On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Lili Reinhart ON: Living With Anxiety & Giving Yourself Permission to Feel All of Your Emotions

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

You can order my new book 8 RULES OF LOVE at 8rulesoflove.com or at a retail store near you. You can also get the chance to see me live on my first ever world tour. This is a 90 minute interactive show where I will take you on a journey of finding, keeping and even letting go of love. Head to jayshettytour.com and find out if I'll be in a city near you. Thank you so much for all your support - I hope to see you soon.Jay Shetty sits down with Lili Reinhart to discuss how allowing yourself to feel your emotions can become liberating. We are often told that crying in front of others is a sign of weakness, that being vulnerable is allowing others to hurt you. Yet we have never been taught that listening to our thoughts and allowing ourselves to truly feel our emotions is often the best way to bring out our true self.  Lili Reinhart has quickly amassed an impressive resume as one of Hollywood’s most exciting young actors on screen and is quickly becoming a multi-faceted talent with projects as an executive producer and author. She is well known for playing ‘Betty Cooper’ in Greg Berlanti's television series, Riverdale which is based on the famed Archie Comics. As an author, Lili penned, Swimming Lessons which is a collection of poems released by St. Martins’ Publishing in 2020. Currently, the book is available for purchase worldwide. Lili is an activist for mental health and body image and uses her platform to raise awareness to these issues. Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on CalmWant to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/What We Discuss:00:00 Intro05:44 Juggling several jobs07:35 Starting a job and having panic attacks11:43 When you start judging yourself13:32 “It was my drive to be an actress…”17:34 What is the role you played in the family?21:52 Crying is the most healthy expression of how you're feeling32:13 We don’t talk about how often people come and go38:41 How can you fill your time?41:58 Overwhelmed by trying to fix it all right away45:40 If we take the role away, who are you?48:23 Letting go of something you’ve identified for so long55:13 Resonating with spirituality01:00:38 Finding the right people for healing and wellness01:06:37 Playing a woman experiencing two different things01:11:15 Taking extra care of your gut01:14:28 How do you describe your current purpose in life?01:17 31 Lili on Final FiveEpisode ResourcesLili Reinhart | InstagramLili Reinhart | TwitterLili Reinhart | TikTokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. Our 20s are often seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, make mistakes, and figure out our lives.

But what can psychology teach us about this time? I'm Jermis Beg, the host of the Psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The Psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app,p Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Getting better with money is a great goal for 2023. But how are you going to make it happen? Ordering a book that lingers on your nightstand isn't going to do the trick.

Instead, check out our podcast How to Money. That's right, we're two best buds offering all the helpful personal finance information you need without putting you to sleep. We offer guidance three times a week and we talk about debt pay off, saving more, intelligent investing, and increasing your earnings. Millions of listeners have trusted us to help them make progress with their financial goals. You can listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I have been in fighter flight mode for most of my life.

What that has done to my brain and my body, my mental well-being is if I continue at this rate, catastrophic. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. And I am so excited to be talking to you today.

I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of Love is out. And I cannot wait to share it with you. I am so, so excited for you to read this book. For you to listen to this book, I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to 8 rules of love.com. It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep or let go of love. So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book. And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour.

Love rules. Go to jsheddytor.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences and more. I can't wait to see you this year. Now I find it really an amazing fortune that I get to sit down with incredible people who are so open, vulnerable, let us in to details about their lives so that we can feel a sense of connection to them,

but also understand that we're not alone in some of the pains that we go through, some of the challenges that we have, and also that we can learn from some of the changes they've made, from some of the transitions and transformations they've been through as well. And today's guest has a truly inspiring story that I cannot wait to share with you. I'm talking to none other than Lily Reinhart.

Lily has quickly amassed an impressive resume as one of Hollywood's most exciting young actors on screen and is quickly becoming a multifaceted talent with projects as an executive producer and author. Lily will next be seen starring in the incredible Netflix film which I want you to go and check multi-faceted talent with projects as an executive producer and author. Lily will next be seen starring in the incredible Netflix film, which I wanted to go and check out, Look both ways, which is also an executive producer of. Lily will star as Natalie, whose life on the eve of her college graduation diverges into two parallel realities.

I find that fascinating, can't wait. One in which she becomes pregnant and must navigate motherhood as a young adult in her Texas hometown. The other in which she moves to LA to pursue her career, I can relate to the latter. Lily recently starred and executive produced the coming of age drama, Chemical Hearts, based on the best-selling novel, Our Chemical Hearts.

And Lily starred opposite, idea-friend Jennifer Lopez in the film Hustlers, which went on to make over 150 million at the box office. And of course, Lily plays our favorite Betty Cooper in the TV series Riverdale. And for her performance, Lily won 17 choice awards and has been nominated for three people's choice awards. On top of all of this, I don't know how she has the time, and we will ask her that. As an author, Lily wrote swimming lessons,

which is a collection of poems. I mean, huge fan of poetry, so can't wait to dive into that. Beyond all of this, the part that I'm really excited about is Lily is an activist from mental health and body image and uses her platform to raise awareness to these deeply important issues.

Please welcome to the show. Lily, thank you for doing this. What an intro. Thank you. You have to live it. Well, hearing it all in front of you is a little bit like, oh, right, I forgot about those things. But thank you so much for having me.

It's truly such an honor. I'm a fan. My friends are fans. They're stoked for me to be here. Well, I love hearing that. That means the world. Thank you for sharing that. I'm deeply looking forward to be here. Well, I love hearing that. That means the world. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I'm deeply looking forward to this conversation. I do like to remind people of

the incredible awards and accolades and the incredible success that you've achieved because you've been on your own path to get there. It hasn't come to you. You've made changes, shifts, transitions, as I said. But I wanted to start off kind of how we did when you first came in because I love that we discovered that you're addicted to junk food in sweets and I can relate. And so I had to ask you, what is your favorite junk food to start off with? I mean, I'm like, I love Taco Bell. I'm a fast food. I grew up having fast food. I'm a fast food, and of course it's the most addicting thing in the world. So very addicted having fast food. I'm a fast food. And of course, it's the most addicting thing in the world. So very addicted to fast food.

Well, you said to me, you had something on the way in. I had McDonald's, regrettably, and I said, as I was pulling into the drive-through that I'm actively hurting my body and my brain as I'm participating in this, but sometimes you need fast food. I was like, I need to, I have my podcast, I need to be, I'm sure it'll actually be slowing down my brain,

but I need to do, I need to do something. It was there, I could have stopped into Air One and gotten something, but I've actually never been inside an Air One in my life. So, you know, we had to keep it real today. I get it, I got off a flight the other day and I was exhausted and I had to drive home from the airport and I got myself a sprite and I got myself a burger prize on the way home at NPS. That's funny. That's always, you know, even when you're trying to make the healthiest decisions

in the world, it's just convenient. Yeah. That's the hardest thing. Anyway, you love sweets too and I wanted to find out, does that mean like sour candy? Does that mean sweet tooth? Like what is sweet? Is that chocolate? Sweet, I'm not, I mean, I love ice cream. Okay. I love everything.

I love candy. I love like milk duds are my candy of choice, but I love sour patch kids. Yeah, I love sour patch kids. I love savory ice cream. Like savory ice cream. Why don't I, I don't know if that's the right word, actually. Probably not the right word.

I just love ice cream and dinner all. Yeah, yeah. I'm always happy to connect on these truths. Because I think as soon as we start talking about health and wellness, everyone thinks that you live this perfect life. And I know I don't too. I like I said, I'm looking for a Sunday

to kind of ordering my burger and fries. But one of the things that I find fascinating about you when we were doing our research is that you started out and you've had multiple jobs before this. You've had multiple different careers. And things that looked like you were a hostess at a restaurant, you worked at a bakery, you were a salesess at a restaurant, you worked at a bakery, you were a sales associate,

a role at Pier One imports. Yeah. And when I saw that list, I was like, this is incredible. Talk to me about what you learned from each of those roles and each of those jobs.

It's funny because I was literally a hostess at a restaurant for three hours, and then I quit, because I had a panic attack in the bathroom. I worked at a bakery for one shift, five hours, had a panic attack quit. For some reason, Pier One Imports is the only, it's like the only job that I was able to have

outside of acting where I didn't have a panic attack. Although I'm pretty sure I didn't have a panic attack, but I didn't quit that one. But yeah, I mean, I had to make money. I wanted to pursue my career in LA and you obviously need funds to move across the country and do so and support myself. So I struggled through a job there.

