Julie Lythcott-Haims on the Power of Telling Your Truth

In this powerful conversation from the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast, Sean Fargo speaks with Julie Lythcott-Haims — New York Times bestselling author, activist, politician, and former Stanford dean — about how mindfulness can help us face shame, rewrite old stories, and create space for authentic belonging.

Julie shares how she first discovered mindfulness in her 30s, how body awareness helped her get out of her own way, and how storytelling became a tool for healing unprocessed pain. She reflects on writing Real American, her memoir on race and belonging, and the liberation that came from releasing stories she had carried for decades.

⏱️ Chapters 

00:00 – Intro 

04:11 – mindfulness as a path to self-awareness

06:40 – Writing as emotional release 

10:35 – Holding space with compassion 

14:41 – The courage of vulnerability 

21:16 – Helicopter Parenting: lesson in parenting and self-growth 

30:25 – Post-It notes of connection 

33:00 – Freeing others through your story

36:57 – Releasing fear and finding courage to be seen

38:25 – A moment of belonging with a taxi driver

41:03 – Building bridges across difference 

46:25 – Living authentically with compassion

🔗Know more about Julie

• Julie Lythcott-Haims: julielythcotthaims.com
• Substack: julielythcotthaims.substack.com
• TED Talk: How to Raise an Adult
• Books: How to Raise an Adult, Real American, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult

Teach mindfulness without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. 

Learn about our Internationally Accredited Certification Program:  https://certify.mindfulnessexercises.com/

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix of:

• Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
• Conversations with respected meditation teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
• Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
• Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change

If you’re interested in:

• Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
• Trauma-sensitive and compassion-based practices
• Teaching mindfulness in an authentic, non-performative way
• Deepening your own practice while supporting others

…you’re in the right place.

Learn more at ...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome everyone to the Mindfulness Exercises podcast. My name is Sean Fargo. Today I have the honor of speaking with Julie Lithcott Haymes. She's a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and activist whose work helps people to be more authentic, capable, and free. She's the author of How to Raise an Adult, the widely acclaimed guide to stepping back from overparenting so that kids can step up. She's also the author of Real American, a courageous memoir about identity and belonging, and the book Your Turn, How to Be an Adult, a Frank, Compassionate Field Guide to Growing Up on Your Own Terms. She previously served as Stanford's Dean of Freshman and Undergraduate Advising, where she saw firsthand what helps young people thrive. And today she serves her local community on the Palo Alto City Council, advocating for housing, equity, climate, and youth mental health, among other things. Julie Lithcott Haymes, thank you so much for being here. It's a real honor to speak with you today.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Sean, thank you so much for having me. I look forward to our conversation and hope that, you know, we can offer something useful to your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Thank you. I appreciate that. I'd like to begin a little bit by hearing what your introduction to mindfulness or meditation was like and how that journey started for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

My introduction to mindfulness took place in the workplace when I was at Stanford, when our team in undergraduate education was offered the chance to work with a coach one-on-one, as well as work with her as a team. And that coach is a woman named Mary Ellen Myers. I'll never forget her because when she taught me this mindfulness practice, which was completely foreign to me, going on 20 years now, 20 years ago now, which is incredible, I th I didn't understand it. I didn't believe in it. It didn't seem important, impactful, and yet it has changed my life. So I'm a I I went from being a skeptic to a devoted convert of the the mindfulness practice of scanning the body for what just happened, what just made me feel the way that I think I'm feeling. What do I think I'm feeling? What happened just before that? What's the trigger? You know, like slowing down the reactive process and becoming more aware so that I could then be in charge of what I did next rather than impulsively, reflexively, reactively responding. And it is, you know, a practice that I honed. So I was in my late 30s when I learned it. Now I'm in my late 50s. Somewhere along the way, it became a part of my operating system. This strange foreign practice that was sort of offered to me that I didn't see much benefit in because frankly it just seemed too simple, has become something that is so much a part of me. It is like my operating system, meaning I can search it at any time for what's going on, what am I feeling, what is happening, what do I want to do? And it's it's built into who I am now. And I carry it with me wherever I go. And it's funny, I'm writing my next book right now and I'm trying to teach other people how to do it on the page about improving family dynamics, because I think becoming more aware of what's going on inside of us allows us to then, you know, choose what we do next. It allows us to be more regulated, therefore less volatile around other humans, therefore less likely to intrude in their space or their words or their feelings. So I do think it be it has become like the secret to everything. And that's my long-winded answer. I I will say as a caveat, I do not meditate. And I suppose that's what's next for me. So I know many put mindfulness and meditation kind of in the same terminology, in the same bucket. They definitely are, you know, a connected sort of thing. I'm I'm only on the mindfulness side. I haven't yet become a meditator, so I will just admit that right up front.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

