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Dec. 2, 2024

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau: Closer Together

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau: Closer Together

Hosts Debbie Travis and Tommy Smythe sit down for a conversation with the author and de facto First Lady, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, about her new book 'Closer Together.'

Hosts Debbie Travis and Tommy Smythe get to spend just over a half hour with author, former broadcaster and de facto first lady, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. She discusses her new book 'Closer Together', which emphasizes the importance of mental health, connection, and self-acceptance. They explore many themes including the impact of social media on loneliness, the effects of childhood trauma, and the necessity of authentic relationships. Sophie shares insights on how to navigate hate and dehumanization, the significance of emotional regulation, and the need for balance in the journey towards healing. Sophie, citing the work of Canadian physician Gabor Maté, explains the complexities of human suffering, addiction, and the emotional needs that drive these behaviours. She challenges us to look at the underlying pain behind addictions and the necessity of emotional safety. The discussion also touches on navigating relationship breakdowns, the concept of self-betrayal, and the vital role of trust in personal connections. Sophie is a beacon of hope as she advocates for self-awareness and compassion while also expressing a desire to create a movement for greater emotional awareness in society.

More About Sophie Grégoire Trudeau:

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau is a mental health advocate, public speaker, and mentor. Over the past twenty years, she has been an ambassador and champion for youth self-esteem, gender equality, emotional literacy, and physical activity. Sophie has received UN recognition awards for her humanitarian work and was named the first National Volunteer for the Canadian Mental Health Association in 2022. She also serves as Youth Leadership Global Ambassador for Plan International Canada. A mother of three, Sophie is a certified yoga instructor and an adventurous outdoor sportswoman.

Connect with Sophie:

https://sophiegregoiretrudeau.com/

Order Sophie's Book:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/723011/closer-together-by-sophie-gregoire-trudeau/9781039007444

 

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction to Closer Together

(02:56) Exploring Mental Health and Connection

(05:56) Understanding Hate and Dehumanization

(08:59) The Impact of Social Media and Loneliness

(12:02) Childhood Trauma and Its Effects

(15:06) The Importance of Authentic Connections

(18:04) Finding Balance and Relaxation

(20:53) Personal Stories and Eating Disorders

(22:44) Understanding the Roots of Suffering

(24:14)The Emotional Underpinnings of Addiction

(26:09) Microaddictions and Their Impact

(30:52) Navigating Relationship Breakdowns

(35:24) Self-Betrayal, Personal Growth, and the Importance of Trust

 

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Transcript

0:01  
Hi, I'm Debbie Travis,

0:02  
and I'm Tommy Smythe,

0:03  
and this is, trust me, I'm a decorator.

0:07  
Hello, Debbie Travis,

0:09  
hello, Tommy Smythe. Our special guest today is author, mental health advocate, former radio and television host and former first lady Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. Hi, Hi, Sophie, but first, I just want to start with a couple of reviews from your new book. Closer together, the heartfelt stories and insightful interviews and closer together are a call to action for openness, vulnerability and radical self acceptance all of us can learn from Sophie Gregor Trudeau commitment to collective growth. This was written by Arianna Huffington Tommy,

0:48  
former US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, writes in this candid and enlightening book, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau offers an intrepid exploration into achieving a life lived with purpose, meaning and a sense of wonder closer together makes a heartfelt case for the importance of connection in our well being as individuals, as parents, as mentors and as members of society. Wow. Hillary Clinton, here's your book, Sophie,

1:14  
and welcome. So we thought we'd set off with some heavy hitters. Hi, Sophie, yeah.

