Melyssa Ford

In this week's episode of the Angie Martinez IRL Podcast, Angie sits down with Canadian media personality, actress, and resilient survivor, Melyssa Ford. Angie and Melyssa reflect on her prominence during an era in Hip-Hop when the industry's landscape didn't align with today's norms of consent. Delving into her experiences as a video vixen in the early 2000s, Angie explores Melyssa's journey and challenges during that time. Their paths may have crossed on multiple occasions, but it was a gathering for a mutual friend that brought Angie and Melyssa together, unveiling the deeply impactful story of Melyssa's near-fatal car accident. This life-altering event left her with a traumatic brain injury, ushering in a new chapter filled with overwhelming struggles—battling suicidal thoughts and grappling with the weight of surviving such a harrowing incident.

Adding to her tribulations, Melyssa was confronted with her mother's terminal diagnosis, reigniting a complex and emotional journey in their relationship. Despite enduring these profound challenges, Melyssa Ford bravely shares her path to healing. From grappling with self-medication to discovering solace in self-help literature, engaging in transformative shadow work, and finding strength through activities like pilates, Melyssa has reclaimed agency over her life and narrative. This episode stands as a testament to Melyssa's courage and vulnerability, offering an inspiring narrative of resilience and triumph over adversity. Tune in for a deeply moving conversation you won't want to miss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And Martinez in real life podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Melissa Ford, it's my guest today.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Everybody, Well, let's afford welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to us, a woman's podcast where there.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Is good lighting.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
The boys are not frolicking around.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
We're not sad. Look at the woman behind the camera,
a woman.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Welcome, Thank you. Oh I feels so good. I fetch it.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
With the boys. Oh god, she.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Is in a boy podcast with a bunch of boys.
Let let's start before we get into all of that.
Let's start from the beginning. Let's talk about where you
came from and your history and how you started.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
And okay, let's do a condensed version. I'm originally from Toronto, Ontario.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Canada, Canada girl.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
I am a.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
I am a.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Landed immigrant here in this country. I have a green card,
I pay my taxes. I've never committed a crime, so
I'm here legallytt So I started my career doing music
videos and I was just kind of sitting on the
fence living in Canada, thinking that, you know, why would
I ever leave here? This is where I was born, raised,

(01:24):
my family is but here I am on weekends, you know,
ending up in Trinidad on yachts with Jay z.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Oh so you got that job before you came here,
I was.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
I was living in working yes so university student, working
in a call center in bell express View and bartending
regular life and moonlighting as this music video model, lead
girl or principal girl in the biggest budget you know,

(01:55):
music videos and songs for the most enormous artists, hip
hop artists.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
On the plan.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
People were spending bread on videos.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
It was around the time that it was startarting.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
It was just starting, so you know, I just I
entered the fray at literally the perfect moment. From December
nineteen ninety nine to roughly two thousand and four was
where my music video career really was shaped and honed.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
And this is the space that I lived in.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
But I always knew that you got to take the
exit ramp somewhere, and you got to take the exit
ramp before people, you know, divert the traffic and say
you're no longer viable. One of the last videos that
I did before I try, before I took the exit
ramp was Usher's video Yeah, and we shot that in
LA and that was like a really fantastic experience.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
But that was one of the.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Last videos that I did because I had my site
set on hosting on television now, and so I'd started
to you know, solicit opportunities with BT to start to
be use my voice more. You know, I'm a silent
movie star quote unquote doing these music views.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I've heard you call it that.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah, I mean, like it's three minute. It was a
three minute movie. But still, you know, I mean it's qualified.
But I really really really wanted to, you know, show
that I had talent beyond you know, congratulations on your
face and your body kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
So, you know, so that was one of my very
last videos. I think I think my last one was
Will Smith and it was a song called Switch for
the movie Hitch. Oh yeah, yeah, wow, random, What were
those What are those sets like though?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Because there's all this like and you said and the
times was so different, so different.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
It's like, now we're seeing a lot of stuff that
was going on in.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
The nineties that is through the lens of twenty twenty three.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Looks great different.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, looked one way in the nineties, looks way different now.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
So I just wander through.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
The lens of twenty twenty three, and when you think
about those times, like, I don't know what was happening.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
What was your experience.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
I feel like I was really insulated, you know, my
personal experiences. I was really insulated because because I was
so close to director X, and because I was, you know,
close to Hype Williams, and because I was close to INGA,
and I was close to this the like the the
executive level of who put together these massive productions. I

(04:26):
was insulated and protected. It's not that you didn't experience
situations that might be a little precarious, you know. I
used to make kind of like a jokey reference to
the fact that some of us, you know, music video
models would act like beaver's You know, when beavers go

(04:47):
to sleep in the water, they sleep back to back,
you know what I'm saying, so they don't drown.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
And so it's music video models.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
You got my six, I'm gonna go to sleep, and
you keep your head on a swivel, you know, make
sure that you know, because what we know now wasn't
really described that way. There's a little bit of predatory
behavior going on on music set. I mean there was
a lot of alcohol, want to get you a little

(05:16):
loosey goosey.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
And and then you're there under the you're there under
the premise of being this is sexy, this is a sexy,
beautiful woman.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
And you're wearing not much.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
And so it's immediately, yeah, this is why you're here.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
So yeah, you know, it's almost like there was an
It wasn't only that it was just accepted. It was
expected that something could happen to you on music video sets.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
And it's only now that.

Speaker 4 (05:53):
People really truly have an understanding that women were there
doing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay,
because really, people didn't look at it like work.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
I just wonder how you manage and that because she's like,
you were protected, right, but like how did you manage
navigating that type of energy all the time?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (06:12):
It was depending on the set, the energy could be
wildly shift, like for example, when I did knock yourself
out Jadakiss. I can't say enough good things about Jadakiss.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
He really is a gentleman.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
He back then we had a scene in which everybody
wanted me to be very handsy with him, and they
wanted the energy return. They wanted us to kiss, they
wanted us to like kind of grope each other.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
It was like supposed to be very romantic.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
So I don't know him.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
I got a man, I'm going home.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Too, So no, And so I had this conversation with
him at the car Moonlight and Old nine, and I
was just like, hey, let me just I'm gonna make
the video look real, real good, but I need you
to keep your hands above the waist and just kind
of let me lead.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
And he was like, I, MA, I wasn't gonna touch you.
I just should you know. I was like, thank you
so much.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Did you not have any experiences where people were disrespectful
or like.

