Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - DaRa Williams: Integrate Your Mind, Body, Heart & Soul

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

DaRa Williams (meditation teacher, psychotherapist) helps us break down the importance of unpacking past personal and intergenerational trauma, misdiagnoses that come from cultural misunderstandings, and her integrative meditation practice. She opens up about why she chose a path that set her up to fight the dominant culture wave, how microaggressions gave her the opportunity to fortify the skills of her meditation practice, and the strength that comes from integrating perspectives when we celebrate diversity. DaRa discusses discovering meditation for herself, her funny silent retreat experiences, and how meditation creates clarity of the mind that makes healing possible. She explains energetic resonance and how affinity sits can help you feel seen, what enlightenment actually feels like, and what it looks like when your mind, body, heart, and soul are not integrated. Dharma Seed's talks and meditations: https://dharmaseed.org/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I would bet that there is a component of what you engage with that is not yours, that you are carrying for somebody or some bodies in terms of the path. Create a lot of space between you and it. First, that's the first thing we do, like give you some space, like to de-identify with it. like it is a symptom. It's not you. It's something you're holding, caring, and actually may have picked up, importantly, to make it easier for somebody else in your family.

Whether it's your current family, you know, the family that you originated out of, or some multi-generate, you know, somebody back in the generation. It's also known as vicarious trauma. It comes down the lineage in many, many, many different. ways. Oftentimes without explanation, I'm not proposing or positing that it is collective trauma that's all in all, and we don't have to address whatever our stuff is that we've accumulated in our life.

But I can bet you that trauma resolution is not going to happen if you're just dealing with your individual itself, that you have to be open and inclusive to being committed to transform familial and collective and intergeneration of trauma as well. Breakdown, she's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two. Hi, I'm I'm Biolik. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to my breakdown.

This is the place where you break things down so that you don't have to. We have a guest today who literally described us as plucking her out of her anonymity and bringing her to this show. Jonathan Cohen, we could say the same about your life. we took you from a whole other world and we have given you this show that we share. We're speaking to a pretty incredible person today. Her name is Dara Williams.

Dara, that's D-A, capital R-A, is a trainer. She's a meditation teacher. She's also a psychotherapist. But she has an, I don't even know how to describe it. She has an unbelievable path that led her into psychotherapy and also into a variety of healing modalities. She's been a contributor to the creation of deep time liberation,

which is a healing journey retreat that focuses on intergenerational and ancestral trauma for people of African descent. She also does Aboriginal healing work. She's a very, very, very, very wise woman. She's a very funny woman. She's from Bedford-Stuyvesant. So for all of you, East Coasters, shout out to Bed-Stuy. Tell people what they're going to learn in this episode.

Top three things they're going to learn. I don't know. I mean, there's so many things. You're going to learn what an affinity sit is. I did not know what an affinity sit was. You're going to learn about energetic resonance. You're going to learn. That's probably the third one.

What's the second? You're going to... What? Why are we going out of order? You're going to learn that Jonathan goes out of order. You're going to learn what an affinity sit is. You're going to learn why it's important also. to understand what an affinity sit is, given our culture.

You're going to learn what energetic resonance is, and you're going to learn something that Jonathan sensed right when he met me over a decade ago that I didn't know about until today. Great. Let's do it. Also want to mention Der Ra has a website if you'd like to learn more about her. So we'll include that below,

but it is D-H-A-R-M-A-S-E-D dot org. And, wow, what an incredible woman. It's such a pleasure to welcome Dara Williams to the Breakdown. Break it down. I'm very, very excited to talk to you. I'm very, very intimidated in the best way possible. You're intimidated. What are you talking about?

I'm like, how did she come to pluck my anonymity? in the gamma world into this world that you operated. There's actually a good story for that. There's a really good story. Can I tell my 30-second version, and then you'll tell yours, which is real? My 32nd version, having not been there, was that you were her salvation in a car trip that she was stuck on. I love that.

I love that, totally. I was on a road trip with my children and my ex-husband. And we sometimes do things together. And in this case, we were visiting his mom, which is my children's grandmother. And he and I were together for 15 years. So our lives were very connected. And our children have grandparents that are each other's parents. And we typically, we don't travel a ton together.

But this was a time where we were just going to be in the car. And he wanted to listen to this podcast that he listens to. and the podcast was 10% happier. And he's been telling me about this podcast, and he's gotten very interested in meditation, which I've been interested in for a long time in many different ways, but not that it's a contest. He's kind of, he's doing it better, in my opinion.

Like, he's like every day, no matter what, like, he's really, whatever. So there was a little bit of like, we just all got in the car. I don't know that I want to listen to a podcast for an hour, when we're just like all settling in to like being in the car together. And then I started listening and it was you. And I had no idea really kind of anything about you. I was just listening to this podcast. And then I Googled you.

And then I went down the rabbit hole. And I just had this unbelievable, you know, hour of listening to you just spouting mad wisdom. So I did not think you would speak to us because I just think you're like, because you're so enlightened and like you're so cool. So anyway, so we've all, you know, Valerie and Jonathan and I, we've just been, I mean, your bio alone, I feel like could, like you explaining how you got all these places could be its own podcast. You're also from bedstie, which is just awesome. and we have many things to talk to you about. Well, first I'll tell you what we don't want to do. We don't want to make you do like a, why is meditation important?

Tell us the different kinds of meditation. Right, I know, because you probably get that all the time. We are not only curious about kind of the things that people do to increase their consciousness and transcend consciousness and to better understand their wellness and do things that contribute to mental health. we're also interested in the process by which people become teachers and healers. And so we're very curious. I mean, your resume is so not just impressive. It's so diverse in the skill set and the application.

And so we would love to hear a little bit about kind of what the last 25 years, you know, what led up to the last 25 years, where are we at now? and we do tend to have an interest in some of the more, you know, I don't know the word. I don't want to say esoteric because I feel like that has a connotation. But some of the, I don't know, some of the deeper work that you do kind of even beyond the worlds of meditation. And that's the things like the deep time liberation and the Aboriginal focusing oriented complex trauma therapy. We have a strong interest in trauma. We have a strong interest in like all things that you do.

So Jonathan, where do you think we should start? And would you like to be called doctor? Do you like to be called? No. You don't like that. So the thing I left off of that and tried to find a really, and you'll understand this being a PhD yourself, I am an ABD.

Okay, got it. And so I finished everything and never wrote a dissertation, which at the time I thought was going to be problematic. But actually, I think was a good thing as it landed me, in the life that you're reading about and hearing about. If I got my PhD, I'd probably be some professor in some university somewhere. Right.

