We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - How to Talk to Kids About Hard Things: Sonya Renee Taylor

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

386. How to Talk to Kids About Hard Things: Sonya Renee Taylor  Sonya Renee Taylor returns to help us talk to kids about hard things like climate change, racial injustice, and sex. -The three rules to keep in mind when talking to kids about sex or any complex topic -Why sharing reality with your kids protects their self-esteem long-term -How to buy yourself some time when your kid asks you a tough question  -The best way to become a reliable narrator and guide for your child  Sonya Renee Taylor is one of many hands currently called to midwife the new world. She is a guide, poet, storyteller, vision holder, intuitive astrologer, and evangelist of radical love. She is the author of seven books including the New York Times bestseller The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love and her most recent offering for young readers The Book of Radical Answers. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of my favorite parts about the holiday this year was our recent stay when we went to go visit Glenn and Abby's family in LA, but we stayed in our own Airbnb a few blocks away. It was the best of both worlds because look you've got your privacy, you've got your own refrigerator, you've got your own beds, multiple beds by the way, and your own bathroom. And you know what? Then you can have your own bedtimes. It was just so nice to wake up in our own cozy place and have our own family time and then rejoin the larger family for the Christmas festivities and then retreat when everyone

needed a little breather. So here's the deal, whether you're traveling with family or friends, those extra rooms, the fully stocked kitchen, not only saves you a bunch of money, but it also makes a huge difference. If you're flying solo, you can make your stay your own little sanctuary.

If you're planning a winter getaway this year, I highly recommend giving Airbnb a try. Trust me, it's an experience you won't regret. Sonya Renee Taylor is one of many hands currently called to midwife the new world. She is a guide, poet, storyteller, vision holder, intuitive astrologer, and evangelist of radical love. She is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Body is Not an Apology, The Power of Radical Self-Love, and her most recent offering for young readers

is the Book of Radical Answers. Today we are learning from Sanya how to talk to our kids about the hard stuff. Money, sex, the planet, the things that we want so hard to get right with our kids that we often freeze up and don't try at all. Sanya's gonna help us try. This conversation is so important not just for parents or anyone who has a kid in their life, but just for any adult who's trying to get any clarity around these incredibly nuanced but important human issues. Let's go.

How are you? Are you in LA? Yes. Yeah, so we, Sonia, are right outside of LA. It's a beach town that's 15 miles outside of where everything's happening. So we are both in it and out of it. We have people staying with us. We are feeling it and seeing it in the sky. We don't know anyone who hasn't been evacuated.

And also we're safe. It's a very confusing time. And this morning we're talking about how sometimes it just feels like the universe is just like really hooking us up. I can't believe we're talking to you today. This is just, we're in it now. We're in the climate crisis, the Armageddon,

the apocalypse situations that we have been warned we would be in, you know, that idea that you will see climate change happening on your phone until you see it in front of you. And that's the way this goes. We have been talking about our dear friend, Adrienne Murray Brown, and how she's been telling us to, you know, gather your people, get your go bags. And I've been like, okay, Adrienne, like, it's just, you know, I'm loving you, but that's just.

Let's not be extreme. Yeah. And now I'm texting her like, fuck, what was I supposed to put in my go bag? I know you said it was gonna be too late. So. Extreme has happened. Yeah. Sanya, the reason why I am so grateful that you're here is that we are also people who are watching this all happen around us.

And for many of us, the most important part of this is how on earth, literally, do we speak of this to our children? How do people who are of the consciousness that we're in speak to a generation who we love so much, whose reality is completely different than we even experienced? And you have written, of course you have, written a beautiful book about, it's behind me, the book of radical answers.

And it's like, if you struggle with how to talk to your kids about everything that's important, sometimes the most important thing is not the what of what you're saying, but the who is saying it. And you are a person that if I was like, okay, kid, I don't know what the fuck to say to you about sex because I don't get it. So but I'm just gonna put you in this room with Sonia Renee Taylor and I feel confident that whatever you say will not put them in a rigid dogmatic box that they will spend the rest

of their lives trying to fight their way out of, but that what you will say will allow them to be that acorn you talk about that is just returning to self-trust and self-love and not a cage, but sort of like a fertilizer, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. So, Sonia, can we just start by, how do you talk to children about the planet right now? Yeah. You know, well, first of all, I'm just delighted to be back with you all. It's really warming my heart and remembering just like, yeah, what a kinship I feel in this space and so thank you for having me.

It's truth telling time is really what it is that I'm experiencing is like, there's a way in which we have based on our own traumas, based on our own fears, based on our own conditioning have thought that we were doing young people a service by lying to them and we haven't. And what that actually has done and what we've seen it do throughout history is it makes them ill-prepared for the world it is that actually exists. And it is possible to say to young people,

here's what we have been doing, and here is what it's created. Here is where we got it wrong. We have overvalued consumption. We've overvalued stuff. We've decided stuff was more important than the actual physical world we live on. We've decided that new phones and new iPads

and new skyscrapers and new companies were more important than healthy soil and a lot of trees and good water. And our decisions have impacts. And we are living in the impact of our decisions. But the other thing that we get to remember is that we get to make new decisions. We get to say, oh, we can change and pivot. Now, does that mean that we don't have to live

in the consequences of our decisions? No, we do. And we're looking at that right now. We're looking at the consequences of some really poor decisions that we made. And we also, from this point can say we want to do something different. What would that look like? And the power of young people is that this is where we get to enlist it. The brilliance that is their imagination.

