Next Question with Katie CouricYou’ve probably heard the name Sophie Trudeau, best known as the glamorous wife of Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada. But Sophie is a whole lot more than that. In her new book, Closer Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other, she candidly shares a lot about her life and struggles. But Sophie has also incorporated the best science and interviewed the leading researchers about how our brain handles life’s biggest challenges–her book tackles everything from mindfulness to the function of the vagus nerve. Her endless hope and practical approach to knowing ourselves is an invitation to curiosity, progress, and inner peace.
Life can be a lot, and it helps to have a therapist by your side. Register at talkspace dot com to connect with a licensed therapist within days for virtual support. Talkspace is in network with major insurers no insurance. Now get eighty five dollars off of your first month with promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot com slash Katiekuric. Hi everyone, I'm Katikuric and this is next question. You've probably heard the name Sophie Trudeau, right, the young, glamorous wife of Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada. But Sophie is a whole lot more than that. As a mental health advocate for the last twenty years, she is as passionate as she is compassionate. Her mission has been to better understand herself so we can all better understand each other. Her new book is called Closer Together, Knowing Ourselves, Loving each Other, and she candidly shares a lot about her life and struggles. But Sophie also has incorporated the best science and interviewed the leading researchers about how our brain handles life's biggest challenges. Her book tackles everything from mindfulness to the function of this thing we all have called the biggest nerve. The book is fascinating and best of all, it's hopeful. There really are simple things we can all do to live a more peaceful life. And here's a little hint, it's all about our nervous systems. So here's my conversation with Sophie Trudeau. Sophie, congratulations on your book. How does it feel putting it out in the world. Are you excited, terrified?
What a little mix of everything? But to be honest right now, because people have read it in the advance and the response that I've been getting has been overwhelmingly touching and supportive, and I'm pinching myself, yes, because it was a labor of love and you know, teamwork. And it's not that I'm yes, I'm proud of the content, but I really want this book to serve. I want people to be able to have the tools to better know themselves so they can navigate the fault of life that feels overwhelming, you know, feeling more secure and more confident.
It's a really wonderful format because it almost feels like an amalgamation of a memoir, a journal, a personal exploration, but also an exploration outside of yourself someone who is a reporter searching for answers. So tell me how you came upon this format, Sophie, and what you thought before you dove into the writing process.
I think the format kind of overtook me. You know, although I'm a you know, I'm a great I'm a type a so organizer or you know, things have to be in category reason when I'm working, and my desk had to be clean and all that. But for me, the book was kind of like a labor of love where I only know, you know now at forty nine that we can only teach by experience. Therefore, I could include my story and have a sense of integrity, of congruence that people understand that if I expose myself and my vulnerability, that they feel safe enough to do the same. And then I've had the privilege in a way and the chance throughout my twenty years of advocacy for mental health, and you know, my ambassadorship working with different kinds of organizations on a volunteer basis, really was to bring together experts and have access to science, to knowledge. And I'm super curious. I'm an eternal student. I'm never going to stop, you know, eating up what I'm passionate about. And I told myself, I have access to all of this, I'm learning on my own path. Well what's the point if I don't share with other people? And because I do what I do, I see people are suffering, and I see that people are anxious that are depleted or try to read, you know know, make ends meet. And there's a neural by biological imperative behind all of that. So I wanted to this science and the best experts in their industry, in fields and domains to be able to really make it accessible for everybody, whether you're a teenager or you know a young adult or somebody who's aging, that it's all accessible to everybody. And I think that that's working out well as of now with the comments that I'm getting. So I just can't wait to get more comments all the people who will be reading it and canally it's so important.
Meredith, who produced this segment for me, was talking about the format and the conversational the dialogue that you capture in the pages of this book, which she said made it feel much more readable and understandable than maybe an essay written by an expert that it really lent itself to accessibility, and I think when people see someone else learning, they're much more likely to take the journey with that person. When I did a documentary about our changing notion of gender identity, I sort of brought people along with me as I asked questions and channeled what I thought they would ask. And I think you used the same technique in your book, didn't you for me?
