Season 3's episode 304 of "These Fukken Feelings" Podcast takes its audience on a compelling journey with Lainie Liberti, a visionary transforming the landscape of adolescent mentoring and education. Join Micah and Crystal as they unveil the layers of Lainie’s unique approach to empowering the youth.
As a founder of Transformative Mentoring for Teens, author, and teen coach, Lainie brings a wealth of experience in nurturing young minds. Her co-founded Project World School is a testament to her commitment to fostering immersive learning communities that encourage self-directed learning and cultural exploration for teens across the globe.
This episode delves into Lainie's personal narrative, reflecting on her adolescent challenges and her evolution into a beacon for positive change in teen coaching. She shares her philosophy and methods in confidence coaching, focusing on overcoming obstacles and shattering limiting beliefs in young individuals.
Lainie’s insights from her bestselling book, "Seen, Heard & Understood", are discussed, highlighting her advocacy for partnership parenting and the mental well-being of teens. The conversation also explores the transformative impact of Project World School's retreats, which are based on secure attachment principles and designed to empower teens in a community setting.
Tune in to discover the depth of Lainie Liberti's mission to nurture the unseen wings of today's youth, guiding them to realize their potential and soar to new heights of self-awareness and empowerment.
#TheseFukkenFeelingsPodcast #TeenEmpowerment #LainieLiberti #ProjectWorldSchool #NurturingUnseenWings #Episode304TFF
Season 3's episode 304 of "These Fukken Feelings" Podcast takes its audience on a compelling journey with Lainie Liberti, a visionary transforming the landscape of adolescent mentoring and education. Join Micah and Crystal as they unveil the layers of Lainie’s unique approach to empowering the youth.
As a founder of Transformative Mentoring for Teens, author, and teen coach, Lainie brings a wealth of experience in nurturing young minds. Her co-founded Project World School is a testament to her commitment to fostering immersive learning communities that encourage self-directed learning and cultural exploration for teens across the globe.
This episode delves into Lainie's personal narrative, reflecting on her adolescent challenges and her evolution into a beacon for positive change in teen coaching. She shares her philosophy and methods in confidence coaching, focusing on overcoming obstacles and shattering limiting beliefs in young individuals.
Lainie’s insights from her bestselling book, "Seen, Heard & Understood", are discussed, highlighting her advocacy for partnership parenting and the mental well-being of teens. The conversation also explores the transformative impact of Project World School's retreats, which are based on secure attachment principles and designed to empower teens in a community setting.
Tune in to discover the depth of Lainie Liberti's mission to nurture the unseen wings of today's youth, guiding them to realize their potential and soar to new heights of self-awareness and empowerment.
#TheseFukkenFeelingsPodcast #TeenEmpowerment #LainieLiberti #ProjectWorldSchool #NurturingUnseenWings #Episode304TFF
You don't have to be positive all the time. It's perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared and anxious. Having feelings doesn't make you a negative person. It doesn't even make you weak. It makes you human and we are here to talk through it all. We welcome you to these fucking feelings podcast, A safe space for all who needs it. Grab a drink and take a seat. The session begins now.
Speaker 2:What is up guys? Welcome to these fucking feelings podcast. I am Micah. I got Crystal, our producer, here today filling in for Rebecca, and we are on with Lainey Liberty, hey, lainey. So of course, one thing that we do here is we like our guests to kind of introduce themselves, because we feel like who's going to sell you better than you? So go ahead and tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Okay, boy, that's. You know, I've been asked that a lot and I never knew where to start. I mean, I guess I normally started in 2008. That's where, like, the majority of my story starts, but there's backstory and then there's forward story, so we'll start there. Okay, 2008,. I'm originally from LA, from California and 2008, the economy crashed in California. It was pretty bad. We were hit pretty hard. I had worked in advertising and dot com and marketing and branding for 18, almost 20 years. Last eight of those years I owned my own agency and we were a Green Eagle company focusing on doing campaigns for conscious businesses and so forth. And when the economy crash hit, I knew I was closing my business. I was also overworked and burnt out. Single parent, single parent, you know we feel like we're working hard so we can provide for our family. It's the American dream Work hard, you know, work harder, work harder. But what should you write and what should you get up?
Speaker 2:You get it because we actually hold full time jobs and we're going to podcast, so it's like I don't have any kids, right, but Crystal got enough for both of us, so she really doesn't have that many. I always give her hard time. It's only four.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Her four and like 24.
Speaker 4:So I got two older ones and two younger ones, okay.
Speaker 3:So you're still in the middle of all of it. It goes so fast. My son is now 24. So in 2009, I'd see if you can identify with this One of the things he would always say to me and it was true, but see if you can identify. He'd said mom, you never spend any time with me, you're always working. And that was just like right in the heart, you know, stabbing the heart, then turning it. You know, because, like I thought I was doing this for this was my obligation. It's the American dream Work hard, work harder, work hard, hard, hard and make money and provide. But what I was missing out on was my son's childhood. That's why I start my story there. The economy crashed End of the year.
Speaker 3:I knew I wasn't bringing my staff back and I remember it was late one October night, sitting in the office, and I was just like stressed, frustrated, and you know my nine year old shouldn't be sitting in the office at nine o'clock at night, but I'm still finishing up and this is what I had to do. And I remember, just like this wave of inspiration coming over me, and I just turned around and I said to him his name is Miro. I said to him, miro, what do you think if we just like get rid of all this stuff and go have an adventure? And I remember he stopped playing whatever he was playing, turned around, looked at me, he's like you serious? And he's like one question first, give it to me. He's like do I have to go to school? I was like, yeah, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3:So, intuitively, I knew that one year of travel, which is what we planned on doing, would be way more like educationally, learned way more from traveling than going to school. And so, like, intuitively, I was like no, no, of course you don't have to go to school. So that was it. We, from that moment we started planning, it took us six months to get rid of all of our stuff, sell everything or give it away and plan for taking off. And we did. We took off in 2009 and we were going to leave on what was to be a one year trip. We were just going to start in LA and just head south and our goal was to hit the tip of South America, ushuaia, argentina by the end of the year and then come back. Well, I guess we're starting out our 15th year now. We're still having gone back and we still haven't made it to Argentina.
Speaker 2:Yes, Now, that's the funny part, guys.
Speaker 3:We've been around the world several times, so we've got lots and lots of traveling and lots of stuff in between, so I know that that kind of gives us the foundation. So what I'm most known for is world schooling and building the world schooling movement, because there was none before. We started to organize people around that, so I can talk about that. I'm also known for promoting a type of parenting called partnership parenting, which is kind of like an offshoot of conscious parenting, gentle parenting and so forth. I like to call it anarchist parenting, because I am an anarchist and what that really means is I'm not taking in authorities in my life, I'm not granting authority, I'm not giving consent to systems that are not in alignment with our values, and that is really the nature of anarchy. The word itself has been usurped and used. Most people when they hear the word, they think of chaos, so that's why I don't use anarchist parenting, I use partnership parenting, so I'm known for that. And then also I'm known for the work that I do with teenagers.