1:19  
Really heavy hitters, and by the way, like I read them recently, because I was just reading the back of my book to get a quote on something, and I was like, holy, it is not real. I was still kind of pinching myself. And you know what it makes my heart kind of, I don't know, contract a little bit and expand at the same time, because it just confirms, it tells me so you're doing the right thing. Continue, right? Yes, that's what it means to me. Like and you know, the quality of those of those women in their souls and their intrepid courage inspires me. So I hope that I send out a similar message in my own ways, you don't have to be so well known by the world, but more known to yourself so that people can feel it. And

2:02  
this is a huge message in the book. I know for a fact that you're one of Canada's most recognizable public figures, but I don't know that people until this book happened, really knew you as well as we can through reading this book. It's deeply personal and extremely connective, and so the title of the book closer together is really, you know about many different things, but one of those things is really that you are offering a more close relationship with Canadians who read this book. Thank you for that, because I think it's very It's so thoughtful, and it's so well researched, and the interviews that you have in the book are so meaningful and really allow the individual reader like me, for instance, last night especially, to do a bit of a deep dive into some questions that I have about myself. And, you know, at 54 years old, I didn't really think that I would be finding myself in bed at night at this age reading a book by the former first lady of Canada and and have you know these kinds of cathartic thoughts and moments, but here I am, and thank you for that. You've been

3:07  
fascinated with mental health for a long time, and I think Tommy's right. A lot of us really didn't know that. So what I thought would be really different for us to do today, because this book is not what I expected. I really thought it was just a memoir. I did this, I did this, I did this, but actually it's quite unique, the way you wrote this book, your questions to some of the the most talented people in the world who can answer these questions. So I thought we would do the same thing as the most untalented people in the world. We would throw it out to our followers. So we've never actually done this before, like this, and we've said, Look, we're going to be recording this podcast with you. What are your questions? So we've had a lot. Yeah,

3:51  
we asked Canada, and Canada answered, and they had many questions for you.

3:55  
That's amazing, guys

3:56  
from all over the world. We've had Norway, we've had South Africa. We've had some people knew you through some of your travels. And I want to be honest upfront, and I don't think we're going to go into them, but some of them were horrendous, and they actually Tommy and I have talked a lot on our podcast, which started as a kind of a live Instagram during COVID, about, you know, the meanness of social media and stuff, which we've

4:23  
experienced ourselves. We should say like, you know, Debbie and I have had all the vitriol and all the haters and all of those things. And I think in general, we can talk a little bit about that for sure. First

4:34  
of all, I do have almost half a chapter on this topic of why people hate, why people dehumanize. It's all coming from trauma and pain that has not been analyzed, processed or healed, and so it just keeps on going like a wildfire from generation to generation, until one person says, Okay, what happened in my past that makes me act and react the way I do now? What happens when I love what happens when I work? What happens when I vote? How is my nervous system regulated or not? This level of awareness holds healthy democracies together. It's the mental health is the principle universal common denominator to every single human being on this planet. It makes no difference what color you are, which socio economic class you're from, your mental well being is not just the absence of mental health. It's your awareness on how you function. And by the way, it's a human right. We're not even taught this in schools. No, we teach geography, languages, French and mathematics, whatever do we teach emotional regulation and knowing how to sit with pain. We're human beings. Pain is part of life. So anyway, all the vitriol always remember, first of all, it's a minority of people. Second of all, the dehumanization comes from a deep need to connect that was never nourished and that never took place. Or all these people, they just want to connect. They want to feel seen and validated. They're taking all the wrong ways and the very immature ones to do so, which are not regulated, but they're streaming something, right? And

6:02  
they don't have the tools, you know. And I think one of the remarkable things about this book is that it offers the tools and the insight that a person might need, and I think you say this in the very beginning of the book, to at least give yourself a pathway toward exploring mental health with a professional person, yeah, and many people you know, and I think especially the people who spew that kind of vitriol toward public figures like the three of us on social media and other platforms, and sometimes even in person, you know, have really not done that kind of exploration with professional help before in their lives. And many people who need it don't know that they need it. And so reading this book, one of the things that it gave me was, you know, I started thinking about my childhood, which I consider to be a very happy childhood, but I asked the question of myself, was it really completely 100% happy? Of course, it wasn't that happiness is not a sustainable emotion. It's something we experience in waves. So anyway, all of that to say, yes, when you pose questions to a broader audience, you get all kinds of various things, but the majority, like you said, of the of the questions were lovely and from people who are really interested,

7:11  
I can't wait to hear them, but I just want to tell people right now, if you're listening, professional help is not always available because it's not affordable for many, many people. And this is why, one of the other reasons why I wrote the book, because the book is less expensive than, you know, therapy sessions in a row. Although I think every child should have the luxury nowadays to have access to emotional regulation and professional guidance. I don't call it therapy, because we're not broken, we're not sick, we're just trying to respond to abnormal living circumstances that human beings have never been exposed to in a lifetime.

