Re-Air: Alanis Morissette: Self-Care is No Longer a Luxury

Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik and welcome to my breakdown. Today, in honor of Eating Disorder Awareness Week, we want to revisit a really, really important and popular episode from a few years back with singer, songwriter, musician, overall incredible human being Alanis Morissette. And while we've talked about eating disorders a lot on MBB, we've talked about disordered eating in particular. Alanis articulates so many aspects of the struggles that so many of us have with food. We wanted to share this episode in honor of the week coming up. There's also a ton of other incredible topics we talk about with Alanis. We talk about boundary setting. We talk about anger as a catalyst for positive change, the benefit of meditation, and also some prophetic visions that she had about her career. Also, end this episode in a conversation about what we project on our relationships that we inherited from our parents. We also talk about craniosacral therapy, what it means to rest, and stick around to the end to hear me sing and dissect some of my favorite Alanis lyrics. If you have trouble with eating or with an eating disorder, we hope that you will get help. We have some references in the episode that we talk about, and now we hope you enjoy taking a look back at our very, very special episode with Alanis Morissette. Break it down. It's really, really lovely to get to speak to you. This is my co-pilot, Jonathan, who's also Canadian. We like to highlight the Canadian thing. Moment of silence. I would like to talk to you about everything forever. But in the time that we have with you, you know, there's so much that's going on now in your life that's super exciting. So maybe can we just like touch on a couple things and then we'll sort of go back in time and work our way back. Let's do it. You have you have a you have a meditation album out, which is called The Storm Before the Calm. It is available on calm, but you can also get it elsewhere, correct? At other places that aren't so calm. Got it. Yes. You know, there's there's something that you posted on Twitter, which I won't read back to you, but sort of about the necessity of kind of going into this space of, I think the words you used were stillness and gentle inquiry, you know, in whatever way you feel kind of comfortable and inspired, what, you know, why this now and this way? Well, there's a certain responsibility that I had to start taking very actively and consciously around my temperament, you know, because I've had the privilege and luxury of having some very, I call it edge dwelling conversations with people who've been my teachers and mentors. And basically, it got to the point where self-care and the whole well-being conversation, which beautifully became trendy over the last few years, it became it got to the point basically where self-care was no longer a luxury. It wasn't, oh, this is a treat once every six months or got to the point where that version of restoration and we all have different versions. You know, some of us, it can be meditation. Some of us, it could be specifically not meditation because at our point in what might be a trauma recovery journey, being left alone with our thoughts is not always the smartest way to go. So I qualify it a lot with this meditation record that being left alone. Peter Levine talks about sort of, I don't know what the term was that he used, but it's something along the lines of anxiety-induced relaxation. This Peter Levine that I have the book of right here. Moment of silence again. So yes, basically not everyone, And, you know, the panacea in terms of meditation and mindfulness, it's not actually the route for everybody in the world. So so I like to qualify that this meditation might not be the way. In fact, maybe a guided meditation or or a Q&A or an inquiry with some support, some relationality thrown in there to make it a little bit more regulating than some. But for me, with music, sometimes that can be the portal into just getting to that state of witnessing and listening and inquiring and getting to the bottom of a lot of things that I have to have extreme safety to explore. And sometimes I find that certainly in my relationship, my friendships, my marriage sometimes, and then sometimes I'll find it in therapy. But the pay dirt moments of really getting to the bottom of some really intense stuff is usually around journaling and meditating and really listening and really asking the tougher question of my multiple parts that are showing up and attempting to act out. So you're being very kind also to people who may not want to meditate. And I'd like to sort of put that. You'd like to shame them publicly? No, I would like to I would like to create, you know, the safety that you created for people who may need more guidance. I'm going to sort of put that, you know, in a separate category. I'm not asking you to shame people, but I do want to know sort of just and I'm not asking you to be the authority on all things meditation. But I've found this with people kind of with yoga where they're like, I don't like yoga. I don't sit still. I don't do it. And I've heard this with meditation, too. Like, that's not for me. My mind is too busy. But can you speak a little bit to not the category of people who, let's say, need other processes, you know, to go through to, you know, but to get wherever they're going. Exactly. But for people who are just like that sounds, you know, fill in the adjective. It sounds dumb. It sounds for hippies. It's not for me. I like kickboxing instead. What is the thing that stillness, that silent, that learning to breathe, for example, what does that bring? Well, if someone were to say I get that through kickboxing, I would my begged question in that moment would be you get what? You know, what what does it provide for you? What does it make available to you? So it could just be that we're all chasing this hyper presence. So if staring at a candle does it for you, if listening to a certain kind of music does it for you, some people it's dancing, some people it's exactly kickboxing or UFC watching or whatever it is. So I have no sense of the right way to do anything at this point, especially after becoming a mother. I had a lot of opinions before I was a mom. That's the best time to have opinions about children is when you don't have any. When you don't have any. And I was riddled with many opinions. And then after I had children, I just stopped talking. Basically, I started listening and empathizing really large. So what the meditative invitation really is, is can we be with what's going on in this moment? And for those of us who have traumas that aren't resolved or developmental stuff that hasn't been touched on yet, it can be overwhelming. It can flood the system, especially if you're sensitive. You know this as an neurobiologist, I'm assuming. So just being