Speaker 4 (07:12):
One experience that kind of lives with me during that time.
It was in the crafty room craft services, It's where
all the snacks are and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
And it was a.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Video where there was a lot of women on set.
There was a lot of movement on set. We were
at the Parker Murdy and Hotel. We had two floors.
There was a lot of action going on and stuff
like that, and I really I needed a break. I
need a break from all the energy. There's a lot
of people and stuff like that. So I went to
the crafty room.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
And nobody was in there. I was like oooh, and
I got.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Like this ponytail, and I'm wearing this dress that's literally
like a condom. It's like it's sucked all everything in
and it's really really short, like don't sneeze. So I'm
sitting there and I'm just like eating some liquorice and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
And then this guy comes in the room.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
I don't know who he is, but you know, he
looks like he's part of the entourage, knows a rap video.
And then another guy comes in the room, and before
I know it, there's about ten guys in the room
and they're circling me and they're starting to touch me,
and I did not know how to defend myself or

(08:23):
I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but I
think that women sometimes have a fear of offending or
making a bigger deal out of something. Their instincts are
firing off like crazy, like.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Especially when you're in a work environment exactly.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
But it's just like danger, danger, danger, But you suppress
those instincts. You suppress them because you don't want to
seem impolite. You don't wanna you don't want to call
attention to something that might might not be a thing.
But it's a thing and you're terrified, but you don't
know how to act. You don't know how to You

(08:59):
just don't know how to act in this moment. And
it's almost like if I do act and I get hysterical,
will that make it worse? Will that mean that somebody
covers my mouth? And then it just goes all to hell?
You know what I'm saying. And it was one of
those moments where I literally terror on my face, didn't
know what to do, and literally cameraman or Grip walks

(09:21):
in the room and notices, which was amazing that he
could even notice, but he noticed that I just was
like sitting there like my chihuahua, big eyes sos.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
And he was like, hey, now I think they need
you on set. Let me take you.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
And that was it that diffused the situation and got
me out of a situation that I felt like I
was in peril.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Wow, you know that.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Makes me wonder how many women were in those situations?

Speaker 4 (09:52):
And those were treacherous times. Yeah, it was the wild
wild West. There was no there was no rules, there
was no boundary, there was no hr Who are you calling?

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Who are you complaining to?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
That's it, There's no more work. Then right, because you're.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Exactly, exactly exactly and a lot of times women, you know,
they made they made decisions based on need, you know,
rather than I feel empowered by this decision. I feel
I want to be here, you know what I'm saying,
and I am in control and bubble.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
No, no, no, God, did you ever see that guy again?

Speaker 1 (10:32):
No? Where he is?

Speaker 4 (10:35):
No, it was.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
He's a good guy. I wish for him some blessing today, I.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
Do, I do, I wish, I wish him well. I've
sent him flowers in my head for you know, over
the course of many years, because that situation could have
just gone completely differently. Yeah, for sure, you know, so
I was, I was. I was definitely fortunate. But like
I said, I mean it's been sometimes it's treacherous waters that.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Stuff triggering for you that comes up, like now, how
we were talking about like now in this day, all
these like stories of the nineties people that we know
going through accusation. I feel like there's a whole group
of our people that were like pillars in the culture
that are just like that titans of the industry, knocking

(11:22):
down one after another after another, and I don't know,
you know, we get asked a lot about believing victims.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
You know, yeah, and well, why would they have waited,
Why would they have waited to make these claims and
defile these suits? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And
it's a conversation. It's a question I am extremely uncomfortable with.
It is not for me to answer. It's not for
you to answer. It's not it's not it's not our story,

(11:54):
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
But I just imagine there's all types of reasons why
women don't speak up right away.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
Well, so I will say this that I think that
anybody that comes forward, whether it was five minutes ago,
five days ago, five weeks ago, five years ago, or
twenty years ago, I commend you.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
You're brave because.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
Every experience that I've had has not been on the
up and up, you know, and they've been with There's
one that I can think of in particular. I I
don't have the band with the strength to deal with
the onslaught of what I have seen victims go through,

(12:44):
to put myself in that position. That is why I
might I tip my hat to them.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
I've never heard anybody admit that or say that out loud.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
You know, well, I s I'm in I'm very brave
these days, and I give myself a lot of credit
for being brave to say things that people think to
themselves but would never ever utter the words.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
You know, And I have said this two people.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
You know that there's been experiences that I probably could
have filed suit on, but I'm probably never I'm never
gonna do it because I can't deal with the repercussions
of it.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
I can't. I can't, and I won't. I won't want.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
I have to protect myself in some form or fashion.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
You know, my mental health, I've been through a lot.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
My mental health is fragile, you know, and especially like
the last five six years of my life from the
near death car accident.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Definitely want to talk about that.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
Everything that transpired after that and then my mom, you know,
getting sick with cancer and passing away, and that rocked
my entire universe.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
I mean, I had.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
More suicidal ideations during that those you know, first couple
of years of my mom passing away. Then I've had
my entire life, you know, So when you think about
adding to that.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
I can't. Yeah, I can't.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
You know, maybe there's people that would say, but Melissa,
you you doing that, you standing on that platform and
saying I'm like.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
That's why people are not honest about the fact that
they won't, because then, well, you could have saved somebody else.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
But it's also you have to you have to live
with it.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
The person who is sharing whatever experience that they had
has to live with the energy that comes back with that.
It is a very brave thing. People don't talk about
that enough. How brave you have to be to put
your stuff on the front line. So you're right about that,
for sure. But I've also never heard somebody, well at
least I've never had I'm sure people have admitted to it,
but I've never heard somebody from the other side talk

(14:52):
about why why I wouldn't.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
Yeah, that's why I'm too I'm too fragile. I know myself.
I know myself, and I've done I have gone through
an enormous amount of therapy and come out the other
end with a really intense sense of self awareness. And
I know what my bandwidth is, and I know I

(15:17):
know what I am not capable of handling. That will
probably like upend my life to a point where I
won't recover from it, and I don't want that for myself.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Do you think ever in your life you might change
your opinion on that.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
You know, we're watching, you know, chickens coming home to roost,
and when somebody does the things that they do. You
know what's happened to me. It's not an isolated incident,
you know what I'm saying. And I'm sure that there
will be a before and an after kind of thing.
And I don't believe that anything that I do or

(15:53):
I say can prevent another act from happening.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
I don't believe that. I don't.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
And also again I stress, after everything that I have
gone through, I have to protect my peace, you know.
So I have had to make peace with this decision.
It has not come lightly. I have struggled, I have cried,

(16:22):
I've screamed.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I've talked to my therapists.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
I've talked to close friends that I knew that I
know would never betray my confidence.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
And I know.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
That I I just not this lifetime, not this lifetime.
Maybe next lifetime I come back as Joan of arc
you know, you.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Just never know.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
But anyway, I asked you that because to the point
of like, how brave those women are and when people
ask the question like why did it take them so long?

