98 | The Third Perspective: Politically Homeless in a Polarized World

Remember when expressing a nuanced political opinion didn't mean losing friends and family? When questioning a narrative didn't automatically get you labeled? This raw, vulnerable conversation explores what happens when you find yourself "politically homeless" in today's hyper-polarized climate.

We dive deep into our personal journeys from rigid, black-and-white thinking toward a more nuanced worldview. We share how personal growth opened our eyes to complexity in all areas of life ~ including politics ~ and the backlash we've experienced for speaking our evolving truths.

We talk about concepts like 'the horseshoe theory,' which suggests that political extremes on both sides mirror each other in tactics and mindset despite seeming opposed. We illustrate how our collective tendency toward binary thinking keeps us trapped in cycles of judgment and division.

What makes this conversation particularly powerful is our refusal to choose sides while maintaining firm grounding in our core values. We advocate for a third perspective. A middle path that embraces complexity, allows for questioning, and prioritizes human connection over ideological purity.

Whether you're feeling silenced for questioning narratives, alienated for not perfectly aligning with either political extreme, or simply exhausted by the divisiveness of current discourse, this episode offers both validation and hope. The path forward isn't about being right ~ it's about remaining curious, staying grounded in your truth, and finding the courage to engage meaningfully across differences.

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Chapters

• 1:27 Episode Introduction
• 18:03 Breaking Free from Black and White Thinking
• 33:54 Social Media's Impact on Political Discourse
• 53:04 Finding Your Authentic Voice
• 1:08:53 The Dehumanization in Politics
• 1:24:43 The Horseshoe Theory Explained
• 1:41:07 The Third Perspective and Path Forward

Transcript

Christine: 0:35

you got this. I uh screenshotted all your threads because my um I always lock my social media apps. Thanks we'll get to it, if we get to it I would like to share that because I I forgot about that. That, because I forgot about that. Can you see the time? Yeah, okay, all right, everybody, season four. See you on the other side. Welcome back Episode one and a half. That first one counts. That first one counts. It does, it does. And if you are listening to this, early.

Leah: 1:30

Congrats, boy. Do we have an episode for you? You ready, leah? No, no, yeah, I'm ready. Um, this is really scary for me. Um, I'm glad you're here with me. I don't think I could do this without you. But, at the same time, I'm going to give this, I'm going to put this information. I'm going to give this invitation out to our listeners. I'm going to put this information, I'm going to give this invitation out to our listeners. I invite you to do some sort of grounding meditation. Find some way to ground yourself before you listen to this. Listen with an open heart and an open mind and, um, I think it's. It might be incredibly uncomfortable for some people to hear, and for others, I think it will be incredibly comforting to hear.

Christine: 2:30

I sure hope so.

Leah: 2:32

I a hundred percent think so, based on on conversations that I've had in the past year, I think that a lot of people are in this same boat. So I'm going to kind of sit back and let you take the lead on this, and not because I'm scared, but it's because of what I said in our last episode. I don't need these right now. It's because of what I said in our last episode. You have really, like, I admire the way you speak on these topics so much and you have opened my eyes to so much, um, and I have learned through you, but I am better at the way in which I speak. I am better at relating things back to personal experiences than absorbing all the information and the facts, and I think in this area, like you are so much more articulate than I am. So take the lead, christine.

Christine: 3:41

All right. So um back in November I posted something about well, let me just backtrack, I have voted Democrat. My entire life I have voted Democrat my entire life Same Yep. And back in November I had posted a few things just from my own words, talking about where I had struggle. I had been struggling to align with the democratic party and I had felt this way for some time and I got a lot of flack.

Leah: 4:31

You got so much hate.

Christine: 4:33

I got a lot of hate. I had a lot of people who just unfriended me, who I was genuinely friends with. I got people who I wasn't friends with at all maybe met them once and were sending me incredibly hateful and just aggressive, aggressive messages. How can you sleep with yourself at night? Um, you know whatever? Calling me names? Um, there was a woman who has adopted Marshallese children and sent me a message and she was like I'm blocking you. How can you be Marshallese and say this? All of this? But I got way more people who were like thank you for saying that.

Christine: 5:34

I have felt that way for so long. I am a business owner and I'm scared to speak about it. Um, I am somebody who I'm not good with confrontation in that way. Um, so I have not said anything, um, and I appreciate you using your voice, and so I kind of want to backtrack. So again, every election. The first time I was able to start voting was in 2008,. Voted for Obama twice, voted for Biden, voted for Hillary and was somebody who is very vocally anti-Trump vocally anti-Trump 2016.

Christine: 6:22

Can you almost not go on a second date with your husband Over that? Yes, okay, so let's, let's talk about that. Tony, my husband and I, we had gone on a date, and this was in 2017. So Trump was already president and I did everything you're like technically not supposed to do on a first date and I brought up religion and I brought up politics and we started talking about politics and I was like if you voted for Trump, I will not go on a second date with you. And he was like well, I didn't vote for Trump, I voted for Gary Johnson.

Christine: 6:56

And I was like so you voted for Trump, which was essentially which is yes, this is essentially a voted for Trump because you didn't vote for Hillary and he was like, and he was somebody who was like, well, I didn't align with Hillary and I didn't align with Trump and so I voted for somebody who I felt more aligned with and I think that's what you should do and I fought hard back. I fought back hard on that and I was very adamant that he was wrong and I was right. 2020 comes around. Still very adamant about my feelings, you know, still very adamant about my feelings. You know, everything with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor happened.

Christine: 7:44

A lot of stuff was very emotionally heightened in 2020. To the point where I don't know if you remember, but that was like a night where you went to bed not knowing who was president. Yeah, I remember that. And the next morning, I remember going into Tony's office and being like, oh my gosh, if Trump gets Trump hates, hates, black and brown people If he gets elected, we're gonna have to move. We're gonna have to move. I'm gonna have, like you know, panicking, all of that.

Christine: 8:16

That time is also when we had Kai with us. So I felt like, oh my gosh, I just brought this child, you know, from the Marshall Islands to America and we're going to have to move. We're going to have, you know, very panicked, afraid, very afraid, very terrified, very emotionally charged, very, very, very dysregulated, fast forward, closed my business in 2021. And also, at that time, very, very, very vocal about my beliefs and very Argumentative, argumentative and hateful towards the people who didn't vote the way that I voted and who, um had different opinions and perspectives than me. Um, so then, close my business 2021, you and I, you know we've told the story so many times. You and I connect. You tell me about your mushroom journey. With you and with Jason, I do a mushroom journey. That was something that really changed the game for me, which, if you've been a listener, you know that, and it changed the game for me because I was somebody who always thought in very black and white and I think that is a trauma response, right.

Leah: 9:43

It's not considered a healthy mindset.

Christine: 9:47

Correct, correct, but I think it is a protective mechanism Absolutely so I get it, I get it, I've been there. Mechanism Absolutely so I get it, I get it, I've been there. But when I did that first journey, tony watched me change within the course of a year before he decided to do a journey of his own. During that course and obviously it has continued on he watched me become a lot more gray in life.

Leah: 10:17

I would like to use the word colorful.

Christine: 10:20

Yes, yes. So specific examples unrelated to politics. I was somebody who hated my dad. I absolutely despised my dad because he was an addict. He did this, he wasn't there, I didn't have a present father figure and also, in turn, I hated men. I may have dated men, but I hated men. You put a drink in me, oh, this mouth was a going with a man and she was fighting. She was picking a fight with a man. Men ain't shit. Yeah, yeah, oh, I would actually like pick fights with men, like be like you want to fight, and they'd be like no, I just asked you for your number. That's how black and white my thinking is. Was after psychedelics, I started to be like Hmm.

Christine: 11:24

Yes, my father was wounded. Yes, he struggled with addiction. Yes, he wasn't present in my life. But holding onto this hate really hasn't really served me any type of purpose. And because I've had this hate, I have this wonderful, safe man in my life who I have had a really hard time letting my guard down, because I have had this conditioned in me that men are bad and I started to open up to that. Then I also started to open up.

Christine: 12:01

Open up to the fact that, wow, you came in hot in a lot of situations and you came in very black and white and you automatically assumed you may have had good intentions but you automatically assumed that you were right and where your heart was was the way to be and other people were bad. But they might've just had a different perspective or they might've just grown up differently, or they might have just been taught different values than what you were taught and maybe you weren't as right as what you think you were, Maybe you weren't necessarily wrong, but maybe this was just a lot more complex and had more nuance than what you originally thought and that kind of opened and fucked my world up. It's a mindfuck. It is a mindfuck. And there are a lot more examples besides that.

Leah: 13:09

Well, you and I have always said this about coming out of our first mushroom journeys is we started to see things for what? For the way they were, and maybe not necessarily for the way that we had conditioned to believe that they were and this is like in every area of life. This is in relationships, in friendships, in business. In just the way we saw the world was very different.

Christine: 13:33

Yes, yes, and I grew up with a mother who is very feminist, I think, has had a lot of trust issues with men, and I think that unconsciously this is not to talk bad, but unconsciously it got projected onto me and I took that as my own. And with plant medicine, I started to show up in the world, maybe more authentically, and try to figure out my own ideas. Um and so, before November, I was scared to talk to you about some things. We never talked politics. We never, ever talked politics. But I was also able to take a step back and be like wow, in 2016 and 2020, I was very emotionally charged. I, in those years, was at some of the lowest points in my life in regards to my mental health. Those were periods of time where, again, I've stated that I struggled with a lot of anxiety, depression, panic attacks, physical health issues because of how much stress I felt with the weight of the world. So I had reached out. I don't. Do you remember how the conversation started?