responsible for what floods us, if we're highly sensitive or for empaths, if we haven't had enough time alone or we don't have enough support in the relationality of someone supporting us in a safe context. If we don't have that, there could be ways to tiptoe into that, maybe through a guided meditation. I definitely benefited from that in my 20s when I was touring alone in hotel rooms. I wasn't at a place where I could be left alone to my own devices without the voices in there getting really mean. So guided meditations were perfect for me because I could just follow and I would notice that I'd start feeling regulated again. And then in that place of feeling somewhat calm, you know, I always feel like resting is enlightenment. Like if we can truly rest, that's when I think I ideally have all the access to whatever it is, art, clarity, clear on what to prioritize. It all becomes really clear for me when I have that state or that space. But so many of our lifestyles now are such that we're just operating from such a flooded place, from overwhelm, you know, the so-called invisible load of moms, which I would love to have be rendered visible. You know, just the details of what our minds are doing. And I when I hear people say what what it sounds like you've heard a lot, too, of there's too much going on. I'm too busy. You know, you're right. We live in a culture now that is the norm. The set point seems to be overstimulation. And that's just been normalized, which is not how we're built. Right. We're not built to take in that information and stay in that chronic revved red for that long. It's interesting you mentioned music as sort of a portal for either meditation or contemplation. You know, there's people have different relationships with music. and I'll just use your music as an example. Your music is very, very important to me and it speaks to a time and I'm sure you, you know, there are people all over the freaking world, right, who have specific associations, let's say, with, you know, your music. And for me, it is, it's the lyrics, it's the time, it's how old I was, it's how I identified with you, you know, all the things that we put on you. Yeah, we're here to be projected upon anyway. Exactly, that's what, I love it, yeah. But, you know, I've also, so I'm a fan of the Cocteau Twins, which is a very, very ethereal, you know, very music heavy, very lush. You don't even know if they're speaking English, but it doesn't really matter. You know, it doesn't matter. Right. It doesn't matter. And I actually know all of the lyrics and I have no idea what I'm even saying, you know, for most of the songs of that genre of music that I love. But for meditation music, which I didn't even know is a thing until I started actively meditating and I use a free app. But what's interesting is, and I say this with all the love in my heart, you know, when I look at you have 11 tracks, correct? I think so. On this album. And I'm going to be super honest. I'm like, how different can they be? And then I looked at the titles and I was like, oh, you're like, oh, OK, so there's different things. But, you know, when I think of meditation music, Jonathan, I think you'd agree. It's like, you know, and then it like goes into. Which I also love. But I was like. I need that desperately sometimes. Well, and I thought if anyone can make 11 different tracks, it's Alanis Morissette. Of 11 different feelings or states of being. Correct. Okay, so feelings, states of being. So I'm just going to, there's 11 words. Everyone can be patient. Light, heart, explore, space, purification, restore, awakening, ground, safety, mania, and vapor. ooh talk a little bit about sort of how this kind of evolved do you set out and say i want to write something about explore and i'm going to make it sound like explore did you name them after is it about a state that you're in when you create them it's it's the inside out and i i appreciate that some people are really great at doing the outside in approach i just can't do it if someone tells me intellectually how to create something that in some senses has to be done from this unfettered listening state, you know, listening and heeding is kind of the practice for me. But if someone gives me a sense, like I remember years ago, someone at the record company said, I really need you to write a party song, you know, and I was like, party song? Well, I could write a party song about my experience at a party and how I'm scared to be social. And does that make me anti-so, you know, but the running joke is like, I can't, I can't be dictated what to do intellectually for a process that requires a full somatic, you know, receptive state. So with these songs, I wrote them, and then later named them, because I attempted to get a sense of what was being offered. You know, and mania was the one that was a little challenging for some people, because it's counterintuitive to think that embracing chaos, you know, Dan Siegel, the rigidity chaos continuum, embracing chaos, in some senses, sounds extreme, which can sound really scary to those of us who are recovering from addictions or whatever it is. But for me, my experience, whether it's with movement, dancing, being on stage, is that really finding that groundedness inside the mania can be a really great release of energy. It can shift everything for me. So there's a tenacity that is asked of us in theory, in this kind of chaotic musical expression. So somehow including the mania in the conversation is really an invitation for all these parts and all these voices and all these archetypes within me that are just sometimes fighting for the front seat of the car. You know, there's the mom, there's the rock star, there's the activist, there's the student, there's the scholar, there's the freak show, you know, like all these parts that just need a moment in the sun. And they can all get really loud if I haven't spent enough time doing that inner dialoguing. And it's, you know, it's just waiting for me whenever I stop, whenever I get really still, it's all, they all just wait for mommy's attention. Well, and I think that's a it's a good place to sort of, you know, take us back in time a little bit to sort of who you were before you were all those things to all of these people. You are from Canada. You're from name a city or a province. Jonathan, help me. Ottawa, Ontario, Ottawa, which is a city in the province of Ontario, the capital of Canada. People get really angry. I'm sorry. Edit that out. I'm sorry. It's the capital of Canada. Of course it is. Everyone knows that. Exactly. You also did something interesting as a child. You had a presence as a performer, even when you were a youngin. And I don't want to label it too much, but you were part of a, you know, a mainstream. I don't want to say generic. I don't mean it in a bad way, but like a mainstream. I don't want to say it, but I'm going to say it. No, no, no. Like I don't mean