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Lisa Taddeo
Update: 2025-01-22
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Minnie questions Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women, Animal, and Ghost Lover. Lisa explores the cycle of seeing a robin in her garden, why she and her husband aren’t living in the same love story (yet), and talks about her teeth.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
00:00:00
I feel so alone.
00:00:01
I'm embarrassed to talk about it.
00:00:04
How can I help my kid if I can't help myself?
00:00:07
I can't remember when I wasn't stressed.
00:00:10
I don't know if I should be as unpleasant as I am.
00:00:12
When you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and emotions, it's okay to get help.
00:00:17
You are not alone.
00:00:19
Cal Hope is here for you with free, safe, and confidential mental health resources for youth, young adults, families, and you.
00:00:27
Find support now at calhope.org.
00:00:30
It's time to rise.
00:00:33
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00:00:41
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00:00:47
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00:00:56
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00:00:58
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00:01:01
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00:01:02
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00:01:03
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00:01:07
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00:01:11
The boots, the turned grocery aisles, into runways.
00:01:15
And all the styles that show off the many sides of you.
00:01:18
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00:01:21
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00:01:23
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00:01:24
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00:01:26
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00:02:00
Wow, I feel like you understand me so well.
00:02:06
I'm just like...
00:02:08
Does everybody feel the time with you?
00:02:10
I don't think so.
00:02:12
I don't think so at all.
00:02:13
There's a few people I'd like you to call, actually, on my behalf.
00:02:16
Hello, I'm Mini Driver.
00:02:20
I've always loved Proust's questionnaire.
00:02:22
It was originally a 19th century Harley game where players would ask each other 35 questions aimed at revealing the other players true nature.
00:02:32
In asking different people the same set of questions, you can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
00:02:39
And it made me wonder, what if these questions were just the jumping off point?
00:02:43
What greater deaths would be revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters?
00:02:48
So I adapted Proust's questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I personally think are pertinent to a person's story.
00:02:55
They are, when and where were you happiest?
00:02:58
What is the quality you like least about yourself?
00:03:00
What relationship real or fictionalized defines love for you?
00:03:04
What question would you most like answered?
00:03:07
What person place or experience has shaped you the most?
00:03:10
What would be your last meal?
00:03:12
And can you tell me something in your life that's grown out of a personal disaster?
00:03:17
And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I am honoured and humbled to have had the chance to engage with.
00:03:26
You may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
00:03:29
We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to their experience or the most surprising or created the most fertile ground to connect.
00:03:40
My guess today is the author and great wit, Lisa today.
00:03:45
Lisa essentially writes books you can't put down.
00:03:49
Her debut novel, which is called Three Women, was released in 2019 and it was recently made into a pretty excellent show on the television.
00:03:57
And if you haven't read it, you really need to.
00:04:00
Her second novel was As Good and it was called Animal and she also has this brilliant collection of short stories called Ghost Lover.
00:04:07
Lisa has this angular wit that is full of self-reflection and candid observation.
00:04:14
She is ruthless in the way that she sees herself and her idiosyncrasies, but so warm and funny and clever.
00:04:22
And hearing her speak about her beloved dad was one of the best things I listened to last year.
00:04:28
I really hope you enjoy our conversation.
00:04:33
Someone called my face extremely square, which it is, but that's not the point on an open post on my Instagram the other day.
00:04:40
It really triggered me because at school I was called 50P face, which is a hexagonal coin in the British lexicon of money.
00:04:51
And I realized my response really would have been yes and, but these things from our childhood, they have fingers that reach a long way into our futures.
00:05:01
Wow, that first of all, I just have to say as someone who grew up watching you in movies and thinking you were the most beautiful woman ever.
00:05:11
I don't see the square face, but what's interesting is my husband said that my teeth were not age appropriate, which is like a weird burn, right?
00:05:20
It's like, what does that mean?
00:05:22
And I was like, what does that mean?
00:05:23
He's like, well, they're such a husband.
00:05:24
Right.
00:05:25
And I'm like, what does that mean?
00:05:30
He's like, no, they're just they're younger than you.
00:05:37
What person place or experience most altered your life?
00:05:43
The death of my father.
00:05:45
Oh, bless him.
00:05:47
Yeah, he was a car accident.
00:05:50
And it was it was shocked because it was someone who had promised me he would never die.
00:05:59
That was bald dad daddy.
00:06:04
So fucked up.
00:06:05
But yes, that definitely that utterly changed everything.
00:06:09
Who were you before he died?
00:06:13
That was utterly.
00:06:15
You're going to make me cry.
00:06:16
Oh angel.
00:06:17
I don't know.
00:06:17
I know I do it all the time.
00:06:17
Don't worry about it.
00:06:18
Well, me too, but like on here, I'm literally supposed to be the grown up or as my son yelled at me one day, I don't know.
00:06:24
You're the mummy.
00:06:26
When he was five.
00:06:28
And I was crying.
00:06:29
And you're like, Oh, God, but not right now.
00:06:32
Can you just take care of me?
00:06:34
Can I prevent you for a second?
00:06:36
Exactly.
00:06:39
Exactly.
