TED Radio Hour - Mind, Body, Spirit - Part 2

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

We know it's important to listen to our bodies and trust how we feel — but it's not always easy. In part 2 of our series Mind, Body, Spirit, TED speakers explore ideas about movement, pleasure and rest. Guests include choreographer Ryan Heffington, news anchor Lee Thomas, aerialist and educator Adie Delaney and therapist KC Davis. TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without ads. Sign-up at plus.npr.org/ted.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks. Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED conferences. To bring about the future we want to see. Around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.

You just don't know what you're going to find. Challenge you. We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy? And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading.

From TED and NPR. I'm Manoosh Zamorodi. Welcome to Part 2 of Mind, Body, Spirit, our special series exploring new, strange, and wonderful ideas about how we think, move, and feel. And today, we're focusing on how to feel good in our bodies. One, two, three. You've probably heard this song.

It's chandelier by the artist Sia. And back in 2014, when the video came out, it went viral. Part of the reason was that the moves looked less like professional ballet or modern dance. And more like things that we just do every day. So hold a fork in one hand and you just flip your wrist. It's almost like you're turning on a car. Fork, fork, fork, fork. Take that fork, stab it in the wall.

From there, your fingers are a cockroach and you walk them up the wall. This is choreographer Ryan Huffington. And the Sia video features an 11-year-old dancer named Maddie Ziegler, who found the whole sequence of moves absolutely hilarious. You know, it's like, cockroach up the wall, clean your mustache. She'd just brush your mustache with your fingers. Okay, this is where you hiss like a possum. She's like, what? I'm like, yeah.

Open your mouth and hiss like, she would just laugh every time she did it. She's like, what is this? So Ryan is kind of a big deal in Hollywood. He has choreographed dozens of music videos, TV shows, and movies. He just won an Emmy for HBO's Euphoria. But he doesn't think that dance is something that only professionals should do. It's important to understand what dance is for you, because everyone innately has it in their soul to dance. I mean, tell me one kid that doesn't dance.

For a kid, dance is freedom. Okay, but Ryan, so how did you start dancing? I think I was just born moving. Truly, though, I mean, my parents at six were like, maybe we should put this kid in dance class. You just can't stop dancing. And I loved it. It was so freeing for me.

I could let myself be who I was. And it really, I think, did a lot for my self-esteem. and my happiness from a very, very young age. You know, I don't know about you, but you can't really dance and be sad or, you know, it just doesn't work. Like, once you start moving, you know, everything changes your outlook on life and yourself and your joy. It just transmutes and you can't help but be happy when you dance, you know. I mean, for me, it's the idea of bringing also joy to a movement so that maybe I'm not that, excited about doing again.

Like, I'm sitting at a computer all day, Ryan. Give me some moves that I can do to spark some joy and dance sitting at my laptop, please. So imagine your shoulders typing up and down. Like, your fingers are typing, your shoulders are typing, and then like wiggle your butt. Maybe your butt is typing, you know, on your seat. And like, again, everything could be dance, you know, and is dance. Ryan learned from an early age to let his body take the lead. But for those of us who spend our days tethered to laptops or taking care of other people,

sometimes we feel disconnected from physical sensations. Or maybe you hear talk about body positivity, pleasure, and consent, and think, well, those are nice concepts, but I don't actually feel them. Well, this week, new ideas about moving, touching, and appreciating the body. For choreographer Ryan Huffington, it's become his latest mission to bring more dance to more people. And it all started with something that he called Sweatfest.

Here we go. Shake it out. Shake it out. I think it was the second day of pandemic. I had this download that I needed to teach this class. Unlike any other class I've taught in the past, usually it was choreography. Usually it's very structured,

like a classic dance class. And I think I'm just going to try a five. follow-along, super fun experience for people. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to call it Sweatfest. I'm going to, you know, have a playlist that I make and come up with, you know, these dance moves, which are like happy hippie, the heavy diaper, the rainbow, the Nancy Pelosi clap, you know, things that just people know. And I would just teach and I remember looks, you know, oh, there's 6,000 people in class.

