(00:00) record yeah my audience correct okay all right ready greetings magic mobbers welcome boys and babes it’s that time again it’s the magic hour a place where we navigate through life’s peaks and valleys with all the vulnerability and shamelessness we can muster with the help of world-class guests from all walks of life we uncover new truths and valuable tools for manifesting our highest potential i’m your host mercedes terrell along with my partner in shine jade bryce hey you guys hey hi i can’t we can’t hear you can it can you

(00:40) hear a change the lag though let’s see if it turns on usually takes like 15 seconds shoot still no um connie look in your bottom left corner where the little microphone is on the zoom i saw her just hit turn it on and off yeah you can hear me yeah hi hey hi you always have such cool jackets on you do that is your thing i like jackets the lighting’s good you’re a little quiet yeah okay check check is that better or better yeah that’s awesome okay i can do more too yeah it was weird too because zoom wasn’t even recognizing you were talking

(01:38) until you turned it up oh weird yeah now it’s picking up your face okay cool okay cool awesome hi hi how was last night it was wonderful um yeah the film have you guys seen the film because that was my first time no i read the script so i’m excited to see the film yeah yeah it’s um it comes out here next weekend in austin it comes out on the 8th so okay oh so you’re in austin yeah mercedes where are you at i’m in orange county oh perfect yeah california yeah i’m gonna get a really big group to

(02:17) go see it hopefully it has a good the first opening weekend is so important so try to promote it as much as possible yeah that’s a good idea yeah i’m super excited yeah it’s good it was really aldis does a really good job yeah i was really trying to get tom uh talk him into booking um man uh michael b jordan because i have such a big crush on him oh my gosh so beautiful if tom did pitch it to him but he was busy with um uh black panther minor project silly hero show um yeah but i i’m excited to see it with

(03:05) that actor too yeah he’s great i feel like he yeah he has something pretty special yeah yeah exciting yeah yeah so connie before we get started i want to just double check your audio is all good um have you used them before i have i have i’ve always just used it with my computer speaker okay so right now you have your microphone is the the selected microphone in that um bottom left corner and all that and then the speaker is built-in output is that how you have it i have it everything’s going through my audio

(03:41) interface um duet my duet usb so it should be going through my microphone cool all right does this sound okay to you or sounds good to me yeah right okay so we’ll read your um just your little intro and then start asking you questions okay great okay cool okay um so no so uh we record the other part later but mercedes usually just comes off saying something so this sounds a little random but i’m just gonna go into it okay it’ll make sense later awesome okay yes as a child of immigrants from china she initially performed as an

(04:26) independent artist for several years and appeared on the very first season of the television show the voice she rose to widespread attention after a video of a performance of her song quiet at the 2017 women’s march which went viral and became embraced as an anthem for the movement inspired by her own experiences with sexual assault domestic abuse and trauma as a teenager she had written the song as a way of coping along with 26 other singers she performed seven times throughout the march among the crowd where it was

(04:56) recorded and uploaded to social media garnering eight million views in just two days and shared by a number of well-known celebrities it became an anthem for victims of sexual abuse all over the world and within a month she had appeared on a number of national talk shows and signed a deal with atlantic records she says i am a survivor of abuse and anorexia and depression it’s been quite a journey getting here and that song is a thesis of my journey as a woman as an asian american and as a feminist as a human

(05:26) being who has been silenced in one way or another it’s about helping people who have felt silence reclaim their power hers are songs of empowerment and cathartic healing for the displaced and broken-hearted she reminds us all that this is not the end connie thank you for healing our hearts through your music we’re so honored to have you here today welcome to the show thank you yeah to be here yeah we’re so we’re so so so excited um can you tell us about your story that led up to the song quiet coming out of

(05:57) you yeah um so i i grew up uh in a you know a traditional home my parents both moved from hong kong um and my dad had a very like american hero dream journey where he moved here with a thousand dollars and then worked his way as a custodian and as a burger flipper and worked his way through pharmacy school then um worked his way through medical school and like this is like as if he walked uphill in the snow both ways wow yeah and he brought my mom over and my mom also was just this incredible like really strong woman she actually

(06:41) didn’t realize that she had i think close to 60 to 70 hearing loss ever since she was young she grew up in poverty and uh and so she always thought she was dumb she just thought she like didn’t understand stuff in school and finally when wow my parents were in the states and they had enough money to like go to the doctor and my dad had a suspicion like maybe you have hearing loss so my mom then gained hearing back and and you know she’s she’s come into her own as a um a woman in her 50s and 60s she’s just like it’s

(07:11) been really cool to see her renaissance but so my background is i come from two really strong hard-working parents that um saw life as you know work hard build a skill serve society and i still hold those values really true to me um i just built a skill that they didn’t think was a necessarily um practical skill um and from my dad he’s a doctor my sister’s a doctor um and my there’s a there’s many people in my family studying medicine and um true to the you know chinese american yeah that’s like tends to be a trend

(07:53) in our heritage and culture and so um i since i was very young i always felt a little bit uh like i was too much as too emotional too opinionated too loud too goofy all these things and so i i i rebelled against what my parents uh wanted from me ever since i was really young um fortunately unfortunately and uh you know like i grew up with things you know uh things like uh women with small mouths and big eyes are more attractive because they observe more and speak less and and so i remember thinking when i was younger i

(08:37) was like oh crap i’m screwed and um so music was a place where i could express everything i wanted to um because my upbringing was so strict i didn’t know how to confront people or actually express what i truly felt because i was met with a lot of restriction discipline so i was trained from an early age to like you know keep keep quiet and observe what’s going around me and be polite and be amenable to others and as a result i got really good at the blank check syndrome which is like go into a room read what the room needs and

(09:17) i’m i’m just a blank check whatever number people need i can write that in and it became as a devastatingly um useful skill but also it just like wore away at me and i ended up like you know being in my early 20s not knowing who i was at all um and on top of that when i was 14 i experienced a relationship that ended up being very abusive and um was i was like you know sexually assaulted in a relationship and so the boundaries are really blurred and i didn’t understand that i was being raped and coerced into

(09:54) physical activities i wasn’t ready for and so when i had declared that to my family like you know something’s happened with me and it’s been going on for months i was crying out for help but you know with the traditional culture what happened was that you know my parents loved me so much and i think what they didn’t mean to do this but with this traditional structure that they’ve been raised in the response was like you know i brought shame to the family so for a very long time like about 10 to

(10:27) 14 years i i just kind of felt like i brought shame to the family there’s something inherently troublesome and dirty about me and so i stood in my own way in a lot of um aspects of my life from school to to career opportunities to relationships and friendships i always had this underlying belief that there’s something inherently wrong with me and if i got too close to people people would discover how broken i was and i would eventually disappoint them so i i kept a big wall up and i kept my distance from people and eventually felt

(11:02) very isolated um and uh and so you know i i also was not allowing myself to believe in myself so if there was say a mentor that could lead me down the music industry path and that someone that i really looked up to i had that story playing in my mind he’s like well you’re broken and you’re gonna disappoint them so i wouldn’t allow myself to even like go up to them and say hi because i was like no no you don’t deserve that and you know there’s like all those self-help books and there’s questions