I mean, yes, you're right that it is a technique, but that's not how I used it. I didn't think, in my mind, I'm going to use this technique. What I wanted was to have a conversation with the people and the peacemakers that I love to call scientists who are trying to better understand how our brains work, how our bodies work, and why we have the personality that we do. So I wanted it to be conversational, and in the conversation there's no real protocol, there's no you know, titles are not important. It's just you to me. When I think of the people, I don't think of other people. I think of me, so and them and us together. So I tried to really be in that conversation immerse myself in that conversation, keeps things straightforward, authentic and simple, and to make it accessible for everybody. And you know, I think that right now, I've had you know, grandparents, parents, teenagers read it. And I'm so touched, especially by youth, because sometimes we think, oh, you know, they won't have the maturity to understand, or it's so untrue. Our young people are so ready to receive resting wisdom because they're so overpowered and overwhelmed by information that I just really hope that more young people as well will be exposed to It's kind of content.
Why do you think this is the right book at the right time, Because it does feel like the world is chaotic, people are overwhelmed, and there are just a lot of people who I think are feeling somewhat lost. And I'm wondering if do we know about it more because of social media, because our easy access to information, or does this feel, for you, Sophie, like a particularly fraught time, not only in America but in Canada, in so many places around the world. And maybe it's because we're witnessing such enormous change.
Such enormous change, well fed Katie, in such a short period of time, the telephone and the slip phone and then the you know, reverse screen and self be It changed our brain, it changed our kids' brains. And because we come into the world with two main intrinsic vistubal needs. First onanted attachment to be in the care of somebody, under their touch, their gaze, their their presence, their joyful presence, their their playfulness. Right, that sets a tone in our brain and every single human being our bonnot attachment with the person who took care of us, whether it was a grandparent and auntie, your mother, or a father. It leaves an imprint in our brain that we charty that into our teenage years, rebellious or not, and into our adulthood and the child within us is still active. So that's the first thing attachment. The second thing is authenticity. So every human being comes up to this earth with a unique personnality and we're meant to express that uniqueness and that's a form of creativity. And therefore, in order to be loved, we change and we modify our behavior in order to please and be loved, and we all do it by the way we do it as children to be loved by our parents. We do it as adults in our loving relationships and in our friendships, because we want to be loved and validated in our own emotions. And we do it on different levels, of course, you know, depending on if that bond of attachment is more secure, it insecure or disorganized, which which turned the three big families. So if you think that the child with you and you not then is not active, now you're going to be surprised by what you learn in this book and to bring them back to what we're living in the world right now, Katie, the opposing forces, the darker forces. You know, we have the better angels of our nature. We have positivity, we have hope, we have creativity, we have self awareness and discernment and perspective. But then we have also the bad wolves. And it's all in us as well, the hatred, the division, the paralizing, the confusion, the illusion, the not understanding, and we all have it inside of us. And as the old Shayan proverb says, well, those two wolves are always fighting, which one is going to win. It's the one we feed.
It's like they it and the ego exactly.
And I have chills right now because in the world we live in we want to be esthentic, but we keep being rewarded for self betrayal, whether it's physically. We can't appear the way we do because it's not okay. The lions are not on the right spot, and we shouldn't be aging because we should be behaving a certain way and not the way that we really want to behave because we're being judged by you know, hundreds or thousands or millions of people out there through social media without even knowing them, and without them even knowing us. So the connection that we're supposed to have naturally face to face, the security presence is really fragmented and is really eroded, and that is making us suffer physically and mentally. So we're not surprised to learn that during the pandemic, eating disorders were up the right, depression was up, the right, anxiety was up the right, and again there's a neurobiological imperatives behind all of it, because in our nervous system, you have one, Katie, I have one, everybody listening has one, and it's all kind of made the same. It's the autonomic nervous system, and this sympathetic branch is our fight flight freeze. So if a cart passes by, we need to be able to stop, to not be bumped into. And then the parasympathetic, which is the rest and digest so to be able to relax, come to come back home within ourselves, knowing that.
We're secure and having what they call homeostasis.
Right homeostasis exactly, So to be able to come back to that shouldn't be kind of a natural state. But with the stressors that we have constantly in our lives, the rapidity of information, the clickbait, the quick judgment of people on social media, what's happening is that too many people are stuck in their sympathetic fight, flight, freeze vote. So guess what, when you're in your alert mode, it's very difficult to have self compassion and compassion and empathy for others. So look at the state of the world right now. The dynamics of the pandemic made us in part lean on our nagtiburs because we had to help each other out, but at the same time distance us from everybody else because we were isolated, and so we are not only before that there was a mental health crisis, and I'd been saying it for twenty years and it tisses me off because it's been there for a long time. People have been suffering from anxiety from the way we live for a long time, and the pandemic kind of exacerbated all of that. So the lesson to be learned here is one of hope, because not only can we we wire our nervous our brains and can we regulate our own nervous systudents, but there's a lot of education to be done there. It's not as complicated as we think. So in this book Closer Together, I want to make sure that the exercises, the technique that the experts talk about, and the micro habits, the baby steps, they don't have to be huge leaps for you to transport of your life because the brain is getting it. And the brain, by the way, way, when you come back from the office, you're tired, you're depleted, you want your beer or your glass of wine, you jump food and your TV. The brain's like, yes, I have no effort to make. But as the expert Lori Santo says in my book, we are in the own way over happiness because the brain isn't helping us. It just wants to be there on the couch. We have to say, wait a second, let me live more consciously, let me take care of myself, and Lendy know deeply that I am worthy of rest, but we live in a society where we don't even think that we are worthy of rest. But rest is how the mind and the body makes sense of life. So think about this on a global scale.
