Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Jada Pinkett Smith: Conscious Uncoupling, Dismantle Your Ego & Sit in The Bosom of God

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Jada Pinkett Smith (actor, producer, musician, host, author, advocate) joins us to break down her struggles with depression and CPTSD, the status of her marriage to Will Smith, “The Slap”, her ayahuasca experience, and connecting with her higher power. She discusses what it was like growing up in a household with substance abuse struggles, having to sell drugs as a means to provide for herself, and how she met and became close with Tupac. Jada opens up about her panic attacks, suicidal ideations and subsequent attempts, and the taboo nature of therapy in her community. She reflects on her codependent nature, the intoxication of her courtship with Will, the break they took from their marriage, public pressure they’ve faced, the nature of their “open relationship”, and why they never actually divorced. Mayim and Jada discuss the patriarchal components of women being held responsible for the actions of men and Mayim and Jonathan demonstrate somatic tracking.  Jada Pinkett Smith's memoir, Worthy: https://a.co/d/c0SN2xi BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My body starts to shake this, like, overwhelming amount of, I'm talking about the most intense wave of emotion just came over me. And tears just building up in my eyes and, you know, and just flood out of my eyes. And I'm like, I don't know what's happening. My brain can't catch up to the response of my body. I'm like, I got to get out of here. And I go in my car and I'm thinking I'm going to drive. And all I could do was get to the next corner and just turn. turn down this side street and park.

And I'm so terrified to allow what's coming over me. So I'm fighting it and that just made it worse. Then I started getting these intense feelings of I don't wanna be here anymore. And it was almost like if I didn't get somebody in that house with me, my hand was involuntarily gonna get a knife and slash my wrist. I've always been the villain in this dynamic.

Once we got to the Oscars, they were like, there was no way Will would have done this. Jada some way, you know, put her villainous energy, you know, she rolled her eyes and made him fly up on the stage. It's like, that's how powerful we are, we're the villain, right? That's the only time we ever have power, mind you. But that's part of the whole patriarchal idea, right? So I went to the Oscars with Will as a family member.

We hadn't called each other husband and wife in years. And so when he said, keep my name's wife out of your mouth, I was like, damn, oh, okay, oh, okay. I was as shocked as to everybody else because we hadn't been on that flow. It's so funny how an event, an intense event, can amplify love. Because as soon as I saw that Will was in trouble, and as soon as I saw what it was going to be

once we left that building, I said, I'm his wife now, we're going to get through this together. And that's the moment that I knew. I said, man, I'm not going to be able to get away from this man. I've been trying to get rid of his ass for six years. I said, you know what? All right, God, I surrender.

I surrender. There's not going to be no separation. There's not going to be no divorce. He's what I got. All right, fine. And that's what it is. It's Miami Olegs breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because, you know, she knows a thing or two.

So now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm Myambiolic. I'm Jonathan Cohen. Welcome to our breakdown. This is a place where you break things down so you don't have to.

We're going to be speaking to Jada Pinkett Smith today. And we're going to be breaking down, I'm just going to go ahead and say it. We're going to break down her new book, worthy. We're going to break down the slap. We're going to break down open relationships. We're going to break down why sometimes penises have another heart.

Lyme goes there with Jada. I go everywhere with Jada. I've never met her. Obviously, I've worked with Will. I've seen her at a distance at events. I've always really, really looked up to her. I'm a huge, like, Matrix fan. I remember her on the different world.

Like, I feel like I've known this woman my whole life. And I feel like she's part of this power couple that I have admired and has been so much part of the conversation in, like, social media and even in the news. And she has brought up so many fascinating topics in this book. And I'm, honestly, I was really shocked the places I went. And she wanted to go there. talks about her book, but also talks about growing up, being a drug dealer, growing up in a home of addiction, and her relationship with Tupac Shakur. It is all in this episode and more.

Let's go there. Jada Pinkett Smith, welcome to the breakdown. Break it down. Thank you for having me. Your memoir worthy is an exceptional book. It is enormous. It is all-encompassing. It is incredibly detailed, incredibly deep, incredibly thoughtful.

It really feels like you have decided to write your story all in one place so that there are no questions, no confusion. I'm so curious how the decision came about not just to write a book about your story because you have an unbelievable story in so many ways. but why did you choose to write this way? You know, I had been asked quite a few times to write a book. And I just never thought that I just never wanted to. And then I was sitting one day and I was like, wow, Jada, like your journey from your lack of self-worth to feeling worthy has really been something. And so I decided that December 2021, I was like, I think I'm ready to share that particular. line of my life because there's so much more of my life I didn't put in this book, right?

But on that particular theme, I was like, that is a worthy story to tell because I think it's universal. I think so many people are on that journey, even if they don't know it consciously, you know, just trying to figure out what our value, our worth, what makes us love. lovable, wanting to feel lovable, right? And so that's, that's where, that's where it started. I don't really spend time on social media or really kind of in what I would say is the news of our industry, meaning I know a certain amount of things, but I know you as an actress in your own right. And I know you as this person who, again, always just has radiated like grace, elegance, beauty. Like, you are all the things, and I would see you on the carpet, and sometimes I would

see you at a distance in an event. And, you know, you just have this incredible presence, and then I'm a fan of you, separate from who your husband is. Like, I have been a fan of you. Like, I'm an enormous Matrix fan. Like, I know all your lines. So for me, reading this book as someone who has not been following a lot of the stuff that a lot of people know about you or think they know about you. I just felt like, oh my gosh, this is a woman who had a whole story to tell before she even got to L.A. that is worthy. And I wonder if you can frame a little bit. Like, I didn't know about the Tupac stuff. I didn't know about the drug dealing. Like, this is like a whole new Jada. Can you talk a little bit about where you came from?

Because I didn't even know you were from Baltimore. Yeah. I'm from Baltimore. And I was born to very young people. My mother was 17, 18 years old when she had me. And my mom and my father married at a very young age. And, you know, they were both had subsist. abuse problems. And so I lived a lot of my younger years with my mother at my grandmother's house,

with my grandparents. And so I, once my grandmother passed and my mother got divorced from her husband when I was about 13 years old, that's kind of when my life took a big turn. And I started to look to the streets for security, for money, for power, stability. And that's when I started to sell drugs because I was worried that my mom might not make it, that one day I'll get a call that she's overdosed. And then I met Tupac at Baltimore School for the Arts. And so, yeah, I was just walking many worlds in Baltimore at one time. And you talk with real precision about the world of addiction.

And I think that you really provide a window that many people never get to have access to. You speak with tremendous tenderness about sort of the quality of your childhood, the beauty of your childhood, the connection. I mean, I just gave myself chills talking about your childhood. But just like there was so much, there was so much connection. There was so much beauty. you shined, like you had something about you that people started noticing, and yet you still had this enormous responsibility. And I think for those of us who grow up with parents who struggle

and parents who struggle to very significant degrees with mental health challenges, and often alcohol or drugs is what they think is the solution, right? It's the numbing. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about who that child had to become in order to sort of bridge what was going on in your home. Yeah. I mean, I had to grow up fast. You know, I had to really, I had to figure out how to take care of myself and my mother at the same time. You know, I had to figure out and how to, you know, I didn't really give myself or even have permission to be afraid. to be uncertain to ask for help, you know. And so I just, I had to grow up really fast, you know. I had to grow up really fast. And so I really, I didn't have time to think about my circumstances.

