping with the stress of the show. And once I started really looking back and thinking about it, I was like, when was the last day that I didn't have one drink? Because on the show, you they force feed you like the like drinks. You're always going to events, you're always going to something. You get home and you're like, wait, I need to run wine now. I need a glass of wine. Yeah, you know, it's like, and and I started thinking about it. I'm like, this is not good. It's not healthy, it's not serving me anymore. So um now on special occasions, like Thanksgiving, I had like a glass of wine, and but um I'm really being mindful of it because it's so easy and it's not it, it became it nothing bad happened, but it just was it wasn't a healthy choice, like as much as I was drinking. So um I had to really look at myself and and really look at um how I can't control what production does, how they edit, but I can control how I move forward. And so with that, um, there's a lot social media has never been my friend. And because I I'm I'm old school, I'm 45, and I'm just like, okay, like I don't care. I'm not a scroller. I like I'll post it's my it's like you know, it's a business. You you use it for business, but I've I've taken a backstap or backstage to it, and I allow somebody else to control it, and then they send me stuff because I'm like, I my feelings get hurt. I'm like, I know things aren't true, and and there's a lot of uh that's out there, and I'm like, I have to remember who I am, and I'm going to I always preach, lead by example and stuff like that. And so I'm like, I'm going to try to do that. Um I'm not gonna tear anybody else down to make myself look better. I'm like, if people people are gonna believe what they want, and hopefully eventually they'll see the truth.

SPEAKER_03: 14:41

Okay, so are we understanding the level by ADD, guys, of how no, of no, I'm I'm wanting them to know that made sense, maybe, but she decided to cut back on drinking, right? She was using something as more of a numbing technique. It wasn't a full-blown addiction like what I shared in my story, right? But she's looking around the landscape in her life and going, where can I cut back on something that's making me lose power over, you know, myself or my feelings, my ability to respond rather than react. Yeah. She's just grounding herself. She's going to people with more wisdom. She's backing away from social media. We're talking about a reality TV store going, I'm gonna step away from right. It feels like you could imagine from the entertainment industry that that being like the death of, right? What are you thinking? Right, but there's ways around that, right? You got other people to step in on an improve what gets put up, but I am not going to engage because it is not good for my mouth.

SPEAKER_02: 15:45

No, it's not, it's it's detrimental. Exactly. Um, because uh it's very, very difficult to follow your own advice. But I'm like, I'm gonna, uh I mean, I'm a hypocrite. If I say no, don't do, don't lash foul, don't don't put people down. I'm like, well, if I if I went back to some of the lies that are out there, well, that is putting people down.

SPEAKER_03: 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:08

So I'm sitting back and I'm like, I'm I I am who I've been for eight seasons, and hopefully people see it. If they don't, I still know who I am. So I mean I have to just lead it. But I'm and I say it, it has not been easy. Like I have many, many days where I just start bowling. I'm like, to my core, this is not me. But but I think we lead, that's what we need, though. We need positive people, like where you don't just say things, yeah. It's easy for me to be like, oh, here, this is actually what happened. And I could prove a lot of things. Is it gonna help anybody? No, right. I mean, right now I look like a bad guy, but it'll it'll pass, everything passes. So so I if I squeak those words, I have to live it.

SPEAKER_03: 16:59

Yeah, see, and you and I both wrote books, which is so cool. So yeah, I I would love to know the driving force behind why you wrote the book and also just you where are you now, now that it's been out for a while, and the level of vulnerability and transparency that you shared with, you know, is a testament to who you actually are, so the world can think whatever they want to think. Yeah, but then they can read your actual story and hear it from your mouth, yeah. And it to know your heart. So I just would love to know how that how that started came about.

SPEAKER_02: 17:35

Yeah. So it came about because a couple different things. Um, when I would share some some like hardships on the show, I would have so many people reach out and and say how much it helped them, like with uh the miscarriage, with um having like teenage pregnancy, stuff like that. It's like people would reach out to me and I had so many heartfelt messages like that I realized that me sharing my story really was helping people. So um I got approached about the book, and then there were a lot of things I never told on um on this show. And there were some editing things like where it looked like I was freaking out about some things that wasn't. I was like, no, it was because I would had PTSD because I was raised. I was like, that wasn't, I wasn't freaking out because the girls are are like too much for me. I was like, I can't go there. Like and but it was a trigger. And um, but so I decided, you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and share this because there were so many stories. I've had a lot that's happened in my life. And and I figured I can't change what's happened. I've had good things, I've learned lessons, I've had bad things, learn lessons, and and and so if I can share my story, maybe I can turn some of those negatives into a positive.