Speaker 1 (16:52):
That's this is why.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
This is why, because you have to because it's scary.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
And a lot of times, you know, we you know,
are our vocabulary has expanded. You know, I'm surprised consent
was not the word of the year.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, we're saying nobody was talking about that.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
We have a different understanding about it now, we have
an more expansive.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Way of understanding what it actually means.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
And I think that a lot of people are very
uncomfortable with the expanded understanding of what that concept actually
means because then they have to go back in their
past and they have to understand that their behavior.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Is now being called into question.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
And now somebody might have a might have been living
with a different perception as to what transpired between the
two of you. And that's literally what we're seeing. What
we're seeing right now. Wow, you know what I'm saying.
So it's ooh as soon sometimes this muddy waters, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Water WHOA.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Let me take you back to those times you were
talking about, because honestly, how you and I connected, we
were that Jennifer angeloiyee. We had never really had an
extensive conversation like that.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
Before, always like I'd always adored you for my part
and I told you and I told you that was
so when we did the fiftieth Year of Hip Hop
thing for ABC. One of the moments that just like,
you know, where I was literally like this to you
was when you were on American Idol and you decided
to leave because you just were you just didn't want
You said, I don't want to be responsible for crushing

(18:20):
people's dreams like this is. I'm not cut out for this.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
I know what I can do, I know what I'm
built for it.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
And I was just like, there's not there's so not
very many people that would have had that level of integrity,
self awareness and that level of kindness.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
To do something like that.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
I was like, I love Angie.

Speaker 5 (18:37):
I love her girl hashtag girl cries, you know, so
like in you were always like a friend in my head,
and you know, you were always floating on the peripheral
for me because one degree of separation in terms of
all friends.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
And stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
So it's always just like hey girl, hey, yeah, yea,
if I saw you'd be like hi. But we never
really took we would never had time together until that night,
that dinner.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, and we.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Were talking about this trauma and accidents. You had told
me about your.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Accident, which I had I didn't know about. I didn't.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
It was way more traumatizing than anything I had experienced.
And you don't really talk about that much, do you,
or have you? I mean, you've shared the story somewhat.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
When it it took me almost a year to recover.
I was living in LA I was going to a
bridal shower the R and B Artist Tank. He was
getting married to his now wife, Zena Foster. It was
her bridal shower. I was going to a part of
LA that I wasn't really familiar with. It's called Glendale.
I was on the one thirty four freeway. I was
not familiar with it at all. So you by yourself

(19:46):
and by myself in the car. Thank god. I did
not have Daisy with me. Oh my god. You see
I take her everywhere with me, you know. On this day,
I was literally like she's looking at me with the eyes.
I was like, no, you stay here in my car.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Accident. My was in the car with me. He was okay.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
Thank god, Daisy would not have been okay because I
got hit by a truck and my jeep flipped five times,
and what ended up happening was when it was flipping
upside down, the roof got ripped off, and so when
my jeep came to rest upside down, my head hit
the pavement and that's how I ended up with a
skull fractor. My brain was bleeding. I had a massive concussion.

(20:23):
I was knocked out. I don't when I saw the
photos of my car accident, I have zero memory of
any of that. And all the good Samaritans that stopped
for me, I have zero memory.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
I don't remember anything.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Oh people stop, Well they had to.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
Yeah, so oh yeah, like it was the one four
was shut down, and so the memory that.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
I have head hit the actual pavement.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yes, So when I woke up, I remember waking up
and I could only see through one eye because there
was like blood like pooling in my other eye. And
but I don't know, Oh, I don't know what's happening.
I just know my back feels really warm, and I'm
looking up at the sun. I was like, what the
hell and going on over here? And then I start

(21:10):
seeing these figures above my face and I see yellow
and it's basically the EMT workers like the first responders
and stuff like that, and I'm thinking to myself, there's
no possible way, There's no way, no way, and so
I kind of just turned my head to the side
and I see my jeep upside down, wheels still spinning slowly,

(21:31):
and it smashed, and I was just like it was
the most surreal experience of my entire life because I
feel no pain. I don't feel any pain because I
guess shock and adrenaline and the whole nine nothing has awake.
I've now woken up, but apparently I've been out for
about ten or fifteen minutes because the good Smaritans that

(21:52):
came literally one guy took his shirt off and held
my head closed because I had like this, my head
head was like cracked open. And then somebody else was
like shielding me from the sun with a hat. And
I see all this in the pictures because I don't
remember it.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
They might have been talking to me and I don't know.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
And so then they, you know, first responders, they put
me on the board neck thing, and then they put
me in the ambulance and they take me and I
just your head is open, yeah, And I remember like
saying to the first responders. I was just like, I
started crying and I said, can somebody hold my hand?
You know, I felt like I was so alone. I

(22:35):
felt so alone, and they were like, oh, yeah, okay,
you know whoops, offer some compassion to the chickens like
a mess right now. And then it was just like
a flurry of activity when I got brought into the
emergency room and you know, neurosurgeons and doctors and e
are nurses, etcetera, etcetera, just going crazy just over here

(22:59):
because I don't know what's happened. I don't know that
I have like this gaping wound and my skull is
like cracked and all the whole nine. I don't know
this because I can't feel it. So I'm in the
hospital for about a week with the head injury. They
keep you there really long. Yeah, gave me some really
good drugs. But a lot of friends came to see me.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
So what was it?

Speaker 4 (23:27):
And it kept mirrors away from me too. But I
will say that I survivor's guilt crept in very very quickly.
I started to feel really resentful of the fact that
my life was spared. Why I didn't I didn't really
feel like it was worth sparing over others.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
You know, did somebody else lose their life and that not? No,
no notice in general.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
No, just just in general, you know, like I just
started thinking about I don't know, child prostitutes in Calcutta,
Like I don't know, like children in refe geez can't refugee.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Just you just felt like you probably should have died
in that car.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
I was like, I was really angry at God for
sparing my life.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
And everybody's saying to me, you know, you have a purpose.
God spared you for a reason. I was just like,
I hate that idea. I hate it. Stop saying it
to me.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Why?