generic, like so generic, so basic. I know what you mean. Mainstream. Pop. You were part of a pop mainstream kind of. Yeah. Here's the question. Still am. But right. But here's the question. Were you you then in that different casing Yes And it was a little bit more presentational I don think I was sophisticated enough in my emotional culling to be able to have written wildly autobiographical songs at 10 Right. Although, you know, I touched on some songs. There's a song that I wrote when I was 16 that started being more vulnerable. But to be perfectly honest, I was in environments where my songwriting prowess was not encouraged. So there were a lot of things that were focused on and encouraged. Songwriting was not one of them. And when I left the situation I was in in Canada and started fresh, for lack of a better term, in LA, there was this freedom. It was just like a big open road. And there were no preconceived notions of what I'd done before in terms of genre. And I just basically integrated all of it. I love pop. I love cheese. I love, you know, self-expression and non-rhyming and experimenting with the voice like a paintbrush, you know. So basically, eventually it all came out once I was in a different environment where the collaborators or producers just thought, OK, here's a woman who wants to express herself. How great. Let's support her. I like to remind people, you know, this was a very different time. There really wasn't like an Internet, as you know it, there'll always be someone who's like, the internet began in 1932. Like, I don't know, but yes, in terms of, right. In terms of sort of where you were placed and where we all were at that point in time, we were still like, oh my gosh, MTV is a thing. And they make TV shows too, where they show you what happens behind the scenes. Like we were still learning about the world as it were. I graduated high school in 1993 and I was still working on Blossom up until I went to college two years later. I will say, I mean, there's many things that I can say. And it's also interesting because we have interacted socially outside of cameras. We're both part of a, you know, home birth, extended breastfeeding, holistic attachment parenting, homeschooling, unschooling kind of universe. You know, it's wonderful to have you here. And I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable that I also like there's a fangirl element of. No, I love it. And me for you. Well, and also, I don't just say it like, oh, my God, I loved your music. Like, this was a time in my life when I had been, you know, on television for five years since I was 14. As a child. I was very young. Like I started acting at 11. But, you know, there was a me inside that wanted to come out. You know, I was very like America's like, look, she's like a strange Jewish sweetheart. You know, like I was, you know, I was That's how I describe you. That's how I describe you is what's funny. You've been consistent, by the way. That's right. No, but I remember that, you know, the person inside of me who the first time I heard smells like teen spirit, like it was like my heart exploded. Like, what is this music? What is this consciousness? And, you know, for for many of us, especially the feisty, the girls who had been called a bitch and who were teased for not shaving their armpits and their legs, like there was this person, you know, who sang about medication, which like was something I whispered about, you know, I've been in therapy, you know, since I'm 17. And like, someone else is talking about medication, and about, you know, things that back then, nice girls didn't talk about, you know, right. And it was an extremely powerful moment, you know, for, for you to share that part of you. And like, I had the middle part and the hair down to my tush. Like I was so no, but like I was so empowered by the fact that you existed. And I think that was the experience of a lot of females. And I can't believe it was 25 years ago also, because when I hear and it's true, when I hear really anything off that album, I am right back, you know, I am right back in my room alone, weeping, writing my sad poetry. What this past weekend. This past weekend also. Yeah, just like last night. Yeah. But when you sort of like, you know, when you look back at that time, did you know that's what you were going to do for humanity? What I knew, I'd seen images of my future in terms of just, you know, pictures, prophetic pictures in a personal way. So I'd seen myself, I'd envisioned touring the planet, traveling a ton. I had that bug instilled in me quite early on for my parents who live to travel. So I saw myself traveling and performing and movement and sweat and some blood and tears. I saw all of that. And that's all I really saw. So I just kept showing up. I kept just keeping my eye on that prize without even being aware I was keeping my eye on any prize. I just kept those pictures alive. And actually, after a lot of them were made manifest, I actually didn't know where to go next. You know, all of a sudden the pictures went dark and I just thought, oh, am I supposed to die now? Is that what's, is that what this means? No, I just needed a moment to regroup and a lot of brass rings and all kinds of achievements, quote unquote, had been reached. And then it just, it begs the question, well, where do we go now? You know, so I just kept going deeper and deeper within because interiority was so terrifying to me. I just thought, well, if it's that terrifying, I want to keep going. But I couldn't do it without, you know, therapists and friends and safe environments. So there's no way I could move forward. Although I did do a lot of workshops and I'd show up for all these things that were not appropriate for me to be there in the sense that I wasn't really protecting myself very well. But I was so hungry for knowledge and hungry for ongoing education that I didn't care. So there was a bit of a carelessness to how I approached it. And when I say it, I mean, the work that I was doing in the psychotherapeutic meets spiritual inquiry and showings up and, you know, following mentors and reading, reading my teacher's books cover to cover 12 times. And so I just felt like a real student. Were you going into meditative trances to see things or was just this something that you, when you closed your eyes at night, could you picture it or did you feel a momentum? What did it feel like? It was, it was all of those things. It was a, it was a propulsion almost like a catalystic push energetically. It was pictures. You know, if I was quiet for a minute or if someone said, what do you want to be when you get older? Boom, I would I would see this just be traveling and touring and meeting a ton of people. I have the high novelty seeking sort of temperament combined with the shaky poodle, sensitive empath, debilitated temperament. So I'm a wallflower that has, you know, some sassiness. So it's like a black stallion