Guess what? You haven't spent as much time living in the idea that these other things were the right things, which means that you are so much closer to what the right things might be. Like, you're so much closer to actually what Earth might really want. So let's imagine together, what do we think we could create together? And then we become partners with young people in envisioning a new world, rather than just saying, sorry, we saddled you with absolute devastation, go figure it out, kid, right? That's good.

Yeah, I always think about, I'm from fundamentalist Christianity, so you can take the girl out of the church, but it's just there, it's like my native language. I grew up Pentecostal, I understand. Okay. You're taking us through a process of truth first. We call it first the pain, then the rising,

or like first the crucifixion, then the resurrection. Kids can smell it when you jump to the resurrection before. So you're level setting. We skip something. Yeah. Here's the truth of it all. Here's the truth of it all. Here's the truth of it all. And then we move into imagination and creativity,

which leaves them not hovering in the terror. Because you can't really be creative and terrified at the same time. You can't. And here's the thing. If we don't tell the truth, we become unreliable narrators of the world. Yes. And then kids rely on themselves and each other the thing, if we don't tell the truth, we become unreliable narrators of the world.

And then kids rely on themselves and each other to narrate with the level of information and skill that they have at that time, right? Which is limited. And so our job as adults are to be reliable narrators such that we are trustworthy so that when we tell them, hey, we together can't imagine something new, they believe us. Because if we don't say that, then they don't believe us, which means they don't trust their own imagination, which means they won't lean into the natural skill set that they have.

So our job is to be solid enough narrators of the experience that they're living, that they feel their own self-trustworthiness through the trustworthiness that's the foundation that they're interacting with through adults. Yeah, they will not believe our what could be if they don't believe our what is. Is, absolutely, because why would they?

Like, you're not telling me the truth about life, so how could you be telling me the truth about me? Hmm. So if you're saying, I have truth about life, so how could you be telling me the truth about me? So if you're saying I have the ability to do all this, but you're lying about everything else, then you're probably lying about that too. Yeah, everything out of your mouth is bullshit. Yeah.

All of it's not true now. All of it's not true. That's what happens when we lie to kids. And so our job is to tell them the truth so that when we tell them the truth about themselves, they believe us. Ooh. Okay.

What do you say to people who think that their kids can't handle it and so they just don't talk about it because or think like that's too much for a kid because I can barely, I grieve and I get so upset when I start thinking about the reality of the climate or of police brutality or of the administration coming in, that you're just like, it's too much to saddle this poor

kid with when I can't even handle it. What do you say to that? I think the first thing that comes up for me is like, if the truth is it taps into a bit of anger in me. I'm like, there are truth is it taps into a bit of anger in me, I'm like, there are kids handling it right now. And the idea that your kid can't handle it is a position of deep privilege. Because there are children all over the world right now, figuring out the most atrocious

of situations, and at many times doing it without any support or infrastructure. And so your job as the adult in that young person's life is to create the conditions for them to be able to handle it. Which means that you're loving, you're compassionate, you're present, you're willing to hear, and that you have checked enough of your own stuff because the thing we're really saddling them with is our stuff. That's right. That's really when we say like, I can't, I don't want to saddle them with it. It's like, I don't want to saddle them with my terror, my fear, my disbelief about

what's possible. Well, then guess what? Grown person, go tend to that, go tend to that so that you can be a loving steward of the young person who will inevitably have to handle it. Cause guess what? The fire already burned their house down. They don't have a choice about whether or not they're going to handle it. It is what life is. So, pretending that we don't have the capacity

to handle what life is, it's just the story we're actually making up. Because the truth is, you're handling it. Now, could you be handling it better? Do we want to feel more powerful, more sovereign, more connected inside of our handling it? Absolutely. But one way or another, you're gonna have to handle it

because life delivered it. And so the question becomes, how do I say, life is gonna deliver my young person's circumstances that are gonna be difficult. What is my role in equipping them with the most powerful manifestation of themselves so that they can deal with life on life's terms without being dramatically impacted in really negative and traumatic ways later on? That's by dealing in the now, dealing in the present.

Requires, I think I've changed my mind about this. Like I used to think, you just walk in with them and you just don't know with them. You just say, I don't know, and you circle around the I don't know, and that is true-ish. But the more I think about it, the more I think the reason we don't know

what to say to our children about the planet, about racism, about sex, about money, is because we don't effing know. We have not taken the stillness, the time, the therapy, the community, the books. We have not done the work to have a theory. Whether it's evolving and changing as it should, it should. It shouldn't be fixed. But we should have an idea about what we think about things. Yeah.

And not only an idea. Like, here's the thing. I think we do know. We just don't like the answer. Yeah. I know that I have been really afraid of money. I know that I've been really stuck in scarcity for a long time.