Speaker 4 (24:22):
Because it felt like it was way too much pressure.
First of all, my purpose?

Speaker 1 (24:28):
What is that?

Speaker 6 (24:30):
Like?

Speaker 4 (24:32):
I was wildly disoriented. You know what I'm saying. I
have a traumatic brain injury, and I didn't understand what
comes along with that traumatic brain injury, which is why,
first of all, your your natural like mood stabilizers are compromised,
your dopamine and serotonin receptors, the whole nine. So like
you're you're you're kind of off your nut a little

(24:55):
bit A lot of times. What I came to find out,
but my doctor did not tell me, is that a
lot of people who suffer from TBIs, they are they're
prescribed traumatic brain injury. They're described SSRIs, basically antidepressants to
try to, you know, offset the suicidal ideations that come

(25:18):
along with it. I could not figure out why I
wanted to kill myself like so soon after surviving what happened.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
But had you ever felt like that before the accident?

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Oh yeah, I mean, like this, being surviving this industry alone,
I've definitely, you know, had like like severe depressive episodes
that lasted months where I isolated myself and hid from
the world and drank too much to self medicate and
self soothed and stuff like that. Because I've been very
anti antidepressant my whole life, I just would I just

(25:52):
felt like it was it was weak to take them
and I needed to white knuckle it through my own problems,
not understanding that I probably was suffering from chemical and
violences and I could use some medication. We have a
different understanding about that kind of thing now, too, So
fast forward to my car accident and understanding that now
I really actually do need them, but I won't take
them because my doctors haven't explained to me what's going

(26:14):
on up here. It took me crying out for help
using my Instagram page, which I would never do in
my whole life. I have thought that vulnerability and exposure
was a weakness that I would.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Never ever ever.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Want to let the world know I was suffering or
I needed help. I just know. But I was out
of my depths. I was dealing with a monster that
I just didn't have the tools to understand how to
fight it off.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
And so I.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Started speaking through my Instagram page and talking about the
ubiquitous misery and overwhelming sadness that I felt.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
That I was out of control and I didn't know
how to fix it.

Speaker 4 (27:04):
I was full of raine, just things like that. You know,
I'm a loquacious mofo, you know, so even in the
depths of my despair, I could write a pretty little caption,
but people would reach out to me, and then, you know,
I ended up going on the Breakfast Club and being
very vocal about what had happened to me and stuff

(27:26):
like that. So people would send me advice, you know,
like I had people who had experienced PTSD and traumatic
brain injuries while they were you know, serving overseas you know,
and my god, my hat and my heart go out
to these people because they really helped me understand how
to help myself. Like one person said, oh, yeah, my

(27:48):
husband when he came home with a traumatic brain injury
from being in Afghanistan, nothing worked and blah blah blah
until he tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And I was like, oh,
you mean, like the thing that Michael used to lay
in And they were like, yeah, not covered by insurance.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Hella pricey.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
But it was one of those therapies that I that
I tried. I tried to do a lot of holistic stuff,
and you're trying because emotionally, you feel emotionally mentally, I
am I am. I am a pancake, I am a puddle,
I am a mess. I don't know how to fix myself.
I feel broken. I literally felt broken, and I did

(28:26):
not know how to put myself back together. I had
certain coping mechanisms my whole life, and none of them
were working anymore. Curious, like I told you a little
bit of self medication, maybe a little a lot of
over indulgence in alcohol, marijuana, never did anything else. I've
never I've never done cocaine, never done, never done any.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Of the hard stuff.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
But you know, I mean, wine is a gateway. It
is a gateway that a lot of us women, really
really really you know sometimes takes.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Also work addiction also probably was in there.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
And you know what I want, I was gonna mention
that I watched Ryan Coogler's interview and that work addiction
thing is is is a very real thing because something
traumatic like dying almost dying can happen to you, or
you're the person that brought you into the world, like
your mother dies, and you still feel this overwhelming urge
or need to keep yourself.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Working, working, busy.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
Busy for fear that you lose relevance or popularity, or.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
You also don't want to deal with what's really going on.
It's just a way to avoid.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
It is a way. It is the absolute worst.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
It's the absolute worst way to avoid because it's going
to rear its ugly heads somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Sure, you know.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
So for me, those coping mechanisms were you know, abusing
weed and alcohol and then just self isolating some weeks
months and what do you mean, what does that mean?
There would be times where you wouldn't really see me
for like six months.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Would anybody say you maybe a couple of people.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
Mmm, I I could like hide for a really long
time and a lot of and a lot of that
that time was pre social media.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
That's scary. Yeah, that's when it gets scary.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
Is it. It is really scary to think about to
think about what I thought were my coping mechanisms, and
that that these not even considering how unhealthy they were,
and trying to figure out a different way, a different emportation.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, but it was just like it. It was just
you know, get.

Speaker 4 (30:33):
Home, buy bottles of bottles of liquor, self medicate, fall
asleep and rinse, repeat, you know, rense repeat, you know.
So I I'll say all that to say that by
the time the tru M, you know, my traumatic brain
injury for my car accident happened, those tactics no longer work.
My brain was a different brain, you know, it had

(30:55):
I had it had been bleeding. You know what I'm
saying it Drinking alcohol was the war and smoking weed
was the worst thing that I could do for my
brain to try to repair it. You know, in a
in a point and time in which I need to
repair it, what I need is sleep. What I need

(31:15):
is meditation, deep breathing, that oxygen therapy. What I need
is peace and quiet talk therapy. And and I need
people to like my loved ones, to rally it around me.
And I need to give myself, you know, a break
from feeling like I need to contribute to in any way,

(31:36):
shape or form, to the ether, to the world whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Wow, that's that's a load.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
It was It was a lot.

Speaker 4 (31:47):
It was a lot, and just this overwhelming also urge
to feel like a comeback story, you know what I'm saying, Because.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
You want you're still working. That's you being performative. That's
you wanting to the Melissa Ford brand. That's how it's see.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
Super performative, super super performative. To my own detriment. Yeah,
and so you know, I eventually go back to work.
I was on a podcast at the time, very popular
podcast and Hollywood and locks. And then at that time,
I was just like, I really need my own thing,

(32:21):
you know what I'm saying. I just really need to
do the girl thing, you know what I mean? So
I started my own podcast at the time. I called
it I'm Here for the Food. The title was based
on my dating life because usually.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
I was just saying the food.