Tell me how you got so interested in this, Sophie. Obviously you are approaching it from a personal and I want to ask a little bit about your personal story in a moment, but from a very scientific and sort of neuroscience point of view, how did you first say there are reasons for our emotions? And I want to understand that better.
So I'm forty nine now. Twenty years ago when I shared my story as a very young television and radio hoist in Quebec, one of my girlfriends from high school had approached me to because she was putting up a foundation for eating disorders and she knew that I was suffering because we had talked about it at some point and I hadn't talked about it with many people, and she's Sophie, you want to get involved, and like absolutely, because I had heard so many stories around me, from girls and from boys who were suffering, and that really gave a course to my life. And I understood then that by sharing my story, first of all, I would be healing myself, you know, and taking the first step to healing. And then I had to remain curious of my own condition, to see how am I evolving, how am I healing? What are the solutions that I can apply into my own life?
But also the root causes?
Right, Yes, I was longing, you know, for my father to be more emotionally pressent. I wanted to save my mother from herself and my mother from my dad, and I wanted to save my dad from himself. I was an only child. Having that savior cape was way too heavy for me to carry, and I held a lot of sadness inside of me. And today, even when I talk about it with all the maturity that I've gained, with all the life experience, with all the love that I'm getting, and I still have my parents who are alive, you know, it still hurts. It still hurts when I pay attention to the suffering. And I'm sure I'm not alone. If you go back really with your eyes closed, how do you talk to yourself, how do you truly feel and what are your heart's truest wish from when you were a little child, What was your truest wish And is that being nourished in your life right now because a lot of people are suffering in their relationships. So for me, it's a responsibility to continue to be educated on the mouth.
It's interesting because I thought it was fascinating that you are an only child and that you did feel responsible. I think maybe combined with the fact that you have extremely high emotional intelligence and were very sensitive, that you felt like you had to fix everything because it was just you and your mom and dad. I wonder if a lot of only children feel that way.
It's funny you laugh that because I talk to parents who, you know, found out that I was an only child whatever, and they come to me and they're like, like, should I have another one? You know, And they do relate, and it does resonate, and they do say, I understand what you're saying because I see it in my child. And it's not because we're bad parents, you know. And this is not about finger pointing and saying, oh, you know, my parents were like this to me. Therefore, it expands my whole situation, It expands your situation profoundly, artly, yes, but then we have to realize that we have enough consciousness, awareness and strength to be able to sit with that pain, face it, and heal it so that we don't leave emotional luggage and baggage generations to come. That's the true responsibility.
It seems in your life, Sophie that you're determined to be the one to bring it up. Is that were with hard topics like mental illness. So where did you get this mission to say these things out loud? I mean, it wasn't long ago, as you well know, since you've been in this space, that these things weren't discussed. I think reducing the stigma of mental illness and being much more transparent about your own issues as individuals and collectively as the society has really undergone this massive transformation. But why have you felt it's so important for you to bring these things out in the open.
There is no doubt in my mind and in my heart that the reason why I'm doing this is because other people paved the way before me. I was following experts already, because I was interested in the topic, whether it was you know Yab or Mate or best or Vandercolt or you know as psychologists in French that it used to follow as well, And it's just been an area of passion of mine because you're right, Katie, I think I became hyper sensitive because it was an only child and I was surrounded with adults, and I had to tune in to be able to regulate and to see how I could save and be loved at the same time. So I got inspired along the way why incredible humans who I didn't even think would look at my book. But when I reached out to doctor gaber Matte, he read my chapter outline and it took everything I had because I had read his book in the Realm of Hungary Ghosts on Addiction is twelve years ago, and I was like, he's gonna think, why the heck? The first lady reached out right, so I was self doubting, and then when we sat down, he's like, hey, wait a minute, you've got something here, and I see your energy and I think people cut through the bs. I don't have any, so it's a natural way for me to interact with people and to serve. Yes, it's his value based mission. But I don't make it theoretical like that. In my mind, I just feel that I have clarity on how I can give to the world, and that for me is a gift, that's a blessing that I have to cherish.