And I don't like that answer. I feel like it makes me not look good. I feel like it makes me unworthy. It activates all my own childhood wounds. And so, no, I don't want to say that to my kid, except that then you become an unreliable narrator. And so the job is to say, I know that I've been afraid and I know that I don't want you to be.

And so here's, I may not know how to fix it, but we can go research that together. Let's go on a journey together. And then you become a companion in exploration with this young person in your life. So the answer isn't that we don't know. There are things we don't know. And I think it is fair to say, I don't know. And then to say like, but let's be curious together. Let's imagine, let's read, let's explore, right?

But there are things that we do know and we just don't like the answer. And I think our job in that place is to still be real honest, right? Not only don't like the answer, but know the answer and do not wanna do the work to change. Cause the change bit is a tough one for us oldies. Exactly. And this is the thing.

Every question from a young person is an opportunity for the older person to step into a new possibility for themselves. Basically, every time a young person says, what about this? We get to assess for ourselves where we are on that journey and pivot should we so choose. But we get stuck and contracted and in our own fear. And then we do a disservice to young people

by avoiding ourselves and our own level of work. People often ask me why I didn't write a book for young people before I wrote The Body's Mind and Apology for Grown People. And I was like, because we gotta change first and foremost. Actually, if we don't transform, then we beget all of our trauma and disconnection and fear and shame onto the young people

who we are the shepherds of, the stewards of. So actually it's our job to transform first, such that we demonstrate the transformation is possible for young people. Because God, we can say the words, I think all the time about the amount of time that I spent teaching my girls and my boy about bodies and freedom while being anorexic.

It's just, it really matters the actual work we're doing. I had the word, Sonia. Reliable or an unreliable near me. Yes. Really is the theme of this conversation. I imagine the kids being like, thanks, mom. And when you're done with those six almonds, could you finish this conversation we're having about food and freedom? Yeah. Yeah. done with those six almonds, could you finish this conversation we're having about food and freedom? Yeah. Yeah. College holds a mythic place in American culture.

It's often considered the best four years of your life and hailed as a beacon of integrity and excellence. But beyond the polished campus tours, there are stories you won't find in the admissions pamphlets. The higher-ups are concerned about one thing and that is avoiding scandal. It's no wonder that college campuses capture the nation's attention,

especially in moments of upheaval. I'm Margo Gray. Each week on the Campus Files podcast, we bring you a new story. It was the biggest academic scandal in the history of college sports and probably in the history of academia. On Campus Files, we cover everything

from rigged admissions to the drama of Greek life. A chancellor having a pornographic double life is an extremely rare case. Listen to and follow Campus Files, an Odyssey Original Podcast, available now on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Sonya, a kid comes to you and says, sex, what is it? How does Sonia of the radical self love

of the acorn kind of wisdom, talk to a kid about sex? Yeah. You know, I mean, my immediate thought was like, oh, it's this awesome thing that sometimes makes humans and then sometimes not. You know, it's like sometimes, sometimes, sometimes not depending on how we're having it. But I think, you know, for me, the first conversation is like, Oh, our bodies were made to experience pleasure. And part of the reasons our bodies were made to experience pleasure is because it ensures that humans continue because if something's pleasurable to do, you're likely to do it. And since sex is one of the things that makes humans, it usually feeling good, it, you know, motivates us to decide to do that. And so part of it is just the biology of how humans continue.

But part of it is about our right to pleasure in our bodies and our right to connection with pleasure in our bodies and to experience pleasure with each other. And that how we decide to experience pleasure with each other and inside of our bodies is a function of how we know ourselves, how we know each other, where we want to be vulnerable with ourselves, where we want to be vulnerable with other people,

where we are trustworthy with ourselves, where we want to be trustworthy with other people who have established themselves as trustworthy. All of those things go into sex. So there's the physiological part, which is about our anatomy and about our genitalia and putting genitalia together in the ways in which that feels pleasurable and also can do procreation. And then there's this other, what I think is actually the juicier,

bigger piece, probably because I didn't decide to procreate. And so all the sex I've had has been for pleasure. It's been because it feels good and it's connecting and it's deep and it's beautiful when I know myself and I know my body and I trust the other person. Those things. And so I think that's part of the place where I'd start the conversation. That's beautiful.

And at what age do you recommend starting these conversations? Well here's the deal, in the world of social media and mass information dissemination all the time, you want to say it before the internet says it. And so as soon as your young person has access to externalized information, I believe that's when you should start having these conversations at age-appropriate levels. So, you know, five-year-olds are like, where do babies come from? That's the time to start having a conversation about sex,

right? And in a way that is age-appropriate, that does it. And here's the thing. Sometimes I think we adults get in our heads and then we overcomplicate stuff. When folks really need super simple answers, right? The five year olds just like, where do babies come? There's a penis and there's a vagina.

When a penis is inserted into a vagina, it has the potential to make a baby. And then a baby will grow inside of a body. And eventually nine months later, it'll come out. That's where babies come from. Okay, boom, bye. I'm certain this kid's done. And that was already maybe more than they needed to know. That's where babies come from. Okay, boom, bye. I'm certain this kid's done. And that was already maybe more than they needed to know.