Leah: 15:18

No, but I kind of I want to add a little bit more to that because I think even in our podcast we were going in this direction without realizing it we were talking about. We have said that we don't necessarily agree with um big pharma and SSRI use and we think they do more harm than good, and we have talked about this openly. We have talked about finding the root problems instead of treating the symptoms. We have talked to holistic practitioners more than once and learned more things about our body. We have learned how to be in our body through somatics. We have been basically practicing.

Christine: 16:02

What we're about to talk about.

Leah: 16:03

What we're about to talk about, and I think you came across an interview Can I say it now, yeah With RFK Um, and you sent it to me and I and I think that that kind of started because I listened to that interview and I was like hold up, this isn't. I didn't. Okay, this man is very different than what I thought he was Like. I thought he was a wacko, I thought he was crazy, I thought he was a conspiracy theorist and I'm going to be honest, like I've been a little bit of a conspiracy theorist for the past couple of years. So like nothing he said was like too out there for me, but most of what he said was being taken out of context and regurgitated, and so I immediately was like nope, this man's a quack, I don't like him.

Leah: 17:10

And you sent me a podcast and you said you should listen to this. I listened to it, I sent it to my husband. He said the same thing. He was like dude, I thought this guy was like fucking crazy off his rocker and I actually really like him. I feel like I should also say this was before he ever announced that he was running for president.

Leah: 17:36

This was a year before he announced that he was running for president, this was a year before he announced that he was running for president, so neither one of us were listening to this man thinking that he was ever going to run for president, yes, but we were aligned with a lot of what he said, not everything, and I feel like that needs to be said.

Christine: 17:57

I feel like that is going to need to be said throughout A hundred percent.

Leah: 18:03

Because I also feel like it needs to be said that if you've made it this far into this episode and you're making assumptions, you're probably wrong too.

Christine: 18:13

And also you're probably missing the point. Yes, so I got to a point where I had to realize, in 2016, 2020, and also just a lot of my life with politics and outside of politics, I repeated a lot of information that was regurgitated to me. I don't think social media has helped that, and so if I was on the left and somebody was saying that someone is bad, I believed it, not saying that that was wrong. But I went into this state of my life where I said, even if I don't like somebody, specifically Trump, I am going to listen to everyone. I'm not going to watch the news, I'm not just going to find a clip on social media. I'm not just going to find a headline article and be like, oh, that's it going to find a headline article and be like, oh, that's it. I want to watch people in full, what they say, even if I don't like them, even if I don't consider myself on that side, because I wanted to form my own authentic opinion and that's okay.

Leah: 19:33

Let me also reiterate that at the time, he was a Democrat.

Christine: 19:38

Yes.

Leah: 19:38

So it didn't feel too far off that we were listening to what this man had to say.

Christine: 19:45

A hundred percent.

Leah: 19:47

He is anti big pharma. He was very into holistic healing. He was an advocate for psychedelics.

Christine: 19:58

There's also a lot of stuff where people say he's anti-vax and I could not disagree with. You. Forgot about that part where we are so, so quick to label people and I think it is a very dangerous territory that we are walking down. Because I think it's okay, especially after the world of COVID and what we know now it is okay to question something, specifically a multi-trillion dollar industry, their motives, their intentions, where the money's coming from, what the money's going towards.

Christine: 20:48

Yes, I think we can all collectively agree that we've all questioned that and again just because someone questions, it doesn't mean that they are anti it. That's very black and white. It's very, very black and white thinking um, so what was he?

Leah: 21:09

if you want to explain it, what was rfk? He wasn't anti-vax, I know he wasn't, but like what would you explain to people when he said that? When people said that?

Christine: 21:19

I would say that he has a lot of questions and concerns, and I think he's also stated that he wants people to be informed. Yes, he wants vaccine companies to be liable if there is a vaccine industry, and he wants people to be able to make a choice. And I think sometimes, when it has come to medical topics, there are a lot of people who feel bullied into doing things to go along with the masses or the mob. And specifically, what I am talking about is COVID. So we both have a mutual friend. I'm just going to go ahead and say her name Laura. When I was very Democratic. Hi, laura. When I was very Democratic, hi Laura.

Christine: 22:16

I give her so much kudos because she has somebody who has always been independent and she has somebody who has always questioned the status quo and questioned what the masses normalize, and whether you think she's right or wrong, quite frankly, is irrelevant.

Christine: 22:39

I appreciate that she stands in her individual self with what she believes, and she was the first person that I knew who was very vocal about not trusting the COVID vaccine, about not trusting the COVID vaccine and not feeling like it was okay to mandate the entire country to get a vaccine, and I cannot stress this enough, whether you think she's right or wrong, isn't the point.

Christine: 23:11

She used her autonomy and used her voice that was very unpopular at that time and stood on it 10 toes, fucking down to the point where I didn't find this out until literally this summer. Um that, and I told her at that time that I disagreed with her and she was like, okay, cool, yeah, you can disagree with me, I'm not saying this, so you agree with me. I'm saying this is just what I believe and that's okay, and I didn't understand it at the time. And now I have since apologized and also have told her how courageous I think she is, because that is not an easy place to be in the world of social media, where you are not going with what's popular.

Leah: 24:06

You're going against the grain, against the status quo. You're speaking on things that people have been canceled for speaking on. Lost their jobs Right. So like You're right, it their jobs Right. So like You're right, it's a very brave thing to do.

Christine: 24:19

I am now somebody who like kudos to a bitch that doesn't give a fuck, you know, because I have a lot of respect for that.

Leah: 24:28

And she wasn't angry?

Christine: 24:30

No, she wasn't like a, she was very grounded and holding her position very strong, and she ended up being right about a lot of it. Let me be very clear on that. I think there was a lot of information we didn't know. A lot of us felt pressure to do something and it didn't end up working out in the way that I thought it would Right and that's okay to say Working out in the way that I thought it would Right and that's okay to say. I found out this summer, specifically at my wedding, that when she was posting those things, a mutual friend of ours reached out to her to tell her how much she disagreed with her. I don't know if she had these people do it or she didn't, but then about 10 of her friends, who Laura didn't know wasn't friends with, then messaged Laura to let her know that pretty much she's a piece of shit. She was responsible for killing someone's grandma. They hoped that, um, her and her entire family got covid and people she didn't know.

Christine: 25:44

Yes, yes, people she did not know they were friends of our mutual friend and whatever, and I was was like you know, I heard that this summer. I was like that is actually so fucked up, like it is so fucked up. Um, I think we've gotten to this place where we are quick to judge somebody who thinks differently than us, when it could be an opportunity to have a conversation. Still leave the conversation and disagree on things, but maybe agree on some things and hopefully at minimum come to a middle ground on some things, right, and I think that that's okay and that's kind of where I want to go with this episode today. And so, kind of you know, back to my post. And so, kind of you know, back to my post.

Christine: 26:43

I spoke about a party that I have belonged to ever since I could vote and I think I am well within my right to voice questions and concerns about that party, and I think I'm well within my right to say I don't like where this is going. A lot of the responses that I got was what a piece of shit I am and okay, so now you're a Trumper and now you're MAGA and you're now a Republican. Let me say for the record, I have never spoken about Trump except for negative things publicly.

Leah: 27:26

Right.

Christine: 27:27

That's one. Two I think I'm allowed to voice my own opinion about a party that I belong to. Three, I think we all should be able to not just say have this us versus them mentality and be able to acknowledge the things in our party that we don't like. And I think we've gotten to this place where we are good and they or that or them is evil.

Leah: 28:08

It's a very us versus them.

Christine: 28:11

Yes, and so it became okay. So you're not with us anymore. You're against us, you are against us.

Leah: 28:20

Isn't that like a quote, like if you're not with us, you're against us?

Christine: 28:23

Yes, yes, yes, and it's again. I never said anything about Trump or being a Republican, but that is just what people were so quick to label me as. But that is just what people were so quick to label me as. What they don't understand is, the more grounded that I have become, the more mushroom journeys that I have done, the more the message has continued to reiterate that your ancestors didn't get to talk. You do get to talk. Stand on business. You can stand on business in a kind way, but stand in your truth. It doesn't have to be popular. That's not what you're meant to do. You're meant to speak, and those that will resonate with you will come. Those that will resonate with you will come, and um, so those conversations just lit me up more.

Leah: 29:31

You're like, oh shit, this needs to be done more than I realized. Yeah, this is a needed space, I think, especially because you've got so much positive feedback in those conversations. You're like, holy shit, more people feel this way than are speaking. They're afraid to speak out A hundred percent.

Christine: 29:42

I was like, holy shit, so many people are messaging me saying thank you for saying this. I've thought this and I've been too scared to say it, and so to me, I'm like that's a problem and I'm not scared to say it, so I'm going to go ahead and continue to say it, but we took a break. So I'm like but how am I going to say it, how am I going to talk about this and how am I going to stand firm in what I believe and what my values are, be open to changing my mind and changing my perspective, and try to speak with kindness, while also trying to find truth, and I think we have become a place where we want to be on a side and sometimes we don't want to hear the truth, and I don't like where that has gone, and so I do want to talk about it. The other thing I want to say, too, is, in 2016 and 2020, a lot of my Marshallese family members spoke out about their support of Trump, and I fought with them.

Leah: 30:54

Oh, they were in support. Yes, ok.