(11:37) like what do you believe for yourself like if you could think big with what you want and i just felt felt this like belief ceiling i felt my brain hit up against the uh glass ceiling and i was like how do i get rid of this and eventually like mid-20s i was like i want to believe that i can do more that i can that i can be a better manifestation of myself and so i thought maybe i need to like go to therapy because like i knew i was depressed i knew i had like anxiety and i knew i had eating disorders and stuff

(12:08) that i was like working through so i ended up going to therapy and i realized oh my goodness the things that i had gone through when i was younger was actually not my fault um and that was like i almost i almost had to take a step back and be like uh that’s a little indulgent connie like um but then i started playing around with the ideas like okay well i have a performance coming up but this open mic series i’m just gonna like practice and just say i’m a survivor of sexual assault and it was and i said it like really carefully as

(12:40) if i was walking on eggshells or like walking on a frozen pond and you know lo and behold the pond didn’t break beneath me people didn’t throw things at me the world did not end and people just listened and then i told my story and then i shared um shared more of me and so that was a healing process and through that therapy and practicing speaking out as a survivor i started having dreams where um i was redesigning my childhood and i had memories of my childhood and i would reconstruct how i reacted and the little

(13:19) version of me and my dreams was saying the things i wish i had said so on one particular night my abuser was hitting me and there was someone watching on the side and so i said three things in the dream that i had never said before ever ever ever even to myself was one i looked at the observer and i said this isn’t right and two i need someone to help me and the observer responded saying like well if you say if we say anything it’s gonna get worse so you should just keep quiet for now and it’ll be over soon

(13:48) and i had heard that a lot it’s like keep quiet for now be over soon so i said the third thing that i had never said i was like well i can’t keep quiet and i woke up pretty immediately after words and it was such a vivid dream and i went to the studio that day to write with one of my favorite co-writers her name is adrian gonzalez she’s an amazing engineer and producer writer and i told her about the dream and she was just her her look on her face was just very empathetic and she was like well i think that’s your song and so i

(14:24) was like what oh you mean i can’t keep quiet and so then all of a sudden just like in like the span of two to three hours this beautiful like you know string of lyrics just started pouring out of both of us and out came the song um quiet which is what i ended up singing at the women’s march and i i had written that song by the end of 2015 and i kept it to myself for all of 2016.

(14:53) is that that time like the music that was pretty big was like dance music and edm i was like i don’t know if the this song was i was protective of the song i was like it’s so i felt like if i was gonna release it it would get like crushed by this like big modern world and and i was like i don’t need it to be shared because it honestly it just helped me feel like i could breathe again yeah i think like survivors when we go through anyone who has gone through trauma or abuse like i feel like there’s this ball of energy that builds

(15:25) up in our our bodies and becomes like the for me it was like a ball of energy in my throat and if i didn’t release it it would just break me and so for years i was trying to figure out how to release this this ball of energy and i try to write all these different types of songs like don’t tell me not to cry that was one song or like you know different things but nothing really helped until i wrote this song and once i wrote that song i was like ugh i could breathe um so it didn’t matter to me if it shared

(15:56) or not but um so it sat there in my in my laptop and in my mind in my heart until i saw trump get elected and you know regardless of like political lines i just really disagreed with how he talked about women and so i was like i need to express this dissent um i don’t know how um and then a facebook event popped up about the women’s march and i was like oh wow um this looks cool like women gathering in a city expressing what we truly want for the society yes please so i immediately like rsvpds and no one really knew what

(16:36) it was but i don’t like being a bystander too much i really like creating something and offering even if i wasn’t on the stage of the women’s march i actually had applied but they um didn’t respond to me so um i’m sure they were inundated um but i was like whatever we’re just gonna go on the streets and it’ll be like more punk rock and i’ll just recruit people to sing with me and no one in la was wanting to commit to go to uh dc with me no one really knew what the women’s march was yet so i was like no problem

(17:09) i’ll just reach out to a bunch of acapella groups in the dc area wow wrote i wrote some sheet music recorded some audio files and then put it on a google drive and then we all shared the information and files and we rehearsed on skype and and then um and then we met up on the day of the march and we harmonized it was so beautiful just strangers from ages like 18 17 18 to like 40 some years old just 26 women together all different colors and shapes and sizes and so we went around and started singing the song and and then alma herrell

(17:46) happened to walk by and alma harel is a really well-known music video director and video director now movie director she happened to walk by and as she was lost we were lost too and i was like you know what screw it we’re just gonna sing this last one here and she filmed that last one that’s the one that like got retweeted by deborah messing emma watson like tegan and sarah and just accrued a lot of views in a couple days and then my life kind of changed um yeah so that’s the long story long amazing it’s amazing though and i’m sure it

(18:22) seems obvious why that song went viral um especially at the time that it did but what’s what do you think is the reason that it did and and what did it feel like for you when that all happened when your life changed i questioned like why is this happening you know this is such a i was just gonna go you know it’s not like edgy and super cool like we were singing acapella on the streets you know um and it was unknown song and it was like kind of a mid-tempo ballad so i was very surprised but then i kind of took a step

(18:56) back after a few weeks because the whirlwind was just like i don’t even know and but i looked at it and you know i wrote that song because i didn’t feel safe in my body i didn’t feel safe in my home i didn’t feel safe in my childhood and i think that is a micro version of a lot of us not feeling safe in our cities or our governments our nation um and this type of unsafety this like feeling of not being safe is actually pretty universal right now i think a lot of countries are experiencing kind of this rise of of hate and fear

(19:37) and also this rise of love trying to counteract it so it felt very um spiritual to me i i now i think about destiny i think about how i there was a light shining and i just happened to hold the prism at the right moment in time and just like a rainbow ricocheted from that um and you know about being there by chance or not you know depending on how we view life um and i also am very very sure that when a person um achieves healing or not achieves but when a person dares to heal him or herself he or she or they develop um this natural ability to heal

(20:26) others without even trying and um so so mine i think one of my main philosophies in life is like inner peace begets outer peace um and you know as as we feel pretty worn out by the news and activism and all these different things the good news about what artists can do is that sometimes if we just help people heal their own stories the the peace will resonate um outwards naturally and so that’s where i’m kind of sitting right now yeah wow i love that thanks taking it all in right she’s like light subject matter

(21:13) real light this episode no it’s all very very needed and yeah very uh just hits for the heart so you kind of just gotta sit for a second yeah i i i like joke that i’m a scuba diver like oh my god yeah that’s so weird connie because it’s literally in our intro of you we talk about what yes well in the intro i say um we got to put on our scuba gear because connie goes deep wait you literally say that literally we say that wait listening audience just so you know we we record those intros before our guest gets on with us so she

(21:53) has no idea that we really i don’t know if you had like used that term with tom but i had talked with tom and we like joked about that and so i put it in the intro and then mercedes was like where the hell did you get this from oh yeah because i i actually did okay so that’s how it happened maybe because i i like told tom i was like well if you want to hang out with me you gotta get out your scuba gear because you’re going deep that’s really good i might start saying that before my first date [Music]

(22:26) we’re reading the invitation as soon as you arrive hold your nose we’re going oh that sounds worse going down doesn’t it yeah yeah translate on it i mean it could if you want whatever you want oh my god well your your music does already say so much but as a victim of abuse um what do you want to tell other survivors when it comes to healing i think that like you know one thing this is not from me i actually heard this from oprah at mountain film [Music] um healing healing cannot happen until the trauma is