But friends are like, no, boo, there were hundreds of thousands of people in class at certain points. Texas or Switzerland and Portland. Hey, William. People were drawn to it. I think people needed it in that time where it was very frightening for a lot of people around the world. It just snowballed into something that gave me purpose. And it was a very special time for me. and people and dance.

Arms out. Yes. At first, I would think, oh, my gosh, taking an online class with, like, a famous choreographer, Ryan Huffington, that sounds really intimidating. But that's not what it was at all. No, you know, it was never about technique. It was never about corrections.

I would never give a correction to someone that was trying to express themselves the way that they wanted to express themselves. then like, I just lay down a blueprint. It's these everyday movement that anyone can relate to. We all have our own beautiful ways of moving, and this is worth celebrating. Here's Ryan Heffington on the TED stage.

It's time to extract the judgment out of our dance experience and set free the preconceived notion of what good dance is. And instead, find out how your own dance is. own body loves to move, and find out that inner rhythm that feels so good. Think more a body, less critique. So you may ask, well, how do I access or unlock this dance magic? Well, once you have the perspective that life is dance, yeah, you'll begin to see dance everywhere around you all day long like I do.

Like now. Witness how you're sitting in front of me. Your posture. Are both feet grounded? Is one leg crossed over the other? Where are your hands placed? Or envision a parent rocking their child? Tying your shoe.

Drinking a glass of water. The stylized head release. Did sweat fast and you're experiencing regular folks, turning regular movements into an expression of joy into dance. Did it change you as a choreographer? It showed me how accessible dance could be. I don't know if I really realized it at the time. And this was another level of allowing people to hop on this dance train, right?

That was very kind of rudimentary and fun. And I think it ignited something in me that, I had almost a responsibility to get more people to dance and experience happiness and how simple it is. It was big and, yeah, it changed me for the better. It makes me think that a lot of us are pretty disconnected from our bodies that we either don't feel what we could do or, you know, in some cases, just don't move all day long. Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking a lot about this. At what point in our lives do we start becoming more aware that we're different or sometimes that turns into insecurity?

And the judgment starts to creep in. And I have this idea that it would be so amazing if we can kind of intercept this. As an adult, knowing it's going to come for that child or children. Maybe we have conversations with them prior to this and just let them know like, look at how you dance and you're so free. You're beautiful the way you are and we should celebrate that. So if they start hearing this, it might give them a little better of a chance to keep it in them, this joy, this happiness, this freedom. And then hopefully they take that on into being adults. Yeah.

And I guess I'm wondering, you know, do we let our minds take over our bodies? Do we tell ourselves, like, you look ridiculous, you have two left feet? And what should we be saying to ourselves? Or maybe we should just shut up and not talk to ourselves and let our body be the guide. I think that's it. I always tell people in my class, like, it's just getting yourself out of the way, you know? And the possibilities after that, I mean, through dance class, I feel like people have quit their jobs, people have changed their relationships, because I think they start to understand what true happiness is.

They feel it. They feel it in their bodies. I was just talking about this in class last week, like, dance is magic. The way you walked into class and the way you feel now after class is leaps and bounds a difference. And people are smiling. They're happy. I'm like, this is alchemy. We've created magic.

And I'm like, just take a moment to thank yourself because you've showed up and realized what that feels like. All right. Can we do something like I've never done this with an interviewee before? But I'm going to stand up. And I just wonder, can you just do like a one minute sort of thing with me? And listeners, if you are inspired to move along. with us. Please do. This is the no one's watching and you can't see your instructor one minute dance class with Ryan Huffington. Let's try it. Oh, I'm stiff. Okay. So we're going to stand up here,

shake your shoulders out, get the tension out of your upper body. Now shake that booty. Shake one leg, lift it off the ground. Shake that foot, foot, foot, foot, put it down. Other side. Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. Reach your arms up over your head. Open your armpit. And then from here, one fist out at the time we're just punching the ceiling. Up and up and up and up and up. And now shake your booty as you do it. Ah-uh. Uh-uh.

Uh-uh. This is serious. Uh-uh. Move to the right. Move to the right. Move to the right. And to the left. Move to the left.