Speaker 3:I've been working with teens for over 10 years. My son and I co-founded a company where we take teens to different places in the world for these immersive learning experiences, and that has brought us? We've done trips, month-long trips with teens to South Africa, to Thailand, to Japan, to Peru, to Mexico, to Wales, to Greece, like all over. Really fun locations, really fun experiences. And I also coach teens and teach them tools for greater mental health. And I think that's what brought me here was my book which is called Seen Herd Understood Parenting and Partnering with Teens for Greater Mental Health. So that sort of encapsulates all of it. So where do you want to go from?
Speaker 2:there. Well, number one I'm going to say you said a 24-year-old son.
Speaker 4:You look fabulous you do Something in the center. I was going to say how beautiful you look.
Speaker 2:Maybe I need to go get a son and go away for a couple of years. My problem is that I can't return on when I get back.
Speaker 3:I'm feeling you. I'm in my late 50s and travel keeps me young, and working with teens keeps me younger.
Speaker 2:It has to, because I'm like you look 24 yourself.
Speaker 4:I mean, my teens are giving me gray hair, so I don't know.
Speaker 3:She's giving me gray hair, so Wait, no, I've been laching my hair since I was a punk rocker in the 80s, so it's been every color, yeah.
Speaker 2:I kind of like it. I like the white. I kind of wanted to do it, but my hair will not bleach.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, yeah, I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's hear yellow and stay there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but when you take it up to yellow you can go all these bright orange and pink and great colors.
Speaker 2:I wanted to white, so bad.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's really hard. My hair is naturally your color, but it's a different texture so it takes color yeah.
Speaker 2:So anyway, back to the main topic right Now. When I first heard of this and then we actually had a previous conversation, we'll explain that to y'all later, but taking your son out of school it seemed like a very easy task for you. You said it was intuitive. But what was it about the school and that made you kind of want to take him out? What made you feel like you could learn more outside of school?
Speaker 3:Well, a couple of things. The interesting thing is I'm an anarchist and I've always lived by the rule, and actually I don't live with rules, but the challenge of questioning everything. Some people claim that I have ODD, which is okay, but I always, all of us, each individual, is a product of their upbringing. There's no way of getting around it. We can reprogram whatever trauma lays there in the background and the patterns that we've been exposed to really create the sense of self. This is our programming. This is how we're hardwired and part of my trauma response, because I grew up in a household where I was constantly yelled at, I was constantly belittled and I felt invisible and dismissed every single day of my life and that's really hard to grow up in that. But the funny thing is I didn't realize that was actually abuse because I never had hands laying on me, never, never. And it took me until adulthood to recognize that what I lived through was abuse. And even in my 50s, talking to my younger brother, my only brother, who's in his 50s also, he's like you know, lady, it took me a year but I finally read your book and, holy shit, we didn't have a kind of a FDF childhood, didn't we? And you know it helped us to unpack and unravel all of that because we just thought it was normal.
Speaker 3:But for me, my trauma response was hyperindependence. My trauma response was I could do it myself and I'm going to prove whatever it was to the world Like that, that I'm broken. I could do, I'm somebody, because I had a deep belief that I was nobody, that I was invisible, and that drove me. That was part of my belief structure and my wiring and so, knowing you know, I traveled a year by myself in my 20s. I hitch-tiked all around Europe and can't do that now. I'm like I'm out here. Remember, I'm in my 50s, so this was more than 30 years ago, so it was okay back then. Yeah, you're right, the world is different. Hitchhiking.
Speaker 2:I actually don't want kids. So if I make a difference in a child's life, I want them to be fostered or adopted and I kind of want to bring them into my forever family. But I feel like I need to get to like a place where I'm capable of doing that. And my biggest issue and it's probably something you can understand dealing with teens is I don't know if I can love somebody past their pain. You know, it's like a lot of these young people are.
Speaker 2:They grew up thinking no one loved them, you know, and that is yeah, exactly, and it's like I have really really great parents and not life was perfect, because I have a lot of trauma too, but not from my parents. Like, my parents loved us, you know, and we always felt like a sense of love. So it was like no matter what we had, whatever else we had, we always knew we were loved and that was kind of cool growing up in that. But then you grew up in this world and you see, like kids looking horrible and I just don't understand that. I'm like I don't understand where we're going. I don't understand where this world is going.
Speaker 2:It drives me crazy, Lainie. You do not understand. It drives me crazy and I'm like how can I like legit bring a child into this world to live with these people doing these things? And I can't do it. But that's a whole other conversation. Eventually, I want to foster this, my plan, or adopt whatever is easy, but I want whoever comes into my family to know that you don't age out of 18. You're part of this family. This will kind of always be your home, and it bothers me that there's a lot of people in this world that don't have love, or a lot of teenagers that don't know what love is. And I feel like I got an abundance of it, but I still feel like I need to be in a certain place and I'm still on my healing journey.
Speaker 3:So I think that's kind of what's been holding me, but the only thing I would challenge you with is you're never gonna be done. Healing is not a process where you do the thing on its gopher. It is a lifelong commitment to understanding our internal worlds. And I think that realization and redefining what healing meant to me because most people in Western culture we take drugs to numb ourselves so we don't have to feel discomfort, and that's a cultural norm, right? You know Medicaid, medicaid, medicaid and if we're not doing pharmaceutical medication, we're scrolling or we're checking out or we're you're chilling in Netflix.
Speaker 3:Well, that's something different, right? So we're not present or accountable for our own feelings, and that has got a shift. We've got to make spaces that are okay to talk about the inner worlds and we've got to be okay. I don't know, I've got a post it here that says being imperfect is okay and that needs to be lived. So the process of you healing is good enough and that creates spaces where you can connect in vulnerability, because two of the most powerful ways to connect with another human being and create that relationship which human existence is based on relating with other people. We can relate through vulnerability and we can relate through love and, unfortunately, in Western culture, the belief is well, I gave birth to this child. They should love me because I created them right Thinking from the parents perspective. Therefore, they need to respect me, and because I brought them into this world, they need to love me. Therefore, they're obligated to connect to me, and that's bullshit, that is.