Christine: 30:55

Oh, they were in support, yes, okay. And I was like how can you be Marshallese and you think this way? Because that party is racist, that party, like you know, you are supporting a politician in a party that is racist and I was not grounded in those conversations, I was angry. Now, seeing it from a different lens, I've realized that and I've gotten this just because somebody is brown or black doesn't mean that they have to vote or all think the same, and it's something that has really, really, really bothered me to my core. Just because we want diversity doesn't mean that we should shun viewpoint diversity and it doesn't mean that, because of the color of our skin, that we all think the same and we all vote the same. And I've had to really learn that we all vote all over the place and we should be allowed to do that. And I was called a racist by and I said this, I did a follow-up post specifically white liberal women, and I have had a very hard time with that because I come from poverty.

Christine: 32:46

I come from a different country, a third world country. I come from a home where I didn't even have like glass on the windows of our home. We don't even have like glass on the windows of our home and I come from. The only reason why Marshallese people are not to move to the US indefinitely without a visa because of the nuclear testing that happened on our island in the 40s and the 50s. It went on for 12 years. The US used us as human experiments of what high levels of radiation would do to people. It's what the show SpongeBob SquarePants is based on. It's the mutated sea life in Bikini Atoll, which is an actual atoll in the Marshall Islands. It's where the term bikini came from is from the Marshall Islands. It's also where Godzilla comes from. That's why he's mutated.

Christine: 34:04

So this is a very sensitive topic and it has felt incredibly frustrating to get shut down from people I know, people I don't know, who I know didn't have experiences with racism, didn't have experiences with coming from poverty, coming from a different country, having to learn English, having to learn a new way of life and a new way of living and that culture shock, calling me a racist. That's rich and it did make me feel very angry. And so I did have to take a break, because there's one person in particular who I have been friends with her for a decade, advocated for her in different situations because that's just kind of. I'm very ride or die in a lot of situations and have, um fought a lot of people's battles which maybe I've now realized they weren't necessarily mine to fight.

Christine: 35:27

Um, that somebody like that, who knows me, knows my heart, knows the work that I've done on myself, isn't able, isn't even able to give me a sit-down conversation that I've wanted, because now I am no longer on her side. And to add to that, someone I don't know who is her friend verbally attacked me, and that was okay and justified because that person was on her side, right. And so now it was like I know this person but nope, now I'm not going to talk to her anymore. None of my friends are going to talk to her, none like anything, because now she's that Like, the mob is going to come after you.

Christine: 37:21

100 to which you know, bring it on like it's, and I'm not saying that in like I'm gonna combat you, but like, if you want to debate I'll debate, but that's why I think, like the people who message you and said thank you for saying that that's what they're afraid of, a hundred percent. Including myself? Yeah, no, and I get it.

Leah: 37:43

I totally get it. You have to be a very strong person. Not only that, but I think you have to be incredibly grounded and 10 toes down in your values and your morals to know that, no matter what people think about you, I know who I am, you know who you are Right and they. You are Right and they're wrong. Right, right.

Christine: 38:07

And also the woman who adopted Marshallese children. I messaged her because she blocked me and I said I hope that you raise these boys where, just because the color of their skin, you are not expecting them to be exactly like you, and you embrace them to maybe have a different perspective and different opinions and maybe you could learn something from those different perspectives or opinions. And you might be wrong, not saying that, you're not saying that, I'm right, but I think people need to be more committed to the fact that they might be wrong and that's okay and that a lot of these issues are very complex, and I was wrong about a lot of things.

Leah: 39:06

Same A lot of things.

Christine: 39:07

Same same and I've also like I thought I was right, right, and I've also gone on and apologize and been like I thought I was like so right and I I wasn't, and I was so adamant that I was so right that I might not have married my husband because I was so adamant that I was right and he was wrong, you know, and and like a lot of those interactions were people pushed back against me. I actually really appreciate that because I don't think it was easy to push back against me at that time and I know I'm a strong-willed person. I understand that. The thing that I have struggled with is I have really wanted debate and I've really wanted dialogue, and the people who have labeled me not been open to conversation, those have been the people where I have not been able to have conversation with and I hate that and it's really bothered me and so I'm really grateful that we are getting to sit here and have that dialogue and be able to say, hey, in this moment I wasn't right, and that's okay to say, and that's okay to like change your way of thinking. That's okay to change your mind, it's okay to evolve, it's okay to agree with some things and agree and disagree with some others, like um and I. I, I guess I would just want to normalize that and, um, I don't know what date we're going to release this.

Christine: 40:41

Last week, charlie kirk got assassinated, yes, and I want to go into that a little bit. Um, do you want to add something?

Leah: 40:50

I kind of wanted to add um, like, um, how we ended up on the same page with all of this. Oh, yeah, yeah, and so I don't want to go too much into it. But like I kind of want to add to that that um, similar story with me, like starting to question the narrative. Um, I think I was still very liberal in my head, very democratic in my beliefs which what does that even fucking mean? Like my beliefs are still the same, like none of that has changed, maybe. Like my information has changed and my opinion has changed, but I still stand very firm in my core values and my morals. Um, but I was very one-sided and when you sent me the RFK stuff and we started listening to him again, I said at the time, like he was still a Democrat. Um, and whenever I also want to say, like we also found Callie and Casey means oh, yeah.

Leah: 41:57

I started reading their book good energy. Oh, yeah, I started reading their book good energy. Um, it's just about like the things that we do as a society that like harm our bodies and our brains, and like eating whole foods and like exercising and doing all of these things that are good. Literally everything that was like in line with what we talked about on the podcast. Okay, so that was like in line with what we talked about on the podcast. Okay, so I have always been like, yeah, the news lies.

Leah: 42:26

I stopped watching the news after COVID, but you would still see things on Instagram, and this is when I started to question everything, like what you were saying earlier. I would see a meme or a headline. I'd be like what? I don't remember who said this, but like somebody somewhere out there has said I don't watch the news If it's important enough. I'd be like what? I don't remember who said this, but like somebody somewhere out there has said I don't watch the news. If it's important enough, I'll. It'll show up and that's kind of how I felt.

Leah: 42:48

I'm not going to watch the news, but if something relevant is happening in the world, if something's going on, I'll find out about it. I have clients who talk about this. I have social media. It's going to come across my page eventually and then I'll do my own research and I'll do my due diligence and I'll figure out, like what the truth of it is. I also am kind of curious about, like what this news station is saying about it versus what this news station is saying about it, because a lot of times they were so vastly different that it's kind of like no fucking wonder we're fighting about this, because you all are getting two very different stories Right, because when I found this, that's not the story that I got at all.

Christine: 43:32

Like.

Leah: 43:33

I feel like what I was getting was like a little bit more of the truth than this news station in this news station.

Christine: 43:41

And you know, like, take out politics, but you know when they say, all right, you talk to this person and you talk to this person and they have two totally different stories and the truth lies in the middle.

Leah: 43:50

Yes, yes, there's their truth. There's their truth, and then there's the truth in the middle.

Christine: 43:56

I think we seem to forget about that in politics, though. 100%.

Leah: 44:00

Yes, we have gotten way too into like no, I'm right, you're wrong. Right, you're wrong 100%, because I'm a good person, so I know that what I think is good.

Christine: 44:11

Right, right.

Leah: 44:14

So that must mean you're bad.

Christine: 44:15

Right.

Leah: 44:16

Which is literally a term called splitting, and people with, like um, borderline personality disorder do this. People with narcissistic personality disorder do this. Um, splitting is where you it's. It's you're either all good or all bad. It's very black and white thinking. There is no room for middle ground. There's no room for gray or color. Um, it's, you did this thing and it hurt me, so now you're bad.

Christine: 44:47

Yep.

Leah: 44:48

And there's no coming back from that with someone with a personality disorder. You are, you're bad. That's not healthy. Yeah, we all. No one is inherently good or inherently bad. We're all. All of it, right, all of it. So when we started to listen to RFK and he announced that he was running for president, um, I started to see even more the narrative going against him. I saw his own party push him out. That's why he ran as an independent, because the democratic party didn't welcome him, um, and at the time, neither did the Republican party. So he re I'd never voted independent. I, if you ask me, who did you say? Tony voted for Gary.

Christine: 45:38

Johnson.

Leah: 45:38

Never heard of him. I think a lot of people and I noticed this because I was like no, I'm gonna vote RFK. I think he can make a difference. I think I align with him in more ways and I align with either side of the party in this election. I'm voting RFK. And the amount of people who are like you never vote independent. You can't vote independent you can't vote independent.

Leah: 46:01

You can't vote independent because that doesn't do anything and I'm like then what's the fucking point of having it? Because I, in my opinion, if enough people do that, why are we telling people not to vote independent? Yeah and let, because it sways the vote because it swings the vote one way or the other. So I was very like this is who I'm voting for, um, and then he pulled his candidacy, he pulled out of the race.

Christine: 46:30

We're smart. We're not that smart.

Leah: 46:33

He pulled out of the race and he went with Trump. So callie and casey means so did tulsi gabbard so did tulsi gabbard, somebody else who was like pushed out of the democratic party, someone who is not the normal democratic well, very, very Not the normal Republican Party and a minority, and a minority Served in the army. Yeah, democrats used to fucking love her, so it just.

Christine: 47:08

Democrats used to also be the party of anti-Big Pharma, anti-large corporation and anti-elite, and now it's become the party of the elites, the party of big pharma, the party of large corporations.