Well, and a lot of people take, obviously, different tracks. ABDs are also, it's like the most rebellious of the doctoral students. It's the people who are like, I'm going to do the application. I'm going to take the GRE. I'm going to go to all my classes. I'm going to like live the life of a grad student wear pajamas all the time.

But when it comes down to it, I really just need to get my hands dirty, and I'm not going to write a 400-page book. You called it. I could tell you, but by the skin of my teeth, did I get out? I had one child in tow and the other in my belly when I walked that stage. So it was madness, total madness. And I also was always kind of a misfit, you know, in my program as I am in life. So, Jonathan, I'm going to let you start us off with Dara.

where would you as a Toronto raised healer yourself, who lives in the worlds of transcending consciousness and you're also a futurist as your day job? Where would you like us to start? I have a lot of different areas, but before I would choose a direction, I would ask Dura, what did you think you were going to talk about

when you found out that you were coming here today? Well, I had, first of all, I had, no idea. Two things. I played the game. You all read that I went to Brooklyn friends and I went to Barnard. And so I kind of had reached my limit of being in all white environments, being one or two black or people of color there doing my thing. And so when it got to to that final thing, it's like, I don't want to be associated with this. And what was being taught there, because we're talking about the early 80s now. So trauma. and intergenerational stuff was not a conversation.

And so it was hard to see myself there and also to know that what I discerned as a result of working inpatient psychiatry in inner city Brooklyn was that a lot of folks were getting misdiagnosed based on misunderstanding of cultural differences and behavior and stuff like that. And so that kind of sets.

the, yeah, set the ball rolling in terms of a long period of seeking and investigating and learning different healing systems and all of that kind of stuff to land me where I am now, which is for the moment, you know, I say, it's where I land it now. I don't know, I don't know where I'll be in five years. My MBialx Breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times, especially

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additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. One thing that jumps up for me, misdiagnosis. We're always trying to classify what someone is going through with, oh, this is normal because of this or this is the result of this. But when you start to do meditation, especially if you start to do some of the other healing work that you do, I would imagine that you have a different perspective on what is really going on for them, that they're playing out something else.

Can you speak to what you discovered going down some of that and help someone understand if they're like, what are they talking about, like, what you might have discovered through some of the other work that you've done? That's a good question. It's a big question. It's a good question. I think one of the things that I discovered is that many people actually are suffering from dis-ease, like the non-integration of the body, mind, heart, some people call it spirit, but the non-integration of that.

Notwithstanding that there are in reality some people that have biophysiological antecedents, of mental illness, you know, schizophrenia, depressive, those are real things. But even with those being real things, that oftentimes the way they are intervened with and the treatment that is offered to people that have those kinds of diagnoses, isn't in the long run the curative kind of work with them,

in conjunction with medication, if called for. But that's kind of why I had to leave the profession in that way because not being licensed and all this kind of thing, I had no protection. And people in the field, and remember, we're talking about a while ago. I can't say it's changed, but there's a wider bandwidth for accepting that maybe this is like a little different than how we thought about it. So that has, and I know for back in the day, I was at the end of the program and I was working,

needing to get working on a dissertation, I kept saying to myself and a few wise friends that I had, you know, so I worked in inner city, Brooklyn, Kings County, one of those states like Bellevues, like one of those states. And I kept saying, you know, all these black and brown people

in inpatient psychiatry, they're not schizophrenic. They're not depressed. Although I, I thought it was depression because trauma was a new field at that time. But what people, and I'm just using black and brown people because that's the community I was working with that. But I'd say it was the across the board, actually, that people are suffering from individual trauma, collective trauma, cultural trauma, historical trauma. And if you don't have that understanding of, then the treatment is not going to fit the, the,

the situation or the state or the circumstance. And people will just continue to cycle through and not be well. That's always been the driving thing behind how I perceive and how I proceed when I'm working with somebody is a real investment and interest in seeing them be well. Following up on what you said, you said the words, non-integration of the mind, body, heart, and or soul, as some people call it. And that is what most people afflicted with a disease that are struggling have at the root of what's going on for them. And I wanted to hear more about what does that mean to someone who like, that makes no sense to?

How would you start to explain it? How I'd start to explain it is moving through life and living through the lens or up against historical stuff, whatever your biochemistry is, your ego and your super ego, those are common terms that people know about. But basically not seeing things as they are and building story on top of that. And oftentimes when you build story on top of that, then the interactions and the actions that you have and the actions that you take are being determined by that miss not knowing, things as they are. So the choices that you make and the movement that you make is based on a

non-understanding of what's really so. You can't really effectively take action and engage unless you're really effectively, unless you're really standing in a place of knowing what's going on. Otherwise, you're going to be a little bit off somewhere or the other. And every time you're little bit off, it builds more dis-ease, nervousness. I mean, the prevalence of anxiety and depression in our culture right now, maybe the world, I don't know, but certainly our culture coming behind. And I, you know, I venture to say it was there before the pandemic, and the pandemic just highlighted it, just bought it into, illuminated it. Yeah. Is that kind of somewhat touching what you're saying? for sure. Part of what you're talking about has been branded for marketing speak as, oh, there's a flow state or there's another way of existing that people don't normally access because they assume life has to be really hard all the time. And that's not to say that there aren't going to be challenges in life. But what you're describing is something other than the normal life challenges. It's actually not being able to evaluate the situation that they're in clearly enough because of misalignment or.

or what I think of as static in the system. I can understand that static in the system. Yeah. You know, and I say, I mean, your original question is like, why should people even bother, like, investigating or aspiring to health and well-being? And I say, why not? You know, however many years we have on this earth, if there's the possibility or if there's the chance that you can live that life,

not battered and blown by the external conditions and situation, which doesn't mean that challenges don't arise, but even in facing challenges and engaging with challenge, one can meet it from a position of being centered and a position of being awake to what's going on, which actually then makes it easier to bring forward the right choice or the right behavior or the right action that needs to be taken in response in any particular situation. or feeling state. If someone still is like, this sounds all theoretical, you've seen a lot of people go through this.

Do you have like specifics, like a case study, for example, or little mini stories that like showcase how people have begun to discover aspects of themselves or take the static out of the system to see more clearly? Usually it's behind some kind of breakdown. And that doesn't necessarily have to be a mental breakdown. or a psychiatric breakdown, but usually it's some kind of breakdown, either the life spans,

the life that one is living in or what's created against the span. There may be some loss of something, but usually there's some turnkey moment where a person asks themselves, do I want to live on this? Like, what do you know? And then hopefully they have the opportunity

because there's so many systems, right? There's no one system of healing. There's so many systems depending on a personality and a life and experience and all that kind of stuff. So hopefully they have the wherewithal. And I, you know, I think most people, again, as long as things are, you know, if your mind, if your mind is what's fractured, you know, if you're not thinking straightly, then that's the first order of business to get the mind reconstituted. But if you're kind of like your average, like me, you know, like us, there comes a point where you say, really, I don't think so. I think I've got to find a better way than this. You know, a lot of times it also is like you were saying how you took this ride and that's how you heard my initial speaking.

