The One You Feed - From Toxic Perfection to Honest Care: Boundaries, Healing, and Wholeness with Sophia Bush

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm really so curious about why we have leaned into generationally these choices to other each other. I wonder if maybe it would just be too overwhelming to truly love everyone. But I'd like to see what would happen if we tried. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold

Starting point is 00:00:49 us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Online people become avatars, easy to compare, easier to attack. Offscreen were complicated, contradictory, beautifully human. Sophia Bush joins me to talk about stepping off the pedestal that other people build, naming what hurts, and replacing toxic perfection with honest care. We get into the benefits of curiosity over fear, letting boundaries protect us, and the small rituals that change culture, like a weekly call to your senators, or keeping a folder of

Starting point is 00:01:41 true feedback for the days that your inner critic gets loud. If you felt erased by the scroll or reduced by your own self-talk, this episode offers a sturdier, way to stand. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Sophia. Welcome to the show. Hi, Eric. How are you? I am doing very well. I am really happy to have you on. We're going to have a wide-ranging conversation about a lot of different things today, but we'll start like we always do with a parable. In the parable, there is a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter, and she says in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf. which represents things like kindness and bravery and love.

Starting point is 00:02:25 And the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops, and she thinks about it for a second, and she looks up at her grandmother, and she says, Well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Starting point is 00:02:48 It means a lot of things to me. I think one of the most important is this notion that both of those extremes, both ends of the emotional spectrum, are within us all the time, and that I think there's incredible opportunity for redemption and for growth in the notion of which one you feed. Because I think it works much more like a pendulum than something that's just black and white. And if you've had a day that's filled with frustration or anger, if you find yourself feeling terrified or competitive, you can feed the gratitude. You can feed the curiosity. You can feed the

Starting point is 00:03:34 humanity. You can feed the willingness to learn something. And I think that the reason that that parable really resonates with me, and I would imagine with so many people, is that it reminds you that you always have the chance to begin again and feed the best of yourself. I love that idea that we always have the chance to begin again. One of the things I love about the parable is that it sort of makes it sound like, you know what, both these things are going to be here on a pretty regular basis. And so it normalizes the human element of that. And so when we realize we've been feeding one, we go, okay, I can just change direction, like you said, start again. Yeah. Because I think there's a design.

Starting point is 00:04:17 And I don't mean to dismiss our desires to be good. But there is a desire that I think can feel a bit juvenile to be perfect, to only be positive. You hear conversations about toxic positivity now in the same way that we're talking about toxic masculinity and systems of oppression. And this idea that we're only bright and shiny is actually, I think, quite dangerous to us. This idea that that we're supposed to ignore or turn away from the, quote, bad emotions, you know, from our fear, from our anxiety, from our jealousy or our feeling of being lost or small at times, I think that's what makes those feelings into foundations. When you have a thought and it's bad, and so you keep it as a secret, secrets solidify things. And so I think part of my journey as an adult is to find

Starting point is 00:05:17 the places where I have been angry or fearful and try to nurture that part of myself. It feels very young, that part. But I think if we can accept, quote, the bad, it ceases to be a boogeyman. And it's just, you know, it's another, like, kid in the room. I think about adulthood as learning to be the pilot of the station wagon of all the younger versions of yourself. You piled them all in the car. And if you make the quote unquote bad into the one you try to keep in the trunk, you turn it into a monster rather than just another passenger. Yep. And I think you speak to that really well in your podcast. And when I've heard you speak in different places, the line you said, something along the lines of everyone wakes up in the morning

Starting point is 00:06:03 and wishes they looked a little different than they do and wishes they had a little more energy than they do. And I think that's such a normalizing concept to hear it from people that a lot of folks would look up at you and think, oh, well, she has it all, right? And I love this idea that we all have that element in us of going, you know what, I can always wish I looked a little bit better. I can always wish I felt a little bit better. I can always wish I was a little less afraid. But these are just part of being human and we're never exempt from them. Exactly. In a way, it's gamified. And it's gamified because if we're insecure, we want to buy more stuff we don't need. And it's gamified because we all live on our phones. We swipe through screens,

Starting point is 00:06:52 we toggle social media, even like a video game. And we look at all these flat versions of people and we think, well, that person really has it together. Their family seems great. Their career feels awesome. And yet everyone you talk to who's a three-dimensional human in their world says, oh, yeah, I'm completely terrified about this and I'm anxious about that. And o'h, working on this thing has been so stressful, fulfilling, and I feel grateful, but man, it was hard. And you realize there's just so much more color and reality to it. And what's very interesting for me as a person who believes vulnerability is important to us as humans and also who lives a partially public life because of what I do for work is I see how easy it is for me to gamify other people.