SPEAKER_03: 18:55

And I don't know if this was your experience, but uh I shared a little bit about this. Everybody in the wake of writing was saying things like, oh, isn't it so cathartic?

SPEAKER_02: 19:07

Oh my God, everybody said was it torture?

SPEAKER_03: 19:10

Did it like torture? Can we all and you know I would just say, you know, it was, but it was also deeply confronting. Oh. If you're gonna write about your hardest things, uh-huh, you're not just reliving the trauma, you're processing it, you're making a new meaning of it so you can extract and share it with the reader. You're going all the way, you're going back into the pain, and then you're pulling out every lesson. So it's not just this, uh, you know, right the diary entry. It's fucking excruciable. Oh, it is brutal, brutal.

SPEAKER_02: 19:44

And then you have to get, then you go out and you um promote the book. So then they're talking about all of the traumatic things over and over and over, and you don't realize it. You live, I'm 45. You live 45 years of your life, and so many things. So many things have happened, but then when you start realizing you're oh about this, about this, about this, about this, and you're like just over and over, and you don't have time to you you feel it out through writing the book, I think, but doing the interviews, I think you just become numb because you're like, you're talking about it, you're explaining it, you're trying to tell people, and you're just like hit over and over and over with all the things that have happened. And then I after the whole book tour, I went home and I was like, I went into like a depression. I it took me back so many steps, even like because like with the um with the rape and everything, I had to go back to therapy, redo EMDR, because it like when you're reliving it over and over again, um, to tell the story. Yeah. But but you know, it's worth it. I would never change it, but because I hope it really does help other people. That was that was you know the point of doing it. And and yeah, I got good responses and and people said thank you for doing it. So hopefully.

SPEAKER_03: 21:05

Oh yes. Yeah. I think I think first of all, storytelling is a tale as old as time, right? Like we used to sit around campfires, our ancestors used to tell stories, and this is the way that we connected. We're hardwired for storytelling. And so I think if we can be brave enough in this type of age when everything is so overly exposed, yeah, to share our story, if we're able to come from as healed of a place as we can when we're writing, then I think it's a great act of courage and vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02: 21:35

And and I I truly think that it does help. It might be hard to do it, but it helps other people have the strength and the courage to be able to open up as well. Um, there's it takes the shame away from things.

SPEAKER_03: 21:49

Exactly. I always say in recovery, there's this saying about the 12 steps that the resentment is the number one offender. And I disagree. I mean, resentment is a heavy burden to bear, and I don't wish for any of us to be carrying that burden on our backs, but I do think that shame is the number one offender. I think it is the thing that kills our spirit the fastest. Yeah. And being able to speak to our hardest things that we once carried deep shame over literally gives people permission to feel less ashamed, less alone, yeah, and more connected. Yeah. And I think even in the face of having to confront all of it again, getting that part also adds new meaning, right? Because they like there's a lot step about trauma where trauma isn't actually the thing that happened to you. It's the meaning you made of what happened to you. Right. So when you start sharing it from a more healed place and you get people reaching out to you and saying, Thank you so much. Yeah. I feel less alone, I feel less afraid, I feel less ashamed. All of a sudden, your trauma has a completely different meaning and purpose.

SPEAKER_02: 23:01

And a purpose, I think, because things happen that you can't control it. You can't change it. But it now has a purpose and it's a positive thing that that is spreading um hope and light and something like that. And that's what I'm that's part of the reason why I named selling sunshine, because it's like find the light in anything. Like it doesn't, you don't have to keep everything in negative. There's a there's a way to find the light in anything and just keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_03: 23:34

Okay, so speaking about finding light and spirituality, right? Because there was a time when I marketed this event as deeply rooted in spirituality, which by the way, it still is. But it's it's easier to say wellness because everyone can get down with wellness, right? Outside of real estate, when we think about something deeper, baked in meaning and passion and purpose, I would love to know something that sets your soul on fire, something that is a long-term or maybe not vision that you have for your life, for your career that is completely unrelated to real estate.