So there's some incident, some situation, some circumstance that starts to turn oneself towards like, oh, let me invite. investigate that step by step. And it's not always a mental or spiritual. It could be, it could be physical, could be exercise, you know, it could be like being out in nature, you know. So I'm not saying that Buddhism or mindfulness is which is what the, what it's called in the general domain that is the only way. I'm not, I'm not one of those folks. But I can tell you it's a good way. It works if you apply it. You know, the notion of this concept of, you know, even intergenerational trauma, the notion that post-traumatic stress disorder is not simply something that happens from very specific, you know, war environments to very specific soldiers in a certain environment. But that we have, you know, as Gabor Bate, when we had him on, you know, he talked about the kind of the lowercase T traumas and the capital T traumas.

And, you know, as someone who grew up, my parents were born in the Bronx during World War II. So a burrow over from you. Yes, ma'am. And, you know, we grew up with the Holocaust hanging, you know, right about at our forehead, you know. And, you know, it was in every food that my mom served. And it was in every piece of clothing and every, you know, rag that was laid on a sofa so you wouldn't actually put your body on any piece of furniture because then you'd have to actually use things, you know?

So, you know, I grew up with an innate knowledge of intergenerational trauma before I even knew it was a thing, before it was even part of my thesis. I studied obsessive compulsive disorder, and so part of my thesis was, you know, PTSD and some of the early work, you know, that was being published. But people get very itchy. A certain kind of person gets very itchy when you talk about this in the context of black and brown America in particular. And, you know, for me, it's very clear. And sometimes I think the way that I see things should be clear to everyone.

And this is not a comparison. I don't believe in trauma comparisons. I don't believe in cultural narratives based on trauma. And when you have. communities that have an historical trauma and you have people, you have a peoplehood, and you have conglomerations of people who've been forced together because someone designated that they should be. When you have language stolen and you have a cultural narrative stolen, and when you the when you try when you have a situation that attempts to remove the soul of a people it it pains me

greatly that it is so complicated for people to understand the kind of things that you're talking about are real they are not this is not an apologetic approach this is not an excuse this is not an explanation that is meant to make white people feel better so i'd like you to say speak a little bit, just since we're like right in it, I'd like you to speak about, I mean, really more on a human level. Why do you choose a path in life, right, where you are not only shining a light, but having that exposed for yourself as a practitioner, why choose a life that sets you up then to be essentially fighting the dominant wave of a culture? what is the decision making for you?

What does it do for you? And why are you here, right? Like, why do you see yourself here? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I asked me to sum up my life in like a couple of sentences, but you got it. So I think it's a combination of things.

And one of the things that I say is that there's no group of people that haven't experienced or, had impacted on them, war, oppression, you know, through the ages. It's just that right now, the people that are in the crosshairs are black and brown people, red people. I mean, we see what's going on in our country, you know, now. So I say that as a qualify that this is not particular to black, brown, yellow, and red people in the United States.

That's how it might look in the countries of origin. I can't speak on that. I'm from the United States. I live in the United States. I know the United States. So I can't really speak on other countries and whatnot. But I really want people to be clear. This somewhat speaks to part of the question that you ask,

that this is not something that's particular to black, brown, yellow, and red people. It's just that in this time and in this country, partially because this country has never really taken responsibility for the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of indigenous people here in this country. And so this kind of goes back to one of the things that I was saying to Jonathan. Like if you don't deal with the original, if you don't allow the original seed to be known, the original impacts to be realized, it's really hard. to deal with it in the present moment, you know.

So I think what brings me here is that kind of bio thing. It's like, who this is in 1960s, early 1960s. I know you all are younger than that. I don't have a personal relationship to it. But in the 60s, who send a little black child from Bedstuy, downtown Brooklyn to Brooklyn Friends, a Quaker school. Right? And so the formulation of my perceptions and understandings of the larger of the macro.

And was very much influenced by Quaker philosophy and practice. So there's that on the one hand. And then on the other hand, I grew up with Malcolm Mets, Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer, like that whole group. So that's happening on the other hand. and having to find and then having parents, like, who are really committed to the struggle, you know, the fight for social justice, but in a quiet but steady way, all of this input, this is all going into this body, mind, and heart. And I think that the choices that initially were made for me, being a young person, and then the choices I started making for myself, continue to thrust me on that edge, like that, that middle place.

And I guess in the final analysis, and I've just come to this really with a solid understanding and a solid way to know this in my body, that part of what has, brought me here and what keeps me here is ancestors. You know, the way I look at it is like, somebody made a choice a long time ago to do whatever they had to do to be alive, just stay alive such that I'm here today. So like to like turn towards that

and open to that reality actually allows me to think about healing generations back and generations forward. Like, you know, that's saying what I am my ancestors' wildest dream? Yeah, so, so needing to honor that.

Needing to honor that. Yeah. And one of the things, you know, I'm not a historian and I'm not a political scientist, but one of the things that makes this country unique on the one hand, like this country, like this country, Like this is not happening anywhere else in the world. Starting to a little bit more because people are moving around.

But this country... We're exporting our shit. Yeah, right. Exactly. We're trying to build a country where there are so many differences. So much individuality. You know, and we're seeing whether we're winning at that or failing at that. But that's what we're, you know, supposedly is happening here.

And as we get closer to it, you see how crazy. it gets. Like it gets crazy. The closer we get to possibly achieving that, the crazier it gets because people want to hold on to the past. This feels like the perfect time for me to ask you to talk a little bit about your ancestors as closer as far as you'd like to.

Your parents were Southerners and then you're raised in Brooklyn. Who, Who were your parents? So my mother, who I live with now in her house, and I want to underscore that, is her house, with my husband and my cat, Nala. We've been all living together for 13 years.

My father died about 10 years ago. But my mom grew up in North Carolina, and so she's nine, in next month she'll be 99. years ago. Wow. 99 years old. And her mind, her brain is intact. She sleeps a lot because she's old. She gets tired during the day.

But her brain is intact. It's her body that's, you know, wear it out. That's what I tell her. Your body's wearing out. So she's the last of 13 children to be alive. This is from one of those kind of pretty common Southern families back in the day. And there was lots of the work to be done.

And she graduated from college in the 19, end of the 1930s, early 1940s. And has made her way in the world. And she's really

familiar with that term like the steel magnolia. Like that is so my mom. And for people that don't know, it's like the magnolia is a beautiful, creamy. flower. That grows a lot in the south. You can find them up.