Starting point is 00:07:46 two-dimensional profiles. And I'm on the receiving end of how painful it can be when people do that with me. Because what I see is this very understandable opening for where people are in pain, where they say, oh, well, that person's got it all. So I'm going to send them a really shit message. I'm going to knock that person off their pedestal. But a pedestal is something other people put you on. It's not something you feel that you're on at all. You're just a three-dimensional person in your life, whatever your life is. And so I'm really fascinated by where we find ourselves in this moment of evolution and expansion in terms of consciousness and the way that we have been reared in an environment that has these psychosocial storytelling tendencies that can make us

Starting point is 00:08:38 not see each other. To me, that's the wolf I don't want to feed. Do you find any challenges in presenting sort of all the versions of yourself and also promoting the work that you do out in the entertainment world. Yeah, I guess I'm curious how you navigate sort of those challenges because the nature of a public life as an actress, as a podcaster, much less so, right, is that we are sort of promoting our work, yet also underneath it, there's so much more to us than sort of that image that gets pushed out. My work is what I do, and I really love it, but it isn't who I am. And I find that it's quite impossible to only promote work because then I feel like a

Starting point is 00:09:32 sideshow act. You know, I feel like I'm a performer in a circus rather than a person. And for me, in my human experience and in experiences, I've been able to investigate and share and discuss with so many people, one of the things that I think is most painful as a human is to feel unseen, to feel erased. And so I am unwilling to participate in my own erasure. And there are people who want me to behave like a sideshow act for their entertainment who really don't like that I own my spaces and my channels as places where I freely express thought and learn in public and am open for discourse. People really don't like when I set boundaries.

Starting point is 00:10:23 I had a very far right group decide to really put a target on my back just after the new year. And so I shut down my comment section. And people really didn't like that either. But for me, that was protective of my energy, my space, and my boundaries and also my safety. So I see what people don't like about a person who's willing to be as wholly themselves as possible or is comfortable in their own space and then also change the rules when they see fit. But I like less just standing up and saying, hey, this project is great, this show is cool. I don't feel fulfilled by that. And so I love to go out and talk about the work because every time I do work, I'm learning about people.

Starting point is 00:11:07 and I crave spaces where there are deep connections and deep conversations. It's the reason I started a podcast because sound bites from interviews always felt so shallow to me. You know, you'd talk to someone for 30 minutes and then you'd read three sentences of 100 that you uttered in the article and go, oh, that feels weird. I guess I say all of this just to say, I find myself at a point where I understand that there's an ebb and flow to that, to how comfortable I feel with it, how safe. safe I feel doing it, and also to how empowered I can feel by choosing to be more whole

Starting point is 00:11:44 out in the world. And then, you know, there are things I try to keep to myself. I try to keep my family more for me. I try to keep my private life, at least somewhat private, so that I have something that only has my hands on it. That makes sense. I want to pivot to something that I heard you say in a conversation and I love this and it was sort of framed up in the sense of church but you uttered this line that I thought was beautiful it was what's my house of worship nature and what feels like church to me showing up can you share a little bit more I was struck by those couple of lines so I'm always amused at how expansive and thoughtful humans can be and also how sometimes small, our brains like to be. This idea that this is our planet and that we made it,

Starting point is 00:12:42 this is our world, I just find hilarious. The millions of years of evolution that it took for us to be exactly here. And even if you come from a spiritual tradition where you believe that this was created by a person who we would, you know, give the visage of man, that it wouldn't be miraculous. the complete system, not just the human body, but the planet that it lives on, and every creature on it and the way that they all work together. I mean, I just spent a week on a nature reserve in New Mexico, and what they're finding is that if the ecosystem is not perfectly imbalanced, the entire thing falls apart, a type of trout in this New Mexico river system

Starting point is 00:13:26 was on the verge of extinction because the wolves had been hunted out of New Mexico. And without the predators for the elk, the elk had destroyed the riverbanks and the riverbank collapse was killing all of the trap. To me, what a perfect lesson in the fact that as man, as humankind, we want to control our environment so much that we destroy it. To me, there is nothing more holy or clarifying than getting out in an ecosystem and seeing how perfectly balanced it is. And we're a part of it. We are not the controllers of it. We are not meant to harm it. We are not meant to, you know, bend it to our will. So yeah, nature, the environment, that to me feels like a true house of worship. There's no bastardization of it or influence of money on it. And it's not lost

Starting point is 00:14:15 on me that many organized religions have been controlled by finance and again by attempts at control and largely by attempts at controlling women rather than working in any kind of systematic or systemic flow. And I think that struck me as a kid who grew up in a family that is full of Catholics and Jews and agnostics. And I went, hold on, how do all these people live together? And what do we really believe? And so studying Catholicism and then Christianity deeply and Judaism deeply led me to study Islam deeply, led me to study Eastern traditions deeply, to learn transcendental meditation at 23 to read the Upanishads and the Rig Veda. and the Dada Ching and point of all of it is to be a steward of your natural community.