No shame in that whatsoever. And speaking of shame, you often invite people to get out of their own way. And I think for a lot of us, we get in our own way with feelings of shame and fear. And I'm wondering if the mindfulness practices that you've been practicing helped you to identify these feelings in yourself or in others and and sorting through, like, how do I get out of my own way? And what does that process look like in getting out of our own way?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah. So I think when I say get out of your own way, I'm implying, first of all, that the things you perceive as obstacles in life may in fact be externally imposed obstacles. Some person, some program, something is impeding you. But often it's our own self-perception, it's our own unexamined feelings that are actually a huge block impeding our further progress. And so get out of your own way is requires understanding that you are blocked by something within you. And so, how do you get out of your own way? You have to acknowledge that it's there. How do you even know that it's there? You do that internal work to ask, what am I feeling? Why am I feeling it? What's going on? What you know, you become more familiar with the kind of internal emotional stuff based on prior experiences that have gone unprocessed, therefore they're just still there as like a chunk in your spirit and your psyche and your brain and your heart and your soul, wherever you feel your sort of velocity to live lives. You know, there's something blocking. And typically it is things we're ashamed of or we're made to feel shame around. Things we're afraid of could happen because they happened before, or we've always been worried that they could because of this and that. And so, you know, the mindfulness process allows us to become much more attuned to that kind of inner voice that really, you know, keeps the secrets of the soul and to be in dialogue with ourselves and ultimately to respect those feelings and to be in enough dialogue with ourselves that those feelings start to ease up and start to dissolve and start to dissipate and flow away. My greatest example of that happening for me is you know, as I sit here, I'm a 57-year-old black, biracial, queer, gender, non-binary person. I wrote a memoir at age 50 about my experiences on the black and biracial side, growing up in white spaces, dealing with microaggressions, the tiny little regular insults, and also the big weaponized experiences with racism. And I put a lot of stories in that book, tiny little vignettes about what happened when I was walking down the street when I was four, what happened when I was in second grade, or what happened to fifth grade, and so on, just little stories. Until I wrote that book, those I hadn't really told those stories. I hadn't told them to friends, I hadn't told them to family, I had kept them all in, and I finally had the opportunity to write this book. And in writing the book, you know, I had to be in dialogue with myself to try to get the stories right, to remember, remember. But then I put them, you know, edited them, worked with my editor, worked, you know, they're now they live in a book and they don't live in my body anymore. And it's been the most fascinating thing. In some ways, I'm like, where are my memories? You know, where they're no longer aching for my consciousness to recognize their existence because I've done it. I wrote them up, they're in a book, and I find I am less familiar now with those stories in terms of the things that haunt you, they no longer haunt me. There is one story that I never put in the book. Some guys put a noose around the neck of a doll that I had, a doll that was sewn to look like me. Some of my best friends put a noose around that doll and simulated a lynching. And I never told anybody, I never put it in the book because I couldn't bring myself to like acknowledge that it happened. So that story is still very much in me because I've barely taught, I'm talking about it with you. You might be, you know, one of the first people I've told. And it's an example for me of all the other stories are processed and kind of have dissolved and dissipated. They no longer have this kind of blocking impact on me, but this one story does. And until I figure out what to do with it, you know, I'll be blocked by it.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Does it feel cathartic sharing those bullet points with me now?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