And so keep it simple, keep it concrete and leave the space for them to explore more if they want to explore more. But we don't have to like start dumping out the, you know, encyclopedia Britannica, I'm dating myself, of information. Yeah, just answer simply what they ask and like don't get into our panic,

oh my gosh, what does this mean? Stuff that I think we can do sometimes. I really appreciated in your book the way that you talked about porn. Can you just, for the Pod Squad, real quick, just say briefly what you said in the book about keeping your eye out for what porn is actually doing.

How would you talk to a kid about that? So, you know, I think, and I may or may not be, because I haven't read my book in a minute and I'm in another country, so I haven't even seen it, but I'll tell you what's present right now. It's good, Sonya. It's really good. Thanks. But, you know, I think one of the things to talk about is how sex and so many things in our society get used for money, right?

Get commercialized, right? And so one of the ways in which sex, which is about like, it's pleasure and trust and vulnerability and connection gets used for money in our society is through pornography, where people are paid to have sex with each other, whether or not they trust or know each other, whether or not they have relationship. And then it gives us a distorted view about what sex really is, right?

Because the job is to make money from this experience, not to connect, not to feel loving, not to even necessarily experience pleasure. And so what we're seeing in porn is not a realistic experience of sexuality. It's an experience to sell a thing. And sometimes, like many of the other systems in our society, when we're trying to sell a thing,

it can involve exploitation, it can involve oppression. Oftentimes the exploitation and oppression of women happens a lot through pornography. Also the like reaffirming of messages of men about women's bodies as objects, about only being allowed to feel if it's about feeling something sexual. All of those messages can get reinforced through pornography

because it's trying to sell you something. And generally when something's trying to sell you something, it doesn't care so much about the deeper issues of human connection, of love, of trust, the vulnerability. And so porn can give us a distorted vision. And there are way better, more nuanced, exciting ways to learn about sex that are gonna give you more of what's really happening than pornography will. Do you see how when Sanyu's talking and you're hearing her,

you're not presenting it in a fear-based way that I was a third grade teacher. So you can present things in a way, not you, you universal, where your fear comes out so much that the kid is automatically curious about that thing. It's like, Oh, you're so scared of this. What is that? If you have banned books, energy about porn, your kids are going straight.

Your kid is on the porn site right now. Yeah. Students, they got no talking to you. Absolutely. They are logging right now. Yeah. The students are talking to you. Absolutely. They are logging in immediately. Yes. So I just appreciate how you're saying. Well, because the fear makes a thing enticing, right?

It's like, oh, they said I shouldn't do it, so I should totes do it. As opposed to, yes, it exists. And here's actually what it is. Not from a place of fear, just from here's what it is. But again, we go back to what we have not tended to in ourselves shows up in the conversation. So all of our anxiety, our stuff around sex,

our stuff around pornography, if we haven't sat with that, and this, it is useful and helpful to say, when a kid comes and asks you a question that feels like it's activating all your stuff, to say, thank you so much for that question. I'm going to sit for a minute because I want to really be able to give you a good, honest answer that I thought about.

Can I come back to you in an hour? Or can we talk about this tonight at dinner? Or can I talk about it to you tomorrow when you get home from school? Buy yourself some time to go sit with yourself, to go get yourself in order to touch into the places where it is leaning up against your stuff and get quiet, get centered, get aligned so that you get to come to this young person from your most grounded aligned self and not your reactionary fear based self. It's going to help all the like tricky conversations go so much easier.

Absolutely. And so chill out on the urgency energy and buy yourself enough time to come back to yourself so that again, you can find your own reliable narrator and then bring that version of yourself to the young person. I love that. That's helpful. I'm just wondering how we got to the place where we viewed these things as like, you have the sex talk and you have the whatever.

It's so odd that these things are just omnipresent that they're some of the most important things in life and we're like, well, thank God we held our breath and got through that 30 minute conversation and never have to talk about it again. How do we weave these things so they're just part of what we talk about all the time? Yeah. Well, you know, if we're organized to these subjects through the lens of shame, then of course we don't want to talk about them. Oh, shit.

I'm ashamed of this. I'm ashamed of sex. I'm ashamed of money. I'm ashamed of what we've done to the climate. I'd rather ignore it or pretend like we didn't do it. So whatever it is that we are bringing our shame to, we know that it's inevitable. And so, yes, we're gonna, you know,

grant and bear it, suck it up and have the conversation. But we prefer to never have to have that conversation again, because every time we talk about it, it touches our stuff. And this is why we keep saying that the work we don't do on ourselves impacts our young people, it becomes their template for how it is they move through the world. And so if you find yourself with deep shame in these subject areas, then you're right. You're not gonna wanna weave it into light.

Every time it shows up, you're gonna be like, turn the TV off. I remember when I was a kid, I think we were watching like Purple Rain or something. And I remember my mother putting her hands over my eyes over the sex scenes or something like that. And I was like, I'm so confused because whatever we're watching, what's happened there, right?

Yes. Because I was allowed to see all the rest of it, but now something has come into the screen that I'm not allowed to see. What is that? And I think that there is this invitation to say, what are the subjects? Like I would love if all parents, as soon as you just were like, oh, I'm about to bring a young person into my life.