Speaker 4:I mean, I'm simplifying it and was always told that I brought you into this world, I could take you out. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's pretty crazy because you were talking and I was thinking about a child. I was thinking about a child because I don't want to tell nobody's business, right? So I was thinking about a child and he kind of has what people would say like the behavioral problem. But the more I look at him I'm starting to realize that I think he doesn't know how to handle emotion. You know when he gets excited, you know it's like he's one of those kids that's like genuinely happy to see you. But because he's happy, he's very excited, that now it's like bothering people and you know, and it's now all you need to spend him or you need to punish him and you need to do those things, and it's like. So when you were talking, it was like I kind of saw that relationship and be like that's not how you're supposed to do it. Laney gonna tell us how to do it.
Speaker 3:So wonderful book well, many wonderful books that changed my life, but this one addresses what you're talking about. It's called the Explosive Child and it's about helping the adult to reframe the behavioral problem, which is what we see. As parents. We want to change the behavior, and most parents are completely just attached to the behavior that they see so that their life is easier and more convenient.
Speaker 3:And changing a child's behavior is an authoritarian paradigm, and so, instead of looking at the behavior, you have to start looking at what needs are not being met under the behavior, and that will give you an entrance into the world of how this person is wired, how this person is. You know how they respond to things, and if you look at it through that framework or through that perspective, you don't see bad behavior or something that's inconvenient for you. You see it as an act of love to be able to get in and touch on those wounds and be able to really hear and speak to the person who is behaving outwardly in a way that takes you off or triggers you, because when too dysregulated or too triggered people are interacting, nobody can heal. Nothing gets settled.
Speaker 2:That's how the mom is going through like a great depression and anxiety, and then at that, blame, like I did something wrong, I don't know how to raise my child, or you know. And then of course, you have everybody around telling her come be my child, I'll punch him in the throat. You know, I think that was me. I think that was me, no, no, no really. And it's funny because it's like when I'm around them, he's like he's all over me and he climbs around my neck and he jumps and I just leave it alone and people are like you know, stop it.
Speaker 4:And I'm like he's fine, you know, I think it's just generations are different. Like we weren't allowed to do that at the age of seven or 10. And now there's so much electronics and stuff like that, so they see that on, like these games and stuff like that, so that's their act and on that I mean. I don't know how old this kid is, but sure Our culture will give us indications on what's.
Speaker 3:You know how to express ourselves and how not to express ourselves, and we take clues from and cues from both of those. You know how to, how not to, and if you see that you know jumping on somebody is normalized, Okay, so the he's not even considering the behavior, is just something that you do. But why is he jumping on you? He's desiring rough housing and connected physical connection and he's really desiring to be seen and really, really, you know, acknowledged.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:So that physical he wants? You know they want a response back to that physical interaction. They're not just going up and poking you and sometimes they do, sometimes it's a robin poke you Because that's an indication that they need your attention. Are you bad? No, I don't think so. Are they convenient for, inconvenient for parents? Hell yes.
Speaker 3:But we do recognizes, if we're stepping into the role of parenting, that there are going to be moments that are inconvenient for us. What's more important? My convenience or our connection? And I always ask myself that connection to me is the most important thing. And being a parent of an adult man who's still a mama's boy, I mean see that not in an unhealthy way. But society would look at our closeness, our intimacy, our connection as a wimpy thing and that needs to be changed. I say it with pride he's still connected. We're really. I learn from him every day. You know, I think it's a beautiful thing to have this, this self actualized adult choosing to hang out with his mom and I'm in my 40s and me and my mom still live together.
Speaker 2:But I point out you gotta listen, lainey, because I've always pointed this out she lives with me. I paid the bill. Okay, so I'm out of school America. Okay, I'm not giving off my mama, but yes, I am. I mean still now. We have like TV shows that we watch together and like when I leave here I'm going home, take a shower and go get in my mama's bed and make her watch the Real Housewives of Atlanta. He really is like my best friend. So I understand the relationship. Like there's nothing. There's nothing. I feel like I can't discuss with her. You know the good, the bad and the ugly. I can bring it to my mom.
Speaker 3:We don't always agree, but that's beautiful, so that that connection is not very common in Western culture. Now I've lived outside of the United States for almost 15 years now, and the majority of my my bases that I've lived in have been in Latin America and here in Latin America. I'm now in Mexico.
Speaker 2:And I was like that explains the colors.
Speaker 3:I'm in a what's called a painted city. This city is so beautiful and colorful, but anyway there's. There's a massive respect for family culture and you've got multi-generational families living in Latin America together. And in fact you know my son. He's in his bureau. He lives like 15, 20 minute walk from here and every time, like well, we'll meet up and we'll go to the supermarket together and we'll shop, and then we take a taxi back and we drop them off at his place first. Then we come up to my place, right, cause I'm on the way, he's on the way, but all the taxi drivers are mom and son there and you're not married. He's not married because, like they, you know, traditionally, regardless of the kids age, they live with their parents and that's, and until they get married, and sometimes the wife moves in with the parents.
Speaker 2:Little badass kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I'm talking about Generational living is common all throughout Latin America, but in the United States it's frowned upon. It's just to live when you're 18.
Speaker 2:Right, and I've actually heard like people said it often and I grew up in a household where my mom like welcome anybody in the house, so we always had like random people living with us. Like you'd be like mom, what's the name? Again, I have no clue, but I got everybody's your aunt and your uncle, but I got to give my bed to them, huh yeah, I want to talk a little bit about your work with mental health and team. Why did you decide to start working like at teens? Why did you decide that age to focus on mental health?
Speaker 3:Well, a couple of reasons. About three or four years into our journey, my son and I he started to really desire to be around community, to be around kids of age. The social connection was really important. We had just discovered that. We fell in love with Cusco, peru. We made that our home, that was our base. For three years we lived high in the Andes, not far from Machu Picchu. We were going to archaeological sites and we were doing Andean mysticism, all these really incredibly, it was so fun. But my son at that point said I need social connection. Either we have to go back to the states and find community or bring people here. We decided to bring people here or there. We formed Project World School together.
Speaker 3:At that time I learned everything I could about learning communities, about nonviolent communication, about social learning, about holding space, just about facilitating natural learning all this stuff. So experiential learning became the theme of our trips. Our first group we brought to Cusco, peru. We went all around the Andes. We did archaeological digs, we worked with researchers, we did some major hiking, we did lots and lots of stuff and it was so great. That was the beginning of Project World School. That was the first year we launched it. We brought a group to Cusco. Then the second year, we also brought another group to Peru. In the third year we expanded and brought a group to Peru. Then we brought a group to Ecuador. Then, after the third year, we started adding more and more and more trips. Each retreat would have between eight to 15 teenagers and one other facilitator, miro, was one of those teens for the first few years. Then, probably near year four or five, he started to step into co-facilitator role.