It feels somewhat cathartic. You mean on the story that's largely untold? The news. I'm just practicing saying it, frankly. Yeah. And of course, in this political climate where we're seeing just this past week, two black men it looks like were found lynched. You know, local authorities are trying to say, no foul play. But let me tell anybody listening when a black person is found hanging from a tree, that's the age-old system of violence perpetrated by white supremacy against black bodies for sport. And so this horrific trope in in American lore is back. And the fact that, you know, some friends of mine did that in a funny air quotes, ha ha way to me as a teenager, you know, in my all-white high school as the only black kid, like, you know, I have to confront that. I have to confront it with them. I I have to tell that story because it's it's a violence. And it, you know, it has it has made me it for a long time made me feel lesser. And I I I want to completely rid myself of that and also not feel like a victim of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. It's really powerful and very, very sad that that's still happening. And I really appreciate you sharing parts of your own story today. I can't imagine that that's easy. And yeah, so I'm holding you in my heart right now, and I just really appreciate you sharing all your stories and your your books and helping others to navigate some of this this territory. I, you know, a lot of our listeners are therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, counselors who hold space for other people, hearing stories. And I know a common challenge that that they have is uh knowing where that edge is between holding simple, like compassionate space for others with a a gentle love and and compassion versus the side of say growth or coaching or like doing of you know, okay, so what are our next steps to hold ourselves accountable to growth and healing? I know as at Stanford, you've you know been counseled to a lot of the uh the freshmen there who are navigating life. And I'm just kind of curious how you navigate that space between simply honoring with you know love versus you know encouraging action.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Thank you for framing it that way. I'm taking notes and I didn't think you were going there. I thought you were gonna say, what's the edge between you know being present with that person and holding space and you know, taking it in so much that somehow you are depleted and you are needing your own respite and your own right? So that's a different question. So to this question, feel free to answer either one. Well, um, let me stick with your question. Uh the edge of sort of holding compassion, honoring it versus encouraging action. I'm not a therapist, a counselor, a yoga teacher. I am small c a coach, you know, mentor. I have always been someone since I was young that people seemed comfortable opening up to, even, you know, from friends to strangers. I have always, I guess, given off some kind of energy that says, you can talk to me. I love humans, I love the human story. And, but I've never been, I've been a lawyer, I've been a college dean, I'm now a writer. I've never been in that sort of sort of therapeutic chair. So it's been okay for me to encourage action. I I haven't had an imperative not to. What I have gotten better at is what I call mirror listening, what people might call active listening, relational listening, you know, kind of listening that really holds space and doesn't bring advice, judgment, opinions, and all of that. And so I've I realized now that I'm in that space I call mirror listening. In the past, I was doing a lot of encouraging action without really checking in as to whether the person wanted it, you know, whether I was clear enough on the situation, such as to even be able to offer, you know, something that might be useful. So I've slowed again through mindfulness, I've slowed down my reactivity and my thinking. So I'm able to sit and in that compassionate space and just really reflect and then, you know, pause and maybe say, you know, I'm having some thoughts about this. Are you interested in them? It's okay if you're not, you know, or are you looking for advice? You know, if so, I might have some. And to really make that an ask so that if we do get into the space of encouraging action, it is something the person has asked for. I it they've they've certainly invited me to say more about my own thoughts rather than only listening to what they had to say.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for for sharing that. You know, I think one of the reasons why people feel open with you, or at least from my experience, is because you're so open and and vulnerable and just sharing so much about your your thoughts. And you know, you you are not shy on on taking stances. You don't seem like very shy in general. I do want to encourage people to go to your Substack, Jlithcott Haymes.substack.com, and we'll post a link in the show notes. For subscribers, you offer coffee hangouts and chats and you know your thoughts on all sorts of things going on in the world. And you know, I just I I'm struck by your openness, your honesty, and your vulnerability. Have you always been so vulnerable or like what what happened with like did you just work through you know shame and grief and you know limiting beliefs? And now you just seem very free. And I'm just kind of curious what that journey's been like for you and how you encourage people to go about that for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Sean, I just love how you framed that. Have you always been this way? Or look, what happened? I'm the only me I've ever known. I don't know what it's like to inhabit another body. So, you know, we can often seem very self-aware, and yet I don't know how I would have been if certain things didn't happen, or you know, I don't necessarily know correctly the cause and effect implications of anything. So all of this is conjecture on my part. And that's my caveat because I do have an answer. You know, I've come to appreciate what my parents offered me and what they could not offer me. My parents were both traumatized as children and young adults in very repressive and oppressive environments. My dad as a black man in the Jim Crow South, my mother as a white child in a poor family in Yorkshire, England, post-World War II. They both endured abuse, they both are were survivors, and that's how they made it through and up and out and found each other and fell in love and had me. I exist because they survived. That's you know, a very incredible thing. The downside is I was born to people who had no space for feelings. My feelings were not validated, they were not interested. My dad had this quip if you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it in the dictionary between suicide and syphilis. Sympathy, you know, when I was in high school and, you know, I got off the school bus and walked with my head down up our long driveway. And apparently my dad was sitting there on the riding lawn mower, you know, mowing the grass. And I didn't look at him, I didn't acknowledge him. My parents put their heads together that Friday afternoon and decided to ground me because I had been rude to my father. Instead of asking, why is our normally gregarious, kind, well-mannered daughter not saying hi to her father? Who knows? That might have been the day someone wrote the N-word on my locker in my all-white high school. I don't know, but I do know that's how I was treated. Get straight A's, have no emotions, right? So I think this rejection of the validity of the internal world of feelings, you know, is something that I experienced young in life. And I have a lot of compassion for anybody who's made to feel that your feelings don't matter or unseen or unheard. And so I think it is directly my earliest experiences that has led me to be the complete opposite. And of course, the world has become more aware of, you know, social and emotional learning and mindfulness and, you know, positive psychology and, you know, the importance of really understanding what's going on in our inner world in order to be liberated from the various things we might hold in. And so, you know, I'm trying to offer others what I didn't necessarily have growing up. And I know that I have felt the delicious freedom of being able to say, you know what, I am this, I did this, I chose this, you know, this was wrong. I mean, I uh there are so many errors that I have made in life that I have owned and and plenty more, I'm sure, still to own. You know, I try as I own the stuff that that I'm not proud of. I'm also trying to demonstrate as I do that how people live with shame and with the fear of scrutiny or of ostracization or of being canceled. You know, I'm here trying to live out loud and to say, I'm not perfect, I am flawed, I have made mistakes, maybe you can relate. I'm here for you, I'm here with you. We're in this together. If there's time I want to tell you about a project I'm actually working on to bring more stories out of people, a podcast I'm developing. So if you want to know more about that, let me know.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yes, please. Love stories, and you know, we need them out of people, as you mentioned earlier. Yeah, do you want to share about that?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I would thank you. Yeah, I'm developing a podcast called Broke Wide Open, which is an interview format where I hold space for people to share a story they've probably never told before.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Something that they feel shame around or fear, they worry about being judged, what have you. And I'm gonna demonstrate that it is possible to hold space by listening well, you know, asking those right follow-up questions that don't judge, don't give advice, don't relate, but just continue to hold space for them to tell and expand the telling of whatever truth they're trying to get out of themselves, and then to reflect, what did that feel like to share? You know, the world hasn't ended, here you are, right? And and hopefully to be of use to that interviewee, you know, my my guest, but for the listener to be like, oh, okay, wait a minute. I I I need to tell my thing. And I think it can be a component of healing. And I chose the title broke wide open because I think many of these blocks, these feelings that are in us are behind these walls, this facade, this mask. You know, if there's us, the interior us, the block is there, and then there's the external world. And I'm trying to break us open. Let's let's get to the truth of that gooey inner you and discover you're beautiful, you're flawed like any other human, and you still have the right to be treated with kindness and dignity. And so that's what this is about. It's truly a passion project for me, doing it on the side, the very much on the side. But if anyone's listening and interested and thinks they have a story to tell, you know, definitely, definitely drop me an email. I know all that information will be in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, absolutely. What a great idea. And yeah, if anyone has my email, feel free to email me and I'll just pass it on to Julie if you want to be a guest or if you have a story for consideration. But what a great idea. Yeah, please let me know when it's out and we'll we'll link to that too. Yeah, and it, you know, so many people are, you know, feel shame around certain stories. And you know, myself included, I've I haven't said certain things to anyone before. And and holding it in, there's also this like physical damage that can occur when we hold that in to our bodies, and that energy can feel dense and uh impact our our health, not just our mental health. Yeah, thank you for offering that. And it seems like you have so many side projects, you are a very busy person, or at least you contribute so much to the world that you know I think we're we're really grateful for, including a viral TED talk that has something like 20 or 30 million views or something that is overparenting. And I know that's one of the things that you talk about, you know, when you share your story, it's clear that you've had to step up and kind of parenting yourself in certain ways. And kudos to you for really stepping up and you know finding the agency to you know pick up your bootstraps and and and do everything you've done internally and externally. Can you just share a little bit about what led you to this topic and just a few key takeaways that you think might be helpful for our audience?

