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Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Taraba

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by Gissele Taraba

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103 episodes

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Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share.

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3/29/2020

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June 22, 2026

Ep. 102 – Have We Really Changed? Love, Race, and the Prejudice We Still Refuse to Face

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Gissele: And if you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion Gissele: Are you struggling with an interracial relationship that other people don’t accept, or have you survived or are struggling with intense and traumatic family and relationship challenges, or if you’re just someone who has the courage to follow your dreams against all odds. Today, our guest is Annie Waxman, author of Accidental Rebel: My Story of Interracial Love and Loss. Gissele: In the late 1960s, she was a young, white, and privileged high school cheerleader who accidentally fell in love with James, the Black star basketball player. This was a time of deep racial tension in the US, and especially in a small town in Kentucky where she lived. Gissele: [00:01:00] Accidental Rebel is a memoir of the journey of their secret relationship, which, when dramatically discovered , changed her life, her family’s life, and the small Kentucky town forever . Please join me in welcoming Annie Waxman. Hi, Annie. Annie: Hi there. Thank you for having me. Gissele: Oh, thank you very much for being on the show. Gissele: we’re talking about race relations. you would’ve thought that it was the 1960s, but I think people still struggle with those relationships. People still struggle with accepting different races, as we see with what’s happening in the US, and so I think this conversation continues to be unfortunately timely. Gissele: I was wondering if you could, tell the audience a little bit about how you fell in love with a basketball player and how that impacted your family. Annie: Okay. the story is about, race, shame that I was told that I was, giving towards the family and the [00:02:00] town. Annie: And forgiveness. I think forgiveness is also what the story is about. And, trauma, young trauma. I was, a young girl, very popular in high school, and, I did something that, my parents did not agree with. I was with a Black guy, and,they did not know that I was with him. I was sneaking around, uh, initially, and then many years later, up in, well into my 20s, I was still sneaking around, from my family and from them knowing what was going on I never was raised to talk poorly about people or to make any derogatory comments about anyone. Annie: so it was kind of shocking, when my father and my mother, reacted the way they did when [00:03:00] I was caught, really caught, with this Black guy. we had, gone in a car. I used to meet him in the cemetery, Annie: He would run through the back, and I would drive through the cemetery, and that’s how we would start meeting. Annie: rumors were starting to surface that I was seeing the basketball player. and I didn’t even tell my best friend about it, who was also a cheerleader. So that indicates that I knew that probably it was gonna be problematic for a lot of people So, my father, who was quite powerful and very well-known in the state, had Annie: Police cars following me. Mm-hmm. And, and they followed me to that area of town. and we had gone into a house there, and, we [00:04:00] were together. It was kinda the first time we’d been able to be together in actually a real location. though we do, did go down to an old stone church that was way out in the country at times and meet there. Annie: so my father was knocking at the door, and, um, I told James to run, because everybody was saying, “Your father’s out there,” you know. “I don’t know, he looks crazy.” And so long story short, I told James to run. He ran out the back door, and I gathered myself calmly and went and opened the door, and my father, threw me out of the house down the stairs, the concrete stairs. Annie: There must have been about 10 of them. Mm-hmm. And at that time, my father, who unfortunately was a [00:05:00] philanderer a bit, he and his girlfriend were with him, and she spit on me. And my father got me in the car and drove me home, where we lived in a very nice subdivision in that small town. And- Pulled me out of the car and said, “Tell your mother you’ve been with a,” the N-word, uh, which was used, you know, back then. Annie: So it, this is kind of the journey that I was on. I was 16, and a lot happened to me that evening, July 26th, 1969. And every year I think about that day and what happened to me, and that was 57 years ago. So I felt it was important to write this book and [00:06:00] get my story out there, and maybe it might, um, show some other interracial couples what other couples went through to maybe make it a little bit easier for them, though I’m not sure it’s really that easy at all still. Gissele: I was thinking about what you said in terms of, like my parents hadn’t really said anything until I was dating someone, right? Yes. And so I was thinking people don’t believe that they’re racist until, until somebody wants to join the family of maybe a different race and then that really kind of shows you how you really feel, right? Annie: Exactly. Gissele: Um, did, did James experience the same thing with his family in terms of him dating somebody white? Annie: Uh, no. now my father had out that he was gonna kill him. Oh, wow. So he hid out for, for quite a while. but his family did not have a problem with it As far as I can [00:07:00] really remember, I think that there were other, people in the Black community, older people- Mm-hmm Annie: that had a problem with it and thought that, you know, um, we should stick with our own kind, which was the term used. Mm-hmm. but, not like what my parents did. And that’s just a very small slice of the story of what happened to me. Um, and I don’t really know how far you want me to go with it Gissele: It’s as far as you wanna go. Gissele: I mean, it must have been really difficult for you to continue the relationship, ’cause obviously you continued it ’cause you ended up getting married. so take me to the next stage in terms of, what made you wanna continue forward? Was it your love? Was it just the need to prove everyone right, or was it maybe a little bit of both? Annie: It was a little bit of both, yes. You know, we’ll show you. Mm-hmm. You think we went through all of [00:08:00] that and it’s gonna end? And really the problem with that is that then I didn’t really, and he didn’t either, we didn’t really realize we weren’t really good partners together. Gissele: Mm, ’cause you were 16. Annie: I was 16. Gissele: Yeah. that’s young. Yeah … Annie: we forged on we were together about … we were, 30 when we, when we split up. it was very traumatic time. I had been put in a psychiatric ward for a week my father He shot at me with a gun. Annie: Oh. And I was being choked. And, uh, then, the whole town was coming together and coming to the house and telling me I’d shamed the family and shamed everyone, and my body was supposed to have been at the [00:09:00] funeral home. a small town, rumors can swirl, and- Mm-hmm … that’s really what was happening. Annie: But I was pretty popular. and he was as well. Uh, but not on the same outgoing, let’s say, level, you know? Gissele: Yeah, Gissele: I’m very sorry that you had to go through that. That must have been so difficult to feel like everyone’s against you, right? You were only 16. You were only following your heart, and had people not judged, it probably would have evolved as it would have had, right? Gissele: But people’s fears and their prejudices are, always make things worse. Exactly … Did you end up staying in Kentucky or did you end up going somewhere else- No … just because it was so- No … difficult, yeah? Annie: No, I did not end up staying. I was sent away to a Catholic boarding school for bad girls- Oh Annie: my senior year in high school. and unfortunately he had to stay. He could not leave. He was not of wealth or, or anything. [00:10:00] so he had to endure staying in the town. so I’m, have a lot of empathy for what he went through- Yeah … ending up with this white girl, with this, the dad and this, you know, to this day I have a lot of empathy for him. Gissele: so when you were sent to that home for girls-was it for your last year- Year … of high school? And then- My senior Annie: year in Gissele: high school. So then were you able to come home, and then Annie: I, then I came home. I, and I tried to, go away to college somewhere else. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Annie: And I didn’t get in, so I had to be in Kentucky. Gissele: Mm. Annie: Uh, but I, I got into the school furthest away from home. Gissele: Mm. Annie: so I was happy about that. I kinda hated my parents at that time. Annie: for what they did to me really. Gissele: How was your ex-husband’s family? did you spend any time with them? Were you- Annie: I only met [00:11:00] them once. Gissele: Even though Annie: you were married for a while? But you have to understand that we were secretive until- Yeah … we got married, and, um, and we were 26 years old. Annie: So my family didn’t know. We moved away. we were hiding out in an apartment in a way that, it was really- Wow. Gissele: That must have been tough, yeah. Annie: It was, um, and that’s when it, I got to the point where I can’t do this anymore. The secrecy was affecting me, and I just could not do it anymore. Annie: And so I just one day just told my parents I was with him. Gissele: Hmm. I Annie: didn’t- Couldn’t hide … so how long were Gissele: you married for? Annie: two years, and we lived together- we lived together 10 or 11 years. Gissele: Oh, okay. And you weren’t anywhere near his family. You moved away somewhere else ’cause you couldn’t Annie: be in the town. Annie: Yeah, we moved away because his family [00:12:00] lived in the small town. Um, and- Gissele: Hmm … Annie: it, yeah, it’s pretty, pretty bizarre, uh, how it all happens. But, you know, I just needed to release all of this from my past. Hmm. I need to let it go. Gissele: did James ever talk about how difficult it must have been for him to stay behind? Uh, the reason why I ask that is because- That must have caused a lot of friction in your relationship. Gissele: It’s not like you could both freely be able to be yourselves. That’s a lot of pressure to put in a relationship, especially a young relationship. Annie: Exactly. You know what? he was pretty closed down. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Annie: and I think that he dealt with his anger of the situation by, drinking too much. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Annie: And, I think really that’s where some of his alcoholism stemmed [00:13:00] from. I’m not saying he’s like that now. Gissele: Yeah. Annie: But, ’cause we all change. Gissele: Of course. Annie: he was never very communicative. When we left Kentucky, when we were 24, even moving, to California, he did not ever really feel comfortable holding my hand or being close with me out in public. Annie: It was just, uh, something that I don’t think he could ever get over. I think he was, had some issues with his Blackness being with me, that I didn’t even see at the time. But having written the book and looked back on the years, I really feel that, I feel sorry for him really that he had to endure- Mm Annie: uh, that we both had to endure what we did. Gissele: Yeah, it’s so difficult. I [00:14:00] have friends who are LGBTQ, and my friend can’t go with her partner to some countries. They will get hurt if they’re holding hands walking down the street. Gissele: Exactly. what kind of fear must be going through you that you’re so bothered by love? It doesn’t matter. Exactly. have you ever been able to have a conversation with family members now that are able to look in retrospect back or do they still hold some of the same beliefs ? Annie: Well, my parents have passed, and that’s when I wrote the book. I did not wanna write the book while they were alive. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Fair. Annie: Oh, fair. Uh, yeah. I didn’t wanna do that. believe it or not, no one really ever said anything about what happened that day- Gissele: Wow … Annie: except my dad when I was in my 50s and I was divorced, looked at me and he said, “You know, that never shoulda happened, that day.” Annie: And I looked at him and I was shocked. No. And I said, [00:15:00] “No, you’re right. It shouldn’t have.” And that’s the only thing that was ever said about that. in the ’50s and ’60s we were brought up, like, there was a code. You don’t say what’s going on in your family. Mm-hmm. You know, what will the neighbors think? Annie: It was- Gissele: Yeah … Annie: truly, um, and they were a product of that, and- Mm-hmm … I just, I forgave them. I just, for me, it was forgiveness for them because I know they regretted it. and this is, is such a small portion of the very traumatic things that happened that evening, uh, with both my parents and with me. Annie: But I feel like they just, they just kinda did the best they could, and they were in this … My mother was European. She was [00:16:00] brought over from the war as a war bride in World War II. My dad was a pilot. And so it was like it was almost drawing attention to herself as well- Mm … ’cause she was trying to fit into this small community. Annie: And then so I go and do this, and then there’s focus on her as well as, as the family. And it was, it was a different time. I wish it was a little more different, than we see these days. But, yeah. my sisters have not been comfortable with me with this book. they don’t like speaking ill of the dead is what the comment was. Annie: but my parents and I were close in the end, and, and I’ve have forgiveness for them. that’s really what I choose to remember. but [00:17:00] it happened. Mm. And I’m sorry that I had to speak about that, about them, but my sisters are not comfortable with any of this and have not read the book. Gissele: Hm. Annie: And we are very close. It’s not something we talk about. Gissele: Yeah. It’s interesting how that happens, right? We tend to- censor ourselves, but it actually prevents us from really being truly close. And how, in speaking about those instances, you’re not speaking ill of the dead, you’re sharing your story. Gissele: Exactly. Now, your parents’ perspective of that story might have been different. Yes. It might have been through their lens. It- Yes … doesn’t mean that you are saying something negative, but we have that viewpoint that the kindest thing to do is to just censor ourselves or mute ourselves. But that doesn’t- Let it Annie: lie. Gissele: Yeah. Just let it lie. But that’s not compassionate to ourselves. Annie: not what I could do. Gissele: Yeah. Annie: I’ve been in therapy 16 years. [00:18:00] Yeah. This trauma that I went through has affected every decision I’ve ever made in my life. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Annie: Every decision. Mm-hmm. Except for now. Gissele: Yeah. so I wanna go back to, you get married, right? You’re together for a number of years. Obviously, there’s alcoholism. Um- Annie: Infidelity from him. Gissele: Oh, okay. it must have been difficult to make the decision to separate given how hard you worked to be together, right? Can you walk me a little bit through that process of having to make the decision to let him go without feeling like, well, they won. Gissele: They were right. Annie: Yes. Yeah, boy, did not wanna do that. Mm-hmm. Did not wanna prove that they were right- Mm-hmm … so to speak. Gissele: Yeah. Annie: we got married, and I don’t think he really wanted to get [00:19:00] married. I think we were kind of, well, okay, now we need to get married to finish this. Mm-hmm. And w- he was not a good communicator. Annie: Mm-hmm. So he was pretty shut down. So there was never really an eas- after all those years together and living together, he was never really a great communicator. So when it happened that my father, believe it or not, said that he would pay for the wedding. Oh. Now, this is years later, years later. Gissele: Yeah. Wow. Annie: That’s why I’m saying people can change. Gissele: Mm-hmm. That’s important. Annie: People, if you want to change, you can change. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Annie: So he ultimately got us on this rollercoaster of getting married. Okay, well now you gotta get married. And I think that kinda made him feel better to know [00:20:00] that- Mm-hmm … you know, okay, well I did this, but now they’re getting married, we can let it all lie and it’s over. Annie: And you know what? Mm-hmm. He was exactly like my father. I married my father. He was an alcoholic. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. he was a mean alcoholic, and he was- Mm-hmm … not very communicative. My father was working all the time. He was never home. I mean, so, um, I married my father, and I realized after I did that, I knew when I was standing there at the altar, I knew that this is not gonna work, but we had to finish it to move forward. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s so interesting that, we tend to be attracted to people like our parents, and the theory behind that is in order for us to address our trauma. Annie: Yes. Gissele: Like sometimes if we can’t address it with our parents, we’ll address it with our partners. Annie: exactly. [00:21:00] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Annie: Yeah. Gissele: Um, so I wanna talk a little bit about forgiveness, because it’s very, very important. What got you to the point that you were able to forgive your parents and also your partner with whom you divorced? Annie: You know what? I was raised by a European mother- Gissele: Mm … Annie: in a small town. Manners, treat people kindly. I mean, it just, it was ingrained in me, and I did not want what happened to me and I guess at that time that I felt I had brought to the family and broken up the family, so to speak. Mm-hmm. I didn’t want to be the cause of that. Annie: So I, myself, okay, when you go through something as traumatic as that, you either move forward and become stronger, or you [00:22:00] fall within yourself. And so I wasn’t made of that stock, and I got stronger, and I just said, “I have to keep the family together. We have to be together.” And so I just went through years. Annie: I’d had not had therapy. I just ignored it. I, often probably drank and smoked pot to deal with some of the trauma. You know- Mm-hmm … anything to really not dig in there. And so I forgave everybody,and I think it’s okay, and I feel good that I did that. But I’ve had a lot of therapy. Gissele: Yeah. Gissele: Therapy’s very good. Annie: and it’s gotten me to where I am today, and it’s gotten me to the point where I could write this book. Gissele: Yeah. as you were going through therapy, were there ever any parts where [00:23:00] you felt like you had to forgive yourself? Annie: Uh, yes. Yes Gissele: Can you talk a little bit about that? Annie: let me see if I can think of what that was. I wasn’t really an activist, you know, when I was young. I didn’t really plan to be an, a rebel- Hmm … so to speak. And so it was truly accidental, you know- Hmm … forging forward with this, um, mantra, you know, interracial couples can make it, and we can all be together, and it’ll work out. Annie: So I think that I decided that it was okay for me to forgive myself for kinda creating a possibly unhealthy situation with him. [00:24:00] Gissele: Yeah. Annie: I was a part of how unhealthy it was. I’m not throwing it all on him. Mm-hmm. I had a lot to do with that too. it was like in Kentucky, it was like 1967 before they even took interracial marriages off the books of being illegal. Annie: And this was- Mm … ’69 when this happened to me. I this was, very close to when I was going through this, that there were still things like that on the books. And there was that, case with, Virginia versus Loving, and it was a white man and a Black woman who- Mm … had gotten married and were taken out of their homes and put in jail because they had an interracial marriage, and that’s what Loving versus Virginia was, and that was in 1967. Gissele: Oh, wow. S- Annie: so when you think back about what was [00:25:00] really going on just around that time that I was doing this, you can kinda think about, the South and what people were really thinking. Gissele: Yeah, of Annie: course. And what my family was thinking. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah, they must have felt a lot of pressure in terms of the law- Yes Gissele: which obviously, made it difficult. and it’s so interesting when you think about the situation now. You know, we went from legally overt racism to covert racism and back to overt again. Annie: Yes. Gissele: Right? It seems to me like we’re back to overt, right? Yes. I’m curious as to your thoughts about what’s happening in America right now with all the ICE raids, and Gissele: if you have seen some shifting in terms of the racism you experienced, Has it gone underground, or does it just look different? Annie: Well, you know, I’m in California, which is- Mm-hmm … a wonderful state and a [00:26:00] Democratic state. And, so we don’t see as much here, but I do know in Kentucky, ’cause I still have my best friend that lives there and I do still have relatives there, that have never said one word to me about what happened to me. Annie: Mm-hmm. It’s like it never happened. I think that with, with race, I think right now it’s gotten a little worse. I think there’s less tolerance for people that are different. I know in this state or people that we associate with wherever they are, are like-minded like we are- Gissele: Yeah … Annie: there’s a lot of hate going on right now. Gissele: Yeah. Which you would have figured since the 1960 we would have learned, right? Just, it just went underground, right? Gissele: And this is why I think this conversation is so important. you dared to share your own story [00:27:00] even though it made people uncomfortable. Now, granted, I mean, I can totally understand you wanting to protect your parents to some extent, right? Gissele: but at some point you do have to own your story because if you don’t share those stories, then we can’t look at ourselves as a humanity, and that’s the thing. People don’t wanna do that. They’re like, “Let it lie. Don’t say anything. Hushity hush.” Yeah. And the reason being is then you can’t confront the truth. Gissele: You can’t be uncomfortable, and then you can’t be forced to change. And the fact that since the 1960s we’re still facing racism, and all these other isms in a very different way, but still they’re there. Yes. I think it’s- It’s disheartening. And at the same time, it’s a call to change. It forces us to change Annie: Exactly. Annie: it’s pretty disturbing. Exactly. Gissele: Yeah. And but I think the challenge is we have to look at ourselves. Annie: I agree. Gissele: And that’s probably the [00:28:00] most difficult part of it, right? Like you were talking about, your family. You said that there’s no vocalizing of any racism, right? Gissele: We like everyone. Yeah. Until there could be somebody who joined your family of a different race, and then all of a sudden everything that you said you believe in goes to the crapper. Yeah. And I think that is what we’re seeing today with those raids, right? Gissele: You see a lot of what I call lateral violence. Annie: Yes. Gissele: Other people of the same ethnicity signing up to be in ICE, right? to deport other people of their same color. and that’s like, wow. They’re Annie: also being lured financially. Gissele: True. True. Yeah. Annie: Yes. Gissele: True. Annie: They’re being lured financially- Yes Annie: as well. Gissele: and that is a very, very common strategy. I was born in Peru. Annie: Oh, Gissele: uh-huh. And I came to Canada when I was 10. Annie: Uh-huh. Gissele: And in Peru, the corruption was more overt, Gissele: And all these politicians would go to the poorest parts and they would go and [00:29:00] say, “You know what? We’re gonna feed you. Give me your vote.” And then every year, without fail, it was the same thing, and then they would vote for them, and then the people would not do anything, right? Annie: Yes. Gissele: And so it’s interesting how we’ve created this world where people are oppressed economically. Yes. Then the incentive is economic so that you can- Yes … then oppress your brother. Annie: Yes. Gissele: Which is- Annie: Very common in Latin America. My son actually lives in Latin America. Mm-hmm. And so, yes, it’s, it’s- Gissele: Yeah … Annie: very common, yeah. Gissele: And you know what? The other interesting thing, and then I wanna go back to your story. Annie: Yeah. Gissele: The other interesting thing too is one of the biggest things that I hear from the Hispanic community about why they are so anti- these other Democratic politicians is that they’re so afraid of socialism. Gissele: I know we’ve had this conversation before, but the truth of the matter is, when I was in South America, the governments tried to pass off communism as socialism. And so what would [00:30:00] happen was that the governments would take all of the resources, and then they would- sparse it out so nobody had. Gissele: It was like people would have to do line-ups for food. They had to do line-ups for resources. you would have, like lights out and all of these other things. So people associate that with socialism. Annie: Yes. Gissele: And they think that’s socialism, but what really asking for is a democratic socialism, which is no one gets left behind. Exactly. We share the resources. Exactly. That doesn’t mean the resources are gonna be taken by the government as it was in Latin America. The- Annie: Exactly … Gissele: people that were enjoying all the resources was the government. Annie: Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Gissele: and so people are afraid of socialism, but that was not socialism. Gissele: It was sold as socialism. Annie: Well, I think a lot of the Hispanic community, certainly,I know quite a few that voted for Trump that were men that would not vote for a woman ever. Gissele: Mm. Mm-hmm. Annie: Ever. [00:31:00] Gissele: Fair. Annie: Now, it’s interesting, though, Mexico has a female president. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Uh, Annie: but they would not vote for a woman, and some of the women felt that, that they would be better off. And so now everybody regrets it. Everyone I’ve talked to has said And we’re like, “Didn’t you listen to what the words were from this person?” So here we are. Gissele: And I think that’s where our own isms come up, right? Gissele: when we immigrated to Canada we came quote unquote, “The right way.” Which means, we paid $20,000, we had all our medicals- Right … and everything in order to come to Canada. We had to have skills. And so- Annie: Yeah … Gissele: we came the right way. And then there’s pe- well, that came in different ways, right? Gissele: so there was refugee people that came and got, a whole bunch of things for free. And my parents, I think to some extent resented that because they fought so hard. Yes. And then you’ve got [00:32:00] people … we never knew anybody, but you got a lot of people in the US that crossed the border illegally. Annie: Yes. Gissele: And so the desire to punish, the desire to say, “Well, I came the right way. You should- Yes … have come the right way therefore,” but not taking into consideration that they might not have had the resources- Right … or the way- Annie: So true … to be Gissele: there. Annie: That’s what’s- Yeah … happening here. Other people have said that, “Well, we came the right way.” Gissele: Yes. “ Annie: So they’re gonna come in and take our jobs,” Gissele: Yeah. it’s that zero sum game- Yeah … that we’ve been taught. It’s that- Yeah … that everything is limited. You know, like even … And if you think about … I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the rhetoric of white supremacy. Annie: Oh, yes. Gissele: Really interesting. Gissele: The rhetoric of white supremacy is that lack. So even though white men right now run the world, there’s always we’re gonna be the lesser race. We’re gonna lack. There’s not enough for us. All these people are taking our jobs. Right, right. And what is obviously being seen [00:33:00] in the US is that nobody wants those jobs. Annie: How ridiculous … Gissele: it’s this, it’s that rhetoric of there’s not enough. Even though white people are the ones who have had the most power. Annie: Exactly. Gissele: So it’s this fear of not enough, this fear of lack, the fear of the other that has perpetuated and has made our world worse. Annie: Yeah. Gissele: Not better. Worse. Not Annie: better. Right. Gissele: Not better. Absolutely not. Not better. Annie: No. No. Not better. Gissele: It’s, it’s, it’s crazy. It is, it’s crazy. Yeah, we’re Annie: pretty messed up here right now. Gissele: Yeah. But- my hope is that as your book Accidental Rebel, and I wanna get back to it, it’s showing who we’ve been? Gissele: Is that showing the kinds of things that we’d allowed? Because, in our family there is that same thing of Cosa Nostra, right? We don’t tell anybody else, but that’s lonely and isolating and oppressive, right? Annie: Exactly. Gissele: so being able to share your story is really [00:34:00] important. Gissele: so are you in good terms with your ex-husband now, or you’re better terms? Annie: I have not seen him since 1980. Gissele: Oh, okay. So it’s been a while, yeah. Yeah. Annie: Yeah. And he does live only 11 miles from me. Gissele: Oh, okay. Yeah. Annie: But, you know, LA’s so huge. Gissele: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Annie: Yes. Gissele: No. Annie: Yeah. Though I do know, a little bit about him now. Annie: I think he’s changed. I’ve been told. Gissele: Throughout this journey, there must’ve been an element of you that was like, “F you, I’m gonna do this,” because you said. So there’s a level of, you were talking about the rebel, right? Gissele: Yes. The desire to do and to follow your heart and to make decisions for your own, which can be isolating sometimes, right? Because people are so desperate to belong, they’ll go with the- Yeah … current against themselves. Annie: Yeah. Gissele: What do you feel- led you to keep going in the face of that, all of that resistance? Gissele: and has that [00:35:00] helped you in other areas? Annie: You know, I became a little hard. Gissele: Mm. Annie: And brazen- Gissele: Mm … Annie: also. and I’m wondering if somehow it fed me a little bit. Gissele: Mm. Annie: I think on some level I was getting back at my dad for never really being there and always- drinking and not a- not accessible. Annie: And I, so I just really became very brazen. I did things, uh, that I think about now that scare me, you know, that I can’t believe I did that. But it just, it’s on some level it empowered me- Gissele: Mm … Annie: uh, to move forward without a care. Yeah. I really feel I was doing [00:36:00] that in college. Annie: You know, I was hitchhiking and to other states. Mm. And I mean, I was not that girl when I was growing up. Gissele: Oh, wow. Annie: Not that girl. Just, sweet, kind, never did anything that my parents would react to. I mean, it was spare the rod, spoil the child then. we were whipped- Mm-hmm … and- Gissele: Yeah Annie: I became a real rebel, kind of the- Mm … black sheep of the family, so to speak. Which my, actually my father was in his family. Gissele: Mm. Interesting. Annie: Yes. Mm. Yes. Yeah. Gissele: But there’s an element of freedom, is there not? Like, a small element of freedom in the sense that sometimes you can get so trapped with what people think you should do or, you know, fit in this box and do what everybody is doing. Gissele: Uh-huh. there might be an element of freedom in going against the current and doing what it is that you would want to do instead. Has it served you [00:37:00] in other areas of your life, or has it been a hindrance? Annie: Um, well, my husband now, calls me and my sisters the hard-ass sisters. Annie: Because we had– this happened with me that affected them. Gissele: Yeah. Annie: And, we grew up, uh, with an alcoholic parent that eventually- was not there. But still, I do think it has benefited me actually. Mm-hmm. Um, I’m considered pretty strong. I am strong. I’m outspoken. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Annie: Um, and I react to comments that are made that I think are not appropriate or are mean-spirited But I’m not sure I would’ve been that girl if this, if that didn’t happen to me, in 1969. but I think it [00:38:00] actually has served me well and made me, uh, the person I am today, and I actually like who I am. Gissele: Mm. Mm-hmm. Annie: I’m kinda like, “Well done, Annie. You got through. ” yeah. You made it. You wrote a book. You told your story. And now I kinda feel like it was such a cathartic experience, I can just … I’ve been able to kinda just go, “Ah,” you know, “Okay.” Gissele: So the writing of the book helped you sort of unload a lot of that, the trauma- Oh Gissele: that you experienced, yeah. Annie: Yes. Yes. Yes, it did. Gissele: what is the message that is, that you’re trying to communicate? Annie: I think it’s just an important slice of history- Yeah Annie: this story. if an interracial relationship or anyone that just wants to know anything about the past with race, Gissele: Mm. Annie: [00:39:00] And I I’ve been told it’s a really worthwhile read. Gissele: Mm. Annie: And, It’s also an Audible. Yes. Yeah. Gissele: And it can be found on amazon.com? Annie: Yes. Yeah It can be found on Amazon in hardback, paperback, Kindle- Mm … and Audible. Yes. Gissele: Do you have a website? Annie: Wow. You know, someone else asked me that. You know- … I’m just an old chick Annie: That wrote a book. Gissele: Awesome. Annie: You can find it through all Gissele: the major, all the major publishers then. Annie: Yes, Barnes & Noble- Wonderful … Gissele: last question, what’s your definition of self-love? Annie: Okay, self-love. Annie: I think it’s knowing yourself is self-love. I was thinking about this. accepting yourself is self-love, and continuing to work on [00:40:00] yourself- Gissele: Hmm. Mm-hmm … Annie: is self-love. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Annie: Yeah. To be a better human in this crazy world we’re in now- Gissele: Yeah … Annie: with compassion and care for our fellow man. Gissele: Yeah Annie: that’s what I think. Yeah. Gissele: thank you for sharing your story, for that little piece of history, and for the mirror that your story is holding of how much we have changed and at the same time haven’t changed. And the hope is that we’re able to look at ourselves not with rejection, but with compassion and say, “You know what? Gissele: That’s who we’ve been, but I’m not choosing that anymore. I’m willing to change. And I can change not by hating myself, by having compassion for who I’ve been and, you know, who I choose to be.” So- Absolutely … so thank you, Annie, so much for coming to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele,

June 9, 2026

Ep. 101 – Can Authenticity Help Us Create a More Loving and Inclusive World?

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And if you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today, we’re talking about authenticity, and Gissele: We’re talking to Alexander Kopelman, who’s a writer, social entrepreneur, advocate, and coach who has been devoted 40 years to advancing social justice and personal empowerment. As the founding president and CEO of Children’s Arts Guild, Kopelman helped create and grow a nonprofit organization that supports children in exploring and developing their authentic selves. Kopelman has authored and co-authored 10 books, including For Real!, helping children remain their authentic selves in a limiting world. He lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and very small dog. Please join me in welcoming Alex. Hi, Alex. Alex: Hi, thanks very much for having me on.[00:01:00] Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show because this is such an important topic in terms of authenticity and how we can cultivate that in children. I was wondering if you could get started by telling the audience a little bit about how you got into this work. Alex: sure. It’s really, very much a life’s work and, very personal to me. I, grew up in the Soviet Union when there was still such a thing until I was 13 years old, and came to the United States as a refugee, not knowing any English. Um, and the process of, creating an identity as a teenager in a new language really gave me, I guess a glimpse into, how choiceful identity is and, the kinds of decisions we make as we, think about who we are, share who we are with other people, and, find our way in the world, and in the story that we tell ourselves about our own life [00:02:00] and, the people around us. Gissele: Yeah. Uh, you know, your story resonated so deeply with me because I had a very similar immigration experience. So my sister and I and our family came to Canada from Peru, and I came when I was 10. And I saw the journeys that my sister and I both took. So for me, I completely erased everything that was different ’cause it wasn’t popular to be Hispanic when I immigrated to Canada. Gissele: You know, now it’s, like, cool and… But when I immigrated, it was like, it was weird, or it was different. And I wanted so desperately to belong, I completely erased my culture. And my sister sort of took the other path, which was she actually held onto it so tightly, and I found that she had experienced bullying because it was different. Gissele: and so I so resonated with your story because it reminded me of my experience. And we do so much to wanna belong, right? It’s so ingrained in us to wanna belong, but to our own detriment. And it took me a long time for me to come back to that culture to [00:03:00] embrace those aspects of myself. were you able to keep aspects of your culture, or did you find that you completely, you know, 180 like I Alex: I had a similar,experience to yours. You know, people ask me, “Oh, do you still speak Russian?” And I do, but, you know, I have to, uh, preface it with that I speak Russian the way a 13-year-old speaks Russian. And, I made a choice.to me it was very much about either I could become fluent in English, which also equated in my mind to being, indistinguishable, that I would, I would not be standing out, which was very important. Alex: or I could hold onto some Russian and some Russian culture, and I went full on to being, uh, as fluent as I could be, as not Russian as I could be. there’s a backstory there because growing up Jewish in the Soviet Union, was, very much about being an [00:04:00] outsider. we were considered an ethnic minority. Alex: Um, we had, our ethnicity stamped in our passports. we stood out because we are dark, dark hair and dark skinned, and we were called names on the street by people who didn’t know us, for being Jewish. So there was a real sense of, the danger that goes with being an outsider. and then I arrived in the United States and I was suddenly a white guy. Alex: Um, and you know, I also didn’t speak English. my definition of being Jewish was very different from the definition of being Jewish here. Alex: so it continued this process of all the ways in which being, an outsider Was undesirable. So I went about trying to be as American as I could possibly be. Alex: and as I said, as indistinguishable as possible. Gissele: Yeah. Let’s talk about your path back to authenticity. [00:05:00] one of the things I noticed in general, when we try so hard to belong, we can sometimes violate our own values, our own humanity in the desperation just not to be different. What helped you come back to being more authentically yourself and actually wanna do work on authenticity? Alex: You know, it was coming to the realization sometime in my probably mid-20s that I was completely lost in my life. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted, how to want things, how to go about getting the things I wanted. Um, and part of what I identified at that point was that the– my relationship with being a man was a big aspect of that sense of being lost. Alex: I did not understand what it [00:06:00] meant to be a man. I, in many ways, felt ashamed of being a man, rejected, what I believed it meant. so I went about searching for that part of myself, where I could feel comfortable, in this fundamental way that I, I did not have a choice. I could not… Alex: so I, found, a men’s group through The Mankind Project, which is, now an international organization that sponsors Alex: men’s Alex: weekends around the world. Alex: Uh, there are now, I think, 20,000 men who’ve done one of those weekends, and what I found particularly useful was, the group that I was connected with after, the weekend. Alex: I’ve been a member of that group for 25 years, and that’s been transformative because it allowed me the safe space to think about, what my story was and how I felt about it, and to [00:07:00] see other men struggling with similar issues. And for us, really, the similar issues was just the fundamentals of feelings of, how difficult it is for us as men to experience and express basic feelings. Gissele: Mm, mm. I love that you said that, and it’s so fundamentally true. I think as a society, we’ve done such a huge disservice to our boys. I have one of each. I have a boy and a girl, and what I saw was a world that basically did not allow boys to engage in closeness without sexuality and,engage in dealing with difficult emotions that were beyond anger. And so if you limit the scope of which people can feel, I think you get what we see in the world, which is why I think your work is so important. And in particular, I think it’s important because the messaging that [00:08:00] I feel that children get in general is about belonging and conforming than it is about authenticity. Gissele: Can you talk a little bit about, how systems are impacting our children right now, especially our boys? Alex: Yeah. You know, I think We’re all trapped in this way of thinking about childhood and children that we’ve kind of evolved, and I think a lot of us recognize that it’s not working very well, and yet we don’t quite know what to do about it. I think that Alex: that conflict between belonging and authenticity is somehow baked into this conception of childhood, and it doesn’t have [00:09:00] to be. Belonging is a fundamental need. We are social creatures. We depend on others, not just in our childhood, but throughout our lives. Interdependence is just part of being human. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Alex: children and children’s development, it’s particularly important because in early childhood particularly, that developmental partner who serves as a mirror is critical to the way that we understand ourselves and ourselves in the world. And so if that mirror is distorted, if what we get from the mirror is the need to satisfy the adult’s needs rather than to listen to our own needs and satisfy those and ask for and have our needs met, that becomes a very difficult bind [00:10:00] for children to navigate. Alex: There was this lovely book that- helped me think about this, that I found probably 25 years ago, called “The Betrayal of the Self.” So the idea of, cutting off from parts of ourselves in order to get our needs met by others, can start very early, and it is very, very damaging to the way that we are in the world. Alex: And if you put the messaging of, gender socialization, of, expectations from society in general into the mix, what we learn to do is to listen to everything from outside of ourselves rather than our own inner voices. And if that continues, the inner voice gets pushed further and further down, and it is much more difficult to find. Alex: And it creates, conflict that is, um, [00:11:00] outside our field of vision, and, we begin to act on things that w-we don’t even understand where they’re coming from. so I think that’s fundamental, and a lot of that is, is also built into our systems. You know, our education system is a good example. Alex: And I’m referring to the one here in the States, but I think that education systems around the world have a common trait that we see children as raw material that is used to create the widgets that our economies need, right? we’re thinking more about what the labor force requirements are than about who are the human beings in our classrooms. Alex: And, you know, this is a vast generalization. There are wonderful schools that approach this stuff very differently, but for the most part, in general, we tend to treat children as incomplete human beings who are just on their way to [00:12:00] becoming human. And that’s a very strange message if you think about it, right? Alex: and we do it all the time, in the most innocuous ways possible. You know, that question of “What are you going to be when you grow up?” can be really challenging because what we really want to be finding out is, “Who are you now?” Gissele: Ja. Gissele: Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Alex: So- Gissele: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I resonated with everything you said. I think I’ll start with when you are taught to minimize your own voice, your own perspective, especially if it doesn’t align with what your parents believe. Gissele: Or I think, you know, when you’re expected to regulate yourself and your emotions so that your parents can be okay instead of having them regulate themselves and help you co-regulate, it starts the journey of what I’m supposed to not feel. And then you go to systems such as the school system, which, focuses on, conformity, right? Gissele: It focuses on [00:13:00] there’s one way, a primary way of doing things, and any sort of diversity, including children who can’t sit for eight hours a day, is bad. And so from my perspective, that is really the beginning of isms, right? Like the othering, that if you’re not conforming to how this structure, then you don’t fit. I wanted to ask, ’cause you talked about the need for belonging. How do you balance belonging with authenticity? Alex: Well, in part it’s finding the communities where you belong as your authentic self. Alex: And a lot of our work, because we really are focusing on adults, is to help people think about how to create environments and ecosystems that are welcoming to children as they are authentically, Alex: um, and where they feel that they belong as fully themselves. Alex: And, the one [00:14:00] caveat I want to make sure I touch on is that sometimes people misunderstand what we mean by authenticity. I don’t mean being unfiltered at all times and just, spewing everything that’s going on in my head Gissele: Yeah, Gissele: yeah. Alex: 24 hours a day. You know, authenticity for us is the awareness that I have a story and that everybody else has a story, and that we need to find ways Alex: to have those stories coexist and ideally amplify each other and create an even better communal story. Alex: so empathy and awareness of other people is an critical part of what I consider authenticity. and that means having a [00:15:00] filter. That means having situational awareness and that- It’s not that I cut away from parts of myself, but that only certain parts of myself are necessary in any particular situation. Gissele: Hmm. Agreed. I was curious as to what you would say to someone that doesn’t really know who they are. Like, what would be the starting point? because I know that in my own journey, I’ve been through phases where I didn’t really know, who am I really? I noticed all the conditioning. Some of the things I wanted was based on what I thought I should want rather than what I really wanted, and so that’s a little bit dizzying. So what would you say to someone who’s like, “I don’t really know who I am. How can I begin that exploration?” Alex: Well, I think that what you just said is, a great place to start. It’s noticing the expectations that we might have internalized and to, interrogate them a little bit. You know, i-i-is this what I actually want? and if [00:16:00] not, when did I start believing that I wanted this? And, tracing it back to, there’s usually a story to that as well. Alex: it’s not necessarily I don’t know who I am. it might be I don’t know who I am right now. The things that fit me a year ago may not fit today because we evolve. And part of the reason that we talk about supporting children and exploring and developing their authentic selves is really about developing a relationship and the tools for that lifelong exploration. Alex: ‘Cause the self is not a static thing. It’s not like I, you know, at 13 discover who I am and then I’m going to be that person throughout. Um, so I think that’s also key is finding out who am I right now? what are the parts of me that are, stepping forward? What are the parts of me [00:17:00] that I wish would be a little bit more prominent? Alex: One of the, one of the activities that I love in the book is, creating the celestial map of your inner universe. And the questions it asks are, you know, what parts of you shine brightly all the time? What parts of you can only be seen when, there are certain conditions? Alex: what are the black holes where, you know, you can feel the power, but you don’t really understand them that well? so, doing that kind of exploration, a lot of it is about, pausing and asking questions With the belief that we have the power to change. We always have the power to choose. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Alex: I think that the hardest, I think, for us are moments where we feel stuck, where, we feel that we are at the mercy of external factors that we really have no control over. Gissele: Yeah. Have you ever had an experience where somebody who, [00:18:00] as they’re discovering their authentic selves, really faces a lot of fear? And what I mean is, like, for example, if you are from the LGBTQ community and realize that your gender identity is one that is non-normative, as they call that, use that word, right? you might not want to be your authentic self. It might be difficult for you because you might feel persecuted. What can help individuals who may be facing identities that maybe there’s an internal, judgment upon, right? like for example, there might be some internalized homophobia. Alex: Well, I think that it’s important to make the distinction between the internalized, judgments, which we do have the power to change, right? Because again, by interrogation and being with people who support us, we can learn to, shift the perspective that, I don’t have to dislike my– I’ll use my own example. Alex: I genuinely was ashamed of being male because I believed that there were all of [00:19:00] these really negative things about manhood. And the– probably the– Alex: best thing that ever happened, and it was a conscious effort, but the best thing that happened for me in men’s group is that I stopped feeling ashamed of being a man. Alex: And, after I stopped being ashamed of being a man, I also then could work on other places where I felt ashamed of myself, and ask whether I needed to or not, and wanted to. so that’s the internal work, and that’s, that we do have control over. There are real dangers out there. Iwe are, living in a time again when, being other is dangerous in a lot of places. Alex: so I think being realistic about, those dangers and being, protective o-oneself is important. that’s not being authentic. that’s taking care of your authentic self. Gissele: [00:20:00] Beautiful. Gissele: I was wondering if you could share your favorite story of the feedback you received from children around your program. ’cause there was a few stories there that were really good, like feedback from young people about, their ability to be their authentic self. Alex: You know, the one that still stands out for me was a story from very early on, when we started the, uh, programs for boys and girls, in after school. And we had a boy, in the program Alex: who Alex: literally hid behind boxes for the first, I don’t know, couple of weeks that he was in the program. And slowly, he saw, through experience that he was accepted for who he was. Alex: And, this was a boy who, he liked gymnastics, he liked dance. He, brought with him, I think some, internalized judgments, but also beliefs about how people saw him. And after two years in [00:21:00] our program, he was able to stand in front of a room full of, adults at one of our events and tell them about that experience of being afraid and talk about how… Alex: the way he put it is that, he likes girl things. so he was struggling with his gender identity and what that meant. and that being in the program made him feel first safe that he would be accepted, and through that safety, to learn to accept himself and feel more comfortable, and comfortable enough to the point where he could stand and talk to people about who he was and what he was comfortable, being and doing. Alex: And, and so that’s still one of the really meaningful moments for me, of Alex: seeing the transformation and hearing a child talk about what that meant to him. Gissele: Hmm. And I think that goes to demonstrate the value of your [00:22:00] program. Um, I remember when my daughter was little and we had a little birthday party and we invited both girls and boys, and I remember there was a little boy. And we had lots of different things. We had tiaras and balloons and I remember there was a little boy who, he was, her friend. Gissele: He was like very rough and tumble, and at the same time he wanted to take a tiara home. And, I remember the dad was really adamant… And this is not a judgment to this. this is just goes to the identities that we have forced on children. And the the dad was adamant that he was not gonna take anything that was girl related. Gissele: and the look of devastation on that kid, it really impacted me. And I, tried to talk to the dad and ultimately it was his decision. but it gets me thinking about all kind of those norms that we put on when really it’s just all fun and exploration. I wanted to go back to,you talked about being able to address your shame of being a man. What sort of things helped you address shame? Because To me, that really is the key to opening up, our [00:23:00] willingness to be more compassionate towards one another. Alex: You know, it, it was a long process and it was, creating the space to ask the questions of what was it I was really ashamed of Gissele: Hmm. Alex: did these beliefs come from? And what began to emerge was that there was a gap between the life I was leading and the experiences I’d had personally Gissele: Mm-hmm. Alex: from the beliefs that I carried with me from childhood. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Alex: And so once I could see that space between the two, I could say, “Well, which one would I choose?” So in a way, it goes back to this idea of Alex: having the Alex: power to live from our own experience and emotions rather [00:24:00] than, the beliefs and the ideas that we were taught as children. and that’s not a necessarily an easy thing to do. Gissele: No, it’s not. It takes Gissele: courage Alex: it does because Alex: There’s a form of separation in that, you have to choose yourself at the risk of, the connections of belonging, right? Because if, your, community still has those beliefs and judgments and I choose to believe something else, I am choosing to step out of community. Gissele: it can feel very lonely, right? Alex: it can. And I think it’s very important, to go back to your question about, um, you know, identities that, carry real danger in the world. it’s very important to have supportive communities in place as we do that work and we make those transitions so we’re not [00:25:00] doing this by ourselves. Alex: I just came back from, a summit on wellbeing of the, American Association of School Superintendents, and the motif for the summit was the real crisis in mental health, for children in this country. in some part at least, and in, in my opinion, to a large part, of young people feeling Alex: in their identities and not being able to find a community that supports them. Gissele: Yeah, definitely. And with social media too, you only see, curated versions of people’s experiences. I think people are starting to question Gissele: really who are really authentic people, and you see it. You see it, like the death of the guru, celebrity, now sort of, crumbling. Gissele: People don’t believe and don’t trust. but I think it’s part of the evolution of us going inward, [00:26:00] is why I think your work is so important. and the reason why I also in particular think your work is so pivotal is that I think some of the basis for racism and discrimination and so on is that fear, is the fear of nonconformity And I’ve mentioned this before in the podcast, but I love this quote by a comedian, Alok. they’re trans, and they talk about, the fact that they have found that people that are anti-trans one of the reasons is that they’re so inauthentic. so somebody who is just being authentically themselves because it doesn’t conform to them, because they’re needing to belong, they’re needing to fit in, it’s a threat. And so this is why your work on authenticity is so important, because to go back to who we really are, it does take a lot of unlearning. Alex: Well, to that point, I– with my very, very limited knowledge of neuroscience, The fear [00:27:00] is in part driven by our brains. our brains are wonderful tools for categorizing things and, Alex: they excel at the, at that job. They get very, uncomfortable when they can’t find a category, Gissele: Yeah. Alex: right? Alex: we sort of start to short circuit, and I think that experience of not being able to place, the pattern easily makes us so uncomfortable that it actually raises flight emotions or fright emotions, and we then respond with these very kind of fundamental, feelings of, doesn’t, doesn’t compute, doesn’t compute. Alex: So part of what I talk about when I talk about authenticity is also a return to finding our whole beings. I think that our, again, our systems have led us to believe that we live from the [00:28:00] shoulders up, and it’s all about the brain, and it’s all about the mind, and we’ve lost touch with the rest of the way that we experience the world. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Alex: children are really good at that, except that we kind of socialize it out Alex: of them. and we need to return to that. we need to return to being able to feel where feelings happen in our bodies. You know, that was one of the first things I had to learn in a men’s group is like, where do I… Alex: so somebody will ask you that question. “Well, where do you feel that in your body?” And I would stare at them blankly as like, “I don’t know.” Alex: But then if I listen for a little while, I do know. and the more we practice, the more attuned we get to how we experience everything in so many parts of ourselves. Alex: And, the brain then creates a story, and it puts all these, language symbols around it, which is wonderful because then we can talk about it, but that’s not the only story. and I think that’s really key to [00:29:00] reclaiming all of this. Gissele: Mm. Mm, mm, mm-mm. I wish I could put, a little bell that’s like, da-da-ding, like wisdom. Because, what you said about the nervous system andof us needing to categorize things, I think that’s fundamentally it. It’s the fact that, if I don’t know where this person belongs, then I may not know where I belong, and what does that say about me? and so the brain sort of goes into, “No, you have to fit into this box so that I can be comfortable, so that I know how you’re gonna behave.” And we live in a world where We’ve made a world so predictable, we think, right? we even wanna know what the weather is going to be. we need to know everything. But the truth of it is it’s not real, and as you see from the weather network, it’s not super 100% accurate. But, it’s sort of given us that false belief that things can feel safe because they’re predictable. And so if I know which box this person fits, then I can feel safe. And going to the concept of emotions, the need for us to learn how to emotionally regulate ourselves, [00:30:00] to be able to sit with those difficult feelings in being more heart-based, I think is really key. but it feels so uncomfortable. it can feel so dangerous. what helps individuals as they’re exploring those emotions and becoming more heart-based in staying with it instead of choosing to just eject and go back? Alex: Well, I think the weather metaphor is helpful. You know, our feelings are just like the weather, they pass. There’s always gonna the next feeling, right? Alex: I think what happens to us when we experience particularly uncomfortable feelings is that we think that they’re gonna be there forever, and they’re not. Alex: I make it sound simple, and it’s not. Again, it took me years and years and years in, in men’s group and, therapy to learn to… we talk about sitting with uncomfortable feelings. I think that there’s a part [00:31:00] of the brain kicking in and saying, “I’m gonna solve this.” Alex: And often there’s nothing to solve. We just have to be with what’s uncomfortable. the other point I wanted to touch on when you were talking about prediction, it’s an illusion. we think we can predict based on where we put a person in our categories, but people are inherently unpredictable. Alex: So even someone we might think we understand is likely to surprise us sooner or later.and I think that if we develop the superpower of being self-regulated, the surprises are not so scary. they can be exciting. we can approach everything with curiosity, and we don’t get rocked every time something unexpected happens. Gissele: yeah. Alex: and that’s another part of [00:32:00] authenticity. When we’re grounded in our own selves and we feel secure in ourselves, what happens around us becomes much more tolerable. Gissele: Yeah, very true. A-and I also agree that it takes work. It takes Gissele: courage. It takes you showing up every single day. it takes, making different decisions, at least it has for me. I can’t make decisions out of fear anymore. I choose to make decisions out of love, out of openness. Even though it feels uncomfortable at times, I know I won’t be there forever. It’ll pass. J-just a couple more questions. My… Gissele: The first one is, what’s your definition of self-love? Alex: I guess for me it’s having a kind voice in speaking to myself. Alex: having a sense of humor and a sense of curiosity, and, empathy. Um, it’s not easy being us. Alex: Yeah. Alex: And, um, you know, I think [00:33:00] that when we start with empathy for ourselves, it’s a whole lot easier to be empathetic towards other people. Gissele: Very, very true. last question: Where can people work with you? Where can they find you? Where can they find your book? When’s it coming out? Alex: the book is coming out on, June 9th. It’s called “For Real: Helping Children Remain Their Authentic Selves in a Limiting World.” the easiest place to find information about the book is, um, on the book website, which is forrealbook.org. and then if people are interested in working with us more broadly with programming, partnerships and so on, we are launching, the Authenticity Works Initiative, which is designed to bring these ideas to communities, all over the world ideally, eventually. Alex: and the website for that is authenticityworks.org. Gissele: Ah, thank you so much, Alex. Please go out and get the book when it comes out, and thank you so much for all the incredible work that you’re doing. I truly believe in [00:34:00] the power of authenticity in helping us actually create a more loving and inclusive world. So thank you to everyone who tuned into another episode of Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Gissele: See you soon. Alex: Thank you very much

June 4, 2026

Ep. 100 – Choosing Love After the Unthinkable

TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Choosing love after the unthinkable. Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And we’d also like to take an opportunity to thank Yorkton Film Festival for voting our podcast Best Podcast Nonfiction for 2026, and Latin Fest Best Latin Podcast for 2026. Scarlett: Wow Gissele: Scarlett Lewis is the founder of Choose Love Movement, a non-for-profit whose programs have reached millions of children and educators across all 50 US states and 135 countries. Following the tragic loss of her son Jesse in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, she developed award-winning programs that teach people of all ages essential life skills rooted in courage, gratitude, forgiveness, love, and compassion. Gissele: Scarlett is also the author of several books, including Nurturing Healing Love and From Sandy Hook to the World, and her work extends into schools, [00:01:00] homes, communities, foster care, corrections, and youth programs. Recognized with numerous honors and awards and featured by many major media outlets, she continues to speak internationally about the healing, resilience, and power of choosing love. Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Scarlett Lewis. Gissele: Hi, Scarlett. Scarlett: Hi. So happy to be here. Thank you. Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. Your story is so powerful. I was wondering if you could get started by letting the audience know for those who might not know about Sandy Hook, a little bit about Sandy Hook and what happened to your son, Jesse. Scarlett: Yes, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me and introducing this to your audience. It’s really exciting. So on December 14th, 2012, so that was 13 years ago, my six-year-old son was murdered in his first grade classroom alongside 19 of his classmates and six educators in what is still the worst mass shooting in an elementary school in the US Scarlett: after that, [00:02:00] I realized that what happened was 100% preventable . I just knew that inherently, and it turns out that is accurate. And w- I decided that I would spend the rest of my life in search of how we can keep our kids safe and well. So that was the beginning of the Choose Love movement Gissele: When you say that you believe there was 100% preventable, what do you mean by that? Scarlett: I mean that in every case in every school shooting, there are always signs. and other people had feelings and saw issues that went unaddressed. And the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is no different. There were signs and things that were happening along the way. Scarlett: One of the things that really bothered me personally in this situation in my own son’s murder, was that there was [00:03:00] never a motive assigned to that school shooting. And a lot of times if you follow these things there aren’t motives that are identified, and that really bothered me because I kept thinking, “If you don’t know why somebody is doing what they’re doing, how can you solve it?” Scarlett: And it turns out we haven’t. And so what I did was look at what was currently in place, and a lot of times in our current system, we are very reactive and we focus on the problems. So even in school shootings, if you look at the Department of Homeland Security’s Pathway to Violence, it starts with a grievance, and then it escalates up, ideation, preparation, a few other steps to the attack end. Scarlett: We’re very focused on the attack end with a billion-dollar industry that has grown up around active shooter drills and hardening schools. And I looked at that and I thought it’s [00:04:00] interesting that we do that for other things too, as, as well as mental health and substance abuse.” And I thought, “Wow, if you shifted part of your focus,” because that’s very important. Scarlett: There are fires. We do have to put them out. But if we shifted some of our time, energy, and resources to the grievance end to address in a proactive and preventative way the root cause of the suffering, th- then we actually can reduce that suffering and potentially stop not only school shootings, but substance abuse and mental illness and so many of the other society issues of despair And so that’s where I’ve really focused my efforts because I saw that not many people were doing that. Scarlett: That’s not traditionally in our methods. And although I will say, great news, it [00:05:00] is becoming more of a focus, and really because we’ve seen nothing else is working. When Jesse was murdered, I had lots of opportunity to speak on behalf of lots of different initiatives that were going on before my son’s murder, and I thought, “You know what? Scarlett: No thank you,” because those haven’t worked. They didn’t work for my son, as well as his shooter by the way. And flash forward 13 years, they’re not working now. So I think a lot is in addressing the root cause. And this is a simple concept, but simple isn’t easy. It does take effort, and it takes all of us. Scarlett: But you know what? We benefit as individuals as well as a society. We’re responsible for the world that we’re leaving our kids. And so this is actually a way that everyone can get involved to help create a safer, more peaceful, and loving [00:06:00] world Gissele: I love everything that you said. There’s so much to unpack. I think the first thing I thought about was the fact that in many systems, not just like you said when you deal with a school shooter, even with women and violence the police wait until something has actually happened in order to offer protection. Gissele: So we wait for something to occur and then react instead of being proactive. The other thing I thought about is the fact that like you mentioned, there’s a lot of invisible suffering