with a poodle temperament inside the black stallion. Let's talk about anger. Yay. Your album was a representation or a communication of anger for many people who could not express it themselves. So Maim and I have talked about anger before, not to out her, but I tend to do that on this podcast. I have an anger problem. do you i have a rage problem so i i only have i have no anger or i have all the anger and it goes violent places dude that's that's canadian i've been waiting my whole life tolerate we tolerate so much tolerate tolerate tolerate people would credit me or praise me for being so highly tolerant and i would say it's not awesome how much i tolerate actually because i don't set the boundaries until I'm imploding. Yeah. And I also I don't I don't have any idea what like healthy anger looks like. Well, it looks like punching a pillow rather than your partner. No, like apparently you can like this is a new thing and I'm 46 years old. And just this last year, I learned that some people say things and they say like, I'm angry about that. And they don't you know, you don't name call or shame or scream, but like, I'm angry about that. And then supposedly you can feel better after expressing that. I was like, what? It only feels better when I slam a door, break something, throw something or walk out. Well, what if you get both going? Like for me, because my son is at that age where, you know, I'm attempting to walk that fine line of containment is valuable if you want to get along with people in the sandbox, but you don't want to contain to the point where you're repressing or sublimating because then you will explode and we will act out and I will break something, maybe a bone or a glass or, You know, and for me, a laptop, anger gets a laptop, fill in the blank. So I think what happens along the way is that anger got a bad rep because it was associated with the destructing actings out of anger. That's my fault. So I gave anger a bad name because if you hadn't done that, our planet would be in a completely different place. So I hope that you really go away and think about what you've done. No, I think, you know, as soon as someone says, you know, I have a rage problem or it feels terrifying, right? It's the lack of control. But the beauty of anger is that it catalyzes, it kickstarts things. It has a show up for activism. It has us be able to say no. You know, it has a show up. So I wouldn't want to eradicate anger as if we even could. It's more that how do I move it? you know and for in my family i have to just put it into words so i'll you know we have a freedom to use any words we want as long as it's not you know debasing to somebody but we can we can say whatever we need to say if we're putting it into words and then physicality of it has to happen like attempting to say to a young person who has hormones running through them or frankly me perimenopause hormones running through i have it's just like okay so i have all this anger even two nights ago, I just texted my husband and I said, you know, just for your sake, I'm raging right now and I love you and you need to stay away from me. And I mean it, you know, because I just, I'm just slightly feeling out of control. So I had enough wherewithal to at least isolate myself so that I could just rage out. And it looks like anything. It looks like punching. I could punch the bed. I did it last night when I'm just ragey. I just punch. So that helps as long as I come over and punch your bed? Yes. You can anytime you want. We have to sit with it. And it's like, there's levels to it, right? If you suppress it, ignore it, say I'm not supposed to feel it. Or someone invalidates it or yes. You're not supposed to be angry and intellectualize it. Then it eventually gets shoved down and it turns into rage. But to be able to be like, I am feeling out of control right now. And that's an okay state to be in as long as you're not acting out of control towards someone else. Just I mean, just don't hurt yourself. My my whole thing with any of us are raging and we're fire, you know, family's pretty fiery. I just go, don't hurt yourself and don't hurt the stuff. You know, a lot of my anger and a lot of my rage is very old because I collect it and I save it. And right. It's like in my little knapsack and our families. Right. Exactly. Our grand, grand. Right. So and there's like there's definitely an intergenerational, you know, trauma aspect of it. But, you know, I think for women especially, you know, we learn other ways to turn it inward because women especially are not encouraged really to show, you know, those kind of emotions. And I talk a lot. Sadness and anger. Right. So I've talked here, you know, pretty openly about disordered eating myself. and you know one of the ways that we feel in control because anger is it's out of control you know one of the ways that we feel that way right one of the ways that you know we try and have control is we'll either control other people which is also yeah that's the go-to right that's it that's a go-to um yeah but you know kind of environment beating up ourselves you know for many children especially and you know children and teenagers if you if you turn it on yourself it's the happiest dead end ever because no one's going to point it out, right? Because you can, you can keep it inside, right? Keep it quiet. Correct. And no one needs to know. It feels like a very safe way to kind of process, but you know, anger and resentment, those are the things like you can, if you list a hundred things that bother you, you could probably categorize all of them as either based in anger or resentment. You've been open talking about kind of disordered eating. And I do wonder, you know, for you, do you think of that separate from your role kind of publicly and in the industry? Is that something that was a way that, you know, you think you would have kind of chosen? Or was there extra kind of pressure that way because of what you were experiencing, especially as a young woman? You mean subject to the to the messaging? Right. You have to look like two percent of the planet. I think it was compounded by being in the public eye, even to this day. You know, there are times where I forget that I'm even a body. I'm not I'm not obsessed with mirrors. So we don't have very many in my home. So I'm trying to add more because as a kid, it's actually valuable to like dance in front of a mirror. So I'm adding mirrors. I think what wound up happening was it was already something happening in the patriarchal context of the planet, you know, that that women are supposed to look like this 2% and men to have the same challenges, but it's so much more compounded because of the context of patriarchy. So these women were basically being told I was being told we were being told that 2% of the planet, the other 98% of the planet has to look like that. So the giant pervasive messaging is there's something wrong with