(23:07) acknowledged and um and i think for anyone who is has experienced uh abuse some of us don’t even know we have yet it may be just a feeling of discomfort or self-blame i think if like you’re walking around in the world feeling like you’re doing something wrong by being then maybe something has happened in your life to make you believe that um and and and that you know we all we all are enough and that is something that i have had to teach myself over and over again um i feel like if some people are walking around the world trying to

(23:48) prove their value through accomplishments and beauty or different things there’s also maybe it’s time to slow down and look at why and so i think sometimes people don’t even know they were abused and it takes a while and that’s that’s okay it took me 14 years to acknowledge that and you know some people take longer than that and we’re all kind of on our own timelines but yeah yeah was it hard for you and your adult relationships to open your heart due to that abuse oh my goodness yes i just i like like to

(24:23) get super real and like very like let’s get into nitty gritty yeah recently got into a relationship where i realized like when i was getting intimate with a partner um i would naturally villainize them in a very subconscious way um like i would assume that that my partner was there just to please himself and then i would say things to shame that part partner like okay like this is it is this like a can you get like okay as you want okay beauty of podcast okay so so like you know i think because i was 14 and i experienced um

(25:06) sex in a way that the guy was using me for his own pleasure i have dated wonderful men in my life but if they like if they came before i did i would assume that they were just using me to get there but maybe they didn’t want to and they felt so embarrassed but in my head naturally oh okay i see you i relate to that a lot do you relate to that yeah and i actually have said things to partners to shame them and i’ve looked and it just happened in my recent relationship and the person was like expressed to me like hey so by the

(25:39) way you know you kind of like pointed out that and it like made me feel really bad because i really didn’t want to i really wanted to please you but i just like i couldn’t i couldn’t hold out i gotta keep it together and i felt so bad because i actually remember saying things but it was like my inner wounded younger woman saying that to my abuser but i have been bringing it to all these past relationships so i think about the recent relationships i’ve had and i was like man i think i’ve shamed each of them

(26:10) and i not on purpose you know sure so it’s kind of a powerful realization because then i’m like oh wow like it goes both ways like these people that i get into relationships with too just want to be loved as well it’s not just like me and my feelings you know yeah yeah mine is so complicated um because i was molested um for about a year starting at age 12.

(26:36) and i noticed that when i started i wasn’t sexual until i turned 21 actually and i was pretty prude after that because the person who first found out about the abuse when i was 14 her response was i bet you liked it i bet you liked his fingers and you and so it gave me this feeling of like disgust with anything sexual so i became very prude but then when i turned 21 and did become sexual it still felt um i still felt so much shame and then i ended up a lot of years just dating sex addicts back to back actually but it was all

(27:15) about them and so i did what you what you said um and real i relate to that a lot but i i just more turned it into resentment towards them and kind of like um like i wasn’t worthy of being able to feel the sexual pleasure because it was like for me it was shameful it’s it’s kind of hard to articulate but it turned into actual um like sexual oppression um suppression for me um to where i had to really take some time to enjoy being sexual by myself for a while to where i was allowing myself to feel pleasure and then and

(27:53) then now i’m still searching for that and a partner i don’t know that’s um yeah thanks for sharing that i can relate to that a lot i feel like because when we get abused our boundaries get blurred and then we no longer know who to trust like can we even trust ourselves and can we trust these partners or with so i felt resentment too but i would like harbor the resentment silently and then come out in weird ways so um yeah i i now am like learning about pleasure and being present and what’s helped me is like deep breathing

(28:30) actually like throughout the day trying to find sensuality within everything i do actually yeah because you know like i after my episode i actually became overly sexualized because i was like oh well that was taken away from me no big deal no big deal that my virginia’s taken away like sex doesn’t matter it’s like nothing and so i would try to prove that by engaging in a lot of it and pretending i didn’t care right yeah yeah what about so you said you struggled with body images well what would you say

(29:08) to those struggling with body image [Music] i remember being at the apex or nearing the the climax of my my anorexia i was in high school it was like my freshman year and this woman came to school and she was talking about eating disorders and i asked her as like when does it go away like when does it end and she said it doesn’t really ever end it just kind of changes and i’m not sure about that perspective because i think saying that it never ends is is kind of a daunting thing as a kid to hear but at the same time i

(29:50) also appreciated her saying that because then i was ready for the long journey of healing so maybe i would say that it’s a it takes a it can take a very very long time and the body image issues will morph into different things um and you know i would like binge and overeat at times and then be super anorexic and um it’s like when we overeat because something is eating at us and i think the truth is like it’s a sense of this anxiety and and self-worth and i that practicing of of breathing and kind of um

(30:31) uh being with the body and dancing or just even putting a song in the living room and just kind of like flowing and stuff can be super therapeutic um and and also our bodies are really capable of changing and adapting so for a long time i thought you know i’m not capable of being strong i’ve just been like anorexic and thin and weak and stuff but like now i do crossfit and i really enjoy having a relationship with my body and watching it and honoring it and so and listening to my body rather than trying to control and

(31:06) suppress and and silence it um because the body’s a really good teacher so wow and that reminds me um really a bridge between what you’re talking about there with struggling um or past struggles with body image but also uh what you said about breathing into your sensuality and and taking the time and space for your body to do that it reminds me of a previous guest we had um london angel winters who said to relax your tongue so like in any moment you can remember relax your tongue and it not only relaxes you all the way down into your

(31:43) your nether regions yeah um but it just tight it’s a mindfulness practice practice you know ties you into your actual body so you’re thinking so minutely on what you’re where you’re holding tension in your body that’s amazing i love that um yeah as a singer too um i’m really grateful for the practices that i learned in terms of breathing like when we breathe and we are our chest raises we’re actually constricting our breath our chest should actually be pretty still and the movement should be

(32:14) coming from our our stomach can push out because our diaphragm is pushing down the muscle right underneath our lungs and actually our lungs stretch all the way back towards our ribs so if you put your hands behind on your ribs like your our lungs are back there as well and so when i breathe i try to push against my the back of my ribs and take deeper breaths that way and and for singing clench jaws because i was really stressed as a kid and anxious um i i would like grind my teeth and and so when i would sing i had like

(32:45) a really small like opening so my teacher said hey like stop chewing gum and also and and be aware of how you’re clenching your jaw so actually most of the time when i’m at rest my teeth are not closed all the way like i kind of leave a little space between my teeth so that there’s like a relaxedness i need to do that yeah i need to do that we’re all stretching our job feels good but that that does remind me of um jade and i you know we spent a long career modeling and especially standing on stage sometimes under the

(33:24) hot lines of film and all that and you probably know too thinking about yeah thinking about how to you know look a certain way even though you may not feel that way so specifically for me a big part of where my own panic and anxiety was born was on stage after years of doing this and finally it caught up to me basically what you’re talking about you know is only breathing in the top half of your lungs so because when you’re sucking in and you’re trying to look like you have a flat stomach and you’re trying to hold

(33:56) a posture and smile and you know clench your teeth together and all those things your body’s going are we in a seriously dangerous situation here because it feels like it’s right for hours at a time and eventually it causes that you know flight or fight fight or flight response and uh then and then you have a breakdown like me and you figure out that you need to breathe better right yeah that’s so interesting because you know i can relate to that i’m sure we all can like when i grew up i i felt this pressure to