Move to the left. Back it up. Back it up. Back it up. Back it up. Stay there and grind it and grind it and grind it. Now move forward. Go. Forward and forward.

And forward. Punch it out. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch. All the negativity, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch it, punch, punch, and punch, and punch, and punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch. Class is over. That was choreographer Ryan Huffington. You can see his full talk at TED.com. On the show today, part two of our special series, Mind, Body, Spirit.

I'm Anush Zameroody, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. are. Stay with us. Before we go, I want to tell you also about something new that is happening here at TED Radio Hour. It's called TED Radio Hour Plus. When you become a plus subscriber, you get extra special episodes, more ideas from TED speakers, and behind the scenes with our producers. For example, Plus members just got a guided meditation with Dan Harris to accompany our mind episode. This week, you'll get more joyful choreography for Ryan Huffington. And none of it, not these bonus episodes nor the regular show, have ads. So please join us.

Go to plus.npr.org slash TED or click the link in our show notes. And if you can't sign up right now, no worries. Ted Radio Hour will still be free in your feed every week. But if you are ready for fewer ads and more ideas from TED, and you can show your support, please go to plus.npr.org slash TED and thank you. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manus Shumeroti. And today on the show, part two of our special series, Mind, Body, Spirit. We all want to feel good in our own skin.

But for people who appear on camera, the pressure to look a certain way can be intense. Yes. It's a very cosmetic business. It's not just voice. It's a picture as well. And you do have to be presentable. What my mom used to say, you have to be presentable. This is Lee Thomas. I am a anchor and entertainment reporter, and I've been broadcasting on television since 1991. Woo! Yep. Long time. Yeah. From a very young age, Lee had always dreamt about being on TV. Where I came from, my example of television was this little boy named Rodney Allen Rippey.

Hi, I'm Rodney Allen Rippey. He had a commercial when back in the 70s. Half the kids, break up the car, did you have a ball? He was a little black dude, and I said, hey, I could do that. I could talk on TV. Lee Thomas joins us now with some helpful hints. By his mid-20s, he was. that dream was coming true. Yeah.

I was at WABC in New York, the number one station. I was on the number one newscast, the 5 p.m. I was the entertainment reporter on that newscast, and it's the highest rated local newscast in the country.

Talk about stress. Despite his fast-paced schedule, we felt like things were going well. But then one day, he noticed a mark on his hand. It looked like a freckling of light color on my hand. So I didn't really pay attention to it. I figured I hit my hand.

It would, you know, it would fix itself. Later, the barber pointed out a spot on the back of Lee's head. That was about the size of a quarter. So I immediately did what any grown man would do at the age of about 25 or 26. I immediately called my mom. And my mom said it was a stress mark and that it would go away. But it didn't. More spots started appearing on Lee's skin. I had like three on my hand. I had two on my scalp. And then I had some in the corners of my mouth about the size of a dime on each corner of my mouth. And that's when I went to a doctor and was diagnosed with Vidligo.

What did the doctor tell you? Had you heard of Vitilago before? Never. Never heard of it. And when he said it, I didn't know what he was talking about. He said you have Vidlaigo. It's a pigment disorder. It takes the pigment out of your skin. And then it turned into, you know, Charlie Brown's teacher. Ro-W-W-W-W-Wat-R-Rat-Rat-Rat-Rat. He said Vitiligo is autoimmune disorder, like rheumatory arthritis or lupus, where your body attacks itself. In the case of Idligo, your body attacks the melanocytes, which are the pigment-producing cells in your skin. And they destroy them. So you basically are without pigment. How did you react? Do you remember?

Yeah. So my head's spinning. You know what I mean? I was a young guy in New York on a great newscast, you know, having a great time. And I didn't know how to process it. And I'm walking to work, talking to myself. I mean, what's going to happen now? Am I going to turn all the way white?

Is it? Am I going to still have a job? And the most popular person at the time was Michael Jackson. And Michael Jackson said he had Vidligo. Number one, this is the situation. I have a skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin is something that I cannot help. And Michael Jackson also lost all of his pigment. When Michael Jackson was a boy, he was a black kid.