Speaker 4 (32:32):
I'm kidding, but it was like that was tongue in
cheek and it's like a girl thing, you.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Know, but still healing at this time. Had you figured out.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
At this point?

Speaker 4 (32:41):
So this is basically like a year later. So I'm
I'm I'm doing so much better. But the day that
I launched my podcast, I find out that my mom
has cancer. Let me add on to the fact that
I had not spoken to my mom for six months
because I was angry with her, and wow, she had

(33:03):
been trying to contact me, calling me, sending me messages,
mailing me little things and stuff like that. And it
wasn't until her best friend, who I call my aunt,
she was like, I need you to call your mother
right now. And I was just like, I'm not very
happy with my mother. She was like, I don't care,
you need to call her right now. And I knew
in that moment that something was really really wrong.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
And where were you met at her?

Speaker 4 (33:31):
My father had died a really long time ago, in
nineteen ninety two, and we had his ashes in a box,
really pretty, you know box, and I always had this
idea that I was going to take it to Barbados
and I was going to take a boat out in
the Caribbean Sea and I was going to empty his
ashes into the sea. Well, obviously couple of decades past,

(33:56):
so I didn't get around to it, you know, But
it was always this thing that I was going to do.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
He wasn't going anywhere, you know what I'm saying. So
it was always this thing that I was going to do.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
My mom discovered that she had cancer, so she started
to tie up loose ends because she I think she
felt that she wasn't gonna survive this, and so n
she took his ashes to his parents' cemetery plot and

(34:33):
buried them there.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
And I was so angry you.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
I was so angry you didn't ask me. You didn't
ask my step brothers, and you know, my father had
other children from previous relationships. You didn't ask any of
us if anybody wanted them and wanted to do something
different with them, why would you do that? I was
so angry, But a part of me knew in my

(34:59):
bone why she did it.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Did you know she had cancer? Oh you didn't m mmmmm.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
She didn't tell me at that point, and I just
was so.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
I was I just was angry and I was just
projecting and just just being an infant and just and
just being a dick, you know, because I could. My
anger was really important to me. And yeah, I were.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
You guys close before you and your mom before this happened,
or complicated.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
Complicated, got it complicated, really complicated. She loved me so much,
but she was like Russian and Norwegian, you know, Viking,
you know, stoic, you know what I'm saying. And it's
just like her mom died when she was fifteen, and
she didn't have an easy life, so it's not like
she was like the warmest person. But I never really

(35:55):
gave my mom, you know, I never really like gave
heard like a wide birth for understanding. You only act
you only the education of which you are first disposed
to is who is basically who.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
You are, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
And so I just I never let my mom off
the hook. Really, I just never let her off the hook.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Moms and daughters. It's not uncommon. It's not an uncommon.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Thing, it really is.

Speaker 4 (36:23):
And I just, you know, guilt, Oh my god, that
has been my cross to bear, the guilt that I
have like just felt for so many different reasons. Like
my career choice, the way people have received me. I

(36:44):
internalize it, you know, just I self flagellate all the time,
make myself pay for every misstep in judgment and every
bad decision. I have not allowed myself to be a
human being. For the vast majority of my life. I
expected more of myself than I have expected of any
other human being in this world. And I and I

(37:09):
don't know how I'm still here. I don't know how
I've survived.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
But wow, you are a warrior, sister.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
You know.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
I just really want to be a soft pink no right.
I hate when they like, you're so strong. I don't
want to be true.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
I just said that after my accident. People be like,
but you're so strong. I'm like, I don't want to
be true.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
I'm tired.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
I got used to get so bad. You're so strong. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
So, finding out that my mom had cancer, it was
aggressive and it was fastncer did she had colon and
uh so in a very short amount of time, I
had to experience change.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Did you call her right away when they Yeah?

Speaker 3 (37:54):
I did. And this was in November.

Speaker 4 (37:59):
Come December, she's sold the house I grew up in
as a child. The my sanctuary, the place that I
knew if everything else falls apart and everything fails, if
I if I fail at life, there's that place I
can go to. I can go home to my childhood
room and crawl into my bed, and my mom is gonna,

(38:21):
you know, make me a coffee and a scone with
some butter, and she's gonna bring it upstairs, and she's
gonna sit on my bed and she's gonna stroke my
head and she's gonna tell me everything's okay. Hm.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
So I had to.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
For Christmas.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
I like, I had to pack up my house. I
had to say goodbye to like so many things. I
had to say goodbye to my life, the you know,
and knowing that my mom was probably not gonna survive,
and oh my god, it just it was awful.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
It was really really hard.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
And it's just like this this was uh, this was
end of night two two thousand nineteen into two thousand twenty.
So the pandemic came.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Oh, this is not that long ago.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Now, as we get some tissues, please sorry, I wanna
make sure you gotta keep your makeup good.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
In so.

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Two thousand twenty, uh, pandemic hits and it gets real.
It was very different and you ima still here. No, No,
it was very different in other countries than it was here.
M So Canada's borders shut down. It became very difficult
for me to travel there. And what I didn't know

(39:55):
is that my mom decided to there's a perc there's
a process in Toronto call in Canada called made Medical
Assistance and dying. When you are terminal, you can choose
the day that you are going to die because they're
going to assist you.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
I didn't know that was a thing.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
Yeah, it's legal in eight states here, maybe more now
I'm not sure, but it's legal in Canada, and so
you have to go.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
You have to go through a very long process.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
They ask you, They ask you in front of people,
they ask you when you're alone. Is anybody coercing you
to do this? The executor of your will cannot be
a witness to anything.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
There can be no conflict of interest or whatever.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
It is very It's a process in which, let's just say,
twenty people say oh, this is what I want to do.
By the end of it, two people will go ahead
with it. And those two people are always women. Men
always back out.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
That's what the doctor told me. She was like, women
are warriors, they really really are strong. So my mom chose.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
My mom chose the date as May nineteenth, and I
got home to Toronto.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
On during during COVID twenty twenty.

Speaker 4 (41:02):
I got home to Toronto on May thirteenth. I tried
to get there the twelfth, but I tried to smuggle
Daisy on the air on the airplane and they caught me. No,
and I didn't have her vaccination records, you know what.
I got there the thirteenth, and I was shocked to
see I had just seen my mom in March. So

(41:22):
I'm I am trying to work. I'm trying to be
Melissa Ford. I'm trying to run my podcast, I'm trying
to work on my other podcasts.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
I'm trying to do all of.