00:06:40
I don't want to make you cry, Angel.
00:06:41
Tell me what's I before.
00:06:42
Oh, tell me about your dad.
00:06:43
If that's easier.
00:06:45
My dad was a doctor.
00:06:48
He was the kind of doctor they don't make anymore where like, you know, house calls and leather doctor bag going into the house.
00:06:57
And at his funeral, there were like thousands of people on a block around the key was just like one of those people who everyone in the community was like.
00:07:07
And to me, obviously it was that plus everything else.
00:07:11
Plus I was scared about health stuff.
00:07:14
So like I just had like a all in one person who would literally put the seat belt on me when I would leave the house in the morning to go to school when I started driving.
00:07:22
And he would click it in.
00:07:24
So he knew it was on there, which is, you know, obviously ironic that he was not wearing a seat belt in the accident.
00:07:30
Anyway.
00:07:32
Before he died, I remember saying this to my boyfriend at the time when he was like, he was nervous about some medical thing, some issue.
00:07:42
And I was like, look, our bodies do things sometimes that we just can't explain.
00:07:46
And we just can't think about it.
00:07:48
We just have to live in the present.
00:07:50
That's who I was before my dad.
00:07:52
I was the person I'm trying to get back to Angel.
00:07:56
Oh, okay.
00:07:58
Okay.
00:07:59
Like the mad woman, living alongside the wise woman, she is still there.
00:08:08
She's here.
00:08:11
Like we as women, we forget.
00:08:12
We have the strange amnesia, I believe, which is about having to exist as an adult woman in this world with all of the things that are taken away.
00:08:25
And that is suppressed.
00:08:27
And I feel you so hard about trying and wanting to and it feeling difficult to return to that person that we were before the trauma, all the trauma happened.
00:08:39
All I can tell you is that even though my dad didn't die like that, I want to get back to that little girl.
00:08:46
But I don't I don't think she's gone anywhere.
00:08:57
I agree.
00:08:59
It's very hard because it's very hard to like now you're a mom and you're a wife and you've got to do the shopping and you've got to write the books and you've got to have your reproductive rights taken away.
00:09:00
And you've got to walk down the street and do the dry cleaning and the laundry.
00:09:04
And also there's a little child waving in the distance that like we can't deal with it every day.
00:09:11
But you do it in your writing though, like it feels like you revisit so many beautiful things that you then examine like you're very gently turning over a rock and like looking at it and looking at all the different ways that it looks in the light.
00:09:25
And that's how it feels reading your books.
00:09:28
I'm examining life with you.
00:09:31
That is so cool.
00:09:32
Thank you.
00:09:33
That's my grandest hope.
00:09:34
So I'm glad to hear that.
00:09:36
Yeah, all right.
00:09:39
We're going to move on from this.
00:09:42
It's going to make me cry also.
00:09:43
Okay.
00:09:43
Where and when were you happiest?
00:09:50
Oh my god.
00:09:51
I know one's ever laughed that hard like they like milk would have come spurting out of your nose if I can't even believe how hard you're laughing.
00:09:59
She's laughing like a banshee.
00:10:06
It's so funny because if you would ask me when and where were you the saddest I would have so many things to go through like a library.
00:10:11
And I'm like, which one do you want?
00:10:12
Which of these beautiful bubbles can I offer you when you ask me what I'm happy is I I do know two things.
00:10:20
The first the biggest one was when I was pregnant with my daughter and they had found some other stuff that I had to get more tests for that like made everything awful.
00:10:33
But at the same time that they were giving me the results of these tests, they also told me that it was a girl.
00:10:40
And she kept so much and I was able to feel the joy about it being a girl, even though somebody was telling me I might not be alive to see her for very long after she was born because of something they had found that ended up being okay.
00:10:57
But not till after she was born.
00:10:59
Anyway, that moment, the fact that I was able to experience joy within the fear spiral that I was in is probably my happiest moment.
00:11:09
Wow, that is a bubble within a bubble.
00:11:14
We were aware at the time this is pure joy or were you just living it at what because it was also existing along with this other really frightening news.
00:11:22
Or was it on reflection when you found out that you were going to be fine and could then look back on it and find that joyful resonance.
00:11:31
That's a brilliant question.
00:11:33
I think a little bit of both I think in the moment I was shocked that I was able to feel it.
00:11:39
I remember feeling shocked at feeling joy.
00:11:42
So that's why it's something that really I was just like, well, and then I was telling one of my friends this the only time I can get there, you know, and I've tried different things for depression and whatnot.
00:11:54
The way I can really get there is with nitrous oxide at the dentist.
00:12:01
And I was telling one of my friends that I liked and I've been telling a lot of people I'm like, I really like nitrous, you know, the dentist and they're just like no one has circled around me like the way they have with other things like ketamine and mushrooms,
00:12:15
but they just like kind of let me sit there with the nitrous thing and I feel like monster.
00:12:19
But then the other day, one of my daughter's friends dad was like, oh, he was British.
00:12:24
He's like, I fucking loves that too.
00:12:28
Finally, what's your dentist's name?
00:12:33
Actually, I can't do that.