SPEAKER_02: 24:20

Um yeah, that's that is an easy one for me. I love to travel and I've fallen in love with Bali. Um there, if anybody has not gone there, it is maybe the most spiritual magical place on earth. And every time, like when I feel overwhelmed, I go there. It's a very long flight, but it's so cheap when you get there. And it is the I it's I can't even explain it. The energy there just heals you. It's very healing. And um, I go there every time I get super, super stressed out. I go by day two, I'm like, I get it. I can I can handle this. Okay. I I I've got control now. Like, and and it's just there's this healing quality there, and everybody is so nice. It's a it's a Hindu country, everyone believes in karma. People are genuinely nice to you, and they want to help because it's like it is just the most beautiful, non-pretentious country, and and I have just madly fallen in love. My sister um is my best friend, and she has her own story. I didn't put it in my book because that's her story to tell. Um, but she has been through a very, very hard, hard road. Um, which I was also dealing with when a filming selling sunset on some. So when I act super crazy sometimes and crying, there's other things going on in my life.

SPEAKER_03: 25:51

But uh that was the thing Lynette did over when I had my crazy fangirl car moment. I screamed Mary's name. That was a moment about our siblings. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 26:01

And so she um she's been, I think she's four, three, four years sober now. Um, but she went through a crazy situation. And and yeah, so she has now devoted her life to like hot she found hot yoga when she was in in rehab and she found or she found yoga, and and she um started doing, she's a teacher for hot yoga now, and it just it grounds her, it has gives her a purpose, and we're both trying to think about what we want to do to share like this positivity and light and woman empowerment. Because if anybody's watched the show lately, it's not too much woman empowerment anymore, but but I'm trying to get it back there. Um, and so um, so we want to do a wellness retreat um out there because she'll do the yoga and do like spiritual healing and um like life coach and chakra and all these different things, and have a place where people can go and choose happiness because it is hard in the life that we live in and the just society right now is like there's so much negativity coming at us all the time. It's it's a conscious choice to choose happiness and and to not fall into the um the easy step of like lashing back, saying something negative, doing something like that. No, kill them with kindness. And and I think that um, yeah, that's something that it's it's my dream to do with her. And I can do it on the side. Bali is killing it. I I know I'm gonna bring real estate back into it, but it's developing like crazy. So real estate is good, it's a lot cheaper there. But I would love to get a place over there and and have a place for people to go to heal. Yeah. To to go heal because I know it's it's every season, it's healed me to go back and do it again. But yeah, what is it? It's a gorgeous dream.

SPEAKER_03: 28:07

Yeah, yeah. I've never been to Bali, but I really want to go.

SPEAKER_02: 28:10

Well, she has a yoga retreat in March, so you should come out there.

SPEAKER_03: 28:13

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02: 28:14

It's amazing. It's a hit, it's where I stay every time Hidden Hillsville is. It's gorgeous in Uluatu. Phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03: 28:23

I've I also I always joke about yoga. Yoga is the boyfriend that was good for me that I was never ready to date. Oh, yeah. And now we're married. Obsessed. Yeah. And it also took me. I'm casually dating.

SPEAKER_02: 28:36

You're still seeing other people. I mean, so but yeah, but she she's married. She's locked down.

SPEAKER_03: 28:42

She's like your sister and I are totally gonna get along. But but yoga had to be, you know, I'm I'm such a performative person, so it it it had to be a place I could put that down. So I remember finding a studio in Santa Monica that had this infrared heat, so it was very dry, no mirrors, uh and excellent teachers, and the lights were very, very dark. And I just remember feeling like my body could cry when my eyes couldn't. Yep. And I just it's it for me. It's like a wild love affair.

SPEAKER_02: 29:12

So I'm I'm gonna put you in touch with her because she's uh and because you're fit enough too. She's a maniac. She's like, it's like a boot camp, like yoga. She's like, yeah, she's incredible. She's a huge following stuff now. Like she's she's really, really good and does all the classes with the all the students that we'll do back to back. I'm like, she's a monster.

SPEAKER_03: 29:33

And that's why unbelievable, right? Like the the two journeys that you guys have, and it just speaks to you know, this dream that you have. Yeah. This thing that I kept seeing in my clinic, this thing about the soul presentation in a person, that no matter how many accolades, how much fame, how much money, that everything, everything comes down to how spiritually fit you are. Because without that, it all falls apart. So we could we could have all the sustenance in the world, all the accolades, all all the external validation, but we can feel dead inside.

