A Therapy Session with Dr. Dan Siegel

Chelsea is joined in the Season 2 Finale by none other than her very own therapist: Dr. Dan Siegel.  They chat about the double-edged sword of social media, how to become a lifelong learner, and why you should always be generous with your oranges.  Then: A mom struggles with her child’s pronouns.  A 21-year-old grapples with the untimely death of her brother.  And a followup with doting dad Alex, as he prepares for the next step in his family story.  Season 3 of Dear Chelsea returns Thursday, May 12!

*

Executive Producer Nick Stumpf

Produced by Catherine Law

Edited & Engineered by Brandon Dickert

*

*

*

*

*

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay. Hi. Oh hello Catherine, Hello Chelsea. Yeah, good afternoon, everybody,
Good morning. We have some very exciting news, Dear Chelsea.
The podcast you are currently listening to has been named
a Webby Honoree in the podcast general series Advice and
how To category. Who congratulations, congratulations Chelsea. Oh my god.

(00:25):
Earning the distinction of Webby Honoree, that's what it's called,
as recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences,
is a significant achievement, granted to only the top twenty
of more than fourteen thousand, three hundred projects submitted in
this year's petition. So that is a very exciting little award.

(00:47):
Oh my god, how I love it. I love getting
nominated for awards. It's a whole new thing for me. Yeah.
I mean, it's just it's a little bit of recognition.
It's kind of fun. I love an atta boy like
I love a pat on the back. So this is
just a wonderful way to get one of those. Yes, Yes,
I agree, thank you very much. Yes, what else, Katherine, Well,
I'm wearing my Dear Chelsea hat ches in. You guys

(01:11):
are Dear Chelsea. Merch is in. It's available on my
website at Chelsea Handler dot com. It's very exciting. Oh
I should also tell you this. So the very first
day that I wore my Dear Chelsea Lemon yellow T shirt,
I went for a hike. My husband and I were
hiking in Griffith Park and a woman came up to
me and she pointed at my shirt and she goes,

(01:32):
I have that in my ears right now. And I
was really confused. And then my husband was like, Katherine,
she said, she's listening to you, like this podcast right now.
It's on your shirt. And I was like, oh, that's cute.
It was very wonder why you were so confused. I was, well,
it was like the ear in. It was like, that's
in my ears right now. I was like, wait, I
don't understand. But she had earbuds in and it was

(01:54):
a whole thing. But it was very cute, and I
was cute. I love that people listen to it. I
always forget, you know, you leave here and then you
get that you like, even did a podcast. So it's
nice when people say, oh my god, I love your podcast,
or I I've called in, or I've written in. Somebody
tried to hand me their submission the other day, So
I gotta get that to you as soon as possible,
just so everybody knows. Katherine handles the submissions and there,

(02:17):
how do you submit again, Dear Chelsea Project at gmail
dot com. Don't send it to Dear Chelsea. That's a
very sweet woman who's not us and who's obviously annoyed
by getting all of our emails. But she's like, I
feel bad. I want to make sure that these get
to you. So Dear Chelsea Project at gmail dot com,
And yeah, I read every single one that comes in

(02:38):
so and actually I have received several emails about our
Amy Schumer episode and there was one specific little thing
that was mentioned on the episode that we wanted a
lot of people wanted to make sure that we corrected,
which you know, we're here to learn to so I
think that's great, Ashley says, Dear Chelsea. I love, love

(02:59):
love your show. You have the topics you cover, It
helps so many people, and I love listening every week.
I'm writing to respectfully ask you for a correction to
your episode with Amy Schumer. It was educational and vulnerable,
and your conversation on the autistic community and later in
life diagnoses will change people's lives for the better. In
the episode, it was mentioned that autism can't be diagnosed

(03:20):
until around age five or six, which is incorrect. I'm
a speech and language pathologist who works with children aged
two to fourteen, many of whom are artistic. You can
seek diagnosis as early as age two. Early intervention is
key for many families, and often the stigma of autism
keeps families from getting a diagnosis until much later. My

(03:41):
goal in my practice is always to put children in
their families first, and with all the advocacy Amy does,
I want everyone to be armed with the most accurate
information possible. Thanks for your consideration, Ashley. God damn it, Amy,
God damn it, Amy. Why she always getting me in trouble?
On I'm getting people in trouble, and then I've had
Amy Schumer. Okay, so you can get diagnosis early. As

(04:04):
to thank you for your letter, thank you for your correction.
We appreciate that, and yes, we want to get out
accurate information to everybody. Absolutely, early intervention, Guys, early intervention.
I wish somebody would have intervened with me earlier than
they did, because I really just I could have used
some sort of diagnosis when I was younger. I don't
know what my diagnosis is, but I could have used

(04:27):
some help. I feel like we're as we have expanding
conversations about everything in the public domain. There are so
many things and I'm like, oh, wait, I have this.
I have that, Like it's because of podcasts and one
in particular that I was like, Oh, I have anxiety.
That's what that feeling is. Yeah, we're actually knowing the
difference between anxiety and like, you know, anxiety encompasses so

(04:51):
many different things, like being annoyed with people is anxiety.
I always had anxieties like oh, social anxiety and inability
to so chalize or perform or go out or stage
fright like that kind of thing. And it's actually much
more nuanced than that. There is a whole spectrum of
anxiety that you can suffer from, and it can present
in many different ways in different people. So, you know,

(05:13):
eating his anxiety. Sometimes. Doing drugs is anxiety sometimes, or
a celebration can be either. Chelsea, do you have any
tour dates that you want to come? Yes. I added
a show in Saratoga Saratoga Mountain Winery. I added a
second show in Nashville, Nashville is where I am shooting

(05:33):
my next special, so there will be two shows now
in Nashville. And I am also performing at the Just
for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. Everyone has been asking
for Montreal dates to all of my Canadian friends. That
is July, i will be at the Montreal Just for Laughs.
I'm hosting a gala, and then I also have another

(05:55):
can I have two dates in Vancouver Friday August twelve
to shows in Vancouver and then Saturday August and Sunday
August fourteen. Tickets are available for Calgary in Alberta, and
I'm also adding a show Saturday October eight in Niagara Falls,
which is Ontario. So those are my Canadian dates coming up.

(06:19):
And then this week I'm starting back on tour. So
Thursday April I'm in Cedar Rapids, then I'm in Des
Moines and I'm coming to Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday night.
So and then the week after that is Louisville, Kentucky. St.
Louis Missouri and two shows in Kansas City. So check
Chelsea Handler dot com for your tickets. I'm back on tour.

(06:41):
Vaccinated in Horny. Let's get down to business. It's just great.
It's just great. I'm just back from Vegas, so I'm
looking a little peckish or peaked, one of those words
they both apply. Actually, I'm hungry and tired. We went
to Whistler to celebrate my friend and his birthday. That
was Saturday. A very fun Sunday night was the Grammys

(07:02):
in Vegas, which we flew out to with all of
our friends from Whistler. Then we celebrated Joe's birthday. After
the Grammys. We had a after party for him with
DJ terb his one of his besties, Deejaying, and it
was so much fun. And then we did it again Monday,
and then we did it again Tuesday, and we had
activities like dune bugging in the desert for all of

(07:25):
our guests. We had about seventy people there. So I
am fresh off of a flight from Vegas. I just landed.
I'm here today and talking abounding to talk to my
to our very special guest for our final episode, which
is our season finale of season two. We'll be back shortly.
We won't take that long of a break. But our
finale guest is none other than my psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Siegel,

(07:50):
it's very exciting. It's very exciting to have him on,
and he's going to help us with a couple of
sort of trickier questions that I've had because I obviously
to explain to every all of my listeners. Obviously I
can help with many things, and I think I know
a lot about a lot of things, and I also
know that I don't know a lot about some important things.