that happens. And the school shooter, I think his name was Adam Lanza and and all these other children that are going through all of this suffering basically unnoticed ’cause there was lots of instances where that potential could have been stopped, but it wasn’t, Scarlett: Oh, Gissele, can I even make, can I mention something there? Gissele: yes, please do Scarlett: When you say that, that’s very profound because in my research I’ve also spoken to school shooters because I wanna ask them what I don’t think anyone else is asking, “How did [00:07:00] we fail you?” Gissele: Oof. Yeah. Scarlett: You’re a Gissele: And what was their answer? Scarlett: You’re a child, in essence, and you weren’t born a mass murderer So how did we fail you along the way? Scarlett: What were the needs that you had that weren’t met? And with all the conversations that I’ve had, I can boil it down to one thing. It’s that they didn’t feel seen. And if you think about it, that takes a bit of effort. Instead of saying as I walk by you, “Hey, Gissele, how you doing?” And walking right past, it means pausing. Scarlett: It means being present in the moment, looking at you, hopefully in the eyes, and saying an open-ended statement s- to make you realize that I see and value you. If we treated every interaction as a sacred occurrence, which it really is, it would change humanity. And I think this is so [00:08:00] important. What I’m talking about are not difficult things. Scarlett: They’re really actually very simple, and they’re also led by a message that my six-year-old son left on our kitchen chalkboard shortly before his murder that I found after, which profoundly changed my life and also informed everything that I’ve done every day since. Those three words are nurturing, healing love. Scarlett: Phonetically spelled, because he was in first grade and just learning to write. I didn’t walk around saying those words. He wasn’t learning it in school. I believe that it was a message that came through him. But I immediately recognized it as the solution, and we know through now decades of research that connection or lack thereof is at the root of almost all suffering, including school shootings, mental illness, [00:09:00] substance abuse. Scarlett: And there are things that we can do to facilitate connection and teaching kids these essential life skills is so vitally important. B- in essence, giving them an invisible tool belt that they can use for the rest of their life to be able to learn, grow, and be strengthened through painful events. Scarlett: Because we’re gonna be experiencing pain. That’s part of the human condition. Nobody escapes it. It’s something I have in common with every single listener out there. Physical, mental, and emotional pain, we’ve all had it. We’ve all had our hearts broken. Maybe just a little crack, maybe shattered like mine. Scarlett: But in actuality, that pain has a purpose. It’s there to help us grow. There’s a science behind that as well. And if we don’t know that, we fear pain [00:10:00] because nobody wants to be in pain. And we do everything that we can to resist and avoid or w- maybe even numb ourselves. Scarlett: But in reality, if we can raise kids that understand that pain has a purpose, that are present with those difficult feelings, which is getting harder and harder with cell phones that give us an immediate dopamine hit through scrolling. But if we can be present with it and get curious about what that pain is offering us and learn and grow from us, and then go through this formula that we’ve developed to let the painful parts go, but to bring forward that wisdom we benefit from it, believe it or not Gissele: Yeah. Absolutely. I wanted to mention the fact that there are many systems that we have, including the school system, that really doesn’t allow the getting to know each and every child. It’s like we have many systems where there’s so many people that are invisible, and I just wanna reiterate what you said, which [00:11:00] is this doesn’t take a lot. Gissele: Sometimes it’s as small as an eye contact or asking someone how they’re doing that might make the difference between that person feeling connected or disconnected. But you’re right. We’ve created a world right now that there’s so much disconnection and We really struggle with having those difficult conversations and those difficult feelings, and you can see it in how we’re canceling one another. Gissele: But that’s really the only way that we’re gonna get through any of the isms, through being able to lean into one another and be able to regulate ourselves enough to be able to sit and get curious. Because it seems to me that you got curious about the perpetrator of that school shooting. Gissele: You got curious as to why that happened. Can you share a little bit about how you went from grief to that curiosity? Scarlett: Absolutely, and I think that’s a really important point. with the algorithms that are behind the phones now, we are just given, the [00:12:00] content that aligns with what our beliefs are right now, and we become even further and further divided. There’s fear that’s being seeded in that process, and so fear is driving that division. Scarlett: It’s actually narrowing our focus. If you look at what fear does to our brain, it’s very fascinating. It literally puts blinders on us so we have less tolerance to be able to handle other people’s views. So what is going on in our world right nowmakes sense because it’s being driven by an algorithm. Scarlett: But the beautiful thing is we are so much more powerful than that algorithm, but we do need to have awareness of what’s happening, and then a few skills and tools in our belt. And curiosity is so valuable, and here’s why. Because the way that our brain processes information, it comes in from our [00:13:00] five senses, and it goes into a little region in our brain called the thalamus. Scarlett: The thalamus acts as a relay station, and it sends that information to our prefrontal cortex and our amygdala, which is our fear center. Here’s the thing. Our prefrontal cortex is where logic and reasoning and the understanding of right and wrong, and really the wisdom is here, as well as in the heart. Scarlett: The fear center is what keeps us safe. And so the fear center, for our safety, is four times faster at processing information than our prefrontal cortex. And if you look at it in context, that makes a lot of sense. So you’re walking along and you have a bear that comes out of the woods. Actually, yesterday I was walking and there was a raccoon that was weaving in the road. Scarlett: I did not have to pause, get curious about that situation to determine what should I do. My brain flipped me [00:14:00] around and I went the other way. So it makes sense if we’re in physical danger. But what happens it also has the same effect when we’re in what our brain deems to be emotional danger. What can happen is that our amygdala gets hijacked, and that information doesn’t get to our prefrontal cortex, where our highest and best selves are able to thoughtfully respond, where also the brake on our instinctual reactions is. Scarlett: That curiosity is key. And we all have triggers every day. It could be a look That triggers us. It can be a word, a situation. It could even be a memory that comes up a painful memory. And those triggers they’re happening in our amygdala, and the way to move through them to not be reactive, I say put up your metaphorical dukes if your life’s not in danger, is to pause. Scarlett: We call this the pause and the [00:15:00] choice moment. This is what we’re teaching kids all over the world, which is so incredible, and adults. Pause, take a brave breath. That restores your autonomic nervous system. It stimulates your vagus nerve, which wraps around every single organ, which it, there’s nothing you can do to bring calm on faster than a brave breath. Scarlett: And then you get curious. That curiosity stimulates the prefrontal cortex and allows for what we call a thoughtful response in love for maintaining your personal power in any situation, and not handing it over to the person who may have triggered you or hurt you. So in this sense, your question is, was about Adam Lanza. Scarlett: I understood that hurt people. And to me first of all, I looked around and I saw so much blame, finger-pointing, and fault-finding on Adam Lanza and his mom, Nancy Adam, by the way, killed [00:16:00] Nancy before he left that morning from the home that they shared to go back to the elementary school that he attended to perpetrate the crime. Scarlett: And I thought about that for a moment, and I thought there was so much blame going on, not just on Adam and Nancy, but on so many different things. And I thought, wow, the act of blaming is actually a way to not take responsibility ourselves. So in Scarlett: other words, Gissele, if it’s your fault, then I’m saying, “I’m the good guy.” Scarlett: And by the way, our brain looks for this narrative. “I’m the good guy. You’re the bad guy.” That means that it’s all your fault. But also it means that there’s nothing that I can do about it, that I’m a Gissele: Yeah Scarlett: And so I saw all of this, and it just didn’t make sense to me because I think maybe it’s because it’s the first time I’d ever sat quietly since I had kids, and I have a farm, and I had a full-time job. Scarlett: I’m a single mom. I [00:17:00] really do think I did all this thinking because I finally had nothing else to do in this moment leading up to Jesse’s funeral and then a little bit beyond. And I thought, “Wow so all these people are blaming these different things.” But in reality i- and I said this in the, in one of the first interviews I gave, I said, ” I take my part of the responsibility for what happened to my son in his school, in my community.” Scarlett: Blaming Adam Lanza and his mother yes, they’re 100% responsible for the choices that they made. Nancy paid for those mistakes that she made as did Adam. He killed himself after he murdered all those children when he heard the sirens coming. So I’m not saying that it’s not their fault but in reality, aren’t we all responsible for the world and the community that we live in? Scarlett: And if it was all their fault , then it would never have [00:18:00] happened before, but it did multiple times, and it would never happen again, yet we continue to have school shootings. I can’t even say they’re our new normal anymore. They’re part of our culture, and we expect them in fact, a parent told me over the weekend, this is just while I was traveling and speaking they said sending their child to school was like playing Russian roulette which I thought was so interesting. Scarlett: They said goodbye to their child, so many parents say this to me, and they hope that they see them when they come home at the end of the day. And I’m laughing only because of the irony. We have so much more power than to think that we’re playing Russian roulette with our children’s lives when we send them to school. Scarlett: to answer your question, I actually felt compassion for Adam, as well as his mom. First of all, she was a single mom. She was trying to deal with her son’s neurodiversity herself. She was [00:19:00] trying to get help from the school, and she really didn’t. And that’s really tough because I, and a whole bunch of other parents that I know, have been in her shoes and really received so much resistance from the school. Scarlett: To make me wonder, do we need to reshuffle our priorities? I always assumed that the school’s priority was my child’s safety , health, and wellbeing . But I found out that’s not necessarily the case. Now, I’m not saying anything about the educators or the administrators. I love them. I believe that they are our modern-day superheroes . Scarlett: My goodness, they show up every day. But I’m saying the whole system is broken in the priorities. I’ve experienced, and then witnessed finances first, and then liability second, and then I’m not [00:20:00] sure on which level our children’s priority is. But I believe that if our children’s priority was children as a priority were first, their safety, health, and wellbeing, we wouldn’t be where we are. Gissele: Yeah. I agree. It’s funny. I interviewed a mother whose daughter exhibited sociopathic tendencies and actually attempted to murder her sister. And she went in actually asked support of the system, and so many times, and she was told that, informally that they didn’t wanna diagnose her because then it would be a state problem. Gissele: and then they would have been financially responsible for her. And so I wanted to go back because I think you… Again, you said s- you’re sprouting such gold nuggets here that I don’t want the audience to miss it. The first thing is the fact that we’re all responsible for each other. Gissele: It’s easier to blame other people because that gives us a sense of that person’s dealt with. We can go back to sleep at night. We can feel safe.” But the truth of the matter is, it’s not until we address our own [00:21:00] fears, until we have the courage to get curious about people, to address our own mental health, to address our own difficult emotions, and then lean into one another and see each other as brothers and sisters, until we’re actually going to change things. Gissele: And I know from my own personal experience, fear is so difficult to address, especially if you grew up in a very fear-based environment. And every time I made a decision in fear, my world got smaller and smaller. And it was when I started to make decisions from courage that my world got bigger and bigger and bigger. Scarlett: Can I share something on that? Gissele: Yes, please do. Scarlett: Because literally I’m getting goosebumps. When I was sitting on my mom’s couch, she lives across town, right after Jesse’s murder, I had this feeling, even though I was so devastated, I thought I would die just from the pain, not that I wanted to harm myself, Gissele: Yeah Scarlett: had this other feeling, and I was trying to figure out what that was, and I [00:22:00] realized for the first time in my life I had no fear. Scarlett: And then I had this sort of like life review, and I looked back over all of the choices that I’d made. Every relationship, every job I’d ever taken was out of fear. And I promised myself I would not do that anymore, that I would act in courage, as you said. And, I was also realizing, I was, I, we were told within days that my six-year-old son had stood up to the shooter and sacrificed his life to save nine of his classmates. Scarlett: I, that was my example. I thought, “If my son could do that at six years old, then certainly I can use and dedicate the rest of my life to trying to live my life with that kind of courage to be [00:23:00] part of the solution, to not shy away from it,” as I had for s- for so long, just assuming that other people had children’s best interests. Scarlett: And I know they try, but I have to say, parents, no one cares about your kids like you do, and a lot of us are parents and we, that is a rally cry for us to get involved ourselves to make sure that our children are safe, that, to make sure that their safety, health, and wellbeing are prioritized. Scarlett: And I think, I, everybody was telling me, “You’ve been through the worst that a parent could ever experience,” and from talking to other parents since, it is not the worst. But you also can’t compare your grief. But I have tried to live my life with this courage, and actually that is why courage is our first character value in our formula because what I’ve found is that courage is like a muscle. Scarlett: You can [00:24:00] practice it to strengthen it, and I have to tell you that I… and it’s a lifelong process, by the way. I’m not perfect at it. I’ve been practicing for 13 years. But I am aware, m- much more aware than I was before and I do practice this courage muscle every single day, and it’s so important. Scarlett: And it opens up, as you said, Gissele, this whole other life that you didn’t even know was possible. It’s pretty amazing Gissele: Yeah. But it does take courage in the sense that, you have to be willing to face yourself and all of those emotions you haven’t wanted to address. But when you do, and you do that with a lens of compassion, you start to have compassion for other people’s behavior. You start to understand it more. Gissele: But it’s an interesting journey. I’ve seen it in my own family that when people make decisions out of fear, the world becomes smaller because then each subsequent decision is more and more fearful and more and more small. I wanted to go back to the comment about, the children and your son being a hero, [00:25:00] standing up for his fellow classmates. What else have you learned from children about love and what we could be doing better as adults around how we love each other? Scarlett: That’s such a great question because I have the honor of being able to go into classrooms. And, it’s so interesting when I work with little kids, they have such wisdom already inherently within them. And I’ll ask them questions like, ” What do you think someone is feeling when they’re mean to you?” Scarlett: And oh, hands immediately go up. They’re mad.” And I say, “Yes, they’re mad. But why do you think they’re mad ?” And they raise their hand immediately, “Because they’re sad.” And it’s Wow. Wow. They just know this inherently. and I’ve just realized this. I’m still learning and growing myself, but over the last few years, I really [00:26:00] think what happens from when they’re little to when we become older and we progress in age, we also progress in having experiences that are painful. Scarlett: And I believe that we armor up. And Gissele: Yeah Scarlett: I was gonna use my own situation, but it happens to few people. But what happens to everyone is betrayal, pain and hurt feelings. And I think what happens is instead of keeping our hearts open and being vulnerable and getting curious as to why that person is saying and doing what they’re doing, we armor up. Scarlett: And so we have this, what I’ve heard it called a bodyguard. I call it metaphorical dukes that we use as protection. and blame is part of that. Finger-pointing, fault-finding, victimization. But we know that can turn into helplessness. That can turn into hopelessness. Scarlett: [00:27:00] Hopelessness is the single most consistent factor in suicide and violence. I think that we need to remember that, and that’s why I developed this formula because that, this formula actually, it’s called locus of control, locus of our personal power. It actually returns our personal power back to us, which these little kids already have, where they understand, oh, if somebody’s saying or doing something mean, it’s coming from a point of pain within them. Scarlett: Because really we want love. We want connection. In fact, we need it to survive. Being mean is not conducive to connection. it is coming from fear, ultimately. Anger, hatred, resentment, revenge, a mask for fear. And so if we understood this, and this is what we teach, then we would look at these things these trigger points in us completely differently.[00:28:00] Scarlett: We would say instead of putting our dukes up and reacting in self-defense, and I’m saying maybe physically, but most often emotionally, we would pause, use that choice moment, pause- Take a brave breath. it’s not that it doesn’t incite pain or even fear. It does, and it should. can we get into managing emotions Gissele: Yes, please. Scarlett: B- because I think there’s a huge distinction that needs to be made. We don’t wanna manage emotions out of our kids, because emotions are how we navigate our environment, and they’re so beautiful and so important, and they teach us so much every single day about us. They’re so important, and I think we’ve been coming about them differently. Scarlett: But we can pause, and we can get curious, and we can consider why the other person… Remember that motive thing? Why the other person is saying or doing what they’re doing, and we can thoughtfully respond with [00:29:00] love from our highest and best self. Instead of responding like this, we can respond like this. Scarlett: so that’s really important. And if I can, just move straight into unpacking Gissele: Yes, Scarlett: power of emotions. I started thinking about this too. These are things that keep me up at night. These are the 3:00 AM thoughts that I have, okay? I’m thinking manage emotions. Manage emotions. We think about that, and we’re teaching our kids, manage those emotions. Scarlett: You have those hard emotions. It’s like red light, green light, right? Those negative emotions are the red light. Stop. Manage them into green. And to a certain extent, yes. However those red light emotions are so valuable. First of all, they can save your life. Second of all, that fear means you care, and Scarlett: You have to feel that to know, “Whoa, wait a minute. This is a situation that my boundaries are being violated. Somebody’s saying something that’s not true,” we need to have that [00:30:00] alert system is really important. That’s why I think it’s really important that we understand the difference between emotions and feelings Scarlett: Emotions are these automatic chemical washes that wash over our brain. Scarlett: They come and they go, and they’re really important. They never last. Even however difficult they may be, we can teach kids, “No, that is difficult. Listen. Get curious, and it will come and go.” Our feelings, now, this is where the cognitive triangle comes in, our thoughts that directly relate to our feelings then become our actions are different than emotions. Scarlett: So our feelings are what either keep an emotion going or use the information and get rid of the pain. You may have said something to me early on you don’t like the shirt that I picked out for this interview, and I would feel triggered. That trigger is saying, “Whoa, wait a minute. This is a situation. Scarlett: Is this maybe not a nice person, maybe not somebody that you wanna do a [00:31:00] podcast with, or who is this? What, what is going on?” I pause. I take a brave breath. I get curious as to why you might have said that, and I either say, “Oh, you don’t like this?” “No, I meant it’s a nice shirt.” “Oh, I misunderstood. Scarlett: It was my perspective that was off.” And then we move on. Or maybe I just say, “Oh, I know Gissele. I looked at what she does. She’s amazing. She’s got incredible messages that she gets out there. No,  It’s okay.” Maybe I’ll say something to her afterwards or whatever. My point is, my thoughts that directly relate to my feelings are whether I keep that sense of urgency going, that trigger, that it may become anger or resentment. Scarlett: That’s all my thoughts and feelings. And so if I can rectify that by saying something to you, takes courage, or maybe just letting it go and doing the mental process myself and releasing it. Maybe she’s having a bad day. Maybe she didn’t have her coffee this morning. Gissele: What is really important about what you said is [00:32:00] that it’s through our feelings and our thoughts, it’s us that keep those thoughts alive. And what I mean by that is if you and I have conflict over a shirt and, you address it in the moment, either you allow yourself to release it acknowledge the difficult emotions and release it or have the courage to say to me, “Hey, maybe it wasn’t your intention to be hurtful, but this is the impact of what you said around my shirt.” Gissele: It enables you to move on, but when we don’t do that because we don’t wanna address those difficult feelings, we just keep the thoughts alive. So five years from now you’ll still be thinking about the comment I may have said about your shirt. Scarlett: Not just keep it alive. This is what happens. So if I don’t have the understanding, I pause in my own mind, have the ability to process that hurt, here’s what can happen If I hold on to that slight It becomes a grievance. Remember the grievance that leads to the attack? Scarlett: So I might end this… obviously we’re talking about a shirt. [00:33:00] Who knows, how maybe emotionally harmed I am and how far I might take it. I might leave this podcast and I might call a friend and say, “Oh my God, have you heard of this girl Gissele? She does this podcast, and do you know the first thing she did was diss my shirt ?” Scarlett: And she’s “Oh my God, that’s awful. Have you read her comments And I’m like, “No, I didn’t do that, but I’m going to.” and so a grievance is after the fact, right? We can process things in the moment, but once it reaches a grievance, this is really important, once I have that conversation five minutes later, an hour later, a day later, it lodges in a different place in my brain. Scarlett: it goes to the pain Gissele: Yeah. Scarlett: And so the pain center, and now we’re getting into a little bit of addiction understanding, but when your brain registers pain, it tries to alleviate the pain. Our bodies are beautiful [00:34:00] pharmacies. I don’t think we don’t even know the extent that our bodies can be a pharmacy. So our brain says, “Ah, she’s in pain,” and so it releases dopamine. Scarlett: But in order to do that it, there is a revenge initiative that happens. So in other words, have an eye for an eye brain. A lot of people don’t understand this. This is new neuroscience. So in other words, I’m talking about you behind my back. This is gossip. Because I know that it would be hurtful to you what I’m saying, and I get pleasure in your pain. Scarlett: That’s why revenge is actually called the most dangerous addiction, because it’s the one in which we take pleasure in someone else’s pain. So I’m taking a little bit of pleasure, and I am being rewarded with dopamine. That’s, by the way, the same thing we get when we scroll, do drugs and the… here’s the important thing about this: it’s not healing. Gissele: No Scarlett: When I’m talking to my friend about you behind your back, it’s not healing, unless my friend [00:35:00] is saying, “Oh, wait a minute. She’s a wonderful person. I’ve just looked her up, and she’s great. I’m sure she didn’t mean it. Why don’t you just let it go and forgive,” right? Most friendships, though, have this sort of concept of this false sense of connection by joining in, right? Scarlett: Don’t you have the friendships… In fact, that was a conversation that I was having with a dear friend of mine on the way to work on the morning of December 14th. We were talking behind people’s backs, raging really together and one-upping each other on our stories. “Oh, this person is a jerk. Oh, you wanna know jerk? Scarlett: Let me tell you this.” And it’s one of the reasons why I thought, “Wow I don’t wanna fall into this trap,” because that trap only escalates the pain. It’s called a doom loop, a revenge loop. It only escalates. And then, once I get off the phone, the next time that memory comes up, in order to get [00:36:00] the same amount of relief, I need to up my revenge game. Scarlett: It’s very important because this is what leads to school shootings. And so we need to have this understanding to be able to stop it. And I’ll tell you what does stop it. I’ll tell you what the solution is, and the only thing that stops the pain center in the brain immediately, in the moment, is forgiveness. Scarlett: Oh, that opens up a whole other can of worms, doesn’t it? And it’s so interesting because when I started Choose Love, one of the character values in our formula is forgiveness. I have to tell you, I got so much resistance. First of all, I got resistance for the word love in the Choose Love movement, and love in the name of the program going into schools. Scarlett: Almost everyone was like, ” Ah, love? You’re gonna find resistance. Are you really sure that school’s a place to put that [00:37:00] i- ” The more resistance I got, the more I resisted really too. I thought, “Oh my gosh, we need to have love rolling off our tongues.” No, the want and need for love to love and be loved, that is what caused this. Scarlett: And so no I wouldn’t compromise on that. Now we have it on the end zone of the Super Bowl, so on the back of the helmets and… No, it’s, now we have, we see it in advertising campaigns, so that door’s been opened, which is great. So then forgiveness. and I wanted that to be one of our main character values in the formula. Scarlett: Oh my goodness, you can’t teach forgiveness. That’s way too lofty a topic. Kids are not gonna be able to understand forgiveness. And here’s the interesting thing. What I realized was- We as adults don’t understand forgiveness. Kids actually not only can learn it, it becomes the favorite tool that they have. Scarlett: And why? Because it still surprises me, the power of teaching [00:38:00] forgiveness. Why? Because they say it’s like a superpower. I’m using air quotes for those of you who are just listening. It’s like a superpower, and they say it feels so good to let it go. Forgiveness is a superpower, and it doesn’t mean what people think it means. Scarlett: It doesn’t mean that you’re condoning. It doesn’t mean that you’re forgetting. It doesn’t mean that you’re saying, “Oh, I was hurt, and it’s okay.” It’s never okay that you’re hurt. It simply means that I’ve processed the pain. I’ve reaped the benefits. I… By that I’ve harvested the gifts. I have learned from it and I’ve let that pain go. Scarlett: It no longer is lodged in my heart and mind. It no longer limits me. In fact I actually I actually take wisdom from it that I can share with other people to help them in their journeys. That’s what forgiveness means. It is a superpower, super tool. We know so much about what it does with the [00:39:00] brain and our bodies, and there are decades of research behind the benefits of forgiveness, and it just comes out getting stronger and stronger. Scarlett: And in fact, I will say it’s one of the most important things that I did in my own healing is forgiving Adam. I, and I said that I felt compassion for him, and I really did, and everything that I do every day is as much for, to honor my son’s life as it is for Adam and those kids out there right now that are suffering so much. Scarlett: Everything that I do is for them Gissele: So powerful. Oh, yeah, just so powerful. I wanted to make a comment because I’ve had other guests in the past on this podcast, like people that have done what you have done or had the courage to forgive and, have compassion for their perpetrators. And the biggest flak they get is from the people around them, which is so [00:40:00] interesting. Gissele: The need to punish, you were talking about the need for revenge, the need to hold onto that. it’s so interesting because that may make you doubt if you’re choosing the right thing, right? And especially if the people closest to you… But this is where what you were talking about is so important, where all of us are responsible for one another because hatred doesn’t work. It really doesn’t. Revenge doesn’t work. Scarlett: Hatred weakens me. I could have gone throughout my life hating and seeking revenge, and nobody would have, probably corrected me. But what does that do to me? And I had a 12-year-old son at the time, Jesse’s older brother, single mom. He’s looking to me to see how to be refined by this tragedy, not defined for the rest of his life. Scarlett: Do I model that for him? It certainly wasn’t joining an anti-movement, and ah, being angry and resentful, and no, absolutely not victimized. It was through forgiveness. Forgiveness [00:41:00] is the equivalent of personal freedom. Forgiveness allows you to move forward and learn from the event, and then take what you’ve learned to help other people. Scarlett: That only comes through forgiveness. And you’re right. Oh, my goodness. Yes, the resistance I got. I was not I would say popular person to say that I forgave, and so many people to this day resist. But I talk about it openly and honestly, and I understand that the journey of forgiveness is different for other people. Scarlett: I’m asked to speak to communities that have been devastated, and that’s the hardest thing that I do. And I remember in the beginning, the first time I was asked, I was thinking, ” Should I bring up forgiveness? They’ve just experienced this terrible thing. Is it too soon?” And I thought, “They’re asking me, and that’s part of my message.” Scarlett: i’m [00:42:00] seeding this power into children. Scarlett: So yeah, I think that I will. And I do bring it up, and I say I’m just offering it to you, and you do with it as you will. But please at least look into it and think about it.” Because the person that it benefits is not necessarily the person who did the crime. oftentimes in the case of school shootings, they’re dead. It was premeditated suicide They know that they’re gonna die. They want to die. They just wanna take out as many people as possible. it benefits you. You’re the benefactor, as well as your children and future generations, because we know that trauma passes down through generations. Scarlett: You benefit, so please become educated on this. You want the best for your children, of course you do, and that includes teaching them about forgiveness Gissele: Yeah. And what is so fundamental about your work is that nothing is gonna change [00:43:00] until we get curious and, until we truly understand what people that commit the crimes really need. We can arm ourselves all we want, we can do as many drills as we want, but until we actually care about the people who are doing this and understand why they’re doing it and support them and help them, love them, forgive them, and, find out what it is where we are dropping the ball, nothing is gonna change, Scarlett: Nothing is gonna change. Gissele: I was talking to someone who actually forgave her perpetrator for a sexual assault, and she was talking about the fact that all of the sexual assault literature is for women. It’s focusing on women. But until we figure out why these people are doing this, like what they need, what th- what they haven’t received, nothing is going to change. Gissele: And so this is where I think your work is so important and essential. Just a couple more questions ’cause I know you do have to get going. The first one is one of the things I’m really interested in is the process of rehumanization. I believe that we all have the potential to dehumanize and [00:44:00] rehumanize. Gissele: From all the people that you’ve spoken to, either in your podcast and in your work, is rehumanization possible, and what are the factors that help us reconnect to one another? Scarlett: That’s beautiful. I actually just gave a talk in Portugal on catalytic philanthropy, and I, part of that talk said that we’re all philanthropists. I think you said we’re caring for one another. But philanthropy, if you break down the root, is really love of humanity, Scarlett: That includes ourselves. So I think I think, yes, absolutely it’s possible, but it takes awareness and effort on a personal basis to become the best version of yourself, to put what I call your metaphorical dukes down, to start loving yourself. Scarlett: In fact, I call that the number one most important gift that we learn, not egotistical love, but literally loving and appreciating [00:45:00] yourself so that you can love and appreciate other people. It takes that pause, that sacred pause in what we call the choice moment between what happens and our response. Scarlett: It takes a little bit more discernment. It takes, and it will take, understanding the contempt that is being seeded amongst us via the news, the polarized news and social media. Once you start realizing the contempt that they’re trying to seed with these algorithms, I say they are trying, that these algorithms are seeding amongst us literally hatred of each Gissele: Yeah. Scarlett: I don’t know. I’ve seen comments wishing people dead and their children. Whoa. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Once we understand the power that we have as individuals From our thoughts? That’s when we start to create a new world. [00:46:00] That’s when we start to understand that we have the power to create positive change. Scarlett: That’s the definition of hope. As a famous anthropologist, Margaret Mead, said, “It takes a small group of people to understand this and then to move forward with it.” And, you’re not a victim of anything. You are incredibly powerful, and I think that people need to understand this and I think they need to start helping their kids understand this as well. Scarlett: I hope that people walk away from this realizing that they are responsible and can create the world that they want to leave their children. Don’t think, however, that anyone else is going to do it for you. Because if we thought that somebody else was gonna come in and do it, and I mean down to the level of keeping our kids safe, we were wrong. Scarlett: it has to be us, in a sense. It [00:47:00] makes sense. And once you start realizing this, and once you start doing the work within yourself, it feels so good. And you just naturally want to spread this. It’s so interesting. Even awareness of the Choose Love movement is spread by word of mouth. Scarlett: That is still the most powerful way to spread a message, is by word of mouth. And I have- I have full confidence that we are going to do this because we’ve forgotten our power, and It’s so tempting to relinquish it to some governmental agency or some leader to say, “Ah, they’ll take care of it.” Scarlett: But I think now that we’re realizing, oh, wait a minute, they won’t. They haven’t. They can’t. If they could have, they would have. So we’re going to have to reclaim our power and start doing things the right way, which is addressing the root cause. Yes, every institution that’s in place to put out the fires, thank you, [00:48:00] needed. Scarlett: But we also have to shift our focus to address the root cause so that we can get ahead of the suffering that leads to so much societal despair. It’s a change that we have to make, that we are responsible for, and that is possible. It does take a little more work. And wouldn’t it be great if we could just say more laws would fix everything, and then we would be safe and well? Scarlett: Wouldn’t that be great? It would be so wonderful, and I think we’ve tried to go that route, and we know that is actually simply not the case. It’s going to take effort on behalf of each one of us. But I can tell you, as a person that has taken that effort, that actually exerts, and exudes that effort every single day, that it only benefits you. Scarlett: It feels so good to take responsibility for your life and to not be a victim and to not harbor that type of blame and finger-pointing. Ah, it [00:49:00] feels so good. It’s like the best thing that I ever did. I remember saying on that interview, “I take my part of the responsibility.” And of course, talk about pushback. Scarlett: It’s the only thing that my mom and dad have agreed on in the last 35 years, I think, since their divorce, is that I should never have said that, ’cause it’s not my fault. And I was saying, “I’m not saying it’s my fault. I’m saying it’s my personal responsibility to be part of the solution to fix this.” And we’re all part of the solution. Scarlett: Everyone on here listening is part of the solution. And I think critical mass is like 3.5% that get this and that can move forward. And so let’s do it together, and let’s create the world that we want to leave our children, that we are proud to leave our children, one that is safe and kind. Gissele: So powerful and such a great way to really summarize everything. One of the things that I’ve seen in this podcast, I’ve been doing it for five years, is that love does have the power to transform, and it does begin with ourselves. For my own journey, the more I love myself, the more I accept [00:50:00] myself, flaws and all, the less I need other people to be different or to change, the more I can accept them as well. Gissele: And the… Actually, the more I start to care about other people and see their beauty and Gissele: understand that we’re all interconnected, we are all brothers and sisters, and we’re all in this circle of anything that I do impacts me, whether it be gossip or whether it be hate or whether it be anything, it always comes back to me. Gissele: It just does. Last question: Where can people work with you? Where can they find you? What do you wanna share with the audience? Scarlett: Yes. Thank you so much. So our website is <a href="https://chooselovemovement.org/">chooselovemovement.org</a>, and our programming is no cost. And we have programming for all ages and stages, mostly school-based, but parents and communities. And it was really important to me that it be no cost because these are the essential building blocks of a strong and resilient human, as well as home and community and world. Scarlett: I [00:51:00] realized that this would have saved my son. Prisoners, that we have prison programs, tell me that had they learned this in school, they would not have perpetrated their crime. They say they didn’t know they had a choice, and now they do. Let’s get this to the kids before they have to learn it when, I won’t say it’s too late, but after they’ve perpetrated some really very devastating crimes. And so we’re all in this together. I need your help. So please come, see what you can do. We have ambassadors all over the world. They’re not paid positions, but we’re a small but mighty organization, and we are out to change the world, and in fact, we’re doing it now Gissele: Fantastic. Gissele: Thank you so much, Scarlett, for sharing your wisdom and your messaging, and for everything you shared with us today. This is a powerful episode, and I’m so glad you were able to join us. And thank you to everyone who joined us for another episode of Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Gissele: Bye-bye. Scarlett: Bye

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What is Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Taraba?: Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share.
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