you. And here's what you have to chase. And it's nothing like how you were born to be. Tell us what the 2% is. Are you talking dress size? Are you talking? Yes. Okay, got it. I just want you to be specific. Abs that are pronounced, low body fat. You know, in every era has its different indication of what, you know, quote unquote, beauty is of that decade or whatever. It usually thin Right Right Yeah Meaning like the Marilyn Monroe you know era is is long over and we are well into a different you know era Yes and no Right Right It like oh we still have the dress that we're trying to fit into. That's right. You know, so it's, you know, the pressure is the same. It gets even more so now because of social media in general being about, I think of social media as the storefront in New York at Christmas time, you know, like it's presentational By its very nature, it's presentational. But what's the message that we're sending? That there's a standard by which to measure yourself, whether it's academically, aesthetically, chronologically, spiritually, you know, in terms of success is defined oddly and unusually and randomly at times. So in some ways, the message being sent is who you are and the essence of who you are is not enough and it's wrong. So here we're going to show you how to be good, you know, and it sets up this whole binary, extreme, unrealistic, immoderate, impossibility. You know, so we spend the rest of our lives beating ourselves up because we're not some standard. And then what on our deathbed at 100 and at this point, 150, we're going to be thinking, God, I missed the whole experience because I felt like everything I was doing was wrong, or I was looking wrong or speaking in a wrong way or whatever it is. So just giving a little bit more freedom now to just go, okay, So what's the difference between feeling cute and adhering to a standard? You know, what what what has me feel alive, you know, in a non wildly medicated way? Like if if if me taking a shower and me doing cryotherapy or whatever it is that I do in my rituals, if it brings back a sense of excitement and passion and curiosity and hyper presence, then great. That works. It's not destructive. It won't kill me. So my well, Jonathan and I both separately have a 14 year old. And then I also have an almost 17 year old. And, you know, there was something we were talking about the other day, you know, because, you know, their generation is very, especially we live in Los Angeles. So they're very, very hyper aware about being open. You know, when you talk about things like choice feminism, or really just choice existing, you know, and my boys, we were talking about it. And they were asking seriously, like, well, what if someone wants to blah, blah, blah. And I said, here's my rule. I have no problem if someone wants to blah, blah, blah. The question is, is the reason they're doing something because the culture has already decided that that's the way you get success, be attractive. You know, if someone says I'd like to shave my eyebrows and pencil them in, by all means, have a great time. But if it's this is a totally random example. But if it is that society has told us we have to shave our eye around. Like that's the only way to look attractive. That's why I say we have to kind of question that. And I think the same is the indoctrinations and the messagings from way pre pre birth at this point, the messaging is there. I wanted you to speak to that also in the spiritual realm, because this is something that you started talking about, you know, and even with thank you, right, you brought an awareness that a lot of people weren't yet ready to embrace. And, you know, I feel like in many ways, you were very ahead of your time in terms of that kind of mindfulness, that kind of this has been a whirlwind I need to regroup. And it was done very consciously and in a really meaningful way. And I'm curious, as you think about sort of your journey, you know, from this kind of explosion that you had to then trying to calibrate, like, who am I really in the face of all this? How do you see that in terms of sort of what in many cases is like a pop psych and sort of trendy notion of like, spirituality, or like, wear these clothes to have the best, you know, meditative experience. I'm curious what you see, because you really were ahead of your time with that kind of consciousness. Oh, thank you. And I, I think the consciousness that you might be speaking to is is a degree of, I don't know if you do the Enneagram stuff. Of course, I do. I'm a four with a five wing. So you are. I'm a four as well. Yes. Are you? Do you know what your wing is? I can't remember my wing. I've known it. I don't think it's a five. I feel I think maybe a three. Well, at my at my at my healthiest, I look more like a one, which is kind of funny. At my unhealthiest, I'm the most unhealthy for you've ever seen. And that's kind of where I resonate. Yeah, that's where I resonate for and then so the five is really about the observer, right? And ever since I was even pre verbal, I just remember just watching humans. So fascinating to me, whether, you know, you might relate to this one, whether it's the brain or the stomach or the proprioception or the feelings or the sublimation or the messages or the patriarchy or the context or the, I was just, there's just, it's like a candy store for me. The humanity thing is rugged and beautiful and terrifying, you know? So for me, I just always felt like I was observing everything to bring it home in some ways, process it and then comment, you know, comment through a photo, comment through a song, comment through a keynote talk, comment through a conversation, you know, so just continuing to show up to comment and bouncing between the micro and the macro. So zooming in on the I need to make sure I get to the audition on time for the school musical with my son, all the way out to, you know, what is self-expression in the world? And how can we comment on that and invite people in to feel safe, you know, and so just bouncing between the too. And if I don't do micro or macro enough, if I'm not serving publicly, I really do feel like something's missing. And if I'm not serving privately and quietly, something's missing. So I, as best as I can, anyway, I attempt to keep those moderately cooking along as I go. It was really, really lovely to get to connect with you this way. We super appreciate it. And so great to speak with you too. I think so highly of you. Whenever I hear your name in the world, I just go, yes. Oh, thank you. Well, hopefully our paths will cross again. Thank you so much that's awesome thanks all righty bye is that what i sound like she sounds canadian i can hear it yeah that's what you sound like i never think i sound canadian but when i'm listening to her i'm like oh she's such an auto a hick no that's putting words in my mouth but i was like yes she's that's what you sound like a boat a boat a