I had to just figure out how to survive and to make sure that not only did I survive, but that I thrived. And not only did I want to thrive, but I want to make sure my mom was okay. I wanted to make sure my friends were okay because everybody in my environment was in need. Everybody was suffering, you know, whether it was, I mean, a lot of it was, and I talk about it in the book, we were orphans to a certain degree, not literally,

but most of us did not have parents available. They were either working all the time or they were addicted to some substance of some kind, whether it was alcohol, drugs, you name it. And so we were all just kind of trying to figure out how to survive life together. I mean, that's probably one of the reasons why Pac and I got so close, you know, because his mother also had problems with substance abuse. And so we leaned on each other a lot in regards to what we weren't getting at home.

What don't people understand about what systemic racism looks like? Dang. Just the lack of resources, I think, right? It's just the lack of resources. And how asking a group of people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps but don't have the resources or the know-how to do so, but is expected to do so. You know, and I think that was one of the things, you know, I was different because I went to

Baltimore School for the Arts. And so I had access in ways that other youth around me did not. But at the same time, even in having that access, me being immersed in environments of deprivation, I still got the mentality, that survival mentality. in a very narrow scope of what I could do to thrive. We didn't have doctors and lawyers in our neighborhoods. We had hustlers, right? And so those high rollers, you saw them with the thick wads of cash.

You saw them with the dope cars. You saw them with, you know, they had the friends. They had the businesses. because these were street CEOs. They had sub-shops, barbershops, nail salons, shoe stores, you name it. Right? And so in that particular era, that was the whole idea.

You sell drugs, you build businesses, and then you get out of the illegal game, and you legitimize yourself. So different than what might be happening today, these young cats were earning money and building businesses in our neighborhoods. And so that's what we had. That's what we had to look up to.

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Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. When you talk about your story, you talk about how looking back, you had to be addicted to adrenaline. You had to take on a persona, which we now know in the scope of mental health understanding, you describe experiencing trauma of various levels which led to this complex PTSD. That is what post-traumatic stress disorder is. And you follow that trance through the whole book and you do it so beautifully because you show all the places it'll show up. It'll show up with your friends.

It'll show up with your men. It'll show up with your marriage. It'll show up with your work with your extracurricular activities. It'll follow you into the birthing room. And then you are on your knees as a mother because of a trauma that you may not even remember. That part. Can you talk a bit about your understanding of Pete? And you talk about being held up at gunpoint.

Like you were fucking in the shit. And you also then are supposed to just shove it down, go to school. Yeah. I think I'm still trying to understand. And I know this sounds crazy. But even when I'm talking to my therapist, she's always like Jada, I need you to sit with this for a minute and I need you to go back to that moment, right? So whether it's that nine millimeter to my forehead. And she's like, I need you to go back to that moment. And even going back

to that moment, it's hard for me to go, okay, that was, okay, I could see how that could be traumatic. She's like, no, no, I need to know how you felt. You know, so it's still hard for me to accept because when I was diagnosed with that, I'm still trying to understand it. It was hard for me because I got that diagnosis late. Right? And so I'm living my life.

Most of the time that I'm living my life in this book, I don't know that I have that. Right? And so I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. And I'm like, well, shit, if I have it, then that means everybody I know. that came from where I came from has it. Because what I went through is lightweight,

because I could tell you Mary Jo's story, right? And then so I feel like I don't even have the right to claim having PTSD. It's like, what do you mean? You got PTSD, you know? Like, I don't even feel like I, that I can claim that. So I'm still grappling with that. So as you can see, I am still in the big.

beginning stages of dealing with my trauma therapy, you know, because I just started like two years ago, two, three years ago. And your kind of your journey led you to other places. You know, I, the stories in the book when you were, I mean, I guess we'd call it acting out, meaning you were acting out aspects of trauma. You were physically lashing out. You were feeling fear in disproportionate places. I think you described your first kind of proper catastrophic panic attack. And I mean, I'm just going to have chills this whole time. We're talking to you. What you said is you were talking to a friend. And then you said all of a sudden you realized you were not talking anymore. And something was happening in your body. And you've

literally like fled the location. And you realized you couldn't even be driving. You didn't even know what was going on. And the prescription, which I had a similar experience, you know, when I was a teenager, was like, let's throw a drug at it because we're going to make those symptoms go away. You were put on Prozac, which will dampen things for sure. But can you take us back to sort of that time? You were in L.A., I believe. Yeah, I was in L.A. I was on Melrose Avenue. I'll never forget. And I got waved down by a girlfriend of mine. I was like, oh, snap. So I do a U-turn. I mean, it was a regular day. You know what I mean? Get out my car. I say hello to her. We hug. and all of a sudden, I'm shake, my body starts to shake this like overwhelming amount of a, I'm talking about the most intense wave of emotion just came over me and tears just building up in my eyes and, you know, and just flood out of my eyes. And I'm like, I don't know what's happening. My brain can't catch up to the response of my body. And my friend is looking at me and she's like, Jade, are you okay? I'm like, you know, I, you know, I,

I don't know. And I'm like, I got to get out of here. And I go in my car and I'm thinking I'm going to drive. And all I could do was get to the next corner and just turn down this side street and park. And I'm so terrified to allow what's coming over me. So I'm fighting it. And that just made it worse. You know?

And I just take my time. Finally, I get home. I live over there. I was living in Studio City at the time. And I remember calling my mother and I just, because then I started getting these intense feelings of I don't want to be here anymore. And it was almost like if I didn't get somebody in that house with me, my hand was involuntarily going to get a knife and slash my wrist. That's what it felt like. Like I was out of control.

And I called my mother and I say, I need you to get out here right now. I'm going to kill myself. And she had just started my mother now my mother is only in a year. She's in a year of her own sobriety. And she's like, okay, let me figure out how to do this. And then I called my girlfriend MC Light. I said, Light, I need you get out here right now. I said, I'm in bad shape.

I feel like I'm going to hurt myself. And Light was on that plane that night and got to me fast. And so she was by my side into my mother got there. And at that time, specifically in the African-American community, nobody was talking about mental health in any kind of way. Therapy was taboo. Therapy was taboo. So now I'm thinking, I mean, we looked at therapy as something that white people do.

Mental health issues are not things that black people deal with, right? And so now I'm thinking, I am inherently broken. Something is inherently wrong with me because I am having this breakdown and my life is perfect. And there are people that I know whose life is so imperfect and who are just fine. What is wrong with you? and that was a really, I had so much shame around that. And, you know, once my mother got there, I called Debbie, Debbie Allen, who was always coming to the rescue. And I said, I need, I'm having a really tough time.