(08:10):
So when there is heavier advice to be given where
we do need a professional, I obviously tried to implement
one every few episodes so we can catch up with
the callers who I was not feeling confident enough or
you weren't feeling confident enough to help. By the way,
I've got so many compliments on you this weekend. My
sister was also saying, I was on the phone with
her last night just how much she loves your voice

(08:33):
and be how well rounded you are. She was like, god,
Katherine just knows a little bit about everything. And I
was like, I know, she's like a general practitioner. That's
so great. I mean, I guess I told her finances
your specialty, because that's where you really come a love.
Oh my gosh, that would actually make everyone in my family.
My dad has a tax attorneys that would make him
laugh very very hard. But oh that's so great. Yeah,

(08:56):
you know, I love to research. I love to fall
down an internet rabbit hole. So it's finally paying off.
It really is. Now that you've got this Emmy Webby Award.
I mean I slept and said, Emmy, we can get Yeah,
that's for us. Excellent, excellent. Well shall we welcome Dr Dan?
I know Dr Dan during the course of this interview

(09:17):
will mention several of his books, but do we want
to also maybe at the end we can mention all
the books because his books are helpful, and I would
like to just be on the record and say there
are a lot of them are parenting books. And I've
read three parenting books from him, So you are an
expert in parenting. Well, I mean it was more for
Burton Bernie's and we know how that turned out. So

(09:40):
I mean, I don't know if you could apply parenting
books to animals, but that's what I was after. I mean,
I think they can be as sassy as teenagers. Like
Mimsy isn't a very teenagers stage right now. She just
plants her feet when she doesn't want to go home
on a walk. Yeah, Bernie's does that all the time.
She Bernie's won't step on certain materials, like, she doesn't
like certain surfaces. So she's stops and then you have

(10:01):
to basically choke her to pull her over it. She
doesn't like sand, she doesn't like cement. That's just like
anything that's dirty. Really, Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't know
where she got that from. Must be, it must be.
We'll be right back. So today's guest it has a

(10:23):
medical degree from Harvard. He's a clinical professor of psychiatry
at the U c l A School of Medicine and
the founding co director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center
at U c l A. He is a multiple time
New York Times best selling author, a neuropsychiatrist and interpersonal neurobiologist,
Dr Dan Siegel. Oh my god, look who it is? Hi?

(10:47):
How are you? Long time? You know? Ceci? I know?
How are you you? I am very well. This is
my co host Catherine, who I think he's spoken to. Hi,
cats Aine, nice to see you. Like Wise, likewise, Dan
uses a standing desk, Katherine, So if his motion is
giving you motion sickness, let him know. Yeah, I can

(11:08):
stop if you want. It's I like walking, but if
you want me to stop, I can stop. No, that's fine.
I'm fine with it. Although, Katherine, are you okay with it?
I think I'm okay with it. If I do get
motion sickness, I will let you know. I love the
idea of getting motion signess from someone else's motion. What
does an interpersonal neurobiologists mean? Dan? You know? Interpersonal neurobiology

(11:31):
is a phrase for a framework that combines all different
ways of knowing, like the different fields of science or
studies of meditation what are called contemplative insights with indigenous
practices indigenous wisdom, and we bring it all together and say,
if there's one reality, can everybody join in the tent

(11:53):
and have a conversation that's collaborative so we can see
the wisdom from all these different points of view. Oh, interesting,
is that a new field? Yeah, it's a new framework.
I introduced it in so it's relatively new compared to
some other things. But it's new, especially in the notion

(12:14):
that it's not trying to replace an existing point of view.
It's trying to say, there's so many views from thousands
of years ago or from dozens of years ago, and
if they're all exploring the nature of truth, could we
see if they all fit together somehow? There's a common
ground that EO. Wilson, the writer calls concilience. So we

(12:37):
look for the concilience or common ground across independent pursuits
of knowledge. Oh wow, I'm we're really leveling up this episode,
Catherine buckle In. So that relates to actually one of
the questions that I want to ask you, but I'll
ask that later, but it relates to it. Okay, great,
I love it. I love when you're ask me questions.

(12:57):
It's so great to see you, I gotta say, Jesse. Oh,
it's always good to see you, Always good to see you.
I I spoke to you a few months ago because
I'm in a new relationship and about the adjustment to
be in a relationship with somebody, to spend so much
time with somebody when I'm so used to being so
kind of independent and alone. And I wanted to mention
because you and I have had conversation once. And I

(13:18):
can say this because it's it's private until I publicize it,
so I'll say it. But we talked about I remember
there was a period of time where I was telling
you that I just I was like, I just want
to go to bed at like eight o'clock every night.
You know, I'm not in the mood to hang out.
I just want to be in bed all the time.
And I was asking you, do you think I'm depressed?

(13:38):
And I was single at the time, and you said, saliently,
I think that if someone were in your life that
you were excited about, you wouldn't want to go to
bed at seven or eight o'clock. And it's I still
like to go to bed at seven or eight o'clock.
I mean, there are times when I can't, where of
course I don't because he's a night owl, and we

(13:59):
compromise a lot. But the other night, I remember we
came home. He was taping two of his shows at
the Forum in l A, his Netflix special, so they
were big nights out and we were out soil one
in the morning that we were outstill five in the morning.
And on the Sunday we were planning to go to
all these Oscar parties and I woke up Sunday I'm like,
I'm done. I can't. I can't socialize anymore. And that night,

(14:19):
and you know, Joe wakes up. My boyfriend has more
energy than a battery pack. I mean, it is unbelievable
what this guy is willing to do all day long
on no sleep. It's just crazy. I've never seen any
human being operate like this. He's got different DNA. So anyway,
that night, he was like going somewhere. I wanted to
go to dinner with his family, and I was like,
I really just want to go to bed at seven

(14:40):
or eight o'clock. And I remember the conversation you and
I had and I thought, oh, what does this mean
that I still want this? Because I have this kind
of element now to my personality where I want to
hunker down, you know, where I want to get in
bed and watch TV and just build myself a little nest.
And I know when you do that often or too much,

(15:00):
it becomes it does become a pattern where it feels
like you are depressed. Well, now, so what's the part
where you're calling it depression? Well, I think when I
was doing it consistently. Now I do it, you know,
on a Sunday night, you know, or you know, I
don't do it as frequently, so it doesn't feel as
like bad. Because when you do it consistently, and I

(15:22):
think it was also maybe a product of COVID as well,
that I was just like, there's nothing going on. It's
just easier to get stoned and you know, get into
bed and whatever. But it was becoming a pattern that
I didn't like about myself. It just didn't feel I
didn't feel alive. I felt like I was slightly depressed.
And I've never really dealt with any depression to the
level where I had to really like take anything for it.

(15:44):
Or I don't know, I guess I I don't know
if it's a question or just an observation, but I
don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, you were,
You're raising a couple of really important issues. I mean, one,
when you use the word depression, we should realize that
there are people in the world who who have really
serious ways where they get the experience of you know,

(16:04):
maybe going to bed early or even having a hard
time falling asleep. It can go either way. Um their
sleep can be interrupted, they can get up early, or
they can sleep really a long time. So sleep is
a big issue to talk about with this thing called
major depression. But in addition, you know, they have low energy.