Starting point is 00:15:04 And so for me, I think if we can get out of these boxes we put ourselves in and I'm right, you're wrong, and really pay attention to humans and our place on this earth, not our control of it, I think we would feel both more holy and more free. I see God everywhere when I'm in nature. I feel like humans want often to use God to control other humans. And so the difference in the energy and in the flow of those things feels really, really clear to me. And I find the most holy interaction with other humans when I show up for them and when I feel shown up for. And again, And it feels like a way to stand and uphold someone's right to be a creature on this planet. Those for me, when I'm really at my best self, those feel like the places where spirituality and activism and being a good neighbor, you know, whether to my next door neighbor or the folks across town or the folks across the country, that's where those things feel really true for me.

Starting point is 00:16:22 That term spirituality is used a lot of different ways. Is it a term that is personally meaningful to you? And if so, what does it mean to you? Yeah, spirituality feels incredibly meaningful to me. And I think also for me allows me to relinquish some desire for control or for an answer. There's so much wisdom and so much tradition that I think we could learn a lot from. I think we're seeing incredible flexibility and opening in a lot of these realms and spaces, whether it's interfaith groups or the incredible healing work we see, you know,

Starting point is 00:17:06 scientific organizations like maps doing with psychedelics. You know, they're carrying veterans through PTSD. They're carrying women through deep sexual trauma. It's almost laughable to me because I grew up in an era where, you know, I looked at the bad kids doing drugs and was like, ooh. And now I go, oh, right, the Earth makes medicine that helps people heal from the things that people do to each other. Interesting.

Starting point is 00:17:33 Okay, not lost on me. Not lost on me that some of those incredible traditions come from cultures that are indigenous and that our indigenous population on planet Earth currently is estimated to be 5% of humans. yet indigenous tribes are the stewards of 85% of the planet's biodiversity. So for me, again, it just seems like a light bulb, an indicator of a place to go and learn. And I'm enamored by modern science and by literature and by all of these things. And yet I think there's also incredible wisdom in the spiritual traditions of communities that have historically cared for earth as sacred. And for me, and again, I know there's a million times a million kinds of

Starting point is 00:18:27 belief sets in the world. But for me, real spirituality is holistic and includes nature and offers again and again the opportunity to feed the best of us. I want to turn that towards a phrase I heard you use, again, I never remember where I hear these things, but you said something I thought was really interesting. And you described maturity as tenderness. Can you elaborate on that? That's a really interesting idea. Well, I think about that, even as it pertains to your previous question, for me, spiritual maturity is incredibly tender for the world around me and also holds space. for not knowing. For me, anyway, as a kid who was always very anxious and very into solving problems and understanding outcomes, being okay with not having an answer requires some real maturity for me. Holding space for so many things to be true at once and so many things to be true that I don't even know yet requires a maturity. And I think when I can do that, when I really am leaning into that

Starting point is 00:19:47 best part of myself, I find that my judgments are less judgy with myself and other people. I find that my anger, even at things that would make anyone justifiably angry, like injustice or suffering, my anger is less immediately fiery. And so for me, I really think that the capacity to be more tender, even in response to things that have caused me pain, the willingness to be curious as to why someone might harm another, those things signal, again, just for me, a maturity, a real expansion of my emotional tool belt, because it's less, this makes me happy, this makes me angry, that makes me furious, and this feels exciting, and it's much more, complex. I'm much more capable of holding many questions and thoughts and feelings at the same

Starting point is 00:20:46 time. I'm capable of spending time at a maximum security prison with the anti-recidivism coalition and sitting with groups of men who have done unspeakable harm to other people and seeing the absolute beauty in their humanity and in the work that they're doing to heal from their own generational emotional trauma, to understand how they inflicted that trauma on their communities. That might sound like an extreme example, but we've all experienced that. You know, even now, I'm working on a reunion project