After this break. Sophie's profoundly insightful take on how trauma or lack thereof, shapes our lives. Everyone needs someone to talk to and text with about life's challenges, and while girlfriends are great listeners, there are limits to your group chat. A talkspace therapist will give you an objective perspective and professional guidance. Register at talkspace dot com to connect with a licensed therapist within days and you can start messaging back and forth and also schedule live video or audio sessions. Talkspace is in network with major insurers, and copays are usually twenty five dollars or less no insurance. Now get eighty five dollars off of your first month with promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric. Match with a licensed therapist at talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric. We're back with Sophie Trudeau. You just spoke of a doctor, Gavr Matte, and he talks a lot about hardwiring. And for our listeners who haven't read the book yet or just want to have an understanding before they do, what exactly are you talking about in terms of hardwiring, because I think a lot of people will be interested in that.
I love that question and it's super important. So let me make it simple. So we've been sharing the same braining for two hundred thousand years, all right, it hasn't really changed. Now, imagine the brain as a hard disk of a computer. Okay, so we share that hard disk. Now, the programming going into that hard disk is different depending on your early bond of attachment, how you were taken care of from zero three, and your life experience. So et p genetics, how the environment can affect your brain and even you know yourselves exactly. It's fascinating. And then we learn how what we bring our attention to, what would we consume, how we sleep, what we hang out with, what we put in our bodies as food, how we interact with ourselves and others. That's the fabric overalized, and that is our mental health. You don't have to stuffer from a mental illness to be on this on the kind of big circle or spectrum of mental health, and we're all one trauma away from each other. And I remember discussing this with doctor Mattley that you know, it takes only a series of chronic little traumas or a huge trauma that you've been through to change your brain, to change the way you perceive yourself, especially if you don't talk about it, and to change the way you interact with the world. But here's the secret. Trauma isn't just what happened to you that was that. Trauma is also what should have happened that did not take place. And most people are not really aware of that. They long for something in their relationship. They feel that a piece is missing somewhere, like we're undernourished or we're getting emotional breadcrumbs and we want more. While that is the child who's still longing for something. And you know, we do have to be careful to not see this as a childish thing. It is not to be able to be aware and cognizant and conscious of our emotional patterns is a sign of emotional maturity and emotional leadership. So imagine what kind of leaders we would have all through schools, organizations, companies, government countries if people were better regulated and knew how to understand their emotions. In the book, I talk with David Livingstone Smith, who's an expert on dehumanization, and he explains how hatred is really a deep longing for connection. So it is clear that all these people who are committing a trial teeth probably have deep trauma and attachment, you know, trauma disorder.
Right or what you what you said, which I think is so brilliant. It's it's the lack of something. It's not something horrific that happened to you. It's something good that never happened to you.
Yes, or it's boat, or it's one. But the lefting here is that we should not compare each other suffering. You could live in a castle with all the most expensive cars if that was your dream, and you have all your objects that are surrounding you. It's not my dream, but maybe it's your dream, not yours, Katie. But you know, some people like to humulate wealth. But you're profoundly unhappy and you feel insecure because on Abraham Maslow's pyramid, that triangle that says which basic needs are the most important in every human being, having a roof over your head, having food on the table to nourish yourself, and safety. So here we go. If safety is not there, game over for everything else.
And safety means a lot of different things, right, Sophie.
So safety is not just the absence of threat, It is the presence of connection. So again, either you're being traumatized by you know, the saber tooth tiger telling your brain to boot woop ring the bell, or you're longing for presents that you're just not getting and you feel empty and you feel disconnected, because we need human connection to feel safe, healthy human connection.
I know that you talk a lot about the Vegas nerve. I actually interviewed a doctor about the Vegas nerve and I found it fascinating and I was like, where have I been? Why don't I know about this Vegas nerve that has such a powerful impact and that can be actually moderated or stimulated or things can be done to it. So help us understand the Vegas nerve, because I know you spend a lot of time talking about it.