(16:24):
They have something called an hedonia, which means and is
without hedonia's pleasure, So they don't get pleasure in things
that used to give them pleasure. And also they don't
get pleasure in anticipating doing something fun, so they kind
of lose their jouis d viv their their their joy
of living. It kind of goes away. They start thinking

(16:46):
kind of really down thoughts like I'm no good, I'm
guilty of things that I'm not even guilty of, you know,
I'm a horrible person, and there's no future for me,
there's no hope, and then I start feeling helpless. So
for any of us who have worked on a suicide
prevention service, when some of these serious depression calls you,
you can feel it in the tone of their voice

(17:07):
is kind of like flat and there's a huge despair
there that makes suicide a serious risk. So if anyone's
hearing us and your experience of those, please reach out
for help to a mental health professional. If suicide is
something you're thinking about, you know, please reach out to
a suicide prevention service because the great news about depression

(17:27):
is that it's treatable, and even though you may feel hopeless,
there's hope right around the corner. And part of it
actually is the connection we talked about. So when I
said to you, I think if you had a connection
with someone that matters to you in your life, it
wasn't that I thought you were depressed. But some people
do get depressed because they have no connection, and it's

(17:49):
really loneliness, deep deep loneliness, and our community are larger
society now doesn't really support people having connections with each other.
You know. The the current US Surgeon General wrote a
beautiful book called Together about this sad epidemic we have
where we have so much material wealth, but we don't

(18:09):
have much relational wealth. People are so isolated from each other,
so you know, that's that's a separate sort of thing.
So being lonely can make you feel horrible and despairing,
but it might not be called major depression, but it
still feels terrible, and we need to help people with that.
And then there's you know, just what's called dysphoria, which

(18:31):
is where you just feel yucky about your life. This
is bad for is how you feel. And I'm dysphoric,
you know, And I think anyone who reads the news
can get dysphoric because we're in a rough place in
the world now, so our our body is going to
respond emotionally, and emotion, you know, is basically three things
woven together. It's relationships, the body's response, and meaning. Those

(18:56):
three things are really what emotion is. So if someone says, oh,
my emotion it is horrible, I feel down. What's going
on with the world. Yeah, let's let's name it so
we can frame it like in a picture frame and
say that's what it is. Let's try to participate, you know,
in social activism. Let's try to do something to really
feel empowered, to actually have what's called agency, or I

(19:18):
can be an agent of action to do something. So
a lot of people these days are feeling hopeless, and
they can call it depressed, but that gets people mixed
up with a serious psychiatric condition rather than the world
is in a really tough spot. So we can feel hopeless,
Let's talk to each other about it, because in working

(19:39):
collectively we can actually move through that to what Joanna Macy,
a beautiful writer, calls active hope. So this is a
way you can take that word depression and see it
as either a serious disorder that sometimes these medications or
other treatments, or a more moderate condition where you know
psychotherapy can be helpful, or a way we're using that

(20:00):
word to describe loneliness and then having a change in
in your participation in life. You know, like people in
a a for example, they get an instant community through
alcoholics anonymous meetings, and their feeling of a loneliness and
despair can dissolve a way because they go to a
regular meeting. Like a relative of mind is a recovering

(20:21):
alcoholic and he goes to meeting seven days a week,
and he's like the most unlnely person you want to
find because he's got a whole community every day that
he's actively a part of, very meaningful conversations. Yeah, I
like dysphoric. That's a good way to describe it, because
I think for many of us, especially with the events
of the last few years, it's it's like a low
level of dysphoria, you know, it's and it can feel

(20:44):
it feels maybe like depression because it's not a common feeling.
I know for me, I've never felt that kind of
listlessness where you're just like it's on we You're just
like I don't I can't get it up for anything.
I'm not that excited about anything that's happening. And I
definitely did remove reading the news from my repertoire after
a while because I just I read too many. It

(21:05):
was too obvious what it does to your brain. And
obviously now with the events, the most recent events in
Ukraine and Russia invading Ukraine, like that is something that
is a human being. It's our responsibility, I believe to
be up to speed and to understand and to be
actively involved in doing whatever it is that you may
be able to do, you know, whether that's donating money
or volunteering in some way, or just being mindful of

(21:28):
what's happening in the world and meditating on it every
day whatever, like small contribution you think is f I
fine for you, or big contribution, but the political aspect,
it's just too sickening. So I realized that that was
just contributing to my kind of darkness for a long
time and had to remove remove that. And it's kind

(21:50):
of like it's too bad, But it's an addiction. It's
just like anything else. It's just like being addicted to
TikTok or Instagram or mind ae scrolling through your phone
on social media. That is also an addiction, you know,
and I don't like. I don't like the way that
makes me feel either. And I'm very mindful of how perusing. Like.

(22:10):
You know, if I'm reading a book for two hours,
I come away with a much different feeling and much
greater self assured nous and self esteem than I do
when I'm wasting my time reading gossip or reading you know,
the internet, Like I I know now what the components
are that that triggered me or take me to kind
of a low energy, vibrational place exactly. Well, you know,

(22:31):
you're describing an awareness of how you're responding. Your body
is responding, your emotions are responding, and then in that
awareness you've beautifully created a space so you can say, well,
I'm kind of addicted to these social media things, and
I notice I feel really bad. Wow. When I take

(22:55):
the time to reflect on that, I can name it. Oh,
I feel bad when I do this social media. I
could frame it say Okay, what do I want to
do about it? I'm not going to do it as much.
That's an empowered mind you're talking about that you have,
and it's beautiful here you describe it and a lot
of people. And if you've seen the Social Dilemma documentary,
you know, the people who designed social media studied addiction,

(23:20):
and they intentionally create stuff on your screens to capture eyeballs,
to capture your time, focusing your attention on the thing
whatever it is. That wasn't by accident, it was by intent. Yeah.
But what's so astonishing is that everybody is aware of
that and has been made aware of that, yet we

(23:40):
still allow ourselves to operate like that, Like people like,
I know, it's crazy, d DA. It's like, well, wait,
you're just a cognitive wheel if you're just allowing people
to manipulate your brain, right. Well, And and part of
the reason why that addiction what's called interimate reinforcement. If

(24:01):
you keep on giving positive reinforcement over and over again,
after a while, it isn't so addicting. But intermittent reinforcement
where I give you a reward, then three next times
I don't. Then I give you one, then eight times
next I don't. Then the ninth time you get a reward,
you don't know what it's gonna happen, So it really
pulls you in. That's number one. The other thing which
is the other side of it is that our brains

(24:23):
are incredibly social. So there's all sorts of studies I
can tell you about, but but the summary of all
of them basically is we are social creatures. That's no surprise.
You didn't need to do brain studies to know that.
But when you look at the brain, areas involved in
feeling accepted. And I can tell you one study that
is so cool. When you're accepted, it activates this dopamine release.

(24:47):
It's very rewarding. That's what the dopammune is for. That
was good. Let me do it again, Let me do
it again, Let me do it again. But then when
you sense that you're not accepted, like you're not getting
as many hits on your social media or whatever like that,
the part of the brain, it's called the dorsal anterior singulate,
the part of the brain that registers social rejection. I

(25:08):
call it feeling of being inadequate, like I'm not fitting
in with the social group. It's exactly the same part
of the brain as if someone's stabbing you with a knife.
It hurts literally in the brain. It's the same part
of the brain social rejection, physical pain, same part of
the brain. Now when you take that, you go wow, Okay.
So you're always trying to see how can I fit in?
How do I compare? How do I fit in? How

(25:30):
do I compare? Do I belong? Do I not belong?
You know, so you're trying not to feel the pain.
You're trying to find membership in a in a modern
society as we talked about earlier, where we're so alone.
So you combine those two things, the intermittent reinforcement, all
the other ways they know about addiction with the social brain,
and it is a money maker because then you're gonna

(25:54):
get so much time. I think about fifteen years ago,
we didn't have these things, and now everyone's got them. Yeah,
I know people are like, oh, we're gonna keep our
kids off social media, We're gonna keep them off of iPads.
I'm not gonna get any of that until they're ten, twelve, fifteen.
I have a friend who waited for her kids to
get a phone until I think they were fourteen, And
it's like, what does that do? Because once you get it,

(26:15):
once you're in, you're in, right. I mean I even
see it in my two kids, you know, one was
he's old enough he's thirty two two not have had
that part of his adolescence. The others twenty eight and
she did. And you can even see in their different
groups of friends, you know, they deal with social media
in different ways, the younger one. More. I'll tell you

(26:37):
a sad thing. I was having lunch with Caroline, my
my wife. We were having a nice lunch in New York.
It was a great restaurant everything. Then these people come
sitting next to us with this one year old kid,
and it was really cute, and they were from another
country and it was her birthday, so it was the
birthday party. So they put out this presents, just one
sitting in the high chair. They handed her a smartphone.

