EP. 171 — Maya Shankar

Jameela Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil, a podcast against shame. I hope you’re well. I hope you enjoy today’s chat. I think it’s exactly the kind of conversation we need at the sort of halfway point in the year where we’re sort of losing hope. All the hope that we had in January is starting to fade away, and we need that next boost of energy to get us through to the end of the year, which is coming so much sooner than I expected. I can’t handle how fast every year goes by. Anyway. Her name is Maya Shankar and she is a cognitive scientist who is the creator, executive producer and host of a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans, which is such a good podcast, by the way. And we discuss what being a cognitive psychologist actually means. I get to know Maya and her fascinating life story. We discuss the science of identity and identity paralysis and what we attach self-identity to. We talk about how to find identity stability. We discuss increasing the questions slash statement ratio and how there is a competitive advantage to listening rather than always speaking. We discuss the three types of empathy that are and in this episode, Maya and I argue about whether or not I actually have any empathy, because sometimes I can be very cold and English and I think I’m an asshole. But she seems to disagree. And you can find out how that chat goes in this conversation. And we talk about what loneliness does to our minds, and that acts of service are an antidote to loneliness. I especially love any chat about loneliness because I think it is one of the most important discussions of our generation. It already was. I mean, one of the first chats I have had on this podcast was Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is the Surgeon General of the United States, and his chat was all about loneliness. He had a great book out about it, and so that was just pre-pandemic. We had no idea the heights that loneliness would then go on to reach. And even after the pandemic, a lot of us still don’t know how to reach out and how to rejoin the world the way we were once in it. Some of us don’t want to, but it all impacts us and it impacts us all in very similar and detrimental ways. And so this is a really beautiful part of this chat as well. I hope you like it. I think you’re going to love her. She’s fantastic. Just super bright, super friendly, such a kind energy and such a soothing person. So for now, this is the lovely Maya Shankar. Maya Shankar, welcome to I Weigh. How are you? 

Maya I’m doing well. So nice to meet you, Jameela. 

Jameela It’s so nice to meet you. I think you’re such an interesting woman. And I feel very lucky that you are on this podcast. Teach me lots of things. Now, just to get started, you are a cognitive scientist. What does that mean? 

Maya It’s a great question. I didn’t know what it was either. It means that I study the human mind. So I study the science of human behavior. I examine things like decision making and how we develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world and how we come to build our self identities, how we connect with one another. So it’s really just a broad umbrella category for how these really important organs up here work, how they affect the way that we interact with the world. 

Jameela Yeah, And I think that, you know, so much of when we discuss these behaviors or decisions that people make, we always characterize them only as nurture. But some of it is actually the way the brain is processing things. Right. And I think it’s a conversation that is not had anywhere near enough. And we ascribe a lot of like blame or deliberate decision making sometimes to people’s behaviors. And obviously, we should hold people accountable. But I feel as though there’s no room for the idea that some people are functioning on a brain pattern that they might not be aware of that we certainly aren’t aware of. 

Maya You’ve just hit on something that is so near and dear to my intellectual heart. I can’t even tell you. I think the more we learn about the science of the mind, the more we realize how much stuff is hardwired. And sure, there’s plasticity and, you know, gene expression and all that.

Jameela What is plasticity? What is gene expression? 

Maya Oh, sorry. 

Jameela You got to remember, I left school at 16. Right? 

Maya Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. So, of course, you know, our brains are malleable and they will interact with our environment in meaningful ways over the course of our development. So our genes are not destiny, Right? But they absolutely shape a sizable amount of who we are and how we engage with the world. And I think becoming a cognitive scientist has actually made me a far more empathetic person because I realize how much of who we are sometimes not in our control. You know, we we try our hardest. We try to work our way out of, for example, a bunch of neuroses or whatnot. And it’s it’s it’s tough because some of these things are really ingrained. And even if they were a result of the environment, were not things that were in our control. And so I just have a very I walk around with a very compassionate orientation towards others, even people I strongly disagree with or whose behaviors I don’t approve of because of this understanding. 

Jameela Yeah, and I think that maybe PTSD has been the first kind of gateway to that conversation where we go, okay, well, I can understand that someone experienced trauma and now they make a lot of their future decisions based on that trauma. A lot of their habits or their obsessions or their anxiety can come from that event and that they are not in complete control of their behavior. So I feel as though we have an opening to this conversation via trauma, but it expands way beyond that. And I think until we really understand this, we are never going to be able to understand each other. And if we don’t understand each other, we can’t fix this like escalating mess that we’re in. And it’s something that I’m very obsessed with and so interested to talk to you about. What made you want to study this subject? 

Maya Yeah, I mean, given that I didn’t know it was a subject for majority of my life up util college, I should fill in a little bit of the backstory here, which is I actually grew up as an aspiring concert violinist. So when I was a little kid, my mom went up to her attic and brought down my grandmother’s violin that she had brought with her from India when she immigrated with my dad to this country in the seventies. And my grandmother had played Carnatic music, so she had played in a very traditional Indian style and I loved my grandmother. I was obsessed with her. Every summer when we would go to India, we were just inseparable and I would, you know, sit next to her in the prayer room and try to, you know, imitate her prayers. And I sleep side by side with her on the ground. And so when my mom opened the violin case that day, I just remember almost already having a relationship with the instrument before I even played it for the first time, because I just loved my papi so much. Loved my grandmother so. 

Jameela Much, she started studying at Juilliard, which is. Which means you got really fucking good. 

Maya Yeah. So I started off just because of this, you know, Grandma Love. But then I did. I did develop a really deep passion for it. I started studying at Juilliard when I was nine, and my whole life was geared towards becoming a better violinist. I mean, every Saturday, my mom and I would wake up at four in the morning and catch a train from Connecticut to New York. I would spend 10 hours taking lessons, performing, practicing and then return at night. And this was when I was nine years old. It started when I was nine. And so it was a huge part of my life. 

Jameela I hate to say it, but it is extremely South Asian of you. 

Maya Yeah. Yeah probably.

Jameela It might sound quite over-the-top to non-Asian people, but those of us who know. Know. 

Maya No, we know, you know? Yeah. This is just par for the course. As we talked about. Some things are just fixed in our genes, Right? And so. 

Jameela Again, is it. Is it in our genes? 

Maya Very complicated question that we might never really know the answer to, which is another part of that. But anyway, so when I was a teenager, things really picked up because my violin idol, Itzhak Perlman, invited me to be his private student. And that was just a dream come true. I mean, this guy was like a God in my world, and we all looked up to him. So the fact he took me on as a student was a huge vote of confidence. And look, you’re in the arts, so you know how insanely competitive this world is. And I certainly for me, I felt like even though I was getting these votes of confidence, I was still very insecure. I was super intimidated by how amazing all the other violinists were around me. You know, that one’s a prodigy and that when learns things faster than I do and that one’s more artistic or whatever, right? So I had tons of internal chatter. I was building my confidence. And then just as I was on the up and up, I had my slight change of plans and I, I overextended my finger when playing a single note. I heard a popping sound. It was not a string that had popped. It was tendons in my hand. And eventually doctors told me that I could never play the violin again. So like in a moment aged 15, that dream just ended. 

Jameela I’m really sorry. That’s incredibly painful. I played the piano from a very young age at a very high level, and I was on a music scholarship at secondary school and had to stop because of I have Ehlers-danlos syndrome, which is something that impacts my joints really badly. And it’s really hard when you set your like, you know, when you’re young. We really think no I can decide now what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. So everything you pin your whole little world and your identity on that one thing, and then when that gets taken away from you, your whole identity kind of falls apart for a second. And you’re like, Well, what do I do now? I’d like I missed social life, I missed, you know, kissing. I missed all these different things because I was planning on being like, great at this one thing. And now it’s so I think is why I now refuse to make a plan in any way. Is this a response I’m like, Oh, I’ll try radio DJ, I’ll try podcasting, I’ll try acting, I’ll try this, that and the other as a direct response to like, you can’t make fucking plans, but that must have been so hard. 

Maya Yeah, first of all, it’s funny you mention kissing because I actually did have a hickey on my neck, but it was from the friction of my chin, rest on the violin, scraping against my chin for 5 hours a day. So that was the only semblance of of kissing I had in my world. No, you’re absolutely right. You hit on something really important around the science of identity, because the question is almost not what do I do now? But who am I now? Right? Because our identities are so tethered to what we do that I certainly found that when I lost the violin, I felt like I lost a huge part of myself. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know who I could be. I lost so much of my sense of meaning and purpose and self-confidence along with the violin. And so that was a very disorienting process. I know now that that phenomenon is known as identity paralysis. So we get stuck in a certain identity. We have this feeling of our worlds kind of being in this immutable state when actually our identities are much more malleable, they’re much more dynamic that it took me a really long time to figure that out. And to your point of no longer making plans, I think what this looks like for me in the context of self-identity is that I learned how important it is to not attach my sense of self to what I do, but instead to why I do. So I think our desire to anchor ourselves to clear identities is not going anywhere as humans against a backdrop of total chaos. We do need to feel stability in this world. We do need to cling on to things that make us feel vibrant and purposeful and impactful. So that’s not going anywhere. The question becomes what we attach that self-identity to. And before I had this injury, I was a violinist. First and foremost. If I met you at some event, I would be like, Hi, I’m a violinist. And then I tell you, I was Maia. Like, that was the order, right? And I later learned that it was more durable, more reliable, more stable for me to attach my identity to the underlying features of what made me fall in love with the violin. So when I asked myself the question, okay, let’s say you can’t play the violin anymore. What are the things you loved about it? Like, why did you practice so much when you were nine and could have been outside playing with your friends? One discovery I had is that I loved the human connection that music gave me, right? Like I could go in front of a roomful of strangers and we could feel something new and special together that we never felt before. Like we could feel new emotions together. And that was really cool. That was a very intoxicating feeling. And so human connection is what drove me to the violin. Maybe that’s my identity. I’m a person obsessed with humans. I’m obsessed with studying our minds. I host this podcast A Slight Change of Plans where I interview people about their stories like. That’s really been a through line over the course of my life. So I’ve had a lot of very disparate. If you looked at the arc of my career, I’ve done so many different things. But I think the thing that unifies all of it is a desire to understand humans and a desire to connect with humans. 

Jameela And understanding humans is the main way to connect. 

Maya Exactly. 

Jameela I mean, so much of the reason we’re so disconnected now is because we don’t understand each other. Like I. I think about this all the time. I talk about this occasionally on Instagram that I, I don’t think all of our intolerance is hatred. I think so much of it is fear because we we fear what we don’t understand or what we haven’t yet really been exposed to or exposed to in the right way by the right people. And so I get really scared for where we’re going when it comes to trying to get the world to a more progressive place. Given that we treat intolerance with intolerance, which is very understandable. But at the same time, maybe if we could understand that these people are frightened or they are having their own private struggle or have their own private traumas, and no one’s just explain this to them in a way that makes them feel less afraid. I feel like we could make so much more change, so much faster than the direction we’re going in. 

Maya Yeah, I completely agree. And I think to your point about understanding, I think one thing that we forget in discourse when we’re trying to convince someone to change their mind about something is how important it is to show genuine curiosity for why it is that they believe what they do. I mean, you’re displaying that curiosity right now. You’re thinking maybe it’s fear based, maybe it’s X or Y based. Right. But a lot of people don’t even ask that fundamental question, which is why it is that people think certain things, especially when they in some way depart from what reason or evidence shows us. Right. And so there is research in cognitive science showing that if you really want to be effective at changing people’s minds rather than just ramming, you’re talking points down their throat. It’s much more effective to try and cultivate a natural curiosity for why they believe what they do. Like increase your question to statement ratio. That’s number one. Right? So I should ask you, hey, how did you arrive at these views in the first place? What are your values? What do you care most about? And what happens when you show curiosity is that people don’t feel like their fundamental humanity is being called into question, and so they’re willing to break down some of the walls that we inevitably have when we enter into a disagreement. And they’re much more receptive to letting incoming information change their minds. 

Jameela Well, I think there’s a couple of things going on. You know, I was talking to a psychotherapist in my DMS and she was saying that she’s noticing like a huge like a terrifying influx in the last like four or five years of young people, especially coming in. And, you know, before your opinion used to be separate from your identity and this next generation in particular. But I think also like everyone my age and upwards, we are becoming more and more, especially in the United States, I guess probably all over the world. There’s political like chaos everywhere. But what we’re seeing, especially right now in the West, is people’s opinions and identity being more intertwined than ever before. So that then when someone argues with your opinion, you feel as though they’re attacking your identity, but they’re not. They’re questioning your opinion, they’re not questioning your identity. But the two have become so intertwined that we don’t even know how to extract them anymore. Do you think that’s true? It’s like, you know, is that something you’ve witnessed? 

Maya First of all, it it turns out that you are actually a cognitive scientist. And I wasted my time getting the Ph.D. because you you’re near nailing all this stuff. 

Jameela No it’s a very smart lady that I was talking to.  

Maya No, that’s fantastic. You’re completely right. And a really helpful thought experiment to combat exactly this bias that you say we fall prey to, which is entangling, tethering our identity to our views, is to ask ourselves to imagine that we were born, for example, in a different century, that we were born in another culture. They were born in another country that were born to different parents, that we had a different number of siblings or a sibling who was very different from we were. How would that have changed the particular point of view that we have? And that’s a way of kind of unsticking us from the identity that we carry and the views that we have because we realize, hey, these views, these attitudes, these beliefs that I had, they’re not as fixed as I might think. In fact, they’re the result of so many inputs over the course of my life that many of which I was not in control of or not even aware of. And so it brings to the fore an awareness that these views aren’t as precious as they could have been. And they’re certainly not defining they’re not defining who we are. 

Jameela Yeah. And also at the heart of over a lot of the decisions that people make is tribalism, you know, which I’m sure you you know, especially when you had to when you took this work and then went on to work at the White House as regards like taking this knowledge and turning it towards action and policy change. So much of it is people’s fear of being othered and ostracized that makes them also start to think certain things or behave in certain ways, like whatever the environment they are most surrounded in whatever they’re most marinated in is what they more often than not, Not always. Obviously there are rebels among us, but more often than not, you will do whatever keeps you safe and their safety in numbers. And that is that is, you know, an old ancestral sort of it’s existed as long as human beings have been alive that need to be safe and to be in a group. And I think that also has something to do with it. 

Maya Yeah. So, I mean, there’s the fear of being ostracized, which can prevent you from, say, changing your mind or viewing things differently. But then there’s the the pull factor, which is I desperately want to feel like I belong. I want to feel a group membership and actually one conversations coming to my mind. So this was the this is the first interview that I ever did for A Slight Change of Plans. It was with a black jazz musician named Daryl Davis, and he ended up convincing dozens of people white supremacist to leave the Ku Klux Klan, which is just a remarkable feat, right? I mean, he even was willing to engage in dialog with people who had such vile views. 

Jameela And Violent. 

Maya And violent views. And one thing that was so interesting to hear from him is, is he would ask people why it was that they had joined the Klan in the first place. It’s like, how could you be part of such an awful part of society? I mean, this is just disgusting. And some of them would talk about the need for membership. I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere with someone. And when Daryl said, okay, great, glad you have that human instinct, why don’t we redirect that desire for belonging to a pro-social group? Obviously they were able to find direction, but helping them identify that one of the reasons that they were part of this horrible group was actually just because they wanted to belong somewhere, gave they made them feel empowered to leave and find that elsewhere in a better place. 

Jameela You talk about the science of disagreement. And I feel like that’s quite relevant here. Can you talk me through that somewhat?

Maya Yeah. So we already talked about increasing my question to statement ratios. Right. And this is something that Daryl Davis did brilliantly, which is it wasn’t even his plan, I think, to try to change their minds. He just was like, why do you hate people that you’ve never met? 

Jameela He was genuinely curious. 

Maya He was genuinely curious.

Jameela By the way, it does make you feel more safe when you understand. I mean, sometimes someone’s answer might be absolutely petrifying. Because they might, you know, have some sort of, I don’t know, condition. That means that they don’t feel human empathy. Those people do exist in the world. But generally, I have found that when I have actually engaged with someone whose opinions make me so fucking angry and so confused when I understand where it comes from and I understand the context within which they arrived, that opinion, I feel more safe in the world and I feel more reassured and I feel more like I have an opportunity. I feel more empowered to make a change because I realize like, Oh, this is just a fuckin person with their own story and their own journey here. And so it’s not just that it can like help you change their mind, but also it makes you feel much safer. Don’t like I bet you feel so much safer now looking at human beings in this much more 3D way. 

Maya Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s like there’s well, it’s complicated. So I would say I feel more safety and understanding when there’s a why and what that why is, because it gives you a vehicle to try to inspire progress. But it’s still also totally appropriate to be horrified by the why, right? And to feel like, Oh my gosh, this feels like such an intractable problem to solve. How do I solve it? So I think I feel both things, But I think you’re right that there is a safety in feeling like there’s at least patterns, like there’s a there’s a method to the madness and that it’s possible to actually understand, you know, to put to have people put their cards on the table so you understand what you’re even dealing with. Otherwise it’s a black box as to why they believe the things they do. You know, this reminds me of an insight I learned from a conversation I had with a two time world debate champion. So his name is Bo Seo. His story is so interesting, Jameela, because it runs counter to the the stereotypical world class debater person that I had in my mind, which is like super charming and, you know, debating at the kitchen table from the time he was five like that. And Bo is none of that. In fact, he moved from South Korea to Australia when he was a little kid. He didn’t fit in at all. He experienced a lot of bullying and racism. And it was actually in listening, being forced to listen to others and be really agreeable that he cultivated this desire for debate. He was told by a teacher, Hey, you come join this debate thing like one. Your amazing listening skills will be put to good use. But two, we will promise you the space for you to talk in return, because that’s part of the deal when you when you do competitive debate, Right. You talk, they talk, you talk, they talk. And so he said, when we think about what makes a debater so skilled, we do think of oratory skills and having really well articulated talking points and, you know, being that again, that really charismatic presence on stage. But he found during his time in competitive debate that it was really the people who are actively listening that made the most progress that were more most likely to win any debate. And so what that shows is it’s not simply virtuous to listen. There’s a competitive advantage, if you will, in being willing to listen. 

Jameela Why is that? 

Maya And that’s because you will never be able to change a person’s mind if they do not feel like their concerns are in some way being ameliorated or some way being addressed. By you. Right. So you can just keep saying, That’s ridiculous. How could you possibly think X or Y? Stupid thing. Okay, You’re going make no progress. But then you ask them. But you know, why did you arrive at these views? Oh, actually, let me explain to you. Like, you know, active listening is not simply sitting silently and hearing Maya, hearing what Jameela has to say. Active listening is asking these questions, trying to draw into the light the full set of views that this person across the table has from you. And only then do you even have the key to unlock mindset change. Because again, you understand why it is. You understand that. Why? Question Why did they believe what they believed? 

Jameela A friend of mine has been having success within his marriage by using a tool of active listening that involves sometimes summarizing someone you understand their grievances to be, right? 

Maya Yes, exactly. So this is a very effective strategy to hear what the person has said. And then to paraphrase what you heard them say in your own words. 

Jameela And try not to be condescending or press it. 

Maya It’s so hard. 

Jameela It’s a difficult, difficult. I want to do it. I want to do it because when someone says something that you find preposterous or infuriating or offensive, you want to be a bit of a dick about it back, but try not to do otherwise you end up taking four steps back. It is better to just sincerely try to empathize with them like you want them to empathize with you. You have to, even if you don’t want to empathize with them. 

Maya It’s the greatest exercise in self-control I feel I’m too impatient all the time is to not lose my cool when I feel like someone is making an argument that feels preposterous or against something that cuts against my value system. And those are particularly painful. I think for those people listening who feel like they are having conversations with people who are particularly stubborn, right? They’re like they’re not even willing to bring the wall down an inch. One effective strategy for breaking through that is to ask them, okay, let’s say like I have a magic wand and I can produce any evidence in the world, what evidence in theory would change your mind? So the reason I love this question is that it presupposes that a person ought to be willing to change their mind if they saw compelling evidence. And you kind of trap them when you ask them that, because either they’re going to say literally no evidence, in which case, okay, conversation’s over, like don’t waste your time anymore. But if they crack open a bit and say, well, you know, now that I think about it, I would be persuaded by X or Y, then at least you feel like there’s a chance, right? And if you were to identify X or Y in the research literature or the data or whatnot, you can make progress. 

Jameela That’s a great tip. I think that’s really important. I mean, I just I’ve been talking about this recently that like I feel as though I have been part of a kind of pitchfork community in the past, like pre pandemic. I’m you know, I’m not always a very empathetic person, and sometimes I can be a bit of a cunt, sorry for that word that’s it’s happened now. But I you know, I’m English and we say that word a lot. Sorry, But I also, you know, get agitated by the amount of arguments I have to have because I’m in social justice and people write to me in such bad faith and then I just want to fucking clip them right back and speak to them right back in bad faith. And and I have definitely been someone who did not mince my words, but in a way that I think was, you know, and I’ve spoken about this before in this podcast, like in the end, not ideal. Not ideal. I made my point and I made some great changes and stuff, and that’s cool. But I could have done so much more and I could have reached so many more people if I had had a more elegant approach about elegant. I don’t mean ladylike, I just mean kind of more humane and more thoughtful and more understanding of people who are so different. And I guess the reason that I’m now so interested in this is because of my own feeling of accountability for the fact that I am someone who has publicly contributed to a culture of just like, fuck you, I’m not. It’s something that I so desperately would love to be able to turn back the clock on. I can’t, but I can now use the platform I got while doing that to try to help reform everyone as I myself reform from that because we were all angry. We weren’t without reason as to why we were being so unsympathetic. We were so exhausted of waiting for such basic fucking change, like not being sexually harassed in the workplace or any of the things that, you know, we all got fired up about. But shaming someone has never worked. Like when you have a child and they’re making a mistake shaming them and bullying them and threatening them with ostracization is never the way that any psychotherapist on earth would advise you to actually change their behavior or pattern. 

Maya Completely right. 

Jameela And so it’s something that I feel so passionately about because of that. And I take full responsibility in the fact that while I might not been the worst or the most extreme, I was definitely part of it. And I hugely do not stand by that anymore as of the last four years. Really changed tact. 

Maya Well, I know I appreciate your reflecting on that. And I also think you can be a little bit kinder to yourself, which is, look, at the end of the day, you’re driven by passion because you really cared about these issues, right? And you don’t want to annihilate passion within yourself just because you’re trying to have the civil discourse. It is also important to feel things deeply and to feel committed to the cause. I wouldn’t want to wave a magic wand and say, okay, forevermore. Jameela will sound like a yogi slash meditative guru every time she talks about these issues. I know that’s not what you’re saying. 

Jameela No. But also but also like, you know, we can be we’re encouraged because of social media, you know, and I’m sure you must have come across this in your studies to be we see on both sides like own the libs own the Republican like. We see these videos where they will, you know, a young liberal will go around a Trump rally and interview a man who is very, very old and perhaps hasn’t been exposed to many different types of people or perhaps hasn’t had a full education or lives in a, you know, a different type of, you know, craft career. And he’ll interview them about current policy and they will recite things that they’ve learned from QAnon or Facebook, and they will immediately be the butt of the joke. And those videos are the ones that go completely viral. So then more of those types of interviews happen. We don’t do a sort of fair fight. You have like older misogynists interviewing 18 year old Instagram models about feminism. Like these are the things that I see most going viral on the Internet. So owning the other side, making them look fucking stupid, humiliating them like those are things that I, I tried not to engage in too much, but I see it so much and I, I’m incredibly worried because that just it never it never works. It only leads to chaos and division. And I’m so sad by the fact that social media and the algorithm has congrats is created like a merit system as to how much you can antagonize people. 

Maya You raised a really critical point, which is about shame. So you talked about the parent, right, the psychotherapist, where clearly it feels so intuitive that if you shamed someone, it would not lead to good outcomes in terms of them changing their behavior. And the reason for that is what is shame. Shame is is not the feeling that we’ve done something bad. It’s a feeling that we are bad. It’s a feeling that we are not worthy as human beings, period. And there’s no redemption from that, if you think about it. Right? So if I felt shamed either because I’ve shamed myself or someone else has shamed me and I’m led to believe that I’m a worthless human being and there’s no ability for me to improve, then I’m totally screwed. Right? And so what the research on self-compassion shows with the research on Compassion shows is that kind of ironically, the more compassion we give to ourselves, the more accountable we are when it comes to owning our mistakes, because we’re able to acknowledge that we both made a mistake and that that mistake does not reflect that we are bad people. The behavior was bad, the action was bad. But me admitting that I was wrong doesn’t make me a bad person. And so, you know, earlier, Jameela, you and I were talking about disentangling identity from our beliefs, right? And it’s similar here, which is we need to disentangle the things we do and the things we say from our worth as human beings, right? And so, yeah, there’s, there’s research showing that people are more likely to own up to things. It’s not it’s compassion doesn’t get people off the hook. It actually makes them more likely to give them the safe state of mind to entertain that they may have been wrong because when you feel shame, what happens? You just go into a puddle of anxiety and dread and there’s no room, there’s no mental space for you to be in that world and say, Oh, yes, And I also, you know, mess this thing up. And it also compassion can be more motivating as well. So I learned this from a compassion researcher. Her name is Dr. Krista Neff. But she was saying that when you look at research studies, you looked at athletes who are more self compassionate. You look at people who haven’t done well on exams and they’re more self compassionate. They just perform better. They do better in the longer run. So it’s it’s helpful for us to have you know, I was such a skeptic of the self-compassion stuff before I had this conversation on A Slight Change of Plans. I remember being like, really? Like, I’m going to sit in a room and tell myself I love myself and like, give myself a hug. Like, No, thank you. Okay. Like, what is this feel good stuff? Like, it just didn’t I didn’t fully understand it or appreciate it. And I think I was really swayed by what the science says about how it’s it’s not a narcissistic pursuit. It’s not it’s not a vehicle for just feeling better about yourself. It’s actually a vehicle for being better to others. And that was what I needed to hear to make me invest in the self-compassion work. 

Jameela Right? Yeah, I think I’ve I’ve been quite good as an adult. I’ve just been like, well, you know, you’re going to try your best, aren’t you? And that’s massively helped me be able to jump from crazy job to crazy job that I was underqualified for is because I’m like, It’s highly unlikely that anyone’s going to kill you if you get this wrong. It’s never impossible, but it’s highly unlikely. So just fucking give it a shot. Do your best. So if if you fuck it up, we’ll turn it into a funny story for your friends, and I’ll forgive you. And I think. 

Maya I love that. That is such a compassionate posture. That’s wonderful. 

Jameela I don’t necessarily do I love you, but I do. I’ll forgive you. It’s alright. 

Maya Hey, baby steps, right. I mean, I still have to get to that. I’ll forgive you stage because I’m so self-critical and so I’m working on it. But now I have more motivation to work on it. 

Jameela But I really appreciate you explaining the breakdown of this and explaining that we are more likely to actually have progress if we were to, because, you know, currently what we see online and this is the not everyone in the world is online, I think is less than 30% of the world, but it does work its way out in culture that when someone does apologize, we almost go harder on them. To admit you’ve done something wrong goes worse for you because then people dunk on you and then it makes like it travels even further and people deliberately seek to misunderstand. Or they say, Oh, it doesn’t matter that you’re apologizing that you know you’ve done wrong. You didn’t say it with the exact perfect wording. And and we we seek to then treat someone as though it’s a weakness to apologize. And it’s such an extraordinary strength. It’s a vital strength that’s like a part of our neurological journey to learning.  

Maya I mean, I will say as someone who doesn’t spend a lot of time online, who doesn’t spend any time in the limelight. Right. You’re a celebrity. I’m not. Apologies go a long way in real life. And I think they are actually celebrated with the people that we care about. And so maybe there’s a heartening message in that, like maybe in online spheres and in the media. 

Jameela Absolutely. I’m talking about what I’m just talking about. Like, I don’t necessarily face that so much. People are very gracious of me. But I’m talking about what I’ve seen online, like what teenagers must be when they look at that and they see that, oh, an apology gets you more shat on. That’s why conversations like this are so important, it’s because what they’re seeing versus what the reality is incredibly dangerous and going to lead to, you know, more and more people are cutting off their family members for having different views and, you know, not going home any more for Thanksgiving, which is fine. And fuck it and who cares? But my point being that we’re going to lose really key people from their lives. Like, you know, we saw it during COVID. If people had a different feeling about the vaccine or about COVID, I’m not talking about like extreme QAnon. I’m talking about just varying feelings or I’m not sure if I want to try that yet, etc.. I saw people with celebrities proudly saying, I’ve disowned anyone who doesn’t totally want to do this, like I’ve cut them out of my life forever. And so while I understand we felt scared and we felt impassioned. I’ve watched more friendships, relationships and families break down in the last three years than in my entire life. And it’s so important for us to desperately try to, like, force feed people back their humanity. Did you witness any of this? Did you see any of this? 

Maya Yeah. No, I. I absolutely loved that. And of course, I mean, it’s probably why it was, like, hard to even tolerate turning, like, on the TV during COVID, because you had to hear this stuff thrown back and forth. Right. I mean, and it’s it’s totally exhausting. 

Jameela I mean, I saw it amongst my own friends. I was huge, like division, like these sides that were appearing with people who have so many of the same political and social lives. I was like, Christ, this happens fast when it happens. 

Maya Yeah, it’s there’s this interesting study from the I think this is in the 1950s where loyalists to two different football teams were asked to watch footage of controversial referee calls. Right. So there are these plays and it’s kind of questionable which side should have won. And depending on their team’s allegiance, they were 100% by his two words favoring their team side. Right now, the visual, like your visual system, shouldn’t lie to you, right? I mean, literally, you’re all looking at the same footage and yet and it’s not like they think they’re being delusional. Right. It’s not like people are like, yep, I know I’m biased by my own team allegiance. I mean, they’re seeing at the beginning of the experiment that they’re trying their best to be, you know, accurate observers. 

Jameela So what is that? What’s happening in the brain? 

Maya What’s happening is that we do value, ah, our tribal memberships to your earlier point so much it can take on a sacred, almost holy state in our minds, because the reality is that when we disown someone from your tribe, that’s like terrible, right? But if you push away people who are in an opposing tribe that can strengthen your own convictions in your own tribe. Right. And it gives you an even greater sense of belonging. And so when ends up happening is that things that need not carry much emotional valence at all, like wearing a mask right it’s just a piece of cloth, like who cares? Take on these really powerful, emotionally sticky qualities because they represent the tribe that you’re part of, Right? And so that symbolism, I think, puts people into a very different frame of mind than they would they would otherwise be. And I think at the end of the day, we need to work on those empathy skills. Right. You were saying like help people reclaim their fundamental sense of humanity. And I think part of that is tapping into our most empathetic selves wherever, wherever that lies. 

Jameela You say that there are three types of empathy and and you say there are ways to kind of protect us from burnout. What are those three types of empathy? 

Maya Yeah, I think it’s so helpful for people to understand that there are three different kinds, because I noticed you said earlier you’re like, I’m not a very empathetic person and I wonder if that’s true. If after hearing about the three types you still believe that you’re not very empathetic, that’s fine. But I just want to give I want to give your empathy status a chance, ok. 

Jameela I’m a disconnected, traumatized person. Maya. So you don’t set your hopes too high. 

Maya But let’s give me a chance, give me a chance. 

Jameela I’m a husk of a woman. 

Maya Okay so the first type is emotional empathy. This is the one that’s super intuitive to us, right? We’re having lunch. You’re telling me about your experience, you know, dealing with these undiagnosed health conditions. I have experienced something similar. I immediately get tears in my eyes. I well up, my heart starts racing. I feel instant human connection with you. And I feel this bond between us. Right. That’s emotional empathy. I can empathize with what it is that you’re going through. Okay, So that’s number one. Number two is cognitive empathy. So cognitive empathy is the ability to understand what is troubling the other person, why it is that they’re in distress. It takes some degree of detective work to try to figure out why it is that they’re having a tough time. And it might be, 

Jameela I’ve got that kind of empathy. 

Maya Oh, well, okay, here we go. See, that’s what I thought. And then the third kind is what we call empathic concern or compassion. And this is, look, you can both have the visceral response to the person, right. And feel what they feel. You can understand what it is that’s troubling them. But you also need to have a desire to help them, because usually you have to translate these emotions into action. So that’s the last category is the desire to help. 

Jameela Well look at me, Mr. Empathy, if I can identify with that one, oh sure. 

Maya Okay. So here’s the key thing. This is the most exciting part of the research that I came across. They are not correlated within people. So if you’re really you would think that these coexist in people, right? So if you have really high emotional empathy, then you’re also going to really high cognitive empathy. You can have really high empathic concern and you don’t actually find those correlations in people. So you could have super high cognitive empathy and really low emotional empathy. And the reason I think it’s so important for all of us to recognize this and so this is a conversation again, I had on A Slight Change of Plans. I was asking this professor of psychology this question. I said, like, okay, given that we have these three types and we don’t all have them equally right within ourselves, does that mean that we ought to be a little bit more open minded about what empathy can look like in another person? Because I certainly find that when I’m having coffee with someone and I’m spilling out my trauma to them or whatever, I get pretty hurt if I don’t feel them showing me in return an appropriate amount of that emotional empathy, that visceral empathy, right? You leave the conversations and you’re like, Damn, this person is heartless. Like, how do they not care? But if we see empathy in languages like love languages, right? And I think, Oh, okay, well, look, that friend not very high in emotional empathy, but excellent in cognitive empathy. It was so clear to me after that lunch that they fully grasped what was at the heart of my distress. Then I can start to kind of expand my understanding of others and myself and actually view the world as like, slightly more empathetic overall. So anyway, I just I’m sorry, I’m getting so excited about this, but I just love this. 

Jameela No, that’s fucking fascinating. That’s fucking that’s mind blowing is my blow my mind. 

Maya No I want to say one other thing because you mentioned burnout and I forgot that I didn’t answer that part of your question. So I’m imagining a lot of the listeners of your show are susceptible to burnout because they care deeply for others. They’re trying harder to care for themselves. Maybe they’re in first responder roles, like maybe they’re a nurse, you know, maybe they’re out helping people, maybe they’re a teacher. 

Jameela Carer. 

Maya And I think what’s happened, especially in the last few years, is like, you know, even I at a certain point I tend to be like, I think a fairly empathetic person. But I was very tempted at times to be like, you know what, to hell with it. It is so exhausting to care about all of the world’s problems, like, Screw it, I’m done. Like, I’m going to become selfish instead, Right? And because it feels like you had those two options, it’s either you feel crippled by the weight of the world’s problems or the people you’re caring for or are you just stop caring. And one of the reflections that I had again, with the Stanford professor was you don’t actually have to make that tradeoff. It turns out that having too much emotional empathy, that visceral stuff is actually a risk factor for burnout. But having cognitive cognitive empathy or empathic concern for people, that’s actually protective towards burnout because it fills you with a deep sense of meaning that you’re both trying to understand what people are going through and you’re desirous of helping them. And so that was like a wonderful companion for me, right as I go through my life, you know, and I’m sure you feel this even as as an interviewer for this podcast, right? Like I certainly feel at hosting A Slight Change of Plans. You invite people on, they share with you these deep, dark, personal stories with you. And sometimes I just feel myself getting overwhelmed, even in the moment, by what they’re sharing with me and what I’ve learned in the process of having these conversations about the science of empathy is I don’t have to shut down my emotional responses. I just have to redirect myself towards the cognitive and compassion space. 

Jameela And how do you do that? 

Maya You can do this through. There is more than just the deliberate exercise of, okay, instead of feeling what they’re saying to me right now, let me try to play the role of the detective and investigate why it is that they might be feeling this way. 

Jameela How do you just turn that off? 

Maya You don’t. You can never turn it off fully. It’s about what’s it’s a it’s especially with attention. It’s about with these with these cognitive resources that are like throwing around in your brain. It’s really a matter of where you’re focusing your spotlight. So you will still feel the things. The idea, though, is to redirect your attention towards these other questions so that they supersede them just a little bit and you spend a little bit more of your energy in those latter worlds. Now, if you want a longer term investment, there are meditative exercises and other practices that you can engage in. I have never committed to them, but you know, I don’t even meditate everyday, so I just don’t have the temperament for that where you can actually train, train your brain. 

Jameela What is it that makes people feel? Because I don’t really feel what someone else is feeling like I’m, you know, I’m very, very scared when someone has a relative pass away or something because I’m worried that they’ll think I don’t love them because I don’t have a an emotional reaction to their sadness or anything that they might be going through. Like, I understand it, you know, I’ve researched people a lot so I can understand what they’re going through and I really want to fix it. So I think I identify with two of those types. But what is it that makes some people. I literally could not conceive of it. I could not conceive of a feeling what someone else was feeling. And I always feel very embarrassed that I have like a very blank look on my face sometimes with someone sobbing in front of me. And then I have to make myself like a frown and then quickly go into hug so that I can’t see my face anymore. But, you know, like people have, I’ve seen people suddenly stop mid-sob to look at me as to why I’m making such a blank face. It’s truly like I want to jump off a fucking balcony when it happens. But what’s happening there? Why do people not mirror, but like, actually, how the fuck are people accessing other people’s emotions and experiences that they might not have experience themselves? Because I see people. Do I have such an emotionally empathetic boyfriend. If I’m sad, he sad and I have no idea what the fuck is going on. So what is that? Do you know? 

Maya Yeah. So, look, first of all, I think it is a continuum. I think you’re really putting yourself at, like, the zero empathy scale and. 

Jameela No, no, no. But I’ve really. No, no, I’m. We’ve established I have empathy. I’m just saying that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. 

Maya Well. Well, even the emotional in that. I think you have some degree of emotional empathy. Is there. Is there any experience you’ve had in the last I’m going to open up to five years where you watched a movie, had a phone call, heard about something, and it just brought like a tear to your eye. 

Jameela It’s always dog related. 

Maya Okay. 

Jameela It’s not human related. 

Maya That’s fine. I mean, look, partly I’m on this mission to create safer spaces for people who might not have the traditional emotional empathy empathy response because they don’t want you to have to feel judged in the situation where someone is coming to you about their deceased relative and 

Jameela Listen, I’d be okay with the judgment. I’m I’m not worried so much about judgment.

Maya You don’t want to hurt them. 

Jameela I’m more just trying to understand. Like, what is that? What is it that makes people feel that connected to other people? And why do some of us not have that? 

Maya That’s a question we don’t fully know the answer to. It’s some combination of genes and environment and the interplay between those things. I do want to say one thing, though, which is that empathy. So we used to think of empathy as a trait, something that we either have or we don’t have. And there is research coming out showing that empathy is more like a muscle that we can build with hard work and perseverance and commitment. So you can you can engage in like empathic training, and that can change your mindset around empathy and in turn that maybe you can. I actually pushed him on this. I was like, okay, I believe that I can change my cognitive empathy and my compassion. Can you really, really change our emotional empathy? Can we really change whether you naturally let out a tear when your friend comes to you? I think the verdict is still out. I don’t I’m not very hopeful that that’s true. But at least you can exercise growth in the other two areas. 

Jameela Yeah, 100%. It’s really fascinating and it’s a really important thing. And I you know, maybe you’ll come back if you ever find the answer about how and why with the empathy. 

Maya I would love to. 

Jameela All of this shit, it can all make you feel so lonely in the world. You know, when you don’t understand or when you don’t reach out to other people, when you don’t show empathy or compassion to others. Like one of the things that we’re struggling with, like there’s all this talk about how everyone’s, you know, got a mental health condition now and everyone’s got anxiety and everyone’s got depression. And I’ve been speaking about this a bit recently on the podcast, Esther Perel has been saying that are we all mentally ill or are a lot of us just having a very, very typical reaction to our environment? And it’s being labeled all as the same disorder because some people might genuinely have that, but some people might be like, Oh God, the world is really terrifying right now in the news is terrifying and social media is damaging my brain and, you know, sugar and all these different things that contribute to why we can feel depressed and shit. And I think part of that is also like the loneliness that people are facing from living these kind of parasocial relationships or from cutting off their friends or cutting off their family or not reaching out to new people because they might not have the right all of the right opinions, even if most of our opinions do align, which they do. I really believe that about most people in the world, maybe not the most extreme people who stand out on social media, but generally in the world. Most people have so much in common with us, but because if they have one thing different, we are encouraged to completely break all contact, even if we know them our whole lives. There’s such a loneliness to that. 

Maya Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s beautifully said. I mean, I think well, one, it’s really important to establish that loneliness is a state of mind. Right. It’s not about our environment or the number of people that we’re hanging out with. I’ve heard you say on your podcast that you’re like a total introvert and you spend like 85% of your your hours in your bed. And so what qualifies as lonely, a lonely state of mind to you might be very different from I also have introverted tendencies, but I also I’m just more social by nature, by the much bigger cup that I need to fill with social stimulation in order to not feel lonely. And like deep, meaningful social situation stimulation. I don’t mean

Jameela No, I just more meant how it feels out in the world. It just there’s a lonely feeling to they don’t understand me. And I understand them like there is a loneliness to that psychology. 

Maya Yes. 

Jameela Even if you’re surrounded by like minded individuals, but you might not have a full connection with them. 

Maya I also think that so many of us have had things to grieve in the last few years, and I think grief puts us in a particularly lonely state of mind. You know, I suffered some losses in the last few years, and I remember thinking you just feel an exceptionalism around it, even though rationally, you know, that there are so many other people who have gone through what you’re going through, you just think no one could possibly understand. And I think that leads us to push people away. Like, I actively pushed away people I loved when I was in the throes of grief because I refused to believe that they would be able to actually relate to my pain and suffering, even though that’s just not true. Because we as humans, more or less go through the same range of things in our lives, you know, across the board in I mean, I know you’ve had Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, on your show, and you’ve talked about loneliness. But what loneliness does to us is that it puts us in a really compromised state of mind where we actually sabotage our own ability to connect with others. So this is for a few reasons. I mean, one, our self focus increases, so we become much more self-absorbed, much more self-interested. And we do that out of a survival mode, like it’s a survival technique, which is I’m super lonely, I need to fix this and I need to focus on myself to fix it. But that can be very off putting for others who don’t enjoy that you’re like a full blown narcissist, right? And so that can push people away. And then also our our feeling of threat does increase. So, you know, in a normal afternoon, if someone’s like or if you say, Hey, Maya, like you want to go grab coffee, I’d be like, Oh, that’s so sweet. And if I was in a state of, you know, intense loneliness, I might perceive something pernicious in that in that request. Oh, does she like, does she pity the fact that I’ve had this bad thing happen? Does she feel bad for me? Like, why does she want to have coffee with me? You just see ulterior motives that don’t even exist. And so what happens in the process is that we just, like, we end up pushing people away. And so unless we find ways to course correct and actively work to to resist those impulses, loneliness becomes a vicious cycle effortlessly, just because of the way that our minds are wired. 

Jameela When I’d spoken to Dr. Vivek Murthy like he had written this book on loneliness and had done all these, you know, studies and there was all this data and research in this book. It’s a fascinating book, and I still highly recommend everyone you know is talking about the fact that loneliness is a devastating impact, not just your mental health and emotional hospital or physical health, like it can actually have a real tangible impact on your physical take. 

Maya It carries the mortality risk of like smoking 15 cigarets a day, one study showed. 

Jameela I, I interviewed him in March 2020 before the pandemic hit, like just literally two weeks, I think maybe before he was like the second episode I recorded of this podcast. It was two weeks before lockdown started. You know, there were talks of like a pandemic. No one was wearing masks. He and I were in the same room together. We had no idea. And so I was like, Fuck if those were the statistics before lockdown, which very few of us have been able to unpack the patterns of, myself included. You know, pre-pandemic, I was not someone who spent 85% of my time alone. You know, it was in the sort of sixties, I think. But now I really don’t know how to go back. Yeah, I read, I don’t know how and I don’t want to really go back. Like I feel technically comfortable right now. Whether or not that’s healthy or not, I’m not sure I’m still figuring that out, but I think a lot of people feel that way that like, I don’t really know how to socialize anymore. Maybe I didn’t enjoy socializing or I didn’t enjoy who I was socializing with. It’s created both positive and negative, like new insights as to how we’re going to behave going forward versus how we used to behave. So what would you say you’ve observed about where we’re at now, given that I haven’t spoken about this subject since before the pandemic? 

Maya Yeah, I think it’s an it’s we’re in an even worse state now than we ever were, which is unfortunate because, yeah, it’s kind of devastating that I mean, it was so interesting because I know one of the things you were talking about with Vivek was, well, you know, make sure to reach out to people, make sure to spend, you know, time where you’re very present with people and then you kind of joke. You’re like, and I’m giving this advice to people while we’re being told to not interact with each other within six feet or whatever, right? We have to see them outdoors. And so. Yeah, I think the problem is compounded and I think there’s one there’s one message of hope, which I cling on to because otherwise it’s just a depressed, depressing message is that acts of service are a great antidote to loneliness. And it doesn’t have to be like volunteering at the Red Cross. I mean, acts of service can literally be mean, like baking cookies for your friend or calling a friend who just got laid off and providing emotional support for them, or calling an older relative who lives overseas, who doesn’t have a strong social community. And the reason why acts of service are so helpful in fostering a sense of connectedness is that, well, one, you’re instantly connecting with other people, either the people that you’re serving or the people you’re serving alongside who are focused on this common goal. So that’s already great. But the second thing that it does is it is it helps us overcome yet another third self-sabotaging behavior that we engaged in, which is that when we are lonely, we can often draw the false conclusion that we’re lonely because we’re not valuable, because we’re not lovable, because we’re not likable. And when we engage in acts of service, we get this instant affirmation that actually we are valuable, that we are bringing value to to people instantly. And so I’ve been much more intentional about that aspect of my life. And I think even these small moments of connection through service can go a really long way. 

Jameela I think that’s very true. And maybe one of those maybe one of those acts of service can be reaching out to. I don’t know if you feel like you have it in you, the friends or family members who you disagree with and engaging them with kindness and and whatever kind of empathy of the three you’re able to muster, I think is very important. Like disagreement is something that we’ve lost and it is the foundation of democracy. And I wonder just before you go, which you’re very busy and important, would you like just to circle back to what we were talking about? Because it turned out to unexpectedly be like a big significant part of this chat. Like what are the key things you want people to know given that your entire life’s work is around our behaviors and and how our brains work? What do you want people to know going forward who feel a bit fraught? Like we’re heading towards a really terrifying election the next year and a half? It’s a really vital time that we have a really like small window of time we have to convert a lot of people. If you know, who’ve shunned us, they might not even be on the opposition. They’ve just come like there’s a lot of quiet quitting of Democrats and liberals, you know, where people are like fucking hell it’s become so intense, like, I don’t even know how to engage. I just don’t think about it at all. I’m turning off the news. I want to disengage. How do we reengage those people and make them feel safe and actually be effective? 

Maya So I think one I mean, it’s a beautiful question. I think one of the things that creates such fear is the uncertainty that accompanies everything that lies ahead. And we know from neuroscience, we know from psychology that we have a huge allergy towards uncertainty. In fact, there’s a research study that shows we’re more stressed when we’re told we have a 50% chance of getting an electric shock than when we’re told we have a 100% chance of getting an electric shock. So we would rather be certain

Jameela Wow. 

Maya That a bad thing is going to happen than to have to deal with any uncertainty. I mean, it really will go to irrational lengths to avoid uncertainty. And I see this theme come up time and time again in my conversations on A Slight Change of Plans. I mean, people are running up against like seemingly impossible barriers and hurdles and obstacles. And the one thing that’s reassured me is that even if people don’t end up happier on the other side of change, because I think that’s a tall order. And I, I just don’t believe the research coming out of the happiness space that says, like people end up exactly the same level of happy after a traumatic thing. I just I don’t know, for whatever reason, I’m very skeptical about that. But what I do believe is that people transform through change in powerful ways such that they’re not really the same person they were at the outset. And that transformation can be really poignant. I mean, you might have a different set of preferences, you might have a different set of values, a new set of perspectives. And so when you imagine and obviously this is at an individual level versus a societal level, but when you imagine yourself in some future situation, there is the illusion that it’s Maya from this moment right now confronting the change of 2027, let’s say. Right. And there is a fallacy there, which is that whether I like it or not, I will change significantly between now and then. And so it’s it’s it’s a different person that’s actually engaging with that challenge. And I think one of the lessons I’ve learned from the, you know, the wisdom of my guests on the show is how we can be intentional about facilitating those changes in directions that we actually like, Right. Shaping ourselves through these formative experiences so that the the after person, the after version of me comma Maya is a better, more resilient version of myself. 

Jameela That’s beautiful. Thank you very much. I really, I really enjoy your neuroscientifically informed approach to compassion. 

Maya I like the way that you said that. I think that’s. 

Jameela I think sometimes people find it hard to accept that compassion or empathy or patience is more than just a virtue. And I think hearing about it in terms of the fact that this changes the way that people process information that we desperately need them to process, I think that’s an easier way to convince people to shift their to alter their course a little bit. And I’ve been shown grace by other people that I would like to now extend to everyone I can. I’m going to trip up because I’m a bit of a condescending bitch sometimes, but I’m working on it. 24 seven. I’m working on it. I’m, you know, I delete my drafts. I am figuring it out. We’re all on this journey together. But but I think putting it in scientific and factual terminology helps all of us realize that, okay, we’re not going to, like, be able to disrespect our way out of this. We’re going to have to use exactly what we would have needed when we were children and exactly what we need now. Ask yourself what’s the best way you learn and try to employ that on others is my only advice. 

Maya I mean, what a wonderful intention. That’s all we can ask of ourselves is whatever our baseline starting point is. Can I get a little better in this domain? 

Jameela Mm hmm. Amen. 

Maya And then over time, you know, it will be a virtuous cycle. 

Jameela So, without further ado, before you go, will you tell me, please? What do you weigh? 

Maya I weigh my open mind. I weigh my relationships and the fact that I have a lot of people around me who will be very honest about how I can be a better person. And I appreciate that feedback. And I weigh my morning ritual, which involves making a very traditional style cup of Indian style tea. So I cardamom, I like cut up fresh ginger. I boil milk, it’s like a whole thing. I started it during the pandemic and I have two cups every morning and I travel with these things wherever I go. And I just love the idea of having this stable ritual against the backdrop of like I’ll say shitstorm of things going on to make me feel grounded. 

Jameela Fabulous. Been a delight. And I hope that everyone goes and listens to your podcast and follows your work. I think you’re a much needed voice right now. 

Maya Thank you, Jameela. Appreciate your time. 

Jameela Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music you’re hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. We also have a bonus series exclusively on Stitcher Premium called Ask Jameela Anything. Check it out. You can get a free month. The Stitcher premium by going Stitcher dot com forward slash premium and using the promo code. I Weigh. Lastly over at I Weigh, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 18186605543 or email us what you weigh at IWeighpodcast@gmail.com. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our fabulous listeners. 

Listener I am 19 years old and I’ve had an disorder for about a decade. What I weigh is not a number, what I weigh is my determination, like loving this, my hard work, my devout ness, my relationships. I don’t weigh a number as you want to count those things, but those are measurable. So yeah, I just want everyone to remember that weight does not define you. Neither does your height or anything else that you can’t change in 5 minutes.