Speaker 3:Lore, but what I've learned by taking kids outside of their comfort zone and creating safe spaces for them to explore and feel what it feels like to really be alive and to be in community and to be accountable and to be able to share and reflect in a way that's meaningful, because outside of your comfort zone you need to have safe spaces to unload all this stuff. I recognize that the tools that I used for myself, for mental health wellness, were coming in handy. I started to facilitate these things. In the evening we created our circle. Our circle time was about reflection, it was about sharing and it was about observation. The internal world were just as important as the external world experiences. What we were having I accidentally fell into, using the tools that I already had under my tool belt. Then I started to do deep dives all around the place. I look after book on mindfulness for teens and meditation and all of these different exercises. I've got so many philosophical conversations, that sort of thing. We started to create our own structure. I brought in more and more therapy or therapeutic psychodrama stuff and how to create, using improv and things like that as a way to reflect and express and process out these new big feelings.
Speaker 3:When 2020 hit, when the pandemic hit we had, for the past 10 years before that, worked really hard to build our community People were reaching out to me saying Laney, we can't travel. Obviously, nobody's traveling, the world's shut down and our teens are going crazy. I was like I hear you, I hear you. I started. That's when I launched a transformative mentoring for teens and started to teach the tools that I used on the retreats and used on myself and started to actually research and bring in more tools. That was why I started to work with teens in mental health Part of that. The other part that I want to just quickly add is, for me, my adolescence was the worst part. That was the worst part of my life. It was so, so tough. I got into drugs, I had sex, I ran away, I sold drugs. I did all sorts of things that I'm not really proud of.
Speaker 2:I need to take a drink.
Speaker 4:These teenagers? Do they have trouble at home? You find them that way. How do they find you no?
Speaker 3:the teens. What we're writing is not one of those survival camps that's really authoritarian base. This is based on partnership and on trust. We have a set of agreements that we ask everybody to agree to. We adhere to those. They're not rules. We are making agreements in order to have this experience. We also function on consensus. If you can imagine trying to get 18 teenagers, or 15 teenagers, three adults, to all agree on the same thing. Sometimes it takes time. I need to facilitate that in a very loving, caring way. The teens that mostly come on our trips are homeschooled. Some are on the spectrum, engage in self-harm, some have depression, some have anxiety, some have problems at home. I'm not targeting just one type of person to serve, but mostly our audience are homeschooled or unschooled teenagers. Because you need to have time to take off for a month, right, I'm trying to disappear for a year.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to find you.
Speaker 3:Like I said, we've been doing this for a long time. I speak at a lot of conferences, homeschool conferences mostly. I've written a book. My son and I did a text talk. We're out there, people know us.
Speaker 2:We'll list all of your links in the episode.
Speaker 4:Now you were talking about your book Is the majority of your book about your childhood?
Speaker 3:I mean yes and no. The book is called here it is. It's called Seen, heard and Understood. Parenting and Partnering with Teens for Greater Mental Health. This book is a combination of a lot of things. It is a book that helps parents step into partnership, parenting or just parenting don't tell anybody. It creates the framework on how to do it, how to reframe your belief systems. It also talks about the challenges of adolescent development.
Speaker 3:I go into chapters about neurobiology, psychology. I even go into some of Young's work around archetypes and how we can use those as tools and shadow work and things like that. Then I weave together all of this information through sharing personal stories. Here's what I dealt with, here's why. And then I go into the teen myths. This is why the teen myths are the teen myths. Here's what's true about them. Here's what's not true about them.
Speaker 3:I do share five or six really crazy stories in here from my childhood, but that's really just so I can create the connection to the reader. Then I've got a whole massive chapter of tools. I can't remember how many tools, but there's tools in here that are challenges for. What I challenge parents to do is to do the exercises and tools in the book and use the spaces of vulnerability that they're finding out and discovering all about their internal worlds as a point of connection with their children. How do we connect? Do we connect through love? We talked about that. Will we also connect through vulnerability? The more that we can go in and be accountable for the us that we are bringing to the partnership that creates the spaces that our children were modeling for them, that the internal worlds are safe and that it's okay for them to share their internal worlds with us. That's an exchange, that's a relationship builder there, I imagine dealing with teens can be crazy.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of nieces and nephews and I have a headache just thinking about them. How do you get them to trust you enough to now want to do these things?
Speaker 3:Well, when I work with teens, they trust me because I trust them. It's reciprocal. I don't demand anything other than let's sit down and talk about it. Here's what you've signed up for. Here's what you committed to. Here's what's on the schedule. Do we want to do this as a group? If we don't want to do it, why? Let's work out why we don't move forward.
Speaker 3:We're not a democracy I like saying that because a democracy, somebody's voice is not heard. The democracy is the majority wins, which means somebody loses. I set up a collaborative system that, even if somebody doesn't want to do it, we need to collaborate to make sure everybody's needs are heard, seen, understood and met. Maybe that comes. The point is, the person who doesn't want to do the thing says I will do it in the spirit of the community, but I want you all to know that this is not my interest, but I'm going to support you.
Speaker 3:Most of the teens generally respond with gratitude. That creates a whole different dynamic because not one person can rule over another person. Every single person especially on our trips has equal say. If one person says no, then we all have to stop and renegotiate. Sometimes it takes hours to unpack what's really going on. Maybe sometimes a person and we've had this experience said no just to be contrarian, because they believe that their voice doesn't matter. They've been trained that in their home environment they're inserting their power. By all means play with that. By all means play with freedom. By all means play with identity. By all means have the safe spaces where you're not going to be judged to do that. Recognize when you are affecting this whole group, this community that you're a part of. Is this the kind of effect that you want to have on them? Most of the time the teens will reflect and go inward and say you're right, I'm not heard at home and my voice doesn't matter at home. Thank you, I see it does matter here.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool. I just wanted to take a moment for Crystal real quick. That stuff work at home when you bring your ass to work. It's still what I say Just have to give that little disclaimer story, just have to take it as a personal reason real quick. So now, important safe spaces. Yeah, how, I don't know, I'm asking. I feel like I know a lot of teens who all have mental health issues, but feeling safe is one of them. They don't know how to feel safe or where to feel safe, and is there anything that you can give us on that?