It wasn't that bad. It was mostly, I know how to break down boxes really well. I worked in the stock room breaking down boxes. It was fun during Christmas time opening all, I was like, it's Christmas time opening all the Christmas stuff. But I also, I was like, enjoyed the cash register. I remember it was so weird. I was so used to saying my full name for self-tapes.

Like, hi, I'm Lily Reinhardt. I'm however old and I'm auditioning for it. So the phone rang at Pier One once. And I was like, this is Lily Reinhardt. And I just thought that was the worst. I love that. I was like, this person's probably like, who? That was such a weird thing.

That's brilliant. I would think you were really professional. And I was like, wow, this is, this is, this is my full name. This is impressive. How can I help you? You want to know who Lily, wow, this is this is I mean, this is my full name. I can help you. I want to know Lily Riner. Yeah, very Yeah, very memorable. I'm sure that person remembers it. Well, yeah, that would be amazing. If that person is watching this or finds this somehow, please let us know because we would love to, yeah, I would love to discover you.

Yeah, talk to me about those episodes and and to start a job and in three hours to have a panic attack. To have five hours and have a panic attack. I mean, that's, you know, let me know how old you were in both those jobs, but like, what was the cause of that? Where was that coming from? Yeah.

How did that happen? I was 18, so I was living in North Carolina at the time. We had moved from Ohio to North Carolina for my dad's job. When I was 16, so I was prepping to move to LA, and obviously needed to have money to do so. So I was trying to find a job. My anxiety at that point really stemmed from, oh my God, this is so not what I want to be doing, but it's

the means to make it happen. So the anxiety came from, this is absolutely not where I want to be, but I know I have to be here because I need money. I have to make money. So the anxiety was like, don't have money. Need it. Have crippling anxiety and can't hold a job, but I need a job. So it was very, very isolating. And I've, you know, I have, I've been fortunate enough, I have really terrible anxiety, but I don't suffer from too many panic attacks. But I obviously have had them. I know how they feel. It's the worst thing in the world. And having those in those environments was so awful and I always immediately text my mom. I don't know how she does it. She has been very much the person that I turned to during these moments in my life of panic and anxiety.

She's always at the other end of the phone or the other end of the Skype or the FaceTime or whatever I need her in. She's there. So I feel very lucky to have such a grounded, I'm like, if I'm having a panic attack, you know Amy is gonna know about it. I really appreciate you sharing this

because I think so many people can relate to that anxiety. I remember when I came out of the monastery, left India, moved back to London, took me about 10 months to get my first job. Finally got a job. I was working at this big consulting firm. I was back in the professional corporate world, which is what I would have done if I hadn't become a monk. And I was working at a client

where I didn't really understand what we were doing. I'd been out of the working world for like four, five years at that point. So kind of lost a lot of my training in that world. I struggled with small talk. I'd come back from this. And I remember feeling so anxious that I would take the longest lunch breaks.

Like I would disappear from work for like two, three hours. Because I just couldn't have those conversations. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't very good at my job. And I remember going up to our senior manager at the time and saying to him that, I know there's a space for me in this company, but I don't think this is the right role,

or this is the right client because the work we're doing here, I feel really a deep lack of confidence. And I'm really just feeling anxious. Yeah. And the way he responded increased my anxiety. I was gonna say was he comforting? No, and so I did this.

You were three to five hours and you knew yourself. I lost the two weeks. And so this was after two weeks. He said, Jay, you realize people work really hard to get this job, and then they do as they told. And they don't decide to shift after two weeks. And he said, if you shift after two weeks, you'll pretty much be ending your career with us.

Like, that's what it's gonna be like. And I just still knew that this was just not where I needed to be. And so what ended up happening was, they told the client that we were servicing. So my company gave services to a client. They told the client that I wasn't performing well and so that they were going to let go of me. And they literally walked me out of the office as if I'd just been fired.

And I wasn't fired. I was just let go of that client. Right, right. But they made me feel like I was fired. So I packed my box up. Oh, shame. packed my box up. Oh, shame, it was so painful. How did you communicate, you obviously texted your mom,

but how did you communicate? How were you received by the people you worked with, the person who was the boss or the owner, like how did they respond to this? I mean, they didn't know me, and I didn't know them. It wasn't even like a two week. It was genuinely nice to meet you. Here's this shift. Oh, now she's quitting. Right. So I genuinely don't even know

what their impression was. I remember the bakery I worked at. The man the boss was just very concerned with getting the apron back. It was like a very like okay, we'll make sure you return the apron. I was like okay, I will make sure the apron gets back to you. So that was strange. Did you returned the apron. I was like, okay, I will make sure the apron gets back to you. So that was strange. Did you give the apron back? I actually don't know if I ever did. Sorry, but I think I felt more shameful about it

towards like my parents and my sister, my older sister, because my little sister was young and didn't have a job. But I think I just felt like, oh, look how pathetic I am. I can't even, like my anxiety is really that bad. I can't even hold down a job when I know my sister at the time was like a hard working waitress at a restaurant and had been for multiple years. So I just felt pretty pathetic at the time, which is obviously a very shameful feeling. I mean, that's so tough, and especially for it to happen twice.

And when you start judging yourself, and you start causing pain towards yourself verbally, or you become internally abusive towards yourself, and as you said, you start comparing yourself to siblings and partners, or whoever else family that's in your life, how did you get the courage to try again when you've got into such a dark space of...

And it's not just a dark space, it's like you're actually experiencing physical panic attacks. So it's not just mental, it's physical and mental, it's emotional. How are you still getting the courage to go, okay, I'm gonna go peer one input, so I'm going to go even into acting, of course. It was my drive to be an actress. It's something that has truly lived so deep inside me.

It's the core of who I am, which will come back to that. But it was truly my undying ambition and drive to be an actress where I knew I needed money. I needed money, I needed money to make this happen. And the anxiety was just going to have to, I was going to have to find something that I could handle, tolerate, I think was the right, the right word. You know, I obviously couldn't be going to work and having panic attacks every day. So I just needed to find something that I could tolerate.

And Pier one ended up being a situation where I was working around mostly older women, which I think also says something about who I am. I didn't, I wasn't comfortable working around these young people who I felt because I have social anxiety and at the time it was pretty bad. I was living a very isolated life. So being around these young girls who were also there made me feel even more out of place. And so I found myself more comfortable in a job where I was around middle-aged women who like weren't judging me, weren't necessarily interested in talking to me about my personal life. I just really wanted my job to be my job. I didn't want to make friends. I didn't want to create relationships. I just was there to make money and then bounce

basically. That's a great lesson for all of us because I think we often feel that you can get into such a dark place than nothing can get you out. But what you're saying is actually your drive to where you want it to be and who you want wanted to be was able to pull you out of that space to try again. It was and I'm very thankful, very thankful for that. I never really gave myself a plan B. I didn't have a backup option. I knew I was going to be an actress. I didn't know what my career would look like at all and I still don't know what it's going to look like. But it's because it's still, you know, hustle and you're still always working, working, but, uh, but I really knew this is my dream. I have to do what I have to do to make this work. And I had moved to LA when I was 18, had had

such bad anxiety while I was here, tried to hold down a job in LA, it was hired, didn't even work a shift, had a panic attack and quit. And that was the moment I skyped my mom, literally hyperventilating in a paper bag and said, I need to come home, I'm not okay. Cause I had been there for five months at the, I've been here for five months at the time

and it wasn't making any money I'm not okay because I had been there for five months at the I've been here for five months at the time and Wasn't making any money and I clearly could not handle the stress and anxiety of holding down a job here So moved back home for six months Went back to Pier one Worked as many shifts. I think I was working two to three shifts a week because my anxiety could not handle more Saved up very little money I was working two to three shifts a week because my anxiety could not handle more, saved up very little money. We're talking like $1,700 in the span of six months because I just could not work that much, but I moved back to LA because there was no other option.

That's incredible. Thank you so much for going into detail with me. I know we like really unpacked every job and every role. No. But I feel like it's so needed for all of us to hear that because obviously when people see you doing your thing and you know, right now you're like executive producing and you're an author and you know, you're acting curious booming.