Where are my edges? Where are my pain points? Where my shame still? And I'm going to say that I'm going to intentionally work on tending to and healing these aspects of myself so that I can show up not from my fear, not from my shame, but as a legitimate, like, intentional guide to this person I've decided I'm gonna be an intentional guide for. When we said yes, in whatever ways we said yes, we said, yes, I'm going to guide you. That means I got to actually do the work to clear the things in my path so that I can

lead you. Yeah. No. And it doesn't have to be a leading from a podium where you're an expert. A guide can just be right on the path with you, but just a couple steps forward. Couple steps ahead. Just a couple steps ahead. Yeah, and Sonia, do you think, I think one of the challenges with the paradigm

we've had about this, that there's a talk, is that's not how people are. Like we evolved, Abby just had this beautiful, Abby has had so much fear and shame about what she was taught about heaven and hell from her family and her church when she was little. She's done so much work to break out of that paradigm. She talked to her mom about it recently.

And her mom said, Oh honey, I don't believe in hell anymore. And Abby has been carrying this belief that- Thanks for not catching me up. Right. That would have been great to know mom. That's what she said. So I am sure that by omission and by what I taught my kids when I had them inside of a very fundamentalist church when they were little, if I just had the talk then and never

showed how I have changed and grown and struggled out loud, it's okay to have a different talk now than you would have last year, and maybe in fact imperative. Absolutely. I'm thinking about it like software, right? Like every once and again, my phone is like, hey, you need a software update. Yes. Right?

And if I don't do the software update, then things stop working, my apps don't open, all kinds of wild stuff happens, right? And that's very much what these conversations are. Where you were, the model of you when you had the first conversation will not be the same model in five years. Certainly, maybe not in 10 years, might not be in five months. And so as your information, as your system, your software gets updated, all the things connected to your software need to be updated too, including

your young people. Oh, my ideas have changed. We haven't talked about that in a while. You know what, I'm thinking differently about that. What are you thinking about that? One of the things that I do in the book of radical answers is I really try to instill in young people that they have the ability to be critical thinkers

and to ask questions and to be curious and to actually dissect the world they're living in. Every time we as adults come and say, hey, I've changed my mind, we give young people permission to change their minds about things. Every time I'm like, you know what, I used to think this, but I don't think that anymore.

Then all of a sudden there is a softening of the edges of possibility for young people. And they're like, oh, things shift, things change. They shifted in my parent, they shifted in my mom. Oh, that means they might shift in me. Oh, that's okay. So there's a permission giving and our own transformation for young people to transform, for young people to have thought a thing at one point and then think a new thing.

Every time we demonstrate that, we say it's totally all right, to transform, for young people to have thought a thing at one point and then think a new thing. Every time we demonstrate that, we say, it's totally all right, which means we cultivate the evolution of our young people. And ultimately, that's what we're going to do is evolve all of us. That's the success. It is not success to keep old software and stick to it and say, that's the thing forever. That is not success. That's called obsolescence. That thing will no longer work. And then it will, like, this is the thing I think is fascinating is like,

even inside of the, you know, imagination of the market, the things that we do with humans don't transcribe. You have to update the thing or else it becomes non-viable and then it goes off the market. Guess what? That might be true for humans too. If you don't update the thing, it becomes non-viable and then it goes off the market. So what does it look like to just create the space where change is inevitable. Because guess what? Change is inevitable. And the more that we try to create a world that pretends like that isn't the truth,

the more we create suffering for ourselves and for young people. And the other thing that is essential to survival and essential to evolution, like the updating, is what data we collect, what inputs. Another thing a guide does is just say, look, and points to something. Our kids are being raised in a culture where it's very specific things that schools and government and whatever are pointing to and a entire universe beyond that

that they will never be pointed to unless we just say, hey, look, huh, what do you think of that? Hey, look, look over there. And so I think for me, it's honestly been, I have a 12 year old and a 10 year old and this period right now of that has been the most fun intimate part of parenting for me.

Just talking about what is there and things in the news and what they think of them, because they're thinking about them anyway. Yeah. Yes, they are. We are not going to, you know, inoculate our young people from the realities of life. It's everywhere. That is what we've made in the world of social media,

is a world where everything is accessible all the time. So if everything is accessible all the time, right. And everything is vying for your attention. In the economy of attention, the adults and young people's lives have to figure out what their currency is. We've got to figure out how we are and what we want our young people to understand and experience is as valuable

as all the other millions of things trying to get our young people's attention. And the more that we are honest, transparent, curious, engaging, want to know their thoughts, right? That's why kids like the internet. That's why they like social media platforms. Because somebody wants to watch them all the time and look at them do something somewhere out there.

If we get to be those people, then we have not shuffled them off to the digital space to get that need met, which means that they're going to come to us with that place of curiosity, with that thing they're uncertain about, with that thing they want us to see, because we've become the exciting audience, the audience that's actually interested and invested. That piece of work is how you get young people to listen to what it is you're offering in guidance rather than to be guided by these billions of other locations that usually just want to use them for profit.