Speaker 3:A lot of exercise is first to figure out where in our physical body we're experiencing the sensation of not feeling safe, and that's something we can breathe safety into, or love into or whatever the perception of whatever that person needs. Because I may say my not feeling safe needs to be countered with love. Another person might say it needs to be countered with a plan, but we're breaking it down and first indicating and honoring where it shows up in our body and there are techniques and tools to use for each one of those. And then when we start talking about the idea or the intellectual idea of safety, those beliefs come from somewhere. So, coming to breaking down, I've got tools to help people and I use these with teens right so to help teens to uncover what the belief is. And then what we normally do is identify the incurring emotion and I've got an emotions wheel that helps with that stuff. And once we've got these to the belief and the anchored emotion clumped together, we know that that is how our neural pathway is wired and the stronger the emotion, the stronger it anchors that firing pattern and then the tool will take us to the next set of beliefs that is below that. So if I believe the world is not a safe place. We don't just stop there and I feel anxious. Let's say those are the two what's below. The world is not a safe place. Well, I'm invisible, nobody sees me, I'm afraid they don't respect me. And then what is the emotion anchored to that? And then we keep going and the goal is to go five layers deep right. So now we've got we're like pulling it out like a magician's handkerchief what's tied to the next one? And so now we know the conscious thinking mind will identify with one of the points, generally with a belief, or sometimes we feel an emotion, and it just charges that whole pathway. You know the belief, the anchored emotion, the belief, and that runs. And all of this is running in the background in our subconscious mind, because that's how we're wired. And so getting teens start identifying when this pattern is running and looking through different parts of their life where they've had the experience of, maybe, an emotion that was attached to this handkerchief or a belief, and then recognize that, because this whole string of beliefs and emotions is playing in the background, of course they had to act a certain way. Of course all of those things are true. Of course they're going to have that response and I get from teens, when they fully comprehend and recognize when patterns are running, these giant aha moments like oh shit, of course I acted in that way because and that self-awareness is the first step to starting to reprogram and change that pattern of thinking.
Speaker 3:Now, when we're hardwired and we've got this kind of hardwiring based on our childhood trauma mostly, I mean we have some trauma experiences in our adulthood, but hopefully not so much but from zero to seven, when our brains are developing the way that we interpret circumstances, and that is based on our developmental stage. Like, say, I lived in a happy household, which I didn't, but let's just say I did. And so dad came home and let's say he had a really he had a bad day at work, lost a client, got a flat tire, coming home was late, he was hungry, all these things. So a four-year-old who has been separated from her dad or her daddy all day wants to get a daddy, daddy, that's all they want. But the dad comes in, slams the door, walks past them and says not now.
Speaker 3:And takes off Like we internalize something as circumstantial. It's not abuse, it's just a circumstance. But our developmental stage is me centered and because I was rejected, I start believing that I'm not lovable and I start looking, not consciously, but our reticular activating system, if you want to get specific, will start allowing you to only see those circumstances to prove the belief and when? From zero to seven. That's our main programming. So sometimes we're not even aware of things that happen, but we have this deep belief around who we are and what our value is, because it's misinterpreted. But the more that our brain thinks, a thought, a pattern, a habitual thought is interpreted by our conscious brain as a belief right.
Speaker 2:Talking to somebody recently and she was saying and I think she was just being generalized, but it just made me think that there are a lot of things that can cause trauma that you don't think about. But her example was a baby sitting in her dirty diaper too long. And I was like really, but it's like you never know, and I think that's the thing about life and people is that you never know what makes someone sick. So we should always be our best selves to everybody. That was just my little disclaimer, real quick.
Speaker 3:No, but true, and psychologists have determined that there are two kinds of traumas. There's what they call the big T's, which are you're in a car wreck, you witnessed some horrific act, or you fell or you had an accident.
Speaker 2:Like those are the big traumas All today, like you said again all that just happened today.
Speaker 3:It's all yow, A little T's the little T's are the repetition of many things. So I had a lot of little T's. I was yelled at constantly. I was never physically hit, but the repetition of constantly being yelled at means like I had an experience, and this is a body experience, this is a nervous system experience.
Speaker 3:Well, five years ago I was staying with a friend who was a caretaker for his elderly father and he had spent three or four years being a nurse to his father. So he was feeding him, he was changing his diaper, he was changing the catheter, he was bleeding. His father he was his father had a stroke, he was incapacitated and it was a lot of work for any individual and it was impossible for him to get health care. This was in Peru and so I helped him and I was staying with him and trying to give him some relief. He was a dear friend of our families and one day he was changing the diaper and the catheter came out of his penis and urine was everywhere and not a pleasant experience.
Speaker 3:And my friend Yvonne started screaming. He was yelling, he was screaming and he comes out of the room and he punches the wall and he goes back in and takes care of his father. So he had to get rid of the energy. I had to dispel the energy. It just was building up, building up. Now I witnessed this and I went into shaking. I was like tearing. Shaking not because I was afraid for me, but because my nervous system was activated in a way. That was very memorable of my childhood and that's my wiring and to this day I still have these nervous system responses when I go to movies that have gratuitous violence, which I try and avoid at all costs, but I go into fight, flight or freeze mode.
Speaker 2:But I wasn't going to ask you if you ever saw the show Candy. But never mind now.
Speaker 3:No, I can't, I can't, and it's not hard to.
Speaker 2:I was a lot like that, like it was one thing from her childhood. So she came I mean she ended up getting away with it and then becoming a therapist and like working on with people, mental health. Just in case she's watching, I didn't want to say all bad things, just a gaze. You know one of our listeners, hey girl. But yeah, you know hers was a sh. You know she's the woman sh and she snapped back to her childhood and then, you know, hit her with an X 40 times. But oh yeah, yeah, I said you won't watch that. But what you kind of were saying made me think about that kind of was like her argument. That was her defense and she was able to get a lot of people and still to this day she like denies that it was anything other than that and I guess it's crazy here that it could be, you know, like learning that could be a reason why it did happen.
Speaker 4:I think that verbal abuse is equal to physical abuse.
Speaker 3:I think so too. I think so too. I mean, it has the same outcome, definitely. There was, maybe about six months ago, my partner and I went to the movies and we just like picked a movie and it happened to be a movie about these this kid was. It was like a psychological thriller. The kid was kidnapped and being held captive. It was horrible.
Speaker 3:But I went into my flight freeze response and I was frozen and I could move and my partner's like are you okay?
Speaker 3:And I'm like maybe almost an hour to come out of it, and I had tears streaming down my butt, I was frozen, I could not move and finally I looked at him and I said we got to go, I can't be here. And he's like okay, I was just waiting for you, I didn't want to force, but it took me that long to re-regulate myself, not because I've been kidnapped, but because any sort of cruelty against a child, just I've had that experience and that's really hard for me to witness. So Healing yes, I feel like I've integrated, I understand, but I still have this patterning and I don't think the way that we use the term healing in the Western world is we imply it. Oh, it's healed, it went away. I had a scar, I put a bandaid. It's healed, it's gone. You can't see it. But that's not what happens in mental health. It means we need to integrate, understand, recognize the effects it has on our lives, our relationships with others of ourselves.