Maybe they're in California, southern California. I don't know. But they're really big and magnificent. But they're really strong. And my mom is clear. And has been, of course,

now it's because she's 99, but even prior to that, that she was never going to live down south again. It's in my consideration. I'm looking at that as I get older, but not sure if I want to make the move to start all over somewhere. I was like, oh, I should go back and be one of these people that's reclaiming our birth right.

You know, like, give me a house. Whatever. I don't know. So that's my mom. And my dad was born in South Carolina. So here's a little story for you. And I don't know how much of it is embellished and how much of it is. brains of truth in it.

I didn't meet any of my grandparents. They were all deceased when I was doing. So the stories are coming through. But in terms of my father, it's my understanding that his father was a moonshiner. Like he made alcohol in South Carolina.

And his alcohol was so good. How good was it? It was really good. This is what I heard. His moonshine was really good. And it was so good that even the white southerners started going to him to buy their moonshine as opposed to going to the white guys down the road who were making moonshine.

And this went on for a year or so. And at some point, the Ku Klux Klan decided that had to stop, that he was taking away the economic basis for the white guys who were doing moonshine over here. And as I understand it, they had to steal away in the middle of the night because they got the message that the Ku Klux plan was going to come in. And so that's how that family ended up in Philly first in the north. And then after Philadelphia, they came to New York. And my father really, really, really identified as a Harlem boy.

He's from Harlem. And he was a semi-professional boxer. And he was an educator. Like his career, he for many, many years in his career, functioned as an assistant principal, a dean, in what was called the 600 schools at that time. So back in the day, they separated the kids who were problems into one school. And they called them 600 schools. And my father was the dean of behave.

And I have to tell you, when my dad died at his funeral, all these grown black men came to his funeral. And they would say to me and my mom, you know, your father saved my life. Or your husband was the reason that I'm having the kind of life that I have now. And I just know. So back to your original question, that's also a big part of who and why I am the way I am. These are the people that parents did me, you know, and made decisions about sending me to Brooklyn's friends. When did you discover meditation for yourself?

I've been a seeker for a long time and studied a lot of different traditions. And I was raised Christian and I'm not, you know, fortunately for me, I did not have the experience where I moved towards meditation fleeing Christianity and prayer. That wasn't my experience. I was a Sunday school teacher. Christianity was fine. It was like not a problem. But as I got older and started experiencing different,

belief systems and different phenomenologies, there was something about, for me, meditation puts me or places me in a position where I can act and be responsible for determining my experience in life. And so by bringing that to be, and before, I got to this form of meditation, the Padasana or Insight meditation, which is what mindfulness is based on. Before I got to this form of meditation,

I studied shamanism for many years. I studied the course of miracles for many years. So it's kind of an, even though I'm a meditation teacher and I truly love the Dharma and meditating. And the Dharma is just the teachings of Buddhism. That's all that word means. the teaching for foodism.

I still have an integrated meditation practice. That's what I'd say. Have an integrative meditation practice. So that's how I got it. I mean, the literal way I got to this form was a girlfriend who was kind of like she was the scout. She would go and do things. And then she'd come back and say,

you got to do this. You got to do this. So she went to do a retreat at Gawenka. which is one of the more conservative traditional forms of a paucin, 10-day, 10-day retreat, my first retreat was a 10-day retreat in silence. Oh, what? Yes, that was my first meditation retreat. What was that?

You'd have to hospitalize me. I wouldn't last a day. Well, either get hospitalized or have major breakthrough, one or the other. It's the same thing to me. But yeah, I did it. Not only did I do it, but I tapped into something that was so, when you use this loosely, so wild. And I don't mean like wild, like a wild horse, but like it's float in my mind.

What was it? What was it? About third or fourth day in, I started experiencing this pain in the back of my back. Yeah, it's called silence. It's called too much fucking silence. No, no. No, this is a body. This is the connection between the body.

I'm listening inside. That's fine. We're good. The body and silence, yes. But it was the body that took me there, not the silence, actually. And I had this pain in my lower back and, excuse me, audience. But the way I would describe it, don't worry, I'm not going to curse. The way I would describe it to people is it was like trying to have a baby out of a hole that wasn't there.

That's my whole life. You just described my memoir. title, that's my life. Enlightenment. It's like trying to have a baby out of a hole that isn't there. That's the title to this episode. That's good, Jonathan. Okay, sorry. No, no need to apologize. We're having fun at school. It makes it easy for people to listen to. So I had this pain that went on for like days. But then I started to know, it's like, oh,

every time I got up, pain would go away. So it wasn't structural. It wasn't like there was something wrong with my back because every time I got up after a sit, it was gone. And I started to explore that concept or that mind relationship to the body. And by the end of the retreat, I described that retreat is the most awfulest beautiful thing I've ever done. Yeah. And however, I did that. And then I was like, but I don't want to do that again.

And that's how I ended up taking a little bit of a turn to Insight Meditation, Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts. And so go back to one of our earlier conversations at Insight Meditation Society, they were just beginning to have affinity retreats. And so for the first seven years of my practicing, I did it in all Bipop spaces. So I was able to really, really become familiar with the practice and really gain understanding of the practice working in my life. And in my nervous system, I talk a lot about the nervous system of my part of the system. was able to really ground such that then I could be anywhere with anybody. So did you, was that something you needed also?

Because I'm going to be the voice of all the people that are like, what's the difference? Was the difference? Why are you got to be so particular? It's just like, we're all one. It's meditation and what. And I know the answer just for myself, because I've worked to understand this.

And it's something that's just important to me. It's not important to everybody. but tell us why. Why is that important, both for the community you're working in and then for you as a practitioner to be able to come down from that mountain and take it to the rest of the people?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So for me, one of the reasons why it's important, and you can only ask the question, why is that important if you've never been the minority? 100%. In a situation.

Like, if you're, like, if you have no relationship to that at all, it's hard to understand, unless you take it on like it sounds like you did, which is to really investigate and engage with it. And so for me, it was a matter of building up mastery or skill.