Leah: 47:25

It also used to be the party of diversity, and what we have continued to see over and over and over again is as long as it's not diversity of thought, you have to agree with everything. Don't push back on anything, don't question anything. Everything. Don't push back on anything. Don't question anything. If you question it, you're part of the bad side, so I struggled when I really did.

Leah: 47:48

I shut down because I was like, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Because if I don't, if I vote independent, you're going to get in trouble. People will never understand where I'm coming from, because they won't even let me speak on this. Because I'm first off, I'm scared to speak on it. But like I dabbled my toes, well, I want to. I want to post that because I was already noticing how much the narrative started to shift, how many things were taken out of context, how things that he said was taken out of context when I listened to the entire interview and I was like hold up, he didn't say that. That's not what he said. Why are they running with that narrative? Can I say a?

Christine: 48:33

specific example. Yeah, there is somebody in my family who's incredibly liberal. There is somebody in my family who's incredibly liberal and no matter who's running, no matter what they stand for, she is always going to be that way and it's on both sides.

Leah: 48:55

I want to be very clear on that.

Christine: 48:56

I feel like we need to reiterate that, yes, yes, there is extremism on both sides and we'll get to that.

Leah: 49:00

We need to reiterate that. Yes, yes, there is extremism on both sides and we'll get to that. We'll get to that.

Christine: 49:05

So she came to me and I said we started she and again, I've also learned a lot of these people bring it up, but then I feel like I'm not allowed to say something. Yeah, she brought it to you. She brought it to me and said you know, rfk is a quack. He says, um, that the water turns people trans.

Leah: 49:30

Someone in my family said that.

Christine: 49:33

And I go. Is that what he actually said? She goes, she pulls it up, she goes yep, see, here's a quote and I go. You want to know what's funny? I actually know what he said because I actually listened to him. And we have become a world of we find a quote or we find a clip and then we run with it instead of listening to the entire conversation.

Leah: 50:00

Here's the scary part about that, though there have been multiple situations and I think we wrote one of them down to talk about later where I have read an article that has quoted someone, and that article isn't wrong, but it's missing the context. It is a direct quote, but it's missing the context of what was said. It's missing the question that was asked that led to that quote, and I have listened to the full context, the full interview, of where that person said that, and reading it on paper is a very different understanding. Yes, because you can absolutely see how that would be taken out of context. Right, you're like, listen, he did say that, but let me tell you what he meant, and not just because I'm like paraphrasing or like because I think this is what he meant, but like, let me tell you what was said in that episode and how that quote came to be.

Christine: 51:00

Yes.

Leah: 51:02

Yes, this is happening right now with a lot of things.

Christine: 51:06

Yes, it's happening so often. And again, there is an importance of, I think, being able to listen to somebody and feel uncomfortable with what they have to say and also be able to not agree with it, but still stay grounded and maybe hear what they have to say, and also be able to not agree with it, but still stay grounded and maybe hear what they have to say. So then, if you're going to share information, you are sharing it correctly. So she said well, he said that water, the water, you know, the water makes people trans, people trans. And I said no, and I said no.

Leah: 51:48

What he said was that there is something in the water that is making frogs change their sex, and it should be looked into. And it should be looked into. We should be wondering why that's happening.

Christine: 51:57

Yes, he is very pro yes, and if you say that, if you have stated that you agree with, some of his stances are also pro curiosity, you are automatically labeled anti-vax, a quack, a conspiracy, conspiracy transph and somebody who is anti-science. Those are all things that have been said.

Leah: 52:26

He is literally an environmental lawyer. He did this for decades and won several civil action lawsuits, like several huge, huge cases against very big corporations, against very big corporations. I have someone in my family who is trans and they said this and it came up in conversation Like he's transphobic and he thinks that, you know, trans people are it's because of the water and it is so incredibly hard to have a rational conversation with them because they're so fearful and scared and don't want to give him the time of day. And that's kind of where you know, I didn't push back on this, but my husband did, because he was like why don't you listen to it, jason?

Christine: 53:17

why are?

Leah: 53:17

similar. You guys are very similar. He will push back and and I've always admired him for that like he is very good with his words and he's careful with his words and he's also he used to be very angry and now he's like not as angry with his words, but like he's very well spoken and very intelligent very intelligent also used to be very anti-trump and very liberal come used to be very anti-Trump, very liberal, and has come Used to be very liberal To the middle Same.

Leah: 53:44

So this shift started happening with him and I in the same way, and I am very thankful for that. Even though that shift started happening, we still didn't talk about it, you and I still didn't talk politics. It was very difficult, but I started listening to both sides. I started listening to Trump, which we can both agree Painful, it is hard to listen. Painful, I don't. I still don't like the man. I will say that right now. He's.

Christine: 54:13

And he's very, he's very callous with how he talks. He's very, I think he's funny. Yeah, with how he talks, he's very I think he's funny. Yeah, I think when you take the trigger out of it. It's like you're like, oh my gosh, this man.

Leah: 54:27

What an idiot. Yeah, what an idiot. Why would he say? He knows that people are going to take that out of context? A hundred percent. I'm not praising him by any means, but like when I started actually listening to his full interviews, like the interview we sat through, I was like God, this is so hard to listen to, but I'm at least going to give him like I'm going to give him a chance, right.

Leah: 54:49

Um, the same way I did RFK, I'm going to listen to this guy, I'm going to listen to these people, I'm going to listen to these people that I never, ever, ever, in a million years would have listened to and I'm. What I took away from that was like I'm learning a different perspective. I am coming out of those situations feeling a little bit of, um, confusion, because I'm like, wait a minute, what they said kind of makes sense, and I don't know how I feel about that, because I've always thought this way and if I think that way, then that means that I'm one of them. It took me a while to realize that that wasn't the case. I struggled with that. I was like if I don't vote Democrat, does that make me Republican? I really did.

Christine: 55:34

Yeah.

Leah: 55:35

I want to read what I wrote Because clearly, after the election, a lot of things got heated. Where'd my glasses go? Oh wow, you're really showing your Listen. This happens like, oh no, they're on your head, ok.

Leah: 55:55

So this is something that I just I noticed about both sides because, again, when you don't take a side and you are just like sitting on the fence in the middle watching both sides react and at this point my algorithm was no longer political, I was seeing both sides of everything. I was no longer in, like this echo chamber of everybody that agrees with me and aligns with me is what's showing up on my for you page? My for you page was all over the fucking place and I saw it on both sides. So this was my observation and I hope that by saying this, people will will hear that, like there is a middle ground. The left and the right have always had their extremes, but what seems different now is that the left, which traditionally championed inclusivity and tolerance, has developed a more rigid ideological purity test. In the past, there was more room for nuance and debate within the left, but today, if you're not fully aligned with the most extreme viewpoints, you're often that's a word we're going to use a lot. Yes, if you made it this far, that's the word of the day. Yeah, politically homeless. I've just been sitting silently observing over the past few months, and this is what I've noticed Women, or those more connected to the feminine, seem to express more anger and emotional intensity around this outcome, and I believe it could have a lot to do with the way that feminine energy, when unhealed, manifests in pain and protection mode.

Leah: 57:47

The wounded feminine often operates from a place of deep fear, betrayal and a desire to nurture through control. When people feel powerless, they cling to righteous anger because it gives them a sense of agency, and for many women, politics is deeply personal. It's about bodily autonomy, safety and justice, so the stakes feel higher in a way that might not register. The same for men who, in an unhealed masculine state, tend to detach, repress or intellectualize conflict instead of diving into emotional expression. On the other hand, the far right embodies the wounded masculine, and I think, before I go any further, I need to say this was about both sides. What was that Okay? On the other hand, the far right embodies the wounded masculine, which is control through domination, rigidity and suppression of emotion. The far left and the far right, almost act as mirrors to each other, but with different expressions of trauma. Both extremes are acting from deep wounds, which is why conversations feel impossible. Neither side is engaging from a place of wholeness or love or desire to understand the other.

Leah: 59:09

If you feel like an outsider, you're in a unique position because you're choosing neither extreme, which means you're not seeking validation from one wounded ideology or the other. This makes you a threat to those who need their side to be the right side, to feel safe. The anger towards you isn't about you. It's about their need for certainty, and your refusal to play into the dichotomy disrupts that certainty. The way forward isn't easy, but it's through people like you, those who can see the bigger picture, hold nuance and recognize that healing. So this was speaking to the people who, I think, felt a lot like us politically homeless. We didn't align with one side or the other. We felt like outcasts. We felt like we couldn't speak because we were in the middle of like political crossfires.

Christine: 1:00:11

Felt like there couldn't even be conversation to explain why we felt the way that we felt, or why we felt in the middle, or we couldn't say why we didn't align with this side in depth and and and share like our experience with that, or why we didn't align with this side, or you know, whatever that's was so well written.

Leah: 1:00:35

Well, the comment section is where it got, and I was like and I'm taking a step back I was criticizing both sides, but people didn't see it that way, did they? It's not just that people didn't see it that way, I was hit more from one side than the other. I was called a racist, I was called a bigot, I was called a fascist because I was criticizing the people on the left. And I started to get defensive. And people in my comment section started to get defensive, defending me because I was like hold up, I criticized the right too. I criticized both, both sides. Right, if you can't handle the criticism of your party, that's, that's a problem. Well, and I think. But it's also what kind of pushed me back into my shell of like, all right, I can't even have a middle ground in this, yeah, and it feels unsafe to talk about it, and it feels unsafe to speak on my own personal experiences. I can't speak on Right, which seems insane.