And now as an adult. He looks like a white man. That's ignorance. I don't control the fact that I have Vidaligo. So I was afraid that I was going to be that dude that was black one day and white the other on television. And I really did not. I didn't know how to handle it.

Lee Thomas picks up his story from the TED stage. But I just couldn't give up. I couldn't quit. So I decided to just put on making. and keep it moving. I had to wear makeup anyway. It's TV, baby. Right? I just put on a little more makeup and everything's cool. And that actually went very well for years. I went from being a reporter in New York City to being a morning show anchor in Detroit. And as the disease got worse, I just put on more makeup. It was easy. Except from

my hands. See, this disease is progressive and ever-changing. That means it comes and goes. At one point, for about a year and a half, my face was completely white. And then, with a little help, some of the pigment came back. But living through this process was like two sides of a coin. when I'm at work and I'm wearing the makeup or wearing the makeup outside and I'm the TV guy, hey, how you doing everybody? Great. At home without the makeup, I take it off and it was like being a leper. The stairs constantly staring at me, the comments under their breath. It was tough and those were some tough years. Like one time, this little girl wasn't paying attention.

She's about two or three years old. She's running. She runs directly into my leg and falls down pretty hard. I thought she hurt herself. So I reach out to try and help the little girl, and she looks at my vidligo and she screams. Now kids are pure honesty. This little girl, she wasn't trying to be mean.

She didn't have any malice in her heart. She was just afraid. I stayed in the house for two weeks and three days on that one. It took me a second to get my mind around the fact that I scare small children. And that was something that I could not smile away. It seems like that was a particularly low point for you when it came to people's reactions and end how you think of yourself in your own body. How did you get out of it?

It was tough because the truth of the matter is, and it's a tough sentence to say, I scared small children. That is a tough thing to get your mind around. But how did I get out of it? I was watching Oprah and my basketball bag, like my gym bag with my basketball shoes on my basketball, or right by the TV. And I decide that I am, I just want to be okay for it. like, you know, an hour. I just don't want somebody to say squat about my skin for an hour, just one hour. And when I go play basketball, the dudes that I play basketball with have seen my skin change

over the years. They know exactly what's happening. And they don't care. As long as I make my jump shot. And so I went to the gym. Dudes were like, where you been? They didn't care. I played.

Had a great time. And I went and took the shower and the gym. You know, like normal. Like, it was normal. And I say, you know, bye to the guys at the desk on the way out. See your fellas next time. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, my God.

It was like breathing. You know what I mean? It's like breathing. It was normal again. It sounds like you also reconnected with your body. You appreciated what it could do. It could sweat. It could play.

It could have a jump shot. It could take a hot shower. It could feel good and not just thinking about your appearance, which, you know, can be so tedious. Yeah. And I realized that what was happening to my body didn't stop everything that my body can do. My body had this disease, Vidaligo, that wasn't painful, wasn't life-threatening. I was the one that's stopping movement and the other things that my body could do. Eventually, you wrote a memoir in 2007 about your experience, living with Vidaligo.

I mean, and you would think, Lee, that since then, things have changed. We have a supermodel, Winnie Harlow, who has Vitiligo. We talk about body positivity in society and people feeling good in their own bodies. But at the same time, I guess we still live in a place that is incredibly, well, I was going to say judgmental, but maybe it's just uneducated. Both, yeah. I was the first person that I know of that started talking about Vitiligo openly. Even Michael Jackson didn't like talking about it. So people would interview me and ask me about him.

But I wrote a book and the Smithsonian got a copy of my book to put it in the Smithsonian Institute because there was not a book on this before. And so I realized one thing very quickly is that I am a man with Vidlaigo who can articulate his journey very well. And talking about Vidlaigo is besides my daughter, one of the most things I am most proud of. It's an interesting place to be in society right now. because people are less tolerant of each other. But at the same time, I feel like we're leading to a place where we all can come together in understanding.