SPEAKER_02: 30:08

The materialistic stuff, like I uh I just keep becoming the more and more I get, the less I care. I'm like, I'm just like, take it, give it. Like, I just give everything away all the time. And like, no, I won't buy any more jewelry, I won't buy anything because it was all robbed from me. And I was like, I don't care. Not buying anymore, not doing like I don't care because that is not what fulfills like your life. That's not what like makes you whole and makes you happy. Well, for most people, I think. But I think true happiness is finding that the spiritual um grounding and centering and and being true to yourself and finding yourself. I think it's that's powerful. Yeah. What's your relationship with the word God? I think God comes in many, I mean, for it's different for many people. I think for me personally, yeah. I think God's within us. Um, I think that we um like that how we act, what we do, we are portraying. I mean, I was raised Catholic, by the way, so my mom will kill me, but uh but but um but I I I'm not I'm not religious anymore. I was shunned by my church and everything, getting pregnant at 15. Um, and so I got turned off to religion um at a very, very young age. And but I found m mostly recently, after my first husband passed, um, I kind of started becoming more spiritual. And then um, I would say within the past couple years, as things started getting harder and harder, and I was like, I have something had to change because I was dealing with this civil war within myself. Like, this is who I am, and this is what people want me to be. And I'm I'm I and I I'm both. There's so many dimensions to me. Like, I've got tattoos all over me now, and people are like, what is going on with you? I'm like, this I've always had, I had 30 of them when I started getting the big ones. People just gonna see them. And I just told you I love your tattoos too. I was like, I've always loved them. I and I've always been, I've always had that side, but I'm also very responsible and I'm a go-getter and I'm and I work my butt off. But I do have this different side to me. So I'm like, if I I I just had to figure out how to just be centered and grounded enough to be comfortable with who I am, no matter what people are saying, because people love to talk. Um but just be myself and and I love myself.

SPEAKER_03: 32:46

I love that you yes, and I love that you said it's it's within you because I I told you guys, you know, my experience with the voice inside my head, which was just this unrelenting inner critic, was running my life into the ground, making me so so sad. Yeah, and wanting to anesthetize. And having a way to clear my shame in 12-step program allowed me to hear that intuitive voice, which I then called God. I was like, oh, so there is a piece of something very deep and loving and authentic and true and real and honest and kind that is within me, that is within all of us, that just gets covered up by our conditioning, by our upbringing, by all the traumas, right? By who the world wants us to be. And so if we are living a mindful life, we're gonna try and clear away what's blocking that channel so we can get reacquainted with it, right? And so, what a beautiful idea that in this very non-denominational, non-religious way, like maybe there's actually a piece of that within us, and how are we accessing that right? Hopefully every 24 hours.

SPEAKER_02: 33:56

Like that, because it's a common thing for people with ADHD, is like you constantly replay over and over like everything it happened, everything you say, everything you do, and you're playing it back because you're used to being the weird one. Like my facial expressions, my I'm always like moving around, fidgety, like doing all these things. People are like, she's on drugs. I'm like, no, I'm just weird, okay? Like, I just have this, like I'm they diagnose me with like the legal maximum like dose, um, like because I'm that ADD. Like, I'm just lucky I'm still able to control it to be successful. I mean, if they battle every single day, and then to get made fun of it and everything, too. It's like it's it's a condition, guys. Like, yeah. Um, so um it's yeah, it's been hard to do that. And so I think slowing my brain down is very, very hard. I'm always thinking like 25,000 steps ahead and about different things at once, and I'm criticizing myself for everything. Um, so to try to stop, I think the spiritual part of it was so monumental because that I have to just sit and just try to be with myself, turn it off, and be like, stop. Like, I know who I am, higher power, like this is like, and this is like, and and it just slows me down where I feel grounded and I'm no longer critiquing myself, I'm not critiquing others, I'm not doing that. I'm just like we're all human, we all make mistakes, we are all different, and that's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_03: 35:26

But yeah, I love it. I I so yes, and I have one one final question, which is if today were the last day you were here on this earth and you couldn't take anything with you, there would be no selling sunset episodes that anybody could watch. There would be no book selling sunshine. Everything came with you. What would you want people to remember?

SPEAKER_02: 36:04

That I tried every day to live by treat others as you would want to be treated. Um, I feel like that I was taught that when I was young, and I feel like the world could be a better place if everybody did that. It would stop a lot a lot of things going on in the world. It would stop wars, it would stop hatred, it would stop like all kinds of stuff. And uh because no one wants to be treated poorly. No one wants someone to attack them. No one wants that. So if you just treat others as you would want to be treated, it it'd be a bit make a big difference.

SPEAKER_03: 36:45

Amen. Please give it up for Mary Bene. Thank you so much for coming out. Thank you so much.