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Thank you, Sean. First of all, you've given me way too much credit. I think the TED Talk has not got 20 or 30 million. In the aggregate, it might have 10 million, but still, yes, it did very well. That talk was 10 years ago, was given in 2015, released in 2016, and I'm thrilled by its reach and impact. I particularly love it when I see someone posting it with subtitles in a different language because I know it's getting to a community I couldn't otherwise reach on my own. It was really my work at Stanford that led me to the concerns embodied in that TED Talk, which reflect the concerns in my first book, which you mentioned when you introduced me, How to Raise an Adult, on the harm of helicopter parenting, which is, you know, a funny term for micromanaging the heck out of kids such that you deprive them of learning to do anything. Therefore, they lack agency and they also lack resilience, which means they're unskilled and they probably have poor mental health. So this is this was a game changer as a book, 10 years old. The TED Talk is a 14-minute condensation of like a 300-page book. But basically, the theme of it is our kids are not bonsai trees, they're wildflowers. A bonsai tree is imagined by the gardener, is planted by the gardener, the gardener chooses every branch to cut, every branch to cultivate, right? They determine the shape of this living being. Whereas a wildflower is what it is, grows where it's going to grow, does its own thing, and you try to give it the sunlight and water and dirt that it seems to need, and you step back and watch. And, you know, I I came to appreciate both from my work as an undergraduate dean on a very competitive, you know, highly selective campus, Stanford, and as a mom in Palo Alto, which is a very intense community with some of the best public schools in America, where kids are really expected to be high achieving constantly. I began to see that so many of our kids were being cultivated like bonsai trees. You know, not against hard work, not against setting goals. You know, I'm a high achieving person myself, but I began, as Dean and mom, to see the curtailment, could see young people sort of amazingly accomplished and yet withering because they were being forced to look and be a certain way and thing by well-meaning parents who were just over involved in shaping that person's life. And so that's the gist of the talk, to not bonsize their wildflowers.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, and and the the term volunteer comes to mind. Like, I know my wife, we have a backyard with a garden, and I didn't know the phrase like volunteer flowers could be considered like weeds, but you know, we didn't plant them, they're volunteers. And I kind of find like maybe an alignment with your metaphor and that the volunteers are actively growing themselves and volunteering in their own life and and hopefully the world, yeah, rather than being told to do it.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

I love it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I believe that in your writing you've discussed a four, three, two, one, go method that gives parents like a roadmap from doing to letting go. Could you share a little bit about that and maybe what you found to be the most common sticking point for parents trying to let go?