7:44  
So one of the questions actually we had, which I wasn't going to put in, but somebody said, how do you handle the haters? What do you do personally that can inspire us?

7:54  
Yeah, first of all, I will not call them haters. I will call them just regulated beings, unaware beings, and I don't hate them, even if they exude hate, we're going to push heinous crimes and atrocities and genocides and wars aside here for the purpose of the conversation, because it's happening everywhere around this planet. But you know, they come from a place where they need to find exterior circumstances to blame for their unhappiness, insecurity, unsafety. On Abraham Maslow's pyramid of all the basic human needs, safety you can have a meal on your table and a roof over your head if you don't have emotional safety and physical safety, all bets are off. So think about all the people nowadays living in a polarized, divided world where you're chronically in your alert system. It's like there's always going to be somebody attacking you. The threat is not always real, but the quality of news that we bring to our brains, the quality of food that we put in our body, the quality of human beings that we surround ourselves with, the quality of inner conversation that we have with ourselves. There's stuff I've told myself I never told anybody in a lifetime, because we're so harsh with ourselves. Yeah, and activist living in a society that rewards us for self betrayal, can't age, can't accept my true nature. I have to perform it in order to be successful. You know, success as a form of recognition, instead of contribution, becoming further and further away from our true nature, and it's making us unhappy and sad, being hijacked in our right to human Solitude by loneliness. And we're not meant to be lonely. We're not meant to be lonely so to the media or to the expression haters, I would say, human beings looking to be seen, validated and heard, and it's just not working. Wow.

9:53  
Profound. It's very profound. Do you think we could be to. Connect that we're so over connected to people, too much news, too much social media, we're so over connected that that sometimes causes the anxiety and the stress. So for instance, I woke up the other morning like in the most negative mood. Nobody likes me. Nobody's done this, nobody. And I found out that somebody had had some kind of do, and I hadn't been invited. I wasn't even in the country, but, well, I could have had an email. I could have, you know, and somehow that hold, I must have gone to sleep thinking about that, and woke up thinking my whole life had fallen apart. And so if I hadn't found out that they'd had this, this party, this dinner, so are we over connected? Is that's what's happening to young people, especially today, that they're seeing on social media, what's going on in the world, and so they become depressed and stressed. Do you think we could be over connected.

11:01  
That's called major FOMO.

11:07  
In my case, it's homo FOMO. That's what I experienced deeply.

11:14  
I love it. So by the way, that could be a little bit of your active child from childhood who I don't know what your family history is. Were you an only child, Debbie? Were you surrounded by brothers and sisters that didn't pay enough attention to you or your parents were too busy? Like quickly, quickly, like five seconds. What did it look like? Tell me huge family.

11:33  
Eldest told my mother when I was 16, can I leave home now? And she said, Yes, do you want a cheese sandwich for the bus? And that was it. So I spent my entire teenage years, which I loathed, wanting attention, which I did not get, because my mother was widowed with a lot of small children, so I just wanted to get to London. You know, I think I've always craved and I was thinking, I mean, it's awful, because I come from a generation where you're not supposed to think about yourself. But when I was reading the book over the weekend, sobbing away into, you know, my dog's fur, you know, I started thinking about that, am I like I am, which is some of the good stuff success because of one, craving attention as a child, because I think I've come I mean, you're from Quebec, And I lived in Montreal for, you know, many, many, many years, and had film crews of French Canadians who came from the largest families I'd ever seen. You know, 16 kids, 18 kids like, Oh my God, Your mother must have been exhausted. And they all said the same thing, that often the eldest raised the youngest, whatever. And you did crave your mother's attention, which you did not get. You didn't get. They didn't have the time. So I think I might be in that category.