Christine: 1:01:48

Right To say out loud, and I think that is kind of where I think this conversation is important and I hope we are able to have more conversations with our listeners who may relate to this, because it has become impossible to even just be in the middle without being attacked. And I think you know where we have gone wrong is we are very loyal to a movement, to a party to a side, to a movement to a party to a side, and when a movement overtakes loyalty to your friends, your neighbors, the people who you could be having conversations, with.

Christine: 1:02:35

I think that a lot of harm has come with that and we're seeing that, and so hopefully again, this opens some doors to have conversation and be able to hold space for each other, because that is where, for me, that is where I've gotten kind of the most hate and the most intolerance and I have really struggled with like yes, black and brown voices, talk, talk, we need you.

Christine: 1:03:12

And then it's like, oh, you didn't say something that fit the narrative of the day, you're out. So we want black and brown voices, just not yours, yours doesn't count, yours doesn't count, and I don't like that. And again I want to reiterate we should be encouraging viewpoint diversity and we should even be encouraging bad ideas and being able to hear bad ideas. Let's talk about it Right, because it's like I thought I knew what a bad idea was and then I was like, oh, it actually wasn't a bad idea and I actually kind of hated might have not been as right as what I thought I was, but um, but yeah, I, I um. Last week, charlie kirk both of us accidentally um sought the assassination I thought it was ai.

Christine: 1:04:21

I didn't think it was real yeah, and I think, um, a lot of people share that experience and, um, I don't care what side you're on, I don't like you. I think that when we have to start with that, I think we're kind of dehumanizing people and I've seen that a lot where it's like, oh well, I didn't like him, but I'm like we just saw somebody, as in between my you know, food videos and memes saw somebody get murdered on my social media and I don't think that we've realized that. That's like a trauma that we've all experienced. And I think to for it to be the day before 9-11,. Leah and I met on 9-11 and we were talking about how, like when. I I remember where I was when 9-11 happened. Specifically, I was in science class and they rolled the TV in and we were all watching students faculty in horror at what was happening. The difference is that was a time where, one, we didn't have social media, but two, it was a time of, even though something so horrific happened, you watched the country come together and unite. Where now it is, we are just tearing each other apart. It's so divided and it's wild to watch in real time, and it has been honestly frightening to watch people celebrate it. People say, well, he said this, this and this and this, insinuating that he deserved it because he, like you, disagreed with him on everything or some things it's. It has felt Disheartening to see people you know post things like that and, where we have gone, that we would justify the murdering of somebody because we didn't like who they were, what they said, and I've seen a lot of rhetoric, of which, by the way, it's been taken out of context because I cannot stress this enough they didn't watch the full interview. I didn't agree with everything Charlie Kirk said, but he's well, he's racist, he's for guns. So essentially, he, you know he wanted this and I thought about that because I was like you know, I had this experience.

Christine: 1:07:34

I moved to a new school in the fifth grade, so I was 10 years old. So I was 10 years old and there was a girl in my class and her mom, and then her brother was in high school and the brother would push me down in the halls and the mom. And again I went to a rural school in Iowa. The town was like 900 people, there wasn't a black person, there wasn't a black person, there wasn't an asian person. So it's like I was all of those things because my family, we were the only like minority family there but this mom again I was 10 called me, they would call me the n-word. Tell me to go back to where I came from. Tell me, a 10 year old called me an African American bitch, which I'm you know.

Christine: 1:08:25

Now I'm like, first off, like I'm Marshallese thank you very much but it got to a point where the school got involved and yada, yada, yada. Where I'm going with this is I would never wish harm on that person, ever. I didn't like that person for a really really long time. I think that it's very obviously wrong and evil for a parent to do, but I don't think the solution to evil is to then justify evil happening to them. So if I've run into her, I've said hello and, you know, been a kind person.

Christine: 1:09:11

I obviously don't want to be friends and that we don't have, you know, we do not align still, even though I'm, you know, 37 years old. But like to see people justifying, well, he's this and he's that and he's that, and to think like I wouldn't even wish that on somebody who has personally been racist towards me because I just I don't think that that is going to solve the problem. And also, um, we are again very quick to label people and very quick to take things out of context, but I don't think that because someone says something that you don't like and you don't agree with that, they deserve harm, and I think that's very dangerous rhetoric rhetoric to go down and stand by because one day that might get pointed at you and I think it adds to people's fear of sharing their authentic opinion and I don't like that and I think you know it's important for us to try to reframe that.

Leah: 1:10:31

I think another thing that is happening is like he is being labeled as a bad person because he had ideas that people don't necessarily agree with, and I will even say I didn't agree with everything that he said. I don't think he was a bad person.

Christine: 1:10:48

No, I also.

Leah: 1:10:50

I think and I'm allowed to say I don't I. There are people in my family who I love dearly, who I don't agree with sometimes. I would never, never think that they deserve something like that. I would never think that they're a bad person because of what they believe. I'm going to just put this out there and this is probably going to if my family even listens to this going to trigger some of my family members. But I think my mamaw was a very, very, very old fashioned Christian woman, very simple, lived a very simple life. The most wonderful human being on the planet was very devout Christian. I think she would probably have agreed with a lot of the things he said because of her values and because of her faith, and she was one of the best people I knew. She loved everybody, she accepted everybody. Just because you don't agree with something doesn't mean that you don't accept that person as a human being.

Christine: 1:12:02

Yeah.

Leah: 1:12:03

You know, like she loved everybody equally. Yeah, and I think it's crazy to say that just because you don't align or agree with something, that that means you're against it, right? That's crazy, yeah.

Christine: 1:12:18

I've also. We really throw around labels. I've been called a racist and it's gotten to a point where the word has lost its meaning. I think because we throw it around so loosely and we are so quick to dehumanize each other in the name of social justice. And what I've seen is you and I share a friend, angie.

Christine: 1:12:57

She is somebody who is a devout Christian. I don't agree with her on it, on everything. We've actually had like heated discussions with each other because I am much more spiritual. So she takes she is very by the Bible. I am not. I take that as one.

Christine: 1:13:24

It's up for interpretation and some people, I feel like, take it literally and that's okay. That is their belief. I don't want to change their belief, but I have a belief in God. We just have different interpretations and I think that's okay. We've had wonderful conversations about it and we do not agree.

Christine: 1:13:46

I don't think she is a bad person. I don't think she thinks of me as a bad person. I think I have opened her perspective to different things and vice versa. She was, you know, in my life before I did mushrooms and although she has not touched it although I do hope one day she does I've never pushed that on her. She shares it with people because, like she has seen through me what I've gone through, and I think that I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel like I am watching people in real time show their spiritual emptiness yeah, and it's hard to watch and show their lack of soleness and lack of humanity in the name of social justice and in the name of staying on their side.

Christine: 1:15:01

And I hope that this climate now is an opportunity for all of us to be able to take a step back and maybe, at the point where we start to get so angry that we are dehumanizing each other, I post this on my Facebook that maybe it's a call to do the inner work and to just I'm not saying that in like a condescending way. I'm saying that in a way of like why are you so angry? Why do you vilify somebody who has a different opinion than you? Why can't you have a conversation and hear a different perspective and stay regulated? Why is that? Why do you justify these things?

Leah: 1:15:54

I've also seen a lot of whataboutism where it's Explain what that is in this context, because I know what it means.

Christine: 1:16:03

But when it's. Explain what that is in this context, because I know what it means. But yeah, and it's, it's. Oh, so you posted About Charlie Kirk. Well, what about mass shootings? What about this?

Leah: 1:16:18

What about this? I'm having to post about this.

Christine: 1:16:20

Yes, so I wrote this. I've not shared it.

Leah: 1:16:27

Oh, this is the first first listen inside edition.

Christine: 1:16:28

Yes, so I've seen a lot of what about ism to justify a human being get assassinated assassinated while we watched it on our social media platforms and for many of us it was involuntary. This mentality of type of thinking is called splitting, which we've talked about, meaning you only think in black and white, are unable to hold nuance, use it to shut down dialogue and it actually escalates the problem more and then kind of what we've said. It's incredibly narcissistic. So one quote I see a lot. Well, why don't you care about school shootings? And I put I have yet to meet a soul who votes in any direction, who is not absolutely horrified at what gun violence has become in America, watching innocent children get watching and hearing about innocent children being shot and killed while at school especially. We have opinions all across the board on how to solve it, but nonetheless, most rational human beings find it absolutely heartbreaking and wanted to end. Next one Well, why didn't you post about X, y and Z? Next one Well, why didn't you post about X, y and Z? And I wrote because I have experienced this. You have too. We just talked about this Because social media, specifically for me, instagram, used to be a place where I went to go post a shitty picture with an even shittier filter and it got like two likes yeah, and it was fucking awesome and only our friend saw it and only our friend saw it.

Christine: 1:18:08

Sorry, it is nothing like that anymore. And coincidentally, with the rise of social media came the decline of our mental health. Social media has become such a heavy place where we are exposed to daily tragedies all over the world that our nervous systems were not built to see. Let's add the pressure to not only post but to say the right thing according to the always moving narrative, because that is now what we call social justice. It feels like a lot of pressure. Well, he said so. This is the next one. Well, he said X, said x, y and z, so he got what he deserved, or he got what he he stood for anyways. I've seen that a lot. I've seen that a lot. We have to be able to normalize hearing things we don't like or agree with, while staying regulated.