Speaker 2:That's one of the reasons why we exist. It's kind of like you said earlier people are so quick to be like, oh, you're depressed, take these three pills and don't call me no more. And it's like it happened to me. I had a therapist and he just wanted to give me pills and I'm like I still feel the same way. And he was like, oh well, you need something stronger. And I'm like, oh my god. And then finally, one day I was laying in bed and I had this biggest epiphany. And it might have been because of weed, but it was like everything that he told me I was doing because I was depressed was really me just trying to avoid the messed up people in this world. Like I didn't go out because it's COVID and I didn't want to get COVID, so no, I'm not going to hang out. And then, because of that, I'm not meeting new people. But like he turned these things around on me to make it seem like it was a form inside of depression. He made me seem like it was unconscious, that I wasn't self aware of the fact that I was intentionally.
Speaker 2:I grew up sick and I had cancer and I still, 15 years later, and I'm still fighting things with cancer and it's like no, covid, I'm keeping my ass in the house. That is how I gained 40 pounds, grew up and me, with best friends, I ordered groceries and now I get to the point that that's like my solution. I had family over recently and we needed a sponge and then, like 10 minutes later, a sponge is at the door. Family's looking at me like you ordered a sponge, this a sponge. They didn't even have no minimum. It's like well, I had to pay $10 for delivery, but I hope it's.
Speaker 2:You're probably right about that, but Mexico is probably legally though. I know. Well, I know I was like that's why I can never leave the United States. It's why they got to do something with Trump and he can't make president because I am half Puerto Rican and he's going to build a wall around me. I already know it.
Speaker 2:You know what, really, and I think it's a joke, but my mom got divorced from my father and she changed her last name. It was Velazquez and now it's Silver's. I wasn't able to say the last name. Well, it don't matter. Oh well, she changed her last name. But the reason why she said she changed it right, that's a good idea, I'm going to do that but the reason why she said she changed it is because she thought it was too Spanish and Trump was in office and he legit scared the hell out of her from day one. I don't know why she was traumatized. I'm like Mom, were you really born in Cuba? Because she is so stressed out about this. We do not spend a day when we don't talk about Trump. I don't know what he did to her.
Speaker 4:Because he looks so mean on that video, you're fired.
Speaker 2:I'm with Trump and I'm like I don't know where this comes from. I walk in the house the other day and I'm, like you know, always joking. I'm like, honey, I'm home. And she was like they finally indict that motherfucker and I'm like am I supposed to know who? And you know I was just saying hi, who did they indict you? But sorry, let's get off topic there a little bit.
Speaker 3:It's really okay. When I left the United States, I was very involved in activism and it was really important for me to be engaged in politics and all the injustices of the world and I'm going to march for this and I'm going to march for that and I spent a lot of my energy really, you know, as an anarchist, but also probably quite liberal. As an anarchist, also coming from California, you know my belief system was I got to show my anger. But when I left 15 years ago, one of the promises that I made to my son was I'm going to just let that go, I'm going to just disconnect from American politics. And luckily I wasn't in the States during the Trump years, also during the Obama years, because I'm not.
Speaker 3:I'm an equal opportunity despiser of all pyrotipines. I am not going to cite this or that the worst of two evils. I don't think the system is set up in any way to serve us and we could talk politics. But I'm going to come at it from a very anarchist perspective, meaning I don't believe in the left-right paradigm, but I understand and I can see from the outside I haven't been in the States, like I said, for almost 15 years now that the climate in the United States has gotten very divisive less than when I was there 15 years ago. So divisiveness does not help people's mental health at all. It forces people into the left-right paradigm or black-white paradigm and it doesn't leave space for nuance and life happens in nuance and that's really difficult for the mental health of the United States of the people.
Speaker 2:I wrote a blog about that. Shout out to my blogs. I got into writing lately, right, but I did write a blog about that because basically we grew up in the South and I was too white to be black and then I was too dark to be white, so that means then I had to be Mexican. But you know, it's like I legit used to get called like the N-word and they weren't talking about me and it was like we grew up in this kind of Southern place and it's like I never.
Speaker 2:The reason I wrote the blog was I went to Puerto Rico and it was my first time in Puerto Rico and I received the most love from just a people that I ever received in my life and I was like that. I guess it is a thing like people can recognize their own people or it's just Puerto Rico is just different, but it was like I didn't. You know strange has walked up to me and there was no hatred and no this and no that. And you know, here is like I get the look and the sad eye and you know people want to talk about what I'm like the ghetto person in my office. You know it's like well, I gotta have that title. Why just can't be me in the office, you know? Sorry, lady, I can't see me a little right here.
Speaker 3:Racism everywhere and I didn't experience it until you know. I've been dating this man for two years now. He's Mexican. I live in Mexico, so obviously he should be Mexican. But he is dark skin Mexican and, like just recently we went to Mexico City and went to the Museum of Anthropology one of the best museums. He was singled out and searched and I was not. We're like he was pissed. He was really upset because only the dark skin Mexicans are singled out in that way. It's like you have no idea. Being dark skin meant that I grew up with a lot of racist beliefs in my own community, which opened my eyes to how detrimental these sorts of belief systems are. I mean, it doesn't happen everywhere all the time, but just knowing that low level discrimination happens in countries where he is native, and that's actually crazy to say that, actually, because I thought I had recently been doing.
Speaker 2:I've been on my big soul search, you know, I'm trying to figure out who I am as an individual, but then who I am spiritually and the impact I want to have on this world, because before recently I'm just like I don't need no impact when I die, just cremate me, throw my ashes somewhere. I don't want no funeral, just put a Facebook post out and he died, you know.
Speaker 4:No, not that I ain't happening, that's all I want. Thousands and thousands of people. We're going to have like a week.
Speaker 3:Well, die now, just don't do it. It's not the plan.
Speaker 2:It is not the plan, I promise. And you know what I forgot one of my story. Oh, okay, so what I was trying to say? So recently, you know, I never.
Speaker 2:You know someone told me I was privileged and it offended me a little bit, and it just offended me because it's like you don't know my life, you know. It's like you do not know the things I grew up doing and, like you know, being light skinned then stopped me from getting molested for 14 years and it didn't stop me from getting cancer and stopped me from getting a gyrmvore. So it was like I don't see what you see when you see privileged. And then recently we had another guest on and she was talking and she was like, well, you are privileged because you're educated and you're this, you're that, and it's like I never took it that way. I always, I guess you know, I always thought it had to be like a race thing and she kind of changed my eyes a little bit to see like, okay, maybe she, maybe people are right that I am privileged, but I also never take the time really to consider.
Speaker 2:I feel like the only thing I can do to change this world is be the best me I can be because that's the one thing I can control and so because of that, I'm really not an activist either and people think I should be and it's like. But I'm like I am by doing being me, by loving you, no matter who you are, and by sharing love and joke, and everybody gets picked on, no matter what you look like. I pick on everybody, you know. But somewhere in there there was a point. It was a good point. It was a good point. Well, it's just in the conversations it's like you, it's kind of cool. Speaking of you, I started thinking about like all the guilt I think I have as a person and I don't know why. I felt you were telling me like I need to get rid of that guilt, and I don't know why, because you didn't say that, but you did right.
Speaker 3:Well, I think well, here's the thing, right. From a cultural perspective, being an American, I can relate to you because we have that commonality. I haven't been in the United States, like I said, for 15 years. However, I'm quite aware of the cultural trends and norms that work, routines from the States or routines from all over. And the term privileged is used a lot now. It's used in the common vernacular and there's a sting to it, a sting right, and it's very, very American.
Speaker 3:People don't talk about this in Spain or Mexico or Greece, for that matter. You know around the world this concept of white privilege or male privilege or educated privilege. It's not a negative thing. Where in the United States, if somebody says, check your privilege, like that's throwing an insult, that's like verbally slapping them in the face and trying to be more honorable than the other person or virtuous, and this is just bullshit. This is again divisive language being used in order to, you know, raise one person over another person. So it's doing the exact opposite. I'm claiming that you're privileged, but the fact that I'm accusing you of you check your privilege makes me more virtuous, and this has got to stop. What's got to stop is language around utilizing diagnosis, psychological diagnosis, as an excuse Especially. I mean, I've heard many people say you know, I'm sorry, I can't do that. It gives me anxiety and I ask things like do you know what anxiety?
Speaker 4:is or don't mind them, they have ADHD Right.
Speaker 3:And so what I talk about and the tools that I use is personal accountability, and when I'm talking and working with parents, it's personal accountability for your inner worlds, because that's the youth that you bring to your, the relationship with your children, and you need to be accountable. If your children, if your child or children are triggering you, that's your work. Where does the trigger come from? What is the unhealed need that wasn't met? What's going on there that needs to be addressed?
Speaker 2:My dogs are agreeing with me Got a whole choir over there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got big dogs.
Speaker 2:What is really cool, though I mean, I don't know if you did it intentionally, but I carry on a lot of guilt because I'm at her. My life right now is actually okay, and there are a lot of people who are around me whose life is not okay and I don't know how to live in my successes without feeling like I need to, like I don't know, be there for them, like I don't. I feel like I can't do both. I feel like if I celebrate, then it's like smacking them in their face, like oh, I'm celebrating, look at me, and I'm really struggling with that.
Speaker 2:But you actually was like no, I mean, you didn't say it, but this is what I heard, right, but I mean I heard basically you were talking about the inner self, and then what got me was need. What is it that I need? I've never asked myself that question, like okay, what is it that I need? You know, and one thing I don't need is to stop feeling bad about all these things that I can't control, right, you know, we can be compassionate, we can be empathetic as well, and those are beautiful skills to have.
Speaker 3:But if you are a deep feeling, I also am somebody who cries for other people all the time and that's not very healthy for me, you know. It's. It's important to know where our boundaries are. We don't where important each one of us is important and unfortunately, the culture in the United States is about normalizing mental health problems right now, even when there are not mental health problems. It gives people an excuse, and that also I mean I think there are some really great uses for pharmaceutical medicines and we have to recognize that the pharmaceutical companies are businesses that are multi-million dollar companies and they make money keeping people sick, not caring people, right. So we intellectually know all of that, but the more that we convince people that normal stresses of life and fears of growing up and growing old and making mistakes is all part of growth and learning and that our strength comes from within, everything that we is within, you know there are times where we need support and help or help great, I get that.
Speaker 2:I'm all all day as their emotional support animal. You're me. They get me by my neck.
Speaker 3:But boundaries are good because you are important and if, if you're giving so much like you can't pour from an empty cup, you just can't and you need to be able to say I am celebrating my, my success right now, and if that makes you uncomfortable, I am really genuinely sorry. That's not my intention. Here's here's what I can do. I can either step outside of your presence right now so I can celebrate me, or I can bring you in to and ask you to help celebrate this success, or whatever. But don't ever dim your light. Don't place small because you're afraid of being judged. That's just not healthy.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not. And just to point out to, like all the people in my life I'm not talking about child Okay, and honestly it's been really cool People have been very, very excited for me, but it's just in their own lives that's still miserable. So you know, it's like you know, oh, we just became number eight. You know, I want to call somebody and it's like, don't call them. Well, honestly, if Trump get elected again, me and my mama probably going to come live with you for a little bit.
Speaker 2:Okay, guess we're on the right side of the law, 20 kids following Because, yeah, because my mama is not going to play this and since you know, you're the only person we met, that's technically not in the country, the only one. No, actually we had a guy from Europe and he was doing meditation, but I can't quiet my mind enough to sit through a proper interview. You think I'm going to quiet enough to do like meditation, Like I meditate about how I'm going to decorate my meditation room when I buy my house.
Speaker 3:I do that too. Sometimes walking meditations are better and sometimes I'm not a. I'm not a good, quiet the mind kind of person either. I like to paint, I like to do things that helps me focus and and feel joy and center and all of those things. And it may not look like your traditional meditation either.
Speaker 2:Okay, Lainia is over here teaching us that, and now everything looks traditional. That's pretty cool and I got it. Writing has been my passion lately. I write like a blog every night. I wrote a blog about orders and noodles, so you know, okay, anything when I say you're right about anything.
Speaker 3:I'll have before you you continue. I just want to let both you guys know I have two guest rooms. Come.
Speaker 4:Okay, when he kids are like, I'll let them back. Oh, what me?
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you a funny story about her daughter. Right, I always liked the point this out because I'm telling her daughter is going to be nothing to mess with. We went to a pool party Rebecca's pool party. She's in California, guys, don't worry, she's still part of our show. She's just out there working. But she had a pool party. So he was at her house and her daughter had these two little boys eating out the palm of her hand. This is what got me. She told them pretend like you're drowning and I'm going to save you. And they're like okay, and I'm like I would need you to think a little bit more about your life. What is crystal teaching her daughter?
Speaker 4:So the same people's life.
Speaker 2:But let's not pretend. It shocked me how willing they were. It was like no second guessing, right, it was like no second guessing. No, like a way she did teach them how to swim, but you're not going to tell me. Look, you're not going to tell me. To pretend I'm drowning. The same day I learned how to swim, lainey. So I know that your focus is teens, but a lot of adults watch us. I don't think we get a lot of teens here.
Speaker 4:Besides Maddie.
Speaker 2:Besides Maddie yeah, we do have some. Some people faithfully watch. They're feeling bad because I'm like damn fucking is in message and it's like oh.
Speaker 3:Now my teens. They swear like truck drivers instead of I. So when I, when we're working together and when we hang out, oh yeah, every other word is fucked.
Speaker 2:I do it all the time too, and I do it around my mom and stuff. And you know, I remember that one time I got really, really bold and I was talking about my mom, my sister, my cousin, and I was like you bitches, and my mom knocked me out. Yeah, yeah, I was like why what you saying? You know I was talking about them too. No, what Number one? I guess I wanted you to explain why, or explain, I don't know, maybe it's the right word on why you think dealing with mental health in teenagers is important, or especially for parents to maybe start looking into that. And then also it just your message for anybody right now who's going through a mental health struggle and they just don't know where to go.
Speaker 3:Right. So mental health I like to call it mental wellness actually, because health implies mental health implies something's wrong, and when we see that we're healthy, okay, great, we're healthy. But when you talk about somebody's mental health, that is talking that the implication is that it's not healthy, right? Well, the term itself, I think, has a big problem. I'd like to use the term mental wellness and I think normalizing self inquiry, normalizing understanding the internal worlds is the first step. I work a little bit with tweens. My son and I actually co-teach a class. He likes working with the younger groups better than me, so I brought him in and we have taken the self inquiry tools and games and we've gamified it. So we're creating a positive relationship to the inner worlds. And then, when teens get older, tweens move into their teen years and adolescence so they're able to really pull apart and examine some of the things that are coming up for them.
Speaker 3:Because, let's face it, it's a tumultuous time and once everything is changing, our brain is developing in new ways. Parts of our brain are developing more rapid than other parts. We need to understand what's happening, not only from our own perception but from a biological perspective as well. One lets demystify this. Everybody should have a manual. We should know that at this age. This is what's happening in my brain. This is why I don't calculate consequences. Well, well, this is why I'm individuating and not listening to my parents. This is why I'm trying on different identities, because I'm wired to do so in my brain and that helps us to normalize those kinds of understanding about self. And then, when you go into the psychological understanding, like understanding what is anxiety? What is depression? How are thoughts created? What are thoughts? What are emotions? How do emotions work? What role does it play in our lives? How can we use all that information to empower ourselves Doesn't mean like wash it away or get rid of it or brush it under the rug. It means look at it, utilize it as part of our daily experience. And once we move into spaces where we can practice, it becomes more normalized. And part of the way that I'm helping to change the world is I'm helping to introduce partnership, parenting, which is accountability of our internal worlds as parents, adults, and the way that we interact and relate with our children. To normalize that will help bring up more self-aware people. It doesn't mean that the awareness gets rid of it, it just means we have a greater understanding and because, like I said, I've said several times I'm an anarchist.
Speaker 3:I don't give my power over to anybody just because they're wearing a white lap coat or, in my case, I call it a butcher coat sometimes. You know, a doctor, it looks like a butcher to me. I'm not going to give my power over to them just because I don't know what to do. I'm all about using tools and finding the answers inside and, yes, there are circumstances where you need to seek out the support of others, but the American culture is so much about giving your power away and not being accountable.
Speaker 3:It's such a massive trend of doing that and if we need to recognize the damage that that has done and the control that it's given to systems or government or whatever the system is and we do that without even thinking, we do that without even making a conscious thought. Do I want to give my power to this person? Do I want to give my power to this institution, this organization? I think we need to take all kids out of schools too and I know this is radical, this probably triggers you. But because you like, okay, but what do I do with them?
Speaker 2:Right, I got to stay with them all day.
Speaker 4:My thing is you know, I'm not smart enough to teach them. Someone got to teach them, oh Lord.
Speaker 3:As an anarchist and as somebody who questioned everything. I never once questioned the education system until I got my kid out of it, and then I recognized what damage it did. And I also recognized that his natural curiosity, once trusted and once empowered, was enough to send him down some major deep dives, he was told in Greece, because the amount of studying that he did. He read the Iliad, he read all of these ancient texts at 13, his knowledge and understanding because it was intrinsic motivation. And once we got to Greece and we went to the Athens Museum of Natural History or whatever it was, we were talking to the docents and the docents were like, wow, you've got a PH D level of education on this topic, perhaps because he was intrinsically motivated. Nobody forced him and left to his own devices. He educated himself based on natural curiosity. He trusted himself to do that and that was important. And as long as you can develop a love of learning, which school doesn't give you, you can learn anything.
Speaker 2:You know what? I just recently started keeping my power to myself and I think it's about to get me fired from my job Because I told a customer I owe the slap in the email and I got in trouble for that. But I didn't want to lie. What would I have said? That would have still been the truth. I don't know what else I could have told them. So there's a lot of truth what you're saying about America and institutions, society, because in that situation I saw it. So you prefer me and the one thing they kept telling me was remember your audience. And I'm like human.
Speaker 4:You know, it was like so many people oversleep Right. I oversleep every day.
Speaker 2:Yes, she does. She lay every single day. And then another time I got in trouble for another email and I'm like I think this is going to be my downfall. I finally just started telling people. If you want me to say something, tell me what you want me to say, because if I'm going to say it, I'm going to say it like I say it, and I should be okay to do that. We're going to put all of your contact information, of course, in our websites, on our YouTube, facebook and all that social media stuff. Kind of like Lainey, just telling you guys, take care of your world, your internal world. I'm going to call my as a universe, because a lot goes on in there and I really need a spaceship to finish getting down to my toes. I ain't been to my toes yet, but I'm working on it.
Speaker 4:I love that.
Speaker 3:And you guys come on down to Mexico.
Speaker 2:Right, okay, don't tap this, we're going to pop up.
Speaker 3:We're going to pop up to you.
Speaker 2:I'm literally we're going to call when we're like remember when you said, well, we had to pour it all, all right. Well, thank you so much for coming back on. Thank you so much for everything that you give us, thank you so much for everything that you do. You know, we're going to ask you to come back again because you know me. Just like another hour we could have talked to you, know. But yes, give the dog and your son some love from us and we will be in touch. Thank you, guys, for watching and we'll see you next time. Please excuse us, because we trying out a new camera system and we don't know how to work it yet. Thanks, you guys.
Speaker 5:And with that we're wrapping up another episode of the fucking feelings podcast. Thank you all for tuning in and engaging in another intense and real discussion on understanding and navigating through our feelings. Don't forget we're here each Wednesday bringing you brand new episodes filled with stories, advice and perspectives to help you handle those fucking feelings. So set a reminder on your calendar, grab your headphones and join us every week. And if you're interested in exploring more ways to deal with life stresses, make certain to tune into our sister podcast, trauma is expensive. Dive deep into discussions on managing trauma, building resilience and fostering healing, with new episodes dropping every Monday. Make sure to subscribe, rate and comment on both podcasts on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, each comment and rating can catapult us further towards reaching those individuals who could really use our discussions. Your feedback is invaluable. Before we close, we want to remind you that discussing feelings is never a sign of weakness but a display of courage. Stay brave, stay strong and keep feeling those fucking feelings Until next week. Take care and keep the conversation going.