I'll use the word skill. Building up skill and understanding with the practice without having to engage with microaggression. Whether the microaggressions were real or in my mind because we're in silence. So you don't really know, you know, but it really gave me the opportunity to fortify and cultivate the skill of the practice. Yeah. So that's how it was for me. And I would say, you know, even to this day when there are BIPAC people that come in to do retreats and when I, of course, I'm talking in generalizations. It's not everybody that any of this

applies to. But and they've never sat in an affinity group because now, even at the major centers, even when there's a retreat, there's the opportunity to have one sit a day, which is an affinity sit. And so the two affinity sits that generally are provided wherever you go are a BIPAC affinity sit and an LGBTQI affinity sit. And so there's nothing like the body being able to be relaxed. That's one of the major components that's useful in acquiring skill with practice. And so to have the body literally be with other bodies that have a similar experience

makes all the difference in being able to relax and let in what is useful to build a practice. That's a wonderful, that's a wonderful explanation, you know, for all the things that I felt like I've tried to understand. that's a really interesting explanation. And as I've really with Jonathan's assistance, you know, gotten to understand more about literally my physical body and how it is holding so much of my mind, holding so much of my spirit and my intention, you know, Jonathan is one of those people who,

I mean, from a young age, cultivated a healing. I mean, he was a healer and is. but his awareness of the environment is such that it irritates me a lot of the times because he picks up on things that I'm not aware of. And in my patriarchal, you know, white structure, it's like, please stop feeling that way because I don't understand it, right? Like that's sort of the structure that even the most well-meaning people take. And Jonathan, you know, I think is so used to not being understood in that that I think his articulation even, in my opinion, was not sufficient. Meaning, I want him to be able to say, I want him to be more like you, like to be able to say, like, here's the thing that's happening in my body, mind, spirit, you know, this is the, this is the place where I don't feel safe. This is the place where I need to retreat.

this is the place where I'm having physical sensations that need to be tended to, right? But I think in general, and obviously Jonathan is, to our knowledge, not a black man, not a person of color. He is a minority in other ways, as, you know, his ethnic identity determines. But I think that's very helpful to kind of hear that because it makes it a larger understanding that we all need to have, that while, Some people may be, you know, distinguishable by the color of their skin or, you know, any number of other, you know, kind of distinguishing features. As humans, there's this variability in experience that often will present in ways that many people don't have access to or understand.

The word vibe comes up and not in like the, oh, that's such good vibes. But like, when you're seeing in an affinity sit and I'm trying to like just go one, level more of a detailed explanation for people to help guide them there. You talk about the nervous system. The nervous system is constantly sensing everything around it. Right. So there is a vibe. There's a shared understanding that's happening on a silent level that we as animals are able to pick up on. Can you sort of just explain to someone and explain it just a little bit more in depth of like what do you think is happening in that that allows people to either sense or or and then have a have a larger feeling of calm that they're able to relax into.

I think it's probably, excuse me, probably the activation or the presence of resonance, you know, that there's an energetic resonance when you are with other bodies, you know, and I'll keep it. Because, you know, so we're talking about ethnicity and or orientation or gender. orientate, you know, we're talking about that. But just even people that have, that come to retreats now, there's lots of people that come to retreats now who have some kind of disability, non-ability for something. But it may not be like overt, like they're walking with a cane or they're blind. Like it may be an internal situation or something that you can't outwardly see. And the struggle oftentimes, the not being seen, like this is something that has.

happens in affinity sits, you're seen. You're not disappeared, you know, can be really helpful to supporting the mind and the person. Energetic resonance. I'm just like super into those, super into those two words. Because I wanted to pick up on that because when you say you're seeing, someone might not even look at you. It may be that you sit down next to someone and there's an energetic resonance of understanding familiarity just based on your experience that have overlap to them. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on.

This is getting into a level that's, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying I need more information about this. That's where I want to go. I had that with you. Excuse me? When we sat and we first knew each other, there was like, oh, she has been through something that I understand, even though I don't know her. there was a quick, like, oh, I get part of you that I don't even know that you've had,

but I can feel it. Do we call that chemistry? We call that chemistry? I mean, like, in the colloquial term. I think it's different than chemistry to me. I would love, you know, to hear how you perceive it. No, no, I just mean like when you say like, oh, we have good chemistry or we vibe, right? No, it's different.

I think that it's shamanic. For me, it's different. Chemistry can be like there's an energetic. excitement. There's like, oh, we can play off of each other. Oh, we're like get each other's jokes. That's what I mean. I mean, actually that we have a shared, and I don't know what other word to describe besides energetic resonance. And that to some people is going to be like really hippie-dippy, really out there. But there is a residue of experience, a map that the body holds based on what you've gone through. and people who have gone through things that have either a similar actual experience or an emotional imprint on them from what they've gone through

can sense each other even just sitting next to each other, which I think is where you're going or what you were talking about with, that you can feel each other in an infinity group and have a calmness and a sense of ease that you may not have otherwise. Yeah, or that takes a lot of effort to create. Like it's not that it's not attainable in non-affinity settings, but the effort that it takes is different and more than if you're in an affinity sit or an affinity group. And it's also not just the resonance of the individual, like you're saying that might be sitting next to you, in front of you, behind you or whatever, but it's the collective resonance.

Like you're sitting in a pool of like like experience. Again, not exactly the same, whatever. We all have different histories in this country, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But there's just a knowing of each other in a different way. I taught a PLC retreat, a whole retreat that was PLC. And at the end of the retreat, one of the participants gave me a note. And she said, this is the loudest silent retreat I've ever been on. But what she was addressing or what she was saying is kind of like what you're saying,

just the interaction, the sharing of understanding and awareness, it just happened because there's not all this stuff, I guess you said. I'm thinking of a retreat that I was on. This was real early in my prep, real early. It was like the third retreat I was on. And we were in silence. And it was a women's retreat. I said, okay, I did buy a part. I'll try a women's retreat.

I'll go to a women's retreat. We're all female there, all different orientations, but we're all women there. And I'm left-handed. And so I would always try to get a seat that was on the right corner, so I wasn't doing like this when I was eating. And after about the second day, she must have been left-handed too. There was this woman, the white woman,

that would always be in my seat. Like there's no my seat, but she would always be in my seat. And I spent three days in my mind railing against this woman. Oh, doesn't she know? And she saw me sit there. And that's what the problem is with white people. Like it just created like all of this conversation, which at some point was useful to understand. But it sent my nervous system into like I needed to see that that was there.

But it wasn't so helpful in terms of helping me settle down. and be in the retreat to work with the things that were arising from my life experience in the same way. Now, it was useful because I got to see

what my mind does in relationship to various stimuli. Yeah, it said, why that bitch keep taking my seat. So along these, kind of continuing along this sort of,

of energetic resonance path, a lot of the work that you do kind of revolves in, I would say, at least to my understanding, a realm, I don't want to even say a realm that's similar, but a realm that is adjacent. Let's call it adjacent. there are modalities that you use and that you practice and and lead people in. There are modalities that utilize ancient, in many cases ancient or centuries and centuries and in many cases probably thousands of years old wisdom, whether that be wisdom for wisdom for from Africa, from the shamanic traditions,

from Aboriginal communities, from groups of people who existed long before, long before many of the things that both plague us now and also please us now. But one of the things that Jonathan and I talk about a lot and we're very interested to have you speak about in the context of the work you do, And I think it relates to this kind of energetic resonance, and it relates to being in touch, not just for trend's sake.