00:12:35
No, but I was just thinking, do you call up Mr.
00:12:39
Rubin and say, right?
00:12:40
I think I have a cavity.
00:12:42
It might be a root canal.
00:12:43
I think I might need to come in.
00:12:45
Do you have a mansion house and dentist because you want the nitrous?
00:12:50
I don't have that yet, but I'm looking.
00:12:54
I'm always looking at my teeth.
00:12:56
I'm taking applications.
00:12:58
You know, I don't currently have a provider.
00:13:02
That's really interesting.
00:13:03
So it's pretty dramatic, like your moments of feeling happiness are like joy within the context of what could actually be a tragedy.
00:13:13
And nitrous oxide, yes.
00:13:17
Is there somewhere in between as somebody who like, I think a lot of people live with sadness?
00:13:24
Do you become more or less aware of your happiness?
00:13:27
Like is it easy to try and forget about it or do you just become when you see a Robin in your garden?
00:13:32
Do you go, oh my God, a Robin, that makes me feel happy now back to the gloom.
00:13:37
I feel like I can cancel my therapy for a while because I feel like these are really like, I'm just like thinking.
00:13:43
Like all I do is already think about my mental state.
00:13:46
So the fact that I'm thinking even more about it is shocking.
00:13:50
I'm very invested in your happiness, suddenly, I really am on your path to it.
00:13:55
This is great.
00:13:58
I'm trying.
00:13:59
That's what my next book is about.
00:14:00
It's my path to something.
00:14:02
But when I'm sad, I am, I guess like you were saying, there's people and I feel this way that there's two sides of the coin.
00:14:13
The sort of people who live on the side of like, when you said, is there a Robin in your garden?
00:14:19
That's beautiful.
00:14:19
I am looking outside at my backyard, which is very lovely, especially in the fall and it's magical.
00:14:26
And I see it through two different lenses.
00:14:30
One of the way that I would like to experience it.
00:14:33
Oh, there is a Robin on the wooden fence on the beautiful patch of grass with the marigolds there.
00:14:41
How lovely that all these things coalesce to form this perfect picture of fall that I can enjoy.
00:14:47
And then I'm like, there's people who don't get to ever see that.
00:14:50
So why am I deserving that this could all go away in an instant.
00:14:55
So what's the point of being happy about it?
00:14:56
It hurts more to lose it.
00:14:58
And then the you ungrateful bitch, how dare you.
00:15:01
And then so that's the cycle of seeing a Robin.
00:15:04
I feel like I feel you.
00:15:08
Sometimes a Robin just isn't allowed to be a Robin.
00:15:13
Exactly.
00:15:20
I see.
00:15:20
Yes.
00:15:20
And I think my experience of that at least in this current iteration of my life and with what is going on out in the white world.
00:15:25
I think that I feel like a failure for not not experiencing things, but I think we all just experience things so differently.
00:15:35
I think so many of us and not to get all whatever.
00:15:40
But part of the capitalist machine is just doing the next thing, you know.
00:15:44
And in order to make everybody happy and make all the wheels turn, there really isn't time for existentialism anymore.
00:15:51
You know, there just isn't social media has replaced existentialist.
00:15:55
Oh my god.
00:15:56
You do.
00:15:57
You see somebody else.
00:15:57
You're like, oh my god, you're spiraling too.
00:15:59
I'm not actually alone.
00:16:01
Exactly.
00:16:01
Exactly.
00:16:02
But then you also see all the people who are just plowing through like everything's fine.
00:16:06
And you're like, which one do I do?
00:16:08
Yeah, I suppose that is always the choice.
00:16:11
Huh?
00:16:12
It's that robot frost poem.
00:16:12
Yes, exactly.
00:16:13
Yeah, I came to a fork in the woods on a snowy.
00:16:16
Yeah.
00:16:17
And I took the path less travel by and that has made all the difference.
00:16:20
Has it?
00:16:20
Yeah, exactly.
00:16:22
Has it?
00:16:23
Has it though?
00:16:25
But has it?
00:16:25
Yes, I don't know.
00:16:30
Exactly.
00:16:31
And I think in this business of which I am a very nascent member, but you know, even in the book world and stuff, there is such an element of the show must go on.
00:16:44
And that's true of everything.
00:16:46
And I don't just mean like current situations aside.
00:16:49
I mean, in general, the show must go on as the name of the game.
00:16:52
And anyone who sort of doesn't want the show to go on, you either get left over there like the way that I say that my husband and daughter sometimes handle my depression is just by stepping over it like it's a dead body on the floor onto the next event.
00:17:08
I'm like, okay, is mom coming up?
00:17:19
I love to drag.
00:17:24
That's boring.
00:17:24
That's so that's so strange as well, like the idea of it being other than you, like mom's dead body that they have to step on.
00:17:25
Like it's sort of, oh, let's put it in the second person so it isn't actually happening to me, which is helpful, which is something I should perhaps.
00:17:32
I think I might have said this on here before, but my editor, she is the most incredible woman.
00:17:36
She was very briefly my editor and she gave this incredible note.