12:49  
You just put me all together so brilliantly, so you understand how your childhood, born of attachment, is expressing today. So a couple of things, trauma is not just something bad that happened to you and your childhood. It's something that you needed that never took place. You needed that attention you didn't get it. That's traumatic for a child, right? We're not trying to just say, Oh, it's my parents fault, and I'm asking and reacting the way that I do now because of them. No, no. As adults, our radical responsibilities to actually be aware of our patterns, so we understand why you felt rejected when you saw that there was a party, you know, some some place outside of your home and you weren't invited. It's that inner child that's being retributed. It's just exactly that. But now that you know, you can say hey to the super ego, the critical voice, oh, you're not good enough. They're not going to invite you. Nobody likes you and say either two things, I don't need you anymore. This is the door goodbye. Or you could say, hey, adaptive defense mechanism. You've been there for me for a long time. But you know what? I'm not a child anymore. You can go, now I'm gonna take care. I know. I'm sorry. I

14:04  
think Debbie's more the former. She's more the F you.

14:09  
I don't like doing that. And sometimes, you know, it's like when people say, Well, they didn't answer my email. I think Oprah used to say this, you know, we take it so personally, because certain types of people answer immediately, you know, and they say, sorry, I'm running. Let me get back to you tomorrow, or something like that. And that's me. But when people don't do that in return, especially in business, I take it personally, like, oh my god, I'm not important to them. I'm not this. I'm not that. You know, it's the same with your kids and, you know, all over Instagram or all these jokey things about, I mean, my children are older than yours about, you know, people saying, you know, would you call me? Will you this? Will you that? Because that's a hard thing for empty nesters, but I kind of got over that, because I would try and say to myself, they have a life to live. I left home at a very early age. You know, they are. With their friends. They don't want mom calling every five minutes, and

15:04  
you're telling me my 15 and a 17 year old, and I have to cut ties, right? Because they don't want to be really with me anymore. And I'm like, well, we used to play all the time. Hey, by the way, Debbie, I do want to say that when you when you said you put your face in your dog's fur, having like a little pet at home, like can actually help to regulate your nervous system. And animal therapy is real and really helps and to answer directly the question about, are we too connected? I would say we are too connected in poor quality connections. Bingo, yes, what we're thirsty and hungry for is the real, authentic connection. So you know, parties, little bits of information on social media, adoring celebrities and strangers that we've never seen and never really heard of before, and we just they take all of our attention and usually watch what you consume, and ask yourself this question, does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel that does? Does what you consume make you feel good about yourself? And if it doesn't, well, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, Why am I doing this to me? I'm supposed to be my own best friend. But society is bulldozing our way. So many incentives and little candies to say, hahaha. Say right here, but I think there's a counter current to this and the mental health. And, you know, I would say awareness and people who are willing to sit with their pain without feeling overwhelmed, and doing this work. It takes a lot of maturity, and it takes this. And I want to ask you two this, do you slow down in your life and and when you do, what do you do? To actually slow down, like, really slow down. What do you do? I'll

16:45  
tell you a funny story. My sister and I were sitting on lawn chairs at our mother's place in Florida many years ago, and we were just laying there in silence. And I turned to my sister and I said, I feel tired, but I don't want to sleep. And she looked at me and she said, you're relaxed. That's what relaxing is. Foreign, a foreign feeling to me that I didn't really know what I was feeling. But she said, No, you're relaxed. Like, just go with it. And so I realized in that moment that I had been experiencing an extended period of time where I had not slowed down. And so now I try to find those places and times to be able to do that and feel that experience of being tired but not wanting to go to sleep.