Starting point is 00:21:21 with some of my girlfriends who were my very first co-workers in the business, and we talk about how we didn't have the vocabularies, we didn't have the emotional maturity as kids to not, get caught up in certain things to lead with vulnerability and just ask each other certain questions. We just didn't have it then. And we have it now. And what an amazing journey we've been on together and what an amazing opportunity for deepening of a friendship. And I think in so many arenas, we can all look at ourselves and say, ah, I understand why that might have triggered me or that might have made me suspicious of that person or whatever fits in the fill in the

Starting point is 00:22:09 blank, right? But to be able to look back with wisdom and with tenderness for yourself and for others and to change your story, you know, that, that to me feels like maturity, that feels like healing. And honestly, it feels spiritual because to undo the residue of what you've carried, You hear people say, especially in circles of women now, talking about unpacking this, you know, dangerously patriarchal society, people say, you know, if you heal it now, you heal it up your mother's lineage. There's a lot of conversation around changing what women carry. And I think that that's honestly true for all of us as people, because I'm sure, Eric, that for you as a man, there are things that you carry, that you want to undo, that you want to heal as well. just to be able to be an even more whole version of you. I don't want to generalize, but I do think after all the wonderful conversations I've been

Starting point is 00:23:09 able to have in rooms I've been so privileged to be in, I think we all have stuff to unpack just from being little human beings alive on this big planet. Check in for a moment. Is your jaw tight, breath shallow? Are your shoulders creeping up? Those little signals are invitations to slow down and listen. Every Wednesday I send weekly bites of wisdom, a short email that turns the big ideas we explore here in each show, things like

Starting point is 00:24:05 mental health, anxiety, relationships, purpose, into bite-sized practices you can use the same day. It's free. It takes about a minute to read, and thousands already swear by it. If you'd like extra fuel for the weekend, you also get a weekend podcast playlist. Join us at one you feed.net slash newsletter. That's one you feed. Dot net slash newsletter and start receiving your next bite of wisdom. All right. Back to the show. I had a conversation with Resma Manikin recently. He wrote a book called My Grandfather's Hands about racialized trauma. And what's really striking to me in the book is he talks about the trauma of being an African American here in the U.S. But he says, in order to understand that, you've got to go back to the trauma that white folks were inflicting upon white folks

Starting point is 00:24:59 throughout the history of Europe. And so that that trauma started way back when and has been rolling downhill ever since. And so when we talk about intergenerational trauma, you know, he made a point. He said, most of the people who came to America were fleeing. And when you're fleeing something, it's generally because something not good has been happening to you. It wasn't doing it in a making excuses for thing. It was a holistic seeing of, hey, you know, the trauma, to your point, it just keeps kind of coming downhill and everybody has some of it to unpack. And that if we can do that, I've often thought early

Starting point is 00:25:42 in my life, my son graduated from college recently. But when he was young, I was so focused on just like, can I not pass on what my family's been carrying for generations? You know, can I break that chain? It is kind of wild, isn't it, to consider the ways that human beings have, for millennia, harmed each other. For lack of a better term, it seems like it's our species crossed to bear. The visual that comes to mind is just, it's like we're repeatedly smashing our head into the walls. I don't understand why we can't wake up to the fact that nothing except a healthy relationship. to each other on this planet is real. I read this incredible book preparing for the TV show

Starting point is 00:26:29 I'm getting ready to go do. I'm playing a cardiothoracic surgeon, and so I went really deep into medical books and so much research, which for me was so fun. And I started with this book that Bill Bryson wrote called The Body, because I loved the idea of starting with this, you know, history writer talking about systems and how would he get into real science. And he talks about, at one of the labs he visited, sitting with a doctor who off of a cadaver sliced a little postage stamp size square of skin that was, and I might be misquoting it because now I read this book a year and a half ago, but I think he's had something like seven or eight sheets of paper, thick, and when you held it up to the light, completely translucent, he had no idea what color this

Starting point is 00:27:19 person was. There was no way to tell. And he was so surprised. by that. And the doctor looked at him and said, isn't that crazy? We've killed each other for generations over this. That's all it is. You know, past a few sheets of paper, it doesn't exist. And it reminded me immediately of, you know, when we were having these debates, which I still can't believe we had to have over marriage equality at the Supreme Court. And there was that photo that went around the internet, an x-ray of two people kissing. So you just saw the skulls and, you know, the little skeleton hands holding the faces. The whole point was, you don't know who these people are.

Starting point is 00:27:59 You don't know if this is a man and a man or a woman and a woman or a woman and a man or two non-binary folks. You don't know, and it doesn't matter. That's not the point of loving someone. I'm really so curious about why we have leaned into, generationally, these choices to other each other. I wonder if maybe it would just be too overwhelming to truly love everyone. But I'd like to see what would happen if we tried. Yeah. And I'm kind of curious as to whether we're evolving in that direction or not. For all the love of indigenous societies, which we should have,

Starting point is 00:28:40 because there's a lot to revere there, you know, old societies were very much tribal in both the positive and the negative aspects of that word. There's some very positive aspects of that word, there's some negative aspects of that word, which is like you're either in or you're out, you know? And so I wonder whether it's something that we might be evolving towards. And I guess that's maybe a broader question to ask you. Do you think as humans we're getting better? Well, I think the issue is, look, change is scary for people, whether it's good or bad. You know, there's all these studies that show that change causes stress, even if you've gotten a promotion. You know, it's a good change. So I think it's understandable why we have such a hard time leaving our bad

Starting point is 00:29:29 baggage outside the door and carrying only our good baggage through, you know, as we evolve, as we age, as we move through generations. I get it. You know, I'm not trying to say, I just have no idea why we're like this. But I also think we are on a natural trajectory toward enlightenment, a deepening education, more understanding. Even if you think about the advancements of science since you and I have been born, our understanding of things like dinosaurs and dark matter and the societal effects of traumatic systems, the psychological research. I mean, even the way my mom talks to me about how I, as an eventual parent, will be armed with information that my parent's generation just never had available. It makes me think of Dr. King saying the moral arc of the

Starting point is 00:30:20 universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We're meant to evolve for the better. So whether we're talking about feudal societies who used to, you know, war in fields, we're not supposed to do that forever. I don't think. I think we're meant to trust the facts and the science and the social science and the psychological evolution of how to be better to each other, while preserving the best of us, knowledge of plants and the planet, how to keep ecosystems healthy, how to harken back to my friends in the river, how to fish for what you need, not for excess so that you do harm. I think that's the point, but it seems like we have a really hard time letting go of the bad and leaning into the good. And maybe that's the next wave. Maybe that's the job of our moment is to unpack why

Starting point is 00:31:19 we're so afraid to shed our bad baggage. You know, maybe it's my kids' generation that is going to undo another layer of that. I don't really know, but I do think we are evolving into a more tender, into a more inclusive, into, you know, hearts and ears first society. And I think you can see that by this sort of death-nell, you know, violent thing happening right now of the old guard, by this lean into authoritarian politics and into election interference and into voter suppression and into medical assault on oppressed peoples. I mean, to have historians say they've not seen anything like what's happening in America right now, like the actual era of Jim Crow, that is meaningful. That's not based on a feeling. That's based on data and information. That's based on

Starting point is 00:32:26 historical study. And I think that our movement toward justice, even if it feels like a very center justice for a lot of people, I think the largest voter turnout in history. And an America where 94% of people support universal background checks and believe in a woman's right to choose and believe that oppression and systemic sexism and racism are bad, I think that terrifies the old guard. And I think upon further inspection, the folks in the old guard, guys like, you know, Mitch McConnell, who are literally trying to take America apart so they can remain in power, need to have a real moment of self-interrogation because I bet you, you at the root of a lot of that is, A, he makes a lot of money, you know, being in power

Starting point is 00:33:15 the way he is. So I'm sure that's part of it. But I also would imagine that at the root of that root, there's a part of him that's afraid that we'll do to him what he's done to us. Is he afraid that if the women are in charge or black people are in charge that will do to him? You know, this old white guy who's been oppressive who poses for photos in front of Confederate flags, does he think we'll do to him what he's tried to do to us, what he's done to us? And if that's the fear. Perhaps it's time for him to admit that he shouldn't be in charge because he's been unjust. So it's a big question. I don't know if it's a clear answer, but I do believe in us and I am not taking lightly the way our evolution for the better is being fought in policy

Starting point is 00:34:01 right now. I find it to be really scary. You talked earlier about being able to hold two things in mind at the same time. And I often feel that. I feel like if I look at the arc of history as a whole, I look and I go, I think we're becoming better people. You know, I mean, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, we would have had a debate about whether torture is okay, broadly on a human scale. And now, I think by and large, most people would go, no, you shouldn't torture. There might be some subset would say, well, you know, there's a couple situations where the ends justify the means, but broadly no. Or just, you know, when you look at, there's still way too many people in slavery today. But in comparison historically, it's a completely different amount. So how do you hold on one hand,