Yeah, with pleasure. And by the way, like I don't have everything figured out, And I learned more about the vegas nerve while writing this books. So it's it's O Kate, you just came to this information. So let let's make it simple. So the vagus nerve. Everybody has one. Every single human being on this plant has a vegus nerve and it's the longest cranial nerve in your body. So it really like flows from the brain stem down into your throat, down into your chests, down into your abnominal wall, into your not into but around your reproductive organs, and in the bottom of the pelvis. So the two main rolls of the vegus nerve is to communicate from brain to organs and organs to brain. Really cool thing to learn here is that most of the signals the vegus nerve signals from the brain to the gut come from the gut to the brain. This means that our gut health fuels our brain health. And we've been talking about this in nutrition and I talk about it in the book even more so that's the first responsibility. Then the second responsibility is for the vagus nerve to help us go into a parasympathetic therefore rest and digest mode as human beings. So when we tone the Vegas nerve. We call it vaguel tone. There is a ventral part to the Vegas nerve which is above the diati friend, which is kind of like where your ribs are, And then there's the dorsal part which is under the diaphragm, and the eventual endoor school communicate together and it's a nice dance. It's a titration. But here's the thing where you're constantly stuck in your stress and just depleted, fatigued, you know, insomniac state, overwhelmed. Then the Vegas nerve is like, what is going on? How do I regulate this? There are simple exercises that we can do to regulate the Vegas nerve, and I teach them in yoga classes, in yoga nidra classes. I teach them in meditation classes because they're so simple and a student can do them before attesting them. You can do it before you present you know something in to a boss and a company. You can do it because the kids are driving you crazy and you need five minutes you're locked into your bathroom to be able to do it. They're easy and they all have to do with breath. Let's reminder ourselves you're this one universal shoes. We come into lies inhaling, we come out of life exhaling most of the time.
Yes, yes, So the.
Breath is the little conductor between the body and the soul, and the breath makes sense, you know. It's the only autonomic function of the body. So something that happens by itself that we can actually as humans intervene on. It's the only function. So when we intervene on the vegas nerve, we intervene on everything because the vegus nerve is responsible for breathing, salization, a pupil ditation, heart beat, and digestion. So when we intervene on the vegas nerve, we can intervene on all these bodily functions, which is quite extraord to be honest, because it's not sorcery and it's quite simple to integrate in our lives.
It's the little nerve that could, right, It's like, that's it amazing And I know vegas is the Latin word for wandering.
Wandering, yes, because it goes and bewearing to the body, like it has to feel like little little veins everywhere, little networks of veins, you.
Know, and doesn't it also Sophie have something to do with inflammation, because I was talking to this doctor and he was saying, this older gentleman who wanted to play tennis, but he was just really his joints were too sore something, he was having muscle issues. He did some regulation of the vegus nerve and it was like suddenly the inflammation was gone. Do you know much about that?
So what I do know, which is fascinating, I'm trying to research it more by reading. So doctor Gabormatte wrote a book called When the Body Says No, and he has been researching the relationship between these pycological the mind, the brain right, and our immune system. So if the vagus nervous responsible for our regulation, our stress response, and our relaxation, okay, what is the role of our emotional system? Okay? So the role of or emotional system is to push away what is artful or harmful and to keep what is healthy and nourishing. Okay. So even a baby will do that. You know, they can't even feel the deep hatred because they'd have to be. They have to have this survival and instinct of Noah, I love die. There's no way that I can survive without it. So what is the role of the immune system. It's the same thing. It pushes away what is harmful and keeps bacterialized, for example, what is nourishing. So what he's found is that so many women and you're not going to be surprised by this, who are the nucleus of the family, who are holding the emotional lobes of their family, who are putting their need first before everybody else's because they don't have enough help and support in the structure in our society don't support that as well, they are most likely to suffer from many chronically immune diseases, chronic immune diseases. So there is a link. There is a holistic approach now in modern medicine where they are proving that there is a link between our immunity and our psychology, which is I find absolutely fascinating.
That is fascinating and isn't it crazy. I remember interviewing I think his name was Herbert Benson from Harvard when I was on the Today Show and he wrote a book called The Mind Body Connection, And it was when my husband had been diagnosed with cancer, and he spent a little time with me helping me deal with the stress that I was under, which was obviously unbelievable. But you know, back then, so this was in the late nineties, it was pretty radical to be talking about the mind body connection. Why do you think it took scientists, the medical community, the psychological community, or psychiatric community. Why did it take so long for people to understand how these things were so so intertwined.
I'm not sure I had to as dress to watch.
