Mayim Bialik: Life is in Session

no one's allowed to place judgment on anybody else's experience you're the only person who got to be you going through that and that's what these kind of modalities are trying to open up for people you know many of us were told like Shake It Off you got a roof over your head like what are you complaining about right and I'm so grateful that we all are living in a time where like we're allowed to talk about these things [Music] mayam welcome to the squeeze we are honored to have you thank you so nice to be here so we start each episode with a game called Citrus got real we have this Jar full of questions do you want me to pull a question yeah sure go ahead I'll I'll do the drum roll we do an ASMR drum roll so I'm very good at it's impressive okay what if you had to hide a giraffe from the government where would you put it what what who makes these questions are listeners are lemon drops oh okay it's a great question my bad um you know I I feel like this is like a fifth grade like elementary school like you know quiz where they're like let's see what the quirkiest answer is from the fifth grader yeah if you had to hide a giraffe if I had to hide a giraffe from who who am I hiding it from from the government from the government I mean like like I don't know that my answer would be different like I don't know if my answer would be different if I was hiding it like from my mom I would hide a giraffe in the zoo because there's other giraffes there that's smart it would blend in yeah yeah like I would put it in the giraffe enclosure obviously yeah that's um that makes sense to me that's the most reasonable I don't know why my first reaction in the most humane way would be like a fire place like chimney because like they're long like they could could just sounds very Humane like in the most a very spacious Humane fireplace it's it's I I'm living in a cartoon world where I can talk to the giraffe and he's like okay like I'll go in here right so he like know I thought I thought my answer was silly but then I heard yours and I'm like I think I think answer was pretty good no your answer was the most accurate I think there could have been and we were like why didn't we think of that yeah do you even have one no no I I'm gonna go with myam on this one okay that's probably probably smartest thank you for that Genius answer I would not have known what to say well let's dive in because we're we're just super excited to have you we are big big bang F that's you know try saying that we're big big bang fans and we're fans of yours and of course your podcast thank you um but I found it so interesting I'm sure you've been asked this a million times but I am curious so in Big Bang you play a character who's a neurobiologist correct but actually before you did the show you became a neuroscientist correct and neuroscientist is a more General umbrella term neurobiologist is more specific and indicates the kind of research but yeah I was the only neuroscientist who audition though they weren't like let's find scientists to play this part that was going to be my question yeah when you were auditioning I was I was like were they was that part of like the breakdown like or did that was that just coincidence so I was um called into audition for it was actually the season finale of season 3 of The Big Bang Theory um at that time I had um like a just three-year-old and newborn so I had not watched television I hadn't done anything in the media like I had really been like I was in grad school um so I had never I didn't know what the big bang theory was it's like a very popular TV show at that time I didn't know because I wasn't watching TV so um no I went and auditioned and actually the character didn't have a profession at that point she was just this you know this woman that Sheldon was set up with on a date and so I auditioned with a bunch of you know very very Talent ented actresses none of whom you know were trained as scientists and like on my resume I had just started auditioning again like you know I was about to lose my health insurance from being a grad student I was not in the industry like I literally had just had a home birth and was like still actively breastfeeding so um I um I literally just like you know went and auditioned and on my resume like I listed under miscellane you know like where you list like canoll skate speak Spanish and Hebrew like PhD in Neuroscience casual so Bill prady I think um yeah Bill prady who was one of the creators of The Big Bang Theory and our executive producer um he I think at my audition was like is this for real and I said yeah but again the character didn't have a profession at that point it wasn't until they brought me back in season 4 that she was made I think Chuck Lori said something like well let's make it something so that if we do something wrong she can f it oh that's cool got it so it was very tailored to you I guess so yeah that's so cool did you just use the word tailor I didn't I mean I never would have imagined I know right how many times will we say that in this episode um no it's so funny because I feel like I always I always saw like neuroscientists in your bio but I was like At first I was like oh is that like a cute playoff like from the show and then as we I've was been doing research I was like oh my gosh she actually is one like I thought it was just like something like cute that you did but I was like no she actually I think you can tell for my giraffe answer I'm not really into cute answers or cute things oh my gosh um so the I'm a nurse and I love like science and big words and stuff and so dur doing our research on you I found what your thesis dissertation was on and I would love to like know about it I'm going to read it you can correct me if the internet okay got this actually maybe you just say it because I feel like I'm probably gonna butcher it if you no I me there's there's a lot of words you can go ahead and read the title and then I can explain it oh gosh okay well this yeah this is this is what the internet gave me um hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive obsessive compulsive affiliative and say I don't even know that word s Behavior Society behaviors in Prader willly syndrome that is correct um my field you did great my field is psychon neuroendocrinology um so the psych part is like when you think of like psychology or Psychiatry um the neuro is the brain I studied the hypothalamus um which is a a region that controls a variety of very important functions including lyic system stuff which is emotions um and the Endocrinology part is the hypothalamic AR adrenal axis um which is where all of the hormones that I studied circulate but the the syndrome that I worked with is prilly syndrome which is a genetic syndrome it's a spontaneous mutation um on chromosome 15 and these individuals um have um basically genetic obesity meaning um this mutation causes them to not know when they're full and that's what satiety is and um some of some of the things about them they have very high rates of obsessive compulsive disorder and that actually was the focus of my thesis was looking at um oxytocin Bas supressant and cortisol and if they correlate with obsessions and compulsions in this uh population so um I worked in the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA I went to UCLA for my undergraduate and my graduate work um I I ended up meeting someone in Calculus class and we dated for five years and we were married for 10 we're not married anymore but we have a 15 and 18-year-old um my 18-year-old was born right after I finished my coursework so I wrote my thesis laying down typing and breastfeeding at the same