(34:28) look a certain way and i think that’s like one of the top forms of shaming women is is through body shame and then for men is through vulnerability and that’s what brene brown says and um i really do appreciate you know but billy eilish the way she dresses she dresses in really baggy clothes um and she’s kind of like her one of the reasons i’ve heard um is because she doesn’t want people to be judging on her on how her body is like how it because she’s like i want to be able to gain and lose weight

(34:57) and in peace yeah i think nicki minaj one time said let me fat in peace yeah that’s so funny um i i always wonder about the balance you know like do i cloak myself in billy eilish sweats do i allow myself to wear a little crop top you know it’s so interesting you know i’m trying to i’m in a phase right now trying to take back that agency and because i i dress like a tomboy these days like i i it’s been like this armor for me and i think right now i’m allowing myself to kind of let down the

(35:26) guard a little bit it’s like how do i bring that femininity back yeah because i don’t want to hide it for others like i want to be able to just do whatever if i want whatever you want i had two c-sections back-to-back like in 12 months apart from each other and so and my skin was just stretched out so i still wear crop tops even though i’ve got the belly button of a yeah i know like i don’t know if it shows on film but i’ve got loose skin around my belly button and i’ll still wear crop tops knowing that like that’s

(35:56) completely visible just because this is what i really want to wear and i really like this outfit and i’m proud of what my body did and i wasn’t able to do that a couple years ago but now i don’t i just feel like i i am hoping it’ll make other people more comfortable too yeah they’re post baby bodies and where what they think makes them feel sexiest even if it doesn’t look the way that it looks in instagram maybe but i love that i feel you connie on like because i think because i work in this

(36:27) realm where i i pretend to be this super hyper feminine woman even when i’m not always that person you know for for work for modeling purposes when i’m not doing that i tend to have very masculine clothes and dress much more masculine and i’m more attracted to the colors in that realm i don’t wear pink almost ever you know and it’s it’s not because i don’t like those colors or anything like that i think it’s just one of those things like i have to have some sort of balance and that’s where i

(36:55) decide to to find it yeah wow so go ahead i was gonna say that i i can i think that balance is really healthy like allowing ourselves to play with different energy levels like the masculine energy and the feminine energy and i hope that that men and genders in between can play with whatever energies they want i love that i love the way you said that i think that that’s part of you know these these terms are getting thrown around too much but i think that’s part of lifting our men up from this culture of toxic

(37:32) masculinity that they’ve grown up in for so long into you know call it modern masculinity or healthy masculinity or whatever you want to call that but where they can reside somewhere that it’s okay to explore the balance that is within them you know the masculine feminine the yin yang and the alpha omega and all those things that make us these that can make us these amazing incredibly balanced humans that do good in the world because when we’re super imbalanced and we’re we’re um extreme to any regard it seems to

(38:09) do negative you know it seems to be the opposite for us so yeah it always comes back to balance like when i deconstruct like different ways like when i’m not when i feel like i might be pushing too hard or something it always comes back to balance um so i think that’s a really really wise thing it really it really does i like i know that sounds so cliche like dude just balances everything better gotta come back dude every time so this kind of um bleeds into our next question here and this question is i guess i’m gonna say it’s of incredible

(38:47) interest to me because it brings light to so much of what we’re trying to do with this podcast which is to highlight both sides of an issue give it equal space to be worked through balance as it were and since we’re in the middle of this conversation with you about you know stepping into our strengths as a woman and your song was so much about that and so much a part of that movement um including the momentum of the the hashtag metoo movement you know no longer keeping quiet about the harms that have been done on to us

(39:18) i feel like this is kind of the perfect moment to bring up that a close friend friend of all three of ours tom shadyac premiered a film just last night that you attended the premiere called brian banks um heart-wrenching true story about a young high school football star with a promising future in the nfl who was wrongfully accused of rape and spent over 10 years in prison on and on strict parole before the woman who accused him confessed that her entire story was fabricated so i’m curious of what your thoughts are regarding this

(39:54) predicament especially in relation to the recent pressures i guess i’ll call pressures the the hashtag metoo movement has brought upon our judicial system that’s a really good question um so i watched brian banks last night at the premiere uh for the first time and you know the whole team behind the movie has actually been doing screenings with like women in entertainment to understand like how how is this how does this come off like are we being respectful and i think their intentions of being respectful and

(40:30) to create nuanced conversation in a mainstream movie um i really do applaud them i think um i think it was really wise of them to um you know choose to wait to release this movie and to allow for the metoo movement to really really like continue its momentum and at this point i think it is a really great time to bring in nuanced conversations about how the metoo movement can look i think that you know personally pointing a finger and identifying someone who is a you know a predator um it is a as a crucial step in the healing process but it is not the

(41:18) end step um i think the end step is uh to figure out how we can heal our men and heal our women in in the society and um there are also the nuanced uh parts of the metoo movement where there are false accusations and the percentage is super small and you know i when i watched this movie i felt like the focus was actually about how our justice system is not working for a lot of our americans especially um our brothers uh our black brothers and um just men of color who who are you know you know brian banks was 16 and he was tried as an adult and

(42:03) um and you know they were 16 years old we we’ve all we’ve all made mistakes uh in our teen years and you know for for the for the girl to accuse him i i can empathize you know and so i think in the film they have a couple of female characters that help round out this conversation there is another character um who becomes like a love interest who shares her story of being raped and um and there’s empathy with her story as well so i think the point is is that trauma comes in and shows its face in many different ways

(42:41) and forgiveness and empathy and compassion are very important in these nuanced conversations why you know i don’t believe in i don’t believe in shaming um and shaming people who have done harm i think we we need to identify them and to hold them accountable and also then to figure out how do we what’s their story yeah yeah exactly because hurt people hurt people so let’s identify where the hurt is and i don’t yeah i think i was very protective of the the female character who you know um accused brian banks in this film and

(43:20) um and i i feel like they did a respectable job of portraying that and um i’m curious to hear what other people think too but i do think it’s important for us to stand in the gray and to have detailed nuanced conversations if we are going to post about something online we cannot just blanket statement we really have to take the time to burn those calories to write the extra words to write the extra details because we need that specific information and this film does that yeah i love that you say stand in the gray

(43:59) that’s yeah that’s our bio it’s journey into the gray with us yeah oh well we’re very aligned naturally so i mean what is it that we i guess you kind of answered it there but maybe you have something more to elaborate on what we do to better address the issues around rape so that this type of thing doesn’t continue to happen um i think that that’s a really great question and i i think that listening has always been has lately been the most powerful answer that i can find with any um with any tension i feel about the world

(44:39) and i’m trying to understand how i fit in it and i’m like do i go and do i sing for them do we flash mob do i write them so i’m like or i can just listen i can just read and give people you know and you know there’s a phrase of like we must believe all women i think rather i think it’s we must listen to all women and and give people the respect and the space we must listen to all men and all genders in between listening um i think listening is one of the most advanced skills um that we haven’t quite developed yet as a

(45:18) society and i think we’re learning i think a lot of us are actually focusing on that i’m sure you you guys have had conversations about listening uh because there’s a lot of power sometimes we will like have conversations and where sometimes i’ll be like thinking about what i’m going to say before someone has even ended their story and then i now i just go i’m sorry i was in my head can you say that last part again because i really need to capture what you said because there’s a lot of

(45:44) yeah god or slash the devils in the details and it’s really important for us to give space for people to be able to share their details yeah that resonates very deeply i know with both jade and i but um i think that one of the most feminine things you can do you know speaking of the feminist movement is to be the person who does receive you know so to speak is that actually the person taking things in so listening and and for like you said all genders all types everybody being the the listener and the person who’s

(46:23) willing to take the time and energy because it’s energy spent when you do this to see and hear people clearly so that they can feel for the maybe the first time ever that they have been seen and heard and so that they know their story has been delayed yeah and and relate authentically you know and when you give people that type of space that allows them to come with their most authentic self i think too instead of trying to you know be this showboat or trying to be this thing just because they want to be seen so so badly

(46:54) um and and it comes to mind the the saying we say a lot on the show you know be interest did not interesting which man that’s like a super power in itself you know and that basically means listen [Laughter] it truly does and it’s so funny like the song that you know essentially introduced me to you both is the choruses i can’t keep quiet and i think that’s a great a great necessary step for for especially women or people who have been silenced and then yeah i’m like now i’m i’m gonna keep i’m gonna choose

(47:31) to be quiet right in this moment because i need to learn there’s so much to learn when the song went viral i was like i have so much to learn and people are like your voice of the resistance is like no absolutely um i’m just one of the many in this choir and if i don’t listen to what other notes other people are saying you know my my note will be off and there’s some dissonance yeah yeah so yeah my that chorus is in my head all the time and my three-year-old rewrote it when she read it too he said

(48:05) i cannot sing like you thinks i want a bottle but my mama says no your your three-year-old daughter she would wrote that oh gosh to your exact tune my son sings the chorus the way that you have it and then my daughter sings it that way she just wants her model uh yeah i know before we move on to our question from our magic mob i was curious um you covered the song um i think it’s from the 80s um ooh child and it’s it for those who haven’t heard it it goes something like um ooh child things are going to get easier

(48:51) ooh child things are going to get brighter um someday we’ll be walking in the rays of the beautiful sun and i was curious what brought you to cover that because your music is so much about um you know overcoming abuse and uh you know making it through as a survivor and that song um touches home for me there in that place of my life because i remember this is just one of many examples but i remember being about three or four and coming out of um me and my parents we shared a bedroom coming out of the bedroom in the middle

(49:27) of the night and seeing my birthday just laying in his vomit and there were just drugs everywhere and multiple strange men everywhere and um my mom picked me up and we left to go to a hotel and i remember going into hote into a hotel and her saying we can’t afford a hotel after all so we went back like into our little beat up orange car and she sang that song to me to like make me feel better but every time that my birth dad would abuse us she would sing that song it’s so it’s so interest like how i

(49:58) already um feel when i hear your music and then to hear you sing that song and i wasn’t even expecting and it just came on spotify it just it just broke me so i’m curious how how you came to cover it wow thanks for sharing that um yeah you know uh child was originally by the five stair steps and and then it just got covered by so many different artists um it’s such a classic and i love songs that are like lullabies that you can sing without music and they just easily come out and um i actually um was tapped by alma herrell

(50:36) to work with her on a song to help honor mothers um because she was um she became the first woman asked to direct procter gamble’s olympics commercial um and then so she wanted to bring an emotional um voice onto the commercial when she first called me she’s like hey do you want to do a commercial with me as like oh commercial music oh god i don’t know i just write like these emotional tunes i don’t know but she’s like we’re looking for an emotional tune i was like great i can do that and so we were talking about like

(51:12) the the project was to honor all these different mothers that spend their days like protecting protecting their children and and advocating for their children from disabled children to children going through abuse or poverty and um and so we we went through and we we decided that uh child was gonna be the best song just it’s so timeless and as a music a nerd the the chords that are used for the song are very unexpected and um very non-traditional and super genius so they just this song has taught me a lot and it’s such a simple tune it

(51:54) grounds me and it happened to also come during you know the march for our lives movement and looking at the kids rising and so when i sing that song i actually picture them singing it to me like i do feel like our youth do take care of us sometimes so it’s like this interesting kind of our greatest teachers right yeah yeah but um yeah so that song then took on a life of its own so actually the way that i decided to record it was because of alma and my friendship that budded from the women’s march and then our desire to honor mothers

(52:30) so it makes sense because that song is tied with you and your mom yeah wow well our our uh magic mob sent in a question also on one of your songs and this is a song i haven’t um heard yet so maybe you can break down where what what it’s about yeah generally uh lacey on instagram says her song so connie’s song black sheep gives me so much strength it’s like a song to my inner child i love i’d love to hear her story behind it so oh that’s really cool so black sheep is a song where i go like

(53:09) look up you’re not alone you’ll make a home of your own um and you know take these sticks and stones and build a home of your own it is one of the ideas and every warrior grows from her battles and scars don’t don’t you know that i love you the way that you are and i’m really proud of that song because i was able to write it for myself it was like a love letter to myself and i don’t think i would have been able to write it a day earlier than the day that i wrote it um because quiet went

(53:42) viral then i realized i wasn’t alone because i felt very alone i’ve always felt this black sheep narrative always been different from my family i always felt like i’m a scuba diver right like and i need deep connection and with my family we connect in other beautiful ways but with the depth that i require to feel love um as a kid i just was left wanting for more i didn’t realize how lonely i felt all the time um so once quiet went viral i met all these other black sheep all over the world and and people would call me sister and what

(54:18) i realized is that my family is actually this global family and and so that was a lot of healing like you know laci’s probably part of this journey of mine of feeling less alone if she has been part of like any social media interaction with me um yeah so then i felt this like hope and this strength and i was like able to sing from a place of like oh this is you’re gonna find a home because i started finding my home within the world and within my body again you know i was like oh i can this is me like i these are my thighs these are

(54:55) these are my hips and this is my throat that’s sang this song and these are the people around that like also understand this song and that are messaging me and calling me sister so i’m okay i love that so much it really does sound like a wise woman like i said before on the show we all have an inner child and a wise woman and when we grow and heal our wise woman then teaches our inner child to not react in um conflict the way that you know our inner child is like crying out and with anxiety and stuff and that song

(55:28) really does sound like this like inner this inner wise woman that’s like soothing her inner child and like loving on her i love i love the inner child and uh wise women um i love that dichotomy that you’re you’re talking about because i do feel that way i have my wise woman sits on the left side of my brain so when i meditate i actually hear both voices talking to each other um and i kind of observe the conversation and my wise woman is to my left and my inner child’s to my right and that’s really really interesting i i was

(56:06) i was saying that it’s like a darker voice in it like my ego and my my optimistic voice but i like the wise woman a lot more i’m going to take that thank you that you’re because your left is your feminine side and your right is your masculine that’s what that’s what um is taught you know spiritually is that this represents your your um feminine so that’s interesting that you already had your wise woman over there and then your inner child on your masculine yeah that’s so interesting

(56:34) what does your spiritual life look like i am super spiritual um i am i did not i so i grew up with the religion of buddhism um in the uh and it’s a more superstitious practice from on my parents side it’s like ritualistic where you go to the temple burn incense and there are these gods that like we put um incense on um and you know bow to and it was so many it was so ritualistic and also i just i remember being like 11 and telling my mom i looked her in the eyes when we were at the temple i was like mom i don’t really

(57:10) believe this and i don’t want to do it this way and i will forever love my mother for giving me that freedom she’s like okay um and so i found my own way um i feel like the universe is very connected um and you know i think there’s a lot of wisdom in nature nature feels like a really beautiful teacher like nature doesn’t hoard doesn’t take more than it needs and the things in nature that do that end up dying off and trees teach me a lot because they’re so communal and they pass nutrients through their roots and