Starting point is 00:34:48 okay, we seem to be getting better? And then at the same time, what you said, which is to remain every bit engaged in making that evolution happen. Well, I think we have to be really clear about what we want to believe. Because, again, the data shows that there's actually more enslaved people on Earth now than there were when the transatlantic slave trade was operating. There are people all over the country and all over the globe who work in indentured servitude, people who've had their passports taken away by their, quote, employers. There are millions of people, especially people of color in this country, who are in forced labor camps in prison. And, you know, even just last week when we're recording this anyway, there was an article about how Russia is going to start

Starting point is 00:35:37 forced labor in its prison system again. And the article said, just don't call it a gulag. And a bunch of people shared it and said, has anyone been paying attention what happens in the private prison system in America? Who do you think makes our license plates? Where do you think so many things in this country come from? And so I think it's really important for us to be willing to be honest about the ways these systems haven't actually. actually ended or reduced, they've just changed clothes. And I think being willing to sit in that discomfort and that frustration, I know for me, just now when I thought about that, I felt so helpless. I felt that feeling of helplessness in my chest. Like, how are we going to fix this?

Starting point is 00:36:19 This is such a big system. How do we change it? But we keep going. We keep putting all of our weight and our might at the tip of the spear to bend it. And I think that, It takes, again, some real maturity to say, oh, I might not see an entire system change this year. Because when I was 20, I thought we could do that. I thought, oh, we're going to win an election, and then everything's going to change. I didn't understand enough about policy and systems. So now I think what would be the greatest thing we could do this decade? Yes, every year there's an urgent fight, but what will it look like to keep our foot

Starting point is 00:37:03 on the gas and to change this thing, to move the needle incrementally and steadily. And I think that I don't have all the answers, but I believe that if enough of us are willing to lean into facts and fight for truth and fight for each other, that we can do a lot. And, you know, I think we also have to keep the pressure up and demand that our leaders not negotiate with people inciting terrorists in our country. You know, I really think we can't act like one group bringing a knife to a knife fight and the other group showing up with a Newsy are doing the same things. And at the end of the day, upholding our democracy, upholding voting voting rights. making sure everyone gets to participate, that should be bipartisan. And I think that might be the real fight of this year for us. And my hope is that moving forward, if we can turn down some of

Starting point is 00:38:15 the insanity, and by the way, it's insanity that's been stoked by people, again, who want to make money on it. Like, Trump was making money on this stuff. Mitch McConnell makes money on this stuff. Fox News makes a lot of money on this stuff. If we can stop these coordinated disinformation campaigns, and we can just as people agree that there are some baseline facts. Like, everyone should get to vote. People of color should not have their ballots thrown out. You know, things that should feel basic. I think we could move forward. I think if we could understand that our democracy is supposed to be bipartisan and also that protecting the climate, like, that shouldn't be controversial. That shouldn't be a thing that Democrats want to do

Starting point is 00:38:58 and Republicans don't. I mean, the very notion that the, quote, conservative party is the most anti-conservationalist, like, burn it all down, you know, for our benefit today. But who cares what happens to our grandkids? I'm like, guys, come on, this has become comical. It's become almost ridiculous that the truth has been so weaponized, that science has been so weaponized, that we're debating over this stuff. I mean, I talked to my mom last night about what a revolution the polio vaccine was when she was a kid. And the kids she knew who got polio and the people who died and how scared everyone was. And, you know, my mom's like, if you tell me I have to get a flu shot that has a COVID booster in it, every three months I'll do it. You know, if it's once a year, fine. I get a

Starting point is 00:39:46 flu shot once a year anyway. I mean, you know, advances in medical science. Understanding of weather patterns, meaning that if we bolster our mangrove, and our wetlands on the coasts, we will keep the coasts safe from hurricanes, but we also will create better weather patterns for our farmers in Middle America. These are just facts. And wouldn't it be nice if we could establish a base where we can meet there and then debate about how best to achieve progress? When I get overwhelmed, by the state of our politics, that's where I most feel despairing is when I feel like we can't

Starting point is 00:41:05 even agree on the nature of reality. I mean, we can debate the deepest nature of reality, right? But to your point, there are some things that are just very clear. And we just can't seem to agree there. And that makes it really hard to have discussions about policy. Because I think solving the problems that we face, that is complex. Because we are a complex world and a complex society. There's a lot of us, but we can't even agree on what they are that we want to solve. And that's where I start to feel slightly overwhelmed. But I don't want to leave us in overwhelmed because I want to bring up something that you said that I thought was really helpful. And you were talking about activism. And you said, we need everybody to be all in on

Starting point is 00:41:50 something. Nobody has to do everything, but everybody has to do something. And you just suggested pick your thing, whatever your cause, whatever the thing you care about is, don't worry about solving everything, but put your energy and attention deeply in there. Yeah. I really think, look, everybody's got a gift. I'm a good public speaker, so I can get up at the rally and talk to an audience. I can introduce folks. I can spend the privilege of my community and platform with my podcast and interview

Starting point is 00:42:25 activists and thought leaders and storytellers on work in progress and and share their stories wide. Some people really don't like to talk to other people. They like to draw. And those are the people we need to create the posters for the marches and create the art campaigns that go viral on the internet so that the policymakers pay attention. You know, everyone, no matter what end of the spectrum they fall on has the ability to do great work and to show up and to give their gifts. We need incredible writers and researchers, copy editors, folks who will go in and do the fact-checking on something so that when we're advocating, we're doing it exactly right. Everyone has a part to play.

Starting point is 00:43:14 And I think going back to that earlier idea of wouldn't it be nice if we could agree on some foundations. I also think there's something everyone can do. I do this every Monday. I have a calendar appointment. And every Monday I call my senators. Every single Monday, I spend 10 minutes. If it's a big week, maybe I spend 15. And I talk about currently the Voting Rights Act. I talk about abolishing the filibuster so that we can get things done. I talk about climate change. I let them know what is important. And I think it would be incredibly powerful if we all started to do that. Because if they started to realize that whether we're talking quote unquote blue states or red states, everyone's calling to talk about climate. It would be really meaningful. And so I think

Starting point is 00:44:04 there are some things we can all do that are the same that don't take a ton of time, but that have a ton of impact. And then I think there are things, arenas, ways of participating where we can all lean into what we're really good at, what our sort of callings are, what our spiritual gifts are. And we can use those things to show up for each other. And again, it's that showing up that to me feels really spiritual. I love that idea of just having a standing date to call your senators. I make those phone calls as particular issues come up, but it's not a steady every week. And look, some weeks I miss it. Sometimes I'm on a plane.

Starting point is 00:44:46 Sometimes I'm working. But I really, really try to keep that up. Do they know you by now? They're like, oh, hi, Sophia. It's you again. Just at the office. It's funny how often you'll get a machine. And I'm like, I wonder if the person who tallies these, like, has, you know, has a little, like, thing.

Starting point is 00:45:05 by my name and just, like, keeps the lines going. Yeah, it's her again. She's called this many times that they probably don't, but I like to think they do. That makes me feel special. As a way to start to head into the home stretch here, I'm always curious, what lesson do you think has taken you the longest to learn in your life?

Starting point is 00:45:25 Hmm. I think it's taken me a really long time to understand that the constant, critical figure in my head does not need to be in charge and also doesn't need to be listened to. And a lot of people are really surprised, you know, when they find out the way my anxiety presents or how self-critical I am. I often am met with, oh, you seem so confident. And I always offer to people, I'm really confident for us. I'm confident to go out and advocate for a cause for my community to talk about showing up for us. Things that are just for me, that arena is the one I

Starting point is 00:46:12 am least apt to participate in or have ownership over. And that has been a dichotomy I have had to learn about by doing some serious self-exploration and self-interrogation and for me to learn that the little, you know, parrot on my shoulder that tells me that I'm doing it wrong or that I'm failing every second of every day is a parasite, not a leader. Mm-hmm. I heard a joke yesterday. What was it? I lost my obese parrot.

Starting point is 00:46:51 It was a great weight off my shoulder. Wow. It's pretty bad, isn't it? But I get it. I do get it. We really can get bogged down by things. And in this sort of self-inquiry of where that comes from, I've really had to also learn that as humans, and especially, you know, folks who are wired like me, who are a little anxious and who love to read and love research, we can find the proof of any story we're telling ourselves. So if the story is, I'm a failure, and today's going to be the day that everyone in my life who's been pretending to love me all this time is going to tell me they don't and that they want me to leave, you'll find evidence of it.

Starting point is 00:47:38 And so a really interesting arena for me to step into now is, oh, what if I write on the board in front of me, I'm doing the best I can. I have deep love in my life I've worked very hard and plan on continuing to do so and do my best for others I mean I feel clammy saying that out loud to you and to the folks listening at home that feels uncomfortable for me

Starting point is 00:48:10 but it's also not untrue and so what if that's the story I look for evidence of and what I think is so good about that is that those affirmations are ones that you might say, well, it's a little bit of a stretch to believe it, but not really, because there's lots of evidence of that. There's been a bunch of studies on affirmations, and they seem to show that the people they work the best for are the people who don't need them. So the people who can look at themselves in the mirror and go, I am beautiful. They work well for those people

Starting point is 00:48:41 because they just think they're beautiful, right? For other people, though, affirmations can be helpful, but they have got to be in the realm of believability. And the ones that you just listed, are great examples of that. Right. I work really hard, and I'm going to continue to work hard. Like, that's an affirmation that you can go, okay, all right. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:03 I can believe that. And something I've thought about as well, and I think this comes from some of the wonderful spaces I've been in. I made this film with Alana Glazer, and the movie's really dark, but Alana's like pure light and goodness. And we've talked so much about the experience because we just had a premiere, which after, you know, a year and a half in the house feels crazy to finally be at a moment where we're safe enough to do that. And she was so generous with me when we were just together in New York. And she shared with me that she learned a lot from me while we did this project

Starting point is 00:49:41 together. And I'm looking at her going, you wrote this, you produced it. You created, you start in it. What do you think of me? You learned something for me. But I took her feedback and I listened to it. And I actually took a picture of some of the feedback she sent me in a text message. And I put it in a little folder in my phone. And I called it for me. And when I finished my pilot, my incredible showrunner Katie Wesch sent me this long paragraph about what I did on our show and the way that I led our set, you know, there's a thing in my industry called the number one on the call sheet. And when you're number one on the call sheet, like you're the captain of the ship. And she talked about the way I led the set as a number one and the things I did. And I took a

Starting point is 00:50:27 picture of that. And I put it in my little album. And every once in a while, I'll go in and I'll read this little collection of these things. And I realize, oh, here's evidence of the truth. So it's on me to tell myself a true story. Yeah, yeah. I think I've heard that said in a slightly different way, which is sort of like, why am I so willing to believe my internal narrative, but I'm not willing to listen to and pay attention to the external narrative that people are telling me about myself? Yeah. And so you're kind of doing that, you know, yeah, let me start to let what other people are saying about me in. And not the nonsense. You know, you also have to think about who are judges you trust. Yes. Because some random troll on the internet is not a judge I trust for anything,

Starting point is 00:51:18 but if they say something terrible about myself, I think, is that true? Yet I don't trust the good feedback from the people I respect most in my life. You know, we have to do the work to change those things. That's where I think some of our emotional maturity has to come in. Because for years when I was younger and I had less tools, it was really easy to hide that these were things I was afraid of and then I was just hiding from people. Then I just didn't really talk to people. I didn't open up to people. I didn't have friendships that are as deep as the friendships I have now. And so I had to grow up a little bit and make some space for my fear and let people in on that and also choose to lean into what is true from people whose judgments I believe in

Starting point is 00:52:05 um rather than you know some strange peanut gallery that doesn't really deserve to take up any space in my emotional world right and then the internal peanut gallery because we all have all of those things yeah we all do we all experience this stuff in our own ways and and i think it's really helpful to know that that's universal and i think if you're really doing the work understand that this is a universal struggle, puts you in the position to look in the mirror and be like, all right, you got to get over yourself. Like, you're not special that you're scared, that you're bad. Everyone is. So get over. What are you going to do with it? Like, get over it. And I've, I've had to give myself a little bit of that. That's been a bit of my journey as well, is like,

Starting point is 00:52:56 being the auntie I wished I'd had, being like, girl, what are you doing? Like, stop, stop it. Stop wallowing. It's, it's annoying. Like, get over it and get out and do something. And I have had to find that humor because otherwise it's just like it's too cerebral and emotional. And I can be cerebral and emotional all day. I got to lean into the funny too.

Starting point is 00:53:20 Before you check out, pick one insight from today and ask, how will I practice this before bedtime? Need help turning ideas into action? My free weekly bites of wisdom email lands every Wednesday with simple practices, reflection, and links to former guests who can guide you, even on the tough stuff like anxiety, purpose, and habit change. Feed your good wolf at one you feed.net slash newsletter. Again, one you feed.

Starting point is 00:53:49 Dot net slash newsletter. Well, I think that is a wonderful place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show. And it's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you. It's been so nice. I love the way that you ask questions and ponder what we're all doing here. You're a person who is so calming and inviting.

Starting point is 00:54:11 I think you do such a beautiful job of giving so many people permission to be a little more themselves. So thank you for including me in that. Thank you so much. This has been so fun. Thanks, Eric. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do.

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The One You Feed - From Toxic Perfection to Honest Care: Boundaries, Healing, and Wholeness with Sophia Bush

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