Yeah. It's like an inside thing where you're able to be like, just the tiny little things, like when you're walking through an area with stores and there's benches, but then there's little raised things on the benches and they're like, what are those? You say, those are there so that unhoused people don't lay on the bench. Like you tell them the truth about that. And then they're like, why wouldn't we want unhoused? Do you mean there's unhoused people in our neighborhood? Yeah, there sure are, but we don't want them here because it makes us feel less comfortable. Why does it make them feel less comfortable?

Then it opens up this whole world where you're sharing this like open secret, but that no one else is talking to them about. And then you have this shared thing where now their eyes are peeled for what else is going on around here and they're looking for it. And it's really interesting.

Yeah. And our kids are naturally, you know, like they're inquisitive and naturally relatively compassionate. People are always like, kids are mean. And like, yes, absolutely some of that. But actually, the thing we noticed first is like young people, they're like, oh, I hit that person.

And then the baby cries and they're like, I'm so sorry. They feel terrible, right? There is a natural of natural compassion. But if we don't point out the ways in which the world is incompassionate, then we normalize lack of compassion. We tell them that that's OK, right? That you shouldn't question it and you shouldn't think about it.

And actually, what we want are young people who question and think. Yes. Those are the young people that actually, that's how you know you can have a young person who makes it safely into adulthood, is because they question and think. Yeah, you want them to see the water they're swimming in. Absolutely. Otherwise, the sharks will get them. That's right. Before they become the sharks, which is either.

Or they become the sharks, which to me is still the sharks got them. Yes, of course. Shit, Sonya. Of course you think that way. Yes. OK. I need to know for my own personal self, because I really believe that when I'm listening to you talk, how do I talk to my kids about this? I'm also just like, how do I think about this?

Okay? I'm clear that this book is for the kids, but it's just really also for the adults. It's for all of us. Yes. It's for the kids and all of us. Yes. So how do you, coming from the Pentecostal church, being this incredible, acorny, radical self-love prophet, all right, my kid comes to you and says, what the hell with God?

Like, what's God? What does Sonia Renee Taylor say right now at this point in her evolution? Right now. Well, you know, I'm most likely always to turn the question back to the kid first, certainly in that place. What do you think God is? What do you know about this already? Where are you, right?

Which says, I actually am curious about you. I again become the interested audience, right? Immediately. And then, you know, Sonia Renee Taylor says, there are so many ideas about what God is. And I can tell you what mine is. And I want you to find what's true for you. Here's what's true for me is that God, as I described, God is a manifestation of the divine. It is whatever the energy is, the thought that there should be oceans and bumblebees and gerber daisies and farts and rainbows that also thought that there should be a Sonia. Whatever that energy is, that's God to me.

God creates and creates and creates and then means for creation to grow and evolve and learn and to be deeply connected to how amazing and magical it is. And part of the challenge of creation is that sometimes we forget we're amazing and magical, and then we rely on other stuff. But God is the energy of love that decided that all of life should exist. That's what God is to me. And I want you, I want you to think about it a little bit and maybe like, let's check in next week, like just be out in the world and then let's check in next week and tell me sort of what you're thinking about God now.

Yeah. That's beautiful. Because when they're coming to you with a question, you can bet. And I remember this from my teaching days too. That's not coming from nowhere. They are having inner ideas. Yeah. They have an inner dialogue already happening. It's just now being expressed.

And so again, affirming that that inner dialogue is allowed to exist, that you want to know what it is, that they should dig into it, that it is a fertile, second ground that they should get into. That's what we want to do. We want them to get connected to these things that are in here so that they don't just stay in here and then they believe that no one really wants to know and then they squash them down

and then it gets tamped down and tamped down and then they no longer hear what's in here. Then the only guidance is what's out there, right? We want to keep cultivating that. I sometimes feel bad for it's like you and I and probably everyone on this pod does have sort of literal love language with words. Yes. It makes me feel like it's unfair for people who are with young children who that's not there. Sister, can you tell Sonia about what John, your husband, does with music?

Yeah, because he's not a big words guy. But first I want to say that question about God. A couple months ago, it was my son just out of nowhere. I was like, it was the end of the night. And he said, do you believe in God? And I was like, wow, that is a huge, really good question. What do you believe? And he said, I wrote it in my notes section

because I was like, okay, I wanna document this for him in the future. But he said, yes, I believe in God. I feel God the most when I believe in something strongly, like rights for other people. Hmm. I love that. If you feel something strongly that is evidence of God.

I was like, that is a great, I was like, cool man. Yeah, let me think about it. I was trying not to be like, react too strongly in any direction. Have you ever noticed that these little shits only ask these questions at bedtime? Because they know that they've got us. Yeah. She's a sucker for this. I can ask her 47 of these. I'll ask her about sex at 11.

I'm going to be up all night. I'm not going to sleep no time soon. My husband has a cool way of bringing things up. His love is music. And so he's constantly trying to think of like, if the kids will ask a question, he'll be like, I want you to listen to this song. And he'll give them his phone with the lyrics on it. And he doesn't say anything,

but he just lets them read the lyrics and then ask questions. And so just last week, something happened where, I don't know, something at dinner, something happened about like police or something. And they started asking some questions. And so he played them the American Skin 41 Shots song, which was about Amadou Diallo,

who was the immigrant shot 41 times by NYPD. And he usually tries to connect it to like one of their heroes. So Bruce Springsteen is like a big guy to them. And about how he was threatened not to sing that song in New York City and that the NYPD refused to give security to his concerts and boycotted the show and everything and he played it anyway. And they were like, why would they not wanna go to the show?