17:33  
You know that there's something called nervous fatigue, so when we stop moving, when we don't go outside for fresh air, spend time in nature, and we don't move our bodies or dance or jump around or climb a tree or right, we stop being that playful child. As adults, it's actually quite dangerous for our health, because what happens is that the nervous system doesn't really know how to regulate itself, because we need to move in order to, you know, burn calories in order to have electricity, in order to have flexibility and endurance and strength, and that's something called hormetic stress, hormesis. So we want to raise our level of resilience, emotionally, but also in our bodies. And that goes together. We have three brains, one in the head, one in the heart, nervous system that has the capacity to predict negative events and one of the gut we can no longer talk about wellness and mental health without talking about gut health. So if you haven't moved, and if you're not taking care of yourself, and if you're having your beer instead of your walk, if you're having your TV show instead of cooking with a friend or right, I'm just choosing mundane life examples, then nervous fatigue sets in, and it's very tricky, because it affects your sleep. Then your sleep affects your energy levels, then your energy levels affect your level of hunger. Then your level of hunger affects your weight, then your it's all a wheel, absolutely, and when we take away some of the elements that are intrinsic to our true nature. The wheel can't roll properly. We're

19:05  
just going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Well, my partner, Patrick says that it's also about boundaries. He's always highlighting for me that when I do approach burnout and when I have not relaxed in a long time, it's mostly because I have said yes to everything and and not said no to anything in an extended period of time. It's homo FOMO. It's it's a disease

19:39  
Sophie. I have a question here that brace yourself because it's too upsetting, because it's from somebody young, it's going to make you cry, because it makes me cry now, so somebody bought your book. She said she was lying on the sofa shaking because she'd just been upstairs, throwing up, and her mother had bought. Your book, and had left it open on the area about your eating disorder, and this girl sent me this letter that was so upsetting, I can't even I can't even read it to you. So the mother had left it open. She had been upstairs vomiting, thinking that nobody else knows. The mother left it there, and she said she gets the shakes when this happens, because she's doing it so often. Isn't that upsetting? So you have, and I read about, you know, your journey on that, so you have a thread throughout the book about it, because I think it's a it was a really traumatic thing for you, right?

20:43  
If you want to know why I do what I do, it's because of what you just share. This is why. This is the root of the why. This is it. I don't know another human being who's not suffering, and we're all one trauma away from each other. One, not two, not three, not four. One, it takes one dramatic life event in your life, whether it's an accident, a loss, it's a huge heartbreak, anything.

21:06  
But she says that she doesn't know why she does it. It's not my field at all, but I think it's control.

21:14  
So one of my great teachers, whose work I admired for decades, who I was reading, and who I had the chance to meet before writing this book, as I was in the process of writing it actually is Dr Gabor Mate, amazing, who is a specialist on addiction, and he allowed me to enter the whole scientific community, and he he put me out there, and he said, this book is going to be great. You're doing great work. I've been looking at what you've been doing as bawling. I was like, This can't be for real. Like, I was a fan of his work, and he worked with a lot of homeless people, indigenous people. And here's the thing, whether we talk about eating disorders or about your phone, your work, your relationships, sex, TV, gambling, name, it doesn't matter what it is. All addictions come from an emotional need that you cannot express and that's not being nourished. So you don't look at the addiction. You don't look at the eating disorder per se. You do if it's a case of anorexia, and they need to, you know, to gain weight and all that, of course, but you look at the pain underlying the addiction, that's what you need to look

22:19  
at, and it's always there in every case, exactly.

22:22  
And this girl, first of all, the shakes that she's talking about, I know that, and she's probably shaking to be seen and to be validated, to feel safe. When we're caught in the cycle of addictions, we feel unsafe and emotional, safety is everything. So I want to take her in my arms, and I want to tell her there's no shame or guilt to what's happening to you right now. But if you're willing to dig in and understand where your pain is coming from, you will heal yourself. It's not going to be perfect, it's messy, but you'll find a love that you'll be thirsty and hungry for your whole life that's actually in you beautiful. And somehow, when you're on that healing path, things start taking shape like a block, and slowly starts making sense. So all addictions you know, think about this right now, right for everybody who's listening and Dev and Tommy, think about this for two seconds. What is the behavior that you adopt in your daily life, weekly life, monthly life, that gives you temporary relief, that you find pleasure from, but that in the short term and long term, it doesn't really have good consequences on you or sometimes people around you. So just try to think what that could be. Doesn't have to be something super serious, but usually we have micro addictions in everybody's lives. That's