Speaker 4 (41:33):
These things at this and act like everything is fine
and projecting that everything is fine and nothing's fine.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Why do we do it?

Speaker 4 (41:41):
I don't know why we do this to ourselves? Is
what I did. And so the last time i'd seen
her in March, and when I came in May, my
mom was a skeleton. She was it was over, and

(42:02):
you know, so I just l lay it in bed
with her for days and just I tried to ask
her as many questions as I could. Mm.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Oh, baby, I am so sorry.

Speaker 6 (42:16):
That's why, like after it happened, you know, I I
any chance I could get to, like do an interview
and talk about this, I would say to people like,
please if you can, if you have a funky relationship
with your parents or your mom, just try your best
to repair it. And also like talk to your parents

(42:40):
about the people they were before you came along. Mm
ask them questions, you know what I mean, Like d
get to know them as the human beings they were
before they had you, you know, and understand and also
j just you know, just understand their falliability, like.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
They're just they're they're human beings. They will air, they
will make mistakes, and you know, but it's just like
just enhance the relationship just through that, you know, just
improving your level of communication with this person. It's going
to make you feel so much better when they're gone.
Because I felt like I was racing against time to

(43:18):
try to figure out.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Like what do I want to ask her?

Speaker 1 (43:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (43:21):
I don't know because I didn't take the time to
figure out who she was outside of me, and it
just oh, I don't believe me. You don't want to
live with that guilt? Oh, it will kill you. It
will just it will just kill you. And you know, watching,

(43:43):
I think you're doing amazing thing.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
By the way, because this is recent, this is these
are these are open wounds. Even the fact that you're trying,
attempting in this moment to take what is inside you
and this trauma and this and still use it as
an offering is really commendable because your wound is still open, baby.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Like you're still in it.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
The other side of this, I can only imagine what
you're gonna be able to offer in terms of surviving it.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
So you know, the whole health and wellness space, self love,
self care. It is not a weighted ikea blanket, a
glass of wine. That's not what it is. It is.
It is difficult, difficult, shadow work. It is you are
depths of despair. You feel like you're coming apart at

(44:37):
the seams. When my mom passed away, I wanted I
was trying to find a mental health facility to check
myself into because I thought I was I felt like
I was going insane and just thank god I had
certain friends in place that.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
They would let me do. They would just let me be.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
If I was aging out of control and I was
difficult to deal with, they didn't judge me for it.
A lot of people judged me some, but some friends
did not, and they let me go through this.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Could anybody judge you through that because they probably don't
know what you're in.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
They just know what your actions are.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
It's a terrible club to be a part of.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
But anybody who has lost their mom understands what it
means to be a part of this club and know,
and people who have not lost their mother don't understand.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Until it happens to them.

Speaker 4 (45:29):
The insanity that you feel will you just won't get it.
Your entire universe has been ripped to shreds. You are
hurtling through time and space. It's literally like you are
you know, you're untethered. You've lost your tether to the
earth and you are just flying around and you're hoping

(45:51):
somebody grabs the string and pulls you down.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
But that is like.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
That, It doesn't happen. The grounding that happens takes years.
It takes years years.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
I'm I'm at.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Year three three, just about not even fully.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
Yeah, I'm at year three and you know, the Christmas
holidays are coming up. I have no parents, I'm an orphan,
I don't have family. So it's just like I look
at Christmas trees. I to look at everybody making these
plans and stuff like that, and I'm like, I'm gonna
go to Mexico. I'm just gonna go cry on the

(46:36):
beach and talk to the ocean and the universe and
stuff like that and just try and make it hot
for myself.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
You know. But that's just you're.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Trying to survive through these times. It's probably really hard
this time of year. I always try to keep that
into consideration. I always see everybody the holidays. Everybody's always
joy and family in this and there are so many
people in different ways, not just what you're going through.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
It's just a triggering time for a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
One of the things that did help me during this time.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Again.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
You know, like h how I said previously that I
had a very difficult time with using SSRIs, you know,
like antidepressants like Zoloft and Paxil and blah blah blah.
I just white knuckled it through it. But I discovered
micro dosing psilocybin. Oh you know, I don't like to

(47:31):
call it drugs. I like to call it plant medicine.
And I was introduced to it by way of Kirby,
who's the creative director of Pier Moss. I was introduced
to him by a mutual friend and Vic Mensa. I
was really afraid, you know, to try. And I didn't
know what it meant. I'd never tried shrooms before, Like,

(47:51):
I didn't understand. But I was willing to try anything
because I again, I didn't think that I was going
to survive. I kept seeing headlines video music model Melissa
Ford dead at forty five. She's just dead at forty six.
I kept seeing them. I lived in this building in downtown, LA,

(48:14):
which is hell on Earth. I will say, skid row
is just like down the I uh, anyways, I won't
even go into but I l had a balcony. I
had a patio and over the balcony it was like
a nine story drop onto just aluminum siding kind of thing,
and it was like kind of like where you can

(48:36):
you look down and you can see all the the
other apartments and stuff like that. But it was like
this big empty square and I constantly, constantly thought about
throwing myself over the balcony. I was like this, ID,
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna survive
if I don't find something to do. So I was

(48:58):
introduced to these two and they started talking to me
about how plant based medicine microdosing really helped them deal
with their depressive symptoms and their anxiety and that sort
of thing. So I tried it and it definitely, definitely
definitely helped.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
I was grateful for that.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
How so, how does what does it do to you? Like?
What do you for you?

Speaker 4 (49:19):
It stopped the negative narrative that constantly, constantly, you know,
kind of plays inside my head. You're not worthy, you're
not good enough, You're stupid, You're this, You're that you
should have done.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Are you still dealing with this? Do you think?

Speaker 3 (49:34):
No?

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Okay, I know this is so, this is a couple
of years ago you started this.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
Yeah, but also talk therapy. Yeah, therapy has been, you know,
extremely helpful. When my mom passed away, I had I
had a moment of reckoning with myself, looking at myself
in the mirror, and I said, I just said to myself.
I was like, Melissa, there's no one left to take
care of you.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
You.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
You have got to get a lot better at taking
care of yourself, and that means taking care of your
your mind. You promote health and wellness and beauty to
the world, your hashtag goals for how you know you
work out and that sort of thing, But you are
a mess up here. No one would want this. The

(50:22):
way you talk to yourself. You wouldn't even talk to
some random on the street. You know what I'm saying.
You wouldn't talk to your worst enemy. The way you
talk to yourself. You gotta fix this. You're not gonna starve.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Vibe if you don't.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
So I had that moment with myself where I told
myself this, but I was like, I don't know how
to be kind to myself. I don't know how to
be patient with myself, and I don't know how to
offer myself grace. I had to learn. It was a
muscle that I had never used before, so.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
I had to learn. I had to ask people.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
I had to talk to my therapist about what are
some healthy coping mechanisms. So it was a very long,
arduous process, and it was many, many years, and I
regressed a lot of the time. But you know, one
step back, one step forward, two steps back, blah blah
blah blah blah. So eventually now I'm in a much
better headspace to where I am very gracious to myself.