And by the way, Sophie, sorry to interrupt you, but I was thinking. I think in a lot of ancient religions and ancient practices and rituals, this was accepted. You know, if you think about yoga, if you think about all kinds of holistic practices, and you know, rituals from all over the world. I think this was accepted. But at least for modern medicine, it took forever for it to be an acceptable area to even study.
I absolutely agree with you, Katie. And there's like three annuals to this answer. The first one is the body keeps the score, and that's the title of the book from Besser Brander called the great doctor who has proven that you know, if you have a trauma in your childhood and you don't talk about it and you try to repress it. The body knows. The body knows, and it can be triggered in any instance. And where you feel an aggression, that is not a true aggression, but your body interprets it that way because it's still traumatized and you haven't healed in your body, you know. In regards to that, the second one is women's bodies have only newly been explored in modern medicine because all the tests of the science and the research was being done on men's bodies. So that's also another answer. And you know, I think it's like in Leonardo da Vinci days when they were exploring anatomically the human body. The Church would give the bodies to the scientifics and they would say, you have teftabranch. You can look at everything we wanted to understand, but there's one thing you won't touch.
What do you think that is the brain?
You got it the mind that belongs to the church. Now we have the freedom to explore our own minds. And I have sales because because to me, science is a form of freedom, because it protects the truth. Because we live in a world where the truth is being distorted, where free press is being you know, is dangerously hijacked in a way and a where our minds are hijacked as well, and our bodies at the same time in our nervous systems too. So I think it took a lot of factors that played into why that it takes so long for modern medicine to wake up to this. It's about time. But I'm very hopeful because now the brain is being researched like crazy, and we are getting more and more knowledge, and it's just the beginning, and there's people all over the world who are actually collaborating with other teams across the world to share knowledge and data, which is extremely important because that's a scientific legacy and an emotional legacy in a way that will leave for generations that will come after us.
Now, you're right, and I think part of the problem was technology has certainly changed this, but it was you know, you can't exactly get tissue samples from the brain, so I know, with things like antidepressants, it was very anecdotal about the impact they were having. And now with modern technology, with brain scans, with just much more sophisticated ways of monitoring brain activity, I think it's a really exciting time for research in this arena that heretofore just wasn't you know, practically possible to really be a part of.
Yeah, I was talking to i think one of the head researchers at Cornell in New York, and he was explaining how scientifics have now found what they call a salience network in the brain where depresses patients. When you look at the imagery which they took sixty times for sixty days, sixty times a day on sixty people or something like that, and they really monitored every single change and they realized that a portion of that area in the green was kind of taken over other networks. And in my book, when I interviewed George Northoff, who wrote Numeral Waves, who was the head of the Autowa General and Mental Health, he said, so you have no idea how depression is really a misalignment in rhythm from the brain to the human environment. So depressed people will have much slower boy waves. They feel like life is passing them by and everything is slower, and they can't get out of bed and everything becomes heavy, and it's a lack of syncrony between the brain and the environment. And for example, there's non invasive ways to stimulate areas of the brain for anxiety and depression that are just transcranial stimulation, so through you know, electric signals. Also, classical music is being used as well to calm the nervous system.
And just interviewed Renee Fleming about her book about music and the brain, and it was fascinating to see what a huge impact. I mean, you should definitely read that.
I'm going to read that, Renee Frond, and you would.
Totally geek out on that. And I also think these scientists, by the way, must be so thrilled because you're giving exposure to their work to a lay audience. You know, they're not just in scientific medical journals. You're translating it and dare I say, probably in a nice way, dumbing it down so the average person can understand it.
Well, it was you and meeting before the knowledge got to us. So dumbing it down just really means simplifying what is complex and for us to integrate it. And when we're educated with that base. Let's say we educated our young people at a young age on this, then they could integrate the more complex information as they grow so much more easily. So One of the biggest worries that I have now is if when you're looking at the research and how we use our telephones and how we're constantly on screens and constantly distracted and you know, looking for the next dopamine high, the relaxing hormones become.
Boring, right, and you need more and more of your threshold for stimulation gets higher and higher.
That's it. That's it. So it's very hard to get them to meditate or to slow down, or to be in contact with nature. But the problem is, and the hope is the same place. Is that because we're actually impairing the brain development of the child from you know, around six years old. It's kind of an experience expectant period where the brain of the child is expecting experience because the child wants to be independent, wants to take low risks at low cost, falling over, you know, sprinting a knee, falling down the street. It's okay, I can get back cup, I'll be okay, I can continue with my day. When we take that away from young people and children, how do they actually test their physical and psychological limits if they're not in contact with nature, if they're not testing those limits at a low cost, low risk, because when they come into addlwood and its higher cost, higher risks, there's no resilience and the brain hasn't learned how to cope with it.