23:46  
a tough one, because I probably have several on a small level, right? I mean, certainly for me, social media, you know, my engagement with social media, which I consider to be a part of my job as a public figure, but also is something that I acknowledge on a low level is not healthy for me, but validates in a temporary way that gives me, you know, the dopamine that I'm looking for in the temporary moment, and then when I move on from it, there's almost like a like a come down, like a drug come down, where you're just feeling depleted from it and not actually nourished from it long term. And I think that and my partner has mentioned this a few times. I think that I and he agrees with this, probably overestimate how important it is or how much it means to other people, like he'll say to me, like, you could not post for three days, and it's not like everybody out there, all your 100,000 followers are waiting for you to post something on Instagram, they're not they're going about their lives. They're not sitting there waiting for what you have to post and say. And so being mindful of that is a journey that I'm on currently, and trying to understand it beautiful.

24:51  
That's beautiful that you are aware of that because we all have micro addictions, like we all do in different forms, but how you are tick? It, Tommy, is that they accumulate, right? Those micro addictions here and there, they accumulate. And from what you said earlier on, if I heard you right, you said, at some point I haven't rested, and my body just kind of like shuts down at some point, and I'm fatigued. So here we go, when all systems have been tried, your fight, your flight, yeah, and we keep fighting and working and being tired and not sleeping well. Well, when all those systems have been tried, the body goes in shut down mode and says, I'm overwhelmed. I cannot take this anymore. And then we go into depression, or, you know, other forms of just like kind of wanting to go into the cave and not wanting to be part of life anymore. And that's a that's a rabbit hole that we have to be really careful of, because we're just stressing our bodies and our minds so much at a rapid pace, continuously without resting, that that this is what happens. So on my own path in the past 20 years, I would say that what saved me are my practices to reset my nervous system. It sounds detached and kind of, you know, scientific, but it's, it's not, it's actually connecting with my body, like, if you're listening now and you have, you know, an emotional pain, something is painful in your life. You're going into a transition, or a heartbreak, or you lost somebody, whatever it is, if you can close your eyes for a couple of minutes, you know, not now, but later in the day, or choose your moment and try to feel where the pain is in your body. Yeah, and you could ask yourself and ask it questions like, What do you need? What do you truly want? And why are you there? You try to tell me something and notice that I'm talking with curiosity and compassion to that part of me, right? Yeah, it's really important that we talk with compassion and a slow voice like we talk to a two or three or four year old to calm them down. That young child is still in us. Slow down your nervous system.

26:55  
That's very, very sound advice, listening

26:57  
to what you've just said. That brings me to another question, which, again, was quite a long message. I think you've become a bit of a beacon for a lot of people you know who were relating to you. So one woman says, I cannot function. My marriage is broken down. How'd you get up in the morning? I don't know why it makes me so upset. How'd you get up in the morning?

27:15  
What I could say is, one, you know, her marriage is broken. What does this mean that she's no longer finding connection with the person that's the most important in her life. This creates great emotional unsafety. Okay? It's nerve wracking. Your body doesn't like this. Your brain doesn't like this. Lessons keep showing up until we integrate them and look at them. So if your marriage is broken, what is it that is broken? What is it trying to teach you? What can you learn from it, even if you're not doing anything and the other person, for example, is cheating. Usually, people cheat because we don't feel we don't feel safe enough to be able to talk about our true desires with our partner, our true desires. Maybe we feel ashamed or guilty or shy or, I don't know what it is, but usually when people go somewhere else than in their couple and we're not talking about people who choose that for a way of living, that's fine, too, as long as everybody's happy, right? No judgment there. Yeah. I know lots of people who do, yeah, but most people really want to be seen and understood and calmed by the person that they live with. If you're in a relationship that is not calming to your nervous system, it's not safe for you to stay there emotionally. No, and

