Jada Pinkett Smith: Adversity, validation, and unchecking boxes

0:00Before we start, this episode includes conversations that some listeners might find difficult to hear. Do check the show notes if you'd like more details. Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that gives space to both the light and the shadow in our characters. Today, I'm chatting to Jada Pinkett Smith. I had a place that I could put all of the like, just the unaccepted parts of myself and just have a good old playful shadow dance. And I think that as women, we all need that, whether it's painting, whether it's going out in the woods and dancing naked under the full moon, whatever that thing is for you personally.

0:43We have to learn how to give ourselves permission. We have to learn how to love ourselves in our shadows and in our light as well. Jada is an actress, a musician and a talk show host. And she first came on the podcast back in 2019. It's one of the happy place conversations that certainly stuck with me for many reasons But I really liked what Jada was saying back on that initial podcast about emotional independence Figuring out problems and knowing that you'll be okay without instantly reaching out to someone I think both are good I think it's great to be able to reach out and talk to people But I really like the idea of cultivating emotional independence Well, a lot has happened since then you're probably aware that Jada and husband Will Smith have publicly announced that they've been separated since 2016.

1:35You'll also no doubt be aware of what happened with Chris Rock at the Oscars. But it's Jada's phenomenal attitude towards these and so many other apparent adversities that I'm most interested in. Her ability to look inwards for validation and love and confidence is a real thread throughout her life. And I really enjoyed getting to understand more about where that resilience comes from by reading her book, Worthy. And I loved getting to have this conversation with her because she really drew me into her very thoughtful world. And I think you're going to get just as wrapped up in it as I was.

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3:40Okay, here she is. Here's Jada.

4:06Jada, it's so lovely to see you again. It's so nice to see you. So you came on the podcast back in 2019. Wow, 2019. I know. It's whizzed. Wow. We had that weird bit of life where everything kind of time warp. But I listened back to that episode the other day because I remember it being just such a lovely chat in my head. But I was like, I want to listen back to what we were sort of talking about. And we went really deep without me actually knowing that much about you. So now having read this, we've got like a whole other layer to peel back. But one thing that really stood out was in that conversation, you said this half of your life is all about freedom and setting yourself free.

4:49And I wonder if this has been a big part of that, writing your book Worthy. Has that helped to set you free? I would say yes. But I think it was the process of the book and the process of living the content within the book. Right. And me really learning what freedom means. It's not a whimsical idea of like, oh, I get to do what I want to do. Or it's really letting go of these false ideas that I had about life, about myself, you know, that I had to go through this process of emotionally maturing in a way that was keeping me, my emotional immaturity was keeping me stuck and you don't I guess ever get to a place you're like I'm free I'm done it's just forever it's forever yeah there's no and I think that's the other thing that I've I've learned in this journey like there's no arrival there's no like I got it yeah because as soon as you think you have it oh my goodness the universe will just show you that you don't.

6:03I know. But we also look around and we think, oh, they get it. They're free. They're happy. We look around and we make such assumptions about everyone. We do. And I wonder how you navigated that because, you know, you've obviously been incredibly open and it's been, I mean, reading this book for me, and I think also sort of a woman of my age, this was like a spiritual experience reading this book for me. There was parallels I could see in my own life and where I'm at and where I'm wanting to go. But I think people are always going to make assumptions when you're in the public eye. And everybody could look at you and go, oh, my God, she's gorgeous.

6:41She's successful. She's in this multi-talented family. They're all thriving. They've got it sussed. They've got it just all going smoothly. And then you read your book and beneath that was a whole other narrative. And even if we look at what you were mentally dealing with within the first few pages of the book, you talk about complex trauma, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, depression. How did it sit with you that you there were so many assumptions about who you were as a person, but it was so far from the truth? Yeah, I mean, I think I will live with that for the rest of my life. There's still so many assumptions about me that are far from the truth.

7:22And I think that's That's part of the lesson. I really had to learn that what people think about you is their business, honestly, right? And that I think we're all grappling with our false perceptions, our need for our romantic perceptions to be true. And what I can honestly say is that expecting someone to live up to a romanticized idea of what you want life to be is really unfair and unrealistic. And I know that it's really painful. A lot of people don't want to confront that life isn't what we believe it to be. It's a hard one. Yeah. And our happiness doesn't necessarily lie in what we're being told there's like this whole false this lie that this is where you find happiness exactly and then you go well I've done I've done that I've done fame and success and money and yet and still shit yeah yet and still and it's really hard to to have people understand that right and then so people go uh-uh something's wrong with you because I know if that happened to me I would be okay and it's like you got to let people have that and also you know you say in the book that you were asking yourself that question you were saying what's wrong with me what's wrong and I think many of us have done this I'm sure most people listening to this will have had a moment they go what is wrong with me and actually until you either you know go inwards and have a look at what's really going on or it might be a diagnosis that liberates you in some way to go oh okay there's nothing wrong with me here this is what I'm dealing with and I need to look at it rather than assuming that the world around me is working perfectly and I'm the one that's wrong.

9:20That part. But that takes a long time to get to that place. It really does. I mean, I was sipping on all kinds of hot cups of shame because of not understanding. I really felt like I was inherently broken because I felt like there's no reason why you should be unhappy, right? And at that time, nobody was really talking about mental health issues at all. And so that was, I really had no idea what was going on. And so I just wanted out. And I'm sure a level of guilt that I've got all this stuff and this life, but it's not impacting me positively. It was survival guilt, too, because what I had survived.

10:12Yeah. And then so many people I had known hadn't survived and still being connected to communities where survival was not a guarantee on a daily basis. It was just like, you got to be kidding me. You, of all people, have no reason. And so I really had to, it was a lot that I had to work through, a lot that I had to reconcile, a lot of things I had to unlearn. and then learn new things. And it's been a hell of a ride. But I think that all of us are on a journey of some kind. Maybe some not as extreme, maybe some even more extreme, right? But we're all on a journey, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book, because I don't think that we are often, as women, given permission to really talk as openly and as raw as I wanted to.

11:22And I felt like I could take the bullets that I knew that were going to come because I've already taken so many. I mean, my favorite chapter in the book is Wild Banshee. Yeah. I was just like, oh, like a sigh of relief. And the feeling of that chapter is, for the most part, women are kind of shackled to, okay, how I'm showing up socially and publicly and at the school gates and what I look like and what I'm saying and am I being a good girl and all the stuff that we're conditioned with. But there's this thing underneath all that that is desperate to get out. Yeah. And maybe that, again, comes with age experience.

12:03I'm certainly experiencing all of that now. Like, what is that? The rawness and the rage and everything that's in me that I have to just keep down at a level to be sort of an accepted human in society. And sometimes you just want to go sod it all. I just want to roar like a lion or whatever it might be. It's so important. And, you know, a big part of that for you was music. And it was going down this route of metal music, something that no one at the time around you expected. And I've watched you on stage unleashing this just passion and power that's raging out of you. I mean, that must have been an incredibly explorative time for you to really work out what is this and how do I channel it?

12:49Yeah, it was quite a time. Yeah. You know, I had a place that I could put my rage. I had a place that I could put all of the like just the all of the unaccepted parts of myself and just have a good old playful shadow dance. You know, and I think that as women, we all need that, whether it's painting, whether it's going out in the woods and dancing naked under the full moon, you know, whatever it is, whatever that thing is for you personally. But giving ourselves permission, we can't wait. And I think that that's the thing for most of us, for most people in general, can't wait for permission. We have to learn how to give ourselves permission.

13:37We have to learn how to love ourselves in our shadows, learn how to love ourselves in our wild, banshee, you know, places and in our light as well, because I was just as afraid of my light as I was as afraid of my shadow. How interesting. Right? I was just as afraid to shine brightly, you know, as I was to really deal with my stuff. Yeah. Do you think being, that's really interesting. Do you think being afraid of your own lights, your own potential, how much you can push barriers and boundaries, where does that fear lie? Is that, again, judgment or is that how it's going to change you, how it's going to change your life?

14:18I think it's when we don't have, when we're not rooted in our authenticity, it's just more responsibility we don't want. Yeah. So for me, I didn't want, I was too afraid to shine brightly because I was too busy holding on to my victimhood. Right. And what's deep about victimhood is that as long as I'm a victim, I don't have to be responsible. Yeah. Okay. It's deep. all of it's sinking in like it's a deep subject it's deep yeah but that's why this book I mean I couldn't put it down and it's impacted me deeply because like you say when you're getting in touch with that side of yourself that wild side of yourself you can't deny any of it you can't deny the bits that you're scared of whether they're light or dark you know the shadowy parts You can't.

15:13And you quite literally have got it all out on the table in this book, not only for you to look at and accept and stare at, but for all of us, which is why it's a generous book, because all of us can then go, God, what am I scared of and why am I scared of it? Or what parts of myself do I reject? Do I hate? Let's get curious about them. Let's dig around in them. That's that's how you get better. That's how you heal. That's it. And that's why that was the other thing. I wanted to write my journey and hope that others would see themselves within it so that it's not just my journey we're talking about.

15:55It's all of our journeys. You know, and that's why even after every chapter, I'm like, hey, for anybody who's interested, you know, here's some what would it's called guidance pages. A lovely young woman who did an article in I believe it was the New York Times. She that's what she named it. Guidance pages. I said, I'm stealing it. Yeah, I love that. But yeah. And so the idea of like, hey, you know, this is some of the things of how just leaving little breadcrumbs of how I was doing self inventory along my way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of that self inventory has to start at childhood. You can't look at current mental health without looking at childhood.

16:39And it's painful and it's a long process and it often involves other people and how they've impacted you as well. Again, I didn't know so much about your childhood, but reading this book, you share the story of both of your parents being addicts and them not being necessarily available to you emotionally. What do you think that period of your life gifted you and took from you? I think that period of my life gifted me the idea that I think it was my first lesson in learning how to love people where they are. You know, like I had a level of acceptance for my mother, a level of acceptance for my father, too.

17:28right it wasn't until my father tried to come back into my life you know after I had you know I was an adult and you know but um but it also took from me this you know our parents are our first mirrors so it took from me this feeling of um being a priority so feeling as if something must be wrong with me that my parents are choosing drugs over me. So I inherently felt like I'm not lovable. So that was just, you know, that was kind of programmed and not because they ever said it, like I believe that my parents loved me, but this idea that I must not be important enough that I am the priority. And then adults just kept showing me that over and over again.

18:24So when my stepfather, he left, he's like, hey, I'm still going to be your dad. But then he started dating this other woman and she was like, find your real father. Find your real daddy. And then I didn't hear from him. I'm like, you know, I didn't hear from him again. It was just a repeated theme over and over again. And then you put fame in the mix. Well, you forget about it. Everyone interested in you for the wrong reasons. For the wrong reasons. Right? So you don't know who to trust. You don't know who wants to be down with you for you. Yeah. And then how about this, though? I don't even know who I am because I'm so used to doing things to be loved.

19:07Yeah. Okay? Yeah. I'm so used to performing a certain way. I'm so used to, you know, coming to everybody's needs so I can at least feel needed. Maybe that's how I feel loved. It's like, oh, OK, you know. And so that whole thing. How do you unpick that? Because that resonates. You know, it's probably no coincidence that both of us at different levels have ended up in the public eye. And you get that feedback that's sort of, you know, you try to quench your thirst with it somehow and it doesn't touch the sides. and then you've got to go and look at, you know, liking yourself without all of that.

19:48How do you start to unpick that? Because also other people are used to your behavior. They're used to you saving the day. They're used to you showing up and going, I've got this, I can sort this out. Or they're used to you just being really lovely all the time to placate their needs. So how do you start to unpick that to go right? First of all, who the hell am I? And how am I going to show up? And how do I then not backtrack once people react to me showing up differently? Yeah. It's been a couple of things. Yeah. You know, and I would have to say, you know, I know that even in my relationships and specifically my relationship with Will, you know, really having to look at certain behaviors that, you know, what's so interesting about intimate partnership is like, man, that is the place where the work gets done.

20:39Right. It's it's that's why it's considered a holy path. And my kids. Right. And just how I was relating to them and then also certain really close friendships. So it's all these different layers, right, that hit different parts of that specific dynamic in yourself, right? And I will say that the metal music game is when I started to recognize these illusions around dislike, right? So here I am, this black female who's in Hollywood, who's part of a system that is totally anti everything this community represents. I'm a woman. I'm black. And I'm from Hollywood. I mean, how many strikes could I have against me?

21:36I love it. And you still did it. And I still did it. Right. When I went out there, I had so, I mean, the most vile hate death threats. Like, let's forget, like, people are like, what do you think about these headlines out here? I'm like, man, that's nothing. Compared to what I was dealing with doing metal music. Now, what's interesting about that, that I learned, as loud as it seemed that the hate was, when I went to the shows, it wasn't like that. Right? Yeah. It wasn't like that. You would have thought, I mean, literally people were like, please, my whole security team was like, do not go. Don't go.

22:22We are worried for your safety. And someone's just like, over music? Really? In this day and age? Right? Now, there were a couple of times there was some real threats out there. Right? Okay. But for the majority of the time, people just wanted to come have a good time. Yeah. I learned a lot about the dynamic of the public dislike, what is true dislike, and what is just people just shooting off with some crap. And me having to find that place within myself, that center within me. Because I was like, do you love doing this? Do you like yourself doing this? Then that's what we're going to stand on.

23:09We're going to be 10 toes down on that. Are you going to allow all this chatter to disrupt your joy? Right? So I got a hardcore lesson. And I mean, it was difficult. I mean, you saw in there, my lymph nodes. I got so stressed out. You were sick. I got sick. Yeah. And I had to go through that particular process to get to, you know, that end of that particular journey. I spent five or six years doing metal music. Asfest was just the beginning. Yeah. But it's unbelievable. I'm very curious to know, maybe this was born in your childhood and the adversity that you had to deal with there. Maybe this was to do with growing up with two parents that weren't readily available for you because you were able to like yourself amongst a lot of verbal abuse from the outside.

24:02And I think, I don't know. I don't know if, you know, I've certainly been through not probably as extreme, but I've been through that. You know, people giving me shit about stuff and times I felt it was completely unwarranted. And I can be so quick to turn on myself. And that's why I'm in deep trouble. When I turn on myself, there's no hope. That's when I'm rock bottom. You know, there is nowhere to go. It doesn't matter how many people in my closed circle are going, we love you. you we're here for you if you turn on yourself you're in deep shit there you go but you didn't do that is that due to your childhood is this how you showed up in the world because i think that takes an extreme amount of courage and strength to have your own back yeah you gotta have your own back yeah in this world today you gotta have your own back quite right so it's about curing self-judgment that's the weapon that's the weapon when we actually believe what the negative people are saying yeah that's why it touched a nerve right ouch because you believe it about yourself you believe it about the self so guess what it's not about them yeah this is about you yeah right and it's something that i feel like you know look as crazy as the internet is and instagram and all that we all have an opportunity to do that work everybody whether you have five followers or whether you have, you know, a million, right?

25:29It's like people are always so, I hear it all the time. I get one negative comment and it messes up my day. And I go, all right, well, let's talk about that. Do you believe that that negative comment is true? That one negative comment out of 50 great comments, right? And so in a day in this particular era where we really can do the work of curing our self-judgment of not looking at why are people saying this about me it's like why do I think that about myself what's going on and so once we're able to take responsibility for how we feel about ourselves and stop looking for that validation outside of ourselves to fill in the void of us not feeling good about ourselves.

26:19Which it can't do. It cannot. No. Right. Then we dissolve those seeming weapons. Yeah. Yeah. So you're in a very good place with this. Having been through some tough times, some challenging stuff, not only in that metal era of your life where you were getting in touch with that wild side and you were on the front line battling with that negative critique, We can go back to your teen years where you talk about in the book, you're out there drug dealing to have that financial independence. And you're standing there with guns pointed to your face. You know, this was serious stuff. Yeah. And you got through that.

27:02So having had all of these extreme, they're extreme challenges that you've survived. That's how you've built resilience, I'm imagining that you get confidence in. I got through that and I'm I'm still here. I think you get comfort in knowing that life has its adversity. Life has its challenges, right? And it's like, hey, you know, okay, here we go again. This is yet another challenge of a different nature, but you've been here, which is why I feel as though adversity is not necessarily a bad thing. trauma there's a difference between trauma and adversity now a lot of people will say jada getting two guns pointed at you at your head that's trauma we're not gonna call that adversity like that that's what my therapist told me yeah it's pretty botched yeah she's like we're gonna call that trauma we're not right exactly so i'm like okay i'll give you that yeah um so i will say, but I do think that adversity is, you know, necessary, you know, because life, you know, life is not, look, life's not going to take it easy on us.

28:13Life is, I believe that this place is a university and we're all given our curriculums to learn how to love. I really feel like that's what we're here to do. Yeah. And first and foremost, we have to learn to love ourselves before we can love anyone else. Yeah. And that was the biggest lesson out of all of this. I really felt like, A, I was some like, you know, pro at loving, right? And everybody else just didn't know how to do it you know and then I realized that I wasn't and then I realized that I had to learn how to love myself in order to even begin to understand how to love anyone else it's the simplest thing and we all know it but we don't do it don't do it so looking again at how you were raised, how did you learn to love as a kid?

29:16And how did you, you know, you talk about when you met Will, you call it the magical season. You were just in the throes of love. And most of us have been there. It is just heady and gorgeous and everything is melting away and fantastic. So much so that you came off Prozac at that point because you were sort of replacing the drug with the with the love drug yes falling into it all how how were you loving at that point what had you learned in childhood I think I think what childhood taught me was familial love right I think the love of my grandmother and the devotion that she had to her family the devotion that she had to me, right?

30:02The devotion she had to our children. I think that I wanted to create that. And I think that when it came to learning to love in regards in a partnership, I didn't, I was very, I didn't know anything about that, right? So I had the movies and music. And so when Will and I first got together, I was so caught up in the romanticism, what we call the honeymoon stage, which everybody chases. Everybody chases the honeymoon stage throughout their entire relationship, right? Right. And what I had to learn about love and partnership is that we have to be willing to level up to the next stages. If we try to hold on to the honeymoon stage, we're doomed.

31:04Romanticism to me is not the highest form of love. Now, I thought it was. Now, this is just for me. This is just what I've learned. I'm not trying to say this for anybody else. I was trying to hold on to this idea of romanticized love. Now, romanticized love can always be a part of our dynamic and our partnership, but it's not the thing. It's not the highest form. So we have to bring in other forms of love, right, that accompany. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's a hard work. Yeah. It's hard. Hard work. Because you know what comes with that? Oh, boy. We got to deal with how imperfect we are. Yes. How imperfect our partners are.

31:51And we're not used to loving ourselves or our partners and their imperfect forms. God damn it. You're supposed to be perfect. And when you're not, I'm going to punish you into perfection. Yeah. And what does that do? Well, that just deteriorates the whole dynamic. Right. Us expecting our partners to be these perfect forms that buoy us up all the time so that we don't have to do our work. Yeah. God damn it. I brought you in here into my life so I wouldn't have to deal with my shit. Just fix me. Just fix it. Just fix it. Just fix it. Everything's fine. And you're supposed to be here to make me feel good at all times.

32:37So then we start to realize, oh, snap, this is this dynamic is just about self gratification. So we get into these power struggles of self gratification, which is not about love. No, it's not. And so then you got to make a decision of, fuck, do I want to go on this journey with this person? Do I want to just demolish this ego place within myself? Do I want to surrender to the truth of this idea and let it go? Let go that somebody is supposed to come into my life and be the one and make it all okay. Yeah. And just love me into freaking eternity. eternity. But it doesn't, if you don't like yourself, they could love you in the grandest way.

33:36And you wouldn't even know it. It won't touch the sides. No. It won't touch the sides.

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35:47When you first met Will, often we look to our partner, not only for that, please save me, please fix me. But also, and I can see it when I met my husband, you look for the bits of yourself that are lacking. So, you know, it's no coincidence that I've married someone that is very calm and very chilled, who's the direct opposite of me. Right. And he's able to let go quite easily and allow things to go over his head and, you know, breeze through things. And he's met someone that is the opposite of him. And we've seen that in each other. Now we're doing the hard work bit, but we saw that in each other initially.

36:23What did you see in Will that made you go, well, I'm lacking those bits. I need that. I saw in him that he's all sky. Yeah. Happy. Like, it's just like he's looking at the glass is half full and I'm looking at it as half empty, you know. And, you know, even to this day, you know, as I as I was driving up here and he's, you know, he's sending me as we're talking on the phone, he's sending me all of these like clips. He's just always looking for a laugh. I don't care what's going on. The world is stir crazy right now. And he is just looking for the laugh. You know, and me, I'm always contemplative, deep, you know, but look at this.

37:09And, you know, I'm the same. Right. You know, and he's like, I know, but check this out. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so but he was able to also do both. You know, it just so happens that he leans more towards joy, joy, joy. And so that was the part for me that. Was really beautiful. and he's he's freaking smart and he was like a go-getter and he's a climber he doesn't like to quit yeah and that's what we have in common I mean one of the things that you say was perhaps a catalyst for you parting ways because actually when I saw you last time you had been separated maybe for a couple of years at that point but you and rightly so chose not to be public about that until it was right for you.

37:59But you talk about you having these very vastly different ideas about what happiness is and how it would be attained. What were the differences and what were you noticing? So the biggest problem was that we were in that power struggle of romanticism, right? What we believed the other person needed to be in order to feel good, you know and I was like oh connection dude and he's like man but I'm trying to be the biggest movie star in the world we'll get to that you know and I think that's a really universal idea right and you know just the idea that family connection is first and foremost you know and I just wanted him I just wanted to be his everything I wanted him to be my everything I just wanted to be just so absorbed and it was like that wasn't quite it either you know and I think we had to go our separate ways to really see what was true what was true And so, you know, after the Oscars and we started to make a different trajectory together.

39:20You know, it's like being together and then also being apart. I know people are confused as hell, but I don't know what to tell you. You do it your way. You got to do it our way. Yeah. And it's so like, you know, having having space, but never wanting to leave each other's side. And that's what those years of separation taught us. It was just like, tried my best to get away from this guy. I just can't. We love each other, you know, but I also don't want to fall into a conformed idea of what that togetherness looks like. I can't do that anymore. I need to love him freely. That conformity brought me so much pain.

40:11And the last two years, even though we've had to deal with the storm of everything, dealing with the Oscars and everything, The one thing I learned about that is that an intense event like that can bring in an enormous amount of love that you didn't even know you had. That must have been surprising. It was. I mean, you call it the holy slap now. You've reframed it to be something that was a great guide and a teacher rather than something that's going to hang over you for life, which I think is remarkable. You've chosen to do that. You've chosen to see it as something that was actually very pivotal in a positive way.

40:59It was, you know, the holy joke, the holy slap and holy lessons, even the holy joke. Yeah. Even what I learned, even in my ideas around Chris, you know, and really choosing to see his humanity and the beauty of his spirit, you know, that event really elevated a new level of love within me for everything. How did you get to that place? Because you're going through something painful publicly, insanely publicly. You've got the world and their dogs saying everything about everything. And you're just having to sit there taking it. But then obviously on the subterranean level, you're working out, well, how do I feel about this?

41:54How do I feel about the Oscars? How do I feel about these two men? How do I feel about me being involved in this? you've then got the other layer where you're dealing with alopecia and then that's been brought in to the conversation because that was the butt of the joke yeah and you're sat there really wanting to be part of a community and to stand up for a community this is a insanely complex one second moment but there's everything in that one second so you how long did this take you this process of going right. I've actually turned this into a moment of love, of deepening. I don't think many people would be able to do that.

42:35Yeah, I think because the human condition of it all. I really get when you have walked through the shadows of your own heart, right? And I talk about in the book, going to the exile lands, and that's what that is, walking through the shadows of your own heart. And I had to really think about those times that I've hurt other people. I had to think of those times where there were misunderstandings. And I was like, wow, I meant no harm. My fuck ups had nothing to do with anyone else. It had everything to do with me. And so when I look at the world and I look at how people respond to things.

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44:56And when people do hurtful things, I just go back to when I'm like, I'm no different from that person. I'm no different from Chris. I'm no different from Will. I'm not. Right? So when I'm willing to be honest about that with myself, I understand exactly what it is and there's nothing to take personal. I mean, the world would be a better place if everyone thought like this because people all day every day who are in pain are lashing out in various ways and everyone's taking it very personally and that's how arguments start, how wars start. It's the catalyst for all of that chaos, quite frankly.

45:44and I think it's probably one of the most powerful lessons you can learn to see other people in pain and to understand it rather than to be like, you can't say that about me. I'm going to dish you this back or whatever it might be. I think it's a very hard one and I also think it's a discipline to remain in that mindset. Yeah, I think I've been really lucky. Like, you know, when I think about Thich Nhat Hanh who from afar has been such a beautiful, my YouTube mentor. I got to meet him. But Thich Nhat Hanh talks about that you can't have love without understanding. And how we get to understanding other people is through understanding ourselves.

46:30And it is a discipline because you have to keep coming, bringing yourself back to, Nope. This, this versus striking out or judging. You know, none of us are really in a position to judge anyone. Well, we do it in an attempt to alleviate ourselves of our own pain. Of our own pain, yeah. And to not really have to look at ourselves, you know, as we judge others. It's just an expression of self-judgment. That's all it is. Yeah. You know, and so once you really get that understanding, you can kind of sit with it all and go, it's OK. And it sort of seems to run parallel with that thought process you're going through about not wanting to sit in victimhood.

47:14That's right. You know, you could, looking at your story, go, bloody hell, you know, your childhood and then everything you've been through with the press, but then also losing people that you love dearly. you talk about Tupac so beautifully in this book and your friend Maxine who took her own life you know two people incredibly close to you that you lost really unexpectedly it's common for people to go I'm just unlucky everything goes wrong in my life I'm screwed my life is shit and it will be forever you know I I hear people talk like that all the time yeah and again it's a choice You know, I think people could go, oh, well, it's all right for some blah, blah, blah.

47:54But you can see reading this book. You've not had it easy. You have had so many challenges in so many various flavors and none appetizing. Like everything has been a lot. Yeah. But you make that choice. I'm imagining daily. You have to go back to it. It's not something that you just you get and then you go, I'm fine now. Oh, no. Daily. You have to go back to this stuff. And that, you know, that saying love is a choice. Yeah. I never understood that. Daily. Yeah. Daily. Minute by minute. Choosing love. And that doesn't mean that you don't feel. Oh, that's right. Oh, no. It doesn't mean you're just going, I love everyone.

48:39Everything's great. No. You still might go, I fucking hate them. They're an arsehole. You've got it all going on. But then you choose to go back to love. I actually let my heart break. Yeah. And that's the part. I let my heart break. I might have to shed a tear. I might have to surrender to my feelings being hurt. Because I go that direction now versus going to fight mode. Because if Jada goes into fight mode, it's hard to get her back. So I even had to train myself not to do that. I mean, you said you felt that at the Oscars. This internal thing kicked in. I was like, oh, I'm on guard. I'm like, hey, my trauma kicked in.

49:25Yeah. All of it. Yeah. Right? Being in the moment and then really having to be like, you're at the Oscars. It's okay. Right? So that calm demeanor that everybody, that's me really paying attention to what's going on within myself. Cool it down. You're fine. Wow. I mean, that's not easy at the Oscars. It's really, it was, it was something, you know, I mean. You've got everyone looking at you. I don't know how you did it. It was, thank God that I, you know, I didn't like, I've been doing work. Yeah. Thank God. I mean, it was like, it was almost like, God, like, what kind of training are you putting me through?

50:07Like, all of it. You know, but I, then I also go, thank you. I go, thank you. You know, sometimes I tell God, I'm like, you must really love me. That's all I can say. Because, you know, I'm just clinging to your feet. You know, it's just like, you know, and throughout it all, I'm OK. Throughout it all, I'm just learning more deeply what's true and what love is really about. And I'll say, I'm like, man, I got to be careful what I ask for, because I'll never forget during Pursuit of Happiness. I was having such a tough time one day. And I remember I was walking around Chinatown and I remember just sitting somewhere and I was in tears.

50:50I was in tears. I was like, God, please. I just want to know what love is. Please just show me. God's been showing me ever since. There you go. Go for you also. Yeah. You know, I think people think love is just some fluffy, you know, it's fairy dust and, you know, rainbows. Learning how to love some rugged stuff. Ram Dass said it best, you know, having an open heart in hell. You know? Yeah. And so learning to have an open heart within our own internal hells, you know, that we can then transform into like beautiful inner kingdoms. Yeah. You know, and then once we have our inner kingdom, then even in the chaos of the world, we can still see the glimpses of all the beauty that surrounds us.

51:48But it does take a lot of work. Yeah. You know, and I, you know, I talk about it in the book. Plant medicine has helped a lot to accelerate a lot of teaching. Yes. I can't say that, you know, I, you know, I have to include that because I've done a lot of plant medicine. So this, this was initiated with an ayahuasca ceremony. Yeah. I mean, you seem trepidatious moving towards that. you had been in an incredibly low place. Suicidal at a time where you just thought there's no hope. I shouldn't be here. This felt like a last straw for you, like a last chance. Yeah, it definitely. I mean, at that point I was looking for cliffs to drive over so that my suicide would look like an accident because I didn't want my kids to think that I had ever committed suicide.

52:45and Jaden you know comes into the kitchen one day and he's like mom you gotta come out here and you know Moises and Mateo are telling this story about their father in Peru and I'm listening and I'm like hey where's your dad and he came and I could see this brightness in his eyes and just he was just shining and he's talking about this whole experience that he had and how helpful it was and I was like I need that and so within a month I got an opportunity and it changed my life but again it wasn't like the drink everything's great you went through it you know you had these magical journeys initially the first two ceremonies you've got you know dark woodland that you're walking through and everything's really mysterious and magical and then you go in.

53:37Yeah. And this is where you have to go into the darkness, into your own shadows. And it seemed excruciatingly uncomfortable. Oh, it was terrifying. I mean, I thought I was, I thought I was possessed. You know, I was, it was so dark. And what I know now is that I had gone into that cycle of self hatred. That self-hatred that felt as though I needed to kill myself. So I had to confront that shadow. Yeah, it was deep, right? It was deep. And terrifying night. And that was supposed to be my last night. And then I was like, oh man, I can't go home to my kids like this. Because I was like, whatever's on me is going to jump on them.

54:25Because I really felt possessed. Yeah. And the next night, I'll never forget the medicine woman I was working with. She was like, just try to be still and don't talk. And so that's what I did. And what I learned is that that energy is just passing through. But the more I engaged with it, the more it just, you know, bullied up on me. And so the more I just surrendered and released and just let it pass and let it pass. And then the light came and it was beautiful. And, you know, after that night, I never had a suicidal thought again. Praise God. Wow. I mean, it's that amazing phrase of whatever you resist persists.

55:13Yes. And if you're not looking at the stuff, then it does get bigger and bigger or it lurks. And I wonder if you actually know the specifics, but what was driving that self-hatred? because I tend to talk about this a hell of a lot. I'm deeply interested in this subject. It's something I've certainly dealt with on all varying degrees over the years and still do now. And I can see what's driving some of it. Some of it can be very specific down to like one thing that I did that I become a bit obsessed by and I can't get out of the cycle of thinking about it. And then other stuff's probably more general.

55:48It's just to do with things that I've experienced over the years and patterns that I've picked up over the years. and it's still something that I need to definitely dive deeply into. What do you think? Because that level of self-hatred where you're at the point of thinking about taking your own life, that's extreme and that's full on and it's unavoidable when that's in your head. What's that rooted in that self-hatred? I think it was pretty layered. So I think that the foundation was the idea that I was unlovable, starting off as a child right and then doing all the things to make me lovable be a perfect wife check be a perfect mother check be the woman that's married to the famous actor but still works check you know it's like oh there's a baking you know there's a a baking contest that you know the kids want you to be a part of you in first and second place check you know it's like i'm laughing because i'm going on a school trip on wednesday and i haven't got the time right i haven't got the time but i've got it i'll do it i'll be the perfect mom that's right i'll do the trip right boom right yeah and so checking all the freaking boxes yes i'm doing everything to be loved yeah No one's loving me.

57:13Everybody could be loving me, but I'm not loving myself. Yeah. So I can't even freaking see it. Right. And so it's just this compounded. I'm not lovable. I'm not lovable. I'm not lovable. I'm not lovable. Years, years, years, years, years. And then you look at your life and go, I don't. This is the extent. I'm at the pinnacle. I literally have everything. And this doesn't do it. Fuck it. You know. And that was it. Yeah. Because I thought at the time the false belief was check the boxes, right? And then I had to learn, you have the boxes checked, that's fine. But if you don't have a foundation of self-love, if you don't have a connection with a power higher than yourself, you're screwed, period.

58:05It's just building sandcastles. Yes. We do it all the time. And we're like, when I get that great job, I'm going to feel happy then. When I, whatever it is, the goal that you set or the thing you don't like about your physical body is a usual one for women. When I fit into this thing, whatever the hell it is, then I'll be great. And we're just delaying the happiness we could be feeling. Might be fleeting, but we could be feeling it today. That's right. If we just went on call with who I am. Yes. With my mistakes and flaws and all. That's right. I don't have to be perfect to like myself. I'm going to just cultivate it through hard work.

58:42In the book you say reaching 50 felt like coming home and we've already touched on the fact that you never you never arrive or go like I'm good I love myself totally everything's fine but it felt like a powerful moment reading that that turning 50 was significant it was emblematic of something what what hit you at that age? It was a really dope moment oh i can't wait to be 50 because here i was i moved out of the family home yeah my life was seemingly i unchecked all the boxes love that i woke up by myself alone in this house. Okay? It's just me. Yeah. And I go into the bathroom. I have no furniture.

59:40I've got a bed. I've got a bed. I've got a bed and a couch. So you can age. Okay?

59:51And I walk into that bathroom and I look in the mirror and I'm like, you fucking did it. I'm so proud of you. Here you are at 50, waking up alone, happy as hell, feeling whole as hell. Yeah. And your life's not perfect, but you're happy. Yeah. It's fucking great. Right? It's fucking great. You know, and it was, you know, that wasn't the life I envisioned waking up at 50 with. No. Right? And so it was like, wow, you don't need the boxes checked. You don't need the standard of like what someone else's happiness looks like. Do you think you have to be entirely accepting of your past to get to that place?

1:00:45Absolutely. You must. You must be entirely accepting of it all. Right. You have to, my opinion and what my journey has been is that that's part of it, is knowing that everything, nothing's wasted, right? Our journeys and our imperfection, our journeys in the place where we haven't been most proud of ourselves, but we were willing to transform ourselves, right? I tell my daughter all the time and I've told my son, sometimes you have to live who you're not to know who you are. And it's OK. It is OK. And a lot of times we as women are told that it's not. And that's not true. Men do whatever they do.

1:01:41And it's like, oh, boys will be boys. You know, women. Yeah. you know it's like oh she's you know and it's like man bunk all that that's not true no no that's not true and i'll show you what it's why this book's so powerful you're like you're showing women that there is another way yeah you don't have to do it the textbook way no that you can have stuff in the past you regret that's right that you can be in a marriage but separated yes because you've chosen that path that's right that you can have moments of public pain and it's okay you're you're showing you're showing us that and it's it's so liberating you keep using this phrase in the book that I was so interested by and it's feeling the rain you use it to describe moments that you're experiencing moments where Jaden wants to leave home yeah I was like what a beautiful way to I mean how would you describe that phrase in your words before i wreck it no yeah that's it it's like you know those moments that are just those painful moments i mean it's it's a phrase that jayden actually that was his phrase oh really yeah when jayden wanted to leave he's like mom i gotta feel the rain and i knew what that meant yeah like i gotta get out of this bubble and i gotta see i gotta see who I am in the world without this bubble.

1:03:11Yeah. But you're now actively looking for these moments. I want to feel the rain. I want to feel the rain. It was so funny because earlier on, I was having a big walk before the podcast run park near where I live. And I was like, we had like a thousand kids at our house at the weekend. I was like, I need to clear my head. It's blue sky. I go out walking, obviously starts shitting down with rain. And my husband texts me, have you got an umbrella? And without even thinking, because I just read your book, I put no I want to feel the rain and then I was like oh my god it's it's working yeah it's going in yeah it was not even metaphorical it was real I want to feel the rain I want to I'm gonna get wet it's fine you're gonna get wet yes you're gonna get wet it's like I think that we spend so much time trying to figure out how not to get wet I know and it's impossible that's not what life is for.

1:04:02Life is not meant to be perfect. So dismantling these false ideas that I have to be perfect in order to be loved. You know, I want to make sure, you know, I'm worthy if I don't have to feel the rain. No, no, that's not true. When, you know, it's like Clarissa Pinkola says it best, the author of women who run with the wolves we are meant to be well written upon women and that means we're going to feel the rain that means that we're going to be a part of scar clans right and listen those scars are meant to be filled with gold but if you think you're going to walk this life in perfection yeah you are setting yourself up for a lot of pain yeah and anybody who expects you to do so that's their problem that's not for you to take on that means that they're not they're not being realistic of what this thing called life is all about ditch the umbrella yeah get in the rain in the rain in the rain and learn yeah so it here for.

1:05:21Right. Learn what the rain is trying to teach you. Yeah. I mean, you can't avoid it in the UK. You're going to get wet. You've got to get wet. It's true. But it's the most beautiful phrase and it's just one that I'm going to go back to again and again. Because I think often we think, when's the easy bit? Where's the easy bit? Or with parenting, where's the easy bit where everything's just like a bit easier? And it's like, there is no easy bit. I'm going to tell you what got easy for me. Being okay with feeling the rain. Yeah. And what got easy for Will and I together is being okay to feel the rain together.

1:05:55Yes. Right? Yeah. Instead of having to live up to some perfect idea of whatever the hell. Right? And finding the form for us that promotes love, regardless of anything. Right? And it takes a lot of courage to be happy. People don't talk about that. Right? And in order to get to authentic happiness, it takes walking through some puddles and feeling some rain. Yeah. It really does. And it's okay. It's practice because it takes courage to be happy because you're constantly going to have to make the courageous choices for your happiness. Yeah. The courageous choices to protect your peace. The courageous choices to love.

1:06:49It takes courage. Yeah, I think we need to sort of write that down and have it on a poster or something. Because it's like, you know, it's not going to be the car. It's not going to be the new partner. It's not going to be the job. It's not going to be the fancy holiday. It's going to be courage. Like it's that simple. It's going to be courage. It's not going to be the other shit. That's right. Yeah. we need to keep going back to that one keep getting under that rain oh I don't even know how to articulate how special this book is I read a hell of a lot of books but this one fucking hit me around the face and it's gonna stay with me thank you so much and it's just been a joy to talk to you again I always love talking to you I really do so just thank you for just really deep, thoughtful, attentive conversations.

1:07:38Yeah. I was really taken aback in that conversation by Jada's wisdom. It was a real privilege to get to explore so many fascinating subject matters. So Jada, thank you so much for coming to spend some time with me on the Happy Place podcast. Jada's book Worthy is out now. I'm back next week with someone I think you're going to be very excited to hear from. In the meantime, I cannot wait to hear what you took from this chat. Do come and tell us on Instagram at happyplaceofficial. For now, the biggest and biggest thanks again to Jada, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Rethink Audio and to you lot.

1:08:15I love you.

1:08:51We'll see you next time.

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