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah, thank you. So this is on my website, Julieuthclothaames.com, under I think probably the how to raise an adult book. So you go to my book, How to Raise an Adult, click into that, and then there's some advice on that page. And this is that page of advice. So the the sticking point is parents' own emotional regulation. So parents who behave in an over-controlling or micromanaging helicoptery way tend to be so fearful about their kids' outcomes. My my kid won't succeed unless I do this, that, and the other. So I'm gonna arrive my kid at this future and I can get us there, not realizing it's not your life, it's theirs. And if you get them there, they won't have the skills to thrive once there because you've done all the preparatory work. You know, so it's it's also I can't deal with my child's discomfort. So I, you know, I don't want them to feel discomfort, the discomfort that comes from struggle, you know, from loss, from failure, right? So I'm gonna make sure those uncomfortable things don't happen. Why? Because I can't deal with it. I need to soothe myself, my anxiety, my fears associated with my child's, you know, discomfort. So there's a whole lot going on in the psyche of parents who are helicoptery. And I know this because I am one. That's sort of my most humbling discovery. I wrote a book, I have a TED talk. Turns out I am giving talks. I'm not judging. I'm like, hey, I'm doing it. It's problematic. If I can change, so can you. So here's the four, three, two, one, four are the four steps to teaching any child any skill. First, you do it for them, which means you do all the work and you're, you know, they're passive. Then you do it with them where you're in like teaching mode, you know, you're still doing all the work, but you're actively engaging them and learning how it goes. Step three, you watch them do it. They've practiced step two enough times you're confident, you know, they've they've got the basics down. You're there for just in case a disaster happens. And step four, they can do it themselves. Four, three, two, one. I mean, sorry, four steps to teaching any kid any skill. Three things you should stop doing. Stop saying we when you mean my kid, we're on the soccer team. No, you're not. Teachers, principals, superintendents, heads of school, rem referees, umpires. Teach your kid how to be respectful and stand up for themselves and advocate for themselves and listen, you know. And number three, stop doing their homework. So many parents are so worried about the future, they have to finish the kid's homework today because they're afraid the kid won't have the right future tomorrow if they don't complete the homework, which tells the kid my parent doesn't think I can be successful in the fourth grade, seventh grade, eleventh grade. They don't believe that I'm capable. They have to step in, which contributes to real mental health problems in the kid. Uh, number two is the two things kids need most: love and chores. Love is sort of obvious, but unconditional love. I love you because you're here, not because you got a great grade or kicked a goal. And chores turn out to build a work ethic. So, you know, it's a way to teach kids at home how to pigeon, be useful, care about, you know, contributing to the larger community, whether it's a workplace or your neighborhood. And then one, the one week cleanse, if you feel like you're that parent who always has to nag, always has to know, I invite you to take a one-week cleanse where you sit down with your kid and say, Hey, kid, I know I'm always asking what happened on the test. Have you started your homework? Have you finished your homework? You know, I'm always like checking in, which can make you feel like you don't think, like I think you don't care about your work, but I know you do care. It's your work. I need to stay out of it. So for one week, I'm not gonna ask. And I always joke with parents make sure it's not like spring break. Don't do this over a break. It has to be during an actual school period. And instead, you know, if you buttoning it, it's not that you're not talking to your kid. You have to talk to your kid about other things. So this is where, you know, the the beautiful conversation starts to. Blossom where you can have room to say, Hey, you know, I haven't heard you play your guitar lately. I love it when your music fills the house. Or how's that new friend you were talking about? You know, tell me more about them, or that game you always play. You know, do you think I can learn it or am I tool to figure it out? You know, take an interest in the things that actually interest your kid. Watch how your relationship blossoms instead of when all you seem to be able to care about and talk about are the academic and extracurricular transactions of their life.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Beautiful. Yeah. It was six and a half year old daughter, and a lot of what you're saying are wonderful reminders. And we had a back to school night a couple of weeks ago, and I was at her desk and I wrote inside her journal, I'm I'm so proud of you, Sasha. Keep up the great work. And uh, she was glowing for like a week after she read that. And uh anyway, I really appreciate you you saying all these things. I'm gonna write a lot of that down.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

John, I need to say something else there. First of all, bravo to you for doing that. Second, Sasha's not the only one who needs notes like that. We all do. You just gave a lovely example of how simple it can be. I just rolled over to find a post-it note, you know, to write a quick note of praise, recognition, gratitude to anyone in our, you know, and pop that note on the mirror, you know, pop it in a place where they're gonna find it in in their book, in their in their briefcase, in their bag, you know, by their toothbrush, tiny little acts of noticing somebody. And whether you're just saying you're awesome, I'm proud of you, or you want to be specific about thank you for doing this specific thing. These are tiny little ways to offer gratitude. And a gratitude practice is good, not just for the recipient, because they're made like Sasha was glowing for days. Of course, the recipient feels good, but it makes us feel good, bigger picture when we're noticing the good things around us and mentioning them. It helps us be better at noticing the good and the positive, which is so important in in times like these that are full of so much strife and loneliness and anger and so on.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it makes me want to get some post-its now and just go around, you know, post-iting people. Like, thank you for that. I love this about you, or you know, love it when you do this, or those little things of appreciation. And you're right, we can all use those, and you know, myself included, especially in our darkest hour. And you've written a memoir, and I believe you've taught about memoir. And for people considering telling their own story, especially in a memoir forum, I'm curious what you think about like what makes a personal narrative also useful to the reader, in addition to you know, being cathartic and you know being broken open and sharing their story. Like, is there a dance there between vulnerability and trying to be useful for you?