I live in Los Angeles. We're like, everything is trendy. And like, regressions are now trendy. And, you know, this is now trendy. But what you're doing is very deep. And it's very authentic work to specific traditions that are essentially asking us in some ways to bend time. meaning to bend our understanding of our place in time. And my understanding is that you and one can do this in kind of two ways,

one being sort of a literal exploration of time, personal time, understanding your ancestry, understanding where you fit in the timeline of your existence. But the other aspect is sort of this notion that experiences that existed are in us now. And we know our bodies hold memory, for those of us who came at it from the scientific perspective and from my own challenges and learning about Dr. Sarno's work

and, you know, TMS work and the body holds memory. So I'm wondering if you can speak about these two aspects of time, one that you can approach or that one can approach very literally in terms of learning about your place and time. and then one about the personal timekeeping that basically we know leads to expressions of trauma, ultimately. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's nicely put the way you define that or distinguish that. And I think that both understandings are helpful to have and that many treatments and

intervention and healing systems that evolve out of these different ways or these two ways of understanding time are really helpful. And I mean, part of what happens in terms of, for instance, the indigenous focusing work is that you are actually meeting the clients where they are as opposed to coming in with some of the other, which is great. All the body and the embodied practices are excellent. But there's something about meeting somebody where they are that makes a leap in time, both easier. And by easier, I mean, like, melts away a lot of the constrictions and constraints

and the questioning and, like, knowledge becomes available. Not like intellectual learning, cognitive learning, but knowledge. like deep body wisdom knowledge, and that you can use that platform to actually transmute, transform, release, put in its proper place in terms of understanding, the various things that go into people responses to trauma.

You know, the whole, one of the other reasons you may have asked me this, already in another way. But one of the reasons that I do meditation practice and that I came to meditation practice is because it sets the conditions for clarity of mind so that as we engage with these different concepts and distinctions that we're talking about,

we can then activate the activity of them in our lives, which then goes on to make healing possible. you know. The other thing about a lot of the work that I do is that it actually centers, it actually centers the individual in the collective. So it's not your OCD. It's not your depression. It's not your anxiety.

That there is a collective aspect to these various responses, i.e. symptoms to conditions or situations or circumstances. Can you give an example of that? An example of... Like my perspective is like, it's my OCD. Yeah. You know, and like I... And also I've been in, you know, classical psychotherapy since I'm, I don't know,

16 years old. And I've done a lot of other things. I really, I've been doing more of like trans work now and imaginative like youngy and stuff. And I mean, I've been to heal or like name it and I've been to it and, you know, have in many cases used, you know, craniosacral and like... Tibetan stuff and Egyptian healers. Like I've done, I've had some really amazing healers that I've, that I've had work with me, you know, just literally almost by accident, you know, of meeting people. Anyway, but I still am, you know, very self-centered in my neuroses, in my, you know, in sort of

the work that I do for myself. And I'm curious if you can give an example of where, You know, a lot of times I feel like, I mean, Jonathan says, you know, all the things about us, whether it's individuals or our culture, you know, and he's Canadian also. So he does have a different perspective. You know, Jonathan said the other day, like, these are symptoms of a culture that is hurting. Yes. Yes. Like, like, yeah. So can you speak a little to that? Yeah. Just as a sidebar, Jonathan, IFOT was developed in Canada. IFLT was created by an indigenous, a Métis woman in western, middle and western Canada, many years ago and was integral to the reconciliation process that went on for many years. And so the thing about IFLT, and I didn't say it there, and I'm going to come back to the question you just asked, but is that it centered, two things. one, it centers indigenous worldview. Like the phenomenology and the practice come out of, so it's decolonize, stepping into it.

We don't have to step in and decolonize it. It's already, this form is already decolonized. And those of us that have been trained as healers, therapists, counselors, et cetera, have to kind of decolonize from what we were taught in graduate schools and whatnot. And to be able to interface with it in a good, way. I just wanted to let you know that this IFLT originates actually out of Canada. Let me just think for a second, an example. So, okay, so this kind of, because I was thinking about this, I kind of knew you were going to ask this question somewhere along the line.

Because you're a prophetess and you know every thought I've ever had and we've known each other for millions of years, you and me? No, but like Jonathan, I do pay attention. And my nervous system does acquire lots of information. Yeah, this is Bronx energy. That's what you're picking up on. It's just like 181st in Fordham Road. That's what it is. When I went to look at one of your other,

your other podcast, you're like, why she talks so funny? What's with that barrow? Ah, New York girl. You know, I come out to California all the time. There's all these Californians in California. It's great, y'all. But it's like, it ain't nothing like a New York girl.

So that's all I got to say about that. But so two things. So when I look and I heard your voice and I already knew, I already knew from, you know, what the, what comes out from you, from you all who were in the public eye and whatnot. So I knew you were Jewish. I read something else where, or that you were raised Jewish. I read something else that said a little bit about your parents.

Uh-huh. They were civil rights activists. Yeah, yeah. And their ages and stuff like that. And that I knew you, you know, I don't want to use the word struggle, though that may be the define, that may be how you define it. But I know OCD is in your space. Name a diagnosis.

It's in my space, my friend. I know it's in your state. And I said to myself, oh, like if I was looking at that, knowing for what I know and the history of the Jewish people and the Holocaust and all that kind of thing, know what I know. I would bet that there is a compromise. component of what you engage with. That is not yours.

That you are carrying for somebody or some bodies in terms of the path. What does that mean? What does it mean? Okay, put your neuroscience mind to the side. Yeah, yeah. And just let it in. Yeah. One of the things that I would do if I was,

working with you is to first create a lot of space between you and it. Because it's really hard. First, that's the first thing we would do. Like, give you some space, like to de-identify with it. Like, it is a symptom. It's not you. It's something you're holding, caring, and actually may have picked up, importantly, to make it easier for somebody else in your family.