It's like it's easy to believe that you're just confident and you just, you know, it's easy and it's effortless and even today I've met you. You're wonderful. You have great presence, you have great energy and it's like it and even today I've met you. You're wonderful. You have great presence, you have great energy and it's been so easy to connect with you. But to hear that, that's the journey that it took to get slightly more comfortable with these things. Yeah.

It's really useful to everyone who's listening and of course, hard when you're living it. But tell me about the role you played in your home. You have two sisters. I do. And you spoke to a bit about your mother who about the role you played in your home. You have two sisters. And you spoke to a bit about your mother who I want to focus on in a second. But what was the role you played in your family?

Or what is the role you play in your family? Has it changed? Middle child, two sisters. My parents are happily married after 30 plus years. So very happy to have them as beautiful, loving role models in my life. I was the kid who was very stereotypical performer kid, did the theater, did at dancing classes, loved recitals, loved, I performed in front of my, when we went on big family vacations,

I would make my cousin sing with me in front of the family. I was that kid. And it was terrible at sports. This kid is meant to be an artist for sure. And I began struggling with anxiety at a young age when I was like 11, as when I got really bad, which sounds so young, thinking back on it. I really was feeling such complex anxiety. And my parents had no idea where it was coming from. My older sister was bullied very badly.

And she struggled with her own issues. And so it was sort of like very hard for my parents to understand why I was struggling so badly, because there were no real external factors that made sense. Nothing was really adding up, but oh, you have friends, you have extra curriculars,

you don't have any of these, any blaring issues, it's just, why are you so anxious? Why do you hate school so much? Why are you feeling this way? And so I felt a lot of isolation at that age from the kids around me to my own family. It just felt very misunderstood. And that's really when I started going to therapy for the first time. And I really don't remember a lot of the journey because I think you're just so young. You only remember so many things,

but also I was in such a weird tunnel vision stage of your life where you just are in fight or flight mode. And you're not really taking in your surroundings or really living, you're just surviving. And so it's interesting to think back on those times because I barely remember. All I remember is crying before school every morning, begging my mom to let me be homeschooled

because I couldn't stomach the idea of walking through the doors and sitting through an eight hour day with the people, the kids around me. Everything was a countdown, constantly counting down how many hours left, how many hours until this class is over. When can I go to the bathroom so I can have five minutes to be alone? When can this happen?

When can I do this? Blah blah blah, always counting down to something. So very much not living my life, it was always rushing through it. If you're a business owner, the last thing you want to do this summer is sort through tons of unqualified candidates, resumes, when you could be redoing your deck or relaxing in the pool. That's why you need Zip Recruter to find great candidates. They do the work for you, and now you can try it for free at zippercruter.com forward slash on purpose. Zippercruter uses its

powerful technology to find and match the right candidates up with your job. You can easily review these recommended candidates and invite your top choices to apply. Additionally, Zipper Grooter has a complete suite of tools that make it easy to filter, review, and rate your candidates. Four out of five employers who post on Zipper Grooter get a quality candidate within the first day. So, soak up all that summer has to offer and let Zipper Grooter do the work. Ready for the URL?

It's zippergrooter.com forward slash on purpose. That's where you can try it for free. Again, that zippercrutter.com forward slash ONPURPOSE. Zippercrutter, the smartest way to hire. One of the hardest things about mental health, I feel is that it's invisible. Like no one can see it.

No one understands it. And often people feel, well, you have this. So why would you be anxious? Yeah, it doesn't add up. You have this. Or then why would you experience depression? And it's hard when it's your own family. And, you know, when you're talking about being that young, it's probably when the mental

health conversation wasn't as open as it is now, where I'm hoping, you know, it's your own family and when you're talking about being that young, it's probably when the mental health conversation wasn't as open as it is now, where I'm hoping today that at least parents are hearing about it are more open to the fact that they could be providing a beautiful, loving atmosphere at home and a child could still be struggling with something. And I think that's one of the hardest things for parents is that it's almost like they see it as a reflection of them. It's like, what am I doing? Yeah, what's wrong with my kid? What did I do?

What did I do? Exactly. And that idea of what did I do stops us from thinking about the other and thinking about that person when that's really the moment where a child is saying, I'm struggling with something. And the ego inside all of us, not just parents, the ego in all of us goes, but no, no, no,

that's not my fault. Or I don't know what I don't know. I don't know what, this can't be right. This can't be right because I didn't do anything for that. It sounds like your parents are wonderful, right? Like from what I'm hearing. And so obviously for them, I can imagine it's hard. When you start going to therapy at that young age, when you start getting exposed to this, when do you start to feel like you're gaining tools, clarity, insight that you're like,

oh, I can cope with this. Because it sounds like from what we were talking about, it's not something that ever goes away. It's not something that ever just disappears, but you start coping better, you start managing it better. Is that accurate or? Yeah, no, for sure, I think the therapy

was a really beautiful, for one hour a week, I was talking to someone who just got it. She was an older woman. I instantly really loved her and connected with her. I still felt like it wasn't okay for me to be feeling what I was feeling like it wasn't justified. And maybe I would be looked at as crazy. So I remember even in my therapy sessions would be like,

oh God, my allergies are so bad as I had tears streaming down my face. I'm like, girl, you're in a therapy office. You're allowed to cry. And it's interesting, like the messaging from when I was a kid to what it is now is so radically different compared to even, you know, 20 years ago, how insane. But even just from when I was a kid being, I feel like you heard the thing, you heard the term, don't cry. You don't need to cry. Crying is the most beautiful thing you can do. I encourage people to cry. I cry all the time and I think it's the most healthy expression of

how you're feeling and I sometimes wish I just could have been told, you can cry. There's no shame in that. There's no shame in how you're feeling and also you don't need to always be justifying it because I think I was constantly trying to come up with reasons why rather than just being accepted for what it was. I have anxiety. I have depression. Okay, but why? Well, sometimes there isn't. And navigating that space when I was so young and trying to defend myself, having my first panic attacks and not knowing what this feeling was, how I could escape it,

what resources I had. You know, I was too young to really be going on the internet looking for help elsewhere. I just really had like my parents and I guess the kids around me at school who had no idea what to tell me or how to help, you know, my friends at the time. It's not like they no idea what to tell me or how to help my friends at the time. It's not like they got it. They just didn't. So I was so isolated. And I'm happy that now this is a space we're moving into where we are saying feel your feelings and that they're justified.

You don't need to defend yourself. I'm like, damn, that's the kind of environment I want to raise my future kids in to where it's it is a beautiful thing to cry and you're allowed to feel. You're just allowed to feel. Our 20s are saying is this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, full in love, make mistakes, and decide what we want from our life. But what can psychology really teach us about this decade? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety,

mental health, heartbreak, money, friendships, and much more to explore the science and the psychology behind our experiences, incredible guests, fascinating topics, important science, and a bit of my own personal experience. Audrey, I honestly have no idea what's going on with my life. Join me as we explore what our 20s are really all about. From the good, the bad, and the ugly, and listen along as we uncover how everything is psychology, including our 20s. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg.

Now streaming on the iHotRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Mi'amla, and on my podcast, the R-Spot, we're having inspirational, educational, and sometimes difficult and challenging conversations about relationships. They may not have the capacity to give you what you need. And insisting means that you are abusing yourself now. You human! That means that you're crazy as hell, just like the rest of us. When a relationship breaks down, I take copious notes, and I want to share them with you. Anybody with two eyes and a brain knows that too much Alfredo sauce is just no good for you. But if you're going to eat it, they're not going to stop you.

So he's going to continue to give you the Alfredo sauce and put it even on your grits if you don't stop him. Listen to the art spot on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. How's that New Year's resolution coming along? You know, the one you made about paying off your pesky credit card debt and finally starting to save your retirement? Well, you're not alone if you haven't made progress yet, roughly four in five New Year's resolutions fail within the first month or two. But that doesn't have to be the case for you and your goals.

Our podcast, How to Money can help. That's right. We're two best buds who've been at it for more than five years now, and we want to see you achieve your money goals, and it's our goal to provide the information and encouragement you need to do it. We keep the show fresh by answering list or questions, interviewing experts, and focusing on the relevant financial news that you need to know about. Our show is Chalk Full of the Personal Finance Knowledge that you need with guidance three times a week, and we talk about debt payoff, if, let's say you've had a particularly spend-through-if-t holiday season, we also talk about building up your savings, intelligent investing, and growing your income.