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah, absolutely. I have a post-it over here on my bookshelf, sent to me by an author to whom I gave advice a memoirist to be, asked me for advice. I gave her advice, she wrote it down, published a book. I think she now has two books, but she sent the post-it that she had written down from our conversation. She sent it to me. Maybe she slapped it on the cover of her finished book when she put it in the mail to me. And it says, Memoir is an act of service. And she attributed that quote quote to me. So it says, Juliet God Haymes, memoir is an act of service. And it is. And I did tell her that. And I wrote the foreword to a book of writing prompts for memoir, where I talk about you should only seek to publish your life story or your, you know, some element of your life story if you think it can be of use to others. Catharsis is important. You can take your catharsis to your journal or diary, you can take it to your therapist, you can take it to people with whom you have trust, but to have the audacity to suggest that others, you know, should read what you went through. You have to come from an orientation of I think if I tell my journey, it can help others who for their own reason can relate. Um so it's absolutely essential as memoirists that we ask ourselves this question can elucidating my journey, my truths, my stumbles, my mistakes, my aha's, you know, can will that be of use to others? And if so, you know, yes. And then I think the next piece of advice is way before you ever get it published, if ever, you have to be willing to tell the most raw stories. Because in order by raw, I mean the most deeply personal, the stuff that makes you wince, the stuff that made you cry, the stuff that you don't think you can tell anybody, you're not ready to be a memoirist about that experience you've had if you can't tell the deepest part of it. And that's a piece of advice I gave to this particular author who, you know, sent me this note back. She is a widow and had written about what it was like to, you know, attend to her husband as he was dying. It's a book by Jenny Lisk called Future Widow. And Jenny, it was sort of a diary format in terms of it was a chronological format. You know, she was sort of posting her notes from her caring bridge interactive community of support. And she had this whole vacant period of time. Months went by where she didn't post a caring bridge. And I was like, Jenny, you have to let the reader know what was happening. There was some reason you're either not sharing the caring bridge or you didn't even post a carrying bridge. So there's nothing to share. There clearly something was going on. The reader has come with you this far. Don't abandon them now. It sounds like something happened. Things got to whatever, too busy, too bad for you to post. They need to know that. And, you know, here I was being blunt and frank with someone I didn't even know. Turns out, you know, she thought that was really good advice and and shaped the book accordingly. And it's that, you know, she didn't think she could write about that part because it had gotten so hard. And I said, You're trying to relate to people going through this who are turning to your book in despair because they're about to lose a spouse. They need to see the dark moment and they need to see that you survived it by definition, because it's years later and you wrote a book about it, right? You're trying to pull them through their hardest moments. You've got to be willing to show what it was like for you when you were in yours.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Beautiful. You know, I suspect a lot of us hold those stories within us because you know, we're afraid of judgment, you know, and we're recording this right now in the wake of Charlie Kirk's shooting, and there's so much judgment on both sides of the American political against each other. And, you know, with social media, there's lots of judgments being thrown around. Um, I'm curious, you know, as you've shared your stories or witnessed other people share their stories, is there really that much judgment that the storyteller receives or that you've received against your stories or your sharing? Is that really a something to that is a valid fear for us?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Thank you for mentioning the historical moment that we're in with the murder of Charlie Kirk and the reaction to it on both sides. I will tell you, I've been stunned when I toured Real American, my memoir on being lacking biracial in white spaces, experiencing microaggression, blunt force racism, that came out in 2017, foretelling that white supremacy was on the rise, by the way. And I think that's because when you're in their crosshairs, you notice the signs and signals far sooner than those who don't have a need to be afraid of it. I was touring this book around the country, small communities, large communities, bookshops, conferences, schools, churches, synagogues. And I was stunned by the fact that sometimes people would question my story, like, I don't believe that happened. You know, I don't believe that happened, like someone wrote the N-word on my locker. You know, I don't believe it. And I was like, what the, you know, I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on your podcast, but if I was, I would say, like, what the F? How dare you? How dare you imply that I have lied in the most vulnerable collection of stories I could, you know, bear to share. Like you think I've not told the truth? What is it about you that feels the need to go there and assume that? Like, why can't you bring yourself to accept? You know, I was in a taxi for an hour being driven to an event, talking to a guy completely opposite from me on the political spectrum. I'm a liberal, progressive democrat. He's a MAGA Republican conservative. We're in a car together for an hour, and we're talking and trying to find, I'm trying to find some common ground. And by the end, you know, I say, you know, like one of the things I'm talking about, this place you're driving me to is my memoir on being black and my racial and white space, you know, some of the things I experienced. And he looked at me in the rearview mirror because I'm in his back seat and he goes, you know, I had a black friend in high school and nothing like that ever happened to him. And this was sort of an edgy response. It's almost like I, you know, like it wasn't like, wow, that must have been so hard. I had a black friend, that never happened to him. I'm so happy it didn't happen to him. It was almost like a, well, I had a black friend and that never happened to him. So dot, dot, dot, are you sure you're remembering right or telling the truth? And I said, How do you know it never happened to him? And he said, because he would have told me. And I said, I never told anyone until I was 50 years old and put it in the book. He got silent and he looked up at me and he said, You know, I'm sorry that happened to you. I was born as a child and never told anyone. And then all of a sudden, we were like, Ken, you know, this mega conservative Republican and this progressive liberal democrat in a vehicle, white man, black woman were now able to connect that we had once both been children mistreated by others. And that is where our friendship began.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Wow, it feels like a great story in and of itself. You write about belonging quite a bit, or at least you have. And yeah, is it just that we need to look for these similarities, just keep asking each other questions until we find those root stories or those those root beliefs? You know, loneliness is you know, could be considered its own pandemic right now. And we're searching, we're yearning for belonging. And a lot of us don't know how to do it because we feel so isolated and fearful of others. And so, would your, you know, how would you encourage people to find and seek belonging, like in the way that you did in that taxi cab or in other situations?

SPEAKER_01 41:38

I mean, let's face it, the the taxi cab, I was a captive audience, so was he. He was hired to drive me. It was an hour-long drive from Syracuse Airport to SUNY Binghamton, and we were stuck. So we could have been silent, we could have argued, or we could find some common ground. I don't know what his motivation was. I was certainly trying to find some common ground. And it took us a and I did a lot of clamping my own thoughts when he said things with which I disagreed. I just didn't engage it. And so that I did, I dialed down the volatility and dialed. I mean, at one point he was looked in the rear view and he's like, I shouldn't be telling you this. I could lose my job, but political viewpoint, political viewpoint, political viewpoint. And I was just like, dude, what why are you feeling the need to tell me this? But again, Sean, people tell me there's stuff and they always have. So I would say, you know, in that moment I was searching not for belonging, but for safety and security. That sort of let me destabilize a potentially more contentious situation. Let me stabilize a potentially contentious situation by being curious and not necessarily get in argument mode. And I was delighted to discover we could get to a place of belonging, but that wasn't what my intent was. I had no expectation or hope of that, frankly, for 45 minutes of an hour-long ride. I think there are two things. You said, do you just keep asking questions until you get to the roots to discover like a common experience? Yes, I think whenever you meet somebody, cocktail party, coffee, you know, event, whatever, if you're with humans and you're, you know, like put next to a stranger, you can say things like, hey, you know, I'm so-and-so. Take an interest in them. Everybody wants to have that interest taken in them. Hopefully they reciprocate. You can say, hey, you know, what's good in your life, right? What's what's the best thing you got going in your life right now? Or what's good in your life right now, or what are you? I mean, in in such a fraught political moment, we don't ever want to be glib about, you know, like all things considered with all that's going on in the world, you know, what's what is good in your life right now? And it acknowledges context, but also asks the question. Whatever they answer, you know, repeat it back. Oh, wow, okay, that sounds interesting. You know, why? You know, like if they have an interest or a hobby, why are you interested in that? And they'll say, because I love plants. Why do you love plants? Because, you know, I've been planting kids since I was little and I just really enjoy it. Why do you think you really have enjoyed it since you were little? Because I did it with my grandmother, you know, who passed away, and I'm just trying to be more like her in the world. She was so kind. So you that's gets you to a place of like, oh, you know, I feel really close to this family, you know, like that's where you can you ask somebody the question why kindly, not like why, but like why, you know, or how five times, and you can get to that really factual route where you might find common ground. The other thing to search for belonging, show up, learn about what's happening in your community. Is your bookstore having an author series? Is there a pickleball club? Is there a ballroom dancing? Is there a great cafe or bar with an open mic comedy or performance night? Like show up in spaces where humans are interacting with humans. We have to get off our devices. Our devices are making us globally connected and completely alienating ourselves from the very thing that can most save us, which is connection with each other. It does take a heavy lift, though. I I can tell you this, as well as being outgoing, type A, extrovert, blah, blah, blah. Even that, I would rather be in my backyard by myself. And I, whether the pandemic has made me that way or the political climate, I spend so much time because I'm self-employed. I, you know, I go to the city and do my city council stuff. You know, I sit here in my house and do my writing work or I or just my, you know, solitude work. Like I have become more of, you know, a not a recluse, but like I'm just acknowledging it's hard for me, it's hard for you, but yet we must, you know, we must just make even just reach out to that friend, like we should get coffee. Instead of we should get coffee, see if you can say, like, we have to get coffee. Here are three dates that I can do, and don't let go of them until you have a date made. And then, you know, don't forget to show up. Don't cancel, don't bail.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much for all of this, Julie. As we, you and I, well, we met once before briefly, but you know, it feels so good to connect with people, even just strangers. And it's amazing how quickly we can sort of go deep with each other if we just sort of drop our judgments and our our shame. What parting message would you like to share with our community that you maybe haven't shared yet? And yeah, just any closing thoughts that you may have.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

No, I am I am rooting for all of us to make it. I'm rooting for you to figure out the Venn diagram of what you're good at, what you love, what your identities are, and how you can support yourself. I don't want you to feel like you have to be on the air quotes right track in life toward law, business, medicine, engineering. You know, those are great paths if they're right for you. I know I'm talking to, you know, a lot of people in the therapeutic community. So you've already chosen the path that's right for you. I probably, which is awesome. You know, but continue to ask yourself, is this work, is this job, you know, you know, the opportunity that I have, is it really allowing me to, you know, bring my talents? Do I also love it? Do I feel respected here on the basis of the various identities I carry? You know, am I able to pay my bills? Too many of us are sort of on the right path to pay the bills, but are losing the piece of like, I'm not passionate about this. I don't love it. I'm just good at it, but I don't love it. Therefore, I feel like a robot in my life. Or I'm in a space and place where my identities, as given my race, my ethnicity, my nationality, my country of origin, my religion, my gender, my gender, my sexual orientation, et cetera, you know, are such that I have to hide a piece of who I am in order to survive in this environment. That will eat you alive. You know, I was invited to speak to welcome people to a multi-faith gathering on 9-11, sponsored by a woman, an organization that is Muslim-led in our community that started in September 11, 2002. So a year after 9-11, the Muslim community was like, hey, we want to offer this multi-faith thing, in part to countermand the terrible stereotypes about all Muslims that came out of 9-11. So here we are 24 years later, and I'm welcoming. And the a friend had told me, they asked me how I wanted to be introduced. And I said, Tell them I'm your black, biracial, queer, gender non-binary council member here in Palo Alto. It's part of my identity. I want people to know so that I am more visible and the community is more visible. And my friend was like, I don't know if we should say the part about you're being queer or, you know, the gender thing, because in the Muslim community that can be hard. Hope that's not offensive. And I was like, I know you're not trying to be offensive, but you know, it is offense. It's as offensive as someone saying, Don't tell them you're Muslim, you know. So this event, and I said, you know, here's who I am. And some may be uncomfortable, but you know, when others canceled this event last year, canceled in a, you know, social media judgment sense because they didn't like some of your co-sponsors because they were too Muslim or too this or not enough that, your black, queer, gender, non-binary council member showed up. And I'm always going to show up in a space where people are seeking peace, trying to lead with love. We have to create bigger tents. We have to not search for the perfect intersection of us and the other person. But is there any room for connection and dialogue given our differences? That is the only way to build the bigger coalitions and big build the bigger tents. You might not agree with them on all of it. You might hate this aspect of that, but you have a commonality around something that's important to you both. That is how we're going to heal this country, rebuild our democracy, build the coalitions that are going to get us to be a more peaceful, more just nation and human society.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Are you going to run for president?