Whether it's your current family, you know, the family that you originated out of or some multi-generate, you know, somebody back in the generation. This has so much alignment to Bert Heldinger's work in family consolation systems where we are all part of the family system, even passed down from the ancestors that are no longer with us. And many of the things that we're struggling with are just re-articulations of struggles that have come down. So it goes to this notion of energetic resonance that we are born with an energy. And yes, we can talk about nature, but we can also talk about inherited memory that hypervigilance, OCD, other expressions of these issues can actually be us saying that,

hey, wait a second, I recognize the struggles from the past and I'm actually showing this or carrying it as a way to stay connected to that system. Teacher, teacher. Okay, but I'd like us to take half a step back because I'm asking for a very practical, I'm not trying to think as a scientist. I'm thinking that a lot of people listen to us, a lot of people watch us,

and they're going to be like, she said, what, who? I need you to explain. And this is not me challenging you. This is me asking you. I really would like you to explain to people. what are we actually talking about? Are we talking about just that like my DNA got affected? Is it something in the air?

Like is it just from like literally, you know, my mother was raised by her mother, who was raised by her mother and it goes all the way back, back, back, back, back. So little bits of things that they were taught, like what are we? And it's okay if your answer is it's in the energy of the universe. I just want to know what you mean when you do. talk about it. Because with Jonathan, he talks about this and he's like, you're holding for some, like, what, who? My great, great, I don't even know who that is. How could I hold something for them? So help me understand. I'm going to give you a little story. And it's not, I'm really not

avoiding your question, but you're in the domain now where words are false shallow to trying to explain this system or this. And so it would do a disservice in a way to try to, what's the word? Try to like, distill it down. Yeah, distill it. Thank you.

That's exactly the word. Distill it down. So first I'll tell you the story and then I'll see if I can't give a little bit of explanation. And you know, that's what the reason why I didn't finish my dissertation. This mind does not exist in the world of explanation. That's all you need to write. Words fall shallow, yo.

And I'm going to have five professors sign on to this bullshit. So two things. One, another, so how you describe it with the family system's work, yes. And it's also known as vicarious trauma. Therapists get it. If they're listening to trauma all day, they get very sick from it. They can if they're not taken, if they're not. doing due diligence. They can. Yeah, and that's another reason why meditation is good for me. It's like

a cleansing thing that helps move through that. But the story is, so there's this, the mother, mother and her daughter and her grandmother, her grandmother lived in another town, but they'd all, the family would always come together at Thanksgiving time. And every time her mother, every Thanksgiving, her mother would bake the turkey, would make the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. So she'd take out her baste or pan or whatever you call it her. You know, she put the turkey in. But before she put the turkey and she cut off the legs, she cut off the drumsticks. And then she put the body of the turkey in there with everything else.

And, you know, she put the baster in the oven and she cooked the turkey. And she cooked the drumsticks on top of the oven. And one Thanksgiving as a little girl got older, she said, well, Ma, like, why do you cut the legs off when you're baking this turkey? And the mother said, I don't know, because my mother did. and go ask your grandmother, you know, if you want an answer to that question. So little girl says, oh, okay, you know, that makes sense to me. So a little girl said, grandma, like, when you cook the turkeys, why do you cut their drumstick?

Why do you cut their legs off? And the grandmother says, because the pan I was using was too small and the whole turkey wouldn't fit in there. So that's the story to vicaric. You know, it's like it comes down the lineage in many, many, many, many. different ways, many, many different ways, oftentimes without explanation, without knowing why or even where it comes from. And so to, for you in terms of the, what did you say, the explanation for this collective understanding of trauma, is that kind of the domain we were in when you asked that question?

It's and and. So I'm not proposing or positing that it is collective trauma, that's the all in all, and we don't have to address whatever our individual, whatever our stuff is that we've accumulated in our life. But I can bet you that trauma resolution is not going to happen if you're just dealing with your individual itself, that you have to be open and inclusive to being committed to transform familial and collective and intergeneration of trauma as well. That's a mic drop. Thank you. I have a question. And, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

I absolutely think, I mean, I could literally talk to you forever and maybe you can come live with us. Separate, separate issue. I told Valerie, if I'm ever in Southern California, I'll let you all know. Oh, my gosh. I mean, the energetic resonance might be too much for this world to contain. Here's my question. And I think it is the last question that we're going to ask you today because there's like a million different directions. Here's my question.

And this is not just like blowing smoke. what if this kind of approach, this kind of thinking, and I'm not, I think that you are an exceptional human being. And I also know that you are, as you said, you're a product of an educational system that you were immersed in your product of culture and your parents and the world and the universe and all the good things. There are other people, I know, that you probably work with them who do this kind of work. If we were to take this kind of work, this approach, this intention, the resources required, which, to be honest, are far less financially exorbitant than giving people pills from the time they're six years old, but that's a separate story. If we were to take this approach and we were to scale it, scale it up and scale it down,

what do you think communities would start to look like? If that could be successful in terms of what we're saying, I think that there would be a deepening of understanding and acceptance of each other and a real celebration in diversity and the richness that diversity, all kinds of diversity. I'm not just talking about diversity, the richness and the strength that come from this kind of meeting and integrating of different perceptions and perspectives and ways of understanding. And I know, see, the thing about, I don't know, this might be going off a

little bit, but the thing about trauma is if you mitigate it, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you negotiate it, if you transform it, it actually leads to growth. Like it actually lose to expanded understanding, expanded minds, expanded hearts and expanded willingness to rub up against each other and be in each other's space together as opposed to all the divisiveness and the other stuff. I don't even want to put it into space. But, you know, I think that I actually think we're, and I'm sure many people, have said this many times over time. But I think we're at a choice point in human evolution. And that the earth and all that's going on, we will continually end up back in this place

until we start making different choices and different decisions about how we're going to live our own lives and how we're going to engage with each other. So we will see. Maybe. I don't know if I'll be here. I have a few fun questions. Okay. Did you choose to be a parent in this life? No, I did not biologically choose to be a parent and I have many children. Love it. What kind of music do you like? Oh, I love music. I love music, period.

But if I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be a combination. I don't know. Jazz. I can't. Jazz. Jazz, gossip. R&B. Do you play any instruments? No, I took piano lessons for a while. My brain could, no. But I wish I could sing. I do sing.

I mean, people tell me I have a nice voice. You have an exceptional voice, which is why I was asking. Do you like poetry? Love poetry. Uh-huh, that's what it is. What poets do you like? David White. Mm-hmm.

The young woman who just is coming into her own. She read at the inauguration and Amanda Gorman. Amanda Gorman. I said we need to look that up. Oh, she is, I mean, she's everything. Joy Harjo the indigenous poet

laureate of the United States. Okay, and do you like movies, TV? I love movies. What do you like? Well, the most recent one is Black Panther, too. I like Marvel. Okay.

And I like all different. Okay. And do you like sports? I do. I was, I actually played basketball. No, you didn't.

Are you tall? Yes, I did. I'm five, seven and a half. A little lady. Okay. Are you, are you a Knicks fan?

Well, back in the day. That's right. Patrick Ewing or you were. Who wasn't a Knicks fan? But today I don't have any favorite, um, favorite teams or sports even.

Yeah. Such an honor. Such an honor. honor to be in your presence, really. I mean, such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you. Thank you. I will tell my ex-husband that I'm glad he made us listen to that podcast. And I'll thank Dan for inviting me on 10% happier. Really, just such, such a blessing to get to witness your wisdom and you're so playful and just like I need everyone to listen to you and be more like you. I'm going to throw one more thing in there.

If at any time, any time you are interested in experiencing an IFOT session, I will do that with you. I cry now. I cry so hard. No, I don't cry. I got a heat in my chest. It feels like I'm trying to give birth to a baby from a hole that doesn't exist. That's the book.

That's the book. Thank you so much, so, so much. You're so welcome. So take good care, both of you. Our new band name is vicarious trauma. It's energetic resonance. Also, I don't fit in the... Words fall shallow.

Words fall shallow. I mean, that's the title of her book of poetry. She doesn't know she has to write. And the title of my memoir, I don't fit in the turkey pan. You never have and you never will. You know who she reminded me of? I got like a Michael's singer feeling.

the second she started speaking, I dropped into a place of like, I'm going to listen to this woman. Why am I not like that with you? Different story. I'll change the resonance of my voice to be more soothing to you. I'll go hang out in New York because that resonance you understand. You're from, you're literally from the East Coast. It's just a border, but you don't say border. I don't say border.

Who are we talking to? You turned in to like a 50-year-old plumber from Brooklyn. Was it Colin Quinn? Was it Colin Quinn? Yeah, Colin Quinn. I was talking to Colin Quinn. Horrible. I was talking to Colin Quinn.

And he was talking like this. And I was talking like that. But I'm in. That was crazy. All of a sudden, you were Irish? I was an Irish cop. like in Brooklyn. Jonathan, like this is...

Suddenly you had a badge and you were wearing a vest. We didn't know how it happened. I had a beat. I was walking. I mean, this is... I would consider that if I had to pass out badges

for who's enlightened, something's happened in that woman's experience. She's just... She knows so much. I object to the idea of enlightenment. I do prescribe to the idea that people have accessed different levels of consciousness and they see beyond what their limited senses are showing them.

And when she said words don't do it justice, like you can't understand some things only from an intellectual perspective, which is where the disconnect happens. I think that's where the disconnect happens for a lot of people. I mean, I want to like go on a retreat. And some of her retreats are not for me. The turkey pan example is like a very tactical and very specific.

It's like, I was modeled this thing. That wasn't her only point, though. Her point was not I was modeled this. Her point was that her daughter thought, oh, there must be some mystical meaning to why we removed the turkey legs. And let's find out and let's go ask the ancestors. And the answer was sometimes just like, because it didn't fit in the pan.

Yeah, but that is a modeled behavior. And the sort of next mind-blown idea is this notion that like, you can have an energetic resonance for a family member that, like, is not even part of your understanding that belongs to the family, meaning.

That's a huge leap to be like, someone I literally never met and don't know. I'm carrying sickness for them. So here's the thing. There could have been a marriage and a divorce in a generation before you were even aware of them

and someone that was never, even spoken about, that divorce and the person pushed out of the family lineage has a place. And that lack of, call it resolution or whatever it is, can then get passed down. It lives in the family lineage. And then someone can be like, oh, I am aware of that resonance. And something that's going on with me can actually be a representation of that lack of resolution. If you frame it that way, speaking of frames, look at the photos behind me. Like, I could tell you a story like that from almost every single picture that's up here,

including that my grandmother was born to parents who had each been married before and widowed. So she inherited siblings from one side that were her fathers and siblings from another side that were her mothers. The first child born was named for her father's dead wife. Her mother had to name a sibling for his dead wife because you have to have. had to keep her, like, I mean, what? And then she was one of several siblings born to these two parents, but that's, and then add the Holocaust. Before that, if you just think about the number of branches or exclusions to our family

tree based on multiple generations and then think that each one of those has some sort of information that has been passed down to us, then all of a sudden we begin to have a really hard time getting our heads around what is carrying for someone look like because there are so many. I'm sorry, caring or carrying? I'm being totally serious. Carrying, like holding for someone else or expressing, having an issue that is a representation of something that is unresolved from our past. Yes. Well, there's so many options to explore how our past has impacted us. Okay. So Scott is not wearing headphones, but Scott, can you take that microphone in front of your face, please? Scott cannot hear all the things we were talking about, but that makes this even better.

Scott, I know you've heard half of this conversation that Jonathan and I are having. How do you feel if I tell you that something you're holding, we've talked about different things about you here, something you have, something that bothers you about yourself or that bothers other people about you? What if I were to tell you that that's because, I'm being totally serious. That's because of something that happened in your family. It's to someone that you've never even met and possibly don't even know the name of. I could believe it. Why? So tell me why. Because my family history on my dad's side kind of stops at my granddad. And I'm like, we don't really know what happened back there. Oh, so you mean maybe something happened that

carries weight? I mean, I just know there's a lot of alcoholism on that side of the family. And I know that my granddad had a lot of problems with alcoholism. And we don't really know what happened before him. I don't really know anything about what happened before him. But when I see the line that runs from my granddad to my dad to me and my brother and the various ways that we're all similar and all sorts of issues that we have, I'm like, yeah, I could see meeting some relatives that are back there that explain some things.

All right, open-minded young person, Scott, says that this totally flies. No, I think that's... That's all we needed. Well, but I think it's also, what it is is really talking about a combination, truly of nature and nurture, right? Because if you're going to inherit, I mean, some people do believe there's a gene for alcoholism in particular, but, you know, we have genes for depression and anxiety. I mean, we have a conglomeration of, you know, things that combine. So, yeah, add that to the things that happen, let's say alcoholism is a great example. that's, you know, it's a family disease, right? It affects the entire family.

So then you have an entire family that's then bearing this weight. And those are the obvious ones. There can be many other smaller ones. There can be family feuds. There's so many different ways that this plays out. I do think it is the forefront, the future of understanding things that are impacting us that we are not aware of. And I'm excited to dive in. I think we should definitely follow up with her. Oh, she's moving in. She's going to be sleeping in that room. you know, just do a little housekeeping here. If people aren't already subscribed to the podcast,

they should do so. Check out the YouTube channel, click the little bell notification to get new episodes. We are going to be putting some of the mic drops on Instagram. You can find it at Bialik Breakdown on Insta. And don't forget to follow Jonathan on Instagram too. I mean, I was pointing it to you because that's where you take us out

after I build up the energy and then you say. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I lost the energetic resonance thread. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and Bialyx breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two.

One fiction. And now she's going to break.