I need some help. And then she got me in contact with the doctor. And then they put me on Prozac. And, but I just didn't have understanding. and I think even at that time I might have needed trauma therapy, you know. But nobody was talking about trauma therapy. Nobody was, you know, that just wasn't the thing. And then I met Will a year later and he became.

I was going to say that was one of the most interesting kind of turns, you know, in the book. And I think the way you said it, you were like, he became my prozac. He became my Prozac. I completely abandoned focusing on what had happened a year prior because I was like, well, I have to be fixed by now in a year. You know what I mean? I got to be fixed by now. How much more of this talking am I supposed to be doing? And then Will came.

and that was such a world win. He was the savior prince. Right? And I kicked the prozac to the curve and didn't even know that unconsciously expected him to be the fix. I mean, that is so deep, so relatable. And such a potential

new kind of crisis point for so many women in particular, and also a potential for healing. But that journey for you has been basically then, it's like, then you spend the rest of your life, marriage, relationship, whatever, like repairing that. And sorry, I'm just telling my own story. And then you have kids because you're supposed to, but like that's supposed to add value.

But it really just makes you more tired and feel more worthless. And then you have to, like, get your body back. So someone will still want to fuck you. but like then there's still going to be a person and you're a person and you still have the same trauma you both had when you met. Yes, basically. It just morphs. So you can't tell that it's the same trauma. It takes on a different character.

That's right. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what you kind of know now because I'm thinking also of people who are listening or watching, you know, so many of us, men and women. Yeah. And non-binary people. So many people get into relationships and it feels so good. Yeah. And we're told to pursue pleasure, right? Like you want to feel sexy.

You want to feel wanted. You want to feel held. And, you know, you talk about your courtship. It's a beautiful story because you both came, you know, from an interesting childhood. You both wanted, you know, he was already, you know, I hadn't put the timeline together. he was already Fresh Prince, obviously, and that's what we called him when I worked with him. He was not Will Smith. He was, hello, Mr. Fresh Prince. So you were both sort of developing independently. And what it seemed like happened, at least I think for many people, was like,

this is a power couple, right? But you were also just two humans trying to put it together. Talk a bit about that intoxication, you know, of good love, a good man, you know, a good connection. and how you see now that that really leads to your own further development, whether you stay with them, don't stay with them, whatever. Right. It's like the idea, you know, we were so young. I was 23. My daughter's 23 right now.

Right? That was 23 when I met Will. And he was so just dynamic and so charismatic. And I mean, he is the pro at Cortez. I mean, it's just like, we're going here, and I'm filling your trailer up with thousands of roses. And it was just so, it was the fairy tale. And, you know, as the honeymoon stages start to fade away as they do, wanting to, expecting your partner to keep up the honeymoon.

Right? You keep chasing that romantic idealism and you feel entitled to it. You're like, no, no, no, no. I decided to be with you because you made me happy. Make me happy, damn it. Right? But what I've come to realize is that those kinds of interactions and these different stages that come into relationships

demand a different kind of attention within the relationship, but first and foremost, personally. Right? And so I think as I went on in much later years, because my God, we stayed in, you know, kind of this, this,

you know, you get into these power struggles of, no, my way is right. No, your way is right. You know, Will, he wanted to provide the world. He wants to provide the world for everybody that he loves, That's his love language. And my love language is like, no, no, no.

As Jack Cornfield would say, I want this masterpiece of connection. Right. I want this masterpiece of connection. I don't care about, you know, all of these event-tized, you know, holidays, Valentine's Day. And, you know, we're doing this and you're flying me off here. No, I want you here with me to connect with me, right? Well, here's what I realized. He ain't got nothing to connect to and there's no masterpiece.

of a connection to create if I don't have a connection to myself. And that was the thing. I was looking for my relationship with will to substitute the work that I needed to do on myself. And I needed a lot of work. And he needed his own work because we both came into this relationship. I had just had a nervous breakdown and he was getting out of a failed marriage. which is a nervous breakdown.

Right, exactly. Right? And neither one of us wanted to look at it. We just wanted the other one to make the other forget. Whatever there was to look at. You did it before, do it again. Right? And so it got to the point that was just impossible.

And this power struggle that we got into. this back and forth constantly demanding certain things from one another and feeling entitled and demanding things that were impossible to give. And so there came a break, you know, there came a break. There came a big break in 2016. You know, we had had little ones along the way, but the big one, we both were exhausted. we were exhausted and so

what I realized now is that the next steps that we needed to take were not steps we could take together because we really were so stuck in this very youthful mind you know because we got together

at such a young age so we had these really youthful patterns that had to be broken that were going to be more difficult to break together because we would still be in that same cycle because we couldn't see our lack of responsibility for ourselves personally. And that 2016 break and going on my personal journey, man, I got to slam into myself in ways

that was like, damn, because I didn't have him there to point the finger at and say it was his fault. I didn't have him there for that. I was like, oh, snap, he is nowhere in sight. And guess what? you still got the same issues, baby girl. You're the common denominator here. And that's what I really realized, like, oh, snap. I'm not where I think I am. So then I had, you know, so many, like, ego deaths along the way of, like, damn, I'm really not who I thought I was.

And I realized, chick, you don't even know yourself. And that's when a really deep intense journey started for me. Before we get into some of the really powerful work that you did and, you know, kind of what you're reaping the benefits of because of that journey, I do want to ask something about the celebrity aspect because I don't think what you're describing is because you're famous. I don't think it's because you have money. I don't think it's because, you know, you're gorgeous. Like, you're a human. This is the human experience.

And you are coming from a place of celebrity privilege in that you get to write a book that people will read because it's important what you're trying to communicate. But, you know, even me, I grew up in the industry since I was in middle school. And even I had a fantasy about your life. And I don't fucking even know you, right? Like, I had this fantasy that, like, they've figured. it out because that's the story I needed to believe was that everybody else had figured it out but me, right? Because we all have our own narcissistic story. So I wonder if you can also speak to

the added pressure of having a public facade. And also I think you described it more than once in the book as like you were not just writing some, like you were writing a bullet train. Yeah. Of like his career and also your career. And like all of this stuff. you were also dealing with attention and demands on you. And I don't mean like, oh, it's so hard to go to the Oscars. But your life was also, you were living in a goldfish bowl while this was going on. Can you speak about that a little bit? Yeah.

It's, you know, in our youth and just feeling like, oh, well, is this what we're supposed to be doing? You know, it's like, because we were so young. So we drank the Kool-A too, like, oh, okay, that's what this is supposed to be. Okay, then that's what we're, that's what we have to try to be. Right. And then you're like, okay, we'll be that. And he's like, okay, Jada, be that, right? And it's like so that we can be this, this thing that we're, this idealistic fantasy couple.

Right? And so pushing and prodding each other to fit that mold. Instead of looking at what was being asked of in our relationship, just one-on-one with just here, take everything out. And I'll never forget asking Will, I'll never forget. It was in one of our therapy, Joyce, okay? And we talk about this all the time. I said, well, if we didn't have, you know, the house, if we didn't have this lifestyle, we didn't have none of this. And it was just me and you on an island.