28:33  
I don't think that we're kind enough to ourselves about the ending of relationships. I've done a lot of exploration of this personally, because I've had, you know, a few important relationships in my life that came to an end that was traumatic and painful, and what I taught myself to do was to look at each of those relationships as a body of work that is to be proud of, and that while that body of work was being created together, it was very good, and it was very valid, and it was really amazing. And then when it wasn't for a shorter period of time, in my case, in each relationship, that part of it doesn't I use this expression like you can't let the ink of that get in the water of the body of work, that was good. And so I think for some people who find it hard to get out of bed in the morning after a relationship has ended, they're not looking at the relationship as this great body of work, and it's okay to leave a body of work behind and begin another and so those next chapters that Debbie's written about and that we've all explored many times on this on this podcast, actually are the thing to look forward to and finding that thing to look forward to, but it's hard to look forward to something if you can't leave the other thing behind. And the way that I've done it is I've just looked at it as a good body of work that I could be proud of, and then the next thing is in front of

29:52  
me. You just put to the surface something that is probably universal and extremely important to talk about, because we do. Have co dependency issues. So when your whole life revolves around another person, and you know, think about the gender that takes care of the emotional leaves of all their family members, that mothers all the family members, including the other partner, women, are affected by autoimmune diseases like lupus, fibromyalgia, eczema, many others, 10 times four or more, if they have the type of personality that where they put their needs last, this doesn't mean we cannot be altruistic. That's very different. But forgetting about your emotional needs and what you need creates inflammation. It creates stress. It creates inflammation. If you have inflammation in your body which leads to disease. So you know, you say separate the ink, which is the lesson the trauma a little bit, right? The lesson from the water, which is the body of work that we need to do ourselves without clinging to somebody else. But clinging and attaching is the expression of the inner child again. Please don't leave me. It's death. If the tribe walks away from you, you die. Yes, your primitive brain still interprets it that way. And I know because I've been there. Yeah,

31:13  
it's totally primal.

31:14  
Somebody actually says You talk a lot about self betrayal. What's that? Is that what you mean? So you're talking about self betrayal now, well,

31:22  
the self betrayal is something that we're that we're learning as we live. No human being and little baby is born into this world wanting and viscerally betraying themselves, the way that you were raised and the energy in your household might ask you to develop protection mechanisms, and your whole personality is just an accumulation and amalgam of adaptive behaviors. That's what a personality is. How did I adapt to the situation that I was put in as a human being? Right? And how do those mechanisms? How much awareness do I have towards these mechanisms, and what can I change so I don't need the validation of another person in order to feel good about myself. So it's kind of like a double edged sword, because we do need the validation and to be seen by other people and to feel loved and safe in the presence of others, but at the same time, there's work that we need to do ourselves in order to understand that it doesn't all reside in the other right? You're able to develop tools in your life to actually be kind and compassionate and make your solitude a companion, instead of falling into the codependency and you know, wanting to be saved, you don't need saving. You just need self awareness and Love towards yourself and resetting your nervous system. It sounds like it's only like a neurobiological imperative, but that neurobiological imperative of knowing how to calm your body is extremely useful in life,

32:55  
absolutely. Yeah, look up the word imperative. You know, like imperative is imperative. It is. It is absolutely by definition, that phrase vitally important, of course. And thank you for that, because I don't think a lot of people consider this right. But

33:09  
you know, intuition, our intuition, is one of our greatest forms of intelligence. And think about the last decision you made, where you should have listened to it. Ah, right, but you did it. How did that serve you? Not well. That's self betrayal. That's a form of self betrayal.