SPEAKER_01 50:02

You know what? I did run for Congress about a year and a half ago. The seat came open unexpectedly. And I was like, you know what? I have to throw my hat in the ring. It was me up against 10 guys, 11 of us, vying for this seat to replace our Congresswoman. And I did not, did not fare well in that primary, but I'm glad I did it. It gave me a glimpse of how absolutely riddled with money our political system is. My whole job was not to be a candidate talking about ideas and this and that. That was a tiny piece of the campaign. Every day I had to raise hundreds of thousands or thousands of dollars every day in order to simply fund the process of getting my message out there. And I just was sickened by it. But thank you for what I think you're saying, which is there's something in what I'm saying that you find valid and that you wish more people could hear.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Yeah, you're lead for like everything you said, you know, and regardless of you know which side, but like all the values that you spoke of, I think, you know, we just need, period. In our whole world. And you know, I'm I live in the East Bay, used to live in the North Bay, I've spent a little bit of time in Palo Alto. Palo Alto, when I think of Palo Alto, you know, I think of Stanford, but I also think of you know very wealthy white tech people. And I I you know I love white tech men, but I also love everybody. And it it doesn't seem that diverse to me. Is that your sense? And how is it just being you there?

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Different questions. Let me clarify. There's perception in reality, of course. Alo Alto is about 36% Asian, Asian diaspora, Asian American or immigrant first generation from Asia. 36%. Okay. So we are slightly majority white, but that close second is the Asian diaspora, then Latinos, Chicano Latinos, and then black folks are like 1.2%. I do not see my, and of course, my experience as a black person is very atypical. I'm biracial, I'm light skinned due to the privileges my parents were able to offer me. I'm highly educated, you know, I'm upper middle class, and so I'm not the typical black person. In terms of my queerness, San Francisco Bay Area gives us space to be out about that, which is one of the reasons I live here. My partner, who is a white guy in and has been in tech, uh, is also queer. And so we have been able to locate belonging for ourselves in our gender and sexual orientation identities here in the Bay, including in Palo Alto. So I don't know. Sometimes I think it's those of us who are most different who really can have those platforms because people are gonna look and be like, what are you talking about? Who are you? And you, as long as you've given that mic that moment, seize it. Palo Alto is a richly diverse community, highly unaffordable. We're working to build more apartment style housing and granny units, ADUs, to try to make it more possible for young people, people in the working and middle class to be able to have a place to live. That's my primary focus as a city council member here.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

Beautiful. I have a couple of friends who are living there now and just had a child and having another one soon, and they may need to move because you know, finances and Palo Alto is very, very expensive.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

Here's what you need to tell them make sure they check in with Palo Alto Childcare because we have done so much to try to ensure we're providing not just great childcare, but child care that can be subsidized based on need. And so, you know, we're really trying to make it so that your need for childcare isn't what drives you out of this city.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

Yeah. Beautiful. Well, I think we're just scratching the surface here, Julie. You are very prolific with your writings, your teachings, your offerings. I look forward to your new podcast. Is it Broke Wide Open?

unknown 54:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

And I'm a subscriber on your Substack now. We'll post links to that and your website and your TED Talk and your books in the show notes. I encourage everyone to check out Julie Lithcott Ames online and in person if you're in Palo Alto sometime. And if this conversation has supported you, please share it with someone who could use it. We've touched on a lot of juicy topics here. And please give Julie some love. Subscribe to our Substack, check out our books, check out our website, and please review this episode. Let us know what you think. Please subscribe to help more people find conversations like this. Julie Lithcott Haymes, thank you so much for your energy, your spirit, your generosity in sharing everything you've shared today. It's been an honor to speak with you.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

Sean, thank you. And just to all the listeners, you're still here with us. Whatever came up for you as Sean and I were talking, you know, that's not us judging you, that's not us pointing a finger at you. It's really, if anything came up, that's a clue from you to you that this is worth investigating further. So please, whatever may have come up, it's valid. Take it forward in whatever ways you need to. And know that I think we're both rooting for you to really continue to do that work and make that progress on your journey here in this one wild and precious life is Mary.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Absolutely. Well said. Thank you so much, Julie.