(57:45) really take care of each other and so i feel like you know um i i feel like there is a beautiful force that gifts us with darkness and we turn those darknesses into gifts and into how we heal each other so yeah it’s a it’s a spiritual way of looking at things and um the older i get the the more the more i look at the world that way so yeah yeah wow i like that yeah so we have a pick your poison we do this on every show since we’re the magic hour mr poison from ray on facebook he asks would you rather know the uncomfortable

(58:28) truth of the world or believe a comforting lie i would rather hands down know the uncomfortable truth of the world um and so much growth there’s so much growth yes and like so much potential to to understand and to challenge myself there’s this type of lethargy that comes with this comfortable lie um and i don’t feel comfortable with that extra weight of of safety yeah yeah i feel like the exact same way yeah i mean i feel that that’s a big part of you know even what this show is about is digging up some uncomfortable truths

(59:12) you know we call it seek the pain for positive gain but i will say that some days i know look let me live in this lie for a minute like i just need to chill for a minute yeah balance is everything right like we just said i have a poster on my wall now and my friend yumi sakugawa is this amazing like spiritual illustrator and storyteller she has this illustration of cartoon lungs and says sometimes it’s okay if the only thing you did today was breathe and that within itself is activism too because you know who says that we have to always

(59:52) be plugged in we’re like you know the act of just choosing yeah what we want to do in that moment is is activism um as long as it’s done out of love and especially self-love i take like news fast like i’ll spend i’ll be like okay it’s time for a news fast i did a news fest for a week and a half and then stretch to two weeks i was like that’s too long i was like okay i need to come back to the world how did you go to catch up so now it’s like three days i’ll do three days of newscasting and i’ll allow

(1:00:24) myself to be that person that doesn’t know what’s going on and i’m actually practicing to not pretend i know things like when someone’s like did you hear about the thing i was like no i did not and just allowing myself to just not be the most informed at that moment and just so that i can be present with people because i feel like my activism is like listening and honoring people in the moment and sometimes the news because it is profit driven um does not serve us well in that sense yes plus we need to to fill our cup back up

(1:00:59) i mean sometimes we need a little as long i feel like if if we’re doing um if we’re being conscious about where we’re taking breaks and how we’re taking the break whatever you know if it’s a news fast or whatever that’s the mindfulness there the consciousness that you’re you’ve got going behind that is what’s going to bring you back round so that the big picture is that you’re going to continue to progress and move forward on whatever your plan is or the goal or you know the betterment of all

(1:01:27) or whatever your services yeah right i love that did you connect with sophia bush at mountain film yeah and i’ve met her through i i’m gonna do this again this year but this is together live it’s not in austin i’m so bummed it is i think oh houston it’s in houston i know yeah i’ll look at the date and maybe maybe yeah let me know if you want to come i do want to come okay um the together live tour together together live okay so many people that are like they um [Music] i don’t even know what to call them they

(1:02:03) just uh like they keep the light you know light workers yes the light workers um cheryl straight um glennon doyle her wife you sophia there’s so many it’s only missing ellen oprah yeah um but yeah no i will i would love to go to that um but yeah you you remind me of sophia a lot so that’s why i asked oh that’s so cool yeah i i remember listening to her on stage that’s a compliment because you know during the tour i listened to her speak and after a backstage i was like i really love your brain and your heart

(1:02:43) i’ll have the same you don’t have the same brain in heart so i’m basically just really into myself i’m like the ladies i love you that’s really funny but it’s why you recognize it that’s what i was gonna say yeah oh all right so there’s a few short questions we like to ask everyone who comes on the show so first off if you could hug your younger self right now what would you say um i would say i would say to keep singing just keep singing yeah all the time how old are you then you’re talking to um i would say

(1:03:26) like six seven yeah yeah just to allow that to be and and i i used that as my way of healing and seeing the world and so i would just you know maybe i would say like listen to that voice that says you’re a singer because i it’s on the left side of my brain again like whenever i was a kid people like what do you want to be when you grow up and i had a little voice i’d be like a singer and i would suppress it i thought life was like you have this voice on the left side of your head and you just silence it and then you say

(1:03:57) what other people what you say i thought that was what life was and then i realized that it doesn’t have to be that way so interesting yeah if you could whisper sorry if you could have the whole world read one book which would it be oh that’s a really good one um oh man i don’t know why this is coming up but the giving tree oh my kids love that book so much yeah i think there’s like something really heartbreaking and also very real about people who give and such a beauty and to understand the taking and then the the

(1:04:41) receiving and the sick the the interdependence we have together i think it’s just a great book to understand like to teach empathy like how much people can are able to sacrifice for each other and how much nature sacrifices for us and how we inherently are a bit of takers as humans and so to be conscious of that yeah man i love that yeah so that’s just such an interesting concept too because i feel like we’re always trying to divide ourselves between you know who’s a taker and who’s a giver

(1:05:13) and again comes back to balance all right if you could whisper one phrase to everyone on the planet what would it be i would say um i mean i say this to myself all the time and you are enough you know um yeah i know it’s like not them you know it’s it’s out there that that phrase is out there in the world but it’s a good one yeah yeah i think it’s out there because we need it yeah it’s and it’s going around because people are like you know what i really needed to hear that so i’m

(1:05:51) saying it out loud yeah there’s a recent one that i’ve been like going back in my journals and stuff and i was doing some dream analysis and then from one of them came this quote is a storm is a rainbow’s chance to visit earth so i’ve been i’ve been thinking about that a lot too i like i like that a lot i like it so visual yeah i love ambrose i have a rainbow necklace on yeah um connie before we let you go where can people find you online you can find me um on instagram at milk music m-i-l-c-k music

(1:06:28) um and on facebook i’m mostly active on instagram and then i send out handwritten um email blasts like i’ll scan in handwritten letters with illustrations yeah so that’s like i call it the gentle rebel mailing list and so they can go out at milkmusic.com and look there and um and sign up for that there um i also have a site called i can’t keepquiet.

(1:06:55) org where people are sharing their stories of survival and oh wow and people are responding to the the stories with art um so people can check that out the site is pretty rudimentary right now um and i want to evolve it but it it the content is all there so if people are searching for stories or just wanting to think about how they want to share their own like that’s a good starting place and i do um we did hear how your name milk came to be your singing name came to be um but i love the idea that it’s you know mother’s

(1:07:32) milk is so nourishing and thinking of it yeah it’s it’s uh how do you explain it the letters of your last name spelled backwards l-i-m and then your first two initials yeah and then lck right yeah yeah what my family gave me making it my own but not abandoning what they gave me honoring it um and then yeah and then it’s like what females create to nourish the next generation yeah yeah well connie your work and and the way you’re relaying your personal story so openly with the world with us today

(1:08:07) is helping people heal so i just want to say thank you so much for for showing us how to use our stories and our own creative expression to bring more light into this world thank you thank you yay so much connie that was that was really really amazing i almost cried like ten times you’re good at this interviewing thing yeah you both are good yeah it’s fun i love it i thought i used to question i was like should i be a performer i’m such an introvert but like i love these types of conversations like

(1:08:45) okay i can do this and you guys are good at it you’re like an ambivert uh yes because i’m i’m closed in around small talk but then conversations like these i’m like yes yeah that’s such a good way of describing it i i identify with that yeah oh wow yeah small talk i’m just kind of like yeah and i would shame myself about it until i took the quiz and saw like on paper okay this is who i am i can honor this and i can make decisions respecting this because before i would like be so hard on myself if i didn’t want to go

(1:09:21) with someone to a bar or like go to a party that was going to you know not be exactly what i was looking for so um yeah so ever since i just i found out i was an ambiver it’s been a lot easier to be one yeah help sometimes put it into a box in our head yeah like yeah yeah yeah you can identify it yeah for sure it’s so nice to like hang with you yeah yeah i was talking to tom he’s like you’re gonna really enjoy their podcast oh yeah he listens to every show i’m sure he’s going to love this one of course

(1:09:57) yeah we’ll see wow this is great yeah you don’t have to do anything luckily we’re um we’ve got all the audio and everything so we used to have to like walk the guests through sending us their audio and thank god we figured this out so that’s awesome yeah yeah let me know when you post it and they’ll help share thank you and i’ll message you um about the houston event because i would totally love to go yeah and then i’ll i’ll have like a couple guest lists so like if you come yeah how

(1:10:26) far is that from three hours but it’s nothing to be able to do that so okay cool yeah you can come and meet people backstage yeah oh my god okay awesome thank you so much houston uh houston i thought you said oh yeah i’m in dallas like a lot of times a year so that’s why i was asking oh you are why are you in dallas we have a show in thackerville uh with the fight organization i work for which is like the border of dallas it’s in oklahoma technically but we fly into doubt she’ll be here in next in

(1:10:56) september next month already um because we’re doing an event a podcast event where we do connection exercises with people like eye gazing and some touch and things like that um so um if you’re around we’ll have to look at that this september 14th okay okay i’m gonna be in nashville september third to seventh and i’m gonna go to memphis to visit yes go to mexico you are i’m sure yeah have you have you all been to rocks no a couple times yeah okay okay the happiest place yeah we’re working on um an episode on that

(1:11:32) right now we interviewed chris tom’s you know one of them yeah yeah yeah so we’re working on getting that out there he’s so spicy that one yeah it took a lot of editing really that’s why it’s not out yet but get out to help to help also with fundraising so oh you both like like just hearts of gold i’m learning so much i feel like i just like tapped into this amazing community of people yeah that mountain film it’s crazy i’m i mountain film has added so much beauty and magic to my life it’s crazy

(1:12:09) that it’s just one event because it’s added like a lifetime worth of beauty to my life like thailand and ireland no no what telluride was until tom took me we were both heartbroken so we went there for new year’s together we helped each other amend each other’s hearts yeah let’s come back in may for mountain film and i i couldn’t stop going ever since but i’ve i don’t see those people in between mountain films and then when i’m there it’s like i just feel like nothing happened in between that so i’m sure i

(1:12:41) hope you’re joining next year i’m a regular now it was such a good experience i want to bring some like some of my dear friends there too you have to check it out yeah it’s life-changing yeah um well all um i’ll shoot i have your number so i’ll shoot you the promo videos when we get them and then um find out i’ll look up the houston event text you about that and then uh let me know oh do we need to do anything do we want to ask about music for putting on the end like putting well you said it was okay and tell you

(1:13:16) right if we if we play quiet at the end of this is that yeah okay yeah yeah okay we have it on okay cool thank you so much for doing this connie yeah thank you thanks both of you great work yeah we will definitely okay bye bye all right um all right all right so go ahead because i’m gonna do mine first since it kind of comes off the end so you kind of lead us into that i really i really had to fight back tears a lot during this one i could see it on you oh really yeah i mean there were multiple times where i

(1:14:02) was like if you cry you’re gonna it’s it’s gonna flow it’s not gonna stop it’s gonna be a flood so just chill take some deep breaths continue with the conversation yep relax your tongue relax yourself i did i didn’t have to do that that helps with crying but i feel like it might i’m gonna try that it did funny yeah i like i mean i like the thing is like lately i’ve been like okay well if i need to cry then i need to like go cry do my thing you know i normally let myself cry yeah whatever i cry wherever

(1:14:33) i cry all the time but for the purpose of this interview now you sound like a psycho i like crying every day no i do i cry when i watch ellen she makes me so happy i just cry it is really therapeutic it is like an actual release yeah i know i like crying but um but any not nothing i haven’t cried in a while let me go take a bite of wasabi anyhow what’s your magic trick today get on with it okay uh magic trick today speaking of quiet like connie song my magic trick is how to turn traffic into a sacred place for

(1:15:15) reflection and i could tell you that i have spent so many hours of my life sitting in this glorious la traffic so um i consider myself a bit of an expert on this subject so it might seem a little bit obvious but i think that many people actually sit and like stew in traffic and pissed off all while knowing that being that all while knowing that that’s not going to change anything so what if you could look forward to traffic instead of being super upset about it what and that’s not what i want to say at all sorry about this john we’re going

(1:15:57) to fix it right now um so i think many people actually sit and stew while in traffic even though they know that that’s not going to do anything to change the situation so what if you could look forward to traffic instead by making it the place you get some of your most important self work done like that would be pretty cool just instead of um thinking of traffic as the bane of your existence you look at it as actually the the reason you’ve had exponential self-growth in your life so here are some of the things i’ve employed during

(1:16:32) my time in traffic first off and it may seem obvious but turn off your music and whatever else you got going on while you’re driving and just kind of be still with your thoughts be with yourself i don’t know if you smoke or chew sunflower seeds or whatever else you do during driving but try you know do nothing for a little bit except for drive because we can usually especially if we’re sitting in traffic on our way from you know work to home which is a drive we could probably do with our eyes closed please don’t close your eyes

(1:17:01) doing it but sit in silence and actually listen to your thoughts um it’s it’s really meditative because you’re kind of just in a mode of getting from one place and to the next subconsciously and if the thought of of meditating in the first place or being with yourself that intimately makes you antsy just just trust me here for a moment and stay with it against that uncomfortable quiet and see what comes up for you um you can focus on your breathing to pass the time uh just really anything until the starts the the

(1:17:39) thoughts start flowing and i know they will so and and by the way when they start flowing you can ask siri to record a voice note of anything that pops up for you so you can spend more time journaling on it later so that you’re not texting and driving because we want you to get to your destination alive of course and um i might also add that if you’re a sleepy driver like i sometimes am i literally get i don’t know narcoleptic i guess is what it’s called when i start driving sometimes after work

(1:18:08) um and you need something more active for your brain to focus on than just sitting in silence you can listen to positive affirmations um deepak chopra has some amazing ones on uh you can get his album like on itunes you could listen to a self-help book or of course you could listen to this podcast just saying or anything else that gets you in the mood of becoming you know a better human so yeah i really seriously though i think that these self-growth traffic sessions as i’m calling them have largely been behind my own growth and um because i’ve

(1:18:45) spent a lot of time doing that i mean i mean you spent i spent a lot of time in traffic so therefore i’ve spent a lot of time trying to translate that into something positive and i’d say that they’re even a big reason why i decided i could start a podcast with jade you know doing the research i did during those drives reading the self-help books and then employing some of the techniques that i could while driving so just getting that time to to reflect is so important for positive progression of our lives so

(1:19:16) instead of fighting against traffic or standing and you know fighting against standing in a long line at the dmv or wherever you can find a line or or having to wait for any reason at all really when it comes up embrace it and use it for good that’s my magic today what do you got i love that because i i just i it’s so when someone constantly complains in traffic i’m like you’re making it worse [Laughter] like we’re here let’s make the best of it you know let’s play a game let’s talk

(1:19:51) let’s listen to something like anything traffic doesn’t actually bother me and then i was in a long relationship where it was the person would go in full-on rage like what we’re here yeah there’s nothing nothing yeah so i love this um that reminds me though of like you know when when especially with women when it’s cold out we’re like ugh i’m so cold and we constantly complain about it i mean i do i’m copying to that and i and i noticed like lately that i do that and so i’m trying

(1:20:23) to figure out a way to make that like my traffic situation like how do i reverse let me know what you come up with i don’t know i’m gonna like maybe maybe it is like the reminder for me to jog in place or do some jumping jacks like to heat my body up but also get a secondary workout in that day okay okay i’ll let you know [Laughter] so my magic is pulled from one of our favorite ladies maddie moon um i’m going to read what she said on her instagram post she put you may not believe me yet but honest to

(1:20:56) god it really truly 100 does not matter what your body looks like having a body is the most incredible instrument and gift from the divine you have a tool that allows your skin to rise from the chill of a cool mountain breeze smell the nostalgia of warm biscuits have head-to-toe shivers from orgasmic pleasure here i love yous from the special people in your life feel the curvature of a sanctioned little spoon big spoon cuddle witness a passing sunrise before others awake and read literature that sticks with you from

(1:21:27) childhood it’s a miracle what you can experience love it as such and i just i read that i just fell so much more in love with life and with being in my body and with everything that every day offers and so i thought like i just want everyone to hear this on our show especially on this episode um so my invite though is to maybe well first of all rewind listen to that again because it’s freaking good and then um and then love on yourself this week through touch so you could do like a morning oil massage on your legs

(1:22:02) which i love to do you could do a cbd foot massage at night which i love to do you can masturbate because it’s freaking good it’s really good for you um and it’s a it’s a form of self-love you can do a scalp massage um immerse yourself in your own touch this week however you want to do it and just celebrate your body yeah and just think of it as self-love and self-care yeah i like that and i might also add that the oil massage on legs that i mean just using oil on your body is i think super nourishing especially if you get a

(1:22:39) you know clean oil that works well with you take that coconut oil and just put a a touch of essential oil in the glob of coconut oil and rub it all over my body ooh so it smells super yummy too i like that i use sesame oil and i’ll tell you specifically the reason i use sesame instead of coconut or anything else is because of a previous guest of ours sahara rose who is an ayurvedic expert she talks about how knowing your dosha so knowing what type of ayurvedic medicine essentially to use for yourself what

(1:23:12) type of diet what type of oil to rub on your body literally is one of the very important parts of ayurvedic medicine idea yeah and so sesame is a warming oil and because my body is what she calls uh avata dosha so it’s it’s complicated people but go back and listen to her her episode if you want to know the breakdown on all that ayurvedic medicine i’m gonna let that up hopefully mine’s coconut because i like to do coconut oil it might be so because i’m bata i i i have the tendency to be cold and so

(1:23:45) coconut’s more of a cooling it’s i think she says that’s uh would be better for um what chris is let’s see he’s a pita body so i don’t remember which one you were but in any case for me sesame oil because it’s warming would be most nourishing for my skin and body and all that good stuff yeah all right yes all right magic moppers thank you so much for tuning in and taking this journey with us if this episode held some magic for you please share it with your friends and family this would mean so much to us you guys

(1:24:18) and don’t forget to join us on our instagram page at the magic hour and let us know what your favorite episodes have been thus far we appreciate all your feedback and really want to know what’s lighting you up we really do you guys and we release a new episode every monday so you can catch us again next week or you can go back right now and listen to some of our past episodes in our podcast library we will meet you there be until then big thank you to at rayton royal for our intro jam and to john garza from reeling

(1:24:50) motion productions for producing the show stay magical friends all right let’s do the intro okay go ahead greetings magic moppers welcome boys and babes it’s that time again it’s the magic hour a place where we navigate through life’s peaks and valleys with all the vulnerability and shamelessness we can muster with the help of world-class guests from all walks of life we uncover new truths and valuable tools for manifesting our highest potential i’m your host mercedes tarot along with my partner in shine jay price

(1:25:27) hey you guys i’ve been so excited for this day all week because of the guests that we have for you today you’re gonna have to get your scuba gear on for this one because she goes deep with her words i get chills every single time i hear her music which is every day because i’m obsessed with it it is literally life changing we were bawling when we heard that in uh telluride but um regarding your your scuba gear comment there i feel like you went there which is amazing um i feel like we’ve been staying suited up

(1:26:04) in our scuba suits the gear so to speak we started the show really um but you’re right she she really does have so much beauty in her words and we saw that in person while we were at the telly ride mountain film festival this year she blew us away when she opened up for oprah oh my god um it was so good so good you guys we were literally bawling crying from us from someone singing a song that we’d never heard in our lives before i mean like how because she’s singing from her heart well so her music became the theme of

(1:26:41) the festival that this year and uh we’re just honored to have witnessed her magic on stage and off for that matter yeah man i i know that it it honestly has been my favorite song since hearing it and i i know mercedes you probably remember me asking you how you would feel about changing our intro jam to her chorus apparently did that’s how much i love it but yeah let’s get her on yes as a child of immigrants from china she initially performed as an independent artist for several years and appeared on

(1:27:19) the very first season of the television show the voice she rose to widespread attention after a video of a performance of her song quiet at the 2017 women’s march went viral and became embraced as an anthem for the movement inspired by her own experiences with sexual assault domestic abuse and trauma as a teenager she had written the song as a way of coping along with 26 other singers she performed seven times throughout the march among the crowd where it was recorded uploaded to social media garnering eight million views in only

(1:27:50) two days and shared by a number of well-known celebrities it became an anthem for victims of sexual abuse all over the world and within a month she had appeared on a number of national talk shows and signed a deal with atlantic records she says i am a survivor of abuse and anorexia and depression it’s been quite a journey getting here and that song is the thesis of my journey as a woman as an asian american and as a feminist as a human being who has been silenced in one way or another it’s about helping people who

(1:28:21) have felt silence reclaim their power hers are songs of empowerment and cathartic healing for the displaced and the brokenhearted she reminds us all that this is not the end connie thank you for healing our hearts through your music we’re so honored to have you here today welcome to the show um do the last line with her full name connie um connie lin or connie caleb or how does she usually go connie lim connie lim aka milk okay welcome to the show connie lim aka milk thank you for healing our hearts through

(1:29:04) your music we’re so honored to have you here today welcome to the show all right i would do it um sorry i would just say where the hell is that part of that page i would say we’re so honored to have you here today please welcome connie lim aka milk to the show so you want me to say connie twice or i think that’s okay okay connie thank you for healing your heart through your music we’re so honored to have you here today please help me okay just tell me please welcome connie i’m just gonna say

(1:29:48) the very last line so tell me what you want me to say please welcome connie lim aka milk to the magic hour to the show please welcome connie lim aka milk to the show yeah just because we don’t say her name ever the whole time so okay at least it’s in the in the title um but all right so let’s stop recording um i need to quickly do the promo video