What would we have? And he was like, it took him a long time to answer. And I said, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about right there. You know, and his whole thing was, we'll get to that. And that is universal. I cannot tell you how many women are like, oh my God, my husband said the same thing to me. We'll get to that.

You know, because the idea, and I talk about this in the book, just perspective. You know, what he thought was what we needed to have a beautiful life versus what I thought we needed to have a beautiful life. you know, just those two ideas of two different people, you know, and not seeing the, the way that you can bring those ideas together to make one idea. It has to be one or the other, right? So all of this is happening while also trying to sit with this image, this public image. His personal public image, I have my own thing. and then we have our thing together. And, you know, as we started maturing, and specifically me,

I was just like, that ain't where it's at. You know, that ain't where it's at. But it takes a little time, you know, when your identity is kind of connected to someone else, your journey is connected to someone else, oh, man, that can get really complicated. in regards to certain things that I was ready for at certain periods of time in my journey that Will wasn't. And that's how it works. Everybody's not on, you're not on the journey at the same pace. You know, so that was a whole other thing to try to figure out. But it has been a,

it has been a lot of pressure, you know, and I understand how people would get upset at, you know, when you start dismantling romanticism, when you start dismantling idealism, I know what it felt like in my personal life when I started dismantling idealism and romanticism, and it pissed me off. I was mad about it. God damn it.

So with it happening in the outside world, people going, what the hell? Wait a minute, hold up. I'm like, yeah. Now we're about to deal with some real stuff. Anybody wants to come along, cool. But all of this idealistic fantasy about relating in general over here, no, no, that's not doing anybody, any justice whatsoever.

And I want to give you the opportunity and you take it in the book, but I'd like for you to share it with us. You know, the notion and you, you, you know, set the record straight, you say what is an open relationship and what's not. And you're very specific about your definition, which I appreciate, because that's become sort of this like catchphrase, like open relationship. I'm in an open relationship. I'm in an open, you know, and it's, it's very, look, I live in L.A. So it feels like you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who's like, I'm Pollyam. Like, good for you. That's wonderful. Right. But I wonder if you can speak.

And I'm not, I mean, of course, people are fascinated by this aspect of your life that you've chosen to talk about. But I'm more interested about the notion of what it means to be vulnerable enough in a relationship to say, we may not be getting our needs met. And that might be emotionally. It might be sexually. It might be intimately. I don't know. There's many choices. There's a certain amount of courage, obviously, that it takes just in your personal relationship to do that. And you talk about this notion of kind of transparency. And I thought it was really, I thought it was really powerful. Many women don't want to admit that their person is going to receive temptation and that they are going to experience temptation.

And many of us have been conditioned that we are monogamous for life because that's what people have been doing for, I don't know, however much of human history we've been doing it, is not the, it is not the timeless fashion of primates. and there are serial monogamous situations. We also didn't used to live 80 years old. Like, I could be monogamous for 10 years, you know? Like give me 10 years, I could probably be pretty good at it. And that's the long I was married, coincidentally. Anyway, but I wonder if you can talk a little bit about things. I'm not asking you to speak to the like, tell me what it was like to have an open

relationship because that's not what you are talking about. Right. I want you to talk about that vulnerability that it takes to say what's happening here, what's happening here is not what we thought it was going to be and what would it look like to open that up? And how do you deal with that? Yeah, I'm glad you see the nuances, right? Because we didn't have an open relationship, right?

It wasn't like, oh, you get to see somebody cute on set and that means you get to sleep with that person, right? That's not what this was. It was, hey, temptation is coming your way, right? And I want to be in partnership with you. Like, I want us to develop a way that we can communicate honestly with each other about what is inevitable. This is inevitable.

And I don't want to be left in the dark. I don't want there to be any kind of betrayal. And I know, I saw what. street fame did to people, you know, to men. And I know even in my own life when I walked into a room and having all eyes on me, how intoxicating that is and the temptation that came with that, right? I wasn't going to go into this relationship pretending like we weren't going to face that. I knew straight up.

And so it was hard. It was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking to... have those conversations because, of course, any woman wants to believe that your man is only ever going to have eyes for you. You know what I'm saying? Because you're in their heart. And that's their heart and their penis are connected. If I'm in your heart, then your penis is mine. Right. And that's just not how it works. The penis can have a different heart. Why wasn't that the title of your book?

Apulis can have a different heart. I still, hey, listen, if this book does well, you know, you never know. But, you know, I had to just keep it real. And I, that to me was more important than anything, right? I did not want to start my relationship off in some fantasy. I just wasn't doing it. I had seen too much. And so we started that open communication, and that was rough.

I'm not trying to tell anybody that it is supposed to be easy and it's supposed to be smooth in having communication like that. It is a practice that has to turn into an art form. But I do believe that that level of openness that started with Will and I then, is what created a friendship that we have been able to hold on to that has kept us from divorcing. You know what I mean? Because at the core of our relationship, there's a friendship. And we, as difficult as it is sometimes,

we can just deliver each other some of the most devastating honesty that the other can hold. you know, and that hasn't been an easy practice. But my father was the first one to really help me understand the importance, where I really learned to appreciate hard truths. When my father told me when I was seven years old that he couldn't be my father, because he was an addict and a criminal, I was like, you know what, just fucking thank you for telling me the truth.

Cool. I get it. I don't see you anyway. But just thank you for telling me the truth, you know? And so that's something that I carried into my relationship with Will. I understood the value of hard truths. It's something that I respect. I respect honesty, right? And so I really felt like that was a huge necessity in my relationship with him.

How can you tell, and I'm not asking you to be, the guide for all of humanity. But I'm curious how you can tell when the relationship was reparative and when you were repeating a pattern that was not healthy. Did you just like, how do you know? That wasn't until the breakup, honestly, in 2016,

because we just kept repeating patterns. We kept repeating patterns. And that's why we felt like we got to stop this. This is going nowhere. So it wasn't until I left until we broke up in 2016 that

I started going on my own journey and I started to recognize like, yo, Jada, this is the part that you're playing. This is the dynamic in you that feeds the unhealthy dynamic between you and will.

This is your part. And this is a 50-50 deal. You can't I kept thinking it was 99% him. And his penis. Yeah. You know, you thought it was 99% him. And that's when I really had to, when I really came to terms that I was a problem in this relationship as well,

I really had to do some self-inventory. Right. And so when I would interact with Will and know. those things would come up for me. Now, this is another reason why I didn't divorce. Because here's the thing. I was like, uh-uh. I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna divorce him

and then me to see five years later that it was that it was because I didn't fix some shit in me. Right? And I was like, uh-uh. Pause. Slow down. Right. And so in us trying to figure out how to uncouple consciously was where I got to see myself in our dynamic. I got to see where my rage would come up. I got to see where my unreasonable expectations would come up.

I got to see where my lack of consideration for him would come up. And I was shocked because I had been in victim for so long. Oh, what he's doing to me. I can't believe that, you know, he thinks it's okay to just go off and do these movies for five months all the time, you know, just all of that, you know. And I really used that time doing our conscious uncoupling as a way to really examine myself, to do that self-inventory. And man, I discovered some stuff about myself. And I started to see how I was transforming and then how I was not going, making different choices.

in how I was relating to Will, that then was transforming the dynamic between us. I was like, oh, this is about me. And then I started to realize how that I was taking my power back by taking responsibility for myself. I had lacked so much responsibility for myself because all this time I had been playing victim and needing Will to show up for me in a way that I had refused. to show up for myself and refuse to take care of myself. And talk about a bitter pill to swallow.

The journey that you went on involved a bitter liquid that you ingested. And you talk about, you went to a medicine woman. And, you know, we call them many things. Jonathan and I lovingly called them sometimes, which is, you know, you were directed to a healer who uses, an unusual modality and unusual by Western, you know, standards. And you talk about, to the best of your ability, what you recall, because that experience was several nights of a journey.

And one of the things that came out of this medicine journey that you went on and you were guided, this wasn't just like, let's do street drugs and see what happens. One of the most painful parts of the book is that you came face to, to face with your desire to not be alive. Yeah. And this is something that is, it's so delicate to talk about. I'm so grateful that you chose to kind of tackle it head on because you knew it from the time you were young and it followed you and you finally kind of literally came face to

face with it. Can you talk a little bit about what that journey was and what came out of that very, very painful confrontation? Yeah, I am going into my 40th year, you know, I had, I spent years in just a really deep depression, you know, I was talking to my mother about that the other day. She's like, I can't believe you didn't put in the book how you would wake up every morning and cry. I said, well, I'm talking about looking for cliffs to drive over. I didn't know what I mean? I'm like, you know, but, you know, my mother even, she was like, we knew that we knew that you were so.

unhappy and we couldn't figure out why, you know, and I couldn't figure out why. And that's why I was just like, I went out. I went out of this pain. I don't know the fix, you know. And so I came up with a plan to pretty much, you know, have an accident so that it wouldn't look like I had a plan. I had committed suicide because that was the last thing I wanted was my kids to know that I had committed suicide. And so I was like, Big Sur. I remember driving the Big Sur and the cliffs there on my way to Big Sur. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's a narrow road. It gets foggy at night. I could definitely have an accident and I won't make it out of that one. So I had my plan. And as morbid as it might seem, that really gave me a bit of peace that I had a solid plan.

And my son, Jaden, one day, I was in the kitchen, and he came into the kitchen and he was like, Mom, you got to hear Moises and Mateo tell this story about their dad and this thing that he did in Peru. And I was like, oh, okay, you know, because my kids know I love to hear about different experiences. I love trying to different things and I'm always seeking. So I go into the living room and they're telling me about this experience their father had with ayahuasca. And I'm like, whoa. I was like, is your dad in town? Can you need to come talk to me? And they're like, yeah.

So I was like, call him now. I want to talk to him now. And so he came over and he's telling me this experience. As soon as he walks in, he's totally different. I mean, he's shining. He's like bright. telling me his experience and I'm like, I need that. I need that. And within the month, the universe opened up a door for me to have my own medicine experience. And I was confronted

with such a dark cycle within myself of self-hatred. It was the most terrifying thing. Now mind you, it was so dark I thought I was possessed. I thought it was an entity outside of myself, only to realize, oh no, these are your thoughts. These are the thoughts. This is the energetic field within you that would drive you to want to take your own life. And I had to sit with that energy. And I had to confront that energy. And that energy, it's like weather.

You know, because I was resisting. I was, you know, and it was like, nope, let it pass. This is about letting it out. This is about releasing it. So I did four nights of that medicine. And on the fourth nights, I finally got it. You know, I stopped fighting. I sat with it.

I was talking to Dax Shepherd yesterday, and he put it so perfectly. It's like looking at the panther in the room, you know, and that's what I had to do. I had to confront it, and I had to find and reestablish that new place of Jada that was willing to let go of those false beliefs that she wasn't worthy enough to live. You also talk about, you know, something that people who have had transatlvest. and dental experiences and sometimes with medicine and sometimes without, you talk about kind of connecting with what you felt was a divine love. And, you know, this is one of those experiences that I think for people who don't understand what these journeys are kind of intended for. You know, a lot of people look at that and they're like, oh, that's the answer, God's the answer, but it's not that simple.

can you talk about, you know, sort of the, what integrating that kind of love has done? And, you know, as you've described, like, that has stayed with you. Not that life is perfect forever once you have this kind of experience, but can you talk a little bit about what you found? It was like being held by a power far beyond myself. It's like the only way I can explain is like coming in contact with a higher power that I knew for a fact had me. So for the first time,

I didn't feel like I was alone. You know, and it's divine. That's the only way I can explain it. And it was all of this light. And it felt like, you know, when they talk about sitting in the bosom of God, that's what it felt like. And I was like, oh, shit.

Like I had done all this reading, you know, about different religions, you know, I love religion. I love spirituality of all kinds. And I've, you know, because of my grandmother, I have studied so many different religions, right? But I didn't know the higher power, whatever, source, God, higher power, whatever you want to call it. And for the first time, with that medicine, I felt like,

I felt that energy. And so when I left that room, every day I make sure that I'm in communication with that energy. First thing in the morning when I first get up, 4 a.m., 5 a.m. Those are the hours. I get up and I go into communion with that energy. I sit in the bosom of the great source, you know, and to feel and to remember that space and to nurture that space. It's like Jay Shetty said to me one time,

it was like, he's like, you know how you call a friend. If you say you're going to call your friend at 4 p.m. And you call your friend at 4 p.m. And she said, oh, you call me at 4. You kept your word, right? And you tell your friend, I'm going to call you every day at 4 p.m. Right? And it's like, you call your friend every day at 4 p.m.

he's like now your friend has trust in you, you guys have developed a certain relationship with each other. It's not a whimsical relationship because you make that call at 4 p.m. every day. And you guys are in communication. You can rely on it and they can rely on it. And Jay was like, that's your relationship with source. And so that's the relationship that I created. And he was right. Because I was like, Jay, for real, I, I, I, I need to get up every day at the same time. That's really going to make a difference. And he was like, yes, do it for three months.

Trust me. And I did. So what is the difference that it has made? I feel a level of self-worth because I feel that the source that God loves me. Even when not near person on this planet does. Right. So I don't need the validation of outside resources. And that was important. That was important. You want to talk about one of the deepest detoxifications that I had to go through was not needing the validation or not needing to be seen a certain way because God sees me. The Great Supreme sees me and loves me

and I know as long as I'm in alignment with light whatever is going on in the outside world or whatever anybody else thinks or has to say about me it's okay, it's not about me and I don't need that validation. And I feel like I said to the Great Supreme, I was like, you must really love me. You must really want me all to yourself

because you really got me in some chat. up in here. You know, but that's how I look at it because there have been times that I've only had the feet of the great Supreme to hang on to. And I tell you, I have been in some situations where I have been deeply alone. And I've been like, you have done this on purpose because you want me all to yourself. That notion also that there is a comfort that it is a comfort that it. is not just religious. Because I think a lot of people feel like, oh, I have to subscribe to some religion or you just

want me to believe in God. But the notion is that, and this is sort of, this is your book, you are worthy because you were placed here. Yes. We didn't choose our parents. We didn't choose our genetics. We didn't choose all the trauma that they came with, that their parents came with, that you was piled onto us.

and then we're placed into situation after situation. And some of us end up having a life of fame. And some of us don't have a life of fame. And we all have different challenges. But every single human being has that capacity to connect with the notion that they are worthy. I want to ask one light thing before we say goodbye to you. You know, one of the things in the book that I wasn't sure you were going to talk about and you do. You talk about, I think you had been separated for six years when this very public

incident happened that sort of thrust you back into our consciousness. And I really loved your discussion of the slap, as people call it. The notion that a woman can be held responsible for things that go on with men that have nothing to do with us, I thought that was such an interesting point because as much as the industry will love you, they will chew you up the second that it also serves them. Absolutely. And I thought it was so interesting that, first of all, I didn't know that you hadn't really been thinking of yourself as a wife when this word was kind of thrust. I didn't know, you literally didn't know that it was real. You thought it was a bit. Yes. Yes. And I really would love to hear you talk.

a little bit about how the conversation so quickly became about your eye roll. What did she want? And like just the narrative and sorry people, in addition to systemic racism, like, this is when we talk about the patriarchy. That's what it means that we were zooming in on her face. And oh, she must have been telling him to do that because that's what that's what bitches do. They tell their man to do something. Yeah. Can you talk about sort of your reframing of that because it became about something that it wasn't even about, and that was you. Yeah, well, you know, I've always been the villain in this dynamic. Okay, so we'll just start there.

And so I think that even before the entanglement table, which that's a whole other thing that I talked about in the book, that, you know, that wasn't true. I threw myself under the table for my codependency. That's a whole other thing that was part of the worthy journey. So there was no infidelity, right? But I was already the villain. I'd already been set up as the villain

so that once we got to the Oscars they were like there was no way Will would have done this Jada some way you know put her villainous energy you know she rolled her eyes and made them fly up on the stage

right and that's how powerful that's how powerful women when we are the villain are right it's like that's how powerful we are we're the villain right that that's the only time we ever have power mind you um and so you know i just you know but that's part of the whole patriarchal idea right and so um i went to the oscars with will as a family member we hadn't called each other husband and wife in years um and so when he said, keep my name's wife out of your mouth, I was like,

see, damn, oh, okay, oh, okay. It was instruct us everybody else because we hadn't been on that flow. You know, we'd been living completely separate lives. We hadn't been on that flow. But as he started walking down to the end of the stage, and I started to see, now mind you, before we even went to the Oscars, After emancipation, Will really had, after the movie that he did, where he played a slave, Will had a lot of stuff came up for him.

A lot, a lot, a lot of stuff. It was a very, very, very difficult movie. And so he had asked if we could get back into some therapeutic spaces together. And I said, I said, okay. And we started doing some really deep work for the first time in a long. long time. And so I was privy to a lot of things that were happening before the Oscars. And when he got nominated, he said, listen, there's nobody else I would want by my side but you. And I was like, I want to share this moment with you as well. And I was so grateful that he asked me to go because

that wasn't a given. That wasn't a given at this time. And so When we went and this happened, I was very concerned about Will. And I did say to myself, this was the moment. It's so funny how an event, an intense event, can amplify love. Because as soon as I saw that Will was in trouble, and as soon as I saw what it was going to be once we left that building, I said, I'm his wife now, because we're going to get through this together. And that's the moment that I knew.

I said, man, I'm not going to be able to get away from this man. I've been trying to get rid of his ass for six years. I said, you know what? All right, God, I surrender. I surrender. There's not going to be no separation. There's not going to be no divorce. He's what I got.

All right, fine. And that's what did it, you know, because. after that, we went into, you know, our work together just got so beautiful and so deep. I can't help, but I cannot help but ask. And you use the words. So I'm going to ask you to speak to it. What is codependency and what is commitment? Yeah. So for me, what I'm learning about codependency is when I am not caring for myself in the situation, when I am putting someone else's needs at the detriment of my own, right? Because it's like this martyrdom thing. So that's what I did at the table, right?

I saw Will was in trouble, right? And I said, don't worry about it. I'll take it on so that you don't have to feel this. You don't have to be responsible for any your part in this. You're clean. Go. I'll take all of it. So that's that martyrdom in me that threw myself under my own table for the sake of love and protection, but not loving and protecting myself.

And so learning, this part of this, writing this book has been about learning how to, my codependency has been, I'm either going to leave myself on the side of the road in order to love you. you or I'm going to leave you on the side of the road to love myself. Right. And so now I'm learning how to, everybody can be on the road together. Learning to love myself and learning to love others at the same time. And I don't have to make those choices like that. And that's a practice because I still have to practice that because it's so embedded in me. And it's something that I learned as a child.

I learned that that's what love was. Me growing up with my mother, it's like, it's okay if you want to have your drug-addicted boyfriend who climbed into my bedroom window and stole all my shit to come back in this house and live with us and me pretend like nothing happened. Because that's how I'm going to show how much I love you. And I'm not going to complain about it. That's how much I'm going to show how I love you. And I'm going to act like you meant nothing.

The book is worthy. It's such a pleasure to talk to you. And we barely scratched the surface. You spent a lot of time writing this book. The whole Tupac thing. Like it's its own episode. Like the detail and the beauty and the honor that you give to him, his memory, that relationship.

It is throughout the book. And also the way, that you honor your family, your heritage, like the women in your family, the people that kept you together, I highly recommend this book. It is a beautiful, beautiful read. And at the end of every chapter, there are these reflections and this perspective and it's philosophical and it's spiritual. And I just, really, I appreciate so much you taking this time, not just to talk to us, but for writing this book and sharing it with so many people who will benefit from it. Thank you for such a beautiful conversation today. It was such a pleasure to speak to you guys. This was awesome.

You know, Jonathan Cohen, there are certain interviews where even I surprised myself. I didn't think I was going to ask her the level of intimate questions that I asked her. You went right for it. I couldn't help it. She's so nice. She was like very open. I always think of her as like, I mean, I couldn't cover everything in the book. This is a 416 page book. She talked about in her ayahuasca journey as many nights. I've never heard of somebody doing that many nights. It was supposed to be three. Three was a rough night. So the lady was like, I think we should do one more. What she talks about is that, you know, there was some real beauty to feeling adventurous and feeling like that aspect of the panther. And, but the darkness that

she experienced, I mean, I think one of the most powerful things she said, which kind of links to this, is that like, if what she said, if I had PTSD, everybody I grew up with has it. and like expand that out. Everyone who grows up in a community that is suffering, everybody that grows up in a home that does not have parents who can be present. Like, we're all on this spectrum of trauma. Yeah, there's some quote that's like 97% of people, adults in the world, have some form of emotional distress and 3%

lie about it. So we're all dealing with something. The question is what. And yeah, some people have horrific trauma. And so we associate, oh, it's only the people who have come back from war or have been in, you know, stateside versions of war or war-torn neighborhoods or, you know, have had the bad experiences. You know, she calls out a friend who's like, oh, that person really has it had it bad. So how can I, you know, I'm not justified in claiming that label. But that, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And what I thought was interesting about that is when those breakdowns come, often it's when the intensity of the pressure starts to lift a little bit. This is the question that I wanted you to answer. And you came round to it. She mentioned,

you know, after like the work that she and will have done and the work that she's done in therapy that now, this is the word, the phrase she used, things come up. when things come up. And I wonder, Jonathan, as someone who I think is more in touch with your body and yourself than I think a lot of people, what does it feel like? It's a lot of competition. How do you know when something comes up? How do you know when something comes up?