Christine: 1:19:00

I do not consider myself a christian a and I do not even own a gun, but I respect that. He wanted to debate specifically with people who did not agree with him and he wanted to have much needed dialogue about uncomfortable topics. I also respected that he stayed calm and didn't yell or call people names, and I cannot say the same for some of the people who chose to debate him. Whether you liked him or not is irrelevant, and the people quoting him to justify not having compassion are removing a lot of context from what he actually said and meant. We have to start humanizing each other and let go of the expectation that 8 billion people using a social media platform need to water or filter down every opinion to fit your perspective and worldview.

Christine: 1:19:54

Another one I am not going to celebrate it, but I'm definitely not sad about it. When I am able to see people from the right, left and middle all agree that what we witnessed the other day about him or what he stood for, I am still reminded that there is still so much extremism and polarization and I'm sorry, but that is some dark ass energy. But even where there is dark, there is also still a lot of light. But even where there is dark, there is also still a lot of light. What an incredible freedom that we have the opportunity to agree and disagree with each other. Please do not take that for granted. I can't help but think about where I was during 9-11, and I said this sitting in my middle school class and we all united as a country.

Christine: 1:21:08

Believe it or not, there was a long period of time before social media existed, where the norm was to not have any idea who someone voted for and to continue to be friends and in relationships with people who had polar opposite opinions of you. My husband, tony, his parents. They voted differently and they had one of the most beautiful marriages that I've ever heard about. Don't let an echo chamber convince you otherwise. At some point we all have to remind ourselves to take a step back, be conscious of the content we are consuming and if it's narrowing our worldview or opening it up, and take responsibility for the words and energy we are putting into the world.

Christine: 1:21:57

I see a lot of lack of empathy, labeling and finger pointing from people who I know are dysregulated, avoid themselves and are mentally and emotionally not okay.

Christine: 1:22:09

When you are operating from a place like that, your vision may not be as clear as you think. Make sure to take care of yourself, take breaks from your phone often and do more of the things that are actually good for your soul. We need more people, now more than ever, who stay present and grounded and if you are somebody who also feels politically homeless at this time, I see you and I was just, like you know, with it's been a lot on social media and I just I wrote that but I kept it to myself. But you've seen all the, all the notes I've written since I don't know for the last like year and a half that I've just kept to myself. But you've seen all the notes I've written since I don't know for the last year and a half that I've just kept to myself and showed you we have more people who are willing to step up and are able to have conversations and have open dialogue, even with people that we, um, don't agree with or we see as wrong.

Leah: 1:23:13

I will say that that has been something that I have seen. Um, not a lot of it, but enough of it. That makes me feel somewhat hopeful.

Christine: 1:23:25

And that's kind of what I said too. Like I've seen people on the left be like that's wrong, it's so wrong and there's just there's no excuse for it, like there's no excuse.

Leah: 1:23:35

I've also, you know, seen the noise. I've seen the um, that noise, I've seen the um posts that are being taken out of context and quotes that are being used against him. And this is where, again, this is where I have learned at years, into using my discernment and using my rabbit hole searching, I have learned to take nothing at face value, a hundred percent Nothing. So the first time I saw that his quote on empathy was used against him, I immediately went to go find where he said that and I found the full context and I was like that is not what he was saying.

Christine: 1:24:23

You want to share that?

Leah: 1:24:24

Well, I'm not able to quote it, so I feel weird quoting it, but I can parap full context and I was like that is not what he was saying. You want to share that Well?

Christine: 1:24:26

I'm not able to quote it, so I feel weird quoting it, but I can paraphrase.

Leah: 1:24:28

Yes, he was basically saying that Bill Clinton and politicians have started to use empathy as a. He was saying like when Bill Clinton was president, he started to use this as a tactic.

Christine: 1:24:40

I feel how you feel.

Leah: 1:24:41

I know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel Like you should vote for me, and they're using it as a tactic to win votes and and emotionally like manipulate you and it works. But. But he's saying there's no way a politician can know exactly what you feel. And so he likes so he likes the word sympathy better, and we could go and we will. We will do an entire episode on empathy and how too much of a good thing can also be a bad thing.

Christine: 1:25:12

And also how we both felt like we were empaths, and we don't even believe in that term anymore.

Leah: 1:25:17

I don't even believe it's a thing and I feel like I need to elaborate on that, but not right now.

Christine: 1:25:24

Yes, and we started the podcast saying we were both empaths and we have both changed our minds on that.

Leah: 1:25:31

I guess what I would like to say is like everybody is and everybody isn't right, and it can be an incredibly good thing, but it can also be an incredibly bad thing. I would rather have your sympathy and compassion than your empathy. I don't want people hurting over something I'm going through if it's not theirs, and I had to learn that the hard way. I had to stop feeling everyone else's pain so I could feel at peace. I had to sift through what were my feelings versus the feelings feelings of others, and and too much empathy absolutely will send you into a depressive spiral.

Christine: 1:26:09

That and I also learned that like, oh you know, having so much empathy and feeling everybody's pain, it was a way to avoid my own work.

Leah: 1:26:21

I didn't even think about that, but absolutely.

Christine: 1:26:23

Yeah.

Leah: 1:26:24

Yeah, I had. Once I started to sift through what was mine and what wasn't like, I started to really be able to find peace within myself. And again, we can do an episode on that later, because we talked about empathy in the first season and our, our views have changed Right, and that's okay, and that's okay.

Christine: 1:26:54

We're going to be ever evolving, which I want to talk about. Um, we've talked about, kind of the polarization of um, this climate right now. Uh, a theory that you and I have talked about, but I don't I don't know if our listeners know this term. Oh, it's called the horseshoe theory. Oh, yeah, so this term was coined by a French philosopher. Hopefully I said this, right, jean-pierre Fay, jean-pierre, yeah, jean-pierre Fay, in the 1990s.

Christine: 1:27:21

The idea of it is that the far left and the far right are not linear opposites like two ends of a straight line. Instead, they curve like a horseshoe towards each other, like the ends of a horseshoe Meaning, while moderates center left, center right, while moderates center left, center right are far apart from extremists, the extremes themselves begin to mirror each other in tactics, attitudes and authoritarian impulses. So I want to like elaborate on that is there are a lot of people who hate Trump. There are a lot of people who hate Trump. I myself was somebody who hated him because I thought everything he stood for was in hate racism, extremism, bigotry, ignorance, all of it, um, all of it. But I think that if you get to a point where you hate someone so much and that is what's fueling you is your hatred for that person, that sometimes you operate from a level and from a wounded place where you actually start to act similarly. So, um, it's like me saying I don't align with the democratic party for these reasons and saying, okay, so you're just a Trumper and you're just a fascist now. So, again, you hate him because you think he's ignorant, he's is racist, he lacks diversity. But you are canceling somebody without even giving them a conversation and essentially being hateful yourself.

Christine: 1:29:21

And I've really struggled with that. Um, I've had a a lot of. I've have had a really hard time with talking to people on the left who have an extreme hatred for trump, because it's what fuels them. It is what fuels them and, like, like I said, when I was talking to that friend who I've been friends with for 10 years, I never said anything about Trump and um, there was a lot of extreme extremism.

Christine: 1:29:51

And what about ism? And so if I said I am, I have disagreed with um, this and this on the left and it's a party I've belonged to, so I wanted to share that. Well, what about Trump? What about what he did? I also said and this is going to be controversial and I know it and I'm also going to stand 10 toes down on it at the moment, because it's what I believe I said. I do not agree that we should be allowing children to transition when their brain and bodies are not developed, and it's going to cause permanent damage. Permanent damage, um, I just I don't agree with that. If you're an adult with a fully developed frontal lobe, you go for it.

Christine: 1:30:51

That's not what I'm talking about to do that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about children and I'm saying this as a mother who has a child that that is irreparable damage that you cannot undo. Well, so-and-so is trans, and if they didn't do this while they were a kid, they were going to kill themselves.

Leah: 1:31:15

It's the whataboutism.

Christine: 1:31:16

It is the whataboutism. What I wanted to say back to that, but I couldn't because I was like this person is they're not hearing you. They're not regulated, everything is well. What about this? What about that? What I wanted to say back to that was then maybe we should start having conversations of what the trauma is around that and dig deeper on that before we make permanent changes to somebody's body.

Leah: 1:31:49

as a child it should not be the first line of action?

Christine: 1:31:52

It should not be the first line of action, just like how I also believe if you are struggling with your mental health depression, anxiety, eating disorders, you know, whatever it is I don't think the first line of defense should be to go on an antidepressant. I think it should be getting to the root of why you are feeling that way in the in the first place. Is it, um, uh, trauma that hasn't been addressed? Um, do you feel safe in your body? Yes, do you feel safe at home? You know what are some of the things that have happened to you? What are some of the modalities that you have used, those types of things? I'm going to treat that issue specifically with children. The same, and that seems to be a very controversial topic. But where I've struggled is with the left, is, I feel, like the marker is always moving and we are not allowed to question it, and I think it's okay to question it and we throw these labels. Okay, well, you are transphobic.

Leah: 1:33:08

No.

Christine: 1:33:09

Phobia means to have like a phobic if you're racist, you're homophobic, you're transphobic. That means to have a fear or a prejudice against, and I think having questions or having concerns about certain issues and then getting labeled one of those things is a wonderful way to be able to take out necessary dialogue, because you are shutting that conversation down and I think it should be a conversation and we should normalize being able to have conversations about that, because they are very real things that are happening right now and I think I am allowed to say, as a human, as an adult, as a mother, I have some questions that doesn't sit right with me.

Christine: 1:34:08

Yeah, it doesn't sit right with me. Who are these doctors? Why? What's big pharma getting out of this? There seems to be a lot of indoctrination with children with taking medicine. I have questions.

Leah: 1:34:26

I feel like our family is not the norm, typical family, because I have an eight-year-old, a 13-year-old and an almost 18-year-old who have never been medicated.

Christine: 1:34:36

Yes.

Leah: 1:34:37

And most of the children in their classes are heavily medicated. Yes, their classes are heavily medicated. I have heard mothers talk about their children being on multiple medications for their anxiety, for their ADHD, for their depression, and they're 12 years old.

Christine: 1:34:55

I know a 10-year-old who is on Ambien.

Leah: 1:34:59

That's not okay. That's not okay and I have a very triggering response to Ambien and you know this a hundred percent, because it is personal. It's a very personal situation and it is not a medication that anybody ever should be on for longer than three months, ever, ever.

Christine: 1:35:19

Yeah, it's really does a lot of damage to your brain and I really would like to get into more episodes where we are talking about SSRIs that's an episode. We're talking about benzos that's an episode. We're talking about Ambien that's an episode. I've seen a lot of rhetoric where, okay, you and I watch Bravo and we watch um summer house. Yeah, oh gosh, what is um page on page de sorbo? The giggly squad? Yes, she hosts a podcast called the giggly squad, but she's on something, um, oh, like a medicine. Yes, she's on a medicine. Fuck, I'm going to have to look this up.

Leah: 1:36:06

I don't want to say it wrong.

Christine: 1:36:07

I don't either.

Leah: 1:36:07

Like Alexa pro or something, whatever Pharmaceutical.

Christine: 1:36:15

They had an ad on Instagram show up, and it was like the giggly squad does it, so can you? I was like crazy, that's crazy, does it, so can you? And I was like crazy, that's crazy, that's so nuts. Because, fun fact, you should do it too. Well, and pharmaceuticals are not allowed in other countries besides us and New Zealand, and I think New Zealand has even stronger regulations with that, so I'm almost positive. No, they are okay. Okay, you looked at me.

Leah: 1:36:47

I didn't mean to look at you like that. No, they absolutely are okay you shared statistics on this before yeah, yeah, um.

Christine: 1:36:54

So again, what are we, what are we getting programmed to believe? Um, but anyways, on this, this post, it was wild to watch the comments because it was like Lexapro girly here, welbutrin, you know, if I don't take my Prozac I can't function. You know all that stuff and I'm like whew, the Liberal Party man. It used to be anti those things and now it's very pro those things.

Leah: 1:37:26

But can I also say that if you say that that you are diminishing mental health and you are stigmatizing mental health and it's like actually no, that's not what we're saying at all.

Christine: 1:37:42

Also, a lot of these medications have been proven to numb. And is it the black box where it says can cause suicidal and homicidal ideation?

Leah: 1:37:57

Nobody ever talks about these side effects with you.

Christine: 1:37:59

We take it like it's candy Antidepressants you told me they take two years to wean off and I don't think a lot of doctors share that. No, so I really would like to get into, dive into that. And again, that's another. Very uncomfortable, it's a topic we've been afraid to touch fully.

Christine: 1:38:21

We've expressed some things, but we have not expressed fully the information that we have gathered and what we know now versus what we knew when we first started I also think that we have been very um, we've walked on eggshells of what we really think, so we say things like well, I mean, if something happens and you really need it, that's okay.

Leah: 1:38:45

And we've tried very hard to like be very neutral. Yes, yes.

Christine: 1:38:52

Yes.

Leah: 1:38:53

Yeah, and I want to go back because I don't want to lose this trait of thought but, like when you were talking about this conversation that you're having with this person and they're like they're what about this and what about that. One of the other things that I think you and I have both worked very, very hard on that have maybe helped shape the way that we are right now is our relationships with our husbands, and I have learned so much more about how to be in a healthy, loving, safe relationship since we started doing this work together, and I believe the same for you Doesn't mean it's perfect.

Christine: 1:39:36

You were such a wounded feminine.

Leah: 1:39:39

And I was the poster girl of wounded masculine 100% and I was the poster girl of wounded masculine A hundred percent and I think one of the things that we have learned in like I go down so many rabbit holes and I listened to a lot of informational podcasts and I've listened to the Gottman I was going to say the Gottman twins and that's not what they are, the Gottman lab, like the husband and wife, who are like relationship experts and they do all these studies on like relationships and healthy relationships versus toxic ones and how to tell which ones will last and how to tell which ones won't and how to fight, because if you're not fighting also that's a red flag.

Leah: 1:40:17

If you're not having conversation and communication, that's a red flag. I know several people who are like we just don't fight. Like what are you holding back?

Christine: 1:40:27

What are you keeping in One or both of you is not being authentic.

Leah: 1:40:30

Because one of the things that I learned through all of this unlearning and relearning how to be in a relationship with someone was when I go to Jason with an issue and I say with someone was when I go to Jason with an issue and I say this thing, you did really hurt my feelings. And he says to me oh yeah, well, what about this? You did this to me. That not only is toxic, but it is also a very narcissistic tendency for people to use to deflect, and it used to make me so mad because he would change the subject so fast and put the blame on me. I am not saying that I have not also done that in the past. I think we've all been guilty of that.

Leah: 1:41:15

I don't think either one of us realized how toxic that was. When someone is coming to you with an issue and you turn it around and say, well, what about this? That's incredibly not only invalidating, but you're deflecting, you're not even acknowledging that person's feelings or thoughts and you're not even allowing this to go into a healthy direction. It's not going to end well, yeah, there's not going to be a healthy dialogue. There's not going. This person is immediately not safe, this person immediately feels attacked and they're going to go back into their shell and they're like well, I'm not going to bring it up, I guess well, and I think every time I bring something up, something else gets thrown back at me and I shouldn't be that way.

Christine: 1:42:03

What's interesting is, if you just take what you said, take everything out of this episode that we've talked about, take the politics out of it. Yeah, you take what you said, most people would be like, absolutely, that is toxic, that he would do that and he would dismiss it and kind of be like, well, what about me? Yeah, and kind of be like, well, what about me? Yeah, I think that we need to channel that energy towards the way we talk to people about politics as well. Yeah, because that people agree with you, but then they don't apply it to themselves and maybe how they talk to each other in this political climate.

Leah: 1:42:42

Yeah, because that's different. It is that that's different. That's not the same like when it's when it comes to human relationships, healthy human relationships.

Christine: 1:42:55

that is necessary and the other thing too, about this what about ism? I see a lot of well, I'm just, I guess I'm just on the side that actually cares about people and has empathy and has compassion.

Christine: 1:43:13

Again, I don't think people realize this, and I've been there. I'm saying this for myself as well. We've both been there. That's a very narcissistic thing to say, because essentially, what you're saying is I'm a good person, you are a terrible person. I'm on the side of good, you are the side of evil, I'm. You know this, this, this, you are anti and it's a form of extremism.

Leah: 1:43:50

I'm going to use this as an example and I hope that this comes across and I hope that you guys are open to hearing what I'm going to say, because it's not like.

Leah: 1:43:58

I don't think it's the best example, but it is an example of something someone specifically said to me, of something someone specifically said to me how can anyone support someone who the KKK supports? This was said to me and I thought about that because I'm like that's fucked up and you know true, like, oh shit, didn't think about it that way. Do you know how many people I have in my life who are extremely liberal and probably the most toxic person people I've ever met in my entire life? There are horrible people on both sides of the spectrum because, again, there is always, there's always going to be good and there's always going to be evil.

Christine: 1:44:51

On one side.

Leah: 1:44:52

We are never, ever going to get rid of that Ever. There are probably I'm not saying this as like a definite, because it's just like I'm just going to say it there are probably pedophiles on the left, rap, it's just like I'm just going to say it like there are probably pedophiles on the left, rapists on the left, racists on the left. There are so many different people and what we label as like good and bad and horrible and evil all over, a hundred percent, all over, but some of the people who have done the most damage in my life have been on the side that they thought was good, yeah, so I think that that is like an extreme example.

Christine: 1:45:38

Yeah.

Leah: 1:45:39

And I hate that. Yeah, I hate to like even use that as an example, because it really like fucks with you a little bit and makes you like think yeah. But maybe that's like, why Like think about it for just a minute.

Christine: 1:45:50

Oh, a hundred percent. And I think there's bad Christians and I think there are people who really, like I'm like, wow, I feel like they embody what, like in my mind, a Christian should embody. There's bad people who are atheists. There's bad people who are atheists. There's wonderful people who are atheists. Hang on, I'm putting a pin in it.

Christine: 1:46:13

You brought up the racism thing and I have had some of the most intolerant conversations with people on the left, with people on the left.

Christine: 1:46:30

Right now, people on the right have been more tolerant to the fact that I don't agree with them fully.

Christine: 1:46:37

And I'm going to add to that and I said this to when I was having this conversation, text conversation with that friend who, like really wouldn't meet with me to have an in-person conversation is for the people who constantly preach that they are anti-racist not that they're just not anti, not that they're just they're not racist, they are anti-racist.

Christine: 1:47:21

I've experienced the most intolerant from them, to the point where I'm like I was seen as a good human and as somebody who was so necessary for diversity when I was on your side, yet you exiled me, shut me down, weren't even open to an in-person conversation, even though I was the one who got berated for just speaking my mind and now I'm just exiled out from your life and essentially exiled from a group. Yeah, you might not be as anti-racist as you think you are, because it feels like it has felt like brown and black people have been used for numbers, not for the fact that we are embraced, because we are diverse, which includes our intellectual diversity as well. A little fun fact Malcolm X also spoke about this. I didn't know that, I'll have to find the direct quote, but he just talked about how I'm not quoting him correctly, but how, at least with white Republicans, he knew where he stood knew where he stood, and with white liberals he felt like he was being used for a movement.

Christine: 1:49:14

I remember reading this and he felt that that was more dangerous. I also, um I want to get into him later, but there is um, an independent voice. His name is Coleman Hughes. He's a black man, um, but oh shit, I just lost my train of thought. Oh, I know, um.

Christine: 1:49:42

He was talking about the Charlie Kirk shooting and how he is having issues as a black man and seeing the justification and even the celebration of this violence, and that in the 60s there were more assassinations. In the 70s there was more political violence. And he has watched every MLK speech and even though you know we don't live in a world that MLK lived in, I want to be very, very clear on that, um and MLK spoke in I want to be very, very clear on that and MLK spoke at nauseam about how violence was never the way to solve the problem ever, and they were going through more political violence at that time than what we are now. And every speech it wasn't. He wouldn't just say it, he spoke about it for like 30 minutes continued to reiterate that that, even though he was experiencing violence, violence was not the answer, and I think we all need to remind ourselves of that.

Christine: 1:51:16

But, yeah, it's been disappointing to feel like you were used for a movement and your actual thoughts and viewpoints and perspectives and backgrounds, because, again, that person has not asked me one question about my background and where I come from. We've been friends for 10 years and I don't think she probably knows anything about my culture and, granted, that's on me too, because I didn't speak a lot about it. I've spoken up more about it in recent years, but I guess what I'm trying to say is there is still some learning. Even when you think you're on the side of good, everyone thinks they're on the side of good.

Leah: 1:52:00

Everybody.

Christine: 1:52:02

Yeah, there was a podcast interview that I saw and he was interviewing an actor and I think, oh gosh, what movie was it? Inglourious Bastards.

Leah: 1:52:15

Maybe I haven't seen it.

Christine: 1:52:17

OK, I think Brad Pitt, whatever but he was like you played evil so well. How did you play somebody so evil? Oh, I saw this clip. How did you play somebody so evil? Oh, I saw this clip, how did you do that? And he was like, when I acted, I didn't think that I was on the side of evil. I thought I was doing the good thing and the right thing. Just something to think about.

Leah: 1:52:43

I was just going to say. That is literally just something to think about.

Christine: 1:52:46

I was just going to say that is literally just just go ahead and sit with that.

Leah: 1:52:48

Yeah, I'm going to. Okay, so we are about to have to come to an end and we didn't even get into our notes, and so this makes me like we're going to have a lot to talk about. Yeah, we're going to have a lot to talk about you guys we didn't get past page one and we have 15 pages of notes, 15 pages. So we've we've bottled a lot up.

Leah: 1:53:13

We did, and I think that this was necessary, but I do want to end with um this if you're, if, if you're okay with ending yes, okay, yeah, yeah um, I think we also in this time where we felt like our voices were unsafe and where we felt like no one else felt like us and we had our circles getting smaller and smaller, and there are I will say like there are people that I have talked to in the past year who feel very exactly the way we feel and they just don't feel comfortable to speak on it and, and I get that.

Leah: 1:53:45

I get that. We have always said that, even when it came to psychedelics, you and I are in a place where we can speak on it. We don't have employers to come after us. We have families where, honestly, we've gotten to the point where we're like it's okay if you don't agree with me, it took a lot of work to get here but I think in this situation like we don't, you don't have to speak up. We will speak up for you.

Leah: 1:54:12

Yeah, but I also think that this is why, like this discord community might be a safer place for people to openly share and feel safe and not feel the weight of social media coming down on them. Yes, and feel safe and not feel the weight of social media coming down on them. But it seems like the right things and the right podcasts and the right books always seem to fall into our paths at the right time Around. This time last year, we came across Africa Brooke, who wrote a book, and we both read this book, and I think that, honestly, that book has been what's given me the strength. We were never going to go in this direction, by the way. Yeah.

Christine: 1:55:02

No, we weren't.

Leah: 1:55:03

Ever. Ever. We were like this is not something we touch, we don't touch it, we don't want to get too controversial. This is not something we touch, we don't touch it, we don't want to get too controversial. That's not what we're here to do. It brought us both to a place you were already there, but, but I think it helped you in the way you speak yes.

Leah: 1:55:24

And how careful you are with your words, which matter so much. Yeah, but she wrote a book called the Third Perspective, and this is kind of what we've been trying to say this politically homeless place, this third perspective, this it's not us versus them, it's not right or left, it's not good versus evil. It is literally this place in the middle that anyone who's on either side cannot see. They cannot even fathom that there would be someone in the middle. How, how? And I will say, I used to think this way too, and I'm going to say what I said to you the other day. I sometimes feel like if I am talking to someone about this third perspective or this center place, they think I'm making something up. They cannot fathom that that's a possibility that someone could sit somewhere in the middle on any of these issues, that there is a third perspective. It's almost like I'm speaking like there's this like make believe Narnia type place and they're not hearing what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah.

Leah: 1:56:41

And so I highly recommend I probably listened to. I couldn't even tell you how many hours of her podcasts I listened to. I was going to add that too, not just her podcast but her being guests on other podcasts, Her book was extremely helpful and it's not political.

Christine: 1:57:01

No.

Leah: 1:57:02

At all.

Christine: 1:57:04

Yeah.

Leah: 1:57:05

But she is extremely well-versed, extremely well-spoken.

Christine: 1:57:11

So soft-spoken and articulate.

Leah: 1:57:13

I wish, and her book teaches you to speak the way she speaks. It teaches you how to articulate these things without getting a rise out of yourself, with how to stay grounded in your beliefs, how to have these conversations and to speak uncomfortable truths to people without silencing yourself, without going back into your hole.

Christine: 1:57:42

Yeah, so, and I want to touch up on her just a little bit and and also to I want to provide, um you know, podcasts, books, people to follow who are more in the middle and really hold space for nuance and and and gray um in life. And what I really love about Africa is she is a black woman, she's an immigrant from Zimbabwe and has moved to the UK and wrote a letter on Instagram in 2021.

Leah: 1:58:20

We should share that letter. We really should.

Christine: 1:58:24

Yes, about how she was leaving the cult of wokeness and obviously got a lot of pushback for being a black woman. And I want to stress too, when we've listened to a lot of people and read books, we've listened to people from all diverse backgrounds Um, and something that really resonated with me that she talks about is she talks about how she was part of the woke movement and, um, very mentally, um and emotionally dysregulated at that time and fell into the oh, I'm oppressed, I'm oppressed, I'm oppressed, I'm oppressed, and the kind of the more work she did on herself. She was like I refuse to say that I'm oppressed when I live in the UK and have this life that I live, and I have family members who are living in Zimbabwe who are actually oppressed, and so I got to that point where I had this victim mentality and through, you know, doing a lot of kind of work but taking like self-responsibility, that I'm not a victim in this country. I'm like here I am talking about how I'm oppressed here and I get to live the life that I live and do whatever I want to do, say whatever I want to say, and I have family members who don't have that in the Marshall Islands, I have siblings who don't have access to running water or electricity, and in the Marshall Islands the closest decent hospital is Hawaii, which is a seven hour flight away, so they don't even have access to good healthcare.

Christine: 2:00:34

Um and I lost a sister-in-law during COVID because she had cancer and didn't have access to even just be able to get to a hospital. Um, and here I am, sitting here and feeling sorry for myself. Um, so, reading her book, finding her content highly, highly, highly, encourage you to follow her on Instagram and listen to some of the podcasts that she has been on. Read her book the Third Perspective A really good one.

Leah: 2:01:14

I'm just going to throw this out. There is the one that she does with Diary of a CEO, Stephen Bartlett.

Christine: 2:01:19

That's a really good one, but we can link some more, but that was probably the first time I ever heard her speak some more, but that was probably the first time I ever ever heard her speak long form, yes and um, yeah it it just. It changed my perspective to hear a different perspective that didn't fit my narrative and made me realize that there are things that I have don't have control over and there are things that I do have control over. And what I do have control over is myself, the energy that I bring into the world, the work that I'm doing with myself and with my family, and um how much my mental health has changed and my perspective has changed but also opened up when doing those things.

Leah: 2:02:08

So that was beautifully said. I encourage anybody to even start with her letter, her open letter, and why she left the coat of wokeism. It's the cult of wokeism. It is like a like makes. Like even hearing that title like makes you want to like clench your booty hole a little bit and your jaws, and that's okay and that's more than okay. Like we are all about sitting through the discomfort and being uncomfortable to get to the other side of something. And so when I finished reading that, I was like, holy shit, I never thought about it this way. I never, ever thought about it being offensive to think that she was oppressed and for her to say that. I was like, oh my God, I'm really happy that I read that now.

Christine: 2:03:06

Yep.

Leah: 2:03:08

It's a hard read, yeah, but worth it. Um.

Leah: 2:03:12

So I guess in closing we're gonna continue part one um, this will be a full episode, obviously, because we're almost. We're at two hours, holy shit, um, but we have. This was supposed to be episode one. That's so crazy, and I feel like this is going to be 15 episodes. You never know, you never know. So if you made it this far, we really appreciate your support. We hope you, um, came out of this feeling something positive, feeling hopeful, feeling less alone, and we encourage you to stay open and be curious, and we'll see you on the other side in the next episode. Bye, bye.