boat a boat so there was a time period where i was like living in la for i don't know like five years i thought i was totally you sound I'm more Canadian because we were speaking to her now. And I went to the Trader Joe's checkout and I was chatting with this guy. And he says to me, where are you from? And I'm like, what? He totally thought I was from somewhere else. Yeah, you are Canadian and you sound Canadian. And she does too. I know. It's a blind spot. I don't hear it. Oh, hey. I don't know if I accept that as an accurate depiction of us. But I can hear it in her. I mean, there's a lot of cool Canadians. but she's she's up there she is up there it's a high bar to send to she dated ryan reynolds he's also canadian that's like i mean years ago years ago that is canadian royalty what was her emotional state when writing this anthem that expressed all the anger for all the people who couldn't express the anger was she angry when writing it like what i'll answer that for her yes all right Great. Let's move on. No, I would have liked to know more about that. Well, I think I was kind of hinting at that when I asked, like when she was kind of, you know, squeaky clean, more like pop, you know, in her youth. That person was was growing, you know, in there. Where was the anti-culture? I think girls and women all over the world in particular identified with that and many boys and men. but she really was ahead of her time in terms of the way she presented herself and the way she the way she wrote the way she appeared publicly most of the place where i feel her music is this is going to sound super specific it happened when we were listening to uh you ought to know and as i'm looking over the lyrics to my favorite song you learn from that album there is chills that comes up only the back of the left side of my head and it wraps around my ear i don't know why that's my Alanis tingle the reason let's trademark that there is something that happens and you know I am a I care about lyrics in a way that sometimes other people don't caveat being that she's memorized every lyric of almost every song she's ever heard even if she's only heard it once so that's not fair to say that I memorized it that sounds like an active process it just goes in there it doesn't come out and I don't know how you actually memorize it You just hear it once and it just stays in there. Not once, but I have a very strange auditory memory. I also have a vaguely photographic memory, but that's not how I learn lyrics. But check out the Instagram page where I'm going to post how she reads a book. OK, so the thing that happens, though, there's something that happens with certain chord progressions and certain melodies that do something different in my brain than other things. I will give you examples of this, and you're welcome to look these up. There's a song called Suit of Lights by the great Elvis Costello. It is on an album called King of America, which came out, just want to be, just want to, what year it was, 1986. So in 1986, this album came out, King of America, and I did not know of this album in 1986. I was 11 years old and whatever. When I first heard this song, Suit of Lights by Elvis Costello, The first time I heard it, I said, I know this song. I know this song. Like, this must be a cover of some song that I have been listening to since before the universe was even created. Like, it felt that deep? You downloaded it in your consciousness before listening? I don't know. But there's something that happens in that, whatever that is, with my brain. I don't think it's everybody's brain, but that song. And I've had this with a handful of music in my life. And there is something about the last line before each chorus in this song you learn that just makes my soul do a flip flop. The first one is wait until the dust settles. And the way she says it, you wait until the dust settles. She does that whole pretty thing. She does it with wait until the dust settles. She does it with you wait and see when the smoke clears. And there's something. It's right now. I have chills up the back of the. Do it again for us. No. Please. You wait and see when the smoke clears. It's so pretty. Anyway, not the way I sing it, the way she sings it. And the final one is the fire trucks are coming up around the bend. And the fire trucks are coming up around the bend. Anyway, there's something about the way she sings, the chord progression that's leading to the chorus. It does something to me that is very, I don't know, it's very elaborate. it's uh very emotional it makes me cry and i it's not that i don't love the song but there's something about the dust settling and the smoke clearing and fire trucks it's like oh just gets me every time oh anyway what do you feel that's i don't know i feel chills um and it makes you think of i don't it's like if i really am honest about what it reminds me of there's something about feeling like my personality, who I am, is something that has to be deciphered and is dangerous. I don't know if that's what she intended, but that's what it means to me. And I also think what a tremendous responsibility it is to be a singer or a writer or really any kind of person that's putting yourself out there because I have this like deep emotional connection to something that she wrote that she may have been thinking about who knows what. But that becomes my experience and every single time i make my children shut up when this song comes on the radio and i sing really loud and she sings higher than me so it's not so pretty but i feel it very deeply i start to cry like i just did the power of that is for me is is that that there is some chaos you associate it to your personality i i associated to that like there's going to be some emergency in our life at some point and it's going to be all fucked up no matter what that is and we all have had that messed up moment that like the fire trucks are coming for like that's just like oh no bad things are happening and you can't get away you can't get away from it also when she says melt it down there's something it's like it just gives me chills there's something about it she says melt it down you're gonna have to eventually anyway and i always i think of gold i think of gold being melted down like taking i think of our current reality okay nothing we think is real. She has a great line that we didn't talk about, and I'll use this opportunity of you fumbling with technology to get it in. We're here to be projected upon. Well, I think she meant we public people. No, I mean everyone. Oh, no, that was just for me. That wasn't for you. You think it's everybody? It's human interaction. The people around us, we project our reality onto them and they onto us. Why can't you let me and Alanis have something that's just ours? Yeah, I mean, to say that we are all kind of living that experience of other people's expectations, judgments. Realities. What do I project on