You know, it's not like a light goes off. I think there is a optimal state that people have that changes continuously. it's not always, the optimal is not always the same. Sometimes it's just a certain state of relaxation, but then you can do a whole bunch of work and realize, oh my gosh, I can even be more relaxed or calm or feel safe. You know, we've talked a lot about home base, the concept of you can have stress, you can have pressures, you can have distress,

but as long as you know what a home base is to come back to, then, you know where to return. And the sense of home base changes. Her experience with ayahuasca created a totally new home base for herself. She's like, oh, now I feel the love and connection of a divine presence. So when I think it's a practice to know when things are coming up for you, because you start to feel off of home base or you start to say- But you used to know what home base is to know what is feeling off of it.

Yes. And when she was talking about her experience growing up and how stress she was and how she was crying every morning. Well, of course that didn't spike as different for her because that was the baseline. That was her home base. So in this sense, what I'm saying is that it's not until the pressure starts to lift. Maybe you even go through a crisis where you have a breakdown, where you start to say, well, what is okay? And that changes for us over the course of our lives. But as things come up, you're like, oh, I'm more anxious than I normally am. I'm more distracted. I'm having a harder time concentrating. I'm more irritable than I used to be. I like things less.

People in my life are more annoying than normal. I can't settle. So I have lost whatever my baseline is. So there's an, first of all, thank you. Yes. There's an expression. If it's hysterical, it's historical. We've said it before. That could be on our bingo cards. It could be on our bingo cards. But the notion is, and I'm going to go on a limb here, any time, you're going to, you feel a level of agitation or excitement that is more than one standard deviation above your homeostatic home base, my guess is something has just come up. And it can be arousal, right? For some people, feeling a need for arousal, either of a sexual nature, of an emotional nature,

feeling like you need drama, feeling like you need to drink, feeling like, I really, if I don't get to smoke, right? All of those times, I would argue, is the brain's way of following these grooves, right, and saying something's up. For people who are HSPs, highly sensitive people, for people who might be on the spectrum, for people who have complex PTSD that has not been processed,

when things, quote, come up, it will be more disruptive. It will lead to a panic attack. It will lead to, you know, binge drinking, it will lead to leaning into any of your addictions, whether that be food, sex, alcohol, porn, work, codependency. To me, that's an indication and what it means. And I know people are like, that's crazy. That means every minute all the time. Pretty much. Sorry, welcome to being a human. It also means when I need someone to do something or do something differently, that's like,

their behavior is totally. I mean, is there a category of any of our existence that's not something coming up. Anytime I think he should do that, that's something that just came up. People think it's exhausting. Well, it kind of is. Yes. Because there's a whole level of awareness that most people aren't having at all times. Meaning that like we're not used to tracking what our emotional experiences. Also, we don't have tools. No, we don't have tools. We're not given tools. Everybody's like, here, just be a human, see what happens. But things like somatic tracking, literally like, if everybody just closes their eyes right now, what are you feeling in your body? Your body. Close your eyes, Jonathan. Let's do it. Close your eyes. Yeah, my eyes are closed.

Okay. What are you feeling in your body? Tell me any awareness of sensation in your body. My head feels a little heavy. Okay. I have a little bit of rapid, rapid pace in my heart because, like, I'm not totally grounded in all disclosure. The beginning of this interview started with tech problems right when she started. And I was like, oh, we got to, this is Jada Pinkett Smith. We've got to start right away. She doesn't want to wait around. And her people, like, brought her only once we were there. Go back to your body. Okay, back to my body. But I'm feeling like I never really settled down from that. Are you aware of your seat in the chair? I am.

I mean, my right big toe is a little cold. Okay. Right big toe is a little cold. I'm going to ask you another question. Some of us have a great skill of dissociating or feeling not in our body. Are you aware of your limbs? I am.

Good. Are they on your torso? so? They are. My shoulder's a little hunched. I can't get my elbow to, to like armrest, quotient quite right. So I feel like my shoulders are scrunched up. I'm trying to relax them. I'm also wondering why I'm so low to the table. Jonathan, open your eyes. So what we just did is a tool. It's called somatic tracking. Sometimes if you have pain or discomfort, if you're experiencing chronic pain, this is the kind of work you do. And you are told to basically, some of it is imagination, and creativity. What color would this pain be? What shape would it be? Does it have dimension? But that is

one tool. Another tool is breathwork that we talk about. Another tool is if you've been in enough psychotherapy, you have a catalog of triggers. You know, oh, this is going to be a thing. When men act like this, it reminds me of my father. When women act like this, it reminds me of my mother. And you go through life with all of these tools to try and not punch someone in the face. It's not only that it reminds you of your dad. It reminds me of your dad. And when that happens, I feel, and there may be a belief system. There may be two or three. Oh, that if I speak up and I'm honest with someone, they will leave. And so then you apply that to the current situation. Or what else? What's another one? You know, another one would be, well, I mean, for some people, we feel so deeply in our bodies that

we may not even be aware of it. And it can cause such literally like, it's not even unconscious. discomfort. It's it's a discomfort in your body that you're not aware of that then makes you clench around it. And those of us who, you know, follow the Dr. Sarno School of Mind, body syndrome and things like that, you will find that your body will hold pain. And guess what? Over time, that will accumulate in your body. Connected to a story, connected to something you're thinking in a moment because you were reminded of a dynamic in your childhood. So sometimes something will come up for me. And what it will trigger in me is I have to fix that.

Sometimes it'll be someone else's problem. Sometimes my name's not even in the sentence, but it creates a sensation in my, in my body that like I cannot tolerate what this other. This is also the definition of codependency. You're welcome. This feels intolerable. What can I do to fix it? What can I do to move forward?

And why do you need to fix it? What is happening in your thought process? They're like, why do you need to fix that? What's happening in my thought process? is that I know that I will feel better when you feel better. And that's, it's an old pattern. And what happens if they don't feel better? Well, I mean, I can have a lot of different stories about what happens if they don't feel better.

Mostly because we are, you know, self-seeking humans, even when we think we're being altruistic, I will not be able to tolerate carrying your pain. It will. So you'll be safer if they feel better. Well, it's a false sense of safety and a false sense. What it really is a false sense of control. So Jonathan and I have just sort of, you know, done a, this is like a 101 and what comes up for you? The other thing that she talked about, which I loved, which is what does a couple need to have, to have a beautiful life?