It ended up being this whole conversation about blue line, et cetera. But they were reading the lyrics and there was a part of this song where it's about this woman before school says, on these streets, Charles, you have to understand the rules. And they were like, what is she talking about? I don't understand.

So it was this whole conversation about, oh, if you were black children, by this time in your life, you would have already had the discussion of how you have to act with police versus how we... And so, I don't know, it's just like the songs and then movies and that there's just like ways that you can do it if your kid's into sports. There's a ton of movies out there that are really beautiful and roads and then they ask the questions.

It's not that you're like, here's what the truth is. You just answer the questions. Yeah. And I love this idea that your husband found the thing that resonates for him and is like, Oh, this is the place where I actually have some juice and some access. Let me share this. Let me share this. So it doesn't have, you know, I do feel bad for the people who aren't word people because you know, we're word people. And I recognize that there are infinite ways in which we convey messages and communicate with each other.

And so whatever that is for you, do that, right? Like art, movements, songs, a walk in nature, watching how the natural world operates. There are endless ways. There's no one right way to be in this exchange with young people. Finding the methodology of communication that works for you, and then inviting young people into that

by asking them what the methodology of communication that works for them is, and finding the meeting point, that's really, I think, the sweet spot. There's no one right way to do it. Well, especially now because kids, especially as they get into their teenage years, they're being exposed to telephones, cell phones, and the internet and social media.

And their one-on-one connections become so vulnerable that it is really difficult to have some of these conversations that are super important. Right? to have some of these conversations that are super important, right? And so like what we've found that works in a few ways is just going for a car ride. So there's no eye contact. You just lock them in. I mean, listen, Tish and I went on her tour together and we drove 4,000 miles and we talked about things that we had never talked about before.

It was time and you're kind of like locked in the seat and you're bored out of your mind. So like stuff comes up. You don't have to have eye contact. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It creates a literal and physical,

like a physical container to hold the conversation, right? And there's a way in which the attention is all in one location, right? And that, again, in which the attention is all in one location, right? And that, again, the economy of attention, where is and how do we find the time to be the sort of central focus for young people, right? So that these questions can arise because there's so many distractions, there's so many other places they'd rather be, there's so many other folks they want to text, all

this is happening. And so finding the location where it's like, oh, here's the little, the sanctuary that we can create. And I love the idea that the sanctuary is the car where it's like, oh, this is where we get to meet and be in intimate connection and dialogue with one another. That's sweet and beautiful. I love it.

I wanna ask this question for our pod squad because one of the things that gets brought up the most is, and I know you talked about this in the book, what do we do when our kids are hurt by other children? Oh, geez. When they're left out. Our kid comes home and somebody was terrible to them. And Sonia, you know, it activates every part of us

that has felt left out when we were seven and last week. And we just, how do you, would you go about that when a kid came and said, they left me out, they teased me. How do we know when it's bullying? What's your take? Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing I do is just be like, oh, honey, I know, I understand. I'm sorry.

Because I do know, because I was a kid who was bullied, who was left out, who was teased, right? And so there's a place in me that absolutely understands that. And so the first location is just deep empathy and witnessing. I'm really sorry. That's really got to not feel good. Or tell me more about how that felt for you. Tell me more about what it brought up for you. Because

one of the things that I think we get to do in that moment, those experiences are the germination of the seeds of stories that we then keep for the rest of our lives. I don't belong. So, you know, as folks may know, I've been deep in my astrology bag for the last however many years at this point now, and I've been doing readings for people. And so right before I came on here, I just did a reading for someone. And her entire chart was this manifestation of being of service to others, being of service to others, being of service to others. And it was so clear that she had neglected being of service to herself. And the reason she had neglected being of service to herself

is because she felt so ostracized and outcasted as a young person, as a teased, disliked young person, that so much of the labor of her life is about trying to earn favor with the collective again, trying to figure out how to work hard enough to be liked. She's 40 something. She's a whole adult now. That's how those stories start.

And so what we wanna do when young people bring us those moments is we wanna hear hear them and we want to witness and we want to notice where the seed of a story is starting and we want to interrupt it. That's what we want to do first. So I, ah, that's got a really big heart. Tell me how that made you feel. It made me feel like I don't belong. Tell me more about not belonging. What does that mean for you? It means I'll always be left out. Ah! I hear you saying always. You know, always means forever. And this was just a moment. So I hear you that it hurt. But we don't have to think that what happened right now has to be the rest of your life, because that's what always means, right? So let's acknowledge where we are right now in the present. But it doesn't have to be forever. I promise it actually won't be,

unless we decide that it is right now. So can we make a different decision? How would you tell this story if it wasn't always, right? And then we give them the opportunity to start reframing the story for themselves so that that seed doesn't keep growing and building on itself and building on itself till it becomes their identity

as an adult. So that to me is one of the key moments that we have to intercept what becomes a lifelong pattern by acknowledging, witnessing, and then reframing the experience so that their most empowered self can actually be activated in it. Well, what's true? Who are those people? Are they actually people you wanna hang with? Let's talk more about it, right? We get to sort of dig into it. But for me, the most important moment is catching where that story wants to like dig itself in the soil

and start growing and saying, uh-uh, we don't have to do that though. We can absolutely 100% feel what we felt. And we don't have to say that it's forever or it's always or I'm never, or make a story about who we are. We get to interrupt that part. So that to me feels like one of the most key pieces.