00:17:38
She was like, I want you to look up the emotional places in your book where you suddenly go into the second person where you know when you're feeling agonized in your heart is breaking.
00:17:48
You know, when you feel like a dead body, the people are stepping on it.
00:17:51
And she said, I just want you to just just for a laugh, put it all into the first person.
00:17:55
And I wrote it and I literally felt like I was going to throw up as I was writing.
00:18:01
My heart is breaking.
00:18:03
I feel like a dead body that people are stepping over like it was so interesting psychologically.
00:18:08
And now I start thinking, now I do it with passages of bits that I'm writing.
00:18:14
If I don't feel connected, I'll just throw it into a different.
00:18:18
You'll be exactly.
00:18:20
And see if that shifts that maybe that's a trick that all writers know, but it was so we do it as women though my friends do it.
00:18:27
My girlfriends do it.
00:18:29
And I now stop them and go, you're saying you and I know you mean I and I think if you say I, we can be in the room with us more.
00:18:37
Yeah, that's so interesting.
00:18:39
And it's something just from the writing angle of it.
00:18:43
I think about all the time, like most of the time I'm not that excited to talk about like the quote unquote craft things because I feel like I've got so much other stuff going,
00:18:54
but that is the one thing that I think I got Robyns to ignore.
00:18:58
I can't tell you exactly Jesus exactly.
00:19:01
I've got Robyns to it.
00:19:02
That's that's phenomenal.
00:19:04
I love asking a fiction writer this.
00:19:10
What relationship real or fictionalized defines love for you?
00:19:14
Fictionalized was Carrie L.
00:19:17
Ways and Robin Wright and the Princess bride.
00:19:21
Perfect.
00:19:22
That's what told me what love is.
00:19:24
And then I have to say my husband and I, we fight literally every single day.
00:19:29
There is not a day that our daughter doesn't say this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone argue about.
00:19:37
Can you guys stop because it was like about the coffee maker and he's like logical and autistic and ADHD.
00:19:43
And I have OCD.
00:19:45
So we have all these dueling mental illnesses that argue with each other alongside child wounds and all of that.
00:19:54
But I have to say that the love that he has for me, that he says I'm not living an hour actual love story yet, but he will wait there until I do.
00:20:04
That is, I gotta say, I really like that.
00:20:08
It feels like the most real love story available to me.
00:20:12
He also at one point said, don't worry one day you're going to get all the little things done that are on your little lists.
00:20:18
And we're going to have one day where we're happy and you're happy and that day is going to come to just live your life, keep doing what you're doing being sad and thinking and not trusting me and thinking nothing's real and one day you're going to be able to enjoy it all and then we'll die.
00:20:33
Oh my god.
00:20:36
Oh my god, I love your husband.
00:20:38
It's that roomie quote again.
00:20:39
Yeah.
00:20:40
Here it is out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing.
00:20:43
There is a field.
00:20:44
I'll meet you there where the soul lies down in the grass.
00:20:49
The world is too full to talk about ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.
00:20:55
Oh my god, that's your husband.
00:21:01
I love that.
00:21:03
We'll see if he's actually there.
00:21:06
Exactly.
00:21:07
That's the thing.
00:21:08
It's like, I don't know if I have any trust.
00:21:10
We don't know.
00:21:11
It's so funny because that is an everyday occurrence.
00:21:14
It seems to me trusting you wake up every day and you go and you do a situation assessment.
00:21:19
Can I trust that this is breakfast and everything is okay?
00:21:24
Well, right, I can.
00:21:25
That's as good as it gets sometimes.
00:21:26
I think blanket trust is not actually functional possible.
00:21:30
It's really not, but I think people always say that it is.
00:21:36
My husband's therapist had said to him the reason that when he was afraid to fly, he's like, it's because you don't trust the pilot.
00:21:42
I don't know the pilot.
00:21:46
I never met him.
00:21:48
I should trust the pilot because that's his job.
00:21:51
Should I trust the doctor that messed up my knee surgery and now I need a full replay?
00:21:55
Should I trust them implicitly?
00:21:57
Should we just trust people because I've trusted people and had a lot of things effed up about it.
00:22:03
So it's like, you know, went into a meeting the other day and the person was like, well, you know, might not want to say that because, you know, people always sue us for stealing their ideas and I'm like, well,
00:22:14
I'm just going to go into this blindly trusting like I've done everything else and see how that works for me because I just can't do it any other way.
00:22:20
I listen, I am with you.
00:22:22
I will make the choice to trust even though life proves over and over again that shit often doesn't work out.
00:22:28
I just don't think that's the point.
00:22:30
I think you have to take that as shit is not going to work out for the most part, but the times that it does are going to be so great.
00:22:37
And something usually comes, it dovetails into the last question I ask on this podcast invariably something comes out of the shit.
00:22:47
It's not a reason to pursue it, but it's definitely worth keeping in mind.
00:22:51
It's vital to keep mine in fact.
00:22:54
I feel so alone.
00:23:03
I'm embarrassed to talk about it.
00:23:06
How can I help my kid if I can't help myself?
00:23:08
I can't remember when I wasn't stressed.