(51:17):
I am very kind to myself. I'm like, oh, nope,
we're not going down that road. This is how I
talk to myself. Nope, we're not going to be rate.
You made a mistake. It's fine, moving right along, It's okay.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
What is the what is the biggest coping Like, what
is your go to coping mechanism for even if you
like slip back a little bit, or you see yourself
telling yourself something negative or slipping into some type of depression,
especially now it's tough the holidays are here. Like, what
is your Do you have a go to thing you
learned from the therapist or pilates.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Pilates came along at a really good time in my life.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
I'm so interested. I want to start.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
I started.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
I loved it so much that I started to learn
how to be I was I'm training to be an instructor.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
I'll be your first client. I'm in.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
I got I got you, okay. I am in love
with pilates. I love everything about the principles of pilates.
I love everything about it. I loved how out of
my head and into my body I could get because
I needed that. There'd be times where I would be
on the reformer board sobbing, but it would help me,
especially when I was doing something that was there was
a new exercise that required a deeper level of concentration

(52:23):
to connect, to make that mind body connection to it.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
You know, where it feels really foreign, like what am
I doing here?

Speaker 4 (52:29):
You know there's a move called helicopter that's like, oh,
it looks so dope when you master it, but it
is really really hard and complex. So for me getting
out of my head and into my body, usually it's
physical exercise that helps me.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
How are you managing the guilt because you mentioned guilt
from surviving your accident and also guilt your relationship with
your mom and not talking and all of that for
that time, how are you managing that?

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Like, what is the thing?

Speaker 2 (52:59):
I mean, sure therapy, you've talked about it, right, So, like,
what is the thing about getting around guilts? Because I'm
sure there's people all over the world dealing with different.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Types of levels of guilt.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
But like I'm I'm very cerebral. I'm an intellect and
so I intellectualize all my problems. You know, I have
to find a solution, and it's usually in literature. And
so when I don't know the answer to something, I
get on Google, I start searching.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
I'll search the words solve. You know, I'm problem solving,
So I'm just looking.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
So I'll like, you know, look for self help books
or like personal development books, or maybe I'll get on
YouTube and I'll you know, watch something that you know
is motivates or inspires me or allows me to reframe
how I'm thinking about something. I've got a couple of
you know, girlfriends who are a little bit older than me,
who are mentors, and they're just your their life experiences.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
And the way that they the way that they you know,
gauge with me.

Speaker 4 (54:00):
They have really really, really really helped me understand a
how to reframe my thinking from being negative to more positive,
but also understanding how to challenge long held beliefs, you know,
ask asking me questions.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
Well, why do you believe that? Where did you where
did that belief come from? In the first place.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
Have you ever thought that maybe you were wrong? And
what if it's this working on yourself. It's it constant,
constantly working on myself.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
I swear to God. It is exhausting, you know.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
And it's always at least it's always forward motion.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Is it is forward motion.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
But every once in a while you're just like, take
a break, Just pick up some you know, chick lit
and just read that, you know what I mean, some
fictional stuff. Just take a break from the personal development,
because you know what I discovered, there's no arrival. There's
no arrival, destination, final destination. There's not gonna be a
point in which you're like, you close the book.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
WHOA, I'm perfect, I'm healed.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
I'm healed.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
There's nothing left to do. Trust me, when I say
something's gonna come along decides wipe you.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Because this is life. It undulates ebbs and it flows.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
You know what I'm saying, There's gonna be something that
knocks you off course that maybe now you have the
tools and the proper coping mechanisms to deal with it
when that comes comes along. And one of the things
that I discovered along the way my research is I
discovered Brene Brown.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
I love Brene Brown.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
Oh my god, Brene.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Renee, please come through the podcast.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Renee.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
We are fan.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
He adopt me. I love her so much. She is
for people who don't know.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
She is a social worker with multiple PhDs. Her life work,
she is devoted to teaching people about shame and vulnerability.
And this is a shame.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
We've talked about this, by the way, Kelly Clarkson, we
talked about shame and vulnerability.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
Yeah, so I mean, shame and guilt are cousins, you know,
I'm saying they're first cousins. And so whereas at one
point I never wanted to show any chink in the armor,
I never wanted anybody to see any level of like
my humanity. I looked at vulnerability as a weakness. I
now look at it as a superpower. It and it

(56:13):
and it has endeared me to people being so vulnerable
and candid and transparent.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
And so all these years, you and I have finally connected,
all these years in passing and at the moment of
both of us being vulnerable, connected in that way.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
When we both looked at vulnerability like we can't afford.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
It, and then we're like off about our world exactly.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
But now it's just like vulnerability is something that we
embrace and we look at it as like a superpower
rather than being a hindrance or you know, a weakness
or whatever the case is. And then just having a
greater understanding about how shame shapes so much of our
you know, the decisions that we make and how we
live our lives and how we try to shield ourselves
and protect ourselves. Guilt is closely related to that. So

(56:58):
by way of you know, listening to her, reading her
literature and just everything kind of related to that is
it helped me to develop a different relationship with the
concept of guilt and how much I need to release it,
you know, and how and how it is. I want

(57:19):
to say it's a worthless emotion, but it's not, because
it can kind of it's almost like a form of
self preservation, you know what I'm saying. But it's very complicated.
I will say that because at the wrong times it
is a very it is a very worthless emotion. It

(57:39):
is doing absolutely nothing for you, and it is detrimental
to your guilt yet to you your mental health and
forward momentum, you know. But in the right situation, guilt
can help you make different decisions, maybe repair situations that
you have been the cause of its destruction.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Yeah, yeah, my god, I didn't ask you this at
the beginning.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
I'm almost afraid to ask you this now. Oh I'm
not afraid to love it. I love it. I asked
this on every episode. How happy are you.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
On a scale of one to ten right now, right now,
not an hour ago or yesterday, but right now.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
I'd probably say like a nine. Really, I've I've been
looking forward to this. This makes me happy. Oh, I'm
so happy I you your energy is like, is so
dope than I've been looking forward to this. This is
this is the definition of a safe space. Your staff
is incredible. I look bomb you do you know my

(58:44):
babies in the corners, Daisy like this is this is
this is good stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
I love that, this is good stuff.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
I like I'm gainfully employed, you know, like I've got
opportunities coming my way. Like I would, I'd definitely say,
in this very moment, right now, I am at an.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
That makes me so happy and you deserve to be
out a nine.

Speaker 4 (59:03):
Thank you, you really do, thank you.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
The whole week hasn't been a nine.

Speaker 4 (59:06):
Holy shit this whole time.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
I know, there's been so raisy time and stuff. Not
always a nine.

Speaker 4 (59:12):
I'm sure that it was more like a two about
five days ago, maybe four days ago or something like that.
But you know, I mean, ebbs and flows, undulation, this
is life. Yeah, you know, if this had happened maybe
three years ago, I might not have had the bandwidth
to stomach what's happening, you know, but I'm good.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
I'd also even or or to even know that you
could get to a nine. I'm sure a few years
ago was far fetched.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Yeah, I mean, you know, part of my part of
my you know, uh, my.

Speaker 4 (59:43):
Self education has been to study happiness and study the
concept of happiness. Wow, and what.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Makes us happy?

Speaker 4 (59:53):
And you know, like I'm in my forties and so
you know, this is this is this is This is
the decade where we have like an existential crisis, you
know what I'm saying, where we start to really really
really really like look at.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
How is my life meaningful?

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
What is my purpose? Maybe start thinking about you know,
legacy and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
That's all my IRL questions basically all those things, you know,
But yeah, these are the Yeah, this is the decade
in which you think about these things where things that
used to impress you or things.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
That used to you know, like just you know, you
used to be like mired, and you're thinking about that.
You're just like, yeah, that's not really all that important,
you know what I mean. I'm thinking about I need
to buy a vacation home because I need to spend
a lot of time there. I need a happy place,
a physical happy place where I can go and I

(01:00:53):
can escape and I can just be the best version
of myself, the self that I love of so much
that yeah, you know. So I'm just trying to figure
out where is that going to be? Costa Rica? Is
it Nicaragua?

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Is it has been? Is it Jamaica?

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Is it Mexico. It's gonna be somewhere.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Girls wait to see you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
I'm I'm gonna be looking at some real estate in
Mexico on my next trip.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Trust and believe, Yeah, I love that. So that's that's
what my idea of like.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Creating like a constant source of contentment and happiness, because
that's the other thing that I learned about happiness.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
Is it's it is, it is.

Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
It is elusive, you know, and as human beings. We're
not really built to be on such a high level
of emotion all the time. We burn ourselves out. The
goal is to search for contentment, not happiness, because it's,
like I said, it's too elusive, you know what I'm saying.
And life will come along and life, you know, life

(01:01:57):
be life in it, do you know?

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
So?

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Content God, Contentment is the thing that you're looking for.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Two? Two things left.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Number One, we talked about this time and the holidays,
and this is not your first holiday without your mom
or even since your accident and going through all of that,
but you had I'm sure some of them. I'm sure
this is tough, but I'm sure some of the ones
from the past couple of years were even yeah, tougher.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
I can't imagine that first holiday after losing your mom
and going through all of that, what that holiday season
was like for you. And when I think about what
some people might be going through right now who are
in the trenches of something and this time, I don't know,
do you have any advice or any thoughts on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Just how to weather the storm or weather this time
a year?

Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
You just you have to fy you really have to
figure out what protecting your piece looks like for you, you know,
I I can't tell you what protecting your piece looks like,
because it's you know, it's it's it's it's individual curation,
you know what I'm saying. So for me, protecting my
piece is I spend a lot less time on social
media spend I spend no time digesting what's going on

(01:03:06):
in the news. As much as you want to care
about what's happening to other people in the world, and
they're you know, they're they're they're sordid circumstances. You protecting
your peace, you have to live with yourself. You have
to create a boundary, you have to, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
And so for me, that's what I do.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
I really limit my social media interaction, how much I'm scrolling.
I'm very aware of the dopamine hitten stuff like that,
especially this time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
If I go back to this time when people only
put the highlight reel the highlight, everybody has the perfect
family and the h and the husband or the or
the mom got from the perfect gift and they have
the perfect relationship, and there's the comparison is at all
time high of that, like you said that feed of
like that, Yeah, I think you have to remind yourself

(01:03:59):
that is not every buddy's reality. It's not if you
are in a down place right now, during especially this
time of the year. The reality is there are a
lot of other people also in that.

Speaker 4 (01:04:09):
One of the things that I did in order to
get out of my head is I started to volunteer.
I was so I just was like, I am tired
of myself. I am tired of constantly thinking of myself
and my problems.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
I am exhausted.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
I need to get out of my head and I
need to put my effort and my energy somewhere else.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
So besides pilates and working.

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
Out and stuff like that, I started to volunteer at
an animal shelter when I was still living in LA
And when I tell you that I got so much
joy out of cleaning the kittens little cages, there was
nothing that made me happier in that moment. Like those
few hours that I was at the shelter a couple

(01:04:54):
few times a week brought me so much Joy's really good.
Volunteerism is really really something that is good for your soul.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
You know, when you're like sick of yourself, if you're
in desperation, and can't fix yourself quick enough to be
able to deal. It's just an easy quick fix to
like take that energy and put it out work. It
doesn't heal you completely, but in the moment, if you
just need to change your energy and get out of here,
get out of yourself your own issues and problems.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Service is service.

Speaker 4 (01:05:28):
A service onto others is a quick fix. It's a
very quick fix, and it's it's very rewarding. It's very rewarding,
and I just I'm really good.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
It help.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
It was It was a bomb. It really soothed my
emotional and mental wounds, and I knew it was also
something that my mom would be looking down on me
and being like.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
That's my baby. Yeah, I love that. On that note, we'll.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
Ask our final question, which is in real life, what
do you hope that people.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Learn from you and your life and your experiences.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
I hope that by way of me being transparent and
candid about my experiences, people feel seen and heard and
they feel.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
They feel less alone.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
That was beautiful. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
I want you to have an amazing holiday and I
want you to get a vacational

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
Oh yeah, I'm I'm going to Mexico.