you? Oh, so many things. I have to remind myself, my version of Alana saying, how are we? I have to remind myself, just because I can't meet someone else's need doesn't mean that they're needy. Wow crickets Yes It very deep because you can meet someone else need it doesn mean they needy No it doesn mean that Because it easy for me to be like oh someone else has a problem if I not able to rise to an expectation Oh, you mean it's easy when someone has a need that you can't meet to be like, you're so needy. It's like saying to someone you're so sensitive when someone's expressing that they're upset about something. Well, you're so sensitive. Exactly. That's interesting. The other thing to circle back on. You didn't ask what I project on you. really no well i think a lot of us in relationships project our relationships with our parents oh yeah the line that if the person you're with isn't your parent or isn't like your parent you will turn them into them right so like i can bring all the dysfunction for the entire couple so when you go to try to find a partner they say you're going to find someone like your parents and the rub is that even if they're not like your parents over time because you're working out the stuff with your parents you're going to turn that person into aspects of your parents right well or you will project or you will project so that they become and they reflect back to you aspects of your parent and the stuff that you need to work on with them the other thing that she said was about truly resting and still points and if we can actually have real serious rest that's when she talked about having intuition. You're getting upset. I can see your face. I'm not upset. You're getting your faces doing that thing again. Because she talks about being powered by all the information around us and that we're like charged. So tell us, what do you think she meant? What is truly resting? I think most people pass out versus rest. I mean, I think most of us go to the point of exhaustion, not to or numb out or numb out, not to pick on Scott. We were talking about sleep patterns and routines and he was talking about, it's okay to say, that he watches YouTube and he puts a timer on his YouTube and that gets him to sleep. And I know a lot of people. Oh, I don't even put a timer. Sometimes I wake up at three in the morning and some show is on that I wasn't even watching. What is truly resting mean? Yes, Jonathan, what is truly resting mean? That's the question. When are we in a place where we get out of the bubble of the constant stimulation that we're all surrounded in and we're not so exhausted that we just pass out and become unconscious. Yeah, so science has already answered this question. Huberman calls it deep rest non-sleep. Science actually has. Tell me about science because you're the spokesperson. I don't, yeah. No, I don't like to be like, well, science will tell you when you're resting. However, have you ever gone to the doctor and they take your blood pressure right when you get there and you've just like run from the bathroom or like you were late or you were like looking at your DMs on Instagram or fighting with your boyfriend or your mom or whoever and they take your blood pressure and it's not low. And I don't think there's any medical authority, no matter what side of holistic or not that you were on, that would say that a high heart rate or a high blood pressure reading is an indication of rest. So what I know is I have learned to be able to regulate my breathing so that I can effectively lower my blood pressure. There's also a lot of things we can do to lower our blood pressure in general. There are a lot of dietary things we can do to lower our blood pressure. The times when I've done a raw flush and eaten raw, my blood pressure has been consistently unbelievable. Like, I'm awake and alive. I have plenty of energy. But that's a great example of where science knows that's one of the markers. And there's incredible labs doing other research on, you know, the electrical signals that come off your head and brain. I'm more interested in that because that is, for me, a next level of truly resting. Yeah, there's different. There's waves. There's waves. There's something called a still point in different types of somatic work and cranial sacral therapy. What's the still point? Tell us. So the still point is when the body literally goes into a reparative function. And so if you're able to track the, you know, in cranial sacral therapy, you're tracking a pulse that the body has. Which Chinese medicine also does, which we also legitimately know. It's not the heartbeat. It's not the respiratory pulse. What is it? You have done years and years of hands-on work. What does that feel like when you're working with someone? Can you tell when they hit that? So it's hard to describe in audio, but in video, I'm sort of taking my hands right now, and they're sort of being held apart from one another, and there's a slow pulsation that happens where it expands, and then it comes back together. Where's the pulsing? The pulsing is in the cerebral spinal fluid in the person, and you can feel the movement of that sensation. And it goes out and it goes in, and people will have different pace for each individual. And sometimes the left is greater, and sometimes the right is greater. And when a still point happens, that motion actually pauses, and the body goes into what can only be described as like a bit of a hard reset. It pauses, and then— The person's awake. The person's awake. Often what they feel like is that they're riding the sensation between being awake and being asleep. Okay, got it. And there is this moment right before you fall asleep that often when you're getting this type of body work and you're in a reparative function, that it's this very, very deep rest. And your mind is kind of gone away from its normal narrative and consciousness that it has. And it's not dreaming yet, but it's in an altered state. Great. And this is a still point. Okay, so what you're also describing physiologically is, you know, have you ever had too much caffeine and that rattly feeling that you get? You know, when you feel jittery at all, and this is the thing, most people don't even know to tune into their body. If you tune into your body and you learn to sort of like, listen, if you can feel that there's like a pulse to your breathing, you're not in true rest. That's not resting. If you, and that's right, I am now the wizard of rest. This is the different than what I'm talking about. No, no, no, but I'm saying, right, I'm saying these are all indications that you're not getting towards that. Or, you know, if when you have your blood pressure taken and it feels like it's like beating, beating, beating, not in rest yet. If you try to meditate or if you're in shavasana, in yoga, if you feel a racing heartbeat, racing thoughts, those are all indicators that your brain is working. It's