No matter where you are on your financial journey, how do monies got your back? Millions of listeners have trusted us to help them achieve their financial goals. Ensure that your resolution turns into ongoing progress. Listen to how to money on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If everyone would just listen to that over and over and over and over and over again, every day, like our lives would be so much better because telling someone not to cry is like telling someone not to laugh. The worst advice.

Right. The worst advice. It's such bad advice. And because yeah, like telling someone not to cry is like telling someone not to laugh. It's like there's a natural expression that needs to be released in order to feel an emotion. And you're being told to block it and not feel it.

You would never do that with any other emotion, but when it comes to crying, and especially as a man too, that's a big part of how boys are really. Boys don't cry. Boys don't cry. And boys never cry. And you'll be fine, you're okay, there's nothing wrong.

And so it's like, oh, if I cry, that means there's something wrong. And that association of crying is bad, is actually the biggest issue. So toxic. Yeah, it's so talks are that crying becomes a negative emotion. Yeah.

So now when I cry, I feel sad, even if crying was going to actually make me feel better. Which it does, usually. Which it does, yeah. And we cry when there's happy tears too. Yeah, yeah. At the end of the day, it's a release. Yes.

And there are so many things that need to be released from the body, the mind, the heart. And everything you just said, I wish everyone would just listen to that part again and again and again, and play it to their children and play it to their family members. Because if that's all you take out from this conversation, it will change your life. And I know there's so many more, but that was truly, truly powerful. Oh, sorry, go on. Oh, sorry, going to your... No, no, I mean, I just to kind of go deeper into that.

I feel the last two years have been a very large spiritual awakening for me really became awakened to the spiritual side of life and really what wellness means. And I thought I knew who I was before and was confident, but really I was so much of my identity was based off of pleasing other people and putting my identity in other people's hands. And the concept, I read a lot of self-help books,

did a deep discovery on all those things And the concept, I read a lot of self-help books, did a deep discovery on all those things, and the biggest takeaway I was gathering was, how vital it is to sit with your feelings and experience them, which again, just goes along, the concept of don't cry. You're pushing it away rather than doing the opposite, which is how you heal. I was on a very big healing journey two years ago, which is how this all really started. And the biggest thing I kept reading was feel like feel your feelings sit there and let

the feeling be in your body. Like let it flow through you, observe it, don't judge it, let it happen as it needs to happen, let it flow through you. And so that's what I, that's what I did. And that's what I, my perspective has changed quite dramatically over even the last couple months. And I sort of look at things this way as someone who very much struggles with anxiety and depression when I feel very overwhelmed by those things

and sort of like I'm being burdened by these things. I like to think of it as if I started out as this celestial being, this just energy, and the universe or God or whomever said, hey, do you wanna go to earth for an incredibly short amount of time, like a blip, an experience every emotion that you could possibly feel as a human? You could have all these experiences,

love, heartache, anxiety, joy, euphoria, whatever, all of it. Do you want to do that? Yeah, I do. And so when I am feeling these intense feelings, it's sort of like a reality check to step outside and say, although this is a very uncomfortable, painful feeling, it's quite beautiful that I have the capacity to experience it. Just in general, like I am so lucky to feel to the extent that I feel and to feel as deeply as I feel because it can often feel like a curse when

you're having heartache. And you know, when you're experiencing love, it's absolutely euphoric. And then when it's the opposite, it's a curse. And so understanding that both of those exist in the same timeline and in the same life. And that is sort of something that I use to ground myself when I am stuck in a feeling of darkness. That is probably the best description of that I've heard before. The idea of if we were given the choice to have this diverse set of emotions, experiences, feelings. And what you rightly said was that if you're

experiencing loss, it means you've experienced love. And if you've experienced pain, it means you've experienced joy. It actually means that you've had the fortune of receiving a glimpse of greatness. And I lost my mentor to stage four brain cancer. And I lost him a few years before that because of how brain cancer works in the sense that he wasn't. Mentally there. Mentally there, even though he was spiritually there.

Yeah. And what I always referred to him as which I found fascinating was, so when someone has stage for brain cancer obviously they start to lose aspects of their memory, they start to lose aspects of identity. And his memory became so short, he had long term memory, he lost a short term memory. So if he'd see me, he'd be like, hey, Jay, how's it going? And then 30 seconds later, he'd be like, hey, Jay, how's it going? Is he just seeing me? So he'd still know I'm Jay,

and he'd still remember our relationship for many, many years. But in the moment, you couldn't have attention. But what I found fascinating was that all he did was thank people for their service to God. Oh, wow. So all he'd do if he saw you, and he was a community leader, he was a priest in his own writing,

if he saw you'd be like, thank you for what you're doing for others, thank you for your service. Wow. And I was like, how special was that? That was his broken loop, was gratitude. That's the most wholesome thing I've ever heard.

Literally, and to experience that was just unbelievable, and it's what you're saying that, yes, I miss him, and yes, of course, I wish he was there. I feel like calling him up every day to tell him what I'm doing and different things that happen in my life. But the fact that I can experience that I miss someone means that I just had something really special. I'm not saying that makes it easy. I'm saying that it reaffirms the point that you're making that we're fortunate to have both experiences because they only come together. Yeah, and I do think no one really talks about how people leave your life. You know what death is, you know, people

are gonna die, but you don't really until I think you're in your 20s, honestly, experience how often people come and go just in general. And it's loss. It is grief. It's not death, but it's, but it's loss and how profound of a feeling that is. And I almost wish, and I don't know what this looks like or what the teachings look like or what the advice is, but just that there could be more of a conversation of when you are growing up, like, people are going to come and go. And let's find ways to accept that because I think the last two years I've had what feels like a revolving door of people in my life, new people that I've tried to make connections with, and then they leave, or people that I've been,

maybe not make a connection with, so there never really is one, and then the relationship kinda just ends. But, but, you know, there have been, obviously, meaningful relationships that come in, and then they end. And so it's weird because you are going on this journey of loss and grief, but it's not death and the person still exists.

And they have their their own conscious mind that you're sort of trying to figure out, well, how are they experiencing this? Because in death, the person's just gone. And you can think whatever thoughts you have and their yours and no one can take those away from you, whereas when someone leaves your life and they're still around, it's like, oh, there's two sides to this story and what is this person's experience? And I just think that's like a very interesting concept is how do you deal with the loss of someone who's still around? Still around, yeah, especially when we've been trained in society to believe that length of time equals success.

Yeah, or that's the measure of love. Correct. Yeah, the measure of love, the measure of success is important. Yeah. Long-javety. Yeah. Lent. We know plenty of people that have been in a job for 25 years that they hate. Yeah. Or have been in a relationship for 15 years that they don't love. And you constantly find that. But also what you're saying, I think more deeply, the idea that we actually deal with coming and going and the seasons of relationships far more. And it's like, we know that when it's winter, you put on a coat. And we know when it's summer, you get to put your shorts on. And when it's spring, you may carry, if you're in London, especially you carry an umbrella, and if it's fall, you get to wear full colors.

Like, you know, with the seasons of nature, we know how to adapt our clothing, our preparation. But not with the seasons of life. Absolutely, it just doesn't happen. Like, you don't, you don't ever talk about the winter of life. No. It's what you're saying.

If you talk about loss or death or talk about the winter of life. No. It's what you're saying. If you talk about loss or death or grief as the winter of life. Yeah. You don't ever talk about it and then you're unprepared. Yeah. I feel very ill equipped genuinely. And as I've been in the last two years dealing with so much of it, I'm like,

there's gotta be some solutions out here. There's gotta be people who are talking about it because I know I'm, you know'm not the only woman in their 20s who's going through cycles of relationships and meeting new people and then having those people leave or me choosing to leave. So it's like, come on guys, let's rally in brainstorm and be there for each other

because I don't wanna turn to Google and read stupid articles that tell me that when someone leaves your life you should go on a hike. Because if someone tells me to go on a hike one more time, I'm like, uh, okay. This is what people say. They say when someone leaves your life, when something, when you're going through something, pick up a new hobby. Oh, okay. Sure, I'll do that and that'll take up three seconds

of my time and probably like $400 to buy all this equipment for this new hobby, whatever it is. Maybe I'll try crocheting. And you know, all of a sudden, I'm spending $300 and all these things. And at last two seconds, it's like, there's there's got to be what else can I be doing. So what I'm personally been dealing with is the struggle of what is my identity outside of everything else. What is my identity outside of everyone

else? So just me and outside of work because I'm a workaholic and I, since I was a kid, as a survival, because a coping mechanism had to basically make acting my identity to push me out of the situations that I was in and launch me into my career. So I feel that I have been in fighter flight mode for most of my life. I've been in a fight, I've been in a fight, my career. So I feel that I have been in fight or flight mode for most of my life. And what that has done to my brain and my body, my mental well-being is, if I continue at this rate, catastrophic, I will lose my brain power. There's no way humans are not meant to continue living in that state of your adrenaline as

always going, you know, just that fight or flight response. And I'm basically on this journey right now in my life of trying to calm that down and trying to just simply exist and sit in stillness without feeling like I need to fill a void. And that is the biggest that has been like waking up with anxiety because I'm not working this summer, I'm not filming anything. I'm promoting my movie. Very thankful for that. I have my own production company, so I'm doing a lot of it. I do a lot of zooms, I do all the things,

but there are days where I have nothing to do. That's amazing. Well, that's the challenge. Yeah. Is where I'm thinking, what do I do with myself? Because I have been programmed to constantly go. Pick up a new hobby, go on a hike. Yeah, let me do that, I'm gonna do that.

Come on, yeah. Besides that, I'm like, how do I find serenity and acceptance in peace without running away from myself. Because even, and I'm stopping myself in these tracks because the past week I've had such bad anxiety about not working and being bored, the fear of being bored has been haunting me

and I've been thinking, what trips can I go on? Okay, I'm gonna reach out to like literally everyone I know. When are they available? I'm filling my, I'm looking at the calendar on my phone, going, I'm alone that day. You need to fill that up. Like genuinely, how can I fill my time? So I'm not alone because loneliness equals my existential

crisis thoughts and I'm going to spiral. So I am very much on that journey of, because I know I don't want that. I do not want that. I do not want to be someone who has to fill that void. I pride myself on being someone who will never just succumb to that and be the person who always has to have friends around always needs to be doing something. I don't want that.

That's not the identity that I want. I want to be able to be okay by myself. And that's a really hard thing to do. It's sort of like, how do you do that? But even hearing you verbalize and vocalize it is so powerful, right? Like even to have that as an aspiration is an unbelievable power because it's a recognition of your true feelings. Going back to what we were speaking about before, you're actually responding to and listening to how your body, mind and

heart feel. And so you're already making so much progress because if you weren't listening, then you would be going against the advice that we should be allowed to cry and we should be allowed to do this. And so you're saying, well, I just need to take the next three months or however long it is off because that's what I'm feeling I need. And even if you don't know yet what that looks like, you're still deeply responding to that need. And so I think there's a real power in that because identifying it is one thing, then implementing it, which you are is another thing. And then as you said, building your identity as this new identity is almost like step three. I want to dive into that

and how we do that with you and how you have found ways of doing it because I'm guessing that you've had glimpses in these last two years where you have felt at peace with yourself or you have had moments where you recognize the value of solitude over loneliness or there are moments where you're starting to realize you said in your own words, I don't want to live based on the opinions of others or for others. So there are glimpses of what this looks like

and you're piecing together the puzzle, but you were saying that you're going through this transition in your life right now. And our identity gets wrapped up in other people, our jobs, our work, everything around of us. And so when you're saying you're trying to understand your identity beyond this, as Lily run out today, who are you beyond those things right now? It's a process for me if I'm trying to take it day by day because I overwhelm myself by trying

to fix it all right away. I'm a very all or nothing person and I'm a very compulsive person. Like once I find out what's wrong, oh, gotta have a solution immediately. Can't, I don't want to wait for time. Yeah, I don't want to, that's the worst when people say just give it time. No, I don't want to wait for time. I don't want to, that's the worst when people say, just give it time. No, I don't want to do that. I would like to do it right now.

To be honest, I was just in Maui recently. And one of the most beautiful moments I had there was when I was in a very spiritual, it was like a spiritual shop. They had crystals, they had, but they had a labyrinth, like a maze on the ground that you could walk in. And just sort of it was this, it took you like good 15 minutes to walk through all the little pathways and then you get to the center and you can meditate and then you walk out.

And there's a whole book about the ideology behind this lab rent and I didn't read it. But I took it as an opportunity to use it as just meditating, a moment of meditation. And I felt so close to myself when I was doing that. Like it was so true to who I was in that moment to just be doing this activity. It was so comforting. It's hard, just like anything, you can lose yourself in something. You know, you can lose yourself in becoming overly like awakened and your whole identity becomes I'm a spiritual guru and I'm

healing like all about he like it's so easy to just fall into that trap and I'm obviously trying not to do that as well. And I'm definitely not. But I my friends would never never never let me do that. But but I do find so much therapy through even just talking about it, even if I don't have the answers. Yeah. I don't have the answers to who really am I outside of my fighter flight mode and who am I outside of being an actor? I don't really have the answers to those questions, but just even saying that out loud makes me feel like I'm closer to figuring it out.

And I really appreciate that honesty because I agree too. Like I'm hearing you speak and it feels the same way to me where I'm like, okay, you're not forcing yourself at least in this moment to arrive at an answer or a given answer to complete the sentence. But at the same time, I'm seeing a self awareness, I'm seeing a acceptance of that path and that's what's so useful. And you are right that if you've never allowed yourself to be yourself, how would you know how to describe it? So if I asked you to describe yourself as an actress, you'd be able to describe yourself. It'd be pretty easy because you've been an actress plenty of times or you could

describe those roles that you've played. But then when someone asks you who are you to pretty much 99.9% of people on the planet, we can't answer it because we've never actually let ourselves be ourselves. So it's not alien to not know. Yeah. Well, I think we know who we are in relation to other people. Yeah.

Into things. Our role. To our role. Yeah. 100%. But then when you take, like you take the roles away, what are you? Yeah. Whoa. I do not know.

I do not know. But that is the beginning of figuring it out. That's the biggest you now can go, okay, am I playing Lily the actress or am I playing Lily the daughter, friend, whatever? Or am I trying to discover what Lily would do? Yeah.

Right. And it is that conversation of, it's kind of like when my sister, when I'm giving her relationship advice and she'll be like, stop being Jay Shetty, like, you know, like, be my brother, right? And it's like, that's what my sister would say to me because she doesn't want a coaching conversation with her brother. She wants me to be her brother. And so then I'm like, okay, so she gets the brother version. And then there's this version that

this community gets. But then it's like, but then who am I beyond all of those things? And I'd really realize that when I left the monkhood, because even so much of my identity has become wrapped in being a monk. And the whole point of being a monk was to not have an identity that you're wrapped up in. That was the whole goal. Everything you're talking about is exactly what we were working on when I was there for three years. But even then, it was so easy to get wrapped up in another identity.

And so when that identity collapsed after three years, when I, when it all fell apart for me, that was when I allowed myself to learn about who I was beyond that identity. And even now I have to hold on to that. I'd say that the first of it was a sense of, and this sounds painful, but it is, there is a sense of role destruction. Yeah, panic. Panic. Panic, and feeling something, and a part of you that you use for safety to dissolve. And that's the hardest part.

It's hard to let go of the false identity because it's a sense of safety that being a monk is a sense of safety, being an actor is a sense of safety, being whatever is a sense of safety. And unless you're willing to go, I'm letting that safety go to some degree, it's very hard to say, okay, well, I'm open to what this is. So that was the first part. It was like letting go of that identity externally in my language, in my intellectual thoughts about who I was, in how I thought people perceived me. And then the next step was saying, rather than who am I, who do I want to be?

So what I realized was we're trying to figure out who we are rather than create who we are. And we do this as humans, we go into finding and seeking rather than creating and being. And finding and seeking is the never-ending journey because there's nothing to look for, there is only things to be and create. And so I realized that everything I was currently being and creating was based on values I adopted from family, friends, or society. So I literally made a list of what are my current values. I then asked myself, where do they come from? And so it was like my parents, some kid in school who bullied me, my teacher who told me

I wasn't this or that, a friend who thought I was cool or uncool based on whatever. And then I asked myself, do I still have that value? Do I still want to live that value? And so I shifted to creating a new list of values and principles that I wanted to live by, and I just started practicing them with everyone I met. And that's how I started to create and be my new identity, rather than subscribing to an old one, if that makes sense. It makes makes sense. It makes a very quick version of you.

No, it makes perfect sense because I recently have been having those thoughts to myself as like, who have I really, if I were to explain myself, describe myself in a couple words, there are characteristics that I use that I don't actually like. I don't like being a negative person, but I think I would describe myself or I used to describe myself as a negative person,

as a pessimist, as a full-realist, not entirely hopeful kind of person, and recently was thinking, well, I don't like that. I don't, I don't actually, if I had the choice, I would choose to not be that person. I would not, I don't want to be a negative person. I don't want to be a pessimist, but it's safety. Yes. It's not getting my hopes up. It's protecting my heart.

It's shelter. And how do you part ways with something that you have identified with for so long? And that's obviously a challenge in itself, but it's something that I'm very much trying to do, even with my food choices, like someone who has enjoyed really food that's really terrible for you, your whole life, and now making that conscious effort to change that and and fuel my body and treat my body in a better healthier way. It's it's all just making these conscious decisions of, oh, do I, I'm just fully an autopilot right now just choosing the same thing because

that's what I've always done. Oh, I'm just being pessimistic because that's what I've always done. Oh, I'm just being pessimistic because that's what I've always done. And it takes pausing and reflecting and making an active effort to shift that behavior. And that's so hard. It's so hard. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season.

And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them, continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am.

I needed her to help me. Something was gnawing at me that I couldn't put my finger on, that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions,

so we can better understand our lives and our realities. Like, does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or, can we create new senses for humans? Or, what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Intercosmos with David Eagleman on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

A good way to learn about a place is to talk to the people that live there. There's just this sexy vibe in Montreal, this pulse, this energy. But what has been seen as a very snotty city, people call it bozangelis. New Orleans is a town that never forgets its pay. A great way to get to know a place is to get invited to a dinner party. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Newton

and not lost as my new travel podcast where a friend and I go places, see the sights, and try to finagle our way into a dinner party. We're kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party. It doesn't always work out. I would love that, but I have like a Cholala who is aggressive towards strangers.

I love the dogs. We learn about the places we're visiting, yes, but we also learn about ourselves. I don't spend as much time thinking about how I'm gonna die alone when I'm traveling, but I get to travel with someone I love. Oh, see, I love you too. And also, we get to eat as much...

I've never been here since I've been here. I love you too. My ex a lot of therapy goes behind that. You're so white, I love it. Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're simply living patterns. Yeah. Right? That's literally as simple as it is.

It's like, we've adopted a pattern. Mm-hmm. And now we have to choose to practice a new pattern based on who we want to be. And that's why I think the journey of who am I is really? Who do I want to be? Who do I want to create? Who do I want to live as? Because we've never known who we are.

So trying to figure out who we are is a full-daren because you just keep getting stuck. And then like you just said now, you accept, oh, I'm a negative person, because that's who I've always been. Not realizing it's just a pattern you developed, it's just a habit you adopted, it's just what you absorb through your environment, as opposed to selected it. That's truly, I mean, it's such a profound thing. That's just like settling into my brain now is even the last couple of days been thinking,

I need to find out who I am, like find, I need to find it, I need to search for it, rather than I will never get anywhere if I do that. It's a matter of who do I want to be and then actively doing that. Yeah, and selecting those values, selecting those principles, selecting the habits like you just gave for your food.

It's like, if you just said, who am I, I'd be like, yeah, I'm someone who loves chocolate. I'm someone who loves ice cream, I'm someone who loves junk food, fast food. But that's not who I am, that's just a pattern I built. And I can change that pattern. Yes, it's hard. I'm with you on that.

Like, it's been when I met my wife, she's the one who transformed my diet because I was always someone who is focused on mastering the mind. And I kind of neglected the body and kind of didn't care. And my wife is a nutritionist and dietician and I rate it chef. And so her whole world is food.

Quite convenient. Very convenient. Huge, extremely, if you want to change your life. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it was like, she got me off refined sugars. She got me off the wrong oil. She got me off like packaged and processed food.

On that daily basis, and it was so much education, and so much coaching that I received from her that allowed me to make transitions where the first thing I said to her was like, I don't know how I would live without sugar. Like I don't know. And it sounds ridiculous now, but it's like, yeah, when I went around six years ago

and I was like, yeah, I don't know what you want me to do. And then we started looking for alternatives. And now if you ask me, I pretty much would each, like, I guess, refine sugar, maybe like once a month. And so you, and that's amazing for me. Like that's a big thing for me. Because I didn't know, I grew up being four chocolate products a day.

My mom gave me a chocolate biscuit, a chocolate bar, a chocolate yogurt, and a chocolate ice cream every day. And I was addicted into sugar. And so it's pattern formation though. And yes, you're so right. It requires discipline. It's painful. It's hard.

But I love that that's dropped for you. And I love that you took us there today because I think too many people are finding and looking and seeking and searching. And it's being and creating and building and forming, which is where our energy needs to go, because you've seen yourself build a career. You've seen yourself create your roles. You've seen yourself create a book. You've seen yourself create a show. Like you create the those things. You didn't find them.

Very true. You didn't search for them. You didn't seek them. So you know you have creative energy and creative power. Yeah. Like, damn, I damn, gotta create myself now. Yeah. How exciting. It is very exciting. And then there's a sense of selection and control and not control in a control freak way, but in a sense of like, I can choose. Yes. Yeah. I can make the choice. And in my first step was definitely the epiphany of, oh, wait, I actually don't want to keep identifying with this. Yeah. Yeah. Were you always, you used the word spiritual, was that a word in your vocabulary? Always did it arise two years ago? Like, how did that become a path to a lot of this healing and journey that you've been on as opposed to

something else? Like I think there's so many options. Why this, why you how? I mean, I grew up Christian. It was, I went to a Presbyterian church, which I definitely do not align with those teachings anymore. But I do believe in God. I do call myself a Christian, but I also call myself very spiritual.

And I think two years ago, the lockdown was forcing me to go through this healing journey by myself. And my journey through healing was through spiritual healing and through working with actual healers and and energy. And I studied and I started to study raky and I'm gonna get my master's, my masters. I mean I'm gonna going to be a raky master. Yes. At the end of the summer. That's amazing. Thank you. So it became a, I'm going to look inward as sort of what it was. And I found that that became, oh, that's clearly a very spiritual route. You're looking in towards your spirit, towards your soul. You're doing shadow work, soul searching.

So it's like, okay, okay. Spirituality is the word that I'm resonating with. And I actually went to Mount Shasta, which is a very high vibrational, highly spiritual place in Northern California, and I went there by myself, and I worked with a, she calls herself a sound healer, and I worked with her and found the experience. I just, again, felt, I felt very much like I was so at home with myself while I was doing those things. So connected to myself, connected to my higher self, the person that I want to be, and so I thought yes this is the right path for me. And so at kind of ever since, I've been very into spirituality.

And, you know, I've always loved crystals. I remember almost crystals, but like looking past that into a deeper form of energy healing. And that led me to rakey, which led me to sound healing and going to sound baths and then meditation. And I took a course and I learned TM, Transcendental Meditation, which wasn't really, it didn't super resonate with me and it hasn't stuck with me, but it is something that I tried. So it's been a trial, you know,

trial of just different things. And I guess that's just what I call, when I say I'm spiritual. I'm on that very personal journey with myself looking inward. Yeah. So what I mean by that. Yeah, but I love those examples because it is a practicing of different methods and techniques to find what works for you. And you've obviously found,'ve obviously found both in Raky and sound healing, what really sued your soul and your healing, which I think is such an important part of it. I think spirituality or healing or any of these terms

can often get, they're so big. And they can get a good or bad name based on a particular practice and the idea is that it's just such a big umbrella term for so many practices that it's so important that people keep an open mind to finding what works for them. And you're right, there may be a certain aspect that just doesn't float your boat and doesn't make you feel great. But there's other parts that could reveal it to you very powerfully. I think when I lived as a monk, we traveled a lot in southern India where a lot of temples are around two to five thousand years old. And I never had been anywhere that old.

Like my school was 500 years old that I went to in England. And so that was pretty old. Yeah. But then when you go to... Mine was like 80 years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine, my school is literally 15, 73.

I think was the year I the year. Oh my gosh. By the Queen. That is insane. Yeah, and so our school was pretty old and had this big history. But when I went to these temples that were like 2005,000 years old and you see this incredible architecture, it's, you know, it's a mainter. I never realized that I found going on pilgrimage to be so deeply healing for me, because I would go into these chambers where sound, it similarly has been maintained and preserved for thousands of years. People have meditated, chanted, played balls, gongs, whatever in these spaces, and you can still feel the reverberation when you walk in.

That sounds so amazing. And it's really powerful. It really feels like, you know, and so again, that was something that I never would have known growing up in London and having to go to that experience. And those temples are meant in southern India. Sounds like I need to go to southern India. Yeah, well, you see that, like real ancient history of spirituality in Southern India. And so those kind of places for me were like things that I never thought I'd discover. And then there's parts that I'm like, yeah, I would never go into XYZ. So how did you find these things or were their friends,

were their recommendations, was it the internet? Like how were you discovering certain things for you? Because I feel like that's quite difficult for people to find. Yeah, I mean, it's easy in LA. Yeah, she's your friend. Because you're surrounded by people who are, there's a crystal shop on every corner, genuinely. And it's a tarot card, really.

Truly. And I think I was always like, oh, tarot is interesting. That happened a couple of years ago, bought my first tarot deck. And Raky actually, my makeup artist on Riverdale, who worked on the first and second season, she was a Raky master and she was telling me about it and one day performed Raky on me.

And I was like, well, this is so cool. And so I was always super interested in diving into that. And then the lockdown just kind of gave me a boost to explore that because I was like, damn, I need to use some healing. Maybe I should heal myself. And then it also just came from, I think the word wellness, like what is wellness? And I googled wellness retreats in California. And I was like, okay, maybe not a retreat. I don't really want to be doing yoga and eating vegetables for a week. Not necessarily my vibe. I wanted to be a little bit more personalized and grounding for just me.

And I found my sound healer in Mount Chasta. And so I went and saw her by myself. And really kind of had a firsthand experience of sound healing and past life readings and chord cutting ceremonies and not astral projection, but just sort of your astral bodies. And things like that, it was like this world that was suddenly opening up to me that was so I've always just found this kind of the after life, I guess, very fascinating. I've always been terrified and intrigued at the idea of ghosts. And like, what are what what's that? What is talking to a spirit? You know, it's so weird. And I've always felt like I've been very highly

intuitive kind of intuned person. Oh, I see symbols and I see things are very serendipitous and there's not, there's all these coincidences that are happening and so I also was looking into, and to be honest, TikTok was... Oh, after all that, that was no one else's day. I was not expecting. But there is such a spiritual side of TikTok that is so vast.

Can you put me onto that side? Yes, I mean, it's the algorithm. You start seeing one video and then you're seeing a million of them. And I was stumbling on these pages of just like highly intuitive people. And I reached out to one of them and said, do you offer mentorships or something?

And she said, yeah. And so I did a mentorship with a psychic for three months where she taught me how to heal my ancestral trauma. And I believe we all have psychic abilities. It's a matter of training your brain. Some people are just born being more in tune and tapped into that skill, but I do believe that we all have the ability to tap into

them. So I was really just trying to learn how to do that because I thought that was so fascinating. She did teach me how to talk to the deceased. Not that I can do it well. I will say I've say I feel that I've only successfully done it like twice or three times. And even then while you're doing it, you're sort of like, am I doing this? Most people when they hear these things, there's judgment about, oh, that's just wacky.

Or that's whatever. And but what I'm seeing in you, which I'm appreciating is just, hey, I'm trying to be me. Like, right now I'm exploring this. Right now I'm experimenting with this. I'm appreciating is just, hey, I'm trying to be me. Like, I'm right now I'm exploring this. Right now I'm experimenting with this. I'm learning this. Yeah. Maybe it's something that I believe is true. Maybe it isn't. But I'm at least doing what I want to do now without worrying about what everyone else thinks and believes. I mean,

when I chose to become a monk at 21, going on 22, 99% of my friends thought I was absolutely insane. Because they're like, why would you do that? Like, why would you not want to go make money and date more women and get into another relationship and get a home or whatever it was? And so I know what it feels like to make a decision that most people around me feel doesn't make any sense and is completely against the grain of, but it was the best decision I ever made in my life. Yeah. And I have zero regrets about that decision

or how I spend that three years. And I look back at it all the time. And but at the time, everyone around me thought I was making the worst decision. My family said I was committing career suicide. You know, my friends were completely confused. My society and people in our community were like, oh, you're letting your parents down and you'll never get a job again. You know, there's just so much judgment. But I was just trying to do what felt right

in my intuition at this time. And it wasn't harming anyone. I think that's the, you know, that to me is like the barrier where it's like, well, you're trying something, it's not harming anyone. It's not harming you. It's not harming anyone around you. Right. If that's allowing you to explore a part of yourself, you just never know where it could go. So it's very comforting for people to hear about being into unique things because we all,

it's almost like we all followed the same people. We all watched the same things. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's nice to have a few things that you can approach. A break from the norm. Exactly, a break from the norm. I want to talk to you about a bit about this new show, and we were talking about this idea of you get to play these two parallel lives, which kind of with everything you're talking about is fascinating, you're connected. And I love that idea of parallel universes, of multiple lives, of the multiverse right now is a big thing.

Big thing and a big talking point. When you're playing these roles, how much of these roles are you identifying with, especially I guess like moving to LA for a career that's very much in line with you. Yeah. And then obviously becoming a pregnant mother experience. Have an experience that.

Yeah, that would be an experience. Like when you're doing that, how much of what you've just talked about that you're interested in kind of feeds into those roles and when you're playing those roles and becoming these new identity? Well, for the, I mean for the film, people are, people ask, was it so hard to play two different characters? No, it's the same woman. So it's the same girl just experiencing two very different things. And so that was amazing to play this woman.

And I know who she was and I created her as a character. I knew what she valued, what she wanted. And I was, you know, we're fortunate enough as an audience to see both things play out. It is weird because I'm very into, I do have those existential, like if I did make this decision, what would have happened? And how, you know, how, how would things have panned out?

And the reason why I loved the script so much when I read it was, she's okay in both lives. She ends up being okay. And there is no one path that you go, oh, that was the right path. Or that was the wrong path. It's truly just two different paths. And I think, especially in your 20s, things happen every day, relationships, and things, you know, people, you can get pregnant. And you think, oh, my whole life is just gone, or my whole world is shifting. And I don't think that's always,

I don't think that's a, has to be a bad thing. I think there are millions of ways your life can turn out. It's based off decisions you make every single day, but in the end, things are okay. Things end up okay. I think if you stop and put too much thought into every decision you make, you're going to live a very treacherous life of feeling like you're walking on eggshells. I think it's a matter of saying, I mean I personally like to look at it as the universe has my back. And so I think this film also resonates with how I feel in that regard of this woman had to, she had a positive pregnancy

test and a negative one. And you see two possible scenarios out of a million of what her life could have been. And you see the journey she goes on through both and how she still has the same ambition. And she doesn't lose herself in having a child. She still stays who she is. And she doesn't lose her ambition and when she goes to LA and Go through the hardships of trying to make her career work. She doesn't Give up, you know, it's sort of a perseverance story and how you don't have to lose yourself in the things that happen to you. You can still Stay you. Yeah, the thing that resonates most with me, with that message and the whole conversation we've

had today is this idea that even in one life, you can be so many things. Yeah. And I think we always are trying to make this choice, as you're saying, like, it's like, well, do I do this and how will that impact me? Or do I do this? And it's like, you could probably do both. Yeah. I mean, we've probably, you've lived so many different lives.

And I know most people, yeah, and so are I. And most people I know have lived loads of different lives. And I think we feel forced to live one life and one truth. And I don't think that's true for anyone in reality. And when you force yourself to live one life and one truth, you actually limit what you started with was with all these experiences and all these experiments and an openness to all these feelings. So, you know, I like that idea of the two lives, ultimately, that both work out okay. And recognizing in one life, you can live three lives or seven and things can be okay. With that in mind, I want to shift towards, you've made so many changes in your diet, your health, your experience, chronic fatigue, you know, and we haven't talked about that. So let's

dive into that actually deeply. I've been through chronic fatigue. It lasts a long time. It led to deeper gut issues. It's led to so many lifestyle changes. It was stuff that also just snuck up on me without me even being aware because I was living so much in the mind of my heart that I wasn't even aware of what my body was going through. And so I was grounding back into my body. How does it feel to live your career and experience chronic fatigue? You know, actor days are sometimes 18 hour days, if not more early mornings, late nights. I think people don't realize the lifestyle of making a movie

or making a show where you're in a trailer all day. It's not the most comfortable, inspiring atmosphere as people think the career will be. How does that work with chronic fatigue and diet and eating a diet? I often do. Yeah, I mean, I say to myself, I'm like, damn, I'm in the wrong career. Not, I don't actually believe that, but you know, when I, when I, I'm in the wrong career. Not I don't actually believe that. But you know, when I, when I, I'm someone who very much needs at least eight hours to function. So sometimes when it's a four hour turnaround or I have to get up and go on a plane quickly,

I'm like, Oh God, this is a challenge for me. But because it's something that I love to do so much, I truly just run off of the pure joy I find in what I do. And it's not, you know, I take naps when I can, but I also am very much under, like, now at this point in my life, really taking my gut health seriously, trying, I've treated my body like a junkyard for a very long time with what I've been eating. And it's got to a point where earlier this year, I knew I needed to make real changes because I was so unhappy with how I looked,

be one, but also I felt that I was doing a great disservice to my body. I spend so much time trying to better my mental health and I don't put any of that into my physical body. And there's all this new research on how depression is directly related to your gut and all these things. And I'm like, okay, we're going to take this seriously. And it is a truly reprogramming of bad patterns and habits that I've grown up just immediately going to the fast food, to processed foods. And it's truly been about educating myself on the better options and reading ingredients and choosing the less convenient alternative. And I actually think that the chronic fatigue

has slowly started to improve. It's amazing. So heavy to you. Because of it. So heavy to you. I mean, me too. It's been, I've been dealing with this. Basically, since I was diagnosed with depression,

when I was 14. Yeah. So it's just now, and it's always, I don't know if it'll fully cure itself with my diet, we're getting there, we're trying, but it is a, it's always, I don't know if it'll fully cure itself with my diet. We're getting there. We're trying, but it is a, it's an everyday thing, small steps, not trying to completely change everything all at once. And I think obviously in these hard times, food is a great comfort and offers a lot of,

to me, at least it can be very comforting. So I do turn to food sometimes to fill that sort of emotional need. But again, recognizing that, not judging myself for it, just trying to make healthier decisions overall is what I'm very much trying to do. Me too. Yeah. Yeah, I can relate to everything you just said. It's a daily practice.

Yeah, it's a daily practice. It is. How would you describe your current purpose in life? Yeah, I can relate to everything you just said. It's a daily practice. It's a daily practice. It is. How would you describe your current purpose in life, like, you know, as in where you're at right now or even today or? The current purpose. And the reason why I asked that is because I believe that, you know, when you're healing, when you're growing, when you're going to all these journeys, like, there's somewhat

of an intention, if you will. What is your intention, then then if that's easier? My intention, and I've actually had this intention for a very long time, and I don't really believe that, you make a birthday wish, if you don't tell, don't tell someone you wish, you know? Like, ever since I can remember, every time I've seen a shooting star blown out birthday candles my wish

Always has been I want to be happy and My intention is to find true happiness and and peace With myself and that is my purpose right now to find that. And that's a big task, but it is, but that's the intention and to, I find it so, the spiritual journey has been so encouraging to me because once you start,

you never stop. It's not something that one day you're gonna go, I'm healed, I'm good, I'm good. It's truly for the rest of my life, I will be seeking out growth, and that is so, I'm so happy about that. It is, I'm like, I will always, there's always more things to learn.

There's always something else to explore within myself. And that is so exciting and wonderful. Yeah. I love that. I am. You're so right. Like the feeling of dumping, ending or figuring something out is where all the pressure comes. Yeah. Right. When you're trying to complete something or you're trying to end something, you're trying to get something over the finish line.

Like that's where all the stress and pressure and intensity comes from. Whereas when you say, trying to complete something or you're trying to end something, you're trying to get something over the finish line. That's where all the stress and pressure and intensity comes from. Whereas when you say, well, I'm pretty much going to live with this. I had some of the other day asked me, actually, it's just jogged my memory. Someone said to me, they were like, well, how do I forget my past so I can move forward? I was like, you probably won't forget your past. No. And it's probably not a useful place to put your focus

in trying to forget your past. And knowing you'll never forget it, liberates you and then you can actually move forward and keep developing. And I find that sometimes our fixations are on completely the wrong target. I agree. And so we spend all this time trying to forget something.

Yeah. And knowing that pretty much none of us can actually physically do that. Well, that's what I feel about our conversation. I'm like, damn, I truly have been thinking, I need to find myself. And now I am, oh, I actually need to just create it. Yeah. So that's been, yeah. Thank you for that. That has been a impactful thing. Well, you let us there. Well, we got there. We're gonna do it. All right, now we'll go to the final five.

These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. Okay, one word sentence. One sentence is, I don't know what the official breakdown is, maybe seven words, I don't know, making it. Okay, okay. All right, so what is the best advice you've ever received? I will say, my dad always told me growing up, find a job that makes you happy.

Have a career in something that makes you happy. It makes the world a bit different. That's grace. Second question. What is the worst advice you've ever had or received? Probably. Don't cry. Yeah.

Question number three, something special that your mom did for you when you called her all those times, something that you remember that stood out. I think just her telling me that she would be there whenever I needed her. Sometimes just hearing that is so calming. So her reassurance that you can text me when you need me. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. I love that. Question number four, something you think people misunderstand about you if they don't

know you deeply. I think my outspokenness, I think, is sometimes misinterpreted attention seeking, whereas I just sometimes can't keep my thoughts to myself. But it's never from a bad place. It's from a place of let's have a conversation. Not, this is my opinion and it's right. It's, no, I'm just trying to add my bit to the conversation, whether it's helpful or not. Yeah. It's going to be there.

I love that. And fifth and final question, which we ask every guest since day one is, if you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? One law? Yeah. It can be anything. Take it time.

Take it time. This is a. Okay. One law that anyone had to follow. The law that I would create is you are not allowed to tell another human being what they can and cannot feel Period That's a great one. We have talked.

It was so much fun getting to know you and honestly hearing about your journey in such an intimate, vulnerable way was so special for me personally. It was for me as well. Thank you. I've been so looking forward to this. Thank you. I had such a great time and everyone who's been listening or watching back at home, I want to make sure that you share what stood out to you.

I think there were so many incredible things that Lily mentioned genuinely. So many amazing points, so many insights, so many great reflections that she had. And I love knowing what connected with you because, and I know she'd love to know too. I love to know. She's not in a long, if you're not watching.

She'd love to know too. So please do tag us on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, you're allowed. TikTok'd she'd love to know too, so please do Tag us on Instagram on TikTok on Twitter. You're allowed To talk Instagram Twitter like do tag us to let us know what stood out. What was the point? What was the part because this is one of those ones that I think you're gonna listen to a few times And as I said before there are moments in this episode that I want you to repeat and listen to over and over again Maybe multiple times a week because that repetition to hear that message again is what really gives us that permission to do it in our lives. Lily, any final words, any thoughts, anything you want to share?

Just thank you. Thank you for having a space to talk about things that I two years ago didn't know were things to talk about. So I'm very grateful to have come into this world of wellness genuinely and that you create this environment for the conversation. Thank you. I deeply appreciate that. Of course. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering

new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What do a flirtatious gambling double agent in World War II?

An opera singer who burned down an honorary to kidnap her lover and a pirate queen who walked free with all of her spoils, haven't comment. They're all real women who were left out of your history books. You can hear these stories and more on the Womanica podcast. Check it out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen.

The one you feed explores how to build a fulfilling life admits the challenges we face. We share manageable steps to living with more joy and less fear through guidance on emotional resilience, transformational habits, and personal growth. I'm your host, Eric Zimmer, and I speak with experts ranging from psychologists to spiritual teachers, offering powerful lessons to apply daily. Create the life you want now.

Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.