And I think identity is big, big, big. Because for me, when I first would walk down the hallway without my makeup on here at work, people were not able to look me in the eye, but I kept doing it until they were used to it. And then we're having conversation, and it's not the conversation. It's just, oh, Lee doesn't have his makeup on yet. It was normalized. So, Lee, I do have to ask, you still choose to wear makeup on air. What is your thinking behind that choice?

And I guess do you think you'd ever get to the point where you'd say, you know what, I am going on camera, I'm going to do the news, and I am going to look exactly as I do when I'm not on TV. No makeup. For me, I don't know. I know that even if you don't have it, LIGO, everybody puts on makeup to even out their skin, white, black, everybody. It's something that people do for television. And even if I didn't put on this brown makeup, I would have to put on something because I have oily skin. I don't know if I'm ever going to stop putting on them. I think I'll stop doing TV and that I'll just stop wearing the makeup.

for me, especially now, I'm proud to be an African-American. I'm proud of my heritage, and it's most identified with darker skin, brown skin. And I like that, you know, for an hour a day, five days a week, I get to be brown. Like, I get to be the way I was born. I get to be that. Now, is it me? Yes. And when I take off the makeup, you know what, that's also me too.

At the broadcast journalist Lee Thomas, his book is called Turning White, a memoir of change. And you can see his full talk at ted.com. On the show today, ideas about the body. And for Australian trapeze artist A.D. Delaney, her body has always felt best in the air. Yeah, anything off the ground is where I shine. I'm one of three siblings and I was the only one that was kept on a leash as a child. Literally, were you like one of those kids who literally they had to harness them?

A literal harness. I remember it. It was rainbow-colored and stretchy. Because I had a penchant for running up to cliff edges and looking over and, you know, when you go on those like, I don't know, hikes and things and that you have bridges that take you over spaces. and if that bridge is made of metal grating, I would lie down on it so that my eyes could see through the metal grating

and I could pretend that there was nothing between me and the ground. Did you want to fly? So badly. I wanted to fly so, so badly. So it only made sense that when 80 got older, she joined the circus as a trapeze artist. Now you may be thinking, Barnum Bailey, cannons, clowns, the whole bit. Well, that's not too far from my reality.

But for 80, when she performed high up in the top of the tent, it was quiet. When you train, you have the safety line, you have the harness, and it's running through pulleys. And when you take that off, it's quieter. There's not the click of the carabiners or anything. So that really highlights that moment when you let go of the catcher and you turn around and you're just there in space, weightless for a moment, and going for it.

And that sensation in my stomach of flight combined with adrenaline and disbelief and all of it at the same time. And then it's just magic. You often performed with a partner, right? That's right. Describe that relationship. Do you have eye contact with them? Do they have their hands out? Are they catching you?

Are they throwing you? Just tell me a little bit about how it works and how you communicate with each other. There's cues. so the catcher will be sitting up there and they know what order the tricks will go in. And so it could just be a look. And then I'll wait for them to set their knees. So slide down into their knees. And then I can start my swing.

And I trust that they're going to get into position at the right time because we've started in that prepared position together. And learning to do that together is a journey. I mean, you must know each other really, really well. by the time you're trusting someone, you use the word trust. By the time you're trusting your life with someone, there must be, I mean, the word is intimacy, right, between each other? Definitely. Yeah, intimacy is just anything that makes you feel close to someone else. And that is a very unique form of intimacy for sure. Was there ever a moment when you were like, nope, I'm not doing it, I'm not flying, I don't feel right about this, I don't know, something's not right.

Absolutely. There are hundreds of thousands of, of reasons why you might not be feeling it that day. And yeah, we check in and we cut tricks before the show. Sometimes we cut tricks during the show. Someone might get injured. Our tightwire Walker got hit in the face and lost a tooth in the middle of a show once and we had to do the rest of the show without her. But yeah, it's constant communication. And sometimes it's as simple as I'm not up for that today, and people will just respect that. And they don't need justification or reason necessarily

because we're talking about physical safety and our lives here. So it's okay to be like, I'm just not feeling it today. After years of performing with various circuses around the world, Adi decided to return home to Australia and open her own circus school. I realized that I was feeling far more fulfilled through teaching circus than I was performing it.

And then I opened the studio where she taught trapeze, mostly to kids. How do you feel about it? Really good. Yeah, I feel like you could probably do it. Do you want to have a go? Okay. That's it. Yes.

So, Adi, how do you teach trapeze to your students? Because, you know, for some people, there can be this real disconnect between what our brain is telling us to do and how our bodies actually respond. I often make a joke when I first introduce people to aerial equipment and I say, just so you know, everybody's brain falls out as soon as their feet leave the floor. And I tell them it's a perfectly normal thing and we will learn to keep our brain in our head as we're up in the air. But that's what I'm talking about is exactly what you just relayed, which is that disconnection, which is a lizard brain, our primal brain, our flight, flight freeze response, which one of the first things it does is it disconnects from the logic and thinking part of our brain.

So that's what's happening there and that's the connection that we need to maintain if we're going to effectively learn to use our bodies in the air or otherwise. Just a minute. How to trees artist Adi Delaney found a way to a play to apply these same lessons to what can be a very difficult subject. On the show today, part two of our series, Mind, Body, Spirit. I'm Anoush Zamoroti, and you're listening to The TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

I'm Anoush Zomerode. Today on the show, How to Feel Good and Safe in Our Bodies. We were just hearing from trapeze artist 80 Delaney. In 2015, 80 started her own circus school. And not long after that, she decided to take on another challenge too. So I found a job at the Sexual Assault Support Service in Hobart. Quick warning here. We'll be mentioning sexual assault, but no specific instances or descriptions.

I work in the training department, which means that I'm going out into schools, where we are a primary prevention program. So ideally we are in there before anything has happened. However, if anyone knows anything about the state of sexual harm in the world, it's nigh on impossible. So we're going in with a view to showing young people what positive intimacy should look, feel, and sound like. And that is done for high schools, at least, older kids within a framework of

if and when you want to have sexual experiences. When we're talking to younger kids, it's very much about instilling a sense of autonomy and letting them know that everybody is the authority on their own experience, including them. But 80 and her co-workers kept running into one problem. You cannot teach consent. It's something. that has to be experienced. It has to be role-modeled and it has to be embodied. They wondered, was there a way to show and demonstrate consent in an everyday way? And there was definitely a day when I was like, that's what I'm doing every day after school. I'm already doing it. And the beauty of it is that it's not explicit. Kids aren't coming to my circus

classes. I'm like, okay, we're going to learn about consent today because it's, a practiced skill. And I very often in my circus class as well, I don't talk about consent explicitly, one of my catchphrases is definitely your body, your choice. Was that your eureka moment? Absolutely. It was in realizing that not everybody understands or is able to listen to their body in the way that I had learnt to. And so when I had gut feelings like this doesn't feel right today or I just know this is going to go wrong, That was my sympathetic nervous system, and that was me intuiting what that meant for me, which was I don't feel safe, and listening to that and acting on that. So, Idy, how do you define consent when you're talking about it and modeling it for kids in your class?

So a lot of the time the definition of consent is cited as being permission, but I think they're very different. Permission is transactional, and consent is an agreement where everybody has to. choice. So when we say things like, I got consent, I gave consent, I had consent, it makes it sound transactional and it makes it sound like an object that can be passed and then is done with and can be forgotten about, when in reality, it's a verb, it's something that we're always doing, it's something that we're constantly reassessing. And so when I talk about consenting, I very often use that I-N-G, because it helps us reframe. it in our heads.

So things like, are you consenting? Was I consenting? Are we consenting? So yeah, it's really about time and choice. So people having a choice and then having time to make that choice. And that's often the cheat sheet I give young people when I'm talking explicitly about sexual experiences is if you're not sure if someone's consenting, give them more time, give them more choice.

And that applies to circus too. Yeah, but the inside. of your foot. That's it, yes. Nice. How's that feel? Perfect. Perfect. Good. That's it. I'm going to put my hand on your back. There you go. I'm going to hold onto your leg. Then I'm going to put my hand here. Now do you feel safe to put your hand on the bar? I got you. How's that for you? Okay? Yeah. Look, I can stop you going forwards and backwards. See? Woo, I got you. So I'm around a lot of, I'm around a lot of awkward teenagers. by virtue of the fact that I'm a parent.

And part of me thinks, like, yeah, this is great. Like, if kids get used to talking to each other, like, this is totally possible. But there's another part of me that is saying you are asking for a level of maturity and self-reflection that I am not sure any teenager is capable of. I agree entirely. And I think that's why one of the really strong messages I try to get across is how to be a little bit more self-aware and how to identify those safe places for ourselves and safe people for ourselves so that we can look after ourselves. And I definitely think that the generations below me at least are a lot more self-aware. There's a lot more comfort in talking

about things like anxiety and self-care and mental health breaks and all of those kind of things. I think there is a lot of hope. And I actually think that adults sometimes have. a harder time getting their heads around this thing because it takes a little bit of vulnerability and sometimes it takes some radical honesty. I've definitely been on a bit of a journey myself with applying the things that I'm teaching because so much of how I was raised is not that. Yeah. So things like learning to say no at all was really, really difficult, particularly for hugs. I gave myself a challenge to start saying, no, I didn't want a hug. And that was super, super hard for a long time.

But actually a lot more accepted than I thought it would be. You know, if you deliver it in a way that's like, oh, not today, people move on really, really quickly. It's not a big deal. And then applying that to my students as well. And because physically assisting people is necessary when teaching Ariel, a lot of the time, not all of the time. And so checking in with people if it's okay to help them is a big part of my job.

And for people that are new to classes, the reaction is nearly always the same. I ask them if it's okay if I help them by putting a hand around their hips. And they just wait for me to do it. Like they're not expecting it to be a genuine question. That's a really amazing and empowering thing when someone realizes after a couple of seconds that I'm not just rushing in and putting my hands on them. it's like this little spark goes off in their brain. They don't quite know what to do with it. And that's the start of the journey. That's the start of realizing, oh, yes, I am the one that

gets to say what to do with my body, despite the fact that I've entered this space where I've paid money and I have signed up to this class where I am agreeing for you to teach me these things, it doesn't mean that I'm at your mercy. I mean, I love that because presumably once someone has that experience, of someone really listening and responding to their wants, needs, desires, they get used to asking for it again. That's right. And then they start noticing where it's not happening.

As I was getting ready to talk to you, I read a report that shows that U.S. teen girls, they call them in crisis. And one of the things they say is that almost 20% of girls reported experiencing sexual violence in the previous year, which is an increase over other years, other previous years. And I guess we should make clear that this is, we're talking about a serious societal problem that needs to be addressed. Definitely. Which is violence against women and girls. Yes, and anyone. Sexual harm can affect anyone and does. But yes, disproportionately women and girls. And it's a systemic thing. and it will take years and decades to change, unfortunately.

But we have to do it. We have to start role-modelling these behaviours because the reality is, and it's very hard to hear, but the reality is if we are not normalising consent, we're normalising the opposite. We all have a right to exist happily, healthily and safely, and everyone is entitled to their own bodies and what they do with their bodies.

If people are looking to have interactions that are fun and positive and pleasurable for themselves and wanting that for the other person as well, then we're already off to a better start than coming from a place of fear and shame and we can do that for each other. That's 80 Delaney. She's the founder of the circus studio

and an educator at the Sexual Assault Support Service in Tasmania. You can see her full talk at ted.com. To wrap up our episode, we want to talk about the housework that we do or think we have to do to appear like fully functioning adults. These often mindless tasks actually take up a lot of our energy.

And sometimes we'd be better off just letting our bodies rest, says therapist Casey Davis. Here she is on the TED stage in 2022. What if a new approach to cleaning could teach us a better approach to treating mental health? In February of 2020, I had my second baby. Because with the first one, I had some postpartum anxiety and my husband had just taken a very demanding job that was going to keep him busy, I developed a meticulous postpartum plan for myself. My family would rotate in and shifts for the first 60 days. The cleaning crew would come once a month. The new mom's group would drop off dinners, and my toddler would go to preschool. I was so proud of this plan, and it ended before it even began.

Because 2020 is when the COVID lockdowns happened, and all of that support disappeared overnight. In a blur, my days turned into breastfeeding difficulties. todd their meltdowns and depression. The dishes stayed in the sink for days. The laundry pile reached impressive heights, and there was often not a path to walk from room to room. And when I should have been catching up on sleep, I would lay in bed at night and think to myself,

I'm failing. Maybe I'm not capable of being a good mom to two kids. I decided to post a joke video on TikTok one day about my house turned disaster. Some funny shots of my kids. clutter and my dishes and my enchilada pan to a nice beat. And I got a comment. Lazy. Yeah, that stung. But I must be a glutton for punishment because I kept posting videos about my messy house. Video after video of all of the weird tips and tricks that I was using to try and get it back

in order while managing my feelings of being overwhelmed. And I braced myself for more criticism. But what happened was entirely different. In the comment sections of my videos, hundreds of stories came rolling in. Story after story of people with depression, ADHD, autism, burnout, bereavement, all struggling with these daily tasks. And it might seem odd to some of you that someone could struggle with tasks that are so simple. But are they simple?

You see, for some of you, all of the steps and the skills that go into care tasks run on auto-bus. pilot. But for millions of people, the autopilot is broken. If you have access to therapy, it's unlikely your therapist will ever ask you about your laundry. Yet here were hundreds of thousands of people in my comment sections telling me that these daily care tasks were a major pain point in their life. And so I started to wonder, what if we started with these care tasks, could making daily tasks easier, improve mental health quicker. Cooking, cleaning, laundry. It doesn't make you a good person or a bad person. Listen to me. Care tasks are morally neutral. When we liberate ourselves

from the idea that we are a good person or a bad person with care tasks, we can stop thinking about the right way to do things, about the way that things should be done, and instead start thinking about what we can do with our current barriers to improve our quality of life today. In a rare moment of folding clothes, I looked down at the baby onesie that I was folding, and I thought to myself, why am I folding this? Baby onesies don't really wrinkle. And even if they did, nobody cares if a baby's in a wrinkly onesie. Furthermore, I was probably going to change her four times before lunch. This doesn't need to be folded.

For the first time, I stopped thinking about the way that laundry should be done and instead started thinking about how I could make laundry functional for me. And I looked down at the fleece pajamas and the underwear and the athletic shorts and the tank tops and realized almost none of my clothes actually needed to be folded. And I haven't folded any of it since. My new motto is good enough is perfect. You have to give yourself permission to do a little, to do it with shortcuts,

and replace that inner voice that says, I'm failing, with one that says, I'm having a hard time right now. And people who are having a hard time deserve compassion. If it's too hard to shower today, grab the baby wipes. it may not be the normal way to do it,

but you deserve to be clean. If you're too depressed to do your dishes, get a two-gallon zip-lock bag and keep it in your bedroom, and it'll be there for you when you're ready to go back to the kitchen. Because you deserve a sanitary environment, even if you can't get out of bed. So what if mental health treatment started here? By shifting the idea of care tasks

as these external measurements of your worthiness to just being morally neutral tasks that you can customize to care for yourself. Because if it's true, that regardless of what you struggle with, you are worthy of a functional space, what else might you be worthy of? Thank you. That was Casey Davis. She's a therapist and the author of How to Keep House While Drowning. You can find Casey's Full Talk at TED.com. Thank you so much for listening to the second part of our series. Next week, part three of mind-body spirit. Stories from people who turned terrible situations into amazing ideas.

And rekindled a zest for life. This episode was produced by Andrea Gutierrez, Katie Montalione, Rachel Faulkner-White, and Susanna-Brown. It was edited by Sanaz Mejkampur and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes James Delahousie, Matthew Cloutier, Fiona Gehrin, Hesha, Nahata, and Julia Carney. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Special thanks this week to Malvica Dang. Our theme music was written by Romteen Arablewey. Our audio engineers were Patrick Murray and DeReshfield.

Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Colin Helms, Anna Feelein, Michelle Quint, Jimmy Coutier, Alejandra Salazar and Daniela Belizeo. I'm Anoush Zomeroidi and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.