00:23:11
I don't want you to play inside.
00:23:14
When you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and emotions, it's okay to get help.
00:23:19
You are not alone.
00:23:20
Cal Hope is here for you with free safe and confidential mental health resources for youth, young adults, families, and you.
00:23:28
Find support now at calhope.org.
00:23:31
Everybody, it's Tony Robbins.
00:23:33
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00:23:51
I'm going to give three days to anybody wants to participate at no charge.
00:23:54
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00:23:56
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00:25:17
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00:25:27
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00:25:33
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00:26:07
I'm nervous to ask you, what is the quality you like least about yourself?
00:26:20
Oh, I think my addiction to my fear.
00:26:23
I think I'm addicted to my fear, and I think that I don't think I've made a conscious decision to let go of it because I still believe it protects me even though it doesn't.
00:26:42
Okay, so who is the you knowing that?
00:26:50
I'm trying to figure that out.
00:26:51
I'm like, who am I without the fear?
00:26:53
I say this to my husband all the time, he's like, you just gotta let go of that.
00:26:56
I'm like, if I let go of that, there'll be nothing here.
00:26:59
But the person, the person who is here observing that, you sitting here talking to me.
00:27:03
Is there like a psychological shift, and is that maybe because you're a writer where you can actually you shift the POV even on your own experience by going, I do this thing,
00:27:14
I am addicted to fear, I think I will not be protected if I let go of it.
00:27:18
Who is that person talking?
00:27:20
Who is talking that sense?
00:27:21
Because we all have that, and I want to fucking know who she is because all those people should get together and have tea.
00:27:26
Yeah, and those people should stick around and keep keep the wheels on the wagon.
00:27:32
Exactly.
00:27:33
And that's one of the reasons why I write is to remember that like when I look back and see words that I've written when I'm in a clear state, it feels a little bit helpful,
00:27:45
but it also feels like who is that?
00:27:46
Like you just said, I know how to have self-awareness about what I'm doing, and then I know what I'm like when I'm in the cargo holds of indefensible fear and hatred and shame,
00:27:58
but I don't know where the twain meet, but that is a really, that's a great.
00:28:03
Like the person who's like, I want to think the Robin is beautiful,
00:28:14
like where is she in there?
00:28:18
Or maybe it's just about like she is there.
00:28:19
Like when you look back or when I read your books and I feel your clarity, she is there.
00:28:19
Like she is demonstrably there.
00:28:21
So perhaps it's not so much like, how do I find her and make her stick around?
00:28:24
It's more about going, no, she is there.
00:28:28
It's the statue inside the marble.
00:28:30
She's really loved that.
00:28:32
There is all this other stuff around her.
00:28:34
And maybe it's about, and I'm saying this generally because this is not you in isolation.
00:28:39
I am fascinated.
00:28:41
Like this conversation is triggered.
00:28:43
This thing that I think about a four o'clock in the morning, which is the wise woman who talks to us and calms us and we call her our self-awareness.
00:28:52
She is real.
00:28:53
She is as real as off air.
00:28:55
She is as real as our negative slaggy old slag face.
00:28:59
He tells us that we square face and have a TV TV TV TV.
00:29:05
TV TV TV TV is so much better.
00:29:09
I feel like that's such a better TV.
00:29:12
That's really good.
00:29:13
That's it.
00:29:14
Because GVT is as mean as 50P face.
00:29:18
Yeah, totally.
00:29:19
Anyway, maybe that's it.
00:29:20
Maybe we just have to leave room for that clarity when you look back instead of going, oh, I was so clear.
00:29:25
It's yeah, but she is there.
00:29:27
She's living alongside the mad woman.
00:29:29
And that's maybe that's all right.
00:29:30
That's absolutely beautiful.
00:29:32
I need to write that down because I feel like just for my own, like the mad woman, like the Jane air.
00:29:38
Whatever in the attic living.
00:29:41
Yes, and it's okay.
00:29:43
You know, I'm literally writing that down because I just feel like it'll remind me that it's okay.
00:29:47
Like the whole shadow aspect of ourselves making room for them.
00:29:52
But what's so interesting is the POV stuff in writing, which I think is so fascinating.
00:29:57
What you were saying about the idea of turning it on yourself and saying I and then feeling the eye of that I wrote a short story when I was getting my MFA at Boston University.
00:30:09
And the short story was completely in the second person.
00:30:12
And this other writer, because you know, you go around the room and critique everyone's writing.
00:30:18
And it was very aggressive.
00:30:21
You do this because you it was like the character themselves was a sort of bad person, not bad.
00:30:28
Just like flawed human, et cetera, not bad, but you know, president, whatever.
00:30:36
Yes, but this other writer in the class was like I felt so addressed upon by Lisa's story because it was like you take the subway to blah, blah,
00:30:47
blah, because you feel like that girl doesn't deserve whatever like it was all this.
00:30:51
And I was just like so fascinated by that that she had felt and I kind of was the feeling I wanted to elicit.
00:31:00
And she had felt that and the you of it had even though we were in a writing class and writing in the second person is, you know, well, something that people do.
00:31:08
I just remember her feeling that way.
00:31:10
And when you said that your editor gave you that note and you put it back on the eye.
00:31:14
And I just I was wondering like about doing that with that, even though it's gone, but you know, it's just a really interesting thing.
00:31:22
Maybe it's listen, the POV, like I asked that quite a lot, like who is the POV for?
00:31:28
Is it for me to create distance from the scary things I'm saying that maybe they're not fiction, maybe they're real?
00:31:34
Or is it because I think it's a cool tool?
00:31:37
Yeah, quite interesting just to I don't know.
00:31:39
Maybe it's just about the interrogation of it.
00:31:41
Yeah, totally.
00:31:42
I think everything is about that.
00:31:44
So what question would you most like answered?
00:31:53
God, I'm going to give you something that's rather dark to and I wouldn't expect anything less.
00:32:03
Thank you.
00:32:04
For my next book, it's about shocker grief, the grief of being alive, essentially, not the grief of being alive, like full stop, but the grief that comes with just consciousness,
00:32:17
whether it's mental illness, or all of that.
00:32:19
And one of the people I've been speaking to is a doctor who performs euthanasia on otherwise physically healthy people with mental illness who no longer want to be around.
00:32:33
And he's a brilliant doctor and he's under a lot of investigation for what he's doing, but I do not disagree at all.
00:32:42
I know many people do, but I think that ultimately this is the same question about control over women's bodies is having control over when you live and die.
00:32:52
It should be something that we each have over our own selves, just like women should, I think, and what this doctor, I was asking if anything could ever given him pause.
00:33:04
And he said the only thing that had was this man whose wife was about to be euthanized, who said to the doctor, as she was dying,
00:33:14
what if in the next world, she's feeling the same things?
00:33:21
But she's left all of us.
00:33:24
So my question that I want answered is what happens next, should we be running towards that field?
00:33:33
Or should we carry a bit?
00:33:36
Should we make another smoothie and do another 10,000 steps?
00:33:51
Or should I imagine the field and rustle crow, wafting his hand along the golden ears of corn or whatever the fuck it was?
00:33:55
I feel you.
00:33:56
Let me tell you, it's probably the number one question that people want to know, but that was the most brilliant, dark, amazing answer.
00:34:05
Because you brought into play, I didn't even know that there were pods in Switzerland.
00:34:13
But I guess I've only ever thought of it with people who have like diagnoses of Parkinson's or ALS or cancer.
00:34:20
And I think it's heartbreaking for me to think that people would be suffering so terribly with their mental health that they would want to end their life.
00:34:26
There was a lot in that.
00:34:28
But ultimately, I agreed with you.
00:34:31
I would love to know.
00:34:32
We're going to know this ends with all of us dying.
00:34:35
Like, right.
00:34:37
It has the same ending.
00:34:37
I wonder how it actually would affect our lives if we need it totally.
00:34:42
I probably eat a lot more.
00:34:45
It would probably just be better to know.
00:34:47
It's like, you know, after the election, it's like, well, now we know now we know what we're staring.
00:34:52
It's like getting a diagnosis.
00:34:55
Now we know it's the unknown of it.
00:34:57
Knowledge is power and the unknown is an unending loop of just.
00:35:01
And also that without having the unending loop, maybe we'd be, I don't know, I guess the answer is.
00:35:07
I think it's all we're left with.
00:35:09
We have to cozy up to the unknown because we're most likely not going to find out.
00:35:13
I will tell you briefly, I did a performance in a theatre with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people of this play called White Rabbit Red Rabbit.
00:35:21
And it is a play by this amazing playwright called Nassim Sulimampor.
00:35:27
And he is an Iranian playwright who is not allowed to leave Iran.
00:35:31
And he has essentially sent his play out into the world.
00:35:34
And he is the kicker.
00:35:36
You perform the play site unseen.
00:35:40
There is an envelope on the chair on the stage when you walk on and you one do the envelope and you take out the play and you begin to read it.
00:35:49
It's happening in real time and you're unknown.
00:35:52
Wow.
00:35:54
It was the most extraordinary experience to have to step out there.
00:35:59
I already know what that's like to step out onto a stage and the fear and the nerves and everything that goes with it.
00:36:04
But to not know what is going to happen next.
00:36:07
And reminding me of being a kid where every day when my mum would like slam the door in the summer and be like, through the letterbox, come back when it's dark.
00:36:16
The possibility of anything and everything happening was all present at the same time.
00:36:21
And the crazy thing was or the amazing thing was it drowned out the fear of what will I do?
00:36:28
Because it was happening so much in the nowness of now.
00:36:31
There wasn't any room.
00:36:32
The fear actually was subordinate to the now.
00:36:36
Yes.
00:36:37
Fucking cool.
00:36:38
Oh God, that's so cool.
00:36:40
Anyway, I wonder if our unknown is being more comfortable with the unknown.
00:36:45
Maybe that is like something we can all look at and think about and do in our lives.
00:36:49
100% and what you just said was really it was really helpful because it also is something that I can relate to not the performative aspect.
00:36:58
The nowness of the way that you just said that was so helpful to me.
00:37:05
So like really truly.
00:37:07
Yeah.
00:37:08
That's good.
00:37:08
I only ever say the stuff that I need to listen to or learn.
00:37:12
I think that's the most divinely helpful stuff is the stuff we tell ourselves that we feel comfortable enough to share with others.
00:37:19
I think that's the path to healing.
00:37:21
And I really deeply appreciate you saying that.
00:37:23
Hey, wow.
00:37:25
Good.
00:37:26
Right.
00:37:27
Next one.
00:37:28
I feel so alone.
00:37:36
I'm embarrassed to talk about it.
00:37:39
How can I help my kid if I can't help myself?
00:37:41
I can't remember when I wasn't stressed.
00:37:44
I don't want you to play inside.
00:37:47
When you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and emotions, it's okay to get help.
00:37:52
You are not alone.
00:37:54
Cal Hope is here for you with free safe and confidential mental health resources for youth, young adults, families, and you.
00:38:02
Find support now at CalHope.org.
00:38:04
Everybody, it's Tony Robbins.
00:38:06
If you believe you want to have a new 2025 better than eight year before, it's going to take a plan or path.
00:38:11
Momentum some skills.
00:38:15
How do you change the energy in your body so you have the energy to begin a business or do something in your career or deal with the challenges your life or turn your kids around?
00:38:24
I'm going to give three days to anybody wants to participate at no charge.
00:38:28
It's called the time to rise summit.
00:38:29
Get yourself registered for your free spot.
00:38:32
Time to rise summit.com.
00:38:33
Ready to prioritize yourself in the new year.
00:38:35
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00:40:11
Okay, that's easy-ish.
00:40:29
I think sushi is my favorite thing.
00:40:30
Like a really sensational omakase of just the most beautiful fish and just like in a really clean and cozy subterranean restaurant.
00:40:31
Oh my god, I love it.
00:40:32
There's a lot to remember.
00:40:35
Why do you want it to be subterranean?
00:40:39
I like the sort of like secret dining spots that aren't like the hipster dining spots.
00:40:48
I used to when I was in my 20s in the city, I would conserve my entire week's paycheck just to have one sushi lunch where all the Japanese businessmen went in the 40s in Midtown during the day.
00:41:01
And I would be the only like 24-year-old girl like reading like a copy of the New Yorker while like getting sea urchin but like checking the price because it's like, oh, I don't have a corporate card.
00:41:11
So I just this is insane.
00:41:12
But the subterranean part, I don't know.
00:41:14
I like when things are under-around.
00:41:16
I like sub.
00:41:18
I like cozy sub.
00:41:20
I like that sub is cozy.
00:41:22
As opposed to claustrophobic, that's very interesting.
00:41:26
I'm going to write that down.
00:41:28
The sub is cozy.
00:41:30
You might think that getting that needle pointed on a pillow or a t-shirt.
00:41:35
I might even make that for you Lisa.
00:41:38
The sub is cozy.
00:41:39
I love it so hard.
00:41:42
Also, just because you mentioned that you might be OCD, yes, I've always thought that sushi is the perfect food for someone who is OCD because it is so just totally beautifully arranged and symmetrical and even and organized is that part of why you love it,
00:42:04
do you think?
00:42:05
Yes, but until you have said it, I would never have made that connection, but absolutely.
00:42:10
It's a stunning connection.
00:42:13
It's an organized sub cozy.
00:42:15
Totally.
00:42:16
Fish first.
00:42:17
Wow, I feel like you understand me so well.
00:42:20
It's just like, does everybody feel the same with you?
00:42:23
I don't think so.
00:42:25
I don't think so at all.
00:42:27
There's a few people I'd like you to call actually on my behalf.
00:42:30
How about you not understanding 50p face?
00:42:34
What if you think Rive learned while talking to her?
00:42:37
She knows everything.
00:42:39
Did you tell her what your favourite food was?
00:42:41
She would make it feel so much better.
00:42:43
Exactly.
00:42:45
I love that that's your last meal.
00:42:47
All right, we've arrived here at our last question which feels really strange at night too soon.
00:42:55
In your life, can you tell me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
00:43:01
I suppose what my husband and I say a lot is that if my dad were still alive, he wouldn't convinced me not to marry my husband.
00:43:12
And so he says at the very least, because your dad died, you were able to get to me because he wouldn't have let me go on.
00:43:23
I wouldn't have let you have been so dark and so funny.
00:43:28
Is that true?
00:43:29
I think it is.
00:43:31
I think my mom would have loved him and said that he was the better half.
00:43:37
And my dad should have liked him but would have been too suspicious of his differences because like my dad was severe OCD.
00:43:47
And this is severe ADHD, which unless you are like reading a manual, you're just like, why is this person just fucking asshole?
00:43:56
Like if you have an entirely different disease, you're just like, you're an asshole and the person's like, I'm not.
00:44:01
I just have the same problems you do.
00:44:03
They're just over here and it's like ill.
00:44:05
So I know because I'm unable to recognize his disorders in favor of mine that my father who also had OCD was similar to me in controlling and all of that would have had similar issues with him.
00:44:19
God, that's so interesting.
00:44:23
What's your daughter like?
00:44:26
She is a wild.
00:44:27
I don't mean to me.
00:44:27
You don't talk about her.
00:44:27
No, she's a wild beast.
00:44:29
We were doing this thing the other day where I was just like, all I do is talk about feelings, all I do is cry.
00:44:35
And I feel like I haven't avoided child.
00:44:37
Like my avoidant husband and I'm just like, oh my God.
00:44:40
So like the other day we're in bed and you know, we're like reading and she'll say something like groundbreaking like so and so said this to me and it made me feel blah blah blah and then she'll just stop.
00:44:50
And then she's like, wait, can we read babysitters club?
00:44:52
And I'm like, wait, you just said something explosive we need to talk about.
00:44:55
She's like, yeah, I'm done.
00:44:56
I got it out.
00:44:57
And I'm like, well, you didn't get it out.
00:44:59
You said something and it was like explosive.
00:45:01
And now we need to talk about it.
00:45:02
And she was like, mom, I'm done.
00:45:04
I got it out.
00:45:05
We're done.
00:45:06
We can close that up, put it away.
00:45:08
And I was like, you can't do it.
00:45:10
And then she's like, tell me a story.
00:45:11
So I was like, fine.
00:45:13
And then I was like in a dark wood behind it, you know, the story's kids love in a dark coffin.
00:45:17
There's a dark lock it in the dark lock it are your feelings.
00:45:21
Boxes feeling there.
00:45:23
And she started laughing hysterically.
00:45:26
And I'm like, oh my God, you're laughing because that's really what can going on.
00:45:31
I'm never going to be able to get in there either another box that I must spend the rest of my life trying to crawl into.
00:45:39
I don't want to.
00:45:39
Oh my God, but at least the sub is cozy.
00:45:43
So you spending time underground looking through in the box in the lock in the box in the lock.
00:45:52
You will enjoy.
00:45:54
It's your, it's your happy place.
00:45:56
I swear to God, I don't know that I've ever felt more understood, like at all.
00:46:02
And like I said, I feel like when people come over and like see our dog and they're like.
00:46:07
See so much.
00:46:08
And it's like that dog acts like that with everybody.
00:46:11
I feel like a little bit that way now.
00:46:13
I'm like, oh my God, many hands really can see.
00:46:16
You don't get everybody everywhere.
00:46:20
It's as I love you and I think I know you because of reading your books and also you're just wonderful.
00:46:26
You are wonderful.
00:46:28
No, you are.
00:46:28
Like you're wonderful to talk to and your books change the way people feel and they are comforting and they are the best companion.
00:46:36
I've had them on many hard journeys and it's really cool to be able to sit and talk and you're so generous to talk about painful things and things that we traditionally don't talk about.
00:46:47
You know what's cool is like maybe your daughter will listen to this one day and like you are just demonstrating what it is to investigate.
00:46:55
Yeah.
00:46:56
It's good for all of us to do that.
00:46:57
So thank you so much.
00:46:59
You're amazing.
00:47:00
Thank you so much.
00:47:04
Truly.
00:47:05
You're welcome.
00:47:07
You're very welcome.
00:47:07
Many questions is hosted and written by me, Mini Driver.
00:47:12
Executive produced by me and Aaron Kaufman with production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Dengler and Ali Perry.
00:47:20
The theme music is also by me, an additional music by Aaron Kaufman.
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Special thanks to Jim Nicolay, Addison No Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, Annique Oppenheim, Annique Muller and Annette Wolf at WKPR,
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Will Pearson, Nikki Etoll, Morgan LeVoy and Mangesh, her ticker doll.
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I feel so alone.
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I'm embarrassed to talk about it.
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How can I help my kid if I can't help myself?
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I can't remember when I wasn't stressed.
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I don't want you to just play inside.
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When you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and emotions, it's okay to get help.
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You are not alone.
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Cal Hope is here for you with free safe and confidential mental health resources for youth, young adults, families and you.
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Find support now at calhope.org.
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Everybody, it's Tony Robbins.
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If you believe you want to have a new 2025 better than eight year before, it's going to take a plan, a path, momentum, some skills.
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How do you change the energy in your body so you have the energy to begin a business or do something in your career or deal with the challenges your life or turn your kids around?
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I'm going to give three days to anybody wants to participate at no charge.
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It's called the time to rise summit.
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Get yourself registered for your free spot, time to rise summit.com.
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With the best all inclusive vacation deals to Mexico and the Caribbean, booking your get away with cheap Caribbean vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal.
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Whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas and more, or simply soak up the sun and sand in a tropical paradise, cheap Caribbean vacations has your deal for that.
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And book the exact way you want at exactly the right price for you by using our exclusive budget beach finder or find a featured all inclusive package to blue diamond resorts and do your deal at cheap Caribbean.com.
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Do you own a business that's ready to thrive?
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It's time to let into it QuickBooks take things like unpaid invoices and tracking expenses off your plate so you can take things to the next level.
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Intuit QuickBooks your way to money.
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Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc.
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Licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
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(upbeat music)
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