It's tied to your other part so much clear. Like I hear when you're saying that, I'm thinking, if we are people who have not been reliable narrators of how people can be cruel and people can be short-sighted and the world can be very unfair, if we have not been reliable narrators about that, if we have been toxically positive, if we have avoided, if we have been like I was when the kids were little,

everything's fair, it's all fair, everything's good. Okay, then when this shit happens to them, when they are at school and they are left out, when they see the spikes on the bench, when they experience the world as it is, they will not know that that's the way the world is. They will think there's something wrong with them. It's them, exactly. It's me, I they will think there's something wrong with them. It's them, exactly.

It's me, I'm the failure. Something's wrong with me. And then when you try to tell them otherwise, you're not believable. You're not reliable. So the child experiences, like I'm thinking back to my teaching days, the kid is in the classroom and goes through

what all kids go through at some point, some to unacceptable degrees that are some, just a little bit, exclusion, left outedness, unkindness, unfairness, injustice. The kid who hasn't had a reliable narrator at home who has presented the world as it is in developly appropriate ways says, oh, this is the world. This is uncomfortable and this hurts, but this is the world.

And this is the world. This is uncomfortable and this hurts, but this is the world. And this is the world towards me. Yes. But the kid who has not had a reliable narrative thinks, what is my doing wrong? It's me. Why am I like this? Why is this happening in this world that my mom told me is fair and perfect and beautiful?

They both go together absolutely inevitably, right, Sonia? Yeah, absolutely. If we say, here's reality, when young people encounter reality, they understand the context they're in. This is reality. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It just means, you know, my mom told me,

sometimes this is how stuff goes. All right, I understand that. But if we have not presented the world in its reality, then when young people get confronted with reality, the only place they have to look is themselves. It must be me. It must be something I did. That's what young people are trained to do, right?

Like it's part of the developmental orientation of life is that we are first self-reflexive. It's about me. It's about something that's going on here. If we haven't said there are other things happening that are gonna be outside of your control, that are gonna be unfair, that you're not gonna actually understand.

If you don't prepare them for that, then the natural instinct to be self-reflexive will kick in. It must be me. It's the reason kids blame themselves for their parents' divorces. It's the reason that they blame themselves for when they've been abused. It's the reason that they blame themselves for when harm happens in the family. Because we haven't presented the rest of the world as independent players who also are moving through things, which just means I did it, I created it. That's right.

I'm not a words person like you are, and Glennon, you are, and you are, Amanda. And I sometimes feel in my body a little reluctance to want to have some of these difficult conversations, these honest conversations with our kids. And I sometimes defer to Glennon to do it at times because she is better with words. But what I will say is when I did go on that trip with Tish, I grew so much closer to her. Because we were able to share each other. And I fumbled and it wasn't perfect and all of the things, but I just want to say, like,

if you are curious and you might want to start creating the bond and that relationship with your kid that you're talking about these really difficult things, please get this book. Read this book that Sonya has written because it is important to know what your kids are thinking. And that is a good basis to start thinking about how you want to start talking about this because it's not going to maybe come to you like this, like it comes in a lightning strike to Glennon, but it will slowly come and as they age and get older and they start asking questions, you're going to be prepared. Get the freaking book you guys.

And it's all curated from kids. So it's their questions. Yeah. What Abby, you're pointing out, I think is so important is that there's a difference between a reliable narrator and a perfect narrator. Your job is not to be a perfect narrator. Your job is not to have all the answers to have the perfect, most eloquent, you know, description or response to your young person.

Your job is to be as authentic as you can be inside of the connection. Which means if authentic is fumbling, sort of trying to figure out the words, what you do is then you say, oh, if that's their experience too, they get to have modeled to them that it's okay. They get to have modeled to them that it gets to be fumbly and messy and I don't have to be the most eloquent to still be allowed to be in connection with others. That is so important, so invaluable. So reliable narrator does not mean perfect narrator, does not mean most eloquent narrator. It means honest, authentic, and connected and trustworthy with the young person you're talking to.

So good. We love you, Sonia Renee Taylor. I love y'all. and connected and trustworthy with the young person you're talking to. So good. We love you, Sonia Renee Taylor. I love y'all. We're so grateful. Every time you give us an hour of your time, I just, I know how important it is. And I'm just grateful. Thank you for this hour.

It's going to help so many people. And everybody go get the book. Thank you. I appreciate you supporting the book, supporting my work. And I just appreciate the light you all are in the world. Thank you. Keep shining. Right back at you. See you next time Pod Squad. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take

30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you listen to podcasts and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review

and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Burman, and the show is produced by Lauren Legrasso,

Alison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.