33:26  
It is absolutely it is, I think we've all experienced it. This is a universal thing that everyone experiences at some point, whether you experience it and learn from it, or whether you experience it and repeat the behavior. That's also something that is somewhat of a choice, and we can all look inward and try to figure out how not to repeat those kinds of errors. And a lot of it is listening to your intuition. I've experienced it many times, and sometimes in very dangerous situations where intuition becomes extremely important. You know, as a person who's a part of a marginalized group, as an LGBT person, you know, our personal safety in the world, much like women in the world, very similar situation, we have to be very aware of our surroundings and trust our intuition in order to maintain our physical safety in certain environments. And so I think, yeah, that discussion Sophie is vitally important to have and to keep having with our friend groups and with our families and with ourselves, most importantly, because your book is really about a conversation with yourself, with oneself. But I think that those conversations can also extend to groups of other people around you, so that these things can be shared to a point where people can start also exploring their own inner questions and inner explorations. And

34:46  
by the way, I don't know if you know this, but it was just announced to me, but we won best audio book in French on Audible, and also made the list in English. And I spent like 50 more hours in the studio because I wanted. My story to be shared by my voice. And even my kids made a little appearance in the audio book. If every you like audios more than than you know than paper books, whatever

35:09  
felicitation that's amazing.

35:12  
I just did mine, and it's fun to do. I actually liked it better doing the audio than they actually. I like the process of it absolutely and Okay. On that final note, this is amazing. I have a question, though, are you gonna, can you take this on the road? Because it really is fascinating. Very

35:30  
good question.

35:31  
You want me to be raw honest here? Yes, I wrote my closer together into a TV docuserie. And, you know, I want an opportunity for a podcast. I want to find the right allies to do it. So I'm in the process of this right now, so I'm putting it out in the universe manifest that, yeah, I don't want to work with just anybody. I want to work with allies who understand the work that I'm trying to do, and I'm ready to lead this with steadfast courage, but only if people come in. Right? I'm not doing this for me. I want people to be able to be part of this movement for more emotional awareness and literacy and and I would say peace, peace in our families, in our homes, in our schools, in our in our governments, in our institutions, so that we can trust again. You know, maybe we leave each other on this. But I interviewed a psychologist in closer together, and she said that the most unhappy human beings she's ever met in 40 years of practice are the ones who cannot trust in others. Wow,

36:27  
yes, you know what? I think you know? I'm a professional interior designer. It's an intimate service where you get really involved with couples, individuals, families, and the people who are most miserable through that process are the people who don't trust us. And so I've seen that every day in my work, every day I see it, and sometimes the couples that fight the most about how to create their home environment, which is deeply personal, are the ones who don't trust each other, and they fight constantly through the process. And it's not necessary, because a little bit of trust goes such a long way, and it releases you of the stress of fighting against this trust. So that's a very, very good thing to to end on. I think trust. So

37:08  
think about the state of the world. Think about the state of our families, of our school or communities and everywhere, if people are not well regulated in their bodies and in their minds, the way they interpret and receive others information is not as resilient as it could be. No, this is what the work is all about.

37:25  
Sorry, one last question to finish with, because we we kind of got on to decorating. So the title of our podcast is, trust me, I'm a decorator in the way that, because it's funny you brought that up in the way that never trust a decorator, but I always like to ask somebody like yourself, where's your comfort place at home?

37:43  
It's a hard one to choose, because I'm a bath lady. Yeah, I'm really like, I'm a water baby. I'm a surfer. I love to be the water. So whether it's a bath, an ocean or whatever, but I would say anywhere where I can find natural light and candles and coziness. It has to give me a feeling of I want to cuddle in here. I've seen beautiful palaces in my life. No, thank you. I found a cuddly corner.

38:16  
So you like to be cozy, and you love home that is welcoming and soft and, yeah, safe. I mean, that's safety, right, yeah.

38:24  
And if I could in my dream home one day, because I'm not there in my dream home, when I have a home, a house, I would like it to be all raw materials, nothing to finish, as if it had a life before, right? Like a rock sink, like a copper bath. I mean, it's all in affordable so forget it. But in my dreams, that's, that's what I would see. Well,

38:46  
when you're ready, call me.

38:47  
Okay.

38:49  
I trust you.

38:50  
I will help you.

38:51  
All right, my love that was absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And I'm glad we because some of those questions really brought me to my knees from our followers who wanted me to pass it on to you. So thank you. Thank you for helping so many people.

39:05  
Thank you for everybody who asked questions, because the gift of Trust is everything. So I received it with a lot of love, and I wish you all the best on your past. Lots of love.

39:14  
Thank you. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai