235. Tracee Ellis Ross: How to Make Peace in Your Own Head

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Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Yes, this is Abby.

Today, we are re-airing one of my favorite of all time We Can Do Hard Things episodes.

It is episode 167.

Tracy Ellis Ross, How to Make Peace in Your Own Head.

This episode aired on January 10th.

First of all,

I think that

famous people

aren't that interesting because of their fame.

And also,

I like to get a sense if they're real or if they're just performing.

And Tracy Ellis Ross is

exactly who she is.

She's wonderful.

She's kind.

And this episode and the conversation we had, it was one of my favorites for a lot of reasons.

But I think it clearly demonstrates the human.

that she is and the work that she's done.

To me, why I felt so

compelled by her was because

she seems to me like somebody who has done work in her life and has figured out a way to move through her life,

even a wild life.

Like it feels like she lives a very in the spotlight life.

And I thought that her

way and the story she told, I mean, The fact that after big events, she's already planning her self-care, her radical idea of self-care for post-events.

That was life-changing for us.

Listen to this episode.

It's beautiful.

I love Tracy Ellis Ross and enjoy.

And I continue to believe

that I'm the one for me.

Hi, hi, Tracy Ellis Ross.

You all welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

I'm going to really rush through the intro because

today

we have one of my favorite people.

Is that not true?

It is very true.

On this entire planet.

Tracy Ellis Ross is an award-winning actress and producer best known for her roles in ABC's award-winning comedy series Blackish and Girlfriends.

For her role as Rainbow Johnson in Blackish as a comedic leading actress, Ross won the Golden Globe Award in 2017 as well as nine NAACP Image Awards.

She was nominated for five Emmys and two Critics Choice Awards.

Ross is the CEO and founder of Pattern, a hair care brand for the curly, coily, and tight-textured masses.

Ross recently executive produced and narrates Who Lose the Hair Tales.

Amazing, a docuseries about black women, beauty, and identity through the distinctive lens of black hair.

Upcoming, Ross will be producing a 10-episode podcast, I Am America, which aims to break through the noise during this divided time in our country.

Did you know this?

I did not.

In a

country.

I hope we can't wait to share that.

I can't wait.

Yeah, I honestly can't wait for you to hear it.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

This is, it's so funny, Lizzie.

You know what's funny about it?

It's funny to listen to a friend read your stuff

because it has nothing to do with our connection.

And so it's funny.

It was like at my birthday when my friends had the microphone.

I was so tickled.

That's what we want to talk about.

First of all, we decided we're going to do this interview differently than we ever do interviews because we don't want it to be like a this is your life thing.

Because what I told my sister and Abby is that I just thought of this category of person, but you are my, I'll have what she's having.

Yes.

When you look at someone and you're with them and you spend time with them and you see who they are in the world and you're just like,

I will have what she's having.

Yeah.

And I just truly find you to be one of the most unique and wise and magnificent women I know.

Oh my God, how kind.

Well, most people are like one thing or another thing.

You just kind of like pick something and go with it.

But you are so raw and real and also glamorous.

Yes.

You're so powerful and poised, but also very transparent and tender.

It's just all the things at once.

And so now I get to have you for an hour and do what I've always wanted to do, which is I need you to tell me everything you know.

Okay.

And you're so kind of did that.

We kind of did that in my old house.

I think I know.

Amanda, I'm so happy to meet you as well.

It's like crazy.

Your voice is like a part of my world, but I haven't like had time with you.

Yeah.

So it's lovely to meet you.

This is fun.

First of all, what you just said about me, it's so interesting

to have mirrored back a version of yourself that is actually the version you want to be, you know, and to get to a place in an age where it's happened a couple, there's a couple of different times in my life.

And I go, oh, okay, like despite what it feels like sometimes in this dangerous neighborhood that is my mind, sometimes it's a great place.

And sometimes like, don't go in there alone.

Despite sort of some of that inner dialogue and that really bad story that happens in my head every once in a while i catch glimpses of the way i'm actually

presenting out in the world and it's it's a nice moment of validation and encouragement of like okay you're doing okay you're moving in the right direction i think so tracy you are if you're not we're all fucked if you're not

we're gonna stop trying so

Can you explain to my sister and because I've already talked to Abby about this ad nauseum, but what you talked to me about, cauldron sisters.

Yeah.

Talk to me about what the cauldron is.

I have this theory that souls are made in bunches.

And

I don't know,

Mother Nature, someone's somewhere,

some beautiful gathering of people.

They have these big cauldrons that they make people in,

that they make souls in.

And it's souls, honestly, not people.

And, you know, they're like, okay, what's this?

this one's gonna have i don't know a little bit of a little bit of heartbreak but like a lot of joy i don't know and these are going to be people who have really open hearts whatever and then they go when they're cooked um when the little veggies are cooked in there the souls they like sprinkle them out through time and some of them are like you know they were back in 1816 and one goes in a dog and one goes in a lizard and one goes in a abbey and one goes in a glennon and one goes in an amanda and they're like all over the place and then you don't know when or how or or what's going to bring you to another cauldron, fellow, sister, or whatever, whomever.

But you meet someone and you're like, oh, we're from the same soup.

Oh my God, this is exactly correct.

Right?

Like, it's one of those things where you're just like, I don't know what it is.

Like, why do I feel like I've known you forever?

It's like, oh, we have the same map.

We have the same ingredients.

And although the time period we're from or the town we're from or whatever, like there was nothing that you would think would make our lives match.

Somehow, we come from the same ingredients.

Yes.

Do you know what those things are?

That's interesting.

I really find that I am from the same soup of people who, because I say this, there's some people where there's a lot of matches on the external things.

And then there's the people that it's just like the inner roadmap is just similar.

The things that

soothe and comfort, and the willingness to have

the

inside conversation

on the outside, the deep conversation, the transparency.

And the thing that's interesting is sometimes, like, I mean, you know, we don't see each other all the time.

But I have called you in tangly moments and I've run into you on planes.

And somehow there's a connection that is beyond the circumstances of our life.

And so maybe the people from my cauldron.

Also, I do think back in the day, I would have been certainly burned at the stake.

Totally.

Definitely a witchy lady.

I know.

I kind of think our cauldron is literal.

I think it's a literal.

It might be.

Yeah.

It really might be.

We might actually be out of a steaming cauldron.

Yeah.

Oh, it looks like so much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I always say that when you hear those old stories about the women that were burned at the stake because of their beliefs and their feelings and their instincts and their intuition and their deep soul calling.

I read their description and I'm like, huh, that sounds like a really great lady.

Yes.

Every damn time.

Yeah.

I'm like, hmm, that sounds like someone I would really want to be friends with.

Yeah.

Every time you hear of a witch, you think, Cauldron sister.

I think that's my sis.

Speaking of, so Abby and I were freaking lucky enough to be at your recent 50th birthday celebration

of life.

It was so freaking beautiful.

Yes.

It was a cauldron of your people.

It was.

And I really appreciate you guys coming out of the house because I know for me and for you, that's not an easy thing.

Well, I would do anything for love, Tracy.

I literally do that.

I'm one of those people that I'm like, yeah, I would love to go, but do I really want to leave the house?

Yeah.

I'm always thinking, oh, I wish I wanted to go.

Oh, that's the best.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

So I have to tell you, we were there for maybe 10 minutes when maybe six people had come up to us and introduced themselves to us as your best friend.

Yep.

Okay.

I just started.

Now that's what I do.

I do an interviews.

I just say, I'm Glennon Doyle.

I'm Tracy Ellis Ross's best friend.

But

it was amazing how many people were so

you're just beloved to people one woman told us that you were the only person who was in her delivery room delivering her twins and she told us this next to her husband i kept thinking oh he was on a business trip she was

she was yeah she was on hospital rest um with her twins she had to be in the hospital hooked up to things and he happened to go like for a 24 hour like he literally had to go somewhere for a work trip and so i was on call and i got the call oh my gosh and um and i was

right there and then and then i switched off and then when he arrived i hand but i was the first one to hold them

uh filling in clover and it was really magical i have to say the doctor actually said because you knew they put the little curtain up and the doctor was like you can actually sit down you don't have to watch i was like no i'm fine

actually can you scoot over a little bit yeah it's like

yeah you're blocking my view I'm sorry.

It was amazing.

You have described yourself as a barnacle on your good friends' lives.

I just love that image so much that you

insist upon and allow yourself to be a barnacle.

Talk to us about that.

Yeah, you know, there's a really interesting thing.

I am single.

I have been single.

I've been single for a very long time.

I have had many wonderful ins and outs of things, but no one stuck to the pan.

And as a a result,

I get to curate my family, my chosen family around me.

And I don't think I realized the gift of that until I've started to get older.

But my friend Samira,

she's the one that coined that barnacle phrase.

And

she did a toast.

She did that.

She did the toast.

Yeah.

So Samira, I met when I was 22 at Mirabelle Magazine when I went to work as an intern in the fashion department there.

And she was also an intern.

She is now the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar.

Yeah, we've been through all these journeys together and really it's just the best metaphor because it's like you think of a barnacle like, you know, I keep thinking of those people that are like chored with scraping the barnacles off the bottom of the boat that like just don't want to go and they've like made home there and then they like shackle to other barnacles and they're like attached to the boat and making a life on a thing that's not really where they're supposed to be because it's supposed to be on a rock, not a boat, you know?

And

that's what I feel like.

I feel like I'm like on the back of Samira's butt, just like,

I got you, girl.

You can't, there's, you can't even reach me if you try and scrape me off.

I remember someone saying once, I tried to get rid of that relationship, but it was like gum on your shoe.

There's always like residue of it somewhere, you know?

And it's the best residue.

I mean, you know, the history that occurs over.

So Monica and Samira were the two that gave that back and forth speech together.

And Monica and I met in college.

I was 17, eight, 17.

We were both 17.

Our boyfriends were best friends

and they're long gone.

Wow.

They are long gone.

They were not barnacles.

No, no, they were not barnacles.

They were like the people with the brush.

And you're like, good luck with that.

Good luck with that, buddy.

So Monica, 17, Samira,

when I graduated from college and was interning, I met her at 22.

I'm 50 now.

So these are long run situations.

And Monica's an only child.

So

I'm the sister.

I remember her son,

we were together somewhere and there's a video of it.

It's fantastic.

I'm sitting on Monica's lap or she's sitting on my lap.

And

he was like, what are you guys doing?

That's weird.

And Monica said, this is what people do.

They love each other.

This is what it looks like, kid.

Get used to it because this is it you know um

yeah so barnacle uh i'll be there i'll be there on there what was that friend song i'll be there for you i only hear it six times a day so yeah um

i just love that idea of it be it being okay to be stubbornly stuck to someone because i think so many of us are afraid of being a burden and I love the claiming of that.

I absolutely am afraid of being a burden.

I think one of the things, I can't remember who said this to me, that

not one friend or one person has to be all things to you at all times,

which is really helpful

because

I come from some wiring and information that might have told me something a little bit confused.

Not me.

My messages were very clear.

Yeah, really clear.

I'm not unpacking any of that as an adult.

No.

No, no.

Patriarchy didn't teach me nothing.

No.

So what do you mean?

Well, so we go back to this model that you're sold, that we not only are we sold it, but we are fed it and we have to drink it and it's everywhere.

And if you're not careful, you actually think it's true and it's the only bit of news for you, which is that my job as a woman is to

learn to be choosable.

having nothing to do with who I am, what makes my heart sing, floats my boat, makes me feel safe, makes me feel comfortable, makes me feel good, makes me feel powerful, makes me feel smart, any of those things, but really is more about how I might be seen so that I might be chosen so that my life could mean something as a chosen woman who then gets to have a child and then be a mother and do that for a child.

So our culture sells us this, and there's nothing wrong with that journey, But if it's a chosen journey, as opposed to the one that you think is going to make you worth anything.

And then everything starts to fall into that messaging.

And then if you're a black woman, there's like a whole other, blah, blah, blah.

There's so many different versions of that.

But that's like that overarching thing as a woman.

And then your friendships fall into that hole too.

So if you haven't been chosen for a guy, then you're going to fill all that God-size hole and all those different things with a friend.

And then you become the best friend.

And And then it just, you know, all, it just gets all real tangled and real confusing.

I've been

grateful enough to have found

places where there are eons of tools and different ways to unpack that crazy messaging, make sense of it in a way that actually gives me a shot at genuine happiness and a robust life that's actually mine.

And it's like a daily reprieve.

Some days are better than others.

Some days the old messaging comes in and sweeps in.

And I've got a really nice matching story that goes with it of my unlovability and that narrative that just kind of travels along with it.

And if I'm not careful and go into, you know, that thinking alone, I get stuck there.

And then, you know, you come out.

But did that, that was a long-winded way of saying, you know, it was a lot.

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I want to follow up really quick.

How do you not go into your own mind or thinking alone?

What are your strategies?

Friendships.

I have practices of healing and support that I lean towards, therapy,

some of which I keep sacred and private.

Some of those you know, but I don't share them necessarily publicly.

But friendship has been the biggest and the willingness to be completely transparent and to be able to

call people when I am on the floor,

whether it's metaphorically or physically on the floor.

But when in my mind I have been

floored, which happens often.

I can't remember the

I think it's friendship, the tools that tether me.

This is actually something I got from you, tether me to what I like best about my life, which is the basic things.

Yes.

Like my favorite part of my life is my life.

I love all the stuff, but like I really like my making my bed in the morning or doing laundry or making my food or

taking the garbage out, like just the basics that really tether me to my own humanity and my own sense of self and being able to show show up and be of service and all of those things.

I have so many different tools

that keep me out of my,

it's honestly like the, the, my mind is a wonderful place.

It gets dangerous when I get connected to the really bad horror story that I have been

stitching together since I was young, you know, and somehow if I get, if I fall back into that groove, it is so dangerous up there.

And then everything's colored by the wrong information.

Everything.

Yeah.

It's like

our minds are such, I mean, yours, especially, like magical creep, things come out of it that are unbelievable, not of this world.

And that's when you're in charge of it.

When you give it a job, yes.

When it gives you a job, like when you haven't directed it, no good.

You know, is is it when I haven't directed it?

That's an interesting distinction.

I don't know.

Sometimes I don't know what it is that starts it.

Because sometimes it's not connected the way I think it is.

It could be like two days ago, I was with somebody who started me being afraid about something.

And then somehow that fear like starts to snowball.

And then it starts reaching into other areas.

Like, once I start getting afraid, it could just start with a little anxiety.

Once it, you know, and, and I think I've shared this with you.

I'm one of these people that I don't know what, I don't know how this happened, but I don't get scared of stuff until after.

Yeah.

Like, I'm a girl that like jumps off a cliff, right?

I'm like, oh my God, let's do it.

This is the scariest thing in the world.

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to get organized.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to make this list.

I'm going to do my research.

I'm going to make sure I'm rehearsed.

I'm going to make sure I know what I'm wearing, how I'm doing it, who's going to be there.

We're going to do this.

And then I go

and I jump off the cliff and I'm up there and I'm like, I'm flying.

I'm flying off the cliff.

I'm flying and it's so good.

It's everything I wanted it to be.

This is the best cliff I've ever been.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

And then I land.

And then I'm like, what?

Fuck did I just say that?

Who would do that?

Why would you do that?

Oh my God, you're so dumb.

This is actually evidence.

Put that in the fire of unlovability.

That shit is going to roar.

We're going to make sure that we go back through every single thing that you did with a fine-tooth coma and we're going to prove to you that you are exactly the most unlovable, stupid, humiliating person in the world.

How could you ever?

You are filled with shame.

You are riddled with it.

And then that's what happens on the next day.

Like it's out of control.

It's like out of control.

Risk hangover.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's a risk hangover.

And then what's crazy is like.

In that state, someone could say, oh my God, that was so amazing.

They could say one thing and I can hear that they were covering.

They were telling me the part they liked.

But then it's my job to figure figure out all the things that I did wrong that they didn't like.

And the truth is, some of that is an ace in my deck, right?

Because I'm not going to make a mistake twice.

I'll tell you that.

Some of it's an ace in my deck.

But when left unchecked without compassion and tenderness and kindness, and when I'm alone with it, is a no bueno.

Gentle, gentle.

Gentle, gentle.

That's one of my favorites.

Like give it twice.

And then I have another friend who always says to me, give yourself a thousand breaks.

And when those are done, give yourself a thousand more.

Yeah.

And I'm much better at that as I've gotten older.

One of the things I learned from Pima Chodron that was the most, not that I know her,

just from her, from her books and her materials.

But she's walking around going, Hi, I'm Pima Chodron.

I'm Tracy Ellis Ross's best friend.

Listen, that's exactly the way I feel.

By the way, Glenn and Abby, when people found out that you, they were like, wait, you're friends with them?

Oh,

it was amazing.

I was like, yeah, that's where they're yeah we're best friends

what you didn't yeah I don't I don't talk about you know my my aunt we're friends so um but one of the things I learned from my dear friend Pima um

was

if I can't take the

information in like there's times when it's not the time for me to look back

And I can wait until I can actually look back constructively and not in a way that's going to create another wound

and more wound.

And I'm learning as I've gotten older to be deliberate about my aftercare.

So like I had a plan the day after my birthday.

What was it?

It involved going somewhere where I could have proper support and

be a part of a community that supports me in that way.

And I gave myself the day, I left for Cabo the next day.

So I had all day to

look through and make sure I felt okay about it.

I have to like see it back for myself to hold it in a way that it actually remains.

And one of the things I do with my therapist is before something, we now ask the question, how do you want to feel after?

Yep.

And what do I need to put in place?

to support myself in the after.

And I'm such an independent person.

One of the things I really am not good at is I think I'm good and I need to better plan being not alone because I'm always, I like to go places alone, but I need the

partnership in it.

And so it's really interesting.

You just gave us a

to-do list on how to support people who have events or situations that might be a big deal and to work through how it was and also to take care of yourself post, because going out of the house is a thing.

It's a thing and it's more of a thing now post-pandemic.

A lot of that stuff got kicked back up for me.

Yes.

Yeah.

Did you feel like the birthday would be so, would be vulnerable because so many people were there that you loved?

How did you decide you want to feel after it?

One of the things, my mom loves a celebration.

She just, since we were, my mom loves Christmas.

So I'm a child that came from celebration.

Celebration for the birthday, like birthdays were just, it was magic what my mom would do.

She would draw on all the mirrors.

There were balloons.

So like you would look in the mirror and it would say, Mommy loves you.

Happy birthday.

It was just the most glorious, like, she just loved celebration.

I am honestly, it's taken me a long time to realize I'm not that person.

I don't decorate for Christmas.

You got to take it down then.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly how I

don't wear a mascara.

Yeah, take it off.

Aftercare.

Like, no, thank you.

You know, like if I'm not doing it for work, you've got to be kidding me.

So

I celebrate in different ways.

It's like different for me.

So I made some conscious choices because it was 50

about what I wanted to do.

Last year, I had the most perfect birthday ever.

It was six people at dinner, a restaurant.

I always go to.

I order the same things I order.

And we were just talking.

It was just a regular dinner.

It's all it was.

It was fantastic.

This felt important for me.

It is an honor to turn 50.

There are people, particularly after what we went through with COVID, so many people lost their lives.

People don't make it into this age.

And I feel honored.

Even the things that I'm really challenged by, like really challenged by, but I feel like, thank you.

Like, look where I like this is evidence of my life and my history and my legacy and like my laughter and my things, you know?

And so I really wanted to market with that.

And so I had to ask myself, what would make it feel like a celebration for me?

Some of those things were, I wanted costume changes.

Oh, God.

Just wait because we have so many clothing.

Clothing really, it just dressing up is just, it, it's, I don't know, people might think it's, it's, I love it.

When I am having a bad day, one of my favorite things to do is go in the closet and play dress up.

I woke up this morning.

I bought a new sweater and I woke up this morning at 6.30 and I was like, oh, I have the outfit.

And I, in my glasses, my hair everywhere, stripped down and went in the closet and made the look with the new sweater and literally looked in the mirror and was like, yeah, you got it.

You got it.

You got it.

That's what I'm talking about, Tracy.

I have no idea where I'm going to wear that outfit.

I never leave the house, but I was like, that's what I'm talking about.

And that's Tracy.

all right now i'm gonna brush my teeth

i need you to ask a question about it okay

and this might be totally i'm just

you have said about fashion it's not look at me it's this is me yeah this is me okay yeah i need you to explain to me what the hell that means i understand like a chef can be like, here is my heart and mind and soul on a plate.

Tracy Ellis Ross can be like, here is my mind and my heart and my soul in a sweater.

I'm amazed by it.

Okay.

So when I was young, I've always loved beautiful things.

I used to trail after my mom and pick up the beads that fell off of her dress on stage after the curtain went down.

You could hear them crunching under her high heels.

And I would get those little

35 millimeter like canister things and I would collect them and then I would separate them by color into the different beads.

And so I've always loved.

the artistry of clothing.

I saw a woman, my mother, use clothing and glamour as a way to transform herself into a different version of herself, but still herself and a woman with agency.

It was about her.

It wasn't about pleasing someone else.

It was sort of adorning herself with

all of the baubles that she felt were a version of this part of her life.

And so That was always my relationship to clothing and glamour and sparkle.

And then I started to use clothing as armor.

And now looking back, I can define there were two ways that I fought racism without realizing that's what it was.

But I came from a wealthy world and I was living on Fifth Avenue, but I was still one of very few black people in many environments, in stores, in different places.

And I didn't know that what was coming at me sometimes was microaggression and micro-racism and all those kinds of things coming at me in these different ways.

And so the way I presented myself was part of my armor.

I was going to play the role of somebody who couldn't be fucked with.

And

so I did it in grade school, high school.

Like I just, there was a way that I would, it was, it was just, it was my armor.

And then it sort of transformed itself and

transmuted itself out of armor and into a form of creative expression for me.

And it's one of the ways I wear my insides on my outside.

And so I dress in all different kinds of ways.

And back to to what you said when you described me at the beginning, like all these different parts of me that seem to match or don't match or whatever, like I, I let my clothing be that.

So sometimes I want to feel really sexy and then sometimes I don't want to feel sexy.

So it just depends on like what I'm covering up and what I'm wanting to share and all of that.

And I worked in fashion and was a stylist for a while.

So there's a language to clothing that I really speak.

It's like sometimes I watch dancers and I think, my God, the language of their bodies.

Like they're literally speaking a language.

And for me, style as opposed to fashion, but style is an expression the same way a loke defines beauty in a way that it's the imprint of your soul.

And it's beauty is something that blossoms.

And I feel for me, clothing is a version of that.

I really wish everyone would adopt that understanding of beauty, by the way.

It just blows my mind.

I think it's wild wild that you just mentioned a local because that's what I was thinking of when you were talking.

I, yeah.

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Your costume changes that night.

I get what you're doing.

I can see the language you're speaking.

I'm like, oh, there's the majesty that's inside of Tracy is now outside of Tracy.

Oh, the sexiness that's inside of Tracy is outside.

The like ancient spirit that is inside of Tracy was in that first costume.

Yeah, that first outfit was genuinely like some futuristic, like

time.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Alien or Roman.

Yeah, yeah.

Or I don't know if we were going backwards or forwards or upwards to heaven or downwards.

Yeah.

We were outside of time.

And And then the dream to wear one of my mother's dresses.

There's the love, tradition, honor of the lineage, the that outside of Tracy.

Can I tell you a cute part of that?

So I sent my mom a picture of a black version of that dress, and I was like, So, where's this?

Where's this?

She was like, Oh, we can go to we can go to the storage and we can find it.

And then she said, But there's a red one.

And I was like, Great.

So the red one was even better.

But so I went to my mom's house.

And

I have spent much time in her quick change booth when I was younger,

learning how to get her in and out of a dress in three minutes.

And there's a way you like hold the waist, you butterfly a dress on the floor.

So you step right to the floor and then the dress comes up because those weigh like 30 pounds, those dresses.

Oh, my God.

And so you,

yeah, so you hold my mom's waist so she's steady as she reaches down to pull the dress up.

And then you switch.

Once she's got it up enough, you switch and her arms go in and then you can zip up.

Right.

right?

And so I've done that many a time and all through the years.

And so this time I went to her house and there I was totally naked

with my mom holding my waist.

And I said, Mom, I'm so sorry because I took my underwear off.

I'm like, I'm so sorry, mom.

And she was like, I know, I know that thing.

And I was like, I know, but you haven't seen it in a long time.

You know what I mean?

It's like, get a little bit out of your reach now, you know?

She's like, I made that thing.

I know.

And as I always say, which really drives her crazy, I'm like, I know I came out of your vagina,

which makes her crazy

she's like uh

so inappropriate um so she's there i'm naked and she's zipping me into her dress and then taking the pictures of me and it was it was really moving for me and very because so much of my life um Diana Ross aside, but I saw my mother.

I saw this incredible woman in a sparkly dress on a stage and what it meant to me about being a woman in charge of your life.

The example, a woman that was saying, this is me, not look at me.

A woman that was in her full glory and freedom with her arms up, her heart open in her sensuality and sexuality.

And so it was a lighthouse that I've been walking towards.

So then at my 50th birthday, to actually be in one of those dresses and to strangely out of nowhere, grab the microphone

and unrehearsed sing her song it's my turn and change that line to 50 i'm 50 and i'm free

that was just kind of magical and in the cauldron of my loved ones i mean and also the same beads that you were picking up as a child

Everybody was jaws open, just like, how are we witnessing this?

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, it was, it was a really unplanned and

unbelievably special moment.

It was so interesting because after my birthday, which is what I'm in now,

it feels like I had a New Year's Eve.

You know, and I'm on the other side and I'm the dust has settled from blackish.

And I was tethered to that for so many years where everything was around it.

I'm out also going through perimenopause.

So I have for my entire life been tethered to a very routine cycle.

And I'm very connected to my body.

So I would know I'm ovulating.

You know, I would have all the feelings of knowing that.

And all of that is out the window.

And I turned 50.

And here I am in this open space now, sort of

allowing the

bubbling up of whatever might be here because I'm really specific about my life.

And I'm somebody who doesn't just go where the tide is taking me.

I really, I manifest quickly.

So I language deliberately, because otherwise I go places I didn't mean to go.

And so it's a really interesting and open, special moment.

I know.

You're so fucking cool.

Sissy, did you want to say something?

I want to say so many things.

Say things.

Are you crying?

Is anyone not crying?

I'm not the first.

Sister, cried.

That doesn't happen in our family, Tracy.

I'm just sitting kind of

in awe

of

the life that you have built with such intention

and how utterly uncompromising you've been in terms of being

yourself

and like all of the passions and agency and choices that that means.

What do you attribute that to?

Like, what do you attribute your kind of

ability?

Yeah.

Well, what she does, Tracy doesn't abandon herself.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's interesting.

I've really learned how to do that because I think that I have abandoned myself way too many times.

Way too many times.

But each time in the aftermath of the hurt.

I do ask myself the question of how do I not end up here again?

And what I have discovered is I will end up here again.

Oh, God, it's true.

Damn it.

Why do we have to keep learning those same lessons over and over?

I just think that's it, though.

It's funny.

I just, I have been nursing another

just deep disappointment.

And

my little inner child was, she was just

crying, just crying so hard.

And for the first time,

I was able to sit with her.

And I was like, here's the thing, my love.

I'm not going anywhere.

I'm not going anywhere.

I don't know.

I don't know how to be anybody else.

I just don't.

But what I know how to do is to be me and to just hold that space with as much compassion and curiosity and gentleness as possible.

And to find all the things, even if it's a bag of freaking funions.

Like, what is it?

What is it that we need today

to just try and hold that space of love?

I think that's the thing we're sold that's wrong.

I don't know that life is supposed to be a thing that just feels good all the time.

That's right.

But how can we hold the spaces and the days and the periods when it just doesn't feel good?

And I just feel so unlovable.

And like, how can I have the hurt without deciding it means I'm unlovable?

How do you not give meaning to it?

And that's where the work is, like in that little space, right?

Because I tell you, I mean,

i mean this is i'm on the floor half the time i'm one of your questions what was the question like how often do you feel bad what is i saw yeah how often are you down

oh

lots of times like three last year

three last year i'm joking do you mean yep do you mean

like what

I don't remember last year.

I am bogged down by this year.

Thank you.

I'm bogged down by this week.

And the thing that's crazy to me is like, you're just sailing along.

It's like a good one.

I'm like, feeling good.

You got your sweater.

And then, like, and like, where does it come?

I'm like, oh, I did not know I was going to get sideswiped by that.

And why am I two days later still in a hangover?

Why is it a week later?

And also, I've learned that two, both things, two things can be true at the same time.

I can be really productive and doing really well, and also like heartbroken.

Yeah.

Something you just said,

I don't know how to be anything but me.

To me, that is

so incredible because I know how to be

anything.

Like I

almost anything but me.

Right.

And so there is an equal amount of pain and loneliness in being able to be everything other than you.

Yes.

And, and so like.

That thing, how did you get to the place where you

could A, be you and identify it like this is Tracy?

I can see it.

I can smell it.

I can put it in a sweater.

And then how did you get to the place where you just couldn't be anything other than that?

Well, I actually think that's the question is actually how the entrance into it was

making friends with the loneliness and the hurt that comes on either side.

Because I was other than me forever.

And I still have days where I'm like, why the fuck did I just say that?

I don't, I didn't believe.

Who was that person?

That was so weird.

Like, why did I do that?

You get home and you're like, oh my God, that person thinks I'm a person who doesn't.

I don't do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No worries.

I'll just move.

Like, yeah, like, God, that's what, that's what I think every time a bug comes in my house.

Well,

good for you.

This is your lovely new home.

Thank you.

Also, you know, I don't have kids.

I don't have, I haven't had a partner.

So I have been forced to go like,

well, I don't know.

What do I want then?

There's so many things I don't do because there's only so many things you can do alone.

And I do a lot of the things alone that most people are like, I can't believe you do that alone.

I go on vacations alone.

I go to dinner alone on a Friday night at seven or eight o'clock.

You know what I mean?

Like I do all those things, but there's certain things that like I'm not going to do alone.

I'm just not.

And so

um

i've been forced to kind of figure out that going in my closet and making an outfit like really makes me happy you know what i mean like i get jazzed up and i'm like that was good now i'm gonna go watch the crown good night yay

like

this day was good you know i'm gonna eat a whole jar of olives all by myself even though my sister said i smell like olives when i spy

i like olives i'm gonna eat the whole jar um like now i just i literally people put a bag you know open a bag of potato chips i take a jar of olives and i pour the liquid out and then I dump it into a bowl and I eat the bowl of them.

It sounds like heaven.

It's heaven to me.

But so I think it's more the other thing.

Cause I think we all suffer with, am I this or am I that?

But like, how do we tend to, how do we hold really lovingly and gently the aftermath that comes up?

Yeah.

The shame, the all those things that you should be doing something different, living a different way, should have done it differently, said it differently or whatever.

Like, how do you hold that part of you?

Because that's the thing I think that holds us back from actually having a life that we want to live.

But I struggle with all.

I mean, there's, I'm just bumbling along over here.

Don't compare your insides to other people's outsides.

You know what I mean?

That's right.

Like, it always looks like it's easier over there.

But it's also knowing that losing somebody hurts.

And then the losing yourself hurts more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, I love you, but I love me more.

Yeah.

You know, and that's a really hard one.

Um, that doesn't work every day.

Yeah.

It doesn't work every day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I love you, but I love you more.

So fuck it.

You know what?

Today you win, buddy.

Right.

Today I said, today I have, I have thrown me out the window, my dear friend.

You know, I got this.

I titter and I'm going out.

Yeah.

And tomorrow I will, I will deal with the aftermath.

That's right.

You will call the therapist and the squad of friends and we will try and put me back together because I obviously threw me out into a whole bunch of pieces.

I also used to be a person, I swear to God, I would run the things by everybody, like go to like put $20 on the gas tank number 12.

And let me ask you a question.

So there was this, there was this guy that said, and so he called and then I called, should I, do I call him back?

Or I don't, I mean, I just, I know, oh, yes, on 12, number 12, I guess.

But do you have any experience with this?

Because of your objective, and I know you don't know me, so I just want to run this by you.

Is there anything you could tell me about your choice when it comes to the the calling him back?

Do I went two days?

Like, you know what I mean?

I do.

I do.

I mean, I tried to do it.

I'm going to try everybody.

You know what I mean?

Or the My Life Is Mine speech.

Like that was all.

My favorite line in that was,

I asked my ex-boyfriend.

Tell us.

Get out of here.

Get out of here, Tracy.

Like, come on.

Like, you have not been with this person in how long?

What you doing, girl?

I know.

You don't need his permission, but it still comes up, you know?

and i for the six people who haven't listened to that glare

um speech it it was the realization that tracy came to after she found herself stewing over the need to tell her very ex

boyfriend that she was

interested in seeing other people

If you're listening, you couldn't see.

I rolled my eyes so hard that I thought they might get stuck behind my head at the thought of myself doing that.

This is the thing.

I have a friend who also says, you know, we know better.

We don't always do better.

That's amen.

And sometimes we know we're not doing better and we choose it anyway.

And we choose it anyway.

That's right.

And so what?

And that's the same person who says, hey, babe, why don't you give yourself 1,000 breaks?

And then we go to the next one.

Can I have that friend's number also?

You do.

She's not on the podcast.

She might be my actual best friend.

Because it's crazy.

Like you just, yeah, you don't know.

And she always says to me, it's not always what you're doing.

It's the questions you're asking.

just ask the right questions you know

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You know what's interesting to me is while you're talking and you're talking about how you talk to yourself, and I know how you've talked to other people in real life.

And I was thinking about how you've mentioned twice that, well, I don't have kids, but, and I was thinking that the people, people i have three people in my life who i consider to be the best mothers like you give me you know what i'm gonna say right now yeah

who

just have the most

pristine mothering energy

and it's you and these are the people in my life you liz gilbert and alex heddison and what's what do they all three have in common they don't have kids yep Yeah, they're all very good looking.

They're the, oh, they're also all gorgeous.

Yeah.

They're the best mothers that I know.

I will say i say this to people all the time i am a wonderful mother

wonderful and i'm very mothering and um and it's been hard for me to claim that

in a world where i don't have the thing that says i mean what did i what was i just writing as i'm trying to let me see hold on

I can feel my body's ability.

This was journal entry from like three or four days ago.

I can feel my body's ability to make a child draining out of me.

Sometimes I find it hilarious and as if there's a fire sale going on in my uterus and someone's in there screaming, all things must go.

And then I look down and blah, blah, blah, skip that.

And then this is what's interesting to me.

As my body becomes a foreign place to me that doesn't really feel safe or like home, and I don't know how to manage or control or fight the external binary narrative of the patriarchy that has hunted me and haunted me most of my adult life.

Is it my fertility that is leaving me?

Is it my womanhood?

Or is it really neither?

But I have to fight to hold my truth because I have been programmed so successfully by the water we all swim in, by the water we all are served.

And I feel fertile with creativity, full of power, more and more a woman than I've ever been.

And yet, that power that I was told I must use was not used.

A power,

yeah, I mean, just trying to figure out sort of what that means, like because my ability to have a child is leaving me, but like, I don't agree that that's what fertile means.

I don't agree that that's what woman means,

which is why the freedom that the expansion around gender has offered me

and the knowledge that is being shared with us by the trans community is like, oh my God, thank you.

Like, thank you for finally unpacking something that like I had no ability to unpack because of what was handed to me in a culture that like thought of it in such a limited way.

And so, trying to make sense of that at this age with my own limited point of view, um, is

really fun, honestly.

Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah,

it was gorgeous.

And what if that idea of fertility from so young,

if it was handed to us and saying, what are you going to do with this fertility that you have?

And

one minute aspect of that might be that you choose to reproduce.

If that's your fertility

is this big.

And then we would realize, God, how many generations and generations of fallow ground because we were never

presented with our own creative,

forward-thinking, beautiful fertility.

And then all the women who just have kids, who everyone looks at them and says, well, you should be freaking happy.

You did the thing.

You did the one fertile thing.

And no, they maybe had a wide vast of what their fertility could have birthed into the world.

Now, it's, it really, it's heartbreaking.

It's a heartbreaking thought.

It's heartbreaking.

And I'm grateful to be able

to look at it with curiosity instead of heartbreak.

And the heartbreak does come up.

And I get to hold that gently and lovingly and then say, remind myself: like, I woke up every morning of my life and I've tried to do my best.

So I must be where I'm supposed to be.

Well, thank you for speaking up too on behalf of the trans community.

I've never thought of it that way.

And being a person who won't have my own biological children, you just kind of gave me a little bit of a roadmap of work I need to do.

And I just, I'm really grateful for all that you just said.

That was unreal.

Thank you.

She's something, Miss One.

She's something.

So hard for me to take any of that in, but it is

an unbelievable

injustice that is laid on all of us as human beings.

That there is one

pathway

that is

informed by this

random construct that somebody came up with around gender.

When I pull back from it, I'm like, that's like a joke.

Who did that?

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm just like, who, who did that?

That's, that's not, that's so silly.

You've just limited so much, so much life.

You've limited so much life.

And so it's almost like that was the point.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's almost like that was the point, you know, really.

Like, it's like terrifying when you think about it.

You're just like, oh my gosh.

So yeah, I ponder these things a lot.

And then every once in a while I hear something and I'm just like, right.

Like, what, why did I, why,

why did I,

and then I have to forgive.

We all have to forgive ourselves because we come by it honestly.

It's what we've been served.

It's what we've been given.

And the courage of those that.

give us a different roadmap that shares something that opens up and unlocks a space that we had locked down unconsciously is always such a gift.

When your sister Rhonda, who I love so much, when she gave the toast.

You know, she's the wise one, by the way.

Like, I'm chopped, like, I'm chopped liver in my family.

Like, my siblings are like something.

The shizness.

All your siblings.

Just like they're just magical.

They take care of me.

You know what I mean?

They love me.

The love you have for each other is just, the love is so palpable.

Yeah.

That was one of my favorite things about the night is just watching your siblings watch you.

And anyway, glowing, all glowing.

Okay.

um I forgot what I was gonna say Rhonda Rhonda right

and then she said

she quoted you back to you when she said my life is mine and then you sang a song that was your mom's song and then as you said in the beginning you were saying I'm 50 and free I'm 50 and free

what

are you free from when you were saying that what were you thinking

and maybe freeing from like maybe we're never free from anything.

But, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know that I'll ever be free from some of these things.

I've actually read little things I wrote when I was like 15 and 12.

And I'm like, wow, I've been chomping on this stuff forever.

Almost, almost done.

In another 50 years, you're going to have it nailed.

I am going to have this stuff nailed.

I'm going to tell you.

Think of the costumes.

Think of the costumes.

I remember this moment.

I was crying so hard to this particular friend.

And I was like, I just, I don't, I don't think, I just don't think, like, I just, I'm not right.

Like, it just, the people I'm just not lovable.

Like, I do it all wrong.

And she was like, oh,

hold on, hold on.

You know, maybe you're just not everyone's cup of tea.

And I was like, but I want to be everybody's cup of tea.

Like, I want everybody to do this.

Like, I want to be everybody's cup of tea.

She's like, okay, but maybe you're not.

and i was like okay i'm like

um

and she said why don't you do this why don't you make a list of all of the things that you like about yourself and i was like that seems crazy um and i made this list and i realized that so many of the things that i like about myself are the things that i do think are difficult for people but they're the things that i like about myself

that I'm not afraid to say when I don't think something feels right.

That I'm not afraid to say when something doesn't feel right for me, no matter how far and deeply into that thing I am.

Wow.

That I have a really loud laugh.

Like all these different things, right?

That make me maybe not everyone's cup of tea.

And that like totally changed my relationship to those aspects of me that I think I was trying to hide in order to be chosen, to be lovable, blah, blah, blah.

So I don't know that my discomfort with not being everyone's cup of tea or

the

unlovability and self-loathing that comes up, I don't know that those are ever going to go away.

I think that what I am free from, or that I have a different relationship to them.

And the same way you say we can do hard things, which I use all the time and is just such a good guiding force, like I can do hard things.

I can also be uncomfortable.

I could also be comfortable when I'm uncomfortable.

I can also

be happy even if I don't like how everything's going.

I don't know if it's what I'm afraid from, but I have a larger container now to hold myself.

And I know myself really well.

And it's taken a lot of time to have the courage to actually live my life as that person.

But

I have a lot of experience chewing on ground glass and sort of not really

and sort of sitting with the discomfort of

I might have ruined that thing.

You know, my big

fear was, am I going to ruin the course of my destiny if I make the wrong choice?

And my spiritual awakening in life has been, I'm okay.

You can't ruin it, babe.

You're okay.

That's it.

There was no burning bush.

It was just, you're okay.

And sometimes enough is enough.

I don't have to make it better.

It's just fine.

It's just fine.

You're fine, sweetie.

It's fine.

You don't have everything you want.

It's fine.

I love your laugh.

My laugh.

Think about how weak you are.

To be everyone's cup of tea.

You'd have to be the weakest ass tea.

You'd have to be the weakest ass tea.

You'd have to be water.

No, you'd have to be water.

And you can't even be warm water.

You're going to be like lukewarm.

And by the way, not even people don't like water.

That's right.

Some people don't like people hate water.

It's not possible.

No.

That's right.

It's not possible.

And the more flavorful you are, the narrow your tea audience might be.

Yeah, it might be a narrow tea audience.

Yeah.

You know, I do think that your audience is pretty damn wide, though, Tracy.

I'll tell you.

I don't know.

I think I bug the hell out of a lot of people.

Not us.

I think they're the right ones.

I think they're the right ones.

Okay, maybe.

They're a different cauldron then.

We are going to let you go because

we could talk forever, but how long have we been talking?

Has this been like seven hours?

It's been an hour.

it's been an hour, and it's been one of my favorite hours of this entire show.

Seriously, and once again, you have shown up with all of your power and vulnerability, and somehow they're the exact same thing.

And once again, I just, I just really love you.

Yeah, um, I feel the same way.

I just want to say to the three A Yes

that I um

I'm so grateful.

I'm grateful to um,

Amanda, to know you, um, but to also

have the honor of being a Cauldron sister with you

and to live in a world where we can have conversations that are this gentle and real

and quiet and loud, and that you have these conversations with lots of people.

Like, what a blessing.

And you have them publicly and then you also have them privately.

Yeah.

That's a really special thing that I don't think exists everywhere.

It's a special thing that you're bringing it into the world and I'm happy to be a part of it.

You're a remarkable human.

We give you Tracy Ellis Ross.

I'm not going to promise that it's ever going to get better than that.

So just re-listen.

Okay.

For every other episode, enough is enough.

Downhill from here.

It's enough.

It's enough.

And when life gets hard this week, you're going to remind yourself, it's okay, sweetie.

It's okay.

It's okay.

Gentle, gentle, gentle, gentle.

I'm right here, right here, not going anywhere.

Bye,

bye.

I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire, I came out the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine.

And I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks.

on map.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find a way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that that our lives bring,

we can do a hard thing.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart pain.

Cause we're adventurous and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay back.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places

they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find

our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard

things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do hard

things.

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

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