time and then my younger son um I got pregnant the week I filed my thesis so I took my doctoral Hood about seven months pregnant oh my I was that lady on stage like taking her doctoral Hood like as big as the room oh wow my gosh I have so much respect from you literally after talking to you for 10 minutes the fact that you've everything you've done literally from acting all the way to getting your doctorate while pregnant and having kids and Bre like doing all these things I'm like I can barely do that I don't even have a child yeah casual thing to throw in there quite impressive I bet you were getting so excited with all of those words that she was saying and I have no idea what she was talking about I love science and Taylor does not he when I was in nursing school he wouldn't even like let me practice because you have to like learn how to manually do everything so my first semester I was learning like how to do blood pressure and he would panic I was like babe I'm I'm it's not going to hurt you it just squeezes your arm he's like no I don't want to know and he would get very flustered and have to like I'm amazed you finished because if I had someone in the house I would need to practice all the time all the things yeah yeah he was you got you let me in eventually yeah I drew a line when she was like I want to practice putting needles in you and literally wanting to uh what's it called do like an IV push yeah my mom works in like Med spawn they do like I like vitamin pushes all the time I live in LA you know they do them left and right oh yeah she's like you have good veins I can practice I'm like absolutely not that stuff terrifies me I guess we know where his limits are T yes we do made those very clear from the beginning yeah um I something that I I feel like I can relate to in a sense is um for people that know you just from big bang you actually started acting way earlier than that like you you were a fullon working child actor yeah I was I was a I mean I was a teenage actor I was on Blossom this show from the time I was 14 to 19 um so I spent you know five years on a prime time television show we premiered after The Cosby Show and then we were after the fresh prince of belir for most of the time so um you know kind of a a staple of the early 90s there um and you know I graduated high school when I was 17 so I basically had three years of Blossom you know when I was finishing high school and then two years out of high school um I started professionally acting when I was 11 and a half which is very young and also very old for the industry most child actors as I'm sure you know start as toddlers or you know at six or seven like you know doing commercials that wasn't my path I I really liked acting in school plays but um I I didn't come from a family with money or resources to be know like taking me around my parents were Public School teachers and my mom was a Nursery School director so um yeah it was um kind of something I never imagined would turn into a full life but um yeah I mean I learned a bit about your experience um you know in preparing to have you on our podcast um and yeah you know sort of like it's kind of strange to take this thing that like you love and you want to bring something of yourself to a craft um yeah and an artistic expression but then it kind of can have a mind of its own and then you don't get to have control over how famous you become and you don't get to have control over what people think of you or what they say about you or what they shout at you in the street did you ever like reach a point where you were like I you know I need to take a step back and you just like felt like you needed to to just have space from the industry because you know starting so young um I mean honestly I think somewhere in like the third season of Blossom I was like is this really my life like I was I was not a particularly like chiz kid because I wasn't raised in the industry and you know my parents were like first generation Americans they were born during World War II in New York and they were like hardcore New Yorkers who were like transplants to La so I wasn't raised with this like you're the most amazing child and like everybody loves you you know like I didn't have like a um that kind of persona you know I was kind of a mopy kid I probably would have been that way if I wasn't acting like I was like reading dooi in 10th Grade and being like the world is so painful so I kind of found myself though in the middle of like you know um a full-time contract that you can't break and yeah you know it wasn't miserable it was a really really positive experience and especially with all the talk about what is happening for child actors and the things that we're learning about things that happened I didn't have that experience we had a very safe set um but yeah I felt in some sense like a little bit stuck in a life that again I think a lot of teenagers might feel at that age but mine felt magnified because like I kind of was stuck um and I was actually supposed to go to Harvard and I ended up having to defer um and you know it turned out for the best um they didn't accept me uh when I was done with Blossom and so I ended up going to UCLA and you know got to live in the same city where my grandparents ended up living before they passed so like it all worked out the way it was supposed to but that notion of like what am I doing um yeah it hit me as a teenager and then I left the industry you know for 12 years um that's how long it took me to get my undergraduate degree I did a couple episodes of kirb your enthusiasm in there um I did some voiceover work but yeah I was pretty much out of the industry for 12 years you know my hair was like down to my butt like I didn't even know what size clothing I was because I just like wore sweats and like you know was like a breastfeeding mom so I had a very different you know um outof the industry experience and you know also I think for you like you're very very recognizable and it's very hard for you to not be you your face your body your voice for me like kind of like if you're a lady like you put on a baseball hat and you don't wear makeup and most people don't pay much attention to you so like the unadorned female is often kind of left to her own devices and that's kind of how I coasted through you know that's funny when when we were in like you know hyp pandemic like we would go to the grocery store and Taylor would wear a hat sunglasses and his mask and people would still recognize him they smell it they're like it smells like Taylor ler I was like how are we how how I don't think I would recognize my own husband like that I know I've had it happen like I've also another example of that that I just find it's probably the the most confused I've ever been with that is being um at a ski Resort and same thing having a helmet goggles and like a warming thing over my mouth the only thing that was showing was my nose and it like one person recognized me and then the word spread and I think I ended up asking them because I was just so curious I think I went up to them I was like can I just ask how did you know it was me because literally the only thing showing was my nose I think you probably went on the most recognizable noses they say not okay I will I'll often get recognized just because of my voice you know and that has happened when I'm wearing because I do have I I am aware I have a distinctive voice um but yeah still yeah yeah I will say it is impressive it is a soothing voice though thank you yeah my children would [Laughter] disagree oh my gosh that's good um so growing up while you know being in the spot like being in those teenage years you also grew up in wait sorry I have to ask a question the question should have been where would you hide Taylor lner if you had sorry I put him in a very Humane fireplace sorry okay sorry I'm listening now we'll we'll add that to our um Citrus scut reel segment no that's so good no I was just gonna say you know the pressures of being like those teenage years in the spotlight trying to figure out who you are you also kind of had an atome life of um environment of alcoholism and having mentally ill parents H what what did that time growing up look like for you um you know I'm sure you've heard like um I mean there's a few metaphors here you know if you if you put a frog in you know boiling water it's um it's a different scenario than if you just have a frog in a pot of water and then you turn up the heat slowly um and so you know I think it's important to to voice that you know for those of us who grew up in a different time if you grew up with alcoholism if you grew up with abuse if you grew up with you know what we would later Define is like oh that's G to make trauma for small people yeah um it's just like it's it was at that time just normal meaning that was normal for me I didn't have anything to compare it to like of course you watch TV and like I grew up watching like growing pains and who's the boss and you know all these shows and like 90210 and of course I knew my life didn't look like that but I always had another reason right it's because my grandparents were immigrants it's because I'm Jewish it's because you know I have large features like whatever it is we didn't know to talk about any of this stuff um you know my father my father of blessed memory like he didn't even know we just knew that there were times when he um would stay up for many days in a row and think that he had powers and then he would also like be so depressed that I didn't know what I'd find when I came home like we didn't know what man Depression was like nobody talked about it um and you know the ways that a family has to adjust to that kind of complexity um at the time it was just like oh this is happening what I know as a scientist and Tay what you probably know um as you know someone who's science literate and a nurse is like children internalize all of the things going on about them um they try and make sense of it and you know kids do a lot of things to cope some kids become you know like the entertainer right let me make everybody laugh um some kids shrink and they kind of disappear um some kids act out you know like kids will behave in different ways I was a very obedient child um and I really wanted to like fix everything and I did that not only in my family but that sort of became my role in friendships you know I was the one people came to and like there's good parts to that but also like it can be too much so um you know I also saw that pattern in relationships I was always more interested in what the other person was going on like what was going going on with them um and it's only really as an adult you know um in my really in my 30s that I started realizing like oh I get what it means that you're supposed to put yourself first like what do I want what's my favorite color where do I want to eat instead of being like what do you want because that's what I'm interested in I'm interested in what you want like that's what happens when you grow up like that for me at least yeah isn't one of isn't one of the anagrams the fixer yeah I'm making that up yeah I'm actually I'm I'm actually not a fixer I'm an enag four which is the most dramatic special no one understands me I'm are you a four she thinks I'm a four that means you're a four because fours don't think that any anagram can meet our needs because we're so special yep you're probably a four I can't figure it out but she says you're a four I'm like um that's wow that's interesting what's the what's the four called again it's the artist it's like the what are we called I mean I just call myself Super Creative or the the let me look this up the yeah the creative it's something okay okay but that makes sense the individualist individual like no one understands me like I didn't even fit in like I never have a PL there's not even an anagram that can satisfy my needs right right but also I feel like like it's like also like the feeler right like I I feel everybody else's pain and joy all aspects you know I feel everybody else's emotions so deeply yeah you feel the degree that you feel things that's what I think that's why we make a good team because he like is like he knows his emotions and like he feels everything so strong and I am so I'm too laxidasical of things Taylor's like no you need to care more I'm like you're actually right and then I could be like need to yeah comment down not get yeah as worked up I just yeah I I go through the the highs and lows of every feeling including other people's feelings and it really affects me yeah well that's actually that's something we talk about on our podcast like people who have that kind of you know profile like historically we would have been given a very special job in our tribe you know we'd be the person that people come to so that we can help them understand things or maybe we'd be Shaman or healers right because we're like feeling something that they may not even feel right sometimes people accuse me of like you're saying a thing that I'm not even feeling and then like two days later they're like okay I was feeling that you were right right so you know it's also interesting that like in our culture that it can be detrimental because like I do I sometimes like feel too much I feel too deeply like I can't just like see a homeless person and be like that's a homeless person and that's sad it's like I'm Weeping at the freeway offramp and like I kind of like I want to turn that down sometimes but I also realize that like historically there needs to be all kinds of people you know there need to be people who feel that deeply and can have access to that you know I always say Taylor is like such a good character reader like he could just meet someone and like if he has a good or bad Vibe or whatever it is like he or he'll know the intention of someone's action and I I don't even see it I'm like oh no they just did it because of this he's like no they did because like all this whole deeper reisin and I'm like wait you're so right like I so interes yeah no he's he's great he's the perfect wingman on anybody's first date this this he Taylor lner that that would be yeah that would be distracting here I'd like you to meet my friend they're gonna scope you out also they're a very very famous actor just act natural that's a good show right there yeah that is as many of you know I started my career working as a registered nurse during the height of the co pandemic and that resulted in me having to leave the field for personal reasons but that's also what led myself along with Taylor to start the lemons foundation and we're here to continue to increase and share awareness of mental health uh and also to end the sigma surrounding it and to provide mental physical and emotional resources for everyone including nurses and today I am happy to partner with the skincare brand Sarah v as well as the daisy Foundation to help Spotlight this resilient Community as a therapeutic skincare brand rooted in the medical community SRA has committed to a multi-year partnership with the Daisy Foundation a nonprofit organization that recognizes nurses for their integral service and support to patients and families together SAR and the daisy Foundation are on a mission to encourage patient and colleagues to think and celebrate the nurses in their lives both during National Nurses Week and the year round you can go to s.com nurses or visit Daisy foundation.org to learn more about the daisy foundation and how to honor a nurse in your life to learn more about nominating a nurse who has had a profound impact on your life visit s.com nurses or Daisy foundation.org so I guess we could just you know fast forward to being on big Bank the on the note of you know mental health how at that time were you more aware of you know mental health or what things were and kind of how was your experience with the show I'm sure there was like positives and negatives yeah um I mean in terms of like my own personal Journey you know I was on Big Bang for nine years so obviously we were all there together um you know the full cast had been there for 12 years when we finished and then Melissa Rous and I joined um you know in the third season and then the fourth we were made regulars um so that's like a decade you know we'll just call it a decade so like think of any decade in your life think of any decade in any portion of your life really a lot of things happen you know things happen for all of us and we got to go through them together you know it's very unusual as actors to have a job especially a sitcom job with that kind of regularity where we saw each I saw them for sure more than I saw my own family um and you know in those years I you know I got divorced um my dad got sick and my dad died um you know I had grandparents die like I had you know children transition like I had all sorts of things like um and you know I would say that there was a lot of real comfort in having a place that felt like home um you know again you hear a lot of things about sets and our set wasn't perfect like there wasn't you know it wasn't like um it wasn't like there was no complexity to what happens when you put a bunch of people together day for you know 10 years but I will say that like I had alliances there you know um I had friends like that was my people those were people who knew things about me often before you know even my family knew things about me um I actually I I wrote my first screenplay and directed a film um it's called as they made us and um it stars Dustin Hoffman and Candace Bergen which like a lot of people heard about it and some people didn't but um I spe specifically wrote it with a part for Simon hellberg and I started writing it at the time that I was on Big Bang Theory and Simon ended up doing this movie and I got to direct Simon hellberg and so the notion that someone that like I worked with that like that I'm just trying to get use that as an example to show like how close we were meaning I wrote this for him like we had that kind of relationship so and also I you know I'm happy to talk about my movie because it also talks about mental health and growing up in the kind of house that I grew up in but um you know we we we did we got to go through all those things together and um you know I've been in therapy like since I gosh since I was I think 17 and so um you know I maintained a relationship with my therapist for all those years which was helpful and a lot of ego stuff comes up you know even if there's not um competition overtly on a job like that I mean Taylor I'm sure you could speak to this too there's just inherent ego stuff that comes up when you're an actor because you're constantly having to like decide am I good enough am I thin enough am I pretty enough am I this enough like are are the directors happy like are the producers happy like being an actor is an incredibly codependent relationship you have because it really is about like if you're happy with what I'm doing then I get to be happy that's how you know you did it right is when someone else says I feel good let's move on yeah um so you know that that stuff kind of comes up um and you know life is sort of in session no matter where you find yourself and I will say that I also started acting before there were smartphones um before there was a PR machine before you know young girls in particular were expected to have highlights in their hair and wear spanks and get their nails done you know I got to kind of be a kid on television when I was you know a kid um and then Big Bang Theory was so different it wasn't my show which felt great because the pressure wasn't on me I wasn't in every scene like I could still take care of my kids and I was able to like you know I pumped for over a year while I was there you know like I was able to still have um a different kind of identity and I think that was better for my mental health you know when I look at um people carrying shows in this culture with social media what it is and PR like I would lose my mind I would lose my mind that's pretty unbelievable that you started going to therapy starting around 17 I me it's never for a good reason that you go in your 17 it's not like you're doing so amazing go to therapy yeah I wasn't crushing it but I I I imagine it's had a a massive impact on on your life I mean I'm I'm one of those people who you know I Believe In traditional Psychotherapy and it's not for everybody but I do believe in traditional Psychotherapy which means you know psychoanalysis is you know kind of when you think about Freud and you think about people maintaining you know a long relationship or you think about Carl Young um yeah I've had a therapist I mean it's like awkward to say I've had a therapist for over 20 years um and it is it's not about like why am I not better I mean I ask that about every other year um but the notion is is that you know as life comes up you're you're constantly evolving and that kind of relationship is a scaffold of sorts and it fills in a lot of the kind of emotional and psychological blanks that some of us or that a lot of us you know kind of grow up with um so you know for me it's really it's kind of a way of life to know that I'm accountable to someone who understands me and knows me that way um you know I also do seek support from you know um places that support people who grew up in homes like I grew up um we tend to be vague in how we talk about it but um you know I believe that that those two things that therapy and and the rooms of the 12-step programs absolutely have saved my life um you know I'm one of those people who um you know struggled a lot and very deeply um and contined to in different ways but um I've I have so many more tools now you know that many of us are not taught and some of us learn it different ways for me I'm I'm a stubborn learner and I'm a slow learner so um you know I kind of like I just sort of keep coming back I keep showing up um and I really like having people around me um you know that are on a similar path of Discovery and I don't really operate well with kind of like small talk and like light relationships like I like to interact with people who are thinking deeply and feeling deeply um cuz that's just sort of like where my head resonates you know my my parents my mother's you know still still alive and probably is going to be listening to this so hi mom um you know my my parents are you know both like artists and very very creative loving you know um people very emotional very complicated um so it's not like there's I mean I think this is true for a lot of people there wasn't just one thing that was hard there was also a lot of good things and a lot of joy and a lot of confusion you know and I think it's that confusion that really drove me you know to to do this kind of work on myself um and I'll be honest you know I um I didn't really use drugs or drink heavily you know like I I wasn't a a party person not to disparage people who are um but I see why people do those things because you can kind of numb out and enjoy yourself a little bit and um you know I I I choose kind of not to partake because I know that you know addiction runs in my family it's very very easy for me to get lost in that um and so for me like therapy is kind of you know that's where I put a lot of my energy um towards trying to um you know survive as a spiritual being in a physical body which is really what we all are you know we're just we're everybody's got a self and it's in this case you know for the time that we're here on the not of tools uh that have helped your mental health two things that you've mentioned that I would love to hear more about are food triggers and sematic work oh yeah o fun um I mean happy to talk about food you know I uh talked openly on our podcast about this I um you know I definitely had I grew up with a lot of strange conversation around food um you know my my family my grandparents you know left Eastern Europe um at a time leading up to the Holocaust and so there's often a lot of food stuff in you know kind of post Holocaust families and a lot of families but in particular if you've you know grown up with anyone who lived through the depression or lived through those prgrams or was a holocaust Survivor like there's a lot of emphasis on food a lot of attention on food but I didn't really acquire what is you know an eating disorder until I was 40 and I didn't know you could acquire one so late they didn't teach you that in you know doctoral school at UCLA meaning that wasn't my field um and I just didn't know and I found myself um um you know with some really unhealthy eating behaviors that I was hiding from people and um I ended up getting help um you know from people I knew in 12ep rooms and and learning more about it and you know um you know they often say the way we eat is the way we love and is the way we spend money and I found that to be true because I kind of like either want like all the candy all the love all the money or I'll just like go without everything and like I don't need to eat and I end up just being none like be a Jewish man and I just don't need like I don't need to spend any money it's fine everything's fine so I really like kind of have this like seawing between and so you know for me I I tend not to use the word trigger unless I'm speaking about it super clinically but I understand you know kind of what you're asking but you know honestly one of the hardest things for me is being around people who have Eating Disorders who don't admit that they have eating disorders and so like disordered eating is very very common and and it's not for me to diagnose I should be clear about that I don't diagnose people with an eating disorder but you know I was even shocked when I came back to the industry you know after being gone for 12 years just how normalized it is to just not eat just don't eat or just like coffee and cigarettes or like I'll have a little lettuce or you know and sure there's people with like allergies and sensitivities I'm not talking about that I'm talking about like I didn't know there was a culture of like oh here's what you do if you have a red carpet so you can't eat carbs for three days before and then the day of like you can't do any of This and like you can't and you have to like do a laxative thing I was like what there's like a whole culture around it um I I really didn't kind of fall into that um but you know I think that um especially having kids like there's this hyper awareness especially when you live in LA about appearance and what people look like and it affects men as well as women you know that makes sense yeah I mean it's yeah that's kind of you know been something for me too and a part of my journey um so yeah just yeah I really resonate with that yeah I have to sort of you know be accountable to to other people who get it you know that's part of what what I do around it and um and also like even if you don't have a notion of God the notion that like I need to be healthy like what does it mean to truly be healthy like I know when I'm doing unhealthy things to my body I do yeah um and so the notion of like my highest good you know for me to be in this body is to eat three meals a day you know to be nourished that way so um I kind of you know try and get back to basics on it but um it's it's an enormous if you live in Los Angeles I don't know if I can explain it to people like unless you've been here like it's hard to explain that like everyone looks like a fitness model like it's kind of crazy yeah yeah and that yeah makes it tougher I remember that being like one of the first things that I learned everyone was shorter and they were even more petite than I thought they were because I'm not from the industry and obviously my first experience was when we first started dating like almost I seven years ago six seven years ago um and I remember just meeting people and I've always been like a smaller person and I for the first time ever like actually really was like oh wow I'm actually like not small and like that that kind of was like making me kind of start to like question my own body and my body image um which is just so crazy yeah even when I was a size six um you know I was considered hard to fit that's hard to fit for the red carpet a size six W and I think the average size for women in the United States is like a 12 or a 14 um so yeah when I was a size eight it was like oh my God we don't even know what to do like what do we how do we dress this person and um crazy yeah it kind of crazy what was the second thing you wanted to talk about the sematic work what exactly is that so um sematic work is you know that's an umbrella term that um includes um you know a lot of different modalities but the basic notion is um trying to get you in touch with physical Sensations in your body and seeing how they relate to emotions or if they relate to emotions so um one of the kinds of sematic work um is sematic experiencing or SE and that was um kind of coined by Peter LaVine who we recently had on our podcast um and you know what Peter LaVine described is what um typically women for thousands of years have done as part of their practice um you know laying of hands um is kind of one way to think about it if you've heard people talk about energy work um it is a form of kind of energy work except he sort of explains scientifically what's going on in the body system somatic work also um calls upon memory systems that um may be storing memory and this is not a conversation I'm not trying to open up a conversation about like repressed memories and like did it happen um but if you've ever met anyone who you know has chronic pain or who has what we would call Mind Body syndrome where you have let's say an injury that has healed and there is nothing else physi physiologically wrong in the body but pain is still felt in that part of the body or sometimes pain will be felt in certain situations or circumstances um that's known as Mind Body syndrome and so some of the sematic work tries to find where's that memory being stored in the body um and you know this is again something that for thousands of years um practitioners and healers have done and it's only when science can sort of like put a name on it and describe it and like find the pathway and do electrophysiological studies on it um that people kind of are like oh that's a thing um and so um so that's sort of some of it you know there's there's some of this work that is you know energetic and it's it's raiki work and it's Tibetan healing and things like that um sometimes those also are sematic practices but craniosacral therapy is something that's actually recommended by a lot of Western doctors for certain treatments um you know acupuncture again for thousands of years has been used and it operates on the meridians of the body which we actually know now are real things um it's connected to the fascia system and you know fascia and the interstitium is known as the 80th organ of the body so all of the sematic you know practices kind of fall under this there's also incredible work being done um specifically on fascia where if you have any Scar Tissue which every time you have a scar that is an injury of sorts um and especially for people who have significant scars um fascia work where they specifically break up that tissue and see where it attaches to all the musculature it's a fascinating um kind of sematic work and sometimes you'll have fascia work done and all of a sudden you'll be in your childhood bedroom in your head and I've had this experience where I was having work done on i' I've had four hernas and a bunch of surgeries and I've had a hand surgery tce and she's working on you know and we're not talking she's working on the fascia and all of a sudden I'm basically describing what people who do EMDR will describe okay I'm like in my childhood home and I'm like I'm conscious I'm not asleep I can talk and it's as if I can like scan the room I don't know and honestly the practitioner doesn't always know what specifically is being you know pulled um but we know that the body holds memory and if anyone if you know anyone who's experienced trauma the body will hold memory you will seize up when you're in the location where trauma occurred right or if you've ever heard of anyone having a nervous stomach that's actually a sematic reaction to an an anxiety-provoking situation but if you have someone say oh I get migraines when I'm stressed out it's like maybe it's all in your head or when women report fibromyalgia multiple sclerosis people used to say it's all in your head you just need to relax you know you just need to have a glass of wine um no the body is actually holding information and um it it can be released in ways that are really cathartic and and healing yeah I think I think our friend Lauren she went through a bad accident and she was having work done on her scar I think for it was it was fascia work for them yeah I remember her telling us something about that yeah yeah it can be very intense stuff like that is so fascinating to me just how like complex our bodies are yet how simple almost in a way like we think that there's that you know there wouldn't be builtup memories or something in a scar from an accident but there actually is like things like that I mean we've both done well you you kind of started I fully did like EMDR um and it's just it's just like a crazy process how now like I did I did my EMDR because I worked as a CO nurse and that was a very difficult thing for me um and I did a lot of work through that and just kind of finally working through what I had gone through yeah and it's crazy now how much I feel like I can talk about it or like um I found out through doing it that it Not only was a hard experience for me obviously physically mentally the hours I was working night shift all that stuff but also I was grieving you know my this career I was so excited to go into and I I nursing was like one of like I never did well in school but nursing school I was like this is my favorite thing I got all A's I was obsessed with studying it was my favorite thing and I ended up learning that I actually was grieving the end because I had to leave the hospital due to like significant mental health stuff but I at the time was grieving that loss of like a passion of mine too which I had no clue was going on and like grieving the loss of something I looked forward to and you know graving a loss of time too um so it was really interesting that I I don't think I would have ever realized that if I hadn't done amdr wow yeah I'm I'm really impressed that you you know were able to to have that experience I mean also just the timing of being a nurse during Co like I can't even imagine and you know all of us paid a lot of lip service like oh front like Frontline workers Frontline workers but like you know learning about your experience um you know it was traumatic on so many levels it was traumatic on a global scale and it was traumatic on a community scale and it was traumatic on a personal scale you know for a lot of people and I think what what I really respect about the way I've heard you talk about it is um no one's allowed to place judgment on anybody else's experience meaning you're the only person who got to be you going through that and that's what these kind of modalities are trying to open up for people you know many of us were told like Shake It Off like you got a roof over your head like what are you complaining about right and I'm so grateful that we all are living in a time where like we're allowed to talk about these things and we're allowed to say like this is touching on something that's older than this right like we say like if it's if it's hysterical it's historical meaning if you have a a reaction that is strong there's likely something that it's you know touching on and no one's going to have the same experience we're all completely different people and someone else in your situation might have been like I got this this is awesome right right but you're allowed to have that experience and also like that's your journey and no one can take that from you both the best parts of it and the hardest parts so I'm just you know these are the kinds of things again like this is what we talk about on our podcast like it's a human right to have this access to processing it should not just be something that wealthy people have access to it should not just be something that people who have insurance have access to this kind of processing works for a lot of people better than pH ticals that they tell you to take every day for the rest of your life and no one likes to talk about that right yeah the fact is you know we talk a lot about the psilocybin research and ketamine research and what that research is like is is it saying that some people can have a transcendental experience and some people can get there through yoga and deep meditation some people get there through holotropic breath work but sometimes one experience with a skilled therapist guiding you on a journey can help you understand understand more about your trauma than being told that you have to take a pill every day for the rest of your life that has side effects that you may not want and I've been on medication on and off since I'm 17 I don't have a particular you know prescription for what people should do there's been times when I think medication's super helpful and necessary and it can save lives absolutely but for a lot of people that's not the only answer and sometimes EMDR is and sometimes talk therapy is and sometimes exercise is you know exercise has gone like Toe to Toe with ssris and some really powerful studies sometimes getting out of your house and finding your people and finding people that care about you um you know what we talk about a lot in our podcast is you don't have to believe in God but guess what believing that there's something bigger than you is absolutely critical for your physical and mental health it's called spiritual health and we're finally hearing what is it about having gratitude that makes you healthier it's not just that you have a church function where people will serve you you know pudding if someone dies like that's not why religious people have more hope it's not because they know someone will show up if there's a funeral it's because they know that they are cared for by something bigger than themselves and what does that look like for those of us who don't believe in God right what does it look like for everybody but we're all kind of trying to touch the same thing it's just a lot of different ways to get there I happen to believe in God sorry I didn't mean to say I don't I just using an expression yeah that's great no that's it's it's so true and I think we're think we're really heading into a good a good space here I think we're like of mental health and you know learning that these things do actually work so yeah I'm hopeful I'm hopeful for us we'll be hopeful together um I know you have to go in 14 minutes okay do you want to ask her I'm keeping I'm keeping track because I I don't like keep people over you want to ask her your last question we can have into our little last segment yes so we've been talking about your podcast which we are big fans of and it's in you know the same mental health space um you have been doing it for three years now yeah couple hundred episodes and Counting yeah wow okay so you have plenty of more experience than us you are um plenty more successful than us we're just we're more educated than us yeah for sure we're just a little baby um and you know honestly we just we look up to you and what you've done with your podcast and would love to be there in a couple years since I have you trapped here and you can't go anywhere um if you could give us a piece of advice for our podcast what would it be um well first of all thank you for saying all those things um you know my my partner Jonathan Cohen is um you know he's the engine behind a lot of what drives me as a human and as a podcaster I had never listened to a podcast when we started our podcast I didn't really like I didn't really understand the format he would argue I still don't understand the format and he's probably gonna listen to this and be like see that's how you're supposed to interview people the way they did my oh please yeah um but you know I think that um it's hard it's really hard because you know it's a it's a business you know meaning you have to pay the bills you have to keep that pretty neon sign you know that's behind you lit up um so you have to kind of balance you know the way the structure of this business is it is a lot about you know numbers and like ads and you know all those things and so that stuff gets me really stressed out and I don't know Taylor if you might relate because like I'm just like a I'm like a heart with ears you know I just want to like talk to people and help people um so I'm really grateful I have Jonathan and we have an awesome producer Valerie Floyd and like she you know she handles a lot of the that stuff so that I don't get bummed out about just like the corporate like business part of it but um you know generally speaking um and I think you you already do this but you know the the level of vulnerability and honesty that I think we can have as people that can like pull eyeballs or earballs as I call them you know um the notion that we're not just airing Dirty Laundry like I'm not looking for people to be like oh this celebrity had this problem or why is she talking about this the notion is we're all part of this Human Experience and so when I choose to be vulnerable or when I choose to you know be brutally honest about things that I've experienced the reason that I do it is because I want other people to feel safe to do that for themselves and maybe it'll um lead them to further introspection maybe it'll lead them to explore therapy maybe it'll lead them to ask questions of their doctor that they didn't think they had a right to ask before um and I think you know kind of goes back to one of your early questions that that Taye asked me like you know I grew up in a time when I didn't know that it wasn't normal for people to behave the way people behaved in my home and you don't have to live like that anymore and the notion is also not you know there's a lot of conversation about this generation and like we're giving them all the mental health words and they're more depressed than ever and suicide rates are through the roof and like everybody like what are we like are we doing something wrong you know and so I think it's also important to to realize that like it's not our responsibility as podcasters right to fix everything but if there's something that we can add to the conversation that comes from an authentic place my hope is that it will open up a conversation and not feel like I'm telling people this is your diagnosis this is what you need to do like I don't know I barely know what I need to do after this you know to just like feel okay so um I think that that kind of honesty is it's really important and it's a weird culture that we have that like if celebrities say it then people will you know maybe take care of themselves more um but um you know for me I I really do I try and come from an altruistic place um Jonathan often you know tells me that just need to be more casual so you two you two seem a lot more casual than I do so I think you're ahead of me and I was like listening to how you talk and you know um I mean I'm glad that I have a partner who thinks I'm adorable you know I just sometimes when I hear people speak like casually I'm like why don't I know how to talk like that so I think you also you have you know you you have a really a lovely way of you know kind of interacting both of you together and and sort of with your guests and so I think that's um I think that's really awesome um and um yeah I think you'll always know intuitively um especially if you're an neogram 4 if you're doing it for the right reasons meaning what feels right you know and isn't driven by other things and I think just the way you started it seems so organic so thank you that that was great advice great advice for sure we're good I think we're good on l seven okay great good yeah oh now I'm curious what it was okay oh there we we have a segment that we sometimes do at the end that's like seven random questions oh I want to do it okay are you sure it could be rap we can yeah we can make them more you know rapid fire I I can be a little r i like that okay okay let's just go through it you start okay this is l seven these can be rapid fire if you want to explain something totally up to you okay but now you know sorry do you know what I'm going to think for the rest of the day and probably the week I'm gonna be like he didn't think I was fun enough to do the rapid we just don't want to keep you it's fine go ahead I'll be quick I'll be quick okay what movie or song title best describes your mental health today she's like I wish I didn't do it now right she's like why did I say I I wanted to do this Falling Down movie or songing falling okay okay there we go number two how open are you with people in your life when struggling like on a scale of one to 10 sure um I'm pretty open I think that um you know I think especially I spend a lot of time with my children and so I think there's like I've learned how to be age appropriate open because you know I grew up with like everything's fine everything's fine and I was like but I know it's not fine so when I'm not when I feel like I'm falling down I'm also just getting over a vir um but when I feel um when I don't feel great I've found a way to be age appropriately open and be like I'm having a hard day or I'm feeling super sensitive so let's not tease Mama today right or um I really really need help with the chores like I need to not ask you seven times to unload the dishwasher because I'm just like feeling like I don't have a lot of patience so let's do the chores um and that usually helps because I don't want to pretend I'm okay when I'm not like that's really what it's about and um as an actor like we're taught to like be okay when we're not okay um but with the people who are close to me I I have no choice you know but to be open and also like I'm told that I have like a cartoon face like you can tell when anything is wrong funny that's why I got Botox in my forehead because my face was really expressive I grew up dancing and I got in trouble a few times my eyebrow would raise and I wouldn't even know it was rais and they would be like excuse me and I would be like oh my gosh it literally just moves I'm so sorry so sorry I got butt oh jeez okay number three um if you could only follow three social media accounts what and who would they be can go across platforms but just three accounts I really like animals so um I I don't know that I could name a certain account but like there's one there's one that show doing things like okay I'll tell like seals sneezing oh oh specific if you I mean well that's one of the things that I really like like I like seals sneezing um I like goats making funny goat sounds so I'd want one of those accounts um one of those accounts and then um I'd love to follow my older son's Instagram but he won't let me but if I like in in the F in the fantasy world and it's I don't think there's anything um illicit and he he sometimes will show me things he's really good at he's really good at like photography and like things like that and so I would love to follow him and then for for a third one um I'd probably pick um my cousin Rebecca because she takes the most pictures of people in our family so I could see the maximum pictures of my family yes those are good answers seal sneezing I have to look that up I have to look that up very funny very cute wonder if we can like input one maybe on the screen I'm just gonna say it in hopes that one will appear on the screen it's adorable um number four is what is your favorite form of self-care I I'm I'm thinking not because like I don't have one but because there's a lot of ones that I you know choose right because it can be such a wi it can be Broad and like for some people it's like my selfcare is going to a spawn having a Mimosa like that's not my jam um my jam which that's fine if it is but I I um you know I've recently gotten into um kind of more um old school instructive meditation so learning specific medit ation techniques um and you know sometimes I I do like unguided meditation um but I happen to use the 10% happier app which um has people like Sharon salsburg and Joseph Goldstein and like some of the original um people who brought over meditation and loving kindness meditation from India and so I like learning from Old Masters and so they have all these guided meditations and their voices are just like super soothing and um and I learn techniques that I find that I'm using in the day so that's been really oh hi Remy um I found that's been really um that's been a very effective form of self-care yep that's your tush I see just giving you a good shot y it's a cute tush it's a cute tush um okay I'm gonna have to look that up 10% happier yep app that's a Dan Harris's app yeah based on his book okay very cool really good meditation we'll be looking that up all right number five what would you say is the most misunderstood thing about you um I want your honest opinion after this if you are happy that you decided to do this or not no I I am I like these um I'll say something sort of controversial um I'm a I'm I'm a liberal person meaning I identify as a bleeding heart liberal um and um I also am a person who believes that Israel has a right to exist as a country um and a lot of people believe that if I believe that Israel has a right to exist I can't be a Humane person and I can't be a compassionate person um and that's a terribly disturbing um misunderstanding of me as a human because um because my heart hurts when anyone is suffering anywhere and um to be miscategorized as um someone who would in any way you know denigrate um The Suffering of anyone in particular um in in Palestine um in Gaza um is really devastating so it's kind of a heavy one but it's true it's very very painful to have people not believe that those two things can exist totally yeah yeah yeah I think you've shown your heart how caring you are po people already so yeah sure I see it's there thank you um number six is who has had the most positive impact on your mental health my partner Jonathan Cohen 100% 100% And like in a way that I used to hate him for it and fight with him about it and I was I I have a living amends to make to him for the rest of my life for how dismissive I was of many of the practices that I am now being told by even Western doctors that I need to you know employ to maintain my mental and spiritual well-being so wow yep that's great that's beautiful all right last but not least number seven I hope it's fun and not heavy um you can take it anywhere you want is it about a giraffe okay okay go ahead it's not about a giraffe or myself if you could go back to One Moment in your life what moment would that be and what would you say to yourself um I gave birth uh without drugs and unassisted until pushing about 10 feet from where I'm sitting right now um it was the most unbelievable empowering I it was intentional I was intentionally having a home birth but there was traffic and the Midwife was late and I was by myself um and I didn't even know I was ready to push the baby out when the midwife's assistant walked in the door I didn't know I had been laboring for about 3 hours and my water never broke and so I thought I must not be ready to give birth but some people give birth without their water breaking it breaks when the baby comes out so that was my experience but I just thought I'm not ready to give birth and um I think if I could go back you know um and be able to celebrate CU like the feeling after giving birth like that you feel like you've just like won the marathon and been given billion dollar to like cure world hunger and solve the solution like like like literally create World Peace you feel so powerful in in such a you know resonant way um and I relished it I really did um there weren't Smartphones at the time so like there's like literally one photo of it um but if I could go back I would love to you know to tell myself like um how proud I am of myself that I was able to um to to do this um and I had a very very different experience from my first son's birth um and so it was very empowering to have that experience and um yeah I felt proud of myself but I think knowing what I know now about what I needed at the time I needed to hear it more yeah wow wow that's incredible I didn't I didn't know um that you could that your water didn't have to break it's called the baby's born in the call c a u l um and it's a very kind of I was told he would be a a very special mystical child and indeed he is a special child wow isn't that crazy he's pretty cool but like that's my kid that was born without my water breaking until he came out wow dang that's amazing I love that answer that's such a good answer that was perfect oh my gosh see aren't we glad we did it I can be funny are you happy I'm happy are you happy feel really happy okay perfect that's all that matters thank you so so much we really appreciate it I've you know in that short period of time learned so much from you so just really grateful thank you well thanks for having me on and can't wait to have you on myex breakdown we'll see you soon can't wait thank you guys this podcast has been brought to you by podcast Nation [Music] oh

Channel: The Squeeze

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Id: ZtdZKS2d7uo

Length: 64min 39sec (3879 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024