being cognitive. That's not a resting place. Sometimes people can get to this state when they just lay down for a nap. And if you even have your hands just resting on your solar plexus or on your chest and you were monitoring your breathing, you can hit that place in between awake and asleep and kind of ride that moment for a while. But some people do have a hard time in that space because it can be scary to go in and out of what feels like sleep, but it's not really sleep. But what I wanted to say is that for thousands and thousands of years, Chinese medicine in particular has known about these things and all the different kinds of pulses that you can have. Right. Did you know that there's 16 kinds of pulses or something in Chinese medicine? If anyone has experienced acupuncture and gone to a great practitioner, when I experience acupuncture, if I'm open and I'm able to calm down, I will often go into that place of sort of being in between states and sort of lose track of time and space. Yeah, so craniosacral therapy is where I've experienced this, where you go to a place that is different from awake and it's different from asleep, but you can come to and feel like you napped for like three hours, like you feel amazing. What I think is, you know, curious about when you say people don't always feel comfortable in that space, that space, in my humble opinion, is, and this is not a scientific answer, we have access to all the information about our lives. Oh, my. Meaning. What does that mean? You know the book The Body Keeps Score? Yes. And this idea that we have information about what has happened to us, what we have experienced beyond what we are consciously able to access. When we drop into that – Do you mean other lives? I don't. I wasn't going there. I was meaning more memory than we can access in a conscious state. Got it. Okay, got it. That altered state of consciousness, that deep rest state, is a place that is beyond the limits of our normal cognition. Which is why a lot of people don't like to go there. That's what I would posit, is that people who have unmetabolized trauma, who have things that they're dealing with, which we all do to some degree, that is a place that your awareness can really expand and open up. And from a physical somatic level, we begin to surface things that then the mind can catch up to. But it's almost a physiological led reset versus an intellectual probing of understanding our experience. I think EMDR has allowed people to access this in a lot of ways. Yes. The slight difference in my understanding of EMDR is that you pick a specific moment and then you bring in the somatic experience and you map the somatic experience to allow the body to process whatever the memory is. And so you start with intellect and then go into the body. This, on the other hand, is allowing the body to do whatever it needs to and almost taking the intellect out of the picture, which can be terrifying for people. all that to say is that some form of deep rest practice and accessing that level of our unconscious i know you don't like that word i do oh you do i don't like subconscious oh great the exploration of unconscious because when she talks about seeing images and the intuition that she had about what her life would entail. I mean, in many ways, that's extremely helpful because it acts as a guiding post to say like, oh, I should keep going at this because I have something, not that I'm working towards an end state to fulfill those images, but if we probed a little bit more with her, I would imagine that those images had a sensorial attachment to them, meaning that like when she had those images of her on tour or like that matched aspects of her personality that she probably felt extremely seen by. So if I have, for example, an image of me being super creative or something like that, I'd be like, oh, I kind of feel like whatever I'm doing, I'm moving towards that. And if I feel really positive in that space based on that image, then I'm going to be like, oh, my life has an alignment that feels on track. I don't want to gloss over, but we've already talked about so many things. her mention of the Enneagram. I recommend going to Enneagram Institute dot com if you'd like to learn more about it. The Enneagram is to put it lightly. It's a it is a personality kind of assessment. And there are nine different types. And chances are you fall into one of these categories. And there's to do the full Enneagram test. It's a lot of questions. You're technically supposed to test for every single one of the nine. And it's a lot of questions. But there are shorter, shorter tests you can do. Alanis and I are a four. Do you remember what happened when we tried to pick my Enneagram? Jonathan is so terminally unique, he can't even pick one. Not true. No, the funny part for me was that you had a strong belief of a certain type of Enneagram I was going to be. Well, here's the thing. This is really hard to talk about. The thing about Enneagram, well, there are actually Enneagram therapists who specifically are trained in this style of analysis because what this is is the most accurate personality test I have ever experienced. And it is very rarely, it has very rarely let me down in terms of helping me better understand people based on the type that they fall into. The thing about taking the Enneagram tests and figuring out which you are, because if you have a certain perception of yourself. Okay, I'm going to jump in right here because you're going to put your foot in your mouth. You didn't think that my perception of myself, my self-awareness allowed me to answer the questions honestly, right? That's true. But we went to one person in March 2020, and I got the same result, and then you kind of answered the questions for me. Yeah, because you still had the same lag of self-awareness. And got the same result. But then we went to an expert who validated the first person. They don't know what it's like to be with you. If people want to practice their own deep rest, they should try doing it with Alanis' album. Yes, her meditation album is called The Storm Before the Calm, which also I think is a John Mayer lyric from Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. Also, I really like that title because there is a lot of storm before a calm. There is a lot of storm before a calm. It is out now, also available on calm. And I also want to mention, we didn't even get to talk to Alanis about this. She's in the middle of a European headline tour celebrating 25 years. Wow. Of jagged little pill. And it's a musical. Go to Alanis.com for information on all of these things. And was there something else? Hold on a second. Yeah. Those are the highlights. and we're going to practice our own deep rest. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's Maya Bialik's Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction one. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.