(27:00):
For the rest of the so called birthday party lunch,
every one of them is on their separate device, and
Caroline and I are going, oh my god. So I
took out my phone to take a picture because I
wanted to put it up on social media. She goes,
don't do that, you know, which is right. I shouldn't
expose them, although I did get a picture where you
couldn't see identity, But anyway, you really should know better

(27:20):
than that. First. I mean, but I wanted to share
on social media how scary social media can be. Because
this kid, now, at one, you should have got up
to them and said, hey, these are my credentials and yeah,
and said listen, I am a doctor that specializes in this.
I have a degree from Harvard. I'm a neuropsychiatrist. Do

(27:42):
you understand the damage you are doing to your child's brain?
Remember what you're saying next time, I'm going to do that? Yeah,
come on, I mean, think about the impact that would
have had. Yeah. Maybe it's unwelcome, but I mean you're
doing them a favor, you know, at least giving them
the information that they may not be privy too. What's
so interesting, Chelsea, because there are times when I wonder

(28:05):
about doing that, offering un requested suggestions. Now my kids
are now adults, so that's that's a whole parenting adult
children thing where you actually intentionally don't do it. But
as a professional and a member of our human family,
when do I offer stuff like that? So it's a

(28:26):
little tricky. I've I've tried it a few times and
it often does not go off well. So what I
do is I keep a lot of my extra parenting
books in the car and then I just like hand
them out for free, like you know Halloween, you know,
trigger Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess you know nobody. I
mean most people would say, don't give unsolicited advice. I
obviously subscribe to a different theory. I think that sometimes

(28:46):
I can hit somebody. I mean not always, but sometimes
you can get somebody who really hears you and and
you're doing them a service or a favor, you know.
I mean that is sad. Yeah, But you know, when
you and I first met, I really was impressed with
how you like to learn new stuff. What in you
really empowers you to have such a focus on lifelong learning,

(29:09):
because when you came to me, you weren't like an
adolescent coming to me for therapy. You know, I'm a
child adolescent and adult therapist, and adolescent can struggle with things.
You know. You were a full on adult accomplished a lot,
but you came to learn more, you know, and it
was it's such a beautiful thing that I think life
will be the death of me. Your book illustrates. But
what is it that you can teach all of us

(29:32):
about your lifelong learning nature? Um? Well, I mean, thank you.
I think that's a huge compliment. I mean, I don't
know that it's really I think I just I'm very curious,
you know, Like I have a curiosity that I've always
had which has gotten me into lots of trouble as
a child, like asking impertinent questions, but being really curious

(29:52):
about people's lives. And I love interpersonal dynamics, like I
just love like when I meet a family, like if
I'm on occasion and I get to meet brothers and
sisters together with their parents and watching the dynamics and
like how they function. I just will never get tired
of that. And because I'm some from such a big
family and we have so many additional family members, because

(30:14):
people get married and hook up and have boyfriends and
girlfriends and children, it just gets more and more complex.
And so for me, it was about becoming a better,
more self aware, fuller person. But curiosity, I think, you know,
I could listen to you talk about the brain and
science for hours because I find that fascinating too, you know.

(30:35):
I mean there are things I don't find fascinating, like bitcoin,
you know that is when I talk about that, it's like, okay,
I don't have I mean I had someone explained an
n F T to me finally where I was able
to get understand from the beginning to the end, and
I was like, oh my god, I want to I
want to pay you for that explanation because I now

(30:56):
understand what an n f T is. Okay, well, I
i'd have you tell me that, but we won't. We'll
save that for another We'll save that for a private conversation.
But thank you. I mean, I don't know, I really
don't know how to answer that, but I do think
that you know, when you ask questions, you're you're signing
up for just like more knowledge, right, You're yea, And
especially if you have the luxury of going to someone

(31:18):
like you you have so much experience, it's like it's
a win win situation. Yes, it's going to be painful
at times when you're doing inner work, of course, because
you have to face things about yourself that are not
pleasant and that are humiliating or embarrassing or however you
want to frame that. But bravery gets you to a
better place in life. I think you know, being brave

(31:39):
about finding out about yourself. I think your journey and therapy,
it isn't everyone's experience that they're so basically open to change.
And I remember there was a moment and you say
this in the book, so I can I can share it.
You got very emotional about something, and I think there
was an awareness that you felt shouldn't be emotionally, shouldn't

(32:01):
be crying, You shouldn't have it right. One is lifelong learning,
but the other is openness to change. Well, yes, I
would encourage everyone to always be curious to learn. I
mean learning is knowledge and knowledge is power and I
want to be poweraful Okay, so should we go ahead
and take some colors? I think that's a great idea,
And I'm going to make us take a quick break

(32:22):
before I do that. I love breaks, but let's take one. Excellent.
We had a call, all right, Katherine, that's going to
call back in because it's a man who's transition from
being a woman and he has a three year old
daughter with his wife, and he was asking when the
appropriate time is to explain all of those things to her,

(32:46):
and I thought, we have Dan coming up. I think
you'd be better suited to answer that question instead of me.
So I think we were able to get Alex on
the phone today, right, Catherine, Yes, his three year old
daughter Sutton. He has a bottom surgery coming up in
the next year and a half, and so he's wondering
how to address those things with Sutton. So Hi Alex, Hello,

(33:08):
Hi Alex. Yeah, it's nice to meet you. Nice to
meet you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, well, when
you were on last time, I was like, oh, you
know what I you know, we had a great conversation,
but I thought we have my doctor coming on next
and he would be better suited since he specializes in
adolescent brain development and childhood all of this stuff. So, yeah,

(33:30):
he's here, so we were we thought maybe you could
give him a summary of your situation so he could
weigh in for sure. Yeah, absolutely, thank you. So the
situation really is is I am I am three year old,
and I am on the cusp of going through the
consultation process to have my next major surgery as being

(33:50):
a transgender, and I really am going to be embarking
upon a long journey of about three to four surgeries
to have everything happened, and it usually takes about a
year year and a half in long recovery times. And
I wanted to do this early in in Sutton's development
so that it wasn't kind of a core memory for her.

(34:11):
But I'm just kind of teetering on on how much
to be to tell a three year old a four
year old about what type of surgery I'm having, the
impact that it's going to have to her life, as
well as what healing time is, because it's not like
I'm sick or going through anything that's that's something that
she should be worried about. More So, this is a
great part of my journey, but it's going to be

(34:32):
impactful for her, So I just want to make sure
that I'm expressing both sides of it and the reality
of it, but also in a way that she's going
to understand what's happening to Danny. Well. She's so lucky
to have you as a parent, Alex, because your intuition
of tuning in and getting a feeling of transparency that

(34:54):
a family without secrets is a family that has you
could call it a coherent narrative that as a narrative
about whatever is going on, even if it's about something
wasn't expected, which is usually where stories come from. You
know is really important and what is your heart and
your gut? Literally we have three brains. You have a

(35:15):
brain in your head. You have a brain in your heart,
you have a brain in your gut. And what is
your heart brain and your gut brain? What are they
telling your head brain that has the words to speak,
what are they signaling to you? So I suppose if
I was to refer to my heart, uh, I would
say that I want to make sure that she feels

(35:36):
comforted in in those times when I'm healing and I,
you know, can't can't be around her as much, can't
play with her own so much or engage with her
as she expects. And then I guess, my my gut
is kind of telling me to be a little bit
more worried about kind of what the impact is going
to have and and what I guess the optics are

(35:57):
are a big thing. Um, optics of her going back
to daycare or talking about what our family looks like
at that time, or her having to do everything with
mom because I won't be able to get out of
the house as well for for that amount of time.
So yeah, I just want her to feel like like
I'm still there just as I am every single day
now with being as able as I am. That's fantastic.

(36:20):
And you know, these two brains when they send their
wisdom up to your head brain, which has kind of
logic and thinking about things in that way, what does
your head brain say about the whole developmental timing of
when to speak with her. I suppose my my headbrain

(36:40):
is kind of kind of being more logical hopefully it's
it's it's on my side, but being more logical in
the way that and telling me that it's it's it's
going to be okay, like this is only going to
be a blip and what our family development looks like.
And I hope that what comes out of it is
that he sees that my happiness continues to grow on

(37:03):
my personal journey and that our family just becomes more
kind of united, and that when she looks back on
the time, yes, it was trying in the grand scheme
of how we had to schedule things, and I wasn't
there for you know, going and running outside as much.
But after the healing, life will go back to quote
unquote normal and I will just have more happiness and

(37:24):
more understanding of where how I walk in the world.
So that hopefully just makes it easier for her and
for our family to progress as as a unit. That's
so beautiful. Well, I mean, Alex, for me, you've kind
of answered the question in the deepest way of what
feels right to you personally, what feels right to you
if your your daughter, and then you know when you're

(37:47):
turning to Chelsea and you know, turning to me, you know,
as a person who writes about development, here's just added
on top of your wisdom, I would just add the
following things. The way you're think approaching the notion of
a family story, the family narrative. And I don't say
story like a pretend story. I mean we are narrative creatures.

(38:09):
We tell the story of who we are. And some
families never do that, and there are all sorts of
secrets and all sorts of things that are never talked about,
you know, and then that shuts things down. I mean, Chelsea,
we could talk about that about when your your brother
died that you've written about so powerfully in your narrative
of letting that come out and be the story. So Alex,

(38:32):
for you and for your whole family, everything can be
our teacher. You know, life happens, stuff that's challenging happens,
and if we see things that are not expected as
challenges rather than as threats. Then we bring as a
parent a very different attitude, like saying, you know, we
didn't expect this to happen. Now, how you then make

(38:56):
that health promoting growth promoting stress or distress is what
I think your beautiful question is doing. You're saying this
is going to be stressful, that's fine. Life is that's
meaningful and stressful. How do we allow this to turn
into a positive, growth promoting, challenging experience rather than a threat?
And the answer is what you've already told us. You're

(39:20):
ready to be fully present with your daughter. You're being
fully present with yourself, and so you know you could
turn to the people who are involved in the surgery
and the centers you're working with and ask them this question,
to which I urge you to do. From my point
of view, it's not my area of specialty, but as
a child specialist, what I would say is this is

(39:41):
every child's a little different terms of their temperament, and
every child a little different in terms of their attachment
to different caregivers. But the commonality across temperament and attachment
is to tell a story that makes sense of things.
So in a book I wrote called parenting from the
inside out. It's sort of t reaches you how to

(40:01):
bring those stories. Or I wrote that with Mary Hartzel.
A book I wrote with Tina Payne Bryson is called
The Power of Showing Up. Those two books would be
great ones for you to actually read before you tell
her the story, because they show that whenever whatever the age,
people ask this about kids are adopted, when should I
tell my adopted kids? Whenever? You bring it to three four,

(40:24):
she's old enough now to be able to hear a story,
as you know, do you want to hear it again
and again and again to agad and so you have
to be ready to like be repeating yourself. But that's fine.
And when she sees the love in your heart, when
she feels that your gut is really behind this and
your head is now bringing the words to make a story,

(40:47):
makes sense. She's ready at three unless there's some of
the other issue that says, let's hold it off. But
if the surgery is happening soon, then telling the story
even having you know toys that allow you know, enact
a story. And here's what I would say. This is
not just about the surgery, but about the general idea
of transitioning is people they don't understand that gender identity

(41:11):
is different than assigned sex, whether you have a penis
or vagina. When I used to be in pediatrics and
we go to the delivery room to help with the baby,
you'd see the outer manifestation and say boy or girl.
But gender identity is actually along an entire continuum because
the brain of mammals can be hugely female, which it

(41:36):
starts out as in all of us. But then the
way the testosterone that's secreted by the testicles crosses the
blood brain barrier into various degrees masculizes that brain to
be a teeny bit masculine but mostly feminine, or middle
way both ways or all the way masculine. Your gender
identity is based on that, and it's not yes or no.

(41:57):
It's not like a switch on or off, you know,
boy or girl. So just explaining it that way, even
like a switch, you say, what we look like for
most of us, of us outwardly when we're born, is
like a switch. It's on or off, it's boy or girl.
But actually gender identities not like that. It's more like
a thermostat where we have all these degrees and you

(42:18):
can't tell a person's gender identity from the outside. And
I had one gender identity and my assigned sex with
something else. So I'm in the good fortune of making
sense of that, and so I'm going to make my
outside match my inside. That's the story, right, So she
at three, she's gonna get that. And when I work
with kids who are like four or five, who are

(42:40):
assigned gender is one thing, but our gender identity is
the other. I talked to them about that and the
parents say, oh, but this is gonna be challenging. Go yeah,
but this is the way it is. And this person
could be incredibly healthy and happy if you, as their parents,
let them see, this is just what happened. And life
is about always exploring and learning and growing and this

(43:03):
is a beautiful thing and it works out fine. Whereas
is you know, if people say no, no, no, you
can't do that, that's when it's a problem. So is
that part of the what you've learned in your journey? Absolutely,
And making sure that having a daughter that's kind of
going through this journey as a part of my journey,
I feel it's my responsibility as her parent to make

(43:24):
sure that the environments that she is in the people
have that positive outlook and that's what I'm trying to
do as well, which is why it's just nerve racking,
you know, raising a kid in this day and age.
And I'm from We're in a small town in West Michigan,
so um, it's a little bit difficult. But I think
exactly like you said, creating that narrative for my family

(43:47):
that makes a positive space no matter what challenges come
about is is a great way to put it. Because
no one writes that story or that narrative, but but us, Yeah,
exactly exactly. You know you might enjoy also and giving
you these references. But there's a book called Brainstorm I
wrote for adolescence which talks about how parents can approach

(44:10):
when a child themselves is having a different This is
I think with sexual orientation issue, but the same thing.
You know, parents have one expectation, a kid comes out
the other way. How that works out. This will be
the flip side where you're going to come as the
parent to teach your child that what she may be
learning in school or in television is one extreme and

(44:31):
that is actually more subtle. And so she has the
incredible fortune of having you as a parent who will
guide her through a deeper notion of the way things
actually are, which is a beautiful gift you're gonna get her.
Thank you. I appreciate that, and I appreciate your advice,
and thank you for for having me so that I
can have that conversation and get that. I appreciate it. Well.

(44:51):
I hope we'll be able to check in with you
and see how it all goes. Thank you, Hi, Alex,
thank you so much. That was perfect awesome. I was
wonderful really connecting the dots here. Yeah, and I loved
what you said to about gender being so separate from

(45:11):
the actual physical sex. It actually goes with another question
that someone wrote in, but this one really directly relates
to what you were saying. So this question is from Monica,
whose child Kira, has told Monica that they'd like to
go by day them pronounced so. Monica says, Dear Chelsea

(45:32):
love the podcast. We have a fifteen year old daughter
who came out to us as non binary a few
months ago. She tells us that all of her friends
referred to her as they slashed them. A couple of
years ago, she told us she was bisexual. I laughed
and told her that it was a trend. I didn't
handle that well, obviously trying to do this one better.
We live in Boulder, Colorado, in a very liberal setting,

(45:54):
where it's hard to tell if this is a trendy
choice or an actual feeling that she's going with. Several
of her friends are either bisexual, non binary, or trans.
We love that this generation can explore their sexuality, unlike
we were able to do growing up. The hard part
is the labels. I feel like at this point in
her life she doesn't have to label her sexuality. Am

(46:15):
I wrong? My husband and I don't feel comfortable referring
to her as they slash them. We're both very open
and liberal. We believe that people should love whomever they
want to love to find happiness. For some reason, we're
having a hard time with this one. We support her
in every single way, and whoever she wants to love
would completely support. She's single at the moment. The issue

(46:36):
is the pronouns. We've talked to her about this and
have told her that we support her, but we don't
feel comfortable switching pronouns at this point. She says she understands.
Are my husband and I complete assholes? Thanks? For your time, Monica. Well,
thank you Catherine for sharing Monica's question. There's so much
to say about her reflections. The first broadest statement to

(47:01):
make is the more you know, the less you see.
And what that means is the way the brain is constructed.
It kind of has has a way of learning, learning, learning, learning, learning,
and then to speed things up, it then makes categories
which have concepts then that emerge from them in words

(47:22):
like boy or girl. So by the time you're you know,
very young, you figured out, okay, i'm a boy, I'm
a girl. You know that one's a boy, that one's
a girl. You know those are categories, right, and they
kind of make sense from anatomy. But as we pointed out,
you're assigned sex, which is what your external anatomy is,

(47:42):
is actually not always correlated with the feeling inside of
who you are or the feeling of who you're sexually
aroused by. That often comes up initially. You can feel
that when you're four or five. Then it kind of
goes quiet for a little while, but then it gets
really active around eleven and twelve thirteen when adolescence hits. So,

(48:02):
you know, sexual orientation is the phrase we use for
who you are sexually attracted to, and so it can
be for people of your same assigned sex and you
call that one thing or different assigned sex, and we
call that something else. And so being open to your
sexual orientation who you're attracted to, that's one thing. So

(48:24):
when you use a word like bisexual, that's different than
the they them stories. So that should we should be
really clear about that. So that they them is about
gender identity. What I'd like to do if Monica heard,
ask her, but I'll ask you, Katherine and you Chelsea
about this. You know, people have asked me to put
my gender identity in my little box at the bottom

(48:44):
of a zoom call or any kind of platform. My
mom and I thought about it, and I thought, you know,
I actually don't feel like particularly he. I don't feel
like a she, I don't feel like they. Actually I
barely feel like a Dan. I know that's kind of
an illusion too. So I've been putting a b C D,

(49:06):
which is like an abbreviation for a body called Dan,
you know, because even that's an illusion. You know, we're
all kind of manifestations of the same essence popping up
in a body. For about a hundred years, so a
hundred Jesus Dan. Yeah, well that's a long time, I know,
but I can decious. Okay, fine, So anyway, let's just

(49:29):
put it that way, you know. So I say that
because the world needs us to broaden our identity from
just the bodies were in and realize in terms of
racial justice, social justice issues, and racism. You know, we're
part of one human family, and and also we're part
of the family of all living beings in terms of

(49:50):
what we're destroying bio diversity and the climate. So yeah,
they say, say whether he or she or they? And
I go, well, actually I want to say none of
the above. A lot to write, and then it gets
people angry. So when I don't put it on my
little name tag, it's not it's not because I'm being
like dismissive of it. I actually I don't want to

(50:13):
be put in a vine. So I don't know how
do you, the two of you feel when people ask
you to do that, because it's it's a personal, very
personal thing. Catherine, you identify, right, you label that I
know on your emails and yeah, I do. I. I
do it really as a support for people who may
not use traditional pronouns, and it was tricky for me

(50:34):
in the beginning. I have a few friends who are
non binary, and it was tricky in the beginning, And
now just after practicing, it's sort of suddenly feels like
the most natural thing in the world. Like said to
my husband's day. You know, we're going to our friend
Ash's birthday and it's at you know, seven o'clock, and

(50:55):
they want us to be there. Da da da da,
And it just suddenly feels like the most natural thing
in the world to use those pronouns for someone else.
It takes a little bit of practice, but you can
come around. And more importantly, it's important to respect people's
decisions about themselves. Whether it's a fad or a trend.
That's not your decision either. Even though you're a parent,

(51:18):
you don't get to decide if it's a fat or
a trend. But respecting your child's decision and respecting their
choices goes a long way into the future of your
relationship with your child. When you give them agency and
you give them license to be themselves, then it's not
going to be a problem if in five years she's
like he or she or they decides that they want

(51:39):
to be referred to as a girl again, or that
they're not they don't feel non binary or any of it.
But I think you are doing your child a disservice
when you're not respecting something that is not an easy
thing for them to say. It's not easy for that.
You have to think about that, you know, and you
can say you're supportive, but that you're not. You don't
feel comfortable calling them they is actually not really being supportive. Yeah.

(52:03):
And the other thing too, is it's not a huge
thing to give away. You know, it's not changing who
your child is fundamentally, it's not. It's not a wild
leap to say, you know what, I'm just gonna go
with this. I'm going to say they them. I might
slip up, but I'm gonna try my best. And you know,
supporting your child's in whatever way you can. And like

(52:25):
Chelsea said, these things can pass or maybe they won't.
And you're allowing your child to discover who they are
by supporting who they are right now, because that is
always going to change. Whether their pronouns change or not,
they're going to continue to change. Yeah, I concur with
what you're both saying. And I think it becomes challenging

(52:46):
when parents get really upset when some schools, like here
in Los Angeles, they'll have a whole day of discussing
gender identity and that you have choices to names you
used and you should look inward, which I think is
actually be fantastic, And some parents get all agitated about
it because they think it is making a child be confused,

(53:08):
but it's actually I think just informing a child and
freeing a child, like like Monica's daughter is or I
don't know if you use the words daughter here, Monica's child.
Let's say that that way. So we have a moment
where as a parent, you can take a deep breath
and say, if your child comes to you, to empower
them to explore the actual biological reality that gender identity

(53:34):
is independent of assigned sex at birth. People. I remember
when I was a kid where that wasn't a part
of our discussion. They suffered so much. And when schools
introduced this or this podcast or all the ways we
can just make it a part of our conversation. It
is a biological fact that gender identity develops in its

(53:57):
own way that can be independent in an extreme or
subtly or or aligned with your assigned sex. So to
name it as something that's very real in our lives,
I think is going to really help with everyone. Even
if your gender identity matches you're assigned sex, you're going
to understand that there are other people where that's not

(54:18):
the case, and instead of feeling uncomfortable like Monica feels,
which you know, we feel uncomfortable when things don't match
your expectations. So I hope listening to this conversation will
help Monica and hurt child's father to feel we're learning
something to and to be lifelong learners is a really

(54:39):
important stance to take. Our last color today is Katie.
Katie says, Dear Chelsea, the last nearly two years of
my life have been the most intense, devastating and transformational
time of my entire twenty one years. In sept member

(55:00):
of my older brother and only sibling died extremely suddenly
from a brain aneurism at two years old. Needless to say,
this loss has been extremely difficult to navigate and my
entire outlook on life has completely changed. I know you
were very young when you lost your brother, and I
feel as though we were similar in how that type
of loss affected us. After the first few months of

(55:22):
complete shock and fear that I would lose my parents
to heartbreak over the death of their son, I started
to get really angry at the world, which was completely
unlike my old self. I have done a lot of
therapy to overcome some of that anger, but I still
struggle daily to comprehend how my smart, wonderful and seemingly
perfectly healthy brother is gone and never coming back. I

(55:43):
also find meeting new people to be emotionally draining, as
sometimes the do you have siblings question comes up, and
without fail, this always makes me spiral. I feel nervous
opening up about my brother because I feel like people
in their early twenties are not equipped to talk about loss,
and it's almost taboo in some ways. What has helped
you with accepting and understanding such severe and sudden loss

(56:06):
at such a young age, And how do I combat
how his death has caused me to struggle with coping
and other areas of my life. Katie m Hi, Katie, Hi, Hi, Katie.
It's your lucky day because my psychiatrist Dan is here
with us as our guest today who helped guide me
through my grief and my new reality, which I had,

(56:29):
you know, a lot of delayed grief. So it's good
that you're talking about it not so long after it's happening,
and that you're facing these issues because it's it is
a big, big, unexpected obstacle that has happened to you,
you know, and it's not something that you're not going
to get through, but it's so difficult and only other
people who have lost the sibling can really relate or understand.

(56:51):
So Dan, do you want to take the lead on
this and I'll chime in sure. First of all, Katie,
thank you so much for reaching out to Chelsea to
really share your experience and share your question. I'll ask you,
when you were actually putting this question together and sending
it off, what were you feeling inside of you that

(57:12):
allowed you to I feel like you could articulate in
a sense of called public with it. What was going
on inside of you? It was, honestly, Chelsea, because I
watched Evolution with my mom and I don't think either
of us had ever really seen somebody talk about death
like so raw and just so open like that, And

(57:33):
I don't know, it just like really spoke to me
and we didn't say a word. The entire time all
we did was cry and laugh, and yeah, I don't know,
I just felt so kind of like I felt empowered
by it, and I was like, you know what, I'd
love to talk to her because there was a lot
of parallels between what you were saying and what I've
definitely been feeling, and so yeah, I definitely felt like
there was like a bit of a connection there. And

(57:54):
like you guys said, like, not a lot of people
go through what I've gone through and and Chelsea has,
so Yeah, definitely that was empowering for me when you
saw that someone could really look at the death of
a sibling. In this case, you know, you both shared
the loss of your brothers. Was there something in what
Chelsea shared an evolution that especially spoke to you? Yeah? Absolutely.

(58:19):
I think the main thing was like the anger, because
I was never an angry person. I was always really calm,
you know, quite put together and everything, and then I
started to have these feelings of anger when the numbness
started to go away, and it just was so unlike me,
and I was just so kind of mad at the
world like that. It took him because he was just
such a wonderful, kind human and he truly just like

(58:43):
he was just such a light in this world and
it just felt so wrong. And so the anger that
she had and how that leaks into other areas of
your life. I think that's kind of where I drew
like a lot, Like I just I just totally connected
to that because it was like, whoa, this is affecting
how I see every area of my life, not just
death and loss. It was you know, in school with

(59:05):
friends everything, and bitterness too when people talked about like
their siblings and it was like, I'm self aware enough
to know, like it's not right. I don't want to
be bitter about other people because they should get to
express their love for their siblings that are alive, and
and that makes me happy. I'm still happy for them,
but I couldn't help but still feel bitter, you know,
and angry. So definitely those feelings of anger that Chelsea

(59:28):
talked about, I I definitely connected to that a lot.
That's what made me start to realize, well, like I
gotta I have to seek out like therapy and stuff
like that, because I tried to do it myself or
I think the first eight months, and yeah, it just
wasn't working. And I could just see down the line
it would just start to get worse. I want to
just jump in and just say, you have such a
huge opportunity for growth right now. For you to be

(59:50):
facing this so soon after it happened means like you
have such a bigger advantage. Like I didn't face this.
I went thirty years without being able to deal with
my emotions. You know. So you're so young and you're vibrant,
and you're going to be able to get through this.
And I just want to say something that's so important
for you to hear. It's like you're when you think
of how amazing your brother was and what a light

(01:00:10):
he was in this world. He would hate to see
you in pain. He would hate to see you feeling bitter.
He would not want that. So in honor of him,
you've got to do the work to get yourself out
of that anger and bitterness, because you want to be
able to celebrate a life that he had and live
your life with him in it, in honor of him

(01:00:30):
and with him, because he's still with you. You know,
just because he's he's gone doesn't mean he's gone from you.
He's still within you and your parents, and that is
a beautiful thing and that is the light that you
should think about getting to spread when you move forward
in your life. Yeah. Absolutely, And he truly would be
so unhappy. He would be so upset if he saw

(01:00:51):
like this affect us long term because again, like just
such a selfless human being and he just would not
He would not he be angry with us. To be honest,
if you if we at it get us down for
a really long time, he would not be happy with us,
for sure. It's such a beautiful invitation, Katie, that you're
inviting us to really look at this question what helped?

(01:01:13):
And Chelsea, you're bringing up, you know, this notion of
of what the sibling with the brother would actually want
for you. The experience of grief, which is the word
we use for when someone we love that's really important
in our life dies or goes away and we can't
reach them. That loss is huge. So grief goes through

(01:01:35):
stages and it really invites you to bring into awareness
all the different feelings you're having. And as Chelsea points out,
you know you are doing that, Katie, and your your
notion of self awareness is really important and there are
there are things you can do to expand that. You know,
with Chelsea we would do meditation in particularly this thing

(01:01:55):
called the wheel of awareness. You can get this this
book called Aware or Becoming Aware, the workbook where you
will learn to actually enrich that ability to be aware
and that can help the grief process. To just let
the anger there be in awareness. You don't have to
do anything with it. It can just teach you something.
The other emotions that are really basic when something like

(01:02:17):
this happens our sadness and fear. So a loss like
this at a young age that can rock your world
because you don't expect someone young to die. You expect
someone older, way older to die. So when something unexpected
like that happens, it can lead to fear. It can
lead to sadness, and it can lead to anger where

(01:02:39):
the fear is like, oh my god, things aren't safe, nothing,
I can't rely on anything. The sadness is there was
a connection that's ripped from me, and I have such
a longing to be with my brother, but it's just
it's not there. When in fact, it's just like Chelsea said,
he's inside you, but him being alive in his body
now that's changed. So you want to deal with that feeling.

(01:03:01):
You can't just call him up and talk to his
actual self. You can deal with the inner self of
your brother. And the anger, you know, is about something
is wrong that needs to be right. It right. So
anger is like this drive to correct, you know. Sadness
is like a drive to connect, and in many ways,
fear is a drive to protect right. Those are the

(01:03:23):
three in the brain. They're deep, deep in the brain,
so they're really really foundational. As you're pointing out, the
anger then starts spreading over all these things. So the
idea of finding a practice, whether it's in therapy or
doing like a meditation that gives you time to just
be with your emotions. And then the grief process. Once

(01:03:45):
you give yourself that respect to just feel what you feel,
talk about it right in a journal about it, do meditative,
reflect the reflection on it, then it will have its
natural course. Don't worry about the timing, but do give
respect to all the emotions are there, and they will
then take their natural path. And in many ways, grief

(01:04:09):
as it goes forward becomes meaning making. That is to say,
I didn't plan for my brother to die, but my
brother would want me to actually make sense of how
this has impacted me. And as Chelsea has done, you know,
with her wonderful work, Now to take a loss that

(01:04:30):
really as as you shared with the world, Chelsea, you know,
your way of dealing with that pain was to shut
it off the emotions. But now to share with the world.
You don't know, Katie, how the sadness and and and
really profound loss of your brother dying unexpectedly like this.
It was no one's fault and urisms happened. All the

(01:04:53):
ways that you can bring the emotional learning from this
will be a meaning that you can make. And there's
a number of things about hope and about joy that
there are wonderful books on this, as it called a
book called the Book of Hope and a Book of
Joy that I think you'd love because what it says
is that the sorrows in the world, whether it's a
personal loss or the loss and biodiversity, what we're facing,

(01:05:16):
the climate, or the challenges of social justice, all these
can get us all angry, sad, fearful. And what we
want to do is take those emotions and allow ourselves
to feel them fully, but then really keep hope alive,
with kind of active hope that A writer named Joe
Animasy calls it active hope, where you're really turning that

(01:05:36):
pain into actually something positive in the world, and not
only having hope, but having a sense of joy. And
I think if your brother were watching us now and
he said, my dear sister Katie can hold on to
hope and can be joyful in this life, what would
he feel about that? Hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point,

(01:05:59):
aliceonven need Tears, That's really good. Yeah, I I honestly
like you. You bring up a really good point too,
and the fact that like I have grown like so
much from this loss, and like the way I view
the world in good ways to and and my desire
to make my parents proud, even though I know I
would make them proud if I did nothing, because they're

(01:06:19):
just the most wonderful people in the entire world. But yeah,
like he really has allowed me to see the world
so much, so much clearer, and I just feel like
I'm going to do such great things because I've grown
so much from this. And yeah, you're right, like it
is it is a choice to to wake up every
single day and you know, choose happiness despite all the pain,

(01:06:40):
and that's what I've really been working on is just
choosing to be happy because at the end of the day,
you know, like the random cruelty of him being taken away,
it has to be a choice for me to to
keep going and to do it for him and to
do it for my parents. And I find that that's
really helped me too, is like let letting myself feel
those emotions and and yeah, growing from it, like you said,

(01:07:01):
like it it is. There's power in that. There's also
something Dan taught me. Losing a somebody is like a robbery.
You've been robbed, you know, and that's how it feels.
It feels you're violated and you cannot make sense of it.
But are you going to spend your entire life harboring
such anger towards those robbers? You know what I mean?

(01:07:23):
Because are you going to spend your energy doing that? No,
you're not. You want to be a light for your parents.
You want to be helped your parents heal. It's not
your responsibility, but you can, you know, you can be
a light for them as well. And when you're talking
about emotions coming up, something that Dan and I talked
about a lot was like, where are you feeling something,

(01:07:43):
you know, are you feeling it in your chest? Do
you feel it in your stomach? Being in touch with
your body and respecting yourself enough to sit with it,
you know, when you're overcome, you're allowed to go outside
and cry and sit there for twenty minutes because once
you extinguish it, there is a lightness of being that
that happens. And it's when you resist your emotions where

(01:08:03):
you get into trouble. So it's okay to feel all
those emotions and let them out and know, okay, oh
I'm feeling Okay, I'm feeling this. Sometimes it takes thirty
seconds just to sit with yourself, and sometimes you need
an hour. Whatever it is you need, you know you
need and you'll know. But but being respectful of that
so you're not repressing or suppressing anything so that it's

(01:08:24):
not creeping up on you later. You know that you're
experiencing everything and and thinking about where it is in
your body, like, oh, I'm heavy in my chest right now, Okay,
I feel like I'm gonna cry. Okay, now I'm gonna cry.
It sounds almost pedantic in a way, but it's so
important to respect yourself and your emotions, and that's how

(01:08:45):
you get through something like this in a healthy way,
because you are going to be in a place where
the pain is no longer as acute as it feels today.
You are, That's what happens with life. You're gonna move on.
There are going to be moments where you're gonna feel
dream joy again, and you may already have, and that's
part of healing. That's part of healing because you're still here.

(01:09:07):
So everything that is coming up, it's just you know,
you obviously want to be with a therapist and talking
with somebody too. You need that kind of support right
now for sure. Are you seeing someone right now? Yeah? Yeah,
I have a therapist, Yeah yeah, and she's really great. Yeah.
So all of those things are helpful, and just you know,
remembering that there is no wrong feeling or emotion. There's

(01:09:28):
nothing wrong. This is all just a process and it
doesn't last forever. No, that's really great. Thank you, And
I just want to say thank you to you as well,
because honestly, yeah, like listening to your podcast and watching
your stand up has really helped me a lot, and
I just think it's so brave of you. And yeah, again,
it really empowered me as well. Oh thank you. I'm
so glad you called in and I'm so glad we

(01:09:50):
had Dan here today for you, Katie. It was so
nice to meet you as a little Dan. Thank you
so much, Katie. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Thanks, Katie, Bye bye bye. Wow? What is sweetie? Wow? Okay,
Well that was quite a heavy episode today. It was

(01:10:12):
I do have one little extra thing as we move
into this close. Kelsey emailed us and said, I recently
went through a massive life change which led me to
changing careers, moving states, and finally getting out of a
long term toxic relationship. I read life will be the
death of me, and it inspired me to get back
into therapy and really try to delve into the deep

(01:10:34):
childhood trauma. Your story resonated with me. I was sitting
outside my therapist office today and debated going in and
was questioning whether this was where I needed to be.
I put out into the world that I needed a sign.
I went into therapy and halfway through, my therapist pulled
out an orange out of her bag, tossed it to

(01:10:55):
me and said, I think you need this today. I
stared at her in doc and then subsequently lost it
and then had to explain that I was inspired to
get back into therapy after reading Chelsea's book, and that
someone tossing me an orange was an unexpected sign of
compassion when I needed it the most, and orange unraveled
me and gave me the sign that I'm exactly where

(01:11:16):
I need to be. Our journeys are not the same,
but thank you for sharing yours and inspiring me to
heal so that I can find my happy and success
as well. It's already working. Much love and admiration, Kelsey.
Oh my god, that makes me cry. Dan, can you
believe that? No, that's incredible, That is so beautiful. I

(01:11:41):
was sitting the other day I got some shitty news.
I was sitting the other day with Joe and we
were somewhere. Oh yeah, it was when I had to
go to the hospital. And when the next day we
were sitting down, I was just like, oh my god,
what's wrong with me? I'm so stressed out. I landed
myself in the hospital. Like I didn't think I was
stressed out. And we were just sitting in this restaurant
and at a hotel, and I was just looking at

(01:12:04):
him like just so confused about where I was in
my life, Like I thought I was doing so great
and I was on top of everything and I had
learned how to deal with everything. And I looked down
and there's this whole tree of oranges right behind him,
and I was like, oh my god, and I go
look and he's like, see, you're okay, You're okay, You're
always okay. It's just a little hiccup. So I love that. Oh, Kelsey,

(01:12:28):
thanks for sharing that with us. That was so nice,
so emotional. I love it. Yeah, Okay, let's take a
quick break because I just I have a new loofa
that I want to try out on Catherine. I'm sorry,
does that sound like workplace? A work? Workplace professionalism? Times
have changed and someone has to respect that, and that
someone is me, that's right. So I apologize Catherine about

(01:12:50):
the loofah comment. It's okay, I love, I love, I'm glad.
I apologize to you do about the loofah comment. Gosh,
that's your husband right in front of and I know
it's okay. He wouldn't mind. It'll be fine, it'll be fine.
Let's take a break, Okay, Dan, what advice do you
need for me? Well, I asked you earlier, you know,

(01:13:13):
how do you keep that lifelong learning approach going? And
the related thing was how did you let yourself be
open to really facing your emotional life? There? And then
a bonus question for you, which from our relationship you'll
probably think this is Dan is never shortwinded everybody is

(01:13:36):
how did humor enter your life? So we can try
to be inspired, not to be funny stand ups like
you are, but to just make sure that in the
face of all the challenges we keep our humor alive. Yeah. God,
I don't know if you can. I don't know if
that's a learned thing or if that's inherent. You know,

(01:13:57):
I think I was born with that because my family
was just we're all like that, Like sarcasm was our
was our function, you know, like everything was sarcastic to
deal with the lameness like we just are were constantly like, oh,
like our parents were lame. Growing up was just lame.
Our birthdays, our parents trying to like celebrate our birthdays

(01:14:18):
was lame. So we just had these built in senses
of humor to cope with it. But I don't I
can't really speak to whether or not you can. You know,
adopt it. I think it's important to remember not to
take yourself so seriously. Right, You're not the only person
on this planet. There's a million billions of things going
on around you, and you're just What you want to
bring is light and happiness and joyfulness right to the table,

(01:14:41):
to the energy field around you, to the people that
you come in contact with. So I think humor plays
into that. To be light and happy and set a
tone and inspire people to be open and yeah, I
guess you know, just try not to take yourself so seriously.
You gotta be able to laugh at all the bad
stuff too, because there's humor and everything. Sometimes you have

(01:15:05):
to look a little harder for it, but it's there, beautiful.
Well that's great because that actually relates to the other
questions that you've already answered. You know how to keep
those questions going and really keep an open mind to
grow throughout life. So, Chelsea, thank you so much. Catherine,
thank you so much. It's really an honor to be
here with you and really enjoy to speak with all

(01:15:28):
the people who have questions today, and I feel very
privileged to be here. It's the thing. Oh, thank you
so much. Dan, I know that you usually charge for
this kind of advice, so I appreciate you volunteering your services. Well.
I feel like I'm enriched, just like working with you, Chelsea.
This has really been a great conversation today. Thank you awesome.

(01:15:49):
Thank you so much, Dan, I really appreciate it. I'll
see you soon. Great, thanks Catherine, thank you so much
for tuning in to Dear Chelsea season two. We'll be
back with another season May twelfth. See you then.