I was super into all of her relationship talk. So much of connection in modern day life is based on you've got a house together. You have a kid or two kids or three kids and you have your routine and you go to your family's place for Thanksgiving and you don't want to break up the, family connection because everyone's happy together and you have a pet or two pets and life just works and you think that that's what you need to be happy or you need the bigger house or you need the new car or you just need to change jobs and very rarely do people strip that all back and say when we're alone together whether that's on an island or in a cabin or you take away the kids and you take away the job and the kids leave the house and people look at each other like what are we

supposed to do it that's what covid did to people we're like oh i'm sorry we actually have to interact What is it that happens just between the two of us that we need to have in order to have a beautiful life or a connection? So much of our lives is about the next thing. Like as soon as, and you know this if you have children because grandparents will ask things and friends will ask like, where are they going to high school? Okay, so then you tell them once they're in high school, where are they going to college? Okay, fine, now that they're in college. What is your kid going to major in? Or you get asked that, right?

what's next. It's always what's next? You meet someone. How long have you been dating? When are you going to get engaged? Sorry, I don't mean to sound so traditional. When are you going to get married? Then you get married. When are you going to have kids? Then you get pregnant. Okay, fine. So then you know when the babies do. When are you going to have your next one? And when are you going to buy a house? This is capitalism, people. You just keep consuming and building. And what's lost? What is lost is that there are humans in each of these stages. With things coming up. Yeah, with things that are going to keep coming up. And we're not having conversations about those things. So we just plow forward to the next milestone. I know. I know.

I'm thinking of my friend, my friend Sam, and she's probably like, but my parents knew each other three minutes and they moved in together. And they've been together for 86 years. That's true. Sometimes that happens. But I really argue that, like, that is the time of courts. That is what courtship is for. it's to really get to know that person

to be able to see in a cycle, I always say like, what happens in a year of anybody's life? Someone's going to die, God forbid. Somebody will have an accident or you'll have a crisis. You have to know what that person's like in that situation

and how you react in that situation, right? I always say it's two to three years to get through enough cycles of crazy stuff happening in life so that you see how people react. But that's such a luxury for us. It's a luxury of romantic love because before, you know,

marriage became what it is now, it was like, you're going to die at 30, I'm going to introduce you at 11, you'll be married at 14, have a baby as soon as possible, because someone's going to die. I didn't think I would ask her about her relationship the way that I did, but I figured like she talked about it in the book,

maybe she'll talk about it with us, and I think, I can't, I know that, look, I've actually done, I've done two YouTube videos about open relationships from years ago. And I know that she makes a distinction, that this was not an open relationship, but whatever conversation she had,

you know, which I'm sure is for her and will, she talks a little bit about it in the book, but just that notion that she had to get to a place of such vulnerability and such, like, to be so realistic about a situation and not pretend it wasn't happening. Like, she takes things on. That's really something that you see through her whole book.

She really takes things on as much as she hid, as much as she protected herself. She really, she's been a very, very fierce warrior. The notion of people having tools and language to deal with things. So, you know, we talked about most people don't have tools of awareness to know what's coming up for them. They don't necessarily have tools of knowing when they're even stressed because that's their baseline. Here's another thing that a lot of people don't have tools for. To identify what is inevitable in a relationship. I'm not even just only talking about temptation.

I'm talking about annoyance. I'm talking about conflicting needs. The notion of codependency, how much do I take care of another person versus how much do I take care of myself? Even if you're not clinically codependent, there are elements of that that come up in every relationship. Sure. But there is an inevitability to relationships.

People are going to be jealous. People are going to be attracted to other people. You want to think that's not true, though. That's the fantasy we've been sold. And so she talks about dismantling the fantasy, dismantling romanticism. And idealism and getting down. And this connects back to what is between the two people

that are actually in the relationship. Yes, you're building a life together. But I think a lot of people assume that they're building some version of their power couple, whether it be in their community. and you've always meant to be together or you fit so well because this person's parent, or you're the rebel couple who are, oh, you're going against what everyone wants. But then that's still an ideal that you're building.

You're not actually at the reality of like, do you make each other laugh? Do you understand each other? Can you go deep with that person? And what does that look like? What does that mean? Are you willing to literally, you know, be in the depths with someone on their journey, even if it means it will take them away from you. Oh, that's a great one.

Also, what I think a lot of people don't realize they're doing is looking to their partner to fix themselves. I mean, she said she did that her whole marriage. Is this what everyone's doing? Everyone is... Did my parents do that? They seem like they really liked each other. They had a connection.

I didn't meet your dad, but clearly they had a strong connection. But 100% they were trying to fix each other. Or they were trying to fix themselves through, each other. And the way she's... Can you just like love someone? No. Oh.

I mean, you can. But over time, inevitably, unless you're like so much in your own work. Maybe we should go back to women hanging out with women and children and men being by themselves. Well, she talked about how she had these, all these unrealistic expectations. And she was like, of will. Yeah. And she...

I mean, I have unrealistic expectations of him. He's my, he's like my movie hero. He has to be everything for me. Can't imagine me. married to him. How many people look to their spouse or their partner or their girlfriend or boyfriend and they're like, I don't feel good. I want to be distracted by this person. And what we're doing is we're bringing all this trauma or unresolved issues into the interaction. When she said that Will became her Prozac, I was like, how many people are doing that right now? They fall in love with love.

They get flooded with chemicals and endorphins. And then they're like, I love you because you make me feel No, but the thing that she said when she realized that, like, she was the common denominator and that she kept looking to blame him. And I was like, I don't think this is just Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith's story. I think this is everyone's story. That's what I'm saying. What really struck me about that is, I don't know, I'm just thinking, I'm like, I got like a, it's like a rolladex in my brain of like every time I've like heard like a girlfriend

complaining about her boyfriend, a friend complaining about her husband. And the other way, too, you know, him complaining about her. And I'm just thinking of like all the relationships I've seen, all the fights that, you know, sometimes you see like a couple just like shouting on the street, like all those things. And I was like, what if each person could be stopped and you could say to them, guess what? It's an inside job. It's what's going on with, like chances, no matter. And yes, people are like, but he cheated on me. 100%. Like, I'm into that. Like, I'm not saying that those things don't happen. People don't abuse each other. I'm putting those relationships on the outside of this conversation for a second to say that when there is conflict,

when there is irritation, when there is annoyance, when there is blaming and like wanting to, I'm like a door slammer. You know, it is that something has come up for you and you have placed it onto this stencil. But if you remove it, like you're just what's underneath. You and Jada Pinkett's And that's where I was going. What is the story that you're telling yourself in those moments? That you're not safe. That you won't be safe unless someone else does something differently. That your need is not going to get met.

But do you even know the need? The need is not. The need is don't leave. Don't leave me, please. Don't leave. Forever went home, don't leave us. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Please check out Jada Pinkett Smith's memoir.

There's so many more stories. We didn't get into the two-pack. stuff. Also subscribe on everywhere you get podcasts. Conversation of conjugal visits. Like the whole thing. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and B. R. Lick's 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 down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.