This is the conversation I had with Jonathan Height about his book The Anxious Generation, which obviously is a lot about this, you know, constant attention grabbing device that everyone has in their hands and never looks up from. So he had a long conversation. I'm sure you're going to read that book too.
Yeah, for sure, I'm going to read. I've been looking at his work and he's a part of it is really fascinating. The other thing you made me think of something, Oh yeah, is that add to that the fact that in our society when we look at you know, the Andrew Taite movements and the you know, all those kind of men who are kind of triggering the seer in other men and the pride and just feel a sense of community, but in all the wrong ways. What's happening is that we're allowing men to exude only to emotions lust rage. So when we do that, not only are we insulting men's intelligence, but we're narrowing the concept of what it means to be a man, and it is having repercussions in every family, in every home, in every society and across this planet. So our structures, for for example, parental leave is extremely important, so dads can actually have an active role in what it means to hold a household together and to hold the emotional load of the family, the children as well. It's so much to carry by ourselves. And no kidding that women are depleted, overwhelmed and not sleeping and somniaest the disturbances are an epidemic in themselves as well.
After the break, Sophie on how being a public figure can feel like being a pinata. If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going to Katiecouric dot com. Now more of my conversation with Sophie Trudeau. I can't wait for people to read your book because I think it is going to be so helpful in this stressed out world that we're living in. But I don't want to end this conversation without asking you how you're doing you know, I feel like we're kindred spirits in some ways because we both experienced being somewhat you much more so than I, Sophie, but public figures, and I know that you have written about that in your book. You were very candid about what it was like to be the de facto first lady, which really makes you a target for people to project whatever it is they want onto you. You're a blank canvas and even though they don't know you, they believe they do. And I'm curious how your time in the public eye has affected your emotional well being and your sense of self, if it was a struggle, and how you were able to move on from that.
So I've heard you call, you know, the political system or the public personality sphere as the pinonta, like people you know, just banging without even know wh And yeah, that is a reality. And I have much more compassion and empathy for young families who are trying to raise kids in this kind of environment, because it's getting more violent, more cruel, more polarizing, and more divisive now. And I'm glad that I wasn't in my twenties as my mother in law had to live, you know, But it was different than then, but still with bipolar disease, and she had to go through all of that, which is I can't even imagine what that is like. I see it as a gift in disguise because it allowed me to dig so deep into who I am and who who I was and who I'm becoming as well, which is a work in progress. It's messy sometimes, but that's okay. I also never lived thinking, oh, I'm the first lady, and oh this man that I love is the prime Minister.
No.
I've met enough king queens, people with incredible titles and accomplishments, and people who have none. And I know for a fact that we're all the You can say that we have the same you know, sense and longing to be loved and validated for who we are and to express our true selves. And remember that safety is key. You might be surrounded by everything you need in your life and crowns and whatever you want to call them, but if do you all feel safe, it's getting over. Your nervous system is in a sympathetic mode and it is what it is. So I think it provokes me and on my OPI mat What I can say is that there were lots and lots of tears, of confusion, of fog, of you know, drops of sweats of sweat, and trying to navigate my own in the world, thinking who am I in all of this? And now I see it with the gratitude, and I'm not perfect. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I'm still dedicated to my practice and to finding my center so I can actually love myself, be more tender towards myself, be more compassionate, so I can offer it to human beings around me. That is my sense of mission in life. That is my sense of service. I'm not sure what else is there for me that's clear, and that's a gift. And to know yourself. And I think you know that an unexamined mind is an unexamined life. And wish it shouldn't be a luxury to have the time to do so, which is in our days right now. But let's make it more accessible for everybody.
I know that, And I'm sure everyone's asked you this, Sophie, so I'm sort of doing it out of the sense of obligation for people who say, what didn't you ask her about this? But I know it was announced that you and your husband, Justin Trudeau, who i've had the pleasure of meetings, separated last year. You handed this book in prior to that separation, and I'm curious how you're doing with that because it's not a trauma necessarily, I guess it can be, but it's a massive life change, and that I think that's a watershed moment in someone's life. I mean, there's several obviously throughout your life. But how has that impacted the way you're re examining who you are and serving other people in the process.
So a couple of things here. I do believe that in some cases separations or divorces can be traumatic for the adults and for the children.
Oh yes, obviously. And I just think in your case, from you and I having a conversation, it doesn't sound is if it sounds like it doesn't fall in that category. But yes, for the record, of course, of course, and.
It does hurt. It hurts a lot, and it hurts deeply because in a way, we have these two words in our language. You know, marriage is success. Separation of divorces failure. But life happens in between, and we dramatize our relationships because we are insecure. We are afraid to be abandoned. We are afraid to be alone. As human beings, it is not in our nature to be alone and just living alone. Some have done it, but it's not in our global human nature. I have a very open conversation, open communication relationship with my kids and with Justin. We are still abandoned by love and respect and smiles and tears, and we're still trying to figure it out and it's not perfect. But when you keep things honest, Michael J. Fox said, we're only as sick as our secrets. Be careful with the secrets that you hold, because when you sit with lies or betrayals, or you know, whatever your story is, and you sit with that and you keep it aside, it builds up and it can become kind of like your monster to deal with every day. So when he said that, I was like, hmm, that's interesting. It kind of resonated with me. So I think that we should be careful in how we talk about relationships. And yes, you know, when the unconscious conscious uncoupling expression came up, I think a lot of people kind of sighed, and you know, we could find other ways of calling our relationships that doesn't have to be separation or divorced, but from a legal perspective and from protecting so many vulnerable mothers and women, you know, the law is so important. But what I'm trying to say is that if we become better regulated, if we become less threatened by the difference of the other, which is what we're threatened with in conflict in our personal relationships. Ninety nine percent of the time, we think people interpret life the way we do, but that's not how it works out. And when we feel less threatened, we dedramatize our relationship to ourselves and to others. So securing our nervous system, understanding the wirings under our personality is not only tools to pacify, can you say that, to make our relationships more peaceful to ourselves and with others, but it's also kind of a global palmer for our democracies and society because when you look at the ploralizing and divided forces out there, I can assure you that most people who are in hatred and fear mode are in their sympathetic nervous system. So again, the neural, biological, and enterative behind all of.
That, well, you're a very wise woman, Sophie Trudeau, and I'm so glad that you've written this book Closer Together. I think it will help a lot of people and will change behavior, hopefully some hearts and minds, because we do seem to have a lot of hate, anchor and rage and unhappiness in our society. And I think, maybe you know, social media has provided a platform for people to express it. But I think things are good as they are now, and hopefully they'll get better as we realize this is not necessarily a way to live.
So I'd like to just note and maybe conclude that, you know, when animals, when animals are sick, Okay, when mammals get sick, they stop playing. When we are sick, we stop playing, humor, playfulness, creativity, movement. It is necessary to our health. And when we stop playing, and I'm not talking about just like monopoly or straggle like unstructured plate, being good, mischievous together, not hurting each other, but you know, pulling pranks, which I'd love to do, and I talk about that in the book as well, you know, laugh together kind of when we laugh, when we play, when we let go, the brain is in restoration mode and just very quickly. This gives me chills. But when doctor Gordon Nufeld, who's in my book, who's a specialist on teenage health and chill did it was called by teachers in Ukraine while the war is raging. They asked him what do I do with the children? What do we do? There are in alert mode, there are stressed out, they're infer mode. They're little children. And he said, you take the curriculum, you put it aside, and you let the children play. Let them play, because when those bombs are falling, their brain is still feeling that they're safe enough to live and to thrive. So if we can integrate that while there are injustices going around and taking place on this planet Earth, into the microhabits that we can have in our relative peaceful lives, we can change. We can change our lives, and we can change our environment. And let's never let the darker forces take over. No way, I'm never gonna let that happen in my existence. That's free.
I'm not either, No, I know that, And I love you for it. Sophie, Thank you so much. It's great to see you. Best of luck with the book and the book tour and I can't wait to see you in person soon. I hope Matthew what I mean of what? Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world reach out. You can leave a short message at six h nine five point two five five five, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Everyone needs someone to talk to and text with about life's challenges, and while girlfriends are great listeners, there are limits to your group chat. A Talkspace therapist will give you an objective perspective and professional guidance. Register at talkspace dot com to connect with a licensed therapist within days and you can start messaging back and forth and also schedule live video or audio sessions. Talkspace is in network with major insurers and copays are usually twenty five dollars or less no insurance. Now get eighty five dollars off of your first month with promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric. Match with a licensed therapist at talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric
